Semiosis of Power in Early Medieval Culture: Myths, Monsters, Intertexts

By Sergey V. Sannikov

The book presents a semiotic approach to the study of power relations in the symbolic space of medieval culture.
A critical analysis of medieval texts was carried out in accordance with the methodology of European structuralist and poststructuralist tradition (Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Umberto Eco, Jean Baudrillard), as well as Russian semiotic tradition (Mikhail Bakhtin, Juri Stepanov, Juri Lotman, Boris Uspensky, Viktor Toporov, Sergei Proskurin).
The author analyzes the early medieval historical works of Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede the Venerable, Paul the Deacon, Snorri Sturluson and other authors. The book raises questions of the realiation of the plot of teratomachia (Greek “fight against monsters”) in political culture. The murder of a monster becomes a kind of initiation of an archetypal Hero (for example, such as Theseus, Perseus, Sigurd, Beowulf, etc.), who manifests his individuality and strengthens his authority as a military leader or potential ruler through the victory over the monster. Formation of the comitatus culture and rising power of military leaders is associated with the development of ideas about the kinship of military aristocracy with the world of monsters, which is reflected in the representation of royal power.
The semiotics of power in archaic Germanic culture is identified as being of a physiological nature - the signs of power are represented by various aspects of the ruler’s body, both innate and acquired as a result of certain ritual practices, such as long hair or characteristic features of the body of representatives of the ruling Merovingian family. Such phenomena are explained through the prism of the “quasi-bodily” code of archaic culture. The psychological aspects of the perception of the physiological aspects of power are analyzed through the prism of the methodology of S. Freud, A. Adler and E. Berne.
The formation of medieval culture is considered from the point of view of the transformation of the perception of symbolic structures and the development of the practice of symbolic representation in the space of political communication. The author analyzes semiotic aspects of overcoming physiological limitations and weakening the biological relevance of power, which took place in the form of ideas about the transfer of charisma through the things of the ruler, transmitted within the framework of symbolic redistribution and the medieval gift economy.
In accordance with the methodology of K. Jung, J. Campbell and E. Meletinsky, the archetypes underlying the perception of power in medieval literature (Hero, Wise old man, Father, Shadow, Seeker, Child, etc.) are analyzed.
The author examines the methods of forming political myths in the works of intellectuals of the late antiquity - Flavius Cassiodorus, Severinus Boethius, Isidore of Seville, in particular, myths concerning the categories of equality and freedom. The medieval perception of the “barbarian” world is considered in accordance with the methodology of the Moscow-Tartu semiotic school from the point of view of the dynamics of the processes of semiosphere - the interaction of the cultural core, periphery and border space of the era of late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sergey V. Sannikov
• Release date: Dec 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005082888

Sergey V. Sannikov

Graduated from Novosibirsk State University (Russia) in 2003.Master of Arts in Scandinavian History, University of Linkoping (Sweden), 2004.Candidate of Science (Ph.D.) degree in History, Novosibirsk State University, Kemerovo State University (Russia), 2007.

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To my beloved wife Julia

Semiosis of Power in Early Medieval Culture:

Myths, Monsters, Intertexts

By Sergey V. Sannikov

Copyright © 2020 Sergey V. Sannikov

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Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.

(M. Foucault)

Introduction

The problem of the semiotic dimension of social / political power may be considered one of the most complicated methodological problems of modern research. The works of H. Lasswell, E. Cassirer, J. Lacan, J. Deleuze, M. Foucault, P. Bourdieu, R. Barthes, J. Baudrillard, devoted to the issues of sign / symbolic foundations of social relations, allowed to revise not only the accepted approaches to the study of the phenomenon of power and assessment of its role in the history of culture, but also raised the question of the legitimacy of the traditional definition of the very subject of research.        

Methodological reversal of the positivist paradigm, in which power has been studied as a political and legal institution, to the postmodern interpretation of power as the system of production of reality, knowledge categories and total subordination to discursive practices, has led to a significant expansion of the boundaries of the methodological studies of the phenomenon of power.

At the turn of the century, experts reasonably noted that to advance in the study of the space of political relations requires the creation of a special political semiotics of power [Ilyin, 2002]. This assessment remains relevant, moreover, taking into account that the phenomenon of power has gone beyond the purely political framework, it seems possible to somewhat transform the above statement approximately as follows: the creation of a special semiotics of power is required.

