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688 BOOKS ABROAD
FP: Instead of being lyrical about mechanical things! You know ... it is rather com-
plicated, and it is too long for me to go into it at the moment, but I had initially
thought of placing in exergue to my "Prelude du savon" a little red frame with
"Fasten your seatbelts" [said in English]. You see? That's it. That is because it is
something you read at the moment of take-off, or when the weather is turbulent. And
this something that is read at a moment when there is nothing to be seen on the out-
side, since you are traveling inside clouds, or when you are taking off, or landing. At
that moment, one reads. Well, I had thought that was what had to be placed there,
and then I found it to be slightly too surrealistic,slightly too dada, too calligrammatic
and I am now against using means that are a little too visible. Things have got to
be in the text and not expressed in too visible a manner.
By RICHARD STAMELMAN
For twenty-three years, from 1942 until 1965, Francis Ponge kept a voluminous dos-
sier of detailed notes describingthe unique qualities of a very common and unsingular
object: soap. Like the "Barrington's lemonflavoured soap" which Leopold Bloom
buys early in James Joyce's Ulysses2 and which he carries with him as he wanders
through Dublin, so that it bears silent witness to his activities, his encounters and his
experiences,so Ponge's notes on soap accompaniedhim wherever he traveled,especial-
ly during the war years when real soap was unavailable in France. Over the course
of the years he constantly returned to these notes, as, over the course of Bloomsday,
Leopold's thoughts keep returning to the soap resting in his pocket.
Ponge began the soap-dossieras a way of fulfilling his need and desire for soap.
By describing the absent and unobtainable object and by keeping it at the center of
his preoccupations, Ponge was able to manufacture a form of the very object he
lacked. As a poet, or as a "technicien . . . du langage" ("Texte sur Pelectricite,"Lyres,
p. 149), as he prefers to call himself, finding the word "poet"too lofty an appellation,
Ponge created a text composed of observations,descriptions,jottings and notes, which
made the object of his desire as real and as easy to place between his fingers as if he in
fact did have a bar of soap within reach. By means of language and through the pro-
STAMELMAN 689
cess or act of writing, by which words and sounds deploy themselves on a blank piece
of paper, anew kind of object, a text, is created,and this text, entitled Le savon, posses-
ses a structure,a style, a sense of proportion,and a manner of acting similar to those
of the soap. "II ne s'agit pas," writes Ponge, "de 'rendre,' de 'represented le monde
physique, si vous voulez, mais de presenter dans le monde verbal quelque chose
d'homologue. . . ." (Entretiens, p. 48.) The act of writing enables Ponge to substitutea
-
text-object- "ce dossiersavon, ce savon-dossier"(Le savon, p. 12) for a real object,
the soap itself. But the use of the word "substitute"is misleading because the move-
ment from the object-in-the-world, the bar of soap, to the object-that-is-the-poem,the
text, is more than the substitution of one thing for another. Rather, Ponge's poems
dramatize the radical transformation of the object of the poet's desire and his con-
templation, the objet-chose,I will call it, into a different and original form, namely
a text, an objet-description.
This conversion is initiated, mediated and accomplished through the operation
of language, and, in particular,the language of description.3All things, Ponge believes,
yearn to express themselves, and they mutely await the coming of the word so that
they may reveal the hidden depths of their being. The word penetrates through the
tough skins and the closed surfaces of things, opening up a vast space and animating
a dormant, microscopicworld of unrevealed qualities which define the essential indi-
viduality of the object and its fundamental difference from all other things that exist
or will ever exist. The word gives breath to the object, causing it to vibrate and its
sounds to reverberate within the newly uncovered interior landscape: "II faut du
souffle,"writes Ponge, "pour faire vibrer dans chaque chose sa corde sensible" {Mai-
herbe, p. 310) . Expressionhas begun, and since "Tout n'est que paroles"("Des raisons
d'ecrire,"PPC, p. 163), the possibilitiesfor expression in the world are inexhaustible:
... a proposdes chosesles plus simplesil est possiblede faire des discoursinfinis
entierementcomposesde declarationsinedites,enfin ... a proposde n'importequoi
non seulementtout n'estpas dit, mais a peu pres tout reste a dire. ("Introduction
au galet,"PPC, p. 173.)
