Slow Reading of L'Etourdit
I have decided to re-post my translation of L'Etourdit, this time offering a section at a time according to the text divisions in the Scilicet version, and showing the French paragraph followed by my English version. Perhaps the shorter offerings will entice more people to offer commentary. I'll leave each segment as the lead blog on the site for a week before adding another.
L’ÉTOURDIT
En contribuant au 50e anniversaire de l’hôpital Henri-Rousselle
pour la faveur que les miens et moi y avons reçue dans un travail dont
j’indiquerai ce qu’il savait faire, soit passer la présentation, je rends hommage au docteur Daumézon qui me l’a permis.
[1][5]
Liptrix? Tonguetrix?[2]
In contributing to the 50th anniversary of the Henri-Rouselle hospital in response to the favour that I and mine have received here in a work about which I will indicate what it was good at, namely communicating information, I pay homage to Dr. Daumézon who allowed me to do it.
Ce qui suit ne préjuge, selon ma coutume, rien de l’intérêt qu’y
prendra son adresse : mon dire à Sainte-Anne fut vacuole, tout
comme Henri-Rousselle et, l’imagine-t-on, depuis presque le
même temps, y gardant en tout état de cause le prix de cette lettre
que je dis parvenir toujours où elle doit.
What follows does not prejudge, as is my wont, in any way the interest that its address will provoke: my speaking at Sainte-Anne was conducted within a single cell, just like Henri-Rousselle and, as you can imagine, since almost the same time, has kept for whatever reason the value of that letter that I say arrives where it must.
Je pars de miettes, certes pas philosophiques, puisque c’est de
mon séminaire de cette année (à Paris I) qu’elles font relief.
I start with crumbs, certainly not philosophical ones[3], since they are left over from my seminar this year (in Paris I).
J’y ai inscrit à deux reprises au tableau (d’une troisième à Milan
où itinérant, j’en avais fait banderole pour un flash sur « le discours psychanalytique ») ces deux phrases :
I have twice written on the blackboard there (and on a third occasion in Milan where, while I was wandering, I made a headline of them for a news-flash on “psychoanalytical discourse”) these two sentences:
Qu’on dise reste oublié derrière ce qui se dit dans ce qui s’entend.
Cet énoncé qui paraît d’assertion pour se produire dans une
forme universelle, est de fait modal, existentiel comme tel : le
subjonctif dont se module son sujet, en témoignant.
- That one speak remains forgotten behind what is said in what is heard.[4]
- This statement, which seems an assertion for being produced in a universal form, is in fact modal, existential as such: the subjunctive in which its subject modulates itself bearing witness to it.
Si le bienvenu qui de mon auditoire me répond assez pour que
le terme de séminaire ne soit pas trop indigne de ce que j’y porte
de parole, ne m’avait de ces phrases détourné, j’eusse voulu de leur
rapport de signification démontrer le sens qu’elles prennent du
discours psychanalytique. L’opposition qu’ici j’évoque devant être
plus loin accentuée.
If the welcome, which coming from my audience gives me a clear enough indication that the term “seminar” is not unworthy for what I bring to it by way of speech, had not distracted me from these sentences, I would have wished from their relation of signification to demonstrate the sense that they take from psychoanalytical discourse. The opposition which I evoke here having to be accentuated later.
Je rappelle que c’est de la logique que ce discours touche au
au réel à le rencontrer comme impossible, en quoi c’est ce discours
[6]
qui la porte à sa puissance dernière : science, ai-je dit, du réel.
Qu’ici me pardonne ceux qui d’y être intéressés, ne le savent pas.
Les ménagerais-je encore, qu’ils l’apprendraient bientôt des événements.
I remind you that it is through logic that this discourse touches the real by meeting it as impossible, in which it is this discourse which carries logic to its latest power: science, I have said, of the real. May I be pardoned by those who, by being interested in the matter, do not know this. Were I to continue keeping them in the dark, they would soon learn it from events.
