The analysis of game behaviour of children, ideas on „an instinct of immortality” by Jacob Golosovker, Elena Ulybina's psychoanalytic reconstruction of psychology of the girl-teenager in A.Ostrovsky's play Snow Maiden, show, that corresponding universally-cultural intentions of consciousnesses can invariantly structure a fairy tale (and any other text) directly during their generation. Plots with the CUB-structural core become "eternal" not owing to presence in them of any images already known before, characters or motives, but owing to "eternity" (topicality for each generation) of their invariant universal-cultural contents. The Last one is independently generated (self-generated) by modern sub/consciousness, originating as a result of working of cognitive creative mechanisms.
It is well known, that M. Heidegger defines language as the Home of Being, which proclaims itself to us through poets. The poetry is understood by him as formation of Being by means of a word. In the work I was limited to consideration of a question on how the language of poetry correlates with Being (in all its meanings known to philosophy) which in this case is understood as the text, that is as totality of obvious or mysterious senses and as through language of poetry their possible revelation. I searched for the answer to it in works of M. of Kirienko-Voloshyn, the reference to whom has shown, that through spontaneous creativity of the poet the Being demonstrated itself as a certain text, which in its basis does not fall outside the limits of categories of ultimate bases and codes, and it was the result of spontaneous autogenerating of senses, instead of simple reflection of reality. M. Kirienko-Voloshyn describes this process in an image of a spider, which spins from itself a fabric of knowledge: „Where spun in smoky dreams the consciousness-spider / The living tissues bodies, but body was – a sound”.
One of the most interesting problems of the theory of creativity is a problem of spontaneous synthesis by story-tellers or writers of numerous plots. Here the most important for us was a substantiation of the statement about a certain "a priori" prediction of produced plots. The idea consists in development of that indisputable conclusion, that at a final set of constant structural elements of the text the number of their combinations is also final.
Reasoning from the results of my work on the structural analysis of a short story I have shown, that Marguerite de Navarrewas free in her choice of characters and in representation of variations of relations between them, drawing them from their final register. But she was not free in a choice of most these very relations. As well as modern science fiction writers, she recreated these relations mainly in two of their four possible forms – erotic and aggressive though communications on the basis of alimentary, and in particular – informative code were also realized by her.
It is obvious, that their astonishing stable presence in works of different genres of different times can be explained only by autogeneration of the given types of relations, that testifies that exactly these intentional, spontaneous, immanent preferences of creators of the work of literature, which are at the bottom of their basic vital directives, make a basis of those humanly important senses which are shown during the work of their productive ability of imagination and can are realized in the results of their creative synthesis of texts.
As I already said, the world is a projection of humanly important senses on an objective reality. A fundamental feature of the substantial and structurally-formal side of these senses is their subordination to the universal-cultural meanings inserted in the general world outlook formula „strengthening of life, overcoming of death, aspiration to immortality”.
Having passed the theoretical "circle" and having critically reconsidered the concept of „metaphors of primitive consciousness” of O.Frejdenberg, we again, but already at higher, theoretically-based level, have approached the statement declared at the beginning of work that owing to this projecting feature of our consciousness both the world as a whole, and its separate fragments, are semiotized by us within the limits of our most fundamental vital aims.
At the same time, the acceptance that the mentioned "metaphors" are anything else but categories of ultimate bases and the world outlook codes connected in a formula sheaf „life – death – immortality”, allowed us to show, that the unusual meanings of habitual things reconstructed by O.Frejdenberg do not fall outside the limits of this formula. For example, it has been shown, that such „archetype” concepts as House, Field, Temple have exactly these meanings.
The temple appears as a special sacral place, where there is given a communion of “favour and life of a deity” to the believers. Its vertical and horizontal dimensions have strongly expressed CUB-semantics. It is clear from orientation of temples on a line „East – West” (life - death), that determines the position of altars only in its eastern part, and a front entrance – so that the movement to a temple was only from the West on the East, from death – to life.
Crowning of the dome-sky by the cross with its diasemantics „death-revival”, the peculiarities of the orthodox cross with slanting section of its bottom horizontal part which by its spatial orientation also symbolizes a victory over death and the strengthening of life - all this unconditionally points out to universal-cultural structuredness of a temple architectural text which is not limited only to these senses. „The temple” acts also as a high life ideal (an information code of vital universalia) to which should lead all the roads.
