Modern Language Association

Literary System and Systemic Change: The Prague School Theory of Literary History, 192848
Author(s): F. W. Galan
Source: PMLA, Vol. 94, No. 2 (Mar., 1979), pp. 275-285
Published by: Modern Language Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/461891
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F. W. GALAN

Literary System and Systemic Change: The Prague

School Theory of Literary History, I928-48
de Saussure's observation
FERDINAND
that a language system is complete at every
moment of its existence inaugurated the
structural study of language phenomena. As
Saussure argued, we can study language not only
historically, or diachronically, but also synchronically, by regarding language as a static system.
Thus Saussurean linguistics championed the
study of synchronic language states and relegated
diachronic investigation to a secondary place. It
would be wrong to conclude, however, that the
rift between synchrony and diachrony, between
static and historical linguistics, was a necessary
consequence of Saussure's penetrating insight.
Although admittedly of seminal importance,
Saussure's thesis did not long remain unchallenged in the subsequent development of structural linguistics. In fact, less than a dozen years
after the appearance of the Cours de linguistique
generale (1916),' Roman Jakobson proposed
the first revision, and an extensive one, of Saussure's premise equating structuralism exclusively
with the synchronic pursuit.
In the following pages I attempt to sketch the
basic dimensions of the structuralist theory of
language history elaborated by Jakobson and the
other members of the Prague Linguistic Circle.
But I devote the major part of this paper to a
discussion of how these theorists came to apply
the structuralist model to the study of literary
evolution. As my subtitle indicates, the period in
which they worked out this theory, 1928-48,
spans nearly the entire duration of the Circle.
I
It almost scares
A man the way things come in
Robert Frost
pairs.
Structural linguistics runs directly counter to
the historicogenetic method prevalent in nineteenth-century philology. Instead of examining

275

the successive stages in the history of a language

fact, structural linguistics seeks to determine the
function of the fact with respect to the whole
contemporaneous language system. If philology,
primarily by studying old texts, first investigates
linguistic forms and only then inquires into their
function or meaning, structural linguistics proceeds the other way around: affirming that language is above all a tool of communication, it
takes as its starting point the function, or meaning, and then tries to discover the means by
which this meaning is conveyed. In other words,
it puts itself in the position of the speaker who
must find the appropriate linguistic forms for
what he wishes to express.2 But, of course, the
methods of philology and linguistics are complementary rather than contradictory.
Indeed, modern linguistics is more an improvement on earlier Indo-European philology
than a rejection of it. Both, for instance, accomplished their chief breakthroughs in the study of
sounds-respectively, in historical phonetics and
in systematic phonology. Indo-Europeanists were
the first to postulate that sound changes conform
to laws in the ways they affect a given language,
but they could not account for the occurrence of
such changes. According to the neogrammarians, sound changes are unmotivated, fortuitous,
and blind, presumably due only to destructive
outside interference. Saussure, while rejecting
the Junggrammatiker's other premises, accepted
the notion of phonic changes as arbitrary and
nonsystematic and therefore considered them at
odds with the perfect intelligibility of static language systems. For this reason Saussure claimed
that to study language system and language history at the same time was to engage in incompatible activities (see Course, esp. pp. 79-100).
Jakobson, however, objected to the idea of
outside destruction, of a "cambriolage phonetique," on the grounds that it involved a
blatant contradiction: a self-contained language

276

The Prague School Theory of Literary History, 1928-48

system that is always complete ceases to act

systematically at the time it undergoes a change.
To resolve this dilemma, he argued, we must
transform historical phonetics into the history of
the phonological system.3 We should not study
isolated sound changes but should analyze them
in conjunction with the whole system that is subject to phonological mutations. If we do so, we
are bound to see that sound changes are clearly
therapeutic: any disturbance in the system's
synchronic equilibrium is followed by an opposing tendency to restore the lost balance. Such a
corrective mutation, however, may cause disequilibrium in another part of the system,
thereby requiring a new corrective mutation.
Thus every dephonologization, in which two
phonemes (for example, [p] and [b]) lose the
phonological opposition they had before mutation, is compensated for by phonologization, in
which this process is reversed: phonemes that
were not opposed phonologically are in binary
opposition after mutation, and so on. This is
obviously a never-ending process, and the reciprocal tendencies toward the preservation of
stability and toward its ever-renewed rupture are
thus permanent features of the language system.
In this view language is not a passive vehicle
constantly threatened from outside but a selfregulating system capable of adjusting itself to
"blind" jeopardy.
The evolution of language, however, is not
composed solely of combinatory variants that
balance each other out in a series of abandonments and creations of phonological differences.
Language is more complex than that, since, in
the Prague School's view, instead of one language-say, English-we should speak of several functional "dialects" within it, such as
standard, scientific, and poetic. This variety of
dialects or styles is necessary if language is to
remain a versatile communicative instrument. In
addition to phonological combinations, then,
there is a process of "permutation of functions."
Here a phoneme alters its function by shifting
onto another stylistic plane. While equilibrium is
always maintained in one language dialect-any
dephonologization is followed by phonologization-a phoneme's functional migration to another dialect tends to disrupt the system. In this
way, the permutation of functions accounts for
language's continual efficacy. Like any organic

