AnglesNew Perspectives on the Anglophone World

4 | 2017Unstable States, Mutable ConditionsCornelius Crowley (dir.)

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PublisherSociété des Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Video introduction to issue 4Cornelius Crowley

A Relative Clause Whose Antecedent Is Determined by the Indefinite Article: Observations ondetermination, qualification and stabilization of occurrencesStéphane Gresset and Catherine Mazodier

J. Baird Callicott, Science, and the Unstable Foundation of Environmental EthicsJean-Daniel Collomb

Intertwined Languages and Broken Flows: Reading Ontological Polyphonies in LowerMurray Country (South Australia)Camille Roulière

The Aesthetics of Mutability in The Village in the Jungle (1913)Leila Haghshenas

Two Versions of the Truth: Class and Perspective in Early Captivity NarrativesTobias Auböck

Graphic InterludeUnstable states, mutable conditionsFergus Fields, Carol M. Highsmith, Walker Evans, Samuel J. Beckett, Thomas C. Roche, Alexander Gardner and John Collet

Mutable Conditions, Immutable Governance: Instability in U.S. DemocracyZach Bastick

Mutability as Counter-Plot: Apocalypse, Time, and Schematic Imagination in Don DeLillo’s The Body ArtistRichard Anker

“Earth, the chatterer father of all speech”: From Shakespeare’s brave new world! toWilliam Carlos Williams’ Nuevo mundo!Anna Aublet

The Summer Garden Photograph, Or a Barthesian Reading of the Mutable Poetics of LouiseGlückMarie Olivier

Museums, the Exhibitionary Complex and State Stability in the Victorian EraCécile Doustaly

Victorian Rainbow Makers: Variations on Colour PoeticsCharlotte Ribeyrol

Varia

Criminal Courts in England and the United States: A comparative approach to fictionalrepresentations as portrayed by two classic examples of courtroom films: Witness for theProsecution (1957) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959)Anne-Laure Dubrac

Idiosyncrasies of the 2010 Affordable Care Act from a Comparative PerspectiveLea Stephan

Angles, 4 | 2017

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Video introduction to issue 4Cornelius Crowley

This media file cannot be displayed. Please refer to the online document http://

journals.openedition.org/angles/1356

Transcript:

1 The Anglophone world is an area of study and an area in the world we presume to be in

an “unstable state”.

2 (Gresset and Mazodier could analyse the instability of this last proposition. Does the

relative clause refer to “Anglophone world” or to “the world” or to “area of study”? All

three, no doubt. Instability is now everywhere).

3 Consultation of the OED suggests that “states” and “conditions” are virtually

synonymous:

state, n. Senses relating to a condition or manner of existing.

4 As for condition, there is the following OED quotation:

1817 S.T. Coleridge: “The air I breathe, is the condition of my life, not its cause.”

5 Coleridge presumably believed that “the air I breathe”…“the condition of my life” is

immune to human agency. Or as Roland Barthes noted, quoted by Marie Olivier in her

article on Louise Glück: “the sky the one thing that cannot be marked.”

6 But if human agency now conditions the state of the air that I breathe, then the state of

the world is now decipherable against our anthropecene backscreen: the writing is in

the sky.

7 This takes us into an unstable territory, one we’d read about in dystopian science

fiction, while believing ourselves to be safely tucked up in a domestic or readerly

“comfort zone”.

8 Jean-Daniel Collomb reads the writings of Baird Callicott in order to apprehend the

changes which such man-made ecological mutation will now require of us.

9 The demarcations between village and jungle in Leonard Woolf’s novel The Village in the

Jungle (1913), pointed to by Leila Haghshenas, seem porous and reversible. She quotes

Jacques Derrida about the reappraisal of the conditions of the human: our participation

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in a trans-species animality, now apprehended more precisely than in 19th century

premonitions, no longer feared as the puncturing of a veneer of civility that might

liberate an underlying “beastliness”. Reading Leila Haghshenas, one senses it is

through the relocation of the human within the sustaining condition of its common

“animality” that anxieties manifest in the gothic fantasies of the beastly and the

romantic aspirations to the angelic might be overcome.

10 For the reader of literature, the challenge of “unstable states” is not the same as for a

student of political systems. Zach Bastick examines the malfunctioning of the American

political “machine”. He proposes remedies, revisits the discussions about

“representation”. For Richard Anker, the intention is to decipher Don DeLillo’s take on

time and on the intoxication with eternity. He writes of “an opposition […] between an

essentially poetic self-awareness born of the experience of finitude and a heroic or

titanic drive to permanence and unity of being.”

11 I take this to mean that it is the metaphysical pursuit of permanence has got human

agency into a “historical impasse”, through the abuse of the “titanic drive to

permanence and unity of being.” Which implies that the challenge posed by any

“unstable state” is the challenge of keeping upright by way of a precarious balancing

conditional upon precious little, more like riding a bicycle than like cruising the streets

in the stretch limo seen in the David Cronenberg adaptation of DeLillo’s Cosmopolis.

12 In that direction lie possibilities for a certain levity, less “national-epic” perhaps than

the elation of William Carlos Williams, insofar as the argument against our being able

now to endorse Coleridge’s sense of the immunity of air also distances us from

Williams’s confident claim to a new American language and to a new continent. Our

inability to share the confidence audible in Williams’s voice is also conditioned by our

exposure to the two counterpoint discourses of Australia, territory, water, placed side by

side by Camille Roulière.

13 Anna Aublet, drawing on Williams, refers to language’s driving of a wedge that opens

the world. The caesura between the event and its appropriation in discourse is the

condition Toby Auböck highlights in his reading of two narratives, by an officer and an

ordinary seaman, of their captivity after the American frigate Philadelphia ran aground

off the shores of Tripoli in 1803.

14 Cécile Doustaly examines the “exhibitionary complex” of the Victorian era, here

envisaged as a component in a project of “State Stability”. The latter is the corollary of

social stability and social discipline. This raises a question of methodological instability

or, at the least, duality. For if the “exhibitionary complex” is analyzable in relation to

the exercise of power, and if as readers of Michel Foucault we can now decipher the

discipline operative in cultural designs, Doustaly shows how the “exhibitionary

complex” is also, inevitably, an act of municipal self-affirmation and performance. In

other words, the aura of “illusio”, to use Bourdieu’s term in Méditations pascaliennes

(1997), is a necessary condition for the effective agency of social control. Even “state

stability” is conditional on a certain duality and instability in the social fact, which

therefore requires a comparable heuristic lability on the part of the social historian.

15 To conclude with a question of colours. Richard Anker evokes the titanic pursuit of

permanence: penetration to a timeless truth to end all truths. Charlotte Ribeyrol

evokes a moment in high culture and useful industry, the late 19th century infatuation

with purple, violet, puce, mauve, indigo.

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16 That the late Victorian colours could be forged through a chemical technology made

them suspect to those for whom an elevating art required the “naturalness”, or at least

craft-based origin, of the pigments through which the edifying motifs were depicted.

17 The Victorians repeated the anxieties of earlier societies, notably those of the Greeks.

The more conservative and colourless Plato was indeed extremely wary of the

instability and ‘restless versatility’ conveyed by the idea of poikilia. (he) […] resorted to

this term associated with the changing scales of the serpent to compare the democratic

regime ‘to a shimmering coat that might appeal to women and children’.

18 The connotations of Poikilia are suspect: flash, bigarré, the antithesis of a presumed

classical sobriety. Poikilia could be the chromatic mode of a Victorian or a more recent

camp culture. As a modality of response to the visible world, in time and light, through

language or materiality of paint, colour is a component of both a camp culture and a

more haughtily sublime high modernism, the demarcation between the two best

regarded as itself unstable and porous.

19 In Wallace Stevens’ poem “Sea Surface Full of Clouds” (1931), “motley hue” is part of

the word palette rendering the play between light, ocean and air. It comes to mind as a

possible translation for “poikilia”. The unstable status of what is “motley” is a condition

of the rainbow performance.

The windOf green blooms turning crisped the motley hueTo clearing opalescence. Then the seaAnd heaven rolled as one and from the twoCame fresh transfigurings of freshest blue.

ABSTRACTS

This video introduces the thematic contributions on ‘Unstable states, mutable conditions’.

La vidéo présente les contributions thématiques sur « États instables, conditions en mutation ».

INDEX

Keywords: video, literature, history, law, language, politics, colours

Mots-clés: vidéo, langue, littérature, histoire, droit, politique, couleurs

AUTHOR

CORNELIUS CROWLEY

Guest editor of Issue 4. Professor at the Université Paris Nanterre.

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A Relative Clause Whose AntecedentIs Determined by the IndefiniteArticle: Observations ondetermination, qualification andstabilization of occurrencesStéphane Gresset and Catherine Mazodier

In memoriam Claude Charreyre

1 The purpose of this paper is to fine-tune the parameters allowing for the classification

of undetached relative clauses for which the antecedent is determined by the indefinite

article A, such as:

(1) To mark the occasion, the Rome publisher Pieraldo has published a book whichincludes three series of portraits, and texts by, among others, Irene Bignardi andMauro Bolognini. (BNC: EBU The Art Newspaper)The history of these colours reads more like a romance than a sober story. (Salter162-3)

2 In most descriptions of relative clauses, the divide between restrictive clauses (also

called determinative or defining) and appositive clauses (also called non-restrictive or

non-defining) is exemplified by using sentences in which the antecedent of the relative

is determined by THE:

(2) She is able to read the excruciatingly small type of the book which is resting in

her lap. (COCA: Laurie R. King, Leslie S. Klinger A Study in Sherlock, 2011)(3) Callahan nodded absently without looking up from the book, which he was

turning over and over in his hands. (COCA: Stephen King, Song of Susannah, 2005)

3 Here the traditional justification for treating the relative clause as restrictive/

determinative is as follows: the qualification conveyed through the relative clause in (2)

constitutes the condition for the definite determination in THE. But when definite

determination is justified elsewhere in the context, the relative clause merely adds

qualification that is not in itself relevant to the definite determination, and is therefore

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classified as appositive, as in (3). In this case the relative clause is traditionally

detached.

4 However, the case of undetached relative clauses whose antecedents are determined by

A is much less clear, and in the few occasions when studied as such (Fuchs and Milner;

Kleiber 1984 and 1987; Loock 2013; Malan; Rivière), it is treated in the literature as

problematic and unclassifiable:

Pseudo determinative clauses have the syntax of a determinative clause but theirfunction is similar to that of an appositive clause. (Malan 7)1

Relative clauses with an indefinite antecedent are problematic, and strangelyenough are never mentioned in grammar books. […] Relative clauses with anindefinite antecedent are therefore to be seen as so-called ‘unclassifiable’ relativeclauses, for which new categories must be created beyond the descriptive vs.appositive classification. (Loock 2013: 31)The interpretation of a relative clause is difficult with an indefinite NP, whateverthe complexity. (Rivière and Rivière 22)

5 Our main question is therefore: why is this case problematic vis-à-vis the traditional

distinction between determinative and appositive clauses? Our central hypothesis is

that the instability regarding the classification of these relative clauses is to be linked

to the nature of the indeterminacy of the determiner A itself.

0. Preliminary remarks on determination andstabilization

6 Operations of determination will be examined within the theoretical framework of

Antoine Culioli's theory of enunciative operations, in which questions of qualification

and determination are apprehended in terms of the construction and delimitation of

occurrences, and where the assigning of referential values is provided via the operation

of location (repérage, in French). Determination therefore proceeds from the

indeterminacy of a notion to the gradual determinacy of occurrences of the said notion.

In this framework, notions, i.e. mental representations, have a degree of stability but

are not rigidly set (they are deformable). They are apprehended through occurrences,

and the question of the delimitation of occurrences is central: it is the process by which

the “unfragmented solid whole” of the notion is “broken down into units”:

notions have a status of predicable entities and could be described as unfragmentedsolid wholes; but they are apprehended through occurrences, i.e. distinguishedthrough separate events, broken down into units (actually localized in the physicalworld, or imaginary) with variable properties. Through a process of abstraction, wethus pass from phenomenal occurrences to abstract occurrences. (Culioli: 69-70,original quotation in English)

7 This process involves two ways of circumscribing occurrences, quantitative and

qualitative delimitation:

quantitative delimitation involves the circumscription of the occurrence in space and/or

time, it is therefore closely related to the construction of its existence in a situation;

qualitative delimitation involves sorting the properties of the occurrence. The term

“qualitative” is used at different levels; it may be used for classifying properties (“books are

more interesting than magazines”), and/or differential properties (“this book was

interesting”).

•

•

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8 In this theoretical framework, operations of determination are analyzed as a weighted

combination of quantitative and qualitative delimitation.

9 The two main operations of determination are extraction and pinpointing (fléchage, in

French). Extraction is the primary operation by which an occurrence of a notion is

circumscribed; it involves the positing of the existence of an occurrence relative to its

location in time and space; in this case, quantitative (i.e. existential) delimitation of the

occurrence is privileged over qualitative delimitation (“there is a book on the table”).

In the case of pinpointing, it is the qualitative, differential value which is privileged in

order to circumscribe the occurrence (“the book over there is interesting”). Within the

class of determiners, A is typically a marker of extraction, and THE typically a marker

of pinpointing.

10 As regards our analysis of relative clauses, it would seem that part of the problem stems

from the possible ambiguity of the term “determination”—and therefore

“determinative”— which is used in at least two different ways. Determination can, on

the one hand, be seen as the linguistic operation whose trace is the determiner,

different determiners thus being markers for different operations of determination. On

the other hand, determination is also used to refer to the reduction of indeterminacy,

from a notion to an occurrence of the notion: in this sense, one might say that A + N is

more determined than Ø + N, but less determined than THE + N.

11 These two uses of “determination” are linked: the determiner, as trace of an operation,

provides clues as to how an occurrence is constructed and assigned referential values.

It therefore points to the modalities of the reduction of indeterminacy. But the

determiner is not the only type of marker that comes into play when assigning

referential values to an occurrence: qualification of the noun via adjectives or relative

clauses also contributes to the reduction of indeterminacy, and is part of the

determination of the occurrence, in the second sense of reduction of indeterminacy.

12 It may be interesting to point out that the two uses of the term “determination” are

inseparable when the determiner is the trace of a pinpointing operation. Pinpointing

indicates that the occurrence of the notion is identifiable without ambiguity, by

pointing to its differential properties. When an occurrence is totally circumscribed by

the properties that differentiate it from other occurrences of the same class

(determination in the first sense: operation conveyed by the determiner),

indeterminacy is eliminated (determination in the second sense: reduction of

indeterminacy). The question of the elimination of indeterminacy is therefore

constitutive of the operation of pinpointing itself. In the case of determinative relative

clauses with an antecedent whose determiner is THE, it is the relative clause that

conveys the differential property that fully circumscribes the occurrence and allows for

the pinpointing operation (as in example (2) above). The relative clause is

determinative in both senses of the term: as a condition for the operation marked by

the determiner (sense 1), it eliminates the indeterminacy of the occurrence (sense 2).

13 But in the case of extraction, as marked by the determiner A, the indeterminacy of the

occurrence is not fully eliminated, the occurrence is not fully identifiable and its

referential values not fully stabilized. Extraction constitutes a first step in

circumscribing an occurrence by providing it with existential conditions. However, the

occurrence remains unstable, it is not wholly identifiable.

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14 When a noun determined by A is modified by a relative clause, the relative clause does

not fully circumscribe the occurrence or eliminate indeterminacy (if it did, the

occurrence would be pinpointed). It may therefore be more problematic for a relative

clause to be termed determinative in this case, since it does not fully determine (sense

2: elimination of indeterminacy) the occurrence.

15 The angle chosen here to analyze relative clauses whose antecedent is determined with

A is as follows: since the clear-cut distinction between determinative and appositive

clauses whose antecedent is determined with THE is founded on the relative clause

being a condition for the pinpointing operation, is it possible to apply the same

criterion regarding the link between extraction and qualification via a relative clause?

In other words, is it possible to isolate cases when the relative clause conveys the

condition for the operation of extraction marked by A?

16 We have analyzed examples in context2 and tried to specify, first, in which cases the

relative clause is necessary for the type of determination conveyed by A. We then

observed examples in which the qualification in the relative clause may not be relevant

to A determination.

17 The purpose here is not to come up with yet another set of labels for the classification

of relative clauses, but rather to focus on the relation between determination and

qualification.

1. The relative clause is necessary for determinationwith A

18 In this first part, we shall analyze the cases for which the relative clause is involved in

the construction of the occurrence itself, in relation to the delimitation of the notion

inherent in the operation of extraction, marked with the indefinite article A.

1.1. Construction of discontinuity with compact nouns

19 In the framework of the theory of enunciative and predicative operations, so-called

uncountable abstract nouns, such as “thickness” or “possession,” are said to function as

compact terms : the notions they refer back to are unsecable properties, referred to as

nominalized predicates, or “prédicats nominalisés”,3 which can only be apprehended

through a medium or a relation. The notion of THICKNESS for instance is apprehended

via an entity (object, person, or situation) through which the property “be thick” is

made manifest, and the notion of POSSESSION through a relation between possessor

and possessed. In the case of compact nouns, therefore, there is no template for the

construction of an occurrence of the notion, since it depends on an external medium

(thickness) or on external entities that are connected in the relation (possession).

Compact nouns do not usually appear with the determiner A, and are only compatible

with the indefinite article in certain conditions involving differential properties, as

shown by Ronald Flintham (1999: 24):

The differential properties that allow for quantifiabilization and fragmentation maybe conveyed by prepositional phrases […] but also by other forms such as adjectivesand ‘determinative’ relative clauses.(4) Out of this mixture of tones—lardy flesh, rosy flesh, sallow flesh—his small eyespeered with a cheerfulness that was exaggerated at times, out of proportion to

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its object, as if Trick saw through the ordinary to another dimension invisible tohis listeners. (Joyce Carol Oates, Wonderland, 1971)(5) As a boy, he was exceptionally gentle; in adolescence, he assumed a roughness

which I felt contradicted his nature. He’s still rough, argumentative, sarcastic,but now he mocks the roughness and regards it as a comic scurf he can remove atwill. Deep down — whatever this means — is the gentle boy he was at five and six;very lovable. (Richard Stern, The Illegibility of This World: A Story, 1992)

20 The nouns “roughness” and “cheerfulness”, as nominalizations of adjectives, are

typically compact nouns. In the case of these examples, removal of the relative clause

would not allow for determination with A:

(4') *His small eyes peered with a cheerfulness(5') *In adolescence, he assumed a roughness

21 Here it is important to note that the association of the properties “cheerful” and

“rough” with a medium conveying those properties (“his eyes”, “he”) isn’t sufficient

for determination with A. Further qualification is needed, and it is to be found in the

relative clauses.

22 In examples (4) and (5), the fragmentation operated on the notions of CHEERFULNESS

or ROUGHNESS is linked to the predication conveyed in the relative clause, which

constitutes a distinguishing property that isolates an occurrence of the notion. What

are the specific features of these differential properties?

23 In example (4), the properties conveyed in the relative clause (“exaggerated”, “out of

proportion”) are qualifications of degree: a certain degree of cheerfulness is referred to

regarding his eyes. Another feature of the differential properties is that they are

restricted in time: “at times” indicates that a distinction is operated on the class of

instants: the notion (CHEERFULNESS) is brought into existence via the medium (“his

small eyes”) only in a subclass of situations (“at times”). Here the occurrence

determined with A is therefore subjected to a double delimitation affecting both degree

and existence in time. What’s more, both degree and time constraints are constructed

as unusual: deviation from the norm is at work in the category of degree

(“exaggerated”, “out of proportion”) and in the category of time (“at times” = not

often). This double exceptionality (in terms of degree and time constraints) gives the

conditions for the differential delimitation of the occurrence of the notion and

extraction with A.

24 In 5 the fragmentation of the notion of ROUGHNESS is also restricted in time (“in

adolescence” as opposed to “as a boy”), and the degree of roughness is also considered

out of proportion, not as an absolute, but in relation to what is expected of the person

in question (“contradicted his nature”). As regards the choice of the relative pronoun

WHICH in 5, it can be noted that the subjective endorsement of the qualification in

degree is explicitly mentioned in the embedded clause “I felt,” in this case of relative

concatenation.4

(6) I expected them to start flexing their muscles in a wrecking, ransacking assaulton the ship. I did not expect anything like what happened. The three of themmoved through the ship at a speed that I can hardly describe. (BNC: G3G DouglasHill, The Fraxilly Fracas, 1989)

25 In (6), as in (4) and (5), the relative clause which follows the antecedent “speed” refers

to a deviation from what is expected, to an exceptional degree of speed. Interestingly,

we only found one example in the BNC of “at a speed” without any pre- or post-

modifications:

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(7) To see where a particle is, you have to shine light on it. But Einstein had shownthat you couldn’t use a very small amount of light; you had to use at least onepacket, or quantum. This packet of light would disturb the particle and cause it tomove at a speed in some direction. The more accurately you wanted to measurethe position of the particle, the greater the energy of the packet you would have touse and thus the more it would disturb the particle. (BNC: FYX Stephen Hawking,Black Holes and Baby Universes, 1994)

26 The speed in (7) does not need to be specified in any way since “[for the particle] to

move at a speed in some direction” is but a rephrasing of “disturb the particle”. What

matters here is to initiate a movement regardless of the degree of speed, and this

requires no unusual speed, just the existence of speed, hence the quantitative or

existential use of A.

27 In this section, the qualification in the relative clause conditions the operation of

extraction. It allows for the fragmentation of the notion involved and therefore the

construction of discontinuity marked by A.

1.2. Non-specific interpretation

28 Another instance in which the relative clause is essential to the determination in A is

when the interpretation of the antecedent is non-specific. Indeed, with specific, i.e.

spatio-temporally situated occurrences, the gradual reduction of indeterminacy

proceeds from the progressive identification or stabilization of the reference, and

pinpointing follows extraction on the scale of determination. With non-specific

occurrences, however, there is no gradual reduction of indeterminacy. Extraction in “A

dog eats meat” refers to a representative occurrence of the class, whereas pinpointing

in “The dog eats meat” refers to a prototypical occurrence. “A dog” and “the dog” are

not in this case situated on a gradual scale, they are different ways of expressing

genericity. Here “a dog” does not need to be identified or stabilized any further.

29 A case in point is that of the classifying use of A, as in “he is a doctor”, with “a doctor”

as subject complement of the subject “he”.5 The specific occurrence “he” is assigned

the notional property DOCTOR, by an operation of identification marked by BE, and

that property is conveyed here by a qualitatively indifferent, representative

occurrence, “a doctor”, which functions as a locator (repère, in French).

(8) I had met Wyndham Farrar only once in my life before, though naturally I knewall about him, as did anyone who was connected with the theatre. And may I makeit clear that I was connected only by marriage, I have no aspirations in thatdirection myself, though I have aspirations towards gloss, which can be mistakenfor the same thing. Wyndham Farrar, in any case, was a name which one could not

fail to recognize. He was a director, and everything he did, good or bad, achieved acertain distinction. (Margaret Drabble, The Garrick Year, 1965)(9) I wonder if you are aware that in the Bible there are two words for time andthat, generally speaking, they refer to two quite different ideas. The first word isused to describe ordinary time — past, present and future. The word used is chronos,from which comes our word ‘chronology’. So dates like 1066 or Aunt Ethel’sbirthday all belong to chronos time. The other word, kairos, is a word that is used a

great deal to describe God’s breaking into our time and history to bring hissalvation. (BNC: ABV George Carey, I Believe, 1991)

30 Without the relative clause, (8) and (9) would hardly be acceptable: “Wyndham Farrar

was a name” would not make much sense, the notional property “name” being

redundant to refer to the proper noun Wyndham Farrar. Similarly, in “the other word,

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kairos, is a word”, the identification would be circular. The locator for Wyndham Farrar

is not the notion NAME but the property expressed in the relative clause. “Name” only

serves to support an external property which offers a fragmentation of the notion

necessary for the occurrence to be used as a locator. The property conveyed in the

relative clause in (9) is also necessary to stabilize the reference of the indefinite

antecedent “a word” used as a locator. In (8), moreover, the property conveyed in the

relative clause is particularly relevant in this context, as it marks a shift from the

subjective perception of the narrator (“I had met [him]”, “I knew him”) to a

subsequent, more objective, account of Wyndham Farrar’s characteristics (“he was a

director”, “everything he did”).

31 The classifying use of A can also be found in identifications with AS (“As a doctor…”)

and in appositions:

(10) My father tried to make out his face from where they were standing, but theman seemed to understand that they were talking about him and kept his headturned slightly away. The only feature that my father could make out was that of arather abnormally long and narrow nose, a feature that seemed almost

predatory in nature. (Dinah Mengestu, How to Read the Air, 2010)

32 The apposition in (10) also locates a specific occurrence (the man’s nose) by providing it

with a notional property (FEATURE), distinguishable only through the qualification to

be found in the relative clause. This contributes to a further qualification of the feature

in question (“long and narrow”), thus justifying its uniqueness (“the only feature that

…”).

33 In those classifying uses of A, the qualification conveyed in the relative clause provides

the occurrence with a distinctive feature without which the occurrence would not be

stable enough to serve as a locator in an operation of identification6.

34 Another case of a non-specific use of A is to be found in examples (11) and (12):

(11) — I think the mind is like a computer – you use a computer?— I’ve got a laptop. I use it like a glorified typewriter. I have no idea how it does thetricks it does.— OK. Your PC is a linear computer. It performs a lot of tasks one at a time atterrific speed. The brain is more like a parallel computer, in other words it’srunning lots of programs simultaneously. […]— You mean, you’re trying to design a computer that thinks like a human being?— In principle, that’s the ultimate objective.— And feels like a human being? A computer that has hangovers and falls in love

and suffers bereavement?

A hangover is a kind of pain, and pain always has been a difficult nut to crack […].But I don’t see any inherent impossibility in designing and programming a robot

that could get into a symbiotic relationship with another robot and would

exhibit symptoms of distress if the other robot were put out of commission.[…]Or we may develop computers that are carbon-based, like biological organisms,

instead of silicon-based ones. (David Lodge, Thinks…, 2001)(12) … expensive to repair, so it is not a major difficulty.Look at the front door. From the point of view of security you do not want a door

that is all glass, neither do you want a hollow plywood-type door that is easily

kicked in. A solid door that has good, secure locks (preferably two — a Yale

lock and a deadlock) and in which you can install a viewer, which will enable youto verify the identity of callers before you open the door, is an important feature.(BNC: BNL “The place where you live”, One’s Company. A Practical Guide to Enjoyingyour Independence, 1989)

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35 The reference associated to the noun phrase in A is non-specific, inasmuch as its

existence is not guaranteed in time and space but is apprehended prospectively on a

hypothetical level, as shown by “trying to design”, “the ultimate objective”, “designing

and programming”, “may develop” in (11), and the repetition of “want” in (12). All

these predicates are markers of an operation of location relative to an endpoint or telos,

also called prospective validation (visée, in French). As in examples (8) to (10), the

relative clause in (11) is necessary: it conveys the distinguishing property that specifies

the element aimed at within the class of computers (not just any computer but a

computer that…). The computers they are trying to design are different from existing

computers (“carbon-based, like biological organisms, instead of silicon-based ones”),

and the relative clause brings a qualitative determination to the notion that the

antecedent refers to. It is the stabilizing power of that property which allows the

indefinite antecedent to function as a locator.

36 In (12), the antecedent “a door” is the object of the verb “want” in the main clause,

which is itself introduced by the prepositional phrase “From the point of view of

security”: both these characteristics very explicitly refer to prospective validation. In

other words, what is “wanted” here is not just a door (“You do not want a door” is not

interpretable in this context), but “a door that is secure”, which means both “solid” and

equipped with good, secure locks. Both these “features” are necessary for the

occurrence “a door” to be stable enough referentially to serve as locator.

1.3. Notional instability

37 Another case in which the relative clause is constitutive of determination in A is that of

nouns that are semantically vague or notionally unstable and require further

qualification to be interpreted.

(13) She wanted to ask the troopers if they would go back to where they found herso they could do the journey all over again, this time slower, at a pace that

matched the distance she felt she had traveled in her heart. (Dinaw Mengestu,How to Read the Air, 2010)(14) This particular surveillance camera, I am almost certain, is manufactured byVicon Industries, an overlooked leader in the field. Noting the deterioration andnow wholesale abandonment of the noble notion of public education, I feel certain,and earlier cited statistics and the peculiar case of unreachable Indigo Childrensuch as Dennis Junior here bear this out, we will soon be building prisons at a rate

that will humble all the world, and so I have gathered in an Individual RetirementAccount, a substantial portfolio of security industry stocks. (COCA: Steve Yates,“Report on Performance Art in One Province of the Empire Especially in Regard toThree Exhibitions Involving Swine,” 2008)

38 In these examples, removal of the relative clause yields uninterpretable sequences:

(13') *so they could do the journey all over again, this time slower, at a pace(14') *we will soon be building prisons at a rate

39 The type of measuring indicated by nouns such as “pace” and “rate” is insufficient per

se, and the specification provided in the relative clause is needed to stabilize reference

sufficiently in order to posit the existence of an occurrence: the pace in (13), the rate in

(14) can only be interpreted in their relation to the qualification in the relative clause.

(15) Wolverton stepped out onto a street. He could hear muffled sounds through hishelmet. One of the city’s inhabitants nearly stepped on him. He barely came up toits knee. Its head seemed quite small for its ungainly height. It took a long stride

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over him and quickly disappeared behind the tower. He wondered what he lookedlike to this alien, a tiny biped wearing a pressure suit. He was lucky it hadn’t brokenhis spine under its huge foot. A thing that crawled in a curious gait on four legs,

each with three joints, came from the other direction. Smaller limbs encircled itsbumpy head, which was set on a thick neck over an hourglass torso. The headpivoted toward him, as if it were on a swivel. He got out of its way, his heartpounding and his breath coming in gasps. (COCA: Tim Sullivan, Star-Crossed, 2010)

40 The protagonist in this science-fiction setting gradually discovers the beings that

inhabit the location described. The choice of the term “thing” seems to be linked to the

blurring of the usually clear-cut distinction between the animate and the inanimate.

But even though it would be possible to remove the relative clause, it wouldn’t make

much sense, since the sole mention of the noun “thing” would be insufficient to refer to

the strange being coming towards him. “Thing” being semantically vague or

underdetermined, it acts here like an existential envelope whose qualitative property is

provided in the relative clause.

Conclusion of part 1

41 In the examples observed in this first part, we have isolated three main cases for which

the qualification conveyed in the relative clause is necessary for the operation of

extraction marked with the determiner A. In case 1 (construction of discontinuity with

compact nouns), the relative clause makes the conditions explicit for extraction. In case

2 (non-specific interpretation) the relative clause provides the occurrence with

properties that stabilize it sufficiently to act as locator, and in case 3 (notional

instability) the relative clause conveys the qualitative features of the occurrence. In all

these cases, the relative clause is constitutive of the operation of extraction, and

therefore of determination in the first sense of the term (operation conveyed by the

determiner).

2. The relative clause is not constitutive ofdetermination in A

42 In this part we will be observing examples in which the qualification in the relative

clause does not convey the conditions for extraction, but provides the occurrence with

additional properties that are not used for pinpointing and stabilized identification of

reference. In these cases, instability is reduced but not eliminated, and the process of

stabilization isn’t completed. The examples here will mainly include singular count

nouns with specific reference in the utterance.

43 We will start by examining a short sample of these examples in order to show their

common features regarding the relation of the relative clause to the determiner before

fine-tuning the types of properties conveyed in the relative clause:

(16) The whole family of Samuel Josephs was there already with their lady-help,who sat on a camp-stool and kept order with a whistle that she wore tied round

her neck, and a small cane with which she directed operations. (KatherineMansfield, The Garden Party, 1922)(19) On the table there stood a jar of sea-pinks, pressed so tightly together theylooked more like a velvet pincushion, and a special shell which Kezia had given

her grandma for a pin-tray, and another even more special which she had

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thought would make a very nice place for a watch to curl up in. (KatherineMansfield, The Garden Party, 1922)(25) Marguerite brought some fillet of beef on a blue-patterned dish which she

set down in front of Madame Azaire. ‘Should I bring some red wine?’ she said.‘There’s some from last night.’ (Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong, 1993)

44 It is important to note that determination in A is the trace of the quantitative or

existential delimitation of the occurrence and that the conditions for extraction are

provided not in the relative clause, but in the main predication: the specific events

associated to the existence of the occurrences are located in time and space via “there”

and “kept order” in (16) and “brought” in (25), and existence of the occurrence is

posited with “on the table there stood” (19). Predication of existence in specific

situations anchors the occurrences of WHISTLE, SHELL and DISH, allowing for the

existential delimitation marked by A. Unlike the examples in part one, suppression of

the relative clause does not yield unacceptable utterances, even though it may change

the thematic organization of the text:

(16') […] their lady-help, who sat on a camp-stool and kept order with a whistle(19') there stood a jar of sea-pinks […] and a special shell(25') Marguerite brought some fillet of beef on a blue-patterned dish

45 In these cases, qualitative determination in the relative clause is not constitutive of the

existence of the occurrence subjected to the operation of extraction. In other terms,

qualification via the relative clause does not participate in determination in the first

sense of the term (operation conveyed via the determiner). Yet this external

qualification, so to speak, provides the occurrence with properties that distinguish it

from other occurrences of the class. In (16), for instance, the occurrence of WHISTLE is

not strictly indistinguishable from other occurrences of the same class since it is

provided with the property “worn tied round her neck”. The occurrences of WHISTLE,

SHELL and DISH, being qualified, are not strictly indistinguishable qualitatively from

other occurrences of the same class, but the qualities in question are not used to

identify and stabilize them completely, which would be the case if THE were used:

(16'') kept order with the whistle that she wore tied round her neck,(19'') there stood a jar of sea-pinks […] and the special shell which Kezia had givenher grandma for a pin-tray,(25'') Marguerite brought some fillet of beef on the blue-patterned dish which sheset down in front of Madame Azaire.

46 Here the relative clauses would be classified as determinative, since they provide the

occurrence with the properties that are used to stabilize them, conditioning the

pinpointing operation.

47 But as we have shown in the original examples determined with A, the relative clauses

do not provide the condition for extraction. We will now examine the different types of

properties conveyed in these cases by the relative clauses and their relation to the

delimitation of the occurrences thus modified.

2.1. Descriptive properties linked to background or origin

(16) The whole family of Samuel Josephs was there already with their lady-help,who sat on a camp-stool and kept order with a whistle that she wore tied round herneck, and a small cane with which she directed operations. (Katherine Mansfield,The Garden Party, 1922)

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(17) They were there; they stepped out of the way of the hurrying people, andstanding under a little iron stairway that led to the upper deck they began to saygood-bye. (Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party, 1922)(18) On his first day in the city he found a quiet corner in Hampstead Heath. Aguidebook for Americans that he had picked up in France had said that he would beafforded a wide, sweeping view of the city from there. (Dinaw Mengestu, How toRead the Air, 2010)

48 In these examples, the properties conveyed in the relative clauses have to do with a

form of description concerning the location or origin of the occurrence (“round her

neck”,” to the upper deck”, “in France”). There is no particular sign that the

qualification is endorsed subjectively by the utterer, and the effect is that the property

is treated as objective. This is to be linked to the use of the relative pronoun THAT,

which is particularly compatible with constructing the qualification as an objective

given.7

2.2. Causal relationship

49 In the following examples, the relative clause is not the only qualifier, and the relation

between the different forms of qualification is relevant to account for the role of the

relative clause:

(19) On the table there stood a jar of sea-pinks, pressed so tightly together theylooked more like a velvet pincushion, and a special shell which Kezia had given

her grandma for a pin-tray, and another even more special which she had

thought would make a very nice place for a watch to curl up in. (KatherineMansfield, The Garden Party, 1922)(20) She must have been stunningly beautiful in her youth, and still has a lovelyface […] but her figure is too matronly by today’s exacting standards. She waswearing a lovely billowing silk dress which flattered her ample form. Theycertainly make a striking couple. She addresses him as ‘Messenger’, which has acurious, ambivalent effect. (David Lodge, Thinks…, 2001)(21) And there’s a supermarket and restaurants and sports halls — and an artificial

lake for sailing and windsurfing that isn’t quite big enough. (David Lodge,Thinks…, 2001)(22) ‘You’re not suggesting I copied your character, are you?’ she said. ‘I thoughtperhaps you reproduced some details from my book without being aware of it,’ Isaid. ‘Oh no,’ she said, shaking her head emphatically, ‘that’s impossible. I told you— I started my novel before I read yours.’ ‘Perhaps somebody else told you about it?Perhaps you read a review?’ I said, trying desperately to find a face-saving

explanation which we could both agree on, even if I didn’t believe it. ‘No,’ shesaid flatly, ‘I’d remember it.’ ‘Well then,’ I said, throwing up my hands, ‘I don’t knowwhat to say. I’m totally at a loss.’ (David Lodge, Thinks…, 2001)

50 In these examples there is a causal relationship between two forms of qualification

within the noun phrase. In (19), there is a causal relation to be seen between the

relative clause and the adjective “special”: it is because the shell is special that Kezia

gave it to her grandmother. Similarly, in (20), the lovely and billowing qualities of the

dress are the cause for its flattering her ample form. In (21), the property in the relative

clause (“not big enough”) is to be interpreted through the other postmodification (“for

sailing and windsurfing”). And in (22), the property conveyed in the relative clause

(agreement) makes the face-saving character of the explanation explicit.

51 The explanatory value of the qualification conveyed in the relative clause may also be

found outside the noun phrase:

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(23) It’s a round three-storey building with a domed roof that has a shallow

indentation across the middle, very like an observatory except that there’s noopening for a telescope. (David Lodge, Thinks…, 2001)

52 In (23), the qualifications expressed by “domed” and “shallow indentation” are

complementary and justify the comparison with “an observatory”, the locator

introduced by “like”: the roof’s shape makes it look like an observatory.

(24) He sometimes went camping for a few days when things got bad at home. Onone of these trips he saw a large piece of land that the government was selling and decided to buy it. The property was heavily wooded, had a small pondsurrounded by birch trees, and a good sturdy building. The building needed somework, but Wharton thought that such a project would bring them all together. (T.Wolff, “Poaching”, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs, 1981)

53 In (24), the qualification conveyed in the relative clause is to be linked to the

predication that immediately follows: it is because this piece of land is for sale that he

can buy it.

54 In this section the relative clause is in a causal or explanatory relationship with

another element within or outside the noun phrase.

55 This is one of the traditional functions associated with appositive relative clauses. In

French grammatical terminology, the term explicative is sometimes used as a synonym

for appositive. L. Danon-Boileau and M. de Cola (1989: 135) also use the term

concerning adjectival qualification in the case of adjectives associated with THIS and

THAT in English:

Their [these adjectives’] function is rather to highlight one of the object’sproperties in order to justify the link with the predicate. […] The qualities inquestion are not meant to distinguish contrastively or limit the noun’s definitionbut to justify or explain the validation of the subject/predicate link.

2.3. Plot advancing or continuative function

(25) Marguerite brought some fillet of beef on a blue-patterned dish which she

set down in front of Madame Azaire. ‘Should I bring some red wine?’ she said.‘There’s some from last night.’ (Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong, 1993)(26) ‘And genetic whatsitsnames?’ Helen enquires, turning to Kenji.The young man, whose English is not as good as Carl’s, sweats and stammersthrough an explanation which Ralph tactfully summarizes for Helen’s benefit:genetic algorithms are computer programs designed to replicate themselves likebiological life forms. ‘The programs are all set a problem to solve and the ones thatdo best are allowed to reproduce themselves for the next test. In other words, theypair off and have sex together’ — so Ralph puts it, to the amusement of thestudents. (David Lodge, Thinks…, 2001)

56 Here, as in all examples in part 2, the conditions for the extraction marked by A are to

be found not in the relative clauses, but in the main clauses (M. brought/The young man

stammers through…). These predicates refer to events situated in time and space.

However, the predications in the relative clauses (she set down/ Ralph summarizes) create

different, subsequent events involving the referents of the antecedents. This is also one

of the possible features of traditional, detached appositive relative clauses, sometimes

called plot-advancing or continuative.Reference is made to two separate states of

affairs organized in an interpropositional chain of events (Mélis 10).

“Continuative ARCs: a specific kind of ARC which enables, by the depiction of anextra-linguistic event subsequent to that in the main clause, a forward movement

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within narrative time. […] The ARC supports the trajectory of the narrative. Theevents are shown in a sequence and a causal link may be inferred. (Loock 2010: 96,139)

57 It may be noted that, in (25), the event in the relative clause remains in the

background. It is the sequence bring fillet of beef / bring red wine which is the focus of the

main narrative organization. In contrast, with a juxtaposition of independent clauses,

all events would be presented as equally relevant.

58 As for (26), not only is the plot-advancing strategy at work, but there is also a causal/

explanatory relationship to be found in section 2.2: “sweats and stammers through an

explanation” makes it necessary for Ralph to “tactfully summarize [it] for Helen’s

benefit”.

Conclusion of part 2

59 A hypothesis concerning the difference between the role of the relative clause when

associated to extraction or pinpointing may now be formulated, in the case of specific

reference.

Pinpointing: the definite article as trace of a pinpointing operation indicates explicitly that

the occurrence is maximally stabilized, in other words that indeterminacy is totally

eliminated. In this case, qualification with an undetached relative clause is interpreted by

default as the distinctive property that justifies the pinpointing operation. There is no

dissociation here between determination 1 (operation conveyed by the determiner) and

determination 2 (reduction of indeterminacy), and the relative clause is typically

determinative. But if the pinpointing operation is justified elsewhere in the context or

situation, then qualification of the occurrence via a relative clause will be explicitly

detached (via a pause or a comma), and the relative clause typically appositive.

Extraction: the quantitative/existential justification of determination 1 (operation of

extraction conveyed through A) is to be found not within but outside the noun phrase, via

the predication in the main clause, and the qualification conveyed in the relative clause

reduces indeterminacy (determination 2) but does not eliminate it. The occurrence remains

unstable. Since the relative clause is not constitutive of determination 1, there is no need for

it to be explicitly detached, and the types of qualification conveyed are similar to those

found in typical, detached appositive clauses (descriptive, causal/explanatory, plot-

advancing).

Conclusion

60 In part 1 we observed cases for which the relative clause conveys the conditions for the

extraction marked by determiner A. This concerns the passage from an unsecable,

indivisible notion to an occurrence of said notion, as is the case when the noun is

compact, or when a non-specific occurrence is used as an exemplar for the class. Here,

the relative clause justifies determination 1 (operation conveyed by the determiner),

and qualification as constitutive of determination 1 provides the notion with a form of

delimitation that allows for the construction of an occurrence.

61 In part 2, when the noun is discrete (countable) and the reference of the noun phrase

specific, it is the existential anchoring of the occurrence that provides the delimitation

of the occurrence, and this is justified outside the noun phrase. The relative clause

•

•

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participates in determination 2 (gradual reduction of indeterminacy). Qualification as

reduction of indeterminacy is justified in similar ways as typically appositive relative

clauses.

62 The “problematic”, “unclassifiable” nature of undetached relative clauses in A is

related to the interaction between the operation of determination and the qualification

conveyed in the relative clause. This interaction is all the more complex in the case of A

as the indefinite article is a marker that constitutes an intermediate, liminal stage in

determination between the total instability of the notion (as conveyed via zero

determination), and the total stability of the pinpointed occurrence (as conveyed

through THE).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BNC, see Davies 2004–.

COCA, see Davies 2008–.

Cotte, Pierre. “Les propositions relatives et l'énonciation” Cycnos 17, n° spécial (2000): 47-57.

http://revel.unice.fr/cycnos/index.html?id=1697

Culioli, Antoine. Pour une linguistique de l'énonciation. Opérations et représentations. Tome 1. Paris:

Ophrys, 1990.

Danon-Boileau, Laurent and Martine de Cola. “This, that et les adjectifs: construction de la

référence.” Cahiers de Recherche en Grammaire Anglaise. Tome 4. Paris : Ophrys (1989): 129-144.

Davies, Mark. BYU-BNC (Based on the British National Corpus from Oxford UP), 2004–. Available

online at https://www.english-corpora.org/bnc/

Davies, Mark. The Corpus of Contemporary American English: 520 million words, 1990-present, 2008–.

Available online at https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/

Flintham, Ronald. “Invariant et variation: les relatifs WHICH et THAT.” Cycnos 15, n° spécial

(1998): 157-70.

Flintham, Ronald. “La construction d'une occurrence individuée de notion nominale compacte en

anglais sous la forme <A N (compact) WHICH/THAT>.” Cycnos 16.2 (1999): 21-37. http://

revel.unice.fr/cycnos/index.html?id=47

Fuchs, Catherine and Judith Milner. A propos des relatives. Étude empirique des faits français, anglais et

allemands, et tentative d’interprétation. Paris: SELAF, 1979.

Gilbert, Eric. “Quelques remarques sur AS et la construction des valeurs référentielles.” La

référence 1, Statut et processus, Travaux du Cerlico 11, PUR (1998): 103-26.

Khalifa, Jean-Charles. La syntaxe anglaise aux concours. Théorie et pratique de l'énoncé complexe. Paris:

Armand Colin, 2004.

Kleiber, Georges. “Remarques sur l’opposition ‘relative restrictive/relative appositive’ et l'article

indéfini UN spécifique.” Travaux de Linguistique et de Littérature XXII.2 (1984): 179-91.

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Kleiber, Georges. “Relatives restrictives/relatives appositives: de passement(s) autorise (s).”

Langages 88 (1987): 41-63. DOI: 10.3406/lgge.1987.2065

Loock, Rudy. Appositive Relative Clauses in English: Discourse Functions and Competing Structures.

Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2010.

Loock, Rudy. “Pour (enfin ?) en finir avec les deux types de relatives. La linguistique face aux

limites de la catégorisation.” Cercles 29 (2013): 21-45. http://www.cercles.com/n29/loock.pdf

Malan, Naomi. La proposition relative en anglais contemporain : une approche pragmatique. Paris:

Ophrys, 1999.

Mélis, Gérard. “Relatives et types de qualification. Cycnos 17, n° spécial (2000): 1-20. http://

revel.unice.fr/cycnos/index.html?id=1693

Rivière, Claude and Nicole Rivière. “Sur l'opposition relative restrictive/relative appositive.”

Cycnos 17, n° spécial (2000): 21-7.

NOTES

1. Translations of original quotations in French are ours.

2. The examples are taken from the BYU British National Corpus (Davies 2004-), hereafter

referred to as BNC, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (Davies 2008-), hereafter

referred to as COCA, and personal readings.

3. These are different from classic “mass nouns”, called “dense” in the theory of enunciative

operations, which are compatible with fragmentation involving measurable quantities. With

compact nouns, quantifiers tend to involve the construction of degree rather than a measure of

quantity

4. On the choice of the relative pronoun and its link to subjective endorsement, which is not the

focus of this paper, see Flintham (1998) and Khalifa (2004: 203).

5. For a detailed analysis of the operation of identification relative to a notion, see Gilbert (1998).

6. In these examples, semantic vagueness is another factor for the necessity of the relative

clause. This will be further explored in 1.3.

7. See above, note 5.

ABSTRACTS

The purpose of this paper is to observe the properties of undetached relative clauses qualifying

nouns determined with the indefinite article A in the framework of the theory of enunciative

operations. In this framework, determination is seen as a process through which indeterminacy

is eliminated and occurrences are stabilised. We have observed the interaction of indefinite

determination with the qualification expressed in the relative clause to sort out when the

relative clause gives the conditions for determination in A and when its role is to qualify an

occurrence whose conditions of existence are to be found elsewhere in the utterance. This

contributes to explaining why undetached relative clauses with an indefinite antecedent are

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problematic vis-à-vis the classical distinction between determinative and appositive relative

clauses.

Le but de cet article est d'observer les propriétés des propositions relatives non détachées dont

l'antécédent est déterminé par l'article indéfini A dans le cadre de la théorie des opérations

énonciatives. Dans ce cadre, la détermination est envisagée comme un processus d'élimination

d'indétermination et de stabilisation des occurrences. Nous avons observé l'interaction de la

détermination indéfinie et de la qualification exprimée dans la proposition relative afin de

dégager les cas dans lesquels la proposition relative véhicule les conditions de la détermination

en A de ceux dans lesquels elle qualifie une occurrence dont les conditions d'existence sont

posées ailleurs dans l'énoncé. Ceci nous a permis de montrer en quoi les propositions relatives

non détachées dont l'antécédent est déterminé par A posent problème au regard de la distinction

classique entre propositions relatives déterminatives et appositives.

INDEX

Mots-clés: proposition relative, détermination, indétermination, article indéfini, théorie des

opérations énonciatives, déterminative, appositive, stabilisation, notion, occurrence, extraction,

fléchage

Keywords: relative clause, determination, indeterminacy, indefinite article, theory of

enunciative operations, determinative, appositive, stabilization, notion, occurrence, extraction,

pinpointing

AUTHORS

STÉPHANE GRESSET

Universite Paris Diderot. Clillac-Arp, EA 3967. Contact: stephane.gresset [at] univ-paris-diderot.fr

CATHERINE MAZODIER

Universite Paris Diderot. Clillac-Arp, EA 3967. Contact: catherine.mazodier [at] univ-paris-

diderot.fr

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J. Baird Callicott, Science, and theUnstable Foundation ofEnvironmental EthicsJean-Daniel Collomb

1 Since its emergence in the 1970s, US environmental ethics has always been closely

linked to ecological science. To be more specific, the former tends to draw heavily on

the latter. This close association with ecological science makes environmental ethics a

groundbreaking and highly stimulating field of inquiry. However it also makes the

foundation for environmental ethics more precarious than most of its practitioners

would wish it to be. On the one hand, environmental philosophers endeavor to convey

a clear moral message and to provide readers with strong ethical guidelines, while on

the other environmental ethics is, to a large extent, predicated on scientific knowledge

which, in essence, is subject to and driven by change and innovation in the form of new

findings. The upshot is that the edifice of environmental ethics rests on precarious

grounds, on a shifting foundation that can radically undermine the moral prescriptions

issued by environmental philosophers. The purpose of this article is to examine how

environmental philosophers come to grips with this tension by taking J. Baird Callicott

as a case-study.

2 J. Baird Callicott, one of the founders of environmental philosophy (Becher 139), taught

the first course on environmental ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

in 1971. His fifty-year academic career has resulted in a myriad of articles and seminal

books, including In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy (1989),

Beyond the Land Ethic: More Essays in Environmental Philosophy (1999) and, more recently,

Thinking Like a Planet: The Land Ethic and the Earth Ethic (2013). He remains a major figure,

both admired and criticized for his work in US environmental circles, especially for the

central role he has performed in the questioning of the notion of wilderness. One of his

most significant contributions remains his steadfast commitment to, and interpretation

of, Aldo Leopold’s land ethic (1966).

3 Change and mutability are central to Leopold’s thinking, and thus to Callicott’s. Both

try to convince their contemporaries that the mutability of ecosystems should be taken

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into consideration when it comes to defining norms of human behavior. In order for

them to act morally, communities need to acknowledge their membership of larger

“land communities”, characterized by Darwinian change and constant adaptation.

Callicott argues that a radical paradigm shift away from modernity and toward a

reconstructive postmodern philosophy, informed by Darwinism, ecology and quantum

theory, is a necessity, if the land ethic is to bring about significant change and become

conventional wisdom. Ironically, however, Callicott’s emphasis on change and

mutability may also contain the seeds of the destruction of the ethic thus propounded,

as exemplified by the impact of disturbance ecology on the land ethic and Callicott’s

defense of land ethic. Mutability is therefore a concept that is ripe with opportunities

and with challenges: both a sine qua non and a threat.

New Developments in the Meaning of Community

4 Leopold’s land ethic was expounded in A Sand County Almanac, published posthumously

in 1949 (Leopold 1966). Initially employed as a forester in the tradition of Gifford

Pinchot’s utilitarian conservation, Leopold (1887-1948) gradually changed his

perspective on the nature of man’s relationship with nature and on the meaning of

conservation. Ecological science and Darwinism led him to conceive of the land as a

community made up of interrelated parts, heavily dependent on one another and

which thus form a coherent whole. Accordingly, the land ethic blurs the distinction

between mankind and the rest of nature. For Leopold, man is part and parcel of nature,

not a radically distinct entity. Leopold echoes Darwin, who had envisioned an extension

of ethics in The Descent of Man (59-60). Leopold contends that the scope of ethics has

gradually widened as humans have come to regard themselves as members not just of a

family but also of a tribe, a region and a nation. In A Sand County Almanac, Leopold takes

Darwin’s extension of ethics a step further by stating that ethics should now also

encompass whole ecosystems:1

The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils,waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land… In short, a land ethic changesthe role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain memberand citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for thecommunity as such. (239-40)

5 This extension of ethics led Leopold to a new moral maxim which, he hoped, would lay

the groundwork for a more enlightened relationship between human communities and

other living beings: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability

and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” (262) J. Baird

Callicott has been trying to convey Leopold’s ecocentric message to his fellow

philosophers and to broader audiences since the 1970s.

6 Callicott endorses the land ethic, thereby eliminating Cartesian dualism which draws a

clear line between nature and civilization as well as between the human species and the

rest of nature: “I follow Darwin in thinking that human culture is continuous with

primate and mammalian proto-culture and that, no matter how hypertrophic it may

lately have become, contemporary human civilization remains embedded in nature.”

(Great New Wilderness 388) For Callicott, it is implicit that to embrace Darwin’s teachings

about evolution entails the re-examination of the role of the human species in nature.

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7 Aldo Leopold was both a professional conservationist and a professor of game

management, he was not a philosopher, however. This explains, in part, why Callicott

endeavored to elevate the land ethic to the intellectual plane of philosophy. He felt no

qualms about conceding the philosophical limitations of the land ethic as expounded in

Leopold’s work (Beyond Land Ethic 60). In his attempt to bring philosophical credibility

to the concept of land ethic, he turned to David Hume and Adam Smith, since both

thinkers had claimed that sympathy is the fountainhead of moral sentiments.

8 Callicott refers mainly to Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature and An Enquiry Concerning the

Principles of Morals. According to Hume, man is instinctively able to determine whether

an action is morally reprehensible or not. His moral sense is therefore shaped by his

emotions and instincts, rather than by reason (Hume 297-98). Sympathy and altruism

are intrinsically human, rather than social constructs (305), which enables Hume to

assert that man is not merely selfish. The pursuit of self-interest, Hume argues, is not

sufficient to give a full explanation of the roots of human behavior. Hume is however

also quick to point out the limits of human sympathy (384).

9 Callicott draws on Hume’s theories in the formulation of his own ecocentric

philosophy.2 In the process, he attempts to demonstrate that Darwinism, Aldo Leopold’s

land ethic and his own thinking are all indebted to Hume. The influence of Hume’s and

Adam Smith’s theories of moral sentiments is evident in Darwin’s The Descent of Man

(1871). Several decades later, Callicott claims, Darwin’s application of evolution to the

human species was to shape Leopold’s ethical reflections, which are now the basis of

Callicott’s philosophy. Callicott’s interest in Hume thus informs two crucial trends in

his thinking: the primacy of moral sentiments and the superiority of communitarian

obligations over individualism (Thinking 9).

10 Thanks to Hume’s philosophy and Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, Callicott is able to present

his own account of the origins of human morality:

(1) we (i.e., all psychologically normal people) are endowed with certain moralsentiments (sympathy, concern for others, and so on) for our fellows, especially forour kin; (2) modern biology treats Homo sapiens (a), as, like all other living species, aproduct of the process of organic evolution; and hence, (b) people are literally kin(because of common ancestry) to all other contemporary forms of life; (3) therefore,if so enlightened, we should feel and thus behave […] toward other living things inways similar to the way we feel and thus behave toward our human kin. (125)

11 In the same way that Darwinism forms the scientific bedrock for the land ethic, Hume’s

emphasis on moral sentiments constitutes the philosophical cornerstone of Callicott’s

ethical propositions.3

12 According to Callicott, the broader the range of moral patients in a given community,

the more ethically sophisticated the community (Nelson 252-3). His dedication to an

enlarged vision of community, including ecosystems, puts him at odds with the many

branches of ethics that are predicated on individualism. As Callicott himself

acknowledges, she who commits herself to the land ethic “will […] be a far cry from the

hard-edged, disengaged, dislocated individual of the Modern Western liberal tradition.”

(Beyond Land Ethic 314) The perception of the self as a completely autonomous and self-

sufficient entity fuels the well-entrenched philosophical ideas that Callicott is eager to

displace. The notion of the self as an independent monad is a physical and

psychological impossibility. It makes no sense from the perspective of ecology, which

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23

places a premium on interconnections and interdependences, hence Callicott’s call for

a radical transformation in our understanding of community and individuality.

13 Callicott is optimistic about the ability of moral sentiments and communitarian

solidarities to evolve and broaden. He even thinks that the history of ethics is on his

side: “The moral sentiments are undetermined and open-ended. We can learn to

respect things today, such as universal human rights and animal rights, our nation-

states, and our biotic communities, of which our remote ancestors knew nothing when

the human moral sentiments were evolving.” (Ouderkirk 298)In other words, today’s

community will not necessarily be identical to tomorrow’s community. The mutability

and the protean character of community as a notion offer opportunities for the

proponents of the land ethic.

14 Callicott’s broadening of community coincides with a broadening of the human self,

which bears a close resemblance to Arne Naess’s deep ecological notion of Self-

realization:4

[…] oneself and other persons (which certainly would not exclude other animals)are nodes or nexuses in a skein of relationships —relationships with organisms bothinternal and external to one’s superecosystem. Through one’s superecosystemcirculate water, various materials (both nutritious and poisonous) and the biogenicair. The material world, both in form of inert matter and living matter […] crossesthe fuzzy and penetrable boundaries of the superecosystem that is oneself. Throughthe pores of one’s skin, on the air one breathes into one’s lungs, in the water onedrinks, and in the food one eats. (Naess 111)

15 Callicott believes that a human being is much more than a body and self-interest. The

self can only be understood properly in the larger context of the multiple communities

to which it belongs — family, region, nation, party, ideology, biotic community, to

name only a few. Such a broad and elastic vision of the self is bound to seem excessive

to many modern philosophers, which is not surprising since Callicott’s ambition is to

precipitate the dawn of a postmodern age which will transcend modern individualism.

The Need for a Shift in Paradigms

16 Callicott’s entire philosophical endeavor is predicated on the simple notion that a

radical change in worldview is required for his contemporaries to solve the tremendous

environmental challenges of the 21st century. No solution will be found as long as a

great paradigm shift, to paraphrase Thomas Kuhn to whom Callicott explicitly refers,

does not come to pass (Beyond Land Ethic 302). In fact, Callicott is convinced that the

great paradigm shift is already underway and that modernity is doomed to disappear.

17 Callicott regularly proclaimed the end of the modern idea of nature (1992: 16), which

originated in the scientific revolution of the 17th century with Descartes, Newton, and

Bacon, among others. This idea of nature is inherently linked to a fundamental

dichotomy between man and nature, subject and object, mind and body. Catherine and

Raphaël Larrère see this approach as conducive to a radical subjugation of nature by

human science and technology, since nature is perceived as “shorn of all mystery and

enchantment, and as a created entity that can be disposed of and manipulated.”

(Larrère 58-9, my translation) Callicott asserts that despite the prestige and appeal of

the modern idea of nature, its scientific justification no longer holds much weight.

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18 In the second half of the 19th century and in the early 20 th century, Darwinism,

ecological science and the theory of relativity threatened to discredit Cartesian

dualism. The tenets of Darwinism invalidated the notion that the human species is in

essence radically different from others; ecology insists on the centrality of the

interaction and interdependence found in nature, as epitomized by ecosystems. The

theory of relativity makes it impossible to posit a sharp and fundamental separation

between subjects and objects (Callicott 1989: 165-6). Callicott argues that these

scientific developments have fatally undermined modernity:

Ecology is not just an arcane sub-discipline of biology. Like the theory of evolution,it is pregnant with vast philosophical implications. Indeed, ecology, along with thetheory of evolution and relativity and quantum theory in physics, is propelling asea change in the Western world view, a paradigm shift […] I would go further stilland suggest that ours could be one of those moments in history […] that come butrarely in human cultural development: a moment in history not unlike the GoldenAge of Greece when Western art, literature, philosophy, and democracy were born;or Renaissance Europe when Modern Science and technology began to take shape.(Beyond Land Ethic 287)

19 Thus, the modern worldview, Callicott contends, is a losing proposition which

continues to shape human affairs, and which is one of the great paradoxes of our time.

To his mind, the modern worldview is therefore doomed to be replaced and superseded

by a new worldview. The relevant question is to determine when it will happen.

20 Unsurprisingly, Callicott’s call for a postmodern vision of nature came in for

considerable criticism in environmental circles, especially because of his attack on the

notion of wilderness as it helps perpetuate the anti-ecological nature/civilization

dichotomy. Callicott was accused of condoning the adversaries of environmental

protection, by providing them with arguments to the effect that nature is a myth and

therefore need not be protected (Callicott 2008: 351-4). Such accusations prompted

Callicott to clarify his position:

Note that my Darwinian-Leopoldian naturalization of culture is opposite the stanceof other postmodern environmental philosophers who culturize […] nature. Theyargue that nature is culturally (or socially) constructed, whereas I argue thatculture is naturally evolved and remains a part of nature. (Ouderkirk 300)

21 Callicott’s approach to the origins of ethics allows him to eliminate this dualism,

without endangering the justification for ethics: natural evolution has provided the

human species with a moral sense, according to Darwin, Leopold, and Callicott. It is

therefore possible for the human species to see itself as part of nature and therefore to

treat nature morally.

22 Callicott appears almost desperate to dissociate himself from deconstructionism, or

French theory. He wants to cast himself as a postmodern philosopher, while insisting

that his ethical propositions will not lead to a relativistic dead end: “Absent a

comprehensive and culturally shared new myth, we are left with plural points of view,

perspectives, multiple outlooks — each of which has an equal class on truth” (Beyond

Land Ethic 161), so much so that Callicott faults Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty for

spreading a nihilistic message (163). He even bemoans the advent of the “new Dark

Ages of deconstructive différance, without even the minimum methodological

agreements required for resolving differences of opinion by informed reasoned

argument.” (165) Callicott’s statements regarding Derrida testify more to his desire to

avoid being seen as a postmodern enemy of environmental protection than to an in-

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depth knowledge of Derrida’s actual philosophy, which is far from being antithetical to

environmental awareness (Clark). Callicott’s main concern is to avoid promoting

deconstructive theories which, he argues, may turn out merely to be destructive.

23 A dominant paradigm is not only necessary in and of itself. Callicott contends that it is

furthermore desirable. He considers his interpretation of postmodernism to be

reconstructive, since its function is not to liquidate all worldviews, but rather to help

mankind embrace a renewed one, predicated on the lessons of Darwinism, ecology, and

the New Physics: “If Western philosophy played a major role in the creation of the

prevailing dualistic mechanistic Western worldview, then Western philosophy would

seem to have a major role to play in deconstructing it, and in reconstructing a new

ecological-organic worldview.” (Beyond Land Ethic 39) The fact that postmodernism can

be defined in many different ways (Rey 63) makes it easier for Callicott to lay claim to

it.

24 Change or mutation brought about by a scientific paradigm shift is factor which creates

philosophical opportunities, as demonstrated by Callicott’s blueprint for an ecocentric

postmodern age, although it also begets what is an unstable state for ethics. The fruits

of future scientific research are at best uncertain. The emphasis laid on change and on

scientific developments which is at the heart of Callicott’s ethic may contain the seeds

its very destruction.

The Ecology of Chaos vs the Land Ethic

25 Callicott has repeatedly proclaimed the superiority of the scientific method: “Before

any critical experiments are designed, a scientific theory is brought before the tribunal

of the logical law of noncontradiction. Scientific narratives are likely to be internally

more consistent than other alternatives, and therefore, more tenable.” (Callicott 2001:

91) Self-correction is what sets the scientific method inherited from the scientific

revolution apart from other epistemological approaches. Furthermore, the scientific

method is highly responsive to the evolution of human experience. Callicott’s emphasis

on the role of science is all the more crucial insofar as “the facts of ecological science

yield the oughts of the land ethic.” (Ouderkirk 40) This, however, has prompted some of

Callicott’s detractors to affirm that ecology is too unstable a field to serve as a reliable

foundation for ethics (239). The main weakness in Callicott’s ethical apparatus

undoubtedly lies in the unending capacity of the scientific method to call into question

the state of accepted knowledge, as was made evident by the challenge to the land ethic

brought about by the advent of disturbance ecology.

26 In the 1970s, ecological research began to stray away from the principles which had

defined it since the mid-20th century. As epitomized in the work of American scientist

Eugene E. Odum, ecology had hitherto revolved around the notions of stability and

harmony. Yet it was not long before this vision of undisturbed and self-perpetuating

ecosystems was questioned and replaced by disturbance ecology and the nature-in-flux

paradigm. Change and disruption, rather than stability and harmony, were thus to be

apprehended as the driving force behind ecosystems, if indeed these even existed in

the first place. The historian Donald Worster introduced and discussed the main

features of what he called the ecology of chaos, in his article “The Ecology of Order and

Chaos” (1990):

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26

We look for cooperation in nature and we find only competition. We look fororganized wholes, and we can discover only loose atoms and fragments. We hopefor order and discern only a mishmash of conjoining species, all seeking their ownadvantage in utter disregard of others. (Worster 9)

27 The upshot is that it now makes less ecological sense to define ecosystem health as

stability and for the analyst or observer to systematically regard disruption and

stochastic change as unwanted and necessarily harmful. To make matters even worse,

from the Leopoldian viewpoint, ecosystems whose relevancy can be questioned, have at

best ill-defined boundaries, a feature which undermines the case for studying them as

self-sufficient and self-regulating entities.

28 S.T.A. Pickett and P.S. White note, in their introduction to The Ecology of Natural

Disturbance and Patch Dynamics (1987), the seminal book on disturbance ecology, that

“equilibrium landscapes would […] seem to be the exception, rather than the rule.”

(Pickett and White 5) While by no means downplaying the ability of ecological

researchers to understand their natural environment, Pickett and White focus on the

need to pay more attention to the central role of natural disturbances:

A systematic and comprehensive approach to the study of disturbance is essential,given its primary role and the inherent complexity of disturbance types andimpacts. Without such an approach, ecologists will continue to catalog disturbancepatterns and biological responses with little hope of comprehension emerging fromthe chaos. (165)

29 It should come as no surprise that the impact of disturbance ecology extended well

beyond the confines of scientific research and has had an effect on environmental

ethics as well. The emergence of disturbance ecology brings to the fore several

inconvenient questions regarding the land ethic: does it still make sense to refer to a

land ethic, when dealing with natural phenomena which are liable to sudden and

unpredictable radical change? How can consideration be granted to natural entities

whose boundaries resist precise definition? Callicott confronted these questions head-

on, writing extensively on disturbance ecology (Callicott 2009: 177-93).

30 Callicott integrated disturbance ecology within an updated version of the land ethic. He

did so by way of a distinction between two kinds of perturbation, one that is

consubstantial to the functioning of ecosystems and, as such, does not clash with biotic

integrity, whereas the other, stemming from large-scale technological and industrial

development, is unnecessary, destructive and is therefore unethical. Scale is the

criterion adopted here, in order to determine whether the changes at work in a given

ecosystem are beyond the pale of the land ethic. The instability resulting from techno-

industrial development is of such great magnitude that it becomes essentially different

from other non-anthropic disturbances:

In general, frequent, intense disturbances, such as tornadoes, occur at small, widelydistributed spatial scales. And spatially broadcast disturbances, such as droughts,occur less frequently. And most disturbances at whatever level of intensity andscale are stochastic (random) and chaotic (unpredictable). The problem withanthropogenic perturbations —such as industrial forestry and agriculture, exurbandevelopment, drift net fishing, and such— is that they are far more frequent,widespread, and regularly occurring than are nonanthropogenic perturbations.(Beyond Land Ethic 136-137)

31 Not all changes are identical. From the perspective of the land ethic, some

perturbations are accepted, while others are not, man-made climate change being a

case in point. Relying on the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate change,

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Callicott revised and updated Leopold’s land ethic in order to make it compliant with

disturbance ecology: “A thing is right when it tends to disturb the biotic community

only at normal spatial and temporal scales. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” (138)

32 Science remains central both to Callicott’s ethical reflections and to the vulnerability of

his ethical propositions regarding the unstable and volatile state of scientific

knowledge. The land ethic is scientifically driven. It is therefore highly responsive to

contemporary developments and is thus able to address new challenges. It may

however also be considered to be unreliable and ever-shifting, as a foundation for

ethical guidelines. Whether this uncertainty will appeal to Callicott’s contemporaries

remains a moot point.

