University of Colorado, Boulder
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English Graduate Theses & Dissertations
English
Spring 1-1-2012
Contentious Figuration: Poetic Language in Plath,
Stevens, and Dickinson
Shu-Ching Wu
University of Colorado at Boulder, [email protected]
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Dissertations. Paper 21.
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Content ious Figur a t ion: Poetic Langu age in Plat h, Steven s, and Dickin son
by
Shu-Chin g Wu
B.A., Nation a l Chun g Hsin g Univer s ity in Taiwa n , l999
M.A., North Carolin a State Univer s ity, 2002
A thesis subm itted to the
Faculty of the Gradu a te School of the
Univer sity of Colora do in partia l fulfillmen t
of the requir emen t for the degree of
Doctor of Philosoph y
Depar tmen t of Englis h
2012
This thesis entitled:
Contentious Figuration: Poetic Language in Plath, Stevens, and Dickenson
written by Shu-Ching Wu
has been approved for the Department of English
Adam Bradley
_
Eric White
Date: May 24th, 2012
The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we
Find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards
Of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline.
iii
Wu, Shu-Ching (Ph.D., English)
Contentious Figuration: Poetic Language in Plath, Stevens, and Dickinson
Thesis directed by Associate Professor Adam Bradley
This thesis explores how metonymy functions as a different figurative
possibility in Sylvia Plath‘ poetry and how metonymy as a transformative process of
figuration relates to Wallace Stevens‘ poetic thinking on the relation between
imagination and reality, and ends with a special focus on Emily Dickinson‘s lyric self.
The discussion of Plath‘s and Stevens‘ figurative language is a gradual exploration of
what role metonymy can play as a significant form of figuration in their works and
how metonymy can contribute to discovering an internal force in their writings. It is
with further understanding of these two poets‘ metonymic figuration that I will
interrogate the relation between lyric poetry and its external contexts in Dickinson‘s
poetry with an emphasis on a poem‘s internal force and with full awareness of how
such a force can emerge through metonymy within a text.
Metonymy explains a fictional realm in writing where both the corporeal self
and the corporeal other (such as, nature, the world or social/historical contexts) are
transformed in the metonymic process of figuration, a process during which the
temporal or spatial contiguous relationships among the constituent elements develop
different levels of fictional reality. If what one perceives is not the world but ―the
world picture‖ (according to Heidegger) or one‘s ―sense of the world‖ (according to
Stevens), this fictional realm developed through metonymic contexts within a poem is
no longer the corporeal world that the self confronts and thus cannot be accessed or
defined through what time (a historical period) or what place (society or cultural
context) this literary work is created.
iv
The discussion of metonymy in both Plath‘s and Stevens‘ poetry helps clarify
that the lyric self in Dickinson‘s poetry cannot be simply a mediated social existence
because the lyric self is also mediated by the fictional other(s) within a text.
Metonymy creates possibilities and imposes limits at the same time in a poetic
narrative, where the self is mediated by the other and the other is an imagined
construct by the self, where the spontaneous dialectical relation between the self and
the other turns into a figurative possibility in poetry.
v
Contents
Chapter
Introduction………………………………………………………………….1
I.
The Liquidating Power of Language………………………………………..11
II.
Metonymic Space: A Different Figurative Possibility in Sylvia Plath‘s
Poetry………………………………………………………………………66
III.
Wallace Stevens‘ ‗Spatial Construct of Relationships‘ as Figuration: the Soil
where a Fiction Grows……………………………………………………133
IV.
Overcome Oneself as Subject in Dickinson‘s Poetry: A Mediated ―I‖…...195
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………...228
1
Introduction
The discussion of the signification of a literary work can be related to the
internal content of the text and the external contexts of the work. The division
between the internal and the external factors of a text has formed a polarity of two
different literary approaches: one that prioritizes close-reading of a text and the other
that focuses on discovering intertextuality of a text. New Criticism is representative of
viewing close-reading of a text as the best method of understanding its signification.
The theory of New Criticism has been criticized for its assumption that a text is an
autonomous whole and its ignorance of the social, cultural, and historical influences
on a literary work. According to Jonathan Culler, the intertextual nature of a text
refers to a text‘s relations with prior texts and with other various languages and
signifying practices of a culture. According to Culler, it is important for a critic to
discover a literary work‘s relations with prior texts and to further understand what
codes and conventions lie among them and what constitutes the underlying system
about them.
The emphasis on the intertextual nature of a literary work has shown the
weakness and narrowness of New Criticism‘s main ideas. Nonetheless, I would like to
examine what is problematic in privileging the discussion of intertextuality as a
method of understanding a literary work. There are two perspectives which can
intervene in this debate. First, if treating a text as an autonomous whole puts the text
within a closure, situating a text within another literary or historical context also locks
it into another ―higher‖ closure. Second, the emphasis on intertextualiy mainly takes
different contexts (society, culture, history, literary tradition) into consideration and
thus shows how important contexts are for understanding a literary work. However, a
more basic unit of context is a context within a text, not the ones outside it.
2
Furthermore, when the meanings drawn from the smaller contexts within a text
conflict with and even obstruct the meanings drawn from the larger outside contexts,
can the meanings given through the larger contexts stay unchallenged?
In the introduction of Hans-Jost Frey‘s book, Interruptions, Georgia Albert has
noted that texts are able to break both the chronological and the physical borders
according to Frey‘s arguments. Similar with Culler, Albert thinks that a text can break
away from its presupposed temporal or geographical context because it can be tied to
another historical or physical context. In this case, to break away from an original
closure means to get into another closure. The simple fact that a text is able to acquire
meanings and possibilities of interpretation through ―ever-renewed‖ historical, social,
and geographical contexts points out two aspects of a text‘s ability—its ability to take
in contextual influences and its ability to liquidate and resist such influences at the
same time. Paradoxically, a text is able to carry meanings because it is able to
liquidate meanings as well. How can a text carry and liquidate meanings at the same
time? To borrow Frey‘s insight, this ability does not lie in a text‘s being situated in
other different contexts, other closures. The two aspects of a text‘s ability are possible
because the paradoxical foundation of language already supports such development in
writing.
The functioning of literary language facilitates and frustrates interpretation at
the same time because language does not only carry the intended meanings but also
defies, loosens, and slips away from the presupposed referents. To disregard one side
of this paradox is to look at a literary work without looking at the signs/words first
and to situate a work of literature within social/cultural/historical contextual
backgrounds stably without considering how the syntactic/metonymic contexts within
a text tackle them.
3
In order to define how external influences and factors intervene and participate
in both writing and reading a literary work, it is important to start by interrogating
how literary language reacts to such influences. Because language as a medium does
not take in influences or carry the intended meanings without resistance, it becomes
crucial for critics to think about another possibility—what if language were capable of
liquidating these outside contextual influences? Furthermore, what if the possibility of
literary language and its creativity lay in its liquidating and resisting power, not its
power to carry or embody influences or meanings?
Metonymy facilitates this possibility (i.e., the break with the real and any
external social, cultural, or historical contexts) by creating contextualization as
figuration within a text (i.e., by forming different contiguous relationships among
constituent elements). Meanings emerging from particular syntactic structures and
from metonymic contextualization within a text can frustrate and challenge the
external biographical, cultural, or historical contextual readings of a text. The internal
force within a text prevents a literary work from being fully immersed in any external
contextual influences.
The first chapter of the thesis introduces a theoretical trajectory of critical
concerns about how literary language functions, how it is conditioned by social and
historical contexts, and how it resists such conditioning and redefines the relation.
There is a main controversy in the discussion of the foundation of literary language:
on the one hand, it is hard to claim that literary language is able to stay free from any
literary tradition and historical/cultural influences; on the other hand, it is difficult to
let go the possibility of ―writing at zero degree,‖ ―a colourless writing, freed from all
bondage to a pre-ordained state of language‖ (Roland Barthes) and the possibility of
an ―insurrectionary moment‖ in speech, ―the moment that founds a future through a
4
break with that past‖ (Judith Butler). This dilemma shows the complexity of the
foundation of literary language and the difficulty of defining its constitution. Through
discussing the blindness and insight in the ideas of some significant theorists and
critics (such as Roland Barthes, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin,
Roman Jakobson, and so on), I hope to expose the complexity of the functioning of
literary language. The understanding of the paradoxical foundation of literary
language helps unfold the problems of some literary approaches that rely on
biographical, social, cultural, or historical context as the only source for defining the
signification of a literary work.
In the theoretical discussion in chapter one, the functioning of metonymy is
closely related to the liquidating power of language (an idea drawn from Benjamin)
and Derrida‘s différance (as differ/defer). Metonymy on the syntactic level defines the
confinement of a sign/word; nonetheless, syntax/context which confines a sign also
allows meanings (as deferred effects) to emerge. Thus, besides a sign‘s fundamental
gap with its referent, metonymy on the syntactic level helps confirm a sign‘s ability to
liquidate its intended meaning. Moreover, metonymy as a different type of figurative
language further opens up an interpretative possibility that defies the interpretation
based on a metaphorical substitution (i.e., a representational relation). Metonymy
challenges the predominance of metaphor in the study of poetry and defines a
different figurative possibility.
This thesis explores how metonymy functions as a different figurative
possibility in Sylvia Plath‘ poetry and how metonymy as a transformative process of
figuration relates to Wallace Stevens‘ poetic thinking on the relation between
imagination and reality, and ends with a special focus on Emily Dickinson‘s lyric self.
The order of these three chapters is not an intentional reversal of the chronological
5
order of these three poets. The discussion of Plath‘s and Stevens‘ figurative language
is a gradual exploration of what role metonymy can play as a significant form of
figuration in their works and how metonymy can contribute to discovering an internal
force in their writings. It is with further understanding of these two poets‘ metonymic
figuration that I move toward the interrogation of the relation between lyric poetry
and its external contexts in Dickinson‘s poetry with an emphasis on a poem‘s internal
force and with full awareness of how such a force can emerge through metonymy
within a text. The following are summaries of these three poets‘ chapters.
The second chapter explores how Sylvia Plath relies on metonymy (defined by
Jakobson as the operation of combination/contexture of constituent elements based on
their contiguity) to evoke some unexpected thoughts and meanings in her poems.
Critics tend to create symbolic and representational relations between Plath‘s life and
her work. This tendency ignores Plath‘s effort in exploring the possibilities of poetic
language through metonymic contextualization (i.e., through combining or
contextualizing constituent elements based on their spatial or temporal contiguity).
Metonymic contextual meanings in Plath‘s writings create a challenge to an
interpretation based on the strict metaphorical connection between her life and her
poems. Metonymy offers a different perspective toward the discussion of Plath‘s work,
which has mainly focused on the metaphorical connection.
From critical responses to Sylvia Plath‘s works, the signification of
representational meanings always overpowers that of non-representational meanings.
Critics‘ intention to seek correspondent and representational relation between her
work and her life is like an intention to seek a return to the original and the real. It is
also like seeking the sign‘s proper referent. According to Derrida, différance which
explains the relation between sign and referent signifies the impossibility of the
6
fulfillment of such a return and the possibility of a deferred meaning emerging from
the sign‘s present syntax. Therefore, the attempt to see that Plath‘s poetry has a
representational meaning in her real life shows a lack of understanding toward the
functioning of language. It is not a question of whether critics should attempt to do
this or not. It is that language simply cannot fulfill this attempt. Language does not
represent. Literary language has meant to be a mask, not the real face. The readings of
Plath‘s poetry have focused on relating her poetry to the drama of her life. Even the
thematic ideas applied on her poems are formulated based on the drama in her life.
Such a great interest in Plath‘s life shows that some critics like to mistake a mask for
the real—i.e., some like to pretend that there is no pretending.
My argument will bring the focus back to Plath‘s figurative language. Plath
allows the metonymic development to form a poetic narrative—i.e., that images,
details, or other elements within a poem are gradually contextualized through their
possible contiguous relationships and developed into a narrative. As Plath subjects
herself to the metonymic development in a narrative, readings based on strict
metaphorical connection (or correspondence between details in her poems and
incidents in her life) should also encounter the competing force of metonymy within
her poetry. When multiplicity of interpretation based on metaphorical connection is
celebrated in the studies of poetry, metonymy becomes a different critical adventure in
reading poetry, especially Plath‘s poems.
Chapter three aims for further understanding of Stevens‘ poetic thinking on the
relation between imagination and reality. Stevens stresses the interdependence and
balance between imagination and reality. Metonymy explains how a fictional reality
can be created through the imagination in a poetic text and also how such a fictional
reality imposes limits on the self‘s imaginative power. There are two different levels
7
of understanding of metonymy—syntax and metonymic figuration. Both set limits on
the powers of the self‘s will. According to de Man, a metaphor or a text might assert
its ―inventiveness‖ and attempt to transcend a textual confinement, which can only be
achieved by creating more text and following the grammatical patterns and
metonymic structures on the syntactic level. Therefore, ―a syntagmatic structure,‖ a
metonymic structure on the level of syntax, expresses the condition and limits for ―the
self-willed and autonomous inventiveness‖ in writing.
Besides the syntactic structures, metonymy operating through the spatial
contiguous relationships of the constituent elements can also explain how ―a spatial
construct of relationships‖ (Hans-Jost Frey‘s term) develops into a fictional reality
and sets limits on the power of imagination and why such a fictional reality becomes
the condition that not only constrains or directs a text but also allows different poetic
possibilities to emerge from a poetic text. It is due to Stevens‘ attitude toward the
limits of imagination and its power that I will argue that what makes Stevens‘ supreme
fiction different is not ―the vital self-assertion‖ or the great power of imagination but
the limits—the necessary and inevitable condition that allows the imagined world, the
composed fictional reality, to be grounded in a text. Metonymy best explains this
condition. Such fictional reality is the counterforce of imagination and is inseparable
from the imaginative process of writing.
Stevens stresses a wavering reality in writing. The fictional reality wavers
because of the imagination of the mind; the imagination of the mind wavers because
of the fictional reality, which is presented and constructed through different levels of
spatial and temporal contexts, the metonymic contextualization of the imagined
elements of reality. Stevens‘ ideas about the relation between reality and imagination
have shown that even though poetry does rely on the imagination of the mind, the
8
metonymic operation (the syntactic, the spatial, and the temporal contexts developed
in a narrative) facilitates and constrains the mind at the same time and thus promises
the interdependence and the balance between reality and imagination as Stevens
claims.
In such poetic figuration as metonymy, the self is positioned as a constituent
element that mobilizes the process of figuration but does not pre-decide or manipulate
such figurative development. This understanding of metonymic figuration thus
challenges and questions two popular critical opinions of Stevens‘ poetry and essays:
the over-emphasis of the self‘s imaginative power (i.e., that Stevens‘ theory of poetry
simply focuses on the powers of the mind‘s imagination) and the assumption of
authorial intentions and decisions that preexist each poem‘s poetic development as a
narrative.
Steven‘s supreme fiction is not just about the transcendental power of fiction
but also of the soil where a fiction grows. Stevens‘ supreme fiction is one embedded
in the soil of reality, a fictional reality performed through different temporal/spatial
constructs of relationships as metonymic figuration. Stevens‘ poems thus remain to be
the poems of ―the earth‖ (The Necessary Angel 142).
Chapter four interrogates what is at stake when Dickinson‘s poetry is situated
within different social, cultural, or historical contexts in order to define its distinctive
poetic value. The relation between Dickinson‘s lyric self and the other (any external
context) is one with tension and spontaneity and is a dialectical relation as defined by
Theodor W. Adorno. Such a dialectical relation emphasizes the self‘s resistance, not
the self‘s immersion in society (as well as other contexts). Therefore, to situate
Dickinson‘s poetry within a particular external context runs the risk of undercutting
the lyric self‘s resistance.
9
The spontaneity of the dialectical relation lies in the self‘s resistance, which
acknowledges the necessary distance between the self and ―the cultural object,‖ and
also in the impossibility of the self‘s fulfillment of such resistance—i.e., the full break
with ―the cultural object.‖ In other words, the spontaneous relation between the mind
and ―the cultural object‖ persists only when either side cannot conquer and subsume
the other completely. If the self‘s resistance is fulfilled and the self escapes and
transcends the cultural context, the dialectical relation is terminated and the self‘s
resistance becomes unnecessary.
This chapter explores how such a dialectical relation redefines the position of
the lyric self, which is mediated and conditioned by the other but not controlled by
and subsumed under the other. Such a mediated self explains how the lyric self
overcomes himself/herself as subject when the self resists against but can never
overcome the other. With further discussion on Adorno‘s and Heidegger‘s thoughts,‖ I
will analyze how they put each other‘s thoughts at stake and thus delineate a more
genuine dialectical relation between the self and the other. It is with the understanding
of this dialectical relation that I will interpret Dickinson's two poems: "There's a
certain Slant of Light" and "I years had been from home." Dickinson‘s poetry will
show how the lyric self ―has overcome himself [or herself] as subject‖ (Heidegger)
and how the self was mediated and conditioned by the other at the very beginning of
its relationship with the other.
Metonymy explains a fictional realm in writing where both the corporeal self
and the corporeal other (the world, society, nature, or cultural and historical contexts)
are transformed in the metonymic process of figuration, a process during which the
temporal or spatial contiguous relationships among the constituent elements develop
different levels of fictional reality. If what one perceives is not the world but ―the
10
world picture‖ (according to Heidegger) or one‘s ―sense of the world‖ (according to
Stevens), this fictional realm developed through metonymic contexts within a poem is
no longer the world that the self confronts in the corporeal and thus cannot be
accessed or defined through what time (a historical period) or what place (society or
cultural context) this literary work is created. Therefore, the discussion of metonymy
in both Plath‘s and Stevens‘ poetry also helps clarify that the lyric self in Dickinson‘s
poetry cannot be simply a mediated social existence because the lyric self is also
mediated by the fictional other(s) within a text.
Metonymy creates possibilities and imposes limits at the same time in a poetic
narrative. After understanding how metonymy unfolds Plath‘s and Stevens‘ figurative
language, one could approach the issue of the relation between Dickinson‘s lyric self
and society with more caution. This issue is often discussed with two problematic
assumptions that the self and the other only stay on the same corporeal realm and that
the tension between them lies in one‘s attempt to overcome the other, or vice versa.
This relation cannot be delineated by focusing on both sides on the corporeal realm
but can only be understood by focusing on both on the fictional realm in writing. It is
through metonymic development as figuration in writing that this relation on the
fictional realm is created and unfolded. Metonymy creates a fictional realm where the
self and the world are transformed through figuration, where the self is mediated by
the other and the other is an imagined construct by the self, where the spontaneous
dialectical relation between the self and the other turns into a figurative possibility in
poetry.
11
Chapter One
The Liquidating Power of Language
In this chapter, I will first interrogate the idea of ―intertextuality‖ and question
its legitimacy as an approach in the study of literature. Its seeming contribution to the
study of literature is double-edged because tying a text to other text(s) can put it into
another closure instead of liberating it from its own textual confinement. As section
one ends with a conclusion that the paradoxical foundation of language supports the
possibility of a text‘s ability to liquidate meanings or powers enforced upon it by
external social or historical contexts, section two introduces critics such as Roland
Barthes and Judith Butler, who are concerned with the same issue about the relation
between language/speech and society. Section two concludes with Benjamin‘s insight
on this issue that a medium is able to liquidate expectations or forces placed upon it
and thus challenge the already-made definition of a medium‘s function and the value
of works of art. Section three focuses on de Man‘s and Derrida‘s ideas. For Derrida,
word (or metaphor) can wander away from its designated meaning and proclaim a
different meaning from its present syntax. Derrida‘s ―deferred effects‖ (that a sign
proclaims in its current syntax) echo de Man‘s ―non-representational‖ meanings in his
discussion of modern lyric. Their ideas explain how a text could develop an internal
force that resists external definition. Furthermore, their arguments point at a
counter-force of metaphor—i.e., metonymy. In section four, I will introduce
metonymy as a significant mode of figuration. Derrida simply discusses syntax, and
de Man, being aware of metonymy, focuses primarily on grammatical patterns and
syntactic structure. According to Roman Jakobson, the definition of metonymy
includes syntax. However, its figurative value remains unexplored. Metonymy
12
explains why certain contextualization of words (or images/details) within a text can
proclaim deferred effects and thus accelerate a break from their referential meanings
(or representational meanings). This chapter ends with an emphasis on metonymy as a
different figurative potential, which sets up the basis for my further discussion of
metonymy as figuration in Sylvia Plath‘s and Wallace Stevens‘ poetry in chapter two
and three.
I
The Liquidating Power of Language: the Possibility of Crossing the Border
of a Text
Reflecting on the narrowness and weakness of the study of New Criticism,
Jonathan Culler argues for ―the intertextual nature of any verbal construct‖ in The
Pursuit of Signs (101). A text is intelligible and significant because it has assumptions
and presuppositions about prior texts, which it can cite, borrow, prolong, transform,
refute, or challenge (101-103). Therefore, ―the autonomy of texts is a misleading
notion,‖ and the signification of a text lies in its relations with prior texts (103).
Furthermore, intertextuality signifies a work‘s ―participation in the discursive space of
a culture: the relationship between a text and the various languages or signifying
practices of a culture and its relation to those texts which articulate for its possibilities
of that culture‖ (103). In short, a text has meaning because of its relations to prior
texts and the current sign systems/practices and discourses in a culture. For Culler, to
understand a text is to understand these relations and the codes and conventions
behind these relations, which form a literary discourse, a cultural discourse, or a
system of thoughts. He stresses that the prior texts are not the sources of a literary
work but constituents of a larger system. The systematic understanding of the codes
and conventions behind literary texts should speak for ―the conditions of meaning in
13
literature‖ in general (117).
Focusing on the importance of symbolic structures and systems of relations in
which codes, norms, myths, and conventions operate, Culler celebrates the study of
semiotics. Thus, there are ―conventions that underlie even the most ‗natural‘ modes of
behaviors and representation‖ (24), and ―[i]f we are to understand our social and
cultural world, we must think not of independent objects but of symbolic structures,
systems of relations which, by enabling objects and actions to have meaning, create a
human universe‖ (25). In conclusion, ―to understand phenomena is to reconstruct the
system of which they are manifestations‖ (27). Anything and anybody can have
meanings in a culture because there are different symbolic systems that allow them to
carry such meanings. The signification of a text thus relies on the existence and
functioning of these systems.
In order to answer whether the understanding of a text‘s relations with prior
texts can appropriately define the signification of a text, it is necessary to ask another
question—are the systems of relations in which a text participates reconstructed or
constructed and thus fictional? If a text‘s relations with prior texts are constructed into
an order for the sake of explaining its signification, then the presupposition—that the
signification of a text is made possible by the systems of relations and other sign
practices—becomes questionable. In other words, for Culler, the systems that underlie
a text‘s relations to prior texts and other sign practices are to be known and registered,
not to be constructed or fabricated. The authentic connection between a text and prior
texts along with other sign practices necessitates (and is thus a prerequisite for) the
study of underlying systems among their relations as an appropriate and legitimate
method of defining and discovering the signification of a text. Nonetheless, Culler has
revealed the possibility of the inauthentic connection between the systems and the
14
phenomena observed. While discussing Lévi-Strauss‘s achievement in the analysis of
myths, he noted that ―he has discovered an underlying logic, though it is not clear
whether one could ever in principle or in practice show that it is the logic of myths‖
(30). To follow his reasoning, how can one be ever certain that an underlying system
about a text‘s relations to prior texts is the system of these relations? How can one be
certain that the logic that explains a text‘s relations to other texts is the logic about
these texts?
This self-contradiction is made manifest when Culler talks about the concept of
origin. Culler first says that it is impossible to trace an origin in a system because ―[an
event that could count as an origin] becomes an element of the system or code in a
process that excludes origination‖ (103). This shows that an origin that is incorporated
into a system as origin is no longer an origin. If an origin is not registered in a system,
how does a system claim its existence? While discussing the examples of ―a literary
work‘s relations to a whole series of other works,‖ Culler observed, ―In all these cases
there are no moments of authority and points of origin except those which are
retrospectively designated as origins and which, therefore, can be shown to derive
from the series for which they are constituted as origin‖ (117). Therefore, an origin
that gets into a system is no longer an origin because it takes its departure from what
it is when it is constituted into a system. Why did Culler not have the same insight and
ask the same question about the ―prior‖ texts? Could they also be constituted into a
system so that they have relations to a particular literary work? Could the relations
between a text and other prior texts and the connection between the systems and the
observed relations be fundamentally inauthentic and fictional, which then puts into
question the foundation of the systematic studies?
Could a system of thoughts be a fiction? Hans-Jost Frey has insight toward this
15
question in his book, Interruptions. Discussing fragment and whole and the
correlation between them, he says, ―[i]f it [the whole] is assumed to be ordered, then
everything that is, is a part and has meaning to the extent that it contributes to the
whole in an incomprehensible, but believed-in, order‖ (27). When it is assumed that
there is an order in the whole, then the meaning of everything relies on its
contribution to the whole. If this assumption is true, then the approach of studying a
literary work by focusing on its intertextuality is no longer questionable. However,
Frey questions such an assumption:
If however the whole is not an order, but just simply everything, then
nothing of what is found inside it is a part, because it is not related to
something else together with which it forms a context. Every order is then
only human fiction and not knowledge of what is. Everything is fragment
because it is neither whole nor part, and all ordering is a vain attempt to
make fragments into parts. (27-28)
According to Frey, to discover an underlying system of phenomena or a literary
work‘s relations to a series of prior texts is to order things together into a system and
is ―human fiction.‖ Frey further adds, ―One posits order before having it‖ (28). It is
because ―the habit of wanting to understand is so powerful‖ that order is favored and
that we tend to make the ―assumption that there is meaning there that can be
determined‖ (28). For the study of systems of relations to maintain its legitimacy,
these relations should be discovered and registered because it is the knowledge of
what is and should not involve any fictional construction. However, Frey makes clear
that it is our ―wanting to understand‖ and our assumption of meanings that lead to a
systematic understating of everything. Therefore, the systems found behind a text‘s
relations with prior texts and other sign practices are not the knowledge of what is
because the act of ordering things together into a system is forceful and fictional, and
is simply manifestation of human desire. Therefore, the connection between the
systems and the observed relations is a human construct and thus fictional. A system
16
of relations and thoughts is possible only when the authenticity of such connection is
taken for granted. As the connection is fictional and systematic understanding is a
construct, the foundation of the studies of underlying systems of multitudinous
phenomena (including literary works) is questionable. Culler notices the possible gap
between ―an underlying logic‖ of myths and ―the logic of myths‖ in Lévi-Strauss‘s
analysis (30); he also observes that ―origin‖ is often ―constituted‖ into a system (117).
However, none of these makes him question the possible false foundation of
systematic studies.
Besides the questionable foundation, the other questionable aspect is the value
or the benefit that a systematic understanding is supposed to create. Culler discusses
intertextuality in order to free a text from an autonomous state. However, Frey points
out that putting a text into another context is just putting it into another ―closure.‖ One
way to understand the fragment is to find ―external reasons for its incompleteness‖
and ―the external circumstances‖ (Frey 26). Then, the fragment can acquire ―meaning
in the context of these circumstances‖ (26). Nonetheless, Frey warns that ―the
openness that the fragment is allowed to keep in this way only leads to a higher
closure‖ (26). In conclusion, Frey questions the positivity of defining the signification
of a text through understanding the systems of its relations to other texts and the
conventions and norms operating in the systems. What is problematic about
understanding a text through such systematic methods is not only that the relations
and the systems could actually result from a forceful act of ordering and are thus
fictional constructs themselves (which deconstructs what these systematic methods
are founded upon) but also that such systematic understanding does not allow a text to
be open and free but simply puts it into ―a higher closure‖ instead.
Culler does notice that a literary work‘s power seems to lie in its power to
17
violate and challenge the codes, conventions, and norms in a cultural discourse.
However, this does not hold him back from claiming the importance of the codes and
conventions. Instead, he argues that it is owing to their existence that a text‘s
challenge or violation of them becomes possible and significant. According to
Culler‘s logic of thinking, ―the flouting of linguistic and literary conventions by
which literary works bring about a renewal of perception testifies to the importance of
a system of conventions as the basis of literary signification‖ (37). With the emphasis
on the importance of systems of relations and conventio ns, Culler has decided to
disregard the possibility that these systems are fictional constructs through a forceful
act of ordering. Furthermore, as he insists that intertextuality is to locate a text in a
map of systems, he ignores the possibility that intertextuality then creates ―a higher
closure‖ of a text.
Privileging the importance of systems of relations and conventions, Culler
comes to a misunderstanding or a redefinition of Jacques Derrida‘s différance:
―Derrida captures with the term différance, which is both a difference and a differing,
designating a passive difference always already in place as the ground of signification
and an act of differing which produces the differences it presupposes‖ (41). Culler
defines différance as ―the ground of signification‖ and ―an act of differing‖ which
could produce some different effects that the ground is not supposed to support. He
further argues that even though the usage of the word ―différance‖ pushes ―the limits
of a logocentric language,‖ ―the concept it produces can be understood only in our
language‖ (41). According to Culler, différance signifies both a sign system ―already
in place‖ and a possible later act of differing, which could produce challenge or
violation of the system. Nonetheless, what Culler emphasizes is not the possible
challenge or violation but the already-existing sign system. Without language as a
18
sign system, its principles, and its logocentrism, it is impossible ―to criticize or to
formulate alternatives‖ and to challenge or to question the principles and logocentrism
in the system. Therefore, there is no escape from logocentrism and principles in a
language because we need to use language to initiate this move. In other words, an
attempt to escape logocentrism is to make a return to it first. Thus, there is no surprise
why Culler prioritizes the importance of understanding an underlying and
already-in-place language system and the conventions and the codes working in the
system even though he knows that the value of a ―rhetorical figure‖ lies in its ability
to violate the codes (41). Even though acknowledging that a literary work is able to
challenge, violate, and play against the norms, conventions, myths, and the codes,
Culler sees such a contesting act as a confirmation of an important tie between the
work and the existing conventions and codes.
However, in Of Grammatology, Derrida defines ―différance as
differing/deferring‖ (23), not ―a difference and a differing‖ (Culler 41). Culler
redefines Derrida‘s différance because he has an assumption that a sign system must
pre-exist any ―act of differing‖ and thus all the norms and conventions must pre-exist
the act of violation. However, Derrida clearly states that différance is more
―originary‖ (23) and ―anterior to all that one calls sign (signified/signifier,
content/expression)‖ (62). Therefore, différance defines the functioning of a sign, and
it does not start functioning after a sign system is already established. If a sign
functions both as being different from the presupposed or intended referent and as
proclaiming deferred effects at the same time, it shows that the deconstructive force is
already happening in the functioning of language. ―‗Deconstructive movement‘‖ as
noted by Culler does not exist after a sign system and the conventions are already
established (The Pursuit of Signs 39). Derrida‘s différance then questions Culler‘s
19
assumption that a sign system is always ―already in place‖ as ―the ground of
signification‖ and then ―an act of differing‖ is to create alternatives through following
the principles of the system first.
In other words, Culler‘s redefinition of Derrida‘s différance shows that
Derrida‘s understanding of the functioning of language puts into question Culler‘s
insistence on the stable and unquestionable pre-existence of a language system before
any ―act of differing‖ happens. When a sign functions as differing from its
presupposed referent and as proclaiming the deferred effects, language as a sign
system has already carried the self-destructive force within from the beginning. This
is a force that allows words to loosen and to betray the pre-supposed and intended
referent. As a sign‘s intended referent does not pre-exist a sign, it is difficult to
maintain that the conventions, norms, and codes pre-exist a system and that a text‘s
relations to prior texts actually preexist a constructed system of relations. As a sign
signifies not only its presupposed/intended referent but also its difference from the
referent and its deferred effect at the same time, it becomes significant to note that a
text can function as differing from the conventions and the codes in the literary
tradition (as a system of relations among literary works) and as proclaiming deferred
effects, which are not simply the effects of confirming the existence of the codes in
the tradition by violating them. The deferred effects are the effects which are to come
and are thus not relevant to the already-in-place system.
Why is the understanding of the functioning of language (especially literary
language) important? How is it related to the signification of a literary text? There are
different literary approaches to understand how a text signifies. However, each of
them should encounter the challenge and defiance from the functioning of literary
signs as in Culler‘s case. As words function as differing and deferring, the attempt to
20
nail down the meanings of a literary work by putting it into social/cultural/historical
contexts should always confront the already-to-come challenge and defiance—the
looseness, the betrayal, the slippage of literary language. If it is impossible to stabilize
the meanings of words through their presupposed referents, how is it possible to
define the signification of a literary work through its relations with prior texts and
other sign practices, through its social, cultural, and historical contexts? As words are
able to betray designated meanings, can a text be defined by these external contexts?
The functioning of literary language facilitates and frustrates interpretation at
the same time. To disregard one side of this paradox is to avoid looking at a literary
work by looking at the signs/words first and to situate a work of literature within
social/cultural/historical contextual backgrounds stably without considering how the
syntactic/metonymic contexts within a text tackle them. In other words, a literary
work has contexts within (i.e., a word‘s relationships with other words, an image‘s
relationship with other images, or a sentence‘s relationships with other sentences
within a text). One cannot emphasize the intertextual nature of a literary work by
simply considering its relations with external contexts (i.e., prior texts and other sign
practices or any social, cultural, and historical contexts) when the work‘s language
and the contexts created within itself are able to move away from and resist against
these external influences. When the signification of the smaller contexts within a text
is able to obstruct the influences of its external contexts, it becomes problematic to
privilege a text‘s intertextual relations or its social/cultural/historical contexts as a
method of defining its signification.
In the introduction of Frey‘s book, Interruptions, Georgia Albert has noted that
Frey argues that texts are able to cross both the chronological and the physical borders.
According to Albert‘s understanding of Frey‘s ideas, ―they [texts] are never a part of
21
‗literary history‘ as a sequence of authors and works but transform themselves
according to specifically textual paradigms, acquiring a history of their own—one not
congruent either with the biography of their authors or with the social and intellectual
history of their readers‖ (viii). According to this quote, a text is able to acquire a
history of its own because it can be read in ―ever-renewed‖ social and historical
contexts and obtain different meanings in different ―paradigms‖ established in these
contexts; therefore, a text does not belong to any specific social, historical or
biographical context and is able to continuously ―transform‖ itself through different
contexts.
As for crossing the physical border, Albert states that ―the text‘s contact with
the outside—the permeability of its border—opens it up to possibilities of
interpretation that are excluded from the start by the presupposition, central not only
to literary history but also to the institution of national literature departments as well
as to the current debate about canon formation, that texts have identifiable historical
and geographical limits‖ (viii). According to Albert, a text is able to permeate the
border of its historical/geographical contexts by having ―contact with the
outside‖—i.e., by situating itself in other different outside contexts. Being situated in
different outside contexts, a text is able to acquire meanings and ―possibilities of
interpretation‖ which the paradigms of its presupposed historical/geographical
contexts cannot offer. This quote also shows that to lock a text within specific
historical or physical context often results from an attempt to annex it to a group, to
integrate it into literary history, or to constitute it into a structure of thinking.
What is intriguing in Albert‘s observation of Frey‘s ideas is that a text‘s
break-away from its presupposed temporal or geographical context relies on its
getting tied into another historical or physical context. In this case, to break away
22
from one closure means to get into another closure. However, could ―ever-renewed‖
contexts help a text freed from its original closure? As discussed above, Frey thinks
that ―[e]verything is fragment‖(27) and that to treat the fragment, a text, as incomplete
and as a part needing external contexts for its completion means that the text is being
integrated into ―a larger structure of meaning,‖ which is ―a higher closure‖ (26). Frey
questions the act of ordering things together into a reasonable structure for the sake of
obtaining meanings and understanding. Frey‘s points suggest that situating a text into
any social/historical/geographical context leads to its closure; thus, to follow the same
logic, tying a text to other historical and physical contexts simply leads to other
closures. Frey says that a text can acquire meanings in these other contexts but does
not claim the same positivity—that these other contexts allows a text to break away
from its closure, its border, and its limits—as Albert does.
The simple fact that a text is able to acquire meanings and possibilities of
interpretation through ―ever-renewed‖ historical, social, and geographical contexts
points out two aspects of a text‘s ability—its ability to take in the contextual influence
and its ability to liquidate such influence at the same time. If a text can acquire a
different meaning from a new social or historical context, a text must be able to
liquidate the meanings that it has already obtained from the prior contexts. This
appears clearer when a new acquired meaning is opposite to or conflicting with an
already-obtained meaning. A text can accept an interpretation based on one particular
context but can also break away from it in order to accept a new interpretation.
Paradoxically, a text is able to carry meanings because it is able to liquidate meanings
as well. How can a text carry and liquidate meanings at the same time? To borrow
Frey‘s insight, this ability does not lie in a text‘s being situated in other different
contexts, other closures. I propose that the two aspects of a text‘s ability are possible
23
because the paradoxical foundation of language already supports such development in
writing.
II
The Liquidating Power of Language: Benjamin‟s Implicit Critique
The paradoxical foundation of language has been of great concern to a number
of prominent critics and theorists. Their arguments and ideas should further clarify
why the paradoxical foundation of language is significant and how the understanding
of the functioning of language (especially literary language) could give insight toward
the understanding of a literary work. In the book, Writing Degree Zero, Roland
Barthes introduces ―writing at the zero degree,‖ which means ―to create a colourless
writing, freed from all bondage to a pre-ordained state of language‖ (76) and to
achieve ―a style of absence‖ or ―an ideal absence of style‖ by which ―writing is then
reduced to a sort of negative mood in which the social and mythical characters of a
language are abolished in favour of a neutral and inert state of form‖ (77). In short,
―writing at the zero degree‖ means a writing that is free from any literary traditions
and from any social or mythical command. Barthes does not need to wait for any
critical response to add the comment that ―unfortunately, nothing is more fickle than a
colourless writing; mechanical habits are developed in the very place where freedom
existed‖ (78). Moreover, much earlier in the book, he already questions the possibility
of such freedom in writing and says that such freedom does not have any duration and
that any ―freshness of novelty‖ is difficult to be developed ―without gradually
becoming a prisoner of someone else‘s words and even of my own‖ (17). Thus, if the
very ideal of ―writing at the zero degree‖ could possibly exist, it only exists
momentarily and readily ―precipitates‖ into ―History‖ (17).
Barthes‘s ideas have already shown how much tension and complexity there are
24
in the relation between language and society/history. The possible momentary
existence of ―writing at the zero degree‖ is actually similar with Judith Butler‘s
positive ―insurrectionary moment‖ to a great degree (―Implicit Censorship‖ 159). The
very controversy in Barthes‘ argument is that the possibility of ―writing at the zero
degree‖ obviously conflicts with the inevitability of the historical elements
(conventions and traditions) carried within the literary language. Barthes‘ main
concern is the writer‘s choice—choice of what writing style and what types of
language. As my argument later will show that history is not always a stable counter
force to work of art (as writing here) and that the very foundation of language could
be far more complicated than simply an embodiment of history.
In ―Implicit Censorship,‖ Butler presents a nice trajectory of how an argument
could be developed when different factors (such as cultural/social command, the
historical influence, written/spoken words, writer as subject, and so on) are tangled
together and wrestled with each other. Butler is focusing on speech and utterances;
nonetheless, here, following Jacques Derrida, I propose that speech is no different
from language and writing in terms of their constitution. Butler introduces Derrida‘s
points of view: ―Derrida focuses on those ostensibly ‗structural‘ features of the
performative that persist quite apart from any and all social contexts, and all
considerations of semantics. Performative utterances operate according to the same
logic as written marks, according to Derrida, which, as signs, carry ‗a force that
breaks with its context … the breaking force is not an accidental predicate but the
very structure of the written text…‘‖ (148). Arguing that Derrida‘s view toward
linguistic operation was to ―universalize its operation on the basis of its putatively
formal structure,‖ Butler further stresses that ―Derrida appears to install the break as a
structurally necessary feature of every utterance and every codifiable written mark,
25
this paralyzing the social analysis of forceful utterance‖ (150).
Butler also introduces Pierre Bourdieu‘s ideas as opposed to Derrida‘s.
According to Butler, unlike Derrida who sets aside the social influence upon the
operation of the written/spoken words, Bourdieu stresses that the cultural and social
contexts influence and shape both bodily acts and speech (142). However, Butler
points out the weakness in Bourdieu‘s argument and says that Bourdieu ―presumes
that the conventions that will authorize the performative are already in place‖ (142)
and also makes ―social institutions static‖ (147). Moreover, Butler argues that
―Bourdieu fails to take account of the way in which a performative can break with
existing context and assume new contexts, refiguring the terms of legitimate
utterances themselves […]‖ (150). In short, Butler agrees with the social and cultural
influence upon speech but cannot accept that such contexts are preexistent and static
and is not up to change. With the functioning of performative speech, she insists on
the possibility of its break with the existing contexts and of creating future
contexts—i.e., the possibility of an ―insurrectionary moment,‖ ―the moment that
founds a future through a break with that past‖ (159). Ironically, this possibility that
Butler insists on happens to coincide with what Derrida‘s theoretical view can offer:
―Derrida‘s formulation offers a way […] to the break with prior contexts, with the
possibility of inaugurating contexts yet to come‖ (Butler 151-2). As Butler continues
to point out what is missing and fallacious in Bourdieu‘s argument, she reveals more
and more ideas similar to Derrida‘s. When she concludes by pointing at Bourdieu‘s
mistaken thoughts that ―[w]hat happens in linguistic practices reflects or mirrors what
happens in social orders‖ and that there is ―a mimetic relation between the linguistic
and the social‖ (157), she has already contradicted herself with her previous comment
on Derrida‘s formulation about the linguistic structure (the comment that Derrida does
26
not take social/cultural contexts into consideration). What makes Butler not want to
agree with Derrida?
Butler steps into a dilemma—that she does not want to deny the social/cultural
influence on the functioning of speech but she also does not want to let go the
possibility of ―an insurrectionary moment.‖ I would argue that without the theoretical
understanding concerning the functioning of language presented by Derrida, this
possibility that Butler puts so much faith in would be incomprehensible. If the
social/cultural influence on speech/language is absolute, then how does the break
from such influence happen? The answer lies in language. How such influence is
taken or handled lies in the functioning of language (both written and spoken words).
Derrida has already shown not only that a sign cannot be fully unified with its referent
but also that it has a shifty nature, its tendency to wander around and away. Then, how
could any social or cultural influence be embodied and carried through fully in
language? This may explain why Derrida focuses on the very analysis of the
functioning of language and uses the concept of logos to refer to forces (the social and
the historical) that could be involved. Therefore, to describe Derrida‘s understanding
of the foundation of language as narrow and naive as an attempt to establish a
universal and formalistic structure of language just happens to show the narrowness
and naivety in the comment itself.
In order to answer Butler‘s dilemma, it is necessary to have a detailed
introduction of Derrida‘s ideas. However, before this, I would like to make a detour
and introduce Walter Benjamin‘s understanding of the relations among works of art,
society/history (including technological advancement that happens in history), and the
medium. I make this long detour because Benjamin is the one who does not ignore the
social and the historical aspects, but his understanding of these aspects is very
27
different from Butler‘s. His understanding of the relation between the social/the
historical and the functioning of the medium is not as simple and rough as one
imposing or dominating and the other being manipulated and passively accepting.
Most important of all, he interrogates the functioning of the medium in an indirect
method, which shows both the characteristics of the medium as not confirming and
not rejecting and also himself with a specific gesture not imposing and determining.
This gesture signifies the careful position he takes while presenting the seemingly
historical observation.
In his essay, ―The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility,‖
Benjamin discusses different forms of art, such as sculpture, photography, and film.
The medium he is focusing on is camera, but his understanding of its functioning can
bring insight toward the medium of writing as well. Benjamin argues that the mode of
perception of works of art changes over different historica l periods of time just as
―the entire mode of existence of human collectives‖ does (255). According to
Benjamin, among the changes of the mode of reception of works of art, there are two
distinguished ―polar types‖: ―one accentuates the artwork‘s cult value; the other, its
exhibition value‖ (257). As the development of technology increases the reproduction
of works of art and enhances reproducibility, the value of artwork shifts from the cult
value to its exhibition value. This movement from one pole to the other is explained
as such: ―The scope for exhibiting the work of art has increased so enormously with
the various methods of technologically reproducing it that, as happened in prehistoric
times, a quantitative shift between the two poles of the artwork has led to a qualitative
transformation in its nature‖ (Benjamin 257). Besides making manifest that the value
of works of art changes from the cult value to the exhibition value, this statement also
suggests that such a change is not an abnormal or unnatural movement since it ever
28
happened in prehistoric times (which, by the way, also shows that such a change does
not go beyond the concept of history for its being pre-history) and that just as the cult
value of artwork emphasizes that aura should be the value of artwork and thus defines
the purpose of artwork, the exhibition value of artwork might do the same as well. As
the definition of the value of artwork is aura, aura is able to give guidance to and cast
influence on the formation or creation of artwork; however, according to Benjamin,
the opposite is also true: the technology of reproduction brings up reproducibility as
the new guidance, and the accentuation of the cult value of artwork then shifts to the
accentuation of its exhibition value.
How technology of reproduction forces upon aura and makes it impossible for
aura to sustain itself as the primary value of artwork is related to the disappearance of
two aspects of aura: its uniqueness and its distance. As Benjamin points out, ―By
replicating the work many times over, it [technology of reproduction] substitutes a
mass existence for a unique existence. And, in permitting the reproduction to reach
the recipient in his or her own situation, it actualizes that which is reproduced‖ (254).
