Art - Diabolic Flatulence, A Note on Inferno 21-139

7/28/2019 Art - Diabolic Flatulence, A Note on Inferno 21-139

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DIABOLIC FLATULENCE:ANOTE ONINFERNO21:139

Possibly no verse of Dantes Commedia causes more consternation thanthe closing line ofInferno 21. In that canto, Dante and Virgil meet upwith a group of demons that patrols the pit in which corrupt politicians arepunished. The leader of the devils, Malacoda, agrees to have his troopsprovide safe passage for Dante and Virgil. In the final line of the canto, thecommanding devil dismisses the group with a mock-martial signal; hetrumpets with his anus: ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta. With its refer-

ence to intestinal gas, it is almost certainly the single verse that Italianschoolchildren memorize first and undoubtedly recite amongst them-selves with the most gusto. But many grown-ups are put off by its coarselanguage and indelicate subject matter.

A rather lengthy bibliography has developed on the episode of themalebranche. Beginning early in the twentieth century, scholars debatedwhether the situation was humorous, that is, whether it was intended to befunny. Luigi Pirandello claimed that barratry was the accusation that led toDantes exile; since it was too personally painful for the poet he could notpossibly have treated the sin humorously.2 In contrast, Benedetto Croce andUmberto Bosco believed that Dante intended the passage to be funny.3 ErnstRobert Curtius used the episode as evidence of some characteristics of

medieval humor, kitchen-humor and bodily functions.4 Giacomo Parodibelieved the episode was humorous, but not as entertainment; instead it hada strict moral intent.5 Other scholars have drawn connections between themalebranche and medieval theatrical performances.6 Many critics talk ofthe comic style the low registers and crass vocabulary of the cantosin which the demons appear.7 That said, however, interpretations of the lastverse of canto 21 are infrequent at best. A number of contemporary scholarspass over it in silence,8 or dismiss it as simply part of the obscene languageof the canto.9

In this regard, the ending ofInferno 21 is much like canto 18 whereDante describes the pimps, seducers, and flatterers. Zygmunt Baraskipublished an article on that episode, and observed that many Dante scholars

react with disdain and embarrassment to the mix of scatology and obscen-ity therein.10 Baraski demonstrated how Dante typically depicts sexual


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matters with concision, periphrasis and allusion, all textbook instances ofreticentia; but when it came to matters about excrement, Dante showed nosuch restraint.11 Dantes openness to scatology is on display in the last lineofInferno 21 as well.

Indeed, Dante goes out of his way to work the fart into his poem. Thelast three verses of the twenty-first canto are presented in the pluperfecttense, explaining what had happened prior to the troop setting out (vv. 137-139); in other words, the action of the narrative ends with v. 136: Per lar-gine sinistro volta dienno. The poet could have continued the story fromthat point, but instead he backs up, chronologically speaking, to include thedevils extended tongues and digestive disruption. And in the event a readermissed the final verse of canto 21, the poet dedicates the first twelve linesof canto 22 to explicate it further. Clearly, Dante places the expectation onthe readers that they should take note of it. Additionally, not all critics havebeen reticent about the devils trumpeting. Unlike many modern scholars,the fourteenth-, fifteenth-, and sixteenth-century commentators of the Com-media had no hesitation about discussing it. For those interested in interpre-tations of the verse, the commentaries provide invaluable assistance. Theycontain insightful analysis about how medieval culture may have under-stood the devils action; that cultural understanding may lead to a bettercomprehension of Dantes language. What follows, then, is an overview ofthe commentaries, and a reading of the verse based upon them.12

The first problem to address is exactly which demon is responsible forthe flatus, whether the head of all the demons, Malacoda, or the devil

charged with command of the troop, Barbariccia. Dantes language is vagueon this point, never clarifying the devil to which the pronoun elli refers.Valid arguments could be made for either one, and the commentators comedown on both sides of the issue. The names of the demons have been sub-jected to numerous analyses, including viewing them as anagrams of Dan-tes political opponents.13 Yet in this instance the name Malacoda, withits reference to the devils cruel posterior, may provide some insight to thismatter. As shall be shown below, the devils name is not my only reason forselecting Malacoda. But for the purposes of simplicity I will refer to theoffending devil as Malacoda herein.

Some medieval interpretations of the verse were highly literal. As GianRoberto Sarolli notes, visual artists like illuminators depicted this passage

with Malacoda inserting a bugle into his rear.14 The glossators, conversely,who as literary scholars were less interested in the visual representation ofthe scene, interpreted Malacodas bugling as caused by his physical body.Graziolo Bambaglioli (ca. 1324) figures among the literalists:


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tamen iste Malacoda turpior et crudelior ceteris ex parte posteriori tur-pius resonavit.

Nevertheless that Malacoda, more foul and cruel than the rest, belchedfrom his rear-end in a most foul way.

Like other medieval and Renaissance commentators of the Commedia,Graziolo offered a straightforward explanation of the devils action. Johan-nis de Serravalle (1416-1417) similarly explained:

idest, ibat trullando et cum culo faciendo sonum, vel sonando: quam-quam inhonesta erat talis tuba pro certo.

That is, he went farting and making noise with his anus, or trumpeting;and yet dishonorable was that trumpet most certainly.

Serravalle also describes it as a fart, and like Graziolo he uses morallanguage when he calls it dishonorable. Lodovico Castelveltro (1570) pos-ited that the troops salute to Malacoda, tongues extended, was a Bronxcheer to which the leader of the troop responded with real flatulence:

Non credo che si significhi solamente per queste parole che i dimonisporgessero fuori della bocca la lingua, ma che ancora facessero unostrepito simile a quello delle correggie. Il quale strepito Barbariccia,decurio loro, rispose con coreggie veraci [...].

Castelveltro interprets the expeller of the gas not to be Malacoda, whonegotiates with Virgil, but Barbariccia, who will actually lead the group.Perhaps most succinct in his explication is the sixteenth-century TrifonGabriele, who provides assistance to only the most inattentive readers:idest, avea tratto un petto.

Of greater interest, perhaps, is how the fourteenth-century commenta-tors find meaning in Malacodas gas. Guido da Pisa (ca. 1327-1328) notes:

Hic ostendit autor quomodo peccatum barattarie et ipsi barattatores suntab omnibus deridendi; nam vituperosus ulle sonus derisionem significat.

Here the author shows how the sin of barratry and these grafters shouldbe derided by everyone; surely any such reprehensible sound signifiesderision.


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Guido sees Malacodas action as symbolically indicating how barratersshould be reprehended. Guido takes Malacodas flatulence to indicate thecontempt everyone should have for corrupt politicians. Benvenuto da Imola(1375-1380) concurs with Guido saying that the demons flatus signifies thevilification of the barraters on the part of the demon:

Et hic nota, quod per istum actum inhonestum autor figurat enormes etevidentes irrisiones quas faciunt isti officiales barattarii quando unus

baratat et decipit alium; unde aliquando recordatus sum istius fictionisautoris, quando vidi tales inter se ridentes et deridentes post se aliquemcum subsannatione dentium et extractione linguarum facientes trullas.

And note here how by this immodest act the author depicts the great andevident derision that is made of these officials of barratry when onecheats and deceives someone; whence at last I am reminded by this au-thors fiction when I saw some people laughing and mocking amongstthemselves behind someone elses back with mockery of teeth and ex-tended tongues and making fart noises.

In his passage, Benvenuto anticipates Castelveltro by interpreting thetroops extended tongues to indicate the offensive sound made by themouth. Both Benvenuto and Castelveltro see it as derogatory of the sinners.In other words, according to Benvenuto and Castelveltro, Malacoda word-lessly reprehends the barraters, an attitude that all right-thinking peopleshould take. Francesco da Buti (1385-1395) builds upon Benvenutos inter-

pretation, believing the bodily noises to be not only a sign of peoples deni-gration of the sinners, the devils mutual defamation of one another:

E questo finge lautore, a dimostrare che nellinferno ogni immundiziaet ogni scherno e scostume e derisione; sicch Barbariccia non faceameno beffe, n derisione di loro, che essi di lui, anzi pi.

Finally, Cristoforo Landino (1481) brings several strains of the com-mentary tradition together when he compares the devils actions to those ofprofessional fools. Landino apparently also recognized the references to thetheatrical arts strewn through the two cantos, which many modern-daycritics have studied. Landino writes:

Strignere la lingua tra denti significa fare tale strepito con la boccaquale fa el vento quando esce per le parti posteriori. Il che fanno glim-

pudenti buffoni quando scherniscono alchuno.


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By comparing the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century commentatorsreadings of the verse, we can see how the culture has changed over time.With some individual variation, the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century com-mentators took the sound to mean the deprecation of the corrupt politicianswho are boiled in the pitch. It could be read strictly as the demons denigra-tion of those in hell, or as everyones defamation of each other in the under-world; or perhaps it symbolized the universal contempt for barratry. Collec-tively the commentators on Dantes Commedia interpreted the closing verseofInferno 21 in a like manner: grafters should be mocked by everyone eventhe fallen angels, and the symbol of that denigration is Malacodas noisyinnards. One of the primary insults in Italy during the due and trecento wasto be compared to excrement,15 which lowered a person to the level of ani-mals, even demons16; Malacodas flatulence can be viewed in that culturalframework. Insults, moreover, were considered more grievous when ad-dressed to someone of higher social rank.17 Undoubtedly, the grafters arenot deserving of continuing respect, as illustrated by the demons depreca-tion of them. For this reason too, the gassy devil is more likely Malacodaand not Barbariccia; his position as the highest leader would be undercut bythe impertinence of the demons under his command, and thus transform himinto the very embodiment of graft.

