WHAT
IS WRITING?
Not knowing how to use them as a
sign
of an aspect of the world,
he sees in the word the
image
of one of these aspects. And the verbal
image he chooses for its resemblance to the willow tree or the ash
tree is not necessarily the word which we use to designate these ob–
jects.
As
he
is
already on the outside, he considers words as a trap to
catch a fleeing reality rather than
.as
indicators which throw him out
of himself into the midst of things. In short, all language is for him
the mirror of the world.
As
a result, important changes take place in
the internal economy of the word. Its sonority, its length, its mascu–
line or feminine endings, its visual aspect, compose for him a face
of flesh which
represents
rather than expresses signification. Inversely,
as the signification is
realized,
the physical aspect of the word is re–
flected within it, and it, in its turn, functions as an image of the
verbal body. Like its sign, too, for it has lost its pre-eminence; since
words, like things, are increate, the poet does not decide whether
the former exist for the latter or vice-versa.
Thus, between the word and the thing signified, there is estab–
lished a double reciprocal relation of magical resemblance and signifi–
cation. And the poet does not
utilize
the word, he does not choose
between diverse acceptations; each of them, instead of appearing to
him as an autonomous function,
is
given to him as a material quality
which merges before
his
eyes with the other acceptation.
Thus, in each word he realizes, solely by the effect of the poetic
attitude,
the metaphors which Picasso dreamed of when he wanted
to do a matchbox which was completely a bat without ceasing to be
a matchbox. Florence is
city,
flower, and woman. It is city-flower,
city-woman, and girl-flower all at the same time. And the strange
object which thus appears has the liquidity of the
river,
the soft,
tawny ardency of
gold,
and, to conclude, abandons itself with
propriety
and, by the continuous diminution of the silent
e,
prolongs inde–
finitely its modest blossoming.* To that is added the insidious effect
of biography. For me, Florence
is
also a certain woman, an American
*
This sentence is not fully intelligible in translation as the author is here
associating the component sounds of the word Florence with the signification of
the French words they evoke. Thus: FL-OR-ENCE,
fleuve
(river),
or
(gold),
and
decence
(propriety) . The latter part of the sentence refers to the practice
in French poetry of giving, in certain circumstances, a syllabic value to the
otherwise silent terminal e.- Translator's note.
15
