Reading Lyric
Author(s): Jonathan Culler
Source: Yale French Studies, No. 69, The Lesson of Paul de Man (1985), pp. 98-106
Published by: Yale University Press
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JONATHAN CULLER
ReadingLyric
Severalof de Man's late essays converge,in ways thathave not been easy to
arenicelyexemplifiedin
understand,
on thenotionofthelyric.The difficulties
and Trope in the Lyric" in The Rhetoricof
the essay "Anthropomorphism
Romanticism,whichdeclaresofBaudelaire's"Correspondances"and "Obsession" that"the resultingcouple orpairoftextsindeedbecomes a modelforthe
uneasycombinationoffunerealmonumentalitywithparanoidfearthatcharacterizesthe hermeneuticsand the pedagogyof lyricpoetry."' De Man concludes thatwe have no termto describethe sonnet "Correspondances.""All
we know is thatit is, emphatically,not a lyric.Yet it, and it alone, contains,
implies,produces,generates,permits(or whateveraberrantverbalmetaphor
one wishes to choose) the entirepossibilityofthe lyric"(261-62).
What,then,is thelyric?To understandtheselate essaysone mustattempt
to elucidatethisnotionoflyricor ofwhat is involved,accordingto de Man, in
readingsomethingas a lyric,or in lyricalreading."No lyric,"he writes,"can
be readlyrically,nor can the object ofa lyricalreadingbe itselfa lyric"(254).
The place to startseems to me the continuitybetweende Man's claims
hereand a structuralistapproachto genre-the best knownis perhapsTodorov'sworkon the fantastic-which sees genresas sets ofreadingstrategiesor
conventionsforproducingmeaning.To treata bitofjournalisticproseas a lyric
set ofexpectationsand
poem,forexample,is to bringto bear on it a different
but
strategies,including,most obviously,new assumptionsabout reference,
especiallythe assumptionthat somethingof significanceis being said and a
repertoire
ofways to endow details with significanceby establishinginternal
symbolicpatternsand externaltropologicalrelations.One mightalso mention
theassumptionthatinterpretation
should seek a level ofabstractionat which
arrangeunitycan be achieved,and theconventionthatthetext'stypographic
1. The RhetoricofRomanticism(New York: Columbia UniversityPress,1984),259. Further
quotationsfromthisbook will be identifiedby page numbersin the text.
98
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JONATHAN
CULLER
99
De Man is less inments can be given spatial or temporalinterpretations.2
terestedin theseconventionsthanin theidea ofthelyricas utterance-an idea
fosteredby the New Criticism,which in effecttreatedlyrics as dramatic
monologues.The currentformulationofthisview is thatthelyricis a fictional
imitationofpersonalutterance,so thatto interpreta sequence as a lyricis a
matterofworkingout who is speaking,in whatsituation,withwhatconcerns,
in what tone-aiming ultimatelyto articulate the full complexityof the
speaker'sattitudes,as revealed in the tones of the overheardutterance.To
interpret
a sequence as a lyricis to findways ofhearingin it a speakingvoice,
whichis taken as a manifestationof consciousness.3
In theAnatomyof CriticismNorthropFryedefinesthe lyricas utterance
overheard:"The lyricpoet normallypretendsto be talkingto himselfor to
someone else: a spiritof nature,a Muse, a personalfriend,a lover,a god, a
personified
abstraction,ora naturalobject.... The poet,so to speak,turnshis
back on his listeners."4I have arguedthatapostrophe,the turningaway from
actual listenersto addressabsent or imaginedinterlocutorsin the way Frye
indicates,is thecharacteristic
tropeoflyric:apostrophe,withits "O"-O rose,
thou artsick; 0 Wild West Wind; 0 chesnuttree-an 0, devoid of semantic
reference,
is the veryfigureofvoice.5Apostrophesare embarrassing,
and criticism ofthe lyrichas systematicallyavoided boththe topicofapostropheand
actual apostrophes-translatingapostrophesinto description.One can argue
that this embarrassementis linked to the obviousness that apostropheis a
figure,an empty0, forwhichone can scarcelymake cognitiveortranscendental claims ofthe sortthatare routinelymade formetaphor:it is embarrassing
forthehighcallingsoflyricto dependon, or even be linkedcloselywith,this
sortoffigure.
