The Flesh of Words: The Politics of Writing

93 Pages·2004·22.58 MB·English

by  Jacques Ranciere

The Flesh of Words
THE POLITICS OF WRITING
Jacques Ranciere
TRANSLATED BY
Charlotte Mandell

.pia
PHILOSOPHY POLITICAL THEORY AESTHETICS
Judith Butler and Frederick M Dolan
EDITORS
The Flesh of Words
THE POLITICS OF WRITING
Jacques Ranciere
Translated by Charlotte Mandell
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
Contents
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
This book has been published with the assistance of the
French Ministry of Culture-National Center for the Book.
No part of this book may bereproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any
Translator's Note
information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of lX
Stanford University Press.
English translation ©2004 by the Board ofTrustees ofthe
Leland Stanford Junior Universiry. All rights reserved. The Excursions of theWord
TheFleshofWordswas originally published in French in1998under the title
I.The Politics of the Poem
achair desmots:Politiques dei'ecriture ©1998,Editions Galilee.
1. From Wordsworth toMandelstam: The Transports
Printed inthe United States ofAmerica
on acid-free, archival-quality paper. ofLiberty 9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 2. Rimbaud: Voicesand Bodies 41
Ranciere, Jacques.
II. Theologies ofthe Novel
[Chair des mots. English]
The flesh ofwords: the politics of writing IJacques Ranciere , 1. The Body of the Letter: Bible,Epic, Novel 71
translated by Charlotte Mandell.
p. ern. - (Aropia) 2. Balzacand the Island of the Book 94
Includes bibliographical references. 3. Proust: War,Truth, Book II3
ISBN0-8047-4078-x (pbk :aile paper)
ISBN0-8047-4069-0 (cloth: alk. paper)
III. The Literature of the Philosophers
I. Literature-History and criticism. 1. Tide. Il. Series: Atopia
(Stanford, Calif.) 1. Althusser, Don Quixote, and the Stage of theText 129
PN513.R36132004 2. Deleuze, Bartleby, and the Literary Formula 146
809-DC22
2003025734
Original Printing 2004
Sources
Last figure below indicates year of this printing: 165
J3 12 II IO 09 08 07 NOles 166
'IYI'('\('I hyTirn Il.oh,·nsin 1I/1/11\dohc Cnrnrnond
I
Translators Note
All quotations from European literary texts have been translated directly
from the French ascited byJacques Ranciere. Thus quotations from Rim-
baud, Mallarrne, Proust, Balzac,Flaubert, Deleuze and Althusser are trans-
lated anew, while texts originally in other languages (Mandelstam, Auer-
bach) are translated here from the French and compared with existing
translations where these exist. Texts that began life as English poems
(Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley)have been restored to their original form.
Anote isneeded on that celebrated polychrest, the word ecrire and its de-
rivatives.This ordinary word for 'towrite' produces theword ecriture, which
means both writing (in the most active or the most general sense) but also
Scripture, in the senseofthe Holy Scriptures. Ranciere playsextensively on
these overlapping meanings.
Itismy pleasantobligation toacknowledge,with greatgratitude, the guid-
ance I receivedfrom the author, who carefully read and annotated the draft
ofmy translation, and, after amemorable lecture he gaveat Bard College in
April 2003, generously discussedwith me afewpoints that needed clarifica-
tion. Iwish alsoto thank many friends and colleagueswho helped me with
information, interpretation, nuance or guidance, especially Odile Chilton,
Marina van Zuylen, John Yau,Olivier Brossard,YanBrailowsky,EricTrudel,
atherine Liu, Peter Krapp, Pierre Joris, Nicole Peyrafitte, my husband,
Robert Kelly,and the staffofthe Stevenson Library at BardCollege.
IX

