Encyclopedic Discourse

Author(s): Hilary A. Clark

Source: SubStance, Vol. 21, No. 1, Issue 67 (1992), pp. 95-110
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EncyclopedicDiscourse

HilaryA. Clark

The Encyclopedic
Impulse
ENCYCLOPEDIASHAVE A PERENNIALFASCINATION:dusty foreign-lan-
guageones,theold Britannica initssuccessive editions,thenewBritannica
(Macropaedia, and
Micropaedia Propaedia), the volumes oftheEncyclopidie de
la Pldiadein theirleatherbindings. Partoftheallureis theencyclopedia's
veryunreadability, thesensethatone will neverhave thetimenor the
staminato read and digestall its contents. It is not onlyits size that
intimidates-the multiple volumes, their weight, thetissue-thinpagesand
dense columnsof printand illustrations. Rather,it is thenatureof the
encyclopedic enterprise itself-the audacious projectofencompassing all
thatcan beknown withinthecoversof a bookor books-thatchallenges
one'simagination andwill.
Overthecenturies, thistotalizing projecthasfascinated certainwriters
who have continuedthe encyclopedist'sgathering,compilingand
categorizing withintheirownforms (thenovel,theessay,thepoem).The
idea thatcertain textsare"encyclopedic" hasbecomefairly commonplace
in criticism:theBible,Dante'sDivinaCommedia, Cervantes's Don Quixote,
Joyce'sUlysses and Pound's Cantos have all been described as en-
cyclopedic.'Northrop Frye,in his own "encyclopedia" ofliteraryforms
andmodes,theAnatomy of sees
Criticism, an encyclopedic impulseimplicit
in "thematic" literature.
Theencyclopedic impulsetoward"a totalbodyof
vision,"a continuous, unifiedformsumming up theknowledgeofa cul-
tureat a particular in
point history, develops,according toFrye,outofan
equal but opposite impulse toward discontinuous and fragmented
("episodic")forms(55-56).Fryetracesthisimpulseoverhisfivefictional
modes,frommythto irony, showingthattheurgeto write(orcompile)a
"totalbody"extendsfromtheHomericepicsand sacredscriptures to the
Waste Land,theCantosandFinnegans Wake.
InFrance, within theproject ofsemiotics andpost-Saussurean explora-
tionsof discourseand textuality, theworksof RolandBarthes, Philippe
Sollers,Michel Foucaultand VincentDescombes evincea fascinationwith

SubStance#67,1992 95

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96 HilaryA. Clark

the encyclopedia as foregroundingthe nature of texts and discursive

processes.Writingabout theworkof Sollers,Barthesdevelops theidea of
encyclopedic desire:thatsince theRenaissance,writingtheencyclopediahas
been an expressionofa desireto collectand organizeall thatcan be known.
In the presentcentury,however,the encyclopedicenterprisehas become
increasinglyself-conscious;the naive optimismof the firstencyclop6distes
has been replacedby a tendencyto writeself-conscious"encyclopediesde
langage." BarthescharacterizesSollers'snovelH (Seuil,1973) as beingjust
such a book, "une Comedie de Phrases,un desir de Renaissance" (82).
Great Renaissance texts like Gargantuaand Pantagruelare no longer
writable;contemporary encyclopedictextsare writtenout of a desirefora
formeroptimismand freedom,in memoryofan imaginedformerfullness.
Sollershimself,in his theoreticalwritings(whichare continuouswith
his fictions)has explored how the notion of writingcan problematize
traditionalnotionsofunity,totalityand theexperienceoftextuallimits.He
emphasizesthat"theessentialquestiontodayis no longerthatofthewriter
and of thework... but thatof writing and of reading"(95). In thisemphasis
on process, distinctionsbetween literarygenres break down; textsap-
proachtheconditionofa book encompassingall genres.This encyclopedic
textualpracticeis an experienceof difference and multiplicity: thewriting
space is "no longer unified and horizontal, verticallydivisible,"sub-
but
jected to "an atomic disintegrationand dissemination.. . an incessant
effervescence ... " (79). An encyclopedicplay of language as desiregives
rise to a new optimism,a sense of new possibilitiesforrecreating,not
merelyreflecting, theworld.
In contrastto this notion of writingas a process pressingagainst
limits,Foucault's notionof discourseand the archivein L'Archdologie du
savoir(1969) and L'Ordredu discours(1971) bears more on problemsof
order,categorizationand constraints to discursivity.The encyclopediais a
formthatseeks to expand its boundariesever wider to incorporatenew
knowledgeas thecenturiespass. However,itis also by definition a practice
that "encircles,"encompasses,delimitsknowledge.It seeks order in the
chaos of thingsto be known and said; it categorizesand divides while
amassing, excludes while including.In L'Archdologie due savoirFoucault
arguesthattheseoperationscharacterizewhathe calls the "archive":
c'estd'abordla loide cequipeutetredit... [C]'est... cequifait
L'archive,
que toutesceschosesditesnes'amassent pasindefiniment dansunemulti-
tudeamorphe ... maisqu'ellesse groupent en figuresdistinctes, se com-
posentlesunesaveclesautresselondesrapports multiples ... (170)