Conclusion

33 Callicott has compelling reasons to believe that modernity is about to be displaced.

Faced however with the many challenges of climate change, the depletion of natural

resources due to unsustainable global economic growth and the ongoing mass

extinction of species that is occurring worldwide, the question as to whether modernity

will morph into Callicott’s ecocentric worldview or move towards the creation of an

increasingly artificialized environment is a moot point. Callicott’s optimistic view

suggests the advent of a global and multicultural convergence toward a non-

anthropocentric consensus, informed by the postmodern scientific vision (Callicott

1997: xiv-v). Others, who are as concerned as he is with our current environmental

predicament, argue that the pervasive influence of human action on the biosphere may

lead mankind to try to control nature even more, if only to address the problems it has

created. Yuval Harari (448-51) has recently described the huge potential of

biotechnologies for the 21st century, while geoengineering is sometimes touted as a

credible means through which to address climate change. According to this vision, the

influence of global industrial civilization on the biosphere is considered to have

become so deep and so far-ranging that the only viable option remaining is that of

further control through science and technology. By contrast, Callicott’s alternative

vision amounts to a radical rejection of the continuation of the Cartesian narrative.

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NOTES

1. Ecosystem as a notion is attributed to British scientist Arthur Tansley in 1935. Tansley and

Leopold knew each other, and their ideas were close intellectually.

2. There is an element of irony to Callicott’s use of Hume’s philosophy. The philosophers who

attempt to derive ethical norms from the observation of natural phenomena are often accused of

committing the so-called naturalistic fallacy, which Hume is said to have conceptualized.

According to this view, science can shed light on the laws of nature, but cannot convey any moral

message. Ethics, in other words, cannot be grounded in nature, because nature merely exists,

without heeding moral considerations (for a more detailed introduction to the naturalistic

fallacy, see Hess 99 and DesJardins 169). In order to address this objection, Callicott turns to

Darwin’s The Descent of Man, claiming that ethics is merely a by-product of natural evolution.

Thanks to sympathy, which Callicott sees as being consubstantial to human nature, ecological

knowledge gives us a sense of our belonging in nature, which in turn breeds ethical consideration

for nature (for Callicott’s full defense against the naturalistic fallacy charge, see Callicott 2013:

36, 71). As a result, Callicott does not perceive the naturalistic fallacy as an obstacle to his use of

Hume as a philosophical justification for his ethical propositions.

3. Callicott is well aware that Hume could not have been familiar with Darwinism, let alone with

the land ethic. Yet, he argues that linking Hume’s views on the moral sentiments to Leopold’s

ethic does not represent an anachronism, for though moral sentiments only apply to human

beings in Hume’s work, their scope can be updated and enlarged in the light of scientific

developments that occurred after Hume’s death. In effect, what Callicott does is to explore new

territory by extending Hume’s theory to non-human entities.

4. In Naess’s work, Self-realization is consubstantial to the rejection of Cartesian dualism and to

the integration of the human into the nonhuman. Naess contends that awareness of the

ontological bond between the human species and nonhuman life can come about in ways that

differ from one individual to another (Gestalt formation). (60-61) These various processes lead to

the flourishing of a new conception of the self in harmony with the spirit of Deep Ecology. Eric

Katz calls it “an expanded self-identifying with the natural world.” (Katz 25)

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ABSTRACTS

This article analyzes the ideas of American philosopher J. Baird Callicott to shed light on

ecological thinking and its inherent commitment to change and the adaptation of US

environmental ethics. Callicott is one of the most prominent and longest-serving practitioners of

environmental ethics; he is especially known for his support of land ethic, as defined by Aldo

Leopold, and ecocentrism, an ethic predicated on the perception of ecosystems as communities.

Callicott draws on the works of David Hume, Adam Smith and Charles Darwin to justify a

Leopoldian ecocentrism. Extending Hume’s and Smith’s theory of moral sentiments to non-

human life and ecosystems, Callicott claims to have continued Darwin’s ethical reflections in The

Descent of Man (1871), also taken up by Aldo Leopold after his conversion to the ecological

worldview. Callicott argues that the meaning of community can and must be protean, in order to

ensure that environmental destruction will not continue unimpeded. Callicott thus calls for a

major paradigm shift away from modernity, as defined by the scientific revolution of the 17th

century, to a reconstructive postmodernity informed by Darwinism, ecology and the “new”

physics spawned by quantum theory. According to Callicott, the only effective way to transcend

Cartesian dualism is to bring about a major change in people’s worldview. Short of such a shift in

paradigms, the dualities at the root of the environmental crisis will persist. Ironically, one of the

main challenges to Callicott’s defense of the land ethic came from within ecology, from what

Donald Worster calls the ecology of chaos. If Callicott rescues Leopold’s land ethic from

ecological insignificance, this is because of the advent of disturbance ecology in the 1970s and

1980s along with the gradual replacement of the balance-of-nature paradigm by the nature-in-

flux paradigm. How can ecosystems be considered communities if they are subject to stochastic

and catastrophic change? Distinguishing the scale of non-human change and anthropogenic

change, Callicott salvages an ethic whose ecological foundations are precarious and unstable. In

doing so, he demonstrates that just as adaptation is part of a natural evolution, it is also the key

to intellectual and philosophical evolution. Callicott’s response to disturbance ecology

nevertheless highlights the precarious position of environmental philosophers who predicate

their moral prescriptions on scientific knowledge, given that the science of ecology is always

evolving.

Cet article vise à éclairer l’influence de la pensée écologique, et tout particulièrement de notions

telles que le changement et la mutation, sur l’éthique environnementale aux États-Unis en

analysant l’œuvre de J. Baird Callicott, aujourd’hui l’un des philosophes de l’environnement les

plus influents outre-Atlantique. Callicott a dédié une part considérable de sa carrière à la mise en

avant de l’éthique du vivant (land ethic) créée par Aldo Leopold au milieu du 20e siècle. Afin de

donner ses lettres de noblesse philosophiques à la proposition éthique de Leopold, Callicott

s’appuie notamment sur David Hume, Adam Smith et Charles Darwin : en appliquant aux

écosystèmes et aux espèces non-humaines les théories des sentiments moraux de Hume et de

Smith, Callicott affirme ne faire que poursuivre un processus commencé par Darwin dans La

Filiation de l’homme et développé par Aldo Leopold dans son Almanach d’un comté des sables. Selon

Callicott, l’élargissement du sens que l’espèce humaine confère aux liens communautaires est une

nécessité impérieuse face à la multiplication des défis environnementaux. Callicott en vient à

préconiser l’avènement d’un changement de paradigme, qui devra conduire l’humanité à adhérer

à une « modernité déconstructrice » informée par le darwinisme, la science écologique et

l’apport de la physique quantique. Callicott espère que cette transition conduira au

remplacement du dualisme cartésien entre l’espèce humaine et la nature par une vision

écocentriste du monde en vertu de laquelle l’espèce humaine se conçoit comme intégrée au

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vivant et non comme radicalement différente de lui. Pourtant, c’est la science écologique elle-

même qui fragilise le plus les propositions éthiques de Callicott à travers l’apparition, à la fin des

années 1970, de ce que l’historien Donald Worster a appelé l’écologie du chaos. L’attention

grandissante que les écologues apportent alors aux perturbations et à l’instabilité du vivant

contraint le philosophe à faire évoluer l’éthique léopoldienne en insistant sur le caractère

discriminant de l’échelle des perturbations : par la rapidité et l’ampleur des dégâts qu’elles

provoquent, certaines perturbations d’origine anthropique ne sont pas moralement acceptables.

Le parcours philosophique de Callicott démontre ainsi l’importance de la capacité d’adaptation

dans l’évolution intellectuelle et philosophique. Mais il souligne aussi la situation précaire des

philosophes de l’environnement qui fondent leurs prescriptions morales sur des savoirs

scientifiques. Ces savoirs jouissent d’un grand prestige depuis la révolution scientifique mais ils

sont par nature toujours susceptibles d’évoluer.

INDEX

Mots-clés: Callicot J. Baird, éthique de l’environnement, éthique du vivant, écocentrisme,

anthropocentrisme, écologie

Keywords: Callicot J. Baird, environmental ethics, land ethic, ecocentrism, anthropocentrism,

ecology

AUTHOR

JEAN-DANIEL COLLOMB

Jean-Daniel Collomb is a maître de conférences (assistant professor) in US civilization at Université

Jean Moulin Lyon 3 and a member of the Institut d’Études Transtextuelles et Transculturelles

(IETT). His research focuses on the history of environmental radicalism in the United States, and

on the conflicts between the American right and the environmental movement. Contact: Jean-

Daniel.collomb [at] univ-lyon3.fr

Angles, 4 | 2017

32

Intertwined Languages and BrokenFlows: Reading OntologicalPolyphonies in Lower MurrayCountry (South Australia)Camille Roulière

1 As a brief preamble, two aspects of this work require explanations.

2 First, the presentation of this essay is unconventional. It is primarily visual and to be

understood, literally and figuratively, as a tableau in the dual French meaning of the

term, i.e. as both table and picture. The graphic aspect of this non-linear vis-à-vis

format was deemed the most constructive manner to achieve the article’s aim of

preserving the opacity of Ngarrindjeri discourses, while shedding new light on the

interdependency between the “hyphenated” histories (Johnson 2014: 318), both current

and historical, of governmental and Ngarrindjeri ontologies and practices in relation to

waters.

3 This format allows for the author’s interpretative imaginary to be made explicit: this is

its picture side. Ngarrindjeri quotations, extracted from material released and/or

compiled by the Ngarrindjeri to support their projects, are separated from the body of

the analytical text and presented as a picture framed between two dotted lines. This

clear demarcation and relational apposition between the authorial voice, italicised

theoretical definitions used as epigraphs and Ngarrindjeri discourses appearing as

quotes generates a productive tension, the aim of which is to deconstruct the

representational practice of the “Other”.

4 This format also allows for autonomous and spontaneous connections between the

cells, visually placed in dialogue: this corresponds to its table format. These reactional

interactions are not designed solely as oppositions, but as infinite potential

“juxtapositions” (Binney 1995) of multiple and multiplying realities. As each reader

becomes involved and (re)(dis)connects the cells, the ontological divide between

governmental and Ngarrindjeri discourses is to be interpreted as a deforming space

Angles, 4 | 2017

33

filling with burgeoning polyphonies, rather than as the manifestation of an

unbridgeable and absolute schismatic void. I also decided to insert a set of photographs

which I took in 2015. These seemingly innocuous illustrations contribute to further

disrupting the expected linearity of the reading experience by requiring yet another

type of engagement from the readers. As they transition between text and photograph

and unconsciously translate one into the other, their responsibility becomes involved:

they are themselves bringing a vision of Lower Murray Country into being.

5 Second, I must stress that the insights I offer come from a specific perspective: I am

white, French-Australian, middle-class, and tertiary-educated. My “gaze” (Pratt 1992)

belongs to the dominant majority which still continues to define and shape

Aboriginality from the outside, and writing this article indubitably raises a number of

ethical issues. The representational challenges posed by such an endeavour are sorely

rooted in centuries of colonial practices, ranging from a denigrating essentialism to a

mode of celebratory appropriation. My aim here, in an attempt to avoid reproducing

these oppressive patterns, is to disrupt representational boundaries: left to speak for

themselves, Ngarrindjeri quotations retain their opacity (i.e. the expression of what

cannot be articulated) as I abandon, to a certain degree, a performative discursive

authority by way of the renunciation of a purely demonstrative and/or argumentative

logic.

Understanding the Waters of Lower Murray Country

Birds in Lower Murray Country

All pictures by the author.

Angles, 4 | 2017

34

Western Discourses: the

government’s voice

The quest for water, deemed to

represent a source of mobility,

development and commerce,

whose hypothetical presence

and abundance were

tantamount to a good omen,

figured at the centre of the

European colonial imaginary

in Australia. Australian waters

nonetheless proved a source of

disappointment and

frustration: difficult to locate,

lacking permanence, behaving

unexpectedly and

disappearing prematurely

(Carter 1987: 54-60). When

European explorers stumbled

upon Murray River Country in

the 1820s, it nonetheless

represented an acceptable

materialisation of their long-

held dream. The physicality of

the waters empirically

substantiated the promise of

riches and allowed for the

projection of the squatters’

expectations, as a result of

which this fertile region was

promptly settled. An

agricultural industry

burgeoned. In the settler’s

imagination, this fast-growing

industry quickly emerged as a

business of national

importance upon which

potential development success

rested, and rests still (Robin

2007: 207-209; Alexandra and

Riddington 2007: 326). Water

management, centred on

agricultural needs, became

indispensable to support this

ever-expanding pastoral vision

(Regulation Impact Statement

2012: vii, henceforth RIS), and

a plethora of investments

flooded the region for that

purpose (“Living Murray

Story” 2011: vi). These

investments gradually

transformed Murray River

Country into what is now

colloquially known as the

“food basket” of Australia. The

Aboriginal Discourses: Ngarrindjeri voices

Lower Murray Country is home to the Ngarrindjeri Nation:

eighteen clans sharing a Dreaming (i.e. ‘time when supernatural

beings and ancestors created the features of the land, along with

social and moral codes and laws’).

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

A Long, long time ago Ngurunderi our Spiritual Ancestorchased Pondi, the giant Murray Cod, from the junctionwhere the Darling and Murrundi (River Murray) meet. […]As Ngurunderi travelled throughout our Country, hecreated landforms, waterways and life. […] He gave eachLakalinyeri (clan) our identity to our Ruwe (country) andour Ngarjtis (animals, birds, fish and plants). ( KungunNgarrindjeri Yunnan 2006: 8, henceforth KNY)

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

European colonisation of the region started in 1836. South

Australia’s founding document, the Letters Patent of 1836, contained

provisions with regards to the Traditional Owners’ land rights.

These were ignored: Lower Murray Country rapidly became “a

‘white space’ framed by Aboriginalist myths” (Hemming et al.

Angles, 4 | 2017

35

Western science

The Basin Plan (the MDBA’s

regulating project governing

uses for Murray River

Country’s waters), is informed,

through and through, by the

“best available” Western

scientific knowledge (RIS

19, 85; Report 62; MDBA

Website’s “Publications” tab).

As such, Western science is the

systematic rationale behind

water understanding and

management, as promoted in

and through governmental

managerial practices in

Murray River Country and,

consequently, in Lower Murray

Country. This can be no

surprise: in Australia, as in

other settler colonial countries

(Dunlap 1999), there is a

century-long history of

governmental promotion and

use of science as the nation’s

building tool to move forward

and into the future (Robin

2007).

Such scientific foundations

mean two things in terms of

the articulated water

understanding: first, it is

rooted in Western ontology,

and is thus globalising; second,

it is capitalistic and builds an

antinomic conception between

ecological and economic

waters.

Government promoted

centrality and authority

granted to Western science

secures the understanding of

Australian waters within a

wider Western ontological

frame. As part of this

transposition, scientific

technicality is anchored as a

universal truth, to the

detriment of a location-bound

technicality (see adjacent cell).

This scientific technicality is

numerical: it primarily rests

on mathematics. As such,

water is exclusively defined

through and understood as

Profoundly atavistic and technical

These three productions are rooted in marginalised stories of

Australian environmental design. These stories originate in

situated life rhythms and knowledges. They have been acquired,

transmitted and adapted through observation and tradition for

centuries.

Technique: a complex

set of rules and

principles which rely,

depend and respond

to an environment.

Technique in that

sense does not come

first, it is not

technique for the sake

of technique, which

does not need to relate

to anything but itself.

It is technique as a

means to live within

and care for a specific

environment.

Angles, 4 | 2017

36

Bulls on Kumarangk (Hindmarsh) Island

Angles, 4 | 2017

37

Fixing

Embracing changes

Ngarrindjeri emplaced, technical and eco-sentient

understanding of waters is expressed through a large variety of

artistic means. This media-polymorphic propensity in itself

serves and contributes to its expression.

One shared characteristic of the way water understanding is

expressed across these media is that it is oral-in-essence. The

repetitive quality of orality is essential to the expression of

what is being said. It is as much a way of conceiving it as of

spreading it. What is expressed is constantly altered through

different genres, forms and sites. It is tailored to place and

audience. It moulds itself on them; it talks to, and through,

them.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Repetitive quality of orality.Redundancy – Media within the medium.Break: the systematic character of genres.PROLIFERATION (similarly to Nature).“Le ressassement du discours est la mesure d’unNous.” (Glissant 1981b)The dialectics betweenoral and writtenspoken and sunggrounded and flowingis being played on.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Repetition in this case does not represent a missed encounter,

with place or people.

Repetition is the articulation of a constantly

transforming encounter, or of waves of encounters which

endlessly transform.

Repetition highlights the relational nature of

Ngarrindjeri understanding of waters: it is flexible, organic,

flowing; it shifts and evolves with the environment, through

human and non-human meetings.

Repetition protects and guarantees the opacity of these

discourses. It focuses on the specific, not the singular.

Ngarrindjeri imaginary is transmitted through obscurities.

Examples are followed by other examples: this layering creates

a profusion of images. These “inventories of the real”

(Kullberg 2013: 972), favoured over summarising grand truths,

bridge a potential distance which could distort and fix the real

through abstract theoretical constructions. Truths come from

the unarticulated within each located example.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Ringbalin – River Stories”: websites, application,documentary film and trailers, social media, andannual ceremony.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Angles, 4 | 2017

38

Dredgers working at the Murray Mouth

Lower Murray Country

Angles, 4 | 2017

39

Future-oriented

This understanding of waters

means that future-oriented

discourses emerge as viable

solutions for managing the

present environmental crisis

(RIS 38, 83). Pro-active water

management, built on the

postulate of dealing with

future needs and orientations

over immediate ones, is

favoured. Further alterations

are implemented to reinforce

control and potentially

counter a predicted

disastrous ecological future.

This silences the potential

alternative solutions in the

present, and prevents

ecosystems from naturally

balancing the impact of the

Anthropocene. By fixating the

solution in the future, such an

approach does indeed

effectively negate the

concepts of natural resilience

and regeneration, or

downplays them as being less

primordial than “engineered

resilience” focused on

efficiency, constancy and

predictability (Muir et al.

2010: 262). Every action is

part of a larger plan for a

brighter outcome, and some

places and species are

sacrificed for the benefit of

specific others—termed

“iconic” according to

government-designed

evaluating standards (Brown

et al. 2015)—or for the

system’s overall better

functioning. This dissociation

allows the MDBA to articulate

half-truths about the state of

Murray River Country. By

focusing on and privileging

selected elements, the extent

of the devastation is

rhetorically diminished.

Neglected sites, deemed of

lesser importance or interest,

or which simply do not fit

into the overall ‘grand plan’,

become “shadow places”

Continuous Present

Ngarrindjeri tellurism is multi-temporal: it rests on the notion that

the past and the ancestors are contained within the present

(“Murrundi Ruwe Pangari Ringbalin” 2010; NL: 40).

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ngarrindjeri have responsibilities to their Elders andancestors to look after the country and the burial sites andother culturally significant places that still exist.(Ngarrindjeri/Ramsar Working Group Paper 1998 inBirckhead et al. 2011: 7)

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

[…] interwoven within the spiral and woven coils ofNgarrindjeri weaving from the past, present and future arecontinuity, identity, diversity and cultural voices. (RitaLindsay Junior in NL 56)

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Weaving can connect people across time, from the pastinto the future. (Yvonne Koolmatrie in “Riverland: YvonneKoolmatrie” 2015)

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Coorong represents a bond with the past, a closenessto the earth. (Rankine 1974: 9)

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

The present is not simply the present, it is the “continuous

present” (Stein 2008: 220). This non-linear division of time

represents an important ethical positioning (Rose 2004).

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

The emphasis of our roles, responsibilities and spiritual /cultural connections to our Mother, Mother Earth, is asprofound yesterday as it is today and will be tomorrow. Wemust not neglect these mandatory responsibilities.(Matthew Rigney in Birckhead et al. 2011: I)

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

It makes “situated engagement” possible, as an antidote to the

power of universals (Howitt and Suchet-Pearson 2006: 332).

Angles, 4 | 2017

40

(Re)centring English:

Rooted Thought

This destruction is

particularly significant.

Empirically liminal places,

often historically imagined as

miasmic, wetlands threaten

the ontological security of

governmental discourses by

suggesting transgression

(Potter 2007: 250). By

presenting wetlands as

useless expanses which

impede the creation of better

places, governmental

discourses manifest their

propensity for “dry thinking”

(Carter 2004: 107), i.e. place-

making through exclusions

and oppositions, in order to

gain and/or retain command.

This “drying principle”

operates as an insulating,

intransigent and smothering

monolingual intellectual

framework which rejects

discursive diversity, non-

linear time and instability in

the production of place.

Most notably, Indigenous

modes of knowledges are

subdued through a past /

future disjunction in which

authority is conferred upon

the supposedly better-suited

settlers (Rose 2004;

Byrne 2003; Calderon 2014;

Wolfe 2006; Altman and

Markham 2015). This

Aboriginalist construction

reinforces the “possessive

logic of patriarchal white

sovereignty” (Moreton-

Robinson 2007: 112) by

collapsing the Native into

Nature in accordance with

notions of pre-modern

harmony, and by negating

Indigenous presence in the

present (e.g.: Berndt et

al. 1993; Newland 1965;

Cleland 1936; Power 1977).

The articulation of

environmental flows as

sufficient to satisfy

Decentring English: Rhizomatic Thought

Ngarrindjeri understanding of waters, while strongly rooted in and

through Lower Murray Country, does not constitute a root

language (see adjacent cell). Instead, it is simultaneously (and

perhaps paradoxically) rhizomatic.

Rhizome: crucial tenet

in the work of

philosophers Édouard

Glissant (1997a), Gilles

Deleuze and Félix

Guattari (1980). The

rhizome, through its

enmeshed root system,

offers an alternative

understanding of

identity which does not

rest on a predatory and

totalitarian rootstock

(Glissant 1997a: 18).

This can be linked to

Homi Bhabha’s notion

of difference, as

opposed to diversity

(1994: 34). By extending

“each and every

identity […] through a

relationship with the

Other” (Glissant 1997a:

11), the rhizome

combines

groundedness with

openness and mobility

(Massey 2006: 38). It

calls for “act[ing] with

one’s place, think[ing]

with the world”

(Glissant 2006: 150).

Angles, 4 | 2017

41

Lower Murray Country

Angles, 4 | 2017

42

Imperialist Discourses

Imported from evergreen Great Britain and

imposed on the pulsative water ecologies of

the Australian continent, the articulated

understanding of waters is a copy-pasted

grand verbal delirium anchored in Western

aesthetics. Ecologically unadapted and

disconnected, these discourses encapsulate a

declamatory language of abstraction through

which oppression is recorded and sustained

(Tjukonia 2003, Glissant 1981b). A capitalist,

metonymic and drying narrative of progress

is used to generate a “destructive breach

between human and non-human worlds”

(Potter 2007: 251-2). This justifies the

(ontological) separation of humans from

their distinct non-human environment,

which is relegated to being a décor, a

theatrical space and territory primarily

designed for a performative self-

demonstration of technological skills and

engineering ingenuity, leading to the

creation of a vast agricultural heartland

open to exponential economic profits.

Waters do not belong to place. Severed from

their entangled and intertwined ecosystems

and the complex web of relations they form,

they have become the epicentre through

which disembodied geographies can be

created. Waters are reduced to the status of a

non-existent ecological entity metonymically

symbolised by numbers, a quantified and

thus manageable resource, which can and

should be controlled and exploited.

Governmental discourses are thus languages

of colonialism: they sustain and seemingly

justify the implementation of mutated

colonial practices, exhibiting a clear

genealogy to old forms of colonialism over

humans and non-humans alike, in order to

satisfy “a vision of drought-proof Australia”

(Potter 2007: 247). Part of a “practical

reconciliation” agenda, they present “the

final colonial act (normalising the outcome

of oppression)” as justice (Hattam et

al. 2007: 110-117).

Over two hundred years after their first

implementation on Australian landscapes,

these discourses have so far clearly failed to

foster or lead to the conception of a

Baroque Speech

Ngarrindjeri ethnopoetics can be interpreted as

Baroque speech, as defined by Édouard Glissant, i.e.

a “worlded” yet highly localised speech.

The Baroque: historically, “a reaction against the

rationalist pretence of penetrating the mysteries of

the known with one uniform and conclusive move”

(1997a: 77; also 1987: 18). The Baroque represents a

crisis of meaning. It eschews transparency and

stands against monological uniformity achieved

through the dissection of the world and its

expression into conceptually fixed, separated and

bounded forms and datasets (1997a: 79; also

Plumwood 2002: 49; Latour 1991). It is extension,

proliferation, redundancy and repetition (1995: 70;

1990: 57). It is unstable and plural, constantly and

endlessly reformulated through extreme inclusion

and expansion (1997a; Carpentier 1995: 93). The

Baroque is thus born and thrives from “precipitate”

cultural contacts and exchanges (1997a: 163). Social

relationships and cross-fertilisations are crucial to

its formation and development (1987: 19). Such a

Baroque is a world philosophy which goes “beyond

an aesthetic mood to represent the contemporary

global cultural dominant of creolisation and

Relation” (Oakley 2011: 276). Glissant writes: “In

sum, there is a ‘naturalisation’ of the baroque, no

longer only as art and style, but also as a manner of

living the unity-diversity of the world […].”

(1997a: 79; also 1987: 19) Despite this worlded

connectivity, the Baroque remains strongly

dependent upon locality. It is always rooted in and

shaped by a terroir: “it is literally identical to

nature, directly expressive of nature” (Hallward

2001: 123). Such an understanding of the Baroque

has been termed a “New World Baroque”, a

“rebellious Baroque” which can be assimilated to “a

decolonising strategy to deform—creolise—the

metropolitan standard” (Zamora and Kaup

2010: 622). It plays with representation and

transculturation, performing as a counter-conquest

form of expression which deconstructs and

decentres (re-arranging and re-presenting) the

Western cultural “storehouse” (Tuhiwai-

Smith 1999).

This conception of the Baroque is particularly

tangible in language and Glissant develops the

related notion of Baroque speech, propelled by

similar relational yet rooted propensities (1990).

Baroque speech offers an essential “disturbance

against certainty” and represents the

“intersubjective extension of a favourable site for

the multiplication of a multitude of diverse and new

realities” (1997a: 79, 203). It is “world-music”:

polymorphic and multifaceted, “inspired by all

Angles, 4 | 2017

43

The Lowelr Lakes

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ABSTRACTS

In the context of severe environmental degradation, this article analyses governmental and

Ngarrindjeri discourses surrounding the understanding and management of water in Lower

Murray Country (South Australia). It shows that mutated colonial practices around water

management in the Murray-Darling Basin have placed the Lower Murray region under

unprecedented environmental threat. Future-oriented, paternalistic and linguistically

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intransigent poetics of elsewhere are used to justify the implementation of these monolingual

practices, which gag alternative epistemologies. In response to this imperialistic water

management (labelled as a second wave of dispossession), and strengthened by the growing

recognition of Indigenous rights worldwide, Traditional Owners from the Basin have developed

the concept of Cultural Flows to subtly subvert these silencing discourses and reclaim their right

to a voice within governmental agencies involved in developing water management policies. This

article argues that this reappropriated and re-rooted concept of Cultural Flows is merely the tip

of a larger poetic shift in language, and can serve as a pivot around which to understand the

mechanisms through which Aboriginal Nations, and in particular the Ngarrindjeri, weave their

cultural practices, both figuratively and literally, within mainstream artistic and ecological

discourses. Current manifestations of this shift, as expressed through visual arts (Riverland:

Yvonne Koolmatrie, Art Gallery of South Australia), music (travelling performance project

Ringbalin) and environmental politics (National Cultural Flows Research Project), are examined to

demonstrate that this shift creates a new language which can be understood as a mode of highly

localised Baroque speech (following Édouard Glissant’s definition of the term).

Dans le contexte d’une grave dégradation environnementale, cet article analyse les discours

gouvernementaux et Ngarrindjeri autour de l’eau et de sa gestion dans le Lower Murray Country

(Australie Méridionale). Cet article montre qu’une gestion de l’eau aux relents coloniaux dans le

bassin Murray-Darling expose la région Lower Murray à une menace écologique sans précédent.

Une poétique de l’ailleurs, tournée vers le futur, paternaliste et intransigeante dans sa langue, est

mise en œuvre pour tenter de justifier ces pratiques monolingues qui bâillonnent toute

épistémologie alternative. En réponse à cette gestion impérialiste (décrite comme une deuxième

vague de dépossession), et soutenus par la reconnaissance grandissante dans le monde du droit

des populations indigènes, les propriétaires traditionnels du bassin ont développé le concept de

Flux Culturels pour détourner ces discours étouffants et réaffirmer leur droit d’être entendus au

sein des agences gouvernementales chargées de la gestion de l’eau. Cet article émet l’hypothèse

que le concept ainsi réapproprié de Flux Culturels ne représente qu’un infime aspect d’un

glissement poétique du langage et qu’il peut servir de pivot pour comprendre comment les

Nations Aborigènes, et en particulier les Ngarrindjeri, (mé)tissent leurs pratiques culturelles, au

sens tant littéral que figuré, dans les discours écologiques et artistiques dominants. Des

manifestations contemporaines de ce glissement qui se dévoilent dans les arts plastiques

(Riverland: Yvonne Koolmatrie, Art Gallery of South Australia), la musique (le projet-voyage

Ringbalin) et la politique environnementale (National Cultural Flows Research Project) seront

examinées pour démontrer que ce glissement crée un nouveau langage qui peut s’interpréter

comme un discours baroque localisé (d’après la définition qu’en fait Édouard Glissant).

INDEX

Mots-clés: Lower Murray Country, Ringbalin, flux culturels, tissage, Ngarrindjeri, baroque,

écopoétique, Australie, aborigène

Keywords: Lower Murray Country, Ringbalin, cultural flows, weaving, Ngarrindjeri, baroque,

ecopoetics, Australia, Aboriginal

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AUTHOR

CAMILLE ROULIÈRE

Camille Roulière is a cotutelle PhD candidate at the J. M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice

(University of Adelaide, Australia) and ERIBIA (University of Caen Normandie, France). Her

research centres on spatial poetics and she investigates the links between place and art, and

primarily music, in Lower Murray Country (South Australia). Her research specifically aims to

trace, map and interpret cultural perceptions of these landscapes, and their evolution. Her

academic interests range widely from digital and environmental humanities to Indigenous

studies and ethnomusicology. Contact: camille.rouliere [at] adelaide.edu.au

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The Aesthetics of Mutability in TheVillage in the Jungle (1913)Leila Haghshenas

1 The Village in the Jungle, Leonard Woolf’s first novel, was published in 1913, right after

the author’s return from Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka) where he served as a colonial

administrator for seven years. Set against the backdrop of colonial rule in Ceylon, the

novel depicts the enchanting but menacing life in the jungles of Ceylon, where animals

and humans alike are subject to change and mutability. Woolf did not have to research

his setting and his characters, contrary to many novelists writing on the East. He could

draw on his official diaries, his reports and letters written during his stay in Ceylon.

Emerging out of his own colonial experience, The Village in the Jungle reflects Woolf’s

understanding of life in the jungles of Ceylon, as well as his outlook on the nature of

human beings. In Growing, the third volume of his autobiography, Leonard Woolf

evokes the implications of his passionate encounter with the jungle people and their

way of life:

I fell in love with the country, the people and the way of life. […] To understand thepeople and the way they lived in the villages of West Giruwa Pattu and the junglesof Magampattu became a passion with me. […] I did not idealize or romanticize thepeople or the country; I just liked them aesthetically and humanly and socially.(Woolf 1975: 159)

2 As Woolf claims, his understanding of the East and its inhabitants is the result of his

enduring passion for the village people and their way of life. His passion for the

language and culture of the Ceylonese was such that he followed language courses with

the help of a Buddhist priest (Woolf 1964: 162). He also managed to observe the jungle

people and to grasp the precarious and ever mutable nature of their existence. This

mutability is in turn reflected in The Village in the Jungle, where the writer tries

“somehow or other vicariously to live their lives” (Woolf 1964: 47-8). Indeed, Woolf’s

novel is both animated and shaped by multiple and constant mutations,

transformations and reversals. Human characters in the novel are described in animal

terms, their affinity with nature and the wildlife being the cause of their marginality

and invisibility. Likewise, animal characters are attributed human traits and come to

share the fate and misfortunes of the marginalised characters. What is remarkable

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about the novel is that the border separating humans and animals, men and women,

the visible and the invisible, is so porous and indefinable that every kind of

transgression is rendered possible. Mutability thus constitutes the overriding modality

of the entire novel, transforming the narrative into a perpetual theatre of

metamorphosis.

3 We shall therefore approach the question of the porosity and instability of the

boundaries between the animal and the human, between men and women, or between

the various classes or groups within a society, through a study of the general

permeability of the orderings and demarcations that are presented in Leonard Woolf’s

novel. The indefinable boundary between humans and animals, I will argue, is the

source of multiple metamorphoses and transformations. We shall then go on to show

that the blurring of boundaries between humans and animals in The Village in the Jungle

reflects the primal transgression that is inherent to the founding myth of Ceylon, thus

foreshadowing the unexpected reversal of power operated by Silindu, the protagonist

of the novel. I intend to analyze the reversal of power by drawing on Jacques Rancière’s

notion of disempowerment and empowerment, introduced in Le maître ignorant: cinq

leçons sur l’émancipation intellectuelle (1987). It is indeed through the constant struggle of

the humble characters to transcend their disempowered existence that the reversal of

power is rendered possible and that an aesthetics of mutability is created. As Woolf

suggests, there is a particular instability that is proper to the jungle and to the

creatures that live in it. The very first lines of The Village in the Jungle establish the

jungle as an all-important and constantly changing setting:

The village was called Beddagama, which means the village in the jungle. It lay inthe low country or plains, midway between the sea and the great mountains whichseem, far away to the north, to rise like a long wall straight up from the sea of trees.It was in, and of, the jungle, the air and smell of the jungle lay heavy upon it — thesmell of hot air, of dust, and of dry and powdered leaves and sticks. Its beginningand its end was in the jungle, which stretched away from it on all sides unbroken,north and south and east and west, to the blue of the hills and to the sea. The junglesurrounded it, overhung it, continually pressed in upon it. It stood at the door ofthe houses, always ready to press in upon the compounds and open spaces, to breakthrough the mud huts, and to choke up the tracks and paths. (Woolf 1913: 9)

4 The jungle penetrates the village, so much so that the village is not only “in” but is “of”

the jungle. The interwoven senses — the smell of the jungle is that of the village, the

colour of the hills is the same as the jungle’s — highlight the proximity of the jungle

and the village. The biblical description of the village, “its beginning and its end,”

suggests that the jungle’s sacred dominance over the village is an unknown and ever-

encroaching danger. The ominous beginning of the novel thus foreshadows the

inevitable ending of the story and the elimination of the village by the jungle. The

village is therefore presented as a precarious human and cultural construct, constantly

at the mercy of the whims of the jungle, a deity-like figure whose presence fills Silindu,

the protagonist, with both fear and passion. As the novel unfolds, the influence of the

jungle is clearly demonstrated through the comparison with other manifestations of

coercive force: that of the usurious middlemen or that of the colonial overlords and

oppressors. In addition to its overwhelming power, the jungle is repeatedly described

through metaphors which relate it to the sea. In the passage quoted above, the jungle is

compared to a “sea of trees,” as if the sea and the jungle were interchangeable settings.

The jungle-ocean metaphoric link suggests the dynamic and constantly mutating

ground on which the village has established itself.

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5 The presence of the jungle is felt not only in the village, it is also a quality which

inhabits or impregnates the inhabitants. The instability inherent in the jungle is clearly

decipherable in the villagers, whose lives are placed under the permanent influence of

the jungle. In The Village in the Jungle, the acute resemblance of the village people to the

animals of the jungle is striking, a proximity pointed out in the very first pages of the

novel:

The spirit of the jungle is in the village, and in the people who live in it. […] Theyare very near to the animals which live in the jungle around them. They look at youwith the melancholy and patient stupidity of the buffalo in their eyes, or thecunning of the jackal. And there is in them the blind anger of the jungle, theferocity of the leopard, and the sudden fury of the bear. (14-5)

6 As the passage clearly demonstrates, local people are described in terms of animality.

Similarly, the insults and proverbs used in the novel all relate to animals, with insults

such as “jackal”, “cattle”, “cow”, “bull.”

7 The protagonist’s affinity with the jungle and its animals is singular and uncanny, to

the point even of seeming somewhat shocking to the villagers. Besides being a

cultivator, Silindu is a hunter, an activity that brings him even closer to the world of

animals. His temperament is reminiscent of that of certain animals with which he is in

constant contact: “Silindu’s passions, his anger and his desires were strange and violent

even for the jungle” (16). In addition to this, he is described as “a silent little man, with

the pinched-up face of a grey monkey” (15). Silindu is called tikak pissu, which means

slightly mad (15). The village has its own reasons for such a judgement, since “Silindu

slept with his eyes open like some animals, and very often he would moan, whine and

twitch in his sleep like a dog; he slept as lightly as a deer, and would start up from any

deep sleep in an instant fully awake” (15). Moreover, he knows the jungle better than

anybody else and though he fears it more than all the other villagers, the source of his

apprehension is not the presence of the animals lurking within it, it is rather the jungle

itself. Silindu, more than any other villager, is aware of the unstable and mutating

nature of the jungle. His mastery of the language of animals means that he is capable of

communicating with them, an aptitude which renders him all the more alien to his own

people. Silindu’s conversation with the doe he shot in the jungle demonstrates his

capacity to understand the language of animals. Having unknowingly shot a doe that

has just given birth to a fawn, Silindu promises to take the “child” to Hinnihami to

breastfeed: “mother, the daughter at home this night bore a child. I will take this one

too to her, as she will give it the breast” (84). The word “child,” used to refer both to

the human child and to the fawn, points to the proximity between animals and humans

in the novel. Silindu’s behaviour towards the doe is indeed “humane”, though in a

manner which goes beyond the clear demarcations of an Enlightenment law of

“humanity” and the “humane”, insofar as it makes one aware of the erosion in the

novel of any clear-cut boundary between the human and the animal. Indeed, Woolf

seems to propose a new definition of humanity involving the apprehension of the

trans-species dependence of the human on a more encompassing, shared animality. As

Herz maintains, Woolf understood human nature in terms of its conditioning animality

(Herz 82).

8 Likewise, the estrangement of Silindu’s twin daughters from the rest of the village

society is brought about by their extreme proximity with the jungle and the jungle

animals. The girls spend most of their time hunting with their father in the jungle. As a

result, they grow up to be different from other village children. They are healthy and

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beautiful, soon becoming the objects of the jealousy of women in the village, who call

them veddas1 (wild girls). They are usually identified as yakkas or devils and grow up to

be outcasts, just like their father. Furthermore, their skin is compared to “the coat of

fawn when the sun shines on it” (23), a description pointing to their affinity with the

jungle. In an examination of Woolf’s divided attitude, Goonetilleke claims that Woolf

was “unconsciously schizoid” (Goonetilleke 170), since despite the sympathy for the

local people, the novel’s description of them in terms of animality repeatedly lapses

into the “colonialist topos of displaced savagery” which was widespread among

colonial writers (Boehmer 135). I would rather suggest that Leonard Woolf’s sympathy

towards the Ceylonese culture and language, as reflected in this novel, is indicative of

his first-hand knowledge of the East and of his indefatigable efforts to express the

reality of life in Ceylon.

9 Leonard Woolf was fascinated by animals. In Downhill All the Way, he expresses his

ambivalent attitude towards zoos (Woolf 1975: 42). He experienced both delight and

sadness while watching the animals through the iron cages. He believed that one could

learn much about the character of the society that had built the zoo by seeing how it

treated its animals. In Mitz: The Marmoset Of Bloomsbury, Nunez highlights Woolf’s

attachment to a marmoset that had been given to him by Victor Rothschild. As Stearns

notes, Woolf’s passion for animals and his metaphoric use of zoos was profoundly

rooted in his career as a writer and thinker (Stearns 5). Indeed, one of Woolf’s many

responsibilities in Ceylon consisted in visiting different areas within his district. In

Leonard Woolf: An Imperial Journey in the Shadow of Leonard Woolf (2006), Leonard’s

responsibilities as an AGA, or Assistant Government Agent, are described as follows: “to

collect revenue, dispense justice and to travel regularly ‘on circuit’ throughout his

district, in order to become familiar with every village and its headman, who acted

unpaid, as intermediary with the colonial administration” (Ondaatje 106). It was

Woolf’s authentic knowledge of Ceylon and its people that was the source of the

animalistic portrait of the native characters to be found in the novel. What is

remarkable in Woolf’s fiction is the interest he manifests for the individual

predicament and his renewed outlook on life and civilisation. He intimates, within the

aspect or the social manifestation of every individual, the enduring presence of what he

calls the “human animal”2 (Woolf 1960: 96), thus recognizing in modern man the

persistence of those same primitive desires that dominate the life of the primitive

village societies in Ceylon. Woolf’s view of humanity is therefore in harmony with the

Derridean conception of “human nature”, a conception that has been transformed and

deconstructed by way of the questioning of the established, defining demarcations and

the consequent exposure of the porosity of the notions of “animality” and “humanity”.

As Derrida argues, each time that a man or philosopher utters the words “animal”, he is

not only confirming his own animality but is also engaging in a “veritable war of

species” (Derrida 400). He thus draws our attention to the animal that exists in each

and every one of us. He further argues that despite man’s effort to widen the breach

between the animal and the human, his internal and neglected animal is bound to

surface from time to time, reminding him of the true nature of his humanity.

10 During his time in Ceylon, Woolf spent much time reflecting on the mass of people

passing through his office, conscious of the uniqueness and fragility of each of them.

His knowledge of Ceylonese society, of people’s customs and of the complicated system

of caste and class, was achieved as a result of his acute powers of observation. The

Village in the Jungle reflects the conflictual relations between social classes, a tension

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which constitutes another source of instability in the novel. Poole argues that Woolf

had managed to become better acquainted with Ceylon’s social and racial system, to the

point where he was capable of speculating not only on the way his characters spoke

and behaved but he could also speculate on the unconscious assumptions they made

(Poole 74). By placing at the centre of the narrative in The Village in the Jungle the

struggle of two lovers to marry across the caste system, Woolf seems to be deliberately

referring to the highly unstable class-conscious society of Ceylon. Babun Appu, a young

man of twenty-one joins the head-man’s household in the village and falls in love with

Punchi Menika, Silindu’s daughter. Silindu, however, belongs to a lower caste and so

are his daughters. Any alliance between the two classes is deemed disastrous both by

the headman who contemplates a more profitable marriage for Babun as well as by

Silindu who fears the separation from his daughter. The marriage of Babun and Punchi

Menika destabilizes the existing system of caste and exposes the fatal mutations that

are inevitably corroding its performative claim to enact a rule of strict permanence or

immutability.

11 Blurred gender barriers constitute another instance of instability in the novel. The

handsome, long-haired Babun displays signs of androgyny: “His expression was

curiously virile and simple, but his brown eyes, which were large and oval shaped,

swept it at moments with something soft, languorous and feminine” (45). Punchi

Menika and Hinnihami are also presented as beautiful and androgynous twin sisters,

whose excursions into the wild jungle set them apart, rendering them suspect in the

eyes of villagers given that the jungle is considered as a masculine sphere. Their

artfully and culturally-fashioned feminine beauty, coupled with “their muscles firm as

a man’s”, transform them into androgynous figures (26). Though both sisters manifest

signs of androgyny, the blurring of gender boundaries is more complex in the case of

Hinnihami, who displays signs of divine androgyny. The village calls her a yakkini, a

she-devil capable of self-reproduction, an accusation based on her attachment to a

fawn found in the jungle. A speech by the vedelala, the village medicine man, is telling:

“Do not she-devils give birth to devils? Do village women suckle deer? Surely it is a

devil, born of a devil. Look at the evil that fell upon the village when it came. The crops

withered, and the old and the young died. It has brought us want and disease and

death” (86).

12 Other examples of divine androgyny can help us to better grasp the nature of

Hinnihami’s gender ambiguity. In the ancient Greek theogonies, the holy beings,

whether female or neuter, reproduce alone. This kind of parthenogenesis implies

androgyny. In Cyprus, a bearded Aphroditie is venerated; in Italy, a bald Venus is

worshipped (Eliade 156-7). In similar fashion, Hinnihami is said to show signs of sacred

androgyny. On the same night that Hinnihami gives birth to a girl, Silindu brings her a

fawn to breast-feed, a “son from the jungle”. She takes this as a gift from the gods and

comes to love the fawn even more than her own daughter. Her attachment to the fawn

that she names Punchi Appu is so great that it/he becomes her permanent company. In

fact, she is convinced that as long as she has the blessing of the gods no evil will be able

to hurt her. Hinnihami’s attachment to Punchi Appu epitomizes the instability of strict

dividing lines between animals and humans, as well as the blurred gender boundaries

upon which the novel is based.

13 As I have demonstrated, no secure dividing line can be drawn between humans and

animals in The Village in the Jungle. This is a source of confusion throughout the novel,

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giving birth to a series of symbolic transformations which are enacted by Silindu and

one of his daughters, Hinnihami. Silindu metamorphoses himself into a wounded and

angry animal, and Hinnihami turns into a she-devil ready to kill her enemies. Haunted

for years by the head man of the village and mistreated by the colonial justice system,

Silindu turns to the world of animals and manages to transcend his invisibility through

a symbolic act of transgression reminiscent of the primal transgression recounted in

the origin story of Ceylon. The following summary will help to elucidate the role of the

stranger king and his initial transgression in the construction of the narrative of The

Village in the Jungle.

14 For centuries, the Sinhalese have believed they come from Vijaya, a prince who arrived

to Lanka from northern India. Legend has it that Vijaya descended from a lion through

his father Sīhabāhu (“arm of the lion”). Vijaya was a miscreant and became a threat to

the people. Considered as an outsider and dangerous, he was cast out to sea with his

700 followers. He eventually landed on the shores of Lanka, which was then only

inhabited by ‘demons’ (yakkhas). As he arrived, the Buddha lay dying; he prophesied

that Vijaya would establish and protect his teachings in Lanka. On the island, Vijaya

encountered Kuven, a demon queen who bewitched and trapped his men. With the help

of the god Upulvan, Vijaya managed to deceive Kuven. Thanks to Vijaya, cities were

founded and the followers demanded that Vijaya be consecrated as king. They became

known as the Sīnhala, taking their name from Vijaya’s leonine origins (Strathern 52-3).

15 It is thus apparent that bestiality and transgression are key themes in the founding

myth of Sri Lanka. The hero of royal lineage who came from afar was an outsider and of

leonine origin. He managed to release the island from the evil demons and

reestablished peace and order. As Sthrathern remarks, “Only someone loaded with

associations of the negative, natural and marginal will be able to effect order” in the

society (Strathern 53). In the same manner, Silindu, an outsider on the margins of

society, manages to momentarily restore order in the little village of Beddagama

through a return to his animal origins. Silindu voices his discontent through a double

murder, an act involving a complete transgression of the rules of colonial society. His

moment of transition, from a calm and ignorant subject to a cunning and dangerous

animal, constitutes the climax of the novel and is represented through a long interior

monologue:

‘They call me a hunter, a vedda? A fine hunter! To be hunted for years now and notto know it! It is the headman who is the vedda, a very clever hunter. I have beenlying here like a fat old stag in a thicket while he was crawling, crawling nearer andnearer, round and round, looking for the shot.Where was the watching doe to cry the alarm? Always he shot me down as I layquiet. But the old hunter should be very careful. In the end misfortune comes.Perhaps this time I am a buffalo, wounded. The wise hunter does not follow up thewounded buffalo, where the jungle is thick. Ha! ha!The wounded buffalo can be as clever as the clever hunter. He hears the mancrawling and crawling through the jungle. He stands there out of the track in theshadows, the great black head down, the blood bubbling through the wound,listening to the twigs snap and the dry leaves rustle; and the man comes nearer andnearer. Fool! you cannot see him there, but he can see you now; he will let you passhim, and then out he will dash upon you, and his great horns will crash into yourside, and he will fling you backwards through the air as if you were paddy straw.The old buffalo knows, the old buffalo knows; the young men laugh at him,“buffaloes’ eyes,” they say, “blind eyes, foolish eyes, a foolish face like a buffalo,”but he is clever, amma! he is clever—when wounded—when he hears the hunter

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after him — cleverer than the cleverest hunter. And when it has gone on for years!all his life! What will he do then? Will he lie quiet then? Oh! he will lie quiet, yes,and let them take all from him, daughter and home and food. He will shake his headand sigh the great sigh, and lie quiet in the mud of the wallow, very sad. And thenat last they come after his life. Shall they take that too? Then at last he knows and isangry—very angry—and he stands waiting for them. The fools! They come on,crawling still; they do not know that he is ready for them now. The fools! the fools!’(112)

16 The moment of transition comes about through Silindu’s symbolic identification with a

wounded animal of the jungle, a “wounded buffalo” or “a fat old stag”. What drives this

naïve and subjugated man into action is a renewal of his animal instinct. His affinity

with the wild world of animals, regarded as the main cause of his estrangement from

the civilized society, thus becomes the main source of his newly-gained power. The

hunting metaphor, along with the frequent use of the same semantic field or the field

pertaining to animals, such as “hunt”, “crawl”, “wounded buffalo”, “blood”, “old stag”,

point to the animalistic nature of Silindu’s rage and its empowering nature. Animality

here plays a double role. In one respect, it can be understood as the symptom of the

precarious condition and of the invisibility of the principal characters. In another, it

can be regarded as an uncanny and dreadful mode of empowerment and self-

expression. The process of empowerment in the novel can thus be understood in the

light of Rancière’s notion of disempowerment and empowerment, elaborated in Le maître

ignorant. Woolf regards animality as being both disabling and enabling, disempowering

and empowering. Silindu’s monologue highlights the ambiguous and potentially

reversible nature of animality as both a force and a weakness. In Le fil perdu, Rancière

explains the capacity of ignored people to break away from the identities imposed on

them by society and to take their destiny into their own hands.

Mais la littérature nouvelle opère aussi une scission au sein même de cette égalitésensible qui lie les transformations de la forme romanesque aux rébellionssilencieuses ou bruyantes des hommes et femmes du peuple en quête d’une autrevie […] des fils d’ouvrier ou des filles de paysans, identifiés par l’occupation d’uneplace dans la totalité sociale et destinés à la forme de vie correspondant à cetteposition, rompent avec cette assignation identitaire. Ils rompent avec l’univers dela vie invisible et répétitive pour mettre en œuvre des capacités et vivre des formesde vie qui ne correspondent pas à leur identité. (Rancière 2014:32)

17 Rancière’s views about the capacity of what Spivak called “the subaltern” (1988) subject

to voice its discontents are thus in fundamental agreement with those of Woolf. The

animal-like man, made aware of his subversive power, breaks away from his assigned

identity as a ‘poor’, ‘ignorant’, ‘little’ colonial subject, adopting a new mode of self-

identification, more in harmony with his needs and temperament (133). Silindu’s

rejection of the institutional forms of colonial justice should therefore be considered as

an act of transgression, one which allows him to recover his original identity.

Therefore, in The Village in the Jungle, the subaltern can speak, through a symbolic return

to its roots.

18 The metamorphosis of Hinnihami, Silindu’s daughter, is another example of the

reversal of power that is provoked through the recourse to the world of jungle. Failing

to convince Silindu to offer him the hand of Hinnihami, the Punchirala, or village

magician, casts a deadly spell upon him. In order to save her father from certain death,

Hinnihami is obliged to succumb to the magician’s demand. Once his father has

recovered from his illness, Hinnihami decides to leave the Punchirala to join her father.

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Her moment of transformation into a yakkini, a she-devil, is described in the following

passage:

‘Do you wish me to stay in the house? […] Do not I too come from the jungle? I shallbe like a yakkini to you in the house, you dog. You can tell them, they say, by theeyes which do not blink. Rightly the village women call me yakinni. I will stay withyou. Look at my arms. Are they not as strong as a man’s arms?’Punchirala instinctively stepped back, and Hinnihami laughed. ‘Ohé! are youfrightened, Punchirala? The binder of yakkas is frightened of yakkini. You can tellher, they say, because her eyes are red and because she neither fears nor loves. It’sbetter for you that I might go back to the trees from which I come mighty vederala,otherwise, I would strangle you, and eat you in the house […]’. (81)

19 Once again, the victim’s proximity with the jungle, which initially had been the cause of

her estrangement from the rest of the society, here serves as a means of empowerment,

enabling her to set herself free from Punchirala. As Le Blanc suggests, a tramp gets his

strength from his inferior position in society and his incapacity to rise in the social

hierarchy (Le Blanc 10).3 Likewise, Hinnihami’s association with yakkinis and with the

animals of the jungle enables her to operate a symbolic metamorphosis. The animal

rage of Hinnihami is such that the fear-stricken Punchirala has no choice but to set her

free.

20 The Village in the Jungle interrogates the unstable and mutable boundaries shaping the

life of Ceylonese villagers, in the context of the colonial order of power whose

deployment involves an imperiously strict demarcation of conditions and states. The

novel thus exposes the intrinsic and structural limits to the vulnerability and

disempowerment of these subjects. The novel explores the mutable and continuously

changing boundaries of gender, social class and animality in the village of Beddagama

and puts forward an authentic and shifting vision of the East. Inspired by the local

culture and the rich mythical heritage of Ceylon, Woolf creates an unstable fictional

universe, a microcosm where different aspects of the villagers’ lives are exposed and

addressed. The deliberate ambiguity present in the novel seems to point to the

instability of the established power relations, thus pointing to the possibility of

transgressing social differences and barriers. In the novel, the symbolic transformation

of Silindu and his daughter reflects the mutable state of human beings and suggests

that the absolute of sovereignty is in fact reversible. This aptitude for transformation in

Leonard Woolf’s novel is accompanied by attempts on the part of the disempowered

and invisible colonial subject to reverse the balance of power and to regain sovereignty.

In Le maître ignorant, Rancière considers the “humble,” as a condition or modality that

is both disabling and enabling, disempowering and empowering, thus placing the

emphasis on the unstable nature of power relations. Assimilated to animals and

mistreated by the colonial justice system, a marginal character such as Silindu can thus

reaffirm his authority by following the law of the jungle and by punishing those

responsible for his misery. In this way, he manages to modify and redefine the limits of

his invisibility and marginality. Silindu’s transition from the status of invisible and

insignificant colonial subject to that of a sovereign and independent human being is

therefore brought about by a return to his leonine origins, a metamorphosis reflecting

the mutable state of human beings and of the power relations in which they are caught

up. The novel reflects Woolf’s vision of the East and its humanity, an Orient in constant

mutation.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Boehmer, Elleke. “Metropolitans and Mimics”. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant

Metaphors. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. 132-71.

Derrida, Jacques. “The Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow).” Trans. David Wills. Critical

Inquiry 28. 2 (Winter 2002): 369-418. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1344276

Eliade, Mircea. Méphistophélès et l’androgyne. Idées. Paris: Gallimard, 1981. 156-157.

Goonetilleke, D.C.R.A. “Leonard Woolf’s Divided Mind: The Case of The Village in the Jungle.” Ariel:

A Review of International English Literature 38.2-3 (2007): 159-170. https://

journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/ariel/article/view/31230

Herz, J. S. “To Glide Silently Out of One’s Own Text: Leonard Woolf and ‘The Village in the

Jungle’”. Ariel : A Review of International English Literature. 32.4 (2001): 69–87. https://

journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/ariel/article/view/34691

Le Blanc, Guillaume. L’insurrection des vies minuscules. Montrouge: Bayard, 2014.

Ondaatje, Christopher. Woolf in Ceylon: An Imperial Journey in the Shadow of Leonard Woolf. 1904-1911.

Geneva: The Long Riders’ Guild Press, 2006.

Poole, Roger. The Unknown Virginia Woolf. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995.

Rancière, Jacques. Le maître ignorant: cinq leçons sur l’émancipation intellectuelle. Paris: Fayard, 1987.

Rancière, Jacques. Le fil perdu: essais sur la fiction moderne. Paris: La Fabrique, 2014.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?”. In Marxism and the Interpretation of

Culture. Ed. C. Nelson and L. Grossberg. Chicago: U. of Illinois P., 1988. 271-313.

Stearns, Stephen J. “Introduction”. In In Savage Times: Leonard Woolf on Peace and War. New York:

Garland Publishing, 1973. 5-13.

Strathern, Alan. “Vijaya and Romulus: Interpreting the Origin Myths of Sri Lanka and Rome”.

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 24.1 (2014): 51-73. DOI: 10.1017/S1356186313000527

Woolf, Leonard. The Village in the Jungle: A Novel. London: Eland, [1913] 2005.

Woolf, Leonard. Sowing: An Autobiography of the Years 1880-1904. London: The Hogarth Press, 1960.

Woolf, Leonard. Growing: An Autobiography of the Years 1904 to 1911. New York: Harcourt Brace

Jovanovich, 1975.

Woolf, Leonard. Beginning Again: An Autobiography of the Years 1911 to 1918. London: The Hogarth

Press, 1964.

NOTES

1. Veddas are aborigines of Ceylon and are or were hunters.

2. In Sowing: An Autobiography of the Years 1880-1904 (1960), Leonard Woolf describes human beings

in terms of animality by using the expression “human animal”.

3. “Le vagabond est le désinscrit qui tire sa force de sa faiblesse sociale, de son impossibilité à

être dans le rang” (Le Blanc 10).

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ABSTRACTS

This paper focuses on the representation of change and mutability in Leonard Woolf’s The Village

in the Jungle (1913) and the creation of an aesthetics of mutability. It suggests that the novel’s

unstable state emerges out of Woolf’s understanding of the East and its people and from his

perspective on the question of the nature of humanity. Woolf seems to refuse the Conradian

perception of the East as immutable and to propose instead a new and realistic vision of the

orient and its people, that of a constantly moving and evolving East. The inherent instability of

the jungle, it is argued here, extends to the village and its inhabitants and expresses itself

through the blurring of boundaries between humans and animals, social classes and even

genders. Multiple transformations and reversals in The Village in the Jungle point to the novel’s

affinity for unstable states and mutable conditions.

Cet article a pour objet la représentation du changement et de la mutabilité dans The Village in the

Jungle (1913) de Leonard Woolf et l’invention dans le roman d’une esthétique de la mutabilité. Il

émet l’hypothèse que l’état instable du roman découle d’une compréhension de l’orient et de sa

population et d'une perspective concernant la nature de l’humanité qui sont propres à Woolf.

Woolf semble récuser la perception conradienne d’un orient immuable, proposant à la place une

vision nouvelle et réaliste de la région et de sa population : un orient en mouvement et en

évolution constants. L’argument avancé est donc que l’instabilité inhérente à la jungle s’étendrait

au village et à ses habitants, s’exprimant à travers le brouillage des frontières entre humains et

animaux, entre classes sociales et même entre genres. Les nombreuses transformations et

inversions dans The Village in the Jungle témoigneraient d’une affinité dans ce roman pour les

états instables et les conditions muables.

INDEX

Mots-clés: Woolf Leonard, Village in the Jungle (The), Ceylan, mythe, instabilité, mutabilité,

métamorphose

Keywords: Woolf Leonard, Village in the Jungle (The), Ceylon, myth, unstable, mutability,

metamorphosis

AUTHOR

LEILA HAGHSHENAS

Leila Haghshenas is a doctoral student in English Literature at Paul-Valéry University,

Montpellier. She is writing a PhD on the ethics of alterity in Leonard Woolf’s literary work. She

has participated in national and international conferences. ‘The Aesthetics of Humility in The

Village in the Jungle’ is forthcoming in Horizons anglophones, Present Perfect. Contact:

leilahaghshenas [at] yahoo.com

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Two Versions of the Truth: Classand Perspective in Early CaptivityNarrativesTobias Auböck

1 For a major part of his tenure, Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States,

found himself in the middle of a controversy about whether or not North-African

corsairs who had been attacking American merchants should be bought off or fought

against. Because of the young country’s tumultuous history, the American population

had grown increasingly weary of conflict and many (including the second president,

John Adams) were set on doing everything in their power to avoid military involvement

in foreign countries. Initially, it had been possible not to get directly involved in the

diplomacy of this conflict which involved a number of Christian and Muslim countries

around the Mediterranean. Religious orders (such as the Trinitarians) had ransomed

American captives from the city-states of Algiers, Tripoli, Tunis and Salé in Morocco,

places that were the corsairs’ safe havens and the main causes for Jefferson’s sleepless

nights. The dissolution of the order of the Trinitarians in the course of the French

Revolution in effect ended this strategy and put the responsibility back into the hands

of politicians (Sears, 39). Eventually, however, the American politicians who argued for

military intervention gained the upper hand, as more and more tribute was being paid

and, slowly but surely, the payments came to exceed the calculated cost of an armed

conflict. Consequently, the US navy was reactivated from its post-revolutionary war

retirement, an initiative which resulted in two Barbary Wars in the first half of the 19th

century. Even though these wars eventually proved to be victorious for the US, they did

not come without American losses, as is exemplified by the history of the sailing frigate

USS Philadelphia.1

2 As Thomas Jefferson had rejected Tripolitan demands for tribute, the city’s Bashaw

Yusuf Karamanli had the American embassy’s flagstaff chopped down in the spring of

1801, a decision which essentially amounted to a declaration of war. The USS

Philadelphia came into use in the third year of the resulting conflict. On October 31, 1803

it ran aground in the treacherously shallow waters of Tripoli’s harbor. This incident is

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at the center of two conflicting first-person accounts — the captivity narratives of

William Ray and of Jonathan Cowdery.2 Through this paper, my intention is to show

how the social standing and rank of the two witnesses influenced both their perception

of their experiences and, consequently, their representation of captivity in North

Africa. I aim to do this by first presenting and comparing the two accounts, thereby

briefly touching upon questions of authenticity. I shall subsequently situate these two

accounts within their contemporary literary context. But first, it is necessary to

provide some additional historical contextualisation.

Historical Context

3 It seems that, once the ship had run aground, the crew of the USS Philadelphia was

unable to get the ship afloat again and, following a short siege, captain Bainbridge

surrendered to the aggressors without having suffered a single American casualty. All

on board were taken prisoner and transported into the town of Tripoli, where some of

them were forced to work at reinforcing walls and other defense mechanisms, while

the high-ranking officers were held in relative comfort. A few Tripolitan guards were

left behind to guard the ship. As the loss of the ship to the Tripolitans would have

signified a tremendous disgrace for the US navy, Commodore Preble agreed to a

proposed plan to destroy the ship. So, on 16 February 1804, lieutenant Stephen Decatur,

Jr. and a few of his men approached the USS Philadelphia with a small ketch,

overpowered the guards and blew up the ship (Field 52).

4 Until peace was eventually reached in 1805, the American prisoners were held captive

in Tripoli. The few detailed sources that we have paint conflicting pictures as to how

they fared. Jonathan Cowdery, the ship’s surgeon and therefore a member of the

officers’ rank, portrays his captivity in his published journal American Captives in Tripoli;

or, Dr. Cowdery’s Journal in Miniature (1806) as having been generally pleasant (given the

circumstances). On the other hand, William Ray, a common sailor, describes gruesome

scenes in his account, Horrors of Slavery (1808). Ray never tires of pointing out the bias

and other flaws in Cowdery’s account, which had appeared two years before his own.

Ray seems to be especially angered by the fact that Cowdery writes as if the lenient

treatment he personally received had also been extended to the rest of the crew: “You

will, therefore, please to remember, that when the Doctor says we, it is the very same as

if he had said we officers only; for he does not think proper to descend to the task of

relating how the crew were provided for, or whether they were but half alive or all

dead” (Ray 2008: 57). He comments on and criticizes Cowdery’s Journal, arguing that the

officer had been treated a lot better than the majority of the rest of the crew whose

plight is hardly mentioned at all in his account. Ray thus opens his eighth chapter in

the following fashion:

I shall now take some notice of extracts from Doctor Cowdery’s journal, aspublished in the Balance, of Hudson, and republished in the Albany Register. As far ashe adheres to strict veracity, I shall coincide with his observations; but when hedeviates from correctness, or exaggerates on facts, take the liberty of differing withthe learned Doctor’s diary. (Ray 1999: 188).

5 The fact that there are two captivity narratives available to us dealing with the same

event is fairly unusual. And it is even less common to have a text that makes direct

reference to another narrative. Furthermore, insofar as the narratives of Cowdery and

Ray do diverge to a considerable extent, they offer a striking instance of the inherent

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difficulties involved in the genre, raising fundamental questions about authenticity and

the interpretation of such narratives.

Two Competing Narratives

6 For a number of reasons, today’s readers of the narratives might be tempted to place

their trust in that of Ray, rather than in Cowdery’s account. Not only was it published

after Cowdery’s Journal and comments on it, it also offers a perspective that is hardly

present at all in Cowdery’s narrative: the plight of the common mariner. However, it is

important to bear in mind that Ray readily admits to following a personal agenda in

publishing his Horrors of Slavery. If Ray makes use of the shortcomings of Cowdery’s

account, this is only a starting point. His professed goal is to reveal injustices within the

US navy:

Be assured, it shall be my business and delight, to expose, in the following pages,every act of cruelty, every abuse of authority, that I witnessed, during mycontinuance in the service of the United States. (Ray 2008: 30)

7 So even as he laments the harsh treatment which he and his comrades had received at

the hands of the Tripolitans, he ultimately lays the blame for the situation endured by

his comrades and by himself not on their captors, but to a large extent on their officers.

He does this by creating a clear demarcation between forces of good and evil. Through

the use of a distinctly anti-authoritarian disposition, Ray opposes the officers and the

ordinary crew. He largely absolves the Muslim population from responsibility in the

latter’s plight. Or, rather, he portrays the enmity between captors and captives as an

effect of the prevailing circumstances, which are grounded in religious differences. For

Ray, American captivity in Tripoli is comparable to a natural catastrophe — something

which could have been avoided by his superiors (the officers) and which was

completely mishandled once it actually occurred.

8 It is not, however, unusual for writers of his time to address these kinds of social issues,

and as Cathy Davidson points out, even such seemingly un-American topics as “class”

are occasionally discussed:

‘There is no class in America’ has been a recurring theme from the nation’sinception. Yet no one reading the body of fiction produced in the early Republicwould find a representation of a classless society. On the contrary, early Americannovelists present (and often critique) the American version of a non-egalitarianclass system. (10)

9 However, in order for his criticism to work, Ray has to portray his captivity as having

been exceedingly cruel, thereby discrediting Cowdery’s report, which, according to

Paul Baepler, “reads more like the journal of an inconvenienced gentleman on holiday”

(Baepler 18). Cowdery and the other officers never went hungry, their movements were

hardly restricted, and they were even given the opportunity to do some sightseeing:

Jan. 3. — Went to the Bashaw’s garden, where I met the minister and the prince[,]the Bashaw’s eldest son. They politely conducted me through the garden, whichwas ornamented with a great variety of fruit trees, loaded with fruit, particularlywith oranges, lemons and limes. John Hilliard died in the evening. (Cowdery 166)

10 The fact that this applied to officers, and that Cowdery did not think it worthwhile to

mention the plight of the remaining crew, is a dimension that infuriated Ray.

Consequently, what Cowdery makes out to be a somewhat unpleasant, but still bearable

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situation, is in Ray’s account turned into an unmitigated torment, fraught with often

life-threatening consequences.

11 So while Cowdery only mentions in passing that killings did actually occur during their

time in captivity, as can be seen from the quote above, Ray describes in detail the

deaths of his comrades. He also devotes large sections of his narrative to the practice of

religious conversion, a common topic in many captivity narratives (less so, however, in

Cowdery’s Journal). He recounts the case of quartermaster John Wilson, who allegedly

began to work for the Tripolitans shortly after the capitulation of the USS Philadelphia.

He routinely provided them with classified information, including the whereabouts of a

chest filled with gold, which Wilson claimed the Americans had dumped into the

Tripolitan bay. Apparently, Wilson did not return to the States along with the rest of

the crew upon their release: “The captain told him that he would have him hanged for

a traitor if ever he returned to America, and in a violent passion threw his chain at him.

A few days afterwards, Wilson, probably fearing the reality of his threats, put on the

turban, and confirmed his apostasy” (Ray 2008: 67).

12 Cowdery mentions this incident only briefly, in a tone suggesting a degree of

indifference: “Wilson had turned traitor, and given the enemy all assistance in his

power. He now acts as overseer over our men” (Cowdery 164). It is possible that

Cowdery may have tried to make light of Wilson’s conversion, as it not only shed an

unfavorable light on the officers’ treatment of their subordinates (one possible

explanation for his actions), but it also depicts American soldiers as opportunistic

(Rojas 174). As a member of the officer corps, Cowdery would have been aware of these

implications and would also have considered the implications of publication from a

political perspective. Ray’s arguments, on the other hand, can claim corroboration

from Wilson’s actions, which explains why Bainbridge’s threats (which rendered

Wilson’s desertion unavoidable) feature so prominently in this depiction.