Criticshave characteristically
translatedapostropheinto description("O
rose,thou art sick," is an intensifiedway of describingthe rose as sick), but
what the lyricor a lyricalreading(to use de Man's term)does is to translate
In pairing"Correspondescriptioninto'apostropheand anthropomorphism.
dances" and "Obsession," de Man suggeststhatthemysteriousdeclarativesof
"Correspondances"giveway to the speculartotalizationof "Obsession": "La
nature est un temple" throughwhich man passes, is transformedinto:
"Grandsbois, vous m'effrayezcomme des cathedrales;"which sets speaker
and naturalobjectin an intersubjectiverelationship.
In these late essays, de Man takes a considerableinterestin apostrophe
and some interestin othercritics'inclinationto avoid and ignoreit. In "Hypogramand Inscription:Michael Riffaterre's
Poetics of Reading" he sees as
2. For discussionsee chapter8, "Poetics of the Lyric,"in my StructuralistPoetics (Ithaca:
CornellUniversityPress, 1975).
3. See my "Changesin theStudyoftheLyric,"in LyricPoetry:BeyondNew Criticism,ed. P.
Parkerand C. Hosek (Ithaca: CornellUniversityPress,1985).
4. Anatomyof Criticism(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress,1957),249-50.
5. "Apostrophe,"in The Pursuitof Signs (Ithaca: CornellUniversityPress,1981).
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symptomaticRiffaterre'sdismissal of the apostrophethat introducesand
framesthe Hugo poem underdiscussion: "J'aimele carillonde tes cit6s ancalls this address "personification"and
tiques,/Ovieux pays... ." Riffaterre
dismissesit fromhis commentaryby stressingthe banalityof describingthe
inanimatein animate terms."Now it is certainlybeyondquestion," de Man
writes,with thatassurancewith which he generallystates some proposition
thatmightseem to need demonstration,"that the figureof addressis recurrentin lyricpoetry,to the point of constitutingthe genericdefinitionof,at
the veryleast, the ode (which can, in its turn,be seen as paradigmaticfor
it occurs,like all figures,in the guise of
poetryin general).And thattherefore
a clich6 or a conventionis equally certain.None of this would allow one to
discardor to ignoreit as the main generativeforcethatproducesthe poem in
"6
its entirety.
Hugo's "Ecritsur la vitred'une fenetreflamande,"he notes, "is a declarationoflove addressedto somethingor someone,stagedas an addressofone
subjectto anotherin a je-tusituationwhich can hardlybe called descriptive."
De Man also insistsin these essays on a figurelinkedwith apostrophe:prosopopoeia, "the mastertropeofpoetic discourse,"thegivingoffaceor voice to
is
entities.The statusofprosopopoeiaand its relationto anthropomorphism
a crucialproblemin de Man's conceptionofthelyric,and we shall returnto it
later.In the case ofHugo's poem,he continues,"The apostrophe,the address
(0 vieux pays ... .) framesthe descriptionit makes possible. It is indeed a
prosopopoeia,givinga face to two entities,"l'heure" and "l'esprit,"which
are most certainlydeprivedofanyliteralface.Yet by the end ofthepoem it is
possibleto identifywithoutfailthe je and the tu ofline 1[J'aimele carillonde
tes cites antiques] as being mind and time. The figurationoccurs by way of
this address."7The lyriccharacteristically
dependson these figuresof apostropheand prosopopoeia,which associate lyricwithvoice and,bypresuming
"a conceitby
and foregrounding
I-yourelations,generateanthropomorphism,
into the natural
which human consciousness is projected or transferred
de Man writes,
world" (p. 89). "Anthropomorphism,"
on thelevelofsubstance.It
involvesnotjust a tropebutan identification
ofspecificentakesoneentityforanotherandthusimpliestheconstitution
forsomething
elsethat
thetakingofsomething
titiespriortotheirconfusion,
freezesthe infinite
can thenbe assumedto be given.Anthropomorphism
intoone singleasserandpropositions
transformations
chainoftropological
tionor essence.. . . [241]
In reading"Obsession" as a translationof "Correspondances"into lyric
intelligibility,de Man focuses on the apostrophes' I-you structure-the
Poetics of Reading," Diacritics 11:4
6. "Hypogramand Inscription:Michael Riffaterre's
(Winter1981),32.
