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Writing Sample

The Medieval Figura as an Antithesis to Deconstructionist Subjectivity

Introduction

The ‘medieval figura’ as a phrase has been derived from Erich Auerbach’s essay by the

name ‘Figura,’ precisely from a portion of his essay where he provides a commentary of the

major theme which characterises the work and which is also frequently quoted.

The figural interpretation of reality… was the dominant view in the European

middle ages: the idea that the earthly life is thoroughly real, with the reality of the

flesh into which the Logos entered, but that with all its reality it is only umbra and

figura of the authentic, future, ultimate truth the real reality that will unveil and

preserve the figura. (72)

To give a further background to what the expression, the ‘medieval figura,’ means in the

context of this proposal, it refers to the gamut of instances where it might mean ‘life,’ ‘earthly

life,’ ‘reality,’ ‘subjectivity,’ ‘flesh,’ ‘body’ and all the related concepts which could reasonably

be construed as being signified according to a ‘figural interpretation of reality.’

A further example is provided here from the twentieth century, from a sphere which is not

identified as literary, where a similar signification in the choice of words can be observed. The

example is from the encyclical Redemptor Hominis by Pope John Paul II.

The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly - and not just in accordance with

immediate, partial, often superficial and even illusory standards and measures of his

being. . . . He must, so to speak, enter into Him with all his own self, he must
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"appropriate" and assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and redemption in

order to find himself. (Par. 10)

The logic proffered here, however, in comparison to that of the previous paragraph by

Auerbach, relates to a response to the entering of the Logos into “the flesh” of the “man who

wishes to understand himself thoroughly:” He must enter into Him.

Moving on with the task underway, yet before explicating on the connection between

medieval figura and deconstructionist subjectivism, what Derrida calls a ‘transformation’ seems

due in this discussion. He speaks about transformation as what happens in the practice of

translation when the impossibility of transporting a set of signifieds from one language to another

or even within a language, i.e. the impossibility of a transcendental signified, arises (Positions

20). Therefore, to meet the purpose of inducing a connection between the two concepts, a passage

from Harold Bloom’s, The Anxiety of Influence is excerpted:

Poetic Influence - when it involves two strong, authentic poets, - always proceeds by a

misreading of the prior poet, an act of creative correction that is actually and necessarily a

misinterpretation. The history of fruitful poetic influence, which is to say the main

tradition of Western poetry since the Renaissance, is a history of anxiety and self-saving

caricature, of distortion, of perverse, wilful revisionism without which modern poetry as

such could not exist. (30)

A similar influence may be seen in how Derrida understands subjectivity through

différance although the context of influence may not be poetic. In an interview with Julia Kristeva

titled “Semiology and Grammatology” and found in a collection of his interviews in book form

titled Positions, Derrida speaks about the economic aspect of différance:

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It confirms that the subject, and first of all the conscious and speaking subject, depends

upon the system of differences and the movement of différance, that the subject is not

present, nor above all present to itself before différance, that the subject is constituted only

in being divided from itself, in becoming space, in temporising, in deferral. . . . (29)

In other words, according to Derrida, it is in realising the moment of différance that ‘the

subject is constituted.’ Compare what he does here with an incident in the book of Genesis

according to the Revised Standard Version:

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the

heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face

of the whole earth.” (11.4; my emphasis)

What is underway here is a people of “one language and few words” attempting to “make

a name” for themselves. Shortly after this, the book describes what God does to them:

“. . . Come, let us go down, and there, confuse their language, that they may not

understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the

face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. (11.7-8)

This is a precursor moment to Derrida’s definition of subjectivity. Allegorically,

subjectivity is what the “one people” were attempting to build through the construction of the

tower of Babel by making a name for themselves. What God does in Genesis is what Derrida does

through deconstruction. Derrida demolishes the ethnocentric subjectivity of the West by

suggesting the implausibility of building a subjectivity except through différance (20).

It is in this space that I hope to launch my research by putting to use the insights gained

from a literary analysis of the medieval figura. As has been glanced at in the excerpt from
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Redemptor Hominis, literature concerning the theology of the human body is a rich patrimony of

the Catholic church. Pope John Paul II made a significant contribution in this regard. His relevant

addresses on the topic are compiled in a book titled “Man and Woman He Created Them: A

Theology of the Body.”

Language

Language is a necessity for discourses but it is also considered as doing a disservice by its

inherent tendencies to deconstruct. Derrida’s concept of “trace” considered along with his idea of

“archi-écriture” falls through in a discussion of the body. When a person dies, the material

influence exerted by the body disappears. However, a certain influence may linger on for which

the society is equally responsible as the person to whom it is attributed. Derrida writes this note in

Positions: “. . . Determined and dated, this is a reading of the work in which I find myself

engaged: which therefore is no more my own than it remains arrested here.” Surely enough, the

work was arrested in the book as something of Derrida’s, which came down to this writer who

read it, made notes of it and produced portions of it.

