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The Text within the TextAuthor(s): Yury M. Lotman, Jerry Leo, Amy MandelkerSource: PMLA, Vol. 109, No. 3 (May, 1994), pp. 377-384Published by: Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/463074 .

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Yuy M. Lotman

h e e x t w i t i n t h e x t

YURY M. LOTMAN (1922-

93) was professor of Russian

literature at Tartu State Uni-

versity and the leading figure

in the Moscow-Tartu school of

semiotics, as well as an honor-

ary member of the Modern

Language Association. He is

best known for his work on

Pushkin, structuralism, and

the semiotics of Russian cul-

ture. He was the author of

fourteen books, includingThe

Structure f the ArtisticText,

Semioticsof Film, and The

Universeof the Mind,andof

hundredsof articles.

Translators'note. Thefirstfew pages of thisessay are notprintedhere.

In this omittedportion YuryLotman distinguishesbetween two major

functions of texts. Thefirst function is the adequate transmissionofinformation,and the second is the generation of new meanings. The

most desirable condition or thefirst function is the complete overlap

of codes betweensendersand receiversof messages. Since thissituation

is virtually impossible, an intermediaryis developed, which Lotman

terms the "text-code." The text-code, of which the Bible is the most

obvious example, serves an interpretiveand prescriptive role in the

transmissionof texts. The traditionallinguistic,structuralapproachto

analyzing texts, exemplifiedby VladimirPropp's Morphology of the

Folktale, often results in theconstructionof a text-code. Thelinguistic,structuralapproachpresupposesa closed set or system whoseelements

canproduce

aninfinite

seriesof

texts. In contrast, thesecondfunctionof texts suggests an immanent, literary approach that attempts to

situate texts within the confluenceof their contexts, antecedents, and

descendants.A text analyzed in its secondfunction will be notedfortheheterogeneity of its constituentelements,some of which orm "texts

within texts." In the remainder of this essay, presented here in its

entirety except for one elision, Lotman develops this approach,which

he associates with the work of Mikhail Bakhtin.

ATEXT IS a mechanism constituting a system of heteroge-neous semiotic spaces, in whose continuum the message

[associated with the first textual function] circulates. We do not

perceive this message to be the manifestation of a single language:a minimum of two languages is required to create it. No text of

the type I am interested in considering here can be adequately de-

scribed from the perspectiveof a singlelanguage.Either we may speakof continuous encoding by means of a double code-in which case,

"TheText withinthe Text" is a translationof "TeKc BTeKcTe, "whichappears n Tpy,bi

no 3HaKOBbIM CHCTeMaM (14 [1981]. 3-19), and is published here withpermission.

377



TheText within he Text

readers perceive one or the other organization,

depending on their viewpoints-or we may note

the combination of general codifications, begin-ning with a dominant code and continuing with

local coding at the second, the third, and further

degrees. Under the latter conditions basic pro-cesses of codification that are usually uncon-

scious and, as a result, imperceptible emerge in

the sphere of structural consciousness and be-

come significant at the conscious level. Thus, in

Tolstoy's example the purity of a glass of water

becomes perceptible only because of the detritus

and chips that fall into the glass: the detritus is

the additional material included in the text that

elicits the basic underlying code-"purity"-from the sphere of the structural unconscious.

The play with meaning that arises in the text, the

slippage between the various kinds of structural

regularities,endows the text with greaterseman-

tic potential than have texts codified by means

of a single, separate language. Therefore, in its

second function the text is not a passive con-

tainer, a mere receptacle for content introduced

into it from the outside, but has itself become a

generator of further texts. The process of gen-eration not only expands structures but also

stimulates their interaction. The interaction of

the structuresin the closed [3aMKHyTbI]orld of

the text extends to become an effective mecha-

nism in the semiotics of a culture. A text of this

kind is always richer than any individual lan-

guage and is not automatically deducible from

a single language. This type of text is a semi-

otic space within which languages interact, inter-

fere with one another, and organize themselves

hierarchically.

If Propp's method is oriented toward theelaboration of a single text-code underlying a

plurality of texts-which are presented as a

bundle of variants of a single text-then Bakh-

tin's method, beginning with MapKCH3MH (|I1-

JIOcoHl4)I 3bIKa (Marxism and the Philosophyof

Language), is the opposite: not only is a singletext composed of various subtexts but, more to

the point, the subtexts are mutually untranslat-

able. The text is thus revealed to be internally in

conflict. In Propp's description the text tends

toward panchronic equilibrium:an examination

of narrative texts makes clear that, in essence,there is no movement in them, only an oscillation

around some homeostatic norm (equilibrium isviolated and then reestablished). In Bakhtin's

analysis inevitable action, change, and destruc-

tion are latent even in the stasisof the text. There-

fore, there is a plot [ciioxeT]even in instances

that would appear to be far removed from the

problems of plot [cioweT].The natural arena for

exploring the text is the folktale for Propp and

the novel and the drama for Bakhtin ....

When a text interacts with a heterogeneous

consciousness, new meanings are generated, and

as a result the text's immanent structure is re-

organized. There are a finite number of possi-bilities for such restructurations [perestroiki,

nepecTpoHKH],and this condition limits the life

of any text over the centuries and also delimits

the restructuration perestroika, nepecTpoHKa]f

a monument when cultural contexts change, as

well as restricting the arbitrary imposition of

meanings that lack formal means of expression.

Pragmatic links can materialize in peripheralor automatic structures but cannot introduce

into a text codes that are principally absent

from it. However, the destruction of texts and

their conversion into material for the creation of

new, derivative texts-from the construction of

medieval buildings on the foundations of an-

tique ruins to the creation of contemporary

plays "according to the motifs" of Shakespeare-are also a part of the process of culture.

Nevertheless, the pragmatic impulse cannot be

coerced for different kinds of reinterpretations

[nepeocMblcJIeHHa]f the text; this principlecon-

stitutes the active aspect of textual functioning

itself.As a generator of meaning, as a thinking

mechanism capable of working, the text needs

an interlocutor. This requirement reveals the

profoundly dialogic nature of consciousness. To

function, a consciousness requires another con-

sciousness-the text within the text, the culture

within the culture. The introduction of an exter-

nal text into the immanent world of another text

has far-reachingconsequences. The external text

is transformedin the structural field of the other

text's meaning, and a new message is created.

378



Yuy M. Lotman

The transformation is made unpredictableby the

complexity of the components participating in

the textual interaction and by the multiplicity oftheir levels. However, the transformation occurs

not only within the entering text; the entire

semiotic situation inside the other text is also

changed. The introduction of an untranslatable,alien semiosis excites the "mother" text: atten-

tion shifts from the message to the language as

such and discovers the manifest nonhomoge-neous codification of the mother text. In these

conditions, the various subtexts that constitute

the mother text begin to differentiate and trans-

form themselves according to the new, alienlaws, producing new information. Removed

from semiotic equilibrium, a text becomes capa-ble of self-development. The powerful external

textual eruptions in a culture conceived of as a

huge text not only lead the culture to adaptoutside messages and to introduce them into its

memory but also stimulate the culture's self-

development, with unpredictable results.

Let us consider two examples of this process.The well-being of a child's intellectual apparatusin its initial state of

developmentdoes not

guar-antee that the child's consciousness will function

normally. The child must meet others and be

exposed to outside texts that stimulate its intel-

lectual development. A related example is the

"accelerated development" of a culture (Ga-

chev). A well-established, archaic culture is ca-

pable of remaining in a state of cyclic enclosure

and balanced immobility for an extraordinarily

long time. The irruptionof external texts into the

sphere of such a culture activates the mecha-

nisms of self-development. The greater the rup-ture and the more difficult it is to decipher the

intruding texts by recourse to the codes of the

mother text, the more dynamic will be the ulti-

mate condition of the culture.

Comparative study of the semantics of the

different "cultural explosions" in world historyreveals the simplistic nature of the conceptsestablished by Voltaire in his Essai sur les mours

et l'espritdes nations 'Essay on the Customs and

Spirit of Peoples' and by Condorcet in his Es-

quisse d'un tableau historique des progres de

l'esprithumain'Outlineof a Historical Picture of

the Progress of Human Reason' and further

developed by Hegel in his idea of the unifiedpath

of the world spirit. From these points of view,world cultures in all their diversity can be re-

duced either to different stages in the evolution

of a single universal reign of culture or to

"errors" that lead the mind into wilderness. In

the light of this observation, it seems natural that

"advanced" cultures should view "backward"

cultures as somewhat deficient, and the "back-

ward" culture's aspiration to catch up with the

"advanced"culture and assimilate into it is also

comprehensible. "Accelerated development" re-

duces the variety and complexity of world civi-lization and, as a result, diminishes it to a

monotonal Text; in other words, the process is

one of informational degradation. However, this

hypothesis is not confirmed by empirical reality:such a leveling does not take place in the course

of the cultural explosions in world history. What

does occur are processes that are diametrically

opposed to each other.

