Russian Literature VII(1979) 443-464

@North-Holland Publishing Company

A.A.POTEBNJA AND RUSSIAN SYMBOLISM

WILLEM G.WESTSTEIJN

In an early essay on Brjusov's verse technique

Roman Jakobson writes that the Symbolists have 'canon-
ized Potebnja' (Jakobson 1922:223). However, what ex-
actly this canonization means is not explained.
Statements like Jakobson's may be found in other
works dealing with Russian Symbolism,but in only a few
instances more than casual attention has been paid to
Potebnja's influence on the Russian Symbolists. The
best works in this respect are studies by V.Gofman
(1937) and A.Schmidt (1963). The former concentrates
on Belyj's remarks on Potebnja in the poet's commentary
to the article "Lirika i sksperiment" (Belyj 1910).
The latter shows to what extent Brjusov's theory of
art was indebted to Potebnja.
The aim of this article is to investigate the rela-
tion between the linguistic and literary theories of
Potebnja and the poetic theories of the Russian Sym-
bolist poets. It is my contention that Russian Symbol-
ism has not only been influenced by its French coun-
terpart and by 19th century idealist philosophy (which
has been extensively demonstrated - a.o.Donchin 1958;
West 1970), but also by contemporary linguistic and
literary science., the main representative of which
was A.A.Potebnja.
Potebnja paid much attention to poetics and was
especially interested in the problems of literarylan-
guage and the mutual relations between language and
art. He was, in' fact, one of the first scholars in
history who, with the aid of linguistic methods,
studied this important part of semiotics.
Potebnja belonged to the psychological school of
linguistics, which established itself in Europe in
the middle of the 19th century as a strong reaction
against the naturalistic school, headed by the German
linguist Schleicher. The new school shifted the at-
444 WiZZem G.Weststeijn

tention from rather general cultural-historical defini-

tions to a more concrete description of extant phenom-
ena. There was a growing interest in the individual
and his originality which led to a new scientific fo-
cus : the psychological processes which arise in the
mind of the addresser (speaker, writer) and the ad-
dressee, who both were considered to be creative sub-
jects. As a result a new view of language arose. Lan-
guage was now primarily seen as a medium of expressing
the individuality of the mind. Language was considered
as a process of forming thoughts and therefore as the
most essential expression of the mind. In this respect
stress was laid on the creative potentiality of lan-
guage itself. The ideas on the creativity of language
became an important feature of Symbolist poetics.
Psychological linguistics became the dominating lin-
guistic school during the second half of the 19th cen-
tury , counting, apart from Potebnja, famous scholars
like Steinthal, Wundt, Lazarus, a.o. (In the beginning
of this century the same views can be found in the
works of Croce and Vossler). Although Potebnja was in-
fluenced by them he soon established his own position,
which marks his originality. Owing to its interest in
the processes of the mind, the psychological school
paid on the whole little attention to structural lan-
guage-problems. Potebnja's was a different case.
Sharing the psychologists' preference for problems of
thinking, apperception, etc., he nevertheless did not
lose sight of the importance of the concrete material
and products of ,language: words and texts. Due to his
study of the word, which is characterized by a struc-
tural approach, he may be linked with modern linguis-
tics and literary theory.
One of the main problems which interested Potebnja
and which occupied him during his entire life, was the
relation between thought and language. One of his
first important works,. MysZ' i jazyk (1862) was entire-
ly dedicated to this problem. In this book Potebnja ex-
pressed his views on the creative role of language,
which became one of the corner-stones of his theories.
According to Potebnja
Language is a means, not to express an already formed
thought, but to create thought, it is not the reflection
of an already existing contemplation of the wor'ld, but
an activity which engenders this contemplation.
(Potebnja 1976:171)
Or, as he writes in another place,

Language can only be considered as a means (more exactly,

 A.A,Potebnja and Russian Symbolism 445

a system of means), which changes the mind; it is not

possible to consider it as the expression of an already
formed thought. (Potebnja 1905:27)

At the basis of all thought and knowledge lies lan-

guage: a creative activity, which organizes the mind.
In this conception of language Potebnja is closely
related to the German philosopher and linguist Wilhelm
von Humboldt. Especially in his introduction to the
study of the languages of Java: iiber die Verschieden-
heit des menschzichen Sprachbaus und ihren EinfZusz
auf die geistige EntwickZung des MenschengeschZechts
(18361, Von Humboldt developed a number of ideas which
strongly influenced the Russian scholar.
Von Humboldt stated that language was not to be re-
garded as a dead product (ein Erzeugtes) but, rather,
as production itself (eine Erzeugung) (1880:54). Lan-
guage was not Ergon, but Energeia, a continually re-
peated activity of the mind, which concentrated on ex-
pressing thought by means of articulate sound (1880:
56). Language was the thought-forming organ (das bil-
dende Organ des Gedankens) (1880:64); it did not ex-
press a ready-made truth, but discovered that which
had not previously been made explicit.
In the process of thinking, a role of primary im-
portance is attached to the word (articulate sound).
Thought is fed by the word, writes Potebnja (1976:164);

