Iam 2 litle late to review «book published by Sanson lat yexe (Giulio Herezeg, The Pree tndirect Style in Ialianl* fr this reason ‘hiner a review hut collection of notes and digressions—such as are made in the margin of «book [whence some contradictions) The frst note isnot without some implication of the motifs that will have an insistent development-—in the margin ofthe paragraphs fn these inthe Free Indiect of tht “inintvaleateory” which ‘AI Lombard calls “inBintves of narration” or “historical infin tives" The example here i taken fom L. Da Ponte ‘To labor neh ad dy Focaorcone win doe’ koow how to appreciate, Toba ean or wind, ‘Toeat badly and 0 sep bay ean oat the genera tnd ont want to serve ty ange} “This grammatical form that serves to speak through che speaker— and thus to undergo or accept psychologieal and sociological mod fication hss been what made me at fst fear that n the book of tinverity specialist [would have found with difcuty the real reasons fora grammatical usage anda stylistic procedure tht imply ‘ch 4 maseof conscious and unconscious intentions, ‘Beyond "descriptiveness" of "areative historicity” at Teast eo ‘other functions could infact be glimpsed in such an infinitive. Let 1s call one of them "epi," the other “inchoatve” ‘one listens carefully to, chte is a completely special sense of rormativty in the sound of such an infiniivl category: special in that it doesnt presuppose an adresse but a chorus of addressoes— in short, a chorus listening to and recognizing the experiences from ‘whieh the deduetion ofthe norm i born, Indeed, the chorus is such {sto assume the greatest relevance, tothe detriment ofthe exper fence witnessed. That, che experince that establishes the norms is meaningful only in tht itis choral, shared by a whole category of peopl. (The expression "by a social lass almost slipped out] TE pileup infnitives for normative purposes am not behaving in a stylistically eiferene way from the authors of books of culinary art [ake ewo eggs. "| The rules cat list have the characteristic of ”to ‘rational and in some way defacto instiutionalized absoluteness imply that is, « popular experience which is typical of all the rormativity of provers or work tonge-and sehieh can achieve Some kind of ep quality ‘And so, oo, he infinitive as “inchoative," that, as description of repeated sctions~alwvays beesuse of nommatvity allied to with ‘the absolute certainty of being understood, of exciting sympathetic sentiments in other people who not only have had similar experi ‘ences but who don't even have the posility of thinking fr them Selves of tiferent experiences. These verses cited from Da Pte ate ected ata category of persons who make a kind of philosophical Feeling of reality out oftheir own experience as humble persons 2 servants [to labor, to suffer, to eat badly, and to sleep badly) Iwhol bbtain an absolute understanding—almost asi beause ofan ad {ant preeminent, and fatal given of le. Also inthis inchoative funetion—which expresses actions done, to be done, dane by every- ‘one, dane throughout the centuries, past and future, by does who far always the stme, and who are almost identified with "mem" ‘there ea profound sense ofthe choral and ofthe epi. “The infiniival eategry in the Free Indirect in any case implies a Ihamble and, [would sy, aborsnion ike epi quality: and sot docs not imply onlya simple “reanimation” ofthe speech of a speaker as 4 statistically and above all socially individualized particular Character bat of a typieal speaker, «representative of a whole ategory of speakers, thus of amulieu, even a people... The symp thy of che author in "feanimating” his speech grammatically thus Aloesn' go aut to him, but 0 all hove like him, to his worl Also on the use ofthe past perfect tense, Hercep strikes me a8 being abi dull Peshaps e's ere that its uses sear in comparison with other tenses (lor example in compison with the imperfect, ‘which isthe prinlpal tense of reanimated speech} Nevertheless, ‘snecessaryto keep thisin mind that there are books which eonist ‘entirely of free indiect discourses, That isthe very frequent use of the imperfect implies @ wrternarrator who, ats certain moment, because of a mysterious need for intercommunication with hi character and not less mysterious ned of expressiveness, cess the stylistic condition necessary to make himself the narrator ‘through his charscter above all inthe revivals of che pst andin the bitter or joyous reflections om present condtions—the pursing of meditative thought, of grumbling, of regretting, of reeminating, ‘But there ae cases, repeat in which the weiter renounces being + ‘writernarator from the very beginning and immerses himself in his character immediately narrating everything though isn. Such sn abdieation i technique: hence, in itself insignificant. In fact frviter can use such a procedure fortwo completely opposite tea Sons: (assuming a8 narrator a character who #8 not the author Insel to make what he wants to say Rtiuously objective: for fexample, his particular vision of the world [Grass in the dat, Volponi in Anteo Crocioni®() to ey 10 render really objective the narration of « world objectively different ead in terms of social ‘lass from that ofthe author [the writer in Tommaso Puri and in the Malavogia!\°In the case in which entre books are free indirect discourses, the pase perfect is neviably part of the in fuisti system ofthe character adopted a indirect natiator "Naturally Herczey as gathered his examples from 2 naturalistic: romantic erature and he could do tle else in tly. But the theoretically fundamental fanetion of he past peeect seers clea to me when it ivolves an entire book intended completely as rea fated. And therefore the definitive idlogieato tht derives frm itwhen i's a question ola noel with aphilosophieal or allegorical thesis and the definitive epclzation whens question ofa novel mediating another vital (elas) experience, Al the past perfects of ‘erga are epic” they ate tenses ofa discourse reanimated eal tively in allo is characters, and the “stylistic condition” for sucha Alscoure is expanded to include the whole ook. Such a procedure fame to Verge ae a naturalistic illusion not yet separated from Fomantic regressions in the speakers, fom the romantic myth of the people But it was clear that there was something that presided over both operations belonging to literary ideology, to currents of ae thetic thought. I would say