Sideshadowing and Tempics

Sideshadowing and Tempics
Author(s): Gary Saul Morson
Reviewed work(s):
Source: New Literary History, Vol. 29, No. 4, Critics without Schools? (Autumn, 1998), pp.
599-624
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20057502 .
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and Tempics
Sideshadowing
Gary Saul Morson
and the Bias of the Artifact
Tempics
is of the
Time
into
opening
essence.
an
All of us directly
uncertain
We
future.
our
experience
no
possess
lives as
that
guarantee
or will fit a
lives will prove to be of significance
But
narrative
successful
art, unlike
life, does
pattern.
meaningful
one reason almost everyone
ensure
is
which
such
significance,
typically
senses the artificiality of even the most realistic story. However
precise
the texture of daily life, the very fact of
the author may be in recording
a work's structure renders its temporality
from that of
radically different
each event
in our
real life.1
In life, most people would regard it as futile to forecast one's future
on the basis of what would make
the most effective story. But in reading
In
lives is often justified.
literature, this way of thinking about characters'
novels there is a point when all loose threads must be tied together. But
real time is an ongoing
process without
literary
anything
resembling
closure.
to represent
time as open have therefore
Writers who have wanted
this
for structure and
sometimes
narrative
demand
against
struggled
a work without
closure. And yet for very good
these twin
reasons,
insurers of unity is likely not to be effective at all. It appears that literary
structure
is not neutral with respect to philosophies
of time.
Lessing
we
may
that
say
to
predisposed
closed
isomorphic
that art forms
contended
time.
convey
a
sense
It is relatively
with?the
carry inherent
insofar
narratives,
same
of
easy
shape
as
fatalism,
to make
as?closed
they
and
predispositions,2
rely
on
or
determinism,
a narrative's
time,
but
are
structure,
otherwise
temporality
many
writers
to create isomorphism
have felt it almost
with open
time.
impossible
That was the task set by those two extreme devotees
of realism, Tolstoy
in order to represent
and Dostoevsky?Tolstoy
the radical contingency
to represent
of the world
and Dostoevsky
human
freedom.
They
to
resist
the
bias
remarkably
developed
interesting ways
of the artifact?to
overcome
curse. Their most
I like to call Lessing's
what
interesting
for doing so was a device I have named
method
sideshadowing.
New Literary History,
1998, 29: 599-624
600
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
Let me project beyond my own examples
and my earlier work
me that the
want
to
seems
I
to
in
It
the
where
future.
go
history
to
from Aristotle
the present,
has, for all the variety
poetics,
in narrative
almost
schools,
interpretive
always found meaning
reading out its eventness. A poetic reading shows us how the unfolding
a pattern, how the work, when
incidents completes
as a synchronie
structure that has simply required
is
work
so
and
spatialized,
real
exists
eventfulness
to
of
of
by
of
is graspable
finished,
time to unfold. The
only
for
the
characters.
in all its artfulness
For the reader, the work becomes
after
graspable
as
a
or
is
it
when
is
reread.
for
whole
over,
Indeed,
reading
contemplated
an experienced
an anticipated
reader, even a first reading constitutes
so that events may be
rereading. Time becomes
symmetrical,
explained
not only by what precedes
them but also by where
lead to
they must
the structure
complete
the
the
and
past,
in the best possible
moment
present
of
way. The
event
any
future
as is
is given,
no
possesses
special
meaning.
in life, and for most novelistic
time is asymmetrical.
characters,
as open and the
the past is fixed,
is experienced
the future
in
which
real
the
presentness,
present possesses
weight of chance and
outcomes.
different
this sense of
lead to many
From
choice may
we
for
the
and
derive
emotions
other
that
regret
presentness,
capacity
But
While
on
depend
an
without
future
uncertain
art, life is genuinely
And
closure.
eventful
yet,
some
and
a momentous
and set in open
have
artworks
most
Unlike
present.
loose ends
time, with
to overcome
managed
and
the
time.
bias of the artifact and convey a sense of open and asymmetrical
to
have
continued
such
works,
critics,
largely by default,
Contemplating
and force a structure where one is lacking. The signs of
read poetically
are apparent,
but there is
ill-fit between work and interpretive method
to
to
choice
has
be either
because
the
seemed
else
be
done
nothing
or not finding meaning
norms
at all.
to
the
of
reading according
poetics
Of
course,
norms,
the
which
application
most
works
I do not
of
such
may or may not
should not be made by
to structure
alternative
and what a future one
are
written
norms
should
to
according
in any sense mean
be
a
choice
and
structural
to reject. But
among
I do
poetic
think
that
alternatives,
It
in any given circumstance.
be appropriate
of the sense that the only
default, or because
to outline,
is chaos. What my last book begins
a
is just such an alternative,
should develop,
it
I call "tempics" because
subdivision of "prosaics" that for the moment
is so concerned
with temporality.
Imean
tempics to apply to works displaying open time, but I think the
because we often apply poetic
has
much
concept
greater applicability
our
is so
to
because
the real world?to
models
poetic
temporality
peril,
a
the
deal
I
that
of
believe
from open temporality.
different
history
great
from biology and physics to econom
of thought in many areas?ranging
which
AND
SIDESHADOWING
601
TEMPICS
as well as literature and philoso
and city planning,
a continuing
that
various models
between
dialogue
phy?manifests
a real sense of
to incorporate
strive
and
that
those
resemble
poetics
is how to understand
in each of these dialogues,
process. The question,
In literature and
future.
of
the
and
the
apparent openness
contingency
a
as
time
and
takes
of
that
elsewhere,
way
contingency
reading
tempics,
a poem of
us to read experience
without making
seriously, should help
in
it.
find
and
it,
yet
meaning
ics, anthropology,
and the Middle
Sideshadowing,
Foreshadowing,
Realm
a
to foreshadowing,
I coined
the term "sideshadowing"
by analogy
use
not
we
I
examined
with
have
sufficient
often
think,
but,
concept
indicates backward causation. A spatial
clarity. The term foreshadowing
a
it is a shadow cast in front of an
for
temporal phenomenon,
metaphor
an
event
that indicates
is
(is the "shadow"
object; the temporal analog
come.
our
to
An
event
in
of) another
object
path may cast a shadow
so that we reach
backward,
casting it; and from experience,
we
encounter
the
by
it, even
foreshadow
works
is caused
but
temporal
shadow.
the object
the shadow before
reaching
we may know to expect the object when
The
we
though
the
same
not
does
shadow
cause
encounter
way.
a
When
the
the
storm
ahead,
object
shadow
first. A
foreshadows
a
the storm is there because the catastrophe
follows; it is an
catastrophe,
effect of that future catastrophe
visible in temporal advance much as the
shadow of an object may be visible in spatial advance. Because
the future
is
already
substantial
there?is
enough
to cause
earlier
events
and
to send
ensures a temporality of inevitability.
signs backwards?foreshadowing
is possible because
the work has structure and closure,
Foreshadowing
which allow for events to be shaped by later, as well as earlier events, that
of the whole.
It betrays the fact that in narrative,
is, by the pattern
not
in
time
is
life,
symmetrical.
though
therefore
Foreshadowing
It lifts the veil
inscribed. When
futures, which
as
an
on
robs
a
present
moment
of
its presentnesss.
a future
that has already been determined
and
sense
is
the
of
used,
many
foreshadowing
possible
at every present moment,
in life we experience
is revealed
illusion.
to be
Whereas
works by revealing apparent alternatives
/oreshadowing
mere
illusions, ???/?shadowing conveys the sense that actual events might
In an open universe,
the illusion
is
just as well not have happened.
itself. Alternatives
always abound, and, more often than not,
not have existed.
else was possible,
and
Something
to
a
sense
is
create
used
ofthat
else."
Instead
sideshadowing
"something
of casting a shadow from the future, it casts a shadow "from the side,"
inevitability
what exists
need
602
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
that is, from the other possibilities.
Along with an event, we see its
another possible
Sideshadows
with each present,
alternatives;
present.
or
In this
of
the
might-bes.
might-have-beens
ghostly presence
conjure
so
own
the
and
achieves
its
the
shows
actual
way,
through
hypothetical
text.
in
the
kind
of
existence
shadowy
the actual and the
two or more alternative presents,
In sideshadowing,
not
a simultaneity
are
in
is
visible.