The commentators interpretation of Malacodas trumpeting as a sym-bol of derision concurs with Dantes overall moral intention to the work.During the Middle Ages vituperation did not simply indicate the insult ofanother person, but constituted a central trait of the definition of comedy.18

The reprehension of vice was a classical characteristic of satire that per-sisted into the Middle Ages; indeed, it was considered thesine qua non ofsatiric literature.19 At the same time, medieval culture blended the defini-tions of satire and comedy, ascribing to the latter the same impulse of blam-ing the unworthy.20 It would be difficult to discuss the subtle differencesacross different medieval definitions of comedy and satire. By the four-teenth century comedy was still defined as having a structure that began inchaos, but had a happy ending, but it also overlapped with satire; Guido daPisa, for instance, described Dantes masterpiece as a comedy because ofits bad-to-good structure, and as a satire because it reprehended vice.21

Numerous theorists justified all literature by imposing moral purposes to thecounterpoised genres of tragedy and comedy: tragedy praised the virtuous,

it was said, while comedy pilloried the sinful.22 Vilification, therefore,served the greater function of reinforcing social behaviors and ethical teach-ings. For this reason, satire was virtually synonymous with political litera-ture.23


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Undoubtedly, the moral purposes of comic literature are at play at theend of canto 21. Dante explicitly defined his work as a comeda earlier inthat canto (v. 2). He also signaled the movement to a more comic style withthe final word of canto 20, introcque, which he had previously defined asa comic term in his treatise on literatureDe vulgari eloquentia (ca. 1302-1305).24 Additionally, when he explicates the devils signal at the start ofcanto 22, he resigns himself to the demons company by evoking a hallmarkof comic literature, the tavern25: ma ne la chiesa / coi santi, e in taverna coighiottoni (vv. 14-15). Further, the phonic qualities of the verse underexamination indicate its comicality. In the De vulgari eloquentia Danteexplains that tragic literature, the polar conceptual opposite of comedy,should avoid certain sounds, particularly geminate consonants (sineaspiratione, [...] sinezvelx duplicibus, sine duarum liquidarum gemina-tione II, vii, 5). The last line of canto 21, has two sets of geminate t(fatto trombetta) indicating the comic phonology implied by the Devulgari eloquentia.

Several studies have examined Dantes anti-music in hell, and Malaco-das trumpeting needs to be seen in that light as well. Eduardo Sanguinetispeaks of hells disharmonic harshness and acoustic unpleasantness.26

Francesco Ciabattoni describes the demons fart as part of hells reversal ofsacred music; it is a perfect mockery of a regular army, which stands incontrast to the well-ordered music of God.27 In a recent study on the toposof flatulence in medieval literature, Valerie Allen makes a number of gen-eral points, which are also valid in relationship to the verse under examina-

tion. For instance, about noisy rectal emissions she writes: The musicalbutt is ubiquitous in the Middle Ages and presupposes a larger analogybetween the human body and musical instruments.28 She later clarifies thatthe difference between music and cacophony indicates the profoundestdifference between expressions of right and wrong relations in the uni-verse.29 Moreover, cultural practices of the fourteenth century may have animpact on the interpretation of the fart. Noisy musical rituals, such as themattinata that took place outside a newlyweds door when a widow remar-ried, functioned as the parody of laudatory music that honored people;30 itwas a non-verbal way to publicly dishonor someone. Surely, then, Mala-codas trumpet itself represents the dishonorable violation of a divinelyinspired order.

Almost to a man, the early commentators discuss the sound of Ma-lacodas flatus, but they ignore another aspect of it its smell. Regardingits odor, Valerie Allen notes that medieval culture routinely associatedbodily eruptions with demons, of course, but also with the peasantry be-


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cause both have a degraded, fallen nature.31 Yet their putrefaction is notlimited to themselves. The medieval theory of olfaction taught that stenchesliterally corrupted those who experienced them; when inhaling, a personingested small particles of foul matter, actually making them a part of one-self.32 From this perspective, Malacoda exemplifies how political graftersmutually contaminate one another. Eventually, the entire polis becomesdegraded, such as the case of Lucca (Inferno 21: 37-42). Thus hell furtherbecomes the quintessential image of a dishonest city,33 in which each male-factor corrupts the next.

Close examination of the commentaries may furnish an answer to anold question: beyond a doubt this episode is stylistically composed ascomic, but was it funny? Medieval culture was not monolithic in its atti-tudes towards laughter. Christian moralists and monastic authors viewedlaughter as suspect.34 Thomas Aquinas, who borrowed from Aristotle,treated laughter as the bodys necessary relaxation from serious activity;such relaxation was licit, however, provided that it was not based on scurri-lous, obscene, or derogatory matters.35 But aggressive humor served a cru-cial role in political life,36 as illustrated by the literary justification ofsatire.37 The commentators tend to read Malacodas fart in the latter fashion.Benvenuto da Imola compares the impudent devils to people who mock andlaugh at others behind their backs (vidi tales inter se ridentes et deriden-tes, emphasis added). All the other fourteenth-century glosses characterizethe verse with the verb deridere or its derivatives (deridendi, deri-sionem, derisione). Their choice of lexicon is telling. Derision, of

course, is etymologically derived from laughter: de + ridere, to laugh at.Cristoforo Landino actually draws an analogy of the demons with the mock-ery of buffoons. The glosses may offer a clue that Dante intended his read-ers to laugh at this episode. Without question, any intended laughter wouldbe derogatory, meant to shame evil-doers and prevent others from imitatingthem.38 But denigration is a type of humor nonetheless.39 In other words, thequestion might not be a choice between seeing the humor of the malebran-ches actions, or of acknowledging their immorality. For Dante, perhapsMalacodas fart expresses the condemnation of political corruption pre-cisely because it evokes laughter.

In conclusion, the earliest glossators of the Commedia universallycharacterize Malacodas gastric eruption with critical language evocative

of socio-political satires. Collectively, they underscore that Malacodas gassymbolizes the universal vilification of unscrupulous leaders. Several alsonote that the demons under Malacodas charge similarly denigrate him byextending their tongues to him. Through the actions of the devils, according


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to the commentators, Dante illustrates the effects of graft: people no longerrespect office holders, and they openly display their contempt for them asviolators of a God-willed order. When we include the medieval theory ofsmell in the analysis, we can see how an entire political body could beinfected over time. Perhaps for this reason Dante opens the twenty-secondcanto with twelve lines contrasting Malacodas horn blast to actual militarymaneuvers; in so doing he provides a positive counterpoint to the debase-ment brought about by political malfeasance. Thus, Dantes repeated refer-ences to the diableries of medieval theater, demonstrated by several critics,are not coincidental to the meaning of the episode. Rather, they are moti-vated by the link between laughter and moral condemnation implicit to thepassage. As every first-time reader of the Commedia knows, the episodedoes indeed inspire laughter. But Dante does not ask us to choose betweenhumor and moral condemnation. Laughter is the vehicle by which Danteexpresses his serious message.

FABIAN ALFIEUniversity of Arizona

______________________

1 An earlier version of this study was given at the Symposium in Honor of Pro-fessor Christopher Kleinhenzs Retirement in Madison, WI on September 8, 2007. Inkeeping with that celebratory event, quite a bit of humor appeared in the original talk.In revising this paper for publication, I have tried to retain some of that humor.

2

Luigi Pirandello, Canto XXI, inLetture dantesche

, vol. 1,Inferno

, (Firenze:Sansoni, 1967): 400-401.3 Benedetto Croce,La poesia di Dante (Bari: Laterza 1921): 95; Umberto Bosco,

La commedia dei barattieri, inDante linferno (Torino: Edizioni Rai, 1967): 139.4 Ernst Robert Curtius, Jest and Earnest in Medieval Literature, in European

Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans., Willard R. Trask (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1973): 417-435.

5 Giacomo Parodi, Il comico nella Divina Commedia, inPoesia e storia nellaDivina Commedia: Studi critici (Napoli: Perrella, 1920): 107.

6 For connections to the representations of devils in medieval theatre see the fol-lowing: Leo Spitzer, The Farcical Elements in Inferno, Cantos XXI-XXIII, in

Romanische Literaturstudien 1936-1956 (Tubingen: Max Niemayer, 1959): 83;Riccardo Bacchelli, Da Dite a Malebolge: La tragedia delle porte chiuse e la farsa dei

ponti rotti, Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 131:393 (1954, gennaio-mar-

zo): 3; Felice Del Beccaro, Il Canto XXII dellInferno, inLetture dell Inferno(Milano: Marzorati, 1963): 189; and Giambattista Salinari, Il comico nella DivinaCommedia,Belfagor10 (1955): 628. More recently, Michelangelo Picone has high-lighted the many references tojongleurs andfabliaux in the episode; see MichelangeloPicone, Canto XXI, inLectura Dantis Turicensis, vol. 1,Inferno (Firenze: Cesati,2000): 69-80. Lastly, for analysis of the passage according to the folk culture of the


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duecento see Piero Camporesi, The Devils Carnival, in The Land of Hunger, trans.,Tania Croft-Murray and Claire Foley (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996): 18-23.

