WEBVTT

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Prof: I'd like to start
with a little more discussion of

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Derrida before we turn to de
Man.

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I know already that I'm going
to forego what for me is a kind

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of pleasure--
-perhaps it wouldn't be for

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you--which is an explication of
the last extraordinary sentence

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in Derrida's essay on page 926
in the right-hand column.

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I'm going to read it to you
just so you can reflect on it.

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What I'd like to do is suggest
to you that if you still haven't

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determined on a paper topic,
you might very well consider

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this one.

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You may not find it congenial;
but supposing that you are

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intrigued by Derrida to account
for this last sentence,

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to show how it picks up motifs
generated throughout the essay,

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how it returns the essay to its
beginning,

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and to consider very carefully
its metaphors--

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it reflects on its own
metaphors--I think you might

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find intriguing.

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The passage is:
Here there is a sort of

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question, call it historical,
of which we are only glimpsing

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today,
the conception,

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the formation,
the gestation, the labor.

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I employ these words,
I admit, with a glance toward

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the business of childbearing--
but also with a glance toward

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those who,
in a company from which I do

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not exclude myself,
turn their eyes away in the

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face of the as yet unnamable,
which is proclaiming itself and

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which can do so,
as is necessary whenever a

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birth is in the offing,
only under the species of the

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non-species in the formless,
mute, infant,

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and terrifying form of
monstrosity.

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Well, there is a sentence for
you and,

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as I say, I don't have time to
explicate it but I commend it to

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you as a possible paper topic if
you're still in need of one.

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Now I do want to go back to the
relationship between Derrida and

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Levi-Strauss.

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I suggested last time that
while in some ways the essay

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really seems to stage itself as
a critique of Levi-Strauss,

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to a remarkable degree,
confessed or unconfessed,

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it stands on the shoulders of
Levi-Strauss;

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at the same time,
however, having made use of

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Levi-Strauss finding a means of
distancing himself from the

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source text.

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Take, for example,
page 924 over onto 925 when he

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quotes from Levi-Strauss'
introduction to the work of

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Marcel Mauss on the subject of
the birth,

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event, or emergence of language.

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What he quotes from
Levi-Strauss would seem,

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on the face of it,
to have exactly the same kinds

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of reservation and hesitation
about the emergence or birth of

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language that Derrida himself
has.

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Levi-Strauss writes:
Whatever may have been the

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moment and the circumstances of
its appearance in the scale of

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animal life,
language could only have been

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born in one fell swoop.

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Things could not have set about
signifying progressively.

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Following a transformation the
study of which is not the

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concern of the social sciences
but rather of biology and

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psychology,
a crossing over came about from

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a stage where nothing had a
meaning to another where

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everything possessed it.

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In other words, bam!

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All of a sudden you had
language.

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You had a semiotic system,
whereas before,

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yesterday, or a minute ago you
had no language at all.

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In other words,
there's no notion that somehow

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or another suddenly I looked at
something and said,

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"Oh, that has a
meaning,"

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and then somehow or another I
looked at something else and

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said,
"Oh, that has a

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meaning,"
and in the long run,

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lo and behold,
I had language--because the

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bringing into existence of the
very thought of meaning,

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Levi-Strauss wants to argue,
instantly confers meaning on

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everything.

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In other words,
you don't have a gradual

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emergence of language.

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You have, like lava emerging
from a volcano,

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a rupture.

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You have something which
suddenly appears amid other

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things: something which is
latent in those things,

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although they don't in
themselves have it until you

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confer it on them,
namely that which confers

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meaning--language.

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So this is Levi-Strauss'
argument,

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and Derrida is interested in it
because he recognizes its

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affinity with his own hesitation
in talking about events,

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births, emergence and so on.

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At the same time,
he points out by way of

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criticism that to suppose that
yesterday there was no language,

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there were just things as they
are without meaning,

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and that today there is
language--that things have

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meaning as a result of there now
being in place that semiotic

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system we call language--
he points out that this means

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that culture somehow or another
must come after nature.

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There was nature;
now there is culture,

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which is very much like an
event or birth in the older

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sense.

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In fact, as soon as we have
culture--

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Levi-Strauss expresses this
feeling especially in a famous

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book called Tristes
Tropiques--

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as soon as we have culture,
we begin to feel overwhelming

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nostalgia for nature;
but, says, Derrida,

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"What is this nostalgia
other than the fact that the

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very thing we're nostalgic for
comes into existence as a result

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of the nostalgia?"

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In other words,
there is no nature unless you

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have culture to think it.

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Nature is a meaningless concept
just like the lack of meaning

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within nature,
where there's no culture until

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culture comes along and says,
"Oh, not so much there is

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nature,
but I'm terribly unhappy

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because before I came along,
there was nature."

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Right?

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This is the nostalgia or regret
of the ethnographer who says,

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"Now as a result of this
terrible Eurocentrism,

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as a result of the terrible
ethnocentrism of the Europeans

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studying these things,
we no longer have a savage

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mind."

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That is to say,
we no longer have the kind of

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mind which flourishes in nature,
in a natural environment.

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You can see ramifications of
arguments of this sort for

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environmentalism as well as for
ethnography.

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It's a fascinating argument,
but the bottom line is this.

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Even this critique,
and it is a critique of

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Levi-Strauss because he's
saying,

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"Oh, Levi-Strauss,
that's very interesting what

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you say about language,
but you've forgotten that this

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means that you yourself must
think nature preceded culture

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even though culture brings
nature into being."

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But this very critique leveled
against Levi-Strauss,

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he could have found in
Levi-Strauss and does find it on

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other occasions.

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Levi-Strauss' famous book,
The Raw and the Cooked,

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essentially stages this
critique in and of itself.

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What do you mean,
"raw"?

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"Well, somebody's sitting
in a field eating a carrot.

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That's raw,"
you say, but wait a minute:

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what is this notion of
"raw"?

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You can't have a notion of
"raw"

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until you have the notion of
"cooked."

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I sit in my field.

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I'm eating my carrot.

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I hold it up and I say,
"This is raw?

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It's ridiculous.

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'Raw' as opposed to what?"

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Right?

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So there can be no
"raw"

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without, in a certain sense,
the prior existence of

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"cooked."

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"Cooked"
brings "raw"

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into being in exactly the way
culture brings nature into

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being.

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Now to pause over this for a
moment,

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we realize that sort of this
basic move--

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a move that,
when you start to think about

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it,
we've been encountering ever

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since we started reading in this
course of readings--

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is not so much the inversion of
binaries as the calling into

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question of how they can exist
apart from each other.

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In other words,
the question of criticizing the

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origin of one state of things
out of or after another state of

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things,
the process of criticizing that

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is basically--
and I'm sorry to be so

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reductive about it but I really
can't see the distortion in

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saying this--
is basically saying,

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"Which came first,
the chicken or the egg?"

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Right?

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It is a declaration of absolute
interdependency among the things

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that we understand in binary
terms but that we take somehow

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one to be causative of the other
when we think about them.

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This is really the basic move
of deconstruction,

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but it's a move which anyone
who studies philosophy as well

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as literary theory will
encounter again and again and

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again,
all the way from Hegel right on

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through the post-deconstructive
thinkers we encounter for the

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rest of our syllabus--
perhaps preeminently among them

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the gender theorist Judith
Butler.

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Again and again and again you
will encounter this idea in

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Butler.

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It's a question of saying,
"How on earth would you

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ever have the concept
'heterosexual' if you didn't

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have the concept 'homosexual' in
place?"

