Anagrams in Psychoanalysis: Retroping Concepts by Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, and JeanFranois Lyotard

Author(s): Andrea Bachner

Source: Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 40, No. 1 (2003), pp. 1-25
Published by: Penn State University Press
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A. OWEN ALDRIDGE PRIZE WINNER 2002

ANAGRAMSIN PSYCHOANALYSIS:
RETROPINGCONCEPTSBY SIGMUNDFREUD,
JACQUESLACAN,AND JEAN-FRANOISLYOTARD
Andrea Bachner

Whyanagrammatizepsychoanalysis?

Comparedto the tropesof metaphorand metonymyand the broadertheoreticalconceptsthathavebeendevelopedundertheirnames,the anagram

untilrecently hasfaredpoorly.1Problemsfor its use in widertheorizations
lie in its lack of a convenientoppositewith which it could form a binary
pair,and maybealso in its contiguity causingthe dismissalof the possibility of putting it to "serious"uses to such "lowly"figures as puns,
andothertropesmarginalizedfor theirbawdyexcessesandlack
calembours,
of seriousness.2Given the fact that metaphorand metonymy- especially
in the contextof their Lacanianequationwith SigmundFreuds principles
of condensationand displacement,then with desireand symptom(derived
fromthe theoriesof RomanJakobsonbuilt upon the linguisticsdeveloped
by Ferdinand de Saussure) still seem to serve as psychoanalytical
mastertropes,why shouldan attemptbe madeto tracesites of the anagram
in psychoanalyticaltheory?
In fact,the sites of anagramsin JacquesLacans worksand in the more
orientedworksbyJean-FranoisLyotardconsistof more
psychoanalytically
than mereweak traces.Both Lyotardand Lacan- even while seeming to
focus on Saussure's"official"theories- are awareof his unpublishedwork
on anagrams,which was made partlyaccessibleby Jean Starobinskiin the
1960s and 1970s.Admittedly,this awarenessseems to go no furtherthan
mentions in footnotes or short textual asides. However,in very different
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES, Vol. 40, No. 1, 2003.
Copyright 2003 The PennsylvaniaState University,University Park,PA.
I

COMPARATIVE

LITERATURE

STUDIES

ways, the anagramis strangelypresentin Lacan'sand Lyotard'sworks in

unavoweduses of the conceptof the anagramand also,more evidently,in
the stylisticuse of them (especiallyprevalentin Lacans seminars),though
they never openly exploit despite their drawingextensivelyon Freuds
writings Freud'sanagrammatictendencies.
In this essay,basedon a wider conceptof the anagram,I firstwant to
point to the importanceof anagrammaticconceptsin some of Freud'swritDer Witz und seine Beziehungzum
ings (especially Die Traumdeutungy
Die
.
From
thesepointsof departureI will trace
Unbewujiteny Fehlleistungen)
sites of the anagramin Lyotard'sDiscours,
figure and Lacans Encoreand
"L'instancede la lettre dans l'inconscientou la raisondepuis Freud"and
uncoverdisplacementsof the anagramin their theorieswith a view to addressingthe followingquestions:What is at stakein suchdisplacementsof
the anagram?What are the underlyingtheoriesand conceptsof the anagramused?What could a psychoanalyticalmodel gain fromincludingthe
anagramamong its privilegedfigurations?
Tamedand untamedanagrams

Das ist ein Anagrammgedicht

Ein Anagrammist das Gedicht
gemachtim Anti-Sarg,im Sande
An Ti gedacht,im Gras,im Sande
stimmt dich der i-aa-Gesangan.
Das singt ein Tiger am am Dach
Das ist mein Rachetagam Ding
Da nagt sein Dramaim Gesicht
das ist ein Anagrammgedicht. . .
Unica Ziirn3
[This is an anagrammaticpoem
An anagramis the poem
made in the anti-coffin,in the sand
Thought of Ti, in the grass,in the sand
the i-aa-song turnsyou on.
This sings a tiger at at the roof
This is my day of vengeanceon the thing

Anagramsin Psychoanalysis

There gnaws his dramain the face

this is an anagrammaticpoem . . . ]4
Unica Zurn'sexpression"Das ist mein Rachetagam Ding" ["This is
my dayof vengeanceon the thing"]in her meta-anagrammatic
poem seems
to hint at some of the characteristicsattributedto the anagram.Through
the combinatorialplay with what is conventionallyseen as the building
blocks of univocal signification,through a spatialization,one (or more)
potentialtext(s)under/in/witha text,the anagramforegroundsthe materialityof languageanddeconstructsconventionalnotionsof significationand
These characteristicsremainrelativelyconstantthroughrepresentation.5
out the history of the anagram.They are present in the definition of its
narrowestconcept by Luzia Braun and Klaus Ruch, uAus dem Buchstabenmaterial
einesWortesodereinerZeile werdenneueWrtergebildet,
ohne dafiein einzigerBuchstabehinzugefugtoderweggelassenwiirde"(225)
["Outof the letter-materialof a word or a line new wordsareformedwithout addingor substractinga single letter"],in the older magic,kabbalistic,
kratylistic, etymological uses, but also in surrealist, nouveaunouveau
romanian,oulipianconceptsand practicesof the anagram.6
Even though Saussure,in his work on anagrams,partly edited by
Starobinskias Les motssousles motsand triggeringsubsequenttheoretical
reappearancesof similarconcepts (especiallyin the work of the Tel Quel
group),reallyretainsimportanttraitsof priorconceptsand practicesof the
anagram,he stressesthe differencesin his theory of it. This is strongly
underscoredby his ultimately failed attempts- his oscillationsbetween
anagram,anaphon,hypogram,paragram at finding anothernamefor the
practice.Saussureengagesin a taming of the anagram,which, however,is
not fullysuccessful.He stronglyunderlinesthe phoneticnatureof his anagrams,makingphonemesthe units of the anagrammaticprocessof permutation.As Starobinskiformulatesit, "larecherchen'auraqu'unrapportde
lointaineanalogieavecl'anagrammetraditionnelle,qui ne joue qu'avecles
signes graphiques.La lecture,ici, s'applique dcrypterdes combinaisons
de phonmeset non de lettres"7["Thisstudywill only have a remoteanalogy with the traditionalanagramwhich onlyplayswith graphicsigns.Here,
the readingoccupiesitselfonlywith decryptingcombinationsof phonemes,
not of letters"].
On the one hand,this stresson phoneticsrobsthe anagramof its conventionalgraphicdimensionthat tends to isolatesingleletters,thus underOn the otherhand,however,another
scoringtheirbasicallyfiguraicharacter.8