With the technology of reproduction, the aura of an artwork is dimming for the
gradual disappearance of its basis, ―the here and now of the work of art—its unique
existence in a particular place‖ (253). The reproduction of artwork becomes what is
accessible to the recipient in his/her situation. The recipient does not have to come to
visit the particular place where the ―unique‖ artwork is located; the reproduction of
artwork would reach the recipient instead. The reproduced work of art obtains its
actual existence as it reaches the recipient and is appreciated (read or viewed) by
him/her. The actualization of the existence of artwork does not happen somewhere
other than where the recipient is situated. Furthermore, in some form of art, such as
film, ―a mass existence‖ replacing the ―unique existence‖ of artwork might become
29
simply productions themselves, not the re-productions of the original. Therefore, the
unique and original artwork cannot be distinguished and is simply no different from
other so-called reproductions. The recipient is able to access the reproduced work of
art in his/her situation without needing to narrow the distance between him/her and
the particular place; the technology of reproduction thus ―detaches the reproduced
object from the sphere of tradition‖ (254). As the recipient can ―actualize that which
is reproduced‖ by accessing it at hand, the gap that formerly exists between the
recipient and the work of art is closing. It is with the disappearance of these two
aspects of aura—its uniqueness and its distance—that the technology of reproduction
threatens the cult value of works of art, and the mode of reception of works of art
shifts to the accentuation of the artwork‘s exhibition value.
As mentioned by Benjamin, it is around 1900 when technological reproduction
―had reached a standard that permitted it to reproduce all known works of art,
profoundly modifying their effect‖ and ―had captured a place of its own among the
artistic processes‖ (253). Therefore, it is up to this point that the pendulum swings
from aura to reproducibility and from the cult value to the exhibition value. The
moment of the change from one pole to the other—the moment when the mode of
appreciation and perception of art transfers from the accentuation of cult value to that
of exhibition value owing to the technological reproduction—goes hand in hand with
the progression of history. Thus, reproducibility in this sense could be called a
historical factor, and the moment is a historical moment. It appears that the polarity
that Benjamin proposes here is seen from a diachronic perspective because the two
poles are not set on the same horizon with one on the one side and the other on the
opposite. Is there then any difference between a synchronic perspective of a polarity
in the same space and a diachronic/historical perspective that Benjamin clearly
30
suggests here?
When talking about what triggers the change of the mode of reception of art,
Benjamin actually mentions ―the desire of the present-day masses to ‗get closer‘ to
things spatially and humanly‖ as a cause for such a change earlier than anything else
in the essay (255). Thus, is the change caused by a historical or a social factor? It is
hard to say that Benjamin privileges human desire as a primary cause just because he
wrote it down first in the essay; however, this should at least show that Benjamin is
not simply presenting a historical perspective.
History as a diachronic perspective is never excluded in Benjamin‘s argument;
nonetheless, it is always brought into a clash with a synchronic perspective. From the
diachronic/historical perspective of the polarity of the cult value and the exhibition
value, two poles can be said to be equal only when each of them holds its privileged
status at a certain period of time (or during some periods of time) and then are
opposed to each other diachronically. If the synchronic view is taken into
consideration along with this established diachronic view, two poles are impossible to
stay equal at a certain period of time as one should be privileged or dominant.
Accepting the diachronic perspective would make it possible for two poles to be
equal through different periods of time but would make it impossible for two poles to
stay equal synchronically. Accepting the diachronic view of the polarity would make
the synchronic view of such polarity impossible. If the synchronic view of the
polarity is sustained, two poles at a certain period of time should stay equal and then
the diachronic view of the polarity becomes impossible. Thus, in terms of
investigating the polarity of the two different values of works of art, only one
perspective can be kept. Most critics think that Benjamin has simply taken a
diachronic and historical perspective of the polar values but ignore that Benjamin has
31
actually created a synchronic perspective implicitly in this essay. Benjamin brings
these two perspectives into a clash and unfolds what the value of artwork is is not
simply a historical question.
It is the non-equal and slanted relation between the cult value of the artwork
and its exhibition value at a certain time period that makes the change from one value
to the other a historical phenomenon and progress. What evokes suspicion and doubt
are not just the same terms (cult value and exhibition value) treated differently in two
perspectives (one with two equal opponents forming a polarity; the other with two
non-equal opponents) but also the consequential incompatibility between the
diachronic and the synchronic perspectives. The question that is left is—how can
these two values be seen as a polarity from one perspective and as a non-polarity
from the other perspective? What causes this and why? In order for the diachronic
perspective of the polarity to sustain itself and keep itself historical, the synchronic
perspective has to show that it is impossible to keep this polarity. The impossibility of
keeping this polarity from the synchronic perspective is the basis for the possibility of
marking the historical change from the cult value to the exhibition value with a
diachronic perspective. Such impossibility also has to be shown as a historical fact.
Therefore, the answer for all questions seems to be—history.
The diachronic perspective of this polarity is presented in his essay in such a
way that Benjamin is not creating this polarity or making a choice of which value
should be privileged but simply presenting a historical observation. This, however, is
all contributed by the implied synchronic perspective of the cult value and the
exhibition value. Close to the end of his essay, Benjamin refers to architecture for its
similarity with film in terms of how the viewer receives these two forms of art:
―Architecture has always offered the prototype of an artwork that is received in a state
32
of distraction and through the collective‖ (268). The art of film advances and
manifests the change from aura to reproducibility and also from the contemplative
mode of perception to a mode of perception based on constant distraction. This is
again a diachronic perspective of how technology has led to the change of the value
of works of art and how works of art are received by the audience. It is by how
Benjamin introduces architecture as ―a prototype of artwork that has always been
received in a state of distraction‖ and juxtaposes it with the art of film for their similar
reception by the audience that an interesting synchronic perspective stealthily
emerges. Benjamin emphasizes that architecture is not something as new as the art of
film but has existed since ―primeval times,‖ and, moreover, it has never had ―fallow
periods.‖ If the reception of architecture features some characteristics so similar with
those of film, then why would the change (from aura to reproducibility and from the
contemplative mode of perception to a mode of distraction) be mobilized and
actualized by filmmaking but not by architecture?
Since architecture has already existed for so long, it must have existed at a
period of time when the cult value of art is accentuated and when the reception of
works of art relies on distance. Therefore, the cult value and the mode of reception
based on maintaining aura should have been confronted by the exhibition value that
architecture accentuates and by a mode of reception based on distraction long before
film appears. Such confrontation suggests a synchronic view, which implies that the
emphasis and the prominence of aura and the cult value of art is something that is
decided and chosen forcefully and manipulatively. The polar values and the two
different modes of reception should have been coexisting at some period of time, but
one side is acclaimed to be the only value. In short, there is a manipulative force that
makes the value of works of art tilt toward the side of aura and the cult value. From a
33
diachronic view, this manipulative force and the result that the cult value is privileged
are going to be challenged and put to test by the development of technology,
something that is not subjective but does not lack force. From the diachronic
perspective, one pole could then shift to the other; from the synchronic perspective,
one pole would be chosen and privileged. The accentuation of the cult value of the
artwork and the privilege of aura are resisted by the medium of works of art itself
since the value is redefined by the medium. However, the exhibition value that is
newly brought out is not something that never ever existed but, instead, is something
that has existed since ―primeval times‖ and that has not had ―fallow periods,‖ which
shows that such a value was simply not privileged and was probably suppressed for
the sake of maintaining aura and the cult value.
For Benjamin, art is allowed to redefine what its value is through the
metamorphosis of its medium through different time periods; however, Benjamin is
definitely not celebrating such positivism of progression but simply insinuating that
what is newly found was what was ever ignored or dismissed. What seems to be
slightly positive is that manipulative forces, which define the cult value as the value
of artwork and suppresses the exhibition value at certain historical periods, cannot
battle against the challenge initiated by the technology of reproduction. Such
challenge is supposedly an outcome of historical change. According to Benjamin,
such manipulative forces would still continue to appear, such as Nazi using film to
serve the cult value. One cannot deny the existence of manipulative forces but also
cannot deny the possibility of the medium‘s betrayal (or its non-cooperation), either.
What gesture does Benjamin hold while presenting both a clear diachronic
view and a suggestive synchronic view in his essay? What position is he taking while
bringing both perspectives into a clash? We should just wait and look forward to how
34
the medium of works of art resists to different kinds of manipulative expectations and
forces imposed on it through history. Why is the exhibition value of works of art only
discovered after the art of film appears even though there has been architecture
manifesting this same value for a long time? Do we have to wait for a historical
moment (the moment when technology of reproduction takes away the value of aura)
to know what the value of works of art is? Benjamin certainly did not ask this
question because he seems to leave it to history. If it is asked, a decision might be
made. Then, a different manipulative force upon the medium of art and the value of
works of art would be formed again. Benjamin holds a specific gesture while
presenting both a clear diachronic view and a suggestive synchronic view in his essay.
Benjamin‘s gesture shows that he is not going to contribute to exercising
manipulative forces upon the functioning of the medium and on deciding what the
value of art is. Such a gesture suggests a certain level of disagreement with any
manipulative forces but also shows that one as an individual is unable to clean out
such forces. This slight disagreement would controvert the idea that what the value of
works of art is is completely defined and discovered through the tests put up by
imposing expectations and manipulative forces in history. If the concept of foundation
stands against the concept of history this way, can we then relieve language/writing
from the function or purpose of carrying social values or socially-defined values? Or,
should we continue asserting our purposiveness and decisiveness on the function of a
medium and the value of art, and when they fail, we assert more? For Benjamin, these
questions will have been answered.
Is Benjamin‘s gesture a decision of conscience? I would say no. First, watching
a force succeeding once and challenged, threatened, and failing later and then
watching another force taking over probably brings one a sense of futility, if not
35
stupidity, of imposing another ―new‖ force. Second, such failing tells a very clear
characteristic of the functioning of a medium—i.e. its incapability of
embodying/carrying any social forces fully, its non-rejecting but non-cooperative
feature. In ―On the Mimetic Faculty,‖ Benjamin concludes that language is ―a
medium into which the earlier powers of mimetic production and comprehension
have passed without residue, to the point where they have liquidated those of magic‖
(336). Powers exercised upon and within language are ―liquidated‖ as language goes
through stages of development. Language as a medium liquidates and thus wanders
away from whatever magic powers it is supposed or expected to carry.
Benjamin‘s gesture is related to how he presents and organizes different
sections his essay. He arranges different sections in a way that the diachronic
perspective will have to clash with the synchronic one; the clash means that there are
manipulative forces involved in the definition of the value of art in history and that
they do succeed but fail as well. Benjamin would not assert a value of art and join in
the movement of this historical pendulum. This position is especially interesting
because he combines sections of the essay together like juxtaposing different images
in poetry without stating their connection. Benjamin‘s gesture signifies his
understanding of the very constitutional characteristic of the functioning of a medium
and also his unwillingness to impose another manipulative force. This gesture echoes
the subject‘s position in the operation of metonymy (defined by Roman Jakobson as
the operation of combination/contexture of constituent elements based on their
temporal, spatial, semantic, or positional/syntactic contiguity), a position that is
withdrawn and allows different significant images, incidents, or views to be combined
or juxtaposed in order to evoke an un-preconceived idea.
36
III
Derrida‟s Deferred Effects and de Man‟s Non-Representational Meanings
Enable the Liquidating Power of Language
Derrida‘s understanding about the functioning of language supports Benjamin‘s
observation of the liquidating power of language. In Of Grammatology, regarding the
critical opinion that written words are inferior to spoken words because, according to
Aristotle, ―‗spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are
the symbols of spoken words‘‖ (11), Derrida points out that such hierarchy is based
on the belief in the very ideal that there is unification between sign and its referent,
between the signifier and the signified. He later argues that spoken words are no
closer to the original, the real, than the written words and that the original is forever
away from being captured because the moment one uses a word, a signifier, to name
the origin, the signified, what is obtained, is not the origin as the signified but the
origin as the signifier, which Derrida designates as ―the origin of the origin,‖ ―the
signifier of the signifier.‖ Derrida‘s explanation about the functioning of language
centers on ―différance as differing/deferring‖ (23). Derrida does not use différance as
a new ―origin or ground‖ to replace the concept of origin that has been questioned
(23). However, it is definitely more ―originary‖ (23) and ―anterior to all that one calls
sign (signified/signifier, content/expression)‖ (62). Considering temporality involved
in the signification of sign (i.e., signifier as here and now; signified as there and then),
Derrida proposes two dimensions—protention as what is anticipated and retention as
what is retained in the trace—and stresses that ―protention is as indispensable as
retention‖ and that neither of them is privileged (66). The trace, for Derrida, does not
refer to ―an absolute past‖ but ―a present-past,‖ and ―the strange movement of the
trace proclaims as much as it recalls: différance defers/differs‖ (66). Thus, for Derrida,
what is written at the present moment is not the trace or différance; instead, its
37
signification is derived from but does not preexist the movement of the
trace—différance. The signifier proclaims a possible meaning emerging from the
present moment but also recalls a past (or a presence), which is actually not a past but
a present-past. Therefore, the signifier differs from a past recalled, an absolute past,
the supposed signified. The signifier also defers because a possible meaning as a
deferred effect is to be proclaimed in the present.
According to Derrida‘s discussion about ―différance as differing/deferring,‖ in
the relation between the signifier and signified (or between the representation and the
represented or even as broad as between self and other), what defines the signification
of writing is not the supposed signified, the real as the represented, or the other as the
presence, but the very relation in between. And, what defines this relation is
différance as the movement of the trace, which moves seemingly backward but
constantly forward. Différance as the movement of the trace defines the signification
of sign; in his essay, ―White Mythology,‖ this movement is highly relevant to his
understanding about metaphor: ―It [metaphor] risks disrupting the semantic plenitude
to which it should belong. Marking the moment of the turn or of the detour during
which meaning might seem to venture forth alone, unloosed from the very thing it
aims at however, from the truth which attunes it to its referent, metaphor also opens to
the wandering of the semantic‖ (241). According to Jakobson, metaphor is the
operation of substitution/selection of constituent elements based on their similarity
(60). Metaphor should have a proper referent for which it is substituted, and its
signification lies in finding such referentiality. Just as a noun should designate ―the
thing which the noun habitually designates,‖ metaphor should designate the very
referential meaning; however, Derrida suggests that metaphor makes a turn or a
detour and wanders away from the supposedly designated meaning and ―carries itself
38
elsewhere‖ (―White Mythology‖ 241). Searching for the designated meaning of
metaphor, the proper referent, is actually ―delimiting it‖ ―by barring its movements:
just as one represses by crossing out, or just as one governs the infinitely floating
movement of a vessel in order to drop anchor where one will‖ (244). Therefore,
interpreting a metaphor by locating its proper referent is limiting the possible meaning
of the metaphor and is owing to a forceful imposition of one‘s will. Derrida
emphasizes that ―[t]he word [of metaphor] is written only in the plural,‖ which means
that there is no one primary metaphor, the ―‗central,‘ ‗fundamental,‘ ‗principal‘
metaphor to decide ―the assured legibility of the proper‖ and to forbid the play of
metaphors (268). The law established to secure the proper meaning of metaphor is
itself a metaphor. Such a law will bar metaphor‘s movement and disallow such
qualities of metaphor as floating and wandering.
Paul de Man shares Derrida‘s views about the disruptive force of metaphor and
the slippery relation between sign and referent (between signifier and signified). De
Man expresses such ideas differently in ―Lyric and Modernity‖: ―[o]ne of the ways in
which lyrical poetry encounters this enigma [the enigma of language] is in the
ambivalence of a language that is representational and nonrepresentational at the same
time‖ (185). To clarify this enigma, de Man first introduces and explains symbol and
allegory in this essay. De Man questions not only the problem of locating the
historical origin of modern poetry but also the linguistic and rhetorical features
attached to it in order to maintain its difference from the poetry of Romanticism. De
Man points out that modern poetry, as Hugo Friedrich observes and deplores, signifies
―a loss of the representational function of poetry,‖ a lyrical voice‘s lack of ―the
expression of a unity between the work and the empirical person,‖ and a loss of reality
(172). In the same essay, similar with Hugo‘s observation and concern, Hans Robert
39
Jauss characterizes ―allegorical style‖ as ―the absence of any reference to an exterior
reality of which it would be the sign‖ and also the ―disappearance of the object.‖
Therefore, according to these critics, the allegorical style speaks for the thematic
quality of modern poetry. In terms of allegory, de Man especially emphasizes that
Walter Benjamin has ―helped to restore to some of its full implication‖ by drawing
attention to ―a tension within language that can no longer be modeled on the
subject-object relationships‖ (174). De Man further adds, ―[i]n an earlier essay,
Benjamin had suggested that ‗the intensity of the interrelationship between the
perceptual and the intellectual element‘ be made the main concern of the interpreter of
poetry‖ (174). To follow Benjamin‘s logic, it becomes questionable to interpret poetry
by assuming that the work is written based on the subject‘s perception or experience
of the object (in the exterior reality or the outside world). To see how ―the intellectual
element‖ plays into or even interrupts the perceptive mode of viewing the object and
the world is important for interpreting poetry. De Man thinks that Benjamin‘s
statement ―indicates that the assumed correspondence between meaning and object is
put into question‖ (174). In other words, ―object‖ or ―exterior reality‖ does not have
correspondent meanings in the written work; meanings in the written work do not find
their sources in ―any outward object‖ or ―an exterior reality.‖ Different from symbol,
allegory then has its sources only in the literary work.
The tension within language (for Benjamin) is the enigma of language (for de
Man) that lies ―in the ambivalence of a language that is representational and
nonrepresentational at the same time‖ (185). The representational signifies the literal
meaning of the language; the nonrepresentational signifies the allegorical power of
the language (185). The literal meaning of the language is based on the symbolic and
mimetic relation between words and objects or between words and the exterior reality.
40
Symbol ―represents objects in nature‖ and allegory ―is actually taken from purely
literary sources‖ (171). De Man explains that these two elements coexist but do not
coexist peacefully. Instead, ―the allegorical power of language undermines and
obscures the specific literal meaning of a representation open to understanding‖ (185).
The allegorical power being able to undermine and obscure the specific literal
meaning is related to Derrida‘s metaphor being able to be ―unloosed from the very
thing it aims at‖ and venture forth to somewhere else. Différance differs and defers at
the same time. A sign proclaims its possible deferred effects and meanings from the
present and retains a past (or a presence) which is a present-past and is different from
the real past (or the real presence). A sign‘s possible deferred effects facilitate the
impossibility of the unity between signifier and signified (between sign and referent).
Metaphor‘s disrupting force—its wandering and slipping away from its
referent—takes away the possibility of correspondence between metaphor and its
proper referent. The allegorical power, the nonrepresentational function of language,
defies the representational function of language and questions the meanings based on
the representational function. Since allegory ―is actually taken from purely literary
sources,‖ an important question to ask is—what is particular in the literary work that
allows the allegorical to defy and wander away from the referential point in the real
(―object‖ or ―exterior reality‖) and to have its nonrepresentational element of
language undermine its representational element? (This question will be answered in
the next section in this chapter because some of de Man‘s ideas should be clarified
first.)
Although de Man points out the importance of the nonrepresentational element
in language and its power to undermine the representational element, he stresses that
―all allegorical poetry must contain a representational element that invites and allows
41
for understanding only to discover that the understanding it reaches is necessarily in
error‖ (185). De Man suggests that the so-called allegorical poetry must include a
representational element. Even though the representational element functions through
negativity, its negativity, its error, contributes to the understanding and discovery of
the meanings reached by the allegorical power, the nonrepresentational function of
language. De Man‘s main critique is that, for the sake of maintaining the historical
continuity based on the movement from the mimetic/symbolic to the allegorical,
critics (such as Friedrich and Jauss) have to claim that symbol and allegory have to be
opposed to each other and that representational poetry cannot be allegorical and
allegorical poetry is said to carry no representational element. For de Man, ―[a]ll
representational poetry is always also allegorical,‖ and ―the allegorical is made
representational‖ always (185). The critics, such as Friedrich and Jauss, have decided
what function of language that modern poetry characterizes and are blind to ―the
ambivalence of a language that is representational and nonrepresentational at the same
time‖ (185).
De Man did not say that the representational was already allegorical but that
―[a]ll representational poetry is always also allegorical.‖ The difference is that the first
suggests that the representational is itself already the allegorical and the latter
suggests that the poetry labeled as the representational actually carries the allegorical
or nonrepresentational element. The latter suggestion does not question the possibility
that the representational element can sustain itself alone—i.e., the possibility that the
referential connection between sign and object can be sustained (even though it might
be undermined later)—but the first suggestion questions this possibility. The wording
in the statement ―all allegorical poetry must contain a representational element‖
implies the same issue—i.e. the allegorical poetry carries the representational element
42
but whether the allegorical is at the same time the representational is not clear.
Nonetheless, at the end of the essay, de Man does suggest that the allegorical cannot
exist by itself and cannot sustain itself alone without the representational. When de
Man says that the enigma is ―the ambivalence of a language that is representational
and nonrepresentational at the same time,‖ a language cannot have the
representational element function alone and suspend the function of the
nonrepresentational element. In other words, if these two elements do function ―at the
same time,‖ one cannot sustain itself as a complete existence first and wait for the
other‘s participation (be it an undermining force or not)—i.e., one cannot claim the
meaning of a representation on the one hand and the meaning of a non-representation
on the other and see how they work together. The representational should have the
allegorical, the nonrepresentational, within, and vice versa.
De Man does not follow the understanding of such ambivalence in language
through the whole essay, but Derrida‘s différance fully captures the enigma of
language that de Man notices. For Derrida, ―an absolute past,‖ ―an originary
presence,‖ or ―an always-already-there‖ can never be ―summed up in the simplicity of
a present‖ (Of Grammatology 66). Différance is ―the movement of the trace,‖ which
―proclaims as much as it recalls.‖ What is retained in what is written in the present
has severed itself from ―an absolute past‖; what is anticipated and proclaimed in the
present has also severed itself from ―an absolute past.‖ Thus, this referential
connection is always functioning, but the connection is never achieved completely
because ―an always-already-there‖ can never be reduced to what is written in the
present. ―[T]he irreducibility of the always-already-there‖ signifies not only the
impossibility of securing ―an absolute past‖ in the present but also the impossibility of
proclaiming a future without the recognition of a past being irreducible and of time
43
being always passive. Therefore, for de Man, it is possible to secure the literal
meaning based on the representational function of language first even though this
meaning might be undermined and obscured by the meaning drawn from the
non-representational function of language. Derrida‘s différance questions the
possibility that the representational function of language can ever be fully achieved
first. Nonetheless, de Man in a different essay, ―Semiology and Rhetoric,‖ asserts and
explains that the literal has figurative signification and that the figurative is bound to
the literal. (I will have further discussion on ―Semiology and Rhetoric‖ in the next
section of this chapter.)
The difference between Derrida and de Man is that, for Derrida, what the
signifier recalls is not a real presence or an absolute past, but de Man‘s
representational meaning of the language is the literal, which refers to the real (the
object or the exterior reality). In the essay, ―Criticism and Crisis,‖ de Man shows his
full awareness of the problem of viewing representation as the function of language :
―The same discrepancy exists in everyday language, in the impossibility of making
the actual expression coincide with what has to be expressed, of making the actual
sign coincide with what it signified‖ (11). This idea is similar to Derrida‘s idea that a
sign inherently differs from its signified, ―an always-already-there.‖ If this
discrepancy is fundamental, is it always an effort in vain to use words to capture the
intended signified (be it ―an object,‖ ―an absolute past,‖ or the intended meanings)?
De Man succinctly describes this discrepancy as follows: ―It is the distinctive
privilege of language to be able to hide meaning behind a misleading sign, as when
we hide rage and hatred behind a smile. But it is the distinctive curse of all language
[…] that it is forced to act this way‖ (11). It is the curse that language can never
function in a way where a sign is unified with its referent and words can represent the
44
real. However, this curse is a privilege because language then could function like a
mask, which reveals and hides meanings at the same time. Language does not
represent because as a real object is put into a word, the word take its forever
departure from the real, the supposed signified.
This curse of language—i.e., the forever failing function of representation in
language—explains the functioning of language and shows where the potential of
literary language lies. Stéphane Mallarmé says, ―I say: a flower! And, out of my
oblivion where my voice casts every contour […], in so far as it is something other
than the known bloom, there arises […] the very idea in its mellowness; in other
words, what is absent from every bouquet‖ (210). It is because language has a
fundamental break with the real that the word, ―flower,‖ has the possibility and the
privilege of evoking an idea in its particular ―mellowness,‖ which is different from
―the known bloom‖ and which does not exist in any real ―bouquet.‖ The potential of
language lies in its departure and difference from the real, not in its unification or
correspondence with the real. Derrida has the same example of flower and shares the
same idea with Mallarmé: ―There is always, absent from every garden, a dried flower
in a book […]‖ (White Mythology 271). A flower in a book cannot find its garden in
the real where the flower is supposed to be grown and nourished. I will add that ―a
dried flower in a book‖ can only find its garden in the book.
De Man is certainly aware of how and why language cannot represent. However,
he did claim that some lines in Mallarmé‘s poem about Verlaine have representational
meanings, which include the ―representational logic of the line, the cloud […] covers
up the star‖ (181), the rock being similar with Verlaine‘s ―dark and hulking shape‖
(178), and so on. He did emphasize the importance of the representational in ―Lyric
and Modernity.‖ Nonetheless, in the same essay, he states—that ―this [Benjamin‘s
45
suggestion] indicates that the assumed correspondence between meaning and object is
put into question‖ (174). In this case, meaning in a literary work cannot find its source
in a real object or an exterior reality, and this is said to be the nonrepresentational
element. However, in his discussion of Mallarmé‘s poem, the representational element
then can still sustain itself completely even though it might encounter the
undermining force of the nonrepresentational later. Nonetheless, de Man still claims
that these two elements exist at the same time. Then, the representational element will
always have already been obscured or undermined by the nonrepresentational. This
later possibility is more consistent with the ideas that he said in ―Criticism and
Crisis,‖ and coincides with Derrida‘s différance.
De Man and Derrida both discussed the functioning of language and its
paradoxical foundation but did not attempt to determine how language should work
and what the value of works of art should be. A sign‘s fundamental break with the real
and the past partially explains the liquidating power of language. What a sign, a word,
a detail, an image proclaims in its current syntax and context will further explain how
the functioning of language further facilitates this possibility—the liquidating power
of words—within a literary work. It is a curse that the past and the real are irreducible
in a sign in the present, but it is also a privilege that a sign has such an inherent gap
from the real and the past and is thus able to proclaim ―deferred‖ effects or meanings
from its current context(s). It is through this privilege that ―a dried flower in a book‖
is ―absent from every garden‖ in the real and is able to ―liquidate‖ meanings given by
any real garden. It is through this same privilege that a flower said by Mallarmé can
evoke an ―idea in its mellowness,‖ which is different from any ―known bloom‖ and
―absent from every bouquet.‖ A literary sign signifies what is absent in the real. A
literary sign, which is often said to have mimetic connection with the real, can
46
actually liquidate its mimetic connection with the real through its very
foundation—i.e. its very constitution has already defied the possibility of its
unification with the real. The fundamental break also partially explains why and how
the contextual signification within a text overcomes the signification of external
social/cultural contexts of a text. A flower within a literary work has an inherent break
with any real garden, which might have its own definition and evaluation of a flower.
It should be a curse and a privilege for a flower in a literary work to never coincide
with a real flower. However, viewing this only as a curse will lead to a desperate need
to situate a flower in a literary work back into a real garden. This desperate need
violates the very constitution of language, and what is sufficient and advantageous in
language then is turned into a lack, a defect, or a fault.
IV
The Liquidating Power of Language: the Syntactic and the Metonymic
What allows metaphor to initiate the movement of making a turn, a detour, and
wandering/floating around and away from the supposedly designated meaning and
thus ―carry itself elsewhere‖? What is particular in the literary work that allows the
allegorical to defy and wander away from the referential point in the real (―object‖ or
―exterior reality‖) and to have its nonrepresentational element of language undermine
the representational element? What allows a flower in verse to have a different
signification from a real flower? What allows a medium to liquidate its defined
function and its decided value?
Derrida‘s answer is syntax. De Man‘s answer is the syntactical or the
grammatical. My answer is metonymy. The following discussion will show the
connection and the correlation of these three answers.
According to Derrida, syntax (instead of constraining the meaning of metaphor)
47
is what makes possible such qualities of metaphor as floating and wandering: ―Now, it
is because the metaphoric is plural from the outset that it does not escape syntax; and
that it gives rise, in philosophy too, to a text which is not exhausted in the history of
its meaning (signified concept or metaphoric tenor: thesis), in the visible or invisible
presence of its theme (meaning and truth of Being)‖ (―White Mythology‖ 268).
Metaphor does not need to escape syntax in order to reach the destination of its proper
meaning. Moreover, it is through syntax that the meaning of metaphor is not reduced
to any ―signified concept or metaphorical tenor.‖ It is through syntax that metaphor
―gets carried away within itself, cannot be what it is except in erasing itself,
indefinitely constructing its destruction‖ (268). Metaphor gets carried away from its
proper meaning because of syntax. Within a text, what surrounds a metaphor, its
syntax, gives the metaphor a chance to wander away from its supposedly proper
meaning. As syntax varies, metaphor gets carried away to different places, and each
time, it constructs a meaning based on its own destruction (i.e., the destruction of its
proper meaning).
Derrida‘s emphasis on the importance of syntax and its relation to the floating
and wandering quality of metaphor has already added a metonymic element to
metaphor. According to Jakobson, ―any linguistic sign involves two modes of
arrangement‖: 1) combination/contexture, which means that ―[a]ny sign is made up of
constituent signs and/or occurs only in combination with other signs‖; 2)
selection/substitution, which implies ―the possibility of substituting one for the other,
equivalent to the former in one respect and different from it in another‖ (―Two
Aspects of Language‖ 60).1 Later in the essay, Jakobson extends the discussion of
these two basic modes of linguistic arrangements and relates them to two tropes:
metonymy and metaphor. Thus, metaphor is defined as the operation of
48
selection/substitution of constituent elements based on their similarity and metonymy
as the operation of combination/contexture of constituent elements based on their
contiguity (76). Jakobson introduces different kinds of contiguity, which includes the
temporal, semantic, positional/syntactic, and spatial contiguity. To apply Jakobson‘s
definition, Derrida‘s ―syntax‖ is metonymy on the basic linguistic level—i.e., the
combination of constituent linguistic units based on their positional/syntactic
contiguity. Derrida‘s usage of the word, syntax, suggests that syntax as one kind of
operation of metonymy allows metaphor to get carried away to somewhere else.
Derrida‘s points of view suggest that there is blindness in writing or reading metaphor
without regarding how metonymy (as syntax here) works. As syntax provides
metaphor a chance to wander away from its proper meaning, the functioning of
metaphor cannot be separated from syntax.
Jakobson defines metaphor as relatively different from metonymy but also
emphasizes that they are not exclusive of each other—i.e., the operation of metaphor
does not exclude the operation of metonymy, and vice versa (63). Derrida‘s discussion
of syntax and its relation to metaphor shows that ―the metaphoric is plural from the
outset‖ because it emerges only through syntax and through ―a text‖ that is created
again and again in history. Metonymy as syntax thus allows metaphor to proclaim and
gather meanings and deviate from its designated meanings at the same time. Derrida‘s
idea about how syntax allows metaphor to get carried away from its proper meaning
explains and supports Benjamin‘s idea of how language is able to liquidate enforced
powers. Jackobson‘s definition and understanding of metonymy help clarify how
meanings can emerge from the combination/contexture of constituent elements (based
on their syntactic/positional contiguity in this case). Such emergent meanings from a
contexture within a text allow a metaphor to liquidate its proper meaning.
49
For Jakobson, figurative language consists of two kinds—metaphor and
metonymy. Derrida‘s syntax signifies the operation of metonymy on the basic level
because syntax can be defined as combination/contexture of constituent linguistic
units based on their position/syntactic contiguity. Jakobson thinks of metaphor and
metonymy as two significant aspects of language not only because their operations
coincide with two basic modes of linguistic arrangements but also because they are
two tropes that have their own fundamental features and differences. Furthermore,
other modes of figurative language can fall into either of these two categories based
on their operation (i.e., operation of selection/substitution or that of
combination/contexture). For example, both simile and symbol belong to the
operation of selection/substitution, which defines metaphor; synecdoche belongs to
the operation of combination/contexture, which defines metonymy (78).
If metonymy is only syntax, then metonymy could hardly be seen as a trope.
Jakobson sees metonymy as a trope and its operation as a very significant mode of
figurative language. The operation of metonymy based on positional/syntactic
contiguity focuses more on the combination of very basic linguistic units and is less
related to figurative language and rhetorical meanings of words. Nonetheless,
Derrida‘s discussion about the relation between metaphor and syntax already shows
that syntax makes possible the metaphorical meanings (i.e., the ―plural‖). Similarly,
de Man in the essay, ―Semiology and Rhetoric,‖ also suggests that sometimes the
so-called literal meaning of words could become rhetorical and figurative. I propose
that the operation of metonymy based on the temporal, semantic, or spatial contiguity
should further explain and clarify why metonymy can be seen as a distinguished trope
different from metaphor. Before I elaborate on these different kinds of contiguity and
their signification, I would like to introduce de Man‘s important observation and
50
criticism on the relation between grammar and rhetoric, between metonymy and
metaphor. His discussion will further complicate the understanding of metaphor and
metonymy and also explain the special significance of metonymy.
In ―Semiology and Rhetoric,‖ de Man introduces that ―[o]ne of the most
striking characteristics of the literary semiology as it is practiced today, in France and
elsewhere, is the use of grammatical (especially syntactical) structures conjointly with
rhetorical structures without apparent awareness of a possible discrepancy between
them‖ (6). De man defines ―the study of tropes and of figures‖ as ―how the term
rhetoric is used here‖ (6). De Man disagrees that grammar and rhetoric can ―function
in perfect continuity‖ and that rhetoric is seen as ―a mere extension of grammatical
models, a particular subset of syntactical relations‖ (6). The grammatical structures
cannot be smoothly transferred into rhetorical structures, which are not derivative
structures of the grammatical or the syntactical. According to de Man, the
grammatical structures include syntax and will be defined as the functioning of
metonymy later in this essay. From de Man‘s usage of words in this essay, it is
obvious that he is familiar with Jakobson‘s ideas of metaphor and metonymy since he
expresses the ―syntagmatic relationship‖ as ―the contiguity of words to each other‖
and directly uses ―metonymy‖ as opposed to metaphor in the essay. In short, de Man
creates two groups of words: grammar/syntax/metonymy/the literal and
rhetoric/tropes/metaphor/the figurative. De Man, like Derrida, mentions syntax, but
unlike him, de Man directly names it as metonymy. Different from Derrida
emphasizing the possible cooperation between metaphor and syntax, de Man points
out that there is tension between grammar and rhetoric, between metonymy and
metaphor.
There are three important examples de Man discussed in the essay. First
51
example will show the tension between grammar and rhetoric (also between the literal
and the figurative)—when ―asked by his wife whether he wants to have his bowling
shoes laced over or laced under, Archie Bunker answered with a question: ‗What‘s the
difference?‘‖ (9). De Man explains the difficulty of deciding the meaning of the
husband‘s question: ―The same grammatical pattern engenders two meanings that are
mutually exclusive: the literal meaning asks for the concept (difference) whose
existence is denied by the figurative meaning‖ (9). Therefore, the literal meaning
cannot coexist with the figurative. De Man uses Yeats‘ poem ―Among School
Children‖ as the second example. Through the discussion of the ending of the poem,
de Man questions the typical understanding that the literal meaning is more simple
and easier to grasp and the figurative meaning is more difficult and requires more
effort and imagination to understand. Presenting his analysis of the last line of this
poem, he concludes that the literal meaning is not necessarily less complicated than
the figurative. The third example is a passage in Marcel Proust‘s Swann’s Way. The
passage shows ―the juxtaposition of figural and metafigural language‖ (14). De Man
points out that the passage ―contrasts two ways of evoking the natural experience of
summer and unambiguously states its preference of one of these ways over the other:
the ‗necessary link‘ that unites the buzzing of the flies of the summer makes it a more
effective symbol than the tune heard ‗perchance‘ during the summer‖ (14). In the
passage, this contrast happens while the narrator lies on his bed with a book in a room
which is protected from the afternoon sun. The narrator thinks that different from ―a
human tune‖ that is ―heard perchance during the summer,‖ ―their [the flies‘] little
concert‖ is ―connected to summer by a more necessary link‖ (13). De Man thinks that
the narrator‘s ―preference is expressed by means of a distinction that corresponds to
the difference between metaphor and metonymy, necessity and chance being a
52
legitimate way to distinguish between analogy and contiguity‖ (14). Such preference
then shows ―the aesthetic superiority of metaphor over metonymy (14). Nonetheless,
for de Man, ―the text does not practice what it preaches‖ (15).
Even though the passage preaches the superiority of metaphor, ―the assertion of
the mastery of metaphor over metonymy owes its persuasive power to the use of
metonymic structures‖ (15). In other words, the mastery of metaphor operates through
the usage of metonymic structures. De Man here emphasizes metonymy as grammar.
Thus he sums up: ―By passing from a paradigmatic structure based on substitution,
such as metaphor, to a syntagmatic structure based on contingent association such as
metonymy, the mechanical, repetitive aspect of grammatical forms is shown to be
operative in a passage that seemed at first sight to celebrate the self-willed and
autonomous inventiveness of a subject‖ (14-15). Metaphor seems to show the
subject‘s ―autonomous inventiveness‖ because metaphor signifies the unifying power
(i.e., metaphor creates the ―necessary link‖ that unites tenor and vehicle). However,
just ―when the highest claims are made for the unifying power of metaphor, these very
images [the figures that appear in Proust‘s passage] rely in fact on the deceptive use of
semi-automatic grammatical patterns‖ (16). Therefore, the use of the grammatical
patterns intervenes in the operation of metaphor. As the grammatical structures do not
succumb to any individual manipulation, they put into question ―the self-willed and
autonomous inventiveness,‖ which is made manifest through the subject‘s usage of
metaphor. The essence of metaphor is thus put into question by its inevitable reliance
on the grammatical patterns (i.e., metonymy).
This relation between metaphor and metonymy is similar to Derrida‘s
understanding that metaphor obtains different meanings through syntax and cannot be
separated from syntax. Derrida suggests that as metaphor wanders away from its
53
proper meaning and gets carried away to somewhere else through syntax, it constructs
a meaning on the basis of its own deconstruction (i.e., deconstruction of its proper
meaning); nonetheless, de Man thinks that ―the deceptive use of semi-automatic
grammatical patterns‖ shows the ―deconstruction of metaphor‖ as it ―takes us back to
the impersonal precision of grammar and of a semiology derived from grammatical
patterns‖ (16). According to de Man, what metaphor is believed to achieve is put into
question by the grammatical patterns that it relies on. Metaphor is assumed to operate
by creating unity and resemblance. However, the possible seamless connection
between tenor and vehicle cannot succeed without the use of grammatical patterns.
Both Derrida and de Man think that the operation of metaphor carries its own
deconstruction. For Derrida, what is under deconstruction is metaphor‘s proper
meaning; for de Man, metaphor cannot achieve full unity or resemblance (between
tenor and vehicle) without any discrepancy and interruption, which the operation of
metonymy makes manifest. De Man further explains how metaphor and metonymy
are tangled in the example of the narrator in Proust‘s passage. Even if the narrator is
reduced ―to the status of a mere grammatical pronoun, without which the narrative
could not come into being, this subject remains endowed with a function that is not
grammatical but rhetorical, in that it gives voice […] to a grammatical syntagm‖ (18).
Being situated within the grammatical structures, the narrator is a just pronoun;
however, ―[t]he term voice […] is, of course, a metaphor inferring by analogy the
intent of the subject from the structure of the predicate‖ (18). Thus, the narrator is a
figure, which resembles a subject; nonetheless, the figure remains a mere grammatical
noun. The same paradox continues when a text ―asserts its decision to escape from
textual confinement‖ but can only do so by creating more text (18). As the pronoun in
a text seems to be free from the grammatical structures by resembling a subject and
54
evoking a voice, it can only achieve this by being a pronoun.
According to de Man, metonymy deconstructs metaphor, and metaphor also
deconstructs metonymy. Since ―individual metaphors […] are shown to be
subordinate figures in a general clause whose syntax is metonymic,‖ ―it seems that the
rhetoric is superseded by a grammar that deconstructs it. But this metonymic clause
has as its subject a voice whose relationship to this clause is again metaphorical‖ (28).
As those figures in Proust‘s passage show that their metaphorical connections cannot
be achieved outside any grammatical structures, metonymy puts into question
metaphor‘s superiority. However, as the combination of metonymic elements requires
its subject to have a voice, the operation of metonymy relies on the operation of
metaphor. De Man observes both the tension and mutual-reliance between metaphor
and metonymy. Thus, the assertion of the superiority of metaphor over metonymy is
blind to the irony in its own conviction.
De Man‘s argument helps clarify the signification of metonymy, its difference
from metaphor, and the problem with the predominance of metaphor over metonymy.
To conclude his ideas in his discussion of these three examples, the continuity from
grammar to rhetoric is questionable; there are tension and conflict between the literal
and the rhetorical meanings; the literal meaning could be more complicated than the
rhetorical; the operation of metaphor relies on the grammatical patterns (i.e.,
metonymy); finally, there is deconstructive nature in literary language as metaphor
and metonymy frustrate and threaten each other‘s operation and each other‘s claim for
dominance. Therefore, just as ―the ambivalence of a language that is representational
and nonrepresentational at the same time‖ discussed in the previous section (―Lyric
and Modernity‖ 185), grammar and rhetoric (or the literal and the rhetorical meanings)
coexist but compete and conflict with each other in disharmony. What is interesting
55
and significant is that even though metonymy signifies the impossibility of any escape
―from textual confinement,‖ this very deconstructive nature of language defines
literature, which is not as negative as it seems. For example, with the understanding of
metonymy and the deconstructive nature of literary language, one could replace ―the
question of the self from the referent into the figure of the narrator‖ (17). Then, the
question to ask is not about whom the self refers to in the real or if the self in a text
coincides with the author himself/herself, but about the self portrayed and performed
in a narrative.
De Man‘s emphasis on how metaphor relies on the usage of grammatical
patterns and thus cannot escape from and transcend the ―textual confinement‖ shows
metaphor‘s own deconstructive nature. As Derrida points out that metaphor could
obtain meanings through syntax, de Man also emphasizes that the operation of
metaphor relies on the metonymic operation. Derrida‘s ideas could evoke some
confusion in understanding metonymy because when a metaphorical meaning is
created through syntax, should it be called a metaphor or a metonymy (if we follow
Jakobson‘s definition of these two tropes)? Should it be called a metonymy generating
metaphorical meanings? If metonymy cannot be defined by itself as a trope
distinguished and different from metaphor, then some of its signification as a trope
will be erased. As its purpose is still to create metaphorical meanings, it could still be
grouped under the category of metaphor. De Man asks the same question: ―Whether
the rhetorical mode of the text in question is that of metaphor or metonymy, it is
impossible to answer.‖ Since metaphor cannot exist with the exclusion of metonymy,
and vice versa, the non-harmonious coexistence of the two defines the rhetorical
nature of literary language. De Man‘s observation that metaphor relies on the usage of
grammatical patterns (i.e., metonymy) coincides with Derrida‘s idea that metaphor
56
can betray its designated meaning and obtain meanings through syntax (as metonymic
operation on the basic linguistic level).
De Man already sees metonymy as a trope and one kind of figurative language.
Derrida also stresses that metaphorical meanings are generated through syntax, one
kind of metonymy (i.e., combination/contexture of constituent linguistic units based
their positional/syntactic contiguity by Jakobson‘s definition). De Man emphasizes
that metonymy is not subordinate to metaphor but conflicts and competes with it.
Both de Man and Derrida point out metaphor‘s reliance on metonymy and elevate the
status of metonymy in a way. As de Man observes how metaphor and metonymy
cannot exclude each other to sustain their own operations, Jakobson actually ever
ignores these two entities conjoined in the code (61-62). He describes the concurrence
of simultaneous entities as one variety of combination (60). Because metonymy is
defined as the operation of combination/contexture, metaphor is usually emphasized
as the operation of selection/substitution as different from metonymy. In ―Semiology
and Rhetoric,‖ de Man actually suggests that ―[t]here ought to be another perspective
[…] in which metaphor […] would not be defined as a substitution but as a particular
type of combination‖ (6). This perspective indirectly explains Derrida‘s treatment of
metaphor through syntax. Both de Man and Derrida strive to bring up the special
signification of metonymy, and they both show that there is an inevitable metonymic
element involved in the operation of metaphor. As metonymy is able to generate
metaphorical meanings, metaphor is created through metonymy and is inclusive of
metonymic elements. Thus, metonymy is capable of creating metaphorical meanings.
However, besides generating metaphorical meanings, could metonymy create
figurative meanings different from what metaphor can generate? Could there be some
metonymic meanings that cannot be labeled as metaphorical meanings? If not, will
57
the meanings that metonymy create always become metaphorical? Could this outcome
put metonymy under erasure in some way?
I would like to add further understanding of metonymy to de Man‘s insight. De
Man sees metonymy as a trope, but he focuses mainly on the grammatical aspects
when talking about metonymy. De Man is familiar with Jakobson‘s ideas as he refers
to him and follows his definition of metonymy, but he does not include several kinds
of contiguity that Jakobson mentions, which, in my view, should help ground
metonymy as a trope. Again, Jakobson defines metonymy as the operation of
combination/contexture of constituent elements based on their positional/syntactic,
temporal, semantic, or spatial contiguity. In order to understand these kinds of
contiguity better, it is useful to look at the two different responses to the stimulus hut:
―one response was burnt out; another, is a poor little house‖ (Jakobson 77). According
to Jakobson‘s analysis, ―the first creates a purely narrative context, while in the
second there is double connection with the subject hut: on the one hand, a positional
contiguity (namely, syntactic), and on the other, a semantic similarity‖ (77). Therefore,
a positional/syntactic contiguity refers to how the constituent units (words in this case)
are positioned right next to each other (or close to each other) based on grammatical
patterns. Explaining the semantic contiguity, Jakobson says, ―Metonymical responses
to the same stimulus, such as thatch, litter, or poverty, combine and contrast the
positional similarity with semantic contiguity‖ (77). These words as responses to the
word hut are having positional similarity because, in terms of grammar, their position
within a sentence structure is similar with hut. In other words, they occupy the same
position in a sentence structure, and because of such similarity in their positions, they
can be substituted for each other and are involved in the operation of metaphor (as
selection/substitution) based on similarity. What is metonymic in these responses is
58
that their meanings are either close to or having a certain relation to the word hut.