In the word, man for the first time recognizes his own
thought. (1976:164)
One may not forget, that to think like a human being,
but without words, is only possible by means of the
word, and that a deaf-mute, who has not been in contact
with speaking people <...> stays almost an animal. (1976:161)
A deaf-mute even thinks permanently and not only in
images, as an artist does, but also about abstract
concepts, without articulate sound, but apparently
never attains that perfection of intellectual activity,
which may be reached by those who are able to speak.
(1976:68)
Starting from this conception of language as a cre-
ative activity, Potebnja made a distinction between
practical and poetic language, between scientific and
artistic thinking. This distinction became one of the
essential elements of his theories. In order to under-
stand it clearly, we have to turn to Potebnja's con-
ception of the structure of the word.
As stated above, the word is seen by Potebnja not
446 Willem G.Weststeijn

primarily as an act of communication, but as an act

of creation. As such the word consists of three el-
ements: sound (or a complex of sounds), which is the
external form (vneznjaja forma), the internal form
(vnutrennjaja forma) and meaning (znaEenie) or content
(soderianie). The term 'vnutrennjaja forma' takes up a
very important place in Potebnja's conception of the
word, although nowhere in his works do we find a fully
satisfactory definition of it.
Like other essential elements of his linguistic
theories Potebnja took the term 'vnutrennjaja foxma'
(innere Sprachform) from Wilhelm von Humboldt. As a
matter of fact, 'internal form' was a rather general
notion in early nineteenth century philosophy of lan-
guage (Rousseau, Herder). It had been derived from the
classical idealist philosophers Plato and Plotinus and
from the English Neo-Platonists of the seventeenth
century. According to Gustav Spet (1927), the English
philosopher Shaftesbury may be considered as a link
between Plotinus and German idealism. Plotinus poses
the problem, which also occupied Von Humboldt: how is
the physical, material, in harmony with the immaterial.
For Plotinus, the internal form (to endon eidos) may
be abstracted from the external material mass, it is
an in itself indivisible element, which may be em-
bodied in many phenomena. Shaftesbury uses the notion
of internal form primarily in an aesthetic context
(which Von Humboldt will also do) and connects the in-
ternal form ('the inward form') with the highest level
of beauty (gpet 1927:56). In his book on the internal
form of the word, Spet tries to define the notion of
the internal form as understood by Von Humboldt:
The internal form uses sound to denote objects and to
connect thoughts according to the requirements of
concrete thinking; it uses the external form to express
each possible change in the content [myslimoe predmetnoe
sode&anie], called 'meaning' in such a case, necessari-
ly to such a degree that expression and meaning, in the
concrete reality of their existence in language, do not
only form an indivisible structural unity, but also an
in itself identical sui generis existence (of a social-
cultural type). (gpet 1927:67)

According to Von Humboldt the internal form is the way

in which the meaning is connected with the sound, the
means by which thought is objectivated in language,
it is the connecting link between consciousness and
realization in language, a functional model of intel-
lectual-linguistic relations. In this conception, the
 A.A.Potebnja and Russian SymboZism 447

idea of Plotinus that the internal form may be ab-

stracted from the external form has made place for the
more modern 'structural' view, that internal and ex-
ternal form are inseparately linked together.
As has already been stated, Potebnja's work lacks
a clear definition of internal form. Potebnja rather
tries to characterize the notion of internal form from
different angles.
Investigating the relation between thought and lan-
wage, Potebnja paid much attention to the origin of
language and the first stages of its development. The
genesis of words is, according to Potebnja, a very
complicated process. The first phase might be de-
scribed as a direct utterance of feeling in sound,
e.g. when a child hurts himself and cries "ow!" (vava).
The second phase is the recognition of the sound,when
the child hears this sound from another person and
connects it with the recognition of the pain and the
object which caused the pain. The third phase is the
awareness of thought in sound (soznanie soderzanija
mysli v zvuke), which cannot do without the under-
standing of the sound by others. A word will be formed
from the interjection 'owl, when the child notices
that his mother, after having heard the sound,removes
the object which caused the pain. This first stage in
the development of language, the reflection of feeling
in sound, Potebnja calls onomatopoetic: here for the
first time phenomena of the mind are expressed by
sounds (Potebnja 1976:113-114).
In each language one may find many instances where
the word does not essentially express the entire
thought, but only one of its properties. In the next
stage, the necessity of the direct reflection of
feelings in sound gradually disappears.
The sound, which a human being produces, is perceived
by himself and the image of the sound, which always
follows the image of the object, is associated with it,
With a new apperception of the object or when the
previous apperception is remembered, the image of the
sound is repeated and after that (and not directly, as
in the strictly reflexive movements) appears the sound
itself. (Potebnja 1976:lll)
The image of "stol" [table] may have many properties,
but the word "stol" only means "prostlannoe" (cf. the
same root in "stlat'", "pastel'"
-- - to spread) and it
is for that re=n that the word "stol" may denote all
kinds of tables, independent of their form, size or
material. (Potebnja 1976:114)
 448 WiZZem G.Weststeijn