This
made
simultaneously
possible,
one
but
time but of times; we do not see contradictory
actualities,
that could have been but was
and another
that was actualized
possibility
not. Time
itself acquires a double and, often, many doubles. A haze of
surrounds each actuality.
possibilities
are
is used, it seems that distinct
When
temporalities
sideshadowing
a
moment
of
Like
for
each
actuality.
king
continually
competing
with an equal claim to rule, the actual loses
by a pretender
challenged
some temporal legitimacy. It can no longer be regarded as inevitable, as
sense to consider
so firmly ensconced
that it does not even make
as just another possibil
The actual is therefore understood
alternatives.
was perhaps not entirely accidental
but
ity that somehow came to pass. It
no
was
of
its
came
annunciation
it
it
without guarantees and
by
preceded
us to inquire
the
other
invites
into
possible
coming.
Sideshadowing
course of
that might have been and to imagine a quite different
presents
events. If only that chance incident had not happened,
if only a different
a
events had not
of
favorable
choice had been made,
sequence
if only
a
or
moment
later?what
would
been
had
been interrupted,
interrupted
of
have happened
then? Sideshadowing
prompts
questions
constantly
sort.
this
us to catch a glimpse
but realizable
of unrealized
In permitting
to trace
our
that
demonstrates
tendency
sideshadowing
possibilities,
at
to
the
ourselves
present
(usually leading
straight lines of causality
events, which
moment)
always allow for many possible
oversimplifies
stories.
we
are
When
usually
a
of
sequence
deceived
by
events
our
own
seems
presence
so coherent
at
the
as
to be
sequence's
necessary,
culmina
but the necessity of the actual
is not other possibilities
tion. The mirage
a kind of temporally
based
one.
therefore
induces
Sideshadowing
humility.
Its most funda
restores
of possibility.
the possibility
Sideshadowing
a
to
not
moment
is
lesson is: To understand
mental
only what did happen
grasp
shadow
histories
but also what else might have happened. Hypothetical
own
events enjoy their
kind of reality: the
actual ones. Some nonactual
but also
not
and
actualities
of
world
consists
impossibilities
just
temporal
of a third, in-between
unactualized,
real,
possibilities.
category:
though
invites us into this peculiar middle realm of possibility.
Sideshadowing
SIDESHADOWING
AND
Time
In
its
inclusion
of
603
TEMPICS
as a Field
contrary-to-fact
and
expressions
tenses,
our
lan
of potentialities
in excess of actualities?
guage displays an appreciation
of the surplus of temporalities. Time ramifies, and the present we know is
one of many possible presents.
Once we are conscious
of the lessons of sideshadowing,
we may also
to
to
wish
the past. In general, past sideshadowing
apply them
suggests
that we may well be mistaken
about past actualities,
and that the
sequence
leading to us differs from the one we imagine. And even ifwe
are right about which events did
in tracing
happen, we may be mistaken
them. If we had a more accurate picture of the
straight lines between
of present configurations
look quite differ
past, the significance
might
ent. The same facts may possess other vectors; the product of different
to a different
set of futures.
pasts, they may be directed
Sideshadowing
and tempics
that
the
suggest
together
every earlier
present?and
a
but
structured
it mani
whole.
Rather,
present?is
anything
perfectly
as
fests the vestigial,
facts that are explicable
the
of
only
product
not
lines
that
do
of
cohere.
contingent
causality
relies on a concept of time as a field of possibilities.
Sideshadowing
has a set of possible
events
Each moment
every
(though by no means
that could take place in it. From this field a
conceivable
event)
single
event emerges?perhaps
by chance, perhaps by choice, perhaps by some
of both with
combination
the inertia of the past, and in any case
The
other
contingently.
possibilities
usually appear invisible or distorted
to later observers. Thus a field is
to a point, and,
reduced
mistakenly
over time, a succession
is reduced
to a line.
of fields
Sideshadowing
restores the field and thereby recreates
the fullness of time as it was. To
a moment
understand
is to grasp its field of possibilities.
The
Number
Extraordinary
of Facts,
If Only They Are Facts
His mother
ious
N.B.
to find
There
are anx
(and several other persons)
reason
the principal
for his return.
is no principle
reason, just an indis
tinct attraction.
Notebooks
The
chronicler
or what
happened
Fyodor Dostoevsky,
for The Possessed5
of The Possessed typically tells us what
have
might
could have happened.
In addition,
the "actions" he
604
NEW
are frequently
does describe
checked
not indicate a possibility
contemplated
ties are themselves aborted possibilities
LITERARY
HISTORY
or might
impulses, which might
but not actualized.
Such actuali
and they evoke the middle
realm
of things that could have happened.
the
who
Remembered
character
by
and
these
by witnesses,
"performs" them,
perceived
possibilities
acquire
a substantiality
novels are thick with events
of their own. Dostoevsky's
that might have happened.
At about the midpoint
of The Possessed, several characters
take a trip to
a
Yakovlevich.
the mad
Having
"prophet" Semyon
completed
lengthy
announces
of
the
that
the
chronicler
description
journey,
unexpectedly
none of these events is important:
"At this point, however,
there took
incident, and Imust own, itwas
place, I am told, an extremely enigmatic
on
so
account
I
have described
of it that
this expedition
chiefly
the chronicler
minutely."4 Here, as elsewhere,
all sorts of apparently
many facts," including
We
the
expedition.
Dostoevskian
their
recognize
Too
many
narration.
as
presence
facts,
characteristic
to
central
to
seeks
and
another,
construct
the
like
reader,
from
stories
many
each
expla
intimate many
after all, may be
in
characters
many
one.
of
clear
or
and
possible
no
with
presented
an air of mystery,
lead us to construct
to one account,
is irrelevant
stories. What
nation
given us "too
details about
has evidently
"irrelevant"
the
novel,
if the facts may not be facts at all or if other
also multiply
the ostensible
"facts" lie behind
ones, with ever-receding
layers of
the
has
of
chronicler
himself
and
orders
Although
suspicion.
possibility
a great deal and has apparently
with
almost
witnessed
everyone
spoken
to be unable
to
he seems, for all his research,
about almost everything,
decide on a single version of events. Instead, he typically reports a range
of rumors, doubts his own best sources, and obsessively offers alternative
Stories
"Some
possibilities.
at
everyone
in all
tained
each
his
of
unresolvable
incident"?if
It appears
I fancied
"it
affirm,"
with
seriousness"?these
the
is absurd
utmost
accounts
an
enigmas.
incident
That is surely true of the "extremely
it was?at
Semyon Yakovlevich's.
that
they
both
but
another,
contrary,
him
to
"now
suppose,"
"it is main
certainty,"
and
countless
similar
give
expressions
an
of
and
air
alternatives
of
endless
"others
say,"
believed
as
aura
was
everyone
and
Stavrogin
leaving,
Liza
and
raised
still
stood
Imay
not
for
have
seriously,
quite
to the
her hand
if he had not drawn back
an
seen
that
level
instant,
and,
rightly
Liza,
of his
looked,
in the
glancing
and
face,
in time. Perhaps
crowd.
as
each
against
it were,
strangely
on
It is asserted,
at Nikolai
would
enigmatic
Nikolaevna,
as mysterious,
everyone
jostled
regarded
in the doorway. Or, at least, "I am told" they did.
other
quickly
club
relations
whose
one
the
at
the
Vsevolodovich,
certainly
have
she was displeased
struck
with
the
AND
SIDESHADOWING
of
expression
with
episode
his
face,
605
TEMPICS
or
the
Mavriky
he
smiled,
Imust
admit
way
Nikolaevich.
after
just
particularly
I saw nothing
such
an
all
the
but
myself,
others declared
they had, though they certainly could not all have seen it in such
a crush,
perhaps
though
home.
some
that
however,
remember,
I did
have.
But
may
Vsevolodovich
Nikolai
not
it at
believe
was
rather
I
time.
the
all
pale
the
way
(P341)
as quintessentially
Dostoevskian.
this rhetoric
will identify
. . .
. . .however";
"I
fancied"; "perhaps"; "it is asserted
though
"Though
tentative
piled on qualification,
seriously": with qualification
quite
no
sooner
and perhaps
made
than withdrawn
ambiguously
judgments
the narrator claims not to be sure what he himself has seen.
reasserted,
Readers
even more unreliable,
are probably
and apparently
not
Frivolous
necessarily
people with
though
groundless.
contradictory,
a taste for scandal seriously say things that differ from what the narrator
such a vague
of course, he may have missed
himself has seen, although,
of others
Reports
event
and
trust
not
does
own
his
eyes
"in
such
a crush."
