The Subject Who Says “I Suffer”: The Semiotic in the State of Singularity

The aim of this text is to explore how Kristeva deals with the question of unity and singularity in her early work, particularly in Revolution in Poetic Language. In particular, the conceptual pair of the semiotic and the symbolic, which is commonly subject to schematic evaluation, is confronted: the symbolic is a unifying element in discourse, whereas the semiotic is a pluralizing or destructive force, and the latter is favored by Kristeva over the former. I will argue, however, that the above-mentioned characteristics do not exhaust this pair of concepts. I will read Revolution in Poetic Language alongside Georges Bataille’s texts, where he deals with the notions of heterogeneity, homogeneity, and experience, and I will try to highlight the intersections with Kristeva’s work. I will also take into account Kristeva’s own reading of Bataille. I turn to Kristeva’s 1972 “Bataille, Experience and Practice” to emphasize important aspects of her work, where unity is clearly privileged. I focus on the moment when the dissolution of unity results not in the emergence of a plurality (of the text) but of a singular experience, for which she finds inspiration in Bataille, and which becomes an important theme in her later work.