Bad Company: On the Theory of Literary Modernity and Melancholy in Walter Benjamin and Julia Kristeva Author(s): Marcus

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Bad Company: On the Theory of LiteraryModernityand Melancholy in WalterBenjamin and Julia Kristeva

Marcus Bullock John Lechte'slucidand enlightening recentbookon JuliaKristeva in drawswhathas already becomea longandrichrecord herwork a conas tinuum development. describes a succession of books and essays, of He anda succession of ideas and polemical to positions show heras an exemplumof historyinwhichhe can turnbacklayeron layerinthe sequence of of successive stages, changes. Butwhilethe metaphor movement through of additions a recordof territory to crossed and explored,is a convenient device in composinga scholarlywork,the idea of progressand success in he implicit thatfigurerunscounterto the material actually presents.The does, indeed,createa vividimpresimageof succeedingmetamorphoses sion of an individual but we history, it is partof the rhetoric use to describe the heroiclaborsof writers fromsome otherage, notourown. The material achievement lies suggests thatthe value of Kristeva's at least as muchinthe hesitation, and of retrenchment, unmaking herpositions. Perhapsmorethanany of the othermembersof the TelQuelgroup, she invites readerto give upthe pleasuresof contemplating upward the the and outward of an unfolding She is less inclined thananysweep persona.
boundary222:3, 1995. Copyright 1995 by Duke UniversityPress. CCC 0190-3659/95/$1.50. ?

2 58 boundary / Fall1995

one to mistakethe "success"of her distinctive for publicprofile an answer to the problemwith which she began and which has only slowly come intoclearfocus throughits repeatedreformulation. to Referring Kristeva's of in the relations between the repudiation any single affirmative position semioticand the symbolic,Lechtedoes agree that,"ofcourse,to win,in a situation wherepsychicequilibrium needed, is to lose."1 herconcern is Yet, outlinessomethingthat goes beyondthe intellectual of understanding an in of opposition whichit is absurdto pursueprivilege one side overanother. In 1987, KristevapublishedBlack Sun, continuing movement the inhermorerecentwork. thereshe writesof "a toward And simpler language beliefin stylisticperformance" betraysthe essential desires of human that life to the publicpowers of language.Such a belief abandonsthe living chance thatlies beyondwhatthe discoursecan "convey," that counting life "less important thanthe success of the text itself."2 in Real importance a transmitted one thatmightdeserveto be called"grandidiscourse, publicly ose" language,is restricted to "theroyal whichhumanity only waythrough transcendsthe griefof being apart,the way of speech givento suffering, screams, music,silence, and laughter" including (BlackSun, 100).Outside the reality desire, the reality one persondesiringanother,she finds of of only languagethat settles for somethingthat is reallynothing,its place the is There,grandeur merely prizeof its sucamongthe powersof artifice. at cess, whichmeans only its establishment the centralpointof a world core "in thousandand one ways of naming thathas "dissolved" living a the it"(BlackSun, 68). This is a murderous a suicidaldiversion. or "Outside the depressivespace,"she asks, "isthe grandioseanything a game?" but
(Black Sun, 100).

The game that Kristeva herselfnownames suicidalis playedout on a courtof grandoppositions: freedomandfate, bodyand soul, the rawand the cooked. These are clearlysituatedoutsidethe uniquedesire for love that animatesevery tremorof her voice in BlackSun, butwhat she sucabove all is how the extraordinarily ceeds in enunciating complexroutein and out of these alien kingdoms distractsher fromthe "royal still way"of is Perhapsthe natureof that distraction alreadyexplicitin the humanity. of and used to express the value of whatis lost. rhetoric grandeur royalty
1. John Lechte,JuliaKristeva (New York: Routledge,1990),209. trans. LeonS. Roudiez(New 2. JuliaKristeva, BlackSun: Depressionand Melancholia, in this York: Columbia Press, 1989),68. Hereafter, workis cited parenthetically University the text as BlackSun.

Bullock BadCompany59 / These oppositions the fulcrain machinery are aboutwhichherown history that of citizenships turns,as wellas thatlineor foldat the heartof a culture the appearanceof the hero.Butthe hero is the enemy of desire, requires the of that sacrificing innerdomain humanhappinessforthe outerstructure holdsa culture together. The magneticpullof such sacrificecannotbe resistedifthe choice to be made identifies kingships, the greaterkingship two for alwaysoverrulesand subsumes the lesser. To succeed, to triumph means heroically, in to be visibleand acknowledged a public sphere,to achievea distinction of citizenshipin the service of a reigning to Therefore, lookfor authority. the joyof desire alonga royalroadmeans alwaysto go astray, signs of for the and tracea wayto the forum, central stage of authority, regaldistinction to the dramain whichthe game of powersis playedout. Ifone can look on Kristeva's of then she does thoughtas the adventure an exploration, Yet acquirethe lookof the hero pressingonward. she herselfclearlyfeels in the deceptiveambiguity herownpowersandthe dubiousdistinction with whichthey reward even ifshe does notsee anotherwayforward. her, in Kristeva's participation the TelQuelgroup givesthe frameinwhich to contemplate stages of a heroicpassion.Whatseems muchtruerin the herexperience,however, the comingto consciousnessof hermistrust is in her own role amongthat company. The rolefalls awayfromher, butonly piecemeal,as the repeatedjoltof events undoesthe dreamof changethat had animatedFrenchintellectual at the momentof herfirstentrance.It life is WalterBenjamin who gives the most succinctformula a process of for to tries thoughtinwhichaffectcan come grinding a halt,a process Kristeva to restrict underthe name "depression." clinical The forceof the termlimits it to a mere qualityor coloration experiencefromwhichone recovers, of thatis, returns the correctly to balancedlight.ButforBenjamin, fallaway to froma publicly sanctionedorderintopainand melancholy a firststep was in liberating oneself fromthe false majestyof things in the clarity their of continuedprogress:"Thinking involvesnot only the flowof thoughts,but theirarrestas well.Wherethinking suddenlystops in a configuration pregnantwithtensions, it gives thatconfiguration shock."3 a BlackSun names for on as literature Benjamin quiteprominently hiswork allegory the function assumes underthe condition melancholy. of Kristeva alludesto his workon the baroque of mourning, yet he also seems to haunt textas an and the play
3. WalterBenjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy History," Illuminations, of in trans. Harry Zohn,ed. HannahArendt(New York: Schocken,1969), 262.