or mechanical system, language wears out its individual parts, whether phonemes or entire
words. But the possibility of a functional shift
permits the refurbishment of those aspects that
are felt to be stylistically stale and ineffective.
When, for instance, some parts of emotive language lose their expressiveness, they may fulfill
another function in referential language. In
short, the dynamic vitality of language rests in
its ability to find replacements for abandoned
means of expression or to rejuvenate ossified
forms.
Regardless of whether sound mutations contribute to the maintenance or disturbance of the
language equilibrium, they cannot be understood
apart from the system they create. By the same
token the system itself cannot be abstracted
from the changes it generates. In other words,
not only does the language system necessarily
evolve, but its evolution, too, is inevitably systemic. In this way, adopting a consistently functional point of view, the Prague School linguists
succeeded in moving beyond Saussure. They assimilated the philologians' belief in the intrinsic
historicity of language and, simultaneously,
showed that diachronic mutations also obey
structural principles. To arrive at this conclusion
the structuralist had only to discard the earlier
atomistic approach, according to which language
appeared as an aggregate of unrelated facts or,
diachronically, as a haphazard collection of fortuitous changes, and to replace it by the concept
of Gestalteinheit, a structurally unified whole.
Still, Jakobsonian theory sheds light principally on the internal or immanent evolution of
language without clarifying how extralinguistic
factors influence the language's tempo of change
and the choice among several possible paths of
development. There is a simple reason for this
omission. The contact between language and
other orders of events is more likely to occur
on the level of meaning than on the level of
sound. Hence we must leave the realm of phonology and touch on that of semantics, the central
area of semiotics.
In semantics we no longer focus on just the
phonic level of linguistic signs (the signifiants)
but examine their concepts or meanings (the
signifies) as well. We notice at the outset that a
sign's two coordinates do not quite overlap. On
the one hand, the same set of sounds can convey

F. W. Galan
different meanings (homonyms: seal-animal and
seal-wax), and on the other, the same meaning
can be expressed by different signs (synonyms:
aid and help). In principle, every sign is potentially both a homonym and a synonym. Consequently, every time we use a word we may alter,
if ever so slightly, the relationship between the
signifiant and the signifie, for we apply a general,
socially shared set of sounds to a specific, individual situation. Every usage, then, is a new
match of a selected part of the language code
with a particular segment of extralinguistic reality. The verbal sign does not have merely differential value, as it does with phonological
oppositions (for example, [p]in and [b]in), but
indicates both resemblance (synonymy) and
difference (homonymy, or rather polysemy) between our concepts of the given segments of
reality.
If this seems somewhat paradoxical, it is
owing to the asymmetrical structure of the linguistic sign, in which the signifier seeks to overflow the boundary assigned to it by the signified
-and vice versa. Just as the signifiant often
expresses more than its proper meaning, so the
signifie tends to be embodied in several distinct
signs. Since a sign's two equipollent facets are
asymmetric, they coexist in a dynamic equilibrium. As a result, the language system can
infinitely evolve. In Sergej Karcevskij's vivid
description, the signifiant and the signifie "continually glide along the 'slope of reality' . . . the
sign's 'adequate' position being continuously displaced because of adaptations to the exigencies
of the concrete situation."4

II
No metaphor,remember,can express
A real historicalunhappiness
W. H. Auden
Just as the full-fledged structural theory of
language history is inseparable from the semiotic
conception of linguistic signs, so the structural
theory of literary history is indissociable from
the semiotic conception of poetic language. The
semiotic conception alone enabled the Prague
scholars to define the proper domain of literary
study and also furnished them with a well-

277

founded methodology. In linguistics, we know,

we must avoid both the error of studying language history without viewing it as a system and
the mistake of studying language as a system
without perceiving it historically. Similarly, in
literary history we should be on guard against
two undesirable options. One is the traditional
study that provides a sequence either of biographies or of histories of civilization but not a
history of verbal art. The other is the more recent "formalistic" approach that, by concentrating on verbal art, tends to exclude the full
context of history. Semiotics in literature, in
contrast, allows us to claim that we take essentially the same approach as we do in language
history: we look for the laws of literary evolution within the literary system itself, while not
losing sight of literature's numerous cross points
with other orders or series of social reality.
The initial task of the structuralist literary
theory, according to Roman Jakobson and Jan
Mukarovsk~, the principal literati of the Prague
Linguistic Circle, is to distinguish between poetic language and standard language.5 Since the
main structuralist criterion is functional, and not
formal, what matters is not so much any inherent aesthetic properties of verbal signs as
the use to which we put various modes or
dialects of language. Considered in this way,
standard language has first and foremost a
communicative function, whereas in poetic language the aesthetic function predominates. The
salient trait of the first dialect is the normalizing
of the range of expression, or what the Czechs
called the process of automatization; that of the
second is the realizing of new possibilities, or the
actualization (also deautomatization) of the
elements of expression. In the language of everyday communication all elements are likely to be
automatized, so that they can refer, unobstructed, to the object or objects under discussion. In poetry, on the contrary, elements that in
standard language have only a subservient role
acquire a largely autonomous value, for poetic
language is directed toward the verbal sign itself,
not the extralinguistic reality. In short, poetry
aims at actualization in order to throw into relief
the very act of expression.6
The analysis of a literary work, consequently,
centers on demonstrating the degree of actualization of its component parts. A single work of

