O Z 0l':l <tl ~
Ul ~
l/)
~
'No-
~'" C'I:>
~
Z :>
0
n :>
2;
l"!'j
z rn v c
(/)
:>
l.""l ...... H
0
>-<: ~
tn
-< Z
F=1
4
Co urtly Love, or,
Wom an as Thing
Why talk about courtly love [1'amouT r.ouTtois] today, in an age of permissiveness when the sexual encounter is often no thin g more th an a 'quickie' in some dark corner of an orti ec? Th e imp ression that co ur tly love is out of date, long superseded by modern ma nn ers, is a lure blinding us to how the logic of courtly love still defines the parame ters within which the two sexes relate to each other. This claim, howeve r, in no way implies an evolutionary mode l throug h which courtly love would provide the elementary matrix ou t of which wc gene rate its later. mo re complex variations. Our thesis is, inste ad , th at histor y has to be read retroactively: the anatomy of man offers the key to the an atomy of the ape , as Marx put it. It is only with the emergence of masochism, of the masochist couple, towards the end of the last century th at we can now grasp the libidinal economy of courtly love.
The Masochistic Theatre of Courtly Love Th e first trap to be avoided apropos of courtly love is the erro neous notion of the Lady as the sublime object: as a rule, o ne evokes here th e process of spiritualization, the shift from raw sensual coveting to elevated spiritual longing. The Lady is thus perceived as a kind of spiritual guide into the higher sphere of religious ecstasy, in the sense of Dante' s Beatric e. In contrast to this notion , Lacan emphasizes a serie s of feature s which belie such a spiritualization: tru e, the Lady in court ly love loses concrete features and is addressed as an abstract Ideal, so that 'writers have noted that all the poets seem to he addressing the same person . . .. In this poetic field the feminine object is emptied of all real su bsta n ce.' I However, this abstract character of the Lad y has nothing to do with spiritual purification; rather, it points toward s the abstraction that pertains to a cold, distanced, inhuman partner - th e Lady is by no means a warm, compassionate, understanding fellow-cre ature:
89
METAST AS E S OF ENJ OY MENT
By means of a form of sublimation spec ific to art , poeti c creati on co nsists in positing an obje ct I can on ly describe as terrifying, an inhuman partne r. The Lad y is never characteri zed for any of her real, concrete virtu es, for her wisdom, her pru de n ce , or even her competence. If she is described as wise, it is only becau se she embodies an immaterial wisdom or because she rep resen ts its func tions more than she exerci ses the m . On the co ntrar y, she is as arbit ra r yas possibl e in th e tests she imp oses o n her se rvau t.f
The knight's relationship to the Lady is thus th e relationshi p of the subject-bon dsman , vassal, to his fe ud al Master-Sovereign who subj ects h im to senseless, out rageous, imp ossible, arbi trar y, capricious ordeals. It is pr ec isely in ord er to emphasize th e non-spiritu al natu re of thes e ord eal s tha t Lacan quotes a p oem about a Lad y who demanded tha t her servant literally lick h er arse: the poem consists of th e poet's co m plain ts abou t the bad smells that await him down there (one knows th e sad sta te of p ersonal hygien e in the Middle Ages), abou t th e imminent danger th at, as he is fulfilling his duty, the Lad y will urinat e on his he ad . ... The Lad y is thus as far as possible from any kind of purified sp iritua lity: she func tions as an inhuman p artner in the sens e of a radic al Otherness which is wholly incommensurable with our needs and desires; as such , sh e is simultaneously a kind of automaton, a machine which utt ers mea ni n gless demands at random . T his coincide nce of absolute, inscrutabl e Oth erness an d pure machine is wh a t co n fers on th e Lad y her un canny, monstrous characte r - the Lad y is th e Other wh ich is not our 'fellow-crea ture' ; that is to say, she is someone with whom no relat ionship of empathy is possible. This tra uma tic Otherness is what Lacan designates by means of the Freudian te rm das Ding, th e Th ing - the Real that 'always returns to its plac e ',3 the h ard kern el th at resists symbolization . The ide alization of the Lady, her e levatio n to a spi ritual , ethereal Id eal, is th erefore to be conceived of as a strictly secondar y ph enom enon: it is a narcissistic projection whose function is to render her traumatic dimension invisible, In this pr ecise an d limited sense , Lacan con cedes that 'the e le men t of idealizing exaltatio n that is ex pressly sought out in the ideology of courtly love has certain ly been demonstrated ; it is fundame nt ally narcissistic in charac足 ter','! Deprived of every real sub stan ce, the Lady fun ctions as a mirror on to which the subject projects his narcissistic ideal. In o ther words - those of Christi n a Ross etti, whose sonnet 'In an Artist' s Studio ' speaks of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's relationship to Elizabeth Siddal, his Lady - th e Lady a p pea rs 'no t as she is, but as she fills h is d ream '." For Lacan, however, the crucial acce nt lies e lsewhe re : The mirror may on occasion imply the mech ani sms of narcissism, and
90
C O URTLY LOV E, O R , W OMAN AS T H I N G
especially th e dimension of destruction or aggre ssion that we will enCOunter subsequen tly. But it also fulfills an other role, a role as limit. It is that Which cannot be crossed , And the only orga nization in which it participates is that of the inaccessibility of the obj ect ."
Th us, before we embrace the co m monp laces ab out how the L a d y in courtly love h as nothing to do with actual women, how she stands fo r the man' s narcissistic projection which involves the mortification of the flesh -and-blood woman, we have to answer this question: where does that empty surface corne from, that cold, neutral screen which op ens up the space for possible projections? That is to say, if men are to project On to the mi rror th eir narcissistic ideal, th e mute mirror-surface mu st already be there. This surface function s as a kind of 'black hole' in reality, as a lim it whose Beyond is inaccessible. The next crucial feature of courtly love is that it is thoroughly a tn auer of cour tesy and e tique tte; it has nothing to do with some elem e n tary passion overflowing all barriers, immune to all soc ial rul es. We are dealing with a str ict fict ional formul a, with a so cial gam e of 'as if', Where a man pretends th at his sweetheart is the inacce ssible Lady. And it is precisely this featu re which enables us to establish a link between Cour tly love an d a phenom enon which, at first, seems to ha ve nothing Whatso足 ever to do with it: nam ely, ma soch ism, as a specific form of p er version articulated for the first tim e in the middle of th e last cen tury in the literar y works and life-practice of Sacher-Maso ch . In his celebrate d study of m asochism," Gille s Deleuze demon strates that m asochism is not to be con ceived of as a simp le symmetrical inversion of sadism, The sadist an d his victim never form a com plementary 'sado- maso chist' couple. Among th ose features evoked by Del euz e to prov e the asymmetry between sad ism and maso chi sm , the crucial on e is th e oppositio n of th e modalities of negati on. In sadi sm we encoun ter direct negation, violent destruction and tormenting, whereas in masochism negation a SSumes th e form of disavowal - that is, of feign in g, of an 'as if' which su spends reality. Closely depending on th is first oppositio n is th e opposition of institu tio n and con tract. Sadism follows th e logic of institution , of institutional power tormenting its victim and taking pleasure in th e victim's helpless resistance. More precisely, sadism is at work in the obscen e, superego u nderside that n ecessarily redoubles and accom足 panies, as its shadow, the 'public' Law. Masochism, on the contrary, is made to the measure of the victim : it is the victi m (the ser vant in the masoch istic relationship) who in itiates a contract with th e Master (wom an ), authorizing her to humiliate him in any way she considers appropriate (within the terms defined by the co ntract) and binding
91
ME TA STA S ES OF E NJO Y M E N T
C OU RTLY L O V E , OR , W O M A N A S T H I N G
