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A Literary Work as an Event and Idiolect
Authors: Tomáš Horváth
Number of views: 283
The study deals with situating a literary work between general properties (laws) of
literary discourse and singularity, between institution and idiom. According to Derrida,
singularity cannot be achieved without participation in generality. A literary work as
a singularity is not isolated – in order to be read as a singularity, it must be juxtaposed
with other works, which it differs radically from.
G. Deleuze paraphrases Proust saying that a writer invents a new language within
a language. This other language within the previous natural and literary language,
however, does not only have to function on the linguistic (stylistic) level, but also on
the level of the „secondary language “, the system of literary codes and conventions.
It may transcribe and transform not only the level of language in the common sense
(deviated syntax) but also genre conventions (e.g. deviated crime story), literary
etiquette. This language is not torn off the „old language “ (primary system), but
it is created as its redesign. From the viewpoint of the „middle“ perspective of an
individual literary work, the work (event) can thus become – for instance – a radical
transformation of a particular genre structure. The genre norm, which is overcome
by the given work, becomes a system of conventions, with regards to which this work
is comprehensible: a genre is a condition of possibility of partial comprehensibility
of an innovative work. Such a work is a sort of message partly encoded in a familiar
language which flows into an unexpected, unknown language.
A work – singularity, an event establishes a new code – idiolect. The work – event
(an event as something that is unrepeatable by definition) is thus – according to Derrida
– always pre-infected with a repetition structure so that it could be read at all.