CorporealSemiotics:TheBodyoftheText/theTextoftheBody 329
presence in cultural practices of what Adorno meant by "natural being"
whichisitselfanechoofMarx'sfamouslyinvocationofthe"corporeal,
living,real,sensuous,objectivebeingfullofnaturalvigor"(Manuscripts
69)astheultimatehorizonofamaterialistcritiqueofsociety.
In this stereoscopic perspective, the body is not fully contained in
semioticrelationships(asculturalconstructivismwouldhaveit)norisit
thesomaticallyautonomous"pivotoftheworld"(Merleau-Ponty82),as
the current wave of reconstructed vitalisms^8 might wish to suggest.
Instead,thecorporealitiesofthehumanbeingareperhapsbestdescribed
asasiteofmediationbetweenthebiologicalandcultural,or,inthemore
encompassingterminologyIwillbeusinghere,betweenthesomaticand
the semantic but in a way that registers the dialectical relationship
between the two. An important first step in such a dialectical argument
istheacknowledgmentthatthematerialismorethanmeresubsidiaryto
the mind (as Cartesianism teaches) but an agent in the latter's
constitution, and at times even a nagging one, as the next pages will
show.
From the vantage point of such a dialectical approach, some of the
nostrumsofculturalcritique,forexamplethe"bodyofthetext,"ceaseto
be a merefacon à parlerbut remind us instead of the often painful
corporealitiesthatgointothemakingofsuchatext.^9 Italsoenjoinsusto
entertaintheideathatthetextualizationofthebody,evenoflifemay—
incertainconstellationsatleast—remainanincompleteproject.Making
acknowledgments of this kind will have the furthereffect of conceiving
mode..."(TimeandNarrative3).Throughout,Ricoeurspeaksofnarrativebut,
as his argument shows, he is less interested in oral narrative practices than in
thosetakingtextualform.
(^8) For a recent contribution to this discussion cf. Chen, Mel Y.Animacies:
Biopolitics,RacialMatteringandQueerAffect.Durham:DukeUP,2016.Print.;
also Bennett, Jane.Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham:
DukeUP,2010.Print.
(^9) These realities have not totally escaped the notice of traditional formalist
literary criticism. One may think here of studies on "late style" (McMullen and
Smiles 43-45). A totally different area would be conceptualizations of certain
illnessesastheartist'sburden.Tuberculosisisthemostobviousexamplehere(if
one thinks of Keats and other poets). For recent resonances of TB cf. Heifets,
Leonid.TheSecondComingoftheWhitePlage.Mustang:TateP,2012.Print.