The perspectives of neo-saussurism. Literary criticism vs. (true) De Saussure

The twentieth century in the humanities went under the sign of so-called “Saussurism”. The article sums up the development of “Saussurism” in the literary studies and raises questions about the possibility of using the latest achievements of saussorology in the study of literature. Theory of language outlined in the “Course in General Linguistics” (1916), published under the name of de Saussure by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, with its “binary dogma”, functioned for decades as a reliable tool that could systematize everything, starting from language, through literature and art, rituals and myths, culinary practices, fashion and ideology, to the structure of kinship. The gradual discovering of manuscripts - especially students’ notes of the lectures on general linguistics given by de Saussure at the University of Geneva between 1906 and 1911, the analyses of old poetry revealed by Jean Starobinski (“anagrams”), and sketches included in the “Writings in General Linguistics” and above all, among them the essay “On the Dual Essence of Language” - leads to the theory of language which is impossible to reconcile with the “Course”. Two round anniversaries celebrated in 2013 and 2016, the 100th anniversary of the scholar’s death and the 100th anniversary of the publication of “Course in General Linguistics”, caused an increased interest in the works of Ferdinand de Saussure. Current research on the heritage of the Genevan based on text corpora established according to the criteria of authenticity which overturn the up-to-now hierarchy of sources has given rise to the so-called “neo-Saussurism”. The basis of “neo-Saussurism” is a collection of texts presented in the book “Writings in General Linguistics”, headed by the text “On the Dual Essence of Language”. They give premises for the ’’expansion” of the dyadic concept of the sign into the text-reality relations. In other words, the perspectives of neo-saussurism in the literary criticism are associated with “semiotic quadrangle of de Saussure”, which is an alternative to the semiotic triangle of Ogden and Richards.