Myth Defined and Undefined

Marc Lombardo

Part I: Myth Defined and Undefined mythical thought always progresses from the awareness of oppositions toward their resolutions (Lvi-Strauss 1972 22!"# These words of Claude Lvi-Strauss suggest that if we are to study mythical thought in a manner consistent with its own processes, we must first find it an opposition. But we certainly cannot go seeking an opposition to something that s nature is unclear to us as it is difficult to know what something is not when you do not know precisely what it is. So, what is a myth! This is a "uestion with very many answers, very few of which seem satisfactory. Take the $%ford &nglish 'ictionary definition for e#ample$
% purely fictitious narrative usually involving supernatural persons, actions, or events, and em&odying some popular idea concerning natural or historical phenomena '()* +,-+$ +..,/.

The editors could &e admired for an una&ashed certainty 'as opposed to an accuracy/ in definition if they had omitted the definition s only sign of caution-0usually.0 1oticing that 0a purely fictitious narrative0 is placed (efore rather than after 0usually0 tells us that it is the cru# of the definition, to which a/ 0involving supernatural persons, actions, or events0 and &/ 0em&odying some popular idea concerning natural or historical phenomena0 are to &e 0usually0 supplementally added. 2iven that all three of the definition s parts are of an additive rather than preclusive nature, the analysis ac"uired in e#amining the summation of any two of the parts should also apply when all three are taken together. %s a matter of fact, doesn t this process of adding the information gained from comparing the items as pairs mirror the processes of the reader

when he or she weighs and integrates a sememe into a schematic &ase with the aid of comparative isotopies as suggested &y 2reimas '+,.3$ +.4,/! The only complicative feature here is the 0usually0 operator. 5owever, all that is indicated &y 0usually0 is that the relationships have to &e understood within the ru&ric of dominance. 6e can get a &etter idea of this if we lay out the pairs$

%S7S% n8 +3, p.+93

% four-part homology from the ad:ectives of the first concept would look like this$
fictitious (always) : supernatural (usually) :: fact (always) : natural (usually)

0%lways0 and 0usually0 are not negated in the second half of the homology &ecause rather than &eing the content that is compared, they are operators which specify the comparisons made. Therefore, the ad:ectival homologues for all three concepts are$

But why focus e#clusively on the ad:ectives! ;or one thing, they make for clearer antonyms. 5owever, this fact in itself only calls into "uestion the usefulness of ad:ectival homologies for such purposes rather than supporting that pro:ect. <t does, that is, unless you consider the notion that antonyms 'and therefore ad:ectives/ play a crucial role in the construction of semantic hierarchies. %ccording to the generative grammarians =at> and ;odor$
The meaning of &oth le#ical items and larger constituents are regarded as concepts, analy>a&le into simpler atomic concepts which are represented &y S)?%1T<C ?%@=)@S and *<ST<12A<S5)@S. Semantic markers and distinguishers thus constitute the voca&ulary out of which all readings are composed. % distinguisher in the reading for a le#ical item was said to &e intended to reflect what is idiosyncratic a&out the meaning of that item. B The semantic markers in the reading for a le#ical item are intended to reflect whatever systematic relations hold &etween that item and the rest of the voca&ulary of the language. '=at> and ;odor cited in ;odor +,--$ C9/.

%S7S% n8 +3, p.+99

6e can infer then that semantic markers D &eing presenters of 0systematic relations0 rather than direct referents D contri&ute to meaning &y signaling what the defined le#ical item is not and thus isolating it from many of the possi&le word-concepts. (nce this isolation has taken place, only then is it possi&le to 0distinguish0 the wordE to clarify its am&iguity. The point &eing that ad:ectives 'or at least ad:ective-&ased antonyms/ are necessary for that first denotative relationship to take place. %nd likewise, the connotative relationship relies on the previous denotative one. Let us now return our scope away from these grander matters and focus on an analysis of ?yth s Concept +. This is the simplest, most consistent of the three concepts. There is only one ad:ective per part 'Cru#$

