Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Materials

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Experimentation and the Lyric in Contemporary French Poetry

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Modern European Literature ((PMEL))

  • 187 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter offers an extensive genealogy of the use of found texts (ready-made forms, collage/montage, détournement, etc.) within French poetry from Dada to Situationism. It then goes on to examine how contemporary poets have extended this practice to different types of documents in order to create works of poetry. The chapter shows how, unlike traditional poetic approaches that remain silent on their own methods and conditions of production, contemporary poetics pays close attention to the materiality, indexicality and scriptural economy of these documents.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 49.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 64.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Charles Baudelaire never resorted to this method. Yet the characterization of his work as Petits poèmes en prose was a first step toward an interest for the residual, but seen as a re-creation of old elements already experienced rather than their objectification and manipulation into a new order, that is, as the recording of ‘a prose of the world’ to speak like Merleau-Ponty.

  2. 2.

    Walter Benjamin, ‘One-Way Street’ in Reflections, Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings (New York: Schocken Books, 1986), 77–8; See also Anna Sigrídur Arnar’s analysis of typesetting of un Coup de dés in relation to newspaper’s headlines and layout in The Book as Instrument: Stéphane Mallarmé , the Artist’s Book, and the Transformation of Print Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).

  3. 3.

    Jacques Rancière, La parole muette, essai sur les contradictions de la littérature (Paris: Hachette, 1998), 41. Trans. James Swenson, Mute Speech: Literature, Critical Theory and Politics (New York: Columbia University Press), 60.

  4. 4.

    For a history of ready-made forms from Dada to today in France, see Gaëlle Théval, Poésie ready-made, XXe-XXIe siècles (Paris: l’Harmattan, 2015). See also, Jean Khalfa, ‘La méthode du blaireau et autres techniques d’hétérogénie dans la poésie contemporaine’ in L’hétérogène dans les littératures de langue française, edited by Isabelle Chol and Wafa Ghorbel (Paris: L’Harmatan, 2015), 247–258.

  5. 5.

    Pierre Reverdy, Nord-Sud, Self defence et autres écrits sur l’art et la poésie (1917–1926) (Paris: Flammarion, 1975), 73.

  6. 6.

    Five years later, the Surrealists created Document 34, in response to Bataille’s project.

  7. 7.

    Guy Debord, ‘Mode d’emploi du détournement’ in Œuvres (Paris: Quarto Gallimard, 2006), 221–222. Trans. Ken Knaab, ‘Methods of Detournement’ in Situationist International, (Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981), 9.

  8. 8.

    Reverdy’s definition of the image (‘L’image est une création pure de l’esprit. Elle ne peut naître d’une comparaison mais du rapprochement de deux réalités plus ou moins éloignées. Plus les rapports de deux réalités seront lointains et justes, plus l’image sera forte […]’) in Nord-Sud, 73.

  9. 9.

    Debord , Mode d’emploi, 224 [10]. My emphasis.

  10. 10.

    See for instance, Duchamp ’s financial documents such as Tzanck Check (1919), a cheque on an imaginary bank (the well-named Teeth’s Loan & Trust Company), that Duchamp, unable to pay his dentist Daniel Tzanck, crafted and signed, but was then soon worth much more than the initial fee it covered.

  11. 11.

    Jacques Roubaud, for instance, in Autobiographie chapitre X (Paris: Seuil, 1977), composes poems from sampling texts by Reverdy, Desnos or Duchamp. The idea was to collect poems that had been composed 18 years before his birth. In a different fashion, Michèle Grangaud in Poèmes Fondus (Paris: P.O.L, 1997) collects existing poems to offer ‘une traduction de français en français’ (a translation of French into French) in order to produce ‘melted poems’.

  12. 12.

    See for instance, Jean-Jacques Lebel: Barricades, edited by Alyce Mahon (Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Koning, 2015).

  13. 13.