278

The Prague School Theory of Literary History, 1928-48

artistic literature, however, cannot be understood apart from the underlying system of
norms, just as a single phoneme cannot be inspected in isolation from the whole system of
which it is a part. Furthermore, poetic language
is subject to two sets of rules or conventions,
namely, those of contemporary standard language and those of prevailing poetic tradition. It
is for this reason that, though closely bound together, poetic and standard languages must
always be differentiated; frequently what would
be a breach of rules in standard language is
permissible poetic usage. In Mukarovsky's view,
only the repeated violation of rules, a systematic
interference in the norm of standard language,
makes poetry at all possible.
To illustrate this point from another angle, let
us turn to a different semiotic system, one in
which language poses few barriers, that is, the
system of gestures. Here again we find two
kinds. On the one hand, there are socially conventional "sign gestures" and, on the other, "expression gestures," signifying individual intent.
The expressiveness of sign gestures, like that of
standard language, is severely curtailed by ritual
use, and it is difficult to infer an intention from
them. If we are to register the expressiveness of
a gesture, we can do so only if it departs in some
way from the general custom. An expression
gesture thus usually appears as an accentuation
of the conventional sign gesture: the smile becomes broader or the bow deeper. But such a
gesture may also camouflage the genuine intention behind it and become a pose. As a result,
there can occur a systematic interference of individual expression gestures in social sign gestures. This is the art of pantomime.
Let us briefly look at Chaplin's last silent film,
City Lights (1931). Throughout the film we can
see a dynamic interplay between the two sets of
gestures, which, as Mukarovsky points out, are
in continual catachreses.7 Charlie's expression
gestures interfere in sign gestures either successively, as when a sequence of conventional gestures is disrupted by a sudden expressive gesture
(e.g., when Charlie, driving a Rolls Royce, stops
the car to pick up a cigar butt) or simultaneously, as when a sign gesture communicated by
facial mimicry is belied by an expressive gesture
of the hand (e.g., when, toward the end of the
film, the Little Tramp is politely explaining to a

cop that he had nothing to do with a robbery,

only to discover that he has been brandishing a
gun all along). A similar paradox informs the
overall structure of Chaplin's movie, beginning
with Charlie's dress-a shabby evening coat but
an elegant cane and a bowler-and extending to
the film's theme, which shows a beggar with social aspirations. And the catachrestic interplay
also explains the roles of the two supporting
actors, the blind flower girl and the drunken millionaire. Each character is designed to perceive a
single set of interfering gestures: the girl's
handicap leads her to acknowledge only social
sign gestures, whereas the millionaire's intoxication makes him record the individual expression
gestures.8
An analogous systematic interference in standard language makes possible the art of poetry.
Just as an expression gesture is appreciated only
in juxtaposition with sign gestures, so poetic language comes to be aesthetically effective only
when it is measured against standard language.
Still, this is merely one side of the process of
deautomatization. The other becomes prominent
when poetic innovation is a reaction not so
much against the norm of standard language as
against the vital artistic tradition. Both modes of
actualization, to be sure, are likely to be felt in
every work of literary art. The difference between the two is that historically intensive actualization takes place vis-a-vis the normativeness of standard language, while the ensuing
moderate actualization operates in contrast to
the established aesthetic canon. Actualization,
then, is a highly variable process. Moreover, although poetry aims at maximum actualization,
this should not be thought of in quantitative
terms, as if the greatest deviation from the norm,
as in Khlebnikov's zaum 'transrational' poetry or
in dada poetry, were the most effective poetic
strategy. Instead, actualization should be viewed
in dynamic, dialectical opposition to automatization: if all language elements in a given work
were poetically actualized, put in the foreground, so to speak, there would be no background against which to observe them. Therefore actualization of one element is necessarily
accompanied by automatization of other elements. If a poet chooses to stress verse intonation, for instance, the semantic aspect of his verse
may become secondary in the structural hier-

F. W. Galan
archy. In the final analysis, it is the reciprocal
relations of all actualized and nonactualized
elements that create the poetic structure of the
literary work of art.
We can now begin to discern the main outlines of immanent literary evolution. The structuralist conception of literary history is a far cry
from the traditional view of literary "progress"
as a succession of masters and their influencesan approach that produced what Viktor Sklovskij sarcastically termed the literary history of
the generals. But the Prague School conception
also parts ways with the formalist idea that literary history is a constant process of undermining and rejecting established tradition, as when
Dostoevsky draws on the form of crime fiction
to forge a new kind of novel. Structuralist theory
asserts, rather, that the process of literary evolution is the continual functional permutation of
structural elements that arises from the dialectic
of actualization and automatization.
The problem of defining literary genres best
exemplifies this process of functional permutation. When described formally rather than
thematically, a genre emerges as a set of fixed
structural elements, such as the metrical form
(in the chansons de geste, for instance), the lexical selection (as in the heroic epic), or the
technique of composition (as in the short story
in contrast to the novel). In time, the particular
combinations of such generic devices undergo
considerable change. While some elements remain unaltered, maintaining the genre's continuity, the influx of new elements assures its freshness and elasticity. But in extreme cases even
those elements with which the genre is primarily
identified may disappear, whereas the secondary
elements endure. Thanks to such permutations
in the function of individual elements, a given
genre may, over a long period, produce two almost unrecognizable evolutionary offshoots,
such as the picaresque novel and the modern
novel. Even for epic and lyric it appears impossible to design simple and unambiguous definitions adequate for literatures of every period.
Thus genre is a historically conditioned concept,
not a universally valid one.
In structuralist theory, the driving force of literary evolution is generated by the limited
number of conceivable artistic solutions within
the given genre. Poetic idioms, genres, and even