He
in the reported event?does
saying that he did not believe
that it might
then giving evidence
now??and
just be
action
the
Moreover,
that may
have
taken
place
a
was
slap
concludes
by
he accept it
true anyway.
not
given,
and
an unrealized
in any case to distinguish
between
possibility
at all.
and nothing
and if it did, itmay have
may or may not have happened,
Something
been one thing or another. Liza and Stavrogin may have simply stared
to
strangely at each other or, "on the contrary," she may have intended
was
it
him.
If
have
had
various
her
that
motivations,
may
purpose,
slap
here at all.
others not mentioned
including, presumably,
stories. The real
What we are given here is not one but many possible
so one has
is that whatever
did happen,
could have
any of these incidents
point
not
is
of
is
the
the one
field
What
important
possibilities,
happened.
version
of
undeniable
actualized. By depriving
any
actuality, Dostoevsky
itself. The sideshadows
crowd out the actual event.
reveals the field
are
in which case the sideshadows
Indeed, nothing may have happened,
all
there
are.
Rumor
With
rumors
facts
uncertain,
circulate
countless
rumors
as Hero
predominate.
versions.
Indeed,
No
matter
rumors
serve
what
happens,
as one
of
the
novels. Apparently,
Pyotr
prime movers of action in most of Dostoevsky's
to
of
seeks
his
maximize
the
power
Stepanovich
revolutionary
organiza
tion by conveying
exaggerated
impressions of its size and power; or is he,
606
NEW
on
LITERARY
HISTORY
to hide the extent of its power by discrediting
rumor? It is hard to know, and though we, like
the matter
is not
suspect one thing or another,
the contrary,
accurate versions
seeking
as mere
the townspeople,
may
aims.
is just the effect at which Pyotr Stepanovich
resolved, which
or refutes
he
hints
And so everywhere
goes
Pyotr Stepanovich
drops
a
the
method
echoes
what no one has imagined.
that
eerily
Using
too
relies on providing
chronicler who describes him, Pyotr Stepanovich
many
he
facts:
on,
patters
and
digresses,
intimate more
recounts
"irrelevancies,"
which,
tells. In Bakhtin's
together,
we
that
draws
the
terms,
say
Pyotr Stepanovich
unwittingly
might
chronicler
into his speech zone. He is in this way a sort of co-chronicler,
that the novel itself may be a kind of decoy.
which raises the suspicion
find themselves
itself, the townspeople
by intrigue
sorting
Intrigued
countless
clever
and feeling
when
versions
they arrive at an
through
is soon dislodged;
the readers of the
one, which,
however,
appealing
at
the townspeople's
novel,
simplicity, do the
they may smile
though
ever
as
same thing. Nothing
is
it seems, and the novel ends with many
a
unresolved
(Who killed Fedka? Was Pyotr Stepanovich
mysteries
double agent? Was Stepan Trofimovich
really his father?). The plurality
to singularity. The Possessed offers a haze of
is unreduced
of possibilities
taken
stories
about
a haze
of
stories
than he actually
stories.
character
of The
is the main
almost be said that rumor
It might
as the book progresses,
that
it becomes
Possessed. Indeed,
apparent
rumors
seem
to
spread
on
their
own,
even
in situations
where
there
was
no one to spread them. They do so because
they reflect and evoke the
Clouds
all actions and all nonactions.
field of possibilities
surrounding
of story hover over the narrative
landscape. We are used to thinking of
from event A to event B to event C, but The Possessed
stories as moving
to
events
field of possible
from one
indistinct
differently,
proceeds
to
no less definite.
not from point
It moves
another,
point but from
smudge
to
smudge.
Pseudo-Foreshadowing
and
Backshadowing
that at first
create sideshadowing,
also uses a device
Dostoevsky
to employ a form of
seems to preclude
it. At times he appears
glance
which, one might
suppose, allows the future to dictate
foreshadowing,
to close down time. On closer
to
and
therefore
the
present
possibilities
what might be called pseudo
exhibit
these
however,
passages
inspection,
the
of
they produce
tropes
foreshadowing,
foreshadowing:
though using
To
the opposite
effect.
SIDESHADOWING
AND
607
TEMPICS
are aware that his narrators often allude to a
of Dostoevsky
which
them to tell the
is, indeed, what has motivated
catastrophe,
in
The
to describe
the
first
Possessed
"In
story
place.
begins,
undertaking
in our town, till lately wrapped
the recent and strange
incidents
in
I
find
to
uneventful
forced
in
absence
of
skill
obscurity,
myself
literary
Readers
future
begin my story rather far back, that is to say, with certain biographical
that talented and highly esteemed
details concerning
gentleman,
Stepan
to the
Trofimovich
(P 3). We have here an allusion
Verkhovensky"
no
as to
which
will
contain
statement
but
future,
"strange incidents,"
we
is promised,
what those incidents will be. Something
not
but
do
know
what.
a sequence
the novel,
the chronicler
often begins
of
Throughout
events by saying that they contributed
to a later catastrophe,
but just
what the nature of that catastrophe was?and
how it affected
the major
this sort of rhetoric could easily
characters?is
left obscure. Although
have its place
in a novel based on foreshadowing,
here
it serves a
different
function.
first thing to note about pseudo-foreshadowing
is that it closes off
virtually no options. To be sure, it tells us that there will be some sort of
a strange event is not necessarily disastrous?but
that
disaster?although
much
is always a given
in any Dostoevsky
novel. This sort of vague
warning has a double effect. First, it alerts the reader to the importance
of forthcoming
details that have the potential
for catastrophe.
it
Second,
that
otherwise
and
unforeseen
sensational
will
take
promises
something
futures. The result is a sense that
place. We focus keenly on possible
is
may
anything
happen?which
just what Dostoevskian
sideshadowing
creates. Whereas
limits options,
severely
foreshadowing
pseudo-fore
does
Instead of anticipating
the reverse.
some
shadowing
specific
The
outcome
or
course
of
events,
readers
come
to
the
expect
radically
unexpected.
notebooks
make
clear that he used
this device quite
Dostoevsky's
even
on
not
he
when
had
settled
what
would follow
consciously
precisely
and when foreshadowing
therefore could not have been his aim. Long
before he had settled on a specific plot, for instance, he included
the
following
fires
and
plan
other
for
the
strange
opening
developments
passage
just
in our,
cited:
i.e.,
"N.B.
S?a
. . .Our
province
recent
notwith
I shall begin my narrative with T. N. Granovsky
for
[the model
standing,
. . . Timofei
Nikolaevich
not
did
Trofimovich].
Stepan
[Granovsky]
understand
nihilism and used to argue about itwith Shatov. Yet these are
of which many are needed;
also, introduce as many particu
digressions,
. .. then all of a sudden
lar events as required
bring in a truly promising
some
Finish
a
it
event
with
and
lot
of
noise" (NP177).
"Some
plot.
major
608
LITERARY
NEW
HISTORY
event," "a truly promising
virtually any major
plot": apparently,
or dramatic plot would accord with the initial vague prediction.
events are precluded.
for sensational
And virtually no possibilities
a
of The Idiot,
At the beginning
truly remarkable
example of pseudo
major
event
occurs:
foreshadowing
"In
one
of
the
third-class
two
carriages,
one
gers had, from early dawn, been
sitting facing
window. Both were young men, not very well dressed
little luggage; both were of rather striking appearance,
passen
another
by the
and traveling with
and both showed
a desire to enter into conversation.
If they had both known what was
at that moment,
have been
in one another
remarkable
they would
so strangely brought
them opposite
at
had
the
which
chance
surprised
one another
in a third-class carriage of the Warsaw
train."5 Everything
their future
and Rogozhin
of Myshkin
this meeting
suggests
of
events. The
"both"
clauses
in sensational
involvement
sequence
their life stories; and the comment
intimates a vague parallel between
in each other they
that "if they had . . . known what was remarkable"
at
them
chance
the
"would have been
strange
bringing
surprised"
a mysterious
at
seems
of
hand
to
intimate
the
or,
least,
destiny
together,
and who are
the whole
novel
causal chain. For critics who know
over
the
friends'
fatal
this
Nastasya Fillipovna
passage,
rivalry
rereading
seems already contained
here. Both Rogozhin's
attempt on Myshkin's
at the beginning,
like a
life and the novel's
tragic end seem present
events.
future dictating
subsequent
is so vague that it does not specify
On the other hand, this prediction
the two may turn out to
between
the connection
what or how important
as if it
in retrospect
look
be. Whatever
might
subsequently
happened
this passage could be an instance
had been intimated here. In principle,
or of pseudo-foreshadowing,
is often the
which
either of foreshadowing
about
case.
