Raziskovanje kot branje: od natančnega branja razlike do oddaljenega branja razdalje
Jernej Habjan
Inštitut za slovensko literaturo in literarne vede, ZRC SAZU, Ljubljana, Slovenija jernej.habjan@zrc-sazu.si
Kolikor branje umetnostnih literarnih tekstov poteka le še v literarni vedi, je vsaka študija branja tovrstnih tekstov študija literarnovednega, tj. t. i. natančnega branja. To celo v sami literarni vedi zavrača t. i. oddaljeno branje, kipa s tem omogoča tako branje natančnemu branju nedostopnih nekanoniziranih tekstov kakor novo branje samega kanona.
Ključne besede: primerjalna literarna veda / dekonstrukcija / oddaljeno branje / natančno branje / Moretti, Franco
UDK 82.0
Dandanes nam raziskovalci in raziskovalke literature sporočajo, da ostajajo edini bralci in bralke umetnostnih literarnih tekstov. To običajno navajajo kot argument za sklep, da je treba literarno vedo rekonstruirati.1 V tem članku nam gre za veliko skromnejši sklep, ki zadeva zgolj problematiko branja (in ki se utegne kot takšen kljub temu dotakniti velike teme rekonstrukcije): če so raziskovalci in raziskovalke literature res edini bralci in bralke literature — in zakaj bi nam to sporočali, če ne bi držalo? —, tedaj je sleherna raziskava branja raziskava raziskovalnega branja. S tega gledišča postane očitno, da je to sporočilo raziskovalk in raziskovalcev, naj bo videti še tako mračno, celo optimistično. Kajti Franco Moretti, dandanes eden najvplivnejših raziskovalcev literature, odkrito spodbuja svoje lastne kolege in kolegice, domnevne edine bralce in bralke, da opustijo branje literarnih tekstov. Moretti tu resda zavrača specifično prakso raziskovalnega branja, tj. t. i. natančno branje kanoničnih tekstov; ker pa se je po njegovem mnenju natančno branje »iz veselega mesteca New Haven razširilo po vsej literarni vedi« (Moretti, »The Slaughterhouse« 208), ima z natančnim branjem v resnici v mislih branje.
Primerjalna književnost (Ljubljana) 34.2 (2011)
S to absolutno negacijo branja marginalizacija tega doseže vrhunec — in s tem dialektični obrat. Nasproti natančnemu branju zahodnega kanona Moretti ne postavlja nebranje, pač pa t. i. oddaljeno branje zgodovine formalne diferenciacije svetovne literature. S pomočjo grafov kvantitativnega zgodovinopisja, geografskih zemljevidov in dreves evolucijske biologije konceptualizira čas, prostor in kronotope nekaterih izmed ključnih formalnih elementov, ki naddoločajo tiste žanre, ki naddoločajo zgodovino svetovne literature. Ti t. i. »abstraktni modeli« (Moretti, Grafi 44, 51), ki natančno branje nadomestijo z oddaljenim branjem, postanejo konkretne strategije, brž ko jih opazujemo z gledišča, ki obrne spontano pojmovanje razmerja med abstraktnim in konkretnim. Gre za gledišče Heglove logike, ki ga je za zgodovinsko raziskovanje, kakršno zagovarja Moretti, elaboriral Marxov »Uvod« v Grundrisse.
Sam Moretti pravi o grafih takole: »[T]ekst reduciramo na nekaj elementov in te abstrahiramo iz pripovednega toka ter konstruiramo nov, umetni predmet, recimo grafe, ki sem jih obravnaval. Z malo sreče bodo ti grafi več kakor vsota svojih deloV: imeli bodo 'vznikle' kvalitete, ki niso bile vidne na nižji ravni.« (Grafi 98). Ko torej pravi, da »se moramo naučiti izmenjevati pomenljiva dejstva o literarni zgodovini prek meja svojih specializiranih niš«, »preden se prepustimo spekulacijam na abstraktnejši ravni« (Grafi 31), gre to razumeti kot poziv k premiku od akademsko, institucionalno zamejenih natančnih branj realnih predmetov h konkretizaciji s pomočjo konstituiranja predmeta spoznanja, ki bi premagalo institucionalizirane epistemološke ovire; po takšnem premiku bi namreč »prepuščanje speku-lacijam« dejansko ostalo »na abstraktnejši ravni«.
Od tod dialektika oddaljenega branja in naddoločujoča vloga analiziranih elementov, manjših ali večjih kakor tekst. Oglejmo si Morettijevo sklepno, najkompleksnejšo študijo v petletnem nizu poskusov zajetja svetovne literature. Morettijevo evolucijsko drevo rabe postopka polpremega govora (Grafi 126—138) lahko beremo kot konkretizacijo Bahtinovega natančnega branja Dostojevskega. Po Bahtinu Dostojevski s pomočjo pol-premega govora uprizarja polifonijo gledišč v romanu. Dostojevski naj bi zato bil: dedič sokratskega dialoga in drugih karnevaliziranih žanrov; alternativa sodobniku Tolstoju; in predhodnik romaneskne in družbene polifonije, ki prihaja. Danes bi materialistična analiza tega dolgega trajanja mogla, nasprotno, pokazati: da je ta polifonija že prišla v podobi reakcionarne multikulturne mezalianse karnevala in monofonije (Breznik 81—85); da je med skromnimi predhodniki te združitve ravno monološkost sokratskega dialoga (Barthes 21—22, 45);2 in da je eden predhodnikov same tovrstne materialistične analize prav Tolstojeva historiografija infinitezi-malnega (Lotman 317; Ranciere 50—51).
K takšni analizi lahko pripomore tudi Morettijevo drevo, v senci katerega se zdi Bahtinov Dostojevski precej abstrakten. Moretti zgrabi polpre-mi govor kot narativizacijo ideološke interpelacije individuov v modernih, buržoaznih družbah. Dostojevski tako postane del zgodovine moderne in ne točka prešitja med domnevno pred-ideološko, karnevalsko preteklostjo in post-ideološko polifonično prihodnostjo.
Sodeč po drevesu, postopek polpremega govora med Jane Austen in Flaubertom ter Zolajem vse bolj odpravi razkorak med likom in pripovedovalcem, med individuom in družbo. Po tej saturaciji oblik razkoraka ta ponovno vznikne, brž ko se postopek preseli v Rusijo Dostojevskega. Ponovno odpravo razkoraka, a tokrat ne brez antagonizma, prinese vrnitev postopka v Evropo, a to pot v Vergov sicilski, politično nekonsoli-dirani del Evrope. Naposled se lik in pripovedovalec znova ločita vzdolž osi center/periferija, ko evropski visoki modernizem potuji objektivnost buržoazne ideologije, Vargas Llosovi in drugi latinskoameriški »diktatorski romani« pa subjektivnost kompradorskega vodje.
