The Prague School: Selected Writings, 1929-1946 9781477303160

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The Prague School

Selected Writings, 1929-1946

University of Texas Press Slavic Series, No. 6 General Editor Michael Holquist Advisory Board Robert L. Belknap John Bowlt Edward J. Brown Victor Erlich Robert L. Jackson Hugh McLean Sidney Monas I. R. Titunik Edward Wasiolek René Wellek

The Prague School Selected Writings, 1929-1946 Edited by Peter Steiner

Translated by John Burbank, Olga Hasty, Manfred Jacobson, Bruce Kochis, and Wendy Steiner

University of Texas Press, Austin

Copyright © 1982 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First Edition, 1982 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, University of Texas Press, Box 7819, Austin, Texas 78712. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: The Prague School. (University of Texas Press Slavic series) Includes bibliographical references. 1. Pražský linguistický kroužek—Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Structural linguistics—Addresses, essays, lectures. 3. Semiotics—Addresses, essays, lectures. 4. Structuralism (Literary analysis)—Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Steiner, P. (Peter), 1946II. Series. P147.P7 401'.41 81-16265 ISBN 0-292-78043-5 AACR2

To Václav Benda, a friend, and, above all, a courageous man

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Contents

To Enter the Circle / ix Peter Steiner Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists in Prague, 1929 / 3 The Prague Linguistic Circle Folklore as a Special Form of Creativity / 32 Peter Bogatyrëv and Roman Jakobson The Asymmetric Dualism of the Linguistic Sign / 47 Sergej Karcevskij A Contribution to the Study of Theatrical Signs / 55 Peter Bogatyrëv Structuralism in Esthetics and in Literary Studies / 65 Jan Mukarovsky The Semantic Analysis of Philosophical Texts / 83 Ladislav Rieger The Concretization of the Literary Work / 103 Felix Vodicka Ritual and Theater / 135 Jindřich Honzl The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 174 Peter Steiner

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To Enter the Circle The Functionalist Structuralism of the Prague School Peter Steiner

What is decisive is not to get out of the circle but to come into it the right way.

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time

Two movements crucial in the shaping of present-day scholarship arose in nearby European cities under similar titles: the Vienna Circle and the Prague Linguistic Circle. Language was the central concern of both, but their approaches to it diverged considerably. The Viennese philosophers, inspired by the natural sciences, emphasized the logical aspect of language and concentrated on syntax. Their aim was to construct a scientific language whose precision would eliminate the previous errors of philosophy, which they attributed to the ambiguities of natural language. The Prague linguists' object of study, in contrast, was cultural phenomena, and so they stressed the pragmatic and semantic aspects of language in all of its functional heterogeneity. Language—the most versatile means of human communication—was studied under the rubric of semiotics, the general matrix of all cultural phenomena shared and exchanged by the members of a society. The monofunctional approach of the Vienna Circle dominated theoretical thinking in the first decades after World War II, but recent developments in all branches of scholarship are changing the situation. As the Swiss phenomenologist Elmar Holenstein has stated, "without any doubt, the wind is now blowing in the direction of Prague."1 Despite the signal value of the Prague Linguistic Circle for modern scholarship, its reception in the English-speaking world has been rather curious. In the fifties and early sixties its image was controlled by two misconceptions: Prague structuralism was identified almost exclusively with linguistics, and, even more narrowly, with Jakobson's and Trubeckoj's phonology.2 Only in the mid-sixties, when structuralism was gradually gaining respectability in the hu-

x / Peter Steiner manities and social sciences, did scholars discover that the study of the arts and folklore was an integral component of the Prague School. But its achievements in these fields were perceived as dated, and for many, the Circle was "a mere bridge between two superior theoretical positions, 'pure 7 Formalism and 'modern' Structuralism." 3 Prague structuralism seemed to hold little more than a transitional place in scholarly thinking. Preminger 7 s Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics illustrates this attitude especially well. It contains no entry for the Prague School. Its essay on structuralism, written by Jonathan Culler, depicts the movement solely as a brainchild of French literary theoreticians of the sixties: thus, structuralism "has been assimilated and developed in various ways by practitioners in other countries but it remains in its most distinctive and characterizable form a French movement. 774 Not French and too early, the Prague School finds its way into the Encyclopedia only in Victor Erlich 7 s essay, "Russian Formalism, 77 there depicted as a group of theoreticians who "restated the basic tenets of Russian formalism in more judicious and rigorous terms. 775 Culler 7 s and Erlich 7 s remarks require some comment. Though it is obvious that Prague structuralism is linked to Russian formalism, Erlich 7 s statement is clearly one-sided. Structuralism is not a mere restatement of formalism, however judicious or rigorous. It is much more: a new paradigm of knowledge in the humanities and social sciences which—as the Circle's members were quick to point out— replaced the previous positivist paradigm. (This transition is discussed in the final chapter of this book.) If Erlich 7 s pronouncement betrays a particular bias, Culler's merely reveals a certain ignorance. Witness the rather comic parallel between his pronouncement and a passage from another encyclopedic entry on structuralism: "At its present stage," wrote Jan Mukařovsky in 1940, "the development of structural esthetics is a phenomenon of Czech scholarship which has partial analogues in other nations as well but which nowhere else has achieved an equally systematic consideration of its methodological basis." 6 The similarities between these two entries do not end with this passage. Mukarovsky and Culler characterize the structuralist stance in art theory as a holistic and semiotic attitude toward artistic facts, an emphasis on the cultural codes underlying individual works, and a merging of linguistics and literary studies. These striking parallels suggest that structuralism is not a phenomenon limited to one country or one decade but, as Jakobson presciently urged in 1929, "the leading idea of present day science in its most various manifesta-

To Enter the Circle / xi tions." 7 Structuralism is a scholarly paradigm that has been with us for more than fifty years and still has not lost its appeal. The length of its history and its distribution across various disciplines and countries have produced divergent trends and groupings—Copenhagen "glossematics," Derridian "poststructuralism," and so on. But this diversity occurs within a single paradigm and should in no way obscure what all schools and movements have in common. From this perspective, the Prague School is a particular historicogeographical crystallization of structuralism that is as distinctive as its French successor. This "epistemological stance" is discussed in the last chapter of this book, but I shall mention here the specific trait that sets the Prague Circle apart from other structuralist trends. A superficial glance at the Prague School titles is enough to suggest it: Mathesius' "Functional Linguistics," Bogatyrëv's "FunctionalStructural Method and Other Methods of Ethnography and Folklori s t a s , " Mukarovsky's Esthetic Function, Norm, and Value as Social Facts.8 All these reveal the teleological conception of structure as the point of departure for this school. "To see structure as functional rather than material," as one of Mukarovsky's reviewers recently observed, "is a key theme of the Prague School, and its failure to penetrate more recent structuralist thought is an immense intellectual loss." 9 "Functionalist structuralism" would thus seem the most appropriate characterization of the endeavors of the Prague School. The central aim of this volume is to present the diversity of interests within the Prague School: literary criticism, linguistics, theory of theater, folkloristics, and philosophy Some essays have a special historical value in illuminating crucial stages of structuralist thinking. Others reveal the timeliness of the Prague School's contributions for the theoretical conflicts of our day. The introductory notes and the chronological ordering of the essays are intended to give the reader a sense of the evolution, richness, and breadth of Prague structuralist thought. In pursuing this project I have relied on the help of many people. First, I am indebted to the translators—John Burbank, Olga Hasty, Manfred Jacobson, Bruce Kochis, and Wendy Steiner—who, motivated primarily by their idealism, rendered the Czech, German, and French texts into English. I gratefully acknowledge the help of Miroslav Červenka, Roman Jakobson, Miroslav Rensky, Bedřich Steiner, and Jiří Veltrusky, w h o m I consulted about the selection of essays, editorial notes, and bibliographical references. I also wish to thank Iris Tillman Hill and Suzanne Comer, past and present humanities editors at the University of Texas Press, for their cooperation and encouragement. A generous grant from the American Philosophical

xii / Peter Steiner

Society in the summer of 1979 enabled me to undertake the research necessary to this book. The chairman of my department at the University of Pennsylvania, Maria Zagorska Brooks, kindly provided funds for the preparation of the manuscript, and her administrative assistant, Joanne Spigonardo, retyped much of it. And last but not least I must thank my wife, Wendy Steiner, whose help was so comprehensive that only her robust common sense prevented her from appearing on the title page as co-editor. NOTES 1. "50 Jahre Cercle linguistique de Prague: Stichworte zu einem Vergleich von Prager und Wiener Kreis," Neue Züricher Zeitung, December 23, 1976. 2. See, for example, the entry "Prague School" in The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 30 vol. (Chicago, 1974), vol. 8, p. 175. 3. L. M. O'Toole, "Structure, Sign, and Function: Selected Essays by fan Mukaiovsky," British Journal of Aesthetics, 19, (1979), 378. 4. "Structuralism," in A. Preminger (ed.), Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics: Enlarged Edition (Princeton, 1974), p. 983. 5. Ibid., p. 727. 6. "Strukturální estetika" [Structural esthetics], Ottuv slovník naucny nové doby, 6 vols. in 12 (Prague, 1939-1940), vol. 6, part 1, p. 455. For an English translation, see "Structuralism in Esthetics and in Literary Studies" in this book. 7. "Romantické vseslovanství—nova slavistika" [Romantic panslavism—new slavistics], Cin, 1 (1929-1930), 11. Quoted from the partial English translation in R. Jakobson, "Retrospect," Selected Writings (The Hague, 1971), vol. 2, pp. 711-712. 8. V. Mathesius, "Funkcní lingvistika," Sborník přednášek proslovenych na prvém sjezdu čsl. profesoru filosofie, filologie a historie ν Praze 3.-7. dubna 1929 (Prague, 1929), pp. 118-130; P. Bogatyrèv, "Funkcno-strukturálná metoda a iné metody etnografie a folkoristiky," Slovenské PohVady, 51 (1935), 550-558; J. Mukaiovsky, Estetická funkce, norma a hodnota jako sociální fakty (Prague, 1936), English translation by Μ. Ε. Suino (Ann Arbor, 1970). 9. E. W. Bruss, "The Word and Verbal Art: Selected Essays by fan Mukaiovsky," Comparative Literature, 31 (1979), 173.

The Prague School Selected Writings, 1929-1946

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Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists in Prague, 1929 The Prague Linguistic Circle

Bibliographic Note: Prague Linguistic Circle, "Thèses," Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague, 1 (1929), 7-29. Translated from the Czech original, "Teze předložené Prvému sjezdu slovanskych filologu ν Praze," in J. Vachek (ed.), U základu prazské jazykovědné školy (Prague, 1970), pp. 35-65.

The Prague Linguistic Circle came into being on the afternoon of October 6, 1926, when five Czech and Russian linguists (Bohuslav Havránek, Roman fakobson, Vilém Mathesius, fan Rypka, and Bohumil Trnka) gathered to hear a lecture by their German colleague, Henrik Becker. As the meetings among these scholars multiplied, it became apparent that a new kind of intellectual association was in the making. The Circle's chairman, Vilém Mathesius (1882-1945), recollected some ten years later that "in the period between October, 1926, and June, 1927, nine meetings with lectures and discussions were held; in the following season, however, this number was already reached by the end of March, 1928. By the end of June that year the number of lectures had gone up to eleven, despite the fact that in April no meeting took place because of the Hague International Congress of Linguists held that month."1 The April break mentioned by Mathesius was not, however, a waste. For the first time the Prague structuralists had an opportunity to present themselves as a group at an international forum.2 The experience of the Hague Congress set the structuralists thinking about another international meeting scheduled for the following year in Prague—the International Congress of Slavists. fakobson wrote to Trubeckoj on April 6, 1929, reporting: Suddenly it occurred to the most active core within the Circle that as a parliament of opinions, as a free tribune for discussions, the Circle had become an anachronism and that it should be reformed into a closely knit group united by its scholarly ideology . . . This process is now successfully realized. A sort of steering committee arose consisting of Mathesius, the very talented linguist Havránek, Mukařovský, Trnka and myself. . . . The Circle composed a list of principal problems to

4 / The Prague Linguistic Circle which the interested participants of the [Slavic] Congress should react. . . . The Circle is preparing theses concerning all these problems and has decided to invite the Russian linguists most sympathetic to the Circle's ideas to participate in the elaboration of the theses, among them you, Karcevskij, Durnovo, Larin, Tynjanov and Bubrix. 3 Despite its collective origin, the "Theses of the Prague Circle" is not a series of disconnected pronouncements. It is a unified text propounding a new and original view of language and linguistic phenomena (including verbal art). What unites the "Theses" is its functionalist standpoint, the recognition that language is above all a tool of communication and all its forms are in some respect connected with this goal-directedness.4 And even though some of the formulations contained in the "Theses" became obsolete in the subsequent development of the Prague School, as a whole it boldly charted the general direction of Prague structuralism for the next twenty years. A French translation of the "Theses" by Louis Brun was printed in the preparatory materials for the Congress. It was intended for publication in the first volume of the Proceedings together with several theoretical papers by fakobson, Mathesius, Mukařovský, and Trubeckoj which would elaborate some of its points in more detail.5 However, only the second volume of the Congress Proceedings was actually published, and thus the "Theses" (minus point 10 presented to the third section of the Congress) inaugurated the Circle's new series, Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague. The reception of the "Theses" by the participants of the Congress was somewhat mixed. As fakobson wrote in his short report, "there were no substantial objections to the theses defended by the Circle at the Congress and especially the resolution about the task of Slavic structural linguistics was accepted unanimously. If, however, it had been submitted to a secret ballot, it would certainly have provoked a few votes against it. Such was, at least, the impression gained from talks in the corridors."6 There are several volumes and many articles dealing with the history and theories of Prague structuralism. For linguistics, consult Josef Vachek, The Linguistic School of Prague (Bloomington, 1966), and for information about the multifaceted achievements of this group, see Ladislav Matejka (ed.), Sound, Sign and Meaning: Quinquagenary of the Prague Linguistic Circle (Ann Arbor, 1976).

NOTES 1. "Deset let Prazského lingvistického krouzku," Slovo a slovesnost, 2 (1936), 13. Quoted from "Ten Years of the Prague Linguistic Circle," in J. Vachek, The Linguistic School of Prague: An Introduction to Its Theory and Practice (Bloomington, 1966),

Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists / 5 p. 142. For a list of lectures delivered at the Circle compiled by B. Kochis, see L. Matejka (ed.), Sound, Sign and Meaning: Quinquagenary of the Prague Linguistic Circle (Ann Arbor, 1976], pp. 607-622. 2. "Thèses présentées au Premier Congrès International de Linguistes à la Haye par R. Jakobson, S. Karcevskij, V. Mathesius avec Ch. Bally et A. Sechehaye," Actes du Premier Congrès International de Linguistes tenu à la Haye, du 10-15 Avril 1928 (Leyden, s.a.|, pp. 8 5 - 8 6 . 3. Quoted from R. Jakobson (ed.), N.S. Trubetzkoy's Letters and Notes (The Hague, 1975), p. 122. 4. See, e.g., R. Jakobson, "Efforts Toward a Means-Ends Model of Language in Interwar Continental Linguistics," Selected Writings, 6 vols. (The Hague, 1975), vol. 2, pp. 522-526. 5. For more information about the content of this volume, see R. Jakobson and F. Slotty, "Die Sprachwissenschaft auf dem ersten Slavistenkongress in Prag vom 6 - 1 3 Oktober 1929," Indogermanisches Jahrbuch, 14 (1930), 384-391. 6. "Romantické vseslovanství—nova slavistika" [Romantic panslavism—new slavistics], Cin, 1 (1929-1930), 12. Quoted from R. Jakobson, "Retrospect," Selected Writings, vol. 2, p. 711.

I. M E T H O D O L O G I C A L PROBLEMS S T E M M I N G FROM THE C O N C E P T I O N OF L A N G U A G E AS A SYSTEM A N D THE S I G N I F I C A N C E OF THIS C O N C E P T I O N FOR SLAVIC L A N G U A G E S

(the synchronic method and its relation to the diachronic method, structural comparison versus genetic comparison, the accidentality or the developmental regularity of linguistic phenomena) (a) The Conception of Language as a Functional System Language like any other human activity is goal-oriented. Whether we analyze language as expression or communication, the speaker's intention is the most evident and most natural explanation. In linguistic analysis, therefore, one should adopt the functional perspective. From the functional point of view, language is a system of goal-oriented means of expression. No linguistic phenomenon can be understood without regard for the system to which it belongs. Slavic linguistics can no longer ignore this pressing set of problems. (b) Tasks of the Synchronic Method: Its Relation to the Diachronic Method The essence and nature of a system of language can best be discovered through a synchronic analysis of today's languages which alone provide

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complete material and which can be directly experienced. Consequently, the elaboration of a linguistic characterization of the contemporary Slavic languages is both the most immediate and the most neglected task of Slavic linguistics. Unless such a course is taken, no deeper study of the Slavic languages is possible. The conception of language as a functional system also has to be considered in the study of past stages, whether in their reconstruction or in the study of their evolution. There is no insurmountable barrier between the synchronic and diachronic methods, as claimed by the Geneva School If linguistic elements, from a synchronic standpoint, must be examined in terms of their systemic function, linguistic changes demand the same of diachronic investigation—an evaluation in terms of the system which is the subject of these changes. It would be illogical to presuppose that linguistic changes are only destructive interventions, purposeless and heterogeneous from the viewpoint of the system. Linguistic changes often reflect the needs of the system, its stabilization, its realignment, and so forth. Diachronic study, therefore, not only does not exclude the notions of system and function, but, on the contrary, is incomplete without them. On the other hand, neither can a synchronic description absolutely exclude the notion of evolution, for such a synchronic moment reflects the disappearing, present, and coming stages. Stylistic elements perceived as archaisms as well as the distinction between productive and nonproductive forms are evidence of diachronic phenomena which cannot be eliminated from synchronic linguistics. (c) New Possibilities for Using the Comparative Method Until now the comparative study of Slavic languages has been limited to genetic problems, primarily to the discovery of common elements. But it should be used more widely; it is the proper method for discovering the structural regularity of systems of language and their evolution. Valuable material for this kind of comparison is found not only in unrelated languages or in remotely related and structurally distinct ones but also in the languages of a single family, such as the Slavic languages, which in their historical development manifest sharp differences against the background of numerous essential similarities. The Consequences of a Structural Comparison of Related Languages A step by step comparison of the evolution of the Slavic languages would destroy any belief in the accidental or episodic character of the development in the history of these languages. For it would reveal the

Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists / 7 regular connection between specific convergent and divergent phenomena. Such a study would result in a typology of the evolution of the Slavic languages, a unified summary of these changes. Comparative study provides valuable material for both general linguistics and the history of the separate Slavic languages, thus discrediting once and for all the unproductive and misleading practice of isolating phenomena in historical investigation. Comparative study reveals the basic tendencies of a language's evolution and makes it possible to utilize more successfully the principle of relative chronology, which is more reliable than indirect chronological data drawn from literary monuments. Regional

Groups

The discovery of tendencies in the evolution of particular Slavic languages and the comparison of these tendencies to those in neighboring languages, Slavic and non-Slavic (e.g., the Finno-Ugric languages, German, the various Balkan languages), will provide the basis for investigating which regional groups each Slavic language has belonged to during the course of history. (d) The Regularity of Linguistic Evolution In disciplines concerned with evolution, linguistics among them, the notion of the accidental origin of phenomena is now giving way to that of the regularity of evolutionary phenomena (nomogenesis). This is why the theory of convergent evolution is gaining ground from the theory of mechanical and accidental expansion in the explanation of grammatical and phonological changes. The Consequences:

1. For the Expansion of Linguistic

Phenomena

Even the expansion of linguistic phenomena changing a language system is not mechanical but is determined by the readiness of the receiving parties, which is parallel to a developmental tendency. Accordingly, controversies about whether a given case involves a change radiating from a common center or a result of convergent evolution lose their significance. 2. For the Problem of Disintegration

of the

Proto-language

This approach also alters the meaning of the disintegration of the proto-language. The criterion for the unity of the proto-language is the extent to which its dialects are capable of experiencing common changes. Whether these convergences originate from one center or

8 / The Prague Linguistic Circle not is a secondary matter difficult to resolve. As long as convergences predominate over divergences, it is advantageous to presuppose, conventionally, a proto-language. The question of the disintegration of proto-Slavic can also be resolved from this standpoint. The notion of linguistic unity which has been used here is, of course, only an auxiliary methodological concept appropriate for historical research but not suited for applied linguistics, in which the criterion of linguistic unity is the attitude of the speaking collective toward its language and not objective linguistic characteristics. II. TASKS OF THE STUDY OF A LANGUAGE SYSTEM, THE SLAVIC SYSTEM IN PARTICULAR

(a) Research on the Sound Aspect of Language The Importance of the Acoustic Aspect The problem of the intentionality of phonological phenomena necessitates that in studying their external aspect one examine them first from the acoustic standpoint, because the speaker is concerned with an acoustic representation rather than a motor one (e.g., the different details in the articulation of Czech r or Russian 1 do not matter as long as the acoustic result is the same). The Necessity of Distinguishing a Sound as an Objective Physical Fact, as a Representation, and as an Element of a Functional System Recording by means of instruments the objective acoustic and motor preconditions of subjective acoustic-motor representations is valuable as an index of the objective correlatives of linguistic values. But these objective preconditions have only an indirect relation to linguistics and therefore should not be identified with linguistic values. But even subjective acoustic-motor representations are elements of a language system only insofar as they serve to differentiate meaning in it. The sensory content of such phonological elements is less essential than their interrelations in the system (the structural principle of the phonological system). The Fundamental Tasks of Synchronic Phonology 1. One must describe the phonological system, that is, establish the set of simplest acoustic-motor representations which create meaning in a given language (phonemes). In doing so, one must speci-

Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists / 9 fy the relations among phonemes, that is, establish the structural scheme of the given system. It is especially important, therefore, to define phonological correlations as a special type of meaning-creating difference. A phonological correlation consists of a series of phonemes opposed to one another according to a common, abstract principle (e.g., the following correlations exist in Russian: dynamic stress vs. lack of vocalic stress, voiced vs. voiceless consonants, soft vs. hard consonants; in Czech: long vs. short vowels, voiced vs. voiceless consonants). 2. One must determine the combinations of phonemes realized in a given language compared to all the theoretically possible combinations of these phonemes, the variations in the sequence of their grouping, and the scope of these combinations. 3. One must also determine the degree of utilization and the frequency of realization of the given phonemes and combinations of phonemes of different scope. One must likewise study the functional capacity of various phonemes and combinations of phonemes in a given language. 4. An important problem of linguistics, Slavic linguistics in particular, is the morphological exploitation of phonological differences [morphophonology or, by abbreviation, morphonology). Morphonemes, the complex representations of two or more phonemes capable of replacing one another within the same morpheme according to the conditions of the morphological structure of a word, play an essential role in Slavic languages (e.g., in Russian there is the morphoneme k/č in ruk/č—ruka, ručnoj). It is necessary to establish in precise synchronic fashion all the morphonemes for each Slavic language or dialect and the place that a given morphoneme can occupy within a morpheme. Carrying out this phonological and morphonological description of all the Slavic languages and their dialects is an urgent problem of Slavic studies. (b) Research on the Word and Word-Combinations The Theory of Linguistic Designation—The Word From the standpoint of function, the word is the result of the linguistic act of designation (naming), which is sometimes inseparably bound to the correlating (syntagmatic) act.1 The linguistic approach that analyzed speech as an objectified mechanical fact often denied the existence of the word altogether, but from the functional standpoint the independent existence of the word is completely evident,

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although it manifests itself with various intensity in different languages and is only a potential fact. By means of the act of designation, speech analyzes reality—whether external or internal, material or abstract—into linguistically graspable elements. Each language has its own system of designation. It uses various designating forms with varying intensity, e.g., the derivation of words, the compounding of words and fixed word groups (in Slavic languages, particularly in popular speech, new nouns are for the most part formed by derivation), has its own classification of designation, and produces its own characteristic vocabulary. The classification of designation manifests itself above all in the system of word categories, whose scope, precision, and interrelation must be studied for each language in particular. Moreover, there are also classificatory differences within particular categories of words: for example, for nouns, such categories as gender, animation, number, definiteness; for verbs, the categories of voice, aspect, tense. The theory of designation analyzes in part the same linguistic phenomena as the traditional theory of word-formation and syntax in the narrow sense (the theory of the meaning of the parts of speech and their forms), but the functional conception makes it possible to connect separated phenomena, to establish the system of individual languages, and to explain what the older methods only stated—for example, the functions of temporal forms in the Slavic languages. An analysis of the forms and typologies of linguistic designation still does not sufficiently determine the character of the vocabulary of a language. To characterize it one must still study the average semantic scope and definiteness in linguistic designations in general and in separate designational categories in particular. One must identify the conceptual spheres prominently represented in a given vocabulary; one must establish the role of linguistic affectivity and intellectualization. One must also ascertain how a given vocabulary is augmented (e.g., by its borrowing or translating foreign forms of designation). In short, one must study the phenomena usually relegated to semantics. The Theory of Correlation—Word-Combination (Syntax) Except for fixed word-combinations, the combination of words in a sentence is the result of the correlating act, which, of course, often manifests itself in the form of a single word. Predication is the fundamental correlating act, and at the same time it is the intrinsic sentence-creating act. Therefore, functional syntax is primarily concerned with the study of predicative types while also taking into account the forms and functions of the grammatical subject. The

Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists / 11 function of the subject can best be seen in a comparison of the topical partition of the sentence2 into theme and comment with its formal division into grammatical subject and predicate. For example, it turns out that the grammatical subject in Czech is not as thematic as the grammatical subject in French or English and that the topical partition of the Czech sentence into theme and comment, because of its freer word order, makes it possible to eliminate the discrepancy between the theme and the grammatical subject which other languages eliminate in other ways, for example, by means of the passive. The functional conception makes it possible to recognize the interconnection of different syntactic forms (compare the aforementioned connection between the thematic nature of the grammatical subject and the development of passive predication) and thus to recognize their systemic solidarity and concentration. Morphology (The Theory of Systems of Lexical Forms and Groups) The functions of words and the formations of lexical groups resulting from the linguistic acts of designation and correlation comprise formal systems in language. These systems are studied by morphology, in the broad sense of the word, which (unlike traditional wordformation, morphology, syntax) does not parallel the theory of designation and correlation but cuts across both. The tendencies comprising the morphological system gravitate toward two centers of cohesion: they maintain forms that have the same meaning but differ in function, and forms that differ in meaning but have the same function. It is necessary to establish the importance of these two tendencies for each particular language as well as the extent and the organization of the systems dominated by them. In characterizing morphological systems, one must state the importance and scope of the analytic and synthetic principles in the expression of individual functions. III. PROBLEMS OF RESEARCH INTO THE DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE, PARTICULARLY IN SLAVIC LANGUAGES

(a) On the Functions of Language The study of a language demands a precise differentiation of its linguistic functions and their modes of realization. If one does not take

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these functions and modes into account, the description of language, whether synchronic or diachronic, is distorted and incorrect. The phonic, grammatical, and lexical structure of a language changes according to these functions and modes. 1. One must differentiate internal speech from externalized speech. For the majority of speakers, expressed speech is only a special case, because they think in linguistic forms more often than they speak. Therefore it is erroneous to generalize and to overestimate the significance, for language, of its external phonic aspect, and one must pay special attention to potential linguistic phenomena. 2. The intellectuality and the emotionality of utterances are important indices of the character of a language. They either complement each other or compete for dominance. 3. Externalized intellectual speech has a predominantly social direction (that is, it is designed for communication with someone). Emotional speech often has the same social direction, that is, it seeks to evoke certain emotions in the listener (emotive speech), or it is a discharge of emotion which occurs without regard to a listener. In its social role one must distinguish speech according to its relation to extralinguistic reality. It has either a communicative function, that is, it is directed toward the object of expression, or a poetic function, that is, it is directed toward the expression itself. One must distinguish two directions of gravitation concerning speech in its communicative function: one for context-bound speech, that is, for speech that relies upon extralinguistic elements for completion [practical speech), the other for speech that aims at creating maximally closed wholes through completeness and precision, wordterms and sentence-judgments [theoretical or formulative speech). It is advisable to study those forms of speech in which one function totally predominates and those in which manifold functions interpenetrate. The different hierarchy of functions in each case is essential here. Each functional speech has its own system of conventions—its language proper [langue). It is incorrect to identify one function with language [langue) and another with the actual speech [parole in Saussure's terminology), for example, the intellectual function with language and the emotional function with the actual speech. 4. The modes of the utterance fall into two oppositions: first, the oral utterance (which subdivides according to whether the listener sees the speaker or does not) versus the written utterance, and second, alternately interrupted (dialogic) speech and unilaterally uninterrupted (monologic) speech. It is important to establish which modes are associated with which functions and to what extent.

Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists / 13 One must also study systematically the gestures which accompany and complement oral utterances in direct contact with the listener. These are important for the description of regional linguistic groups. 5. An important factor in the stratification of language is the relationship among the interlocutors: the degree of their social cohesion, their professional, territorial, and familial connections, and also their membership in multiple collectivities, as expressed in the mixture of linguistic systems in the languages of cities. This category includes the problem of languages for interdialectal communication (so-called general languages), that of specialized languages, that of languages adapted for communication with a foreign-language milieu, and that of urban linguistic stratification. Even in diachronic linguistics one must devote attention to the profound reciprocal influence of these linguistic formations, i.e., not only to the regional influence but also to the influence of functional languages, modes of utterance, and languages of different groups. The study of this functional dialectology has hardly been begun in the field of Slavic languages. For example, we still lack systematic analyses of the devices of linguistic emotionality, and the study of languages in cities should be organized immediately. (b) On Standard Literary Language Political, socio-economic, and religious conditions are only external factors in the formation of a standard literary language. They help to explain why a standard literary language developed from a regional dialect, or why it originated and became established in a certain period, but they do not explain why and how it differs from the common language. This difference cannot be accounted for simply by the conservative nature of the standard literary language. Conservative as its grammar and phonology may be, its vocabulary is constantly changing. It never merely represents the past state of some local dialect. The distinctiveness of the standard literary language is caused by its role, particularly by the greater demands placed on it than on common language. It serves to express the life of culture and civilization (the process and results of scientific, philosophical, religious, social, political, administrative, and juridical thought). This task, and its goal of professional instruction and formulation, expands and changes (intellectualizes) its vocabulary. Matters which do not have a direct relationship to everyday life and new phenomena require new expressions which the common language does not pos-

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sess or did not possess up to that time. And the need to express oneself precisely and systematically about everyday matters leads to new word-concepts, expressions for logical abstractions, and a more precise definition of logical categories through linguistic means. This intellectualization of the standard literary language also results from the need to express the interdependence and complexity of mental processes, manifested not only in expressions for pertinent abstract concepts but also in syntactic forms (e.g., in the elaboration of the complex sentence through more precise formulae). Furthermore, this intellectualization manifests itself in a stringent control (censorship) of emotional elements (the cultivation of the euphemism). This attentive and more exacting attitude toward language is linked to the more regulated and more normative character of the standard literary language. Such language is characterized by a greater functional utilization of grammatical and lexical elements (especially a heightened lexicalization of phrase words and delimitation of functions as manifested in the precision and differentiation of expressive means) and by more elaborate social forms of language (linguistic etiquette). The development of the standard literary language increases the role of conscious intentionality. This is manifested in various forms of linguistic reform (especially purism), in linguistic politics, in a more consistent regard for the linguistic taste of a period (the esthetics of language in its historical transformations). The characteristic features of the standard literary language are best represented in uninterrupted speech and particularly in the written utterance. Written speech strongly influences spoken standard speech. Spoken standard speech is less removed from the common language, but the boundaries between the two are fairly clear. Uninterrupted speech, especially in public utterances, lectures, and so forth, is more removed from the common language than alternately interrupted (dialogic) speech, which stands between the canonic forms of the standard literary language and the common language. Characteristic of the standard literary language is, on the one hand, the striving for expansion to the role of a "koinē," and on the other, the striving to become the monopolized sign of a ruling class. Both of these tendencies manifest themselves in the change and the preservation of a language's phonic stratum. All of these properties of the standard literary language should be taken into account in the synchronic and diachronic analysis of the Slavic standard literary languages. They should not be analyzed as if

Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists / 15 they were dialects, nor should their analysis be limited to extrasystemic or developmental factors. (c) On Poetic Language Poetic language for a long time has remained a neglected sphere of linguistics and the intensive elaboration of its fundamental problems has begun only recently. The majority of Slavic languages have not yet been studied from the perspective of the poetic function. Although literary historians have from time to time touched on these problems, they have not until now had sufficient preparation in linguistic methodology. They have thus been unable to avoid certain crucial errors which preclude the successful study of the concrete facts of poetic language. 1. It is necessary to elaborate the principles of the synchronic description of poetic language while avoiding the repeated error of identifying the poetic and communicative languages. From a synchronic standpoint, poetic speech has the form of poetic expression [parole), hence of an individual creative act evaluated, on the one hand, against the background of the immediate poetic tradition (poetic language—langue) and, on the other, against the background of the contemporary communicative language. The relation between poetic speech and these two linguistic systems is quite complex and polymorphous, and should be carefully studied both synchronically and diachronically. An important property of poetic speech is the foregrounding of linguistic conflict and transformation; the character, tendency, and scale of the transformation are very diverse. For example, a rapprochement of poetic expression and communicative language may be conditioned by the opposition to the given poetic tradition. The interrelation of poetic expression and communicative language may be very clear in one period but almost imperceptible in another. 2. The individual levels of poetic language (e.g., phonology or morphology) are so closely bound to one another that it is impossible to study one level without regard to the others though literary historians have often done so. From the thesis that poetic speech is directed at expression itself it follows that all the levels of a system of language that play only an ancillary role in communicative speech acquire a greater or lesser autonomous value in poetic speech. The linguistic devices grouped in these levels and the interrelation among the levels, often automatized in communicative speech, tend to become deautomatized in poetic speech. The degree of deautomatization of linguistic elements is different

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in each poetic expression and each poetic tradition. The result is a specific hierarchy of poetic values in each case. The relation between poetic expression and the poetic and communicative languages is always different. The poetic work is a functional structure, and the individual elements cannot be understood outside their connection to the whole. Objectively identical elements can acquire absolutely different functions in different structures. Even the acoustic, motor, and graphic elements of a given speech, which are not normally exploited, can be deautomatized in poetic language. Nevertheless, the relation between the phonic values of poetic speech and the phonology of communicative speech is incontestable, and only the phonological viewpoint is capable of revealing the principles of sound structures in poetry. Poetic phonology includes the degree of utilization of the phonological inventory in relation to communicative speech, the principles of grouping phonemes (especially in sandhi), the repetition of phoneme groups, rhythmics, and melodics. Verse is characterized by a particular hierarchy of values. Rhythm is the organizing principle, and the other phonological elements of verse—melodies, the repetition of phonemes and phoneme groups— are closely associated with it. The canonic devices of verse (rhyme, alliteration, etc.) originate from the fusion of various phonological elements with rhythm. Neither an acoustic nor a motor point of view, objective or subjective, can solve the problems of rhythm. Only a phonological interpretation can do so that distinguishes the phonological basis of rhythm from concomitant extra-grammatical and autonomous elements. The laws of verse technique can be established only on a phonological basis. Two apparently identical rhythmic structures belonging to two different languages can be essentially distinct if they are composed of elements having a different role in the pertinent phonological systems. The parallelism of phonic structures realized in verse, rhythm, rhyme, and so forth, is one of the most effective devices for deautomatizing the different levels of language. The confrontation of sound structures resembling each other emphasizes the similarities and dissimilarities among syntactic, morphological, and semantic structures. Not even rhyme is an abstractly phonological fact; both the juxtaposition of similar morphemes (grammatical rhyme) and the failure to do so reveal morphological structures. Rhyme is also closely bound to syntax (what elements of word collocations are emphasized or juxtaposed in rhyme) and to the lexicon (what is the im-

Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists / 17 portance of the words emphasized by rhyme, what is the degree of their semantic affinity). Syntactic and rhythmic structures are closely related whether their boundaries coincide or not (enjambement). The autonomous value of the two structures is emphasized in either case. The rhythmic and syntactic structures in a poem are emphasized both by rhythmic-syntactic patterning and by deviations from these patterns. Rhythmic-syntactic figures have a characteristic intonation, and their repetition produces a melodic impulse deforming the familiar intonation of speech, in turn revealing the autonomous value of both melodic and syntactic verse structures. Poetic vocabulary is deautomatized in the same way as the other levels of poetic language. It is reflected against either a given poetic tradition or communicative language. Unusual words (neologisms, barbarisms, archaisms, etc.) have a poetic value in that they differ in their phonic effect from words current in communicative speech whose phonic details, as a result of frequent usage, are not perceived but only apperceived. Moreover, unusual words enrich the semantic and stylistic variety of the poetic vocabulary. Neologisms in particular deautomatize the morphological composition of words. The choice of words not only involves unusual isolated words but whole lexical contexts which interfere with one another and dynamize the vocabulary. Syntax furnishes rich possibilities for poetic deautomatization because of its multiple bond with the other levels of poetic language (rhythmics, melodics, and semantics). Those syntactic elements which are seldom utilized in the grammatical system of a given language acquire a particular charge; for example, in languages with free word order, sequencing acquires a crucial function in poetic speech. 3. The scholar must avoid egocentrism, the analysis and evaluation of poetic facts of other periods or nations from the perspective of his own poetic habits and the artistic norms stressed in his education. An artistic phenomenon of the past, of course, can endure or be revived as an active factor in a different milieu. It can also be a component of a new system of artistic values, but at the same time, of course, its function changes, and the phenomenon itself is subject to appropriate changes. The history of poetry should not project this phenomenon into the past in its transformed appearance but should restore it to its original function, in relation to the system in which the phenomenon originated. Each period requires a clear immanent classification of its special poetic functions, i.e., an inventory of its poetic genres.

18 / The Prague Linguistic Circle 4. What has been least elaborated methodologically is the poetic semantics of words, sentences, and larger compositional units. The diversity of functions fulfilled by tropes and figures has not been studied. Besides the tropes and figures comprising an author's presentation, the objectified semantic elements projected into artistic reality in the plot structure are essential, though they have been studied least of all. For example, metamorphosis resembles comparison; plot is a semantic compositional structure, and problems of plot composition cannot be excluded from the study of poetic language. 5. Questions of poetic language have for the most part played a subordinate role in literary historical studies. Yet, the organizing feature of art by which it differs from other semiotic structures is an orientation toward the sign rather than toward what is signified. The orientation toward verbal expression is the organizing feature of poetry. The sign is the dominant of an artistic system, and if the literary historian makes what is signified rather than the sign the major object of his research, if he analyzes the ideology of a literary work as an independent, autonomous entity, he violates the hierarchy of values of the structure that he studies. 6. The immanent characterization of the evolution of poetic language is often replaced in literary history by a cultural-historical, sociological, or psychological deviation, that is, by an appeal to heterogeneous phenomena. Instead of the mystique of causal relations between heterogeneous systems it is necessary to study poetic language in itself. The poetic exploitation of different Slavic languages provides extremely valuable material for comparative study because divergent structural facts appear here against the background of numerous convergent facts. Among the most immediate tasks are the comparative study of the rhythm, euphony, and rhyme of Slavic languages.

IV. THE IMMEDIATE PROBLEMS OF CHURCH SLAVIC

(a) If by Old Church Slavic one means the language which the apostles [Cyril and Methodius] and their disciples used for liturgical purposes which became between the tenth and twelfth centuries the standard literary language of all the Slavs practicing the Slavic liturgy, then one cannot, for methodological reasons, allow Old Church Slavic to be simply identified with one of the historical Slavic languages and be interpreted from the standpoint of historical dialectology. In a language which from the beginning was not destined for a lo-

Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists / 19 cal need, which was based on the Greek literary tradition, and which later acquired the role of a Slavic "koinē," one must presuppose a priori, artificial, amalgamated, and conventional elements. Therefore one must interpret the development of Old Church Slavic on the basis of the principles which govern the history of standard literary languages. (b) The literary monuments of the tenth to the twelfth centuries show that there were several local recensions of Old Church Slavic. If we see it as a standard literary language, however, we are not justified in recognizing only one of these recensions as correct Old Church Slavic and ignoring the others as deviations. The local recensions (literary dialects) must be discovered by an analysis of the norms established by the scribes of the tenth to the beginning of the twelfth centuries. These literary dialects must be carefully distinguished from living Slavic dialects which infiltrated the literary m o n u m e n t s as errors and episodic deviations from the norm adopted by the scribe. Like the South Slavic recensions and the Russian ones derived from them, the relics of the Czech recension and its traces in the oldest Czech ecclesiastical texts require a painstaking elaboration within the framework of the history of Old Church Slavic. (c) Determining the living Slavic dialect that the apostles took as the basis of the Slavic standard literary language is, of course, an important problem for the consideration of the origin and the composition of Old Church Slavic as well as for the history of living Slavic languages. This dialect cannot be directly deduced from any of the literary dialects preserved in Slavic literary monuments. In order to determine it, one must employ a historical-comparative analysis of the standard literary dialects of Old Church Slavic and of its two writing systems. A comparative analysis of the oldest data on the two alphabets helps to clarify the original composition of the alphabet and its phonological value. (d) It is more appropriate to use the term "Middle Church Slavic" in the study of the further fortunes of this language in its various twelfthcentury recensions when the considerable phonological changes that had occurred up to that time in individual languages were included in it as norms. (e) The scholarly investigation of the history of Church Slavic up to modern times is a very urgent and heretofore completely neglected task of Slavic studies. Equally urgent and methodologically important problems of Slavic linguistics are the history of the Church Slavic stratum in the na-

20 / The Prague Linguistic Circle tional Slavic standard literary languages, especially in Russian, and the study of the relations between this and the other strata of these languages. The Church Slavic elements in the Slavic standard literary languages must be studied according to their functions in different periods; at the same time, it is necessary to solve the problem of their value with respect to the demands made on the standard literary language. V. PROBLEMS OF PHONETIC A N D PHONOLOGICAL TRANSCRIPTION IN THE SLAVIC LANGUAGES

It is necessary to unify the principles of phonetic transcription for all the Slavic languages, i.e., the principles of the graphic reproduction of the most varied speech sounds by which the phonological composition of the different languages is realized. In the interest of the synchronic and diachronic elaboration of the Slavic languages and of Slavic dialectology in particular, it is likewise an important task to establish the principles of phonological transcription, i.e., the principles of the graphic reproduction of the phonological composition of the Slavic languages. It is also necessary to establish the principles of a combined phonetic and phonological transcription. The lack of a standardized phonological transcription enormously complicates work on the phonological characterization of the Slavic languages. VI. PRINCIPLES OF LINGUISTIC GEOGRAPHY, THEIR APPLICATION, A N D THEIR RELATION TO ETHNOGRAPHIC GEOGRAPHY IN SLAVIC REGIONS

(a) The establishment of the spatial (or temporal) boundaries of particular linguistic phenomena is a necessary methodological device of linguistic geography (or history), but one must not make this device the self-sufficient goal of theory. The spatial expansion of linguistic phenomena cannot be conceived as the anarchy of individual isoglosses. A comparison of isoglosses shows that it is possible to join several isoglosses into a unity, thus establishing the center of expansion of a group of linguistic innovations and the peripheral zones of this expansion. The study of contiguous isoglosses shows which linguistic phenomena are of necessity regularly connected.

Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists / 21 Finally, a comparison of isoglosses is a precondition for the basic problem of linguistic geography, that is, the scientific apportionment of a language, i.e., the breaking down of a language according to the most fruitful principles of division. (b) If one limits oneself to the phenomena of a system of language, one can state that isolated isoglosses are in fact fictions, for apparently identical phenomena belonging to two different systems can be functionally heterogeneous (e.g., an apparently identical i has a different phonological value in different Ukrainian dialects: wherever consonants soften before i < o, i and ϊ are variants of one and the same phoneme; wherever they do not soften, there are two phonemes). (c) Just as comparison with heterogeneous developmental phenomena is allowed in the history of a language, the spatial expansion of linguistic phenomena can fruitfully be compared to other geographical isograms especially to anthropo-geographic isograms (the boundaries of facts pertaining to economic and political geography, the boundaries of the expanding phenomena pertaining to material and spiritual culture), but also to isograms of physical geography (soil, flora, moisture, temperature, and geomorphology). In doing so, one should not neglect the special conditions of geographical entities. For example, the comparison of linguistic geography with geomorphology, which is very fruitful in European conditions, plays a considerably less important role in the Eastern Slavic world than the comparison with climatic isograms. The comparison of isoglosses to anthropo-geographic isograms (date of historical geography, archeology, etc.) is possible from both a synchronic and diachronic viewpoint, but the two perspectives should not be confused. The comparison of heterogeneous systems can be fruitful only if one adheres to the principle that the compared systems are equal. Inserting between them the category of mechanical causality, in order to deduce one system from the other, distorts the synthetic grouping of these systems and substitutes a leveling unilateral evaluation for a scientific synthesis. (d) In mapping linguistic or ethnographic facts, one must remember that the expansion of these facts does not coincide with a genetic linguistic or ethnic affinity but that it often occupies a broader territory.

22 / The Prague Linguistic Circle VII. PROBLEMS OF A PAN-SLAVIC LINGUISTIC ATLAS, A LEXICAL ATLAS IN PARTICULAR

The Slavic languages are so closely related that the differences between two neighboring languages are often less pronounced than those between two neighboring dialects of a language such as Italian. Geographically almost all the Slavic languages are contiguous with one another. There is no geographical connection between the South Slavic and North Slavic groups, but each of these groups in itself constitutes a geographical whole: one extends from Venice to Thrace, the other from Šumava to the Pacific Ocean. These conditions themselves invite the idea of a pan-Slavic linguistic atlas and there can be no doubt that such an atlas is needed. A comparative etymological study of the Slavic lexicon is not possible without a precise determination of the boundaries within which particular words are distributed. The dictionaries of Miklosich and Berneker enumerate all the Slavic languages in which there are reflexes of a pertinent proto-Slavic word, but these data do not provide a precise idea of the extension of the pertinent word, because they ignore the fact that the boundaries of such an extension always cross. A precise determination of isolexemes within a pan-Slavic framework can reveal new vistas in the history of the Slavic languages. Concerning the realization of such a pan-Slavic linguistic atlas, it should be noted that its compilation will ultimately be easier than the compilation of the linguistic atlases of individual Slavic languages. The pan-Slavic atlas requires visiting far fewer places in each Slavic territory and asking far fewer questions than would be the case for a special atlas of a single Slavic region. Practically, the work can be organized in the following manner: all the Slavic academies would appoint ad hoc commissions for the compilation of an atlas, and the suitable scholarly societies of those nations which do not have academies would do the same. The representatives of all these commissions would meet and agree on the following matters: (a) the density and distribution of the places from which the material would be gathered (it is important that the network of these places be of approximately the same density everywhere, but at the same time, of course, different local conditions must be taken into account); (b) a uniform phonetic transcription; (c) the text of the questionnaires, i.e., which words should be recorded. The program elaborated by such an advisory committee would be approved by all the academies, and its execution would be imposed on each one. In this way the financing and organization in

Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists / 23 the territory of each Slavic nation would be entrusted to the pertinent academy. As concerns the Slavic minorities in non-Slavic countries, the advisory committee of the academies would have to establish contact with the academies of the relevant countries in order to organize studies according to the same program. Finally, the cost of publishing this atlas would be underwritten by all the academies of the Slavic countries under the editorship of a special committee appointed by the advisory commission of the respective academies.

VIII. METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF A SLAVIC LEXICOGRAPHY The study of the origin of individual words and changes in their meaning is as necessary for general psychology and cultural history as for linguistics in the narrow sense of the term, but lexicology, the theory of vocabulary, cannot stop at such a study. Vocabulary is not a mere accretion of individual words; it is a complex system, all of whose elements are interrelated and mutually exclusive. The meaning of a word is determined by its relationship to the other words in the vocabulary, i.e., by its place in the lexical system, and one can determine its place only in terms of the structure of this system. Special attention must be devoted to this study, for until recently words as members of lexical systems have been almost ignored and the structures of these systems have not been discovered. Many linguists believe that vocabulary, unlike morphology, which necessarily constitutes an orderly system, is a chaos which can be organized only artificially by putting words into alphabetical order. This is an evident error. Lexical systems are, of course, so much more complex and comprehensive than morphological systems that linguists perhaps will never succeed in organizing them with the clarity and economy of morphological systems. But if individual words in the lexical awareness are mutually exclusive and interrelated, they constitute systems formally analogous to morphological systems, and linguists must study them. In this still almost virgin domain, linguists must not only concern themselves with the material itself, but they must also work out correct methods of research. Every language in every period has its own lexical system. The individuality of each of these systems stands out with particular clarity when they are compared. It is especially interesting to compare closely related languages, for the individual structural features

24 / The Prague Linguistic Circle of particular lexical systems are especially prominent in the presence of extensive similarities of lexical material. In this respect the Slavic languages provide unusually suitable and gratifying fields for research. IX. THE IMPORTANCE OF FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS FOR THE CULTIVATION A N D CRITIQUE OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES

The cultivation of language is concerned with reinforcing those features which the special function of the standard literary language requires both in the written and in the colloquial standard literary language. The first of these features is stability. The standard literary language must eliminate any unnecessary fluctuation in order to develop a sure linguistic sense for the standard. The second is versatility, the ability to express the most varied nuances of content with clarity and precision, with subtlety and ease. The third is specificity, the reinforcement of the characteristic features of the given language. In developing these features it is often a question of adopting one of various possibilities present in a language or of transforming a latent linguistic tendency into an intentional means of expression. These requirements necessitate the fixing of pronunciation where variants are still permitted (e.g., in standard literary Czech the cluster sh- is pronounced both sch- and zh- as in shoda; in standard literary Serbo-Croatian the pronunciation of ije alternates between je and e). Orthography, as a purely conventional and practical matter, should be simple and clear to the extent allowed by its function of visual differentiation. Frequent modification of orthographic rules, especially if the goal is not to simplify them, contradicts the requirement of stability. Inconsistencies between the orthography of domestic words and foreign words should be eliminated at least wherever they lead to confusion in pronunciation (e.g., in Czech orthography s in foreign words has the value of s and z). In forms of designation one must take into account the individuality of the language. Without some urgent necessity one must not use forms of designation unusual in the language (e.g., compound words in Czech). In vocabulary one must counter the demand for lexical purism with the requirement of enriching the vocabulary and ensuring its stylistic diversification. But one must take into account

Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists / 25 not only the richness of the vocabulary but also its precision and stability wherever required by the function of the standard literary language. In syntax one must pay attention both to individual linguistic expressiveness and to the wealth of possibilities for expressing differences in meaning. It is therefore necessary to reinforce features which are intrinsic to the given language (e.g., verb constructions in Czech), but one must not for the sake of syntactic purism eliminate expressive possibilities which are justified by their function in a language (e.g., the noun construction required in juridical or other specialized speech). For the individual expressiveness of a language, morphology has significance only in its general system, not in its detailed particularities. Therefore, from a functional standpoint it does not have the importance that the old-style purists attributed to it. Hence one must see to it that the gap between the written and colloquial language does not needlessly widen because of useless morphological archaisms. A cultivated colloquial language is a source which constantly and safely revitalizes written language. It is a medium in which one can, with the utmost security, cultivate the linguistic sensibility necessary for the stability of a standard literary language. The standard colloquial language and the standard literary language are the means of expression of cultural life, which, in every nation, borrows much from the overall intellectual fund of humankind. It is therefore natural that a reflection of this cultural community is also found in the standard literary language, and it would be wrong to fight it in the name of linguistic purity. A concern for linguistic purity has its place in the cultivation of the language, as follows from the preceding explanation, but all exaggerated purism, whether it has logical, historical, or folkloric tendencies, is detrimental to the true cultivation of the standard literary language. A concern for the cultivation of language is crucial for the majority of Slavic standard literary languages because of their relatively young tradition or their interrupted or hasty development. Recently there has been intensive work on the formation of Slavic standard literary languages, and this has even occurred among ethnic groups without a fixed and traditional standard literary language. Functional linguistics should play a significant role in this work. It will choose from among the existing phonological and grammatical variants those most suitable for the literary standard ei-

26 / The Prague Linguistic Circle ther because of their differential value or because of their capacity for expansion. It will elaborate an alphabet and an orthography subject not to the principles of phonetic transcription or diachronic considerations but to synchronic phonology, so that a maximal alphabetic economy is achieved in the expression of phonological correlations. And finally, it will elaborate a lexicon, especially a terminology, free of any purism—nationalistic, archaizing, or other— because exaggerated purism impoverishes the vocabulary and creates an excess of synonyms, an excessive etymological dependence of terms on words of everyday usage, an associative character and an emotional coloring detrimental to the terms, and, finally, an excessive local confinement of scientific terminology.