fictitious, Supplement %$ supernatural/, and what s more they agree. Because of the consistency of ad:ectives, when reading 0% purely fictitious narrative usually involving supernatural persons, actions or events,0 the reader is presented with a clear idea that needs little semantic processing in order to achieve competency. % simplified summary of the concept could read$ % fake story a&out fake things. This is clearly much easier to grasp than either 0a real story a&out fake things0 or 0a fake story a&out real things.0 5owever, a general clarity and an ease of comprehension form only one dimension in a definition s usefulness, and a far less important one than correctness. <f the definition consisted e#clusively of Concept + it would &e a considera&ly less am&iguous one, &ut in this case, am&iguity would &e the only thing saving it from a life of simple inaccuracy. 6hen e#amining ?yth s Concept 4, let us recall that according to the Cru#, a myth is not only fictitious, &ut 0purely0 so-certainly a statement one would assume would &e made of something demonstra&ly untrue 'in descri&ing the word 0fictitious0 the $&' lists such words as 0counterfeit,0 0imitation,0 and 0sham0 F+,-+$ ,,+G/.+ But, with the addition of Supplement B we notice a curious dihescion in meaning. % myth, if we are to take the $&' at its word, is something which is apparently completely spurious and that simultaneously 0usually0 manages to em&ody 0some popular idea concerning natural or historical phenomena. F%uthor s emphasis, ed.G0 % survey of the dictionary s listing of 0popular0 reveals that such an idea would &e one 0affecting, concerning, or open to all or any of the people0 '+,-+$ 449+/. %pparently, we are to infer then that what makes a myth is that which is untrue and yet still manages to &e &elieved &y almost allE almost for if an untruth was indeed &elieved &y all, naturally, there would &e no enlightened editors of dictionaries or other such parties to demonstrate its falsity. <n addition to e#actness and ease of comprehension, < think most of us would agree on generali>ation-in this conte#t to &e taken as the a&ility of a definition to &e applica&le to as many uses of a word as possi&le-as &eing another primary determinant of a definition s worth.4 (f course, :ust as we outlined earlier, words are defined as much &y what they do not mean as &y what they do, so if a word s definition was too generali>ed it would &e of considera&ly less value than if it was too specific. Concept 4, while not sharing Concept + s simplicity of ad:ectival agreement, is decidedly more general. The idea of 0a fake story a&out real things,0 while it is more o&fuscatory in nature, seems to &e a&le to apply to more things than 0a fake story a&out fake things.0 <ndeed, it could certainly &e asked what are the supposedly false '0supernatural0/ things in "uestion! (r even, how can such fake things e#ist!

%S7S% n8 +3, p.+9H

This last point can &e made evident if we &riefly consider the relationship &etween the definition s two supplements that forms Concept 3. Taken in tandem 0involving supernatural persons, actions, or events0 and 0em&odying some popular idea concerning natural or historical phenomena0 present a seeming dichotomy of the natural. <n %, the reader is instructed to look for that which is not of the physical world 'i.e. not real, fake/. <n B, it is an idea of the physical world as popularly understood that is proposed as a reference. The fact that the two supplements are positioned as &eing complimentary to the definition s whole presents the reader with the need to understand the relationship as one other than a dichotomy. The 0popular0 conception of the 1atural 'as it is here connoted with the 0supernatural0/ then, cannot &e thought of as the de facto natural.3 %n a posteriori analysis makes two things evident as to the allegiances of the editors$ first, that they insist upon the e#istence of a documenta&le physical '0natural0/ world as one &eing separate from the processes of the o&server andE second, that they represent that of an educated class which has no shame in e#hi&iting a distrust of the opinions, constructions of meaning, and &eliefs of, what we will call for shorthand, the 0popular.0 %nd so the editors can not &e accused of representing skepticism per se for, evidently they do feel that there is an o&:ective world with which to engage. 5owever, it seems they feel themselves to &e this o&:ective world s sole heirs. %n attack of this sort is easy enough to carry outE especially upon such a literary strawman as that of a dictionary s editors. <n considering the editors alternatives however, one wonders :ust what definition could have &een arrived at had a reflection of a more verum factum understanding &een sought. Suppose the editors had accepted that 0any o&server is &ound to create something of what he o&serves,0 '5awkes +,--$ +-/ and conse"uently 0when man perceives the world, he perceives without knowing it the superimposed shape of his own mind, and entities can only &e meaningful 'or true / in so far as they find a place within that shape0 '+,--$ +3/. 2iven the appropriation and application of such a conception, if one starts with the Cru# of 0a purely fictitious narrative,0 it is hard to see how it is possi&le to simultaneously ascri&e something to the effect of Supplement B '0em&odying popular ideas of natural or historical phenomena0/. <f a myth is to &e an idea that can &e &elieved &y 0all or any of the people,0 and we accept that which is &elieved as that which is true, there is no room for the negation of this truth &y the physical world. <n seeking a more metaphoric understanding of myth, not centering around the idea of it &eing 0a purely fictitious narrative,0 we can go at least as far &ack as Iico. %s a matter of fact, Iico felt that 0the first science to &e learned should &e mythology or the interpretation of fa&les Femphasis mine, ?.L.G0 'Iico +,C.$ H+/ and that, myths can &e seen as 0civil histories of the first peoples who were everywhere naturally poets0 '+,C.$ 3H4/. ?ythology then, according to Iico, should &e understood as