Namesto nepovezanih dekonstrukcionističnih natančnih branj — ki bi se jim povrh vsega Verga ali celo Vargas Llosa bržkone niti ne zdel vreden dekonstrukcije — tako uzremo proces, katerega dialektika se materialno artikulira v geografiji. Postopek polpremega govora je namreč kot moderna ideološka kompromisna tvorba prepoznan in postvarjen v centru svetovnega-sistema 19. stoletja; problematiziran kot tak v modernizirajoči se Rusiji; zgolj delno obnovljen na evropski južni polperiferiji; in nato ponovno relativiziran v izhodiščnem zahodnoevropskem centru in na dotlej inertni lastinskoameriški periferiji, pri čemer sta obe področji tedaj, v ameriškem stoletju, že polperiferni. Vendar je oddaljeno branje namenjeno premagovanju razdalj ne le med Jane Austen in Vargas Lloso, temveč tudi med Jane Austen in Amelio Opie, med Vargas Lloso in Davidom Vinasom. Oddaljeno branje ne poskuša (de)konstruirati kanona, pač pa obravnava kanon kot zgolj eno izmed potencialnih zgodovin literature, in sicer kot tisto, ki je zaradi vzrokov, ki tvorijo zakone literarne zgodovine, postala dejanska zgodovina. Kanonizirani teksti so tako prebrani na ozadju neaktua-liziranih potencialov, »dolgočasne« inercije form (Moretti, Atlas 150). Tako seveda postane zanimiv ne samo »dolgčas«, pač pa — to je nemara še težje doseči — sam kanon, ki nenadoma začne zastavljati nelagodna vprašanja, med katerimi je na primer tole: »Kako se pripovedna forma izkristalizira iz zbirke naključnih, nezrelih in pogosto groznih poskusov?« (Prav tam.)
To je jasno razvidno iz Morettijeve druge osrednje študije, ki uporablja evolucijsko drevo, namreč iz njegove arheologije podžanrov detektivske zgodbe, ki so zaradi Conan Doylove zmagovite uporabe postopka ključev, clues, ostali zgolj potencialni, nekanonizirani podžanri (Grafi 116—122;
»The Slaughterhouse« 212—223). Ključi, ki jih je Conan Doyle vpeljal kot znake resnice — ne pa kot znamenja detektivove genialnosti, storilčeve ne-moralnosti, tehnološkega napredka, korespondenc s transcendentnim ali pač ničesar inteligibilnega (»The Slaughterhouse« 223 op. 17, 216 op. 10) — so dogodek. Moderno znanost vpeljejo v situacijo žanra, ki je poznala zgolj buržoazni individualizem, moralizem, determinizem, mračnjaštvo ali pač redundantnost. Zato jih kot revolucionaren »skok« (225) prezre Conan Doylova konkurenca — in celo sam Conan Doyle: služijo sižeju, ne pa Conan Doylovemu »mitu o Sherlocku Holmesu« (215). V nasprotju z drogo ali violino ključi niso Holmesov »atribut« (prav tam), fetiški objekt, temveč subjekt predpostavljene vednosti, ki napravi »buržoaznega« (212 op. 7) detektiva za subjekt resnice. Kot takšne jih razberejo zgolj »slepi ustvarjalci in ustvarjalke kanona« (210, 211), Conan Doylu sodobni bralci in bralke, katerih izbira Conan Doyla in ne njegove konkurence je dejanje subjektivacije, zvestoba dogodku. Ta bralska izbira »forme« (211), sižeja, in ne »dolgočasnega« mita lahko tudi pojasni, zakaj lahko Moretti reče, da Conan Doyle »dela redke napake na začetku, ko so problemi enostavni, in pogostejše pozneje, ko so problemi kompleksnejši« (215). Ti bralci in bralke tako igrajo vlogo subjekta predpostavljene vednosti za naslednje bralske generacije, ki berejo (in postopoma kanonizirajo) Conan Doyla zgolj zato, ker naj bi ga brala že prejšnja generacija. V nasprotju s »slepim« bralstvom naslednje generacije izberejo izbiro, ki jo opravi trg, ki ga oblikujejo govorice, »informacijska kaskada« (210—211), sam simbolni Drugi — tj. ne izberejo prvotne izbire, ki jo je opravil formalni »premik paradigme« (215), ki je zaprečil simbolnega Drugega.
Vendar dogodek imenovanja resnice situacije — dogodek uprizoritve »ključne razsežnosti neke zgodovinske preobrazbe«, in sicer »vpliva racionalizacije na pustolovščine« (Grafi 167 op. 11) — izdata ne le njegova lastna situacija in postopna kanonizacija, ampak celo znanost. Moretti vztraja, da je motivacija izbire, ki jo je opravilo to »slepo« bralstvo, »slepa pega« (»The Slaughterhouse« 211, 218) ekonomske analize trga kulturnih dobrin in »črna škatla« (Grafi 168) samega literarnega zgodovinopisja. »[D]ogodka, ki sproži 'informacijsko kaskado', ni mogoče spoznati.« (»The Slaughterhouse« 211) Neki komentator mu hitro svetuje, naj se opre na kognitivno znanost; Moretti kognitivizma ne izključi (Grafi 168), a se sam ne loti tovrstne analize. Zdi se, da Morettijeva praksa ostaja ovrgljiva in s tem znanstvena, prav kolikor ne odgovarja na vprašanje o motivaciji izbire prvega bralstva in se vzdrži kognitivistične ali katere druge racionalizacije dogodka.
Dialektiko enosti in asimetričnosti, zaradi katere je svetovna literatura »ena in neenaka«, (Grafi 9), tedaj najučinkoviteje formalizira evolucijsko drevo. Drevesa lahko odkrijejo tako razmerja med na videz nepovezani-
mi aktualnostmi kakor potencialnosti, ki so jih zasenčile aktualnosti. Se pravi, na novo lahko osvetlijo ne samo razmerja med elementi kanona, pač pa tudi periferne literarne forme, ki jih je marginaliziral kanon kot celota. V prvem primeru drevesa rekonstruirajo razvejevanje enot (kakršna je postopek polpremega govora), v drugem pa nasprotni proces (kakršen je poenotenje žanra detektivske zgodbe pod znamenjem postopka ključev). V izhodiščnem predlogu oddaljenega branja sta bila ta procesa resda razdeljena med razvejajočimi se, nacijam podobnimi drevesi in poenotu-jočimi, trgom podobnimi valovi (22—25); zdi se, da se sredi desetletja ta razlika že reflektira v samo drevo, ki lahko kot takšno formalizira obe vrsti procesov. Toda tega ne gre razumeti kot revizijo pod pritiskom številnih kritik izhodiščnega predloga. Nasprotno, nova drevesa še konkretneje — se pravi, heglovsko in marxovsko kompleksneje — prikažejo dialektiko centra in periferije, ki je pri delu med aktualnostmi, kakršni sta Jane Austen in Vargas Llosa, ali denimo tržni mehanizem, ki obsodi pred-doylovske ključe na zgolj potencialnost. Ta drevesa je še lažje mobilizirati v Morettijevem (25) izhodiščnem boju zoper proučevanje literatur kot samozadostnih nacionalnih in celo lokalnih identitet.
Ta dialektika in iz nje izhajajoča kritika identitetne politike sta glavni tarči omenjenih kritik oddaljenega branja (zgodnjim Moretti odgovarja v Grafi 27—40). Z gledišča samih tarč bi lahko kritikam odvrnili, da reprodu-cirajo identitetno politiko priznanja, utemeljeno na nedialektični prisvojitvi Heglove dialektike pripoznanja, Anerkennung (Močnik 298—302). Po Heglu je identitetna izjava (A = A) nujno pripoznana kot protislovna, saj ukinja razliko med subjektom in predikatom. Predikat, pod katerega se sodobne postpolitične identitetne skupine vpisujejo kot subjekti, se sicer razlikuje od njih, a je postavljen abstraktno, v terminih, ki so sposojeni pri vladajoči ideologiji, ne pa teoretsko proizvedeni. Se pravi, te skupine se identificirajo kot subjekti človekovih pravic in kulturnih življenjskih slogov, ne pa kot pripadniki enega od dveh razredov ali/in spolov. Identificirajo se kot (kulturne, spolne, etnične, verske) identitete, ne pa kot subjekti (razrednega boja in/ali nezavednega). Zato je konstitucija njihove identitete odvisna od priznanja, ki ji ga podeli ideologija, pri kateri si sposojajo svoj predikat.