279

aesthetic canons-as period concepts-have an

unavoidably circumscribed potential; otherwise
they could not function normatively. A single
work, like a phonological mutation, is a member
of an evolutionary series and as such is conditioned by what preceded it and in turn conditions what will follow it. And just as a sound
change obeys the rules of the language system,
so every poetic creation follows, if only up to a
point, the norms of the literary system. However, even though the dichotomy of archaisms
and neologisms is omnipresent in language history, literary history seems to place a far greater
premium on "making it new," even if at times
this means returning to an "archaic" mode. Thus
the norm in literary evolution is (more explicitly
since 1750 than before) the deviation from the
norm, for, according to Mukarovsky, it is in the
nature of the aesthetic norm to be broken.9
Once an artistic norm is officially established,
the next generation cannot wholly adopt their
predecessors' poetic idiom, without risk of becoming epigones. The new school of poets
assimilates certain parts of the existing canon
and puts them to novel use; in addition, the
poets employ their imaginative powers to create
new thematic variations within the received tradition or, eventually, seek inspiration in lower,
uncanonized genres, like letters, family albums,
or travelogues. According to the structural notion of immanent literary evolution, a poet is not
free to select any random configuration of
elements-any form-but must confront the
canon inherited from his precursors and carry
the burden of that tradition. (Naturally, the literary historian, too, must come to grips with the
aesthetic norms of a period and reconstruct the
original genre and the function of its dominant
elements.) Yet aesthetic norms are themselves
historically relative, since the complex of norms
valid for one generation is modified, and sometimes rejected, by the next. With the shift in
norms there also occurs a change of function in
a literary work's structural elements, which,
when seen against the backdrop of new norms,
find themselves in different relationships to one
another, as a comparison of two translations of
the same work from different periods amply attests. In sum, it is precisely this historical permutation of aesthetic norms, together with the
resulting modification in the structure of indi-

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The Prague School Theory of Literary History, 1928-48

vidual literary works, that explains literature's

evolutionary dynamism.
Nevertheless, the conception of immanent literary evolution, like the study of the sound
stratum in language history, adumbrates merely
one side of the historical process affecting literature. This approach entails the analysis of literary signifiants, or forms, but omits the examination of literary signifies, or meanings. So far the
Prague School's theory remains an extension and
restatement of the Russian formal method.
Czech structuralism comes into its own with the
realization that the antinomy of standard and
poetic languages falls short of doing justice to
our experience of either dialect. For not only
does standard language abound in ambiguity,
tension, irony, and every other feature commonly associated with poetry, but poetic language, too, successfully performs the function of
standard language, namely, that of referring to
extralinguistic reality. In other words, poetic
language has the functions of aesthetic and
communicative signs: the literary work, being
precisely a set of signs, is both autonomous and
communicative.
Since the primary function of all signs is to
serve as an intermediary between sender and
receiver, poetic language, despite its being oriented toward the verbal sign, must always point
to something other than itself. The earlier theory
held that poetic language obstructs reference, in
contrast to standard language, which facilitates
it. In structuralist theory, however, the distinguishing characteristics of literature, its differentia specifica, lie, not in its obstruction of reference, but in its special way of pointing to reality.
The crux of the argument now is that what the
autonomous signs of poetic language, as opposed to other types of sign, are directed toward
is nothing "distinctly determinable." According
to Mukarovsky, the hallmark of poetry, as of all
art, is that, instead of referring to particular objects, it aims at the "total context of so-called
social phenomena." And this perhaps indicates
why, in his view, "art more than all other social
phenomena is capable of characterizing and
representing a given epoch.""'
Yet the relationship of artistic autonomous
signs to the signified reality appears to be
oblique and metaphorical, much less marked by
the transparency demanded from communicative

signs. The danger in literary study is that we

might short-circuit the intricate relationship of
autonomous signs to reality and utilize the work
as a social or historical document without first
determining its "documentary" value. This value
indicates the difference between the values manifested in the work and those held by the reading
public. Every work of verbal art no doubt contains a number of values-whether intellectual,
religious, ethical, or social-besides the aesthetic. The presence of such extra-aesthetic
values escapes the reader's attention as long as
he shares them. But when an older work is revived after there has been a shift in general
values, the work's extra-aesthetic values come
clearly to the fore. If the work's and the public's
values do not coincide, their conflict can be poetically exploited either to intimate a sphere of
values higher than those of ordinary life (as in
early Romanticism) or to celebrate values much
below the socially acceptable norm (as in late
Romanticism). On occasion, the collision between the artistic and social values can be so
serious, as in the case of the "poetes maudits,"
that some time may elapse before the cultural
mainstream appreciates such works as literary.
It is because of such possible disparities that we
must, above all, judge a literary work aesthetically, as an assembly of autonomous signs.
We have noted, however, that a literary work
also has a communicative function; that is, each
of the work's structural components does have
some meaning. The highest unit of meaning, the
"axis of crystallization of the work's signification" (Mukafovsky, p. 1069), is theme. In the
simplest definition, theme is what we can paraphrase; semiotically, it is that structural facet
which is not directly tied to the linguistic sign
and which can thus be transposed into another
semiotic series, as a novel is made into film,
without any significant modification of meaning.
But despite this divergent semiotic property,
theme is in no circumstances an equivalent to
the reality that the work is supposed to portray
as truthfully as possible; it remains inescapably
a constituent part of the work's total structure,
whose laws it must obey. In other words, the
cardinal function of theme is to be the work's
"unity of meaning, and not a passive copy of
reality" (Mukarovsky, p. 1070); and the theme
must therefore be evaluated according to its re-

