Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler

Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler
fin, sand,
Étoilent vaguement leurs prunelles
mystiques.
Vaguely star their mystic pupils.
In a headnote to the paper, Lévi-Strauss notes that the poem consisted of 'superimposed levels:
phonology, phonetics, syntax, prosody, semantics etc.' (Lane 1970, 202). The authors demonstrate
that 'the different levels on which we touched blend, complement each other or combine' (ibid., 217).
For instance, they note a link between the grammatical and semantic levels: 'All beings in the sonnet
are masculine but the cats and their alter ego, les grands sphinx, are of an androgynous nature. This
very ambiguity is emphasized throughout the sonnet by the paradoxical choice of feminine
substantives [nouns] for so-called masculine rhymes' (ibid., 221). Here is a breakdown of the rhyme
scheme which, together with the text, may assist interested readers to note patterns for themselves.
Line Rhyme English Rhyme Rhyme Grammatical Singular/plural
word equivalent scheme form function form
1 austères austere a feminine adjective plural
2 saison season B masculine noun f singular
3 maison house B masculine noun f singular
4 sédentaires sedentary a feminine adjective plural
5 volupté sensuality C masculine noun f singular
6 ténèbres dark(ness) d feminine noun f plural
7 funèbres funereal d feminine adjective plural
8 fierté pride C masculine noun f singular
9 attitudes postures e feminine noun f plural
10 solitudes emptiness e feminine noun f plural
11 fin end F masculine noun f singular
12 magiques magic(al) g feminine adjective plural
13 fin fine F masculine adjective singular
14 mystiques mystic(al) g feminine adjective plural
We have already noted the association of feminine nouns with masculine rhymes. In reflecting on
patterns in this rhyme scheme, the reader may also notice, as Lévi-Strauss and Jakobson pointed
out, the curious circumstance that in this sonnet 'all the substantives [nouns] are feminine' and that 'all
feminine rhymes are plural' (Lane 1970, 205, 220). The authors argue that 'for Baudelaire, the image
of the cat is closely linked to that of the woman', citing the association of 'puissants et doux' with
women in other poetry. Lévi-Strauss and Jakobson emphasize the importance of binary oppositions.
At the semantic level, other than what they see as 'the oscillation between male and female' in the
poem, they argue that another key opposition is animate/inanimate. At a linguistic level a fundamental
opposition is metaphor/metonymy. Again, readers may care to identify such oppositions for
themselves. The authors argue that the poem seeks to 'resolve' the oppositions which it generates at
various levels (ibid., 218-9). Whilst widely-cited, this analysis is also understandably criticized as arid
by those whom structuralism leaves cold. Being an archetypical structuralist analysis, it confines itself
to structural relations within the text (Riffaterre 1970).