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Новый филологический вестник. 2019. №3(50). --
V.A. Kolotaev, A.V. Markov (Moscow)
SHPET'S PUN AMENDING FREUD'S WIT: UNCANONICAL CONCILIARITY
Abstract. While Freud claims "wit" as a necessary part of individual psychology, Shpet answers him covertly, believing that "pun", despite its capriciousness, is a fact of collective psychology. Shpet deduces from the "pun", the initial mixture of sacred and profane meaning, especially Russian culture. Moreover, Shpet visualizes a pun, understanding it not as a collective mistake, but as a stage theatrical collective experience. This allows him to contrast to the doctrine of reception and device, which the formalists developed, the new doctrine of theatre-like directing, which distinguishes between the preparatory stage and the performing stage. Such doctrine of directing was not developed specially, limited to adaptation of the scholastic distinction of primary and secondary intentions to modern aesthetics. At the same time, Shpet combines old philosophical doctrine of intentions with a peculiar philosophy of speech: he distinguish in speech not only concept and implementation, but also semantic core and its playing out. In this case, the dialectical principle can be attributed not only to the level of content, but also to the level of expression, explaining the aesthetic effects of modernist art as a result of accepting expression as a new content. For Shpet, life-buildung or para-religious projects of modernism are only part of such a substitution, and the study of puns thus shows not only what shifts can be in the functioning of modernist art, but how modernist art is possible in general. Shpet acts as a critic and at the same time as apologist for modernism, and such complexity of position without resorting to his philosophy of puns blocked correct understanding of his aesthetic and theoretical-literary program. The radical polemical position of Shpet does not explain immediately his persuasive theatricalization of puns as creation of new non-individualistic aesthetics. But Shpet's position could be clarified now by turning to the aesthetic disputes of Russian symbolism, in particular, on the level of obscene pun. It turns out that the thinkers from Solovyov to Shpet differed profanation in an individualistic pun, and the theatricali-zation of collective experience in a collectively perceived pun. A specific version of "conciliarity" now is to be reconstruct, productively supplementing the proposals of the Slavophiles and Bakhtin.
Key words: wit; pun; Freud; Shpet; Solovyov; psychoanalysis and literature; technique; theatricalization; individualism; conciliarity (collegiality); intention.
В.А. Колотаев, А.В. Марков (Москва)
Каламбур Шпета как поправка к остроумию Фрейда: неканоническая соборность
Аннотация. Если Фрейд утверждает «остроумие» как необходимую часть индивидуальной психологии, то Шлет скрыто отвечает ему, полагая «каламбур»,
несмотря на его капризность, фактом коллективной психологии. Шлет выводит из «каламбура», начального смешения сакрального и профанного смысла, особенности русской культуры. Более того, Шлет визуализирует каламбур, понимая его не как коллективную ошибку, но как сценическое коллективное переживание. Это позволяет ему противопоставить учению о приеме, которое развивали формалисты, новое учение о режиссуре, в которой различается подготовительный этап и исполнительский этап. Такое учение о режиссуре не было развито специально, представляя собой адаптацию схоластического различия первичных и вторичных интенций к современной эстетике. При этом Шпет соединяет философское учение об интенциях со своеобразной философией речи: речь состоит не только из концепта и его реализации, но и из семантического ядра и его разыгрывания. В таком случае диалектический принцип становится возможно отнести не только к плану содержания, но и к плану выражения, объяснив эстетические эффекты модернистского искусства как результат принятия выражения за новое содержание. Для Шпета жизнетворческие или парарелигиозные проекты модернизма - только часть такой подмены, и исследование каламбуров тем самым показывает не только, какие могут быть сдвиги в функционировании модернистского искусства, но и как вообще возможно модернистское искусство. Шпет выступает как критик и одновременно апологет модернизма, и подобная сложность позиции без обращения к его философии каламбура доселе мешала правильно понять его эстетическую и теоретико-литературную программу. Резкая полемичность позиций Шпета не позволяет сразу оценить убедительность его театрикализации каламбура как создания новой внеиндивидуалистической эстетики. Но его позицию можно уточнить, обратившись к эстетическим спорам русского символизма, в частности, о степени непристойности каламбура. Тогда оказывается, что мыслители от Соловьева до Шпета, видели в индивидуалистическом каламбуре профанацию, а в коллективно воспринятом каламбуре - театрикализацию коллективного опыта. Таким образом, реконструируется специфический вариант «соборности», продуктивно дополняющий предложения славянофилов и Бахтина.
Ключевые слова: остроумие; каламбур; Фрейд; Шпет; Соловьев; психоанализ и литература; прием; театрикализация; индивидуализм; соборность; интенция.
1. Pun as necessary part of public consciousness and private conscience
Freud's tripartite theory of psychical life, where the ego, the super-ego and the it are figures of conflict, not functional parts of the mind, attributed basic functions of the mind to internal speech. As Freud's seminal work [Freud 2014] proves, the wit is essential for internal speech, but also critical and judgemental. Ambitions of the wit to control our wishes is limited throug the censorship of the norm, when wit demonstrates only the hidden structure of the wishes. But where we start from this limit? Metaphorical discourse of the psychoanalysis here is useful for therapeutic, not theoretical purposes.
In his work Conscience and its Master [Шпет / Shpet 1994, 82] Gustav Gustavovich Shpet (Dr. Gustav Späth) criticizes Fichte for unbounded volun-
tarism. Fichte understood subjective point of the person as basic both for be-ing-as-person and for acting-as-person. But here the act is not authonomous, while it is completely embedded in the order of subjective thinking. Shpet suspects here a capricious egocentric position, not compatible with any real order of events. This reduction of things of events to current invention he names pun, and observes "even individual consciousness not able to think in a form of action, if we don't want to pun with the word action" [fflneT / Shpet 1994, 451]. Shpet meant as pun double sense of the word action in Russian: theatrical act and real action. If we may present action of mind as scenic, it is witty, but according to Shpet, scenic illusions have nothing to do with real structure of social acting. In Shpet's aesthetics theatrical observation is subject to subdivisions into episodes and gesticulations, but in real life we choose not episodes or movings, but real strategies.
Not only Fichte, but another German thinker, Wilhelm Wundt, was blamed by Shpet for his involuntary pun. In his Introduction to Ethnic Psychology [fflneT / Shpet 2006] he criticized Wundt's Volkerpsychology [Wundt 19001920] for mixing collective and general psychological reactions. Wundt's collective or people psychology was for Shpet not more than theatrical observations, not intended for real analysis of motivations. Wundt, our philosophes said, had been observer of folk life, and all his generalisations were not more than trivial observations. The pun here exists as methodological point: the german Gemeinpsychologie could be translated both as general psychology and vulgar or profane psychology. Wundt's lack of method, Shpet wanted to say, had been necessary effect of this pun.
The next pun, fateful for the development of Russian philosophy, Shpet finds in the time of Russian Emperor Alexander the First, that is often called for Russian triumph over Napoleon and for activity of late classicist and early romantic authors "the Golden Age of Russian culture". In his Essay on Russian Philosophy Progress [fflneT / Shpet 1922] Shpet discussed universities in Kharkiv and Kazan established by the Emperor Alexander, that had copied German system of education based on philosophical discussions of actual questions of sciences, and asked the question, why these newfounded universities were rare active in discussing and promoting philosophical positions. Shpet quoted students' characteristics of professor Palmin, that the later prefered the practical reason over pure reason, and saw here a good pun [fflneT / Shpet 1922, 168]. This pun was principal for all argumentation in Shpet's book, where he condemns Russian philosophy for eclectic mix of practical social tasks and theoretical observations. According to Shpet, Russian intellectuals for practical persuasiveness and moral authority were prone to take samples and arguments from everywhere, without real work of reflection of discussion. So, Russian philosophy for him was closer to propaganda, church sermon or number of ill-conceived public statements, that to academic research.
If we reed Nikitenko's memoirs themselves (entry dated February 2, 1826), we see that practicality was conceived by Palmin not as social activity, but as traditional for Western continental philosophy restraint and friendliness, that is
often called wisdom of life or philosophy of everyday conduct.