X. THE APPLICATION OF NEW LINGUISTIC TRENDS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS (a) In the Teaching of the Mother Tongue 1. Historical-comparative linguistics has contributed very little to the solution of the practical problem of how the mother tongue should be taught in secondary schools. The object of its research has been the evolution of language, and it has paid attention primarily to earlier linguistic periods or to dialects of the contemporary language rather than to the literary standard. New linguistic trends can provide a more reliable basis for the solution of this practical problem. The most important points of contact between the new linguistics and the task of teaching the mother tongue in secondary schools are as follows: The object of research of synchronic linguistics is the synchronic phenomena of language, hence always the language of a period, primarily the modern period. In this object it comes close to the task of the secondary school, and it does so the more the contemporary literary standard becomes the object of linguistic research. Functional linguistics sees in a language a totality of goal-oriented means determined by the various functions of the language, and the goal of cultivating the mother tongue in secondary school is to develop the ability economically and rationally to exploit linguistic means according to an end and a situation, i.e., the ability to comply as well as possible in specific cases to a given language function (e.g., in a dialogue, an essay, etc.). The conception of a language as a functional system and the

Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists / 21 effort to establish the precise characteristics of particular modern languages can provide a more reliable basis for a school classification or explanation of linguistic phenomena. 2. The essential difference between theoretical linguistic study and the task of the secondary school in teaching the mother tongue stems from the fact that the school strives toward the best possible practical mastery of the language in its various functions bearing upon cultural life, hence the standard literary language in particular. In this matter there is also an important difference between the theoretical disciplines and the teaching of the mother tongue in a secondary school: the teaching of the mother tongue does not involve the acquisition of linguistic knowledge. There is also an important difference between teaching foreign languages in schools and teaching (or better, cultivating) the mother tongue. For the mother tongue the goal is the gradual development of linguistic readiness which the pupils themselves get from life, a rather precise and thorough readiness for certain functions at that. 3. The theoretical goal in teaching the mother tongue fades into the background in the face of this practical (technical) goal, and the extent of theoretical teaching can be determined according to how much theoretical knowledge of one's mother tongue is considered necessary for the pertinent level and type of school and how much is necessary for linguistic practice in the specific functions of the standard literary language (see section 8). 4. Knowledge of the facts of historical phonology or morphology or knowledge of how dialects are classified contributes very little to gradual linguistic development. But deliberation about a perfect language contributes very much to this process. In this deliberation the pupil differentiates the linguistic means, both known and previously unknown to him, becomes familiar with how they are used, and ponders how an intended goal may be attained through them. The pupil's own experiments at satisfying a given functional role through the linguistic means known to him also contribute to this process. This role begins, of course, with the simplest communicative function and gradually becomes more complicated. In this way the vocabulary and the means of designation and correlation are expanded and elaborated, and the modes of their utilization (or according to traditional terms: the lexicon, morphology, semantics, and syntax in the narrow and broad senses) are recognized. Such an approach should not be limited to written utterances but should also take into account oral utterances and especially their phonic aspect. 5. This cultivation of the standard literary language cannot end be-

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fore the pupil acquires an understanding of the thematic aspect of the domains intrinsic to the standard. The elaboration of the standard literary language in its domains where it differs from the common language should occur in the upper years of secondary school. 6. It is necessary that pupils recognize that even the standard literary language varies according to purpose, that the essence of a correct and expressive style consists in its adequacy to its purpose. It is absolutely necessary to rid schools of an evaluative stylistic hierarchy ranging from the simple to the "ornamental" style. 7. For practical reasons it is necessary from the beginning—but gradually—to emphasize that the phonological and grammatical system of the standard literary language differs from the common language ("koinē") known to the pupils from their family and everyday life, but it is not at all necessary for this reason to teach how the standard literary language corresponds to it. On the contrary, one must take great care to see to it that the pupil does not start to distrust his own knowledge of the mother tongue. The school should rely on this knowledge, not negate it. 8. The information about the language acquired should lead to knowledge of the language system. The discovery of the language system and experience with it have a significance for the pupil beyond just the cultivation of the language. An awareness of the system is important for any linguistic practice involving conscious, intentional expression and creation, precisely what is required by the functions of the standard literary language. (b) In the Teaching of the Slavic Languages 1. It is generally acknowledged that learning a foreign Slavic language in school must have a practical orientation. Such learning usually has been entirely separated from scholarly knowledge—in this case seen as purely historical-comparative knowledge. For modern linguistics the separation of the historical-comparative study of a language from practical knowledge is, however, mere prejudice. Even the practical teaching of a language can and should be scientifically based. Historical-comparative linguistics cannot provide this scholarly basis for the practical teaching of a language. Such teaching requires an understanding of the language, above all its specific function, in its specific social setting, in a certain situation, for the study of a language without regard to concrete functions is a mere abstraction. Therefore functional linguistics, recognizing a language as a system

Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists / 29 of means which an individual speaker or a collective uses for the purpose of speaking, enables a scientific solution to this problem. 2. It is generally known that there are comparatively few people who have an equal command of all the functions even in their mother tongue. It often happens that an individual, perhaps even one who is philologically educated, can write only with difficulty, if at all, an application, an announcement, a newspaper article, and so forth, if it does not involve a topic from his field. This fact should suggest directions for the practical teaching of a language. Trade schools, for example, are concerned with a pupil's mastering the language as used for commercial purposes (the speech of commercial conversation, correspondence, and news,· the language of scholarly commercial articles, etc.). Secondary schools in the narrow sense of the word, unlike professional schools, are concerned with a pupil's mastering the language of general culture (i.e., the language of the educated stratum without any special professional coloring, in both its spoken and written forms). In addition to special functions, of course, it is always necessary to recognize and master linguistic facts related to elementary social relations such as greetings, introductory phrases, questions about the weather, the time, and so on, but there are relatively few such elements. All language teaching can begin with them. 3. For teaching the Slavic languages in Slavic schools it is necessary to take advantage of the affinities among these languages. It is necessary to inculcate from the very beginning in teaching (lectures) and exercise books not only what is common but above all how the system of one Slavic language differs from another. Both the teaching itself and the exercise books must be differential, i.e., based on the differences between the pupils' mother tongue and the Slavic language which they are studying. 4. In teaching it is necessary to devote attention to the particular features of the phonological system (in pronunciation and as expressed in orthography) and the grammatical system of the given Slavic language and also to the main features of its lexical structure. Acquaintance with them occurs gradually in normal communications and in context, not in isolated words. The details of this process are determined by which Slavic language is being studied in which Slavic milieu, by the kind and level of the school, and by the overall education of the pupils. For example, in describing the Russian phonological system for Czechs, one emphasizes the alternation of hard and soft consonants, the reduction of unstressed vowels, and the major role of stress. In describing the Czech phonological

30 / The Prague Linguistic Circle

system for Russians, one emphasizes the role of quantity, its independence of stress, the grammatical alternation of prepalatal and postpalatal vowels under certain conditions (the consequences of so-called umlaut), and so forth. In describing the system of word-forms, one must emphasize the productive inflected forms; in describing syntactic forms, one must draw attention to the important differences (for Russian, the role of the auxiliary verb, the expressions of necessity and possibility, complex verbal expressions, the prepositions, conjunctions and their functions, etc.). As concerns vocabulary we believe that knowledge of it should be broadened in context and in particular linguistic communications, so that the entire process (because of linguistic affinity) is a decoding of the studied language on the pupil's part and not the teaching of an already decoded language on the teacher's part, as has been the case in the study of completely foreign and dead (Latin, Greek) languages. In other words, understanding should prevail over knowledge. Of course, even the acquisition of the vocabulary of each particular Slavic language has its important peculiarities. For example, it is very important to point out in Russian the level of Church Slavic elements and their stylistic significance (glava—golova, otvratit'— otvorotit', iscerpat'—vycerpat', etc.). 5. But it is dangerous in the initial stages of study to establish firmly a notion of a greater similarity between the pupil's own language and the language that he is learning than there is in reality, for the student may transfer the functions of the categories of another Slavic language into the system of the mother tongue. This results in a peculiar "pan-Slavic language" or a Czech-Russian, Serbian-Polish, Russian-Bulgarian blend. The functions of the categories must be analyzed first of all within their own linguistic system. 6. The most important methodological-didactic problem is to compile, in accord with these directions, well-elaborated exercise books, anthologies, and aids which will make it possible gradually to master the language in its specific functions. A set of these aids will provide a reliable basis of linguistic knowledge with which the pupil will go into life and which he will expand according to the tasks of concrete circumstances and social milieux. Translated by John Burbank NOTES 1. The concepts of linguistic "designation" [pojmenování] and "correlation" [usouvztažnění] were introduced into Prague School terminology by Vilém Mathesius and lack any direct English equivalents. In one of his English essays Mathesius speaks of

Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists / 31 "the two fundamental linguistic activities, the semantic activity of giving names and the syntactic activity of putting the names into mutual relations," "New Currents and Tendencies in Linguistic Research," ΜΝΗΜΑ: Sborník Zubatého (Prague, 1927), p. 199. For a detailed discussion of these two concepts, see O. Leska and P. Novák, "O chápání 'jazykového pojmenování' a 'jazykového usouvztaznéní': Κ Mathesiově koncepci funkcní lingvistiky" [How to understand "linguistic designation" and "linguistic correlation": Mathesius' conception of functional linguistics), Slovo a slovesnost, 29 (1968), 1-9—editor's note. 2. In English linguistic terminology this aspect of syntax is called "contextual sentence organization," "theme/rheme," "topic/comment structure," "information focus," or "functional sentence perspective." J. Vachek defines it in his book The Linguistic School of Prague (Bloomington, 1966) as follows: "Viewed from this angle, any sentence-utterance is seen to consist of two parts. The first of them, now usually termed the theme, is that part of the utterance which refers to a fact or facts already known from the preceding context, or to facts that may be taken for granted, and thus does not, or does only minimally, contribute to the information provided by the given sentence-utterance. The other part, now usually called the rheme, contains the actual new information to be conveyed by the sentence-utterance and thus substantially enriches the knowledge of the listener or reader" (p. 89). For the history of this notion, see J. Firbas, "Some Aspects of the Czechoslovak Approach to the Problems of Functional Sentence Perspective," in F. Danes (ed.), Papers on Functional Sentence Perspective (Prague, 1974), pp. 11-37—editor's note.

Folklore as a Special Form of Creativity Peter Bogatyrëv and Roman Jakobson

Bibliographic Note: Peter Bogatyrëv and Roman Jakobson, "Die Folklore als eine besondere Form des Schaffens," Donum natalicum Schrijnen (Nijmegen, 1929), pp. 900-913. Translated from a revised version in Roman Jakobson, Selected Writings (The Hague, 1966), vol. 4, pp. 1-15.

The friendship and collaboration between Peter Bogatyrëv (1893-1971) and Roman Jakobson (b. 1896) date back to their studies at Moscow University "In August, 1914," Jakobson recollects, "I met Bogatyrëv for the first time by chance as we stood in line waiting to register for classes, he in the third and I in the first year of our university studies. As strange as it may seem, the conversation immediately centered on our envisaged future research. He proposed a joint fieldwork project in folklore and dialectology (which we carried out a few months later in the Vereja district of the Moscow province)."1 The next year, the two young scholars and five other students of linguistics and folklore founded the Moscow Linguistic Circle, which, together with the Petersburg OPOJAZ group, became the center of the Russian formalist movement. In the early twenties, first Jakobson and then Bogatyrëv moved to Czechoslovakia as employees of the Soviet diplomatic mission in Prague. The fruit of their collaboration at this time was a comprehensive survey of current Russian developments in Slavic philology published in 1922/23.2 Soon after, in 1926, the Prague Linguistic Circle was founded. Its inception and further growth would have been inconceivable without Jakobson's initiative and organizational talents as vice-chairman; Bogatyrëv joined the group soon after. The paths of the two parted only after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. In 1940 Bogatyrëv returned to the Soviet Union, where his work was one of the impulses for the rise of Soviet structuralism and semiotics in the 1960s.3 A bibliography of his writings (to 1969) appeared in Bogatyrev's book Problems in the Theory of Folk-Art.4 And a survey of his scholarly career spiced with anecdotes from his private life can be found in Jakobson's commemorative essay, "Pëtr Bogatyrëv."5 His artistic portrait is

Folklore as a Special Form of Creativity / 33 contained in the eleventh "chapter" of Sklovskij's novel Zoo. 6 Roman Jakobson's achievements after his flight from Prague in 1939 are well known. His manifold genius is perhaps best represented in the interdisciplinary Festschrift, over 500 pages long, which celebrates his eightieth birthday.7 For a synthetic view of his work, see Elmar Holenstein, Jakobson's Approach to Language. 8 Bogatyrëv and fakobson's article illustrates well the developmental dialectics of scholarly thought. It resurrects the romantic concept of the collective authorship of the folkloric work rejected by the positivists. This rehabilitation was possible because Saussurian linguistics had yielded new insights into all semiotic systems, fust as individual instances of speech (parole) were considered implementations of the shared systems of language (langue) binding for all the speakers, the particular instance of the folkloric work (its variants) were to be conceived as embodiments of the folkloric tradition obligatory in a given community As the title of their essay indicates, Bogatyrèv and fakobson distinguished literature from folklore on the basis of their respective modes of production.9 But the perspective of literary reception which attracted the Prague structuralists somewhat later led to different results. From this point of view there is an essential difference between what the structuralists termed the "material work"—the text generated by the writer—and the "esthetic object"—the reception of this text against a particular configuration of literary norms. As Felix Vodicka argued in his critique of Ingarden, "Prague structuralism understands the structure of a work as a component of the higher structure of literary development. Here the higher structure of the artistic literary tradition is always present as a factor organizing the esthetic effect of the work if it is to become an esthetic object."10 Thus even though a nonfolkloric work (unlike its folkloric counterpart) comes into existence only when recorded, its becoming literary is inevitably conditioned by some form of social consensus.

NOTES 1. "Pétr Bogatyrèv (29.1. 93-18. VIII. 71]: Expert in Transfiguration," in L. Matejka (ed.), Sound, Sign and Meaning: Quinquagenary of the Prague Linguistic Circle (Ann Arbor, 1976), p. 37. 2. "Slavjanskaja filologija ν Rossii za gg. 1914-1921," Slavia, 1 (1922-1923). Reprinted as a book under the same title in Berlin (1923). 3. See, for example, K. Eimermacher and S. Shishkoff, Subject Bibliography of Soviet Semiotics: The Moscow-Tartu School (Ann Arbor, 1977), p. xi. 4. Voprosy teorii narodnogo iskusstva (Moscow, 1971), pp. 523-543. 5. See note 1 above. 6. Zoo: Or, Letters Not about Love, translated by R. Sheldon (Ithaca, N.Y., 1971), pp. 40-43.

34 / Peter Bogatyrëv and Roman Jakobson 7. D. Armstrong and C. H. van Schooneveld (ed.), Roman Jakobson: Echoes of His Scholarship (Lisse, 1977). 8. fakobson's Approach to Language: Phenomenological Structuralism (Bloomington, 1976). 9. See also the shorter and reshaped version of Bogatyrëv and Jakobson's essay, "K problematike razmezivanija folkloristiki i literaturovedenija," Lud stowianski, 2 (1934), 229-233. English translation by H. Eagle, "On the Boundary between Studies of Folklore and Literature," in L. Matejka and K. Pomorska (eds.), Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), pp. 91-93. 10. See "The Concretization of the Literary Work," in this book.

The lapse into naive realism which was characteristic of the theoretical turn of mind of the second half of the nineteenth century has been superseded by more recent scientific thought. But the representatives of certain humanistic disciplines were so involved in collecting materials and performing limited concrete tasks that they had no inclination to revise their philosophical assumptions. They have, therefore, fallen behind in their theoretical principles, so that in the realm of these disciplines alone the expansion of naive realism has continued and at the beginning of the twentieth century even become intensified. The philosophical Weltanschauung of naive realism may be completely alien to modern researchers (at least where it has become a catechism, an incontrovertible dogma). Yet an entire range of formulations directly based on the philosophical assumptions of the second half of the nineteenth century lives on. These formulations survive in various areas of cultural history as inappropriate hidden ballast, as a remnant that blocks the development of scholarship. A typical product of naive realism was the widely disseminated thesis of the neo-grammarians that the language of the individual (idiolect) alone is real language. To put it briefly, this thesis asserts that only the language of a specific person at a given time represents reality, while everything else is only a theoretical, scientific abstraction. But nothing is as alien to the modern endeavors of linguistics as this thesis, which became one of the pillars of neo-grammarian thinking. In addition to the individual, particular speech event—parole in the terminology of Ferdinand de Saussure—modern linguistics also recognizes langue, the collection of conventions accepted by a specific community to ensure the comprehension of parole. Into this traditional, interpersonal system, one or another speaker may introduce personal changes which are individual deviations from langue

Folklore as a Special Form of Creativity / 35 and can be interpreted only with regard to it. They become facts of langue after the community, the carrier of the given langue, has sanctioned them and accepted them as generally valid. Therein consists the difference between language change, on the one hand, and individual errors of speech [lapsus) on the other hand—the products of the individual mood, strong emotion, or esthetic drives of the speaker. In examining the origin of a linguistic innovation, we may assume the existence of cases in which language change occurs as the result of a kind of socialization, a generalization of individual errors of speech (lapsus), of individual affects, or esthetic deformations of speech. Language change may also occur in a different manner, namely as an inexorable, regular consequence of previous changes in language, which are then directly realized in the langue (nomogenesis in biology). But no matter what the conditions of language change may be, we can greet the "birth" of a linguistic innovation as such only from the moment that it exists as a social fact, i.e., when the language community has appropriated it. If we cross over from the domain of linguistics to that of folklore, we encounter a parallel phenomenon. The existence of a folkloristic construct as such does not begin until it has been accepted by a certain community. And the only aspects of a construct that persist are those that have been appropriated by this community. Let us assume that a member of a community has composed something original. Should this oral work, created by this individual, be unacceptable to the community for one reason or another, should the other members of the community not appropriate it, it will be condemned to extinction. Only a chance recording by a collector can save it by transporting it from the sphere of oral poetry to that of written literature. The French poet of the 1860s Comte de Lautréamont is a typical example of the so-called poètes maudits, i.e., those poets who were rejected, suppressed, ignored by their contemporaries. He published one slim volume that received neither wide attention nor circulation, like the rest of his work, which remained unpublished. He died at the age of twenty-four. Decades passed. The so-called surrealistic movement, which was in many respects consonant with Lautréamont's poetry, made its appearance in literature. Lautréamont was rehabilitated; his works were published; he was celebrated as a master and became influential. But what would have happened to Lautréamont if he had merely been the author of oral works? Upon his death his works would have disappeared without a trace. This is the most extreme case, in which entire works are rejected.

36 / Peter Bogatyrëv and Roman Jakobson

But it is also possible for a single characteristic, certain formal peculiarities, or individual motifs to be rejected or ignored by contemporaries. In such cases the milieu trims the work to suit its needs. But everything rejected by the milieu simply does not exist as a fact of folklore. It falls into disuse and dies out. One of Goncarov's heroines tries, before she reads a novel, to learn the ending. At any time, an actual reader may proceed in the same manner. In reading the work he might, for example, skip all nature descriptions which he feels to be bothersome, boring ballast. But no matter how a novel is distorted by a reader, no matter how its composition may contradict the requirements of current literary thought, and despite the fragmentary form in which it is perceived by that literary school, the novel still continues to exist potentially as a complete entity. A new time may come when those characteristics which were once rejected will be rehabilitated. But let us compare these facts with the situation in folklore: let us assume that a community wants to know the ending in advance. In that case every folkloristic narrative will inevitably appropriate the kind of composition in which the outcome is made known at the beginning of the narrative—the kind of composition which we find in Tolstoj's story "The Death of Ivan Il'ič." If, on the other hand, descriptions of nature displease the community, these will be eliminated from the folkloristic repertoire, and so on. In a word, in folklore only those forms will be preserved that prove functional for a given community. In this process one function of form can of course be replaced by another. But as soon as one form loses its function, it dies out in folklore, whereas in a literary work it continues to exist potentially. Yet another example from literary history are the so-called "eternal companions," the authors who in the course of centuries are interpreted differently from the perspective of each different school. Peculiarities of these authors which have been alien, incomprehensible, unnecessary, or undesirable to contemporaries at a later time have great value conferred upon them, or suddenly become relevant, i.e., become productive factors in literature. But this, too, is only possible in the realm of literature. For example, what would have happened in the realm of oral poetry to Leskov's bold and "untimely" linguistic creativity, which has become a productive factor in the literary activity of Remizov and subsequent Russian prose writers only after several decades? Leskov's milieu would have purged his works of his bizarre style. Thus even the notion of literary tradition is profoundly different from that of folkloristic tradition. In the realm of folklore, the possibility of revitalizing poetic facts is significantly lower. If the carriers of a certain poetic tradition have died

Folklore as a Special Form of Creativity / 37 out, then it cannot be revived, whereas, in literature, works a century or even several centuries old are newly resurrected and again rendered productive. 1 It follows that for a work of folklore to exist, a group must appropriate and sanction it. Thus, in examining folklore, one must always keep in mind the community's prophylactic censorship as a fundamental principle. We consciously use the term "prophylactic" here because a folkloristic fact is not only a matter of the biographical factors which precede its birth, "conception," and embryonic life; rather one must consider the folkloristic fact as such along with its future. Folklorists, especially those studying Slavic folklore, who probably have the liveliest and richest body of folklore in Europe at their disposal, often propound the thesis that there is no fundamental difference between oral poetry and literature and that in both we are dealing with unquestionable products of individual creativity. The origin of this thesis can be directly attributed to naive realism: concrete experience has not furnished us with collective creativity, and it is therefore necessary to assume an individual creator, an initiator. A typical neo-grammarian both in linguistics and folklore, Vsevolod Miller, has this to say about folkloristic themes: "By whom have they been invented? By the collective creativity of the masses? But this is again fiction, since h u m a n experience has never observed such a creative act." This statement is an expression of our everyday experience. Not oral creativity, but the written word is the most normal and familiar form of creativity to us, and we project our habitual notions egocentrically onto folklore. A literary work is considered born at the m o m e n t it is set down on paper by an author. By analogy, the moment in which an oral work is objectified for the first time, i.e., performed by the author, is the moment it is interpreted as having been born. But in reality, the work only becomes a fact of folklore once it has been accepted by the community. Those who claim an individual origin of folkloristic creativity tend to see the idea of the collectivity as that of anonymity. Thus, a well-known handbook of Russian oral poetry asserts: "In the case of the ritual song, we do not know who created the ritual or composed the first song. Nevertheless, this does not contradict the assumption of individual creation. Rather, it testifies to the fact that the ritual is so old that we can determine neither the author, nor the circumstances of the origin of the oldest song which is most intimately connected to the ritual. Further, it indicates that the song originated in a milieu where the memory of the author's personality was not

38 / Peter Bogatyrëv and Roman Jakobson

preserved. Therefore, the idea of 'collective7 creativity has no place here."2 The author has not taken into account the fact that there can be no ritual without the sanction of the community, that this is a contradiction in terms, and that even if individual expression lay at the core of one or another ritual, the distance from this individual expression to the ritual is just as far as the distance from an individual deformation of speech to grammatical speech change. What has been said about the origin of ritual (or of a work of oral poetry) can also be applied to the evolution of ritual (or generally, to folkloristic evolution). But the differentiation made in linguistics between a change in the linguistic standard and an individual deviation from the standard, a differentiation which has not only quantitative but also fundamental, qualitative significance, is still almost entirely alien to the science of folklore. One of the significant characteristics differentiating folklore from literature is the mode of existence of the work of art. In folklore the relationship between the work of art and its realization, i.e., the socalled variants of the work in the performances of different persons, is completely analogous to the relationship between langue and parole. Like langue, the work of folklore is extra-personal and has only a potential existence. It is only a complex of certain norms and impulses, a canvas of living tradition, which the performers animate with the embellishments of individual creativity, just as the creators of parole do in relationship to langue.3 To the extent that these individual innovations in language (or in folklore) correspond to the demands of the community and anticipate the rule-governed evolution of langue (or folklore), they are socialized and form the facts of langue (or elements in the work of folklore). The work of literature is objectified; it exists concretely, independently of the reader, and each subsequent reader turns directly to it. This is not the path of the folkloric work from performer to performer, but from the work to the performer. The interpretations of previous performers may be taken into consideration, but this is only one of the ingredients of the reception of the work, and on no account is it the only source, as in folklore. The role of the performer of folkloric works may not be identified either with that of the reader, the reciter, or the author of literary works. From the folkloreperformer's standpoint, the work is a fact of langue, i.e., an extrapersonal, given fact, independent of this performer, even if the fact allows for deformation and the introduction of new poetic and quotidian material. To the author of a work of literature, the work appears as a fact of parole. It is not given a priori, but it is subject to an individual realization. There is merely a set of art works that are ef-

Folklore as a Special Form of Creativity / 39 fective at a given moment. The new work of art is to be created and perceived against the background of these momentarily effective works, i.e., against the background of their formal requisites (in that the new work of art appropriates some forms, transforms others, and rejects still others). A fundamental difference between folklore and literature is that folklore is set specifically toward langue, while literature is set toward parole. According to Potebnja's accurate characterization of folklore, even the creator has no reason to view his work as his own, or the works of other contemporary creators as extraneous. As was mentioned above, the role of the community's censorship is different in literature than in folklore. In the latter, censorship is imperative and is an indispensable prerequisite for the genesis of works of art. The author does take into consideration the demands of the milieu, but no matter how he attempts to accommodate himself to it, the inseparable fusion of censorship and work characteristic of folklore is never achieved. A literary work is not predetermined by censorship and is not completely determined by it. The work surmises the demands of censorship only approximately—sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly. Some of the community's needs are not taken into consideration in the literary work at all. In the area of political economy, so-called "production for the market" provides a close parallel to the relationship of literature to the consumer, while "production on demand" is closer to folklore. The disparity between the demands of the milieu and a work of literature may be the result of an error, but it may also be the conscious intent of the author who wishes to transform the demands of the milieu and to re-educate it through literature. Such an attempt on the part of an author to influence demand may therefore remain unsuccessful. Censorship does not yield—an opposition then arises between its norms and the work. There is a tendency to conceive of the "authors of folklore" according to the model of the "literary author." But this comparison is not apt. Unlike the "literary poet," the "folklore poet" (according to the insightful observation of Anickov) does not create a "new milieu," and any intention of transforming the milieu is totally alien to him. The absolute dominance of prophylactic censorship, rendering any conflict between the work and that censorship fruitless, creates a special type of participant in poetic creation and forces one to reject any assault aimed at subjugating the censorship. In the interpretation of folklore as an expression of individual creativity, the tendency to dissolve the boundary between the histories of literature and folklore reaches its peak. This thesis, as should be ob-

40 / Peter Bogatyrëv and Roman Jakobson vious by now, must be subjected to serious modification. Would such a modification signify a rehabilitation of the romantic conception, so pointedly attacked by the neo-grammarians? Without a doubt! The romantic theorists advanced a number of accurate insights in distinguishing oral poetry from literature; they were correct in emphasizing the communal character of oral poetic creativity and comparing this with language. However, in addition to these correct theses, a number of their assertions can no longer stand up to the scrutiny of contemporary, scientific criticism. To begin with, the romantics overrated the genetic independence and originality of folklore. Only the work of subsequent generations of scholars showed what an enormous role is played by the phenomenon termed gesunkenes Kulturgut [submerged cultural value] in modern German folklore. The significant, often preeminent position that the gesunkenes Kulturgut occupies in the national repertoire would appear to limit severely the role of collective creativity in folklore. But this is not the case. Works of art that folk poetry appropriates from higher classes may be typical products of personal initiative and individual creativity, but the question of sources lies beyond the boundaries of folklore studies because of its very nature. Any inquiry into heterogeneous sources becomes a problem accessible to scientific interpretation only when the sources are viewed from the standpoint of the system into which they are incorporated, in this case, folklore. What is fundamental to the science of folklore is not the origin and existence of the sources outside of folklore, but the function of appropriation, the selection and the transformation of the appropriated material. Seen from this standpoint, the wellknown thesis that "the people does not produce, it reproduces" loses its force, since we are not justified in raising an insurmountable barrier between production and reproduction. Nor are we justified in interpreting the latter as, to a certain degree, inferior. Reproduction does not mean a passive appropriation in this sense; there is no fundamental difference between Molière, who adapted the dramas of antiquity, and a people who "garble an art song," to use the expression of Naumann. The transformation of a work belonging to socalled high art into the so-called primitive is, likewise, a creative act. Creativity expresses itself here not only in the selection of the works appropriated but also in their adaptation to other customs and demands. After their transfer to folklore, fixed literary forms become material which is subject to transformation. Against the background of another poetic context, tradition, or relationship to art works, the work is interpreted differently. Even the formal aspect of the work,

Folklore as a Special Form of Creativity / 41 which at first glance seems to be preserved in the process of appropriation, should not be regarded as identical to its prototype. According to the Russian literary scholar Tynjanov, a switching of functions takes place in these art forms. From the functional standpoint, without which an understanding of artistic facts is impossible, the work of art outside of folklore and the work of art adopted by folklore are two fundamentally different facts. The history of Puskin's poem" T h eHussar" provides a characteristic example of how those art forms which move from folklore into literature and vice versa, from literature into folklore, change their functions.4 Puskin has transformed a typical, folkloristic story about the confrontation of a simple person with the beyond (in which the emphasis of the story is on the description of deviltry) into a sequence of genre paintings by psychologizing the characters and providing a psychological motivation for their actions. He has represented not only the main hero, the hussar, in a humorous light but also folk-superstition in general. The fairy tale he uses is folkloric, but in the reworking by the poet its folkloristic aspects are an artistic device—they are, so to speak, signaled. The unaffected manner of speech of the folk narrator is challenging material for Puskin's metrical reworking. Puskin's poem returned to folklore and was appropriated in several variants of the most popular play of the Russian folk theater, Czar Maximilian. Along with other borrowings from literature, the poem here serves to flesh out the "interlude" episode; it is one of a number of colorful divertissements performed by the hero, the hussar. His foolhardy boasting is appropriate to the spirit of the esthetics of buffoonery as well as to the humorous representation of the haunting of the devil. Naturally, Puskin's humor, which gravitates toward romantic irony, has little in common with the buffoonish farces of Czar Maximilian, which assimilated Puskin's poem. Even in those variants in which Puskin's poem was left more or less intact, it is interpreted quite peculiarly by a public educated in folklore, especially in a performance by folk actors and surrounded by other performances. In other variants, the change in functions is directly realized in the form. The dialogic colloquial style, characteristic of Puskin's poem, is easily transformed into a folkloristic oral rhythm. Of the poem itself, only the plot outline remains, divested of motivations, and over it is superimposed a sequence of typical buffoonish jokes and puns. But even if literature and oral poetry have overlapped, even if their reciprocal influence was repeated and intensive, even if folklore has concerned itself quite often with literary material and vice versa, we

42 / Peter Bogatyrëv and Roman Jakobson are still not justified in obliterating the fundamental boundary between oral poetry and literature just for the sake of a genetic approach. In addition to the originality of folk art, another important error of the romantics was the thesis that only a classless society, a kind of collective personality with one soul and one Weltanschauung which knows no individual expressions of h u m a n activity, could be the author of folklore, the author of collective creativity. In our time we come upon this fusing of collective creativity with a "primitive cultural community" in the works of Naumann and his school, who share many points of agreement with the romantics. "There is still no individualism here. One should not shrink from drawing parallels from the animal kingdom. The animal kingdom, in fact, yields the closest parallels—genuine folk art is communal art, but not different from the way in which swallow's nests, bee's hives, and snail's shells are creations of genuine communal art." 5 Naumann writes further about the carriers of communal culture: "They are seized by one emotion, they are inspired by the same intentions and thoughts" (p. 151). A danger lurks in this conception, which is inherent in any conclusion deducing mentality directly from social expression, such as drawing a conclusion about characteristics of thinking from a manner of speech (where the danger of a similar identification was pointedly exposed by Anton Marty). We observe the same thing in ethnography: the unrestricted rule of the collective mentality is in no way a necessary prerequisite to collective creativity, even if such a mentality provides especially fertile soil for the most perfect realization of collective creativity Even a culture permeated by individualism is not totally alien to collective creativity. We need think only of the anecdotes which are widespread today in educated circles, the rumors and gossip which are like legends, superstition and myth-making, social conventions and fashion. Moreover, Russian ethnographers who have researched the villages in the Moscow area report that a highly differentiated peasantry with respect to social, political, ideological, and even moral commitments is allied to a rich and living folklore repertoire. The endurance of oral poetry (or literature) can be explained not only psychologically but also, to a significant degree, functionally. For example, let us compare the simultaneous existence of both oral poetry and literature in the same educated circles in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Russia: literature here fulfilled some cultural functions, oral poetry others. In urban relationships, literature naturally prevails over folklore, production for the market over produc-

Folklore as a Special Form of Creativity / 43 tion on demand. Individual poetry as a social fact is as alien to the traditional village as production for the market. The acceptance of the thesis that folklore is an expression of collective creativity sets a series of concrete tasks for the science of folklore. The application of methods and concepts from the treatment of literary-historical material to the field of the study of folklore more often than not impairs the analysis of folkloric art forms. Especially underestimated is the difference between a literary text and the recording of a work of folklore, which inevitably deforms the work by transposing it into another category. It would be ambiguous to speak of identical forms in folklore and literature. For example, meter, a concept which at first glance seems to have the same meaning in both, is in reality profoundly different in terms of function. Marcel Jousse, the sensitive scholar of the oral rhythmic style [style oral rhythmique) considers this difference so significant that he reserves the concepts of "meter" and "poetry" for literature alone, while he uses the corresponding terms "rhythmic schema" and "oral style" for oral creativity in order to avoid reading into these concepts the usual literary content. Moreover, Jousse masterfully uncovers the mnemotechnical function of such rhythmic schemata. He interprets the oral rhythmic style in its "milieu des récitateurs encore spontanés" (a milieu of ever-spontaneous reciters) in the following manner: "Let us imagine a language with 200 to 300 rhymed periods, with 400 to 500 types of rhythmic schemata which are precisely fixed and are transmitted without the modifications of oral tradition: personal invention would then consist of the formation of other rhythmic schemata similar in form, with the same rhythm, the same structure . . . and, when possible, the same content, using the transmitted rhythmic schemata as models, i.e., in analogy to the fixed period."6 The relationship between tradition and improvisation, between langue and parole in oral poetry is clearly delineated here. In folklore, meter, stanzas, and even more complicated compositional structures are both a powerful pillar of tradition and an effective means of improvisational technique (the two, of course, being closely related).7 A typology of the forms of folklore must be constructed independently of that of literary forms. One of the most pressing problems of linguistics is the elaboration of a phonological and morphological typology. One sees immediately that there are general structural rules which no language can violate; it is obvious that the variety of phonological and morphological structures is limited and can be traced back to a relatively small number of basic types determined by the

44 / Peter Bogatyrëv and Roman Jakobson fact that the variety of forms of collective creativity is limited. Parole, in contrast, permits a greater variety of modifications than langue. These findings of comparative linguistics can be compared to both the variety of subjects characteristic of literature and the limited range of fairy-tale subjects in folklore. This limited range can be explained neither by common sources, nor by psychology, nor by external conditions. Similar subjects arise on the basis of general rules of poetic composition. These rules are, like the structural rules of language, more homogeneous and stricter in relation to collective creativity than in relation to individual creativity The next task for the synchronic science of folklore is the characterization of the system of art forms which comprise the repertoire of a specific community—a village, a district, an ethnic unity. What must be considered is the relationship of forms in the system, their hierarchy, the difference between productive forms and those that have lost their productivity, and so on. Not only do ethnographic and geographic groups distinguish themselves according to folkloric repertoire, but also groups characterized by sex (masculine and feminine folklore), by age (children, young persons, the aged), and by profession (shepherds, fishermen, soldiers, robbers). Insofar as the above-named professional groups produce folklore for themselves, these folklore cycles may be compared to professional jargons. Yet folkloric repertoires also exist that belong to a specific professional group but are intended for consumers far removed from it. The production of oral poetry is, in these cases, one of the professional characteristics of the group. For example, in a large part of Russia, religious poems are almost exclusively performed by the kaliki perexožie—wandering beggars who are more often than not organized into special guilds. The performance of religious poems is one of the main sources of their income. A range of intermediate types exists between such a complete separation of product from consumer and the opposite extreme, where almost the entire community is both producer and consumer (proverbs, anecdotes, folksongs [castuski], certain kinds of ritual and nonritual songs). Out of a certain milieu emerges a group of gifted persons who monopolize the creation of a specific type of folklore (for example, fairy tales). But these are not professionals and poetic creation is not their primary activity, nor a source of their income. On the contrary, they are dilettantes who devote themselves to poetry in their leisure time. Here, one can ascertain no complete identity between producer and consumer, but neither is there a complete separation. The boundary fluctuates. There are people who are fairy-tale narrators and yet, at the same time, also

Folklore as a Special Form of Creativity / 45 listeners. The creator-dilettante easily becomes a consumer and vice versa. Oral poetic creativity remains collective even when the producer and consumer are separated. But in this instance, the collective assumes specific traits. This is a community of producers, and "prophylactic censorship" here is more emancipated from the consumer than where creator and consumer are identical. In the latter case, censorship takes equally into consideration the interests of production and consumption. Oral poetry disappears from the sphere of folklore and ceases to be collective creativity only under one condition: when a harmonious community of professionals, with a secure, professional tradition, behaves with such piety toward certain poetic creations that with all the resources at its disposal, it attempts to preserve these creations without any change. That this is more or less possible is shown by a number of historical examples. In the course of centuries, Vedic Hymns were transmitted in just this way by priests—in Buddhist terminology, from mouth to mouth "in basketfuls." All efforts were directed toward ensuring that these texts were not deformed.This goal was attained, except for minor innovations. There is no longer any creative revision, any improvisation, any collective creativity where the role of the community simply consists in the preservation of a poetic work which has been elevated to the position of an inviolable canon. As counterparts to the borderline forms of oral poetry, one might mention the borderline forms of literature. For example, certain characteristics of the activity of anonymous authors and scribes of the Middle Ages bring them close to the domain of oral poetry, although they still remain in the domain of literature. To cite just one example, the scribe more often than not treated the work that he copied as material subject to transformation. However, no matter how many transitional forms stand at the border between individual and collective creativity, we will not follow the example of the notorious sophist who agonized over how many grains of sand would have to be taken away from a sandhill before it ceased to be a hill. There are always borderline and transitional zones between any two neighboring cultural areas. This circumstance does not allow us to deny the existence of two different types, nor to deny the productivity of their separation. The convergence of the science of folklore with literary history has allowed for the elucidation of a range of questions of genetic character. But the separation of the two disciplines and the restoration of autonomy to the science of folklore will make it easier to ex-

46 / Peter Bogatyrëv and Roman Jakobson

plain the functions of folklore and to uncover its structural principles and peculiarities. Translated by Manfred facobson NOTES 1. Parenthetically we want to remark that not only tradition, but also the simultaneous existence of different styles in the same milieu is much more limited in the domain of folklore; for the most part the genres in folklore correspond to the different styles. 2. M. N. Speranskij, Russkaja ustnaja slovesnost' (Moscow, 1917], p. 163. 3. M. Murko observes that one must keep in mind that the singers do not declaim a fixed text as we would. Instead, to one degree or another they are continually creating anew. 4. Cf. P. Bogatyrëv, "Puskins Gedicht, 'Der Husar,' seine Quellen und sein Einfluss auf die Volkspoesie," Ocerki po poètike Puskina (Berlin, 1923). 5. H. Naumann, Primitive Gemeinschaftskultur: Beiträge zur Volkskunde und Mythologie (Jena, 1921), p. 190. 6. Études de psychologie linguistique (Paris, 1925). 7. Stimulating illustrations of the peculiarities of the improvisational technique are given by G. Gesemann in his study "Kompositionsschema und heroisch-epische Stilisierung," Studien zur südslavischen Volksepik (Reichenberg, 1926).

The Asymmetric Dualism of the Linguistic Sign Sergej Karcevskij

Bibliographic Note: Sergej Karcevskij, "Du dualisme asymétrique du sign linguistique," Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague, 1 (1929), 88-92.

Sergej Karcevskij is one of the most intriguing figures of modern Slavic linguistics. Throughout his life (1884-1955), he managed to be present at precisely the moment when a new direction was being set for the discipline. In 1906, after a year of political imprisonment, he left Russia for Switzerland and studied linguistics with Ferdinand de Saussure. Ten years later, he returned to his native land (1917-1919) and was the first, in Roman fakobson's words, to fire "the young generation of Moscow linguists with the Cours de linguistique generale."1 From Russia he went to Prague, where he was a founding member of the Prague Linguistic Circle. And finally he returned to Switzerland, together with Bally and Sechehaye presiding at the inauguration of the Linguistic Society of Geneva. Karcevskij's notion of the dual asymmetry of the linguistic sign has its roots in romantic philosophy and philology and is the basis for Hegel's definition of the symbol as an essentially ambiguous sign. According to Hegel, the form of a symbol contains its meaning within it, but at the same time the form is not fully adequate to that meaning. "A lion, for instance, is the most obvious symbol of strength, but at the same time a bull or a horn could symbolize it; and on the other hand, a bull contains a multitude of other symbolic meanings."2 Humboldt's treatment of language as energeia is also linked to Karcevskij's dual asymmetry. Energeia is the creative language process in which speech sounds are continually matched to ideas in a new fashion. This notion of Humboldt's influenced a great many nineteenth-century linguists (Potebnja in Russia, Marty in Prague, to mention only a few), who sought to isolate the elusive category of "the inner form of language" which created the linkage between sound and meaning. Unlike his predecessors, who tried to explain linguistic change through the human psyche, Karcevskij focused his attention on the semiotic pre-

48 / Sergej Karcevskij conditions of this process. All the dialectic antinomies pervading language that destabilize its signs—general/individual, systemic/accidental, abstract/concrete, logical/psychological—Karcevskij considered merely the implementations of a fundamental semiotic antinomy between homonymity and synonymity In other words, every application of a linguistic sign necessarily implies other possible applications of the same sign (homonymity) as well as the existence of applicable, but in this case not applied signs (synonymity). It is this homonymic/synonymic extension of the linguistic sign—unique in each case—that causes its continuous slippage between the poles of the above antinomies and renders language such a versatile tool of thought and communication. Among the Prague structuralists, Karcevskij's model enjoyed wide popularity As fakobson wrote in 1932, "We fully accept Karcevskij's thesis: the asymmetric structure of linguistic signs is the essential precondition of linguistic change.''3 It proved especially seminal for the students of literature because, as the leading members of the Circle stressed in their 1935 manifesto, "Literature alone makes palpable the speech act in all its vitality and shows speech to be not a rigid system but a creative energy"4 The function of verbal art is precisely to maintain in language the dual asymmetry of its signs, to keep realigning the link between sound and meaning. But "why is it necessary to point out that the sign does not merge with the object [it signifies]?" asks fakobson. "Because besides the immediate awareness of the identity between the sign and object (A is A1) we need the immediate awareness of the lack of this identity (A is not AJ. This antinomy is necessary, for without contradictions there is no mobility of concepts, the relation between concept and sign becomes automatized, activity stops, the awareness of reality dies out."5 The same themes are also elaborated in Jan Mukařovský's writings proceeding from Karcevskij's ideas, "Poetic Designation and the Esthetic Function of Language,"6 and "On Poetic Language."7 The literature about Karcevskij's work is rather meager. There is a "Notice biographique" by S. Stelling-Michaud in Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure, 14 (1956) dedicated to the memory of Karcevskij, as well as a vivid portrait and a bibliography of Karcevskij's writings by Roman fakobson. Wendy Steiner's "Language as Process: Sergej Karcevskij's Semiotics of Language" compares Karcevskij's ideas with those of his teacher Saussure and draws parallels between them and the recent development of poststructuralism.8 "The Axes of Poetic Language" by Peter and Wendy Steiner attempts to reconcile the difference between Karcevskij's antinomy of homonymity and synonymity and fakobson's metaphor/metonymy opposition.9

The Asymmetric Dualism of the Linguistic Sign / 49 NOTES 1. "Sergej Karcevskij: August 28, 1884-November 7, 1955," Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure, 14 (1956), 10. 2. Vorlesungen iiber die Aesthetik, vol. 1, in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Werke, vol. 10, part 1 (Berlin, 1835), p. 395. 3. "Zur Struktur des russischen Verbum," Charisteria Gvilelmo Mathesio qvinqvagenario a discipvlis et Circvli Lingvistici Pragensis sodalibvs oblata (Prague, 1932), p. 83. 4. "Uvodem" [By way of introduction], Slovo a slovesnost, 1 (1935), 5. 5. "Co je poesie?" Volné směry, 30, (1933-1934), 239. English translation by M. Heim, "What Is Poetry?" in L. Matejka and I. R. Titunik (eds.), Semiotics of Art: Prague School Contributions (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), pp. 164-175. 6. "Dénomination poétique et la fonction esthétique de la langue," Actes du Quatrième Congrès international des linguistes tenu a Copenhague du 27 aoút au 1er septembre 1936 (Copenhagen, 1938), pp. 98-104. English translation by J. Burbank and P. Steiner in J. Mukařovský, The Word and Verbal Art (New Haven, 1977), pp. 65-73. 7. "O jazyce básnickém," Slovo a slovesnost, 6 (1940), especially pp. 129-135; English translation in The Word and Verbal Art, especially pp. 33-46. 8. L. Matejka (ed.), Sound, Sign and Meaning: Quinquagenary of the Prague Linguistic Circle (Ann Arbor, 1976), pp. 291-300. 9. J. Odmark (ed.), Language, Literature and Meaning I: Problems of Literary Theory (Amsterdam, 1979), pp. 35-70.

A sign and its signification do not form a perfect fit. Their extensions do not coincide point for point, for a single sign always has several semantic functions and a single signification is always expressed by several signs. Every sign is potentially a "homonym" and a "synonym" at the same time—that is, it is constituted by the intersection of these two conceptual series. As a semiotic mechanism, a language operates between two poles that can be characterized as the general and the individual, the abstract and the concrete. On the one hand, language must supply a means of communication for all the members of a linguistic community. But on the other hand, it must serve equally as a means of self-expression for each of the individuals in this community, and however "socialized" the forms of our psychic life may be, the individual cannot be reduced to the social. The semiotic values in a language necessarily have a potential, and hence general, character in order for language to remain above the whims of the individual, above individuals as such. At the same time, these potential signs must apply to a concrete reality that is constantly changing. If signs were static and each had only a single function, language

50 / Sergej Karcevskij would become a mere set of labels. It is equally impossible to conceive of a language whose signs would be dynamic to the point of signifying nothing outside of concrete situations. Thus, the nature of a linguistic sign must be both static and dynamic at the same time. Called upon to adapt to a concrete situation, it can modify itself only partially; a certain part of it must remain static if the sign is to remain identical to itself. Whether in a concrete situation we tend to focus on the new, the unknown, or on the old, the known, the simultaneous presence of these two possibilities is indispensable for any act of comprehension (or of recognition). The new is incorporated into old categories; it is recognized as a new type in an old class. But it is always a type, and not an individual. To comprehend or recognize a fact means to incorporate it into the set of things that we already know, to establish the coordinates at whose intersection it can be discovered. What is really new here is the relation, the intersection of the coordinates, and not the coordinates themselves. It follows that an act of knowing cannot, properly speaking, become utterly "individual." Reality is infinite; in each situation we retain only certain elements, rejecting all the rest as insignificant to our interests. We arrive, in this way, at a concept—the schematic product of an integration—which is required from the start to serve as a general type. The linguistic sign corresponds in its internal structure to an intersection of coordinates of varying degrees of generality, depending upon the semiotic plane to which it belongs.1 What is really new, for example, in a word that has just been coined, is the intersection of coordinates and not the coordinates themselves. It could not be otherwise, for from its very appearance every word designates a type and not an individual. If we witness a displacement of the boundary between a seme and a morpheme within a word, as often happens in children's etymologies like the pair Mamagei and papont, this phenomenon is possible only because of the existence of the German Papagei and the Russian mamont [mammoth], which in turn are affected by this displacement of coordinates. Even at the moment of its "invention," a coordinate is necessarily general and not individual, i.e., not created ad hoc for a single phenomenon. One could even claim that it is impossible to create a single word, that one must create at least two at a time. The general and the individual in any semiotic system exist not as entities but as relations between two coordinates or two series of semiotic values, each serving to differentiate the other. One cannot insist too much on this differential character of the linguistic sign.

The Asymmetric Dualism of the Linguistic Sign / 51 In the introduction to my Système du verbe russe, I wrote: "It has become a commonplace to affirm that linguistic values exist only by virtue of their opposition to one another. So stated, this idea leads to an absurdity: a tree is a tree because it is neither a house nor a horse nor a river. . . . Opposition pure and simple necessarily leads to chaos and cannot serve as the basis of a system. True differentiation presupposes a simultaneous resemblance and difference. Concepts form a series founded on a common element and are opposed only within this series. . . . It is in this way that homophony becomes possible and justifiable, when two values belonging to two different series . . . are found to have the same phonic sign" (pp. 13-14). Thus, it would be absurd to ask what the value of a is as a morpheme in Russian. One must first determine the series of common values within which this a appears: stol, stola, stolu . . . ; parusa, parusov . . . ; žena, ženy . . . ; and so on. 2 It is only then that we can understand which differential value is introduced by this morpheme and in which series. If, as we have just seen, the same phonic sign can signify different values in different series, the reverse is equally possible: the same value can be signified by different signs in different series, as in the masculine nominative plural endings of stoly, parusa, krest'jane. Homophony is the general term for this phenomenon. Homonymy is only a particular case of it, occurring in the conceptual planes of language; the opposite phenomenon, "polyvocity" or heterophony, occurs in the conceptual planes as synonymy. But these are really two sides of the same general principle which could, though rather imprecisely, be formulated as follows: every linguistic sign is potentially a h o m o n y m and a synonym at the same time. It belongs simultaneously to a series of transposed values of a single sign and to a series of analogous values expressed by different signs. This is merely a logical consequence of the differential character of the sign. And a linguistic sign m u s t necessarily be differential—otherwise it would be indistinguishable from a signal. Homonymy and synonymy, in the sense that we give them here, 3 constitute the two most important relational coordinates of language because they are the most dynamic, flexible, and adequate to concrete reality. A homonymic series is psychological in essence and rests on associations. A synonymic series, on the other hand, is logical in character, for its members are to be thought of as different variants of the same phenomenal class. Nevertheless, the number of its members is not definite. The series always remains open: it may even be merely

52 / Sergej Karcevskij potential, but the possibility always necessarily remains for the meaning of a class to be actualized. This idea of a class, connected to a concrete situation, is the source from which analogous values radiate. A homonymic series also remains open, for it is impossible to predict where a given sign will be carried in the play of associations. However, at each concrete moment, we find ourselves in the presence of two chains related as transposed sign to "adequate" sign and held in contact by a tertium comparationis. The source for the generation of homonyms is the set of representations associated with the value of a sign; these vary from one situation to another, and it is the concrete situation that furnishes the tertium comparationis. In a "complete" sign (a word as opposed to a morpheme), there are two opposed centers of semiotic functions, one for formal values, the other for semantic values. The formal values of a word (gender, number, case, aspect, tense) represent aspects of significations known to every speaking subject which are more or less safe from any subjective interpretation on the part of interlocutors; they are assumed to remain identical to themselves in all situations. The semantic part of a word, in contrast, is a residue resistant to any attempt to decompose it into elements as "objective" as formal values. The exact semantic value of a word can be adequately established only as a function of the concrete situation. Only the value of scientific terms is fixed once and for all (or so the story goes!) by their inclusion in systems of ideas. But the set of ideas corresponding to what one could term the ideology of daily life is far from being a system, properly speaking. Each time that we apply a word as a semantic value to concrete reality, we gain a set of more or less new representations. In other words, we continually transpose the semantic value of the sign. But we do not notice this unless the gap between the "adequate" (usual) value of the sign and its occasional value is sufficiently large to strike us. The identity of the sign is maintained, in the first place, because our thought tends toward integration and refuses to note any modifications in the set of representations; and second, because we have introduced a tertium comparationis which motivates the new value of the old sign. However concrete this transposition may be though, it does not become individual. From its inception, the new creation is a sign: it is capable of signifying analogous situations, it is already generic, and it is part of a synonymic series. Suppose, for example, that in a conversation we dubbed someone ryba [fish]. We would, thereby, have created a homonym of ryba (a case of transposition), and at the

The Asymmetric Dualism of the Linguistic Sign / 53 same time we would have added a new member to the synonymic series: flegmatik [phlegmatic], vjalyj [flaccid], bescuvstvennyj [impassive], xolodnyj [cold]. Even the center of formal values in a word can be transposed. Here is an example of the transposition of the grammatical function. The imperative normally expresses a volitional act on the part of the speaker which eclipses the interlocutor's role as agent of the process, as in Zamolci! [Be quiet!]. But the imperative expresses a different function in "Tol'ko posejali, a moroz i udar'" [They had barely finished sowing, when the frost struck] 4 (tertium comparationis: an unexpected act, thus independent of the agent of the process), or better, in "smolci on, vsë by oboslos'" [If he had only kept quiet everything would have worked out all right] 5 [tertium comparationis: an act [grammatically] forced upon the agent of the process). Finally, the imperative form has homophones in such idiomatic phrases as " Togo i gljadi" [I'm afraid t h a t . . .] and "To i znaj" [continuously]. Of course, there are always synonyms of the imperative: "Zamolčat'!" [the infinitive, "to be silent"], "Molčanie!" [the noun, "Silence!"], "Tss!" [the interjection, "Shh!"]. In its essential traits, grammatical displacement is analogous to semantic displacement. The two exist as a function of concrete reality. We cannot pause here over all that distinguishes them, but we should note one essential difference. Formal values are naturally more general than semantic ones and must serve as types, each encompassing an almost unlimited number of semantic significations. This is why grammatical values are more stable, and their transpositions less frequent and more "regular." The displacements of a grammatical sign on either the homonymic or synonymic axis can, up to a point, be at least registered if not predicted. But it is impossible to predict where a sign could end up as a result of its semantic displacements. In the domain of grammar, however, the subdivisions always occur in pairs, and the two correlative values occur as paired opposites. 6 We know besides that as a function of certain concrete situations, values as different as the perfective and imperfective may cease to be opposed. 7 Thus, under syntax one should not only study the homonymic-synonymic displacements of each form (which would be the only way to understand what the proper function of each form is), but one should also try to determine in what concrete situations and as a function of what notions the value of a sign leads to its opposite. One might resort to the following scheme to illustrate the asymmetric character of the sign:

54 / Sergej Karcevskij

The signifier (sound) and the signified (function) slide continually on the "slope of reality." Each "overflows" the boundaries assigned to it by the other: the signifier tries to have functions other than its own; the signified tries to be expressed by means other than its sign. They are asymmetrical; coupled, they exist in a state of unstable equilibrium. It is because of this asymmetric dualism in the structure of its signs that a linguistic system can evolve: the "adequate" position of the sign is continually displaced as a result of its adaptation to the exigencies of the concrete situation. Translated by Wendy Steiner NOTES 1. Concerning the semiotic planes of language, see the introduction to my Système du verbe russe (Prague, 1927), pp. 13-42. 2. In the Russian declensional paradigms for stol (table), parus (sail), and zena (woman), the desinential morpheme -a signifies the masculine genitive singular, the masculine nominative plural, and the feminine nominative singular, respectively— editor's note. 3. I reserve the term "homonym" here for transposed signs; where the transposed value is no longer felt, it would be more precise to speak of homophony (thus, ključ, "key," and kljuc, "source," are homophones). But the distinction applies in its full rigor only in limited cases. 4. The English translation cannot express the imperative form used in the verb "struck," but merely renders the Russian sentence that Karcevskij supplies as a synonym: Tol'ko posejali, vdrug udaril moroz—translator's note. 5. See note 4 above. The Russian synonymic sentence in this case is Esli by smolčal on, vsë by oboslos'. 6. Système du verbe russe, pp. 22, 23, and passim. 7. Ibid., pp. 118-119.

A Contribution to the Study of Theatrical Signs The Perception of the Signs in Puppet Theater, Theater with Live Actors, and Art in General Peter Bogatyrêv

Bibliographic Note: Peter Bogatyrëv, "Príspevok ku skúmaniu divadelnych znakov," Slovenské smery umelecké.a kritické, 5 (1937-1938), 238-246.

The Prague structuralists investigated theater more thoroughly than any other art except literature. The scholar responsible for this emphasis was Otakar Zich (1879-1934), professor of esthetics at Prague University, and in particular, his comprehensive book, The Esthetics of Dramatic Art. 2 Zich's work was in many respects a forerunner of structuralist esthetics, but his frame of reference differed significantly from that of the Prague School. For him the theory of art was above all a psychological discipline concerned with the subject's perception of artistic objects, whereas for the structuralists it was a branch of semiotics studying the social codes that govern the artistic interaction between subject and object. Bogatyrëv's article is a critique of a minor paper by Zich on the puppet theater and attempts to reformulate the problem of artistic perception from a semiotic standpoint. For Zich, the oscillation of our perception between fiction and reality is an essential feature of theatrical art. The key role in this bifurcation of perception belongs to the actor, who is both a real Mr. X and a representation of dramatic character Y. In the puppet theater, Zich claims, because of the nonhuman nature of its actors, this perceptual duality vanishes and the viewer conceives of the puppets either as human beings or as what they are—artificial imitations. Bogatyrëv's criticism is based on V. N. Volosinov's distinction between things and signs, or in other terms, between material and ideological phenomena.2 While there are many artifacts (e.g., folk-costumes) that are simultaneously things and signs, the phenomena of ideological spheres (art, religion, and so on) are exclusively semiotic. Thus, not only puppet theater but every work of art is a conventional system of signs that must be viewed against the background of the artistic code that gave birth to it rather than the reality it represents.

56 / Peter Bogatyrëv The semiotic reformulation of artistic perception turned the Prague structuralists' attention to this traditional esthetic topic. However, some took issue with Bogatyrëv's thesis of the utter conventionality of art. Jindřich Honzl, for example, in reviewing Bogatyrëv's book in which the present study on puppet theater was reprinted, insisted on the special status of theatrical signs. "In my opinion, theatrical perception is a particular case of semiotic perception because here the attention of the perceiver is not fully focused on the sign but in part also upon the thing, whose properties function for the viewer (perceiver) as signs. For instance, the viewer's attention is focused not only on the signs of Hamlet (enacted by Eduard Kohout) but upon Eduard Kohout as well."3 Other members of the Circle postulated such a two-tiered perception for all the arts. "If the work of art is understood as only a sign, it is deprived of its direct incorporation into reality," claimed Jan Mukařovský in his 1943 lecture "Intentionality and Unintentionality in Art." "It is not only a sign but also a thing immediately affecting man's mental life, causing direct and spontaneous involvement and penetrating through his action to the deepest levels of the perceiver's personality. It is precisely as a thing that the work is capable of affecting what is universally human in man, whereas in its semiotic aspect the work always appeals to what is socially and temporally determined."4

NOTES 1. Estetika dramatického umění (Prague, 1931). 2. See, e.g., Volosinov's article "Stilistika xudozestvennoj reci" [The stylistics of artistic language], Literaturnaja uceba, 1, no. 5 (1930), 45ff. Bogatyrëv refers to this essay in his "Kroj jako znak" [Folk-costume as sign], Slovo a slovesnost, 2 (1936), 44. English translation by Y. Lockwood in L. Matejka and I. R. Titunik (eds.), Semiotics of Art: Prague School Contributions (Cambridge, Mass, 1976), pp. 13-19. 3. "Objevené divadlo v Lidovém divadle ceském a slovenském" [Theater discovered in Czech and Slovak Folk Theater], Slovo a slovesnost, 6 (1940), 108. It must be stressed that Bogatyrëv himself somewhat modified his position in subsequent articles. For example in "Znaky divadelni" [Theatrical signs], he wrote: "In theater, then, all theatrical phenomena are signs of signs, or signs of material objects. The only live subject in the theater is the actor. Despite the fact that an actor expresses regal dignity, the sign of age by his gait, the sign that he represents a foreigner by his speech, and so on, still we see in him not only a system of signs but also a living person. . . . This special artistic duplexity acquires great theatrical effect in the folk theater where the audience knows the actor well," Slovo a slovesnost, 4 (1938), 148. Quoted from English translation by B. Kochis, "Semiotics in the Folk Theater," Semiotics of Art, pp. 47-48. 4. "Zámérnost a nezámérnost ν umění," Studie ζ estetiky (Prague, 1966), p. 103. Quoted from English translation by J. Burbank and P. Steiner in J. Mukařovský, Structure, Sign, and Function (New Haven, 1978), p. 128.

