1. W ord and image
The th irte e n th page calls a truce in an often-rehearsed theoretical battle between the w o rd and the image. Its co m p o sitio n o f em broidered p icto ria lism s makes obsolete Lessing's rig id separation o f the tw o modes, and reinstates a thread o f the in te rre fe re n tia lity o f w o rd and image in classical w ritin g s .62 Kew Gardens also challenges the tendency, in w ritin g s on book illu s tra tio n , to emphasize either the w o rd o r the image, o r at least to separate the tw o modes. In the past cen tury, Lessing's separations have n o t p ro ve d m aintainable, even w hen critics veer to one side o f the
o p p o s itio n o r the other. In part, the shared context o f the book structure makes a closer re la tion inevitable, b u t tw e n tie th -c e n tu ry fo rm a lis t (and later s tru c tu ra lis t) experim ents create a com m on g ro u n d on w h ic h the tw o
m odes can coexist harm oniously.
Stephane M a lla rm e 's w ritin g s w ere k n o w n to the B loom sbury group: Roger F ry translated m any o f his poems b y 1918 and approached the W oolfs about p u b lis h in g a book o f them soon after (Fry, Letters 484-86).63 H is
thoughts on illu s tra tio n are a good exam ple o f the im p o s s ib ility o f separating w ord s fro m images.
62 For a discussion of word-image relations in Aristotle and Horace, and the opposition of these modes in Lessing's Laocoon, see the section B. of the Introduction.
63 The book was supposedly published in 1936 (Sutton 484, n3; Nicolson 439, n l), but it does not appear in J. H. Woolmer's exhaustive Checklist o f the Hogarth Press, 1917-1946. Letters to the Woolfs in 1921 indicate that the book is nearing completion (Fry, Letters 508, 514, 516), but the project was delayed. A letter from Woolf, on 3 October 1922, was supposed to be "a bait to urge Roger Fry to complete the work" (Nicolson, 2:565, n2): Woolf writes, "I may point out that w e've sold several copies of Mallarme by Roger Fry" (Letters 2:565).
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In response to an in q u iry , M a lla rm e w rites that " I am fo r — no
illu s tra tio n " 64 because the w o rd has a s p iritu a l po w er to call fo rth a ll aspects o f life. As M allarm e w rite s in "T h e Book, S p iritu a l In stru m e n t," "w o rd s le[a]d back to the ir o rig in , w h ic h is the tw enty-six letters o f the alphabet, so gifte d w ith in fin ity that they w ill fin a lly consecrate language. E ve ryth in g is caught up in th e ir endless va ria tion s and then rises o u t o f th e m " (82).65 Illu stra tio n s are not necessary to create any k in d o f reader's response;
m oreover, they d e prive the reader o f the joy o f p a rtic ip a tin g in the magical evocation.
This last assertion depends up on the m eaning o f the rest o f
M a lla rm e 's sentence on w h y he does n o t fa vo r illu s tra tio n . It c o u ld read, as M ille r translates, " I am fo r — no illu s tra tio n , e ve ryth in g a b o o k evokes having to pass in to the m in d o r s p irit o f the re ade r" (67). This tra nslatio n enables M ille r to conclude th a t the illu s tra tio n w o u ld interfere w ith the w o rd s' a b ility to pass d ire c tly in to the reader's m in d or sp irit. H is
conclusion positions M a lla rm e as m a kin g an argum ent about w o rd s and images belonging to tim e and space:
A book, i t seems, has o n ly so m uch m agic energy. A n illu s tra tio n w ill d ra in this p o w e r off, lea vin g the book dead letter, sh o rt-circu ite d by the sup erio r p o w e r o f the illu s tra tio n to m ake som ethin g present. The w o rd evokes. The illu s tra tio n presents. (67)
M ille r's conclusion is caught in Lessing's d ich o to m y: the w o rd "e vo kes" th ro u g h g iv in g h in ts o f in fo rm a tio n ove r tim e. The im age, in contrast, "presents" in fo rm a tio n a ll at once. This leaves no m yste ry in the text: the
64 "Je suis pour — aucune illustration, tout ce qu'evoque un livre devant se passer dans l'esprit du lecteur" ("Mustre" 878).
illu s tra tio n , b e ing an un co m p lica te d ly synchronic and spatial presentation o f in fo rm a tio n , cannot w o rk the m agic o f a diachronic verbal text.
