.. all must approach Mallarme somewhat differently than they would certain other poets. Not with the hope of comprehending, processing, and assimilating his poems, hut rather with the hope of sensing the shape of their presence." W H I T E SPACE: Reflections On the Poetry of Stephane Mallarme KAELI N G RANT H O W C A N O N E A P P R O A C H T H E O E U V R E O F S T E P H A N E M A L L A R M E , T H E F R E N C H S Y M B O L I S T P O E T N O T O R I O U S F O R H I S I N D E C I P H E R A B L E W R I T I N G S ? M A L L A R M E W A S I D O L I Z E D B Y H I S G E N E R A T I O N O F A R T I S T S , T H O U G H E V E N H I S C O N T E M P O R A R I E S O F T E N F O U N D T H E M S E L V E S U N A B L E T O D I S E N T A N G L E H I S I N T R A C T A B L Y C O Y B U T B R I L L I A N T P O E M S . A S O N E C R I T I C N O T E D , T H E P O E T ' S W O R K S E E M S " S U S P E N D E D I N P E R M A N E N T U N C E R T A I N T Y , " A N D T H E S H E E R D E N S I T Y O F W O R D P L A Y I S E N O U G H T O D I S H E A R T E N A N Y R E A D E R . B U T W I T H T H E H E L P O F S E V E R A L M O D E R N C R I T I C S A N D T H E G U I D A N C E O F M A L L A R M E ' S O W N C H A R A C T E R , T H E L U S T F U L F A U N E W H O F I G U R E S I N O N E O F M A L L A R M E ' S M O S T R E C O G N I Z A B L E P I E C E S , T H E R E A D E R M A Y D I S C O V E R A N A V E N U E I N T O T H E M I N D O F O N E O F T H E M O S T M Y S T E R I O U S A N D E X Q U I S I T E L Y R A D I A N T P O E T S W H O E V E R D A R E D T O C O M M U N I C A T E H I S V I S I O N O F B E A U T Y . "No matter how many of his secrets we may uncover, there is always more to learn from Mallarme." The poetry of Stephane Mallarme is renowned for its cog- nitive brilliance and utter originality, but also notorious for its near total impenetrability. As Hans-Jost Frey notes, per- haps somewhat ironically, "Allusions, vagueness, ambigu- ity, and uncertainty keep Mallarme's text suspended in per- manent uncertainty." 1 I n the face of this overwhelming enigma, how is it possible to attain an appreciation, much less an understanding, of his poetic genius? Should this even be attempted? Furthermore, i f Mallarme's poetry is so essentially untranslatable, is it merely an exercise in folly for one not fluent i n French to attempt a reading of his poems? Al l of these obstacles stand in the reader's way, and they are indeed daunting. Without a keen understanding of French, it is impossible to appreciate fully the poet's l in- guistic virtuosity; without a genius greater than that of Mallarme himself, it is impossible to perceive all of the ab- straction, imagination, and cognition present in even a sin- gle poem. Yet, even faced with such deterrents, the reader must persevere. For the occultedness of his poetry is not simply a dissua- sion: it is also an invitation. No matter how many of his se- crets we may uncover, there is always more to learn from Mallarme. Each reader begins surrounded by the same cryptic darkness, and although some may progress more quickly than others, all must approach Mallarme somewhat differently than they would certain other poets. Not with the hope of comprehending, processing, and assimilating his poems, but rather with the hope of sensing the shape of their presence. Even the most limited appreciation, an ever- so-slight peripheral contact with a poem's moods and thoughts, is an experience of the sublimity of great art. Underneath its hermetic abstraction, the poem also ex- presses the simple joy of creation, the love of wordplay, ideas, and storytelling; and the pleasure taken in beauty. I f the reader too can delight in the poem's fundamental beauty as a work of art, then he or she wi l l have the first and most important tool with which to begin the exploration. T H E STORY OF T H E F A U N E A n excellent place to start is with one of Mallarme's most familiar poems (if anything about Mallarme can be charac- terized as familiar). Written over the course of ten years, "L'apres-midi d'un faune" became one of the most influen- tial works in the poet's oeuvre. Numerous illustrations, a woodcarving, a sculpture, and even a ballet were all in- spired by the story of the Faune. And of course, Debussy's enchanting prelude, which put to music the adventures of Mallarme's mythical creature, must not be forgotten. But more important for our purposes than its fame, one can point, i f very covertly, to the presence of what