A Contribution to the Study of Theatrical Signs / 57 Puppet theater is one of the most explicitly conventional forms of theater. Some puppeteers work hard to underscore its special character, whereas others try to bring it as close as possible to the theater of live, often naturalistic, acting. But even when the puppeteers aim at naturalism, striving to make their actors resemble live actors and living people as much as possible, all they accomplish is to emphasize even more strongly the conventions of the puppet theater— such is the law of dialects. The more naturalistic the intonations of the actor who speaks a puppet's words and the closer his speech to practical speech, the more we perceive the difference between living person and tiny puppet. The more naturalistic the puppet's movements, the more clearly the conventions of the puppet theater stand out. The strings by which puppets are manipulated, the reduced dimensions of the wooden actors who lack facial expressions, the stiff gestures, and the numerous other peculiarities of puppetry all remind the spectator that what he sees is merely theater, only a theatrical embodiment of life and not life itself. The strikingly expressed theatricality of puppet theater has drawn the most important theater people of all times and approaches. Puppet theater has attracted attention especially in periods when the theater has had to fight for theatricality, for the right to the existence of a special theatrical life on stage subject to its own laws. Among recent theatrical reformers, Gordon Craig has praised the puppet theater on these grounds. ' T h e actor," Craig says, "should be banished from the theater and replaced by an Übermarionette that obediently realizes the intention of the creator of the stage action." 1 A number of other contemporary directors are turning to the formal devices of puppet theater, and actors are imitating the economical movements of puppets in their own movements. The distinctive character of puppet theater—the particular artistic and technical devices that distinguish it from live-actor theater—is apparent to all of its students. What is perhaps not so apparent is the fact that signs common to every theatrical show are expressed very strikingly in the puppet theater. It is particularly useful to analyze theatrical signs and their perception by the audience on the basis of material provided by puppet theater, for we shall see there explicitly what is only implicit in the theater of live actors. Otakar Zich, the outstanding Czech theoretician of the theater, has attempted to analyze how the audience perceives the puppet theater. Here are his conclusions:

58 / Peter Bogatyrëv There is a contradiction between the two conceptions of what we perceive: these puppets can be understood either as living people or as lifeless puppets. If we treat them in only one of the two ways, two possibilities arise: (a) We may consider the puppets as puppets, i.e., we will emphasize their lifeless material. This material then is something real for us and we cannot take seriously their speech and movements, their "expressions of life"; they strike us as comic, grotesque. The fact that the puppets are small, that they are at least partially (in face, in body) rigid, and that their movements are accordingly awkward, "wooden," contributes even more to their comical appearance. This is not crude grotesquery, but a subtle humorousness by means of which these little figures, apparently behaving like living people, affect us. We consider them puppets, but they want us to consider them people, and they certainly make us merry! Everyone knows that puppets really do have such an effect. (b) There is, however, another possibility. Puppets can be understood as living beings, if we emphasize their manifestations of life (movements and speech), and conceive of these expressions as real. Consciousness of the actual lifelessness of the puppets then recedes and surfaces only as a sense of something inexplicable, as a mystery evoking our wonder. In this case the puppets affect us mysteriously. If they had real h u m a n size and if their facial expressions were as perfect as possible, this manner of conceiving them would produce terror in us. (I leave aside the case of waxworks because I want to confine myself to the realm of art.) One can find examples of such animated matter in legends and in literature: the commander's statue (in Don Juan) or Golem. Everyone will concede that these creatures of fantasy make a much more ghastly impression on us than even living corpses do, for here is something completely unnatural—life in a lifeless, inorganic substance—while with the corpse it is merely a matter of life in a substance that was once alive. I think that even our puppets would cause us to feel uneasy if they were as large as people, but the reduction in their dimensions completely precludes this and renders them merely mysterious. 2 The questions that Zich has raised about the perception of puppet theater have relevance much beyond it. What Zich says about it can be applied to other kinds of theater as well as to the facts of other arts. I consider Zich's remarks unusually important and interesting, and therefore I shall permit myself to pause on them. However, de-

A Contribution to the Study of Theatrical Signs / 59 spite the interest of his remarks I regard them as essentially incorrect. Zich's fatal error consists in his not perceiving puppet theater as a distinct system of signs, without which no artistic creation can be understood. Everything that Zich says about the puppet theater can be fully applied to any other art. As soon as we do not perceive it as the sign of an object but as an object itself, or if we always perceive artistic signs in connection with real objects proceeding from the real object and not from the system of signs that constitutes the given work of art, we receive the impression Zich describes in connection with the perception of puppet theater. Let me cite some concrete examples. There is a panorama of the Battle of Lipany in Prague. In it some real things, weapons and other objects, which, as it were, remained on the battlefield, have been placed on the ground not far from the spectator, but relatively far from the spectator stands a picture on which things similar to the real objects lying on the ground have been painted. The "art" of the panorama consists in the fact that in certain cases special lighting prevents the spectator from discerning a real object from a painted object, and he perceives the painted ones as real. In other cases, for example when the lighting is off, this difference is clear. And then such a painted object in comparison with a real object affects one somewhat comically. Expressed in a paraphrase of Zich's words about puppets: "We perceive them [the objects] as painted, but they want us to perceive them as real objects." I stress that here—in the perception of the panorama according to its creator's intention—we proceed from the real objects lying on the ground. Further, let us imagine someone who does not perceive the painted apples of a picture as painterly signs but as real apples,· in his perception of the painted apples he will be proceeding from real apples. For example, he will put real apples next to the still life of the apples and will compare a real apple to the colored spots in the picture. The apple in the picture will evoke in him an impression of comicality, for in the opinion of someone who compares it to a real apple—not, of course, in the artist's view—the apple "wants us to perceive it as a real apple." Another possibility for perceiving pictures, if we paraphrase Zich, will be the following: "Pictures can be understood as living beings." Every statue and every picture "affects us mysteriously in this case, producing a feeling of terror in us." Such a perception is indeed possible. Let us recall Gogol's short story "The Portrait" in which Cartkov conceives a portrait as a living person. This evokes "a feeling of terror" in the artist, and he goes crazy. We know other cases in which a man falls in love with the portrait of a woman as if she were

60 / Peter Bogatyrëv

a living woman. For him the portrait stops being the sign of woman X or Y but is the woman herself. These are pathological cases. To perceive a picture and a statue in this way is unnatural both from an esthetic standpoint and from a commonsense standpoint. The perception of a system of artistic signs as living people or real things is not the only case that results in the perception of a work of art as something comic or close to what evokes "a feeling of uneasiness" or even "a feeling of terror." We get the same results if we perceive a sign of one particular system as the sign of a different system. We perceive poetic language as a natural and normal sign of poetry. Let us now imagine a man who in normal life suddenly begins to speak in verse. For example, at dinner he orders a bowl of soup in verse, or at a meeting of the botanical society he begins to debate something in verse. These two situations in which poetic language is perceived first as practical and then as scientific language will, of course, produce either an impression of comicality or one of something unnatural, incomprehensible, perhaps even "a feeling of uneasiness." Furthermore the signs of a foreign language are very often perceived in comparison with the signs of our native language as comical or unnatural, mysterious. Imagine what an odd impression would be produced in Czech society if someone, contrary to all expectations, were to begin speaking Chinese. Even lesser differences such as dialect speech and jargon, the mistakes of a foreigner who speaks our language, and children's speech are all perceived as comic if the perceiver starts from the standard language as the only correct one. And indeed foreigners7 speech, children's language, dialects, and jargon are all exploited as comic linguistic devices in anecdotes, comedies, vaudevilles, and so forth.3 The best evidence that a foreign, unintelligible language creates an impression of something mysterious when we perceive it seriously is the use of foreign, unintelligible, or barely intelligible languages in the services of various religions: Arabic, Old Hebrew, Latin, and others. In a magic act, conjuring formulae in a foreign language can even arouse "a feeling of terror." This also pertains to other signs insofar as we perceive them by proceeding from signs which are generally valid for us. Let us imagine that an African native begins to pay with his monetary signs— shells—while purchasing various things in our country. If we understood his monetary signs by starting from ours, we would consider his action either as "comic, grotesque" or as that of a madman which would involuntarily arouse "a feeling of uneasiness."

A Contribution to the Study of Theatrical Signs / 61 Let us take an example from religion. We can understand the dances of primitives during their prayers to their gods either as something comical or as something unintelligible, mysterious, abnormal, which arouses in us "a feeling of uneasiness," if we proceed from our own religious signs. Here is a real case that occurred in Russia. A Russian peasant girl once got into the city and strayed into the Catholic church. As soon as the organ, the sign of Catholic prayer accompanied by instrumental music, began to play, it was so grotesquely ridiculous to the peasant girl against the familiar background of the Orthodox service, in which no instrumental music is admissible in the church, that she started laughing, and she was removed from the church. We could multiply the examples of foreign signs, perceived in comparison with signs familiar to us, creating either a comical impression or "a feeling of uneasiness." 7 However, let us now return to the theater. Otakar Zich's basic error consists in his not conceiving the system of signs—the play of puppets—as such, sui generis, but in comparison with the play of live actors. If we too did not perceive the semiotic system of live actors on stage as such, not as a system of theatrical signs but as real life, then we too would get the same impression that Zich has in the case of the puppet theater. If we regarded the puppet theater—just like every other theater and ultimately like every art—only as a system of signs, not even a puppet would strike us as ridiculous, though its movements do not fully conform to the movements of living people. The facts themselves contradict Zich's conclusions about the comic impression of puppet plays, particularly in the Czech puppet theater. And in the repertoire of Czech folk puppeteers not only comic but also dramatic plays occupy an important place. Moreover, "awkward, wooden movements" are not an indication of the comicality of puppets. If one pays attention to the puppets that represent serious characters in Czech puppet theater—kings, princesses, and others—one sees that their movements are "more wooden" than those of the comic Kaspárek [Punch]. The movements of the serious characters are more puppetlike, more schematic; this is because they are put into motion by fewer strings than is Kaspárek. The puppets that represent serious characters in Czech folk puppet theater have thick wires sunk into their heads, and this fact makes them still more conventional than Kaspárek. The audience, even an adult audience, does not always consider a puppet performance a comic spectacle. Several years ago I attended

62 / Peter Bogatyrëv the play The Death of fan Zizka [Smrt Jana Žižky] at a summer puppet theater in Plzeň. This play was presented on October 28 as a ceremonial performance. The old puppeteer Karel Novák played the role of Zizka to an overcrowded theater. When he recited the monologue of the dying Zizka with great ardor, he prevented himself only with difficulty from bursting into tears. Neither the puppeteer nor the audience perceived this performance as comic. The facts do not support Zich's premise "that even our puppets would cause us to feel uneasy if they were as large as people; the mere reduction of their dimensions, of course, completely precludes this from happening." We know that in the Japanese puppet theater the size of the puppets is equal to the height of a living man. This is not a hindrance to comic scenes, and the spectators do not experience any "feeling of uneasiness." Finally, children hardly have "a feeling of uneasiness" in playing with dolls that are as big as a living child. It is natural that children respond to puppet theater more intensely than adults. Their training for interpreting the signs of puppet theater is on a higher level of development than that of adults who have already forgotten the meaning and emotional coloring of many of these signs. In practical life we have to learn the signs of military uniforms in order to recognize them, to distinguish quickly a captain from a lieutenant-colonel. The same holds true for art. In order to correctly perceive the signs of impressionist painting, we must recognize them. In art, as in religion, every sign is—in contrast to the cognitive spheres—emotionally colored. Accordingly we understand the protests of the Russian Old Believers who would not for anything allow the old signs of Byzantine icon painting to be changed into the new signs of Western painting. They would rather have sacrificed their lives than have had to change the old signs. When the painterly signs of the classical school were superseded, its adherents did not understand the signs of realistic art; these new signs struck them as antiesthetic. In precisely this way a person brought up on realist painting does not understand the signs of cubist painting. We must learn new artistic signs and teach them to others. In order for someone to comprehend the beauty of Oriental painting, he must want to study it, and he must really learn how to understand the signs of this painting. But if we perceive them only in comparison with the signs of our painting, against the background of our painting, they may strike us as ridiculous. This also holds true for Oriental music.

A Contribution to the Study of Theatrical Signs / 63 At the beginning I called Otakar Zich's observations extraordinarily interesting. Even now, after I have endeavored to illustrate the basic errors in his views of my examples, I maintain my opinion about the value of his remarks. Indeed, the facts support Zich's observations about the comicality of puppets in many cases. We see, for example, that all popular puppet theaters for adults have a tendency to become the epitomy of comic theater (the comic characters Hurvínek and Spejbl are most effective in Prof. Skupa's theater, Podrecco in the Italian theater, and the comic numbers in S. Obrazcov's theater in Russia). This can be explained by the fact that adults, unlike children, respond to puppets with difficulty, and they always perceive the signs of puppet theater almost entirely against the background of the theater of live actors. Therefore an adult audience often understands all the signs of puppet theater as something comical. The converging or diverging of different arts and the perception of an art against the background of real objects and people—these issues we encounter in the development of all arts. For example, a dialectical antinomy constantly occurs in the development of literature. On the one hand, literature develops at a constant distance from practical language, and, on the other, it attempts to approach it. This tendency can also be observed in painting, in music, and especially in theater, where the antinomy manifests itself particularly distinctly. What matters is only that the artistic signs are dominant in comparison with the extra-esthetic signs. But in a case like puppet theater, which the audience perceives against the background of theater with live actors, i.e., where a tension between two kinds of art occurs, the signs intrinsic to the art we are perceiving must predominate. And the process of the divergence and convergence of these two kinds of theater is absolutely normal. The signs of puppet theater predominate precisely when there is an audience of children, and therefore puppet theater achieves maxi m u m expressiveness with this audience. Not infrequently with adult audiences, the signs of theater with live actors dominate the perception of puppet theater, so that this audience is incapable of understanding all of its devices. Often, for example, this audience does not understand serious scenes. It resembles that Russian peasant girl who could not understand the signs of the religious instrumental music in a Catholic service as something serious and took it as a deformation, as something comical. Translated by John Burbank

64 / Peter Bogatyrëv NOTES 1. See E. A. Znosko-Borovskij, Russkij teatr nacala XX. stoletija [Russian theater at the beginning of the twentieth century] (Prague, 1925), p. 251. 2. Otakar Zich, "Loutkové divadlo, I: Psychologie loutkového divadla" [The puppet theater, I: The psychology of the puppet theater], Drobné uméní-Vytvarné snahy, 4, no. 1 (1923), 8-9. 3. See Karel Krejcí, "Jazyková karikatura ν dramatické literatuře" [Linguistic caricature in dramatic literature], Sbornik Matice slovenskej, 15 (1937], pt. 3—Literární historie, 387-405.

Structuralism in Esthetics and in Literary Studies Jan Mukařovský

Bibliographic Note: Jan Mukařovský, "Strukturalismus ν estetice a ve vědě o literatuře," Kapitoly ζ ceské poetiky, 2 vols. (Prague, 1941), vol. 1, pp. 13-32. Translated from the revised version in Kapitoly ζ ceské poetiky, 3 vols., 2nd ed. (Prague, 1948), vol. 1, pp. 13-28.

As the Prague School was reaching its maturity during the forties, the time had arrived for summations of its achievements and its basic principles. Jan Mukařovský (1891-1975)—the Circle's leading esthetician—took an active part in this effort. Among his works popularizing the tenets of the Prague School are a 1942 interview called "Structuralism for Everyone," a 1946 lecture at the Instituí des études slaves in Paris entitled "On Structuralism," and an essay on "The Conceptual Basis of the Czechoslovak Theory of Art" published in Poland in 1947.1 The article below also belongs in this group. Parts 2 and 3 first appeared independently as encyclopedia entries; "Structural Esthetics" and "Structural Literary Studies."2 Enlarged and amended, this essay introduced under its present title the two editions of the first volume of Mukařovský's selected writings (1941, 1948).3 The central theme of most of these articles was what differentiates structuralism from all other intellectual trends and schools. The Circle's members defined the identity of their own group in two complementary ways: historically and epistemologically. The historical account described structuralism in general; the epistemological described the particular Prague version. Applying a dialectic scheme to the last two centuries of intellectual history, Roman Jakobson wrote: "European romantic scholarship was an attempt at a general, global conception of the universe. The antithesis of romantic scholarship was the sacrifice of unity for the opportunity to collect the richest factual material, to gain the most varied partial truths. Our time seeks a synthesis: it does not wish to eliminate general meaning from its purview, a law-governed structure of events, but at the same time it takes into account the great reservoir of facts gathered during the previous epoch."4 Within this general postpositivist stance, the Prague School represents a particular epistemological position—a conceptual frame of refer-

66 / Jan Mukařovský ence suspended between a priori philosophical presuppositions and the data studied. What makes the Prague School different from the other groups claiming the label "structuralism" is the nature of its conceptual system— the interplay of the notions of structure, sign, and function within it.5 It is an irony of history that this essay on the merits of structuralism appeared in the second enlarged edition of Mukařovský's selected writings in the very year that marks the end of structuralism in Czechoslovakia. The Communist takeover of 1948 had established Marxism as the official dogma, and even though the Circle waited until the early fifties to dissolve itself "voluntarily," the year 1948 is its true end. As its former vice-chairman Roman fakobson wrote in July, 1949: "The terror of the Moscow authorities in the field of linguistics is for the present much more fraught with consequences than it was before the war. For now the whole scholarly life of the satellite nations is affected. During the past academic year the brilliant linguistic activities of Czechoslovakia began to be regimented on the Moscow model. The Prague Linguistic Circle had to declare and publish a series of repentances and to disavow its ties with Western scholarship and with its own past, to repudiate structuralism and to rally around the banner of dialectical materialism and Marr's doctrine. The reaction of the best Czech linguists to this constraint is just tragic."6 Literary studies and esthetics met the same fate, and Mukařovský, keenly aware of "the direction of the current theory of art,"7 quickly adjusted himself to the new situation. Citing the "great example and brotherly support of Soviet literary studies," he rejected structuralism as the product of a bourgeois scholarship "whose role in the service of the warmongers is to subvert the worker's consciousness by stirring a distrust of the power of knowledge, spreading individualism and subjectivism, concealing the insoluble inner contradictions of perishing capitalism."8 Whatever one might think of Mukařovský's motives here, a comparison of the output of his structuralist and Marxist days shows that capitalism provided the more stimulating environment for his scholarly thought. Since the language barrier kept most English-speaking critics from a firsthand acquaintance with Mukařovský's writings, his image in this country has followed the image of the entire Prague School. Thus, during the fifties and sixties when Prague structuralism was perceived exclusively as a linguistic affair, Mukařovský's only translated works were his essays on stylistics.9 Only in 1970—thirty-four years after its publication in Czech—was his seminal monograph on esthetic axiology made available to the English-speaking audience.10 And a full view of the range of Mukařovský's scholarship has opened up only recently upon the publication by Yale University Press of two volumes of his writings on literature, the other arts, and general esthetics: The Word and Verbal Art (1977) and Structure, Sign, and Function (1978). The first contains René Wellek's "Foreword"

Structuralism in Esthetics and in Literary Studies / 61 tracing the history of the reception of Mukařovský's work in this country and the second is introduced by my essay "Jan Mukařovský's Structural Aesthetics" with a selected bibliography of Mukařovský's writings appended.

NOTES 1. "Strukturalismus pro kazdého," Óteme, 4 (1942), 55-58; "O strukturalismu," Studie ζ estetiky (Prague, 1966), pp. 109-116, English translation by J. Burbank and P. Steiner in J. Mukařovský, Structure, Sign, and Function (New Haven, 1978), pp. 3-16; "O ideologii czechoslowackiej teorii sztuki," Mysl wspólczena, 2 (1947), 342-351. 2. "Strukturální estetika," Ottův slovník naucny nové doby (Prague, 19391940), vol. 6, part 1, pp. 452-455; "Strukturální věda o literature," ibid., pp. 457-459. 3. Kapitoly ζ ceské poetiky [Chapters in Czech poetics] (Prague, 1941); 2nd ed. (Prague, 1948). 4. "Spolecná rec kultury: Poznámky k otázkám vzájemnych styku sovétské a západní védy" [The common language of culture: Notes on the problems of contacts between Soviet and Western scholarship], Země sovětů, 4 (1935), 110. 5. For a more detailed discussion of the Prague structuralists' epistemological stance, see the last chapter in this book, "The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics." 6. "Notes on General Linguistics: Its Present State and Crucial Problems," mimeographed (New York, Rockefeller Foundation, July, 1949), p. 21. 7. See his article "Kam sméruje dnesní teorie umění?" [What is the direction of the current theory of art?], Slovo a slovesnost, 11 (1949), 49-59. 8. "Ke kritice strukturalismu ν naší literární vèdè" [On the critique of structuralism in our literary studies], Tvorba, 4 (1951), 964. 9. "Standard Language and Poetic Language," "The Esthetics of Language," "The Connection between the Prosodic Line and Word Order in Czech Verse," "K. Capek's Prose as Lyrical Melody and as Dialogue," in P. L. Garvin (ed.), A Prague School Reader on Esthetics, Literary Structure and Style (Washington, D.C., 1964), pp. 1730, 31-69, 113-132, 133-149. 10. Estetická funkce, norma a hodnota jako sociální fakty (Prague, 1936). English translation by Μ. Ε. Suino, Aesthetic Function, Norm and Value as Social Facts (Ann Arbor, 1970).

I The purpose of science 1 is the demarcation, description, and classification of the material with which a particular discipline works. The most abstract concerns of science are the general laws which govern the activity of the studied realm. These concerns may, at first glance, appear quite unrelated to philosophy. The recent period of positivism, in which the sciences were considered the most important area of theoretical effort, regarded science as the basis upon

68 / Jan Mukařovský which philosophy—the unification of human knowledge—must be constructed. At the peak of its development this view was a useful reaction against the romantic period subordinating the sciences to philosophy. Romantic philosophy very often made the claim to reach new scientific knowledge through deduction from a priori premises independent of the empirical data. In freeing science from the domination of philosophy, positivism eliminated this romantic onesidedness, but became equally one-sided. Just as science cannot be subordinated to philosophy, neither can it be made the basis of philosophy: their relation is reciprocal. The genetic fact that the individual disciplines split from philosophy only in the course of their development changes nothing. From the moment each discipline became an independent developmental series, it returned to the ontological and epistemological presuppositions provided by philosophy, but at the same time it exerted an influence on philosophy by the results of its investigation and by the development of its own methods. Structuralism is a scientific attitude that proceeds from the knowledge of this unceasing interrelation of science and philosophy. I say "attitude" in order to avoid terms such as "theory" or "method." "Theory" suggests a fixed body of knowledge, "method" an equally homogenized and unchangeable set of working rules. Structuralism is neither. It is an epistemological stance from which particular working rules and knowledge follow to be sure, but which exists independently of them and is therefore capable of development in both these aspects. The essence of structuralism can best be seen in the method by which it forms its concepts and works with them. Structuralism sees the conceptual system of every particular discipline as internally correlated. Every concept in it determines all the others and is in turn determined by them. A concept is defined unequivocally by the place it occupies in its system rather than by the enumeration of its contents, which constantly change as long as the term is in use. This correlation provides individual concepts with a "meaning" which exceeds their mere definition. Therefore the concept appears to structuralism as a dynamic means of creating a constantly renewed grasp of reality; it is always capable of internal restructuring and assimilation. The incorporation of the concept into the total system of a given discipline enables it to undergo changes without sacrificing its identity. For this reason structuralism much less than any other scientific movement is inclined to the hasty substitution of newer concepts for older ones. It is more interested in imbuing the traditional concepts with a continually renewed, living meaning. Because of their flexibility, concepts conceived in this way lend themselves to easy transpositions from the field of their origin

Structuralism in Esthetics and in Literary Studies / 69 to other disciplines. This flexibility fosters the interrelation and solidarity of the individual disciplines. But what does all of this mean for the relationship between science and philosophy? Structuralism provides even for this relationship. The internal correlation of the conceptual system and its dynamics always requires the active linking of science and philosophy by means of an epistemological stance upon which the conceptual system rests. There is no scientific method which is not constructed upon philosophical presuppositions. Intellectual movements which refuse to take these presuppositions into account merely surrender conscious control of their epistemological basis. Structuralism is aware of the danger such a surrender poses for the reliability of the concrete results of study. And this relationship works both ways. Very often the results of concrete study lead toward a change or even an essential revision of the epistemological presuppositions that gave rise to it—and the circle is closed. Structuralist research thus consciously and intentionally operates between two extreme boundaries: on the one hand, philosophical presuppositions, on the other, data. These two have a similar relation to science. Data are neither a passive object of study nor a completely determinant one, as the positivists believed, but the two are mutually determining. New material usually introduces change into the scientific methods which elaborate it. This also helps to explain the usefulness of transposing scientific concepts and methods from one discipline to another. On the other hand, in order for particular facts to become scientific material they must be related to the conceptual system of a particular discipline in a hypothetical anticipation of the results expected from the investigation. Facts in themselves are far from unambiguous: the very same facts can become the material of several different disciplines depending on the theoretical intention with which they are approached. Thus data, just like philosophical presuppositions, are simultaneously internal and external to a science. The facts a particular discipline uses as data are thus incorporated into its conceptual system. The internal dynamic interplay of this system is then projected into the data to reveal the interrelations that provide them with a unified meaning. Thus through the semantic unification of its data, a discipline arrives at a knowledge of structure. As a unity of meaning, a structure is more than a mere additive whole, arising through a mere aggregation of parts. 2 The structural whole signifies each of its parts, and each of these parts in turn signifies the whole. Another essential feature of the structure is its dynamic nature, a result of the fact that every individual component

70 / Jan Mukařovský has a particular function in the common unity which incorporates it and binds it into the structural whole. The dynamism of the structural whole is created by the energetic nature of these individual functions and their interrelations, which are prone to constant change. Therefore the structure as a whole is in constant motion, whereas the additive whole dissolves through change. Structuralism, whose main principles have been discussed here only in the most vague outlines, is not an "invention" of an individual but a necessary stage in the history of modern science. For this reason it has penetrated the various disciplines unequally. The individual sciences frequently achieve the structuralist stance independently of one another on the basis of particular knowledge which requires a revision of their epistemological standpoint. Though structuralism often appears heterogeneous or even disconnected in the various scientific fields, today we can speak of structuralism in psychology, linguistics, general esthetics, and the theory and the history of the individual arts, in ethnography, geography, sociology, biology, and perhaps other sciences. Further, in the process of scientific study, structuralism emphasizes regular systematic thought and the elaboration of already achieved results more than accidental "discoveries." In agreement with this postulate the individuality of each scholar recedes into the background in favor of a collaboration in which results achieved rapidly become common property and a directive for further studies. Thus even for the humanities the laboratory method known from the natural sciences is becoming the model. These circumstances also support the developmental flexibility of structuralism that we mentioned above. Scholars are bound only by their common epistemological basis, which does not hinder the development of different working methods or the free handling of generally accepted results of study. For this reason structuralism is never a mere tool mechanically applied to solve some problems and inappropriate for others. In the history and theory of the arts, for instance, not the artistic structure itself but its relations to other phenomena, especially psychological and social ones, are treated as structural. The scholar takes each of these developmental series as a structure. As a structure, it is linked to other series, themselves structures, which together form structures of a higher order. Every impulse originating in one series manifests itself in another as a fact of its immanent development. Thus, an impulse for change in art, even if it comes from the sphere of social action, can be instrumental only to the degree and in the direction necessitated by the previous stage in the development of art.

Structuralism in Esthetics and in Literary Studies / 71 With these introductory remarks in mind we can turn to two examples of the structural conception of science: structuralism in esthetics and in literary studies. Esthetics, because of the general nature of its problems, is close to philosophy, and insofar as it deals with general epistemological problems is a part of it, whereas literary studies, which is subordinate to esthetics, is a concrete discipline working directly with its own material. An examination of both should characterize structuralism fairly broadly, though only in a single area of study. II

Structural esthetics is an objectivist movement in that it assumes as its starting point (but not its only goal) the esthetic object, a work of art. Structuralism, however, does not conceive of it in a material sense but as an external manifestation of an immaterial structure, i.e., a dynamic balance of forces represented by its individual components. The dynamic quality of an artistic structure stems from the fact that some of its components preserve the state achieved by the conventions of the immediate past, whereas the rest change this state. In this way a tension arises which requires balancing through new changes in the artistic structure. Though every work of art is in itself a structure, the artistic structure is not a matter of the single work. It persists in time, passing in its flux from work to work and changing constantly in this process. The changes lie in the constant regrouping of the interrelations and the relative significance of the individual components. Those which are esthetically deautomatized, i.e., at variance with the previous state of artistic convention, come to the fore. The others, those governed by the preceding convention, form the background against which the deautomatization of the first group is reflected and perceived. It is natural that the individual components in these two groups exchange places in the course of development, which results in the regrouping of the whole. This is how artistic structure appears from the standpoint of structural esthetics. It is obvious that from this standpoint the distinction made between the form and content of an artistic work loses its significance. For example, in a painting, color is not only a sensory quality but also the vehicle of a certain indefinite meaning (which of course in some cases can even acquire considerable specificity, e.g., the medieval symbolism of colors and its effect on painting). On the other hand, the represented object is not only a "content" (i.e., a complex semantic unit) but also a "form," a component of the opti-

72 / Jan Mukařovský

cal structure of the painting which exerts an influence on both its semantic incorporation into the total theme and its placement in the particular segment of the pictorial plane, etc. Instead of the duality of content and form, structural esthetics chooses the opposition of material to artistic device (i.e., the material versus its artistic exploitation). The material enters the work from the outside and is essentially independent of its artistic exploitation: the pigment and canvas in painting; stone or metal in sculpture and architecture; the actor's personality in the theater; the word in poetry. (The status of the tone as the material of music is somewhat different, for though it is an acoustic phenomenon existing outside of art, its place in the tonal system ties it to this art.) But in contrast to material, the artistic device is inseparable from the artistic structure. Indeed, the device is a manifestation of the structure's relation toward its material. Another characteristic feature of structural esthetics is its orientation toward sign and meaning. As a sign mediating between an artist and a perceiver, the artistic work is a self-sufficient whole. From here—but in a sense different from Croce's consideration of art and language as the direct expression of individuality—esthetics approaches linguistics, the science of the most basic sign systems, human language. Because of its semiotic nature, the work of art does not fully correspond to the psychic state of its author, nor to that it evokes in the perceiver. The psychic states into which it enters always contain—besides the schemas provided by the artistic work— individual, unique elements which are accidental from the standpoint of the objective, transpersonal esthetic structure. The author's psychic state objectivized in the work of art as the author's "experience" is already a semantic unit firmly incorporated into the total system of artistic structure. Only in this way can we explain the rather frequent cases of the artistic "anticipation" of experience in which the author represents certain situations before he actually experiences them. Neither is "I"—the subject manifesting itself variously in every art and every work—identical to any concrete psycho-physical individual, not even to the author. It is a point in which the entire artistic structure of the work meets and in respect to which it is organized. Any personality can be projected into it— the perceiving as well as the authorial (the perceiver "experiencing" the work). This suggests how structural esthetics solves the problem of the individual in art. It has little interest in the genesis of the author. It is more concerned with the function of the individualizing factor in general, both in artistic activity and in the development of the artis-

Structuralism in Esthetics and in Literary Studies / 73 tic structure. The individualizing factor is not only the author as individual but also the perceiving individual, who frequently interferes actively with the development of art: for example, a museum director, librarian, or art dealer mediating between the arts and their audience. The individualizing factor need not be a single individual, but may be a group, as in the case of an artistic school, a generation, or even an entire collective, such as a nation. And the individualizing factor can be collective even in the perception of art, as when the audience reacts to a work of art in a uniform manner. Actors and stage directors are especially attuned to audience response, which may differ substantially from performance to performance. This response often affects their performance, the audience either "carrying" the actors or hindering them. This active participation of the audience as a "collective individual" is apparent in other arts as well. In theater it is merely felt more intensely. According to Baudelaire, "if the artist is contemptuous of his audience, they will pay him back in kind. The two are interdependent, affecting each other with an equal force."3 As far as literature is concerned, it is also well known to what extent the success or failure of a work with its audience can affect the poet's further creativity. For example, very often the popularity which a particular novel acquires causes the author to utilize the same methods or even the same figures and themes in other works. The collective individual is thus as real in the development of art as the single individual. Even an inanimate object can actively intervene as an individual factor. We have in mind a work of art which differs strikingly from the contemporary art and which exerts an influence upon its further development by virtue of this uniqueness. The uniqueness of a work is of course frequently quite relative. The features of the creation, which to the less informed perceiver appear unique, for the expert may be features of the entire period or genre. Because of its functional nature the relation between the creating individual and the transpersonal development of art is to a certain degree qualitatively predetermined by the previous development. A particular developmental stage of structure requires a particular modification of the individual for its change. The individuals modified in other ways are not desired at a given moment, and are therefore pushed aside from the developmental path. Here, however, the complexity is so great that sometimes—as in the nineteenth century—these artistes maudits, scattered in a seemingly isolated way along the main track of development, comprise a continuous line as significant as the mainstream, and possibly even more significant

74 / Jan Mukařovský for the future. Thus not even artistic talent is a matter of the isolated individual but is linked to the function ascribed to the individual by the objective development of the structure. The conception of an artistic work as a sign frees the work from unequivocal dependence on the author's personality and thus opens to esthetics a broad view of the problems of the individual in art. However, for structural esthetics the work of art is a sign not only vis-à-vis the individual but also vis-à-vis society. This means that the relation between art and society also requires rethinking. The development of an artistic structure is continuous and governed by an internal regularity. The artistic structure develops through a movement that is self-generated [Selbstbewegung]·, thus, we should never consider its developmental changes as unconditional or direct consequences of the development of society. Of course, every change in artistic structure is somehow initiated (motivated) from the outside, either directly by the development of society itself, or indirectly by the development of its cultural spheres (science, economics, politics, language, etc.), which are, to be sure, similarly determined by the social context. However, the mode in which this given external impulse is exploited and the direction of its effect on art will follow from presuppositions contained in the artistic structure itself (immanent development). The contact between art and society, its organization, and its products is continuous and it is contained in the very act of creation as both a fact and a requirement. The artist is a member of society. He is incorporated into a particular milieu (a social stratum, social position, etc.) and he necessarily creates for others, for the audience and hence for society as well. If there are cases when the artist explicitly rejects an audience, it is only because he requires another audience, either a future one (Stendhal) or an imaginary one (symbolists). The relation between art and society is not mechanically causal, and therefore it is impossible to claim that a particular artistic form unconditionally corresponds to a particular form of social organization. It is equally fallacious to deduce only certain components, especially content, from the social organization, for only in its entirety does the artistic structure enter into a relation with society. Empirically, the relation between art and society appears extremely changeable. For example, in the nineteenth century we see artistic movements such as realism, naturalism, impressionism, symbolism, etc., spread throughout Europe from nation to nation despite the fact that social organization in these individual nations was different and even developmentally disjoint. A society, either a social

Structuralism in Esthetics and in Literary Studies / 75 stratum or an entire nation, may "recognize" itself in a work which originated in an alien milieu much more distinctly than in its own artistic creations.4 And a particular state of artistic structure may survive the time which created it and serve as an expression of a new society different from the original one: for instance, old Christian art, which utilized the devices and themes of the art of antiquity This phenomenon can be explained only by the fact that just as in its relation to the individual, the work of art in respect to society is a sign which expresses the traits and condition of society but is not an automatic consequence of its state and organization. Even if there were no other factors to consider, it would be impossible to deduce unambiguously from a particular state of society the art that would correspond to it, or to know a society only from the art which it produced or accepted as its own. This of course does not mean that the relation between art and society is not important for the development of both. A society wants to exert influence upon social activity.5 If societal influence on art prevails, controlled art is the result. If, on the other hand, the intention of art to influence society prevails, we speak of engaged art. However, neither of these two extremes must always prevail. The consensus between art and society can be so perfect that their mutual tension disappears. In such cases the artistic production is usually incorporated into other human professions (cf. the medieval inclusion of artists in guilds). For this reason every time the desire for harmony between art and society is experienced, people begin to conceive artistic creation in the image of industrial craft. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the call to render all of life artistic was accompanied by the resurrection of the artistic crafts. The post-World War I period, which again yearned for harmony between art and society, applied to art the concepts of "consumption" and "social demand." In other periods, however, art is excluded from an active interrelation with society or even strives to isolate itself (l'art pour l'art-ism). But even then the inescapable correlation does not vanish and the very tendency toward separation becomes a significant symptom of the state of art and society. Social stratification, too, finds its analogue in the realm of art. Just as society is divided vertically into strata and horizontally into milieux, art is differentiated into "higher" and "lower" forms and coordinate forms. For example, in contemporary poetry the vertical scale extends from "literary" poetry to cabaret couplets or popular hits, while urban and rural literature are horizontally coordinated. Various literary movements and schools which originated in dif-

76 / Jan Mukařovský ferent periods but are simultaneously "present" for the reader or for poetic creation can also be conceived as horizontally coordinated. Currently in our country poetic movements beginning with the Máj School and ending with the current movements are coordinated in this way. However, there are in this respect significant differences among readers and writers according to their generation, education, profession, and so on. There is not only a similarity but also a correlation between the stratification of art and society. Particular social milieux are connected with particular "strata" of literature, and particular generations of perceivers and authors with particular artistic movements. But even this relation is semiotic rather than unequivocally causal. If a particular type of artistic production is characteristic for a particular social stratum or milieu, it does not mean at all that members of this stratum or milieu cannot be open to other types of artistic production, or on the other hand that the art linked to a particular stratum would be completely inaccessible to the members of other strata. More likely we would encounter here a reciprocal exchange of values, which is a powerful factor of artistic development. If, however, a particular artistic work migrates from its original social milieu, its function and meaning change substantially. Neither is the contact between art and society immediate. It occurs through the mediation of the audience, a group which is not strictly speaking a social formation. The unifying feature of this group is the fact that its participants are specially attuned to a particular kind of artistic sign (e.g., poetic, musical). Proof of this is the fact that a special education is necessary if an individual is to become part of the audience of some art. The semiotic nature of art is manifested not only in its relations with the external world but in the very organization of the artistic structure itself. We have already suggested that every component of an artistic work is a vehicle of a specific partial meaning. The aggregate of these partial meanings is the work, a complex semantic whole. The semiotic and semantic nature of the artistic work in its parts and as a whole becomes especially apparent in the temporal arts, i.e., arts whose perception occurs in time. Until the perception is concluded, until the work's structure is present as a whole in the consciousness of the perceiver, the perceiver cannot be sure about the sense and the meaning of the individual parts. Thus, for structural esthetics, everything in a work of art and in its relation to the environment appears as a sign and meaning. For this reason, structural esthetics is a part of the general theory of signs, or semiotics. The material with which structural esthetics works, like that of

Structuralism in Esthetics and in Literary Studies / 77 esthetics in general, is provided by all the arts. The set of arts comprises a structure of a higher order. It is therefore a basic methodological requirement that every problem, even if it seems to pertain to only a single art, must be comparatively applied to other arts as well. Very often an apparently limited question pertains to the theory of art in general. Thus a poetic figure (metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche) may have a considerable impact on the theory of the other arts, for example, painting or film. Some issues explicitly relate to all the arts: for example, the problem of esthetic function, value, and norm, the question of the relation between art and society, or the question of the sign in art. Each of these problems manifests itself differently in different arts and its general solution is impossible unless we take into account this heterogeneity, which in fact exposes the complexity of the problem. There are finally questions that spring directly from the interrelation of individual arts: for example, the question of the transposition of a theme from one art to another (for instance, from epic poetry to film or painting). The problem of book illustrating also belongs here, though the link between the illustration and the work illustrated need not be thematic only. The comparative theory of art is also concerned with problems of development which result from the fact that the individual arts, because of their participation in a structure of a higher order, enter into positive and negative relations. In every developmental stage these relations are specific; for example, lyric poetry is at times closer to music (symbolism), at other times closer to painting (parnassism). The contact of the same two arts can be determined by either art (the activity of poetry vis-à-vis music was apparent in the period of program music; the activity of music vis-à-vis poetry very soon after that, in the period of symbolism). Paradoxically, though not without justification, we might say that the history of each art can be described as the sequence of its transitory contacts with other arts. The fluctuation in the number of the arts throughout history also belongs among the developmental problems of the entire structure of the arts. This number may grow (e.g., film in the last few decades) or decline (e.g., fireworks, which in the eighteenth century were included among the arts). It is natural that each of these changes disturbs the distribution of forces in the total artistic structure. Thus, art as a whole is in constant movement and the histories of the individual arts must not neglect this essential fact. For there is no sharp distinction in the complexity of the developmental process between activity in an individual art and that in all the arts. The smooth transition between these two poles can be illustrated in dramatic art,

78 / Jan Mukařovský each component of which is partially or completely its own art (acting, poetry, music, stage design, lighting, etc.—and above all stage direction). Structural esthetics thus cannot solve any of its problems without a comparative consideration. For this reason we must augment what we have said above. The essence and goal of structural esthetics is to elaborate the system and method of the comparative semiotics of the arts. We must add too that the comparative interest of structural esthetics is not totally exhausted by art itself, for the esthetic, as one of the basic attitudes man assumes toward reality (besides the practical and the theoretical), is potentially present in every human action and potentially contained in every human creation. For these reasons structural esthetics scrutinizes the constant interaction among the three phenomenal spheres: the artistic, the esthetic, and the extra-artistic and extra-esthetic, and the reciprocal tensions that affect their development (cf., e.g., the penetration of art into everyday life in the sphere of advertisements, clothing, and sports, and the penetration of everyday life into art: for example, in architecture or in engaged poetry). Though structural esthetics originated recently, its roots can be found in the relatively distant past, especially in esthetics, then philosophy, and finally linguistics, up to now the most elaborated branch of semiotics. An important antecedent was provided by the Czech adherents of Herbartian esthetics Josef Durdík, Otakar Hostinsky and his pupil Otakar Zich, whose later works in particular came very close to a structuralist conception. In addition, the local Czech development was stimulated and methodologically deepened through its contact with Russian formalism, although it superseded formalism in conceiving the structure as a set of signs. The modern German esthetician Broder Christiansen had an important effect on early structuralism. And numerous theoretical expressions by artists, beginning in poetry with symbolism, in painting with impressionism, and in architecture with functionalism, were also crucial. The philosophical foundations were provided most importantly by Hegel's philosophy (the dialectic conception of the internal contradictions in the structure and its development), and Husserl's and Bühler's propositions about the structure of signs in general and linguistic signs in particular. In the field of art history the work of Max Dvořák revealed the epistemological import of the artistic structure of the visual art work. And in linguistics structural esthetics found support in the works of Anton Marty, Vilém Mathesius, Antoine Meillet, Ferdinand de Saussure and the Geneva School in general, and Josef Zubaty. At its present stage the development of structural esthetics is

Structuralism in Esthetics and in Literary Studies / 79 a phenomenon of Czech scholarship which has partial analogues in other nations as well but which nowhere else has achieved an equally systematic consideration of its methodological basis. In particular, nowhere else were the questions of artistic structure conceived as questions of sign and meaning. III

As an example of a special theory of art that is structurally conceived we will examine the main principles of the structural theory of literature. Since the theory of literature is a branch of esthetics, everything said about the structural study of art in the previous section is valid here as well, and does not have to be repeated. Until now the structural study of literature has been elaborated more systematically than that of any other art. The questions of sign and meaning fundamental to esthetic structuralism manifest themselves in it most palpably. And questions regarding artistic material are of special relevance for the structural theory of literature since the material of poetry is language, the most important of all our semiotic systems in that it underlies the attitude of man—the social creature—toward the totality of nature and culture. Poetic language is a functional linguistic form differing from the rest by virtue of the fact that it uses linguistic means to create an esthetic self-orientation and not to communicate. But since these means themselves come largely from communicative language and since poetic language in turn exerts an influence upon communicative language, structural literary studies deal not only with poetic language but also with its relation to communicative language as a whole and to its individual functional aspects. Of these, special attention must be paid to the standard literary language, with whose development poetic language is intimately bound. This is the reason for the close link between structuralist literary theory and functional linguistics, which, as a matter of fact, made possible the structural study of literature. The status of poetic language within the structure of poetic work is central to such a degree that all the problems of literature—not only poetry, but prose as well—are reflected in poetic language. For example, even the history of the novel or short story, if it is to grasp the development of these genres as a continuous series governed by the internal regularity of the poetic structure, must necessarily locate the starting point of the development in a semantic structure which has its roots in language. This structure is especially linked to the sentence, the basic semantic construction,

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and to its development. Further, the generic differentiation of literature is more distinctly projected into its material than in the other arts. Here genre explicitly appears as a complex set of many varied devices (not merely as a particular thematic sphere), and linguistic components significantly manifest themselves in this structure. Especially closely related to language is poetic rhythm, whose problems cannot be theoretically solved without taking into account the nature of the language which provides its prosodic basis. The interrelation between poetic rhythm and the linguistic system is not as direct as such older metrists as Josef Král supposed, i.e., that only a single prosody would be appropriate for a given language. Even this relation evolves, and the prosodic basis is susceptible to changes. Within the poetic work, rhythm operates by penetrating the entire structure and mastering all of its components, beginning with sound and ending with the most complex semantic unit, theme. Proceeding from this premise, literary study conceives of rhythm as an inseparable component of the structure of a poetic work as well as a powerful initiator of its development. The subjects participating in the artistic process are more closely linked to the material in literature than in the other arts. They can be directly presented by linguistic means (the personal and possessive pronouns of the first person, verbal first person, etc.). Similarly the realization of the subject in the epic or dramatic work, the "persona" or "character," is fundamentally linked to the language through his or her name, which creates an axis around which the character crystallizes. In this respect the literary subject is a component of the linguistic problems of the literary work and the character belongs among the problems of poetic designation, i.e., the actual application of the linguistic sign. Thus, we arrive at questions of meaning which are not limited to the meaning immediately connected with the linguistic sign (the word, sentence) but which are closely connected with language even when it pertains to higher semantic units (the theme and its components). Of the semantic problems in literature the most important are those which pertain to designation, contexture, and their polarity. Once these issues are elaborated in detail by the theory of literature, the results gained can be used for the elucidation of the semantic structure of the other arts, especially painting and film. Literature also provides its structural theory with rich possibilities for the study of the philosophical significance of the artistic work. This is because it is a thematic art and because its material is language. It is possible here simultaneously to investigate and juxtapose the various modes in which the poet's Weltanschauung manifests itself in the work. His view is formulated not only directly in

Structuralism in Esthetics and in Literary Studies / 81 the intellectual content of the work but also indirectly and figuratively in its theme and implicitly in the selection and application of its expressive devices. The problems in the methodology of the history of literature appear especially complex. In music theory, for example, the immanent principle (i.e., the self-movement of structure in development) is almost self-evident because of the nonthematic nature of this art and its relative separation from a practical context. In painting, which because of its fundamentally thematic nature is more intimately incorporated into the general cultural context than music, the circumstances of immanent developmental study are much more complex. The path of this study in the theory of literature is the least easy, but is, precisely for this reason, the most fruitful. Its complexity results from the fact that in literature still another component must be added to the theme. This is the intellectual (reflexive) component which, in addition to the link between literature and the general cultural development, incorporates literature into intellectual history. Because of its complexity, the methodology for the structural history of literature is incomplete, though its main principle is already clear. There have been attempts to construct a history of the lyric on the basis of the development of poetic rhythm and a history of epic prose on the basis of the development of sentence structure. The purpose is to test the structural capacity of the elements suited to becoming the axes of a structural history of literature. Such a history would not merely limit itself to the internal development of a poetic structure but would understand it structurally—i.e., as a reciprocal relation between the developing literature and other cultural phenomena. Thus the structural theory of literature, in its attempt at reconstructing a literary-historical methodology, does not wish to ignore previous problems but to conceive of this study from the unified position of the developing literature itself. Characteristic of the structural study of literature is the way in which it views the relation between a poet's work and his or her life. In contrast to the current tendency to interpret the work as a direct reflection of the poet's life, especially his inner life, structuralism holds that artistic creation is essentially semiotic, so that the relation between a poet's work and life cannot be a one-sided dependency, but is rather an interrelation. Here we can even speak of a certain polarity, in the sense that life conceived as an artistic fact appears as the polar opposite of a poet's creation, while the work conceived as a fact of life appears as the unrealized pole of the poet's life. These are the main features which distinguish the structural study of literature from all other theories of the individual arts.

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Those which distinguish it from other theoretical movements, but which are common to all of structural esthetics, have already been outlined in the previous section. As for the genesis of the structural theory of literature, its elaboration into a coherent system characterizes the effort of Czech scholarship, although we can find kindred phenomena in other studies of literature as well. The roots from which Czech literary-theoretical structuralism grows are often historical, especially as far as the study of poetic language is concerned. Josef Jungmann was already aware of the specific nature of poetic language, and theoretical interest in it has continued ever since. The two Czech estheticians Josef Durdík and Otakar Zich placed poetic language at the center of their interest, despite their original training in the natural sciences. The father of modern Czech literary criticism, Frantisek X. Salda, based some of his most important analyses of individual poetic personalities on their linguistic expression. Czech metrical study, especially in the hands of its most systematic investigator, Josef Král, is keenly sensitive to the link between poetic rhythm and language. And one of the greatest Czech linguists, Josef Zubaty, in an extensive study dealt with the poetic language of Lithuanian and Latvian folk songs. In the last few decades, some literary historians too—before World War I, especially Arne Novák—have turned to the question of poetic language. Thus the road had already been prepared for the development of the structuralist study of literature by the Prague Linguistic Circle after World War I, a study which also proceeded from poetic language but which did not limit itself to poetic language, instead applying linguistic methods to the entire realm of literary studies. Translated by Olga Hasty NOTES 1. The Czech noun veda (rendered here as "science") is the generic name for any systematic pursuit of knowledge whether in the humanities or sciences—translator's note. .2. See Wilhelm Burkamp, Die Struktur der Ganzenheit (Berlin, 1929). 3. "Salon de 1859," Curiosités esthétiques (Paris, 1873), p. 257. 4. See Emil Hennequin, Études de critique scientifique (Paris, 1889). 5. "The audience, which loves its own image passionately, is more than fond of the artist it eagerly commissions to represent it," Baudelaire, Curiosités esthétiques, p. 322.

The Semantic Analysis of Philosophical Texts Ladislav Rieger

Bibliographic Note: Ladislav Rieger, "K sémantickému rozboru filosofických tekstů," Slovo a slovesnost, 7 (1941), 180-191.

Given the broad interdisciplinary orientation of the Prague School, it was natural that philosophers should be invited to speak to the Circle. During the thirties, Carnap, Husserl, Landgrebe, and Utitz—to mention only the more famous speakers—presented lectures on recent developments in philosophy and their own current research. Two lectures by the prominent Czech philosopher Ladislav Rieger (1890-1958), who authored Problems in the Cognition of Reality and The Idea of Philosophy,1 continued this tradition, despite the difficult conditions of the German occupation and the war. Rieger's first address, whose English translation is presented here, was delivered on March 31,1941, and a second entitled "On the Relation between Phenomenology and Structuralism" was presented on April 13,1942.2 "The Semantic Analysis of Philosophical Texts" for the first time brought two important schools of contemporary thought to the structuralists' attention. One of these was Charles Morris's theory of signs, which to some extent followed in the semiotic tradition of American pragmatism. Prague School semiotics drew its inspiration from Saussure's sémiologie and the contemporary investigations of such German theorists as Husserl and Bühler, and seemed virtually unaware of similar developments in the United States. The paths of Morris and the Prague School crossed only once at the 1934 Congress of Philosophy in Prague, where Mukařovský delivered his path-breaking paper "L'art comme fait sémiologique."3 Interestingly, this brief contact had no effect on either party. The cross-pollination of these two semiotic traditions came about only in the mid-fifties when Roman fakobson—at that time already a professor at Harvard—applied the Peircean typology of signs to the structural analysis of language.4 The second school of thought introduced in Rieger's lecture was existentialism. In an article on the general issues of ontology written about the

84 / Ladislav Rieger same time as his lecture at the Circle, Rieger characterized his philosophical quest as "closest to Heidegger in the posing of problems and to Jaspers in its result."5 This article contained a critique of the traditional Husserlian phenomenology from the standpoint of existential philosophy To HusserTs transcendental idealism, which reduces phenomena to their infinitely repeatable essences, Rieger juxtaposed the historicity and uniqueness of being as propounded by the existentialists. For Rieger the opposition of repeatability to uniqueness was the basic antinomy of every philosophical interpretation. Insofar as the special nature of the philosophical text requires that we take into account its pragmatic dimension— the unique existential situation of the author—the text contains a paradox: it is a representation of something unique and unrepeatable through general and repeatable signs. The paradox of representation exceeds the interpretation of philosophical texts. It is inherent in the very possibility of philosophizing, for "transcendentally, philosophy exceeds logic and language in its problems, although for the expression of this situation . . . [it] depends on language."6 In today's Franco-American textual criticism a somewhat murky distinction between structuralism and poststructuralism is being drawn. One commentator has recently observed that the advance of poststructuralism rests in an epistemological critique of the notion of the sign, a deconstruction of the concept of representation, and, in general, a higher degree of philosophical awareness.7 In such a case Rieger's writings clearly exhibit a poststructuralist orientation within the Circle. The mutual exclusivity of what today is called structuralism and poststructuralism was not accepted in Prague School thinking. NOTES 1. Problémy poznání skutečnosti: Se stanoviska Kantova a Friesova kriticismu a empirické psychologie [Problems in the cognition of reality: From the standpoint of Kant's and Fries's critique and empirical psychology] (Prague, 1930); Idea filosofie I. Cesta k primátu idee [The idea of philosophy I: The path to the primacy of idea] (Prague, 1939). 2. See Slovo a slovesnost, 7 (1941), 168, and ibid., 8 (1942), 222-223. For a list of lectures delivered at the Circle, see note 1, editor's introduction, "Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists in Prague 1929," in this book. 3. Actes du huitième Congrès international de philosophie à Prague, 2-7 septembre, 1934 (Prague, 1936), pp. 1065-1072. English translation by W. Steiner, "Art as a Semiotic Fact," in J. Mukařovský, Structure, Sign, and Function (New Haven, 1978), pp. 82-88. Charles Morris delivered his paper "The Concept of Meaning in Pragmatism and Logical Positivism" in a different section of the Congress. 4. According to Elizabeth Bruss, Jakobson referred to Peirce as early as 1957 in his article "Shifters, Verbal Categories and the Russian Verb," "Peirce and Jakobson and the Nature of the Sign," in R. W. Bailey, L. Matejka, and P. Steiner (eds.), The Sign: Semiotics around the World (Ann Arbor, 1978), p. 94.

The Semantic Analysis of Philosophical Texts / 85 5. "Příspěvek k problematice ontologie: Čas—okamzik—vècnost jako struktury bytí" [A contribution to the problems of ontology: Time—moment—eternity as the structures of being], Česká mysl, 37 (1941), 19. 6. See p. 100 below. 7. J. V. Harari, "Critical Factions/Critical Fictions," in J. V. Harari (ed.), Textual Strategies: Perspectives in Post-Structuralist Criticism (Ithaca, N.Y., 1979), p. 29.

I

1. Before giving illustrations of semantic analysis, we should first explain the word "semantic" and various methods of analysis. The word "semantic" is of Greek origin: sēma in prose and sēmeion in poetry mean "sign," that is, something that stands for (signifies) something else. In the narrow sense of "semantic," we talk about language as a system of signs because "every speech act signifies, i.e., means, something," as Aristotle once said. In the broad sense, we are not so concerned with human language as with the function of the sign. Other phenomena as well can stand for something: for example, the cries of animals, or indirectly, natural phenomena (smoke means fire; fever means illness), or the interpretations of the utterances of other beings (through myths, fairy tales, folk-beliefs). To such a concept of language belong as well isolated disconnected outcries, facial expressions, and gestures (e.g., of the deaf and dumb), all artificial signals (including traffic signs), and, of course, the so-called "languages of art" (visual, musical, verbal). It is apparent that these various functions of language exist not merely to "convey information about something or to report something" (i.e., the apophantic function) as Aristotle also knew (and illustrated by the case of prayer). We must recognize also the emotive function which is evident in art and has its importance, as we shall see, even in philosophy. 2. The theory of signs is of ancient origin, though it has achieved a full development only in very recent times. But the ancient efforts are not without importance.1 In the Middle Ages, these were elaborated by the Scholastics, though without sound logic or clarity. The discussion often depended on biased analogies (for example, St. Augustine viewed the relation between the sign and meaning as analogous to the relation between the body and soul), and more importantly, grammar was merged with logic. But after all, only modern logic has been established on a purely formal basis, and so-called "semiotics" or "semiology," or more precisely, its logical elaboration, dates from very recent times and has not yet been perfected by any means.

