Barnaby Norman - Mallarmes Sunset

POETRY AT THE END OF TIME

LEGENDA

LEGENDA, founded in 1995 by the European Humanities Research Centre of the University of Oxford, is now a joint imprint of the Modern Humanities Research association and Routledge. Titles range from medieval texts to contemporary cinema and form a widely comparative view of the modern humanities, including works on arabic, Catalan, English, French, german, greek, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Yiddish literature. an Editorial Board of distinguished academic specialists works in collaboration with leading scholarly bodies such as the Society for French Studies, the British Comparative literature association and the association of Hispanists of great Britain & Ireland.

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EDITORIAL BOARD

Chairman

Professor Colin Davis, Royal Holloway, University of London

Professor Malcolm Cook, University of Exeter (French)

Professor Robin Fiddian, Wadham College, Oxford (Spanish)

Professor Anne Fuchs, University of Warwick (German)

Professor Paul Garner, University of Leeds (Spanish)

Professor Andrew Hadfield, University of Sussex (English)

Professor Marian Hobson Jeanneret,

Queen Mary University of London (French)

Professor Catriona Kelly, New College, Oxford (Russian)

Professor Martin McLaughlin, Magdalen College, Oxford (Italian)

Professor Martin Maiden, Trinity College, Oxford (Linguistics)

Professor Peter Matthews, St Johns College, Cambridge (Linguistics)

Dr Stephen Parkinson, Linacre College, Oxford (Portuguese)

Professor Suzanne Raitt, William and Mary College, Virginia (English)

Professor Ritchie Robertson, The Queens College, Oxford (German)

Professor David Shepherd, Keele University (Russian)

Professor Michael Sheringham, All Souls College, Oxford (French)

Professor Alison Sinclair, Clare College, Cambridge (Spanish)

Professor David Treece, Kings College London (Portuguese)

Managing Editor

Dr Graham Nelson

41 Wellington Square, Oxford ox1 2JF, UK

www.legendabooks.com

Poetry at the End of Time

BARNABY NORMAN

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LEGENDA

Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge
2014

First published 2014

Published by the
Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
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LEGENDA is an imprint of the
Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Modern Humanities Research Association and Taylor & Francis 2014

ISBN 978-1-909662-29-2 (hbk)

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For my wife Anna

Un astre, en vrit

This book has benefited from the encouragement and insight of many people. Without the sustained support of family, academic mentors and friends, the project would never have got to this point, and looking back from here it is with unreserved gratitude that I would like to acknowledge this support. I thank my wife, Anna, who was there in Paris when the seed was planted and has done so much to help it bear fruit; Mike and Di Norman it is rare that you get this kind of opportunity to say how much you appreciate your parents; my brother, Sam, and my godmother, Anna Allport who have both made life significantly easier. The study itself has benefited enormously from my supervisor Hector Kolliass exacting reading, and from the encouragement of Patrick ffrench who helped me to shape the project in the early stages. Shortcomings are of course my own responsibility. When it came to converting the manuscript for publication, I was greatly aided by the analyses and comments of my doctoral examiners, Colin Davis and Nikolaj Lbecker, and in practical matters by Graham Nelson at Legenda. Finally, I thank four friends with whom I have been able to discuss this project: Henry Dicks, John Mckeane, David OHara, and Greg Kerr.

B.N., June 2014

Tout aujourdhui, dans les ides comme dans les choses, dans
la socit comme dans lindividu, est ltat de crpuscule. De
quelle nature est ce crpuscule, de quoi sera-t-il suivi?

VICTOR HUGO

La littrature ici subit une exquise crise, fondamentale.

STPHANE MALLARM

depuis Mallarm (pour rduire celui-ci un nom et ce nom un repre), ce qui a tendu rendre striles de telles distinctions, cest que travers elles et plus importante quelles, sest fait jour lexprience de quelque chose quon a continu appeler littrature, mais avec un srieux renouvel et, de plus, entre guillemets.

[since Mallarm (reducing the latter to a name and the name to a reference point), what has tended to make such distinctions sterile is that by way of them, and more important than they are, there has come to light the experience of something one continues to call, but with renewed seriousness, and moreover in quotation marks, literature]

MAURICE BLANCHOT

La note laquelle vous faites allusion rappelait aussi la ncessit de ces blancs, dont on sait, au moins depuis Mallarm, quen tout texte ils assument limportance.

[The note to which you are referring also recalled the necessity of these whites, about which we know, at least since Mallarm, that in any text they come to the fore]

JACQUES DERRIDA

Depuis Mallarm: the refrain rings out across twentieth-century French criticism. Mallarm has fascinated the literary world for almost one hundred and fifty years now, beginning with the Mardistes his immediate acolytes from the Rue de Rome sessions going by way of Valry, to Sartre, Blanchot, Barthes, Derrida, Badiou, and Rancire, to name just the most obvious. He is the father of modernity with his extraordinary formal innovations, and a key reference of post-modernity. Literature changed with Mallarm, and there is a sense that if we can understand what happened, if we can understand something of this