Poetry and Performative Language

Author(s): Barbara Johnson

Source: Yale French Studies, No. 54, Mallarme (1977), pp. 140-158
Published by: Yale University Press
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Barbara Johnson
Poetry and PerformativeLanguage

Surelythe words must be spoken "seriously"

and so as to be taken "seriously"? This is,
thoughvague, true enough in general-it is
an importantcommonplacein discussingthe
purportof any utterancewhatsoever.I must
not be joking, for example, nor writinga
poem.
-

J. L. Austin,How to Do Things with

Words.

While rocking lazily in their landau throughthe late afternoon

sun, an elegant lady and her escort happen upon a somewhat
dilapidated but mysteriouslycrowded fairground,where, in an
the
emptystand, to remedythe absence of any proper performer,
lady, afterwakingup the drummerand settingher escort up as a
fee-collectingbarker, mounts a table and exhibits herself enigmatically to the crowd. The gentleman,instantlycomprehending
his duty in this tricky situation, glances at the lady's hair and
recites a sonnet, after which, liftingher down fromthe table, he
adds a more plain-folksexplanationof the spectacle, and the two
make their way, amid the puzzled approbation of the onlookers,
back toward their carriage throughthe now-darkopen air, cozily
discussingthe performancethey have just given.
So runs, more or less, the "plot" of Mallarme's prose poem
La Declaration foraine.The questions raised by this text are legion.
What (if anything)is being declared (about poetry?) and how does
it relate to other moments in Mallarme's writings?What is the
relation between the sonnet and the lady, on the one hand, and
between the verse and the prose, on the other? How does the
narrativeframemotivatethe existenceof the verse poem? In other
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Barbara Johnson
words, when, accordingto this text, does it make sense that there
be a poem?
On its most obvious level, La Declaration foraineis the story
of an improvisedside-show composed of two parts: a motionless
woman and a spoken poem. In the context,the relation between
the two seems deceptivelytransparent: the sonnet ("La chevelure
vol d'une flamme...") is simply,as R. G. Cohn describes it, "a
celebration of a woman whose looks, featuringmagnificenthair,
need no outer adornment."1 The poet's act would thus seem to
that "all thingsin life
bear out Remy de Gourmont'saffirmation
having been said thousands and thousands of times,the poet can
no longerdo anythingbut point to them,accompanyinghis gesture
with a few murmuredwords."2 In its simultaneousact of naming
and exhibiting,the poem can thus be said to relate to the lady as
a sign to its referent.
But if that is the case, how does this poem fitin with the rest
of Mallarme's poetics of "suggestion,"which he explicitlyopposes
to literal denomination?I If one recalls Mallarme's repeated inon the "vibrasistenceon poetry'sabolitionof simplereferentiality,
4
tory near-disappearance" of the real object "on which the pages
would have trouble closing,"' one begins to suspect both that the
is inadequate,
traditionalreading of Mallarme's non-referentiality
and that the lady's hair is only the apparentsubject of the sonnet,
or "surface"meaningwhichboth hides and reveals
the "indifferent"
somethingto which it remains"exterior."6 Mallarme's own highly
between the obambiguous statementof the non-correspondence
vious and the true in his own work is probablyresponsiblefor the
universalcriticaltendencyto give the hair a symbolicmeaning,to
findthe "pure notion" or "idea"-Poetry, ideal Beauty,naked truth,
1 RobertG. Cohn, Toward the Poems of Mallarme(Berkeley: University
of CaliforniaPress, 1965), p. 147.
2 Remy de Gourmont,Promenadeslittgraires
(IVeserie, 1912), p. 8. All
translationsfromthe French are my own.
3 Cf. Mallarm6, OEuvresCompletes (Paris, Bibliothequede la Pl6iade,
1945), pp. 366, 645, 869.
4 Ibid., p. 38.
5 Ibid., p. 366.
6 Ibid., p. 382.

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Yale French Studies

Promethean fire,provocative Femininity-behind the materiality
of the chevelure.The prose poem, in fact,expresslyinvitesa reading of this typeby callingthe lady a "livingallegory,"whichfurther
problematizes,but does not eliminate,the question of the poem's
referentiality.
But whatevermay be said about the lady's flamingmane, it is
not the hair or any of its symbolic substituteswhich is being
discussed in the concludingdialogue of the piece, but ratherthe
conditionsof possibilityof the emissionand receptionof the sonnet
itself.Poetry,if it is indeed the "subject" of the poem, becomes
here not some ideal and statuesque Concept, but a functionof a
specific interlocutionarysituation: an act of speech which, the
lady banteringlytells her escort,
Vous n'auriez peut-etrepas introduit,qui sait? mon ami, le pretextede
formulerainsi devant moi au conjointisolementpar exemplede notrevoiceci jaillit, force,sous le coup
-mais
ture- oi est-elle-regagnons-la;
de poing brutal a l'estomac,que cause une impatiencede gens auxquels
coufteque coufteet soudain il faut proclamer quelque chose fuit-cela
reverie...
-Qui s'ignoreet se lance nue de peur, en traversdu public; c'est vrai.
malgre sa
Comme vous, Madame, ne l'auriez entendu si irrefutablement,
reduplicationsur une rime du trait final,mon bonimentd'apres un mode
primitifdu sonnet, je le gage, si chaque terme ne s'en etait repercute
jusqu'a vous par de varies tympans,pour charmerun esprit ouvert a la
multiple.
comprehension
- Peut-etre! accepta notre pensee dans un enjouementde soufflenocturne la meme.7

7 "You would perhapsnot have introduced,who knows? my friend,the

pretextof formulatingthus before me in the joint isolation for example
of our carriage-where is it -let's returnto it; -but this spews forth,
by force,fromthe brutal punch in the stomach caused by an impatience
of people to whomat all costs and suddenlysomethingmustbe proclaimed
even a reverie...
Which does not know itselfand hurls itselfnaked with fear through
the audience; that's true. Justas you, Madame, would not have heard and
in spite of its reduplicationon a rhymein the
understoodit so irrefutably,
finalthrust,my spiel composedaftera primitivemode of the sonnet,I bet,if
each termof it had not bounced back to you offa varietyof eardrums,to
charma mind open to multiplecomprehension.
- Perhaps! accepted our thoughtin a cheekinessof nightair the same."

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Barbara Johnson
The story of the recitationof an occasional poem thus concludes with a discussion of what constitutesa poem's occasion:
the two ex-performers
are interestednot in what the poem means,
but in how it means, and in how it managed to come into being
at all. Two conditions,whose significancewe will discuss later,appear necessaryforthe poem to occur: audience and violence.Without them, the poet would "perhaps, who knows? not have introduced the pretext of formulating"his poem into the silent,
isolated togethernessof the rockingcoach. In fact,the prose poem,
which thus ends by discussing the necessary conditions for the
productionof speech,beginsby triplyinsistingon a state of absence
of speech:
Le Silence! il est certainqu'h mon c&t6,ainsi que songes,6tenduedans
un bercementde promenade sous les roues assoupissantl'interjectionde

fleurs, toute femme, et j'en sais une qui voit clair ici, m'exempte de l'effort
a proferer un vocable: la complimenter haut de quelque interrogatrice toi-

lette,offrede soi presque a 1'hommeen faveurde qui s'acheve l'apres-midi,

ne pouvant a 1'encontrede tout ce rapprochement
fortuit,que svggerer la
distance sur ses traitsaboutie a une fossettede spirituelsourire.8

The simple juxtaposition between the "declaration" in the title

and the "Silence" in the openingline should thus, fromthe beginning,warn us that "to speak or not to speak" is in some way the
question. Moreover, a glance at the vocabularyof the text reveals
an overwhelmingnumber of referencesto speech acts: verbs
(exempter,proferer,complimenter,
suggerer,consentir,nommer,te
moigner,proposer,conjurer,degoiser,dire, soupirer,diffamer,observer, ajouter, communiquer, introduire, formuler,proclamer,
gager, accepter), nouns (declaration,interjection,vociferation,explication,convocation,exhibition,presomption,affectation,appro8 Silence! it is certainthat at my side, as maybedream,lyingback in a
rockingdrive while the wheels are assuagingthe interjectionof flowers,any
woman,and I know one who sees throughthis,exemptsme fromthe effort
a single vocable: to complimenther aloud on some interof proffering
rogative toilette,offerof self almost to the man in favor of whom the
afternoondraws to a close, serving with respect to all this fortuitous
closeness only to suggest distance on her featuresending in a dimple of
banteringsmile."

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Yale FrenchStudies
This list
bation),and even adjectives(interrogatrice,
appreciative).
resemblesnothingso much as the concludingchapterof J. L.
Austin's How to Do Things with Words, in which an attemptis

utmade to draw up a list of what Austincalls "performative

terances."
the notionof the "performative"
In orderto determine
whether
can shed anylighton our poem (and vice versa),let us now turn
of its principalcharacteristics.
to Austin'sdescription
First,
briefly
if it can be shownthat "to
a sentenceis called "performative"
utterthe sentence
... is notto describemydoingof whatI should
be said in so uttering
to be doingor to statethatI am doingit:
is derived,of course,
it is to do it.... The name["performative"]
from'perform',
the usual verbwiththe noun'action': it indicates
of an action."9
is the performing
thatthe issuingof the utterance
Thus, forexample,the sentence"I declarewar" is itselfthe act
of declaring
war,whereas"I killtheenemy"is onlya reportofthe
act ofkillingtheenemy.In addition,
to Austin,theaction
according
performed
by the utterancemust in some way belong to "an
accepted conventionalprocedurehaving a certainconventional
10And finally,
"it is alwaysnecessary
effect."
thatthecircumstances
in whichthe wordsare utteredshouldbe in some way,or ways,
11One findsthe performative,
in a
appropriate."
then,whenever,
givensituation,
sayingsomething
is doingsomething
recognizable.
Withoutfurther
of thesecriteria,
it could be said
qualification
thattheveryrecitation
could
ofthesonnetinLa Declarationforaine
be classedas a performative
utterance:to utterthepoemis visibly
to perform
as it
the actionof uttering
a poemwhich,unorthodox
may be, is incontestably
made to fitinto its side-showcircumstances.As forthe act's conventionality,
the poet himselfcalls it
a "lieu commund'uneesthetique."
qualifiObviously,
somefurther
cationof the specificity
of a performative
utteranceis neededto
it fromthe mereact of speaking,
distinguish
for,as Austinhimself
9 J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge,Mass:
Harvard UniversityPress, 1975), p. 6.
10 Ibid., p. 14.
11 Ibid., p. 8.

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BarbaraJohnson
inquires,"When we issue any utterancewhatsoever,
are we not
12 In his attempts
'doingsomething'?"
to finda formulainclusive
of all speech acts in whichsayingis doing,Austinpasses from
considerations
of grammatical
formand transformational
rulesto
considerations
of semanticcontentand interpersonal
effects.
In the
course of the inquiry,the originalbinaryoppositionbetween
performative
and constativelanguageinevitably
breaksdown.The
impossibility
ofdefining
thelinguistic
specificity
oftheperformative
utterance(forwhichwe will tryto accountlateron) leads Austin
to drawup a new set analytictermsfocusingnot on the intrinsic
characteristics
of an utterancebut on its actual functionin an
interlocutionary
situation.Abandoning
the performative/constative
Austinproposesto analyzeany utterance
dichotomy,
accordingto
three"dimensions":1) thelocutionary (sound,senseand reference),
a) theillocutionary(intentional
and conventional
force),and 3) the
perlocutionary (actual effect).

Sincethesenotions,thoughnot withouttheirusefulness,
are at
least as problematic
as the notionof the performative,
subsequent
thinkers
have preferred
to returnto the searchfora set of stable
linguisticcriteriafor the isolationof the performative
itself.By
choosingthesecriteriain such a wayas to eliminateall but what
Austinhimself
calls "explicitperformatives",
thistaskbecomesrelareverbsin thefirst
ativelysimple:explicitperformatives
(orimpersonal third)personsingularpresentindicative
activewhichpossess
"an asymmetryof a systematic
kind[withrespectto] otherpersons
and tenses of the verysame word."13 That is, to use Austin's exam-

whereas
ple,"I bet" is theactualperformanceofthe act ofbetting,
The performative
is
"he bets"is onlya reportof an act of betting.
ofuttering
is "at themoment
iftheactionperformed
onlyoperative
14 The performative,
beingdone by the personuttering."
then,acts
in thatit takeson meaningonlyby referring
to the
like a "shifter"
instanceof its utterance.The FrenchlinguistEmile Benveniste,
12 Ibid., p.
13 Ibid., p.
14 Ibid., p.

92.
63.
60.

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Yale FrenchStudies
semanticdimensionto the definition,
adding a self-referential
eliminatesany remaining
whenhe asserts:
effectively
uncertainty
"An utteranceis performative
insofaras it names the act perthe act
formed....The utterance
is the act; the uttererperforms
by namingit." 15

is also, of course,an elimination

This elimination
ofuncertainty
of theunstatedphilosophical
questionbehindthewholeinquiry,
of
whichtheleastthatcan be said is thatit has something
to do with
theroleoflanguagein humanpowerrelationships.
Thatis,Austin's
not"Whendo we knowforsure
originalquestionwas undoubtedly
thatan utterance
is performative?"
but "Whatkindsof thingsare
we reallydoingwhenwe speak?" But beforediscussingthe way
in whichour poem relatesto this immensequestion,let us first
examinethe role of its "explicit,"self-referential
performative
expressions.
Consideredin the mostrestricted
termsof the definition,
only
one of our numerousperformative
verbscan actuallybe classed
as a "live" performance.
This verb,as it happens,is preciselythe
verb"I bet" ("je le gage"),withwhichthepoetcloseshis argument.
Is it by chancethatMallarmeshouldchoosethisparticular
verbas
theonlyoperative
in thistext?In viewoftherelation
performative
betweena bet and,say,a throwof dice,one suspectsthatit is not.
But beforepursuingthis trainof thoughtfurther,
let us examine
the function
of the non-operative
performative
expressions
on our
list.
Of these,most are temporally
de-activatedby beingreported
in the infinitive
("profferer,"
"complimenter,"
"suggerer"...)or in
the thirdperson("toute femme... m'exempte")or in the past tense

("proposa,""consentit,"
"accepta").Thatis,thespeechact to which
theyreferis notbeingperformed
but onlynamedor reported.
The
name of the de-activated
speechact therefore
functionslike any
othernoun,evento thepointofserving
as a metaphor
forsomething
totallyunrelatedto a literalspeechact ("l'interjectionde fleurs,"
15 Benveniste,Problemes de linguistique generate (Paris: Gallimard,
1966), p. 274.

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BarbaraJohnson
"commeune vociferation").
Thus, if a performative
utteranceis
originallya self-referential
speech act, its productionis simultaneouslythe productionof a new referent
into the world.This,
however,is tantamount
to a radicaltransformation
of the notion
of a referent,
since,insteadof pointingto an externalobject,languagewouldthenreferonlyto its ownreferring
to itselfin theact
of referring,
and the signifying
chain would end in an infinitely
self-duplicating
loop. A variantof thisdifficulty
has, in fact,been
pointedout by P. Larreya,who,in attempting
to fita performative
utteranceinto a Chomskyan
tree diagram,findsthat "to develop
the
thetreeit wouldbe necessary
to repeatthesymbol[designating
an infinitenumberof times."16 The performative
performative]
utterance
is thusthe miseen abymeof reference
itself.
We havenow arrivedat a predicament
similarto thatdescribed
17 but we
by RichardKleinin his studyof metaphors
of metaphor,
are stilla longwayfromshowingwhatthepoemhas to say about
the relationbetweenthis predicament
of
and the characteristics
languagein general.In pursuitof this question,let us examine
of the persome furtherimplicationsof the self-referentiality
utterance.If the performative
formative
refersonly to itself,it
wouldseem thatit does not referto any exterioror priororigin.
In actualanalysis,however,we see thatthisis neverconsidered
to
be the case. For althoughthesenseand the reference
of thespeech
the presence
act are its own utterance,
thatveryfactpresupposes
of theutterer,
whothenbecomesthenecessary
originofthespeech
act in question.Somesignofthespeaker'spresenceto hisutterance
utteranceis to be
if the performative
is consideredindispensable
But in thisprosepoem,it is precisely
whatAustincalls "felicitous."
the intentional
continuity
betweenthe speakerand the utterance
whichis beingquestionedbythepoetandhislady,forthe"reverie"
whichhas been proclaimed
to the crowd"s'ignoreet se lancenue
de peur,"just as the call to the crowdto enterthe boothin the
16 Paul Larreya,"Enoncds performatifs,
cause, et r6ference,"in Degres,
jere annie, No 4, Oct. 1973, p. m23.
17 Richard Klein, "StraightLines and Arabesques: Metaphorsof Metaphor," in Yale French Studies, 45 (Language as Action), 1970.

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Yale FrenchStudies
firstplace had been "obscurpour moi-memed'abord."18 Indeed,
if whatthe poet has spewedforth"force,sous le coup de poing
it is
brutal'a l'estomac"can in any way be called self-expression,
senseof the word.
so onlyin theetymological
toothpaste-tube-like
The poemis notgenerated
naturally
by thepoet'ssubjectiveintenfromthe poet's mouthuntimely
tionality:it is, on the contrary,
withMallarme'smuchripped.This,of course,is totallyconsistent
ofthepoeticsubject: "L'aeuvrepureimplique
discussedelimination
la disparition6locutoiredu poete, qui cede l'initiative aux
mots..."19 Indeed, the active productionof this discontinuity
the perbetweenthe speakerand his words,farfromeliminating
formative
dimensionin Mallarme'spoetry,may itselfconstitute
thatpoetry'strulyrevolutionary
performativity.
However,ifwe returnnowto thewayin whichthiselimination
is actuallyevoked at the end of La Declaration
of subjectivity
oftherelationofspeaker
we findthateventhisformulation
foraine,
to speech is oversimplified.
For the assertionof the non-intentionality
of the poemis itselfso tortuously
non-committal
thatby
the time it ends in an unequivocal"c'est vrai," it has already
practicallyqualifieditselfout of existence.While namingthe
impatience
ofthecrowdas theexplicit"cause"onlyofthefigurative
"punchin thestomach"whichmakesthepoem"squirtout" of the
poet,theladyneithertotallyexcludesthepossibility
of thepoem's
havingoccurredin the carriage(into whichthe poet would only
perhaps,who knows?not have introduced
it), nor does she articulate in any way the relationbetweenpunchand squirt,which
cannotevenbe said to meeton thesamerhetorical
level.
Turningto the circumstances
surrounding
the utteranceof the
one true performative
expression"je le gage,"we finda similar
18 As Ursula Franklinpoints out (The Prose Poems of Stephane
Mallarme: An Exegesis, Michigan State University,Ph. D. Dissertation,1971,
reproduced by UniversityMicrofilms),the period after "d'abord" in the
Pleiade editionis a typographical
error: it is the speech itselfwhichis being
modifiedby the expression"invariableet obscur."
19 iEuvrescompletes, p. 366: "The pure
(poetic) work implies the
elocutionary disappearance of the poet, who leaves the initiative to
words. . ."

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Barbara Johnson
problematizationof the nature of the act performed.For if, accordingto Austin,a bet can only be said to occur if it is accepted
by a taker, the "peut-etre!" with which this taker "accepts" the
poet's bet effectivelysuspends its application and thus its ability
to functionas a true act. Moreover,what is or is not being wagered
here seems itselfinternallyinconsequent,since the "irrefutability"
of the poet's spiel is dependentnot on the clear univocalityof its
meaning,but, on the contrary,on the uncontrollablemultiplicity
of its repercussions.
Thus, while "c'est vrai" and "je le gage" explicitlymark the
places of the constative and the performativerespectively,what
happens in between is that what is stated is the problematization
of the conditions of performance,while what is wagered is the
problematizationof the possibilityof statement.
Austin's theory,of course, contains no provisionfor this type
of ambiguity.Its eliminationis, in fact, one of the main motives
behind the explicitationof a performativeexpression,since "the
explicit performativerules out equivocation."20 But behind the
question of ambiguity,somethingmuch more unsettlingis at stake,
forit is not onlyequivocationwhichis ruled out by Austin's discussion of performative
utterances: it is nothingless than poetryitself.

The points at which Austin dismisses poetryfromhis field of

vision are frequentbut usuallyparenthetical.One of these has been
cited as our epigraph; the followingis another:
We could be issuing any of these utterances,as we can issue an utterance
of any kind whatsoever,in the course, for example, of acting a play or
makinga joke or writinga poem-in which case of course it would not
be seriouslymeant and we shall not be able to say that we seriouslyperformedthe act concerned.If the poet says "Go and catch a fallingstar"
or whateverit may be, he doesn't seriouslyissue an order.21
Austin,op. cit., p. 76.
Austin,"PerformativeUtterances,"in PhilosophicalPapers (London:
OxfordUniversityPress, 1970), p. 241.
m
21

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Yale French Studies

The argumentagainst poetry,theater and jokes thus stems from
the fact that the utterer'srelationto his utteranceis not "serious."
He is not "seriously" doing what he would "normally"be said in
so utteringto be doing. But is this "etiolation" of language, as
Austin dubs it elsewhere, a mere accident, a simple infelicity?
Consider the example given: the poet says "Go and catch a falling
star." In the context of Donne's poem, this order is not only not
serious: it is explicitlyimpossible. It is a rhetoricalimperative
whose function,like that of a rhetoricalquestion, is to elicit an
impasse withoutnaming it. The very non-seriousnessof the order
is in fact what constitutesits fundamentalseriousness: if finding
a faithfulwoman is like catchinga fallingstar,accordingto Donne's
poem, this is apparentlyveryserious indeed.
But what about non-rhetoricalpoetic instances of performative
expressions?When Virgil says, "Arma virumque cano," is he not
doing what he is saying? When Whitmansays, "I celebratemyself
utterance?And when
and sing myself,"is this not a self-referential
Whitman,"does it
Walt
"I
a
Pound asserts, make pact with you,
really matter whetheror not Whitman is listening? In affirming
utterancewill be in a peculiarwayhollow or
that "a performative
void ifsaid by an actor on the stage,or ifintroducedinto a poem;" 22
Austin is reallyobjectingnot to the use of a verb but to the status
of its subject: in a poem, according to this argument,the intersubjective situation is fictionalized.The speaking subject is only
a persona,an actor, not a person.But if one considersthe conventionality of all performativeutterances, on which Austin often
insists,can it reallybe said that the Chairmanwho opens a discussion or the Priestwho baptizes a baby or the Judgewho pronounces
a verdictare personsratherthan personae? This is, in fact,precisely
what Austin is admittingwhen he says, "I do not take ordersfrom
you when you tryto 'assert your authority'... on a desert island,
as opposed to the case where you are the captain on a ship and
23 The performative
utterance
thereforegenuinelyhave authority."
How to Do Thingswith Words,p. 22.
Ibid., p. 28. An attemptto study the returnfroma conventionalto
a "natural" authorityamong human beings would produce somethinglike
the filmSwept Away, which is set preciselyon Austin'sdesertisland: this
22

23

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Barbara Johnson
thus automaticallyfictionalizesits uttererwhen it makes him the
mouthpieceof a conventionalizedauthority.Where else, for example, but at a Party Conventioncould a presidentialcandidate be
nominated? Behind the fictionof the subject stands the fictionof
Society,24 for if one states that Society began with a prohibition
(of incest) or a (social) contract,one is simplystatingthat the origin
of the authoritybehind a performative
utteranceis derivedfroma
previous performativeutterancewhose ultimate originis undeterminable. By using these tu quoque arguments,it is, of course, not
our intentionto nullifyall differencesbetween a poem and, say,
a verdict,but only to problematizethe assumptionson which such
distinctionsare based. If people are put to death by a verdictand
not by a poem, it is not because the Law is not a fiction.
The non-seriousnessof a performativeutterance "said by an
actor on the stage" results,then,not fromhis fictionalstatus but
fromhis duality,fromthe spectator'sconsciousnessthat although
the characterin the play is swearingto avenge his dead father's
ghost,the actor's own performative
commitments
lie elsewhere.But
the performative
utteranceitselfis here just as "serious" withinthe
context of its surroundingfictionas it would be in the contextof
the fictionwe call real life. Indeed, the question of "seriousness"
attends the act of interpretationof any performativeutterance
whatever.Rhetorical imperatives,for example, are far frombeing
restrictedto poetry: a large proportionof our ordinaryconversational devices consists of such expressionsas "Go jump in a lake,"
"Go fly a kite," and other more frequentbut less mentionable
retorts.The question of seriousness,far frommarkingthe borders
is foundto inhabitthe verycore if its territory.
of the performative,
This is, in fact, one of the main factorsbehind Austin's recourse
to the notionof illocutionaryforce.And thisquestion,as it happens,
returnwould inevitablybe reversedby language- in this case by the suspension of an act by the word "no," utterednot by the victimbut by the
perpetratorof the act.
24 Cf. Mallarm6'sdescriptionof the word "Soci&V": "La Soci6t6,terme
le plus creux, h6ritagedes philosophes,a ceci, du moins, de propice et
d'ais6 que rien n'existant, 'a peu pres, dans les faits,pareil l'injonction
qu'6veille son concepte auguste, en discourir,6gale ne traiteraucun sujet
ou se taire par d6lassement."(in "Sauvegarde,"(Euvres completes,p. 419).

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is explicitlybroughtup by a line in our sonnet itself,to which we
now turn:
La chevelurevol d'une flamme'a 1'extreme
Occidentde desirs pour la tout d6ployer
Se pose (je dirais mourirun diademe)
Vers le frontcouronn6son ancien foyer
Mais sans or soupirerque cette vive nue
L'ignitiondu feu toujoursinterieur
la seule continue
Originellement
Dans le joyau de I'ceil v6ridiqueou rieur
Une nudite de heros tendre diffame
Celle qui ne mouvantastre ni feux au doigt
Rien qu'a simplifier
avec gloirela femme
Accomplitpar son cheffulgurante1'exploit
De semer de rubis le doute qu'elle ecorche
Ainsi qu'une joyeuse et tutelairetorche.25
25 The attemptto translateas manyas possible of the ambiguitiesof this
in which the reader is invited
poem produces the followingmonstrosity,
to choose only one of the boxed words at a time,but to accept all permrupossible. Punctuationmay
-tationsof these choices which are grammatically
be added as needed.

The hair

from
fight of a flame to
the far
theft
at

West of desires to unfurlit all

Poses itself(I would say a diadem dying)
Toward the crownedbrow its
except
But without then sighing
anythingbut
gold to sigh that

vvd
this alive
aie

The ignitionof the always interiorfire

Originallythe only one

should continue
continues
that is continuous

In the jewel of the truthfulor laughingeye

To exte
n-d a nudityof hero defames
A tender
The one who not moving star nor fireson her finger
with glorythe woman
Nothingbut by simplifying
Accomplishesby her head, dazzling,the exploit
Of sowing with rubies the doubt she skins
Like a joyfuland tutelarytorch.

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nd
cude
lu

Barbara Johnson
Here, it is the "ceil veridique ou rieur,"roughlyequivalent to the
''naive or ironic reader," which raises the question of seriousness.
in termsof an alternative
By namingthe problemof interpretation
between seriousness and irony,the sonnet places itself between
two incompatiblereadings of its own illocutionaryforce. Readers
of La Declaration foraineare indeed oftensensitiveto the mocking
way in which the poet seems to treathis own creation: in her very
helpfuldiscussionof this prose poem, Ursula Franklin,forexample,
uses the word "irony" and its derivativesno less than fourteen
times. But behind the question of illocutionaryforcelies the queswhich,as we have alreadyseen, is here being
tion of intentionality,
subvertedby the involuntary,blind relationshipbetween the poet
and his poem. We would thereforeexpect that the sonnet itself
would somehowescape the simpledichotomythat it evokes between
seriousness and irony,as, indeed, the poet says it does when he
speaks of its "comprehensionmultiple."Let us thereforeexamine
the text of the poem in order to follow the precise functioning
of this interpretativemultiplicity.
This poem has been "read" many times.26There seems to be
little doubt that it is "about" the woman standingbehind it, and in
particular,about her hair. But if one attemptsto make explicitnot
the referenceitselfbut the sense of the reference-whatthe poem
is saying about the woman-one findsthat the actual affirmations
made by the poem are very difficultto pin down. In attempting
strategies-the isolato pursue even the simplestof interpretative
tion of all the verbs in the presenttense,forexample-one stumbles
over the word "continue," which may be not a verb but an
adjective,and even if it is a verb may be eithertransitiveor intransitive. But a tentativegrammaticalskeleton mightrun something
like this:
26 Cf., in addition to the excellentlist givenby Ursula Franklin(op. cit.
pp. 230-231): Charles Mauron, Mallarmgl'obscur (Paris: Corti, 1968) and
Austin Gill, Mallarme'sPoem "La Chevelurevol d'une flamme..." (University of Glasgow, 1971).