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Linguistics has, to be sure, its own semiotic studies distinct from modern logic, studies that are in a certain sense more advanced. I have in mind not only basic works and language models such as Bühler's Axiomatik der Sprachwissenschaften,2 but more importantly the works of the Prague Linguistic Circle. An advance on Bühler's concept of the isolated sign is the structural concept of language as a sign system that, only as a whole, gives meaning to its constituent parts according to their developmental position in it, and that takes into account the tension between the existing language and the specific needs of expression. Semantic analysis is, then, not static but dynamic, and the system of signs represents not merely a completed whole of fixed meaning which is simply at one's disposal, but also a living reality which constantly changes. To be sure, these aspects of language are very complex; they reflect virtually the entire cultural history of mankind. It will be useful, then, to call attention to the abstract analytic method which modern logic uses in analyzing language. Even though the results may appear at times too primitive for advanced linguistics, the method used by modern logic makes it possible to work on specialized tasks and provides a clear and precise picture. And even here the holistic viewpoint is becoming more and more accepted. In contrast to the severity of a purely formal analysis of the language of signs suitable for the physical sciences (e.g., the logical syntax of Carnap), Charles Morris has greatly enriched semiotics as we shall see, although he too analyzed language primarily with a view to the needs of science. 3. In his study of the principles of sign theory Morris uses the following terminology. "Semiotics" is the science of signs. The process in which something functions as a sign is called "semiosis." Here Morris distinguishes four factors: (1) the sign vehicle, i.e., the carrier of the sign, (2) the sign itself (signum), (3) that which is signified (designatum), and finally (4) the one who uses the sign either as expression or interpretation. Accordingly, he claims, it is possible to abstract first of all the purely formal relations of sign vehicles to each other (with no account of their meaning, or of the persons using them); this is the logical syntax of language. Second, it is possible to abstract the relations of signs to what they signify (without regard to the act of their use); this is semantics. Third, it is possible to study the relations of signs to the persons who use them (these relations are primarily of a psychological nature); this is the pragmatic dimension of semiotics. These are the three basic dimensions or levels of "semiotics." 4. The syntactic dimension or level is arrived at by abstracting not only from the behavior of those who use the sign but also from the

The Semantic Analysis of Philosophical Texts / 87 meaning which is automatically associated with the sign, that is to say, from the semantic relation (signum—designatum). What is left are the purely formal relations of signs arranged in sentences, that is, their original ordering and their permissible transformations or operations. These are permissible in the sense that the sentence remains a logical sentence. This is like calculating with algebraic symbols of unspecified meaning, in order to make possible the establishment of syntactic rules, i.e., laws of arrangement and rearrangement of sign vehicles. It is evident that the so-called validity, correctness, of mathematical (and logical) operations and propositions does not depend upon who uses them or whether someone does use them or not, nor upon what they might mean for someone. For example, the validity of the Pythagorean theorem does not depend at all on its historical origin or on the frequency of its use, or even on whether its usage is correct. Its validity does not depend on how someone comprehends (interprets) it, or even on whether something was meant by it at all. In a calculation with algebraic symbols [a1 + b2 = c2) it is not necessary to be concerned with geometrical meaning, e.g., "the sum of the squares of the sides is equal to the square of the hypotenuse in the Euclidian system," or to be concerned with the whole numbers which correspond to the equation. This "sentence" is merely a starting point with further operational possibilities. Like a game of chess, it has an initial position and from that position certain operations (moves) are permissible. It is not necessary to have chessmen or a chessboard, and totally unnecessary to have in mind the original meaning of the chess game (king, etc.); it would be sufficient to use letters and numbers as sign vehicles; it ends up being a game of sign vehicles. Syntax is nothing more than the aggregate of rules of such a game. These rules can be revealed most easily if we simplify the whole problem by abstracting out of it all the semantic components and uses of the signs. As we know, it was only in this way that mathematics achieved its precision, and logic strives for this precision in the same way. Just as a mathematical game or the interplay of operators can be interpreted or applied to physical reality, so can logical syntax. The explication of this fact would lead us far into epistemology; here it will be sufficient merely to state the fact. Through the logical syntax of language we find specific basic forms and specific rules of their possible arrangements (into sentences). On the one hand, we obtain the rules of pure syntax, in a formal sense valid for language in general, and, on the other hand, rules of a particular language, so-called descriptive syntax. 5. This logical syntax is the ultimate abstraction, and hence the ultimate impoverishment of human language, and therefore it cannot

88 / Ladislav Rieger in and of itself satisfy us. It is, as it were, a sort of framework of formal possibilities which is, of course, unusable without the semantic and pragmatic dimensions. The latter levels cannot be removed from the real use of language, but can only be temporarily abstracted for the sake of a better perspective and simplification of analysis. Even as we talk about syntax, these other aspects are automatically functioning: indeed it is we who speak about syntax and mean something by it or abstract it from something, and not the syntax itself. For our analysis of philosophical texts, the syntactic analysis itself has relatively minor significance, and we mention it only in passing. Likewise, we must omit the special pragmatic analysis (of situations)—though it is very important for interpretation proper—merely pointing out how a "semantic" analysis is always contiguous with a pragmatic analysis and necessarily leads to it. Philosophical texts are the result of a continuous tension between the situation of philosophizing and the system of language that is directly or indirectly (paradox, antinomy) reflected in the text. But a special analysis of philosophizing itself is a major task that, even in outline, exceeds both our present goal and the bounds of this article. The subject of our investigation is, as the title announces, a "semantic" analysis. Therefore, other constituents and dimensions, though they form a functional unity, must remain unilluminated in the background. In analyzing philosophical texts, it quite evidently is impossible to divorce their proper meaning from the situation, and, therefore, "semantic" abstraction is not adequate, because the "designatum" is not some ready-made given object, but is realized for us only in the activity of the subject, at least as far as its meaning for us is concerned. This is always the case when we are dealing not with a simple factual description but with an appeal to somebody to actualize something anew from the original situation. Therefore the sense of philosophical texts is not merely "apophantic," or is so only conditionally. The text should give an impulse to the interpreter to enter an inner state in which designations will be analogous to the original. This is the sense of philosophical communication. We use the word "sense" in the teleological meaning, instead of "goal," "aim," "intention." Otherwise we shall not use that word in conjunction with the analysis of meaning, because of its polysemy. The structural unit for semiotic analysis for us is "meaning." 6. Modern logic investigates the semantic relation proper (signum—designatum) for individual signs apart from pragmatic factors; in so doing it relinquishes the dynamics of semantic tension and obtains thereby certain rules for the simplest, or better, simplified, cases. To be sure, the subject matter of study in linguistics is, in this

The Semantic Analysis of Philosophical Texts / 89 respect, far more complex. This is because modern logic focuses on the language of the "exact sciences," so that there is no need to be concerned either with development (historical) or with pragmatic relations, as demonstrated in the Pythagorean sentence; such a semantic interpretation is purely objective, intersubjective, transpersonal. Modern logic has dealt primarily with syntax, and there mainly with its applicability, i.e., to purely operational semantics. Such a semantics, consequently, is elaborated only as far as needs require, and pragmatics even less, at least in the works available to us at present. Pragmatic relations are investigated only behavioristically. The above-mentioned work of Morris must be taken with this qualification; nevertheless, his formal explanations of certain fundamental concepts must not be underestimated. Especially where questions of the syntax of language (I) about language (II) are concerned, it is useful to know the formal possibilities of language in which a second language, which is the object of analysis, is treated, that is, primarily its syntax. The notion of the sign vehicle can help us to understand even very complex relations; and thus the methods of abstract semiotics are not limited to the service of so-called "physicalism" (the Vienna School). 7. Language, as we have already pointed out, does not serve only the referential communication of a statement of what is, although such communication is one of the most important functions of language. The semantic analysis of this particular function yields approximately the following result: the signum always has a designatum, but does not always denote an object (denotatum). The sign can refer to something that "is not" in the usual sense, or that is not here and now: e.g., "nothing," zero, - , √-1, a winged horse, a square circle, etc. Indeed, if we talk about sign vehicles (Language II), then these are "denotata" in the sense of physical objects. It is not always easy to distinguish the two different objects being spoken about, as in the case of "the Vltava flows through Prague," and "Vltava has six letters." Furthermore, in referential language, signs are used either generally (universally), as "something" or "thing," or characterize various objects (e.g., "table"), or, finally, may denote only a specific thing ("this table here"). Here we can recognize different semantic functions: the deictic function (index of a certain thing), which may be carried out even by a gesture, a road sign, or an arrow, as distinct from the characterizational function. A sign which characterizes a thing can be its icon (photograph, map, model), or only a symbol. The icon has a certain common structure with the thing which it represents, whereas the symbol is more abstract (letters, ciphers, or even a flag, etc.). Between the symbol and the icon lies, for instance,

90 / Ladislav Rieger the hieroglyphic character. The difference between icon, symbol, and index rests in their respective semantic functions. A concept is, from the standpoint of semantics, a rule which determines the use of signs that characterize objects (either generally, or specifically, or uniquely). 8. The question of how we attain unambiguous understanding in ordinary speech leads us from semantics to "pragmatics." How do we know, or how do we assure ourselves, that we mean the same thing, e.g., "this cup here"? On the one hand we can point to the thing (semantic indexical relationship) or more exactly characterize the thing, especially temporally and spatially with reference to a possible perception, to special behavior, that is to say, to acts joined to intersubjective perceptual factors. Thus we come to an understanding in principle about whether "this cup" is here or not (whether the waiter took it away), even when each of us individually sees it in a different way, from a different perspective, in a different light, in a different emotional mood. We agree, then (with the exception of illusion and hallucination), about the existence of the object referred to, and, consequently, about the unambiguous semantic relationship of the signum to the denotatum. Agreement is, to be sure, limited to a certain intersubjective aspect "of the same thing." In everyday life usually there is nothing more at stake; but when there is, then we often face misunderstandings and conflicts. More precisely, we cannot talk about the identity of various experienced objects, but only about the identity of a definite semantic, temporal-spatial relationship of a sign vehicle, as a physical object to a physical object, e.g., a sound to a thing. 9. There are greater difficulties, as we have already said, where the relationship is not only a spatio-temporal one, but where the object is only temporal, e.g., a musical melody; the greatest difficulties occur where the relationship is not apprehended by the senses (feeling, mood, emotion, change of attitude). Here we are helped mostly by the context in which the whole situation of the subject about w h o m we are concerned is reflected, insofar as we are familiar with analogous situations. Therefore, in texts where it is not a question of simple spatially referential semantic relationships, considerable attention is devoted to a characterization of the situation or to evoking a similar state of feeling and emotion in the reader—a feature made familiar by "psychological" novels, and the like. Nevertheless, we are dealing only with general relations or notions expressed in language, which are semantically restricted by the context, while, strictly speaking, what is purely personal, particular, and unique in the experience is never transferable. This holds true even for such a sim-

The Semantic Analysis of Philosophical Texts / 91 ple experience as the perception of color: when another person describes to us "that beautiful shade of red right there," it is never possible to know if we are experiencing the same thing; or at least it is never possible to verify this. 10. The noncommunicable occurs, consequently, even under ordinary circumstances; it has a greater significance in unique or socalled boundary situations, with which philosophy must often deal. There are states of consciousness that are abstract and intersubjective (nonpersonal) about which objective scientific knowledge is concerned. There are, on the other hand, states of consciousness that represent a special turning point, a new form of subjectivity, a new historical stage of philosophical knowledge. These states make possible various, at times new, methods, and we can to a certain extent characterize them typologically. But the experienced situation always has something unique, historically given, and nonrepeatable despite all possible analogies, especially where it is a matter of a boundary or exceptional situation, and philosophy, to the extent that it takes advantage of such situations, or prepares for them, or leads to them, shares this uniqueness (e.g., the death of Socrates—see the conclusion of this article). Interpretation thus must proceed from this situation to the extent that we are at all able, via empathy, sympathy, or intuition, to grasp it through analogy. Context, which has the power to make that possible for us, is in theory virtually everything that can have a relationship or has had a relationship to the situation in which the given text was written. Furthermore, if there is no possibility of an analogous situation, it is impossible to illuminate what was originally meant. Situation is here a whole complex of external and internal life conditions. Thus it would probably be difficult to come to terms with a person of a different period of civilization, e.g., the "medieval," concerning the sense of a text, speaking even indirectly, about the conditions of modern transportation, even if it were possible for us to show it to him. Perhaps he would regard it all as the work of the devil, and unless he himself possessed a fantasy of the same type (i.e., a certain world view), he would not understand our internal situation. However, if we were able to awaken understanding in him, that is, a feeling for or intuition about our view, this would amount in fact to a revolution, a transformation of his internal situation and posture toward the world, and that man would be, at least in intention, "modern" (as, for example, Bacon in The New Atlantis, his almost Vernean novel); only then could he understand many modern texts where all such things are simply presupposed as background. Conversely, we must often achieve in ourselves such transforma-

92 / Ladislav Rieger tions or internal conversions, if we wish to penetrate older texts in philosophy or other areas. In the whole history of philosophy, even in the most recent history, far greater changes are required than those involved in the most diverse changes of historical perspectives, which still remain grounded in a common perceptual reality In the case of the philosophical text, that ground is abandoned, and in many ways it becomes a crossing into the unknown that each person undertakes at his own risk. Because it is often a question of a new, that is, of a less common, situation, philosophy is not so simply communicable or even learnable as the objective sciences are. Philosophical texts are not in the literal sense descriptions of existing objects, but rather cryptic directions for a special activity of thought, invitations to the realization of an analogous situation in which what the original thinker meant would be valid, and in which under the impulse of the text the transformations of a particular outlook or attitude would become apparent (by intuition) to us. 11. Let us look at some examples in which a syntactic-semantic analysis—without regard to the situation—is insufficient, for the reasons just mentioned above, for obtaining an unambiguous interpretation of philosophic texts. As always, and in the broadest context, a variety of interpretations is possible, as is evident from the emergence of several philosophical schools, concurrently or subsequently, all based on the "same doctrine." For that reason also, "outmoded" theories are revived through new interpretations, in the light of a new situation, and these interpretations again create new situations. Language is much more capable of handling the usual situation of everyday life than of adequately demonstrating changed situations, or even of providing a direction for a change in thinking that is required for the transformation of a point of view, for the creation of a new situation. For example, it is difficult for us to comprehend and describe even abstractly, let alone to realize concretely, the situation of mythical consciousness, where I, the thing, and the image merge or interpenetrate (as in a dream), where the semantic function itself ceases, since there is no distance or difference between them; one "is" the other, not "represents" the other. That is, so to speak, the lower boundary of language. In the same way the "upper boundary" exists where consciousness crosses over existentially into being, transcending not potentially but actually; and here there is only silence (see the conclusion of this article). Language is properly always a doubling of reality: it speaks "about something"; it is repetition, the representation of reality by signs. Therefore, everything unique, unrepeatable in the deepest sense, can be uttered only in antinomies or paradoxes, that is, in such a way that the apophantic function

The Semantic Analysis of Philosophical Texts / 93 negates itself, renders itself impossible. This indicates that we are faced with something other than a referential message—a representation through image or symbol; it is an impulse toward a change in the internal situation, toward a change in experience, toward a new movement and point of view, toward a new orientation. A dialectical tension between the text and situation forces a change in the situation of the interpreter by a regressive movement, analogous to that of which the text is an expression. Since, however, the text (or context) does not contain objective instructions for such a transformation, but requires it only indirectly through a negative apophantic function, there can be ambiguity either in pragmatic relations (in acts of experience) or in what they provide (intentionally contain). As a matter of fact, we also face such a situation when it comes to understanding works of art, although here it is a question of the more specific situation of so-called esthetic understanding. In philosophy, we face more fundamental transformations and more comprehensive relationships to existence. Here it is a question of movement into different levels or horizons of consciousness, or different modes of being, and, simultaneously, a question of a clarification through reflection on all that; consequently the study of philosophy and the interpretation of philosophical texts are more difficult. II 12. As examples of semiotic analysis I have selected classical and, as far as possible, nonproblematic older texts from the tradition on which our philosophy is founded, that is, the Greek tradition. Their clarity is a function of the nonambiguity of translations, which is, of course, always relative since it itself is already an interpretation; in fact, variations in translation appear in our own language, as philosophical or any other dictionaries reveal (by the enumeration of synonyms and homonyms). Polysemy can be substantially reduced by investigating the context and comprehending the meaning as defined, on the whole, by the tension between context and situation— to the extent, of course, that we are able to comprehend the situation. For a first example I have chosen a sentence from Parmenides, fragmant 5: to gar auto noein estin te kai einai, translated by Diels: denn (das Seiende) denken und sein ist dasselbe; by W. Capelle: Denn (nur) ein und dasselbe kann gedacht werden und sein; and by E. Cassirer: Dasselbe ist Denken und Sein.3 13. If we look at the syntactic side of semantic analysis, we see that everyone connects to—auto and noein—einai by means of es-

94 / Ladislav Rieger tin and that the translations in general do not differ greatly, at least at first glance, with regard to the "sense," despite the fact that some translators insert words expanding the original text, and in so doing, already direct the interpretation. Let us suppose that we now choose the simplest translation, Cassirer's "it is the same to think and to be" and that we first examine without further interpretation those syntactic aspects of the texts which are important in determining the meaning. The most important is estin. Here logical syntax distinguishes three possibilities which could be illustrated by the following examples: (a) 1 + 1 = 2, (b) the crow is black, (c) ice is water. The first means a complete "identity" and tautology; in fact, the sentence can be reversed. The second case is an "inclusion" of a subclass; the crow is included in the class of black things. The third case represents an "identity" with regard to the third thing (the physical substance). Now, we can ask which case is applicable to the sentence: "It is the same to think and to be." The word "is" is semantically determined by the modifier "same," which would point to the first case, to a complete identity (thought = existence). Let us suppose that we accept this result; the question now is whether in such a case the "sense" is given without any ambiguity. How did Parmenides understand it and what did he mean by it? What did he want to say through this fundamental thesis of his? Is it meant subjectively (I think = I am), or, perhaps, in an objectivist sense as with Hegel, or is it meant in another, different way? What meanings did the words "to think" and "to be" have for Parmenides in his situation? Do we understand something similar by our own words in our own situation? 14. Neither syntax nor simple lexical semantics helps us here. We must study the whole of the context and especially passages worded identically and probably having identical meaning or intention. Hence we reach for the nearest sentence that seems to express the same thing or to clarify the first text. In Diels we read in fragment 8, verse 34: t'auton d'estin noein te kai houneken estin noēma,4 which is translated by Diels: Denken und das Gedankens Ziel ist ein und dasselbe; by Capelle: Dasselbe obex ist Denken und des Denkens Gegenstand. If we now compare the first sentence (fragment 5) with the second sentence (fragment 8), we find that "being" as an object of thinking coincides with thinking about that being. The subjectivist interpretation, approximately as in Descartes, would seem to be put aside, but surely the meaning is not yet fully clear for that reason. Diels, however, does have grounds for his analysis, that is to say, for his interpretation in terms of "substance" (einai—to on, das Seiende), which he supports by the whole text of Parmenides 7 poem, by

The Semantic Analysis of Philosophical Texts / 95 Parmenides' intention to recognize what actually "is," and to assert the impossibility of knowing what "is not." But if we are to decide for a definite interpretation, then we must not only study the whole of Parmenides' poem, but also examine other texts to which, in this instance, Parmenides might directly or indirectly be tied, that is, look at the part of philosophy which could have been known to him. Moreover, we have to try to disclose Parmenides' own intuition by considering an analogous situation and, in this way, explain the proper intention of his thought. All of this will be relevant to the interpretation that we finally give to the words "thought and being are one" or "to think and to be is the same thing." Thus, the unambiguity of the meaning does not depend only on the syntax and semantics of individual words in the sentence or of the sentence as a whole, but primarily on the situation. 15. The question now is: what meaning did einai and noein have for Parmenides in his immediate situation? Furthermore, did he distinguish einai and to on, noēma and noein, being and existence, content and object of thought? Let us assume that we know the following about his relation to predecessors or to contemporaries and followers in the Eleatic school: Parmenides responds in his poem partly to the teaching of Heraclitus on origin, partly to the teaching of Anaximander on apeiron, and simultaneously to the teaching of the Pythagoreans, who were endeavoring to demarcate, to define, the "boundless" quantitatively. He applied a more profound concept of existence or being not only as physical existence in space, but also as substance, the essence of the physical, which is not quantitatively definable, like matter, and of which it cannot be said that it appears "more" here and "less" there (since "to be" means either that [something] "is" or "is not"). This substance is definable by thought as its own object and without it nothing exists. Apparently, what is at stake is to overcome, to demonstrate if you like, the impracticality of "negation" for knowledge and to establish the basic "position" prior to any thought of particularities. Here we have a case of a confrontation with the "boundless," with the identification of existence with the world of numbers and thus with the views of Anaximander and the Pythagoreans. What is at stake is a higher reality than reality originating empirically (Heraclitus). There are many grounds for this conclusion in the context of the poem as well as in the historical reality known to us. These problems were taken up by the Eleatic school, which later, during the time of Zeno and Melissus, attempted to reconcile formally Parmenides' original intuition about thinking that attains being with the problem of the continuum of existence and the discursiveness of concepts, that is, with the logical problems

96 / Ladislav Rieger of mastering the "integrity" of being as the substance of phenomena, the "immutable" being itself which "hard Necessity keeps in the shackles of bounds that hold it fast on every side." The whole intent of the antinomies and paradoxes of this school is to demonstrate the unreliability of other schools on the questions of becoming and ceasing-to-be, of being and nonbeing, of the changeability of the position, color, or shape of an object. 16. It is our intention here only to indicate possibilities for a definite interpretation and not to choose one; it is simply a question of showing the need to approach as closely as possible the situation in which Parmenides wrote his poem, if we are to understand it. It would certainly be a great help if we were able somehow to ascertain different situational possibilities with the assurance that they had a ground in history, and at the same time to ascertain the forms of thought, or better of expression, which we have at our disposal. In this way the arbitrariness of interpretation could be limited to a certain extent, and directions could be given for the intuition of an analogous situation. For that purpose, however, a mere typology of "world views" would not be adequate, but only the elucidation or deciphering of the whole "constitution of philosophy." This is an important goal which today philosophy can no longer neglect; but it goes beyond the framework and possibilities of this article. If we were to succeed in this goal, it would be possible to establish for the first time a true philosophical history of philosophy, that is, an interpretation which would neither fragment this history into independent, isolated accidents nor impose upon it a definitive rational scheme of development in which what follows fulfills what precedes it as if the latter existed only for the sake of the former. Formal developmental connections manifest themselves above all in language, in a syntactic-semantic structure of expressive possibilities that are at the disposal of a unique act of thought, which always wants to master being anew. And precisely that tension, in turn, has an effect on the development of the vehicle of expression, that is to say, on the development of language. 17. Now let us consider another case from Diels's Fragments, Heraclitus, fragment 10, verse 22: synapsies hola kai ouch hola, symferomenon, diaferomenon, synaidon diaidon, kai ek pantōn hen kai ex henos panto5—"Verbindungen sind: Ganzes und Nichtganzes, Eintracht, Zwietracht, Einklang, Missklang und aus allem eins und aus einem alies." Capelle translates similarly, not supplying the verb; H. Leisegang in his Denkformen (Berlin, 1928) completely accepts the translation by Diels, adding, however, that with Heraclitus it is necessary to fill in the verb genesthai, which, no doubt, is for

The Semantic Analysis of Philosophical Texts / 97 Heraclitus equivalent to einai, since it follows from his whole view of transformations or transitions of existence. Sometimes, though, Heraclitus uses that verb; at other times it is omitted, as, for example, in fragment 36: psychēisi thanatos hydōr genesthai, hydati de thanatos gēn genesthai, ek gēs de hydõr ginetai, ex hydatos de psyche.6 Diels translates: "Für die Seelen ist es Tod zu Wasser zu werden, für das Wasser Tod zur Erde zu werden. Aus Erde wird Wasser, aus Wasser Seele." Leisegang translates quite analogously. Fragment 62 reads: athanatoi thnētoi, thnētoi athanatoi, zõntes ton ekeinõn thanaton, ton de ekeinõn bion tethneōntes: "Unsterbliche sterblich, sterbliche unsterblich, lebend jener Tod, jener Leben aber sterbend." 7 Capelle and Leisegang translate similarly. The latter, however, infers that it is necessary to add genesthai and that it is impossible to translate "immortals are mortals 7 ' since that unity of opposites is obtained by transformation in the flux of everything [panta rei) in time, and is not, consequently, fixed. Otherwise, Heraclitus himself expresses the transition, the change of one into another, by the explicit addition of the verb einai, as seen for instance in fragment 88: tauto Veni zõn kai tethnekos kai to egrègoros kai to katheudon kai neon kai gēraion. Tade gar metapesonta ekeina estin, kakeina palin metapesonta tanta. Diels translates: "Und es ist immer ein und dasselbe, was in uns wohnt: Lebendes und Totes und das Wache und das Schlafende und Jung und Alt. Wenn es umschlägt, ist dieses jenes und jenes wiederum, wenn es umschlägt, dieses." 8 Capelle translates: "Ein und dasselbe offenbart sich in den Dingen als Lebendes und Totes, Waches und Schlafendes, Junges und Altes. Denn dieses ist nach seiner Umwandlung jenes und jenes wieder verwandelt dieses." Here it is not a question of a static identity, but of genesis, perhaps similar to "a caterpillar is a butterfly77 when it transforms itself. In contrast, for instance, for Plato "to be77 is defined in a similar situation through the inclusion of a subclass in a class, and the classes (ideas) are not transformed into each other. It is finally a matter of participation in the idea; metechein is the proper meaning of einai; a question of the division of concepts, not the transition between things. Here the whole context points to different forms of a different style of thought and contributes to the interpretation. 18. The method by which Leisegang obtains his interpretation of the text is worth noting. His method consists basically in not presupposing that we understand the text, i.e., in insisting that we first look for a point of view from which we can understand it. In other words, to adopt beforehand a position of being "ignorant,77 not interpreting the text from our own situation, not inserting our own mean-

98 / Ladislav Rieger ing. It is necessary then to determine a point of departure and a goal, and hence a direction, and then to attempt an analysis with the help of our own logic, if it is impossible to find "another logic." Leisegang usually means by "a point of departure" some kind of image or viewpoint taken from reality which serves as a model for abstract thought, and he often translates with the help of such a model. This is, in fact, an interpretation similar to the case in which, for ease of comprehension, we interpret the equation "a1 + b2 = c 2 " graphically by the example of a right-angle triangle in Euclidian geometry. Leisegang in this way comes to various models of thought, various patterns upon which thought is formed, and concludes that there are three basic patterns or forms of thought which make up mutually alien worlds, and to which correspond, as he puts it, various "logics." Today we would say that these forms are primarily semantic-pragmatic matters and do not belong to pure syntax or "logic." To the extent that it is possible to translate them with the aid of models it appears that they share a syntax (not descriptive but abstractly formal), just as the syntax of algebraic form is common to the three forms of geometry. The forms used by Leisegang are not complete (paradox, for example, is missing) and are not sufficiently justified or fully characterized; for instance, the form of mathematical thought is not just a "pyramid of concepts," i.e., semantic segmentation. Here newer methods will help us clarify the relationships between them, though we do not have space in this article to develop analogies between the above-mentioned forms of conceptual and abstract thinking on the one hand, and geometrical interpretations (of formal algebra) on the other. 19. In conclusion, one can briefly say that philosophical texts are usually polysemous; that is, they allow multiple interpretations. These interpretations, however, are not arbitrary; they always relate to a particular situation. If we are concerned with the original situation—the one in which the text was created by the author—then the most important thing ultimately is our ability to move our thought into a relevant framework, that is, the ability to seize an analogous situation, the ability of our imagination to disengage us from current, familiar situations, and to carry us over into the "spirit of the age," into that former semantic-pragmatic general situation against the background of which, or in reaction to which, the text is the expression of an act of thought of a given philosopher. We must not forget, however, that new concepts of the world are most often generated by original creations which, consequently, place the thought of the philosopher against the collective or official view of the period. In addition, we must bear in mind that we are concerned with a

The Semantic Analysis of Philosophical Texts / 99 text, which is not a description of "what is" but an appeal for a mental realization of a new view with an analogous intention, an appeal for the creation of a new situation. If the whole context, or perhaps the inadequacy of the apophantic function, leads us to the very act of intuition through the realization of an analogous situation, we obtain an interpretation by which it is possible to capture, at least to a certain extent, the original movement of thought whose force is reflected in the text. The more abstract and less defined the thesis in question is, the likelier it is to admit other interpretations, possibly alien to the original, nonambiguous situation. These interpretations may even be mutually exclusive in just the same way as various interpretations of sentences about the angles of a triangle may be mutually exclusive according to the semantic situation, whether it is a matter of plane geometry or geometry of some other kind. In philosophy, however, the context is never so simple that it would be possible to abstract from the pragmatic dimension. In geometry and science, the pragmatic dimension is, after all, not important, since it applies to the intersubjectively common situation relating to the objects of the spatio-temporal world. 20. We might ask at this point what follows from our account of the validity of philosophical theses or systems, in view of the fact they stand in opposition to one another, and are, for the most part, mutually exclusive. Moreover, to what extent can semiotics be an arbiter of the truth or questionability of philosophical knowledge in general? The disagreement among philosophical theses themselves is not proof of their falsity or invalidity, just as in the case of the disagreement among various kind of geometry. It is not formal syntax but the semantic-pragmatic aspect that is decisive. Furthermore, it is not the apophantic function of verbal communication but often, whether consciously or unconsciously, an antinomical or paradoxical function that is an index of the inadequacy of verbal means for a given situation. Semantic interpretation depends primarily on this situation and on the possibility of our occupying an analogous situation. Thus, it is apparent that many complaints of the worthlessness of philosophy as knowledge that accuse it of self-contradictory notions, of an anarchy of systems, and of disagreements among concepts really have to do with differences in situations and in functions of language, i.e., with the tension between the usual, traditional system of expressive means and acts of thought which cause changes and create new situations. As a matter of fact, without the semanticpragmatic relation it is impossible even to define what an antithesis is (and what it is not); "a is b" is an antithesis in the sense of a static relationship of semantic concepts, but not in the sense "thing a

100 / Ladislav Rieger

changes into b" or "passes over into b." Moreover, it is entirely primitive to judge or condemn philosophy on the basis of a special, consciously constructed syntax suitable for mathematics and physics and to consider everything that is not correctly expressible in such a language to be "nonsense" or an "imaginary problem." The thesis of modern logic that there is no other language than object language (content language) and language about the relations between sign vehicles (logical, formal language) is an inadmissible simplification of the problem of language and thus of semiotics. The semantic-pragmatic dimension illuminates and supports the possibility and necessity of the polysemy of texts, that is, their interpretation according to different situations (states of consciousness, viewpoints, and acts of noesis); this is not a defect of philosophy, but perhaps a defect of language, a proof of the relative richness of thought in comparison with the normal expressive means and functions of language. Hence, the problem of the truth of philosophy is much deeper: it is a question of the range of thought in each particular situation, of the relationship of thought to being. In comparison with that, the problem of the possibility of expression and communication is secondary and formal. 21. The conclusion above simultaneously answers our second question regarding the role of semiotics in the critique of philosophy. This question, however, could also be reformulated as a question regarding the very foundations of semiotics: how is it possible that such a thing as the sign exists, i.e., "something that stands for something else"? And what are the transcendental conditions of such a function (consciousness) in general? As always we can see here that philosophy goes deeper than the individual disciplines, however general they may be, into domains where language and semiotics, and thus also logic (the formal relations of sign vehicles), are actually created (i.e., understood in terms of the conditions of their possibility and not a resultant psychological process). Thus, transcendentally, philosophy exceeds logic and language in its problems, although for the expression of this situation, paradoxically, philosophy depends on language. Here, obviously, language only alludes to a situation which goes beyond the possibilities of language; it alludes to a function that transcends it and leads to a new situation. Therefore, it is a difficult problem to express via language a situation where philosophy transcends itself into being, whether potentially (imaginatively) or even actually. There philosophy is a mode of being by which a man faces himself, outdistancing or exceeding his actual possibilities and thereby creating new ones. Language always wants

The Semantic Analysis of Philosophical Texts / 101 to objectivize the situation, to fix it conceptually and, as far as possible, in universal terms, that is, by means of the medium of intersubjectivity (which is consciousness in general, representable and repeatable). But what if we are dealing with an existential move that is unique, i.e., untransferable, or with a situation that does not have a particular meaning at all except for a certain individual, at a certain (historical) moment? Let us consider the example of Socrates: I have in mind his voluntary death. The fact that he drank a cup of poison and did not avoid the judgment of the community cannot have for any one of us the same particular meaning that it had for Socrates himself. And even if we grasp that by this act he gave to his whole life a final meaning, and even if the simple fact tells us more than the long passages with which Plato embellished Socrates' end, we cannot really place ourselves in that situation, namely, into his situation. All we have is the external form of this act, which we can variously interpret and evaluate as the whole manner of his life (cf. Plato, Nietzsche, etc.). That, however, is decidedly not at all what this act meant existentially to him. We somehow encounter this closing act, the fact that Socrates once and for all, irrevocably and unambiguously, determined his life existentially, and the meaning this determination had for him can never be wrested from him. Here the historical event passes through the moment into eternity, becoming atemporal, escaping from the objectivity of form (of concept); concept loses fullness in the face of the unique concrete reality of the existential situation, and the historical event becomes an "extratemporal utterance" about Socrates 7 death, an apprehension of "how that could have happened." The sign of this absolute reality is not that it happened in this way and not otherwise, but that it did happen in reality once for all time, that it happened at all. However, this fact remains Socrates 7 secret; it belongs to the uniqueness of his being. In this way he has escaped us into "eternity"; eternity is not, however, "duration" in time or out of time (in concept); the deciphering of eternity is—for us—existentially in the "fulfillment of the moment." That moment was Socrates' moment, as it is for every person; it is not communicable, i.e., transferable via language. An adequate expression for something of this sort seems to be silence; silence is the "language" of philosophy, a language that comes closest to being and eternity. Translated by Bruce Kochis

102 / Ladislav Rieger NOTES 1. See, for example, K. Svoboda, "La Théorie gréco-romaine du signe linguistique," Casopis pro moderní filologii, 26 (1939), 38-46. 2. Kantstudien, vol. 38 (1933). 3. John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 4th ed. (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1930): " . . . for it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be" (p. 173). H. Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 3rd ed. (Berlin, 1912), vol. 1; W. Capelle, Die Vorsokratiker (Leipzig, 1935); M. Dessoir (ed.), Lehrbuch der Philosophie (Berlin, 1925). 4. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, "The thing that can be thought and that for the sake of which the thought exists is the same" (p. 176). 5. Ibid., "Couples are things whole and things not whole, what is drawn together and what is drawn asunder, the harmonious and the discordant. The one is made up of all things, and all things issue from the one" (p. 137). 6. Ibid., "For it is death to souls to become water, and death to water to become earth. But water comes from earth; and from water, soul" (p. 138). 7. Ibid., "Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the others' death and dying the others' life" (p. 138). 8. Ibid., "And it is the same thing in us that is quick and dead, awake and asleep, young and old; the former are shifted and become the latter, and the latter in turn are shifted and become the former" (p. 139).

The Concretization of the Literary Work Problems of the Reception of Neruda's Works Felix Vodicka

Bibliographic Note: Felix Vodicka, "Literárnè historické studium ohlasu literárních děl: Problematika ohlasu Nerudova díla: Slovo a slovesnost, 7 (1941), 113-132.

The literary process involves not only an authorial subject who generates the artistic text, but another subject—the reader—who must perceive the text as artistic. Each subject is governed in part by the socially shared artistic norms of his time and place. And since "high" literature because of its written form is open to history literary works of art are perceived against the background of artistic norms different from those which gave birth to them.1 The Prague structuralists were keenly aware of this disjunction in literary signs. Roman fakobson, for instance, pointed it out as one source of the historical relativity of the concept of "realism" when he differentiated between works "meant as probable by their authors" and those "perceived as probable by me, the judging subject."2 And fan Mukařovský took a similar position in arguing against objectivist esthetics: "From a single work several different structures with different dominants and hierarchies of components can be realized depending on the period (or milieu). The work therefore is not an unambiguous structure. It becomes so only if perceived against the background of a particular immediate tradition from which the work deviates and against which it is reflected. If the background tradition shifts, the structure changes as well as the dominant and the work acquires a totally new appearance."3 Insightful as these observations are, none of the first generation of Prague structuralists dealt with literary history from the standpoint of reader reception. The first study of this kind was attempted by Felix Vodicka (1909-1974) who made his debut at the Circle on March 3, 1941, with the lecture "Methodological Notes on the Reception of the Literary Work."4 With some minor changes, this lecture became the essay whose English translation is presented here.

104 / Felix Vodicka It is noteworthy that Vodicka's embracing of structuralism was somewhat belated. In the decade before he joined the Circle he had published several lengthy essays on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Czech writers which utilized the methods of traditional literary historiography But under the influence of the local structuralism and Roman Ingarden's phenomenology he formulated a theory of literary reception. The term "concretization" in the title of the essay that follows clearly indicates Ingarden's influence, and Vodicka was in fact the first student of literature who consciously strove to unite the phenomenological approach which focuses upon the subject-object interaction in the literary process and the structuralist one interested in the shared codes conditioning this interaction.5 Except for West Germany and Poland, Vodicka's work is little known abroad. Moreover, because of his pro-reformist stance during 1968 and the subsequent Soviet occupation, Vodicka remains even after his death a nonperson in his native country. The only survey of his work written in English is F. W. Galan's "Toward a Structuralist Literary History"6 Jurij Striedter's introduction to the German edition of Vodicka's selected works provides the most thorough account of Vodicka's theory and draws parallels between it and the modern Rezepzionsästhetik so popular among students of literature in Germany7 The commemorative issue of the journal Ceská literatura [Czech literature], 17 (1969), celebrating Vodicka's sixtieth birthday contains a bibliography on pages 179-190. NOTES 1. See P. Bogatyrëv and R. Jakobson, "Folklore as a Special Form of Creativity," in this book. 2. "O realismu ν umění," Červen, 4 (1921); 301. English translation by K. Magassy, "On Realism in Art," in L. Matejka and K. Pomorska (eds.), Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist Views (Cambridge, Mass., 1971], pp. 3 8 - 4 6 . 3. B. Novák, "Rozhovor s Janem Mukařovským" [An interview with Jan Mukarovsky], Rozpravy Aventina, 8 (1932), 226. 4. See Slovo a slovesnost, 7 (1941), 168. For a list of lectures delivered at the Circle see note 1, editor's introduction, "Theses Presented to the First Congress of Slavic Philologists in Prague 1929," in this book. 5. For a discussion of the relationship between Vodicka and Ingarden, see H. Schmid, "Zum Begriff der ästhetischen Konkretisation im tschechischen Strukturalismus," Sprache im technischen Zeitalter, 36 (1970), 290-318, or R. Fieguth, "Rezeption contra falsches und richtiges Lesen? Oder MiBverständnisse mit Ingarden," ibid., 38 (1971), 142-159. 6. In L. Matejka (ed.), Sound, Sign and Meaning: Quinquagenary of the Prague Linguistic Circle (Ann Arbor, 1976), pp. 4 5 6 - 4 7 6 . 7. "Einleitung," in F. Vodicka, Die Struktur der literarischen Entwicklung (Munich, 1976), pp. lix-ciii.

The Concretization of the Literary Work / 105 The purpose of this article is to prepare the methodological background for the literary-historical study of the reception of literary works. To avoid mistakes the literary historian should exploit for his own practical work the theoretical knowledge which structuralism has provided. As long as his knowledge of the essence of the effect of a literary work in time is conceptually vague, he runs the risk of making unscholarly judgments. The principles of structuralism will therefore be our starting point, especially wherever some problems have already been elaborated or at least indicated. Here, however, we do not wish to pursue the question of reception from the standpoint of the general theory of art but from that of literary history. Wherever I have to illuminate individual questions by means of concrete examples, I shall use primarily material collected for the purpose of studying the literary reception of Jan Neruda's works. THE PROBLEM OF "RECEPTION" IN THE LITERARYHISTORICAL THEORY A N D PRACTICE OF STRUCTURALISM

F. X. Salda, who had already dealt with the question of reception in his study On the So-Called Immortality of the Poetic Work (1928), wrote in an article in 1936: "Literary history very wrongly limits itself to describing only the genesis of a work, by which is meant its creation from the first impulses and initiatives up to its material embodiment. A second and often greater and more difficult part of the task awaits it: to describe how the work has changed in the minds of those following generations who have dealt with it, who have lived on it, fed on it, and nourished themselves on it. This is the second part of the biography of a work—and it is frequently, even usually, neglected."1 It is relatively easy to explain why literary history up to now has dealt only exceptionally with changes in the evaluation of a work. The reason lies in the epistemological orientation of particular periods in literary history. The philological approach led to the study of the text; the Taineian one focused attention on the work as a product; the Hettnerian one concentrated on the development of ideas in literary works; psychological approaches direct attention toward the author, leaving the work only a testimony to the poet's psychic life; sociological methods most often examine the author's attitude toward social problems or the social determinants of the work. Complex methods have been created for investigating the thematic aspect of the work and the expressive devices applied in it. But so far in literary history hardly anyone has studied works detached from their au-

106 / Felix Vodicka thors, whose effects on readers and whose place in literature have undergone change. Naturally it has not even been methodologically clear how to gain control over this problem, whose complexity rests in the fact that a work in time is subject to many, often contradictory judgments. It has become customary to study transformations of themes or genres in various literary works, but transformations in esthetic perception until now have been studied only exceptionally. It has often seemed to literary historians that this question belongs to cultural history, since individual testimonies about literary works have been taken as an expression of public taste. Among Lanson's tasks for literary history 2 is the study of the success and influence of the work. He does not include the transformations of the work, but instead a list of data about how "the book has been read and what it has left in minds" (p. 244). Lanson was aware that in his perception of a work, the literary historian is conditioned by his time, and he doubted that it would be possible, even with every effort at objectivity, to eliminate this element completely. Nevertheless, he is responsible for establishing the historical evaluation of the work with regard to the author and his time as a requirement for literary scholarship. Julius Petersen attests to the uneasiness of the literary historian faced with the problem of the reception of the work in its entirety rather than as a mere history of successes or failures (i.e., the number of editions, the number of copies sold, praise or blame, and so on): Every individual work, every writer, every literary period has its history of effect in which its essence is at first hidden by the changing trends of the times and the resultant opposing evaluations. One can draw only indirect conclusions about the essence of a work from its reception: either the affinity between the spirit of the time and the work and its author results in understanding, or the lack of affinity between them results in misunderstanding. Perhaps one can make inferences about the certainty or uncertainty of value from how wide the spectrum of contrasting opinions is. The material which the history of reception furnishes to the history of taste would be hardly worth mentioning if it did not contain peculiar contradictions. The more praise and condemnation differ, the less one can discern objective, firm value and the more opinions serve to characterize those who express them, so that the history of reception coincides with the history of taste. Only if the evaluation of a work escapes historical vacillation

The Concretization of the Literary Work / 107 does it approximate that indestructible stability of values which Nicolai Hartmann calls the "standstill of the monumental·' [das Stehenbleiben des Monumentalen).3 Petersen therefore adopts a skeptical attitude toward the results of the study of the history of reception, because contradictory opinions provide meager material for understanding the essence of a work. It seems to him that this study brings confusion rather than clarity to the question of the value of a work. But each literary work fulfills a certain social function in literature. We cannot, however, identify the way in which it fulfills that function by an analysis of its structure, but only if we investigate how the work is perceived, what values are attributed to it, in what form it appears to those who experience it esthetically, what semantic associations it evokes, in which social milieu and hierarchy it lives. If literary history as a discipline studying the development of literary structure is to record the transformations of the esthetic norm in individual periods, it cannot be satisfied with devoting attention only to the analysis of a work, because it is not the work itself which bears witness to the real literary atmosphere but the image and the effect that the work leaves with readers and the way it is incorporated into literature. Conventional literary history has approached the problem of reception by collecting and evaluating critical responses in order to establish the critical success or failure of a work. The literary historian has assumed the role of judge between the author and the critic, defending either one or the other. Receptions evaluating or analyzing a work have been recorded, and the process of the understanding and cognition of a literary work has been explained through them. It has been characteristic of this approach that critics 7 views have not been differentiated from scholars 7 assertions, even though by their nature and function they are completely different. The reception of a work has not itself been the subject of literary-historical study; rather a critical overview of the results of the cognition of the relevant work, author, or problem has been involved. 4 Here, of course, we are thinking of reception in the narrow sense of the word. For the time being we are leaving aside the influence of a work or an author on other writers, the translation of a work into other languages, the advertising of a work, the fact that a work becomes a source of inspiration for other arts, and so forth. We shall concentrate only on the investigation of the life of a work in literature, on the active relation of the reading public to a literary work perceived as an esthetic object. On the whole, this approach to reception has been characterized by two attitudes: esthetic dogmatism

108 / Felix Vodicka and extreme subjectivism. Dogmatism has sought eternal and constant esthetic values in a work or has conceived the history of reception as a path toward a definitive and correct understanding. Extreme subjectivism, on the other hand, has seen in all receptions evidence of individual perception and has only exceptionally attempted to overcome this subjectivism by invoking the period. Structuralism has introduced new possibilities for the problem of reception. To begin, we might look at Jan Mukařovský, who proceeds from the older theory of the "esthetic object" in considering the effect of the work of art. In his study of Polák's Sublimity of Nature [Vznešenost přírody] he criticized the tendency of literary historians to evaluate older works from the standpoint of their own esthetic sensibility. At best the literary historian can reconstruct the esthetic efficacy of a work in a particular period, most successfully, of course, for the time when it enters literature, thus establishing at least its developmental value. To those who perceive the work, it appears as an esthetic object conforming to a set of esthetic values, either their own or the period's. A work as an esthetic object is fixed in a particular way, while the literary historian "must see the poetic structure in constant motion as an uninterrupted regrouping of components and a transformation of their relations." 5 Mukařovský speculates more generally about the changing esthetic effect of a work in his book Esthetic Function, Norm and Value as Social Facts.6 "Above all, the work of art is not a stable quantity: the immediate artistic tradition through whose prism the work is perceived changes with every shift in time, space, or social milieu, and as a result even the esthetic object that corresponds to the material artifact, the artist's creation, changes in the awareness of the members of a given collective. Therefore, even if a certain work is evaluated positively in two periods, a different esthetic object, and hence a different work in a certain sense, is the subject of evaluation in each case. It is natural that esthetic value also changes with these shifts in the esthetic object" (p. 50). According to Mukařovský, even works of so-called "eternal value" are subject to changes in esthetic evaluation; a proof is the variation in the staging of Shakespeare's plays. The social character of art—the state of artistic conditions, criticism, the publisher, advertising, and so forth—also affects the creation of esthetic value. "Esthetic value has therefore turned out to be a process whose movement is determined by the immanent development of artistic structure itself (i.e., the immediate tradition against whose background every work is evaluated) and at the same time by the movement and shifts in the structure of social life" (p. 54).

The Concretization of the Literary Work / 109 Mukařovský's conception of the work of art as a sign is important here. The literary work of art "is closely attached to the sphere of communicative signs but in such a way that it is the dialectical negation of genuine communication. . . ." "Here the reference proper is manifold and points to experiences known to the perceiver which, however, are not and can in no way be expressed or indicated in the work itself because they are part of his intimate experience." Mukařovský does not, however, assume that this conception pertaining to the perceiver's intimate experience leads to esthetic subjectivism, for "the attitude that an individual adopts toward reality is not his exclusive property even in the strongest personalities but is to a considerable degree, and almost completely in weaker personalities, predetermined by the social relations of which the individual partakes" (pp. 64-65). These are crucial principles for the literary-historical study of reception. They emphasize the changeability of the esthetic understanding of a work and its dependence on realities that influence the perception of art whether motivated by the immediate state of the artistic tradition or social reasons. Changeability, however, results not only from the perceiver but also from the very nature of art, for the work has the properties of a structure and yet is a set of signs whose communicative definiteness is so unsettled by the esthetic function that it can evoke many different semantic associations. Hence the perception of a work leads to several esthetic and semantic interpretations, each equally valid and convincing in principle, though to some degree, of course, temporally, socially, or even individually limited. Thus, if we study the reception of a work, we must concentrate not on the actual work but the esthetic object with which the work in a given case is identified in the perceiver's consciousness. The phenomenologist Roman Ingarden also has devoted attention to the perception of the literary work in both Das literarische Kunstwerk (1931) and later works. Ingarden has arrived at several basic theses. The literary work, whose unity is conceived structurally as the product of its esthetic orientation, contains four strata: the stratum of linguistic sound formations, the stratum of meaning units, the stratum of represented objects, and the stratum of schematized aspects, through which the objects are represented in the work. Ingarden arrives at the conviction that "the literary work (for example, Dante's Divine Comedy) has to be juxtaposed to its individual concretizations which arise with each separate reading (or with its performance on stage). The literary work itself, as opposed to its concretizations, is a schematic formation. This means that some of its strata, especially that of represented objects and that of schematized

110 / Felix Vodicka aspects, include indefinite places. In the concretizations of the literary work some of the indefinite places are 'filled in,' but not always in the same way. Thus the concretization of a literary work is likewise a schematic creation but to a lesser degree than the work itself."7 If we compare Ingarden's theses with Mukařovský's, even ignoring the question of strata, we see that there are certain differences between them. Prague structuralism understands the structure of a work as a component of the higher structure of literary development. Here the higher structure of the artistic literary tradition is always present as a factor organizing the esthetic effect of the work if it is to become an esthetic object. Therefore the work is understood as a sign whose meaning and esthetic value are comprehensible only on the basis of the literary conventions of a specific period. Ingarden, on the other hand, finds the source of the difference in concretizations primarily in the schematic and indefinite nature of some strata of the work, while other strata maintain their identity and the work itself with its "polyphonic harmony of esthetic value qualities" is a structure whose esthetic value is independent of the literary norm of the period. Ingarden is aware of the period's manner of reading a work that constitutes an overall literary atmosphere, 8 but he insists that the changing concretizations of the work do not violate its identity in its nonschematic parts, for otherwise the artistic essence of the work would be violated. Ingarden presupposes an ideal concretization 9 that would fully realize all the esthetic qualities of the work. To this, one can object that esthetic value does not have absolute validity. It is always closely related to the development of the esthetic norm, either coinciding with it or deviating from it, so that only some properties of a given work are perceived as esthetically effective. We shall be using Ingarden's term "concretization" in what follows, but with a different meaning. For us it will designate the reflection of a work in the consciousness of those for whom it is an esthetic object. The term "esthetic object" will thus remain reserved for the general theory of art, while the term "concretization" will indicate a concrete appearance of a specific work which has become the object of esthetic perception. A work can be concretized in many ways. Not only can its schematic places be concretized, but so can the structure of the entire work if it is projected against the background of the structure of the immediate literary tradition. A work constantly changes under changing temporal, local, social, and even individual conditions. The problem of the reception of a literary work is most impor-

The Concretization of the Literary Work / 111 tantly the study of its concretizations. The necessity of such a study is obvious, but the nature of the material involved makes it difficult. Testimonies of concretizations—in diaries, memoirs, letters, reviews, or critical studies—are heterogeneously recorded. And we are no better off with dramatic texts: though a staging itself is a concretization, we learn about the viewers' concretization of a theatrical performance only from descriptions and indirect reports. It is therefore necessary in each separate case to scrutinize the material under research from the standpoint of the goal pursued. The following remarks about Neruda's work will be devoted to these methodological questions.

THE LITERARY WORK AS AN ARTISTIC VALUE A N D THE A U T H O R ' S I N T E N T I O N

First, our literary historical interest will not concentrate on individual readers' records so much as on those which establish a definite concretization or which are predestined to contribute to its establishment. That is to say, a literary work is not incorporated into the literary tradition—the set of valid esthetic norms and values—simply because it exists, but because the main features of its concretization have been established. In practice, this means that after a certain hesitation caused by the novelty of the work, it is accepted into literature in a certain concretized appearance. The concretization established naturally has temporal limitation, but the work will exist in literature in a different appearance only when a new concretization is recorded, and publicized, and incorporated into the hierarchy of a period's literary values. It can, of course, happen that two or three established concretizations coexist, but this follows from the fact that two or three norms, differentiated, for example, by generational affiliation, run parallel to one another in the literature of a given moment. Hence even concretizations of works have their place in literature; through them, both contemporary and past works are incorporated as values into the immediate literary tradition. As soon as a work has entered literature in this way, it becomes a part of this tradition and a norm against which other works are evaluated. But it is a norm only in the appearance it has acquired through its concretization. Naturally we mean here the concretization that best grasps what the work offers the reader of a certain period in a given literary situation. It follows that we assign a special place to the critic beside the au-

112 / Felix Vodicka thor and the reader in the set of those who constitute literary life and the literary community. The critic's role is to establish the concretizations of literary works, incorporating them into the system of literary values. But he does more than provide one reader's concretization. His evaluation compels a confrontation between the properties of the work and the period's literary requirements. It is therefore understandable that in the study of literary reception it is primarily critical judgments which attract our attention. For us, of course, critical judgments are not only those which claim to be critical but also those studies which entail a critical approach despite their scholarly or literary-historical goal. When, for example, Jan Jakubec declared the motif of the six colors on the tortured body of St. Catherine in The Legend of St Catherine to be "not in good taste," 10 he introduced esthetic evaluation into his method and concretized the work from the standpoint of its realistic sobriety and probability. Arne Novák's fan Neruda (1910) is a critical study aiming at a new concretization and evaluation of Neruda's works. We have stated above that a work is firmly incorporated in the set of literary values of the immediate literary tradition only if its concretization has been described, i.e., if it has undergone critical evaluation. If it has not been critically evaluated and its concretization has not been established, the work will operate in the immanent development of literary structure but will not have a fixed position in the literary values of the given period. Neruda's Graveyard Flowers [Hřbitovní kvítí], for example, remained for a long time without such a concretization. To be sure, we know of many private statements condemning it, but the first review did not appear until 1864, seven years after its publication, and the work was so obviously judged in terms of abandoned literary norms that for the literature of the Máj generation it must have been quite unconvincing. Graveyard Flowers remained for many more years without a fixed published concretization until Vrchlicky's statement of 1896, which was more historical than esthetic. And yet Graveyard Flowers was a work quite obviously written to evoke critical evaluation, albeit a negative judgment. The author's entire plan, based on the premise of a critical concretization, fell through when one did not appear. Neruda's book was consciously revolutionary, meant to provoke negative criticism. But I know that those folk who in sweat earn their bread and glory with the knife of disgusting autopsy, perhaps laying my song on their meager scales, have already cut the brand of their verdict into its brow.

