Structuralization and Paradoxes_Bianco_Blogpost

In Stephane Mallarme’s Collected Poems and Other Verse, Mallarme uses nonsense to fuel his poems. While the definition of nonsense is often debated, Mallarme works to define nonsense through the distortion of the sensical. While each poem has an identifying theme, the language of nonsense itself is used to create nonsensical elements in the poem itself. It is through the distortion of the normalized or sensical elements that allows for nonsense to be created as well as the creation of specific tools that allows for such distortion. Such tools for the creation of the language of nonsense are polysemy, paradoxes, and alliteration. Polysemy is the existence of many possible meanings for words or phrases. Mallarme invokes the language of nonsense through defying the limitations of societal rules for language. Such defiance leads to Mallarme invoking the language of nonsense through the usage of structuralization and paradoxes.

It is through these tools of nonsense that we can interpret Mallarme’s poems. In Mallarme’s poem The Dice Throw, it becomes the essence of a work of art. Instead of lining the pages with a poem that one would read in a normal structuralized manner, Mallarme defies such a linear reading. Instead the individual must avoid linear reading as it refuses to do the poem justice but rather the individual must create a nonlinear manner of reading the poem. Yet even as the poem sways back and forth across the pages, it creates an overall sense of climaxes and crescendos to the poem itself. With the slight interruption of each of these climaxes or crescendos are the random insertions of sentences that are capitalized. The capitalization of such sentences seems to scream out to the reader in a manner that causes an interruption in the rhythmic pattern of the poem itself. For instance, Mallarme states, “…MIGHT HAVE EXISTED/except as the fragmentary hallucination of some death throe/MIGHT HAVE BEGUN AND ENDED…”(170).  The capitalization also emphasizes on the said and the unsaid, as well as the silences that speak from the empty spaces on the page. Such emphasis gives it a nonsensical element to the poem itself as it interrupts the reader’s ability to make sense of the poem itself.

            Mallarme also uses paradoxes to create nonsensical elements to his poems. Mallarme seems to have awareness and ambiguity of the to the order of the poem itself.  This creates a paradox in that Mallarme is aware of the structuralization of the poem itself, yet seems ambiguous to the chaos and defiance of such structuralization. Mallarme is also careful to create a paradox in the theme of the poem itself. He gives the reader a title for the poem. Titles are supposed to give the reader clarity in understanding what they are going to be reading or an idea of what the poem will be about. However, Mallarme creates a paradox in that even when giving the reader a title, his usage of nonsensical elements causes disorder and production of several different themes and ideologies to arise from the poem. For instance, the title of the poem “A Dice Throw”, starts off with, “AT ANYTIME/EVEN WHEN CAST IN/EVERLASTING CIRCUMSTANCES/FROM THE DEPTH OF A SHIPWRECK” (163). From structuralization to word choice the reader could also be given the idea that the poem is about the sea and shipwrecks however this contradicts the original title of a ‘Dice Throw’, therefore creating a paradox.