Compared Literature and Thematology: Previous considerations for a Functional Reading of the Sea in Literary Thematology

COMPARED LITERATURE AND THEMATOLOgY: PREVIOUS CONSIDERATIONS fOR A fUNCTIONAL READINg Of THE SEA IN LITERARY THEMATOLOgY José Rienda (Universidad de Granada, España) Palabras clave: tematología, literatura comparada, el mar como tema literario. Resumen: los estudios tematológicos forman parte del amplio campo teórico de la literatura comparada. Como tal, cualquier lectura llevada a cabo desde este punto de vista literario requiere enfoques anteriores de tipo funcional y ontológico como conceptos nodales para entender la literatura. En este caso, el mar como tema literario es el elemento significativo de nódulos o específico en el que las consideraciones anteriores mencionadas se construyen. Mots-clés: Thématologie, littérature comparée, la mer comme un thème littéraire. Résumé : les études thématologiques font partie du vaste domaine théorique de la littérature comparée. En tant que telle, toute lecture réalisée à partir du ce point de vue littéraire nécessite des approches précédentes de type fonctionnel et ontologique comme concepts nodaux pour comprendre la littérature. Dans ce cas, la mer comme un thème littéraire est l’élément significatif de nodules, ou spécifique, sur lequel les considérations précédemment mentionnées sont construites. 312 Sociocriticism 2010 - Vol. XXV, 1 y 2 Keywords: Thematology, comparative literature, the sea as a literary theme. Abstract: The thematological studies are part of the broad theoretical field of comparative literature. as such, any reading carried out from the literary thematological point of view requires previous approaches of functional and ontological type as nodal concepts to understand literature. In this case, the sea as a literary theme is the nodule or specific significant element on which the previous mentioned considerations are built. ONE amongst many other things, «literature is an ideological speech» (Rodríguez 1993: 33), a revisionist axiom of the formalism and historicism which makes possible its understanding as an archaeological fallacy. literature is really an ideological speech subject to be structuralized given its nature based on the speech in and from the language. The linguistic submission of literature enables its widening on independent levels: levels both superficial and with depth, referential and referenced. From this point, therefore, a thematic structuralization is also possible. Definitively, literature is, amongst many other things, as I have already stated, an ideological speech subject to a thematic structuralization with an implied ideological burden, which is unavoidable among all the integrating parts of the communicative act, although in its most simple schematization: that is to say, structure formed by the three integrating parts: transmitter, message and receiver, or, in an equivalent way, author, work and receiver (meaning the public). From this last perspective, Soria Olmedo relapses into the ideological aspect of literature: If tynjanov thinks that the literary series must be related to the rest of the historical series, the literary aspect, according to h. R. Jauss, as a means of communication, passes, in its way to the receiver (meaning the public), through its confrontation with the expectative horizon of that public and, at that time, that horizon is formed 313 Compared literature and thematology by numerous material and mental systems, gestures, practices and institutions. In a few words, the text is a historical product, and these methods (or ways) try to catch it within its specific historicity [...]. In fact, an explicit literary work, related or not to politics, is a specific way of that social space called ideology and it works as a transmitter of specific knowledge embedded in the systems and institutions mentioned above1 (Soria 1983: 5-6). 5-6). TwO The sea as a literary theme. First of all, before starting any historical reconstruction from a thematic perspective, it is necessary to recognize that there is the risk of raising some doubts about the legitimacy of the conclusions that, in this case, can be shown concerning the symbolism of sea writing that appears in literary works. a certain degree of daring is also exposed when connecting the sea as written in literature with the form, class, social environment where the work is written, as if the thematic choice of the sea would not intervene at all in these aspects and its presence in narration was due to other questions not related at all with the ideological aspect. It must not necessarily be understood this way, 1 Si para tynjanov la serie literaria debe ser puesta en relación con las demás series históricas, para h. R. Jauss lo literario, como hecho de comunicación, pasa, en su camino hacia el público receptor, por su confrontación con el horizonte de expectativa de ese público, y a su vez, ese horizonte está conformado por una serie de aparatos materiales o mentales, gestos, prácticas, instituciones. En pocas palabras, el texto es un producto histórico, y estos métodos (o caminos) intentan apresarlo en su historicidad específica [...]