It is not hard to notice that the discussion of syntax as the operation of
metonymy based on the positional as well as the syntactic contiguity only emphasizes
the linguistic and grammatical aspects of metonymy. Therefore, it appears difficult to
see metonymy as a trope as significant as metaphor. Especially, when de Man
parallels grammar versus rhetoric with the literal versus the rhetorical, the
grammatical then signifies the function of metonymy and also the literal meaning. If
metonymy only signifies the usage of grammatical patterns, could the meanings it
creates be non-literal and figurative? Could metonymy evoke suggestive figurative
meanings different from metaphorical meanings?
In order to answer these questions, it is important to understand Jakobson‘s
explanation of temporal and spatial contiguity. Jakobson‘s suggests that similarity
disorder is one kind of aphasia in which a patient loses to a great degree the ability to
perform the operation of selection/substitution based on similarity (i.e., metaphor).
However, the patient will show a comparatively stable ability to do the operation of
combination/contexture based on contiguity (i.e., metonymy). Using Goldstein‘s tests,
Jakobson further explains, ―a female patient of this type [similarity disorder], when
asked to list a few names of animals, disposed them in the same sequence in which
she had seen them in a zoo; similarly, despite instructions to arrange certain objects
according to color, size, and shape, she classified them on the basis of their spatial
contiguity as home things, office materials, etc and justified this grouping by a
reference to a show window where ‗it does not matter what the things are,‘ i.e., they
do not have to be similar‖ (69). The patient lists the names of animals according to the
sequence of the animals she saw in a zoo; the patient orders and combines the names
based on the temporal contiguity (i.e., the temporal sequence in which the animals
59
were seen by the patient). Refusing to group materials together according to similarity
(a similar color, size, or shape), the patient group them according to how certain
materials are linked and related to each other within a certain space. For example, a
spoon, a fork, and a plate are not similar, but there is connection among them because
they are usually arranged or stored close to each other within a space (i.e., the spatial
contiguity). Jakobson‘s explanation covers the basic understanding of temporal and
spatial contiguity.
To extend this basic understanding, Jakobson relates it to literature. When
Jakobson analyzes the predominance of metonymy which underlies and actually
predetermines the so-called realistic trend, he offers a perspective on the operation of
metonymy within realistic novels: ―Following the path of contiguous relationships,
the realistic author metonymically digresses from the plot to the atmosphere and from
the characters to the setting in space and time‖ (78). Therefore, temporal and spatial
contiguity can decide what is to come as the next sentence, passage, scene, and so on
in a novel. How a story progresses is then dependent on the contiguous relationships
among the content of the story, the atmosphere, the characters, the setting, the details,
the environment, and so on. Jakobson emphasizes that the two types of operations
(selection/substitution and combination/contexture or metaphor and metonymy) are
―clearly realized by Ferdinand de Saussure. Yet from the two varieties of
combination—concurrence and concatenation—it was only the latter, the temporal
sequence, which was recognized by the Geneva linguist‖ (60). Jakobson especially
points out that the signification of metonymy based on temporal contiguity is not just
all about the temporal sequence. The quote also shows that temporal contiguity could
mean that two things that happen at the same time are combined and juxtaposed in a
text. Even though de Man stresses the linguistic and grammatical aspects of
60
metonymy while arguing for the deconstructive nature of literary language, he is fully
aware of these possibilities of contiguity. As he notices Proust‘s usage of the word
―perchance,‖ he surely knows that metonymy happens by chance, not by necessity
(―Semiology and Rhetoric‖ 14). Metonymy is ―contingent‖ and ―relational,‖ not like
metaphor seeking ―identity and totality‖ and ―reconciliation‖ (―Semiology and
Rhetoric‖ 14). De Man is fully aware that metonymy is based on contiguity, and his
selection of words show that the constituent elements combined in metonymy are
―relational‖ and ―contingent‖ (i.e., they are put into contexture ―perchance,‖ not by a
necessary and absolute link).
What then is special and different about the figurative meanings created
through metonymy? A pigeon can evoke a metaphorical meaning—peace. The
relation between pigeon and peace involves the operation of substitution based on
similarity. The whiteness of snow can signify purity, which involves the same
operation of metaphor. However, when a person is nervously walking up the stairs,
feels hesitant in the middle, looks up at a group of birds flying by, and their drippings
happen to drop on his shoulder (a scene that appears in the film, ―White,‖ by
Krzysztof Kieślowski), there are suggestive meanings (such as the mock from the
birds explained by Kieślowski) emerging from the combination of these different
contiguous elements (based on their spatial contiguity) in the scene. These meanings
are different from any possible metaphorical meanings of the birds.
Jakobson‘s discussion and definition of metaphor and metonymy should help
clarify the word ―representational‖ as the representational function of language is
more related to the operation of metaphor rather than that of metonymy. As de Man
thinks that the literal meanings are directly related to the grammatical, the literal
meanings are thus more related to metonymy (simply on a grammatical and syntactic
61
level). Nonetheless, in the essay, ―Lyric and Modernity,‖ de Man suggests that the
representational meaning of language is the literal and further explains that the
representational function of language is the symbolic and the mimetic—i.e., sign
refers to an exterior object or reality. Therefore, there arises some confusion because
the literal now is said to be closely connected with both metonymic and the mimetic
(as wells as the symbolic). As the symbol belongs to the operation of metaphor to
Jakobson, the literal then can be seen as the metonymic and the metaphorical. In order
to avoid such confusion, I would like to follow Jakobson‘s decision to group symbol,
simile, and metaphor together owing to the similarity of their operation—i.e., an
operation of substitution of constituent elements based on their similarity. Thus, the
representational function of language applies to any linguistic operation involved with
the substitution of one linguistic unit for another. The representational function of
language is then closely related to the operation of metaphor, not that of metonymy, in
my argument. This will also help secure the figurative status of metonymy as the
operation of metonymy, which is no longer simply on the grammatical level and
which is also different from metaphor.
The broad sense of contiguity can be exemplified and specified in all of these
relationships: relationship of cause to effect, instrument to purpose, container to
content, thing to its location, sign to signification, physical to moral, model to thing
(Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor 56). However, these possibilities of contiguity may be
too broad and may obscure the definition of contiguity. Jakobson argues that the
reading of poetry has been circumscribed within the discussion of metaphor and,
sarcastically, assimilates this kind of ―unipolar scheme‖ to one kind of aphasia called
―the contiguity disorder‖:
Thus, for poetry, metaphor, and for prose, metonymy is the line of least
resistance and, consequently, the study of poetic tropes is directed chiefly
62
toward metaphor. The actual binary has been artificially replaced in these
studies by an amputated, unipolar scheme which, strikingly enough,
coincides with one of the two aphasic patterns, namely with the contiguity
disorder. (82)
The predominance of metaphor in the reading and writing of poetry has defined poetic
language and has decided metaphor as the only figurative possibility in poetry.
Metonymy, as Jakobson implied, should have its figurative potential in poetry but has
been ignored. Since ―metonymy […] defies interpretation,‖ it is difficult for both
writers and readers to confront the challenge that metonymy creates (Jakobson 81).
Borrowing Jakobson‘s understanding of metonymy (with the special focus on
temporal and spatial contiguity), I will explore how metonymy operates and functions
in poetry and what figurative potential it has created in the poetry of Sylvia Plath and
Wallace Stevens in chapter two and three.
63
Note
1
The process of selection involves the concurrence of simultaneous entities
conjoined in the code but not in the given message, i.e., the selection connects terms
in absentia. The given utterance (message) is a combination of constituent parts
(sentences, words, phonemes, etc) selected from the repository of all possible
constituent parts (code). The combination is limited by the code of the given language,
because the speaker (as a word-user, not a word-coiner) selects the constituent parts
from the repository filled with coded units (60-61). In his interpretation of Jakobson‘s
theory, David Lodge offers an example for this operation of selection: ―Consider the
sentence, ‗Ships crossed the sea‘. This has been constructed by selecting certain
linguistic entities and combining them into a linguistic unit (syntagm) of a higher
degree of complexity: selecting ships from the set (paradigm) of words with the same
grammatical function (i.e. nouns) and belonging to the same semantic field (e.g. craft,
vessels, boats etc.); selecting crossed from the set of verbs with the same general
meaning (e.g. went over, sailed across, traversed etc.) and selecting sea from another
set of nouns such as ocean, water etc.‖ (74-5).
In terms of combination/contexture, the concatenation of linguistic units shows
the contiguous relation between the units according to their positions. For example,
the word ―fig‖ results from the combination of the phonemes: /f/, /i/, and /g/. The
phoneme /f/ is contiguous to /i/ just as /i/ is contiguous to /g/. Similarly, the words can
form a sentence based on positional and syntactic contiguity. In a sentence ―I like
figs,‖ ―I‖ is contiguous to ―like‖ just as ―like‖ is contiguous‖ to ―figs‖; these linguistic
units are combined together with appropriate syntax as well. The combination of
linguistic units works not only on the semiotic or grammatical level but also on the
semantic level. When the combination of linguistic units comes to the formation of
the sentences out of words, the speaker is less constrained. Jakobson describes an
ascending scale of freedom from the combination of distinctive features into
phonemes to the combination of sentences into utterances; in this final combination,
―the freedom of any individual speaker to create novel contexts increases
substantially‖ (60).
64
Works Cited
Albert, Georgia. Introduction. Interruptions. By Hans-Jost Frey. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 1996.
Barthes, Roland. Writing Degree Zero. Trans. Annette Lavers and Colin Smith. New
York: Hill and Wang, 1968.
Benjamin, Walter. ―On Mimetic Faculty.‖ Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms,
Autobiographical Writings. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. Ed. Peter Demetz. New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovish, 1978. 333-336.
---. ―The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility.‖ Walter
Benjamin: Selected Writings. Trans. Edmund Jephcott and others. Ed. Howard
Eiland and Michael W. Jennings. Vol. 4. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 2004. 251-283.
Butler, Judith. ―Implicit Censorship and Discursive Agency.‖ Excitable Speech: A
Politics of the Performative. New York: Routledge, 1997. 127-163.
Culler, Jonathan. The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction.
Augmented ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002.
De Man, Paul. ―Criticism and Crisis.‖ Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of
Contemporary Criticism. Trans. Wlad Godzich. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesoda Pres, 1983.
---. ―Lyric and Modernity.‖ Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of
Contemporary Criticism. Trans. Wlad Godzich. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesoda Pres, 1983.
---. ―Semiology and Rhetoric.‖ Allegories of Reading. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1979.
Derrida, Jacques. ―White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy.‖ Margins
of Philosophy. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1982. 207-271.
---. Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: The John
Hopkins University Press, 1997.
Frey, Hans-Jost. Interruptions. Trans. Georgia Albert. Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press, 1996.
Jakobson, Roman. ―Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic
Disturbances.‖ Fundamentals of Language. Co-authored with Morris Halle.
's-Gravenhage: Mouton, 1956. 53-82.
Lodge, David. The Modes of Modern Writing: Metaphor, Metonymy, and the
Typology of Modern Literature. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977.
Mallarme, Stéphane. ―Crisis of Verse.‖ Divagations. Trans. Barbara Johnson.
65
Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007. 201-211.
Ricoeur, Paul. The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-disciplinary Studies of the Creation of
Meaning in Language. Trans. Robert Czerny, Kathleen McLaughlin and John
Costello. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977.
66
Chapter Two
Metonymic Space: A Different Figurative Possibility in Sylvia Plath‟s Poetry
I
Controversy around Plath
There are plenty of controversial and contradictory comments on Plath as a poet
and on her poetry. For most critics, her later poems signify her success as a poet. John
Frederick Nims‘ observes that ―without the drudgery of The Colossus, the triumph of
Ariel is unthinkable‖; by contrast, Hugh Kenner thinks that ―[t]he formalisms of The
Colossus—assonance, rhyme, stanzaic pattern—serve a number of interdependent
offices, one of which is to reassure the genteel reader‖ (―Sincerity Kills‖ 69, 72).
Kenner sees the usage of ―formalisms‖ in Plath‘s poetry as one of her ways to
manipulate the reader: ―All her life, a reader has been someone to manipulate‖ (69);
―formalisms‖ assure the reader‘s acceptance of her work and make the reader
―half-overlook an intrusion of mortuary, the morbid, and the demonic provided that
table-manners are not disrupted‖ (72). Ted Hughes thinks that the poem ―The Stones‖
is ―unlike anything that had gone before in her work‖ and that ―throughout the poem
what we hear coming clear is the now-familiar voice of Ariel‖ (―Sylvia Plath and Her
Journals‖ 114).
According to Hughes, ―The Stones‖ is ―the last of a sequence titled
‗Poem for a Birthday‘‖ and marks ―the turning point‖ of Plath‘s writing career (114).
However, Kenner calls this poem ―the first free-fall poem.‖ According to Kenner,
―The Stones‖ no longer pretends a look of ―a sassy phrase-maker‘s control and
commenced spewing out family secrets‖ just like the poem ―All the Dead Dears‖
(72); instead, ―it [―The Stones‖] installs itself at a bound in the madhouse of six years
before‖ (Kenner 74). Hughes sees ―The Stones‖ as a poem that dates Plath‘s discovery
of ―her real poetic voice‖; nonetheless, Kenner thinks that the poem shows that Plath‘s
―poetic had gone into free fall‖ as she abandoned formalisms and indulged in
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exposing personal or family secrets (74).
Besides the contradictory opinions of whether Plath‘s later poems are better and
whether they have defined her success as a poet, there are conflicting reasons for
these opinions. Perloff claims that Plath‘s poetry does not deal with important
social/political issues and is only concerned with her personal experiences. In ―Sylvia
Plath‘s ‗Sivvy Poem: A Portrait of the Poet as Daughter,‖ Perloff points out Plath‘s
limitation: ―Plath‘s limitation is that, having finally ceased to be Sivvy, she had really
only one subject: her own anguish and consequent longing for death‖ (173). Perloff
acknowledges that Plath does use some ―political and religious images,‖ but she
thinks that Plath ―camouflaged‖ the narrowness of her only subject by introducing
these images (173). Perloff further stresses that Plath‘s references to ―Hiroshima ash‖
or ―the cicatrix of Poland‖ are simply ―calling attention to their own cleverness‖
(173). As for Plath‘s references to ―Jew,‖ ―Nazi,‖ and the ―Holocuast‖ in the poem
―Daddy,‖ Perloff thinks that ―her [Plath‘s] identification with the Jews who suffered at
Auschwitz has a hollow ring‖ (173). Contrary to Perloff‘s opinion, George Steiner
thinks that the poem ―Daddy‖ ―achieves the classic act of generalization, translating a
private, obviously intolerable hurt into a code of plain statement, of instantaneously
public images‖ (―Dying Is an Art‖ 218). Different from Perloff, Helen Vendler argues
that what is narrow about Plath‘s poetry is not a subject matter: ―What is regrettable in
Plath‘s work is not the domestic narrowness of her subject matter […] but the
narrowness of tone‖ (The Music of What Happens 276). She then further points out
that ―Plath has another narrowness, too—her scrupulous refusal to generalize, in her
best poems, beyond her own case‖ (276).
If to generalize means to relate private experiences to social and historical
issues, then it could be said that Plath did attempt to meet and had fulfilled the
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requirement of generalization. However, according to Perloff‘s comment, such a
fulfillment by Plath can still be seen as too forceful and thus unsuccessful. Vendler
concludes: ―There is more outrage and satire and hysteria in some of the last poems
than there is steady thought, especially steady thought evinced in style‖ (283).
Vendler‘s opinion is similar to Kenner‘s as they both criticize Plath‘s later poems for
their enormous exposure of personal dramatic emotions and thoughts. What one can
easily observe from these conflicting comments and reasons is that when a critic tries
to establish a standard to measure the success or failure of Plath‘s work, the standard
creates more confusion and undermines its own validity. Basically, generalization can
be seen as a reason to justify the success and failure of Plath‘s work at the same time.
One critic can use this standard to claim Plath‘s success; another can use the same
standard to claim her failure. Such a critical standard is set up for the sake of
justifying one‘s observation and judgment of Plath‘s work. What is questionable, then,
is the legitimacy of the standard itself. Can we say that a poem is better because it
deals with larger social issues and generalizes what is particular and individual?
Furthermore, is it only through relating the private and individual to the social and
political issues that the particular is generalized and the personal becomes accessible
to the reader, the public? What is generalization? How large is a large social/political
issue?
When one uses the word ―flower‖ to refer to different species of flower, the
word ―flower‖ already goes through the process of generalization. Since words are
fundamentally substitutes for the real objects or concepts, words are already
generalized to some degree. As words can never coincide with the real, how does one
measure the gap, the distance, between words and the issues that words are dealing
with (including large social/political issues or small private/personal issues)? When
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the issues dealt with are private and personal, does this mean that the gap between
words and their content is closed and that words are more unified with a writer‘s real
experiences and personal issues? To follow this presupposition, does the closeness (or
a better unification) between words and personal experiences then result in the
impossibility of generalization or reduce the possibility of generalization?
As discussed in chapter one, the gap between words and whatever issues dealt
with in the content of words is fundamental and not bridgeable. It is thus questionable
for one to claim that the gap is narrower just because the issues that words deal with
are more personal. In terms of the foundation of language, words dealing with a larger
issue do not lead to a better generalization; a smaller personal issue dealt with in
writing does not lead to a worse generalization in writing. As the gap between words
and the issues or experiences they are addressing is fundamentally the same, can one
really decide whether an issue is successfully generalized in writing only by
considering and judging how large the issue is?
The gap exists no matter what. The difference lies in a writer‘s understanding
and dealing with the gap, which define a writer‘s relation with words. In Plath‘s case,
the fundamental gap or the break between words and personal concerns is often
assumed not to exist either because her later poems might have seduced the reader
into such a reading or because the very personal issues presented in these poems have
led to an illusory effect that the distance between words and her real life experiences
is erased. To criticize what is lacking in Plath‘s work without questioning and
interrogating this assumption illustrates the problem with the criticism itself. It
becomes especially important to be aware of the gap between Plath‘s work and her
life while reading and evaluating her work. In other words, one cannot keep the
assumption that the gap between her later poems and her life is non-existent and then
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jump to the conclusion that her later poems lack generalization and that her poems
would have been better if they had dealt with issues far away from her personal life.
It is false to claim that Plath‘s later poems need to be related to larger
social/political issues when the basic step to achieve generalization—i.e, words‘
fundamental break from real experiences—is not even considered while discussing
her work. Ironically, the understanding of the gap between words and real experiences
is probably too basic to be noticed; therefore, the discussion of the issues in the
content of words appears more important than the understanding of language‘s
relation with the issues.
II
Metonymy against Metaphor
According to Roman Jakobson, the discussion of poetic language tends to focus
on the operation of metaphor and thus centers on what a sign, an image, or a detail
represents or symbolizes. As mentioned in the first chapter, Jakobson introduces
metaphor and metonymy as two significant aspects of language not only because their
operations coincide with two basic modes of linguistic arrangements but also because
they are two tropes that have their own distinctive features and differences.
Furthermore, other modes of figurative language can easily fall into either of these
two categories based on their operation. To follow Jakobson‘s definition, metaphor is
an operation of selection/substitution of constituent elements (including linguistic
units) based on their similarity and metonymy is an operation of
combination/contexture of constituent elements based on their contiguity (such as
positional/syntactic, semantic, temporal, or spatial contiguity among these elements).
Both simile and symbol belong to the operation of selection/substitution, which
defines metaphor; synecdoche belongs to the operation of combination/contexture,
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which defines metonymy. Jakobson argues that the reading of poetry has been
circumscribed within the discussion of metaphor and assimilates this kind of
―unipolar scheme‖ to one of the two aphasic patterns, namely the ―contiguity
disorder‖ (―Two Aspects of Language‖ 82). Thus, when one is only able to read and
write metaphor in poetry, one happens to have one kind of aphasia called contiguity
disorder—i.e., when a patient loses ability to do combination/contexture of
constituent elements based on their contiguity but shows stable ability to do
metaphorical substitution. Of course, Jakobson is critical and sarcastic. His conclusion
questions the predominance of metaphor in the discussion and study of poetry, which
does not mean that metaphor is insignificant but that metonymy is often ignored or
forgotten owing to metaphor‘s predominance.
The operation of syntactic and metonymic contextualization appears frequently
in Plath‘s poetry. However, this feature in her writing is often ignored owing to her
dramatic life. Plath relies on metonymy (syntax as the basic level and combining or
contextualizing
elements together by discovering and forming their different
contiguous relationships in writing as the advanced level) to evoke some unexpected
thoughts and meanings in her works. Nonetheless, most critics tend to create symbolic
and representational relations between her life and her work and between
images/details in her poems and moments/incidents in her life. This critical tendency
has disregarded Plath‘s effort in exploring the possibilities of poetic language through
metonymy. This critical tendency reads only the metaphorical meanings (i.e., the
meanings that could be obtained through finding equivalent substitutes for words,
images, and details in her poetry) but does not consider how the possible
metonymic/contextual meanings create a challenge to the metaphorical meanings. The
paradoxical nature of words signifies two different and even contradictory aspects of
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language functioning at the same time. From Jacques Derrida‘s perspective, the
foundation of language is paradoxical because sign ―recalls‖ (i.e., the referential
function) and ―proclaims‖ (i.e., the deferred effects/meanings) at the same time (Of
Grammatology 66). From Paul de Man‘s perspective, language is ambiguous because
the representational and nonrepresentational elements work at the same, and none of
them can be suspended for the sake of sustaining the other‘s validity (―Lyric and
Modernity‖ 185); the metaphorical/ the rhetorical can never exclude the
grammatical/the metonymic and vice versa (―Semiology and Rhetoric‖). Therefore, a
sign is able to proclaim a deferred meaning at its present syntax, which is different
from its referential meaning. Meanings of the nonrepresentational function of words
in their current contexts can compete and clash with their representational meanings
(which is the symbolic/mimetic function of language). Thus, metonymy can create a
serious questioning of metaphor.
Metonymic/contextual meanings in Plath‘s poetry create a challenge to an
interpretation based on the strict connection between her life and her work. In terms
of critical responses to Sylvia Plath‘s work, the signification of representational
meanings always overpowers that of non-representational meanings—i.e., the
signification of metaphor is privileged over that of metonymy. Critics tend to seek
correspondent and representational relationships between her work and her life. It is
to seek a return to the original and the real like seeking a sign‘s proper referent.
According to Derrida, différance, which explains the relation between sign and
referent (or signifier and signified or representation and the represented), signifies the
impossibility of the fulfillment of such a return and also the possibility of a deferred
meaning emerging from the sign‘s present syntax. Therefore, the attempt to claim that
Plath‘s work has a representational meaning of her real life shows a lack of
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understanding about the paradoxical foundation of language. It is not a question of
whether critics should attempt to do this or not. It is that language simply cannot
fulfill this attempt. Language does not represent.
III
Referentiality or a Fundamental Break
Several recent critics have questioned the representational relation between
Plath‘s life and her work from different critical perspectives. For example, Tracy
Brain in her essay, ―Dangerous Confessions: the Problem of Reading Sylvia Plath
Biographically,‖ questions this method of reading representational meanings into
Plath‘s poems. Brain first introduces David Yezzi‘s definition of confessional poetry:
―What makes a poem confessional is not only its subject matter […] but also the
directness with which such things are handled. […] what sets them [confessional
poems] apart from other poems is […] their artful simulation of sincerity. […] the
poet makes an artifice of honesty‖ (13). Brain uses Yezzi‘s definition to argue that
confessional poetry is not a direct exposure of one‘s emotions and experiences;
instead, the sincerity or honesty sensed in such poems is ―an artifice‖ itself. To
emphasize sincerity/honesty as ―an artifice‖ is to revise the understanding of the
word, ―confessional.‖ Diane Middlebrook observes that ―[t]he label confessional was
first applied, disapprovingly, to Robert Lowell‘s Life Studies […] and that
―confessional referred to content, not technique‖ (―What Was Confessional Poetry‖
632-3). Like Brain, George Steiner also stresses that ―the vehemence and intimacy of
the verse is such as to constitute a very powerful rhetoric of sincerity‖ (―Dying Is an
Art‖ 211-2). It becomes important for Brain and Steiner to claim and clarify that the
word ―confessional‖ does not mean that the content in a poem is a writer‘s truthful
confession of his/her personal life. Without such a claim, whatever Plath achieves in
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her writing appears to be insignificant since what she has confessed—the content—is
what matters. In other words, being sincere and sounding ―confessional‖ should be
taken as an effect created through Plath‘s ―powerful rhetoric,‖ which then necessitates
the desire to explore what Plath achieves in her writing and also makes her a more
respectable writer.
Similarly, Jon Rosenblatt criticizes that ―[t]hose who read Plath in confessional
terms thus confuse the point of departure for the poems with their transformed and
completed state‖ (The Poetry of Initiation 15). Therefore, Plath‘s life experiences
might be where her poetry starts, but her poetry does not end where her life
experiences are. Rosenblatt thinks that ―[t]he supposed inseparability of biography
and poetry turns out to be nothing more than these critics‘ preference for biographical
criticism‖ (15). Mary-Lynn Broe reminds us that ―[c]areful verbal notation of an
object or an event could be no substitute for the imaginative transformation of the
private life through the process of art‖ (Protean Poetic ix). Broe succinctly criticizes
the tendency of biographical criticism of Plath‘s poetry: ―What ought to be read
forward as the creative skill of poemmaking informed by artistic control has been read
backward as the footnoted suffering of a broken psyche‖ (Protean Poetic x). Plath has
―artistic control‖ in her so-called confessional poetry. Her life experiences are not
directly recorded in her poems but go through ―imaginative transformation,‖ which
explains Plath‘s creativity.
With these critics‘ awareness of the possible artifice and the transformative
power involved in Plath‘s writing, critical views of Plath‘s poetry appears more
beneficial. Nonetheless, if such an effort to bring focus on Plath‘s writing succeeds,
how can her life still go hand in hand with the interpretation of her work? Why does
the drama of her life never lose control over her writing? To emphasize ―artistic
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control‖ and ―imaginative transformation‖ in Plath‘s writing suggest that there are real
emotions and sentiments that need to be controlled during the process of writing and
that there have been the real incidents and feelings that are transformed into her
writing through her imagination. In short, these expressions presuppose the existence
of the real before the poems are written. It seems difficult to read Plath‘s poems
without considering her dramatic and conspicuous life, so when Broe tries to defend
Plath‘s creative power, she does not question the assumption that there has been
always the real for Plath to transform. Another possible reason is that Plath‘s journals
and a few of her interviews have shown that she does write about things in her life.
However, if ―generalization‖ cannot be an appropriate standard to measure Plath‘s
success or failure, is ―artistic control‖ a better standard (since the loss of control can
appear to be the best control)?
Brain stresses that Plath‘s life and her work are not the same and that the
speaker of a poem does not coincide with the poet. Furthermore, whereas critics often
rely on Plath‘s journals to support their reading of Plath‘s poems, Brain attempts to
deconstruct the belief in Plath‘s journals as the primary text for other texts because
such a belief is actually a variation of the belief in the non-separation between life and
work. Brain uses an incident as an example—when Plath and Ted Hughes
encountered a bear in a park where they were camping. There are three completely
different accounts of the incident (two from biographers and one from Plath). Brain
argues that Plath‘s account is not necessarily accurate since she ―may be dramatizing
the events in a writerly way, perhaps for later use‖ (15). The possibility of fictional
elements in her journals raises questions about one‘s attempt to establish referentiality
between Plath‘s work and her life with recourse to her journals. Ironically, when Brain
questions some biographers‘ problematic methods of writing about Plath, she also
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needs to refer to Plath‘s journals or letters to present her argument. Does the idea of
non-referentiality then still rely on the establishment of some referentiality?
Referentiality between sign and referent and between Plath‘s work and her life
is arbitrary and can only be forcefully constructed because signs and words carry the
fundamental break from the real (or any other signified such as the past). It is
impossible to sustain such referentiality because words are able to ―proclaim‖
meanings in their current contexts at the present. Thus, referentiality cannot be
questioned through bringing up other possibilities of referentiality. In this case,
referentiality cannot be established without obstruction. It is difficult for a sign or a
word to simply refer back to its original (the supposedly original), and this difficulty
is inevitable because of language‘s fundamental break from the signified (the real, the
original, or the past). Moreover, this difficulty—i.e., the fundamental break, gap, and
discrepancy between sign and referent and between the representation and the
represented—cannot be removed because a sign or a word proclaims something
different from its syntax (metonymy as syntax) and also because a detail or an image
signifies differently owing to its present context, its being surrounded by and situated
among other contiguous elements (i.e., metonymy as figuration). However, this
difficulty is an opportunity—a possibility for writing to create a difference, a
deviation from the path of referentiality, a ―turn‖ or a ―detour‖ ―during which
meaning might seem to venture forth alone, unloosed from the very thing it aims at
however, from the truth which attunes it to its referent, metaphor also opens to the
wandering of the semantic‖ (Derrida, ―White Mythology‖ 241). Thus, metonymy
allows a metaphor to wander away from its proper referent.
Of course, one can take this difficulty as an obstacle. Therefore, even though
the break/discrepancy between words and what they refer to or represent is
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fundamental, one can still attempt to achieve full identification between sign and
referent, between detail or image in poetry and the intended symbolic meanings, and
between work as representation and life as the represented. One can attempt to
achieve such identification only through constructing a contexture of
words/details/images. Since the break and the discrepancy are fundamental, this
attempt will become a desperate need to confirm and insist that the representation
does coincide with the represented and that what one writes does represent one‘s life.
In such a case, when metonymy operates and words/images are contextualized for the
sake of conquering the break and securing the full identification between sign and
referent, metonymic contexture might happen to interestingly reveal this very attempt
and desperate need to bridge the gap.
IV
Plath‟s Relation with “Words”
Some of Plath‘s works have shown that she took this difficulty, the fundamental
break/discrepancy, as a possibility for writing, not as an obstacle for her to get rid of.
In the poem ―Words‖ Plath directly talks about how words defy and signify meanings
at the same time and shows her insightful understanding toward the functioning of
language and the relation between writer and words:
Years later I
Encounter them on the road—
Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life. (The Collected Poems 270)
Plath creates a temporal and spatial relationship between the speaker and
―words‖—the speaker‘s encounter with ―words‖ ―on the road‖ ―years later.‖ ―Words‖
―riderless‖ implies that ―words‖ are no longer ridden or controlled by the speaker or
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anyone and that they probably do not embody or carry whatever ideas or meanings
imposed upon them by the speaker years ago. Nonetheless, the speaker can still hear
―the indefatigable hoof-taps,‖ which are the consequential effects of words written
years ago.
In the first stanza of the poem, when words were being written, words
were ―Axes / After whose stroke the wood rings, / And the echoes! / Echoes traveling
/ Off from the center like horses.‖ Therefore, ideas or powers exercised upon words
are gone years later, or, to use Walter Benjamin‘s word, words have ―liquidated‖ those
ideas or powers (―On the Mimetic Faculty‖ 336). The speaker is still able to recall
some residue, the ―indefatigable‖ tapping sounds, the lingering echoes, but what the
speaker recalls is no longer the original or the source of the echoes in the past. The
undying echoes, sounds of ―hoof-taps,‖ signify not only the existence of the past
when words were written but also the impossibility of securing the past and whatever
comes along while words as ―axes‖ cut and fell ―the wood,‖ (including the
sound/effects that words had created at the moment or the side-product of the ―sap‖
flowing when words as ―axes‖ hack the wood). In short, what is recalled now does not
coincide with what had happened in the past, and the speaker does not attempt to
establish the identification between the past and the present but tries to unfold a
difference being experienced at the present.
To borrow Derrida‘s expression, ―words‖ encountered now
retain not the past
but the ―present-past,‖ the residue, ―the trace‖ of the past (Of Grammatology 66).
What ―words‖ proclaim now lies in the present context—their being juxtaposed with
the stars reflected at the bottom of a pool. While seeing ―words‖ become ―riderless,‖
the speaker also sees a pool with stars reflected in it. The juxtaposition signifies a
possible metonymic operation—i.e., the combination/contexture of ―words‖ and a
pool with stars based on their spatial and temporal contiguity, which is especially
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suggested from the word ―while.‖ Temporally, the speaker encounters ―words‖ first
and then sees the stars, and such a temporal sequence could suggest that the
contemplation about ―words‖ being ―riderless‖ and the tapping sounds still heard is
carried onto what the speaker looks at next. Spatially, ―words‖ encountered on the
road and a pool with stars seem to be located right next to or contiguous to each other
(i.e., spatial contiguity). Such spatial contiguity suggests that the speaker might just
need to turn her head and switch her attention, and then she can spot the pool with the
stars at the bottom. Both temporal and spatial contiguity connote a perception based
on distraction—i.e., the speaker‘s perception and understanding of ―words‖ is based
on her distraction from the encounter with ―words‖ and her next attention to the image
of the pool with the stars. The temporal contiguity makes possible a transition that
signifies a little lapse of time between the encounter with ―words‖ and the attention to
the pool with the stars. The spatial contiguity creates a narrative transition that implies
a distance between ―words‖ encountered ―on the road‖ and the pool but shows that
they are contiguous to each other within the same space. The lapse of time and the
spatial distance help avoid the negativity of claiming a simple metaphor too quickly
and of drawing an easy equation between ―words‖ and the ―stars‖ too bluntly.
The stars reflected at the bottom of the pool are not ―real‖ stars and are simply
reflections; however, they could stay ―fixed‖ at the bottom of the pool without being
directly connected with real stars. They ―govern a life‖ of their own, which is
independent and separate from the real ones in the sky. Therefore, the stars at the
bottom of the pool could be like ―words.‖ As ―words‖ become ―riderless‖ and belong
to no subject, the stars at the bottom of the pool stay independent from real stars; then,
as these stars ―govern a life‖ of their own, ―words‖ encountered on the road become
―riderless‖ and are not controlled or owned by anyone but have a life governed by
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themselves. If we bring the previous discussion of metonymy into play with this
metaphorical interpretation, we can sense a subtle shift of the speaker‘s view toward
―riderless‖ words. When the speaker encounters ―riderless‖ ―words‖ on the road, the
speaker appears to be reminiscent as the ―hoof-taps‖ could still be heard; therefore,
this encounter is not one without any surprise or some sentiment. The encounter
probably leads to a pause, which signals a need for a moment of contemplation about
―words‖ whose echoes could still be heard years later; the encounter could also leads
to a question—how will the speaker respond to ―words‖ and handle this encounter?
When the speaker sees ―fixed stars‖ at ―the bottom of the pool,‖ they could
implicitly give the speaker an explanation about how words become ―riderless‖ and
how ―words‖ could ―govern a life‖ of their own as well. This explanation might
reduce the surprise or shock that the speaker might have experienced from the
encounter with ―words‖ and might make the speaker accept and understand that
―words‖ no longer belong to anyone. Nonetheless, it is also possible that the stars at
the bottom of the pool make the speaker feel more disturbed because of their
suggestive explanation, which could indirectly confirm the inevitability of words‘
becoming ―riderless‖ and their forever departure and break from the moment when
they were written and from the one who had written them. The little lapse of time and
space suggested by the word ―while‖ allow and require further attention to and
interpretation of what the speaker has understood and how the speaker‘s mind is
disturbed. Such a temporal or spatial transition through the word ―while‖ is
metonymic as it functions through the temporal/spatial contiguity between ―words‖
encountered and the ―stars‖ at ―the bottom of a pool.‖ The possibility of metonymy
here also makes the metaphorical parallel between ―words‖ and the ―stars‖ appear
only as a possibility—a possibility of a connection working only implicitly and
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suggestively through metonymic contextualization, which implies a possible
meditation and response in the speaker‘s mind. Thus, the interpretation of the poem
cannot be reduced to a metaphorical interpretation alone since the way that words,
images, and details are contextualized in this poem already suggest a resistance to a
strict identification between ―words‖ encountered now and ―words‖ like ―axes‖ in the
past—i.e., a simple metaphorical operation. If Plath is aiming for a simple
metaphorical operation, then the last three lines of the poem can be easily changed to
or reduced to an expression that words are stars or like stars at the bottom of the pool.
Metonymy in this poem thus forbids simple metaphorical reduction.
Rosenblatt emphasizes the themes of death and rebirth and self-transformation
in discussing Plath‘s poetry. When interpreting this poem ―Words,‖ he states that
―[m]etaphorically, then, language introduces death into personal reality, cutting the
living body as an ax cuts a tree and as the skull breaks the water‘s surface. Words
damage the original organic wholeness of the body by bringing death into
consciousness‖ (138). Plath compares words to axes in this poem because of the
similar consequential effects after axes cut a tree—i.e., the effects of ―the echoes‖ and
the flowing of the ―sap.‖ After words‘ stroke, ―the wood rings,‖ and ―The sap / Wells
like tears, like the Water striving / To re-establish its mirror / Over the rock.‖ That the
echoes travel like horses and that the sap wells like tears are both the results of words‘
stroke. The sap is like water that continues to flow over the rock, which turns out to
be ―a white skull, / Eaten by weedy greens.‖ Then, here comes a temporal
difference—―Years later I / Encounter them on the road.‖ Therefore, there is an
intentional disconnection between where the sap flows and where the echoes
reverberate. Basically, they are two different effects after words‘ stroke. ―The sap‖
being ―like tears‖ could be any emotion or internal turmoil that was produced while
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words were written. The echoes are ―like horses‖ running ―from the center‖ and
reverberate across places and spaces; the spatial distance that the echoes ―like horses‖
go across implies a temporal distance—―Years later.‖ As echoes go through time and
space, the sap flows over ―the rock‖ which has turned into a ―white skull / Eaten by
weedy greens‖ as these years have passed. The echoes and the sap that are produced
after words‘ stroke are on divergent paths and go in different directions during these
years. Thus, years later, when the speaker encounters words ―dry and riderless,‖ the
speaker could still hear the ―indefatigable hoof-taps‖ more or less; words being ―dry‖
has lost its connection with the sap, the side-product and aftermath of words‘ stroke
years before. The sap flowing out right after words like axes cut a tree years before
now is only a distant memory and is probably a bitter contrast to words encountered
now ―on the road‖ as they are ―dry and riderless‖ and actually govern a life of their
own, like the ―fixed stars‖ governing a life of their own at ―the bottom of the pool.‖
The ending of the poem introduces the speaker‘s understanding toward words and
their relation to her, which is neither a positive rebirth nor a negative death.
Rosenblatt also reads the details and images too symbolically and
metaphorically: ―The white skull at the water‘s bottom has given way to, or been
transformed into, the white stars, a traditional symbol of fate, destiny, or the cosmic
order‖ (139). In this quote, the sap and the echoes are confused into one single effect
after words‘ stroke. In the poem, words encountered years later are disconnected with
the sap and the ―white skull‖ that the sap like the water runs over. The disconnection
is intended by Plath as she establishes a temporal difference and then two different
consequential effects about words—i.e., being ―dry and riderless‖— years later. The
―sap‖ is now ―dry‖; ―the echoes‖ that travel ―like horses‖ are now ―riderless.‖ In this
case, stressing the coherence of a metaphor or the symbolic meanings about the stars
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really does not help unfold Plath‘s success in ―words,‖ in writing. The very last image
in this poem is very significant as it suggests that words grouped together can form a
network just like the mapping of the stars at the bottom of the pool. Words are
grouped together and form a contexture based on their positional/syntactic, temporal,
or spatial contiguity. Syntax is a very basic linguistic arrangement; metonymy as a
possibility of figurative language then requires a particular combination/contexture of
selected elements (such as words, images, and details forming contiguous
relationships). At the end of this poem, the distant sounds of the ―indefatigable
hoof-taps‖ from the past are spatially adjacent to and juxtaposed to the ―stars‖ at ―the
bottom of the pool.‖ These constituent elements form a contexture and ―[g]overn a
life‖ of their own in the poem, which a traditional symbolic meaning of the stars, such
as ―fate‖ or ―destiny,‖ should find it difficult to enter.
The signification of metonymic contextualization can be understood from
another perspective. Plath uses the metaphor of horse in another poem ―Elm‖: ―Love
is a shadow / How you lie and cry after it / Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone
off, like a horse‖ (Ariel 27). There is certainly similarity about the usage of ―horse‖ in
both poems, such as the movement and the echoes. Nonetheless, to nail down a
symbolic meaning of ―horse‖ will lead to the ignorance of its contextual relevance to
―words‖ in the poem ―Words‖ and about ―love‖ in the poem ―Elm.‖ The poem ―Ariel‖
is the speaker‘s experience of riding a horse, whose signification is especially
contextual and metonymic since it is not a metaphor used to describe another incident
or experience in the poem. One can easily claim that ―horse‖ represents and
symbolizes energy, motion, or coming-together of death and birth for the sake of
securing a consistent, stable, and thematic understanding about ―horse.‖ However,
such emphasis on metaphor and metaphorical meanings disregards metonymy and
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possible metonymic meanings. It basically flattens possible different and various
meanings about ―horse,‖ which emerge from different contexts in different stanzas in
the poem. If the poem ―Ariel‖ is truly to celebrate motion, is it not ironic to claim that
the theme of the poem is motion while creating a thematic stability of the poem?
V
Spatial Contiguity
Some particular features in Plath‘s poetic language are not often discussed for
their irrelevance to her private life. These features could be explored and unfolded
through understanding how metonymy operates in Plath‘s poetry. The operation of
metonymy as combining and contextualizing constituent elements based on their
spatial contiguity offers a different understanding and analysis of the arrangement of
words/images in some of Plath‘s poems (such as the poem ―Words‖ discussed above).
Plath is interested in spatial contiguity between constituent elements from different
approaches. Here is another example from ―Morning Song‖:
One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat‘s. The window square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes:
The clear vowels rise like balloons. (Ariel 5)
The spatial element does not mean the presentation of a landscape in this poem.
Before the speaker wakes up upon the baby‘s cry at night, the speaker is attentive
toward the baby‘s breath and already wakes to listen: ―All night your moth-breath /
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen: A far sea moves in my year.‖ The
baby‘s breath is light and thin but clear, and it is owing to the speaker‘s concern and
attentiveness that the speaker wakes to listen to the baby‘s breath, which sounds like
―a far sea.‖ Such attentiveness explains why the speaker can ―stumble from her bed‖
right after ―one cry.‖ The speaker is alert and awaiting. The next line, ―Your mouth
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opens clean as a cat‘s,‖ has a subtle signification—that after the speaker ―stumble[s]
from her bed,‖ she actually moves quickly toward the baby to have a very close and
careful look at it. Her concern makes her focus on the baby‘s mouth as it is so closely
related to the baby‘s breath and life. Then, the focus shifts to the window and what is
in the window: ―The window square / Whitens and swallows its dull stars.‖ Here, if
one seeks a metaphorical connection between the speaker and the window or between
the speaker‘s feelings and what is in the window, one can easily interpret these two
lines as such: that the ―dullness‖ of the stars represents or corresponds to the speaker‘s
feelings at this moment or that the ―window square‖ symbolizes the speaker‘s
confinement while the speaker needs to take care of her baby at night. Metonymy
operates as the combination/contexture of elements, which hold contiguous
relationships to each other and thus do not correspond to or represent each other.
Contiguity is not measured through a ruler in the definition of metonymy. Contiguity
is a perceptive closeness between constituent elements even if there is physical
distance between them. From these lines, after the speaker comes to take a close look
at the baby, she might just lift up her head to take a look at the window. It is also
possible that the speaker holds and comforts the baby in her arms while taking a
glance at the window. It is through the speaker‘s look at the window and also at the
stars in the ―window square‖ that the contiguous relationship between the speaker
with the baby and the window with the stars is established. The space of the room
where the speaker takes care of the baby appears visible and perceivable only when
the locations of the speaker with the baby, the window, and the stars are marked and
their contiguous relationships are formed through the speaker‘s glance. ―The window
square / Whitens‖ suggests that as the speaker has been awake all night and then is
comforting the baby at this moment, the speaker‘s possible paleness or exhaustion
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may result in a plain or blank stare at the window; thus, ―the window square‖
whitening shows the speaker‘s plain and steady look at the ―square.‖ Besides, the
―window square‖ could shine white color maybe owing to the contrasting darkness in
the room late at night or owing to the window square‘s contiguous relation with the
light of the stars that it ―swallows‖ (i.e., the stars are spatially adjacent to the window
square under the speaker‘s look). The spatial contiguity among these elements
establishes the spatial relations among them and also creates a space exuberant with
some possible qualities and meanings such as the quietude of the space, which is only
disturbed by and thus signified by the baby‘s cry, the quiet moments that come after
(or still go with) the baby‘s cry as the speaker plainly looks at the stars in the
―window square,‖ the speaker‘s attempt and lack of attempt to seek definitive
meanings from outside objects (i.e., the speaker‘s desire to look at something else
besides paying close attention to the baby and her nonchalance toward anything other
than the baby at the same time), a significant moment that effaces its own
significance, a significant moment that does not have a voice and does not carry any
weight as it exists simply and plainly in such a contextual space at night. These
possibilities are subtle, light, and unspeakable, and can only exist in a space
constructed through metonymic elements as such. Due to the metonymic space
created through these contiguous elements, the suggestive meanings of ―The window
square‖ whitening and swallowing ―its dull stars‖ are uncertain for the speaker as they
also resist meanings. The metonymic signification questions the metaphorical
connection between the speaker and the other elements. The space created through the
metonymic operation allows the spatial confrontation between the speaker and the
―dull stars‖ in ―the window square‖ but avoids an easy reconciliation in this
confrontation (such as an echo between the speaker‘s inner feelings and the dullness
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of the stars). To establish a metaphorical connection between the ―dullness‖ of the
stars and the ―dull‖ moments (or ―dull‖ things in her room) is to take away the
signification of the metonymic space, which is full of suggestive meanings that cannot
be exhausted.