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

space,that of sound, is uncoveredas the anagrammaticecho foregrounds

the phonematicmaterialityof language.Given the fact that Saussurecan- this is
not totallyget ridof the graphiccategoryof anagrams
foregrounded
exercs
the
critic
s
and
ear:
"L'il
et
l'oreille
his
own
reference
to
eye
by
ferontdonc leurbutinjusquedansla proselatine"(116)["Thepractisedeye
andearwill find theirspoilsevenin Latinprose"],andunderlinedby Ruch's
and Braun'sinterpretationof Saussure'sanalysisas a reading(see 228)- his
displacement of the anagramis, finally, an enrichment. The fact that
Saussure'sanagramsare not complete ones furtherunderscoresthe presence of an untamednotion of the anagram.The fragmentarycharacterof
the parts of the underlyingthematicword {mot-thme)that are dispersed
throughoutthe manifest text furtherunderscorestextual materialityand
the possibilityof dissassemblinglanguage:"lamanirequi consiste broder
des vers sur le canevas des syllabes d'un mot et celui des tronons ou
paraschmesde ce mot"(115)["themethod that consistsin stitchingverses
onto the canvasof the syllablesof a word and on that of the sections or
paraschemasof that word"].
In Starobinskis reading,it is Saussure'sproblemof attributinginten(61,emphases
tionalityto this structureof "mmesous la figurede Vautre"
the
that
makesit posame
under
the
of
Starobinski's)["the
other']
figure
Is
the
reducible
to a set of
to
hypogram
tentiallyinteresting psychoanalysis.
poetic constraints,and are the authorsawareor unawareof them?9Is it a
coded messageto be decipheredby a reader,or does the readerretroactively
constructthe underlyingtext?As Starobinskipoints out, Saussure'sinability to prove the intentionalityof a practiceof the hypogrampushes his
processor an interpretative
concept towardsan unconscious,"authorless"
seulement
ce
"La
n'tant
fantasy:
pas
qui se ralisedansles mots,
posie
maisce quiprendnaissancepartirdes mots,elle chappedonc l'arbitraire
de la conscience pour ne plus dpendre que d'une sorte de lgalit
emphasesStarobinski's)["Poetryis not only what relinguistique"(152-153,
alizes itself in words,but what is born on the basis of/in separatingitself
fromwords,it escapesthe arbitrarinessof consciousnessto dependhenceforth only on a kind of linguisticlegality"].This combinationof possibly
unconsciousproduction,of a latent text within a manifesttext and of the
interpretativefunction of the readeradducedcriticsto equateit with the
dreamworkor also with the latencyof trauma.10
Interestingly,though Saussure'stheory of the anagramin some ways
reallyradicalizesthe notion of this rhetoricalfigure,it is ratherhis superficial taming of it togetherwith a generalizingtendencythat is taken over

Anagramsin Psychoanalysis

into subsequenttheories.This is true for Lacan and Lyotard,and partly

also forJuliaKristeva'snotion of the paragramas a universalcharacteristic
of poetic languageimplyingthe followingtheses:n
A. Le langagepotiqueest la seule infinit du code.
B. Le texte littraireest un double:criture-lecture.
C. Le text littraireest un rseaude connexions.12
[A. Poetic languageis the only infinity of the code.
B. The literarytext is a double:writing-reading.
C. the literarytext is a networkof connections.]
RereadingSaussure,Kristevaforegroundsthe spatialisationof the poetic paragrammatictext, uauxdeux dimensions de l'criture (SujectDestinataire,Sujetde renonciation- Sujetde l'nonc)s'ajoutela troisime,
celle du textetranger'"(182-183)["tothe two dimensionsof writing (subject addressee,subjectof statement statedsubject)is addeda thirdone:
that of the 'foreign'text"],thus both stressingthe communicative,social
functionof textsandtheirauthorlesscharacteras textupon/dialoguingwith
text.
Even though her conceptdoes not allowfor permutationsthat go becomprise
yond conventionallinguistic units (her scripturalsousgrammes
phonetic, semic and syntagmaticunits) she emphaticallyforegroundsa
problematicsof metalanguageand describespoetic languageas basedupon
an infinityof combinatorialpossibilitiesand the basicprocessesof combi"Lelp [langagepotique]
nation and destruction,laws and transgressions:
est une dyadeinsparablede la loi (celle du discoursusuel) et de sa destruction (spcifiquedu texte potique),et cette coexistenceindivisibledu V et
constitutivede langagepotique,une compldu '-' est la complmentarit
mentaritqui surgit tous les niveauxdes articulationstextuelles non(179,emphasesKristeva's)["PL{poetic
monologiques(paragrammatiques)"
is
from
the law (that of common discourse)
a
language} dyad,inseparable
and its destruction
to
the
poetic text), and this indivisiblecoexist(specific
of poetic language,a
ence of V and '-' is the constitutivecomplementarity
complementarity that occurs at all levels of non-monologic textual
articulations"].
(paragrammatic)
Both the characteristics
of olderconceptsof the anagramandSaussure's
and Kristeva'snotions of the anagram(or whateverthey choose to call it)
arehelpfulfor a conceptof the anagramthat can become creativein a psy-

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

choanalyticalcontext. In my notion of the anagram,a radicallyuntamed

one, I want to undo Saussure'sphonetic focus, untame Kristeva'sand
conSaussures unitsof permutation,partlydegeneralizethe anagrammatic
further.
notion
of
and
its
character
even
My
cept again
foreground dynamic
the anagramhas the followingcharacteristics:
1.The anagramis the productof and the namefor a processthat consists in a disassemblingand reassemblingof partsof the samebasic material.
2. The anagramis a meeting place of differentsign systemsand does
not haveto consistof units of only one of these systems.13
Transpositionsof
units from one systeminto the other arepossible.
3. The anagramcan consist of partsthat can go beyondconventional
units of discourserequiredfor significationin the differentsign systems.
4. The anagramis the site which makesthe combinatorialcharacterof
sign systemsvisible.This visibilitycan be achievedby differentmeans(and
their combinations):through a potentialincompletenessof the anagram,
througha palimpsesticthickeningof a text (in its widest sense),througha
mixing of units of differentsign systems,or througha destructionof the
conventionaltextualunits.The anagramas a figurationshows itself to be
only the petrifiedtraceof the anagramas a process,a permutationbeyond
the laws of specificdiscourses.

Freud'sanagrammarsof the unconscious

Reading through Freud'swritings especiallythrough such texts as Die

TraumdeutungyDer Witz und seine Beziehung zum UnbewujitenyDie
to statebut a few examples- the readercomesupon strange
Fehlleistungen,
verbalconstructionsthat are actuallyadducedas examplesfor expressions
in speechor dreams,eitherin reallife or in fiction:dreamlikewordchimaeor "norekdal,"
raslike "Autodidasker"
anagrammaticslipsof the tonguelike
"Knorprinz" (Kronprinz), "geneigt" (geeignet), "Agamemnon"
(Eiweifischeibchen)or Trennwitze,
(angenommen)or "Eischeifiweibchen"
that
work
different
through
segmentationsof the phonematicconjokes
- ancient?Not
tent of theirtexts,like "Antik?Oh, nee"["Antigone
really"],
"buona parte"[ua large part of Napoleon Buonaparte"],"O na, nie"
- the red-haireddunce"].14
- o no, never"],"Rouxsot"["Rousseau
["onania
Indeed, these anagrammaticfigurationsare not mere marginaliato keep

Anagramsin Psychoanalysis

the readeramused,but aredeeplylinkedto Freudianconcepts,as all three,

- dreams,
in differentterritories
slipsof the tongue, Witze are(maybenot
the royalbut at least) a roadto the understandingof the unconscious.
This becomesmost evidentin Freuds equationof such figurationsas
Trennwitzeand the largercategoryof verballyfocusedjokes that function
through an economic double use of word material with condensation
Indeed, this category is not exhausted by its subsequent
{Verdichtung).
Lacanianequationwith metaphor.It is truethatthis principleof the dreamworkcan function- the sameway anothercategoryof condensationjokes
does- througha signifierthat expresses(at least) a double meaning.But
this doublingof significationthat canbe done in the caseof metaphorsand
double meaningswithout interferingwith the materialof language,can
alsoworkthrougha manipulationof the word material,a violencedone to
words.15Indeed, condensationis an overdeterminedcategory.In addition
to the metaphoricaland more narrowlyanagrammaticprocessesoutlined
above, it is also described as material undergoing a loss, being
overdetermined,merging,as a synecdochalprocess.Here, the only common denominatorthatis indeedexpressedin the termcondensation,seems
to be a quasipalimpsesticthicknessof the text havingundergonecondensation.The signifyingsurfaceof a text either directlypoints to a double
readingor invitesslight changes,permutations(of the orderof letters/phonemes, of the signifyingblancs),parsings(in the case of "Autodidasker")
which then lead to two or morecategoriesof meaning.
Though this is seemingly the most evident site of the anagramin
- , we arenot
Freud- at workthroughoutthe whole processof dreamwork
in
yet at our anagrams'ends here.In a way,the displacement( Verschiebung)
the dreamworkalso revealsanagrammatictraits,though stressingdifferent
of a permutativeprocess.What is permutatedhereis not the
characteristics
materialor unitsof languageas such,but rather,the displacementof a characteristicaddedon to languagethat is effected,a slidingof psychicemphasis, an investmentalong the elementsundergoingdreamwork.In this, the
processresemblesa redistributionof word-stresssimilarto the functioning
of some of the TrennwitzeFreudquotes;whereas"Onanie"is stressedon
the last syllable,"O na, nie" has its stress displaced onto ana".Arthur
famousdefinitionsof jealousyand of passionworkgraphiSchopenhauer's
a
callythrough
separationof the two compoundwords (plus a doublingof
the "f" in "schafft",which, however,does not induce a change in pronuncarciation),but alsothrougha displacementof word-stresses."Eifersucht"
riesa heavystresson the firstsyllable,whereas"Eifersucht"hasan additional
versus"Leiden
stresson the last syllable.It is the samewith "Leidenschaft"