appears to be a recognizable narrative. Whether the narrative is indeed what it seems, or whether it evaporates, like the nymphs, when one gets too close, is a peril that the reader wi l l avoid confronting for the moment. And who could expect other- E L E M E N T S S P R I N G 05 wise, particularly when faced with other works by Mallarme in which merely locating a subject seems a futile struggle in itself? However, the reader must be careful not to cling to this guide with the presumption that the Faune wi l l lead to any answers, but merely to hope that the figure wi l l act as an aperture through which to glimpse one aspect of the text. Frey explains the rationale for the attractiveness of this particular poem as follows: "This is not to say that "L'apres- midi d'un faune" can be reduced to a message, only that the discourse of this poem is more closely tied to an object and can therefore be more easily read for content." 1 1 Now, this "reading for content" may be a detour, or worse a hin- drance to further reading, i f one expects the content to pro- vide some concrete understanding, or assumes that the narrative of the poem is indeed its primary "content." Nevertheless, it allows the reader to feel a certain comfort, which encourages h i m to continue investigating the poem. So then let us turn to the poem itself. To begin: the Faune wakes up on a hot afternoon, his mind filled with the thought of rosy nymphs. But he wonders i f the nymphs were real, or merely a dream. He describes his doubt as the branches of a tree, diverging outward into in- numerable uncertainties. Real trees surround h im, which makes h i m doubt the nymphs' existence. In other words, his memory of the nymphs occurs in a forest setting. 1" He sees that the forest setting does exist, and remains the same, but the nymphs have disappeared; thus he suspects that they were merely a dream against the real backdrop of the forest. He recalls two nymphs, one "more chaste" with "blue eyes...like a weeping spring" another in contrast, "all sighs...like a day-breeze warm upon [his] fleece." But again, the vivid memory is contradicted by his surroundings: there is "no water," no weeping spring, nor is there any real wind. Instead, the notes of his music mimic the sound of water, and the breath "exhale[d] from the twin-pipes" mim- ics the feeling of wind. But this breath is "the visible and serene artificial breath of inspiration." Artificiality and its association with art is an extremely important theme to which we wi l l soon return, but for now we listen to the Faune as he recounts his encounter with the nymphs. On the banks of a river, he is cutting reeds for his flute, when he notices an "animal whiteness" undulating in the distance. Looking more closely, he sees that they are not swans, as he first suspected, but Naiades (or water nymphs). Frightened by the sound of his flute, the nymphs flee or dive into the water: the Faune cannot tell which. It must be noted that these sections, in which the Faune re- lates his memory of the nymphs, are set off in italics to des- ignate their status as a past occurrence, although this dis- tinction does not remain entirely unambiguous. Breaking off his story, he reminds us again that his natural surround- ings are "inert" and have taken no notice of the nymphs. Following this description, the imagery becomes abstracted to such an extent that it becomes difficult to explain in such a way as this summation aims. A rather inadequate para- phrase is that the Faune renounces music and attempts to recapture the nymphs through speech; he is "going to talk at length." Empty grape skins are then described, and the Faune, "puffing into these luminous skins...[gazes] through them t i l l evening." In an attempt to adhere to sum- mary, the simplest interpretation of this passage is as a metaphor for the nymphs, whose presence is like the "bright juice of the grapes," which the Faune has "sucked" out. Taking these "empty hulls," he wi l l "raise [them] to the summer sky," and with his words, inflate the "luminous skins." Despite the absence of the nymphs, he embellishes his memories with language, makes them beautiful, and continues his story. Searching for the vanished nymphs, he finds them among the reeds and rushes up to them. They lay "at my feet, en- twined," at which point the Faune "[seizes] them, not un- tangling them, and [runs] to this clump...of roses." I n the clearing, he attempts to ravish both nymphs. But