Everything in the world of Ponge is envisioned as an act of expression that is
constantly in progress. In a sense, there are no acts that are not also essentially acts
of language. The careful, microscopicobservationof a thing by the poet, the detailed
scrutiny of its "qualit.esdifferentielles,"the naivete and love with which he approaches
the object, the intrusion by the poet's mind into the intimacy of the object's interior
landscape,the generosity with which he surrendershis own being to its attraction,the
total engagement of his mind and consciousness with the geography of the object-
all these acts, which for Ponge constitute contemplation, occur through language
and during the operation by which the text is written. Contemplation is inseparable
from writing :
. . . il ne s'agit vraimentpas de contemplationa proprementparler dans ma
methode,mais d'une contemplationtellementactive, ou la nominations'eflectue
aussitot,d'uneoperation,la plume a la main .... ("Tentativeorale,"Methodes,p.
260.)
For Ponge contemplation is nominative. It is not a passive mental act of medita-
tion, but, rather, a truly creative act where the naming of a thing signals the birth of
that thing. The act by which the poet sees an object, as if for the first time and with
690 BOOKS ABROAD
the wonder, joy and excitement of the first man on earth, and the act by which he
names and describes that object are contemporaneous. It is what Ponge calls "le
regard-de-telle-sorte-qu'on-le-parle" ("Les Facons du regard," PPC, p. 120). And the
setting for this "regard," the place where it happens, is the blank page of paper. It
is here that the object is reborn as text, or more precisely, that the objet-chose is con-
verted into the objet-description.Out of muteness comes speech and out of passivity
and petrificationcomes an actively moving object. The act of speech, which the object-
in-the-world acquires, heralds its projection into being; as Ponge remarks:
Bois de pins, sortez de la mort, de la non-remarque,de la non-conscience!. . .
Surgissez,bois de pins, surgissez dans la parole. L'on ne vous connait pas.-
Donnez votre formule.("Le Carnetdu bois de pins," TP, pp. 338-39.)
The transformationof objet-choseinto objet-descriptionconstitutes the drama of
expression in Ponge's work. How this occurs, the process by which language con-
verts an object-in-the-world into a text, is one of Ponge's major preoccupationsand
the subject, either implicit or explicit, of most of his poems and writings. He is the
scientistof the phenomenon of expression,seeking answers to questions about how the
expressionfunctions, what changes occur when it is under way, and what effects result
from its operation. The conversion of objet-chose to objet-descriptionis studied by
Ponge as if it were a physical phenomenon akin to the change from a gas to a liquid
state, and, in fact, this analogy is not farfetched, for in La Seine (TP, pp. 537-39)
Ponge develops a notion that equates the three states of matter (solid, liquid, gas)
with three states of expression (object, word, mind). As cold can change water to ice,
so the advent of words, the act of writing, can change one object, the objet-chose,into
another, the objet-description.The title of one of Ponge's most beautiful "proemes"
aptly expresses this conversion: "De la modification des choses par la parole" {PPC,
pp. 122-23).
Words modify things, and a Ponge text simultaneously dramatizes and activates
this modification.At once, it converts the objet-choseinto the objet-descriptionand at
the same time describes the very process of conversion that is taking place. Ponge
is like a magician who performs tricks of appearance and disappearance whereby
things are transformed into other things, while, at the very moment of the trick,
calling his spectators'attention to the way in which the trick has been performed.
