Ouroboros

Author(s): Silviano Santiago

Source: MLN, Vol. 86, No. 6, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1971), pp. 790-792
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2907442 .
Accessed: 28/06/2014 17:00

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 790

O
AGO ^
UROBOROS 0 BY SILVIANO SANTI-
doit
". .. une epoque historico-m6taphysique
determinerenfin comme langage la totality
de son horizon problematique."
Jacques Derrida
In the forestof gnosticsymbolsone findsre-presentedthe figure
of a snake, which, when it comes upon open ground, instead of
crawlingahead in eithera straightor sinuous path,stops,and turns
back upon itselfuntil, with its head touching its tail, it formsa
perfectcircle. The ambiguitycomes in determiningwhetherthis
returnto its beginningssignifiesa formof aggression (the bite of
self-punishment)or rather a form of complacency (the body-to-
body contactof narcissism). At any rate, were we to elaborate the
possible meanings of this image such as theywould declare them-
selves to modern eyes, we would see within it the rejection of a
linear in favorof a circularcontinuity: the adventuringinto space
becomes the space of the adventure. This image of the serpent
freelymoving throughthe field only to turn suddenlyback upon
itselfin such a way that the end recuperatesthe beginning (or vice
versa) could well speak to us of the privileged yet precarious
position of linguisticsas it embraces and encompassesthe whole
cycle of westernthoughtso as to postulate itselfas that discipline
which can best account forthe cloturedu savoir with our historico-
metaphysicalage: linguisticshas become in recentyears,to use one
of Greimas' expressions,the " pilot" for all other sciences. Finally
this image speaks to us of the tautologicallabyrinthswithinwhich
are elaborated the most recentof linguistics'stheoreticalpostulates,
postulates apparently liberated from the most repressiveof dis-
courses,the historicaldiscourse,and yet at the same time so ap-
parently enslaved to the most repressed consciousness: that of
methodologicaldogmatism.It is on the fieldof thisparticulargame,
the game of apparent truthsand contradictoryappearances, that
there comes to exist that contemporarycritical discourse which
would present itself as being at one and the same time both

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M L N 791

morphologicaland scientific, both schematicand totalitarian: "...

cettepassion structuraliste qui est a la foisune sortede rage exp6ri-
mentale et un schematismeprolif?rant" (Derrida).
Thus it was that the firstforaysof Saussurian imperialism,the
beliefthatwe would one day be able to structureour understanding
of the sign withinthe fortressof semiotics,were closelyfollowedby
a second, a linguistic imperialism heralded by Roland Barthes'
Elements de Semiologie (1966):
" la linguistiquen'est pas une partie,meme privil6gi6e,de la science
gdnerale des signes, c'est la semiologie qui est une partie de la
linguistique.. .; de la sorteapparaitraitl'unite des recherchesqui
se menent actuellementen anthropologie,en sociologie, en psy-
chanalyseet en stylistiqueautour du concept de signification."
It was in termsof this possibleyetmythicideal of a methodological
unity that it became possible to speak of "structuralism,"trans-
forminga happy adjective into the most fashionableof nouns. It
was in the early works of Levi-Straussthat divergentlines of re-
search seemed at last to convergein a trulybasic, propelling and
unifiedmethodology.In thisatmosphereof theoreticeuphoria (the
implicit precursorof the catastrophe of '68 and its subsequent
cultural chaos) one could believe in the possibilityof formalizing
a theory,a hypotheticaldescriptivemodel, or, as Greimas would
have it, a "narrative grammar" consolidatingand extending the
highly sophisticatedtheoriesof linguistics. Thus it was that the
various theoreticianstryingto defineand describe the major units
of narration put forththe principlesof what they called a "lin-
guistique au deuxieme degr6," a " translinguistique,"or a "lin-
guistique du discours."
If as is clear in his recentlypublished Du Sens, Greimas would
even today insistupon the unlimitedpossibilitiesof those theoreti-
cal propositionsoriginallyset forthin Semantique Structurale;it
is equally importantto point out that Barthes has denied in S/Z
(1970) the very possibilityof elaborating that major narrative
structurehe firstproposed in his earlier "analyse structuraledes
recits" (Communications,No. 8). He has in fact come to see his
past work as the productof a "science in-diffdrente," the image of
the buddhistwho, withhis ecstaticpatience,findsreflectedin a pea
the entirelandscape. It is withinthe boundariesof a single text,a
disentangled text, a broken text, that Barthes centers his new
theoreticalposition:

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 792 M L N

' travaillerun texte unique jusqu'h l'extreme du detail, c'est re-

prendrel'analyse structuraledu recit1hou elle s'estjusqu'h present
arretde.
In reaching this position Bartheswas obliged to put aside his pre-
occupations with the "scientific" aspects of meta-linguisticdis-
course (those aspectsforwhich Greimaswould still presenthimself
as the elected defender) and to choose instead from the formof
commentarythat particularmode of digressionwhich,accordingto
him, is the " formemal integreepar le discoursdu savoir."

The followingfivepapers were presentedat a recentcolloquium

on narrativestructureheld at the State Universityof New York
at Buffaloduring the monthof August 1971. This colloquium was
sponsored by the Linguistics Institute and the Department of
French. We findrepresentedhere various formsof discourseana-
lysisunderstoodin its widest sense: the schematicpresentationof
a narrativegrammar;its application to a particular text; a con-
siderationof the metaphysicalimplicationsof linguisticscoming to
power; the insertionwithinthe French analytictraditionof Anglo-
saxon research; and finallythe reading of one of many domains
within the universe of signs surroundingus and constantlybom-
barding our perception.

SUNY at Buffalo

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