Poetry and Performative Language

Poetry and Performative Language Author(s): Barbara Johnson Reviewed work(s): Source: Yale French Studies, No.
54, Mallarme (1977), pp. 140-158 Published by: Yale University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2929993 . Accessed: 04/02/2013 12:04
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Barbara Johnson Poetry and Performative Language
Surelythe words must be spoken "seriously" and so as to be taken "seriously"? This is, -it is thoughvague, true enough in general an important commonplacein discussingthe I purportof any utterancewhatsoever. 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 crowded fairground, dilapidated but mysteriously where, in an the emptystand, to remedythe absence of any proper performer, and settingher escort up as a lady, afterwakingup the drummer fee-collecting barker, 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, lifting her down fromthe table, he adds a more plain-folks explanationof 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 performance they 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. is What (if anything) 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 140
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 hair, celebration of a woman whose looks, featuringmagnificent 1 need no outer adornment." 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 his no longerdo anything but point to them,accompanying gesture with a few murmured words."2 In its simultaneousact of naming and exhibiting, poem can thus be said to relate to the lady as the 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 I to literal denomination? If one recalls Mallarme's repeated inon sistenceon poetry'sabolitionof simplereferentiality, the "vibra4 of the real object "on which the pages tory near-disappearance" would have trouble closing,"' one begins to suspect both that the is traditionalreading of Mallarme's non-referentiality inadequate, and that the lady's hair is only the apparentsubject of the sonnet, or the "indifferent" "surface"meaningwhichboth hides and reveals 6 somethingto which it remains"exterior." 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, (IVeserie, 1912), p. 8. All Promenadeslittgraires fromthe French are my own. translations 3 Cf. Mallarm6, OEuvres Completes (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 readwhichfurther ing of this typeby callingthe lady a "livingallegory," but does not eliminate,the question of the poem's problematizes, referentiality. mane, it is But whatevermay be said about the lady's flaming not the hair or any of its symbolic substituteswhich is being discussed in the concludingdialogue of the piece, but ratherthe of conditionsof possibility 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 situation: an act of speech which, the specific interlocutionary tells her escort, lady banteringly
qui sait? mon ami, le pretextede Vous n'auriez peut-etrepas introduit, ainsi devant moi au conjointisolementpar exemplede notrevoiformuler ceci jaillit, force,sous le coup -mais -regagnons-la; ture- oi est-elle 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, sur une rime du trait final,mon bonimentd'apres un mode reduplication du primitif sonnet, je le gage, si chaque terme ne s'en etait repercute pour charmerun esprit ouvert a la jusqu'a vous par de varies tympans, multiple. comprehension - Peut-etre! accepta notre pensee dans un enjouementde souffle nocturne la meme.7
7 "You would perhapsnot have introduced, the who knows? my friend, thus before me in the joint isolation for example pretextof formulating returnto it; -but this spews forth, of our carriage -where is it -let's by force,fromthe brutal punch in the stomach caused by an impatience mustbe proclaimed of people to whomat all costs and suddenlysomething 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 on it in understood so irrefutably, spite of its reduplication a rhyme the I mode of the sonnet, bet,if my finalthrust, spiel composedaftera primitive to each termof it had not bounced back to you offa varietyof eardrums, charma mind open to multiplecomprehension. - Perhaps! accepted our thought a cheekiness nightair the same." of in
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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 interested are not in what the poem means, but in how it means, and in how it managed to come into being at all. Two conditions, whose significance will discuss later,apwe pear 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 togetherness the rockingcoach. In fact,the prose poem, of which thus ends by discussing the necessary conditions for the productionof speech,beginsby triply insisting a state of absence on of speech:
Le Silence! il est certainqu'h mon c&t6,ainsi que songes,6tenduedans un bercementde promenade sous les roues assoupissantl'interjection de