The dynamic condition of semiotic systems

presents a curious particularity.While a systemis

developing gradually,it

incorporates neigh-boring texts that are easily translatable into its

language. In moments of cultural (or, in general,

semiotic) explosion, the texts incorporated are

more distant and are untranslatable (or incom-

prehensible) from the point of view of the sys-tem. In these moments the more complex culture

does not always play the role of stimulus for the

more archaic one; the opposite tendency is also

possible. Thus in the twentieth century texts

from archaic and primitive cultures powerfully

erupted into European civilization, which conse-

quently displayed increasing dynamic excitation.

It is precisely the differences among cultural

potentials, the difficultiesin decipheringtexts bymeans of languages of existing cultures, that are

essential to bringingabout such transformations.

At the beginning of our era, for example, duringthe pagan adoption of Christianity, foreign texts

connected with Christian culture were incorpo-rated into a textual world that found them

inaccessible because of their culturalcomplexity.For the medieval civilizations of the Mediterra-

nean, however, the same texts were difficult to

379



The Textwithin he Text

graspbecause the texts seemed primitive. In each

case the result was similar: the texts provoked a

powerful cultural explosion that ruptured aworld's infantile or senile stasis and inaugurateda state of dynamism.

Earlier we emphasized the typological differ-

ence between two ontological orientations: one

identifies a multitude of texts with a single Text,and the other transcribes the problem of the

diversity of codes within the text's borders, so

that the Text's stratification into texts becomes

an internal law. But this problem can also be

examined in its pragmatic aspect. Detailed ex-

amination of any civilizationwill reveal texts

of great complexity. Thus the auditor's prag-matic disposition contributes to whether a text's

Proppian or Bakhtinian aspect is activated.

This question is closely connected to the prob-lem of the text's relation to its cultural context.

Culture is not a chaotic collocation of texts but

a complex, hierarchical functioning system.

Every text inevitably appears in at least two

perspectives, two types of contexts, opposed on

the axis homogeneity-nonhomogeneity. Seen in

relation to other texts, the text seems homoge-neous with them, while from the other viewpoint,outside the system, it appears alien and incom-

prehensible. In the first case the text is located

on the syntagmatic axis, in the second on the

rhetorical axis. A rhetorical effect occurs when

one text is juxtaposed with another that is

semiotically nonhomogeneous with it. Meaningis formed as much by the interaction between

semiotically heterogeneous, mutuallyuntranslat-

able layers of the text as by the complex conflicts

of meaning between the text and its context. Just

as the artistic text tends toward polyglotism, soits artistic and general cultural contexts cannot

be monologic. Because any cultural context is

complex, its constitutive texts must be exam-

ined equally on the syntagmatic and on the rhe-

torical axes. It is the juxtaposition of these axes

that brings the semiotic structure of uncon-

scious mechanisms into the sphere of conscious

semiotic creation. The problem of the diverse

juxtapositions of heterogeneous texts posed ac-

curately in the art and culture of the twentieth

century is, in reality, one of the most ancientissues at the center of the theme "the text within

the text."1 Neo-rhetoric, of intensifying interest

in contemporary scholarship, is a related area of

investigation.

The text within the text is a specific rhetorical

construction in which the determining factor in

the author's construction of the text and in the

reader'sreception of it is the differentialcodifica-

tion of various parts of the text. The transition

from a semiotic system of textual comprehensionto a system of internal structural boundaries

constitutes the basis for the generation of mean-

ing. This condition, above all, intensifies the

moment ofplay

in the text: from an alternative

mode of codification the text acquires features

of a more sophisticated conventionality, and the

text's ludic character is accentuated-its ironic,

parodic, theatrical, and other such meanings.

Simultaneously, the role of the text's boundaries

is highlighted-both the external boundaries

separating the text from the nontext and the

internal ones demarcating different levels of

codification. The boundaries are mobile: shifts

in the text's orientation [ycTaHoBKa]oward one

or another code result in changes in the bounda-

ries' structures as well. For example, proceedingfrom the well-established tradition that defines

the pedestal of the sculpture or the frame of the

painting as nontext, the art of the baroqueepochintroduces these components into the text, con-

verting the pedestal into a stone, for instance,and by means of plot [cioxeTHo] conjoining it

with a figureinto a single composition. Includingthe pedestal or frame in the text intensifies the

ludic moment because the conventionality of

these elements also keeps them excluded, distinct

from what is inherent in the basic text. Whenthe figures of a baroque sculpture climb on the

pedestal or descend from it or when figures in a

painting leap down from the frame, the effect is

to emphasize rather than to obscure the fact that

one element belongs to material reality while the

other belongs to artistic reality. A similar playwith observers' perceptions of alternative reali-

ties occurs when theatrical action descends from

the stage into the real, everyday space of the

auditorium.

Play between the real and the conventional isan integralpartof any occurrenceof a text within

380



Yuy M. Lotman

a text. In the simplest occurrence the included

section is encoded in the same way as the remain-

ing text and thus is doubly coded. Examples area paintingwithin a painting, a play within a play,a film within a film, and a novel within a novel.

The delineated section is doubly encoded in

accordancewith identifiableartisticconventions,and therefore it encourages the perception of the

remaining space of the text as real. Thus Hamlet

offers not merely a text within a text but also

Hamlet within Hamlet. The play performed on

Hamlet's initiative reiterates in a markedly con-

ventional manner the play composed by Shake-

speare: first the pantomime, then the distinctlyconventional rhymed monologues, interrupted

by the prosaic remarks of the audience-Ham-

let, the king, the queen, and Ophelia. The con-

ventionality of Hamlet's play emphasizes the

reality of Shakespeare's.2 To accentuate this

response in the reader, Shakespeare introduced

metatextual elements: the director of the play

appears before us on the stage. In a scene

anticipating Federico Fellini's 8/2, Hamlet issues

instructions to the actors, directing their per-

formance. Shakespeare thus stages not only aplay but, more important, a theatrical rehearsal.

Duplication is the most simple aspect of the

coded organization and the structural construc-

tions of consciousness. It is no accident that

myths of the genesis of the arts share a basis

in duplication: rhythm from the echo, paint-

ing from the use of coal to outline shadows on

rock, and so forth. In painting and cinematogra-

phy the mirror is the most common instrument

for creating localized subtexts by duplicating

patterns.It is essential to recognize, however, that du-

plication by means of a mirror is almost never

simple replication. Rather, the right-left axis is

reversed, or, even more frequently,a perpendicu-lar axis is superimposed on the canvas or screen,

creating a dimension or viewpoint outside the

surface. In Velazquez's painting Venus and Cu-

pid, besides the viewpoint of the observer, whosees Venus from behind, an additional perspec-tive is added, directed on Venus's face, visible in

the depths of the mirror. In Jan van Eyck's

Portrait of theBankerArnolfiniand His Wife theeffect is even more complicated: the mirrorhang-

ing in the background reflects from behind the

backs of Arnolfini and his wife (who face the

viewer) and also shows the guests they are greet-ing, who enter from the side of the viewer's

perspective.From the depths of the mirrora gazeis projected that is perpendicular to the canvas

(meeting the gaze of the viewer) and that tra-

verses the boundaries of the painting's actual

space. Mirrors in baroque interiors often playedthe same role, refracting the architecturalspace

by creating an illusory infinity: the reflection of

a mirror in a mirror, the duplication of space

through the reflection of a painting in mirrors,3

or the fragmentation of internal and externalboundaries through the reflection of windows in

mirrors.

The mirror can fulfill another function, how-

ever. In duplicating, the mirror deforms, and

thus it reveals how its representation,apparently

natural, is in fact a projection using a specific

modeling language. The mirror in van Eyck's

painting is convex (see the portrait of Hans

Burgkmayrand his wife painted by Lucas Fur-

tenagle, in which the wife holds a convex mirror

almost at a right angle to the surface of thecanvas, acutely deforming the reflections): Ar-

nolfini and his wife are not only shown from the

front and the back but also projected onto both

sphericaland flat surfaces.In Luchino Visconti's

film Senso (The Wanton Countess)the heroine,immobile and passionless, is juxtaposed to her

dynamic reflection in a mirror. See also the

fragmenting effect of reflection in a broken mir-

ror in two other films, Henri-Georges Clouzot's

Le corbeau(The Raven) and Marcel Carne's Le

jourse leve

(Daybreak).The widespread literary mythology of reflec-

tions in mirrors and of a world "through the

looking glass" can be seen as evolving from

archaic beliefs about mirrors as windows into a

world beyond. A literaryequivalentof the mirror

motif is the theme of the double. Justas the world

through the looking glass is an estranged model

of the ordinaryworld, the double is an estrangedreflection of a person. An image of someone

altered according to the rules of specular reflec-

tion (enantiomorphism), the double appears as

a combination of features that preserve an in-variant identity while having been rearranged.