This property, which dominates all the others, is call-

ed by Potebnja the internal form, or 'the centre of
the image' (1976:146).
According to Potebnja the word has, consequently,
two contents: a subjective and an objective one. The
subjective content may comprise many properties, the
objective, the internal form, only one - it is the
etymologic meaning of the word (blizajzee StimologiEe-
skoe znacenie), the symbol, which substitutes for us
the subjective meaning (1976:114). The internal form
of the word is also the relation which exists between
the contents of thought and cognition; it shows how
man is presented with his own thought. Only in this
way is it possible to explain why many different words
may denote the same object and on the other hand one
word may denote a number of different objects. E.g.:

Thinking of a cloud, people think of one of its prop-

erties: that it may take up water or pour it out and
from this the word "i&a" arises (root "ix" - to drink,
to pour). For that reason the Polish language could
denote by the same word - "tqcza" (where the same root
appears) - a rainbow, which, according to popular belief,
takes up water from an earthen pot. (Potebnja 1976:115)

In another place, Potebnja (1888) stresses the sign-

character of the internal form by calling it sign
(znak) or representation (predstavlenie). A child is
shown for the first time a white lampshade (abaiur)
and is asked: what is this? The child answers:
"arbuiik" (water-melon). Potebnja writes:
Here knowledge arose from naming: something which had
yet to be known was compared to something already known.
The answer means: that what I see resembles a water-
melon. In calling the white glass ball a water-melon,
the child did not think of ascribing to this ball the
green colour of the rind, the red interior, the sweet
taste; meanwhile in thinking of the water-melon as a
fruit .he also included these properties.Only one prop-
erty of the meaning of the former word went into the
new word: the property of sphericity. This property is
the si of the meaning of this word. Here we may de-
T sign also in'another
fine the way: it is that element
which two comparable complicated unities of thought
have in common, or the basis of the comparison, the
tertium comparationis in the word. (1888:5-6)

This tertium comparationis is also called 'representa-

tion' by Potebnja:
 A.A.Potebnja and Russian Symbolism 449

The act of thinking in the word which comes into being

is the comparison of two complexes of thought, that
which we know for the first time (X) and that which we
already knew (A) on the basis of the representation(a)
as the tertium comparationis. As the remembered com-
plexes are always more or less heterogeneous, the word
which comes into being is always figurative [inoskaza-
tel'no] in two respects: in the difference between X
and A and in the difference between a and A. (1905:20)

In defining the word, Potebnja always pointed out the

close relation between sound and meaning. The word is
'externally a unity of sound and internally a unity of
representation and meaning' (1888:25). Both external
and internal unity condition one another, constitute
an inseparable whole. The word is an indissoluble
whole of sound and meaning. The meaning, however,
should be distinguished from the representation, the
way in which the meaning is expressed. Meaning and re-
presentation are not equal: 'the meaning always con-
tains more than the representation' (1905:21). Both
sound and meaning are indispensable elements of the
word, the representation, however, may disappear. The
process may be described as follows: the life of the
word consists in its being used; as a result the
meaning of the word is extended and the discrepancy
between representation and meaning becomes greater;
the property in the representation becomes a less and
less important element among the other properties of
meaning and at last entirely disappears from the image,
'it is not necessary for the further life of the word'
(Potebnja 1888:7; 1905:19-20). The word which has
lost its internal form may of course become the source
of a new word, according to the process which has been
described above (Potebnja 1905;20).
We may say as a .general conclusion that in Poteb-
nja's treatment of the internal form the i.f. is the
element of the word in which the motivated relation
between sound and meaning becomes clear. In the
fusei-thesei opposition (fusei: the relation between
sound and meaning is natural, motivated: thesei: the
relation between sound and meaning is arbitrary, con-
ventional), which has divided scholars and philos-
ophers of language since the ancient Greeks - Plato's
dialogue CratyZus is one of the first enlightening
discussions of the subject - Potebnja clearly belongs
to the fusei-adherents. (Saussure's emphasis on the
arbitrariness of the sign is in part due to the fact
that he reacts against 19th century linguistics,which
owing to the great attention paid to the ,origin of
450 Willem G.Weststeijn

language, was dominated by the fusei-party).