The final sample of fatal pun we find in Shpet's article On Belinsky's Hege-lianism [fflneT / Shpet 2009]. For Belinsky as representer of left-wing Hegeli-anism, the main problem was the leap from theoreticaly conceived dialectics as observance of changes to practical social instructions. Hegelian inspiration was understood to produce social changes. Left-wing Hegelianism, no doubt, was a political program all over the Europe.
But Shpet marks important drift in Belinsky from method to subject: from dialectics of changes to the conscience, understood not as a moment, as in Hegel, but as motivation of changes. This pun is widespread in Russian language use: for example, in Soviet times "socialist / communist conscience" or "socialist/communist consciousness" (the both are equally translate one Russian idiom) meant not only development of political position of the left wing, but also everyday motivation of communist, a kind of corporative ethics of the members of the Communist Party.
According to Shpet [fflneT / Shpet 2009, 125], Belinsky, who didn't knew German and had reciped Hegel's systematic philosophy through records of listeners and reading popular brochures, misunderstood Hegel's self-consciousness as moment of dialectics, not in the sense of direction, but of authority. In Hegel to have conscience of the self is to be self-confident, and in Belinsky is to act from the own side, to act personally and to feel (and construct) deeply and intimately all the knowledge. We can trace here the origin of Russian pangs of conscience and empathy as main effect of social knowledge, that we often connect with Russian soul. Shpet marks, that it was a pun: conscience understood literary as common knowledge was mixed with conscience conceptualized as science of your personal cognition, legitimizing empathy and shame.
All these samples prove the differences of Shpet's pun from the Freud's wit. Both wit and pun undermine our wishes, but wit is kind of personal therapy, while pun is public theatrical statement. Wit is strict and moralistic, and pun is in contrary indulgent, if we speak about social questions. Wit is gap in the psychical censorship, and pun is link of two conceptions of self, that passed this censorship. As it is proved in Shpet studies [Tihanov 2006; Seifrid 2009], grammar as general poetics was necessary for Shpet as model of conceptualizing not only formal notions, but also feelings and intentions. We add: reformalizing as pun in singular and in plural.
2. Grammatical criticism of formalist aesthetics as theatricality in singular
Why Shpet speeks on rudeness and vulgarity of any pun? He points not complex, but simplifying character of the pun. The key episode is difference, proved in Aesthetical fragments [fflneT / Shpet 1923, 134], between complex and simple cacophony. The last are archaisms, if we will reproduce archaic diction, and read right not as [rait] but as [reeghkht], this sounds cacophony. But complex cacophonhy, for Shpet, is not any enhanced unpleasant combination of
sounds, but unusual grammar form, local or archaic use of gender of thing. His sample is unconfigured piano, masculine in modern Russian and feminine in archaic Russian. We see from this sample, that complex cacophonhy demands not only acoustic effects, but also main sense of the word, unconfigured piano no matter produces cacophonhy all the time.
The simplification now was not error against existing canon, but error against formation of a canon. Unconfigured piano is not good in any canonical use, but archaic phonetics could be of a style, could sound as vintage fashion. The question was about archaic phonetics couldn't ground any new canon, and questions any old phonetical canons. So, pun simplifies not canonical senses, but means to formate these senses.
Shpet underlines that canonical art demands automatic recall of association. But it is complex art: we need not only to link our mental associations with images of things, but to reactualize our habit to link with these types of images (music images or literature images) these groups of associations. Pun is not mistaken image of the word, mislistening, as we usually think, but simplification of our habits or of our typologies of senses.
Shpet tried to show that irregularities can be aesthetically significant if they are used sparingly, when they were "insignificant, unsharp", and then they could "play the role of ... a pleasant pathogen" [fflneT / Shpet 1923, 118]. Here he says the most interesting thing, that puns act not by virtue of causing emotions, but by the "reflected path", in other words, simply acting not as vehicles or devices of our habits of understanding, but as their collective reflection.