ith Ite oripnalicy, that ie was 2 "aestion unknown to Vergal ofthe presence of class consciousness Inthe history of Mare ‘The reference to Arosto as a source of notable richness ofthe luoe inditect i 4 valuable discovery of Gunther’: Gunther states that he has found around sixty examples inthe Orlando Furoso* Indeed its a rule that Aristo renders the thoughts and oral ex pressions of his erature with the re indirect style, thus becoming the frst modern representative of our construction preceding by 2 century and a haf La Fontaine, retained until then—also by Lerch, Billy Spitzer, and others asthe modern precursor ofthe fee in ‘ect (Thie fee indiece wil then disappear for some centuries and "eemerge only with Manzoni, “more to render the thoughts than the ‘words of others: to create chat is, the Taian tradition of the nnatualisticromantic Free Indirect, strongly nominal and based pon the imperfect snd the present nother words, the lived iit& sgericaL nmscttranasune ‘on ofthe speech of a character prycholopcally, not sociologicaly ‘other—given that in aly socil difference fatally implies a dit ference of speech | ‘Why is there this curious presence ofthe Fre Indirect in Ariosto! (Gurion also because i is Timited. Now the Fee Indirect is one of those phenomena whose presence fora dagnostcian isthe prool of fn idcology that cannot appear only in afew extreme cases but ‘which completely characterizes che entive work. Either it is there or Ieian't. That it does exist sn Aiosto isa fact so historically signif fant and impressive that one cannot be limited to stating it as Ctisity ora eel of merit with respect ro La Fontaine. One sees thac there has been period in lalla society with characteristics ‘which then were repeated in 2 vaster and more stable way a century {nda half lter in France te, ete Tes certain that every Une one has Fre Indirect this implies 2 sacjologcal consciousness, cleat or otherwise, in the author, which ‘cems tome the fundamental and constant characteristic ofthe Fee Indirect. “The phenomenon is hidden within the internal mechanisms of Avistos own language, les narauivezhythm of disengaged “cursus” fd its pros Lexicon, ionising the medieval myth, come to con- tute, with the sublime language of the epic an alternative middle level father than humble) language. The coexistence is not one of tomes there lett a tapi tone next to a comic tone Bu the gical tind the comical are mixed: the synthesis or the antithesis pays in the depth of the language. Only passionate analysis can establish its presene, through extalingustic deductions te. In reality the language of Aristo cannot be broken down the shadings dont have bresks in continuity and dhe form a mysterious continuity be freen feudal an middleclass language, between the language of frm and the language of commerce and banks. In this “emanation* ‘that i the language of Aristo every consciousness is immanent there is no shadow of transcendence, nor is there possibilty of reflection But it clear thatthe ide ofa soeially defined man type was presen in the head of Ariosto: tha twas he himsell, then--cletk, ‘iministrator, possessor of ite hovse, et, ete In the very actin which Aristo thus fulfils his linguistic abase ‘ment and by lowering the language of poetry makes approach the language of prose, he performs a first generic act ofthat operation that is lived linguistic mimesis, He leads the language of an ide alized chivalry inthe language of poctry back to his own ironic and ‘skeptical middleclass Ievel, with its rather limited economic and essential horizon (matked by the usual already classiest pretext) By means of chivalry he protanes poetry itself, he begins that long ‘commit on REE INDIRECT DISCOURSE 8 ‘work of the erosion of humanism that will irish, in our days, with the degeneration into pragmatism, into quelungutsmo, ete, etc The discourse tht Aroatoreanimates i that of himself s middle lass man. The sixty examples collected by Gather ae sat recor able cares, but in elity there sno break in linguistic continuity teteen em and the rest of the poem: they ae dryly grammatical In themselves there is no particular expressive agitation In bor, they are almost uly proofs that establish presence: that of the possibility of the Free Indiect and of the Ideology—constious oF hortha it implies Aristo hae not distinguished his bourgeois ‘characters from each other with psychological characteristics and Seta particulars. The "bourgeois im his poem wa both] ndidual tnd symbolic: in substence, repeat, e himself as a bourgeois, and the occurrence of the bourgeoisie in the various characters was Meal, The play is between high langtage and mide language: an infinite shading, where sociological eonsciousnes s only a power: {ul shadow that throws shade oer the rest and throws int ele the marvelous pla of Arista irony. i. however, would take from Ariosto the preeminence that Gaither, followed by our achola,atributesco him. Ie fre indirect fiseourse| is already there sy Dante. And {limit myself to the Example of Dante in order to follow schlastic habits honesty. Let Us take two eases the very frst tht come to mind: one onthe elite peyehological and social Teel, the other onthe sordid psychological nd social level. One of Contin very beautifl studies, dhe one on the Canto of Francesca” is illuminating isola asi eats the elite level all the language used by Dante in narating the facts of Paolo tnd rancesca, including whet i outside the dect discourse be {eecn quottion marks, s taken fom the come strips of the period IThope that Contint won’ be offended by the boldness ofthe ana fnyh Tt is clea that to our ears sounds lattened out, semancialy, but the Continian seeonstrction doesnt leave doubts: Dante made tse of Linguistic materials belonging to a society, to an elite: slang ‘This he himself certainly didn't us, either ims social circle oras poet. The use is therefore mimetic, and if it isnt a question of an etual mimesis tealized grammatically, iis certainly 2 kind of ‘tnblematie Free Indirect, of which thee isthe stylistic condition, fot the grammatical one which has since become common. It is Tenical, rather, and strifices the expressiveness typical ofthe ree Inneet to the expressiveness deriving ftom the assimilation ofthe linguistic fabric ofthe narrator tothe linguistic fabric of the char terscnot as a technically abnormal means, but as one of many haturl expressive means, eo ss not to distarb the