7 A number of analyses of Dantes comic style in this episode has been pub-lished. Christopher Kleinhenz speaks of the comic as a stylistic mixture, andTeodolinda Barolini explores the comic switches in tones and registers herein. Anto-nio Scolari looks at the phonic qualities of the verses, and Vittorio Russo similarlydiscusses the poets use of geminate consonants. Rocco Montano explains that the

poet distances himself from the tragic style as described in theDe vulgari eloquentia.See Christopher Kleinhenz, Deceivers Deceived: Devilish Doubletalk inInferno 21-23, Quaderni dItalianistica 10: 1-2 (1989): 133; Teodolinda Barolini, Stile enarrativa nel basso inferno dantesco,Lettere italiane 42: 2 (aprile-giugno 1990): 175;Antonio Scolari, Il canto XXI dell Inferno (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1968): 17-31;Vittorio Rossi, Canto XXII dellInferno (Napoli: Loffredo, 1982): 15; Rocco Montano,Lepisodio dei barattieri e lo stile comico, in Storia della poesia di Dante, v. 1(Firenze: Olschki, 1965): 498-500.

8 For studies that bypass discussion of Malacodas flatulence, see the following:Davide Conrieri, Lettura del canto XXI dell Inferno, Giornale storico dellaletteratura italiana 158: 501 (1981): 1-43; Hope Nash Wolff, A Study of DantesDistance from the Creatures of Cantos Twenty-One and Two of the Inferno and itsRelation to the Use of Animals in Preceding Cantos, Italian Quarterly 12 (1969):239-251; Riccardo Bacchelli, Da Dite a Malebolge: La tragedia delle porte chiuse ela farsa dei ponti rotti, Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 131:393 (1954,gennaio-marzo): 1-31; Joseph Falvo, The Irony of Deception in Malebolge:InfernoXXI-XXIII,Lectura dantis 2 (Spring 1988): 55-72; Egidio Lunardi, Inferno XXI,

Lectura Dantis (Virginiana) 6, supplement (Spring, 1990): 275-280; and GiuseppeBaglivi and Garrett McCutcheon, Dante, Christ, and the Fallen Bridges,Italica 54:2 (Summer, 1977): 250-262.

9 Quite a number of scholars try to defend Dante from the material he presents,explaining his moral disdain for the events of the cantos. Alberto Chiari discussesDantes moral condemnation of Lucca in this passage; Vittorio Panicara addresses the

problem of reconciling Dante the moralist with Dante the comic author of the episode;Aurelio Roncaglia speaks of the disdainful silence of the Pilgrim in the face of the ac-tion of the bolgia; and Antonio Scolari notes the poets distance from the comic mate-rial. See Alberto Chiari, Il primo canto dei barattieri, inLettere dantesche (Firenze:Le Monnier, 1939): 23; Vittorio Panicara, Canto XXII, inLectura Dantis Turicen-

sis, vol. 1,Inferno (Firenze: Cesati, 2000): 305; Aurelio Roncaglia, Lectura Dantis:Inferno XXI, Yearbook of Italian Studies 1 (1971): 30; Antonio Scolari,Il canto XXIdell Inferno (Firenze: Le Monnier, 1968): 30.

10 Zygmunt G. Baraski, Scatology and Obscenity in Dante, inDante for theNew Millennium, eds., Teodolinda Barolini and H. Wayne Storey (New York: Ford-ham University Press, 2003): 259.

11 Zygmunt G. Baraski, Scatology and Obscenity in Dante, 264.12 The references to the commentaries are all made through the Dartmouth Dante

Project: http://dante.dartmouth.edu.13 See, for instance, Giovanni Giuseppe Linardi, Lucca e i Malebranche, Il

giornale dantesco 29 (1926): 68-70.


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14 Gian Roberto Sarolli, Musical Symbolism: Inferno XXI, 136-39; Exemplumof Musica Diaboli versus Musica Dei, in Prolegomena alla Divina Commedia(Firenze: Olschki, 1971): 374.

15 Daniel R. Lesnick, Insults and Threats in Medieval Todi,Journal of Medi-eval History 17 (1991): 76.

16 Trevor Dean, Crime and Justice in Late Medieval Italy (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 2007): 114.

17 Trevor Dean, Crime and Justice in Late Medieval Italy, 118; and Peter Burke,Insult and Blasphemy in Early Modern Italy, in Historical Anthropology of Early

Modern Italy: Essays on Perception and Communication (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1987): 99.

18 Judson Boyce Allen, The Ethical Poetic of the Later Middle Ages: A decorumof convenient distinction (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982): 19-20.

19 Paul Miller, John Gower, Satiric Poet, in Gowers Confessio Amantis: Re-sponses and Reassessments (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1983): 80-81.

20 Judson Boyce Allen, Hermann the Germans Averroistic Aristotle and Medi-eval Poetic Theory,Mosaic 9 (1976): 68.

21 Henry Ansgar Kelly, Tragedy and Comedy from Dante to Pseudo-Dante(Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1989): 22-23.

22 Zygmunt G. Baraski, Tres enim sunt manerie dicendi.... Some Obser-vations on Medieval Literature, Genre, and Dante, The Italianist15, supp. 2 (1995):43.

23 Zygmunt G. Baraski, Sordellus... qui... Patrium vulgare deseruit, in TheCultural Heritage of the Renaissance (Mellen: Lewiston, 1993): 24.

24 Several scholars note the shift to the comic style with the word introcque.See Steve Ellis, Controversial Comedy, inLectura Dantis: Inferno (Berkeley, LosAngeles, London: University of California Press, 1998): 287; and Eduardo Sanguineti,

Interpretazione di Malebolge (Firenze: Olschki, 1961): 97.25 For in-depth analyses of the tavern as a concept of medieval comedies, see the

following studies: Andrew Cowell,At Play in the Tavern: Signs, Coins, and Bodies inthe Middle Ages (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999); and MarthaBayless,Parody in the Middle Ages: The Latin Tradition (Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan Press, 1996).

26 Edoardo Sanguineti, Infernal Acoustics: Sacred Song and Earthly Song,Lectura Dantis 6 (Spring 1990): 70.

27 Francesco Ciabattoni,Dantes Journey to Polyphony (Toronto, Buffalo, Lon-don: University of Toronto Press, 2010): 52-53.

28 Valerie Allen, On Farting: Language and Laughter in the Middle Ages (NewYork: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007): 27.

29 Valerie Allen, On Farting: Language and Laughter in the Middle Ages, 32.30 Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, The Medieval Italian Mattinata,Journal of Fam-

ily History 5:1 (Spring 1980): 8-9.31 Valerie Allen, On Farting: Language and Laughter in the Middle Ages, 101.32 Valerie Allen, On Farting: Language and Laughter in the Middle Ages, 39-45.33 Joan M. Ferrante, The Political Vision of the Divine Comedy (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1984): 45; Claire E. Honess,From Florence to the Heav-


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enly City: The Poetry of Citizenship in Dante (London: Modern Humanities ResearchAssociation and Maney Publishing, 2006): 55.

34 John Morreall, Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humour(Mal-den MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009): 4-5; Mark Burke, TheParodia Sacra Problem andMedieval Comic Studies, inLaughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times:

Epistemology of a Fundamental Human Behavior, its Meaning, and Consequences,ed., Albrecht Classen (Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2010): 216.

35 Albrecht Classen, Laughter as an Expression of Human Nature in the MiddleAges and Early Modern Period: Literary, Historical, Theological, Philosophical, andPsychological Reflections. Also an Introduction, inLaughter in the Middle Ages and

Early Modern Times: Epistemology of a Fundamental Human Behavior, its Meaning,

and Consequences, ed., Albrecht Classen (Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2010): 34-35.

36 Sebastian Coxon,Laughter and Narrative in the Later Middle Ages: GermanComic Tales 1350-1525 (Leeds: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2008): 5.

37 Claude Perrus, Linvective politique dans lItalie du Moyen Age,Atalaya 5(1994): 179-192.

38 It should be noted that Robert Hollander also interprets it as derisive. In hisreading the devils do not vituperate the sinners, however, but Virgil, and they high-light his inability to read accurately their intentions. See Robert Hollander, Virgil andDante as Mind-Readers (Inferno XXI and XXIII) Medioevo romanzo 9: 1 (April1984): 89-90.

39 As an aside comment, I wonder if this humor might also be related to the bad-to-good structure commonly ascribed to medieval comedies. The evil-doing consti-tutes a violation of the social and moral order, and the punishment of wrong-doers re-establishes that order, comprising the so-called happy ending.


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IL CIMITERO DI PRAGA:THE EPISTEMIC IMPLICATION

BETWEEN LIES AND REALITY

This essay focuses on famous conspiracies and cunning forgeries contained in UmbertoEcosIl cimitero di Praga. Its purpose is to bring to the readers attention the centralfunction conspiracies and forgeries acquire in the entire work, and specifically in con-nection with the personal gains of the main protagonist, Simonini, and how his attitudein outwitting people, motivated by personal gains, exhibits a sort of Nietzschean willto power. In addition to the historical vicissitudes and the entertaining appeal compara-

ble to a classic 19th century feuilleton novel, which the reader may effortlessly perceiveat an ordinary level of reading, Eco uses conspiracies and forgeries to address a deep,epistemic problem staged between linguistic lies and reality.Il cimitero di Praga is auseful tool which makes the reader aware of this epistemic problem flowing betweenfiction and reality and how such a problem incapacitates the human ability to distin-guish the one from the other. It is certainly not the remedy for such a problem and thetragic events which can be directly linked to it. Nonetheless, it enables the reader tocomprehend, in an amusing manner, the way in which fiction (lies) can influence andshape life.