a process of hermeneutics. %s for that matter, should knowledge itself$ 0if we consider the matter well, poetic truth is metaphysical truth, and physical truth which is not in conformity with it should &e considered false0 '+,C.$ 4JH/.

%S7S% n8 +3, p.+9C

Since we have recogni>ed it as a deficiency of the $&' s definition to have not integrated similar verum factum conceptions, surely it would &e inconsistent at &est not to incorporate something to that effect in our criti"ueE at least to the e#tent of acknowledging that the idea of myth as something spurious, fictitious and untrue has its grain of truth in the fact that it is an idea commonly held. The fact that the word is defined in such a way in what is considered to &e the dictionary of record goes a long way towards insuring this. 1ow we see the true significance of the $&' s definition$ that it comes from the $&'. Terence 5awkes summary of the pro:ect of Barthes )ythologies seems rather fitting$ Barthes strives to unmask the fact that 0despite the overt stance of the media, that no such codes e#ist, that they innocently present the real world as it acutally is,0 there e#ists a 0contrary aim$ the generation, confirmation and reinforcement of a particular view of the world in which &ourgeois values emerge, as usual, as inevita&le and right at all levels0'+,--, ++J/. %nd thus, allow me to complete this *ouissance of semantic indulgence &y saying what we have in the $&' s definition of 0myth0 could itself &e considered a myth. 1ot in the sense of 0myth0 as potent fiction, &ut rather, as myth &eing that which acts-as a structuring agent, an organi>ational metaphor, a 0poetic truth.0 <t is a definition that helps, in no small way, to define the dictionary itself. Part II: Form, Metaphor, and tructure (f the definition s two supplements, < think it not unreasona&le to conclude that B can &e said to play a much more important role. ;or, is not what a story 0em&odies0 considera&ly more integral to a summation such as that of a definition than the 0persons, actions, or events0 that it 0involves0! That a 0myth0 may or may not involve 0supernatural persons, actions, or events0 seems of little importance as it relates to formative characteristics. %nd, what we are concerned with here is form. So, if we are to narrow the traditional understanding of myth down to its most elided oversimplification, it would &e a 0false truth0. %nd if we add to this result of analytical reasoning the su&se"uent process of dialectical reasoning we find that the corresponding inverse of our *emocritic elision, a 0false truth,0 would &e that of a 0true falsity.0 1ow, is there a de facto difference &etween a false truth and a true falsity! <n this conte#t, when we predicate the first veracity measure on the physically

true and the second on what is (elieved, then yes. % simple graphical representation of the concept might look like this$

%S7S% n8 +3, p.+9-

%s should &e readily seen, this illustration has more value as a rhetorical argument than as any sort of rigorous model. This is partially due to the elision 'and therefore lack of precision/ of definition that it owes its e#istence to and also to the &inary nature of one of its a#es. ;or, something can no dou&t &e (elieved in a matter of degrees, &ut the very 'argua&ly erroneous/ concept of physically verifia&le truth is one that is only satisfied with a yes or a no. This &eing said, it is not evident to me that in any significant way this limits the inferences we can draw from such a schematic. <n a very literal sense we are &uilding false dichotomies. Let us e#plore these. %s the reader has no dou&t noticed, the "uadrant catercorner to, and thus the opposition of, the "uadrant of 0?ythical0 has thus far gone unnamed. %ny word attached to this category would seem to have the same 'though inverted/ pro&lematic ontology that < earlier ascri&ed to the $&' s 0myth0 'and which is likewise su&se"uently present here in the category of 0?ythical0/, and thus as one would e#pect, it s difficult to arrive at even an appro#imation of a single-word definition. 2iven this dilemma of semantic ontology for 0?ythical0 and its negation, is it not plausi&le that when the word 0myth0 is used 'as it often is/ in this oversimplified