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Right?

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The absolute interdependency of
these concepts is,

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again, central to her argument
and to her understanding of

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things.

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Obviously, we'll be returning
to that in the long run.

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Now I want to pause a little
bit more, then,

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in this regard over Derrida's
distinction between writing and

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speech--writing,
ecriture.

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This is a distinction which is
not meant sort of

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counter-intuitively to suggest
that somehow or another,

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as opposed to what we usually
think,

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writing precedes speech--not at
all.

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He's not saying that we've got
it backwards.

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He's just insisting that we
cannot understand writing to be

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derivative.

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We cannot say writing came into
being belatedly with respect to

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speech in order to reproduce,
imitate, or transcribe speech.

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Writing and speech are
interdependent and interrelated

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phenomena which do different
things.

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We said that the difference
between deference with an

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a can't be voiced.

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that comes into being
precisely in writing,

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and it's only in writing that
we suddenly grasp the twofold

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difference and deferral.

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I'd like to pause a little
bit--this will be my segue to de

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Man--
over an interesting example in

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French which we don't have in
English but is,

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I think, so instructive that
it's worth pausing over [writes

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on chalkboard
"est/et"].

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You remember last time--and
there is a slight voicing

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difference here just as there is
also a slight voicing

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but it's not a big voicing
difference.

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It's not something that's easy
to evoke and get across,

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whereas in writing it's
perfectly obvious.

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For one thing,
the s in est,

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which means
"signification,"

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>

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is dropped out of this word
when you say it,

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est [pron.

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ay], the word for
is--which is also the

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pronunciation for et,
the word for and.

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Now these two words precisely
express in French what Derrida

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is trying to describe as the
double meaning of

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supplementarity.

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Is in the sense of the
metaphor--

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"This is that,
A is B,"

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understood as a metaphor--
is a supplement that completes

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a whole.

13:05.610 --> 13:10.450
It's a means of completing a
whole through the declaration

13:10.450 --> 13:11.640
that A is B.

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But is has another sense
which is not a rhetorical sense,

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because metaphor is sort of the
heart of rhetoric,

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the rhetorical sense A is
B--when, by the way,

13:27.509 --> 13:29.709
we know perfectly well that A
is not B.

13:29.710 --> 13:30.950
How can A be B?

13:30.950 --> 13:32.120
A is only A.

13:32.120 --> 13:34.410
In fact, it's even a question
whether A is A,

13:34.409 --> 13:36.179
but it's certainly not B,
right?

13:36.179 --> 13:38.159
This much we know.

13:38.158 --> 13:43.328
In the grammatical sense there
is no sort of mystification

13:43.332 --> 13:45.242
about the metaphor.

13:45.240 --> 13:49.680
In the grammatical sense,
this word is the means or

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principal of predication whereby
we say one thing is another

13:54.924 --> 13:59.194
thing: the mare is the female of
the horse,

13:59.190 --> 14:02.230
Notice that the relationship
between the rhetorical is

14:02.225 --> 14:04.875
and the grammatical
is is basically the

14:04.881 --> 14:07.921
relationship between what
Jakobson calls the "poetic

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function"
and the "metalingual

14:10.033 --> 14:11.283
function."

14:11.278 --> 14:16.968
As you'll see in de Man,
there is an irreducible tension

14:16.971 --> 14:21.631
between the rhetorical sense of
this word,

14:21.629 --> 14:25.479
which claims metaphoricity,
and the grammatical sense of

14:25.480 --> 14:29.000
this word,
which makes no such claim but

14:29.003 --> 14:34.233
is simply the establishment of
predication in a sentence.

14:34.230 --> 14:38.920
Now the word est or
et,

14:38.918 --> 14:43.268
which is almost like
est, reinforces the idea

14:43.269 --> 14:47.829
of the supplement,
not as the completion of

14:47.831 --> 14:52.571
something that needs it to be
complete--

14:52.570 --> 14:54.930
the fulfillment of meaning in a
metaphor--

14:54.928 --> 14:56.998
but rather
"supplement"

14:57.000 --> 15:00.370
in the sense of adding on to
something that's already

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complete.

15:01.210 --> 15:06.190
The appositional,
sort of grammatical,

15:06.190 --> 15:10.720
perpetual addition of meaning
in the expression and or

15:10.717 --> 15:14.937
et is after all very much
like what Jakobson calls

15:14.943 --> 15:18.193
"metonymic":
that is to say,

15:18.190 --> 15:21.780
the contiguous adding on of
things,

15:21.778 --> 15:25.518
making no claim to be
metaphorical just like

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grammatical predication.

15:27.788 --> 15:32.998
So the tension or the system of
differences that can be

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established simply by looking at
these two similarly voiced

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words,
I think, gives us a kind of

15:42.123 --> 15:45.773
emblem or paradigm for what
Derrida calls

15:45.773 --> 15:50.523
"supplementarity"
and what de Man calls the

15:50.517 --> 15:55.357
irreducible tension between,
difference between,

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and conflict between rhetoric
and grammar.

15:59.288 --> 16:05.208
That is the main topic of what
we have to say about de Man

16:05.208 --> 16:06.038
today.

16:06.038 --> 16:09.318
Now last time I said a little
bit about the presence of

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Derrida and de Man together,
together with a scholar named

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J.

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Hillis Miller,
and scholars who associated

16:15.397 --> 16:19.127
themselves with them--
Geoffrey Hartman and Harold

16:19.131 --> 16:23.591
Bloom--in a kind of period of
flourishing in the seventies and

16:23.590 --> 16:27.240
early eighties at Yale called
abroad "the Yale

16:27.244 --> 16:30.314
school,"
subject to much admiration in

16:30.312 --> 16:33.822
the academy and much
vilification both within and

16:33.820 --> 16:35.940
outside the academy.

16:35.940 --> 16:40.110
But this was a moment of
particular and headlined

16:40.107 --> 16:44.447
notoriety in the history of
academic thinking about

16:44.450 --> 16:47.740
literature,
and a moment in which academic

16:47.740 --> 16:51.480
thinking about literature had a
peculiar influence on topics

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much broader than literature.

16:53.509 --> 17:00.709
It began to infiltrate other
disciplines and was in general a

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high-spirited horse for that
certain period of time.

17:07.190 --> 17:12.510
Then Miller eventually in the
eighties went to Irvine,

17:12.509 --> 17:18.139
Derrida followed him there,
and in 1983 Paul de Man died,

17:18.140 --> 17:23.640
and the main force of the
movement began to give way to

17:23.643 --> 17:29.353
other interests and other
tendencies and trends both here

17:29.349 --> 17:31.999
at Yale and elsewhere.

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Then shortly after de Man's,
death there was a revelation--

17:37.210 --> 17:40.570
which is mentioned by your
editor in the italicized preface

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to "Semiology and
Rhetoric"--

17:42.950 --> 17:47.870
about de Man which was horrible
in itself and made it impossible

17:47.873 --> 17:51.863
ever to read de Man in quite the
same way again,

17:51.858 --> 17:53.258
but which was also,
I have to say,

17:53.259 --> 17:55.299
precisely what the enemies of
deconstruction were

17:55.295 --> 17:56.225
>

17:56.228 --> 17:56.948
waiting for.