Il cimitero di Praga, Umberto Ecos latest novel deals with the historicalvicissitudes of a troubled 19th century characterized by political, religiousand masonic conspiracies. It contains a rather complex plot which maps outthe unfolding of events in places such as Italy, France, and Germany. Itbegins in Turin, Italy, the birthplace of the main protagonist, Captain Simo-ne Simonini.1

In Turin, Simoninis childhood is influenced by his grandfathersindoctrination and hate for the Jews, which later will clearly become partof his misdeeds as he becomes a refined conspirator and professional forgerof documents. He initially conspires against some young carbonari orrepublican insurrectionists and against notary Rebaudengo (for whom heworks in Turin and from whom he learned the art of forgery) at the requestof cavalier Bianco, of the Sabaudiansecret services. His first major conspir-acy takes place during the process of unification of Italy and specificallywith the Expedition of the Thousand to Sicily under the command ofGiuseppe Garibaldi. In Sicily, Simonini plots against Ippolito Nievo, theexpeditions treasurer, once more at the request of Bianco, since Nievo isin charge of secret accounting books concerning the expedition. Although

Simonini is ordered to make such books disappear in a legal way,2

he takesthe imprudent initiative, with the help of some accomplices of his,to blow


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up the ship (lErcole) on which Nievo was traveling on his trip back toTurin.

As a result, Simonini also kills Nievo and all the people onboard.Following this misdeed and due to the fact that key-individuals knew ofSimoninis close ties to Nievo, to avert suspicion, Bianco orders him toleave Turin for good as a precautionary measure. Simonini closes the notaryoffice in Turin, which he had skillfully managed to take away from Rebau-dengo (by means of a witty, vengeful trick),3 receives money from Bianco,and settles in Paris. There he continues his incessant profession as a con-spirator and forger for Bianco and, later, for others as well. The very first,true, political forgery Simonini produces for Bianco is the one against theJesuits and Napoleon III. In the forged document, he mentions a Jesuitmeeting that allegedly took place in the ancient Jewish Cemetery ofPrague.4 For said forgery, he finds inspiration in Eugne Sues The Wander-ing Jew, The Mysteries of the People, and in Alexandre Dumas JosephBalsamo. The content of the forgery is a ploy by the Church and NapoleonIII, revealing their true political aims over Italy, which would prevent It-alys unification and hamper the role of the Sardinian Kingdom in the unifi-cation campaign.

The initial forgery Simonini produces for Bianco, the one against theJesuits and Napoleon III, undergoes several revisions, which he dexterouslymodifies and further adapts to future forgeries on the request of variousclients in exchange for significant sums of money. Upon his arrival inFrance, Simonini also begins to work for the French secret services with an

agent called Lagrange.The first modification of the document he originally produced for

Bianco, and clearly crafted to look likea Jewish conspiracy, is the one heprepares for Jakob Brafmann, a converted Jew who works for the Czaristsecret police under Colonel Dimitri. From this forgery Simonini receives25,000.00 francs. Dimitri also tells Simonini that for the remaining half heagreed to pay him, he had to go to Germany and give a second authenticfake of the same document to Hermann Goedsche who, at the time, wasworking for the Prussian secret services under a certain Stieber. Prussia too,like Czarist Russia, was facing some problems with the Jews (imaginaryproblems rather than real).

He goes to Germany, meets Goedsche in a restaurant to close the deal,

but the German agent does not give him the money as Dimitri promised himbecause the document had to first be examined by Stieber. Simonini isskeptical and does not want to leave the document in Goedsches hands.However, in order to allow Stieber to evaluate its content, he grants Goed-


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sche permission to copy it. Shortly after, Goedsche publishes hisBiarritzin which he transcribes Simoninis forgery integrally. Goedsche foolsSimonini.5

Upon his return to France, Simonini, through Abbot Dalla Piccola,tries to sell the same document to the Jesuits. So far, the plagiarismscenariois as follows: Maurice Joly copies from Eugne Sue, Simonini copies fromSue, Joly, and Dumas, and Goedsche copies from Simonini. The Jesuits arenot convinced about the documents content. Through father Bergamaschithey ask Simonini to revise the same document and possibly make the Jew-ish Machiavellianism stand out. Also, they want him to include his grandfa-thers letter which he sent to the Jesuit abbot, Augustin Barruel, who is thefirst author to write about conspiracy theories.

Later on Simonini develops the idea that in the Cemetery of Prague hehas to make believe there is more than one speech delivered by differentrabbis. From this idea he develops the format forThe Protocols of the El-ders of Zion (it is a fictitious construct, of course, since he is the only ficti-tious character in the novel). In Ecos novel surfaces also the idea that themore authentic fakes were circulating and pointing in the same direction,the more credible a conspiracy theory would be.6 Simonini produces an-other forgery for Juliana Glinka, granddaughter of General Orzheyevskij,both Glinka and Orzheyevskij were at the service of the Russian secretpolice. He eliminates some long parts from the document, adds two morepages about the messianic role of the Jews interwoven with republicanideals (a frightening ingredient for the Czar) and describes how the occult

power of the world worked. Simoninis first version of the document doesnot convince Orzheyevskij and, thus, the latter asks Simonini to alsoincludeinformation related to his grandfathers letter to Barruel. A new forgery isready to circulate in Russia in two distinct exemplars after being translated:a short one published in journals and the other as a pamphlet called TajnaEvrejstva (The Secret of the Jews).7

Upon the request of commander Esterhzy from the French militarycounterespionage, Simonini forges another document revealing informationabout French armamentswhich will lead to the Dreyfus Affair and to thewrongful conviction for treason of Captain Alfred Dreyfus in 1894.

One last important forgery Simonini writes is yet again for the Russiansecret police at the request of Rachkovskij (Rachkovskij uses Golovinskij

as the interlocutor with Simonini) in which he manipulates the informationcontained in the document he previously prepared for Glinka and Orzheyev-skij. He is asked to eliminate information on the Middle Ages, to purposelymake unclear the date in which the meeting took place in the Cemetery of


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Prague, and to include other forgeries (of course Simoninis forgeries) thatwould appear to be the original documents written half a century earlier byhis grandfather; documents these latter ones which Simonini seniorhadallegedly translated from the protocols of the rabbis meeting in the Ceme-tery of Prague.8 This is indeed a very convoluted succession of conspiraciesand forgeries to the point of making the reader disoriented.

The novel is written in the form of a diary and thus presents the charac-teristics of an autobiographical novel. It contains three narrative voiceswhich the author uses to achieve a refined narratological complexity be-tween thefabula (the story) and the narrative mode.9 ThoughIl cimitero diPraga weaves a complex tale in which appear countless characters, histori-cal figures and facts, and elaborates narrative cross-references, three levelsof narration, and swift changes of perspectives, it is nonetheless structurallysound and rather clear, as Eco makes an attempt to give distinctive charac-teristics to the three levels of narration by means of three different type-faces.

The first voice is that of the heterodiegetic narrator, the omniscentvoice, the detached narrator who has full and synchronic control over thesuccession of events in terms of past, present, and future.10 Typographically,the reader may recognize it because of its smaller, bold typeface. The sec-ond voice is that of the protagonist, Simonini, the homodiegetic narratorwho knows and may only describe those analeptic events and those whichunfold before his eyes, as they are bond to a past/present temporal duration.The analeptic events are rather difficult for Simonini to recount. Eco em-

phasizes this aspect by creating gaps in Simonini memory.11 Such a homo-diegetic narration presents a standard Times New Roman typeface. Fi-nally, the third narrative voice is the one by which Simonini is portrayed asa split-self between himself and abbot Dalla Piccola. This level of narrationis more difficult than the other two because through the strategy of the split-self there is also the implication of a double narration (who speaks?). Thisis a case of paradoxical contamination between two levels of narrationwhich consists of an intrusion by the extradiegetic narratorinto thediegetic universe.12At times the narration may become ambiguous, as thestrategy of not remembering and being confused is utilized, for bothSimonini and Dalla Piccola. Nevertheless, on the one hand the reader maytrace the homodiegetic function, and this happens when Simonini narrates

the story from his point of view, that is, from the half side of Simonini. Onthe other hand, there is the heterodiegetic function which is engaged whenSimonini becomes abbot Dalla Piccola, his alter ego. The side of abbotDalla Piccola is an heterodiegetic narration because it is, first of all, split


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and detached from Simonini. Secondly, it is heterodiegetic because DallaPiccola fills Simoninis memory gaps and tells him what he does not re-member or informs him, or clarifies for him obscure parts of his past and ofhis identity.13 Occasionally, Dalla Piccolas narration acquires the homo-diegetic quality, in terms of the way in which his narration unfolds, but alsobecause Dalla Piccola is the split self of Simonini and, in principle, presentsindirectly a similar homodiegetic function of the non-Dalla Piccola-Simoni-nis side.

Finally we can say that the third level of narration contains also adouble focalization14 (who sees?). In the case of Simonini we are entitledto speak of an internal focalizer,15 since the focus of his perception is onhimself in the story. On the other hand, Dalla Piccola acquires the functionof an external focalizer insofar as most of the times he is present in the storyas an external eye attempting to fill Simoninis memory gap.

