RITA MASCIALINO

1. RITA MASCIALINO HOW PRAGMATISM DISTORTS THE MEANING OF LITERARY TEXTS (Der plötzliche Spaziergang - The SuddenWalk, by Franz Kafka)

2. Meaning • Meaning is an evolutionary product of adaptation and as such it has a large objective basis without which life would have finished at its arising; • Meaning does not arise with language, it has existed at least since the beginning of life on Earth, from biosemiotics to the natural and to the formal languages; • Meaning is at the core of what humans recognise as comprehension, knowledge and communication;

3. The meaning of language and Pragmatism Nevertheless, the meaning of language is seen by Pragmatism (Peirce), which is the most accepted hypothesis upon the meaning of language, as : 1.having no universal objectivity; 2.depending on the subjective experiences and habits of every individual; 3.having some effect on action; according to Peirce’s words, language in general: “is a confused form of thought whose only meaning, if it has any [!], lies in its tendency (…) [to produce an action]” (Peirce 1931/51/98: 5, 15);

4. Weakness of Pragmatism • On the basis of Peirce’s Pragmatism and hypothesis about the meaning of language, it results or should result that: 1.Pragmatism cannot develop a scientific way to interpret the meaning of language; 2.Pragmatism cannot develop a democratic culture based on the general use of reason;

5. The importance of language in general and of literary texts in particular 1.Meaning is a product of adaptation as well as all semiotic systems including language, therefore language cannot be a “confused form of thought” (Peirce); but since having an ability in the use of language beyond everyday life is not easy, language can easily become a confused form of thought; 2. The language of literary texts is a most important linguistic area because it lets us know mental worlds which would be otherwise expressed at the utmost fragmented in single images or would remain completely unconscious being they not required in concrete life; were these worlds not expressed in the language of poetry, mankind would therefore have a great lost of identity; 3. Of course, the language of literary texts must be objectively understood for it to be advantageous;

6. Discussion • As a justification of what has been said, some pragmatic interpretations of a literary passage will be presented in comparison with a new interpretation not based on Pragmatism, but based on the SpatialHypothesis (Mascialino 1997 and ff.) finalized to identify in a more scientific way the meaning of language, specifically of the language of fantasy, of literary texts; • The presented intralinguistic interpretations belong to the English and Italian cultures, but also many further English, Italian, American, Spanish, French, German interpretations and translations have been controlled;

7. Original German passage from Kafka’s Der plötzliche Spaziergang(The Sudden Walk/Stroll) • Original German text of the passage (Kafka 1913, hrsg. Max Brod/Fischer Verlag: 26): “, während man selbst, ganz fest, schwarz vor Umrissenheit, hinten die Schenkel schlagend, sich zu seiner wahren Gestalt erhebt.” The enlarged and underscored phrase is in particular, even if not only, at issue here because of its importance as to the meaning of the passage and of the whole tale;

8. Premise: a short contextualization of the passage • In a most rough and paraphrastic outline: The tale represents a protagonist at home with his parents after dinner as usually; they always perform the same actions such as some work or play without speaking with each other, so living in a routine, at the surface of life without expressing their personality out of the small boundaries of mental conformism; after much analytic considering and doubting, the protagonist takes the decision to go out in the night and to leave that kind of life where he feels prone and cannot let emerge and know his true personality; Some interpretations in English and Italian will follow as examples of pragmatic distortions of meaning;

9. English translations of the German passage - “, while you yourself, a sharply defined black silhouette, slapping the backs of your thighs, rise to your true stature.” (Neugroschel 2000: 30) - “, while you yourself, firm as can be, black with your sharpness of outline, slapping the backs of your thighs, rise up to your true stature.” (Pasley 1992:17) - “whereas we ourselves, as indisputable and sharp and black as a silhouette, smacking the backs of your thighs, come into our true nature.” (Hofmann 2007: 10-11)

10. English translations of the German passage -“, while you yourself, boldly drawn black figure, slapping yourself on the thigh, grow to your true stature.” (Muir 1993: 11) - “, while you yourself, a firm, boldly drawn black figure, slapping yourself on the thigh, grow to your true stature.” (Muir 1999: 398) - “, while you yourself, absolutely solid, black and clear-cut, slapping your thighs, rise and assume your true form.” (Crick 2009: 8)

11. Italian translations of the German passage - “, mentre noi ci eleviamo solidissimi e ci stagliamo in netti contorni, battendo con le mani le cosce, fino a trovare la nostra vera forma.” (Schiavoni 1992: 65) - “, mentre noi, solidissimi, neri per l’assoluta nitidezza dei nostri contorni, battendo con le mani dietro sulle cosce, ci si eleva ad assumere la nostra vera figura.” (Baioni 1983: 95)