According to O.Frejdenberg, the matter concerns a certain complex of senses which was developed during a semiotized consumption of food, copulations and funeral actions during initial, before-ceremonial periods of their display. The general "scheme" of its „construct” looked like a movement from occurrence and bloom to the decline, and that movement was carried out by an animal-totem, which was torn up and eaten up, managing certain ritualized actions. Later is the sun, leaders, emperors, gladiators, olympians, defendants and, finally, actors became its personification.
Consequently, these initial senses became inherent to all things and actions which surrounded these figures – actually to ceremonies and rituals, cities, Olympic and other games, constructions (to triumphal arches, pillars, to images of lions, to gates, doors, to wreaths on them, to windows), to things of the daily use (to a table, a cloth, a chair,awnings, marquees, to a veil, to a carousel), to a theatre (comedy and tragedy, stage, orchestra), to literary genres and other texts of culture, inclusive with ritual food (sausage, pies, forcemeat and peas). E.g., such traditional elements of Olympic Games, as letting out of an eagle before their opening (now - pigeons) and crowning the winner with a laurel wreath have the meaning of a victory over forces of death (immortality).
In antiquity Olympic struggle was a real hand-to-hand fighting, and it continued until one of the opponents was not killed. Since those times when these games still were a fatal competition, the one who after games remained alive, was crowned with a wreath as a token of a victory over death.
The initial meanings of peas are also unusual for us. Special ritual semiotization of food has led to transferring of "food" semantics to things and phenomena entirely different from food. It is well know, that the clown is often given an epithet "pea fool", as well as the expression "under the tsar Pea" (in days of yore).
Exactly from farces of beans and lentil there was originated a stereotypic expression "a pea clown". In general, both the clown, and tsar once directly personified the universal-cultural basic formula life – death – revival, and peas (lentil) became associated with them for the reason, that before ritual killing of princeling (and then - his substitute, the slave), they were crowned with a pea straw, echoes of that have reached in some ceremonies almost up to present times.
„Storm of applause turning into ovation” now is a sign of approval by a public of performance of an actor or report of a speaker. But their original meaning was differed from the modern one. The main character of an ancient theatre was the god of death and revival Dionysius. In a theatrical drama it was the Dionysius-bull or the Dionysius-goat.
If this goat partially denominates two drama genres, then the sheep denominates a drama of a victory, an ovation. Ovation is a pleasure, a celebration, a wreath that was put on a head of commander which assimilated to a victorious animal (Dionysius-ram-goat) which revives for life during the moment of passage under a triumphal arch. Here we also see a full development of basic formula.
Similar semantics had also the triumphal arches which are present in many cities of the world. According to O.Frejdenberg, a triumphal arch was a celestial horizon and consequently they had a semicircular arch. The victory of the sun, the occurrence of totem coincides with entrance through a heavenly-afterlife gate, through a triumphal arch which divided the two worlds. The semantics of a triumphal arch as means of overcoming death is better expressed by the fact that sometimes it was constructed for prevention of danger that in itself guaranteed rescue from death. Emperor, solemnly passing under the arch to a circus, appeared as the winner-sun. By this he expressed the idea of overcoming of death, the establishing of life. Here it is easy to see the presence of the basic world outlook formula.
Often near a gate, doors or on the walls there are represented lions (the so-called „lion's gate”). In their image there was fixed a crossing of "border" between two worlds, light and darkness. So, stone lions, which are half put out from the house, or just simple images of their muzzles on the walls is the transformed image of an archaic totem which has died and has revived. The universal-cultural formula is also totally presented here.
A bright erotic-genetic semantics have the doors of houses or gates which indicated a maternal womb. Giving birth, continues O.Frejdenberg, the woman opens and closes the celestial doors. Therefore Janus, the god of door, was called at childbirth. Except the mentioned CUB-semantics the door had also additional meaning which originated from a custom to copulate on a threshold and to hang up a wreath on a dooras modern Americans like.
Traditional night or evening songs (serenades) of an enamoured man under a window (balcony) of his beloved originate from that tradition when a drunk reveller in a “komos” (a night procession) in the end of procession addressed not a woman, and a door (later – a window), and then publicly laid down with a woman directly on a threshold. From the same sources, considers O.Frejdenberg, there is a tradition to hang up a wreath on a door. In fact „komos” is a variant of a carol which name originates from the name of a branch of laurel or an olive in skeins of wool which was left on a door as a signof fertility (erotically coded genitive).
