A Throw of the Dice Free Write

In parts of this passage, the content of Mallarme's poem is echoed in the form quite clearly. The line "an utterly lost and lonely quill" is alone in the middle of the page--except, of course, for the word "except," which is itself an exception. By placing the line "an utterly lost and lonely quill" in the middle of a blank white page, Mallarme is echoing the state of the quill he's talking about in the format of the poem--like the quill, which is lost and lonely, the line describing the quill is, itself, lost and lonely--cast aimlessly into the middle of a blank white page with nothing else on it. Then, however, comes the exception, which is the word "except" itself. The "utterly lost and lonely quill" line is alone on the page completely, except for the word "except," which, again, demonstrates the relationship between content and form. On the adjacent page, the words "this rigid whiteness/ridiculous" appear. The line "this rigid whiteness" is offset somewhat from the lines before it, and the word "ridiculous" stands alone, staggered to the left. I find it pretty interesting that Mallarme employs the phrase "this rigid whiteness" in the poem. Mallarme's poetic structure, of course, is anything but rigid--as we discussed in class, his poem is quite the opposite--it ebbs and flows, naturally, moving in and out in a way that simultaneously knocks the reader off balance but somehow seems effortlessly natural. This thought, perhaps, is unfinished without the following word, "ridiculous," which could imply that Mallarme does think the "rigid whiteness" to be "ridiculous," as we would expect him to,  because the format of the poem is anything but rigid. Again, we see content echoing form in Mallarme's placement of the word "ridiculous," which sticks out to the far left of the line prior--he is not only commenting on the ridiculousness of the rigid whiteness, he is also defying rigidity as his poem, demonstrated through this abnormal placement of the word "ridiculous," refuses to comply with margins or many of the typical conventions of a printed text.

Also I am not sure quite what to make of this but I noticed that at certain points the font changes from regular to italics. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on that.