A word which preserves the three elements: sound,
representation (internal form) and meaning is a figu-
rative, poetic word. It is symbolic and realistic at
the same time (Vinogradov 1975:321).
In the word, which represents the unity and the totality
of the image and which is the substitute of the inciden-
tal and variable combinations which form the image, by
means of the constant representation <...> man for the
first time <.. .> acquires a thorough knowledge of the
real object. (Potebnja 1905:68)

A word which has lost its internal form is called a

prosaic word. 'Prosaic is a word, which denotes some-
thing directly, without representation' (Potebnja
1976:155). Such a word, in which the sound is directly
connected with the meaning, is a means to form a con-
cept. The words of a language may be divided into two
categories, figurative and non-figurative (obraznye i
bezebraznye), words which preserved their internal
form and words which lost it at a certain moment.
As a result Potebnja makes a distinction between
two kinds of languages: poetical language, which con-
sists of words with an internal form and prosaic or
scientific language, which is conceptual language.
One of the most interesting parts of Potebnja's
theories (and for our purpose one of the most import-
ant) is the analogy Potebnja makes between the word
and the poetical work. Essentially, Potebnja asserts,
the poetical work is analogous to the word; 'the only
difference between the word and the poetical work con-
sists in the fact that the latter is more complicated'
(1894:132) l

In all probability it was again Von Humboldt who

inspired Potebnja to make the comparison between the
word and the literary work. In Von Humboldt's Intro-
duction we read, after a passage dedicated to the in-
ternal form in language: 'In general, language often,
and especially here, in the deepest and most inexplic-
able part of its methods, reminds us of art' (1880:116).
The bold step to the essential similarity existing be-
tween the word and the poetical work, on the basis of
the presence of the internal form, was, however, made
by Potebnja himself. Moreover, he did not only ascer-
tain this as a fact, but spent a lot of his time in-
vestigating the poetical work as such, which resulted
in his theory of the (necessarily) figurativeness of
the literary work. In his Iz zapisok po teorii sZoves-
nosti, dedicated to the study of the poetical work,
 A.A.Potebnja and Russian SymboZism 451

Potebnja ,clearly states his theoretical starting-

point:

The elements of the word with a living representation

correspond to the elements of the poetical work, be-
cause such a word is in itself a poetical work. The
unity of articulate sound (the external form of the
word) corresponds to the external form of the poetical
work, by which one has to understand not only the
sound, but also the form in general, portentious in
all its compositional parts. <...> Th.e representation
in the word corresponds to the image (or the system of
images) in the poetical work. One may give the poeti-
cal image the same names as the image in the word,
namely: sign, symbol. <.. .> The meaning of the word
corresponds to the meaning of the poetical work, gen-
erally called the idea. <...> The poetical image
serves as a link between external form and meaning.
The image is dependant on the external form. (1905:30)

The three components of the word correspond to three

similar components of the literary work (cf. Fizer
1974:107):
word literary work
external form external form
internal form internal form(system of images)
meaning idea, content

After what has been said above, it is not surpris-

ing that Potebnja's conception of poetry as a form of
art entirely hinges on his conception of the internal
form.
Potebnja contends that poetry (like all art) is
concentrated thought (sgu:Eenie mysli), the ability
to reduce the immense number of phenomena of reality
to a relatively small number of symbolic forms. Art
is a form of economical thinking, which enables people
to see through the complexities of life.
The most general form of human thinking is that when
something requires an explanation, something relatively
new, relatively difficult, - that which we call with a
grammatical term: subject [podlegagEee] - is explained
by a thought, which was already known to us to a cer-
tain degree and which we call predicate [skazuemoe].
(Potebnja 1894:lO)
Poetic language is an activity of the mind. A po-
etical work makes a model of real.ity, by which we
452 WiZlem G.Weststeijn

better understand the phenomena surrounding us. It is

typical, reduces a number of different situations or
aspects of reality to the same denominator. It may do
so thanks to the internal form. Image, internal form,
is an indispensable component of the poetical work.
The life of the poetical work consists in using images.
The image remains relatively fixed, its application
changes every time when it is used in a new way.The image
becomes the predicate to countless subjects. <...> The es-
sence of each literary work resides in the immobility of
the image and the infinite changeability of the content.
< . ..> The highest aim of the poetical work is to general-
ize, to reduce different elements of human life to only a
few formulas. (Lezin 1911:233-234)
What is an image? It is the reproduction of a unique,con-
Crete, individual event, with the power to be a sign, the
substitute of a number of different phenomena.(Lezin1911:400)
Science takes the world apart, in order to bring the el-
ements together into a harmonious system of concepts; ac-
cording as this object is attained, however, it recedes,
the system breaks down by each fact which it cannot take
up and the number of facts may be inexhaustible. Poetry
avoids this unattainable analytical science of the harmony
of the world; in showing this harmony by means of its con-
crete images, which do not need an indefinite number of
perceptions and in substituting the unity of concept for
the unity of representation, it compensates the imperfec-
tion of scientific thought and satisfies man's innate
longing to see everywhere unity and completeness.
(Potebnja 1976:194-195)
The analogy Potebnja makes between the word and the
poetical work is especially relevant for the semiotic
approach to literature and, in fact, all art. Poteb-
nja's discussion of the poetical work shows a deep in-
sight into its sign-character; what he says about the
poetical work as a sign may be easily extended to the
other arts. It is perhaps not unjustified to call Po-
tebnja a semiotician avant la lettre, whose theories
are of great interest for our time as well.

Potebnja and the Symbolist poets.