To ideologijo zastopajo očitki oddaljenemu branju, da jezik obravnava zgolj abstraktno, tj. da zanemarja partikularnost slehernega jezika in se zanaša le na filološke študije iz druge roke (napisane v angleškem jeziku: Arac 40). V tem primeru bi dialektičen in ne-identiteten odgovor mogel biti v tem, da se oddaljeno branje zateka k že opravljenim študijam prav zato, da bi moglo njihov predmet, dano lokalno literaturo, artikulirati na ravni predmeta analize svetovne literature in mu tako podeliti dostojanstvo novega spoznavnega predmeta. Oddaljeno branje tvega z branjem
zunajbesedilnih postopkov in žanrov (ter sekundarne literature v angleščini) ravno zato, da ne bi bilo — kakor natančno branje — omejeno na branje (primarne) literature v angleščini.
Strategiji oddaljenega branja mnogi očitajo, da zvaja posebnost sleherne literature oziroma kulture na njeno mesto v binarnem dispozitivu centra in periferije. A kljub silni navezanosti na sodobno kritično teorijo te kritike ne poskušajo denimo dekonstruirati tega binoma in tako ali drugače pokazati, da to razlikovanje manifestno daje prednost centrom, latentno pa se naslanja na periferije. Nasprotno, te kritike poskušajo zgolj dokazati, da literature in kulture, s katerimi se identificirajo, niso periferne; namesto za dekonstrukcijo kanona se potegujejo za priznanje svojih lokalnih literatur kot vrednih kanonizacije. Se pravi, izraza center in periferija uporabljajo kot (politično nekorektni) besedi vsakdanje govorice, ne pa kot termina analize svetovnega-sistema, tj. teorije centralnega izkoriščanja periferij. To pa je prav z vidika dekonstrukcionizma nezaslišana napaka, zlasti kolikor vsakdanja govorica reproducira vladajočo ideologijo, v tem primeru politiko (centralnega) priznanja (periferij).
Dekonstrukcionizem je tedaj ne samo to, kar kritike oddaljenega branja zahtevajo, ampak tudi to, pred čimer so ranljive. Pa še to je, kar te kritike zanemarjajo, saj prezrejo Morettijevo lastno dekonstrukcionistično uporabo para center/periferija. Moretti resda začne s trditvijo, da je pohod romana na način prilagajanja zunanjemu vplivu značilen za periferije, spontan pohod pa za centre. Toda to stori le zato, da bi lahko pokazal, da je pravilo prvi primer, ne drugi (Grafi 15—16). V resnici Moretti vpelje opozicijo pravilo/izjema in, potem ko jo projicira na binom center/periferija, dobi veliko konkretnejše razmerje med periferijo-kot-pravilom in cen-trom-kot-izjemo. V končni izpeljavi (36—37) pa celo pokaže, da je spontanost ne le izjemna, pač pa neobstoječa, saj je pohod romana zmerom, tudi v centrih, izid kompromisa. S tem implicira, da je specifika centra zgolj v tem, da je ne le izid kompromisa z ekspanzivno formo, ampak tudi sam vir nove ekspanzije. Zaprečenje spontanosti torej ne pelje k relativizmu — razlika med centrom in periferijo ostaja, a ni v genezi elementa (kakršen je pohod romana), temveč v njegovem mestu v sistemu: bistveno ni to, ali je neki element nastal samoniklo, ampak njegov položaj glede na center.
Videti je, da na podobno napačno branje naletimo v primeru Moretti-jevega izhajanja iz ideje Fredrica Jamesona, da pohod neke forme vselej zahteva kompromis med tujo formo in lokalnim gradivom. Moretti dejansko obravnava to opozicijo kot enega izmed zakonov literarne zgodovine, vendar kritike prezrejo, da opoziciji doda lokalno formo (20). S tem ko trdi, da to formo destabilizira tuja forma, nakaže, da je naddoločena, dvojno vpisana. Kajti lokalno formo kot lokalno določa gradivo, kot formo pa
tuja forma, ta druga določenost pa je naddoločenost, saj tuja forma poleg lokalne forme določa tudi lokalno gradivo, ki tudi samo določa lokalno formo. Lokalna forma je torej zgostitev, simptom asimetričnosti kompromisa: nestabilnost lokalne forme (kakršna je pripovedovalec) uprizarja podrejenost lokalnega in gradiva tujemu in formi (denimo lokalnega lika tujemu sižeju /17 op. 23/).
Kritikam oddaljenega branja torej že njihova tarča ponudi dekonstruk-cijo dvojice center/periferija. Še več, ta dekonstrukcija brani lokalne literature, v imenu katerih so te kritike kritične, bolje kakor one same. Ker namreč obravnava te literature kot izkoriščane po centru, vsekakor doseže več kakor preproste zahteve po sprejetju teh literatur v kanon, zahteve, ki ne uvidijo, da kanon sestavljajo natančno teksti, katerih kanonični status se zdi zdravorazumski in je kot tak odvisen od ideološkega in ne znanstvenega priznanja. In sicer gre po Morettiju za ideologijo povprečnega bralca in bralke, tj. — kot prikaže drevo detektivskih ključev — za ideologijo trga: »Kanone ustvarjajo bralci in bralke, ne profesorji in profesorice: akademske izbire so zgolj odmevi procesa, ki poteka povsem zunaj šole, nič drugega niso kakor nejevoljno etiketiranje.« (»The Slaughterhouse« 209)
Ta napad na oddaljeno branje potemtakem še zdaleč ni obramba natančnega branja. In sicer ni obramba ne dekonstrukcionistične ne filološke različice natančnega branja. Desetletje po Morettijevem predlogu oddaljenega branja svetovne literature številni drugi radikalni misleci odvračajo od natančnega branja v prid historičnemu materializmu, medtem pa komparati-vistične kritike Morettija kulminirajo denimo v Holquistovi (81) samozadostno jedrnati odklonitvi oddaljenega branja v imenu jakobsonovske filologi-je.3 Oddaljeno branje resda zavrača natančno branje, ne pa tudi Jakobsonove poetike. Nasprotno, formalni skoki, ki jih Moretti rekonstruira s pomočjo kvantitativnih analiz »dolgočasnega« dolgega trajanja formalne evolucije, aktivirajo ravno to, čemur bi Roman Jakobson rekel »naravnanost na izraz« (Jakobson, »Novejšaja« 305) in pozneje »poetska funkcija jezika«, ki »projicira načelo ekvivalence j selekcijske osi na kombinacijsko os« (Jakobson, »Lingvistika« 160). Spomnimo se dreves: geografsko premeščanje polpremega govora je obravnavano kot sredstvo naravnanosti tega postopka na izraz; in ključi so uzrti kot tisto, kar sproži poetsko funkcijo jezika detektivskih zgodb. Jakobsona ne zanemarja oddaljeno branje, pač pa sama komparativistič-na politika priznanja lokalnih kultur, ki kritizira oddaljeno branje.4 Moretti (»Style« 154) celo v nedavni izrazito kvantitativni študiji vztraja, da je »formalna analiza [...] tisto, ob čemer se mora izkazati sleherni nov pristop, naj bo kvantitativen, digitalen, evolucionističen ali kakršen koli že«.