Similar construction of space through the operation of metonymy also appears
in the poem ―By Candlelight‖: ―It is very late. / The dull bells tongue the hour. / The
mirror floats us at one candle power‖ (The Collected Poems 236). In this poem, the
―dull bells‖ strike in a repetitious and redundant way and tell ―the hour.‖ The word
―tongue‖ is related to licking or speaking. For the bells to speak of the hour is possible
and acceptable; that the bells ―tongue‖ the hour has a more interesting and special
connotation that the bells lick and thus slowly move over the hour.
The sense of the
outside is introduced into the house through the sound of the bells. Similar with the
previous example, ―Morning Song,‖ what Plath attempts to achieve is no longer a
simple echo and correspondence between the inside and the outside. A metonymic
space is created through associating selected elements inside and outside (including
―one candle,‖ ―the dull bells,‖ the late ―hour,‖ and so on). The association between
these elements is established through their spatial contiguity or adjacency or their
temporal contiguity. Jakobson especially emphasizes that temporal contiguity is not
only about the ―concatenation,‖ ―the temporal sequence‖ of incidents but also about
the ―concurrence‖ of different incidents (60). The contiguous relations among these
selected elements and the metonymic space created by them allow meanings to
emerge from their contextualization. In this example, when it is late at night, the ―dull
bells‖ do not strike ―the hour‖ but ―tongue‖ the hour. For the speaker, the ―bells‖ no
longer have the clear and quick sounds to show the passing of time; instead, they
seem to be slow and drowsy. They move over ―the hour‖ just like a ―tongue‖
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moving/licking over something. It is so late at night, and time seems to pass drowsily;
for the speaker, the ―bells‖ outside cannot hurry the time as they usually do at this
moment. The next line, ―The mirror floats us at one candle power,‖ could explain that
time seems to freeze or that the sounds of ―the bells‖ signifying the passing of time
seem to gradually diminish because of the speaker‘s and her son‘s attraction to and
concentration on the ―candlelight.‖ Even the expression that ―[t]he mirror floats us‖
directly evokes a metonymic space—i.e., the speaker looking at the mirror that
reflects the image of the speaker and her son sitting by the ―candle.‖ The
―candlelight‖ has such charm and such magic power that the picture seen in the mirror
appears as if both the speaker and her son are floating. Both the relation between the
―bells‖ outside and the speaker next to the ―candlelight‖ inside and the relation
between the mirror and the speaker with the son sitting next to the ―candlelight‖ are
associative and metonymic (not representational and metaphorical). To view these
images as simple metaphors will lead to some interpretation based on the
representational relation between the dullness of the ―bells‖ and the speaker‘s ―dull‖
feelings next to the ―candlelight‖ or between the darkness outside and probably the
darkness in the speaker‘s mind, which is in need of light and thus relies on the light
from a candle. Such metaphorical reading disregards Plath‘s effort in exploring the
possible subtle associations among these significant details and images. Especially,
the ―mirror‖ in this poem does not mirror and represent but ―floats‖ the speaker and
the son ―at one candle power.‖ What could be actually floating is probably the
―candlelight‖ because as the ―candlelight‖ flickers, the light could appear more
illusory in the mirror. The mirror functions almost like a camera and brings the
―candlelight‖ into a focus; what is caught is not a realistic representation but is
something illusory and surreal. The associative and contiguous relations among the
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dark room, the flickering light, and the mirror make possible and visible the space
where the speaker and her son are situated. Plath‘s ―mirror‖ image is no longer an
image that signifies a copy or a representation. The ―mirror‖ is not a substitute for
something else but a constitutive and metonymic element in this metonymic
contextualization. Plath‘s ―mirror‖ does not mirror. Her usage of the detail ―mirror‖ in
this poem should be an irony for critics who tend to seek and desperately ask what a
―mirror‖ or any detail in her poetry represents and symbolizes.
VI
Problem with Metaphorical Representation
In the essay, ―On the Road to Ariel: The ‗Transitio nal‘ Poetry of Sylvia Plath,
Marjorie Perloff has contradictory opinions toward the ideas and emotions objectified
in Plath‘s poetry. While discussing the poem ―Little Fugue‖ and comparing it with an
earlier poem ―Parliament Hill Fields,‖ Perloff observes that ―the speaker‘s intense
suffering is objectified and distanced by the poem‘s syntax and sounds‖ (134). Having
the speaker‘s suffering objectified in ―Little Fugue‖ is seen as a positive trait in her
discussion of the poem. When discussing and critiquing an earlier poem ―Leaving
Early,‖ Perloff states that ―[…] but her irritation, sarcasm, and outrage are not
sufficiently objectified.‖ Thus, not having ideas and emotions objectified in this poem
is seen as a problem and one of the reasons that explains its weakness. Nonetheless,
when Perloff examines the line, ―Gulls stiffen to their chill vigil in the drafty
half-light,‖ in the poem ―Parliament Hill Fields,‖ she argues that ―[t]he gulls must
turn cold and ‗stiffen‘ at this point for no better reason than that the poet needs to find
an objective correlative for her fear‖ (130). Therefore, the objectification of the
speaker‘s emotions through the details in the landscapes or surroundings becomes a
negative trait. Perloff further emphasizes that ―much of the descriptive detail in the
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landscape poems is gratuitous‖ (148). Therefore, using objectification of subjective
ideas and emotions as an arbiter for the evaluation of Plath‘s poems (which are
divided into the transitional and later successful poems) appears problematic as
Perloff‘s contradictory comments have made manifest.
To seek an ―objective correlative‖ in the spatial environments or landscapes in a
poem is to create a correspondent and representational (i.e., the metaphorical) relation
between the speaker inner‘s feelings and the outside details/images. Perloff has made
a nice observation that the descriptive details were forcefully used to correspond and
echo the inner feelings of the speaker in the poem ―Parliament Hill Fields.‖ What then
is at stake for one to use ―objective correlative‖ as a method to analyze how the
details function in a poem and to evaluate a poem? The stake might lie in those poems
where Plath already uses images/details differently, where the selected
elements/details are contextualized to allow meanings to emerge. Such contextual
meanings do not result from a relation of representation or substitution between the
constituent elements. For example, in the poem ―Morning Song,‖ Plath creates a
space constructed through forming contiguous relationships among the constituent
elements, which are not created for the sake of objectifying ideas or feelings
presupposed or pre-decided by the speaker.
As mentioned above, Perloff notices that the descriptive details could appear
―gratuitous‖ in Plath‘s landscape poems. Thus, a writer‘s purpose to create
correspondent and representational relations between the details/images and the
speaker‘s feelings, or among the details/images themselves, can lead to very forceful
connections among these constituent elements in a poem and thus reveals the writer‘s
forceful intention to create such relations. However, if a forceful representational
relation between the speaker‘s feeling and a descriptive detail does not guarantee a
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successful connection and a smooth and meaningful narrative transition from one
focus to another in a poem, what other relation can form a better connection and
transition? The word ―gratuitous‖ explains a writer‘s random will to create ―an
objective correlative‖ to embody and echo the speaker‘s feeling, but this same word
and comment could also be applied to the metonymic combination/contexture of the
selected details (such as the window with the stars and the speaker taking care of the
baby at night) in the poem ―Morning Song.‖ Metonymic contextualization of
constituent elements signifies neither a random combination of the details nor a strict
representational relation between the speaker‘s mind and the surrounding details (or
among the details themselves). Metonymic operation is different from constructing a
metaphorical correspondence between elements but is not the same as grouping
various elements together without discovering or exploring possibilities of contiguous
relationships among them. Thus, instead of being totally ―gratuitous,‖ the metonymic
elements are contiguous to each other.
VII
Metonymy Mobilizes Narrative Transition in the Poem
“Blackberrying”
When the details/images are combined together through their contiguous
relationships (such as spatial and temporal contiguity), what difference does such
combination or contexture of contiguous elements make as a form of figuration? The
question has been partially answered from my discussion of the significant space
evoked through the metonymic combination of contiguous details in the poem
―Morning Song‖ above. This chapter will further explore how Plath creates narrative
transition in her poems that signifies one mode of figuration: metonymy. The
discussion of narrative transition that functions with metonymic significance will
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explain that when Plath no longer seeks a metaphorical relation among elements (i.e.,
substituting one element for another based their similarity) to decide how a narrative
will proceed in some poems, Plath shows her awareness of the potential contiguous
relationships among constituent elements and of possible suggestive meanings that
could emerge from their relationships. Narrative transition with metonymic
significance is related to the understanding and interrogation of perception—i.e., the
subject‘s perception of the other (the other detail/image, the landscape, the outside, or
the world). For example, the speaker‘s perception of the outside world changes
because the speaker is constantly distracted from one thing to another. The shift of the
speaker‘s attention that facilitates the narrative transition in such a case is relying on
metonymic association of the details. Thus, such narrative transition does not happen
simply owing to a semantic motive—i.e., the narrative is not driven by the speaker‘s
or writer‘s intended idea or interest.
Plath‘s poem ―Blackberrying‖ shows its special relevance to narrative transition
and perception which involve metonymic operation. ―Blackberrying‖ starts with the
speaker‘s description of the surroundings and the speaker‘s spatial relations to the
―blackberries,‖ ―the alley,‖ and ―the sea‖:
Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides. (The
Collected Poems 168)
The first two lines of the first stanza create a spatial dimension where the speaker
stands in an alley with blackberries on both sides. The description of the first four
lines shows that the picture evoked is not static because the speaker‘s look and
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attention is shifting and the description reveals what attracts the speaker‘s attention,
what is happening, or/and what is to come, not what is already known. The first line
implies that the speaker looks at plenty of blackberries and is overwhelmed and
impressed by them. It is an impression of the blackberries taken as a whole, and the
speaker takes in what is in front of her. The second line suggests that the speaker is
among the blackberries; standing in the alley, the speaker now could turn around to
notice that there are berries on either side of the alley. The third line then signifies the
speaker‘s look upon the alley and where it reaches at the far end. The alley ―going
down in hooks‖ explains that the alley is winding forward. ―[A] sea / Somewhere at
the end of it, heaving‖ has a spatial signification because the sound of the sea
―heaving‖ might give the speaker a clue or might make the speaker remember the fact
that the sea is at the very end of the alley. The last two stanzas of the poem will show
that the speaker is walking in the alley and heading toward the sea. Therefore, the
speaker might have taken the sea as the destination from the beginning, which
explains why the speaker cares about the heaving sounds of the sea while the
speaker‘s attention and interest are mainly on the blackberries around her at this point.
Whether the sea is the cause of the speaker‘s walking in the alley is uncertain in the
first stanza. It could be that the heaving sounds of the sea remind her of a possible
destination of the sea or that the speaker‘s desire to go to the sea enables her to hear
the heaving sounds. The uncertainty is not negative but simply contributes to several
possibilities of the situation owing to the constructed spatial relations among the
elements of the ―blackberries,‖ an ―alley,‖ the sounds of ―the sea,‖ and the speaker as
a subject.
―Blackberries / Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes‖ are not just
similes aiming to describe the shape and color of the berries. ―Big as the ball of my
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thumb‖ is not a description produced as the speaker looks at the berries. It implies
what the speaker is doing at the moment—picking blackberries. The berries could be
as big as anything round in shape and at a similar size. Nonetheless, the speaker‘s
thumb is contiguous and adjacent to the berries while the speaker is picking berries
and putting them in the ―milkbottle.‖ The contiguity between the thumb and berries
creates a possibility of comparison between them and also a combination of them to
form a contexture (i.e. metonymy). ―Dumb as eyes‖ appears strange as a metaphor
because the similarity between them is not so obvious. How could the blackberries
look as ―dumb‖ as ―eyes‖? The expression again suggests that the speaker could be
staring and closely looking at the berries. The intimate interaction between the
speaker‘s eyes and the ―blackberries‖ leads to the speaker‘s imagination of the berries
as ―eyes,‖ which just dumbly and blankly look back. Another possibility is that the
berries could be drooping down owing to its ripeness and weight and thus appear like
human eyes looking downward while feeling dumb and lacking energy. These two
metaphors suggest a spatial closeness between the speaker and the berries and the
possible interaction between them, which the last three lines of this stanza also
support.
The spatial dimension thus created in the first stanza will be continued in the
second stanza:
Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks --Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end. (The Collected Poems 168-9)
At the end of the first stanza, the speaker is picking blackberries and putting them in
―milkbottle.‖ While the speaker is indulgent in the process of picking berries, how
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does the speaker‘s attention suddenly shift to ―the choughs in black‖ in the sky?
Similar with the heaving sounds of the sea, the speaker is drawn to the birds because
of the sounds of the ―cacophonous flocks.‖ The speaker‘s attention constantly shifts,
but the change of the focus is always related to the space where the speaker is
situated. The space is created through the metonymic contexture of the images or
details that are spatially contiguous to each other. The narrative transition highly
depends on how these constituent elements gradually form their contiguous
relationships in the space. Therefore, as the speaker concentrates on picking berries,
the crowing sounds of the ―choughs‖ become the possible stimuli that get the speaker
distracted from the blackberries. The space created through metonymic
contextualization both opens up and decides the possibility of what could distract the
speaker while she is busy at picking berries in a ―blackberry alley.‖ The sounds of
―the choughs‖ are heard first, and then the speaker probably lifts up her head to
observe the birds in the sky since the next line describes the ―choughs‖ as ―bits of
burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.‖ To describe the sounds of ―the choughs‖ first
and what they look like in the sky next shows Plath‘s careful arrangement of the
details that directly results from the speaker‘s position in the space and registers the
speaker‘s possible perceptive process. The speaker being fully situated in the space
(constructed through the contiguous relationships among the significant details) then
thinks that ―I do not think the sea will appear at all.‖ This sudden idea results from the
speaker‘s shift of attention from the berries to the birds in the sky. As she looks up and
watches the birds, she distances herself from the surroundings (from a confined space
in the blackberry alley) and thinks of a future moment—the moment of reaching the
destination. Thinking of this future moment, the speaker starts to recognize that the
moment is still distant from her and thus doubts if she will ever get to the destination.
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This momentary idea involves the spatial and temporal dimensions. The speaker is
oblivious of time and the destination while engrossed in picking berries. The sounds
of the birds distract the speaker, and the ―choughs‖ ―wheeling in a blown sky‖ direct
the speaker‘s attention to the farther end, the destination of the sea. The sense of time,
a measurement between the present and the future, is perceived only when the speaker
deviates from the closure of the current space to the open sky. It is only when one is
fully situated within a space as such that one‘s imagination and suspicion about the
future are transient but solid and convincing at the same time. Without the
contextualization of the details that evokes a spatial construct first, the speaker‘s
words, ―I do not think the sea will appear at all,‖ will simply sound like a boring
complaint.
After being distracted by the ―cacophonous flocks,‖ the speaker watches them
―wheeling‖ in the sky. Describing their voice as the ―only‖ voice implies that the
speaker‘s mind is fully occupied by the ―protesting‖ sounds they make. Nonetheless,
such concentration on the ―choughs‖ and their ―protesting‖ voice is temporary; the
speaker‘s attention to the birds in the sky then shifts to the landscape a bit far
away—―The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.‖ The look at the
birds in the sky leads to the look at the ―green meadows.‖ The previous concentration
on the blackberries is interrupted and distracted by the choughs‘ ―protesting‖ voice;
the ―choughs‖ in the sky then guide the speaker‘s attention toward the next image in
the same space. The spatial relations among these elements are delineated through the
speaker‘s attention and distraction, which are not necessarily controlled by the
speaker but are based on the interaction between the details and the speaker. The
narrative transition in such a case can be more fully explained through metonymy (the
operation of combination/contexture of constituent elements based on their spatial
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contiguity). The operation of contextualization through the contiguous relationships of
―the blackberries,‖ ―the choughs,‖ and ―the green meadow‖ positions the speaker
within the created space and defines the speaker‘s role as one of the constituent
elements. Thus, the signification of subjectivity becomes a consequence under such
metonymic operation. The speaker as subject in the poem thinks, feels, reacts,
responds, constantly concentrates, and constantly gets distracted not because the
speaker is losing or suspending the manipulative power to define or interpret the
objects in the surroundings but because the speaker is participating in the metonymic
relationships with them, which are relationships of interaction and mutual impact.
Such interactive relationships continue as the speaker‘s attention now comes
back to the blackberries—―I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies.‖
―I come to‖ suggests that the speaker probably has continued walking all the time
while she looks at the ―choughs‖ and then the ―green meadows.‖ The last line of the
second stanza, ―One more hook, and the berries and bushes end,‖ also confirms this
possibility. Nonetheless, when the speaker comes to ―one bush of berries,‖ there
seems to be a momentary pause. ―One bush of berries‖ is actually ―a bush of flies‖
because the berries are ―so ripe‖; thus, the berries‘ ripeness is the cause for ―one bush
of berries‖ to turn into ―a bush of flies.‖ Could this be a metaphor—i.e., that a bush of
berries looks like a bush of flies? The following two lines explain that the flies are
having a ―honey-feast‖ and ―hanging their ―bluegreen bellies.‖ The flies are actually
eating the berries and hanging their bellies around or on the fruits (owing to their
satiation probably). Therefore, ―a bush of berries‖ turns into ―a bush of flies‖ because
the berries‘ ripeness has attracted the flies to them. Then, ―a bush of flies‖ is not a
metaphorical expression for the berries but an actual existence (a metonymic element)
in the space. Moreover, the change from berries to flies suggests that the speaker had
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thought that they were berries first but found out that they were actually flies. Such a
discovery goes with the speaker‘s movement—that ―I come to one bush of berries.‖
After coming to the berries and having a closer look, the speaker discovers that they
are actually ―a bush of flies.‖ Just like a camera zooming in, the speaker‘s eyes zoom
into the focus of ―a bush of berries‖ and discover that the berries are actually flies.
Images and details in the superficially descriptive and metaphorical expression are
actually elements that are metonymic and exist right in the space. This expression also
emphasizes the interactive relationship between the berries and the speaker and also
the speaker‘s position as the receiver of the impact from the contiguous objects.
The last stanza of the poem shows that the speaker has come to the sea as the
destination:
The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me
To the hills' northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths
Beating and beating at an intractable metal. (The Collected Poems 169)
The first line, ―The only thing to come now is the sea,‖ signals that the impact and
impression the speaker will receive from this point on are going to be related to ―the
sea.‖ There are the ―wind‖ (which probably comes from the sea and goes between the
hills), ―two hills‖ and ―the hills‘ northern face‖ near the sea, the ―white and pewter
lights‖ on the surface of the sea, and finally ―a din‖ that is created by the waves
pounding on the shore or the rock incessantly. Besides using ―so ripe‖ to create the
causality between ―a bush of berries‖ and a ―bush of flies‖ in the previous stanza,
Plath uses ―too green and too sweet to have tasted salt‖ to explain that the ―hills‖ look
so ―green‖ and ―sweet‖ that the speaker could not believe that they are so near the sea
and have actually ―tasted salt.‖ Plath introduces the causality that the hills have tasted
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salt and thus cannot be ―green‖ and ―sweet‖ by claiming that this causality does not
work. The fresh green color suggests a sweet taste, which then appears unreasonable
to the speaker because the hills are so close to the sea and presumably have tasted salt
from the sea for a long time. While the speaker points out an unreasonable and
illogical part of the causality, the causality is introduced and confirmed through the
speaker‘s questioning. As the speaker questions the causality and shows disbelief of
the hills‘ greenness and sweetness, the hills‘ greenness is thus strongly emphasized.
The speaker does not report the images in this stanza in a panoramic method.
After observing that the ―wind‖ comes from the ―hills,‖ the speaker‘s attention shifts
to the ―hills‖ being ―so green and sweet.‖ The narrative shifts to the ―hills‖ because
the speaker has previously felt ―a sudden wind‖ ―[s]lapping its phantom laundry in
my face‖ from ―between two hills,‖ and her eyes probably trace where the wind
comes from and then arrive at ―the hills.‖ The next line introduces that the speaker is
walking on ―the sheep path‖ between ―the hills.‖ The transition from the wind to ―the
hills‖ and ―the sheep path‖ suggests that the speaker is walking faster since ―the
berries and bushes end‖ at the end of the second stanza. As the wind and the hills
show the nearness of the sea, the speaker appears to head toward the destination more
directly and quickly. ―A last hook brings me / To the hills‘ northern face‖ indicates
that the speaker has arrived at the sea because the sea is said to be ―heaving‖ at the
end of the ―blackberry alley, going down in hooks‖ in the first stanza. Plath has
carefully established connection and contiguous relations among objects and images
in the space where the speaker is situated. Each detail is situated adjacent to and
related to another detail, which is then surrounded by and connected with other
details. Such networks of images are formed through the speaker‘s subjective
perception of and interaction with each object individually. The last stanza especially
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shows how each image/object is chained to the next according to the path that the
speaker is taking as she heads toward the destination. Different from the constant shift
between concentration and distraction in the previous two stanzas, the speaker in the
last stanza has found a consistent focus—the sea and everything that is near the sea.
Being able to get distracted allows the speaker to have another concentration; in other
words, getting distracted signals the possibility of concentration. For example, the
blackberries have the speaker‘s full and close attention while the speaker is distracted
from the destination of the trip. Thus, there is a serious dialectical argument between
distraction and concentration, but there is no struggle for the speaker to choose
between the two as the space and the situation offers her the opportunity of
performing distraction and concentration actively and intermittently.
The speaker‘s attention in the last stanza still shifts from one image to another.
Nonetheless, all of them are related to their connection with and contiguity to the sea.
Shifting from one image to another is motivated by the cause—the speaker‘s desire
and expectation to come to the sea. The speaker‘s concentration on reaching the sea
has resulted in the search for objects and images that support this possibility. Even
though the speaker still gets distracted by the ―wind‖ and then focuses on the ―hills,‖
such distraction is different from the distraction in the first two stanzas. The
distraction in the first stanza is not fully decided by the speaker‘s intention to go to the
sea; the distraction in the last stanza is motivated mostly by the urgent hope to look at
the sea as it is so near. From the constant distraction (and thus the unstable
concentration) in the previous two stanzas to a consistent concentration on the sea in
the last stanza, there are larger shifts in the narrative as a whole—the shift from the
continuous walking to a final pause as the speaker confronts the sea, the shift from
being impressed by the blackberries (―nothing, nothing but blackberries‖) to being
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overwhelmed by the sea (―nothing, nothing but a great space‖), and the shift from
being situated in the space (the alley and the surroundings) to being faced with
another conspicuous space (the sea).
The speaker‘s final description—that the constant pounding of the waves is ―a
din like silversmiths‖ that keep ―beating at an intractable metal‖—shows that the
speaker fully takes in the impact of the sea. Rather than claiming that the blackberries
attempt to have ―blood sisterhood‖ with her, the speaker now is in a position to
receive the impact and impression from the sea, not to give an interpretation of the sea
as something related to herself personally. The speaker holds similar contiguous
spatial relations with the blackberries and the sea, but the speaker has different kinds
of interaction with the blackberries and the sea. The back-and-forth interaction
between the speaker and the images leads to the speaker‘s temporary
perception/interpretation and momentary impact/impression from the images. Such
interactive relations create the possibility of figuration not based on the metaphorical
operation (i.e., the operation of A substituted for B; the operation of an detail/image
representing/symbolizing/echoing the speaker‘s inner feelings or ideas).
What is at stake when critics attempt to establish representational
relations between the images in Plath‘s poetry and her life and between the details in
her poetry and their symbolic meanings behind (be it a feeling, an abstract idea, or a
thought that the speaker has or the author has)? To use ―Blackberrying‖ as an
example, Vendler thinks that the sea represents ―emptiness.‖ Rosenblatt interprets ―the
sea as a powerful and gigantic nothingness with awesome, though meaningless,
power‖ and further stresses that ―[t]he sea is obviously a disappointment: it is
‗nothing,‘ a play of light and sound‖ (90-1). Plath uses the expression ―nothing,
nothing but‖ to create an emphasis on the ―great space,‖ the sea, which is different
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from saying that the sea is nothing. Both Vendler and Rosenblatt try to offer the
symbolic and representational meaning of the sea because to focus on finding a
meaning or idea that the sea represents seems to be the only appropriate way to
interpret the sea. Metonymy should be a competing force with metaphor. Metaphor‘s
predominance in the study of poetry leads to the ignorance of metonymy. What is at
stake under metaphor‘s predominance in poetry can only be thoroughly shown
through revealing the operation of metonymy as a possible mode of figuration. It will
be an effort in vain to question the reading of poetry that is based on a symbolic and
representational relation by saying that the sea does not represent nothingness or
emptiness but actually symbolizes life or energy. Such an effort is simply to use one
metaphorical meaning to replace another, but what is questionable about reading
metaphor alone in poetry while disregarding metonymy stays unclear. Although
metonymic signification is less definitive and less graspable, metonymic
contextualization suggests but does not manipulate or define meanings. Thus,
metonymy becomes a counter force to metaphor‘s forceful and arbitrary operation,
which claims a similarity and equation between two irrelevant elements. Rosenblatt
criticizes the tendency of biographical criticism of Plath‘s poetry. Rosenblatt also
questions the label of Plath as a feminist since some of Plath‘s poems show her
animosity toward other females but no one claims that she is an anti-feminist.
However, neither of these opinions stops him from proposing that Plath‘s poetry
shows the process of initiation (i.e., the process from descending to death and then
arising to rebirth) and centers on the theme of death and rebirth in the discussion of
Plath‘s poems. The establishment of this theme, along with the concentration on
metaphorical operation (including symbol, simile, and metaphor), makes Rosenblatt
interpret the‖ blackberries‖ as ―symbols of blood‖ and ―the thorns of the berry
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bushes‖ as ―hooks‖ (89). Furthermore, the speaker is said to be ―in the midst of a
hostile nature,‖ and the berries ―symbolize the fate of human beings who are ‗eaten‘
by the universe‖ (90). To follow the same theme and logic, ―other natural
elements—birds, sea, meadow, flies‖ all represent and ―possess a certain deadness‖
(90).
Rosenblatt seeks symbolic meanings out of most details and images in the
poem, and these images are ―natural metaphors‖ that also correspond to Plath‘s
mental states (because Rosenblatt does not distinguish between Plath and the speaker
in the poem) (96). It seems legitimate to ask how different this method of reading is
from a biographical reading that Rosenblatt succinctly criticizes. Besides, there is a
more serious question—how could one impose metaphorical meanings as randomly as
such? A writer needs to seek or create similarity while working on a metaphor, but a
reader can force any substitutable meaning or concept on anything in a poem so
freely.
For Rosenblatt, ―Blackberrying‖ is categorized as one of Plath‘s transitional
poems, which ―fail to make the natural scene they describe meaningful in relation to a
specific personality‖ and that ―often leave the reader waiting for an intellectual or
emotional resolution‖ (92). To consider the metonymic signification and to question
the predominance of metaphor could allow us to be suspicious of whether these two
comments should be taken negatively at all. Lacking an ―intellectual or emotional
resolution‖ or even keeping any resolution momentary is one consequential effect
when the speaker is a participating element forming different contiguous relationships
with other elements within the constructed space. The speaker‘s subjectivity is not
made manifest through the speaker‘s manipulative interpretation of other constituent
elements in the surroundings but through the speaker‘s susceptibility to (as well as
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interaction with) these elements in the space. When Plath stops presenting the
speaker‘s subjectivity as a simple assertion of the selfhood in some poems (such as
―Blackberrying‖), critics could still easily ignore their difference and still assimilates
them to other poems by assuming a consistent theme in Plath‘s poems. When the
purpose of images or details in some of Plath‘s poems is no longer to represent or
correspond to the subject‘s ideas, feelings, or ―a specific personality‖ (i.e., to use
Perloff‘s words, that images/details no longer function as ―objective correlative[s]‖ of
the subject‘s thoughts or emotions), critics could still continue searching for their
metaphorical or symbolic meanings. When they cannot find the meanings that are
nice substitutes for the details/images in the poems, they claim that the poems are not
successful.
VIII
Deconstructive Force of Language: Betrayal of Writer‟s Intention
It is true that metonymy as a different mode of figuration might not permeate all
of Plath‘s poems. There are opposite examples showing that the speaker only intends
to impose meanings upon the objects or scenes or has had ideas prepared and simply
scrounge some images/details to represent the ideas. How then can a reader tell
whether such an intention is readily-prepared or just an idea emerging from
metonymic combination/contexture of contiguous elements? De Man offers a
plausible answer when he explains the importance of understanding the
deconstructive nature of language as such:
The reading is not ‗our‘ reading, since it uses only the linguistic elements
provided by the text itself; the distinction between author and reader is one
of the false distinctions that the reading makes evident. The deconstruction
is not something we have added to the text but it constituted the text in the
first place. A literary text simultaneously asserts and denies the authority of
its own rhetorical mode, and by reading the text as we did we were only
trying to come closer to being as rigorous a reader as the author had to be in
order to write the sentence in the first place. Poetic writing is the most
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advanced and refined mode of deconstruction; it may differ from critical or
discursive writing in the economy of its articulation, but not its kind.
(―Semiology and Rhetoric‖ 17)
According to de Man, metonymy deconstructs metaphor, and metaphor also
deconstructs metonymy because neither of them can exclude the other for the sake of
claiming its own predominance. De Man discusses metonymy mainly on a
grammatical level in this essay. Metaphorical signification cannot sustain itself
without confronting the challenge of metonymic significatio n. On a very basic level
of linguistic arrangement, a sentence involves the operation of metaphor and the
operation of metonymy since its ―syntax is metonymic‖ and the subject having a
voice holds a metaphorical relationship to the sentence (28). When a literary text
―asserts its decision to escape from textual confinement‖ and sustain its factuality
outside of the text, this assertion can only be made in text and through producing
more text (18). Metonymy disallows a text from such an easy escape because the
assertion of the escape is made within a text and through syntax. Therefore, be it a
basic linguistic arrangement or a literary text, there lies the deconstructive nature in its
constitution—i.e., metaphor and metonymy coexist but deny and question each other
at the same time. What happens often in literary criticism is that metaphorical
signification is privileged over metonymic signification—i.e., the metaphorical
transcendence above the confinement of words or a text is celebrated, and metonymy
is disregarded for the sake of celebrating metaphor. According to de Man, both have
to be considered, and a metaphorical meaning cannot be created through silencing
metonymy. According to de Man, the distinction between author and reader is false in
the act of reading because if an author struggles with the contention between
metaphor and metonymy from the moment he/she writes, a reader should be pulled by
the two forces as well. To put it shortly, if there is clash, tension, or conflict between
metaphorical meanings and metonymic meanings, the reader‘s attempt to privilege
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metaphorical meanings violates what constitutes writing from the very beginning.
To come back to the question of how to tell whether an idea is readily-prepared
by an author before words are combined together to form a sentence, a passage, and a
text (i.e., the operation of metonymy based on syntactic contiguity of the linguistic
elements), the question can only be answered in the further understanding of
metonymy operating in writing. The question cannot be answered by the author no
matter how readily the idea is prepared beforehand. A poet can use images to
represent or symbolize the ideas or feelings he/she intends, but the contextualization
of the images in words might reveal such an intentio n but does not support it. Thus,
the intention to create a natural link between an image and an intended idea might not
lead to the success of a metaphor since the metonymic contextualization might reveal
such an intention and then betray the intention. As a poet can only create a link
between an image and an idea through the combination/contexture of words, details,
or images (i.e., metonymy), the contexture of different linguistic units might show
that the link is not as natural or as convincing as a poet intends to create. When the
intention to form a natural link between tenor and vehicle is exposed but is not
supported by the metonymic contextualization, the link between an image and an
intended idea is no longer natural and convincing. In other words, the intended idea
and the intended natural link are not achieved. The poet‘s intention to embody an idea
in an image or to create a metaphor is thus betrayed owing to the exposure given by
metonymic contextualization.
Thus, the intention to create a metaphor (through embodying an idea in an
image or through creating a representational relation between an idea and an image)
does not guarantee the success of a metaphor; moreover, the more insistent and
forceful an intention is, the more likely it might be undermined by metonymic
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contextualization. On the other hand, it is also equally possible that when a poet‘s
intention is to show that a metaphorical link between tenor and vehicle is forceful and
arbitrary and is never natural, such an intention (a postmodern one maybe) might not
place a successful questioning upon the supposedly natural metaphorical link but
acknowledge and further assert the inevitability of a metaphorical link instead. In
short, a writer‘s intention exists but does not necessarily exist in a text. Metonymic
contextualization of linguistic elements allows meanings to emerge from a text while
such meanings might contain but might differ from what a writer intends to create. It
is intriguing to note that the less insistent and forceful a writer‘s intention is, the more
unexpected meanings might emerge from a text. Such unexpected meanings might
then become what a writer will have wanted.
Whatever a writer's intention is, the intention is bound to a textual confinement.
A writer's intention can only exist in words, not in his or her mind. Thus, a text tells or
shows what a writer's intention could be; a writer cannot define what a text's intention
should be. When metonymy is seen as one type of linguistic arrangements on a basic
linguistic level (i.e., the combination/contexture of elements which are basic linguistic
units such as phonemes and words), a writer can never escape the operation of
metonymy while writing. Metonymy on this level shows that one's attempt to ignore
or disregard metonymic operation is in vain from the very beginning. In short,
metonymy is a fundamental feature of language, which explains why a metaphorical
transcendence is always faced with metonymic constraints. On this very basic
linguistic level, metonymy offers an opportunity for metaphor to exist in words but
frustrate its existence at the same time.
When metonymy is seen as one mode of figuration (i.e., the
combination/contexture of selected elements such as words, images, details, and so on
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based on their temporal or spatial contiguity), metonymy offers a different figurative
possibility from metaphor. In the discussion above, metaphor cannot exclude
metonymy because metonymy operates as the combination of basic linguistic
elements and is thus one of the two fundamental aspects of language according to
Jakobson. Metonymy as a trope is definitely inclusive of metonymy as a basic
linguistic arrangement. Nonetheless, to see metonymy only as the operation of
combination/contexture of very basic linguistic elements will take away the figurative
possibility of metonymy. Jakobson defines two aspects of language as
selection/substitution and combination/contexture, which correspond to the operation
of metaphor and the operation of metonymy respectively. Jakobson‘s analysis of the
two fundamental linguistic arrangements helps define how metaphor and metonymy
operate and further explains how metaphor and metonymy function differently as
tropes.
IX
A Metonymy within a Metaphor: How “Your Night Dances” Are
“Irretrievable!”
The discussion of ―Morning Song and ―Blackberrying‖ above shows how
metonymy as a trope is performed in Plath's poetry and how metonymy offers a
different perspective toward the study of poetry. To stress how metonymy as
figuration is performed in Plath‘s poetry, I will discuss the poem ―The Night Dances‖
where Plath uses metaphor that also involves the operation of metonymy as
figuration. Plath incorporates metonymy (especially one that is based on spatial
contiguity among selected details and images) into her usage of metaphor. In such a
case, the signification of metonymy can be more clearly understood since metonymy
has given metaphor a different rhetorical possibility. Moreover, it appears clearer that
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the metaphorical understanding alone will only make the interpretation of a poem
reductive. Metonymy thus shows its figurative signification as a poetic difference
from metaphor.
―The Night Dances‖ starts with an image irrelevant to ―night dances‖ and then
comes to the description of ―your night dances,‖ which is supposedly the focus of the
poem. Here are the first two stanzas:
A smile fell in the grass.
Irretrievable!
And how will your night dances
Lose themselves. In mathematics? (Ariel 29)
Who is ―you‖ in this poem? According to the notes in The Collected Poems, ―The
Night Dances‖ is about ―[a] revolving dance which her baby son performed at night in
the crib‖ (294). According to the discussion of Brain‘s essay above, there is distance
or gap between the speaker and the author. The speaker can be Plath and cannot be
Plath, and the uncertainty makes impossible the identity and unification between ―I‖
in the poem and Plath as the author. In his essay, ―Resurrection of the Implied Author:
Why Bother?,‖ Wayne Booth also argues that authors tend to ―wipe out the selves
they do not like‖ (77) and project and even fake the selves which are ―masks covering
much more complex, and too often much less admirable, selves‖ (78). Therefore, an
author implied through his or her writings could be a better and superior self and does
not coincide with the real author. According to Booth, ―we less often meet ironic
portraits of deliberately flawed, intentionally unreliable narrators‖ when reading
poems, and we often meet ―thoroughly cleaned personae who imply a total identity
with the IA [implied author]‖; nonetheless, ―the poetic self has emerged dressed up
elegantly, exhibiting a sensitivity to life‘s owes and blisses that careful readers find
themselves longing to possess‖ (78). In other words, Booth thinks that there is less
clear distinction between the narrators and the implied authors in poetry because poets
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tend to create ―cleaned personae‖ (as narrators/speakers) that seem to be more unified
with the implied authors. For Booth, even though a poet might create the narrator or
the speaker that appears to be: ―‗I, the poet, speak to you directly in my true voice,‘‖
the implied author is still not the poet. In other words, even if a poet attempts to create
a better unification between the narrator and the implied author, the implied author as
―the poetic self‖ still does not coincide with the real author. Booth observes that even
though Plath has ―beautifully revealed and recreated their self-destructive faults and
miseries—as if practicing total undoctored honesty,‖ she is ―still realizing, during the
very act of creating the poems, selves far superior to those who cursed their spouses
over breakfast‖ (79). The implied author is projected by Plath in her writings and is
not Plath in real life no matter how honest her poems might appear. Moreover, there
could be contradictory implied authors in Plath‘s poems: ―As her husband, and her
journals, and her many biographers, have revealed, she herself felt divided about just
which of her poems really fit the person she wanted to appear to be‖ (Booth 80). To
follow Booth‘s thinking here, there is not even one single consistent implied author in
Plath‘s poems; there are different and even contradictory implied authors created
through different poetic voices in Plath‘s poems. Since there are different implied
authors, it is impossible to say that Plath is ―the‖ implied author. Since it is difficult to
decide which implied author is Plath, then it is odd to claim that any implied author is
Plath or that the speaker or narrator is Plath.
Booth‘s answer to the question in the title of his essay, ―Resurrection of the
Implied Author: Why Bother?,‖ is that, yes, it is necessary to ―resurrect‖ the ―implied
author.‖ My answer is ―don‘t bother‖ because if one understands the unbridgeable gap
between words and the proper meanings and between the speaker and the poet,
whether a poetic self (a self created in poetry) or the implied author (a self that the
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author implied through writings) appears superior or not is an ―ethical‖ question as
Booth stresses himself. Nonetheless, to interpret a poem based on the assumption that
the speaker is the poet and thus relate the poem to the poet‘s real life experiences
violates the fundamental break inherent in language—i.e., when a word, ―tree,‖ is
written, the word takes its forever departure from a real tree. Thus, when ―I‖ is written
in poetry, the word takes its forever departure from the author.
Similar with the gap between ―I‖ as the speaker and Plath as the author, there is
distance or gap between Plath‘s relationship with her son and the speaker‘s
relationship with her son in ―The Night Dances.‖ It might be real and true that Plath
did see her son doing night dances, but what is presented in the poem is not a copy, a
representation, of what actually happened but a created version of a mother watching
her son dance at night. Plath might use a real incident to start her poem, but what
―The Night Dances‖ is and the source of the poem will have to lie in the poem, not in
Plath‘s life. To use Paul Ricoeur‘s words, ―[t]he sense of a text is not behind the text,
but in front of it‖ (Interpretation Theory 87). The real incident cannot be recovered in
the poem; the purpose of the poem is also not to recover the real incident. To use
Plath‘s word in this poem, the real incident is ―irretrievable!‖
The first line of the poem ―The Night Dances‖ quickly evokes several
questions. What is the relation between a ―smile‖ and ―the grass‖? How can a ―smile‖
fall in ―the grass‖? The details of a ―smile‖ and ―the grass‖ easily trigger the
possibility of a picture or a common situation that involves someone wearing a smile
while walking on the grass, watching the grass, or sitting on the grass. Who, when, or
where exactly does not matter. It was at some moment and in some place where there
was grass that the speaker or someone the speaker knew smiled. It could be a smile of
some happiness, some content, or some pleasure, but its significance could be
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uncertain. The second line, ―Irretrievable,‖ helps explain why a smile ―fell‖ in the
grass. ―A smile‖ was not dropped by anyone but ―fell‖ in the grass, which suggests
certain degree of personification. ―A smile‖ is never going to be retrievable because it
―fell‖ right at the moment and right in the place just when it appeared.
―Fell in the
grass‖ describes how ―a smile‖ disappears and becomes irretrievable. It ―fell in the
grass‖ and thus got hidden in or merged with the grass. The smile not only becomes
invisible in the grass but also ―fell in the grass‖ invisibly since it is ―a smile,‖
something not graspable or tangible, falling. Nonetheless, such ―a smile‖ falling and
disappearing is felt, experienced, and known because the speaker acknowledges and
thus claims that it is ―irretrievable‖ forever.
It is from the question, ―And how will your night dances /Lose themselves,‖ in
the second stanza that a certain connection between how ―a smile‖ becomes
―irretrievable‖ and how ―your night dances‖ will ―lose themselves‖ seems to be
suggested. If such a connection is made, the image in the first stanza could become a
metaphor for the question asked in the second stanza. Consequently, the parallel can
go as such: ―your night dances‖ will ―lose themselves‖ in the same way how ―a smile
fell in the grass,‖ disappeared, and turned ―irretrievable.‖ However, the arrangement
of words (or the contextualization of these words) invites a different interpretation. ―A
smile fell in the grass‖ can come to the speaker as a piece of memory or just a
thought. With the line, ―Irretrievable,‖ the speaker then acknowledges and
understands how something enjoyable, memorable, precious, or simply pleasant will
disappear easily, lightly, and naturally just like ―a smile‖ falling ―in the grass.‖ The
line, ―Irretrievable,‖ decides and creates the transition from the image in the first
stanza to the question in the second stanza. Knowing that a smile is irretrievable, the
speaker then asks the question of how ―your night dances‖ will disappear and become
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irretrievable as well. The question following the understanding about how a smile
becomes irretrievable then is a thought as a consequence. The speaker does not ask
whether ―your night dances‖ will lose themselves or not but how they will lose
themselves. It is possible that the first stanza does not come to the speaker‘s mind first
but actually comes after the speaker‘s present concentration and contemplation on
―your night dances.‖ It is also possible that Plath thought of the ―night dances‖ first
and the image in the first stanza next. However, the ordering of words and the
contextualization of the details in the poem show that the speaker‘s acknowledgement
that a smile is irretrievable offers the context for the speaker‘s question and further
contemplation. The line, ―Irretrievable,‖ triggers the comparison between ―a smile‖
and ―your night dances‖ and suggests the possibility of their similarity—that both will
become ―irretrievable.‖ Such similarity is not absolute because the question asked in
the second stanza implies that the ―night dances‖ might ―lose themselves‖ just like ―a
smile‖ losing itself, but, at the same time, they
might ―lose themselves‖ in a
different way. The question thus incurs further questions.
If a smile disappeared where it appeared and ―fell in the grass,‖ will ―your
night dances‖ disappear in the same way or will they disappear differently? Will they
also become irretrievable? Then, in what way will they disappear? It is probably with
one or some of these questions in mind that the speaker answers with another
question: ―In mathematics?‖ Will ―your night dances‖ get lost in the precise
calculation of mathematics? What numbers are calculated ―in mathematics‖? Could
they be the days and years that will be passing by since this moment of ―your night
dances‖? Could these numbers be related to the counting of the steps during dancing
since the next stanza focuses on such details about ―your night dances‖—―Such pure
leaps and spirals— / Surely they travel‖?
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The next stanza continues with the same focus on the description of the ―night
dances.‖ The ―night dances,‖ their ―pure leaps and spirals,‖ ―travel / The world
forever.‖ The speaker then ―shall not entirely / Sit emptied of beauties, the gift / Of
your small breath, the drenched grass / Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies.‖ The speaker
insists that the ―dances,‖ ―the leaps,‖ and ―spirals‖ will continue to ―travel the world.‖
Such an insistence shows the speaker‘s appreciation of the son‘s dances and is a
different thought from the previous understanding that the dances will actually ―lose
themselves‖ eventually. Again, in terms of contextualization, Plath puts together the
image in the first stanza, the question in the second stanza, and then the speaker‘s
appreciation of the son‘s night dances along with the insistence of their forever
existence around the world; through contextualizing these elements in such a
sequence, Plath creates and presents the speaker‘s undulating (and sometimes even
contradictory) thoughts and feelings, which are each other‘s stimuli or consequences.
The speaker assures herself that when she sits by herself in a future moment and
thinks back, she will not sit ―emptied of beauties‖ of ―your night dances,‖ which will
persist in her mind and in her memory. ―Beauties‖ here possibly refers to ―your night
dances‖ since the speaker asks the question about ―your night dances‖ in the second
stanza and continues to describe how they will ―travel / The world forever‖ in the
second and third stanzas. According to the punctuation, the apposition of the
―beauties‖ is ―the gift / Of your small breath,‖ which is followed by another
apposition, ―the drenched grass / Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies.‖ ―Beauties‖ and
―the gift‖ juxtaposed as such suggest two possible readings: one that ―the gift‖ ―[o]f
your small breath‖ refers back to and is part of the ―beauties‖ of ―your night dances‖;
the other that ―the gift‖ is another thing along with the ―beauties,‖ which the speaker
shall not ―[s]it emptied of.‖ The first possibility is supported by grammar since there
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is not ―and‖ between ―the gift / Of your small breath‖ and ―the drenched grass / Smell
of your sleeps.‖ However, the second possibility appears more reasonable because
―the drenched grass / Smell of your sleeps‖ is certainly not the same thing as ―the gift
/ Of your small breath.‖ Therefore, it could be said that the speaker‘s narration has
extended from the focus of the son‘s night dances‖ to other memorable things related
to him such as his ―small breath‖ and the ―smell‖ of his ―sleeps.‖ His ―breath‖ and the
―smell‖ of ―sleeps‖ are thus holding associative relationships with ―beauties‖ of ―your
night dances‖ and are not the same things as the ―night dances.‖ From another
perspective, if the speaker uses the word, ―beauties,‖ to refer to the ―night dances‖ as
wells as other things (such as ―the gift‖ of ―small breath‖ and the ―smell‖ of ―sleeps‖),
the narration still shifts from the focus of the ―night dances‖ to other beautiful things
about the son. In such a case, the details are sequenced and contextualized to delineate
the speaker‘s thought process: as ―your night dances‖ appear as ―beauties‖ in the
speaker‘s mind, the speaker starts to recall other ―beauties‖ about the son. Thus, ―your
small breath‖ and the ―drenched grass / Smell of your sleeps‖ are both ―beauties,‖
and, similar with ―your night dances,‖ they have strong impression on the speaker and
thus stay in her mind so solidly and stably that she ―shall not entirely / Sit emptied of
beauties.‖
After the five two–line stanzas discussed above, the sixth and seventh
stanzas continues to describe the ―beauties.‖ Then, between the seventh and eighth
stanzas, there is one larger blank space as a stanza break in the poem. Plath has used a
larger stanza break within a poem to divide the poem into two parts and thus to create
some particular effects—such as an analogy or parallel of the two parts, a comparison
or contrast of the two parts, a separation between the two parts in one respect and a
suggestive connection between the two in another respect, and so on. Plath has
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created a larger stanza break in other poems such as ―The Couriers,‖ ―The Other,‖
―Two Views of a Cadaver Room,‖ and so on for different reasons. In ―The Night
Dances,‖ the comparatively larger stanza break signifies a break and a link between
the previous stanzas and the rest of the stanzas in the poem. The rest of the stanzas
will answer the previous question of how ―your night dances‖ will ―lose themselves‖
and will also further explain how ―your night dances‖ and the ―leaps and spirals‖ of
your dances will ―travel /The world forever‖ and why the speaker will never be
worried about missing/lacking any of the ―beauties.‖ The stanzas after the larger
stanza break together form a grand metaphor, which actually involves the operation of
metonymy (as another mode of figuration) within:
The Comets
Have such a space to cross,
Such coldness, forgetfulness.