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La chevelure
Se pose
Mais sans soupirerque cette nue continuedans le joyau de
Plceil
(chooseone)
(choose
oe)
Mais sans rien soupirer(a' 1'exceptionde cette nue), l'ignition
du feu continue
Une nudite de heros diffame
Celle qui accomplit1'exploit

By teasing out three possible "declarations" fromthe re-insertion

of this skeleton into the poem, we can conclude that the poem is
saying that
1) The hair is just sittingthere,but the lightingof the interiorfire
continuesin the spectator'seye. The mere presence of the hero maiigns
this glorioussimplification.
2) The hair sets itselfdown,but if the hero does not expressthe hope
that this cloud (the fireor hair) continuein the spectator'seye, his tenderness malignsthe lady.
3) The hair is posed. But, withoutgold, to sigh that this cloud extends
the hero's naked tendernessto the spectator'seye is to malignthe lady.

As if these affirmationswere not already incompatible enough,

the very word "diffamer"can be split into two diametrically
opposed meanings: behind its ordinaryperformativesense of "to
malign" stands the etymological,simple cognitive meaning "to
reveal, divulge." The substitutionof "reveal" for "malign" in our
three readings effectively
results not only in three more readings
almost directlycontraryto the originalthree, but in the passage
froma performative
to a constativefunctionof those meanings.
This still oversimplified
expositionof what the poem is saying
should at least serve to demonstratethat the sonnet is talkingless
directlyabout the lady than about its relationto the lady. It is less
about somethingthan about being about. Simultaneouslyasserting
both the necessityand the undesirabilityof its own existence,the
poem refersto its own referring,
and not directlyto its referent.
But, it may be objected, isn't this because that referentis itself
so successfully"simplifying
the Woman" that it doesn't need the
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Barbara Johnson
poem? Isn't the lady's "exploit"still being presentedas a dazzlingly
self-evidentact in its own right? The poet's partingwords to the
crowd, indeed, appear to be sayingjust that:
La personne qui a eu 1'honneurde se soumettre'a votre jugement,ne
requiertpour vous communiquerle sens de son charme,un costumeou aucun accessoire usuel de theatre.Ce naturels'accommodede I'allusion parfaite que fournitla toilettetoujours a l'un des motifsprimordiauxde la
27
femme,et suffit.

Three hidden difficultiesattend the reader who would take this

explanation at face value. First, the meaning of "ce naturel" is
ambiguous, since it refersback to the absence of theatrical accoutrementsbut forward to the allusive functionof the lady's
dress. "Ce naturel"becomes a centralmeaninglessnessaroundwhich
the presence and absence of allusions play. Second, this entire
speech is introducedas "une affectationde retour'a l'authenticite
du spectacle," indicating that anyone who takes all this as the
"meaning" of the sonnet-and almost everyexegete has done sois being taken in by a mere affectation.An third,the actual "exploit" referredto in the sonnet is not, as it is often misread,
"simplifier
la femme"but "semerde rubisle doute qu'elle ecorche,"
the meaningof which is veryfar frombeing self-evident.The simplificationof the woman is itself only an accessory to the highly
problematicexploit of strewingrubies over a skinneddoubt. Whatever this may mean, it is unlikelythat it is an example of simple
reference.
Referenceis not, however,denied: it is problematizedbeyond
reconciliation.The lady remainsthe referentof the poem, but only
insofaras the poem says absolutelynothingabout her. The moment
she begins to stand foranything,includingherself,she is no longer
a referentbut a sign. We can thus only see her as the poem's
referentat the momentshe ceases to be the poem's referent.This
27 "The person who has had the honor of submittingherselfto your
judgment,does not requirein orderto communicateto you the sense of her
charm,a costume or any ordinaryaccessoryof the theatre.This naturalness
is accommodatedby the perfectallusion furnishedby a toilettealways to
one of the primordialmotifs-or motives-of the woman, and suffices."