First
Critics
readers
to
attentive
are
potentials,
virtually
a
experience
rereaders
always
rereaders,
that
vague
prediction
see
actualities
future
and
so
the
very
makes
them
present.
of
their
already
nature
of
to choose
the interpretation
them unawares
activity predisposes
we
this
from
if
ourselves
But
professional
separate
foreshadowing.
is really more persuasive?
which alternative
predisposition,
Despite
a
reluctance
to
rely
on
external
evidence
as
a
way
of
solving
of this sort, I would note that if we have in mind Dostoevsky's
problems
the answer is clear.
this passage,
intention when he wrote and published
that even after Dostoevsky
to The Idiot reveal conclusively
The notebooks
no
the first of the novel's four parts, he had essentially
had published
a
of
few
To mention
idea of how to continue.
important questions
just
not know whether Nastasya Fillipovna would marry Rogozhin
plot, he did
or Myshkin; whether
she would kill herself, be killed, or die naturally; or
AND
SIDESHADOWING
609
TEMPICS
or saved. In one draft, Rogozhin
would be damned
whether Rogozhin
was to take up with Aglaia,
In
and in another Myshkin with Adelaida!
terms of the story, it would be hard to imagine much greater openness.
no matter which of these options Dostoevsky
And equally
important,
had chosen, critics could have found signs of "foreshadowing";
because
with their plethora of possible paths, allow
the devices of sideshadowing,
If one simply looks for preparations
for almost any continuation.
for
and ignores preparations
what did happen,
for what could have but did
one will necessarily
not happen,
detect
the result is
foreshadowing;
guaranteed.
spuriously
was about as uncertain
After finishing
Part I, Dostoevsky
of future
events as his readers. In fact, even toward the end of his notes for Part III
(written between August and October
1868), Dostoevsky was still consid
to marry Myshkin
to Aglaia! The magnificent
to
ering whether
ending
one of the most memorable
in world
the novel?surely
literature?did
not appear
in his notebooks
until October
4. We sense the thrill of
occurs
to
it
when
him:
of the 4th Part. N. F. is
half
"2nd
discovery
. . .Goes to
to
the
Prince.
in
(He murders.)
engaged
Rogozhin
despair.
Summons
Finale. Not
the Prince. Rogozhin
and the Prince
even after
bad."6 And strangely enough,
still
around
with
other
Dostoevsky
played
endings.
fixed plan, constantly playing with countless possible
and inventing
characters
for whom
he had not
sections,
wrote
Dostoevsky
so
that many
the
beside
this October
corpse.
4 note,
a
without
Writing
and shifting plots,
in earlier
prepared
continuations
could
grow
out
of
scene and so that we would be alert to
His initial scene
possibilities.
does not close down time, as foreshadowing
but
alerts
the reader
does,
to its openness
while allowing
the author to go in many directions.
I have heard critics say in response:
but however
he came by the
the
does
foreshadow
it?look
how
the end
ending,
beginning
perfectly
can be found in the
are
I
think
that
these
readers
commit
beginning!
each
called the fallacy of retrospection
and what Michael
ting what Tolstoy
Bernstein
and I have called backshadowing.7
After the fact, one sees the
to have emerged
that happened
and ascribes
it to advance
patterns
In
a
men
are
a log and
of
group
planning.
Tolstoy's example,
hauling
a
want
to
each
haul
it
in
different
all
and
they
way. They
get up
pull as
turns
out
wish
it
to
one
and
in
chance
of
them
the
wished.
they
go
way
by
We are likely to conclude
his plan. Had
the men
they were following
some
in
we
other
would
someone
have
said
followed
gone
way,
they
else's
wanted,
tion
plan;
we
of
and
since
have
set
advance
Backshadowing?the
up
every
our
way
is
reasonably
interpretive
planning
ascription
is almost
apparatus
compelled
of foreshadowing
to what
close
so
that
to be
after
someone
the
assump
confirmed.
the fact?is
an
610
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
common habit, which filters out the contingency
of the world
extremely
were earlier presents, with
and blocks us from seeing that past moments
so palpably displays.
all the openness
that our own present
out
If nothing
had
of
and Myshkin's
first
grown
significant
Rogozhin's
to
scene?
what
would
rereaders
attribute
this
meeting,
significance
Instances in which foreshadowing
could have been present but is not are
we
can
not
noticed.
But
look for them, look for loose ends,
usually
are present as strongly as in
instances where
the signs of foreshadowing
the first scene but
evidence
lead nowhere.
for foreshadowing
where
That is one
we do find
the
good test of whether
it is real or manufactured
by retrospection.
Part I of The Idiot contains much
As it happens,
stronger
signs of a
and Ganya?constant
misunderstand
future conflict between Myshkin
seem to lay the
a blow?all
of which
ings, insults, vague threats, and
enemies. When
three
for them to be significant
Ganya
groundwork
"an idiot," the full
calls Myshkin
times ominously
(and eponymously)
a dramatic
clash. And he tells
of the title seems to promise
weight
we
believe him) that they will eventually be
that he is sure (and
Myshkin
turns into a
But in fact Ganya
either great friends or great enemies.
character, and nothing
minor,
significant or
though frequently present,
him and Myshkin.
In Part I, Dostoevsky
"fatal" takes place between
than he
for many future tragedies, more
the potentials
evidently planted
to specific ones. In
and without
could possibly develop,
limiting himself
of Part I, he reminds himself
written after the publication
the notebooks
to do something more with Ganya but never does. If the vague promises
those about Ganya
turn out to be justified,
about Rogozhin
(and some
on both of Myshkin's
other characters) do not. Reflecting
early conflicts,
we
may
If we
suspect
reflect
that
on
neither
Dostoevsky's
outcome
creative
was
inevitable.
process,
an
intriguing
possibility
habit
itself. Sideshadowing
initially resulted from Dostoevsky's
presents
so
a firm advance plan. But it worked
in process, without
of creating
tenets he valued?freedom
and
to suggest the philosophical
brilliantly
open
time?that
he
made
a conscious
practice
of
it as well.
Dostoevsky
of the creative process and
learned to capture the palpable uncertainty
to the text itself. By so doing, he found a new
to transfer that excitement
way to convey freedom. He also created a sort of work that poetics, with
cannot
of real processuality,
of time and its elimination
its spatialization
more
a work whose
is
lifelike
In creating
accommodate.
temporality
the limitations of poetics and all
demonstrated
than artlike, Dostoevsky
interpretive models.
synchronie
AND
SIDESHADOWING
611
TEMPICS
Roulette
Dostoevsky wrote The Idiot forward, not backward. He did not execute
a structure planned
in advance. And because
he published
the novel
was
not
to
not
serially,
knowing?really
knowing?what
going
happen
of correcting
the text to make
earlier
there was no possibility
next,
states in
events look forward to later ones. As this compulsive
gambler
one of his letters, "I took a chance, as at roulette:
'Maybe it will develop
as I write it!'"8
the amazing
thrill of
experiences
Everybody who reads Dostoevsky
that could go either way, taken on the moment,
of decisions
suspense,
the future is genuinely
where
open. We sense that the author was as
as the characters
and the readers about what would happen
anxious
than literary suspense: we
next, and so we in fact have something more
And it is therefore
have genuine
curious that the methods
uncertainty.
these
find meaning
of criticism, when
scenes,
they interpret
by import
and
and
foreshadowing,
thereby read out just what
ing inevitability
them
makes
For any writer,
them quintessentially
Dostoevskian.
thrilling, what makes
I think, that should be a sign that something
has gone
badly wrong.
in which a frustrated
Consider
the everyday circumstance
storyteller
are
to
have
had
We
been
there."
often driven to say this when
says: "you
an event took place
that was impressive because,
surprisingly,
things
as in a story. That surprise is the
worked out as if they had been planned,
one wants to convey. But once one tells it
very aspect of the experience
as a story the listener knows that
story-like is to be narrated,
something
and so the very act of telling makes
it almost impossible for the surprise
to be conveyed.
The Idiot as a structure does just that to its
Reading
scenes.
thrilling
The very best critic of this novel, in any language, Robin Feuer Miller,
first shows that, in terms of the creative process,
could
foreshadowing
not be present
and then finds it in the finished work nevertheless.
