Existential mapping of the Baroque: in-between allegoric and symbolic discourses

Abstract

This article deals with two main themes. First of all, the attitude called as philosophic mapping is queried. It is noticed that the map concept is being used in the postmodern discourses quite often. The usage is not only in the certain way of keeping the map as an object. It is a much wider category. What could be noticed is that being a philosopher-cartographer puts the thinker in-between the metaphysical and closed immanent position. It is the movement from objectivity to inter-subjectivity, from totality to fragmentariness, from power to weak intentionality, from strategy to tactics.
The second theme is related with the Baroque epoch. The author of the article aims to show that this particular culture is not only the material of the philosophic mapping but also implicitly relates with such thinking. The first connection which helps to relate the themes is two philosophers – Walter Benjamin and Gilles Deleuze. Benjamin chooses the German Trauerspiel for his interpretation. Differently from the classical tragic drama it helps to experience a specific immanent thinking, in which allegoric representation dominates. Meanwhile, Deleuze in his research analyses the texts of Leibniz. The term of the fold is shown as the main category of Baroque. Unlike his predecessor, the French philosopher analyses metaphysical discourse in the allegoric way.
Finally, the concrete Baroque discourses are interpreted in this research. The first one is Calderon’s della Barca “The Great World Theater”. It could be called as Great narration in which the symbolic representation dominates. It was noticed that symbolism emerges not only as a scholastic metaphysics but also as a hermeneutic experience. Such symbolism is not so radically different from allegory, which dominates in the second discourse – a piece of poesis artificiosa. The questions of reality and ethics are suspended there and predicate becomes more important. The logic turns into a horizontal position stressing the play ant rhythm of the fields of power.
So being a cartographer-philosopher is a similar position to the Baroque man. It is being in-between two types of discourses, two representations. Nevertheless, it can be noticed that in Baroque culture symbolic discourse still predominates. Meanwhile in the postmodern mapping a symbol becomes only one of the elements of allegoric series.