7. Idem. De Man writes that the je and tu can be identified"as time and mind." I have
correctedthis to "mind and time."
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JONATHAN
CULLER
101
speakeraddressesin turnthe woods, the ocean, and the night-which conand specularitybetween
tributesto settingup relationsofcommensurability
subjectand object,and on the accompanyingprosopopoeia,the attributionof
voice to the woods, forinstance. The surrealisticspeech of live columns in
but
"Correspondances"is naturalizedin "Obsession" into the frightening
naturalroarof the wind among the trees:
commedes cath6drales;
Grandsbois,vousm'effrayez
Voushurlezcommel'orgue;et dansnos coeursmaudits,
de vieuxrales,
Chambres
d'6ternel
deuiloii vibrent
les 6chosde vos De profondis.
R6pondent
"The finalattributionof speech to the woods (vos De profondis)appears so
to notice thatanthropomornatural,"writesde Man, "that it takes an effort
phismis involved" (256). While "Correspondances"assertsa seriesof equivalences withoutsituatingthemin relationto a human subject,"Obsession"
sets up a relationbetweeninside and outside such thatqualities,like echoes,
can be passed back and forth,and poses the question ofwhetherpatternsare
projectedfromoutside to inside ("tes bonds et tes tumultes,/Monespritles
retrouveen lui") or frominside to outside ("Mais les t6nebressont ellesmemes des toiles/Ouivivent,jaillissent de mon oeil pars milliers,/Desetres
disparusaux regardsfamiliers").De Man notes thatthe relationshipbetween
"Correspondances"and "Obsession" can be historicizedas Classical versus
Romantic(terms,he writes,thatare "rathercrudemetaphorsforfiguralpatternsratherthan historicalevents or acts") [254]. He sums up as follows:
Whatwe call thelyric,theinstanceofrepresented
voice,conveniently
spells
andthematic
ofa
outtherhetorical
characteristics
thatmakeit theparadigm
complementary
relationship
betweengrammar,
trope,andtheme.The setof
characteristics
includesthevariousstructures
andmoments
we encountered
of "Obsession"]:specularsymmetry
alongthe way [in the interpretation
andnegation(towhichcorrespond
thegenericmiralongan axisofassertion
rorimagesoftheode,as celebration,
andtheelegy,as mourning),
thegrammaticaltransformation
ofthedeclarative
intothevocativemodesofquestion,exclamation,
address,hypothesis,
etc.,thetropological
transformation
of analogyinto apostrophe,
or the equivalent,moregeneraltransformation... oftropeintoanthropomorphism.
The lyricis nota genre,butone
nameamongseveralto designate
thedefensive
motionofunderstanding,
the
ofa future
hermeneutics.
Fromthispointofview,thereis no sigpossibility
nificant
difference
betweenonegenerictermandanother:all havethesame
intentional
apparently
and temporal
function.
[261]
This last sentence is mysterious:why "apparentlyintentional"?The suggestionis thatall genresare ways of convincingourselvesnot only thatlanguage is meaningful,that it will give rise to an intuitionor understanding,
but thatthis is an understandingof the world.The lyricseems to consist of
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Yale FrenchStudies
patternsof anthropomorphism
and naturalizationthat guaranteethe intelligibilityoftropes."Figuralgestures-metaphor,apostrophe,prosopopoeiaare stabilizedinto a presentationofthe naturalnessofthe human."8De Man
goes on to observe that "Generic terms such as 'lyric' (or its various subspecies,'ode,' 'idyll,'or 'elegy')as well as pseudo-historicalperiodtermssuch
as 'romanticism'or 'classicism' are always termsofresistanceand nostalgia,
at the furthestremovefromthe materialityof actual history"(262).
One problemthat arises is this: we can understandperfectlywell the
notion of genericcategoriesas modes of understandingand naturalization.
