Syntax, Confession, and Creation
Reflections on Dante, Augustine, and Saussure
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10609641 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Vincent Pollina (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 124 |
| Issue | 5S |
| Pages | S96-S114 |
| Publication date | 2009-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Modern Language Notes (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0149-6611 • E-ISSN: 2326-1978 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/mln.0.0215 |
| OpenAlex | W1966226254 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 7 |
Syntax, Confession, and Creation:Reflections on Dante, Augustine, and Saussure Vincent Pollina (bio) If we regard the Commedia as confessional literature in the Augustinian tradition, further resemblances to Augustine soon present themselves.1 Chief among these is the belief that human language is grounded in desire; that each life, in its reaching out to God or its rejection of him, may be said to constitute a form of syntax; and that it is partly thanks to this resemblance that one can be led to the divinity by literary means at all. In confining the analysis to the manifest narrative structure, one may however neglect the first principle in which the analogy is grounded: that of the paradigm, whose elements are realized in time and syntax. One goal of this essay is to complement the chiefly syntactic emphasis of the contemporary narratologists by including more explicit consideration of the paradigmatic dimension.2 Once this view has been stated, we shall briefly characterize the linguistic analogy in Saint Augustine, showing its progressive unfolding in the Confessions (A.D. 397-401) and its confirmation in the De Trinitate [End Page S96] (A.D. 399-419) and the De Doctrina Christiana (A.D. 396-426). Finally, the figurative sequence of the Eagle in Cantos XVIII, XIX, and XX of the Paradiso will reveal a set of analogues of the linguistic model here discussed. Not only has Dante, in a sense, anticipated certain of the insights of Ferdinand de Saussure;3 he has also given us, in effect, a supremely literary expression of Augustinian sign-theory as it relates to Christian orthodoxy. Syntax, Narrative Structure, and Confessional Literature Narration may be represented as a syntagmatic pattern in which individual signifiers are linked together, one by one, according to the rules of the language used. Each signifier is drawn from a set of differentiated alternatives known as the paradigm.4 The full sense of the utterance can be determined with certitude only when the sequence is finished, although in many cases the global meaning is apparent at an earlier point in the linguistic chain. The links in the chain are material and finite, according to Saussure. The inherent linearity of language stems from the essence of speech, which excludes the possibility of pronouncing two acoustic signifiers simultaneously.5 The structure of written narration is subject to many of the constraints observed in spoken language. Chief among these is the finitude of each unit in the sequence. This attribute, reflected in the passing nature of every page, implies that the meaning of the narrative cannot fully be evaluated until the concluding lines have been traversed. Along the way there will occur—as in ordinary spoken syntax—a certain number of redundancies and reinforcements.6 These may influence our growing attitude toward the ending. They may help us to predict its nature; they may leave us in suspense; they may deliberately mislead us. The temporality of the narrative stands moreover in constant relation to the [End Page S97] temporality of the individual reading experience, a fact that endows the span and surface of the book with inner time.7 Confessional autobiography plays on the sequential aspects of narration.8 Works belonging to the genre are written by the subject who underwent the experiences related therein. The end-point of the confession cannot therefore coincide with the close of the story itself, which is, by definition, the end of the life recounted. The book can bring its audience to a major turning point in that life—in Proust, for example, to Marcel's discovery of his vocation as a writer, or in Rousseau, to Jean-Jacques's departure for the Island of Saint Peter—but having been composed by the living subject of the tale thus told, such a work cannot convey to us the precise end of the vital narrative. Christian autobiography may lead gradually to the moment of conversion: the turning-from-self-and-turning-to-God that introduces a decisive rupture in the chain of events. The incorporation of this striking paradigmatic element may shed new light on all that went before it, while illuminating that which follows. The perspective from which such a story is
Archaeology · Art · Confession (law) · Linguistics · Literature · Syntax · Augustinian Studies and Theology · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |