Lituraterre II

La question est de savoir si ce dont les manuels semblent faire état – pas de technique, je parle des manuels de littérature – soit que la littérature soit accomodation des restes.	The question is of knowing if what manuels seem to make a show of – not technical ones, I’m talking manuels of literature – namely that literature is an adaptation to remains.	“Remains” as in ”remains of the day”. It may also include “left-overs” at the end of a meal. Lacan brings that to the fore in his discussion elsewhere of psychoanalysis as “escroquerie”.
Est-ce affaire de connotation dans l’écrit de ce qui d’abord primitivement serait chant, mythe parlé, procession dramatique?	Is it a matter of connotation in the written of what in ancient times would have been chant, spoken myth, dramatic procession?
Pour la psychanalyse, qu’elle soit appendue à l’Oedipe, à l’Oedipe du mythe, ne la qualifie en rien pour s’y retrouver dans le texte de Sophocle: c’est pas pareil.	For psychoanalysis, the fact that it is appended to the Oedipus, to the Oedipus in myth, does not at all qualify it for finding itself in Sophocles’ text: it’s not the same.
L’évocation par Freud d’un texte de Dostoïevsky ne suffit pas pour dire que la critique de textes, jusqu’ici chasse gardée du discours universitaire, ait reçu de la psychanalyse plus d’air.	The evocation by Freud of a text by Dostoevsky is not enough to say that textual criticism, until now the private domain of university discourse, has received from psychoanalysis more weight.	Nobus prefers “clout” to render “air”. I am hearing “plus d’erre”, more “weigh” as in the continued movement of a ship after propulsion has been cut. And “erre”, “error”.
Si pourtant mon enseignement prend place dans un changement de configuration, qui actuellement sous couleur d’actualité, actuellement s’affiche d’un slogan de promotion de l’écrit… mais ce changement, dont ce témoignage, par exemple que ce soit de nos jours qu’enfin Rabelais soit lu, montre qu’il repose peut-être sur un déplacement littéraire à quoi je m’accorde mieux.	If however my teaching is taking place in a changing of configuration, which currently in the guise of being up-to-date, is currently making a show of a slogan promotiing the written… but this change, of which this bears witness, for example that it is today that Rabelais is read, shows that perhaps it rests on a literary displacement with which I am in better agreement.
Je suis comme auteur moins impliqué qu’on imagine.	As an author I am less implicated than people imagine.	This somewhat enigmatic statement is perhaps later clarified when Lacan suggests he is not a “poet”… but a poem.
Mes Écrits, un titre plus ironique qu’on ne croit, puisqu’il s’agit en somme soit de rapports qui sont fonction de congrès, soit, disons, j’aimerais bien qu’on les entende comme ça: des lettres ouvertes où je fais sans doute question chaque fois d’un pan de mon enseignement.	My Écrits, a title more ironic than one might think since in sum it is a question namely of reports which are a function of conferences, or, let us say, I would prefer that people understand them as such: open letters in which I question each time an aspect of my teaching.	Lacan’s distinction does not clarify; it seems to redouble the play between spoken and written. His rapports were written for spoken delivery, but then (re-)written for publication, and then ironically are to be considered as “open” letters, i.e. subject to equivocation.
Mais enfin ça en donne le ton…	Anyway, that gives you an idea…
Loin en tout cas de me commettre dans ce frotti-frotta littéraire dont se dénote le psychanalyste en mal d’invention, j’y dénonce la tentative immanquable à démontrer l’inégalité de sa pratique à motiver le moindre jugement littéraire.	In any case, far from committing myself to this literary footsy-wootsy that marks the psychoanalyst short of ideas, I denounce there the unavoidable attempt to demonstrate the inability of his practice to motivate the slightest literary judgment.
C’est pourtant frappant que, ce recueil de mes Écrits, je l’ai ouvert d’un article que j’isole en l’extrayant de sa chronologie – la chronologie fait règle – et que là il s’agisse d’un conte, lui-même – il faut le dire – bien particulier de ne pouvoir rentrer dans la liste ordonnée – vous savez qu’on l’a faite – des situations dramatiques.	It is however striking that that collection of my Écrits,  I opened it with an article that I isolate by extracting it from its chronology – chronology rules – and that there it is a question of a tale, itself – I have to say – quite particular by not fitting into the ordered list – you know that it has been done – of dramatic situations.	Lacan’s frequent allusion to knowing/not knowing, remembering/forgetting takes further turn here with his claim for an “ordered list” of dramatic situations from which Poe’s tale is missing
Enfin, laissons ça.	Well let’s leave that.