Potebnja's influence on Russian Symbolism was ex-
plicitly stated by Andrej Belyj in his collection of
essays Simvolizm (1910). On page 575 we read:
The word and poetry are similar <...> in this respect,
that they both consist of an indivisible unity of three
 A.A.Potebnja and Russian Symbolism 453

elements: form, content and internal form, or in our

terminology- Symbolist image [italics mine - W.G.W.]
< . . . > Here Potebnja is nearing the border where the
creed of the Symbolist poetic school already begins;
the Russian Symbolists would endorse the words of the
great Russian scholar: between the one and the others
there are no essential contradictions; it shows that
the Russian Symbolists have a strong basis.

This utterance of Belyj followed a quotation from MysZ'

i jazyk, which I should like to repeat here for the
greater part, as it gives the essence of Potebnja's
theories.
The symbolism of language may apparently be caZZed
its poeticazity. [Italics mine - W.G.W.] <.,.> Poetry
is one of the arts and therefore its relation with
the word has to show the general aspects of language
and art. C.. .> In order to find these aspects we begin
to identify the word and the work of art. <...> In the
word we distinguish: external form, i.e. articulate
sound, content, objectivated by means of sound and in-
ternai! form, or the basic etymologic meaning of the
word, the means by which the content is expressed.
< . ..> Art is the language of the artist and just as by
means of the word it is not possible to convey one's
thoughts to another person, butonemay only awake in him
his own, so it is not possible to convey one's thoughts
to others in a work of art; therefore the contents of
the work of art are no longer developed in the artist,
but in those who understand his work. <...> The art-
ist's merit < . ..> lies in the fact that he, by the
flexibility of the image, by the power of the internal
form, may excite the most diverse contents. <...> One
may not consider the word as an expression of already
formed thought, <...> on the contrary, the word is the
expression of thought only in such a degree as it
serves as a means for its creation; the internal form
< . . . > changes and perfects those elements of percep-
tion, which it meets in the mind.
(Belyj 1910:574-575; Potebnja 1976:174-183)

The notion of the symbolism of language, which finds

its expression in the external form, lies at the core
of Potebnja's linguistic theories. It is equally cru-
cial for the theory of language of the Russian Symbol-
ist poets, which becomes especially clear from their
dualistic attitude to the word. On the one hand this
attitude is negative. Language, the word, is rather a
poor means, unable to give expression to the poet's
 454 WiZZem G.Weststeijn

most inner thoughts and feelings. A good illustration

of this view are the by the Symbolists often quoted
words from TjutEev's poem "Silentium": "A thought
which is uttered is a lie". As soon as the poet tries
to put into words something in his mind, a vision or
a feeling, this necessarily loses much of its essence.
It is the general attitude towards language of the Ro-
mantic poets - the immediate forerunners of the Sym-
bolists - who likewise considered the word an inad-
equate means to express their highly personal thoughts.
On the other hand, however, the Symbolists in many
places stressed the creative power of the word. Words
were not only an impediment, a barrier, they could
also have an important gnoseological function. Andrej
Belyj writes:

Knowledge cannot do-without words. The process of ac-

quiring knowledge is the establishing of a relation-
ship between words which later on are transferred to
objects, corresponding with these words. (1910:429)
The process of giving names to spatial and temporal
phenomena by means of words is a process of conjur-
ation; each word is a conjurement, conjuring the phe-
nomena, I essentially bring them under subjection;
and for this reason a group of words, grammatical or
metaphorical forms, are, essentially, conjurements.
When I call the sound of thunder, which frightens me,
'gram' [thunder], I create a sound which imitates the
thunder (grrr). In creating such a sound I, as it
were, begin to recreate the thunder; the process of
recreating is cognition; in essence I conjure the
thunder. (1910:431)
The creative word builds up the world. (1910:434)
If words did not exist, the world would not exist. (1910:429)

The above sketched dual attitude towards language may

be explained by the fact that the Symbolists distin-
guished two kinds of words. On the one hand there were
dead words, plain, trivial, false, prosaic words,
words which denoted concepts; on the other hand there
were living, creative words - these were the magic,
symbolic, poetic words. This distinction between dead
and living words clearly reflects Potebnja's distinc-
tion between prosaic and poetic language, between
words as concepts and words as creative acts, words
without and words with an internal form. Living lan-
guage is figurative language, it
consists of words which express my logically inexpress-
 A.A.Potebnja and Russian Symbolism 455

ible impression of the objects surrounding me. Living

language is always music of the inexpressible. <...>
It is the expression of the innermost essence of my
nature; and as my nature is nature in general, the word
is the expression of the innermost secrets of nature.
< . . . > Living language is continuous magic; with a suc-
cessfully created word I penetrate deeper into the es-
sence of the phenomena than by the process of analytic
thinking. <... > And for that reason living language is
the condition for the existence of mankind itself: it
is the quintessence of mankind itself. (Belyj 1910:429-431)

Living language, poetic language, stimulates the cre-

ative power:

