University of Oklahoma

Francis Ponge: Visual Texts

Author(s): Haroldo De Campos and Maria Inês R. da Silva
Source: Books Abroad, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Autumn, 1974), pp. 712-714
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40128158
Accessed: 14/09/2010 15:51

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Francis Ponge: Visual Texts

By HAROLDO DE CAMPOS

The expression "visual texts" {visuelle Texte) has been used by Elisabeth Walther
to characterizecertain poems by Francis Ponge, "the creative process of which can-
not be separatedfrom their actual typography."1Max Bense explains: "Here we have
texts which are necessarily developed on a two-dimensional plane; texts whose flow
of signs and information has to be considered as a phenomenon on the surface, not
on the line. Therefore, they require to be looked at- or rather contemplated- in order
to be properly perceived and understood."2In 1958, under the title Visuelle Texte,
Bense and Walther organized an exhibition in Stuttgart, dedicated to Ponge's work.
Besides the documentary and bibliographical items, a poster-poem, L'araignee mise
au mur (The Spider on the Wall), was presented.This poem is the most representa-
tive of that experimental tendency in Ponge's writings, although some analogous
traits have long since entered his poetry, at least as far as detail is concerned. In
1959, when I paid a visit to Ponge in Paris, I had the opportunity of introducing to
him some experimentsof the Brazilian concretepoets and, at the same time, of hearing
his opinion on the visual (ideogrammatic) handling of texts. Ponge showed me sev-
eral poems in which the optical datum was to a certain extent submitted to elabora-
tion: a soap-shapedoval text, for instance, as if carved on stone; a short reversible
poem ("signe significantsigne"); another one bringing out the nuclear word "soleil";
and still another in which all vowels were dealt with like bullets shot at a body ("et
voici ce qui l'a tue") . Some of these texts ("Architexte,""Le soleil") were published
in a Belgian magazine, Disque Vert (1953), as part of a series called "Fableslogiques."
In spite of his emphasizing the episodic nature of these experiments in his own work,
Ponge pointed out to me his lifelong familiarity with the written form of words, with
"l'ecriture"as a visible reality.
He was born in the south of France, in Montpellier, Languedoc, in 1899, into a
family settled between the Pyrenees and Provence. Having spent part of his school
years in Avignon, he was brought up among stelae and lapidary inscriptions, and
since his childhood was in intimate contact with written characters engraved on
stone. Is that perhaps the reason why critics remark on his "sculptural style" (F.
Meyer) or his "positive-and-negativeverbal technique, as of a lithographer" (E.
Walther) ?
In 1957, in a theoretical article "Proclamation et Petit-Four," published in the
magazine La Parisienne (a special issue devoted to typography), Ponge stated:
Point de doute que la litteratureentreen nous de moins en moins par les oreilles,
sorte de nous de moins en moins par la bouche.. . . Point de doute qu'elle passe
(entreet sorte) de plus en plus par les yeux, . . . Mais point de doute,non plus, il
me sembleque devantnos yeux elle passede moins en moins sous la formemanu-
scrite. Pratiquement,les notions de litteratureet de typographica present se
recouvrent(non du tout, evidemment,que toute typographicsoit litterature:mais
rinverse,oui, c'est tres sur). . . . je crois aussi que dans notre sensibiliteactuelle
cntrent de plus en plus en composition - avec les qualit.essonores- celles qui
 DE CAMPOS 713
tiennenta l'apparenceou a la figure des mots. . . . Pour finir, il faut bien que je
dise encore qu'on a beaucoupuse ces temps derniers(Mallarme,Apollinaire,les
dadai'stes)des artificestypographiquespour parvenira des effets plus ou moins
significatifs.
Here we could bring into focus other relevant issues of Ponge's poetics: "Le poete ne
doit jamais proposer une pensee mais un objet, c'est-a-direque meme a la pensee il
doit faire prendreune pose d'objet"(Proemes, 1948). "Quelle creation? Le texteT ". . .
creerdes objets litteraires."". . . Plus de sonnets, d'odes, d'epigrammes: la forme meme
du poeme soit en quelque sorte determineepar son sujet" (My CreativeMethod, 1949).
In her book on Ponge, E. Walther makes a careful analysis of L'araignee? First
she envisages it as a "generative text," i.e., a text which discloses the process of its
own production. It typifies what I would rather call a "metalingual poem" (a poem
about the poem or a self-critical poem). Next she studies the principle of "comple-
mentariness,"that is, the mutually dependent relationship between that text's seman-
tics and its typography. For that purpose, she introduces the semiotic notion of
"super-sign"(Superzeicheri). A super-signis the end product of an "iterative"semiotic
process ("signs which produce signs") ; therefore, it overcomes the linear, one-dimen-
sional flow of words. Here it seems necessary to discuss the question of poetical
"physiognomy," as in the case of L'araignee, since the resulting "super-sign"has
an imitative nature (to the same class we must assign Apollinaire's calligrams and
Greco-Latin"picture-poems,"carminafigurata). On the other hand there are dynamic,
non-imitative textual super-signs working directly on the perception by means of an
interplay of words arranged in a constellation. To this class belongs Mallarme's Un
coup de des (and many exhibits of concretepoetry). Elisabeth Walther herself equates
Pongean visual texts with concretepoems:
It is opportuneto remarkthat Ponge, with his generative,complementaryand
visual texts, seems to approachthe neighborhoodof the so-called\on\rete Texte
of the \on\rete Poesie. We mustn'tforget, however,that in the practicaluse of
of concretepoetry.While
typographyPongedoesnot go as far as the representatives
the Pongeantextsarealwayscomplementary, the concreteones hardlyeverare. Be-
sides, Ponge never abandonsthe semanticdimensionwhereasconcretepoetry,al-
mostas a rule,does.
For my part I would like to suggest that the complementarinessin a concrete
poem is not normally a question of imitation (mimetic reinforcementof its "content"),
but rather of dynamic iconography (Peirce's "mode of diagrammatization"). The
semantic dimension, at least as far as Brazilian concrete poets (Noigandres Group)
are concerned, has always been considered fundamental. In spite of undergoing a
functional reduction (in terms of vocabulary and general conciseness), semantics is
the actual keystone which supplies "significance"for the poem as a whole. In this
sense, Brazilian concrete poetry is definitely opposed to "sonorism"and "lettrisme"
and their present developments in European poetry. Going deeper, the discussion of
the semantic aspect of poetry gives rise to another issue: the question of the so-called
"discursivenature" of language. In spite of dealing with the text in its materiality,
isn't Ponge's poetry still too much stuck to traditional, "discursive"syntax? When
asked, the poet answered me: "Yes, perhaps, but in L'araignee I broke it up into
"
fragments,like running 'slobber.' In fact, this poem's metaphorical"work of slobber"
714 BOOKS ABROAD

