The Two-Way Text: Ponge’s Metapoetic “Fable”
1991; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 31; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/esp.1991.0042
ISSN1931-0234
Autores Tópico(s)French Literature and Criticism
ResumoThe Two-Way Text: Ponge’s Metapoetic “Fable” Dianne E. Sears£ £ T E ME REGARDE ÉCRIRE. Des textes comme la Creative I Method ou le Verre d ’eau sont significatifs à cet égard,” says Francis Ponge.1While both of these texts are included in the Ponge collection most explicitly devoted to method, the volume Méthodes of Le Grand Recueil, every text by Ponge can be read as both a poem and a statement on method, a finished product and an account of its own pro duction—in short, as both a text and a metatext. One of the most fre quently cited examples of metatextuality in Ponge is “ Fable,” which Robert Greene included in his analysis of Ponge as a “ metapoet” and in which Derrida reads “ [une] oscillation infiniment rapide entre performatif et constatif, langage et métalangage, fiction et non-fiction, auto- et hétéro-référence. . . .” 2Indeed, “ Fable” presents fertile ground for studying the poetics of metatextuality in Ponge’s work since it enacts and exemplifies his entire poetic project. I quote the French version and Martin Sorrell’s English translation3: FABLE Par le mot par commence donc ce texte Dont la première ligne dit la vérité, Mais ce tain sous l’une et l’autre Peut-il être toléré? Cher lecteur déjà tu juges Là de nos difficultés . . . (APRES sept arts de malheurs Elle brisa son miroir. ) FABLE By the word by this text then begins Whose first line tells the truth, But this silvering beneath the one and the other Can it be tolerated? Dear reader already you judge From this our difficulties . . . 50 Su m m e r 1991 S ears (AFTER seven years o f misfortune She broke her mirror.) Already the title, “ Fable,” like the title of the collection in which it appears, Proêmes, has a textual and metatextual level: it designates both the theme or content of the poem and its form. In Gérard Genette’s ter minology, “ Fable” is both a “ thematic” title naming the object of the poem and a “ rhematic” title, that is, one naming a literary genre.4It is both descriptive or constative, saying “ this poem is about a fable,” and performative, stating, “This poem is a fable.” “ Fable” names itself as the object of its text, making it a fable on fable. The title’s rhematic dimension, or the fact that it names a literary genre, leads us to examine Ponge’s attitude towards the fable as a genre in general before we analyze this fable in particular. Ponge places fable at the top of his hierarchy of genres, stating that he prefers a fable to any epic and La Fontaine to Schopenhauer or Hegel (231, 219). Just as he chooses fable as the highest genre, Ponge chooses as the subject of the ideal fable the animal traditionally holding the highest rank in fables: the lion. His ideal fable, however, would be not “ Le lion et le rat,” “ Le lion vieilli,” or “ Les animaux malades de la peste,” but simply “ Le lion.” 5 That is, as Jean-Luc Steinmetz observes, Ponge aims to eliminate any narrative or anecdotal elements from the fable.6Although Ponge never did write a poem entitled “ Le lion,” 7 a lion does appear in “ Le soleil placé en abîme” in the phrase, “ Quia leo,” which the sun as judge renders as his invariable sentence: “ Nous n’aurons jamais d’autre explication.” 8The phrase is derived from Phaedrus’s fable giving us our expression, “the lion’s share.” “ Vacca et cappella, ouis et leo” describes a lion who takes all four parts of a captured stag, the first part because he is named the lion: “Ego primam tollo nominor quia leo.” 9By omitting the first part of the line in “ Le soleil,” Ponge switches the emphasis from the narrative of the fable to its nomination, “ leo,” which serves as sole, unanswerable justification for the lion’s acts. Although we shall see later how the repressed part of the Phaedrus line resurfaces in “ Le soleil,” the emphasis on the name “ leo” indicates the nature of Ponge’s proposed fables focused only on their object. In...
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