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Calligraphy, Identity: ScripturalExploration as CulturalAdventureNina S. Hellersteina

a University of GeorgiaPublished online: 02 Sep 2013.

To cite this article: Nina S. Hellerstein (1991) Calligraphy, Identity: ScripturalExploration as Cultural Adventure, Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in ModernLiteratures, 45:1, 329-342, DOI: 10.1080/00397709.1991.10733729

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NINA S. HELLERSTEIN

CALLIGRAPHY, IDENTITY: SCRIPTURALEXPLORATION AS CULTURAL ADVENTURE

THE CHINESE WRITTEN LANGUAGE HAS EXERCISED a special fascinationupon Western writers almost since contacts between the two cultures be­gan, as Etiemble and others have shown. I Westerners have particularlyadmired the concrete richness and immediacy of the Chinese character,and the way in which it has retained the essentially visual nature of itsearly pictographic origins. Unlike our alphabetic systems, the Chinesewritten language has resisted transformation into a system of sound no­tations, yet it has succeeded in continuing to represent the living, spokenlanguage: a paradox that Francois Cheng has described as a "pari in­sense," a "deft," and "aventure des plus etonnantes."! Its relative in­dependence from phonetic analysis has given the Chinese character asynthetic structure that is particularly useful in poetry. 3 Thus, modemFrench poets from Mallarme on have turned to the example of Chinese intheir search for a completely poetic language, freed from slavery toWestern alphabetic and analytic syntax: "Dans l'imaginaire des signes, Iereve de l'ideogramme, entre vallee du Nil et empire du Milieu, dessinepour la poesie-s-ailleurs, autrefois, loin-Ia carte d'un pays oil elle neconnaitrait plus l'exil."4 The rich visual resources of the Chinese writingsystem suggest a means to rediscover the original relationship betweennature and man, to reawaken the physical life in language, and to returnto it its elemental connection with magic and the absolute.

Although very different in many ways, Paul Claudel and Henri Mi­chaux shared this Western fascination with the Chinese and Japanesewriting system.' In Cent phrases pour eventail and Ideogrammes enChine, Claudel and Michaux pursue a strikingly similar exploration ofOriental writing and its effect upon their own poetic practice. The twoworks are of different nature; Michaux's work is a prose essay on theChinese writing system, and Claudel's a collection of short poemsresembling haiku. However, both authors introduce Oriental charactersinto their texts, using the juxtaposition of the two different writingsystems to pursue a meditation upon the nature of the reading andwriting experience, both Oriental and Western."

One glance at the two works shows the important influence of Orientalwriting in their spatial organization. Both Claudel's "phrase" or poem,

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and the text of Michaux's essay, are arranged in three vertical columns,with the far left column reserved for the Oriental characters. In Claudel's"phrase," the left column is occupied by two Japanese characters writ­ten by his Japanese collaborators; the middle one contains an introduc­tory part of the poem that he calls "titre ou racine ou exclamation"(142); and the right-hand column is the principal text of the poem. Bothof these sections are hand-calligraphed by the poet with brush and ink. InMichaux's essay, the left column is a blank page or is occupied by theChinese characters, the central column is devoted to the main text and isprinted in medium-sized letters, and the far right column is either blankor occupied by notes printed in smaller letters. This spatial organizationis the final version of a text that was originally composed as a preface toLeon L.- Y. Chang's study of La Calligraphie chinoise and was laid out ina more Westernized fashion, with no illustrative calligraphy and withnotes at the bottom of the page."

In both works, the division into three columns requires that the move­ment of reading be a descending one, recalling the downward verticalmovement of reading Oriental characters. This vertical layout and itsparallel use of blank space are intended to liberate the text from themechanical linearity and the analytic syntax of Western writing. Claudelreplaces pen with brush in the calligraphy of the Cent phrases in order tocreate an "attention verticale" (141) that will enable the reader to savorslowly the multiple dimensions and meanings of each word, down to thesmallest unit of its composition. For Michaux, the vertical axis is the"natural" direction of thought, as he explains in Paix dans les brise­ments: "les Chinois ... ont ... concu et utilise l'ecriture qui suit lapensee de haut en bas suivant son debouche naturel.' ,8