Shpet directly refers to the scholastic doctrine of primary intentions, the ability of our intellect to relate to things, and secondary intentions, its ability to relate to concepts. According to Shpet, puns as semantic "freaks" [fflneT / Shpet 1923] are unacceptable in the scientific discourse: their simplified character violates the distinction between reaction to things and reaction to concepts, between primary and secondary intentions.
Shpet understands primary intentions as acts of thinking, and secondary intentions as acting moods of thinking. Pun is the mood of thinking that can be only in singular, and so doesn't allows to differ primary and secondary intentions. But where Shpet borrowed theatricality as fit for singular, when he reserved formalist devices only for plural? A real link from individual theatricality to collective experience of pun as "unconfigured", not as simply sounding unusual, is found in Solovyov's poetry.
3. Poetic pun as collective experience
Shpet reserved puns only for poetry, and it is necessary to say, that for poetry of Russian Symbolism. Vladimir Solovyov, philosopher and one of the first poets of this style, blamed Briusov and his group for void declarations. They declared they would create poetry full of impressionistic hints and allusions, but the result is realistic reproduction of erotic obsession and drunken state of mind. The higher intention is profaned by everyday emotions, that turned unusual in-
spiration, high ^avia, into trivial repesentation of maniac behaviour.
Scolding Bryusov's poetic manifesto, Creation (1894) Solovyov notes that a dial naked in front of a azure moon cannot go out, because a month and a moon are names for the same subject. Bryusov implied a pun of fate, the constant transformation of the discredited somnambulistic experience, the experience of free associations in the form of night objects, into creativity as a special experience in the psychological study of the boundaries of these associations and the conditions for their implementation, the movement from complex to simple. But for Solovyov this movement in poetry is impossible: it always leads to the introduction of new persons, and therefore to certain indecency, when newly invented perrsons are witnesses of creativity as a very intimate process. The dial naked for Solovyov is uniquely obscene, and individual theatricality is a bad pun.
Solovyov also interpreted Bryusov's poem about golden fairies, deliberately created as schematic, as geometric distribution of unusual images, protecting free associations within a rigid stanzaic scheme. In the expressions of "silver bursts", "jealous boards" and others, he saw peeping into a women's bath, understanding fantasy not as creative, but as erotic.
In other words, the mirroring of simple ordering of associations for Solovy-ov was illegal, the movement from simple to complex in prose, in prosaic thinking out of a poetic form, and therefore some obscene affair, while poetic mirroring could only be a pun. Solovyov believed that jealous boards should show enough morality to prevent the insolent peep, they should become such a pun of jealousy, not just as a rivalry, but as a very specific action with a very definite assessment of it from the outside. Collective theatricality, where it is conscience, is a good pun, pun as critics of symbolist expressive devices.
For the first time in poetry, a pun becomes a theme in the play of Solovyov's White Lily, or Sleeping Night on Intercession (1880), a comic act in the style of the Affinity of World Elements Mystery in eleven acts (published 1884, read by Soloviov in manuscript) by Kozma Prutkov [hoax author, invented by group of Russian poets for mocking Romanticism], the brilliant parody of romantic emotion and romantic way of life. In this play, Chaldean (he-image of raisonneur) explains to Galactea (she-image of Nature, derived from Galactics) that his title is "only a pun of fate". Galactea replies: "Pun? What it puns now?" Chaldean, as a person claiming for knowledge (in seminary jargon to in was common name teachers Chaldeans maybe as learned barbarians), says "a pun of fate" for personal individual experience as device of his life-building. But Galactea reinvents collective experience of punning the pun, as discussing fate as collective effect of speech and life-building as punny realization of the plural. Here we see a source of Shpet's position. In this case, poetry is understood by Shpet as stage design of a certain type, implying, like Solovyov's, an elusive object of desire.
REFERENCES (RUSSIAN)
1. Шпет Г.Г. Сознание и его собственник // Шпет Г.Г. Философские этюды. М.,
Новый филологический вестник. 2019. №3(50). --
1994. С. 20-116.