to do this, he must separate them, and in doing so precipitates his ruin. "My crime is, gay at vanquishing their traitress/-fears, to have parted the disheveled tangle/of kisses that the gods kept so well mingled." Separation leads to a necessity for decision, and the Faune cannot decide. While kissing one nymph, he holds the other "with only a finger," in an at- tempt to have both nymphs separately. But this is an impos- W H I T E S P A C E : R E F L E C T I O N S O N T H E P O E T R Y O F S T E P H A N E M A L L A R M E sibility; because the Faune has separated them but cannot choose one, both escape. The Faune is left alone, in a frenzy of rage, and he ventures to "embrace the queen!" of love herself, Venus. But even as this thought forms, the Faune allows it to fade away. He is "empty of words now and the body numbed." I n the last stanza, the Faune lays on the sand and returns to sleep. Reflecting on this sequence of events, it becomes clear how fragile the narrative is. Nothing is resolved, and there is lit- tle that actually "happens." The Faune is left without the nymphs and never discerns their reality; he fails even to be changed by the experience. At the end of the poem, he goes back to sleep, just as i f he had never awoken. T H E POETRY OF U N D E C I D A B I L I T Y This sense of utter irresolution is what Hans-Jost Frey terms the "undecidability" of texts i n his enlightening essay on Mallarme and "L'apres-midi d'un faune". He speaks first about the referential illusion of language, which, though difficult to explain, seems an essential conceit in an attempt to further comprehend Mallarme. According to Frey, "the referential illusion is the assumption that what- ever is expressed has some extralinguistic correspon- dence." 1 V That is to say, words alone cannot verify the exis- tence of that to which they refer. The word chair is not itself a chair. Discourse about a chair cannot, in and of itself, con- firm the existence or any physical attributes of the actual chair. More words cannot confirm that the word chair actu- ally corresponds to a particular chair. Certainly, the words can be confirmed by other senses such as sight, smell, or touch, but the words themselves are never more than let- ters that have become an accepted convention. Another, more frightening, example of the activity of the referential illusion is the linguistic possibility for lying; a speaker can fabricate or contradict reality, which exposes the extent to which language need not correspond to reality. The illusion becomes more significant when we move out of the realm of simple objects in physical reality, and to- wards a discourse of actions and ideas. Denial of the refer- ential illusion "[degrades language] to an available means" of communication, treating language as a dead object, which serves merely as an inert tool for any speaker who may choose to wield it . This denial ignores the power of lan- guage to be more than simply an instrument of physical re- ality, and it attempts to separate the expression of the thing which is being expressed from the language that expresses it. I n short, the referential illusion attempts to deny that "ex- pression cannot be separated from its being expressed."v On the other hand, the very terror of the referential illusion is that it may i n fact be possible that language does have ex- tralinguistic correspondence. At times, language can in- deed communicate information, refer directly to physical reality, and precipitate change in the physical world. " I t is therefore impossible to come to grips with the referential illusion by asserting a lack of referentiality. The realization that texts are undecidable is the only solution." v i Why is the text undecidable? To answer this question, we must return to the fundamen- tal alternatives that compose the referential illusion: either language is a tool of and dependent upon the reality that makes use of it, or language has no correspondence to any- thing outside itself, and is merely discourse. But the very nature of language is that it is simultaneously both; one cannot choose between the two alternatives, and thus lan- guage is undecidable. Its extralinguistic referentiality is un- certain. As Hans-Jost Frey demonstrates, literature is the discourse of undecidability. Unlike informative communication, which "always at- tempts to suppress language i n favor of what it can convey," literature "is created when we realize that information is dependent upon language. " v i i The task of literature is to ex- pose the referential illusion, to "question the fact that what is expressed is always taken seriously." v m Mallarme's po- etry is the poetry of this kind of literature, the poetry of un- decidability. As a text that refuses to decide itself, it is a text obsessed with the "simultaneity of meaning. Not only do Mallarme's poems refuse to decide among alternatives, they frequently refuse even to delineate specific alterna- E L E M E N T S S P R I N G 05 tives. His texts are purposefully vague, and "a list of possi- bilities would destroy the many possibilities of vague- ness.'