Disrupted Patterns: On Chaos and Order in the Enlightenment

Chaos theory, the common label for the mathematical study of complex dynamics, has recently had a profound impact on literary studies. The leader in this area is N. Katherine Hayles, whose appraisal of the present volume's individual contributions helpfully summarizes the contents of the essays as well as further insights into the reciprocity of literary and scientific studies on the issue of chaos. The application of chaos theory to artistic endeavors, in particular, has disclosed and helped to explain the actual complexities of literary texts. Patrick Brady ("Chaos, Complexity, Catastrophe and Control in Marivaux's La Vie de Marianne") suggests that there are "four primary tendencies" of chaos theory: "concealed order (order so complex as to be perceived as disorder), non-linearity (disproportion between cause and effect), self-similarity (irregular shapes that are repeated on varying scales), and constrained randomness (random behavior within set boundaries)" (67). According to Allen W. Grove ("Sexual Chaos: The Gothic 'Formula' and the Politics of Complexity"), "Literary study is, after all, the analysis of complex systems that cannot be well-defined by linear models. Chaos theory provides us with not just a metaphor but a methodology for better understanding this complexity" (116). As Hayles points out an important, added value is that "chaos has also linked with self-organizing processes and converted from an enemy of order into a positive force driving the world toward creativity and renewal" (1).

This collection of essays is divided into two major parts. In "Theoretical Concerns," Huguette Cohen, John McCarthy, and Aaron Santesso disclose a number of interconnections between the insights of Diderot, Moritz, Kant, and Pope and present-day chaos theorists. The other part, "Applications and Interpretations," closely examines works by Diderot, Marivaux, Montesquieu, Locke, Walpole, Beckford, Rousseau, Ann Radcliffe, Friedrich Schlegel, Crébillon, Laurence Sterne, and Goethe, among others, in the light of chaos and complexity. The contributors here are: Hilary Rhodes Bailey, Patrick Brady, Theodore E. D. Braun, Kevin L. Cope, Allen W. Grove, Laurie Johnson, Thomas M. Kavanagh, Jo Alyson Parker, Julie Reahard, Herbert Rowland, and J. M. van der Laan.

To better understand how contemporary chaos theory can help illuminate literary texts, one should recall Hayles's identification of the two basic emphases within chaos theory. First, "chaos is seen as order's precursor and partner, rather than its opposite. The focus here is on the spontaneous emergence of self organization from chaos. . . . The second branch emphasizes the hidden order that exists within chaotic systems. Chaos in this usage is distinct from true randomness, because it can be shown to contain deeply encoded structures called 'strange attractors' " (Chaos Bound [1990] 9). The contributors to the present volume examine many features of literary texts, such as: the unpredictability of the plot's outcomes, the presence of a particular pattern repeated throughout a text but disrupted or interrupted by other incidents, the great and sometimes grave consequences of a seemingly small decision (called "the butterfly effect"), the emergence of a hidden order underlying chaotic occurrences, the seemingly confusing web of interrelations between characters and events, the non-linearity of the plot "development," and the suspension or cancellation of time and our expectations as readers. As Braun explains, like fractals, which are "self-similar but not identical," "no two events in the story begin from exactly the same place or under the same conditions" (85-86). These characteristics of a given text disclose the challenge that chaos presents to anything that seems to be fixed, predictable, and unchangeable and, yet, the most fascinating feature of chaos theory, perhaps, is that order either underlies or emerges from chaos. The observable phenomenon of the self-organization of chaos today would thus seem to legitimate the application of contemporary chaos theory to selected texts of "the" Enlightenment, when order in the traditional sense was privileged, yet problematized repeatedly, if not openly contested.

Three essays in particular do a good job of elucidating the manifestation of the strange attractor (Lorenz attractor) in literary texts. Dynamic, underlying forces give rise to what appears to be radical indeterminacy. Randomness, however, is constrained by strange attractors. In Marivaux's La Vie de Marianne (1731-41), for example, as Brady suggests, Marianne "appears to allow herself complete freedom, but in reality she does so only within the boundaries set by the conventions of the time--she is by no means a social revolutionary" (70). Bailey identifies the strange attractor in the themes of fatalism, determinism, and free will, which have the effect of unifying the story in Diderot's novel, Jacques le Fataliste. Although it is a difficult, seemingly incomprehensible work, the narrative is also one "that is full of playfulness, richness and meaning" (63). For Braun, the strange attractor is employed also in Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes where it "appears as nonlinear as fluid dynamics" (82). Here, too, the butterfly effect is present since a small event "(the decision of a eunuch not to open a letter addressed to his dead superior) has great consequences" (83). In its application to literary texts, chaos theory thus has the effect of unifying the whole.

An excellent essay by J. M. van der Laan on "Essayistic Orders of Chaos" serves as a most fitting conclusion to this rewarding volume of essays. van der Laan author's insight regarding the nature of the essay captures the essence of this collection: "As a self-organizing system which simultaneously destabilizes itself, the essayistic text remains in constant flux" (199). In particular, Kevin Cope's essay, "John Locke Didn't Have It All Locked Up," would seem to embody precisely what van der Laan has ascertained about the nature of essay writing. However, Cope's "conclusion" may be less than satisfying to readers: "One remarkable feature of papers on chaos theory is that they never come to an end" (104). I do not believe that this is the case in the vast majority of the scholarly contributions to this volume; nonetheless, Cope's point may well be a matter of concern among those who seem satisfied with simply posing more and more questions rather than trying to answer them.

The excellent interdisciplinary work that the volume presents for our consideration is marred by all too many typographical and printing errors. It appears that the final preparation of the manuscript may have been rushed. Anton Reiser, not Anton Reise, is the hero of Moritz's novel (25). "Consequently" does not contain a hyphen (28). The relative pronoun "that" is repeated twice in a row (59). The comparative "than" should replace "that" (76). The title of Goethe's novel, Die Wahlverwandschaften, does not include a hyphen (177). There is an unnecessary space in the word "multiplicities" (197). A space should have been added after footnote 31 (129). The spacing on pages 89-90 is a mystery to me. Finally, my reviewer's copy contains unfortunate reduplication of letters for the entire length of page 182 that does a disservice to Herbert Rowland whose essay on Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea is insightful and timely.

A very helpful general bibliography concludes this thought-provoking and, at times, challenging volume of essays by leaders in the field of eighteenth-century studies.