Poetic language is language in the real sense of the

word; its great significance lies in the fact that it
does not prove anything by means of words; the words
are arranged here in such a way, that their combination
creates an image; the logical meaning of this image is
uncertain, its visual clearness is uncertain too, we
ourselves have to fill up the living language with
knowledge and creativity; the perception of living,
figurative language induces us to creativity, in each
living human being this language calls forth a number
of activities; the recreation of the poetical image is
supplied with new elements [dosozdaetsja] by everybody;
figurative language produces images; each human being
becomes in some degree an artist, when he is hearing
living words. (Belyj 1910:433)

When the living words have done their task - control

of the phenomena of the world surrounding us - they
gradually die and lose the element of conjurement.
Thereupon new words appear, with new meanings, so that
the new elements of reality, which have come into be-
ing, may be named and known. This process of the death
of old words and meanings and the birth of new ones
has been extensively described by Potebnja.
Although Belyj does not express himself in linguis-
tic terms, he means exactly the same as Potebnja does
when he writes:

Living language is a creative activity which is eternal-

ly going on and which creates for us a number of images
and myths; <... > these are a weapon by means of which
we penetrate into the darkness. When the darkness has
been overcome, the images fall apart; and the poetry of
the words disappears; then we identify the words as ab-
stract concepts; <...> then life, deprived of its living
456 Willem G.Weststeijn

words ) becomes madness and chaos for us: space and time
again begin to threaten us; then begins the time of the
so-called degeneration; man sees that the concepts did
not save him; blinded by the approaching disaster, man
desperately begins to conjure the dangers with words,
which are unknown to him; <...> then from under the
rind of the words which had died off a stream of light
of new meanings starts to pulsate, new words are cre-
ated: degeneration changes into healthy barbarism, the
cause of the degeneration is the death of the living
words, the struggle against the degeneration - the cre-
ation of new words. <... > The cult of the word is the
dawn of the renaissance. (1910 : 435-436)

In the above quoted passages from"Magija .sloV Belyj

stresses the existence of two kinds of language (figu-
rative and conceptual) and the cognitive and creative
power of poetic language. The same views can be found
in the theoretical articles of Valerij Brjusov. In
these articles - from Brjusov's early discussions of
Russian Symbolism until his "Sintetika poezii" (1924)
- we are confronted with a number of statements which
clearly reflect the influence of Potebnja. Sometimes
Potebnja is explicitly mentioned, as for example in
the article on the French poet Ren6 Ghil (in Brjusov
1975), whose views on poetry and language had much in
common with those of Potebnja and Brjusov.
Language has a cognitive function:

The word was originally created not for the sake of

communication between people, but to make clear to one-
self one's own thoughts. Primitive man gave an object
a name in order to understand it and know it in future.
(Brjusov 1975:60)
Strictly parallel and analogous to it is the process
of creating a poetical work, artistic poetical cre-
ativity. <...> Art, especially poetry, is a cognitive
act; accordingly the ultimate end of art is the same
as that of science .- cognition. (Brjusov 1975:557)

Science as well as art has the function of understand-

ing the world, but there is a great difference between
scientific knowledge and knowledge acquired by means
of a poetical work. Science and art differ by their
methods.
The method of science is analysis; the method of art -
synthesis. <... > Science tries to explain evexything
analytically. S,cientific knowledge is a system of ana-
 A.A.Potebnja and Russian Symbolism 457

lytic judgements. Contrary to science, art, especially

poetry, uses synthesis as its basic method. A poetical
work is a synthetic judgement or a number of synthetic
judgements; and such a synthesis is each poetical
image. (Brjusov 1975:558-560)

Science is analysis, poetry synthesis. The difference

between the two is a difference of language: science
uses concepts, poetry images:

Science tries to remove from the word all the aspects

of its original figurativeness, applying technical
terms and algebraic formulas. Poetry tries to give back
to the word this figurativeness which is lost, using
'tropes' and 'images'. <...> Originally in language,
in the word, all the three elements did exist: sound,
image, concept. Primitive man directly felt the sound
of the word, perceived its image, was conscious of its
concept. In the course of the development of language
the first two elements tend to die out. Modern man is
not directly susceptible to the sound of the word and
no longer feels its hidden image; the words are be-
coming more and more signs of concepts. Science com-
pletes this process. Poetry, on the other hand, re-
stores the original vitality of all three elements of
the word. <,.. > Science goes from the particular to the
general, from the concrete phenomenon or object, i.e.
from the representation, to the concept. Poetry on the
contrary, takes up particular cases, single facts,
changes concepts into complete representations, i.e. as
it were into concrete phenomena or objects. However,
behind each such a concrete phenomenon, behind each re-
presentation in poetry is hidden some kind of general
situation, some abstract 'truth', axiomatically con-
sidered as something which cannot be doubted, which is
obvious. (Brjusov 1975:561-562)