Similar mortally-immoral semantics in different codes have also fabrics, curtains, tents of circus and roundabouts on which the stars were painted. They represented the idea of heavenly circulation, a motion from death to life. A bridal veil is the same heavenly arch which has a dualistic semantics both of death, and revival. Hence – coverlets and cloths with which the dead men and a table on which they laid were covered. Staying on a table-altar, the died man was considered as totem-king, certainly due to revive. From here originate those meanings of a table which are connected with the Supreme authority – „Vоlоdуmуr in Kуїv on a table” (ukr., russ. „стол” – ‘a table’, derived concepts „столиця” - ‘a capital’, „престол” – ‘throne’).
All this allows to draw conclusions that usual things and phenomena examined from the point of view of the approach offered by O. Frejdenberg which heuristic potential is developed by us with reference to the offered universal-cultural concept of the analysis of culture texts, show their forgotten or unusual meanings which go back to invariants, or culture universalias, such as birth, life, death and immortality, and corresponding world outlook codes.
Rejecting the idea of direct borrowing of deep universal-cultural invariants in texts of culture in general and in pieces of literature in particular and insisting on acceptance of the concept of their generation, I do not deny the fact, that development of cultural forms provides the presence of a certain continuity, tradition and heredity of development of the fixed cultural images, plots and characters on a background of their natural transformation.
But even this transformation does not lead to disappearance of primary CUB-senses involved in semiosphere of things, processes and figures. Thus, it is possible to outline the history of origin of a figure of a circus clown as stage evolution of certain personifications of world outlook senses of strengthening of life through dying of a totem-animal, tsar, slave and clown.
The clown is the degenerated figure of the slave, the double of tsar-leader who took up the mortal semantics of Saturnalia. In this festival the social relations "turned over", a tsar for a while became a "slave", and the slave became "tsar". In traditional ritual of change of tsar instead of him there was killed his temporary assistant, the slave. Later the slave turns into the clown who was dressed up as tsar.
In circus he gets the appearance of the "red-haired circus clown", who was not killed any more, but simply beaten on an arena and who later turns into a strolling actor, a juggler, a skomorokh, acting on stilts (the formercothurnus) in booths, demonstrating the puppet-show and so forth. However in spite of radical changes in roles and meanings, successive figures of an animal-totem, tsar, slave and clown keep as the fundamental structurally-semantic basis the categories of ultimate bases and dominating world outlook idea of overcoming of death by an immortal life.
Table of Contents
Summary
TOPICS
1. Philosophical and methodological basis of the Weltanschauung Categories of Ultimate Bases researching.
2. Categories of Ultimate Bases as Universalias of Culture
3. Investigation of profound invariant of the structure of a fairy tale as the applied version of search for universalias in texts of culture
4. An explication of internal contradictions of the theory of V. Propp as a precondition of its falsification
5. Falsification of the theory of V. Propp by means of increasing a level of universality of a deductive hypothesis about a universal-cultural structure of culture texts
6. Outlines of a new paradigm of the analysis of the origin of invariant structure of culture texts: “the universal-cultural version”
Олександр Сергійович Кирилюк
Анти-Пропп
Критика теорії В. Проппа зі структури чарівної казки та її генезису
kiriliuk@infra.co.ua
Брошура
Наукове видання
Англійська мова
OlexanderKyryliuk. ANTI-PROPP. Criticism of Vladimir Propp’sTheory on Genesis of Magic Fairy Tales’ Structure – Odessa: Autograph / CHE UNSA, 2009. – p. 50. In Engl.
Separate English supplement to the book: Olexander Kyryliuk. Weltanschauung Categories of Ultimate Bases in the Universal Culture Dimensions. – Odessa, Ukraine: Autograph/CHE UNAS – 2008. – 416 р. In Ukrainian.
Олександр Кирилюк. АНТИ-ПРОПП. Критика теорії В. Проппа зі структури чарівної казки та її генезису. – Одеса: Автограф/ЦГО НАН України. – 2009. – 50 с. (англ. мова).
Окремий додаток до книги (автореферат англійською):
Кирилюк О.С. Світоглядні категорії граничних підстав в універсальних вимірах культури. – Одеса: Автограф. – 2008. – 416 с.