17:56.950 --> 18:01.470
That was the fact that in his
youth,

18:01.470 --> 18:06.070
de Man, still living in
Belgium, the nephew of a

18:06.071 --> 18:10.871
distinguished socialist
politician in Belgium,

18:10.868 --> 18:15.708
wrote for a Nazi-sponsored
Belgian newspaper a series of

18:15.705 --> 18:18.955
articles anti-Semitic in
tendency,

18:18.960 --> 18:23.780
a couple of them openly
anti-Semitic or at least sort of

18:23.782 --> 18:28.332
racially Eurocentric in ways,
that argued for the exclusion

18:28.328 --> 18:31.688
of Jews from the intellectual
life of Europe and so on.

18:31.690 --> 18:36.460
These papers were gathered and
published as Paul de Man's

18:36.463 --> 18:40.163
wartime journalism,
and there was a tremendous

18:40.155 --> 18:43.365
furor about them similar to the
revelations,

18:43.368 --> 18:47.928
which had never been completely
repressed but grew in magnitude

18:47.932 --> 18:50.952
as more and more was known about
them--

18:50.950 --> 18:54.900
the revelations about
Heidegger's association with the

18:54.897 --> 18:56.237
Nazi government.

18:56.240 --> 19:01.690
In the late eighties,
there was a furious public

19:01.689 --> 19:09.109
argumentation back and forth
among those who had read de Man,

19:09.108 --> 19:13.038
those who hadn't who were
opposed to his work,

19:13.038 --> 19:17.318
and those who scrambled in one
way or another to attempt to

19:17.320 --> 19:21.310
defend it to preserve his legacy
and also the legacy of

19:21.307 --> 19:22.707
deconstruction.

19:22.710 --> 19:28.200
Now all of this is a matter of
record and I suppose needs to be

19:28.199 --> 19:30.589
paused over a little bit.

19:30.588 --> 19:33.888
One of the texts of de
Man--also in the book called

19:33.888 --> 19:37.318
Allegories of Reading
where you'll find also a

19:37.319 --> 19:39.889
version of the essay
"Semiology and

19:39.894 --> 19:42.934
Rhetoric"
that you read for today--

19:42.930 --> 19:46.200
one of the essays that those
who had actually read de Man

19:46.202 --> 19:49.362
actually argued about in a
persistent fashion is called

19:49.356 --> 19:51.516
"The Purloined
Ribbon."

19:51.519 --> 19:56.969
It has to do with the passage
in Rousseau's Confessions

19:56.971 --> 20:02.161
where Rousseau has stolen a
ribbon in order to give it to a

20:02.156 --> 20:06.176
serving maid to whom he felt
attraction,

20:06.180 --> 20:09.950
and then when he was asked who
had done it,

20:09.950 --> 20:13.110
or did he know anything about
who had done it,

20:13.109 --> 20:14.909
he blurted out her name, Marion.

20:14.910 --> 20:18.030
De Man says this really wasn't
an accusation--

20:18.028 --> 20:23.448
in fact, this was just a
meaningless word blurted out--

20:23.450 --> 20:28.770
that there is no possibility
really of confession,

20:28.769 --> 20:33.449
that there is no real
subjectivity that can affirm or

20:33.454 --> 20:37.784
deny guilt or responsibility:
in other words,

20:37.779 --> 20:39.789
a lot of things that,
needless to say,

20:39.788 --> 20:43.538
attracted the attention of a
public that wasn't perhaps so

20:43.540 --> 20:47.290
much concerned that he had
written these articles but that

20:47.292 --> 20:51.772
he had never for the rest of his
career admitted having done so;

20:51.769 --> 20:54.659
in other words,
that he had suppressed a past.

20:54.660 --> 20:58.110
Nobody really believed he still
had these sympathies,

20:58.108 --> 21:01.558
but the whole question was,
why didn't he fess up?

21:01.559 --> 21:02.939
Why didn't he come clean?

21:02.940 --> 21:05.620
Of course, they took "The
Purloined Ribbon"

21:05.618 --> 21:08.398
to be his sort of allegorical
way of suggesting that he

21:08.401 --> 21:11.391
couldn't possibly confess
because nobody can confess,

21:11.390 --> 21:14.840
there's no human subjectivity,
etc., etc., etc.

21:14.838 --> 21:17.968
So, as I say,
there was a considerable

21:17.969 --> 21:21.689
controversy swirling around this
article,

21:21.690 --> 21:28.790
and just as is the case with
Heidegger,

21:28.788 --> 21:32.898
it has been very difficult to
read de Man in the same way

21:32.902 --> 21:35.842
again as a result of what we now
know.

21:35.838 --> 21:40.068
Let me just say though also
that--and I think this was

21:40.068 --> 21:44.618
largely confessed by the people
engaged in the controversy

21:44.617 --> 21:47.887
although some people did go
farther--

21:47.890 --> 21:53.990
there is no cryptically encoded
rightism either in de Man or in

21:53.994 --> 21:55.674
deconstruction.

21:55.670 --> 21:59.530
There are two possible ways of
reacting to what deconstruction

21:59.528 --> 22:01.548
calls
"undecidability,"

22:01.551 --> 22:04.401
that is to say the
impossibility of our really

22:04.397 --> 22:08.127
being able to form a grounded
opinion about anything.

22:08.130 --> 22:11.340
There are two possible ways of
reacting to this,

22:11.336 --> 22:13.516
one positive and one negative.

22:13.519 --> 22:19.639
The negative way is to say that
undecidability opens a void in

22:19.644 --> 22:24.064
the intellect and in
consciousness into which

22:24.064 --> 22:27.684
fanaticism and tyranny can rush.

22:27.680 --> 22:31.240
In other words,
if there is a sort of

22:31.240 --> 22:36.980
considered and skillfully argued
resistance to opinion--

22:36.980 --> 22:40.040
call that
"deconstruction"--

22:40.038 --> 22:45.628
then in the absence of decently
grounded,

22:45.630 --> 22:49.810
decently argued opinion,
you get this void into which

22:49.814 --> 22:52.554
fanaticism and tyranny can rush.

22:52.548 --> 22:56.188
That's the negative response to
undecidability,

22:56.190 --> 22:59.750
and it's of course,
a view that many of us may

22:59.750 --> 23:00.860
entertain.

23:00.858 --> 23:06.998
The positive reaction,
however, to undecidability is

23:07.002 --> 23:13.872
this: undecidability is a
perpetually vigilant scrutiny of

23:13.867 --> 23:20.147
all opinion as such,
precisely in order to withstand

23:20.147 --> 23:25.417
and to resist those most
egregious and incorrigible

23:25.419 --> 23:30.269
opinions of all:
the opinions of fanaticism and

23:30.269 --> 23:31.639
tyranny.

23:31.640 --> 23:34.480
In other words,
you can take two views in

23:34.477 --> 23:37.737
effect of skepticism:
>

23:37.740 --> 23:42.670
the one that it is,
in its insistence on a lack of

23:42.667 --> 23:47.997
foundation for opinion,
a kind of passive acquiescence

23:47.998 --> 23:51.718
in whatever rises up in its
face;

23:51.720 --> 23:55.310
and on the other hand,
you can argue that without

23:55.311 --> 23:58.391
skepticism,
everybody is vulnerable to

23:58.392 --> 24:03.212
excessive commitment to opinion,
which is precisely the thing

24:03.210 --> 24:06.220
that skepticism is supposed to
resist.

24:06.220 --> 24:10.640
Now this isn't the first time
in this course that I've paused

24:10.635 --> 24:14.905
over a moment at a crossroads
where you can't possibly take

24:14.905 --> 24:17.625
both paths
>

24:17.630 --> 24:23.440
but where it is obviously very,
very difficult to make up one's

24:23.442 --> 24:24.102
mind.