This identification of the vertical axis with what is "natural" is clearlya reference to the movement of gravity and, even more, to the uprightposition of the human being. In emphasizing the vertical axis, both poetshave thus implicitly recognized the physical presence and orientation ofthe scriptor in the spatial structure of the text. This organization also re­flects the Chinese view of the character as an organic, independent en­tity, with a stable stance that follows the laws of gravity and balance."Thus, the two poets' emphasis on Oriental verticality appears as a searchfor conceptual and scriptural authenticity, a fidelity to the organic realityboth of the word and of the writer. This interpretation is borne out byscientific graphology, which explains the downward verticalizing ten­dency of Chinese reading and writing as the tendency to move "graduallytowards the self with a kind of raking gesture that assimilates the thingsof the world to the needs and principles of the self."lo Through the Chi­nese character, the world becomes present to the self of the scriptor, as

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HeUerstein SYMPOSIUM 331

he realizes himself in the act of recreating its most dynamic and charac­teristic gestures. Thus, by verticalizing the organization of their works,Claudel and Michaux are seeking to imitate the Oriental scriptor's direct,physical involvement in his text.

Moreover, the two poets' reorganization of the textual space is notlimited to the vertical dimension. In both texts, there is a subtle redefini­tion of the function of the traditional, Western, horizontal axis as well.We have noted that in both cases, the text is divided into three columns,the far left position being occupied by the Oriental characters, and themiddle and right positions representing the development of the Westerntext. In Michaux's text, the far right column is reserved for the notes,which add historical explanations to the main development. In the Centphrases, the center column plays the role of intermediary between theJapanese characters at the far left and the body of the poem at the farright. This center column, as we have seen, is described by Claudel as a"titre ou racine ou exclamation" (142): it is a concentrated, generativeelement, often only two words, which shares its brevity and suspension inspace with the Oriental characters, yet initiates the French-languagepoem to be developed in the far right column.

This spatial disposition along a left-right axis suggests a reference tothe right and left hands and to their traditional symbolism: the left posi­tion, the more "sinister" one, is here reserved for the mysterious Other,and for the blank space in which it floats. The Oriental character appearsas a kind of synthetic, concentrated Origin, out of which are generatedthe analytical fragments that form themselves into the Western discursivesentences of the center or right-hand columns. The "Right" right-handcolumn is thus identified with the known and knowable, with the explan­atory and explicable, with the discursive developments meant to recap­ture in a more familiar but somehow inferior form something of the mys­tery of the Oriental system that they imitate or describe. Graphologistsdefine the horizontal axis as "the dimension of action"; here, theWestern horizontal axis introduces the spatial structures of external andcultural reality, suggesting the symbolic relationship between Orient andOccident and the scriptor's personal relationship to them both. 11

By thus conferring an important expressive function upon the spatialorganization of their texts, both poets are rejecting the utilitarian view ofthe page as a mere empty, mechanical support of the printed element.The use of both vertical and horizontal axes has the effect of opening upthe space of the page, of giving it symbolic dimensions, thus expandingthe field of the text to englobe the cosmos itself. In this expanded use ofthe textual space, we discern the influence of Chinese and Japanese aes­thetics, in which the empty space in a painting or surrounding a written

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Enhautde la

montagne

text plays as active a role as the written or painted elements." For theTaoists, whose influence is fundamental in this area, it is a manifestationof the primordial, fertile Void, out of which all things are created.

In both the Cent phrases and the Ideogrammes, this Oriental approachto the use of blank space exerts an important influence upon the organi­zation of the textual space. The large expanses of white paper break upthe mechanical continuity of the Western part of the text, creating arhythm between positive and negative elements and allowing the positive,printed portions to take on something of the radiating, organic energy ofthe synthetic Oriental character. 13 The poetics of the Cent phrases is itselfbased in large part on the concept of the "rapport" between positive andnegative, full and empty, presence and absence; thus, numerous poemsallude to the relationship through their theme or imagery:

je suis venuregarder

moins la merque

la cessationde tout (58)

The blank spaces in the Ideogrammes, by their size and frequency resem­ble a mysterious fluid that bathes the printed or illustrated portions andisolates the work from the banal space of ordinary printed texts. Theydesignate its spatial dimensions as aesthetically significant rather than asmerely mechanical, and their whiteness serves to emphasize the brillianceand dynamism of the Chinese characters, which seem to burst out of thevoid into life. The center column, which carries the main text, oftenseems to float between two empty expanses that embody the opposingcultural and scriptural directions in which the text is simultaneously at­tracted. Thus, through the blank spaces, the printed text's implicit verbaland spatial field of reference and its unsaid, potential meanings acquireconcrete form.