2 60 boundary / Fall1995

unassimilated presenceforthe way he appliedthe conceptsof melancholy of in and allegoryto the literature modernity the poetryof CharlesBaudede The laire. extensivediscussioninherbookseems to placeGerard Nerval remomentof literary that Benjamin at the initial evolutionary modernity whose nameis completely excludedfromBlackSun. serves forBaudelaire, view Thisplace forNervalis consistentwithKristeva's of literary modernity and that establishedby the TelQuelgroupin general.Raymond Jean, for "Onecan observes in his Poetiquedu of Nerval's example, writing: desir whatPhilippe Sollerssaid of some otherwriters, say of it quitelegitimately 'In or such as Sade, Mallarme, Artaud, Bataille: all the texts in question, but the theoryof writing there,immanent, is readyto be demonstrated: it is fantasm,poetry,hermeticism, generallyperceivedin the formof delirium, etc.' personaldeviation, "4 The contrasting and and perspectivesbetween Benjamin Kristeva, the different placeascribedto Baudelaire one andto Nerval the other, by by the Kristeva assimilated help us understand viewof modernity earlyin her workandthe continuing tensionsthatemergeinthe laterworkas the major with contradictions whichshe struggles.Inthe simplestand most general verse as a formulation, Benjamin regardsthe hardallureof Baudelaire's formdesigned to convey the arrestof time and the penehollowed-out in of of tration an illusory continuity development the humansphere. This of time at a standstillleaves the futureopen to a completely experience takes the breaking of the surup heterogeneousorderof change. Kristeva the of faces in representation, fragmentation the imageandthe dissolution of conof the coherentvoice,to be indicative a changeand renewal already The revolutionary extensionof that change tained in the literary process. be and mediation underonly requires thatthe workof critical philosophical that it mayenterand achievedby writing so takento expandthe liberation a domainof experience. determine larger of Yet Kristeva, whomthis liberation experiencehas an added for of dimension urgencynotpresentamongthe men,can neverfreethe promise of change,andthe enticementsof success as the bondof thatpromise, of doubt.Thisdoubtbegins withthe potential ourown froman underlying with or modernity, its contemporaneity, its adequacyto a uniqueexperience of of the present in whichthe separationfromanotherperson,the "grief It a can beingapart," be repaired. begins withthe anxietiesof finding lan4. Raymond Eluard Jean, La Poetiquedu d6sir:Nerval,Lautr6amont, (Paris: Apollinaire, et Seuil, 1974), 31; my translation.The quoted comment by Sollers is from "Ecriture 6d. in Sollers (Paris: du Seuil, 1968),72. r6volution," Theoried'ensemble,ed. Philippe

Bullock BadCompany61 / guage whose fullnessis of the presentand whose flowcarriesone person toward another.Butthe presentis onlyours and onlypromisesthe joining of of life,if it containsthe future.Itis theirs,property the dead, if it is only the recurrence the past orthe continuation a game. The entirenature of of of activity at and identity whichthe presentgrasps is thus open to doubt and loss. Kristeva wrote in 1971that "onlyone languagegrows more conthe equivalent, temporary: beyonda span of thirty years, of the language of Finnegan'sWake." reason she gives is that such language,or its The stands separateand free of "didacticism, rhetoric, equivalent, dogmatism It of any kind." also stands in contrastto others that, "inany fieldwhatsoever, no longercommandattention," they "havesurvivedand although willcontinueto survive,in modified form,throughout perhaps Academia."s Muchhas changedinthe meantime, whatsurvivesin, and some including placeof thatparticular might of, academia,butnotthe central say, language in Kristeva's concerns. In BlackSun, the medusa-like of and ability literature art to fix the and collapsing of the worldin a "nameable melanchocrumbling meanings is lia" a meansto withstand not about catastrophe, to turnthatcatastrophe intoa chancefora lifefilled itsownrecovered with "Sublimation significance. alone withstands she death," writes,butit does so onlyas a displacement of despair,nota wayto the real: The beautiful objectthat can bewitchus intoits worldseems to us moreworthy adoption of thanany lovedor hatedcause forwoundor sorrow. and Depressionrecognizesthis and agrees to livewithin for that object,butsuch an adoption the sublimeis no longerlibidiof nal. Itis alreadydetached,dissociated,it has alreadyintegrated the traces of death,whichis signifiedas lackof concern,absentmindit edness, carelessness. Beautyis an artifice; is imaginary. (Black
Sun, 100)

It is at this pointthat Kristeva introducesWalterBenjamin's work on allegoryin his bookon the baroquedramaof mourning, des Ursprung
deutschen Trauerspiels(Black Sun, 101). The chastened view of what lit5. JuliaKristeva, "How Does One Speakto Literature?" DesireinLanguage,ed. LeonS. in ColumRoudiez,trans. Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine,and Leon S. Roudiez (New York: bia University this as Press, 1980), 92. Hereafter, workis cited parenthetically How.The in essay firstappearedin TelQue147 (fall1971):27-49, and was subsequentlyreprinted Polylogue(Paris:Seuil, 1977), 23-24.

2 62 boundary / Fall1995

eraturehas to offerhas come closer to Benjamin's of perception a hollow in an emanrigidity poeticformsbutis stillveryfarfromfinding alternative forcein the shock of here,as he does. He findsa critical potential cipatory arrestthatthese coldstructures directagainstthe ruling ideologyof organic A cessation of happening threatensa ruling orderthat preserves change. had itself by its renewalin progress.Kristeva seen the unchained energy dismissedthe narrative formsof the past as the by whichJoyce's writing of itself.In "How Does One Speak to literary equivalent revolution implicit and Literature?" the otheressays she collectedin Polyloguein 1977,she or of emphasizesthe "rhythmic" "musical" quality language,its "semiotic" as whereJoyce as opposedto "symbolic" quality, a truepresenceof vitality, contentof modernartin all its manihad,fromthe start,takenthe libertine of that festationsto be merelythe mockery the rigidity art had discovered that the illusion it pursued and rejectedinallthe formsof illusion, especially in its own prior of tradition representation. of as Benjamin regardsthe incorporation pure negativity the fundamentalachievementin Baudelaire's poetry:"Thegloryof an allegorical of intention: destructionof the organicand the living--elimination sem6 Benjamin thatthismarks essentialbreakof modernism the blance." argues withthe previoustradition literary of aesthetics, whichused an idealizing distanceto holdthe worldof appearanceat a pointwhere representation as uses "spleen" an Baudelaire couldsecurethese appearancesas beauty. within composition poetryto establisha quite the of intellectual discipline fixed in the worldof remainsfirmly new aesthetic position.His viewpoint desire collapse and decay butchillsthe spectacle by givingup the natural to believein a lifethe objectno longercontainsand can no longerpromise. on Spleen,this deeplysoberedperspective emptinessand banality, writesthat in it is a reservation one's position.Benjamin withholds itself; because it refusesto give erectedagainstpessimism," spleen is a "barrage sink and itselfoverto hopes thatcan neverliftus to fulfillment thattherefore is to us downfinally despair."Baudelaire no pessimist.He is not, because his This is whatdistinguishes heroismmost he sets a taboo on the future. This is the heroismof fromthat of Nietzsche"(Zentralpark, 657). sharply whoconquersthe absence of lovebya devotional the dandy, atheism,celea lifethat he believes most whilerepeating formsof his brating equanimity neverwillbe. neverwas and certainly likely
in 6. WalterBenjamin,"Zentralpark,"GesammelteSchriften,ed. HermannSchweppenam hauserand RolfTiedemann(Frankfurt Main: 1974),669-70; mytranslation Suhrkamp, as this here and subsequently.Hereafter, workis cited parenthetically Zentralpark.