dominant lin {uisticstte of mind, which i very elevated and deprived of irony find sentimentalsmBe esercatenncisourengrone (On the other level we find 2 jargon ofthe underworld, or anyhow cof the sums or ofan area of il ¥epute. Certainly 1 snot Dante, in fis social orhis poetic conten, who ures fourdetter words ot any rate lively Tocutions [rive the Bingen” "make a trumpet out of an ss ete, ete) But in the act in which Dante represents figures of the equivocal world, here, without “living it" he suddenly con- Structs a kindof Fre Inditet, lexical more chan grammatical, and therefore more allusive than present and shouting: always setting it inthe dominant linguisue fabri that would not admit the intra: sions of others eve ete was book written inthe Hist person it fs Dante's book, nce It is an explicitly essay {implies an insittional wold the author's adherence to patticpation in it under the guise—we might call extaiterary— Sr the most sincere and total commitment. The “sociological con- Sclousnes" comes into play here too, a5 Aristo fst ofall in the evolutionary relationship between the high language and the sp ken language, tht is, between the Latin ofthe theological culture fand the Florentine of the communal bourgeoisie. The linguistic ‘Choice isthe fst symptom ofa socal conseience: i i in fat, the Choice ofthe modem world [the communal bourgeoisie) against the ld world (the eleviealwniverslisicl The mimesis of the various possible special languages of Bourgeois language is completely pre Figure inthis ist choice, but, in coniast to Arista, Dante has a ‘ler consciousness of seal eategores whichis profoundly demo- ‘ttl [eh langunge of Francesca, the language ofthe grafters given his probable ascendancy to corporative experiences and their tten- dant social strats. It is impossible to understand certain forms of fee indirect ds ‘course in the lst decades if you do not keep in mind that the ‘middle-clas language [spoken to or three generations ago by only five percent of Italians, and adapted from s literary function to 4 bpuresucratc governmental ane through its use by a nonrevlution fry bourgeoisie of pety Bosss)= has not known how o maintain {te "middleness" and has separated in two directions, one upwards, the other downwards (This has happened) practically chrough a sort ‘of repressive recall toward its parucular nature as literary, and ehus| fundamentally expressive, language. Thee has not been areal ns tuonal culture and therefore @ middle language that could express ie outside of lierature—ae a democratic rs communis omaiuz," Te did aot have a reason to exnt f not for merely pragmatic or pretextual and consequently thetrical purposes. iterate, in shore—feom the time of national unifiation on— has always been elusive, Joong for its own reasons in sell, te, ee, almost ignoring that inthe meantime the language that Entures ad’been only for iteary ws was becoming instrumen talzed and was becoming the spoken language of a natin, So that there is no synchrony betveen the “Talla language” and the tal {an Iteray language alter unifeation. Only alter the Resistance fan one dbsrve an impressive attempt at reunification ofthe «wo Tnnguares, Tm the meantime the constitutional, inevitable factre of the rngulstic mile had produced that scheme of which I spoke [ea er ether exploded upwards ort exploded downwars, leaving the center, tht i the cultural postions almost completely empty, ina graph made of points—up ordown—of expressive stalactites" ‘Up above were symbolist hermetic, and expressionist systemsy the semantic expansion, the development (wih ts baogue verbal function] ofthe suborinsingsteuturation of literary Taian by tmeane of imitations” of “vonies" (thnk of Gadda as the ache ‘rel own below were naturalistic systems, imitations of sub: linguistic o dlaectal speech, vernaclar poetry, et, ee “Gnu now all he analyses carried out on re indirect discourse in teallan remain unsatisfying Because they accepted as axiomatic @ tmidafe ond normal level of spoken ond trary) aan, so that, for xample, the author who chose to imitate dialect would have {Eepured from such a mide level and would have ought co ic is Aitecta, sublinguis, dep archae materials itso’ tru, Instead talmose always happened hat the author who performed this operation of “faking im the deep and on the Towtom® of the language waa the same person who contempo- ‘ancourly performed the prevselyantitheteal operation: that tthe ‘work of supralnguste expressive exaggeration So chat for his incursions, his mimesis nthe lower tat ofthe language in the dalctal or dalectzedsublanguaes, or those spo- er'by special minute cateories of the nation he never departed from the mie line, but fom the igh line and ie was tothe high Tine tat he returned with his boty. "Contaminated ot happen Berwee the low language and the middie language but between the Tow langaage and the high Ian fjuoge"» No one of those who have occupied themselves with fee {rect discourse in Italian has taken ino account such a precious fore of contamination, has taken into account is function—not Simply vivilyng but expressive ata high stylistic eel “Theres ima word, a typeof ree indirect discourse particular to the lant decades of alan iterate in wich the stylistic condition {s'noe crested through functional pretexts (the psychological or8s exer nmr taensTone sociological participation inthe interior word ofthe character] but bythe liking for style Tee this primacy of syle tha, reanimating the speech a oer, causes the material recovered in such a manner toassume an expressive function, And it makes the middle Language ‘explode upwards with maior violence: the incursion downwards thus remaining an episode—-dramatc and seversible, granted—of ‘more complex operative phenomenology. “Thisienot to sy thatthe “sociological consciousness” of which 1 toga to speak concerning the ity Fee lndets of Artost implies Sympathy oy in more ete times, s Manso soi, or ven Cran sci clog ‘Im opesiion co the ea of sympathy” there i lo another of the sti condons" necessary toggerthepammatieal ‘atu of fee indece scours’ that i iony But spect iony— Certainly not the ind that Spitzer scusses a the principal and dhminat sgn of fce lode courte lt aught foe defined father as humoy” gentle and light peso beaut ofthe fll ‘ease humaniy i masts tell pecs in pum et ly the oa pone of departure the tone of wc ofthe pene as the conducting wie ofthe oraioobiguah Bat irony