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 Discourse
Encyclopedic 97

Foucault's"archive"is anothertermfortheencyclopedia-that practice

institutionalizingboththemultiplicity ofthings tobe knownandsaid,and
thecontrol ofthispotentiallydisordered massas an organized, intelligible
of The
body knowledge. encyclopedia or archive ofa particularepoch,like
thecanon,is thelaw ofwhatcanbe said,knownand taughtat thatpar-
ticulartime.
In an articleentitled"Variations on theSubjectoftheEncyclopaedic
Book,"Vincent Descombespointsouttheencyclopedia's temporal limita-
tions.Despitetheuniversal to
gesture control,"goto around [a]subject,so as
tobe equal tothatsubject(tosayeverything, allthatmustbe saidfromthe
point of view that had been
initially decided) ..." (54),thisgestureneces-
sarily comes up against inability totalizeor includeall thatcanbe
the to
known.Descombesconsiders thepractice ofpublishing encyclopedic sup-
plements as an indicationofan of
inability complete itself
thatis builtinto
theencyclopedic enterprise.This is due to the fact that is
knowledge not
fixedand eternal,but quicklybecomesobsolete,changingwiththe
material conditions oflife.
A trans-historical
literarymode,an openingontoinfinite signification,
a setofinvisible,institutional
constraints onknowledge-these aresomeof
thewaystheencyclopedia has beenimagined. I havealso suggested else-
where2that the encyclopedictextis markedby several important
paradoxes:inseekingtototalizeandeternalize knowledge, thewriter finds
theproject shadowedbyincompletion andobsolescence; andinseekingto
renderknowledgeobjectively, thewritermustmakedo witha project
markedby ideologicalblindspots,witha knowledgeorganizedby the
categories ofa particularculture at a particular time.

The Encyclopedia
as Discourse

I wouldliketoconsider thefollowing How candiscourse

questions: be
saidtobe "encyclopedic"?How do we understand theencyclopedia? How
does theencyclopedia representitsown knowledge? Thesequestionsare
as
interrelated, we shallsee.
To understand how discoursecan be encyclopedic, we mightturn
things around and consider how the encyclopediais how it
discursive,
surveys("dis-courir"--runs over and around) the entire"course" of
humanknowledge. To discourseupona subjectis tocoveritexhaustively;
thenoun"discourse" has synonyms in "dissertation," and "ser-
"treatise"
mon" (OxfordConciseDictionary).Discourse is rhetorical,processual: a

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98 HilaryA. Clark

spokenor written a purposeful

discourseis a communication, activity,
languagedirected towardan aimofpersuasionoreducation.As Foucault
emphasizes,it is languagechargedwithdesireand power,thedesireto
speakandthepowertomoveandinfluence an audience:
... le discours-lapsychanalyse
nousl'a montre
-, cen'estpassimplement
cequimanifeste
(oucache)ledesir;
c'estaussicequiest1'objet
dudesir...
[et]ce pourquoi,ce parquoion lutte,le pouvoirdonton cherche A
(L'Ordre
s'emparer. 12)
Foucaultpointsout thatthislinkwithdesireand power,withrepressed
processes,makesthe controlof discoursesociallynecessary.The en-
cyclopedia is oneofthesemodesofcontrol. Inthecontext ofdesireandthe
willtopower,thepractice becomesan interested, ideological one;we areno
longerlookingata neutral, objective summaofunchanging knowledge.3
Thustheencyclopedia is nota fixedform, Plato'smirror turning and
reflectingsuper-objectively theworldofthings tobe known;rather, itis a
rhetoricalprocessresponsive tochanging contexts, interestsandaudiences,
a processcaught,atpoints, ina bookorbooks.In theencyclopedia, we are
at a
looking specialtype of discourse. Like anydiscourse, itselects froma
rangeofmaterial on a subjectandarranges itsselections inordertoinform
or persuade.Yet it is specialin thatit selectsfromtheentire domain of
humanknowledge, arranging itsselections to
according specific orders-
thematic and encyclopedic-that havedevelopedhistorically, and repre-
senting its own discursive in
process tropes such as themirror, the tree,the
the
labyrinth, circle, and the network.
Encyclopedic discourseforegrounds and problematizes itsown dis-
cursiveoperations in a self-figuring turn(thatdoes not,however, neces-
sarilyescape theblind spots of the dominant ideology). Itdoes not assume
its discursivenatureas a transparent given.In characterizing "classic
realism," Catherine Belseyhas distinguished between"thoseforms which
tendtoeffacetheirowntextuality, theirexistence as discourse, and those
whichexplicitly drawattention to it" (51). Encyclopedic discourseis re-
latedto thelatterforms; it is anti-realistic,drawingattention to itsprin-
ciplesof selection and In a
arrangement. sense,encyclopedic discourse is a
metadiscourse. Itsreflective turnis not,however, themise-en-abyme ofin-
wardspecularity, theself-reflection ofthe"narcissistic" text;rather, itsself-
representation an
generates excess,opening outward onto the freedom of
infinitespeculation on knowledge. Thisdynamicspeculation creates new
knowledge;Wilda Andersonhas likened the process,in Diderot's
Encyclopidie, to an "open-ended conversation" producing "a creativeand

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 Discourse
Encyclopedic 99

discourse"(918,928). Andersonarguesthatany en-

self-transforming
discourse
cyclopedic canbe seenas one "giganticcoherent conversation,"
in which"knowledgeis ... onlythepretext ...
to unleash philosophical
speculation.. ." (926).