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

- to seek with effort,

schafft"["jealousy
passion what brings on suffering"].Thus, one could even venturethe suspicionthat condensationand
displacement,at least in their anagrammaticdimensions,areimplicatedin
one another- this is actuallyadumbratedby Freudthroughthe claim that
an overdetermined,condensedpart could be a privilegedsite for a high
level of psychicintensity.
In the wake of my restressingof the potentialsign-systemicmultivalence at work in the anagram,Freuds third category,his regardfor repreadducesanotheranagrammatic
trait:
sentation{Rucksicht
aufDarstellbarkeit)y
the transpositionof material,througha thingificationof words, into anothersign system- fromthoughtto image- , but in a fragmentary,
unconIn
the
of
the
connections
between
vincingway.
process transposition logical
the elements (that are retrospectivelyinferredto have existedpriorto the
dreamworkingprocess)areseveredandreplacedby spatialor temporalcontiguities,which, however,in spite of the (re)working as Freudpoints out,
the notion of retrospectivityis a wrong one of the secondaryrevision
zur
(sekundreBearbeitung)ynever fit into one picture. In Vorlesungen
he comments that, what is fabricatedby
Einfuhrungin die Psychoanalyse
is
"etwas
revision,
Ganzes,
["a
ungefhrZusammenpassendes"
secondary
fits
not
that
somehow
but
whole, something
together"],
quite.16
In its rebus-likecharacter,the producedtext is strandedhalfwaybetween signifyingsigns and figuralness.It becomesa text hoveringin a nosigns-landbetweentwo economiesof signification.It thus drawsattention
to its being caught up in the process of transpositionratherthan to its
statusas the productof an accomplishedtransposition.If Kristevahad not
boughtinto the commonovervalorizationof mtonymiedisplacementand
metaphoriccondensation,she would have recognizedthe third category
she sees herselfforcedto invent not only as incarnatedin the categoryof
but as atworkin allthe categoriesof the dreamRucksicht
aufDarstellbarkeity
work:
As we know,Freudspecifiestwo fundamental'processes'in the work
of the unconscious:displacementand condensation.[. . .] To these
- the
we must add a third 'process'
passagefrom onesign-systemto
another.To be sure,this processcomesaboutthrougha combination
of displacementand condensation,but this does not acountfor its
total operation.It also involvesan alteringof the theticpositionthe destructionof the old position and the formationof a new one.
The new signifyingsystemmaybe producedwith the samesignifying material;17

Anagramsin Psychoanalysis

But I statedabovethat all the processesof the dreamworkcan be seen

as characterizedby anagrammatictraits.Consequently,this also holds true
for Freud'ssecondaryrevision{sekundre
Bearbeitung)which is explicitly
equatedwith a processof recombination.Freuduses a varietyof metaphors
to explainthis fourth function of the dreamwork.These include that of
mending clothes:"Wasdieses StuckTraumarbeitauszeichnetund verrat,
ist seine Tendenz. Dise Funktionverfhrthnlich, wie es der Dichter
boshaftvom Philosophenbehauptet:mit ihren Fetzen und Flicken stopft
sie die Lckenim AufbaudesTraums"18
["Whatcharacterizesand betrays
this partof the dreamworkis its tendency.It functionsin a way similarto
that maliciouslyascribedto the philosopherby the poet: it uses bits and
pieces to mend the gaps in the constructionof the dream"],the image of
"[DerTraum]ist vielmehrzumeist einem Brecciagestein
"Brecciagestein":
aus
verschiedenen Gesteinsbrocken mit Hilfe eines
vergleichbar,
Bindemittelshergestellt,so dafi die Zeichnungen,die sich dabei ergeben,
nichtden urspriinglichen
Gesteinseinschlssen
173)
angehren"
(Vorlesungen
["{Thedream}can ratherbe compared,most of the time, to a rockof Breccia, made of differentpieces of rock with a combiningagent, so that the
resultingpatternsdo not belongto the originalirregularitiesof the rocks"],
and that of the "RtselhaftenInschriften"["enigmaticinscriptions"]about
which Lyotardwill have much to say later.All of those metaphorsclearly
foregroundthe bricolagecharacterof this function.Interestinglythen, this
way,thus incorporatingthe verytenprocessfunctionsin an anagrammatic
- the
it
is
intended
to
render
invisible
anagrammaticincongruence
dency
of the dreamfabric in itself.
Thus, the dreamworkreally resembles a multilayered process of
anagrammingin which because of the incongruencies this process is
renderedvisible.The "grammar"
of the unconsciousreallyis anagrammatic,
it is an anagrammar.
How else would the psychoanalysts analysisbe possible?But cananagrammatic
processesbe reducedto the stageof the dreamworkonly?Evidentlynot, for the Witzarbeitalsoworkswith anagrammatic
processes,but here,unlikethe dreamwork,the processhas to be carriedout
within stricterboundariesas it is caught up in a communicativeprocess.
Thus, the differencebetween the productionof dreamsand of jokes does
not lie in a differenceof processes,but in a differenceof degree.What
aboutthe interpretationof dreams,then?Its processalso closelyresembles
one of disassembling,transposingand reassemblingof elementswhich can
neverbe said to come to its end:"Wirhabenbereitsanfihrenmussen,dafi
maneigentlichniemalssicherist,einenTraumvollstandiggedeutetzu haben;

IO

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

selbstwenn die Auflsungbefriedigendund lckenloserscheint,bleibt es

dochimmermglich,dafisichnochein andererSinndurchdenselbenTraum
- unbestimmist also- strenggenommen
kundgibt.Die Verdichtungsquote
bar"{Traumdeutung
285)["Wehavealreadyhad to point out that,basically,
one is neversureof havinganalyzeda dreamcompletely.Even if the interpretationseems satisfactoryandwithout gaps,it is alwayspossiblethat yet
anothermeaningis expressedby the verysamedream.Thus, strictlyspeaking, the level of condensationcannotbe determined"].
Would it be too audaciousto see such problematicsas a possibilityto
open the readingof the interpretationof dreamsup to an anagrammatic
creationinsteadof a recreationof a text that has undergonea sort of translation in the dreamwork?
Thus the interpretationwould not reallyuncover
a priortext,but createanotherversion.The dreamtext,then couldreallybe
seen as a "besondereFormunseresDenkens"{Traumdeutung
499, footnote
1, emphasisFreuds) ["specialform of our thought"],i. e. a form as legitimate as its other versionformedduringthe processof interpretation,but
followingdifferentrules.
To carrythis thoughtfurther,would this not give new sense to Freuds
attemptsat coming up with topographicalmetaphorsof the psyche?I am
thinking here foremost of his Rome-metaphorin Das Unbehagenin der
Kultur.The problemwith this metaphorfor the psychelies in the impossibilityof compressinga temporalsuccessionof spatialformsinto a synchronie
["oneand the
space:"derselbeRaumvertrgtnicht zweierleiAusfullung"19
same space cannot be occupied doubly"].Rome, in spite of its multiple
layers,can neverpreserveintact all its layers,but the psychecan. One possible solution,a morefitting metaphorfor the psyche- which would make
a lot of sense in the above-developedanagrammatictraits of the dreamwork- couldlie in a synchroniejuxtapositionof elementsandthe potential
units (that can unpossibilityof differentmoulds, a pool of "subatomic"
dergofurthersplittings,linkingsand also transpositionsinto differentvisibilities)with an infinite set of forms they can be made to shape. Such a
set-up seems to be vaguelyhinted at by Freuds insistence,in the contextof
the Rome-metaphor,on a differenceof perspectivethat can then create
differentstructures:"Unddabei brauchtees vielleicht nur eine nderung
der Blickrichtungoder des Standpunktesvon seiten des Beobachters,um
den einen oder den anderenAnblickhervorzurufen"
37) ["And
{Unbehagen
maybe,only a changeof the directionof the gaze or of the standpoint,by
the observer,is neededto evokeone or the otherview"].Such an anagrammatic rewritingof the psychic structurewould lead to two majorconsequencesand reshapingsof Freudiantheory:

Anagramsin Psychoanalysis

1.The psyche reallyhas to be seen as a "Kampf-und Tummelplatz

72) ["battlefieldof oppositetenentgegengesetzterTendenzen"
(Vorlesungen
dencies"],as an agon between the destructive,untying forcesof thanathos
and the linking,combinatoryforcesof eros.In this dynamics,pleasureand
repressionwould haveto be rethought,too. Pleasurecan be seen as inherent in both of those forces,but, as neitherof them can everexist on its own,
theyarebothfulfilledandcancelledout in theirmutualgame.As Emmanuel
Filhol puts it, in the context of this art of combining signs "chacundes
signifiantsdu rve qui constitue [le dsir], le reprsenteen mme temps
qu'ille cache,autrementdit [. . .] chacund'euxen est la fois la monstration
["eachsignifierof the dreamthat constitutes
singulireet son voilement"20
{desire},hides and representsit at the same time, formulateddifferently,
each of them is at once a uniqueshowingand its veiling"].
2. Freud'spsychictopographywould have to be reframedin terms of
differentconstraintsput upon this processof dis- and reassembling,as it is
done by MarceloDascal:
If this is correct,then it suggeststhat the boundariesbetween the
and
different'systems'of the mind, the unconscious
, the preconscious
arecorrelatedwith the extent to which languageplays
the conscious,
a role in each of them. At the same time, however,since language
seems to play a role- albeitdifferent- in all of them, such boundarieswouldappearto be less sharplymarkedthansuggestedby Freud,
and would become a matter of degree: on one of the extremes,
thought-processeswhich are rule-governed,convergent,subjectto
linguisticconstraints;on the other,thought-processesthat are not
subjectto 'rules'(though they may be subjectedto causallaws, of
course),that aredivergent,and that escapelinguisticconstraints.21

Lac(k)anagrams

Given the rich possibilityof exploitingFreud'sanagrammaticsubtextthat

is signalledat the textualsurfacethroughhis use of anagramsas examples,
- in his
Lacan'stextsseem to be markedby a surplus,an excessof anagrams
style and a lack of anagramswhen it comes to his theory.On the other
hand, such a facile segregationof spherescannot reallybe enactedin the
context of a theory that claims languageto be anythingbut transparent,
to be inexistant.22
andmetalanguage
Languageindeedis alwaysdouble(triple

12

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

. . . )- a suspiciously anagrammaticcharacterizationof language as a

palimpsesticthickening:"asignifie quelquechose, c'est--direa peut se
lired'uneinfinitde faonsdiffrentes"23
["thismeanssomething,that is, it
can be readin infinitelydifferentways"].Since- as he claimsin Encore
the Lacaniantext is not readable,exceptfor,maybe,in its "inter-dit"(108)
7"saidin the in-between"],I might aswell takeLacan la lettre,
["forbidden
i.e., I will not engagein the attemptat a coherentreading,in a reductionof
the signifiersto transparentsignifieds(what an overlyfacile transgression
of the barre[bar]),but engagein an anagrammaticreadinginsteadby isolating severaldifferentsites of anagrammatictracesin his work without
claimsto completeness,without respectingthe loudlyproclaimedbut very
vaguelydefinedphasesin Lacanianthought.

/phonocentrism/

The Saussureof the anagramsmakeshis entryinto Lacanin a footnote in

- and a
"LInstance"and in a shortpassagein Encore
readingof his tamed,
on poetic poremarks
of
context
the
passing
phonocentricanagrams(in
and
of
connection
an
signified)
signifier
lyphonyand against arbitrary
seems to come in handyin the projectof erasingthe figuraidimensionof
The unconsciousis structured
the unconsciousin Freuds Traumdeutung.
like a language,the more strongly figurai functions of the dreamwork,
and secondaryrevision,arerelegatedto a secRucksicht
aufDarstellbarkeit
ondaryrank.This tendencycomesunderseverecriticismin Lyotards Discour,
figure,and is foregroundedbyJean-JosephGoux in an argumentaboutthe
iconoclastictendenciesof Lacans work, an argumentabout the Symbolic
as inhuman,systemicmachineryand the Imaginaryas the visual dimension to be erased:"The machineis nonliving.The machineis inanimate.
The machineis death.The death instinct is the machine inside of man.
Man is the marionette,the robotof thesymbolicorder.When he constructs
clocks,robots,computers,he exteriorizesmore than everthe symbolicactivitywhose preyhe is."24
Is this all that remainsof Saussures anagrammaticcreativityin Lacan?
Is this deadeningclarity,this transparenceof the systemof puresignifiers
(that Goux sees embodiedbest in Lacans mathemes)reallywhat Lacan
valorizes?Should this tendencytowardphonocentrismnot be seen as one
tendencyamong manythat areequallypresent,one tendencythat is foregroundedbecauseit happensto be linkedto the practiceof psychoanalysis?

Anagrams in Psychoanalysis

13

Lituraterre- ni tre/matre- dit-mention- ex-sistence- paule-etPaulLSi-V essaim.25Even in theirpurelyphoneticdimensionysuchanagrams- all by

underlining the reign of the signifiers areplayful ratherthan machinic.Anyand "Her"
has to
way>how phoneticallyfocusedare they oncea punning on "Tire"
be underscoredby emphasizing the same graphic letter-material they are composed of: Yest les mmeslettres,faites-y attention"(Encore io) ["beware,{. . .
they}consistof the same lettersJ.26Is this not ratherthe realmbetween writing
and speech,accordingto Ellie Ragland- Sullivan, the realm of the crit (also
Is not ratherthe
foregroundedas suchby Lacan in theprefaceto "L'Instance")?27
est
un
V
inconscient
"Mais
valorized:
realm
savoir,un savoir0/lalangue
"babyish"
faire avec Mangue. Et ce quon saitfaire avec Mangue dpassede beaucoupce
dont onpeut rendrecompteau titre du langage"^Encorenj) ["But the unconsciousis knowledge,a knowing of how to do things (savoir-faire,)with llanguage.
And what we know how to do with llanguagegoes well beyondwhat we can
accountfor underthe heading of language"](ij)?

/point de capiton/
Nulle chane signifiante en effet qui ne soutienne comme appendu
la ponctuation de chacune de ses units tout ce qui s'articule de
contextes attests, la verticale, si Ton peut dire, de ce point.
C'est ainsi que pour reprendre notre mot: arbre, non plus dans son
isolation nominale, mais au terme d'une de ces ponctuations, nous
verrons que ce n'est pas seulement la faveur du fait que le mot barre
est son anagramme, qu'il franchit celle de l'algorithme saussurien.
Car dcompos dans le double spectre de ses voyelles et de ses
consonnes, il appelle avec le robre et le platane les significations dont
il se charge sous notre flore, de force et de majest. Drainant tous les
contextes symboliques o il est pris dans l'hbreu de la Bible, il dresse
sur une butte sans frondaison l'ombre de la croix. Puis se rduit IT
majuscule du signe de la dichotomie qui, sans l'image historiant
l'armoriai, ne devrait rien l'arbre, tout gnalogique qu'il se dise.
Arbre circulatoire28
[There is in effect no signifying chain that does not have, as if attached to the punctuation of each of its units, a whole articulation of
relevant contexts suspended Vertically', as it were, from that point.