Bullock BadCompany63 / texts do notgivevoice Kristeva that agrees, in Polylogue, modernist or to the fantasyimage of an ideal,the "sch6ner semSchein," "beautiful whose pleasuresin classicalaestheticsdisplacethe real,butshe blance," kind repletewithhope.The modern arguesfora quitedifferent of negativity text gives up the pleasureof closed forms,butinsteadfindsjouissancein the communicative expression.Whatshe calls bursting boundsof explicit "semiotic functions" ideals, and through gain by the retreatof discredited theirmorematerial is ableto expose an absence qualities, poeticlanguage registeredin the desiringbody:"inso doing, it refersneitherto a literary convention noreven to the bodyitself,butrather, a signifying to ... dispowhichfashionsanyjudging consciousness so sition,pre-ortranssymbolic, it. thatany ego recognizesits crisiswithin Itis a jubilant that,in recognition 'modern' aestheticpleasure."7 literature, replacespetty Kristeva wroteverylittle for aboutBaudelaire a longtime.InherHistoiresd'amour (1983),she makesit quiteclearthatshe didnot includehim inthe canonof modernity because she considershimto be stillstranded at the outermargin the traditional of andtraditional Thegaze image language. of the flaneurremainsfixatedon the spectacle of hollowfaces because himselfwiththe delightin his owncoldness can he hold onlybytransfixing any groundunderthe shock of theiremptiness.This is the substituteof a "cannot bearbeingwithout some formof game, because such a sensibility existencein a fullyarticulated form."8 symbolic in Kristeva's section on Baudelaire Histoires d'amour places critical for as emphasison the roleof perfumes his sensibility, wellas on the distant shiverof sounds andthe shimmer lightplaying jewels,because these of on the aestheticCatholicism bindshimto the authority classithat of convey cal French overhis verse, as wellas the unbroken of prosody authority the Churchover his senses. In a similar she drawsheavilyon Georges vein, Blin'scharacterization Baudelaire a sadist9to supporther argument of as that his verse subjectsthe humanbody,and the fullrhythmic musical or substanceof its desires,to a process of destruction reduction as to and so extract fromitthe refinedd6licesof synaesthesia.Therefore, can offer she the exampleof writers who destroythe integrity closed literary of formsas committed reversing process andto giving to that figureswho are implicitly the bodyits fulldue. Yether commentsin BlackSun throwthe significance the semiof
7. JuliaKristeva, "From One Identity an Other," Desire in Language,141. to in 8. Lechte,JuliaKristeva, 181. 9. Georges Blin,Le Sadisme de Baudelaire (Paris:Conti,1948).

2 64 boundary / Fall1995

otic functionsin modernism directly againstthe demandthey have not up met and raisethe questionsKristeva cannotanswer:Whyshouldthe texts of be and she privileges any nearerthe reality lovethanBaudelaire's; Why are they notgames of a more(orperhapsless) deviouskind?Ifshe stands in closerto Benjamin her laterwork,it is stillnot possibleto decide exactly howclose, and if she has movedawayfromher morehopefulstand in the past, it is still not possible to decide where she stood then. It mightbe her moreaccurateto say thatherlaterworksimplybeginsto acknowledge to own uncertainty about where she stands in relation hope and desire, because time has exposed the desperatecrag of lonelinesson whichshe was perchedall along. IfKristeva nowbeginning approach to on is Benjamin's position literis beginning expose the difficulty to or if hercurrent position ary modernity, his modernist aestheticsdefinesforitself, of overcoming viewof the position of to the political historical and then this reflectsback understanding literSollersand the TelQuelgroup that not only she, but Philippe ary activity that asserted as a way of affirming whatthey representedwas generally, the not merely"a game."John Lechtewritesof this beginning: "Through the of writing, shadow of death and the obliquepolitical opaque pathos is this gesturebecome one and the same. With gesture,the writer an intellectual-not by being the vehicle of a moralor political message, but by in becominga writer the fullestsense possible:by becomingthe opponent 10 of and of all normalizations stereotypes,andthe practitioner his/herart." Butthe rhetoric the TelQuelgroupaboutthemselves and their of as from one is situation verydifferent anything findsinJamesJoyce, insofar this projectof self-justification they feel the need to undertake theoretical and in the contextof politicsand history, they pursuethis project insistby The needs no justification. idea of a jubilant that the writing recogniing Does One Speak to Literature?" tionof crisisquotedfrom"How suggests in bet was Kristeva's investment literature a straight on this directmefirst affect. of diation a revolutionary The view is muchcloser to the idea of an interruption. Benjamin's of claims to feel in the stirring of a promiseKristeva explicitquickening to crises runscounter whathe considersthe chance of a change-namely, Thatis the reason to a shock deliveredby bringing continuity a standstill. in he workedso tenaciouslyto show a revolutionary potential Baudelaire. The momentof a crisis, understoodas a sudden accelerationof possi21. 10. Lechte,JuliaKristeva,