    Bernard Heidsieck, Notes convergentes (Romainville: Al Dante, 2001), 123.

  14. 14.

    See my article, ‘Boules de sensation-pensées-formes in Christophe Tarkos’ poetry’, Nottingham French Studies, 51, no. 1 (2018): 18–32.

  15. 15.

    Marie-Jeanne Zenetti, Factographies. Pratiques et réceptions des formes de l’enregistrement à l’époque contemporaine (Paris: Garnier, 2014).

  16. 16.

    Lionel Ruffel, ‘Un réalisme contemporain: les narrations documentaires’, Littérature, 166, no. 2 (2012): 12–25.

  17. 17.

    In the Anglo-Saxon context, see Barbara Lousberry, The Art of the Fact: Contemporary Artists of NonFiction (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1990).

  18. 18.

    See Ivan Jablonka, L’Histoire est une littérature contemporaine. Manifeste pour les sciences sociales (Paris: Points, 2017).

  19. 19.

    See Jacques Derrida, Mal d’archive: Une impression freudienne (Paris: Galilée, 2008).

  20. 20.

    Tiphaïne Samoyault, ‘Du goût de l’archive au souci du document’, in Littérature, 166, no. 2 (2012): 3–6(5–6).

  21. 21.

    Philippe Roussin, Jean-François Chevrier, ‘Le parti pris du document’, Communications, 71 (2001): 5–11(6).

  22. 22.

    Lisa Gitelman, Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents (Duke University Press, 2014), 3.

  23. 23.

    Ibid.

  24. 24.

    Leibovici , des documents, 44. Throughout the book, quotations of Leibovici will be reproduced as they appear, that is, with lowercase letters, even at the start of a sentence.

  25. 25.

    Michel Foucault, L’Archéologie du savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 2008), 14. My emphasis. Trans. Alan Sheridan, The Archaeology of Knowledge (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972) 7–8.

  26. 26.

    (All literatures make literature: the bill from the mechanic is absolutely equal to a quote from Kafka). Denis Roche, La disparition des lucioles: réflexion sur l’acte photographique (Paris: Cahier du Cinéma, 1982), 111.

  27. 27.

    Roche , Dépôts, 109.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., 107.

  29. 29.

    See Denis Roche, Notre Antéfixe (Paris: Flammarion, 1992).

  30. 30.

    For an illustration of this apparatus, see the section ‘Roche: The Kaleidoscopic Perception of Reality’ .

  31. 31.

    Roche , Dépôts, 108.

  32. 32.

    Ibid.

  33. 33.

    See Charles Sanders Pierce, The Essential Pierce: Selected Philosophical Writings (Indiana University Press, 1992), 104.

  34. 34.

    Roche , Dépôts, 110.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., 229–230.

  36. 36.

    Ibid., 110.

  37. 37.

    Ezra Pound, The Cantos of Ezra Pound (New York: New directions, 1970), 92.

  38. 38.

    Ibid.

  39. 39.

    Dominique Maingueneau, ‘Retour sur une catégorie: le genre’ in Texte et discours: catégorie pour l’analyse, edited by Jean-Michel Adam (Dijon: Editions universitaires de Dijon, 2004), 112.

  40. 40.

    Ibid.

  41. 41.

    Ibid.

  42. 42.

    Daniel Fabre, Par écrits: Ethnologie des écritures quotidiennes (Paris: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 1997), 11.

  43. 43.

    Ibid.

  44. 44.

    Roche , Dépôts, 20. My emphasis.

  45. 45.

    Roy Harris, Signs of Writing (New York: Routledge, 1995), 4.

  46. 46.

    Ibid.

  47. 47.

    Anne-James Chaton, ‘Archéologie du ticket de caisse’ interview by Sylvain Dambrine and Floriance Laurichesse, Vacarme, 65, (November 2013). Accessed July 17, 2014. http://www.vacarme.org/article2282.html

  48. 48.