13 How much blame Ray actually laid at the captain’s feet also becomes apparent when we

compare the conflicting descriptions of the circumstances that had led to what (in

Ray’s eyes) was the ship’s premature surrender. This is what Cowdery has to say on the

matter:

Nov. 3. — The Bashaw sent for the carpenter to go on board the ship; he went andfound six feet water in the hold. The carpenter’s crew and fifty men were orderedand carried on board to work at night. A gale of wind and heavy sea hove the shipoff the rocks and the carpenter returned. (Cowdery 163)

14 The degree to which rank influenced not only the captivity itself, but also the reports of

the captives, is remarkable. Unlike Ray, Cowdery implies that a great effort was needed

in order to get the USS Philadelphia back afloat. This statement is in agreement with the

official narrative, according to which captain Bainbridge did everything in his power to

save the ship and to protect the United States navy from a humiliating defeat. Ray,

however, portrays this event differently:

In fact, the Turks were so pusillanimous, that after our colours were struck, theydare not, for they did not attempt to come any nearer, until we sent a boat, andpersuaded them that it was no farce, no illusion, assuring them that our frigate hadin reality struck to one gun-boat, and entreated them to come and take possessionof their lawful booty! (Ray 2008: 54)

15 The difference in the social statuses of Ray and Cowdery also manifests itself in their

conflicting portrayal of the Tripolitans’ attack on the ship. Cowdery falls back on the

stereotypical dichotomies between the supposedly uncivilized Eastern culture as

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opposed to the civilized West, as exemplified by his highlighting the infighting among

the attackers once it came to the question of dividing up the booty:

After the flag of the Philadelphia was struck, (says the Doctor,) and the officers andcrew waiting the pleasure of their new masters, the Tripolitan chiefs collected theirfavourites, and, with drawn sabres, fell to cutting and slashing their own men whowere stripping the Americans and plundering the ship. They cut off the hands ofsome, and it is believed, several were killed. (Cowdery 161)

16 Ray, while he also mentions these attacks within the ranks of the Tripolitans, tends to

depict them in a manner that is a lot less gruesome:

It is true there was a sort of mutiny and clashing of arms amongst them; but for mypart I never saw any hands amputated, nor do I believe there were any lives lost; formyself and a hundred others were in the ship much longer than the Doctor, andnone of us ever saw or heard of this carnage amongst themselves. (Ray 1999: 188)

17 Traditionally, in Europe (and by extension, the American colonies), infighting within an

army had been considered to constitute a category of extremely barbaric acts, clear

evidence of a lack of civilizing progress. Unsurprisingly, Cowdery — a member of the

American officer corps — makes a point of perpetuating this trope. Even though his

depiction of the remainder of his captivity turns out to be a lot less cruel than that of

Ray, this episode demonstrates in particular that he identifies a fundamental difference

between the European and the Arab world.

18 According to Ann Thomson, such a perspective is precisely the reason why texts such

as Cowdery’s often feature a milder assessment of an individual captivity. She argues

that from the 18th century onwards the European powers no longer considered the

North-African states (and Algiers in particular) as powerful enemies that operated at

eye level with them. Consequently, most observers regarded the possibility of an

invasion and colonisation of North Africa as being only a matter of time:

This gradual and uneven transformation of ways of looking at the region and itsinhabitants accompanies ever more insistent calls for an expedition against thecorsairs, ending finally in demands for a conquest and then colonisation of Algeria.[…] There is thus an evident connection between the depreciation of NorthAfricans, both racially and in terms of their degree of civilisation, on the one hand,and the growing desire to exercise control over the region, on the other. (Thomson144)

19 It is noteworthy, however, that certain stereotypes can be found independently in Ray’s

as well as in Cowdery’s depiction. Both highlight the longevity of the native population

and also discuss their use of magic. Cowdery, for instance, writes:

Sept. 9. — The Bashaw took me with him, and his suit to his country seat where wespent the most of the day. About 5 o’clock P.M. we went to see the great Marabewt,or Mahometan priest, in whom the Bashaw had great faith, and thought he couldforetel [sic] events. It was said by the Turks, that he foretold the stranding andcapture of the Philadelphia; and that he got offended with the Bashaw and causedand foretold her being burnt. (Cowdery 176)

20 While Ray also mentions this prediction, there is a curious difference in his version,

insofar as the priest is a clairvoyante, i.e. a woman:

In the morning, about eight o’clock, an old sorceress came to see us. She had thecomplexion of a squaw, bent with age, ugly by nature, and rendered frightful by art.[…] This frightful hag is held, by the Bashaw and all the Tripolitans, in the highestveneration, not only as an enchantress, but as a prophetess also. It is said by themthat she predicted the capture of the Philadelphia, and believed by them that theship struck the shoals in consequence of her incantations.” (Ray 1999: 190)

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21 Both Ray and Cowdery highlight the superstition of the Tripolitans. In addition to this,

Ray demonstrates another tendency typical of the American relation of North-African

captivity: in order to cope with the unknown, authors often relied on terminology that

suggested familiarity. In Ray’s case, there is a recourse to the term “squaw,” derived

from the eastern Algonkin languages, meaning woman, which shows his familiarity with

Indian captivity narratives, such as Mary Rowlandson’s famous narrative published in

1682 (Peskin 164). However, taken together, these tendencies are much more

prominent in Cowdery’s writing, where there is a clear and explicit attempt to

highlight the exotic nature of the hero’s adventure.

22 This is also a reason for the differences in the depiction of violence, which Lawrence

Peskin explains by arguing that ordinary crewmembers, insofar as they are mostly

members of the poorer social classes, attached a much higher importance to the

concept of freedom — especially after the revolutionary war in the US. He finds an

explanation for this tendency in the fact that sailors already had to give up parts of

their freedom when entering the navy and submitting themselves to the rules of their

captain's “kingdom” (Peskin 168). This was clearly true for William Ray. He appears to

have loathed the restrictions imposed on the freedom of an ordinary sailor. His anger

was further increased once it became apparent that, despite all these restrictions, the

navy was still unable to guarantee the safety of those under its command.

23 The various disparities in the narratives shed light on the difficult question of the

historical reliability to be credited to these texts. Cowdery was apparently keenly

interested in portraying himself in a heroic light, highlighting the civilisational

differences between Europeans and the native population, while explaining away

certain medical actions on his part while in captivity (such as his work as a personal

surgeon for Tripoli’s bashaw, in the course of which he had even saved the latter’s son

— one of the reasons for his relatively light treatment as a captive).

24 Arguably, Cowdery was well aware of the fact that his readers might not regard these

actions lightly or favorably, and that they might even have career-damaging

implications for him. Consequently, he made a point of recounting events that

highlight his patriotism and even heroism:

Aug. 5. — The American squadron anchored off Tripoli, I was ordered to dress thewound of a mameluke, who had his hand shattered by the bursting of ablunderbuss. I amputated all his fingers but one, with a dull knife, and dressed themin a bungling manner, in hopes of losing my credit as a surgeon in this part of thecountry, for I expected to have my hands full of wounded Turks in consequence ofthe exploits of my brave countrym[e]n. (Cowdery 171)

25 The history of captivity narratives bears witness to numerous episodes of this sort,

where the captive is the member of an honoured, sought-after profession. Thomas

Pellow, for instance, recounts a similar story from his time as a surgeon in Moroccan

captivity. He writes that he recommended the application of ground pepper to cure

certain eye conditions (Colley 95). Statements of this kind were meant to show that

even in captivity and in a capacity as the involuntary servant of the enemy, one did

one’s best to inflict damage on the hostile society. In addition to that, Cowdery explains

that he was not even aware of the fact that there was a chance for his redemption:

The Bashaw sent for me, and, agreeably to his orders, I took a seat by his side. […]He asked me what I thought my country would give for me. I told him I did notknow. He said he would not take twenty thousand dollars for me; to which I replied,

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that I might then expect to remain in slavery for life. He patted me on the shoulderand said, I must then content myself to stay with him. (Cowdery 172)

26 As stated above, Ray’s circumstantial judgement of his predicament proved to be quite

different. Not only did he try to correct Cowdery’s misrepresentations, he also

commented in a highly sarcastic manner on some of his alleged heroic deeds:

After they had borrowed about ten dollars of the Doctor, and wrested his surtoutfrom under his arm, [Cowdery] says— “Whilst they were picking its pockets, andquarreling with each other for the booty, I sprung for the next boat which waswaiting for me. In my way I met a little fellow who seized me and attempted to getoff my coat, but I hurled him to the bottom of the boat,” &c. This was certainly themost heroic action that has ever been read of any of the Philadelphia’s officers. (Ray1999: 188)

27 Ray makes it clear that he had a strong anti-authoritarian agenda. He does not even try

to hide the fact that his primary purpose was not the objective retelling of events. He

starts his narrative with the following poem:

[…] Reader, lay prejudice aside,And let calm reason be your guide;If in the following, then, you findThings not so pleasing to your mind,And think them false, why, disbelieve them;Errors of weakness? then forgive them;And let our suff’rings and abusesFor sev’ral facts make some excuses;And when you’re captur’d by a Turk,Sit down, and write a better work. (Ray 1821: 198)

28 This short passage reveals a number of striking features. As stated above, Ray wrote

and published his narrative as a response to Cowdery’s Journal. The latter’s experiences

had been well known to the public even before the publication of his text, as parts of

his account had appeared in various newspapers and public demand had ultimately

prompted Cowdery to publish a complete version of his Journal (Baepler 160). It follows

from this that the relatively lenient treatment which Cowdery and the rest of the

officers had received was also known to the public. Among other things, this is what

Ray is hinting at, as he anticipates and seeks to ward off a possible hostile response to

his narrative, when he writes: “If in the following, then, you find / Things not so

pleasing to your mind[.]”

29 And yet he admits freely that there could also be inaccuracies in his own narrative, in

all likelihood caused by the tremendous experiences he had to go through: “And let our

suff’rings and abuses / For sev’ral facts make some excuses[.]” Here Ray addresses the

issue of his own credibility — a crucial factor in any captivity narrative, particularly for

today’s generation of historians. Granted, while there certainly were narratives that

featured assertions of truth and anticipations of disbelief (Robert Adams’s heavily

annotated publication about his alleged trip to Timbuctu comes to mind), Ray’s poem is

one of the very few cases that actually discusses the possibility of its own fallibility.

30 The reasons for Ray’s outspoken attacks on Bainbridge and Cowdery become clear

when we take into consideration that he was also pursuing certain ideological goals.

Contrary to what the title of his narrative (Horrors of Slavery) suggests, he was not

interested in criticizing the concept of slavery per se. His main objective was to

denounce the inhumane treatments experienced by common mariners at the hands of

their superiors.

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31 The pursuit of social goals by way of one’s writing was not something unusual for the

contemporary literary scene. Quite the contrary. These didactical aspects contributed

significantly to a text’s overall interest and to the enjoyment it offered:

[H]owever alien to moderns such tone and aims may be, the didacticism of the earlynovel is central to the conception of the species. Its origins are so tied up withneeds of contemporary readers and its early history is so dependent on the didacticassumptions in popular non-narrative forms that to miss or excuse itscharacteristic didacticism is to misappreciate its features and misdefine its nature.(Hunter 226)

32 As J. Paul Hunter explains here in Before Novel (1992), genres such as that of captivity

narratives bridge the gap between fiction and non-fiction and can be termed “popular

non-narrative forms.” Even though historianstoday sometimes overlook this, it is

important to factor in the circumstances of a text’s creation. After all, the poem which

introduces the narrative is also an indication that Ray had certain literary ambitions.

This is further confirmed by Ray’s later publications.

Captivity Narratives: A Popular Genre

33 After Horrors of Slavery, Ray embarked on a literary career and gained a considerable,

albeit geographically limited, reputation. As pointed out by Hester Blum, an obituary

that appeared in the Daily National Journal bears witness to this fact:

He has lately published a neat pocket volume of his poems, which should be ownedby every American patron of genius, particularly, as we presume, in becomingpossessed of it, he will contribute to the relief of his widow and daughters, who areleft to struggle alone in embarrassed circumstances. (Blum XXVIII, Fn 21)

34 This epitaph shows that the monetary aspect is not to be overlooked when discussing

these narratives. Despite his moderate literary success, Ray and his family seem to have

suffered considerable financial hardship. It is not a far stretch to argue that this

situation could have influenced his thought process concerning a potential publication.

In her study The Unvarnished Truth: Personal Narratives in Nineteenth-Century America

(2000), Ann Fabian highlights the factor that monetary considerations often took on for

the authors of captivity narratives:

For some, telling a tale of captivity provided a means to demonstrate that lifeamong the ‘aliens’ had not altered them beyond recognition. Stories helped formercaptives rejoin the society of neighbors and friends. Others had more concrete goals

in mind; they hoped to gain compensation for property lost or the means to ransomfriends and family still held captive. (5)

35 Ray’s hopes were not unreasonable. It was well known that these narratives could

attract a considerable audience. James Riley’s captivity narrative, Loss of the American

Brig Commerce (1817) — the most successful of all so-called American Barbary Coast

captivity narratives — eventually went through at least 38 different editions (Baepler

307). This is what Ray also seems to have had in mind. He sent his account to a number

of high-ranking officials, including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, respectively

third and fourth presidents of the United States. Both seem to have reacted kindly to

Ray’s narrative, which prompted him to follow up by sending them another letter that

included an appeal for donations (Blum XXIII). After his request went unanswered, he

wrote a third letter, stating that he assumed that his second letter had not reached its

addressee:

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I am not willing to suspect that the Chief Magistrate of a free people, who owes hispolitical existence to the suffrage of men of all ranks, would treat with silentcontempt the honest effusions or well-meant offering of one who has greatlysuffered in the cause of that Government over which he presides. (Blum XXVIII)

36 Ray seems to have been under the impression that the presidents, in their capacity as

commanders-in-chief, held some responsibility for the failures of the officers, which

included Cowdery’s misrepresentation of events. After all, one of Ray’s main arguments

is that Cowdery aimed both to portray his own actions in captivity as being

outstandingly heroic and to whitewash some of his more questionable deeds.

Novels and Authenticity

37 Ray’s and Cowdery’s texts were written in a period characterized by an increasing

demand for captivity narratives from North Africa. The genre’s popularity led to the

publication of a surprising number of fictional pseudo-authentic captivity narratives,

such as the ones allegedly written by Eliza Bradley or Maria Martin, both of which went

through dozens of editions (Baepler 305-9). Whereas these fictional texts certainly had

a great influence on contemporary ideas and images of Islam, North Africa and the

Arab world in general (especially in those cases where the texts were initially received

as authentic), they are hardly ever used today as historical sources. On the other hand,

those texts which are based on actual events, are still drawn upon in numerous

historical and popular historical studies dealing with this area at this period. Often, the

fact that parts of these narratives can indeed be historically verified is taken as

justification for regarding the whole narrative as authentic.

38 Some of those who argue in favor of the accuracy of the narratives in question tend to

disregard the literary features and tropes that are to be found in many

autobiographical texts, including the accounts of captivity and slavery. The authors of

captivity narratives from the turn of the 18th to the 19th century, especially those from

America, often accorded themselves a considerable literary freedom when recounting

their stories — in some cases clearly doing so in order to profit from the then-occurring

rise of the sentimental novel, which went hand in hand with increasing readership

numbers. Cathy Davidson devotes her study on Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the

Novel in America (2004) to this issue, pointing out the importance of the increasing

supply of books (e.g. through British imports) and highlighting the fact that authors

began to cater to readers from the middle class rather than to the gentry (75). Coupled

with this, there was a stylistic shift towards a more general appeal — not to everybody’s

liking:

[T]he continuing censure of the early novel rivaled the novel’s growing popularity,and that incongruity took a variety of unusual forms. Thus, before approximately1790, many books sold in America that we would now unquestionably define asnovels (e.g. Tristram Shandy) were advertised otherwise (‘a sentimental history’).(103)

39 This shows that when Ray and Cowdery published their narratives, the novel was still

trying to find its place in the American literary scene. Ray’s narrative in particular

(though not actually sold as a novel) features some of the genre’s characteristic

elements, which shows how unclear such texts are in their generic identity:

But, by the turn of the century, a whole range of nonfictional reading materials,including sketches, captivity narratives, and travel pieces, were advertised as

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novels. Yet the censure of the form, emanating from the pulpit and the press,remained potent enough so that, until well into the nineteenth century, virtuallyevery American novel somewhere in its preface or its plot defended itself againstthe charge that it was a novel, either by defining itself differently (‘Founded InTruth’) or by redefining the genre tautologically as all those things it was presumednot to be—moral, truthful, educational, and so forth. (103)

40 While on the surface containing what is simply the faithful retelling of events that had

happened in Ray’s life, the narrative also followed a very specific mode of composition,

which satisfied a certain “taste for wonders,” as described by Hunter (210). In his

narrative, Ray introduces stylistic elements usually associated with the novel. This can

be observed in many captivity narratives and shows that, however factual or

educational some of these narratives claimed to be, a considerable part of their raison

d’être was their entertainment value.

41 It is noteworthy that one of the first American novels — Royall Tyler’s Algerine Captive

(1797) — does in fact deal with North African captivity. Many of the main

characteristics of Puritanism had long inhibited the development of any proper

fictional genres in the US, with the consequence that entertainment literature was

regarded as inconsequential and a waste of time. Hence, initially, the fact that the

American literary scene was dominated by poetry for even longer than in European

countries, as it enabled authors to convey important life lessons in a fashion that was

both short and aesthetically pleasing (Slotkin 224).

42 Most literary publications, until the late 18th century, had appeared either in the form

of poetry or had dealt with actual events, often in combination with religious eulogies.

A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is a prime example of

that category. Her text published in 1682 deals with her captivity among Native

Americans during the so-called King Phillip’s War. Faithful to the literary traditions of

the time, her narrative is littered with quotes from the Bible. Also, in structural terms,

it evokes a series of religious resonances, as she portrays her time in captivity as a

godly trial. In doing so, her narrative closely mirrors the style of contemporary

American providence books. Both genres have in common the fact that they

demonstrate a strong tendency to mold unrelated events into a coherent narrative.

These text forms thus anticipate major elements from the modern novel as they

introduce an overarching storyline as a basic literary compositional tool. The resulting

basic plotline makes it possible to superimpose a deeper moral (often of a religious

nature) upon the series of events brought together in the narrative.3

43 This structure is highly prevalent in the narrative consolidation of the basic American

and strictly Puritan belief in providence, according to which humans cannot control or

alter their fate, but where they can deduce from their success in life a presumption as

to whether or not they are predestined to belong to the chosen ones. As often noted by

sociologists, including Max Weber, this idea has many reflections in American literary

history, the most prominent probably to be found in Benjamin Franklin’s

autobiography (Weber 13).

44 However these ideas were also quite prevalent in early captivity narratives (such as the

one written by Mary Rowlandson) and can still be felt at the beginning of the 19th

century — not only in the texts written by Ray and Cowdery, but also in completely

fictional captivity narratives, such as Eliza Bradley’s 1818 account of her alleged

captivity in Morocco. These narratives demonstrate the continuing influence of Puritan

ideals and indicate that such texts were under the obligation to at least appear to serve

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a certain purpose (such as highlighting God’s mercy), instead of functioning first and

foremost as mere entertainment literature.

Conclusion

45 Hunter argues that many of these proto-novelistic publications today tend to be

misinterpreted. Some of those texts, which to present-day readers seem to fulfill

purposes that are solely educational or instructional, were read by contemporary 19th-

century readers for their own personal pleasure:

[H]istorical evidence suggests that many real eighteenth-century readers seemactually to have enjoyed the tones and intentions of the texts their culturecharacteristically produced, even though to take such a pleasure in being told whatto do […], bears no relationship to any idea of pleasure that we in our time honor.(Hunter 227)

46 The didactical aspects, which were so prevalent in many of these narratives, only added

to their appeal. In an environment dominated by the puritanistic disregard for, and

suspicion of, pleasurable diversion in all forms (including prose literature and theater),

the constant reiteration of the claim of the authenticity of the texts in question sought

to reassure the readers as to their educational value. The considerable number of

completely fictional narratives which feature the same assertions bears witness to that

tendency. As has been argued by Paul Baepler, Eliza Bradley’s fictional work, entitled

An Authentic Narrative of the Shipwreck and Sufferings of Mrs. Eliza Bradley (1820), a perfect

example of this category, shows that a certain number of these assertions soon became

more of a literary trope than a genuine piece of information (Baepler 21).

47 Especially during the 19th century, truth was more of a “social convention,” as Fabian

puts it. In her discussion of slave narratives, she remarks: “To hold [former slaves] to

the facts and nothing but the facts sometimes stripped from narrators the right to

interpret their stories and artfully embellish their experiences” (Fabian 98). The same

holds true, of course, for authors of captivity narratives, including those under

discussion here.

48 This is all the more true given that Jonathan Cowdery and William Ray published their

texts at a time when the literary world was going through a series of fundamental

changes. The US was about to gain its literary independence and was attempting to rid

itself of its European-influenced past. Judging from the style of his narrative, Cowdery

does not seem to have had any great literary aspirations (his account is basically

written in the form of a factual diary). Ray, however, was clearly more concerned with

the literary aspects of his narrative. Whereas the former declared his Journal to be an

authentic replication of the diary he had kept in captivity (a claim discernable from its

title American Captives in Tripoli; Or Dr. Cowdery’s Journal in Miniature Kept During His Late

Captivity in Tripoli), Ray does not hide the fact that he considers his publication to

constitute a work of art. His later publications, and also the structure of his narrative

and the poems he included, indicate as much. Stylistically, Ray followed the literary

Zeitgeist which was predominantly influenced by the rise of the sentimental novel: “In

general, the sentimental novel opposes intuition to rationality; disjuncture, episode,

and effusion to continuity and plot; artlessness and sincerity to art and literary

calculation; and emotional to verbal communication” (Braudy 12). Ray’s narrative

conforms to many of these traits. As he readily admits in his opening poem, some of his

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recollections might be distorted, due to the emotional stress he went through. Instead

of having a strictly focused plot, his narrative is divided into heterogeneous fragments

of memory. Absolute sincerity seems to be his main objective, while a particular

emphasis is placed on the underlying emotional agenda (ie. the denunciation of the

malpractices of American officers).

49 So what then can these texts tell us about American captivity in North Africa? We could

provide an answer to this question by raising another one: what do these texts tell us

about the factors which might have influenced their writing? Approaching the question

of authenticity from this perspective can help us significantly in relation to the task of

assessing their historical value. If we consider the above-mentioned factors when

analyzing the narratives, not only do we gain deeper insights into the origins of this

genre, we can also perhaps gain greater insight into the actual lives of American

captives in North Africa during this period.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, Robert. The Narrative of Robert Adams, a Barbary Captive. Ed. Charles H. Adams Cambridge:

Cambridge UP, 2005.

Baepler, Paul. White Slaves, African Masters: An Anthology of American Barbary Captivity Narratives.

Chicago: U. of Chicago P., 1999.

Blum, Hester. “Introduction”. In Ray 2008. X-XXVIII.

Bradley, Eliza. An Authentic Narrative of the Shipwreck and Sufferings of Mrs. Eliza Bradley […]. Boston:

James Walden, 1820. In Baepler 1999. 247-284.

Braudy, Leo. “The Form of the Sentimental Novel.” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 7.1 (1973): 5-13.

Colley, Linda. Captives: Britain, Empire and the World, 1600-1850. London: Pimlico, 2003.

Cowdery, Jonathan. American Captives in Tripoli, Or, Dr. Cowdery's Journal in Miniature: Kept During His

Late Captivity in Tripoli. Boston: Belcher and Armstrong, 1806. In Baepler 1999. 159-185.

Davidson, Cathy N. Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America. New York: Oxford UP,

2004.

Fabian, Ann. The Unvarnished Truth: Personal Narratives in Nineteenth-Century America. Berkeley: U.

of California P., 2000.

Field, James A. America and the Mediterranean World, 1776-1882. Princeton, N.J: Princeton UP, 1969.

Hunter, J. Paul. Before Novels. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990.

Peskin, Lawrence. Captives and Countrymen: Barbary Slavery and the American Public, 1785-1816.

Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 2009.

Ray, William. Horrors of Slavery: or, The American Tars in Tripoli. 1808. Ed. Hester Blum. London:

Rutgers, 2008.

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Ray, William. Horrors of Slavery, or the American Tars in Tripoli. Troy, NY: Oliver Lyon, 1808. In

Baepler 1999. 188-203.

Ray, William. Poems, on Various Subjects…, Religious, Moral, Sentimental and Humorous. Auburn:

Doubleday, 1821.

Rojas, Martha. “‘Insults Unpunished’: Barbary Captives, American Slaves, and the Negotiation of

Liberty.” Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 1.2 (2003): 159-186.

Sears, Christine. American Slaves and African Masters: Algiers and the Western Sahara, 1776-1820. New

York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Slotkin, Richard. Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860.

Middletown, CT.: Wesleyan UP, 1973.

Shaw, Elijah. A short sketch of the life of Elijah Shaw: who served for twenty-one years in the Navy of the

United States, taking an active part in four different wars between the United States & foreign powers;

namely, First-with France, in 1798; Second-with Tripoli, from 1802 to 1805; Third-with England, from 1812 to

1815; Fourth-with Algiers, from 1815 to 1816; and Assisted in subduing the pirates, from 1822 to 1826, and in

1843 entered on board the Old Ship Zion, under a new commander, being in the 73[r]d year of his age.

Rochester, N.Y.: Strong & Dawson, 1843.

Thomson, Ann. Barbary and Enlightenment: European Attitudes towards the Maghreb in the 18th Century.

New York: Brill, 1987.

Tyler, Royall. The Algerine Captive, Or, the Life and Adventures of Doctor Updike Underhill, Six Years a

Prisoner Among the Algerines. Ed. Caleb Crain. New York: Modern Library, 2002.

Weber, Max. Die protestantische Ethik und der „Geist“ des Kapitalismus. Eds. Klaus Lichtblau/Johannes

Weiß. Bodenheim: Athenäum Hain Hanstein, 1993.

White, Hayden. Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1978.

NOTES

1. This paper was funded by the FWF Austrian Science Fund Project “ESCAPE (European Slaves:

Christians in African Pirate Encounters): Barbary Coast Captivity Narratives (1550-1780)” / American

Studies Department at the University of Innsbruck.

2. There is a third account, written by Elijah Shaw and published in 1843. However, it features

very little personal information about his time in Tripolitan captivity, which is why it is not

discussed in this study.

3. In the early 1970s, Hayden White drew attention to this practice of combining factual writing

with plot structures usually associated with fiction, and introduced the term “emplotment” to

discuss fictional elements in historiography that he believed were largely being ignored (White

82).

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ABSTRACTS

This study deals with early American narratives about North African captivity. The focus is put

on two widely differing narratives that were written about the same event (the capture of the

USS Philadelphia in 1803), one by an officer, the other by a regular sailor. The aim of this study is

to show how class, monetary considerations and literary ambitions influenced the seemingly

factual retellings of those events.

L’étude analyse les premiers récits américains de captivité barbaresque. Deux récits présentant

de notables divergences et portant sur le même épisode (la capture de la frégate USS Philadelphia

en 1803) sont examinés, l’un des récits étant celui d’un officier, l’autre celui d’un simple marin.

L’objet est de montrer comment les questions de classe sociale, les enjeux monétaires et les

ambitions littéraires ont influencé le compte-rendu, en apparence factuelle, des événements.

INDEX

Mots-clés: récits de captivité, Tripoli, Côte des Barbaresques, Jefferson Thomas, guerre

révolutionnaire américaine, littérature américaine

Keywords: captivity narratives, Tripoli, Barbary Coast, Jefferson Thomas, American

Revolutionary War, American literature

AUTHOR

TOBIAS AUBÖCK

Tobias Auböck is a PhD student at the University of Innsbruck, where he also received his

Diploma in History, as well as English and American Studies, specializing in American Barbary

Coast captivity narratives. He received the Austrian Fulbright Prize for best thesis in American

Studies. From October 2013 to March 2014, he worked as an assistant at the American Corner

Innsbruck, an information platform that is anchored at the Department of American Studies at

the University of Innsbruck and the U.S Embassy in Vienna. From July 2014 until July 2016, he

was research assistant for the FWF-funded project “European Slaves: Christians in African Pirate

Encounters (ESCAPE: Barbary Coast Captivity Narratives 1550-1780).” He is a recipient of the

Richard & Emmy Bahr grant for his dissertation project. In 2016, he was awarded the Austrian

Ministry of Science Fellowship and is now working on his dissertation at the Center for European

Studies (Center Austria) at the University of New Orleans. Contact: tobias.auboeck [at] gmail.com

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Graphic InterludeUnstable states, mutable conditions

Fergus Fields, Carol M. Highsmith, Walker Evans, Samuel J. Beckett,Thomas C. Roche, Alexander Gardner and John Collet

Fergus Fields (American), Two-step step step, from the series Underground Around The World, 2011

© Fergus Fields.

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Fergus Fields (American), Two-step step step, from the series Underground Around The World, 2011

© Fergus Fields.

Fergus Fields (American), Two-step step step, from the series Underground Around The World, 2011

© Fergus Fields.

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Fergus Fields (American), Two-step step step, from the series Underground Around The World, 2011

© Fergus Fields.

Fergus Fields (American), Two-step step step, from the series Underground Around The World, 2011

© Fergus Fields.

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Fergus Fields (American), Two-step step step, from the series Underground Around The World, 2011

© Fergus Fields.

Fergus Fields (American), Two-step step step, from the series Underground Around The World, 2011

© Fergus Fields.

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Fergus Fields (American), Two-step step step, from the series Underground Around The World, 2011

© Fergus Fields.

Fergus Fields (American), Two-step step step, from the series Underground Around The World, 2011

© Fergus Fields.

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Carol M. Highsmith, Abandoned cabin near the ghost town of Cima in the Mojave National Preserve inCalifornia, 2012

Source: The Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/highsm.23935/

Carol M. Highsmith, An abandoned movie theater in Sierra Blanca, made a virtual ghost town when theinterstate highway bypassed it in Hudspeth County, Texas, 2014

Source: The Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2014631006/

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Walker Evans, Circus poster. Alabama, 1935

Source: The Library of Congress. http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8c52074/

The Detroit Publishing Company, Whitby, the Abbey, Yorkshire, England, ca 1890-1900 (Photochromprint, 1905)

Source: The Library of Congress, http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppmsc.09082/.

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Samuel Joshua Beckett, [Loie Fuller Dancing], c. 1900

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/287806.

Samuel Joshua Beckett, [Loie Fuller Dancing], c. 1900

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/287806.

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Samuel Joshua Beckett, [Loie Fuller Dancing], c. 1900

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/287806.

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Samuel Joshua Beckett, [Loie Fuller Dancing], c. 1900

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/287806.

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Samuel Joshua Beckett, [Loie Fuller Dancing], c. 1900

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/287806.

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Samuel Joshua Beckett, [Loie Fuller Dancing], c. 1900

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/287806.

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Samuel Joshua Beckett, [Loie Fuller Dancing], c. 1900

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/287806.

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Samuel Joshua Beckett, [Loie Fuller Dancing], c. 1900

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/287806.

Samuel Joshua Beckett, [Loie Fuller Dancing], c. 1900

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/287806.

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Thomas C. Roche and Alexander Gardner, Ruins in Carey Street, Richmond (1865)

Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/268021.

“A Morning Frolic, or the Transmutation of Sexes” (c. 1780), London. Published by CaringtonBowles after John Collet

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The book open on the floor is inscribed 'Ovid's Metamorphoses done into English'.

Source: British Museum (London), https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_2010-7081-3029 ©Trustees of the British Museum.

ABSTRACTS

This graphic interlude features a selection of photographs which can illustrate the topic of this

issue: “Unstable states, mutable conditions”.

Cet interlude iconographique comporte une sélection de photographies illustrant à leur manière

le thème de ce numéro : « états instables, conditions en mutation ».

INDEX

Mots-clés: instabilité, photographie, mutabilité, peinture, gravure

Keywords: unstable, photography, mutability, painting, etching

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AUTHORS

FERGUS FIELDS

Fergus Fields is a contemporary American photographer who specializes in serial photography.

His projects involve continuous travelling around the world. His work have been shown in

collective exhibitions in Montréal (Canada), Orlando, San José (United States), Perth (Australia),

Monterrey (Mexico), Hamburg (Germany), Manchester (UK) and Kobe (Japan).

CAROL M. HIGHSMITH

Carol M. Highsmith is a contemporary US photographer who has begun a multi-year project that

involves photographing 21st Century America for the Library of Congress, picking up where

Lange left off during the WPA project of the 1930s. See http://www.carolhighsmithamerica.com/

WALKER EVANS

Walker Evans was an American photojournalist who notably documented the Great Depression

for the Farm Security Administration.

SAMUEL J. BECKETT

British photographer, b. Shadwell, Stepney [London] 1870– d. Bournemouth 1940.

THOMAS C. ROCHE

American photographer (1826–1895), best remembered for his work on the American Civil War.

ALEXANDER GARDNER

Photographer born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1821 (died 1882 in Washington, D.C.). Best known for

his pictures of the American Civil War and of President Lincoln.

JOHN COLLET

British; artist (c. 1725 – 1780). Painter of genre low-life subjects; studied St. Martin's Lane

Academy and was pupil of Lambert; popularized by engravings by John Goldar; according to

Alexander, Collet's output falls into three periods: in the late 1760s, a number of his designs were

engraved by Goldar and others for Thomas Bradford of Fleet Street; 1768-73, prints after his work

were jointly published by Robert Sayer and John Smith, and from 1774-76 by Sayer and Bennett;

1777-81, mezzotints after his designs published by Carington Bowles.

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Mutable Conditions, ImmutableGovernance: Instability in U.S.DemocracyZach Bastick

Introduction

1 The concept of ‘democracy’ underpins the study of the American historical experience.

It can be said to inhabit an American ideology, to structure its society, and to fuel its

future. Yet an apparent ‘crisis of democracy’ in the United States continues to be noted

in the academic literature (Foa & Mounk; Hudson; Lessig 2012, 2015; Skocpol),

evidenced through low voter turnout, citizen apathy, and a generalized dissatisfaction

with democracy and its institutions. This juxtaposition raises two questions which have

strong implications for the study of democracy in the United States. The first is

whether the popular will of American citizens does indeed shape the political outcomes

of the United States, as it is conventionally expected to do so by mainstream American

political scientists (and particularly pluralists), by French civilisationistes, and by

observers-analysts of the machinery and institutions of American democracy. The

second question that can be raised is whether democracy, as a political model, should be

expected to operate in a way that promotes the ideals that underpin it. The former

question is largely empirically oriented, while the latter is largely normatively

oriented. This article will seek to bridge these two orientations, in order to elucidate

the core inadequacies of democracy in the United States and, from there, propose a

path through which to resolve them. In doing so, it will propose a (normatively)

structural approach to democracy that is (empirically) practically-informed. Future

research can adopt or further this approach so as to analyse modern democratic

systems, such as that of the United States, in line with democratic theory.

2 In order to explore democracy in the United States through a structural approach, this

paper will effect a transition from an empirical to a normative orientation. It will first

highlight the juxtaposition between, on the one hand, the conventional expectations of

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democracy and, on the other hand, the practical outcomes of democracy in the United

States. More specifically, it will explore the recent evidence of a diminished

engagement on the part of citizens with the political system of the United States and

the prevalence of negative attitudes towards the federal government. The paper will

then go on to frame this juxtaposition, drawing on elite theory and class theory and

focusing in particular on the fundamental concepts of power dynamics and

representation. In this way, it seeks to avoid concentrating the analysis on a series of

derivative issues or symptoms, which might be more fully explained by examining the

causes of those issues. In other words, the article seeks to explore certain core political

problems, rather than the mere symptoms of these problems. Finally, the paper will

argue that the internal power dynamics in modern democracy may tend towards the

supremacy of politicians over citizens. Through this theoretically-informed framing of

democracy in the United States, the paper explores the question of whether modern-

day democracy can survive its current structure by paving the way for a series of

alternative and more fundamentally representative procedures for democracy.

Empirical faltering of democracy in the United States

3 Democracy is a system of popular rule. This axiom assumes that there exists in a

democracy a relationship between policy and public opinion. Public support of policy,

though not a sufficient condition of democracy, is a necessary one: in so far as the

people do not support political outcomes in a society, that society cannot be said to be

ruled by the people. This statement can then be further qualified, either systemically —

in order to assess the degree to which a system is democratic: are the institutions of a

particular government sufficient to merit the classification as a democracy? — or analytically,

to assess the health of a democracy — to what extent does an unpopular government or

unsupported policy indicate an unhealthy democracy? The large body of literature on public

opinion, civic empowerment, democratic accountability, and political legitimacy more

generally (Dahl 1998; Habermas; Rawls; Young), gains significance due to this

relationship between the state and the people in democracy.

4 The state of democracy in the United States frequently raises concern. Studies on

democratic responsiveness have shown that policy outcomes are largely unrelated to

public opinion (Barabas 2016). While public support for policy has been studied, these

studies are often limited either by their convenience sampling or by the inadequately

grounded breadth of their analysis. Indeed, every policy issue does not have sufficient

public data, leading either to studies that depend on samples which favour high-profile

issues (which tend to attract polling and are ones to which governments tend to be

more responsive), or to samples that are numerically limited and from which it is

difficult to generalize, due to the unclear representativeness of the samples (it would

be overly costly to assess public support for every policy outcome). As a consequence, it

is hard to gauge whether public opinion is sufficiently considered by government. In

order to briefly shed light on the health of democracy in the United States, it is hence

useful to consider more general measures, such as participation and satisfaction.

5 Turnout rate at elections is a commonly-cited indicator of a state of democracy,

because elections play a central role in democratic legitimacy and because free and fair

elections are sometimes considered a constituent part of the definition of modern

democracy (Dahl 1972). Turnout rates for U.S. presidential elections have historically

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fluctuated, due in part to shifting cultural contexts and voting procedures. Voter

turnout declined dramatically during the first two decades of the 20th century

(Kornbluh). Turnout rates for subsequent presidential elections would indeed never

reach the highs of the 1880s, while the 1960 election between John F. Kennedy and

Richard Nixon retained a higher turnout rate than any presidential election that

followed (Figure 1). It is perhaps unintuitive that this is also true for local elections,

such as for the position of mayor, because local elections concern positions that are

more immediate channels of representation, and through which citizens can have a

larger impact as individuals. Although disengagement from conventional channels of

representation can certainly be delineated across various factors — generationally, for

example, young American adults have been shown to be less likely to vote and

participate in politics beyond voting than older American adults (Delli Carpini 342) —

the general extent of this disengagement is visible beyond the figures for voting in

elections. For instance, by one estimate, only 15% of Americans have ever written to

their senators, and two-thirds of mail to Congress is written by only 3% of the U.S.

population (Wood 225). Due to the significance of participation to democracy, the

prevalence of a generalised low engagement is an indicator which would appear to

challenge the very notion that the United States is a functional or at least healthy

democracy.

Figure 1: Voter turnout for president and representative elections in the United States, 1932-2010

The data used to create this graph is adapted from the Huffington Post’s (2013) poll database oncongressional approval. This data originates from 465 polls from various pollsters including Gallup,Fox, and YouGov/Economist. This graph is created by curve-fitting (moving averages) approval anddisapproval ratings from the 465 polls in the database at the time it was accessed. It should be notedthat polls surveyed different populations (adults, likely voters, registered voters) using different surveymethods (e.g. phone and internet). Additionally, it should be noted that I plotted the poll release datesalong the primary axis rather than the polling period of the polls.

6 Low political engagement might evidence a faltering relation between the citizen and

the state. Low engagement is more generally associated with a growing apathy of

citizens — in part what Donald Wood calls the “emergence of the dysfunctional

citizenry” (221). Wood claims that citizens no longer understand their political

environment, are overly reliant on simplified information sources (such as television

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shows and stand-up comedy), and are largely less engaged in politics. This premise has

been supported by Michael Delli Carpini (1996) who surveyed the range of factual

information that citizens know about politics over time. Elsewhere, Delli Carpini (2000)

noted a decline not only in political knowledge and the likelihood of obtaining it, but

also in general civic engagement: young American adults are ‘less trusting of their

fellow citizens’, ‘less interested in politics or public affairs’, ‘less likely to feel a sense of

identity, pride, or obligation associated with American citizenship’, ‘less likely to

participate in community organisations designed to address public problems through

collective action or the formal policy process’, and ‘less likely to connect individual

efforts to help solve problems with more traditional, collective forms of civic

engagement’ (Delli Carpini 2000: 341-3).

7 Moreover, U.S. citizens have been shown to be increasingly dissatisfied with democracy

and the way that democracy works in the United States. An abundant literature shows

that citizens tend less and less to trust the government and tries to explain this distrust

(Brooks & Cheng; Citrin; Miller). PEW reported in January 2013 that “trust in the federal

government remains mired near a historic low” (Center for the People and the Press

2013). Antagonism is strongest towards the legislative branch, followed by the

executive and judicial branches, respectively (Gallup 2012). PEW found that the

approval rating of Congress fell from 67% in 1985 to 23% in 2013 (see also figure 2,

which provides additional data points to this finding). Some surveys have found that, in

the United States, attitudes towards government evidence a sentiment of political

alienation, and sometimes animosity, on the part of citizens. Surveys have consistently

evidenced a decrease in contentment with government, and an increase in anger

towards government. For example, a 2015 survey found that only 18% of Americans are

content with the federal government and, while 57% of Americans were frustrated with

the government, 22% of Americans were angry with the government (Pew Research

Center 2015: 9). Another survey found that 27% of registered voters view the

government as their ‘enemy’ (Ibid. 34).

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Figure 2: United States Congress approval rating 2008-2013

The data used to create this graph is adapted from the Huffington Post’s (2013) poll database oncongressional approval. This data originates from 465 polls from various pollsters including Gallup,Fox, and YouGov/Economist. This graph is created by curve-fitting (moving averages) approval anddisapproval ratings from the 465 polls in the database at the time it was accessed. It should be notedthat polls surveyed different populations (adults, likely voters, registered voters) using different surveymethods (e.g. phone and internet). Additionally, it should be noted that I plotted the poll release datesalong the primary axis rather than the polling period of the polls.

8 Competing hypotheses have been presented as to what this low engagement and

satisfaction implies. Brooks and Cheng (2001) note that while some scholars argue that

lessening trust implies dissatisfaction with the U.S. political system generally (Miller),

others argue that it only implies a recurrent dissatisfaction with incumbents (e.g.

Citrin). Both perspectives are significant for the long-term stability and current

legitimacy of democracy. Indeed, if the former hypothesis is subscribed to, declining

trust implies that representative democracies may not be sustainable as a legitimate

political system. If the latter hypothesis were to be adopted, then it would imply that

trust might be renewed with the accession of new office holders, but it would also

however suggest that representation through the procedure of periodic, fixed-term

elections gives rise to periods of lessened public control, or indeed to the removal of

popular control over government — something that Rousseau (1762) also criticised in

The Social Contract.

Power dynamics in elite theory and class theory

9 The democratic system of the United States, like those of other modern democratic

nation-states, implements some degree of representative democracy (the Swiss

Confederation is sometimes referred to as a direct democracy due to its strong

participatory elements, but its underlying processes remain indirect). Under this

system, while the people are normatively assumed to assert control over their political

representatives, the role of the people in public policy is considerably diminished in

comparison to its role in a direct democracy. Indeed, while in a direct democracy the

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people deliberate or vote on every issue, in a representative democracy the people

place trust in politicians, to whom they delegate authority. As such, the process of

representation is complicated by the introduction of elements such as politicians,

parties, and platforms, and by processes such as elections. It might consequently be

assumed that dissatisfaction with government and alienation from formal political

processes are mediated by these additional elements. It is thus a requirement for any

analysis of modern-day political behaviour and attitudes that it should explore the

theoretical underpinnings of these component elements. Here, the focus of this paper is

on what is perhaps the most fundamental of these components, from which the others

effectively derive: the distinction between the citizen and the politician.

10 By delegating powers to certain individuals, representative democracy creates a

political class that is separate from the citizenry. Representatives are citizens, but they

are at the same time distinct from the simple citizenry that they are commonly

expected to represent. Representative democracy shifts daily political obligations and

duties to individuals within this structure and legitimises this shift through some

degree of oversight and control of representatives by the citizenry. Yet where two

social and political groups or classes exist — one with direct political power over the

other, and the other with relatively limited direct political power over itself — the

relations between these two groups is determinant of democracy’s sustainability. The

principal question which then arises is how successfully the balance between these two

groups or classes can be sustained over time. But there are also secondary questions,

such as the dynamics of the evolution that occurs between classes (class mobility) and

the issue of the development of these power relations (hegemony and challenge). In

order to begin to answer these questions, the relation between ‘citizens’ and

‘representatives’ must first be conceptualised. Accordingly, we shall go on in this

section to discuss class theory and elite theory, drawing on them as two perspectives

through which to conceptualise this relation.

11 Various analytical approaches have emerged from the political science and sociology

literature that can be employed to understand the citizen-representative relation.

Representatives might be seen as a distinct social class, perhaps with no class

consciousness, or perhaps equipped with some conception of class struggle. Such a

perception of class would operate against a backdrop of Marxist class distinctions of

proletariat and capitalist. These distinctions have however been refined through the

posthumous continuation of Karl Marx’s work. Max Weber (1905) enumerated a series

of classes according to a typology going beyond the classical Marxist division, by way of

a division of socio-economic distinctions. Similarly, James Burnham wrote in The

Managerial Revolution (1941) on the rise of a post-industrial class of managers which

gains its power not through direct ownership of the means of production, but rather

through managerial involvement. More recently, radical democrats have proposed that

while the concept of class might still have a role in socio-political analysis, the

distinctions of class need not be determined a priori. Hence, radical democrats consider

plural and variable social identities and struggles (for example, Laclau & Mouffe 2;

Tønder & Thomassen 2-3). Class theory thus permits not only the formulation of

varying conceptions of class, it also allows for the formulation of varying power

relations between classes. Indeed, while Marx emphasised ‘property’ in a time of fast-

paced industrial growth, Burnham emphasised ‘influence’ at a time when institutions,

networks and processes had taken on greater consistence in response to the conditions

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of the industrial revolution. Hence, from Marx to Burnham, and through Weber, class

can be viewed as a distinction of power, one that can perhaps be extended to the

distinction between those who have direct political power (representatives) and those

who do not (citizens).

12 Rather than viewing representatives through relations of production — co-existing

with the capitalist, but nonetheless imbued with a hunger for political power rather

than ownership — representatives can be viewed in a context of power rather than

economics. This is a basis of the more recent ‘elite theory’, the idea that society is ruled

by a minority, which is in a position to make strong, impacting and far-reaching

decisions. Thus, elite theory distinguishes itself from class theory through its focus on

political control through top-down, bureaucratic organisations, rather than on

economic relations (Etzioni-Halevy 19). According to elite theory, society is dominated

by political power relations between elites and non-elites, rather than through the

(perhaps more explicit) class-struggle of Marx and Weber.

13 Elite theory stems principally from Vilfredo Pareto’s The Mind and Society (1935),

Gaetano Mosca’s The Ruling Class (1939), and Robert Michels’ Political Parties (1915).

Mosca’s work describes society as being stratified into, on the one hand, a large

unorganized majority and, on the other hand, a minority of elites which rules the

majority. Pareto’s work, originally published in 1916,1 put forward a sociological

assessment of elites. As such, it departed from the economic analysis, stressed notably

by Marxists, to focus instead on a psychological analysis. Pareto’s elite is composed of

the most successful individuals in a wide range of human activity — he proposed

marking people on their success and grouping those with the highest marks into the

category of ‘elites’. Pareto then subdivided the class of elites into those who govern and

those who do not. Hence Pareto’s ‘governing elites’ are individuals who exercise their

high ability in the political sphere, while the ‘non-governing elites’ are individuals who

exert their high ability in other, non-political spheres (such as entertainment or

academia). Even though both theories are assumed to have developed independently,2

the general theory of Pareto resembles that originally developed twenty years earlier

by Mosca in The Ruling Class.

14 Robert Michels (1915) follows from Mosca, while developing the premises of elite

theory in a stricter and less ideological manner (Parry 42). In contrast to the more

general attempts of Mosca and Pareto to develop a sociological and political theory

supported by historical evidence, Michels sought primarily to analyse political parties,

and supported his analysis with a contemporary investigation of the German Social

Democratic Party. As Lipset (1962: 15-6) pointed out, Michels had been active in

socialist circles for a long time, but since the Socialist party was one of the only

advocates of democracy in Michels’ time, the demonstration that the party itself is

undemocratic proved his point well. From this, Michels elucidated the effects of

organisation on democracy — he wrote that “the problem of socialism is not merely a

problem in economics […] socialism is also an administrative problem, a problem of

democracy” (350).

15 By the 1980s, three general theories had become widely adopted by political science:

the Pluralist, the Marxist and the Elitist (Domhoff 1). The idea that political power is

distributed amongst government and non-government institutions (that it is ‘plural’)

was challenged to varying extents by both Marxist class theorists and by elite theorists.

Following from the ideas developed by classic elite theorists, other elite theorists have

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made similar observations of the power dynamics within society. C. Wright Mills (1956),

for instance, wrote of a ‘power elite’, which he defined as “men whose positions enable

them to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary men and women; they are in

positions to make decisions having major consequences” (Mills 73).

16 As can be seen, various analytical approaches have been adopted to explain political

relations in society. Pareto, Mosca and Michels are often referred to by the literature as

classical elite theorists. While all three theorists shared a common premise of elite rule,

Geraint Parry (1969) categorises Mosca and Michels as having ‘an organisational

approach’ and Pareto as having ‘a psychological approach’. Classical elite theory

introduces a novel method of analysing power relations in society. It provides an

alternative tool to the primarily economic focus of Marxist class theory.

Democracy in the United States and the tendencytowards oligarchy

17 If we focus on the particular case of the United States, we can note that while a

plethora of articles and books describe the workings of contemporary democracy, very

few of them fundamentally reassess its core institutional and procedural assumptions.

This is perhaps particularly striking when considering the contemporary Zeitgeist in

political analysis — which has variously focused on the goal of reducing establishment

control of the media, of reducing the role of money in politics, or on the rise of grass-

roots political movements (e.g. Black Lives Matters, Occupy, Democracy Spring). It is

also striking when looking at the democratic qualities of certain major contemporary

political outcomes — for example, when considering that the 2016 presidential election

pitted against each other two nominees holding historically-low favourability ratings

(Enten), whilst still leaving little leeway for third-party candidates. Political science is,

to a large extent, concerned with specific concerns: political polarisation, i.e. the

shifting of opinions towards ideological extremes and the minimization of moderate

opinion; party sorting, i.e. the identification of political stances with parties

(Baldassarri & Gelman; Fiorina & Abrams); voter de-alignment, or the loss of affiliation

to a political party without finding a replacement for the loss; candidate-centred

politics and negative campaigning (Wattenberg). Yet, at the core of many of these lines

of inquiry lies the structural relation of representation binding the citizen and the

politician. Analysing democracy from this more fundamental perspective — and

assessing to what degree the structure of democracy can be developed or be replaced —

consequently pre-empts these more established lines of inquiry and may provide more

fundamental opportunity for democratisation. In order to elucidate this argument, this

section will discuss the commonly cited issue of money in politics, and then assess how

elite theory and class theory might pre-empt this.

18 Amongst the many varied problems cited with reference to democracy, one that has

gained significant attention in recent years is the role of money, leading academics to

quantify the amount of money in politics and to assess its impact on campaign success

and other political outcomes. This effort stems in part from a fear that, in the words of

President Barack Obama’s 2012 speech at the National Democratic Convention,

government may be “forever beholden to the highest bidder” (Obama). In 2011,

television comedian Stephan Colbert drew national attention to the corrosive problems

of campaign-funding by forming, for satirical purposes, a political action committee

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(PAC) with the motto ‘Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow’. A study

conducted at the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania

found that Colbert’s satirical show on Comedy Central had been more successful at

increasing the public’s knowledge of recent campaign finance regulations than other

news media (Hardy et al.), and Colbert himself won a Peabody award for this perceived

educational impact of his super-PAC. Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig wrote of a

‘dependence corruption’ (Lessig) between politicians and private money, that hinders

the ability of politicians to represent citizens. In May 2014, Lessig launched the Mayday

PAC (political action committee), a crowd-funded super-PAC to funnel money to

candidates committed to reforming campaign finance. The initial success of this is

suggested by the $7.9 million that the Mayday PAC raised between May 1st and

September 26th. For the 2016 election, Lawrence Lessig then ran as a candidate for the

Democratic party nomination, on a platform of campaign finance and electoral reform.

Similarly, non-partisan political action committees (such as Wolf PAC) advocate for a

constitutional convention the aim of which would be to reduce the impact of money on

elections. These high-level and high-impact attempts to bring attention to and resolve

democratic problems are evidence of a public awareness of the failings of democracy

and a willingness to do something about it.

19 The possibility that money will affect political representation is a function of the

centralization of representation in contemporary democracy. As opposed to direct

democracy, where representation is distributed amongst the people, modern

democracy centralizes power within a group or class of political representatives.

Multiple protections for stability are provided by buffering public opinion through

political representatives (prominent arguments are presented in Madison). Yet, this

systemic reliance on representatives creates multiple vulnerabilities affecting the

validity of representation. First, there is the fact that, historically, the designation of

representatives in United States democracy will introduce political parties and

platforms, both of which have further implications for the functioning of democracy.

Second, representatives become a choking point between the popular will and political

outcomes, and, as such, centralize and concentrate the possibility of sabotaging the

political process (whether through pressure exerted by lobbies or through the personal

ambitions of politicians). Third, new political processes are introduced to support

indirect representation — prime amongst these are elections, which are subject to

further influence and, it might be noted, were considered by the ancient Greeks as

oligarchic rather than democratic processes. Finally, the existence of a class or group of

representatives divides society into normal-citizens and super-citizens, a phenomenon

which may engender class and elite dynamics. Thus the very structure of modern

democracy implies this vulnerability in the process of representation, one which lies at

the core of democracy.

20 One extreme result of this indirect structure is that democracy might tend to oligarchy

and, in this sense, might prove not to be a self-sustainable political system. The notion

that democracy leads to oligarchy — sometimes called the ‘Machiavellian perspective’is explicitly argued by Pareto (1935), Mosca (1939), and Michels (1915). Machiavellians

asserted, by way of various justifying arguments, that democracy was partly oligarchic.

For Mosca, this was evident from his extensive survey of historical societies. Those

advocating the rule of the people, Mosca asserted, had invariably sought to divert the

power in order to gain power for themselves. He stated that the power of the political

class derives from its ability to generate cohesive strategies of ascendency over the

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masses. Since the elite are a minority, they are able to organise more rapidly,

communicate more readily, and adapt more flexibly to changing situations than the

larger majority. Michels argued that self-governance was necessary in order to defend

society against the hegemony of capital — and yet that mass society is unable to

actively self-govern without organisation, and it thus seeks organisation in elected

leaders in order to make decisions and to enact them. A political class consequently

forms which, according to Michels, will then invariably attempt to consolidate its own

power over the non-political class. Hence, while Mosca raised the hypothesis of the

individual tendencies of the elite to consolidate its power, Michels extended this to the

very structure of organization in society, a conclusion explained in the phrase “who

says organization, says oligarchy” (cited in Parry 42). Based on organisation and

disorganisation, then, the ascendency of a political class over the masses, that is, the

rule of the minority over the majority, can be argued to constitute the natural political

evolution of society.

21 The application of these perspectives to modern democracy has strong implications for

future studies of American society in particular and to democracy generally.

Humanistic social sciences, attempting to assess democracy and develop new paths for

democratisation, would benefit greatly by moving a step down the hierarchy of

political analysis, in order to undertake a reassessment of the institutions and

processes of representative democracy. Attempts that seek to alleviate the problems of

indirect democracy, while failing to account for the dynamic of the underlying political

structure may be fighting against the perhaps overwhelming tendencies of the current

political system to favour oligarchic over democratic outcomes. A first step for future

research in this direction might be to consider that the concentration of power within

the hands of a few political representatives creates vulnerabilities in the translation of

the popular will to political outcomes. If it is accepted that the shifting of direct

political power away from the citizenry and towards representatives tends to a process

of de-democratisation, through the competition between elites and non-elites, then the

structure — not only the outcomes — of democracy needs to be reassessed in order to

safeguard against this shift. Future research should assess this shift away from

democracy and explore new political structures that may support alternative

democratic futures for society.

Conclusions

22 The foundational self-definition of the United States is wedded to the concept of

democracy. Its institutions consolidate it, its civil religion cherishes it, its activists

aspire to it. It is the mystical and amorphous stuff upon which a large part of an entire

civilization imagines itself to be anchored. Yet the gap between the concept of

democracy and the governance of our societies is perhaps too large to allow for

superficial fixes. If one believes that our societies are indeed anchored on the

supposition of a ‘true’ democracy, one need only look deeper, past the obfuscating

cloud of our collective imaginations, to witness growing disenchantment, alienation,

distrust, and sometimes apathy. While academics often focus on these apparent

ailments of democracy, it is perhaps more constructive to view these as symptoms of a

vulnerable political structure, rather than as problems in and of themselves. By re-

examining the core assumptions of democracy — many of which are hundreds and

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sometimes thousands of years old — in line with modern society and technology, new

horizons for democracy can be envisaged, which may render the problems of our

current mechanisms of governments irrelevant.

23 Criticisms of U.S. democracy have been as varied as its solutions. The Cold War era

pitted the survival of democracy against external conditions (e.g. energy scarcity, the

dependence of democracy on economic surplus, and the role of capitalism in society).

The 1990s emphasized the failure of the public sector model and proposed New Public

Management as a solution (Ferlie 1996). The 2000s emphasized the geopolitics of

democracy, while the decade from 2010 has seen the acceleration of the current

emphasis on the issue of campaign financing. Yet, as this paper has argued, these

criticisms and solutions miss what is a fundamental point: the very structure of

representative democracy may inhibit the ideals that this organisational structure is

intended to promote. Previous attempts to ‘fix’ democracy largely ignore the relation

between normative ideals and the actual political structure — assuming, for the most

part, that the core structures of society serve ideals and that the consolidation of this

structure will therefore increase the probability of desirable outcomes. As a result, it is

often expected that democracy will fix itself — the solution of ‘democracy’ is often

advocated to the problem of ‘democracy’.

24 New technologies, and particularly the Internet with its decentralized nature, provide

promising avenues for exploring other options for democracy. For example, in my

research I develop the concept of Internet Democracy in which the unprecedented

attributes of the Internet are applied to democracy. This allows us to envisage new

forms of democracy for the digital age — for instance, the promotion of

decentralization as opposed to centralization, and flat power structures as opposed to

hierarchies. One possible alternative to indirect representation is a passive

implementation of Internet Democracy, where online content is analysed to

automatically determine societal preferences and, in turn, inform policy outcomes.

Paths such as this offer the opportunity to unchain ourselves from many of the

constraints faced by the ancient Athenians and the Founding Fathers. By recognizing

that current forms of democracy are inherently unstable —that they are vulnerable to

debasing not only policy outcomes, separating them from the popular will, but also to

debasing the very idea of government of the people over time—, the importance of

developing fundamentally new political systems, that consolidate popular rule (rather

than tend away from it), becomes evident. More generally, by shedding new light on

democratic systems — whether from social, technological, philosophical, or other

developments — alternative forms of government can be created with a greater

potential from the outset to truly translate societal aspirations into societal realities.

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NOTES

1. The publication dates referenced by this article refer to the English-language publications.

Pareto’s The Mind and Society (Pareto, 1935) corresponds to the first publication of the English

translation, whereas the work was originally published in Italian in 1916. Similarly, Robert

Michels’ Political Parties (Michels, 1915) was first published in 1911 as Zur Soziologie des Parteiwesens

in der modernen Demokratie. Likewise, Mosca’s The Ruling Class (Mosca, 1939) was first published in

1896. The chronological order of the original publications was then first Mosca (in 1896), Michels

(in 1911) and lastly Pareto (in 1916).

2. Arthur Livingston, who edited the first published English translations of both Parento (1935)

and Mosca (1939), notes that there is neither a dialectical nor historical connection between

Mosca and Parento’s theories — they originated independently from each other and with

different intentions (see Arthur Livingston, note IX in Mosca 1939: xxxvi).

ABSTRACTS

The question of democracy is central to any study of the United States. Yet the shortcomings of

the actual workings of the democratic process in the United States are becoming increasingly

evident, as witnessed in a growing disenchantment with government, the evidence of the

alienation and growing apathy of citizens, coupled with a distrust of politicians. While academics

often focus on these apparent ailments of democracy, it is perhaps more constructive to view

them as symptoms of a vulnerable political structure, rather than as problems in themselves.

This paper proposes that a re-examination of the structure of democracy in the United States,

starting out from a revision of its first principles, can provide greater opportunity for a fully-

fledged enhancement of the procedures of democratisation than is possible by way of the

currently dominant trend in the academic literature, which argues for the pursuit of incremental

improvements in government processes. This article applies both class theory and elite theory to

argue that the indirect democracy of the United States is inherently vulnerable to the distortion

of the public will, and ultimately to the hegemony of political elites over ordinary citizens. It

concludes that an assessment of the structure of democracy through 21st-century perspectives,

informed by new technology (such as Internet Democracy), offers the potential to remedy the

core vulnerabilities of modern democracy. The structural analysis that is presented here, based

on the specific case of the United States, demonstrates that current approaches to democracy

may be likened to the remedial patching of political systems that are fundamentally obsolete. It

is argued here that the acknowledgement of this limitation provides an opportunity for the

emergence of fundamentally new forms of societal governance.

La question de la démocratie est d’une importance centrale pour toute étude des Etats-Unis.

Cependant, les imperfections du fonctionnement effectif du processus démocratique américain

sont de plus en plus patentes, comme en atteste le désenchantement grandissant à l’égard du

gouvernement, les indices d’aliénation et d’apathie chez les citoyens, corrélés à la défiance vis-à-

vis de la classe politique. Alors que très souvent les chercheurs mettent l’accent sur ces

imperfections manifestes du processus démocratique, il serait peut-être plus constructif d’y voir

les symptômes de la vulnérabilité de la structure politique, plutôt que des problèmes en eux-

mêmes. L’article sous-tend qu’un réexamen de la structure de la démocratie aux Etats-Unis, en

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commençant par une révision de ses principes fondateurs, offre de meilleures possibilités d’un

renforcement significatif des procédures de démocratisation, comparé à la tendance

actuellement dominante dans la littérature scientifique qui préconise la consolidation

incrémentielle des procédures de gouvernement. L’article emprunte aussi bien à la théorie des

classes qu’à la théorie des élites, démontrant que la démocratie indirecte des Etats-Unis met en

évidence une vulnérabilité intrinsèque à la distorsion de la volonté publique et, en dernier

ressort, un biais conduisant à l’hégémonie des élites politiques sur les citoyens ordinaires. Il en

déduit qu’une évaluation de la structure de la démocratie, à l’aune des perspectives du 21e siècle

et en tenant compte des innovations technologiques (notamment la démocratie par Internet),

peut potentiellement remédier aux vulnérabilités de la démocratie moderne. L’analyse

structurelle présentée ici, à partir du cas spécifique des Etats-Unis, démontre que les approches

actuellement adoptées s’agissant de la démocratie s’apparentent au « replâtrage » de systèmes

politiques qui sont fondamentalement obsolètes, alors que c’est plutôt le constat de ses limites

qui permettrait de saisir l’occasion pour encourager l’émergence de formes radicalement

nouvelles de gouvernance sociétale.

INDEX

Keywords: United States, politics, democracy, representation, elite theory, internet

Mots-clés: États-Unis, politique, démocratie, représentation, élites, internet

AUTHOR

ZACH BASTICK

Zach Bastick is Associate member of CREA, EA 370, Paris Nanterre / Fellow, Harvard Department

of Government. His research interests include American politics, democratic theory and the

Internet. He seeks to develop new forms of democracy through the Internet. Contact:

zach.bastick [at] gmail.com

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Mutability as Counter-Plot:Apocalypse, Time, and SchematicImagination in Don DeLillo’s TheBody ArtistRichard Anker

To name mutability as a principle of order is to

come as close as possible to naming the authentic

temporal consciousness of the self.

Paul de Man, “Time and History in Wordsworth”

(94)

1 While the figure of apocalypse comes up frequently in commentaries of Don DeLillo’s

fiction, rarely has it been contextualized from the perspective of the modern reception

of romantic literature and the critical idiom that this reception has established. Easily

recognizable as an important theme in DeLillo’s work, apocalypse is generally discussed

either as a historical (or post-historical) phenomenon that transcends the literary —as

when Peter Boxall employs the term to describe the sense of “deep completion”

achieved by post-Cold War global capitalism and the apparent “founding of an

unimpeachable, unboundaried America,” in his reading of Underworld (Boxall 177)— or

else, more diffusely, as a religious concept whose secularization and internalization as a

psychological reality have remained unproblematic and failed to receive substantive

literary historical elucidation. The same is true for the perhaps even more widely

employed figure of a fall in DeLillo criticism, another trope of romantic literature

inherited directly from Milton and, more obliquely, from biblical tradition, and

associated in various ways in recent criticism with the postmodern vernacular of

apocalypse, catastrophe, cataclysm and trauma. Although an abundance of intertextual

associations has been enumerated in critical readings of DeLillo’s novel Falling Man

(2007), including allusions to the biblical drama of the Fall, Keats’s late poem “The Fall

of Hyperion” (1819), in which Miltonic myth is subsumed within poetic insight, has not

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been one of them, as though the romantic moment of the internalization of such tropes

had been taken for granted.

2 My objective here is not to explore the highly problematic notion of internalization,1

but more simply to propose a reading of DeLillo’s late fiction, in particular The Body

Artist (2001), which treats the romantic moment of literary history (and, to a very

limited extent, the Kantian “crisis” which preceded it) as integral to our contemporary,

postmodern understanding of literature, rather than in polemic opposition to it, as

remains frequently the case. Contextualizing DeLillo’s writing within the larger

literary-historical horizon emerging from Romanticism does not form an attempt to

“romanticize” the author, nor does it suppose a continuous, genealogical or diachronic

understanding of literary history. It merely assumes the rejection of a reductive view of

radical discontinuity between what we call “romantic,” on the one hand, and

“postmodern,” on the other, the former generally connoting a quest for vision, for

unmediated insight, and a nostalgic drive to (re)discover a primal language capable of

giving direct access to the presence of things —Rousseau and Wordsworth are the

authors most frequently evoked to represent these tendencies in DeLillo’s fiction

(Cowart, Maltby)—, and the latter a more skeptical, or ironic, insistence on mediation,

on difference, and on language as a conveyor of absence. Of course this dualist and

historicized understanding of literary form is not unique to critical interpretations of

DeLillo’s work, as it is also evident in the reception of other postmodern American

authors like Thomas Pynchon, William Gaddis and William H. Gass, the latter

reinforcing and even further radicalizing this perspective in his own essays.2 As a body

of work generally recognized for being particularly concerned, however, with the

saving of history at a time when historical change and mutability have never been more

threatened by global (Keats or Shelley might have said “titanic”) forces, DeLillo’s

writing may stand to gain more by comparison with its romantic predecessors than

that of many of its contemporaries. This is so not only because, as is widely asserted,

Romanticism marks an awakening to history in literary consciousness, a more intense

awareness of time and mutability as conditions of human order. What such a

hypothesis also implies is that literary history, the temporal transmission and

inheritance of literary form, may be more potent as an animating force in history itself,

or at least may have more vigor as a temporal entity and condition of historical change,

than certain contemporary conceptions of literary texts seem to suggest (those, for

instance, that ignore or suppress their own origins in Romanticism). That said, my

intentions here are almost entirely of a practical order. By not denying the existence in

DeLillo’s work of the aforementioned opposing tendencies —a logocentric quest for

presence on the one hand, a properly poetic awareness of mediation on the other—, but

by affirming that the tension between them is itself a fundamentally romantic

phenomenon, or has been transmitted to us by romantic texts, my aim is simply to

provide a viable reading of a contemporary text which, inscribed as I see it in the

continuing afterlife of the romantic tradition, structures itself or is articulated as a

response to our postmodern situation of historical impasse.