Bullock BadCompany65 / bilities,is, for Benjamin, likelyto provea utopianidea caught up withthe illusionsof progress.As he illustrates throughhis muchdiscussed image in of of the Angelof History the ninth the "Theseson the Philosophy Hisof this movementof progressdeferschange beforethe catastrophe of tory," of thingsgoingon as before.Such a helplesspursuit paradiseinthe future freezes and cracksunderthe gaze Baudelaire turnson the spectacle before him:"Rigid disquietis also the formula conveyingBaudelaire's image of life,whichknowsno chance of development" (Zentralpark, 668). Mostspecifically, experiencemarks undonepromiseof love. this the in for the "Woman Baudelaire: mostpreciousobjectof plunder the 'Triumph of Allegory'-the lifethatsignifiesdeath"(Zentralpark, Thisembrace 667). of death and deceptionturnsagainstthe illusion any fruitful of passage of it time.Therefore, is impervious any promisesthathistory, to or purposeful whatBenjamin calls historicism, pointto ina future progress.Onlyat can of thatpointdoes Benjamin dialecbeginto set up hisverycomplexhistorical tics and drawthe negativity literature a political of into His critique. radical notionof a materialist historical opticcloses out the emptyexpansiveness and repetitions whathe calls the homogeneouspast of historicism of and cancels the meaningless of into continuity progressthathistoricism projects the future,therebyrendering in time open to a criticalalternative active political understanding. not Kristeva onlylooksto the recognition a commonstate of crisis of as the markof a singularlanguage in modernistwritingbut also finds in reason for "jubilation" this disposition exceed what she takes to be to the limited symbolicfunctionof discourse.She looks to PhilippeSollers, to the achievementsof a moderncanon that includesMallarme, Lautreafor mont,and Artaud, this precioussurplusin poetic language.Thoughit is not yet knowledge, site of thatcrisis gathersthese authorswithin the a she single project, argues, since the semioticfunction presentsa singular domination symbolicfunctions. of The task of challengeto the traditional and understanding the failure symbolic of reading beginsbyacknowledging to absorballexperienceof the subjectas a material meanings beingand a The determinate desiringbody. system thatarticulates symboliclanguage is inadequateto the materiality life,and the texts of the resulting of artifice are in thatsense "empty." she does, at this earlystage, regard But the semioticside of the text,the side that gives fullemphasisto the rhythmic or musicalqualities, "full." the material as And that qualities fillit inthisway are capable,through process of revaluation theoretical the work,of a by directexpansionintoactivepolitical historical and significance.

2 66 boundary/ Fall 1995 The lesson Kristeva drawn has fromRolandBarthesis to lookto a of "writing" as a particular concept practiceof literary (ecriture) production withnew historical substance. Because it is not exhaustedin the presentationof communicable aesthetic pleasure" its of meaningsforthe "petty does the readership, "writing" not reproduce structuresof a determinate, rule-bound as subjectwithinits language:"Asinfra-and ultra-language, is the ridgewhere the historical of the translanguage, writing becoming that is, an a-psychological, subject is affirmed; a-subjectivesubject-an historical subject"(How,97-98). But a ridge about whichthe crisscross windsof so manyneologismsblowis nota placeto trustanything veryfar. in her claims depends on the promiseof somethingnew that Everything has yet to appear,butonlythen, afterthatcomingto appearance,can so this many new terms be consideredfullspeech and perform new critical mediation semioticlanguage,rather of thansimplyrepeattheirnegationof the symbolic.Until in then, there is a fundamental difficulty her invocation with of "history," all its richreverberations redemption. of Desiremaywellarisewithin, as a responseto, history. course: and Of how could it possiblybe otherwise?But historyis the recordof appearhas established whatis mostcharacteristic that ances, and Kristeva already of thiscontemporary of literary is language modernity thatit refusesto produce appearancesas the material pettyaesthetic pleasure.Indeed,it of as rhetoric, steps backfrom engagementinhistory "didacticism, dogmatism of any kind." splitsherargument This so quitedangerously, thatitseems to contradict verypossibility change on whichherrevaluation literary the of of at thattime insists. writing affirms that "writing posits another thus On the one hand, Kristeva one, subject,forthe firsttime a definitively antipsychological forwhatdeterminesit ultimately the problem communication isn't of to (relationship an other)butthat of an excess of 'ego' withinan experience" (How,98). as On the otherhand,if this "necessarypractice," she calls it, is not to be as into to produced an appearance(andtherebybrought a relationship an from, separation other),theneach workpresentsonlythe site of an internal of and and within, only history, the practice such writing marksthe general in Thatseparation no way implies locus to whichsuch sites are restricted. a powerof change in the domainof historical appearances.Recognizing thatwillrealizethis this, she has to positanothercomplementary practice and as otherwiseimmobilized negativity a different, truer,history:"Once this area has been determined, literary practicescan be consideredas the the possibility emerges out of a objectof a possibleknowledge: discursive
reality impossible for it although localizable by it"(How, 98).

Bullock BadCompany67 / the This possibility, alwaysdeferredpromiseof change and reality, standardbeneath whichthe long and intricate is the justifying historyof Kristeva's theoretical polemical own and laborsbegan and has been purHer sued to the scene of depressionand melancholia. enterprise, looking remainsalwaysbeyondthe forward an as yet unrepresentable to potential, It reachof a definitive critique. has alwaysnotyet reachedthe pointat which its claimscouldbe subjectedto any definitive test. DebateaboutKristeva's withundecidable differences largerenterprisehas been strangelyfraught because it is ultimately about an objectthat has not made any ultimate But appearance." thereshouldalso be no doubtthatwhatmakesthe enteris prise preeminently important the claritywithwhichshe acknowledges the afflicted state, the permanent crisis,of a consciousness imprisoned by desireforthis "Thing" is noteven an object,thatcannoteven be raised that to the substanceof an absent object. Inthe work completed 1980,Powersof Horror, in she Kristeva applies the wordabjector abjection this non-object. to She therebyloosens the earlierdeceptivetemporal orientation a future of toward whichthe present turnsand fromwhichthe laborsof the presentderivetheirmeaning.Ifthe of possibility change impliesthat the futureholds anotherobjecttoward whichone can extendoneself to appropriate then the othernessof the it, into The objecthas alreadybeen transformed a promise,intoa conviction. of The objectis the correlative a certainknowledge. abjectis not.She writes: "Theabjecthas only one quality the object-that of being opposed to of Inthe case of an object,this relation opposition of also supportsother /."12 "If of and qualities, qualities connection the forceof knowing: the object... settles me within fragiletextureof a desire for meaning,which,as a the matter fact, makes me ceaselessly and infinitely of to homologous it,what is abject,on the contrary, jettisonedobject, is radically the excludedand drawsme toward place wheremeaningcollapses.13 the The antinomy here is simpleand obvious.Kristeva's is inecriture deed drawntowardthe pointwhere meaningcollapses, but her meaning does not collapse. Hermeaningis the gestureof approach,herown labor
11.There is an intriguing example of this in the entirelyincommensurable readingsput forward CalvinBedientin "Kristeva Poetryas ShatteredSignification," and InCritical by Kristeva: Response to A quiry16, no. 4: 807-29; TorilMoi'sresponse to him, "Reading CalvinBedient," Critical 17, Inquiry no. 3: 639-43; and his response to her response in that same issue, "HowI Slugged ItOutwithToril and Stayed Awake," Moi 644-49. 12. JuliaKristeva, An Powersof Horror: Essay on Abjection, trans.LeonS. Roudiez(New York: Columbia Press, 1982), 1. University 13. Kristeva, Powersof Horror, 1-2.