But M ille r assumes that M a lla rm e is equating the fun ction s o f w o rd and image, and he im agines that the illu s tra tio n w o u ld be co m m un ica ting to the reader instead o f the w ords. A s h ift in the translation, and a
consideration o f o th e r w ritin g s b y M alla rm e , reveals an a lte rn a tive
in te rp re ta tio n o f M a lla rm e 's bias against illu s tra tio n . The verb "se passer"
can mean "to take place," so M a lla rm e 's key sentence could read, " I am for — no illu s tra tio n , e v e ry th in g a book evokes h a v in g to take place in the m in d o r s p irit o f the reader."66 It is n o t that the illu s tra tio n has a "s u p e rio r po w er . . . to make som ething present" to a reader; rather, the illu s tra tio n can d is tra c t the reader fro m im a g in a tiv e ly creating an in te rp re ta tio n fro m the w ord s alone. The w o rd "evo kes" an experience tha t m u st be fu lly fleshed o u t, m ade "p re se n t" o r actual, b y a reader's im a g inatio n.
M a lla rm e is a fra id tha t this im a g in a tive act w o u ld be jeopardized by the illu s tra tio n .67 The image w o u ld com pete w ith the w o rd s, and the
a u th o r w o u ld no longer w ie ld fu ll p o w e r to evoke a ll m anner o f experience in the reader.68 H is v isio n o f this p o w e r is to ta lizin g : " a ll e a rth ly existence m ust u ltim a te ly be contained in a b o o k " ("S p iritu a l" 80).69 I f e ve ryth in g
66 Thanks to Suzanne Verderber for reminding me of this meaning of the word. 67 See also Miller's discussion of Henry James' resistance to illustration, 68-73, 97.
68 This dynamic resembles Freud's concept of castration anxiety, which often results in a fear of the feminine and a wish to obliterate it: "no illustration." The closest women get to Stephane M allarme's books is in an analogy: Mallarme believed that the uncut pages of a printed book were like a virgin's flesh, and that these "virginal foldings of the book are unfortunately exposed to the kind of sacrifice which caused the crimson-edged tomes of ancient times to bleed. I mean that they invite the paper-knife, which stakes out claims to possession of the book" ("Spiritual" 83). This physically violent image contrasts w ith the spiritual tone of his writing, or perhaps that spirituality is bought at the expense of respecting the physical plane.
69 One could also call this vision of pw er oppressively patriarchal, if one accepts the gendered separation of w ord and image.
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should be inscribed in discourse, then there is indeed no place fo r the image; M a lla rm e could n o t a d m it illu s tra tio n s in to his version o f the ideal book.
The iro n y o f M allarm e's theory is that his m ost fam ous poem, "U n coup de des jamais n 'a b o lira le hasard," has im ag istic qualities even w ith o u t a p ro p e r accom panying "illu s tra tio n " (see fig. B.22.). The w o rd s spread across each page in cascades that resemble the scattering dice o f the title. M a lla rm e 's o w n discussion o f his poem exposes the co n trad iction, though M ille r never m entions the poem and therefore sidesteps the iro n y.
[T]he w o rk o f art— w h ic h is unique o r sh o u ld be— m u st p ro v id e illustra tions. A trem endous bu rst o f greatness, o f th o u g h t, o r o f em otion, contained in a sentence p rin te d in large type, w ith one g ra d u a lly descending line to a page, sho uld keep the reader breathless th ro u g h o u t the book and sum m on fo rth his powers o f excitem ent. A ro u n d this w o u ld be sm aller groups o f secondary im portance, com m enting on the m ain sentence o r d e riv e d fro m it, lik e a scattering of ornam ents. ("S p iritu a l" 83)
The arrangem ent o f w ords is im agistic, and the sm aller w o rd s act as decorations that adorn the large p rin t o f the m a in tho ug ht.70 The reader uses a ll o f this visu a l and verbal in fo rm a tio n together to create an
in te rp re ta tio n , fo r " in the instance o f reading, it is possible to 'read' one thin g, and, at the same tim e, to 'w a tc h ' o r sense anoth er" (K ravis 161). Thus critics note that a reader o f this poem "a u to m a tic a lly 'grades' the w ord s, a p p ly in g shape and chiaroscuro to the sense he understands, as to the
images he sees" (K ravis 220). Those images are the w o rd s and lines o f p rin t, w h ic h are "som etim es tra ilin g across the paper lik e a d ra w in g o f the w ake o f a ship, sometimes grouped together lik e black dots on w h ite dice, and
sometimes more w id e ly scattered like black stars in a w h ite s k y " (C h a d w ick The ornament is a particularly femininized type of decoration or illustration. See Steiner, "Postmodernism and the Ornament." Kant thought that ornament sometimes "injures genuine beauty" (62): like patriarchally defined women, they are non-essential, yet decorative.
