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    Barthes, Historical Discourse

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    7 views9 pages

    Barthes, The Discourse of History

    Uploaded by

    Aaron Marc Perkins
    Barthes, Historical Discourse

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    of 9
    OTHER BOOKS BY ROLAND BARTHES ROLAND BARTHES A Barthes Reader oo Ea The Rustle poe pe of Language ee Translated by Richard Howard (On Racine The Pleasure ofthe Text The Responsibility of Forms Roland Barthes Sade | Fourier! Leyla siz Writing Degree Zero UW) ILL aso WANG + sew york A division of Farrar, Straus and Girows The Discourse of History ‘The formal description of groups of words superior to the sentence (which wil for conveniences sake be called course) {s not of recent date: from Gorgias tothe nineteenth century, inwas the specific objec ofthe old thetorie. Recent developments of linguistic science nonetheless give ita new actuality and new ‘means linguistics of discourse may henceforth be posible by reason ofits effects on literary analysis (whose importance in teaching is familiar t us) it even constiutes one of the frst tasks of semiology. This second linguistics atthe same time that it mus sek out the universals of discourse (f they exis), in the form of units and general rues of combination, must obviously decide if ‘sructural analysis permits retaining the old typology of dit- ‘course if itis indeed legitimate sill to oppose poetic discourse to fictional discourse, fetive narrative to historical. I ison this Jast point that I should like wo offer some reflections: the narration of past event, commonly subject in our culture, since the Greeks, to the sanction of histrial “science,” placed under the imperious warrant of the "eal," justified by principles of “rational” exposton—does this narration differ, infact by some specific feature, by an indubitable pertinence, from imaginary narration as we find it in the epi, the novel, the drama? And i€ this feature—or this pertinence—exiss, in what ste of the discursive system, at what level of the speech-act, must we locate it In order to answer this question, we shal observe het, in a free and by no means exhaustive fashion, the discourse of several great clasical historians, mainly Herodotus, Machiavelli, Bossuet, and Michele. 17 18 Fram History Reali ‘The Disoure of History 139) Aiferent expressions; they can all be reduced, however, tothe indication of a movement of the discourse in relation to its substance, or more precisely throughout this substance, some: ‘hing ik such temporal o locative deities sve ols hence ‘we ave, in relation to the Bow ofthe epeech-ac: immobility (as tie hav said earn), harking back (lia epetr,rpliare da i fale ogo), the return (ma rtornando all ordine nar, dice come ss Ube alt om ds pont, we shal say no mae), the declaration (er are the ather memorable actions he performed during his rein) ‘The shiferof organization raises a notable problem, which we ean only mention here: i is generated by coexistence of, to put it beter, by the conflict of two time spans: the time of the speech act and the time of the material tated, This conflict gives tse to important phenomena of discourse; we shall cite three. The first refers to all the acceleration phenomena of history: an ‘equal number of pages” if such isthe crude measure of time in the speech-act) cover varying laptes of time (ime of the ‘material stated): in Machiaveli’s Histor of Florence, the same measure (a chapter) covers several centuries here and some twenty years there; the closer we come to the historian's own time, the more powerful the presture ofthe speech-act become, and the more history slows down: there is no isachrony-—the result of which i implicitly to auack the linearity of discourse and to reveal a possible “paragrammatiem” of historical speech,* The second phenomenon also suggests, in its way, that the discourse, though materially linea, when confronted with his torical time apparendy determines to explore this time, pro- ducing what we might call zigzag history: thus, with each character who appears in his History, Herodous goes back to theneweomer’s ancestors, then returns tis point of departure, inorder to continue a litle further—and to begin all over again Finally, a third phenomenon of dicourse, and a considerable 1. Speech-act [And first of al, under what conditions i the classical historian led-—or authorized—to designate, in hs discourse, the very ac by which he uters i? In other words, what ae, onthe level of discourse—and no longer oflanguage—the shifters (inthe sense Jakobson has given this word) which assure transition from ¥atement to speech-act (or conversely)? Tt seems that historical discourse involves two regular types of shifters, The 6st ype we might call shifters of litening. This Category has been observed, om the level of language, by JJekobson, under the name timonil and under the Formula ‘GrCHCH besides the event reported (C9), the discourse mentions both dhe act ofthe informant (C*) and the speech of the “writer” who refers to it (C*). This shifter therefore designates all mention of sources, of testimony, all reference to a listening of the historian, collecting an eiealee of his discourse and speaking ic Explicit listening isa choice, for itis possible not to refer to it it relates the historian to the ethnologist who mentions his informant; we therefore find this shifter of listening abundant in such historian-ethnologits as Herodotus. ‘The forms they employ vary from interpolations of the type as Ihave heard, to ‘ou Inowedge, tothe hstrian's present (a tense which attests to the speaker’ intervention) and to any mention ofthe historians personal experience this s Michele's cae, who “listens” tothe History of France stating from a subjective ilumination (he July Revolution of 1830), and accounts for it in his discourse. "The shifter of listening is obviously not pertinent to historical discourse: we find it frequently in conversation and in certain fries of the novel (anecdotes recounted as "heard from” Certain ive informants who are mentioned. "The second type of shifter covers all the declared signs by which the “writer” in this age the historian, organizes his own Uiscourse, revises i, modifies it in the process of expression; in short arranges expic references within it Thisis an important shifter, and the “orgenizer” of discourse can receive many 1 Fotoing J. rineve (Babbin, le mote log ee roman" Cite, ae Ati all eae Jong ted ow Ses neh ai i cm pe of 130 From History t Reality ne, atest to the destructive tle of the sf of ergot in relation to history cone thi oles naguratons tt historia douse, places where the beginning of the a teal sated and the exordim of the speethact ae unted+ The dicoure of history knows, in genera, two forme of inauguration: fst ofall, what me might al the porate emg for it opech i actly a solemn a of foundation, the model ofthis s poetic the sng ofthe poets thus, Jinile Begins his history bya relive appeal Cn the name of Got ‘Almighty e Jehan, Ste defini nae to be writen the ie Of our ly King Loui’, tnd even the soci Losin Blane docs no dian the puijng inet 3 diel does the Srcepion of speech remain—or so cred, let sy: aube {etl amuch more common un, the Preface, achaaceriic ‘peech ace. prospecve when it announces dicourse to come, Srretrspetne when i judges tha dcours (sn the grest Preface wth whih Michelet crowned his tarde Prone once it wan completely writen and in fact publhed). Our review of these unt tends o ngs that the entrance ofthe specerat int historia statements through ifr of rans, ban 96 its gel not so much to pve the hiorian a chance to express his Subject” ao “complicate” histor’ chronicle time by Confronting it with another tine that of dicourse oe a ine Seay ientya poer tin nor the presence ioral aration, of explicespeechat signs tends to"de chronologic” the historical thread and o restore, only a reminnence tra nostalgia comple, prametri, non ner tine whore deep space real the myth ne of the ancient commogonis ito linked by esene tothe speech of the poet or the {Tee cumiu a dcr Sra apt 4 fee ing py pen. ove eel ma ny Stel eof en ne nh nein oe it sono the mon inereing rbiens mf ihe antenna The Discoure of History 131 soothsayer in elec, the shifters of organization attest~if only by certain apparently rational detours—to the historian's pre-

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