In his poem, “A Dice Throw,” Mallarme developed an interesting
relationship between his themes of absence and void with the blank space of the
page. For instance, there were many references of an abyss and ocean; these
images provide a sense of an empty, unknown space. This mysterious unknown space is reminiscent of the unknown
mystery that comes with the roll of dice. I found it fascinating that he was
able to use images of an ocean and abyss as well as the blank space on the
pages to reflect this message. Mallarme’s writing is not completely
concrete. There is a great deal of
vagueness and mystery through his ambiguous language, unique technique of structuring
the poem across two pages, and lack of punctuation. This also allows for
several different interpretations of the poem. The depth that is required to
read this poem is conveyed through his images of endless spaces and is then
heightened by the empty spaces of the pages. These images of falling deep into the unknown also remind me
of Carroll’ Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland, when Alice falls into the rabbit hole.
I feel that the theme of the unknown is an important part of nonsense. In all these works, we see a dependence on what it far away and unknown to us. Yes, Alice does fall down this rabbit hole for a peculiar amount of time. Then, she finds herself in an unknown world where things she knew before, lessons she had learned in school no longer applied. Reading the novel brought us through her struggles of connecting what is known to the unknown seeing where they met. Even in Lear's limerick, he described people that were far away in lands that are not usually traveled. The mystery of these lands added to the ridiculous drawings and nonsense descriptions. He continues this theme of unknown and abyss in his poems. Most of him characters ended up sailing off to sea or hopping around the world or were already out to sea. Mallarme's techniques seemed to show us that it didn't matter what he said, so long as the themes of the abyss and emptiness was understood, his nonsense would be conveyed.
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