tn ops rent soma dati the “easel mimesis that consis i Stmking" te apesker. So ti iss very ongial potion with rerpect tll he other tadional positions which the author ses tne him nln cae coment loving enact eroded ina exchange fiat anor it ‘ould be nod at wil ay in sore ots freon that tt "ways the charster who lends his language co the auton, but ts tften the contrary In shorts also necessary to ache feeling (fant inthe ferings that erence sy conditions fe tratio obliga. Gada san acetype in this ear ton He often ‘lcs ls haracter in orer to expres heap forte ts ‘lghoe annoys him wth ace or tlkng he doc fis tae tion of her not dominated by an understanding and sympathetic ‘pit which s nevertheless te Jonninant sprtakeuch procedures ito bring oh rom within che hate and soci elements ‘Often sch seandalous ee ndrect coun, de linguistic ‘sympathy which sa bomen rsocal “apathy ismanfested a eplckly politcal plembe: the rch [people of Brecher ‘Groatan sscendancy, for example in texts that stim rome not ye to have attain’ itetary honors, slat in ely) ‘coves 08 UE DIET DISCOURSE Ac this point in the reading of Herczey’s book, that is, atthe dcfinition, concerning Manzon, that the Fre Tadirect ean simply fepraduce the thoughts ofa character and not his word, that ithe twords with which he expresses his thoughts—1 must cbserve coo {eotiously that Hercaeg andthe scholar stylistics whom he ces, ‘witha papal exception made for Spize, impliedly aecepe an on tological phenomenology forthe Fee Indirect, that i the identifi tion or osmosis on any case, the apport of sympathy betwen the tuthor andthe character aif thei Ie experiences were the same. But it seems impossible to me co afm that "reanimating” ‘houghts or "reanimating the particular discourse that expresses ‘hoes though" the same phenomenon. An author ean reanimate ‘houghts and not the words that express them only in a character ‘who has a lest his own upbringing his own age, his own historical Gnd cultural experience: in ther words who Belongs t his world. ‘Then a terrible thing happens that person is united to che author by ‘the substantial fact of belonging to his denloy. "The most odious and intolerable thing even inthe most innocent ‘of bourgeois x that of not knowing how to recognize life expe fences other than his own’ snd of bringing all other life experiences tuck toa substantial analogy with his own Icisa eal ofense that he ives to other men in different social and historical conditions. Even noble, elevated hourgcois writer, who Joost know how to recog fiz the extreme characteristics of psychological diversity of a man ‘howe lle experiences difer from his, and ho, on the conuary believes that he ean make them his by seeking substantial analo- siesalmost as il experiences other than his own werent conceit Sble—perlorme an at tha i the fis step coward cetain manifesta tions ofthe defense of is privileges and even toward acim. la cis ent, he sno longer free but belongs toh las deter there is no discontinvity between him and a police chet o texecutioner in a concentration eam "in the case where otder to Yeanimate the thoughts of his character an author is compelled rantmete his words it means ‘thatthe words of the author and those of the charecter dre mot the sme: the character lives, then, in another linguistic or psvcholog. (al or cultural, or historical srld. He belongs to another social lase-And the author therefore knows the world ofthat social class ‘only through the character and his language ’Am approach of another kind would be oly sociological or scien tif an author would then know the aspects of realty about his Characey, his actual, practical reality relative tothe vest of the ‘ror but be would not know his real reality, smalienable and Unrepeatable in other situations, not even analogous ones. In shor, bis fe experience, his feling about thingsIn the case then where the author reanimates che pute and simple thoughts of his protagonist on the page, vivfying them in some way, Ihe makes an “interior monologue,” grammatially and stylistically. But if the words of the character aren't there along with the ‘oughts there are two possibilities: either dhe author makes us of the chatictcr as mechanical devies, uansforming the character lato an abjctfed form of himsell and so the interior monologue ‘thus organized sa forthright and sincere “subjective,” or the author achieves a horrendous mystifcation,atuibuting his own language nd his own malty to characters diferent from himsel on his ‘wn social level, or evento characters belonging to another social ‘lass, And since such an author is naturally bourgeois, he this Schieves an unconscious and seditious identification ofthe whole ‘world with the bourgeois world, and his character is nothing mowe than dhe concretion of his own ideological state, which makes any other unthinkable (in the natural presumption af his own supe oriey, ‘D’Annunzio conceives of interior monologues only in superior characters, and in this he is honest. Post-D’Annuncian bourgeois ‘writers find ways of objectification in rearimating thoughts but ‘not words—dhrowgh sentimentalism or moraism that i, through + more of less conscious hypocrisy Herczeg cites Pirandello and ‘Gicopnani almost exclusively his seudy ay typical examples ofthe Taian twentieth century (although in reality they are eccentric: further, chere was lite else to choose, piven, inthis historical period, the prevalence of the st person, which, hy means of the Fighest linguistic choices, was placed atthe center ofthe bourgeois universe a the site of intriority, andthe prevailing in short, of the langage of poetry” even in prose texts. But sn the more recent writers of the twentieth century in aly (lat, f the mythic case of ‘erga is excluded for beter or worse, class consciousness was added to the assimilation of all the world eo the bourgeois world performed by the weiter (tbe interpreted asthe other side ofthe assimilation Imposed on terry products by bourreois society). By this time Pirandello and Cicognani ean no longer ignore, literally, thatthe characters who ate their spokesmen—or the object of their ‘ostalgis~belong to the petite bourgeoisie: therfore in "eanimat- ing’ their thoughts, by means ofthe grammatical form of the Free Indirect, they must stylistically adopt a certain amount of ex pressive vivacigy of quotations of middle-level spoken language, te, ete Bu all that ie omy an aii to mask the terible