We’ve learned and practiced techniques for analyzing
nonsense poetry in works such as Alice in Wonderland and Lear’s poems.
Specifically, in Alice in Wonderland we learned that we often treat language as
a material thing when we don’t understand it. Words transform into a thing
rather than a means of communication. This is one of the ways that we’ve come
to understand nonsense in our analysis of such works. Using this particular
tool, we can analyze Mallarme in that the words are often perceived a material thing
on the page. They are as much a ‘thing’ on the page as they are a communication
medium; perhaps in some parts of the work we see instances of the former more than
the latter. For example the following words form a ‘wing’ shape on the page:
“WHETHER the Chasm whitish fullitude frenzied down a declivity desperately
glides on a wing its own in….” (164).
Without being in their original arrangement across the page, this phrase
doesn’t seem to make too much sense. However, in their arranged places on the page,
there is a meaning conveyed that wasn’t present in the former situation
illustrated above. The words serve as a guide for our eyes as they decline down
the page in the form of a wing. The synergy of words as communication and
material thing creates a meaning that we were unable to get before.
In some ways, Mallarme makes it difficult to analyze the
nonsense poetry because it seems to make sense. That is, the meaning of words
and the shapes they form seem to fit the meaning that is being portrayed. Yet
if we look at the words in an isolated manner, examining the shape itself or
meaning of words itself then it becomes much more nonsensical. The
form/structure and words appear inextricable.
It is difficult to analyze it because the form/structure
aligns with what the words seem to be communicating. When identifying
Mallarme’s language as nonsense or not, I acknowledge that there is no
definitive grasp on this element because of the paradoxical situation that we run
into. However, if we look at it overall, I would say that it is nonsense as we
see many characteristics in Mallarme’s work that echoes those preset in Alice
in Wonderland and Lear’s poems. One particular characteristic that stands out
is meaning as secondary. Alice in Wonderland achieved this by employing various
techniques such as polysemy and circular conversations that closed off meaning.
Lear’s poems achieve this by prioritizing form and choosing works for the sake
of rhyming over the meaning of words. In a similar way, Mallarme makes meaning
secondary by rigorously employing aesthetics over the actual meaning of words. For
example, the manipulation of spacing, blank space, and text to represent
something or action is an example of aesthetics employed by Mallarme. Just like
Lear, words seem to be chosen for their sound. The following example shows
this: “will falter and fall sheer folly.” Examples such as this illustrate how
Mallarme’s work exhibits nonsensical language.
Similarly to the first paragraph of this blog post, I also drew the connection between Carroll’s treatment of language as material and Mallarme’s expression of this through white space and format. However, the example that you chose about the ‘wing’ shape of a particular passage made me notice some things about my chosen example of the opening title/line A DICE THROW being presented as a physical dice (which I focused upon mainly in my free write). After reading this post, I am beginning to think that A DICE THROW is being treated materially in a different manner: it is not a physical object, but a visual action. By this, I mean that A DICE THROW does not depict a dice as glides on a wing depicts a wing, but rather depicts a singular moment in the action of the dice being thrown. In this way, I think that Mallarme has some reflections of the materialization we saw in Carroll along with an extension into the intangible yet visual.
ReplyDeleteI am intrigued by your point about the form and content playing off of each other and creating sense that would not exist if they were viewed separately from one another. One of my first impressions when reading Mallarme was that the meaning/interpretation would differ based on whether the reader leaned more towards the visual or more towards content. Your noting of the form and content working together to make sense leads me to conclude that a reader with a 50/50 balance of reading for content and form would perhaps be the reader who finds the most sense in Mallarme. Despite all of this, I must make a point against this, because there are also many parts of the poem in which form and content do not have obvious connections, and I think we may have a confirmation bias of sorts by having a heavy focus on the parts of the poem where the two are related. To counter my own point, perhaps a reader is capable of exposing or creating connections between form and content throughout the entire poem, which would indeed make the poem seem to make more sense as you said, and thus be a little more difficult to analyze as nonsense.
When speaking about whether Mallarme’s language is the language of nonsense, I would like to expand on your pointy about the “paradoxical situation we run into”. If I am interpreting this correctly, you are referring to the previous point of Mallarme’s form/content agreement making sense and therefore making the piece more difficult to analyze as nonsense, which in itself makes the poem nonsensical. The inclusion of sense in a nonsense piece is to me what makes the piece as a whole capable of being nonsense; it meets our expectations in some ways and breaks them in others, which prevents us from knowing what will happen next or how we should treat the text. If a piece were “pure” nonsense and there was no sense to contrast it with, then we, as readers, would learn not to expect anything representative of the real, sense-making world and would as a result “make sense” of nonsense. With Mallarme, he provides the sense/nonsense contrast in multiple ways, including the form/content agreement and disagreement as well as the perceived randomness of Mallarme sometimes choosing words based on sound (like your mentioning of will falter / and fall / sheer folly”) and sometimes not.
In this blog post, Joan compares Mallarme’s work with Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. She mentions the line, “WHETHER the Chasm whitish fulltide frenzied down a declivity desperately glides on a wing its own in….” (164), from Mallarme to describe how the shape of this line on the page gives meaning to the line itself. I agree with her because just seeing this line by itself make no sense but seeing the line as it flows down a page explains why each word is in the line and why. Also the form of a line forms a wing, which Joan pointed out but I found that even the form of the line gives meaning to the sound of the words. When I think of a wing, I think of silent, but strong gust of air. As I read this line down the page, it feels as though I’m a bird gracefully free falling in the air towards the ground.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, Joan makes a really good point when she states, “it is difficult to analyze [Mallarme] because the form/structure aligns with what the words seem to be communicating.” I see this to mean that unless you understand the form of the words and how they appear on the page, it’s going to be hard to understand the meaning of the line on the page.
Also, one of the things that struck out to me on this page was the word “Chasm,” mainly due to the fact that it’s capitalized and it’s high up within the page. The line makes this word the subject of the poem and it reminds me of a castle in the sky based off of the words appearance on the page. Overall, the poem takes on the form/shape of a wing and the meaning of the poem talks about the descent to the unknown.