381



7lheTextwithin he Text

Applying the concept of right-left symmetry

permits an exceptionally broad range of inter-

pretations-the corpse is the double of the liv-ing, nonmatter of matter, ugliness of beauty, the

criminal of the saintly, the insignificant of the

great, and so forth-establishing a wide field of

possibilities for artistic modeling.The signifying nature of the artistic text is

dual. On the one hand, the text acquires an

autonomous existence, independent of the

author, and thus becomes a real thing, amongthe things of the real world. On the other hand,the text continuously reminds us that it is the

creation of someone andsignifies something.This duality illuminates the play of realityversus

fiction in the semantic field that Pushkin charac-

terized by the words "Haa BbIMbICJIOM ie3aMLI

o6oJIbIOCb" 'Brought to tears over an invention.'

The rhetorical union of things with the signs of

things (collage) in a textual unity produces a

doubled effect, simultaneouslyemphasizingboth

the conventionality and the absolute authenticityof the artifice. As indications that the text deals

with realia (taken from the external world and

not the handiwork of the author), documents of

indubitable authenticity may be incorporated.For example, topical paintings may be inserted

in a film (see Andrey Tarkovsky's 3epKajio Mir-

ror]). Pushkin, in Ay6poBcKoro (Dubrovsky),

presents the documents of a complete, authentic

eighteenth-centurycourt case, changing only the

proper names. In more complicated instances a

factual subtext may be deauthenticated by an

impression of authenticity derived from another

source. Nonetheless, the function of the authen-

tic subtext within the rhetorical unity of the text

is to create the semblance of reality.Mikhail Bulgakov's novel MacTep H Map-

rapHTa (The Master and Margarita) is con-

structed of two interwoven autonomous texts.One recounts events unfolding in the Moscow ofthe author's time, and the other relates events

taking place in ancient Jerusalem. The Moscowtext uses all the indicators of reality; these chap-ters, filled with authentic details familiar to the

reader, have an everyday flavor and present adirect extension of the reader's contemporary

world. The Moscow material is offered as a givenprimary text and is neutral in tone. By contrast,

the chapters recounting events in Jerusalemcon-

sistently maintain the character of a text within

a text. If the first text is Bulgakov's creation, thesecond is created by the novel's heroes. The

irreality of the second text is emphasized bymetatextual discussions of how it should be

composed-for example, this comment: Jesus"HaCaMOMeJie HHIKoraaHe 6biIO B)KHBbIX.OT

Ha 3TO-TOH HyICHOAeiaTb rJiaBHbIHnop" 'in

fact was neveramong the living. We cannot placetoo great an emphasis on this fact' (426). If the

tendency of the first text is to prove that it has a

real denotatum, the second text demonstratively

asserts that its own denotata do not exist. Thistechnique receives a sustained development inthe chapters on Jerusalem-first Woland's nar-

rative, then the Master's novel; by these means,the Moscow chapters appear to present a visible

reality while the Jerusalem chapters represent a

narrative that must be heard or read. The Jeru-

salem chapters are invariably introduced by the

endings of the Moscow chapters,which thus also

become beginnings, emphasizing the secondarynature of what follows: "3aroBopHui erpoMKo,

npHHeMero aKueHTrnoqeMy-TOnponai:- Bce

npocTo: B 6ejIoMnae . . . B 6ejioM niaiwe

c KpoBaBbIMnoa6oeM, mapKaioimei Kasajie-

PHHCKOHIOXOAKOi . . BbIIIenj npoKypaTop

HiyaenIoHTHHIlHnJaT"He spoke softly, and

therefore his foreign accent was somehow less

noticeable. It all happened very simply: In a

white robe. .. .' (Here the first chapter ends and

the second begins.) 'In a white robe with a

bloodred lining, shuffling along like a cavalry-man... the procuratorof Judea, Pontius Pilate,