12. Importance of the action hinten die Schenkel schlagend in the tale • On a concrete level, it is exactly this action which makes the protagonist/author possible to rise up from a prone to an erect position which is very particular itself; • On a first elementary level of a paraphrase, this action makes the protagonist possible to reach a truer, more dignitous and not prostrate personality; • On a further more abstract and complex level of symbolization, this action introduces the interpretation of life produced by the protagonist/author as we are going to see;

13. Pragmatic interpretation of the action at issue • Applying the principles of Pragmatism (subjective projection of one’s own experiences and habits etc.), the interpreters, as it cannot be otherwise, let us know their own personality and Weltanschauung condensed in the slapping-image produced by them, but they do not let us know the personality and the Weltanschauung of Kafka nor the complex image produced by him, because these are different from what the interpreters have produced;

14. The importance of the action for the reader • If the reader understands the action by himself or reads an analysis done by a scholar who has extracted its meaning, then he: 1.can enjoy emotions similar to those concerning Kafka; 2.can add Kafka’s perspective on life to his own, so enlarging his own mental space and Weltanschauung; and, which is not so unimportant, he 3.can know who Kafka is;

15. Spatial comprehension of the slapping-image • We will now apply the instrument of the Spatial Hypothesis (main keyconcepts: Dynamic Spatiality,Exo- andEndospatial Schemes,Exo- and Endospatial Plot) (Mascialino 1997 and ff.) in order to broadly verify/falsify the validity of the slapping-image which is generally given as the correct comprehension of Kafka’s passage and therefore of the whole tale being the phrase relevant to the meaning of the whole tale;

16. Explicit and implicit area concerning the meaning of the slapping-image • Explicit area: The slapping-imagerefers to a man who tries to stand up by slapping his thighs on their back side, i.e., tries to help himself rise up with a somehow stimulating action; • Implicit area: As the slapping of the thighs represents a stimulation for animals to move, the slapping-image refers to a possibly lazy or uncertain man who has to be stimulated in order to act and who has to do this by himself, because nobody else does it or wants to do it––his family helps him be prone––or because he knows that he can and must do the effort by himself;

17. Falsification of the slapping-image • Implicit to the metaphorical standing or rising up is the presence of a metaphorical not standing position: 1.If the protagonist should be sitting, then he could not slap his thighs on their backside; 2. If he would lie on his back,thenhe could not slap his thighs on their backside; 3. If he would crouch down, then he could not slap his thighs on their backside; 4. If he would lie face down, then he could slap his thighs, but no standing up could be stimulated by this action; 5. If he would be on his kneels, then he could slap his thighs, but the slapping would not stimulate the standing up and would make it more difficult and even impossible; 6. The slapping is not so great an action which can lead to so great a goal, nor it is an elegant action, whereas the German passage consists in a most elegant language coherently fit to great goals;

18. Consistence of the slapping-image As shown above: • The Dynamic Spatiality carried by the action of slapping the thighs by one’s self does not fit any standing up, which is why nobody in the worldhas ever slapped or would slap his thighs by himself in order to move or rise up, except the protagonist of Kafka’s tale according to the current pragmatic interpretations; • In addition, the slapping is not an elegant or great action, it is even sotosay vulgar, whereas the language Kafka has chosen to connote the action at issue shows a height of elegance and greatness which requires consistence with the meaning of the passage;

19. Some short analysis of the passage • Let us now have some short analysis both about the meaning of the words of which the phrase consists and about the underlying syntax; not only words, but also syntax is always very relevant as to the meaning of all possible linguistic forms and is particularly relevant in this specific case, because it is exactly in the correct interpretation of the syntactic form that we can achieve the meaning of the passage and so of the whole tale;

20. Meaning of the German verb schlagen • The German verb schlagen, roughly considered, has two different areas of semantic application: 1. Withan accusative object, the meaning is: to slap, to knock, to beat, to strike, and the like; 2. With no accusativeobject,themeaning is: to perform more times in a rapid succession a violent movement with a part of the body, as, e.i., when a crocodile repeatedly and very rapidly moves his tail violently, or a bird more times and very rapidly moves his wings, and the like;

21. The syntax underlying the slapping-image • The syntax underlying the slapping-image refers to the meaning of schlagen with an accusative object, i.e., to slapin the form of a present participle directly linked both to the indefinite pronoun one (you, we etc.),in Germanman,which hasthe function of a subject, and to the noun thethighs/die Schenkel, intended as an accusative object, plural, i.e.: The protagonist (indefinite subject man) is slapping (transitive meaning of schlagen) his thighs (accusative object die Schenkel) from their back side (hinten);

22. The syntax underlying the original German text The German text interpreted by Mascialino (1996, 2008) shows a nominative absolute with schlagend in the form and meaning without any accusative object, i.e.: the hind thighs/die Schenkel are the subject of schlagendwith meaning to perform a violent movement many times in rapid successionwith a part of the body, i.e.: the hind thighs (die Schenkel as definite subject of the phrase) are kicking (intransitive meaning of schlagen);