It is clear that the narrative mode (plot) inIl cimitero di Praga centerson noteworthy conspiracies, and the reasons for staging them are clearlyconnected with the aim of producing a dangerous enemy (not by Simoninibut by those who ask him to produce forgeries)16 in order to justify certainrepressive measures motivated by political, religious, economic, and cul-tural advantages of key institutions, organizations, and countries. If it isclear thatIl cimitero di Praga centers on remarkable conspiracies, not soclear is the epistemic implication which develops from staged lies and howthe latter, in turn, shapes reality. In this paper we will endeavor to shed lighton this particular facet and the unique choice of forging documents to make

conspiracies real and persuasive through the skilful use of the verbal me-dium. Also, (and before examining such an aspect) wewill briefly look athow the fruition of advantages is embedded in the realization and fulfill-ment of the Nietzschean will to power motivated and staged by conspira-cies.17

One central aspect the reader will inescapably become aware of is theway in which hatredis dealt with in the novel. On the one hand, there isDescartes aphorism Cogito ergo sum ironically distorted into Odi ergosum, which Eco makes Simonini enunciate about a fictitious enemy. Onthe other hand, hatred (for the Jews) constitutes a verbal construct whichSimonini develops as a result of the anti-Semitic stories that his grandfatherused to tell him when he was a little boy:

Degli ebrei so solo ci che mi ha insegnato il nonno: Sono ilpopolo ateo per eccellenza, mi istruiva. Partono dal concetto che il benedeve realizzarsi qui, e non oltre la tomba. Quindi operano solo per laconquista di questo mondo.


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Gli anni della mia fanciullezza sono stati intristiti dal loro fanta-sma. Il nonno mi descriveva quegli occhi che ti spiano, cos falsi da fartiillividire, quei sorrisi viscidi, quelle labbra da iene rialzate sui denti,quegli sguardi pesanti, infetti, abbrutiti, quelle pieghe tra naso e labbrasempre inquiete, scavate dallodio, (Il cimitero, 11)

[About the Jews I only know what my grandfather taught me: He used to teach me that they are the atheistic people par excellence.They depart from the assumption that good must be achieved here, andnot in the other world. Hence, they work only for the conquest of thisworld.

My childhood years have been saddened by their phantom. Mygrandfather used to describe those spying eyes, so fake asto make youlivid, those slimy smiles, those hyena-like lips raised over the teeth,those piercing glances, corrupt, brutish, those folds of the skin betweenthe nose and the lips always restless, shaped by hate,]

Simoninis distorted aphorism (Odi ergo sum) represents not only Ecosplayful irony mingled with cynicism, as the substitution ofCogito with Odimakes its way into the narration, but more conspicuously is Simoninisverbal hatred whose presence is rooted in his, perhaps subliminal, will topower, foreseen as a sort of dialectic propinquity between hatred, a requiredpresence for the purpose of creating an enemy, and the actual enemy as thedirect target of his verbal hatred. Yet, it is a verbal hatred aiming at creatingan impeccable forgery, and not a hatred for the Jews. It is a fake feeling

which the protagonist, in my view, does not feel insofar as it is not part ofhis lived experience, but rather carries asa sort of impulse of nave nominalessence. The protagonists narration is devoid of its real intent. As a matterof fact, Simonini happens to hate the Jews not because he had a direct,traumatic experience with them and, thus, leading him to believe that theyare evil, but simply because his grandfather used to tell him to hate them.To hate them for having a fixed scope in life, that of conquering the world,and for their racial propensity (clearly ironic as Eco skillfully describes itand for lack of better argument) rooted even in their evil anatomical fea-tures. Simonini makes a clear point of not knowing the Jews directly: Io,gli ebrei, me li sono sognati ogni notte, per anni e anni. Per fortuna non neho mai incontrati, tranne la puttanella del ghetto di Torino, quandero ragaz-

zo (ma non ho scambiato pi di due parole), e il dottore austriaco (o tede-sco, fa lo stesso)19 (I have dreamed about the Jews every night, for yearsand years. Fortunately, I never met one, except the little slut of Turinsghetto, when I was a child, but I havent exchanged more than two wordswith her, and the Austrian doctor (or German, it is the same thing)).


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Since this isthe case, it appears that the main reason which triggeredSimoninis hatred for the Jews (and not the Jews alone, as we may clearlylearn from Simonini himself) was motivated by financial needs and cer-tainly by self gratification for intellectual dominance and from the pleasureof outsmarting others. And indeed, in the end Simonini will succeed inguaranteeing for himself financial stability and personal satisfaction as aprofessional conspirator and forger.20

Had Simonini been a respectable and a law-abiding individual, whathe contributes to create would have, most certainly, never been created. Hisconduct shows all the characteristics of a rather pronounced Nietzscheanwill to power, even if for him such a marked propensity may, perhaps, nothave been necessarily the outcome of a calculated plan, but only the resultof an unconscious desire to prevail. Through the notion of the will to power,we are able to single out a spark of Simoninis authenticity as a person, atype of authenticity which circumvents all rules of society in order to makeones own being prevail. This, of course, requires taking risks, and eventu-ally taking risks means also consenting to the possibility of generatingirreparable consequences. Yet, according to Nietzsche, this is the only wayto negate a sort of human impotence which makes people servile and subor-dinate to the dominant others. (Beyond Good and Evil, part 9, sec. 259)Now, an attitude such as the Nietzchean will to power illustrated above,even if taken as reasonable and persuasive as far as the ideal scenario forones own fulfillment and self-realization, remains nonetheless and un-avoidably a striking point that cannot escape ethics scrutiny.

Ethics, which is the study of the rules governing human behavior and,thus, consisting in the search for those principles according to which onedistinguishes good from evil, endeavors to find, if not the universal princi-ples capable of producing good universally (because impossible), it never-theless calls attention to and encourages merely responsible human acts.Here responsible human acts to be understood as those acts being inten-tionally good according to the view and purpose of the individual perform-ing them and, therefore, attempting to avoid from the start the intent ofbeing detrimental to others.21 In the case of Simonini, the intent of beinggood and not detrimental to others is subverted, and a sort of utilitaristic/egotistic ethics is practiced whereby the goodness of the action is neitherdetermined by the principle of the action itself, nor by the collective accep-

tance of the positive actions outcome, but by the evil intent of Simoninisaction aiming to achieve personal gain and cynical satisfaction:


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bello costruire dal nulla un atto notarile, forgiare una letterache sembra vera, elaborare una confessione compromettente, creare undocumento che condurr qualcuno alla perdizione. (Il cimitero, 23)

[It is nice to create a legal document from nothingness, to forgea letter that seems authentic, to elaborate a dangerous confession, tocreate a document that will ruin someone.]

Although Simonini is the only fictitious character in the novel, and thereader might be prompted to take him as such in light of all his unethicaland criminal deeds, one has to realize however that social types such asSimonini do exist and are part of our social fabric. As a matter of fact, Ecos

Simonini is for a great part inspired by and modeled on a German historicalfigure, Hermann Ottomar Friedrich Goedsche, alias Sir John Retcliffe.22

Goedsche worked as an employee in a post office. His official employmenthowever was only a travesty to conceal his real activity as an agent provo-cateur(inciting agent) for the Prussian police. Simoninis profile adheresquite closely to Goedsches: he was well known for being a professionalforger, plagiarist, conspirator, and anti-Semite. In 1849 Goedsche wascaught forging evidence to have Benedict Waldeck (a left wing politician)accused for an alleged plot to murder the King of Prussia. He was arrested,but thanks to powerful connections, Goedsche only received a mild sen-tence.23 In 1868 he wrote Biarritz, a novel which deals with politi-cal/historical matters between the French Emperor Louis Napoleon III and

the German-Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck. In such a novel headded a chapter At the Jewish Cemetery in Prague in which he describeda Jewish occultist/conspiratorial scene. Goedsche modeled this scene onthe meeting (described in 1849 by Dumas in Joseph Balsamo) betweenCagliostro, chief of the Unknown Superiors, and a group of other Illuminati,who plotted the Affair of the Diamond Necklace.24 However, instead ofreproducing Dumas scene of Cagliostro and Company faithfully, Goed-sche restaged the scene using representatives of the twelve tribes of Israel,who gather to prepare the Jewish conquest of the world, which is foretoldin detail by their great rabbi.25 Moreover, in detailing the outcome of theJewish occultist/conspiratorial meeting, Goedsche also adapted into his ownworkThe Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, a pam-phlet by the French satirist Maurice Joly, in which the political calculatorMachiavelli and the liberal Montesquieu debate the means by which a rulershould maintain power.26 InBiarritz, the reader can also find clear evidenceof Goedsches strong anti-Semitism (a very important element for the Czarand the Czarist secret agents) which brought part of such a work to be


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(deceptive) reality; and the second concerns the metasemiotic aspect in thatlanguage intrinsically validates the linguistic lie as an active component ofits signifying process with respect to substitution and postponement of theobject of signification.

