Appendix I: - On Mallarmé’s “Un Coup de dés”

Summary

The Poetic Process of “Un Coup de dés”

Spatial Form and Anti-Logic

Mallarmé's poetic obsession, that of naming the unconditioned, is expressed in an assault on the specificity of language. This destructive quest intensifies in “Un Coup de dés,” where syntax is broken to the maximum extent short of incomprehensibility, with fragments of sentences arranged spatially on the page. There is no meaning outside the space of the poem; its “meaning” is its own poetic process.

This process can be visualized by the image of dice thrown; a myriad of possibilities, of “signs in rotation,” finally coming to a stop as a chance constellation of black dots on white space. The concern with chance reflects a modern break from the law of cause and effect, from the attempt to impose the limits of human thought upon reality. Such anthropomorphism is out of step with the universe of modern physics which is founded on uncertainty. Human time and human logic cannot order infinite, eternal space. Mallarmé's creation is not definitive; the poem is a momentary nexus of connections.

Suspension

Mallarmé uses various techniques to suspend (“reployer la division”), to continue the generation of possibilities, to keep the dice rolling. He uses a lottery of adverbs and adverbial conjunctions which remove the actions described from the present, or make them indefinite, hypothetical, optional, conditional, or absent ( “hors,” “jadis,” “peut-être,” “comme si,” “plutôt que,” “sauf,” “excepté,” “jamais”). He uses characteristic negative words to create absence, thereby preserving possibilities (“contrées nulles,” “nul/humain”). Even the blank spaces on the page play a role; Mallarmé says they are like “a surrounding silence,” and refers in the poem to “cette blancheur rigide.” Fragments of sentences appear and dissipate in the space in a “rhythmique suspens du sinistre.”

Tautology and Stasis

The suspension of definition produces a kind of hovering (note the frequency of verbs such as “se prépare,” “hésite,” “menace,” “s’agite,” “voltige,” and “scintille”). Progress is stymied in phrases like “par avance retombée”or “très à l’intérieur résume.” This denial of progress relates to the overall structure of the poem; the title is incorporated into the text, and the major motifs (navigation over the ocean abyss and shipwreck, writing poetry on the blank page, the throwing of dice, the formation of a constellation in space) are not presented as clear-cut succession, but are interwoven as if simultaneous.