3 In my discussion of DeLillo’s fiction the romantic paradigm of historical transformation

will come from Keats, although the Wordsworthian conception of an apocalyptic

imagination, such as it was elucidated by Geoffrey Hartman in his Wordsworth’s Poetry

1787-1814 (1964), and thereafter contested by Paul de Man in his lecture entitled “Time

and History in Wordsworth” (delivered in 1967), has also provided aspects of the

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theoretical framework in which my reading will occur.3 Although a concern with

apocalypse might suggest an interest in Underworld (1997) or, more directly, Falling Man

(2007), DeLillo’s novel dealing with the traumatic effects of the collapse of the Twin

Towers, The Body Artist, published in 2001, also deals with post-traumatic or post-

apocalyptic experience, even though the historical event at its source does not have the

magnitude of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Progressively, one of the central themes of

DeLillo’s writing has become time. A concern with historical events of quasi-epic

proportion, like the Kennedy assassination (Libra 1988), with the Cold War risk of

nuclear annihilation (Underworld), or else with environmentally disastrous toxic-waste

spills (White Noise 1985), threats that might be said to inform history’s apocalyptic

texture, has given way, in DeLillo’s writing, to a preoccupation with time itself as the

element in which human consciousness and experience are structured. History, as the

empirical manifestation of time, is not merely sloughed off as a snake sheds layers of

dead skin, but there is a greater preoccupation with historicity itself in the later works,

especially in The Body Artist, Cosmopolis (2003) and Point Omega (2010), which suggests

that the possibility for a renewed understanding of history lies in a reconsideration of

time, and in the ways in which artistic form and literary language temporalize

experience. Like Percy Shelley’s Prometheus, who says of himself that he “gave man

speech, and speech created thought, / Which is the measure of the universe”

(Prometheus Unbound II, iv, 72-73), for DeLillo, we shall see that history is what happens

when time is differentiated, schematized, framed or measured by language.

4 This is not to suggest that history is reducible to a human production, that the faculty

of speech which schematizes or measures time —presents time as such— is reducible to

human productivity. In DeLillo’s fiction, the romantic theme of the secularization or

human appropriation of a faculty conceived as divine in origin, the faculty of speech,

continues to be a central concern, where language remains both mysterious in its

function and intimately associated in its origin with the idea of a fall. This mysterious,

or rather uncanny (unheimlich) function of language, on the one hand, and its

association with a postlapsarian state of being, on the other, is the effect of two

opposing, yet inseparable, tendencies in DeLillo’s work, echoing an opposition that runs

through romantic writing between a poetic self-awareness born of the experience of

finitude and a heroic drive to permanence and unity of being, were the latter invariably

to reveal itself productive of its own collapse.4 This opposition between a titanic will to

power and the painful awareness of time acquired by the poet is nowhere more

explicitly dramatized perhaps than in Keats’s “The Fall of Hyperion,” where the

epiphanic or traumatizing vision of the titans’ fall proves to be the possibility of the

poet of negative capability who has no personal identity. Like the protagonist of Falling

Man, Keith Neudecker, whose convulsive, incomplete transformation occurs in the

wake of an apocalyptic event brought about by excessive desire for self-immediacy and

unmediated contact with the principle of things —as the sections in the novel dealing

with Hammad’s terrorist plotting make clear —, Keats’s poet, in the second of the two

uncompleted Hyperion poems, awakens in a postlapsarian landscape of titanic ruin and

ascends painfully and inconclusively towards his identity as a poet traumatized by the

awareness of time.

5 The analogy can easily be made between this Keatsian scenario of falling, as the

condition of a painful but more authentic awareness of time, and numerous scenarios

in DeLillo’s recent works. In each case, a titanic moment of excessive desire for

unmediated action precedes an apocalyptic inversion that reestablishes a more

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authentic, if uncanny, mode of temporal awareness. The multi-billionaire Eric Packer,

in Cosmopolis, who lives in a forty-eight room apartment on the top floor of an eighty-

nine story building in lower Manhattan, “the tallest residential tower in the world” (C

8), and spends his day in an immensely over-sized limousine, begins his career by

“effectively making history,” as he puts it, “before history became monotonous and

slobbering, yielding to his search for something purer” (C 75). Packer’s heroic making of

history followed by his speculative quest for something purer —the more perfect

affinity he seeks between technology and capital, between the financial markets he

controls and the natural world—, is at bottom a violent reaction against the grasp of

time which haunts him from the opening pages of the novel. If this titanic reaction

against time dooms him, however, it also turns out to be productive, as it allows for a

paradoxical insight into the mediated nature of human time, when the video screens

Packer uses to monitor his identity and his surroundings begin displaying images of

himself in proleptic fashion: the very shock he receives from explosions occurring

around him during a riot near Times Square displays itself on his screens prior to his

experience of it, and he dies looking into a computer simulation of his death before it

happens. When we read, towards the end of the novel, that “pain interfered with his

immortality” (C 207), it is not merely the pain of the self-inflicted gunshot wound that

is being alluded to, but the pain of human finitude itself, a “dying into life” as Keats

would have put it. In other words, the “interference” with his immortality amounts to a

suspension —not, however, to a cessation— of titanic will and its apocalyptic telos by a

“negative capability” which abides an uncanny awareness of time. Richard Elster, in

Point Omega, formerly a secret war advisor to the Pentagon and currently residing in

the desert where he seeks escape from “time passing, mortal time” (PO 44), and from

what he calls “the slinking time of watches, calendars, minutes left to live” (59),

created, he contends, by cities, nurtures an apocalyptic nostalgia for what he calls

“deep time, epochal time” (72), where human time would recede behind a quasi-

geological time, ultimately resembling nothing if not a death-like state of permanence.5

This speculative nostalgia for a pre-civilizational, natural time corresponds with a

quest for unity of mind and matter, a transcendence of consciousness which would

amount, if achieved, Elster hubristically conceives, either to “a sublime transformation

of mind and soul or some worldly convulsion” (72). Just as the apocalyptic telos in

Cosmopolis is suspended when Packer observes a man burn himself to death in the

Times Square rioting, Elster’s drive to self-immediacy and the negation of temporal

awareness is interrupted by the sudden disappearance and supposed death of his

daughter in the desert where he had meditated his encounter with deep time, and it is

left to his artistic double, the young film-maker Jack Finley, who had sought to

document the older man’s war confessions, to attain the negative capability necessary

to sustain a potentially self-annihilating exposure to time. In each of these novels, as in

the previously mentioned Falling Man, an awareness of time as something other than

merely natural and beyond the power of mind is mediated by death,6 that is, by a

catastrophic fall symbolizing a negativity beyond the reach of imagination.

6 DeLillo’s late fiction re-experiences and represents the secularized version of the Fall

and of the redemption of man as a process of consciousness, a time-bound and mediated

consciousness, which, like that of his romantic predecessors, refuses to sacrifice its

capacity for negative achievement to more or less grandiose designs of historical

power, or to more illusory schemes of post-historical plenitude. And yet, like the poetic

language of his romantic forebears, DeLillo’s fictional language seems to originate in

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the desire to overcome mediation, in the drive for poetic language to bind itself to

natural things, as is attested by the apocalyptic tendencies of the aforementioned

characters which seemingly contradict, but are actually preliminary to, an awareness

of the mediated character of identity and the temporalized modes of insight that

underlie the negative capability of the artist.7 One would be mistaken not to take this

apparent contradiction seriously and to view DeLillo’s representations of the will to

overcome mediation as the mere parody of metaphysical desire of the sort frequently

associated with postmodern writing. One ought to consider that in the dramatic

pattern of Fall and redemption, apocalypse and creation inherited by DeLillo from the

romantic tradition, an irresolvable tension inherent to language itself is being played

out, a tension which appears intimately related to the historicity and temporality of

human experience.

7 The narrative dynamic of The Body Artist also conforms to this pattern of apocalypse

and redemption that conditions the romantic awareness of history. When Lauren

Hartke’s husband, the filmmaker Rey Robles, born as Alejandro Alquezar, departs one

morning from the country house the couple has been living in and commits suicide

later the same day in the apartment of his former wife, the shock Lauren receives, at

first debilitating, turns out to be the condition of an intimate and painful exploration of

the sources of identity and of the redemptive function of artistic imagination, notably

as concerns this faculty’s role in the structuring of time. The suicide of her husband

Rey, meaning “king” in Spanish, bears all the traits of a fall from heroic self-identity

that we observe frequently in DeLillo characters. “The thing [the suicide] was a plan in

his mind,” Rey’s previous wife tells Lauren (BA 58), underlining the apocalyptic telos of

a consciousness driven by the desire to triumph over mediation: “I want God to see my

face,” he says jokingly, yet revealingly, to Lauren on the morning of his suicide (BA 14).

Although Rey is a not unsuccessful artist, a film-maker whose subjects are “people in

landscapes of estrangement” and “the poetry of alien places” (BA 29), his suicide is

clearly the result of a will to overcome the heightened sense of estrangement and

alienation that the intensely mediated life of the artist entails. When a blue jay,

recognized by Lauren as a “skilled mimic” (BA 22), appears outside the kitchen window

where the couple is having breakfast their final morning together, Lauren maintains a

long inquisitive gaze with the bird, a reflection of her own artistic identity, while Rey

declares his boredom with the appearance of blue jays and sends the bird flying the

instant he looks up at it. And while Lauren spends her morning dwelling assiduously on

the difference between words and things, on the ceaselessly inadequate relation

between language and everyday reality, Rey, whom Lauren senses feels diminished in

having to discuss trivial things, disparages the act of speech and bemoans what he

regards as the Sisyphean effort it takes to adequately present his thoughts (BA 17).

8 Despite Lauren’s already appreciable negative capabilities demonstrated in the novel’s

opening chapter, Rey’s suicide nonetheless precipitates a shattering of the symbolic

order of language, or of its symbolizing function which profoundly affects her identity

as an artist and a person. What her collapse, dramatized in the opening pages of the

book’s second chapter,8 demonstrates is that the authentic self, which titanic identity

strives to suppress or to overcome, is a mediated entity dependent on identification

with an other, the kind of affective identification that Lauren displays, for example, in

the way she interiorizes the physical discomfort that Rey, her 64-year old husband,

experiences in reaching into remoter parts of the refrigerator: “She was too trim and

limber to feel the strain and was only echoing Rey, identifyingly, groaning his groan,

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but in a manner so seamless and deep it was her discomfort too” (BA 9). Identity

therefore is staged, from the beginning of the novel, as mimetic, and Rey’s suicide

amounts to a rupturing of the affective bond which is constitutive of identity, in other

words, as her spouse’s name suggests, to the loss of the transcendental model or

paternal figure that any system of representation, including that of the ego itself,

requires for its stability. What occurs then is what could be called an unbinding of

mimesis, a dangerously destabilizing mimetism and a haunting sense of the semblance

of reality, an uncanny presentation, in short, of the faculty of presentation itself. This

awareness of the semblance of reality and of the presentation of presentation is evident

from the opening paragraph of the second chapter, in the immediate aftermath of Rey’s

suicide:

It’s a hazy white day and the highway lifts to a drained sky. There are fournorthbound lanes and you are driving in the third lane and there are cars aheadand behind and to both sides, although not too many and not too close. When youreach the top of the incline, something happens and the cars begin to moveunhurriedly now, seemingly self-propelled, coasting smoothly on the level surface.Everything is slow and hazy and drained and it all happens around the word seem.All the cars including yours seem to flow in dissociated motion, giving theimpression of or presenting the appearance of, and the highway runs in a whitehum.Then the mood passes. The noise and rush and blur are back and you slide into yourlife again, feeling the painful weight in your chest. (BA 31)

9 With the collapse of the paternal or transcendental model of identification, the subject

falls not into some “hole” of the Real (trou Réel), of which Lacan speaks, but into the

unheimliche apprehension of mimèsis itself. Not an absence of being but the presentation

of appearance, or the presentation of presentation itself. What is missing suddenly —

what has been “drained” away, leaving in its wake the hazy “whiteness” of the

background evoked here— is what Plato would have called an “idea,” the absolute

referent, model or transcendental double, whose function is to stabilize presentation

and without which no appearance of phenomena, in the strict sense of the term, no re-

presentation or recognition of reality as such, can occur. Perception thereby becomes

estranged from itself, as in lieu of the beneficial doubling of the idea, or of the

transcendental model, there emerges a “white hum” which materially conveys the

dissolution of the eidetic mode of repetition. The estrangement of perception, the sense

of things being “self-propelled” and in “dissociated motion,” would in other words be

the effect of a generalized un-differentiating of repetition, of a sort of neutralized or

monotonized repetition, its collapse into pure reverberation, acoustically presenting

the very loss or lack of the beneficial doubling provided by the paternal fiction, or

imago, of the beloved other.

10 In other terms, what comes into view is what Kant called the schematizing faculty of

the imagination, that “art hidden in the depths of the human soul,” which structures or

figures, fictions, one might say, experience, from the awareness of time passing to the

taste of honey on a piece of toast, as Lauren observes in the course of her mourning.

The work of performance art, entitled Body Time, that Lauren will produce by the end of

the novel finds its possibility in this process of mourning, that is, in this heightened

and uncanny awareness of transcendental imagination — Einbildungskraft, the fictioning

or figuring faculty — which is its effect. For imagination, as the German romantics

discovered, presents itself precisely as the effect of the disunity of the subject

uncovered in Kant’s Critiques, the effect of the loss of a constitutive eidos or Idea. 9

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Whatever might be the empirical determination of the subject’s “trauma” or fall, what

the reader is essentially confronted with, in DeLillo’s late fiction as in the works of his

romantic predecessors, is the perceived loss of the “original intuition” of the

phenomenal world and, by the same token, with the mise-en-scène of the faculty of unity

or synthesis provided by Imagination. Everything begins, in other terms, with the

“revelation” of the mimetic —accompanied, as we’ve seen, with an acoustic sense of

undifferentiated repetition which materially renders the lack of beneficial doubling,

the loss of the eidetic basis of phenomenal perception. That the appearance of the

mimetic corresponds with the loss of salutary, eidetic repetition, could be confirmed in

a reading of any number of passages in the novel, as in the following sentence, for

example, where Lauren recognizes that the perception of a sparrow viewed outside her

kitchen window is dependent upon the repeatability of the schematizing function:

She saw it [the sparrow] mostly in retrospect because she didn’t know what she wasseeing at first and had to re-create the ghostly moment, write it like a line in a pieceof fiction, and maybe it wasn’t a sparrow at all but a smaller bird, gray and notbrown and spotted and not streaked but not as small as a hummingbird, and howwould she ever know for sure unless it happened again, and even then, she thought,and even then again. (BA 91)

11 What the collapse of the transcendental model has provoked here is a fall into a world

of potentially infinite or abyssal repetition, a groundless experience where such basic

ontological distinctions as those between fiction and reality, absence and presence, the

strange and the familiar, art and life, break down. The familiar act of seeing, estranged

from itself by the haunted awareness of its mediation, forfeits the assurance of

empirical stability and reveals itself as intrinsically unstable. Time, one observes here,

emerges as the very element of perception, as the “fictioning” imagination that

mediates the act of seeing introduces a spacing, or a difference, between what is

qualified as the “ghostly moment” of the event and its presentation, delaying or

differing infinitely the intelligible apprehension of the bird’s sensible presence.

12 To speak of an “event” here is potentially misleading, however, since its “ghostly”

manifestation is clearly the retrospective phenomenalisation of a fictional and

linguistic occurrence. In other words, the event of the bird’s appearance is apophantic,

which, as Michel Deguy in an essay dealing with Heidegger’s disavowal of the mimetic

reminds us, means “to make something be seen in its correlation with something else”

(Deguy 89). The bird appears as a sort of visual echo of the schematic image, or as the

synthesis of a series of images, repeating themselves ad infinitum, given the lack of

transcendent correlation. In the same way that, for instance, the mythical Prometheus

brought fire, which, as an element, was, is already there, to borrow another image from

Deguy (119), the bird comes into being, is presented as a mimèsis of “nature.” Technè —

the operation of the schematic imagination — reveals phusis — nature, the bird —,

which, already there, was not present as such, and which, given the suspension of the

imagination, reveals itself here as a withdrawal from being, as a falling out of what

might be called the “as if” of things (I shall return to this notion). Or as a hovering

between being and non-being, presence and absence, reality and fiction, etc.

13 Chapters two, six and seven of The Body Artist each begin with a suspended act of

imagination (Einbildungskraft), where presentation is itself presented, and where the

essential instability and unreliability of perception is brought to light. Yet nowhere is

this suspension of the imagining faculty more dramatically apparent than in the quasi-

spectral, ghostlike apparition of the aphasic, nameless person whom Lauren calls

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Mr. Tuttle, after the image of a high-school science teacher, at the end of the book’s

second chapter. A sort of beneficial, if unheimlich, doubling does after all occur then in

the wake of Rey’s loss, since Mr. Tuttle, who makes his appearance in the house

repeating Rey’s speech, miming his voice down to its intonations, its resonance, its

timbre, is clearly a reflection or visible echo — a prosopopeiac hypotyposis, in

rhetorical terms10 — of the fallen spouse the image of whom has been interiorized by

Lauren. Which is why Mr. Tuttle is precisely, with respect to Lauren herself, a specular

image of an interior and otherwise inaccessible voice or faculty of enunciation, as is

suggested by the fact that, although Lauren hears, or at least suspects she hears,

Mr. Tuttle before Rey’s death, she visibly discovers him only after her husband’s suicide.

As in Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw,” for example, the image, Bild or figure, is a

speculation of the voice —of Rey’s voice, the interiorized voice of the other, but also, no

less disturbingly, of her “own” voice—, presented as an impaired faculty of presentation.11 This impairment is scarcely surprising, after all, given what we’ve already observed

with respect to the suspension of the schematizing function in the wake of Rey’s death.

What Mr. Tuttle’s uncanny apparition amounts to, in short, is a reflective presentation

of Lauren’s “own” suspended faculty of presentation, a specular fiction of her “own”

suspended fictioning capacity.12

14 Although beneficial, as we shall recognize later on, the ghost-like nature of Mr. Tuttle’s

appearance undoes at the same time the intersubjective character of Lauren’s relation

to him. Framing, and thereby objectifying, the dangerously unbound and abyssal

repetitiveness that Lauren is haunted by, the “unfinished look” (45) and generally

ungraspable appearance of Mr. Tuttle — “he seemed to recede under observation,

inwardly withdraw” (85) —, undermines the very stability and equilibrium that

normally would be provided by an intersubjective relation. The “spectral sort” (86) of

proximity this figure offers never provides a stable basis for reflective consciousness,

and thereby never enables the kind of dialectical opposition to establish itself which is

vital to identity as a speculative entity. In short, there is no return, after the loss of the

ideal or eidetic image, to a “prelapsarian” state of stability, no restoration of titanic

identity as the self’s reflective other. Instead, a more authentic if more painful

confrontation with the mutability of identity and its mediated character, of which

there had been only virtual awareness prior to the fall, imposes itself as “inevitable”

(BA 41), and, indeed, as the very possibility of artistic achievement, much as the

Keatsian poet discovers in his face to face encounter with Moneta in “The Fall of

Hyperion.” Such achievement, negative in its capacity to endure the unheimlich

encounter with semblance that we’ve already seen manifest itself, goes well beyond the

mere glimpses of mediated time that are attained by other DeLillo characters like Eric

Packer and Richard Elster. While the dialectical attempts of the latter to achieve a

totalizing synthesis of mind and matter, technology and nature — in other words of

technè and phusis, the root polarity at the basis of the will to power represented in

DeLillo’s fiction —, result in apocalyptic forms of insight that annihilate themselves in

their very achievement, Lauren’s artistic endeavor begins, finds its condition of

possibility, in the suspension of the drive towards synthesis between the two terms of

the polarity. Read in the context of DeLillo’s work as a whole, particularly his late work

where the speculative tendencies underwriting the totalizing drive of Western

capitalist hegemony are most explicitly thematized, what we are confronted with in

The Body Artist is what Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, reading Hölderlin from the

perspective of the poet’s early collaborative efforts with Hegel and the latter’s idealist

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philosophy, called the “caesura” of the speculative (Lacoue-Labarthe 1986). Art, in

DeLillo’s perspective, far from participating in the historical achievement of the

speculative, that is in the aesthetic sublimation of the metaphysical crisis of

(re)presentation inherited from Kant—as the writing of Gass, for example, does—,

constitutes a suspension or caesura of the speculative enterprise that underwrites the

post-romantic will to power. Without destroying insight into the temporal

determination and the mimetic, mutable condition of human existence, as one might

expect from the suspension of speculative consciousness, what the spectral relation to

Mr. Tuttle enables is a deepened, and a more affective, awareness of human time as

constituted by language, that is, by the schematizing faculty of the imagination which,

at bottom, it now becomes evident, is a faculty of enunciation. That Einbildungskraft, the

faculty of putting-into-figure, is grounded in the faculty of speech, is precisely what

Mr. Tuttle’s aphasia or speech impairment serves to make clear:

He hasn’t learned the language. There has to be an imaginary point, a nonplacewhere language intersects with our perceptions of time and space, and he is astranger at this crossing, without words or bearings. (99)

15 Lacking an effective language, Mr. Tuttle is deprived of the medium, transcendental or

epistemic in nature, which coordinates spatial and temporal perceptions. Interpreted

by Richard Elster in speculative idealist (Tielhardian) terms as the “omega point” (PO

72) where consciousness would transcend itself while subsuming its material basis, this

“nonplace” or “imaginary point,” as Lauren more soberly puts it, is posited in material

linguistic terms and thematized as the very locus of schematization. The difference

between Elster’s idealist interpretation of this point and Lauren’s analytical, or critical,

interpretation, is essential, and marks the fundamental separation between the naïve

consciousness of the titanic mind in quest of a dissimulating harmony of being and an

authentically artistic or literary consciousness, aware of its linguistic mediation. The

same awareness as that demonstrated here underwrites the romantic, post-Kantian

experience of finitude, or mutability, and conditions the modern understanding of the

work of art, and of literature in particular, as an elementary form of mediation, that is,

as a form of presentation rather than mere representation, understood in the sense of

imitation. The relentless undoing of self-representation displayed by Lauren’s

performance art is itself a consequence of this unveiling of language as the source of

the imaginative faculty of schematization, since the eccentricity of the “nonplace”

from which perception proceeds denies selfhood its prerogative of agency, even as it

establishes the basis for a non-metaphysical conception of “transcendence” and

disengages artistic creation from the point of view of the subject. Transcendental in the

sense of being the a priori, precognitive condition of experience —“outside her

experience but desperately central, somehow, at the same time,” as Lauren surmises

(BA 63)—, imagination is ultimately revealed as tropological in origin, in that it consists

of a “turning” of one thing into the likeness of another, of making things appear in

their correlation with something else, to take up once again Deguy’s suggestive remark

on the function of logos as apophansis.13 As the specular image, then, of Lauren’s “own”

faculty for producing tropes, or turns of speech, Mr. Tuttle not only reflectively mimes

or personifies the tropological function, as is suggested by the frequent winding and

turning gestures he makes in the course of the novel, but, in doing so, he exposes the

reflective subject, the body artist, to the suspension of tropological identification: “He

came into the room then, edgingly, in his self-winding way, as if, as if” (78). He exposes

the artist to the suspension of mimèsis, that is, once again, to pure repetition, to a

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duplicating energy deprived of model or reference: “It was always as if. He did this or

that as if. She needed a reference elsewhere to get him placed” (45).

16 Because of his impaired capacity for speech, the tropological faculty, Mr. Tuttle is

deficient in productive imagination, which structures time. His twisting gestures, his

turning towards…, paradoxically figuring the suspension of figuration itself, or the

caesura of the apophantic gesture of correlating, suspends time as “sequential order”

(83), as “reassuring sequence” (BA 77). What he lacks, in other words, is rhythm, that

most basic or primitive of schematizing functions, as is suggested by the arrhythmic

despondency that accompanies Mr. Tuttle’s aphasia. For rhythm, rhuthmos or rhusmos,

originally means form or schema according to Aristotle in the Metaphysics, as

Benveniste relates in his Problèmes de linguistique générale, and as Lacoue-Labarthe

points out, in his turn, in “The Echo of the Subject.” Numerous passages in the novel

suggest that rhythm in The Body Artist might best be understood in this original sense of

skhema, which is essential to “the general differentiation of what is” according to

Lacoue-Labarthe (1979, 200). A notable example comes where Lauren is reflecting on

her exchanges with Mr. Tuttle:

There’s a code in the simplest conversation that tells the speakers what’s going onoutside the bare acoustics. This was missing when they talked. There was a missingbeat. It was hard for her to find the tempo. All they had were unadjusted words. Shelost touch with him, lost interest sometimes, couldn’t locate rhythmic intervals ortime cues or even the mutters and hums, the audible pauses that pace a remark. […]She began to understand that their talks had no time sense and that all thereferences at the unspoken level, the things a man speaking in Dutch might sharewith a man speaking Chinese — all this was missing here. (65-6)

17 The “code,” missing here, is once again what Plato called the “idea,” but which a

certain “materialist” tradition, starting with Aristotle, understands as a basic

rhythmicity, described by Benveniste as “form at the moment it is taken by what is in

movement, mobile, fluid, the form that has no organic consistency” (Lacoue-Labarthe

1979: 201). Deprived even of rhythm, of that basic schematizing function, or of what

could be called the most primitive organizing principle of repetition, Mr. Tuttle is the

personification of apocalypse, of a falling out of being in its schematization. 14 He is an

embodied image, tragic in its unshelteredness, of the separation of things from

themselves, of being from itself, in the advent of language. What his appearance gives

access to is the pure difference of being, which, in a unified subject, is always already

temporalized, always already schematized and determined —“measured,” “framed,”

“structured” as Lauren repeatedly observes— by imagination. Fallen into a time

preceding measured, structured time (“a kind of time that is simply and

overwhelmingly there, laid out, unoccurring” BA 77), Mr. Tuttle’s apparition can be

rhetorically conceptualized as a metaleptic foreshadowing of a past event, a projection

into historical time of a moment which precedes history and is the pre-condition of

human temporal experience. This “event” or this “moment,” corresponding with what

Lauren calls “body time,” does not precede history in the sense of some empiricist

myth of natural time, as in Richard Elster’s conception of a geological time

asymptotically approaching permanence, negating mutability and mortal time, but in

the sense of being, in Peter Boxall’s terms, the “groundless ground” or “substratum” of

conscious temporal experience (Boxall 219). Opposed to time in its structured,

“narrative” dimension, this unsheltered time is a pre-schematic mode of temporality

which, as Lauren puts it, is identical to itself:

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Time is the only narrative that matters. It stretches events and makes it possible forus to suffer and come out of it and see death happen and come out of it. But not forhim. He is in another structure, another culture, where time is something like itself,sheer and bare, empty of shelter. (92)

18 To observe that time “stretches events” is to recognize that measured, sequential time

is the imaginative schematization of the original (and originary) difference of being,

where time is “something like itself.” Haunting the “narrative” time of history, such

unsheltered, apocalyptic time manifests itself as the ghostly counter-plot of historical

consciousness only after the speculative thrust of that consciousness transgresses its

own limit, as occurs in The Body Artist in the event of Rey’s suicide. Only then does the

inversion take place which re-establishes an uncanny, tragic awareness of time as a

mediated entity the essence of which lies beyond the grasp of imagination. Although

this encounter with time exceeds the reflective capacity of the artist, it does not abolish

the possibility of art, but redirects the idealizing tendencies of the artist into an

intensely physical and affective confrontation with human finitude. It was precisely

such a reversal that Keats foresaw but was unable to fully accomplish in his

uncompleted Hyperion poems, where Moneta’s face has a purpose analogous to the

figure of Mr. Tuttle in DeLillo’s novel. Both serve to suspend artistic reflection in a long

affective encounter with mortality, transforming art, as Lauren discerns, into a

response to unsheltered finitude: “He was scared. How simple and true. She tried to

tend him, numb him to his fears. He was here in the howl of the world. This was the

howling face, the stark, the not-as-if of things” (90).

19 The “not-as-if” of things is not their absence, but rather the difference between things

and themselves, after the advent of language, but prior to the schematization of things

as a semblance of themselves, prior to their correlation with other things. It is the

“world” of the suspended apophantic function, of the stuttering “as if, as if” that we

observed previously. It is the inarticulate voice or the “howl” of difference itself, of the

pure hiatus, not empirical but transcendental, between technè and phusis, between the

schematizing faculty of imagination and nature, or between the presentation of what is

and what would remain, without such presentation, not absent, but undisclosed or

concealed.

20 The historical function, then, of the artist? In her sheltering of time, the artist enables

history, where time is something different from itself, and where the “as-if” of things, in

their unheimlich estrangement from themselves, familiar and strange at the same time,

being their own semblance, maintains a precarious distance from the “howling” space

of originary difference. Mimèsis, the Greek term for the analogical relation between

technè and phusis, for the correlative “as-if” of things which we call reality, is therefore

the condition of possibility of history, its transcendental condition, which is why its

revelation, infinitely paradoxical, amounts precisely to the caesura of history, to the

suspension of the measured and sequential structure of time. It is the retrogressive

movement towards this condition of history and of narrative time that underwrites the

performance art of the body artist and, in the final analysis, DeLillo’s literary

enterprise, and enables one to argue, as I’ve done at the beginning of this essay, for a

temporal interpretation of literary form. Such an interpretation depends upon the

recognition of art—and of a certain imaginative production in general—, not merely as

representation, but as mimèsis, the correlating function which shelters time and opens

the world to itself as its own semblance.

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21 Let me now finish by quoting a frequently cited passage of the novel that testifies to the

essential mutability of that semblance. Imagination, as a precognitive faculty of

putting-into-figure, is not constituted by man but constitutes him as such. Whence the

need, in the novelist’s quest to identify that faculty, for speculation, for the mirroring

of presentation, of mimèsis, as the only means of overcoming the inevitable delay of the

“author” with respect to himself, that delay which is evident on nearly every page of

The Body Artist. What comes impossibly then into view, in the guise, as we saw, of an

impaired speech faculty, is a voice which speaks, not belatedly as we do of a Fall, but of

a coming into being, not nostalgically of the loss of permanence, but of an emergence

into time and the mutable state of existence. For Mr. Tuttle, who on occasion discovers

in himself a certain capacity for rhyming —which is a way of differentiating by means of

repetition—, has moments of “inspiration,” as Lauren observes, where his speech,

defective in its ability to synthesize, attains a capability which can only be qualified, in

this context, as radically negative:

“Being here has come to me. I am with the moment, I will leave the moment. Chair,table, wall, hall, all for the moment, in the moment. It has come to me. Here andnear. From the moment I am gone, am left, am leaving. I will leave the momentfrom the moment.”She [Lauren] didn’t know what to call this. She called it singing. He kept it going awhile, ongoing, oncoming, and it was song, it was chant. She leaned into him. Thiswas a level that demonstrated he was not closed to inspiration. She felt an easing inher body that drew her down out of laborious thought and into something nearlyuncontrollable. She leaned into his voice, laughing. She wanted to chant with him,to fall in and out of time, or words, or things, whatever he was doing, but she onlylaughed instead.“Coming and going I am leaving. I will go and come. Leaving has come to me. We all,shall all, will all be left. Because I am here and where. And I will go or not or never.And I have seen what I will see. If I am where I will be. Because nothing comesbetween me.” (74)

22 Such disarticulation —such “paratactic” efforts, one might say recalling Adorno’s

comments on Hölderlin’s late poetry, his period of “madness”—, such condensation and

juxtaposition, is irreducible to stylistic effects.15 What this “chant” articulates, in its

very disarticulation of a schematizing logos, is the infinite mutability of a time-space

impossible to inhabit but which, at bottom, inhabits all subjects. In the novel’s final

chapter, after Mr. Tuttle will have disappeared, unaccountably of course, and while she

strives to rediscover his reflection in her mirrors (112-13), Lauren will repeat his chant:

“Being here has come to me” (121). She, however, can only fall in doing so: “She went

twisting down, slowly, almost thoughtfully, and opened her mouth, oh, in a moan that

remained unsounded” (first italics mine, 123). This caesura of voice and of

consciousness, this tropological lapse of being, itself testifies to the mutable condition

of human existence, to the fact that, at bottom, something turns in the human,

displaces it, estranges it from itself.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abrams, M.H. “English Romanticism. The Spirit of the Age.” In Romanticism Reconsidered: Selected

Papers from the English Institute, ed. Northrop Frye. New York and London: Columbia UP, 1963.

26-72.

Anker, Richard. Henry James. Le Principe spectral de la représentation. Paris: Hermann coll. “Savoir-

Lettres”, 2012.

Anker, Richard. “Mimesis travestie, ou le ‘modernisme épuré’ de William H. Gass.” Revue française

d’études américaines 135 (2013): 51-65. DOI : 10.3917/rfea.135.0051

Batt, Noëlle. “The Body Artist de Don DeLillo: Le pas de deux de l’art et de la clinique.” Revue

française d’études américaines 132 (2012): 63-75. DOI : 10.3917/rfea.132.0063

Bloom, Harold. “The Internalization of Quest Romance.” The Ringers in the Tower. Studies in

Romantic Tradition. Chicago: The U. of Chicago P., 1971. 13-36.

Boxall, Peter. Don DeLillo. The Possibility of Fiction. London and New York: Routledge, 2006.

Chase, Cynthia. “Introduction.” Romanticism. Longman Critical Readers, ed. Cynthia Chase.

London: Longman, 1993. 1-42.

Cowart, David. Don DeLillo. The Physics of Language (Revised Edition). Athens, Ga.: The U. of Georgia

P., 2002.

Deguy, Michel. La Poésie n’est pas seule. Court traité de poétique. Paris: Seuil, 1987.

DeLillo, Don. The Names (1983). London: Picador, 1987.

DeLillo, Don. The Body Artist. London: Picador, 2001.

DeLillo, Don. Cosmopolis. London: Picador, 2003.

DeLillo, Don. Falling Man. London: Picador, 2007.

DeLillo, Don Point Omega. London: Picador, 2010.

De Man, Paul. “Wordsworth and Hölderlin.” The Rhetoric of Romanticism. New York: Columbia UP,

1984. 47-65.

De Man, Paul. “Time and History in Wordsworth.” In Romanticism and Contemporary Criticism. The

Gauss Seminar and Other Papers. Ed. E.S. Burt, Kevin Newmark, and Andrzej Warminski. Baltimore

and London: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1993. 74-94.

De Man, Paul. “Sign and Symbol in Hegel’s Aesthetics.” In Aesthetic Ideology. Ed. Andrzej

Warminski. Minneapolis: The U. of Minnesota P., 1996. 91-104.

Di Prete, Laura. “Don DeLillo’s The Body Artist: Performing the Body, Narrating Trauma.”

Contemporary Literature 46.3 (autumn 2005): 483-510. DOI: 10.1353/cli.2005.0033

Hartman, Geoffrey. Wordsworth’s Poetry 1787-1814. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1964.

Helfer, Martha B. The Retreat of Representation. The Concept of Darstellung in German Critical

Discourse. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Ed. Paul Guyer, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric

Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000.

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Keats, John. The Complete Poetical Works and Letters of John Keats. Boston and New York: Houfflin

Mifflin Co., 1899.

Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe. “The Echo of the Subject” (1979). In Typography. Mimesis, Philosophy,

Politics. Trans. Christopher Fynsk. Stanford: Stanford UP, Meridian Crossing Aesthetics, 1998.

139-207.

Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe. “The Caesura of the Speculative” (1986). In Typography. Mimesis,

Philosophy, Politics, trans. Christopher Fynsk. Stanford: Stanford UP, Meridian Crossing Aesthetics,

1998. 208-35.

Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe, and Jean-Luc Nancy. L’Absolu littéraire. Théorie de la littérature du

romantisme allemand. Paris: Seuil, “collection Poétique,” 1978.

Maltby, Paul. “The Romantic Metaphysics of Don DeLillo.” Contemporary Literature 37.2 (summer

1996): 258-77. DOI: 10.2307/1208875

Morris, Matthew J. “Murdering Words: Language in Action in Don DeLillo’s The Names.”

Contemporary Literature 30.1 (spring 1989): 113-27. DOI: 10.2307/1208427

Nancy, Jean-Luc. “L’Offrande sublime.” Du Sublime, ed. Jean-François Courtine et al. Paris: Berlin,

1988. 37-75.

Nel, Philip. “Don DeLillo’s Return to Form: The Modernist Poetics of The Body Artist.” Contemporary

Literature 43.4 (2002): 736-59. DOI: 10.2307/1209040

Osteen, Mark. “Echo Chamber: Undertaking The Body Artist.” Studies in the Novel 37.1 (spring 2005):

64-81. https://www.jstor.org/stable/29533666

Ross, Alison. The Aesthetic Paths of Philosophy. Presentation in Kant, Heidegger, Lacoue-Labarthe, and

Nancy. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2007.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Major Works. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003.

Warminski, Andrzej, and Joshua Wilner Eds. Wordsworth’s Poetry 1964-2014: Commemorating the 50th

Anniversary of the Publication of Geoffrey Hartman’s Wordsworth’s Poetry 1878-1814. Essays in

Romanticism 22.2 (2015). https://online.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/toc/eir/22/2

Wilner, Joshua. Feeding on Infinity. Readings in the Romantic Tradition of Internalization. Baltimore:

The Johns Hopkins UP, 2000.

NOTES

1. See Harold Bloom’s influential “The Internalization of Quest Romance” (1971), and Paul de

Man’s “Sign and Symbol in Hegel’s Aesthetics” (1996), in which the notion of internalization is

problematized. For a more recent discussion of this question see Joshua Wilner’s Feeding on

Infinity. Readings in the Romantic Rhetoric of Internalization (2000). Wilner himself discusses Keats’s

Hyperion poems as an internalization of Miltonic myth on pages 18-20.

2. See my “Mimesis travestie, ou le ‘modernisme épuré’ de William H. Gass” for a discussion of

the speculative logic which underwrites Gass’s interpretation of philosophical history (Anker

2013). As this paper will attempt to show, DeLillo’s writing works towards a suspension of the

speculative logic on which Gass’s work depends.

3. “Apocalypse” is a term with a long history in different schools of criticism. From the

perspective of Romanticism, which I insist on here simply as a key moment in the secularization

of the concept, Hartman’s contribution to the term’s rhetorical elucidation is widely recognized

as seminal, however contentious certain aspects of the debate regarding this term and its

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relation to literary form and history have been. See Warminski and Wilner (2015), for recent

discussions of Hartman’s conception of apocalypse and its dialectical relation to akedah (binding).

M.H. Abrams (1963) offers what may be considered the classic account of apocalypse in romantic

literature.

4. See Paul de Man, “Wordsworth and Hölderlin,” (1984) to which I am indebted for my treatment

of the opposition between titanic and properly poetic tendencies in the romantic tradition.

5. In the desert, as Elster puts it: “Day turns to night eventually but it’s a matter of light and

darkness, it’s not passing time, mortal time. There’s none of the usual terror. It’s different here,

time is enormous, that’s what I feel here, palpably. Time that precedes us and survives us” (PO

44).

6. Finley’s confrontation with death, mediated by the image of the titanic Elster’s collapse, is also

experienced more directly and painfully during a brief encounter with silence and nothingness in

the desert, where he has gone in pursuit of Elster’s daughter: “The silence was complete. I’d

never felt a stillness such as this, never such enveloping nothing. But such nothing that was, that

spun around me” (PO 94).

7. The opposition in The Names (1983) between the murderous cult members who seek a perfect

identity between words and their referents in what finally amounts to the negation of the latter,

on one hand, and the novel’s protagonist, Jim Axton, on the other, also conforms to the Keatsian

logic discussed here involving the collapse of titanic will as the condition of a painful and

difficult birth of negative capability and awakening to mutability and temporal difference. The

narrative dynamic in which this opposition plays itself out, however, in The Names appears less

rigorously dialectical than that which underwrites the later novels discussed here.

8. “In the first days back she got out of the car once and nearly collapsed — not the major

breakdown of every significant function but a small helpless sinking toward the ground, a kind of

forgetting how to stand” (BA 33).

9. See the “ouverture” of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy’s L’Absolu littéraire (1978),

doubtless the most influential and incisive account of Romanticism’s historical connection with

the Kantian “crisis.” See also, specifically with respect to the aesthetic question of presentation

(Darstellung) after Kant’s Critiques, Nancy’s “L’Offrande sublime” (1984), Helfer (1996), and Ross

(2007). On the links between the Kantian crisis, the Jena poets and English Romanticism,

including a discussion of Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy’s work mentioned above, see Chase (1993).

10. Hypotyposis is the rhetorical figure designating a lively or life-like presentation, a throwing

under the eyes of a vivid scene (from hypo: beneath, under, and tupos: imprint, mould, mark),

which Kant appropriates and transforms in taking on the philosophical problem of presentation

(Darstellung) in Critique of the Power of Judgement (section 59).

11. On the speculation of voice in James, see my book, Henry James, Anker (2012).

12. Most commentators have recognized Mr. Tuttle as a figure of Lauren’s artistic unconscious.

David Cowart thematizes this projection in a way which also takes into account the suspension of

the artistic capacity: “If one resists identifying the damaged Mr Tuttle with an artist fully in

command of his faculties, one can say that in Mr Tuttle Lauren encounters, as a projection of her

own unconscious, the artist in herself, temporarily obtunded or disoriented by late catastrophe”

(Cowart 206).

13. See also Matthew J. Morris’s stimulating remarks on what he sees as the necessity of a

“conjunctive” reading of The Names, which tend to suggest that the correlative basis of figural

perception I’m proposing here is already at least implicitly manifest in DeLillo’s earlier writing

(Morris 126).

14. “Maybe he falls, he slides, if that is a useful word, from his experience of an objective world,

the deepest description of time-space,” as Lauren puts it (83).

15. Despite what Philip Nel seems to suggest. Nor, on the other hand, does it appear reducible to

a “heap of obscure, impenetrable, merely juxtaposed fragments” (Di Prete 495). For a discussion

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which elevates Mr. Tuttle’s chant to the level of “an instinctive, almost Heideggerian poetry that

[…] sings Being itself,” see Mark Osteen (72). Noëlle Batt, at the farthest remove possible from

such a Heideggerrian interpretation of voice, reads it as the “biologically determined” speech of

an autist “creatively exploited” by DeLillo (Batt 73); such a literal interpretation necessarily falls

short, as Osteen’s does for apparently opposite reasons, of rendering an account of the specular

and properly figurative or rhetorical character of Mr. Tuttle’s apparition.

ABSTRACTS

This article begins by situating Don DeLillo’s late writing in the critical context proceeding from

Romanticism, and establishes an analogy between Keats’s late poem, “The Fall of Hyperion,” and

the narrative dynamic that underwrites several of the novelist’s most recent works. It then takes

up a more detailed reading of The Body Artist, interpreting apocalypse as a trope enabling

reflection on the temporality of literary language. Situating DeLillo’s work in the context of

Romanticism enables the establishment of a link between the author’s late work and the Kantian

“crisis” which brought to light, with profound literary consequences, the faculty of Imagination

(Einbildingskraft) as a putting-into-figure, and mimèsis as “presentation” (Darstellung), studied here

as effects of the body artist’s traumatic experience of loss.

Cet article commence par situer l’écriture tardive de Don DeLillo dans le contexte critique qui

procède du Romantisme, et établit une analogie entre le poème tardif de Keats, “The Fall of

Hyperion,” et la dynamique narrative qui sous-tend plusieurs des textes les plus récents du

romancier. Il entreprend ensuite une lecture plus détaillée de The Body Artist, où la notion

d’apocalypse est interprétée comme un trope qui permet une réflexion sur la temporalité du

langage littéraire. Le contexte du Romantisme facilite l’établissement d’un lien entre l’écriture de

DeLillo et la “crise” kantienne qui a fait venir au jour, avec des conséquences littéraires

importantes, la faculté d’Imagination (Einbildungskraft) en tant que mise-en-figure, et la mimèsis

comme “présentation” (Darstellung), étudiées ici en tant qu’effets d’une expérience traumatique

de perte subie par le body artist.

INDEX

Mots-clés: DeLillo Don, Keats John, romantisme, postmodernité, imagination, mimesis,

apocalypse, temps, historicité, mutabilité

Keywords: DeLillo Don, Keats John, Romanticism, postmodernity, imagination, mimesis,

apocalypse, time, historicity, mutability

AUTHOR

RICHARD ANKER

Richard Anker is Associate Professor in American literature at Université Blaise Pascal, Clermont-

Ferrand II. He is the author of Henry James. Le Principe spectral de la representation, Paris, Editions

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Hermann, 2012. His research is focused on relations between philosophy and literature and the

question of representation. Contact: richard.anker [at] wanadoo.fr

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“Earth, the chatterer father of allspeech”: From Shakespeare’s bravenew world! to William CarlosWilliams’ Nuevo mundo!Anna Aublet

1 “America, that is I should say a place like Paterson always reminds a good deal of

Shakespeare. You know how Americans are about Shakespeare: dies in 1616 or so—the

pilgrims land in 1620.” (SUNYBUF A298) In these notes, briefly jotted down on a

rumpled prescription sheet, William Carlos Williams ironizes on the discrepancy

separating his America from Shakespeare’s England, only ultimately to reclaim the

playwright’s legacy by concluding: “he is like us”. By “us,” Williams refers to

Americans, a people whose task is to recover an indigenous idiom, like Shakespeare in

his own time and place.

2 From Shakespeare’s Tempest (1611, hereafter Tmp.) to Williams’ Tempers (1913) I would

like to argue that we have two instances of a common quest for, and consideration of,

language. As Williams depicts the contact of Columbus’ sailors or the first pilgrims with

the New World, we are reminded of the shipwreck at the opening of The Tempest that

leads the characters of the play to reconsider the old hierarchy, as they strive to adapt

to an ever-changing ground.

“They enter the new world naked” (Spring and All 95)

“Nuevo Mundo!” (GAN 182)

3 William Carlos Williams’ poetry endeavours to break free from the shackles of the

colonizer and the verbal and mental vassalage to the Crown that outlived 1776. After

Emerson’s cry for independence in The American Scholar (1837) and Whitman’s

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autochthonous yawp (1855), it was Williams’ turn to howl for sovereignty, followed by

Allen Ginsberg exactly one century after Whitman’s own declaration of independence.

4 In The Great American Novel (hereafter GAN), looking into the remnants of the past,

through the sterile layers of prehistoric bark covering the soil, Williams chooses to sail

back up in time—“a rebours” (GAN 170), quoting Huysmans’ book—to tell the history of

his continent and thus invents his own mythology:

Through conquest and struggle of all imaginable sorts through periods of successand decline, through ages of walkings to and fro in the fields and woods and thestreets of cities that were without walls and had walls and burst their walls andbecame ruins again; through the changes of speech: Sanscrit, Greek, Latin growingcrooked in the mouths of peasants who would rise and impose their speech on theirmasters, and on divisions in the state and savage colonial influences, wordsaccurate to the country, Italian, French and Spanish itself not to speak ofPortuguese. Words! Yes this party of sailors, men of the sea, brothers of a mostancient guild, ambassadors of all the ages that had gone before them, had indeedfound a new world, a world, that is, that knew nothing about them, on which thefoot of a white man had never made a mark such as theirs were then making on thewhite sand under the palms. Nuevo Mundo! (GAN 181-2)

5 As the poet tells his reader about the discovery of the Americas by Columbus, he

highlights the importance of speech and its various phases through time, its mutability

and its capacity to journey from one land to another and to transcend social classes.

Words were indeed the “mark” the white man was about to print on the “white sand”.

The word becomes figure, figura and letter, litera printed on the untouched soil. The

whiteness of the sand recalls the blankness of an untouched wilderness, a pastoral

garden given to men to cultivate, where all hierarchy is forgotten. The concept of

blankness is already an allusion to the figure of Caliban whose “inaccessible

blankness”—much like Moby Dick’s—“[is] circumscribed by an interpretable text”

(Spivak 118). Spivak’s acute remarks on Caliban in A Critique of Postcolonial Reason help

us to understand the character as a corporeal variant of the continent itself3.

6 In this context of “New World blankness”, the possibilities for invention and creation

are endless, and the crosspollination of different cultures and languages is a chance to

create anew. In her article on Williams and his “New World encounters”, Gabriele

Hayden emphasizes the poetic fertility of the new ground: “Williams based his New

World poetics on a primitivist model in which the Americas and Americans—native,

mestizo, and even creole—represent not only sexual deviance but also artistic

innovation.” (177) The hybridity borne by the land is a leitmotiv in Williams’ work and is

not without recalling Shakespeare’s pastoral in The Winter’s Tale (2008: 172), for

instance, in which Polixenes (true to his name) argues that hybridity “is an art / That

nature makes” in response to Perdita’s calling carnations and gillyflowers “nature’s

bastards” (IV.4.81-4). We would like here to contend that the genetic instability and

hybridity of the language, evident in both works, is contingent upon the unbounded

mutability of the land itself.

7 Shakespeare’s play The Tempest opens on a shipwreck, thus unleashing and staging a

blurring and effacement of the old hierarchy and a shift from civilization to nature. In

Williams’s work and in Shakespeare’s play, the characters are stranded on the shore,

like the reader/audience on the edge of their seat. We must listen to the sounds,

following the traces and signs in order to distinguish reality from illusion for “we are

such stuff/ As dreams are made on” (Tmp. IV.i.156-7). Who are the savages and who are

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the civilized people? The Natives become the true heroes, creators of an autochthonous

language, the readers of signs and undecipherable glyphs. All forms of preconceived

and prehistoric hermeneutic grids are challenged in both works.

8 Moreover, the masque-like interlude in act IV—orchestrated by Prospero—reveals in

the middle of the wilderness what is an English countryside with its agricultural fields.

Prospero thus becomes the epitome of the cultured European in the wilderness,

although in the words of Leo Marx, “both the wild and the cultivated versions of the

garden image embody something of that timeless impulse to cut loose from the

constraints of a complex society” (42-3). The masque somewhat prophetically depicts a

Jeffersonian utopian vision of society, a balance between art and nature, with which

Williams identified. In this seemingly primitive pastoral garden that is the isle—and the

America of Williams’ sailors—a cultured (and cultural) garden appears, causing the

identity and geographic situation of the island to mutate, making it what Michel

Foucault calls a heterotopia. The relationships of the play are thus easily reversible,

since in a heterotopia the common rules of society do not apply:

The heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces,several sites that are in themselves incompatible. Thus it is that the theater bringsonto the rectangle of the stage, one after the other, a whole series of places that areforeign to one another […] (Foucault 6)

9 Shakespeare’s island transforms into a microscopic scale of the world and provides a

solid ground on which to base our analysis of Williams’ New World. Beyond the many

parallels that can be drawn between the island and the discovery of the Americas in

terms of relationships between the inhabitants of the isle (a point which I will come

back to), the doubling and two-folded aspect of the land itself is the first comparable

trope4: the New World is an echo chamber of the old, on a microscosmic level. Once on

this new soil, the characters of the play are faced with a past that returns to haunt the

present, much like the first sailors depicted by Williams. The pilgrims and mythical

figures of his novel In the American Grain (1923, hereafter IAG) are constantly faced with

the instability of hierarchical order and the mutability of the land itself, in constant

metamorphosis. The idyllic locus amoenus is penetrated by a perverted market

economy, provoking a shift of power that Williams will denounce throughout his work.

This variability is also true of Williams’ own work, its generic porosity and

metamorphic aspects, which in turn also reflect what is sometimes perceived as the

poet’s own ambivalence towards the bloody conquista of Latin America and his

fascination for the Spanish Golden Age. However this interpretation of Williams’ work

seems restrictive, since it tends to ignore the notion that any text, narrativization or

staging of history, is a form of colonization in itself. Let us bear in mind that, if

Williams as a Latin-American had claimed to be a Caliban (Fernandez Retamar 1974),

and had identified with the victimized people against the pressures of the colonizer, he

would also have “legitimize[d] the very individualism that we must persistently

attempt to undermine from within”, as argued by Spivak (118). The contradictions

within the poet’s work account for the very complexity of his history. And it is indeed

these gaps which animate the poetic force of the text, conferring it more veracity, not a

truthfulness to the facts, but a certain degree of authenticity. In the American Grain

should not be read as a secondary source, a record and examination of historical facts.

Instead, it should be construed as a primary source, as a resolutely modern and

modernist poetic work of art, a work of its time, reflecting the anti-puritan Zeitgeist of

the 1920s in America.

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10 The general mutability and instability of Williams’ work is what Vera Kutzinski

famously called “New World” aesthetics in her essay Against the American Grain (1987).

Williams’ project in this partial history of America is not historical accuracy. It is not

intended as an account of colonization but rather as a poetic project meant to

transform the soil of America into a fertile poetic land, thus grounding the American

language in the country’s Sub Terra5.

“Be not afeard” (Tmp. III.2.130)

11 In his unfolding of America’s mythical map in the novel In the American Grain, Williams

suggests that one of the possible causes for the over-capitalistic American society was

the puritans’ first reaction to the wilderness. In a chapter entitled “Benjamin Franklin,”

the poet doesn’t conceal his reproof: he blames the Puritans for what he sees as their

complete lack of sensuousness and absolute fear of the wilderness. Refusing any kind of

extravagance, in Williams’ assessment, they also reject their potential sense of wonder.

Their angst and unease before the land is thus the experience which would have scared

them into signs—divine intimations and manifestations in nature, that the writers of

the American Renaissance were also seeking centuries later.

Because if there is ‘only earth’, ‘just America’, and no sacred mission, no manifestdestiny, no chosen people, no promised land, then there is indeed only ‘thewilderness’ and an ‘errand’ on nobody’s behalf going nowhere, carrying andsignifying nothing. (Tanner 1989: 22)

12 In his reference to Macbeth’s monologue and to the dread possibility that something

might “signify nothing”, Tony Tanner highlights the importance of scrutiny of a divine

immanence in the development of American history.

It is necessary in appraising our history to realize that the nation was the offspringof the desire to huddle, to protect—of terror—superadded to a new world of greatbeauty and ripest blossom that well-nigh no man of distinction saw save Boone.(IAG 155)

13 Daniel Boone, the woodsman—who also morphed into James Fenimore Cooper’s Natty

Bumppo—epitomizes the continuous dilation of the continent to the West, an escape

from the old European land register, cartographic remnants of the past. He is also filled

with wonder as he discovers the wilderness beyond the edge of the Appalachians. In the

American Grain goes on to praise his merits and those of a French Catholic priest, Père

Rasles, who displays a real sensibility to the world’s sensuality and touch, contrary to

the exacerbated puritanism of Franklin and his obsession with profitability and

rationalization. In his epigraph to Paterson I, Williams presents his poem as “a reply to

Greek and Latin with the bare hands” (2). The contact and touch of his “bare hands” is

the chosen tool for Williams, the itinerant physician, with which to read, examine and

decipher the world. This is also D.H. Lawrence’s assessment in his review of Williams’

work:

There are two ways of being American; and the chief, says Mr Williams, is byrecoiling into individual smallness and insentience, and gutting the great continentin frenzies of mean fear. It is the puritan way. The other is by touch; touch Americaas she is; dare to touch her! And this is the heroic way. (Doyle 91)

14 “Fear” is a recurring word in Shakespeare’s play6, from the moment the characters set

foot on the isle:

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GONZALO. All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement Inhabits here: some heavenly power guide us Out of this fearful country! (Tmp. V.1.104-6)

15 While Gonzalo acknowledges the complex sensuousness and tempers of the isle, his

first instinct is to flee. Caliban keeps reassuring Trinculo and Stephano about the

island’s safety in an attempt to put their minds at rest. In Lawrence’s words, he choses

“the heroic way” in his approach to the wilderness, as he tells his partners in crime:

CALIBAN. Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.Sometimes a thousand twangling instrumentsWill hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,That, if I then had waked after long sleep,Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,The clouds methought would open, and show richesReady to drop upon me; that, when I waked,I cried to dream again. (Tmp. III.2.130-8)

16 Caliban here depicts the sounds and noises surrounding him, emphasizing his ability to

poetically embrace the sensuous qualities of the isle. For Williams, the new language

that is fitted to the American soil can only be retrieved through the ears, “by listening

to the minutest variations of speech” (Autobiography 362) and by deciphering “the roar

of the river forever in our ears” (Paterson 17), which accounts for the acousmatic

aspects of his poetic work. He strives to act as a “Caliban”, pricking up his ears at the

humming of nature. Insofar as the first reaction of the other characters of the play is

indeed to “huddle” and “protect”, they are more likely to fall under Lawrence’s first

category. What remains strikingly evident is the complex quality or tenor of the New

World, a land that accepts and fosters “radically opposed interpretations” (Marx 45)

and reactions. These oppositions also corroborate the well-known interpretation of the

play, according to which the action is set in America, thus foregrounding the dualities

between master and slave, colonizer and colonized.7 The characters of the play, natives

of the island, are indeed often paralleled with the indigenous peoples of North and

South America.

Eppur si muove

17 What we could call Ariel’s “burial” by Sycorax deep in the pine tree is what makes him

a real native of the land, an “Indian” in Williams’ sense of the term. The identification

with the land, the “primal and continuous identity with ground itself” (IAG 33), is what

establishes him as an indigenous inhabitant of the island. The Indian is to Williams a

metonymic continuation of the land itself. For the poet, it is by being buried within the

soil that the Native Americans became the land. If anyone was to begin the quest to

possess the American territory they should go about it “as the Indian possessed it”

(IAG 137).8 D.H. Lawrence found a formula that aptly expresses the end of the allegiance

to the Old Continent, when he states: “Whatever else you are, be masterless” (1923). For

Williams, Indian signified newness and independence, as he exclaims in The Great

American Novel: “Oh to hell with Masters and the rest of them. To hell with everything I

have myself ever written” (176). He condemns his contemporaries, and in particular

T.S. Eliot, for being “content with the connotations of their masters”9 (IAG 24), whereas

being “indianlike” (IAG 137) was the real and “new” way of being American. In

Barthesian terms, it is as though Williams aimed at scraping off the connotation from

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the word in order to put an end to the lexical allegiance to the British Crown. The poet

wedges the word open to reveal its multiple meanings. The conflagration of the library

in the third book of Paterson performs this cathartic process, burning all the

connotations and freeing the word from its fetters, handing it back to the land.10

Likewise, In the American Grain seeks to wash the words clean and articulate the lexical

chaos of old grammars:

In these studies I have sought to re-name the things seen, now lost in a chaos ofborrowed titles, many of them inappropriate, under which the true character lieshidden. In letters, in journals, reports of happening I have recognized new contourssuggested by old words, so that new names were constituted. (IAG 5)

18 To paraphrase Miranda’s famous call—which itself mutated a few centuries later into

Aldous Huxley’s well-known dystopia—Williams sets off to find and tame the brave new

American word. The Old Italian for “brave”, braido, brado originally signified “savage”

and “wild” and I would like to use the word in this sense here. With “the bare hands”,

Williams’ task is to try and capture the outlines of the continent with wild words that

keep bouncing off its borders, wandering outside of their confines to become extra-

vagant. These words cannot be imported and arbitrarily grafted onto the new

continent: they have to be excavated from the ore.11

19 The “profound cleft”, the “cavern” Williams refers to in Paterson I, is where the

imagination can be found. It is in the heart of his locus that the poet will dig up the

words for a new poetry. Native Americans, buried deep within the soil, thus turn into

living remnants of the past, corpses haunting the hic et nunc of the poet, like “airy

charms” (Tmp. V.1.63) freed from the very heart of their locality.

20 Besides the Natives’ capacity to live organically and in all sensuousness with the land,

Williams admired their ability to integrate the fluxes and refluxes of an ever-changing

ground into their daily life.

(Shakespeare) a man stirred alive, all round not minus the intelligence but theintelligence subjugated—by misfortune in this case maybe—subjugated to theinstinctive whole as it must be, but not minus it as in almost everything— not bycupidity that blights an island literature—but round, round, a round world E pur simuove. That has never sunk into literature as it has into geography, cosmology.Literature is still mediaeval, formal, dogmatic, the scholars, the obstinaterationalists— (Imaginations, The Descent of Winter 258-9).

21 Williams seeks to integrate into literature that mutability of the world, the fluid

texture of the American map so impossible to fix, and whose legend (in all its senses)

can only be told by American words. The new world, terra incognita, extends into a

gigantic wilderness, blank and without glyphs or scriptures, where the writer can

ultimately free himself from the old bonds and finally “save the words from

themselves” (GAN 172).

22 Williams praises Boone for seeking “to grow close to [the ground], to understand it and

to be part of its mysterious movements[.] Like an Indian” (IAG 137). In the first book of

Paterson, the unstable state of the continent is inextricably linked to the question of a

mutable American identity.

the ground has undergonea subtle transformation, its identity altered.

Indians! (Paterson 18)

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23 The transformation experienced by the continent is first and foremost lexical: from

India to America, Indians to Americans. Through the figure of the Indian, Williams

reconciles his Latin Puerto-Rican roots with his Americanness: Carlos and Bill are only

united through poetry. The Indian inhabits a liminal space with which Williams

identifies.12 The Native American becomes, like Iris in Shakespeare’s masque, an arc

binding two different loci together.13

“’Ban, ’Ban, Ca-caliban / Has a new master: get a newman.” (Tmp. II.2.173-4)

“It is the American idiom.” (Paterson 222)

24 William Carlos Williams tells his reader in The Descent of Winter (1928) that one of the

qualities he most admired in Shakespeare was his “mean ability to fuse himself with

everyone which nobodies have, to be anything at any time, fluid, a nameless fellow

whom nobody noticed much— and that is what made him the great dramatist. Because

he was nobody and was fluid and accessible” (Imaginations 253). In Williams’

observation of the playwright, it appears as though the very name ‘SHAKESPEARE’ was in

itself unstable and mutable, an empty receptacle that readers would fill with their own

connotations and imagination.14 While offering his reader this definition, Williams is

implicitly identifying with his master.

Against these larger pressures Williams places his own hero: William Shakespeare.This Shakespeare was a figure molded very much after Williams’ myth of himself:the figure of the unlearned “natural” brought into high relief against the classicalscholar, Francis Bacon. […] Shakespeare was—finally—a figure of the artist parexcellence: a force, an anomaly, a man outside the new learning, a man without ahistory, like Ulysses a man with no name, a person realized most fully in the act ofcreating other figures […]. (Mariani 284)

25 Indeed, William Carlos Williams, M.D., never gave up his medical practice and remained

a family doctor in Rutherford, N.J. throughout his life. This position in society provided

him with a peculiar vantage point from which to write his poetry. Because he was a

doctor, and because he was of Boricua origins, Williams believed he could find a

language for diversity— a democratic language accessible to all classes and layers of the

population with which he became acquainted in his daily tasks. Therefore, the epithets

“fluid and accessible” are also appropriate to Williams, the professional man and the

poet. By choosing not to leave the country for the Old Continent and run away “after

the rabbits” (Paterson 3) like his friend Ezra Pound, Williams elected his local Garden

State as the setting for his poems. If Shakespeare was the “natural” man as opposed to

Bacon, Williams was the ordinary man as opposed to the High Church advocate T.S.

Eliot.

26 Another feature of Shakespeare’s plays which was appealing to Williams was the

quality and texture of the language, or as he calls it “dialect”: that unstable and

progressive form of English given to the writers to shape.

But the dialect is the mobile phase, the changing phase, the productive phase, —asit was to Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dante, Rabelais. […] Language is changing andgrowing new means for extended possibilities in literary expression and I add basicstructure, the most important of all. (SUNYBUF D7: Notebook B. 1948: 64)

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27 These qualities of the language are what he finds in American English, an “idiom” with

which to play, adaptable and malleable, and which needs to be stretched out to fit the

swellings and crevices of the continent and the starts and jolts of its history. The search

is for an extending fabric of language that will fit the map and espouse its asperities.

Ta panta rei

28 The mutability and changeability of the continent is well highlighted in Paterson

through the ghostly presence of the Passaic River, as it is in the The Tempest by the sea

surrounding Prospero’s island. Water is not only an allotropic and labile element

emphasizing instability, it is also an agent of transformation and mutation.

29 The river slides and sloughs to the ocean and yearns towards the fluency and fluidity of

language. Paterson somehow becomes a succession of disorienting tales, and rhapsodic

fragments, creating a city that rises and falls following the vagaries, fluxes and refluxes

of the Passaic River. Interestingly, Williams several times invokes snake-like shapes

throughout his long poem whether to refer to the river or a cavern in the rocks,

implicitly recalling the process of exuviation, i.e. the ability of the snake to find new

life by getting rid of its old skin. The sloughing which is both “the collapse of soil or

rock into a hole or down a bank” (OED), leading up to fluency and the exuviation of the

snake, further emphasizes the inextricable link between the beginning and the end of

life.

30 In the introductory lines of the poem, the poet follows the itinerary of the river:

From above, higher than the spires, highereven than the office towers, from oozy fields abandoned to grey beds of dead grass,black sumac, withered weed-stalks,mud and thickets cluttered with dead leaves—the river comes pouring in above the cityand crashes from the edge of the gorgein a recoil of spray and rainbow mists—

(What common language to unravel? . . combed into straight lines from that rafter of a rock’slip). (Paterson 7)

31 The narrator traces the poetic movement of the river. The ricochet and backwash

effects of the waves are also those of the poetic imagination, running away to the open

sea and diving into the bleak and muddy waters of the Passaic. The opening passage

sounds as a proclamation of the poet’s conception of his art:

(the multiple seed,packed tight with detail, soured, is lost in the flux and the mind,distracted, floats off in the samescum.) Rolling up, rolling up heavy withnumbers. It is the ignorant sunrising in the slot ofhollow suns risen, so that never in thisworld will a man live well in his body

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save dying— and not know himselfdying; yet that is the design. Renews himselfthereby, in addition and subtraction,walking up and down. and the craft,subverted by thought, rolling up, lethim beware lest he turn to no more thanthe writing of stale poems . . . Minds like beds always made up,(more stony than a shore)unwilling or unable. Rolling in, top up,under, thrust and recoil, a great clatter:lifted as air, boated, multicolored, awash of seas— (Paterson 4-5)

32 The poetic spirit or imagination finds itself floating ab hoc et ab hac in the same dregs as

the fertile germ swept away by the river’s seesaw. The poet’s task is to fish it out and

take possession of this potential language, to help it bud.

33 In the poem’s inaugural descent, the poet sketches what will become the ceaseless

undulating back and forth movement (“walking up and down”) between the inside and

the outside, between Paterson, the poet, and Paterson, the city. The fluidity and lability

of water enable such oscillation and invite the reader to embark upon a quest

reminiscent of Ishmael’s spiritual vagrancies in Melville’s Moby Dick. The continuous

fluvial current, the Heraclitean ta panta rei, stands in contradiction to the stasis that

Williams saw in words, and in a poetry he strove to renew. To the omnipresence of the

spatial prepositions expressing movement (“from mathematics to particulars”, “into a

river”, “rolling in”, “top up”, “rolling up”, “walking up and down”) the poet opposes

the ancient scriptures, full of overwrought and overused words: “the writing of stale

poems” (4).

34 It is the stasis, the mineral fixity of tuff, that the root sta of stale comes to signify.

“Stale” is stagnation. At the other end of the spectrum is fluidity of imagination, of

language, and river. In order to break away from what he perceives as the static

character of conventional poetry, the narrator goes as far as to immerse himself in the

river at the conclusion of his poem “the Wanderer”, like a prelude to the epic Paterson.

Then she, leaping up with a fierce cry:“Enter, youth, into this bulk!Enter, river, into this young man!”Then the river began to enter my heart,Eddying back cool and limpidInto the crystal beginning of its days. (Collected Poems I: 35)

35 Originally a symbol of the wedding between men and God, the baptism actualizes the

“new marriage” desired by Williams through a perfect organic exchange, a real contact

between the Passaic River and the poet. The muddy waters of the Passaic are like the

“prehistoric ooze” (25) at the birth of Flossie in White Mule: they enable renewal. In The

Tempest, Alonso laments that his son “i’ th’ ooze is bedded” (III.3.121), the sea is hereby

turned into the ever-absent maternal figure of the play.

36 For Williams, the waters are also a “prehistoric” matrix since they carry out Paterson’s

immemorial history. The river’s current and the poem’s flow suggest the “lines of

flight”15 of Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizome (Deleuze and Guattari 12), those of a

language that “evolves by subterranean steps and flows, along river valleys or train

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tracks […]” (Deleuze and Guattari 7). Likewise, in Paterson, a few pages after the passage

quoted above, Williams again links aquatic fluxes and thought:

Jostled as are the waters approachingthe brink, his thoughtsinterlace, repel and cut under,rise rock-thwarted and turn aside,but forever strain forward—or strikean eddy and whirl, marked by a leaf or curdy spume, seemingto forget (Paterson 7-8)

37 Imagination itself becomes a moving fluid enabling the reader to find contact and the

poem itself becomes rhizome, it functions as a subterranean brook (in the words of

Prospero “the veins of the earth” (I.2.305) so often travelled across by Ariel), irrigating

thought and leading to newness and creation. The subterranean tracks taken by the

imagination to create a network of signifiers enables the poet to sidestep any obstacle.

In the words of Alba Newman, “the flexibility of the mind, however, moving by liquid,

subterreanean paths, eludes these strictures, allowing for invention and revelation.”

(67) Words keep streaming and dripping on each other, thus creating a network of

signifiers and signifieds, their value changes depending on the co-text and surrounding

words. According to Claude Richard, this is what enables the poet to emphasize and

circumvent the gap between word and meaning, signifier and signified, connotation

and denotation, and to play with this shedding (sloughing?) process.16 Words are thus

unstable and mutable for their meaning is never fully set and they keep bouncing off

each other.