The last sentence especially is important, because

Brjusov stresses here the basic symbolism of poetry.
Poetry consists of words which have a concrete meaning;
at the same time, however, behind this meaning another
meaning is hidden. The words in poetry are symbols,
which in this respect means that they do not only re-
fer to a concrete phenomenon, but to a 'general truth'
as well.
For all his complex religious and philosophical
ideas there is much in the theoretical work of VjaEe-
slav Ivanov which bears a close resemblance to the
theories of Potebnja.
458 WiZZem G.Weststeijn

Like Potebnja, Ivanov contended that art, especial-

ly poetry, is a means of knowing:

Poetry is perfect knowledge of man and knowledge of the

world through man's cognitive faculty. (Ivanov 1909:350)
The majority of the people of our time agrees that art
is a means of knowing and that the kind of knowledge
which is represented by art is superior to scientific
knowledge. (Ivanov 1916:212)

Ivanov pays much attention to the difference be-

tween the dead, logical, everyday language and the
living, poetical language, the language of Symbolism:
Symbolism seems to be the anticipation of that hypo-
thetical, truly religious period of language, when lan-
guage will consist of two different kinds of languages:
the language pertaining to empirical objects and rela-
tions and the language pertaining to objects and rela-
tions of a different order, which reveals itself in
inner experience - the hieretical language of prophecy.
The first language, at this moment the only one to
which we are used, will be the logical language, the
basic internal form of which is analytic judgement;the
second language, now accidentally mixed with the first
< . . . > will be the mythological language, for which the
'myth' serves as the basic form, the myth, understood
as synthetic judgement. (Ivanov 1916:212)

Poetry has the task to create a new language for the

era of language to come. This creation of a new lan-
guage is essentially the recreation of language in its
early stage.
From where came these new old words? Whence this for-
est of symbols, which are looking at us with familiar,
knowing eyes (as Baudelaire said)? They were from time
out of mind laid down by the people in the mind of its
singers, as certain immemorial forms and categories;
only these were able to comprise each new discern-
ment. (Ivanov 1909:39)
In symbols we again experience the forgotten and lost
state of the mind of the people [narodnoj d&i]. The
work of the poet - and especially of the symbolist poet
- may be called the unconscious sinking into folklore.
(Ivanov 1909:40)

The 'new old words', the symbols, are at another place

called by Ivanov 'words within words' (slovo vnutren-
 A.A.Potebnja and Russian Symbolism 459

nee v slave vnegnem) (1916:155). This definition comes

very close to Potebnja's conception of the poetical
word as a word with an external and an internal form.
The attitude of Ivanov and Potebnja towards the poeti-
cal word is basically the same: the meaning of the po-
etical word is more than the direct, generally accept-
ed, 'conceptual' meaning; in the poetical word another
meaning is hidden, which comes to the fore when the
poet is writing poetry. In other words poetry is al-
ways symboZic, refers to different things at the same
time.
This conception of the word fitted excellently in
Ivanov's idealistic philosophical ideas. Following
Plato and the neo-platonist philosophers, Ivanov dis-
tinguished two worlds: the 'lower' world of the ob-
jects and the 'higher' world of the ideas. As the po-
etical word did not only refer to the empirical world,
but also to the inner, esoteric world, it could become
the mediator between the two worlds, expressing the
parallelism between the phenomenal and the noumenal.

Art expresses the external reality (realia) <...> as

well as the internal and higher reality (realiora).
(Ivanov 1916:134)

It may be clear that on a number of essential points

concerning the structure and function of poetical lan-
guw-e, there is a great similarity between Potebnja's
views and those of the Symbolist poets.'
These essential points may be summarized as follows:
1. Language, especially poetical language, is a cre-
ative act. It has primarily a cognitive function;
it is in the first place a medium of self-knowledge
and knowledge of the world.
2. As there are two kinds of knowledge, there are two
kinds of language.
Scientific knowledge is attained by logical, pro-
saic language., the language of concepts, in which
each word has a definite meaning.
Intuitive knowledge is attained by figurative, po-
etic language, 4n which the -words have a more ex-
tensive mean,ing and may refer to various phenomena.
Science is analysis, poetry synthesis.
3. In the early stages of language all the words were
poetic. Gradually the words lost their figurative-
ness and died (became concepts). Poetry, made up of
living words, recreates as it were this former
stage of language.
4. The prosaic word,is dead, the poetic word lives.
The poetic word is a figurative word, consists of
460 Willem G.Weststeijn

the elements internal form, external form and

meaning, it is a 'word within a word', an image,
or a symbol.
5. The poetical work has the same features as the po-
etical word.
6. By its nature, poetry is symbolic.