conte#t of seemingly "uestiona&le ontological purpose, that the meaning of the word, its descriptive purpose, is largely to signify such an ontological pro&lematic! <ndeed, this seems "uite possi&le. Barthes seems to suggest :ust such a sense of interpreting the word s 0traditional sense0 in his preface to )ythologies$9
< wanted to track down, in the decorative display of what-goes-without-saying, the ideological a&use which, in my view, is hidden there. @ight from the start, the notion of myth seemed to me to e#plain these e#amples of the falsely o&vious. %t that time, < still used the word myth in its traditional sense. 'Barthes +,-4$ ++/

%nd thus, we turn our schematic which faced ontological pro&lems into a pro&lematic with which we can investigate concepts facing "uestions of ontology. Such a concept comes to mind$
Ba woman cannot 0&e0E it is something which does not even &elong in the order of (eingB <n 0woman0 < see something that cannot &e represented, something that is not said, something a&ove and &eyond nomenclatures and ideologies. '=risteva +,.J$ +3-/.

%s one might e#pect, 0a variety of women from various cultural positions have refused to recogni>e themselves as women B with the result that these women fall outside the category and are left to conclude thatB they are not women as they have previously assumed0 'Butler +,,J$ 34H/. %s *errida puts it, 0The "uestion of the woman suspends the decida&le opposition of true and nontrue and inaugurates the regime of "uotation marks which is to &e enforced for every concept &elonging to the system of philosophical decida&ility0 '*errida +,-,$ +J-/. By suspends, *errida does not necessarily mean revokes, &ut rather that which holds, fastens, prevents from movement. <nserting the ontologically pro&lematic, "uotation-marked 06oman0 into the categories of our earlier graph allows us to dwell in this suspension.

%S7S% n8 +3, p.+9.

;or names7elucidations of the corresponding "uadrants we could certainly do far worse than the categories of 06oman0 Kudith Butler has succintly layed out$ 0far from &eing su&:ects, women are, variously, the (ther, a mysterious and unknowa&le lack, a sign of the for&idden and irrecovera&le maternal &ody, or some unsavory mi#ture of the a&ove0 '+,,J$ 34C/. The e#tent to which various theories of 06oman0 theori>e her 'it/ as &eing an entity of truth or untruth, and known or unknown is the e#tent that this theori>ed entity fits into our schematic. This presents a su&stantial amount of material availa&le to us as these are the "uestions which, almost a&ove all else, theorists have &een compelled to address a&out women.

+he )aternal ,ody - -.oman- as physically true (ut (elieved as false 1eit>che tends to theori>e 06oman0 as a dangerous, secreting truth which disgusts when revealed. 0The magic and the most powerful effect of women,0 he writes, 0is, in philosophical language, action at a distance, actio in distansE &ut this re"uires first of all and a&ove all-distance0 '1eit>che +,-9$ +49/. %nd when one gets too close 'to truth, woman/ 0we no longer &elieve that truth remains truth when the veils are withdrawnE we have lived too much to &elieve this. Today we consider it a matter of decency not to wish to see everything naked, or to &e present at everything, or to understand and know everything0 '+,-9$ 3./. *oanne provides an analysis of this passage that proves "uite lucid$ 0By securing truth s position as a "uestion of decency vs. indecency as it concerns the clothed or unclothed state of the &ody, 1iet>sche aligns it more surely with the figure of the woman-a woman who refuses to or cannot or ought not &e known0 '*oanne +,,+$ HC/. /n 0n1nowa(le Lac1 - -.oman- as physically false and (elieved as false This category derives from, and argua&ly receives its most pronounced theoretical treatment in, the ;reudian concept of penis envy. <n 0Some Lsychological Conse"uences of the %natomical *ifferences Between the Se#es,0 ;reud descri&es that as a girl sees a penis for the first time, she 0makes her :udgement and her decision in a flash. She has seen it and knows that she is without it and wants to have it0 ';reud +,C3$ +.--./. This is ela&orated on "uite a &it in a lesser-known essay of his called 0The Muestion of Lay %nalysis0$