Figures:theMirror,
Encyclopedic theTree,theCircle

I wouldliketolookmorecloselyatthemaintropesbywhich,overthe
centuries, encyclopedists havecharacterized theretrievalandorganization
ofknowledge, thenatureofthelong-term cultural memory withinwhich
they work.
"Uneencyclop6die n'estpas unentassement de faits,"
notesRaymond
Queneauin his "Presentation de l'Encyclopedie de la Pldiade"(94). The
idea thatpriorto organization, knowledge is a dishevelled heap offrag-
mentsand odd facts,hauntstheencyclopedic enterprise. to spatial
Due
and temporal limitations,and due tothelimitations ofhumancomprehen-
sionand memory, knowledge must be if
organized it is tobe storedand
retrieved. The ordering ofknowledgeis as muchat thecenterof theen-
cyclopedicenterprise as is the discoveryor retrieval of knowledge.If
knowledgeis merelyheapedup, it cannotbe communicated, cannotbe
used. This mass of data,then,like noisein information theory,is the
groundagainst which complex orders and information become percep-
tible.
One can represent organizedknowledge eitherstaticallyor dynami-
cally. The static figure of "the mirror" is implicit in the titles
of certain
medievalencyclopedias; theSpeculum majusofVincent de Beauvaisfigures
itselfas "a mirror ofknowledge," theImagomundi ofHonoriusInclususas
the "image"or "picture"of knowledge.4 Figuringthe encyclopedia as
mirror-image impliesthatthereis alreadyan orderor systemto be dis-
coveredin humanaffairs and nature,and thatthebook can reflect this
orderthatis unchanging andoriginates fromGod.
FromtheRenaissance onward,thisstaticnotionoftheencyclopedia
givesway to the more dynamicidea thatlikethehumanmind,theen-
cyclopedia is in a self-consciousanddirectrelation totheworld,andmust
approachand interpret a subtleand elusivenature.Bacon'smethodof
induction, referred to in theNovumOrganum as "theinterpretation of
nature," is in this spirit,
redirectingscience alongempirical lines and seek-
ingto freethemindofits"Idols"-preconceived, staticideasthatforman
obstacleto a directand dynamicinterpretation of nature(9). Bacon's

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100 HilaryA. Clark

methodis at thebase of theEncyclopddie ofDiderotand d'Alembert. In

calling fora new science, a new "kingdom of man" resembling the
"Kingdomof Heaven" (37), Bacon is respondingto the same call to
knowledgethat moved the medieval encyclopedists.However,the
responsetothecallnowdiffers.
"Thesubtility ofnatureis farbeyondthatofsenseor oftheunder-
standing,"writesBacon(112);thereis stilla divineorderinnature, butitis
no longersimplygiven,easilyreflected. Rather, natureneedsinterpreting.
Intheinterests ofobjectivity, theencyclopedist, likethescientist, mustnow
be respectfulofnature'sdifferences andattentive tohisownbiases.Atthis
point,theencyclopedic projectbecomesself-conscious and self-figuring;
encyclopedists describe their methodsand assumptions in prefaces,dis-
coursesand articles on theencyclopedia. TheEncyclop6die ofDiderotand
d'Alembert is particularly d'Alembert's
self-figuring: Discours prdliminaire
and Diderot's article"Encyclopedie"in the Encyclopidie address the
predicament ofknowledge andencyclopedic production ina humanworld
markedby time.Followingthe Renaissancenotionof the "Tree of
Knowledge," as developedby RamonLullsand particularly by Baconin
his own Treebranching fromthethreehumanfaculties ofMemory, Im-
agination and Reason, d'Alembertdevelops the idea that human
knowledgecanbe figured as "unarbregenealogique ou encyclopedique"
(xxiv).Thatis,everything knowncanbe classedaccording to higherand
higherlevelsofgenerality. The "GreatTree"ofencyclopedic memory is a
staticfigureof hierarchical order;thetreefiguresuggeststhatwhilethe
numberofsub-and sub-sub-branches mightbe indefinite, thisprolifera-
tionis ultimately groundedand controlled by the central branches,the
unchanging human faculties.
D'Alembert alsoaddressesthedynamic processofknowing, andhere
pointsout thepossibility ofloss ofcontrol, ignorance, and forgetfulness.
Thisinverseofencyclopedic knowledge is seen as a labyrinth. TheTreeof
in
Knowledge, itsminutedivisions, can become-ina simpleturnalong
theedgebetweenorderand disorder, betweeninformation and noise-a
In a
labyrinth. chapter entitled vs.
"Dictionary Encyclopedia" and
(Semiotics
thePhilosophyofLanguage), Umberto Ecopointsoutthatan ordered, hierar-
chical(Porphyrian) treecan becomea maze,a seriesof choicesbetween
alternatepaths (81). Eco notesthatd'Alembert calls the encyclopedic
metaphor of the tree intoquestion as he the
develops figures of"themap"
and "thelabyrinth," figuressuggesting theactualshape-untidy,con-
voluted,open-ended--of humanknowing. As d'Alembert writes:

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EncyclopedicDiscourse 101

Le systeme g6ndral desSciences& desArtsestunespkcede labyrinthe, de

chemin tortueux ... Maisced6sordre toutphilosophique qu'ilestdela part
de l'Ame,defigurerait, ou plut6tan6antirait entierement un Arbre
encyclop6dique dans lequel on voudraitle representer ... [L]'ordre
encyclop6dique de nosconnaissances. .. consisteAlesrassembler dansle
plus petitespacepossible,& A placer,pourainsidire,le Philosophe au
dessusde ce vastelabyrinthe dansunpointde vuefort elv6 d'oiiil puisse
apercevoir...lesobjetsde sesspeculations,& lesoperations qu'ilpeutfaire
sur ces objets;distinguerles branchesgeneralesdes connaissances
humaines; & entrevoir memequelquefois les routessecrktes qui les rap-
prochent. C'est une de
esphce Mappemonde qui doitmontrer les prin-
cipauxpays,leurposition& leurdependance mutuelle ... [Des cartes
particulibresferont les diff6rents
articlesde I'Encyclopedie, & l'arbreou
systhme figure enferala Mappemonde. (xxv-xxvi,spelling modernized)6
The encyclopedistmust impose orderon the labyrinthat his feet,distin-
guishingin its tanglesand dead-ends,branchesof knowledge,pointsin a
hierarchy,a figure,a map that can be used to findone's bearings.But
d'Alembertrecognizesthatin day-to-dayknowing,each personproceeds
as ifin a maze, blindly,learningby trialand error:"l'esprits'engage sans
tropconnaitrela routequ'il doittenir"(xxv).Thereis thusin d'Alembert's
text a tension between labyrinthand tree: the disorderedlabyrinthof
knowledgeas a processthreatensto "annihilate"theorderedtreeby which
the encyclopedistwould represent(fix and visualize) knowledge as a
product.This is a tensionbetween order and disorder:noise (the great,
unorganized heap of proto-information)accompanies the totalizing
enterprise,just as in memory,forgetting and loss shadow theenterpriseof
retaining and the
retrieving past.
The term "encyclopedia"literallymeans "circleof learning,"going
back to a completecourse of instruction in ancientGreece (laterparodied
by Rabelais in Gargantua's course of education,and by Flaubertin the
autodidacticefforts of Bouvardand Pecuchet).The figureofthecircleas an
organizingprincipleforknowledgehas persistedrightup to theFifteenth
Edition of the Encylopaedia Britannica.EchoingQueneau, MortimerAdler
states in the Prefaceto the Propaediathat"an encyclopaediashould not
merelybe a 'storehouseoffacts,'butshould also be a 'systematicsurveyof
all departmentsof knowledge"' (5). The encyclopediacannotbe simplya
place, then,but must also be a set of operations(the notionof a system
coveringboth place and practice).The circleis the figureby which the
editorsof the Britannica conceive systematicknowledge;Adler calls it a
"powerfulmetaphor"because it is "a figurein which no point on the
circumference is a beginning,none is a middle,none is an end ... one can
go across the circlefromany pointto any other"(6). The editorsuggests

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102 HilaryA. Clark

thatin thismodel,segments lie sidebyside,andso no areaofknowledge

canbe privileged overanyother;thecircleis thusa non-hierarchical figure.
Or one area only is privileged-a centralarea (diagrammed,in the
Propaedia,as thehubofa wheel)whichis thestudyofknowledge as such,
overand aboveknowledgeofspecific subjects.This meta-areais entitled
"The Branchesof Knowledge"-andindeed,as thePropaedia proceeds,
eachsegment ofthecircleis figured separatelyas a branchon a greattree
(sub-areasbreaking offas smallerbranches ina movement, nowhierarchi-
cal, from higher to lower levels of It
generality). seemsthatknowledge,
seen as a whole,can be figuredas a circledividedintoequal segments;
however, onceonedescendsintoeachofthesesegments, intothethicket of
humanknowledge inallitstanglesandturnings, onemustproceedhierar-
chicallyifoneis tograspthematerial atall.