24:24.098 --> 24:30.738
More than one can say or care
to admit, it may ultimately be a

24:30.740 --> 24:36.730
matter of temperament which path
one chooses to take.

24:36.730 --> 24:37.700
All right.

24:37.700 --> 24:40.200
Now in any case,
while we're on the subject of

24:40.195 --> 24:43.465
deconstruction in general and
before we get into de Man,

24:43.470 --> 24:46.610
let me just say that there is
one other way,

24:46.608 --> 24:50.598
if I may, not to criticize
deconstruction.

24:50.598 --> 24:56.158
It's always supposed popularly
that deconstruction denies the

24:56.157 --> 25:00.047
existence of any reality outside
a text.

25:00.048 --> 25:01.888
Derrida famously,
notoriously,

25:01.886 --> 25:05.056
said "there is nothing
outside the text,"

25:05.056 --> 25:05.686
right?

25:05.690 --> 25:08.280
What he meant by that,
of course, is that there's

25:08.282 --> 25:09.312
nothing but text.

25:09.308 --> 25:12.478
That is to say,
the entire tissue,

25:12.480 --> 25:14.990
structure,
and nature of our

25:14.992 --> 25:20.032
lives--including history,
which we know textually is all

25:20.028 --> 25:24.228
there is--
our lives are textual lives.

25:24.230 --> 25:24.880
That's what he meant.

25:24.880 --> 25:28.010
He didn't mean to say the text
is here, the text contains

25:28.013 --> 25:31.263
everything that matters,
and nothing else exists anyway.

25:31.259 --> 25:34.539
What he meant to say is that
there is "nothing but

25:34.544 --> 25:37.714
text" in the sense that
absolutely everything we

25:37.705 --> 25:41.165
ordinarily take to be just our
kind of spontaneously lived

25:41.173 --> 25:44.063
existence is,
in fact, mediated in the ways

25:44.064 --> 25:47.014
we've already discussed at
length in this course,

25:47.009 --> 25:51.119
and we'll discuss more by our
knowledge and that our knowledge

25:51.116 --> 25:52.866
is textual,
right?

25:52.868 --> 25:54.798
That's what he meant but,
as I say,

25:54.798 --> 25:59.498
it's widely misunderstood,
and de Man in the fourth

25:59.497 --> 26:05.417
passage on your sheet returns to
the attack against this popular

26:05.416 --> 26:10.716
supposition and says:
In genuine semiology as well as

26:10.715 --> 26:14.765
in other linguistically oriented
theories,

26:14.769 --> 26:19.489
the referential [and notice the
citation of Jakobson here]

26:19.489 --> 26:23.049
function of language is not
being denied.

26:23.049 --> 26:23.889
Far from it.

26:23.890 --> 26:27.250
[In other words,
it's not a question of the

26:27.250 --> 26:29.730
idealist who was refuted by Dr.

26:29.730 --> 26:34.370
Johnson who kicked a stone and
leaped away in terrible pain

26:34.368 --> 26:37.018
saying,
"I refute it thus."

26:37.019 --> 26:40.679
Nobody denies the existence of
the stone, right?

26:40.680 --> 26:44.900
That is not at all the case.

26:44.900 --> 26:49.740
Reality is there,
reality is what it is,

26:49.740 --> 26:55.140
and the referential function is
perpetually in play in language,

26:55.140 --> 26:59.370
trying to hook on to that
reality.]

26:59.365 --> 27:05.575
What is in question is its
authority for natural or

27:05.582 --> 27:08.692
phenomenal cognition.

27:08.690 --> 27:12.540
[That is to say,
can we know what things

27:12.544 --> 27:17.784
are--not that things are but
what things are using the

27:17.780 --> 27:20.450
instrument of language?

27:20.450 --> 27:24.090
De Man goes on to say very
challengingly:]

27:24.087 --> 27:28.527
What we call ideology is
precisely the confusion of

27:28.526 --> 27:34.896
linguistic with natural reality,
of reference with phenomenalism.

27:34.900 --> 27:38.760
[In other words,
ideology is nothing other than

27:38.763 --> 27:43.133
the belief that language,
my language--what I say and

27:43.133 --> 27:46.833
what I think in language--speaks
true.]

27:46.828 --> 27:52.398
That's the position taken up,
not at all the same thing as

27:52.398 --> 27:58.748
saying what's out there doesn't
exist--nothing to do with that.

27:58.750 --> 28:01.520
All right.

28:01.519 --> 28:05.319
Now de Man's early career was
influenced--

28:05.318 --> 28:08.778
I'm not speaking of the very
early career in which he wrote

28:08.777 --> 28:11.867
these articles,
but the early career involving

28:11.868 --> 28:15.368
the essays which were collected
in his first book,

28:15.369 --> 28:17.059
Blindness and Insight.

28:17.058 --> 28:19.758
His early career is mainly
influenced by French

28:19.761 --> 28:22.681
intellectualism,
in particular Jean-Paul

28:22.676 --> 28:25.956
Sartre's Being and
Nothingness,

28:25.960 --> 28:30.810
and the argument of
Blindness and Insight is

28:30.810 --> 28:36.830
largely to be understood not so
much in terms of de Man's later

28:36.826 --> 28:42.356
preoccupations with linguistics
as with the negotiation of

28:42.356 --> 28:48.466
Sartre and existentialism into a
kind of literary theory.

28:48.470 --> 28:52.200
The texts, in particular the
text called "Criticism and

28:52.198 --> 28:54.478
Crisis"--
the first one that I quote on

28:54.480 --> 28:58.390
your sheet--
can best be read in those terms;

28:58.390 --> 29:02.700
but soon enough,
de Man did accept and embrace

29:02.703 --> 29:08.653
the influence of Saussure in
linguistics and structuralism,

29:08.650 --> 29:12.740
and his vocabulary henceforth
took these forms.

29:12.740 --> 29:16.800
The vocabulary that we have to
wrestle with for today's essay

29:16.800 --> 29:20.320
is taken in part from Jakobson's
understanding of the

29:20.319 --> 29:23.569
relationship between metaphor
and metonymy,

29:23.568 --> 29:27.018
and we will have more to say
about that.

29:27.019 --> 29:31.409
But in the meantime it's
probably on this occasion,

29:31.410 --> 29:35.310
once we accept them both as
having come under the influence

29:35.314 --> 29:38.214
of the same form of linguistic
thinking,

29:38.210 --> 29:42.940
to say a little bit about the
similarities and differences

29:42.940 --> 29:46.260
that exist between Derrida and
de Man.

29:46.259 --> 29:50.689
Now similarly,
they both take for granted that

29:50.692 --> 29:55.622
it is very difficult to think
about beginnings,

29:55.618 --> 29:59.278
but at the same time,
one has to have some way,

29:59.279 --> 30:03.719
some proto-structuralist way,
of understanding that before a

30:03.715 --> 30:06.005
certain moment--
that is to say,

30:06.009 --> 30:08.769
before a certain synchronic
cross-section--

30:08.769 --> 30:13.179
things were different from the
way they were in some successive

30:13.179 --> 30:13.819
moment.

