Mallarme Blog Post-Jailyn

One of the ways we can analyze Mallarme is the way the visual layout of the poem echoes his meaning of the particular words or phrases. For example, “an utterly lost and lonely quill” is on one page off to the corner by itself, which reiterates the meaning of something being lonely. I personally think the only way to make since of the poem overall is to look at the visual part of it and see how it relates to the words on the page.

Also one of the other things that Mallarme focuses on is the use of capitalization. It basically gives an emphasis on the said/unsaid that’s in the poem. After looking at the poem for a while, I noticed the way the words bounced back and forth between the pages on a descent. That reminded me of a dice throw and when you throw one it goes all over the place and bounces around. In class we mentioned a nautical theme that was noticed in the poem, almost as if the words were flowing between the pages and ebbing off of the edge. At the beginning of the poem, Mallarme talks about a shipwreck in the depths of the ocean so maybe that’s where the flow of the poem comes from.

Mallarme uses alliteration and internal rhymes in this poem. One example of alliteration he used in the poem was “will falter/and fall/sheer folly.” Also within this phrase the visual content was shown on the page because as this was said the words actually looked as though they fell down the page.

One of the themes that was also mentioned in class was how the visual layout of the poem reflected an abyss, for example, the downward movement of the words, the cut off of phrases from page to page, the never-ending poem, and also the mysteriousness of the words.

One of the ways Mallarme makes analyzing the poem difficult is his use of espacement. In class we defined espacement as the divisions between words and the way words are set against backgrounds. The ways the words are set give them their meaning. I still don’t quite understand why Mallarme set his words on the pages like he did. I think this is why I had trouble even trying to read the poem for the first time because I couldn’t even figure out whether to read down or across the pages.

I think that Mallarme’s language is nonsense because the only way that I made sense of this poem was from the visual layout of it. I think that if the words and phrases were put together with out the form then they would still make no sense. Sometimes, I think that he placed certain words or phrases on the page based on where words needed to be plugged into the layout or form.

I mean I guess you can say in a sense that all poetry is nonsense in some way. Although in Lewis Carroll’s version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass, it had themes of nonsense but at least their was a story line behind all of it. So yes I think that Mallarme’s language can be viewed as nonsense because the only way to make sense of it is by looking at the from and layout of the pages.