. En efecto, una obra literaria explícita en su relación con la política o ajena a ella, es forma específica de ese espacio social llamado ideología, y funciona como portadora de unos saberes concretos que se integran en los aparatos e instituciones arriba mencionados (Soria 1983: 5-6). 314 Sociocriticism 2010 - Vol. XXV, 1 y 2 as it may be deduced from the text above. In this respect, we can also use the words Rodríguez used to clarify some basic principles for his Literature of the poor: «The question does not refer to the fact that I have chosen the Literature of the poor theme as being the most social for a historical theory of literature. I would say it is actually the opposite: to show how there are no themes, but instead, ways to tackle them, enunciate them and that, formalism or vanguardism, are as social as poverty2» (Rodríguez 1994: 38) or the sea. We know the following: the sea is a literary theme. any literary theme is an accurate and exact piece of the ideological puzzle that produces or underpins it. Omnipresence of the sea as a methaphor along with (artificial or official) history cannot and must not be considered as polysemy without any limits pursuant to the great variety of semantics assigned to the sea; artificius and officious historization so needed that it intrinsically contains a specific place from which the speech is made: In fact, when the research of literary texts is considered to be an academic discipline, this institutionalization is not only established to tackle artistic and natural heritage, but is also intended for cooperating in the construction of a specific form of political and social structure. Put simply, it is not established to recover the past, but to help to create and justify the present. The choice of the corpus to work with; the establishment of the criteria that made 2 «No se trata de que haya elegido esta temática de la literatura del pobre como la más social para una teoría histórica de la literatura. yo diría que precisamente al contrario: para mostrar cómo no hay temas sino maneras de tratarlos, de enunciarlos, y que tan sociales son los sueños, el formalismo, o el vanguardismo, como la pobreza» (Rodríguez 1994: 38) 315 Compared literature and thematology sense for the inclusion/exclusion of works and authors, and chronological frameworks and taxonomization of the materials used, were not therefore due to the presence of an additional verifiable truth, but to the will of building a reference at the same level, which can justify the way of living and considering the point of its authority. It is obvious that we always speak from some place (theoretical, political, ideological). It cannot be otherwise3 (talens 1989: 107-108). Omnipresence of the sea as a metaphor throughout the history (artificial/official) of our literature cannot and must not be considered as a polysemy without limits. It must be understood as a product of author intent submitted to an inevitable radical historicity (cfr., Rodríguez 1993: 403) that, in our case, enshrines as a last resort any act of literary construction. We know the following: all elements that constitute the literary work and confer to it a logical structure, bear the weight of the 3 En efecto, cuando se instituye como disciplina académica el estudio de los textos denominados literarios, dicha institucionalización no va tanto asociada al deseo de abordar analíticamente un patrimonio artístico y natural, cuanto a la necesidad de cooperar en la constitución de una determinada forma de estructura política y social. En una palabra, no se instituye para recuperar un pasado, sino para ayudar a constituir y justificar un presente. la elección del corpus sobre el que operar; el establecimiento de los criterios que hicieron coherente la inclusión/exclusión de obras y autores, así como la periodización y taxonomización del material no respondían, en consecuencia, a la existencia de una verdad exterior comprobable, sino a la voluntad de construir un referente a la medida, capaz de justificar la manera de vivir y pensar el argumento de su autoridad. Obviamente, siempre se habla desde algún lugar, teórico, político, ideológico –no puede ser de otro modo– (talens 1989: 107-108). 