    Fabre , Par écrits, 17.

  49. 49.

    Hocquard , ‘Ma vie privée’, RLG1, 68.

  50. 50.

    Emmanuel Hocquard, Tout le monde se ressemble (Paris: P.O.L, 1995), 8.

  51. 51.

    Hocquard , ‘Ma vie privée’, Ma haie, 269–270.

  52. 52.

    Alferi , Cadiot, RLG1, 68–69.

  53. 53.

    See Chap. 3 ‘Tools and Operations’.

  54. 54.

    Alferi , Cadiot, RLG1, 68–69. My emphasis.

  55. 55.

    Hocquard , ‘La Bibliothèque de Trieste’ in Ma haie, 20–21 [19–20].

  56. 56.

    Literary critiques such as Michel Collot, conflate Hocquard’s literality with Gleize’s conception of it. See ‘Lyrisme et littéralité’, Littérature, no. 110, (1998): 38–48. Whereas for Hocquard, literality strongly rejects metaphysics, for Gleize it clearly echoes with the Bataillian ethos of the ‘impossible’ as well as the Lacanian lack or Blanchotian absence, ‘la ‘littéralité’ a affaire à la question (difficile) de: dire ce qui est […] le “réel” […]. La réalité, c’est-à-dire la nudité, la nudité dénudée. Se rendre au réel, etc. […] ‘Littéral’ est sans définition propre. Ou stable. Ou résumable. C’est pour moi ce à quoi la poésie s’affaire lorsqu’elle vise sa disparition’(‘literality’ deals with the (difficult) question of saying what it is, […] “real” […]. Reality here means nudity, bared nudity. To access the real, etc. […] ‘Literal’ is without proper, stable or summarizable definition. To me, it is what poetry deals with when it seeks its own disappearance). ‘Discussion’ interview by Lionel Destremau, Prétextes, no. 9 (1996). Accessed December 16, 2004. http://pretexte.perso.neuf.fr/ExSiteInternetPrétexte/revue/entretiens/discussions-thematiques_poesie/discussions/jean-marie-gleize.htm

  57. 57.

    Emmanuel Hocquard, Les Babouches vertes (Marseille: CIPM, 2009), n.p.

  58. 58.

    Hocquard, ‘Ma vie privée’ in Ma haie, 263–264.

  59. 59.

    This distinction stems from the philosopher and logician Quine. The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy defines ‘use and mention’ as follows: ‘To use an expression linguistically is to use it as a tool; to employ it towards a linguistic end. The ends are performances of speech acts, such as making claims, asking questions and giving responses. In contrast, to mention and individual is to say something about it; to make it the topic of conversation between speaker and listener’, edited by Edward Craig (London: Routledge, 1998), 550.

  60. 60.

    Louis Zukofsky, Prepositions: The Collected Critical Essays (London: Rapp & Caroll, 1967), 14.

  61. 61.

    Charles Reznikoff, ‘A conversation with Charles Reznikoff’ in Charles Reznikoff , Man and Poet (Orono: University of Maine at Orono, 1984), 135.

  62. 62.

    Ibid.

  63. 63.

    Hocquard , ‘La Bibliothèque de Trieste’, in Ma haie, 28 [32].

  64. 64.

    Anne Portugal. Interview by Jeff Barda. Personal interview. Paris, April 4, 2014.

  65. 65.

    See Pierre Alferi, ‘La main courante’, Détail, no. 1 (Paris: Atelier Cosmopolite de la Fondation Royaumont, 1989), 11.

  66. 66.

    See my article, ‘Forensic Poetics: Legal Documents Transformed into Strange Poems’, L’Esprit Créateur, 58, no. 3 (2018): 86–102.

  67. 67.

    Goldsmith , Uncreative writing, 44–45.

  68. 68.

    Leibovici , des documents, 25–26.

  69. 69.