The access to language by means of a written text (without neglectingthe oral) does not allow the reader to find out whether the writer is tellingthe truth or lying, as long as the text complies with all grammatical andsyntactical rules. Now, one way of realizing whether the text must be takenas natural or artificial narrative,31 where [n]atural narrative describesevents that actually occurred [and][a]rtificial narrative is supposedlyrepresented by fiction may usually be recognized thanks to the para-text that is, the external messages that surround a text.32 However, elementsof paratextuality which help the reader to determine whether a text must beconsidered natural or artificial, are not always available and consequentlythe text, in the process of becoming text, allows ample freedom of con-scious or unconscious manipulations. As a matter of fact artificial narrative,in some cases and in certain contexts, can be completely misleading, as wasthe case for the historic incident caused in 1940 by Orson Welless falseradio broadcast about an invasion from Mars or Giorgio Cellis shortstory about a perfect crime.33

In the case ofIl cimitero, fictional narrative is purposefully and master-fully concealed and the reader cannot but take it as natural narrative insofaras Simonini manipulates and transfers a fictional textual content (fromDumas, Sue, and Joly) into a new form of content (The Protocols presented

as a real document) which, even a highly competent reader, can only taketo be historically true. Thus, when dealing with a verbal text one changesthe entire epistemic state of the text and the interpretive paradigm of thereader by simply manipulating its context. In The Protocols there are noparatextual signals: there is no indication of fiction anywhere; they do notbegin as Once upon a time, or A novel by, etc.. Protocol 1 begins asa sort of index which itemizes a number of arguments: Right lies Might.Freedoman idea only. Liberalism. Gold. Faith to then actually beginas: It must be noted that men with bad instincts are more in number thanthe good,.34 What we may deduce from this example is that where theverbal medium is the message and no paratextual signals are available, andprovided that the text is grammatically/syntactically accurate, there is no

way of finding out whether a writer is lying or telling the truth becauselanguage is a semiotic system and a


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sign and specifically for that which concerns meaning. When we look at thecontent level of a sign, we soon realize that we are faced with an illusoryantinomy as the referent of meaning presents an is/is notprovision. For itis referent insofar as it is able to referto something, and indeed it is sobecause we cannot say that meaning does not refer to anything in the senseof being a bare nothingness. If this were the case, the very function ofmeaning would be abolished. So, having established that the referent ofmeaning is because it is endowed with the ability to refer, it remains, never-theless, incomplete and challengeable as predicate of such a referent. Thus,at the same time we must say that the referent of meaning is notbecause itis never a true self, it lacks its own independent individuality. We can neverhold it firm (except if we view it as contingency41), it is very slippery andconstantly changed and postponed by the semiosic process into what is anever changing succession of interpretants or into what Eco calls unlimitedsemiosis.42 Such a distinctive aspect is the basis of the dual nature of verbalsign. Nonetheless, the duality rooted in the signs power of reference (is/isnot) must be understood as a biunivocal function and not as a bipolar oppo-sition of the semiotic system. The distinction illustrated above that verbalsign is/is not in terms of reference serves the purpose to understand itslogical value within reference and to shed light on how we acquire knowl-edge of the world through the verbal medium. Also, if we consider theverbal medium from this point of view and according to its power of refer-ence, we are able to become aware of the fact that it is endowed with thepossibility of lying and telling the truth.

What I found remarkable inIl cimitero is how knowledge acquiredthrough the verbal medium impacts reality, since it contains an intrinsicdeceptive influence which may deliberately or inadvertently manipulate thedynamics of human relations and their outcomes. Thus, the fabricated storyin Il cimitero attributing The Protocols paternity to a fictitious author(Simonini) is an actual case in point whose purpose is to show how a ficti-tious text by a fictitious author made it pass as a historical document mayimpact reality in a calculated manner by simply existing. Whether we speakof Simonini as the fake author ofThe Protocols, or Goedsche or some otherperson of the Russians secret services or whether they were the product ofnineteenth-century France, since they are full of references to fin-de-sicleFrench issues (Six Walks, 137), the relevant thing is that being a written

text and meticulously assembled according to all necessary grammatical andsyntactical rules, it would be difficult to tell whether it is a true text or afake. Moreover, the impact does not stop there. Although in 1921 PhilipGraves was able to trace the source ofThe Protocols and affirm that they


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were a forgery of JolysDialogue, and more recently Eco discovered fur-ther connections with DumasJoseph Balsamo and Sues The WonderingJew and The Mysteries of People (Six Walks, 138), there have nonethelessbeen people who believed them to be true. Hitler held them to be the basisof a true Jewish conspiracy for world-domination43 which requires no expla-nation of what happened subsequently. In 1924 Nesta Webester, a contro-versial historian who promoted conspiracy theories wrote a book entitledSecret Societies and Subversive Movements. According to Eco, she wasthoroughly informed, was aware of the Times revelations, and knew theentire history of Nilus, Rachkovsky, Goedsche, and so on. (Six Walks,138) Regardless of what she knew about Philip Graves revelations pub-lished in the Time, this is what she wrote:

The only opinion to which I have committed myself is that, whethergenuine or not, the Protocols do represent the programme of world rev-olution, and that in view of their prophetic nature and of their extraordi-nary resemblance to the protocols of certain secret societies in the past,they were either the work of some such society or of someone pro-foundly versed in the lore of secret societies who was able to reproducetheir ideas and phraseology.44

Regarding Websters view, Eco writes: The syllogism is impeccable: sincetheProtocols resemble the story I have told, they confirm it. Or: theProto-cols confirm the story I have concocted from them; therefore they are true.

(Six Walks, 138-39) In 2009, at the U.N. Durban Review Conference inGeneva, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave his talk on racism.From the actual transcript of his talk, one realizes that his speech is loadedwith attacks and offensive remarks against the Jews. In one part he said:

There is no doubt that you are all aware of the conspiracies of somepowers and Zionist circles against the goals and objectives of this con-ference. Unfortunately, there has been literature andstatements in sup-

port of Zionism and their crimes, and it is the responsibility of honor-able representatives of nations to disclose these campaigns which runcounter to humanitarian values and principles.45

What we may deduce from such a quotation is that reverberations ofThe

Protocols still produce adepts of a Jewish conspiracy for world-dominancesimply because they have been written and regardless of the proven fact thatthey are a falsification of literary works of fiction.46


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Il cimitero contains all the characteristics and significance of the his-torical novel in which the reader finds clearly delineated a historical con-sciousness, as Eco uses true historical figures to stage socio-political con-flicts and historical transformations47 (specific historical aspects about theunification of Italy, just to mention one example), as well as other majorevents which brought about said conflicts and transformations. Moreover,it is a useful tool which makes the reader aware of an epistemic problemflowing between fiction and life and how such a problem incapacitateshuman ability to distinguish the one from the other. It is certainly not theremedy for such a problem and the tragic events which can be directlylinked to it. Nonetheless, it enables the reader to comprehend, in an amusingway, the mechanisms by which fiction can shape life. At times the resultscan be innocent and pleasant, as when one goes to Baker Street; but at othertimes life can be transformed into a nightmare instead of a dream. Reflect-ing on these complex relationships between reader and story, fiction andlife, can constitute a form of therapy against the sleep of reason, which[may often] generate monsters. (Six Walks, 139)

RAFFAELE DE BENEDICTISWayne State University

______________________

1 [A]vevo assunto in Francia quel titolo per ricordo del nonno, (In France Iadopted such a title [Captain] as keepsake from my grandfather), Umberto Eco,Il ci-mitero di Praga (Milano: Bompiani, 2010) 24. This and all other English translations

from the novel are mine. The protagonists grandfather, Giovan Battista Simonini, wasan army officer of the Sabaudian Kingdom whom Eco modeled on a true, historicalcaptain Simonini from Florence. Regarding this detail, see Ebrei e complotti: conver-sazione tra Umberto Eco e il rabbino Di Segni,LEspresso, 29 October 2010,

http://espresso.repubblica.it/multimedia/home/26747995 .2 beninteso nellambito della legalit (of course, within the limits of lega-

lity),Il cimitero, 170.3 il notaio aveva rovinato il nonno e Simone aveva rovinato lui, ( the no-

tary had ruined his grandfather and Simone in turn had ruined him [the notary]),Il ci-mitero, 115.

4 Quel rapporto era stato il mio primo lavoro veramente serio dove non milimitavo a scarabocchiare un testamento a uso di un privato qualsiasi, ma costruivo untesto politicamente complesso con cui forse contribuivo alla politica del Regno diSardegna. Mi rammentavo che ne ero proprio orgoglioso. ( Such a report had been

my first, reputable work in which I did not limit myself to scribble an ordinary privatewill, but I crafted a politically complex text by which I contributed, perhaps, to thepolitics of the Sardinian Kingdom. I remember I was very proud of it),Il cimitero,126. Moreover, Simonini affirms that he chose the Cemetery of Prague for such ameeting because agli ebrei non avevo voluto rinunciare, e li avevo usati per


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lambientazione. Era pur sempre un modo per suggerire a Bianco qualche sospetto neiconfronti dei giudei (I did not want to give up the idea of the Jews and I used themfor the setting. It was nonetheless a way of suggesting to Bianco some suspicionagainst the Jews),Il cimitero, 120.

5 Lagrange mi aveva pur prevenuto che il furfante si era gi distinto nella falsi-ficazione di documenti ed essere caduto cos ingenuamente nella trappola di un falsa-rio mi rendeva folle di rabbia. (Lagrange had even warned me that the rascal wasknown for falsifying documents and knowing that I had naively fallen into his trapmade me very anry),Il cimitero, 265-66.

6 I servizi segreti di ciascun paese credono solo a ci che hanno sentito direaltrove e respingerebbero come inattendibile ogni notizia del tutto inedita (The secretservices of any country believe only that which they have heard elsewhere, and rejectoriginal news as untrustworthy),Il cimitero, 211.

7Il cimitero, 396.8Il cimitero, 490.9 Instead of using the narratological pair story/plot, I followed Grard Genettes

model inNarrative Discourse Revisited, trans. Jan E. Lewin (Ithaca, New York: Cor-nell UP, 1988) 17, who substitutes the termplotwith narrative mode.