Prav to pa je poanta Jakobsonove (ne)slavne šale, da je raziskovanje literature brez formalne analize prav tako naključno kakor aretacija brez
ključev: »[P]redmet literarne znanosti ni literatura, temveč literarnost, tj. tisto, kar napravi neko delo literarno. Literarni zgodovinarji pa so bili doslej predvsem podobni policistom, ki takrat, ko imajo nalogo, da aretirajo določeno osebo, za vsak primer zaprejo še vse tiste, ki so bili v stanovanju, pa tudi vse one, ki gredo po naključju mimo hiše.« (Jakobson, »Novejšaja« 305) Ravno od te primere se praviloma ograjuje tisti — večinski — del sodobne literarne vede, ki kritizira tudi oddaljeno branje. Ta dvojna zavrnitev postane razumljiva, brž ko se zavemo, da formalna analiza, kakršno prakticirata Jakobson in Moretti, le stežka potrdi trenutno literarnovedno zagotavljanje, da je ta ali ona lokalna literatura oziroma kultura (običajno tista, ki ji pripada izjavljavec tega zagotavljanja) edinstvena identiteta, neodvisna od sleherne svetovno-sistemske naddoločenosti, in samostojna članica kluba svetovnega kanona. V večini primerov teh literarnovednih pozivov po priznanju perifernih tekstov kot pripadajočih svetovnemu ka-nonu pač ni mogoče podkrepiti s formalno analizo teh tekstov.
Lokalna literarna dejstva, ki naj bi ovrgla Morettijev model s centrom in (pol)periferijo ali/in Jakobsonovo definicijo poetske funkcije jezika, nas pripeljejo do sklepne poante: identitetna politika priznanja je epi-stemološka ovira pri razumevanju procesa ovrženja določene teorije. V Althusserjevi (84—87) materialistični epistemologiji je ideologija tista, ki je večna, in ne teorija, in celo v Popperjevi (120, 95—96) liberalni epistemologiji je trditev teoretska prav toliko, kolikor jo je mogoče ovreči, po Feyerabendu (23—26, 68—70, 344—345) pa ni teorija nič manj kakor imuna proti ovrženju z dejstvi in ovrgljiva zgolj z močnejšo teorijo. Tako je ovr-gljivost dobra novica za vsako teorijo posebej, ovrženje posamezne teorije pa dobra novica za teorijo nasploh, saj se lahko ovrženje neke teorije zgodi samo kot nastop močnejše, konkretnejše teoretizacije »dejstev«. Moč določene teorije narašča sorazmerno z ovrgljivostjo te teorije in doseže ničlo v hipu, ko neka močnejša teorija aktualizira ovrgljivost kot ovrženje. Prav to dialektiko ima v mislih Moretti, ko se strinja s Popperjem, da je »vrednost neke teorije sorazmerna z njeno neverjetnostjo« (Moretti, Signs 23). Ravno to zanemarjajo kritike oddaljenega branja, ko poskušajo to strategijo ovreči s sklicevanjem na dejstva o (domnevno singularnih) partikularnih literarnih in kulturnih identitetah, ne pa na teoretske koncepte.
Negacija centra-kot-spontanosti je odličen primer. Jale Parla (117, 120—121) in Jonathan Arac (38) resda opomnita Morettija, da je celo centralni avtor, kakršen je bil Fielding, priznal Cervantesov vpliv. Toda razlog za to, da Moretti sprejme to kritiko pripisovanja spontanosti literarni evoluciji v centru sistema, je v tem, da ga spomni na mogočo teoretsko — in ne empirično — kritiko, in sicer na materialistične teorije forme kot kompromisa (Grafi 36, 166).
Če se vrnemo k Althusserju, lahko dodamo, da se verovanje v falsifi-kacijsko moč dejstev zateka k utajitvi razlike med realnim in spoznavnim predmetom. Že več kot desetletje Moretti opozarja svoje (potencialne) kritike, da je oddaljeno branje namenjeno konceptualizaciji novega spoznavnega predmeta, svetovnega literarnega sistema, in ne preprostemu zanikanju partikularnih lokalnih književnosti. In četudi se tako rekoč vsaka kritika oddaljenega branja začne z navedkom Morettijeve izhodiščne teze, da »svetovna literatura ni predmet, ampak problem« (Grafi 9), se prav vsaka nadaljuje z odvrnitvijo od njegove teorije v imenu domnevnih dejstev o singularnosti lokalnih identitet. Zato ne preseneča, da je moral Moretti to poanto ponoviti celo v nedavni kvantitativni analizi Hamleta (»Network«), ki, mimogrede rečeno, razvija — ne pa ovrže — njegovo vse prej kot kvantitativno interpretacijo elizabetinske tragedije (Signs 42—82), razvito pred več kot tremi desetletji.
Nekako sredi tega desetletja (kritik) oddaljenega branja pa je Moretti (Grafi 163—164, 183) opustil metodološko debato o oddaljenem branju v prid samemu oddaljenemu branju. To je smiselno, kolikor teoretske konstrukcije spoznavnega predmeta ni mogoče naturalizirati, popredmetiti v statično metodo. Zaradi neizbežne konstruiranosti spoznavnega predmeta je sleherna popolnoma metodološka debata pred-teoretska. A zaradi istega razloga je za teorijo konstitutivna debata o teoriji, saj se teoretizacija spoznavnega predmeta ne more verificirati zgolj s pred-teoretskim sklicevanjem na dani realni predmet (razprava o teoretski strategiji je torej že teoretska razprava: Močnik 265—266). Moretti pripiše moč ovrženja zgolj teoriji (in je zato deležen mnogih literarnovednih kritik); zato gre njegovo odklonitev elegantne metodološke debate v imenu prozaične empirične analize (Grafi 183) brati kot odklonitev abstraktne ideološke prakse v prid konkretni teoretski praksi konstruiranja spoznavnega predmeta iz realnega predmeta.
Tako lahko naposled reflektiramo svojo lastno prakso komentiranja teorije literarnega svetovnega-sistema. Kolikor nam je uspelo prispevati k teoretski legitimaciji te teorije, smo tudi legitimirali svoje branje teoretskih (ne pa denimo praktičnih) razsežnosti oddaljenega branja literarnega sve-tovnega-sistema — ta refleksija pa je naši praksi dala status teoretske prakse, prakse, ki se more reflektirati prav v svoji praktični razsežnosti. Poskušali smo pokazati, da se kritike strategije oddaljenega branja še zdaleč ne vračajo k natančnemu branju, pač pa so povsem sodobne, interpelirane v politiko priznanja, ki je vladajoča ideologija sodobnih (pol)perifernih družb. Te kritike ne analizirajo te ideologije, pač pa jo reproducirajo. Kot takšne te kritike Morettijeve analize centrov in (pol)periferij vselej že potencialno analizira njihov naslovljenec: brž ko so izjavljene, retroaktivno postanejo
predmet te analize (centralnih in) (pol)perifernih ideologij. V tem utegne biti naša kritika teh kritik oddaljenega branja tudi že minimalen pozitiven prispevek h kritizirani analizi kulturnih centrov in (pol)periferij.
OPOMBE
1	Marko Juvan (209; prim. 14, 43—44) pravi v nedavnem poskusu rekonstrukcije literarne vede: »[O] umetnikih nacionalnega jezika so se izobraženci od zadnje tretjine 19. stoletja morali sistematično učiti v šolah, da bi tako akumulirali kulturni kapital in krepili narodno zavest. Toda le redki med njimi [...] so po obdobju, ko so gulili šolske klopi, ostali dejavni svečeniki in častilci literature. [...] Danes pa literatura očitno izgublja ta čar, vedno bolj se zliva v javni diskurz, ki ga zapolnjujejo tiskana in elektronska občila«. Rekonstrukcijo ima v mislih tudi Marjorie Perloff (182), ko v odzivu na poročilo ACLA za leto 1993 govori o dodiplomskih študentih in študentkah, »ki so v osnovni in srednji šoli prebrali bore malo 'visoke' literature«, in o »ukinjanju in zmanjševanju podiplomskih programov«.