    Republications, edited Mathilde Villeneuve and Virginie Bobin, (Berlin: Archive Books, 2016), 13.

  70. 70.

    John Olson, Forensic Linguistics (London: Continuum, 2008), 1–2 and 128–154.

  71. 71.

    Franck Leibovici, portraits chinois (Romainvilles: Al Dante, 2007), 259.

  72. 72.

    Franck Leibovici, 9+11 (Paris: 2005), n.p., http://ubu.com/contemp/leibovici/Leibovici-Franck_9+11.pdf

  73. 73.

    Ibid., 239 [76].

  74. 74.

    Ibid., 239 [78].

  75. 75.

    Ibidem.

  76. 76.

    Ibid., 253 [91].

  77. 77.

    See Arlette Farge, Le gout de l’archive (Paris: Seuil, 1997); Laurence Denimal, MO: Portraits et plan de travail (Paris: Dernier télégramme, 2009); La Rédaction, Nos visages-flash ultimes (Marseille: Al Dante, 2007), Valérie par Valérie (Paris: Questions Théoriques, 2008).

  78. 78.

    Franck Leibovici, Julien Seroussi, Bogoro (Paris: Questions Théoriques, 2016).

  79. 79.

    Leibovici , portraits, 259.

  80. 80.

    Bruno Latour, Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986), 51.

  81. 81.

    Alferi , Cadiot, RLG1, 10.

Bibliography

  • Alferi, Pierre, and Olivier Cadiot. 1995. Revue de littérature générale, La Mécanique Lyrique 95/1. Paris: P.O.L.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alferi, Pierre, and Suzanne Doppelt. 1989. Détail. Atelier Cosmopolite de la fondation Royaumont.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arnar, Sigrídur Anna. 2011. The Book as Instrument: Stéphane Mallarmé, the Artist’s Book, and the Transformation of Print Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barda, Jeff. 2018a. Boules de Sensation-pensées-formes in Christophe Tarkos’ Poetry. Nottingham French Studies 57 (1): 18–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2018b. Forensic Poetics: Legal Documents Transformed into Strange Poems. L’Esprit Créateur 58 (3): 86–102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Benjamin, Walter. 1986. Reflections, Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings. New York: Schocken Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chaton, Anne-James. 2013. Archéologie du ticket de caisse. Interview by Sylvain Dambrine and Floriane Laurichesse. Vacarme 65. http://www.vacarme.org/article2282.html. Accessed 17 July 2014.

  • Chevrier, Jean-François, and Philippe Roussin, eds. 2001. Le parti pris du document. Communications 71: 5–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collot, Michel. 1998. Lyrisme et littéralité. Littérature 110: 38–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Craig, Edward. 1998. The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Debord, Guy. (1956) 2006. Mode d’emploi du détournement. Œuvres. Paris: Quarto Gallimard, 221–229. Trans. Ken Knaab. 1981. ‘Methods of Detournement’ in Situationist International. Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 8–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Denimal, Laurence. 2009. MO: Portraits et plan de travail. Paris: Dernier télégramme.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, Jacques. (1995) 2008. Mal d’archive: Une impression freudienne. Paris: Galilée.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fabre, Daniel. 1997. Par écrits: Ethnologie des écritures quotidiennes. Paris: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Farge, Arlette. 1997. Le gout de l’archive. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, Michel. (1977) 1994. La vie des hommes infâmes. Dits et Ecrits. Vol. 3. Paris: Gallimard, 237–252. Trans. Paul Foss and Meaghan Morris. 1979. The Life of Infamous Men. In Michel Foucault, Power, Truth, Strategy, 76–81. Sydney: Feral Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. (1969) 2008. L’Archéologie du savoir. Paris: Gallimard. Trans. Alan Sheridan. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge. New York: Pantheon Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gitelman, Lisa. 2014. Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gleize, Jean-Marie. 1996. ‘Discussion’ Interview by Lionel Destremau. Prétextes. http://pretexte.perso.neuf.fr/ExSiteInternetPrétexte/revue/entretiens/discussions-thematiques_poesie/discussions/jean-marie-gleize.htm. Accessed 16 Dec 2014.