So your gestures flake off—
Warm and human, then their pink light
Bleeding and peeling
Through the black amnesias of heaven.
Why am I given
These lamps, these planets
Falling like blessings, like flakes
Six-seeded, white
On my eyes, my lips, my hair
Touching and melting
Nowhere. (Ariel 29-30)
Instead of creating a link with the previous stanzas, Plath creates a break. Plath does
not write that ―the comets‖ are like your ―beauties‖ or the ―beauties‖ are like the
―comets.‖ In other words, the ―comets‖ are not a tenor or a vehicle of a metaphor but
enter the poem simply as a metonymic element. The narrative is thus interrupted as
the focus on the ―night dances‖ and other relevant memorable things related to the son
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appears to shift to something quite irrelevant. The larger stanza break thus signifies an
interruption of the flow of the narrative. The ―comets‖ alone can be seen as a
constituent element of the whole poem whether it is taken as a linguistic unit or as an
image; thus the ―comets‖ can be a metonymic element according to the definition of
metonymy on the very basic linguistic level (i.e., the combination/contexture of
linguistic units based on their syntactic/positional contiguity). To discuss metonymy
on such a basic linguistic level will make every single word or detail in a poem a
metonymic element as each of them is combined into a poem through appropriate
syntax. Such discussion can hardly show a figurative difference of metonymy.
The
three lines—―The comets / Have such a space to cross, / Such coldness,
forgetfulness.‖—together operate as a metonymy that has figurative signification
because the words and images are not only combined through appropriate syntax but
also contextualized especially through their spatial contiguity.
―The comets‖ and ―such a space‖ of the sky are spatially contiguous to each
other because the speaker here sees or pictures the ―comets‖ crossing ―such a space‖
of the sky. Through the speaker‘s observation and perception, the spatial relationship
between the ―comets‖ and ―such a space‖ is formed. These contiguous elements are
combined because of their spatial contiguity; at the same time, a space is created and
presented in the poem because of the combination of them. ―The comets / have such a
space to cross‖ is a different expression from ―the comets cross a space‖ because it
seems to suggest that the ―comets‖ are unwilling to cross ―such a space‖ and that the
space is probably too big and is thus difficult for the ―comets‖ to cross. This
expression shows that the description about the ―comets‖ crossing ―such a space‖ is
not meant to be an objective observation but an observation with subjective
projection. ―Such a space‖ has ―[s]uch coldness‖ and ―forgetfulness,‖ which help
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explain why the ―comets‖ might find it hard to cross such a space. ―The comets‖ are
not simply concerned with the huge space of sky but also its ―coldness‖ and
―forgetfulness.‖ The ―comets‖ are seemingly sensitive about being unable to keep
their own warmth while crossing the cold space. While knowing that they will
disappear soon in the spacious sky, the ―comets‖ complain that ―such a space‖ is
definitely forgetful of their ever existence. This metonymy alone can trigger some
metaphorical interpretations such as an interpretation that the ―comets‖ crossing ―such
a space‖ are just like us living in this big world and the space being cold and forgetful
is equivalent to the world being distant and indifferent. However, this metonymic
space encompasses the contiguous relationships between the ―comets‖ and the sky,
between the comets‘ warmth and the supposedly cold sky, and between the comets‘
sudden existence and the sky‘s ―forgetfulness‖; in other words, these contiguous
relationships and the movement of the ―comets‖ across ―such a space‖ create the
metonymic space. All of the possible subjective description about the ―comets‖ or its
surroundings in this metonymy is all based on the space where the comets are
situated. Moreover, because the space is created through these contiguous
relationships, the description of each element is dependent upon its spatial relation to
other element(s). The subjective perception of the sky‘s ―coldness‖ and
―forgetfulness‖ (or the comets‘ possible responses to ―such a space‖) all relies on the
spatially contiguous relationships between the ―comets‖ and ―such a space‖ of the sky
and also the metonymic space presented through the depiction of the (imaginative)
movement of the ―comets‖ across the sky.
Why is the speaker concerned about the ―comets‖ experiencing
―coldness‖ in the sky and the sky being forgetful of the ―comets‖? Referring to ―such
a space‖ as such ―forgetfulness‖ might bring back the reader‘s memory of the
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speaker‘s previous concern of how her son‘s ―night dances‖ will disappear but will be
kept in her mind. Nonetheless, it is upon reading the line, ―So your gestures flake
off— ,‖ that one can make the connection between the ―comets‖ and the son‘s
―gestures.‖ With this line, a metaphorical connection is created with the previous
stanzas.
Such metaphorical connection makes the larger stanza break appear as a
link since it becomes a hinge that pulls together two groups of stanzas and forms a
parallel between them. However, the larger stanza break is an interruption of the
narrative first until the connection is made and noticed from the line, ―So your
gestures flake off—.‖ The interruption created in the narrative is significant because it
shows that the connection has to be constructed and is not naturally there. In other
words, Plath has left the traces of constructing such a connection and thus revealed
the forceful nature of creating the connection. Plath thus shows that she attempts to
create a connection with the previous stanzas, but she also recognizes the inevitable
interruption at the same time. Plath recognizes that the ―comets‖ and the son‘s
―gestures‖ are irrelevant even though she attempts to make a connection between
them. The larger stanza break, which signifies the way the ―comets‖ enter the poem,
shows that Plath is aware of the arbitrary nature of making such a connection. In
others words, Plath‘s larger stanza break has registered its own arbitrary nature.
To view ―the comets‖ crossing the cold sky only as a metaphor without
regarding how metonymy operates in its constitution is against how Plath
contextualized these words and images in the first place. Furthermore, metonymy
offers a different perspective toward the correlation and association among the chosen
words and details. The ―comets‖ are like the son‘s ―gestures‖ and a metaphorical link
is made because the ―comets,‖ ―such a space,‖ and the sky‘s ―coldness‖ and
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forgetfulness‖ are spatially correlated and associated and form a metonymy. This
metonymy offers a supportive context for the metaphor to function. Most important of
all, this metonymy adds a different figurative possibility to the metaphor—the spatial
figuration.
The metonymic space allows the metaphor to develop and also guides, limits,
and defines its development. Therefore, how the ―comets‖ act and react to the
atmosphere in the sky turns into a similar experience with how ―your gestures‖ travel
the world. Plath uses ―So your gestures flake off—‖ to forcefully claim a causality
and create a metaphor. The ―comets‖ are ―your gestures‖; therefore, when the
―comets‖ cross the sky and react to ―such a space‖ of the sky, ―your gestures‖
continue the same journey that the comets‖ have taken. Thus, ―your gestures flake
off‖ the same way how the ―comets‖ would ―flake off‖ while crossing the sky.
Whatever could possibly happen to ―your gestures‖ is whatever could possibly
happen to the ―comets‖ across the sky. All of these metaphorical possibilities can only
emerge from the metonymic space where the ―comets‖ are situated and thus are
allowed to interact with other element(s) within the same space.
When ―your gestures‖ are mentioned again, the description of ―your night
dances‖ in the previous stanzas is recalled. In the second and third stanzas, the
speaker describes that the son‘s ―night dances‖ will surely ―travel / The world
forever‖; here, the son‘s ―gestures‖ travel across the sky.
A metaphorical similarity
is thus established—just as the ―comets‖ cross ―such a space‖ of the sky, ―your night
dances,‖ ―your gestures,‖ will continue to travel the world. Apparently, the son‘s
―night dances‖ do not need to travel a certain space in order to have contact with the
speaker. Travelling the world then signifies a spatialization of temporality—i.e., ―your
night dances‖ go through time like crossing a space to meet with the speaker in a
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future moment. For this reason, the metaphor of the ―comets‖ is clearly a parallel.
Then, does the metaphor of the ―comets‖ explain and answer the question—―how will
your night dances / Lose themselves‖? The son‘s ―gestures‖ can refer back to his
―night dances,‖ the steps of his dances, his ―small breath‖ during dancing, and other
precious small things related to him such as ―the drench grass / Smell of your sleeps.‖
The speaker previously assures herself that she will never sit ―emptied of beauties‖ by
thinking that ―your night dances‖ and the ―leaps and spirals‖ of your dances ―Surely‖
―travel / The world forever.‖ The speaker thinks that these ―beauties‖ do not disappear
because they travel the world forever and thus exist forever. How does the metaphor
of the ―comets‖ further explain and support or contradict the possibility of the
―forever‖ existence of these small ―beauties‖ of the son?
As ―your gestures‖ ―cross‖ the sky and ―flake off‖ like the ―comets,‖ flakes of
―your gestures‖ also supposedly drop from the sky. Similar with the flakes of the
―comets,‖ the flakes of ―your gestures‖ are ―warm‖; different from the flakes of the
―comets,‖ these flakes of ―your gestures‖ are ―human.‖ Both words ―warm‖ and
―human‖ gradually and closely relate the ―comets‖ to the son‘s ―gestures‖ and thus
show more and more projection of the speaker‘s concern and affection. Similarly,
depicting that ―their light‖ is ―[b]leeding and peeling‖ shows the speaker‘s further
worries. Watching the ―comets‖ shed off light is not supposed to be painful, but
watching her son‘s ―gestures‖ being torn apart and drop off piece by piece can be
painful for the speaker. As the description that ―such a space‖ of the sky is such
―forgetfulness‖ has suggested, these ―flakes‖ are ―Bleeding and peeling / Through the
black amnesias of heaven.‖ The ―black amnesia of heaven‖ and such ―forgetfulness‖
of the sky probably have answered the question of whether ―your night dances‖ will
―lose themselves‖ or not. The sky or ―heaven‖ does not remember the ―comets‖
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crossing through; therefore, ―your night dances,‖ ―your gestures,‖ are not remembered
in such a forgetful space of the sky. The ―comets‖ show up but are destined to ―flake
off‖ and disappear eventually. Similarly, ―your gestures‖ show up as such ―beauties‖
but are destined to be forgotten in the world. Plath ends the poem with a long
complicated question; the question is also a response to ―the black amnesias of
heaven‖ that devours anything passing by. The first two lines of the question—―Why
am I given / These lamps, these planets‖—suggest a tone of negativity, which sounds
as if the speaker complains of being given these ―lamps‖ and ―planets.‖ If ―your
gestures‖ will eventually disappear like the ―comets‖ in the forgetful sky, what is the
meaning of being given ―[t]hese ―lamps,‖ ―these planets‖? To phrase the question
differently, ―Why am I given these‖ if they will be taken away later? However, the
negativity is balanced with the positivity of the words Plath uses to describe these
flakes of light. Besides calling them the ―lamps‖ and ―planets,‖ they are ―falling like
blessings, like flakes / Six-sided , white.‖ Thus, when the comets shed pieces of light
as they live their lives through the sky within a short time, these flakes of light are still
―like blessings.‖ Similarly, the speaker is given and is appreciative of pieces of
memory, images, or fragments of the son‘s ―gestures‖ as time passes (and as her son
and she grow older) even though they will ―lose themselves‖ and disappear
eventually. Besides the word ―blessings,‖ Plath has shown how the speaker receives
and appreciates the impact of the son‘s ―night dances‖ by naming and re-naming these
shredded pieces of light and depicting the very particular details of their ―[s]ix-sided‖
shape and the ―white‖ color (just like the way she points out the particular steps of her
son‘s night dances and his ―small breath‖).
Plath also further shows the impact by describing how the speaker receives and
experiences these fragments of the son‘s ―gestures‖ in the last two stanzas. The flakes
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of light should drop off fast; nonetheless, Plath writes, ―these planets / Falling like
blessings […] / On my eyes, my lips, my hair / Touching and melting. / Nowhere.‖
Such deliberate depiction of which areas of her body the flakes of light land on and
how lightly they land on her hair and face creates several significant effects. First, the
flakes of light appear to fall as if raindrops fell on someone‘s head or face one by one
in slow motion since the speaker is able to detect where in particular they land. The
―comets‖ might disappear quickly in the sky but the depiction here shows that the
speaker slowly receives and experiences their impact. The speaker‘s slow-motion
embracement of the fragments from the ―comets‖—―your gestures‖—is a contrast to
the transient existence and the inevitable disappearance of what she attempts to keep
forever. Second, these ―flakes‖ of light do not seem to have any strong impact because
they are simply ―[t]ouching and melting.‖ However, ―[t]ouching and melting‖ show
that the speaker is sensitive to experiencing the ―falling‖ ―flakes‖ of light and also that
the impact from the ―flakes‖ of light is lingering. The last line, ―Nowhere,‖ bluntly
puts an end to the imaginative lingering sensation. The ―comets‖ ―flake off‖ across
the sky and turn into pieces of light; as these ―planets‖ or ―flakes‖ of light fall on the
speaker‘s face and hair, they melt and go ―[n]owhere. The very ending line contradicts
with and thus questions the speaker‘s previous self-assurance that ―your night dances‖
will surely ―travel / The world forever.‖ If this contradiction does not mean that Plath
simply loses control in her writing and fails to create a perfect metaphorical parallel
(between how the son‘s ―night dances‖ will travel the world forever and how the
―comets‖ will turn into flakes of light and disappear in the end), the contradiction has
a deeper signification—that the metonymic contextualization of the ―comets‖ and
other spatially contiguous elements has taken the poem to a different direction, which
Plath does not manipulate and twist in order to keep a perfect metaphorical parallel.
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Instead of functioning as a simple metaphor that echoes the idea stated in the previous
stanzas, the metonymic contextualization of the ―comets‖ and other elements has
developed a different figurative possibility. The metonymic contextualization allows
the ―comets‖ and its associative elements to develop the possible consequences of the
comets‘ movement, their encounter and interaction with the surroundings, and also the
possible outcome of the comets‘ journey in the sky. Such operation of metonymy
constrains and forbids the full operation of metaphor because the ―comets‖ are first
addressed as an equivalent to ―your gestures‖ and ―your night dances‖ but the comets‘
experiences during the journey in the sky cannot fully coincide with how ―your night
dances‖ will continue to ―travel‖ and exist in the world ―forever.‖ The outcome that
the ―comets‖ turn into ―flakes‖ of light falling and disappearing does not correspond
to the outcome that ―your night dances‖ will ―travel / The world forever.‖ Such an
imperfect metaphor relies on metonymy for its development first, but other figurative
possibilities and suggestive meanings emerge from the operation of metonymy and
become a counterforce to a metaphorical simplicity. To insist on a simple
metaphorical development of the ―comets‖ will force the ―comets‖ to turn into a
forever existence (i.e., to celebrate its momentary existence as a forever significance)
and end up being a cliché—that they disappear in reality but exist forever in one‘s
mind. In the last three stanzas of the poem, the speaker‘s interaction with the
―comets‖ takes on a metonymic development as the speaker imaginatively responds to
the ―flakes‖ of light from the ―comets‖ and surreally feels the flakes of light
―[t]ouching and melting‖ on her face and hair. It is not questionable that the
metonymic development here also carries on the metaphorical development in the
previous three stanzas that ―your gestures‖ and ―your night dances‖ are ―the comets.‖
Nonetheless, the metonymic development is not circumscribed by the readily-defined
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metaphorical connection between ―your night dances‖ and the ―comets‖; instead, the
imaginative metonymic contextualization of the comets‘ ―flakes‖ of light, their falling
onto the speaker‘s face and hair, and the speaker‘s sensitive response to them offers a
challenge and becomes a contrast to the speaker‘s previous understanding that ―your
night dances‖ and other memorable things will be the forever ―beauties‖ in her life. In
other words, the speaker‘s ideas and desires made manifest in the first seven stanzas
(before the larger stanza break) are not stable and consistent through the poem. They
are challenged, re-thought, and revised as the metonymic development takes on its
own direction in the stanzas after the larger stanza break. In these stanzas, Plath does
not describe the ―comets,‖ their journey in the sky, their destination, and the speaker‘s
reaction to their falling to fully represent (and thus just to repeat) the speaker‘s
previous interaction with the son‘s ―night dances.‖ In short, what Plath has created
here is not a metaphor which functions as an ornament to decorate an already-known
idea. Plath allows the speaker to interact with the contiguous details in the metonymic
space and lets such development take on its own course. Such metonymic
development leads to a different outcome from what the speaker previously desires.
What especially features the metonymic development here is the space that has
a figurative possibility; the imaginative confrontation and interaction between the
comets and the speaker rely on the space created through the metonymic operation
(i.e., the combination/contexture of constituent elements based on their spatial
contiguity). Only the space created as such evokes and encompasses possibilities of
existence and disappearance of ―the comets‖ at the same time. Within this figurative
space, the speaker‘s experience is given a chance to become an experience as a
process. In the metonymic space, the speaker‘s desire or hope that her son‘s ―night
dances‖ and all his ―beauties‖ will persist and never disappear is brought into play
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only as an element participating in the metonymic operation but does not dominate
the whole metonymic operation since the operation involves other elements.
The
speaker confronts and is fully susceptible to the existence of the ―comets‖ and her
son‘s ―beauties‖ but acknowledges that they are disappearing right at the moment
when they are being appreciated. The line, ―Touching and melting‖ emphasizes the
speaker‘s embracement and full appreciation of what is left from the ―comets‖ (from
her son‘s ―beauties‖) and the speaker‘s clear acknowledgement of their disappearance
at the same time. This experiencing process confirms the speaker‘s appreciation of
their existence while registering a reality that they can never be rescued and
safeguarded from the forgetful world through such appreciation. For Plath to allow
the metonymic contextualization to develop with such an ending—a sad note to the
speaker‘s romantic hope—shows that Plath‘s writing is not simply to represent a
personal hope, to precipitate an ideal, or just to confirm an already-known idea. Plath
does not write the poem to confirm that it is possible to resuscitate the past or to recall
the past through writing. Metonymic contextualization allows the speaker‘s
subjectivity to enter the text only as a metonymic element, not as a dominant arbiter.
The meanings that emerge from the metonymic contextualization can diverge from a
metaphorical purpose just as a writer‘s purpose is susceptible to challenge offered by
metonymy in writing. It is when metonymy operates and challenges the functioning of
metaphor that a different figurative possibility emerges—the possibility that the
metonymic contextual meanings can lead a narrative astray from a writer‘s original
intention and from a metaphorical purpose, and thus differ from any
presupposed/prepared ideas.
X
Conclusion: Metonymy as a Challenge against Thematic Approaches
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There are plenty of examples in Plath‘s poems where metaphors involve the
operation of metonymy featuring especially the spatial contiguous relations among
images or details, including ―Flies watch no resurrections in the sun‖ (in an early
poem ―November Graveyard),‖ ―Ages beat like rains / On the unbeaten channels / Of
the ocean‖ (in ―Full Fathom Five‖), ―Clouds pass and disperse. / Are those the faces
of love‖ (in ―Elm‖), ―And I / Am the arrow, / The dew that flies suicidal, at one with
the drive / Into the red / Eye, the cauldron of morning‖ (in the well-known poem
―Ariel‖), ―I imagine him / Impotent as distant thunder‖ (in ―The Jailor‖), and so on.
When Plath no longer celebrates the metaphorical domination and manipulation
of words, images, and details in some of her poems and actually allows the
metonymic contextual meanings to compete with the metaphorical meanings, critics
still disregard the functioning of metonymy and simply emphasize how Plath
subjectively creates or imposes metaphorical or symbolic meanings on objects/images
in her work. Thus, critics tend to focus on what meta-meanings those particular
images or details in her work represent and symbolize. Such critical tendency
permeates both the earlier critics‘ discussion of her later poems and the more recent
critics‘ discussion of her later poems. Even though several critics (such as Brain,
Rosenblatt, and Broe) have shown the problem of interpreting Plath‘s poetry
biographically, (which can be a serious questioning on the metaphorical connection
between her work and her life and between the speaker as a created subject and the
poet), the metaphorical relation between constituent elements within a poem (such as
an echo or correspondence between the speaker‘s inner feeling and an outside image
or between a detail and its intended symbolic meaning) remains unproblematic.
In the essay, ―On the Road to ‗Ariel,‘‖ Perloff suggests that the poems in
Plath‘s Winter Trees ―could easily be included in an expanded edition of Ariel since
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they burn with the same central passion to destroy the old ego and create a new self,
to undergo death and rebirth, to enter the lives of animals, plants, or inanimate objects
so as to transcend one‘s humanity‖ (140). The edition of Ariel Perloff refers to here is
obviously one that is edited by Ted Hughes and published in 1965. Perloff comments
that the fifteen poems in Winter Trees share the same thematic concerns such as
―death and rebirth,‖ ―imaginative animism,‖ (a term used by Perloff in a different
essay, ―Angst and Animism in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath‖) and the transcendence of
the self with the poems in Ariel, and thus could be just put together in the same
volume. Perloff made such a suggestion because she thinks that ―these supplementary
Ariel poems‖ somehow show that Plath‘s ―range‖ may be ―too narrow‖ and her poems
lack ―greater depth and variety‖ (140). In another essay, ―The Two Ariels,‖ examining
the contents and the order of the poems collected in the new edition of Ariel (the
restored edition published in 2004, the one that exactly follows the arrangement of
Plath‘s last manuscript as she left it according to Frieda Hughes), Perloff criticizes Ted
Hughes for taking out some poems that Plath had originally included in the Ariel
manuscript and adding some that were not originally in the manuscript. When Perloff
points out Hughes‘ mistake for putting the poem ―Words‖ at the end of the Ariel
collection (in the edition published in 1965), which is against Plath‘s arrangement,
what is intriguing is not only Hughes‘ decision but also the contradictory comments
made by Perloff. After all, Perloff had suggested that the poems in Winter Trees, the
ones published after Ariel, should be included in Ariel herself; now, in a different
essay, she criticizes Hughes for doing exactly the thing she had actually suggested.
Perloff made that suggestion for a thematic consideration (as the poems in
Winter Trees and the poems in Hughes‘ edition of Ariel share the same thematic
ideas). Perloff‘s criticism of Hughes‘ mistake is also for a thematic consideration.
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According to Perloff, the poem―Words‖ ―is despairing in its sense that the poet‘s
‗words‘ become ‗dry and riderless‘‖ and ―there is only fate in the form of ‗the fixed
stars‘ that ‗From the bottom of the pool … Govern a life‘‖ (―The Two Ariels‖ 196).
Perloff thinks that the negative connotations of the poem ―Words‖ as the last poem in
Ariel edited by Hughes give a totally different message and form a different theme
from what Plath attempts to create. Perloff states that as ―[t]he poems of Ariel [edited
by Hughes] culminate in a sense of finality, all passion spent,‖ ―Plath‘s arrangement
emphasizes, not death, but struggle and revenge, the outrage that follows the
recognition that the beloved is also the betrayer, that the shrine at which one worships
is also the tomb‖ (197). It is questionable whether ―Words‖ is a poem of despair,
depression, and death and whether this poem is negative enough to fit into Perloff‘s
theme of an inevitable death, which she thinks that Hughes seems to try to create in
order to avoid his responsibility on Plath‘s death (196). Perloff constantly formulates
themes on Plath‘s poems no matter it is to criticize Plath‘s narrowness, to observe
Plath‘s reason for the arrangement of the poems in the Ariel manuscript, or to
comment on Hughes‘ decisions. Besides constantly revising the themes that could
match one‘s interpretation of Plath‘s poems, why does one never question the
thematic approach itself?
The thematic approach is an approach that relies on the metaphorical relation or
connection between the particular details/images in the poems and their metaphorical
or symbolic meanings and between the poems and the consistent thematic ideas. Such
an approach lies in the false assumption that the purpose of Plath‘s poems is to
represent the thematic ideas in Plath‘s mind and the purpose of reading Plath‘s poems
is to locate these thematic ideas. Metonymy offers a different perspective toward the
discussion of Plath‘s work, which has mainly focused on the metaphorical operation.
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Just as Plath allows metonymic development to lead a narrative in ―The Night
Dances‖ and presents how metonymic development competes with and frustrates the
metaphorical operation, the metaphorical connection made by critics should also
encounter the threating force of metonymy in her poems. When multiplicity of
interpretation based on metaphorical connection is celebrated in the studies of poetry,
metonymy becomes a different critical adventure in reading poetry, especially with
Plath‘s poems.
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Works Cited
Benjamin, Walter. ―On Mimetic Faculty.‖ Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms,
Autobiographical Writings. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. Ed. Peter Demetz. New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovish, 1978. 333-336.
---. ―The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility.‖ Walter
Benjamin: Selected Writings. Trans. Edmund Jephcott and others. Ed. Howard
Eiland and Michael W. Jennings. Vol. 4. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 2004. 251-283.
Booth, Wayne C. ―Resurrection of the Implied Author: Why Bother?‖ A Companion
to Narrative Theory. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2005. 75-88.
Brain, Tracy. ―Dangerous Confessions: the Problem of Reading Sylvia Plath
Biographically.‖ Modern Confessional Writing: New Critical Essays. Ed. Jo
Gill. London: Routledge, 2006. 11-32.
Broe, Mary Lynn. Protean Poetic: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath. Columbia: University
of Missouri Press, 1980.
De Man, Paul. ―Criticism and Crisis.‖ Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of
Contemporary Criticism. Trans. Wlad Godzich. 2nd ed. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesoda Pres, 1983.
---. ―Lyric and Modernity.‖ Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of
Contemporary Criticism. Trans. Wlad Godzich. 2nd ed. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesoda Pres, 1983.
---. ―Semiology and Rhetoric.‖ Allegories of Reading. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1979.
Derrida, Jacques. ―White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy.‖ Margins
of Philosophy. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1982. 207-271.
---. Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: The John
Hopkins University Press, 1997.
Hughes, Ted. ―Sylvia Plath and Her Journals.‖ Modern Critical Views: Sylvia Plath.
Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. 109-20.
Jakobson, Roman. ―Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic
Disturbances.‖ Fundamentals of Language. Co-authored with Morris Halle.
's-Gravenhage: Mouton, 1956. 53-82.
Kenner, Hugh. ―Sincerity Kills.‖ Modern Critical Views: Sylvia Plath. Ed. Harold
Bloom. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. 67-78.
Middlebrook, Diane. ―What was Confessional Poetry?‖ The Columbia History of
American Poetry. Ed. J. Parini. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
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632-49.
Perloff, Marjorie. ―Angst and Animism in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath.‖ Critical Essays
on Sylvia Plath. Ed. Linda W. Wanger. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984. 109-24.
---. ―On the Road to Ariel: The ‗Transitional‘ Poetry of Sylvia Plath.‖ Sylvia Plath:
The Woman and the Work. Ed. Edward Butscher. London: Peter Owen, 1979.
125-42.
---. ―Sylvia Plath‘s ‗Sivvy‘ Poems: A Portrait of the Poet as Daughter.‖ Sylvia Plath:
New Views on the Poetry. Ed. Gary Lane. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1979. 155-78.
---. ―The Two Ariels: The (Re)making of the Sylvia Plath Cannon.‖ Poetic License.
Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1990. 175-97.
Plath, Sylvia. The Collected Poems. Ed. Ted Hughes. New York : HarperPerennial,
1992
---. Ariel: The Restored Edition. New York : HarperPerennial, 2004.
Ricoeur, Paul. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning. Fort
Worth: The Texas Christian University Press, 1976.
Rosenblatt, Jon. Sylvia Plath: The Poetry of Initiation. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1979.
Steiner, George. ―Dying Is an Art.‖ The Art of Sylvia Plath. Ed. Charles Newman.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970. 211-218
Vendler, Helen. ―Sylvia Plath.‖ The Music of What Happens. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1988. 272-83.
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Chapter 3
Wallace Stevens‟ „Spatial Construct of Relationships‟ as Figuration: the Soil
where a Fiction Grows
I
Why Reality and What Reality
Stevens‘ poetry has shown its full potential in triggering diverse critical
perspectives and responses (including the epistemological study, the deconstructive
nature in his work, traces of historical and social influences in his work, even a
psychological analysis of his desire of writing ―a supreme fiction,‖ and so on). The
phenomenon cannot explain whether his work is open to these different kinds of
criticism; nonetheless, such a great number of different critical perspectives have led
to an outcome of conflicting and competing ideas on Stevens‘ poetry. For example,
Gerald Bruns observes how the other is often silenced for ―the mind‘s normal work‖
in Steven‘s poetry (―Stevens without Epistemology‖ 36). However, J. Hillis Miller
questions that Stevens can easily fall into such ―a celebration of the creative power of
the solitary human imagination‖ (The Ethics of Topography 274-5). The criticism on
Stevens‘ attitude toward the relation between imagination and reality (or between the
self and the outside world) thus easily swings from one pole to the other.
Bart Eeckhout has attempted to propose a possible solution toward the diverse
and sometimes contradictory critical responses through the discussion of
intertextuality in his book, Wallace Stevens and the Limits of Reading and Writing. On
the one hand, Eeckhout emphasized that ―in his [Stevens‘] case, any close reading
serves to preclude a closed reading‖ (9) and that Stevens‘ poems can be ―‗channeling‘
responses to them‖ (18). On the other hand, while observing that in Stevens‘ poems,
―we find few internal authorizations for directing the establishment of a text‘s
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contexts,‖ Eeckhout nonetheless states that the external contexts are ―always
necessary for the production of meanings‖ (49). While recognizing that
―intertextuality may be nothing more than a phenomenon of ‗informational
association,‘‖ Eeckhout claims that ―[y]et the heuristic legitimacy of drawing on
outside texts as a signifying practice, irrespective of whether or not those texts
actually inspired […] the poet in the act of writing, is undeniable‖ (52). Confirming
the necessity of ―drawing on outside texts‖ to create meanings of the poems, Eeckhout
nonetheless says, ―[b]eyond the act of crossing texts, little more can be done than to
signal a sufficiently self-reflective awareness of the specific nature of one‘s reading
praxis […]‖ (52). How can a text ―channel‖ its critical responses when there is no
need for a critical discourse to create its own legitimacy of interpreting a text? Why
does a critic need to have ―self-reflective awareness‖ while applying his/her critical
approach by establishing the connection between a text and its outside contexts is
seen as inevitable for producing meanings of a text? If intertextuality is ―undeniable,‖
from what stance then can Eeckhout criticize that Helen Venler‘s interpretation of
Stevens‘ poem, ―The Snow Man,‖ is based on ―her ideological preference for the
‗universal‘ psychological-existential topics of individualism‖ (76)? Intertextuality
thus does not offer an answer to the reader‘s relationship with a text but points at the
tension between the internal force of a text and a text‘s outside contexts. Can such
tension be easily removed by celebrating the inevitability of intertextuality? Besides
the theoretical frameworks of interpretation, these outside contexts can be the
geographical or temporal contexts for a poem or for Stevens. If these contexts are
taken as reality, Stevens‘ ideas of the relation between imagination and reality might
give some insight toward the discussion of intertextuality.
Miller has noticed that there are ―fluctuations‖ in Stevens‘ ―aphorisms that are
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in blank contradiction to one another‖ because Stevens might say that ―[t]here is
nothing in the world greater than reality‖ at one moment but claim that ―[i]magination
is the only genius‖ in the next (―William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens‖ 990).
Being abstract is a conspicuous feature of Stevens‘ poetry. Stevens‘ idea about
abstraction is closely related to imagination but is not exclusive of reality. In his essay,
―Intentional Structure of the Romantic Image,‖ de Man introduces that poets of
romanticism has a tendency of celebrating ―the imaginative use of figural diction.‖
According to de Man, as the emphasis on the term ―imagination‖ grows in the poetic
texts of this period, ―[t]his evolution […] corresponds to a profound change in the
texture of poetic diction,‖ a change that ―often takes the form of a return to a greater
concreteness, a proliferation of natural objects that restores to the language the
material substantiality […]‖ (1-2). The emphasis on metaphor, image, and its
concreteness in poetic texts leads to ―a dialectic that is more paradoxical than may
appear as the first sight‖ because the tension between imagery and natural objects and
between imagination and nature ―never ceases to be problematic‖ (2). To discuss the
trend of stressing the importance of concrete images in poetry, de Man does a close
reading and analysis of some specific lines in a famous poem by Hölderlin, ―Bread
and Wine.‖ The key metaphor (or image as a metaphor) that he pays close attention to
in these lines is that words should originate like the flower. De Man concludes, ―It
would follow then, since the intent of poetic word is to originate like the flower, that it
strives to banish all metaphor, to become entirely literal‖ (4). Metaphor or image in
poetic texts is in its nature different from the concrete, the real, and the literal. To
want it to originate like a real flower and to be entirely the literal is denying what
makes it what it is from the beginning and is thus against its own constitution. This
tendency shows that there is an intentional, ―a deliberate forgetting of the
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transcendental nature of the source‖ (5). What constitutes metaphor or image in poetic
texts is paradoxical from the very beginning, and the transcendental and abstract
aspect of its constitution is undeniable even if ―the intent of poetic word‖ strives to be
―entirely literal.‖ De Man‘s argument indirectly indicates that Stevens‘ attention to the
abstract nature in poetic words shows Stevens‘ understanding of what first
differentiates words or images in poetic texts from the concrete, the real, or the
literal—i.e., the fundamental difference. Stevens‘ discussion of imagination
emphasizes abstraction and is clearly different from the tendency of
Romanticism—that is to return a poetic image back to the real. To deny the abstract
nature in writing is to deny what it is founded upon from the beginning. However, if
claiming that ―the intent of poetic word‖ is to become the literal (or the real) is blind
to its own constitution, it is equally blind to think that words in poetry are written for
the sake of maintaining abstraction and of transcending the concrete, the real, and
reality.
In Metaphysics: Concept and Problems, Theodor W. Adorno introduces that
when Idea or God is put into words and is thus concretized and materialized, it runs
the risk of losing and destroying itself. Metaphysics is always in a self-destructive
position as it attempts to reach ―the absolute,‖ ―the essential,‖ ―the Beyond,‖ through
concepts, to link ―the Ideas‖ to the world of appearances, the empirical world, and to
―secularize‖ the ―Ideas‖ (18-19). Therefore, it becomes a paradox (the self-destructive
nature in the constitution of words): to concretize Idea means to allow it to appear but
also to destroy it at the same time. In order to save the abstract and the transcendental
Idea, it becomes necessary to deny the concrete and material nature of Idea when it is
written. If we parallel Adorno‘s and de Man‘s arguments, we can see that they are
both arguing and questioning a theoretical foundation that favors and privileges either
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the concreteness or the abstractness of words. (It is interesting that they pick on totally
opposite characteristics.) The preference of one pole easily leads to the denial of the
other. De Man tries to point out the blindness of thinking from one pole of two
opposed concepts but does not prioritize the concept of abstraction over that of
concreteness. Stevens‘ discussion of the relation between imagination and reality also
shows that he does not attempt to switch from the tendency of returning a Romantic
image to its concreteness to another tendency of celebrating transcendental abstraction
free from any sense of reality, any concreteness, or any ―material substantiality‖ in
writing.
The discussion of Stevens‘ poetry has been directly or indirectly related to the
tension and conflict between reality and imagination, between fragment and unity
(which could lead to the questioning of the possibility of a dialectical synthesis), or
between internal contexts and external contexts. In order to understand what is
significant and could be problematic in the discussion of these oppositions or critical
analysis based on these oppositions, it is necessary to understand how Stevens
discusses the relation between imagination and reality. First, in The Necessary Angel,
except for a few occasions, Stevens talks of reality as a composed and thus a fictional
reality in a text. Second, Stevens emphasizes that the poet has to cancel ―the pressure
of reality‖ (22-3). Third, for Stevens, poetry must be abstract. In ―Why Stevens Must
be Abstract, or What a Poet Can Learn from Painting,‖ Charles Altieri has noticed that
―it is no accident that Stevens‘ clearest definition of abstraction follows directly upon
his clearest definition of the pressure of reality‖ (87). These three ideas are closely
connected. For Stevens, abstraction suggests a fundamental break between writing
and reality: ―[…] in spite of all the passions of all the lovers of the truth, is the
measure of his [the poet‘s] power to abstract himself, and to withdraw with him into
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his abstraction the reality on which the lovers of truth insist. He must be able to
abstract himself and also abstract reality, which he does by placing it in his
imagination‖ (The Necessary Angel 23). The poet‘s power is not to represent the
reality in order to pursue truth but to abstract both himself/herself and the reality
through imagination. Through the process of imagination, the self is an imagined self
and the reality is the imagined and fictional reality. It is the reality placed in the
imagination that concerns Stevens. Imagination allows the poet to take his/her
departure from both the corporeal self and the corporeal world. Stevens sees this
break with the real as fundamental: ―The pejorative sense applies where the poet is
not attached to reality, where the imagination does not adhere to reality, which, for my
part, I regard as fundamental‖ (31). This fundamental break with the reality in the
corporeal world makes possible the fictional reality in the imagination, and it also
explains why Stevens states that the poet resists against and cancels ―the pressure of
reality‖ through the imagination (The Necessary Angel 22-23, 36). The imagination
thus initiates a movement from the reality in the corporeal world to a fictional realistic
world in poetry.
Stevens‘ discussion of the relation between reality and imagination might
appear confusing at certain times because he does address the self‘s relation with the
reality in the corporeal world when he states that poetry is not separable from life and
that ―[t]his is, in fact, a world of poetry indistinguishable from the world in which we
live or, I ought to say, no doubt, from the world in which we shall come to live […]‖
(The Necessary Angel 31). Is ―a world of poetry‖ indistinguishable from the corporeal
world or from the world we look forward to? Stevens seems unclear. However, as
Stevens adds that this world is created by ―the poet the potent figure‖ and is the world
―to which we turn incessantly and without knowing it‖ and that ―he [the poet] gives to
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life the supreme fictions without which we are unable to conceive it‖ (31), it is clear
that a fictional world presented in poetry is not completely distinguishable from life in
the corporeal world because it helps us conceive life. Paradoxically, a fictional reality
presented in poetry helps us conceive life, which cannot be achieved through directly
accessing life and reality in the corporeal world. Therefore, the confusion due to the
unclear distinction between the fictional reality and the corporal reality might be
inevitable for Stevens. Again, such confusion only appears at certain passages in The
Necessary Angel. It is thus important to keep in mind that epistemology appears
popular in studying Stevens‘ poetry because reality is sometimes taken as the reality
we live in without too much suspicion. Stevens nonetheless emphasizes the fictional
reality in different aspects.
Besides ―abstraction‖ of the self and reality, Stevens also adds that poetry is not
―a firm grasp of reality‖ and that ―[a] poet‘s words are of things that do not exist
without the words‖ (Necessary Angel 30, 32). How does the poet abstract reality
without directly grasping and transporting what exists in reality? Stevens suggest a
―composed‖ spatial reality: ―The subject-matter of poetry is not that ‗collection of
solid, static objects extended in space‘ but the life that is lived in the scene that it
composed; and so reality is not that external scene but the life that is lived in it‖ (25).
―The subject-matter of poetry‖ is reality, but reality is not about the real ―solid, static
objects extended in space‖ but about the life lived in the composed scene. In other
words, to compose a reality in poetry is not to copy or represent the tangible objects in
a real space but to create and compose a space/scene that allows the life lived in it to
emerge in poetry. It is through the composed spatial reality that the life lived in it is
created in poetry. This life in the composed reality is different from but is not
completely distinguishable from the life we live in. On the one side, the difference is
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made manifest in the composed fiction‘s fundamental break with the corporeal reality.
Stevens stresses that ―[imagination] creates images that are independent of their
originals […]‖ (150-1), and he calls ―the operative force within us‖ seemingly ―a
constructive faculty‖ that ―derives its energy from the imagination‖ (The Necessary
Angel 164). Such ―constructive faculty‖ resonates with the idea of the ―composed‖
reality in poetry and denies that the mind simply ―reconstructed an experience‖ in the
function of imagination (164-5). On the other side, the life created in the composed
fictional reality might be connected with the life we live in even though one does not
coincide with the other. For Stevens, imagination does not decrease but increases our
sense of reality: ―Everyone can call to mind a variety of figures and see clearly how
these resemblances please and why; how inevitably they heighten our sense of reality‖
(77). For Stevens, imagination can be seen ―as the clue to reality‖ (139). Therefore,
the composed/fictional reality takes its departure from the reality in the corporeal
world through imagination and arrives at its further uncovering of the corporeal world
and its heightening ―our sense of reality.‖ Stevens is concerned of the paradoxical
nature in the relation between reality and imagination, and, from his contemplation,
the journey of the composed/fictional reality does not arrive safely and stably at its
connection with where it departs from (i.e., the real in the corporeal world).
What is composed and created in a text can be a transcendent world (Necessary
Angel 130). Such a transcendent world or a supreme fiction relies on the self‘s power:
―their [men‘s] interest in the imagination and its work is to be regarded not as a phase
of humanism but as a vital self-assertion in the work in which nothing but the self
remains, if that remains‖ (171). Stevens seems to conclude with a final answer to what
poetry can create—i.e., ―the search for the supreme truth‖ and the celebration of ―the
precious portents of our powers‖ (173-4). Such an answer seems to prioritize the
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powers of the imaginative mind over reality. Nonetheless, Stevens questions such
enlargement of the self by adding ―if that remains‖ at the end of the quote. Stevens
also says that ―the search for the supreme truth is a search in reality or through reality
or even a search for some supremely acceptable fiction‖ (173). In this quote, reality is
paralleled with fiction so that they both work as possible methods of looking for the
―supreme truth.‖ It is problematic to treat ―reality‖ in this quote as the reality of the
corporeal world because such a reading disregards one possibility—that Stevens‘
―supremely acceptable fiction‖ is not exclusive but inclusive of reality. Sevens
highlights the interdependence and the necessary balance between reality and
imagination very frequently in The Necessary Angel: ―It is not only that the
imagination adheres to reality, but, also, that reality adheres to the imagination and
that the interdependence is essential‖ and ―[i]t [the nature of poetry] is an
interdependence of imagination and reality as equals‖ (33, 27). Reality is the decisive
element for an ―acceptable‖ supreme fiction where ―the supreme truth‖ is to be found.
Reality is a decisive factor for whether a fiction is ―acceptable,‖ but such reality is not
the reality that one experiences in the corporeal world.
Stevens accentuates that the poet does not write about his own world but about
―his sense of the world‖ (119, 130). The poet‘s sense of the world is significant
because ―in arts and letters what is important is the truth as we see it,‖ not ―the truth
as it is‖ (147). For Stevens, what matters in poetry is ―the truth as we see it,‖ not ―the
truth as it is.‖ The outside world can never be presented in a text without the
―constructive faculty‖ of the imagination. Stevens writes, ―He speaks / By sight and
insight as they are‖ (The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens 473). What ―they are‖ is
presented through both his ―sight‖ and ―insight‖ in the act of seeing. The act of seeing
enables the self to see the other with sight and insight at the same time. For Stevens, a
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poet does not represent the world as it is and then presents the confrontation between
the self and the world and consequently the self‘s perception or interpretation of the
world in poetry. The world presented in poetry is already the world as the self sees it;
reality presented in poetry is already a composed and thus a fictional reality. If reality
is a fictional and imagined reality, how does the fictional reality become the
counterforce or counterbalance with the imagination? Why does Stevens stress that
poetry relies on the interdependence and balance between imagination and reality if,
after all, the fictional reality is constructed through the imagination of the mind?
(With the similar paradox, can a reader‘s interpretation of a text encounter any
counter-force since it is undeniable for a reader to adopt any preferred signifying
practice by incorporating different outside contexts?)
How does a supreme fiction ―heighten our sense of reality‖? How can a
transcendent world, a supreme fiction, signify the truth as we see the world and
further uncover the life of the corporeal? What solidifies such fictional truth as the
truth? What allows the supreme truth shown through a supreme fiction to be the truth,
which is also the truth to the life we live but cannot be secured through living the life
of the corporeal?
II
A Spatial Construct of Relationships as Metonymy
Stevens states that poetry is ―a transcendent analogue composed of the
particulars of reality, created by the poet‘s sense of the world, that is to say, his
attitude, as he intervenes and interposes the appearances of that sense‖ (130). If the
sense of the world is no longer the world as it is, ―the appearances of that sense‖ of
the world that the poet intervenes are no longer ―the particulars of reality‖ in the
corporeal world. This understanding will match Stevens‘ quote of the painter, Juan
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Gris: ―The world from which I extract the elements of reality is not visual but
imaginative‖ (173). Therefore, ―the particulars of reality‖ should be the particulars of
the imaginative reality. If the sense of the world is one step away from the corporeal, a
composed fiction, a transcendent fiction, should be more steps away from the
corporeal. However, Stevens calls this supreme fiction ―a transcendent analogue.‖ It is
apparently an analogue of reality. Stevens already directly denounces the method of
representation and imitation in writing. Can it be said that a fictional sense of reality
grants a supreme fiction the possibility of securing ―the truth‖? As Stevens keeps
stressing how the poet must cancel ―the pressure of reality‖ and how the poet must
abstract the self and reality instead of directly transporting the external reality in the
corporeal, could reality be the most important element for a composed fiction to
create ―the truth‖?
