Mallarmé and the «center of vibratory suspension» – The case of Mallarmé. Draft (Rambling Propositions XXIX-XXX)

Abstract

The following text consists of propositions XXIX and XXX of the posthumous work Propositions buissonières (2016). It addresses Mallarmé’s theory of poetic creation in terms of a vibratory epoché of language, which suspends the signifying function of words, in order to reveal them in their «flickering», that is, in a mobility of meaning in its becoming that leads them to vibrate between the appearance of nothingness and the simulacrum of being, a vibration that doesn’t constitute a presence, but is itself the resonance of the eco of the Cartesian instant as a «differential lag». Nevertheless, such resonance could lead the poet to disregard the unbridgeable hiatus between languages and language, that is, to think that he could attain a sort of absolute language or «poem». The consequence of such a position is twofold: either one pretends to write such an absolute «poem», thereby placing oneself in the position of a thought that thinks itself; or one rejects the possibility of even conceiving such an absolute transcendence, whereby poetic creation assumes its condition of being a mere «simulacrum» or a «throw of dice».