warminski, andrzej - readings in interpretation

8/13/2019 Warminski, Andrzej - Readings in Interpretation

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Readings in Interpretation: Hlderlin, Hegel, Heidegger. by Andrzej WarminskiReview by: Thomas PfauMLN, Vol. 102, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1987), pp. 1212-1215Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2905323.

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1212 REVIEWStheory.To articulate wo discoursesor theoretical ystemstogether) s notonly to harness their otherwisedisparate purposes, but also to renovateand reconditionwhat is specificto each in the contextof a newconjunc-ture. In Imaginary elations, prinkerhas succeeded, more cogently hananyone else, in showing,both in history nd theory,how and whycriticalpractices ike those of De Man and Althusser are performing he samekind of work with similar results.A more precise sense of where theymight ctuallywork togetherremainsto be seen, and, as such, marksthehorizon of this book.Less germanetoSprinker's ims,butmore crucial to the current tateofpoliticalcriticism,s the fact that the term culture s one whichrarelyappears in Imaginary elations. t is arguablyone of the more disablingfeatures of the long traditionof marxistaesthetics, nd Althusser s noexception,that t has failedtoquestionthe institutionf Art tself, refer-ring nstead to accept classical and high cultural)definitions f art whichendow itwith n authenticitynd transcendent owerdenied to everydaycultural productions. Having accepted those definitions, the task ofmarxist estheticianshas largelybeen to explain, in materialist erms, hespecificityf thisor that peculiar capacityto transcendthe everyday,his-tory, deologyetc.A thoroughgoing ultural riticismodaywould have tosay that thisbegs the questionof culture, r at leastculturedefined n thelarger sense in whichGramsci,alone among westernmarxists, oughttoexplain the workingsof power. For the power to define what is au-thentic n culture, deologyand even science, s also thepower to definecertain social meaningsas dominant, nd others as illegitimate. o recog-nize thatculture s the mediumthrough hich ower is exercised, nd pop-ular consent is won or lost, s to move toward a new level of immediatecritical nd politicalstruggleover the definitions f culture,and to leavebehind the continuing ttachment fmarxists o the nstitutionalnd tran-scendent power of art and, byextension, heircomplicitywith historyof fixedtextual objects throughwhich thatpower has maintained tself.Princeton niversity ANDREW ROSS

Andrzej Warminski,Readings n Interpretation:6lderlin, egel,Heidegger.Minneapolis: University f MinnesotaPress, 1987. lxi + 225 pages.Readings n Interpretationeservesour close readings-and continuedpa-tience-for a variety f reasons: first, or itscogent and highly oncen-tratedexpositionof thereach and significance fwhat,through heworkof Paul de Man, has come to be known as rhetoricalor tropologicalreadings. Furthermore,Warminski's tudy can be called exemplaryforitsconcise analysesof therelationbetweenthiscontemporary ritical ap-proach and its problematictheoreticalantecedents (H6lderlin, Hegel,


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M L N 1213Nietzsche,Heidegger and Blanchot).At thesame time,Warminski's ookinvariably ringsto theforesome of the intrinsic roblemsor blind-spotsthat obtain when basing one's reading (of interpretations) n an exclu-sivelytextualbase. Comprised of fourchapterson the interpretation fHdlderlinand anotherthreeon Hegel, and with heessaysdatingfrom searly as 1976, Warminski's study arrives at a comprehensive under-standingof its theoretical genda primarilyn themore recentessaysonHeidegger (chapter6, esp. 150ff.) nd in its Prefatory ostscript.As thelatter extmakesclear,Warminskimeans to focuson the supplementary,allegorical moment'of reinscription. et unlikesome earlierdeconstruc-tionist tudiesof Holderlin and Hegel byLacoue-Labarthe and Derrida,Warminski's rhetorical pproach proves considerablymore rigid in itsunderstanding f reinscriptions a strictlyextualor linguistic rocedure.As Warminskipointsout in his Prefatory ostscript, ny symmetricalopposition of the philosophical and literary diom remains only a first,merely trategicmove (xxxv),requiring s its nextstepthe rewriting fthe philosophicalnegative .. in linguistic erms. Warminskiocatesthisphilosophical negative almost exclusively n Hegel's concept of deter-minatenegation (and in Szondi's Hegelian interpretationf Holderlin),that s, n the inevitable self-)negation f the textofnaturalconsciousnessfor ts own,symmetricalther,thephilosophical we. For Warminski, herewriting f such a negativeremains far from deliberate,for it merelyrestoreswhatthetext of nterpretation],n ordertoconstitutetself, adto cover up, suppress or exclude in the first lace (xxxiv).Thus a thirdstep in the procedure of reading suggeststhat not only does literaryreading (and writing) ome beforehetextof the nterpretationAuslegung,Erlduterung)s itsconditionof possibility, ut it also alwaysgoes afterthetextof the interpretations itsconditionof impossibility 150).The mostconvincingdemonstration f thisthesismaywell be themi-crologicaland verycompellingreading in the Postscript f a complexfigural passage fromNietzsche's Geburt erTragodie. nterpretersandtranslators likeconstruetheapparentanalogyofNietzsche'smetaphor sthe basis fora legitimate, hiasmicreversal, remission ffigurativeigni-fication nto interpretive sense. Yet in doing so, they nevitably bscurethe originary, atachrestic tatusof Nietzsche'sfigureswhich alwaysal-ready ) conditionthe possibilityf thatwhichnow is extrapolatedas (andreduced to) theirmeaning. Less a matterof the relationbetweenliteraland figurative, roper and transferred enses (lv), catachresis tandsinasymmetrical elationtoanyattempt trecuperating hefigurative orthelogos tself.As Warminski points out, such insight is not a negationofknowledge but rather outside, asymmetrical to, the opposition ofknowing/notnowing lvii).Clearly, t s fromHegel's PhenomenologyhatWarminski's hesisreceivesits ultimate challenge, for the systematicforce of Hegel's speculationhingeson theability o sublatethe inadequate articulationstexts)of nat-


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1214 REVIEWSural consciousness nto the self-explicationf the absoluteforthe philo-sophical we. Taking up some relatedconsiderations fMaurice Blanchot(cf. Epilogue ), Warminski's eadingof Hegel and of Heidegger's Hegelcorrectlyfocuses on the problematicstatus of this we in Hegel's text.Consistently rudite in both his scholarship nd in his simultaneoushan-dling of mattersof translation, nterpretation nd reading, Warminskiseeks to highlight (textual)blindspot hatobtainsboth forHegel's philos-ophy of reflexiveself-interpretationnd forHeidegger's reinscription fHegel's thesiswithin he metaphysical) estiny fSeinsvergessenheit.n thecourse of rewriting he general problematicof the philosophical stand-pointfrom an asymmetricalneitherspeculativenor ontological)but tex-tual nonplace (Blanchot's phrase, 184), Warminski hows convincinglyhow Heidegger surreptitiously ubstitutes he destined forgetfulnessfBeing (GeschickerSeinsvergessenheit)or the reflexive elf-determinationof Hegel's natural consciousness. To prevent this interpretationfromreappearing as yet another stage in Hegel's Phenomenology,eidegger'stextdissimulates ts interpretive tandpoint s the issue of Being itself(die Sache desSeins elbst).Still, some rather substantial problems arise with Warminski's ownreadingsof Hdlderlin, tarting erhapswithhisclaim thatHolderlin's textis linguisticallyself-reflexive' nough, 'aware' enough of its own textualconditions,to ... give lie to any interpretationwhose negativewould re-duce Hdlderlin's texts to extralinguistic,xtratextual, onditions xxxii).While Szondi's interpretations f H6lderlin remain troublesomebecauseof their unreflectedtransference f themodel of consciousness i.e., interms of self and other) (33) onto Holderlin's dialecticsof the properand the foreign, uch a reduction of Holderlin's textto a reflectivemirror-symmetry ay not yet legitimateWarminski'ssubstitution fterms fsignificationZeichen) nd figuration Metapher) orthe structureofconsciousnessaltogether.For Holderlinhimself ontinued toreflect nthe phenomenon of self-consciousnessfterrealizingthatthe constitutionof consciousnessreaches beyond any theoryof reflection;forreflection(qua self-representation)annot produce both a figurefora selfand, si-multaneously, figurethat would identify he representing nd repre-sented self as the self-same cf.Stuttgart dition, V, 1: 217, 253f.; VI,1:155f.). Simplyto substitute he phenomenon of (self-)consciousnesswithtermsof significationZeichen) nd figuration Metapher) 33) remainsunwarranted as long as Hdlderlin's own, profoundly symmetrical on-ceptionof thisphenomenon is notaddressed.Thus the characterization f Holderlin's texts s linguisticallyself-re-flexive', nticipates heinvoluntary eappearance ofthephenomenonofself-consciousnessn Warminski's eadingsof Holderlin. One instanceofsuch an involuntarily eappearance of a residual subject (no longer theknowing Hegelian subjectivity or the forgetful eideggerian Dasein)occursinWarminski's eadingof Holderlin'sEmpedocles:osaythat atthe


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M L N 1215momenthe reads himselfbest,he reads himselfneither s a selfnoras hisownotherbutas a text 15) suggestswith ts ast as thatthereremainsadifference etweenthetextnd theactof interpretation. his act,thusfaran enigma both to philosophical thoughtand its linguistic einscription,becomes yetmore prominentas Warminskireflectson the catachresticself-creation f Hdlderlin'sSubjekthrough tsStoff:what f theauthorityofsuchan analogy,sucha metaphor,wereonlytheauthority fourwilltopower, which invents,which must nvent . . (54). On such occasions,Warminski'swork suggestsanother questioningof interpretation,imingless at the exposure of the interpretive ext's ndisputableblindnessthanat thefunctionsnd motivesehindtheoriginary ct of figurationtself, hatcatachrestic imposition f sense (lv) bywhichall interpretationemainsparasitized. t remainsa paradox ofReadingsn nterpretationhatthesametextualfocuswhichpermits tscogentrewriting f the philosophicalneg-ative in Hegel's and Heidegger's interpretationshould prevent tsau-thorfrom nquiringinto the constitution f a more originary text-pro-ducing) subject,the one which represents tself .. as text and mustn-vent. Still, any such inquiry would have to proceed from a careful(re)readingof Readings n Interpretation.StateUniversityfNewYork tBuffalo THOMAS PFAU

Linda S. Kauffman,Discourses fDesire:Gender,Genre, nd Epistolaryic-tions.Ithaca and London: Cornell University ress, 1986. 331 pages.Ruth Bernard Yeazell, ed. Sex,Politics,ndSciencen theNineteenth-CenturyNovel;Selected apers rom he nglish nstitute,983-84, N.S., 10.Baltimoreand London: JohnsHopkins University ress, 1986. xiv +195 pages.The defensiveresponse of institutionso difference-to differentdeas,different esires-is readilyevident n the two books under reviewhere,each of which illustratesa number of widely employed strategiesfortaming the powerful deas unleashed in the past twodecades and usuallyreferred o as theory. That tamingprocess,undertaken nthe nterest fpreservingthe hegemony of the dominant ideology in intellectual ndpedagogical circles, s currently roducingwhatone might all the reno-vated academy, an academy that has been forced to acknowledge thepresence of those differentdeas butwantsto guaranteethattheydo notdisturbestablished power/knowledge elations much as, in the wake ofminoritymovements, ur renovated societymakes a showof toleratingother desires). As instances in the professionat large of these currentstrategies-which give the appearance of something new and dif-

warminski, andrzej - readings in interpretation

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