hi mself to act ' acco rd in g to the whims of th e sovere ign lady' , as Sach er Masoch put it. It is the servan t, therefore, who writes the screen p lay th a t is, who actually pulls the strin gs and dictates the act ivity of th e woman [dominatrix] : he stages his own servi tud e .f O ne furthe r differ en tial feature is th at maso ch ism , in co n trast to sad ism , is in h erently th eatrical: violen ce is for the most part feign ed, an d even when it is 'real' , it functions as a co m pon en t of a sce n e , as p ar t of a th eatr ical p er formance . Furthermore , violen ce is neve r ca rried o ut, b ro ught to its conclusion ; it always remain s suspended , as the end less repeating of an interrupted gestu re. It is precise ly th is logi c of d isavowal wh ich enables us to grasp the fund amen tal paradox of the masoch istic attitude . T h at is to say, h ow do es th e typi cal masochistic scen e look? T h e man-servant est ab lishes in a co ld , busin esslike way th e ter ms of the co ntract with the woman -master: what she is to do to hi m , wha t scen e is to be reh earsed endle ssly, what d ress sh e is to wea r, how far sh e is to go in th e direc tion of real , p hysical torture (h ow severe ly she is to whip him , in wh at pr ecise way sh e is to enc h ain him, where sh e is to stam p h im with the tips of her hig h he els, etc .) . When th ey final ly pa ss over to the masochis tic game pro per, th e masochist constantly maintains a kind of reflective dis tance; he never really gives way to h is feelings or fully abandons himself to the game; in th e midst of th e game, he can suddenly assu me th e stan ce of a stage dire ctor, givin g precise in str u ction s (pu t more pressure on th at p oin t, re p eat th at movement . . .), without therefJy in the least ' destruying the illusion'. Once th e game is over, the masochist again ad op ts the attitu de of a respectful bou rg eois an d starts to talk with th e Sovereign Lady in a matter-of-fact, b usinesslike way: 'Thank you for your favou r. Sam e tim e next week?' an d so on . Wh at is of cr ucial imp ortan ce here is the total self exter nalizatio n of th e masochist' s most in ti m ate p assio n: the most intimate de sires becom e o bj ects of con tract and co mposed negotiatio n . The nature of th e m asoch istic: theatre is therefore th oroughly 'n on psychologica l' : th e su rrealistic passio nate masochistic game, wh ich suspends so cial reality, none the less fits easily into tha t everyday reality." For this reason , the pheno me n on of masoch ism exem p lifies in its purest form what Lacan had in mind when he insisted again and again that psychoanalysis is not psychology. Masoc hism confron ts us with the paradox of th e symbolic order qua th e order of 'fictio ns': there is more truth in the mas k we wear, in the game we play, in th e 'fiction ' we obey an d follow, than in wh at is concealed be ne ath th e m ask. The very kernel of the masoc hist's being is ex ternalized in the staged game towards which he maintain s h is con stan t dist ance. And th e Real of viole n ce breaks out precisely when me maso chis t is hyste ricized - wh en th e subject refuses the role of an o bj ect-instr umen t of th e enj oymen t of his
Other, whe n h e is h orrified at th e prospect of be ing reduced in the eye of the Oth er to objet a ; in order to escap e th is de adlock, he re sort s to tJassage Ii l'acte, to th e ' irration al' violence aimed at the o th er. Towards th e end of P.O. J ames' s i\ Taste for Death, th e m urderer desc ribes the circu mstanc es of the cr ime , and lets it be know n th at the factor which res olved his indecision and pushed him towar ds th e act (th e murder) was the attitude of the victim (Sir Paul Berowne ) :
92
'He wanted to d ie, God rot him, h e want ed it! He practically asked fo r it. I-Ie co uld have tried to sto p m e, plea ded , argued , p ili u p a figh l. He co uld have begged fo r me rcy, "No , please don't do it. Please! " T ha t's ali i wanted from him .Just th at o ne wo rd . . . . He look ed aline with suc h co ntem pt. " . He knew then . Of course he kn ew. And I wo uld n ' t have done it, not if he'd spo ken to me as i f! were CV(~n h alf-h u m an .t' ?
'He did II " eve n look surprised. He was suppose d 10 he terrified . H e wa sup pose d to prev en t it from happening. . . . He just looked a t me as if he were sayi ng "So it's you , H ow strange tha t it has to be you ." As if I had no choice J USI an ins trumen t. Min d less, Bil l I did have a choice. And so did he. Christ h e cou ld havestopped me. Why didn 't h e sto p me ?'1l
Several days before his death , Sir Pa ul Berowne experienced an 'inne breakdown ' resem blin g symbolic death: he ste pp ed down as a gover n me n t Min ister and cut all h is principal ' h u ma n tics ' , assumi ng th ereb th e 'excrementa l' po sition of a sain t, of objet petit a, which precludes an in tersubjective relationship of em path y. This attitu de was what the m u rd erer fo und unbearable : h e approached h is victim as $, a spli subject - th at is to say, he wan ted to kill him , yet he was simultan eo usl waitin g for a sign of fear, of resistance, from th e victim , a sign which would prevent the murdere r from acco m plish in g tile ac t. The victim however, d id not give an y suc h sign. which would have su bjectivized th e murd erer, acknowledging hi m as a (di vid ed ) subj ect. Sir Paul 's attitud of non-resistance, of indifferen t provocation, obj ectivi ze d the murderer reducin g him to an instrument of th e O ther 's will, an d so left h im with no ch oice . In sh or t, what compelled the murd ere r to act was th experience of having his desire to kill the victim coi ncide with the victim 's death d rive. This coincid en ce recalls the way a mal e hysterical 'sad ist' j ustifies hi beatin g of a woman: 'Wh y does sh e make me do it? She really wan ts m to do hurt her, she compels me to beat he r so that she can enj oy it - s I'll beat her black an d blue and teach her what it really means to p-rovoke me! What we encounter here is a kind of loop in whi ch the (mis) perceived effec t of tile brutal act upon the victim retro actively legiti mizes the act I set ou t to beat a woman and wh en, at the very point wh ere I th ink tha 93
META S T AS E S O F E NJ O YM E N T
I thoroughly dominate h er, I notice tha t I am actually her slave - since sh e wants the beati ng an d p rovoked me to deliver it - I ge t really mad an d beat her. . . . 12
The C our tly 'Imp of the Per verse' How, on closer exa mina tion , are we to co ncep tualize the inaccessibility of th e Lady-Obj ect in court ly love? The principal mi stake to avoid is reducing this inacc essibility to th e sim ple dialectic of desire and prohibition according to which we covet th e for bidden frui t pr ecisely in so far as it is forbidden - o r, to quote Freud 's classic formula tion: . . . the psychical value of erotic needs is reduced as soon as their satisfaction becomes easy. An obstacle is required in order to heighten libido; and where natural resistances to satisfaction have not been sufficient men have at all times erected convention al ones so as to be able to enjoy love.P Within this perspective , cou r tly love appears as simply the most radic al stra tegy for elevating th e value of the obj ect by p u tt ing up co nven tion al obstacles to its attain ability. When , in h is seminar Encore, Lacan provides th e most su ccinc t formulation of th e par adox of courtly love , he says so meth ing that is ap pa re n tly similar, ye t fundamentally different: 'A very refined manner to sup p lan t the absen ce of the sexu al relationship is by feigning that it is us who put the obstacle in its way.'! " Th e point, th er efore, is not simply that we set up additional conventional hin足 drances in order to heighten the valu e of th e object: external hindrances that thwart our access to the object are there precisely to create the illusion that without them, the object would be directly accessible - what such hindran ces thereby conceal is th e in he ren t impossibili ty of attaining th e object. Th e place of the Lady-Thing is originally empty: she functions as a kind of 'b lack hole ' arou nd which the subj ect 's de sire is structured. The space of de sire is bent like space in the th eory of relativity; th e on ly way to re ach the Object-Lad y is indirectly, 'in a devious, meandering way 足 proceeding straight on ens ur es that we m iss the target. This is what Lacan has in mind when, apropos of cour tly love, he evokes 'th e me aning we must attribu te to the negotiation of the d etour in the psychic economy' : Th e detour in the psyche isn't always designed to regulate the commerce between whatever is organized in the domain of the pleasure principle and wha tever presen ts itself as the structure of reality. There are also detours and obstacles which are organized so as to make the domain of the vacuole stand
94
C O U RT L Y L O V E , O R , W OMAN AS THI N G