The process of conversion is as important as the conversion itself. This explains
Ponge's insistence that his texts should function more than they should mean ("Le
murmure,"Methodes, p. 201). They function as catalysts in an act of description by
which a real object becomes a text. Ponge's work on "la Seine," for example, is at
once the description of a river, a cours d'eau, and that of a text, a discours, with all
the multiple parallels that exist between the two. The poet's acts of contemplation,
descriptionand writing, which are essentiallythe same act, "ferontde la Seine ce livre,"
writes Ponge (TP, p. 541). They literally make the river, the objet-chose,into a book,
an objet-description,and at the same time dramatize the transformationof which they
are the cause. The art of description as used by Ponge is not a technique of static,
fixed representationby which exterior realities or things are expressed categorically
once and for all. On the contrary,it is a process,an act, that literally moves the object
into being.
STAMELMAN 691
ject in "un style savonneux, moussant, ecumeux" (p. 27) ,6 is the way in which the
story of the soap's acquisition of speech becomes a metaphor by which Ponge shows
how Le savon text is formed. The poem's "theme," as expressed hesitantly in the
opening pages of the book, is compared to the shy, dormant soap lying in its dish.
The exuberant variations and digressions of the text are said to resemble the froth
and foam generated by the soap in water (p. 32). The soap is shown to act like a
word because it possesses the properties, gestures and movements of language.7 In
Le savon, soap and word enact a drama of expressionthat is common to them both.
The fundamental subject of Ponge's texts concerns the making of the text, the
process of expression by which an objet-chose,recently born to language, expresses
itself and thus gives birth to a text, an objet-description.Although one could say that
a Ponge text, like Le savon, presents an allegory about poetic creation and the genesis
of poems, this would be misleading, for there is no referencein Ponge's texts, as there
would be in an allegory, to a reality existing outside of the text and for which the
text would be a symbolic representation.In Ponge's poetry the text refers to itself and
to itself alone. If reference is indeed made to something, it is only to the drama of the
objet-chose's death and the consequent birth of the objet-description,and that drama
exists nowhere but in and through the words of the poem, not the poem as a finished
product but as a process.The only thing the text "represents"is its own surging into
being through language, its own act of expression.Ultimately, the text signifies itself.
Ponge sees writing,
non comme la transcription,selon un code conventionnel,de quelque idee (ex-
terieureou anterieure),mais a la verite comme un orgasme:comme l'orgasme
d'une etre, ou disons d'une structure,deja conventionnellepar elle-meme,bien
entendu- mais qui doit, pour s'accomplir,se donner,avec jubilation,comme teller
en un mot, se signifierelle-meme.(Le savion,p. 127.)
The joy, jubilation, ecstasy and pleasure of self-expression,this is what Ponge
means by his notion of an ecriture-orgasme.In ecstasy, an objet-choseexpresses its
being and then expires; and out of this ecstasy surges the objet-description,the text,
whose only purpose,according to Ponge, is to "donner a jouir" ("My creativemethod,"
Methodes, p. 22), to give enjoyment to man and to remind him of "le bonheur de
vivre"(Malherbe,p.29l):
For the wandererdoesn'tbring from the mountainslope a handfulof earthto the
valley,untellableearth,but only some word he has won, a pure word, the yellow
and blue gentian.Are we, perhaps,here just for saying:House, Bridge,Fountain,
Gate, Jug, Olive tree, Window,- possibly:Pillar, Tower? . . . but for saying,re-
member,oh, for such saying as never the things themselveshoped so intenselyto
be. Is not the secretpurposeof this sly earth,in urging a pair of lovers,just to
make everythingleap with ecstasyin them?8
Wesleyan University
1 Le parti pris des choses, p. 205. In this article des choses, suivi de Proemes. Coll. "Poesie," Paris,
the following abbreviatedtitles will be used to refer Gallimard, 1942, 1948); Pieces (Pieces, Coll.
to Ponge's works: Entretiens (Entretiens de Francis "Poesie," Paris, Gallimard, 1962); Le savon (Le
Ponge avec Philippe Sollers, Paris; Gallimard/Seuil, savon, Paris, Gallimard, 1967); and TP (Tome
1970); Lyres (Le grand recueil. I. Lyres, Paris, premier, Paris, Gallimard, 1965).