If representing the real objects in the corporeal world does not help create the
fictional reality, what elements are significant and decisive in the composed fictional
reality that will allow ―the life‖ to emerge from it? If a transcendent supreme fiction is
not created and composed in poetry totally through the self‘s random free will, what is
the possible necessary condition that limits and directs the path toward a supreme
fiction? As discussed above, one possible answer to the first question is through
composing a spatial reality in the fictional world of poetry. On the second question,
Stevens mentions that imagination has limits and that [t]here is a limit to its power to
surpass resemblance and that limit is to be found in nature‖ (The Necessary Angel 74).
It is again paradoxical that imagination takes its departure from the corporeal world
(and, of course, the nature in the real world as well) but has limits which are ―to be
found in nature.‖ It is through further understanding of what constitutes a fictional
spatial reality in Stevens‘ poetry that we might have a clue of how imagination has
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limits in its composed fictional reality. The idea of a fictional spatial reality is similar
with Hans-Jost Frey‘s ―a spatial construct of relationships‖ (Studies in Poetic
Discourse 86); furthermore, it is exactly what Roman Jakobson defines as
metonymy—i.e., the operation of contexture/combination of constituent elements
based on their syntactic/positional, temporal, spatial, or semantic contiguity (a spatial
contiguity in this case). Metonymy functions through these different types of
contiguity, which are not exclusive of each other. Metonymic operation in a composed
scene or space signifies how different constituent elements are combined into
contexture through their contiguous spatial relationships. As discussed in chapter one,
de Man argues that ―[b]y passing from a paradigmatic structure based on substitution,
such as metaphor, to a syntagmatic structure based on contingent association such as
metonymy, the mechanical, repetitive aspect of grammatical forms is shown to be
operative in a passage that seemed at first sight to celebrate the self-willed and
autonomous inventiveness of a subject‖ (―Semiology and Rhetoric‖ 14-15).
Metonymy on the syntactic level operates as constituent linguistic units combined
together based on their positional/syntactic contiguity by Jakobson‘s definition (60,
72). For de Man, even though metaphor signifies and celebrates the subject‘s
―autonomous inventiveness,‖ it is based on and inevitably relies on ―a syntagmatic
structure,‖ ―the grammatical forms,‖ the metonymic structures. For de Man, a text
―asserts its decision to escape from textual confinement‖ but can only do so by
creating more text (18). A metaphor or a text might assert its ―inventiveness‖ and
attempt to transcend a textual confinement, which can only be achieved by creating
more text and following the grammatical patterns and metonymic structures on the
syntactic level. Therefore, ―a syntagmatic structure,‖ a metonymic structure on the
level of syntax, expresses the condition and limits for ―the self-willed and
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autonomous inventiveness‖ in writing.
Besides the syntactic structures, metonymy operating through the spatial
contiguous relationships of the constituent elements can also explain how ―a spatial
construct of relationships‖ develops into a fictional reality and sets limits on the
power of imagination and why such a fictional reality becomes the condition that not
only constrains or directs a text but also allows different possibilities of ―the life‖ to
emerge from a poetic text. It is due to Stevens‘ attitude toward the limits of
imagination and its power that I will argue that what makes Stevens‘ supreme fiction
different is not ―the vital self-assertion‖ or the great power of imagination but the
limits—the necessary and inevitable condition that allows the imagined world, the
composed fictional reality, to be grounded in a text. Metonymy best explains this
condition. To show how the fictional spatial reality is created through the operation of
metonymy and how the composed spatial reality becomes a condition for the
imagination, I will discuss the first section of the poem, ―Six Significant Landscapes‖:
An old man sits
In the shadow of a pine tree
In China.
He sees larkspur,
Blue and white,
At the edge of the shadow,
Move in the wind.
His beard moves in the wind.
The pine tree moves in the wind.
Thus water flows
Over weeds. (The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens 73)
Stevens creates a scene, a spatial reality, which is through a spatial construct of the
relationships among the ―larkspur,‖ and ―the shadow of a pine tree‖ and the ―old
man.‖ Then, ―the wind‖ slowly and gradually impacts one element after another in the
composed space. The scene is composed and presented through the speaker‘s
seemingly panoramic view on the ―old man‖ and then on what the ―old man‖ sees.
Then, the reader is reading and seeing what the speaker sees and what the ―old man‖
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sees. A sense of space is created through the act of seeing first. The spatial
relationship between the ―old man‖ and the ―pine tree‖ directs the old man‘s attention
toward the ―larkspur‖ at ―the edge of the shadow‖ of the ―pine tree‖ where the ―old
man‖ sits in. The man sees the ―larkspur,‖ pauses probably, and notices its
colors—―Blue and ―white.‖ Stevens‘ particular ordering of words implies not only the
process of the old man‘s perception but also a fictional space composed through the
relationships of the elements within the space. The old man‘s gaze seems to linger
because he witnesses the change—that the larkspur moves in the wind. The old man
first notices the larkspur at the edge of the shadow of the pine tree because of his
spatial contiguity with it. The movement of the ―larkspur‖ betokens the coming of the
wind, and as the ―old man‖ now observes the movement, the change, and the wind. It
enables him to notice that ―his beard‖ also moves in the wind. The interaction
between the larkspur and the old man is thus mobilized through the wind. There
seems to be some vulnerability in the man‘s control of the direction of his gaze (i.e.,
the reduction of the self-assertion) because the old man‘s act of seeing is influenced
by the wind and the movement of the objects in the wind. After noticing that his beard
moves in the wind, he then senses that ―[t]he pine tree moves in the wind,‖ too. The
old man can certainly feel that his beard moves in the wind without needing to
actually see it; similarly, the old man can either hear the pine tree moving or see the
shadow of the pine tree moving without needing to lift up his head due to the spatial
contiguity among them—i.e., due to the fictional reality already created in the
previous lines.
The narrative transition from the ―larkspur‖ to the old man‘s beard and ―the
pine tree‖ is created through their spatial relationships and their similar exposure to
the common wind. What the old man looks at is actually decided by where he is
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spatially situated and by what he is interacting with. He experiences what the
―larkspur‖ experiences; the ―pine tree‖ also experiences what he experiences. Then,
there appears a possible philosophical realization—that he is part of them—which
brings a sense of belonging and also some effacement of self-assertion and egoism.
The old man is one of the three elements, which are parts of the nature in this
composed spatial reality. Stevens says that imagination has limits, which are ―to be
found in nature.‖ Stevens creates the scene out of the spatially contiguous
relationships among the particular elements and situates the ―old man‖ in the scene as
one of the constituent elements. When these elements are combined into a contexture
as such, the old man and Stevens shares the similar limits imposed by the fictional
reality, by nature, in the composed scene.
The old man then is no longer a passive receiver of influences from the
environment; his mind actively engages in the surroundings. The three elements‘
similar responses to the blowing wind reinforce the strength of the wind. The
sequential order of the details from the ―larkspur‖ to the ―beard‖ and from the ―beard‖
to ―the pine tree‖ also intimates that the wind is probably getting stronger. This
possibility is justified by the fact that ―the pine tree‖ is bigger than the ―larkspur‖ and
is now also moving in the wind. The transition from the ―larkspur‖ moving in the
wind to the old man‘s beard and then the pine tree moving in the wind also gives a
sense of the wind‘s direction in the scene. The wind becomes a common factor that
further connects these elements within the space. The wind enables the connection
among these elements, but it is also because the spatially contiguous relationships
among them are already constructed that it is fictionally realistic for the wind to come
and impact all of them. Because sharing the impact of the wind with other elements in
the surroundings, the ―old man‖ experiences being a constitutive element of the
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composed space (i.e., part of nature). The spatially contiguous relationships between
the old man and other elements (first constructed through his sitting in the ―shadow‖
of the pine tree) have made it possible for the old man to pay close attention to the
―larkspur‖; the old man‘s engagement in the surroundings also further strengthens the
contiguous relationships. The wind triggers the old man‘s interaction with other
elements in the surroundings; the interaction then triggers more interaction. The old
man is finally submerged in the wind‘s encompassing influence and is thus able to
notice that ―Thus water flows / Over weeds‖ in the last two lines of this landscape. As
the wind gets stronger and the old man pays attention to the wind‘s influence on
everything in the composed space, this section of the poem ends with an outcome
asserted by the old man or the speaker (who is speaking for the old man). The word
―thus‖ directly points out that the phenomenon—that ―water flows / Over weeds‖—is
the outcome of the escalating wind and its overwhelming impact described in the
previous lines. From the ―larkspur‖ to ―his beard‖ and the ―pine tree,‖ the wind gets
so strong that when it blows over weeds, weeds are overcome and bent over as if
water flows over them. The description that ―water flows / Over weeds‖ is
metaphorical. There is no water but the wind. The word ―thus‖ justifies the
elimination of any indication of a simile. The last two lines evoke a flashback that the
―larkspur,‖ ―his beard,‖ and the ―pine tree‖ gradually move in the wind and the
evolutionary process of how the wind starts and continues or how the ―old man‖
gradually senses its coming and its continuous impact. The metaphor triggers such a
flashback and calls forth the final intensified manifestation of the wind‘s power.
What ―the old man‖ confronts and focuses on now seems to be the wind
blowing over weeds in front of him; however, the possible signification in his
confrontation and relationship with this final phenomenon can only be understood by
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the cumulative experiences in his previous interaction with the ―larkspur‖ and ―the
pine tree.‖ As the line—―water flows over weeds‖— tends to evoke a relevant image
of flood and betrays a sense of its submerging power, the way the wind blows over
weeds is a powerful overtaking. While it is due to the old man‘s sensitivity and close
attention to the ―larkspur‖ that he senses the upcoming of the wind in the previous
lines, the metaphor at the end actually emphasizes that it is due to the strong impact of
the over-powering wind that the old man observes the wind blowing over weeds. The
old man is still sitting ―in the shadow of a pine tree,‖ not blown away by the wind,
and is supposed to undergo the same submerging wind as ―weeds,‖ the ―larkspur,‖
and the ―pine tree.‖ The fact that the ―old man‖ is simply sitting there casts a sense of
lightness on both what he is doing and what the strong wind signifies. The wind will
eventually subside. Even though the contiguous relationships among the elements in
the composed space are reinforced, there is interaction as well as indifference and
distance among the elements. The spatial relationships signify closeness and distance
or indifference and interaction at the same time. Such ―a spatial construct of
relationships‖ allows the self to undergo the possible environmental influence in the
constructed space and to interact and interrelate with the imagined elements in the
fictional space, and thus imposes limits on (but does not necessarily control) the self‘s
assertive power. Therefore, this landscape‘s significance does not rely on how the ―old
man‖ or Stevens projects his idea on what he sees (no matter his idea is the greatness
of nature or the nothingness of the world).
In Studies in Poetic Discourse, Frey uses the term ―a spatial construct of
relationships‖ when he discusses a passage by Baudelaire. In the passage, Baudelaire
mentions that Eugène Delacroix told a young man: ―if you have not sufficient skill to
make a sketch of a man throwing himself from a window in the time it takes to fall
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from the fourth floor to the ground, you will never be capable of producing great
machines‖ (Studies in Poetic Discourse 83). Baudelaire thinks that painting should
―prevent the smallest particle of the intensity of action or idea from evaporating‖ (83).
For Frey, the parallel between this example and painting does not mean that a painter
needs to be ―concerned with fixing the intensity by reproducing what was
experienced‖ or needs ―to draw quickly just because the man to be drawn is falling
quickly‖ (87). Frey‘s idea here happens to coincide with Stevens‘ idea that poetry is
not to reconstruct an experience (The Necessary Angel 164). In short, Frey thinks that
―there is no causal connection between the intensity of the experience of falling and
that of drawing‖ (87). Frey agrees that there is intensity in the act of drawing as ―the
intensity of the experience of the spectator‖ (who watches the man falling). As ―each
individual moment of this fall is related to and stands for the whole of the fall,‖ Frey
experiences ―the single moment as one that pushes past itself toward a whole‖ (85). It
is because of ―the movement‖ from the individual to the whole that Frey draws the
parallel between the intensity of falling and that of drawing (85-6). To use a falling
man as an example, how does a painter achieve such an act of intensity? Frey explains:
―The task of whomever draws the falling man is to fix the given situation in one
isolated instant. He must not draw a sequence of moments but a concurrence of the
contemporaneous, which, in the chosen instant, stand in a particular relation to each
other. Primary for the drawer is no longer a sequence of events but rather a spatial
construct of relationships‖ (86). The drawing is ―a spatial coincidence‖ where
different elements including the ―position of the body part‖ and ―the situation of the
falling man in his surroundings‖ are portrayed and defined according to how they
relate to or react to other elements in that instant (86). ―The spatial simultaneity‖ also
―presumes a sequence‖ because the drawing ―can only be created through the
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movement of the pen‖ (86). As the fall moves from each individual moment to the
whole, the movement of the pen is experienced similarly. In Stevens‘ landscape, the
―old man,‖ the ―larkspur,‖ and the ―pine tree‖ are simultaneously experiencing the
wind in a spatial construct. In the poem, different from drawing, a temporal sequence
can be made manifest not only through the movement of the author‘s pen but also in a
narrative that progresses from a moment to another in a text. A sequence of moments
can be written along with the development of syntactic structures and contexts.
Stevens captures how the elements in the space are related to each other under the
influential wind. In writing, ―a temporal sequence of moments‖ is not a spectacular
feature because a narration is inherently a temporal progress. Stevens‘ landscape aims
for ―a spatial construct of relationships,‖ which is also a temporal construct because
the development of the old man‘s relationships with other elements evolves from one
moment to another in the narrative. Nonetheless, ―a spatial construct of relationships‖
typically does not appear as significant for poetry as it does for painting. Stevens‘
landscape is a good example to demonstrate a different figurative possibility in
poetry—i.e., metonymy (the operation of combination and contexture especially with
the focus on the spatial contiguous relationships among the constituent elements). One
can argue that the elements are combined together based on their temporal contiguity;
however, the temporal aspect is not as conspicuous as the spatial in this example. As
mentioned above, metonymy operates through different kinds of contiguity, and
spatial contiguity is just one kind of them. The operation of metonymy based on
spatial contiguity is often ignored because, according to Jacobson, Saussure only
notices the temporal aspect of language but not the spatial aspect (―Two Aspects of
Language‖ 60). Stevens‘ ―spatial construct of relationships‖ in this landscape as an
example of the operation of metonymy helps unfold how metonymy could possibly
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function in poetry and explains some major features in Stevens‘ poetry (such as
discontinuity, anti-synthesis, and dialectic relation between parts and whole, which I
will explore later); moreover, this example helps us further understand the two
important aspects of poetic language related to metonymy: 1) development of a text
through various syntactic structures and methods; 2) a metonymic figurative
possibility through composing spatial (or temporal contiguous) relationships among
the constituent elements within a text.
In Steven‘s landscape, the speaker and the ―old man‖ share the similar limits
imposed by the composed reality. Only when the self is reduced to a status within a
textual confinement enacted through metonymic operation, the possibility of
―incessant creation‖ might emerge from different contexts within a text. Stevens said,
―Its [the nature‘s] prodigy is not identity but resemblance and its universe of
reproduction is not an assembly line but an incessant creation‖ (The Necessary Angel
73). The ―incessant creation‖ in poetry does not lie in the observer or the observed,
not in the self or the world alone; its possibility lies in metonymy (which, in this
example, is the constructed relationships among the elements in a composed space).
Metonymy signifies not only the possible textual confinement for a poet but also
some unanticipated poetic potential for writing. Metonymy confines or constrains, and
its potential in poetry happens to lie in its confining or constraining operation of
contextualization within a text. Even though a desire or a wish to transcend a textual
confinement (such as ―a vital self-assertion in the work‖ and ―the search for the
supreme truth‖) does exist and is undeniable, it exists as an element of the metonymic
contextualization. It exists as a participating element. Metonymic operation defines
how a fictional reality is composed in poetry, and, in the process of composition,
metonymy imposes limits on the self (the speaker or the poet) as the self acts or reacts
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in the composed reality and as the self creates more text. Thus, such fictional reality is
the counterforce of imagination and is inseparable from the imaginative process of
writing. Metonymy indirectly explains why Stevens states that there is
interdependence and balance between imagination and reality in poetry. It is important
to understand that Steven‘s supreme fiction is not just about the transcendental power
of fiction but also of the soil where a fiction grows.
Eleanor Cook acknowledges that ―[d]constructionists like to speak of the
endless deferral of meaning and the continuous play of signifiers as they evade
univocal meaning‖ but stresses that Stevens gradually abandons this method of
―word-play‖ and that ―Stevens‘ supreme fiction is a notion that deconstructionists
have not yet seriously considered‖ (Poetry, Word-Play, and Word-War in Wallace
Stevens 21). Cook thinks that Stevens‘ supreme fiction is to unify and overcome the
disparate and incongruous parts or ideas that appear in the process of a poetic
narrative; thus, Stevens has adopted a completely different poetic method in his later
poetry. Miller points out that ―‗Notes Toward a Supreme fiction‘ is, after all, just
‗Notes Toward…‘ It is not the triumphant finished product. It is not the supreme
fiction once and for all ‗made and laid‘ […]‖ (―Stevens in Connecticut (and
Denmark)‖ 38). The difference of Stevens‘ supreme fiction does not lie in fiction
alone but in Steven‘s dealing with the complex and difficult relationship between
reality and fiction (or imagination). To view the supreme fiction as a reversal of the
hierarchy between whole and parts and between imagination and reality turns Stevens‘
poetic thinking into too much of a strategic decision.
Metonymy operating through the spatial contiguity of the constituent elements
unfolds the possibility of metonymy as figuration. Only through understanding
metonymy (based on the syntactic, spatial, or other kinds of contiguity) can one better
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understand that Stevens‘ figuration is not primarily metaphor. The metaphor at the end
of the landscape shows that its signification is derived from the ―spatial construct of
relationships‖ in the previous lines. Without the ―spatial construct relationships‖
among the ―old man,‖ ―larkspur,‖ and the ―pine tree,‖ the metaphor at the end only
appears as a decorative and secondary expression substituted for what actually
happens—i.e., just a fancy way of saying that the wind blows over weeds. Therefore,
besides metaphor, the two important aspects of Stevens‘ poetic language are
metonymic: Stevens‘ special syntax (which is metonymy operating on the basic
syntactic level) and metonymy as figuration (of which ―a spatial construct of
relationships‖ is a conspicuous example). These two aspects are well-known. Charles
Altieri also notices Stevens‘ attention to syntax even though he does not connect it
with metonymy.
In ―Why Stevens Must Be Abstract,‖ Altieri discusses ―presentational force‖
and ―processes of syntax‖ in the ―It Must be Abstract‖ section of Notes toward a
Supreme Fiction. In this section, Altieri notices that [m]ajor man as ‗exponent‘ is a
remarkable conception of how time can become a presentational factor in reading‖
(94). He adds that ―[p]resentational force articulates a concrete hero and projects
through him the abstract content of a figure who carries the allegorical burden as a
modern Everyman‖ (95). ―Presentational force‖ is different and distinguished from
representational force. For Altieri, such force lies in the text‘s articulation to create a
heroic character, and then all possible allegorical meanings can be projected on the
character. It seems that such an understanding presupposes that Stevens already
prepares the allegorical meanings for the heroic character and simply uses a text to
create the character and to carry out the intended meanings. Such presupposition is
against the idea that Stevens relies on ―presentational force‖ rather than
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representational force to create a text. Altieri‘s observation of how a poem‘s
―presentational force‖ articulates through ―processes of syntax‖ goes along with my
understanding of how metonymy (on the syntactic level) operates in Steven‘s poetry.
Nonetheless, saying that the purpose of ―presentational force‖ is to carry out the
intended ―allegorical meanings‖ not only denounces the very definition of the
―presentational‖ but also reduces the signification of ―processes of syntax‖ to simply a
pre-stage and a service for some final manifestation of allegorical or metaphorical
meanings. Altieri adds that ―[t]his abstract scope of exponential activity so
incorporates an artificial elegance into the processes of syntax that the poem can
plainly propound the very ideas that its language acts out‖ (95). Altieri thinks that
because Stevens has performed ―an artificial elegance‖ through ―the processes of
syntax‖ in his language, the poem is able to ―plainly propound‖ the same ideas that
―its language acts out.‖ In other words, it is due to such ―an artificial elegance‖ that
what the poem says matches what the language performs. Consequently, what one
preaches in a poem then can be what one performs in his words. However, the
performativity of language lies in its resistance to and thus goes against ―plainly‖
propounding ideas in a poem. Although there are certainly ―presentational force‖ and
different ―processes of syntax‖ performed in Stevens‘ poetry, Altieri‘s explanation
does not point out their true value.
According to Frey, ―The building blocks, which the construction is built, do not
always remain what they are but change according to their relationships to other
things. The element becomes what it is through these relationships. One such element
is the word. It does not have meaning independent of its relationships, and its
meanings change with these relationships. Ordering words means changing them‖
(Studies in Poetic Discourse 68-9). A word obtains meaning through its relationships
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with others, and these relationships are formed through different ―processes of
syntax‖ or through the advanced operation of metonymy as figuration (such as the
combination/contexture of constituent elements based on their spatial or temporal
contiguity). As a word‘s relationships with others (i.e., its contextualization) changes,
its meanings differ. ―Ordering words‖ means creating metonymic contextualization of
words (through their syntactic/positional congruity or temporal/spatial contiguity).
Therefore, the true value of Stevens‘ ―presentational force‖ and ―processes of syntax‖
is not that they allow the poem to ―incorporate an artificial elegance‖ and to ―plainly
propound the very ideas that its language acts out.‖ As their value emphasizes how
language acts out through ―the processes of syntax,‖ it denounces a pre-decided
―abstract scope‖ or method of ordering. Their true value then is that they allow each
word or each detail to form metonymic relationships with others during different
―processes of syntax‖ and to proclaim deferred meanings or effects in such processes.
Such understanding toward metonymy will also explain how Stevens
challenges stabilized oppositions and words of polarity in his poetry. When Stevens
writes that ―that it is night; / That the moon shines‖ (The Collected Poems of Wallace
Stevens 86), he is not simply describing that the moon is shining and the night is dark.
The special ordering of the words suggests that it is because of the night as the
background that the moon shines. The night and the moon have formed a spatial
relationship that implies an inter-relation between them. To interpret it as the moon
shining at or into the night is more of a literal understanding and does not follow how
Stevens breaks two phrases with a semicolon (and a line break) while
connecting/juxtaposing them at the same time. Words that carry opposite meanings
are combined together in a new syntax/context that allows different meanings of the
words to emerge and thus unfolds the fundamental arbitrariness of signs/words.
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Therefore, the clash between the words with opposite meanings might not necessarily
lead to the denunciation of each other, but the words might co-exist with surprising
compatibility within a certain syntax and context that Stevens creates. Right before
―that it is night; / That the moon shines,‖ Stevens writes, ―Say that the palms are clear
in a total blue, /Are clear and are obscure‖ (86). A ―total blue‖ explains why ―the
palms‖ are ―clear‖ as they are clear owing to their relationship with ―a total blue.‖ It is
possible that ―a total blue‖ of the sky functions as the background that makes ―palms
appear clear‖; it is also possible that the picturesque depiction implies the merging
and mixing of ―the palms‖ and ―a total blue‖ of the sky. The possible contradictory
views toward the picture lead to the outcome that ―the palms‖ are both ―clear‖ and
―obscure.‖ In such a case, Stevens challenges the opposition between ―clear‖ and
―obscure‖ through composing a spatial (as well as syntactic) context where ―the
palms‖ appear different against ―a total blue‖ sky and where ―the palms‖ can be
―clear‖ and ―obscure‖ at the same time. In another example from ―The auroras of
Autumn,‖ the speaker asks if there is ―an imagination that sits enthroned / As grim as
it is benevolent, the just / And unjust, which in the midst of summer stops / to imagine
winter‖ (The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens 417). Besides the opposition
between ―grim‖ and ―benevolent,‖ the summer can be inclusive of winter in such an
imagination, or such an imagination allows one to be physically ―in the midst of
summer‖ while enabling one‘s mind to deviate from summer and ―imagine winter.‖
The question can be transformed into another question—whether there is an
imagination that can loosen a fixed polarity. Stevens does not simply point out that
words of opposite meanings cannot be stably (but can only be arbitrarily) opposed to
each other but also that each side of the polarity can never fully sustain itself as it
could be inclusive of its opposite. Summer thus cannot be fully a summer as it is
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inclusive of an imagined winter. Therefore, the oppositional relationship between
words is also one kind of the relationships that can change and redefine their
meanings. Stevens has explored different oppositions, such as ―Between farewell and
the absence of farewell‖ (in ―Like Decorations in a Nigger Cemetery‖) and ―That its
barrenness becomes a thousand things‖ (in ―The Rock‖), and so on. Stevens relies on
the operation of metonymy (including syntax and figurative construct of spatial or
temporal contiguous relationships) to explore and create different possibilities of
relationships between words with opposite meanings.
In the discussion of Stevens‘ poem, ―The world as Meditation,‖ Judith Butler
also observes ―the oppositions‖: ―Within the poem, meditation at once transcends and
embraces the oppositions that appear insuperable in the nonaesthetic mode: night and
day, the human and the inhuman world‖ (―The Nothing That Is‖ 274). Stevens
certainly adopts the oppositions in his writing. However, as Stevens questions or
challenges the oppositions through contextualizing words of opposite meanings, can
he ever ―transcend‖ the oppositions? Butler adds that ―meditation […] affirms the
separateness of human and inhuman worlds as the condition of the mutually
revelatory relation between them‖ and that ―their difference occasions the revelation
of their specificity, their common finitude‖ (274). For Butler, the ―separateness‖
between the opposites makes it possible for each to reveal the other as they both point
at each other‘s ―finitude.‖ From my discussion of the examples above, it is important
to note that the possible relationships between the opposites matter as much as their
―separateness‖ and ―difference.‖ Stevens recognizes their ―separateness‖ and
―difference‖ but works on exploring their possible relationships, which are not simply
the oppositional.
In Wallace Stevens’ Poetics: The Neglected Rhetoric, Angus J. Cleghorn also
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stresses metonymy while analyzing Stevens‘ rhetoric. Even though Cleghorn seems to
understand metonymy as synecdoche, he especially points out the difference of
Stevens‘ metonymy: ―Stevens‘ figures are composed as apparent metonymies, but
replacement (one thing representing another) is forsaken for the sake of preserving
each figure‘s potency. Because Stevens‘ metonymies aggregate rather than replace,
this means that difference can be sustained between figures, such as night and self,
self and other‖ (14). Jakobson sees synecdoche as one kind of metonymic operation.
As different from metaphor (which is defined as the operation of substitution and
selection based on the similarity between the constituent elements), metonymy does
not involve a relationship of substitution or replacement between the constituent
elements. Therefore, what Cleghorn has found about Stevens‘ metonymies happens to
fit into and does not violate Jakobson‘s definition and explanation of metonymy.
―[M]etonymies aggregate‖ because words are continuously combined into different
contexts through different syntactic structures. Metonymy allows words with opposite
meanings to be parts of a context, and with the aggregation of more and more contexts,
different relationships of words are formed and unexpected meanings of words might
emerge.
III
A Wavering Reality
As mentioned above, metonymy is both constraining and empowering. Its
signification as empowering can be easily understood from its ability to create
possibilities of different relationships and contexts among words and details.
Metonymy‘s constraining force lies in the very relationships and contexts that it
enables because they set up a necessary condition for further plausible metonymic
developments. In the poem, ―The Snow Man,‖ the self and the other (or the outside
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world) are combined into contexture (including the syntactic, the spatial, and the
temporal contexts), and their possible interactive relationships are thus unfolded. In
the spatial construct of the relationships between the self and the world, the self is
situated in and confined in a composed winter scene. The self‘s perception or
interpretation of his/her surroundings is very much based on such a spatial construct.
Here is the poem:
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. (The Collected Poems of
Wallace Stevens 9-10)
When the poem starts with an opening that ―[o]ne must have a mind of winter‖ in
order to have the following experience or interpretation of the winter landscape, ―a
mind of winter‖ suggests that a mind has already gone through some experiences,
which has had their accumulative influence on the mind and turned a mind into ―a
mind of winter.‖ Does one‘s experience of winter turn one‘s mind into ―a mind of
winter‖? The poem does not introduce a pre-history of ―a mind of winter,‖ but when
the condition that ―[o]ne must have a mind of winter‖ is followed by and paralleled
with the fourth line, ―and must have been cold a long time,‖ ―a mind of winter‖ might
be the outcome of a mind having experienced a lot of coldness and winters. For one to
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have such a mind and to have been cold for so long ironically enables one ―not to
think / of any misery.‖ However, if the reader stops at the semicolon before ―and not
to think / of any misery,‖ the reading of the previous lines can lead to a different
understanding. These lines then can be interpreted as such: that one must have ―a
mind of winter‖ in order to truly ―regard‖ ―the frost and the boughs / Of the pine-trees
crusted with snow,‖ and one ―must have been cold a long time‖ so that one can truly
―behold‖ ―the junipers shagged with ice, / The spruces rough in the distant glitter / Of
the January sun.‖ In order to ―regard‖ and ―behold‖ those which are the particulars
but not untypical objects that one can easily see in a winter, one must have ―a mind of
winter‖ and ―have been cold a long time.‖ One‘s mind has to be cold enough in order
to ―regard‖ and ―behold‖ a scene of winter. Can one ―regard‖ or ―behold‖ the warmth
of the sun with a mind of winter? Can a mind of summer ―regard‖ or ―behold‖ the
coldness of a winter landscape as such? Stevens‘ syntax and the logic behind the
arrangement of the words imply that the answer is no. The semicolon seems to create
a separation, but the phrase ―and not to think / of any misery‖ suggests a conjunction.
One‘s mind has to be cold enough and for a long time in order to ―regard‖ and
―behold‖ a winter landscape of trees covered and coated with ice and still not to think
of any misery. Since one‘s mind must be cold enough in order to truly regard a winter
scene, it seems to suggest that one‘s mind must turn as cold as the coldness of the
winter landscape in order to truly ―behold‖ the landscape. However, when one‘s mind
is truly a mind of winter, why does one need to think of any misery? Does it suggest
that a mind normally thinks of some misery while confronting such a miserable winter
landscape? If so, it is completely due to ―a mind of winter‖ that such normal
functioning of the mind no longer exists. Stevens has depicted that only ―a mind of
winter‖ is able to ―regard‖ and ―behold‖ a winter scene; the consequence then could
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also be the cause—i.e., when one regards and beholds a winter landscape for a long
time, one‘s mind might turn into ―a mind of winter.‖ The expression—―and not to
think of any misery‖—implies a logic that one‘s mind should normally think of some
misery after or when confronting a cold winter landscape for a long time. Surprisingly,
the mind does not think of any misery right now because one‘s mind has already
become a mind of winter. In other words, one‘s mind is getting indifferent toward the
coldness of a winter scene—i.e., being cold to the coldness.
As one‘s mind turns into a winter mind, one does not think of any misery even
―in the sound of wind, / In the sound a few leaves, / which is the sound of the land.‖
Stevens shifts from a composed winter landscape to a land that is evoked through the
sound of wind. A shift from a winter scene to the sound of wind signifies a transition
from a visual contact to the auditory. To turn away from the visual and to listen to the
sound of wind suggests a certain degree of isolation—that one is withdrawn into
his/her world and away from the winter scene. A mind of winter now indulges in ―the
sound of wind,‖ which is heard and forms a certain ―winter‖ and empty atmosphere
through ―the sound of a few leaves.‖ Again, Stevens‘ ordering of words implies that a
sense of emptiness evoked through ―the sound of a few leaves‖ should make one think
of misery. However, the poem emphasizes that one with a winter mind does not.
Similar with the landscape in the poem, ―Six Significant Landscapes,‖ discussed
above, the wind again is a common factor that reminds one of ―the land‖ which is
probably full of the same wind that one is imbued in. The wind thus initiates an
imaginative spatial association. At the beginning of the poem, Stevens composes a
spatial construct of the relationships between a winter scene full of the particulars and
a mind of winter. The mind is not outside of the space but is one of the constituent
(and participating) elements in the composed spatial construct. ―A mind of winter‖
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has already indirectly denied the status of a mind as being outside or transcendent of
the composed fictional reality from the very beginning. Stevens has been very
consistent in his methods of challenging opposition and polarity. The self and the
world cannot be fully separated from each other; one pole cannot fully sustain itself
while being completely exclusive of the other (i.e., one side cannot maintain its
distinguishability and its difference from the other completely). The correlation and
interaction between the mind and the outside world form a relationship between them,
which challenges the sense of opposition.
The transition from the composed space of a winter landscape at the beginning
of the poem to the far-away land that is full of the same sound of the wind that one
hears is due to the imagination of ―a mind of winter.‖ The mind drifts away from the
current sound of the wind in the landscape and toward the far-away land that has the
same sound and the same bareness. Finally, by imagining that far-away ―bare place‖
where ―the same wind‖ blows, the mind seems to drift back to its current
surroundings. One with ―a mind of winter‖ becomes ―the listener‖ in that ―bare place‖
far away. This imaginative drifting allows one‘s mind to occupy two places at the
same time at the end: the winter landscape and the land that has the same wind and
the same bareness. Therefore, the last three lines can be said to be addressed to two
places which are connected through the common influence of the same winter wind. If
the self has been withdrawn into his world previously, the self now engages in the
winter scene without thinking too much of himself. What enables him to think of
―nothing himself‖? In the last three lines, the listener of ―the sound of the wind‖ and
―the sound of the land‖ now ―beholds,‖ which shows that the auditory perception
switches back to the visual. As one with ―a mind of winter‖ regards and beholds the
particulars of a winter landscape at the beginning, now the listener beholds ―Nothing
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that is not there and the nothing that is.‖ What gives the listener such an ability or
inability to ―behold‖ nothingness in the outside world of a winter? One must have ―a
mind of winter‖ in order to ―regard and behold‖ the particulars of a winter scene.
One‘s mind has to be cold for a long time and cold enough in order to ―behold‖ the
cold elements of a winter scene. It is because of these solid experiences that ―a mind
of winter‖ does not think of any misery ―in the sound of the wind‖ that blows here
and a far-away land (which is imaginable through the wind). It is after experiencing
the coldness of a winter scene with a cold winter mind and imagining somewhere as
empty and as bare as here that ―the listener,‖ one with ―a mind of winter,‖ achieves a
stage where he, being forgetful of himself, continues to listen and is still following the
sound of the wind and ―beholds‖ ―[n]othing that is not there,‖ which is everything that
is there (supposedly the particular objects of a winter landscape described in the first
and second stanzas). When the listener still ―listens in the snow,‖ his mind has not
completely departed from a great sense of emptiness and bareness resulting from the
spatial association mobilized through the wind. Such a strong engagement with the
winter landscape and the associated far-away land along with the consequential
sensations and meditation disallows the listener to ―behold‖ the landscape as he
previously did. Thus, he still beholds nothing that is not there, but he beholds ―the
nothing that is‖ in everything he sees out there.
Most critics have emphasized the nothingness at the end of the poem. Stevens
uses different metonymic contexts (both syntactic and spatial) to allow a temporal
difference of sensation or understanding to emerge from the poem. The end of the
poem reminds the reader of the title of the poem. Does the listener or one with ―a
mind of winter‖ gradually turn into a snow man? Or, is one with ―a mind of winter‖
already like a snow man from the beginning? Is the snow man an outcome or an
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initiative stage of the mind? The poem does not give an absolute answer. Stevens does
not start the poem with a pure mind, which suggests that Stevens does not attempt to
define the original condition of the mind as if one could but tries to portray its
interactive relationships with other elements in the composed space, the relationships
performed at different syntactic and spatial contexts as the narrative progresses. It is
through these different syntactic and spatial contexts, the possibility of ―incessant
creation‖ might emerge from a text, a temporal sequencing of words.
Such creative contextual differences allow the composed fictional reality
presented in a text to be changing and ―in continual flux‖ (The Necessary Angel 149).
For some, it might appear that painting cannot carry a changing reality. However,
Stevens underlines the value of a wavering reality in painting: ―There is no field in
which this is more apparent than painting […]. The permissible reality in painting
wavers with an insistence which is itself a value. One might just as well say the
permissible imagination‖ (The Necessary Angel 149). Again, the permissible reality in
painting is certainly not an imitation or representation of a reality in the corporeal but
a reality that is created in painting. Why does a painter paint a ―permissible reality‖
that wavers? If a painter can decide what is permitted to enter a painting, can he/she
not create a stable reality that is controlled and does not waver? How does a
―permissible reality‖ waver ―with an insistence‖? Is this insistence the painter‘s? To
discuss these questions in poetry, ―the permissible reality‖ wavers because the
metonymic contexts (both syntactic and the spatial/temporal) in a text allows the
fictional reality to change, to flow, and to shift as a reality alive. A poet can certainly
intend to create a fictional reality as a fixed reality and thus as a representation of the
poet‘s pre-conceived idea of reality. However, such an intention disallows any spatial
setting to trigger its connection and relationships with the self and makes the self
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unable to participate in a spatial construct of relationships simply as a constituent
element. Such an intention denies what enables a fictional reality to waver in a text.
The fictional reality in ―The Snow Man‖ wavers not only because a winter scene full
of the particulars motivates ―a mind of winter‖ to think or not think of misery but also
because ―a mind of winter‖ cold enough to ―regard‖ and ―behold‖ it and then to want
to be withdrawn from the coldness (i.e., a cold encounter between a cold mind and a
cold winter landscape) and think of a far-away land that is full of the same wind as
here. The fictional reality wavers not simply because of the self‘s power or the
world‘s coldness but because of the interactive, back-and-forth, relationships they
perform. As ―the permissible reality‖ is also ―the permissible imagination,‖ it is
reasonable to state that the fictional reality wavers as the imagination wavers. For ―a
mind of winter‖ to waver from the space of a winter scene to a far-away bare place,
the imagination of the self (including one with a mind of winter, the speaker, and
Stevens) wavers as it initiates or reacts to every temporal and spatial reality presented
through different contexts in a poem. It then can be said that ―the permissible reality‖
wavers with ―an insistence,‖ which is both the poet‘s and the poem‘s. The wavering
fictional reality and the wavering imagination working together could explain why
Stevens‘s poetry is full of ―discontinuity‖ as Miller observes (―William Carlos
Williams and Wallace Stevens‖ 986). Such discontinuity speaks for the wavering
fictional reality in a poetic text, but it does not continue according to the self‘s will
but according to the constantly changing relationships formed among the self and
other elements. Because the fictional reality and the imagination initiate each other‘s
move, ideas or perceptions sometimes can only be true temporarily and might be
challenged by other ideas and perceptions drawn from later contexts. Discontinuity
then is inevitable. Cook questions that Stevens sticks to a ―principle of discontinuity‖
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through all of his work: ―As we consider the principle of discontinuity so typical of
Stevens‘ work, we should not forget this contrary instinct—all the more congenial to
someone who likes to break with our expectations‖ (Poetry, Word-Play, and
Word-War in Wallace Stevens 20). If ―the principle of discontinuity‖ becomes so
typical of Stevens‘ work, can what is untypical and what can ―break with our
expectations‖ be the principle of continuity? Such an understanding again
presupposes an easy reversal intended in Stevens‘ poetry and his thinking on poetry.
Discontinuity is an inevitable outcome when a fictional reality is performed through
the constant operation of metonymy (on both the basic level of syntax and the
advanced level of figuration) and is thus wavering in a poetic narrative. Either
―discontinuity‖ or continuity can be a pre-decided principle for a poet to fulfill in
poetry because both can be equally functional principles. What distinguishes
―discontinuity‖ in Stevens‘ poetry is that it is an outcome of a necessary metonymic
development of poetic language, and the metonymic development is a counterforce or
counter-pressure against any pre-decided ideas (just as a fictional reality sets limits on
imagination). Stevens does not swing from one pole of ―discontinuity‖ to the other
pole of continuity as his poetic principle because such a change equals no inherent
change. ―Discontinuity‖ is a consequence, not a motivation.
In terms of how a fictional reality wavers, Stevens adds that ―[i]t is as if the
painter carried on with himself a continual argument as to whether what delights us in
the exercise of the mind is what we produce or whether it is the exercise of a power of
the mind‖ (The Necessary Angel 150). To applies this understanding to poetry, it
appears that the poet then undergoes ―a continual argument‖ and wavers between the
constructive power of the mind (i.e., the imagination) and what is created and
produced (i.e., the composed fictional reality within a text). Since it is ―a continual
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argument,‖ it can be understood that the mind cannot be easily satisfied with a poem
just because the poem makes manifest the mind‘s power. What is produced matters
both as a counter-force and a counter-balance for the mind‘s imaginative power. In
other words, the spatial construct of relationships in the first and second stanzas of
―The Snow Man,‖ is created through the mind‘s imagination but, through the mind‘s
engagement with other elements, also directs and triggers the mind‘s imagination
toward a next possible spatial construct and a next possible emotional or meditative
development of the mind. It is because of the wavering imagination along with a
wavering fictional reality that both the mind‘s imagination and the fictional reality in
a text stay open to each other‘s influence and conditioning. Stevens stresses the
wavering quality of the imagination as such: ―it would be the merest improvisation to
say of any image of the world […] that it was the chief image. The imagination itself
would not remain content with it nor allow us to do so. It is the irrepressible
revolutionist‖ (The Necessary Angel 151-2). Stevens sees one‘s sense of the world as
an image of the world, and vice versa. However, one‘s image of the world cannot
become ―the chief image‖ because the imagination will continue to create different
images. Such a force to renew and recreate is the driving force of the imagination.
Calling the imagination as ―the irrepressible revolutionist‖ shows that neither the
reality nor we can repress its force. The imagination also does not stay content with its
one-time performance.
After all, the self exercises the imagination. The discussion above has shown
that the criticism privileging and celebrating the mind‘s imaginative power as the
defining factor of poetry cannot summarize Stevens‘ overall contemplation toward
poetry and is problematic in some respect. Stevens‘ ideas toward the mind‘s power
can be understood through how Stevens situates the self (or the ―I‖) in a poem and
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how the self‘s relationships with the other(s) are created. In both examples (the first
landscape of ―Six Significant Landscapes‖ and ―The Snow Man‖), a fictional reality
presented through a spatial construct of relationships is able to situate the speaker or
the self within not just a textual confinement but also a certain realistic spatial
construct. The self is a participating constituent element in a spatial construct of
relationships. A fictional reality is presented through the self‘s relationships with other
contiguous elements within the constructed space. The self does not occupy a
transcendent position above the composed reality and dominate its development and
meanings.
In the first landscape of ―The Six Significant Landscapes,‖ the speaker
introduces the ―old man‖ and describes ―his‖ beard move in the wind; therefore, the
speaker is the observer and the old man is the observed. As the speaker sees through
the eyes of the ―old man‖ while describing the old man‘s engagement with the
surroundings, the speaker seems to occupy both positions: the speaker as an observer
and the ―old man‖ as another observer. The speaker can experience along with the
―old man‖ and then step back to have a panoramic and seemingly downcast view of
the whole scene (where the old man is situated). When the ―old man‖ experiences
being submerged by the wind as the wind overtakes weeds like water flooding over
them, this experience is not spoken by the ―old man‖ but described by the speaker
who is supposedly farther away from the scene. Stevens does not make the ―old man‖
speak to help create a sense of validity for the speaker‘s ability to see what the old
man sees. However, to keep the ―old man‖ silent does not necessarily mean silencing
the other. It happens to unfold the fundamental gap between the self and the other,
which Stevens does not try to bridge. The speaker cannot make the ―old man‖ speak
and confirm his assumption; the speaker can only describe what the old man sees and
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feels through the imagination—i.e., imagining experiencing the same spatial reality
and sharing the same contiguous relationships with the elements in the fictional reality
within the composed space. When discussing Stevens‘ poem, ―The Comedian as the
Letter C,‖ Bruns argues that ―this experience (this monologue of word-making) is not
just yours for the having‖ because ―[i]t requires you to silence the voice of the other
by appropriating it (if you can) into your own interior discourse […]‖ (28). For Bruns,
repressing the voice of the other is what makes Stevens‘ poetry possible because
Stevens‘ poetry tends to require ―converting‖ the other or ―appropriating‖ the other
into the ―discourse‖ of the mind. Even though Bruns also notices that the poem, ―The
course of a Particular,‖ is ―a poem about the act of the mind vis-à-vis a certain
phenomenon of sense‖ and seems to suggest that ―[n]othing ‗repressive‘ is going on in
the poem, he claims that [i]n this case the poem‘s obvious point is that poetry is not
always possible—not […] when the mind and its phenomena just don‘t come
together‖ (36). Does this mean that ―The course of a Particular‖ is not poetry since the
mind does not repress and appropriate the phenomena into the mind‘s own discourse
in the poem? Is Bruns trying to say that Stevens writes a poem to expose its
impossibility of being a poem? Therefore, does this poem become an impossible
poem, a poem that is impossible according to Bruns‘ definition?
