CorporealSemiotics:TheBodyoftheText/theTextoftheBody 371
are failing us when we need them most, in moments of intense bodily
sensations. This is then not an abstract philosophical speculation but
registers the failure of one of our most important resources for making
sense of our embodied experience of the world, language. Language
may "sustain the body" (Butler,ExcitableSpeech5) but in moments of
extremely felt physicality, this sustenance seems to fade: if not
altogether go away. Testimony, much of it deeply moving, across
different times and cultures, gives evidence of the perceived poverty of
languagevis-à-vistheintensitiesofthesensatebody.^65
Much has been written, especially in the wake of the 1960s, about
such intensities, but with a curious bias: thrill,jouissance, and all its
variants were favorite objects of much culture-critical attention,
especially for their anti-normative, if not even revolutionary, challenge
tobourgeoiscodesofconduct.^66
Muchofthatanti-institutionalfervorisnolongerwithustoday,and
so I will here focus on the other, the dark and often disavowed side of
the sensate body, on moments of misery, anguish, affliction, woe. The
English language possesses a rich lexicon to express corporeal
wretchedness. My choice for the following argument is "pain." The
choice was made because the term has a defined medical meaning with
veryfewfuzzyedges,astheseexamplesmayshow:
- An unpleasant feeling occurring as a result of injury or disease,
usuallylocalizedinsomepartofthebody.
2.Mentaloremotionalsuffering;distress. - One of the uterine contractions occurring in childbirth. ("Pain,"The
AmericanHeritageDictionaryoftheEnglishLanguagen.pag.)
(^65) A comprehensive discussion of relevant material can be found in Morris,
Culture of Pain; Scarry,The Body in Pain; and, within a German context, in
Christians, Heiko.Über den Schmerz. Eine Untersuchung von Gemeinplätzen.
Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1999. Print.; Gadamer, Schmerz; Hermann,
Schmerzarten.
(^66) A useful retrospective can be found in Jane Gallop's "PrecociousJouissance:
Roland Barthes, Amatory Maladjustment, and Emotion."New Literary History
43.3(2012):565-82.Print.