The Style of Greimas and Its Transformations

Abstract

l'imperfection (1987) of A. J. Greimas on the part of reader who had never heard of its author; he would, I believe, at once relate the book to the most recherche tradition of contemporary French essay writing, to Blanchot and Barthes. Two passages in italics at the beginning and end of the book serve to frame the whole, and the way they are constructed manifestly aims for syntactical and rhetorical effect. The opening section, in prose, is made up of two strophes. The two sentences of the first strophe are scanned by the rhyme paraftre, tre, vouloirtre, devoirtre, followed by paraftre, peut t it concludes with syntagms which fall outside this schema: diviation du sens, peine vivible.1 The second sentence opens with an assertive proposition followed by two interrogative elements of increasing length. The final statement of the first strophe, and the first statement of the second, constitute the underlying theme: Seul le paraftre en tant que peut etre-ou peuttre-est a peine vivible. Ceci dit, il constitue tout de mime notre condition d'homme (Only seeming as possibility-or possibly-is barely tolerable. Nonetheless this is what constitutes our human condition) (9). But the final interrogative sees this paraftre as foundation, albeit hypothetical one, fragile and elusive, for crucial questions of life and death: Et, pour solde de tout compte, ce voile de fumee peut-il se dichirer un peu et s'entr'ouvir sur la vie ou la mort, qu'importe? (And, all things said and done, if this veil of smoke clears little and opens onto life or death, what does it matter?) (9). What we are being invited to, then, is journey into the world of paraftre, on the assumption that it will reveal to us, in however sibylline fashion, something about itre. It is journey that takes the form of an analysis of short literary passages, from Tournier, Calvino, Rilke, Tanizaki, Cortazar, all brought together under the common heading La fracture, and of considerations of more general nature, entitled Les 6chappatoires. The passage which brings the book to close is made up of three prose strophes, these too shot through with rhyme and assonance (indicible, invisible, unique, possible; tpanouies, vie, partie); they are fur-