The Structuring
ofHumanKnowledge

Recently, theissuesofhumanknowledge, memory, or encyclopedic

competence have been addressed in the fieldsof cognitive scienceand
ArtificialIntelligence.Programshave been developedto create"intel-
ligent"computers, and thisworkhas fed back intocognitivestudies,
developing and enriching modelsofhumanmemory and themind.These
modelsare relevantto our surveyofencyclopedic self-figuring, because
theyareattempts toexplainhowhumanknowledge is structured, accessed
and used in everydaytasks and situations.7 In fact,the models of
or
knowledge memory that haveemerged from cognitive sciencearebasi-
callycontinuous withthetreeand labyrinth figures oftheencyclop6distes.
AI research on programming intelligentcomputers led to numerous
has
representations of human knowledgeas structured in networks; in The
SocietyofMind,MarvinMinsky developsa modelofmemory as a network
oforderlysearchoperations. Suchcomputer intelligence networks recall
d'Alembert's of
labyrinth knowledge in theDiscours; however, a network
is hierarchicaland ordered,whereas a labyrinth(particularlythe
"rhizomatic" typeexploredby Eco afterDeleuze and Guattari)8 is non-
hierarchicalandproliferating.Infact,thefigure ofthenetwork seemstolie
somewhere betweenthetreeofknowledge andthelabyrinth: likethetree,
itis hierarchical,
linking itemto class, to
species genus; however, likethe
itis
labyrinth, seemingly unlimitedin itspaths and connections.
The figureof the networkis also impliedin thenotions,basic to
cognitivescience,of scripts, framesand schemata:theseall referto the

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 Discourse
Encyclopedic 103

sameprocesswhereby one makessenseofnewsituations, including new

discourse, on
bydrawing "stereotyped" knowledge of the world situations
and of textconventions. Knowledgeof theworldis structured in fixed
and
representations, thereby available for ready retrieval. As Gillian
Brownand GeorgeYuleputit,scripts, frames and schemataare"alterna-
tivemetaphors forthedescription ofhowknowledgeoftheworldis or-
ganisedin humanmemory, and also howitis activated in theprocessof
discourseunderstanding" (238).In a sense,these"alternative metaphors"
aretheencyclopedic figures we havebeensurveying, butnowoperating in
thehumanmind.As encyclopedic ordersorganizehumanknowledgein
discourseand dispose it towardcontinualreactivation, so knowledge
structuresoperate at the cognitive level torepresent individual knowledge
in typicalformand thereby allow thesubjectto understand new situa-
tions-to interpret nature,in Bacon's terms(althoughBacon would
probablylabel as "Idols of the Market"thosepre-existing stereotypes,
sociallyconstructed,bywhichwe understand theworld).9
In Semiotics
andthePhilosophy ofLanguage, Eco introduces theidea of
encyclopedic as a
competence labyrinth, "virtually infinite" "struc-
and
turedaccording toa network ofinterpretants;" theencyclopedia, hesays,is a
"rhizome-aninconceivable globality" (83). Such competence also func-
tionslikea code:justas languageforms thecodeagainstwhichindividual
speechactsarerealized,so theencyclopedia also liststheconditions ena-
blingindividualknowledge acts.Bothare "institutional codes"operating
as a setofinstructions comprehending, amongothers, "systems offrames
andscripts" The
(184). emphasishere, as in Foucault's notion of thearchive,
is on thefixed,"constrictive" natureofencyclopedic competence; itis all
we knowoftheworld,andwe cannotknowbeyondit.
Eco has linked ArtificialIntelligenceand the encyclopedia.A
computer's knowledge(andbyanalogy, humanknowledge) is structured
as a setofencyclopedic lists.Thelistseemstobe thenetwork seenfroma
particularperspective; it includes all the qualitieswhich, taken together,
definea subjector characterize a situation. In Eco's "On Truth.A Fiction"
(in MeaningandMentalRepresentations), a talkingcomputer describesits
own knowledgeas comprising partialencyclopedic it
lists; can onlyinfer
the whole list, that "Global EncyclopedicCompetence"or "Global
Memory"whichmakesof everymind(humanor artificial)-and every
encyclopedia-a"workin progress" only(44).To answerquestionsand
understand expressions, thecomputer mustdrawon a systemofinstruc-
tionswhich"do notnecessarily refer to an external stateofaffairs.They
are . . . instructionsabout how to process otherexpressions.They are

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104 HilaryA. Clark

sentencesabout theorganizationofan encyclopedia."Thus thecomputer,

like theencyclopediaitself,is "onlya semioticmachine"(51-54).This sys-
tem of knowledge competencehas no directaccess to the world; it is
always alreadya discourse.The encyclopedictext,like Eco's talkingcom-
puter,can speculateon itsown competence,but ultimatelyithas no access
to the "hardware"behind all its "software,"the world beyond the net of
discursiveoperations.