When Stevens does not let the other speak in a poem, it is not necessarily an
attempt to silence the other because whatever the other speaks could still be whatever
the self wants or demands from the other. Even if the other appears to reject the
demand, it can still be because the self is demanding such a rejection from the other
and simply has the other act it out. In other words, letting the other speak can be a
command of the self and what the other speak can easily become a simple
confirmation of the self‘s ideas and is just another voice of the self (i.e., not
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necessarily the voice of the other). Bruns concludes: ―readings within an
epistemological framework serve to reinforce the outlook that Stevens strives in poem
after poem to preserve‖ and ―[m]y point is that the phenomenon of the voice of the
other always threatens this outlook, and that this is the truth that Stevens‘ poetry
teaches us, particularly in the way in which otherness is obsessively aestheticized‖
(36). The outlook that Bruns refers to is that the creative act of the mind continuously
―appropriates‖ and aestheticizes the other in Steven‘s poetry. However, if making the
other speak in a narrative created by the self cannot guarantee a voice of the other,
then keeping the other silent does not necessarily mean silencing or appropriating the
other. In ―The Snow Man,‖ one with ―a mind of winter‖ does not force ―the pine-trees
crusted with snow,‖ or ―the junipers shagged with ice‖ to speak back to him. The
particular details that Stevens selects and combines into a spatial construct of
relationships do not simply suggest the close or attentive look the self has toward the
winter landscape but also initiate a confrontation between the self and the world, a
particular one, one that is composed of the imagined ―elements of reality‖ (The
Necessary Angel 173). The composed spatial setting of ―the pine-trees‖ and ―the
junipers‖ can be said to motivate the self to feel and ―not to think of any misery,‖ but
it is the self with ―a mind of winter‖ that makes the self react and respond to a winter
scene coldly. The self is exercising the imaginative power as it reacts to the winter
scene, but the fictional reality presented through the spatial construct full of the details
of winter also directs the mind to the next possible imaginative move, the move that
takes the mind to another ―bare place.‖ The fictional reality wavers because of the
imagination of the mind; the imagination of the mind wavers because of the fictional
reality, which is presented and constructed through different levels of spatial and
temporal contexts, the metonymic contextualization of the imagined ―elements of
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reality.‖ Stevens‘ ideas about the relation between reality and imagination then have
shown that even though poetry does rely on the imagination of the mind, the
metonymic operation (the syntactic, the spatial, and the temporal contexts developed
in a narrative) facilitates and constrains the mind at the same time and thus promises
the interdependence and the balance between reality and imagination as Stevens
claims.
IV
Topography and Gathering-Space-Around
When the other is silent and does not speak back to the self, it also does not
mean that the self is not exercising any imaginative power. Nonetheless, it is basically
because the self cannot fully intervene with the reality and exercise the imaginative
power over the reality that the self cannot force the other to fake having a voice of its
own. In other words, it is not due to the self‘s imaginative power being constrained
that the other does not speak back. Miller has great insight toward this issue—the
one-sided relation between the self and the silent other. In the book, The Ethics of
Topography, Miller interprets Stevens‘ poem, ―The Idea of Order at Key West.‖ Miller
introduces that the poem is ―a response to the woman‘s response to the sea‖ and that
―[t]he poem dramatizes a curious, one-sided interpersonal relation, sustained and
dramatized by topographical and temporal distances‖ (263). Besides the ―one-sided‖
relation between the singer and the sea, ―The male poet (if it is Stevens speaking)
hears a woman singing, but she pays no attention to him‖ (263). Therefore, Stevens‘
portrayal of the relation between the self and the other as a ―one-sided relation‖ could
lead to two possible conclusions: one that Stevens simply prioritizes the mind‘s
creative power of imagination; the other that Stevens does not attempt to bridge the
fundamental gap between the self and the other by forcefully appropriating the other
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into the mind‘s discourse but presents the interrelation between the self with a mind of
imagination and the other that does not speak to obey or disobey the mind‘s will.
Different from Bruns‘ perspective, Miller thinks that the first possibility is an easy
answer to Stevens‘ complex thinking shown in this poem. Miller‘s interpretation of
the poem delineates Stevens‘ spatial arrangement of the elements in the poem and
shows Stevens‘ special dealings with the relations between the self and the other and
between reality and imagination. According to Miller, at the beginning of the poem,
the woman ―sang beyond the genius of the sea‖; nonetheless, ―[t]he genius of the sea
[…] manifests itself primarily through the sounds of the sea and the wind […] (267).
After pointing out the fundamental difference between the woman‘s song and the
sea‘s song (one being articulate and the other being inarticulate and undifferentiated),
Miller interprets the relation between the woman‘s song and the sea‘s song as such:
―Stevens begins to make an extremely careful and delicate adjudication between
saying the woman‘s song is entirely independent of the sea and saying the woman‘s
song is in one way or another a transformation into articulate language of the sea‘s
song‖ (267, 269-270). Miller thinks that when Stevens ―asserts that ‗The sea was not a
mask. No more was she,‘‖ the sea is ―not a mask over some personified spirit behind,‖
not ―a projection and covering over of a woman‘s face,‖ and the woman is also not ―a
face through which the sea might speak‖ (270). In other words, the woman cannot be
the spirit behind the sea‘s mask and the sea cannot be singing or speaking through the
woman. The sea after all ―[w]as merely the place by which she walked to sing‖ (The
Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens 129). Therefore, instead of showing the self‘s
creative power as a manipulation over the other, Stevens shows that ―[w]hatever the
poet says about the power of song or other human artifacts to measure out the sea, to
give it coordinates, to map it, the sea as named here to some degree always escapes
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such humanizing gestures[…]‖ (273). Thus, the self‘s creative power will be an
endless measuring of the other because the other will never reply, confirm, and thus
justify the legitimacy of the self‘s discourse.
Miller interrogates ―the fundamental question of the poem: ‗Whose spirit is
this?‘‖ which is a question ―asked by the collective ‗we‘ for whom the poet is
spokesperson‖ (274). For Miller, if the poem is just ―a celebration of the creative
power of the solitary human imagination‖ and is simply to emphasize ―the
independence and sovereignty of the act of signing‖ and its ―irresistible power to
transform everything into a private, subjective structure,‖ which is ―artifice,‖
―Stevens‘ question, ‗Whose spirit is this?‘ would be pointless‖ (274-5). The spirit
created in the poem does not belong to the singer, the sea, or the poet. The question is
a fundamental question toward art in general and is difficult to answer because the sea
cannot be the origin or the source of the woman‘s song and the song is neither the
representation of ―the genius of the sea‖ nor simply a manifestation of the woman‘s
creative power of imagination. Miller points out how Stevens handles this significant
question: ―After having denied that ‗it [the spirit] was only the dark voice of the sea,‖
the poet goes on to affirm that ―it was more than that, / More even than her voice, and
ours, among / The meaningless plungings of water and the wind‘‖ (275). These lines
appear crucial for Miller because they ―assert that the act of singing and thereby
making a world that seems free of place, not subservient to the genius of the place
where the song was sung, liberates or projects a ‗spirit‘‖ (275). What the act of
singing creates is not bound to where the act happens and is able to liberate a spirit
that is more than the singer‘s voice. It might be slightly problematic for Miller to say
that the act of signing ―projects‖ a spirit as the poem says that the spirit is also more
than the singer‘s voice. Miller‘s further explanation nonetheless also stresses the same
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point: ―This spirit is more than either the preexisting genius loci, on the one hand, or
the creative consciousness of the singer, on the other‖; furthermore, ―[t]he spirit is
also more than the voice of the listening and looking ‗we‘ for whom the poet speaks‖
(275). Therefore, the answer to the question ―Whose Spirit is this?‖ cannot be found
in the self (the singer) or the other (the sea, the ―genius loci‖). This spirit also does not
lie in the self as the poet or the other as the singer or the sea. Miller comes to the
answer that ―[t]his new spirit is neither the genius of a place nor the genius of the poet
but the genius of the song, poem, or other work‖ (276). This new spirit is the genius
of the created work, not the one who produces it and not the place where the work is
produced. Miller describes the created work, the song, as ―inaugura l, genetic,
world-begetting‖ (276). The song evokes something new, which exists only upon the
act of singing (or upon the act of composition). Even though the created work, the
song, evokes a new spirit that is more than the ―genius loci‖ and ―the creative
consciousness of the singer,‖ this does not mean that the ―genius loci‖ and ―the
creative consciousness‖ preexist. All of the elements (including the sea, the genius of
the sea, the singer, the sky, the wind, and so on) are composed into a spatial construct
of relationships to stage a confrontation between the singer and the sea and to
improvise an act of singing.
If the relation between the singer and the sea is similar with the relation
between the poet and a possible spatial setting, it is false to assume that a spatial
setting in a poem has to be real and pre-exists the created work and that there is
actually a spatial setting that the poet physically confronts while creating a poem. It is
important to view the singer, the sea, and other elements as constitutive elements that
are composed into a spatial construct of relationships in the poem. The sea is
something produced by Stevens just like the song created by the singer. The sea is a
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coexisting element with the singer and the act of singing in the poem. To take the
―genius loci‖ as pre-existing the act of singing suggests that there are no interactive
relationships between the singer and the sea along with other spatial elements and that
the act of singing is a replacement of ―the genius of the sea.‖ On the one hand, Miller
shows how a spatial construct of relationships is created and performed in this poem
through understanding ―topography‖; on the other hand, he comes to a conclusion that
the woman‘s song is a replacement of ―the genius of the sea.‖ While Miller‘s idea of
topography captures the ―spirit‖ of how Stevens uses space, places, and names of
places in poetry, to view the sea as a pre-existing setting and the woman‘s song as the
replacement of ―the genius of the sea‖ has inherently contradicted his excellent
understanding of Stevens‘ usage of topography. Miller explains topography as follows:
―The topography of a place is not something there already, waiting to be described,
constatively. It is made, performatively, by words or other signs, for example, by a
song or a poem‖ (276). The sea, according to this definition, should not be ―the
preexisting genius loci‖ waiting to be represented but something ―made‖ by ―a song
or a poem.‖ Miller‘s further explanation of how the topography of a place is made
performatively in a poem happens to coincide with my discussion of a spatial
construct of relationships among constituent elements in a poem, which is the
operation of metonymy as one kind of figuration. Miller states that ―poetry is only one
example of the human power to construct something […]‖; ―[t]his construction
magically gathers space around it, by a kind of performative enchantment, in one case
by words, in other cases by the building of a boat, a house, or a bridge‖ (278). In the
poem, the lines discussed above are followed by and juxtaposed to a spatial
background: the spirit is more than ―her voice‖ and ―ours‖ and both voices are
―among / The meaningless plungings of water and the wind, / Theatrical distances,
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bronze shadows heaped / On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres / Of sky and
sea‖ (The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens 129). The singer‘s voice and ―ours‖ are
among the sounds of the sea and the wind; the human voice and the sounds of the sea
do not echo each other but coexist in the same space. The singer‘s voice holds a
relationship (a non-representational one) with the sounds of the sea and the wind
because she sings and strides next to the sea. This relationship is a spatial contiguous
relationship as well as a sematic contiguous relationship (because her song is not
similar with and cannot be substituted for the sounds of the sea even though they
seem to be related to each other in a particular way). This relationship is a metonymic
one, not a metaphorical one (which operates as A substituted for B based on their
similarity by Jacobson‘s definition). Because of this contiguous relationship, another
aspect of the space—―Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped / On high
horizons, mountainous atmospheres / Of sky and sea‖—is pulled nearer to the singer
and ―we‖ and is thus spatially associated with both. To use Miller‘s words, the
woman‘s singing ―magically gathers space around it.‖
Both Frey‘s ―a spatial construct of relationships‖ and Miller‘s ―gather[ing]
space around‖ make manifest how metonymy functions in poetry and how its
functioning turns into a process of figuration. Stevens‘ work best performs such
spatial figuration, which is completely different from plainly depicting a picture or a
landscape in a poem. Close to the end of the poem, Stevens‘ words perform how the
woman‘s singing gathers space around it into ―a world‖ and how the ―lights in the
fishing boats‖ gather space around them at night:
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.
Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
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Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night. (The Collected Poems of
Wallace Stevens 129-30)
Miller introduces Heidegger‘s idea as he elaborates how a creative work ―gathers the
space‖: ―Heidegger asserts that ‗The Bridge gathers to itself in its own way earth and
sky, divinities and morals.‘ ‗In its own way‘: this is an important point. Just as each
new bridge, according to Heidegger, gathers the space around it in a new and
unexpected way, so the woman‘s song and the fishing boats in Stevens‘ poem each
make a unique topography of the surrounding shore, sea, sky, and harbor. Each poem,
like each new act of building, is a new beginning, as all true performatives are. They
make something happen that was not predictable from the elements that were there to
start with, in this case sea, sky, and shore‖ (279). As the woman‘s song is able to
gather the space around it and figuratively a world is made as she sings, the fishing
boats in the poem are also able to gather the space to themselves at night. Miller has
found the similarity between the woman‘s song and the boats, which is that they are
both artifacts and works made. However, in the poem, it is not ―the boats‖ but ―the
glassy lights, /The lights in the fishing boats‖ that gather the space around them. Under
the condition that ―the night descended,‖ ―the glassy lights‖ ―in the fishing boats‖ have
―Mastered the night and portioned out the sea, / Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery
poles, / Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.‖ During the night, the lights of the
fishing boats at the anchor are able to master the night and measure the sea. Miller‘s
attention to the similarity between the woman‘s singing and the boats as artifacts might
be too strong to notice that the woman‘s act of singing does not dominate the sounds of
the sea but the simple glassy lights of the boats easily master the night and portion out
the sea. The speaker asks Ramon Fernandez two questions: why ―we turned / Toward
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the town‖ when the woman‘s singing just ended and why ―the glassy lights‖ in the
fishing boats can easily master the night and portion out the sea while the sea never
surrenders its power to the woman‘s singing. In other words, how is it possible that
―we‖ have been so attracted to the woman‘s singing but can quickly turn toward the
town right after the singing ends? Even though ―we‖ have been fascinated with and thus
attentive toward the woman‘s singing, ―we‖ are still drawn to and enchanted by ―the
glassy lights‖ of the boats as soon as the singing ends. Previously, the woman‘s singing
gathers the space around it; now, the glassy lights gather the space around them and pull
in other elements (including the night, the sea, the poles, and ―we‖) in the space.
Miller also sees such gathering the space around as figuration: ―The examples
of the bridge and the boat tell us that the imposition of a new topographical order is an
act of figuration […]‖ (280). Miller understands such ―an act of figuration‖ as
metaphorical replacement because ―[t]opography substitutes the names of things for
the things themselves‖ and then ―orders those names in new structures of substitution
and displacement‖ (280). Instead of metaphor, this act of figuration should be more
closely connected with a spatial construct of relationships among the composed
elements—i.e., the operation of metonymy as the combination/contexture of the
constituent elements based on their spatial contiguity. Miller‘s idea of gathering the
space around as an act of figuration shows how metonymy can function as figuration.
However, to think of gathering the space around a creative work (such as the act of
singing, the boat, or the bridge) as imposing ―a new topographical order‖ as a
substitute or replacement of the other (such as the sea or the night in the poem) results
in two problems: first, it treats the other as a pre-existence and disregards how the
other coexists and interacts with the self (as well as other elements within the same
space), which enables the process of figuration as gathering the space around; second,
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an act of figuration as imposing a new order to replace the other reduces the
significance of ―topography‖ as a construct of spatial relationships into something as
simple as a tenor-vehicle relationship (which is often made manifest in the operation
of metaphor). Metonymy as figuration might create a metaphorical meaning (such as
―Thus water flows / Over weeds‖ at the end of the landscape discussed above), but its
signification lies in its difference from metaphor, not its final convergence with a
metaphorical meaning.
Nonetheless, Miller‘s view that the ―topography of a place‖ in Stevens‘ poetry
is made ―by words‖ and is a form of figuration puts into question the typical
assumption that there is a real place pre-existing the created work. As the woman‘s
singing or the lights of the fishing boats gather the space around as figuration, the
space is not present before the act of gathering happens. In ―Stevens, Duchamp and
the American ‗ism‘, 1915-1919,‖ David Haglund easily adopts such an assumption
when discussing Stevens‘ usage of places. Haglund points out that ―[i]n the six years
following his dinner with Duchamp, […], Stevens would refer in his poetry to
Tennessee […]‖ (122). Interpreting the reasons behind Stevens‘ usage of American
places in his poetry, Haglund states that ―‗The Comedian as the Letter C,‘ which takes
as its central drama the establishment was an attempt to find a poetic identity and
establish a foothold in the literary world‖ (123). Besides the reason of ―finding a place
in the literary world,‖ Hanglund thinks that the other important reason for Stevens to
use American places in his poetry is ―Americanism.‖ For Haglund, as Stevens
attempted to establish himself as a poet in America, ―[e]xperimening with
Americanism served that purpose […]‖ (126). In Haglund‘s opinion, ―[t]he goal of
Americanism, as articulated by Williams, Coady, and, to a lesser extent, Duchamp,
was to represent or even to embody America‖ (129), and ―Stevens cannot seem to find
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a voice that embodies his place‖ (130). It appears a little over-speculative to state that
Stevens uses American places in order to ―establish a foothold in the literary world‖
of America and to find a connection with ―Americanism‖ because even if Stevens had
never used any American places, he would have still established himself as a poet in
America. Moreover, the places in Stevens‘ poetry are spatial constructs created
through the process of gathering-space-around as figuration. Miller‘s idea of
―topography‖ enacted through figuration points out the problem of the assumption
that there is a real place for Stevens to ―represent or even to embody.‖ In ―Wallace
Stevens‘ Metaphors of Metaphor: Poetry as Theory,‖ Altieri also questions the
possibility of a real place as a referential point in Stevens‘ poetry. Altieri writes, ―The
idea of description without place follows naturally from the insistence on
understanding the form of our desire‖ through which ―we ‗destroy all references‘‖
(39). In other words, the description of a place is not a representation of a real place
but a spatial construct that goes with ―the form of our desire.‖ Altieri concludes that
―‗Description Without Place‘ is perhaps Stevens‘ richest example of ideas tested as
acts of reading because the poem‘s subject is the nature of the site figures construct as
alternatives to the versions of place given to the eye‘s plain sight‖ (40). For Altieri, a
place in poetry is constructed through ―figures‖ and is a composed ―site,‖ and such a
place is an alternative to what the eye sees plainly. Both Miller and Altieri question
the assumption of a real place, and they both pay attention to how figuration as an
important factor facilitates the possibility of a spatial construct in poetry. Even though
they both stress metaphor, Miller‘s idea of ―topography‖ indirectly explains how
metonymic figuration functions as gathering-space-around. Different from Miller‘s
understanding that Stevens does not simply celebrate ―the creative power of the
solitary human imagination‖ and ―the independence and sovereignty of‖ the mind,
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Altieri thinks that our desires and our need to assert meanings upon the outside world
or nature make us create ―figurative expressions‖ as metaphorical replacements of the
other. Altieri states that ―[t]he monstrosity of our difference from a natural order is
nowhere so evident as in our willful recombining of the given in order to satisfy our
absurd need for meanings and values‖ (41). Poetry, for Altieri, makes manifest ―the
desperate hunger‖ ―to project symbolic versions of a natural plenitude we cannot
possess‖ (41). However, Stevens‘ ideas of abstraction and imagination suggest that
when the imagination of the mind initiates the movement and thus the departure from
the real, the corporeal world, it signifies entering a fictional reality in poetry.
Therefore, the difference between one‘s imagination and nature (or the corporeal
world) is what necessitates the possibility of fiction and poetry and should be nothing
monstrous. As discussed above, such a difference is ―fundamental‖ for Stevens. The
poet ―as the potent figure‖ aims for departing from the real (the reality in the
corporeal world) and creates a fictional reality and a world ―to which we turn
incessantly‖ (The Necessary Angel 31). Such a world is not conceivable without ―the
supreme fictions‖ and is thus a fictional world (The Necessary Angel 31).
V
A Transformative Process of Figuration
What is at stake when Miller concludes that ―topography‖ can be a
metaphorical replacement as it imposes ―a new topographical order‖? Such a
conclusion actually takes away Miller‘s previous insight on how gathering-the-space
around can be a form of figuration and how Stevens questions the self‘s creative and
imaginative power of domination (such as the woman‘s act of singing) over the others
(the sea, the sky, the boats, and so on). To reduce a metonymic relationship between
the self and the other element(s) in a composed space to a metaphorical and
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representational one gives poetic figuration a narrow understanding even though
superficially it seems to demonstrate and celebrate the creative power of the self (such
as constructing a new order to replace the other). In the essay, ―On Looking at
Shelly‘s Medusa,‖ Carol Jacobs discusses Shelly‘s poem, ―On the Medusa of
Leonardo Da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery.‖ Jacobs‘ argument demonstrates how the
self is drawn into a process of figuration and unable to hold a transcendent position to
impose a metaphorical replacement of the other (as an external object or as an outside
world). Jacobs points out that Shelly‘s poem is not a mimetic production of the
original painting. The seemingly representational relation between the poem and the
painting happens to challenge the possibility of the mimetic as a poetic figuration and
thus clarify and redefine what figuration in poetry is. Jacobs writes: ―it [Medusa]
becomes totally the other, victim to its own power to transform into stone, a
self-reflection gone awry. The force of the Medusa is allied with poetic figuration, and
[…] this is hardly a force of mimetic reification. The Medusa is described as object, it
is depicted as in the painting, but in the same breath the force of its figura tion is such
as to […] uncreate the same creature. The Medusa, then, is both the object of these
lines and the poetic strain that mocks and undoes the concept of object‖ (10-11).
Jacobs concludes that there are thus two ways to look at Medusa in the poem: ―one
allows the spectator to regard it from a safe distance, as object; the other draws the
beholder into a conception of the Medusa as the performance of a radical figural
transformation—of itself, of the beholder, of the language that attempts to represent
it‖ (11). It is significant that, in Jacobs‘ discussion, the force of figuration is similar
with the force of Medusa because figuration is able to transform Medusa as object and
―uncreate‖ it. What is even more interesting in Jacob‘s discussion of Shelly‘s Medusa
is that Medusa is no longer simply a powerless object waiting to be transformed by
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the beholder or by the language that the beholder uses. As the beholder is drawn into
―a conception of the Medusa‖ or, to use Stevens‘ words, as the beholder sees Medusa
by ―sight and insight,‖ the ―radical figural transformation‖ transforms not only
Medusa as object but also the beholder and the language the beholder uses. The
language is supposed to be used to ―represent‖ Medusa as object but is drawn into ―a
radical figural transformation‖ as well. Stevens‘ special syntactic structures often
reveal how words go through a ―figural transformation‖ in a poetic narrative. Jacobs‘
discussion might give us some ideas on Stevens‘ thinking of the act of seeing. To
follow Jacobs‘ ideas, as the beholder writes about an object, it is not only the object
being transformed but the beholder is also transformed. Who is imprinting an
impression on whom? The self as a beholder also cannot escape the transformative
process of figuration in poetry. As the self in ―The Snow Man‖ regards and beholds
the particulars of a winter setting, both the winter landscape and the self are drawn
into a process of figuration (a continuous development of temporal and especially
spatial constructs of relationships). As the self sees ―the nothing that is‖ at the end of
the poem, the self is already transformed in the process of figuration. The self has
turned into ―the snow man‖—a possible particular object in a winter landscape that
one beholds at the beginning of the poem. Stevens‘ figuration does not completely lie
in the self‘s imposition on the other(s) or simple enlargement of the self. His
imagination is not the kind with egocentrism. In the process of figuration, the self is
conditioned and transformed as the other. Metonymy is important as it helps unfold
this transformative process in Stevens‘ poetry.
In such poetic figuration as metonymy, the self is positioned as a constituent
element that mobilizes the process of figuration but does not pre-decide or manipulate
such figurative development. This understanding of metonymic figuration thus
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challenges and questions two popular critical opinions of Stevens‘ poetry and essays:
the over-emphasis of the self‘s imaginative power (i.e., that Stevens‘ theory of poetry
simply focuses on the powers of the mind‘s imagination) and the assumption of
authorial intentions and decisions that preexist each poem‘s poetic development as a
narrative. In ―Fiction, Risk, and Deconstruction: The Poetry of Wallace Stevens,‖ Paul
A. Bové also questions these two popular opinions. In his interpretation of the poem,
―The Snow Man,‖ Bové stresses that ―the reduction of the perceiving self‖ allows the
self to ―see Nature without the intruding veil of a symbol or a correspondence which
metaphorically transforms the other into the appendage of the self‖ (190). As my
interpretation of the same poem has shown above, the relationship between the self
and other elements in the same spatial construct is a metonymic one, not one based on
a metaphorical or symbolic correspondence. Even though Bové points out that there is
a state ―prior to the reduction [of the self] traced in this poem‖ (190), he emphasizes
that Stevens ―risks the soothing concepts of the transforming sympathetic imagination
and of the unique self‖ to demystify fictions (191). Again, other metonymic elements
are able to form relationships with the self through the metonymic process of
figuration as a poetic development; thus, the status of the self is reduced in such
transformative process of figuration. While discussing ―The Comedian as the Letter
C,‖ Bové also points out that ―[t]he thing outside in the world […] manifests itself to
him with such force that the self-satisfying projection is disrupted‖ (202). In these
quotes, Bové does not seem to see that ―the thing‖ is as fictional as the self and the
poem. For Bové, ―the thing‖ and the outside world are completely separate from the
self and the self‘s imagination. However, all the elements in a poem are composed in
a fictional reality (i.e., forming a spatial construct of relationships among constituent
elements) through ―a constructive faculty‖ of ―the imagination‖ (The Necessary Angel
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164). They are fictionally realistic in poetry through the imagination. Therefore, these
elements‘ or the thing‘s material or corporeal sense of reality does not give them the
―force‖ that can disrupt the self‘s projection. In other words, the reality in the
corporeal world does not define this force. This disruptive force can only lie in the
constraining force of metonymic operation that sets limits on the self in a fictional
reality.
Bové thinks that ―Stevens is willing to decenter even the most assuring myths
of self […]‖ (193); Eeckhout suggests that ―Stevens gives no sign of wishing to
emphasize the workings of the will at the end of his poem [―The Snow Man]‖
(Wallace Stevens and the Limits of Reading and Writing 86). Nonetheless, Eeckhout
questions that ―the acetic act of surrendering and passivity‖ is still ―ultimately
informed by the human will‖ (86). Both Bové and Eeckhout address the inherent
controversy of the self‘s will to deconstruct its own power. Bové stresses the
reduction of the self, but Eeckhout thinks that ‗[t]he attainment of a state of
will- lessness requires an enormous will effort […]‖ (87). This circular argument
appears similar with how a fictional reality sets limits on the self if such a fictional
reality is composed and imagined by the self. Can the will- lessness be truly will- less?
Or, is it actually just ―an enormous will‖? Can reality be truly realistic if it is a
composed fictional reality? According to de Man, metonymy on the syntactic level
confines the self in a text; moreover, as the self attempts to escape such a textual
confinement through metaphorical transcendence, the self can only write more text
and thus get into more textual confinement. Besides syntax, metonymy as figuration
explains how a fictional reality constructed through a spatial construct of relationships
sets limits on all of the constituent elements (including the self) within the composed
space. Metonymy thus explains that even though the reduction of the self is a poetic
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decision made by the self, it signifies both the self‘s entrance into the process of
metonymic figuration and a necessary outcome after the self goes through the
transformative process of metonymic figuration.
Bové‘s further discussion of the destructive force of Stevens‘ poetry is not
completely similar with and is thus a nice contrast to my discussion of how a poem‘s
poetic development as process of figuration puts into question a pre-decided authorial
intention and a pre-conceived idea. Bové points out that the major problem in Joseph
Riddel‘s essay is that ―[h]e would have it that Stevens really searches for a ‗center‘ in
his poetry and ultimately finds that nothing is there‖ (186). Bové claims that ―[i]t is by
virtue of the awareness that there is no center that Stevens is able to rethink specific
centered myths and metaphors and show them to be fiction in a radical sense in the
early poetry‖ (186). Therefore, for Bové, Stevens does not attempt to search for a
―center‖ in his poetry but performs the search with the awareness that there is no
―center.‖ Bové sums up: ―Rather, he [Stevens] actively employs the telos-oriented
quest metaphor against itself not merely to show that there is no center but to test in
fiction various poetic and personal myths and metaphors in a world with no firm point
of reference‖ (187). For Bové, Stevens ―creates ‗fictions‘‖ to test ―value of received
and acquired ‗truths‘ and thus to ―destroy their hardened existence‖ (187); similarly,
Stevens intentionally uses ―privileged metaphors,‖ ―these traditional figures,‖ to
―demystify them‖ and to ―dis-close ‗truth‘‖ (189). As a result, interpreting the poem,
―The Snow Man,‖ Bové states that ―fictions are demystified and the questor pierces to
the center‖ to ―find nothing‖ (191); moreover, ―ideas or myths conceal the nothing
which lies at the heart of all utterance‖ (191). Bové concludes that ―this poem […]
shows how literary poetry […] is a metaphysical fiction based on nothing‖ and thus
this poem ―might be called […] an anti-poem‖ (192). However, can a poem be truly
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―anti‖ poetry (i.e., its success as a poem is based on its failure)? Does ―nothing‖ or
nothingness become a fundamental center for all quests? Does Stevens write poems
and fictions for the sake of exposing that all of the ―truths‖ secured through all quests
are fictional, mythical, and illusionary and that the supposed center of all quests is
―nothing‖ instead? Can one use fictions to demystify fictions? Is a contrived center as
―nothing‖ necessarily better than a contrived center as something, such as the final
synthesis, ―the conjunction of self and outside world,‖ or the final ―balancing point‖
between imagination and reality (182-3)? If Stevens is aware that there is no center
from the beginning as Bové suggests, Stevens‘ poetry becomes an intentional reversal.
Even though Bové stresses that, in Stevens‘ more ambitious long poems, ―the
poem is not ‗made‘ to work itself out according to an idea conceived in advance‖ and
―refuse[s] all sense of finality or simple reversal‖ (194), Stevens‘ awareness of
nothing lying in the heart of a center is certainly a pre-conceived idea. According to
Bové, as the goal of a Romantic quest is ―an infinite one,‖ many writers of Romantic
texts easily ―substitute ‗approximation for attainment‘‖ rather than ―examine the
assumptions behind their projection‖ (197). In short, setting up an ―infinite‖ goal
somehow keeps it intact in a secure place and thus justifies the impossibility of
reaching it. Bové criticizes that these writers ―cannot see that their end-oriented
structure reveals the absence of a center and that […] it manifests itself as a ‗fiction‘
[…] determined beforehand by the ‗fore-sight‘ that there ‗is‘ a ‗center‘ out of the
game‖(197-8). For Bové, Stevens‘ poem, ―The Comedian as the Letter C,‖ has the
same ―telos‖ and ―the same basic structure of quest and growth as the Romantic
poems‖; Stevens also describes ―a frustrated quest‖ and shows ―the ‗opposition‘
between the desired image and the real world, but the difference is that Stevens
―destroys the hardened pattern of the quest-figure‖ (198). Nonetheless, if writers of
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the Romantic texts determine the goal of the quests with a ―fore-sight‖ that there is a
center, Bové‘s argument only shows that Stevens also determines the final end of a
quest with a different ―fore-sight‖ that there is no center.
Furthermore, if ―the result of phenomenological destruction […] is a return to
actuality, to an acknowledgement of Being-in-the World as a fundamental temporal
constituent structure of Dasein‖ as Bové claims (189), does this mean that the journey
of a destructive poetic discourse is destined to end at an actual moment as
―Being- in-the World‖? Bové seems to think so: ―Since the poet is free to blast away
the ‗aesthetic‘ interpretations in language by ‗re-thinking‘ the ‗centers‘ and revealing
their Being as fiction, he performs and discloses movements which are possible only
in the medium of life and not in art‖ (189). For Bové, what Stevens has achieved in
his poetry is that he uses his poems or fictions to unfold that the supposed ―centers‖
are merely fictions and are actually nothing and that Stevens puts into question the
powers of ―‗aesthetic‘ interpretations‖ to create their ―centers‖ and orders. Stevens
uses fictions to question other traditionally privileged metaphors and unfold them as
fictional constructs. At the end, Stevens‘ fictions are different because they are able to
perform ―movements which are possible only in the medium of life.‖ Stevens does
write fictions and present different fictional realities in his poems; however, it is
problematic to state the value of the exposure of his own poems as fictions and other
traditional metaphors as fictions lies in his being able to perform something only
possible in ―the medium of life.‖ Such justification is similar with asserting that the
value of a metaphor is its truth. Such an understanding is inherently self-contradictory
as the acclaimed value lies in the denial of the fictional status of poetry. Bové claims
that ―he [Stevens] exposes conventional and personal myths and beliefs to a poetic
procedure radically ‗rooted‘ in nothing‖ (192). For Bové, Stevens is also aware that
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the root of such ―a poetic procedure‖ or a quest is ―nothing‖ in advance. If ―nothing‖
as a non-center (or as another center) is known in advance, there should be no need
for Stevens to initiate such ―a poetic procedure‖ to find out anything unexpected at the
end. Similar with writers of Romantic texts who create the quests and controls the
endings of the quests to fulfill their pre-conceived idea and assumption that there is a
center; Stevens then simply uses ―a poetic procedure‖ to fulfill a different
pre-conceived idea that there is no center. There might be destructive force in Stevens‘
poetry, but such a force should not lie in its construction of an intended destruction.
In terms of what is problematic about having a pre-conceived idea,‖ it is
important to note that, in Studies in Poetic Discourse, Frey‘s idea about ―the
movement‖ from each single moment pushing ―past itself toward a whole‖ is not
based on the assumption that a ―whole‖ exists before a creative process. Frey
emphasizes that ―[s]omething anticipated is present neither as itself nor as an image
but rather as something absent‖ (70). What is anticipated is a ―whole‖ that ―is not
preserved as something present in memory‖ but is ―created by the compositional act‖
(88).Taking what is anticipated as an order, Frey points out that ―[i]f the elements of
this order are undetermined, then the order cannot be determined‖ (70). Similar with
metonymic figuration, the ending of a poetic narrative is not determined before the
constituent elements have gradually formed their different contiguous relationships
with each other within a fictional reality. Frey‘s ―something absent‖ as what is
anticipated is different from Bové‘s ―no center‖ or ―nothing‖ at the center. For Frey,
―[a] composition cannot be built on the predetermined‖ and this explains why ―it is a
creative, not an imitative, process‖ (71). Thus, any pre-conceived idea (be it a center
or no center) will turn the process of composition into an imitative process since the
process is simply contrived for proving what has been known and determined in
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advance.
When Cook states that, in his later poetry, Stevens is aiming for a supreme
fiction and seeking ―a new sense of the whole‖ (167), she proposes a pre-conceived
idea of an order or a center that both Bové and Frey question. Such a belief in
Stevens‘ seeking ―a supreme fiction‖ as ―a new sense of the whole‖ is as problematic
as thinking that Stevens prioritizes imagination over reality and that Stevens aims for
a transcendent fiction apart from the earth. Stevens‘ transcendent fiction has its
fictional reality within, and this goes with Stevens‘ ambitious statement that ―the great
poem of the earth remains to be written‖ (The Necessary Angel 142). In the chapter,
―Against Synecdoche: Parts of a World,‖ Cook introduces that ―de Man is skeptical
about synecdoche because it so easily implies a wholeness or completion, a rounded
and finished unity‖ (153). While acknowledging that ―Parts of a World opens with
three poems that are object lessons against synecdoche,‖ Cook nonetheless states that
Stevens does not continue the same poetic thinking in his later poetry (159). Cook
writes, ―If I am right about this sense of the communal in Stevens, then he parts
company with the deconstructionists here, for all his wariness about the rhetoric of
synecdoche. His word-paly and word-war desire a new sense of the whole. He is
ready to write Notes toward a Supreme Fiction‖ (167). It is problematic to say that
anti-synecdoche equals deconstruction. In de Man‘s essay, ―Semiology and Rhetoric,‖
which Cook refers to, de Man points out how the force of metaphor and the force of
metonymy encounter and tackle each other. As metaphor attempts to transcend the
syntactic structures of metonymy (i.e., a textual confinement), it can only achieve this
through creating more text and following more syntactic patterns. Furthermore, a text
cannot be written without ―I‖ as a metaphor entering and starting a text. The
deconstructive nature of writing thus is not simply about synecdoche but about how
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the two forces compete and deconstruct each other, which signifies the paradoxical
nature of writing. Therefore, de Man‘s idea of the deconstructive force in writing is
also different from Bové‘s.
Similar with Cook, Edward Ragg observes that Stevens has a concern or fear
that abstraction leads to the evasion of reality in his earlier poetry, and it is only in the
early 1940s that Stevens fully accepts ―an abstract poetic‖ (―Picasso, Cézanne and
Stevens‘ Abstract Engagements‖ 137). Stevens might perform reality differently in his
later poetry, but Stevens does not seek a supreme fiction or celebrate the aesthetics of
abstraction without engaging its counterforce—i.e., the limits, the fictional reality,
imposed by metonymy as figuration. To think that Stevens starts his poetry by dealing
with the imagination-reality tension and finally resolves it by freeing a supreme
fiction from reality in his later poetry completely reduces Stevens‘ poetry to a simple
mission fulfillment. Stevens writes: ―We move between these / points: / From that
ever-early candor to its late plural‖ (The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens 382).
The possibility of the ―late plural‖ relies on the condition that ―that ever-early candor‖
is not reduced into a singular point and a singular whole from the beginning. If the
―plural‖ is seen as a whole, it is a whole that is neither a synthesis of imagination and
reality nor a supreme fiction created through prioritizing the imagination and ignoring
reality. Stevens‘ supreme fiction is one embedded in the soil of reality, a fictional
reality performed through different temporal/spatial constructs of relationships as
metonymic figuration. Stevens‘ poems thus remain to be the poems of ―the earth.‖
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of the United States. Ed. Emory Elliott. New York: Columbia University Press,
1988. 972-92.
Ragg, Edward. ―Picasso, Cézanne and Stevens‘ Abstract Engagements.‖ Wallace
Stevens across the Atlantic. Ed. Bart Eeckhout and Edward Ragg. Houndmills:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 133-50.
Stevens, Wallace. The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1954.
---. The Necessary Angel. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1951.
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Chapter 4
Overcome Oneself as Subject in Dickinson‟s Poetry: A Mediated “I”
I
Pendulum of Historical Contexts
Emily Dickinson is a nineteenth-century poet but is often appreciated as a
modernist poet. Both Margaret Dickie and Christanne Miller think that Dickinson is
certainly a modernist because her poetry has met the aesthetic expectations of the
modern era. Nonetheless, Mary Loeffelholz contends that ―most nineteenth-century
American poetry‖ always stands ―in place as background‖ to Dickinson‘s poetry and
that the ―cultural work‖ in nineteenth-century American culture ―has most often been
assumed as known than read for its possible surprises, leaving Dickinson‘s
idiosyncratic unpublished manuscripts to stand for Poetry against an inert background
of merely historical print verse‖ (―Dickinson‘s ‗Decoration‘‖ 664, 669). Loeffelholz‘s
purpose is to bring this ―foreground/background model‖ into question because it
denies the two-directional mutual influence and interaction between Dickinson‘s
poetry and those of her contemporaries, such as Thomas Wentworth Higginson
discussed in the essay, ―Dickinson‘s ‗Decoration,‘‖ and Josiah Holland discussed in
―Really Indigenous Productions: Emily Dickinson, Josiah Holland, and
Nineteenth-Century Popular Verse.‖ After scrutiny of Dickinson‘s fascicles,
Alexandra Socarides interprets Dickinson‘s poem ―All Overgrown by Cunning
Moss,‖ with a conclusion that the poem‘s ending is a non-closure. As non-closure is a
feature celebrated in the postmodern era, can Dickinson be a postmodernist poet?
Is Dickinson a poet of nineteenth century or twentieth century? Either answer
presupposes the close relationship between Dickinson‘s poetry and its external
contexts (cultural, social, and historical contexts). This presupposition is worth further
examination.
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In ―Dickinson in Context,‖ Dickie notes that after Ralph Franklin published The
Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson in 1981, Dickinson‘s poetry is taken out of the
context of ―the neat chronological order and numbering system‖ that Thomas Johnson
devised in his edition in 1955. Dickie states that ―this new Dickinson presents entirely
different questions from those of the standard Dickinson—questions of her intention
in the poems‘ groupings, of contexts in work that seemed to have no context, of the
various cryptic marks on the texts along with variant words at the end of each poem‖
(320). For Dickie, Franklin‘s edition has created some unsettling feelings in feminist
critics because they had based their criticism on Johnson‘s edition without any
questioning; the manuscripts also make Susan Howe admit ―her own frequent failure
to discover the poet‖ (321, 322). Howe states that Dickinson ―may have chosen to
enter the space of silence, a space where power is no longer an issue, gender is no
longer an issue, voice is no longer an issue, where the idea of a printed book appears
as a trap‖ (The Birth-Mark: Unsettling the Wilderness in American Literary History
170). Dickie argues that Howe‘s ―space of silence,‖ her ―new Dickinson,‖ is ―very
much like the old Dickinson, the reclusive poet who refused to accede to the social
conventions of her day‖ (223). Dickie then raises very significant questions: ―Where
then is the revolutionary or enraged Dickinson created by the first wave of feminist
criticism or the complex and sophisticated poet negotiating with strategies of
reticence and limitation from the second wave of feminist criticism or even the
aristocratic poet scorning populism of one recent cultural critic?‖ (323). Dickie
suggests that Howe‘s self-reflection somehow subverts the previous feminist criticism
on Dickinson; nonetheless, it just brings back an ―old Dickinson.‖ From a different
perspective, if feminist criticism has always placed Dickinson into a position either
closely influenced by or directly opposed to the social norms (as well as the literary
conventions at her times) in order to put her poetry into context and thus decide the
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value of her poetry and her as a poet, Howe‘s new Dickinson does not escape this
same methodology.
It is especially controversial to put Dickinson‘s poetry in an external context
because it easily provokes another conflicting contextual reading. Besides the
conflicting feministic readings and the different perspectives on the historical period
she belongs to, there are plenty of other examples. Dickie observes that her
manuscripts, for Jerome McGann, suggest that Dickinson is deeply interested in ―the
visual aspects of her writing‖ and that her ―scripts cannot be read […] as if they were
composed with an eye toward some state beyond their handcrafted textual condition‖;
however, she compliments Martha Nell Smith‘s book Rowing in Eden because the
book suggests that ―Dickinson might have chosen alternate modes of publishing
because she wanted to conceal as well as express her erotic desire‖ (325, 327).
Furthermore, Dickie adds that Smith‘s book also helps reconstruct ―the poetry
workshop in which Dickinson participate with her sister-in-law‖ and helps reveal ―an
entirely new Dickinson, an experimental poet, quite different from the isolated
woman writing for herself‖ (327-8). As Dickinson‘s letters conventionally signify her
reclusive role, here Dickie states the opposite: ―this poet seems to be a public figure‖
(328). In response to McGann‘s comments, one cannot help wonder about those ten
poems of Dickinson that were published in her lifetime. Did these poems not belong
to her manuscripts? Did they not have ―the visual aspects‖? The manuscripts, from
Howe‘s and McGann‘s perspectives, are thus superadded with a value of aura and are
fetishized in a way.
On the contrary, Christanne Miller emphasizes the ―aural‖ aspects as opposed to
the visual in Dickinson‘s poetry in the essay, ―The Sound of Shifting Paradigms, or
Hearing Dickinson in the Twenty-First Century.‖ Miller introduces that ―patterns‖ of
nineteenth-century poetry itself indicate that poetry was primarily an aural […] art,‖
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which supports Dickinson‘s aesthetic (207-8). Nonetheless, for Miller, ―Dickinson has
been claimed as a poet writing within the concerns of the twentieth-century, primarily
visual paradigm‖ (217). Miller adds that the contemporary poets were ―poets of
strongly rhymed and metrical verse‖ and, among them, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
was the ―poet she [Dickinson] quoted most frequently‖ (209). Miller then concludes
that ―Longfellow‘s verse serves best to exemplify what Dickinson and her
contemporaries admired‖ (209). In order to stress Dickinson‘s aesthetic as the aural,
not the visual, Miller argues that Dickinson is fully immersed in the
nineteenth-century American culture and also accepts the aesthetic expectations of
poetry then. However, in order to mark the distinctiveness of Dickinson‘s poetic
achievement, she claims that Dickinson is still different from Longfellow because
Dickinson is not interested in ―narrative‖ or ―in speaking accessibly to a broad,
popular audience‖ and she also does not ―[link] the craft of the poet with masculinity‖
(212). Comparing the two poets, she states that ―Dickinson‘s poems […] sound more
modern than Longfellow‘s because of their compression and syntactic deletion and
disjunction, not because they depart radically from metrical norms‖ (213). Miller tries
to situate Dickinson in the context of the nineteenth century for the sake of claiming
the contemporary contextual influences on her writing and thus registering the aural
features in her poetry, but, in the end, Dickinson cannot be fully situated within the
nineteenth-century context. If Dickinson is ―modern‖ and the external contextual
influences are absolute and inevitable, then we will have to say that modern culture
has influenced Dickinson. Since that is impossible, it is more reasonable to
re-examine the relationship between her work and the shifting external contexts
instead of simply focusing on the conflicting results derived from different
interpretative paradigms. If Dickinson ―played with and against‖ such ―metrical
norms‖ as Miller suggests, Dickinson‘s poetry then meets and breaks the norms at the
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same time. Even though Dickinson cannot occupy a transcendent position above any
cultural influences, such contextual influences cannot fully condition her writing as
well. Miller‘s argument emphasizes that the value of Dickinson‘s poetry varies as the
interpretive paradigm shifts but ignores how Dickinson‘s poetry might develop its
own internal force against each paradigm.
In the essay, ―The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility,‖
Walter Benjamin has implied a possibility that works of art can defy values placed
upon them in different historical periods. He introduces that it is around 1900 when
technological reproduction ―had reached a standard that permitted it to reproduce all
known works of art, profoundly modifying their effect‖ (253). The moment of the
change from aura to reproducibility of works of art is also the moment when the mode
of perception toward art shifts from the accentuation of cult value to the accentuation
of the exhibition value. As discussed in chapter one, the primary argument in the
essay is not to celebrate the face value of such historical progress in technological
reproduction; instead, Benjamin presents an implicit critique that when cult value
(aura of an artwork) or exhibition value (reproducibility of an artwork) is privileged at
a certain historical period, such value generated and embedded at a historical period
does not necessarily suggest art‘s inherent value but only shows that it is arbitrarily
decided through external manipulative forces exercised upon art. Close to the end of
the essay, Benjamin refers to architecture for its similar mode of reception with that of
film: ―Architecture has always offered the prototype of an artwork that is received in a
state of distraction and through the collective‖ (268). The art of film advances and
manifests the change from aura to reproducibility and also from the contemplative
mode of perception to a mode of perception based on constant distraction. However,
the mode of its reception is not different from that of architecture, something that has
already existed since ―primeval times‖ and has not had ―fallow periods.‖ This shows
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that the exhibition value was simply not privileged and was probably suppressed
when the cult value of an artwork was dominant.