It is quite difficult to determine unequivocally which of the authors can be considered the founder of the semiotics (semiology) of power. The theoretical provisions of the logical direction of American semiotics (presented in the works of Charles Sanders Peirce, Charles Morris, Clarence Irving Lewis) have found practical application in the studies of representatives of the behaviorist direction of the American political science school. In the articles by Harold Dwight Lasswell, presented in the collective monograph The Language of Politics: Exploring Quantitative Semantics [Lasswell H.D., Leites N. and associates, 1949], an attempt was made to overcome the disciplinary boundaries of the study of political phenomena by applying semiotic theory to the classification of the dimensions of the language of politics (semantics and syntactics), analyzing the correlation between ideology and political mythology, and identifying mechanisms for the dissemination of political formulas and doctrines. The model of political communication suggested by the author has become one of the basic models for modern political science, and the proposed approach to the quantitative study of semantics has formed the foundations of the modern theory of discourse analysis.

A significant step in the development of the semiology of power was taken within the framework of the works of representatives of the French school of structuralism. One of its important representatives was the French psychoanalyst and philosopher Jacques Marie Emile Lacan, whose main approaches to the study of the phenomenon of power were outlined in a series of seminars and lectures in 1968.

The scientific work of J. Lacan is difficult to study due to the fact that with the exception of his dissertation on psychiatry, the writing of which was prompted by academic requirements, he did not write a single book. His articles appeared by the will of circumstances, and not because of an internal need. But, despite the fact that Lacan has resisted the recording of his oral statements for many decades, today we have to deal with a truly immense literature. First of all, 27 of his seminars, shorthand and existing in many versions. Some of them have already been published by J.-A. Miller (only four volumes were published during the lifetime of their author). Since the editorial board, according to the testimony of many of Lacan's listeners, was somewhat free, there is a need to refer to the transcripts of some seminars, especially later ones, which were widely circulated during the life of the Master [Dyakov, 2010]. 

Jacques Lacan has developed a concept of four interconnected discourses (Master, University, Hysteric and Analyst): The concept of discourse comes into particular prominence in Lacan's work with the introduction of the four discourses. These were first announced by Lacan in 1968-69 in his Seminar XVI, D’un Autre a l’autre. However, it is during the seminar of the following year, L'envers de la psychanalyse (1969-70), that the theory of the four discourses is extensively elaborated and effectively becomes the theme of his seminar for that year. The theory was again further developed at length in 1972-73 in his seminar, Encore, and featured prominently in Radiophonie in 1969 and in Television in 1973 [Compendium of Lacanian Terms, 2001].

A significant milestone in the study of the phenomenon of power became the work of Gilles Deleuze and Pierre-Felix Guattari Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Anti-Oedipus [Deleuze and Guattari, 1972], the historical prerequisites for the appearance of which were successfully formulated by Michel Foucault in the preface to the American edition of the book: During the years 1945-1965 (I am referring to Europe), there was a certain way of thinking correctly, a certain style of political discourse, a certain ethics of the intellectual. One had to be on familiar terms with Marx, not let one's dreams stray too far from Freud. And one had to treat sign-systems—the signifier—with the greatest respect. These were the three requirements that made the strange occupation of writing and speaking a measure of truth about oneself and one's time acceptable. Then came the five brief, impassioned, jubilant, enigmatic years… It is true that the old banners were raised, but the combat shifted and spread into new zones [Deleuze and Guattari, 1983 (2000)].

The concept of power by Michel Paul Foucault is presented in the most elaborated form in his work The Will to Truth [Foucault, 1976]. As noted by J. Stepanov, M. Foucault himself ... does not feel his closeness to semiotic ideas, in particular R. Barthes, but this closeness is undeniable, and the method developed by Foucault in his books… is a general semiotic method [Stepanov, 1971].

L. Goldman ironically, but very succinctly characterized the role of M. Foucault's philosophical concepts in the French structuralism: Among the outstanding theorists of the school, which take an important place in modern thought and is characterized by the denial of man in general, and the subject in all its aspects, just like the author, Michel Foucault ... is undoubtedly one of the most interesting and least vulnerable to controversy and criticism of figures. Since Michel Foucault combines with a philosophical position, fundamentally anti-scientific, the remarkable work of a historian ... Michel Foucault is not the author and, of course, the establisher of all that he has just told us. Since the denial of the subject is today the central idea of a whole group of thinkers, or, more precisely, a whole philosophical trend. And even if within this philosophical trend Foucault occupies a particularly original and vivid place, he, nevertheless, should be integrated into what could be called the French school of nongenetic structuralism, including, in particular, the names of Levi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Althusser, Derrida [Foucault, 1996].