14

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

Let us take our word'tree'again,this time not as an isolatednoun,

but as the point of one of these punctuations,and see how it crosses
the bar of the Saussurianalgorithm.(The anagramof 'arbre'and
'barre'shouldbe noted.)
Forevenbrokendown into the doublespectreof its vowelsandconsonants,it can still call up with the roburand the plane tree the
significationsit takeson, in the contextof our flora,of strengthand
majesty.Drawingon all the symboliccontextssuggestedin the Hebrewof the Bible, it erectson a barrenhill the shadowof the cross.
Then reducesit to the capitalY, the sign of dichotomywhich, except for the illustrationused by heraldry,would owe nothing to the
tree howevergenealogicalwe may think it. Circulatorytree]29
This passage,in its density,seemsitself&pointdecapitonof differentLacanian
theorems and a possibility of their rereading. Restatement and
deconstructionof the horizontalandvertical("sil'on peut dire",but, really,
one cannot),the metaphoricand mtonymieaxesof language.As different
criticshave noticed (Lacan'sexplicitnesson this subject- especiallyin the
two chapterson metaphorand metonymyin SminaireIII- does not really make that a difficult project),metaphorand metonymyare actually
Mecollapsedratherthan set up as two completelydifferentprocesses.30
tonymymakesmetaphorpossible,it is the "sous-structure
toujourscache"31
that is alwayshidden"].Indeedif we give this a radicalread["sub-structure
ing, metaphoris only the isolationof a doublemeaning,of a specificthickness that is cut out fromthe swarmingof contiguityarounda signifier.This
swarmingis both multidimensional(not confined to a verticaland horizontal axis) and multisystemic,operatingboth on the graphicand phonemic materialof the signifierandits figuraiconnotations(the "Y",the cross).
In a way then, thepoint decapitonis not reallyan anchoragepoint between
in this sense,can neverbe crossedandthe
signifierand signified.The barrey
two-dimensionalmodel (the signifiers,the signifieds,the barre)has to be
rewritten,indeed refigured,into a three-dimensionalone. It becomes an
empty centre aroundwhich, and into and out of which, the contiguous
signifiersdrift,linkedto othersuchconstructionsin a chain:"anneauxdont
le collier se scelle dans l'anneaud'un autrecollier fait d'anneaux"{Ecrits
259) ["ringsof a necklacethat is a ring in anothernecklacemadeof rings"]
(153). Through an anagrammaticreading- attentionhavingbeen drawn
- the
to the passageby the anagram"barre"/"arbre"
point de capitonoscillates into a Borromeanknot.

Anagramsin Psychoanalysis

15

But first, let me interrupt with a word or two on Lacaris algorithms:In

Encore, Lacan taking up the algorithmS/s oncemore,hints at thepalimpsestic
complexityof using mathematicalalgorithms:
a n'a Van de rien quand vous crivez une barrepour expliquer.Ce mot
expliquer,a touteson importancepuisqu'iln'ya rien moyende comprendre
une barre,mmequand elle est rserve signifier la ngation.[. . .] Il
y a une chosequi est encoreplus certaine ajouterla barre la notation S
et s a dj quelquechosede superflu,voire defutile, pour autant que ce
quellefait valoir est dj marqupar la distancede Vcrit. (35, emphasis
Lacan's)
[It doesn'tlook like anything when you write a bar in orderto explain
things. This word, "explain,"is of the utmost importancebecausethere
ain't nothingyou can understandin a bar, even when it is reservedfor
signifying negation. {. . .} There is somethingthat is even morecertain:
adding a bar to the notation S and s is alreadya bit superfluousand even
futile, insofaras what it brings out is alreadyindicatedby the distanceof
what is written.] (34)
Thus,algorithmsare not the transparentwebs ofsignifiers they seemto be. They
are bothinhabitedby afigurai excess,an overwriting, and have to be surrounded
by verbal explanations a further thickening,repetitivepattern. Generalformulaehave to be contextualizedthroughthe use of language:"rienne tiendra de
tout a, sije ne le soutienspas d'un dire qui est celui de la langue, et d'unepratique qui est celle de gens qui donnent des ordresau nom d'un certain savoir"
^Encore 110) ["noneof it would stand up if I didn'tprop it up with an act of
speakingthat involves language (langue,), and with a practice which is that of
people who give ordersin the name of a certainknowledge"](122).

/Borromeanknots/

The structureof the Borromeanknot, at least the figurationin Encorethat

is linkedto a mtonymiechainof desire,is a highlyanagrammaticconcept.
Foregroundedare its combinativepermutativepossibilities:the chain can
be prolongedendlessly,the singlelinkscanbe twistedandhaveto be thought
of as possiblyconnectedto other links of the chain,besides those at their
two sides.But once one of the partsis disassembledthe whole chaindisin-

i6

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

tegratesand the links are potentiallyfree to form other structures.This

anagrammarof knots interestingly,this permutationdoes not go beyond
the differentlinks, there are no possiblefurthersplittingsof the units envisaged however,is transformedinto a knotologyof the Real,the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Symptom in the psychic structure.32This
configurationof the Borromeanknot leaves no room for furtheraddenda
or differentfigurations.It is almostas rigidas a topography,thoughit foregroundsthe emptycentresof the structure.Here we arealreadyfarfrom a
conceptof the Borromeanknot that Ragland-Sullivantraces,"ForLacan
the Borromeanknot demonstrateshow a nonlinearintricationand continual reworkingof identificatoryand linguistic material compose any
subjects ego fictions,desires,sufferings,and blind intentions"(82).
Even though the above-analysedsites of the anagramin Lacans work
smackof fragmentariness,
they can neverthelesshint at some tendenciesof
anagrammaticdisplacementsin Lacan.
1.Lacanstheoryandstyle (actually,the two categoriescannotbe separated)aredependenton a notion of the anagram,as a foregroundingof the
linguisticcharacterof the unconscious,of the human psyche as a whole,
and of the constructionof the subjectrely on an economy of circulating
signifiers.
2. On the otherhand,this anagrammaticgesturecannotbe allowedto
go too far this is a possiblereasonfor his allowingan entryof the tamed
It canSaussureananagram,while not drawingon Freudiananagrammars.
not transcendgiven units of languageand cannotreallyincludestrongdeviationsfroma language-basedsignifyingsystem.As subjectsand"reality"
are constructedby signifiers- as Jacques-AlainMiller comments, "what
we call the subjectof analysisis nothing morethan a functionof the com- and as those
binationof signifiers"33
signifiersare theorizedas detached
froma secureanchoragein a signified,the rulesgoverningsuchfigurations
of signifiersmust be definite in order to foreclose chaos.To illustrateit
with Henri Atlan'ssomewhatbiologistic,though reallysystems-theoretic
terms,what is at stake "dansce combat incessantentre la vie et la mort,
Tordreet le dsordre"["in this ceaselesscombat between life and death,
order and disorder"]is "d'vitertoujoursun triomphe dfinitif de Tun
quelconquesur l'autre,qui est en fait, Tunedes deux faons possiblesde
mourircompltement"34
["toavoidalwaysa definitetriumphof one of them
overthe otherwhich is reallyone of two possibleways of total death"].