%S7S% n8 +3, p.+9,

Stress falls entirely on the male organ, all the child s interest is directed towards the "uestion of whether it is present or not. 6e know less a&out the se#ual life of little girls than of &oys. But we need not feel ashamed of this distinctionE after all, the se#ual life of adult women is a dark continent for psychology. But we have learnt that girls feel deeply their lack of a se#ual organ that is e"ual in value to the male oneE they regard themselves on that account as inferior, and this 0envy for the penis0 is the origin of a whole num&er of characteristic feminine reactions. ';reud +,H3$ 4+3/. +he $ther - -.oman- as phyiscally false (ut (elieved as true

6hen and to what e#tent does 06oman0 &ecome The (ther! 6hen the false idea of her &ody &ecomes that which makes her 'it/ foreign-to others and to the 0self,0 if such a self is indeed possi&le. ?ontrelay provides a decidedly different take than 1eit>che s, still centering around the concept of distance$ 0;rom now on, an#iety, tied to the presence of this &ody, can only &e insistent, continuous. This &ody, so close, which she has to occupy, is an o&:ect in e#cess which must &e lost, that is to say, repressed, in order to &e sym&oli>ed0'?ontrelay +,-.$ ,+-,4/. The &aggage of a false &ody is too much. <f a woman wants the a&ility to signify, to function as a su&:ect, she must 0lose0 it, distance herself from it, create herself outside of it. To &orrow Saussure s terminology, she must &e ar&itrary. But suppose she succeeds. +he Su(*ect - -.oman- as physically true and (elieved as true Kust as Butler suggested previously, most recent theorists tend to regard the notion of the possi&ility of the female su&:ect as an untena&le one. To Luce <rigaray the situation is such that$
The masculine can partly look at itself, speculate a&out itself, represent itself and descri&e itself for what it is, whilst the feminine can try to speak to itself through a new language, &ut cannot descri&e itself from outside or in formal terms, e#cept &y identifying itself with the masculine, thus &y losing itself. '<rigaray +,--$ CH/.

%nd so, if 06oman0 seeks a false empowerment &y em&racing the category of 0su&:ect,0 all that is really accomplished is to lend credi&ility to a system of knowledge that condemns her. Su&:ectivity is illusoryE a prison-house. 6hen a woman attempts such a guise 'to the e#tent that she is even a&le to do that/ it is only through the imposed concept of an 0<0 she does not know, that no one knows. <n the final analysis, language &etrays$
The 0<0 who writes is alien to her own writing at every word &ecause this 0<0 uses a language alien to herBThis 0<0 cannot &e 0un crivain.0 0<0 is the sym&ol of the lived, rending e#perience which is m7y writing, of this cutting in two which throughout literature is the e#ercise of a language which does not constitute m7e as a su&:ect. '6ittig and Neig +,-,$ H/.

%S7S% n8 +3, p.+HJ

That the dissolution of the su&:ect in feminism should &e seen as separate from similar postures in other fields is "uestiona&le. %ccording to =risteva, 0there are certain men who are familiar with this phenomenonE it is what some modern te#ts never stop signifyingB < pay close attention to the particular aspect of the work of the avant-garde which dissolves identity0 '+,.J$ +3./. %lthough is this idea really all that 0avant-garde!0 <t was Lvi-Strauss that said 'in classically se#ist language, no less/ 0<

