I
Die volledige oeuvre van Roland Barthes analiseer die werkinge van tekens en simbole en hoe betekenis in tekste gekonstrueer en gedekonstrueer word. Die ewige spel tussen taal en denke is wat Barthes se teoretiese werk so uitsonderlik maak.
Sémanalyse is die versoening tussen die sémantique en translinguistique.
Dit word alles briljant ontleed in S/Z waarin die verhaal Sarrasine deur Balzac ontleed word rondom al die bekende opposisies: manlik/vroulik; verteller/toehoorder; raamvertelling teenoor belewenis.
Die hele verhaal wentel rondom die kwessie van kastrasie en die transgressie van opposisies, soos Barbara Johnson tereg uitwys in haar lesing “The Critical Difference: Balzac’s ‘Sarrasine’ en Barthes’s ‘S/Z'” in 1981. Die S/Z sien sy as BartheS/BalZac.
Hier is ‘n Dubbelspel: La Zambinella is vir Sarrasine die volmaakte vrou en hy kerf met sy mes ‘n standbeeld uit van haar. Ten slotte word hy met ‘n mes doodgemaak.
‘n Verhaal van liefdesonmoontlikheid? ‘n Spieëlbeeld? ‘n Projeksie? Die verhaal speel eweneens ‘n spel met die leser.
In afdeling XVII The castration camp beweer hy: “At first glance, Sarrasine sets forth a complete structure of the sexes (two opposing terms, a mixed and a neuter). This structure might then be defined in phallic terms:(1) to be the phallus (the men: the narrator, M. de Lanty, Sarrasine, Bouchardon); (2) to have it (the women: Marianina, Mme de Lanty, the girl the narrator is in love with, Clotilde); (3) to have it and not to be it (the androgynous: Filippo, Sappho); not to have it or to be it (castrato)”(1974: 35).
Vir ‘n analise van hierdie komplekse teks: Gender-konstruksies in die Afrikaanse letterkunde:
‘n Ondersoek in kultuurstudies, literêre teorie en kreatiewe skryfwerk. (2000: 59 – 62).
II
‘n Belangrike aspek is die volgende: die verteller vertel die verhaal van Sarrasine aan Madame Rochefide ten einde haar te verlei. Hy behoort tot die Paryse ryk gemeenskap. Storie as “currency”
Die verhaal is in 1851 gepubliseer.
Barthes lees die boek met 5 verskillende kodes ter hand:
- Hermeneutic Code: the mysteries of the text. …
- Proairetic Code: the narrative drive of the text. …
- Semic Code: the resonances of the text. …
- Symbolic Code: the symbolic structure of the text. …
- Cultural Code: the background knowledge of the text.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=5+codes+in+s%2Fz
Die hele kwessie van Sémanalyse, te wete die versoening tussen die sémantique en translinguistique word nou geanaliseer.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sender-Dovchin/publication/338423785_Translinguistics_Negotiating_Innovation_and_Ordinariness/ Besoek 20 Oktober 2024
Die arbitrêre grense is bekend in die translinguistiek
In lexia XLVII skryf Barthes:
SarraSine: customary French onomatics would lead us to expect SarraZine: on its way to the subject’s patronymic, the Z has encountered some pitfall. Z is the letter of mutilation: phonetically, Z stings like a chastising lash, an avenging insect; graphically, cast slantwise by the hand across the blank regularity of the page, amid the curves of the alphabet, like an oblique and illicit blade, it cuts, slashes, or, as we say in French, zebras; from a Balzacian viewpoint, this Z (which appears in Balzac’s name) is the letter of deviation (see the story Z. Marcas); finally, here, Z is the first letter of La Zambinella, the initial of castration, so by this orthographical error committed in the middle of his name, in the center of his body, Sarrasine receives the Zambinellan Z in its true sense – the wound of deficiency. Further, S and Z are in a relation of graphological inversion: the same letter seen from the other side of the mirror: Sarrasine contemplates in La Zambinella his own castration. Hence the slash (/) confronting the S of SarraSine and the Z of Zambinella has a panic function: it is the slash of censure, the surface of the mirror, the wall of hallucination, the verge of antithesis, the abstraction of limit, the obliquity of the signifier, the index of the paradigm, hence of meaning”(1974: 106 -7).
The obliquity of the signifier: oblique soos in vaag.
En oblique poetry is ellipties.
N.P. Van Wyk Louw se Tristia en ander verse, voorspele en vlugte (1950 – 1957) is ‘n bundel wat met elke herbesoek die leser konfronteer met ‘n dubbelspel en spieëltekste. Die digter daag telkemale die grense van taal en betekenis uit.
Soos Barthes vra: wie is die spreker in die teks? Waarom verwys Louw na “voorspele en vlugte”?
Joan Hambidge
21 Oktober 2024
Bronne:
Barthes, Roland. 1970/1974. S/Z: An Essay. New York: Hill and Wang. Vertaal deur Richard Miller
– 1975/1977. Roland Barthes. Londen: MacMillan. Vertaal deur Richard Howard.
– 1977/1979. A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments. New York: Hill and Wang. Vertaal deur Richard Howard.
Hambidge, Joan. 2000. Gender-konstruksies in die Afrikaanse letterkunde: ‘n Ondersoek in kultuurstudies, literêre teorie en kreatiewe skryfwerk. UCT: PhD.
Lavers, Annette. 1992. Roland Barthes: Structuralism and After. Londen: Methuen.
Johnson Barbara. 1981. “The Critical Difference: Balzac’s ‘Sarrasine’ en Barthes’s ‘S/Z'” opgeneem in Untying the text – A Post-structuralist Reader (red. Robert Young). Londen: Routledge & Kegan Paul.