("ouvrage de bave") is at once the string of poetic thought made visible and the
spider'stissue.
Uaraignee is composed of five parts, arranged by analogy with a musical score:
1. "Exorde en courante"; "Proposition" (saraband's theme); 3. "Courante en sens
inverse" (confirmation) : 4. "Sarabande"(the woven thread; the insects' flying "jig");
5. "Fugue en conclusion."In "Sarabande,"Ponge undertakes a textual dialogue with
Rabelais,both through the lexical items he selects to integrate the choreographicvisual
groups (the "gigue d'insectesvolant au tour") and through the stylistic device called
elsewhere by Spitzer "chaotic enumeration." On a more essential level, however,
syntacticallyas well as semantically,Uaraignee can be read as a virtual "homage to
Mallarme"and his constellation-poemUn coup de des (1897). We have only to com-
"
pare the following extractfrom "Fugue in conclusion": Jusqu'ace qu'elle coiflfeenfin,
de maniere horribleou grotesque, quelque amateur curieux des buissons. . . ." with the
following from the "Coup de des": "Saufe / que la rencontre ou l'effleureune toque
de minuit . . . quiconque / prince amer de l'ecueil / s'en coiffe comme de Fheroique."
Or this "postludial"passage: "De ce repugnant triomphe, paye par la destruction de
mon oeuvre, ne subsisteradans ma memoire orgueil ni affliction. . . ." with the fol-
lowing from the "Coup": "RIEN / de la memorable crise / N'AURA EU LIEU
QUE LE LIEU." Even as an ontological prospect we can make the Pongean spider
retrace the way of a Mallarmean ancestral Arachnid:
J'ai voulu te dire que je venais de jeterle plan de mon oeuvreentier, apresavoir
trouvela clef de moi-meme,clef de voute,mon centre,si tu veux, pour ne pas nous
brouillerde metaphores, - centre de moi-memeou je me tiens, comme une arai-
gnee, sacree, sur les principauxfils deja sortisde mon espritet a l'aidedesquelsje
tisseraiaux points de rencontrede merveilleusesdentelles que je devine et qui
existentdejadansle sein de la Beaute."(Letterfrom Mallarmeto Aubanel,1866.)
To accomplish this outline of convergences, I would like to quote a Brazilian
poet, also a born "objectivist,"engaged in the building of a poem as a thing of words.
I am talking of Joao Cabral de Melo Neto. In his "Serial"poems, 1959-1961 (part of
his book Terceira Feira [Third-Day Fair]), Cabral resumes the Spider and its cob-
web as a topic ("Formas do Nu" [Forms of Nakedness]), and at the same time pays
his homage to Francis Ponge ("O sim contra o sim" [Yes against yes]), whom he
calls "cirurgiaode coisas" (a surgeon of things) with "dez mil dedos de linguagem"
(ten thousand fingers of language).
Sao Paulo, Brazil

Translatedfrom the Portuguese

By
Maria Ines R. da Silva and the Author

1 Elisabeth Walther, Francis Ponge- Analytische ZL'araignee (1942-48) was printed in 1952 by
Monographic,Stuttgart, 1961. the publisher Jean Aubier as a poster-poem ("L'a-
2 Max Bense, Programmierung des Schoenen, raignee mise au mur"). The painter Andre Beaudin
Baden-Badenand Krefeld, 1960. collaboratedwith Ponge in the "mise en page."