(Lang)WEDGE

“Earth the chatterer, father of all speech” (Paterson 39)

38 As Williams unfolds the last lines of Paterson I, his words are reminiscent of his British

master:

Thought clambers up, snail like, upon the wet rocks hidden from sun and sight— hedged in by the pouring torrent— and has its birth and death there in that moist chamber, shut from the world— and unknown to the world, cloaks itself in mystery—And the myththat holds up the rock,that holds up the water thrives there—in that cavern, that profound cleft,a flickering greeninspiring terror, watching . . And standing, shrouded there, in that din, Earth, the chatterer, father of all speech . . . . . . . . (Paterson 34)

39 Interestingly, Williams calls earth the “father of all speech”, when, in Shakespeare’s

play, the character most identified with earth is Caliban whose mouth spits vile

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profanities and curses: “What, ho! slave! Caliban! / Thou earth, thou! speak” (Tmp. I.

2.312-3). In this way, Caliban would appear to be the father of a new speech, the

language of the isle that isn’t yet fully developed, and which is therefore morphing and

metamorphosing, along with the very territory that supports it: the heterotopia also

applies to him and to his language.17 Much like the relationship between Williams and

English, Caliban holds a peculiar relationship to language —that Prospero taught him—

as a power that is both liberating and enslaving, from whose constraints he strives to

escape. As Caliban bids Prospero to free him from his bonds, his chains are not only

material, they are mainly verbal:

CALIBAN: You taught me language; and my profit on ’t Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you For learning me your language! (Tmp. I.2.362-4)

40 Fire, air and water are also present in both Shakespeare’s and Williams’ works, thus

amounting—with earth—to Pythagoras’ tetractys, the number four being a symbol of

the cosmos. In The Tempest, “the remnants of a cosmos […] finally flounder amidst the

overwhelming chaos” (Lecercle 339), while Williams’s poetry is an attempt at

articulating chaos in all its significance — articulating as the bridging together of

particulars to create a new significant entity, verbal or otherwise. With expert healing

hands, the doctor-poet is thus stitching together clauses, words and particulars. The

poet’s task in his case is to try and decipher the illegible chatter of the earth (the word

‘chatter’ itself, being of onomatopoeic origins, acts as a primitive act of language as

well as sound) and the “roar of the river forever in our ears (arrears)” (Paterson 17).

41 The state of “in-betweenness” of the language is, in essence, grotesque —if we adopt

Bakhtin’s definition of the term in relation to Rabelais (1984). That transitional phase of

the language is effectively represented in the play by Caliban. Like the yet-unformed

and ever-morphing isle, Caliban’s language is unstable, it fumbles and struggles to find

the contours of the ground. In many aspects, Caliban is equated with the figure of a

child in the play, his language and body are, according to Bakhtin, “in the act of

becoming. It is never finished, never completed; it is continually built, created […]”

(Bakhtin 517). Cursing becomes the verbal symptom of a grotesque body. The stuttering

in particular underlines the gaps the poet comes to stitch. Matthew Hart’s evocation of

“synthetic vernacular poetries” is particularly relevant in this context, since it defines

the discrepancy and the very hybridity of American poetry, on the edge “between

vernacular self-ownership and the wilful appropriation of languages that will be

forever foreign” (Hart 7).18 The poet is thus weaving different cultures, loci and

languages together, while at the same time stitching and mending the words after their

brutal transplantation into the American ground. To Julio Marzán, in his 1994 essay on

Williams’ Spanish American roots, “the bridge between two cultures was an image that

Williams surely heard often”, because his mother was standing with one foot in Porto

Rico and the other on the continent: ‘she stands bridging two cultures, three regions of

the world, almost without speech’” (Marzán 52-3). To Bakhtin, the incapacity to express

words also engenders a process of inflation of the body as in pregnancy: a certain

inarticulate entity is retained by the body, which cannot be expressed and will thus

come out with all the ejaculatory manifestations of a body giving birth, stammering

and spluttering. The potential for an authentic and autochthonous poetry is

enshrouded in the gap, in the silence of the stutterer between two words or syllables..

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42 Not only is the isle a double of the American continent, the very character of Caliban

also acts as such. More than the embodiment of the colonized and the representative of

indigenous people, I would argue that Caliban is also—and perhaps mainly—a double of

the land itself. Beyond the figure of the indigenous character, the native of the isle,

Caliban’s body, with all its crevices and swellings, becomes the very map of the

territory, of a ground also pregnant with words experiencing a “mobile phase,

changing phase” and ultimately “a productive phase”, much like Williams’ definition of

Shakespeare’s dialect (SUNYBUF D7: Notebook B. 1948: 64).

43 If Caliban strives to stake out the limits of his territory, whether spatial, physical and

verbal, the other characters of the play also fumble and scramble through the

wilderness, their language constantly disrupted, interrupted and muted.

Locus excambius

44 Williams, like Shakespeare, makes considerable use of puns. Gonzalo’s conception of an

idyllic commonwealth has been greatly commented on in relation to Montaigne’s essay

Des Cannibales, but in this scene language is also repeatedly suspended and muffled by

Antonio and Sebastian’s constant punning:

GONZALO. When every grief is entertain’d that ’s offer’d,Comes to the entertainer— SEBASTIAN. A dollar.GON. Dolour comes to him, indeed: you have spoken truer than you purposed. SEB. You have taken it wiselier than I meant you should. GON. Therefore, my lord,— ANTONIO. Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue! ALONZO. I prithee, spare. (Tmp. II.1.16-9)

45 Sebastian here impedes the flow of language by interrupting Gonzalo. The aposiopeses

point to the mutability of language in every sense of the term, as the characters are

often being silenced, muted. The asteismus serves to emphasize the porous phonetic

frontier between “dollar” and “dolour”, linking the two nouns and highlighting the

pejorative effects of inorganic and a-natural business exchanges, as the locus amoenus is

corrupted and becomes a locus of artificial exchange. Here again, the paronomasia

comes to flesh out the error or split in the naming process. Words are fluid, they are

muted depending on the characters uttering them.

46 A comparable process occurs in the opening of Williams’ Paterson III, “The Library”:

I. I love the locust treethe sweet white locustHow much?How much?How much does it costto love the locust treein bloom?A fortune bigger thanAvery could musterSo muchSo muchthe shelving greenlocustwhose bright small leaves

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in Junelean among flowerssweet and white atheavy cost. (Paterson 90)

47 The pun on “locust” / “low cost” comes to signify their phonetic proximity. The choice

of the locust tree is thus an oral, phonetic choice on Williams’ part. What the poet

seems most interested in is not so much the meaning of the signified as the value of the

spoken sign. The pun somehow advocates a close listening to the sound of the

American language.19

48 In both instances, words are tokens whose circulation defines the contours and

currency of a new verbal economy. Ultimately, the silent (muted) low cost, a near-

homophone of locust, leads onto the possibility of an inexpensive love, to be confronted

to a final heavy cost of loving the things of the world (Furia 36).

“The pine and cedar: graves at my command” (Tmp. V.1.48)

49 William Carlos Williams sometimes alludes to the meanderings and wanderings of the

imagination, through the image of a crevice in the bark of a tree. In this sense poetry

and art are forces that bore a hole in the trunk, to reveal a different perception.

So also, poetry is that force which may revivify common living at various momentsof depression blasting aside lifeless anatomies of past-usage, putting sense in thatwhich is senseless—splitting the wood and letting up a green interest. (SUNYBUF C150,my italics)

50 Similarly, it is Prospero’s art “that made gape / The pine” (Tmp. I.2.292-3) and let out

the airy spirit Ariel in The Tempest. “By writing he [Shakespeare] escaped from the

world into the natural world of his mind.” (Imaginations 258). The fissure in the bark is

the locus through which the poet gains access to his poetic imagination. From the hole

in the tree, Ariel is reborn. Again, the word locus20 echoes the locust and the “low cost”

of the poem, placing the words in a complex economic network of signifiers. In

Williamsian terms, the trunk of the tree is the locus of thought, a microcosm of the

“profound cleft”, the “cavern” mentioned at the end of Paterson I and again—as a

resounding echo—in Paterson V: “through this hole / at the bottom of the cavern / of

death, the imagination / escapes intact” (205). The hole in the pine becomes the hole in

the ground, a ditch or an excavation. It becomes an allusion to the womb and to the

ooze the embryo lives in before birth, a place “hidden from sun and sight” (Paterson 33).

As Ariel begs for his freedom, Prospero clearly asserts the spirit’s knowledge of the

deepest inner Eleusinian mysteries of the earth:

Thou dost; and think’st it much to tread the oozeOf the salt deep,To run upon the sharp wind of the north,To do me business in the veins o’ the earthWhen it is baked with frost. (Tmp. I.2.252-6)

51 The pine tree comprises the beginning and the end of life: womb and tomb. In Williams’

poetry, what knowledge may be concealed within the tree is only accessible and

retrievable through myth. Myth becomes the intermediary between the known and the

unknown, a heuristic tool.

52 In both these cases, the performative power of language is foregrounded and it

unleashes unknown and unknowable imaginative powers: the aforementioned and

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enigmatic “green interest”. It is words that perform the splitting of the pine’s trunk, a

magic spell. The original opening lines for Williams’s collection The Wedge (1944) put

into poetic practice both language’s incantatory performative properties and the

splitting up of the wood he mentions in his notebook. Like Prospero, the poet unleashes

the poetic spirit:

With the tip of my tongueI wedge you openMy tongue! (SUNYBUF D6)

53 Interestingly, Louis Zukofsky, who helped Williams with the editing of the volume, did

not like its original title: (lang)WEDGE and Williams agreed to the switch. However, the

title initially chosen does suggest that Williams believed that language has the power to

both cleave and stabilize. The wedge etymologically supports both the transformative

aspect of a tool that breaks and splits in two and the stabilizing effect of the peg that

keeps the crack open. Langwedge thus figures both the device capable of splitting the

atom and the mechanical device leading up to a possible opening and widening of the

imagination, the crack is left open as a legacy for future generations. Williams here

advocates an archaeological strategy in his approach to the past, where he does not

stand passive but exhumes or pulls out, and true to his training as an obstetrician, gives

birth to his own history.

*

54 As Williams describes his writing process as iconoclastic21 in his Autobiography, he

advocates the peeling off or “stripping” of the layers covering the body of the novel,

asserting that beneath the strata lies a cipher. To some extent, the assertion also

applies to the body of the continent. Etymologically, the cipher is both a zero and a

figure, a blank matter that needs to be transfigured and deciphered (figure and cipher

both being designations of numerical worth) and which can take any value at all

depending on the context and co-text. The language should thereby take the print of a

flickering and staggering continent: “America is a mass of pulp, a jelly, a sensitive plate

ready to take whatever print you want to put on it—” (GAN 175). This idea somehow

echoes Thoreau’s appraisal in Walden that, before starting anything anew, “the walls

must be stripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and

beautiful living be laid for a foundation: now, a taste for the beautiful is most cultivated

out of doors, where there is no house and no housekeeper.” (31)

55 The new American identity is thus only to be found under the layers of dead leaves that

cover its body. Like Williams’ patients, it must “strip” in order to reveal the cipher on

which to start building “a house to last two hundred years” (The Buildup 334), or in this

case, three centuries.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aji, Hélène. Ezra Pound et William Carlos Williams: Pour une poétique américaine. Paris: l’Harmattan,

2001.

Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhalovĭc. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Hélène Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana

UP, 1984.

Darras, Jacques. “Le Grand Poème Américain.” Revue française d’études américaines 15 (1982):

343-371.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian

Massumi. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1988.

De Tocqueville, Alexis. De la Démocratie en Amérique. Vol. II. Paris : Gallimard, Pléiade, Chap. XVIII

“Pourquoi les écrivains et les orateurs américains sont souvent boursouflés”, 1992.

Doyle, Charles. William Carlos Williams: The Critical Heritage. New York: Psychology Press, 1980.

Foucault, Michel, and Jay Miskowiec. “Of Other Spaces.” Diacritics 16.1 (1986): 22-7.

Furia, Philip. “Paterson’s Progress.” boundary 2:9, A Supplement on Contemporary Poetry (Winter

1981): 31-50. DOI: 10.2307/303035

Giles, Paul. “Transnationalism and Classic American Literature.” PMLA 118.1, Special Topic:

America: The Idea, the Literature (Jan. 2003): 62-77. https://www.jstor.org/stable/823200

Hart, Matthew. Nations of Nothing but Poetry: Modernism, Transnationalism, and Synthetic Vernacular

Writing. New York: Oxford UP, 2010.

Hayden, Gabriele. “New World Encounters: William Carlos Williams, Rafael Arévalo Martínez, and

El Nuevo Mundo.” William Carlos Williams Review 30.1 (2013): 181-199. https://www.jstor.org/

stable/10.5325/willcarlwillrevi.30.1-2.0181

Kutzinski, Vera M. Against the American Grain: Myth and history in William Carlos Williams, Jay Wright,

and Nicolás Guillén. Baltimore, John Hopkins UP, 1987.

Lecercle, Ann. “Religion and the Decline of Magic, or Ropes and Tropes in The Tempest.” In “Divers

Toyes Mengled”: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Culture. Eds. André Lascombes and Michel Bitot.

Tours : Publication de l’Université François Rabelais, 1996. 335-346.

Lawrence, David Herbert. Studies in Classic American Literature. Vol. 28. New York, Cambridge UP,

2003.

Ludot-Vlasak, Ronan. La Réinvention de Shakespeare sur la scène littéraire américaine:(1798-1857).

Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon, 2013.

Mariani, Paul. William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked. San Antonio: Norton & Company, 1990.

Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America. New York: Oxford

UP, 1964.

Marzán, Julio. The Spanish American Roots of William Carlos Williams. Austin : U. of Texas P., 1994.

Mayoux, Jean Jacques. Vivants Piliers: Le Roman Anglo-Saxon et Les Symboles. Vol. 1. Paris: Julliard,

1960.

Newmann, Alba. “Paterson: Poem as Rhizome.” William Carlos Williams Review 26.1 (2006): 51–73.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/willcarlwillrevi.26.1.0051

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Roberto Fernandez Retamar. “Caliban: Notes towards a Discussion of Culture in our America”.

Trans. Lynn Garafola et al. Massachusetts Review 15 (Winter-Sping 1974): 7-72. https://

www.jstor.org/stable/25088398

Richard, Claude. Lettres américaines: Essais. Paris: Alinéa, 1987.

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Ed. Martin Butler. London: Penguin Books, 2007.

Shakespeare, William. The Winter’s Tale. Ed. Stephen Orgel. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008.

Tanner, Tony. Scenes of Nature, Signs of Men: Essays on 19th and 20th Century American Literature. Vol.

31. New York: Cambridge UP, 1989.

Tanner, Tony. City of Words: American Fiction, 1950-1970. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. A Critique of Postcolonial Reason. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999.

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Ed. Jeffrey S. Cramer. New Haven: Yale UP, 2006.

Williams, William Carlos. The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams. New York: New Directions

Publishing, 1951. Referred to as Autobiography.

Williams, William Carlos. Selected Essays. New York, Random House, 1954.

Williams, William Carlos. In the American Grain. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1956.

Referred to as IAG.

Williams, William Carlos. Imaginations: Kora in Hell / Spring and All / The Descent of Winter / The Great

American Novel / A Novelette & Other Prose. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1971. The Great

American Novel is referred to as GAN.

Williams, William Carlos. The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams. Vol I. 1909-1939. New York:

New Directions Publishing, 1986.

Williams, William Carlos. Paterson. Revised Edition. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1995.

Williams, William Carlos. SUNY Buffalo archives referred to as SUNYBUF, containing:

A298: Shakespeare

C150: “what is the use of poetry?”

D6: Notebook

D7: Notebook.

NOTES

1. The observation echoes Tocqueville’s assessment that there is no intermediary space in

America, no middle ground: “l’espace intermédiaire est vide” (590).

2. Cette observation rappelle celle de Tocqueville lorsqu’il affirme qu’il n’y a pas d’espace

intermédiaire en Amérique, pas de canton ou paroisse : « l’espace intermédiaire est vide » (590).

3. This idea will be further developed in the last part “(Lang)wedge”.

4. This doubling effect and the ghostly present Old World within the new is to Mayoux a key

feature of America’s identity: “Et peut-être est-ce là un caractère fondamental de la vision

américaine, depuis l’installation dans ce pays vide où tout représente des doubles.” (Mayoux 75).

5. “Sub Terra” is the opening poem of Williams’ collection Al Que Quiere (1917).

6. An automatic search showed eighteen occurrences of the root-word “fear” in the play.

7. The parallel between the setting of the play and the American settlement was first made by

Edmond Malone in his “Essay on the Chronological Order of Shakespeare's Plays,” published in

• • • •

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1790. For a detailed argument about Elizabethan travel literature and the fascination for the New

World, see Marx (1964).

8. On the topic of the election of a primitive “Indian” figure over the highbrow British model, see

Paul Giles’ article about Thoreau and Emerson: “By emphasizing the Indian rather than the

English provenance of names like ‘Yankee,’ from the Indian ‘Yengeese,’ Thoreau lays stress on

what he takes to be a nearer, more authentic matching of location to language” (Giles 69).

9. On the contrary, Williams admires his contemporary Gertrude Stein for “smashing every

connotation that words have ever had” (Selected Essays 163).

10. “Pour lui, la littérature canonique n’est rien de plus qu’une couche morte du palimpseste

littéraire qui recouvre le sol et le rend infertile” (Aji 88). The conflagration thus becomes a way to

get rid of the “dead layer” canonic literature covering the American soil.

11. I am here paraphrasing Williams’ famous assessment: “[…] the essence which is hidden in the

very words from which we must recover underlying meaning as realistically as we recover metal

out of ore.” (Autobiography 362). For Williams, the “underlying meaning”, the essence of language

can only be retrieved through archaeological exhumation.

12. On this topic see J. Darras’ article on the Great American Poem, in which he identifies

Williams’ eccentricity (in its first original acceptation) with the Indians’ in his poem Desert Music:

“La musique est indienne, comme l’Indien, bénéficie de cette situation frontalière.” (Darras 356).

13. In Greek Mythology, Iris personifies the rainbow uniting heaven and hell, the sea and the sky.

See Lecercle (1996).

14. The idea of Shakespeare’s character as a projection is a point developed by Ludot-Vlasak: “Il

semble donc que la réalité de l’homme décrit comme étant Shakespeare réside souvent

davantage dans les désirs ou les attentes que les biographes, amateurs ou professionnels,

projettent sur lui.” (Ludot-Vlasak 19).

15. In French “ligne de fuite”.

16. The association between fluid textures and the unveiling of gaps and cracks within language,

between signifiers and signifieds, is discussed at length in C. Richard’s essay on H.D. Thoreau:

“l’hydrodynamique de la lettre”: “la loi du flux mène donc, par la logique de la lettre, à la

reconnaissance de l’écart comme erreur” (Richard 136).

17. “In the so-called primitive societies, there is a certain form of heterotopia that I would call

crisis heterotopias, i.e., there are privileged or sacred or forbidden places, reserved for

individuals who are, in relation to society and to the human environment in which they live, in a

state of crisis: adolescents, menstruating women, pregnant women, the elderly, etc.” (Foucault 4).

18. The author later elaborates on the notion of gap and unstable state as the womb, the locus of

vernacular languages: “Like Homi K. Bhabha’s rooted-but-cosmopolitan subjects, synthetic

vernacular poems live in the interstices among the ‘modernist (and nationalist) insistence on

territorialized imaginations of identity’, the ‘minoritarian modernity’ experience of those who

are exiled from or within metropolitan nations, and the increasingly transnational nature of

human culture and political economy. The poems forged in those gaps therefore strive to be

‘both-cosmopolitan-and-vernacular’” (Hart 9).

19. “I say this once again to emphasize what I have often said — that we here must listen to the

language for the discoveries we hope to make.” (SUNYBUF C150: “What is the use of Poetry?”)

20. “Say I am the locus where two women meet” (Paterson 106, my italics).

21. “So that the novel is most at home and occupies its greatest esteem when nothing but the

clothes remain, which, when stripped off reveal—a cipher. The iconoclast at work.”

(Autobiography 369, my italics).

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ABSTRACTS

When D.H. Lawrence wrote about Shakespeare’s Tempest in 1923, “whatever else you are, be

masterless” (Lawrence 1923), he somehow found the perfect motto for William Carlos Williams’

own poetic art. Embarking upon his (con)quest for “THE word” (GAN 165) to be the fertile humus

on which to found all American literature, William Carlos Williams states: “Oh to hell with

Masters and the rest of them. To hell with everything I have myself ever written” (176). He thus

attempts to take Whitman’s “barbaric yawp” further and get rid of the old allegiance to the

Crown once and for all. Much like Caliban’s voice in The Tempest, the poet’s speech is unstable, it

fumbles around the wilderness, thus mimicking the very babbling of a New Continent. Language

is therefore mutable, in that English words have to be grafted onto a new land. However they are

also mutable insofar as they are very often silenced and hesitant. The poetry born in such a land

is wild and wanders outside the confines of the Old World. The words and verses are dented and

extravagant, in the first acceptation of the term: they are vagabonds attempting to define the

contours of an ever-morphing ground whose first mutation was its name, from India to America,

so that in the words of Tony Tanner, “if anything, it is the instability of language and society

which has more often made itself felt to the American writer” (Tanner 1971, 27). Shakespeare’s

play provides a fertile ground in the analysis of Williams’ modernist approach to language since

it is itself set in a liminal space constantly drifting across many countries and continents.

Miranda’s expression of bewilderment is somehow mirrored by Williams’ sailors in The Great

American Novel (1923) as they first get visual contact with the shores of the New Continent. In this

paper, I propose to chart the processes through which the poet manages to claim ownership of

his land through language, in spite of its “nearly universal lack of scale” (IAG 75)1. I intend to use

Shakespeare’s play, and in particular the figure of Caliban, not as the Native American enslaved

by the settlers, as has already been done, but as the allegory of the pilgrimage for THE word, the

quest pursued by Williams. Like Ahab boarding for the hunt of his life, Williams sets off to

capture and tame the brave new American word, using his sense of bewilderment in lieu of a

harpoon.

“Whatever else you are be masterless” (Lawrence 1923) écrivait D.H. Lawrence en 1923 au sujet

de La Tempête de Shakespeare, mais sa formule s’applique particulièrement bien à l’art poétique

de William Carlos Williams qui publia la même année son Grand Roman Américain. En quête du

mot, “THE word” (GAN 165), sur lequel fonder une nouvelle littérature américaine, Williams

s’exclame : « Oh to hell with Masters and the rest of them. To hell with everything I have myself

ever written » (176). Sa poésie est traversée par la volonté de poursuivre le travail inauguré par

Whitman et prolonger son cri barbare sur les toits de l’Amérique, afin de dépoussiérer les vieilles

grammaires qui enchaînaient encore l’Amérique à l’Angleterre. La langue de Caliban dans La

Tempête se fait le miroir de la voix trébuchante et des bégaiements du poète qui tente de définir

les contours d’un territoire aux mouvements ondulatoires. La langue même subit une mutation

alors que le verbe britannique vient se greffer sur une terre nouvelle et provoquer l’efflorescence

d’une poésie elle-même sauvage et vagabonde (étymologiquement « brave », comme le Nouveau

Monde de Miranda). Les vers et vocables se heurtent aux contours du Nouveau Monde et

reviennent écornés de leurs extra-vagances, en même temps qu’ils définissent le délinéament

d’une terre en constante métamorphose dont la première mutation fut le nom qui la désigne : de

l’Inde à l’Amérique. La pièce de Shakespeare se révèle un terreau fécond pour l’analyse de

l’approche du langage de William Carlos Williams puisqu’elle se déroule dans un espace

intermédiaire, liminaire, en déplacement continu à travers le monde. L’étonnement audible dans

la célèbre exclamation de Miranda trouve un écho dans celle des marins du Grand Roman

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Américain (1923) de Williams en apercevant les côtes du continent. Nous nous proposons ici

d’observer comment le poète parvient à prendre possession de sa terre par le langage malgré la

« pénurie quasi-universelle d’échelle » (IAG 75)2 qui caractérise, selon lui, le continent. L’œuvre

de Shakespeare, et en particulier la figure de Caliban, nous livre une version riche du pèlerinage

pour LE mot dans lequel nous entraîne Williams. Tel Achab embarquant pour la quête d’une vie,

Williams se jette à corps perdu dans l’immensité pour capturer « à mains nues » (Paterson 2)

l’idiome américain.

INDEX

Keywords: Williams William Carlos, Shakespeare William, Tempest (The), Caliban, New World,

heterotopia, language, American poetry, fluidity, fluency, liminal, dialect, wilderness, stutter

Mots-clés: Williams William Carlos, Shakespeare William, Tempête (La), Caliban, Nouveau

Monde, hétérotopie, langue, poésie américaine, fluidité, liminaire, dialecte, sauvage,

balbutiement

AUTHOR

ANNA AUBLET

Anna Aublet is Doctoral fellow at Université Paris Nanterre under the supervision of Prof. Hélène

Aji. Her dussertation “L’oracle en son jardin, William Carlos Williams & Allen Ginsberg.” focuses

on the programmatic, poetic and epistolary correspondence between the two poets. She is the

recipient of a scholarship by IDA (Institut des Amériques) and went to study Williams’ and

Ginsberg’s extensive archives in Stanford, CA, Buffalo, NY and New York, NY. Recent papers

include:“—Now my garden is gone”: Allen Ginsberg ou l’impossible nostos (Séminaire Carte et

Territoire, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris – Ulm, March 2015); “‘A new minting of the words’:

William Carlos Williams et la lettre sonnante et trébuchante” (Séminaire Valeur et Signe, Ecole

Normale Supérieure de Paris – Ulm, April 2016); “‘Time then to make a home in wilderness’: Allen

Ginsberg’s elusion strategy” (European Beat Studies Network meeting, Brussels, October 2015);

“‘El humus necesario en una tierra nueva’: William Carlos Williams’ extra-vagrancies in the New

World” (“Modernités dans les Amériques”, IDA, November 2015); “’As Machines eat all Names and

Forms’: Allen Ginsberg’s American Angel Machine” (European Beat Studies Network meeting,

Manchester, June 2016). Contact: anna.aublet [at] gmail.com

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The Summer Garden Photograph, Ora Barthesian Reading of the MutablePoetics of Louise GlückMarie Olivier

June 9, 1978

(Mourning)

Not continuous, but immobile.

Roland Barthes, Mourning Diary (149)

1 Since the publication of the collection Averno (2006), and more particularly since A

Village Life (2009), contemporary American poet Louise Glück has explored a new

rhythm and adopted what one might consider a more narrative style: her poems

expand along longer lines that ebb and flow right into the margins of the page. This

new stylistic departure was confirmed in her latest collection, Faithful and Virtuous Night

(2014), where the expansive lines of the long poems (some cover more than six pages)

alternate with prose poems.

2 In this context, it may seem paradoxical that the long poem “A Summer Garden1”

should appear to be so vividly geared towards disappearance. This change of pace in

Glück’s style shows the poet’s persistent irresolution between lyrical urgency, utter

silence and lyrical expansion, resulting in a poetics whose strength appears

impregnable, now more so than ever. It endows it with a challenging vitality, with a

force of resistance against the void which Glück’s personae keep pushing away. Since the

kaleidoscopic poems of The Triumph of Achilles, published in 1985, her voice and breath

have grown through longer poems, each divided into several numbered parts. The turn

from the terse and economical poems of Firstborn (1968) to the long lines and prose

poems of Faithful and Virtuous Night (2014) seems to offer formal evidence of what one

may consider a fluctuating poetics. As Helen Vendler asserts in an essay about Jorie

Graham’s poetry: “When a poet ceases to write short lines and begins to write long

lines, that change is a breaking of style almost more consequential, in its implications,

than any other” (Vendler 304). In “Disruption, Hesitation, Silence,” published in 1994 in

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her collection of essays, Proofs and Theories (Glück 1994: 73), the American poet famously

explained:

In my generation, most of the poets I admire are interested in length: they want towrite long lines, long stanzas, long poems, poems which cover an extendedsequence of events. To all this I feel an instant objection, whose sources I’m notconfident I know. […] What I share with my friends is ambition; what I dispute is itsdefinition. I do not think that more information always makes a richer poem. I amattracted to ellipsis, to the unsaid, to suggestion, to eloquent, deliberate silence.The unsaid, for me, exerts great power: often I wish an entire poem could be madein this vocabulary. It is analogous to the unseen; for example, to the power of ruins,to works of art either damaged or incomplete.

3 Glück’s turning to prose poems and longer verse may not be such a radical change, but

rather a change of poetics, a change in the making. I will argue that the intention,

however, has not moved. Her poems never describe any event in “exhaustive detail”

(73). Even though her lines have lengthened, they are still structured on the basis of

“eloquent, deliberate silence” that is not to be found in fewer words, not in “more

language,” or as she explains further in the same essay, in some “work that is all detail

and no shape”2 (82), but in a textual structure that challenges silence and plays on the

edge of the abyss, playing on the transitive ambiguity of her words. Through a close

reading of the poem, the article proposes to analyze how Glück’s mutable poetics tries

to serve the unsaid and how it relies on instability to do so; how the stammering quality

of the poem’s language challenges and even shuns a presupposed “narrative turn.” In

this poem, sometimes saying more means saying less and less, to the point of muteness.

4 In the five-part poem “A Summer Garden” (Glück 2014: 64-70), Glück’s persona wipes the

dust off of an old photograph of her mother sitting in a garden. The picture seems to be

caught between an immobile past and a moving sense of time that unavoidably comes

to a point of annihilation:

ISeveral weeks ago I discovered a photograph of my mothersitting in the sun, her face flushed as with achievement or triumph.The sun was shining. The dogswere sleeping at her feet where time was also sleeping,calm and unmoving as in all photographs.I wiped the dust from my mother’s face.Indeed, dust covered everything; it seemed to me the persistenthaze of nostalgia that protects all relics of childhood.In the background, an assortment of pack furniture, trees, and shrubbery.The sun moved lower in the sky, the shadows lengthened and darkened.The more dust I removed, the more these shadows grew.Summer arrived. The childrenleaned over the rose border, their shadowsmerging with the shadows of the roses. (l. 1-14)

5 At first sight, the old picture seems to be both a point of stasis and a starting point from

which the poem unfolds. Yet it is also a moving image, as well as a double reflecting

surface. Firstly, it reflects a time that is necessarily “calm and unmoving as in all

photographs,” (l. 5) which is one characteristic of the “motionless” photograph as

described by French semiologist Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida: “When we define the

photograph as a motionless image, this does not mean only that the figures it

represents do not move; it means that they do not emerge, do not leave: they are

anesthetized and fastened down, like butterflies” (Barthes 1981: 57). Secondly, the

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photograph in Glück’s poem, “A Summer Garden,” is a reflecting surface through the

consideration of something that is not caught in its frame. One specificity of this

photograph is its non self-referentiality: the picture already designates what comes

beyond, something that is out there and which the poem paradoxically tries to conceal

in the very gesture of exposure. The frame of Glück’s photograph does not contain

what Barthes called punctum:

this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and piercesme. A Latin word exists to designate this wound, this prick, this mark made by apointed instrument: the word suits me all the better in that it also refers to thenotion of punctuation, and because the photographs I am speaking of are in effectpunctuated, sometimes even speckled with these sensitive points; precisely, thesemarks, these wounds are so many points. (Barthes 1980: 26)

6 Consequently, in “A Summer Garden,” the Spectator3 is not gripped by the emotion of a

punctum. The photograph does not seem to hold the crucial detail endowed with a sharp

poignancy. The surface of the image is smooth, the gesture of the hand stroking it and

dusting it off calls attention to its surface rather than to its depth, suggesting a certain

emotional restraint on the part of the lyrical instance: the first-person delays the origin

of the pain until the fourth part of the poem (after sixty-four lines): “mother died last

night, / Mother who never dies” (ll. 64-5). The iterative present tense (used in the

second line quoted above) tersely marks the irreversibility and the ineffability of the

mourning process. Glück’s poetics thus turns the experience of discovering a

photograph “buried” (l. 38) in the pages of an “ancient paperback” (l. 24) into a scene

where the dead “returns,” in accordance with the law which Barthes discusses in

Camera Lucida (1981: 9).

7 The whole poem is caught in the pulsation of time, oscillating between a static and

impossible present tense and a phantasmatic4 past tense: “How quiet the garden is; / no

breeze ruffles the Cornelian cherry” (ll. 43-4); “Winter was in the air, many months

away” (ll. 66-7); “we could hear / Maria singing songs from Czechoslovakia—” (ll. 72-3).

“A Summer Garden” stages a vibrant and vibrating tableau vivant that is paradoxically

and simultaneously held in the stasis of a staged moment (“how hushed it is, the stage

/ as well as the audience”, ll. 57-8). It is also caught in the inherent mutability and

transformative process of time: “it was the tenth of May. / Hyacinth and apple blossom

/ bloomed in the back garden” (ll. 69-71). In “A Summer Garden,” the form feeds and

deforms the writing process by erasing the story the persona is trying to tell, as

suggested by the following lines:

A word came into my head, referringto this shifting and changing, these erasuresthat were now obvious— (ll. 15-7)

A displaced and translated punctum

8 The dash at the end of line 17 marks the erasure on the page: the sign paradoxically

shows what it means to conceal in black ink: oblivion, or, as the persona further

explains, the magic word “referring / to these shiftings and changing […] appeared, and

as quickly vanished” (ll. 15-8). The dash, as a sign of an aposiopesis, gestures towards

annihilation: the word will never be uttered or written and the voice is left groping in

the dark: “was it blindness or darkness, peril, confusion?” (l. 19)

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9 The punctuation sign typographically figures what is left out of the picture, its blind

spot—the punctum. The absence of the latter in the photograph is made visible: the

moving point is erased even as the words are being written on the page: “The more

dust I removed, the more these shadows grew.” (l. 12) On the contrary, the wiping

gesture that was supposed to reveal details in the photograph acts as a darkening

agent, contributing to the erasure and disappearance of the photograph as it is being

placed again in the pages of the book:

2When I had recovered somewhat from these events,I replaced the photograph as I had found itbetween the pages of an ancient paperback,many parts of which had beenannotated in the margins, sometimes in words but more oftenin spirited questions and exclamationsmeaning “I agree” or “I’m unsure, puzzled”— […]Thus the little photographwas buried again, as the past is buried in the future. (ll. 22-38)

10 As the picture is being concealed, “buried again,” before eventually being forgotten,

the written text seems to take over, as shown by the polysemic verb “replace” (l. 23).

Not only is the picture “placed again” in its former place, but the book comes as a

substitute for the photograph: the clause “I replaced the photograph” is followed by

the “spirited questions and exclamations / meaning ‘I agree’ or ‘I’m unsure, puzzled’—”

(ll. 27-8). But, as the persona indicates, these are not exactly “words” but “spirited

questions and exclamations.” The quotation marks do not indicate direct speech. The

present participle “meaning” creates a breach between the “spirited questions and

exclamations” written in the margins of the text and the statements “I agree” or “I’m

unsure, puzzled.” The double inverted commas, simple typographical signs, undermine

the relation between voice and lyrical instance. The assertions in quotation marks are

not direct quotes, their status is that of mere interpretations of the thoughts of another

unknown and anonymous reader who owned an “ancient paperback” of Death in Venice

— “ancient” conveys a remoteness that only strengthens the indirect relationship

between the voice of the poem and the marginal comments. As the persona indicates,

the book happens to be a translation:

I held the book awhile.It was Death in Venice (in translation);I had noted the page in case, as Freud believed,nothing is an accident. (ll. 33-6)

11 In focusing on the translated nature of the text,5 the poem tries to show and to conceal

the irretrievable point of origin, the absent mother, the mother tongue, the original

language that is always already lost between the pages and between the lines.6 These

sections of the poem demonstrate the difficulty there is to see and read, the

impossibility to write something new. The poem is already a repetition of countless

past writings and the photograph a mere re-presentation, and the text a translation.

Both photograph and novel beg to be interpreted and re-created by the reader.

However, they are already texts produced mimetically or ekphrastically. Their textures

both interweave the already written or seen, which is why they need to be overcome

for the voice of the poem to be able to create something new.

12 Roland Barthes found the very essence of what his mother was to him, and the subtle

nuances of her humanity, in a picture he called “the Winter Garden photograph” (1982:

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67). Here, in Louise Glück’s summer garden, time has metamorphosed the image of the

persona’s mother “sitting in the sun, her face flushed as with achievement or triumph”

(l. 2), turning her into a reified and sacred image, her face still glowing through time as

a “relic” basking in “a haze of nostalgia” (l. 8).

13 Safeguarded by the “persistent / haze of nostalgia that protects all relics of childhood”

(ll. 7-8) the sanctified character of the picture prevents all punctum from appearing to

the Spectator. Nothing can protrude out of the surface of the photograph. The poignant

detail is already being projected and displaced into the margins of the book (ll. 33-4).

Moreover, in part two of the poem, the words are written in faded ink in the margins of

Thomas Mann’s novella:

The ink was faded. Here and there I couldn’t tellwhat thoughts occurred to the readerbut through the blotches I could senseurgency, as though tears had fallen. (ll. 29-32)

14 What was an inability to see in the first part of the poem becomes an inability to read in

the second part, as the first line of the second stanza indicates: “the ink was faded. Here

and there I couldn’t tell” (l. 29). In cutting the verb “tell” from its object (“what

thoughts occurred to the reader”, l. 30) the enjambment creates a chiasmus between

reading and “telling,” as well as an interlacing between reader and lyrical instance: the

reader/Spectator becomes the voice of the poem we are now reading. As the persona

oscillates between the inability and the impossibility to see, Glück’s poem points to the

ineffectiveness of language: the interrogative form, the list of nouns—mere

approximates—and the conjunction “or” underline not only the inability of the subject

to see, but also the impossibility for language to communicate an intimate experience.

15 The penultimate stanza of the first section of the poem presents a wavering between

“blindness or darkness, peril, confusion” (l. 19) and the impossibility to read that is

made blatant by the words written in faded ink, the contradictory signs of some

“urgency” (l. 32). Through the enjambment in these two lines, “I could sense / urgency,

as though tears had fallen” (ll. 31-32), the feeling of urgency is unhinged from the verb

that produced it and is thus deferred with regards to the present of enunciation of the

poem. Only traces of such urgency remain: “words in faded ink (l. 29), blotches of tears”

(l. 31) and “two words, / linked by an arrow: ‘sterility’ and, at the bottom of the page,

‘oblivion’—” (ll. 39-40). The graphic sign of the arrow comes at the end of a chain of

deictics pointing outward, here, towards the bottom of the page and to the word

“oblivion,” which precedes a dash that itself gestures out of the stanza, out of the

margin, out of the page —indeed, out of the book.

16 The “urgency” which the persona can read “through the blotches” can be read between

the lines by the reader of the poem: once placed again in the book, “between the pages”

of the novella, the photograph acts as a double deictic. Firstly, the picture naturally

designates its referent (the mother in the summer garden); secondly, the photograph

points to the “here and there” (l. 29) of the reading process. Both of these referents

seem to be worn out, at a remove from the present tense of the persona: the face of the

mother covered in dust (“I wiped the dust from my mother’s face”, l. 6) and the “faded”

words barely made decipherable “through the blotches” of tears (l. 31). These erasures

of time “that were now obvious” (l. 17) conjure up the magic and the paradoxically

unutterable word: “a word came into my head, referring / to this shifting and

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changing, these erasures / that were now obvious—” (ll. 15-17). The word will never be

uttered, endlessly being erased in the writing process.

17 The photograph becomes a multiple translating agent: translating from one language

to another, from the pictorial to the textual, it also transports the persona from a

spectatorial to a readerly and, eventually, to a writerly –and even a lyrical— position:

In the margin there were two words,linked by an arrow: “sterility” and, down the page, “oblivion”—“And it seemed to him the pale and lovelySummoner out there smiled at him and beckoned…” (ll. 39-42)

18 The final couplet is a quotation from the last page of Death in Venice, when the

protagonist and writer Aschenbach gazes at young Tadzio far away on the shore, as he

is collapsing in his chair. Presented as the “Summoner,” messenger of the gods, the boy

announces the writer’s death in the novella. The suspension dots at the end of the

quote in the poem elliptically prolong the messenger’s gesture, as the novella goes on:

“as though with the hand he lifted from his hip, he pointed outward as he hovered on

before into an immensity of richest expectation” (Mann 73). Left unsaid in the poem,

this sentence remains concealed in the ink of the suspension dots. Like the Hermes

figure in the novella, Glück’s poem carefully stages a web of deictical agents pointing

“outward”: the punctum, the poignant detail, needs to be found outside the photograph.

The text is a translation and, consequently, its own original vanishing point happens to

be decentered. In the same way, at the end of section 4 of the poem, the body of the

mother is presented with “her arms outstretched,” (l. 91) lengthening the Summoner’s

beckoning, pointing outward as well—outside the page, beyond life. Glück’s writing

pays close attention to typographical details, words written in the margins of the text.

When the hypotext is quoted, the latter happens to point outward, towards somewhere

out of reach, commanding us readers to turn the page and read on. The text also

commands the persona of the poem to move on by letting go of emotions as towards

death: “When I had recovered somewhat from these events, / I replaced the

photograph as I had found it” (ll. 22-3).

19 Moreover, in the last stanza of the penultimate section, the detail of the mother’s head

“balanced between [her arms]” constitutes the punctum missing from the summer

garden photograph, its essential, moving point:

Mother slept in her bed,her arms outstretched, her headbalanced between them. (ll. 90-2)

20 The mundanity of the punctum makes it almost invisible, but the poem makes sure it is

heard through its prosody. In the last stanza, the reader notices a swaying rhythm and

alliteration in /b/ and in /d/: “mother slept in her bed, / her arms outstretched, her

head / balanced between them,” even in similar plosives, notably /t/: slept,

outstretched, between. This alliteration is underlined by epanalepsis in /ð/: mother /

them, as well as the assonance in /e/ (or /ɛ/: slept, bed, outstretched, head) which

contribute to the rocking rhythm of the poem. The punctum happens to be doubly

moving: not only does it move the reader, but it has also been displaced, translated

towards the margins of the poem, near the end. Consequently, the whole poem has

been turned into what Roland Barthes calls a “blind field,” that is, into an invisible area

outside the picture frame to which the punctum in the photograph points. It is not the

flushed face of the mother in the summer garden that irradiates across the whole

collection of Faithful and Virtuous Night. Through the multiple displacements caused by

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webs of deictics, the semantical, graphemical and typographical signs pointing

outward, the wound has been decentered, the expression of grief has been deferred—all

the more so since this section (part 4) was not included in the poem’s first publication

(issue of Poetry, January 2012), but appeared in the 2014 collection entitled Faithful and

Virtuous Night. The punctum has exceeded the bounds of the poem, it is not in the

photograph, and it has even been deferred in the history of the poem’s publication: it is

only in this penultimate section that the mother’s death is made explicit (“mother died

last night, / mother who never dies”, ll. 64-5).

A stammering poetics

21 Summoned by the Summoner—whose spelling only adds the syllable “on” to

“summer,”— the reader of “A Summer Garden,” moves on, so to speak, albeit through a

time that seems to be stuttering. The voice of the poem summons a stammering

summer, as it were, which seemingly cannot go past the same image of “the children /

lean[ing] over the rose border,” caught in a speech that annihilates the word as soon as

it is uttered:

Summer arrived. The childrenleaned over the rose border, their shadowsmerging with the shadows of the roses.A word came into my head, referringto this shifting and changing, these erasuresthat were now obvious—it appeared, and as quickly vanished.Was it blindness or darkness, peril, confusion?Summer arrived, then autumn. The leaves turning,the children bright spots in a mash of bronze and sienna. […] (ll. 12-21, emphasismine)3How quiet the garden is;no breeze ruffles the Cornelian cherry.Summer has come. (ll. 43-5, emphasis mine)

22 Time seems to be moving on the unstable grounds of a poetics which summons the

coming of the season as if in a stutter. Indeed, summer is graphemically included in

both verbs: it is the conflation of summ[on] and [stutt]er. The anaphoric repetition of

the clause “summer arrived” (ll. 12, 20) in the preterit (rather than in the –ing form)

makes it an impossible iteration —summer cannot “arrive” twice. Caught in the pulse of

speech and time, the stammering enunciation also partakes of the metamorphosis of

individuals. From this stammering time, there results a sense of urgency, which finds

itself instilled in the words “peril, confusion” (l. 19). These two words are proleptic,

they anticipate and denounce an acceleration of time in the next stanza: they question

the prolonged mental process of oblivion (“was it […]?” l. 19), they make visible the

corrosive process of time and the fading away of existence:

Summer arrived, then autumn. The leaves turning,the children bright spots in a mash of bronze and sienna. (ll. 20-1)

23 Before the enjambment, the intransitive verb “turning” twists the syntax and the

image through the curve which the comma imprints at the end of the line. The absence

of a verb on line 21 makes the metamorphosis evident, as if the intransitive “turning”

had itself been turned into a transitive verb, thus turning the children into “a mash of

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bronze and sienna.” Erasure is the main transforming force of the poem, where time

acts as an expunging process: the figure of the children melts in the background (“a

mash of bronze and sienna,” “their shadows/merging with the shadows of the roses”

ll. 13-4). However the erasure is presented as being already done, completed, as the

absence of verb makes clear. Along with the twisted syntax and the ellipsis, the

enjambment enhances the effect of erosion and erasure. Like the unreadable “blotches”

of the faded ink in the margins of the translation, the ellipsis makes the children

unrecognizable. This partakes in the “haze of nostalgia,” which blurs memories whilst

making them all the more vivid and poignant.

24 In the third section of the poem, the same paradox appears in a different form: as the

second section concludes with the Summoner’s beckoning—and with the writer’s death

—the third section opens with the arrival of summer in the present tense and the

triumph of life in a morbid and sullen stillness:

How quiet it isnow that life has triumphed. The roughpillars of the sycamoressupport the immobileshelves of the foliage,the lawn beneathlush, iridescent—And in the middle of the sky,the immodest god.7

Things are, he says. They are, they do not change;response does not change.How hushed it is, the stageas well as the audience; it seemsbreathing is an intrusion.He must be very close,the grass is shadowless.How quiet it is, how silent,like an afternoon in Pompeii. (ll. 46-63)

25 The morbid immobility of the scene exposes the artificiality of a silence that is

displaced from the summer garden to a stage in a theater. Silence is here made

oppressive but it is also filled with expectation:8 it is as if a personified Helios in papier

mâché had come onto the stage and declared solemnly: “Things are, he says. They are,

they do not change; / response does not change” (ll. 55-6). However, across the

enjambment the tone seems to have altered (in “response does not change”). There

may be something in the poem’s spelling this out, which gives the reader the feeling

that the persona’s subjectivity permeates the line, as in prosopopeia.

26 Response to death does not change throughout the poem. Besides, it can be pointed out

that Glück’s persona responds to death with double irony. Lines 46-7 (“how quiet it is /

now that life has triumphed”) sound all the more ironical that, in the novella, they

come after the equally ironical scene of Aschenbach’s death. The first stanza of

section 3 presents the calm before the storm:

3How quiet the garden is;no breeze ruffles the Cornelian cherrySummer has comeHow quiet it isnow that life has triumphed. The rough

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pillars of the sycamoressupport the immobileshelves of the foliage,the lawn beneathlush, iridescent— (ll. 43-52)

27 The comparison with the destruction of Pompeii in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius

(“how quiet it is, how silent. Like an afternoon in Pompeii”, ll. 62-3) reinforces this

impression. As the sun reaches its zenith, “the grass is shadowless.” Glück’s writing

turns into silence and the blinding light into deadly symptoms, the anticipatory signs

of an imminent catastrophe: the phrase “these events” (in the allusive line “when I had

recovered somewhat from these events”, l. 22) is finally made explicit at the outset of

section 4: “Mother died last night. / Mother who never dies” (ll. 64-5)—a section which

was added a posteriori.

28 The repetition of absolute negation in the present tense strengthens the absurdity of

the death of the mother, an irretrievability one finds in Barthes’s note in his Mourning

Diary: “In the sentence ‘She’s no longer suffering,’ to what, to whom does ‘she’ refer?

What does that present tense mean?” (Barthes 2012: 15). One may also wonder what

this present tense means in “mother who never dies,” (l. 65) or, rather, with which

value this iterative present is endowed. The negative sentence sounds wrong, or at least

odd, since as surely as one lives only once, one dies only once. The unimaginable thing

has happened: the persona’s mother who could never die has just died. The simplicity of

the sentence contradicts the complexity of the mourning process: how can one express

one’s loss without alienating it from one’s intimacy, without “hystericiz[ing]” it, to use

Barthes’ term in his Mourning Diary.

29 The answer is embodied by the poem itself, with its form and wavering poetics. After a

stifling summer, the voice seems to be already turning its attention towards winter.

And yet, the chronology is upset once again, as if the landscape was seen through a

trembling camera lens:

4Mother died last nightMother who never dies.Winter was in the air,many months awaybut in the air nevertheless.It was the tenth of May.Hyacinth and apple blossombloomed in the back garden. (ll. 64-71)

30 The past tense surges back into the poem and tries to locate the moment of pain on a

linear narrative: “winter was in the air,” “it was the tenth of May.” Here the past tense

has the same function as in a novel, as Barthes explains in Writing Degree Zero, “it is a lie

made manifest, it delineates an area of plausibility which reveals the possible in the

very act of unmasking it as false” (Barthes 1968: 32). This function of the past tense may

explain the introduction of the present tense in the contradiction mentioned earlier:

“mother who never dies” turns the poem into what Roland Barthes referred to as “the

receptacle of existence in all its density and no longer of its meaning alone” (Barthes

1968: 32).

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A lyric, not a narrative

31 The poem does not try to tell a story, however. It is not a narrative, but an attempt at

expressing vivid urgency in lyric form, it is an effort to articulate the unspeakable, to

imprint the mutable and the unstable on the apparent linearity of poetic structure. The

musicality of the prosody, which suddenly surges in the third stanza, helps overcome

and disturb the causal chain and circumstantiality of the narrative. The single rhyme

between “many months away” and “It was the tenth of May” (ll. 67, 69), for instance,

contributes to the production of a mirror effect between these lines (the latter being a

perfect iambic trimeter and the former an irregular trochaic trimeter). Moreover, the

line: “but in the air nevertheless”, further intensified by the stanza break, carves out an

even deeper the rift between the two temporalities:

many months awaybut in the air neverthelessIt was the tenth of May. (ll. 67-9)

32 Not unlike the geological process of plate tectonics, Glück’s poetics makes

chronological time and subjective time slide towards and apart from one another. What

may seem a simplistic poetic trope reconciles both temporalities, while affirming its

utter impossibility—making “many months away” rhyme with “It was the tenth of

May”. This is also what the line break in the first stanza of the same section suggests:

Mother died last nightMother who never dies.

33 The masculine rhyme (“away” / “May”) and the line break in the couplet both mark the

irremediable distance as well as the unbearable feeling of closeness to the mother’s

death. The musicality of language is introduced in the form of free verse, which a

babbling of the tongue translates through the alliteration in plosives /d/, /b/, /p/ and

/l/ in “Hyacinth and apple blossom/bloomed in the back garden” (ll. 70-1). The elegiac

song is further detached from the flowing narrative and the roman typeface through

the use of italics and a present tense in the passage that follows. The present tense

grounds the voice of the poem in the lyrical urgency of an inevitable here and now,

which the persona had so desperately tried to avoid from the beginning of the poem:

We could hearMaria singing songs from Czechoslovakia—How alone I am—songs of that kind.How alone I am,no mother, no father—my brain seems so empty without them.Aromas drifted out of the earth;the dishes were in the sink,rinsed but not stacked.Under the full moonMaria was folding the washing;the stiff sheets became dry rectangles of moonlight.How alone I am, but in musicmy desolation is my rejoicing.It was the tenth of Mayas it had been the ninth, the eighth. (ll. 72-92)

34 The songs are introduced through a narrative in the past tense, “we could hear / Maria

singing songs from Czechoslovakia” (ll. 72-3). It is not the first time the American poet

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has explicitly mentioned music from her Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, particularly

klezmer music.9 Yet, in this instance, while reading the mournful lyrics in italics, the

music coming to the reader’s ears may call to mind Sidor Belarsky’s Yiddish songs and

lieder, the voice in the poem rather seems to echo that of soprano Maria Callas: “Maria

singing songs from Czechoslovakia.”10 The line interweaves varied references: classical

operatic music and popular East European folk songs. The musical references are

underscored by the assonances in /s/, /z/ and /ð/ in “singing songs from

Czechoslovakia”; “no mother, no father—/my brain seems so empty without them” (77-8),

thus grounding them —along with the use of the italics— in the body of the text, of the

singer, of the reader.

35 By staging this doleful song through direct speech and prosopopeia, the lyrical instance

has led the reader to the apex of a lyrical expression that has tried to neutralize the

writing and its own effects, flirting with the transitivity of writing and speaking. The

voice of the poem is interrupted before the line break in section 2, for instance: “The

ink was faded. Here and there I couldn’t tell” (l. 29), while in the last lines of section 4,

in the solitude of despair, the voice sings the loss of the beloved mother without giving

in or giving up control over some devastating grief: “How alone I am, but in music / my

desolation is my rejoicing” (ll. 86-7).

36 To free oneself from constraint in such a controlled manner is an accomplishment

echoed in the image of “the dishes […] in the sink, / rinsed but not stacked” (ll. 80-1),

hinting at incompleteness in a domestic order. Just as the song sounds out the words “

my brain seems so empty without them,” (l. 78) the thoughts of a mind gone blank are

projected on “stiff sheets […] dry white rectangles of moonlight” (ll. 84-5), similar to

the musical scores belonging to a certain Maria. After the assonantal stanza that

anchors the words in the body, the next stanza explores the music of speech and makes

of the alliterations in /f/ and /ʃ/ in “under the full moon / Maria was folding the

washing; / the stiff sheets” (ll. 82-4) the physical extension of a reader’s gestures.

Indeed, the semantic, pictorial and phonematic characteristics of this line may be read

and heard as the folding of the stiff sheets, but also as the smooth leafing through the

pages of a book—of the “ancient paperback” of Death in Venice for instance.

Terminus ad quem / a quo

37 In a similar fashion, the enumeration of days in the penultimate stanza (“It was the

tenth of May / as it had been the ninth, the eighth”, ll. 88-9) can be read as a reverse

countdown of days, but also as the numbering of pages, as the voice of the poem

reminds us: “I had noted the page in case, as Freud believed, / nothing is an accident”

(ll. 35-6). This counting down may also formulate the absurdity of life’s approximation

of the most traumatic event to the mundane, as if the triteness of death could be

overcome through lyricism only. The poet needed both the operatic expressionism of

Maria (Callas or not) and the desperate vitality11 of Eastern European music to make a

decent “rejoicing of an unspeakable pain,” in order to go beyond the relics of childhood

and the sacred image exposed in the summer garden photograph. The image of the

mother on her deathbed in the last stanza of section 4 happens to be more vivid,

conveying more life than the one conjured in the photograph:

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Mother slept in her bed,her arms outstretched, her headbalanced between them. (ll. 90-2)

38 It is as if the body of the mother were finally being laid in its rightful place and brought

back to its essential humanity. While the dogs are sleeping at the feet of a static and

statuesque mother in the photograph, “her face flushed as with achievement or

triumph,” (l. 2) the last stanza of section 4 presents a peaceful image where the

mother’s body is portrayed with her arms stretched across the small rectangle of her

bed, an echo of Maria’s white sheets, her music scores, and the page of the poem.

39 Through the long poem “A Summer Garden,” Glück’s writing manages to turn the

ephemeral into something essential, as the double page of the collection stages itself in

a multiple mise en abyme. The poem presents a structure of white rectangles fitting in

one another: the “stiff sheets,” the “dry rectangles of moonlight,” (ll. 84-5) Maria’s

blank scores becoming the screens of a mind gone blank, an already forgotten

photograph, “buried” (l. 38) “between the pages of an ancient paperback” (l. 24). All

these are the prismatic projections of the mother’s deathbed, the appearance of which

is delayed almost until the end of the poem. “A Summer Garden” thus discusses,

through its five sections, “something” that cannot be seen nor said, but that needs to

be sung. More than a “blind field,” there is also a blind spot which the persona of the

poem cannot quite grasp, and which constitutes the decentered nadir of the poem, its

displaced gravitational source. From the first-person, subjectivity shifts or drifts off to

the third-person, by way of Beatrice:

5Beatrice took the children to the park in Cedarhurst.The sun was shining. Airplanespassed back and forth overhead, peaceful because the war was over.It was the world of her imagination:true and false were of no importance. (ll. 93-7)

40 As a camera would zoom out, the image becomes more focused, as some geographical

and temporal details are disclosed: the scene takes place in a park in Cedarhurst, a

village in Nassau County, on the South shore of Long Island, New York, at the end of a

war. The exact historical reference proves to be inconsequential, as is clearly asserted

by the voice of the poem: “it was the world of her imagination: / true and false were of

no importance” (ll. 96-7). After the preceding sections, which hovered in a rather

abstract context, the historical and geographical references are abandoned as soon as

they begin to be established.

41 The couplet “it was the world of her imagination / true and false were of no

importance” brings the poem back to its very nature, to its intransitivity. In its

countless efforts to name the small something, the “word [that] came into [her] head,

referring / to this shifting and changing, these erasures / that were now obvious—”

(ll. 15-7), the poem keeps translating the crucial word, the object of speech throughout

its five sections. As the writing keeps blackening the page, Glück’s poetics endlessly

moves the crucial point, the punctum, the secret of the photograph outward, into the

margins of the poem and even beyond. The poem traces a complex web of deictic signs

which make “these shifting and changing, these erasures / […] now obvious” (ll. 16-7),

as in the final section:

The planes passed back and forth, boundfor Rome and Paris—you couldn’t get there

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unless you flew over the park. Everythingmust pass through, nothing can stop— […] (ll. 101-4)She sat on a bench, somewhat hidden by oak trees.Far away, fear approached and departed;from the train station came the sound it made. (ll. 110-2)

42 The endless coming and going of planes across the sky demonstrates the persistence of

motion, of suspension, as “nothing can stop” (104). The back-and-forth motion of the

planes figures the ebbing and flowing of the lines on the double page of the collection,

ephemeral traces of words always already being erased in the writing process. Out of

reach, “Rome and Paris” help stimulate a romantic imagination. They are dreamt cities,

far away on the Old Continent, while the park in Cedarhurst constitutes a grounded,

anchored piece of land, as well as a necessary place of transition:

Beatrice took the children to the park in CedarhurstThe sun was shining. Airplanespassed back and forth overhead, peaceful because the war was over.It was the world of her imagination:true and false were of no importance.Freshly polished and glittering—that was the world. Dusthad not yet erupted on the surface of things.[. . .]. Everythingmust pass through, nothing can stop—The children held hands, leaningto smell the rosesThey were five and seven. (ll. 93-100; 103-107)

43 The writing process presents mourning as a process of inevitable failure, constantly

devouring itself and whose point of origin, whose traumatic point, is always already

decentered, displaced, constantly deferred in the face of the infinity of time:

Infinite, infinite—thatwas her perception of time. (ll. 108-9)

44 In the face of the infinite, death is a question the last section of the poem does not

pretend to answer, but which it merely tries to articulate. The last section presents

what comes after the trauma, a Nachträglichkeit, a deferred action, “peaceful because

the war was over” (l. 95). The third stanza encapsulates the brilliance of a time caught

in an après-coup, in a sparkling renaissance, but in the moment preceding oblivion:

Freshly polished and glittering—that was the world. Dusthad not yet erupted on the surface of things. (ll. 98-100)

45 The imaginary tracing in the air, “where everything / must pass through, nothing can

stop” (ll. 103-4), makes the portion of sky above the park in Cedarhurst “that piece of

sky cut out by the soothsayer’s staff.” (Barthes 1994: 47) As Barthes had indeed noted,

“the sky [is] the one thing that cannot be marked.” It is written into the paradox of

necessary transition, that “everything / must pass through,” that the day should end,

along with the poem:

The sky was pink and orange, older because the day was over.There was no wind. The summer daycast oak-shaped shadows on the green grass. (ll. 113-5)

46 In contrast with the “mash of bronze and sienna” (l. 21), the shadows of the children

“merging with the shadows of the roses” (l. 14) in the first section and the blazing light

in section 3, where “the grass is shadowless” (l. 61), the summer day finally casts “oak-

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shaped shadows on the green grass” in the last line of the poem, as if time had finally

caught up with itself, as if the camera had finally found the right focus.

47 The poem traces the lines of what is literally a moving picture, taking in the erratic

pain of a mourning subject in its striving to escape the infinity of time, while trying to

overcome the absolute authority of death. Like the woeful songs coming from a distant

—and now defunct—Czechoslovakia, the ephemeral traces of the planes across the sky

above the park, the source of the coming and going sound of fear is syntactically offset

by the hyperbaton “from the train station came the sound it made” (l. 112). The tracing

of the “oak-shaped shadows” could be equated with the attempts of any reader to

decipher other people’s handwritings and signs, their marginal words and phrases, like

a soothsayer’s staff trying to delimit the infinite. Glück’s stammering—and yet

expanding verse—demonstrates the futility of language and our helplessness in the face

of death. Her poetics does not attempt to bridge the abyssal rift between language and

life. Instead, through a work of constant deferral, through the intricate and interstitial

hesitations imprinted on the texture of this long poem, the poet demonstrates that not

only does each word matter, each word needs to be questioned. If Glück’s lines have

expanded, so have the webs of meanings wherein the unsaid develops in an even more

intricate fashion. Through the experience of mourning, and through the study of a

summer garden photograph, like Barthes's soothsayer's gesture, the poet shows how

futile it is to want to “trace a limit of which immediately nothing is left, except for the

intellectual remanence of a cutting out.” (Barthes 1994: 47) The poetic persona discovers

that it is vain to try to cut out rectangles of light, moments, fragments of life in order to

reach for the irretrievable. In the face of an “infinite” (l. 108) time, “to devote oneself

to the totally ritual and totally arbitrary preparation of a meaning” (Ibid.) is a mad

gesture—and remains an absolute necessity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida, Reflections on Photography [1980]. Trans. Richard Howard. New

York: Hill and Wang, 1982.

Barthes, Roland. Mourning Diary [2009]. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Hill and Wang, 2012.

Barthes, Roland. Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes [1975]. Trans. Richard Howard. Berkeley: U. of

California P, 1994.

Barthes, Roland. The Neutral, Lecture Course at the Collège de France (1977-1978) [2002]. Trans.

Rosalind E. Krauss and Denis Hollier. New York: Columbia UP, 2005.

Barthes, Roland. Writing Degree Zero [1953]. Trans. Jonathan Cape. Boston: Beacon Press, 1970.

Glück, Louise. Averno. Manchester: Carcanet Press, 2006.

Glück, Louise. Faithful and Virtuous Night. Manchester: Carcanet Press, 2014.

Glück, Louise. Meadowlands. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.

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Glück, Louise. Proofs and Theories. Hopewell: Ecco Press, 1994.

Mann, Thomas. Death in Venice: A New Translation, Backgrounds and Contexts. Ed. Clayton Koelb. New

York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1994.

Vendler, Helen. The Ocean, The Bird, and the Scholar, Essays on Poets and Poetry. Cambridge: Harvard

UP, 2015.

NOTES

1. The poem “A Summer Garden” was first published in Poetry (January 2012, available online:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/55237) and then, two years

later, in 2014, in the collection Faithful and Virtuous Night. Interestingly enough, the first version

of the poem is composed of four sections only, whereas the 2014 version unfolds across six pages

and is composed of five parts, each one consisting of more than twenty lines.

2. “[W]hen poems are difficult, it is often because their silences are complicated, hard to follow.

For me, the answer to such moments is not more language. What I am advocating is, of course,

the opposite of Keats’s dream of filling rifts with ore. The dream of abundance does not need

another defense. The danger of that aesthetic is its tendency to produce, in lesser hands, work

that is all detail and no shape” (Glück 1994: 82).

3. I am using the key notions of Spectator, Operator, Spectrum as Roland Barthes defines them in

Camera Lucida: “The Operator is the Photographer. The Spectator is ourselves, all of us who glance

through collections of photographs—in magazines and newspapers, in books, albums, archives…

And the person or thing photographed is the target, the referent, a kind of little simulacrum, any

eidolon emitted by the object, which I should like to call the Spectrum of the Photograph, because

this word retains, through its root, a relation to ‘spectacle’ and adds to it that rather terrible

thing which is there in every photograph: the return of the dead” (Barthes 1981: 9).

4. I am using “phantasmatic” in its sense of “relating to or of the nature of a phantasm;

phantasmal, incorporeal, illusory” (OED).

5. The phrase “in translation” is indicated in parentheses, attention is drawn to the book as an

artefact as the persona considers it for a while, “I held the book awhile” (ll. 33, 34).

6. The English translation of Thomas Mann’s Der Tod in Venedig (1912) quoted by Glück is by

Clayton Koelb (Mann 1994: 73).

7. The reference to “the immodest god” Helios “in the middle of the sky” recalls Mann’s

numerous mythological references in Death in Venice and, more particularly, the beginning of

chapter IV, with the reference to Helios in his chariot of fire. Glück often makes mythological

references, as in “A Myth of Innocence” in Averno, partly voicd by Persephone, aswhen she ibeing

abducted by Hades: “The sun seems in the water, very close. / That’s my uncle spying again, she

thinks—” (Glück 2006: 50, 7-8).

8. The stage is also referred to in the first stanza of “Afterword,” a poem from the same

collection: “Reading what I have just written, I now believe / I stopped precipitously, so that my

story seems to have been / slightly distorted, ending, as it did, not abruptly / but in a kind of

artificial mist of the sort / sprayed onto stages to allow for difficult set changes” (Glück 2013: 30,

1-5).

9. In the poem “Moonless Night” published in the collection Meadowlands, , a small band called

the Lights is “practising klezmer music” (Glück 1996: 9, 4).

10. It would not be the first time that the poet referred to Maria Callas: in the collection

Meadowlands, the opening poem “Penelope’s Song” refers to the voice of the opera singer: “call

out to him over the open water, over the bright water / with your dark song, with your grasping,

/ unnatural song—passionate, / like Maria Callas” (Glück 1996: 3, 11-4).

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11. “Desperate vitality” is an expression Roland Barthes used in his Lecture Course on the

Neutral in 1978 and which he took from Pasolini, as indicated in a note: “‘Una disperata vitalità’

is the title of one of the poems collected in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Poesia in forma di rosa. Barthes will

read its last stanza twice during the course: the first time at the opening of the March 4 session

and the second at the end of ‘Images of the Neutral,’ at the start of the March 18 session”

(Barthes 2005: 216).

ABSTRACTS

The article proposes a reading of the poem “A Summer Garden” by contemporary American poet

Louise Glück. The poem is from her recent collection, Faithful And Virtuous Night (2014), signalling

a radical change of style for the author, with the shift to longer, seemingly more narrative,

poems and to prose poems. Our intention here is to read “A Summer Garden”, a poem of

mourning, with the help of Roland Barthes, who discovered in “the Photograph of the Winter

Garden” the truth about his mother, who had died three years before the publication of La

Chambre claire in 1980. Louise Glück’s “A Summer Garden” starts with the discovery of a

photograph of the mother of the poem’s persona. The mother is sitting in a summer garden where

time seems to have stopped, to be caught in a temporal interstice and in the insistent repetition

of a summer which never seems never to come. We shall examine how Glück’s poetics decentres

and defers the punctum of her summer garden photograph, by convening a constellation of

deictics, of signs pointing outwards, to what is beyond the frame. While the pages turn black in

Glück’s writing, the multiple screens which the poem stages stay obstinately blank, as language

remains powerless in the face of grief paradoxically rendered impossible through writing.

L’article propose une lecture du poème « A Summer Garden » de la poète américaine

contemporaine Louise Glück. Il est tiré de son dernier recueil, Faithful And Virtuous Night (2014),

qui confirme un changement de style radical dans le parcours de l’auteure, avec des poèmes plus

longs, apparemment plus narratifs, et des poèmes en prose. Nous nous proposons de lire « A

Summer Garden », poème de deuil, à travers le regard de Roland Barthes qui avait trouvé en « la

Photo du Jardin d’Hiver » la vérité de sa mère, décédée trois ans avant que ne soit publié La

Chambre claire en 1980. “A Summer Garden” de Louise Glück s’ouvre sur la découverte d’une

photographie de la mère de la persona, assise dans un jardin d’été où le temps semble s’être

arrêté, pris dans l’oscillation et la répétition insistante d’un été qui semble ne jamais advenir.

Nous étudions comment la poétique de Glück décentre et diffère le punctum de sa photographie

du jardin d’été au moyen d’une constellation de déictiques, de signes qui montrent le dehors, le

hors-champ. Alors que les pages se noircissent chez Glück, les multiples écrans que le poème met

en scène demeurent obstinément vierges, le langage impuissant face à un chagrin que l’écriture

rend paradoxalement impossible.