When an artwork is able to liquidate the defined value at its times while being
given another defined value at a later times, this suggests not only that the value of an
artwork is decided by outside forces but also that an artwork can liquidate and resist
such forces. Furthermore, Benjamin does not grant the legitimacy of such
manipulative forces but refuses to participate in manipulating and defining another
value of art and to join the historical pendulum. Miller‘s shifting paradigms reinforce
how external contexts can define the value of Dickinson‘s poetry but ignore how the
internal force within her poetry might resist such external definition. In ―Dickinson
and the Lyric Self,‖ Dickie attempts to explore such a possibility in Dickinson‘s
poetry. She points out that, for Dickinson, ―individuality could not be universalized
and made to be representative; it had to find its expression in a form, like itself, that
could be both fragmented and excessive,‖ and ―[t]he lyric poem‖ is the form for
Dickinson because it is perfect ―for such experimental expression‖ and is ―relieved of
the narrative order of prose, the moral purpose of the essay, and the persuasive thrust
of argument‖ (16). For Dickie, it is due to Dickinson‘s choice of the lyric as ―a brief,
repetitive, figurative form‖ that Dickinson should not be ―assimilated by a literary
tradition that has remained dominated by Emerson‘s conception of the representative
self‖ (16). Dickie criticizes that Dickinson ―has been frequently read as if her poems
could be easily attached to a plot‖; for example, ―[p]sychoanalytic, Marxist, feminist
theories of identity‖ in one way or another rely ―upon a plot, upon character, and upon
extended development‖ (16-17). For Dickie, ―[t]he lyric poem does not mythologize
the individual as a readable organization, making coherence out of isolated moments
and fragmentary experiences as the novel does‖ (19). Thus, the features of the lyric
form are incompatible with and cannot surrender to the interpretative paradigms that
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presuppose a plot in Dickinson‘s poetry.
In another essay, ―Emily Dickinson in History and Literary History,‖ Dickie
nonetheless brings Dickinson‘s poetry back to the historical context of the Civil War.
Dickie criticizes that Betsy Erkkila removes Dickinson from the influence of the Civil
War and ―delineates a very ‗feminine,‘ not to say anti-feminist, role for the poet‖; by
doing so, Erkkila ―joins a long line of literary historians who have banished Dickinson
from history and from the literary history that depends on it‖ (186). Dickie‘s way of
bringing Dickinson back to the literary history is to show the similarity of war writing
between Dickinson and some twentieth-century war novelists. As these novelists tend
to engage ―in a series of substitutions that lead them from war to literature,‖
―Dickinson fits into this literary history of war writing by substituting funerals for the
military, romance for warfare, psychic horror for the ineffable disaster of the Civil
War‖ (189). Dickie argues that war experience does not have to be only the ―real‖
experience of the soldier and that ―writing about something else‖ could be a way of
writing the ―real‖ war (189). Dickie thus introduces and compliments Edith Sitwell‘s
understanding that there is ―a case for writing war poetry like a woman‖ and there are
―limits‖ when a war poem directly refers to real experience (190). It is possible for
one to create a war experience without directly referring to the war, but this does not
necessarily mean that other experiences written in poems are simply substitutions for
war experiences. As Dickie criticizes that Erkkila narrows Dickinson into a
―feminine‖ role by excluding Dickinson‘s writing from war writing and thus from
literary history, it should be equally problematic to claim that Dickinson uses the same
method (of engaging substitutions) as other war novelists and thus belongs to and
should be included in the literary history. Moreover, if Erkkila is misleading while
delineating ―feminine‖ as being detached from and indifferent to war, is it not equally
misleading to label an indirect way of engaging in war as a ―feminine‖ way?
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Especially, Dickie had just listed some male war novelists who she suggested also
shared such a ―feminine‖ way. Dickie‘s understanding in this essay is thus radically
different from her emphasis of the ―fragmented‖ lyric form in the essay, ―Dickinson
and the Lyric Self.‖
Dickie‘s idea of the lyric self has pointed at the possibility that the internal force
of a poem (or the self within a poem) can resist both a biographical contextual reading
and the social conditioning because of poetic figuration. The lyric self, for Dickie,
does not equal Emily Dickinson because ―it may be mediated through and suppressed
by the lyric‘s figurative language‖ (―Dickinson and the Lyric Self‖ 25). It is
―reductive‖ to view the speaker ―as purified of contingency by the lyric‖ (25). Dickie
concludes that ―the lyric speaker suggests a sense of self that is certainly limited and
yet remains paradoxically free from the restrains of social viability […]‖ and that
―[t]he self is not exposed in figurative language but hidden and shielded and thus
freed from social definition‖ (28, 28-9). Even though Dickie is not completely
consistent in her other essays, her argument about ―the lyric self‖ directly points at the
very problem and tension that have been existing in the conflicting contextual
frameworks freely applied to Dickinson‘s poetry. She brings up the possibility of a
lyric poem‘s resistance to the social context. The study of Dickinson can thus shift
from the focus on the contradictory interpretive paradigms to the focus on the tension
between the lyric self and the social (and other contexts). However, this tension
suggests that the relationship does not end with ―the lyric self‖ that is ―free‖ from ―the
social definition‖ and is protected within the figurative language as Dickie has
suggested. The relation between the lyric self (or the lyric poem) and the social
context should be a dialectical relation, as Theodor W. Adorno has proposed.
II
Lyric Poetry‟s Resistance to External contexts
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According to Adorno, lyric poetry‘s special status lies in its detachment from
and its resistance to the social, not in its immersion in it or its harmonious relationship
with it. Both Miller and Loeffelholz have shown Dickinson‘s connection with
nineteenth-century culture and contemporaries but undercut the signification of how a
lyric poem might resist to and thus redefine such connection. In ―Culture Criticism
and Society,‖ Adorno‘s discussion of cultural criticism offers insight into the
dialectical relation between the self and the social: ―Once it [the irrationalism of
culture criticism] has wrenched the mind out of its dialectic with the material
conditions of life, it seizes it unequivocally and straightforwardly as the principle of
fatality, thus undercutting the mind‘s own resistance‖ (24). When the mind is
completely removed out of its dialectical relation with ―the material conditions of
life‖ (or ―the cultural object‖), the mind then occupies a transcendent position where
―it employs reified notions‖ (33, 34). Such a ―transcendent method claims to hold up a
mirror to society‘s own crudity and severity‖ (34). What is problematic with this
traditional transcendent method is that it ―has renounced a spontaneous relation to the
object,‖ and, for Adorno, ―[d]ialectics must guard against this no less than against
enthrallment in the cultural object‖ and ―can subscribe neither to the cult of the mind
nor the hatred of it‖ (33). In other words, the spontaneous relation between the mind
and ―the cultural object‖ persists only when either side cannot conquer and subsume
the other completely—i.e., when the mind ―must both participate in culture and not
participate‖ (33). The spontaneity of this relation lies in the self‘s resistance, which
acknowledges the necessary distance between the self and ―the cultural object,‖ and
also in the impossibility of the self‘s fulfillment of such resistance—i.e., the full break
with ―the cultural object.‖ The self cannot be removed out of the cultural context, and
whatever meta-universe the mind creates can never coincide with and do justice to
―the cultural object.‖
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For Adorno, when the cultural critic does not engage in ―its dialectic with the
material conditions of life,‖ he/she ―is barred from the insight that that the reification
of life results not from too much enlightenment but from too little, and that the
mutilation of man which is the result of the present particularistic rationality is the
stigma of the total irrationality‖ (24). This insight can be further explained as such—if
the mind is too much enlightened, it will not engage in the tensional and spontaneous
relation with ―the material conditions of life‖ and the seemingly rational thinking that
secures the mind from ―the material conditions‖ might be actually ―the stigma of the
total irrationality.‖ At the end, it is highly paradoxical that ―the cult of the mind,‖ is
actually an underestimation of the mind‘s power as it undercuts ―the mind‘s own
resistance.‖
Dickinson‘s lyric self is one that does not celebrate ―the cult of the mind‖ as the
mind resists and tackle different aspects and issues of human life. Such an attitude is
similar to that of ―immanent criticism,‖ which ―cannot take comfort in its own idea‖
and which ―can neither be vain enough to believe that it can liberate the mind directly
by immersing itself in it; nor naïve enough to believe that unflinching immersion in
the object will inevitably lead to truth by virtue of the logic of things […]‖ (Adorno
33). Borrowing Adorno‘s insight, ―the lyric self‖ in Dickinson‘s poetry is not the self
that is ―free‖ from ―the social definition‖ and is protected within the figurative
language as Dickie suggests. The lyric self emerges in process of figuration within a
poem, and such emergence of the lyric self is derived from the development of
different spontaneous relations as the self resists and deals with different aspects of
life (including the social, cultural, or historical concerns).
As the ―I‖ in the lyric poem is a lyric self performed through poetic figuration,
the world that the lyric self is related to could be a world that the self perceives and
represents. It is important to understand how the possibility of the ―representedness‖
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of the world might further complicate the self‘s resistance against and struggle with
the supposedly outside world because the outside might be an inside outside (an
internalized outside). It is with further interrogation of Adorno and Martin
Heidegger‘s ideas that the spontaneous relation between the lyric self and the other
could be more fully disclosed and better understood. It is with such disclosure and
understanding of the spontaneous relation that I will interpret two poems by Emily
Dickinson.
In ―On Lyric Poetry and Society,‖ Adorno also emphasizes the dialectical
relation between an individual and society. Adorno has noticed that ―the ideal of lyric
[…] is to remain unaffected by bustle and commotion‖ and that lyric poetry is ―[a]
sphere of expression whose very essence lies in either not acknowledging the power
of socialization or overcoming it through pathos of detachment‖ ( 37); however, he
argues that it is basically because of such resistance to social forces that lyric poetry
remains social and is unable to stay away from ―bustle and commotion‖ in society.
For Adorno, since ―the individual is mediated by the universal,‖ ―resistance to social
pressure is not something absolutely individual‖ and ―the artistic forces in that
resistance‖ are actually ―objective forces‖ (43). Therefore, such forces are ―part of the
constitution of the whole‖ and do not belong to the individual (43). He goes further to
claim that ―by virtue of its own subjectivity, the substance of the lyric can in fact be
addressed as an objective substance‖ (43). Thus, the lyric as ―an objective substance‖
is also ―part of the constitution of the whole.‖ Such emphasis on objectivity in the
individual, lyric poetry, and the artistic forces in lyric poetry (he stresses that even
language is objective later) grants their social statuses as the constituents of the whole
although Adorno does not deny subjectivity in them as well.
Adorno urgently positions lyric poetry within the social, so even ―the lyric work
of art‘s withdrawal into itself, its self-absorption, its detachment from the social
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surface‖ is actually ―socially motivated‖ (43). He asserts that the dialectical relation
between lyric poetry and society defines the spontaneity of lyric poetry; however,
there arises a question—if lyric poetry is defined as an ―objective substance‖
belonging to the social, why is it necessary for lyric poetry to resist ―social pressure,‖
to what it is part of, and how can there be any dialectical relation between lyric poetry
and society? In short, if the distinction between lyric poetry and society is completely
blurred and when both of their positions are not oppositional, isn‘t the possibility of a
dialectical relation taken away as well? (In ―Cultural Criticism and Society,‖ Adorno,
nonetheless, underlines the importance of maintaining the distance and distinction
between the two because such distance is necessary for the self‘s resistance.)
Moreover, language, according to Adorno, is claimed to function as the mediation
between lyric poetry and society. If lyric poetry is actually an objective substance in
society, why is it necessary for language to act as a meeting place for lyric poetry and
society and to mediate between them?
In the end, an individual, lyric poetry, artistic forces in lyric works of art, and,
most important of all, language are both objective and subjective. On the one hand,
Adorno needs to keep their subjectivity for the possibility of ―artistic forces‖ in lyric
works of art as resistance to the social and for the necessity of a dialectical relation
between them; on the other hand, he has to emphasize their objectivity in order to
situate them within the social, the whole, and make it impossible for lyric poetry to
escape and to be fully detached from the social. Adorno‘s argument here implies a
problem—if the dialectical relation between lyric poetry and society is consistent,
lyric poetry should not be subsumed under the social and become part of the social
whole because this result will terminate the dialectical relation forever.
One fallacy that arises from Adorno‘s emphasis on objectivity in lyric works of
art is that we are given a perspective that lyric works are objective substances and are
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thus brought into the social as their root, but we never obtain a perspective about how
the social is brought into the individual‘s view. In other words, the social is normative
and stable as the solid ground for the individual to be constituted in; consequently, the
social is the whole or part of the whole (even when subjectivity in lyric poetry and in
the individual is emphasized), which exists as the actual/real world, not as the world
already brought into view (which Heidegger proposes in his essay, ―The Age of the
World Picture‖).
The interrogation of this relation between an individual and society has a lot to
do with the confrontation between them. For Adorno, what‘s to be created on the
individual‘s side already belongs to the other side, the social; subjectivity is
transformed into objective substance and exists in the objective world. For Heidegger,
it is the opposite way: man always stays in the midst of what is (in that which is) as a
subject, and that is how the world comes into view and why man can have a view of
the world. Heidegger points out that it is ―in and through representedness‖ that
―whatever is comes into being,‖ that whatever is is perceived (130). It is through
man‘s representation of the world—through interpretation and explanation of what
is—that the world enters ―into a picture‖ (130). This ―representedness‖ consists in
man as subject who tries to bring whatever is into control through calculation and
measurement, so ―what is intelligible is found by calculation and is certified and
established as the ground plan‖ and as the basis for its explanation of what is as a
whole. The rigor of this ―representedness‖ of what is in modern science does not just
reside in the constant changing world but also in the ―ongoing activity‖ (124) in the
research and procedure that ―must bind itself and adhere to the sphere [of objects]‖
(118) and that must constantly ―adapt itself for a new procedure,‖ which is ―opened
up through itself,‖ through ―its own results‖ (124). This ―representedness‖ of what is
relies on man as ―the relational center of that which is‖ because ―to represent
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[vor-stellen] means to bring what is present at hand [das Vor-handene] before oneself
as something standing over against, to relate it to oneself, to the one representing it,
and to force it back into this relationship to oneself as the normative realm (128).
Moreover, ―[w]herever this happens, man ‗gets into the picture‘ in precedence over
whatever is‖ (131). Here, for Heidegger, it is this understanding of ―representedness‖
with the recognition of man‘s claiming precedence over whatever is in this ―world
picture‖ (as the picture of the world and as already the representation of what is) that
is going to help distinguish ―the essence of the modern age‖ (130).
However, man in precedence over what is does not mean that man dominates or
overpowers the world; it is in the world ―picture‖ that is projected and known
according to man‘s already-made-up ground plan that man has its already-claimed
precedence. To put it in a reverse way, it is through this already-claimed precedence
that the world becomes world picture. Upon ―man‘s becoming subiectum in the midst
of that which is‖ and being ―the relational center‖ that intends to represent what is and
relates whatever is to himself, ―the world becomes picture‖ (132). In other words,
man‘s reference to the world is already the picture of the world unless man can be a
purely an object without trying to know, to interpret, that which is. Adorno sees an
individual in society as the mediated existence by the social and the universal and thus
cannot be seen as completely subjective. Heidegger states that simply ―because and
insofar as man actually and essentially had become subject is it necessary for him, as
a consequence, to confront the explicit question: Is it as an ‗I‘ confined to its own
preferences and freed into its own arbitrary choosing or as the ‗we‘ of society […] that
man will and ought to be the subject […]‖ (132-33). The confrontation and struggle
between the individual and society only exist under the condition that man ought to be
already the subject (Heidegger 133). This would echo the question I posed earlier on
the necessity of a dialectical relation between lyric poetry and society in Adorno‘s
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argument: if lyric poetry is defined as an ―objective substance‖ belonging to the social
and its resisting forces are ―objective forces,‖ the struggling confrontation between
lyric poetry and society would become unnecessary.
To put Adorno‘s and Heidegger‘s arguments into comparison, Adorno
emphasizes the incomplete subjectivity and individualism in the individual and
stresses objectivity in lyric works of art as well as resisting forces in them in order to
bring all of them back to the social, to the whole, to what is as a whole. Heidegger
points out that only through man as subject can there be ―representedness‖ of what is
and can there be a relation and confrontation between man and whatever is; for there
to be confrontation and struggle between man and what is requires man to be subject
and what is to be the world picture. As Heidegger highlights man as subject to
accentuate ―the necessary interplay between subjectivism and objectivism‖ (128),
Adorno positions the individual and lyric poetry in the social and negates their
complete individuality and subjectivity. For Heidegger, the position of man in the
midst of what is as subject is a position ―constituted by himself‖ (132); for Adorno,
the mediated existence of the individual is a social condition. According to Heidegger,
the world enters into picture as man becomes a subject; Adorno‘s concept of society
stays as part of what is, of the whole, and the individual and lyric poetry also remain
as ―part[s] of the constitution of the whole.‖ One of the major differences is that, for
Heidegger, that which is, the whole, does not exist there as reality in its material
concreteness but has already become the ―representedness,‖ ―the world picture,‖ as
soon as man starts to interpret, to know, what is in what is (i.e., as soon as man takes
his position as subject in what is). It is on this metaphysical ground that man starts
resisting, struggling, and confronting not what is but the ―representedness‖ of what is,
which is conditioned by subjectivism from the very beginning. For Heidegger, what is
is conditioned by the subject; for Adorno, the individual is conditioned and mediated
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by society from the very beginning.
Therefore, for Heidegger, this ―interplay between subjectivism and
objectivism‖ can only happen when man becomes subject, when there is subject to
project ―the ground plan‖ as the metaphysical basis of what is and turn what is into a
―sphere of objects‖ and into ―world picture,‖ ―world view.‖ This ―world picture‖ or
―world view‖ is thus not ―a passive contemplation of the world‖ (Heidegger 134). In
short, the objectivism of what is relies on the subjectivism of man. If subjectivism is
taken away—i.e., if lyric poetry becomes ―objective substance‖ and an individual
becomes a mediated existence as a constituent of the whole—who is there to claim the
objectivism of what is and how would ―the interplay between subjectivism and
objectivism‖ be necessary? What precedes the individual‘s resistance to and struggle
with the social is not the not-already-claimed subjectivity of the individual and is not
the individual as a constituent part of the whole, but man as subject taking a position
―constituted by himself‖ in the midst of what is. In short, the resistance to the social
pressure as noticed by Adorno is preceded by man as subject taking ―a position as one
constituted by himself,‖ and this man becoming subiectum and the world becoming
world picture are two sides of the same thing (Heidegger 132). Heidegger presents the
metaphysical basis that enables the interplay between man as subject and the world.
As ―representedness‖ of what is is already contrived, refigured, calculated and is
based on a metaphysical ground plan, man as subject also holds ―a position
constituted by himself.‖ However, the question asked on Adorno can be modified and
applied to Heidegger as well—if man as subject projects ―the ground plan‖ as the
basis to turn what is into ―world picture,‖ how could there be ―interplay‖ between
man as subject and the world? In other words, there seems no need for the subject to
resist and struggle with world picture since world picture is generated through his/her
own metaphysical plan. Therefore, the subject‘s active ―contemplation of the world‖
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already makes a subjective world.
I think that when Adorno and Heidegger put each other‘s argument at stake, a
genuine dialectical relation between the self and other (society or the world) might
emerge. It might emerge when Heidegger‘s ―man as subject‖ always runs the risk of
turning into a socially mediated object and cannot offer a metaphysical plan (always
readily prepared and ―constituted by himself‖) that can encompass the world and
when Adorno‘s ―society‖ cannot fully condition ―the lyric self‖ and might turn into a
picture of society that the self represents according to his/her own metaphysical
framework. A different dialectical relation will emerge if what lyric poetry resists is
not only the external social context but also a ―world picture‖ that is composed within
writing. In the spontaneous relation between the lyric self and the other, if the other is
not only society but also the other composed within poetry, the lyric self is not simply
mediated by the external social context but also by the other composed within an
instance of poetic discourse. A genuine dialectical relation might emerge when the
other can also be a lyric other (just as the self turns into a lyric self in poetry) and
when the lyric self is an existence mediated not only by society but also by the lyric
other.
III
“Internal Difference” as “the Meanings”
Both sides, the individual and the ―representedness‖ of what is, are never
simple realities delineated by a transcendent observer but are constructed within their
positional, complementary, and interweaving relation. The lyric self then holds a
spontaneous and dialectical relation with the lyric other, the lyric self‘s
―representedness‖ of what is in poetry. It is with the understanding of this dialectical
relation that I would like to start my interpretation of Emily Dickinson‘s poem,
―There‘s a certain Slant of Light.‖ The poem unfolds how the incalculable emerges
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when the lyric self engages in a dialectical relation with the lyric other. Here is the
first stanza of the poem:
There‘s a certain Slant of Light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
When a slant of light becomes or can only be remembered as a ―certain‖ slant of light,
such becoming relies on its being one of many slants of light probably in many
―Winter Afternoons.‖ The specificity owing to its singularity is reduced and weakened
by the plurality accumulated through time (i.e., some different slants of light possibly
in some winter afternoons). Presumably, ―a certain Slant of Light‖ is supposed to be
one of many slants of light that could appear in ―Winter Afternoons.‖ A slant of light
becomes one of the other possible many. However, the sequential arrangement of this
certain light as what is noticed or seen by the speaker and its possible temporal
context in the first two lines imply a thinking process—that it is through such
recalling or thinking of ―a certain Slant of Light‖ even without having its specificity
be clearly identified that so many ―Winter Afternoons‖ are evoked. It is when a slant
of light loses its specificity—i.e., when a slant of light loses its actual referential point
in reality and even in memory—that its metonymic relation with ―Winter Afternoons‖
becomes possible.
The loss of specificity suggested from the word ―certain‖ has already
transformed a slant of light from its existence in the real into the realm of memory, i.e.,
the realm of representedness; ―Slant of Light‖ with their first letters capitalized might
be less of making this certain slant of light a personification but more of losing its
referential point in the real and being singled out in the realm of representedness.
―This certain Slant of Light‖ can no longer stay as a simple object existing in the
world as the speaker recalls it. The capitalization of the first letters of the words (such
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as nouns, adjectives, verbs, and even adverbs) in this poem may signal their
signification not derived from their referential reality but from their relations with the
speaker as subject. It is when the speaker as subject relates this certain slant of light to
himself/herself through remembering, thinking, or pondering that this certain ―Slant
of Light‖ appears in and through representedness.
Such interweaving relation between ―a certain Slant of Light‖ and the speaker
as subject might suggest the self‘s subjective calculation or measurement upon what is;
however, what constitutes this relation depends on not only the self‘s calculation but
also how ―a certain Slant of Light‖ mediates the subjective perception and escapes the
calculation. For Heidegger, the self‘s controlling power over what is is never simply
positive and promising. Man as subject in the ―representedness‖ of what is turns the
world into picture, into ―world view,‖ but such emphasis on subjectivism on man‘s
position in what is by no means equals man‘s dominance or control over what is. For
Heidegger, the calculable that is found in what is through the ground plan projected
by man would reveal what is incalculable in what is at the same time. For example, as
―man brings into play his unlimited power for the calculating, planning, and molding
of all things‖ in the modern age, ―the gigantic is making its appearance‖ as something
that is found through calculation with the metaphysical basis as a ground plan (135).
Nonetheless, according to Heidegger, ―as soon as the gigantic in planning and
calculating and adjusting and making secure shifts over out of the quantitative and
becomes a special quality, then what is gigantic, and what can seemingly always be
calculated completely, becomes, precisely through this, incalculable‖ (135). However,
how does the calculable become incalculable through the subject‘s calculation?
To continue the discussion of the poem, the third line introduces that this
―certain Slant of Light‖ actually ―oppresses.‖ Such recalling or thinking of ―a certain
Slant of Light‖ does not seem to be beneficial or pleasant even though it evokes
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images and triggers the speaker‘s memories. Such recalling or thinking makes the
speaker have to face not what was in the past but what comes. The expression of a
―certain Slant of Light‖ then suggests both its potential distinguishability and also the
impossibility of such complete distinguishability at the same time. This ―certain Slant
of Light‖ appears seemingly distinguishable in the realm of representedness even
without its specificity; however, its being able to evoke ―Winter Afternoons‖ for the
speaker is twofold: on the one hand, ―a Slant of Light‖ carries a promise of other
slants of light (or the thinking of ―a Slant of Light‖ carries a promise of other thinking
of slants of light); on the other hand, ―Winter afternoons‖ that follow both fulfill and
take away this promise. ―A certain Slant of Light,‖ which is like ―the Heft of
Cathedral Tunes,‖ is promising because ―Winter Afternoons‖ are evoked and more
slants of lights are up to come, which is like ―the Heft of Cathedral tunes‖ promising
the coming of what is expected.
However, what comes or what is evoked in consequence is not the simple
fulfillment of the promise but are ―Winter Afternoons,‖ which cannot help clarify the
spatial and temporal location of ―a certain Slant of Light‖ by specifying its origin and
establishing its distinguishability and which also promise plenty of slants of light that
would lead to the obscurity of the expected distinguishability in ―a certain Slant of
Light.‖ The acknowledgment or thinking of ―a certain Slant of Light‖ not only
awakens the memory of those ―Winter Afternoons‖ but also shows its getting buried
and obscured in them at the same time. The second stanza of the poem shows what ―a
certain Slant of Light‖ gives us and thus helps clarify why it oppresses:
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings are –
It is the potential difference of ―a certain Slant of Light‖ and the impossibility of
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keeping such difference that explains how ―a certain Slant of Light‖ oppresses. It
oppresses as a slant of light which is singular, particular, and distinguishable but
which is also plural and common in all those winter afternoons. This ―certain Slant of
Light‖ carries the weight of its singularity, its difference, but this ―slant of light‖ is
also light because it is only one of the many. Its weight lies in its impact—its
singularity and difference—on the speaker; it gives the speaker ―the internal
difference.‖ Such a significant impact is as heavy and light as ―the Heft / Of Cathedral
Tunes,‖ which are just light ―tunes‖ but able to create heavy and influential impact on
the mind. Furthermore, the difficulty and impossibility of sustaining the
distinguishability of this ―certain Slant of Light‖—i.e., its difference—also explain
why it ―oppresses‖ and why we are ―heavenly hurt‖ by it. The potential difference
noted internally by the speaker speaks for why we are ―heavenly‖ hurt by this ―certain
Slant of Light.‖ It is ―heavenly‖ because the ―internal difference‖ given to us helps us
sustain a significant slant of light and its difference from others. Eventually, it is such
―internal difference‖ inside the mind that makes possible ―the Meanings,‖ that helps
secure the meanings from being buried in the plural, the common, the
indistinguishability.
The distinguishablility and the obscurity of such distinguishability analyzed
above would be related to Heidegger‘s understanding of how the calculable becomes
incalculable. First of all, ―a certain Slant of Light‖ is already the outcome of the
speaker‘s explanation of something that exists in what is (as mentioned above,
explanation has already suggested the involvement of calculation and measurement)
while confronting uncertain results of his/her own approach at the same time (i.e., it is
a ―Slant of Light‖ that appears as a distinguishable one in the realm of
representedness, but it stays as a ―certain‖ one for the loss of its specificity and its
referential reality). Thus, what is distinguishable in the realm of representedness as
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the speaker starts to know and to explain is this singularity of ―a certain Slant of
Light.‖ As such distinguishability is pointed out and emphasized as ―a special quality‖
(Heidegger‘s term) belonging to ―a certain Slant of Light,‖ what is indistinguishable
and unspecified about it (its lack of referential reality and specificity) is revealed
negatively exactly through its distinguishability. More obviously, when ―a certain
Slant of Light‖ owing to its distinguishability as ―a special quality‖ evokes the
memory of ―Winter Afternoons,‖ its distinguishability is reduced exactly by what it
evokes (other slants of light in ―Winter Afternoons‖) and by failing to locate its
possible temporal or spatial context as a consequence. What is revealed to us are the
potential distinguishability and also the impossibility of sustaining it. When
distinguishabiliy is taken as ―a special quality,‖ what is indistinguishable about it also
comes into play. What such distinguishability in ―a certain Slant of Light‖ promises
and what actually comes create an ―internal difference,‖ which is exactly the
incalculable and which is ―where the meanings are‖ as defined at the end of the
second stanza in the poem. Meanings thus do not rely on a special, distinctive, quality
of something that appears to grant its distinguished status in return and also do not
consist in relating something to its external referential reality or even to its possible
original temporal/spatial context. Meanings also do not exist in what something
promises and the fulfillment of the promise. Instead, meanings lie in an ―internal
difference,‖ which gets a chance to emerge when what is promised to come through
the calculation comes with a difference (which is not related to any external reality).
IV
A Mediated “I”
The previous discussion of the relation between man as subject and the
representedness of what is as ―world picture‖ and the interplay between them shows
how the incalculable appears after the self‘s calculation. Following Adorno‘s
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argument, the self‘s calculation should have been conditioned by the other and is
already a mediated calculation. As a consequence, the self‘s calculation has already
carried the incalculable elements in itself. With Adorno‘s contribution, Heidegger‘s
understanding will avoid an absurd possibility that one can calculate freely and
randomly for the sake of pursuing the incalculable.
Before I start the interpretation of the second poem by Dickinson and engage
more in the position of the lyric self, I would like to interrogate the concept ―I‖ and
subjectivity by introducing some of Emile Benveniste‘s ideas. According to
Benveniste, ―I can only be identified by the instance of discourse that contains it and
by that alone,‖ and ―the form of I‖ only has linguistic existence ―in the act of
speaking‖ (218). Consequently, the instance of I plays double roles: ―the instance of I
as referent and the instance of discourse containing I as the referee‖ (218). This means
that the referent of I can only exist in the instance, not somewhere outside of it, and
that the only thing that can judge the very constitution of I would be ―the instance of
discourse‖ that produces it. Therefore, I can only refer to something ―which is
exclusively linguistic,‖ not any external reality outside of the linguistic system (226).
Benveniste‘s emphasis on ―the act of speaking‖ (218) and ―the act of individual
discourse‖ (226) while defining the concept of I makes manifest not just that I exists
only in the instance of discourse but also that I can designate the speaker only through
the act of addressing in a discourse (be it spoken or written words). This act of
addressing is performative since I does not refer to ―a particular individual‖ (226). If
each speaker is able to appropriate the term I and claims it to his own, that means this
appropriation is never complete, or I would only belong to one individual and only
carry his/her individuality and subjectivity alone. As argued by Benveniste, if I can
refer to ―a particular individual,‖ there would be ―a permanent contradiction‖ in
language—the contradiction that this same term I will be able to ―refer indifferently to
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any individual whatsoever and still at the same time identify him in his individuality‖
(226). To put it in a different way, the term I will not be capable of designating
different individuals if it embodies and is identifiable to someone‘s individuality?
This performative aspect of I speaks for the lack of referential point of I in the
external reality. Benveniste stresses the lack of reference of I again and again: ―the
instance of the use of I do not constitute a class of reference‖ (218), and these
linguistic signs of pronouns ―are nonreferential‖ and ―lack material reference‖
(219-20). Because of this lack of referential point in reality in the use of I, each
speaker, ―by identifying himself as a unique person pronouncing I,‖ ―sets himself up
in turn as the ‗subject‘‖ (220). The speaker is able to become the subject only by
pronouncing I in an instance of discourse and only when I is incapable of acting as a
correspondent to any particular individual in reality—i.e., when I is not able to carry
the speaker‘s ―irreducible subjectivity.‖ The subject conjured up by I only exists in the
instance of discourse. This instance of discourse, as Benveniste notices, consists in an
I/you pattern (218). In short, I becomes the subject as his (or her) relation to you is
formed and its position (as related to you) in the instance of discourse is taken.
Benveniste‘s understanding of I as the subject appears similar with Heidegger‘s
explanation of how man takes up a position in the midst of what is and becomes the
subject (132). Heidegger introduces the Greek definition of subject: ―The word
[subiectum] names that-which- lies-before, which as ground, gathers everything onto
itself‖ (128). Then, he adds that this definition shows that ―this metaphysical meaning
of the concept of subject has first of all no special relationship to man and none at all
to the I‖ (128). This definition suggests that the very constitution of man as subject
relies on man‘s taking the position in what is and what is gathered upon him (or what
is forced to be related to him). As discussed above, it is man‘s position as subject in
what is that turns the world into picture; moreover, it is through what is related to man
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himself and through what is to be represented at hand or to be forced into this
relationship with himself that man is turned into subject (Heidegger 131). The
instance of discourse (which positions you and I) defines I as the subject;
consequently, ―the foundation of ‗subjectivity‘‖ is ―determined by the linguistic status
of ‗person‘‖ (Benveniste 224). Similarly, as what is is put into the relationship to man,
man becomes subject. Both Heidegger‘s and Benveniste‘s definitions of subject show
a performative aspect of I‘s and man‘s position when the subject is confronted with
different representedness of what is. It is through this understanding of I which can
only become the subject in the instance of discourse and the ―subjectivity‖ of which
―is only the emergence in the being of a fundamental property of language‖ that I will
approach Dickinson‘s use of ―I‖ in her poetry. The ―I‖ in the poem, ―I Years had been
from Home,‖ as an instance of discourse will take primacy in my interpretation.
In this poem, the speaker begins with ―I‖, after years away from ―Home,‖
coming back and facing ―the Door‖ of home; however, ―I‖ dared not open the door
because ―I‖ was afraid of meeting ―a Face‖ of a stranger asking what was his/her
business. In the second stanza, the speaker would answer, ―My business but a Life I
left, / Was such remaining there?‖ As discussed before, the capitalized first letters of
these words, ―the Door,‖ ―a Face,‖ and ―a Life,‖ might suggest that they are no longer
simply the objects in the external reality but in the representedness of what is, which
is made possible when ―I‖ in the poem turns into subject in its discourse. The
representedness of what is (―the Door,‖ ―a Face,‖ and ―a Life‖) in this case is still
grounded upon the metaphysical basis (as defined by Heidegger), but this basis is no
longer simply set up through calculation and measurement. In this poem, the basis
consists in the subject‘s memory primarily, and memory is hardly seen as fully
calculable. The representedness of what is through memory might still be partially
presented through calculation and measurement (with the attempt to bring what is into
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control), but what is incalculable might have already existed in the calculation itself
instead of being revealed through the calculable. Since the representedness of what is
is through one‘s memory, whose incontrollable and incalculable potential is
undeniable, would this understanding of memory obstruct one‘s attempt to initiate
control and calculation or does it trigger a stronger attempt to put things into control
and calculation? Since it is impossible for the subject to stay neutral and project
nothing upon what is while he/she tries to know and explain what is, calculation is
seemingly always at work (be it a frustrated attempt or a domineering force) to
different degrees. Following Heidegger‘s logic, the incalculable is supposed to be
revealed thorough the calculable. However, could this understanding of volatile
memory change one‘s method of calculation and thus change what is calculable and
incalculable all together? Can one‘s different understanding toward memory lead to a
different definition of the calculable and a different revelation of the incalculable? Or,
to follow Adorno‘s thinking, can memory itself condition and mediate the self from
the beginning and forbids a calculative venture?
The speaker‘s attitude and understanding toward memory in this poem is
different from casting calculation or measurement on memory and thus affects the
subject‘s position as related to the representedness of what is. Therefore, the
calculable/incalculable dichotomous approach toward the understanding of what is
will have to be further examined and even questioned. For better understanding about
the change of the position that the speaker has taken up, I will come to a close
analysis of the last two stanzas of this poem:
I fitted to the Latch
My Hand, with trembling care
Lest back the awful Door should spring
And leave me in the Floor –
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Then moved my Fingers off
As cautiously as Glass,
And held my ears, and like a Thief
Fled gasping from the House –
The speaker as subject was trembling while standing in front of ―the Door‖ with the
hand to ―the Latch.‖ This fear was related to the scenario that the speaker imagined
earlier—that the speaker might see ―a Face‖ of a stranger. This fear is also related to
what the speaker expects to find behind the door—―My business but a Life I left, /
Was such remaining there?‖ The fear to open the door and the question at the end of
the second stanza—―Was such still dwelling there?‖—had already shown that the
speaker had already foreseen that ―a Life I left‖ might no longer be there and that ―a
Face‖ belonging to a stranger, probably a new resident of her old home, would
question his/her purpose of being there. The speaker had already known that ―a Life‖
that was supposedly left at home was actually something kept in his/her memory and
thus could not find its expected correspondence after the ―Door‖ was opened. ―A life‖
that was remembered to be still at this ―Home‖ might not exist in what was to be
found behind the ―Door.‖ It was the thinking of the impossibility of securing the
correspondence between what the speaker thought to be actually behind the ―Door‖
and what the speaker expected to see behind the door that caused her to be afraid and
hesitant at opening the ―Door.‖ In this case, what was actually behind the ―Door‖ was
not as important as what the speaker thought and expected to be behind the door,
which was already the representedness of what was there through the speaker‘s
remembrance. As memory of ―a Life‖ left there had already cast doubt upon the
possibility of recuperating such ―a Life,‖ the speaker was daunted and hindered from
quickly opening the door and reclaiming what was left there to be still there. It was
with this understanding of memory that the speaker‘s memory no longer functioned as
a simple calculating and recuperating power to get back the past. It was because of
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this understanding of memory that the speaker‘s power of calculation was already
daunted and weakened even before it was exercised. In the dialectical relation
between the speaker and memory, the speaker is already mediated by memory before
applying any calculative methods on it.
This understanding of memory would lead to a change of the subject‘s position
as related to ―the Door,‖ ―a Face,‖ and ―a Life‖—the representedness of what was.
Such adjustment of position is different from needing to adjust a methodology (a
ground plan that is set up as the basis to know and to explain what is) to the results
gained by itself as Heidegger has suggested (124). Such adjustment of the position is
also different from ―the greatest free, though regulated, flexibility in the shifting about
and introducing research apropos of the leading tasks‖ (Heidegger 126). These
adjustments happen according to the results begotten from the already-exercised
calculation, not from the distrust and doubt upon its own calculative approach, its own
methodology, from the beginning (as the case of Dickinson‘s poem has shown here).
This position taken by I as the subject in this poem might occupy the space of
―between‖: ―Man will know […] that which is incalculable, only in creative
questioning and shaping out of the power of genuine reflection. Reflection transports
the man of the future into that ‗between‘ in which he belongs to Being and yet
remains a stranger amid that which is‖ (Heidegger 136). For Heidegger, ―[t]he Being
of whatever is, is sought and found in the representedness of the latter‖ (130). In this
poem, the subject‘s ―creative questioning‖ and, consequently, doubt upon a simple
calculating and recuperating power of memory rely on and result from ―genuine
reflection‖ upon the power of calculation that could be involved in the process of
memory; the understanding derived from ―genuine reflection‖ on and ―creative
questioning‖ of the power leads to the adjustment of the subject‘s position while
confronting the representedness of what is in the discourse of the poem. What the
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subject was confronting in the poem would be always the representedness of what
was, the Being of what was, the picture of what was, and never ―that which was.‖
This is why the subject would remain a stranger in ―that which is.‖
It was I as the subject, a performative I existing only in this instance of
discourse, that was able to and was only able to meet the representedness of what was
and to be caught by fear of knowing of what actually was behind the ―Door‖ to which
the subject would always remain a stranger. It was through ―the Door,‖ ―a Face,‖ and
―a Life,‖ the representedness of what was, that enabled I to be the subject belonging
to Being. At the end of the poem, the subject ―fled gasping from the House,‖ without
opening ―the Door.‖ Since what was behind ―the Door‖ belonged to what actually was
and the speaker was afraid to find out what was expected was not there, the speaker
ran away from knowing what was actually behind ―the Door‖ and at the same time
away from facing the non-correspondence between what she thought to be there and
what was actually there and from reinforcing his/her sense of strangeness to that
which was behind ―the Door.‖ The speaker ran away with an understanding and
recognition of what running-away signified in this case—i.e., that memory cannot
intrude upon ―a Life‖ in the past and the speaker fears to touch upon that which was.
The ―creative questioning‖ of the calculative and recuperating power involved in
memory in this case leads to the distrust and uncertainty of the subjective power over
Being, over the representedness of what is, and even causes the subject‘s fear while
confronting constituents of the representedness—such as ―the Door,‖ ―the Latch,‖
―the Second,‖ ―a Life,‖ ―the House,‖ and so on. For Adorno, the speaker‘s distrust and
uncertainty of the subjective power do not result from the speaker‘s ―genuine
reflection‖ but result from how memory has mediated and threatened any attempt of
calculation from the beginning. In other words, for Heidegger, subjective calculation
initiates the whole venture of discovery even though what it discovers is the
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incalculable (which signifies the limits of the calculation); for Adorno, the subjective
calculation is not completely subjective but is conditioned by the other (the objective
other), and thus is a mediated existence from the very beginning.
Heidegger has described such changes on both sides (the subject and the
representedness of what is) as follows: ―it is Being itself, whose truth will be given
over to man when he had overcome himself as subject, and that means when he no
longer represents that which is as object‖ (154). This definition is different from
Adorno‘s definition and understanding of the individual, lyric poetry, and language as
both objective and subjective because Heidegger‘s man as subject is purely subject
first. Heidegger‘s statement makes manifest the impossibility and difficulty of
sustaining the subjective and the objective respectively—i.e., the subject is not able to
sustain its status as subject through exercising the power of calculation and
measurement and ―that which is‖ cannot be represented as purely object, which can be
fully calculated and controlled under the subject‘s methodology. Nonetheless, for
Adorno, sustaining the pure subjectivity is impossible from the beginning and is not a
later discovery after the self has exercised calculation and ends with the discovery of
the incalculable through the calculable.
As the subject did not open ―the Door‖ in this poem, the subject was not trying
to erase the distance between I in front of ―the Door‖ and ―a Life‖ that was left behind
the door. To look at the temporal aspect, the speaker was not attempting to denunciate
the passing of time between the present and ―a Life‖ in the past. Therefore, the
passage of time in between would disallow the subject to open ―the Door‖ and witness
the past. Time in this instance might go with what Charles R. Anderson has
said—―that the essence of the human condition […] is the imprisonment of his mind
in time‖ (―The Trap of Time in Emily Dickinson‘s Poetry‖ 402). However, even
though Dickinson‘s lyric self is mediated by this human condition, the lyric self does
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not aim for staying free ―from the bondage of time‖ or escaping ―the temporal trap‖ as
Anderson has suggested (410). Dickinson‘s lyric self continues to engage in a
dialectical relation with time and memory instead of transcending and escaping their
conditioning.
The speaker did not discover whether what was behind ―the Door‖ matched
what I remembered to be there not for the sake of protecting what she expected to be
behind the ―Door‖ in her mind or what was actually behind it—i.e., neither for
privileging the subjective memory nor for confirming the dominant brutal reality. The
speaker can neither claim her total remembrance nor admit her fragmentary or
unreliable memory by revealing what was actually behind the ―Door.‖ Remembrance
and transience thus cannot be counterbalanced in a cooperative way here. Adorno has
discussed them as two opposite aspects of memory when he talks about Marcel Proust:
―But this happiness achieved through the rescue of experience [through memory], a
happiness that will not let anything be taken from it, represents an unconditional
renunciation of consolation. Rather the whole of life be sacrificed for complete
happiness than one bit of it be accepted that does not meet the criterion of utmost
fulfillment. […] Total remembrance is the response to total transience […]‖ (Notes to
Literature 317). Adorno suggests that only through the ―undamaged experience‖
produced in memory can one achieve this happiness against transience (317). The
definition of this happiness then has already denied the possibility of finding
consolation in this process of producing ―undamaged experience‖ in memory. The
undertone is that it is impossible to rescue the wholeness of experience without
having it damaged by aging or death; however, one might still aim for such a goal of
rescuing ―undamaged experience‖ as ―utmost fulfillment‖ without compromise.
Therefore, one would have to use total remembrance to fight against total transience.
However, the very definition of memory has already denied both the possibility of
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total remembrance and that of total transience. The acknowledgement of transience
triggers remembrance, which does not necessarily deny transience but actually
registers its very existence. The uncontrollability and unexpectedness that could
emerge in the process of memory actually mark the extraordinary characteristics of
memory. What happens at the end of this poem by Dickinson would cast more light
upon the understanding of memory and how the subject‘s position is adjusted with
this understanding. What can be kept by the speaker‘s running away was the
non-resolvable relation between what the subject thought to be behind ―the Door‖ and
what was actually behind the door. Not opening the door signifies the undisputable
existence of time between the present and ―a Life‖ in the past and also the
impossibility of getting any approval or denial of what the speaker thought/expected
to be behind ―the Door‖ from what was actually behind ―the Door.‖ It is thus
impossible to maintain the clean separation between the two but also impossible to
reconcile their discrepancy because what was actually behind ―the Door‖ remains
unknown. Not knowing what was behind ―the door‖ thus leads to never-ending
uncertainty and doubts upon what the speaker expected to be behind ―the Door‖; such
everlasting uncertainty then explains the very constitution of memory. Therefore,
Dickinson has pushed the limits of the subject‘s position in the representedness of
what is even further. She does not present the chronological steps for the subject to
take—to know and to explain through calculation and seek what is incalculable from
the calculable. This approach will lead to very positive negativity—to calculate for
the sake of getting rid of and negating the calculable. Instead, Dickinson presents the
shaken and limping calculation right at the very beginning of the confrontation
between the subject and the representedness of what is. She shows how the speaker in
the poem ―has overcome himself [or herself] as subject‖ from the beginning as a
mediated ―I‖ (Heidegger 154).
227
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