&elieve the ultimate goal of the human sciences to &e not to constitute, &ut to dissolve man0'Lvi-Strauss +,CC$ 49-/. !he Point of "ri#in <f 06oman0 cannot escape these a#isymmetrical dichotomi>ations 'truth7untruth, known7unknown/, where &etter to go 'rhetorically and figuratively/ than the point of origin! <n the point of origin, 06oman0 can divide these categories of self against one another. She is all of them, she is none of them. <n origin, 0woman averts0$ There is no such thing as the essence of woman &ecause woman averts, she is averted of herselfB %nd the philosophical discourse, &linded, founders on these shoals and is hurled down these depthless depths to its ruin. There is no such thing as the truth of woman, &ut it is &ecause of that a&yssal divergence of the truth, &ecause that untruth is truth. 6oman is &ut one name for that untruth of truth. '*errida +,-,$ H+/. The point of origin then, is the starting point in the dissolution of the fallacies of metaphor and philosophical discourse. %s that consummate 6estern philosopher ?artin 5eidegger outlines the situation$
The esta&lishment of this divorce of the sensi&le and non-sensi&le, of the physical and non-physical, is a fundamental trait of what, named metaphysics, gives authoritative determination to 6estern thought. (nce it is recogni>ed that this distinctionB is insufficient, metaphysics loses the rank of the authoritative determinant for the course of thinking. (nce, then, metaphysics is seen as restricted, the notion of metaphor as authoritative falls as wellB (nly within metaphysics is there the metaphorical. '5eidegger +,,+$ .,/.

But didn t we come to this conclusion 'or perhaps this &eginning, origin/ precisely through the utili>ation of several structural metaphors! <n considering this, let us take note of the words of Konathan Culler$ 0Anless one has postulated some transcendent final cause or ultimate meaning for the work, one cannot discover its structure, for the structure is that &y which the end is made present throughout the work. The analyst of structure has the task of displaying the work as a spatial configuration in which time past and time future point to one end, which is always present0 'Culler +,-H$ 499/. < suppose then that the teleology pointed to in this work is such that precisely (y the use of structural metaphors we meet the dissolution of the metaphor. But this is not a negation. To understand this &etter, we need to iterate e#actly :ust what is meant &y dissolution. 5ow to e#plain this &ut through another metaphor! 6hen one speaks of sugar dissolving in water, the sugar is not removed, rather it is incorporated to the point that it is a part of the water, to the point that there is no longer sugar or water &ut sugar-water. Lvi-Strauss instructs us to understand that 0the ver& dissolve does not in any way imply '&ut even e#cludes/ the destruction of the constituents of the &ody su&:ected

to the action of another &ody. The solution of a solid into a li"uid alters the disposition of its molecules. <t also often provides an efficacious method of putting them &y so that they can &e recovered in case of need and their properties &e &etter studied0'+,CC$ 49-/. <n e#amining the shapeless and &oundless te#t that is the world, dissolution is a vital part of what we call science.

%S7S% n8 +3, p.+H+

$eferences %ited Barthes, @oland. )ythologies. Trans. %nnette Lavers. 1ew Oork$ 5ill P 6ang +,-4. ++. Butler, Kudith. 02ender Trou&le, ;eminist Theory, and Lsychoanalytic *iscourse0 2eminism34ostmodernism. )d. Linda K. 1icholson. 1ew Oork$ @outledge +,,J. 34H, 34C. Culler, Konathan. Structuralist 4oetics. <thaca$ Cornell Aniversity Lress +,-H. 499, 4H+, 4C9. *oanne, ?ary %nn. 2emmes 2atales. 1ew Oork$ @outledge +,,+. HC. *errida, Kac"ues. Spurs 5iet6sche7s Styles. Trans. Bar&ara 5arlow. Chicago$ Aniversity of Chicago Lress +,-,. H+, +J-. ;reud, Sigmund. 0The Muestion of Lay %nalysis$ Conversations with an <mpartial Lerson0 +he Standard &dition of the 8omplete 4sychological .or1s of Sigmund 2reud vol. 4J. Trans. and )d. Kames Strachey. London$ 5ogarth +,H3. 4+3. QQQQQQQ.0Some Lsychological Conse"uences of the %natomical *istinction Between the Se#es0 Se%uality and the 4sychology of Love. )d. Lhilip @ieff. 1ew Oork$ Collier +,C3. +.--.. 2reimas, %.K. Smanti9ue Structurale. Trans. *aniele ?c*owell, @onald Schleifer, and %lan Ielie. Lincoln$ Aniversity of 1e&raska Lress +,.3. +.-4,. 5awkes, Terence. Structuralism and Semiotics. Berkeley$ Aniversity of California Lress. +,--. +3, +-, ++J. 5eidegger, ?artin. 'er Sat6 vom :rund. Trans. @eginald Lilly.