30:13.818 --> 30:16.868
So in the second passage on
your sheet to which I'll return

30:16.873 --> 30:19.233
in the end,
we find de Man saying,

30:19.233 --> 30:23.003
"Literary theory can be
said to come into being

30:23.001 --> 30:30.521
when"--
that is de Man's version of the

30:30.516 --> 30:34.106
event,
and he agrees with Derrida in

30:34.107 --> 30:37.147
saying,
"Well, sure God came into

30:37.150 --> 30:38.560
being;
man came into being;

30:38.559 --> 30:40.039
consciousness came into being.

30:40.038 --> 30:42.398
That's all very well,
but they're just head

30:42.404 --> 30:43.984
signifiers in metaphysics.

30:43.980 --> 30:46.310
There's something different
about language."

30:46.309 --> 30:47.439
Right?

30:47.440 --> 30:52.410
What both Derrida and de Man
say about the difference when

30:52.405 --> 30:56.235
one thinks of language coming
into being,

30:56.240 --> 30:59.430
from thinking about all those
other things coming into being,

30:59.430 --> 31:03.810
is that language does not
purport to stand outside of

31:03.810 --> 31:04.570
itself.

31:04.568 --> 31:07.208
It cannot stand outside of
itself.

31:07.210 --> 31:10.080
It cannot constitute itself.

31:10.078 --> 31:14.938
It is perpetually caught up in
its own systematic nature so

31:14.940 --> 31:16.700
that it's a center.

31:16.700 --> 31:21.620
We have to resist excessive
commitment to this idea of it

31:21.617 --> 31:25.427
being a center,
but it is at least not a center

31:25.432 --> 31:29.832
which somehow stands outside of
itself and is a center only in

31:29.825 --> 31:32.485
the sense that it is some
remote,

31:32.490 --> 31:35.620
hidden, impersonal,
distant cause.

31:35.618 --> 31:42.308
Language is caught up in itself
in a way that all of these other

31:42.310 --> 31:44.330
moments were not.

31:44.328 --> 31:49.688
Then also, I think that you can
see the similarity to Derrida

31:49.689 --> 31:54.779
and de Man's way of insisting on
these binary relations as

31:54.779 --> 31:59.559
interdependent and mutual,
comparable to the sort of thing

31:59.556 --> 32:02.206
that I've been talking about in
Derrida.

32:02.210 --> 32:10.810
Take page 891 and 892 for
example, the very bottom of 891

32:10.808 --> 32:12.958
over to 892.

32:12.960 --> 32:16.410
De Man says:
It is easy enough to see that

32:16.409 --> 32:20.579
this apparent glorification of
the critic-philosopher in the

32:20.577 --> 32:24.677
name of truth is in fact a
glorification of the poet as the

32:24.675 --> 32:27.215
primary source of this truth...

32:27.220 --> 32:30.110
Now he does not mean,
as Freud, for example,

32:30.108 --> 32:32.668
meant in saying,
"The poets came before me

32:32.669 --> 32:36.119
and the poets knew everything I
knew before I knew it."

32:36.119 --> 32:38.079
He does not mean that at all.

32:38.078 --> 32:41.638
What he means is what he says
in the following clauses.

32:41.640 --> 32:46.280
[I]f truth is the recognition
of the systematic character of a

32:46.278 --> 32:49.918
certain kind of error,
then it would be fully

32:49.923 --> 32:53.733
dependent on the prior existence
of this error.

32:53.730 --> 32:56.450
In other words,
truth arises out of error.

32:56.450 --> 32:59.340
Error is not a deviance from
truth.

32:59.339 --> 33:00.499
Right?

33:00.500 --> 33:04.230
Error is not a poetic
elaboration on things which

33:04.233 --> 33:07.183
somehow,
as it does in Plato's view,

33:07.182 --> 33:11.142
undermines the integrity of
that truth identified by

33:11.138 --> 33:12.378
philosophers.

33:12.380 --> 33:16.630
On the contrary,
philosophy properly understood

33:16.628 --> 33:21.248
is what comes into being when
one has achieved full

33:21.247 --> 33:24.847
recognition of a preexisting
error.

33:24.848 --> 33:29.368
That is the way in which de Man
wants to think about the

33:29.367 --> 33:34.217
relationship precisely between
literature and other forms of

33:34.215 --> 33:35.115
speech.

33:35.118 --> 33:38.318
In saying that,
I want to move immediately to

33:38.317 --> 33:40.567
the differences with Derrida.

33:40.568 --> 33:45.358
Derrida, as I said,
believes in a kind of seamless

33:45.358 --> 33:48.778
web of discourse or
discursivity.

33:48.779 --> 33:51.689
We are awash in discourse.

33:51.690 --> 33:56.000
Yes, we can provisionally or
heuristically speak of one form

33:56.001 --> 33:58.781
of discourse as opposed to
another--

33:58.779 --> 34:03.749
literature, law,
theology, science and so on--

34:03.750 --> 34:09.230
but it is all easily undermined
and demystified as something

34:09.230 --> 34:12.760
that has real independent
integrity.

34:12.760 --> 34:14.810
De Man does not believe this.

34:14.809 --> 34:17.819
De Man thinks,
on the contrary,

34:17.822 --> 34:22.342
that there is such a thing as
literariness.

34:22.340 --> 34:27.970
He follows Jakobson much more
consistently in this regard than

34:27.974 --> 34:29.364
Derrida does.

34:29.360 --> 34:37.100
Again and again he says that
the important thing is to insist

34:37.099 --> 34:44.059
on the difference between
literature and other forms of

34:44.063 --> 34:45.873
discourse.

34:45.869 --> 34:52.009
There are all kinds of passages
I could elicit in support of

34:52.010 --> 34:52.740
this.

34:52.739 --> 34:55.589
Let me just quickly read a few,
page 883,

34:55.590 --> 35:01.210


35:01.210 --> 35:06.380
about two thirds of the way
down the left-hand column,

35:06.380 --> 35:12.030
where he's sounds very much
like a Russian formalist talking

35:12.025 --> 35:15.695
about the what literature,
in particular,

35:15.704 --> 35:19.454
has exclusively that other
forms of discourse don't have.

35:19.449 --> 35:22.559
He says: …
[L]iterature cannot merely be

35:22.557 --> 35:26.677
received as a definite unit of
referential meaning that can be

35:26.681 --> 35:29.251
decoded without leaving a
residue.

35:29.250 --> 35:32.260
The code is unusually
conspicuous, complex,

35:32.255 --> 35:34.855
and enigmatic;
it attracts an inordinate

35:34.855 --> 35:38.055
amount of attention to itself,
and this attention has to

35:38.057 --> 35:39.977
acquire the rigor of a method.

35:39.980 --> 35:43.490
The structural moment of
concentration on the code for

35:43.494 --> 35:47.284
its own sake cannot be avoided,
and literature necessarily

35:47.275 --> 35:49.195
breeds its own formalism.

35:49.199 --> 35:52.209
In the interest of time,
I'm going to skip over a few

35:52.206 --> 35:55.786
other passages that I was going
to read to you in reinforcement

35:55.791 --> 35:58.541
of this insistence,
on de Man's part,

35:58.541 --> 36:03.031
that literature differs from
other forms of discourse,

36:03.030 --> 36:06.540
the remaining question being:
literature differs from other

36:06.536 --> 36:08.046
forms of discourse how?

36:08.050 --> 36:14.040
Well, it is the disclosure of
error that other forms of

36:14.041 --> 36:20.141
discourse supposing themselves
to refer to things remain

36:20.144 --> 36:21.814
unaware of.

36:21.809 --> 36:25.779
Literature knows itself to be
fictive.