Recyclingin the "Encyclopedic"Text

Implicitin our surveyofencyclopedicfigureshas been theissue ofthe

line betweenorderand disorder,information and noise. The ordereden-
cyclopedic tree can turn into the labyrinth, vice-versa.We have seen
and
how d'Alembert envisions the encyclopedistas philosopher standing
above the labyrinth, seeing the whole formedby the tangleof parts,and
therebyconstructing orderin thechaos ofknowing.Conversely,Eco notes
how thetreebecomes a labyrinth:
Theproject ofan encyclopedic
competence is governedbyan underlying
metaphysics orbya metaphor(oran allegory):
theideaoflabyrinth.
The
utopiaof a Porphyriantreerepresentedthemostinfluential
attemptto
reducethelabyrinthtoa bidimensional
tree.Butthetreeagaingenerated
thelabyrinth. 80)
(Semiotics,
Eco's pointon thebidimensionality of thetreeindicatesthatan important
qualityof thelabyrinth itsabilityto formconnec-
is itsmultidimensionality,
tionsin any directionand henceto expand towardan infinite-andpoten-
tiallychaotic-semiosis.
In a similarmanner,the circleof knowledgecan become an "entasse-
ment"or heap. The pressureof thingsto be knowncan breakthecircle;at
times,all the encyclopediaswiththeirvarious editionsand supplements
do seem to forma disorderedheap. Nonetheless,we continueto represent,
to fix and order knowledge,doing the encyclopedicwork to organize
disorder,counterentropy,and make complexinformation available.
The keyto thisturntowardorderlies in rhetoric,
in thefirsttwo stages
ofcomposition:selectionand arrangement. Accordingto Diderot,thereare
two maintasksin thesciencesofknowledge:"augmenterla masse des con-
naissancespar des decouvertes,"and "rapprocherles decouverteset... les
ordonnerentreelles afinque plus d'hommessoient&claires..." (46). That
is, the task of the encyclopediais to compose knowledge-to inventor
discovermaterialand thenorderit,arrangeit,just as one discourseson

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 Discourse
Encyclopedic 105

anytopic.Theonlydifference is thattheencyclopedia retrieves andshapes

as
knowledge whole,a whereas other forms of discourse draw uponand
shapespecific branches ofknowledge. Theencyclopedia potentially acces-
ses theveryframes, scripts,schemata by which we know. It does nothave
the problemof ordinarydiscourse-thatof weedingout material,of
"restricting knowledgeto onlytherelevantdetails"neededin under-
standing textsandnewsituations (BrownandYule,244).(Inencyclopedic
discourse, nonetheless, ideologymayinfluence whatis includedand ex-
cluded.)
Eco characterizes the encyclopediaas beinga "collectivecultural
memory," "the sum of a collective history" ("OnTruth"53).As a memory-
system, it must reflect upon its own selectionand orderingof human
knowledge. In doingso, however, itmustultimately comeup againstthe
limitations builtintoits own totalizing project.Thus whenwe say,for
that
example, Finnegans Wake is encyclopedic, we arenot simplypointing
out thatit containsa greatdeal of information and coversa numberof
different departments of knowledge. We are notsimplysayingthatan
text
encyclopedic physically looks likea reference work,withsub-headings
and definitions, diagrams, lists,alphabetical ordersand cross-referencing
(although some of these encyclopedic "markers" mayindeedbe present).
Rather,any text or
(fictional not) that we would call encyclopedic must
speculateon itsown discursive processesofdiscovery and arrangement,
andon thelimitations oftheseprocesses, given thefactof timeandchange.
Encyclopedic discourse is built out of older discourses; no elementin
it is trulyoriginal.In composingtheGrande Encyclopddie, Diderotpoints
out,"il ne s'agissaitque de revoir, corriger, ...
augmenter [Le]travailde
creation qui est toujours celui qu'on redoute, disparaissait . ." (65).
Likewise,thiscentury's
encyclopedic fictions
byJoyce,Pound,Sollersand
Pynchonare "anti-creative," withthe writerreturning to the role of
medievalscribe,endlessly(likeBouvardand Pecuchet) readingand copy-
ingthealready-known, thepopularas wellas theesoteric.
taskincomposing
Joyce's Finnegans Wake(andtosomeextent in Ulys-
ses) involves rearrangingready-made narrativesand chunks of
knowledge.10 worksliketheencyclopedist:
Joyce hismethodof"interpola-
tion"and "recycling"
involvescontinually working revisions
elaborations,
and supplements intothetext,whileretaining hisearlierdrafts
alongside
thenewermaterial.In line withDiderot'snotionthattheencyclopedic
workrevisesand corrects the already-known, Joyceis concernedwith
"revising"knowledge-discourses (seeingthem anew, placingtheminnew
and
contexts) "augmenting" them,working them up intomorecomplex