2 68 boundary / Fall1995

of of makingand doing;the production a text in whichshe inscribesthe to trackof this approachis an invitation the readerto reenactthe gesture, in in to participate it,to reenacta homologousI thatparticipates the same coherenceas Kristeva's production. that of Thetextcreates a space and direction movement substitutes in Writa transformation the future. forthe motionintimetoward graspable forceherethatis notthe appealof a pettyaesthetics ingexertsan attracting butis ableto replacethe enfeebledanswersuch aestheticsoffersinthe face the time of a crisis,because, initsowngesture,ittransfigures unimaginable the Kristeva's into ofthe future a presentfigure, tropeofthis"toward." writing within languageof criticism the an has accomplished approach equivalent to that cited forpoetic languagein "How Does One Speak to Literature?" And a and capable, like it, of promoting "jubilant" recognition. the critical horror been has does reflecthowcompletely to Powersof Horror response sublatedin the elegance of hertextualgesture. Guy Scarpettanotedthat with withthis book,Kristeva enrichedher "theoretical had rigor" "aneffecsuccessful Thiskindof appealis enormously tive measureof seduction."14 the in expanding sphere in whichshe is heard,and yet it also postpones the change that lies at the basis of the enterpriseitself:the emancipation in Jubilation a momentof crisisdoes notarisefromthe of a silencedworld. turn of the savage and uncertain a coursetoward emancipation recognition the at has to take;itcomes eitherfrom relief the end of a numbing emptiness to or fromthe promiseof whatlies beyondthe transformation come. of Butthe essentialcondition a realchange,as opposedto a restoraof an from idealization pastappearances, of tionora pursuit fantasiesdrawn differsin thatone cannotsee past the place wherea realturncomes into whichdrawsaway of the view.Therefore, firstpartor possibility jubilation, fromwhatis and has of that differs fromthe past at the approach a future been, also stands witha sharp reservefromthe second, whichimagines consciousness maysustaina preponderthe future.Inthe first,a historical the inthe processof soberingupfrom debilitating ance of "theoretical rigor" refersto fascinationsof the past. This process is what WalterBenjamin The of as in his essay on surrealism the "dialectics intoxication." imporforcea consciousness tance of the process,forhim,lies inthe equalcritical schooled inthe natureof intoxication directagainstthe powersof fasmay over cinationexercisedby images of the future.Seductionpreponderates because the dangersto if the futureis dissolvedintoirreality, critical rigor
An note to Powers of Horror: Essay in 14. Quotedby Leon S. Roudiezin his translator's vii, (19 Abjection, cited in Le NouvelObservateur May1980).

Bullock BadCompany69 / be negotiatedare transfigured objects of delightfor a renewedstate into Thatis preciselythe faultWalter of intoxication. suspects in the Benjamin and the wherethey "subordinate methodical disciplinary surrealists, prepabetweenfitnessexercisesand for ration revolution to a praxisoscillating ... in The equivalent faultin Kristeva celebration advance."15 maybe located withsome precision:in her use of the wordhistory.Just as the surrealists mixand confuse experiencesof ecstasy and desires foremancipation rather than dialectical, considersa "romantic," to producewhat Benjamin confuses modelsof change inthe past so of intoxication, Kristeva concept and projectsof change forthe future.The pathfollowedby historyin the in of Renaissanceis to be hermapfora reversal the past to makea rebirth and the future, thoughtimewere as continuous coherentas this implicit as return the treasuresof recollection. to in function literary The objectifying of representation bourgeoishisexploredin Kristeva's earlywork. toryfromthe Renaissanceon is carefully the The beginnings the novelare, forexample,analyzedthrough case of of in Antoinede la Sale's Jehan de la Saintrein the essay written 1967,"Le
Texte clos" (included in the collection 1968). The qualities of a
I7_bmEWTLX7, had, she

moremusicalor rhythmic medieval argues,leftit stillopen writing to and to a heterogeneity, therebyimplicitly valorizing women,butbythe fifthe teenthcentury, was giving to literature represented speech that this way author anxiousto of the new man,the assertivelanguageof a self-sufficient The establishhimselfas a voice of authority. valorization this powerand of is devalorization writing "aparadoxical of that dominates,in phenomenon different of The forms,the entirehistory the novel."16 historical weightgiven her confident the dualismof speech and writing distinguishes eager sense of imminent change in these earlyessays most clearlyfromthe darktone
of Black Sun.

Thereis certainly venerable a tradition opposes speech as true that and immediate as and languageand writing mediated,indirect, arbitrary. as determinant Nonetheless,the emphasison this opposition the ultimate of a metaphysics authority of looksrather andeven datednow. exaggerated We can show no natural actual identity or between that whichhas been suppressed by the divisionof laborin the bourgeoisera and the fate of there is no reason why a political "writing." Consequently, polemicrevalshouldcreate a strategythat could reversethe triumph of orizingwriting
in 15. WalterBenjamin,"Surrealism," Reflections:Essays, Aphorisms,Autobiographical trans. Edmund Schocken,1986), 189. Writings, Jephcott,ed. Peter Demetz (New York: in 16. JuliaKristeva, "TheBoundedText," Desire in Language,58.

2 70 boundary / Fall1995

writesthat "for phoneticconsciousnessKristeva the bourgeoishistory. fromthe Renaissanceto ourtime-writingis an artificial an limit, arbitrary if but finitude,"17 the pathosof struggleis misleading itsets law,a subjective these two ideas up as combatants out change to and frobetween fighting of them in the actualities history. of Does One Speak to Literature?" The rhetoric "How presentsthe of from languageof Finnegan'sWakeas the modernredemption writing his forms consciousness. By alienating workfromcommunicative phonetic of speech, the essay claims,Joyce not only ends the historyof the novel all at butstartsthe workof endingthathistory all levelsand recovering that was (supposedly)lost withthis passing of the medievalworld:"Itfollows thatthe literary experience,byvirtueof itsverycharacteristics, avant-garde of is slated to become the laboratory a new discourse(andof a new subthus bringing abouta mutation, and 'perhapsas important, involving ject), as the the same problem, the one marking passage fromthe Middle Ages
to the Renaissance'" (How, 92).18

To speak aboutthe futureis, for Benjamin, alwaysendangeredby in seductionand delusion.Speech and writing any formcan displacethe or that of of movement timebythe substitution mythology, false knowledge, gives assurance where there is no knowledge.Despitethe special disciin semblancesof that plineof "writing" refuses to participate the beautiful in of the celebration its own powersimplicit a jubilant readingrepleasure, to the surrealists, impetuous."19 "too inthe phraseBenjamin mains, applies with of closes his "Theseson the Philosophy History" an approvBenjamin to ban "We ingreference the biblical on divination: knowthatthe Jews were instruct and the The Torah the prayers frominvestigating future. prohibited however.This strippedthe futureof its magic,to them in remembrance, whichall those succumbwho turnto the soothsayersforenlightenment."20 of Anunderstanding timeandthe laborof producing changedoes notcome reach beyondthe horizonof the presentbutfromthe froma mythological of active application a consciousness of the presentto the appearances is of the past. He notes that the historian "a prophetturnedbackward."21
58. 17. Kristeva, "TheBoundedText," et 18. The quoted line she includes here is fromRolandBarthes'sCritique Verit6 (Paris: Seuil, 1966),48. 185. 19. Benjamin, "Surrealism," 264. 20. Benjamin, "Theses," 21. Benjamin,Gesammelte Schriften1/3, 1235. This idea is borrowedfrom Friedrich Schlegel.

