Universität zu Köln

Englisches Seminar

NIL SAPIENTIAE ODIOSIUS ACUMINE NIMIO - The significance of

′the letter′ in Edgar Allan Poe′s short story The Purloined Letter with

regard to the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida

Im Rahmen des Literatur B Seminars:

American Mysteries ­ Detective Fiction in the U. S.

Vorgelegt von:

Claudia Effenberger

Abgabetermin:

31.08.2005

---

Table of contents

Table of contents 2

1.

Introduction 3

2.

Theoretical basis 4

2.1.

Lacanian theory 4

2.2.

Derridean theory 5

3.

Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio ­ The significance of `the letter′ 7

3.1.

The meaning of Seneca′s quote `Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio′ 7

3.1.1.

The general meaning in relation to Seneca′s theory 7

3.1.2.

The meaning in relation to The Purloined Letter and the reason for putting it

before the text 7

3.2.

The significance of `the letter′ 8

4.

Summary 14

Appendix

I

Annotations II

II

Enclosure IV

III

Bibliography / list of books consulted VIII

2

---

1. Introduction

Wer die Weisheit sucht, ist ein weiser Mann;

wer glaubt, sie gefunden zu haben, ist ein Narr

.1

­Seneca-

Only the one, who looks for wisdom, but does not declare to be the one who has already

found it can call himself a wise man. ­ Especially in our present world this quote from

Seneca, who lived at the beginning of the first century, is more and more proven to be true.

Most of all the field of religion is affected by these words. Long time the church declared to

know the absolute and unmistakable truth of our world. But today our science-stamped

knowledge more and more disproves many dogmas spread by the church. Yet, religion is not

the only field where this quote can be employed. Also in our daily activities and lives, people

who overestimate their knowledge and capabilities normally never reach their aims. This does

not always has to do with arrogance. Sometimes people simply think that what they know and

do has to be right or perfect because it is what `the mass′ would think or do. But in most cases

it is better to think before acting, to be different from the mass, especially to think different to

achieve things, the mass would not be able to achieve. No quote would be more appropriate

for Edgar Allen Poe′s story

The Purloined Letter

, than that from Seneca.. Only the Detective

Dupin, who is looking for the truth is able to find it, because he does not underestimate the

gifts of his enemy. He does not think of himself to be a wise man but he thinks himself to be

clever. And this is a gift which is sometimes more important than being wise. Poe constructs

his hard-boiled detective story round just one very crucial object ­ a letter. A letter that

influences the people possessing it, using it. This document can be regarded as the main actor

in the story. For this reason this paper `s aim is to analyse the role of `the letter′ as it is only a

sheet of paper, and at the same time more than just a sheet of paper. Its influence an

significance in regard to text structure, construction of characters and course of the story will

be examined. All this will be looked at with a constant connection to the philosophical and

psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan. Especially Lacan′s

interpretations will be discussed, as he was occupied with Poe′s story in his

Seminar on `The

Purloined Letter′

. The final summary shall bundle the gained information to a logical

minimum and draw some conclusions from it.

3

---

2. Theoretical

basis

2.1. Lacanian

theory

Jacques-Marie-Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst. Being a trained psychiatrist he

developed his own psychoanalytic theory starting in the 1950ies. Mostly influenced by the

work of Sigmund Freud, he was a representative of post-structuralism.2 In his theory of the

subject, Lacan claims, that human beings are represented by language, or more clearly, by

words. His technical term for `word′ is `signifier′. He argues that ``Subject′ and `signifier′ are

an important pair of binary opposites′3. This means, that human communication is mediated

through signifiers and therefore the only way to represent ourselves for other signifiers.

Furthermore Lacan was fascinated by Freud′s discovery of unconscious desires, as revealed

through four mental phenomena, namely symptoms, errors of everyday life, jokes and dreams.

For him the unconscious is structured in the most radical way like a language itself. He called

this four categories `The Agency of the letter′, because the letter seems to have a life

completely of its own. It is for example able to outlive the subject who was spoken by

inscriptions on gravestones or in books.4 Lacan picked up on the unconscious as a social

being. One often thinks of a language as a lexicon. Each word points to a familiar object, like

a dictionary or even a picture book. In a real language, however, words take on meaning only

from other words. One has a system, a structure, without a base. Meaning is always `deferred′

to the next word in the chain of associations. 5 By 1960 Lacan had a broad theory of the

psyche or mind. He found three different categories in it: `the imaginary′, `the symbolic′ and

`the real′. The three of them were tied together like a knot.6 The `imaginary′ has to do with

the so called `mirror stage′. Lacan reformulates the psychoanalytic conception of the ego and

the imaginary.

The imaginary is the realm of the ego, a pre-linguistic realm of sense perception,

identification and an illusory sense of unity. The primary relation in the imaginary is a

relation with one′s own body (...) The imaginary, therefore, is not a developmental phase ­

it is not something that one goes through and grows out of ­ but remains at the core of our

experience."7

Taking its patterns from the structural anthropology of Lévi-Strauss, Lacan formulated that

the human world is characterised by the

symbolic function.

In the unconscious the symbolic is

more real than that what they symbolize. For him a signifier does not refer to a signified (as

Saussure states), but to another signifier which refers to another and another in an almost

endless chain of signification. If we try to define the meaning of a specific word, we can only

use other words. This is a continuing process of sign-producing.8 That means that the

4

---

unconscious consists of signifying material; it initiates a signifying-process that is beyond our

control. `It is the language that speaks through us rather than the language we speak′9 That is

why language is the discourse of the Other (language). At last the `real′ is not an account of

reality or the `objective world′, but a kind of return to the repressed. The real in the Lacanian

sense is `′the impossible to say′, or `the impossible to imagine′′10 at a particular time. The

German scientist Werner Heisenberg stated, that the real would, for example, either be the

speed of an electron, or its position but never both at the same time.11

Lacan′s theory of the `symbolic′ is crucial for the interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe′s story

The Purloined Letter

, as `the letter′ is a pure signifier itself.

2.2. Derridean

theory

Jacques Derrida

was a French philosopher. He is said to be the founder and main

representative of the philosophical movement of deconstruction.12 As poststructuralist he

tended to see all knowledge as textual. According to him we have no access to reality except

through concepts, codes and categories. The human mind functions by forming conceptual

pairs, like man ­ women, Christian ­ pagan, nature ­ culture. Within these binary opposites,

one member is privileged and marginalizing the other member of the pair. The privileged

term is at the same time the so called central term. Derrida now tries to subvert the central

term so that the marginalized term can become the central one. In this case the marginalized

term temporarily overthrows the hierarchy. Now, deconstruction is a political practice. He

claims that the new hierarchy, if the marginalized term overthrew the privileged, might be

instable as well. So he said one must realize the instability" surrender to the complete free

play of the binary opposites in a non-hierarchical way"13. According to Derrida all languages

and all texts, that are deconstructed, are like this, which means, that there is no central

configuration that attempts to freeze the play of this particular system. So there are also no

marginal, privileged or repressed ones. A central term of his theory is `logocentrism′.

Received from the ancient Greek word `logos′, which means word, truth, reason and law,

logocentrics believe that truth is the voice or expression of a central, original and absolute

cause or origin. Derrida favoured the spoken word over the written because he associated

writing with the absence of the person who is expressing his or her thought. In contrast to

Lacan, Derrida regards the signified, which means the meaning, as more important than the

signifier. He believed, that the sound (signifier) only gives access to the meaning (signified).

In short: `Sound is outer, meaning is inner′.14 A sound defines itself only by determining what

it is not. And also concepts are distinguishable from other concepts only because of their

5

---