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public display of (the lack of) that about which nothingcan be
said is described by Mallarme elsewhere in similar terms:
soit pour un intdretmineur: exposantnotre
Jouantla partie,gratuitement
Dame et Patronnea montrersa ddhiscenceou sa lacune, 'a 1e'gardde quelques reves,comme la mesure a quoi tout se reduit.28

If we now hazard a formulationof what the poem is saying,it

would run somethinglike this:
The hair is, but the poem's existencemalignsand/orreveals the one who,
the Woman,accomplishesthe act of aggravating
by simplifying
and/orembellishingthe uncertaintyover the possibilityand/or
meaningof the poem's existence.

If this appears to be a reading that no reader in his rightmind

could possibly intuitlet alone accept, that is preciselythe point.
What is revolutionaryin Mallarme's poetics is less the elimination
of the "object" than this verytype of constructionof a systematic
set of self-emptyingnon-intuitivemeanings. Mallarme's famous
obscuritylies not in his devious befoggingof the obvious but in
his radical transformation
of intelligibility
itselfthroughthe ceaseless production of seeminglymutuallyexclusive readings of the
same piece of language. This is what constitutesMallarme's break
and not the simpleabolitionof the object,which
with referentiality,
would still be an entirelyreferentialgesture.Referenceis here not
denied but suspended. The sonnet simultaneouslytakes on and
discards meaningonlyto the extentthat its contact withthe lady's
presence is contradictorilydeferred.The "poeme tu,"`9 the Book
of relations,is not a simpleabsence of meaning,it is the systematic,
dynamicallyself-subverting
juxtaposition-"rime" 0_ of what be28 "Playing the game, gratuitously
or for minorinterest: exposingour
Lady or Patronessto show her dehiscence or her lack, with respectto a
numberof dreams,as the measureto which all is reduced."
29 Cf. "Tout devientsuspens,dispositionfragmentaire
avec alternanceet
vis-A-vis,concourantau rythmetotal lequel serait le poeme tu" (cfuvres

completes p. 367).

30 This is, of course, a radical re-readingof the notion of rhymein

Mallarme as set forth,for example, in the following: "L'acte poetique
consiste a voir soudain qu'une idee se fractionneen un nombrede motifs

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Barbara Johnson
comes "true" only throughits radical incompatibilitywith itself.
As we have seen, this "suspension" of meaning may occur
through the simultaneous presence of contradictoryaffirmations,
But if, as in the case of the word "diffame,"the play of contradictions lies in the very separation ("dehiscence") of a word from
itself,this is a highlyunsettlingfactor.The very diachronywhich
has moved "diffamer"from the constative "divulge" to the performative"malign" is at work in any utterancewhatsoever: quite
apart fromthe question of "seriousness,"for example, the illocutionaryforceof an utteranceis subject to the same kind of temporal
fading and conventionalizingthat produces "dead" metaphorsand
cliches. Benveniste'sattemptto exclude "simple formulas"like "je
m'excuse" and "bonjour" fromconsiderationas "live" performatives
is doomed by the very nature of "living" language itself.
That the logic of language renders some kind of discontinuity
between speaker and speech absolutely inescapable is in fact demonstratedpreciselyby Austin's very attemptto eliminateit. For
the very word he uses to name "mere doing," the very name he
gives to that fromwhich he excludes theatricality,is none other
than the word whichmost commonlynames theatricality:the word
"perform."As if this were not ironic enough,the exact same split
can be foundin Austin's otherfavoriteword: the word "act." How
is it that a word which expresses most simplythe mere doing of
an act necessarilyleads us to the question of... acting? How is it
possible to discuss the question of authenticitywhen that question
alreadysubvertsthe verytermswe use to discuss it? Is it inevitable
that the same split that divides the referentfromitselfthe moment
language comes near it should divide language from itself in the
very same way? And can language actually referto anythingother
than that very split? If Austin's unstated question was "What are
egaux par valeur et 'a les grouper; ils riment: pour sceau exterieur,leur

commune mesure qu'apparente le coup final" (cEuvres completes, p. 365).

Whereas previousreadershave emphasizedthe idea of resemblanceimplied

by the expression"motifsdgaux,"I would emphasizethe idea of fragmentation implied by the expression"se fractionne,"in order to show that it is
of these two emphaseswhich in fact constithe combinedincompatibility
tutes Mallarm6'snotion of rhyme.

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we reallydoing when we speak?," it becomes clear that, whatever
else we may be doing, we are at any rate being done in by our
own words. And it is preciselythe unknowable extent to which
our statement differsfrom itself that performsus. Decidedly,
"leavingthe initiativeto words" is not as simple as it sounds. Left
to theirown initiative,the verywords with which Austin excludes
jokes, theater and poetry fromhis field of vision inevitablytake
their revenge.But if, in the final analysis,the joke ends up being
on Austin, it is, after all, only Poetic justice.

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