The Concretization of the Literary Work / 113

The historical significance of Neruda's early work is generally found—in Salda's, Mukařovský's, and Novák's studies—in his prosaicization of poetic language. But in Graveyard Flowers Neruda went even further. The entire collection is a conscious critique of the older poetics that identified poetry with idealization. All the traditional notions—the value of life, love, the ideal, the meaning of action, eternity, faith, mother country, earth, virtue, social harmony, poverty—are unmasked, divested of an idealistic and illusionistic haze, and subjected to analysis. In his discussion of the linguistic devices of the young Neruda, Arne Novák has ascertained how often he used interrogative sentences.11 These function precisely as analytical tools. If Neruda asks "What is love?" (part 2, no. 26), his purpose is to rid the word "love," to which an idealizing content is traditionally attributed in poetry, of poeticization and to bring it closer to nontraditional reality. A Schopenhauerian answer follows: For the human race not to become extinct when stormy fate reverses itself, nature creates those comely faces, comely faces, and those . . . nice clothes. Mácha saw the world in contradictions and juxtaposed reality to an ideal and a dream which did not forfeit its value. Neruda, on the other hand, used an ironic method to reduce conventional poeticisms to the base of reality, to expose the emptiness, the fictiveness of poetic words, and to direct poetry toward a meaning based on an immediate relation to reality. In one untraditional instance he conjoined the image of the mother with the prostitute (part 2, no. 36). In terms of traditional poetic norms, Neruda's entire approach constituted a negation of poetry. He himself says: Poetry lived as long as everyone believed his dreams more than the truth, as long as he marked out on a gigantic scale things now trifling to us. As long as he believed out-of-date legends, to which a mouldering age gave birth, as long as the Dryads hid in palms— and not the sago of our soups. In poem no. 22 in a fantastic dream the poet even lets himself be led to the grave of poetry. I cite these passages, which could be multiplied, to show that the entire work was calculated to provoke the

114 / Felix Vodicka reaction of the reading public and the critics. To be sure, this reaction was reported privately (the well-known negative statements not only of Palacky and Mikovec but also of Fric, Pfleger, and Šmilovsky), but not recorded publicly This neglect was the real reason for Neruda's satire "Among U s " ["U nás"]. Proof of this can be found not only in the allusions to Lumír and the Prague News, which promised reviews but never printed any (the case of Graveyard Flowers), not only in the hero Volácek who publishes a collection of poems, but above all in the conclusion of the whole satire, which is outwardly directed against Jakub Maly. Neruda put words in the critic's mouth that Maly never uttered but which quite obviously elucidate the intentions of Graveyard Flowers. The critic tells the poet: You subordinate language to thought! Why also continue speech with time, why desire to renew language with the voices of bards, why any thoughts, when the nation is in diapers? That language of yours, and it alarms me greatly, is not medieval enough! Only by the Roman period can our people be led a little more by the nose: if they do not understand your periods, they can hardly criticize us! No better characterization of Neruda's efforts in Graveyard Flowers can be given than as an endorsement of the movement seeking "to renew language with the voices of bards." But the critics were not aware of all of this, even negatively. Therefore Neruda himself advanced a concretization on a satiric level, perhaps to justify his failure. The unfavorable review of the almanac Máj in the Prague News, which attracted the attention of a wider public, could have provided the impulse for the publication of "Among Us," but Neruda's real interest was in the fate of Graveyard Flowers in the immediate artistic tradition and in the mode of its concretization. This example reveals that the poet himself is most often interested in a concretization, in achieving an intended concretization. Neruda, who in the case of Graveyard Flowers met with such failure, had serious misgivings about whether Cosmic Songs [Písně kosmické] would be concretized as he intended. He was afraid that the "scientific" character of the presentation would deprive the work of popularity. For this reason he was angry with Arbes for his preliminary column about the unusual theme, and for this reason he

The Concretization of the Literary Work / 115

was preparing the way with a special "cosmic feuilleton" in the National Paper which was intended to bring the cosmic theme closer to the reader by means of humor. But, on the other hand, he was obviously anxious that the songs not be evaluated only as comic.12 Precisely this concern with concretization caused Neruda in Cosmic Songs to seesaw between the serious and the comic. Neruda pursued the concretization of Simple Motives [Prosté motivy] with the same care. What especially annoyed him was a review that emphasized the reflective elements of the work, which the author himself did not value.13 Here we confront the famous paradox that a work often exists in literature in an appearance that differs very markedly from the author's conception. For the sake of interest let me cite Viktor Dyk's remark: "We never know what we have created, and our work is not dependent upon us. Time is another component that can change everything without our desiring it."14 Similarly, F. X. Salda writes: "And the poetic or artistic work now begins to live a life full of transformations, its own adventure novel: it has detached itself from its author, it kindles the life around it, it kneads and forms life, but it is also kneaded by life."15 We have seen how a work finds its place in the set of contemporary values through its concretization. We can, of course, imagine the extreme case of a work, especially in the milieu of a homogeneous esthetic culture, existing in a fixed appearance without a published concretization. Besides written criticism there certainly is what Thibaudet [Physiologie de la critique) calls spoken, "spontaneous" criticism realized in society, in salons. Nevertheless, the passages we have cited show that an author may be so concerned with the public concretization of his work that it is not only a component of his intention but something that he consciously strives to influence. The relationship between an author's intention—insofar as it appears in his work—and the concretization of the work and the relationship between the developmental value of the work and its concretization are crucial methodological requirements of the study of reception. DESCRIPTION OF A CONCRETIZATION: SUBJECTIVE ELEMENTS AND THE CONTEMPORARY CONTEXT

Let us now turn our attention to concretization proper, or better, to the way in which it is described. What influences the reader's concretization is not only the immediate artistic tradition but also the

116 / Felix Vodicka psychic factors connected to perception, the external circumstances of perception, psychic disposition, and so forth. One and the same work can therefore leave completely different impressions in the reader; each component encounters the reader's artistic penchants of mood and experience, so that the entire work exists in the reader's conception in an atmosphere of certain images. Arne Novák, for example, has recorded a description of three readers' concreticizations of Neruda's Mala Strana Stories [Malostranské povídky].16 Here we have three friends—a lively, exuberant poet; a slender, pensive girl; a tired, bitter architect—who spend an evening talking about the Malá Strana Stories in one of the Malá Strana gardens. The Poet: Now I see the whole crowd that I have loved for so long: the dry, rigid Mr. Rybář watches the sea surging and roaring at the foot of Hluboká Road in Seminary Garden and throws into it his gems, the colorful, deceitful illusions of his long life. Dr. Kazisvět in a grey checked suit, with a wildly bearded face and the supplicatory eye of a kicked dog, comes back timidly from a walk beyond the Újezd Gate, and with the most serenely indifferent gesture brings to life a famous dead man who performed the supreme feat of his existence precisely by dying and having a magnificent funeral. Now somewhere on Mostecká Street are walking two pairs of men, so completely ordinary and yet so memorable: the eternal rivals and conspiratorily silent enemies who are not able to live without each other, Mr. Ryšánek and Mr. Schlegl; and then the two inseparable "carousers," sentimental self-sacrificing men like the heroes of my great-grandmother's romantic novels, the merchant Cibulka and the engraver Rechner. The handsome, dignified beggar, Mr. Vojtíšek, who maybe was a wealthy man anyway even though the author himself did not believe it, walks slowly with cap in hand along Svatojánský Hill; Mr. Vorel stands amidst the thick smoke of his hopes and expectations and breaks in his perfect, silver-inlaid meerschaum which always moved me more tragically than all the knives, scythes, and sabers from the tragedies of fate. . . . I do not know whether so many unforgettable and historically fine characters live in any other author writing in the language of this beautiful city. [pp. 10-12] The Girl: I never loved Neruda for these finely delineated characters; their petty, vain world was always far from mine. In both those extravagant volumes of his stories I looked only for the supreme scenes in which the poet has found a capricious and

The Concretization of the Literary Work / 117 picturesque setting for the trifling adventures, in which the characters blend with the setting, with the atmosphere of the scene, with its landscape. I always liked only this full and harmonious ensemble. I read "Hastrman" for that night with the silver mist when the blue sea flows beneath Petřín just as today. . . . Today everyone knows "St. Wenceslas' Mass," but half-humorously, half-sentimentally. Thus is popular taste able to debase a chaste and noble work in which the sweet wisdom of the old man and the pious naivete of the child flow into one. In this cathedral setting described in hushed tones, which people read only for the grotesque humor of the boyish scenes, I always find five or six pages that are painted as if by Rembrandt. A peculiar, wistful mystical darkness steals through a Gothic nave, and Neruda says beautifully, so beautifully that it moves one to tears, that it was as if the blue paschal cloth had been spread over the altars and columns in long stripes. And into this colorful darkness Neruda suddenly throws a Rembrandt-like brightness that gleams from a coalminer's lantern. And then he has silvery lunar and stellar hazes flow from the windows. . . . from this mysterious shining and twinkling arises that midnight procession of shadows, that Spanish vision painted by Rembrandt—not from a young man's imagination, as the insensitive positivists believe. [pp. 12-14] The Architect: Neruda's lyric poetry is unique: it is the languor of a romantic heart betrayed by fate. He stepped into life longing for happiness, for love, for a joyful home. He yearned for an idyll which would be the result of social freedom; he thought about the patriarchal harmony that would spring from man's rebirth; he looked forward to the Whitsuntide of humanity. . . . He became an illusionist: the most beautiful of the stories are concentrated tragedies of illusionism. "Pan Vorel" is the most explicitly elaborated of them. Who of us is not like him? Who does not have his own meerschaum, his own illusory ideal, his own lie necessary for existence? At every examination of every corpse a smoked meerschaum drops out of a p o c k e t . . . ambition, love, family honor, proud independence. "Hastrman" is a comparable illusionistic confession, and even poets who like Neruda above all for his characters discover behind the squandered gems of Mr. Rybář "colorful and deceitful illusions of a long life." I could not speak about "St. Wenceslas' Mass" without emotion. What is more awful than the story of the foolish child who wants to see a miracle and falls asleep from hunger and cold? Yes, some of us who bear the smaller part of the world's sorrow fall asleep from

118 / Felix Vodicka hunger . . . and the rest of us from cold. I do not know whether subjective sorrow is not objectified here just as in the Ballads, a book definitely lyrical in its conception. [pp. 18-19] These three concretizations are motivated psychologically and subjectively. A temperamental poet fills the Malá Strana with Neruda's characters and their fates, a dreamy and melancholy girl moodily experiences the situations of the stories, and an architect finds remarkable in Neruda's narrative works only the lyrical situations revealing the author's existential disillusionment. This is the same work, but the esthetically effective components in it are always different. It might appear that only subjective elements determine a concretization, but this dialogue, motivated completely subjectively, is a component of the critical intention of the author, who juxtaposes a new concretization to an older evaluation of the art of character drawing and to an epic conception. The architect's concretization embodies Novák's response as found in fan Neruda (1910). The character-drawing conception was quite common for the Malá Strana Stories—F. V. Krejčí expressed it critically, and it had a persistent influence in literature, for example, on Ignát Herrmann. The girl's impressionistic concretization constitutes a transition from the positivist concretization to the concretization directed at personality. We are therefore dealing not only with constructs pertaining to the various possibilities of individual perception but with the concretizations realized in the development of the immediate artistic tradition, where a subjective conception of the stories is emphasized in opposition to an objective one.17 Because in a study of reception we are primarily concerned with a picture of the work as it appears against the background of literary development, we must distinguish between what in a given concretization is subjective and what is objectively valid for a period. All the possible concretizations of an individual reader cannot become the goal of understanding, but only those that reflect the encounters between the structure of the work and the structure of the literary norms of a period. The description of a concretization is hardly ever unified. The continual confrontation between the work and the actual or reconstructed values of the literary norm gives rise to that analytical process in which some individual components are esthetically deautomatized, others are perceived as ineffectual, and others completely oppose the norm. The whole work as it appears in a concretization is, of course, organized in this way. And the descriptions themselves

The Concretization of the Literary Work / 119 may be impressionistic, intellectual, or even ideological. In each case the description involves an argument justifying the evaluation of the work. Because this framework for the description of a concretization is related both to the evaluation of the work and to the literary norms of the period, we shall call it the context, a term borrowed from linguistics; it is the set of circumstances making it possible to perceive and evaluate a given work esthetically. Changes in evaluation can be studied most accurately through changes in context. Even higher literary units (e.g., literary periods) seldom are evaluated consistently because their components exist in dialectical opposition. The unity of a period stems far more from certain common properties of context, as on the whole the study of context most easily facilitates our separation of subjective elements from characteristics of the period.18 On the one hand, context is evidence of how a period determines several concretizations, even though they result in different evaluations; on the other, similar results coming from different contexts are evidence that the nature of the esthetic effectiveness of a work stems from different circumstances. Let us cite as an example four opinions about the same problem so that we can consider the interrelation of context and evaluation in a concretization. Neruda brought scientific information into Cosmic Songs and often treated the cosmic theme in the untraditional form of a lighthearted, humorous ditty; for this purpose he used constant personification. This procedure was evaluated both positively (by Schulz, Arbes, F. V. Krejč ) and negatively (by Eduard Albert, Vrchlicky, Karásek, Arne Novák). Let us look at the negative evaluations. Eduard Albert: What he says about maternal love melts us, but we are utterly indifferent to how planetoids rush into the sun. A comparison of the h u m a n and the cosmic could create an aperçu for a popular lecture in natural science, but poetry is for the heart, and the heart remains cold in the presence of objects infinitely large and infinitely small. 19 Jaroslav Vrchlicky: The whole thing cannot escape the rebuke of program poetry. It is written more with the head than with the heart. [A description of some cosmic songs follows.] In the third category of Cosmic Songs the disparity between the theme and the form is palpable despite all the poet's brilliance and dexterity The jacket of jest and irony strikes us as too tight for those immense dimensions of the cosmos and heavenly bodies. All of

120 / Felix Vodicka Neruda's art tries to express with the tucked-up skirt of the ditty something for which even the flowing robe of the hymn and the ode would be too tight. 20 Jiří Karásek: From one extreme, from a splenetic pessimism, Neruda falls into a second, an unnatural psychic coquetry in which he is insincere to himself. Even here he remains the same nervous, irritable spirit that he was before. The only difference is that the poet has allowed his intellect to the detriment of his emotions to project above his psychic pain this Active mirth of a man ridiculing everything and knavishly making light of everything. . . . The result is the excessive affectation of Cosmic Songs, their meager poetic spontaneity. They are written more with the head than with the heart; they are too programmatic. The poet has decided to write enough poems on a specific subject to produce a cycle. He composes his poems too logically, too pointedly. That was quite natural. Fear lest he be seized by his emotions caused him to control and analyze all the changes of his heart. 21 Arne Novák: But scientific truth, especially if it is not the expression of an exclusively intellectual and essentially abstract mind, can never replace personal truth, sealed by fate. The Cosmic Songs, whose conception dates from desultory visits to a lecture hall and momentary stops at an observatory, lack an internal ideational necessity. 22 The reviews of Albert and Vrchlicky, on the one hand, and those of Karásek and Novák, on the other, have points in common to which we have already alluded. Albert's initial dogmatic assumption emphasized that in poetry designated for the heart only what concerns h u m a n emotions moves us in our conception of the theme. And Vrchlicky, proceeding from the mode in which a theme is supposed to be elaborated, finds any disparity intellectual, something willed. Karásek and Novák, on the other hand, introduce into their context the notion of personality, for poetry is supposed to be the expression of the poet's inner life. Failing that, the poem cannot be positively evaluated. Karásek reiterates Vrchlicky's claim that the work is written "more with the head than with the heart," and then in the Supplements to Otto's Encyclopedia Arne Novák (in the article "Neruda") appeals to this opinion of Vrchlicky's, although his reasons for condemnation are different. And, of course, the concretization of Cosmic Songs is different, though the difference is not overtly expressed. The places that the context made esthetically ef-

The Concretization of the Literary Work / 121 fective are evidence of this fact. Vrchlicky regards the hymnlike poems as the high points of Cosmic Songs ("Poeto svéte!" [Poet! world!], "Mésíc mrtev" [The moon is dead], etc.), while Novák lauds primarily those places "where Neruda neither produces little humorous genre pictures out of cosmic phenomena and laws nor uses them as decorative filler for verse didactics but where he symbolizes with them his intimate acts, his lyrical dramas, the tragedy of his unexpired love, and the languor of his filial heart,"23 for example, "Do písné se to tak krátce dá—a zije se to tak dlouze!" [That can be put into song so quickly—and takes so long to live!] or "Zelená hvézdo ν zenitu" [O green star at your zenith]. Although these places do not strike even Vrchlicky as ineffective (and we can say the same of the hymns for Novák), there is nevertheless a difference in the hierarchies determined by their contexts. Context also causes the semantic interpretations of works to shift to an entirely new semantic plane, although the text itself may not suggest it. Thus, for Arne Novák, who always introduced the author's personality into the perception of a work, even the Ballads and Romances [Ballady a romance] assume meanings that have nothing to do with the communicative nature of a given poem. His ecclesiastic interpretation of "The Song of Songs" is the most famous example of this semantic shift. A traditional context, on the other hand, may actually make it impossible to understand some properties of a work. Thus Jakub Malý, who judged all the poetry of the Máj School in the context of the critical concretization of Mácha's May [Máj] of 1836, found mere subjectivism and pessimism in the works that did not conform to his taste, whereas only Neruda shifted the entire polemics to the real problems involved, the depoetization of the theme and the prosaicization of literary expression.24 THE VITALITY OF THE LITERARY WORK

Though context serves above all as evidence of the immediate artistic tradition, it also facilitates the evaluation of the work of art. The fact that a work or some of its components are perceived as esthetically effective in a given context means that properties concretized in the given circumstances were potential in the work. There are critics who have attempted to calculate in advance the concretizational capacities of a certain work. The literary historian, however, contents himself with examining the developmental curve of its reception. He establishes to what extent the work was a living

122 / Felix Vodicka literary value, i.e., which of its components were concretized as esthetically effective, and to what extent it has existed merely as a historical value. In some cases he examines the reception sociologically, looking at the social milieu in which work achieved resonance and its place in the social hierarchy of literary values. If we examine some of Neruda's works from the standpoint of their resonance, we shall find considerable differences despite the fact that we are dealing with a relatively short period. We have in mind the life of individual works in "high" literature. Graveyard Flowers, as we mentioned earlier, was never incorporated as a value into the esthetically valid norms of its period. According to Antal Stasek's testimony, the younger generation received the work with hope ("a rifle shot which resounded into the black night"), 25 but its attraction was apparently its revolutionary nature rather than its literary qualities. It is not without interest that Bohdan Jelínek, Vrchlicky, and other friends were preparing an almanac for the year 1873 to be called Graveyard Flowers. Vrchlicky said that it could be "what May was for literature in 1868 [understand 1858, F.V.]."26 And even in 1934 when Salda was bringing Neruda closer to contemporary literature in an unconventional form, he assigned only a historical value to Graveyard Flowers. Cosmic Songs, on the other hand, was received by the public with great acclaim—two editions in the space of two weeks and considerable critical resonance. In a later period, however, this collection received a completely contradictory evaluation. Praised highly by Krásnohorská and F. V. Krejč , it was condemned by Vrchlicky, Albert, Krásek, and Novák. By that time the artistic effect of Cosmic Songs seemed of limited duration. But Ballads and Romances, using the same prosaicizing of a traditional theme—this time a religious one—stayed vital much longer, even though it had not originally enjoyed as great a public reception. It lasted not only throughout the objectivistic evaluation of the nineties but also in the period of subjectivistic evaluation following. The same was true of Simple Motives and Friday Songs [Zpêvy páteční]. Impressionism found Simple-Motives congenial. Writing in the journal Time in 1896, F. X. Salda concretized Friday Songs in the context of the period as an expression of mysticism. The rhetorical nature of some poems, however, was felt to be ineffective (Arne Novák). What has given these three books until today a greater vitality and resonance than Cosmic Songs and the previous collections? The answer can hardly be sought in the developmental values of Neruda's poetry (the prosaicization of language and theme, the orientation toward meaning). In these aspects Neruda influenced Machar the

The Concretization of the Literary Work / 123 most. Instead we must seek properties that could produce a positive concretization in both an objectivist and subjectivist context: the objective poetry of Ballads and Romances pervaded with lyrical elements, the objective motif of the native land and nation in Friday Songs infused with a subjective confession, the objective motif of natural description suffused with subjectivism in Simple Motives. This list, however, does not tell the whole story. Subjectivism penetrates Cosmic Songs as well, though much less so. But another quality unites the three collections. It is not only the process of prosaicization, or even the marked orientation toward a meaning based upon scientific information, but the insistence on ordinariness which not only became the object of poeticization, but opened a path toward a new national myth (as in the anecdote about Charles IV). This path toward a new myth and symbol, developing Christian and national themes in Ballads and Romances and Friday Songs and the natural and personal world in Simple Motives, made it possible for Neruda to be regarded as a modern poet from the midnineties up to World War I. After World War I the vitality of Neruda's poetry slackened. Poetism and surrealism did not, at least publicly, make known their attitude to him, and F. X. Salda's attempt at a new concretization in 1934 was an isolated case. This does not mean, of course, that Neruda's works do not include qualities that could be esthetically deautomatized in the future, especially in the case of works whose historical value made them constantly the object of public attention and scholarly study. Today new possibilities for a Neruda cult can be discerned.

TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE STRUCTURE OF THE "AUTHOR" IN IMMEDIATE EVALUATIONS

Besides the literary work, the "author" often becomes related to the developing literary structure. Here we are concerned with the author not as a psychophysical being but, in a metonymical sense, as the unity comprised of the works of a particular author in their entirety. Individual works, like constants of the author's formal devices, constitute components of this structure, which likewise is subject to differing evaluations and requires concretizations. The literary norm of a period will also have an influence on the concretization of the author, and in the same way conceptualization and interpretation will be incorporated into a temporally determined context. The tendency to perceive an author's works as a whole can be ver-

124 / Felix Vodicka ifled by ordinary experience. If we read the new work of an author w h o m we already know from some former work, similar and dissimilar features come to mind quite spontaneously. All the qualities perceived—positive or negative values with respect to our esthetic perception—produce a generalized concretization of the author coming from within the work but existing without it. The author as a literary fact is perceived as an integral structure even if it is based on only a single work, and even if the author could not realize all of his plans. Fragmentariness does manifest itself as a characteristic component, as a qualitative determinant, but not so as to limit the image of the author as an integral structure (e.g., in Mácha). We can objectively establish individual components of the author's structure, which have been the subject of scholarly study for quite some time. But it is necessary to realize that we cannot understand the structure of an author any more than the structure of an individual work as a mere sum of components. We can understand it only as a dynamically organized system with a dominant tendency. This organization of the structure is not, however, fixed a priori) it comes about only through concretization. We can reconstruct it by projecting the author into a particular moment of literary development, but its genuine concretization in a living literature can be studied only if we have at hand evidence of such a concretization. To show how variously an author can be concretized we might consider what different evaluations have been given to the relationship between Neruda the feuilletonist/prose writer and Neruda the poet. Up to the close of the seventies, he was seen primarily as a feuilletonist or storyteller, while the poetic works recede into the background. But from the publication of Cosmic Songs on, he was taken as a prose writer and as a poet, and then in the generation of the nineties primarily as a lyric poet. This image was produced not only by the development in Neruda's career, which is crowned by his poetic collections, but also by the change in the literary atmosphere, a continuous shifting of values that can be explained through the development of the literary norm. The changeability of an author's concretization appears not only in differing evaluations of his genres but also in what is seen as typical of him or her at a given time. Of Neruda's poetic works Cosmic Songs was regarded most highly by the literary taste of the eighties, represented by Schulz, Arbes, and Eliska Krásnohorská (even Machar was enchanted by it in his youth). 27 The Lumírians (Vrchlicky, Albert) esteemed Ballads and Romances most highly; although F. V. Krejčí, in contrast to Vrchlicky, favored Cosmic Songs. The nineties, on the other hand, leaned toward Friday Songs for its mys-

The Concretization of the Literary Work / 125 ticism (F. X. Salda, Karásek); and the generation of the turn of the century, represented by Arne Novák, saw Neruda's peak in Simple Motives. We shall not deal with the reasons for these evaluations, but merely note that these differences, which always assign the dominant position to a different collection, also reorganize components in the author's concretization. Salda's famous study of 1901, "An Avenue of Dream and Meditation to Jan Neruda's Grave," which identifies simplification as the main feature of Neruda's development, quite consciously reconstructs the literary situation of Neruda's time: What was new and bold in the conception and expression of these verses, what was daring, is hardly noticeable after forty or fifty years. Just as today, after imitators have already ground the gold into small change, the fresh, full, bursting beauty of a line such as this more youthful one, "zoraná pole krásné jako cerstvy chleba voní" [the ploughed fields smell as beautiful as fresh bread], can hardly be matched. When our literary historians and critics, who up to now have worked a web of patience and goodwill following Hettner, Taine, or Hennequin, grasp that there is an art and poetry outside of canonic literature and understand what it consists in, they will be forced to chronicle the chivalrous deeds, discoveries, moves, and quests of Neruda which the dust and sand of trodden paths bury day by day. A scratch made by a strong hand in the realm of the spirit becomes erased as quickly as a furrow in a field as soon as the grain has taken root and is growing. 28 Salda's claim that Neruda had prosaicized poetic language by means of "words unwashed and uncombed" was obviously an attempt to reconstruct its esthetic effect at the time of origin. At the same time Salda explicitly states that the novelty of this process was no longer vividly perceived in our day. In the second part of the study, he sets out to concretize Neruda's literary figure on the basis of contemporary literature, to find relations that would make it possible to see Neruda as a literary value in the present as well. We have already discussed how the context of contemporary problems can lead to the reevaluation of a work or an author of the past. As Salda states: The Neruda problem is identical to that of the strongest spirits of our age. His is the grief of a cold intellect, egoism and solitude, the grief of a sterile and rent-asunder culture. . . . Neruda

126 / Felix Vodicka redeemed himself from the grief and emptiness of the modern world in his own fashion within the narrowest framework of a small nation. He tied himself to the day and the moment, he heeded their demands with the same respect and affection as if they were eons, he allowed himself to be instructed by them, and he was obedient to them as if he were serving not in a cheap pub but at a prince's coronation table. [pp. 72, 73] Thus for Salda, simplicity which was crucial after decadent and symbolist complication is the basis for a fresh perception of Neruda's works. This is the way that Salda concretizes Neruda in 1901, a conception so new and unconventional that it provoked criticism from Viktor Dyk in the Modern Review of 1902. If we compare it with Salda's later study of 1934, "A Somewhat Unconventional Neruda," we note basic differences in his concretization of Neruda. Here too there is information illuminating components and properties of the works quite objectively, and here too problems requiring analysis are raised. But in addition Neruda, newly conceived, is presented as a literary factor with respect to the present. Compare the following passages from the two concretizations. Citation from 1901: In his presentation the world becomes remarkably intimate, tangible, open, cordial, and secure. If you read the mature Neruda, everything lies in your palm, you are sure of everything. If a moment ago you still did not have any faith in the universe and if you sensed a ruse and a trap in it, you are now calm and confident, just as if you had looked into a peaceful well reflecting the mild, milky May sky, close and lowhanging like a child's toy, a gift that can be reached with your hand. You are convinced at this moment that nothing in the world or in life can happen to you, so remarkably ingenuous, kindly, and trusting is the world in Neruda's version. 29 Citation from 1934: Neruda is a poet of internal contradictions. He never fully reconciled the antithesis of romanticism and realism, lyricism and the anecdote, baroque and impressionism, criticism and enthusiasm. Wherever you reach your hand, something unredeemed laments and groans even though it has been impressively and brilliantly spanned by a bridge that is stable to the eye. These contradictions call for a rivet and brace; however, Neruda could not find them in the critical rationalism that corroded him within, eating away at his creative root, and he

The Concretization of the Literary Work / 127 himself knew this. In his anguish he created his mystique of nationality, of a nation as an absolute value, a value of values, beyond any discussion, beyond any doubt. . . . Nationality becomes the compensation for a lost religion. . . . There are moments in Neruda when his nationalism makes me shudder—so vividly do I feel that it was a sick man's opium, morphine for an invalid. 30 In the first case, Salda emphasized the components of Neruda's poetry that make it possible to understand him as an author overcoming contradictions for the sake of clarity. In the second, Salda shows contradictions that were overcome only inadequately and artificially. Strikingly, the second concretization is the direct opposite of the first. The new concretization stems from a new context, from the artistic problems of its time. Wherever there was once security, clarity, transparency, there is now a tension from the new circumstances that Salda finds. He raises new issues such as that of sex, the erotic, and the baroque in Neruda's work. These questions are not posed merely as problems for scholarly study but as the point of departure toward a new concretization. A comparison of Salda's two contradictory evaluations also reveals m u c h about the objective value of Neruda's work. Jan Mukarovsky describes this objective esthetic value in his Esthetic Function, Norm, and Value as Social Facts: "It is certainly not difficult to conclude that works with strong internal contradictions provide— precisely on account of their divergence and the ensuing polysemicity—a much less suitable basis for the mechanical application of a system of practical values than works without internal contradictions or with only weak contradictions. Thus even here the polymorphousness, the heterogeneity, and the polysemicity of the material artifact appear to be a potential esthetic asset" (p. 72). Salda's later study of Neruda, whose title itself emphasized Neruda's unconventionality, his contradiction of practical values, is a case in point of Mukařovský's theory and at the same time a testament to the internal value—of course, changeable and nearly indefinable—of Neruda's work. One can conclude that the very fact of the manifold concretizations of Neruda within the space of fifty years guarantees that the history of the esthetic effect of his works is still far from complete. What is even more interesting about the contradictoriness of Salda's two studies is that they come from the pen of the same critic. They evidence the predominantly critical character of Salda's work, though it does contain significant scholarly contributions as well. Salda was well aware of the contradiction between his two studies,

128 / Felix Vodicka that a single work can provoke different perceptions and even evaluations if one proceeds from a new individual or period context: "Of course after having written this article, I did not throw my Neruda into the Vltava, nor did I sell it to a secondhand bookdealer. I read him often in a different mental light with a constantly revived curiosity, with a will to penetrate to his vital core, because a poet is a changeable and complex phenomenon, and he does not have, as Taine believed, only one 'faculté maitresse.' And this Neruda of my new curiosity does not, of course, resemble in any way the literary historical cliché as it has circulated in public, in schools, and in newspapers." 31 Here Salda contrasts his new concretization to the automatized concretizations propagated in schools and popular handbooks. This emphasis on the need for a new concretization suggests one of the reasons why older authors are reevaluated. Just as automatized devices in poetic language lose their esthetic effectiveness, which accounts for the tendency to seek new, esthetically deautomatized ones, a new concretization of a work or author comes about not only because the literary norm changes but also because older concretizations lose their authority through constant repetition. A new concretization always entails a regeneration of the work. The work is reintroduced into literature in a fresh appearance, whereas the repetition of an old concretization (e.g., in school) without a new concretization arising is evidence that the work has ceased to be a living constituent of literature. There are, of course, authors whose value is fixed in the school tradition and part of the literary-historical education of the elite; however, they are often dead for contemporary literature, and the values ascribed to them have a historical validity in no way sustained by the contemporary literary norm. But the initiative for new concretizations is due not only to automatized concretizations. The developmental tendencies of literature also result in new concretizations of older authors. There have already been several attempts to treat the concept of generation in a scholarly way, seeking the predecessors of a contemporary conception of literature in the past. The literary debut of a new generation may be associated with the rehabilitation of an older author who has been newly concretized. We have two such examples in Czech literature. The Má) generation rehabilitated Mácha, although the import of their debut is quite different in terms of the literary development from that of Mácha himself. And Machar in his polemics over Hálek revived Neruda as his own predecessor. In this case, however, the historical significance of Neruda's debut is quite close to that of Machar's. But in both cases new literary tendencies are justified by the

The Concretization of the Literary Work / 129 past because a new movement wishes to be incorporated into literature, to be linked to works that are part of the literary awareness, to create at least a seeming continuity between the past and the present. Each new movement assaults the existing literary norm, and this struggle for new literary positions is greatly facilitated if newly deautomatized qualities are discovered in authors who have already earned their place in literature. Thus, the impressionism of Simple Motives was discovered through the literary impressionism of the beginning of this century (F. X. Salda, Arne Novák), and Mácha's surrealism was discovered only by the surrealists. In both cases authors are newly concretized as predecessors of a contemporary literary movement and even participants in it. The initiative for the concretization process is not the automatization of older concretizations but quite explicitly the needs of new literary movements. Of course, these tendencies are often so intertwined as to be inseparable. HIGHER LITERARY UNITS AS THE OBJECT OF ESTHETIC EVALUATION

The content of literature, i.e., what is received and viewed as a literary object in a particular period, involves more, however, than the literary art work and the "author." The work is naturally the basic structure, supported by the material existence of the work. The author is an integral structure already existing as an abstraction. The relationship among the material bases of the individual works constituting his structure is fairly free, allowing a greater diversity of concretizations. The process of abstraction customary in the appreciation of works of art does not, however, stop at the author, the common denominator among his many works, but proceeds to even higher structural units: literary groups, literary periods, national literatures. These higher units are in fact literary historical concepts. Literary history attempts to understand literary developments which occur in time under certain tendencies and conditions, and so these higher structures become the goal of its study as well. But they are not only the object of scholarly study; they are related to living literature by the fact that they are esthetically evaluated on the basis of the contemporary norm. Only works can be experienced esthetically, but they are projected against the background of a broader whole. In this way notions such as classicism, romanticism, the baroque, and so forth, function as structural units evaluated according to the literary norms of the present.

130 / Felix Vodicka Therefore, we can speak of the reception and concretization of higher structures in contemporary literature. The structure of older literary norms is evaluated from the standpoint of contemporary ones, the two structures interpenetrating, internally changeable, unlimited, and polysemic. Literary movements of the past, created as abstractions from particular concrete works, are detached from them as fictions that exist in the reading public's awareness as simplified schemes. In reality even a literary period is a structure made rich by the dynamic tension of its components, so that a current conception is only one of many ways of concretizing it. Again, I would emphasize that in studying the reception of older principles of artistic creation in the present, we are not concerned with the scholarly description of the literary periods of the past but with the way in which their appearance changes in the perspective of current literary activity and evaluation. The initiative for this interest springs from the contemporary development of the literary norm. For example, the artistic tendencies of modern literature, which manifest themselves in expressionism, have also aroused an interest in baroque literature, and this has become the object not only of positive evaluation but also of new scholarly study. This deautomatization of the baroque principle is all the more distinct if we realize that even Benedetto Croce regarded the baroque as a period which negated the essential principles of art, or if we recall how the baroque was appreciated by Czech literary historians of Vlcek's era. Literary history with its evaluative opinions is often the captive of period views whether they are determined esthetically, ideologically or socially. Individual higher units change in the literary tradition and their resonance always has a different character and import. Classical literatures, for example, are generally conceived as a unit corresponding to the spiritual structure of antiquity. Though later movements have entered into an active relationship with classical literatures, and classical works have been a constant part of literature often regarded as norms of esthetic perfection, the idea of classical literatures as a unit has been subject to various changes. For the classicism of Boileau's period, the center of gravity of classical literature shifted to the Romans—to Horace's poetic theory—so that even Homer appears as an author embodying eternal poetic rules. On the other hand, Perrault emphasized that Homer defies these rules, so that the classical writers of Louis XIV's era surpass him. The preromantic Homer created by Klopstock and Herder is a manifestation of the theory of national bards, and accordingly the conception of classical literature shifted back to the Greeks. The evaluation of antiq-

The Concretization of the Literary Work / 131 uity appears different again in Schlegel's conception, a romantic conception emphasizing the tragedy of fate. From this it is clear that classical literature is a dialectically undifferentiated unity only from the perspective of a particular context and in reality contains some elements acceptable to classicists, others to romantics. Differences in the evaluations of higher literary units result from a lack of fixed terminology: words such as classicism and romanticism are not only used in different senses but applied to different groups of works and authors. What is called classicism in Germany (Goethe, Schiller) seems to contradict the basic tendencies of classicism in France. Terms which originally were supposed to designate chronologically defined historical units have lost their period specificity and function in literature as schemes designating a particular principle of literary creation devoid of temporal limitation. This is the case with the concepts of classicism, romanticism, realism, and baroque, whose relation to the actual works from which they were abstracted is so weak that they are irrelevant to reception. They are simply general terms pertaining to principles of literature. In the case of romanticism and classicism, some scholars (e.g., Strich in his Deutsche Klassik und Romantik) treat them as basic principles of literature and not as historical terms at all. This is why the concretizations of higher literary units in a living literature present such a complex problem, since it demands a special study of the range of any unit whose transformation we wish to trace in an immediate evaluation. We have outlined here the problem of the concretization of the work, the author, and the higher literary unit. We could have mentioned some closely connected questions such as the so-called influence or the translation, which is a concretization in the context of another language and literary tradition. But such a detailed elaboration would not have added to my survey of the main methodological problems in the study of reception in light of structural esthetics and literary theory. The documents of a reception and particularly of a concretization are such that the literary historian can trace only tendencies. He must concentrate on mastering materials that reveal the work as an esthetic object and incorporate it into a system of immediate literary values; on context, which, purged of all subjective elements, will illuminate a period's manner of perceiving the work; on the vitality of the work and the qualities that caused this vitality in a given historical development; and finally on the relationship between the evolutionary value of the work and its later concretizations. Only in this way can we overcome the esthetic dogmatism

132 / Felix Vodička and the extreme subjectivism that have thus far characterized the literary-historical study of reception. Translated by John Burbank

NOTES 1. "Hořčičné semeno Máchovo" [Mácha's mustard seed], Listy pro umění a kritiku, 4 (1936), 1. See also Salduv zápisník, 8 (1935), 155. 2. See Gustave Lanson, "Histoire littéraire," De la méthode dans les sciences, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (Paris, 1911), vol. 2, pp. 241-244. 3. Die Wissenschaft von der Dichtung (Berlin, 1939), p. 268. 4. In Czech literary history we have few works which have been devoted to a systematic study of the reception of a writer, not counting studies of the reception of foreign writers in Czech literature that belong to the realm of "influence." The history of the reception of Mácha's work has been among the most attractive, and today in response to Salda's appeal we have material collected for such a history. In the centenary of Mácha's death two books appeared that gave a more extensive attention to his reception. One is A. Vyskocil's Básník: Studie máchovské otázky [A poet: A study on the Mácha question] (Prague, 1936), which is a polemic with older critical and literary historical theses, and the other is A. Prazák's Κ. Η. Mácha (Prague, 1936), the last chapter of which contains a survey of those who hold that "the poet, misunderstood by his own time, is gradually understood by succeeding generations, that all generations have looked at themselves in him as in a mirror cut and polished according to their particular inclinations" (p. 211). Prazák for the most part only records. His explanations are merely accounts of the personality of whoever is uttering the opinion so that here, in fact, we get a survey of the subjective attitudes of individual writers, critics, and historians toward works. When evaluating, Pražák proceeds from the present state of research on Mácha as it focuses on individual concrete questions. J. Sup followed up Pražák's study with an article, "Ne pro přítomnost, pro budoucnost . . ." [Not for the present, but the future] (see A. Hartl et al. [eds.], Vécny Mácha [The eternal Mácha], [Prague, 1940], pp. 197- 214). Otherwise the problem of the reception of individual works or authors has been outlined rather than solved in various monographs or studies. 5. "Polákova Vznesenost přírody: Pokus o rozbor a vývojové zařadění básnické struktury" [Polák's Vznesenost phrody: An attempt at an analysis and historical classification of a poetic structure], Sborník filologický, 10 (1934-1935), 8. 6. Estetická funkce, norma a hodnota jako sociální fakty (Prague, 1936) English translation by Mark E. Suino, Michigan Slavic Contributions, vol. 3 (Ann Arbor, 1970). Translator's note: Page references in the following citations are to the Czech text of this work; the English translations are my own (J.B.). 7. O poznawaniu dzieia literackiego (Lwow, 1937), p. 7. English translation by R. A. Crowley and K. R. Olson, The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art (Evanston, 1973), p. 13. Translator's note: The English translation of this citation and of the ones in note 8 below are my own (J.B.). 8. "One and the same literary work read by readers in different circumstances results in many different concretizations of the work. They originate in various periods and, what is more important, frequently in different literary epochs or literary atmospheres, and thus under varied conditions which have an influence on their formation. They are immediately accessible in concreto to only a single reader, but they can be made known to other readers through description and in this way, indirectly, they are

The Concretization of the Literary Work / 133 fixed at least in some of their features. . . . Descriptions of the concretizations of the same work coming from different periods reveal that despite all the individual differences there is a close relationship among the concretizations of a literary epoch. The literary atmosphere of a given period compels its readers to read the work in a characteristic manner and thus to concretize it in a specific way" (O poznawaniu dziela literackiego, p. 264: an addendum not included in the English translation). 9. See Das literarische Kunstwerk (Halle, 1931), p. 388. English translation by G. G. Grabowicz, The Literary Work of Art (Evanston, 1973), p. 372. 10. Dějiny literatury české [History of Czech literature], 2 vols. (Prague, 1929), vol. 1, p. 157. 11. "Studie o básnickém jazyku mladého Jana Nerudy" [A study of the young Jan Neruda's poetic language], Slovo a slovesnost, 1 (1935), 93. 12. J. Arbes, Arabesky literární [Literary arabesques] in Spisy [Writings], (Prague, 1926), vol. 16, pp. 2 5 3 - 2 8 5 . 13. See L. Quis, Kniha vzpomínek [A book of recollections] (Prague, 1902), p. 387. 14. Vzpomínky a komentáře 1893-1917 [Recollections and commentaries], 2 vols. (Prague, 1927), vol. 1, p. 103. 15. O tak zvané nesmrtelnosti díla básnického [On the so-called immortality of the poetic work] (Prague, 1928,), p. 22. 16. "Večerní dialog o Janu Nerudovi" [An evening dialogue about Jan Neruda], Muzové a osudy: Kniha studií a podobizen [Men and their fates: A book of studies and portraits] (Prague, 1914). 17. Jiří Karásek had already pointed out in 1901 the necessity of looking at Neruda's narrative from the standpoint of the poet's personal development. 18. The judgments of Karásek, Salda, and F. V. Krejci about Neruda and his individual works all come from the period around 1901, and they all differ considerably in their results. All these studies, however, have approximately the same context; they examine Neruda's works in the framework of the psychic development of his personality. They regard Neruda's works as a problem close to the heart of their generation. The orientation of F. V. Krejci is among the most scholarly, and his description is fairly objective, but he views all works within a psychologically grounded developmental framework. For Karásek, Neruda's writing reflects its author's courage in revealing his presumed mental disorder. F. X. Salda presents Neruda in the context of a modern poet full of inner contradictions which he overcomes through simplification. In 1895 and 1896 there had also been a threefold evaluation of Neruda's works; the participants were Eliska Krásnohorská, Jaroslav Vrchlicky, and Eduard Albert. Their context of judging Neruda's works, however, was completely different. They were not concerned with the personality and its problems, but with objective problems: the problem of national art, of simplicity versus artificiality of form, the relationship between them and style. They therefore proceeded from a context that presupposes that a work of art is the expression of its author's objective attitude toward the theme and problems of artistic form, even in the case of intimate poetry. 19. Svêtozor, 30 (1895), 314. 20. Sebrané spisy fana Nerudy [Jan Neruda's collected works], 32 vols. (Prague, 1898), vol. 12, p. xxviii. 21. Renaissancní touhy v umění [Renaissance longings in art] (Prague, 1926), pp. 93-94. 22. fan Neruda, p. 67. 23. Ibid., p. 68. 24. Neruda illustrates this especially through the themes of woman and poverty, traditionally depicted in an idealized way. See his article "Skodlivé směry" [Ugly currents], Obrazy zivota [Pictures of life] (Prague, 1859-60).

134 / Felix Vodicka 25. Vzpomínky [Recollections] (Prague, 1925], p. 294. 26. Karel Hovorka, "Jirásek, Vrchlicky, Jelínek," Sborník Společnosti J. Vrchlického, 11 (19341, 110. 27. Konfesse literáta [The confessions of a littérateur], 2 vols. (Prague, 1927], vol. 1, p. 101. 28. "Alej snu a meditace ku hrobu Jana Nerudy," Boje o zítfek [Battles for tomorrow], 2nd ed. (Prague, 1915), p. 69. 29. Ibid., p. 65. 30. "Neruda ponékud nekonvencní" [A somewhat unconventional Neruda], Šaldův zápisník, 6 (1934), 334-345. 31. Ibid., p. 320.

Ritual and Theater Jindrich Honzl

Bibliographic Note: Jindrich Honzl, "Obrad a divadlo," Otázky divadla a filmu, 1 (1945-1946), 45-50, 117-123, 159-169, 234-242, 315-323; 2 (1946-1947), 74-81.

Jindrich Honzl (1894-1953) was one of the most active of the artists who participated in the theoretical discussions of the Prague Circle. An avantgarde stage director and author of several books on theater, Honzl regularly contributed to the Circle's journal and lectures. After the war he established his own journal, Problems in Theater and Film, in which "Ritual and Theater" appeared in six installments. As other commentators have observed, this essay gives the impression of being an unfinished fragment of a larger, unpublished text. Despite its title, it deals almost exclusively with ritual, omitting theater rather conspicuously1 Honzl's interest in delimiting ritual from theater can be traced to the early forties, when he reviewed Ferdinand Pujman 's study of Czech medieval theater. In the review itself and especially in the heated polemics with the injured author that followed, Honzl argued that rituals, in contrast to theatrical productions, are essentially symbolic in nature.2 "Ritual and Theater" is a thorough elaboration of this claim. Honzl's article is noteworthy for focusing on an issue that otherwise attracted little attention among the Prague structuralists: the concept of the symbol. Despite the affinity between Karcevskij's notion of the asymmetric linguistic sign and the Hegelian symbol, Dmytro Čyževskyj was the only Prague structuralist who attempted to provide philosophical criteria for distinguishing between sign and symbol, as in his essay "Ethics and Logic."3 Of passing relevance to Honzl's topic was Roman Jakobson's brief treatment of the medieval symbol in his study of Hussite poetry4 as well as fan Mukařovský's 1942 lecture "The Place of the Esthetic Function among the Other Functions," which differentiates between the esthetic and symbolic (magico-religious) functions.5 Neither Honzl's artistic achievements nor his theoretical writings are

136 / Jindřich Honzl well known in the English-speaking world. Translations of two of his essays have appeared in the anthology edited by Matejka and Titunik,6 and a selected bibliography of his writings has been included as an appendix to a collection of his essays, Základy a praxe moderního divadla [The bases and praxis of the modern theater] (Prague, 1963, pp. 183-197).

NOTES 1. For example, M. Procházka, "Jindrich Honzl a otázky teorie divadelního znaku" [Jindrich Honzl and the problems of the semiotics of theater], Estetika, 15 (1978), 111. 2. "Pujmanovo pojetí staroceského dramatu církevního" [Pujman's conception of the Old Czech church drama], Slovo a slovesnost, 5 (1941], 230-231, and "K Pujmanově obraně 'Zhudebněné mateřštiny'" [On Pujman's defense of The mother tongue set to music], ibid., 7 (1941), 46-47. 3. "Ètika i logika," Védecké práce Ruské lidové university v Praze (Prague, 1931), vol. 4, pp. 231-235. 4. "Úvahy o básnictví doby husitské" [Reflections on the poetry of the Hussite period], Slovo a slovesnost, 2 (1936), 1-21. A partial English translation by M. Heim, "Signum et Signatum," in L. Matejka and I. R. Titunik (eds.), Semiotics of Art: Prague School Contributions (Cambridge, Mass., 1976), pp. 176-187. 5. "Misto estetické funkce mezi ostatními," Studie ζ estetiky (Prague, 1966), pp. 64-73. An English translation by J. Burbank and P. Steiner in J. Mukařovský, Structure, Sign, and Function (New Haven, 1978), pp. 31-48. 6. See note 4 above.

RITUAL A N D THEATER I

Ritual and theater have two fundamental similarities: they are first actions, and second, signifying (symbolic) actions. This correspondence has resulted in the identification of the two and of their sources and goals. The religious character of primitive theatricality cannot be denied. But what activity of the human spirit among the primitives did not have a religious character? Mathematics, medicine, geometry, and astronomy were all inseparable in their beginnings—primitive religious representations of the world and man. But this religious origin has not prevented them from pleading the autonomy they have achieved in Europe since the Renaissance. Their current complexity cannot be founded upon the illusive principles of religion, but for many artists and theoreticians the fact that the theater was a divine service at the beginning of its development

Ritual and Theater / 137 suffices to prove that the true goal of this development is the theater-temple. Let us cite one example of this tendency in an artist who stands as a historical divide for nineteenth-century German theater, Richard Wagner. His theories were the flowering of German romanticism of the revolutionary year 1848, a romanticism that had its religiously inspired precursors in the poets Novalis, Clemens Brentano, and others. Richard Wagner's theories about the Greek theater demonstrate the social significance of theater by revealing its religious character: ' T h e day of tragedies was [in Athens] a divine service . . . the poet was its high priest," 1 states Wagner. Wagner accordingly longed to renew the social significance of theater; he made of it an exceptional religious ceremony (Festspiel) and drew on its religiously mythical materials. After the Old German myth of the Rhine ring he chose a medieval Christian myth, the legend of Parsifal. Wagner's last work, Parsifal, transforms an operatic performance into a religious act by introducing a liturgical motif—the Catholic high mass—onto the opera stage. Wagner's romanticism associated theater with society (and the state) through the medium of religion. He thereby modified the classical orientation of Schiller, who associated theater with society and the state through morality 2 A true romantic, Wagner replaced the moral examples of Schiller's classicism with religious symbols. The development of the German theater from Schiller to Wagner is therefore a progression from the stringency and rationality of an ethical norm to the polysemicity, and irrationality, of a religious norm. Wagner's theater touches the sphere of emotions much more deeply than Schiller was able to do, rejuvenating itself with all the atavisms religious magic arouses in its participants through the symbolism of its action. The polysemicity of Wagner's theatrical symbol, taken over from religious rituals and myths, touches the spectator's heart much more intensely and instinctually than the one-sidedness of Schiller's moral imperative springing from the noble, rational expediency of attitudes binding man to the state. Wagner's more profound appeal does not prevent us, however, from calling attention to the regressiveness of his theatricality, which substitutes religious for theatrical symbolism. Neither Wagner nor his theoretician pupils and epigones could rightly claim an ancient Greek example for the liturgical nature of the theater. The main source of its meaning was the concept of the citizen. The polity and its welfare were the first consideration not only of Aeschylus and Sophocles, but also of Aristophanes' comedies. This can be documented on the basis of both their themes and

138 / Jindřich Honzl their artistic devices. Let us recall the theme of Aeschylus 7 Oresteia: it is the myth of the origin of the highest state court, as we would say today. It follows from Aeschylus' way of elaborating this myth that the state's claim prevails over religion and the gods, for even the oldest goddesses of revenge had to submit to the argument for the necessity of establishing the areopagus in the Oresteia. And they not only had to submit but also to change from punishing furies (Erinyes) into rewarding goddesses of good and happiness (Eumenides). Even a theme like Sophocles' Oedipus, which admittedly is an example of a wholly individual dramatic fate, acquires a universal and civic interest by virtue of the fact that Sophocles combines the fate of an individual with the interest of the state. Thus Oedipus is told at the beginning of the tragedy: Noblest of men, restore Life to your city! Think how all men call you Liberator for your triumph long ago; Ah, when your years of kingship are remembered Let them not say We rose, but later fell— Keep the State from going down in the storm! Once, years ago, with happy augury, You brought us fortune; be the same again! 3 If Sophocles considers the matter of public welfare (the entire polity suffers for the unpunished act) the active motif of the tragedy, the gods' affairs are subordinate to the polity, and Apollo's Delphic oracle and her interpreter Teiresias are concerned only with the public welfare. Thus Oedipus compels Teiresias to interpret the oracle with the argument: OEDIPUS:

What you say is ungracious and unhelpful To your native country. Do not refuse to speak. What! You do know something, and will not tell us? You would betray us all and wreck the State? Why, Who would not feel as I do? Who could endure Your arrogance toward the city?

Ritual and Theater / 139 TEIRESIAS:

Never speak again to these men or to me: You yourself are the pollution of this country.4 The dominance of a state matter over a religious one is manifested here in the fact that the divine prophecy and the priest's interpretation serve (literally, as a servant serves a master who gives him orders) the welfare of the polity, which is the supreme and ultimate value. This would immediately be clearer to us if we transferred such a dialogue to the domain of the medieval theater, for example, where a matter of divine glory and power was the supreme goal. Not only the theater and the drama attest to this superiority of the state over religion, but so does the Greek social organization itself. "Officials, not priests, represented the state"—the totality of the citizenry—"before a god. The priests were professional administrators of a cult or counselors in the case of its performance, but not mediators between the people and the gods. They put into practice ritual precepts, but they did not determine them; the state itself established the cults and changed them insofar as there was a need to do so [italics mine, J.H.]."5 One cannot accordingly assert that the "day of tragedies in Athens was a divine service" in the sense that ritual prevailed over the state. In the present study, therefore, we do not draw on ancient examples— although ancient examples could be transposed to the ritual actions of other periods and countries if we took into account their common essence—because religion was not a main component in Greek polities or even in the Roman Empire. On the other hand, we frequently choose examples from the primitives, whose social life was undifferentiated, all thought and action being organized by collective religious representations. The forces which govern every natural process and every human act are religiously interpreted invisible forces according to these representations. Even the sense and awareness of responsibility for an act which ancient man had are completely lacking in the primitive, who sees in everything—even in his own acts—only the functioning of invisible forces of which man is the unconscious and involuntary instrument. There is accordingly no change that the primitive would not have interpreted religiously. If we also compare primitive and Christian ritual (especially the Catholic one), it is not because we equate the two modes of religious action. The ritual actions of medieval Christianity are manifestations belonging to a social structure in which religious conscious-

140 / Jindřich Honzl ness was also a leading component. Medieval society was organized religiously This assertion does not require extensive proof: consider medieval art and theater, the Passion plays (the mysteries), the miracles, and the moralities, about which it can be said that they were components of ritual actions just as it could be asserted that the day of Greek theater was a component of a state cult. Theatricality is a common property of Greek tragedies and medieval mysteries and distinguishes the tragedies and mysteries from both the religious and state cults. We maintain that theatricality is autonomous from both to the extent that it can itself become a leading component of social organization. And even for this we can find historical examples. Such social structures as Louis XIV's court are examples of the theatrical organization of social life. The name "sun king" is a theatrical allegorization of sovereign functions. It is in keeping with the allegorical processions, ballets, and plays which symbolized sovereign actions (state weddings, victories, installations, and the like) and which were joined into a continuous series of acts called "life at court." The history of that period has preserved for us the memory of the participation of the royal prince in ballets rather than in some diplomatic or military undertaking. Belonging to the court was conditioned by a mastery of all the rules of the "refinement" of morals and spirit. Social reality—political or military—was not admitted here except as a spirited or witty mode of conversation. And a politician or a soldier would have flopped disgracefully, even though his business were supremely important in itself, if he had not known how to present it as a spirited idea, a witty or humorous situation, or a brilliant rhetorical form. In this period even the most dramatic state action—the battle and warfare—acquired the form of a theatrical scene. The prebattle conversation between commanders, who gave each other the right of firing the first shot, was famous. The theater of that period therefore was—and it was certainly a peculiar relationship—a component of a higher theatrical structure: the action of the court. A performance of Molière was a component of a court feast which itself was a state act. "The king, who at the insistence of his allies and at the desire of all Europe granted us peace, showed signs of unprecedented restraint and kindness even after his greatest victories; he did not think otherwise than how he could accommodate himself to the interests of his kingdom, when . . . he decided to perform a feast in the garden at Versailles. . . . For that purpose, wishing to present a comedy after lunch and after the comedy a banquet, which was to be succeeded by a ballet and fireworks, he looked for people whom he considered the most talented

Ritual and Theater / 141 for this affair," we read in Félibien's account of a "Versailles Feast," 6 a component of which was various scenes from Molière. In his function of poet and playwright, Molière was an official of Louis XIV's court. In the Athenian state theatrical ceremonies, the welfare of the polity was the first consideration. At Versailles theatrical beauty and the grace and charm of a costume, a movement, a gesture, and a word, in which the king or the nobility excelled, were of primary importance. The autonomy of that mode of thinking and feeling we call theatrical and its specificity vis-à-vis modes of religious, political, or philosophical thinking have therefore been documented by the history of its development. But the meaning of the development is the crystallization of this mode of thinking and feeling to such purity and clarity that it can organize all the basic modes of human representation, emotion, and intention into a harmony that guarantees the flexible stability of their relations and their free development. We are therefore interested in the facts of social and individual consciousness. These are the facts of psychic life. But in interpreting them, we constantly draw attention to the fact that the phenomena of social and individual consciousness that we are examining are realities through which a society or an individual realizes its needs, including self-assertion in the material domain and self-awareness in the psychic domain. For man, the needs of gratification and love are inseparably associated with his yearning for understanding the world, for this is his h u m a n condition.

