Mallarmés skriftpraktik

Meta- och mytopoetiska dimensioner

Abstract

Mallarmé’s Writing Practice. Meta- and Mythopoetical Dimensions

This article investigates Stéphane Mallarmé’s relation to the practice of writing through three of his most important prose texts, ”Villiers de l’Isle Adam”, ”Le Mystère dans les lettres” and ”Crise de vers”, called ”critical poems” by the poet himself. Mallarmé’s concerns with religion and mythology are here coupled with his understanding of the material act of writing on paper. The analysis reveals that Mallarmé’s poetics are deeply concerned with the self-reflexivity of language and the materiality of communication, through which poetry may expose the essential qualities of language that otherwise remain hidden. These aspects should be understood in their media historical context, and taken into account when reading Mallarmé’s oeuvre.