Gallimard, 1961); Malherbe (Pour un Malherbe,
Paris, Gallimard, 1965); Methodes (Methodes, Coll. 2 New York, The Modern Library, 1961, pp. 85,
"Idees,"Paris, Gallimard, 1961); PPC (Le parti pris 672.
694 BOOKS ABROAD
3 For Ponge descriptionand the act of describing bonheur d'expression. ("Tentative orale," Me-
constitute a means for figuring the being and for thodes, p. 264.)
generatingthe being-therenessof an object. His goal 6 Since for Ponge the form of a poem is in some
is at once to describeand define the object:
way determined by its subject ("My creative meth-
Ne pourrait-onimaginer une sorte d'ecrits (nou- od," Methodes, p. 37), many of his texts exhibit
veaux) qui, se situant a peu pres entre lcs deux structures, styles of writing and syntactical forms
genres (definition et description), emprunteraient which resemble the qualities of the object being de-
au premier son infaillibilite, son indubitabilite,sa scribed by those texts. See, for example, the descrip-
brievete aussi, au second son respect de l'aspect tion of a forest in spring, which is expressed in
sensoriel des choses. ("My creative method," "une espece de printemps de paroles" ("Tentative
Methodes,pp. 11-12) orale," Methodes, p. 257), and the portrait of a
4 It is also true that Ponge's repetitions enable wasp presented in a lurching, zig-zag, and piquant
manner ("La guepe," TP, p. 270).
him to re-contemplatean object and to describe it 7 This kind of self-consciouscommentaryis quite
from a new point of view, like someone who, in
similar to the analogy between word and thing that
trying to extract a root from the ground, contin-
Ponge makes in his poem "Le lezard" (Pieces, pp.
uously changes the position from which he grabs
hold of the object. Each reprise is an attempt at a 84-88). Here a skillful convergenceoccurs between
the lizard and its name. Ponge achievesa remarkable
re-expression.(See "L'oeillet," TP, p. 303.) identificationbetween the white stone wall in whose
5 This blissful moment is lyrically evoked by
cracks the lizard dwells, when he is not jumping
Ponge as follows: out to devour flies, and the white page of paper
Voyez-vous, le moment beni, le moment heu- from the interior of which gray thoughts (on the
reux, et par consequent le moment de la verite, subject of a lizard, perhaps) dart out to swallow
c'est lorsque la verite jouit (pardonnez-moi). words that have alighted onto the surface.
C'est le moment ou l'objet jubile, si je puis dire, 8 Rainer Maria Rilke. Duino Elegies. J. B. Leish-
sort de lui-meme ses qualites; le moment ou se man and Stephen Spender, trs. New York, W. W.
produit une espece de floculation: la parole, le Norton and Company, 1967, p. 75.
"Le pre est une des choses du monde les plus difficiles"(228) } Yet, this is preciselythe
task Ponge set for himself and labored over from 1960 to 1964: to speak, to tell, to
explain, to extoll that expanse of green preparedfor us by nature. Few writers have left
a record of themselves in the process of creation, and even fewer a record in which
the totality of the fragments constitutes a genre of its own: "la fabrique,"the making,
the becoming of the art work, the concretization of an unfolding future; and con-
versely, the ruin- the Greek temple, the Norman abbey- assumes a character of its
own, not merely as the part of a former whole, but as the monument of a perpetual
-
past. This eternal becoming or eternal returning the process by which the material
object evolves into a word object2- is as central to Ponge's work as is nature, for it
mirrorsthe cyclic regeneration,the continuous present and continuous past of nature
and the WORD. The sixty-four pages of La fabrique du pre (which Ponge recently
told me represent only a third of the total document) allow us to follow from con-
ception to maturity the four-yeargestation which produced Le pre. They also reveal
this singular process of poetic evolution which bestows on the finished work the
substanceof the past and the possibility of future avatars as connotations change, in
much the same way as any natural object continues to mutate. "Le pre est l'emulation