F. W. Galan
lationship to the work's whole structure. This is
another way of saying that, although from the
vantage point of the communicative function the
literary work, like other signs, is directed toward
particular objects or referents (not toward the
entire reality), this relationship has no "existential" value for aesthetic signs. As Mukarovsky
puts it, "the modifications in the relationship to
the thing signified are without importance for the
work of art: they function as elements of its
structure" (p. 1069). In an epic narrative, for
example, the protagonists' real existence has no
bearing on our aesthetic appreciation of the
story, but the presence of a moral or social value
that colors our perception of the battle between
the positive and negative characters is highly relevant. For while the former is completely outside the literary orbit, the latter undeniably
forms an aspect of the work's composition. In
this way, literary structure absorbs nonliterary
values and adopts them to suit its aesthetic purpose. No feature of social reality is immune to
such literary appropriation. In this sense the interplay between "fiction" (the ensemble of aesthetic signs) and "reality" (the nexus of social,
moral, political, and economic values) is truly
limitless. Still, though all features of social reality may play roles in the literary structure, this
structure cannot be centrifugal, with single structural elements linking up referentially with particular segments of external reality, but is bound
to be centripetal, with all its elements creating a
series of internal semantic correlations. Ultimately, if a literary work is to be viewed as a
work of art, its aesthetic efficacy must without
exception be judged by its structural coherence,
not by its ostensible verisimilitude.
As can be seen, the Prague School's structural
and semiotic theory is built around antithetical
pairs: poetic language and standard language,
actualization and automatization, autonomous
and communicative signs, aesthetic and extraaesthetic values, and, last, art and reality. If we
take these to be dialectical antinomies, the principles of literary evolution become immediately
clear. No longer can we hold that literature is a
domain of forms existing independently of other
social and cultural phenomena; nor can we
claim that literature is a direct reflection of some
extraliterary facts, whether the writer's psychological disposition or the particular milieu's ideo-

281

logical or economic context. Accordingly, literary evolution is neither a discontinuous collection of accidental events happening outside
literature nor yet a series of formal transformations within it. Literary evolution is the product
of the dialectical interaction between literature
and all that surrounds it. Although the internal
movement of literary evolution stems from the
essential dynamism of literary structure, this
movement unfolds in a constant reciprocal relationship with other sectors of culture and society. From this new perspective on literary
history we are simultaneously able to take into
account the continuous evolution of poetic structure, which consists of a ceaseless reshuffling of
structural elements, and the outside, nonliterary
events that, though they themselves do not sustain the continuity of literature, explicitly determine each literary phase. Every literary fact is
thus the result of two forces: intrinsic dynamism
and extrinsic intervention.
The interrelationships between literary and
nonliterary structures-philosophical, ideological, economic, and the like-create in turn a
structure of a higher order. Each of these structures or series has its own autonomous evolution, but this does not prevent them from affecting one another's evolutionary course. Consequently, within this "structure of structures"
there is a constant movement and reorganization,
since it is not a static configuration but a dynamic
structure fraught with internal contradictions.
Even though all parts of the global system vie for
the dominant position, not one of them remains
permanently ascendant. None of the series must
therefore be placed a priori above the rest, since
in the course of evolution manifold shifts take
place among their reciprocal relationships. As
Mukarovsky writes,
... it is impossible to reduce the history of one
series to the status of commentaryon another under the pretence that one of them is subordinate
while the other is superior.Literaryhistoryis neither
the history of national ideology nor the history of
national economy-to take the two extreme standpoints, which, although seemingly antithetical, are
nevertheless closely related by their common
epistemologicalfallacy-but is preciselyliteraryhisThe unity of evolution is maintained
tory....
neitherby the same origin nor by the same direction
of external interventions,but by the very laws that
govern the internalmovementof literature.1l

282

The Prague School Theory of Literary History, 1928-48

At this point, structuralist literary theory intersects the realm of literary sociology. By
situating literary works within the social praxis,
structuralism can address itself to the question
of their reception, the reason for their social
appeal. We have seen that every work comprises
both aesthetic and nonaesthetic values. Correspondingly, along with its organizing aesthetic
function, every literary work has several extraaesthetic functions or purposes, such as ethical,
didactic, and propagandistic. Public reception is
based on the appreciation of nonaesthetic values
and functions at least as often as it is on the
aesthetic. Furthermore, society may assign a
work an altogether different function from that
ascribed to it by the author. Because any of the
work's functions may attract as much attention
as any other, its public reception fluctuates
greatly.12 From a structuralist point of view, a
set of aesthetic and extra-aesthetic functions also
makes up a dynamic structure-so much so that,
although the aesthetic function should always be
de jure dominant, it is de facto often dislodged
from this position by another function. The tension resulting from the conflict among diverse
functions further contributes to the endogenous
dynamism of literary structure.
Structural poetics and literary sociology are
ultimately complementary approaches to the
phenomenon of literature, the former concentrating on the work's artistic structure and its
evolution and the latter surveying relationships
between literary evolution and changes in the
general values underpinning social practice. In
other words, if literary history inquires first of
all how the work comes about as a work of art,
literary sociology investigates what makes it
effective with respect to other series of social
reality. This division of labor, however, needs
one qualification: to the extent that structural
analysis should elucidate the role of extraaesthetic values and functions, literary sociology
should consider the possible deformation of
extra-aesthetic values by the aesthetic value.
Poetics cannot treat its subject as if it existed in
a vacuum, cut off from social reality; and literary sociology, by the same token, cannot neglect
aesthetic principles. Thus we arrive at the governing principle of literary evolution:
... to evolve means always to become something
different, but without impairment of identity.13

Both presuppositionsare indispensable,their mutual

contradictionnotwithstanding.This appliesto literature, too, if we grant that it has a certain lawlike
evolution of its own. Yet, to become different,
literature, which is a part of the vast domain of
culture, must be oriented toward one of the other
series-toward, for example, another literature,
another of the arts, another kind of verbal expression, or toward philosophy, science, or the like.
Not even theoretically, therefore, can we isolate
literaturefrom that domain unless we suppressthe
dialectical antinomy that is a prerequisitefor evolution. Since culture as a whole, however, is borne
by the developmentof society, we have to take into
consideration the relation between literature and
society as well.T"