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,offre soi presque a 1'homme faveurde qui s'acheve l'apres-midi, de en ne pouvant a 1'encontre tout ce rapprochement de fortuit, que svggerer la 8 distance sur ses traitsaboutie a une fossettede spirituelsourire.
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, te proferer, complimenter, suggerer, consentir, nommer, obmoigner,proposer,conjurer,degoiser,dire, soupirer,diffamer, server, ajouter, communiquer, introduire, formuler,proclamer, gager, accepter), nouns (declaration,interjection, exvociferation, plication,convocation,exhibition,presomption, affectation, appro8 Silence! it is certainthat at my side, as maybedream,lyingback in a of rockingdrive while the wheels are assuagingthe interjection flowers, any me woman,and I know one who sees through this,exempts fromthe effort her aloud on some intera of proffering single vocable: to compliment 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 smile." bantering
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Yale FrenchStudies This list and even adjectives bation), (interrogatrice, appreciative). so resembles nothing much as the concluding chapterof J. L. utmade to draw up a list of what Austincalls "performative terances." of the In order determine whether notion the "performative" to can shed anylighton our poem (and vice versa),let us now turn characteristics. of to First, briefly Austin'sdescription its principal if a sentenceis called "performative" it can be shownthat "to utter sentence is notto describe doingof whatI should the ... my be said in so uttering be doingor to statethatI am doingit: to is of it is to do it.... The name["performative"]derived, course, from 'perform', usual verbwiththe noun'action': it indicates the 9 of of is thatthe issuing the utterance the performing an action." "I the act the Thus, forexample, sentence declarewar" is itself "I is of of declaring war,whereas killtheenemy" onlya report the In the act ofkilling enemy. addition, to the according Austin, action must in some way belong to "an performed the utterance by accepted conventional procedurehaving a certainconventional 10 "it effect." And finally, is always that necessary thecircumstances in whichthe wordsare uttered shouldbe in some way,or ways, 11 in appropriate." One findsthe performative, whenever, a then, givensituation, saying something doingsomething is recognizable. Without further of it qualification thesecriteria, could be said thatthevery could recitation thesonnet La Declaration of in foraine be classedas a performative utterance: utter poemis visibly to the to perform actionof uttering poemwhich, as the a unorthodox it may be, is incontestably made to fitinto its side-show circumcalls it stances.As forthe act's conventionality, poet himself the a "lieu commun qualifid'uneesthetique." Obviously, somefurther cationof the specificity a performative of utterance neededto is it himself distinguish from mereact of speaking, as Austin the for,
9 J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge,Mass: Harvard University Press, 1975), p. 6.
10 Ibid., p. 14. 11 Ibid., p. 8.
Austin's How to Do Things with Words, in which an attemptis
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BarbaraJohnson inquires, "When we issue any utterance whatsoever, we not are 12 'doingsomething'?" In his attempts finda formula to inclusive of all speech acts in whichsayingis doing,Austinpasses from considerations grammatical of form and transformational to rules considerations semantic of content interpersonal and effects. the In course of the inquiry, the originalbinaryopposition between performative constative and language inevitably breaksdown.The impossibility defining linguistic of the specificity theperformative of utterance whichwe will tryto accountlateron) leads Austin (for to drawup a new set analytic terms focusing on the intrinsic not characteristics an utterance of but on its actual function an in interlocutionary situation. Abandoning performative/constative the Austinproposes analyzeany utterance dichotomy, to according to three "dimensions": thelocutionary (sound, 1) senseand reference), a) theillocutionary (intentional conventional and force), 3) the and
perlocutionary (actual effect).
Sincethesenotions, not their are though without usefulness, at least as problematic the notionof the performative, as subsequent thinkers have preferred return the searchfora set of stable to to linguistic criteria the isolationof the performative for itself. By in all thesecriteria such a wayas to eliminate but what choosing relAustin himself calls "explicitperformatives", taskbecomes this in are atively simple: explicit performatives verbs thefirst imper(or sonal third) activewhich indicative person singular present possess "an asymmetry a systematic [with of kind respect other to] persons whereas of ple,"I bet" is theactualperformance the act ofbetting, The is "he bets"is onlya reportof an act of betting. performative of is if onlyoperative theactionperformed "at themoment uttering 14 beingdone by the person uttering." The performative, acts then, in to like a "shifter" thatit takeson meaning onlyby referring the Emile Benveniste, The Frenchlinguist instanceof its utterance.
12 Ibid., p. 13 Ibid., p. 14 Ibid., p.
and tenses of the verysame word."13 That is, to use Austin's exam-
92. 63. 60.
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Yale FrenchStudies semanticdimension the definition, to adding a self-referential eliminates remaining whenhe asserts: effectively any uncertainty "An utterance performative is insofar it names the act peras the formed....The utterance the act; the utterer is performs act
by namingit." 15
is an This elimination uncertaintyalso, of course, elimination of of theunstated behind wholeinquiry, the philosophical question of which leastthatcan be said is thatit has something do with the to in theroleoflanguage human That power relationships. is,Austin's was undoubtedly "Whendo we knowforsure not original question thatan utterance performative?" "Whatkindsof things is are but the we reallydoingwhenwe speak?" But beforediscussing way in whichour poem relatesto this immense let question, us first examinethe role of its "explicit,"self-referential performative expressions. Considered the mostrestricted in of terms the definition, only one of our numerous be performative verbscan actually classed as a "live" performance. verb,as it happens, precisely This is the verb"I bet" ("je le gage"), with the which poetcloseshis argument. Is it by chancethatMallarme shouldchoosethisparticular verbas theonlyoperative in performativethistext?In viewoftherelation a between bet and,say,a throw dice,one suspects of thatit is not. But beforepursuing trainof thought this let further, us examine the function the non-operative of performative expressions our on list. Of these,most are temporally de-activated beingreported by in the infinitive ("profferer," "complimenter," "suggerer"...)or in ("proposa," "consentit," "accepta"). Thatis,thespeechact to which is theyrefer notbeingperformed onlynamedor reported. but The name of the de-activated speechact therefore functions any like other noun, evento thepoint serving a metaphor something of as for totally unrelated a literalspeechact ("l'interjectionde fleurs," to
15 Benveniste,Problemes de linguistique generate (Paris: Gallimard, 1966), p. 274.
the thirdperson("toute femme... m'exempte")or in the past tense
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BarbaraJohnson "commeune vociferation"). Thus, if a performative utterance is originally self-referential a speech act, its production simultais neouslythe production a new referent of into the world.This, however, tantamount a radicaltransformationthe notion is to of of a referent, since,insteadof pointing an external to object,languagewouldthenrefer onlyto its ownreferring itself theact to in of referring, the signifying and chain would end in an infinitely been self-duplicating A variant thisdifficulty in fact, loop. of has, pointed by P. Larreya, out who,in attempting fita performative to finds that "to develop utterance into a Chomskyan diagram, tree the thetreeit wouldbe necessary repeat symbol to the [designating 16 an performative] infinite numberof times." The performative of utterance thusthe miseen abyme reference is itself. at We havenow arrived a predicament similar thatdescribed to 17 by RichardKleinin his studyof metaphors metaphor,but we of are stilla longwayfrom showing whatthepoemhas to say about the relation of betweenthis predicament the characteristics and let languagein general.In pursuitof this question, us examine of the perof some further implications the self-referentiality it utterance. the performative If formative refers only to itself, or to wouldseem thatit does not refer any exterior priororigin. In actualanalysis, however, see thatthisis neverconsidered we to be the case. For although senseand the reference thespeech of the the act are its own utterance, veryfactpresupposes presence that of of theutterer, thenbecomes necessary the who origin thespeech to act in question. Somesignofthespeaker's presence hisutterance utterance to be is if is considered indispensable the performative But calls "felicitous." in thisprosepoem, is precisely whatAustin it the intentional continuity between speakerand the utterance the is which being for questioned thepoetandhislady, the"reverie" by whichhas been proclaimed the crowd"s'ignore se lancenue to et de peur,"just as the call to the crowdto enterthe boothin the