Someonetakingthisview can arguethatno textreally"is" a lyricbut that,as
de Man puts it, these are merelynostalgiccategoriesforclassifyingand masteringtexts.Genres are ethical and aestheticdefensesagainstlanguage.But
at certainmomentsde Man apparentlywants thereto be lyrics,wants to call
"Obsession" a lyric."No lyric,"he writes,"can be read lyrically,nor can the
object of a lyricalreadingbe itselfa lyric" (254). This puzzling statementat
the very least assumes that there are such things as lyrics. "Correspondances" is not a lyric,forit is the objectofthatlyricalreadingcalled "Obsession" (and the othertranslationsinto lyricintelligibilitythat make up the
traditionofinterpretation
ofthismuch readpoem). "Obsession," a lyric,cannot be read lyrically:it cannot be translatedinto lyricintelligibility,both
because it does not need or provokea defensivereading-motion
(it is already
itselfsuch a translation)and perhaps also because a true "reading,"in anothersense de Man oftengives the word,would be a deconstructionor an
identificationof tropes-a prosaicreadingratherthana lyricizingaccount of
man and nature.9
The play of both "lyric" and "reading"here can be seen as instances of
the "persistentdismantlingor inversionofeach formulationor concept" that
William Ray has recentlydescribedas a source of the power of de Man's
writing.'0Terms or categoriesto which one gives weightproveto have been
used elsewhere with a contraryvalorization or in a quite differentsense
which neverthelessseems systematicratherthan accidental. One mightsay
that apodictic statementswhich prove not preciselycompatible take the
place, in de Man's writings,ofDerrida'sneologisms,his nonconcepts,and his
structuresor devices. De Man's play consistsofthe slippageof
typographical
termsin weightyassertionsthat resistreconciliation.
8. CynthiaChase, Decomposing Figures:RhetoricalReadings in the Romantic Tradition
(Baltimore:JohnsHopkins UniversityPress,1986),chapter4.
to "Correspondances"in
9. In "Hypogramand Inscription"de Man makes glancingreference
termswhichhe would latercall a lyricalreadingbutwhichhe hereidentifiesas pertaining"to the
canonical'idee recue' ofthepoem,notto thepoemread" (35 n,myitalics).A discussionoftheterm
readingwouldnotonlyhave to explicatethissenseofreading(whatde Man and a fewothersdo) and
sense in lyricalreading,butalso to decidewhatto call whatcriticshave generally
itsquitedifferent
them(since "no lyriccan be readlyrically").
doneto lyricssuch as "Obsession" whentheyinterpret
10. William Ray,LiteraryMeaning (Oxford:Blackwell,1984), 191.
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JONATHAN
CULLER
103
If "lyric"is not just a defensivereadingstrategyformasteringlanguage
but a particularsortof text,one wants to know which of the poems de Man
alludes to are lyricsand which are not; but except forthis pair,he does not
tell us, and when one attemptsto extrapolateby identifying
as lyricspoems
centrallyemployingapostrophe,prosopopoeia,and anthropomorphism,
one
encountersthe difficulty
I mentionedearlier:the ambiguous status of prosopopoeia. On the one hand, "prosopopoeiaas positingvoice or faceby means
oflanguage" (81) seems the basis of anthropomorphism,
and is givengeneric
associations: "prosopopoeia,the master trope of poetic discourse." "Prosopopoeia is the tropeof autobiography,
by which one's name ... is made as
intelligibleand memorableas a face" (76). Yet in "Wordsworthand the Victorians"de Man can be interpretedas distinguishingprosopopoeiafromanthropomorphism:
emphasizingthat the formeris "an active verbal deed, a
claim . . . not given in the nature of things"while the latter,as he says in
"Anthropomorphism
and Trope," is "an identificationon the level of substance,the takingof somethingforsomethingelse thatcan thenbe assumed
to be given" (241). Ratherthanbeinga definingconstituentoflyricor lyrics,
then,prosopopoeiagets associated with an originarycatachresisor the point
at which what de Man calls in "Shelley Disfigured""the senseless power of
positional language" (117) posits trope-an impossible but necessary moment.Prosopopoeiawould thenbe preciselywhat getslyricallymisreadin a
lyricalreadingor a lyric."