More precisely, we must first of all raise a

question regarding the relationship between
signs, which are by definition components of social reality, and sign users, members of a collectivity. The literary work, as a complex of signs,
is from the start located within the communicative circuit, with the writer on one side and the
reader on the other. The reader who senses that
the work possesses a structural coherence, that it
has reconciled the dissonant elements composing
its structure, must also assume that the author
has deliberately created this impression of unity.
This author is to be found in the text rather than
outside it; he or she is the "implied" authornot a concrete personality but the semiotic construct corresponding to the reader's state of
mind.') In literary history, though, we are compelled to take note also of the real person, who
can be quite unlike the implied author. The relationship between the one and the other is contingent both on the evolution of literary structure and on those propensities of the artist that
attune him or her to the possibilities put forth by
the structure's current state. Although artistic
individuality, being always unique and unpredictable, appears to be the disruptive force that
plays havoc with the well-ordered and systematic development of literary structure, the
randomness of such interventions-their sequence, intensity, and utilization-is
significantly controlled by the structure's internal
requirements. In other words, the relationship of
the writer to the structure of literature is not
fortuitous but dialectical, and the writer's activity should be construed not as an arbitrary outside intrusion but as the structure's dialectical

F. W. Galan
negation. If individual phases of literary development compose the thesis, the antithesis consists of the writers' interruptions, which propel
the course of evolution toward one or another
series of social organization. Literary history,
consequently, is a contest between the structure's own momentum and the forcible infringements of artistic personalities. Yet these infringements do not merely disrupt the structure's
temporal continuity but, in one stroke, press
forward its inner motion. Since, moreover, artists participate in the collective life, they become
the points on which all other social series converge. Thus the opposition of literary structure

283

and human individuality turns out to be the most

fundamental antinomy of literary evolution.
In the end, structuralist theory swings full circle and encompasses the life of literature as well
as the life of society. And this may be another
way of stating that, as regards structuralism, we
are exactly where we started, where indeed all
language of literature originates-at once far too
close to and too far away from (to borrow
Auden's three key words) the "real historical
unhappiness."
University of Texas
Austin

Notes
1 Saussure, Cours de
linguistique generale (Paris:
Payot, 1916). For an English translation, see Course
in General Liinguistics, trans. Wade Baskin (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1966).
2 Prague structuralism should
properly be called ftunctional structuralism, to distinguish it from the versions
of the Geneva and the Copenhagen schools. In fact,
Vilem Mathesius, chairman of the Prague Linguistic
Circle, preferred the designation "functional linguistics."
See his essays "New Currents and Tendencies in Linguistic Research," Mlnema (Prague: Jednota ceskych
filologu, 1927), pp. 188-203; "Ziele und Aufgaben der
vergleichenden Phonologie," Xenia Pragensia (Prague:
Jednota ceskoslovenskvch matematiku a fysiku, 1929),
pp. 432-45; and "La Place de la linguistique fonctionelle et structurale dans le d6veloppement g6enral des
etudes linguistiques," Casopis pro moderni filologii, 18
(1931), 1-7. Mathesius' pupil Josef Vachek also produced articles for foreign audiences: "What Is Phonology?" English Studies, 15 (1933), 81-92, and "Several
Thoughts on Several Statements of Phoneme Theory,"
Am4rerican Speech, 10 (1935), 243-55. Consult also
N. S. Trubetzkoy's "La Phonologie actuelle," Journal de
Psychologie, 30 (1933), 227-46, perhaps the most
telling statement of the Prague School's position. In
recent years, however, the term "function," like "structure," has been much abused by being applied indiscriminately to disparate concepts. Jakobson now advocates a more descriptive label for the Prague School
linguistics, namely, "the means-ends model"; see his
"Efforts toward a Means-Ends Model of Language in
Interwar Continental Linguistics," in Word and Language, Vol. ii of Selected Writings (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), pp. 522-26.
3 See the following articles and
monographs: "O
hliskoslovn6m zakonu a teleologick6m hliskoslovi."
Casopis pro moderni filologii, 14 (1928),
183-84;
Remarques sur l'evolution phonologique du russe comparee a celle des autres langues slaves, Travaux du

Cercle Linguistique de Prague (hereafter cited as

Travaux), 2 (1929); and "Prinzipien der historischen
Phonologie," Travaux, 4 (1931), 247-67. A translation
of the Czech piece, "The Concept of the Sound Law
and the Teleological Criterion," can be found, together
with a reprint of the French monograph, in Jakobson's
Phonological Studies, Vol. I of Selected Writings (The
Hague: Mouton, 1962), pp. 1-2, 7-116. A translation
of the German essay, "Principles of Historical Phonology," is in A Reader in Historical and Comparative
Linguistics, ed. Allen R. Keiler (New York: Holt,
1972), pp. 121-38. For an account of the historical
sound mutations in Germanic languages, one might consult William G. Moulton, "Types of Phonemic Change,"
To Honor Roman Jakobson: Essays on the Occasion of
His Seventieth Birthday (The Hague: Mouton, 1967),
pp. 1393-1407.
This methodological concentration on the phonic
stratum of language, supposedly at the expense of the
written, has lately come under attack by Jacques
Derrida as an example of the fallacious metaphysics of
presence. The Copenhagen School, by contrast, is
deemed not guilty because it denies the primacy of
view that Derrida claims has
speech over writing-a
yielded path-breaking studies of literature. Derrida
cites two such studies-and indeed there are only two,
both having the character and scope of preliminary
sketches. A quick comparison with the critical and
theoretical output of the Prague School, English translations of which are cited below, reveals that Derrida's
charge is misdirected or, more likely, misguided in
principle. See "Linguistique et grammatologie," De la
grammatologie (Paris: Minuit, 1967), esp. pp. 86-87;
the English version is Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ.
Press, 1977), pp. 58-59. Moreover, judging from a
passing reference to Opojaz (the Petersburg Society for
the Study of Poetic Language) as a critical school that
could adequately tackle poetry, which by definition