^ A list would be a sequence of alternatives, and an "essential part of the ambiguous text is lost in the transfor- mation of the simultaneous to the sequential."X 1 A n example of this refusal occurs immediately i n "L'apres- midi d'un faune": "Reflechissons... ou si lesfemmes dont tu gloses Figurent un souhait de tes sensfabuleux ! "Let's think it over... or if those girls you explain be but an itching in your fabulous brain!" x The clause "ou si les femmes..." begins with "ou," which in- dicates a choice between two alternatives. There is one al- ternative after the "ou," but before the conjunction where the first alternative should be situated, there is blank space, a white space. White is used unexpectedly in Mallarme's poetry; often, it represents an emptiness, an abyss, which is traditionally signified by black. But for a writer, white is perfectly appro- priate as the color of uncertainty. Referential illusion de- stroys the certainty of language, which clearly unsettles the poet, and the illusion also suggests a metaphysical uncer- tainty about the nature of reality and human communica- tion. Language nevertheless attempts to overcome this un- certainty and persists in efforts at communication. Language, for the poet, is writing: black text on a white page. A white page evokes uncertainty: the impossibility and the failure of communication. Edouard Manet's famous portrait of Mallarme is particu- larly admirable in associating the color white with Mallarme. Upon examining the painting, one notices that the page to which Mallarme holds his pen remains blank, white and unmarked. Furthermore, his eyes do not seem to be looking at the page, nor even both in the same direction. One eye appears directed toward the smoke issuing from the poet's cigar, which is a delightful way of implying that the intangibility of the escaping smoke has as much to do with the peculiar quality of Mallarme poetry as does the page upon which he has not yet written. The other eye seems to be looking into the distance, into nothing- ness, and indeed, the poet is able to see something that we cannot. This white page is not only a symbol of uncertainty, it is also active — it fights against the words written upon it . For even when the poet does manage to take up his pen and write, to speak against the void, the white may encroach upon the poem as it does in the above stanza. The writer is never permitted to forget that his work remains uncon- firmed, and that while language cannot merge with ex- tralinguistic reality, it also cannot escape extralinguistic correspondence. This uncertainty of language is embodied in the Faune, who cannot choose between art and reality. E M B O D Y I N G D O U B T As Frey explains, the Faune turns the nymphs into lan- guage so that they acquire meaning, because for the Faune beauty and significance are found in art, and poetry is the art of language. He "does not love them as they are, but as the image he has created." Yet this transformation, the ac- quisition of meaning, is the very cause of his loneliness. "The person for whom the other is what he means, does not relate to the other in his otherness. He transforms the other into a language of his own, with which he then remains alone." x n Because he transforms the nymphs into his lan- guage, his love ceases to have extralinguistic correspon- dence regardless of whether the nymphs are real, and his creation of images replaces the actual nymphs. As Frey sug- gests, "The Faune is trapped in language, because on the one hand he tries to go beyond language in order to achieve what he does not have in it , and on the other hand he must stay in language i n order not to lose what he cannot find outside i t , " which is significance. Language imparts signif- icance, but i n doing so, effaces reality. So what, then, does the