544
LEO BERSANI
plain, analyze nothing: they
repeat
something obvious, but the lin–
guistic distance between ordinary language and, say, "synecdoque
descendante" provides the space for an escalation which obscures what
is actually mere tautology. The following sentence, in which the first
part does nothing but
name
what is adequately, and more simply,
said in the second part, illustrates the strategy I have in mind (a strate–
gy by no means characteristic only of Genette ) . "Legrandin's stylistic
etymon is the profusely rich efflorescence of a wholly antiphrastic
discourse, whi ch continuously speaks of nature, landscapes, bouquets
of flowers, sunsets, pink moonlight in a violet sky, because it is con–
tinually thinking of high society, parties, castles, duchesses."
Structuralist ambitions run particularly high in the area of re–
search into modes and types of literary discourse. In the issue of
Communications
devoted to "L'Analyse structurale du recit," Tzvetan
Todorov sums up the method: "The literary work itself is not studied
but rather the potentialities of literary discourse which have made
the work possible: in this way, literary studies can become a science
of literature." This isn't all: the aim of these studies goes beyond a
science of literature. Roland Barthes connects the contemporary in–
terest in forms of narrative with a fundamental structuralist concern:
" . .. isn't the task of [structuralism] always to bring under its control
the infinite domain of words by successfully describing the language
[la langue] from which words proceed and from which they can
be engendered?" And Claude Bremond, in the same issue of
Com–
munications,
spells out the continuity between categories of literary
narrative and structures of all human behavior:
By beginning with the simplest forms of narration, and using these
forms to construct more and more complex and differentiated se–
quences, roles, and ways of connecting situations, we are building
the foundation for a classification of narra tive types . But in addi–
tion we are defining a frame of reference for the comparative study
of different kinds of behavior which, \\·hi le they are always
iden~ical
in their fundamental structure, become infinite ly divcrsified due to
an inexhaustible play of combinations and choices. as well as dif–
ferent cultures, periods, genres, schools. and personal styles. The
semiology of narrative art is a technique
of
literary analysis, but it
owes its possibility and its fecundity to its anthropological roots.
Tantalizing prospects. Such ambitions can be exciting, especially
since, however intemperately, they air out the musty academic