out as such. . . . The techniques involved in courtly love- and they are pr ecise enough to allow us to perceive what might on occasion become fact, what is properlyspeaking of the sexual order in the inspiration of this eroticism - are techniques of holding back, of suspension, of amor interruptus. The stages courtly love lays down previous to what is mysteriously referre d to as le don de merci, 'the gift of mercy' - although we don't know exactlywhat it meant - are expressed more or less in terms that Freud uses in his Time Essays as belonging to the sphere of foreplay.15 For that reason , Lacan accen tuates the motif of ana morph osis (in his Semina r on th e Ethics of Psychoan alysis, th e title of the cha p te r on cour tly love is 'Courtly Love as An amorphosis' ): the Object can be perceived on ly when it is viewed fro m the side, in a partial, d istor ted form, as its own shadow - if we cast a di rect glance at it wc sec nothing , a mer e void. In a homologous way, we could speak of temporal ana morp hosis: the Obj ect is attai na ble on ly by way of an in ce ssan t po stp onem en t, as its absen t poi n t of refe re nce . The Obj ect, therefore, is liter ally some thing tha t is cre ated - whos e place is en circled - th ro ugh a networ k of detou rs, approximatio ns an d nea r-misses. It is h er e that sublimation se ts in - sublimation in the Laca nian sense of the elevation of an object in to the digni ty of th e T hing: 'su blimation ' occu rs whe n an obj ect, part of ever yday reality, finds itself at th e place of the impossible Thing. Her ein resid es the fun ction of those art ificial obsta cles th at suddenl y hinder our access to some ordinar y obj ect: th ey elevate the object int o a stand-in for th e Th ing. This is how the impossible ch anges into th e pro h ibited : by way of th e short circuit between th e Thing and some positive obj ect rendered inaccessible through ar tificial obstacles. The tradition of Lady as the inacc essible object is alive an d well in our cen tury - in surrealism, for example. Su ffice it to recall Luis Bufiuel 's That Obscure Object of Desire, in which a wom an , th ro ugh a seri es of absu rd tricks, po stpones aga in and again th e final mom ent of sexual re-union with her aged lover (when , for example, the man fin all y gets her into bed, he discovers ben eath h er nightgown an old -fashioned corset with numerous bu ckle s which are impossible to undo . , .) . The charm of th e film lies in this very nonsensical short circuit between the fundamen tal, metaphysical Limit an d some trivial emp irical impedi足 ment. Her e we find the logic of courtly love and of su blimatio n at its purest: some common, everyd ay obj ect or ac t becom es innacc essible or impossible to accomplish on ce it finds itself in th e position of the Thing - although the thing should be easily within reach , the entire universe ha s some h ow been adjusted to produce , again and again, an unfathomabl e co n tingency blocking acces s to the object. Bufiuel himself was qui te aware of thi s paradoxical log ic: in his autobiography
95
M ET A S T AS E S O F ENJ O Y M E N T
COURTLY LOVE , OR , WOM AN A S THING
he speaks of •th e non-explai nable impossibility of the fulfilment of a simple desire ', and a whole series of films offers variations on this motif: in The Criminal Life of Archibaido de la Cruz the hero wants to accomplish a simple murder, but all his attemp ts fail; in The Exterminating Angel, after a part)', a g ro u p of rich people cannot cross the threshold and le ave th e house; in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie two couples want to dine together, bu t unexpected complicatio ns always pr event th e fulfilmen t of thi s simpl e wish . . .. It sho u ld be clear, now, what determines the difference with regard to th e u sual dial ecti c of de sire and prohibition: the aim of the prohibition is not to 'raise th e pri ce ' of an object by rendering access to it more difficult, but to rai se thi s o bj ect itself to the level of the Thing, of the 'black hole', arou nd which desire is organized. For that reason, Lacan is quite justified in inverting th e usual formula of su blimation , which involv es shifting th e libido from all obj ect that satisfies some concrete, materi al need to an obj ect tha t has no apparent connection to this need: for exam ple , d estructive literary criti cism becomes sublimated aggressiv ity, scientific research into the human body becomes sublimated voyeur ism, and so o n . What Lacan means by sublimation , on the co ntrary, is sh ifting the libido from th e void of th e 'unserviceable' Thing to som e concrete , material o bj ect of need that assumes a su blime quality th e moment it occupies the pl ace of the Thing. 16 Wh at the paradox of the Lady in co urtly love ultimately amounts to is thus th e paradox of detour: our 'offici al' desire is that we want to sleep with the Lady; whereas in truth, there is nothing we fear more than a Lady who might ge ne rous ly yield to this wish of o urs - what we truly expe ct and want from th e Lady is simply ye t another new ordeal, yet one more postp onem ent. In his Critique of Practical Reason, Kant offers a parable about a libertine who claims that he cannot resist the temp tatio n to gratify his illicit sex ual d esire , yet when he is informed that the gallows now await him as the price to be paid for his adultery, he suddenly discovers that he ca n resist th e temptation after all (proof, for Kant , of the pathological nature o f se xual de sire ....: Lacan opposes Kant by claiming that a man of true amorous passion would be even more aroused by th e prospect of the gallows " .). But for the faithful servant of a Lady the choice is structured in a totally different way: perhaps he would e ven prefer th e gallows to an immediate gratification of his desire for th e Lady. The Lady therefore functions as a unique short circuit in which theObj ectof desire itselfcoincides with theforce that prevents its attainment - in a way,th e object 'is' its own withdrawal, its own retraction. It is against this background that one must conceive of the often mentioned, yet no less often misunderstood, 'phallic ' value of the woma n in Laca n - his eq ua tio n Woman = Phallus. That is to say, precisely
th e same paradox characterizes the phallic signifier qua sign ifie r of castration. 'Castration means that jouissance must be refused, so that it can be reached on the inverted ladder of the Law of desire. -17 How is this 'economic paradox' feasible, how can the machinery of desire be 'set in motion' - th at is to say, how can 'the subj ect be made to renounce enj oyme nt not for another, higher Cause but simpl y in order to gain access to it? Or - to quote Hegel 's for.mulation of the same paradox how is it that we can attain identity only by losing it? There is only one solu tion to this problem: the phallus, the signifier of enjoyment. had simultaneously to be the signifier of •castration ,, that is to say, one and the same signifierhad tosignify enj oyment as wellas its loss, In this way, it becomes possible that the very agency which entices us to search for enjoyment induces us to renounce it.IS Back to the Lady: are we, therefore.justified in con ceiving of th e Lad y as th e personification of the Western metaphysical passion, as an exorbitant, almost parodical example of metaphysi cal hubris, of the elevatio n of a particular entity or featu re into th e Ground of all being? O n closer examination, what co nstitutes this metaph ysical or simply philosophical hubris? Let us take what might app ea r to be a surprising exam ple . In Marx, the specifically philosojJhical dimension is at work when he po ints ou t that production , on e of the fo u r moments of the totality of production , distribution, exchange and consump tio n, is simultaneously the encompassing totality of th e four moments, confer ring its specific colour on that totality. (He gel made the same point in asserting that every genus has two species, itself and its species - that is to say, the genus is always one of its own species.) The 'philosophi cal' or 'me taphysical' is this very 'absolutization', this elevation of a particular moment of the totality into its Ground, this hubris whi ch 'disrupts' the harmony of a balanced Whole. Let us mention two approaches to language: that ofJohn L. Austin and that of Oswald Ducrot. Why is it legitimate to treat their work as 'philosophy'? Austin's division of all verbs int o performatives and constatives is not ye t philosophy proper: we en ter the domain of philosophy with his 'unbalanced', 'excessive' hypothesis that ever y pr oposition, including a consta tive, already is a performatiue - that the performative, as one of the two moments of th e Whole, simultan eously is the Whole. The same goes for Oswald Ducrot's thesis that every predicate possesses, over and above its informative valu e , an argumenta tive value. We remain within the dom ain of positive science as long as we simply endeavour to discern in each predicate the level of information and the level of argumentation - that is, the specific modality of how cer tain information 'fits' some argumentative attitude. We enter philoso ph y with the 'excessive ' hypothesis that the predicate as such, including its
96
97
METASTASES OF E NJ O Y M ENT
informative content, is nothing but a condensed argumentative attitude, so that
we can never 'distil' from it its 'p ure' informative content, untainted by some argumentative attitude. H e re, of course, we encounter the paradox of 'non-all': the fact that 'no aspect of a predicate's content remains unaffected by some argumentative attitude' does not authorize us to draw the seemingly obvious universal conclusion that 'the entire content of a predicate is argumentative' - the elusive surplus that persists, alth ough it cannot be pinned down anywhere, is the Lacanian Real. T h is, perhaps, offers another way of considering Heidegger's 'onto logical difference': as the distance that always yawns between the (specific feature, elevated into the) Gr o u nd of the totality and the Real which eludes this Ground, which itself cannot be 'Grounded' in it. That is to say, 'non-metaphysical' is not a 'balanced' totality devoid of any hubris, a totality (or, in more H ei dcggerian terms: the Whole of entities) in which no particular aspect or entity is elevated into its Grou nd . T h e domain of entities gains its consistency from its sup-posited Groun d , so that 'non-metaphysics' can only be an insight into the difference between G rou nd and the elusive Re al wh ic h - al though its positive content ('reality') is grounded in the Ground - no ne th e less el udes and und e r m ines the reign of the Ground . An d now, back to the Lady again: th is is why the Lady is not another name for the metaphysical Ground but, on the contrary, one of the names for the self-retracting Real which, in a way, grounds the Ground itself. And in so far as one of the names for the metaphysical Ground of all entities is 'supreme Good', the Lady quaThing can also be designated as the embodiment of radical Evil, of the Evil that Edgar Allan Poe, in two of his stories, 'The Black Cat' and 'The Imp of the Perverse', called the 'spirit of perverseness': Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. YetI am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart. . . , Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a stupid action , for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? ('The Black Cat') . . . it is, in fact, a mobile without motive, a motive not motioiert: Through its promptings we act without comprehensible object; or, if this shall be understood as a contradiction in terms, we may so far modify the proposition as to say, that through its promptings we act, for the reason that we should not. In theory, no reason can be more unreasonable; but, in fact, there is none more strong... . I am not more certain that I breathe, than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any action is often the one unconquerable force which
98
COU R TLY L O VE, OR , W O M A N AS TH l NG
impels us, and alone impels us to its prosecution. Nor will this overwhelming tendency to do wrong for the wrong's sake, admit of analysis, or resolution into ulterior elements. It isa radical, a primitive impulse - elementary. (The Imp of the Perverse') The affinity of crime as an unmotivated acte gratuit to art is a sta n d ard topic of Romantic theory (the Rom an tic cult of th e artist comprises th e notion of the artist qua crimin al) : it is deeply significa nt th at Poe's formulas ('a mobile without motive, a motive not motiviert') immediately recall Kant's determinations of the aesthetic experience (' pur poseful ness without purpose', etc.). What we must not overlook he re is the crucial fact that this command - 'You must because you ar e not allowed to I' , that is to say, a purely negative grounding of an act accomplished only because it is pro h ibited - is possible o n ly with in the differe ntial symb olic o rde r in which negative d e te rmi na tion as such has a positive reach - in which the very absence of a fea ture func tio ns as a positivefeature. Poe 's 'imp of the perverse' therefore m ar ks the poin t at whic h the motivation of an act, as it were , cuts off its external link to empirical objects and grounds itself solely in the immanent circle of self-reference - in short, Poe 's 'im p ' correspo nds to the point of freedo m in th e s trict Kantian sense. This reference to Kant is far from accidental. According to Kan t, the faculty of desiring does not possess a transcendental status, since it is wholIy dependent upon pathological objects and motivations. Lacan, on the contrary, aims to demonstrate the transcendental status of this facul ty - that is, the possibility of formulating a motivation for our desire that is totally independent of pathology (such a non-pathological object cause of desire is the Lacanian objet petit a). Poe's 'imp of the perverse' offers us an immediate example of such a pure motivation: when I accomplish an act 'only because it is prohibited', I remain within the universal-symbolic domain, without reference to any empirical contingent object - that is to say, I accomplish what is stricto sensu a non pathological act. Here, then, Kant miscalculated his wager: by cleansing the domain of ethics of pathological motivations, he wanted to extirpate the very possibility of doing Evil in the guise of Good; what he actually did was to open up a new domain of Evil far more uncanny than the usual 'pathological' Evil.
Exemplifications From the thirteenth century to modern times, we encounter numerous variations on this matrix of courtly love. In Les liaisons dangereuses, for
99
METASTASES OF ENJOYMENT
COURTLY LOVE, OR, W O MAN AS THING
example, the relationship between the Marquise de Montreuil and Valmont is clearly the relationship between a capricious Lady and her servant. The paradox here turns on the nature of the task the servant must perform in order to earn the promised gesture of Mercy: he must seduce other ladies. His Ordeal requires that, even at the height of passion, he maintain a cold distance towards his victims: in the very moment of triumph, he must humiliate them by abandoning them without reason, thereby proving his fidelity to the Lady. Things get complicated when Valmont falls in love with one of his victims (Presi足 dente de Tourve!) and thereby 'betrays his Duty'; the Marquise is quite justified in dismissing his excuse (the famous 'c'est pas rna faute'; it's beyond my control, it's the way things are ...) as beneath Valrnont's dignity, as a miserable recourse to a 'pathological' state of things (in the Kantian sense of the term). The Marquise's reaction to Valmont's 'betrayal' is thus strictly ethical: Valmont's excuse is exactly the same as the excuse invoked by moral weaklings when they fail to perform their duty - 'I just couldn't help it, such is my nature, I'm simply not strong enough .. .'. Her message to Valmont recalls Kant's motto 'Du kannst, denn du sollstI [You can, because you must!]'. For that reason, the punishment imposed by the Marquise on Valmont is quite appropriate: in renouncing the Presidente de Tourvel, he must have recourse to exactly the same words - that is, he must compose a letter to her, explaining to her that 'it's not his fault' if his passion for her has expired, it's simply the way things are .... Another variation on the matrix of courtly love emerges in the story of Cyrano de Bergerac and Roxane. Ashamed of his obscene natural deformity (his too-long nose), Cyrano has not dared to confess his love to the beautiful Roxane; so he interposes between himself and her a good-looking young soldier, conferring on him the role of proxy through whom he expresses his desire. As befits a capricious Lady, Roxane demands that her lover articulate his love in elegant poetic terms; the unfortunate simple-minded young soldier is not up to the task, so Cyrano hastens to his assistance, writing passionate love letters for the soldier from the battlefield. The denouement takes place in two stages, tragic and melodramatic. Roxane tells the soldier that she does not love his beautiful body alone; she loves his refined soul even more: she is so deeply moved by his letters that she would continue to love him even if his body were to become mutilated and ugly. The soldier shudders at these words: he realizes that Roxane does not love him as he really is but as the author of his letters - in other words, she unknowingly loves Cyrano. Unable to endure this humiliation, he rushes suicidally in to an attack and dies; Roxane enters a cloister, where she has regular visits from Cyra no , who keeps her informed about the social life of Paris.