13). The w o rd s on M a lla rm e 's pages, like those o f Bell's Kew Gardens, have im agistic qualities in themselves (as discussed at the be g in n in g o f section D., above).71 T hus M alla rm e 's w is h to banish the illu s tra tio n from the verbal realm is, b y his ow n evidence, impossible.
Later in the tw e n tie th century, lon g after the p u b lic a tio n o f the 1927 K ew Gardens, Helene Cixous, argues fo r the illu s tra tio n 's p o w e r to
supplem ent and "o p e n " the w ritte n text. As Steve Baker describes Helene C ixous' idea, "she suggests that visua l im agery, and d ra w in g in p a rticu la r, m ig h t in a certain sense better a llo w us to get 'betw een the lines' o f the a rtific ia lly complete, 'fin is h e d ' and o rd e rly discourse o f the propre" (254). In C ixo u s' version, the fem inine illu s tra tio n presents in fo rm a tio n th a t w o rd s are incapable o f com m unicating, because images are not b o u n d b y the phallogocentrism o f lin g u is tic discourse.
W h ile Cixous frames verbal language as a (m asculinist) discourse that closes d o w n in te rp re tive options, lite ra ry the orist W o lfg a n g Iser claim s that "g a p s" in lite ra ry discourse already a llo w readers to determ ine th e ir o w n meanings. Iser writes, "Indeed, it is o n ly th ro u g h inevitable om ission th a t a story gains its dynam ism . Thus w henever the flo w is in te rru p te d and we are led o ff in unexpected directions, the o p p o rtu n ity is g ive n to us to b rin g in to p la y o u r o w n facu lty fo r establishing connections— fo r fillin g the gaps le ft b y the text itse lf" (280). These gaps co u ld be considered p a rt o f a
m asculinist discourse o f con trol, since they are created o r left b y authors, b u t
71 Marcel Broodthaers brings this aspect of Mallarme's work to the forefront in his 1969 edition of "Un coup de des," in which he draws black rectangles (on tracing paper) to match the exact layout of Mallarme's original text (see fig. B.23.). As Johanna Drucker remarks about this artist's book, "Broodthaers . . . elevates the structure of the work to a concept worthy of study in its own right, thus acknowledging M allarme's own fetishistic attention to this aspect of his work" (Century 115).
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neither the authors nor the w ord s themselves can determ ine the in te rp re tive result o f a reader's encounters w ith gaps o f in fo rm a tio n or changes in style.
Cixous encounters a co n tra d ictio n that seems to be the opposite o f M allarm e's: w h ile he uses illu stra tio n s, she uses language. She holds o u t the p o ssib ility, how ever, fo r language to fu n ctio n in a m ore open way: the French fe m in ist category o f ecriture fem in in e also outlines a w a y fo r
lin g u is tic discourse to step outside the realm o f the propre. (See section A. fo r a discussion of V irg in ia W oolf's w ritin g style in "K e w G ardens," w h ich cou ld be described as ecriture fem inine.) C ixous' description o f open
language applies to m any m o dernist texts. M oreover, m o d e rn ist language has already often been called fem inine: "F o r some early m o d e rn ist w rite rs and th e ir readers, "m a k in g it n e w " was synonym ous w ith m aking it
fe m in in e " (Felber 23).
A t firs t, M a lla rm e and C ixous seem to h o ld opposite po sitio n s — one