Anagramsin Psychoanalysis

17

Lyotardred(r)earnedfigures

argumentsin Discours,
LyotarcTs
figurecanbe seen as anotherdisplacement
of the anagramin the wake of Saussureand Freud,but- at least superficially so in strong contrastto Lacans dis/avowalof anagrammaticconcepts. Lyotard'sproject consists in redeeming the figure that has been
relegatedto a secondarystatusby the logos of discoursein the serviceof a
seamlesssignifyingprocess:
Ce qui est sauvageest Tartcommesilence.La positionde l'artest un
dmenti la position du discours.La position de l'artindiqueune
fonctionde la figure,qui n'estpas signifie,et cette fonction autour
et jusque dans le discours.Elle indique que la transcendancedu
symbole est la figure, c'est--direune manifestationspatiale que
l'espacelinguistiquene peut pas incorporersans tre branl,une
extrioritqu'il ne peut pas intrioriseren signification.L'artest
pos dans l'alteriten tant que plasticitet dsir,tendue courbe,
face l'invariabilitet la raison,espace diacritique.L'artveut la
figure,la 'beaut'est figurale,non-lie, rythmique.Le vrai symbole
donne penser,mais d'abordil se donne Voir'.(13)
[What is wild is artas silence.Thepositionof artis a dementiof the
positionof discourse.The positionof art indicatesa functionof the
figure,which is not signified,and this functionaroundand even in
discourse.It indicates the transcendenceof the symbol as figure,
that is, a spatialmanifestationthat linguisticspacecannotincorporatewithoutbeing shaken,an exterioritythat it cannotinteriorizeas
signification.Art, in its plasticityand desire, curved extension,is
andreason,diacriticspace.
placedin alterity,confrontinginvariability
Art wants the figure,"beauty"is figurai,unrelated,rhythmic.The
realsymbolprovokesthought,but first,it gives itself up to "sight."]
Given this strongemphasison the energetic,the visual,the non-logical, Lyotards textualsurfaceitself is strangelydevoidof figurality(I would
claimthat the inclusionof picturesin the text or as appendixdoes not grant
figuralitymore than a marginalposition). Lyotardhimself points to the
lackof figuralityin his work.Even though it lays claim to partakingof the
sphereof art "lasignificationest fragmentaire,il y a des lacuneset [. . .]
des rbus"(18) ["the significationis fragmentary,there are gaps and re-

i8

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE STUDIES

buses"]- it does not performa poetic sur-rflexion

by framingthe discours
with its residuesof figuresin figurativity.35
Interestingly,the characteristicsof such a good book accordingto
Lyotard'sown judgement,Discours,
figure would not fall under this cat- canbe readas a
structure,"Unbon livrepour
macro-anagrammatic
egory
laissertrela vriten son aberration,seraitun livreo le tempslinguistique
(celuidanslequelse dveloppela signification,celuide la lecture)seraitluimme dconstruit;que le lecteur pourraitprendren'importeo et dans
n'importequel ordre,un livre brouter"(18)["Agood book, becauseit lets
truthexist in its aberration,would be a book in which linguistictime (that
in which signification develops, that of reading) itself would be
deconstructed;that the readercould take up at any point and in whatever
order,a book to grazeon"].
What gives such a work its figuraicharacterwould be a disruptionof
order.As Lyotardtheorizeselsewhere,languageis actuallyalwaysalready
inhabitedby the figure.This figuralityis at workin the verylinguisticprocess of commutationand in the fact that signs signifythroughand with a
certaindistributionupon their medium,which can also be seen as partaking of an aesthetic,non-signifyingcategory.
In such a context,Lyotard's easy dismissalof the anagramcomes as a
surprise.In the chapter"Letravaildu rvene pensepas"["Thedreamwork
does not think"]when he discussesFreuds exampleof the secondaryrevision as a "RtselhafteInschrift"["enigmaticinscription"],the theoristrefers explicitlyto de Saussures work on the anagram,but only to dismissit
immediatelyas not going far enough.In a comparisonwith the tripletext
of the "RtselhafteInschriften"Saussures hypograms,at least in Lyotards
description,seemjust not figuraienough.The "RtselhafteInschrift"contains three texts that partakeof differentsignifyingeconomies:i) a manifest text that (in the majorityof examples,but see Lyotards example18-a)
does not have any meaning,but is intendedto createthe visibleeffect of a
Latininscription;2) a latenttextwhich occursas soon as the fakeLatintext
is readandunderstoodin its phoneticcharacteras a meaningfultext;and3)
the picturethe inscriptionbelongsto, which can eithergive a hint as to the
culturalbackgroundof the latent text or reinforcethe fake surfaceof the
Latin inscription.The two texts in Saussures hypograms,in contrast,do
not belong to differentlanguages.As the manifesttext of the Saussurean
inversions,conversionsde syllablesdu
anagramconsistsin "redoublements,
nom cach"(266) ["redoublings,
inversions,conversionsof the syllablesof
the hiddenname"],the two textualspheresarenot of the samesize,whereas

Anagramsin Psychoanalysis

19

the secondaryrevisionleavesno remainder.In this, as Lyotardstates,it is

unlikeuunvritableanagramme"
(266) ["atrue anagram"].
It is throughthis reductionof the anagramto the Saussureanhypogram,
that the theoristcan then relegatethe anagramto a phenomenonthat consists less in a figuralitythan in its musicalor literarycharacteristics:
Les rptitions,les chiasmes,etc., de l'anagramme,le rapprochent
d'unecombinatoiremusicale(le Ricercarede VOffrande
musicale)ou
R.
.
C'est
littraire(Impressions
de
Roussel).
[.
.]
que, dans
d'Afrique
ces cas,le 'texte'manifeste(au sens largedu mot) doit trede mme
naturequ'eux.La profondeurhypogrammatiqueest de l'ordrede la
rsonance(assonance,consonance)et de l'harmonique:le vers de
l'Iliade souligne le nom d'Agamemnon,et Saussureaccepte pour
son hypogrammece sens de {moypcpew
qui est 'soulignerau moyen
la
d'un fardles traitsdu visage'.Mais profondeurde notre inscription est opaque.Ce n'estpas un graphe,mais un pseudo-graphe; il
est bienhomophoniqueavecle texted'origine,commel'hypogramme
de Saussure,mais au prix d'une htrosmiedouble:transcritdu
phonmedansla lettrede faon produirela prsomptiond'un autre sens,il supposela transformationet de la naturedu signe et de la
significationsuppose.(266-267)
[The repetitions,chiasms,etc. of the anagram,bring it closer to a
musical(the Ricercareof Offrandemusicale)or literary(Impressions
by R. Roussel)combination.{. . .} In these cases,the manid'Afrique
fest "text"(in the broadsense of the term)mustbe of the samekind
as they.The hypogrammaticdepth is of the orderof resonance(assonance,consonance)and of harmony:the line of the Iliad underlines the name of Agamemnon, and Saussure accepts for his
whichis 'underlinefacialtraits
hypogramthe meaningof twoypacpeiv
by meansof make-up'.But the depth of ourinscriptionis opaque.It
is not a graph,but a pseudo-graph;it is reallyhomophonicwith the
originaltext, like Saussure'shypogram,but at the price of a double
heterosemy:a transcriptionof the phonemeinto lettersso as to produce the presumptionof anothermeaning,it involvesthe transformation both of the nature of the sign and of the supposed
signification.]
But does the Saussureanhypogramnot also partakeof a double heterosemy with its two textual layers and their respectivemeanings and a