Faune really want? Does he want the real nymphs, who are meaningless without language, or W H I T E S P A C E : R E F L E C T I O N S O N T H E P O E T R Y O F S T E P H A N E M A L L A R M E F I G U R E A F U L F I L L M E N T The Faune wishes for the physical reality of the nymphs, in which their image wi l l disappear. W I S H The Faune wishes for the wish itself, for the perpetuation of desire, because reality does not correspond to the image of what is desired. Therefore, fulfillment is a loss. F O R W H A T D O E S T H E F A U N E W I S H ? B L A N K The white space of an unnamed alternative. O U W I S H The image of the nymphs represents a wish for something. 'Si lesfemmes dont tu gloses/ Figurent un souhait...!" W H A T D O T H EY R E P R E S E N T ? R E P R E S E N T A T I O N The nymphes are representation, referring to something else. W E R E T H E N Y M P H S R E A L , O R A D R E A M R E P R E S E N T I N G S O M E T H I N G E L S E ? R E A L I T Y The nymphs are real, they exist extralinguistically outside of the Faune's image. E L E M E N T S : : S P R I N G 05 does he desire his own image of the nymphs, which pre- cludes their physical presence? The Faune's own language enacts the conflict: "Ces nymphesje les veux perpetuer. " I would perpetuate these nymphs. " First, perpetuer is the last word of the construction. Without it, the sentence would read, "Ces nymphes, je les veux," which is an unequivocal desire. But with the late addition of the word, the Faune now wishes to perpetuate them, no longer a simple want. What is it that the Faune wants to per- petuate? I f the Faune wants the nymphs to stay with h im longer, then perpetuate is a strange word to use in associa- tion with presence. Perhaps what he wants to perpetuate is something else entirely, such as his image of them or his de- sire for them. Second, within the word perpetuer is contained the verb tuer, "to k i l l . " There is a sense in which the perpetuation is a death, which would certainly reinforce the reading that construes art and reality as mutually exclusive. To illustrate the doubt surrounding the Faune, Frey has constructed the Tree of Doubt (see attached Figure A). The Tree illustrates the several levels of doubt regarding the nymphs, of whom not only the existential reality is questioned, but also their significance to the Faune. What is it that he truly wants? He himself does not know, and i n fact it seems unlikely that the Faune is aware of the depth of the conflict. One of the most fabulous aspects of the character of the Faune is that not only does he have doubt, he is doubt. He enacts the very undecidability of the poem. He is wonderful i n his denial of the irreconcilability of reality and art: "He refuses to recognize the disappearance of presence in con- nection with the turning into language." x m Stubbornly, he persists in the attempt to have both art and sensuality. The poem reminds h i m of this conflict, but with tragic hilarity, it undermines h i m through his own speech: when describ- ing the hot afternoon, the "tawny hour" in which "all things burn," he describes the natural scenery as "inerte." Frey points out that, "Etymologically, inerte means the absence of art, and is here used as a direct negation of art to illustrate the irreconcilability of the Faune's art and surrounding nature." X 1 V The inert quality of nature is prefigured when the Faune describes how "the illusion escapes from the blue eyes/and cold of the more chaste, like a weeping spring." x v Nature is embodied in the coldness of this nymph, who rejects illusion with her tears, analogous to a natural spring, like the stream into which the real nymphs disappear. Later, when he has separated the two nymphs and is at- tempting to ravish the "sister who burned," who represents the allure of art, he also tries to maintain his grip on "the lit- tle one" ("the more chaste"), who again represents the tan- gible world of Nature. But because he has separated their necessarily intermingled state, and then tried to possess each one individually, both escape. At a certain moment in the poem, he does appear to suc- ceed in transforming his language into reality. In the itali- cized stanza that begins, "Mon ceil, trouant lesjoncs..." the Faune seizes the nymphs and brings them to a clearing. As he is recalling the sight of the nymphs, he forgets that he is recounting the past and begins to relive the memory. Although the italics stop twelve lines