"AN ENDING AND A BIRTH": A STRUCTURALIST AND POST-STRUCTURALIST ACCOUNT OF THE TRISTAN LEGEND

CLAUDIA MARIE KOVACH SMORADA, Purdue University

Abstract

As a demonstration of structuralist and post-structuralist critical theory, this thesis examines various medieval and modern Tristan works in the light of "rhetoric" as constructive and deconstructive. Chapter one introduces the Derridean "New Yale" School of deconstruction and contrasts its claims with that of traditional metaphysics. Chapter two analyzes the Tristan stories as myth which can reveal, in the manner of Claude Levi-Strauss, a "deep structure" of consistencies despite surface contradictions. Post-structuralism, however, would refute any such "wholesome" solution. Chapter three reads the legend as A. J. Greimas might, as a form of discourse in which a "semantic rectangle" emphasizes innate binary oppositions. In this way the plot of the saga displays its "system," its "grammatical" nature which allows new meaning to arise in order to complete the text and to bring the literary work to a conclusion. Nevertheless, deconstruction decries such finality of structure as being inconsistent with a philosophy of language animated by differance. Chapter four examines Rene Girard's triangular, "mediated" desire and his theory of mimesis to explain the structure of the Tristan universe of chivalric passion. Derridean deconstruction, on the other hand, examines alleged mimesis in order to undermine the theory of the sign. Chapter five serves as a transition to a direct investigation of the post-structuralist method. Girard is cited again, and his argument concerning "banality as repetition" highlights several conclusions. The structural view sees a circle of reconciliation and conversion; the post-structural appraisal finds no basis upon which to construct a logic, circular or otherwise, founded on identity. Chapter six illustrates how deconstruction dissolves what structuralism considers to be the holism of the interaction between intention and language, between signifier and signified, and between referent and audience. The Tristan corpus shows how the floating signifier arises from the "positive" side of Derrida's declaration of supplementarite. Chapter seven emphasizes the "negative" aspect of supplementarite as a black hole in Tristan. The text screams its lack of presence (1) through an emblematic portrayal of its own subverted nature, (2) through a thematic absence or reversal of reality, and (3) through an open-ended concatenation of perpetual negative references. Chapter eight concludes by discussing some strengths and weaknesses of the structuralist and post-structuralist approaches, and some ramifications of using "modern" critical theory to investigate medieval literature. It is suggested briefly that Derrida's quandary can be better accomodated by a mysticism which his argument implies but which he fails to acknowledge.

Degree

Ph.D.

Subject Area

Comparative literature

COinS