In both works, blank space also plays a fundamental role in the inter­nal functioning of the text. The relationship between printed text andblank space is redefined in order to modify the organization of the syn­tactic relationships within the sentence and to impart to the French sen­tence the diffuse, implied intuitive quality of the relationships betweenthe characters of a Chinese or Japanese phrase." Both poets admire thesynthetic structure of the Chinese or Japanese character and its relativeautonomy and combinational freedom and they contrast these qualitieswith the hierarchical grammatical relationships and analytic, linearphoneticism of Western sentence structure. In other works, they fre-

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HeUerstein SYMPOSIUM 333

Tout autour

quently lament the limitations of the Western writing system, which theysee as a form of prison:

C'est si ennuyeux de marcher toujours dans le meme directionsur cet etroit rail d'encre!"

Les livres sont ennuyeux a lire. Pas de libre circulation. On est in-vite a suivre. Le chemin est trace, unique."

Claudel contrasts this monotonous linearity with the combinational free­dom permitted by Japanese sentence structure: "voici, de quelques mots,debarrasses du harnais de la syntaxe et rejoints a travers le blanc par leurseule simultaneite une phrase faite de rapports!" (Cent Phrases 138).Michaux admires in the Chinese character "son peu de syntaxe qui laissea deviner, a recreer, qui laisse place ala poesie. Du multiple sort l'idee"tIdeogrammes 99). Both poets organize their texts in order to break upthe linear movement of the phrase and to emulate the multidimensional,complex structure of the Oriental sentence. Claudel's "phrases" aremade up of brief, suspended fragments, arranged in an expressive visualpattern; and the argument of Michaux's essay is organized in a non­linear, back-and-forth manner that integrates the global spatial dimen­sion of the entire text into the reading experience.

Through these techniques, the text appears as a spatial entity as well asa mental one. This spatial conception of the poem is expressed in thethemes and imagery of numerous poems of the Cent phrases:

du poemed'autres petits poemes

a moitie nesdont il n'est sorti qu'

un adjectif ou unem

ajuscule (106)

The Cent phrases and the Ideogrammes exist in both a textual and an im­aginary space, like the Chinese or Japanese poem described by FrancoisCheng:

les signes d'un poeme ne se contentent pas d'etre de simplesintermediaires; par leur organisation spatiale, ils constituent unmonde de presences ou il est bon de demeurer et a travers lequel onpeut circuler au gre des rencontres et des decouvertes .... 17

The characters in an Oriental poem form a unique scriptural world,detached from the real world but in intimate, organic communicationwith it. In the calligraphy of the Cent phrases and the unusual typo-

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graphical layouts of the Ideogrammes, both poets seek to imitate thisOriental "poeticization" of the textual space, utilizing the relationshipof print and page as the structure of an expressive, discrete universe.

The spatial dimension of an Oriental text is not an abstract, purely in­tellectual order; it also refers implicitly to the body of the scriptor, as wehave seen in our study of the vertical and horizontal axes. Just as thespace of the page reflects the position of the scriptor, the Chinese charac­ter's self-contained internal organization of lines and directions corre­sponds to the directed gestures of the human body. The two poets' ad­miration for the synthetic nature of Oriental calligraphy is also an effortto enter into this synthetic space through their physical participation inthe creation of the text, but through the reorganization of the space ofthe page and through the physical act of tracing the words. 18

This enterprise reflects the Oriental emphasis on the physical and men­tal participation of the scriptor in the character he traces. The extensiveand ancient body of Chinese critical writings on calligraphy is full of ref­erences to the importance of the scriptor's manual skill, to the subtlecommunication between the hand and the spirit, and to the correspon­dence between the visual dimension of the characters and the kineticenergy of living beings. This organic, physiological view of calligraphy isrooted in the Chinese view of the body as a collection of dynamic func­tions rather than of organs. Thus calligraphy is essentially a transfer orcirculation of energy. According to John Hay: "If there is any single,fundamental characterization of calligraphy, it is that of a line of energy,materializing through the brush into the ink-trace."19 Through thegestures of writing, the calligrapher channels the energy of his own bodyinto the expression of the energies of the universe.

