|
III. SIGNIFICATION
For History not to signify, discourse must be confined to a pure,
unstructured series of notations. This is the case with chronologies
and annals (in the pure sense of the term). In the fully formed
(or, as we say, 'clothed') historical discourse, the facts related function
inevitably either as indices, or as core elements whose very
succession has in itself an indexical value. Even if the facts happen
to be presented in an anarchic fashion, they still signify anarchy and
to that extent conjure up a certain negative idea of human history.
-- Roland Barthes, The Discourse of History
|
(art chamber)