later, the Faune con- tinues to experience the passion aroused by the nymphs: " I adore you, anger of virgins, O fierce delight/of the sacred naked burden that slips to flee/the fiery drinking of my lips, like the crack/of l ightning!" x v l He has succeeded in merg- ing the sensuality of the past with the artistic language of the present, but when the italics begin again, all is lost. The first phrase of the next italicized stanza begins with "Mon crime, c'est...", and this first verb is in the present tense, again confusing present with the past. But this confusion must soon end, for the nymphs escape, and the Faune is left alone. Alone, what is the Faune? Importantly, he is a creature of legend: half-animal, half-myth, "a mixed being suspended between nonlinguistic nature and human spirituality." x v i i The tremendous power of the figure of the Faune as narra- tor, his own doubt and unawareness, and his very nature suddenly become clear. The Faune is like the reader, in the way that he is outside the meaning of the text in the sense W H I T E S P A C E : R E F L E C T I O N S O N T H E P O E T R Y O F S T E P H A N E M A L L A R M E of not encompassing it. But he is astonishing in that he is also part of the meaning by acting as an expression of the metaphor of his own doubt, which he does not understand. Ironically, the Faune embodies the very abstraction which plagues h im, suggesting the inescapability of the linuis- tic dilemma. How does the Faune react to his position, trapped i n lan- guage, his desires uncertain and inaccessible? He tells us in the last stanza: "On the thirsty sand, forgetful of/the out- rage, I must sleep, and as I love/open my mouth to the pow- erful star of w i n e ! " x v m The Faune sleeps, returning the world of dreams, drinking the wine of illusion and inspira- tion, but lying atop the earth itself. Nothing is resolved, and yet we are left with a sense of unity in the very undecidabil- ity and ambiguity of the Faune's lack of decision. In a cer- tain sense, the poem ends where it began, and the middle text is simply a digression from the Faune's dreaming. D E R R I D A A N D T H E Q U E S T I O N OF L I T E R A T U R E This irresolution is characteristic of Mallarme, frequently to the frustration of one attempting a reading. Hans-Jost Frey has provided a superlative reading, but there are cer- tainly others. One i n particular, the Double Seance of Jacque Derrida surpasses any other reading in its sheer evocation of the Mallarmean simultaneity of lucid perspicacity and total impenetrability. The Double Seance is not related to "L'apres-midi d'un faune" in particular, but is rather a re- flection upon Mallarme (among other topics) through the medium of a particular text. This text addresses some of the same subjects as Frey, but its remarkable eloquence and form distinguish it from simple commentary. Because of the text's resemblance to Mallarme's own work, and because of Derrida's own inimitable cognitive gymnas- tics, it does not support a gloss; the explanation becomes a redaction, and the essentials of the text are lost. Nonethe less, the Double Seance is fascinating enough that even a superficial discussion is worthwhile. Derrida considers two primary texts: a dialogue between Socrates and Protarchus on the subject of the soul, and a text by Mallarme entitled "Mimique." The first page pro- poses the question "what is literature?" and although the question is nearly dismissed before it has even been asked, and any subsequent attempt to answer is immediately un- dermined, it is useful to keep the question i n mind for the present discussion. Derrida's central metaphor in the text is the hymen, and his central image is the Mime. What is the activity of the Mime? Simply speaking, he mim- ics (imitates) reality. But the mime in Mallarme's text (for example) the "ever original" PIERROT MUDEREROFHIS WIFE, does not enact a reality that has happened, is hap- pening, or that he expects to happen. He is referring to an event that does not and wi l l not exist. However, that is not to say that the Mime exists without correspondence to real- ity. His gestures are consciously imitative, not meant to be actions themselves, but rather to imitate action. He is not the "empty signifier" pointing to reality, nor is he the "full signified" of reality itself. He is between these things, he is ENTRE, in the cave, the ANTRE, i n which the Grecian Faune Pan chose to reside. The Mime is situated between