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INDEX

Keywords: Glück Louise, mourning, photography, punctum, deferment, Barthes Roland,

American poetry

Mots-clés: Glück Louise, deuil, photographie, punctum, diffèrement, Barthes Roland, poésie

américaine

AUTHOR

MARIE OLIVIER

Marie Olivier is an associate professor in American literature at Université Paris Est Créteil Val de

Marne. She is a member of the IMAGER EA 3958 research laboratory. Her research is focused on

contemporary American poetry, literary theory, and on relations between music and literature.

Contact: marie.olivier [at] u-pec.fr

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Museums, the ExhibitionaryComplex and State Stability in theVictorian EraCécile Doustaly

1 Compared to other European nations, Britain was relatively late in opening free public

museums. The British liberal tradition meant that “culture” was not a field whose

support was in any sense self-evident, since it was not considered a matter for the State

and had been only marginally associated with the monarchy. George III, one of the rare

monarchs to be publicly involved in culture, notably for reasons of national prestige,

chose to intervene from a safe distance, when resorting to the legal instrument of a

Foundation for the creation of the Royal Academy of Arts, a private institution, which

became self-sufficient by 1780. In the first half of the 19th century, exhibitions of

private collections were popularised by semi-public galleries that had been established

through the generosity of patrons — a few aristocrats, but mostly bankers,

manufacturers, merchants or representatives of the liberal professionals (Doustaly

2010: 208-12).

2 In 1774, John Wilkes, Mayor of London, one of the early promoters of State support for

museums on democratic and nationalist grounds, lobbied in favour of a “truly” public

museum, at a time when admission to the British Museum was by ticket only and in

small groups, before it eventually opened without restrictions in 1810 (Wilkes 61). In

1832, during parliamentary debates on the question of funding for an appropriately

grand building for the National Gallery (created in 1824), the link between museums,

social control and State stability emerged through the voice of the Tory Robert Peel

(1832), who argued that in times of “political excitement, [and] exacerbation of angry

and unsocial feelings”, a National Gallery would “contribute […] to the cementing of the

bonds of union between the richest and poorer orders of State.” The new building was

inaugurated in 1838 in Trafalgar Square (Taylor 27, 51).

3 Little more was planned, in the field of museums, where the general opposition to State

funding remained strong. However, the succession of incremental reforms of the

franchise between 1832 and 1884, along with the modernisation of the State and the

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extension of education and other services, paved the way for the birth of the modern

museums. The debate gathered pace, as an increasing number of reformers and

philanthropists came to consider the practice of visiting museums to be an effective

means of gaining education and social skills. Once the issue came to be taken up in

Parliament, the range of policy objectives which could be invoked in the arguments for

the support of museums was extended to questions of international trade and prestige.

Instead of focusing solely on educational or cultural justifications, the arguments thus

took the form of what cultural policy researchers have theorised as an instance of

instrumentalism, where culture is promoted for a number of non-cultural ends

(Doustaly and Gray). From the desire to democratise culture to the need to civilise the

mob or to support the economy, an issue repeatedly taken up was that of the inclusion

of the poorer sections of the growing urban population, notably in industrial cities, i.e.

a population habitually constructed as constituting the “dangerous classes”. On what

grounds did supporters make their case, when lobbying government for legislation and

funds? Did the practice of going to the museum become a right or a duty of citizens?

And who were the real beneficiaries of public and philanthropic interest?

4 This paper focuses on the case made for the support of free public museums during the

Victorian era, a case which, in association with a wide array of other objectives,

stressed their capacity to encourage political stability through a consolidation of social

control. While researchers have developed conflicting views regarding the role of these

new public institutions, the periodisation and categorisation of the sources and agents

put forward in this article allow us to assess the relevance of the various factors and

theories, when studying specific periods and different types of museum. From the

1830s, a first period was marked by campaigns for top-down museum reform, in a

context of political instability and the birth of the rational recreation movement. The

Great Exhibition of 1851 then heralded an era of greater social stability. Through its

unquestionable success, both popular and financial, coupled with the evidence it

provided regarding the “good behaviour” of the working classes, it opened the way for

an extension and diversification of museums. During the latter part of the Victorian

age, some of these new institutions were confronted with controversies related to

religion, urbanisation, poverty and the continued attraction of undesirable pastimes

(criminality, betting, alcohol). While some museums sought to retain their aristocratic

origins, others attempted to cater to the interests of the working classes. Museums can

thus be said to have both reflected and influenced the cultural, social, political and

economic enterprise of stabilisation, as one institution within the institutional

framework which together make up the State, during a Victorian era that was alert to

the challenges posed by the conditions of an unstable contemporary world.

The motley coalition in favour of free public museums:enlightenment or control?

5 Culture in Britain was one of the numerous fields where government support was

initiated in response to philanthropic initiative and to radical politics. This explains

both the variety of actors, from all classes, who were involved — politicians, artists,

administrators, trustees, philanthropists, patrons and, as the century advanced,

growing numbers from the working classes — and also the range of arguments put

forward in support of the case for the creation of public museums. Actions ranged from

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the lobbying for the adoption of legislation to the search for additional private funding

(through patronage, subscriptions, fundraising), in an area where the State was

reluctant to interfere, and even more reluctant to spend funds, backed by the

prevailing public opinion on this point. In 1843, Punch criticized the offering of a free

exhibition at Westminster Hall, on the grounds that subsidies should have been spent on

the bare necessities of life: “The poor ask for bread, and the philanthropy of the State

accords them — an exhibition.”

“Substance and Shadow. Cartoon n° 1”, Punch, vol. 5 (8 July 1843): 22

Source: Wellcome Collection, https://wellcomecollection.org/works/vdm7xc4h.

6 The drive for rational recreation, from the 1830s onwards, proves that Victorians were

indeed concerned with the issue of poverty, but that they were also preoccupied with

what, in relation to drinking, gambling, prostitution or “idleness”, came to be termed

“the problem of leisure” and its cultural, moral, economic and political consequences.

While direct control was the realm of the State, charities initially were the most

important actors in the internalization of dominant Victorian norms and values. These

values were moral but were also political and economic: laissez-faire and self-help were

as central as respectability, morality or temperance. For middle-class nonconformist

philanthropists, “leisure activities should be controlled, ordered and improving”, while

social reformists argued that alternative leisure provision aimed at keeping the

population away from undesirable pastimes was both more humane and more effective

than coercion (Cunningham 129-30). The temperance movement and the Free Library

Movement, which both started in the 1830s, drew together different strands prevalent

among cultural reformists. There was no more consensus in evidence in relation to the

precise content of these moral values than in relation to the political, social or moral

values associated with arts and science collections. However, there was a clear

endorsement of the goal of rational recreation as a prerequisite for political stability.

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Museums were seen as effective instruments in the regulation of social behaviour,

endowing visitors with capacities for self-enrichment and moral self-governance.

7 While contending that “museums were not alone in being summoned to the task of the

cultural governance of the populace”, Bennett rightly demonstrated that, contrary to

other rational recreation facilities such as parks and libraries, museums gradually

became the site of a powerful nexus of interrelated rationales, systematically including

the economic dimension, while epitomising middle-class aspirations for a stable

Victorian society and politics:

Taste was a moral as well as an aesthetic concept. Many philanthropists and civic reformers

presumed, following Edmund Burke or later John Ruskin, that art and virtue were linked.

The opposite was also true: the lack of taste was equated with the lack of a moral sense. The

elevation of popular taste for the arts was also hailed as a means to improve industrial

design.

Education was a personal benefit, which also answered to political and economic objectives.

Better-educated people would sustain social order and allow for a more competitive

economy.

Socialising (“civilising”) allowed for the inculcation of middle-class social norms, through

the imitation and support for the basic values of British society, thereby ensuring social

control. Moral and political stability went hand in hand.

The goal of diminishing the appeal of non-rational pastimes was considered desirable on

moral grounds, health grounds (alcohol, sexually transmitted diseases), social grounds (to

combat poverty and criminality) and economic grounds (to increase the productivity of

workers) (Bennett; Woodson Boulton).

8 Given such a variety of potential virtues, museums began to be presented as the

legitimate and much needed sites for public action, their utility going beyond the vague

sphere of philanthropy, with the result that the arguments enumerated here came to

be put forward to support the case for legislation.

Political reform and indirect museum support

9 The museum question came to prominence as a result of the shift in power brought

about by the 1832 Reform Act, which admitted the middle classes in the parliamentary

system, resulting in an increased number of reformist and philanthropist MPs. The

various proponents ranged from James Silk Buckingham (1786-1855, radical MP for

Sheffield 1832-37), Benjamin Hawes (1797-1862, Whig MP 1832-51), to William Ewart

(1798-1869, a Liberal MP elected almost continuously in the period 1828-68). The

political defence of rational recreation took both indirect and direct forms: either

invoked in the discussion of issues relating to undesirable social practices, whether

alcohol consumption or political rebellion, or directly addressed, in the call for the

increased provision of museums: “Visiting art galleries became one of the privileges

and duties of the citizen.” (Taylor, XIII) The question of museum reform in Parliament

placed significant stress on its implication for commerce and for prestige. Thus from

the very birth of the modern museum, the arguments in support of its expansion were

based on a multifaceted instrumentalism, where the museum as a site of socialisation,

by way of the display of its collections, could be promoted as an instrument conducive

to a range of complex and positive social ends. The continuum of rationales in support

of museums also reflected the fact that advocates used the arguments which they felt

•

•

•

•

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would have the strongest impact, not necessarily those which they believed in most.

Humanists in particular often used utilitarian and religious arguments, museums thus

being presented as “an antidote to drunkenness, an alternative to riot, or an

instrument for civilising the morals and manners of the population.” (Bennett 21-2)

10 In the wake of the 1830 Beer Act, James Silk Buckingham persuaded MPs to appoint a

Parliamentary committee on “the extent, causes and consequences of the prevailing

vice of intoxication among the labouring classes.” It was dominated by the Evangelicals

and reflected the concerns of the temperance movement. Dubbed the “Drunken

Committee” by critics, it did not arouse much interest on party grounds. The report

contended that the control of drinking should lie within the responsibilities of the State

and that rational recreation, and notably museums, should be supported so as to

compete with the tavern, thus promoting sobriety and the industriousness of workers.

Buckingham’s view was that men did not visit the public-house for “the love of the

drink” but through the need for “cheerful and friendly intercourse […with] fellow

men.” The approach was considered “ridiculous” by The Times, while The Spectator

reported, “It is, indeed, a melancholy truth, that the Members of the House of

Commons roared with laughter during the reading of some parts of the Report.”1

11 The northern influence within the temperance movement explains why, on the

contrary, Sheffield and Leeds newspapers empathised with the report’s benevolent

recommendations, which were, according to Harrison, “imaginative [and] less sectarian

than those later embraced by most temperance reformers”, staying clear of prohibition

and coming down in favour of action on the quantity and quality of the drinking and

leisure on offer: “still more far-sighted [...] were the report’s positive proposals for

public leisure amenities”. This, along with a utopian planning project announcing

garden cites, caused Harrison to identify Buckingham as an “ancestor of the Welfare

State. (Harrison 272-300). While the three successive bills presented by Buckingham

were unsuccessful, his acknowledgement of environmental reasons for drunkenness

(isolation, poverty, repetitive jobs) and of the need for public recreation were shared by

some teetotaller chartists, by a number of eminent figures of the century (Owen,

Engels, Rowntree, Booth...), but also by members of the working class (Jennings 129-30,

161-3) and by Joseph Hume, a radical philanthropist, who somewhat exaggerated the

success of public recreation in London, declaring during the debates on the 1845

Museum Bill: “the people had deserted the public houses, preferring to visit places

where they could improve their minds.”2

12 The alleged superior “elevating” power of the arts meant they were sometimes dealt

with in isolation from science museums and libraries. In 1841 Benjamin Hawes

(1797-1862) chaired a Select Committee, whose members included public culture

supporters such as Peel, Hume and Ewart, on the need for a Royal Fine Arts Commission

to oversee decoration of the new Houses of Parliament, set up later that year. Though

dominated by the 1830s rationale in accordance with which the arts were regarded as

competitive assets through which to support national prestige and industry, Hawes also

underlined their beneficial educative and moral influence: “the promotion of the fine

arts can be considered […] as a means [to] the civilisation of our people; to give to their

minds a direction which may tend to withdraw them from habits of gross and sensual

indulgence.”3

13 Rational recreation was also invoked as a way to counter political unrest. The limited

franchise granted within the terms of the 1832 Reform Act, coupled with the

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implications of the 1834 New Poor Law, were factors contributing to the alienation of

the working classes and thus to the rise of the Chartist movement, orchestrated around

three great petitions and mass demonstrations (1839, 1842, 1848) that were repressed

by widespread imprisonment and deportation. The petitions, especially the last one,

caused great concern in government circles and among the propertied classes, who

feared a revolution. They therefore chose to assume responsibilities for the public

administration of leisure, thereby endorsing the assumption that leisure could or

should be instrumentalised, to prevent riot and sedition by keeping the working classes

occupied and content, away from political activity. In 1840, for instance, during the

celebrations marking the wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Edwin

Chadwick and the Chief Commissioner of police convinced the mayor of Manchester to

open the parks, the museum and the zoo in order to draw people away from the

Chartist meeting, which, it was expected, would otherwise have turned into a

demonstration (Taylor 65-6).

Legislating for public Museums

14 In the midst of Chartist unrest, and while most working-class men were still excluded

from the franchise, the 1832 Reform, by enlarging the number and profile of voters,

paved the way for the modernisation of local government. This, coupled with the 1835

Municipal Corporations Act expanding local powers, reduced the room for corruption,

while diversifying the social background of those elected to municipal office. More

dedicated reformers and philanthropists entered local politics and were thus in a

position to use their civic authority to spread the values they believed in, such as

temperance, education, self-help, faith and charity. Their social and moral values were

often associated with a democratic ideal and with utilitarian views. This was especially

the case amongst industrialists from the north, such as Robert Owen, who shared the

general objective of promoting the happiness for the majority through social, rational

and industrial reform based on a new and more egalitarian model of society. Some

mayors and municipal politicians became active in the field of museums, in association

with the temperance or the library and museum movement, which organised

exhibitions, gathered funds and lobbied for increased intervention, to be justified in

terms of the new role taken on by museums as public institutions (Carré 68-73, 95). This

diverse coalition of actors, along the lines of the “Liberals” in Parliament which

brought together whigs, radicals and Peelites (from 1846), before the Liberal party

assumed in 1859 its recognisable Victorian and Edwardian contours, enabled Museum

reform to gather pace.

15 The general framework for museum reform was significantly advanced by the voting of

legislation (1845, 1850 and 1855 Libraries and Museum Acts). Nevertheless, there

remained widespread differences in implementation, insofar as policy regarding

museums was legally dependent on a local initiative and a vote. Indeed, whereas there

was a consensus on the need for such institutions, the 1850 Library and Museum Bill

met with widespread opposition in Parliament from the Conservatives, who were both

alarmed at the cost implications of the scheme and at the social transformations it

might effect. Its adoption followed a second period of campaigning which was

representative of the Museum movement, as it was led jointly by two Liberal MPs,

William Ewart and Joseph Brotherton, and by the Chartist Edward Edwards — a former

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bricklayer who had educated himself in the libraries of the Mechanics’ Institute. The

Act led to a rapid increase in the number of museums in Britain (see below).

16 In order to interpret the symbolic power associated with museums, in the debates at

the end of the unstable 1830s and 1840s, Foucault’s theories constitute a useful

interpretative grid. In Foucaldean terms, the modern State is characterised by the

convergence of a specific set of rationalities, practices and techniques designed to

govern and organise the conduct of the individual citizen, as a component of a political

and civil collective. While classical sovereignty was defined by the ruler’s appropriation

of the right of death on its subjects, modern power was definable in terms of all the

relations which were active in the discipline and control of the social body. Modern

museums, within the framework of a liberal polity, were thus to be regarded as a

rational and effective instrument of “governmentality”, articulating power and

knowledge. They were based on educational specialisation and classification, whereas,

previously, collections had displayed curiosities and ornaments:

Museums and Libraries are heterotopias where time never ceases to pile up […]until the end of the seventeenth century, museum and libraries were the expressionof an individual choice. By contrast, the idea of accumulating everything, the ideaof establishing a sort of general archive, the will to enclose in one place all times, allepochs, all forms, all tastes, the idea of constituting a place of all times that is itselfoutside of time, and inaccessible to its ravages, the project of organizing in this waya sort of perpetual and indefinite accumulation of time in a place that will not move— well, all this belongs to our modernity. (Foucault 2008: 20)

17 Drawing on Foucault, Bennett has developed one of the most enlightening new

museological readings of Victorian museum reform. He argues that the transition

epitomised by these new public institutions ran parallel to that of scientific progress

and democratic reform: “the development of bourgeois democratic policies required

not merely that the populace be governable, but that it assent to its governance,

thereby creating a need to enlist active popular support for the values and objectives

enshrined in the State”. In a liberal government dominated by Victorian ethics,

museums were agents of an overall strategy aimed at producing a form of citizenship

resting on self-regulation rather than on coercion. Museums became central spaces

through which to foster such relations and were thus constructed as social spaces of

representation, observation and regulation of the norms of behaviour (Bennett drew on

Foucault 1977 and 1978, in Bennett 1-14, 89). From Bennett’s perspective, museums

were material and symbolic representations of State power “to show and tell”:

If the museum and the penitentiary thus represented the Janus face of power, therewas none the less, at least symbolically, an economy of effort between them. Forthose who failed to adopt the tutelary relation to the self promoted by popularschooling or those whose hearts and minds failed to be won in the new pedagogicrelations between State and people symbolized by the open doors of the museum,the closed walls of the penitentiary threatened a sterner instruction in the lessonsof power. Where instruction and rhetoric failed, punishment began.

18 Bennett also contrasted museums to other heterotopias, notably those of popular

culture, characterised by a limited timespan and associated with irrationality, disorder

and instability, such as festivals, fairs, circuses, pleasure gardens or even cabinets of

curiosities, but also international exhibitions (Bennett 87-8).

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The Great Exhibition: displaying Victorianprogressivism and stability?

19 Saville has shown how the legacy of the Great Exhibition was used to counterbalance

other less consensual turning-points in the mid-19th century, in particular Chartist

troubles — which incidentally also took place in Hyde Park — even though they had

only been a weak echo of the European revolutionary movements of the period. He did,

however, acknowledge that the Great Exhibition constitutes a more appropriate marker

through which to plot the transition from the radicalism and agitation of the 1840s.

1848 can thus be taken as the emblem of an era of agitation, while the Exhibition came

to reflect the dominant context of the liberal 1850s and 1860s during which class

conflict was subsumed, through the improvements in economic and educational

conditions (Saville 205-8), in turn associated with increased popular interest in

exhibitions and consumption.

20 Purbrick has rightly identified why the Exhibition came to be the landmark in most

periodisations used in Victorian historiography, regardless of the field, opening “

nineteenth-century histories as if it was a revolution, a coronation, the last year of the

war or the first of a Parliament.” Not only was the Exhibition associated with a

narrative of success on all fronts (commercial, logistical, cultural, technological…), it

was also considered as a vanguard, emblematic instance of modernity, with its

functionalist approach to buildings, collections, to economics as well as to politics

(Purbrick 1-25), all epitomised in a commodified and global event, fusing national

production, consumption and the general public within an idealised promotion of the

industrial world. The event was physically embodied by a building, the Crystal Palace, a

utopian museum space presenting both unique artefacts and reproducible

manufactured commodities. For most commentators at the time, the Exhibition was a

resounding proof that the British model of government, based on collaborations with

charities, on industrial development and free trade, was conducive to social progress,

political stability and to international peace (Black 36-7).

21 Museum scholars concur on the pivotal role of the 1851 Great Exhibition in the

emergence of a conception of modern museums as instruments of stability, albeit with

certain variations in the interpretations, ranging from admiration to a critical

deconstruction of the designs thus pursued. Golby and Meikle (19) enthusiastically

contended that the Exhibition was “a wonderful occasion for fusing recreation with

instruction, thereby improving the lot and the minds of the working class.” Indeed,

although the Great Exhibition was not primarily organised as an event for workers, a

committee was set up to cater for their needs, thus explaining the total of 6 million

visitors who actually attended it. A leaflet was printed to inform them how to dress and

behave. Queen Victoria, in her correspondence, admitted her amazement at the

orderliness of the working-class public. The latter was mostly composed of artisans,

however, who had already been socialized through the routines and disciplines of

charities, workers’ associations or excursion clubs. Indeed, Mechanics’ Institutes had

already been organising modestly priced exhibitions allowing for the evening

attendance of workers. These were the pioneers of the modern public museums and the

extension of their opening hours (Bennett 72-3, 100). London museums benefited from

the Exhibition’s crowds: in the short term, visits increased (the British Museum

received more than two million visitors in 1851, more than the entire population of

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central London), while in the longer term, open door policies were consolidated (Altick

467).

22 While most researchers describe the project of the Exhibition as a middle-class one,

Gurney has analysed the appropriation of the Crystal Palace by the working class as a

space for recreation with the help of the Cooperative Movement and some temperance

organisations, although the content was closer to consumer culture rather than to

voluntary culture. James Cook, a temperance worker who devised educative package

tours as an alternative to undesirable leisure, took 165,000 visitors to the Great

Exhibition, thus setting in motion the trend to mass tourism. The Exhibition was also,

according to Gurney, an opportunity to celebrate the technical achievements of

workers and to highlight the possibility of class mobility through education. If the

Exhibition did not modify class relations overnight, as some narratives suggest, class

conflict in its 1830s and 1840s revolutionary form faded, replaced by a sustained

pressure from the respectable working classes for greater public action in the fields of

urban provision and culture (Gurney 128-40). Inconsequence, for Auerbach (1999),

rather than merely symbolising peace, progress and prosperity, the Great Exhibition

can be regarded as an opportunity given to the proponents of what were different

visions of industrialisation and modernity to fight for a new national identity,

grounded in the cultural rather than the political field.

23 The Exhibition was a landmark in the development of a public exhibitionary complex,

leading to the construction of museum institutions as social regulators, instruments in

the production of unified and reproducible narratives and iconographies of the Nation,

as such preferable to coercion, and that were to be socially effective in a more stable

climate (Purbrick 1, 8-9). Bennett identified social stability as the shifting paradigm of

museums in the mid-Victorian era: “The exhibitionary complex was a response to the

problem of order […] seeking to transform that problem into one of culture: a question

of winning hearts and minds as well as the disciplining and training of bodies”, where

civil society, industry and the State turned their efforts to the control of working-class

culture.” (Bennett 62) The success of the Exhibition in strengthening pride through the

affirmation of British industrial and cultural power, while also proving the working

classes’ capacity for good behaviour and their interest in instruction, was instrumental

in subsequent campaigns for further legislative and policy action.

Institutionalising the modern museum

24 The 1851 Exhibition’s Trust made use of the commercial profits it had reaped by

helping to found the South Kensington Museum (1852-1857), placed under the

responsibility of a new governmental Department of Science and Art and, until 1873,

directed by Henry Cole (1808-1882), a colourful and combative character. His

extraordinary career as a museum administrator was influenced by utilitarianism and

free trade, as he had been self-educated in the group of radicals around John Stuart Mill

and was active all his life in the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures

and Commerce. He was the driving force behind not only the 1851, 1862 and 1871-74

Exhibitions, but also the promotion of Museum legislation and the creation of museums

in London and in the provinces. The number of museums increased nationally from a

mere dozen in 1800 to almost 60 in 1850, and to at least 240 in 1887 (Bonyton and

Burton 1-10, 178-9; Pearson 45-6).

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25 The creation of the Department of Science and Art signalled the beginning of a fully-

fledged framework of State support for a modern institution, both administratively and

in terms of the objectives pursued. Indeed, the South Kensington Museum was the first

in Britain to be public. From its inception it was directly managed by the State rather

than by a Trust (a model which survived). It was also the first museum in the world to

actively encourage visits from workers by fitting gas lightings in order to allow for

after-work visits and by opening a restaurant with three different menus, at prices

affordable for most customers. The policy, subsequently developed elsewhere, proved

very popular, since fifteen million visitors passed through its doors between 1857 and

1883, including six million evening visitors (Altick 500).

26 Cole’s Memoirs (1884) shed light on his unique role, not only as a civil servant but also

as a social reformer representative of his times. His biographers rightly criticise the

selective quotes in Bennett’s work, which tend to present Cole as being disrespectful to

the working classes. They generally agree, however, that Cole considered museums as

instruments to an end: “He created and manipulated institutions, so that they exercised

social control, and embodied, endorsed and promoted certain values. […] He was

indubitably progressive, prescient of modern attitudes in his customer-oriented

policies; and his amiable view stand out well in the face of much modern thinking on

museums, which sees them as sites for social regulations.” Understanding Cole’s wish

to replace elite tastes, whether dictated by the aristocracy or artists, by a larger

middle-class appeal can enable us to overcome the perceived contradiction between his

authoritarian attitude in matters of taste and his positive social policies (Bennett 102;

Bonyton and Burton 6-8), or his ingenious curating and museological initiatives aimed

at the promotion of a quality “visitor experience”, notably for the working classes and

students.4 He was, furthermore, a worthy exemplar of Pearson’s “soft approach” to the

role of the Victorian State in the promotion of culture, citizenship and order, avoiding

the recourse to constraint, working “by example rather than by pedagogy; by

entertainment rather than by disciplined schooling; and by subtlety and

encouragement.” (Pearson 35)

27 If museums were increasingly seen as democratic entities, the policy priorities and the

justifications put forward for the Department of Science and Art’s finances were

instrumental: questions of social order, aesthetics, education and market economy

were linked in the promotion of “design reform.” The improvement in the quality of

British design, through exhibitions dedicated to the decorative and applied arts that

were to lead to an improvement in the proficiency in drawing, and through the lending

of artefacts upon demand from local museums, was a stated intention (Cole 366). Visual

literacy and cultural capital were regarded as being more central than literacy for the

new manual workers in the field of industrial design (Quinn). As Kriegel has noted:

“labor supplied the language, criteria and priorities for waging the culture war for the

mid-Victorian era.” The pressure for the emergence of a museum culture should not

then be exclusively seen in terms of social order. It should also be envisaged through

the interconnected lens of British global competitiveness in design and manufacturing

(Kriegel 159, 174-5).

28 However influential the new museology and cultural theory readings have been for the

identification of the general exhibitionary complex in the Victorian era, it is essential

to differentiate clearly between the various types of museum that emerged during the

period, in line with specific chronologies. In this way it is possible to differentiate

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between London and the provinces and to highlight questions of governance (rather

than governmentality), which was sometimes a bottom-up, horizontal or participatory

policy process. Museums in London, for instance, were under the influence of their

different administrators. Their models conform to what is a general pattern: from the

aristocratic British Museum, to the elitist National Gallery, to the modern South

Kensington and to its popular Bethnal Green branch. These developments can be

contrasted with those in municipalities outside the capital city, which produced a

somewhat different model, in which civic power was fused with local aspirations.

29 While Parliamentary committees and charities sought to draw on the provisions of

museum legislation to promote the edification of the working classes in middle-class

mores, some museum trusts and officials strove to retain an aristocratic or elitist

model, in keeping with the aristocratic names of their collections or the erudite guide

books they produced (Grewal 48). As Cole’s creation, the South Kensington museum was

characterised from the start by its openness in terms of public access and its support

for the bourgeois cultural canon: handcrafts and industrial objects were foregrounded

as examples of good design, on a par with their presentation as works of art, alongside

the museum’s fine arts pieces. The British Museum, by contrast, proved reluctant to

attract workers and only opened in the evenings in 1883. It was substantially expanded

through public funding and its natural history department was moved to new premises

in South Kensington to create the Natural History Museum in 1881, on lines closer to

the South Kensington model. In 1885 the latter separated its Science and Design

collections to create two distinct institutions (Bennett 71). During the 1880s, the

curating of London museums and the framework for their overall administration

gradually converged, enabling them to adapt to new audiences while reinforcing their

scientific specialization.

Local and Municipal Museums as agents of stability?

30 Although the inauguration in 1872 of a new museum marked the first visit in two

hundred years by royalty to Bethnal Green, the press, then and later, depicted the

locals as degenerate people who appeared unfit to benefit from the museum. In 1884,

the writer Walter Besant was severe in his assessment of the failures of London

museums to attract the poorer working class, burdened as they were by material

hardships and in need of tuitional mediation: “The Bethnal Green Museum does no

more to educate the people than the British Museum. It is to them simply a collection

of curious things which is sometimes changed. It is cold and dumb.” On the contrary,

Besant praised the appeal to those with a wish to learn, mainly artisans, of the

voluntary multi-activity Toynbee Hall, set up by Samuel Barnett, an Anglican priest and

Christian socialist reformer (Kriegel 182; Besant 342-53).

31 The initial project of Bethnal Green was, as Kriegel notes, an example of “design reform

from below. If the working man would not come to South Kensington, South

Kensington would come to the working man.” This had been welcomed locally, as parts

of the working classes had become “cultural consumers and political subjects.” The

relative failure was therefore not necessarily due to the museum’s focus on the

“relevant and the improved,” which met the expectations of some workers. It was

rather to be explained in terms of the lack of sufficient management, mediation and the

quality of collections — the place being dubbed the “asylum for South Kensington

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refuse.” Local people wishing to donate small objects were tactlessly turned away and

Sir Richard Wallace saved the museum’s reputation by consenting a large loan

(painting, porcelain and furniture), that was completed by exhibitions praising

Victorian industrial and scientific success (local trade, industrial production, design,

medicine, hygiene, sewage systems). Kriegel ultimately concludes that Bethnal Green

was quite popular with external middle-class visitors and local artisans, but that,

contrary to its intended purpose of social disciplining, what it provided was a space for

civic pride, sociability or self-display, thus attenuating somewhat the overall

interpretation of exhibitionary institutions as instruments of social control. Sources

concur with Black’s view that the museum was successful in the more humble objective

of offering some competition to the public house during evening hours and bank

holidays (Kriegel 162, 178-87, 198; Black 33-4).

32 Cultural power tended to become more widely shared locally, as organisations were

obliged to lobby for funding. The resulting institutions, under the influence of the local

Council, usually took into account the tastes, interests and leisure patterns of their

public. In order to get the 1850 Museum Bill through Parliament, William Ewart had to

agree to a number of compromises: local referendums would have to show the approval

of at least two-thirds of ratepayers, while local rates could be increased by no more

than a halfpenny in the pound to pay for the service. Although the sum was increased

to one penny in 1855, it remained insufficient. Projects were therefore heavily

dependent on donations and on voluntary subscriptions, notably from working men’s

committees. The 1877 Museums Act retained the requirement for local approval, albeit

through a simple majority vote in a poll or a public meeting of ratepayers (Waterfield).

Regarding policy-making, certain unintended effects could occur, and in this case, the

initial framework of anti-interventionism and conservative restrictions had a positive

impact on the democratic process, fostering bottom-up participation, encouraging local

appropriation and ultimately leading to popular success. David Chadwick noted that, in

1856, Salford Museum (the first municipal museum opened in 1850 within the terms of

the 1845 Act) attracted twice as many visitors as the British Museum, notably because it

opened in the evenings.

33 Municipal museums established in cities such as Glasgow, Leeds, Salford, or

Nottingham also reflected their specific social contexts, as the examples of two local

patrons and the campaigns to house budding collections the Walker Gallery in

Liverpool (1877) and the Harris Museum in Preston (1893) illustrate. The benefactors

subscribed to the common view that their trusts would enforce social control, restore

community cohesion and develop education, aims regarded as desirable for society’s

well-being. Edmund R. Harris (1803-1877), the son of a vicar, was a discreet solicitor

who bequeathed his entire fortune for charitable and educational purposes, “as the

Trustees would seem most needed.” Andrew Barkley Walker (1824-1893) had a very

different agenda: he was trying to secure a better reputation, as his business as a

brewer had alienated some local people, notably members of the Temperance

Movement. In response to the movement’s call for an art gallery, and even though

Walker had no particular interest in art, he donated funds during his lifetime in order

to mark his time as Mayor (Doustaly 2007: 79-90).

34 Museums helped redefine the interaction between a local council and public life, thus

contributing to the reimagining of industrial cities. Along with other cultural

amenities, cities started to compete through their museums in the adornment of city

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centres, in accordance with a policy motivated by designs that involved goals of social

control and moral improvement as well as civic pride. They thus embodied a modern

governmental approach. In designing their collections, galleries took account of the

local tastes for contemporary figurative British painters, neglecting old masters, in

opposition to Eastlake’s curatorship at the National Gallery in London. For Woodson-

Boulton, the period epitomised the dominant “conception of museums as a public good

and of museums as spaces that could offer all of the moral and aesthetic refuge of the

middle-class home” and a protection from the industrial alienation deplored by Ruskin.

These domesticated public spaces took on specific forms in industrial cities that were

endowed with rich collections of Victorian painting, notably Liverpool, Birmingham

and Manchester (both opened in 1883). Their success was impressive: in 1891, the

Walker Gallery attracted an attendance equal to the total population of Liverpool

(around 500,000); Manchester, with a similar census-recorded population, could boast

an attendance of around 300,000. These figures imply widespread appeal, even if bulk

museum statistics always need to be qualified, as they also correspond to multiple visits

by some members of the public. As today, event management strategies were devised in

order to attract more visitors. These included social events, free drinks on Sundays and

temporary autumn exhibitions, which proved very popular in the 1880s. Municipal

museums therefore sought to appeal to different tastes and to people of different

means, even if the result was to discriminate between classes (Woodson-Boulton 1, 12,

59, 152).

35 Waterfield (2015) has minutely documented the chronology of the emergence of

municipal museums as popular places of civic culture, arguing that it was only when

their popular appeal weakened and as they were professionalised at the end of the 19th

century that their curating became more conservative, not earlier.

The success of rational recreation in the face ofreligious controversy

36 After the “heydays of rational recreation” in the 1830s and 1840s (Cunningham 129-30),

in reaction to the association between popular leisure and a dangerous instability, the

second period, opened by the Great Exhibition was marked by the acceptance in public

opinion that leisure was “a necessary amenity, a basic overhead in the maintenance of

an industrial society”. During the period, the aspirations of working-class men were

better represented, notably by the passing of two further Reform Acts (1867, 1884),

leading to a less didactic approach to leisure (Bailey 94). Although recent museology

tends to analyse rational recreation as social control, through the succeeding decades

of the Victorian era it increasingly came to be perceived at the State level as a factor of

social progress for the working classes, part of a more general trend towards social

meliorism.

37 Although the funds which charities drew on mostly came from the traditional elites, it

was the middle classes who played an active role within them, and whose values and

tastes proved most influential, along with women, who became more active both as

organisers and as visitors to museums (Parratt). Reasons for support remained

intertwined and partly contradictory, in an evolving urban, religious and political

context: the duty of charity was reaffirmed, in response to the influence of new

religious trends and out of an awareness of a widening gap and geographical

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segregation between the poor and the rich, combined with fears of disorder. In the

1880s, concerted efforts were made to re-establish social links with poorer

neighbourhoods. London’s East End, located at the heart of the capital, epitomised

these new anxieties. Philanthropists regretted the lack of local social leadership, as

business owners increasingly moved out, choosing to live at some distance from the

location of their factories and from their workers’ dwelling-places. As Beaven notes,

rational recreationists were divided into two strands: some strove to expose the

working classes to high culture, while others still attempted to impose moral order and

to fight popular pastimes, “uncivilized leisure”, constructed as a threat (Beaven 28-33).

38 The Labour movement, and indeed some charities, notably the Salvation Army which

was very popular in the 1880s and 1890s, were in agreement that leisure was a

“dangerously open-ended world”, which needed to be controlled, opposing the

deserving to the undeserving poor. Bailey has documented how little popular culture

was in any sense understood, and how attempts to promote rational recreation often

failed to attract the very category it was intended for. Parts of the Temperance

Movement, which had fragmented since the 1830s, became allied with Sabbatarian

organisations, notably with the most important among them, the Lord’s Day

Observance Society (1831-1860s), opposing all kinds of Sunday recreation, including

museums. While they enjoyed scant support within Parliament, they were a well-

organised lobby, producing numerous petitions, campaigning against Sunday or

evening opening of museums or against the exhibition of works deemed immoral

(partially naked scenes in particular, even when they were religious). They managed to

postpone by fifteen years the opening of the British Museum and the National Gallery

on Sundays, until a more liberal Law was eventually promulgated in 1896.

Paradoxically, they never dared oppose the opening of pubs on Sundays (Bailey 31;

Vervaecke 139).

39 In this context, the onus was on museums to prove their positive influence. One of the

assessments to be invoked was a House of Commons committee report, which

concluded in 1860 that the South Kensington Museum had been successful in the

encouragement of temperance, since only one person had been excluded for

drunkenness since it had opened. Statistics proudly estimated an average consumption

per person of 2,5 drops of wine, 14/15th of a drop of brandy, 10,5 drops of beer (Altick

500)! The cross-reading of Cole’s memoirs and of his speeches points to the fact that he

genuinely believed in the capacity of museums to compete with the pub, provided they

offered a bar, as did South Kensington. In a long 1875 address, he regretted the British

slowness to recognise museums as civilising forces:

If you wish to vanquish Drunkenness and the Devil, make God’s day of rest elevatingand refining to the working man. […] As he cannot live in church or chapel allSunday […], open all museums of science and art after the hours of divine service,let the working man get his refreshment there in company with his wife andchildren rather than leave him to booze away from them in the Public House andGin Palace. The museum will certainly lead him to wisdom and gentleness, and toHeaven, whilst the latter will lead him to brutality and perdition. (Cole 367-8)

40 In studying cultural practices, it is essential to analyse the extent to which the public

managed to adapt a top-down cultural offer, reappropriating it in terms of their own

expectations.

41 Reasons for the presence of working-class visitors in the museum were varied, as was

pointed out in sketches and reports from the period: some were attracted by the free

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novelty, by works of art depicting violence, sex or flesh; some simply wanted to keep

warm in winter or to observe the other classes. Contrary to widespread expectations,

this did not mean they necessarily emulated middle-class manners afterwards. Neither

were these “masses” homogeneous, which implies the crucial importance of the

differentiations to be drawn between the various sections of working-class visitors.

Although comprehensive statistics are lacking, it would appear that after the initial

appeal of novelty had abated, and with the expansion in the range of leisure activities

on offer, most museums went on to attract skilled artisans whose situation was close to

that of the middle class, thereby playing an active role in the self-education of a social

group that acquired cultural capital from their attendance. The success of State

intervention is therefore a question which needs to be qualified, as, in comparison,

exhibitions organised by voluntary or cooperative societies, such as Toynbee Hall,

enjoyed a wider popular appeal amongst the working classes (Taylor 51-5, 75, 79,

122-4).

Conclusions

42 A series of factors explain the rapid development of modern museums, national or

municipal, in the second part of the 19th century, and in particular the construction of

museums as instruments of social stability, or “passionless reformers”, as George

Brown Goode wrote in his 1895 Principles of Museum Administration (Goode 71).

Politically, museums were harnessed as instruments of cultural power, to be deployed

towards citizens and also towards the rest of the world. The objectives of middle-class

philanthropists and those of radicals converged at this point, however different the

values motivating their participation in the overall enterprise: while the former tended

mostly to adopt a religious and utilitarian approach, the latter viewed public

institutions in more democratic terms (Crook 90).

43 While interpretations vary, there is an overall agreement that neither the enthusiasm

of the general public for museums, nor the presumption as to their capacity for social

control, were either all-encompassing or long-lasting. For Bennett, the permanent fairs

that developed at the end of the 19th century contributed more directly and effectively

to the mob’s improved mores than did museums. Such a view tends to reduce the

traditional opposition between these two heterotopias, deriving respectively from

popular and high culture, a gap partly bridged by universal exhibitions (Bennett 3-5, 8),

but also by the exhibitions hosted by charities, and to some extent through Henry

Cole’s policies of museum democratisation. It also confirms how modern the Victorians

were, in terms of their more than burgeoning commodification of culture. This last

feature challenges the idealised vision of the first museums as agoras where the various

parts of the population mingled. During the late Victorian and Edwardian period,

leisure, formerly a masculine sphere, both in terms of its regulation and its practice,

began to concern women, as more upper-class and middle-class women became

involved in philanthropic actions aimed at offering improving alternatives to the

preferred amusements available to working class women, the pub and the music-hall

(Doustaly 2012).

44 Although new museological approaches rightly focus on museums as sites of power, the

deployment of social control through Victorian museums hardly fits into one single

category or chronology. As is the case today, different institutions had different

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curating, access and promotion policies, and even though at the beginning of the

Victorian era museums were mostly supported by the State as instruments for the

maintenance of political stability, various forms of cultural and economic

instrumentalism were subsequently to develop, from cultural domination,

consumption, luxury, tourism, to place branding. Any overall assessment regarding the

power of museums or about their effects must not however be overstated, insofar as

they reflect the contradictory tensions between the social, economic and political

objectives:

The successes and failures of these Victorian museums, their histories, reveal atragic fact of the modern age: thriving cultural institutions such as city artmuseums arose out of the same wealth that caused or profited from, at least in part,the very inequalities they were meant to alleviate. We still cannot solve this basicconundrum. On the one hand, industrial capitalism and its attendant form ofimperialism and globalization create vibrant cities, people, and culturalinstitutions, such as public museums. On the other, the same forces give rise totremendous suffering, poverty, and conflict, ills that no art collection, regardless ofsize or quality, can hope to abolish. (Woodson-Boulton 6)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Buckingham, James Silk. History and Progress of the Temperance Reformation. 1854. 559-62.

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Cole, Henry. Fifty Years of Public Work of Sir Henry Cole, K. C. B., Accounted for in his Deeds, Speeches and

Writings. London: George Bell and Sons, 2 vols., 1884.

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Doustaly, Cécile. “La genèse du soutien public aux beaux-arts à Londres aux XVIIIe et XIXe

siècles.” In Londres 1700-1900 : naissance d’une capitale culturelle. Ed. Jacques Carré. Paris: Presses

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de la société britannique - Journal of Contemporary British Studies (8) 2010: 319-338. DOI : 10.4000/osb.

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Doustaly, Cécile. Le soutien public à l'art en Angleterre du XIXe siècle à la fin des années 1960 : de la

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Paris 3, 2007.

Doustaly, Cécile. “Women and Leisure in Britain: Twentieth Century Historiography and Socio-

cultural Trends.” In Leisure and Cultural Conflict in Twentieth-century Britain. Ed. Brett Bebber.

Manchester: Manchester UP, (2012) 2016. 181-204.

Foucault, Michel. “Of Other Spaces, Heterotopias”, 1984 [1967]. In Heterotopia and the City: Public

Space in a Postcivil Society. Lieven De Cauter and Michiel Dehaene, eds. Trans. Michiel Dehaene.

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Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York:

Random House, 1977.

Foucault, Michel. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College De France, 1977-1978. Michel

Senellart, Arnold Davidson et al. eds. Trans. Graham Burchell. London: Palgrave Macmillan,

[1978] 2009.

Golby, John and Meikle, Scott. The Great Exhibition and Re-reading Hard Times. Milton Keynes: Open

University, 1986.

Goode, G. B. Principles of Museum Administration. York: Coultas and Volans, 1895.

Grewal, Inderpal. “Constructing National Subjects: The British Museum and Its Guidebooks.” In

With Other Eyes: Looking at Race and Gender in Visual Culture. Ed. Lisa Bloom. Minneapolis: U. of

Minnesota P., 1999. 44-57.

Gurney, Peter, “An appropriated space: the Great Exhibition, the Crystal Palace and the working

class.” In The Great Exhibition of 1851, New Interdisciplinary Essays. Ed. Louise Purbrick. Manchester:

Manchester UP, (2001) 2013. 114-145.

Harrison, Brian. “Two Roads to Social Reform: Francis Place and the ‘Drunken Committee’ of

1834.” The Historical Journal 11(2) 1968: 272-300. DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X00002028

House of Commons. The extent, causes and consequences of the prevailing vice of intoxication among the

labouring classes. London: D. Martin, 1834.

House of Lords. First Report of the Royal Commission on the Fine Arts. 1841.

Jennings, Paul. A History of Drink and the English, 1500–2000. London: Routledge, 2016.

Kriegel, Lara. Grand Designs, Labor, Empire and the Museum in Victorian Culture. Durham: Duke UP,

2007.

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Parratt, Catriona M. “Making Leisure Work: Women's Rational Recreation in Late Victorian and

Edwardian England.” Journal of Sport History 26(3) 1999: 471-487. https://www.jstor.org/stable/

43609678

Pearson, Nicholas M. The State and the Visual Arts. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982.

Peel, Sir Robert . “Debate on Supply: National Gallery.” Hansard, 23 July 1832, XIV, col. 645.

Quinn, Malcolm. Utilitarianism and the Art School in Nineteenth-Century Britain. London: Pickering &

Chatto, 2013.

Saville, John. 1848. The British State and the Chartist Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, (1987)

1990.

Taylor, Brandon. Art for the Nation, Exhibitions and the London Public, 1747-2001. Manchester:

Manchester UP, 1999.

Vervaecke, Philippe. “Les loisirs dominicaux contestés : la Lord’s Day Observance Society et le

respect du ‘Sabbat’, 1831-2006.” Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique 14(1) 2007: 135-146.

Waterfield, Giles. The People's Galleries, Art Museums and Exhibitions in Britain, 1800-1914. New Haven:

Yale UP, 2015.

Wilkes, John. The Speeches of John Wilkes, One of the Knights of Middlesex, 1774-1777. vol. 2, London: no

ed., 1777.

Woodson-Boulton, Amy. Transformative Beauty, Arts Museums in Industrial Britain. Stanford:

Stanford UP, 2012.

NOTES

1. Buckingham (559-62) quoted in Harrison (280); House of Commons, 591 p. Hansard, 25,

c. 963-70, 5 August 1834; The Times, 7 August 1834; The Spectator, 9 August 1834.

2. House of Commons, Debate 6 March 1845, vol. 78. cc387.

3. B. Hawes, Minutes of Evidence, 25 May 1841, House of Commons, Report from the Select

Committee on Fine Arts, 18 June 1841, p. 18. See also p. V-VIII.

4. N. Smith: “Vertical Stands”, http://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/tales-archives/henry-coles-vertical-

stands-early-display-cases-at-the-va. See also the other blogs from the Victoria and Albert

Museum curators and archivists.

ABSTRACTS

This paper focuses on the different agents, whether public, private or voluntary, who in the

Victorian Age campaigned in favour of the opening of public museums, whether national, local or

municipal, and who invoked an intrication of cultural, political, social and economic rationales to

muster support. In particular, these agents foregrounded the supposed capacity of museums to

educate, pacify and control sections of the population considered as a threat to state stability.

How were these objects of concern, i.e. the working classes, presented in the different discourses

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and actions relating to museums, before and after their opening? The Victorian period was one of

unstable, shifting social conditions in urban areas, characterised by an increased dynamic of

urbanisation, coupled with neighbourhood segregation and related problems (criminality,

betting, alcohol).These changes spurred the development of the rational recreation movement,

whose support for the creation of public cultural institutions is examined here. The 1851

Exhibition is focused on, insofar as it provided a quite different exhibitionary complex and

context, compared to that of museums. 1851 is identified as a turning point of the Victorian Era,

involving as it did a shift away from the pacifying function, until then associated with museums.

In conclusion, the article examines the factors which enabled these Victorian public museums to

attract large number of visits from the working classes, in a context of enduring class distinction.

The article draws on primary sources and also on established theories of social control, from that

of Bailey (a leisure historian) and Bennett (who drew on Foucault’s approach to apprehend the

function of museums), but also on Parrat, Taylor, Kriegel, and, more recently, Jennings, Quinn,

Purbrick and Woodson Boulton. The periodization, categorisation of actors, and the typology of

museums proposed in this paper allows us to highlight the specific relevance of the conflicting

theories regarding the role of museums.

Cet article s’intéresse aux différents acteurs, publics, privés ou associatifs, qui durant l’époque

victorienne ont mené des campagnes en faveur de l’ouverture de musées, nationaux, locaux,

municipaux, en s’appuyant sur un écheveau d’arguments culturels, politiques, sociaux et

économiques,, en invoquant notamment la capacité supposée des musées à éduquer, pacifier,

contrôler des pans de la population jugés instables, susceptibles donc de menacer la sécurité et

stabilité de l’État. Comment était présenté cet objet d’inquiétude, c’est-à-dire la classe ouvrière,

dans les différents discours et actions en lien avec les musées, avant et après leur ouverture ? La

période correspond à une mutation des villes : accélération de l’urbanisation et de la ségrégation

des quartiers, problèmes associés (criminalité, jeux d’argent, alcool), qui conduisent au

développement d’un mouvement en faveur des loisirs censés être porteurs d’une visée

moralisatrice. Le soutien manifesté pour la création d’institutions culturelles publiques est

analysé ici en regard de celui attesté pour d’autres mouvements et associations. La Grande

Exposition de 1851 est abordée, dans la mesure où elle établit un contexte expositionnel

spécifique, différent de celui des musées. Le moment peut donc être identifié comme un tournant

dans l’ère victorienne et dans le rôle pacificateur jusqu’alors associé avec les musées. Enfin, sont

analysées les raisons pour lesquelles ces musées victoriens parviennent à attirer un grand

nombre de visiteurs issus de la classe ouvrière, bien que les distinctions de classe restent

opérantes. L’article s’appuie sur des sources primaires, sur les théories classiques sur le contrôle

social : de Bailey (historien du loisir) et de Bennett (qui s’appuie sur les théories de Foucault, en

les appliquant aux musées britanniques), mais aussi sur Parrat, Taylor, Kriegel, et, plus

récemment, Jennings, Quinn, Purbrick and Woodson Boulton. La périodisation, la catégorisation

des acteurs, la typologie des musées articulés dans l’article, permettent d’interroger et de tester

la pertinence relative des théories divergentes quant au rôle assumé par les musées.

INDEX

Mots-clés: époque victorienne, musées, 1851 Grande Exposition, éducation, contrôle social,

classes sociales, muséographie, patrimoine culturel, associations caritatives

Keywords: Victorian era, museums, 1851 Great Exhibition, education, social control, social

classes, museography, cultural heritage, charities

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AUTHOR

CÉCILE DOUSTALY

Dr Cécile Doustaly is Senior Lecturer at the University of Cergy-Pontoise (Greater Paris) where

she is coordinator of the Research Group on Heritage (Research Centre AGORA - Labex Patrima).

She created and is the Director of the Master programme in International Cultural Tourism. After

studies at the Sorbonne-Nouvelle in Paris (British Studies) and in the University of Reading

(Sociology), she completed her PhD on public support for the arts in England 1832-1970. Her

multidisciplinary research focuses on comparative urban and cultural policies and on arts and

heritage mediation and management. More details: https://www.u-cergy.fr/fr/_plugins/

mypage/mypage/content/cdoustal.html. Contact: cecile.doustaly [at] u-cergy.fr

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Victorian Rainbow Makers:Variations on Colour PoeticsCharlotte Ribeyrol

1 In his 1871 reissuing of George Field’s Chromatography, Thomas Salter retraced the

invention of the first artificial dyes made from coal-tar,1 which the older chemist, who

had died in 1854, could not have witnessed. Although all the poetic quotations in Field’s

part-literary, part-scientific discussion of colouring practices were excised from this

edition, Salter waxed lyrical when he evoked the wealth of new chromatic terms made

available by the expanding chemical and textile industries:

The violet mauve led the way, followed by the red magenta, the blue azuline, theyellow phosphine, the green emeraldine, the orange aurine, by purple, and brown,and black. […] The world rubbed its eyes with astonishment; and truly it seemedalmost as wonderful to produce the colours of the rainbow from a lump of coal, asto extract sunshine from cucumbers.The history of these colours reads more like a romance than a sober story. (Salter162-3)

2 In the preface to his 1993 study entitled The Rainbow Makers, Anthony S. Travis resorts

to similar literary comparisons to retrace the history of the synthetic dyestuffs

industry:

This was the first act of a drama that rapidly unfolded across Europe, and,somewhere along the way, caused Perkin to become a legend in the history ofmodern science and technology. The story of Perkin’s mauve and the astonishingrainbow of successors that appeared during the second half of the nineteenthcentury is the subject of this book. (Travis 9)

3 Like Salter, Travis exploits the fictional — or rather “dramatic” — potential of William

Perkin’s accidental discovery which gave rise to a “mauve mania”2 throughout Europe.

Perkin himself is here turned into a “legend” — that is to say an almost mythical

character whose story is to be told and read (legenda).

4 If such literary images are rather unexpected in a scientific work, when it comes to

studies of colour the metaphor of the rainbow is not infrequently used.3 In ancient

philosophy, the problematic ontological status of colour — as shifting and elusive as the

rainbow itself — had often been the object of deprecatory comments, in particular by

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Plato and Aristotle. 4It was Isaac Newton’s pioneering experimentum crucix which

ushered colour into the field of modern science by explaining that white light is made

up of the seven colours of the spectrum, drawing on a comparison with the

phenomenon of the rainbow as a direct illustration of his theory.5 This experiment

paved the way for the modern science of colorimetrics6 which emerged in the 1860s.

The second half of the 19th century was indeed a turning point in the experience of

colour as both its production and perception became the object of increased scientific

scrutiny. This, in turn, prompted diverse reactions from poets and artists, just as

Newton’s prism experiment had triggered off numerous responses from Romantic

writers, from Goethe to Keats.

5 But contrary to 19th-century chemists, whose colourful inventions Salter poetically

compared to muticoloured “flowers” in a “garden of tropic tints”, Newton was

perceived by Romantic poets, suspicious of rationalist classifications, as a defacer of the

beauty of nature, an un-maker of rainbows. If the romantic rebellion against Newton’s

scientific approach to colour as light has been rather well-documented, the conflicting

attitudes of late 19th century poets towards modern rainbow makers, experimenting on

colouring matter, have been strangely overlooked. In his evocation of the multiple

applications of aniline dyes, Salter does, however, mention their use by painters (as

aniline components may have been used to make certain types of madder pigments),

which he immediately discards as the new colours were soon discovered to be as

fugitive as the rainbow (Salter 163). But despite his use of literary images, he does not

envisage to what extent the new chromatic terminology devised by chemists may have

also destabilized the poetic or rather poietic process — from the Greek poien, meaning

“to make”. How did Victorian writers respond to the industrial production of these

modern rainbows which were widely discussed in the press at the time? In order to

explore the creative tensions brought about by such chromatic instability, this paper

will focus on the poetic inscription of ancient and modern colouring practices in the

works of John Ruskin, William Morris, Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde.

6 The first part of my analysis will retrace the Victorian posterity of Keats’s anti-

Newtonian “rainbow-sided” Lamia, a poetic plea in favour of chromatic exuberance as

opposed to the fixity and strictures of scientific rule. This will be followed by a

reflection on nostalgic reponses to the colour revolution brought about by the

discovery of aniline dyes, in particular in the works of Ruskin, Morris and Pater who

craved for ancient Greek colour-weaving or poikilia — a Hellenic term encoding

dappledness as well as versatility. In keeping with the moral ambiguity suggested by

this Victorian poikilia, the focus of the final section will be on colour-perception and

late 19th century pseudo-scientific tracking of perceptual deviance, from Homer’s

purple rainbow to the “indigomania” of fin-de-siècle artists and poets.

I. The romantic texture of the rainbow, from Keats toWilde

7 In The Art of England (1883), Ruskin praised the chromatic harmony of William Holman

Hunt’s Our English Coasts (Strayed Sheep) (1852):

It showed us, for the first time in the history of art, the absolutely faithful balancesof colour and shade by which actual sunshine might be transposed into a key inwhich the harmonies possible in material pigments should yet produce the same

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impression upon the mind which were caused by light itself. (Ruskin, The Art ofEngland v. 23: 272-3)7

8 If the experience of painters mixing their colours on the palette contradicted Newton’s

findings (as mixing all the colours does not produce white light but brown matter, a

distinction which would later be theorised as the opposition between substractive and

additive mixture), Ruskin here clearly strove to overcome the difference between

immaterial light and the materials at the artist’s disposal.8 Contrary to the Neo-

Impressionists who would further experiment with optical mixture a few years later,

Ruskin’s obsession with the ethereal nature of colour was not only an aesthetic stance:

it also had a personal resonance. His unease with chromatic materiality, a materiality

deeply connected to the feminine body, is well illustrated by his ambiguous response to

the meretricious hues of his beloved Venice.9 This may explain some of his references

to the rainbow in Stones of Venice, which he refused to describe in Newtonian terms:

In that heavenly circle which binds the statutes of colour upon the front of the sky,when it became the sign of the covenant of peace, the pure hues of divided lightwere sanctified to the human heart forever; nor this, it would seem, by merearbitrary appointment, but in consequence of the fore-ordained and marvellousconstitution of those hues into a sevenfold, or, more strictly still, a threefold order,typical of the Divine nature itself. (Ruskin, Stones of Venice v. 10: 174-5)

9 Although the passage in Genesis 9:13 does not refer to any of the colours of the sacred

bow, Ruskin is careful to replace Newton’s sevenfold spectrum by a trinity of holy

colours.10 This is certainly part of Ruskin’s effort to celebrate “Colour,” as “the

purifying or sanctifying element of material beauty” (Modern Painters v. 7: 417). As

noted by John Barrie Bullen, Ruskin, who had been living with the bride of his

unconsummated marriage in Venice in 1851, constructed “an elaborate theory which

sought to disengage colour (and Venetian colour in particular) from the material and

the sensual, and connect it with something more ethereal — love” (Bullen 130-1).

10 Drawing on the Romantic rhetoric of Keats and Wordsworth, Ruskin equally believed

that the beautiful rainbow, symbolising God’s covenant of mercy with Man, was

threatened by the dissecting impulse of modern science:

I much question whether any one who knows optics, however religious he may be,can feel in equal degree the pleasure or reverence which an unlettered peasant mayfeel at the sight of a rainbow. (Ruskin, Modern Painters v. 5: 387)

11 This opposition between the analytical logic of science and the aesthetic pleasure

elicited by natural phenomena is also found in Wilde’s “Garden of Eros” (1881), a poem

set in a hellenized Oxford, which pays tribute to all of Wilde’s poetic models, from Keats

to Morris:

Methinks these new Actæons boast too soonThat they have spied on beauty; what if weHave analyzed the rainbow, robbed the moonOf her most ancient, chastest mystery,Shall I, the last Endymion, lose all hopeBecause rude eyes peer at my mistress through a telescope! (Wilde v. 9: 51)

12 Here the verb “analyzed” needs to be taken in its etymological sense, from the Greek

ana (meaning “up, throughout”) and lysis (“a loosening,” from lyein, “to unfasten”),

suggesting separation or division as opposed to the weaving process of poetic creation.

The allusion is clearly to Keats’s poem “Lamia”:

Do not all charms flyAt the mere touch of cold philosophy?

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There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:We know her woof, her texture; she is givenIn the dull catalogue of common things.Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings,Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine —Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile madeThe tender-person’d Lamia melt into a shade. (Keats, “Lamia”, II, ll. 229–38: 176-7).

13 This passage has often been quoted in scientific studies on colour although this

particular section of the poem does not evoke any of the colours of the rainbow. The

quotation should indeed be more clearly contextualised: Keats wrote this poem in 1819,

two years after a dinner organised by Benjamin Haydon on 28 December 1817 during

which Charles Lamb claimed that “Newton had destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow

by reducing it to the prismatic colours” (Lamb qtd. in Gigante 433). Although in the

original manuscript of “Lamia” Keats had written “destroy a rainbow” to echo Lamb’s

anti-Newtonian assertion (Gigante 438), the notion of “unweaving” in the final version

further highlights the “ana-lytical” logic of science. The ten-line quotation is a poetic

illustration of this destructive impulse: Nature’s sublime, rich (“aw-ful”) bow is here

clipped by “cold philosophy”. The passage is dominated by alliterations in [k]

(“catalogue”, “common”, “clip”, “conquer”) suggesting the harshness of scientific

classifications, narrowing the poet’s creative horizon. Responding to limitation and

dissonance (exemplified by the eye rhyme “fly” / “philosophy”), the poet resorts to

sensuous imagery, emphasizing the texture of a feminised rainbow (“her woof, her

texture”), a plea for sensual haptics rather than Newtonian optics. And if colour is

strangely absent from this passage, it is because Lamia, the iridescent eponymous

heroine, is colourless and bloodless after Apollonius, the white-haired, marmoreal

spirit of “cold philosophy” and former mentor of her lover Lycius, has just exposed her

true serpentine nature during their wedding ceremony. Prior to this public revelation

(based on book 4 of Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana), the poet had celebrated the

beauty of the “rainbow-sided” Lamia whose exuberant colours could hardly be

contained within the poetic form:

She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd;And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,Dissolv'd or brighter shone, or interwreathedTheir lustres with the gloomier tapestries— So rainbow-sided. (Keats, “Lamia”, I, ll. 47-54: 162)

14 Lamia’s iridescence stems from her colourful, serpentine scales, the interwreathing of

which reflect her versatile nature. According to Denise Gigante, this passage signals a

monstrous metamorphosis reminiscent of Dr Frankenstein’s use of galvanic electricity

to give life to his creature: “Both scenes of creation were intended to produce objects of

beauty, and both erupt in monstrosity” (440). But this was also a means for Keats to

reject the fixity and limitation of scientific rules, defied by the chromatic explosion of

Lamia’s excessive colours, in turn textually suggested by the multiplicity of poetic

enjambments: “the threatened reduction of life to physical organization spark(s) a

countervision of life as excess” (Gigante 442).

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15 This chromatic exuberance reaches a climax when Lamia is turned into a woman. Her

trans-formation is not, however, so much a matter of form but rather a colouring

process, which recalls the colours of the humours in the Hippocratic corpus (Barra

2009).

the serpent now beganTo change; […]The colours all inflam’d throughout her train,She writh’d about, convuls’d with scarlet pain:A deep volcanian yellow took the placeOf all her milder-mooned body’s grace. (Keats, “Lamia”, I, ll. 146-56: 164-5)

16 This monstruous metamorphosis textually suggested by the multiplicity of poetic

enjambments was certainly a means for Keats to reject the fixity and limitation of

scientific rules, defied by the chromatic explosion of Lamia’s excessive colours.

17 Ruskin knew Keats’s poem well, as he references it twice in Modern Painters. He was,

however, more than uneasy with the figure of the “Lamia”, the colourful serpentine

daemon in Greek mythology, as noted by Marc Simpson (1982). The Pre-Raphaelite

painter William Holman Hunt, whose use of prismatic colour Ruskin celebrated, often

resorted to Ruskinian rhetoric when evoking his painting materials. One of his

favourite colours was, for instance, the costly ultramarine, described as a “heavenly”

hue in his one of his lectures on pigments (Hunt 486)11 which he concludes in typically

Ruskinian fashion with a plea to “direct […] inert matter to a spiritual end” (499).

18 In spite of his indebtedness to Ruskin’s Biblical tone, Hunt equally drew on Keats’s

poetry (which he illustrated throughout his life) for one of his representations of the

Lady of Shalott (see Figure 1). Crowned with a rainbow, the Lady indeed appears as a

Lamia-like weaver of “a magic web with colours gay” (Tennyson l. 38 in Roberts 22),

yielding to chromatic temptation at a moment of chaos expressed by a chromatic

vortex. The entangled colourful threads echo the serpentine curves of the Lady’s body

covered by an iridescent bodice, which is more reminiscent of Keats’s poem than

Tennyson’s, who does not describe this particular episode.

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Figure 1: William Holman Hunt, The Lady of Shalott (c.1890-1905)

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut. Source: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/victorian-art-architecture/pre-raphaelites/a/waterhouse-the-lady-of-shalott

19 The correlation between serpent and rainbow was certainly not invented by Keats. The

Hellenic context of “Lamia” reminds us that such comparisons may also be found in the

archaic Greek poets, notably Homer, whose works Keats had read in Chapman’s

translation. In Book XI of the Iliad for instance, the serpent and the rainbow are

brought together. This may be due to their common arched shape but also to their

implicit association with a form of chromatic instability, equally encoded by the Greek

notion of poikilia, which Diodorus Siculus would later use to describe the dangerous

consequences of an ominous rainbow woven onto a fabric in the sanctuary of Demeter.12 This poikilia not only sheds light on the ambiguity of the rainbow and iridiscent

creatures in ancient Greek texts, but also on the tension between material and spiritual

colours in Victorian poetry and painting.

II. Weaving ancient colours: nostalgic poikilia

20 As shown by many of his poems on Greek subjects, Keats’s relation to Hellenic culture

was material, sensual and “instinctive”13 rather than purely philological and

intellectual. This stress on the materiality of ancient Greek culture is also to be found in

the writings of Victorian authors who embraced Heinrich Schliemann’s archeological

discoveries in the 1870s, unearthing hitherto unknown aspects of the archaic Hellenic

world, such as the mythical site of Troy. Walter Pater, for instance, was particularly

keen on celebrating the wealth of archaic Greek craftsmanship as he sought “to relieve

the air of our galleries and museums of their too intellectual greyness” (“The

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Beginnings of Greek Sculpture” v. 6: 191). Drawing on Homer’s epics as his main source

to retrieve the material splendour of these “minor” arts and crafts, notably “the

curious wood-work, the carved ivory, the embroidery and coloured stuffs, on which the

Greeks set much store” (187-8), he introduces the key notion of poikilia, defined as “an

Asiatic curiousness”, and which Adeline Grand-Clément has recently analysed as

central to the aesthetics of archaic poetry, and expressing “the more generic ideas of

variety, versatility, intricacy, and complexity.” (2015:406) Pater closely associates this

poikilia with the centrifugal forces of Hellenic culture, an “Asiatic tendency” which, he

notes, “Plato” was “desirous to cure”:

There is the centrifugal, the Ionian, the Asiatic tendency, flying from the centre,working with little forethought straight before it, in the development of everythought and fancy; throwing itself forth in endless play of undirected imagination;delighting in brightness and colour, in beautiful material, in changeful formeverywhere, in poetry, in philosophy, even in architecture and its subordinatecrafts. In the social and political order it rejoices in the freest action of local andpersonal influences; its restless versatility drives it towards the assertion of theprinciples of separatism, of individualism—the separation of state from state, themaintenance of local religions, the development of the individual in that which ismost peculiar and individual in him. (Pater, “The Marbles of Aegina” v. 6: 252-3)

21 The more conservative and colourless Plato (Pater, Plato and Platonism v. 5: 147) was

indeed extremely wary of the instability and “restless versatility” conveyed by the idea

of poikilia. He shunned colour as conducive to a form of deceptive cosmetics, resorted to

this term associated with the changing scales of the serpent to compare the democratic

regime “to a shimmering coat that might appeal to women and children” (Plato,

Republic 8.557c and 558c, qtd. in Grand-Clément 2015: 407). If the adjective poikilos was

but rarely applied to the rainbow in ancient Greek texts, it was indeed frequently used

to describe the dazzling effects of colourful textiles, often in connection either with

serpentine creatures, so as to suggest the idea of chromatic instability.14

22 However, by the end of the 19th century, the hegemony of Plato in Hellenic studies was

being increasingly questioned or rather reinterpreted in more subversive ways,

including by Pater himself, as archeological discoveries revealed that Hellenic art was

not confined to the miracle of 5th century Athens. In his essays on Greek art,

posthumously published as Greek Studies in 1895, it is Homer (rather than Plato) whom

Pater invokes as an alternative “authority” on Greek arts and crafts, so as to weave

chromatic materiality back into the Hellenic heritage so often confined to the

marmoreal purity of its statues. Among the Asiatic divinities he celebrates in these

essays, the feminine god Dionysos features prominently. Pater, in “The Bacchanals of

Euripides,” describes the Eastern divinity as “somewhat womanly,” and wearing “the

fawn-skin with its rich spots” (v. 6: 62). As Robert Crawford explains, the term used by

Euripides to describe this fawn-skin representing the elusive, dappled nature of

Dionysos, is “poikilos” (qtd in Dowling 1) — just like the anti-Apollonian “rainbow-

sided” Lamia whom Keats had described as “freckled like a pard”. In “A Study of

Dionysus” (1876) as well as in “The Bacchanals of Euripides”, Pater stresses the

feminine dimension of the archaic Dionysian cult. Retracing the origins of the god in

primitive Greek religion, he describes such female spirits as:

[…] weavers or spinsters, spinning or weaving with airiest fingers, and subtlest,many-coloured threads, the foliage of the trees, the petals of flowers, the skins ofthe fruit, the long thin stalks on which the poplar leaves are set so lightly that

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Homer compares to them, in their constant motion, the maids who sit spinning inthe house of Alcinous. (Pater, “A Study of Dionysus” v. 6: 12)

23 Pater’s emphasis on this feminine pole of Greek religion was a direct challenge to the

Victorian conception of classics defined as an exclusively masculine territory.

According to Yopie Prins, women like the classicist Jane Ellen Harrison drew on Pater’s

sexually ambiguous depiction of Dionysus and his thiasos of maenads and weavers as a

positive “imaginary alternative to the Victorian spinster” (Prins 46).15

24 Such “curious variegation” (Pater, “The Beginnings of Greek Sculpture” v. 6: 213)

served Pater’s attempts at destabilizing and decentering the Hellenic norm in favour of

the unexplored margins of minor Hellenic crafts. Linda Dowling even analyzes the

occurrence of the word poikilos in Pater’s texts as a homosexual code, a praise of moral

ambiguity and dappledness made to contrast with the unicity of the heterosexual norm

(Dowling 6).