23. The black-horse-image • The movement concerned in this nominative absolute is performed withthe hind legs, which implies a four-limbed animal; this action is typical of horses: When they rise up from a prone position, they hit repeatedly and violently their hind legs including thighs, then they rise up by kicking with their hind legs and swinging their body, including head and mane, elegantly and powerfully up and down, left and rights, forward and backward till they are thanks to this most beautiful action erect; the protagonist lets us also know that the horse is black as the night all around, schwarz vor Umrissenheit; so he gives us a powerful black-horse-image, the image of the protagonist who is no more a man, but has transformed himself into a rising black horse;

24. The horse symbol 1.The horse symbol is manifold; shortly, the horse in general is always linked to great elegance and power; it is considered as a sinister son of night and mystery, linked to death and life, able also to achieve the highest skies starting from its dark origins; 2.A black horse is a.o. a symbol for the power of the instincts, for erotic vitality and for the unconscious world of the mind, of imagination when it is not or not yet in the form of scientific concepts, but in the form of fantasy; 3.A white horse is a symbol for the power of reason which controls the instincts, for the conscious world of the mind, which gives the comprehension of life scientific outlines and, in this sense, limits;

25. Why a black horse in Kafka’s passage 3.Kafka has chosen a black horse for his passage and phrase in order to represent at the level of a most suggestive image the deepest unconscious dark regions of his mind to which he as a great poet is in particular linked and the power of which he knows to be a superior power in comparison with the limiting power of reason; he as a black horse sees in the black night and goes where reason itself cannot have any direct access being reason associated with light which it needs in order to be reason;

26. Translation of the original German passage by Rita Mascialino - “, mentre da sé, del tutto solidi, neri di contornità, le cosce dietro scalcianti, ci si erge verso la propria vera forma.” (Mascialino 1996: 30; 2008: 27)

27. The synthetic linguistic forms for the synthetic actions performed in the German passage • Corresponding to the rising of a powerful black horse performing the continuous and fluent action of kicking and swinging, the language does not show any fragmentation in doubts and analytic details which connote the preceeding long part of the tale dominated by the limits of everyday life and reason; so, the passage proves to be the goal of the whole tale;

28. Comparison between the Dynamic Spatiality of the slapping-image and the black-horse-image • The synthetic language as to the words and syntax employed in the German text is in complete opposition with the possible presence of a confused action such as a slapping of the thighs on their back side which cannot produce a solid, compact, powerful and elegant image; the Dynamic Spatiality intrinsic to the black-horse-image fits coherently the power and elegance of the language intrinsic to the German passage together with its corresponding meaning;

29. Why an indefinite subject of tale and passage • With an I-subject the human features of the protagonist would have been too much in the foreground and, understanding the passage, we would have had, at least at first, the arising of the image of a human with some horse features, whereas we have in the passage most directly the sudden presence of a whole black horse which seems to arise from under the earth and which lets us forget the human features of the protagonist exactly softened by the use of an indefinite subject;

30. Why hind thighs instead of hind legs • Because the hind thighs of a horse are a better symbol for power and vitality than its thinner legs and because the black-horse-image is centred upon the elegance of power, upon vitality, including erotic vitality.

31. How the tale ends • After the height of power, elegance, and vitality intrinsic to the passage Kafka adds the possibility of the protagonist transformed into a black horse to go and see a friend in order to know how it is with him. A friend in order to share the world of poetry with its advantages for humans with someone who does not fear to receive the visit of such a black horse used to walk and see in the darkness, i.e., a friend who does not fear to meet the unconscious world of imagination, whereas most humans fear to have contact with the dark unconscious world;

32. Conclusion • It has been shown that Franz Kafka has not only transformed himself into a repulsive black cockroach (Die Verwandlung), as believed till now by scholars and common readers, but that he has transformed himself also into a most powerful and elegant black horse: He is a cockroach in the morning, in everyday life, and is a powerful and elegant black horse in the night, where the mental worlds of fantasy can rule less disturbed by day duties and reason, by light which eliminates the shadows produced by imagination (Mascialino 1996, 2008); • It has also been shown that Franz Kafka is not an author who cannot be understood, as many pragmatic scholars on the contrary state;

33. Conclusion • It has been shown that the meaning of the language of poetry can go completely lost because of current hypotheses and theories upon the meaning of language; • It has been shown how the meaning of literary texts can be identified by applying a scientific hypothesis, a scientific method such as the Spatial Hypothesis (Mascialino 1997 and ff.);

34. Conclusion • Concluding, there is in general a lack of sound interpretations of the meaning of literary texts; not filling this gap, the “power of poetry”, as Robin Allott (2008) has masterly defined the importance of the meaning of poetry for mankind, will continue going lost with the consequence of a damage for culture, of a smaller and smaller identity as well as a greater and greater barbarism for mankind.