During one of these visits Roxane asks him to read aloud the last letter of her dead lover. The melodramatic moment now sets in: Roxane suddenly notices that Cyrano does not read the letter, he recites it _ thereby proving that he is its true author. Deep ly shaken, she recognizes in this crippled merrymaker her true love. But it is already too la t e : Cyrano has come to this meeting mortally wounded.... One of the most painful and troubling scenes from David Lynch's Wild at Heart is also comprehensible only against the matrix of the logic of suspension that characterizes courtly love. In a lonely motel room Willem Dafoe exerts a rude pressure on Laura Dern: he touches squeezes her, invading the space of her intimacy and repeating i n a threatening way 'Say fuck me!', that is, extorting from her a word that would signal her consent to a sexual act. The ugly, unpleasan t Scene drags itself on, and when, finally, th e ex hausted Laura Dern utters a barely audible 'Fuck mel', Dafoe abr u ptly steps away, assumes a nice friendly smile and cheerfully retorts: ' No th an ks, I do n't have tim e tOday; but on another occasion I would do it gladly ... '. He has attained what he really wanted: not the act itself, just her consent to it, he r sym b olic humiliation. What intervenes here is the function of the big O th e r, the trans-subjective symbolic order; by means of his intrusive pressure, Dafo e wants to extort the inscription, the 'registration', of her consent in th e field of the big Other. The reverse variation on the same motif is at work in a short love scene from Truffaut's La nuit americaine (Day for Night). When, on the drive from the hotel to the studio, a car tyre blows, the assistant cameraman and the script-girl find themselves alone on a lake shore. The assistant, who has pursued the girl for a long time, seizes the opportunity and bursts into a pathetic speech about how much he desires her and how much it would mean to him if, now that they are alone, she were to consent to a quick sexual encounter; the girl simply says 'Yes, why not?' and starts to unbutton her trousers.... This non-sublime gesture, of course, totally bewilders the seducer, who conceived of her as the unattainable Lady: he can only stammer 'How do you mean? Just like that?' What this scene has in common with the scene from Wild at Heart (and what sets it within the matrix of courtly love) is the unexpected gesture of refusal: the man's response to the woman's 'Yes!', obtained by long, arduous effort, is to refuse the act. We encounter a more refined variation on the matrix of courtly love in Eric Rohmer's Ma nuit chezMaud; courtly love provides the only lOgic that can account for the hero's lie at the end. The central part of the film depicts the night that the hero and his friend Maud spend together; they talk long into the small hours and even sleep in the same bed, but the sexual act does not take place, owing to the hero's indecision - he is
100
101
an.d
MET A S TAS E S OF ENJOYM ENT
unable to seize the opportunity, obsessed as he is by the myste rio us blonde woman whom h e saw the eveni ng before in a ch u rch. Although he docs not yet kn ow who she is, he has already decid ed to ma rry h e r (i.e . th e blonde is h is Lady) . T he fin al sce ne takes p lace several yea rs later. T he hero, now happily mar ried to the blon d e, encou nters Maud on a beach ; when his wife asks hi m who th is u nknown woman is, the hero te lls a lie - apparen tly to his detrimen t; he informs h is wife that Maud was his last love adven ture before marriage. Why th is lie? Because t.he tr u th cou ld have aroused the suspicion that Maud also oc cu pied the place of the Lady, with whom a brief, noncommittal sex ual enco un te r is not poss ible - prec isely by telli ng a lie to his wife , by claiming that he did h ave sex with Maud, he assures h e r tha t Maud was no t h is Lady, bu t j ust a passing fri e n d , The defi nitive version of courtly love in recent decades, of course, ar rives in the figu re of the femmef atale in fi lm n oir: the traumatic Wom an足 T h ing who, th ro ugh h e r greedy an d capricious demands , brings ruin to the hard-boiled h e ro. The key rol e is played he re by the third person (as a rule the gangster boss) to whom the f emmefa tale 'lega lly' belongs: his presence renders her inaccessible and thus confers on the hero's relatio nship with her the mark of transgression . By means of his involvemen t with her, the hero betrays the pa te rnal figu re who is also hi s boss (in The Glass Key, Killers, Criss-cross, Out of the Past, e tc.) . This lin k be tween the co ur tly Lady and th e JemmeJatale fro m the noir universe ma y ap pear surprisin g: is not th e femmef atale in fil m noi1,the ve ry opposite of the nohle sove reign Lad y to who m the kni ght vows service? Is not the hard-bo iled hero ash a med of the a ttra ctio n he fee ls fo r h e r ; doesn 't he hat e her (an d h imself) for loving he r; doe sn ' t he expe rie n ce h is love for her as a betrayal of h is tr ue self? However, if we bear in m ind the original traumatic impact of th e La dy, not its secondary idealiza tio n , the conn ection is clear : like the Lad y, the Jemmefatale is an 'i n hu m an partner', a trauma tic Object with whom n o re lati o ns hi p is possib le, an ap a th e tic void imposin g senseless, arbitr ar y orde als.l''
From the Courtly Game to The Crying Game The key to th e extrao rdin ary and unexpected succ ess of Neil J orda n 's The Crying Game is perh aps the ul timate variatio n th at it delivers on the motif of courtly love. Let us re call the o utl ines of th e story: Fergus, a member of the IRA guarding a cap tu red b lack British soldier, develo ps friendly links with him ; th e so ld ier asks h im, in the event of his liquidation, to pay a visit to hi s girlfriend, DiI, a hairdresse r in a Lo n d on suburb , and to give he r hi s last regar ds . Afte r the death of th e sold ie r,
102
COUR T L Y L OV E . O R . W O M A N A S T H I NG
Fe rg us with d raws fro m the IRA, moves to London , finds a job bric klayer an d pays a visit to the soldier's love , a beautiful black wom H e falls in love with her, bu t Dil maintains an ambiguous iro sovereign distance to wards him. Fin ally,she gives way to his advances; before they go to bed toge the r she leaves for a brief moment, return in a tra nsparen t ni gh tgown ; wh ile casting a covetous glance a t her h Fe rgus suddenly pe rce ives he r pen is - 'she ' is a transvestite . Sick ened cr udely pushes her away. Shaken and wet with tears, Dil tells him that th o ugh t he knew all the time how things stood (in his obsession with th e hero - as well as the public - did not notice a host of telltale de t including the fact that the hal' where they usually met was a mee t p lace for transve stite s) . This scene of the failed sexual enco unte structured as the exact inversion of the scene referred to hy Freud as primordial trauma of fet ishism: the child 's gaze, sliding down the na female body towards the sexual organ , is shocked to find nothing w one expects to see something (a penis) - in the case of The Cryi11g G the shock is caused when the eye finds something where it expe nothing. Afte r th is painful revelatio n, the relationship between th e tw reversed : n ow it tu rn s o ut tha t Oil is passio nately in love with Fer although she knows her lo ve is impossible . Fro m a capricious and ir sovere ign Lady she ch an ges in to the pa thet ic figure of a delic sensitive boy who is despera tely in love. It is on ly a t this poi nt that love e mer ges, love as a me tapho r in th e precise Lacan ian senser'? witness the sublime momen t when eromenos (t he loved one) changes erastes (th e loving one) by stret ching o u t h er hand an d ' re tu rnin g lo T his mo me nt design a tes the 'miracle' ofl ove, the mo ment of the 'an of the Real' ; as such , it pe rhaps e nables us to gras p wha t Lacan ha mind wh e n he insists th at th e su bje ct itself has th e statu s of an 'ans of th e Rea\'. T hat is to say, up to this reve rsal the loved one has the st of an o bj ect: h e is loved on account of som ething th at is 'in him m th an h imself' a nd that he is un awar e of- I can never a nswer th e ques 'Wh at am I as an o bj ect for the othe r? Wh a t doc s the o the r see in me causes his love?'. We thus co nfro n t an asymmetry - not o n ly asymmetry be tween subj ect an d o bject, but asymm e try in a far m radical sense of a discord be tween wha t the lover sees in the loved an d what the lo ved one kn ows himself to be . Here we find the inescapab le dea dl ock that defines th e position of loved on e: th e oth er sees so me thing in me and wants something f me , but I ca nnot give hi m what I do n o t possess - or, as Lacan put there is no rela tio n ship be tween wh at the loved one possesses and w rhe lovin g one lacks. The only way fo r the loved one to escape deadlock is to str e tch ou t his ha n d towards th e loving one and to 'ret
103
M E T A S TAS E S O F ENJ OYME N T
love' - that is, to exchange, in a me taphorical gestu re, hi s sta tus as the loved on e for th e status of the loving on e . This reversal designates the po int of su bjectivizatio n : the object of love changes into the su bject th e mo m e nt it answers th e ca ll of love. And it is only by way of this reversal tha t a genuine love e merges: I am tr uly in love no t when I am simply fascinate d by the agalma. in th e other, but when I experience the other, the obje ct of love, as fr ail an d lost, as lacking ' it', an d my love none the less su rvives th is loss. We must be especially atte n tive here so that we do not miss th e point of this rev ersal: although we no w have two loving su bjects instea d of the ini tia l duality of the lovin g o ne and the loved o ne, th e asymmetr y pe rsists, sinc e it was th e obj ect itself that, as it were , confe ssed to its lack by m eans of it.s subjeetivization. Something de epl y embarrassing an d tr u ly scan d alous abid es in this reversal by means of wh ich the myste riou s, fasci nating, elusive objec t of love discloses its d ead lock, and th us acquires th e sta tus of an o ther subj ect. We encou n ter the sam e reversal in horror sto ries: is n ot the most SUb lime m om ent in Mar y Shelley's Franhenstein the m omen t of the m onster 's su bjectivization - the momen t when th e m ons ter-o bject (who h as been co n tin ua lly desc ribed as a r u thless killing mach ine ) starts talkin g in the first person, r evealing his m iserable, pi tifu l existence? It. is deep ly symp tomatic that all the films based on Shelley's Frankenstein have avoided th is gesture of subj ectivization . And perh ap s, in cour tly love itself, the long-awaited mo me nt of highest fulfilmen t, when the Lady re nders Gnade, mercy, to her se rvan t, is no t th e Lad y's surrender, her consent to th e sexual act, nor some mysterious rite of initiation, but sim p ly a sign of love on th e part of th e Lad y, the 'm iracle' that the Obj ect a nswered, stretchin g its h and ou t toward s th e supplican t." So, back to TheCrying Game: Dil is now rea dy to d o anyth ing for Fergu s, a n d he is more and more m oved and fascina ted by th e absolute, u n condition al character of her love for him, so that he overco mes his ave r sion and contin ues to co nsole her. At th e end, whe n the IRA again tries to involve him in a terrorist act, he even-sacrifices himself for Dil a n d assumes respon sibil ity for a killin g she co mmitted. The last scene of the film takes place in th e prison where she visits h im , again d ressed up as a provocatively seductive wom an , so that every man in th e visiting room is aroused by her looks . Althou gh Fergu s has to endure more th an fo ur thousan d days of prison - they coun t them up tog eth er - she cheerfu lly pledges to wait for h im and visit h im reg ul arly. . . . Th e exter nal impedimen t - the glass-p ar tition in the prison preventing any physical con tact - is h er e th e exac t equivalent to th e obstacle in cou r tly lo ve that re nders th e object in accessible; it thereb y accoun ts for the abs o lute, un condition al character of this love in spite of its in heren t 104
COU RT L Y LO VE , OR , WOM AN AS THI N G
impo ssibility - th at is, in spite of the fa ct that their love wiII nev e r be consummated , since he is a 'straight' heterosexual and sh e is a homo sexu al tran svestite. In his In trodu ction to th e published sc r e e n_ play,J ord an p oin ts ou t that the story ended with a kind of happiness. I saya kind of happiness, because it involved the separation of a prison cell and other more pro fOun d separations, of racial, national, and sexual identity. But for the lovers, it Was the irony of what divided them that allowed them to smile. So perhaps there ishope for our divisions yet.22 Is not the divisio n - th e un surmountable barrier - that allows fo r a smile the most co ncise mechan ism of courtly love? What we have he re is an 'i mpo ssible' love whic h will n ever be consu mmated , which ca n be realized only as a feigned spec tacle in ten ded to fascinate the gaze of th e spectators present, or as an endlessly postpon ed exp ectation; th is lo ve is absolute pr ecisely in so far as it tra nsgresses not onl y the barriers of cl ass religion an d ra ce, but also the ulti m ate b arrier of sexua l orien tation , of sexual iden tification. Herein resides the film 's par adox an d, at the sa m e time , its irresistible charm: far from d enouncing heterosexu al love as a product of m ale repression, it renders the precise circumstance s in which th is love can today retain its ab solute, un conditional character.
