Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 16:54:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Lois Shawver <rathbone-AT-crl.com>
Subject: Re: witness and betrayal




I would like to offer a reading of a fragment of one of Lyotard's texts to
see if someone here will help me inhabit it better.  I will quote a
paragraph from this work, and then offer a revised statement that reflects
my transliteration.  I would be grateful for people (or someone) saying 
if it seems to them that my revision is loyal to the original text, or 
propose other statements than mine to flush out the meaning of this 
paragraph.  If this works to stimulate interesting dialogue, I'll be 
happy to post similar fragments with a transliteration.  As you can see, 
I hope, my text is intended to clarify and make the meaning more apparent.
Also, please do not get confused about the fact that I have broken 
Lyotard's paragraph in two (I think this helps its clarity).  These two 
paragraphs are meant to interpret Lyotard's one.  There are several 
places in the paragraph that I have inserted text in brackets.  In these 
places, Lyotard's statement seemed incomplete, and this is what I think 
he had in mind.  The bracketed text, is my attempt to supplement his text 
in a way that I hope clarifies his meaning without distorting it.

The text is from:
Lyotard, J. F. The Psychoanalytic approach. In Dufrenne, M. (Ed.). Main
Trends in Aesthetics and the Sciences of Art. New York: Holme and Meir,
134-149. 
 
Lyotard said: 
Expression ... calls for interpretation or commentary; but where visual
form of expression is concerned, it is evident that the work and its
spoken or written commentary do not pertain to the same frame of
reference: the former belongs to a space with the properties quite other
than those appropriate to linguistic space.  In the case of literary
expression, despite the apparent sameness of the signifier for both the
work and its interpretation (both being articulated speech), one may
postulate that they are profoundly different owing to the extent to which
the written work is laden with 'figure'.  At least three types of 'figure'
can be identified, each with its specific place and mode of existence in
the work: the image induced in the reader's mind, the trope governing the
order of linguistic signifiers and the form or configuration of the
narrative.  Owing to the presence of figure in literary work it pertains
in part to a space that could be termed topological, it borrows operations
>from a realm of the sinfier that is different from that of the language of
ocmmunication.  This enables it to oppose a certain density to the
commentary, comparable with that of a paiing or carving, in this reaspect
at least.  (p.135)
 
My translation:

When the artwork is visually graphic (as in a painting or a sketch), the
work and its commentary do not belong to the same frame of reference --
for the graphic art piece belongs to geographical space whereas commentary
belongs to verbal space.  For a literary piece, on the other hand, the
artistic work and its commentary both belong to the same written word
form.  Nevertheless, they can be profoundly different in that the artistic
work is more laden with 'figure' than the commentary.  

At least three types of 'figure' can be identified in the literary piece:
the imagery produced for the reader, the metaphorical structure governing
the composition of the text, and the layout, or structural organization of
the literary work.  Because of the presence of this "figure" the literary
space might be said to borrow its operations from another linguistic
realm, [the realm of theatre] -- for unlike the commentary, the literary
piece is not merely concerned with communicating with a reader.  [The
literaary piece is also concerned with theatricality, or the artistic
creation of another world.] And because of the literary piece having a
certain theatricality, it can contain a certain density that is unpacked
by commentary. 
 
..Lois Shawver