Lui, le conte, il se fait de ce qu’il advient de la poste d’une lettre dite, d’au-dessus de qui se passe ses faire-suivre et de quels termes s’appuie que je puisse, moi, dire de cette lettre, dire à propos d’elle qu’une lettre toujours en vient à sa destination, et ceci après les détours qu’elle a subis, dans le conte, le compte, si je puis dire, soit rendu, sans aucun recours à son contenu, à la lettre.	It, the tale, is made up of what happens following the posting of a said letter, over the top of which there occurs its forwardings, and in what terms is supported that I can say of this letter, say about it that a letter always arrives at its destination, and this after the detours that it has undergone, in the tale, the account, if I can put it this way, is rendered, without any recourse to its contents, litterally.	Lacan’s insistent use of “dire”, “dite” is redoubled, in a sense, by the juxtaposition of the homonyms  “conte” and “compte” which confuses the ear, and is topped off at the end with the equivocation of à la lettre” that my “litterally” can’t match.
C’est cela qui rend remarquable l’effet qu’elle porte sur ceux qui tour à tour s’en font les détenteurs, tout ardents qu’ils puissent être du pouvoir qu’elle confère, pour y prétendre que cet effet d’illusion ne puisse s’articuler, ce que je fais, moi, que comme un effet de féminisation.	It’s that that makes remarkable the effect that it [the letter] has on those who in turn makes themselves the holders of it, quite ardent as they may be for the power that it confers, in order to claim that this illusory effect can be articulated, which is what I do,  only as an effect of feminisation.
C’est là – je m’excuse d’y revenir – bien distinguer – je parle de ce que je fais – la lettre du signifiant-maître, en tant qu’ici elle l’emporte dans son enveloppe, puisqu’il s’agit d’une lettre au sens du mot épistole.	There – I’m sorry to come back to it – it’s to make a marked distinction – I am speaking of what I am doing – between the letter and the master-signifier, in as much as here it [the letter] carries it [ the master-signifier] away in its envelope, since it is a question of a letter in the sense of an epistle.	Lacan’s interjections seem innocent, but are they? “Revenir” recalls the ghosting of the wordfart on the lips; his speaking of what he is doing emphasizes the spoken nature of his approach here. The master-signifier, the S1, has no referent, but is “hidden” in the material envelope of the epistle.
Or je prétends que je ne fais pas là du mot “lettre” usage métaphorique, puisque justement le conte consiste en ce qu’y passe comme muscade le message dont c’est l’écrit, donc proprement la lettre qui fait seule péripétie.	Well I am claiming that I am not here using the word “letter” here in a metaphorical sense, since precisely the tale consists in the fact that through a sleight of hand the message, of which it is the written, passes, so properly it is the letter-epistle which alone farts around.	I am grateful to Dany Nobus, again, for the suggestion of “farts around”, justified by the syllable “-pét”.
Ma critique, si elle a lieu d’être tenue pour littéraire, n’aurait là donc porté – je m’y essaie – que sur ce que Poë fait, d’être écrivain lui-même, pour former un tel message sur la lettre.	My criticism, if it may be taken as literary, would therefore have borne – I’m giving it a go – only on what Poe is doing, by being a writer himself, in order to form such a message on the letter.
Il est clair qu’à ne pas le dire tel quel, tel que je le dis, moi, ce n’est pas insuffisamment, c’est d’autant plus rigoureusement qu’il l’avoue.	It is clear that by not saying it as such, such as I am saying it, it is not insufficiently but all the more rigorously that he admits it.	Two different “sayings”: Poe says it allusively, “all the more rigorously” by “having/ admitting”, that the letter stands for literature and its circulation; Lacan relies on his saying, not the content of his message.
Néanmoins l’élision de son message n’en saurait être élucidée au moyen de quelque trait que ce soit de sa psychobiographie, bouchée plutôt qu’elle en serait, cette élision!	Nevertheless the elision of his message would not have been elucidated by means of some trait of his psychobiography, blocked that it would have been by it, that elision.
Une psychanalyste qui – on s’en souvent peut-être – a récuré les autres textes de Poë, ici déclare forfait de sa serpillière: elle n’y touche pas, la Marie!	A lady psychoanalyst who – you might perhaps remember it – has scoured Poe’s other texts, here hangs up her floor-rag: she doesn’t touch it, our Mary.	Marie Bonaparte. Again Lacan draws his audience’s attention to their memory, full of holes though it may be.
Voilà pour le texte de Poë.	So much for Poe’s text.
Mais, pour le mien, le texte, est-ce qu’il ne pourrait pas se résoudre par ma psychobiographie, à moi?	But for mine, the text, would it not be possible to resolve it through my psychobiography?
Le voeu que je formerai, par exemple, d’être lu un jour convenablement.	The wish that I will form, for example, of being read, one day, appropriate-lie.	Tongue-in-cheek. Lacan’s “wish” is belied by the ending of the adverb, -ment.
Mais pour ça, pour que ça vaille, il faudrait d’abord qu’on développe, que celui qui s’y emploierait, à cette interprétation, développe ce que j’entends que la lettre porte pour arriver toujours – je le dis – à sa destination.	But for that, in order for that to be worthwhile, someone would have to develop, the one who would go about it, this interpretation, develop what I intend that the letter carries in order to arrive always -  I am saying it – at its destination.	Lacan’s sentence construction, leaving “destination” to the end, mimics the peripetia of the letter. Worthy of Vergil!