[1] Numbers in square brackets refer to pages in the Scilicet version of the essay. Lacan’s footnotes are indicated by *.
[2] Lacan’s title alludes to Molière’s play L’Étourdi, the story of a young man who, in spite of his bungling ways, achieves his goal. In condensed form, the word enacts one of Lacan’s aims in this essay by setting out an example of a lapsus, or Freudian slip. The title may be heard as les tours dits, spoken turns or tricks, referring to the manipulations of the Möbius strip that he sets out in the second half of the essay.
[3] Lacan is alluding to the title of Kierkegaard’s volume Philosophical Crumbs.
[4] This sentence could be extensively commented on. « Qu’on dise », third person imperative « let him/her/ them speak” or an implied condition “(Quoi) qu’on dise”, whatever one says. But via its homonym, it could be shorthand for the unreflective speaking of the dupe or “con”. Or it could be the speaking of the sexuated being, which is thoroughly imbued with, knotted together by, the symptom. Is there a pause between “reste” and “oublié”? Does this dire remain, hidden behind… or does it remain hidden, behind…. Is reste a noun or a verb? The opposition between the two prepositions needs to be highlighted: behind what is said, in what is understood/heard. Speaking resonates with the listener as well as with the speaker. Rare word “condire” (gives English “condiment”) may also be lurking: spicy speech.
L’ÉTOURDIT
En contribuant au 50e anniversaire de l’hôpital Henri-Rousselle
pour la faveur que les miens et moi y avons reçue dans un travail dont
j’indiquerai ce qu’il savait faire, soit passer la présentation, je rends hommage au docteur Daumézon qui me l’a permis.
[1][5]
Liptrix? Tonguetrix?[2]
In contributing to the 50th anniversary of the Henri-Rouselle hospital in response to the favour that I and mine have received here in a work about which I will indicate what it was good at, namely communicating information, I pay homage to Dr. Daumézon who allowed me to do it.
Ce qui suit ne préjuge, selon ma coutume, rien de l’intérêt qu’y
prendra son adresse : mon dire à Sainte-Anne fut vacuole, tout
comme Henri-Rousselle et, l’imagine-t-on, depuis presque le
même temps, y gardant en tout état de cause le prix de cette lettre
que je dis parvenir toujours où elle doit.
What follows does not prejudge, as is my wont, in any way the interest that its address will provoke: my speaking at Sainte-Anne was conducted within a single cell, just like Henri-Rousselle and, as you can imagine, since almost the same time, has kept for whatever reason the value of that letter that I say arrives where it must.
Je pars de miettes, certes pas philosophiques, puisque c’est de
mon séminaire de cette année (à Paris I) qu’elles font relief.
I start with crumbs, certainly not philosophical ones[3], since they are left over from my seminar this year (in Paris I).
J’y ai inscrit à deux reprises au tableau (d’une troisième à Milan
où itinérant, j’en avais fait banderole pour un flash sur « le discours psychanalytique ») ces deux phrases :
I have twice written on the blackboard there (and on a third occasion in Milan where, while I was wandering, I made a headline of them for a news-flash on “psychoanalytical discourse”) these two sentences:
Qu’on dise reste oublié derrière ce qui se dit dans ce qui s’entend.
Cet énoncé qui paraît d’assertion pour se produire dans une
forme universelle, est de fait modal, existentiel comme tel : le
subjonctif dont se module son sujet, en témoignant.
- That one speak remains forgotten behind what is said in what is heard.[4]
- This statement, which seems an assertion for being produced in a universal form, is in fact modal, existential as such: the subjunctive in which its subject modulates itself bearing witness to it.
Si le bienvenu qui de mon auditoire me répond assez pour que
le terme de séminaire ne soit pas trop indigne de ce que j’y porte
de parole, ne m’avait de ces phrases détourné, j’eusse voulu de leur
rapport de signification démontrer le sens qu’elles prennent du
discours psychanalytique. L’opposition qu’ici j’évoque devant être
plus loin accentuée.