2. Шпет Г.Г. Введение в этническую психологию // Шпет Г.Г. Philosophia Na-talis. Избранные психолого-педагогические труды / отв. ред.-сост. Т.Г. Щедрина. М., 2006. С. 417-500.
3. Шпет Г.Г. Очерк развития русской философии. Пг., 1922.
4. Шпет Г.Г. К вопросу о гегельянстве Белинского // Шпет ГГ Очерк развития русской философии. II. Материалы / [реконструкция, науч. ред., коммент., археограф, работа Т.Г. Щедрина]. М., 2009. С. 100-184.
5. Шпет Г.Г. Эстетические фрагменты. Пг., 1923.
6. Freud S. Wit and its relation to the unconscious. London et al., 2014.
7. Tihanov G. Gustav shpet: Literature and aesthetics from the Silver Age to the 1930s // Primerjalna knjizevnost. 2006. Т. 29. №. 2. P. 1-19.
8. Seifrid T. Sign and/vs. essence in Shpet // Gustav Shpet's Contribution to Philosophy and Cultural Theory. West Lafayette, Ind., 2009. P. 181-191.
9. Wundt W. Völkerpsychologie, 10 Vols. Leipzig, 1900-1920.
REFERENCES (Articles from Scientific Journals)
1. Tihanov G. Gustav Shpet: Literature and aesthetics from the Silver Age to the 1930s. Primerjalna knjizevnost, 2006, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 1-19. (In English).
(Articles from Proceedings and Collections of Research Papers)
2. Seifrid T. Sign and/vs. essence in Shpet. Tihanov G. (ed.). Gustav Shpet's Contribution to Philosophy and Cultural Theory. West Lafayette, Ind., 2009, pp. 181-191. (In English).
3. Shpet G.G. Soznaniye i ego sobstvennik [Conscience and its Master]. Shpet G.G. Filosofskiye etyudy [Philosophical Scetches]. Moscow, 1994, pp. 20-116. (In Russian).
4. Shpet G.G. K voprosu o gegel'yanstve Belinskogo [On Belinsky's Hegelian-ism]. Shpet G.G. (author); Shchedrina T.G. (ed.). Ocherk razvitiya russkoy filosofii. 2. Materialy [Essay on Russian Philosophy Progress: 2. Reconstructed]. Moscow, 2009, pp. 100-184. (In Russian).
5. Shpet G.G. Vvedeniye v etnicheskuyu psikhologiyu [Introduction to Ethnic Psychology]. Shpet G.G. (author); Shchedrina T.G. (ed.). Philosophia Natalis. Izbranny-ye psikhologo-pedagogicheskiye trudy [Selected Works in Psychology of Education]. Moscow, 2006, pp. 417-500. (In Russian).
(Monographs)
6. Freud S. Wit and its relation to the unconscious. London et al., 2014. (Translated from German to English).
7. Shpet G.G. Esteticheskiye fragmenty [Aesthetical Fragments]. Petrograd, 1923. (In Russian).
8. Shpet G.G. Ocherk razvitiya russkoy filosofii [Essay on Russian Philosophy Pro-
gress]. Petrograd, 1922. (In Russian).
9. Wundt W. Völkerpsychologie [Psychology of People], 10 Vols. Leipzig, 19001920. (In German).
Vladimir A. Kolotaev, Russian State University for the Humanities.
Dr. Habil. in Philology, Full Professor, dean of the Faculty of the History of Art.
E-mail: [email protected]
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-7190-5726
Alexander V. Markov, Russian State University for the Humanities.
Dr. Habil. in Philology, Full Professor, Department of the Cinema and Contemporary Art Studies, Faculty of the History of Art.
E-mail: [email protected]
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-6874-1073
Колотаев Владимир Алексеевич, Российский государственный гуманитарный университет.
Доктор филологических наук, декан факультета истории искусства.
E-mail: [email protected]
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-7190-5726
Марков Александр Викторович, Российский государственный гуманитарный университет.
Доктор филологических наук, профессор кафедры кино и современного искусства факультета истории искусства.
E-mail: [email protected]
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-6874-1073