25 Wilde may have had this homoerotically charged term in mind when he praised

Morris’s translation of the Odyssey, published in 1887:

He has all the Greek’s joy in the visible aspect of things, all the Greek’s sense ofdelicate and delightful detail, all the Greek’s pleasure in beautiful textures andexquisite materials and imaginative designs; nor can any one have a keenersympathy with the Homeric admiration for the workers and the craftsmen in thevarious arts, from the stainers in white ivory and the embroiderers in purple andgold, to the weaver sitting by the loom and the dyer dipping in the vat, the chaserof shield and helmet, the carver of wood or stone. (Wilde v. 13: 153-4)

26 Iain Ross (93) rightly identifies Wilde’s comment as an implicit celebration of Morris’s

poikilia, suggested by the references to “beautiful textures” and to colour weaving and

dyeing. This celebration directly echoes both Pater’s praise of archaic arts and crafts

and Ruskin’s definition of the Greek sensitivity as dappled in the sense of morally

ambiguous in his Lectures on art (v. 20: 171). 16

27 In Wilde’s review, a link is therefore implicitly established between Morris’s poetic

reappropriation of an unexpectedly colourful Hellenic past and his own craftsmanship,

notably though his practice of colour weaving. Morris himself considered the poetic

process as a form of ancient craft: “If a chap can't compose an epic poem while he's

weaving tapestry, he had better shut up, he’ll never do any good at all.” (qtd in Latham

x) This also resonates with his Merton Abbey venture. In 1881, Morris had indeed

founded his own dye works at Merton Abbey, using ancient recipes to retrieve

colouring practices which the chemical industry had rendered obsolete. Countering

modern chemical endeavours so as to follow in Homer’s colourful footsteps, Morris

wove meaning and beauty back into a world obsessed by scientific progress. This is

what he wrote in 1889 about the impact of the invention of aniline dyes on the art of

dyeing:

[…] there is an absolute divorce between the commercial process and the art ofdyeing. Any one wanting to produce dyed textile with any artistic quality in themmust entirely forgo the modern and commercial methods in favour of those whichare at least as old as Pliny, who speaks of them being old in his time. (Morris 29 Oct.1889)

28 Morris’s, Ruskin’s and Pater’s nostalgia for ancient colouring practices, in particular for

the art of colour-weaving or poikilia, was therefore a means to challenge not only the

Victorian conception of a hegemonic Greek canon but also the hubris of modern

rainbow makers.

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III. New chromatic impressions: colour and artifice

29 Ruskin, in spite of his interest in the dappled aesthetics of the ancient Greeks, was as

suspicious as Morris and Hunt concerning all the colours devised by modern science.

His own discussion of the aniline revolution in The Queen of the Air (1869) sheds light on

what he believed to be both an artistic and semantic deprivation brought about by the

new chromatic terminology invented by late 19th-century chemists which he contrasts

with the more poetic colour-sense of Homer:

I was long puzzled by Homer’s calling the sea purple; and misled into thinking hemeant the colour of cloud shadows on green sea; whereas he really means thegleaming blaze of the waves under wide light. […] And then, last of all, to keep thewhole history of it in the fantastic course of a dream, warped here and there intowild grotesque, we moderns, who have preferred to rule over coal-mines instead ofthe sea […] have actually got our purple out of coal instead of the sea! And thus,grotesquely, we have had enforced on us the doubt that held the old word betweenblackness and fire, and have completed the shadow, and the fear of it, by giving it aname from battle, ‘Magenta’. (Ruskin, “The Queen of the Air” v. 19: 379-80)

30 Ruskin’s meandering syntax attempts to capture the variegation which the Greeks of

the archaic age were so sensitive to. The quotation culminates in the final denigration

of the grotesque and martial connotations of modern “Magenta”, the name of the

second most famous aniline dye after mauve, which — ironically — Perkin had initially

wished to call “Tyrian purple”. The new terminology instead reflects a world gone

astray due to its materialistic aspirations in contrast to the poetic wealth suggested by

the Greek term for purple (porphureos), which Homer equally applied to the rainbow in

the Iliad, Book XVII (547-552), as Ruskin also notes:17

‘As when Jupiter spreads the purple rainbow over heaven, portending battle or coldstorm, so Athena, wrapping herself round with a purple cloud, stooped to the Greeksoldiers, and raised up each of them.’ Note that purple, in Homer‘s use of it, nearly

always means ―fiery, ―full of light. It is the light of the rainbow, not the colour ofit, which Homer means you to think of. (Ruskin, “The Queen of the Air” v. 19: 330)

31 In keeping with the dazzling beauty of ancient fabrics dyed in the purple of the murex

snail, the Homeric rainbow appears as a beautiful texture enveloping the sacred body

of Athena, which allows Ruskin to reconcile once more chromatic materiality and

colour as light. Ruskin’s reflection on the Greek colour-sense also underlines its

creative dimension, by emphasizing the various chromatic and light effects on the

modern reader/viewer (addressed as “you”).

32 However, some Victorian thinkers were even more “puzzled” by what they described as

the chromatic oddities of the ancient Hellenes. This was the case of W.E. Gladstone who,

in his Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, discussed the “paucity” of chromatic

occurrences in the Homeric epics. The rainbow appears as a case in point:

Homer’s perception of the prismatic colours or colours of the rainbow, whichdepend on the decomposition of light by refraction, and a fortiori of theircompounds, was, as a general rule, vague and indeterminate. […] It is in viewing therainbow as a type of what is awful, that we are to find the reason of Homer’s simplytreating it as dark, and not as a series and system of colours. Perhaps we ought notto overlook the possibility that Homer may also mean to compare the shifting huesof the serpent with the varied appearance of the rainbow. […] I conclude, then, thatthe organ of colour and its impression were but partially developed among theGreeks of the heroic age. (Gladstone 1858 v. 3: 483-8)

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33 Rather than reflecting the perceptual deficiencies of the ancient Greeks, this passage

reveals Gladstone’s posture as a hegemonic post-Newtonian observer. Gladstone went

even further in a later essay entitled “The Colour-Sense”, in which he drew on the

findings of the Austrian ophtalmologist Hugo Magnus to reach the conclusion that the

eye structure of the ancient Greeks was not sufficiently developed to perceive colour

properly (Gladstone 1877).

34 This discussion of the Greek colour-sense reflects the growing concern of certain

contemporary scientists with colour perception. The second half of the 19th century

was indeed a period during which the experience of colour was the focus of increased

scientific attention both in terms of its perception and of its production. “Pathologies”

such as colour-blindness or synaesthesia, which artists claimed as enriching for the

creative process, came under medical scrutiny as potential signs of more dangerous

perversions. Just as Gladstone had interpreted Homer as colour-blind, deviant colour

perception became the object of heated discussion by pseudo-scientists such as Max

Nordau who, in his essay Degeneration drew on the excessive colour sensitivity of

certain poets and artists as an index of their troubled, if not hysterical nature. In his

essay dedicated to Cesare Lombroso, the founder of anthropological criminology,

Nordau targeted many so-called “delirious” British writers and artists such as Ruskin,

Swinburne, Morris, Hunt or Wilde, drawing on their metaphors and chromatic choices

as a sign of their mental and moral degeneracy:

He does not let the external world express a mood, but makes it tell a story; hechanges its appearance according to the character of the event he is describing. […]This is a purely delirious idea. It corresponds in art and poetry to hallucination inmental disease. It is a form of mysticism, which is met within all the degenerate — Just as in Swinburne the mill-water drives ‘small red-leaves,’ and, what is certainlymore curious, ‘little white birds’ — when everything is going on well, and on theother hand is lashed by snow and hail, and tosses shattered boats about, if thingstake an adverse turn; so, in Zola’s Assommoir, the drain from a dyeing factory carriesoff fluid of a rosy or golden hue on days of happiness, but a black or gray-colouredstream if the fates of Gervaise and Lantier grow dark with tragedy. (Nordau 98)

35 This mocking of the modern colour-sense reaches a climax in Nordau’s analysis of the

colourful and often synaesthetic works of French poets such as Charles Baudelaire,

Théophile Gautier, or Arthur Rimbaud and of fin-de-siècle painters like Édouard Manet

whose presumed optical deficiencies he was equally keen to stigmatise:

There is hardly a hysterical subject whose retina is not partly insensitive. […] Thusoriginate the violet pictures of Manet and his school, which spring from no actuallyobservable aspect of nature, but from a subjective view due to the condition of thenerves. When the entire surface of walls in salons and art exhibitions of the dayappears veiled in uniform half-mourning, this predilection for violet is simply anexpression of the nervous debility of the painter. (Nordau 27-9)

36 Unfolding all the colours of the rainbow, Nordau lists the various retinal diseases he

believes contemporary painters were suffering from. His approach is strikingly

normative, in particular when he analyses the “depressing” predilection for unnatural

“violet” which the Impressionists had indeed adopted both as an alternative to light-

less black and as the modern colour par excellence, in the wake of the aniline revolution.18 In this sense, Nordau’s diatribe echoes Joris-Karl Huysmans’s 1880 denunciation of

the “indigomania” of contemporary painters (by indigo19 he meant a violet blue) which

was also based on the more or less spurious theories of contemporary scientists:

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Their retinas were sick; the case studies stated by oculist Galezowski […] on theatrophy of multiple eye fibres, in particular the loss of the perception of green,which is the prodrome of this type of affection were clearly theirs because greenhas almost disappeared from their palettes, whereas blue which impresses theretina most remains, dominates and drowns everything on their canvases.(Huysmans 103-4, my translation)

37 The idea that modern artists were insensitive to “green” is strangely reminiscent of

Gladstone’s observation that “no green” (Symonds v. 1: 596-7) was to be found in the

Homeric texts (contrary to “purple”, porphureos, applied to the sea as well as to the

rainbow), a clear sign, according to him, that the ancient Greeks had been colour-blind.

38 However, Huysmans would later change his mind concerning the Impressionists and

even embrace their chromatic eccentricities, as shown by the predilection of Des

Esseintes, the hero of A Rebours (1884), for the aniline suggestions of mauve:

Disregarding entirely the generality of men whose gross retinas are capable ofperceiving neither the cadence peculiar to each color nor the mysterious charm oftheir nuances of light and shade; ignoring the bourgeoisie, whose eyes areinsensible to the pomp and splendor of strong, vibrant tones; and devoting himselfonly to people with sensitive pupils, refined by literature and art, he was convincedthat the eyes of those among them who dream of the ideal and demand illusions aregenerally caressed by blue and its derivatives, mauve, lilac and pearl grey.(Huysmans 46)

39 Perceptual hyperaesthesia is here presented as the chromatic sign of the refined taste

of the dandy as opposed to the common perception of the ordinary man.

40 A Rebours was to become one of the key intertextual references of Wilde’s Picture of

Dorian Gray (1890) whose eponymous protagonist falls prey to the influence of the

“poisonous” French book. The two authors clearly shared a taste for arcane chromatic

terminology, as shown by this passage about gems directly inspired by the enumerative

style of Huysmans. The following quotation closely connects colour as light and

chromatic materiality, culminating with the partly oxymonoronic image of the “broken

rainbow of the milky opal”:20

He would often spend a whole day settling and resettling in their cases the variousstones that he had collected, such as the olive-green chrysoberyl that turns red bylamplight, the cymophane with its wirelike line of silver, the pistachio-colouredperidot, rose-pink and wine-yellow topazes, carbuncles of fiery scarlet withtremulous, four-rayed stars, flame-red cinnamon-stones, orange and violet spinels,and amethysts with their alternate layers of ruby and sapphire. He loved the redgold of the sunstone, and the moonstone's pearly whiteness, and the brokenrainbow of the milky opal. (Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray v. 12: 217-8)

41 Among all of the rainbow notations in the novel, violet and mauve are frequent,

although Wilde’s response to this modern colour seems more than ambiguous at times.

On the one hand, Lord Henry expresses distrust as to the shifting new dyes, advising

Dorian never to “trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be”, and yet

in the same paragraph he admits having once worn “nothing but violets all through

one season, as a form of artistic mourning for a romance that would not die.” (162-3)

One of the flowers that Wilde himself flaunted was the famous green carnation, which

he and his acolytes wore at the premiere of Lady Windermere’s Fan in 1892. The artificial

colour of this flower was obtained by plunging its stem into aniline malachite green.21

Robert Hichens then turned this aniline green carnation into a symbol of decadent

aesthetics in his eponymous novel published in 1894, a roman à clef featuring Esmé

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Amarinth as the witty Oscar Wilde figure, who composes a “rainbow catch” about a

“rose-white youth” for a group of choir boys (again, colour is the lure) (Hitchens 112):

‘The flower is a detail. I worship it.’‘Do you regard it as an emblem, then?’‘No. I hate emblems. […] I wear this flower because its colour is exquisite. I have noother reason.’‘But its colour is not natural.’‘Not yet. Nature has not followed art so far. She always requires time. Esméinvented this flower two months ago. Only a few people wear it, those who are thefollowers of the higher philosophy.’ (Hitchens 91-2)

42 Epitomized by the aniline green carnation, the “fairy wand” of the modern rainbow

makers therefore also served the creative genius and originality of the dandy-poet,

whose artificial inventiveness outweighs the powers of Nature, indeed turning “the

waste land” into “a garden of tropic tints”.

43 Wilde’s ambiguous attitude towards the aniline revolution reflects the multiple

tensions at work in the field of late 19th century chromatic experience and

experimentation. Resisting the classifying impulse of modern colorimetrics as well as

the normative strictures of medical discourses on colour perception, many avant-garde

Victorian writers and artists strove to exalt either the exuberance of colour and/or its

sacredness. In this context, the ephemeral rainbow was woven back into the poetic

texture so as to become the shifting symbol for these chromatic debates confronting

prismatic colours and the materiality of pigments and dyes, on the one hand, and

modern and Homeric colour-perception, on the other.

44 Such tensions may also be found in an early 20th-century short story by Richard Le

Gallienne entitled “The Maker of Rainbows” (1912). A nostalgic dandy from the 1890s,

Le Gallienne was an admirer of Keats whom he called “the poet of the rainbow” (1904:

xi), as well as of Pater, and Wilde. Drawing on popular folklore as well as on the model

of Wilde’s children’s stories, Le Gallienne describes in “The Maker of Rainbows” the

magical encounter between a mysterious, old knife-grinder humming a “strange sing-

song” and a group of poverty-stricken children and villagers in the heart of a

November darkness. The first miracle which the stranger performs is to turn a little

girl’s tear into a beautiful rainbow. The second is to restore a mad, old woman to youth,

beauty and sanity. In both instances, Le Gallienne asserts the magical powers of elusive

colour, a colour resisting not only the unweaving force of science (the tear is re-

composed into a rainbow rather than de-composed as in Newton’s experimentum crucis)

but also the normative strictures of the medical logos. Contrary to the children who

embrace the colourful miracle, the more materialistic villagers accuse the stranger of

being the devil, to which he replies:

I am the maker of rainbows. I am the alchemist of hope. To me November is alwaysMay, tears are always laughter that is going to be, and darkness is lightmisunderstood. The sad heart makes its own sorrow, the happy heart makes its ownjoy. The harvest is made by the harvestman — and there is nothing hard or black orweary that is not waiting for the magic touch of hope to become soft as a springflower, bright as the morning star, and valiant as a young runner in the dawn. (LeGallienne 1912: 12)

45 Here Le Gallienne replaces the chemical transformation of coal into artificial colouring

substances by a colourful alchemy of hope. However, when, at the very end of the story,

the stranger mentions the legendary pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow, all the

greedy villagers set off in search of the imaginary treasure, which the children alone

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know was, in fact, the miracle of fugitive colour made ever-lasting, thanks to the

wealth of aesthetic experience:

Then the villagers looked at one another, and said over and over again, “A pot ofgold!”And they took cloaks and walking-staves and set out to accompany the old visitor;but when they reached the outskirts of the village there was no sign of him. He hadmysteriously disappeared.But the children never forgot the rainbows. (Le Gallienne 1912: 13).

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NOTES

1. Aniline is a toxic compound which was first discovered in 1826. But it was the chemist William

Henry Perkin’s invention of mauveine in 1856 which radically transformed the industrial textile

industry as it quickly enabled a new rainbow of artificial colours to replace the more expensive

organic dyes. On Perkin’s “mauve”, its multiple applications (commercial, artistic, medical etc.)

and its discussion in the contemporary press, see Garfield (2000).

2. This is the title of the first chapter of Regina Lee Blaszczyk’s study of The Color Revolution

(2012).

3. I am very grateful to Adeline Grand-Clément, Arnaud Dubois and Jean-Baptiste Eczet for their

invaluable advice on this piece, written while we were co-editing a volume devoted to

comparative approaches to the rainbow. See Dubois et al. (forthcoming).

4. See Lichtenstein: “Matérielle, la couleur a toujours été perçue à travers les catégories

ontologiquement déficientes de l’éphémère et du hasard” (74).

5. “Why the Colours of the Rainbow appear in falling drops of Rain, is also from hence evident”.

(Newton 3083-4).

6. According to Sean F. Johnston (2001: 27): “Chemists began using the term colorimetry in the

1860s to refer to the determination of the quantity or concentration of a substance by the colour

it imparted to a solution”.

7. Volume number precedes page number in all subsequent quotes for multi-volume references. I

am very grateful to Helen Glanville for pointing out this reference to me.

8. In his analysis of John Everett Millais’s Blind Girl (1856) which features a sacred double rainbow

felt rather than seen by the blind beggar, Ruskin refuses to address the question of the painter’s

materials: “The freshly wet grass is all radiant through and through with the new sunshine; full

noon at its purest, the very donkeys bathed in the rain-dew, and prismatic with it under their

rough breasts as they graze; […] Very quiet she is, - so quiet that a radiant butterfly has settled on

her shoulder, and basks there in the warm sun. […] Any careful readers of my recent lectures at

Oxford know that I entirely ignore the difference of material between oil and water as diluents of

color, when I am examining any grave art question: nor shall I hereafter, throughout this paper,

take notice of it.” (Ruskin, “The Three Colours of PreRaphaelitism” v. 34: 150-1).

9. Since the Renaissance, Venice — a major point of entry of pigments and dyes — had always

been considered as the land of colour. On Ruskin and the colours of Venice, see Bullen (2005).

10. Aristotle also believed that the rainbow was composed of three colours.

11. Hunt was particularly suspicious as to the use of aniline compounds in artists’s pigments.

12. For an analysis of this passage full of Homeric echoes, see Adeline Grand-Clément

(forthcoming).

13. Keats did not read Greek and therefore had an “instinctive” rather than a purely intellectual

relation to the Hellenic heritage according to Davreu (1990: 11).

14. See Lichtenstein (1999: 61-2): “Si Chroma nomme la couleur, Poikilos qualifie tout ce qui est

bariolé, c’est à dire, si l’on suit la logique du texte platonicien, non seulement le mélange des

couleurs mais les couleurs elles-mêmes en tant qu’elles sont toutes des mélanges. […] La couleur

n’est qu’un effet de couleurs et c’est pourquoi elle apparaît suspecte aux philosophes, la brillance

de son fard et le charme de son éclat lui conférant ce redoutable pouvoir de séduction qui

caractérise tout ce qui est poikilos. Comme le renard qui est poikilos, mais aussi le serpent et le

poulpe, tous les animaux qui attirent leur proie grâce à ses pièges souples et ondoyants.” See also

Vernant and Détienne (1974: 25-6).

15. In turn, Jane Ellen Harrison’s reflections on ancient art and ritual were a major influence on

D.H. Lawrence for his novel The Rainbow (1915).

16. “The Greek conviction, that all nature, especially human nature, is not entirely melodious nor

luminous; but a barred and broken thing: that saints have their foibles, sinners their forces; that

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the most luminous virtue is often only a flash, and the blackest-looking fault is sometimes only a

stain: and, without confusing in the least black with white, they can forgive, or even take delight

in things that are like the nebris, dappled.”

17. On the symbolic connotations of the Greek purple, see Grand-Clément (2011: 117 et sq.).

18. In order to emulate this fashionable dye, the Impressionists used the new cobalt violet rather

than an aniline-based pigment. However, in a letter to his wife, the painter Whistler describes

the impressionist mauve as “analine”, as if to underline the excremental nature of the colour

made from industrial refuse. [11 June 1891?] Glasgow University Library, MS Whistler W584. See

the online correspondence of Whistler: https://www.whistler.arts.gla.ac.uk/correspondence/

freetext/display/?cid=6591&q=analine&year1=1829&year2=1903&rs=1

19. Indigo was the name of the seventh colour in Newton’s rainbow, a colour which, rather

surprisingly, refers to the Indian dye which in the early 17th century was starting to be imported

to England.

20. Olive Custance, who would marry Lord Alfred Douglas in 1902, composed two volumes of

poetry entitled “Opals” (1897) and “Rainbows” (1902) in a very similar vein. In 1899, the artist

George Frampton also sculpted an ivory and bronze “Lamia”, crowned with iridescent opals,

possibly as a homage to the recently rediscovered polychromy of ancient Greek sculpture.

21. The chemical process is described in The Artist, 1st April 1892, 114-5. I wish to thank Catherine

Maxwell for this reference.

ABSTRACTS

In his 1993 book retracing the history of synthetic dyestuffs, Anthony S. Travis describes the 19th

century chemists who devised new aniline dyes for the expanding textile industry as “rainbow

makers”. By conflating the materiality of coloured textiles and the prismatic hues of the sacred

bow, Travis may have been trying to vindicate a scientific entreprise which many late 19th

century artists and writers had shunned, echoing John Keats’s denunciation of the “unweaving”

of the rainbow by modern science. This article explores the poetic instability generated by the

19th century colour revolution in the works of John Ruskin, William Morris, Walter Pater and

Oscar Wilde so as to shed light on the complex reception of modern artificial colouring practices

as opposed to the Homeric colour-sense.

Dans son ouvrage de 1993 retraçant l’histoire des colorants de synthèse, Anthony S. Travis décrit

les chimistes du 19ème siècle à l’origine des couleurs d’aniline destinés à une industrie textile en

pleine expansion comme des “faiseurs d’arcs-en-ciel”. En associant ainsi la matérialité des

textiles colorés et les couleurs prismatiques de l’arc divin, Travis souhaitait sans doute défendre

une entreprise contre laquelle de nombreux artistes et écrivains victoriens s’étaient insurgés,

reprenant à leur compte la dénonciation keatsienne du détissage de l’arc-en-ciel par la science

moderne. Cet article explore l’instabilité poétique générée par cette révolution chromatique dans

l’œuvre de John Ruskin, William Morris, Walter Pater et Oscar Wilde afin de mettre en lumière les

modalités complexes de réception de ces nouvelles pratiques colorantes, contrastant avec les

couleurs d’Homère.

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INDEX

Keywords: Victorian literature, Victorian painting, fin de siècle, rainbow, prismatic colour,

pigments, aniline dyes, chromatic materiality, poikilia, chemistry, classical reception studies,

Homer, Newton Isaac, Wilde Oscar, Ruskin John, Pater Walter, Hunt William Holman, Morris

William, Keats John

Mots-clés: littérature victorienne, peinture victorienne, fin de siècle, arc-en-ciel, couleur

prismatique, pigment, colorants d’aniline, matérialité chromatique, poikilia, chimie, réception de

l’Antiquité, Homère, Newton Isaac, Wilde Oscar, Ruskin John, Pater Walter, Hunt William

Holman, Morris William, Keats John

AUTHOR

CHARLOTTE RIBEYROL

Charlotte Ribeyrol is Associate Professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris and a Member of the

Institut Universitaire de France. Her main field of research is the reception of the colours of the past

in Victorian painting and literature. Her monograph on the Hellenism of Swinburne, Pater and

Symonds entitled “Etrangeté, passion, couleur”, L’hellénisme de Swinburne, Pater et Symonds came out

in 2013 and she has since co-edited two volumes on the subject of Victorian paganism in

international peer-reviewed journals: Antique bodies in Nineteenth Century British Literature and

Culture. (with C. Bertonèche) Miranda, n°11, 2015 and Late Victorian Paganism. (with C. Murray)

Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens (2015). She is also a contributor to the forthcoming volume Pater

the Classicist (OUP, 2017). In 2014-2016 she co-directed a major interdisciplinary project on

chromatic materiality (POLYRE, IDEX Sorbonne Universités) with chemists and archeologists,

which led to the publication of a collection of essays entitled The Colours of the Past in Victorian

England (Oxford, Peterlang, 2016). She currently holds a Marie Curie Fellowship at Trinity College,

Oxford (2016-2018) to write her new book on the colours of William Burges’s Great Bookcase.

Contact: ribeyrolc [at] gmail.com

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Varia

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Criminal Courts in England and theUnited States: A comparativeapproach to fictionalrepresentations as portrayed by twoclassic examples of courtroom films:Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959)Anne-Laure Dubrac

1 In the introduction to their book The Handbook of English for Specific Purposes (2013),

Paltridge and Starfield stress the necessity of providing ESP (English for Special

Purposes) learners with diverse documents which include different topics, modes of

expression and perspectives. For example, they point out the advantages of visual

documents and indicate that such documents should be one of the foci of ESP research,

since images can “illustrate abstract concepts, […] facilitate the integration of new

knowledge with existing knowledge, enhance information retention, mediate thinking

processes, and improve problem solving” (Paltridge and Starfield 2013: 20). Based on

these findings, we hypothesized that using cinematic fiction in the language classroom

could help law students to both further their knowledge of legal English and to better

understand the culture-specific aspects of their field. Though articles and textbooks

presenting and comparing the differences in the application of the common law in

various countries are numerous, we decided — following Paltridge and Starfield’s

theory — that cinema, because of its visual nature, could complement the study of the

law by illustrating specific rules and practices. For example, 12 Angry Men (1957) by

Sidney Lumet gives the spectators the opportunity to enter a courtroom and put

themselves in a juror’s shoes. Then, as jurors, they are asked to decide on the guilt of a

teenager who has been accused of murdering his father. Similarly, Witness for the

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Prosecution (1957) by Billy Wilder and Anatomy of a Murder (1959) by Otto Preminger

introduce students to the concepts and practices of the legal profession.

2 Associating law and fiction is nothing new; indeed, literature has long been perceived

as a way to make legal concepts easier to understand. For instance, in common law

countries (and more and more in European courts), legal briefs are larded with

references to Shakespeare, Dickens, and Stevenson1. Similarly, scholarly works on law

and fiction date back to the beginning of the 19th century (Wigmore 1908; Cardozo

1931). However, very little has been written about the links between law and cinema, as

suggested by Machura and Robson (2001: 1). Not surprisingly there is no consensus

about what to look at in law and films, nor in what form these studies are best

conducted. There is then a variety of approaches to the issue of how film looks at law.

3 If courtroom films can help students understand the language and culture of a specific

professional community, they also tend to distort or exaggerate reality, given that they

are works of fiction and entertainment. For example, Isani (2010 a) shows that in

courtroom movies lawyers are often depicted as greedy, corrupt, and immoral. As a

result, we may question the potential relevance of popular legal fiction for students.

How faithful is cinema to the reality of a trial? Is it judicious to make use of such a

medium when students, still unfamiliar with the professional field they are studying,

may be unduly influenced by such inaccurate representations? Would it be more

relevant to use real-life footage, e.g. excerpts from Court TV or documentaries?

4 The objective of this article is to determine whether cinematic fiction constitutes a

satisfactory pedagogic tool when teaching the language and culture of legal English. In

order to assess this hypothesis, we singled out two courtroom dramas for analysis:

Witness for the Prosecution and Anatomy of a Murder. That both films are over fifty years

old was no accident; we chose films that most students would be less familiar with and

would not normally be drawn to. We did so thinking that such films would be far

enough from contemporary reference2 that learners could fully direct their attention to

legal considerations.

5 Both films follow a lawyer, somewhat isolated from the larger legal community, who

accepts to defend a penniless man charged with first-degree murder. However similar

the plots, the two fictions offer radically different representations of the law and of law

professionals since both are set in markedly separate cultural contexts. Anatomy of a

Murder takes place in the United States, in a small, working-class town on the Upper

Peninsula of Michigan, whereas Witness for the Prosecution is set in London, between the

Old Bailey courthouse and the Inns of Court where the main protagonist, the aristocrat

barrister Sir Wilfrid (Charles Laughton), works and lives. Therefore, our objective was

threefold: analyse the relevance of the specialised content of these movies, explore the

benefits of using cinema in conjunction with traditional teaching tools, such as law

textbooks and legal cases and help students deepen their understanding of both

explicit and implicit legal rules.

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Figure 1: Poster for Anatomy of a Murder

Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052561/mediaviewer/rm2319413760. All rights reserved.

1. Cinematic Fiction: A relevant tool to explain andcompare legal notions

6 When French second-year students from UPEC (University Paris-Est Créteil) are

introduced to the common law system prevalent in other countries, one of the first

notions they tackle is the adversary (or adversarial) procedure. Explaining this

procedure can be difficult given its seemingly abstract nature, and students are often

eager to see how the procedure works in actual practice.

7 As opposed to the inquisitorial procedure with which French students are more

familiar, the adversary procedure relies on a regulated confrontation between the

parties. Verdicts depend on the ability of the most effective adversary (either the

prosecution or the defence) to convince the jury of his or her argument. The court is

not supposed to interfere in the proceedings. Instead, the judge must remain an

impartial and unbiased referee. As a result, the lawyers are the main protagonists of

the adversary system and the outcome of the trial hinges on their actions.

8 Both movies dramatize this legal procedure shared by common law countries and

explain its main characteristics. First, the two films emphasize the crucial role of

lawyers in the common law system. They show that it is up to them to bring up all the

evidence and information that the court needs to adjudicate. For example, in Anatomy

of a Murder, the attorney Paul Biegler (James Stewart) needs to do research to construct

his legal defence for Frederick Manion (Ben Gazzara), an army lieutenant accused of

killing his wife’s alleged rapist. In order to develop his argument, Biegler himself must

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visit the crime scenes, interview family members and potential witnesses, and collect

evidence. While Biegler tries to pry information from reticent and potentially

threatening sources, his partner, an ageing, drunken lawyer named Parnell McCarthy

(Arthur O’Connell), goes all the way to Canada to obtain information about a

mysterious woman attached to the case.

9 In Witness for the Prosecution, viewers are introduced to the two types of lawyers existing

in England: solicitors and barristers. The division of the legal profession into two

branches can therefore be explained and debated in class. Viewers are also shown the

questions a barrister might ask prospective clients before accepting to take their case.

Sir Wilfrid’s unorthodox method of doing this, questioning potential clients in the

sharp glare of his monocle’s reflected light, is shown in great detail. In both films, the

viewers follow the lawyers in their search for technical and factual evidence. As the

students see each case develop, they also increase their understanding of what it means

to be a lawyer in the common law world.

10 The two movies also explain the rules and vocabulary of the adversary system. They

highlight, for example, that lawyers have to abide by “the law of evidence”, a complex

set of rules, “which determine[s] what evidence may be given by witnesses and what

questions they may be asked in examination and cross-examination” (Zweigert & Kötz

2011: 274-5). A specific element of the law of evidence is the “hearsay rule”, which

states that evidence cannot be presented to the court unless its witness is there to

present it. The law of evidence is illustrated when the prosecuting attorney in Anatomy

of a Murder, makes clear that it is considered unfair to rely on the evidence provided by

a witness who is absent and therefore cannot be cross-examined. Furthermore, legal

expressions such as “to take the stand”, “to examine a witness”, to “cross-examine”, “

no redirect” or “rebuttal” are ubiquitous in both movies, not only allowing the viewers

to grasp their meaning, but also making clear how stressful and intimidating being a

witness in this legal system can be, since witnesses are often asked very intrusive

questions over and over. This near-harassment of witnesses may also trigger questions

in the students’ minds and help them reflect on the best strategies to get at the truth.

They may want to discuss and compare the differences in the conceptions of how truth

is to be established in common law and civil law countries. Is the civil law system,

where the truth is unveiled through an investigation led by a powerful judge, more

effective than the Anglo-Saxon one, where the “emergence” of the truth is supposed to

result from the confrontation of the two sides?

11 Both films examine the deep connection between legal rules and the people who abide

by them. Early in Anatomy of a Murder, we see Biegler and his partner pondering which

United States Supreme Court Report they might spend the night reading. Then, we see

them in the law library, seeking to bolster the argument that Manion was seized by an

“irresistible impulse”, with relevant legal precedents, which could exculpate their

client. Intense work leads them to an old forgotten Michigan Supreme Court decision.

Paul Biegler: People versus Durfee, 66, Michigan, 486, year 1886. The right and wrongtest, though condemned as being unscientific is adhered to by most states but… thefact that one accused of committing a crime may have been able to comprehend thenature and consequences of this act and to know it was wrong; nevertheless, if hewas forced to its execution by an impulse, by an impulse which he was powerless tocontrol, he will be excused from punishment. The Michigan Supreme Court didaccept irresistible impulse. This is precedent.

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12 As Biegler reads the precedent to his partner, we, the spectators, realize how precise

and complex precedents can be (Zweigert & Kötz 2011). We also understand that lawers

in the common law system have an inductive way of thinking, which is to say, they

thoroughly analyse the particular facts of the case in question, compare it to similar

cases, and try to draw out general rules and principles.

13 In Witness for the Prosecution, Sir Wilfrid also searches for pertinent precedents to show

that it is possible to introduce new evidence at the end of a hearing. He comes up with

three different precedents (one of which the judge knows very well, as he was involved

in the case) to ensure that his request will be granted.

Sir Wilfrid: I ask that the case for the defence be reopened, and that a witness berecalled.Lawyer for the prosecution: I most strenuously object to the case being reopened atthis final stage.Sir Wilfrid: Evidence of a startling nature has come into my possession.Lawyer for the prosecution: The course my learned friend proposes is quiteunprecedented.Sir Wilfrid: I have anticipated this objection and can meet it with ample precedent.There is the King vs. Stillman, reported in the criminal appeal reports of 1926 atpage 463. Also, the King vs. Porter in volume one of the King’s Bench Divisionreports, and lastly there is the case of the King vs. Sullivan in which this issue wasraised, which I’m sure Your Lordship will remember, since you appeared for theprosecution.

14 These various film scenes, once again, may arouse questions among students, such as:

does the common lawyer really reason from instances to principles, as the protagonists

in the two movies do? In other words, does he really have an inductive method of

problem-solving? If this is the case, what does it suggest about the way law

professionals see legal rules in common law countries? Do they perceive them

differently in a unitary country like England and a federal one like the US?

Furthermore, these two films can be used as a springboard to study seemingly ordinary

legal words such as ‘law’ or ‘precedent’ and compare their meanings according to the

context in which they are used. In addition to learning the specific meaning of legal

words, as already mentioned, the depiction and analysis of different legal systems

should enable students to take some distance from their own legal system, thereby

helping them better comprehend its general aims. Indeed, as Michel Foucault (1981)

noted in Truth and Juridical Forms, justice, far from being an isolated and self-contained

sphere of society, is, in fact, at the very heart of it. Justice shows the way in which

humans, according to their different cultural habits, create distinctions between truth

and falsehood and decide what is right and wrong. Justice, according to Foucault, is not

only a tool to adjudicate disputes among the members of society, but actually gives us a

glimpse of the fundamental nature of society.

15 The analysis of these two courtroom dramas could also pave the way for the study of

political or philosophical works, such as Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America

(1835-40). In his text, de Tocqueville argues that in the US the law is conceived as a

flexible tool and asserts that this perspective is derived from religion, given

Protestantism’s strong individualism and emphasis on a direct bond between God and

individuals. As a result, any abstract rule detached from the immediate concerns of

citizens is viewed as likely to be ineffective, if not potentially dangerous. Broadly

speaking, it could be argued that Anatomy of a Murder shows this pragmatic relationship

between legal rules and their application in the United States.

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16 Cinema can thus be a way to make legal notions and processes easier to understand. As

discussed below, this medium — when it provides a holistic and ethnographic depiction

of a profession — can also help students learn about the culture of the professional

community they may seek to join.

Figure 2: Poster for Witness for the Prosecution

Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051201/mediaviewer/rm1156627968

2. Cinema: A means to facilitate students’understanding of the way that law is culture-bound

17 Prior (2013: 519) views ESP “as a counter to the dominant vision of general language

competence” since it considers language “as a mosaic of registers and genres,

organized around specific domains of social practice — disciplines, professions,

workplaces, recreation, home, and community/public life”. However, Prior laments the

fact that holistic, situated studies of sociocultural activities remain peripheral. For him,

ESP research needs to pay more attention to the embodied practices of professionals,

and must demonstrate the importance of gestures, proxemics and artefacts in face-to-

face professional communication. To illustrate his stance, he posits that one cannot

understand archeological practice without taking into account “the moving hand” of

the archeologist, “the dirt which the hand is articulating”, “the accompanying talk” to

his colleagues or the position of his body (Goodwin cited in Prior 2013: 527). In other

words, our social and professional identities are inscribed in our bodies and, therefore,

ESP teaching should reflect that.

18 Cinema, because of its multimodal or multisemiotic nature, that is, given that it

interrelates visual, auditory, written, oral, proxemic and gestural signs, gives students

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an embodied vision of a professional activity. For example, Witness for the Prosecution

shows the etiquette that law professionals have to comply with in England. The very

first images of the movie insist on the numerous rituals of an English courtroom. The

judge, who is officially a representative of the Crown, enters the courtroom very

solemnly after being announced and bows to the lawyers, who return the gesture. A

long tracking shot gives the viewers a detailed picture of the courtroom, which is

composed of two levels. The camera slowly moves from a long shot to a close-up,

focusing on the sword of justice and the royal coat of arms, the latter being there to

remind spectators that law courts in England are part of the Royal Court. The sovereign

is at the head of the English legal system, as indicated by a court official: “the Queen’s

justices of oyer and terminer”.

19 As for the barristers themselves, they have to abide by numerous written and

unwritten rules that French law students are usually unaware of. Barristers are

required to wear 18th century-style, horse-hair wigs and black gowns during court

proceedings. Wigs are supposed to confer dignity and to prevent lawyers from

becoming too personally involved in their cases. The wig is thus a crucial professional

prop which distinguishes law professionals from the lay public. This is exemplified in

Witness for the Prosecution by Sir Wilfrid’s attachment to his wig and the attention with

which he cares for it. Other traditions have to do with terms of professional address. As

Wilder’s film shows, barristers often refer to fellow colleagues and to solicitors as “my

learned friend” or some variation thereof. The movie also indicates the intimate bonds

that exist between barristers and judges. Sir Wilfrid, as an example, knows the judge

very well, as the judge himself was once a barrister. This would not have been

uncommon at the time; until 1990, judges were chosen from among the most successful

and well-regarded barristers3. Sir Wilfrid and the judge may well have lived and worked

closely in one of the Inns of Court (Lincoln’s Inn, Gray’s Inn, Inner Temple and Middle

Temple) when they were students.

20 As a result, the film reminds viewers that one needs to understand and respect cultural

and professional norms and that those norms vary depending on the sociocultural

context. Indeed, while in England lawyers have to comply with complex rules of

etiquette, in the US relationships between law professionals are more informal.

Contrary to English barristers, American lawyers are not visually recognizable by a

codified court attire. They are only asked to wear “business suits” in court, as

highlighted in Anatomy of a Murder, where Dancer, the prosecutor, looks like a self-

assured businessman with his glossy ensemble. As a result, courtrooms in the US lack

the aura of solemnity of the English Bar. Instead, “the professional ‘nakedness’ of the

American lawyer” is on display (Isani 2010 b: 195). The comparison of the two films

shows that each culture has its own standards for legal attire.

21 Thus, courtroom films give information about the multiple layers of professional

cultural rules that govern the practice of the law. In light of this, cinema provides

language learners not only with the linguistic skills needed to function professionally

but also with the requisite social codes necessary to command the attention of their

interlocutors. As Pierre Bourdieu noted (1992: 55):

[While anyone might have the competence] to produce sentences that are likely tobe understood” [not anyone has the authority] to produce sentences that are likelyto be listened to, likely to be recognized as acceptable in all the situations in whichthere is occasion to speak. Here again, social acceptability is not reducible to meregrammaticality.

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22 Bourdieu’s point is especially relevant to language learners who need to become aware

of the appropriateness of certain non-verbal cues if they seek professional integration.

To use Bourdieu’s terms, students should be able to master the “bodily or corporeal

hexis” of the judicial world, that is, they should know the implicit rules of engagement

that incline legal professionals to act and react in certain ways in specific contexts.

Furthermore, as Belcher (2013: 536) pointed out, providing learners with the tools they

need to join a community should also help them take some distance from these codified

practices and perceive their shortcomings. She asserts that “we are not really faced […]

with an either/or choice — to promote either acculturation or critique — for learners

can be provided with what they need to join a community and also supported in

thinking critically”.

23 Legal films depict the complicated ways of professional linguistic practice and show

students how they should behave in professionally-specific settings. While they seem to

meet the demands of ESP researchers, it is nevertheless very important to question

those films’ accuracy.

3. Cinema’s Fidelity to the Reality of Legal Practice

24 Preminger’s and Wilder’s works are above all entertainments, and as a result present

the courtroom as an arena for drama and suspense. There are many twists and turns,

and spectators are constantly taken aback once denied the payoffs they were baited to

expect. For instance, in Witness for the Prosecution, when Leonard Vole first meets Sir

Wilfrid, he presents his wife as a loving, supportive, and devoted woman who will

testify that he arrived home the evening of the murder long before the crime occurred.

However, when Mrs. Vole (Marlene Dietrich) appears, she is extremely hostile to Vole

and even suggests with her attitude that he is a liar and a murderer. In the same way,

Vole, who at first seems to be a gullible man, soon reveals himself to be a selfish and

evil liar who manipulates women to achieve his goals. At the end of the movie, we

realize that Vole did, in fact, kill Mrs. French to get her money and flee with his new

love Diana, an attractive woman who is much younger than his wife. When Mrs. Vole

becomes aware that her husband is cheating on her, she grabs a knife and kills him

inside the courtroom. When this happens, it becomes clear that many hints dropped

throughout the movie were purposely misleading and that the spectators were

continuously manipulated by the film’s director.

25 It goes without saying that most real-life trials are not so action-packed. Reversals of

situations, if they do occur, are smaller in number and less spectacular in scale than in

the movies. Cinema’s need for heightened drama colours depictions of professional

decorum as well. The lawyers in Anatomy of a Murder keep jousting with each other at

every opportunity, with Biegler banging his fist on the prosecution’s table to show his

indignation and throwing a witness’ criminal records on the same table in one of his

many outbursts. Dancer, for his part, tries repeatedly to make a fool of his opponent, at

one point moving around the courtroom to prevent Biegler from seeing his client’s wife

on the witness stand. Both play up commonly-held stereotypes. Biegler presents

himself as “a humble country lawyer”, while Dancer acts the role of the eloquent but

aggressive prosecutor, both putting on an act to convince the jury (and, of course, to

entertain the viewers). As a result, the judge often has to intervene to stop

confrontations from going too far. It would therefore be interesting to compare the

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lawyers from Anatomy of a Murder to those depicted in a documentary — e.g Johnnie

Cochran in American Justice: Why O.J. Simpson Won (1995) or Jim Hardin in The Staircase

(2004). Do real-life lawyers go to extreme lengths to find evidence outside the

courtroom, like the characters in Preminger’s film? How do they interact with each

other and before the judge? Do most American lawyers share Beigler’s unconcerned

approach to financial gains, knowing that studying law in the US is extremely

expensive (especially compared to France)4? In other words, how deep is the gap

between filmic representations of the courtroom and the reality of everyday legal

practice?

26 An over-emphasis on drama is not the only pitfall of courtroom films. According to

Machura and Robson (2001), cinema depicts a warped image of law and lawyers for

three other reasons. First, there is the question of form. Because most law films are

Hollywood productions, they tend to deal exclusively with the US legal system. This

conveys a very narrow sliver of the myriad legal approaches that exist, and offers the

false impression that US procedures are more prevelant than in actual fact. This

“paucity of material other than American” is thus likely to influence the conception of

viewers, among whom figure many law students. Then, there is the matter of content.

Most legal films focus on criminal cases and procedures, “even though there is far more

civil than criminal litigation in the real world” (2001: 118). Finally, cinema tends to

exaggerate the role of juries which only make decisions in a very small number of

cases.

27 Courtroom films give a distorted vision of legal practice in the common law world.

However, this drawback can also be perceived as an asset since it can arouse the

students’ critical faculties; learners may be prompted to identify and discuss the degree

to which the representation of legal practice in films is accurate (Belcher 2013: 536).

Furthermore, working on films made over fifty years ago may help with this task, since

students are less likely to key into the cultural cues and signifiers found in current legal

fiction5, and can thus more readily interpret the works as standalone texts.

Conclusion

28 While Preminger’s and Wilder’s films are not entirely faithful to the reality of a trial,

they can nevertheless be considered as useful pedagogical tools for several reasons.

First, they enable students to listen to legal vocabulary in context. Legal films also

allow learners to understand and compare the socio-professional norms (e.g. dress

code, way of addressing colleagues, and theatrics) of the judicial world in various

common law countries. Moreover, it enables them to understand that if cinema tends

to enhance the dramatic elements of an ordinary trial, it is because justice does have an

inherently theatrical nature. It can be seen as a proper way to find solutions through

obliquity, that is, through diverted means. No legal verdict can bring back the victim of

a murder; no prison sentence can retroactively prevent a rape. Justice is to a large

extent symbolic, in the sense that an equivalent to, never a replacement for, the loss

has to be found.

29 Finally, courtroom films offer further advantages that, though not explored here, could

be studied more thoroughly in another paper. One is tied to the very nature of cinema,

which offers us the opportunity to experience someone else’s vantage point while still

consciously remaining ourselves. A film forces its viewers to see things from its

Angles, 4 | 2017

210

characters’ point of view, and so develops viewers’ deep empathetic perspectives. In

requiring this perspectival change from students, cinema may help them become better

law professionals, since lawyers and judges must constantly change their point of view

in order to make fair decisions. Then, this tool could also provide a useful

counterbalance to the fact that reading and writing skills are usually favoured to oral

ones in law courses (Belcher 2006 ; 2013), especially if the study of cinema is associated

to an oral task such as putting themselves in somebody else’s shoes (e.g a law

professional, a victim, the accused). Courtroom films illustrate persuasive legal

argumentation and debate, which could encourage students to develop their own

rhetorical abilities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Asimow, Michael. “Embodiment of evil : law firms in the movies”, UCLA Law Review 48/6 (1996):

1340-1392.

Belcher, Diane. “English for specific purposes : Teaching to perceived and imagined futures in

worlds of work, study, and everyday life”. TESOL Quarterly 40 (2006): 133-156. DOI:

10.2307/40264514

Belcher, Diane. “The future of ESP research : Resources for Access and Choice”. In The Handbook of

English for Specific Purposes. Eds. Brian Paltridge and Sue Starfield. Boston: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.

535-552.

Bourdieu, Pierre. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity P. 1992.

Cardozo, Benjamin N. Law and Literature and Other Essays and Addresses. New York: Harcourt, Brace

& Co Inc. 1931.

Foucault, Michel. “Truth and juridical forms”. In Power: The Essential Works of Michel Foucault

1954-1984. Vol. 3. Ed. James D. Faubion. Trans. Hurley Robert and others. New York: New Press,

(1981) 2000.

Garapon, Antoine, and Ioannis Papadopoulos. Juger en Amérique et en France. Paris: Odile Jacob.

2003.

Isani, Shaeda. “Dynamique spectaculaire de la fiction à substrat professionel et didactique des

langues de spécialité.” Asp, la revue du Geras. 58 (2010a): 105-123. DOI: 10.4000/asp.1843

Isani, Shaeda. “Bench & Bar in Popular Legal Fiction: a comparative approach to fictional

representations and public perceptions.” GRAAT On-line issue (2010b): 182-200. http://

www.graat.fr/j-isani.pdf

Machura, Stefan, and Peter Robson. “Law and Film: Introduction.” Journal of Law and Society, 28.1

(2001): 1-8. DOI: 10.1111/1467-6478.00174

Machura, Stefan, and Stefan Ulbrich. “Law in Film: Globalizing the Hollywood Courtroom

Drama.” Journal of Law and Society 28.1 (2001): 117-132. DOI: 10.1111/1467-6478.00182

Angles, 4 | 2017

211

Paltridge, Brian, and Sue Starfield (eds.) The Handbook of English for Specific Purposes. Boston:

Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.

Prior, Paul. 2013. “Multimodality and ESP research.” In The Handbook of English for Specific

Purposes. Eds. Brian Paltridge and Sue Starfield. Boston: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. 519-535.

Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1835-1840. De la Démocratie en Amérique, Œuvres complètes. Paris: Gallimard.

1952.

Wigmore John H. “A list of legal novels”, Illinois Review 2. 1907-1908.

Zweigert Konrad. & Köez Hein. An Introduction to Comparative Law. Oxford: Oxford U.P. 2011.

Courtroom films

Anatomy of a Murder. Otto Preminger. Feat. James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara et al. 160mn.

1959.

12 Angry Men. Sydney Lumet. Feat. Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam et al. 96mn. 1957.

Witness for the Prosecution. Billy Wilder. Feat. Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton et

al. 116mn. 1957.

Legal documentaries

Murder on a Sunday Morning. Jean Xavier de Lestrade. Feat. Ann Finnell, Patrick McGuinness, James

Williams et al. 111mn. 2001.

American Justice: Why O.J. Simpson Won. 60mn. Towers Productions. 1995.

The Staircase. Jean Xavier de Lestrade. Feat. Michael Peterson, David Rudolf, Caitlin Atwater et al.

8 episodes. 480mn. 2004.

NOTES

1. Regina v. Randall [2003] UKHL 69, 18/12/2003, §10: “Randall was cross-examined about alleged

assaults on Elaine McGrath. It was suggested that he was a Jekyll and Hyde character who had a

propensity to use violence”.

2. With more recent legal films and television shows, learners might be familiar with the actors

or have already seen certain episodes; with black and white films from nearly sixty years ago,

most of them could come in ‘fresh’.

3. The Courts and Legal Service Act (1990) reformed the eligibility for the appointment of English

judges. However, today, judges are still mainly chosen from among eminent barristers.

4. It could be interesting to compare Anatomy of a Murder with Murder on a Morning (2001) by Jean-

Xavier de Lestrade. In this documentary, public defender Patrick McGuinness explains that, even

if they wished to, American lawyers cannot spend their careers defending the poor. Because the

low salary of a public defender is insufficient to pay back costly student loans, most of the best

legal practioners choose work in the private sector. Thus, the poor receive lower quality defence

than those who with means to pay. This film would also enable students to understand that

context (the fact that studying law is so expensive) influences the practice of lawyers.

5. For instance, the television show Law & Order famously dramatizes the most salient and well-

known legal cases in the United States. That very purposeful blend of fact and fiction makes it

much harder to stake a position of impartial analysis.

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ABSTRACTS

The objective of this paper is to analyse and compare representations of the legal systems of

England and the United States in two courtroom films: Witness for the Prosecution (1957) by Billy

Wilder and Anatomy of a Murder (1959) by Otto Preminger. After a brief analysis of the links

between law and fiction, the article presents an overview of how these films represent the

professional environments that are central to their stories. It then explores differences and

similarites between English and American law in theory and in practice. Since this article is

addressed to French law students, it also makes occassional reference to the Civil Law system and

to the inquisitorial procedure.

L’objectif de cet article est de comparer les représentations cinématographiques des systèmes de

justice anglais et américains à travers l’étude de deux fictions cinématographiques à subtrat

professionnel (FASP): Witness for the Prosecution (1957) de Billy Wilder and Anatomy of a Murder

(1959) d’Otto Preminger. Après une brève présentation des liens entre droit et fiction, l’article

propose une analyse des environements professionnels montrés dans ces œuvres et s’intéresse,

d’un point de vue théorique et pratique, aux similarités et aux différences du droit anglais et

américain. Dans la mesure où l’article s’adresse à des étudiants français, il fait également

référence de façon répétée au droit civil et à la procédure inquisitoire.

INDEX

Keywords: English for Specific Purposes (ESP), law, cinema, fiction, adversary procedure,

Common Law

Mots-clés: anglais à visée professionnelle, droit, cinéma, fiction, procédure accusatoire,

Common law

AUTHOR

ANNE-LAURE DUBRAC

Anne-Laure Dubrac is Associate Professor at the University of Paris XII (UPEC) where she teaches

general and legal English. Her research aims to analyze how cinema and theatre can stimulate

the development of linguistic and cultural skills. Contact: annelauredubrac [at] hotmail.com.

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Idiosyncrasies of the 2010Affordable Care Act from aComparative PerspectiveLea Stephan

1 The Affordable Care Act passed by the US Congress in 2010 has been criticized for many

of its shortcomings. However, a policy choice does not emerge in a sterile environment;

it originates in a particular context and is deeply influenced by society and culture

(Goodin 289), which explains why it is never the objectively best solution that is chosen,

but a solution that works in a given context. Comparative political science is an

efficient way of assessing particularities due to a specific context (Van Woodward 9,

17). By examining the differences and similarities between two countries on a given

issue, the contextual particularities that shaped each policy can emerge. When looking

at issues that seem to converge across Western countries, such as cost-control and

insurance systems, such a comparison highlights the divergence. Similar conditions are

often expected to lead to similar policy choices, but choices are deeply shaped by social,

cultural, and political values (Blank and Burau 265, 280).

2 In a comparative approach of social policies, the distinctiveness of the American system

has often been highlighted. For example, among the health systems of the post-

industrial world, the US stands out because of its heavy reliance on the private market

to address health care needs (Gerliner and Burkhardt; Evans 135-6, 141).1 These

specificities have often been explained in terms of typically American values: individual

freedom, personal responsibility, and small government (Gilens 1). More recently,

however, it has increasingly been argued that American social policies are deeply

racialized and that systemic racism has strongly contributed to the shaping of the

American welfare state (Edsall). The comparative approach obviously has its limits.

Sociologist and political scientist Theda Skocpol, for example, discards a purely

comparative analysis of US social policies. According to her, the comparative

perspective alone, without an in-depth analysis of the historical development of social

policies in the US, does not allow for a satisfying explanation of this racialization of

social policies that occurred in the US (Skocpol 12).

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3 Nonetheless, comparisons with other countries are useful to put forward the specificity

of the racial context of the United States in showing how the issue evolved in countries

where discourse is not deeply stained by racial conflict. Therefore, comparisons will be

made with health care policies in Europe, from their origins in Germany in 1883 to

today and in a range of countries, with a focus on Germany, the United Kingdom, and

France. Comparisons with Canada will be made as well, notably because of its

geographical proximity and frequent use as example of a health care system that

‘works’. Regrettably, systematic comparisons are not possible, so comparisons will be

made in a way as to most effectively highlight salient differences.

4 We will first give a brief overview of the development of health policies in the US, then

we will expose the major flaws of Medicare-Medicaid. Finally, we will examine Obama’s

health care reform, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), to reveal the peculiar aspects directly

influenced by the historical and racialized development of American social policies.

A Brief Historical Overview of Health PolicyDevelopment

5 It is commonly assumed that social policies were only developed in the US during the

1930s with President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. However, there is a far older

American Welfare State. Early American social policy developed at local, state, and

federal levels. Those programs involved benefits for Civil War veterans, an inclusive

primary and secondary school system, and some benefits for widows and orphans,

which were further developed in 1910. The proportions should not be overlooked: early

social policies mostly benefited elderly white men in the North (Skocpol 12; Fording

and Schram 54-7).

6 Regarding health insurance at the turn of the 20th century, the US was not initially

lagging behind other industrialized countries. Germany had passed pioneering health

legislation in 1883, and both the US and the UK were contemplating more social policies

in the 1910s. In Washington the idea of national health insurance made some headway

but failed by 1920 (Howard 60).

7 The European model clearly inspired the US in envisaging comprehensive social

policies, but all those European states had a strong government to take action in those

matters. In the United States, however, the Progressive Era of the 1910s must be

understood in relation to its “19th century patronage democracy”: local systems

disbursed social benefits to expand and maintain their constituencies, hence social

benefits were associated with corruption, especially through veterans’ pensions. The

system covered many more people than there were actual veterans: about 1/3 of the

native-born men in the North received a pension. There was a willingness to rework

this system into universal coverage for old age and disability but attempts by the

Wilson administration to expand social policies were hampered by the association

between social benefits and political corruption (Skocpol 141-4).

8 Shortly after the 1912 elections, in which Theodore Roosevelt ran on a platform

including health insurance, health care legislation was promoted by a group of

academics and the American Association for Labor Legislation. Although their proposal

was rather conservative and would only have covered workers (domestic and casual

workers excluded),2 their proposal was strongly opposed by labor unions because of

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their strong distrust of government, but even more because unions provided this type

of benefits for their members and feared the competition (Patel and Rushefsky 39).

Insurers opposed the proposal as well because they viewed it as a government assault

on private enterprise. After World War I, opposition to health legislation grew

stronger, because it had its origins in the much-hated German nation (Starr 30-5).

9 Although there were advocates of universal health coverage prior to World War I,

strong opposition developed as well. Because of the medical progress made during the

1920s, opposition to compulsory insurance emerged. Opponents such as the American

Medical Association feared that the government would set limits and issue regulations

that would hamper their opportunity of making greater profits from health services,

especially from middle-class patients who were attracted by medical progress. At the

same time, France debated the expansion of social protection. Small business notably

opposed those ideas because they feared cost increases (Elbaum 30).

10 During the New Deal, President Roosevelt showed great interest in establishing health

insurance but “political realities”, namely opposition from Republicans and Southern

Democrats with the support of lobbies like the American Medical Association (AMA),

prevented it (Katz 258).

11 During the same period, and partly fuelled by Roosevelt’s New Deal, Canada attempted

to introduce comprehensive, national health care, but the government’s proposal was

defeated (Boychuck 34-5, 37-8).

12 Truman introduced health care reform twice, in 1945 and 1949, and was defeated both

times. Although the New Deal had been under attack from the beginning, Truman

remained openly very supportive of the Welfare State principle and the New Deal. Just

like Roosevelt’s plan, Truman’s attempts to establish national health care were

attacked as socialism (Morone and Blumenthal). This seems particularly ironic from a

comparative perspective, since one of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s motives

in enacting health care was to weaken the appeal of German socialists (Blackbourn

346).3 Similar motives were at work in France, but they only found hesitant expression

in the 1880s and 1890s (Elbaum 30).4 The Truman health program planned for national

health coverage run and funded by government (Truman 2015). But out of respect for

American love of freedom, the program would have been optional. Political scientist

Gerard Boychuck argues that Truman’s health reforms were opposed and defeated

because they were openly linked to the administration’s desegregation efforts

(Boychuck 41).

13 While Truman’s health care bills were defeated in the US, France started developing a

comprehensive health care system in 1945 (Valtriani 11). Contracting health care

insurance became mandatory, but the system was mixed: only part of the coverage is

run by government (Elbaum 7).5

14 As mentioned earlier, opposition rhetoric equating universal and national health care

with socialism was among the forces preventing the creation of legislation in the US.

Hence, as early as the 1950s, health care advocates started shifting their discourse,

focusing more on health care for the elderly because it had greater political appeal

(Katz-Olson 22). In comparison, in the UK, the National Health Service was created in

1948 as a state-administered system of universal coverage, funded through general

revenue and free at point of service (Powell).

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15 The accusations of “socialized medicine” are still used in conservative rhetoric today,

but are rooted in the periods opposing the Soviet regime and Nazi Germany. According

to sociologist and political scientist Paul Starr, this opposition is a unique feature of

American thinking: “Only in the United States is public responsibility for health-care

costs equated with a loss of freedom.” (Starr 9-10) However, according to Boychuck, the

“socialist” rhetoric can also be read in a more racialized manner, especially since

Truman’s health care efforts were closely linked with his civil rights agenda. The

opposition had remained the same since the Roosevelt attempt. Support, however, was

shown by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the

black National Medical Association. According to Boychuck, the language used to

oppose civil rights matched the language used to oppose health care. The phrase

“socialized medicine” especially pointed to a threat to segregation, the most potent

item being the issue of doctor choice, in both directions, patient-doctor and doctor-

patient. The accusation of socialism can be considered the “easiest and most common

approach to opposing any progressive social legislation” (Boychuck 44, 47, 50).

16 The next attempt at achieving major social reform came in the 1960s with the election

of John F. Kennedy. A new window of opportunity for reform opened, as it had for FDR.6

Kennedy faced the choice of moving toward the center and diminishing possible

resistance from conservatives and big business, or to make a bolder move on the left.

Even more so than FDR had done, Kennedy chose to show himself “extremely

conciliatory with the economy.” (Noble 90) Kennedy chose a more conservative

approach, dropping the reform of the tax code and abandoning plans to increase social

spending by 1962, and opting for tax cuts to stimulate the economy. The Kennedy

administration adopted the domestic policy agenda already established by

Congressional Democrats, among which figured health care for the aged and the poor.

But when conservatives blocked the proposals, Kennedy, who was “uninterested in

domestic policy and put off by the need to court congressional leaders in order to pass

domestic legislation,” simply focused his attention on other issues (Noble 91).

17 Finally, it was president Lyndon B. Johnson’s commitment to social issues, his savviness

in dealing with Congress, and his ability to use political momentum that allowed him to

push for health care legislation. It must be noted that Johnson did more than just

enacting Kennedy’s projects: he redefined the proposals and pushed for more

ambitious legislation (Jansson 243; Feagin 73; Noble 93).

18 Johnson faced mixed conditions for enacting legislation. The economy was booming,

making it difficult for conservatives to mobilize business opposition; in fact, business

was rather supportive of new social policies (Noble 82-3). The situation was similar

when Bismarck first enacted social policies in Germany, as business had been a driving

force, recognizing their advantage in a healthier and more secure workforce

(Blackbourn 346).7 But Southern Democrats, Unions, and Federalism took their toll on

the new health care system.

19 The New Deal had set the precedent for a “two-track system” through Social Security

and public assistance targeting only the elderly and the very poor (Noble 79). This way

of proceeding precluded any universalist approach, and made it subsequently more

difficult to argue for universal programs.8 It should come as no surprise that the 1965

health care legislation, envisaged as a temporary step toward universal coverage,

should have matched the system set by the New Deal: Medicaid for the poor and

Medicare for the elderly. Although the Medicare proposal received broad public

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support, the Medicaid part of the legislation was designed secretly by Johnson and

Wilbur Mills, then Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (the main

committee with jurisdiction over health issues). The final proposal came as a surprise

to Congress and Johnson’s role in it has long been downplayed, although, according to

Mills, Johnson’s involvement was crucial in achieving the legislation (Morone and

Blumenthal 164-5, 166, 194). Medicare was especially opposed by the American Medical

Association and the insurance industry (Noble 88). Although they had lost power in

Congress, Southern Democrats were still fierce opponents of any universalist approach

and any improvement of social policies because they feared that their system of racial

segregation could be threatened, but they feared especially that any improvement of

the living conditions of poor blacks would make it more difficult to maintain their

exploitation system and very low wages (Soss et al. 57; Noble 89).

20 Federalism is yet another American feature that shaped the health system. The most

striking comparison can be made with Germany, since the two countries have a

similarly federal structure. Bismarck chose to create a centralized health care system

(Blackbourn 347). However, this must be qualified. Although it is a centralized system,

the government only issues guidelines to be implemented by private, state-supervised

insurance companies (Gerlinger and Burkhardt).9 The development in the US was

slightly different. In the American system, administration of social and public health

care programs is divided between federal and state governments. This depends on the

programs, and some programs are shared between the federal and state levels. The

administration of health programs will be detailed later, but this sharing of programs

gives states greater freedom in administering certain programs. Usually, the more

conservative states have weaker social programs.

21 One of the most American features in the battle for social policies is the role played by

unions. In Europe, unions and working class alliances were among the driving forces

for the expansion of social policies. In the United States, on the contrary, unions were

initially among the forces hampering the expansion of the Welfare State. The situation

was complex because unions supported liberal political coalitions, but only for

propositions that were feasible in the short term and of immediate interest to

organized workers. They often opposed greater expansions of social policies, because

the working class and the unions were greatly weakened by racial divisions. Their

refusal to integrate minorities prevented them from developing their base and also

made them more reluctant to support social policies that would have benefited all

workers, including blacks. Moreover, they felt that their privileges were threatened

through social policies, and were particularly wary of work-training programs that

would increase competition (Noble 85-8; Feagin 51).10 In short, racial divisions among

the American working class prevented them from supporting meaningful universal

social reform, ultimately leading to narrowly-tailored programs, especially for the

health care of the poor.

22 A growing body of scholars has been arguing that divisions among liberal Democrats on

these issues have been deepened by conservative Republicans by racializing the social

policy issue. Political scientists Paul Sniderman and Edward Carmines argue that racial

issues, especially race-specific policies, are more divisive on the left than on the right.

Conservative Republicans do not need any racist motivation to oppose social policies;

they oppose any government intervention out of ideological principle. Democrats, on

the contrary, can effectively be divided using racialized rhetoric. Initial support for

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social policies can be undermined by showing that it benefits minorities and thus

opposition can be fostered among more racially conservative Democrats (Sniderman

and Carmines 44-6, 78) or Democrats elected in more conservative districts or who have

white working class constituencies. Since the 1970s, conservative Republicans

constructed this racialized rhetoric as follows: the Democratic Party is portrayed as

catering exclusively to minority interests, ignoring claims of the white working and

middle class. In this view, social programs are presented as taxing hard-working whites

to finance government outlays for underserving minorities who lack any work ethic

and live immoral and lazy lives.11

23 At the same time as the US enacted Medicaid-Medicare, Canada managed to introduce

in 1966 comprehensive national health care, supplanting the previous province-by-

province system. Canada’s national health care efforts had also been hampered by

issues of federalism. However, the creation of the Canadian Medicare (which has the

same name as in the United States, but which refers to health care for everyone in the

Canadian system) was questioned not because of underlying racial concerns but

because of a discussion on the scope of the prerogatives of the federal government.

Moreover, according to Boychuck’s analysis, opposition by the French-speaking

minority of Quebec hampered national health care. However, the conservative

government elected in 1957 pushed for federal-provincial reconciliation and saw

“national health care as a powerful tool for territorial integration.” ( Boychuck 118-9,

124, 125)12

24 In the US, Johnson managed to create a first public health care system in 1965 by

adding title XX in the amendments to the Social Security Act. Medicare, the health

program for the elderly, is based on an insurance concept to avoid any association with

“socialism.” It is financed through employer and employee payroll taxes. Despite the

fact that it is partly funded by general revenues and is not exclusively contributory,

people associate Medicare with an earned right (Katz-Olson 214). Only Medicare Part A

covering hospital and limited nursing home care is funded by payroll taxes. Part B is

funded by general revenues and beneficiary copayments and covers physician fees and

other services. Part B was made optional under pressure from Republicans and the

AMA. They also obtained the dropping of any cost-control measure, which led to

inflating health costs (Starr 46, 48). According to political scientist James Morone and

health care expert David Blumenthal, the issue of segregation shortly jeopardized the

implementation of Medicare. Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act forbids discrimination

of any kind for programs that receive federal assistance. This meant that hospitals

receiving Medicare payments could not segregate. Towards the end of 1967, all but a

dozen hospitals in the South had implemented desegregation rather than losing

Medicare funds. President Johnson’s plan of using Medicare as a means for achieving

social change had worked (Morone and Blumenthal 195-7).

25 Medicaid, on the other hand, which was hastily added as Title XIX to the Social Security

Act, was constructed as “a conservative, sparse, uneven, and stigmatized program.” It is

based on a means test and funded “only by dint of national and state officials’ annual

good will.” (Katz-Olson 24-6) It has to be highlighted that Medicare is centralized,

whereas the funding and administration of Medicaid is split between the federal

government and the states. In this sense, the latter happily combines demands of

Southern Democrats with American federalism: the political system is used to satisfy

the need of racial conservatives to maintain their black population in poverty by

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leaving to the states the administration and regulation of programs destined to the

poor. And because of this joint administration, the implementation of Medicaid took

much longer. By 1969, Arizona and Alaska still had not adopted Medicaid. As early as

1967, federal funding had been seriously capped: the federal government set the

maximum eligibility levels that would receive federal funding. States were free to set

higher levels, but none did (Katz-Olson 31).13

26 Thus health legislation as enacted by the Johnson administration was shaped by a very

“American” political context that differed greatly from the situations obtaining in

Europe. Political traditions and a unique situation of racial division of the working class

prevented the creation of a comprehensive health care system, leading to Johnson’s

partial solution that proved lasting and resistant to reform, a solution which was

flawed from its inception and laid the foundations for future problems and inequalities.

