A note on the translation of écartelé in Seminar XI, with echoes in Seminar IV & the Proposition of 9th October 1967
Julia Evans
This note follows the preparation of the translation of Seminar IV : 19th December 1956 (See Seminar IV : The Object Relation & Freudian Structures 1956-1957 : begins 21st November 1956 : Jacques Lacan or here http://www.lacanianworks.net/?p=11980 ) where the position of the fourth is put up for question using the card game, Piquet (paragraph 17 ‘function of the quart’) The quart has 4 cards, whereas in bridge there are 4 players, with one being the dummy.
Translation Query
I thank Bruno de Florence for his help in untangling this one.
In Vincente Palomera’s commentary on The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of its Power:10th-13th July 1958 : Jacques Lacan, on Saturday 5th April 1997, in London, he queried the translation of ‘écartelé’. Details are given below.
Julia Evans notes that ‘cartel’ is included in this word. Jacques Lacan puts the ‘cartel’ as the basis for psychoanalytic institutions in
see ‘Proposal of 9th October 1967 on the psychoanalyst of the School’: Jacques Lacan (See here or http://www.lacanianworks.net/?p=135)
& Founding Act’ 21st June 1964: Jacques Lacan or here “Each of the small groups (we have a name for designating the groups)” states Lacan, “will be composed of at least three individuals, five at most, four being the proper measure (or number is a possible translation). PLUS ONE charged with selection, discussion and the outcome….. After a certain period of functioning, the elements of a group will be invited to shift to a different group.” ‘.
Details of the queried translation:
From The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of its Power:10th-13th July 1958 : Jacques Lacan : Information and availability here http://www.lacanianworks.net/?p=138 :
published in Écrits : 1966 : Jacques Lacan : Information here http://www.lacanianworks.net/?p=1206
In French :
Allons plus loin. L’analyste est moins libre encore en ce qui domine stratégie et tactique : à savoir sa politique, où il ferait mieux de se repérer sur son manque à être que sur son être.
Pour dire les choses autrement : son action sur le patient lui échappe avec l’idée qu’il s’en fait, s’il n’en reprend pas le départ dans ce par quoi elle est possible, s’il ne retient pas le paradoxe de ce qu’elle a d’écartelé, pour réviser au principe la structure par où toute action intervient dans la réalité.
P5 of Cormac Gallagher’s translation - the preceding paragraph :
One cannot regard the phantasies that the analyser imposes on the person of the analyst in the same way as the ideal gambler might guess his opponent‘s intentions. No doubt there is always an element of strategy, but one should not be deceived by the metaphor of the mirror, appropriate as it may be to the smooth surface that the analyst presents to the patient. An impassive face and sealed lips do not have the same purpose here as in a game of bridge. Here the analyst is rather bringing to his aid what in bridge is called the dummy (le mort) in order to introduce the fourth player who is here to be the partner of the analyser, and whose hand the analyst, by his play, will try to get him to divine; such is the link, let us say of abnegation, that is imposed on the analyst by what is at stake in the game of analysis.
One might pursue the metaphor by deducing his game according to whether he places himself ‘on the right‘ or ‘on the left‘ of the patient, that is to say, in a position to play after or before the fourth player, to play, that is to say, before or after him with the dummy.
But what is certain is that the analyst‘s feelings have only one possible place in the game, that of the dummy/dead; and that if it is revived the game will proceed without anyone knowing who is leading.
P5/6 of Cormac Gallagher’s translation - the translation :
6. Let us take this further. The analyst is even less free as to what dominates strategy and tactics, namely, his policy, where he would be better advised to take his bearings form his lack of being (manque à etre) rather than from his being.
To put it another way: his action on the patient, as well as the idea that he forms of it, escapes him, as long as he does not start again from what makes it possible, as [p5] long as he does not remember the paradox of its many-sidedness and revise from the beginning the structure by which any action intervenes in reality.
P230 of Alan Sheridan’s translation :
6,.Let us take this further. The analyst is even less free as to that which dominates strategy and tactics, namely, his policy, where he would be better advised to take his bearings from his want-to-be (manque à être) rather than from his being.
To put it another way: his action on the patient escapes him through the idea that he forms of it as long as he does not grasp its starting-point in that by which it is possible, as long as he does not retain in the paradox of its four-sidedness, in order to revise in principle the structure by which any action intervenes in reality.
P493 of Bruce Fink’s translation :
6. Let us go further. The analyst is even less free in what dominates both his strategy and tactics – namely, his politics, where he would do better to take his bearings from his want-to-be than from his being.
To put it another way: his action concerning the patient will escape him along with the idea he forms of his action, as long as he does not reconsider its point of departure in terms of what makes his action possible and does not preserve the paradox of its quadripartition, in order to revise at the core the structure by which all action intervenes in reality.
So écartelé is translated by ‘many-sidedness’, ‘four-sidedness’ and ‘quadripatition’ which is possibly the nearest.
Its etymology is given as to pull in pieces (1165) & for a condemned man to be pulled apart by four horses (1422)
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Etymology:
http://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/écartelé
Étymol. et Hist. 1. Ca 1165 « mettre en pièces » esquartelez (B. de Ste-Maure, Troie, 10.648 ds T.-L.); 2. ca 1280 hérald. (Escanor, 3976, ibid.); 3. 1422 « faire tirer par quatre chevaux le corps d'un condamné » (Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris, éd. Tuetey, 177). Dér. par dissimilation de l'-r intervocalique de l'a. fr. esquarterer « mettre en pièces », littér. « fendre par quartiers »; [1130, Gormont et Isembart, éd. A. Bayot, 503 : enquarteree, lire esquarteree]; ca 1175 (B. de Ste-Maure, Ducs de Normandie, éd. C. Fahlin, 11681); dér. de quartier*, préf. é(s)-*, dés. -er.
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An example of this punishment is of Robert-Francois Damiens who in 1757 became the last Frenchman to suffer the dreadful punishment of drawing and quartering. Damiens attempted to assassinate King Louis XV, inflicting, however, only a slight dagger wound.
He may be best-known today as the subject of the jarring opening passage of Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, in which the full flower of this medieval torture is described in detail by way of contrasting it with the regimented penal institutions that would sprout up in a few decades’ time.
There are drawings available of this punishment being given on the web. Foucault’s text, as translated by Alan Sheridan, is available excerpt, Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish - Web.ics.purdue.edu… or https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~felluga/punish.html
JE suspects that Vicente Palomera was correct and that Jacques Lacan is deliberately using the term to mean being pulled apart in four directions. This also describes the workings of a cartel, which is why each cartel has to have a plus-one. The use of quart introduces the fourth term - the father.
Julia Evans
Mail to: je.la...@icloud.com