engleski

Existentialist Heritage and Postmodern Fiction: An Example from Recent Scottish Writing

The distinction between semantic content and stylistic, linguistic or rhetorical form in a literary or a non&#8212 ; literary text (i. e. the fact that sentences may have the same propositional content &#8211 ; or be synonymous &#8211 ; but express it in different ways) has been advocated by traditional aesthetically&#8212 ; oriented critics as well as by proponents of generative linguistics (who explain this distinction by the division between deep and surface structure). This theory has apparently given rise to a prolific opposition, which includes, among others, neo&#8212 ; Romantic critics such as the New Critics as well as some hermeneutics and Existentialist philosophers. Having postulated that a change in wording is inevitably a change in &#8220 ; meaning&#8221 ; (as they see it), the New Critics have anathemized the idea of choice among equivalent ways of expressing the same thought involved in the concept of style. Similarly, the hermeneutics &#8211 ; unaware of the arbitrary relationship between the sign and its referent suggested by structuralists &#8211 ; have postulated union between the word, the concept, and the world/ referent, whereby the referent is supposed to be reflected in the sign as its perfect match. In his heavily metaphorical treatise Being and Time &#8211 ; which betrays Kierkegaard&#8217 ; s influence, either direct or indirect &#8211 ; Martin Heidegger has sought an ontological clarification of unauthentic existence (or of losing oneself) in his descriptive concepts of the &#8220 ; anonymous one&#8221 ; and the threefold existentialist structure of &#8220 ; fallenness&#8221 ; (or Verfallenheit). It is the latter term in particular &#8211 ; the terms whose metaphorical connotations resemble the meanings attached to the term &#8220 ; falling&#8221 ; as it appears in A. L. Kennedy&#8217 ; s story &#8220 ; Failing to Fall&#8221 ; &#8211 ; that allows a critic to trace the dialogue between the existentialist heritage and postmodern fiction. The present paper proposes to discuss the parallels that are assumed to exist between Heidegger&#8217 ; s and Kennedy&#8217 ; s uses of the above terms that denotatively refer to the action of falling &#8211 ; as an instance of &#8220 ; utterance&#8221 ; or form (i. e. Baumgartner&#8217 ; s aestheta, &#8220 ; things perceived&#8221 ; ) &#8211 ; on the one hand, and the metaphorical meaning endowed upon them &#8211 ; as examples of &#8220 ; idea&#8221 ; or content (i. e. noeta, &#8220 ; things known&#8221 ; ) &#8211 ; on the other. A comparative analysis of the concept of falling as a sign proves the readiness with which a postmodern text appropriates both a revered term of an earlier, outmoded philosophical view and a concept connotatively superadded to its denotative meaning, with the implication that this choice invites the phenomenological relation between the word, the concept, and the world/ referent as an ever inviolable union.

anonymous one; anxiety; art; authenticity; authority; being— in— the— world; being— with— others; content; curiosity; Dasein; existence; existential ambiguity; Existentialism; fallenness; fantastic; fleeing from oneself; form; freedom; human condition; idea

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