The Crying Game Goes East T his reading- of The Crying Game im me d ia tely brings to mind o ne of the standard reproach es to Lacanian th eory: in all his talk ab ou t feminin e inconsistency, and so on , Lacan spe aks abou t woman on ly as she appears or is mirrored in mal e discourse, abo u t her distorted reflection in a medium th at is foreign to her, neve r abo u t woman as she is in he rself: to Lacan , as ear lier to Freud , feminine sexuality re mains a 'dark co n tine nt '. In an swer to thi s reproach, we must emphatically assert that if the fund amen tal H egelian paradox of reflexivity re mains in for ce anYWhe re it is here: the remove, the step back, from woman-in-herself to how woman qua ab sent Cause distorts male discourse b rings us muc h clOser to the 'fem in ine essence' than a d irect approach. T ha t is to say, is not 'woma n ' ultimately just the name for a distortion or infl ection of the male discourse? Is no t the spectr e of 'wom an-in-herself' , fa r fro m being the active cause of this distortion , rather its reified-fetish ized effect? All these questions are impli citly ad dressed by M. ButterftÂť (d irec ted by David Cronenberg, script by David H enry Hwang from hi s own play) , a film whose subtitle could weI! have been 'The Crying Game' Goes to China.
105
M E T A STASE S O F EN J O YM E N T
The first feature of this film that stri kes th e eye is th e utter ' im p robabil ity' of its narrative: without th e informati on (given in th e credits) that the story is based on true events, nobody would take it seriously. During the Gr eat Cultural Revolution, a minor French diplomat in Beijing Oerem y Irons) falls in love with a Chinese op era singer who sings some Pu ccini arias at a reception for foreign er s (john Lone ). His courting leads to a lasting love relationship; th e singe r, who is to him the fatal love o bj ec t (with refer en c e to Pu ccini 's ope ra, he affectionately calls her 'my butterfly' ), apparently becomes pregnant, and produces a child. While th e ir affair is go ing on she induces him to spy for China, claiming that thi s is th e only way th e Chines e au tho rities will toler ate their associati on . After a professional failure th e diplomat is transferred to Paris, where he is assign ed to the minor po st of diplomatic cour ier. Soo n after wards, his love joins him th ere and tells him th at if he will carry on spying for China, the Chinese authorities will allow 'their' ch ild to join th em. When, finally, French sec u rity discovers his spying activities and the y arc both arres ted, it turns out th at 'she ' is not a woman at all, but a man in hi s Eurocentric ign orance, the hero did not know that in Ch inese op era, fem ale roles are sung by men. It is here th at th e story str etches th e limits of our cred u lity: how was it th at th e hero , in the ir lon g yea rs of co nsu mmated love, d id not see that he was dealin g with a m an ? T he singer incessantl y evoke d th e Ch inese sense of sham e, s/' he neve r undressed, they had (unbeknownst to him , an al) sex discreetly, sl he sitting on hi s lap .. . in shor t, what he mistoo k for the shyn ess of the Oriental woman was, on 'her' side, a deft m anipulation destined to con ceal th e fact that 'she' was not a woman at all. The choice of th e music th at ob sesses th e hero is cru cial h ere: th e fam ous aria 'Un bel di , ved remo' from Madama Butterfly, perhap s the mo st expressive exa mple of Puccini's ges tu re that is th e ver y opposite of bashful self-co ncealmen t - the ob scenely cand id self-exposure of the (feminine ) su bject that always borders upon kitsch. The subject pathet ically professes what she is a nd what sh e wants , she lays bare her most intimate an d f rail dreams - a co nfession which, of course , reaches its apogee in th e desire to die (in 'Un bel di, vedremo', Madama Butterfly imagin es th e sce ne of Pinkerton 's return: at first, she will n ot an swer his call, ' in part for fun and in part no tto die at the first encou n ter [per non
COU R T LY L OV E , O R, WO M AN AS T H ING
From what we haveju st sa id, it may seem that the hero 's tragic blunder co nsists in projecting his fan tasy-imag e on to an inadequa te object - that is to say, in mistaking a real person for his fanta sy-image o f th e love object, th e Oriental woman of th e Madama Butterfly type. However, things are definitely more complex . The key scene of the film occurs after the tr ial, wh en th e hero and his Chinese partner, now in an
ordinary man 's suit, find themselves alone in th e closed compartment of a police car on their way to pri son . The Chinese takes off his-clothes and offers himself nak ed to the hero, desperately pr oclaiming his availability: 'Here I am, your butterfly!' He proposes himself as what he is outsid e the hero 's fantasy-frame 'of a mysterious Oriental woman. At thi s crucial moment, the hero retracts: h e avoids his lover 's eyes an d rej ects the offer. It is here that h e gives up his desire and is th ereby marked by an indelible guilt: he betrays the true love that aim s at th e re al kernel of th e object beneath the ph antasmic layers. That is to say, th e paradox resid es in the fact that althoug h he loved the Chinese without any unde rhand though ts, while the Chinese manipulated his love on beh alf of the Ch ine se secret service , it now becomes obvi ou s that the Chinese's love was in some se nse purer and far more authe nti c. Or, as]ohn le Car re put it in A PerfectSpy: 'Love is whatever you can still betray'. As every read er of 'true' spy adven tu res knows very well , a large number of cases in which a woman ha s seduced a man out of duty, in o rd er to extr act from him som e vital piece of information (or vice versa) end with a happy m arriage - far from dispelling th e mirage o f love, the di sclosur e of th e de ceitful man ipul ation that brought the lovers together only stren gth ened their bond, To put it in Deleuzian terms: we are dealing here with a split between the 'd ep th ' of reality, the intermixtur e of bodies in which th e othe r is the instrument I mercilessly exploit, in which love itself and sexuality are reduced to m eans manipulated for politico-military purposes, and th e level of love qua pure surface event Manipulation at the level of bodily reality renders all th e more manifest love qua sur face even t, qua effect irreducible to its bodily suppo r t.i'" The painful final scen e of the film conveys th e hero's full recogn it ion of his guilt.24 In prison, th e hero stages a performance for his vulgar and noisy fellow-prison ers: dress ed as Madama Butterfly (ajapan ese kimono, heavily made -up face ) and accompan ied by excerpts from Puccini's opera, he ret ells his story; at the very climax of 'Un bel di, vedr emo ', he cu ts his throat with a razor and collapses dead. Th is scene of a man performing public suicide dr essed as a woman h as a long an d respect abl e history: suffice it to mention Hitchcock' s Murder (1930) , in which th e murderer Handel Fan e, dressed as a female trape ze artist, h an gs h imself in fro n t of a pack ed house aft er 'fin ishing his number. In M. Butterfly, as in Munw; this act is of a str ictly eth ical nature: in both cases the hero stage s a psychotic identification with his love object , with his sin thome (synth etic formation of the nonexistent woman , 'Butterfly' ) th at is, he 'regresses' from the object-choice to an immediate identifica tion with the obj ect ; the only way out of the inso luble deadlock of this identification is suicide qua th e ultimate passage d l'acte. Byhis suicidal act th e hero makes up for his guilt, for his rejection of the obje ct when the
106
107
morir al primo incontro]' ) .