284

The Prague School Theory of Literary History, 1928-48

highlights the sound structure of language, but not

prose, one gathers that Derrida mistakes the formal
method for the method of the so-called Olhrenphilologie.
"Acoustic philology" did in fact influence the formalist
research in its initial stages but soon came under
sharp criticism (e.g., in Viktor Vinogradov's critique of
Boris Eichenbaum's essay on Gogol's "Overcoat"; see
"Problema skaza v stilistike" 'The Problem of "Skaz"
in Stylistics,' Poetika, 1 [1926], 24-40).
4"Du dualisme asym6trique du signe linguistique,"
Travaux, 1 (1929), 88-93. Karcevskij, a pupil of Saussure's who brought his mentor's teachings to Russia in
1917 and became, in the 1920s, a member of both the
Prague and Geneva Schools, is a seldom mentioned
figure in current linguistic discussion. For an overview
of his career see N. S. Pospelov, "O lingvisticeskom
nasledstve S. Karcevskogo" 'The Linguistic Legacy of
S. Karcevskij,' Voprosy jazykoznanija, 6 (1957), 4656, and Wendy Steiner, "Language as Process: Sergej
Karcevskij's Semiotics of Language," Sound, Sign and
Meaning: Quinquagenary of the Prague Lilguiistic
Circle, ed. Ladislav Matejka, Michigan Slavic Contributions, No. 6 (Ann Arbor: Dept. of Slavic Languages
and Literatures, Univ. of Michigan, 1976), pp. 291300.
>Cf. "Theses," Travaux, 1 (1929), esp. pp. 17-21.
The opposition between practical and poetic languages
was first postulated by Russian linguist L. P. Jakubinskij
in "O zvukach stichotvornogo jazyka" 'On the Sound
Makeup of Poetic Language,' Poetika: Sborniki po
teorii poetieeskogo jazyka (Saint Petersburg: Opojaz,
1919), p. 37. This goes to show how intimate the ties
were, in the late twenties and early thirties, between the
Petersburg and Prague groups. The Prague Circle's
"Theses," in point of fact, restates the crucial concepts
of Jakobson and Tynjanov's declaration of principles,
"Problemy izucenija literatury i jazyka," Novyj lef, 2
(1928), 35-37; an English version is "Problems in the
Study of Literature and Language," trans. Herbert
Eagle, in Readings in Russian Poetics: Formralist and
Structuralist Views, ed. Ladislav Matejka and Krystyna
Pomorska (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1971), pp.
79-81. I attempted a comparison of the two theoretical
manifestoes in "From Petersburg Formalism to Prague
Structuralism: The 1928 and 1929 Theses," a paper
read at the NEMLA meeting in Pittsburgh, April 1977. If
further proof of the formalists' influence and collaboration were needed, one could point to Tynjanov's lecture
"The Problem of Literary Evolution," read to the Prague
Circle in December 1928 (see the related paper "On
Literary Evolution," in Readings in Russian Poetics, pp.
66-78), and to Boris Tomasevskij's lecture of the same
year, "La Nouvelle Ecole d'histoire litteraire en Russie,"
published in Revue des Etudes Slaves, 8 (1928), 22640. Since the thrust of the present essay is theoretical,
not historical, I can do no more than mention the
major points of contact between the two groups and
allude to major analogies in Western criticism, as I do
in my title, which echoes Claudio Guill6n's Literature
as System:. Essays toward the Theory of Literary History (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1971). I offer

a fuller account of the place of Prague structuralism

vis-h-vis rival theoretical movements in a larger study
entitled "Historic Structures: The Prague School Semiotic Theory of Literary History, 1923-1948" (in preparation).
" Cf. "Theses," p. 21. Jakobson first formulated this
notion of poetic function in his book Novej,'aja russkaja
(Nabrosok
poezija
Velel ir Chlebnikov
pervyj):
(Prague: Politika, 1921), p. 10; the English version is
"Modern Russian Poetry: Velemir Khlebnikov (Excerpts)," Major Soviet Writers: Essays in Criticisim,
ed. and trans. Edward J. Brown (New York: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1973), p. 62. It has gained currency in
contemporary criticism when defined as the "set
(Einstellung) toward the MESSAGEas such, focus on
the message for its own sake," in Jakobson's "Closing
Statement: Linguistics and Poetics," Style in Language,
ed. Thomas A. Sebeok (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
1960), p. 356.
See "Chaplin ve Svetlech velkonesta. (Pokus o
strukturni rozbor hereck6ho zjevu)," Literdrni noviny,
5 (1930-31), 2-3; an English version is "An Attempt
at a Structural Analysis of a Dramatic Figure," Structure, Sign, and Function: Selected Essays by Jan
Mukarovsky, trans. and ed. John Burbank and Peter
Steiner (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1978), pp.
171-77.
8 In a fine study of Chaplin's movie, Walter Kerr
discovers that "City Lights may also be read as a structural exercise" and goes on to interpret it, as if to
confirm Mukarovsky's analysis, as an "utterly stable
film about total instability" (The Silent Clowns [New
York: Knopf, 1975], pp. 346, 352).
9 See Mukaiovsky, "Esteticka funkce a esteticka
norma jako socialni fakty," Sociilni problemy, 4
(1935), esp. pp. 33-36. An expanded version of this
study is reprinted in Mukarovsky's Studie z estetiky
'Studies in Aesthetics' (Prague: Odeon, 1966), pp. 1754; an English version is Aesthetic Function, Norm and
Value as Social Facts, trans. Mark E. Suino, Michigan
Slavic Contributions, No. 3 (Ann Arbor: Dept. of
Slavic Languages and Literatures, Univ. of Michigan,
1970). One may also consult Mukaiovsky's communication "La norme esthetique," Travaux du IXC Congres
International de Philosophie, 12, Pt. 3, ed. Raymond
Bayer (Paris: Hermann, 1937), 72-79; trans. as "The
Aesthetic Norm," in Structure, Sign, and Function,
pp. 49-56.
11 Mukafovsky, "L'Art comme fait semiologique,"
Actes du Huitierne Congres International du Philosophie a Prague 2-7 Septembre 1934, ed. Emanuel Radl
and Zdenek SmetRaek (Prague: Organizacni komitet
kongresu, 1936), pp. 1065-72. My translation. All
subsequent quotations are also my translations from
this text. Together with Jakobson's lecture "Co je poesie?" Volne smery, 30 (1933-34), 229-39, this is one of
the first attempts at a semiotic theory of art, preceded, to
my knowledge, only by the work of I. A. Richards and
C. K. Ogden, The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of
Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism (London: Kegan Paul, 1923). Both Mukarovsky's