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106 HilaryA. Clark

and elaboratestructures. He "recycles" knowledge so thatnothing thathe

oranyoneelsehas written willbe wasted.His "ecological" methodis also
a highlyrhetorical one (and opposedto Romantic/individualistic notions
ofcomposition as requiring originality andnewmaterial). Liketheearliest
orators, Joyce "invents" the
by rediscovering commonplace, arranges by
reshuffling a fewwell-worn topoi-intheWake, themesand configurations
suchas theconflicting twins,thefirst father & mother, themisdemeanour
inPhoenixPark-intocontinually newandsurprising combinations.
Likean encyclopedia, theWakeis ambitious, itsneologisms reaching
fornewsyntheses, fortotalization and infinite connection. Nonetheless, it
alsoreflects onitsownlimitations, itssecond-hand nature, figuring as
itself
a Hen's letter, and
pecked-over mouldy,dug up from a "fatalmidden"
(110).It speculateson itsownnatureas discourseendlesslycompos(t)ing
itsown topicsand thoseofothertexts.Fromthegarbage-heap ofculture
emerges the Letter, this text,seemingly without an author ("who in
hallhagalwrotethe durnthinganyhow?")(107-8).Joyce's midden or
"grotesquely distorted macromass" (111)is the"entassement de faits"that
Queneauwarnsus about,thedisorderly of
heap memory before theen-
cyclopedic work. The narrative of the Wake is an attempt to write one'sway
outofthemidden,seeone'swayclear("tonarrate" deriving from theLatin
narrare, "tosee"). Theattempts to interpret theHen's Letter, described in
I,v as a text ...
"cayennepepper[ed] [with]errors, omissions, repetitions,
and misalignments" (120),figurethewriter's and thereader'sattempt to
organize a chaos of disorganized cultural fragments, composing them into
"one stablesomebody"(107),a configuration forever accessibleand the
same.
Yetthedifficulties described inreadingthe"strange exoticserpentine"
(121) of the Letter are striking, as are the reader's difficultiesinreadingthe
Wake(a taskrequiring"penelopeanpatience")(123). The encyclopedic
workof composingcultureis continually beliedby theverytechniques
thatwoulddo thememory-work, therepetitions and elaborations ofthe
narrative, and bythereader'sconfusion and needto reread the verylan-
guage (neologistic and obscure)thatshouldbe thevehicleof new en-
cyclopedic syntheses. Theexperience ofreadingthe"dislocutions" ofthe
text(FritzSenn'sterm)figures, in a particularly compelling way, fine
the
linebetweenorderand disorder, information and noise,thatpotentially
destabilizes ourreadingoftheencyclopedia. In L'Univers deI'Encyclopidie,
RolandBarthesremarks thatan encyclopedic poetics"se definit toujours
commeun certain irrealisme ..." (15).Finnegans Wakefigures theproduc-
tionofnew knowledgein thereader'shesitation, at each point,between

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 Discourse
Encyclopedic 107

confusion orforgetting andsenseorrecollection; anditfigures thisproduc-

tionfarmoreovertly thandoes theencyclopedia, in whichtheedge be-
tweenorderand disorder, theworkofselection and arrangement, is only
allowedtoemergeforexamination atcertain permitted points.
Flaubert'sBouvardet Pecuchet is anotherexampleof fictionalen-
cyclopedicdiscourse.Yet thistextis obviouslynotencyclopedic in the
same way thatFinnegans Wakeis. Flaubert'stextforegrounds the sys-
tematic natureofencyclopedic knowledge, thefactthattheautodidacts can
pass from one branchof knowledge to another without pause, each branch
automaticallyrecallingthe next-anatomyleading to physiology,
spiritualism todivination,theology tocomparative religion. LiketheWake,
Bouvard encourages the reader on
to speculate theshape that knowledge
takes.However,Joyce's textatteststothestrainofencyclopedic workinits
very form, itshesitationbetween obscurity and clarification,
forgetting and
remembering. Bouvard,however, this in the
suggests difficulty pessimistic
presentation ofthepossibility andeventhedesirability oftotalization, the
workofrecycling second-hand knowledge from otherbooks andshuffling
it intonew configurations. The futility of thisenterprise is embodiedin
Bouvardand Pecuchet's museum-unsystematic, shabby,stuffed withan
assortment of bizarreobjects.(Thetwo autodidacts finally sicken of it.)
Flaubert's novel reflectson theencyclopedic dilemma of incompletion;
however, owingtoitsrealistform itcannotgo further andenactthisdilem-
ma initsveryform.

Conclusion

Oursurveyofencyclopedic has tracedthewaysbywhichwe

figures
attempt torepresent (fixandholdata distance)theproblematic processof
knowing in time.To our initial
question-"How can discourse be saidtobe
encyclopedic?"-we now as at
might answer, suggested pointsthroughout
thisessay,thatdiscourse becomesencyclopedic whenittakesas itssubject
theprocessof knowingand thebodyof humanknowledge, seekingto
this
represent body as an organized whole. Encyclopedicdiscourse specu-
lateson itsowndiscursive processesofretrieving,
rearranging andrefigur-
ing individualknowledge-discourses (these"ready-mades" beingthe
authorsreadbyBouvardandPecuchet, forexample, orthechunksofVico
andBrunoreworked inFinnegans Theencyclopedia
Wake). is a specialkind
ofdiscourse, yetit is specialpreciselyin itsnatureas discourse parexcel-