16 Paul Larreya,"Enoncds performatifs, in cause, et r6ference," 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 d'abord." Indeed, 18 first place had been "obscurpour moi-meme sous le coup de poing if whatthe poet has spewedforth "force, can in any way be called self-expression,is it brutal'a l'estomac" sense so onlyin theetymological toothpaste-tube-like of the word. intenThe poemis notgenerated naturally thepoet'ssubjective by from poet's mouthuntimely it the tionality: is, on the contrary, is withMallarme's muchconsistent ripped. This,of course, totally elimination thepoeticsubject: "L'aeuvre of discussed pureimplique la disparition du 6locutoire poete, qui cede l'initiative aux of mots..."19 Indeed, the active production this discontinuity the the far between speakerand his words, from eliminating performative dimension Mallarme'spoetry, in may itselfconstitute thatpoetry's truly revolutionary performativity. thiselimination if now However, we return to thewayin which is of subjectivity actuallyevoked at the end of La Declaration thateventhisformulation therelation speaker of of we foraine, find to speech is oversimplified. the assertion the non-intenFor of tionality the poemis itself tortuously of so non-committal by that the time it ends in an unequivocal"c'est vrai," it has already practically qualifieditselfout of existence.While namingthe impatience thecrowd theexplicit of as "cause"only thefigurative of "punchin thestomach" which makesthepoem"squirt out" of the poet,theladyneither totally excludes possibility thepoem's the of in havingoccurred the carriage (into whichthe poet would only perhaps, who knows?not have introduced nor does she articit), ulate in any way the relation betweenpunchand squirt,which cannot evenbe said to meeton thesamerhetorical level. Turning the circumstances to surrounding utterance the the of one true performative expression le gage,"we finda similar "je
18 As Ursula Franklinpoints out (The Prose Poems of Stephane Mallarme: An Exegesis, Michigan State University, Ph. D. Dissertation,1971, reproduced by University Microfilms), 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 effectively suspends its application and thus its ability to function a true act. Moreover,what is or is not being wagered as here seems itselfinternally inconsequent,since the "irrefutability" of the poet's spiel is dependentnot on the clear univocalityof its meaning,but, on the contrary, the uncontrollablemultiplicity on of its repercussions. Thus, while "c'est vrai" and "je le gage" explicitlymark the places of the constative and the performative respectively, what happens in between is that what is stated is the problematization of the conditions of performance, while what is wagered is the problematization the possibilityof statement. of Austin's theory,of course, contains no provisionfor this type of ambiguity. eliminationis, in fact, one of the main motives Its behind the explicitationof a performative expression,since "the explicit performative rules out equivocation."20 But behind the is much more unsettling at stake, question of ambiguity, something it is not onlyequivocationwhichis ruled out by Austin's discusfor less than poetryitself. sion of performative utterances: it is nothing
The points at which Austin dismisses poetryfromhis field of but usuallyparenthetical. vision are frequent One of these has been cited as our epigraph; the followingis another:
as We could be issuing any of these utterances, we can issue an utterance of any kind whatsoever,in the course, for example, of acting a play or a makinga joke or writing 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,"Performative Utterances,"in PhilosophicalPapers (London: OxfordUniversity Press, 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 imperative serious: it is explicitlyimpossible. It is a rhetorical like that of a rhetoricalquestion, is to elicit an whose function, of impasse withoutnaming it. The very non-seriousness the order seriousness: if finding is in fact what constitutesits fundamental star,accordingto Donne's woman is like catchinga falling a faithful veryserious indeed. poem, this is apparently poetic instances of performative But what about non-rhetorical expressions?When Virgil says, "Arma virumque cano," is he not doing what he is saying? When Whitmansays, "I celebratemyself utterance?And when is and sing myself," this not a self-referential "I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman,"does it Pound asserts, really matter whetheror not Whitman is listening? In affirming wayhollow or utterancewill be in a peculiar that "a performative into a poem;" 22 void ifsaid by an actor on the stage,or ifintroduced objectingnot to the use of a verb but to the status Austin is really the interof its subject: in a poem, according to this argument, The speaking subject is only subjective situation is fictionalized. a persona,an actor, not a person.But if one considersthe convenutterances, on which Austin often tionality of all performative 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 when he says, "I do not take ordersfrom what Austin is admitting 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 utterance genuinelyhave authority." The performative therefore
How to Do Thingswith Words,p. 22. Ibid., p. 28. An attemptto study the returnfroma conventionalto a "natural" authority among human beings would produce something like the filmSwept Away, which is set preciselyon Austin'sdesertisland: this