2	Tudi sam Bahtin (»K pererabotke« 309—310) v nekem trenutku zavzame stališče, da je sokratski dialog monološki.
3	V samozavesti Holquistove kritike lahko razberemo saturacijo starejših kritik oddaljenega branja, ki so jih med drugimi prispevali Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Emily Apter in Jonathan Arac. Tako Gayatri Spivak (107—109 op. 1) degradira oddaljeno branje v vir učbenikov, iz katerih naj bi črpalo (in ki naj bi jih naposled dekonstruiralo) natančno branje; Emily Apter (256, 280—281) kljubuje oddaljenemu branju s pomočjo spitzerjevske nadnacionalne filologije; Arac (35) pa ne vidi v oddaljenem branju nič manj kakor primer do globalizacije prijazne teorije, ki zanemarja singularnost jezika in s tem literarne vede.
4	To identitetno politiko reproducira celo Holquistova (85, 94) obramba Jakobsona zoper Morettija, ko prikazuje Jakobsona kot zagovornika manjšinskih kultur in demistifi-katorja univerzalnih resnic kot zgolj jezikovnih konstrukcij.
LITERATURA
Althusser, Louis. »Ideologija in ideološki aparati države«. Althusser, Izbrani spisi. Prev. Zoja
Skušek. Ljubljana: Založba /*f, 2000. 53-110. Apter, Emily. »Global Translatio: The 'Invention' of Comparative Literature, Istanbul,
1933«. Critical Inquiry 29.2 (2003): 253-281. Arac, Jonathan. »Anglo-Globalism?« NLR 16 (2002): 35-45.
Bahtin, Mihail M. »K pererabotke knigi o Dostoevskom«. Bahtin, Estetika slovesnogo tvorče-
stva. Ur. Sergej G. Bočarov. Moskva: Iskusstvo, 1979. 308-327. Barthes, Roland. »Retorika Starih«. Prev. Rastko Močnik, Barthes, Retorika Starih; Elementi
semiologije. Ljubljana: Studia humanitatis, 1990. 7-133. Breznik, Maja. »Splošni skepticizem v umetnosti«. Primerjalna književnost 33.2 (2010): 75-86. Feyerabend, Paul. Proti metodi. Prev. Slavko Huzjan. Ljubljana: Studia humanitatis, 1999. Holquist, Michael. »Roman Jakobson and Philology«. Critical Theory in Russia and the West.
Ur. Alastair Renfrew in Galin Tihanov. Abingdon: Routledge, 2010. 81-97. Jakobson, Roman. »Lingvistika in poetika«. Prev. Zoja Skušek. Lingvistični in drugi spisi. Ljubljana: Studia humanitatis, 1989. 147-190.
---. »Novejšaja russkaja poezija«. Jakobson, Selected Writings V. Haag: Mouton, 1979.
299-354.
Juvan, Marko. Literarna veda v rekonstrukciji. Ljubljana: LUD Literatura, 2006. Lotman, Jurij M. Znotraj mislečih svetov. Prev. Urša Zabukovec. Ljubljana: SH, 2006. Močnik, Rastko. Spisi z humanistike. Ljubljana: Založba /*f, 2009. Moretti, Franco. Atlas of the European Novel 1800-1900. London: Verso, 1998.
---. Grafi, zemljevidi, drevesa in drugi spisi o svetovni literaturi. Prev. Jernej Habjan. Ljubljana:
Studia humanitatis, 2011.
---. »Network Theory, Plot Analysis«. NLR 68 (2011): 80-102.
---. »The Novel: History and Theory«. NLR 52 (2008): 111-124.
---. Signs Taken For Wonders. London: Verso, 2005.
---. »The Slaughterhouse of Literature«. MLQ 61.1 (2000): 207-227.
---. »Style, Inc. Reflections on Seven Thousand Titles (British Novels, 1740-1850)«.
Critical Inquiry 36.1 (2009): 134-158. Parla, Jale. »The Object of Comparison«. Comparative Literature Studies 41.1 (2004): 116-125. Perloff, Marjorie. »Literature in the Expanded Field«. Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism. Ur. Charles Bernheimer. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1995. 175-186.
Popper, Karl R. Logika znanstvenega odkritja. Prev. Darja Kroflič. Ljubljana: Studia huma-nitatis, 1998.
Ranciere, Jacques. Le Partage du sensible. Pariz: La Fabrique-Editions, 2000. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Death of a Discipline. New York: Columbia UP, 2003.
Research as Reading: From the Close Reading of Difference to the Distant Reading of Distance
Jernej Habjan
ZRC SAZU, Institute of Slovenian Literature and Literary Studies, Ljubljana, Slovenia jernej.habjan@zrc-sazu.si
Insofar as the reading of literary artworks is increasingly limited to literary criticism, any study of reading of such works is a study of critical, that is, close reading. Yet even within criticism, close reading has been rejected by distant reading, which enables, precisely by way of this rejection, both the reading of uncanonised texts, neglected by close reading, and a new reading of the canon itself.
Keywords: comparative literature / deconstruction / distant reading / close reading / Moretti, Franco UDK 82.0
Today, literary critics tell us that they remain the only readers of literary works of art. They tend to state this as an argument for the conclusion that criticism should be reconstructed.1 I will draw a much more modest conclusion, one that only concerns the question of reading (and that may as such, nonetheless, touch on the big issue of reconstruction): if it is true that critics are the only readers — and why would they say it if it were not? — then any study of reading should be a study of critical reading. From this point of view, it becomes obvious that the critics' statement, gloomy as it may appear, is even optimistic. For Franco Moretti, one of the most influential critics today, openly encourages his own colleagues, the supposed only remaining readers, to omit reading literary texts. Granted, Moretti discards here a specific practice of critical reading, the close reading of canonical texts, but as, for him, close reading 'has radiated from the cheerful town of New Haven over the whole field of literary studies' ('The Slaughterhouse' 208), by close reading, he really means reading.
I wish to suggest that with this absolute negation of reading, the ongoing marginalisation of reading reaches its climax — and hence its dialectical turn. Moretti forsakes the close reading of the Western canon not for non-reading, but for the so-called distant reading of the history of formal differentiation of world literature. He relies on quantitative history's
Primerjalna književnost, Volume 34, Number 2, Ljubljana, August 2011
graphs, geography's maps and evolutionary biology's trees to delineate respectively time, space and, finally, chronotopes of those formal elements that overdetermine the genres that in turn overdetermine world literature. These so-called 'abstract models' (Graphs 2, 8) that replace close reading with distant reading become concrete strategies if observed from the viewpoint that inverts the spontaneous notion of the relation between the abstract and the concrete. The viewpoint is of course Hegel's, and its elaboration for historical analysis of Moretti's kind can be found in Marx's 'Introduction' to the Grundrisse.
Of literary maps, Moretti himself writes 'you reduce the text to a few elements, and abstract them from the narrative flow, and construct a new, artificial object like these maps [...]. And with a little luck, these maps will be more than the sum of their parts: they will possess "emerging" qualities, which were not visible on the lower level' (Graphs 53). So when he claims that 'before indulging in speculations at a more abstract level, we must learn to share the significant facts of literary history across our specialized niches' ('More' 75), this should be read as a call for a move from academically, institutionally delimited, abstract, close readings of real objects to their concretisation by way of constructing, across institutionalised episte-mological obstacles, an object of knowledge; it is only after such a move that 'indulging in speculations' can be discarded as remaining 'at a more abstract level'.