Bloomington$ <ndiana Aniversity Lress +,,+. .,. <rigaray, Luce. 06omen!s )#lie0 ;deology and 8onsciousness < '?ay +,--/$ CH. =at>, Kerrold K. and Kanet *ean ;odor cited in ;odor, Kanet *ean. Semantics +heories of )eaning in :enerative :rammar. 1ew Oork$ Crowell +,--. C9. =risteva, Kulia. 06oman Can 1ever Be *efined0 5ew 2rench 2eminisms. )d. )laine ?arks and <sa&elle de Courtivron. 1ew Oork$ Shocken Books +,.J. +3--.. Lvi-Strauss, Claude. +he Savage )ind. Chicago$ Aniversity of Chicago Lress. +,CC. 49-. QQQQQQQ. Structural /nthropology. 1ew Oork$ Lenguin Books +,-4. 449. ?ontrelay, ?ichele. 0<n"uiry into ;emininity0 m3f < '+,-./$ ,+-,4 1iet>che, ;riedrich. +he :ay Science. Trans. 6alter =aufmann. 1ew Oork$ Iintage +,-9. 3., +49. (#ford )nglish *ictionary, The Compact )dition. (#ford Aniversity Lress +,-+. ,,+, +..,, +.,,, 449+. Iico, 2iam&attista. +he 5ew Science. Trans. Thomas 2oddard Bergin and ?a# 5arold ;isch. <thaca$ Cornell Aniversity Lress +,C.. H+, 4JH, 3H4. 6ittig, ?oni"ue, and Sande Neig. Les(ian 4eoples )aterial for a 'ictionary. 1ew Oork$ %von Books +,-,. H.

%S7S% n8 +3, p.+H4

&otes
+. Certainly calling into "uestion the accuracy of a source &y using that same source as a measure is scarcely an e#emplar of methodological rigour. %&out all that can &e determined with any degree of certainty from such a techni"ue is a sourceRs apparent inconsistencies. F@eturn +G 4. The need to define Sgenerali>ationT in such a conte#t can &e taken as an e#plicit irony. F@eturn 4G

3. ;or the curious among us, listed in the ()* for SnaturalT are four general groupings of definitions constituted &y eighteen different definitions 'of which five are considered o&solete/ and a total of thirty-three su&-definitions added to those 'eight &eing o&solete/. The first definition is$ S(f law or :ustice$ Based upon the innate moral feeling of mankind$ instinctively felt to &e right and fair, though not prescri&ed &y any enactment or formal contract.T The fifth definition seems the one most directly related to our practices here$ S5aving a real or physical e#istence, as opposed to what is spiritual, intellectual, fictitious etcT '+,-+$ +.,,/. F@eturn 3G 9. (&viously, it goes far &eyond the scope of this article to provide the reader with anything remotely resem&ling a corpus to prove this assertion. < will however note that, in addition to Barthes, Konathan Culler seems to use SmythT in a similar conte#t on a couple of occasions in Structuralist Loetics$ SBthe myth of the innocence of &ecoming$ that continual change, as an end in itself, is freedom, and that it li&erates one from the demands that could &e made of any particular state of the systemT 'Culler +,-H$ 4H+/. %nd again, S<ndeed, one might suppose that structuralism would attempt, as Barthes suggests, to develop an esthetics &ased on the pleasure of the reader 'Uthe conse"uences would &e enormousR/. 6hatever its other results, it would no dou&t lead to the destruction of various myths of literatureT '+,-H$ 4C9/. These e#amples are &y no means given to suggest that Barthes and Culler are using the word inappropriately or are not aware of its other meanings 'indeed, BarthesR conclusion on the su&:ect is Smyth is languageT FBarthes +,-4$ ++G /. @ather, it was my hope that in citing Barthes and Culler 'as opposed to any other authors/ their usage would shed more light on :ust what SmythT might mean in demotic conte#ts. F@eturn 9G

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2003, Applied Semiotics / Smiotique applique