Finally, the famous lecture by Roland Barthes, delivered by him when he took office as head of the department of literary semiology at the Collège de France in 1977. According to expert opinion, the phrase no power is a self-characteristic of Barthes: "he had intellectual power, real power he avoided, preferring respect and signs of love. Something adolescent has been preserved in him. He did not want to impose truths even on himself. Therefore, he probably did not know how to defend himself. The vibes of power did not come from Barthes' work. Getting to them, the reader triumphs: here, he thinks, is a weapon that I can use too. However, hope is disappointed. Barthes' words don't turn into weapons. The text does not crystallize, it dissipates... (Ts. Todorov). Bart’s life itself turned out to be a protest against Power. This man was a rare case when life and creativity coincide, forming a destiny. Bart’s activities are aimed at undermining the principle of power as such, and above all - the power of ideology" [Kosikov, 2001].

The works of researchers of a later period, represented by numerous studies of discourse analysis, deserve special attention in terms of the applied aspects, mostly - the method and tools, but contain no considerable conceptual additions in terms of semiotic approaches to study the very phenomenon of power.

Classical studies in the field of medieval studies (for example, by E. Kantorowicz) had a significant influence on the formation and development of modern concepts of power (in particular, the concept of body politic by M. Foucault). At the same time, it should be noted that the studies of medieval historians concern mainly the institutions of public, political power (royal, imperial, ecclesiastical, etc.), but practically do not affect the microphysics of power in the context of the ideas of M. Foucault, J. Lacan, R. Barthes and other theorists in the intellectual space of postmodernism.     

The problem of this study is epistemological uncertainty associated with the limited possibilities of realizing the cognitive potential of structuralist and poststructuralist approaches as applied to the deconstruction of various forms of power in the absence of a conceptual exit from the semiosphere of the modern time into diachronic semiospheres.

The object of the research are texts functioning in the early medieval culture (described by Juri Lotman as system of culture codes, where the dominant role is played by the semantic (symbolic) type of culture code).

The subject of this research is the process of communicative actualization of conventionally fixed and imperatively intended meanings, phenomena, ideas and ideologies generated by the multiplicity of power relations in the game of mobile inequality relations. The definition of the subject of research integrates the components of the definition of the concept of discourse of power proposed by V. Soghomonyan [Soghomonyan, 2012], with the concept of the power by M. Foucault.

The aim of the research is to analyze the process of semiosis of power upon the material of the semantic type of culture (early medieval culture).

Taking into account that semiotic theorists disagree about the essence, components, mechanisms of origin and functioning of the sign, and the problem field of semiotics is often shifted towards the analysis of cognitive processes and biological aspects of communication, it is reasonable to choose the appropriate methodological foundations for the work depending on the specifics of the research object.

The object of this research are texts (intertexts), functioning in the system of culture codes, where the dominant role is played by the semantic (symbolic) type of culture code, which means that the approaches to the interpretation of the phenomena of culture, text and cultural code have a determining methodological significance.

The semiotics of culture received the most detailed development within the framework of the Moscow-Tartu semiotic school, whose representatives developed the linguistic semiotic concepts of culture as a text or language. This methodological approach has opened broad opportunities of application of semiotic research methods to the study of various aspects of the pan-textual culture, bringing thus the Russian semiotics closer to the paradigm of Western European post-structuralism. It is necessary, however, to note that such a model of interpretation of culture, productive from the point of view of the methodology linguistic semiotic studies, requires a kind of circumspection.  As R. Chartier stated, it would be a mistake to uncontrollably use the category of text in relation to practices (everyday or ritual), whose tactics and procedures are in no way similar to the strategies of discourse production. This distinction is very important: it allows, according to Bourdieu, not to replace the principle on which the practice of real persons is built with a theory created to describe this practice, or else not to project onto the practices themselves what is the function of these practices [not for their agents], but for a person who studies them as something subject to decryption" [Chartier 2006].

In addition to the metaphor of the text and language as part of the Moscow-Tartu school was offered another very productive model of culture, developed by J. Lotman at the later stage of his scientific work. It is the concept of the semiosphere as a symbolic dimension of culture. J. Lotman describes the semiosphere as a semiotic space, in which the reaction of the corresponding sign systems (language and culture texts). Concerning the question of the relationship between the concepts of semiosphere and culture, we share the point of view that "the