MET A ST A SES O F ENJ O Y M ENT
C O U R T L Y L O VE , OR, W OMA N AS T HI N G
object was offered to h im ou tside the fan tasy-fram e . Here , of cou rse, the old objection again awaits us: u ltimately, does not M. Butterfly o ffe r, a tra gicomic confused bundle of male fan tasies about women, not a true rel a tio nshi p with a woman? T he entire action of the film takes place among men. Does not the grotesq ue incredibility ofthe plot simultaneously mask and pain t towards the fact that what we are dealing with is a case of homosexual love for the transvestite? The film is simply disho n est, and refuses to acknowledge th is obvious fact. T his 'elu cidatio n ', however, fails to address the tr ue enigma of M. Butterfly (an d of The Crying Game): how can a hopeless love between the hero and his partner, a man dressed up as a woman, realize the no tion of heterosexual love far more 'authentically' than a 'normal ' relationship with a woman?
between pure subjects. The bo urgeois principle of con tr act be twe en equal su bj ec ts can be ap p lied to sexu ality only in the form of th e perverse - masochistic - contract in which, paradoxically, the very form of balanced contract serves to establish a re lationship of dom in a tion . I t is n o accident that in the so-ca lled alter native sexual practices ('s ad omaso chistic' lesb ian and gay cou ples) the Master-and-Slave relation sh ip re-emerges with a vengeance , including all the ingredients of the masochistic theatre. In oth er word s, we are far from inven ting a new 'formula' capa ble of replacing the m atrix of courtly love. For th at reason, it is mislead in g to read The Crying Game as an an ti political talc of escape into privacy - that is to say, as a vari ation on th e theme of a revolu tion ary who , disillusioned by the cr uel ty of the pol i tical power-p lay, discovers sexual love as th e sole field of persona l realizat io n, of au then tic existe ntial fulfilme n t. Po litically, the film remains fait hf u l to the Irish cause , which fun ction s as its in h erent backgrou nd . The pa ra dox is that in the ver y sphere o f privacy where the hero hope d to find a safe haven, he is compelled to accomplish an even .more vert igin ous revolution in his mos t in timate person al att itudes. Thus The Crying Game elud es the usual ideological di le m ma of ' privacy as the islan d of auth en ticity, exempt fro m po litica l power-play' versus 'sexuality as yet an o th er domain of political activity': it re nde rs visible the antagonistic complicity between public p olitical activi ty an d person al sexu al su bver sion , the an tagonism that is already at work in Sade , who demande d a sexual revolution as the ultimate accomplishmen t of the political revolution. In short, the subtitle of The Crying Game could have be en 'Irishmen, yet another effort, if you want to become republicansI'.
H ow, then, are we to interpret this perseveran ce of th e matrix of courtly love? It bears witness to a certain deadlock in co n tem porary feminism. T ru e , th e co u r tly im age of man serving his Lady is a semblance that co n ce als th e actuality of male domin ation ; tr ue, th e m asochist's theatre is a p rivate mise en scene design ed to reco mpense the guilt con tracted by man 's social d om in a tion ; true, the elevation of woman to the su blime object of love equals h er debasement into th e passive stuff or screen for the narcissistic projection of the male ego-ideal, and so on . Lacan himself points out how, in the very epoch of courtly love, the actual social standing of women as objects of exchange in male power-plays was probably at its lowest. However, this very semblance of man serving his Lady provides women with th e fantasy-substance of their identity whose effects are real: it provides them with all the features that con stitute so-called 'fem in inity' and define woman not as she is in her jouissance feminine, but as she refers to herself with regard to her (potential) relationship to man, as an object of his desire. From this fantasy-structure springs the n ear-panic reaction - not only of men, but also of many a woman - to a feminism that wants to deprive woman of her ver y 'femininity'. By opposing ' patri archal domination', women simultane ously undermine the fantasy-support of their own 'feminine ' identity. The problem is that once the relationship between the two sexes is conceived of as a symmetrical, reciprocal, voluntary partnership or contract, the fantasy matrix which first emerged in courtly love remains in power. Why? In so far as sexual difference is a Real that resists symbolization, the sexual relationship is condemned to remain an asymmetrical non-relationship in which the Other, our partner, prior to being a subject, is a Thing, an 'inhuman partner'; as such, the sexual relationship cannot be transposed into a symmetrical relationship 108
Notes 1. Jacques Lacan, TheEthicsojPsychoanalysis, London: Routledge 1992, P: 149. 2. Ibid" p . 150; translation modified, 3. Is n ot Lacan's definit ion of the Real as that which always returns to its place 'p re Einstein ian ' an d, as such, de-valorized by the relativization of spa ce with regard to the obser ver's point of view - that is, by the cancellation of the notion of absolute space and time? However, the theor y of relativity involves its own absolute constant: the spa ce-time interval between two events is an absolute th at never varies. Space-time interval is d efined as the hypotenuse of a right- angled triangle who se legs are the time and space dist.ance between the two events. One observer may be in a state of motion such that for him th ere is a time and a distance involved between th e two events; another may be in a state of moti on such that his measu ring devices indicate a different distanc e and a different time between the even ts, but the space-time int erval between them do es not vary. This con stant is the Lacanian Real that 'remains th e sam e in all possible universes'. 1_ Lacan, The Ethics oj Psychoanalysis, p, 151. 5. It is clear, therefore, that it would be a fateful mistake to identify the Lady in courtly love, this unconditional Ideal of the Woman, with woman in so far as she is not submitted (0 phallic enj oymen t the op position of everyd ay, 'tamed' woman , with whom sexual
109
M E TA S T A S E S OF E NJ OYMENT relationshi p may appear po ssible, and th e ' Lady qua 'inhuman pa rtner', has nothing wh atso eve r to do with the opposition of wom an sub m itt ed to phalli c sign ifier and woman qu a bearer of th e O the r e nj oyme n t. The Lady is th e projectio n of man's narcissistic Ideal, her figu re emer ges as the result of the masoch istic pac t by way of whi ch woman accepts the rol e of dominatrix in the theatre staged by ma n . For tha t reason , Rosset ti's Beata Beatrix, fo r example , is no t to be perce ived as th e figu ra tio n of th e O th e r e nj oym e n t: as with Isolde 's love death in Wagner's Tristan, we are d ealin g with ma.. 's fantasy . 6. Lacan , T heE thies ofPsychoan alysis, p. 15I. 7. Gilles De leuze , 'Cold ness and Cruelty' , in Maso chism, New York: Zo n e Press 1991 . 8. Fo r that reason lesbi an sadomasochism is far m or e subversive th an th e usual 'soft' lesbianism , whi ch elevates tende r re la tio n sh ips between wo men in co n tr ast to aggressive足 p ha llic ma le pe netration: alt houg h th e conten t of lesbian sadomasochism imita tes ' aggr essive ' phallic heterosexuality, this conten t is subver ted by the ver y con trac tua l form . 9. H e re th e logi c is the sam e as in the 'non-psychological' un ive rse of Twin Peaks, in wh ich we e n co u nt er two m ain types of people: 'normal', everyday people (based on soap足 op era cliches) and 'c razy' eccentri cs (th e lad y with a log , et c.) ; the uncan ny quality of the Twin Peaks universe h in ges on the fact that the relationship bet.wee n these two gr oups follows th e rules of 'norm al ' comm unication: 'normal' peo ple are no t. at all am azed or o utraged by the strange behaviour of the ecce ntrics; th ey acc ept them as part of their dai ly routine . 10. P.D.James, A Tastefor Death, London and Boston, MA: Fab er & Faber 1986, P: 439 . 11. Ibid. , p. 44 0. 