emerged' (435; firstellipsis in orig.). The chapter

"Ka3Hb""Punishment") s introduced as Ivan'sdream:4"ueMy CTaJo CHHITbCA,TO COnHHueceCHHIKaJIocbHaAJbIcoH rFopohi,H 6bijia 3Ta ropaouenieHa ABOHHbIMueneHmeM . . . Cojmue

yce CHHMIaJiocbaa JIbcoi rFopoii, H 6biia 3Ta

ropa ouernIeHa ABOHHbIMuenJIeHHeM" and he

began to dream that the sun was already sinkingover Bald Mountain, and the mountain wasencircled by a double cordon . .' (Chapter 15

ends, and chapter 16 begins.) 'The sun was

already sinking over Bald Mountain, and the

mountain was encircled by a double cordon'(587-88; ellipsis in orig.). Furtheron, the text on

382



YuryM. Lotman

Jerusalem is introduced as the Master's compo-sition: "XOTS6bI Ao caMoro paccBeTa, MorJia

MaprapHTa imejecTeTb JICTaMH TeTpagei,

pa3rFJISI,bIBaTbHX H leJIOBaTb H nepemH-TbIBaTb cIosBa:-TbMa, npHiimeamaa o Cpe-JHI3eMHOrOMOpA, HaKpbIJia HeHaBHMHMbIH

npoKypaTopoM opo ... a, TbMa .. TbMa,

npHImeamaao CpeAIH3eMHoroOpa,HaKpbijiaHeHaBHMHMbMIipoKypaTopoM opoa" 'even un-

til the break of day, Margaritawould gladlyhave continued o rustle the pagesof the note-

book, would not tire of glancingthroughthe

pages, kissing them, and rereading he words

"Thegloomytwilight manatingromthe Medi-terraneandarkened the town the procuratorhated .. ." Yes, gloom . . .' (Chapter 24 ends,and chapter25 begins.) 'The gloomy twilightemanatingromtheMediterraneanarkened hetown the procuratorhated' (714; ellipses in

orig.).Once the distinctionbetween he real andthe

unreal is established, however, the reader's iner-

tia is disturbedby the game of redeterminingthe

boundaries etween hesetwospheres.The most

fantasticeventstakeplacein the Moscowworld(the"real"world),while the "imaginary" orldof theMaster'snovel s constructed ccordingostrictrulesof verisimilitude f theeveryday.Onthe level at whichelementsof the plot [cimeT]interrelate,he allocationof the qualitiesof realand irreal is the reverse of what it was before. In

addition, elements of metatextual commentaryare introduced into the Moscow plot line, albeit

rarely, creating the following scheme: the author

relates his heroes' adventures, and his heroes in

turn tell thehistory

of Jeshua and Pilate: "3a

MHOH,IHITaTeJIb TOCKa3aJITe6e, qTOHeT Ha

BeTeHacToAiiieH,sepHoH, BseHO JIno6rBH?" Get

thee behind me, reader Who told you that trueeternal ove doesnot exist on earth?' 632).

Finally,the storywithinthestory,in its ideo-

philosophicalmplications,offersBulgakovthe

opportunitynot onlyto distancereality hroughliteraryplay (as JanPotocki,for example,doesin Tales rom theSaragossaManuscript)but also,in a more profound sense, to transcend the

nitty-gritty uperficiality f the ephemeralreal

world and to ascendto the authentic ssenceofworld mystery. Specularity exists between the

two texts, but whatever appears to be a real

object turns out to be only the deformed reflec-

tion of something hat was itself a reflection.The essentialand most traditionalmeansof

textually ncoding hetoricalombinationss the

compositionalrame.A normal that s, neutral)construction s based, in part, on the fact thatthe framingof the text (the frameof a picture,the bindingof a book or the publisher'snfor-mation on the back, a singer's coughing before

an aria, tuning of instruments by an orchestra,the words"Now, listen"before an oral narra-

tion, and so forth) is extraneousto the text.