subjective functionality of the character: badly ideological or pectdo- problematic n Pirandello, nostalgic in Cicognant, “There is thus a breakin continuity between the “interior mono logue” andthe “fee indirect discourse,” although, in great pat, hey cons on rae ep macrDHsCOUNSE 89 earrica nnmciswtrEnaTURe 1k As infinitely more expressive and ionic and less pictorial however its violence 1s more chilling because i¢ also denis itself {like someone condemned to death who takes his life before being ‘executed "Ae grammatical clement ofthe Free Indice, che pop element — snstntancous, inarticulate unique and univocal, monolithie—is an fconoclastic presence. It isn't taken out of sympathy by the “speaker”, to put t beter in the cae of painting, bythe "user ‘os sed with the same apocalyptic, obigciveindilerence with nich cultured material is ed. A rene a beach, i effected vo Tently and brutally on sch culkured material, om it the other ‘material erupts which makes up the objectivity, the real texture of thinge-—which escaped the intellectual poct and also in lage part, fscaped many ie has become mechanical in its use by the masses of Speakers and users, who are no Tonge the makers of history but the products of history Tn short, he language ino longer that ofthe character, but that of the reader! The teation of s random fragment of such language — ‘which is exceptional with tespect to the work, which was tad onallyadrerscd to public of characters, by and large the same ‘chactes of book or ofa panting, as long as the world was one, ‘thats, dominated by a humanistic dea of reality—dhus sounds ke fn iconoclastic contradiction Urough its own presence, which is Scandalous tothe reader because he feels himsell putin font of his true realty*+ This reality is absurd then, because it belongs more forthe future than tothe present The “innocent” masses, since they fate deprived of critical tes with the past, secepe such a fotre ‘withont defenses, and they already prefizre ie in their way of if Bue the mimetic iellectal, who reaimates this new way of fein fhe work, is only eapable of grasping its distressing and riiculous epee (ith respect tothe past, to which he is stil ted ertically He docan now how to grasp the shadings and the complications lin wich fe i eally re-created but he only knows how to grasp raked syntagims, the unequivocal and treble pop obec. "The mimetic intellectual, generally speaking, then, could at one time renounce his own language and reanimate the speech of a ‘ther provided that this other was a contemporary or beter, rch better prehistoric with respec 0 him fhe most beatial mimeses of the Fee Indirect are those oftheir own bourgeois or petit-bour- feos fathers of a preceding mythic generation, or those in dialect Bat now, because of am anguish that is made bearable only if tis pocalypecally ionic, = in pop aft he cannot adopt the linguistic Imodes of whoever is farther ahead of him in istry; that ts, for ‘cxample, the innocent and standardized masses of society In an ‘advanced neocapitalistic phase So cha it can ceraily be said that ‘COMMENTS ON REE INDIRECT DISCOURSE 9 the intellectual is by this time represented indisriminately and fecesaaily a a traditionalist Even the avant-garde movements ae ttaitionalisti with respect tothe tre reality thats aleady beyond the threshold of the future, a Teast potent “There ge sso some elements of the lived op discourse in the Italian avantgarde movements. Once abolished by the most ox teemist nonideolopcal colons, every possible Iterary tradition, Inluing the most recent [inasmuch at slays in some sense cre- pusculat, entimental—read:populistic—sesthetieising ete, te) Up to the negation of ll htersure—the poriblity of communica {ng by means of some writen object om the one and as become extremely restricted, since itis limited by an infinity of normative fegations which are not devoid of moralsm. On the other hand, it hha become extremely new. “The page as become intensely and madly substantival, withthe supremacy of combinations of the lexicon inthe most purely and ‘scandalously monosemie stat posible—if every syntactical move rent always risks presenting itself asa literary movement, pre Figured by tradition. To abolish terature and tration as forms of a inauthentic establishment iis clear that every stylistic decorum has tobe abolished fst and then, even syntax: tht it has not then been disintegrated or rendered shorn hy illegal wage in sm, I some way made iconoclastic but, precisely, completely abolished "The text ie thus presented as a "written thing” oust of every syntactic wrapping this text therfore completely set out on one "ingle plane, lke the strokes drawn by children of the writing of primitives, Dilferen planes are created arically with the help of "ypographic means and with the various combinations af cht in rit series of rubataniven that are words ouside of synax "This writing is presented as if Uberated, practically outside of fe calelaton, from the series of forces whose equ tem, a6 the equilibrium among the physical forces holds the Universe together, Those innumerable ores tha pl or push nal Alvectons te, ina manner of speaking. the surviving “poles” yes, precisely by means of wadition, whichis a series of moments of fvercoming, above and eyond acgations: ond as such, beyond tovder, itis also chaos. Syntax isthe feproduction ofthe order and the chaos of linguistic history the discovery of ll the pales, whose force of attraction and repulsion holds togethers syntactic prio, ‘would be the reconstruction of al history ete, ete) Tn the moment in which a writer renounees the present and contemporaneous concretions of historical tradition, he must fast, ofall perform simplification: that i, 2 reduction ofthe poles chathold opether his thing," which, ifs ont syntactic, s nevertheless written, and thus possesses a any rate nexes—if only mechanical fnes—that make # totality out ofthe single monosemes. Without sch forces in equilibrium the written thing would be dissolved ‘entrifualy bythe fore of negation alone “Ta sibetitute the incalculable numberof poles that wadition of fers fr a linguistic system through syntax as ahistorical institu tion-both evolved and fixed al its preceding fxatons—ahe writ fers of new linguistic systems oaly have two “poles apart from {hoes surviving inspite of themsel¥es, n a elementary way inthe lexicon, in the semantemes--however dissocated—in the fagmen