I
are
to
her
most
instincts
here
similar
those
of
critics
who
imagine
good
to read the text as a spatializable
have been
trained
structure. The
difference
between Miller and all other critics is that she is aware of the
of this method
to a work created processually,
when applied
problems
and
she
She
addresses
wants
to
them.
assert
that
Myshkin's
stories
of
execution
"foreshadow"
in Part III, even though, as she has pointed
out, the
Ippolit's
not
idea
of
to
had
occurred
wrote
when
he
Part
very
Ippolit
Dostoevsky
to how Miller handles
I. It is worth listening
this problem,
because
I do
not believe
that poetics can produce
essence
that
is
in
any explanation
more
than this one (though
ones with a
it can produce
sophisticated
confession
612
LITERARY
NEW
HISTORY
"Of course we know from
Miller writes:
the
vocabulary).
that Dostoevsky
had not even planned
of
notebooks
the existence
mean
at
wrote
I
not
the
the
time
of
novel.
But
that
does
he
Part
Ippolit
in this novel. As
of construction
that we cannot
talk about unities
a
we
its
read
after
work,
readers,
inevitably gauge
having
impact upon us
as a whole. Prophecies
exist within a work; one cannot
and fulfillments
of his undertaking
the writer at the beginning
deny them simply because
did not himself
assume."9
know the exact shape that his work would
all
but
what
and
fulfillments:
about
those
that are
promises
Prophecies
different
not fulfilled,
such as the overdetermined
signs that there will be a
are countless
such loose
conflict between Myshkin
and Ganya? There
not come true. Notice
ends in The Idiot, apparent
that
do
prophecies
to rereading as opposed
to
also the priority given inMiller's formulation
no
was
essence
matter
is
of this argument
how the work
(1)
reading. The
it is a structure, because
written,
(2) that's all it
read it that way. But is it inevitable? Or is this
by the habits of poetics?
produced
In life, we often assess past events that led to
that the past events were somehow put
assuming
We
not
have
know
that
to be
and
so
because
events without
to
there to contribute
that there is a unity of
future
assuming
events
many
that do seem patternlike
read the ones
did
and without
of construction
the unities
construction.
can be, we "inevitably"
a critic's inevitability,
not
do
differently
are
many
not.
a
fit
pattern,
because
precisely
fact
The
we
and
that
they
someone's
a
actually came true does not turn it into
we
on it, because
know most
does not confer
inevitability
prophecy,
we are so impressed when one
not
come
true.
is
That
do
why
predictions
is surprised that Tieresias
does in life, as we are not in literature. Nobody
turns out to be right. But everyone
remarks when an analyst accurately
on one
prediction
the market.
forecasts
Let me
a
later
upon
and
the
earlier
later
whole,
one
typically
It is one
clarify:
one
of the whole;
unless
occasion
quite
one.
The
the second
events
draw
to say that an earlier
thing
another
first
does
on
to
say
that
the
demands
formulation
not.
and
later
In life, where
resemble
is no
there
in omens,
believes
imitate others or repeat ourselves,
event
one
foreshadows
echoes
a structure,
or
draws
a
plan
we have no plan of the
earlier
ones.
Nevertheless,
in life. We
foreshadowing
does not
but such behavior
imply foreshadowing.
event echoes
but is not
formulation?one
second
The
another,
on
not
causation.
it?relies
foreshadowed
backward,
forward,
only
by
differs from foreshadow
and so this formulation
Time is asymmetrical,
between
thematic
connection
is a strong
there
ing. Undoubtedly,
in which
but
and
anecdotes
execution
Ippolit's confession,
Myshkin's
an answer, but that
is the causality flowing? Poetics presumes
direction
AND
SIDESHADOWING
613
TEMPICS
are possible,
Two alternatives
begs the question.
presumption
cannot decide
the question by fiat.
Poetics detects structure by taking the narrative
with
patterns
visible;
numerous
contains
the difference
about
causality
explicit
goes
both ways. As
the
passages?among
and we
as a synchronie whole,
it happens,
The Idiot
novel's
most
famous?
between
and process,
and its characters
product
as process: "Oh,
insist
that
life
be
understood
(especially Ippolit himself)
sure
was
not
be
that
Columbus
when
he
had discovered
you may
happy
was
he
but
when
It's
life
that
it...
America,
matters, nothing
discovering
of discovering,
but life?the
the everlasting
and perpetual
process
not
at
the
all"
could
that not be
itself,
(7 375). Why
process,
discovery
true of The Idiot itself? Dostoevsky
wrote a book that was not only about
and designed
process but was also itself processual?written
processually
to be read that way.
No Pie
In Great Expectations, Pip gives a pie to a convict,
and the reader
assumes
event will
that this apparently
in fact be
inconsequential
or itwould not be there. The fact
Itwill mean something,
consequential.
that novels have structure justifies
this assumption.
Events are shaped
not only by incidents within
the fictional world, which
in
the heroes
could know, but also by the need for a symmetrical
principle
story and
an effective
aesthetic
artifact, considerations
they could not know. As
Bakhtin would say, they testify to the author's "essential surplus" over his
characters. This double causation of events distinguishes
the temporality
of even the most realistic novel from that of life. We do not expect our
to be Dickensian
daily donations
pies. In novels, when bread is cast upon
the waters, it comes back manifold,
but in life it often just drifts away.
In
so
many
of
Dickens's
great
novels,
we
marvel
at
the
author's
pie
skill. Characters
and incidents mentioned
at ran
baking
apparently
events and the currently
dom?motivated
only by previous
unfolding
out to be tied together in all sorts of
action?turn
complex ways. In Bleak
life turns out to be the woman who first
House, the lost love of Boythorn's
raised Esther and who was Lady Dedlock's
sister. And so on. Dickens's
because
is so artful?and
so
their design
plots stand as masterpieces
life. But The Idiot does not resemble
palpable. They are utterly unlike
Bleak House in this respect. Dickens
rarely tells us that some apparently
minor
incident is a pie, although we usually know.
does seem
Dostoevsky
to tell us unmistakably?and
then: no pie.
We live our lives reading experiences
without prophecies,
foreshadow
or
the
we
must
that
ing,
assumption
"gauge [each incident's]
impact
614
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
upon us as a whole." What whole? And if we don't read life that way, why
is it inevitable that we must read every art work that way?
A Creative
Process
Is Always Assumed
read art as Miller wants us to read The Idiot because
usually
are designed,
and we assume
artworks
that the author has
typically
a
as we
in
the
work with
it and rewritten,
written
whole
mind, written
cannot plan and rewrite our lives as we live them. That
is why the
in understanding
art. They
of poetics are so often justified
assumptions
We
assume
a certain
creative
and
process,
that
is usually
assumption
rewarded.
or "foreshadowing";
when
When
readers detect
they look for
"pies"
an
see
two causally
of
when
and
how
closure;
they
signs
approaching
no
even
each
other
character
lines
unrelated
reflect
upon
though
plot
the parallels; at such times, they are
in either one could have planned
necessarily
assume
assuming
creative
a
some
creative
such
that
process
has
erased
To
process.
its
tracks
be
in
sure,
they
producing
a
in which whatever
false starts or
artifact, a process
designed
perfectly
loose ends there may have been have been eliminated?but
that, too, is
a specific kind of creating,
different
from others. That is, even though
critics from numerous schools of poetics reject as a fallacy consideration of the
creative process, this very rejection depends on a certain notion of the creative
our
and justifies
leads to perfection
planning
process, one in which
in design.
confidence
is often put, we do not choose whether to
the way the question
Despite
If that is
consider
the creative process but which account of it to choose.
on
a
the
creative
notion
of
so, if all schools of poetics
implicitly rely
process,
we must
then
the
when
consider
an
one
assumed
alternative.
But
by
we
poetics
none
have
is ostentatiously
that offers
untrue,
a
principled
way of reading a text along with the process of its creation, a text that is
For such works?a
group that includes The Idiot, War
truly processual.
and Peace, Tristram Shandy, Eugene Onegin, and doubtless many others?
we
need
a
tempics.
Across
the Disciplines
issues.
As you may have guessed,
tempics involves broad philosophical
seem to me to be
stance Iwill call Leibnizian
Poetics and a philosophical
and both raise troubling problems when applied
intimately connected,
indiscriminately.
AND
SIDESHADOWING
615
TEMPICS
stated that literary criticism and theory, for all their manifold
recent years, still cling to an essentially Aristotelian
in
in
model
changes
structure. A novel may
which the literary work is viewed as a synchronie
as a
in time, but (we assume)
it exists and is best analyzed
unfold
we
can
a
at
in
take
Its
whole
exists
glance.
narrativity
perfectly organized
I have
and it is only from the perspective
of its
within the world depicted,
characters
that time flows forward. For the critic, anything
contingent,
or does not fulfill a pattern,
leads to nothing
which
indicates a flaw.
the true artwork and the job of the critic,
Perfection apparently marks
is to show how the contingent,
trained in whatever
the unful
school,
are
and
the
all
Structure
banishes
filled,
asymmetrical
merely apparent.
eventness.
if by temporality we mean
temporality,
If anything,
this poetics has grown stronger in recent years. Concepts
as have methods
have changed,
for detecting
it and
of wholeness
of the agency
movements
it. The variegated
ascriptions
producing
known as cultural studies and the poetics of culture by and large extend
of the text to nonliterary
this poetic model
is read "as a
culture, which
text." In this way, the literary-textual model
of "reading culture" assumes
a hidden unity in the world comparable
to that of the literary text. The
or else why would
is a metaphysical
world
trained in
poem;
people
to
unavailable
literary studies be able to offer revealing
interpretations
to see culture
in this way, his
others? Despite
Freud's own reluctance
ideas are easily adapted to the poetics of culture. One has only to assume
that what he says of the internal world is also true of the external one. To
be sure, cultural poetics often invokes the importance
of "history"; but
this history
is typically purged
a synchronie
of eventness.
It becomes
and Tynyanov's
famous observation
system sliced sideways. Jakobson
that the history of a system is in turn a system seems to cast its shadow on
non
theories.10 They
subsequent
typically envisage
temporal processes
as
processually,
rather
remains
a mere
than as a genuine,
a mere
parameter,
a
unfolding,
systematic
unpredictable,
not
an
and
revelation
eventful
of
a
system,
becoming. Time
operator.
one is tempted
In the case of Russian Formalism,
to discern
in this
to
the
influence
of
the
in
which
sciences,
approach
temporality
physical
the concept
of "law" so long implied a universe where
time merely
can
unfolds and where nothing
eventful
for
laws
dictate all
truly
happen:
that follows while revealing perfect order under apparent
contingency.
As Leibniz
a
insisted, there must be in the universe
(as in the poem),
"sufficient reason" for everything.
In Leibniz's
famous correspondence
with Clarke, he insists that any model of the solar system?like
Newton's?
which demands
that God occasionally
intervene
makes
God an
simply
inferior watchmaker.
must
No,
fit, perfectly.
says Leibniz,
everything
to this view, but what we
Newton
and Clarke strongly objected
eventually
616
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
a Leibnizian
and after?is
of Newton's
got?with
Laplace
perfecting
think poetics, almost all of it, is Leibnizian.
models.111
It aspires to find
a sufficient
reason for everything,
shows the work,
like the world of
Leibniz's God, to be inevitably what it is, without a shred of accident or
option.
model
also displays a number of other features that recur in
that have influenced
several disciplines.
is
First, the world
a
one
to
state
reason
in
be
of
is
That
Leibniz
presumed
equilibrium.
so strongly to Newton's
idea that, without
divine
intervention,
objects
the solar system would not remain stable. It must be, by itself, in a state
of perpetual
equilibrium;
anything else would mean
invoking unneces
A
miracles.
number
of
other
economics
and
sary
disciplines?notably
Leibniz's
theories
social
sciences
that borrow
from it?have
often favored equilibrium
a
to
in
turn
which
lead
static
models,
analysis or to various conceptions
as a "dynamic equilibrium"?concepts
of history conceived
that may be
as
of
the
idea. Genuine
regarded
rough equivalents
Jakobson-Tynyanov
is ruled out.
contingency
state of the world
the
is optimal.
For Leibniz,
Second,
optimality
derives from the fact that God would choose only the best of all possible
He goes so far as to state that there cannot be identical
alternatives.
else God would have no basis to prefer placing a
particles?atoms?or
given
any
given
in one
atom
set
of
than another.
rather
place
one
alternatives,
and
only
It follows
one?the
for him
best?will
that
take
In other disciplines,
of some
may be the product
place.
optimality
as
so
take place under
version of the invisible hand,
long
exchanges
and other
ideal conditions.
when
competition
Especially
perfect
we wind up with a
and equilibrium
thinking are combined,
optimality
irrelevant. For the optimal equilibrium
world in which history becomes
acts
point
as
an
attractor,
and
wherever
one
starts,
one
will
wind
up
a marble
as (to use a common
into a
there?much
analogy)
dropped
the
bowl will, whatever
bottom. The path taken is
path it takes, reach
In
uninteresting.
recent
years,
those
economists
and
other
social
scien
to this kind of thinking have formulated
the
tists who have objected
to
of "path dependency,"
which
notion
the point reached
according
on
on the path
in turn depend
does depend
taken, which may
use
events at earlier stages. To
the standard example,
that is
contingent
how we wound
to
several
more
up with
efficient
the suboptimal
QWERTY
keyboard,
as
opposed
alternatives.12
at a given moment.
For
is wholly present
what is meaningful
and for the tradition known as natural theology, God's plan is
in two books, Scripture and
before us. He revealed himself
everywhere
nature, which can be read for signs of perfect wisdom. This is precisely
Third,
Leibniz,
the notion
that Darwin
most
wished
to dispute.
In anthropology,
the
AND
SIDESHADOWING
617
TEMPICS
the present
in strong versions of functionalism.
appears
no "survivals"
that
culture
contains
argued
explicitly
can
because
survive
into
the
that does not
present
(vestigials)
nothing
serve a sufficient function
in the present.13
or per
These assumptions?sufficient
reason, equilibrium,
optimality
of
sufficiency
Malinowski
all shared by poetics. Otherwise
itwould
fection, and synchronicity?are
be hard to explain the "hermeneutic
almost
automatic
imperative"?the
with an
impulse of literary critics from diverse schools, when confronted
a
in
to
a
not
it
flaw
show
is
if
the
flaw
work is
apparent
why
masterpiece,
are
refutations
future
For
dissertations.
interpreted
correctly. Apparent
there exists a sufficient
the
reason, which
every apparent
shortcoming
critic will discern and thereby show that the work is in an optimal
state
as whole graspable
at a moment.
analyzable
Leibniz also insists that philosophy
works by deriving what must be the
case axiomatically,
from first principles. No vacuums can exist, he insists
to Clarke, because only a plenum
is consistent with the axioms of divine
In
the
social
sciences,
envy has also led to the
perfection.
physics
of
models
derivable
is crucial about these
What
prestige
mathematically.
kinds of thinking is that the contingent
is necessarily
excluded. There
is
nor temporality
neither contingency
in Euclid. By and large, poetics has
not been afflicted with physics envy, but at various
the
periods, especially
have been
to reasoning
theorists
drawn
down
from first
present,
about language or culture, while regarding
a concern with
principles
facts as somehow untheoretical
and naive.
contingent
In short, poetics can be taken, in a broader sense, to reflect a
style of
literature. This style of thinking
tends to
thinking that goes far beyond
work best when
the phenomena
to be explained
(or
really are perfectly
and where each fact can be explained
structured,
nearly perfectly)
by
others simultaneously
this ideal,
present. Great lyric poems do approach
which iswhy, for most
literary masterpieces,
poetics works tolerably well.
But not for all. And in the cultural world outside of literature,
perfection
rare. Thus literary poetics has suffered fewer
is exceedingly
challenges
than
about
its
analogues
elsewhere.
we
Nevertheless,
can
a
learn
great
deal
our
and about alternatives
if we look at those
assumptions
from other disciplines.
Then we would more
analogues
readily appreci
ate the need for a tempics even within
literary studies.
Giraffe Tails and Mole
In the work
moment
remarked,
has
a
of poetics?the
no
special
psychological
meaning.
term now
"Now"
illusion. Moreover,
Eyes
taken broadly?the
becomes,
as
Einstein
in such a world,
present
once
there are
618
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
no
true agents. A comprehensive
pattern governs all, and sideshadows
are as much
a mirage
as presentness.
The
idea of the "death of the
mere
in
the
writer
locus of converging
which
becomes
the
author,"
a
a
such
is
clear
of
view.
forces,
fairly
expression
Even the physical sciences no longer necessarily
conceive of reality in
never
this way, and evolutionary
As
Ernst
has.
Mayr has observed,
biology
in evolutionary
"the concept of law is far less helpful
(and for
biology
in any science dealing with time-dominated
that matter
such
processes
as
or
oceanog
cosmology, meteorology,
paleontology,
paleoclimatology,
raphy) than the concept of historical narratives."14 By "time-dominated
processes,"
Mayr
means
more
than
processes
take
that
time,
as all do.