II

As an introduction to my analysis of the religious mode of thought and action, let me cite a statement by Alfred Loisy, whose entire life's work on the history of religion proves that "the essence of religion is religious action" (a sacred act, a sacrifice), and that no religion can do without it if it does not want to commit suicide. Just as there is no sacred act without faith in the real presence of a god in it, there is no religion without sacred acts. . . . A sacrifice cannot be limited to a simple gift even in the most primitive cults, a sacrifice also cannot become, if it is not to vanish completely, merely a simple symbolic gesture even in the most spiritual religions. . . . An effective ritual action remains as the essence of religious development up to the Christian sacraments. 7

142 / Jindřich Honzl

Alfred Loisy then defines ritual action as follows: a religious sacrifice is "a ritual action—the destruction of a sensorily perceptible object, alive or deemed to contain life—mediating the supposed influence of invisible forces, whether we should protect ourselves from their intervention if we assume that they are harmful or dangerous, or incite their action, appease them or worship them, or enter into contact or even alliance with them. . . ."8 It is evident therefore that the efficacy of a ritual action stems from its influence on the polar contradictions of the egoistic instinct, on its positive and negative aspects. The instinct of selfpreservation manifests itself here both as self-assertion and as selfdenial (humility before an invisible force and promotion of oneself to its power, in some cases, the imposition of one's own will on the invisible power). With respect to the external world, the egoistic instinct during a ritual action asserts itself negatively as a destructive instinct (the destruction of a living object) and positively as an effort to identify the self with an alien force, to expand the I. The approval of a social collective endows these egoistically instinctive actions with a special efficacy The purpose of a ritual act is the gratification of existential needs (among primitive people just as among civilized Christians it concerns crops, catches, a victory, health, and the like), indispensable and accessible to all individuals as parts of the social whole. A sacred act (a ritual sacrifice) is therefore precisely the means through which a religion strives to control and change the world in accordance with its confessors7 longings. Religion believes that through sacrifice one can impose human will on God, that through it one can rise to divine power, one can become—as the Catholics express it—a participant in divine grace. An invisible force, a supernatural God cannot be present in the sensory world other than symbolically. The symbol is the only means for the primitive and the believer to adapt the world to his understanding and his will, and to participate actively in changing it. Symbolism is thus the basic character of every religious interpretation of the world and every ritual act. A religious interpretation is a special case of a semiotic interpretation of reality, and a religious act is a special case of a semiotic action. We have said that the semioticity of a ritual action makes it analogous to a theatrical action. For this reason the confusion of a religious symbol with a theatrical sign recurs again and again, and Richard Wagner's old error generates new confusions among his imitators and among eclectics, especially in Germany 9 Theatrical movements for which the symbolism of the theater has been the basic problem have

Ritual and Theater / 143 come to such confusions particularly among their religiously oriented adherents: Paul Claudel, Henri Ghéon, and others. In Russia, symbolism (Vjaceslav Ivanov and others) has generated theories about transforming the theater into a temple. The late bloom of Catholic theatrical symbolism in our country is Frantisek Pujman's little book The Mother Tongue Set to Music [Zhudebněná materstina]. Those who believe that the essence of ritual action is theatrical or who think that theatrical action has to be a sacred act establish confused and regressive goals for the theater which must be rejected in the interest of genuine development. In a similar fashion, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, the author of Primitive Mentality and How Natives Think, confuses the relationship between theatricality and religious ritualism when he quotes from Catlin's North American Indians a description of a ritual dance which the Indians performed during a buffalo hunt. Lévy-Bruhl is carried away by the inventiveness of the dance synopsis and says about this ritual act of the Indians: "It is a kind of drama, or rather pantomime, presenting the prey and the fate that awaits him at the hands of the Indians." 10 An identification of a ritual action and a theatrical play results here from a (perhaps intentional) substitution of perspective. For the Indians, believing in the totem and in the mystical forces controlling animals as well as people, the dance is a ritual act. To the European, who does not believe in totems and who also sometimes knows nothing about them (and the scholar studying the mental functions of Indians should not be such a European), the dance can appear to be a non-utilitarian activity which has a goal in itself and which unfolds only from the esthetic pleasure of the dance movement. About ten or fifteen Mandans at a time join in the dance, each one with the skin of the buffalo's head (or mask) with the horns on, and in his hand his favourite bow or lance, with which he is used to slay the buffalo. . . . These dances have sometimes been continued for two or three weeks without stopping an instant, until the joyful moment when buffaloes make their appearance. [They represent the capture and the killing of the buffalo.] When an Indian becomes fatigued of the exercise, he signifies it by bending quite forward, and sinking his body towards the ground; when another draws a bow upon him and hits him with a blunt arrow, and he falls like a buffalo, is seized by the bystanders, who drag him out of the ring by the heels, brandishing their knives about him; and having gone through the motions of skinning and cutting him up, they let him off, and his place is at once supplied

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by another, who dances into the ring with his mask on; and by this taking of places, the scene is easily kept up night and day, until the desired effect, that of making 'buffalo come,' has been produced.11 Lévy-Bruhl's evaluation of the dance rite and Catlin's description come from nonparticipating spectators who do not share any of the Indian's totemic notions. They can therefore speak of drama or pantomime, regard the dance as an imitation of hunting motions, and talk about the man with a dance mask who represents a buffalo. As spectators they avail themselves of theatrical terms for their description. A Chinese who has been raised on the Chinese theater and who does not know any of the collective notions on which Catholic ritual is based could speak just as theatrically about a Catholic mass performed in a church. A mere spectator can understand the meaning of such actions as a hunt, a fight with an enemy, or the healing of a sick person however he likes. He can transpose an Indian dance or a sacred mass into a domain in which religious acts can be understood as a representation, an imitation, a signification of those actions whose meaning is evident to everyone, actions which gratify elementary existential needs. This is the domain of theatrical images and metaphors. The dance is hence understood as an imitation of a buffalo hunt; the sacred mass is perceived as an image of an event which brings redemption or prosperity to believers. Such an interpretation, however, is nonreligious, transferring the modes of theatrical perception into the thought and action of the believers. To believers or primitives, whose thinking is governed by the same collective representations, the solemn mass is not an image of the Lord's last supper but the actual sacrifice of Christ, the sacrificing of his actual body and blood. And to the Indians the dance is not an image of a buffalo hunt but the hunt itself or at least an important and indispensable part of the hunt. The Catholic Church has always defended and still defends the dogma of Christ's actual presence in the bread and the wine because it has been aware of the basis on which every religious faith rests and the catastrophic consequences of admitting the mere figurative presence of Christ in the bread and the wine. The atavistic basis of the Catholic rite is the strength and support for its ineradicability. The Catholic mass corresponds to every ritual action of Indians, Australian aborigines, African natives, and primitive Asiatic tribes in that a symbolic ritual act is taken as reality, in that the participant believes that by eating and drinking (by destroying, i.e., sacrificing) the bread and the wine,

Ritual and Theater / 145 the communicant joins the actual Christ and rises to a state of divine grace, just as the Indian believes that he will prevail over and catch a buffalo through his dance. The symbolism of a ritual act is based on a special way of consciously interpreting a symbol (the dance is a hunt, the mass is part of the triumph, successful undertaking, or recovery) aimed at satisfying collective needs and attaining values equally necessary to everyone. But a ritual act is neither an image, nor a metaphor, nor an allegory of an actual act (an actual hunt, Christ's actual sacrifice). It is not associated causally with an actual act, not taken as the cause for the success of the actual hunt, battle, cure, and so forth. A successful hunt is not the result or the consequence of the dance performed before the hunt, but rather its success lies precisely in the dance, an inseparable part of every successful hunt. The dance is not the cause of the fact that a buffalo has been killed—for a buffalo could have been killed elsewhere without ritual preparations—but a buffalo can be a hunting prey only if it has been killed in a ritual hunt. Otherwise its killing would not be a success but, on the contrary, a danger for a primitive clan. The success of a victory is not even the vanquishing of a foe itself; its success lies in the fact that the victory achieved was divine. For this interpretation of a triumph we are, of course, assuming an army of believers—the soldiers of the medieval campaigns against nonbelievers and heretics, soldiers for w h o m an imperialistic invasion was participation in the propagating of the Christian faith; or, we assume, the believing Hussites and Taborites, for w h o m the defeat of Sigismund was participation in a victory "of the chalice over the whore of Babylon." The inability of a normal civilized person to identify a symbol with reality, to identify the bread and the wine with Christ—or the dance with the buffalo hunt—implies his inability to think and act religiously. Religions which lack or deny symbolic ritual are deprived of the major support on which their power rests; they are deprived of the possibility of "intercourse with God." The inaccessibility of God necessarily entails for the believer the impossibility of intervening in reality through a religious act, i.e., an act which identifies the believer's will with divine will. Primitive religions achieve a correspondence between the will of man and the will of higher, invisible powers by winning over these powers through sacrifices—or by threatening them with punishments. (The pain caused to a fetish because a nail is driven into its body—into the body of a wooden figure—compels the fetish to comply with the black man's wish.) Not even higher religions—as Alfred Loisy demonstrates—can deprive themselves of the sacrifice. However, the uncertainty about the

146 / Jindřich Honzl course of an event, the dissatisfaction and disagreement with the common drive of people and things of this world, is always the premise behind every religious act. The religions that activate people are only those religions that presuppose a contradiction between the real drive of people and things and the longing which this drive does not satisfy. The world of religion is the world of human longing. This is a world which religion shares with many other modes of h u m a n thought and action. But a religious resolution of this contradiction entails overcoming it through a religious act merging the h u m a n and divine will. Man's will (provoked by the needs of hunger, love, health, self-assertion) has actual premises and goals. Divine will is the same longing projected outwardly, objectified in the sensory world through a religious symbol. The symbol is the means through which man realizes his longing by separating it from himself, by isolating it, by objectifying it in external reality (in some object or event); it thereby becomes a sacred object or event.

DANGEROUS CONNECTIONS I

The modes of perception cultivated by science, art, or existential experience do not allow us to revert to the atavism that identifies a symbol with the thing or notion it signifies. Religious thought identifies the eucharistic bread with Christ's body, the tribe's totem with its members, the king's crown with royal power, and so forth. The analytic character of our thought necessarily differentiates the two contents, which for the believer comprise a unity. For us a symbol and its meaning remain two distinct things, and the semiotic relation which combines them is for us a relationship founded on the fact that a symbol (e.g., a banner) stands for another reality (the state) not only in its correspondence or resemblance to it, but in its distinctness from it. The connection between thing and symbol does not arise through comparison but through the representation (the substitution) of one thing for another. If the two things—for example, a dance and a hunt—are connected by comparison, the connection is partially objective, and the psychic effort of the perceiver establishes the existing correspondence (complete or partial). In this way the perceiver seeks a correspondence between a priest and Jesus or between an actor and Hamlet, and he also becomes aware of a concomitant lack of correspondence. Sometimes, however, the connection between symbol and sig-

Ritual and Theater / 147 nified object cannot draw support from objective reality (e.g., flag and state, a word and its curative power, or a statue and divine power). The perceiver must exert all of his psychic power to establish the connection between the symbol and the object for which the symbol stands. Precisely because this connection requires such strong mental activity on the part of the perceiver, it rarely attains validity in an individual psychic life, or only among individuals of intense mental vigor (children, poets, the inspired). Children can identify a piece of wood with a living being; poets can search out symbolic connections wherever people find neither relationships nor similarities (the blows of silence). Symbols persist and develop therefore mainly in the fertile soil of the social consciousness, which maintains an entire system of symbols for every domain of mental activity (the system of language, the system of the modes of social intercourse, etc.). The conserving tendencies of systems are manifested in the normative character of symbol systems, as in the norms of language or social intercourse. Their authoritative character demands respect from all the members of the society (respect for the language, the enactment of forms of social intercourse). In primitive societies the normative character of symbolic systems is made religiously absolute. Symbolic animals, places, acts, and words are sacred to primitives. The identification of a religious symbol with its meaning is not the result of individual perception and its natural faculties; rather it is imposed upon the individual by social consciousness. We can say that it is a deformation of individual consciousness by society, a deformation to which the individual has to submit in order to become a member of the society. The adaptation—or even the deformation—of his mind is a social obligation similar to that which obligates the members of some primitive tribes to deform their lips into the shape of tambourines or to cover the surface of their bodies with designs and tattoos. A deformed mode of perception caused by a religious interpretation (an interpretation which identifies an illness with divine wrath or a crop with divine satisfaction) dematerializes the real world for the primitive and the believer so that objects become not invisible but imperceptible, revealing behind them a world of mystery, the face of a power which determines the fate of people and things. The primitive and the believer see what society wants seen.11 They see the objectified social consciousness of their fetish, of their God. A reality thereby actually turns into a "divine work," a creation of the social consciousness, for only the referent of the reality changed into symbols enters the individual's consciousness. The primitive therefore looks into the face of his collective I, and his own

148 / Jindřich Honzl longings appear to h i m in the image of his god as in a magic mirror, in which his own will takes shape. Religious perception is therefore the mode through which a primitive society becomes conscious of itself. A social longing becomes conscious through a symbolic religious ritual (the longing for a crop, health, or a victory becomes conscious as a ritual, a sacrifice), and through an interpretation that isolates it among other psychic contents, it is projected outward from man's inner self, objectified in objects and actions of the external world, and realized in symbolic action. Thus, the longing for a crop is objectified in a sacrifice, the "burning" of grain. A ritual act is the means by which a longing is turned into activity. The isolation and exclusive awareness of a specific social longing cause it to become the sole power governing the primitive's or the believer's inner self, cause it temporarily to suppress or deaden all his other desires— even the most powerful, hunger and love. Fasting and sexual abstinence are common conditions of a religious ritual among both primitives and Catholic Christians. The Catholic ritual of fasting before performing solemn mass adds hunger for food to the permanent frustration of the priest's sexual drive. A sacrifice through which a primitive clan imposes its will upon fetishes to provide itself with a crop, catches, victory, or health is therefore an intentional exaltation of a longing in that it is realized in the world of symbols. (A symbolic dance directs the effort of all the members of the tribe to the hunt.) In this illusory world a religious longing attains its goal literally,13 not figuratively. The exaltation of a longing which a ritual action stimulates and develops is therefore a pathological state similar to the aberrant states of a psyche tormented by an unconscious or incurable desire. Religious interpretation and action remain, in spite of their aberrant basis, normal modes of thought and action. The fact that all the members of a society have accepted the norm of a collective representation (i.e., the normative representation that the totem = the tribe, the dance = the hunt, the pronouncement of a magic formula = healing) and that they are really governed by it is proof that religious interpretation and action are also considered normal—and that the collective representation is considered normal too. Rejecting or disobeying it would appear as an abnormality in such a society. This logical substantiation of that normality of religious thought and action is also a psychological substantiation, for the psyche does not participate in the aberration of religious interpretation and action with that part of itself that is unique, that constitutes the organic basis of its individuality Instead it participates only to the extent

Ritual and Theater / 149 to which its psychic activity conforms to the other parts of the society and through what it has received from this society as a collective representation. In this sense a collective fallacy cannot affect the organic basis of the individual psyche; it cannot make it deviate from the normal. Collective representations are renewed and confirmed in their normal character by the fact that they lead the thought and action of the society to utilitarian goals, establishing values which satisfy the elementary needs of the individual as a part of society. Ritual actions based on collective representations retain their normalcy by exalting desires which not only can be but must be satisfied if the society is to be kept alive. Thus, the dance may exalt the will to hunt or the desire for a victorious battle with an enemy. Ritual actions also remain within the limits of the normal by homogeneously connecting symbolic action with real action (a dance symbolizing the hunt with a real hunt or a sacrifice made in behalf of victory in a battle with a real battle). This connection is the means by which equilibrium is attained between the believer's inner self and the external world. The equilibrium of the soul and the world is a synonym of mental health. The mode in which this equilibrium manifests itself is not static but dynamic. Its stability resembles the stability of a current, for it is lost and reacquired with every moment. This current originates in the constant tension between the psychic events in man and the events in external reality. If this tension is reduced, if the activity of the psyche in its autonomous self-movement strays so far from events in reality that the distance breaks the relation between the psyche and reality, then the stability of the current which we have called psychic equilibrium or psychic health disintegrates. It is necessary that every action of the mind seek again and again for agreement with reality by means of a new act. Between psychic activity (i.e., the symbolic interpretation of a ritual action which is almost entirely a creation of man's mental abilities) and the external activity toward which the ritual action is directed (i.e., meaning), an equilibrium is achieved through the fact that every ritual symbolic action (developing in the causality of an inner longing similar to the causality of dreams) is connected with a real action, an action determined by the causality of natural events. In this way a dance is connected with a real buffalo hunt and a sacrifice for victory with a real battle. Ritual actions not connected with a real, nonsymbolic action exceed the limits of the normal, disrupt the individual's mental health or the stability of social relations, and have an antisocial effect. In this way prayers said for the sake of pray-

150 / Jindřich Honzl ing alone, sacrifices made only for the delight of sacrificing, and so forth, end in abnormality. The normative character of the collective representation supporting the symbolic interpretation of a ritual act is conscious and intentional.14 The intention which governs this interpretation is precisely that tertium comparationis that connects a symbolic action with a real action. The intention of catching a buffalo (of killing it) makes the Mandans' dance and their hunt analogous to each other. A conscious intention is what is common to a symbol and its meaning in reality. The believer or primitive perceives a symbol (a dance)— an artificial creation of the human mind and h u m a n desire—and a real event (a hunt) or a natural thing as if the two things had been incorporated into each other without regard for the complete difference between them. These interpenetrating things, so different in both material and form, merge as conscious intentions. And this area of merging is the only aspect of the two structures perceptible to the believer, whereas everything else is lost. He perceives neither the reality of the symbol (he does not see a dancer but a buffalo) nor the reality of the corresponding thing (sometimes he does not regard the slain buffalo as booty). The interpretation of a ritual action is a special case of the "abstracting" activity of the human mind. If the goal of a scientific abstraction is the creation of a concept which brings various concrete cases to the artificial unity of a mental construct, nonexistent in concreto, the goal of the "abstraction" of a primitive's religious thought is to exclude from the perception of a symbol and the reality corresponding to it everything which would divert his thought and action from an absolutely concrete unity, the unity of the realizable intention behind a collectively felt conscious desire (to catch a buffalo or to work a cure). At the same time primitive religious thought is not concerned with the abstract in any regard. A religious longing (the necessity of catching food) is entirely concrete, and so is its vehicle (the dance). A symbol and symbolism become possible because the longing can be actualized in any object. "Every object in nature can become . . . a fetish," states Otakar Pertold.15 Accordingly any natural act, any act of man, can become a religious action. Symbolic meanings can be conveyed not only by whole objects or actions but by their attributes. The material from which a fetish is made can be symbolic (the fact that a thing comes from a h u m a n skeleton makes it sacred, as in saints 7 relics); the shape of a fetish can be symbolic (a cross or a drawing of an object); sometimes a color, or only the paint of a clay fetish, is symbolic, 16 while all the

Ritual and Theater / 151 other attributes of the symbolic object are meaningless for a collective interpretation. Here we are dealing with a special case of "abstract relevance" 17 in which a primitive's longing is symbolically actualized only in some part of an object or act.18 For a primitive to participate fully as a member of his clan in a ritual action performed for a specific purpose or for him to recognize fully the efficacy of the sacred object or action, he must know how to "abstract" from the object or action all the attributes irrelevant to its ritual symbolism and develop maximal sensory or mental receptivity in those areas where attributes relevant for the symbolism occur. For this reason travelers are surprised at the mental paralysis among the Australian aborigines, African blacks, or Indians and their unusual, even miraculous, receptivity and ability in other respects. Thus, the symbolism of a word sequence does not lie in its syntactic meaning but in its specific fetishized order (such are almost all magic formulae, for they are created from sequences of mainly foreign or incomprehensible words, and even Catholic Church Latin has these symbolic properties in rituals). Primitives or their priests are able to remember and repeat unusually extensive verbal sequences—or rather phonic sequences—whose recitation may last several hours, although at the same time, as Lévy-Bruhl remarks, 19 these prodigies are not capable of giving three sentences the form of a simple logical conclusion. A collective religious interpretation contracts the sphere of receptivity and paralyzes some mental abilities precisely because it stimulates activity which is more effective the more unilateral it is. It is a specific kind of "blindness" of the senses and the mind, or better, their "blinding" that characterizes religiously symbolic perception. This blinding of the senses and the mind does not bring the primitive into a dangerous clash with reality, for it is based on a unilateral expansion of the psyche and of activity maximally adapted—under the influence of collective experiences—to the given life conditions of the primitive clan. Dangerous, even fatal clashes with the natural and social reality occur, however, with a change in milieu or with the discovery of new and unknown realities. Symbolic perception and action lose all support if they are removed from their connection with the milieu in which the system of religious symbols was created and maintained, in which this system of symbols was not only a substitute for or a sign of reality but where it was reality itself. An individual who has learned to think and to act only in symbols looks, if he leaves this reality or is removed from it, not at reality but at phantoms, ghosts which have lost their faces, their meaning, their relation to him. A reality which has lost its symbols resembles a symbol which has lost its reality, for example, a flag signifying a

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state which does not exist. Whom does this flag signifying nothing but itself protect, and whom does it lead? For the individual who constructs or confronts a fact of reality unincorporable into his system of symbols, this system falls to pieces in the same way that the world falls to pieces for a believer who has left behind the religious symbols of his society. Copernicus brought the Christian Middle Ages to an end much more decisively than Columbus, discovering a fact almost meaningless for everyday life (that the sun rather than the earth is the center of the universe) that disrupted the center of the symbolic system of medieval Christianity. The exaltation of a longing and the concomitant intensification of the individual's psychic activity to the detriment of his contact with reality may lead the "abstract" abilities of the mind to an extreme. It is possible to imagine—and prove—that all perceptions of the external world can be paralyzed and replaced by an outward projection of internal states (hallucinations, somnambulism, the mania of the religiously exalted, mystics, and the like). We are coming to a dialectical boundary where the quality of psychic activity undergoes fundamental change. The jeopardy to human existence of a religious act in which consciousness of peripheral sensory activity is excluded from not only psychic but bodily functions (the religious mystic neglects food, cold, danger) need not lead to the dissociation of man from his psyche. For the automatic capacities of the mind governing organic processes and elementary bodily functions gain the upper hand under these conditions. Hermits (mystics and religiously exalted people) subconsciously find nourishment even where other people would die from hunger or thirst (the discoveries of springs, John the Baptist's eating of locusts). This dialectical boundary separating the sway of conscious from automatic psychic activity in the interpretation of a symbolic religious action is at the same time a dialectical boundary between the sway of collective representations intentionally and consciously governing symbolic interpretation and the sway of wholly individual unconscious interpretation.20 II

The primitive's dependence upon collective religious representations is almost absolute, for they control all of his deeds and existential situations from birth to death. The fact that every change, every act is interpreted by the primitive as the effect of invisible forces shows us the hermeticism and also, of course, the integrity of

Ritual and Theater / 153 a world in which there is no place for the individual activity of thought and action and in which all thoughts and acts conform to time-honored collective experience. If the individual deviates from this collective experience, he puts himself in jeopardy because he has violated collective norms, and he threatens society, by opposing himself to the higher will. The individual must be removed or his act m u s t be redressed if the entire society is not to suffer. Primitive thought does not take into account the individual as the bearer of his own individual will, or even consider the individual capable of manifesting his own will through an act. It regards him as the bearer of the will of invisible forces (which are an objectification of collective representations) which govern the individual without his awareness and without his volition. 21 The individual's responsibility for his acts, which medieval Christianity acknowledged, was in agreement with the advanced differentiation of medieval life whereby the individual (the artisan, peasant, official, soldier, nobleman, etc.) was becoming a component of the society capable of fulfilling (to a certain extent) his particular social task independently. But not even medieval Christian society abandoned an awareness of the universality of the religious order, which could not be violated by the individual if society were to endure. Here too society is responsible for the individual in a similar sense as among the primitives. A church interdict that brought life to a standstill in a city where an outlaw had violated the religious order is an expression of this collective responsibility. Moreover, the individuality of the act of the medieval artisan, official, peasant, or even the artist and scholar applied only within the limits of the activity and occupational tasks. As in primitive social orders, these limits preserved the constancy of the modes and the goals of the artisan's, official's, or other's activity. The collective representations that govern religious societies close a circle from which the individual cannot escape. Outside life in the tribe and with the tribe there is no life for the primitive. Placed outside the tribe, he not only forfeits the sense of his existence, but everything surrounding him loses meaning for him. The collective representations of his tribe, symbolically concentrated in the totem, govern his every thought and act. His sense and meaning is to be a part of his tribe. If a member of the Bororo tribe says that he is a parakeet, he is expressing the sense of his existence in this way, for to be a parakeet means to be a member of the Bororo tribe, where each adult member is a parakeet but where there are not therefore many parakeets but only one parakeet, that is, a parakeet-totem, in which all members of the Bororo tribe participate equally, for the

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parakeet-totem is the meaning of their existence, and it is equally valid for all of them. Lévy-Bruhl and his school do not reach an understanding of the religious symbolism of the primitives because they do not seek the unifying semiotic relationship that connects a thing and its meaning, a thing and a man, a present thing and an absent thing, a thing from the past and a thing from the present, one thing and many things. They do not comprehend the symbolism for which the antinomies of singularity and plurality do not exist, of here and elsewhere, of now and before, of beginning to end and of end to beginning, antinomies that validate causality. To Lévy-Bruhl a primitive mentality is essentially different from a civilized white man's mentality. I should be inclined to say that in the collective representations of primitive mentality, objects, beings, phenomena can be, though in a way incomprehensible to us, both themselves and something other than themselves. In a fashion which is no less incomprehensible, they give forth and they receive mystic powers, virtues, qualities, influences, which make themselves felt outside, without ceasing to remain where they are. In other words the opposition between the one and the many, the same and another, and so forth, does not impose upon this mentality the necessity of affirming one of the terms if the other be denied, or vice versa. This opposition is of but secondary interest. Sometimes it is perceived, and frequently, too, it is not. It often disappears entirely before the mystic community of substance in entities which, in our thought, could not be confused without absurdity. For instance, "the Trumai (a tribe of Northern Brazil) say that they are aquatic animals. —The Bororo (a neighbouring tribe) boast that they are red araras (parakeets)." This does not merely signify that after their death they become araras, nor that araras are metamorphosed Bororos, and must be treated as such. It is something entirely different. "The Bororos," says von den Steinen, who would not believe it, but finally had to give in to their explicit affirmations, "give one rigidly to understand that they are araras at the present time, just as a caterpillar declared itself to be a butterfly" [Unter den Naturvölkern ZentralBrasiliens (Berlin, 1897), pp. 305-306]. It is not a name they give themselves, nor a relationship that they claim. What they desire to express by it is actual identity.22

Ritual and Theater / 155 And confronting these realities, Lévy-Bruhl sees his scientific role in showing that "the mental processes of 'primitives' do not coincide with those which we are accustomed to describe in men of our own type [italics mine, J.H.]." 23 However, if we seek an explanation in the religious symbolism of these relations, we do not arrive at an absurdity. We find indications of the similarity between our mentality and that of primitives rather than indications of differences. It seems to me that Lévy-Bruhl exaggerates the difference unnecessarily. If one wishes to understand any object, however, one must get as close as possible to it, seeking similarities rather than differences. Lévy-Bruhl is too true to his positivism, his Comte, and his artificial division of h u m a n evolution; he insists on artificially severing the unity of h u m a n evolution, which we see constantly before us. It is a single humanity which evolves from the primitive to the civilized European and American, and it is a single man who develops from a child into an adult. A child and a primitive are also "people" although the positivists raised on Comte do not wish to acknowledge this without reservation. In contrast, Freud, the brilliant psychologist of the subconscious, has shown very well that all those instincts and higher mental abilities which an adult man possesses are present (potentially and actually) in a child. And we will find the same thing in the difference between a primitive and civilized society. Although our societies are not religiously primitive, the same tendencies controlling the primitive persist, and a conscious effort is required to keep them from surfacing to their most elementary, destructive form. The historical catastrophes of war are proof of this. These tendencies, which are the result of the same h u m a n needs and not of a different psychic disposition, are still with us, but in progressive societies they are controlled by consciousness, which determines the direction of their functions in the social structure: they aim at man and not beyond him at God. Every symbolic fetishism is a way in which society returns to primitive thought and action. And fetishism is not a phenomenon limited to primitives. It jeopardizes every society which superimposes unnatural norms upon life, norms assailing the human basis of man—and it endangers a society which subjects its members to eternal, i.e., unassailable, unchangeable, and irrevocable, norms. Individuality asserts itself even in a structure where the authority of collective religious representations is absolute and where exceptions are not admitted. Precisely that absolute normative character causes individual activity to clash with reality, posing a mortal danger for a religious society whose norms cannot adapt to any new and

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unfamiliar situation.24 They are exclusively directed at the conservation of endlessly repeated processes and activities. Only an individual who can get rid of—at least for the moment— the influence of collective representations is capable of a spontaneous act which enables him to escape from a dangerous situation caused by the influence of collective representations. Collective consciousness therefore has recourse to the individual for deliverance—not to a concrete individual but to an individual-symbol whom it renders the vehicle of the invisible forces that can resolve an insoluble situation. Collective indecisiveness is objectified in the individual as in a religious symbol, and it interprets his expression as the expression of an invisible force which controls people and things. Such an individual resolution is a religious act in which, as in every ritual action, the action of the symbol (i.e., the resolving individual) is identified with a real action (the resolution of the situation). But if the religious society is to accept it, the resolution must not be an act of the individual's entire and complete reality, must not arise as a synthesis of the conscious and subconscious psychic movements that govern his intentional bodily functions, but must spring from those domains of his psyche which can be expressed only in symbols, must be a subconscious expression of individual spontaneity Examples are known to everyone, not only from the life of primitives but from the history of civilized peoples as well: diviners, soothsayers and fortune-tellers, medicine-men, shamans, and the like. Wherever the activity of these individuals manifests itself, arising from a contradiction between the religious collective consciousness and a situation it does not include or control, it assumes the form of an individual's extra-conscious spontaneous action. Only the words of the Delphic oracle had the fateful power to determine victory or defeat, the safe passage or the destruction of a ship, the guilt or the innocence of a statesman or a general; these words were shouted out in an ecstatic stupor like an unconscious and spontaneous utterance. The witch-doctors, shamans, priests, and soothsayers of the primitives and all those who are supposed to discover a means of renewing health, determining the outcome of a hunt, predicting (and hence symbolically realizing) victory, and so forth, put themselves into the same or a similar state of unconscious or semiconscious behavior. Ecstatic states of "vision" are the results of physical exhaustion induced by dancing,25 starvation,26 bodily suffering, narcotics,27 and the like. If conscious activity is not replaced by subconscious activity in every case, at least the path for such a substitution is prepared. The

Ritual and Theater / 157 control of the bodily and psychic functions of the man-symbol (the sorcerer) is transferred to subconscious and unconscious automatisms. These automatisms mainly influence, of course, the functions which keep the sorcerer's exhausted, intoxicated, and fatigued body alive and active. The outcries, words, and sentence fragments are therefore most often the accidental residues of deranged mental activity. The verses or narratives which the sorcerer delivers belong to automatisms of the same kind, for they are functions of automatic memory From this perspective we can interpret fortune-telling, healing, divining, and the like as the symbolization of an accident, that accident to which the unconscious activity of the individual psyche is subjected. The outcry, the word, or the sentence, which becomes an oracle, a diagnosis of illness, a decision between war and peace, a choice of the suitable time or means for a hunt, is an accidental phenomenon whose meaning is interpreted as the meaning of a religious symbol. Once again, a symbol and the reality it replaces are identified. Just as the symbolic dance and the actual hunt interpenetrate in a special merged configuration, the actual resolution of a hunting, medical, or military situation and an accidental resolution interpenetrate and pervade each other in the religious interpretation of the shaman's accidental outcry. Recourse to the symbol-accident becomes necessary especially in those cases where a real mastery of the situation is not possible. Thus Tibetan tribes are willing to support entire monasteries for their symbolic control of rainfall. It is in the very nature of an accidental resolution of a situation that it can become a real resolution, especially one concerning a decision between two possibilities (Will you fall in battle?/Will you not?). An accidental choice of a time for hunting or a cure has less chance of success but not even in these cases is the possibility excluded. In this respect ritual divination, healing, and so forth, are distinguished from other ritual actions such as sacrifice in which the symbolic action can never become the real action—the killing and the burning of a calf on an altar can never be at the same time the propitious outcome of a military expedition. III

In the life of primitives—as well as in atavistic anachronisms in modern life—thoughts and deeds are taken as prophetic or fateful even when the mode of divination or fortune-telling does not involve the derangement of the conscious mental activity of the individual-

158 / Jindřich Honzl symbol. Divination may be prompted by an accidental configuration of people, animals, or objects. The sorcerer reads shells, pebbles, sand, flour, or carved wood to divine fate from their configurations. The divination which persisted in more advanced societies such as ancient Greece and Rome remained a ritual act, and its religious symbolism was preserved so that it did not lose its fetishistic support in the collective consciousness. Even here the accident-symbols were fateful and prophetic. The high state officials (the augurs) made decisions about the most important state events (war and peace, the admission of a consul to office) according to whether the sacred chickens pecked well or badly, how the entrails of a sacrificial animal were disposed, where birds flew, and so forth. The ritual action was resolved intentionally, through a deliberation behind the diviner's curtain, but it would have forfeited its social approval had it not remained religiously symbolic, supported by collective religious representations. If it was not the fetishism of an accident-symbol, it had to be symbolic at least by virtue of its being performed by an individual-symbol. A primitive society chooses these individual-symbols from its midst according to their natural propensities, or it trains them for this purpose in a long, agonizing education. In more advanced societies the individual-symbol, on whom are imposed social functions that the society as a whole cannot perform, is determined through accidents. Every mode of ancestral succession, whether through an entire family or only the firstborn, is a fetishized accident. The accidentality of this succession—like every accidental decision—does not exclude an actual justification for performing a social function. Moreover, even here the fetishized clan or family sees to it that descendants acquire the desired abilities through a strict education. Lévy-Bruhl says of the selection of individual-symbols in primitive societies: "The initiation of witch-doctors, shamans, and medicine-men . . . is reserved for certain individuals who have a 'vocation.' " 28 Radlov informs us what "having a vocation" for the function of shaman means to a primitive society: According to Radlov's description a man, designated by his ancestors as a kama (sorcerer), experiences a sudden weakness and exhaustion in his limbs expressed as a violent trembling. A strong unnatural yawning comes over him, he feels a great pressure on his chest which compels him suddenly to ejaculate powerful inarticulate sounds, a fever makes him shake, he rolls his eyes, he suddenly jumps up and circles around like a madman.

Ritual and Theater / 159 Finally, drenched in sweat, he collapses on the ground and writhes in convulsions and epileptic fits. His limbs lack sensation. . . . These fits increase and intensify until finally the man possessed by this illness—which some Europeans call "the Mongolian sickness"—seizes the shaman's drum and begins to perform the shaman's rituals. 29 Here epileptic fits are a precondition for the release of the psychic activity of the subconscious, which expresses itself in the religious symbolism of collective representations. Besides such natural qualifications as good memory for extensive ritual formulae, a rich fantasy for words, movements, and dances, and mental illness, the individual-symbol must often be chosen by the old shaman, sorcerer, or medicine-man and subjected to strict, even cruel regimen, education, and tests. At the period of puberty, they pass through the tests imposed upon all young men; and in order to become capable of fulfilling the important functions they will be called upon to exercise, they have also to undergo a further novitiate, which lasts for months or even years, and is carried on under the superintendence of their masters, i.e. witch-doctors or shamans in actual practice. . . . "When they are being made, the candidates are not allowed to have any rest, but are obliged to stand or walk about until they are thoroughly exhausted and scarcely know what is happening to them. They are not allowed to drink a drop of water or taste food of any kind. They become, in fact, dazed and stupefied." 30 Travelers and scholars find nothing in the methods of training for shamanism but those striking means of corporeal torment. For the most part they do not see the purpose and sense of these methods, and therefore the other aspects of the training remain unobserved. Nothing but what is required of this training can be its, perhaps unconscious, goal: knowledge, perception, the awareness of needs and desires which the collective consciousness has not been able to satisfy. Evidence of this is a comment made by a Tibetan lama to the traveler David-Neel: I have heard a lama say that the part of a master, adept of the "Short Path," is to superintend a "clearing." He must initiate the novice to rid himself of all the beliefs, ideas, acquired habits and

160 / Jindrich Honzl innate tendencies, which are part of his present mind, and have been developed in the course of successive lives whose origin is lost in the night of time. . . . Two exercises are especially prescribed by the adepts of the mystic path. The first consists in observing with great attention the workings of the mind without attempting to stop it. . . . The second exercise is intended to stop the roaming of the mind in order that one may concentrate it on one single object.31 This is, of course, a method of training a Buddhist magician from a Tibetan tribe, and it cannot be called "primitive" in the sense of the primitiveness of Australian or Central African tribes. But it is the method of training a magician in a religiously controlled society. And it is a decisive case for us, for we are concerned with the relationship between the shaman, sorcerer, medicine-man, or magician and his society. The lama, like the shamans of the primitives, is also asked to ward off illnesses or calamities and to call forth rain and crops. If we pay close attention, the role of this training is the opposite of what is necessary in the education of a common member of the tribe. If unconditional obedience to all the inherited collective representations holds true for a common member, it is, on the contrary, a qualification for a magician's training to be able to rid himself of all the collective representations "whose origin is lost in the night of t i m e " and to acquire the spontaneity of his own consciousness ("observing with great attention the workings of the mind without attempting to stop it"). Most interesting is the opposition of psychic release and psychic concentration, which is explained as follows: . . . the disciple has chosen a tree as an object of meditation, and has identified himself with it. That is to say that he has lost the consciousness of his own personality and experiences the peculiar sensations that one may ascribe to a tree. He feels himself to be composed of a stiff trunk with branches, he perceives the sensation of the wind moving the leaves. He notes the activity of the roots feeding under the ground, the ascension of the sap which spreads all over the tree, and so on. Then, having mentally become a tree (which has now become the subject) he must look at the man (who has now become the object) seated in front of him and must examine this man in detail. 32 The Buddhist basis of these views is quite obvious from every sentence—despite the journalistic inaccuracy of the report. But nev-

Ritual and Theater / 161 ertheless it expresses something that is common to all such teachings. It is the effort—and the quest for a method stemming from this effort—to attain knowledge of the world and of man in a manner contrary to what is consistent with the mode of knowledge furnished by collective representations. Collective representations exist as contents of h u m a n consciousness which can be transferred to others, which can be shared with others. Language, which constitutes the most important part of the collective consciousness, is a means and a mode of communication. If psychic activity frees itself from the influence of inherited and shared representations, it lives as something "incommunicable," as what is the "mystery" of the individual psyche and its own natural basis. Of course, even mystics communicate. Because the collective signs of language or representation are not sufficient for them, their communications must seek new, wholly individual, and hence collectively incomprehensible symbols or must use collective forms of communication in a manner which completely transforms them. Mystical communication renders syntactic intonation, for example, a vehicle of symbolic meaning, precisely because it is a configuration whose own semioticity lacks support in the collective consciousness. The effect of syntactic intonation on the listener's interpretive abilities lies in the fact that intonation symbolizes broad semantic fields of emotionality—e.g., the field of the sublime or the sad or the happy or the jolly—and in this way releases possibilities for totally individual meanings. Its concentration on the rhythmic organization of the sentence, for example, has the same effect. Mystics also intentionally use devices that destroy collective interpretational conventions. The frequent repetition of sentences or words in invocations, exorcisms, and especially prayers deprives these utterances of their meaning. This destruction is what permits words and sentences to acquire any meaning for the individual. But even a conventional mode of communication, rational in its particulars, can become a mystical communication if it is individually interpreted as a whole. If a simple communication leads to an absurd point or is used in a situation where it appears absurd, the listener's interpretive abilities are stimulated and the communication is interpreted symbolically. Either it acquires consistency with the absurd point or situation (a rational interpretation), or the symbols are made to correspond to the interpreter's subconscious desires (an irrational interpretation). In brief, mystical communication uses all the methods invented and exploited by poetry, especially symbolism and its heirs, in re-

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moving communication from the infertile rigidity of collective mental contents and making it the vehicle of a creative individual spontaneity, its mysterious, incommunicable natural basis. If we again turn from poetry to religion, we find that the symbolism of religious mysticism expresses itself through a special kind of identification which poetry does not share with religion. A religious mystic's symbolic communication is interpreted by a believer as real communication, just as the ecstatic sorcerer-kama's narration about ascending to the sixteenth level of the heavens to Bai-Ülgön is regarded as real. But all the same, the mystic's ecstasy is an opportunity for an individual assertion in a structure in which only collective longings and representations can obtain intentionally and consciously. We indicated in the case of divination that the resolution of the situation which the divination provides is an accidental resolution and that precisely for this reason it can also become a real resolution. The symbolism of verbal communication is also accidental, and it therefore can accidentally communicate reality. But a high statistical probability is not needed for the accidentality of a symbolic resolution to approximate a real resolution. There are methods for uncovering causal necessity in accidents (e.g., statistical regularity), and there are also methods for uncovering real communications in the accidental symbols of a verbal communication. What we call psychoanalysis is a method for discovering the real contents of a causal event in the accidental symbolism of an internal process, thereby raising the subconscious irrationality of an internal process close to conscious apprehension. For this dialectical reversal to occur, the internal process must be a current of subconscious spontaneity, it must well up from the irrational basis of the individual's nature. Accordingly, one can interpret psychoanalytically only the spontaneous activity of a dream, a "slip," and those irrational activities of an individual inner mind with which the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, dealt so ingeniously. If we pay close attention to David-Neel's report about the training of Tibetan lamas, we shall discover in it elements of a method which originated at the turn of this century as the supreme discovery of the modern science of the mind. The training of the Tibetan lamas concerns "observing with great attention the workings of the mind without attempting to stop it," and concentrating perfectly—as perfectly as possible—on an object of the external world and observing a man with such concentration. Observing the spontaneity of one's own mind and the causality of the external world develops the novice's consciousness in a balanced fashion. If consciousness is to take

Ritual and Theater / 163 in reality in its most natural appearance, the training of the "Short Path" is a reliable method for doing so. Thus, the training of the lamaic magicians has a real foundation, and its goal, the knowledge of a real man in his most natural functions, has discovered a path which every science of the mind must take. It is not a fault of the method that lamas attain only the first steps of real knowledge; rather it is the fault of their mystical orientation that their knowledge is caught in the vicious circle of their symbolic representations and incommunicable feelings. "Observing . . . the workings of the mind" and the external world is unproductive as long as they are self-sufficient, enclosed in their own "incommunicability" and finding their ultimate purpose in the accidental images and representations which emerge in the lama's inner mind. An understanding of the necessity (causality) from which the representations of the inner mind spring remains forever inaccessible to mystics. The lama's observation remains unfruitful because he is content with symbol-representations expressing his own mind and with accidental perceptions of the external world. It is unfruitful because it is religious, because it presents the symbols of his own mind as the realities of the external world, and because it deprives a tree which he is observing of reality by rendering it a symbol of his representations and longings. In this way it dematerializes the tree and deprives it of any of its real properties that do not coincide with the lama's representations and desires. In a religious structure there is no way out of the vicious circle of collective representations and individual representations. Religious thought and behavior cannot reach reality even if they rely on the permanence of collective representations or the changeability and accidental inconsistency of individual representations. The individual can assert himself in a religious social structure only as a symbol and only in an activity which is at least partially symbolic. He can then assert himself as a repressed element. The collective religious consciousness cannot accept the individual in his concrete, multifaceted reality, and the individual cannot develop all the aspects of his natural needs and abilities. If the individual sometimes does assert himself in a religious society, he does not do so out of any spontaneous, natural need, but only if the society needs it, if the collective religious representations suddenly disagree with reality. But even then the individual's assistance to society is not real but only symbolic, for the individual can assert himself only through those psychic abilities which are externalized symbolically or are capable of inventing symbols (fantasy). It is not therefore the individual's consciousness that serves society here but only his sub-

164 / Jindřich Honzl consciousness, semiconsciousness, or symbol-creating ability. A selfconscious individual, consciously processing data about the external world, is always excluded from a religious society. We shall find madmen and idiots among the leading personalities of a religious society; we shall find people whom self-torment, illness, or religious acts deprive of all their mental abilities, leaving them animals unconscious of themselves; but we do not find in religious societies influential individuals whose harmoniously developed physical and mental abilities could render them models of human perfection. Classical Greece, which had such individuals, was not a religiously controlled society. We have already indicated that Greek society was fundamentally a political structure (in the true meaning of the Greek word polis, city state) and not a religious one. Moreover, the religion and mythology of classical Greece occupy such an exceptional place among all other nations and times not because this mythology is distinguished from all the others in its themes, which are almost the same for all Europeans, but in its orientation. The meaning of Greek religion is a beautiful, perfect, moderate man, and the Greek collective consciousness projects this man into its gods. The meaning of Greek citizenship, of which Greek mythology was a part, cannot therefore be an objection to the assertion that a religious structure necessarily deforms the individual and that it accepts him only as a symbol, as a repressed element. RELIGIOUS A N D THEATRICAL SYMBOLS

To make a religious symbol out of a man means to divide him, to split his concrete unity artificially. Just as a fetish is divided into properties relevant and irrelevant for symbolism, a man-symbol is also divided into a part that is indispensable for a symbolic interpretation and one that is not. Every act of a shaman that is not preceded by an invocation, a dance, starvation, self-torment, selfstupefaction, and so on is irrelevant for the symbolic interpretation of primitives. In this way the majority of conscious acts becomes insignificant for the primitive, and his interpretational attention is attracted to the extraneous acts resulting from instinctive or customary automatisms which might be symbolic externalizations of individual desires that would be repressed by the censorship of the collective. It is not without significance that dreams have always played an important role in divination. Fortune-tellers were the first to profit from its symbolism. But religious interpretation could not penetrate to the real meaning of dreams because it saw real events in

Ritual and Theater / 165 them which the future hid or the past had concealed. Religious intepretation identifies the manifest content of dreams with reality, so that the latent content of the dream remains forever hidden, or only accidentally revealed. Religious interpretation does not separate a symbol and its meaning but abstracts from a symbolic representation certain parts that are identified with reality (making them a vehicle of a real meaning or divine power, or an event which has happened or will happen). It represses the other parts of the symbol below the threshold of attention or even consciousness. This splitting into relevant and irrelevant parts is characteristic of every ritual act. And because every reality m u s t be symbolic for religious perception, inasmuch as God can appear through any of its parts, 33 this splitting of reality is also a fundamental characteristic of any religious perception, any religious interpretation, any cult, theological, moral, social, or other system of religion. Religion has divided the unity of man into the sinful body and the divine soul; it has divided the unity of the world into a divine heaven and an infernal hell (the deceptive world seesaws between the two); it has divided man's thought into the Devil's temptation and God's revelation; it has divided mankind into the unbaptized designated for destruction and the baptized designated for eternal life. Among primitives the designation of an object by a drawing can render it the seat of an invisible force or place it under its protective power. A mask or a costume plays the same role for a man-symbol. The shamans' dance masks and their costumes, like their tattooing and body-painting, are indispensable components of every true and effective ritual action. In the Christian cult, disputes about which of a priest's traits determine the genuineness and efficacy of his sacraments reveal the importance of this division of the man-symbol (the priest) into relevant and irrelevant parts. Jan Hus argued in his tract against Páleč that "If a pope or a priest is in mortal sin, he does not transubstantiate, he does not consecrate, nor does he baptize." The learned theologian Pierre d'Ailly used this argument against Hus at the Council of Constance. In order to defend himself, Hus qualified his assertion by explaining that such a pope or priest does not dispense the sacraments worthily but unworthily. Thus, Christian apologists have had to insist on a symbolism of the priest's and the pope's person that separated his symbolically relevant functions from the rest. A priest's personal traits, his exemplary life or his contemptibility are irrelevant for the sacred mass over which he presides or for the sacraments he dispenses. What is

166 / Jindrich Honzl relevant is a general consciousness of the fact that he is a priest (that he has been ordained and admitted to office). The priest's words, vesture, and ritual method are relevant, but not the fact that he is either gluttonous, lascivious, and miserly, or sober, chaste, and generous. The unity of a person, the unity of his concrete reality and meaning, the h u m a n unity which Hus strove to defend on the grounds of Christian theology and the Christian cult, is inconsistent not only with the Catholic religion but with every religion. Hus's dispute with the council is an individual's quarrel with the unnaturalness of the norms that collective religious representations impose. It was a symptom of the Renaissance, and could occur only when the individual perceived that the disagreement of reality with the collective mode of thinking is a dangerous and fatal disagreement, a disagreement which will sooner or later bring society (not only the individual) to destruction. Only then can the individual depend on his own spontaneous mode of thinking and acting regardless of the continuance of his own existence (and the self-sacrifice which necessarily results from this disagreement), knowing that he will prevail over the perennial thought and behavior of whole generations. Only then does the needle on the scales of historical evolution point toward the spontaneity of individual thought. And only then does the correspondence of collective representations to reality fail so obviously that society feels threatened. In such times the organizing force of collective representations appears to be a disorganizing force for society. The appearance of Hus was an important historical fact; his burning at the stake was an event that reversed the entire direction of history and inaugurated a new epoch. Yet both before and after him, thousands of people accused of similar or even identical heresies were burned at the stake without such an effect. The doctrine Hus interpreted and the arguments to which he appealed had been written or preached decades before him. The teaching of Occam, Duns Scotus, John of Jandun, and especially Wycliffe contained the same or a much sharper rejection of transubstantiation, papal obedience, and the inefficacy of the sacraments than Hus ever formulated. Historians who recognize these facts without seeing Hus's actual significance do not understand why he stands out from the Parisian professors of theology who shared his revulsion against the contradictory interpretation of transubstantiation or other theological dogmas, and even from Wycliffe, who supplied the rationale for his position. Likewise, philosophers who see Hus's significance as a moral one (Masaryk), the subordinating of existence to the unconditional--y and nobility of a moral norm, also do not do him justice. For

Ritual and Theater / 167 these philosophers Hus's dispute about orthodoxy has no real significance, and his disputation about transubstantiation is a nonsensical, anachronistic theme whose absurd forms are utterly devoid of content. They seek content in Hus's moral posture, in his exemplary life, in his apostolic poverty, in his devotion to teaching and awakening. To understand Hus's real significance for history, one must grasp the significance that the dispute about symbolic themes—the issue before the Council of Constance—has even for our day. The unity of man's reality and his social significance are still an immediate problem for us. The dispute about whether a priest dispenses the sacraments worthily or unworthily is a medieval symbol of our worry about the consistency of our individual nature and our social function. Hus's argument about transubstantiation, which seemed absurd even to Masaryk, is our argument too, and it will not be resolved until Platonic ideas are divested of the transcendency that atavisms of religious thought constantly project into them, in fact until every object is divested of the transcendency of the Kantian "Ding an sich" which lies at the basis of so many philosophical systems. We must examine the events at Constance to see that there were tendencies at work there, just as among primitives, which are part of all human nature and which can be controlled only if we become conscious of them and discover their causality. Hus's real significance then is as an example of a conscious and intentional union of the individual's existence, of all the reality of the I, with social relevance, i.e., with the teaching of Jesus, in which Hus recognized a force capable of organizing society in agreement with rational knowledge and one's individual nature.34 Hus's significance lies in the fact that he rejected the disintegration which jeopardized the medieval social structure after the rise of the papal schism. Influenced by the fatal social contradictions of his day, in which the estates were controlled by those who did not engage in production (the high clergy and the monasteries exploited the peasants and artisans with the help of religious promises of unreal eternal rewards in exchange for real worldly goods), he was convinced that these contradictions could be overcome by a rational, natural interpretation of and an obedience, to Jesus' teachings, which were accessible to everyone. In this sense Hus was appealing to Jesus before the Council of Constance. Hus's dispute with the council is not the dispute of an independent individual with collective representations, where the splendid isolation of the individual would contend with an omnipotent collective; it is a dispute in which the individual refers to the real meaning of collective, universally acknowl-

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edged symbols and rejects those meanings which the ruling class has read into these symbols in its own interests. Hus was not an anarchistic individual. He sought supraindividual meanings. In the last extreme he appealed to Jesus against all his ecclesiastical judges, and thereby opposed to the Church's interpretation the interpretation of his own reason and his own human nature. He was convinced that every man aware of his own human lot could share this interpretation. Hus's religious act (and there can be no doubt that it was a religious act; it cannot be transformed into a moral, philosophical, or scientific one) was the identification of himself with this supraindividual meaning of Jesus' teaching. His true significance can be found only through an interpretation of the illusory, religious symbolism of this act in terms of the actual development of history. This interpretation will necessarily be at variance with religion, for it is the negation of religion. How crucial this negation is in Hus's case is apparent from the fact that nothing that he claimed to be rational or natural was accepted as such by the learned theologians and ecclesiastical authorities of his day. In Hus, therefore, the irrationality behind desire is harmonized with a rationality that raises desire to consciousness, inciting actions that satisfy both conscious and unconscious needs. It is an example of the agreement between a system of supraindividual representations and individual ones, for the individual entrusts himself and conforms to supraindividual meanings in which he recognizes natural meanings. It is that harmony which has had such a ruinous effect upon the unnatural meanings of the ecclesiastical interpretation of religious symbols. For Czech—consciously Czech—life, ecclesiastical interpretations of the world were shattered forever after Hus. Translated by John Burbank NOTES 1. Die Kunst und die Revolution (Leipzig, 1849], p. 8. 2. Friedrich Schiller, "Die Schaubühne als eine moralische Anstalt betrachtet," Friedrich Schillers sämtliche Werke, 26 vols. (Vienna, 1810), vol. 16, pp. 2 4 3 - 2 5 7 . 3. Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, trans. Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald, in The Oedipus Cycle: An English Version (New York, 1949], p. 5. 4. Ibid., pp. 17-18. 5. F. Novotny, Antické státy a náboženství [The ancient Greek and Roman states and religions] (Prague, 1925), p. 4. 6. André Félibien, Les divertissements de Versailles (Paris, 1674]. 7. "Essai historique sur le Sacrifice" (1920), Anthologie des philosophes français contemporains (Paris, 1931], p. 123. 8. Ibid.