Locatedoutside he text'sboundaries,heframewarns of the initiation of the text. The frame

beginsto intrude nto the text as the auditor'sattentionshiftsto informationabout the code.Even morecomplicated recases where he textand its frameareinterwoven, o that eachbothframesandis framed.5

Anotherpossibleconstructions thepresenta-tion of one text as an uninterrupted ccountwhilea second s introducedntoit in fragments,suchas citations,references, pigraphs, ndthe

like.Presumablyhereaderunites hefragmentsinto whole texts. Otherinsertionsof this typemay be read both as belonging to the text

surroundinghemandas divergentrom it. Themorethe code of the text inseminationorfrag-ment]appearsuntranslatable ccording o thecode of the surrounding ext, the more thesemioticelementsof eachare madeperceptible.

Double or multiplecodifications f the entiretextaresimilarlymultifunctional.We must rec-

ognizethe instanceswhere the theaterencodesthe

day-to-daybehaviorof individuals, rans-forming it into "history,"while a "historicalevent" s considered naturalsubject or paint-ing.6And in some cases,whendistantand de-

pendent untranslatable codes are broughttogether,herhetorical-semioticoment smore

heavilystressed.Thus, in the 1950s,during he

height of the excitementover neorealismandafterproducingLa terra remaTheEarthTrem-

bles,' Visconti demonstrativelypromulgatedSenso through the operatic code. As the basic

generalcode of two different trata,he presentsframes n whicha livingactor Franz)smountedinsidea Renaissance resco.

383



The Text within the Text

Culturein its entirety may be considered a text

-a complexly structured text, divided into a

hierarchy of intricately interconnected textswithin texts. To the extent that the word text is

etymologically linked to weaving, the term's

original sense has been restored.

dreaming of him dying. The repetition of the first stanza as

the last creates a space that can be representedas a Mobius

strip, one side of which signifies the dream and the other

reality.

5On figures of interweaving see Shubnikov and Kopchik17-18.

6SeeLotman; Francastel 211-38.

Works Cited

Notes

1Seethe work of M, Drozda, dedicated to the problem of

the European avant-garde.2Thecharactersin Hamlet watching the theatricality of the

comedians suspend their disbelief and thus become trans-

formed into an extratheatrical public. This explains their

transition into prose speech and emphasizes Hamlet's ob-

scene remarks,which recall the comments of the audiencein

Shakespeare'stime. In fact, there emergesnot only a theater

within the theater but also an audience within the audience.

To convey this effect adequately to modern theatergoers,the

hero at that moment should remove his makeup and sit with

them, so that the stage is yielded to the comedians playingThe Mouse-trap and his remarks seem to come from the

public.3Derzhavin writes: "KapTHHbI B 3epKanax AbImarm,

MycCa, MpaMop H 4ap()op . . ." 'Paintings in mirrors

breathed, / Musia, marble, and porcelain . . .' (213).4A dream inside a novella is a traditional kind of text

within a text. Greatercomplexity is apparent in Lermontov's

"COH"("Dream"; "BrnojnHeBHbIniap B aoJIHHe A[are-cTaHa . ." 'In the noonday heat in the distance of Dage-stan ...'), where the dying hero sees in his dream the heroine

Bulgakov, Mikhail. MacTep MaprapHTa The Master and

Margarita]. PoMaHbI:Bejna rsapmWa-TeaTpaJTbHbIH

poMaH-MacTepHMaprapHTa Novels: WhiteGuard,A

TheatricalNovel, The Master and Margarita]. Moskva:

Khudozhestvennaia, 1973.Derzhavin, Gavriil R. "BeJmMoxca" A Grandee]. CTH-

xoTBopeHHa [Verses].Leningrad:Sovetskiipisatel', 1957.

210-18.

Francastel, Pierre. La realit figurative. Gonthier, 1965.

Gachev, Georgy. )KX3Hb xyoaoecTBcHHoro co3HaHHa:

OqepKH o HCTOPHHo6pa3a [The Life of Artistic Con-

sciousness: Observations on the History of the Image].Moskva: Iskusstvo, 1981.

Lotman, Iurii.CTaTbHo ceMHOTHKei THHnoIorHHKyJIbTypbI

[Essays on Semiotics and the Typology of Culture].Tallinn:Aleksandra, 1992. Vol. 2 of M36paHHbIeTaTbH

B TpeX TOMaX [Collected Essays in Three Volumes].

Shubnikov, A. V., and V. A. Kopchik. CHMMeTpAISHayKeHHCKyccTBeSymmetryin Science and Art]. 1972.

Translated by

Jerry Leo and Amy Mandelker

GraduateCenter

City University of New York

384

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