The Excursions of the Word
"In the beginning wastheWord." It isnot the beginning that isdifficult, the
affirmation ofthe Word that isGod and the assertion ofhis incarnation. It
is the end. Not because it's missing from the Gospel ofJohn, but because
there are two, each of which saysthat there are still an infinite number of
things to say,an infinite number ofsigns to reveal,which go to prove that
theWord did indeed become flesh.Criticism has, it's true, declared that the
second ending ofthe Gospel isapocryphal. In acoarsestyle,the narrative re-
lates anew apparition ofJesus atTiberias and anew miraculous fishing ex-
pedition, in astrangely vivid, popular tone: Peter dives into the lake to re-
join the Savior,who has appeared on the shore, and the apostles find alittle
campfire on the shore that is both abrazier to grill fish and also the Light
that has come down into the world. It isasif,to bring his book to comple-
tion, the author had to make the greatstory of the Incarnate Word passinto
allthe little stories of the everydaylabors of the people. As ifhe had also to
assurethe passageofthe witness, ofthe Incarnate Word, into sacredwriting,
from the Scriptures [Bcritures] to writing [ecriture], from writing to the
world, which isits destination. After atriple question posed byJesus to Pe-
ter,which corresponds to the three cockcrows,and renders legitimacy to the
head of the Church, the text ends by testifying that its compiler isindeed
the disciple chosen byJesus to relate the deeds of the embodiment of the
WOI'd. The critics are probably right: the demonstration istoo obvious not
2 The Excursions ofthe Word The Excursions of the Word 3
to have been added on. But the important thing is precisely that this addi- So a strange game is played between words and their body. Since Plato
tion was necessary, that the first ending straightaway required asecond one, and the Cratylus it has been understood that words do not resemble what
which unrolls its logic and transforms its symbolic function inro a prosaic they say. That is the price of thought. Any resemblance must be resisted.
narrative: to insure the passage from the subject of the Book to the narrator But, by identifying this resemblance with the poetic lie, Plato gave himself
of the story, to project the book toward areality that isnot the one it speaks too easy a task. For poetry and fiction have the same demand. That iswhat
of, but the one in which it must become adeed, apower of life. Mallarrne says, correcting his crarylian reveries of an amateur philologist
Thus the flaw is revealed at the moment of saying goodbye to the Word with the poet's rigor. If chance had not made the very sound of nuit [night]
made flesh and sending its book into the world, at the instant of letting light and that ofjour [day] dark, verse would not exist, which rewards the
writing say all by itself what the Sacred Writings say.An entire tradition of faults of language, and makes only the absent one of all flowers rise up.
thinking and writing has nonetheless been nourished by the example of the But doesn't this condemnation of resemblance, which modern poetry has
Book par excellence, the book of the Word made flesh, the ending that re- inherited from ancient philosophy, itself settle the question too quickly? For
turns to the beginning, the two testaments folded in on each other: roman- there are many ways of imitating, and many things that can be resembled.
tic bibles of the nations or of humanity; books of our century skillfully con- And when it was said that sound did not resemble meaning, or that a sen-
structed according to the game that comes full circle. How many books have tence was like no object in the world, only the most obvious of the doors
been dreamt of following this model of coincidence, how many have been through which words can go toward what are not words has been closed.
created only for the sake of their last sentence, for the glorious rhyme it And the least essential, too. For it is not by describing that words acquire
makes with the first! But the over-easy confidence in the virtues of the book their power: it is by naming, by calling, by commanding, by intriguing, by
closed in on itself encounters, under another form, the paradox of the end- seducing that they slice into the naturalness of existences, set humans on
ing. The difficult thing is not to stop the book. It is not the last sentence their path, separate them and unite them into communities. The word has
that poses aproblem, but the next-to-last. It is not the void into which the many other things to imitate besides its meaning or its referent: the power
finished book must throw itself, but the space that separates it from its end of speech that brings it into existence, the movement of life, the gestures of
and allows the end to come. Balzac the writer of newspaper serials has al- an oration, the effect it anticipates, the addressee whose listening or reading
ready given Le cure de village [The village priest] its ending. Balzac the nov- it mimics beforehand: "Take, read!", "Reader, throwaway this book." If re-
elist, however, will need two years and two hundred more pages to catch up semblance in painting is denounced, isn't that because it fixes all movements
with that ending. The conclusion of Le temps retrouue [Time regained] was on one single plane? That indeed is what the criticism of [Plato's] Phaedrus
conceived at the same time as the beginning of Du cote de chez Swann definitively tells us when it denounces the vain portrayal of Logospresented
[Swann's way] in I908. No doubt Proust revised the "Perpetual Adoration" by the silent letters of the script. The problem is not that the resemblance is
in the Library and the "BaL de tetes" that follows it in the salon many times. unfaithful, but that it is too faithful, still attached to what has been said
But a strange distance has taken shape on the path that leads there. A war when already it should be elsewhere, near where the meaning of what has
that the novelist could not foresee had to happen, and one hundred and fifty been said must speak. The written letter islike a silent painting that retains
supplementary pages for the book to reach the end, from which it had be- on its body the movements that animate the logos and bring it to its desti-