316 Sociocriticism 2010 - Vol. XXV, 1 y 2 social space from which they are created. Therefore, the inclusion of these elements in the work must not be understood as an exclusive product and an individual and voluntary decision, but as functionally irreplaceable items with respect to the ideological value of that work (which includes all elements, literary themes and also the sea as a thematic subject). THREE literature, that is to say the speeches that constitute it, contains a form of knowledge about the world in as much as it includes the historical memory of the world –in its writing (cfr., lledó 2000)– and the material in which it is printed (cfr., Escolar 1988). In this sense, «definitely, the important thing is not what literature can explicitly say about itself, but the fact that there is a literature of the knowledge, a knowledge [...] whose radical identity must be recognized: literature is a form of knowledge4» (Chicharro 1987: 51); that is to say, it is possible to know the world through literature. That is its value and, nevertheless, the value of the literary work, its meaning, cannot be considered taking into account the essence but the act5, id. est, an act of granting on behalf of the person reading 4 Porque, «en definitiva, lo que aquí importa no es sólo lo que la literatura pueda decir de ella misma explícitamente, sino el hecho de que exista una literatura del saber, un saber que [...] impone efectuar el reconocimiento de su radical identidad: la literatura es una forma de conocimiento» (Chicharro 1987: 51) 5 Compulsory readings: Wolfang Iser, El acto de leer, taurus, Madrid, 1987. In this sense, it is recommended to read, for instance, published writtings about the reading and their story stated by Carlos Ortega in «la hora del lector» (Babelia, 336, abril, 1998, pag. 11; in El País, 18th of april, 1998): alberto Manguel, Una historia de la lectura, alianza/Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez, Madrid, 1998; 317 Compared literature and thematology the work. Forcing the implied text to the act of reading as a process of adequacy, to and from the reader, justifies in literary theory the need to delimit, to segment the texts from the whole as a previous requirement of the availability of the value they have. Such a segmentation, normally carried out in vertical and horizontal directions, in relation to the chronological axis of the historical flow, has made it possible to give that historic character to a corpus so wide and rich as the literary corpus. In that scenario of segmentation is where our proposal resides: a thematic reading of literature. The purpose is to add new parallel lines to the literary corpus that will be added to the pre-established chronological coordinates; lines that have been defined by the themes that conform to the text structure. also, a name has been assigned to the theoretical study of these intentions of thematic segmentation: the thematology, a dependent discipline or included in the wide theoretical field that embraces Compared literature (cfr., Guillén 1985: 248-303). among our intentions, we do not pursue too deeply into the framework of literature theory on the part of themathology, especially at this moment where thematical studies have suffered abusive requirements from the stylistic point of view and, also, they have became development instruments for hermeneutics6. On the other Historia de la lectura en el mundo occidental, taurus, Madrid, 1998; David Denby, Los grandes libros, acento, Madrid, 1997; David R. Olson, El mundo sobre el papel, Gedisa, barcelona, 1988. 6 With all, we insist on the possibility of taking as a starting point the work carried out by Guillén and, then, we suggest the following readings: 1) about precedents of thematology in theoretical studies: Paul Van tieghem, La littérature comparée, Colin, París, 1951, pag. 87; h. M. block, Nouvelles tendences en la littérature comparée, Nizet, París, 1970, pag. 22; Gaston Paris, Légendes du Moyen Âge, París, 1912; a. Graf, La leggenda del Paradiso Terrestre, Roma, 1878; a. Farinelli, La vita 318 Sociocriticism 2010 - Vol. XXV, 1 y 2 hand, in spite of the possibility of taking the theory of literature as a weapon to defend and justify our work, we cannot evade the acceptance of the imbalances that enclose thematic studies. That is to say, risks of thematology: we refer, in a way, to the inevitable common place in the contents, since the purpose is to offer a slanted reading of a text and an author not only well-known by everyone, but also consciously studied by everyone. also, we refer in the same way to the unavoidable exclusions related to authors and works that include any thematological marginal notes. Therefore, so far, the only thing we can do is to pay attention to the game (not innocent at all) of saying what has been said7 and to adopt the following words: «Not è un sogno, turín, 1916. 2) On thematological studies in correct criticism: Ulrich Weisstein, Introducción a la literatura comparada, Planeta, Madrid, 1975, chap. 7; François Jost, Introduction to comparative literature, bobs Merrill, Indianápolis, 1974, chap. 5 and the bibliography it contains about themathology. 7 «Current criticism, which is apparently more progressist, from the structuralism to the semiotics, from the psychoanalysis to linguistic text, normally rightly talks about the uselessness of the gloss, or the paraphrase or textual analysis.