36:25.780 --> 36:30.450
Ultimately, we reach the
conclusion that if we're to

36:30.452 --> 36:34.182
think of literature,
we're to think of something

36:34.184 --> 36:36.954
that is made up:
not something that is based on

36:36.952 --> 36:39.542
something but something that is
made up.

36:39.539 --> 36:42.469
In the first passage,
the statement about language by

36:42.467 --> 36:45.477
criticism,
that sign and meaning can never

36:45.480 --> 36:48.240
coincide,
is what is precisely taken for

36:48.239 --> 36:52.269
granted in the kind of language
we call "literary."

36:52.268 --> 36:56.888
Literature, unlike everyday
language, begins on the far side

36:56.885 --> 36:58.445
of this knowledge.

36:58.449 --> 37:02.889
It is the only form of
knowledge free from the fallacy

37:02.885 --> 37:06.175
of unmediated expression--
in other words,

37:06.177 --> 37:10.157
free from the fallacy that when
I say "It is raining,"

37:10.161 --> 37:13.641
I mean I'm a meteorologist and
I mean it is raining.

37:13.639 --> 37:17.009
Literature, when it says
"It is raining,"

37:17.009 --> 37:19.839
is not looking out of the
window, right?

37:19.840 --> 37:22.600
This is after all perfectly
true.

37:22.599 --> 37:25.019
The author may have been
looking out of the window,

37:25.018 --> 37:26.178
>

37:26.179 --> 37:29.159
but literature,
as we encounter it and as a

37:29.159 --> 37:32.069
text, is not looking out of the
window.

37:32.070 --> 37:33.430
How can a text look out of the
window?

37:33.429 --> 37:36.659
When literature says "It
is raining,"

37:36.663 --> 37:39.553
it's got something else,
as one might say,

37:39.545 --> 37:42.435
in view:
All of us [de Man continues]

37:42.440 --> 37:46.330
know this although we know it
in the misleading way of a

37:46.331 --> 37:49.021
wishful assertion of the
opposite,

37:49.018 --> 37:53.858
yet the truth emerges in the
foreknowledge we possess of the

37:53.860 --> 37:58.700
true nature of literature when
we refer to it as fiction.

37:58.699 --> 38:03.229
This is why in the last passage
on your sheet from the interview

38:03.228 --> 38:07.288
with Stefano Rosso,
de Man is willing to venture on

38:07.293 --> 38:11.863
a categorical distinction
between his own work and that of

38:11.862 --> 38:15.232
his very close friend,
Jacques Derrida.

38:15.230 --> 38:21.920
He says: I have a tendency to
put upon texts [and he means

38:21.922 --> 38:27.212
literary texts]
an inherent authority which is

38:27.206 --> 38:30.386
stronger,
I think, than Derrida is

38:30.393 --> 38:31.943
willing to put on them.

38:31.940 --> 38:35.600
In a complicated way,
I would hold to the statement

38:35.599 --> 38:39.479
that the text deconstructs
itself [In other words,

38:39.480 --> 38:43.870
literature is the perpetual
denial of its referentiality],

38:43.869 --> 38:49.549
is self-deconstructive rather
than being deconstructed by a

38:49.554 --> 38:55.734
philosophical intervention [that
which Jacques Derrida does--

38:55.730 --> 38:59.260
that is to say,
Jacques Derrida bringing his

38:59.264 --> 39:04.114
sort of delicate sledgehammer
down on every conceivable form

39:04.112 --> 39:08.872
of utterance from the outside--
right--rather than being

39:08.871 --> 39:13.651
deconstructed by a philosophical
intervention from outside the

39:13.653 --> 39:14.363
text].

39:14.360 --> 39:20.280
So those are some remarks then
on the differences and the

39:20.284 --> 39:24.734
similarities between de Man and
Derrida.

39:24.730 --> 39:27.280
Now "Semiology and
Rhetoric"

39:27.280 --> 39:30.660
historically comes near the end
of the period that

39:30.661 --> 39:33.431
"Structure,
Sign, and Play"

39:33.425 --> 39:34.275
inaugurates.

39:34.280 --> 39:37.470
That is to say,
it is published in

39:37.467 --> 39:43.647
Allegories of Reading and
is a text which we can date from

39:43.648 --> 39:45.578
the early 1980s.

39:45.579 --> 39:50.139
Well, it was published
originally as an article in

39:50.143 --> 39:53.003
1979,
but this is also near the end

39:52.996 --> 39:57.496
of a period of flourishing that
Derrida's essay inaugurates,

39:57.500 --> 40:02.710
and other things have begun to
become crucial.

40:02.710 --> 40:06.380
Even before the death of de Man
and the revelations about his

40:06.380 --> 40:08.220
past,
there were a lot of people sort

40:08.215 --> 40:09.775
of shaking their fists and
saying,

40:09.780 --> 40:11.210
"What about history?

40:11.210 --> 40:12.850
What about reality?"

40:12.849 --> 40:16.829
I've already suggested that in
a variety of ways this is a

40:21.221 --> 40:21.781
air.

40:21.780 --> 40:27.490
De Man says in this atmosphere
of response--at the top of page

40:27.485 --> 40:31.035
883, the left-hand column,
he says:

40:31.039 --> 40:34.179
We speak as if,
with the problems of literary

40:34.181 --> 40:37.901
form resolved once and forever
and with techniques of

40:37.896 --> 40:41.606
structural analysis refined to
near-perfection,

40:41.610 --> 40:44.320
we could now move "beyond
formalism"

40:44.322 --> 40:47.762
toward the questions that
really interest us and reap,

40:47.760 --> 40:51.510
at last, the fruits of the
aesthetic concentration on

40:51.512 --> 40:55.342
techniques that prepared us for
this decisive step.

40:55.340 --> 40:59.320
Obviously, I think by this time
you can realize what he's saying

40:59.322 --> 41:03.182
is if we make this move,
if we move beyond formalism,

41:03.179 --> 41:07.859
we have forgotten the cardinal
rule of the Russian formalists:

41:07.864 --> 41:09.894
namely,
that there's no distinction

41:09.889 --> 41:12.299
between form and content--
in other words,

41:12.297 --> 41:17.127
that we in effect can't move
beyond formalism and that it is

41:17.128 --> 41:21.468
simply a procedurally mistaken
notion that we can.

41:21.469 --> 41:25.219
That's the position,
of course, pursued in this

41:25.217 --> 41:25.867
essay.

41:25.869 --> 41:31.289
The task of the essay is to
deny the complementarity--

41:31.289 --> 41:36.049
the mutual reinforcement even
in rigorous rhetorical analysis

41:36.050 --> 41:40.450
like that of Gerard Genette,
Todorov, Barthes and others,

41:40.451 --> 41:43.991
all of whom he says have
regressed from the rigor of

41:43.987 --> 41:47.447
Jakobson--
to deny that in rhetorical

41:47.447 --> 41:52.857
analysis rhetorical and
grammatical aspects of discourse

41:52.860 --> 41:58.680
can be considered collusive,
continuous, or cooperative with

41:58.677 --> 41:59.707
each other.

41:59.710 --> 42:05.070
Now I've already suggested the
problems that arise when you

42:05.072 --> 42:09.052
consider this term even in and
of itself.

42:09.050 --> 42:15.260
I'm actually ripping off,
by the way, an essay of Jacques

42:15.262 --> 42:19.922
Derrida's called,
hm >

42:19.922 --> 42:23.032
>

42:23.030 --> 42:26.000
-- anyway, it's that essay and
>

42:26.000 --> 42:28.220
now you'll never know my
source.

42:28.224 --> 42:30.094
>

42:30.090 --> 42:32.560
In any case,
Derrida, too,

42:32.559 --> 42:36.609
in this essay which
>

42:36.612 --> 42:39.382
>

42:39.380 --> 42:44.350
is at pains to argue that you
can't reduce grammar to rhetoric

42:44.351 --> 42:46.391
or rhetoric to grammar.

42:46.389 --> 42:49.929
So as we think about these
things as I suggest,

42:49.931 --> 42:54.321
we've already introduced what
de Man drives home to us.

42:54.320 --> 42:56.400
He says, "Boy,
this is complicated theory.

42:56.400 --> 42:59.470
I'm in over my head,
so I better just get practical

42:59.469 --> 43:02.539
and give you some examples of
what I mean."

43:02.539 --> 43:09.799
So he takes up "All in the
Family" and talks about the

43:09.798 --> 43:16.938
moment in which Archie becomes
exasperated when Edith begins to

43:16.943 --> 43:23.863
tell him that the difference
between bowling shoes laced over

43:23.856 --> 43:29.996
and bowling shoes laced under--
this in response to Archie's

43:30.001 --> 43:31.351
question,
"What's the

43:31.351 --> 43:32.041
difference?"

43:32.039 --> 43:35.779
In other words,
Archie has asked a rhetorical

43:35.784 --> 43:36.724
question.

43:36.719 --> 43:38.959
"I don't care what the
difference is"

43:38.958 --> 43:41.098
is the meaning of the
rhetorical question.

43:41.099 --> 43:45.449
Edith, a reader of sublime
simplicity,

43:45.449 --> 43:48.089
as de Man says,
misinterprets the rhetorical

43:48.092 --> 43:51.292
question as a grammatical
question: "What is the

43:51.288 --> 43:52.208
difference?

43:52.210 --> 43:53.500
I'm curious to know."

43:53.500 --> 43:56.580
Then she proceeds to explain
that there's lacing over,

43:56.576 --> 43:58.486
on the one hand,
and lacing under,

43:58.492 --> 43:59.772
on the other hand.

43:59.768 --> 44:03.578
Archie, of course,
can't stand this because for

44:03.577 --> 44:08.127
him it's perfectly clear that a
rhetorical question is a

44:08.132 --> 44:10.122
rhetorical question.

44:10.119 --> 44:14.689
De Man's point is a question is
both rhetorical and grammatical,

44:14.693 --> 44:17.963
and the one cannot be reduced
to the other.

44:17.960 --> 44:19.360
Both readings are available.

44:19.360 --> 44:21.850
He complicates,
without changing the argument,

44:21.849 --> 44:24.449
by then referring to Yeats'
poem "Among

44:24.451 --> 44:27.781
Schoolchildren,"
which culminates you remember--

44:27.780 --> 44:31.620
it has a whole series of
metaphors of attempting,

44:31.619 --> 44:35.789
seeming at least to attempt,
the synthesis of opposites

44:35.789 --> 44:40.109
concluding: "how can we can
tell the dancer from the

44:40.114 --> 44:41.354
dance?"

44:41.349 --> 44:43.309
Another question, right?

44:43.309 --> 44:48.689
Now the rhetorical question
completes the usual reading of

44:48.690 --> 44:49.730
the poem.

44:49.730 --> 44:53.220
The answer to the rhetorical
question is that we can't tell

44:53.215 --> 44:56.215
the difference between the
dancer and the dance.

44:56.219 --> 45:01.249
They are unified in a
synthetic, symbolizing,

45:01.250 --> 45:04.630
symbolic moment that
constitutes the work of art,

45:04.630 --> 45:10.390
and all the preceding metaphors
lead up to this triumphant sense

45:10.391 --> 45:12.651
of unity,
of symbolic unity,

45:12.652 --> 45:14.982
as the essence of the work of
art--

45:14.980 --> 45:18.240
a unity which,
by the way, entails among other

45:18.239 --> 45:22.439
things the unity of author and
text: the unity of agent and

45:22.440 --> 45:25.170
production,
the unity of all of those

45:25.168 --> 45:27.178
things which,
as we've seen,

45:27.184 --> 45:31.024
much literary theory is
interested in collapsing.

45:31.018 --> 45:33.258
How can we tell the dancer from
the dance?

45:33.260 --> 45:35.050
Well, de Man says,
"Wait a minute though.

45:35.050 --> 45:36.620
This is also a grammatical
question."

45:36.619 --> 45:39.019
If you stop and think of it as
a grammatical question,

45:39.019 --> 45:41.009
you say to yourself,
"Gee, that's a very

45:41.012 --> 45:42.192
>

45:42.190 --> 45:44.090
good question,
isn't it, because,

45:44.094 --> 45:47.794
of course, the easiest thing in
the world is to tell the dancer

45:47.788 --> 45:48.678
from the dance.

45:48.681 --> 45:50.291
>

45:50.289 --> 45:52.419
I am the dancer and this is the
dance I am doing and

45:52.422 --> 45:53.512
>

45:53.510 --> 45:57.900
obviously they're not the same
thing," right?

45:57.900 --> 45:59.980
What nonsense poetry speaks.

45:59.980 --> 46:01.720
It's perfectly ridiculous.

46:01.719 --> 46:07.199
There is also a grammatical
sense which won't go away just

46:07.197 --> 46:11.807
because your rigorous,
sort of symbolic interpretation

46:11.809 --> 46:14.589
insists that it should go away,
right?

46:14.590 --> 46:17.230
Then de Man,
who happens to be a Yeats

46:17.226 --> 46:20.336
scholar--
he published a dissertation on

46:20.335 --> 46:23.045
Yeats and really knows his
Yeats--

46:23.050 --> 46:28.330
starts adducing examples from
all over the canon of Yeats to

46:28.326 --> 46:32.346
the effect that Yeats is
perfectly knowing and

46:32.351 --> 46:37.361
self-conscious about these
grammatical differences,

46:37.360 --> 46:42.780
and that there is a measure of
irony in the poem that saves it

46:42.775 --> 46:46.855
from this sort of symbolizing
mystification.

46:46.860 --> 46:51.430
He makes a perfectly plausible
argument to the effect that the

46:51.434 --> 46:55.114
question is grammatical rather
than rhetorical.

46:55.110 --> 46:59.770
He's not claiming--and he
points this out to us--that his

46:59.771 --> 47:02.271
explication is the true one.

47:02.269 --> 47:04.199
That's not his point at all.

47:04.199 --> 47:08.489
He's claiming only that it is
available and can be adduced

47:08.494 --> 47:11.284
from what we call
"evidence"

47:11.280 --> 47:15.350
in the same way that the
symbolic interpretation,

47:15.349 --> 47:19.199
based on the rhetorical
question, is available and can

47:19.202 --> 47:23.392
be adduced from evidence--
and that these two viewpoints

47:23.389 --> 47:24.649
are irreducible.

47:24.650 --> 47:28.710
They cannot be reconciled as
traditional students of the

47:28.706 --> 47:32.836
relationship between rhetoric
and grammar in studying the

47:32.836 --> 47:36.966
rhetorical and grammatical
effects of literature take for

47:36.967 --> 47:37.997
granted.

47:38.000 --> 47:39.080
That's his argument.

47:39.079 --> 47:42.619
It's a kind of infighting
because he's talking about two

47:42.617 --> 47:45.447
people who are actually very
close allies.