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108 HilaryA. Clark

lence,reflectingon theveryprocessesof discursiveproductionbasic to all

textsbut normallyocculted.
The encyclopedia,then,bothcomprehendsand exceedsotherdiscour-
ses; its work is continuouswith our normal intellectualoperations,yet
exceeds themin theturnof self-figuration. in
It is herethatthedifficulties
reading encyclopedic discourse arise: we easily put down a textsuch as
FinnegansWake,just as we leave those dusty volumes of encyclopedias
unread,because such discourserepresentstheveryprocessesby whichwe
read, theverystructuresof backgroundknowledgeor long-term memory
by whichwe make sense of whatwe read. Perhapsthisis a case of "infor-
mationoverload"; perhapsit's liketryingto read ourselvesreading.How-
ever we characterizethe problem,it is definitelya readingproblem,an
inabilityto completelyprocess the encyclopedia.Eco's talkingcomputer
thatwe met earliercharacterizesthisblock as its inabilityto access and
explainits own "hardware,"to step out of its "software"(itsencyclopedic
lists and discursiveoperations)and thereby"read" and programitself
("On Truth"51).
Encyclopedicdiscourseis preciselythatwhichaims at limitsbeyond
our normalknowledgecapacities;yetits knowledgeprocessesare always
already our own. It is bothbeyond us and of us. Proceeding,then,in an
attitudeof both humilityand skepticism,we may pick up the neglected
book, crackopen thosedustyvolumes,and tryto read again.
ofSaskatchewan
University

NOTES

1. EdwardMendelson
describes
a genreofencyclopedic in his "En-
narrative
cyclopedicNarrativefromDante toPynchon,"MLN 91 (1976):1267-1275.
2. See HilaryClark,TheFictional
Encyclopaedia: Sollers
Pound,
Joyce, (NewYork:
GarlandPress,1990).
3. It would be interesting,
thoughbeyondtheboundsofthisarticle,to speculate
on thematterofwho is "licensed"to discourseencyclopedically, and how one comes
tothisposition.One mightalso ask whetherideas havechangedwithrespecttowhich
audiences are "entitled"to participatein or assume thepower of thisdiscourseon
knowledge.In linewiththisidea,Foucaultin L'Ordredu discours speaksofa principle
ofdiscursivecontrol,whichhe callsa "rarefaction ... des sujetsparlants;nuln'entrera
dans l'ordredu discourss'il n'est ... qualifiepour le faire... toutesles regionsdu
discoursne sontpas egalementouverteset pinetrables.. ." (39).
4. Variousmedievalencyclopediasare discussedin Mauricede Gandillac,ed.,La
Pensdeencyclopddique au moyenfige(NeuchAtel: Ed. de la Baconnibre, 1966).
5. See FrancesYates'sdiscussion
ofLullin TheArtofMemory
(Chicago:U of
ChicagoP, 1966)186-7.

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EncyclopedicDiscourse 109

6. "The generalsystemin thesciencesand theartsis a kindoflabyrinth, a kind

oftwisting road .... Butthisdisorder,justifiably
philosophicalfromthepointofview
of thesoul,would disfigureor ratherentirely destroyan encyclopedicTreein which
one triedto representit... [T]heencyclopedicorderingofourareasofknowledge...
consistsof gatheringthemtogether in thesmallestpossiblespace,and placing,so to
speak,thePhilosopherabove thisvastlabyrinth, in a raisedposition,fromwhichhe
maysee ... theobjectsofhis speculations, and theoperationsthathe can makeupon
theseobjects;to distinguishthegeneralbranchesof humanknowledge,and even to
perceivesometimesthesecretrouteswhichbringthemcloserto one another.It is a
kindofMap-of-the-world whichmustshowtheprincipalcountries, theirpositionand
theirinterdependence .... individualmaps willmakeup thedifferent componentsof
theEncyclopedia,and thetreeor theschematicrepresentation willmakethemintoa
Map-of-the-world."
7. Fora comprehensive discussionoftheplace ofArtificial in cogni-
Intelligence
tivescience,see Howard Gardner,TheMind'sNew Science(New York:Basic Books,
1985)138-181.
8. Eco, Semiotics81-82.See Gilles Deleuze and F61ixGuattari,Rhizome(Paris:
Minuit,1976).
9. In the NovumOrganum, AxiomsXXXIX-XLIV, Bacon sets out fourtypesof
pre-conceivedideas or Idols: of the Tribe (inherentin humannature),of the Den
(peculiarto theindividual),oftheMarket(formedby "thereciprocalintercourse and
societyof man withman"), and of theTheater(foundin philosophicalsystemsor
"fictions").The analogies betweenthese fixedideas, and the frames,scriptsand
schemataofcognitivescience,would be interesting topursuefurther.
10. David Hayman,in "Nodalityand Infra-Structure in FinnegansWake,"James
JoyceQuarterly 16 (1978):135-149,discusseshow Joyce'smethodinvolvestheelabora-
tionofsimplenarratives or "nodes"intolongerand morecomplexnarratives. See also
JamesAtherton'sdiscussionof Joyce'scompositionalmethods(squeezing in new
materialbetweenthelines and around themarginsof the draft)in TheBooksat the
Wake(London:Faberand Faber,1959)61.

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