tation of the nounradjecive, subweantiveverD relationships, ete, ‘te One pole is, precisely, negation, andthe oder isthe myth of the fueure! their writen things are presented as nonhistrial, and, together, ae symbole ofan immediate future history. {a this patcular linguistic case, f we aren't deceiving ourselves, negation fea negation ofthe osmosis with Latin and the myths the ‘yth of technological osmosis. In a word, man is understood in his prefiguration as homo techmologcus" the classiciom of Latin ies {fata product of the myth, even supposing that's secondary ‘one, every mythciation can only be presented as subeantaly lasses) ‘On the basis ofthe negation of social and linguistic values ofthe past end ofthe present i implanted a kindof "mimesis of values of the future, but naturals, very simplistically—pven that every com pleation and profundity is assured toa new cology by Hes contact With the iaflaice ieolopes ofthe path, inthe ease ofthese Vrritten “things,” the ambition of total innovation and dhe rejection tthe past make the ideological “poles” which hold them together hhave an almost intanile roughness. However, these values ofthe eure ae sen through thelr mythicizauon: they ate certainly not foreseen through the sways demthicising methodology of science, for atleast ofthe real desite for knowledge. can therefore be sid that perhaps in part outside oftheir intentions —but certainly in keeping with the morslisicncgative violence of thelr nor mativity—et leat the quarters of the number of their texts de prved of depth [even Sangulnet i completely frontal and ft lke a ‘coelaticnt| ae an abnormal form of re indiect discourse “That i to say, they write “speaking through the voce of -.” and the voice is that of a mythic "bom technologicus” who, lke an upside-down hero, based om the negation ofall that i pss and present, and atthe same time offer the posibility of ersay new polysemias, substituting itself for history in @ surepitious and ered forecast of history "A possible new *sylistic condition” for the Free Indirect, then, is the hypothesis of future world and of a future enguage—oehone Slenufc and logcal condition vill never be rlahle~-while a eet tain degice of reliably can be reached through some form of ‘oti’ in our case a kind of “already experienced discourse” ‘The language spoken by the hypathetial “homo technologicus” and slready experienced by the avantgarde movements 1s based Shove all dn the negation ofthe current language: ie i expressed {through an arbitrary and spprosimate destruction a fortior” the real decline of a language being unforeseeable: therefore a kind of ‘symbolic destruction of language takes place through a transforma ‘om of language into echolalia, But how' By substieuing for "liter ary figures that vaguely maintain their more recent hermetic ‘cxpressionistie physiognomy, analogous figures (meters, ty Posraphic aspects, ete} made with casual, iconoclastic materia But and here is the point, this materials sometimes taken in bulk, 2 in pop at, from technical systems of a world 0 contemporary as to tespass on the futur: for example, if you wil jom journalistic systems of mass diffusion exactly antithetical tothe classical fultural communication of the elite, ete—and, for example, ‘hough che manipulation of elecuonic machine (as Bastin has Alone ima significant way] The result isthe simultaneous presence ofa ficcitiously destroyed language anda fetisously reconstructed language inthe “already experienced discourse in a wor, it's. a qestion ofa hypothesis that is ofa procedure that | de complete reverse of seientifc procedures Tn shor, there isso in the avant-garde movements of the sixes that kind of scientific naivete that used to characterize certain vane garde movements ofthe beginning of the eeneuy: but wile the futurists, for example, exalted science as the product of bout {roi sciety—-whose mean and conservative part they condemned, ‘but with whose aristocratic and dynamic part they idenaiied—the sant gatdists of today, I would say, mythieze science as applied Science, and, as sich, as the modifier of society precisely in 8 Palingenetic sense In the avant-garde movement! collages and in thr levial and typographic combinations without shadows and ‘kepehs the mimesis ofthe spoken language of coming man, “re deemed” by practical seience uns a a unitary clement In sum: the traditional language, which we ean have arrive up toa point almost contemporary with us writers] isa language A, that | trish--per absurdum’—to eonsider slong with the avant-garde movements as having fallen by the wayside. This almost corre6 ene ricas anrmcsowtrenarons sponds to approximately the fist years ofthe sates, a moment in ‘which the presence of Italy on a worldwide level of neocapitalisue ‘rolution was retoundingly demonstrated luhe North of tly: the South remaining implied in all that, fom new types of infeasteue tures ofthe base and anew typeof urbanism —for example, in Turin ‘immigrants no Tonge lear the Turinese dialect of the workers of Fiat but their dalectized and techncized italian} Such a phenom- ‘enon has involved a diachrony between writers and seas. The target has begun to move under their lingulstlc sights and excaped them. I could give ifiite concrete example of this “decadence” of language A: [il give eee of them. ‘Bassani had in his very precise gold sights, similar to those ofa watchmaker ina fable the world of the Jewish profesional petite ‘bourgeoisie of Ferrara. He invented this word, setting out from an actual social reality, using classical Free Indieets wich the samme pathetic care with which he eied classical allocutions, clattcal Texical modes, very parenthetical forms of classial syntax at- tmibuted by hie nostalgia to an ideal cultivated sete, anda though retaicted— infinitely worthy of respect and mythie fervor [the rod of the walls, the vistas of rockstreven street, et, ete, are figurative clement that have the absoloteness of much seat pai ing by minor figures, ete, ete). Moreover, the frequent eitations of “spoken language” stribted objectively to grandathers who ae profesional and to affited fathers make of Bassani Ferraese book a continuous network of flashing indicts, contained within fhe brie citeut of 4 elation of spoken language that cbsesively ‘nersects with the fabric ofthe book (with is normal moments of 3 traditionally reanimated discourse, etc, ete Well. The world which [Basan is referring wo, and