A flaw-ridden public system

27 The first flaw is soaring health care costs that have become a central problem of the

American health care system. Medicare contributed to medical inflation because the

program contained no cost-control measures. The program did not contain incentives

for medical providers to decrease their charges or to refrain from unnecessary

surgeries or treatments. In the case of Medicaid, open-ended entitlement had been

capped rapidly, especially since federal spending had to match state spending, leading

some states to soaring expenses due to generous coverage of their population (Jansson

248-9).14 Subsequent Medicaid reforms have led to a greater shifting of costs to the

states and enactments of block grants in some areas, leading to increasing eligibility

restrictions (Jansson 304).15 No cost-reducing incentive was built into Medicare,

however, leading to soaring costs, caused only in part by evolving technology (Jansson

248). Before the introduction of diagnostics-related groups in Medicare to finance

Medicare’s hospital fees in 1983 under president Reagan, Medicare cost control was

ignored at two levels (Jansson 304, 320). To ensure the AMA’s collaboration, Wilbur

Mills had promised that doctors, even within hospitals, could charge their private

praxis fees on Medicare, thus making the program far more expensive (Morone and

Blumenthal 194). In addition, Medicare was reimbursed on a fee-for-service basis that

encouraged the multiplication of tests and procedures contributing to an increasingly

costly system (Starr 48). Bluntly put, Medicare had become a means for the health care

industry to milk the federal government.

28 The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 introduced Medicare Part C, providing Part A and B

benefits through subsidized private insurance plans. Once more, a Democratic

President, Bill Clinton, did the work that Republicans had not managed to achieve.16

Eventually, it was president George W. Bush who managed to further reform Medicare,

where Reagan had failed. The 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and

Modernization Act moved ever more Medicare beneficiaries to the private insurance

market. It also introduced Medicare Part D that covers prescription drugs on a

subsidized and voluntary basis (Office of Retirement…; Howard 31). But both additions

also had major flaws and would prove costly for both the beneficiaries and the

taxpayers. This dismantling of the Welfare State, be it through privatization or through

reducing programs into temporary assistance, shows the enduring nature of Reagan’s

ideological heritage.17 Something similar happened in the UK. Prime Minister Margaret

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Thatcher did not achieve fundamental health care reform, although it must be

mentioned that funding was significantly cut under her leadership. It was the 2012

Health and Social Care Act that finally extended privatization to half of the NHS hospital

beds. As with Reagan, the Thatcher legacy proves a lasting one and has fundamentally

altered and shaped the discourse about taxes and social policies (Dorling 241; Walker

297).

29 Medicare Part D contained the infamous and expensive “doughnut hole”: beneficiaries

had to pay ¼ of the drug costs between $250 and $2,250, all of the cost from $2,550 to

$5,100, and 5% of the cost above that amount. Additional insurance for the doughnut

hole could not be purchased, thus making it a further incentive for the elderly to move

on to private insurance rolls. These incentives had already been increased by the

transformation of Part C into Medicare Advantage. However, these government

subsidized private plans were yet another means for private companies to get more

money out of the government: on average, those plans cost $1,000 more per person per

annum than a traditional Medicare coverage (Starr 149-50).

30 At the inception of Medicare, the AMA had pressured government into allowing

physicians to charge higher fees than what was covered, leaving beneficiaries

sometimes with high copayments. Combined with the “scanty” coverage provided by

traditional Medicare (Office of Retirement…),18 many elderly are forced to an

alternative tactic in case of serious illness and need of chronic nursing home care: the

depletion of assets that allows them to move on to the Medicaid rolls (Jansson 248).

These persons are referred to as dual-eligible beneficiaries. This creates yet another

problem: these elderly persons inflate the costs of Medicaid, but, in the public mind,

they are covered by Medicare, which is perceived as “earned” benefits. The costs of

Medicaid, however, are among the constant arguments to restrict eligibility and to

create measures for cutting the rolls. These measures usually affect people who are not

responsible for the high costs (Katz-Olson 213). This way, the problem of Medicare costs

became a major problem for Medicaid, since this makes the program more vulnerable.

31 But Medicaid’s vulnerability also stems from the way in which it is administered.

Medicaid is managed by the states and federal grants match state grants. Thus a state

that is not willing to spend much on its poor will receive less money than a state that is

willing to spend more, leaving people deprived at both state and federal level (Howard

179; Gilens 25).19 This state administration leads to very diverse Medicaid programs,

with fifty separate state government plans which change often. As political scientist

Laura Katz-Olson humorously puts it: “If you’ve seen one Medicaid program, you’ve

seen one Medicaid program.” (Katz-Olson 1) Differences exist at all levels: from the

amount of funding and eligibility levels, to regulations and involved health industries

(Jansson 248-9). This diversity also leads to staggering inequalities among beneficiaries

between states. A person eligible for Medicaid in one state might not be so in the

neighboring state. This creates a deep inequality between Medicare and Medicaid,

leaving Medicaid exposed to restrictions due to state political ideology, making it a

vulnerable program. The more conservative state governments is, the lower are the

benefits people receive (Gilens 25). Most of the states with very low eligibility levels, in

particular for parents (childless adults were excluded prior to the enactment of the

Affordable Care Act), are in the South.

32 In contrast, in Germany there is virtually no state variation, despite the great variety of

health insurance companies (still 131 today). They have to operate within the same

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standardized framework and have to act in the same way for many aspects. Some

critics deplore this lack of flexibility (Gerlinger and Burkhardt). Strong federal control

also exists within the US system: Medicare is nationally administered and presents

nearly no state variations.

33 Moreover, this two-tracked health care system has created two distinct constituencies

of beneficiaries. One of the reasons of Medicare’s longevity is the powerful AARP

(American Association of Retired Persons). The AARP was among the fiercest and

loudest opponents to Reagan’s plan to cut Social Security and Medicare and largely

managed to defeat his reform proposals (Brownlee and Graham 8-9). On the contrary,

because of its less politically active constituency, the 1981 cuts in Medicaid under

Reagan went largely unopposed, although the Reagan cuts included a 5% cap on the

growth of the federal Medicaid share paid to the states, which made the program closer

to a block grant program than an entitlement program (Slessarev 359).

34 The strong political involvement of American senior citizens through the AARP allows

for a clear contrast with Europe. In most European countries, care for the elderly, or

rather its associated costs, is a frequently mentioned problem. For example, in the UK,

the elderly and their associated health care costs are perceived as an economic burden

creating a crisis in the Welfare State. In fact, this constant framing of the elderly as a

burden has led to the political alienation of a significant part of the retired population

in the UK (Thane 139-40). This stands in sharp contrast with the American situation,

where the AARP is a major player in health care policy and a dynamic political element.

35 Medicaid, on the other hand, has a rather politically inactive and diverse constituency.

Constant reforms change the beneficiaries, which is further complicated by the varying

eligibility levels of the different states, which makes it difficult to pin down the

description of the average beneficiary. This makes mobilization on behalf of Medicaid

more difficult (Howard 33-4; Katz-Olson 181; Jansson 291).20 An analysis by political

scientist Andrea Louise Campbell shows that the mobilization of senior citizens is

partly fuelled by the high stakes they have in Social Security and Medicare. She also

highlights the link between low income and low education with low political

participation (Campbell 30, 32), Medicaid beneficiaries being, by definition, low-income

populations, explains why mobilization on behalf of Medicaid is less active.

36 In addition, the health care system as devised by the Johnson administration also laid

the foundation for a racialization of the two programs. As mentioned earlier, the racial

division of the American working class is one of the aspects that set the American

health care and social policy history apart from that of other industrialized countries.

It also can be said that racialization makes a unique tool for hampering the expansion

of social policy and for cutting back existing programs.

37 Administration and funding created two programs that are perceived in distinct

manners. Medicare is largely perceived as a “good” program whose beneficiaries have

“earned” their benefits through lifelong contributions (notwithstanding the fact that

the program pays out more than individuals have contributed and is partly funded

through general tax revenues). Medicaid, on the other hand, has a less prestigious

status. Katz-Olson explains that “Medicaid was initially considered Medicare’s

friendless stepchild, created in its shadow and catering to a politically powerless

clientele.” Her findings show that media coverage of Medicaid generally adopts a

negative tone and describes a program that is out of control. Moreover, Medicaid is

often part of partisan conflict regarding the administration of the program, and in

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particular over funding and benefit levels. This “has stirred up fears of fiscal disaster

and images of unworthy clients taking advantage of taxpayer dollars.” (Katz-Olson 1,

11) Despite Republican attacks on the program, it remains somewhat popular with the

population. A 2011 Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 47% of Americans oppose

spending cuts in Medicaid (although it was still the program getting the least popular

support), and 39% of respondents declared that the program was important for them

(Kaiser Family Foundation 2011).

38 Political scientist Martin Gilens has tried to bring clarity into an American paradox.

Although people claim to be supportive of social policies and help for the needy, they

oppose a wide range of measures, especially if those are labeled ‘welfare.’(Katz-Olson

131; Gilens 30, 200)21 Gilens explains that this is due to a certain perception of the

welfare recipient that has developed in the American public mind since the mid-1960s.

This picture is one of an able-bodied black adult using welfare as a substitute for self-

reliance. The perception is clearly one of the average welfare recipient as the lazy Black

lacking work ethic. Hence the idea that most welfare recipients are undeserving and

actually do not need the government’s help, although Americans support government

help for the deserving (Gilens 2-3, 36, 62-3, 67-8, 80, 187, 191).22 In short, social policies

are racialized and opponents of social policies use race to argue for further cuts in the

program.23

39 This image of undeserving minorities as parasitic beneficiaries builds on facts.

Although in absolute numbers whites represent the majority of beneficiaries, the

picture is slightly different when looking at it in proportion to the size of the

communities. Minorities, particularly African-Americans and Latinos, are the poorest

communities in the US.24 This means they are the most likely to benefit from means-

tested programs.25 This proportional overrepresentation of minorities allows for a

racialized presentation of the program. The strong racialization of social policies, and

health care in particular, might be the most distinctive element shaping the American

system.

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Figure 1: Medicaid Populations by Race, 2009

Adapted from CMS.gov. 2015 and US Census Bureau.

40 Blacks represent 21% of the Medicaid population, but they represent only 12% of the

total population. Contrariwise, whites represent 37% of the Medicaid population, but

63% of the total population (see Figure 1). This allows for this presentation of Medicaid

as a program for minorities.

41 The emergency plan devised by the Johnson administration created a particular

situation for American health care, be it in its development, shape, or possibility for

future reform. The fragmentation of American health care between a divided

constituency and stakeholders’ interests created a logjam for years making health care

a recurrent reform project, as well as a recurrent political failure. Some argue that

Conservatives saw the enactment of Medicaid and Medicare as a means to prevent a

national health care system (Katz-Olson 28).

42 The lack of comprehensiveness of the Medicare-Medicaid system has often been

pointed out as an American flaw. The majority of the American population relies on

private insurance because the two programs only cover two distinct parts of the

population: the elderly and the very poor. In 2009, only 30.6% of the total population

was covered by government health insurance (Medicare, Medicaid, or military health

insurance). 64.5% of the population relied on private insurance, 56.1% of them

benefited from employer insurance. Strong racial disparities apply here as well: 73.2%

of the white population have private insurance, 62.7% of the white population have

employer health insurance. This is the case for only 49.3% of the black population,

where only 45.2% have employer insurance. The figures are even lower for Hispanics:

only 40.7% of the Hispanic population has private insurance, and only 37.2% have

employer insurance. The uninsured rates also greatly vary depending on the different

populations. In 2009, only 11.5% of the white population had no health insurance, but

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20.3% of the black population lacked coverage, as did 31.6% of the Hispanic population

(De Navas-Walt et al. 77-81). Thus the different racial populations of the US have very

different stakes in health care reform and minorities are more in need of government

responsiveness and health care reform because they rely less on the private market.

43 The situation in the US is not isolated. European states did not all immediately enact

comprehensive and universal health care. France, for example, only progressively

offered universal coverage, progressively including populations such as students, war

widows, jobless persons, and interns between 1945 and 1978. Covered services were also

extended, but in a piecemeal fashion and by population sectors (Elbaum 43-4.).

Obama Facing A Minefield

44 President Barack Obama made health care the major issue of his presidency and took a

great risk doing so because he faced a political minefield. American health care history

was characterized by nearly one century of failures to enact comprehensive health

reform. The piecemeal system that emerged from successive waves of reform remains

complex. This makes the system prone to misunderstandings and misrepresentations

and it makes it difficult for the population to understand their interests in the system

(Starr 10-1). To this must be added the fact that the health care constituency is divided

along racial and class lines, making it more difficult to effectively address health

inequalities.

45 Health care plays a central role in economic well-being (Wysong et al. 16, 79-80, 90).

Minorities, and especially African-Americans, face particular health conditions that

distinguish them from the rest of the population.26 Moreover, since the African-

American middle class is more fragile than the white one, they are more likely to face

personal bankruptcy and loss of middle class status after serious illness.27

46 The will of the Obama administration to make health care more accessible for the poor

and improve benefits was (and is) threatened by the negative image of Medicaid and its

administration system.

47 The Clinton health reform debacle, spearheaded by Hillary Clinton during her

husband’s presidency, showed that the creation of unity, both among reformers and

the public, was paramount in achieving reform. Obama had a similar situation: the

public apparently supported health care reform by a wide margin, even progressive

health care reform. A New York Times poll in June 2009 found that 85% of respondents

thought that the health care system needed to be changed. 72% of the respondents

even supported “something like Medicare” for people under age 65, with only 20% of

respondents opposing such a government-run system. The same poll found that even

50% of the respondents identifying as Republicans supported a public plan. This

support should not be overestimated, however, as the same poll found that 77% of

respondents were actually satisfied with the insurance plans they had (Sack and

Connelly). A study by political scientists and statisticians Andrew Gelman, Daniel Lee,

and Yair Ghitza found that, regarding public opinion, Obama faced a situation similar to

Clinton’s in 1993-4. They also caution that “Opinion is notoriously volatile on issues

that are poorly defined in the public mind, and support of health care reform does not

necessarily translate to support for any particular policy.” (Gerlman et al. 2) What is

more, their analysis shows that support varies greatly according to age and income

categories. Not surprisingly, the higher the income, the higher the opposition to health

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care reform. More surprisingly, perhaps, is the fact that support for health care reform

also dwindles with age and decreases for people over age 60. The same age group was

also less in favor of increased government spending on health care for the uninsured

and on health care insurance in general (Gerlman et al. 7-8). In other words, a

population that could have been viewed as an ally for health care reform, the elderly,

who already benefit from a government-run plan, are among those less likely to

support reform and an expansion of benefits like theirs to other parts of the

population.

48 It has already been pointed out that the population categories most in need of health

care reform, younger Americans in the lower income brackets, and especially

minorities, are among the less politically active populations. Political scientist Larry M.

Bartels pointed out that Congress tends to be more responsive to its richer voters and

insisted on “the real limitations of public opinion as a basis for democratic policy

making.” (Bartels 6, 27-8) Thus, support for health care reform cannot predict the

outcome of the reform proposal.

49 Gelman et al.’s analysis shows that, according to a survey in March 2010, support for

Obama’s reform proposal was only 46%, while 48% opposed it. This support was sharply

divided along partisan lines: 81% of Obama voters supported the proposal, while 90% of

McCain voters opposed it (Gelman et al. 9). Obama was elected in 2008 with a majority

of 52.9% of the popular vote (Roper Center 2014). This majority does not seem all that

great when taking into account the sharp partisan division regarding the support for

the health care reform proposal, especially when considering that the proposal

managed 9 percentage points less support from Obama supporters than opposition

from McCain supporters. What seemed like an overwhelming support for health care

reform, with about 85% of people saying in 2009 that the system needed change, was

reduced to 45% of support for the actual proposal (Jones). A 2012 analysis of public

opinion regarding health care by political scientist Michael Tesler found that opinions

concerning health care reform were racialized, as racial resentment played a stronger

influence in the rejection of Obama’s reform proposal than it did for Clinton’s. In a

short time span, attitudes changed between 2007 and 2009 and became more racialized

once Obama had become the spokesperson for the health care reform proposal. Two

elements stand out: support for the health care reform was divided along racial lines,

with 83% of the black population supporting the Obama reform in 2009-2010, compared

with 38% of whites. This racial polarization was less sharp for the Clinton reform

proposal in 1993-4: 69% of blacks supported the Clinton reform compared with 43% of

whites. In September 2007, the most racially resentful respondents preferred private

health insurance over government-run health insurance by 30% compared to the least

racially resentful respondents. This increased to 60% by November 2009, when Obama

had become the spokesperson for the health care reform (Tesler 696, 698, 701). It

appears then that the rejection of strong government involvement in health care, be it

through a single payer system or in the form of the public option, is partly motivated

by racial resentment.

50 This lack of support for a specific proposal is further complicated by the fact that the

American system has effectively fragmented the health care constituents into different

groups with different stakes: the poor needed a Medicaid expansion and improvement,

whereas the elderly feared a loss of benefits, but they still needed a Medicare

improvement, especially regarding the doughnut hole.28 56% of the population was

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insured through their employers in 2009 (Proctor et al. 77), and unions had their

privileges. Progressives made demands for government options for health care and

some supported a single-payer system as in Canada.

51 This fragmented public opinion and health care constituency landscape meant that the

apparently overwhelming support for health care could be easily fragmented and

destabilized, just as was the case for Clinton in 1993-4.29

52 Moreover, the Obama administration had to deal with powerful health interest groups

that had successfully opposed health care reform in the past. Among those are PhRMA,

AHIP, AMA, AHA, small businesses, etc.30 The system had allowed the health care

industries to enrich themselves, making them fierce opponents of reform. The system

has accurately been described as a trap. Despite its obvious flaws, the public was just

satisfied enough to be afraid of losing their advantages, making people wary of reform

(Starr 2).

53 The passage of the ACA was a historic victory, although this can be easily overlooked.

Health reform was declared dead several times, but Democrats had made a

commitment and were determined. Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the House and a key

player in the health care reform said: “You go through the gate. If the gate’s closed, you

go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we’ll pole-vault in. If that doesn’t work, we’ll

parachute in. But we’re going to get health care reform passed for the American

people.” (Qtd. in Kirsch 4) The resulting Act reflects Pelosi’s words, because the reform

was severely maimed by ideological and political assaults. Many concessions were made

initially because the Obama administration wanted to create a bipartisan bill. Even

though it rapidly became apparent that bipartisanship was more a matter of wishful

thinking than reality, the Democratic majority in Congress, and especially in the

Senate, was not strong enough and ideologically unified to achieve a truly progressive

reform. Despite their non-participation in the reform debates, Republicans managed to

impact the bill through two means: by unsettling public opinion and by later

challenging the constitutionality of the ACA.

54 Although Obama’s reform is rather centrist and was aimed at achieving bipartisan

support, it still got him called a ‘socialist’. Several Democratic members of Congress

deplored the lack of Republican participation. Representative Robert E. Andrews (D-NJ)

said: “I’m disappointed that the Republicans did not meaningfully participate in the

process of writing this bill. They were given ample opportunity to do so.” (Andrews)

Representative Bart Gordon (D-TN) even regretted the attempts made at

bipartisanship, given the almost total absence of success:

He [Obama] was, I’m afraid, a bit naïve at that time, thinking that there could bebipartisanship. He never received it, and still hasn’t. So, and I think that he wastedsome of his time in the presidency […] it’s a good instinct, I’m glad that he tried, butit was an effort that wasn’t going to be successful. (Gordon)

55 Representative Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) has a somewhat harsher assessment of the

situation, sparing neither of the two parties:

Democrats did not reach out meaningfully. We wanted to drag a Republican or twoin, so we could claim it was bipartisan, but basically we did not reach out to theother side. Now, the other side also made it clear, right from the beginning, theyweren’t going to play, they almost double-dared us to do this, and there was muchmore interest in the political damage that they could inflict on the Party, than tryto make the bill acceptable by any goals they had for health reform. (Pomeroy)

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56 Former Representative John Tierney (D-MA) said that Democrats encountered a total

refusal from Republicans, who, even though they said that they wanted a different type

of reform, made no recommendations. According to Tierney, Republicans only focused

on the overreach of government (Tierney). In a 2016 article published in the Journal of

the American Medical Association, Obama denounced Republicans’ “hyperpartisanship”

and he insisted on the fact that Republicans refused their own ideas, such as the

individual mandate, but also others, when they were presented in the context of the

health care reform proposed by the Obama administration (Obama 2016: 530). The

refusal at bipartisan collaboration also highlights the strong political polarization

around social policies, which often revolves around different conceptions about the

role and scope of government. The accusations of a ‘socialist’ reform denote the

rejection of a strong federal government and lead to the rhetorical use of the embedded

notion of Big Government.31 This is one of the reasons why the single-payer system,

where the federal government manages all the health care costs, was never an option.

Most congresspeople were against single payer out of electoral calculation. Former

Representative Bart Gordon admitted that, in retrospect, a single payer system might

have been a better approach, but that at that time it was “politically undoable.”

(Gordon) Former Representative Earl Pomeroy shared this assessment of the political

situation: “It’s impossible to achieve politically. You can only do that which you can

pass and get the population to accept. And so moving from where we were to single

payer was not going to happen.” (Pomeroy) Although public opinion polls showed that

a vast majority of Americans, about 70%, criticized the existing health care system

overall, only 20% were dissatisfied with their care and 40% were dissatisfied with costs

at a personal level. Hence congresspeople feared electoral consequences if they

supported a disruptive reform (Jacobs and Scocpol 89-90).

57 Even among progressives there was no majority in support of a single-payer system, as

explained by Richard Kirsch, one of the activists of HCAN! (Kirsch 68).32 HCAN! feared

that single payer would frighten public opinion and play into the hands of

conservatives. Instead they chose to support the public option alternative (Kirsch 38,

80).33 Despite comparative studies that have shown the advantages and especially the

cost-saving possibilities of the single payer system of their North American neighbors,

strong anti-statist ideology prevented the mere discussion of a system akin to the

Canadian one. Despite the lack of media coverage, single payer still has supporters,

however, even in Congress. Yardly Pollas, senior legislative director for Representative

Bobby Rush (D-IL), said that the congressman favored single payer as a better solution

that would allow for fewer inequalities (Pollas 2016). Dan Riffle, health advisor to

Representative John Conyers (D-MI), explained the congressman’s long-standing

interest in single payer as a means to achieve truly universal health coverage, dating

back to the sixties when universal health care was advocated as part of the fight for

civil rights. Rep. Conyers has been working toward introducing again a proposal for

single payer (Riffle 2016).

58 Progressives had endorsed the public option as an alternative to single payer. Leaving

the choice between private and government-run insurance was supposed to deflect

attacks about a government takeover on health care. However, the public option very

quickly became controversial. Among others, it was attacked by AHIP and Blue Shield

Blue Cross, who are among the biggest insurers, because they feared the competition.

Although Obama hesitantly supported the public option, it was eventually killed in the

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Senate (Kirsch 80-1, 112-3, 137, 161, 285; Jacobs and Skocpol 70-3, 80). At this stage of

the debates, bipartisanship had long been abandoned and it was eventually a handful of

conservative Democrats who defeated the public option in the Senate,34 as well as the

proposal for a national health exchange (Klein; Mendelberg; Edsall and Edsall 12, 19, 71,

138; Brimes 66; Heclo 27-9; Kirsch 161, 289). The health exchanges would be

administered at state level instead (Skocpol 99).35

59 Several congressmen highlighted the fact that the centrist move of the reform was, to a

great extent, due to the ideological diversity on the Democratic side. Former

Representative Robert E. Andrews summarized it as follows:

We had some Democrats who didn’t vote for the bill, they had various reasons,some of them frankly thought that it didn’t go far enough, they wanted a single-payer health system like Canada has, others thought it went too far and they didn’twant the taxes in the bill to help to pay for the extended coverage, other Democratsfelt that it was a politically disadvantageous vote in their district and might costthem their election, and in fact it did cost some of them their election. (Andrews)

60 According to former Representative Bart Gordon, the conservative outreach of the

reform was more to convince conservative Democrats than Republicans (Gordon). Even

Representatives who voted for the ACA were dissatisfied with it. Representative John F.

Tierney expressed his disappointment over the ACA saying that, by the end, it was clear

that it was the “Senate bill or no bill at all,” despite the fact that many would have liked

to see a more progressive reform (Tierney). The threat of a Republican filibuster and

the ensuing need of a solid 60-votes majority was enough to give the more moderate

and conservative Democrats in the Senate disproportionate leverage. Political scientists

Theda Skocpol and Lawrence Jacobs explained that the political exploitation of every

negotiation between Democrats by “Republicans [who] cried “wolf” at each step,

ma[de] normal legislative deal making visible to an increasingly anxious and

bewildered public.” (Jacobs and Skocpol 62-4) The impact of this highly publicized and

protracted reform process must not be underestimated. Jacobs and Shapiro

demonstrated that the focus on disagreement and disputes during a reform process

contributed to unsettle the public and made public opinion turn against the Clinton

reform (Jacobs and Shapiro xvi, 65). During the Obama health care reform process,

Senators from moderate or conservative states especially feared for their reelection

prospects should they support a reform judged as too progressive. This was for example

the case of Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas (Jacobs and Skocpol 62).

61 In this sense, by destabilizing public opinion and making Democrats fear for their

reelection prospects, the sharp Republican opposition managed to significantly impact

the ACA and contributed to make it more centrist than many would have liked it to be,

despite initial public opinion polls that appeared favorable to a major reform.

62 Former Representative John Tierney also pointed out that the death of Senator

Kennedy had a huge impact on the bill. In his opinion, Kennedy’s expertise, authority,

and political savviness would have allowed for a much more progressive bill (Tierney).

Conservative Democrats in the House threatened to withdraw their support if

government funds could be used to cover abortions. On the other hand, pro-choice

supporters threatened the reform, should abortion rights not be included (Kirsch 272-3,

275).36 Eventually the Stupak-Amendment was added, but even so, anti-abortion

Democrats pushed President Obama into signing an additional executive order

prohibiting the use of federal funds for abortions (Kantor 2010).

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63 It has already been mentioned that health care provider interests have been among the

traditional opponents of health care reform in the US. They succeeded repeatedly in

defeating reform efforts, which is why Obama made sure to invite them to the

negotiations table, much to the resentment of progressive pressure groups (Kirsch 133,

148, 156). Longstanding opponents, such as the AMA and AHA, had been mollified

through the promises of universal coverage and the ensuing prospects of new

customers that would more than make up for the small income loss due to new

regulations, such as caps on insurance premiums and out-of-pocket contributions.

PhRMA was won over by special promises (that were in contradiction with campaign

promises) that there would be no competition from generic drugs and no importation

of cheaper drugs from other countries. In return, PhRMA invested in pro-reform

advertisement ( Jacobs and Skocpol 70-3). AHIP proved to be a tougher opponent. It was

among those who managed to kill the public option, but enraged at the weakening of

the penalties for non-compliance with the individual mandate (the obligation to

contract health insurance), which was obtained by the Republicans. AHIP feared that

they would only (sic) obtain 94% of the population as customers. Ironically, AHIP, with

its long history of opposition to government action on health reform, actually

complained about “too little government.” ( Jacobs and Skocpol 73-4)

64 The remaining government intervention and regulation that the ACA provided for was

challenged by Republicans. The 2012 Sebelius lawsuit, National Federation of Independent

Business v. Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services 648 F. 3d 1235, attacked the

constitutionality of the individual mandate, which was eventually declared

constitutional by the Supreme Court. The ironical feature of this conservative attack

against the ACA is that, initially, the individual mandate was a conservative idea

introduced in the Republican health reform proposal to oppose the 1993 Clinton plan

(Jacobs and Shapiro 135). The individual mandate is also at the heart of the much-

praised Massachusetts health care system enacted by Republican Mitt Romney. When

Democrats proposed the same idea, Republicans denounced it as “big government” and

as an attack on personal liberty (Jacobs and Skocpol 91).

65 It has already been demonstrated that conservative opposition and outright attacks

against too much government involvement took its toll on the health insurance system

devised for the ACA: single payer was never really considered, the public option was

abandoned. The ACA had thus to rely on several means to achieve universal coverage of

the population. One of those means is the extension of Medicaid, the public health

insurance program for the poor, to all people, including able-bodied adults without

children, which were previously excluded from the program, and for incomes up to

133% FPL.37 This extension was the other element, besides the individual mandate, that

was challenged in the 2012 Sebelius lawsuit against the ACA. It was argued that the

federal government had no right to penalize non-compliance with the new Medicaid

extension with the loss of all federal Medicaid funds, depriving states of over 10% of

their budget (National Federation of Independent Business… 2012). The Supreme Court

ruled against the ACA and the Medicaid extension became optional, allowing once more

the most conservative states to restrict Medicaid eligibility.38 This had a negative

impact at two levels: on the universality of coverage and on the black population.

66 The universality of coverage was threatened by this, because the ACA relied on this

extension to cover the poorest populations. First results have shown that the uninsured

rates in the states without the Medicaid extension is still significantly higher than in

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the states having adopted the extension (Kaiser Family Foundation 2016b) (see Figures

2 and 3).

Figure 2. Uninsured rates by states, in percent (2013)

Adapted from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Figure 3. Uninsured rates by states, in percent (2015)

Adapted from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

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67 This had a clear impact on the poorest populations, and especially on the “working

poor,” i.e. people who work full time but do not manage to earn a sufficient living due

to low wages and who have to forego health insurance. This decision had a

disproportionately negative impact on blacks because Republican states, particularly in

the South, did not implement the Medicaid extension, although it was fully financed at

a federal level until 2017, and then slowly phased down to 90% of federal funding by

2020. As of January 2017, 19 states still have not adopted the Medicaid extension (Kaiser

Family Foundation 2017c). These 19 states39 concentrate 38.4% of the total American

population, but 48.3% of the black population. Before Louisiana adopted the Medicaid

extension in 2015 to be effective in 2016, the 20 states concentrated 51.8% of the total

black population, compared with 39.9% of the total American population. The impact

for Hispanics is not disproportionate in the 19 states, however, as 37.9% of the total

Hispanic population lives in these states, which is slightly lower than the concentration

rate of the total American population (see Figure 4).40

Figure 4. Population Concentration by Race and by State Medicaid Expansion Status, in percent,2015

Data: Census.gov

.

19 non-Medicaid states 31 Medicaid states

Total population 38.4 61.6

White population 38 62

Black population 48.3 51.7

Hispanic population 37.9 62.1

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Figure 5. Medicaid eligibility levels for childless adults and density of the black population by state,in percent, 2014

Data: Medicaid.gov, Census.gov.

68 It can be estimated that the black and the Hispanic populations suffer

disproportionately from the non-extension of Medicaid in these states because they are

among the poorest populations in the US (see Figure 5). In 2015, 21.7% of the black

population was in the lowest income brackets (up to an annual income of $15,000 and

thus eligible for the Medicaid extension) and 13.6% of the Hispanic population,

compared with 9.3% of the white population (Proctor et al. 25-6, 29).41

69 The more fragile status of Medicaid has been proved once again through the Sebelius

decision and the ensuing refusal of a significant number of states to adopt the

extension. It is understandable then that black Congressmen in particular, such as

Representative Rush or Representative Conyers, favored single payer because such a

system would not allow for this type of inequality in health care access (Pollard, Riffle).42

70 Democratic congresspeople deplored the setback that this decision represented.

Andrews said: “I respectfully think that the Supreme Court got that bit wrong. But

because it’s the Supreme Court, their decision is final, it’s final for all of us and we got

this.” Pomeroy admitted that, at first, advocates may not have realized the heavy blow

the law had taken in this Supreme Court decision: “We were so happy the whole law

hadn’t been tossed out, and it came very, very close to being tossed out, that, I think,

there was maybe not enough attention paid about the terrible hit the law had taken.”

He then explains why Democrats did not immediately realize the extent of the damage:

“We really didn’t imagine that a… that Republican governors trying to extract the last

bit of political advantage from this, what had become a very unpopular bill, would

refuse a hundred percent funding from the federal government to cover their poor

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people. We really didn’t imagine that level of venal and evil behavior in the name of

politics.” (Pomeroy)

71 Another divisive issue raised its head. The more liberal Democrats and some Hispanic

congresspeople wanted undocumented immigrants to be able to purchase health

coverage through the new health exchanges. More conservative and moderate

Democrats were opposed to this. Republicans helped to fuel the debate. It was clear

that an inclusion of illegal immigrants would expose the reform to even harsher attacks

(Olivo; Skocpol and Jacobs 100; CNN 2009a; Kirsch 241-2, 342; Starr 240, 246).43

72 The planned premium cap on high-premium employer-sponsored health insurance

plans, dubbed the ‘Cadillac-Tax,’ was one of the features of the reform designed to help

make health care more affordable for the lower income population. But this tax was

strongly opposed by the unions because their members were among the beneficiaries of

those plans (Kirsch 111, 320; Starr 7, 75, 122, 258).44 Once again, the position of the

unions, focused on their immediate special interest, proved damaging to the rest of the

population (Jacobs and Skocpol 95). After bringing their support once the Cadillac Tax

was delayed, unions resumed their opposition to the ACA. Some of their reproaches

were based on legitimate concerns about the undesired effects of some ACA provisions.

The ACA has one unintended effect on unions: it weakened their membership.

Historically, many workers joined unions because of their health care bargaining

capacities. The health exchanges and new regulations made this less appealing.

Moreover, unions resented some of the redistributive aspects of the reform. Union

members pay taxes that help subsidize lower-income families’ health insurance, but

their high-benefit high-cost plans are not subsidized (Roy).45

73 These examples show that the attitude of the unions has not significantly changed

since they helped undermine FDR’s attempts to introduce health care. Their position is

a good example of the general zero-sum game fears raised by the health care reform,

which pitch various interest groups against each other. This is also a manifestation of

the racialization of social policies: when redistributive issues are tackled, the specter of

racial group competition looms. These issues were also mentioned by Earl Pomeroy,

former Representative of North Dakota, an at-large district with poverty issues.

Regarding the need of addressing racial inequalities, he said, “I mean, of course, I don’t

want to go back to North Dakota, 95% white population, saying, we have special

provisions where if you’re an ethnic, if you’re a racial minority, you get to step to the

front of the line. I mean, it wasn’t going to pass.” (Pomeroy) However, along with other

Congressmen from states in similar situations, he managed to secure the Frontier

Amendment, which increased Medicare reimbursement in North and South Dakota, as

well as Montana, Wyoming, and Nevada. On the other hand, the better financing of

Medicaid that Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska initially obtained was harshly

criticized by members of both parties and rapidly repealed (Lowrey),46 showing once

again that it is more difficult to defend Medicaid than Medicare. Louisiana Senator

Mary Landrieu, however, managed to carve out a Medicaid funding extension for her

state in exchange of her support for the health care reform bill. The additional federal

funding for Louisiana was restricted to that state under the provision that the

increased funding only applied to “states recovering from a major disaster.” (Fabia)

Section 2006 of the ACA provides for additional Medicaid funding for all 50 states and

the District of Columbia that have been declared by the president as a major disaster

state during the preceding 7 fiscal years, thus applying to Louisiana which was hit by

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hurricane Katrina in 2005. Senator Landrieu managed to save her additional Medicaid

funding despite Republican attacks, notably because she was backed by Republican

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal (Fabian). Senator Nelson’s special deal could not be

defended on similar grounds of heightened needs.

74 Intergroup competition is especially fierce in a context of perceived limited resources.

Since the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985 and 1987, deficit control has become a

central feature of social-policy making, thus creating a de facto situation of limited

resources for all social policies. A Democratic bill that is not balanced has virtually no

chance to pass.47 Obama made deficit control a central feature of his reform, along with

cost control for patients, and worked closely with the CBO.48 These unending debates

about cost-control and deficit reduction made middle-class Americans and Medicare

beneficiaries fear that they would lose benefits but have to pay to extend coverage to

the poorer populations (Skocpol and Jacobs 97).49 This jeopardized their support for

Obama’s health reform project. The Obama administration was well aware of the

critical role of the (white) middle class, especially after the Clinton disaster, especially

given that, since the 1990s, affording health care coverage has increasingly become a

middle-class problem (Wysong et al. 90).

75 As a result, the ACA strongly focuses on the middle class, for example by subsidizing

health coverage for families with incomes up to 400% FPL (ACA Title I sec. 1301, sec.

1311). This concerns a substantial part of the lower middle class,50 and addresses both

political and economic needs. The 1970s backlash against social policies has shown that

the middle class is less and less willing to support programs for the poor and

minorities, especially since the middle class, and in particular the lower middle class, is

doing increasingly poorly. Since the 1960s, the Democratic Party has increasingly been

identified as the minority party. Many white working and lower middle class

Democratic voters have been feeling less represented by their party and have turned

towards the Republican Party.51 Moreover, since the 1970s the middle class status has

been eroding, and health care insurance is among the problems that emerged for the

middle class which has been facing sharply rising health care costs, which have started

to become problematic since the 1990s. Any viable reform needed to address both

issues: to help the lower middle class, while making this clear and obvious at the

political level.

76 The strong racialization of general social policies explains why the resulting legislation

uses virtually no race-specific language.52 Among the most conspicuous occurrences is

Sec. 10334, “Minority Health,” which re-affirms the Office for Minority Health. Among

the re-authorized missions are “improving minority health and the quality of health

care minorities receive, and eliminating racial and ethnic disparities.” The more

detailed missions include: “community outreach activities, language services,

workforce cultural competence, and other areas as determined by the Secretary.“53 The

text is vague and addresses issues that are not particularly controversial. Such

measures result in, for example, the availability of government websites in Spanish.

This is hardly new and is only a form of compliance with existing legislation.

Nonetheless, the ACA has been attacked by some as favoring racial minorities, calling it

“affirmative action on steroids” in a poor attempt to appear witty, or an instance of

“redistribution of health” (Velour; Jeffrey). Such attacks suggest that a more race-

specific bill would never have passed in Congress.54 Although deep inequalities along

race and class lines exist, at a political level, race-specific approaches are not seriously

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235

considered, as noted by Pomeroy who could not recall this issue being ever seriously

discussed during health care reform meetings (Pomeroy). Tierney pointed out that ACA

advocates tried as much as was possible to address the needs of minorities, but that the

neutrality and universal focus of the bill was an absolute necessity (Tierney). These

positions and assessments of the political situation are by no means unique. Obama was

a long-time advocate of race-neutral/universal policies (Obama 2006: 247). Despite this

openly advocated neutrality, he was harshly criticized by racial conservatives for doing

too much, as shown in the examples above. But he was also harshly criticized for not

considering more race-specific measures (Bonilla-Silva 262, 265). Democratic Maryland

Representative Elijah E. Cummings criticized the president by saying that he could do

more for African-Americans, but also voiced optimism that he would do so in a near

future. The Congressional Black Caucus asked Obama to address the pressing needs of

the African-American community (Stolberg; Condon and O’Sullivan; Brush). Despite

these criticisms, the Congressional Black Caucus now officially supports the ACA and its

website puts forward that the reform helps the African-American population

(Congressional Black Caucus Foundation 2011) even if it is framed in race-neutral

language.

77 Despite the existence of some superficial discussion about affirmative action-type

policies in some European states and the passage of the Equality Act in 2010 in the UK

(Boéton),55 the American racial situation is unique, particularly when it comes to the

African-American population. The obvious differences between the US and Europe are,

first, the fact that African-Americans are not immigrants or recently descended from

immigrants, as is the case in Europe. Second, the issue of slavery and segregation make

the American situation unique. Alleviating the effects of past discrimination was among

the reasons for establishing race-specific policies like affirmative action. Despite the

ongoing backlash at such policies, many people still defend them. Nowadays, the

argument to defend racial policies includes the persisting inequalities between black

and white communities (Anderson).56 To alleviate the effects of past discrimination,

many academics and politicians advocate race-neutral but issue-specific policies, also

called race-pragmatic policies.57 Different arguments are put forward. Many think that

issue-specific policies have a deeper impact than symptom-treating policies like

affirmative action.58 They also claim that universal policies have a better political

survival chance and are key to build a broad coalition transcending race and class in

order to achieve a reform-majority (West 98; Marable xxv, 199; Persons 1993b: 71;

Sniderman and Carmines 153; Skocpol 251). Political feasibility is among the factors

guiding this position, but this position is representative of the ideology of the post-civil

rights black politics (Persons 1993a: 38). Obama is a good example of this ‘new’ turn in

black politics.

78 Yet, political feasibility is just one aspect of the question. Supporters of race-specific

policies have one major argument on their side: although problems like health care and

education are universal and concern the whole of American society, those issues

represent a far greater plight for the black population (De Navas-Walt et al. 26).59

Contrary to many European countries, the US does not consider racial statistics as

discriminatory.60 Thus, everybody, including the government and the president, 61 is

well aware of the inequalities between populations and the dreadful situation of the

black population.62

Angles, 4 | 2017

236

79 The ACA reflects both aspects of the racial issue. The overall framework is race-neutral,

except for the few elements previously mentioned. This aims at not presenting a

divisive angle in the reform and making it vulnerable to racial group conflicts of

interest. And yet, the text also tackles some race-specific issues. Many of the reform

provisions are aimed at the poorest parts of the population which disproportionately

benefit African-Americans because they are concentrated at the lowest rungs of the

social ladder.63 The Medicaid extensions and subsidies for the purchase of insurance

mostly benefit minorities and especially African-Americans, for instance. The

improvement of Medicaid benefits would greatly benefit blacks as well because a

disproportionate share of the population already relied on the program prior to 2010.64

80 The ACA also expanded funding for community health centers that serve medically

underserved areas, both rural and urban. Because they serve people regardless of their

ability to pay, these community health centers are particularly important for

minorities. The funding had already been almost doubled under president George W.

Bush between 2002 and 2007 to almost $2 billion (McMorrow and Zuckerman 992).65 The

ACA expanded the funding further under sec. 10503. This funding was further increased

by sec. 2303 of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (the second act

that constitutes Obamacare) to a total of $11 billion between 2011 and 2015, of which

$1.5 billion are dedicated to renovations and the construction of new centers. In 2015

the Department of Health and Human Services announced that under the ACA 700 new

community health center sites had already been built, and 266 new centers were to be

opened the same year (HHS 2015). This adds to the approximately 9,000 existing care

delivery sites distributed among 1,202 community health centers that existed in 2013

(Shin et al.). It has already been mentioned that, because of the structural overlapping

of race and class in the US and the ensuing concentration of the black population in the

lowest income brackets, measures targeting the poorest populations disproportionally

benefit blacks. Pomeroy insisted on the community health centers as one way to

address the specific needs of the black population (Pomeroy).

81 Another way of dealing with life-threatening problems is by targeting specific

pathologies. The major causes for death vary greatly between the black and white

populations (CDC 2011: 137-8).66 For example, the ACA pays particular attention to HIV/

AIDS and diabetes, both having epidemic proportions in the black population (CDC.67

The ACA focuses on STD prevention (sec. 2953), in a wider program for assistance for

pregnant and parenting teens that also includes education on birth control.

Considering the spread of HIV/AIDS, high infant mortality rates, and high youth

pregnancy rates (CDC 2014a)68 in the black population, those measures are sorely

needed.

82 Andrews said that they tried to address some specific health issues that represent a

wider problem for the American health system but particularly affect minority

populations, such as diabetes, asthma, and high infant mortality rates (Mathews 4).69

83 The fact that even such measures as trying to rein in the spread of HIV/AIDS have been

criticized by some racial conservatives as catering to the black community (Jeffrey

2009) bears witness to the racial tensions in the US, especially when redistributive

policies are concerned.

84 Despite the progress that has been made thanks to the ACA, even Barack Obama admits

that the system still must be improved. Obama points, among others, to the ongoing

necessity of adjusting and balancing the insurance premiums, of further increasing

Angles, 4 | 2017

237

insurer competition to bring down premium costs, of introducing a public plan at least

in areas with insufficient marketplace competition, and of bringing down drug costs.

Obama particularly insisted on the need to complete the Medicaid expansion (Obama

2016: 529–30).

Conclusion

85 The distinctive features of the American welfare state set it apart from other post-

industrial countries. More specifically, the division of American society along racial

lines has prevented the creation of truly comprehensive social programs, further

entrenching social and economic inequalities. From its inception in 1965, the peculiar

public health system stemming from racial divisions in the American working and

middle class was unique in its lack of coverage and tremendous cost. The ACA has

sought to address those shortcomings, such as difficulties to purchase health care

insurance, or health inequalities between the different racial populations, while at the

same time dealing with the social and political constraints of the United States today.

The focus on the lower middle class and specific health issues allowed circumventing

some of the opposition, especially against social policies targeted at minorities.

However, it appears that the ACA is deeply shaped (or maimed) by those constraints

and almost a hundred years of failed health care reforms.

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NOTES

1. Evans stresses the fact that the major differences in Western world health care systems can be

found in the financing. The rest of the features are remarkably similar. In this sense, the US is

truly exceptional. In most countries, the funding depends on the type of benefit (hospital,

physician, dentistry, and ophthalmology are the main categories). In the US, however, it depends

on the beneficiary. Moreover, the US is exceptional in its cost-to-care ratio: it shows [It is too

early to say if the ACA manages to solve the problem.] the greatest gap between the overall costs

of health care and the proportion of the population that receives care. A similar argument is

made by political scientist Jacob Hacker (2002). Moreover, Hacker argues that the American

welfare state is not reduced as many say, based on its high expenditure, and that a significant

part is to be found in the private sector.

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2. By excluding domestic and casual workers, the program would have excluded most minorities.

The same scheme was later used for Social Security. Domestic and agricultural workers were

finally made eligible in the 1950 Social Security reform.

3. Social policies were the carrot. The stick was anti-socialist laws.

4. In France, during the late 19 th century, only minor laws regarding public assistance to the

indigent were enacted. In 1898 insurance for miners was enacted, as well as a law regarding

accidents in the workplace. Only in 1928-30 was a social insurance enacted, funded partly by

employers and partly by employees. Family assistance was developed in 1932, spurred by the

effects of the Great Depression.

5. Since 1967 it was about 70% (depending on the type of care and health product), the remaining

part being covered by private insurances that are not mandatory and can be paid as out-of-

pocket expenses. For example, in 2010, 9.4% of all medical expenses (care and medical material)

were paid as out-of-pocket expenses and 3.6% of expenses were optional insurances, not

including the expenses for mutuelles, the private, non-mandatory additional health insurances.

6. Both Roosevelt and Johnson benefited from a window of opportunity, meaning that the

political and economic context was in their favor. FDR used the Great Depression and the plight

of millions of homeless and jobless people to create the basis of the Welfare State. Kennedy

benefited from quite an opposite context: the affluence of the 1950s and 1960s in the post-World

War II economic boom created a context of increased willingness to share resources. However, it

was Johnson who managed to use this window of opportunity.

7. Agrarian interests, however, opposed social policies. This constitutes a parallel with the US,

where the more agrarian South opposed Medicaid expansion.

8. In France, health care was initially promoted as a system based on unity, universalism, and

uniformity, as recommended by the British Beveridge report of 1942. The British National Health

Service enacted these principles. The French sécurité sociale, however, ended up being based more

on the continuity of existing legislation with a scattered system of public and private insurance

and many different “régimes” depending on the professions. Thus the French health insurance

system replicates the stratification of society (Elbaum 41, 43).

9. At the beginning of health insurance in Germany, there were 17,511 insurance companies.

Indeed, each profession in each state had a specific insurance company with automatic and

compulsory affiliation.

10. Feagin especially develops the idea that racialized class relations (and hence divisions) are a

well-established American political tradition, dating back to the beginning of the colonies to

establish elite privileges. Subsequently the racialized class division has been used (and still is

today) as an efficient means to hamper the development of social policies and redistributive

measures, thus maintaining elite privileges for a small number of white males.

11. This dividing rhetoric is enhanced by “H.J.RES.324” (1987) which is a central tool in

hampering the development of social policies. This act requires that every new reform must be

balanced and not increase the deficit. Reagan largely used this as a strategy for cutting social

programs. Reagan dramatically increased military spending and thus the deficit. Later on, he

argued that social policies were causing the deficit and moved to cut spending. Moreover, he

presented social policies as a zero-sum game where white middle class families would pay taxes

to finance useless social programs for undeserving minorities who lived an immoral and lazy life.

This strategy is best explained by Edsall and Edsall (1991). The phenomenon of the Reagan-

Democrats is also explained by Françoise Coste (2010). The role played by values in this

phenomenon is analyzed by Brewer and Stonecash (2007).

12. A separatist movement had started in 1963 in the province of Quebec which resented

everything that resembled Canadian nation-building. Federal health care was seen as a threat to

the independence of the provinces.

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13. Today the situation is slightly different. The most notable exception is Washington D.C. with

216% of Federal Poverty Level (FPL) for the eligibility for Medicaid benefits. In Alabama it was as

low as 13% FPL, for parents in 2014 (childless adults are not eligible). FPL in 2014 was $11,670

(Medicaid.gov 2016).

14. Especially California and New York expanded their programs. New York had included their

blue-collar citizens, thus covering up to 40% of the population by Medicaid. New federal

regulations limited eligibility to 133% FPL in all states by 1970.

15. Block grants were introduced by president George H. W. Bush in 1990, leading to further cuts

in benefits and eligibility.

16. The other Republican dream come true under the Clinton administration was the reform of

Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) that was transformed into the way more

conservative Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) through the Personal Responsibility

and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. AFDC was a means-tested program, but there was no lifetime

limit. With TANF, beneficiaries are entitled to only 5 years of assistance over their whole life. In

France, in 2014, the Allocations Familiales, a universal program of cash benefits for children has

become means tested. The benefits are regressive depending on income. See Bekmezian (2014).

The interesting comparative point is that the program cut was made by a leftist government, just

as the AFDC reform was made by the Democratic Clinton government, although the French

reform is less harsh by far than the American reform. However, the ideological approach of the

two reforms were widely different. The French reform aimed the wealthiest families, whereas the

American reform touched low-income single mothers.

17. George W. Bush saw himself as Reagan’s political heir.

18. For example, the Medicare coverage of hospital stays in 2016 included the following financial

participation: a $1,288 deductible for each hospital stay benefit period (minimum of 2 days). The

first 60 days of hospitalization in a benefit period are without coinsurance. Days 60 to 90 of the

benefit period require a coinsurance of $322 per day for each benefit period. Days 91 and beyond

are called “lifetime reserve days” and a patient can benefit of a maximum of 60 over a lifetime.

Otherwise patients have to cover all cost. Each of the lifetime reserve days requires a coinsurance

of $644. To begin a new benefit period, the patient must have been out of hospital for at least 60

days.

19. It has been shown that conservative states have considerably lower welfare benefits than

liberal states. Moreover, states with high minority populations tend to have lower benefits. The

same trend has been observed for TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) benefits.

20. The beneficiaries of Medicaid are the poor elderly, the disabled below 75% FPL, pregnant

women and children under age 6 up to 133% FPL. Medicaid also includes children under age 18

with eligibility up to 100% FPL. Poor able-bodied adults have been added, but this remains

optional. Parents/caretakers of low-income families qualify since 1996 if their income is below

41% FPL. Before the TANF reform, all persons on AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children,

reformed into TANF) were automatically eligible for Medicaid. Moreover, states can chose to

provide Medicaid benefits for the medically needy. CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program)

provides additional coverage for children until age 18 (20 in some cases). Initially it was president

Carter’s welfare reform in 1977 that achieved a better enforcement of the coverage of children

and the addition of pregnant women. The next expansion of children’s coverage was in 1997 with

the creation of SCHIP, later called CHIP.

21. However, it must be specified that the American public opinion does not seem to be quite

sure of what ‘welfare’ actually means. When a question uses the term ‘welfare’ or if an issue is

framed as being ‘welfare’, then people strongly oppose it. However, when asked about specific

measures, such as support for mothers or medical help, or even just help for the needy,

Americans become very charitable and supportive. It must be added, however, that their support

is generally much stronger for programs that promote self-reliance or aim at future self-reliance

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such as job-training or education programs. Their support is weaker for in-kind programs

(medical care and public housing, for example), and is weakest for cash-assistance or assimilated,

such as food stamps.

22. Gilens stressed the fact that mothers with children are perceived as deserving. However, this

must be nuanced because one of the programs that suffered the strongest cuts was AFDC. It was

reformed into TANF by the Clinton administration in 1996, ending its entitlement status and

making it a time-limited program (Fine and Weiss xiii, 3-4).

23. Space does not allow here for a detailed discussion of the racialized discourse and rhetoric

around social policies.

24. The economic status can be determined through many different ways, not only income. In

2009, the white-to-black wealth ratio was 19, the white-to-Hispanic ration was 15. The median

net worth of households in 2009 was $113,149 for whites, $6,325 for Hispanics, and $5,677 for

blacks. See Taylor et al. (2011). In 2010, the Federal Poverty Level was at $10,830 for one person.

4.5% of the total population, 3.3% of the white population, and 10.3% of the black population

were living in poverty (“Selected Economic Trends”).

25. The space does not allow for a detailed explanation of the origins of these racial inequalities.

Suffice it to say that these inequalities are caused by past and present racial discrimination,

which is why it is necessary to compensate for structural inequalities with redistributive policies.

26. In 2009, many people lacked health insurance: 16.1% of the total population, 11.5% of the

white population, 20.3% of the black population, and 31.6% of the Hispanic population (De Navas-

Walt et al. 26). Moreover, there are marked differences in the morbidity rates. In 2007, the death

rates of all causes were: total population 760.2 (per 100,000), whites 749.4, blacks 958, Hispanics

546.1. Regarding some specific pathologies, the differences are striking. The differences for

diabetes mellitus were: total population 22.5, whites 20.5, blacks 42.8, Hispanics 28.9. For HIV/

AIDS: total population 3.7, whites 1.9, blacks 17.3, Hispanics 4.1 (CDC 137-9). Regarding HIV/AIDS,

not only are the morbidity rates frightening, but so is the number of people living with the

disease: in 2014 blacks represent 44% of the people living with HIV/AIDS (but they represent only

12% of the total population) (CDC 2014b).

27. Melvin L. Oliver and Thomas M. Shapiro (1995) make a detailed demonstration of the greater

fragility of the black middle class compared to the white middle class. See also Taylor et al.

(2013); Dalton Conley (2010). For a detailed analysis of the specificities of the black middle class,

especially regarding social interaction, see Karyn R. Lacy (2007).

28. The doughnut hole has not yet been eliminated. Currently (2016) it is between $3,310

prescription drug fees before catastrophic coverage kicks in at $4,850. In the doughnut hole,

people have to pay 45% out-of-pocket for brand drugs and 42% for generic drugs. However, 95%

of the costs are counted as out-of-pocket contributions to allow to reach the catastrophic

coverage faster. Persons with incomes up to 148% FPL (plus some $13,640 in savings) can apply

for extra help (Medicare.gov). The gap is to be closed by 2020, although a 25% rate always applies.

Before the ACA the gap was from $2,800 to $4,550 with a 100% out of pocket.

29. For more details on the loss of public opinion support during the Clinton reform attempt, see

Jacobs and Shapiro (2000).

30. AHIP (America’s Health Insurance Plans), AMA (American Medical Association), PhRMA

(Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America), AHA (American Hospital Association),

the Chamber of Commerce.

31. ‘Big government’ is an embedded notion, a code word. It encloses a whole rhetorical and

ideological construct, but only a brief explanation will be given here. It builds on the idea,

promoted by conservatives/Republicans, that social policies are a way for the Democratic Party/

liberals to cater to undeserving minorities, who prefer to live in idleness and moral decrepitude.

The argument goes that these social policies are financed through taxes on deserving hard-

working whites. This rhetoric clearly builds on Barry Goldwater’s famous 1964 acceptance speech

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at the Republican National Convention but has most markedly been promoted by Ronald Reagan.

The use of code in racially-divisive discourse is best demonstrated by Tali Mendelberg (2001),

Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall (1991:12, 19, 71, 138); Terry Brimes (2003: 66). Moreover,

‘Big government’ challenges the legitimacy of federal state intervention and advocates more

state responsibilities. Especially in Reagan’s ideology, government should be nearly non-existent

at a federal level, save for the military. Everything else should be handled by the states. See Hugh

Heclo (27-9).

32. Health Care for American Now! is a progressive activist group gathering a number of smaller

progressive groups such as American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), MoveOn, Planned

Parenthood, True Majority, USAction, and others.

33. Public option was the idea that states would have the possibility to offer a government-run

health care insurance that would have competed with private insurances.

34. Most famously among them: Max Baucus himself, Ben Nelson (Nebraska), and Blanche

Lincoln (Arkansas). The Democrats had only a very narrow 60-seat majority (including 2

independents) in the Senate allowing them to override a Republican filibuster. This narrow

majority gave conservative Democrats in the Senate disproportionate power since every

Democratic voice was dearly needed. Moreover, the death of Senator Kennedy during that period

made them lose the majority. Although the public option was defeated, a crippled leftover

survived. The ACA allows state to provide government health care plans for low-income

Americans not eligible for Medicaid: ACA. Section 1, Title 1, Subtitle D “Available Coverage

Choices for All Americans” PART IV—STATE FLEXIBILITY TO ESTABLISH ALTERNATIVE

PROGRAMS Sec. 1331. State flexibility to establish basic health programs for low-income

individuals not eligible for Medicaid.

35. The health exchanges are websites that allow people to compare offers and find the best offer

for their insurance needs.

36. Bart Stupak, Democratic representative from Michigan, was the driving anti-abortion force in

the House. He managed to mobilize enough conservative Democrats to seriously jeopardize the

reform. He had the support of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that favored universal

coverage, but opposed the health reform because of abortion. Pro-choice Congressional

Democrats, despite their threat not to support the bill, in the end chose the overall well-being of

women instead on insisting on abortion coverage.

37. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Title II, Subtitle A, sec. 2001.

38. As of 2016, 19 states (23 in 2014) had not yet adopted the Medicaid extension (Kaiser Family

Foundation 2016c). The legislatures of these states are all under Republican control, except for

Maine (split control) (“State and Legislative Partisan Composition” 2016).

39. Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North

Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin,

and Wyoming.

40. These calculations are based on “Population Estimates” (Census 2015).

41. Unfortunately the Census income brackets do not allow for a very close analysis as the second

lowest income bracket comprises incomes from $15,000 to $24,999, thus including a small

proportion of persons who would qualify for the Medicaid extension at 133% FPL. In 2015 the FPL

was $11,770. Incomes up to 133% FPL are therefore $15,654, thus including a very small share of

incomes in the second lowest income bracket. However, because the excess over the lowest

income bracket was so small, less than $1,000, it was preferable not to include the second-lowest

income bracket.

42. It must be pointed out that the eligibility levels for the classical Medicaid in these states vary

tremendously. The lowest eligibility levels for parents and caretakers in 2016 was the level in

Alabama at 13% FPL.

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43. Despite the prohibition for undocumented immigrants to purchase coverage through the

health exchanges, the ACA supports clinics that provide free care for illegal immigrants. It is

supposed that mainly illegal immigrants use the Medicaid emergency programs. A study of the

population using Medicaid emergency in North Carolina between 2001 and 2004 found that 99%

of the users of Medicaid emergency were illegal immigrants (DuBard and Massing 1085-92). Legal

immigrants, however, are covered and subsidized through the ACA. But legal immigrants with

less than 5 years of residence in the US are not eligible for Medicaid.

44. The Cadillac Tax or Excise Tax would have applied to plans that cost more than $10,200 for

individuals and $27,500 for families. The plans exceeding this threshold would have been taxed at

40%. This was also a means to rein in some previous tax exclusion where the most expensive

plans provided for the highest-income employees obtained the highest subsidies through tax

exclusion. Such privileges contribute to the hidden costs of the health system.

45. Unions denounce the employer mandate, for example. According to them it leads employers

to shift their workers on part-time contracts, because only full-time employees must be covered

under the employer mandate. Unions denounce the double loss of income and health benefits.

Another aspect that is denounced concerns the increase of premiums because of expanded health

coverage, such as no annual or lifetime limits, coverage of children up to age 26, and more

benefits in the plans.

46. It must be added that a better argument was made to defend the Frontier Amendment.

47. The case is slightly different for Republicans. The 2003 Medicare reform is a good example.

The expenditures were not covered, but the bill was passed nonetheless. The 2003 Act added, at

the time of the enactment, an estimated $395 billion in spending (the Congressional Budget

Office readjusted this estimation to $534 billion in 2004), for the changes made through Medicare

advantage and Part D (drug coverage). The reform was unfunded (meaning the taxpayer had to

pick up the bill) and contained no cost-containment for drugs because this was contrary to

conservative ideology. Especially the subsidies for Medicare Advantage, Medicare plans managed

by private insurers, have been called “corporate welfare.” Arguments about costs seem to apply

only to Democrats, not to Republicans (Bartlett; Oliver et al.; Kaiser Family Foundation 2016a).

48. CBO.gov: the Congressional Budget Office is a non-partisan commission charged with the

financial examination of bills. CBO approval of a bill is paramount in assuring its survival and

enactment.

49. Martin Gilens explains this perception of the poor as being racial minorities. Especially since

the 1960s, the media have increasingly represented poverty with a black face. The proportion of

reports on poverty illustrated with black faces exceeds the proportion of blacks among the poor.

50. In 2010, about 29.2% of whites and 40.5% of blacks were eligible for those subsidies (Census

2012).

51. For more details on the white backlash against social policies and the subsequent political

exploitation of this backlash by Ronald Reagan in particular, see Edsall and Edsall (1991).

52. Some classical references to racial minorities exist in the ACA, most of which consists in

applying existing rules and regulations to the ACA provisions. For example, in making awards for

the enhancement of health care and workforce training, among the listed priorities are common

affirmative action-type clauses in choosing the benefitting institutions, such as Sec. 5312: “have a

record of training individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups or from a rural or

disadvantaged background;“ Title V, subpart D Sec. 5312.

53. Title X Strengthening Quality, Affordable Health Care for All Americans. Part III Indian Health

Care Improvement, Subtitle C, Sec.10334 Minority Health. Although this section is buried in the

part devoted to Native American health, the Office for Minority Health monitors all racial

minorities.

54. The backlash against race-specific policies started in the late 1970s and is still lively today, as

is exemplified by the recent affirmative action ban in Michigan (2014).

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55. France has a law favoring women (Loi sur la parité) compelling political parties to present as

many women as men for elections. The results are less than convincing. Boéton explains that

racial targeting is taboo in France, however, although some measures are comparable to

affirmative action. She cites programs like ZEPs (Zones d’Education Prioritaire, a program adopted

in 1981) that are chosen according to a local deficit in cultural, social, and economic capital

among the population. Schools in such areas are entitled to additional funding and extra

teachers, for example. Basically, the state targets the problems, since it is not allowed to target a

racial or ethnic population. Similar programs exist in business and urban areas since 1986. The

UK adopted the Equality Act in 2010 and preferred to call it ‘positive action’. While the act

encompasses minorities, government insists on the need to combat the effects of sexism.

Government also highlights the fact that the act promotes more equality for homosexuals.

Moreover, it allows, but does not require, enterprises to take positive action (positive

discrimination and quotas remain prohibited). See “Equality Act” (2010).

56. Anderson argues that the economic inequalities are still so deep between the black and white

populations that race-specific, affirmative action type policies are still justified. However,

William Julius Wilson argues that this applies only to a certain extent. In 1978, he famously

argued that affirmative action was not efficient enough, especially to address the needs of the so-

called “underclass.” He favors race-neutral, but issue-focused policies. However, in 2010 he

started to plead for the maintaining of affirmative action, which he deems necessary to secure

the black middle-class (Wilson 2012).

57. See for example Cornel West (1993, 2009). Both advocate this strategy for reasons of political

feasibility.

58. Wilson makes a detailed argument of this in The Declining Significance of Race (2012). After this

pioneering work, others have picked up the same argument, Obama among them.

59. In 2010 20.8% of blacks had no health insurance, compared with 11.7% of whites and 30.7% of

Hispanics.

60. France, for example, refuses to establish racial statistics arguing that it would be

discriminatory. This point is certainly debatable, for it makes it impossible to assess the extent of

inequalities and the effect of discrimination.

61. Obama discusses problems and grievances of the black and Hispanic population in a whole

chapter in The Audacity of Hope. His account of his experience as a community organizer in this

autobiography shows that he has a great awareness of the problems faced by the black

population.

62. See any of the reports produced by the US Census Bureau or any other administration, such

as the reports cited above. Among the first government-ordered reports were the Moynihan

Report (1965) and the Kerner Report (1968), both describing the seriousness of the situation. The

US Department for Health and Human Services coordinates several health agencies. Among the

major agencies are: The National Institutes of Health, The Center for Disease Control, and The

Office for Minority Health. The latter pays especially attention to racial disparities, but all

establish statistics by race and ethnicity.

63. In 2010, 49.7% of the black population was in the two lowest income quintiles (up to $35,000)

compared with 31.5% of the white population belonging to the two lowest quintiles (Census

2012).

64. The Medicaid extension to up to 133% FPL (if all states applied it) could benefit 17.2% of the

black population (as compared with 5.9% of the white population.) (U.S. Census Bureau,

2006-2010 American Community Survey).

65. However, the inadequacy of the funds is also denounced. See Gordon Schiff and Claudia Fegan

(2003: 307–11).

66. The overall death rate for blacks in 2010 was 958 per 100,000, as compared with 760.2 per

thousand for the total population, 763.3 per 100,000 for whites, and 546.1 per 100,000 for

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Hispanics. For many selected causes of death black rates are much higher than for other

populations. For example: (in per 100,000) for diseases of the heart, the black rate was 247.3

compared with 191.4 for whites or 136 for Hispanics. For malignant neoplasms it was 215.5 for

blacks, compared with 182.3 for whites and 116.2 for Hispanics. Other stark differences concern

diabetes mellitus. The black death rate was 42.8, compared with 19.8 for whites and 28.9 for

Hispanics. The contrast is even more frightening for HIV. The black death rate was 17.3

compared with 1.5 for whites and 4.1 for Hispanics.

67. CDC. Division of HIV Prevention. 29 Apr. 2015. Consulted 12 Feb. 2016. CDC. “Diabetes Public

Health Resource,” Center for Disease Control and Prevention. 5 Sept. 2014. In 2012 blacks

represented 41% of the HIV infected population but they only represent 12% of the total

population, compared with whites making up 34% of the HIV population but representing 63% of

the total population. The diabetes rate for black males was 9.7% in 2010, 9.3% for black females,

compared with 6.6% for white males and 5.4% for white females.

68. The rates in 2012 were 51.5 per 1000 for blacks and 23.5 per 1000 for whites. Blacks and

Hispanics together accounted for 57% of all teen pregnancies in 2012.

69. In 2009 the rates for blacks were 12.4 per 1,000 live births, compared to a rate of 6.6 for the

total population and 5.5 for whites. Among the OECD countries, the US had the highest infant

mortality rate in 2010 with 6.1 compared to the lowest rate of 2.3 for Finland, or 3.4 for Germany

and 3.6 for France (MacDorman et al. 1).

ABSTRACTS

This article examines the particularities of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)

in a historical comparative perspective. Comparisons are made to highlight the specificities of

the American welfare state and of health legislation in particular. The comparisons with

European countries aim at highlighting the particularity of racial division among the American

working and middle class that hampered the expansion of the American welfare state and how

this impacted the ACA. Despite certain shortcomings resulting of the idiosyncrasies of America’s

welfare state and political system (the single payer system was not considered, Medicaid

expansion is now optional, a market-based system), the ACA nonetheless managed to circumvent

some problems due to the racialization of social policies and found ways to address some of the

needs of minority populations by targeting specific issues that are particularly problematic for

those populations.

Cet article analyse les particularités du Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act de 2010 (ACA)

dans une perspective comparatiste et historique. Les comparaisons servent à mettre en lumière

les spécificités de l’Etat providence états-unien et en particulier de la législation en matière de

santé. Les comparaisons servent à mettre en évidence la particularité de la division raciale parmi

la classe ouvrière et la classe moyenne qui a freiné le développement de l’Etat providence aux

Etats-Unis et comment cela s’est répercuté sur l’ACA. Malgré certains défauts résultant de

l’idiosyncrasie de l’Etat-providence et du système politique états-unien, tels que l’abandon du

single payer system à la canadienne ou encore le fait que l’extension de Medicaid soit devenue

optionnelle, ou un système de santé fondé sur le marché, le ACA a réussi tout de même à

contourner certains problèmes causés par la racialisation des politiques sociales et à répondre à

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certains besoins des populations minoritaires en ciblant des problèmes spécifiques affectant

principalement ces populations.

INDEX

Mots-clés: Affordable Care Act, politiques sociales, Obama Barack, comparatiste, racialisation,

États-Unis

Keywords: Affordable Care Act, social policies, Obama Barack, comparative, racialization, United

States

AUTHOR

LEA STEPHAN

Lea Stephan is a 4th year PhD candidate and ATER, at the CAS EA 801 of the Université Toulouse-

Jean Jaurès. Dissertation title: Social Policies and Racial Questions: From the Great Society to

Obamacare. Advisors: Anne Stefani and Françoise Coste. Contact: Lea.stphn [at] gmail.com

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