Monday 16 April 2007

Henri Meschonnic

I am undertaking a major study of the theoretical and literary work of the French poet and poetician Henri Meschonnic for the first time in the English speaking world. I want to use this blog as an informal base for thinking through my readings of Meschonnic and for making connexions between his work and other poets and theorists.

I will largely use posts to give summaries of his now huge oeuvre, begin translating sections of major works, and discuss individual poems and themes as I go along. The blog will continue as long as I find this activity useful. I will most likely begin with a discussion of his best known work (at least in the English-speaking world), Critique du rhythme, 1982, and start providing translations of brief sections.

3 comments:

Ann Marie Simard said...

Would very much like to know more about it. I have published in a Meschonnic themed Collège de philo de Paris Cahiers...

? said...

rhythm

Diógenes Céspedes said...

Meschonnic c'est le grand inconnu du 20ème siècle, mais je paris qu'il sera le poète, le traducteur et l'artiste de la pensée le plus grand des siècles à venir ne serait ce que par son formidable discours contre les membres les plus éminents du parti du signe. Il est le revendicateur de Saussure et ses quatre concepts fondamentaux qui restent encore débout lorsque le structuralisme de Jakobson les a pervertis. La trouille à Meschonnic est dûe principalement à son combat contre les idéologies d'époque incarnées dans le Pouvoir et ses instances dont la métaphysique du signe est la seule théorie du langage que ces pouvoirs tolèrent.