Bullock BadCompany71 / But in BlackSun, Kristeva evidentlyalso acknowledgesthe effect of her earlierdesire to penetratethe future.The demonicgloomof melancholy followsinevitably the trainof an enraptured jubilant in or conprophetic sciousness. Thus, she laterturns,like him,away fromthe deceptionsof into magicalprojection the future. the Wake whichKristeva to reToday, span of timesince Finnegan's ferredin "How Does One Speak to Literature?" almostsixtyyears. The is continued contemporaneous presence of its languageattests to a change in the meaningof its contemporaneity. 1971,that language had been In tiedto the activeprospectof an end to the past in the generalcondirectly ditionof history: capitalist "As and society is beingeconomically politically chokedto death, discourseis wearingthinand headingfor collapse at a more rapidratethan ever before" has (How,92). But now thatcapitalism infullplanetary of history, aestheticextrication the of emerged possession formsof public discoursereveals poeticlanguagefromthe communicative itselfas a cessationinthe process of literary whileoutsidethatspehistory, cialaestheticdomain, arenaof political, the discourse economic,andmoral continuesits self-assertion sustainsitselfby providing ownimagery and its and narrative the representations through consciousness industry. Forthis reason, Kristeva to give up a concept of "history" has that arises in the Middle to Ages and arches overthe ridgemarked ecriture by pass froman old formof the subjectto a new one that is to come. What nowbecomes crucial aboutthe languageof Finnegan's Wake wherethe is thatfalterson that high ridgedoes actuallycome to an end. The journey formsof narrative inBenjamin's the so that, imagefrom "Theses," powerfully beads on a rosary"22 so stillin the politido organizestringsof facts "like cal arena.Though contemporary poeticprosehas refusedthose formsand constructsan artful in the literary forcedoes not tangle sphere, its critical extendfar.Itsprimary resonancereaches,now,into"academia," albeitinto those spaces inthe institution are themselvespolitically that isolated.This had tangle appearswhere once an earlieracademichistoricism drawna clearcrossroadspointing onward the future to through homogeneoustime. The formsof argument then stillinhabiting older"academia" live that now on in the consciousness industry. The popular persuasivenessof enchainedfacts rests on supposedly scientificnecessities in the humandomain,thoughthe uniquerealitiesof humandesire lie outside the sphere of causality.The split between the
22. Benjamin, 263. "Theses,"

2 72 boundary / Fall1995

domainof poeticlanguageandthe "popular" domainof generaldis"high" course leaves a core of humanlifeand desire powerlessto speak. Writing articulatesthat powerlessness, but only in the formof its own impotent Kristeva notes "howdazzling,unending, exclusion.In Powersof Horror, so of eternal andso weak,so insignificant, sickly- is the rhetoric Joycean language."'23 Whereprogress continues rulethe languageof socialtransactions, to and projectsitselfintothe same future,literary languagecan onlyabstract Yet itselffromsuch abstraction. this languagebecomes "more contempoKristeva insists in Polylogue,because it presses towarda change. rary," The direction, substance, of this change lies in an elementbeyondthe or processes of "sense"thatconstitutethe symbolicsystem of lanlinguistic excess is presentas rhythm. Thus,she writesin guage. Thistranslinguistic thatpoeticlanguageis "anundecidable process betweensense Polylogue and nonsense, betweenlanguageand rhythm the sense of linkagethat (in to had the word'rhythm' forAeschylus'Prometheus according Heidegger's is betweenthe symbolicand the semiotic."24 Rhythm a presence reading), of and of time set in the materiality corporeality experience.It contrasts of The withdiscursiveideas of temporality. powerand authority ideas deformof permanenceor duration, which is precisely rivefroma different cannotshow how the what establishesthe domainof sense. YetKristeva of time can challengethe authority restricted extensionof rhythm through ideas intheirowndomain. represented In rhythm, futureis possessed in the body.As such, it may be a but It jubilant. may be experiencedas the ecstatic powerof bodilyreality, even thoughthere may be a lesser experienceof realityin the realmof and ideas, this is outweighedby the different greaterpowerin the extento available "sense." the vastly greaterduration sion of authority through the the larger sphereto be occupiedbythe economyof socialor Moreover, the cultural the moreoverwhelming advantageof powerthat accrues life, of construed theirexchange. to the representation ideas andto relations by of The abstraction takes holdinthe modernity fullyextendedindustrial that economies cannot be resisted as long as there is nothingelse that can of unfold expandto the limit theirravenoushorizons. and Kristhat with This presents Benjamin the same problem confronts critical that teva, whichis, of course, also the problem runsthrough every
22. Powersof Horror, 23. Kristeva, to 135. "From One Identity an Other," 24. Kristeva,

Bullock BadCompany73 / Howcan writing withdraws that fromthe domainof analysisof modernity. an emptyand mechanical into process of historybe brought critical oppoin sitionto its counterpart the sphere of publicand explicit relations? Both and Kristeva resortto an elementthat is "tooimpetuous" reto Benjamin main true to eitherthe conditionof modernistliterature anythingobor servablein history. values the taboo thatwillnot relieve ThoughBenjamin to he emptinessbyopeningthe presentupas a transition the future, inserts the esoteric idea of a revolutionary messianismin the space left by that taboo.ThoughKristeva values the sharplyenclosed and uncompromising in authorilanguageof Joyce that refuses to participate institutionalized, tative,communicative discourse,she nonetheless attemptsto extend an in experienceso specificand restricted time as the semioticto establish an equivalentuniversal dimensionin that same space. It is the imperative of redemption reconcilesthese alienateddomainswithan idea of that in The sees history. elementthat is so impetuous a desire for redemption the presentcondition the worldas a ruleof evil. Redemption of requires the turning worldupsidedownand insideout, so thatthe unrepresentable is the real and the marginal the source fromwhichall meaningsflow. is ButBaudelaire identified worldof evilas a banality has the havingneither of marginsnorcenterand findsthe possibility poeticlanguageonlyin the creationof an artificial like fastidiousness the dandy of margin, the artificial thathe insinuatesbetweenhimselfand the crowd. WhereKristeva and of speaks of reality Benjamin truth, theyascribe a valueto the repressedthatis onlyaccordedits rightswhen it is restored to a centralposition.Thus, the process of negationthat they pursueas the political dimension modernist of reversesthe formof languageactually in modernist aesthetics.Joyce's languageis "daznegationaccomplished in zling, unending,eternal" haltingthe streamof everydaydiscourseand it of breaking up,just as the cubistpainting eightyyears ago brokeup the of in opticalrepresentation visualcontinuities the world,butthis does not formof restoration. The freedomand strengthof the workof implyany art vanishat once fromany attemptto recuperate workas publicdisthe as didacticism. productive The endowment modernist of worksfinds course, its source in the negationof activeworldly powerand derivesa powerless with of life. strengthby identifying the contraries worldly Thiscorresponds observes in Baudelaire: interrupt earth "To the exactlyto what Benjamin in its course-that was Baudelaire's wish. Joshua'swish. Not so deepest muchthe prophetic of it, because he had no thought turning back. of it part Outof thiswishcame his violence,his impatience, his anger;fromthat and