Potebnja's connection with Russian Symbolism seems

to be a rather accidental fact. This fact may be as-
signed, however, to some general principles of artis-
tic development. Each period in history has its own
dominant, trend in art; the various branches of artis-
tic performance that partake in this trend correspond
with each other in many aspects', so do the corre-
lated theoretical movements. This also means that ar-
tistic practice and theorizing are brought into cor-
relation. As regards literature and literary theory:
the birth of a new literary school - in accordance
with the dominant trend in art and sometimes setting
a trend - is generally attended by a new development
in the theory of literature. Often one may ascertain
a mutual influence: the new kind of literature gives
rise to a new theory, on the other hand the new theory
stimulates the new literature to be written according
to the principles developed in the theory. As a case
in point may be mentioned Classicist literature and
Classicist rhetorics.
In the time that the Russian Symbolists wrote their
poetry, literary theory was strongly philosophically
oriented. Literature was considered almost exclusively
in its ideological aspect, hardly any attention was
paid to its material. Only the Symbolist poets them-
selves, faced with their creative tasks, sometimes oc-
cupied themselves with the problems of literary lan-
guage. Finding no support in contemporary literary
theory, they turned'to other sources and found an ex-
cellent one in the works of Potebnja. His conception
of the internal form and his ideas about the differ-
ence between poetic and prosaic language were singu-
larly suited to provide for what the Symbolists
lacked: a linguistic basis for their poetical works.
In the study of Russian Symbolism this linguistic
basis has often been overlooked. To my mind, however,
it was an important feature in the development of
Russian Symbolist poetry and may be one of the reasons
of the fecundity of the Symbolist movement in Russia.
This fecundity, of course, runs parallel with Poteb-
nja's stimulating works on linguistics and poetics.
In this respect I should like to make some short
remarks on Potebnja's influence on Russian literary
 A.A.Potebnja and Russian Symbolism 461

theory of the twentieth century. This influence was

not confined to the period of Symbolism: important
elements of his theories were (and still are) taken
over by scholars of various schools. The Formalists,
for instance, adopted Potebnja's idea of the existence
of two different languages, the poetic and the pro-
saic, a distinction which was as crucial for them as
it was for Potebnja. Sk1 ovskij's well-known attack on
Potebnja's idea of the figurativeness of poetic lan-
guage (sklovskij 1919) was based on a misunderstand-
ing: Potebnja did not say that the essence of poetic
language was that it consisted of tropes and metaphors
and could not do without them, as Sklovskij contended.
His argument was that poetic language was basically
symbolic, did not only refer to the things and situ-
ations described, but had a wider reference, trans-
cended these things and situations. In Potebnja's fa-
mous slogan 'Poetry is thinking in images' the word
'thinking' has to be stressed, not only the word
'images' (Laferrisre 1976).
Potebnja's conception of the internal form left its
traces a.0. in the field of stylistics. Polemizing
with V.V.Vinogradov, who ignored the existence of any
relation between style and thought, the scholar A.V.
CiEerin asserted in a recent study that word and
image and composition, composition and idea of
~~~g~~etical work form a unity (??iEerin 1968). This
unity is realized by the internal form. EiEerin gives
a broader definition of the internal form than Poteb-
nja did - it comprises aspects of sound, image and
meaning, nevertheless the influence of the 19th cen-
tury scholar is undeniable.
An interesting parallel may be drawn between the
work of Potebnja and that of Jurij Lotman. Although
Lotman hardly anywhere refers to Potebnja as a direct
source, there are striking similarities between his
theory of art and that of Potebnja. It is beyond the
scope of this article to discuss these similarities
extensively. Suffice it to say that a number of im-
portant aspects of Potebnja's theory of art - art as
a means of knowing, the difference between scientific
(analytic) and artistic (synthetic) thinking,the idea
that poetry existed before prose and prose is derived
from poetry (and not the other way round) - are di-
rectly taken over by Lotman, notably in his first im-
portant theoretical work Lekcii po struktural'noj
poe'tike (1964). In his Struktura chudoLestvennogo
teksta (1970) Lotman repeats Potebnja's equation of
the word with the work of art. The roots of Lotman's
semantic theory may be traced back to Potebnja, in
462 WiZZem G.Weststeijn

whose works a recent investigator saw 'the early for-

mulation of a reception-aesthetic theory as represent-
ed by structuralism and appearing in Lotman's theories
after the introduction of cybernetic categories'
(Lachmann 1977).
Although the interest in Potebnja is growing late-
lY‘ up till now too little attention has been paid to
Potebnja's linguistic, literary and aesthetic theories
and their relation to twentieth century Russian lit-
erature and literary theory. The fact that Potebnja's
theories could be used by different schools is a sign
of their general applicability and makes it all the
more necessary to study them carefully, so that Poteb-
nja's position may be appraised at its true value.

University of Amsterdam
 A.A.Potebnja and Russian Symbolism 463

NOTES

1. For Potebnja's relation with Futurism (especially Chlebnikov)

see my article "Chlebnikov's Language Experiments" (forth-
coming).
2. This most promising part of semiotics begins to be studied
lately, especially by the Russian semioticiaris. An interest-
ing Western study is M.Grygar's "Kubizm i poezija russkogo i
Ees'skcgo avangarda" in: Structure of Texts and Semiotics of
CuZ&ure, The Hague, 1973, which investigates the relation-
ship between Cubist painting and Futurist poetry.

* * *

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