10 In regards to the heterodiegetic narrator, Eco complicates things by saying atthe very beginning of the novel that: lo stesso Narratore no sa ancora chi sia ilmisterioso scrivente, proponendosi di apprenderlo (in una col Lettore) mentre entram-

bi curiosano intrusivi e seguono i segni che la penna di colui sta vergando su quellecarte. ( the Narrator himself does not yet know who the mysterious writer is andaims at discovering it (together with the Reader) while they both intrusively nose andfollow the pens signs of the one who is writing those papers), Il cimitero, 10. Per-haps, the empirical writer does not entirely know from the beginning what he or she isgoing to do with the autobiographical author and all the narrative voices contained inthe novel, as it is Ecos style in writing fiction, but once the story is completed the pri-mary heterodiegetic narrator does acquire the function of an omniscent eye and actsaccordingly. In this instance, Eco makes his heterodiegetic narrator lie to the reader,and does so to convey a sense of realism for the narratological voices of the split-selfSimonini/Dalla Piccola and to involve the reader in a more captivating way, as in theadventure novels.

11 As a narrative strategy, Eco extensively used memory loss in his previous au-tobiographical novel La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana (Milano: Bompiani,2004).

12 This is also what Genette identified as metalepsis in Narrative Discourse:An Essay in Method(1972, Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1980) 234-35.

13 voi di me non sapete nulla, mentre io sto accorgendomi di rocordare altrecose, e non poche, di quanto accaduto a voi e guarda caso esattamente quelledi cui pare voi non riusciate a ricordarvi (you dont know anything about me,while I realize to remember other things, many of them, which concern you strangely enough those which you seem not to remember),Il cimitero, 102.

14 Genette introduced the term focalization (Narrative Discourse, 189-94) inlieu of point of view and perspective in order to provide a distinctive function forthe one who sees from the one who speaks. He replaced point of view and perspec-


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tive because in previous usages they had been employed to denote even narrativevoice, that is, to denote the one who speaks.

15 Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan,Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics (London,New York: Methuen, 1983) 74.

16 Instead Simoninis only great love in life, in addition to the excitement hefinds in creating forgeries, is la buona cucina: al solo pronunciare il nome del LaTour dArgent provo come un fremito per tutto il corpo. amore?...La cucina mi hasempre soddisfatto pi del sesso forse unimpronta che mi hanno lasciato i preti.(good food: just by mentioning the name of La Tour dArgent makes me quiver. Is itlove?...Good food has always satisfied me more than sex-perhaps a trace that priestsleft upon me),Il cimitero, 11, 24.

17 Nietzsches notion of the will to power is clearly illustrated in his BeyondGood and Evil, trans. Judith Norman, ed. Rolf-Peter Horstmann, Judith Norman(Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 2002), see particularly part 9, sec. 259: life itself isessentially a process of appropriating, injuring, overpowering the alien and the weak-er, oppressing, being harsh, imposing your own form, incorporating, and at least, thevery least, exploitingExploitation does not belong to a corrupted or imperfect,

primitive society: it belongs to the essence of being alive as a fundamental organicfunction; it is a result of the genuine will to power, which is just the will to life. Although this is an innovation at the level of theory,at the level of reality, it is the

primal factof all history. Let us be honest with ourselves to this extent at least! .Other parts in the same work where Nietzsche makes reference to the will to powerare: part 1, sec. 22; part 2, sec. 36, 44; part 3, sec.51; part 5, sec.186; part 6, sec. 211;

part 7, sec. 227; part 9, sec. 257. Here, Nietzches will to power, which may mani-fest itself in countless forms, positively and negatively, since it is the will to life ofevery human, is used to characterize Simoninis strong inclination for forgery. Thus,while the will to power is common to every human being, it becomes a moral issuein Simoninis case insofar as he literally represents the cause producing the most tra-gic consequences for the Jews, as de facto the real, historical forger(s) of theProtocolsis/are responsible for making history take the course it did. This is, by no means, anattempt to concoct a social Nietzscheanism, but simply a way of acknowledging a typeof will rooted in human nature which frequently harms others and needs to be ad-dressed in order to understand the reason causing harmful forms of behavior.

18 Dicono che lanima solo quello che si fa, ma se odio qualcuno e mi coltivoquesto rancore, vivaddio, questo significa che un dentro c! Come diceva il filosofo?Odi ergo sum. (It is said that the soul is only that which one does, but if I hate some-one and I keep this grudge alive, long live god, this means that I do have an inner life!What did the philosopher say? I hate, therefore I am),Il cimitero, 23.

19Il cimitero, 12.20 Con quanto avevo lucrato dal fallimento dellimpresa Taxil potevo permet-

termi di tutto. (With the profit made from the failure of Taxils enterprise I could af-ford anything),Il cimitero, 479.

21 With the expression responsible human acts I make it, in a way, faintly con-verge toward Kants categorical imperative whereby the person performing the actthinks it to be good not only for herself/himself but good for everyone, which ad-dresses approximately Kants third maxim in Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Mor-als, trans. H. J. Paton, (1948, London, New York: Routledge:1993) 30: Act as if the


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maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature.For a definition of categorical or apodictic imperative see p. 27 in Patons trans-lation.

22 Regarding Simoninis hate for the Jews (in addition to Biarritz) Eco perhapsfound inspiration in the true, historical figure of a certain captain Simonini from Flor-ence (the main characters grandfather) who allegedly sent a letter to abbot AugustinBarruel (1741-1820, author of theMmoires pour servir l'Histoire du Jacobinisme,1797 ) in which he alerted him of having ignored, while writing hisMmoires, the sig-nificant role the Jews played in the conspiracy which brought about the French Revo-lution. Still on Simoninis anti-Semitism, another inspirational source for Eco mighthave been douard Adolphe Drumont (1844-1917) a French writer and newspapereditor of La Libre Parole, whose anti-Semitism was openly declared. As a compul-sive liar (Il cimitero, 340), Simoninis character is most likely inspired by the figureof the French writer and journalist Leo Taxil (1854-1907).

23Kim A. Wagner, The Protocols of Nena Sahib: the 1857-Fantasy of HermannGoedsche, online posting 26 January 2011

http://www.csas.ed.ac.uk/mutiny/confpapers/Wagner-paper.pdf . See also Dan-iel Karens commentary on The Learned Elders of Zion, online posting 4 February2011 http://ddickerson.igc.org/The_Protocols_of_the_Learned_Elders_of_Zion.pdf, p.4.

24 Umberto Eco, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods (Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUP, 1994) 135.

25 Eco, Six Walks, 135.26 In Jolys pamphlet there is no reference to Jewish-Gentile implications. The

Jewish-Gentile implications will be fabricated by Goedsche who re-adapts JolysDia-logue into a mythical tale of a Jewish conspiracy, (Daniel Karens commentary, The

Learned Elders of Zion,p. 4). For the source ofThe Protocols and forgery of JolysDialogue see Philip Graves, The Source ofThe Protocols of Zion published in TheTime of London, August 1618, 1921. See also Eco, Six Walks, 137. In Il cimitero,Eco gives the following account of Jolys pamphlet: anche il lettore pi sprovvedu-to si accorge che il libello diretto a diffamare il nostro imperatore attribuendoglilintenzione di neutralizzare il potere della Camera, di chiedere al popolo di far proro-gare di dieci anni il potere del presidente, di trasformare la repubblica in impero(even the most nave reader is able to realize that the pamphlets purpose is to den-igrate our emperor by attributing tohim the intention of neutralizing the power of theHouse, to ask the people to extendthe power of the president by ten years, to turn therepublic into an empire, 202).

27 According to Cesare De Michelis, The Non-Existent Manuscript: A Study ofthe Protocols of the Sages of Zion (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004) 49-50, originally published in Italian asIl manoscritto inesistente: I protocolli dei savi diSion: un apocrifo del XX secolo ( Venezia, Marsilio, 1998), from GoedschesBiarritzwas extrapolated the scene in the Jewish cemetery in Prague which, reworked, was

presented as a document with the title The Rabbis Speech and published in the ap-pendix to B (Re ravvina k evrejekomu narodu). The publication of the RabbisSpeech in the appendix of PSM by one of the possible authors to demonstrate theirauthenticity excludes, in my opinion, that it had had been used in their compilation inthe same sense of the third level. It appears more convincing to refer to as being of


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the first level, and thus to see it as the framework which the author of the PSM hadused in adapting M. Jolys Dialogue (Rollin 1991, 558). Also, in De Michelis, The

Non-Existent Manuscript, 58, note 34, Butmi (1906a, 84) relates that the Discourse(published inLe Contemporain, July 1881, was sent toNovorossijskij Telegraf, but inRussia it had already been in circulation for ten years, that is the Russian anti-Semiteswere the first to have the idea to pass off the story for an authentic copy Cohn 1969,16). Dudakov (1993, 142, 169-70) records that they were submerged among the oth-ers: Osman Bey 1873, Wolski 1887, Demenko 1906, A. Kaluskij (Drueskij sovetevrejam [St. Petersburg 1906]), S. Rossov (Evrejskij vopros [St. Petersburg 1906], V.Protopopov, Vpoiskax zemli obetovannoj [Kazan 1908]).

28 Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon while working at a vanity press in Milan, apress mostly specialized in publishing books about secret societies, started to create(as a joke) a fake master plan to rule the world. As a result of that, and simply becausethey created such a plan, reality teaches us that in the world there are adherents to con-spiracy theories who end up believing it and take it seriously. Belbo becomes the tar-get of a real secret society that believes he possesses the map to the lost treasure of the

Knights Templar. He goes to see Diotallevi at the hospital (who is dying of cancer) toask him for help [and] eventually hoping to receive advice from him to come out ofhis predicament. In the last conversation they have together, his friend tells him: Icant decide whether what youre telling me is happening only inside your head, orwhether its happening outside. But it doesnt matter. Whether you have gone crazy orthe world has makes no difference. In either case, someone has mixed and shuffled thewords of the Book more than was right. What do you mean?