Hence the dialectic of distant reading; and the overdetermining character of the analysed infra- and supra-textual elements. Consider the final and most complex case study in his five-year series of attempts to grasp the world literary system. Moretti's construction of an evolutionary tree of free indirect style (Graphs 81—92) can be seen as a concretisation of Bakhtin's close reading of Dostoevsky. For Bakhtin, Dostoevsky uses free indirect style and similar devices in order to stage the polyphony of perspectives. As such, he is supposed to be the heir of Socratic dialogues and other carnivalised genres; the alternative to his contemporary, Tolstoy; and a precursor of a polyphony to come. Today, a rigorous materialist account of such a longue durée could argue that this polyphony to come has already come in the form of the reactionary multicultural mésalliance of carnival and monophony (Breznik 249—254); that among the humble predecessors of this symbiosis is precisely the monologue of Socratic dialogues (Barthes 178);2 and that one of this account's own precursors is Tolstoy's historiography of the infinitesimal (Lotman 224; Ranciere 33—34).
Such an account of polyphony might rely also on Moretti's tree compared to which Bakhtin's Dostoevsky appears quite abstract. Moretti understands free indirect style as the narrativisation of ideological interpella-
tion of individuals in modern, bourgeois societies. Dostoevsky becomes then part of the history of modernity, not a quilting point between the supposedly pre-ideological, carnivalesque past and the post-ideological, polyphonic future.
According to the tree, from Austen to Flaubert and Zola, free indirect style progressively closes the gap between the character and the narrator. After this saturation, the antagonism between the individual and the social reemerges as the device moves to Dostoevsky's Russia. A closure, yet not without antagonism, follows when free indirect style returns to Europe, yet this time around to Verga's Sicilian, unconsolidated region. And the character and the narrator separate once more along the core/periphery axis with estrangements of the objective in European high modernism and of the subjective in Latin American, say, Vargas Llosa's, 'dictator novels'.
Instead of unrelated deconstructive close readings (which would, moreover, hardly deem Verga's or even Vargas Llosa's style worthy of being deconstructed), we get a process whose dialectic is materially articulated onto geography: modern interpellation is recognised and reified in the nineteenth-century core of the world-system; questioned as such in the modernising Russia; only partially restored in the European southern semi-periphery; and then problematised again in the initial Western European core and in the hitherto passive Latin American periphery, both of which have by now, in the American century, become semi-peripheral. Distant reading, however, is designed to travel the distance not merely between Austen and Vargas Llosa, but also between Austen and Amelia Opie, between Vargas Llosa and David Viñas. It is not meant to (de) construct the canon, but to see it as just one of the potential outcomes of literary history, the one that has become the actual one for the reasons that make for the laws of literary history. It is against the backdrop of the unrealised potentialities, the 'boring' inertia of forms (Atlas 150), that the canonised texts are read. This renders interesting not only 'boredom', but — an even more difficult task — the canon itself, which suddenly poses anxiety-ridden questions such as 'How does a new narrative form crystallize out of a collection of haphazard, half-baked, often horrendous attempts?' (Ibid.)
This is evident in Moretti's other central case study employing the tree, namely his archaeology of the subgenres of the detective story that have remained mere uncanonised potentialities due to Conan Doyle's victorious use of the device of clues (Graphs 70—78; 'The Slaughterhouse' 212— 223). Clues introduced by Doyle as signs of truth — rather than of the depicted detective's brilliance, of the criminal's depravity, of technological progress, of the correspondences with the transcendent or of nothing at all ('The Slaughterhouse' 223n17, 216n10) — are clearly an event. They
introduce modern science in a situation, the genre of detective fiction, which allows only for bourgeois individualism, moralism, determinism, obscurantism or plain redundancy. This is why they remain unnoticed as a revolutionary 'jump' (225) by Doyle's competition — and even by Doyle himself: they serve (the truth within) the plot, not Doyle's 'myth of Sherlock Holmes' (215). Far from remaining, like coke or the violin, an 'attribute' (ibid.), a fetish object, of Holmes, they are the subject-supposed-to-know that makes the 'bourgeois' (212n7) detective a subject of truth. And they are seen as such only by the 'blind canon makers' (210, 211), the contemporary readers, whose choice of Doyle over everyone else is an act of subjectivation, of fidelity to the event. This choice of 'form' (211), plot, over 'boredom', myth, also explains why Doyle's own choices can be seen by Moretti as 'making fewer errors early on, when the problems are simpler — and more errors later, when they are more complex' (215). These readers then serve as subject-supposed-to-know for the next generations of readers, who read (and consequently canonise) Doyle simply because the previous generation is said to have read him. Unlike the 'blind' readers, subsequent generations make the choice offered to them by the market informed by hearsay, the 'information cascade' (210—211), the symbolic Other itself — and not the choice made by the formal 'paradigm shift' (215), the void, the unknown of the Other.
But the event of naming the truth of the situation — the event of enacting the 'salient aspect of a historical transformation', namely, 'the impact of rationalisation over adventures' ('The End' 74n11) — is betrayed not only by its own situation and by subsequent canonisation, but even by science. Moretti maintains that the motive of these 'blind canon makers' is a 'blind spot' ('The Slaughterhouse' 211, 218) of economic analyses of the cultural commodity market, and a 'black box' ('The End' 75) of literary history itself. '[T]he event that starts the "information cascade" is unknowable.' ('The Slaughterhouse' 211) One of the commentators readily suggests cognitive science as the answer; Moretti expresses openness to this kind of suggestions ('The End' 75), but does not actually proceed in that direction. It seems that precisely by keeping the question unanswered and not taking the path of a cognitivist or any other kind of rationalisation of the event, Moretti's project in effect remains falsifiable and thereby scientific.
Thus, the dialectic of unity and asymmetry that makes world literature 'one-and-unequal' ('Conjectures' 66; see also 55—56, 64), a system, is formalised best by trees. Trees can uncover relations between seemingly unrelated actualities as well as potentialities overshadowed by actualities; that is, they can shed new light not only on relations within the canon, but also on peripheral literary forms that were marginalised by the canon
as a whole. In the first case, the trees reconstruct the diversification of units (such as the device of free indirect style), in the second, the opposite process (illustrated by the tree of clues). In the initial proposal of distant reading, these two processes were divided between diversifying, nationlike trees and unifying, market-like waves ('Conjectures' 66-68); it seems that now this difference is reflected in the tree itself, which can now show both kinds of processes. Yet this should by no means be taken as a revision, yielding to the many critiques of the initial 'Conjectures'. If anything, the new trees highlight even more complexly — that is, more concretely in Hegel's and Marx's sense — the core/periphery relation between such actualities as Austen and Vargas Llosa, or, say, the market mechanisms that render non-Doylean clues mere potentialities. These trees can be even more readily deployed in Moretti's (68) initial struggle against the study of literatures as particularistic national and even local identities.