F. W. Galan
and Jakobson's papers can now be found in English:
"Art as Semiotic Fact" and "What Is Poetry?" Semiiotics
of Art: Pirague School Contributions, ed. Ladislav
Matejka and Irwin R. Titunik (Cambridge, Mass.:
MIT Press, 1976), pp. 3-9, 164-75.
The problem of the universality of art is one of the
perennial issues in art theory, and a further discussion
of it would go beyond the scope of this article. Let me
only mention Aristotle's assertion that poetry is more
philosophical and universal than history (Poetics
1451b). For a more recent account see W. K. Wimsatt's survey "The Concrete Universal," The Verbal
Icon: Studies in the Meaning of Poetry (Lexington:
Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1954), pp. 69-83.
11 Mukarovsky, "Polakova Vzniesenost p1iinody. Pokus
o rozbor a v vojove zaradeni basnick6 struktury"
'Polak's Sublimzity of Nature: An Attempt at an Analysis and Historical Classification of a Poetic Structure,'
Kapitoly z ceske poetiky 'Chapters in Czech Poetics,'
in (1934; rpt. Prague: Svoboda, 1948), 166-67. My
translation.
-' The history of the reception of literary works has
been studied by Mukarovskv's pupil Felix Vodicka.
Vodicka's collection of essays, Strulktura iv'oje (Prague:
Odeon, 1969), exists in German as Die Entwicklung
der Struktur, ed. Frank Boldt (Munich: Wilhelm Fink,
1975). See Jurij Striedter's preface, esp. the second part,
"Zu Felix Vodickas Theorie der 'Konkretisation' als Teil
einer strukturalistischen Literaturgeschichte," pp. lixciii, and my essay "Toward a Structural Literary History: The Contribution of Felix Vodicka," Sound, Sign
and Meaning, pp. 456-76.
13 The efforts to solve the problem of change and
identity, of variants and universals, go back at least to
Plato, as witnessed, for instance, by Socrates' queries
in Cratvlus (473e). The dynamic notion of structure as
energeia, capable of preserving its identity even while
individual structural relationships are open to constant

285

regrouping, sets off the Prague School conception from

the more static holistic concepts, such as organic, compositional and Gestalt wholes or configurations. See, in
particular, Mukarovsky's discussion in "Pojem celku v
teorii umeni" (1945), Estetika, 5 (1968), 173-81;trans.
as "The Concept of the Whole in the Theory of Art,"
Structure, Sign, and Function, pp. 70-81.
14 Mukarovsky, "Replika" 'Reply (to my critics),'
Slovo a slovesnost, 1 (1935), 191. My translation.
Mukarovsky's attempt at a "historical analysis of a
poetic structure" became the hub of a heated polemic
regarding structural analysis. One of the participants
was Ren6 Wellek, then a junior member of the Circle.
Out of that debate came the impetus for Wellek's essay
"The Theory of Literary History," Travaux, 6 (1936),
173-92, parts of which were later incorporated into
two chapters of his Theory of Literature, "The Analysis of the Literary Work of Art" and "Literary History"
(New York: Harcourt, 1949), pp. 139-58, 263-82. In
addition, it is worth noting that the concept of "structure of structures" has recently been investigated by
Soviet semioticians from the Tartu group: see B. A.
Uspenskij, V. V. Ivanov, V. N. Toporov, A. M. Pjatigorskij, Ju. M. Lotman, "Theses on the Semiotic Study
of Cultures (as Applied to Slavic Texts)," Structure of
Texts and Semiotics of Culture, ed. Jan van der Eng
and Mojmir Grygar (The Hague: Mouton, 1973), pp.
1-28.
1 See Mukarovskv, "Individuum a literarni vyvoj"
(1943), Studie z estetiky, pp. 226-35; an English version is "The Individual and Literary Development,"
The Word and Verbal Art: Selected Essays by Jan
Mukarovsky, ed. and trans. John Burbank and Peter
Steiner (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1977), pp.
161-79. Also consult Mukarovsky's "Osobnost v
umeni" (1944), Studie z estetiky, pp. 236-44; trans. as
"Personality in Art," Structure, Sign, and Function, pp.
150-68.