  • Goldsmith, Kenneth. 2011. Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grangaud, Michèle. 1997. Poèmes fondus. Paris: P.O.L.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, Roy. 1995. Signs of Writing. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidsieck, Bernard. 2001. Notes convergentes. Romainville: Al Dante.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hocquard, Emmanuel. 1988. La Bibliothèque de Trieste. Royaumont: Éditions Royaumont. Trans. Mark Hutchinson. 1994. The Library of Trieste. Paris: The Noble Rider.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1995. Tout le monde se ressemble. Paris: P.O.L.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2001. Ma haie. Paris: P.O.L.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2009. Les babouches vertes. Marseille: CipM.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jablonka, Ivan. 2017. L’Histoire est une littérature contemporaine. Manifeste pour les sciences sociales. Paris: Points.

    Google Scholar 

  • La Rédaction. 2007. Nos visages-flash ultimes. Marseille: Al Dante.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2008. Valérie par Valérie. Paris: Questions Théoriques.

    Google Scholar 

  • Latour, Bruno, and Steve Woolgar. 1986. Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leibovici, Franck. 2005. 9+11. http://ubu.com/contemp/leibovici/Leibovici-Franck_9+11.pdf

  • ———. 2007a. des documents poétiques. Romainville: Al Dante.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2007b. Portraits chinois. Romainville: Al Dante.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leibovici, Franck, and Julien Séroussi. 2016. Bogoro. Paris: Questions Théoriques.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lousberry, Barbara. 1990. The Art of the Fact: Contemporary Artists of Nonfiction. Westport: Greenwood Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maingueneau, Dominique. 2004. Retour sur une catégorie: le genre. In Texte et discours: catégorie pour l’analyse, ed. Jean-Michel Adam. Dijon: Editions universitaires de Dijon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olson, John. 2008. Forensic Linguistics. London: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pierce, Sanders, and Charles. 1992. The Essential Pierce: Selected Philosophical Writings. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pound, Ezra. 1970. The Cantos of Ezra Pound. New York: New Directions.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, Jacques. 1998. La parole muette, essai sur les contradictions de la littérature. Paris: Hachette. Trans. James Swenson. 2011. Mute Speech: Literature, Critical Theory and Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reverdy, Pierre. 1975. Nord-Sud, Self defence et autres écrits sur l’art et la poésie. Paris: Flammarion.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reznikoff, Charles. 1984. Charles Reznikoff, Man and Poet. Orono: University of Maine at Orono.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roche, Denis. 1978. Notre Antéfixe. Paris: Flammarion.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1980. Dépôts de savoir & technique. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1982. La disparition des lucioles: réflexion sur l’acte photographique. Paris: Cahiers du cinéma.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roubaud, Jacques. 1977. Autobiographie: Chapitre X. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruffel, Lionel. 2012. Un réalisme contemporain: les narrations documentaires. Littérature 166: 12–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Samoyault, Tiphaine. 2012. Du goût de l’archive au souci du document. Littérature 166: 3–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Théval, Gaëlle. 2015. Poésie ready-made, XXe–XXIe siècles. Paris: l’Harmattan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Villeneuve, Mathide, and Virginie Bobin, eds. 2016. Republications. Berlin: Archive Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zenetti, Marie-Jeanne. 2014. Factographies: Pratiques et réceptions des formes de l’enregistrement à l’époque contemporaine. Paris: Garnier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zukofsky, Louis. 1967. Prepositions: The Collected Critical Essays. London: Rapp & Caroll.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Jeff Barda

Authors
  1. Jeff Barda
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Barda, J. (2019). Materials. In: Experimentation and the Lyric in Contemporary French Poetry . Palgrave Studies in Modern European Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15293-2_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation