Francis Ponge

Francis Ponge (Montpellier, March 27th 1899; the Bar-sur-Loup, the Alpes-Maritimes, August 6th 1988) Poet French, it receives the Grand Prix of poetry of the French Academy in 1984.

The " drama of the expression"

Contemporary poet, it tests already, at the seventeen years age, a violent revolt against the ordinary speech: " With due respect to the words themselves, being given the practices that in so many repugnant mouths they contracted , one needs a certain courage to decide to not only write, but even with parler" ( Proêmes , " Reasons of écrire" , II, Ponge underlines). The difficulties which it tests to express its pain after the death of his father into 1923 revive its feeling of a " drama of the expression" : the irrepressible desire to express (what Ponge calls the " rage of the expression") even face a language whose imperfections force, distort any speech (it is thus necessary to express " taking into account the mots").

From this point of view, Ponge endorses the design of the poet according to Lautréamont: the poet must be " the most useful citizen of his tribu" because he invents the language which then the journalists will employ, the lawyers, the traders, the diplomats, scientists. If it is up to the poet to modify the language, then it is necessary for him on the one hand to control thoroughly this language and on the other hand to see what this language can say of the simplest things (leaving for later the complex things - thus the ultimate project of Pongee, " Homme" , it will never succeed). Far from any romantic sentimentalism, Ponge chooses to build " definitions-descriptions" object and devotes its writing to the " choses" familiar which surrounds us (the Cageot, the Cigarette, the Bougie, the orange, the roller…): " Naturare Piscem Doces" (You learn how with fish to swim) known as the author at the beginning of " Proêmes". This work leads, after ten years of writing, to the publication, in 1942, of the Parti taken things . This apparent slowness is explained by the fact that, during the Années 1930, its employment with the Transport Hatchet, that it qualifies bagne , leaves him only twenty minutes per day to write then, during the war, by the priority which it grants to its activities of resistant.

The project of the Left taken things

the Party taken of the things tries to give an account of the objects in the most precise way and most rigorous possible, seeking in particular to express their characteristic qualities. This report relates to physical qualities of the object (Pongee resorts readily to the technical vocabulary of the applied sciences; announcing on several occasions its debt towards Buffon or of Martonne, he insists on the relationship between his work and the scientific research), but also on linguistic qualities of the word indicating the object, in particular the etymology, but also the choice and the order of the letters which compose the mot. Ainsi Pongee writes it in opening Cageot : " Halfway of the cage to the dungeon the French language has cageot". The ambition of the poem then consists in establishing bonds justifying the bringing together between the object on a side and the word of the other - what Ponge calls " to found (the word) actually " : one thus could qualify his work of " cratylisme" , by reference to the Cratyle of Plato where Socrate tries to establish etymologies thus " actually founded ".

It results from this that each object orders its own rhetoric, and until the form even of the " poème" intended to give an account of its qualities. Pongee summarizes this research by a striking equation: " All in all here the important point: PARTY TAKEN OF the THINGS equal Taking into account MOTS." ( Methods , " My Creative Method" , dated " Sidi-Madani, Monday, December 29, 1947 "). Meaning is then exploited as well phonically as graphically (Pongee attends the painters assiduously, in particular Braque, Picasso and Fautrier to which it devotes tests). Thus the word gets busy it like material of the text (Pongee falls under the poetic line of Rimbaud, Lautréamont, Mallarmé and Roland Barthes).

However, the sets of letters concern arbitrary the language and irrational (the bringing together between " cage" , " cageot" and " cachot" can still justify itself, but between " savon" and " savoir" , for example, the analogy seems much more debatable). Pongee évertue, in the Left taken things , to increase this irrational share by means of puns, of alliterations, permutations of letters, free analogies, associations of daring ideas (in connection with orange, it evokes the " paper lantern of the saveurs"), while remaining, seemingly, on a description " cold ". This extreme tension of the texts diffuses a very subtle humor, which covers appearances débonnaires or futile a message much more tragic and subversive: the " taking into account the mots" proving to be pressing for any speech (not only for the texts of the Left taken ), and forms it these words raising partly of arbitrary linguistics, then it exists necessarily an irrational share in any speech. From such a point of view, truffer a seemingly objective and rigorous description of irrational elements resembles, with many regards, a systematic sabotage of the language. Commenting on its own work, Ponge evokes a " anarchiste" building a " bombe" of which the " poudre" would be the irrational one ( Entretiens with Philippe Sollers ). In addition, this irrational dimension inherent in any speech returns the individual to the nonsense of his condition.

Reception and going beyond of the Left taken things

As of its first edition, the Parti taken things drew the attention of Albert Camus (resistant like Ponge, it sent to this last the manuscript Mythe of Sisyphus , which will cause a rich person and friendly correspondence between the two writers) and of Jean-Paul Sartre, which devoted an important criticism to the collection ( the Man and the things , Poésie 44, July-October 1944). The enthusiasm of the absurd philosophers and existentialists for the Parti taken will cause initially the flattered astonishment of the author then, later, a growing regret because, if these comments contribute to the notoriety of Francis Ponge, they will obstruct the recognition of the most innovative dimensions of its properly literary work, maintaining many misunderstandings.

The first difficulty comes from the great leading confusion of the books of Pongee: the Left taken , early work (certain texts date from the Années 1920), is published only in 1942. Meanwhile, the author matured. During Years 1930, it writes a series of short texts in general reflecting a careful thought on the language and the linguistic structures of French in particular. These texts seek to encircle with more close the specific properties of the language Frenchwomen (thus flying Poisson endeavors it to express the eigenvalue of imperfect code). Speeches on the speech, they can be described as " métalinguistiques" and seem to raise of logic or philosophy; but in the spirit of Pongee, it is a question of a work strictly literary destiny at the same time to legitimate and exceed the Parti taken , by stressing reforming work, even revolutionary, of the poet " inventeur" of a new language. However, the very high abstraction of these texts and their often obscure access sow the doubt in the spirit of the editors, which push back several times the publication (these delays will cause the final estrangement between Ponge and Jean Paulhan, that a solid friendship however bound since the beginning of the years 1920). Gathered under the title Proêmes (transcription of a Greek word indicating the prelude of a song or the exorde of a speech), this work with proclamation value will appear indeed only in 1948, after Ponge, almost fiftieth anniversary, expressed its impatience and its dissatisfaction in extremely sharp terms (it writes with Gaston Gallimard: " My work chokes, and that cannot any more durer").

The second difficulty leads Ponge to realize that associations of ideas and the sets of letters cause infinite permutations and developments; from there, he recognizes that the jubilation which can cause the poetic activity comes in big part from this surprise renewed in front of an object however known (he names " objeu" this relation particular to the object). It states its intention thus: " In always returning to the object itself, so that it has of crude, of different : different in particular from what I already (at this time) wrote of lui" ( the Rage of the expression , " Banks of Loire"). If the poet always finds something of " différent" to write in connection with the same object, it cannot be question of " finir" a poem. The form " fermée" , " finie" , of the texts of the Parti taken seems a regrettable lure. Pongee will prefer from now on a form " to him; ouverte" , where it shows, by the publication of the successive notes in connection with the same object, the constant overlap of the topics and their constant renewal. Since a poem is strictly speaking " interminable" , then the poet can de facto only publish " works in progress " , which is precisely the case of the texts gathered under the title the Rage of the expression (published in 1952).

Thus, at the time of the publication of the Left taken things , Ponge it clearly inflected the direction of its work, and chosen orientations which, if they do not constitute, far from it, a disavowal of its early works, however relegate them to the statute of preliminary works. During this time, the growing notoriety of Pongee is worth to him, during the Années 1950, to receive several requests on behalf of the editors, which leads to the publication in 1961 and 1962 of the Grand collection , rather disparate nap of varied texts (certain news dating even from the beginning of the year 1920). No doubt this recognition of the author must be greeted; unfortunately, it blurs the deeply innovative character of its research of the Entre-deux-guerres. In particular, the major place granted by the majority of the critics to the Parti taken things leads to several misinterpretations on the work of Pongee and embarrassment considerably the full comprehension of its most original range.

the man is the future of the man |Francis Ponge

For Malherbe , hearth of a complex work

The extreme originality of Pongee however finds to be clarified in 1965, in a masterly test on François de Malherbe. The contemporaries tested a certain sometimes tinted surprise disappointment, even of a feeling of treason: how Ponge, near to the Surréalistes, a long time member of the Communist party, and describing itself readily as revolutionist, could it seemingly write such praises with a poet if courtier? As for literary criticisms of right-hand side, they fustigated the manifest claim of Pongee which is identified, throughout the test, with its prestigious model.

However, the thorough study of Pongee leads it to recognize a close relationship between its most recent concerns and the requirements of Malherbe. First point underlined by Pongee: Malherbe " can exactly (...) proportion (its praises), and say only what he wants to say. It knows what it does. To say, for him, it is to make. (...) It rents the large ones, and it is arranged, by doing this, to rent itself and poetry, to make triumph the language and the esprit". In other words, any poem of Malherbe, was a praise, is accompanied by a reflection and a celebration of the language. In each poem the two levels of the expression of the subject and the invention metalinguistics are imbricated (one recognizes here the direction of the research expressed in Proêmes ). As Ponge can it write as Malherbe constitutes the " tronc" French language, that which lays down all the traditional rules of the versification but which does not hesitate, when the subject obliges there, to transgress these rules. From this point of view, Malherbe evaluates all the resources of the language: it " the lyre" tends; Frenchwoman and written Pongee: " Malherbe (...) having granted (the quadrant), (A it) several times made sound, undoubtedly let us hold us in him the largest poet of modern times (...) and must us hold his work like the quadrant it-même."

Second point underlined by Pongee throughout the test: any speech by nature is intended for the failure (because the language does not allow a " expression" satisfactory) but at the same time any speech can potentially function or like. The Rage of the expression devoted already this deep identity between the inevitable absolute failure of the speech (the poet cannot finish its poem) and the possibility of reaching, in this limited horizon, of the very convincing relative results, even by commonplace statements (Pongee evokes, in its Entretiens with Philippe Sollers , of the very banal but very effective sentences like " Pass to me the sel" , for example). However, in its test on Malherbe, he writes: " Not great mind than Malherbe. (...) Person indeed than him convinced forever more at the same time of its relative superiority and its absolute failure. We have several preuves." of it; Among these last, this one, true leitmotiv of the test of Pongee, the bringing together between two worms of Malherbe: " Nothing, so that very lasts, lasts éternellement" , and, this posed, " What Malherbe writes lasts éternellement."

Pongee insists thus, by taking support on Malherbe, its own research which it seizes again overall in a reflection on the role and the function of the poet. On this same occasion, it revalues the whole of its work, which continues to exacerbate, by legitimating it in an increasingly major way, the " drama of the expression" inaugural, even if last works ( the Soap , the Factory of the Pre ) find to him during optimist in " the objeu".

Priority with exactitude

One then measures the literary range of the work of Francis Ponge, who tends to operate a complete reversal compared to a design Romantique of poetry, in particular illustrated by Lamartine and Alfred de Musset. Contrary to the common opinion, the role of the poet at all does not consist in spreading out feelings (especially feelings larmoyants) " inspirés" by a " muse" but to reach an adequate expression (for the author and the reader) of the object of which it is question. Contrary to the research Surréaliste, with which however Ponge shares certain centers of interest, it is necessary to defy of all " spontanéité" that the automatic writing precisely intends to release, and to be kept of any verbeux chattering, any mixing. Also the work of Pongee is it at the extreme limit of the poetic field, and itself refuses the qualifier of " poète".

With most extremely of confusion on the direction of its work, and while he battles for the publication of the Proêmes , Ponge written with some irritation: " PROÊME. - The day when one will want to admit well like sincere and true the declaration that I make with any end of field that I do not want to be poet, that I use the poetic magma but for me to disencumber some, that I tend rather to the conviction that with the charms, that it is a question for me of leading to clear formulas , and impersonal , /on will please well to me, /on will save myself many oiseuses discussions with my sujet" ( Methods , " My Creative Method" , dated " The Grau-of-King, February 26th, 1948 " , Ponge underlines).

The exactitude and the rigor of the expression, that Ponge greeted in Malherbe like cardinal virtues, also bring it to révérer the Fountain, that it is chosen for model. He thus entrusts to Philippe Sollers his ambition to reach the literary perfection through the saving in means at the point of arriving at the form of the maxims, the proverbs or the sayings, quoting in example the worms drawn from the fable the Lion and the rat : " A corroded mesh carried all the ouvrage" ( Discussions with Philippe Sollers ).

By this radical inversion of the role and function of the " poète" , Francis Ponge exerts a considerable influence on contemporary French poetry.

Perpetual birth of the word: the objeu and the objoie

After the concise forms of the poems of the Left taken things , Ponge wonders about the genesis even of the writing at the point to start again several times its poems such as for example that around fig (in " How a fig of word and pourquoi").

It is a question for him of exploring the perpetual birth of the word, like Objeu (contraction of object and play). This concept is illustrated in the Rage of the expression , the word is like a " obsession" , the repetitions and the alternatives are read like the proof of the perpetual motion, of eternal restarting tightening writing ad infinitum, showing thus that creation has as an essential corollary the non-completion .

At the same time, there are a certain pleasure of the word and writing in this system of the repetition. In the Soap , Ponge speaks about this contact of the man, the reader or the poet, with the things and the world through the poetic text which allows " to conceive its personal identity, to release it of what is not it, to clean it, decarbonize, to mean itself to last for ever finally, in the objoie" and to conclude by saying " it is well as the writing should be conceived: not like the transcription, according to a conventional code, of some idea but with the truth like a orgasme".

The poetic material thus seems object of pleasure for the poet himself writing.

Work

the Party taken of the things (1942)
Proêmes (1948)
the Rage of the expression (1952)
the Large Collection (I. " Méthodes" , 1961; II. " Lyres" , 1961; III " Pièces" , 1962)
For Malherbe (1965)
the Soap (1967).
Discussions with Philippe Sollers (1970).
the Factory of the Pre (1971).
How a fig of word and why (1977)
Pages of workshop, 1917-1982 , Gallimard, Paris, 2005

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