This dialectic, and the consequent critique of identity politics, are effectively the targets of the critiques of distant reading mentioned above (the early cases are addressed by Moretti in 'More'). For from the standpoint of the targets themselves, one might claim that these critiques pertain to the identity politics of recognition based, as Rastko Močnik shows, on a misreading of the Hegelian dialectic of Anerkennung (Močnik 183—184, 188—199). For Hegel, an identity statement (A = A) is inevitably recognised as self-contradictory, lacking the difference between its subject and predicate. The predicate under which contemporary post-political identity groups subsume themselves as subjects does differ from them, but it is postulated abstractly, in terms borrowed from the ruling ideology, rather than developed by means of any conceptual thought. That is, these groups identify themselves as subjects of human rights and cultural life-styles, not as members of a class or of one of two sexes. In a word, they identify themselves as (life-style, gender, ethnic, religious) identities, not as subjects (of class struggle or the unconscious). Consequently, their identity hinges on recognition by the ideology from which their predicate is borrowed.
This ideology is reproduced in reproaches to distant reading for considering language abstractly, for failing to recognise the particularity of each language and relying solely on philological studies that are secondhand (and written in English: Arac 40). Here, a dialectical and non-iden-titary reply would be that distant reading refers to second-hand studies precisely so as to articulate their object, a given local literature, onto the object of world literary system analysis. Distant reading takes the risk of reading extra-textual devices and genres (and secondary literature written in English) in order not to be limited, like close reading, to reading (primary) literature written in English.
Distant reading has been criticised for reducing the particularity of every culture to its position in a binary dispositif of core and periphery. Yet with all their embeddedness in critical theory, the critiques do not seem to be engaged in deconstructing the dichotomy, in arguing somehow that the distinction favours the core, while resting on periphery — they simply try to prove that the cultures they identify with are not peripheral. Instead of deconstructing the canon, they seek canonical recognition of their local literatures. They act as if core and periphery were words of ordinary language, not concepts of the world-systems analysis, a theory of cores exploiting peripheries — a deconstructionist faux pas if ever there was one, especially since ordinary language reproduces the ruling ideology, in this case, the politics of recognition of peripheries by the core.
So, deconstruction is what critiques of distant reading preach — and what they are prone to. And it is also what they neglect: they miss Moretti's own 'deconstructive' use of the dichotomy. Moretti does start by claiming that the novel's expansion as adaptation to an external influence is characteristic of peripheries, while the spontaneous expansion is characteristic of the core. But he does it in order to be able to demonstrate that the former is the rule, not the latter ('Conjectures' 60—61). He effectively introduces the rule/exception opposition and, projecting it on the core/periphery dyad, ends up with a more concrete relation between the periphery-as-the-rule and the core-as-the-exception. And in the final analysis ('More' 79—80), he shows that spontaneity is not merely exceptional, but nonexistent, since the expansion of the novel is always, even in the core, the result of a compromise. He thus implies that cores are specific merely insofar as they are not only results of compromises with expanding forms, but also sources of expansion in their own right. The barring of spontaneity does not lead then to multicultural relativism: the difference between the core and the periphery holds, it is just that it lies in a form's position within the system rather than in its genesis; what counts is where a form is in relation to the core, not whether or not it emerged spontaneously.
Similarly, Moretti, unlike postcolonial studies, approaches Jameson from the standpoint of materialist theory rather than the politics of recognition. He treats as a law of literary history Jameson's intuition of expansion being a result of a compromise between a foreign form and local material. What the critiques miss, however, is that Moretti goes on to add a local form to the pair ('Conjectures' 65). By suggesting that the latter is destabilised by a foreign form, he conceptualises it as overdetermined, doubly inscribed: as local, the local form is determined by material, and as a form, by the foreign — the latter determination being overdetermination, since the foreign form determines not only the local form, but also the
local material that ni turn determines the local form. This form is hence a condensation, a symptom, of the asymmetry of the compromise: the instability of the local form (say, the narrator) betrays the subordination of the local and the material to the foreign and the form (say, of the local character to a foreign plot: 62n23).
The critiques of distant reading are therefore presented with a decon-struction of the core/periphery couplet in their very target, and one that affirms their local cultures better than they themselves do. For as this target treats these cultures as exploited by the core, it certainly does more than simply pitch them as part of the canon — as if the canon were not, like contemporary identity statements, dependent on ideological, rather than scientific, recognition. According to Moretti, the ideology is that of the average reader (that is, as the tree of clues tells us, the market): 'Readers, not professors, make canons: academic decisions are mere echoes of a process that unfolds fundamentally outside the school: reluctant rubber-stamping, not much more.' ('The Slaughterhouse' 209)
This attack on distant reading is then clearly not a defence of close reading. And it is a defence of neither deconstructionism nor philology. A decade after Moretti's plea for the distant reading of world literature, some of the most influential thinkers on the cultural and theoretical Left are rejecting close reading in favour of historical materialism, while CompLit critiques of Moretti culminate, say, in Holquist's (81) casual dismissal of distant reading in the name of Jakobsonian philology.3 Distant reading can indeed be charged with ripping close reading ('a theological exercise'; 'secularized theology': 'Conjectures' 57; 'The Slaughterhouse' 208) — but not Jakobson's poetics. On the contrary, the 'jumps' reconstructed by Moretti through quantitative analyses of their 'boring' situation activate precisely what Roman Jakobson calls the 'orientation on the expression' (Jakobson, 'Noveishaya' 305) and, later on, the 'poetic function of language', which ''projects the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection into the axis of combination (Jakobson, 'Closing' 71). Recall the trees: geographic dislocation of free indirect style is viewed as the vehicle of the device's deautomatisation; and clues are grasped as that which activates the poetic function of the language of detective stories. Jakobson is ignored not by distant reading, but by none other than the multiculturalism that is rejecting distant read-ing.4 Even in his recent hard-core quantitative study, Moretti maintains that 'formal analysis is [...] what any new approach — quantitative, digital, evolutionary, whatever — must prove itself against' ('Style' 154).
This is the point of Jakobson's (in)famous pun that literary study without formal analysis is as random as an arrest without clues: '[T]he subject of literary scholarship is not literature, but literariness, i.e. that which
makes a given work literary. However, literary historians have been so far very much like the police, who in their goal to arrest a certain person take, just to make sure, also everyone and everything in the flat as well as casual passers-by.' (Jakobson, 'Noveishaya' 305; my translation) It is precisely this pun that is being rejected by much of the current comparative literary scholarship that is also dismissing distant reading. This double rejection becomes clear as soon as one realises that formal analysis of Jakobson's or Moretti's kind can hardly corroborate the current scholarly pleas to recognise local literatures and cultures as unique identities, independent of any world-systemic overdetermination; in most cases, rigorous formal analysis simply cannot confirm that these identities are independent and as such worthy of canonisation, as these pleas would have it.
Local literary facts that are supposed to refute Moretti's core/periphery model and/or Jakobson's definition of poetic function of language bring me to my final point: identitary ideology is an epistemological obstacle to understanding falsification. Not only is it in Althusser's materialist episte-mology ideology, and not theory, that which is eternal (159—160), but even in Popper's liberal epistemology a claim is theoretical precisely insofar as it is falsifiable (113, 92), and for Feyerabend, theory is no less than unfalsifi-able by facts, since it is refutable solely by a stronger theory (29—31, 65-66, 303). Thus, falsifiability is good news for a theory, and its falsification is good news for theory as such, since falsification of a theory merely means the advent of an even stronger, more concrete theorisation of 'facts'. The strength of a theory increases in proportion with the theory's falsifiability, and drops to zero the moment falsifiability is actualised in falsification by a stronger theory. This is the dialectic that Moretti is effectively designating when he agrees with Popper that 'the value of a theory is in direct proportion to its improbability' (Moretti, Signs 23). And this is what critiques of distant reading are neglecting when they try to falsify it by bringing in not concepts, but facts about particular cultural identities.
The barring of the core-as-spontaneity is a case in point. Moretti is indeed reminded, by Jale Parla ('The Object' 117, 120-121) and Jonathan Arac ('Anglo-Globalism?' 38), that even a central author like Fielding admitted the influence of Cervantes. But the reason he accepts this critique of his equation of core and spontaneous expansion is that it reminds him of a possible theoretical, not empirical, objection: the materialist theories of form as compromise ('More' 79; 'The End' 73).
Returning to Althusser, one may add that the belief in the power of facts to falsify theories depends on a disavowal of the difference between a real object and an object of knowledge. For a decade now, Moretti has been reminding his (potential) critics that distant reading is supposed to
conceptualise a new object of knowledge, the world literary system, and not simply deny the existence of particular local literatures. And although virtually every critique of distant reading starts by citing his initial suggestion that 'world literature is not an object, [but] a problem ('Conjectures' 55), they all continue by bombarding the theory with individual cases purporting to show the singularity of local indentities. It is no wonder then that he had to reiterate the point even in his recent quantitative analysis of Hamlet ('Network'), which, incidentally, elaborates on, rather than falsifies, his far from quantitative interpretation of Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedy (Signs 42—82) written more than three decades ago.
Halfway through this (anti-)distant reading decade, however, Moretti ('The End' 71, 86) abandoned the methodological debate on distant reading for distant reading itself. This makes sense insofar as a theoretical construction of an object of knowledge cannot be naturalised into a method. Constructedness, non-givenness, of an object of knowledge thus makes any purely methodological debate pre-theoretical. But it also makes the debate on theory constitutive of theory, since a theorisation of an object of knowledge cannot verify itself simply by referring pre-theoretically to a given real object. Moretti limits the power of falsification to theory (and gets ample criticism from CompLit theorists for it); this is why his refusal of the elegant methodological debate in favour of a prosaic empirical analysis (at the end of 'The End') should be read as a refusal of an abstract ideological practice in favour of a concrete theoretical practice of constructing an object of knowledge out of a real object.
This can finally serve as a reflection on my own practice of commenting on distant reading. Insofar as I have succeeded in contributing to a theoretical legitimisation of the theory of distant reading, I have at once managed to legitimate my reading of the theoretical, and not practical, aspects of distant reading — making through this reflection my practice a theoretical practice, one that is able to reflect on precisely on its own practical dimension. I have argued that, far from returning to close reading, critiques of distant reading are very much in the present, interpellated by the politics of recognition, the ideology of contemporary (semi-)peripheral societies. They reproduce, rather than analyse, this ideology. As such, these responses to Moretti's analysis of cores and (semi-)peripheries are always-already potentially analysed by their addressee: as soon as they are uttered they retroactively become the object of this analysis of (central and) (semi-)pe-ripheral ideologies. In this respect, my critique of these critiques of distant reading is, I hope, already a positive contribution, albeit at a zero-degree, to the criticised analysis of cultural cores and (semi-)peripheries.
NOTES
1	In a recent attempt at reconstruction of literary criticism, Marko Juvan notes, 'from the last third of the nineteenth century onwards, intellectuals were required to systematically learn about the artists of their national languages in school in order to accumulate cultural capital and strengthen national awareness. However, after leaving school, only a few among them [...] remained active readers and admirers of high literature. [...] Today literature is obviously losing this special charm and is increasingly merging into public discourse crowded with print and electronic media' (Juvan Literary 178—179). And it is with reconstruction in mind that Marjorie Perloff (182) speaks, in response to the 1993 ACLA report, of the undergraduate 'who has read precious little of that "high" literature in elementary and secondary school', and of 'the retrenchment and attrition of graduate programs'.
2	At a certain point, Bakhtin himself ('K pererabotke' 309—310) says that Socratic dialogue is in effect monologic.
3	The self-assured brevity of Holquisfs dismissal can be read as a saturation of such older critiques as, say, Gayatri Spivak's, Emily Apter s, and Jonathan Arac's: Spivak (107— 109n1) downgrades distant reading to a source of reference tools for, and hence an object of critique of, close reading; Apter (256, 280—281) suggests Spitzerian transnational philology as a counterweight to distant reading; and Arac (35) sees in distant reading no less than a case of globalisation-friendly theory, which disregards the singularity of language and hence of literary criticism.
4	That is, the ideology that is reproduced even in Holquisfs (85, 94) defence of Jakobson against Moretti, portraying as it is Jakobson as an advocate of minor literatures and a demystifier of truth as mere language.
WORKS CITED
Althusser, Louis. 'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses'. Althusser, Lenin and
Philosophy and Other Essays. Trans. Ben Brewster. New York: NLB, 1971. 127—186. Apter, Emily. 'Global Translatio: The "Invention" of Comparative Literature, Istanbul,
1933'. Critical Inquiry 29.2 (2003): 253-281. Arac, Jonathan. 'Anglo-Globalism?' NLR 16 (2002): 35-45.
Bakhtin, Mihail M. 'K pererabotke knigi o Dostoevskom'. Bakhtin, Estetika slovesnogo tvor-
chestva. Ed. Sergei G. Bocharov. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1979. 308-327. Barthes, Roland. 'L'ancienne rhétorique'. Communications 16 (1970): 172-223. Breznik, Maja. 'General Skepticism in the Arts'. Primerjalna književnost 33.2 (2010): 243-255. Feyerabend, Paul. Against Method. New York: NLB, 1975.
Holquist, Michael. 'Roman Jakobson and Philology'. Critical Theory in Russia and the West.
Ed. Alastair Renfrew and Galin Tihanov. Abingdon: Routledge, 2010. 81-97. Jakobson, Roman. 'Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics'. Jakobson, Style in Language. Ed. Thomas A. Sebeok. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press, 1960.
---. 'Noveishaya russkaya poeziya'. Jakobson, Selected Writings V. The Hague: Mouton,
1979. 299-354.
Juvan, Marko. Literary Criticism in Reconstruction. Bern: Peter Lang, 2011. Lotman, Yuri M. Universe of the Mind. Trans. Ann Shukman. London: I.B. Tauris, 1990. Močnik, Rastko. 'Regulation of the Particular and Its Socio-Political Effects'. Conflict, Power, and the Landscape of Constitutionalism. Ed. Gilles Tarabout and Ranabir Samaddar. London: Routledge, 2008. 182-209.
Moretti, Franco. Atlas of the European Novel 1800-1900. London: Verso, 1998.
---. 'Conjectures on World Literature'. NLR 1 (2000): 55-68.
---. 'The End of the Beginning'. NLR 41 (2006): 71-86.
---. Graphs, Maps, Trees. London: Verso, 2005.
---. 'More Conjectures'. NLR 20 (2003): 73-81.
---. 'Network Theory, Plot Analysis'. NLR 68 (2011): 80-102.
---. 'The Novel: History and Theory'. NLR 52 (2008): 111-124.
---. Signs Taken For Wonders. Trans. Susan Fischer et al. London: Verso, 2005.
---. 'The Slaughterhouse of Literature'. MLQ 61.1 (2000): 207-227.
---. 'Style, Inc. Reflections on Seven Thousand Titles (British Novels, 1740-1850)'.
Critical Inquiry 36.1 (2009): 134-158. Parla, Jale. 'The Object of Comparison'. Comparative Literature Studies 41.1 (2004): 116-125. Perloff, Marjorie. 'Literature in the Expanded Field'. Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism. Ed. Charles Bernheimer. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1995. 175-186.
Popper, Karl R. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Routledge, 1992. Ranciere, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics. Trans. Gabriel Rockhill. London: Continuum, 2004.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Death of a Discipline. New York: Columbia UP, 2003.