20

COMPARATIVE

LITERATURE

STUDIES

doublenessof systemsof signification,i.e., the readablemeaningand the

audibleeffects of sounds and rhythms?The only surplusinherentin the
"RtselhaftenInschriften,"then, would be the presenceof the image that
redoubleseitherthe latent or the manifesttext.
Other than that, the unique differencewould possiblylie in one of
quality:the visualas valorizedin comparisonto the audible.This, however,
seems to me a ratherartificialhierarchy,one that is furthermoreseemingly
aliento the generalthrustof Lyotards argument.If the valorizedcategory
that- as a sort of repressedother- underliessignifyingdiscourses,can be
seen as an energeticcategory(the word rhythmor rhythmicis used frequently)that transcendsa simple vis vis of the readerto the sign as a
signifyinginstrumentand consists in a spatialdimension that interlinks
then it seems ilwith and influencesthe body of the reader(see 211-212),
logicalto exclude"soundeffects"fromfigurality.Indeed,in other essaysof
Discours,
figurethe unarticulatedcryandothersimilarphenomenaof sound
are also posited in opposition to discursivelogos. It is exactlyin such a
"Freud
of Freuds dreamwork:
contextthatLyotardrefersto the anagrammar
disait que le rve traite les mots comme des choses, ce qui signifie qu'il
dcoupela chanesyntagmatiqueautrementque ne le fait le langageet qu'il
en combine les morceauxsans gard la pertinencelinguistique"(88-89)
["Freudsaid that the dreamtreatswords like things,which means,it cuts
up the syntagmaticchain in a differentway than languageand combines
the pieceswithout payingattentionto linguisticpertinence"].
Possibly,the overlystronginsistanceon the realmof the visual a tendency which goes againstLyotards more generalargument in connection with Freudiandreamworkin "Le travaildu rve ne pense pas"["the
dreamworkdoes not think"]is inducedby an intentionof distancinghimself from any suspicion of Lacanianphonocentrismwhich he criticizes
harshly.In this gesture he goes to the other extreme. He rejects the
Saussureantheoryof hypogramsbecauseof theirfocuson a phoneticthickening of discourse.Furthermore,in the wake of Freudianuses of the anagram, he except for such avowals as the above-quoted passage
processualityof the dreamwork in its posmarginalizesthe anagrammatic
siblyphonematicdimensions in favorof a strongfocuson figurai(herein
the sense of visual)partsof the dreamwork,especiallythe regardfor repreandthe secandits rebus-character,
sentation(Rucksicht
aufDarstellbarkeit)
condensation
He describes
Inschriften."
ondaryrevisionandits "Rtselhafte
and displacementin spatialterms throughthe exampleof the "rvolution
d'octobre"-flag and through the rendering of displacement as an

Anagramsin Psychoanalysis

21

anagrammatic,but spatiallypermutative,process of thickening the text:

"Effacerun fragmentde l'endroitde la page (d'unpoint de la chane)et le
dposeren un autre(o il faudralui faire de la place) exige du morceau
prlevqu'ilfassemouvementpar-dessusle texte"(243,emphasisLyotard's)
["Effacinga fragmentfromits placeon the page (froma point in the chain)
and placingit in anotherone (whereone would have to makeroom for it)
demandsa movementof the displacedpiece overthe text"].
This is meantto foregroundthe fact that the dreamis anti-discursive,
destructive,but also,that it is a realmin which such tendenciesinherentin
all languagearemadevisible:"Seulementil faudraconvenirque le 'langage'
de l'inconscientn'apas son modle dansle discours,lequel se dit dansune
langue,comme on sait ; mais plutt que le rve est le comble du discours
dsarticul,dconstruit,dont aussi aucun langage, mme normal, n'est
vraimentexempt"(253)["Oneonly has to agreethat the 'language'of the
unconsiousdoes not have its model in discourse,which is expressedin a
language,as one knows;but ratherthat the dreamis the extremeof disarticulated,deconstructeddiscoursefromwhich no language,even the normal one, is reallyexempt"].
Though,but alsothrough,acknowledgingSaussures workon the anagram and exploitingFreudiananagrammars,Lyotard'streatmentof anaThose anagrammatictraitsthat arerelatedto a
gramsseems contradictory.
of
thickening space,introducinga figuraicomponentin a visualsense, are
more than welcome, whereasthe equallyvalid phonetic categorypotentially inherentin anagramsis rejectedas not figuraienough.This contradiction, which seems to be connected to his turn against Lacanian
phonocentrism,is cathectedto another,foregroundsanother more basic
incongruenceconcerningthe differenceof the discursiveand the figurai.
On the one hand,the figuraiand the discursiveareplacedin a lineartale of
repression;the figuraiis nostalgicallyrevalorized,seen as the primordial,
the transgressivedesirerelatedto the death-drivethat hasbeen discursively
repressedthrougherosand logos.In the interestof reinforcingsuch a structhe phonic to discursivity.On
ture,the visualis ascribedto transgressivity,
the other hand, as Lyotardhimself underlines,the figuraiand discursive
coexist and need each other. In such a structure,however,the nostalgic
narrativeof repressiondoes no longer make sense and the two terms cannot be thought of as absolutedifferencesany longer- they only exist with
andthrougheachother.36
Thus,here,oralityandvisuality- no longerneeded
as diffrenciationbetween the figurativeand the discursive,no longer
univocallypairedup with these two categories canbe seen both as instru-

22

COMPARATIVE

LITERATURE

STUDIES

ments of significationand as disruptiveof such a discursivefunction.In

this sense,thereareno privilegedsites of transgression,
just differentintensities.
Sucha perspective,however,woulddevalueLyotards focuson the transgressiveforce of thanathosin its fight against the erotic and logocentric
forces of repression,and lead the argumentback into a dynamicgame of
two oppositetendencies,as sketchedout in my discussionof Freudin this
essay.The realtransgressivefactor one that is possiblytoo dangerousin
the context of theories that can no longer operatewith transcendental
bases- would no longerbe ascribedto one of the forcesat work,butwould
lie in the anagrammatictruthpar excellence',
being consistsof the tracesof
could
also
have
been/become
that
different,and is
permutativeprocesses
not even stabilizedin dichotomicterms or nostalgic,lineartales of a fall
into repression.

CombinatorialParanoia

Und noch eines!Auch dasArbeitenmit kleinenAnzeichen,wie wir

es auf diesem Gebiete bestndigiiben, bringt seine Gefahrenmit
sich. Es gibt eine seelischeErkrankung,die kombinatorischeParanoia, bei welcher die Verwertungsolcher kleiner Anzeichen in
uneingeschrnkterWeise betrieben wird, und ich werde mich
naturlich nicht dafiir einsetzen, dafi die auf dieser Grundlage
aufgebautenSchliissedurchwegsrichtigsind. (Schriften63)
[Let me add one morething! Even workingwith smallhints, as we
alwaysdo it in this field, involves its dangers.There is a kind of
psychologicalillness, combinatorialparanoia,in which such small
hints are made use of without restriction,and, of course,I will not
guaranteethat conclusionsderivedfromthis basisareinvariablycorrect.]
of psychoanalysisas I triedto sketchit out in
Perhapsthe anagrammatizing
this essaypartakesof what Freudcallscombinatorialparanoia.Perhaps,not
unlike Saussure,the attemptto trace the presenceof a phenomenonin a
given field leads to the dangerof seeing it everywhere.But, as my essay
does not lay claimto scientificverifiability,this is of secondaryimportance.
As long as this anagrammaticview contributesto the openingup of a dif-

Anagrams in Psychoanalysis

23

ferent perspectiveon the authorstreatedhere, providessome hints on a

strange,displaced,intermittentthreatthatbindsthem together,adumbrates
some insights into specific condensationsand displacementsat work in
theirtheories,it will have done enough.Ultimately,the work of interpretIt is a workof bricolage
-,of disassemblingand
ing is highlyanagrammatical.
recombination.On the one hand, this could be seen as its drawback.On
the other,it is also its greatestasset.It is thus that interpretationforecloses
monolithic totalizations.It is itself a selection and recombinationof elementsandformsthe basisfor anothersuchprocessperformedwith its body.
Such is the materialdialogueis made of.
HarvardUniversity