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9. See Ewald Geissler (ed.), Der Schauspieler (Berlin, 1926), particularly K. Preisedanz, "Vom antiken Schauspieler," and Richard Benz, "Schauspielkunst und kultische Sprechkunst," from which I quote the following: "The art of the cult reader is an absolute art like the art of the actor who also awakens a worthless theatrical piece to the suggestive semblance of life and celebrates his greatest triumphs in creating something that the poet has not created. For this reason the art of the reader encompasses a world which is greater and more enduring than the brief hour of the illusive reality of a dubious piece which only stimulates new questions and new debates: the world of values, which is established not as a question but as a myth of the spirit, as a sensory-supersensory hint of metaphorical truth in which we directly participate in its living presence. . . . Thus does the path lead to the stage of the future across the pulpit of the poetic word which will ultimately be taken seriously and religiously.. . . For the reader . . . there must follow a new stage besides the present theater, a stage which will reinstate the Old German style of the mysteries speaking to us, and thus we shall find a model for the present and the future drama which is directed beyond ordinary speech and an image of reality, which is directed beyond a theatrical play and a bookish drama to the higher unity of the true combined work of art, realizing the truthful word and the truthful image" (pp. 9-10]. 10. How Natives Think, trans. Lillian A. Claire (New York, 1925], p. 230. 11. Ibid., pp. 2 2 9 - 2 3 0 . 12. The society (tribe] has an interest in the primitive's not seeing sickness but divine wrath (punishment) or the wrath (punishment) of someone who knows the divine will. The authority of the sorcerer, priest, or king keeps the tribe in dread and terror and maintains its unity and integrity by keeping it obedient, when it concerns the fateful decisions made by fetishistic individuals. 13. I.e., as literally as the longing of a psychopath, who satisfies it by means of subconscious or aberrant substitutions, attains its goal literally. 14. A sacrifice is always performed in behalf of a specific goal which is known to all the participants. It is supposed to satisfy a conscious collective need: to gain a crop or catch, to ward off danger, and so on. 15. Náboženství národů nekulturních: Přehledné déjiny nábozenskych soustav svéta [The religions of uncivilized peoples: A comprehensive history of the religious systems of the world], (Prague, 1925), vol. 1, p. 200. 16. Ibid. 17. K. Bühler's term; see Die Axiomatik der Sprachwissenschaften, in Kantstudien, vol. 38 (1933). 18. For example, the symbolism is concentrated only on the shape of the object while neglecting the material from which it has been made (crosses are made from any kind of material); in other cases, on the contrary, the symbolism is concentrated 072 the material while the shape is neglected (a saint's bone has a miraculous power no matter how it is shaped). 19. How Natives Think, p. 115. 20. If we speak about the individual, we do not have in mind a type, a scientific scheme, or a poet's synthesis, but a wholly concrete individual: that religiously impassioned female student whom we can recognize or that Cherokee whose conversations J. Frazer recorded for his Golden Bough. We are not therefore dealing with a schematic, abstract, all-encompassing representation of an individual but with the concrete phenomenon of a human individual, whose difference from other individuals is his salient characteristic. The abstract essence of the individual as a type is the premise for his being considered a constant unchangeable quantity, a unit, in the structures of scientific systems, for his remaining in the social consciousness as a norm of moral and esthetic sys-

170 / Jindřich H o n z l terns, and so forth. It is possible for scholars to determine the changes that have occurred or will arise in these systems only upon the premise of a constant unit (the individual as a type) and a consistent causality in the relations among those units. All other changes must be regarded by those scientific and social systems as irrational and unforeseeable. The individual as a type is, however, an abstraction lacking a real existence. He does not exist in reality but is created by people from reality. He therefore changes according to his creators. Every slight change in a trait of the individual as a type (as a unit upon which the entire structure of the system has been built) causes a great change in the result which has to apply for the entire group of individuals. Social systems are—precisely like scientific systems of society—enormously different even though the premise for all of them is—or should be—the common notion of the individual as a type. The abstractness of this notion—its unreality—facilitates easy changes or shifts in its conceptual content. But these small shifts cause abysmal and hateful differences among societies and among the ideologies governing these societies. They also cause the untenableness of all systems in which the individual as a type has not originated from a scientific generalization of real individuals but has arisen only as a postulate of the economic, political, or moral (in some cases, immoral) power which the society is supposed to serve. Primitive societies also presuppose "the individual as a type." There, however, he has not originated through scientific induction but remains as a fact of social consciousness and is sanctified in a totem. Because the totem is a concrete symbol and not an abstract concept, its meaning is not a logical fact but a psychological one. The primitive's individual-type is a complex psychic fact which cannot be incorporated into the logical system resulting from our own thought. The antinomies of singularity and plurality, of here and elsewhere, of now and some other time, do not apply to an emotional interpretation of a totem, just as these antinomies do not apply to our dreams. For the totem can be a symbol of an individual as well as a symbol of an entire tribe; a totemic symbolic action takes place in the present, but it also takes place simultaneously in the past (a symbolic action has the power to change the past, to redress what happened); a symbolic action unfolds in this place, but it also unfolds simultaneously elsewhere (a ritual performed in a village is an action which affects animals far away in the forest). 21. "In certain circumstances we have to distinguish the perpetrator of a crime from its instigator, but we are certain that we know at least one of the offenders if we know the perpetrator. But let us look at the Australian aborigines who were attacked by a group belonging to a neighboring tribe. One of them was killed before their eyes. They could not have had any doubts about the assailants. Nevertheless, they behaved as if they did not know the offenders, and they resorted to divining practices to discover them. These indicated a third tribe as the criminals. They attacked this tribe, killed one member, and left the murderers in peace" (Charles Blondel, La mentalité primitive [Paris, 1926], pp. 18-19). 22. How Natives Think, pp. 7 6 - 7 7 . 23. Ibid., p. 14. 24. "Every innovation is suspicious . . . resistance to what is new is strengthened by a tested reliance upon objects and processes sanctified by custom. One must not do other than what one's ancestors did. When we act in this way we know where we end up; we know the mystical forces which operate here and what they are capable of doing. This conformity has a bearing even upon the smallest details. Manufactured objects invariably keep their same traditional form, their same ornamentation, generation after generation: we do not know the mystical consequences which the slight-

R i t u a l a n d T h e a t e r / 171 est change could have; it is therefore necessary to avoid change. Custom rules every trifle of life like an omnipresent sovereign. Risking innovation means risking life for the primitive. A blacksmith from the Congo manufactured a knife in European fashion from an iron barrel-hoop. This shocked the king and he told the blacksmith not to begin again or else he would accuse him of sorcery. The result of a work cannot really depend on the artisan's dexterity; it has to be inherent in the fact that magic forces have served the artisan. Every innovator is therefore suspicious, and the primitive will find all-round safety and peace only in a conformity which gives his tribe and himself certainty about the consequences of his acts" (La mentalité primitive, pp. 114-115). 25. "After sunset the sacrificial ceremony proper takes place. It begins with libations, sacrifices . . . exorcism during which the kam (i.e. the sorcerer, shaman] repeatedly prophesies. . . . The kam sets out on a journey to the sublime heights while sitting on a púra (a púra is the soul of a sacrificed horse on whose corpse the kam sits while he prophesies), as he pretends in his songs, and he proceeds from level to level. . . . At the same time his movements are more and more rapid, the more he comes into ecstasy or the higher he gets toward heaven. . . . The kam reaches the peak of ecstasy when he is on his way to the sixteenth level to Ülgön. He runs around the sacrificial place, pipes on his reed, offers libations until he finally reaches his goal. There Bai-Ulgon makes it known to him whether the sacrifice has been graciously accepted or not, whether he will get from Bai-Ülgön the best prophesies and advice. . . . After his conversation with Bai-Ülgön the kam reaches the highest ecstasy until, totally exhausted, he finally collapses on the ground" (Wilhelm Radloff, Aus Sibirien: Lose Blätter aus meinem Tagebuche, 2nd ed., 2 vols. [Leipzig, 1893], vol. 2, pp. 2 0 - 5 0 , cited in Nábozenství národu nekulturních, p. 71). 26. "The preparations for dugong and turtle fishing are most elaborate, and commence two months before the fishing is started. A headman is appointed who becomes belaga (holy). On his strict observance of the laws of the dugong net depends the success of the season. He lives entirely secluded from his family, and is only allowed to eat a roasted banana or two after the sun has gone down. Each evening at sundown he goes ashore and bathes on the point of land overlooking the dugong feeding-ground . . . meanwhile throwing into the sea some mula-mula, i.e., medicine to charm the dugong. While he is undergoing these privations all the ablebodied men of the village are employed in collecting bark . . . and making nets" (R.E. Guise, "Wangela River Natives," cited in How Natives Think, p. 241). 27. "It is important to discover what malign power or influence has taken possession of the sick man. . . . This diagnosis, upon which everything else depends, can only be made by a man who is qualified to come in contact with mysterious forces and spirits, and who is powerful enough to fight and expel them. The first step, therefore, is to appeal to the medicine-man, shaman, wizard, doctor, exorcist, or whatever he may be called; and if this person consents to undertake the cure, his first care will be to put himself into the special state necessary to be able to communicate with forces and spirits, and effectively exercise upon them his potential influence. This necessitates a whole series of preliminary operations which may last for several hours, or even a whole night. There must be fasting, or intoxication; a special costume; magical adornments; incantations; dances to the extent of complete exhaustion and excessive perspiration; until at last the 'doctor' seems to lose consciousness or be 'beside himself.' Then there takes place what we should call the 'doubling' of his personality. He has become unconscious of his entire surroundings, but on the other hand he feels himself transported to the world of intangible, invisible realities—the world of spirits—or at any rate he enters into communication with it. It is at this mo-

172 / J i n d ř i c h H o n z l ment that the diagnosis is accomplished, intuitively, and consequently without any possibility of error: the patient and his entourage believe in it blindly" [How Natives Think, pp. 265-266). 28. Ibid., p. 354. 29. Cited in Nábozenství národu nekulturních, p. 66. 30. Cited in How Natives Think, p. 354. 31. Alexandra David-Neel, Magic and Mystery in Tibet (New York, 1932), pp. 270-271. 32. Ibid., pp. 2 7 5 - 2 7 6 . 33. "The sensory symbolism which makes nature comprehensible to us is nothing but the visual Language of the Author of Nature" (Ferdinand Pelikán, Fikcionalism novovéké filosofie, zvláště u Humea a Kanta [The fictionalism of modern philosophy, especially in H u m e and Kant] [Prague, 1928], p. 62). 34. Hus's act would have remained a moral act, had he resolved by means of it how to comply with and how far not to comply with universal and permanent moral norms. In Hus's time universal norms of morality were ecclesiastical norms. They organized the relationship of the individual (both the priest and the confessor) to all other priests and confessors so that in choosing the means by which he asserted himself in life, the individual did not run up against prohibitions and availed himself to his own advantage of what was permitted. But Hus even rejected as immoral the things the Church allowed. Hence he rejected ecclesiastical morality, he did not acknowledge the pope as arbiter, he did not acknowledge priests as intercessors between believers and God, and so forth. But a moral standpoint alone could not be sufficient for Hus's rejection of Church morality. He had to seek justification for it in something which was above this morality, in what gave the Church the very authority to create a moral system. He had to seek justification in the foundation upon which the entire Church stood. He had to seek justification in the Church's interpretation of the world, in its religion. And it was here that Hus focused his reforming efforts. He does not demonstrate that bad priests do not comply with good Church norms. Hus demonstrates that Church norms are bad and that they are bad because the Church forsakes the religious foundation upon which everything stands, that through them it forsakes the teaching of fesus, that it has corrupted and obscured this teaching. One cannot begin with morality according to Hus but with religious teaching; one must repudiate the pope for Jesus. It is a mistake in perspective for Masaryk to proclaim Hus a moral reformer and see his significance in his moral efforts. If Hus's religious viewpoint is not comprehensible to us today, i.e., if we do not wish to appeal to Jesus' teaching for the improvement of the world, it does not mean that we may ruthlessly transfer from Hus into the present only what suits us and what we understand and suppress the rest. Masaryk commits such metabases very frequently—it would even seem that he seeks them out. He transfers modern terms to the Middle Ages and speaks about "democracy" among the Hussites or Taborites. He seeks anticlericalism in Hus. He has a high opinion of Chelcicky for having grasped "the connection between absolutism and spiritual and secular centralism." On the other hand, he paraphrases and adopts Havlíček's old error in evaluating the significance of the Hussite wars ("What was the purpose of the Hussite brawls? To decide whether one should eat divine flesh with or without gravy") and complains about the Hussites: "These people of ours went to their death for a trifle, for that chalice!" (Tomás G. Masaryk, "Mistr Jan Hus a ceská reformace" [Master Jan Hus and the Czech reformation), fan Hus: Nase obrození a nase reformace [Jan Hus: Our national revival and our reformation], 4th ed. [Prague, 1923], p. 156). Masaryk does not want and cannot understand the "chalice" as the first and

Ritual and Theater / 173 ultimate cause of the Hussite wars, because he does not understand (and does not want to understand) the symbolism of religious thought and action and because he does not know how to interpret this symbolism. He cannot therefore perceive its real meaning, which was and still is a religious meaning in the Hussite Middle Ages. The inability to grasp this religious meaning of Hussitism compels Masaryk to the aforementioned metabasis, to the transformation of a religious problem into a moral problem.

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics Peter Steiner

The study of the arts has entered a period of close self-examination. Scholars are no longer willing to accept their time-honored roles as interpreters or historians. With greater and greater urgency they are questioning the very premises of their activity, forcing theory into the center of their disciplines. Slavic poetics and esthetics have played a prominent role in this new development. Russian formalism and Prague structuralism— the two most important Slavic theoretical trends of the first half of the twentieth century—are still very much with us today. However, partly because of the general ignorance of Slavic languages and partly because of the inaccessibility of much original material, there appears to be little understanding of the actual relationship that obtains between the two movements. For this reason I have chosen to conclude the present collection of Prague School articles with an examination of the ties between the Czech group and its Russian forerunners. At first glance it is obvious that the two movements are closely related. This is especially true of the Moscow wing of formalism, which even shared some of its members with the Prague School. Of these, the most prominent were Roman Jakobson, the vice-chairman of the Prague group, and Pëtr Bogatyrëv. Nikolaj Trubeckoj and Sergej Karcevskij, two other outstanding Russian linguists linked with Moscow formalism, also presided over the birth of the Prague School. With such shared kin, it is no wonder that the Czech group was christened the Prague Linguistic Circle after its predecessor, the Moscow Linguistic Circle. These close connections were intensified by the lectures of Rus-

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 175 sian scholars at the meetings of the Prague group. In 1928 alone there were three such addresses, two by outstanding literary theoreticians of OPOJAZ. Boris Tomasevskij delivered a paper entitled "La nouvelle école d'histoire littéraire en Russie" and Jurij Tynjanov spoke about "Le problème de l'évolution littéraire." 1 In the same year a former member of the Moscow Linguistic Circle, Grigorij Vinokur, discussed general linguistic questions in his talk, "Zur linguistischen Problematik." 2 This personal contact was complemented by the structuralists' thorough acquaintance with formalist scholarship. Prague School writings contain references to many participants in the Russian movement: not only to major figures such as Sklovskij, Ejxenbaum, or Tynjanov, but also to Artjuskov, Bernstejn, and Stokmar, who were not in the mainstream. Moreover, the Czechs took pains to make formalist writings available to those not acquainted with Russian. By the late twenties, essays by Sklovskij, Tynjanov, and Tomasevskij had appeared in Czech periodicals, followed in the thirties by articles by Brik, Ejxenbaum, and Tynjanov. Šklovskij's Theory of Prose was published in Czech translation in 1933, and in 1941 a comprehensive anthology of formalist texts and a bibliography of almost 350 items was printed in Trnava, Slovakia. 3 In light of this extensive contact, it is not surprising that some scholars have treated the relationship between Russian formalism and Prague structuralism as a mere transfer of ideas. They conceive of the Czech school simply as a branch of formalism, a transplantation of the Russian movement into foreign soil. This tendency is especially strong in the West, where until recently very few of the original writings of the structuralists (except in the field of linguistics) were available in translation. The first substantial treatment of structuralist literary theories did not come until 1955, with Victor Erlich's widely read Russian Formalism: History—Doctrine. But even here, the real focus was the Russian movement, as the title indicates, so that the Prague structuralists were inevitably shown as an outgrowth of the Russian movement. Erlich in fact describes a "Slavic formalism" which started in Russia and spread to neighboring Czechoslovakia and Poland. This hypothesis naturally made him more sensitive to the similarities between formalism and structuralism than to their differences. It is only by keeping Erlich's thesis in mind that we can understand why some scholars refer to the members of the Prague Circle as "Czech formalists," 4 a dangerously misleading designation. For "Czech formalism" was a specific, welldefined school of thought in nineteenth-century Czech esthetics, quite distinct from the subsequent structuralist movement.

116 / Peter Steiner

In Czechoslovakia, too, the derivative theory of Prague structuralism found its champions. Karel Svoboda actually equated the two movements in his informative article "Concerning the So-called Formal Method in Literary Scholarship." After tracing the history of the Russian school up to 1930, he bluntly declared that "Russian formalism tries to make up for the losses it has suffered in its homeland in our country. It was brought here by R. Jakobson; on his initiative in 1926 the Prague Linguistic Circle was established, modeled on the Moscow Linguistic Circle and accepting the formalists' principles."5 Svoboda7s article is frequently cited by scholars hostile to the Circle in their attempt to minimize its achievements. In particular, Miloš Weingart, an eminent Czech medievalist, used this argument after he broke away from the Circle in September, 1934. After this rift he wrote an unfavorable review of Mukařovský's study, "Polák's The Sublimity of Nature," repeating Svoboda7s accusations that "our formalists [i.e., the members of the Prague Circle] . . . swallowed the Russian doctrine whole, very often with its terminology as well. It was a great sacrifice, for the ambition of every scholar is to create his own method on his own material.776 This criticism was voiced again in the early sixties by no less a figure than Ladislav Stoll, the Party watchdog for ideological purity in Czech letters. It would of course be erroneous to equate Weingart7s motives with Stoll7s, since Weingart did not deny the merits of Russian formalism but only complained about the derivative character of the Prague group, while Stoll was crusading against all modern critical and esthetic theories, which he lumped together under the heading of formalism.7 "The effort in literary-theoretical research to suppress the concern for problems of personality, especially for socio-psychological questions," argues Stoll, "is the distinctive feature in the literary theory of most, if not all formalistic tendencies, however they may differ from each other.778 Stoll7s main job was to attach an appropriate ideological label to anything that differed from what he believed to be orthodox Marxism. By exposing the "idealistic epistemological roots77 of Russian formalism and Prague structuralism, he performed his task, and therefore he eagerly embraced Weingart7s assessment of the second movement as derivative. "The claim that the Prague School of Literary Structuralism is derived from the Russian Formalist School is in its essence fully correct, as the deeper study of both phenomena convinces us.779 The deeper study of both phenomena, however, was left to the reader, for Stoll7s primary role was not that of a scholar but that of a policeman. He was after the culprit responsible for the ideological lapses in his territory, whom he discovered in the "evil per-

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 177 sonality" of Roman Jakobson, the seducer of innocent Czech literary scholars into the snares of formalism. Through innuendo and suggestion Stoll painted a dark portrait of Jakobson as an informer for the Czechoslovak intelligence service in particular 10 and an agent of the Czech bourgeoisie in general,11 whose devious tricks had interrupted the development of Czech literary criticism and esthetics. Such are the uses to which the equation of formalism and structuralism has been put in the Slavic world. But beyond its motivation here, the identification of the two is objectionable on other counts. First, it neglects the actual developmental dynamics of structuralism, and second, it contradicts the nature of intellectual history in general. I shall consider the former objection first. The history of Prague structuralism can be divided into three periods. The first begins in the year 1926, when the Circle was established, and continues until approximately 1934. This is the period in which the literary-theoretical outlook of the structuralists most resembled that of the formalists. The Prague scholars were primarily interested in the study of the internal organization of the literary work, especially its phonological structure. Jakobson's and Mukarovsky's studies on Czech metrics, 12 which provided an excellent immanent history of Czech versification, are among the most outstanding and representative works of this period. However, by the second period, roughly 1934 to 1938, any equation of formalism with structuralism would be impossible. Beginning with Mukařovský's study of a little-known Czech poet of the early nineteenth century, Milota Zdirad Polák,13 and ending with a collective volume by the Circle devoted to another nineteenth-century Czech poet, Karel Hynek Mácha,14 this period definitely broke away from the formalist tradition. The issue of literary development, raised but unsolved by the formalists, became the structuralists' center of concern. The semiotic concept of the literary work rendered it a social fact (i.e., a sign understood by the members of a given collectivity) and enabled the structuralists to relate the developmental changes in literary history to all other aspects of h u m a n culture. And taking another step away from formalism, the Prague scholars extended poetics into esthetics, shifting from a concern with verbal art alone to a concern with all the arts and with extraartistic esthetics as well. This enlargement of subject matter gave impetus to a broadly conceived esthetic axiology in which the principles of the study of language (e.g., the langue-parole opposition) were projected onto the larger framework of the semiotic systems of all the arts. Interestingly, Svoboda's and Weingart's attacks on structuralism

178 / Peter Steiner came precisely at the moment when the movements had diverged into separate entities. That scholars had noticed this shift is apparent in the discussion held at the Circle on December 16, 1934, concerning Mukařovský's paper on Polák. Alfréd Bém accused Mukařovský of methodological inconsistency for his attempt to reconcile developmental immanence with the sociological approach. "From the moment that Mukařovský admitted the 'intervention of external social reality in the immanent developmental series' his method ceased to be logical. It oscillates between formalism and sociologism." The remedy suggested by Bém was to reject sociologism and "to return to pure structuralism as a monistic system of literary scholarship." 15 But the structuralists themselves welcomed this new initiative. Jakobson programmatically demanded the rejection of those theses of formalism "that were a mere infantile disorder of this new literary-theoretical movement," 16 and called for the inclusion of the social structure in the study of literature. Clearly both Bém and Jakobson saw Mukařovský's study of Polák as a departure from formalist postulates, and this work marks only the beginning of the second stage of the structuralist development. The last period, dating from about 1938 to 1948, is delimited by external interventions into the history of the Circle. The German invasion forced some important members (e.g., Jakobson and Bogatyrëv) to flee the country and severed the international contacts of the Circle, and the Communist takeover ten years later effectively ended the structuralist study of art and led eventually to the disbanding of the Circle. However, the first blow was mitigated by the pre-war pedagogical activity of the members of the Circle, which had generated a sufficient number of structuralistically oriented young scholars to preserve the Circle, despite the departure of the others. Among the most outstanding junior members were the literary historian Felix Vodicka and the student of metrics Josef Hrabák, Jirí Veltrusky, who was applying structuralist methods to theatrical art, and the musicologist Antonín Sychra. This third period of Prague structuralism was quite remote from Russian formalism. Going beyond even the sociological concerns of the second period, it turned to the question of universais and the role of the subject in art. The structuralists now sought the anthropological foundations of the esthetic process and strove for an ontologically conceived esthetic axiology, as in Mukařovský's 1939 essay, "Can There Be a Universal Esthetic Value in Art?" The concern over the subject of the esthetic process involved an examination of both essential dimensions of this process—the production and reception of the artistic work. The former was studied most fully by Mukařovský,

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 179 whose 1941 lecture at the Circle, " T h e Poet,"17 was recently declared the best account of poetic influence in the critical literature. 18 Artistic reception, on the other hand, fell in Felix Vodicka's scholarly purview. His most characteristic effort was a 1941 article, ' T h e LiteraryHistorical Study of the Reception of Literary Works,"19 an attempt at a structuralist re-definition of Roman Ingarden's concept of "concretization." Vodicka is generally recognized as a forerunner of the modern Rezepzionsästhetik, which enjoys considerable popularity today in Germany. 20 In short, the three stages of structuralism demonstrate an increasing divergence of the movement from its formalist starting point. And even the first period, close as it was to the Russian approach, does not echo it perfectly, as we shall soon see. My second objection to the identification of Prague structuralism with Russian formalism is theoretical, and concerns the concept of history in general. Can a set of theoretical concepts simply be transplanted from one milieu to another, from one intellectual tradition to another, regardless of the pre-existing tradition in the receiving country? Such a transference would contradict the very notion of a tradition, making the influenced party totally passive, not predisposed in any way by its past. There would be no internal reason why one trend would succeed another and later itself be replaced. In the case before us, there would be no reason why it was Russian formalism that influenced Czech poetics and esthetics during the twenties rather than any other contemporary trend from phenomenology to neo-Thomism. This is not merely a hypothetical problem. In the "free market of ideas" which existed in Czechoslovakia in the early twenties, Russian formalism was only one of many theories competing for general acceptance; strongly anti-formalistic trends existed as well. In 1920, for example, Josef Bartos established a short-lived Czech Journal of Esthetics advocating Crocean theories. The first issue was introduced by Frantisek Mareš's programmatic article, "Beauty from the Mind or from the Senses?" in which Mares rejected the previous fifty years of Czech esthetics for yielding to German naturalism. A return to idealism, he claimed, would be the only remedy. "Mystical ecstasy about beauty? Is this not the right way? Is beauty not something mystical which conjoins with sensory perception as something supra-sensory? The science of sensory feelings never grasps Beauty; it must stop at charm which is but the impulse for the idea of beauty to arise in the mind." 21 Two years later Bartos himself published a book to "answer the basic questions pertaining to art which he had formulated while

180 / Peter Steiner pondering the works of Benedetto Croce." 22 Not surprisingly, a few barbed arrows were reserved for formalism. "To avoid formalism we must not seek beauty in relations. It is impossible to extract beauty from works by performing an autopsy on them (analysis) and then enumerate those relations which are pleasant (or 'beautiful·). In fact formalism is hedonism, for it is satisfied with ascertaining the basic pleasant relations which it incorrectly considers elements (i.e., independent entities). Every work of art then can be composed of them and interpreted through them regardless of the process involved. If this were true all art would be a mere children's construction set from which every work would be simply assembled." 23 In the face of such theoretical diversity, one might retreat to a view of intellectual history as a succession of personalities. This is the position of Stoll, according to whom Prague structuralism is Jakobson's brainchild. However, such an approach only sidesteps the issue without solving it, for the randomness with which one school follows another is here replaced by an even greater accidentality— the existence of the individuals that created them. Stoll's spiritual father, Joseph Stalin, brilliantly pointed out the pitfalls of history conceived as a succession of strong personalities in a conversation with Emil Ludwig. "People indeed make history," Stalin stated, "but not in the way their imaginations prompt them to or as it comes into their heads. Every new generation meets particular preconditions which were fixed at the moment when it was born. The great personalities are worth their salt only insofar as they can correctly understand these preconditions, understand how to change them. If they do not grasp them and wish to change them as their imaginations prompt them, then they, these personalities, appear in the situation of Don Quixote." 24 But Stoll's solution not only fails to account for the regularity of historical change, but does not provide a credible picture of Jakobson's activities in the twenties. From Stoll's narrative, Jakobson emerges not as a h u m a n being but as a demon whose actions are alldetermining and inscrutable. As a result, when faced with the problem of rationally explaining Jakobson's influence in Prague, Stoll had to retreat to the future. "It will yet be necessary," he wrote, "for a literary-historical study to explain how it could happen that Roman Jakobson . . . gained both the trust of representatives of the official world and the trust of our young avant-gardists who had vowed allegiance to the flag of the revolutionary labor movement." 25 The study proposed by Stoll, if we disregard his somewhat crude concept of social stratification, must go beyond the romantic notion of history as a succession of "strong personalities" or the positivistic

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 181 cataloguing of all possible influences. An invaluable tool in this enterprise is the concept that the history of any subject has its regularity, a notion advanced by the formalists and structuralists to counter the Saussurian notion of synchrony. " T h e opposition of synchrony and diachrony," argued Jakobson and Tynjanov in their programmatic statement of 1928, "was the opposition of the concept of system to the concept of development. It loses its essential character as soon as we realize that every system inevitably exists as a development and on the other hand that a development inevitably has a systematic character." 26 In other words, a static "slice of history" is a mere abstraction, each of its stages carrying within it the past and possibilities for the future. Such a conception eliminates external accident as a governing force of development. On the contrary, the history of a subject becomes a complex interplay of external forces and internal, systemic factors. External influences are manifold and even contradictory, but the system selects those influences that best suit its internal needs, and in this new context they create new results. This point of view does not diminish the significance of Russian formalism for structuralist thought or the role which Jakobson played in the transmission of its principles. 27 But instead of relying on the accidents of history or the charisma of Jakobson's personality, it uses the state of Czech esthetics in the early twenties to explain the extraordinary appeal of Russian formalism. Moreover, the local tradition explains why, even in its earliest stage, structuralism was not a mere copy of formalism. The pre-existing tradition of Czech esthetics predisposed the structuralists to incorporate only certain features of Russian formalism and not others. This principle of selectivity can be seen, for example, in the way Propp's morphological method was received by two different "structuralist" schools of thought: in Prague, his theory of narrative structures found no response at all, while in Paris in the early sixties it was eagerly embraced. Or similarly, the Prague structuralists rejected Sklovskij's radically formalist ideas about art because these ideas seemed a return to the passé nineteenth-century trend of Herbartian formalism. On the other hand, the emphasis on the material of art, traditional in Czech esthetics, was a factor that spurred a spontaneous acceptance of the Russians 7 linguistic approach to the analysis of the material of verbal art. Thus, as Mukařovský once jokingly pointed out, "Scholarship is not country-fair magic and new ideas are not pulled out of an empty hat." 28 The metamorphoses that structuralism underwent are clearly related to its local antecedents. Its transformation of poetics into esthetics, for example, is without any doubt connected to the

182 / Peter Steiner Prague tradition of esthetic studies. "Already by the end of the eighteenth century," Mukařovský pointed out in an interview following his appointment to the chair of esthetics at Charles University, "about thirty years after the concept of esthetics had been created by Baumgarten, Prague University had its esthetician in the person of A. G. Meissner, who exerted a great influence upon the beginning of modern Czech poetry." 29 The systemic concept of intellectual history that I have utilized so far is, however, a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it renders untenable any simple identification of Prague structuralism and Russian formalism. But, on the other hand, it is equally inimical to any thrust toward the opposite extreme of deriving the Prague School solely from its native Czech tradition. Though the purely Czech origin of structuralism has never been urged as strongly as the formalist source, it has found some proponents in Czechoslovakia, the most outspoken among them being Oleg Sus, an esthetician from Brno. Sus does not deny that Russian formalism played a role in the formation of structuralism, but in his view this role is secondary to that of the Czech esthetic tradition. He finds in the history of Czech esthetics two stages directly related to structuralist thought: first, the Herbartian formalist esthetics of Josef Durdík and Otakar Hostinsky, which Sus calls Czech formalism,· and second, the psychologistic modification of their ideas by Otakar Zich, which Sus terms "prestructuralism," the direct predecessor of Prague structuralism. Sus is willing to ignore a good deal in Zich's system in order to bring him closer to the structuralists: "It would be enough to divest it [Zich7s theoretical position] of its psychologism of 'images,' and constitute it linguistically for it to be directly compared to Mukarovsky 7 s works, for example, to his study Mácha's Máj, as a kind of early variant of a neo-formalism-structuralism. 7730 The weakness inherent in such an argument is only too obvious. For if in our imaginations we rid Zich 7 s esthetics of its psychologism and ground it in linguistics, we would be dealing with a mere mental construct and not a historical phenomenon; Zich 7 s "prestructuralism77 in reality is psychological rather than linguistic. Psychology is the very core of his system; ignoring it to prove a similarity to the structuralists is merely a rhetorical ploy. Pushed to an extreme, any system is transformable into almost any other if we ignore some of its essential features or replace them with different ones. 31 Furthermore, the two factors present in early structuralism that Sus admits were absent from Zich's esthetics—anti-psychologism and the use of linguistics—were crucial to Russian formalism. And how decisive an influence they were in structuralist thought is apparent in

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 183 the development of Mukařovský's ideas about metrics: his 1923 Contribution to the Esthetics of Czech Verse and his 1931 "La phonologie et la poétique" differ precisely as a psychologistic poetics differs from a structuralist poetics. 32 Sus's argument is further weakened by the selectivity with which he uses Zich's writings to support his claim. Of Zich's works on literature he draws attention only to the 1917-1918 essay "On Poetic Types," which indeed makes several points that subsequently entered into the making of structuralist poetics. But a partial overlap of two schools of thought does not guarantee their affinity in toto. Mukařovský's warning against a piecemeal approach to scholarly systems is pertinent here: "A house is not contained in any of the bricks which compose its walls. From the same bricks one can build both a palace and a garden wall. And as much as a house, a scholarly theory is an indivisible whole." 33 The psychologistic foundations of Zich's esthetics and the profound difference between his system and early structuralism can best be seen in his article "Poetic Language." 34 This essay is especially useful for comparison not only because its topic is crucial to structuralist poetics, but because it also appeared in 1929, the same year as the famous "Theses of the Prague Linguistic Circle," 35 in which the structuralists for the first time cogently formulated their own notion of poetic language. Even a superficial reading of the two shows the incompatibility of Zich's ideas with those of the Prague structuralists: his equation of poetic with emotive languages; his insistence on the relation between images and words as the central problem of poetic language (which is in fact at variance with his earlier position statements from "On Poetic Types"); his characterization of poetic designation in terms of the concreteness and particularity of the poetic image. In short, Sus's attempt to privilege the role of the Czech esthetic tradition in the development of structuralism is as one-sided as the contrary view that Prague structuralism is a mere repercussion of Russian formalism. These two opposing views are extreme conceptions of the relation between Russian formalism and Prague structuralism. What they have in common is their simplification of a complex historical process. By insisting that one of the factors in the rise of structuralist esthetics is in fact the ultimate cause of its origin, they inevitably denigrate all the other factors. This historical picture at which they arrive is like a black-and-white photograph—graphic but a bit flat. Other scholars not afflicted with this color blindness have attempted to reconcile the two stances. Jurij Striedter provides the most balanced view of the relation between the two schools. In a lengthy in-

184 / Peter Steiner troduction to the selected essays of Felix Vodicka, Striedter refuses to treat historical process as the sum-total of random phenomena. Instead, he employs the formalist-structuralist thesis that every developmental change is systemic, outlining a three-phase developmental series which encompasses not only the gradual transformations within formalism itself but the qualitative leap to structuralist esthetics. Striedter's three phases are as follows: I. The work of art as the ''sum of devices" with the function of "de-familiarization" to make "perception more difficult," II. the work of art as a "system" composed of devices whose functions are specified synchronically and diachronically, III. the work of art as a "sign with an esthetic function." 36 This three-phase scheme has several advantages. By stressing the developmental dynamism of the Russian movement, Striedter on the one hand refutes the equation of formalism with structuralism. This equation becomes impossible because there is no single formalism: the Prague scholars must at least have made an active choice of one of several formalist models available. Striedter's scheme likewise eliminates the absolute opposition of formalism and structuralism on the grounds of the "dual nationality of the two schools." 37 As Striedter argues, both formalism and structuralism are distinct (i.e., phase I formalism and phase III structuralism), but they also share a certain ground (phase II). In the next several pages I would like to supplement Striedter's argument with a more substantial description of the Czech esthetic tradition, without which it is impossible to understand the Prague School as what Jakobson once termed the "symbiosis of Czech and Russian thought." 38 Before assessing the structuralists 7 debt to the Russian formalists, we should familiarize ourselves with this local tradition as the filter that conditioned the reception of the new ideas from abroad and the host upon which these ideas were grafted.39 The founder of the formalist tradition in Czech esthetics, Josef Durdik (1837-1902), was the first and last Czech scholar to construct a complete esthetic system. But he was far from being an original thinker. His almost 700-page-long General Esthetics40 is based on his teacher Robert Zimmermann's interpretation of Herbart's system, which Durdik accepted with minimal changes. The basic tenor of the book is sober empiricism balanced by the effort to create an all-encompassing system. Esthetics for Durdik is the science of the "laws of beauty." 41 Durdik found the main foe of his scientific approach to beauty in content-oriented or idealist esthetics. This system "finds the essence of beauty in content [for] the value of content is what makes

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 185 its revelation satisfying to us." 42 For Durdik this notion is sheer mysticism, so that even its more recent adherents (Hegel, Schelling, Vischer) are to be considered men of the past. As Durdik argues, the output of idealist esthetics "is great and valuable, and just as all men at the boundary between alchemy and chemistry had to know alchemy, we should know the idealist systems. As astronomy arose from astrology and chemistry from alchemy, scientific, i.e., formalist esthetics will succeed idealist esthetics." 43 The scientific study of beauty was constructed on three basic principles derived from Kant's esthetic system. First of all beauty was freed from any subjective connotations. Neither profit, nor interest, nor pleasure could be identified with the esthetic experience because of their subjective nature. Second, esthetic judgment was to have an a priori character. Since there are certain phenomena which are beautiful for everyone, the esthetic judgment is self-explanatory and needs no proof. Third, all beauty is complex. A single element— one tone, color, or image—is a psychic rather than esthetic phenomenon. It cannot evoke an esthetic response because, as Durdik asserts, "complexity is the essential sign of all beauty." 44 These three postulates neglect the human subject of the esthetic experience to seek beauty in the esthetic object itself. The perceiver is a passive synthesizer in whose consciousness all elements of the perceived object are unified in a single image; only by controlling his or her subjectivity can the perceiver pronounce an esthetic judgment. But what is beautiful in the object itself? We know that single elements themselves are termed material by Durdik; their relations, form. The question then arises as to whether beauty lies in material or form. Since single elements are not beautiful and since they are also material, Durdik concludes that esthetic experience "cannot pertain to esthetically indifferent material; it must be related to form, which alone renders material esthetically relevant." 45 The proper object of study for an esthetician, then, is form. After postulating five basic forms of beauty,46 Durdik proceeds to divide it into two types. Music and painting embody the sensory type; literature, the spiritual. Or more precisely, literature "stands at the boundary" between the two. As Durdik observes, "though it embodies sensory beauty through its phonic quality and rhythm it also pertains to spiritual beauty." 47 Because of this dual nature of poetic beauty, images—the material of literature for Durdík—exhibit two types of form. Since every image "must have its sign [známka] . . . to become sensorily perceptible," 48 the elements of such signs can be organized in certain relations which constitute the outer form of poetry. On the other hand, the relations among the images themselves

186 / Peter Steiner

comprise the inner form of poetry. Of these two, inner form is the more important to literature. To prove this, Durdík points to artistic prose, which he claims is devoid of outer form and based solely on the relations of images; nevertheless, it is still considered an artistic phenomenon. In contrast, everyday language and scientific prose lack inner form; they are not art according to Durdik, and would not be so even if someone were to provide them with an outer form by couching them in verse. Arts are differentiated not only according to the type of beauty they embody but also according to whether they have a subject or not. There are arts which do not have subjects at all, for example, architecture and music, and others which in certain forms are without subjects. Painting, for instance, can either depict situations and characters or exist without them—for example, the arabesque. The subject in itself, however, does not have any intrinsic esthetic value. It is only part of a work of art and must be incorporated into a set of relations—artistic form. "Everything in the subject that is not reworked," states Durdik, "is only a raw rough material, a residue which . . . the artist could not overcome."49 Only secondarily and only in comparison with other works of art can the subject enhance the esthetic value of a work. This happens, for example, when two paintings are equally perfect from the formal point of view but one has a more valuable subject. But in general "the value of a work of art is not," for Durdik, "based on what the work signifies, but on what it is."50 And because "anything can be a subject of art"51 the main task of the esthetician is to study actual artistic forms, rather than the extra-esthetic significance of their constitutive elements, which may be utterly subjective. In Durdík's words: "If we say that the esthetician should study the object itself, not what the creator intended, what he wanted to express, etc., we mean that an esthetician's object is form, that his what is how. Not what the artist expressed, but how he expressed it is the question."52 We might note in passing that the Herbartian formalists considered novelty a possible source of esthetic value. However, they did not elaborate this concept into anything comparable to the Russian formalist principle of "de-familiarization." The significance of novelty is obvious in Durdik's notion of language as a set of socially observed conventions.53 Various motivations may lie behind the violation of these conventions, including, to be sure, esthetic motivation. Durdik claims, in fact, that esthetic orientation is a primary force in the development of language. In the realm of art, novelty is introduced through the author's imagination (Einbildungskraft), and genuine esthetic novelty "does not rest in the novelty of the subject, but

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 187 in the novelty of form," 54 in the author's ability to set the elements of form into new relations. Consequently, novelty is one of the qualities that distinguish artistic beauty from other kinds—for example, natural beauty. But we must repeat that it is just one among many factors and is no more important than any of the others. Durdík's successor to the chair of esthetics at Charles University was Otakar Hostinsky (1847-1910). Though he himself never wrote a systematic study of general esthetics, his pupil Zdenék Nejedly compiled Hostinsky's lectures and the notes of his students into a unified theoretical work, Otakar Hostinsky's Esthetics.55 Whereas Durdik had tried to combine empiricism with an all-encompassing deductive theoretical system, Hostinsky employed an inductive empiricism. As Nejedly observes, for Hostinsky, "esthetics had value only if based on empiricism as the source of esthetic facts and on induction as the scientific method. Without empiricism and induction . . . esthetics is no science." 56 The difference between the two scholars is succinctly expressed by Mirko Novák's contrast of Durdík's "abstract formalism" to Hostinsky's "concrete formalism." 57 Hostinsky summarized his objections to the current interpretations of Herbart's esthetics in a lecture delivered to the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences on March 21, 1881. If we were to provide a motto for this talk it would be the slogan "back to the original Herbart." Such a step was necessary, Hostinsky believed, because the modern Herbartians had distorted the original empiricist thrust of Herbart's philosophy. The major error of Zimmermann and his followers (including Durdik) 58 had been to base esthetics on the five "practical ideas" designed by Herbart for ethics. Therefore it was incumbent upon the modern formalist to ask: "First, is it consistent with Herbart's spirit and thrust to accept uncritically his five practical ideas as the basis of general esthetics? Second, are the universal esthetic forms indeed parallel to the practical ideas?" 59 The answer to both questions was negative. This was because, as Hostinsky showed, the Herbartian formalists in their effort to build a system had substituted a series of arbitrary decisions for the study of empirical facts. First, they had derived esthetics from another discipline—ethics—and not from its subject matter proper. Second, they had taken for granted Zimmermann's equation of the five practical ideas with the five universal esthetic forms (see note 46 below). These equations were often, according to Hostinsky, a matter of metaphoric extension rather than of any genuine similarity. Finally, without any proof, the Herbartian formalists had subsumed all the different types of beauty found in nature, society, and the various arts under the five universal esthetic forms. Though Hostinsky read-

188 / Peter Steiner ily admitted that formalist esthetics was the most acceptable of all the current esthetic systems—the only one that conceived of esthetics as an autonomous discipline independent of any philosophical presuppositions—he maintained that "Herbart 7 s school . . . had not yet succeeded in establishing a firm and stable basis for an exact general esthetics." 60 Mistrust of speculative theorizing not only prevented Hostinsky from writing a general esthetics but caused him to look with suspicion upon the general concept of art. Thus, he limited his attention to the individual arts and to what differentiated them—their materials. And he did not hesitate to apply the most recent methods of the natural sciences—physics, physiology, etc.—to his own studies, perhaps with the best results in music. In his studies of literature he accepted the concept of poetic beauty as the relation of images. However, he argued against the simple opposition of form and material. There is no raw, formless material, he argued. " T h e p o e t . . . receives his material already somewhat formed; but he reshapes this form. . . . Thus we cannot oppose the principle of material to form and believe that only in the second stage of artistic re-creation do we arrive at form."61 This observation is especially important in regard to plot, which is a set of relations before it enters the literary work. Such connections for Hostinsky are "objective relations, that is, relations among things themselves, independent of a perceiver." 62 In the literary work these relations comprise the plot of the work as well as its temporal succession. In a move somewhat resembling the Russian formalist distinction between "story" and "plot," Hostinsky proposed to distinguish two kinds of elements: "those elements which compose the narrated subject of the poem" and those that "arise through the way this story is presented." 63 But in contrast to the radical Russian formalists, Hostinsky did not completely banish the "narrated subject," or more generally, represented reality, from the purview of esthetics. As he declared in a lengthy study of artistic realism, the "verisimilitude of artistic representation is as much an esthetic element" as the formal features of the work, that is, the "shapely lines and forms, harmony of colors and tones, continuity and contrast of poetic images, proportionality of the total composition." 64 Nejedly interprets the seeming "anti-formalism 77 of the essay to mean: "If beauty rests completely in the relation between two images (formalism), then verisimilitude (realism) is indeed an important esthetic element based on the relation of reality to its depiction in the work of art."65 Hostinsky, however, was extremely cautious not to confuse the programmatic esthetics of a single artistic movement with esthetics as a scholarly discipline. He

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 189 was keenly aware that in contrast to "realistic" art there is what he termed "idealistic" art (e.g., absolute music, ornament, fantastic literature) whose works are to a considerable degree devoid of any objective relation. For this reason "idealism and realism are not the highest universal principles of art, exhausting and delimiting the essence of artistic creation. . . . [They] are merely principles of style which vary with circumstances, substitute for one another, or even co-exist in the course of history." 66 For scholarly esthetics the two are fundamentally equal and one of them cannot be promulgated to the detriment of the other. To provide an overall view of Hostinsky's esthetics is not easy. He was too m u c h of an inductivist to subsume willingly all esthetic phenomena under a few general rules. As we pointed out above, he never produced a systematic theoretical esthetics, and the wealth of his ideas is dispersed over dozens of articles. We are thus forced to rely on Nejedly's systematization, written when he already had begun to depart from the theories of his late teacher. Nevertheless, insofar as we can reconstruct them, Hostinsky's system consists of the following postulates: (1) esthetics is the science of beauty in all its manifestations; (2) it is an empirical discipline which accepts esthetic phenomena as sensory perception furnishes them to our cognition; (3) it is an independent discipline and cannot be deduced from any other discipline; (4) its method is analytic-synthetic: esthetic phenomena are first dissolved into elementary self-evident esthetic relations from which higher combinations are subsequently constructed. This elaborate system fell victim to the anti-positivistic upheaval in European scholarship at the turn of the century. The effect on esthetics was perhaps more pronounced than on other disciplines, for the anti-positivists questioned the very worth of esthetics as a discipline. As a result, after two generations of domination, Herbartian esthetics became obsolete. Two of Hostinsky's most outstanding students, Zdenék Nejedly (1883-1957) and Otakar Zich (18791934), unequivocally rejected the local formalism and set out to solve anew the problems of esthetics. Their attitude toward the past can best be characterized by the introductory sentences of Nejedly's 1912 programmatic essay, "The Crisis of Esthetics": "I should have put the word 'esthetics' into quotation marks in the title of my essay, so that there would be no misunderstanding. Because if we ask what contemporary esthetics is, what it wants and what it has achieved, we will not get a satisfactory answer to any of these questions. We are closest to the truth if we say that there is no esthetics but an 'esthetics,' that is, a discipline using this alias." 67 Of Hostinsky's four postulates, Nejedly adhered only to the sec-

190 / Peter Steiner ond—the empirical nature of esthetics—and he considerably modified even this. By empiricism Hostinsky had meant that esthetics should rely on sensory data studied as in the natural sciences,· for Nejedly, on the other hand, esthetic phenomena were empirical in their psycho-social aspect. Moreover, following Dessoir, Utitz, and other pioneers in the "general theory of art," Nejedly refused to identify the artistic with the esthetic and saw esthetics more as the theory of art than the abstract science of beauty in general. He dismissed the analytic-synthetic method as contradictory to the principle of empiricism, and instead of treating esthetics as an independent discipline he more and more inclined toward the sociology of art. Otakar Zich, the second of Hostinsky's pupils and his successor at Charles University, also rejected Herbartian formalism, but in the name of psychology rather than sociology. His position was predictable, since he both insisted on empiricism in esthetics and conceived of esthetic phenomena as psychic. Thus, an empirical esthetics was inevitably a psychological esthetics. His teacher Hostinsky had warned against the identification of esthetics and psychology 68 but Zich was more influenced by such contemporary German estheticians as Johannes Volkelt.69 Psychologism also had some strong advocates among Czech theorists. The philosopher Tomás G. Masaryk, for example, by 1885 had created a comprehensive typology of sciences in which he wrote: "Esthetics, like all the other sciences, must be empirical, and it fulfills this requirement best if it analyzes esthetic feelings and images psychologically, thus arriving at the objective conditions of esthetic pleasure. Only through psychological analysis do we penetrate into the essence of artistic creation and the artistic view of the world." 70 Defending the empirical nature of esthetics, Zich departed from yet another postulate of Hostinsky's system—the analytic-synthetic method. He criticized both its steps, the analysis of an esthetic whole into its components and their synthesis into higher complexes. For Zich there was no other motivation for dividing an esthetic whole into the simplest relations among its smallest elements than the formalists' dogma that these relations were the sole source of beauty. Therefore Zich argued that an esthetician should proceed only from phenomena whose esthetic efficacy is empirically known—works of art and the parts of them that retain an artistic quality. "In music as an art, the artistic wholes are sonatas, symphonies, fugues, etc., or parts of them which come about by a musically organic division. Only such parts still have the right to be called artistic creations, but not intervals like octaves, thirds, etc., or even smaller melodic rela-

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 191 tions obtained through yet finer analyses." 71 This distinction was meant to delimit the material with which an empirical esthetician should work. As for the synthetic component of Hostinsky's method, Zich rejected the idea that it is possible to piece together an esthetic whole by simply aggregating its parts. Against this atomistic approach Zich invoked the concept of the whole which is more than the mere sum of its parts. "We can presuppose that works composed of elementary esthetic phenomena contain, besides the sum-total of effects of their elementary components, a certain 'plus' as well which is specific to them, quite new and not deducible from elementary relations." 72 This holistic approach to esthetic phenomena went hand in hand with a larger epistemological argument which Zich launched against inductivism. He claimed that even for the champions of pure induction it is impossible to proceed simply from elementary sensory perceptions to generalizations. If they did indeed gather their data without any a priori theoretical presupposition, they could not begin to generalize about them, because they could never be sure that they had at their disposal all the data necessary. Even the "natural sciences do not always use a strict inductive method, but rather the method of verifying hypotheses, which is also an empirical method." 73 This was the method that Zich felt was most appropriate to experimental esthetics. Zich's esthetics, like Nejedly's, held that the sphere of the artistic must be delimited from that of the esthetic (an idea, by the way, that had led Max Dessoir to establish a new discipline, the general theory of art). Therefore, Zich reacted against Hostinsky's umbrella notion of the esthetic, which tended to obliterate this difference. As he declared, the "strict differentiation of esthetic from artistic facts almost completely neglected by the previous esthetics is . . . a necessary and a fundamental requirement." 74 In "Esthetic and Artistic Evaluations" from which I have just quoted, Zich attempted to construct an axiological system which would enable him to separate the realm of art from nonart. I shall recapitulate the main points of his argument because there is a similarity between his treatment of the subject and the later axiological discussions of the Prague structuralists. Zich approaches the question of the artistic and the extra-artistic through two interconnected concepts—norms and values. He begins with the first. Previously, the main argument against esthetic norms had been that in comparison to others, they were too relative to be pinned down with any clarity. Zich disagrees with this assertion because he sees all norms as essentially the same: they change in the course of development (Zich terms this the "plasticity" of norms)

192 / Peter Steiner but in a given moment and milieu they are obligatory, even though the degree of their obligatoriness may vary.73 Ethical norms, for example, appear much more unconditional than artistic norms. "Nevertheless," Zich maintains, "in the same way as the 'plasticity 7 of an ethical norm cannot be of such a nature that it would sometimes permit negative, i.e., unethical, behavior, we would have to reject an artistic norm which would permit artlessness." 76 In his differentiation of art from nonart, Zich starts by dividing all esthetic phenomena into the natural and the man-made (i.e., those intentionally made to be esthetic). Their corresponding values are, according to him, fundamentally different. The esthetic values of natural phenomena are subjective. They are valid primarily for a single subject who can project esthetic propensities into anything, and they have little permanence because they are derived solely from the subject's volition. Man-made esthetic phenomena, among them works of art, are different not because they evoke an esthetic reaction always and in everyone but because they are made with the intention of evoking such a reaction. Insofar as they fulfill this function they have an esthetic value which Zich calls objective. This term, however, should not be misunderstood as the denial of subjective moments in the evaluation of esthetic artifacts. What is meant is that the "capacity to evoke [esthetic] pleasure in us and thus to realize its value is built into the object itself. In fact, only this capacity is objective, i.e., the property of an object independent of all subjects." 77 Being linked to h u m a n intention, objective esthetic value is considered by Zich to be norm-bound. This is the distinctive feature of objective esthetic value alone. According to Zich, every artifact created intentionally to achieve a particular value corresponds to some ideal or norm which is the yardstick for the evaluation of its achievement. In other words, "every value with the tendency for self-realization contains in itself by virtue of this fact a norm." 78 What is implied is that man-made esthetic phenomena, like all other products of conscious human activity, require for their evaluation the background of an appropriate norm. However, the distinction of natural from man-made esthetic phenomena is not sufficient to demarcate art from nonart. Though it is true that as a rule works of art are artifacts, there are many artifacts which are esthetic but not artistic. Thus, Zich seeks an additional criterion. Because of the significance he attributes to intentionality in art, it is not surprising that he looks for the distinctive feature of art in its creation. To create means to make something new; thus, the first criterion Zich examines is the newness of the work. But as he observes, newness in art carries certain limitations. Neither its

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 193 thematic nor its artistic aspects are usually completely new. It is rather a matter of variation than total divergence. Even if a completely new theme is introduced into art, its newness is not an end in itself. Rather "its significance for art rests in the fact that it might cause new artistic qualities to come about. And in them rests the immediate value of the work." But on the other hand, "if this quality is too new or if it is too sudden a variation, the work becomes incomprehensible to the audience" 79 and its artistic nature is questioned. The relativity of the category "newness" in art becomes even more pronounced if we take into account the perception of the work. A repeated perception tends to diminish the newness of the work. This is especially true of works which were calculated to appear as new, to surprise or to shock. For all these reasons, Zich rejects newness and, influenced by contemporary theories of the art work as a direct reflection of its author's personality, he links artistic value to the originality of the artist's individuality radiating through the work. "In summary, we can say that the value of individuality [hodnota osobnostní] plays a decisive role in art—in contrast to all other cultural spheres. Thus, we can call it the artistic value par excellence." 80 Zich's final answer to the problem of the differentiation of art from nonart carries too distinctly the traces of its time to have any value for our further discussion, and so only for the sake of completeness will I quote his definition of the artistic norm. From the multitude of attitudes which the work of art evokes, "the idea, the norm, is the standpoint that the author adopts to the finished work, for it [the work] was created from this standpoint and consequently it requires this standpoint." 81 The difference between formalist and postformalist esthetics can also be described in terms of the subject-object hierarchy within the esthetic interaction. While Durdík and Hostinsky emphasized the object of esthetic experience and treated the subject as secondary, Zich reversed this order. He of course did not deny the necessity of studying the material vehicle of the artistic work, but conceived this object primarily as an impulse for the psychic activity of the perceiving subject. He formulated his theoretical position in a study written in 1910 on the esthetic perception of music. Relying on Johannes Volkelt's methodology and terminology, Zich differentiated between three stages in our perception of music. The first is "musical perception" in the proper sense of the word, the perception of "musical sounds." But for Zich this primary experience is not merely acoustic or physiological; it is psychological as well. As he argued, "the difference between a 'tone' and a group of 'tones,' i.e., a chord is not . . . essential as far as the physical impulse is concerned . . . but only

194 / Peter Steiner from a psychological point of view." 82 This primary impulse is augmented in our psyche by the "reproductive complementing and modifying of musical perceptions." 83 In the third stage a so-called "semantic idea" (Bedeutungsvorstellung) becomes conjoined to the perception. We do not simply perceive various shapes or tones and complement and modify them in our consciousness, but attribute some meaning to them. For example, if we perceive a color-patch in a painting, we reproductively complement and modify it and arrive at some configuration. But only if we attribute to it some "semantic idea"—expressible or inexpressible in words—which clearly delimits it from all other configurations will we complete the perception. Sus claimed that in using the term "semantic idea" Zich was actually a forerunner of the semantic approach of the Prague School. However, we should not exaggerate the impact of the term on the structuralists. Their earliest attempts at poetic semantics are conceptually linked to Tynjanov's work, and Zich's term pertains to the psychology of perception. 84 "Semantic ideas" seem to pervade all of perceived reality and cling to words as well as musical melodies or pictures as a kind of posterior recognition. But when the structuralists spoke about the psychology of perception, they utilized the theoretical basis provided by Gestalt psychology, which was radically different from that of Zich. The Gestalt psychologists proceeded not from the array of individual impulses but from the concept of a meaning-endowed whole. According to Harry Helson, one of the earliest champions of Gestalt psychology in this country, they emphasized the importance of "self-contained wholes whose meanings are resident within the immediate data themselves and cannot be found in accruing or correlated processes." 85 From this point of view, perceived configurations are not reproductively complemented and modified and only secondarily assigned a meaning, but on the contrary the very organization of our field of perception depends upon the meaning of the whole. This is probably what Mukařovský had in mind when he wrote: "We see the configuration of any object as regularly organized only if we know the purpose of the object. Objects whose function we do not know may appear to us incoherent, even shapeless." 86 What drew the structuralists' attention to Zich's theories was not the isolated concept of "semantic image" but the dualistic nature of his psychological esthetics. In contrast to Hostinsky, who had conflated the esthetic object with its sensory perception, Zich stressed the mental dimension of perception. Roughly speaking, he held that every esthetic experience has two aspects, a primarily sensory aspect—the perception of the object—and a mental aspect—the modi-

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 195 fication of it and the meaning-attributing act completing perception. This dual nature of perception, the differentiation between the sensory and the mental, makes Zich's observation easily translatable into the semiotic frame of reference. The sensory can be seen as the sign-vehicle and the mental as the meaning of the esthetic sign. Perhaps Zich's most important influence on the Prague structuralists was his last book, devoted to the esthetics of the theater. 87 Here in over 400 pages he painstakingly elaborated the factors relevant to dramatic art. His subtle differentiation of the actor's role into the dramatic figure (the material substratum) and the dramatic character (the resulting image); his discussion of theatrical time in terms of the relation between physical and psychic time; his treatment of the stage as both a physical space representing the scene of dramatic action and a psychological space, a dynamic power field extending beyond the physical stage—all these were highly praised by the structuralists 88 and incorporated with necessary modifications into their semiotics of dramatic art. Zich's influence also explains why theater was second only to literature among the arts studied by the structuralists. 89 Zich's theories on poetry, especially the essay "On Poetic Types," also inspired some structuralists, particularly in the early stages of the movement. The essay attempts to relate psychological types of poets (the visual, acoustic, motor) to corresponding types of poems. 90 Despite this psychologism, the essay contains several remarkable observations which run parallel to the discoveries of the Russian formalists. As in his paper on the perception of music, Zich divided the perception of the poetic text into three components. The first, called the "sensory factor," pertains to the sound of poetic language; the second, "the immediate reproductive factor," relates to the meaning of the words generated directly by their sound; the third, the "mediated reproductive factor," is the group of images evoked by the meanings of words and sentences. 91 Zich's remarks about the "sensory factor" of poetry in particular bring him very close to the Russian formalists. Like many other students of poetry at the time, he was primarily interested in isolating the musical quality of poetic language. But in contrast to many others (Sievers, Èjxenbaum, etc.), he straightforwardly rejected the attempt to root this quality in the intonation of language and to treat it simply as melodics. Poetic musicality is a "phonic not a tonic quality," he argued. It is a "phonic quality created by the grouping of speech sounds according to particular rules, which are grasped intuitively."92 By formalizing these rules Zich arrived at four basic types of organization of speech sounds in poetry. The first type includes

196 / Peter Steiner two modes of repetition of vowels and consonants: either their frequent repetition in a segment of text, a whole poem, and so forth, or their selected repetition, for example, in stressed syllables or at the beginning of words. The second type of organization is the temporary omission of some vowels or consonants. 93 The third type is the repetition of a vocalic sequence in syllables. The repeated sequence can be either the same or merely similar and may occur in a particular place (e.g., assonance). The fourth type is the repetition of speech sound groups. These can be either syllables or parts of words (paranomasia, rhyme) or entire words (anaphora, epiphora, epanastrophe). 94 As a repetition of certain phonic elements according to particular rules, musicality for Zich is a "formal quality, if we realize that it does not concern some kind of empty form but rather a formed material (i.e., speech-sounds)." 95 In addition to speech sounds, the sensorily perceptible stratum of poetry consists of rhythm—the division of the continuous speech flow into segments. There are two main criteria for this division. Logical segmentation is based on the meaning of the speech; it divides the utterance into words and sentences. On the other hand, metrical segmentation exists apart from the meaning of the utterance and divides it on the basis of sound, creating units such as feet and lines. Though Zich considered "metrical rhythmicization more or less independent of the logical," 96 in actual poetic speech these two principles always interact. The scope of this interaction is indicated by the scale: prose—rhythmical prose—free rhythmical verse— strictly rhythmical verse. As we said above, Zich's astute observations about the sound strat u m of poetic art can be compared to some of the early studies of the Russian formalists written at about the same time—for example, Brik's essay on "Sound Repetition." 97 However, there is a significant difference between Zich's and the formalists' approach to poetic language. Zich never separated sound from meaning, because "human language—the material of poetic works—has two aspects: phonic and semantic." "They are closely connected and," he stressed, "we cannot separate them without violating the essence of language." 98 By depriving language of either of these two aspects, we turn it into two different systems, gesticulation or music. This recognition had very important consequences for Zich's poetics, for of his three factors in the perception of the poetic work—sound, meaning, and image—he found only the first two—sound and meaning—indispensable for poetry. And he supported his contention by the empirical observation that "there are great poetic works which do not have [images] at least in some of their parts . . . and nevertheless do not

