Mallarme - Tabba

From his interesting diction to unusual spacing of words, Mallarme’s poetry is incredibly unconventional. The ambiguity of Mallarme’s words and lack of punctuation allows for many different interpretations of his poetry and thus makes it difficult to judge whether his writing is or is not nonsense. There is not a specific theme that one could describe the poem as. It could be about the literal throw of dice or it could be about the silence and loneliness that “hovers” within his wring. Mallarme uses a variety of techniques in his poetry, some of which we have seen in the works of other nonsense writing, such as that of Lewis Carroll, and other techniques, which are distinctive to Mallarme himself.  

Mallarme has a remarkable way of writing without any sort of punctuation. His poem is like a long run on sentence, which makes it difficult for the reader to follow, especially since he manages to use the pronouns “it” and “his” very often, and without any evident pause or clear indication of subject change, it becomes hard to keep up with what or who “it” and “him” are exactly. It seems that Mallarme uses the font size, physical word placement and caps to compensate for his lack of punctuation. For instance, his change in font size and all caps letters implies a greater emphasis on that certain word or phrase. Also, his gaps between lines or words are perhaps indications of a pause.

Mallarme has also relied heavily on polysemy (double meaning), a familiar technique that was also seen in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, to develop his nonsense. Carroll evokes polysemy through his use of puns where as Mallarme plays on the polysemy of spacing. Not only does he mean the physical spacing of the blank page but also the verbal action of spacing. Initially, the words seems to placed haphazardly on the page but with a closer read, one realizes how to actually read across the pages and see the relationship that he has developed between the white space and matter. The physical movement of the words on the page mimic the movement and imagery of the roll of dice. One instance of this is on page 171 when he writes:

“in rolled ironically

                               or

                                 the mystery

    hurled down

                                                                        howled out.”

            One can see the that these words are placed in a precise manner to mimic the falling “down” of dice as they are rolled. The combination of spacing and the literal space adds greater meaning to the imagery of his language. With such an unconventional style of writing, it is very difficult to determine the theme of the poem and grasp all the meanings behind his visual spacing. This, in my opinion, is where the division between sense and nonsense comes. It is evident that the emptiness of his pages are just as important as the words, but to what extent is difficult to establish. The poem’s distinctive flow, layout, spacing and style as well as its difficulty to interpret, is what I think allows it to be regarded as nonsense.