Notes
1. As I will point out in the next section of this essay, more recent literary as well as
theoretical traditions have rediscovered the anagram. One could argue that more often then
not, the anagram is not used with all its implications, but serves merely as the basis for a
much more general concept (Saussure's hypograms, Kristeva's paragrams), or for a much
looser literary use- and I will follow this route in my essay. But is this not also the case in
the uses of metaphor and metonymy?
2. See Frederick Ahl's essay "Ars Est Caelare Artem (Arts in Puns and Anagrams Engraved)," On Puns: The Foundation of Letters, ed. Jonathan Culler (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988)
17-43.
3. Quoted in Luzia Braun/Klaus Ruch, "Das Wrfeln mit den Wrtern: Geschichte und
Bedeutung des Anagramms," Merkur 42 A (469) (1988): 233.
4. As this is an anagrammatic poem, the translation can merely transport the content of
the poem and try to imitate some of its irregularities due to the anagrammatic constraints
without being able to preserve its anagrammatic form. Where the sources of the translations
are not explicitly indicated, the translations are mine.
5. See Anselm Haverkamp, "Anagramm und Trauma: Zwischen Klartext und Arabeske,
Zeichenzwischen Klartext undArabeske,ed. Susi Kotzinger and Gabriele Rippl (Amsterdam:
Rodopi, 1994) 169-174; Lynn Higgins, "Literature ' la lettre': Ricardou and the Poetics of
Anagram,"RomanicReview 73 A (1982): 473-488; and Alain Chevrier,"L'Anagrammecomme
genre potique nouveau," Critique 44.492 (1988): 416-430.
6. For discussions of the anagram connected to such issues, see Luzia Braun/Klaus Ruch,
"Das Wrfeln mit den Wrtern: Geschichte und Bedeutung des Anagramms," Merkur 42 A
(469) (1988): 225-236, and also H. Hunger, "Anagrammatismos Paragrammatismos: Das
1-11.
84-85.1
mit
den
(1991-1992):
Buchstaben,"
Spiel
Byzantinische Zeitschrift
7. Jean Starobinski, Les mots sous les mots (Paris: Gallimard, 1971) 27-28.
8. Signs can be read in a dematerialized way, as simple carriers of signification, or in a
der
material way, as figurai themselves. See Ina Schabert, "Das Doppelleben
Menschenbuchstaben," Zeichen zwischen Klartext und Arabeske, ed. Susi Kotzinger and
Gabriele Rippl (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994) 95-106, and Jean-Franois Lyotard, Discours,
fwure, 2nd ed. (Paris: Klincksieck, 1974).
9. This problem of intentionality is read by critics like David Shepheard as a positive,
creative ambiguity. See "Saussure's Vedic Anagrams," The Modern Language Review 77.3

(1982):512-523.

24

COMPARATIVE

LITERATURE

STUDIES

10. Implicitly, this relation to Freud's dreamwork is already brought up by Starobinski

himself. It is more explicitly theorized byT. Craig Christy, "Saussure'sAnagrams': Blunder
or Paralanguage?"History of Linguistics 1996y ed. David Cram etc., 2 vols. (Amsterdam:
Benjamins, 1999) 2: 300-301. For a discussion of its relation to trauma, see Anselm
Haverkamp, "Anagramm und Trauma: Zwischen Klartext und Arabeske," Zeichen zwischen
Klartext und Arabeske,ed. Susi Kotzinger and Gabriele Rippl (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994)
169-174.
11. According to Edward Lopes who reads Saussure's anagram as a concept of poetic
creation in general, this generalization is already implied by the parallel concepts in Saussure's
different works. See "A Intertextualidade na teoria anagramtica de Saussure," Revista de

Letras?>\{\99\):\-9.
12. Julia Kristeva, Semeiotike:Recherchespour une smanalyse(Paris: Seuil, 1969) 175.
13. This is foregrounded by Lynn Higgins in the context of Ricardous literary practice in
"Literature' la lettre': Ricardou and the Poetics of Anagram," Romanic Review 73.4 (1982):
473. She writes, "words are but one of many possible signifying systems upon which anagrams can operate."
14. I have attempted a translation whenever possible, but some of the slips of the tongue
cannot really be rendered in translation. In the context of my analysis, such criticisms as
Andrew W. Ellis' of the errors in Freud's concept of speech errors (as proven by recent
research) seem to be highly irrelevant. See "On the FreudianTheory of Speech Errors,"Errors
in Linguistic Performance,ed. Victoria A. Fromkin (New York:Academic, 1980) 123-131.
15. Sigmund Freud, PsychologischeSchriften(Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1970) 38.
16. Freud, Vorlesungenzur Einfuhrung in die Psychoanalyse, 10th ed. (Frankfurt/Main:
Fischer, 2000) 173.
17. Kristeva, "Revolution in Poetic Language," The Kristeva Reader, ed. Toril Moi (New
York: Columbia UP, 1986) 111, emphasis Kristeva's.
18. Freud, Die Traumdeutunv,8th ed. (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1998) 483.
19. Freud, Das Unbehaven in der Kultur, 5th ed. (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1997) 37.
20. Emmanuel Filhol, "L'analyseFreudienne des formations de l'inconscient: Une logique
du signifiant," Travaux de Linguistique 28 (1994): 134 and 138.
21. Marcelo Dascal, "Language Use in Jokes and Dreams: Sociopragmatics vs
Psychopragmatics," Language and Communication5.2 (1985): 105, emphases Dascal's.
22. See Michel Arriv, "Lacan sur le style, sur le style de Lacan, Qu est-ce que le style? ed.
Georges Molinie etc. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1994) 45-61; and James
Glogowski, "The Psychoanalytical Textuality of Jacques Lacan," Prose Studies 11.3 (1988):
13-20. Both critics engage (at least partly) in an explanation of Lacan's style through and in
the context of his theories.
23. Jacques Lacan, Le SminairedeJacquesLacan. Livre XX. Encore1972-1973, ed. JacquesAlain Miller (Paris: Seuil, 1975) 37.
24. Jean-Joseph Goux, "Lacan Iconoclast," Lacan & Human Sciences,ed. Alexandre Leupin
(Lincoln, London: U of Nebraska P, 1991) 117-118, emphases Goux's.
25. It would be almost impossible to translate these word plays.
26. Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: On Feminine Sexuality/The Limits of Love and
Knowledge. Book XX. Encore 1972-1972, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. Bruce Fink (New
York: Norton, 1998) 120. 1 will use this translation for all subsequent quotes from Encore,
only indicating page numbers.
27. See Ellie Ragland- Sullivan, "Stealing Material: The Materiality of Language according to Freud and Lacan," Lacan & Human Sciences,ed. Alexandre Leupin (Lincoln: U of
Nebraska P, 1991) 64.
28. Lacan, Ecrits, 2 vols. (Paris: Seuil, 1966 and 1971) 1: 261.
29. Lacan. Ecrits: A Selection,trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Norton, 1977) 154. 1 will
use this translation for all subsequent quotes from Ecrits, only indicating page numbers.
30. See Franoise Meltzer, "Eat Your Dasein: Lacan's Self-Consuming Puns," On Puns:
The Foundation of Letters, ed. Jonathan Culler (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988) 156-163.

Anagrams in Psychoanalysis

25

31. Lacan, Le Sminaire deJacquesLacan. Livre III. Les Psychoses1955-1956, ed. JacquesAlain Miller (Paris: Seuil, 1981) 262.
32. See illustration in Lacan & Human Sciences,d. Alexandre Leupin (Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1991) 15.
33. Jacques- Alain Miller, "Language: Much Ado About What?" Lacan and the Subjectof
Language, ed. Ellie Ragland- Sullivan and Mark Bracher (New York: Routledge, 1991) 33.
34. Henri Atlan, "Du bruit comme principe d'auto-organisation," Communications 18
(1972): 35.
35. On the concept of "sur-rflexion"see Mark Roberts, "The End(s) of Pictoral Representation: Merleau-Ponty and Lyotard," Cultural Semiosis:Tracing the Signifier, ed. Hugh J.
Silverman (New York: Routledge, 1998) 129-139.
36. Geoff Bennington addresses this question of a real difference (an uncrossable gulf
between them, their belonging to different categories) or a mere opposition (their being
merely different tendencies in one and the same realm that work together through opposition, but are dependent on each other) between the figurai and the discursive. See "Lyotard:
From Discourse and Figure to Experimentation and Event," Paragraph6 (1985): 19-27.