Weve sinned against the Word, against that which created and sustains theworld. Now you are punished for it, as I am punished for it. There is no difference be-tween you and me, Umberto Eco,Foucaults Pendulum, trans. William Weaver (SanDiego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989) 564.

29 Maybe you can do that, Master Niketas, but not the good Otto; and Im onlytelling you how things went. So that holy man on the one hand was rewriting theChronica, where the world went badly, and on the other the Gesta, where the worldcould only become better and better. You will say he contradicted himself. If it wereonly that. What I suspect is that in the first version of the Chronica the world wenteven worse, and so as not to contradict himself too much, as he gradually went on re-writing the Chronica, Otto became more indulgent towards us humans. This is what Icaused by scraping away the first version. Maybe, if that had remained, Otto wouldnthave had the courage to write the Gesta, and since its thanks to the Gesta that in thefuture they will say what Frederick did and didnt do; if I hadnt scraped away the firsttext, in the end Frederick wouldnt have done everything we say he did, UmbertoEco,Baudolino, trans. William Weaver (Orlando: Harcourt, 2003) 39.

30 The Impostor, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 27.3 (1958): 359. Also, in herdescription of the impostor she adds that there are: similar falsifications ofhis iden-tity belonging to his accomplishments, a plagiarizing on a grand scale, or makingclaims which are grossly implausible. Imposture appears to contain the hope of gettingsomething material, or some other worldly advantages. (359) Also, for the typicalimpostor, an audience is absolutely essential. It is from the confirming reaction of hisaudience that the impostor gets a realistic sense of self, a value greater than anythinghe can otherwise achieve. It is the demand for an audience in which the (false) self is


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reflected that causes impostures often to become of social significance. Both realityand identity seem to the impostor to be strengthened rather than diminished by thesuccess of the fraudulence of his claims. (367)

31 Theun van Dijk, Action, Action Description and Narrative,Poetics 5 (1974):287-338, cited in Eco, Six Walks, 119, and note 4 at p.148.

32 Eco, Six Walks, 119-20. In the same context Eco also adds: A typical para-textual signal for fictional narrative is the designation A Novel on the books cover.Sometimes even the authors name can function in this way; thus nineteenth-centuryreaders knew that a book whose title page announced it was by the author of Waver-ly was unmistakably a piece of fiction. The most obvious textual (that is, internal)signal of fictionality is an introductory formula such as Once upon a time. (120)

33 Misunderstanding and even panic resulted from the fact that some listenersbelieved all radio news broadcasts are examples of natural narrative, whereas Wellesthought he had provided listeners with a sufficient number of fictional signals. Butmany listeners tuned in after the broadcast had already begun; others did not under-stand the fictional signals and proceeded to map the content of the broadcast onto theactual world.

My friend Giorgio Celli, who is a writer and a professor of entomology, oncewrote a short story about a perfect crime. Both he and I were characters in this story.Celli (the fictional character) injected a tube of toothpaste with a chemical substancethat sexually attracted wasps. Eco (the fictional character) brushed his teeth with thistoothpaste before going to bed, and a small amount of it remained on his lips. Swarmsof sexually aroused wasps were thus attracted to his face, and their stings were fatal to

poor Eco. The story was published on the third page of the BolognaIl resto del carli-no. As you may or may not know, Italian newspapers, at least until several years ago,generally devoted page three to arts and letters. The article called the elzeviro in theleft-hand column of the page could be a review, a short essay, or even a short story.Cellis short story appeared as a literary feature entitled How I Murdered UmbertoEco. The editors evidently had confidence in their basic assumption: readers knowthat everything printed in a newspaper must be taken seriously except for items on theliterary page, which must or can be considered examples of artificial narrative.

But that morning, when I walked into the caf near my house, I was greeted bythe waiters with exceptions of joy and relief, for they thought Celli had actually mur-dered me. I attributed that incident to the fact that their cultural background did notequip them to recognize journalistic conventions. Later in the day, however, I hap-

pened to see the dean of my college, a highly educated man who of course knows allthere is to know about the difference between text and paratext, natural and artificialnarrative, and so on. He told me that, on reading the paper that morning, he had beentaken aback. Though the shock had not lasted long, the appearance of that title in anewspaper a textual framework where by definition true events are recounted had momentarily misled him. (Eco, Six Walks, 120-21)

34The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion , trans. from theRussian by Victor E. Marsden, based on the Russian ed. (1903) by Sergius A. Nilus,

pp. 22-23, online posting 7 March 2011. In thesame translation ofThe Protocols, Marsden includes an excerpt from The Dearborn

Independent, July 10th, 1920, calling attention to the great difficulty distinguishing the


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real from fiction: Whosoever was the mind that conceived them possessed a knowl-edge of human nature, of history, and of statecraft which is dazzling in its brilliantcompleteness, and terrible in the objects to which it turns its power. It is too terribly realfor fiction, too well sustained for speculation, too deep in its knowledge of the secretsprings of life for forgery. (12)

35 Umberto Eco,A Theory of Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1979) 7.36 The term lying in this study must be understood as having intentional and

non-intentional reference. Thus, as an intrinsic characteristic of language, it is pri-marily non-intentional.

37 According to H. Blumenberg, Antropologische Annherung an die Aktualittder Rethorik, in:H. B.: Wirklichkeiten, in denen wir leben, 104-136 (Stuttgard: Re-Reclam, 1981), It. trans.La realt in cui viviamo, ed. M. Cometa (Milano: Feltrinelli,1987) 95, the relationship of human beings with reality (which in essence isestablished by means of the verbal medium) is indirect, descriptive, selective and,above all, metaphorical. Se also Andrea Tagliapietra, Filosofia della bugia: Figuredella menzogna nella storia del pensiero occidentale (Milano: Mondatori, 2001) 59-66; K. R. Popper, Logik der Forschung, (Wien: Springer, 1934), Eng. trans., TheLogic of Scientific Discovery, (New York : Basic Books, 1959), It. trans.Logica della

scoperta scientifica:Il carattere autocorrettivo della scienza (Torino: Einaudi, 1995)66-84; H. Weinrich, Metapher und Widerspruch, in Sprache in Texten (Stuttgard:Klett, 1976), It. trans. Metafora e contraddizione, inMetafora e menzogna: La sere-nit dellarte, intr. L. Ritter Santini, trans. P. Barnon et. al., 99-108 (Bologna: IlMulino, 1976) 108; H. Weinrich,Linguistik der Lge (Heidelberg: Schneider, 1966),It. trans. Linguistica della menzogna inMetafora e menzogna: La serenit dellarte,127-85, at p. 155.

38 Aristotle,De Interpretatione 16a, 28, in The Works of Aristotle, ed. W. D.Ross (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928).

39 This is a term coined by Duns Scotus (haecceitas, haecceity or thisness,here and now) referring to his theory of individuation which, later, Charles SandersPeirce adopted, more or less, in a similar way regarding the state of an object which,in its haecceity, is never immediately known, and yet it is endowed by a positive non-qualitative mode of individuation (it corresponds to Peirces state of Secondnesswhich includes alsoFirstness, C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers 1.327 (henceforth Col-lected Papers cited as CP), awaiting for the laws of the excluded middle (Thirdness,CP, 1.337) to correlate the Firstness and Secondness of the object of signification. Onthis aspect see also Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, online posting 28 March2011 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/duns-scotus/#UniInd; Murray G. Murphy, The

Development of Peirces Philosophy (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1993) 310-11.In writing to Lady Welby about signs, Peirce begins his disquisition about the

mode of being of ideas and their classification, without regard to their being valid orinvalid. He divides all ideas into Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness. He definesFirstness as: the mode of being of that which is such as it is, positively and withoutreference to anything else. (CP, VIII.329) The relevant aspects of this definition are:that which is such as it is and positively. The former aspect is that the idea, in itsstate of Firstness, does not belong to any definable quality, but it simply is what it is in

se. Moreover, Peirce adds: you are to drop out of account that which may be attachedto it in perceiving or remembering. (CP, VIII.329) In other words, Firstness is the


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preclassificatory state of something, and it is also defined as monadic in its logicalsense because it does not have relationship with anything. The value of positivelywithin such a definition is that, although no definable quality may be attached to theidea, it nevertheless contains a positive value, a value which recognizes it as beingsomething instead of nothing. The idea of the present instant, which, whether it existsor not, is naturally thought as a point of time in which no thought can take place orany detail be separated, is an idea of Firstness. (CP, VIII.329)

Secondness: is the mode of being of that which is such as it is, with respect to asecond but regardless of any third. (CP, VIII.329) This means that the perception orthe remembering of something upon entering the state of Secondness becomes dyadic,that is, it establishes a relationship with something that is Other in the form ofstimulus-and-response, cause-and-effect, action-and-reaction (CP, I.317, I.441-470,II.669-693, V.45-58). There is a transition from feeling (Firstness) to experience(Secondness) and Peirce defines the state of experience as an effort prescinded fromthe idea of purpose which cannot exist without the experience of resistance. Effortonly is effort by virtue of its being opposed; and no third element enters. ( CP,VIII.330)

Finally, Thirdness is the mode of being of that which is such as it is, in bringinga second and a third into relation to each other. (CP, VIII.329) By the third Peircerefers to the medium or connecting bond between th

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