If the welcome, which coming from my audience gives me a clear enough indication that the term “seminar” is not unworthy for what I bring to it by way of speech, had not distracted me from these sentences, I would have wished from their relation of signification to demonstrate the sense that they take from psychoanalytical discourse. The opposition which I evoke here having to be accentuated later.
Je rappelle que c’est de la logique que ce discours touche au
au réel à le rencontrer comme impossible, en quoi c’est ce discours
[6]
qui la porte à sa puissance dernière : science, ai-je dit, du réel.
Qu’ici me pardonne ceux qui d’y être intéressés, ne le savent pas.
Les ménagerais-je encore, qu’ils l’apprendraient bientôt des événements.
I remind you that it is through logic that this discourse touches the real by meeting it as impossible, in which it is this discourse which carries logic to its latest power: science, I have said, of the real. May I be pardoned by those who, by being interested in the matter, do not know this. Were I to continue keeping them in the dark, they would soon learn it from events.
[1] Numbers in square brackets refer to pages in the Scilicet version of the essay. Lacan’s footnotes are indicated by *.
[2] Lacan’s title alludes to Molière’s play L’Étourdi, the story of a young man who, in spite of his bungling ways, achieves his goal. In condensed form, the word enacts one of Lacan’s aims in this essay by setting out an example of a lapsus, or Freudian slip. The title may be heard as les tours dits, spoken turns or tricks, referring to the manipulations of the Möbius strip that he sets out in the second half of the essay.
[3] Lacan is alluding to the title of Kierkegaard’s volume Philosophical Crumbs.
[4] This sentence could be extensively commented on. « Qu’on dise », third person imperative « let him/her/ them speak” or an implied condition “(Quoi) qu’on dise”, whatever one says. But via its homonym, it could be shorthand for the unreflective speaking of the dupe or “con”. Or it could be the speaking of the sexuated being, which is thoroughly imbued with, knotted together by, the symptom. Is there a pause between “reste” and “oublié”? Does this dire remain, hidden behind… or does it remain hidden, behind…. Is reste a noun or a verb? The opposition between the two prepositions needs to be highlighted: behind what is said, in what is understood/heard. Speaking resonates with the listener as well as with the speaker. Rare word “condire” (gives English “condiment”) may also be lurking: spicy speech.
posted by Tony Chadwick NDP Candidate at 8:27 PM
2 Comments:
The opening of the essay presents some of the features that will become more dominant later: the syntax is frequently not that of everyday speech (the opening sentence, where the main clause is delayed by a participle phrase, two subordinate clauses, and an interjection -- to say nothing of th first of the two sentences that form the focus of Lacan's argument); certain terms are rare ("vacuole", "elles font relief"), or used with two meanings ("adresse"). The effect is to call into question the meaning or signification of what Lacan is saying, and to highlight the need for interpretation, in much the same way that the analyst is obliged to listen for what the analysand is saying behind the patent meaning of what is said.
Lacan shifts the focus in this way from the "savoir" that his teaching might represent, to the "savoir-faire" that the analyst must develop in each particular instance. The universals of eternal knowledge (the reserved domain of the academic) have to be replaced by the particularities of the existential situation of the analyst-analysand.
The reader of "L'Etourdit" becomes aware on a second reading ("après-coup") that even the names are not simply markers. Thus Henri-Rouselle will later decompose into "en rit" and "Russell". Similarly, some terms allude to texts by other authors -- Kierkegaard is one example -- the result being a thickening of the reading experience.
I read this guy's Part II where he fits together the 4 formulae, the 4 discourses and topology as Lacan puts it forth in L'etourdit. Pretty cool, but I was wondering if it is correct to do this?
http://www.academia.edu/5984726/Sexuated_Topology_and_the_Suspension_of_Meaning_A_Non-Hermeneutical_Phenomenological_Approach_to_Textual_Analysis
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