the emptiness of pure language and the inertness of simple reality. He represents the ENTRE of Mallarme, the ENTRE DE Mallarme, the ENTRE-DEUX, BETWEEN-TWO. He is the hymen. The activity of the Mime is the activity of literature, a point we must dwell on for a moment. Like the Mime, fiction mimics reality. A narrative tells the story of a reality, but the story of a reality that does not and never wi l l exist; i t gestures toward an empty reality. Raskolnikov never murdered the old pawnbroker and he never wi l l , be- cause outside of Crime and Punishment the character of Raskolnikov does not exist. And yet the book does not claim to be reality itself; empty and nonexistent though the reality toward which it gestures may be, literature is never independent of this reality. It still makes this gesture, pointing away from itself toward something of which i t is merely a representation. X 1 X Literature points toward reality without ever becoming re- ality. In this way, like the Mime, it "is confined to a perpet- ual allusion without breaking the mirror." This perpetual E L E M E N T S S P R I N G 05 allusion is intimately related, i f not precisely analogous, to the metaphor of the hymen. Literature, the Mime, and Mallarme's poetry all enact this hymen. When the hymen is intact, a woman is a virgin, and thus there is desire. When the hymen is broken, there is fulfill- ment, and desire is eradicated. Outside the body, there is no hymen, but inside the body, when penetration has oc- curred, neither is there a hymen. Restraint is the state of de- sire, penetration is the state of pleasure. In neither event is the hymen active, or "taking place." As Derrida puts it so charmingly, "The hymen only takes place when it doesn't take place, when nothing really happens.' , x x That is, the hymen itself acts i n the non-existent space between re- straint and penetration, between outside and inside, or as the analogy can be employed, between language and reality. This nonexistent space is actually the union of the two op- posites, the two antitheticals of pure art and inert reality. The Mime reflects both, but is neither; so too does the "pure medium" of fiction. Mallarme's poetry is similar, in that it reflects some non-ex- istent but corresponding reality, which one could term the void, the abyss, or any number of signifiers. Immaculate white evinces the flawless clarity of undecidibility that so characterizes the poetry of Mallarme. And indeed, there is a masterful beauty in this double reflection, in sitting back and simply watching the Mime perform, taking pleasure in his art and in the joy of the creative act of fiction. E N D N O T E S i Frey (48) i i Frey (31) i i i It should be noted that although the terminology o f mem- ory w i l l be used to describe the Faune's encounter w i t h the ny-mphs, this designation is misleading, and used only for the purpose o f consistently distinguishing the fact of his mem- ory from the question of whether the memory is a dream. That is to say, it is not i n doubt that the Faune has a memory of (or rather, a feeling about) the nymphs; it is i n doubt whether he is remembering a dream or remembering a real encounter. However, the terminology of memory is i n itself too specific; a word such as vision or image or emotion is more properly vague, because the precise nature of the Faune's relationship w i t h the nymphs is itself i n doubt as much as their reality. A designation such as memory removes the doubt that is so cen- tral to the poem, but it is accompanied by such past-tense ter- minology (for example, the Faune recalls the nymphs) as aides i n describing the action o f the poem w i t h a certain amount o f necessary clarity. iv Frey (8) v Frey (7) vi Frey (9) v i i Frey (13) v i i i Frey (13) ix Frey (13) x Selected Poems (47) xi Frey (34) x i i Frey (37) x i i i Frey (38) xiv Selected Poems (47) xv Selected Poems (51) xvi Frey (46) xvii Selected Poems (55) xviii v. Derrida. xix Derrida (213) xx Derrida (213) REFERENCES Anderson, Jill, ed. 2002. Australian Divagations. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. Cohn, Robert Greer. 1965. Towards the Poems of Mallarme. Berkeley: University of California Press. Derrida, Jacques. 1981. Dissemination: Le Double Seance, trans. Barbara Johnson. Chicago : University of Chicago Press. Frey, Hans-Jost. 1996. Studies i n Poetic Discourse: Mallarme. trans. Wi l l iam Whobrey. 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