which furnished the reality fr his myth, 4s gone A new type of bourgeoisie, probably in this very Feat, bas pushed che Bassunian world back and tothe edges thi new bo {eoisie} has brought about its fll by making it outdated, and in Some way in the most extreme case, by ridiculing it ke al the hing that begin to curs yellow (aroun the edges). ‘Certainly the bourgeoisie described by Bassani continues to exe: ‘tion’ extinct But iis found in the backward area of society and ‘nce the "erelation and consumption of ideas” Is very rapid in our time, delays immediately become irreparable, “The Roman "generone,"™ 109, the equivalent of che commer and professional bourgeoisie of Ferrara emanating from the hear of ‘an idealized but in reality ferocious nineteenth century will pre- Sumably have a very slow death agony. Nevertheless, for anyone ‘who looks a things without pity, a feof what is and what is hot curren, the "generone” ir out of bounds Like the abealtely ‘honest and Hanaet lke Ferrarese profesionals, che ft and eynical covers on rus MEET DHCOURSE ” [Roman businessmen have become, in the space of a few yeas, {Characters in costume, The topicality af he relerences to this wold, {4 problem in some way alive inthe Rallan mosaie, as an object of ecutaton, ee, ete, effected by Moravia i some of his narratives, no longer exists. Interest has been shifted completely to another type of bopgeaise whose personal characteristics are read much better in Books of Americin sociology than in the “outo-date” fantasy of Taian writers “Tne thizd example is personal, That very lige section of Italian society which comprises the eubproletanat (Roman, in this pat ticular care, but ideally inchoding bod that of the capitals of the ‘South and that of the rural South) which was the object of such a ‘burning interest inthe fifties, now, although none ofits problems has ben resolved, and its condition of ue ae practically the sme, {sno longer of interest. And aot or shabby reasons, fora Jeliium of topicality ut beease interest has shifted for such an objective and Impressive mas of historical and social reasons toward other prob Tem (those ofthe compete sndustalization of lly, in evotion| toward high neocapitaliste levels, and toward the dream of tech Inoetacy on the way to being realized) tha itis natural that all the ‘ther probleme fll ff and appeat wo be archaic In the most diverse modes all these aspects of reality have been ‘expested by means of language A. The passing of those aspects i the passing ofan era and thus the passing ofthat language—since every Language is always a metaphor for an epoch of history and of Society, ete, te, “The rearons forthe “zero moment” of the Haan avant-garde movements have an sr which isso slightly archaic and which slightly embarrasses whoever, ke me, is convinced that the new vancgarde movements are something very different from the lvantgarde movements of the begining ofthe century The "ze moment" understood as a metaphysical esis, ab a persona-collec tive “dabiela" ete, et, eobe explored and resolved inthe darkness ofthe conscenee, resorting to anarchic and iratior logical and soctopsyehologeal apparatuses and implying 2“ fom scratch” of vaguely Rimbaudian ancestry whose formulas are ‘here, already prepared, extremely and boldly alive—they” cause the ‘lefiniion ‘of that "zero moment” to turn out co be profoundly fevertheles, the hypothesis ofthe death of language A ean be accepted. “Though the operations that { ave described in che preceding paragraph the avant-garde movements thus postulate the reality of “te sone amd epee8 vasercatesrncraeranarone language B. They postulates; they do not ensure i They work unsientfcally on such « hypothesis, and such a linguistic hypot fess ase ona myth iis the precise duty of wete to preigure 3 future society whose aspects are in some way foreseable and ‘which functions otherwise for an anthropologist This idea of the “uty to preRgure” i the Jansenst normatsity of hove avane aed _g20ups, their moral blackmail. And this monstrous form of ethics of commitment” isnot without some logic eis eles that langage ‘Aha fallen by the wayside, exhausting its function as metaphor 8 Tanguage B mst exist snd there remains noting ele fora writer dd but to seek to lear it, even if learning it means in some way Ihaving to guess chrough the implication of a mythic idea of the facure (ef once again the preceding paragraph) ‘Reality however, is something else. The teal problem is no longer 4 language A which, in the most extreme ease, has fallen by the ‘wayside and Is not even a language B lproposed insincerely 10 resolve a conventionl and Sctitius “sero moment’) The rel prob. lemisa language X, which isno other than the language inthe act, ‘of really becoming 1 language B. In other words Weis our own language in evolution, cough phases which are dramatic and dif- tule te analyze and that, being im an acute moment of ts evolution, ‘sin chaotic movement and therefore escapes every posible beer ‘ation, therewith being the perfect metaphor of 2 society that is ‘rolving at a velocity never known untl now, aot even in moments fof the most dificult tanstions or rises. The "sero moment” is ‘objectively constituted by ths “rapidity and unvecognzablity of the movement of society in evolution”: that perhaps only so lologists succeed in grasping through states but nevertheless ‘without giving them the concreteness that isa complication (and ‘he caly moment ofthe avantgarde movements that sin some way Sclentfic is the knowledge of such sociological surveys). ‘To have thus le the problem back to its sill most elementary entific terms is on my pare an abstract operation, fis trie that or ‘linguistic observer there can oaly be a “language in evolution [and ‘ot two languages, one dead and one future} to which che means af Iinguistic difusion—newspapers, radio, television, ete—impart 4 velocity with which linguist, im their bus.