12. An exem plar y cas e of th e inverse co nstella tio n - of the gaze qua objet a h yste ricizing the othe r - is provid ed by Ro be r t Mo n tgome r y's L ady in the Lake, a film whose interest consists in its very failure . The poi n t. of view of th e har d-boiled d e tective to wh ich we are confined via a contin uous subjective camera in no way arouses in us , the spe ctators, the impression th at we are actually watching th e eve nts th rou g h th e eyes of th e person sh own by th e camera in the p rologue or the e p ilogue (th e o n ly 'o bj ective sho ts' in the film) or wh en it confro n ts a mirror. Even when Marl owe 'se es hi msel f in the mi rro r ', the spec tato r does n ot acc e p t that th e fa ce he sees, th e eyes on it, is the point o f view of the camera. When the camera drags on in its clumsy, slow way it see ms, rather, that the point of view is tha t of a living dead from Rome ro 's Night of the Li ving Dead (th e same associa tion is furthe r encouraged by th e Christmas choral musi c, very unusu al for a fi lm noir) . Mo re p re cisely, it is as if th e camera is posi tio ned next to or closely behind Marlowe an d som eh ow looks over h is back, imi tating th e virt ual gaze of h is shadow, of h is ' u nd ead ' sublime do ub le . There is no double to be seen nex t to Marlowe, sinc e thi s double , what is in Marlowe 'more than h imself', is th e gaze itse lf as th e Lacan ian obj et petit a th at does no t have a specular im age. (T he voice that runs a co mm e n tar y on the story belongs to thi s gaze, no t to Marl owe qua di ege tic p er son .) This obje ct-gaze is the cause of the desire of wo men wh o , all the tim e , tu rn towa rd s it (i.e. loo k into the ca m era) : it lays them bare in an obs cene way _ or, in other words, it hysteri cize s them by sim ulta n eou sly attracting an d re p eIling them. It is on acco u n t of this objectivization of the gaze tha t Th e La dy in the Lak e is n o t a film noir: th e essential feature of a film no ir pro per is that the poin t of view of th e nar ration is that of a su bject. 13. Sigm und Freud, 'O n the Un iversal Tendency to De base ment in the Sphe re of Love' (1912) , in James Strachey, ed ., Til" Standard Edition of the Complete Psychowgi cal Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. I I , Lo n d on : Hoga r th Press 198 6, p. 187. 14. Jacques Laca n , Le semina ire, livre XX; Encore; Pari s: Editions du Seuil 1975, p . 65. 15. Lacan , The Ethics of Psychoanalysis , p. 152. 16. ' . .. par une inversion de l'usage du terme de su blima tio n , j 'ai Ie d ro it de dire q ue nous voyon s ici la de viatio n quant au bu t se faire en sens inverse de l'objet d ' un besoin' (Jac ques Lac an, Le semin aire, livre VIII; Le transfert, Pari s: Editions du Seuil 1991, p. 250) . The same goes for every object which fun ctio ns as a sign of love : its use is suspended , it ch anges in to a means of the articu lation of th e deman d for love . 17. Ja cq ues Lacan , Ecrits: A Selection, New York: N ort on 1977, p .324. The first to formulate th is 'eco nom ic paradox of castra tion ' in th e d om ain of ph iloso p hy was Kant, One of the standard rep r oach es to Kant is that he was a contradictory thinker who got stuck
110
COURTLY LOVE, O R , W O M A N AS THI N G
halfway: on th e one hand already within th e new universe of democratic rights (i to use Eti enne Balibar's ter m ), o n th e other hand still ca ugh t in th e paradigm o subordin atio n to so me superior Law (impera tive) . H owever, Laca n 's for m u la of f (a fracti o n with a ab ove m inu s phi of cas tratio n) en ables us to grasp the co-dep of these two allege dly opposed aspects. T h e cr uc ial feat ure th at d istingu is democratic field of ega liberti from the p re-bo u rge o is field of tra d itional a u th ori po tential infinity of rig hts: rights ar e never fu lly realized 0 1' even explicitly for mulate we are de aling with an unendin g process of con tin ually art iculating new rig lu s. accoun t, the sta tus of righ ts in th e mo d er n de m o crat ic u niverse is th at of objet t",ti evasive object-cause of d esir e. Whe, e do es th is fea ture com e [ro m ? O uly one co answer is possible: rights are (potentially) infi n ite because the renu n ciation "tiOYl which based is also infinite. T he notion of a rad ical , 'infin ite ' re n un cia tion as the p individ ual mus t pay fo r his ent r y into the socia l-symb ol ic univer se - th a t is to say, th ofa 'disconte n t in civilization', of an ir re d ucible an tago nism betwee n man 's ' tr ue an d the social order - e merged o n ly with th e mode m de mo cratic u n iverse. Pr within th e field o f trad iti onal a uth ority, 'so ciability' , a pro pensity fo r subord in authority and fo r aligning on ese lf with som e co m mu n ity, was con ceived of as an par t of the ve ry ' n atu re ' of man qua uion politihon. (T h is, of co urse , does n o t mean re n u nciation - 'sym bolic castrati o n ", in psycho an alytic te rm s - was 1101 , im plicitly from th e ver y beginning: we ar e de alin g he n : with th e logic of re tro activity whe r ' beco m e what they always-alread y were': th e m odern bourgeo is un iverse of Righ visible a renunciation th at was always-already there. ) And the in fini te d o main ofrigh pr ecisely as a kin d of 'compe nsa tio n' : it is wh at we get in exchange for the ren un ciati on as the p rice we had to pa y for ou r e ntry in tu society. 18. T h is parad ox of castrati on also offe rs th e key to the fu n c tio n of pe rversio con stitu tive loop: th e pel ve rt is a subject wh o d irectly assu mes the parad ox of de inf licts pain in order to e nable e njoymen t, wh o introduces schis m in o rd er to re union , and so on . And , in cidentally, theo lo gy reso rts to o bscu re talk ab 'insc rutable d ivine mystery' p recisely at th e point whe re it woul d otherwise be co to ackn owledge the per ve rse nature of Cod: 'the ways of the Lord are mysterious usually means tha t when misfortune pursues us ever ywhere , we must presu ppose plu nged us int o misery in order to force u s to take the opport uni ty to ach ieve salvation . .. . 19. Film s tha t transpose th e n oir ma trix into another genre (science fictio n , comedy, e tc .) often exhibit so me cr ucial ingredient of the noir universe more paten the noirproper. When , for exam ple, in Who Framed Roger Rahbit?,J essica Rabbi t, a ch ar acte r, answers the re p roach of he r corruption with 'I'm not bad, I was just dr way!' , she the re by disp lays the tr u th about femm e fatale as a male fantasy - tha creature wh ose con tours ar e drawn by man . 20. See Ch ap ters 3 and 4 of Lacan , Le seminaire, livre VIII: Le transfer: (1960- 61) . 21. T h is momen t when the object of fascination subj ectivizes itself and stre tche hand is the magical moment of cro ssing the fron tie r th at separates the fantasy-spa 'ordinary' reality: it is as if, a t th is momen t, the object th at o therwise be lo ngs to sublime sp ace intervenes in 'ord inar y' reali ty. Suffi ce it to rec all a scene from Clare nce Brown 's early Hollywood me lodrama with Joan Crawfo rd. Crawford, a po town gir l, stares amaz ed at th e lux u rio us pr ivat e train th at slowly passes in fro n t th e local railway station; throu gh the wind ows of the car riages she sees the rich li on in the illuminated inside - dancing couples, cooks pre paring dinner, and so cr ucial feature o f the scene is tha t we, the spectators, tog ether with Crawford , perc train as a magic, immaterial apparition from another world . Whe n the las t car riag by, th e train comes to a halt and we see on the observation desk a good-natured d with a glass of ch a m pagn e in his han d, which str etches ove r th e railing towards C - as if, for a b rief moment, the fan tasy-space intervened in reality. . . . 22 . A N eilJordan Reader, New York: Vin ta ge Books 1993, pp . xii-xiii , T he questi ra ise d h er e is also that of inser tin g T he Crying Ga= into th e series of Jord an 's oth are IIOt the earlier M ona Lisa and Mira cle variations on the same motif? In all thr the relationsh ip be tween th e he ro an d th e enigmatic woman he is obsessed with is
111
M E T A ST A SES O F E NJ O YM E N T
to fail - bec ause she is a lesbian , because she is th e he ro' s mother, becau se she is not a 'she' at all but a tra nsvestite. J orda n thu s pr ovides a veri table matrix of the impossibilities of sexual relationsh ip. 23. As for thi s Deleuzian opp osition of surfa ce even t and bodily dept h , sec Chap ter 5 below. 24. At thi s poin t th e film diffe rs fro m 'r eality': the ' true ' he ro is still alive and rotting in a Fren ch pri son .
112