23
22
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Barbara Johnson thus automaticallyfictionalizesits uttererwhen it makes him the mouthpieceof a conventionalized authority. Where else, for example, but at a Party Conventioncould a presidentialcandidate be nominated? Behind the fictionof the subject stands the fictionof 24 Society, for if one states that Society began with a prohibition (of incest) or a (social) contract, one is simplystatingthat the origin of the authority behind a performative utteranceis derivedfroma previous performative utterancewhose ultimate originis undeterminable. By using these tu quoque arguments, is, of course, not it our intentionto nullifyall differences between a poem and, say, a verdict,but only to problematizethe assumptionson which such distinctions based. If people are put to death by a verdictand are a poem, it is not because the Law is not a fiction. not by The non-seriousnessof a performative utterance "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 elsewhere.But lie the performative utteranceitselfis here just as "serious" withinthe context of its surrounding fictionas it would be in the contextof the fictionwe call real life. Indeed, the question of "seriousness" of attends the act of interpretation any performative utterance for whatever.Rhetorical imperatives, example, are far frombeing restricted poetry: a large proportionof our ordinaryconversato tional 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 of the performative, foundto inhabitthe verycore if its territory. This is, in fact, one of the main factorsbehind Austin's recourse to the notionof illocutionary force.And thisquestion,as it happens,
be returnwould inevitably reversedby language in this case by the suspension of an act by the word "no," utterednot by the victimbut by the of perpetrator the act. of the word "Soci&V": "La Soci6t6,terme 24 Cf. Mallarm6'sdescription 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 p. (in ou se taire par d6lassement." "Sauvegarde,"(Euvres completes, 419).
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Yale French Studies broughtup by a line in our sonnet itself,to which we is explicitly now turn:
'a La chevelurevol d'une flamme 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 Originellement seule continue 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 1'exploit Accomplitpar son cheffulgurante De semer de rubis le doute qu'elle ecorche 25 Ainsi qu'une joyeuse et tutelairetorche.
25 The attempt translate manyas possible of the ambiguities this of as to in poem produces the followingmonstrosity, which the reader is invited to choose only one of the boxed words at a time,but to accept all permrumay possible. Punctuation -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 The ignitionof the always interiorfire the only one Originally should continue continues that is continuous vvd this alive aie nd cude lu
In the jewel of the truthful laughingeye or To exte a n-d 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 tutelary torch.
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Barbara Johnson Here, it is the "ceil veridique ou rieur,"roughlyequivalent to the ''naive or ironic reader," which raises the question of seriousness. in By namingthe problemof interpretation termsof an alternative between seriousness and irony,the sonnet places itself between two incompatiblereadings of its own illocutionary force. Readers of La Declaration foraineare indeed oftensensitiveto the mocking way in which the poet seems to treathis own creation: in her very for helpfuldiscussionof this prose poem, Ursula Franklin, example, uses the word "irony" and its derivativesno less than fourteen forcelies the questimes. But behind the question of illocutionary which,as we have alreadyseen, is here being tion of intentionality, between the poet blind relationship subvertedby the involuntary, expect that the sonnet itself and his poem. We would therefore that it evokes between would somehowescape the simpledichotomy seriousness and irony,as, indeed, the poet says it does when he examine multiple."Let us therefore speaks of its "comprehension the text of the poem in order to follow the precise functioning of this interpretative multiplicity. This poem has been "read" many times.26There seems to be little doubt that it is "about" the woman standingbehind it, and in about her hair. But if one attemptsto make explicitnot particular, itselfbut the sense of the reference-whatthe poem the reference is saying about the woman-one findsthat the actual affirmations to made by the poem are very difficult 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 or adjective,and even if it is a verb may be eithertransitive intranskeleton mightrun something sitive. But a tentativegrammatical 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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Yale French Studies