One furtherstatementin "Anthropomorphism
and Trope" suggestsa
line to be pursuedin asking what a lyricis. De Man writes,"The lyricdepends entirelyforits existenceon the denial ofphenomenalityas the surest
means to recoverwhat it denies" (259). He is discussingthe fact that the
sensoryrichnessof "Correspondances"is replacedin "Obsession" by an absence of sensoryrepresentation-"je cherchele vide, le noir,et le nu," for
example,or simply"les tenebres,"pure darkness-but that at this verymoment the poem reasserts the possibility, even ineluctability of
representation:
Mais les t6nebres
sontellesmemesdes toiles
Ouivivent,
jaillissantde monoeil parmilliers,
Des etresdisparusaux regards
familiers.
The suggestionthat "the lyricdependsentirelyforits existenceon the denial
ofphenomenalityas the surestmeans to recoverwhat it denies" is connected
with the claim at the beginningof "LyricalVoice in ContemporaryTheory"
that "The principleof intelligibility,in lyric poetry,depends on the phenomenalization of the poetic voice."112De Man goes on to argue that
11. Fordiscussion,see Chase, "Givinga Face to a Name."
12. "LyricalVoice in Contemporary
Theory,"in LyricPoetry:BeyondNew Criticism,ed. P.
Parker& C. Hoiek, 55. This combinessectionsof"HypogramandInscription"andtheIntroduction
to H. R. Jauss,Toward an AestheticofReception(Minneapolis:U. ofMinnesotaPress,1982).
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Yale FrenchStudies
ways,repressfiguraland literal
Riffaterre
and Hans RobertJauss,in different
aspects of the signifierin orderto make poetic voice "coincide with the phenomenalityofits own discourse."The phenomenalizationor actualizationof
voice can be shown to be challenged,however,both in the practiceof their
readingand in the theorythatsustains it. "The consequences fora theoryof
the lyric,"de Man writes,"and, moregenerally,forthe relationshipbetween
but too complex forsummaryexposition."
genreand figureare far-reaching
Expositionis leftto others,while he offersexemplificationin two readings
"in which the phenomenalityof the formis criticallyexaminedin termsof
figuralsubstitutionsor materialinscriptions."
Phenomenalityis the key termhere. To gloss it one mightsay thatthe
idea ofperceptionpresumesa phenomenalworld-phenomena thataregiven
to perception(as opposed to an imposition or positingof forms).De Man
argues,by way ofreadingsofHegel, Hugo, and others,thatphenomenalityis
the productoffiguration;he arguesforwhat he calls in The Rhetoricof Romanticism"the dependenceofanyperception... on the totalizingpowerof
language" (91). (To take this line is to emphasize language as act over language as representation.)
However, the notion of the phenomenalityof language-that there is
givento perceptiona bodyof sensible signifierswhich standin a representationalrelationto conceptualsignifiedsthatare givento the understandingis crucialto the notionofreliablecognition.And one functionofthe aesthetic and of texts placed in the categoryof the aesthetic has been to link the
sensuous and the conceptualin a phenomenalrelationmodeledon the apparent phenomenalityof language and its signifying
process. Of Hugo's "Ecrit
sur la vitred'une fenetreflamande" de Man writes,"the phenomenal and
sensorypropertiesof the signifier[herethe "carillon"] have to serveas guarantorsforthe certainexistenceof the signifiedand, ultimately,of the referent," time.13Cynthia Chase explains: "the process of signification,which
has a materialelement,is made to serveas an example and a guaranteeofthe
natureof the link
phenomenalityof experience.But this belies the arbitrary
betweensignifierand signified,the sign's independenceofsensorydeterminations; thematerialityratherthan the phenomenalityofthe sign.In fact,the
processofsignificationcan exemplifyphenomenalexperienceonlybymeans
of a figuration."''4
De Man's most accessible explanationofthe supposedphenomenalityof
language comes in the argumentthat Saussure's work on anagrams,which
reveals potentiallyendless patternsthat mightor mightnot signify,shows
thatto perceivethe signifierat all is to conferon some patternsbut not others
the status of meaningfularticulations.The impossibilityof determining
13. "Hypogramand Inscription,"33.
14. Chase, DecomposingFigures,chap. 4.
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JONATHAN
CULLER
105
whethersuch patternssignifyor not, are encoded or not, amounts to "the
undoingof the phenomenalityof language"-that is, the undoingof the assumptionthat linguisticstructuresare given as perceivableand intelligible.
He writes,"We would then have witnessed,in effect,the undoing of the
phenomenalityoflanguage,which always entails (since the phenomenaland
noumenalare binarypoles withinthe same system)theundoingofcognition
and its replacement by the uncontrollable power of the letter as
inscription."'5
Anagrams,a random occurrenceof syllables read or misread as a key
word,providea model oflanguagethatis germaneto thequestionofthelyric.
What de Man calls the materialityof language (or of "actual history"in a
passage cited earlier)is, as Chase put its, "what is priorto the figurationthat
give the textits phenomenalstatus,"but which, as de Man insists,"cannot
be isolated 'as such,' as a 'moment,'as an origin."'16
However,a pairing,such
as "Correspondances"and "Obsession," which lets one thinkabout figural
transformations
enables one to treatcertaindifficuland anthropomorphisms
ties,unintelligibilities,
as what has been transformed.
But this sortofpairingposes a problem-a problemabout readinglyrics.
De Man's account of the lyricand lyricalreadingmakes "Obsession" a lyric
and a lyricalreadingof "Correspondances"-a translationintointelligibility,
anthropomorphism,
phenomenality.But thattemptsone to say,reciprocally,
that "Correspondances"demystifies"Obsession." De Man's analysis of the
pair suggeststhatin readinglyricswe should seek out the infratextthat exposes the lyrical translationsaccomplished by lyrics,but he emphatically
denies that "Correspondances"can be taken as a readingof "Obsession."
"No symmetricalreversal of this lyrical reading-motionis conceivable"
(261).
Of course,reversalis not just conceivable but seductive,if not irresistible. Readers of "Anthropomorphism
and Trope in the Lyric"will be led to
seek,foreverylyric,a nonlyricalinfratext-whetheranothertextor a reconstruction-thatdemystiesit, exposes it as anthropomorphism.
De Man's essay itselffunctionsin preciselythe way he denies is conceivable; by arguing
that "Correspondances"is not a lyricbut contains and implies all the possibilitiesoflyric,he makes it in effect,
ifnot in principle,a readingoflyric:an
expositionof its constitutiveconditions.
Whydoes de Man emphaticallydenythis course,thispossibility?In part
to expose it as a recuperativestrategyof understanding.To take the unintelligibilityof "Correspondances"as demystification
would be preciselyto
recuperateit: to make it no longera materialityon which meaning is imposed by lyricaltranslationbut a furtherinstance of meaningfulness.Warn15. "Hypogramand Inscription,"24-25.
16. Chase, op. cit.
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ing ourselvesagainstthis course,however,will not forestallit, and we seem
to be leftin a situationwherede Man's writingswill lead us to read lyricsin
preciselythe way he tells us not to.
However,uncomfortableor inappropriatethis condition,it seems a general consequence of de Man's work. For example,thoughhis writingsfocus
on what resistsor disruptsthe hermeneuticprocessand repeatedlyoppose an
understanding
which overcomestextualdifficultiesso as to hear in the text
what it is thoughtto say, this is the only way to understandor interpretde
Man. One can only make sense of his writingsif one alreadyhas a sense of
what theymust be sayingand can allow forthe slippageofconcepts,working
to get over or around the puzzling valuations, the startlingassertions,the
apparentlyincompatibleclaims. To learn fromhis writings,one must read
him in preciselythe ways he warnsus against,and the same may well prove
trueforreadinglyrics.Ifwe tryto avoid performing
lyricalreadingson lyrics-and he tells us lyricscannot be read lyrically-we will seek or reconstructdemystificatory
infratexts,reversingthe lyricalreading-motionin a
way he says is inconceivable.
CORNELL
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UNIVERSITY