C’est là peut-être que je suis pour l’instant en cheville avec les dévots de l’écriture.	That’s where perhaps I am in lock-step with the devotees of writing.
Il est certain que, comme d’ordinaire, la psychanalyse reçoit de la littérature – elle pourrait d’abord en prendre cette graine qui serait du ressort du refoulement – une idée moins psychobiographique.	It is certain that, as usual, psychoanalysis receives from literature – it [literature] could first take from it that seed which would be from the springboard of repression – a less psychobiographical idea.
Pour moi, si je propose le texte de Poë, avec ce qu’il y a derrière, à la psychanalyse, c’est justement pour ce qu’elle ne puisse l’aborder qu’à y montrer son échec.	For me, if I am proposing Poe’s text, with what there is behind, to psychoanalysis, it is precise-lie in order that it [psychoanalysis] may approach it only to show there its failure.	Again the –ment ending undermines the patent meaning.
C’est par là que je l’éclaire, la psychanalyse. Et on le sait, on le sait que je sais, que j’invoque ainsi – c’est au dos de mon volume – j’invoque ainsi les Lumières.	It is in this way that I throw light on psychoanalysis. And people know it, and they know that I know, that I am thus invoking – it’s on the back cover of my volume – I am thus invoking the Enlightenment.	English can’t play on the word for the Enlightenment in the same way the French does. Hence my clumsy use of bold.
Pour ça, je l’éclaire de démontrer où elle fait trou, la psychanalyse. Ça n’a rien d’illégitime, ça a déjà porté son fruit – on le sait depuis longtemps – en optique et la plus récente physique, celle du photon, s’en arme.	For that, I throw light on it by demonstrating where it makes a hole, psychoanalysis. There’s nothing illegitimate about it, it’s already borne fruit – we’ve known that for a long time – in optics, and the most recent physics, that of the photon, is armed with it.	The hole is the unconscious. I don’t know a lot about quantum physics, but Lacan here seems to refer to the “hole” the discovery of the photon created in particle physics, having no mass yet having effect.
C’est par cette méthode que la psychanalyse pourrait mieux justifier son intrusion dans la critique littéraire.	It is by this method that psychoanalysis would be better able to justify its intrusion into literary criticism.	“method” – ironic allusion to Descartes?
Ça voudrait dire que la critique littéraire viendrait effectivement à se renouveler de ce que la psychanalyse soit là, pour que les textes se mesurent à elle, justement de ce que l’énigme reste de son côté, qu’elle soit coite.	That would mean to say that literary criticism would effectively come to renew itself from the fact that psychoanalysis is there, so that texts are measured against it, precisely because the enigma remains on its side, that it is mum.	“Its side”, i.e psychoanalysis. The enigma of the unconscious is not to be found in the literary text. Lacan’s choice of the obsolescent “coite” brings to mind “coït”.
Mais ceux, ceux des psychanalystes, dont ce n’est pas médire que d’avancer que plutôt qu’ils ne l’exercent, la psychanalyse, ils en sont exercés, entendent mal mes propos, à tout le moins d’être pris en tort.	But those,those of the psychoanalysts, of whom it is not slanderous to put forward that rather than exercising it, psychoanalysis, they are exercised by it, mis-hear what I have to say, at the very least by being caught in the wrong.
J’oppose à leur addresse vérité et savoir. C’est la preuve où aussitôt ils reconnaissent leur office, alors que, sur la sellette, c’est leur vérité que j’attends.	Aimed at them, I oppose truth and knowledge.  It’s the test where straightaway they recognize their role, whereas, on the spot, it’s their truth I’m waiting for.	“Preuve” and “sur la sellette” call to mind medieval methods of testing for the truth of an accused. It was a small chair, which allowed judges to dominate the accused.
J’insiste à corriger mon tir de dire: savoir en échec, voilà où la psychanalyse se montre aux yeux. Savoir en échec, comme on dit figure en abîme, ça ne veut pas dire échec du savoir.	I insist on correcting my aim by saying: knowledge in check, that’s where psychoanalysis shows itself. Knowledge in check, as one says “mise en abyme”, that does not mean failure of knowledge.	“mise en abyme” is used to describe the play-within-a-play, or similar device in other literary works, the term being taken from heraldry where a smaller shield is placed in the middle of the coat of arms to indicate earlier, perhaps hidden links to the present family.
Aussitôt j’apprends qu’on s’en croit dispenser de faire preuve d’aucun savoir. Serait-ce lettre morte que j’ai mis au titre d’un de ces morceaux, que j’ai dits Écrits, de la lettre “L’Instance comme raison de l’inconscient”?	Straightaway I learn that one believes one can dispense with proving any knowledge. Would it be a dead letter that I placed in the title of one of those pieces, that I called Écrits, of the letter The Instance as reason of the unconscious?	“Dead letter” because Lacan’s message has not (yet) reached its destination.
N’est- ce pas désigner assez, dans la lettre, ce qui, à devoir insister, n’est pas là de plein droit si fort de raison que ça s’avance?	Is it not enough to designate in the letter that which, by having to insist, is not there fully by right as by reason that that advances?