La chevelure Se pose Mais sans soupirerque cette nue continuedans le joyau de Plceil (choose (choose one) Mais sans rien soupirer(a' 1'exception cette nue), l'ignition oe) de 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 to the hero's naked tenderness the spectator'seye is to malignthe lady.
were not already incompatible enough, As if these affirmations the very word "diffamer"can be split into two diametrically sense of "to opposed meanings: behind its ordinaryperformative malign" stands the etymological,simple cognitive meaning "to reveal, divulge." The substitution "reveal" for "malign" in our of three readings effectively results not only in three more readings almost directlycontraryto the originalthree, but in the passage froma performative a constativefunctionof those meanings. to This still oversimplified expositionof what the poem is saying should at least serve to demonstrate that the sonnet is talkingless about the lady than about its relationto the lady. It is less directly about somethingthan about being about. Simultaneously asserting both the necessityand the undesirability its own existence,the of poem refersto its own referring, not directlyto its referent. and But, it may be objected, isn't this because that referent itself is so successfully"simplifying Woman" that it doesn't need the the 154
Barbara Johnson poem? Isn't the lady's "exploit"still being presentedas a dazzlingly self-evident in its own right? The poet's partingwords to the act crowd, indeed, appear to be sayingjust that:
La personne qui a eu 1'honneurde se soumettre'a votre jugement,ne requiertpour vous communiquer sens de son charme,un costumeou aule cun accessoire usuel de theatre.Ce naturels'accommodede I'allusion parfaite que fournitla toilettetoujours a l'un des motifsprimordiaux la de 27 femme, suffit. et
Three hidden difficulties attend 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 centralmeaninglessness aroundwhich the presence and absence of allusions play. Second, this entire speech is introducedas "une affectation retour'a l'authenticite de 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. third,the actual "exAn ploit" referredto in the sonnet is not, as it is often misread, "simplifier femme"but "semerde rubisle doute qu'elle ecorche," la the meaningof which is veryfar frombeing self-evident. The simplificationof the woman is itself only an accessory to the highly rubies over a skinneddoubt. Whatproblematicexploit of strewing ever this may mean, it is unlikelythat it is an example of simple reference. Referenceis not, however,denied: it is problematizedbeyond The lady remainsthe referent the poem, but only of reconciliation. insofaras the poem says absolutelynothingabout her. The moment she is no longer she begins to stand foranything, includingherself, a referent but a sign. We can thus only see her as the poem's This at referent the momentshe ceases to be the poem's referent.
27 "The person who has had the honor of submitting herselfto your to does not requirein orderto communicate you the sense of her judgment, This naturalness charm,a costume or any ordinary accessoryof the theatre. is accommodatedby the perfectallusion furnished a toilettealways to by -or motives -of the woman, and suffices." one of the primordialmotifs
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Yale French Studies public display of (the lack of) that about which nothingcan be said is described by Mallarme elsewhere in similar terms:
soit mineur: exposantnotre Jouantla partie,gratuitement pour un intdret sa Dame et Patronnea montrer ddhiscenceou sa lacune, 'a 1e'gardde quelques reves,comme la mesure a quoi tout se reduit.28
If we now hazard a formulation what the poem is saying,it of would run somethinglike this:
The hair is, but the poem's existencemalignsand/orreveals the one who, the by simplifying Woman,accomplishesthe act of aggravating the over the possibility and/orembellishing uncertainty and/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. in What is revolutionary Mallarme's poetics is less the elimination of the "object" than this verytype of construction a systematic of set of self-emptying non-intuitivemeanings. Mallarme's famous of obscuritylies not in his devious befogging the obvious but in his radical transformation intelligibility of itselfthroughthe ceaseless production of seeminglymutuallyexclusive readings of the same piece of language. This is what constitutes Mallarme's break and with referentiality, not the simpleabolitionof the object,which would still be an entirely referential gesture.Referenceis here not denied but suspended. The sonnet simultaneouslytakes on and discards meaningonlyto the extentthat its contact withthe lady's presence is contradictorily deferred.The "poeme tu,"`9 the Book of relations, not a simpleabsence of meaning, is the systematic, is it dynamicallyself-subverting juxtaposition-"rime" 0_ of what be28 "Playing the game, gratuitously for minor interest: exposing our or 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,disposition fragmentaire avec alternanceet vis-A-vis, concourantau rythme total lequel serait le poeme tu" (cfuvres
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 fractionne un nombrede motifs en
completes p. 367).
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Barbara Johnson comes "true" only throughits radical incompatibility with itself. As we have seen, this "suspension" of meaning may occur through the simultaneous presence of contradictory affirmations, But if, as in the case of the word "diffame," play of contradicthe tions lies in the very separation ("dehiscence") of a word from itself,this is a highlyunsettling factor.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 conventionalizing that produces "dead" metaphorsand cliches. Benveniste'sattemptto exclude "simple formulas"like "je m'excuse" and "bonjour" fromconsideration "live" performatives as 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 is gives to that fromwhich he excludes theatricality, none other the names theatricality: word than the word whichmost commonly As "perform." if this were not ironic enough,the exact same split can be foundin Austin's otherfavorite word: 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 when that question possible to discuss the question of authenticity alreadysubvertsthe verytermswe use to discuss it? Is it inevitable fromitselfthe moment that the same split that divides the referent language comes near it should divide language from itself in the other very same way? And can language actually referto anything than that very split? If Austin's unstated question was "What are
leur egaux par valeur et 'a les grouper; ils riment: pour sceau exterieur,
implied Whereas previousreadershave emphasizedthe idea of resemblance "motifsdgaux,"I would emphasizethe idea of fragmentaby the expression in tion implied by the expression"se fractionne," order to show that it is of the combinedincompatibility these two emphaseswhich in fact constitutes Mallarm6'snotion of rhyme.
commune mesure qu'apparente le coup final" (cEuvres completes, p. 365).
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Yale French Studies 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, to "leavingthe initiative words" is not as simple as it sounds. Left the to theirown initiative, 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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Poetry and Performative Language Author(s): Barbara Johnson Reviewed work(s): Source: Yale French Studies, No.

Barbara Johnson Poetry and Performative Language

J. L. Austin,How to Do Things with

Austin's How to Do Things with Words, in which an attemptis

92. 63. 60.

the thirdperson("toute femme... m'exempte")or in the past tense

from fight of a flame to the far theft at

Yale French Studies

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

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