2 74 boundary / Fall1995

same sourcetoo came his constanteffortsto stab the world the heart,or to to sing it intoa sleep. By reasonof this wish he also offersan encouraging to of companionship death inthe pursuit its works" (Zentralpark, 667). The secularpromiseof salvation conthrough progressis intimately nected withthe historyof art and literature fromthe end of the Middle of That extendsan ever moreexAges to the beginning modernity. history of or and plicitrepresentation the individual, humanpossessions, artifacts, in portraits and narratives that give substance to the assertive settings, In exercise of an identity. the last stages of thatextension,the mechanical of the processes of reproduction, especiallyphotography, propel work artto the logicalconclusionof an exploration had its tentativebeginningsin that of the secularization beautyinthe Renaissance.The logicof representation inthishistory to letthe meaning a physiognomy is of pursued speakthrough its appearancewithout the opticalcharacteristics its presence. of violating The image of a person in a portrait fromthat tradition the subordinates of freedomof actionto a discipline appearances. of That rhythm a painterly will whichthe portrayed discipline renderthe mask and gesture, through in life,and lets the visibleform as an individual subject figuremightspeak of a face conveyand enframethe natureof the speech and the acts with is The connectionbetweenthe presence of whichthe individual identical. the image,a surfaceof appearances,and the originof a morepermanent in value, a depthof interiority the psychological subject,is whatBenjamin called"aura." of Hisdefinitions auraare well known.He calls it "theexperienceof close it maybe,"and writesthat"toperceivethe aura a distance,however 25 to of an objectmeans to investitwiththe ability lookat us in return."The with conof auracertainly a directconnection Kristeva's has disappearance if of of writing, this is takenas a generalmetaphor a surface,a mask, cept that has lost the connectionto a singulartruevoice speakingthroughit. himself. this builds idea up inthe unstablepersonaof Baudelaire Benjamin lookeddifferent observation "Baudelaire that He quotesGustaveCourbet's as physiognomy that of a mime" every day"and describes "Baudelaire's The loss of the artist'straditional 676, positionas the (Zentralpark, 672). betweensurfaceand psychological connections manwho mediatesauratic can "Perted'aurbole") be accounted depth (as expressed in Baudelaire's view,by the overwhelming for, in Benjamin's presence of mass-produced
in "TheArtin the Age of MechanicalReproduction," Illuminations, 25. WalterBenjamin, in 188. 222; and "OnSome Motifsin Baudelaire," Illuminations,

Bullock BadCompany75 / characteristics. shockof thisempticommodities haveno individual that The that ness inappearancesturnsthe artistawayfrommodesof meaning look for the life in the masks and leaves himthe task of contemplating them as death. in functionof modernism art, incapableof This is the "allegorical" to the instead, up holding a mirror reflect ideallifeof its society.Itsmaterial, becomes a muteworldof ruins.Benjamin writes,"Theman sunk deep in who whenhis eye fallson the fragment contemplation is shockedwithfright in his handbecomes an allegoricist" (Zentralpark, This art suddenly 676). begins to speak of its own shock, for it has discoveredthat it cannotany it Therefore, can no longer longergive itsvoiceto the maskof appearances. close the split between the distinctive authorof the workand the banal of objectbidforinthe market. authority the worldly that The significance the characteristic of artistic activity nowsupervenes under conditionsof modernity and redefinesthe workof art as the classical forms of beauty breakup and are abandonedalso divides and Wherethe traditional disciplineof representation Benjamin Kristeva. fallsaway,the freedomthatfallsto the artistto portray arbitrariness the of formal in can it production bespeakthatcondition twoways. ForBenjamin, in turnsbackward a disenchanted lookof shockat the futility the beauty of thatwent before.Itexposes the game that had once masqueraded the as truevoice of humanlifeby portraying abstractness allartifacts. his the of In "The Author Producer," as takesthe exampleof a dada"still essay Benjamin in withpainted life," whichdiscardedobjectsof everydayuse are included elements: "Andtherebythe publicwas shown: look, your pictureframe time;the tiniestauthenticfragmentof dailylife says more than ruptures 26 it as painting."Alternatively,can lookforward the site of a firstfreedomof human essence anda premonition a revolution enablesthatfreedom of that itselfto rupture frameandfloodout intoa historically the transformed world filledby thatessence. towardthe second position,the Though Kristevainclines initially of that power locked up withinthe frameputs it in questionfrom frailty the start.To Benjamin's eye, only the quiteseparate theologicalconcept of a messianicforce can compensatefor thatfrailty. the blacklightof In the of depression,Kristeva contemplates counterilluminationatheism.But betweenart and the social this, too, passes on the functionof mediating worldto criticism, whicharrivesto throwlighton the text as soon as the
26. WalterBenjamin, "TheAuthor Producer," Reflections,229. as in

2 76 boundary/ Fall 1995 author'saureoledrops away into the street. Whereasonce the effect of establisheda privileged of aestheticsthatmight tie framing speak in larger, termsforthe audience,nowthe workof artstandscoldlyshadowed mythic by a wall refusingthe audience its seductivedesires to possess the poet as theirown moreexalted reflection. Baudelaire's fraternal readershares inthe poet'sreducedaspiration onlyknowsan exaltedroleinthe form that of hypocrisy. Kristeva dislikeswhatBaudelaire's place in literary history suggests aboutthe importance framing of effectsthathe achievedby strictform,but herownproductive activities the highlight dependencyof modernliterature on the institutions criticism of that also establishthe special place of an artistictext or artifact cannotoperatethrough luxurious that the means of formalorder.This recognition her own place bringsher closer to of high failsto bringthe vitality view,as her practiceof critical Benjamin's reading of writing closer to realpresence. Criticism voices the truth arises that any out of the insignificance art,acknowledging "beauty an artifice; of that is it is imaginary." the for ThoughBenjamin maybe correctto reprove surrealists conthe jubilation aesthetic experiencewith the triumph to be of fusing yet reachedin a historical bothhe and Kristeva preciselythe risk redemption, fromthe otherside, as critics. roleof activating inpolisame mistake The art tics and historyby a theoretical mediation the requires workof transvaluationonly,"thus or 98). openingthe wayforphilosophers semioticians" (How, or Yetphilosophical semioticreading onlydemonstrate underconcan that of ditionsof modernity, position poeticlanguageoutsidecommunicative the discourseis its sole constitutive meaning. in Whatturnedliterary modernity awayfromthe modelof authority of the achieveaurawas notonlythe evidentfailure one distinction, artistic the of mentof an imagethattruly captured deep autonomy the subject,but the also its replacement another, imagethatnowrefusesto let distance by of the the maintain illusion depth.Andto this corresponds shiftin the idea in of writesof the "mark heroismin of whatis "heroic" the artist.Benjamin to Baudelaire: live in the heartof the unreality appearances)" (Zentral(of empowers 673).Thecreative park, giantof the Renaissance,whose stature himto reachintothe distantoriginsof the autonomous spirit, gives way to of whentruth whoenduresthe impoverishment the spirit, inflicted the figure in out of the worldand leaves a ruinbehindor a mere fragment the goes situationsof Baudelaire artist'shand.This is what connects the different "Baudelaire's heroiccomposure and Nietzsche,in Benjamin's perspective:

Bullock BadCompany77 / couldbe closely relatedto thatof Nietzsche.Eventhoughhe heldon to his his Catholicism, experienceof the worldremains preciselyinstep withthat in God experiencewhichNietzschecaptured the formula: is dead"(Zentralthat The failure the distinction raises up one class of images of park,676). as the appearancethrough whichtruth speaks leaves anothermeasureof of artistic success in its stead, the truthfulness an eye thatcan lookon the in world without distinctions a universeof untruthful appearances. drawing This does lifta boundary let the discredited to marginsjostle and mockthe dignified but only in the aesthetic realmand not in the center, space of discourse.Thus, Kristeva exaggeratesthe case when she says of establishedformsof communicative powerin the institutions the public domain"nolongercommandattention" of (How, There,the truth facts 92). and the truthof rulinginfluencescontinueto sustain both a political and social mythology. appearsinthe "low" This to domainsof imagesmarketed sustainthat sphere,fromwhichthe "high" of heroicmodernism art would in withdraw were it not also disseminated the marketplace. completely In BlackSun, Kristeva recognized or has thateven when narrative illusion gone fromthe workof art,the semioticfunctions not is do pictorial fillitupwithliving For of reality. us, the experiencemediated the work art by of The remains,as before,tied to the condition the artifact. activeenergy that produced does not have the capacityto reachacross the frameand it lifteitherthe makeror the contemplating person fromisolation.It is, in Kristeva's wordsfromBlackSun, "nolongerlibidinal. is already It detached, likethe image of womanfor Baudelaire, has already "it dissociated," and, the Withthe last measure of distance gone, integrated traces of death." to no intiapproach artisticrepresentations longeroffersfalselywhispered mations loveandsurvival. as before, soundswe might of the hearwhen But, we let them "bewitch in the momentary us" thrall longingdo not speak of fromany heartbutare partof "anartifice" the composedsurface. in Herewe come equallyto the matureprose of Joyce and the verse of Baudelaire. Howcan one expectto transform textand its paragrams the intoa heartfelt of eroticconnections?Baudelaire onlydrawon the call can of the harlotin orderto cancel everything. image Finnegan'sWakehas collectedeverybody within equality a destruction the of on wrought the lantradition. whorebecomes the representamen all The of guage of literary relations appearancesforBaudelaire and because she standsallegorically for all that need never be listenedto. Since she is simultaneously comin modityand purveyor one, whatshe says is not realspeech butdoubly lost. Benjamin moves the figureof pointsout thateven thoughBaudelaire

2 78 boundary / Fall1995

the whoreto the centerof his stage, he does not interfere the convenwith tionof herspeechlessness: "Baudelaire neverwrotea poemabouta whore fromthe pointof view of a whore"(Zentralpark, 672). Butin this, he conthe pointof viewof modernaestheticsaltogether. is a pointof view It veys that knowsidentification what it contemplates with onlyas the collapse of fromBaudelaire's and heroicheartlessness,living at identity is inseparable the heartlessheartof unreality. Thefearof pleasurethatties Benjamin the messianicideaappears to ina secularformas Kristeva's attachment an idiom generalcommand, to of in of mostrecently the abstractions clinical discourse.As herlanappearing its do less writerly, tremors growmoreseductive, guage becomes simpler, to and also morelikespeech, butit returns an oldervoicethatstillarguesor pleads forthat most terrible longing-for the assent of others-that draws Her us out intothe marketplace. languagestilltrembleswithhorror the at nakednessof a private unruly hearingand the heterogeneousresponse in to frameof publicsolidarity open up a tonguethatescapes the discursive life a different farfromthatheroicsolitudeof public agreementwe mistake forourselves. Andwhatdistinguishes timeas a hundred our yearsfrozenin a soliis tude of unchanging modernity that it cannotarriveat a renewalout of itselfand become the motherof its own redemption, thoughit "seems to The laborpains." dreamof a have, fora centurynow,gone intounending Renaissancecontinuesto be swept away intothe future,like Benjamin's and "The enchantment and Angelof History, persistsas longing fascination: willhaveto waitforsome othertime,alwaysand forever."27 In BlackSun, however, backward the takes in gaze of the historian own and Kristeva's earlierwriting well:"To as the spectacle of Benjamin object,or even of a Thing,whichis to be posit the existence of a primal and beyonda completedmourning-isn'tthat the fanconveyedthrough theoretician?" (BlackSun, 66). The laborof writing, tasy of a melancholy is that a productivity has no powerof redemption, discoverednowto have Desirehas provedonce again to the absent maternal displaced meaning. its have transferred libidinal energy to its own image:"TheWesternsubject, as potential melancholy being,havingbecome a relentlessconveyor, The atheist." game, the contest, ends up a confirmed gambleror potential in that initial belief" a renewal or is playedcompulsively, without hope. "The
Powersof Horror, 23. 27. Kristeva,

Bullock BadCompany 79 / writingwas to have prophesied and broughtto birthgives out. The text turns "stylisticperformance"into the vehicle of its other side, what the game itself constructs as a substitute. The chance is lost because what is "primal" and in "other" the text is accounted "less importantthan the success of the text itself"(Black Sun, 68). And thus, she leaves no doubt that, here, to win is to lose-even to lose the remembrance of what might have been ours to win.