[...] however, things are more complicated.This current criticism is right, but it does not take into account the ideology underneath.This ideology: belief in poetry as a literal and direct truth that anyone can understand because, in the end, poetry keeps talking about the human soul and this human soul is the same for everyone. This is to say: poetry as a direct transparence of itself, writing as a truth that more or less looks after that ultimate background truth: human spirit [...] I am not going to explain here why, at the end, current criticism, swotted up on that ideology and which is supposed to be more scientific, does not gloss or comment on the text, but that it tries to make it a “scientific” text: it breaks it down in elements, it builds modules that are almost mathematical from a structural point of view, etc. but, in fact, the background exposition does not vary: the poem says what it says [...] and, therefore, any explanations not related to extracting elements, make them materialize or make them scientific in a word, are not needed: reconstruction in abstract of what it has been specifically said in the text. abstraction of the critical 319 Compared literature and thematology many days ago, I heard an important North american writer saying, just after starting a conference on the Quijote, that it is useful sometimes to come back to a common place, to the well-known part of an author or to a literary work that, due to its/his/her popularity, we almost forget about or almost reject it as our wish (which is of and scientific language and the precision of poetic language. abstraction of the critical and scientific language and the precision of poetic language. current criticism that criticizes the comment, the gloss, etc. and, rightly, as a mere useless rhetoric, it does not separate all of the same background ideology in the comment of in the gloss: that is to say, ideology of poetry as transparent writing itself, a direct presence of itself [...]. because poetry is not transparent and direct. It does not even say anything apart from footprints, trails, distorting facts, contradictions, etc. I am not talking about the footprints or the contradictions of the psychology or the soul of an author, but about the footprints and contradictions of an ideology, of a collective unconsciousness that, of course, the author experiences, but we do too. Therefore, this is the only real value of the criticism [...]: contribute to the objective knowledge of a text, its ideological operation at the same time from a conscious and unconscious point of view». These words were read by Juan Carlos Rodríguez at Palacio de la Madraza (Palace of the Madraza) of Granada on the 28th of November, 1988, on the occasion of the book Troppo mare of Javier Egea in: Antología de la joven poesía granadina, la General, Granada, 1990, edited by Miguel Gallego Roca, pag. 55-58. [«la crítica actual más aparentemente progresista –desde el estructuralismo a la semiótica, desde el sicoanálisis a la lingüística del texto– suele con razón hablar de la inutilidad de la glosa, de la paráfrasis o del comentario de textos. [...] y sin embargo las cosas son más complicadas. Esa crítica actual lleva razón, sí, sólo que ignora la ideología que la habita. Esta ideología: la creencia en la poesía como verdad directa y literal, verdad que todos pueden entender porque en el fondo la poesía no hace más que hablar del alma humana y el alma humana es igual para todos. Esto es: la poesía como transparencia directa de sí misma, la escritura como verdad más o menos velada de esa última verdad de fondo: el espíritu humano [...]. No voy a explicar aquí por qué, en el fondo, empapada de tal ideología, la crítica actual supuestamente más científica no glosa ni comenta el texto, sino que pretende hacerlo «científico»: lo descompone en sus elementos, 326 Sociocriticism 2010 - Vol. XXV, 1 y 2 DENby, D. (1997), Los grandes libros, Madrid, acento. DÍaz RUEDa, a. (1981), «El mar en la literatura», Camp de l´arpa, nº 89-90, Julio-agosto. ESCOlaR, h. (1988), Historia del libro, Madrid, Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez. FlORIt, E. (1957), «la poesía de Juan Ramón Jiménez», La Torre, año V, nº 18-20. GUIllÉN, C. (1985), Entre lo uno y lo diverso, barcelona, Crítica. ISER, W. (1987), El acto de leer, Madrid, taurus. JOSt, F. (1974), Introduction to comparative literature, Indianapolis, bobs Merrill. llEDó, E. (2000), El surco del tiempo: meditaciones sobre el mito platónico de la escritura y la memoria, barcelona, Crítica. MaNGUEl, a. (1998), Una historia de la lectura, Madrid, alianza/ Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez. 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(1989), «De la publicidad como fuente historiográfica. la generación poética española de 1970», Revista de Occidente, 101, Madrid. tIEGhEM, P. V. (1951), La littérature comparée, París, Colin. UNaMUNO, M. de (1987), Poesía completa. II, Madrid, alianza. WEISStEIN, U. (1975), Introducción a la literatura comparada, Madrid, Planeta.