He
means
a predetermined
outcome.
evidently
eventful processes without
a
matter
Evolution
is not
of general
laws specifying
results,
unique
in advance.
loose regulating
Rather,
predictable
general,
principles
in the background
in the foreground.
and contingency
governs
operate
As Stephen Jay Gould
likes to say, run the tape over again, and the result
evolution
is genuinely
The process of biological
may well be different.
processual.15
of this paper, but I think a
take us far beyond
the boundaries
as
to
to
of
how
think
eventful,
open processes
genuine,
superb guide
no
use
for
is
had
who,
Darwin,
by
incidentally,
meaningful
provided
to biology. The basic
of causality when applied
models
physics-derived
a
or set of facts, which
to
of
is
The
describe
scene,
trope
Origin of Species
we are tempted
to grasp synchronically
and get us to see it as discrete
It would
interacting
processes,
processes,
moreover,
which
are
not
completed
in high
the loose ends have not been tied up. Although
and in which
we are told that every feature of an
school renditions
of Darwinism,
organism must have a function put there by natural selection, Darwin
us to think of all organisms
in terms of imperfection. He
encourages
are not perfectly designed,
and do not
that organisms
insists, repeatedly,
the most of their ecological
niches.16 That iswhy when animals or
make
are imported
into New Zealand or small
plants from Europe or America
archipelagos,
they
almost
always
wipe
out
their
native
competitors,
who
clearly were not optimally designed.
I wish I could go into detail here, but let me provide
just a few
a species of mole
lives
its
entire life
that
Darwin
describes
examples.
no
has
And
for
nevertheless
them.
It
it
but
has
need
eyes,
underground.
no
were
see
to
even
would
do
if
of
the
this
the
mole
eyes
day,
yet,
light
a thick membrane.
are
current
No
with
because
covered
they
good
function can explain these eyes; they do not pay their way, and therefore
as the
historically,
They must be explained
represent
imperfection.
the mole had a use for eyes. The
inheritance
of an earlier stage when
SIDESHADOWING
AND
619
TEMPICS
same reasoning
to a species of inland geese
that nevertheless
applies
feet.
have webbed
insists that no functional
explana
Why do giraffes have tails? Darwin
the minimal
the tail
tion he can think of would work, because
purpose
a fly swatter?would
serves?as
to
be insufficient
for natural
selection
one
not
It
its
Of
could
there
it.
does
insist
that
course,
way.
pay
develop
must be such a function,
but that, for Darwin, would be allowing
theory
to think away history, and history iswhat Darwin
is all about. In brief, his
ancestors
tails from remote
is that giraffes
inherited
for
explanation
fishes they are needed
for
whom
they surely did serve a function?for
animals found new uses for tails in changed
condi
or
or
in
aid
others
defense?but
balance,
gave
tions?they
flying,
or
them no or only a minimal
function.
If one is thinking synchronically,
in terms of perfect design, one will miss what is going on.
as agglomerations
sees organisms
from different
Darwin
periods,
in their own way, but not entirely;
which
cohere
they show signs of
different
evolved to
times. Functions
Structures
change and disappear.
swimming.
Some
may
serve
one
function
come
to
serve
another,
and
then
none
at
all.
The
in what
it now is. It must
be
present
organism
we
an
in
like
understood
the
understand
old
way
temporally,
something
owners
in different
that has passed
social
building
through many
contexts. We must imagine each earlier moment
in much
the same way,
its own pressure
with a present
for enough
to
exerting
functionality
on. Nor
survive in a given environment,
but with various pasts hanging
ever some sort of culmination.
state of an organism
is the present
The
not
a
to
is
in
but
in
with
interaction
process,
preset goal,
organism
for many
contingency
allowing
paths. Darwin wants us to see the
or
He could not be farther from Leibniz
vestigial and the potential.
a
an
I
and
think
of
of
Darwin,
poetics,
judicious
reading
exploration
our synchronie,
how he thinks, would help us overcome
functionalist
and help us develop
the tempics we need.
prejudices
shows
Poetics
this history
as a Limiting
Case
he has been appropriated
when
Especially
by the social sciences,
Darwin
is often read, falsely I believe, as a perfectionist.
Of the two key
ideas in the Origin?the
of
and
natural
selection?the
species
historicity
as a mechanism
is read without
the first, and interpreted
second
that
In that case, any feature of an organism or
insures optimality.
analogous
to serve a commensurate
have a sufficient
function?to
entity is assumed
reason
for being
there?or
natural
selection
should
have
eliminated
it.
620
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
an argument
Darwinism
for a purely
thereby becomes
But
to
and
functional
is
miss
this
Darwin's
central
synchronie
approach.
that
is
mole
it
proves historicity. A
point,
eyes?that
imperfection?those
at
a
divine being,
have no need for
would
moment,
creating
species
Like
and strong func
Leibniz,
structuralism,
vestigial organs.
poetics,
same
to
Darwinism
the
tradition
of
tionalism,
perfectionist
belongs
as
natural
and
creationism.
thought
theology
someone
or cultural entity is a
Whenever
that a biological
proposes
we
was.
To the poeticians
of
ask
who
the
system,
may
perfect
designer
Perfectionist
culture,
who
those
assume
that
a culture
is
to a
analogous
well-wrought
poem, we may query: who made culture that way? Who was the artist that
so that causally unrelated
events reflect on
made all of culture cohere,
a novel do? Who
each other the way causally unrelated
lines
in
plot
that position
time? The strong
"outside" the world and beyond
occupied
view of the poetics of culture is creationism
the
transplanted.
Typically,
no
mechanism
of
culture
that
how
else
provide
explains
poeticians
has been attained or why it can be presumed.
Economists
perfection
at least invoke a version of natural selection
deal with optimality
and the invisible hand; indeed, we may locate the appeal of all "invisible
hand models"
in their ability to do what Leibniz's God does without
a
invoking
deity.
who
this way, but one often
sometimes
the world
really works
Perhaps
reflect the predispositions
of model
wonders whether
such descriptions
the
and
The more
the less
less
builders.
contingency,
predictability,
an
the
of
Thus
derived
instinct
power
theory possesses.
axiomatically
is usually to explain away contingency
with
eventful
theoreticians
and,
it,
Once
temporality.
yielding
present
tion of
because
we
are
to it. It would
structure
structure
it contains
really
aware
of
this
be worthwhile,
is sufficient
genuine
in each
or whether
and history?history
we
instinct,
that
we
may
want
to
resist
case,
to ask whether
need
some
is irreducible
combina
to structure
contingency.
a
in Chekhov
that the life we live were merely
wishes
character
we could then live it over, the right way. Most of life
draft
and
that
rough
literature because we live our rough drafts. Almost
does not resemble
or works with maximum
is
efficiency.
nothing
organized
perfectly
A
that mess?imperfection,
flaws, inefficiency,
entropy?is
(and its various ana
generally,
poetics
Speaking most
as applicable
in certain
cases, which
special
logues) may be seen
are
rare
but
of artistic masterpieces
the majority
distinctly
represent
or
institutions
in social life. It is applicable wherever
artifacts
elsewhere
are perfectly designed.
Perfection
makes history irrelevant because one
can always explain any part of the institution or artifact in terms of the
to its history. But wherever
there is imperfection,
rest, with no reference
Prosaics
holds
fundamental.
AND
SIDESHADOWING
we have evidence
wherever
will be
621
TEMPICS
of both
design
and of mere
vestiges,
poetics
insufficient.
in terms of the following notation: M = f(s + h),
One may summarize
and s + h = 1. So if the work is structurally perfect,
where 1 is perfection
=
M
is a function
of structure and
f(s). In plain language, meaning
structure
is
out.
if
But
We
factors
consider
history
history.
perfect,
are
there
of
of
from
when
the
structure,
what,
history
signs
perspective
is imperfection.
The practitioners
of poetics,
focusing on the limiting case of perfect
case
for
the
whole.
that
take
Faced with works
that from a
artifacts,
are
of
structural
view
either
invent
imperfect,
point
they
spurious
to the extent that it is flawed.
structures or declare
the work meaningless
But if we do not take the limiting case for the whole, we may consider
another
the meaningfulness
of
interpretive option, one that can explore
as
as
structure.
to
That
well
process
hope
option?tempics?I
explain in
more detail.
as Thought
Novel
Let me
Experiment
to The Idiot. Criticism
of this novel has been
briefly
on
one school, consisting
divided
its meaning.
particularly
Basically,
almost entirely of non-Slavists,
has identified
the work's theme as what
called "the curse of saintliness."17 According
to these
Murray Krieger
showed that a truly Christian figure would bring not
critics, Dostoevsky
and salvation but catastrophe.
to the continual
happiness
They point
causes by his very goodness,
harm Myshkin
which
in reply
provokes
and profoundly Dostoevskian,
responses following profound,
dynamics.