® cannot keep up and that, moreover, they have never experienced, adi is true thatthe sero moment” is nothing more than the anxious projection within ou eanscousness of [numerically very high] moment ofa reality that n its evolution, escapes us But all these are observations tht imply a single, moreover obvious fact: the only possible positon in the presence ofthe evolution of# society and oft language i the Seientic one. Now lthough it may be doubted thatthe weiter isa ‘Comin on REE INDIRECT DISCOURSE » Scientist, and it may, on the contrary, be sustained that~all eld — {he frees of anguish prevail im him over those of feaSo, one cannot ‘deny thatthe eologial unity fan Ttalian waiter st the dawe of the ‘ints is assured bythe fundementalsclentifeness which consists fof hie Marxist analysis of reality. Thus itis precisely within the “phere ofthis Marastanalysis—in evolution with respect to those ‘bvious bik so poetic analyses ofthe flties—that the presence of fanother type of Tree Indirect appears: the attempt to make the technologieal langage ofthe new typeof workers and bosses ft into the language ofthe writer. Chaplin in Modern Times [2936] made a model-demythcization ‘of homo technologicus," opposing himsel tot sn the only way that fppeats possible, that i a survivor of a preindustrial human Having entered into a factory Chapin contradicted technology (and thus made i become part of his inguisticexpressive word since ha, surviving from anether civilization and conserving ts custom sadly and comically emphasized the inexpressiveness ofthe word of technology “Te stylistic technique of Modern Times, in my opinion, has not bbe surpassed. Theoretically it could be sid that such «contradic ‘hom (the expressiveness of Chapin against the inexpressivenes of the machines) should be ideologized today by presenting the ex pressive man no longer a survival but as evolution: i has been (a Imanvial would say) the point of view ofthe wosker—elaborated and Complicated so fat as we are concerned, bythe writer—who has projected into reality demyatifying it, he capitalistic industriaize ton of ehe word. Soe should stil be che pent of view of the worker fo demsiy techniciation, ‘Rut meanwhile te ugent to note that if freedom is manifested ‘only partially inthe capitalistic word, chanks to the diveriey a is Ievel the coexistence of archaic forms of hfe of underdeveloped rebions and nations, ete) the technicizaon vill be definitively Teveling® indeed, aleady appears substantially as potential level- sng So that the language and eleoe ofthe tecnoerat already tend tobe the language and culture ofthe worker In other words so long fs the technological vocabulary is only one of many specialized Jargons of language, the other pars of the language tranquil a)oy their partial feedom lfor example, in The Chote Mender of ‘Otten, the technological argon ofthe bosses is treated precisely as ‘a particulaiste jargon according to Chaplin’ stylistic procedure" However, when an entre language is “assimilated and modified” by the language of technology presumably the phenomenon that today Is only verified inside a factory willbe re-created in all aspects ofsociale: the identification ofthe language of the technocrat with the language ofthe worker, and the subsequent suppression ofthe _margin of fredom asaured by the varios Linguistic levels. Tam not aware, in fac, thatthe interior discourse ofa worker has been “reanimated” with his language asthe specific Tanguage of the ‘worker In literary works dedicated tothe study of the workings "Stuaton atthe beginning of the technological er, the protagonist, the worker, always finished by being dawn away from the factory and being substantially "reanimatedin some other moment of his ‘iy: for example: (1) fn his privat, familiar, daily fe (due most recalcitrant, presumably, #0 possible osmosis with technological language, (fin a state of sympathy with the life of the author through various forms of neurons-albee allegorical (Albino Salus fa. of the Memorial of Vlponi}® (3) n atypically workings Situation with all the working lass, apocalyptic, and redemptive fxaphases this involves that i, in other linguistic moments, how ‘ver strictly typical ofthe work the national commoa language of polieal speeches, che lterary language of commitment, of the Tanguage ofa working class union situation, and this isthe ease of sreatest sigifieance inthe attempt to make the worker speak in his| ‘own langage "Now I would say that the deep reason for this “impossibility of fenitaton® i precisely the potential identification ofthe language of the worker wih the language ofthe factory. An impossibility that is presented asthe prefigurer of future linguistic situations, consider bly more serious than those pertaining to the world of terary Unga. aeema thon cnn mak” the coy seth explo is language, find # margin of feedom ther, reanimate i ‘This isthe problem Notes +. Lo aie nz Her in teliano Plerence, 1963) cad nr das ener ade de rane sli cs dhe pening nes of Lepore’ aia nthe it at of 1. Se "New Linguist Questions" n. 19, or #dscusslon of dhe ver Petal ees ooo fictive protagonists, Osea Matzeath in Cntr Crates avel Di lechocmmel |The Tit Dram toa and Anteo Croco {i'soloolpon's Lamaccips men dle The Weld Machine 196) Boek "outsider igure, Matecrath aa dat and Cross as Yonary whose ‘sso techtolgia solution to world problems dextoy “tomas Posi the tm Swelling poaponr of Fssin's owe Une vitavolentr A Violent Lie 1959) the Mlavogla are the Sleian fay of rg mot famous novel / Malo) tanlated 8 The lust dere ed ee wi ferner Cane, Potieme der Rededrtellong: Untersuchungen surlinehten inicicn und “eben” ade tm Deutch, Hanson tin aennschen (Marbar 938 1 See" Amie Gorn, fr gualunqusma 4 Ganpance Contin “Danie swe pefnagaa oct dlla Com snelia orlant ele lingeisics Tare soya 9p sess So, Padeane rapsated hea hos” shh hated and polled ‘word sfenng othe explojsie cae of employe ad ropitrs Poli Goes ti ap in deal ime Linguist uesions,” mers See ineducion, rp xvii, for 4 dscusion of Palin's use of Ti La Cotas (t9s7h, tanaated at Two Women, Recon romani ea anil Run she Ca ein of ate rergTie istic Taslnan sentence in which «long isereuptie miitcconcig cfs namie of shor unt mest ifeul ll oe ‘Sow The main nae atcte hat slope the “pop Tange olin i lscaetng confronts the reader ith own realty and thee foe "scatalize’ hi Sud fragment emai ol tus it te ‘wove ss whe and ae the canola In the mde ofthe sentence ‘hsoliatdchrbe the coasting remader comliion of carl [my bes the humana perspective, i wick bammony obtsned be teen the wold the reader nd the wold othe artwork. 1s; Nie or the ne Rt no the Sec l the ine TE slings compataon between the bus ac the mage med he selond toe wwe spect snd difnion cannot ke mated By he fs ‘Baga he ipa ag allt the coe ensue ‘ren to keep up with changes, 1. Bs pier an example of such jtgon sa The ChairMender in “Nei Linge Guestonss pete Ata Ss emcee by Pati in Mew Linge ee