47:45.449 --> 47:49.409
He's saying they're doing great
work but they forget this one

47:49.405 --> 47:52.175
little thing:
you cannot reconcile rhetoric

47:52.175 --> 47:53.225
and grammar.

47:53.230 --> 47:56.520
Every sentence is a
predication, and if every

47:56.519 --> 48:00.709
sentence is a predication,
it also has the structure of a

48:00.706 --> 48:03.826
metaphor;
and the metaphor in a sentence

48:03.829 --> 48:07.769
and the predication in a
sentence are always going to be

48:07.771 --> 48:08.561
at odds.

48:08.559 --> 48:12.229
A metaphor is what we call a
poetic lie.

48:12.230 --> 48:15.650
Everybody knows A is not B.

48:15.650 --> 48:18.000
A predication,
on the other hand,

48:18.001 --> 48:22.121
usually goes forward in the
service of referentiality.

48:22.119 --> 48:24.929
It's a truth claim of some
kind--right?--

48:24.929 --> 48:28.779
but if rhetoricity and
grammaticality coexist in any

48:28.775 --> 48:31.855
sentence,
the sentence's truth claim and

48:31.855 --> 48:35.405
its lie are perpetually at odds
with each other.

48:35.409 --> 48:38.269
Just taking the sentence as a
sentence,

48:38.268 --> 48:42.568
irrespective of any kind of
inference we might make about

48:42.565 --> 48:45.355
intentions--
we know perfectly well what

48:45.358 --> 48:48.288
Edith intends and what Archie
Bunker intends.

48:48.289 --> 48:50.779
It's not as if we're confused
about the meaning of what

48:50.777 --> 48:51.557
they're saying.

48:51.559 --> 48:55.079
It's just that other meanings
are available,

48:55.079 --> 48:56.989
and since they're not on the
same page,

48:56.989 --> 49:00.499
those two other meanings
coexist painfully and

49:00.503 --> 49:02.773
irreducibly at odds,
right?

49:02.768 --> 49:07.668
But there are cases--suppose
Archie Bunker were Arkay

49:07.672 --> 49:08.712
Debunker.

49:08.710 --> 49:12.820
Suppose Archie Bunker were
Jacques Derrida,

49:12.820 --> 49:15.590
and Jacques Derrida came along
and said,

49:17.789 --> 49:18.229
Right? >

49:18.230 --> 49:21.390
That would be an entirely
different matter,

49:21.389 --> 49:23.299
wouldn't it,
because you would have

49:23.300 --> 49:26.450
absolutely no idea whether the
question was rhetorical or

49:26.447 --> 49:27.737
grammatical, right?

49:27.739 --> 49:31.829
There it wouldn't be possible
to invoke an intention because

49:31.829 --> 49:35.569
the whole complication of
Derrida is precisely to raise

49:35.574 --> 49:39.754
the question about not knowing,
not being able to voice the

49:46.539 --> 49:48.469
or whether Edith is right.

49:48.469 --> 49:55.189
Proust I don't have time for,
but it's a marvelous reading of

49:55.190 --> 49:59.110
that wonderful passage in
which--

49:59.110 --> 50:02.820
remember that he's set it up at
the beginning of the essay with

50:02.815 --> 50:05.665
a kind of wonderful,
cunning sort of sense of

50:05.670 --> 50:09.190
structure by talking about the
grandmother in Proust who's

50:09.188 --> 50:12.768
always driving Marcel out into
the garden because she can't

50:12.768 --> 50:15.358
stand the interiority of his
reading.

50:15.360 --> 50:19.360
Well, later on in the essay de
Man quotes this wonderful

50:19.355 --> 50:23.275
passage in which Marcel talks
about the way in which he

50:23.277 --> 50:27.637
brought the outside inside as he
was perpetually conscious of

50:27.637 --> 50:32.207
everything that was going on out
there during the process of his

50:32.213 --> 50:35.213
reading,
so that ultimately in the

50:35.213 --> 50:38.803
charmed moment of his reading,
there was no difference between

50:38.800 --> 50:39.660
inside and outside.

50:39.659 --> 50:42.609
In other words,
a metaphor, a rhetorical

50:42.610 --> 50:46.470
understanding of the
relationship between inside and

50:46.471 --> 50:51.301
outside has been accomplished,
but then grammatical analysis

50:51.302 --> 50:55.822
shows that the whole structure
of the passage is additive--

50:55.820 --> 51:01.210
that is, adding things on--and
is complicating and reinforcing

51:01.211 --> 51:05.191
an argument without insisting on
identity,

51:05.190 --> 51:09.210
on the underlying identity on
which metaphor depends;

51:09.210 --> 51:11.290
so he calls this metonymic.

51:11.289 --> 51:16.019
By the way, I'm going to leave
also to your sections the

51:16.019 --> 51:21.439
strange confusion that ensues in
taking a rhetorical device,

51:21.440 --> 51:25.430
metonymy, and making it
synonymous with grammar on the

51:25.431 --> 51:27.091
axis of combination.

51:27.090 --> 51:28.370
I leave that to your sections.

51:28.369 --> 51:30.159
In the meantime he says,
"No, no,

51:30.157 --> 51:30.637
no then.

51:30.639 --> 51:33.259
I guess this passage isn't
rhetorical after all.

51:33.260 --> 51:34.910
It must be metonymic--but wait!

51:34.909 --> 51:37.049
It is spoken by a voice.

51:37.050 --> 51:40.750
There is this wonderful
overarching voice that unifies

51:40.753 --> 51:42.363
everything after all.

51:42.360 --> 51:44.930
This is what I call,"
says de Man,

51:44.931 --> 51:48.721
"the rhetoricization of
grammar, right--but wait!

51:48.719 --> 51:50.729
That voice is not the author.

51:50.730 --> 51:52.610
That voice is a speaker.

51:52.610 --> 51:58.410
That voice is Marcel performing
his wonderful sort of metaphoric

51:58.411 --> 52:01.711
magic,
but we know that the author is

52:01.706 --> 52:06.306
painstakingly putting this
together in the most laborious

52:06.313 --> 52:10.293
kind of composed way,
making something up in an

52:10.293 --> 52:13.453
additive way that's not
rhetorical at all;

52:13.449 --> 52:14.989
it's grammatical.

52:14.989 --> 52:19.189
This is a supreme writer
putting together long sentences

52:19.192 --> 52:20.952
and so wait a minute.

52:20.949 --> 52:23.619
It must be, after all,
a grammaticization of

52:23.619 --> 52:26.229
rhetoric,"
the whole point of which is

52:26.226 --> 52:29.326
that the worm of interpretation
keeps turning.

52:29.329 --> 52:30.239
All right?

52:30.239 --> 52:34.679
It doesn't arbitrarily stop
anywhere because rhetoric and

52:34.679 --> 52:36.979
grammar remain irreducible.

52:36.980 --> 52:41.140
We have to keep thinking of
them as being uncooperative with

52:41.141 --> 52:42.061
each other.

52:42.059 --> 52:45.469
Okay, have to stop there--might
add a word or two--but on

52:45.469 --> 52:48.029
Thursday we turn,
I'm afraid with a certain

52:48.025 --> 52:50.335
awkwardness;
I wish there were an

52:50.338 --> 52:53.548
intervening weekend,
to Freud and Peter Brooks.

52:53.550 --> 52:57.130
In the meantime,
we'll see you then.

52:57.130 --> 53:03.000