gun. And in this space that separates Veronique Graslin [a character in nation. The chattering silence of the dead letter blocks the multiple powers
Balzac's The Village Priest- Trans.] from her death, or the Proustian narra- by which the Logosconstitutes its theater, imitates itself to perform living
tor from revelation, it is not the void that threatens but rather, as we shall speech, to travel the path of its oration, to become seed able to bear fruit in
see, the risk of an overabundance, the clash of a truth made flesh that can the soul of the disciple. And the entire text of Phaedrus is only the deploy-
or
overwhelm the fragile truth of the book. merit all the luxuries by which writing exceeds itself in the mime ofliving
4 TheExcursionsofthe Word TheExcursionsofthe Word 5
speech, ofspeech on the march that traversesall the figures ofdiscourse in work ofAlthusser, the philosopher tries to condemn the "religious myth of
movement: walking around, dialogue, debate, parody, myth, oracle, prayer. the Book" and distinguish the reality unique to thought from all"lived real-
This isthe theater that will be at issuehere, the wayatext givesitselfthe ity."And this preoccupation seemsto agreepreciselywith the rigor ofthe in-
body of its incarnation to escape the fate of the letter released into the tellectual communist, anxious to escapethe fate ofquixotic well-intentioned
world, to mime its own movement between the place of thought, of mind, souls. But it isexactly this conjunction that contains the flaw,imposes the-
oflife,whence it comes, and the place toward which it heads: asort ofhu- ater and itsexit [sortie] asmodels ofthe passagefrom text to reality,and cre-
man theater where speech [parole] becomes action, takespossessionofsouls, atesadramaturgy ofwriting inwhich the resources oftypography transpose
leadsbodies and givesrhythm to their walk. It will be aquestion of that su- the movements of Socrates and his disciple into the effect anticipated by
perior imitation bywhich language tries to escape the deceptions of imita- their speech. Asfor Deleuze, he makes his entire philosophy achallenge of
tion. The theater initiated bySocrates'strolland Phaedrus' walkisreallythat the mimetic figure of thought whose father isPlato, the accuser of the evil
of the excursions [sorties] of the word. But there are good and bad excur- mimesis. And his analysis ofworks ofliterature contrasts the pure material-
sions.Asto the bad, afineexample isthosecatastrophic "excursions"ofDon ity of the formula with the mirages of representation. But the formula is
Quixote, the man who wants to complete the book and believesthat this both ofthose things: it isthe pure playoflanguage and it isthe magic word
consists of finding resemblances to the book in reality.And then there are that opens doors. But the door that Deleuze charges literature with opening
the good excursions, the ones that refuse to crash against the wallshurling is, like Althusser, that of apeople still to come. Thus Bartleby the human
themselves in front ofimages, and thus apply themselves to erasing the sep- formula becomes amythological figureoffiliation and finallyidentifies him-
aration that isthe correlative to mimetic prestige. So it isamatter of find- selfwith the mediator above all others, the one who opened the gates of
ing, likePlato, beneath words and resemblances, the power bywhich words Rirnbaud's "ancient hell," the son of the Word or the Word incarnate, "the
are set in motion and become deeds. Thus the young Wordsworth, while Christ or brother of usall."
reading Cervantes, dreams of aworld where the mind could leave an im- The relationship between literature and philosophy in connection with
print ofitselfin an element allitsown, ascloseaspossible to itsown nature. politics seemsto function in reverse.Philosophy, which wants to separate its
But if he dreams in this way,it is,ofcourse, becausehe isthe contemporary language from all the glamour of mimesis and its effect from all "literary"
ofthat French Revolution that claimed tolead afewoldwords backto their vacuity, does so only at the price of uniting with the most radical forms by
original power,words likeliberty,equality,or nation, tomake them the song which literature mimics the incarnation oftheword. With thesemad sorties
of apeople on the march. With that revolution begins the dream ofwhich ofphilosophy our era readily contrasts the wisdom of literature, separating
Rimbaud gavethe most dazzlingversion: that ofapoetry that resounds with the solitude of words and the pure chance of their encounters from the
the "newharmony," whosefootstep makes"the newman riseup and march" philosophical and political mirages of incarnation. But this wisdom isnot
[Illuminations, "For aReason," trans. W Fowlie]. But there also begins the linked to some more original conception of the nature of language, or to
conflict ofpoetry with itself.It assertsits freedom and separates itself from some more lucid viewofthe communal incarnation ofthe word. It israther
the prose ofthe world only at the cost ofmaking itselflike amusic of bod- alogic ofperseverance in its being. Literature livesonly bythe separation of
ies on their way toward the reign of the Spirit or the New Man, toward a words in relation to any body that might incarnate their power. It livesonly
truth possessedin asoul and body where it losesitself And itswork isthen byevading the incarnation that it incessantly puts into play.That isthe par-
to castasideits own utopia, at the riskofwithdrawing itselffrom language, adox Balzacruns up against when inanovelhe denounces the evilthat nov-
of putting the key under the door, like Rimbaud, or of making itself, like els produce, and when he discovers that the only solution to evil, "good"
Mandelstam, the "oblivion of the word" it wasabout to utter. writing, imposes silence on the novelist. It is the paradox that Proust re-
Thus is defined a singular relationship between literature, philosophy, solves, when heencounters in the epic of the nation atwar aradical symbol
and politics, ofwhich Althusser and Deleuze are the witnesses h('I(', III iiI" ofincnruntc truth. 'Ii) this rruth made Aeshwhich rakesits own truth away