It is impossible to trace this influence back to Derrida and to his ‘engagement’ if one were

to extrapolate his own concept of trace. However, a quick look tells otherwise. Language, in a

similar way, may also be seen as doing more than “trace.”

The charge deconstructionists make against language is that it is incapable of running

discourses or true searches due to “trace” being always a proof of an absence. “Trace,” as it has

been shown, can be understood to include a non-material effect. A natural example can also come

to one’s assistance. The benefits of a timely rain are not immediately felt by a farmer. A similar

idea of a transubstantiating effect can be found in Pauline writings such as when he instances the
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experience of sowing:

You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. What you sow is not

the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. . . . It

is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is

also a spiritual body. (1 Cor. 15.36,37,44)

Consequently, truth need not always be found in things that ‘are’ but rather also in things

that ‘will be.’ This, however, need not suggest that truth does not exist at all in the present.

Rather, what amounts to the fragility of language is equivalently also the fragility of the human

search. Therefore, what translates as the inability of language to carry out fruitful discourse is but

the inability of the human search.

Thus, any discourse that does not marginalise the fragility of human beings precisely in

their grasp for truth is not likely to make egregious conclusions. Such optimism also works as an

antidote to the deep scepticism expressed by deconstructionists like Paul de Man about the

figurativeness of language.

Literature and Methodology

Auerbach’s Figura deserves to be a supplementary reader to analyses of rhetoric by

deconstructionists, a field explored by Paul de Man. The first section of the essay by Auerbach

brings out a classification of the whole spectrum of intricacies in meanings and nuanced usages

historically associated with the word ‘figura’ so meticulously that one is led into thinking if there

could be more ways than are enumerated in the essay whereby a ‘figura’ in speech could

“seduce” or “mislead” (“The Epistemology of Metaphor” 15).

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The second section of the essay seems an extension and extensive substantiation of an

incidental comment made by the writer in the first section: “Here we see that only figura could

serve on this play of model and copy” (16). The observation which ensues from the reference

here is that the possibility remains to be acknowledged if an inherent logic guides the manner in

which every word, supremely figura, is employed historically by writers. If it is acknowledged,

what comes as a corollary is that the pessimism expressed by de Man over the figurativeness of

language may be dismissed as not holding up, at least in the long run.

Metaphors, tropes and figural language in general have been a perennial problem

and, at times, a recognized source of embarrassment for philosophical discourse

and, by extension, for all discursive uses of language including historiography and

literary analysis. It appears that philosophy either has to give up its own

constitutive claim to rigour in order to come to terms with the figurality of its

language or that it has to free itself from figuration altogether. And if the latter is

considered impossible, philosophy could at least learn to control figuration by

keeping it, so to speak, in its place, by delimiting the boundaries of its influence

and thus restricting the epistemological damage it may cause. (de Man 13)

Thus, what remains to be evaluated or analysed is also whether an implicit law governs the

flowering of literature, such as is expressed when Samuel Johnson says in his “Preface to

Shakespeare”: “Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general

nature.”
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References

Auerbach, Erich. “Figura.” Scenes from the Drama of European Literature. Theory and History

of Literature, vol. 9, U of Minnesota P, 1984. Complit, complit.utoronto.ca/wp

content/uploads/COL1000H_Erich_Aurbach_Figura.pdf, Centre for Comparative

Literature, U of Toronto. Accessed 22 May 2020.

Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. Second ed., Oxford UP, 1997.

De Man, Paul. “The Epistemology of Metaphor.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 5, no. 1, 1978, pp. 13–30.

JSTOR, jstor.org/stable/1342975. Accessed 22 May 2020.

Derrida, Jacques. Positions. Translated by Alan Bass, The U of Chicago P, 1981.

John Paul II. Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body. Translated by

Michael Waldstein, Pauline Books and Media, 2006.

---. Redemptor Hominis. Vatican, Mar. 1979.

vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_04031979_redemp

tor-hominis.html

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgement. Kant’s Critique of Judgement, translated by J. H.

Bernard, revised 2nd ed., Macmillan and Co., London, 1914. Originally published in

1892. Online Library of Liberty, oll.libertyfund.org/titles/kant-the-critique-of-judgement.

Accessed 22 May 2020.

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Redfield, Marc. “Aesthetic Ideology and Literary Theory.” The Centennial Review, vol.

39, no. 3, 1995, pp. 537–558. JSTOR, jstor.org/stable/23739361. Accessed 12 May

2020.

The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version. Edited by Bernard Orchard and R. C. Fuller,

Catholic edition, Asian Trading Corporation, 2010.