No greater psychologist
ever lived, and when we see the
than Dostoevsky
true Christian
in such a psychologically
world, we are
compelling
convinced
that the wages of saintliness
is death.
In my opinion,
the
of
The
Idiot
this
confirms
experience
largely
reading
interpretation.
Slavists
return
have,
almost
to a man
and
a woman,
utterly
rejected
this
view.
that there is no way that
shown, to my mind
conclusively,
could have intended
this result. Before,
and after
Dostoevsky
during,
in the text and the notebooks,
it is absolutely clear that the work
writing,
was not, and was not intended
at any point to be, such a refutation
of
They
have
Christianity.
These views contradict
each other only because
they share a hidden
at some point can be taken as an
atemporal
at that moment.
But what if one sees the
something
been suggesting we should, as eventful? As a process
that the work
assumption:
whole
signifying
work, as I have
a predetermined
without
(or postdetermined)
outcome?
622
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
This is what I think happened,
and what readers
(rereaders less so)
sense: The Idiot is a thought experiment in process, which,
like any real
no
had
outcome.
to
wanted
experiment,
predetermined
Dostoevsky
create a true Christian, who would be portrayed with full psychological
in a
realism, and to see what would happen as a result of his presence
had constraints:
he could
realistically described world. The experiment
not just manipulate
the events to get a given set of results, because
the
outcome would
narrator
then not be believable
As
the
psychologically.
comment
and Myshkin
themselves
in a few places, realism is itself a very
more
severe test of plausibility?perhaps
severe than reality itself, since
we will
not in a novel; for
accept
strange events in reality but might
to
not
does
it
is.
be
have
just
reality
plausible,
this novel to testwhat would happen,
And so Dostoevsky
began writing
without knowing or predetermining
the outcome.
The realistic imagin
choose or do in given situations would
ing of what characters might
the result, and the author would
determine
setting up
just keep
situations where those situations would drive the action. As it turned out,
the
was
result
Question:
experiment.
Christianity
experiment,
what
he
that
saintliness
a curse.
proved
to conduct such an
intention? Answer:
what was Dostoevsky's
Of course, Dostoevsky
show that
the outcome would
hoped
would
lead to good
results, but, as with any genuine
the other outcome was always possible
and in this case was
got.
In
this
we
sense,
may
say
that
out
turns
there
to be
a curse
to be a refutation
and yet that the work was not intended
to be an experiment.
It was intended
of Christianity.
both sides of the
But one can see the work this way, and recognize
as partially correct, only if one can stop seeing the work as "an
argument
of saintliness
whole"
organized
that
happened
because
occasion,
the
experiment
and
on
come
this
see
to
Dostoevsky
over
again,
it instead
to
occasion,
for
produce
understandable
with
somewhat
as an
a
event,
given
reasons
different
an
process
open
I say on this
to run
decided
result.
parameters?a
so wrote
sense of the true Christian?and
different
Idiot criticism is
One mystery
that has haunted
even though it is clearly flawed
to be so powerful
it is easy to point out
Frank keenly observes,
difficult
tencies
to explain why
and awkwardness
The Brothers Karamazov.
that the work turns out
in structure. As Joseph
the flaws, but "more
over all the inconsis
so effortlessly
it triumphs
of its structure and motivation"
(D 340). This is
answer
to ask. Frank's
is that we sense an
just the right question
in the work,
and feel that is an amazingly
incredible
authenticity
as
creation,"
Dostoevsky
subjected his own fondest beliefs,
"courageous
to his harshest
as he had previously
of his enemies,
the
beliefs
subjected
are true, but I would
tests. I think all these reasons
add another.
Structural
flaws are only flaws
if one
reads
in terms of structure.
But
they
AND
SIDESHADOWING
623
TEMPICS
if one reads a work as an event,
significance
acquire a wholly different
reads it in terms of prosaics and tempics. Then
like
they may become,
a
the signs of eventness,
the tail of a giraffe,
of
way
requiring
reading
that will make prosaic sense of them.
Northwestern
University
NOTES
1
The
across
2
paper
present
of Time
Shadows
combines
(New Haven,
from my
and my work
ideas
1994)
recent
book
in process,
and Freedom:
Narrative
on
tempics
The
and processuality
the disciplines.
Laoco?n: An Essay on the Limits of Poetry and Painting,
tr.
Lessing,
Ephraim
McCormick
1984), pp. 78-90.
(Baltimore,
The Notebooks for "The Possessed,"
tr. Victor
ed. Edward Wasiolek,
Dostoevsky,
Gotthold
Edward
Allen
3 Fyodor
Terras
cited in text as NP.
1968), p. 196; hereafter
(Chicago,
tr. Constance
4 Fyodor
The Possessed,
Garnett
Dostoevsky,
hereafter
cited in text as P.
5
tr. Constance
Fyodor Dostoevsky,
cited in text as /.
The Idiot,
6
The Notebooks
Dostoevsky,
Fyodor
Garnett
"The Idiot,
for
"
(New York,
(New York,
ed. Edward
1962),
Wasiolek,
1963),
p.
341;
p. 3; hereafter
tr. Katharine
p. 242.
1967),
Strelsky
(Chicago,
7 See Michael
Andr? Bernstein,
Foregone Conclusions: Against Apocalyptic History
(Berkeley,
and Freedom, pp. 234?64.
1994). See also ch. 6 of my Narrative
8 From Dostoevsky's
in Joseph
The Miraculous
letters, as cited
Frank, Dostoevsky:
Years,
1865-1871
cited in text as D.
(Princeton,
1995), p. 271; hereafter
9 Robin Feuer Miller, Dostoevsky and "The Idiot": Author, Narrator,
and Reader (Cambridge,
Mass.,
1981), p. 276, n. 8.
10
"The history of a system is in turn a system....
The opposition
between
and
synchrony
was an opposition
between
the concept
of system and the concept
of evolution;
diachrony
in principle
as soon
as we
thus it loses
its importance
that
every
recognize
system
on the other hand, evolution
exists as an evolution,
is inescapably
of
whereas,
necessarily
a systemic nature."
or
could not the asystematic
a
Why
inescapably? Why
contingent
play
role in evolution?
This formulation
does away with historicity
the notion
of
by extending
the synchronie
it accommodates
system to the historical
process;
"diachrony"
by reading
out of history.
the truly historical
See Jurij Tynyanov
and Roman
in
"Problems
Jakobson,
the Study
Structuralist
pp.
11
79-80.
12
See
See
of
Literature
and
Views, ed. Ladislav
in Readings
in Russian
Poetics:
Language,"
and Krystyna Pomorska
(Cambridge,
Matejka
Formalist
Mass.,
and
1971),
The Leibniz-Clarke
ed. H. G. Alexander
(Manchester,
1956).
Correspondence,
in Economic History
and
the Modem
ed. William
Parker
Economist,
the Economics
of QWERTY:
The
(Oxford,
1986),
esp. Paul A. David,
"Understanding
of History,"
pp. 30-49.
Necessity
13 Bronislaw
A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other
Malinowski,
Essays (Chapel Hill, N.C.,
the
essays
1944), pp. 28-30.
14 Ernst Mayr,
(Cambridge,
I allude
15
Nature
The
Growth
Mass.,
1982),
here especially
p.
of Biological
130.
to Stephen
Thought:
Jay Gould,
(New York,
1989). The
of History
in my Narrative
and Freedom.
extensively
Diversity,
Evolution,
and
Inheritance
Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the
of Gould's
ideas are discussed
implications
NEW LITERARY HISTORY
624
16
Ernst
populational
Mayr observes:
"Up
nature
of natural
to the present
fail to understand
authors
the
day many
a superior
It is a statistical
selection.
concept.
Having
a
survival and abundant
it only provides
reproduction;
not guarantee
does
genotype
so many
There
and other
are, however,
accidents,
catastrophes,
higher
probability.
success
Natural
is not
that reproductive
is not automatic.
selection
stochastic
perturbations
. . .Darwin
a number
not absolutely
advances
of
and therefore
deterministic,
predictive.
of
natural
the
essentialists
and
that
the
is
arguments
theologians
showing
interpretation
not valid. There
in all species"
is room for improvement
(Mayr, The Growth of Biological
Thought, p. 490).
Idiot':
17 Murray
"Dostoevsky's
Krieger,
Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Ren? Wellek
The
Curse
(Englewood
of
Cliffs,
Saintliness,"
N.J.,
1962),
in Dostoevsky:
pp. 39-52.
A