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 197 suffer because of it." 99 Zich's refusal to identify poetic art with imagery is similar to the Russian formalist attitude. 100 However, Zich never assumed the extreme position of some formalists who discarded both meaning and imagery from verbal art and stated that poetic sound alone is the decisive factor. In seeing poetry as an interplay of sound and meaning, Zich stood closer to the theoretical position of Prague structuralism than most of the early formalists. In the conclusion to his study, Zich launched a programmatic attack against the tendency dominant in Czech literary criticism of his time to discuss the ideas expressed in a literary work rather than the work itself. Firmly within the tradition of Czech formalism, he stated: "A poetic idea taken by itself, that is, regardless of how the poet expressed it in words, can have tremendous ethical, religious, or social value. But this value is extra-artistic and combines with artistic value as something heterogeneous, without being able to affect artistic value either positively or negatively."101 Or if we may paraphrase this statement in Durdík's words, what counts in art is not what the poet said but how he said it. But Zich did not stop at an exhortation aimed at literary criticism. He addressed artists as well, claiming that most contemporary Czech literature, in comparison to, for example, modern French literature, seemed to forget that "poetry is a verbal art." Zich urged Czech authors to pay more attention to the formal aspect of their work and asserted that "even an eventual exaggeration in this direction would not be detrimental to our literature. If I wish to straighten a bent branch I must bend it in the opposite direction." 102 If we look at Zich 7 s statement of June, 1918, in light of what was to follow only a few years later, we must credit its author with the gift of clairvoyance. For from the twenties on, both Czech literature and literary criticism opened up a new chapter in their history. Geopolitically this new development was without any doubt facilitated by the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian empire and the creation of the new Czechoslovak Republic. This was the culmination of a political struggle which had dominated the Czech cultural scene for the preceding hundred years. The establishment of the new state freed Czech intellectuals from a one-sided preoccupation with national self-determination and, on the other hand, diffused the predominant cultural orientation toward the German-speaking world. The cultural policy of the new republic was succinctly expressed in Masaryk 7 s metaphor of "opening the windows to the world." 103 The young generation of Czech artists asserted their views through new journals and artistic groups, among which Devětsil gave birth to the first Czech avant-garde movement—poetism—art for all the five

198 / Peter Steiner senses. The young poets associated with this movement declared through their theoretician, Karel Teige (1900-1951), that "tendentious, ideology-charged poetry with its 'content and subject 7 is the last relic of an outdated mode of poetry-writing." 104 In their playful, semi-dada poems, Nezval, Seifert, and others exploited the possibilities inherent in the material of verbal art. The new literary criticism could not be unaffected by these developments, and the establishment of the multi-national Prague Linguistic Circle provided it with a new organizational basis. This journey into the history of Czech esthetic thought should enable us to identify the roles played by the local tradition and Russian formalism in the making of structuralist esthetics. The friendly reception of formalist ideas in Czechoslovakia was facilitated to a considerable degree by the similarity between the overall theoretical tenor of formalism and of Czech Herbartian and post-Herbartian esthetics. The two shared an anti-speculative, empiricist outlook in which artistic phenomena were as accessible to scholarly analysis as any others. The input from Russia imbued this tradition with a new vitality, transforming it, and in the process preserving it against the voices of those like Josef Bartos who demanded a "humble return to Canossa, a return to idealist, pre-Herbartian esthetics." 105 Russian formalism contributed five main principles to structuralist thought. The most important for poetics was the use of linguistics as a tool for the study of verbal art. This had been a blind spot for the Herbartians and post-Herbartians, whose psychologism had prevented them from seeing language as the material of literature; instead, the linguistic essence of poetry was veiled in a cloud of psychic images. However, the use of linguistics in literary study was not at all contrary to the spirit of the Czech formalists. Their empirical orientation prompted them to seek out precise tools for the analysis of the arts, and Zich's discussions of the sound stratum of poetic art can in fact be seen as an anticipation of linguistic methods. Functionalism—Russian formalism's second contribution to structuralist esthetics—was inseparably linked to a linguistic poetics. The teleological view, that linguistic phenomena should be studied according to the ends they serve, inspired some of the formalists to differentiate between practical and poetic language. "If the speaker uses [language] for a purely practical goal," argued Lev Jakubinskij, "we are dealing with the system of practical language in which linguistic representations (sounds, morphemes, etc.) do not have an independent value but are just means of communication. But other linguistic systems are possible (and exist) in which the practical aim retreats to the background and linguistic combinations acquire a

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 199 value in and of themselves . . . . I conditionally call this system poetic [stixotvornyj] language."106 Jakubinskij's concept of function, however, was less important for structuralist esthetics than its reformulation by Roman Jakobson. The difference between the two can best be expressed as the opposition between monofunctionalism and polyfunctionalism. For the monofunctionalists, the object is totally exhausted in a single function—the given utterance is either communicative or practical; tertium non datur. This either/or proposition was challenged by Jakobson in his earliest book on Xlebnikov, where he differentiated among three functional dialects—the practical, emotive, and poetic—whose forms may commingle in a single utterance. From this perspective, a functional classification is not simply a matter of the presence or absence of a particular function, but of the hierarchy in the functions co-present. This polyfunctionalist approach was subsequently extended by the Prague structuralists far beyond linguistics and poetics. They saw the "notion of function" as the "basic working hypothesis of modern culture," which "permitted them to grasp things as events without denying their materiality; to show the world simultaneously as a flux and a fixed basis of h u m a n activity."107 The success of functionalism in the Prague School was to some extent prepared for by the previous state of scholarship in Bohemia. For linguistics, the legitimacy of a teleological view of language and language development had already been established in the nineteenth century by Brentano's students, the philosophers Anton Marty (1847-1914) and Tomás G. Masaryk (1850-1947). 108 The situation in esthetics was somewhat more complicated. The Herbartians considered the teleological explanation unscientific and argued vigorously for its replacement by a genetic-causal account. 109 Only the post-Herbartians returned to teleology. For example, Otakar Zich's axiological essay discussed above uses intentionality as the basic criterion for differentiating esthetic from artistic values. The third crucial notion introduced by the Russians, "making strange," was also not totally alien to Czech estheticians. As I pointed out above, Durdik considered novelty one of the sources of esthetic value. And Zich suggested identifying artistic value with newness. But Durdik merely listed novelty as one of many sources of esthetic value and Zich in a subsequent deliberation rejected the idea altogether. It was Russian formalism that understood "making strange" as the essential principle of artistic form. However, the Russian theoreticians diverged from the Czech esthetic tradition completely in their fourth influence, the introduction of dialectics into the formal study of art. This approach was

200 / Peter Steiner identified with Hegel, the arch-foe of the Herbartians, and it conflicted as well with their general ahistorical orientation. But despite its foreignness the approach was useful in two respects. In conjunction with "making strange," it enabled theorists to conceive of artistic form dynamically. No longer a mere static relation among components as in the Herbartians 7 view, the work could be seen as a dynamic hierarchy, a tension between dominant and dominated elements which continually reverse their positions in the historical process. And here rests the second advantage of the formalists 7 dialectic. It made possible an integration of the concept of history with the "formal77 study of art. As Mukařovský described West European studies of the turn of the century, "a gap opened between literary history and esthetics. Whereas the literary historian saw it as his duty to place the literary work in a specific temporal and spatial context, the esthetician claimed the right to treat the work as if it came about unfettered by anything other than the sovereign will (or the instinctive intention) of its creator.77110 The dialectic concept of "making strange77 introduced by the formalists bridged the gap between the two. The form of the work appears "new77 because its hierarchical organization dialectically opposes the hierarchical organization usual in the particular artistic tradition against the background of which the work is perceived. How important the dialectic method was for Prague structuralism in its departure from the tradition of Czech formalism and postformalism is obvious from Mukařovský7s recollection: The striving for systematically dialectic thought was a characteristic feature of all the works produced in the Prague Linguistic Circle—whether in linguistics or in literary studies. Until then, Hegelian logic participated very little in the development of scholarship in our country. In Austria, as is well known, Herbartianism dominated esthetics and the study of the arts. Its influence in this field was not altogether negative, as Hostinsky 7 s and Durdík's works attest. Herbartianism introduced into the study of the arts an important notion of relations among the elements of the work. In this way it opened the path toward the future. . . . What the Herbartian concept of relation lacked, however, was dynamism, the idea of tension and movement. The concept of structure contains both tension and movement. 111 There can be no doubt that the source of the structuralist dialectic, so valued by Mukařovský, was Russian formalism. From the point of view of the Czech esthetic tradition, Prague structuralism

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 201 appeared as a creative synthesis of two opposing schools of philosophical thought—Herbartianism and Hegelianism. F. X. Salda, the dean of Czech literary critics, stressed this fact in his 1934 review of Mukařovský's study of Polák: "I see the point of gravity of Mukařovský's achievement in his transformation of the static structure of Herbartian relational esthetics into a new, dynamically developmental principle. . . . In doing so Mukařovský has erected an arch between Herbart and Hegel."112 The fifth Russian formalist principle crucial to structuralism was as unprecedented in the Czech esthetic tradition as dialectic. It was Jurij Tynjanov's concept of the literary system. Paralleling Saussure's langue—a system of linguistic rules shared by the users of a language which underlies every utterance—Tynjanov's system pictures literary texts as realizations of a socially shared literary system—the literary tradition of a given community. In fact he saw this system as the only true subject matter of literary studies, since both literary production and literary reception are nothing but implementations of it. In contrast, prestructuralist Czech esthetics had operated with only two terms: the esthetic object and the subject creating or perceiving this object. It is true that Durdík's treatment of language (which in a broad sense included the arts as well) contained the concept of the "social consciousness" of the members of a society (svědomost clenuv), but as Sus noted, Durdík "stopped at general assertions which he neither developed nor applied systematically." 113 In light of the privileged position which Saussure's ideas enjoyed among the Prague Circle linguists, the adoption of this concept by students of the arts was a natural extension of an important structuralist category from one field of inquiry into another. But the structuralists also exploited Tynjanov's insight more broadly than he himself had done. Whereas he spoke merely of the literary system, they argued that every esthetic interaction is conditioned by the system of esthetic norms—the ruling taste valid for a particular community. I do not mean by all of this to argue that Prague structuralism is merely a repercussion of the Russian movement. Several important facets of it were eliminated by the pre-existing Czech tradition. For it is important to note that Russian and Czech intellectual history in the early twentieth century had quite different developmental rhythms. While in Russia during the teens esthetic formalism was an attractive, path-breaking program, in Bohemia at that time Herbartian formalism was being subjected to a full-scale critique by the new generation of estheticians. Consequently, during the twenties the term "formalism" in Czechoslovakia was a mere ghost out of

202 / Peter Steiner the past; it smacked distinctly of the nineteenth century. And different as Russian formalism was from its Czech namesake, 114 whatever they did have in common was seen in the new environment as a remnant of Herbartianism and was eliminated in the transcultural adoption. The prime victim was Sklovskijan formalism. Sklovskij's inductive approach (the heritage of Veselovskij's poetics) compelled him to dissect the literary work into minimal elements in order to show how it was made, a process that resembled the analytic-synthetic procedure of the Czech Herbartians. Further, like Czech formalism, it was decidedly ahistorical: both kinds of minimal elements— Sklovskij's devices and the Herbartian elementary esthetic relations—were conceived panchronically, not subject to changes in time. Sklovskijan and Herbartian formalism were also similar in their disregard for the material of artistic and esthetic form. Šklovskij, apparently in agreement with Durdík, saw form as a particular organization of pre-esthetic elements. Since what "counted" was not the constitutive elements themselves but their relations, the two disregarded any qualities these elements had prior to their incorporation into the artistic or esthetic whole. Against the background of Herbartian formalism, Sklovskij's programmatic statement that a "literary work is a pure form; it is neither a thing nor a material, but the relation of materials" 115 lost its provocative quality. It seemed a regression to the old ideas rather than the basis of an innovative esthetic program. As a result of the different course of Russian and Czech esthetics, formalism and structuralism performed different functions in their respective milieux, and this difference also affected the transmission of one's ideas to the other. As a school of thought, Russian formalism was far from being unified. Torn between the past and the future, it stood with one foot in the positivistic paradigm and the other in protostructuralism. The positivistic bent of formalism, as Pavel Medvedev pointed out, was a consequence of the fact that Russian studies of the arts lacked a truly positivistic tradition. "Instead of positivism, we had in our country a shallow and petty eclecticism devoid of any scholarly substance and rigor. The tasks that positivism performed in the West European humanities—intellectual restraint, discipline, and respect for empirical, concrete facts—were still not carried out when the formalists appeared."116 The young students of literature keenly sensed this lacuna and in the "new fervor of scientific positivism," as Èjxenbaum termed it,117 proceeded to close the gap. But the situation in Bohemia was quite different. There esthetic

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 203 positivism had culminated in Hostinsky's work,118 which was already suffering criticism during the teens at the hands of his antipositivistic pupils. By the time the structuralists arrived on the scene, positivistic thought was quite dated.119 Consequently, the structuralists were deaf to any formalist ideas akin to positivism. Perhaps the most important of these was the reduction of the work to a sensorily perceptible material artifact. The most striking implementation of this reduction was the formalist theory of poetry as "trans-sense 77 language (zaum)—a language devoid of any meaning. Nejedly and Zich had already discarded the blatant sensualism in Hostinsky's empirical esthetics, and Zich in particular insisted on the inseparability of sound and meaning in language. The bias toward the palpable was so deeply ingrained in the formalists that even those who accepted the conceptual framework of Saussure's linguistics could not apply Saussure's semiotics—the general science of signs—to poetics. For example, in 1923 Grigorij Vinokur pleaded for the acceptance in poetics of the Saussurian dichotomy langue-parole but then went on to declare the poetic word a nonsemiotic entity. "A poetic creation is a work with words that are not mere signs but things endowed with a specific structure, the elements of which are re-evaluated and re-grouped in every new poetic utterance." 120 This aversion to the sign is again a function of the formalists 7 intellectual context. For them the concept of the sign had been thoroughly discredited through its use by previous generations of Russian literary scholars. Potebnja's psychologism, for example, had claimed that the marker of the poetic utterance was the presence of an image (the inner form of the word) as a component of the verbal sign. And the symbolists had depicted the poet as reaching the "inexpressible" through an omnisignificant sign (the symbol). Futurism, of which the formalists were the first theoreticians and interpreters, provided them with the evidence to argue that the distinctiveness of verbal art consists instead in its particular organization of sound. In contrast to the formalists 7 stance, Prague structuralism was intrinsically semiotic. The joint statement launching its journal Slovo a slovesnost proclaimed that "the problem of the sign is one of the most pressing philosophical problems of the cultural rebirth of our era,77 because "all of reality, from sensory perception to the most abstract mental construction, appears to modern man as a vast and complex realm of signs.77121 The study of the arts in particular was ready for such a semiotic transformation. According to Mukařovský, "the essence and the destiny of structuralist esthetics are to elaborate the system of the comparative semiotics of art,77 for, as he de-

204 / Peter Steiner clared, paralleling Saussure's pronouncements on linguistics, esthetics too "can be considered a part of the general science of signs, semiotics."122 The historical context that gave birth to the Prague School accounts for the fact that its attitude toward the sign was so different from the formalists'. The structuralists worked in a primarily academic milieu; they were not the theoretical spokesmen of any particular avant-garde poetics. This academicism led them to exercise more caution in relating to their predecessors than the formalists had. They did subject the older theories to a thorough criticism—for instance Krái's normative metrics—but the notion of the sign never became a point of controversy. However, this was not the result of a lack of semiotic theorizing in the intellectual tradition of Bohemia. Bolzano had inquired into the role of signs in scientific knowledge, Marty into the origins and changeability of linguistic signs, and Durdík and Zich into the nature of esthetic signs.123 It was precisely this tradition that prepared the ground for an easy acceptance of semiotics by the structuralists, whether the ultimate impulse came from Saussurian linguistics, Husserl's phenomenology, or Bühler's Sematologie. Another point of conflict between the formalists and structuralists was the positivistic exclusion of norms and values from the realm of literary studies. Even the formalists closest to structuralism held to this view; for example, Roman Jakobson declared that "a scientific poetics will become possible only when it refuses to offer value judgements," 124 and Jurij Tynjanov proposed to replace the esthetic value of the work with its "evolutionary significance" within the literary series.125 For the Prague structuralists, on the other hand, function (as crucial a concept as that of the sign) was inseparable from norms and values. As René Wellek unambiguously stated it, axiology is the conditio sine qua non of structuralism: " . . . there is no structure outside norms and values. We cannot comprehend and analyze any work of art without reference to values. The very fact that I recognize a certain structure as a 'work of art' implies a judgment of value." 126 This concern with axiology is especially true of Mukařovský, who repeatedly in his career addressed the problem of esthetic norms and values. In this quest, Zich's teleological conception of norm-value relations, his subtle differentiation between esthetic and artistic values, and his search for an objective artistic value all provided a solid basis for further study. The positivistic influence also determined the difference between the theoretical scope of the two schools. The Russian formalists, seeing themselves as the pioneers of a new positive science—the sci-

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 205 ence of literature—felt it necessary to be guided solely by the concrete data under study. They were thus unwilling to extend their knowledge beyond this realm, to advance a system which would cover artistic phenomena other than literature. "What is important for us," Èjxenbaum declared on behalf of all the formalists, "is neither 'formalism' as an esthetic theory, nor a methodology as a finished scholarly system, but only the attempt to establish an independent literary science on the basis of the specific properties of literary material." 127 Only rarely did the formalists venture beyond the self-imposed boundaries of verbal art, and if they did so—most notably in the case of cinema—they clung to the conceptual framework of literary studies, as, for example, the title The Poetics of Cinema attests. 128 But while the key word of Russian formalism was poetics, the key word of the Prague School was esthetics. No doubt the long, respected tradition of esthetics in Bohemia contributed to this fact, but as a theoretical framework it also served the holistic orientation of structuralism. If the formalists' concept of "making strange77 atomistically separated art from nonart, and if their emphasis on the specificity of language as the material of verbal art separated it from the other arts, the structuralists 7 concept of "esthetic function77 reintegrated these phenomena. Artistic works were no longer classified exclusively with other "beautiful 77 objects but were put on an equal footing with all artifacts, the difference between them lying only in the dominance of the esthetic function in works of art. And it was precisely this dominance that served as the common denominator of all the arts, despite the difference in their materials. The final difference between Russian formalism and Prague structuralism lies in their epistemological underpinnings. Dissatisfied with the principles and methods of traditional literary scholarship, the formalists boldly proposed new rules and procedures which, like so many of their efforts, bear distinct marks of positivism. The reform proposed by the formalists can be summed up in a simple slogan: "back to the facts.77 The theories advanced by literary scholars were to be nothing but cognitive extensions of the material under study. As Èjxenbaum succinctly expressed it, In our research we value theory only as a working hypothesis which helps us to discover facts and make sense of them. That is, to ascertain their regularity and render them a material of study. Therefore we do not care for definitions, so dear to epigones, and do not construct general theories, so appealing to eclectics. We advance concrete principles and stick to them to

206 / Peter Steiner the extent that they are justified by the material. If the material requires their further elaboration or alteration we elaborate or alter them. In this respect we are free enough of our own theories, as a science should be if there is a difference between theory and conviction. A science lives not by establishing certitudes but by overcoming errors.129 Ejxenbaum's presentation here is remarkably similar to the "deductive testing of a hypothesis" which Karl Popper proclaimed to be the method of the "empirical sciences." According to him, scientific research takes the following course: a theory is advanced and then tested empirically with a positive or negative result. However, no amount of testing can establish with absolute certainty the truth of a theory. There is no logical necessity guaranteeing that some future test will not prove it wrong, and a single falsification is sufficient to invalidate it. For this reason, Popper names not verifiability but falsifiability as the marker of a theory's scientific nature. "I shall not require of a scientific system that it shall be capable of being singled out, once and for all, in a positive sense; but I shall require that its logical form shall be such that it can be singled out, by means of empirical tests, in a negative sense: it must be possible for an empirical scientific system to be refuted by experience." 130 But at this point, I might appear to be contradicting myself. Above I branded formalist epistemology positivistic, and now I am associating it with Popper's "deductive testing of a hypothesis," which Popper claims is decidedly anti-positivistic. For the positivists extolled inductive logic as the only logic of science, proceeding from particular statements about sensory perception to general statements (theories). But Popper argues that science is innately deductive, that it starts with general statements which it then applies to specific phenomena. Should I therefore take back my claims as to the positivism of formalist epistemology? I think not. While it is obviously futile to quibble about ratios of inductivist to deductivist principles in the movement, it is possible to show why the formalist adoption of the deductive testing of hypotheses was positivistic and how it differed from the structuralist approach. And here Striedter can help us. Utilizing Habermas' classification of scientific methods, Striedter distinguishes between the "nomological sciences, which derive and test hypotheses for laws of empirical uniformity" and the "historical-hermeneutical sciences which appropriate and analytically process handed-down meaning contents." 131 Striedter argues that the "deductive testing of an hypothesis" is the method proper to the nomological, that is, natural

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 207 sciences but not to historical-hermeneutical ones. Thus, Russian formalism represents a kind of epistemological chiasmus. It applies a method which it (like Popper) believed is inherent to the nomological sciences to literary studies, the "historical-hermeneutical science par excellence." 132 It chose to characterize science anti-positivistically, but in choosing the natural sciences as the model for all scholarship, it betrayed an essentially positivist bent. And Èjxenbaum 7 s diary entry of January, 1919, concerning Rickert's Kulturwissenschaft und Naturwissenschaft expresses this belief clearly: "Proceeding from Rickert, one realizes that the methods of the natural sciences must be applied to the history of the arts (1) when we speak of the social aspect of art (the poet's social situation), the orientation of his art toward a particular existing [social] stratum, etc.; or (2) when we deal with the 'nature 7 of the material from which the work is made. In both cases it is conceivable to construct laws and definitions." 133 As to how this procedure differs from the structuralists 7 , we might turn to the champion of deductive logic in Czech esthetics, Otakar Zich. I have already quoted his critique of Hostinsky 7 s formalism attacking the possibility of pure inductivism. From the structuralist point of view, however, Zich 7 s position was as one-sided as Hostinsky 7 s. As Mukařovský stated in discussing the relation of structuralism to positivism, In no way does structuralism distrust abstract thought, for it realizes that the search for material and its processing must be based upon some general premise with which the scholar approaches his material. This premise is not just a hypothesis, which after all was an accepted part of positivism. A hypothesis is merely an anticipation of the results of research, which fails if it is unsubstantiated. The premise [in contrast to Zich 7 s and the Russian formalists 7 notions] is both less and more than this. It is less, because it is not thought out in detail; it may be more an intuition than a distinct thought. But precisely because of this, it is more vital than a hypothesis; it is always present during the research; it is transformed by the material; it becomes more and more detailed and accurate as the research proceeds until at the conclusion it has turned imperceptibly into its result. . . . If this general premise is rooted in a consistent epistemological orientation, the results of research into the most heterogeneous problems can be synthesized, a synthesis that would be hard if not impossible to maintain through an a posteriori juxtaposing of these results. 134

208 / Peter Steiner This emphasis on an epistemological orientation which underlies every theory differentiates the "logic" of structuralism from that of formalism. For the formalists the cognitive process involved only two categories—the facts and the theories—the latter clearly subordinate to the former. The ideal they sought was pure knowledge: knowledge devoid of any external presuppositions. But is such knowledge possible? About three years before Ejxenbaum published his account of formalist principles, Karl Mannheim's Structural Analysis of Epistemology subjected the theory of presuppositionless knowledge to a penetrating critique. 135 As Mannheim persuasively argued, there are no facts as such. "Anything 'given 1 . . . any 'fact of experience' . . . must already belong within one of the existing systematizations, insofar as it is theoretically grasped at all."136 The same is true of theories. Knowledge-gathering is not a hit-or-miss activity. No theory originates in a total conceptual vacuum; every one is a function of some prior systematization. Even a step as minimal as the formation of a new concept is not totally fortuitous. In it, in addition to "the matter concerned . . . we pay attention to the concepts we already have and which have a bearing on the concept to be formed. And finally we somehow take into account the systematization as a whole which, quite unreflectedly as a rule, is constantly with us whenever we form a new concept, as the general pattern of the entire context." 137 In their practice, of course, the formalists actually followed Mannheim's precept. Despite Ejxenbaum's claim to the contrary, they did utilize various ready-made patterns borrowed from other disciplines such as biology and linguistics. 138 Their battle-cry, "back to facts," merely indicated a dissatisfaction with the patterns of systematization prevalent in the literary studies of their time, patterns derived, as they keenly sensed, from metaphysical, speculative sources. The formalists' error, however, was in identifying pattern with source. As a result, they bifurcated all theorizing into two mutually exclusive categories: pure philosophical speculation cut off from any concrete facts and positive research into these facts cut off from any philosophy.139 For the formalists, only the latter constituted genuine science. The awareness of a system—an epistemological stance, as they termed it—at the root of their theorizing saved the structuralists from the Scylla of "pure facts." And at the same time it enabled them to avoid the Charybdis that had driven the formalists into the trap of positivism: the conception of theory as all-encompassing, aprioristic, and metaphysical. In its creation of an epistemological stance mediating between concrete facts and abstract philosophy, we find the heart of Prague structuralism. Contrasting it to romantic

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 209 and positivistic thought, Mukařovský arrived at the most comprehensive picture of Prague structuralism advanced by any member of the Circle: Romantic philosophy very often made the claim to reach new scientific knowledge through deduction from a priori premises independent of the empirical data. In freeing science from the domination of philosophy, positivism eliminated this romantic one-sidedness, but became equally one-sided. Just as science cannot be subordinated to philosophy, neither can it be made the basis of philosophy: their relation is reciprocal. . . . Structuralism is a scientific attitude that proceeds from the knowledge of this unceasing interrelation of science and philosophy. I say "attitude" in order to avoid terms such as "theory" or "method." "Theory" suggests a fixed body of knowledge, "method" an equally homogenized and unchangeable set of working rules. Structuralism is neither—it is an epistemological stance [my italics], from which particular working rules and knowledge follow to be sure, but which exists independently of them and is therefore capable of development in both these aspects.140 This characterization of Prague stucturalism as a particular epistemological stance requires some elaboration. Since Mukařovský describes the essence of the approach through its concept-formation, I would interpret the epistemological stance of structuralism as a conceptual frame of reference. Reduced to its minimum, the Prague structuralist frame of reference consists of three interlocked concepts—structure, function, and sign—and it is essential to understand them if we wish to understand the epistemological difference between the Russian and Czech movements. The most confusing of the three is structure, which gave its name to the movement as a whole, for the structuralists used this term in several ways. It denoted not only the holistic organization of particular artifacts but also what in current terminology is called the code—the socially shared set of norms which underlies the creation and reception of these artifacts. Moreover, it also referred to the overall unity of the various codes comprising the culture (the "structure of structures") of a given collectivity. The second key concept, function—the trademark of "made in Prague" structuralism—served the Circle's members as the criterion for distinguishing among structures. Functionally speaking, codes are hierarchies of norms regulating the implementation of particular functions. For example, the

210 / Peter Steiner dominance of the symbolic function differentiates the symbolic from the esthetic or theoretical codes. Individual artifacts realize these immaterial codes, and their organizations reflect the hierarchies existing within the implemented codes. All the components of the artifact are subordinated to the dominant function. These artifacts, however, not only carry out their functions but also signify them. Hence the importance of the third component of the structuralist frame of reference, the sign. As a conjunction of material vehicle and immaterial meaning, the sign recasts in different terms the dual nature of the concept of structure—its mental, socially shared existence and its physical embodiment in individual artifacts. From the semiotic point of view, then, culture appears as a complex interplay of signs mediating among the members of the same collectivity. The structural, functional, and semiotic systematization of knowledge clearly distinguishes Prague structuralism from Russian formalism. But the difference does not lie merely in this particular epistemological stance. After all, despite their claims to the contrary, the formalists proceeded from systematizations external to the material under study. More important is the epistemological reflexiveness of the structuralists, their awareness of the particular point of departure of their theorizing. The formalists' programmatic disregard of the systematizations they employed, or better, their dogmatic faith in the ''pure facts," made them willingly abandon epistemological control over their premises. This lack of epistemological criteria made all systematizations equal, and thus effectively prevented the formalists from arriving at a single, privileged, and hence collectively binding systematization. As a result, systematizations proliferated, in turn triggering a quick depreciation of terminology and giving the whole movement the appearance of extreme fluidity. Under close scrutiny, Russian formalism indeed appears more as a cluster of ideas about literature bound together by the historical context of their origin than as a unified theoretical trend. In contrast to the protean nature of Russian formalism, Prague structuralism remained relatively consistent throughout its history. This difference is especially striking if we realize that the Prague School lasted almost twice as long as its Russian counterpart. Moreover, this unity, stemming from a common epistemological stance, was not an imposition which threatened to stifle the debates in the Circle and arrest the evolution of structuralism. As I argued before, the history of Prague structuralism is not devoid of developmental dynamism. But this dynamism was a function of the very elasticity of the structuralists 7 epistemological stance. It left them free to proceed from very different philosophical assumptions and to address

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 211 different sets of problems. Thus, the relativistic thrust of Vodicka's theory of literary reception is far removed from Jakobson's quest for poetic invariants. A similar variance can even be observed within the career of a single theoretician: in the mid-thirties Mukařovský focused his attention on the changeability of structures, whereas in the forties he attempted to pin down what remains identical in them despite change. However, all these differences did not destroy the coherence of the structuralists' epistemological stance—the treatment of cultural phenomena in terms of structure, function, and sign. The differences helped to reveal new potential in the three key concepts and to readjust the relations among them, but they did not change the essential interplay among them. The sharp divergence of phenomena in one respect, however, often signals their connection in another. The case of Russian formalism and Prague structuralism is no exception. The profound difference between the two on the epistemological level indicates an important linkage on the historical plane. If I may borrow Thomas Kuhn's concept of the "scientific paradigm," I think that this claim will become clear. In the most general sense, scientific paradigms are "universally recognized scientific achievements that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners." 141 As a shared systemic pattern of knowledge suspended between "quasi-metaphysical commitments" (Kuhn's term) and the facts studied, the paradigm to some extent resembles the structuralist epistemological stance. The conceptual disunity of formalism, on the other hand, bears distinct traces of the "pre-paradigm" (or better, "inter-paradigm") state of science. "The pre-paradigm period, in particular, is regularly marked by frequent and deep debates over legitimate methods, problems and standards of solution, though these serve rather to define schools than to produce agreement"; "debates like these do not vanish once and for all with the appearance of a paradigm. Though almost non-existent during periods of normal [i.e., paradigm-bound] science they recur regularly just before and during scientific revolutions, the period when paradigms are first under attack and then subject to change." 142 Despite its internal disunity and epistemological confusion, or perhaps precisely because of it, Russian formalism carried out a significant historical role—destabilizing an old paradigm of literary studies and clearing the path for a new one. The particular development of Russian literary studies, its marginal position vis-à-vis the West European centers of the old paradigm, and its members' youthful vigor combined to form a movement whose impact far exceeds the borders of one country. And from this perspective, the indebted-

212 / Peter Steiner ness of Prague structuralism to Russian formalism is indisputable. Without the formalist debunking of the old, there would have been no need for the new structuralist paradigm.

NOTES 1. Tomaševskij's lecture was translated into Czech by Jan Mukařovský, and appeared in Casopis pro moderní filologii, 15 (1929), 12-15. The content of Tynjanov's lecture was not mentioned anywhere, but according to a later account by Roman Jakobson, it "paraphrased and developed the content of Tynjanov's 1927 article "O literaturnoj èvoljucii" [Arxaisty i novatory (Leningrad, 1929), pp. 3 0 - 4 7 ] and stimulated a lively exchange of opinions with Jan Mukařovský, "Jurij Tynjanov ν Prage," Selected Writings, 6 vols. (The Hague, 1979), vol. 5, pp. 560-561. 2. All three lectures are recorded in "Compte-rendu de l'activité du Cercle linguistique de Prague," Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague, 1 (1929), 243. For a complete list of the lectures delivered at the Circle, see B. Kochis, "List of Lectures Given in the Prague Linguistic Circle (1926-1948)," in L. Matejka (ed.), Sound, Sign and Meaning: Quinquagenary of the Prague Linguistic Circle (Ann Arbor, 1976), pp. 607-622. 3. For bibliographical information see B. Mathesius, "Rusky formalismus," Ottův slovník naucny nové doby, 6 vols. in 12 (Prague, 1932), vol. 2, part 1, p. 617, and "Bibliografia," in M. Bakos (ed.), Teória literatúry (Trnava, 1941), pp. 3 7 4 - 4 0 6 . 4. See, for example, F. Jameson, The Prison-House of Language: A Critical Account of Structuralism and Russian Formalism (Princeton, 1972), p. 51, or A. Gelley, "Toward a Theory of History in Literature: Merleau-Ponty and Gadamer," PTL: A Journal for Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature, 1 (1976), 358. 5. "O tak zvané formální metodé v literání védè, Nase věda, 15 (1934), 45. 6. Ibid., quoted in Weingart, "Úvaha o zkoumání ceského individuálního jazyka, zvlásté básnického, a o t. zv. strukturalismu," Casopis pro moderni filologii, 22 (1936), 368. 7. Štoll does not try to hide the motivation for his attacks on structuralism. One of the two reasons he cites is that "in the last few years the tendency to ignore programmatically the ideological aspect of literary-theoretical, art-theoretical, and esthetic activity in general has grown stronger," O tvar a strukturu ν slovesném umění (Prague, 1966), p. 159. 8. Ibid., p. 143. 9. Ibid., p. 89. 10. "Jakobson knew a lot and was connected with . . . [Soviet cultural life] as an official of the first Soviet mission. He had the ability to provide information about all of it that was different from what the White Guard refugees usually had. . . . This of course interested not only the representatives of our avant-garde . . . but understandably also the leading personalities of the ruling regime, above all the officials of the intelligence agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed at that time by Dr. Edvard Benes," ibid., p. 75. 11. " . . . our progressive intelligentsia did not realize what was very soon obvious to the official representatives of the ruling regime of that time, namely the ideological import of Jakobson's theoretical position for our scholarly life," ibid., p. 71. The unwitting comedy of Štoll's allegations becomes especially apparent if we realize that the Czech rightists of the twenties with a similar zeal accused Jakobson of being an

T h e R o o t s of S t r u c t u r a l i s t E s t h e t i c s / 213 agent of the Communist International sent to Prague to disseminate seditious propaganda (see A. f. Liehm, "Roman Jakobson osmdesátilety," Listy, 6, no. 6 [1976], 26). 12. Roman Jakobson, "Vers starocesky," Ceskoslovenská vlastivěda, 10 vols, in 11 (Prague, 1934], vol. 3, pp. 4 2 9 - 4 5 9 ; J. Mukařovský, "Cesky vers: Obecné zásady a vyvoj novoceského verše," ibid., pp. 3 7 6 - 4 2 9 . 13. "Polákova Vznesenost píírody: Pokus o rozbor a vyvojové zařazení básnické struktury," Sborník filologický, 10 (1934], 1-68. 14. Jan Mukařovský (ed.), Torso a tajemství Máchova díla (Prague, 1938). 15. "Methodologické poznámky ke studii Jana Mukaíovského Tolákova Vznesenost prírody,' " Casopis pro moderní filologii, 21 (1935], 334. 16. "Diskuse o metodologickych problémech v práci Mukaíovského Tolákova Vznesenost prírody,' " Slovo a slovesnest, 1 (1935), 192. 17. "Básník," Studie z estetiky (Prague, 1966], pp. 144-152. 18. Lowry Nelson, "Signs and Images: Old Models into New," Yale Review, 67, no. 1 (1977], 113. 19. "Literárnè historické studium ohlasu literárních děl," Slovo a slovesnost, 7 (1941), 113-32. 20. See, for example, J. Striedter's "Einleitung," in Felix Vodicka, Die Struktur der literarischen Entwicklung (Munich, 1976), pp. xci-xcii. 21. "Krása z mysli, či ze smyslů?" Cesky casopis esteticky, 1 (1920), 4. 22. Uméní: Úvod do estetiky (Prague, 1922], p. 7. 23. Ibid., p. 61. 24. "Beseda s nemeckim pisatelem Emilem Ludvigom 13 dekabrja 1931 g.," Socinenija, 13 vols. (Moscow, 1951], vol. 13, p. 106. 25. O tvar a strukturu, p. 74. To be fair to Stoll, we must say that once in his book he unexpectedly spoke about the Czech contribution to Prague structuralism. But this was done only to polemicize against V Erlich, who as Jakobson's student of course had to be wrong. For Stoll, Erlich was guilty of not taking into account in his characterization of structuralism "the contribution of the Czech theoreticians themselves, especially of J. Mukařovský" (ibid., p. 64). In the next chapter, however, we read that "Prague literary structuralism was in its essence a late echo of it [i.e., Russian formalism]. All its basic theses were more or less characteristic paraphrases of the ideas of Russian formalism, an imitation deprived of its original appeal and the Russian humanistic tradition" (p. 86). After reading this one may well wonder whether the contribution of Czech scholars and especially of Mukařovský amounted to anything more than robbing formalism of its charm and humanism! 26. "Problemy izucenija literatury i jazyka," Novyj Lef, 12 (1928), 36. This postulate concerning the systemic nature of any development was originally advanced for the history of language and literature, but as Jakobson himself pointed out in 1934, it is valid for intellectual history as well. See "O píedpokladech pražské linguistické skoly," Index, 6, no. 1 (1934), 8. 27. The instrumental role played by Jakobson in the Prague Circle is attested by his colleagues as well. For example, Vilém Mathesius, the chairman of the group, wrote in an article commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Circle, "In those years [i.e., 1923-1924] I came to know better the young graduate of Moscow University, Roman Jakobson, who came to Prague in July, 1920, and visited me for the first time in September of that year. Well-rounded and extremely bright, the young Russian brought with him from Moscow a spontaneous interest in the very kind of linguistic questions that had been at the center of my attention. He was a great encouragement to my views by confirming that elsewhere too these questions were at the center of scientific endeavors. . . . we spoke very often about the need for a discussion and work-

214 / Peter S t e i n e r ing center for young linguists and it was only natural that we attempted to form it" ("Deset let Pražského linguistického kroužku," Slovo a slovesnost, 2 [1936], 138]. Another prominent member of the Circle, Mukařovský, emphasized Jakobson's contribution to Prague structuralism in even stronger words: "Above all I would like to stress the significance of Roman Jakobson's contribution to the methodological development of Czech literary study; he was one of the founders of OPOJAZ, the Russian association which in a collective effort developed the esthetic and linguistic basis of the new literary theory. Jakobson's study, The Foundations of Czech Verse, through its thesis that the basis of Czech verse rhythm is the word boundary, definitively freed Czech metrics from the mechanical counting of feet to which it was doomed by J. Král" (Bohumil Novák, "Rozhovor s Janem Mukařovskym," Rozpravy Aventina, 7 [1932], 226). 28. "Vztah mezi sovétskou a ceskoslovenskou literární vedou," Zemé sovětů, 4 (1935], 13. 29. "Stav naší dnesní estetiky," Cin, 9 (1937), 70. Other sources indicate that esthetics was taught at the Prague University even prior to the appointment of August Gottlieb Meissner (1753-1807) in 1784. Josef Durdík, for example, mentions Professor Karl Heinrich Seibt (1735-1806) as the first esthetician in Prague, as he had taught there since 1763 ("O vyznamu nauky Herbartovy, hledíce obzvlásté k pomèrům ceským," Casopis Musea království ceského, 50 [1876], 319). 30. "Typologie tzv. slovanského formalismu a problémy prechodu od formálních škol k strukturalismu," in B. Havránek and Slavomír Wollman (eds.], Ceskoslovenské přednášky pro VI. mezinárodní sjezd slavistů ν Praze (Prague, 1968], p. 298. 31. Ironically, a similar technique was used by Stoll to equate formalism with structuralism. For example, Stoll argued that the structuralist semiotics of art was already contained in the formalist theory that poetic language is oriented toward expression itself. For a persuasive criticism of this view, see Striedter, "Einleitung," pp. xliv-xlix. 32. Příspěvek k estetice ceského verse (Prague, 1923); Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague, 4 (Prague, 1931), 2 7 8 - 2 8 8 . As late as his 1926 review of Jakobson's Foundations of Czech Verse, Mukařovský argues against Jakobson's effort to root metrics in phonology, and advocates Paul Verrier's concept of the subjective, i.e., psychological, isochronism of metrical units in poetry ("R. Jakobson: Základy ceského verse," Naše řeč, 10 [1926], 226). 33. "Vztah mezi sovétskou a ceskoslovenskou literární vědou," p. 13. 34. "Básnická řeč," Sborník ku poeté Frantiska Krejčího (Prague, 1929), pp. 2 4 0 255. 35. "Thèses du Cercle linguistique de Prague," Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague, 1 (1929], 7 - 2 7 . 36. "Einleitung," p. xvii. Striedter's characterization of Prague structuralism closely follows Wellek's discussion of the Prague School concept of structure. According to Wellek, "the work of art is . . . considered . . . a structure of signs serving a specific aesthetic purpose," "The Theory of Literary History," Travaux du Cercle linguistique de Prague, 6 (1936), 177. 37. "Einleitung," p. xvii. 38. "La scuola linguistica di Praga," Selected Writings, 6 vols. (The Hague, 1971), vol. 2, p. 544. 39. This discussion is of necessity limited to Herbartian and post-Herbartian esthetics insofar as they conditioned the Czech reception of Russian formalism. There has not yet been a systematic treatment of Czech esthetics. The only attempt at a

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 215 history is a fragmentary book by Mirko Novák, Ceská estetika od Palackého po dobu soucasnou (Prague, 194-1). 40. Vseobecná aesthetika (Prague, 1875]. 41. Ibid., p. 3. 42. Ibid., p. 107. 43. Ibid., p. 116. 44. Ibid., p. 15. 45. Ibid., p. 25. 46. Durdík derives his concept of esthetic form from Herbart's five "practical ideas" in ethics. To Herbart's idea of "perfection" corresponds Durdík's notion of the "form of magnitude"; to the idea of "benevolence," the form of "characteristicness" (Czech význačnost); to the idea of "inner freedom," the form of "harmony"; to the idea of "justice," the form of "perfection"; and to the idea of "equity," the form of "balance and completeness" (ibid., p. 80]. Durdik's system is, of course, derived with a few changes from Zimmermann's classification of forms: Herbart's idea of "perfection" corresponds to Zimmermann's "die Form des Grossen"; "benevolence" to "die Form des Einklangs"; "inner freedom" to "die Form des Charakteristischen"; "justice" to "die Form der Correctheit"; and "equity" to "die Form der Ausgleichung" (Robert Zimmermann, Aesthetik, 2 vols. [Vienna, 1865], vol. 2, pp. 35-70]. 47. Vseobecná aesthetika, p. 255. 48. Ibid., p. 310. 49. Ibid., p. 599. 50. Ibid., p. 598 51. Ibid., p. 656. 52. Ibid. 53. See ibid., p. 465. 54. Ibid., p. 524. 55. Otakara Hostinského estetika (Prague, 1921). 56. "Otakar Hostinsky,"Česká mysl, 8 (1907), 4. 57. Ceská estetika, p. 107. 58. For Hostinsky, Durdik was not a Herbartian in the strict sense of the word, but might instead be termed a "Zimmermannian" (see "Za prof. dr. J. Durdíkem," Ceská mysl, 4 [1903], 10). 59. "O vyznamu praktickych ideí Herbartovych pro vseobecnou esthetiku," Zprávy o zasedání Královské ceské spolecnosti nauk ν Praze 1881 (Prague, 1882), p. 122. 60. Ibid., p. 138. 61. Otakara Hostinského estetika, p. 53. 62. Ibid., p. 354. 63. Ibid. 64. O realismu uméleckém (Prague, 1891), p. 4. 65. "Otakar Hostinsky," p. 22. 66. O realismu uméleckém, p. 41. 67. "Krise estetiky," Ceská kultura, 1 (1912-1913], 19. 68. Cf., for example, "In many other respects too esthetics is very close to psychology. Indeed, it appeals to psychology at every step, but nevertheless we must not identify these two disciplines because psychology is for esthetics what mathematics is for physics" (Nejedly, Otakara Hostinského estetika, pp. 22-23). 69. On Zich's relation to Volklelt, see O. Sus, "Sémanticky problém 'vyznamové představy' u O. Zicha a J. Volkelta," Sborník prací filosofické fakulty brněnské uni-

216 / P e t e r S t e i n e r versity, 7, series F2 (Brno, 1958), 99-116, or "Geneze sémantiky umění ν české tvarové estetice: Otakar Zich a teorie vyznamové představy," Litteraria IX: O literarnej avantgarde (Bratislava, 1966), pp. 196-224. 70. Základové konkrétné logiky: Třídění a soustava věd (Prague, 1885], p. 110. 71. "Estetické vnímání hudby: Psychologicky rozbor na podkladé experimentálním," Ceská mysl, 11 (1910), 10. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid., p. 9 74. "Hodnocení estetické a umélecké," ibid., 16 (1916), 133. 75. In passing Zich also mentions the two types of norms which cannot be considered relative—absolute and universal norms. However, he relegates absolute norms to the realm of metaphysics and questions the normative character of universal norms. In esthetics, such universal norms would be the "psychological laws of esthetic processes whether of perception or creation" (ibid., p. 132). But to call these laws norms entails a substantial extension of the meaning of the word "norm" and implies that other disciplines, for example, medicine, are normative. 76. Ibid., p. 132. 77. Ibid., p. 135. 78. Ibid., p. 160. 79. Ibid., p. 144. 80. Ibid., p. 157. 81. Ibid., p. 161. 82. "Estetické vnímání hudby: Psychologicky rozbor," Věstník Královské ceské spolecnosti nauk: Třída filosoficko-historicko-jazykozpytná: Rocník 1910 (Prague, 1911), p. 3. 83. Ibid., p. 25. 84. See Mukařovský's treatment of the semantic plane of Mácha's Máj, in which he operates with the terns "kernel of meaning" and "accessory meanings." As he explains in a footnote, these terms "were suggested to me during the discussion of my paper in the Prague Linguistic Circle by Prof. Trnka as substitutes for the Russian terms 'osnovnoe znacenie' and 'vtoričnyj priznak' (see Ju. Tynjanov, Problema stixotvornogo jazyka, p. 49f., and B. Tomasevskij, Teorija literatury, p. 13)," Máchuv Máj: Estetická studie (Prague, 1928), p. 78. 85. "The Psychology of Gestalt," American Journal of Psychology, 36 (1925), 362. 86. "O jazyce básnickém," Kapitoly z české poetiky, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (Prague, 1948), vol. 1, p. 124. 87. Estetika dramatického uméní: Teoretická dramaturgic (Prague, 1931). 88. See, for example, Mukařovsky's review, "Otakar Zich: Estetika dramatického uméní," Casopis pro moderní filologii, 18 (1932), 318-326. 89. See the section devoted to the theory of theatre in L. Matejka and Irwin R. Titunik (eds.), Semiotics of Art: Prague School Contributions (Cambridge, Mass., 1976). 90. This typology of imagery was introduced into psychology by Charcot and Galton. In Bohemia it was elaborated at the turn of the century especially by Otakar Kádner (see V. Příhoda, "Typy či varianty?" Ceská mysl, 24 [1928], 123). 91. "O typech básnickych," Casopis pro moderní filologii, 6 [1917-1918], 7 - 8 . 92. Ibid., p. 25. 93. Zich operates with statistical data about the frequency of Czech speech sounds furnished in A. Frinta, Novoceská vyslovnost (Prague, 1909). 94. "O typech básnickych," p. 15. 95. Ibid., p. 11.

T h e R o o t s of S t r u c t u r a l i s t E s t h e t i c s / 217 96. Ibid., p. 16. 97. "Zvukovye povtory: Analiz zvukovoj struktury stixa," Poètika: Sborniki po teorii poeticeskogo jazyka (Petersburg, 1919), pp. 5 8 - 9 8 . 98. "O typech básnickych," p. 109. 99. Ibid., p. 110. 100. The anti-imagistic stance to which Zich and the formalists subscribed became increasingly popular at the beginning of the century both in psychology and poetics, as a reaction against the previous atomistic view according to which thinking or poetry was based on the association of images. In psychology the Würzburg School (Mayer, Orth, Ach, etc.) propounded the theory of the "imageless thought," and a Frenchman, A. Binet, found images incompatible with the process of thinking. In poetics, Τ A. Meyer argued that poetic value does not rest in images created by language but in language itself, Das Stilgesetz der Poesie (Leipzig, 1901). 101. "O typech básnickych," p. 211. 102. Ibid., p. 213. 103. For more details about the cultural and intellectual atmosphere of the newly created Czechoslovak Republic, see, for example, A. J. Liehm, "S Jiřím Voskovcem o cemkoli," Listy, 5, no. 5 (1975), 5; J.P. Faye, "Entretien avec Jan Mukařovský," Change, 3 (1969), 68; A. J. Liehm, "Roman Jakobson osmdesátilety," p. 27. 104. "Poetismus," Vybor z díla, (Prague, 1966), p. 124. 105. "O hlavních úkolech Ces. Casopisu Estetického," Cesky Casopis Esteticky, 1, no. 2 - 3 (1920), 36. 106. "O zvukax stixotvornogo jazyka," Poètika: Sborniki po teorii poètičeskogo jazyka, p. 37. 107. Jan Mukařovský, "K problému funkcí ν architektufe," Studie ζ estetiky, p. 196. 108. See, for example, the introduction to the first issue of Slovo a slovesnost signed by Havránek, Jakobson, Mathesius, Mukařovský, and Trnka, where Marty's and Masaryk's theories of language are presented as necessary correctives to Saussure's teaching ("Uvodem," Slovo a slovesnost, 1 [1935], 1). 109. See, for example, Durdík's attack against the abuse of the term "organism" in the humanities and social sciences ("O užívání a zneuzívání slova 'organismus,'" Casopis Musea království ceskeho, 54 [1880], 423-432). 110. "Vztah mezi sovétskou a ceskoslovenskou literární vědou," p. 11. 111. V. Rzounek, "Rozhovor s Janem Mukařovským," Impuls, 1 (1966), 816-817. 112. "Pííklad literárního dèjepisu strukturního," Salduv zápisník, 7 (19341935), 65. 113. "Sémantické problémy umění u Josefa Durdíka: Ζ déjin ceské estetiky—formalismus a sémantika," Filosofický casopis, 8 (1960), 805. 114. It is noteworthy that both movements seemed not to like the name "formalism." On the Czech side, Hostinsky pointed out that Herbart himself had preferred the term "relationship" (Verhältnis) to the term "form." "Herbart's pupils (Zimmermann), however, purged their esthetics of the word 'relationship' and introduced the term 'form' which caused the entire esthetic movement to receive the label 'formalism.' At a time when the theory of the arts was in a state of chaos, this unfortunate selection of terms led to many misunderstandings" (Nejedly, Otakara Hostinského estitika, p. 54). Similarly, Èjxenbaum wrote: "The word 'form' has many meanings, which as always caused a lot of confusion. It must be understood that we use this word in a particular way: not as something correlated with the concept 'content'. . . but as something essential for an artistic phenomenon—its organizing principle. We are not 'formalists' but if you wish, 'specifiers' [i.e., scholars attempting to pin down

218 / Peter S t e i n e r the specificity of literary science]," "Vokrug voprosa o 'formalistax,'" Pečat' i revoljucija, no. 5 (1924], 3. 115. "Literatura vne 'sjuzeta,'" O teorii literatury (Moscow, 1929], p. 226. 116. Formal'nyj metod ν literaturovedenii: Kriticeskoe vvedenie ν sociologiceskuju poètiku (Leningrad, 1928], pp. 7 8 - 7 9 . 117. "Teorija 'formal'nogo metoda'," Literatura: Teorija Kritika Polemika (Leningrad, 1927), p. 120. 118. Even though Hostinsky did not call himself a positivist, he was perceived as such by his contemporaries,· see, for example, the discussion of Hostinsky's philosophical standpoint by the leading Czech positivistic philosopher Frantisek Krejčí, "O Hostinského filosofii," Ceská mysl, 8 (1907), 5 2 - 6 4 . Hostinsky is also classified as a positivist in Josef Krái's comprehensive history of Czechoslovak philosophy, Ceskoslovenská filosofie: Nástin vyvoje podle disciplin (Prague, 1937), p. 131. 119. See, for example, Jakobson's report about the First Congress of Slavic Philologists of 1929: "The positivistic Slavistics—that avant-garde scholarship that in the last decades of the nineteenth century displaced the romantic dreaming about Slavdom—carried out in a half-century an admirable and fruitful job, both critical and original. It collected and sorted the enormous material with which we work today. The second insight that I gained from the Congress can be formulated in the following way: the period of Slavistics that I have just characterized is closed. Some meritorious minute work will still go on for a while, but the ardor of the new scholarly reconstruction, the creative initiative, has already exceeded its framework. If I wish to characterize briefly the leading idea of modern scholarship in its most different implementations, there cannot be a more fitting designation than structuralism," ("Romantické vseslovanství—nova slavistika," Cin 1 [1929-1930), 11). 120. "Poètika Lingvistika Sociologija: Metodologiceskaja spravka," Lef, no. 3 (1923), 109. 121. Β. Havránek et al., "Úvodem," p. 5. 122. "Strukturální estetika," Ottův slovník naucny nové doby, 6 vols. in 12 (Prague, 1939-1940), vol. 6, part 1, p. 454. 123. For more details on this subject, see my article "Semiotics in Bohemia in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: Major Trends and Figures," in R. W. Bailey, L. Matejka, and P. Steiner (eds.), The Sign: Semiotics around the World (Ann Arbor, 1978), pp. 207-226. 124. Novejšaja russkaja poèzija: Nabrosok pervyj (Prague, 1921), p. 5. It is noteworthy that another Russian member of the Circle, Nikolaj Trubeckoj, objected to such a disregard for values in literary studies. In his letter to Jakobson of July 28, 1921, he wrote concerning Jakobson's newly published book: "In fact, the readers do perform an esthetic evaluation of literary works. To become a fact of social order, the work must pass successfully through this 'test of taste.' Only then does it satisfy readers and generate imitations, if only potentially. . . . while in your theory, Puskin, Uncle Mitjaj, and a high-school girl trying to write verse are absolutely equal objects of study," R. Jakobson (ed.), N. S. Trubetzkoy's Letters and Notes (The Hague, 1975), pp. 22-23. 125. "O literaturnoj èvoljucii," p. 32. 126. "The Theory of Literary History," p. 180. 127. "Teorija 'formal'nogo metoda,'" p. 117. 128. B. Ejxenbaum (ed.), Poètika kino (Moscow, 1927). 129. "Teorija 'formal'nogo metoda,'" p. 117. 130. The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London, 1959), pp. 4 0 - 4 1 .

The Roots of Structuralist Esthetics / 219 131. "The Russian Formalist Theory of Prose," PTL: A Journal for Poetics and the Theory of Literature, 3 (1977), 432. 132. Ibid., p. 433. 133. Quoted in M. O. Čudakova's commentary to Jurij Tynjanov's Poètika Istorija literatury Kino (Moscow, 1977), p. 455. 134. "K metodologii literární védy," Cestami poetiky a estetiky (Prague, 1971), pp. 192-193. 135. Die Strukturanalyse der Erkenntnistheorie, in Kant-Studien, new series, no. 57 (Berlin, 1922); English translation in Mannheim's Essays on Sociology and Social Psychology (New York, 1953), pp. 15-73. 136. Ibid., p. 24. 137. Ibid., p. 18. 138. See my article "Three Metaphors of Russian Formalism," Poetics Today, 2, no. lb (1980/81), 59-116. 139. The echo of the formalist split of philosophy and empirical research still resounds in Vladimir Propp's polemics with Lévi-Strauss following Strauss's review of The Morphology of the Folktale in 1960. For Propp the gap that separates the structuralist approach from the formalist one (though in the good tradition of Russian formalism he objects to this name) is the gap between philosophy and empiricism. "Professor Lévi-Strauss has one essential advantage over me: he is a philosopher. I, on the other hand, am an empiricist, and in this an incorruptible one, who pays attention above all to the facts and studies them scrupulously and systematically, checking his presuppositions at every step in his theorizing" ("Strukturnoe i istoriceskoe izucenie vol'sebnoj skazki," Fol'klor i dejstvitel'nost': Izhrannye stat'i [Moscow, 1976], p. 133). 140. "Strukturalismus ν estetice a ve vědě o literatuře," Kapitoly ζ ceské poetiky, p. 13. 141. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1962), p. x. 142. Ibid., pp. 47-48.