Quia Ego Nominor Leo: Barthes, Stereotypes and Aesop’s Animal

Abstract

Taking Barthes's discussion of Aesop's as starting point, this essay examines two uses to which the animals of philosophy and critical theory have been put: as ciphers and as indices. The twin dangers to theory's beasts, of becoming either examples of deadening, generic animal or stultifying stereotypes, are assessed and potential solutions proposed. ********** Leo the Lion, mightiest of beasts, will stand up to anybody. The word 'beasts' should properly be used about lions, leopards, tigers, wolves, foxes, dogs, monkeys and others which rage about with tooth and claw--with the exception of snakes. They are called Beasts because of the violence with which they rage, and are known as 'wild' (ferus) because they are accustomed to freedom by nature and are governed (ferantur) by their own wishes. They wander hither and thither, fancy free, and they go wherever they want to go.--The Book of Beasts, trans. T.H. White In his Inaugural Lecture at the College de France, Barthes suggested that it had been his semiological project, at least during the mid-1950s, to understand society produces stereotypes, i.e., triumphs of artifice, which it then consumes as innate meanings, i.e. triumphs of Nature (471). The stereotype is insistent and dangerous, Barthes says, monster that sleeps within every sign (461). His analyses of this process of naturalization, this speech, are well known from his Mythologies. Perhaps the most famous of all, and certainly the most frequently quoted, is his discussion of the Paris-Match cover in Myth Today (109-59). There is another example in this essay, however, that immediately precedes that of the soldier and the tricolour, and which is usually passed over by commentators. Imagining himself pupil in French lycee once more, Barthes opens his Latin grammar and reads single sentence: quia ego nominor leo (because am named Lion) (115). The sentence is borrowed, he says, from the fables of Aesop. At the level of the linguistic system, Barthes points out, it has a fullness, richness, history drawn from the fable and beyond: I am animal, lion, live in certain country. have just been hunting, they would have me share my prey with heifer, cow and goat; but being the stronger, award myself all the shares for various reasons, the last of which is quite simply that my name is lion (118). As part of mythical system, however, this rich set of values and meanings is put aside. When it is used as example, concerning the agreement of the predicate, the sentence has new function. The old values make way for whole new set of ideas and assumptions, this time concerning the importance of Aesop, of Latin, of grammar itself. We focus no longer on the intriguing details of Aesop's tale, but are required instead to concentrate on the grammatical exemplarity of the sentence (118-19). The rich detail of the lion's story is not entirely suppressed, however. By keeping it close to hand, an instantaneous reserve of history on which it can draw, the myth lends itself air of the (118). This is how the myth, the stereotype, works, by invoking natural history that is not its own, but which shores up its legitimacy. The lion, so ferocious, so regal, so wild in Aesop, is tamed in the example, the better to naturalize the assumptions and values that accrue, at particular time and place, around the student learning Latin in the second form of French lycee. How obvious that one should learn Latin, that one should ensure that the predicate always agrees with the subject, that Aesop is worthy pedagogical text for pursuing these worthy scholarly goals. In discussions of, and especially introductions to, Barthes's analysis of myth, Aesop's is often put aside in favour of the saluting soldier. The latter, with Barthes's brief but effective analysis of the implicit concepts (signifieds) of imperialism and colonialism, seems more immediate, more useful perhaps, than example drawn from dusty Latin grammar. …