In both the Cent phrases and the Ideogrammes, this conception ofcalligraphy plays a major role. Both Claudel and Michaux emphasize theimportance of the scriptor's bodily energy and the dynamic nature of thehand's role in transmitting this energy to the text. Claudel's preface tothe Cent phrases emphasizes the importance of the scriptor's hand in thepractice of Oriental calligraphy: the hand plays the crucial role of in­termediary between the inner poetic inspiration and the material realiza­tion of the text; it is a delegate of the entire organism. "II n'y a plus qu'ay tremper, peintre de l'ideel ce pinceau leger et comme aerien qui Ie longde nos phalanges communique au fond de nous a la deflagration dupoeme" (137). The calligraphy of the "phrases" allows the bodily energyof the author to play a central role in the poetic process, to form andshape the visible and readable object before us, in an operation thatMichel Truffet calls a "condensation energetique.v'" This same sense ofthe bodily energy of the scriptor as an essential component of Chinese

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HeUerstein SYMPOSIUM 335

calligraphy is also a central part of Michaux's analysis. He evokes "lavitesse ... l'agilite ... la vive gestualite" of Chinese writing. "Une cer­taine peinture chinoise de paysage demande de la vitesse, ne se peut fairequ'avec la meme detente soudaine que la patte du tigre qui bondit" (95).The calligraphy that illustrates this part of his text does indeed directlyevoke these qualities of speed and agility.

Because the scriptor's hand communicates with the whole organismand with the organic world around it, it is a delegate of the poetic self. Atthe extremity of the arm, it interprets and transmits the basic impulses ofthe psyche to the concrete space of the text. Claudel emphasizes this dis­placement of the expressive function from the speech organs to the hand:"Toi, recois al'oreille de ton coeur cette parole muette que depeche unehaleine issue de la main!" (Cent phrases 138). Within the separate,microcosmic world that is the textual space of the poem, the handrepresents the poet's identity in a detached, scriptural form. The scrip­tural self appears as a purer, freer double of the ordinary self, exterior­ized and projected upon the empty and receptive space of the page.Moreover, it is an essentially mobile and dynamic self: in its rapid andlifelike movements across the page, the Oriental character resembles aperformer, an actor or a dancer. The image of the dance is a frequent onein critical commentaries on calligraphy:

La comparaison de la calligraphie et de la danse est suggestive, onrepete inlassablement les morceaux des grands maitres, parce que cen'est pas une reproduction, mais l'execution d'une performance."

Michaux utilizes the image of the actor, who appears upon the publicstage to propose his role for the justification and approval of the spec­tators, just as Chinese calligraphy exteriorizes the scriptor before theworld.

Juste balance des contradictoires, l'art du calligraphe, marche etdemarche, c'est se montrer au monde.-Tel un acteur chinois en­trant en scene, qui dit son nom, son lieu d'origine, ce qui lui est ar­rive et ce qu'il vient faire-c'est s'enrober de raisons d'etre, fournirsa justification. La calligraphie: rendre patent par la facon dont ontraite les signes, qu'on est digne de son savoir, qu'on est vraimentun lettre, Par la, on sera ... au on ne sera pas justifie, (Ideogram­mes 101)

The character appears as a delegate of the scriptor himself; it hasassumed his identity and represents him in the public, exteriorized spaceof the text. But what is true of the character is even more true of its mostbasic unit: the single line. This is apparent when we turn to other works,

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where both poets frequently emphasize the role of the line as an image ofthe self. Its importance goes beyond purely visual considerations to ac­quire a philosophical dimension: the single line is the minimal unit ofwriting and of signifying. It divides being from nonbeing, One from mul­tiple and therefore represents the original manifestation of the individ­ual. "Toute ecriture commence par le trait ou ligne, qui, un, dans sa con­tinuite, est Ie signe pur de l'individu. ,,21 Michaux not only states this con­cept but illustrates it in his numerous works utilizing ink traces and lines,halfway between writing and drawing, that show the strong influence ofChinese calligraphy. The first single line is the point of departure for hisgraphic presence in the world.

Moi aussi, un jour, tard, adulte, il me vient une envie de dessiner,de participer au monde par des lignes,

Une ligne plutot que des lignes. Ainsi je commence, me laissantmener par une, une seule, que sans relacher le crayon de dessus Iepapier je laisse courir, jusqu'a ce qu'a force d'errer sans se fixerdans cet espace reduit, il y ait obligatoirement arret. Un emmele­ment, ce qu'on voit alors, un dessin comme desireux de rentrer enlui-meme."

In this primordial graphic trace, many concepts come together.Michaux's emphasis on the act of tracing the original line reflects themythical dimension attributed to this act throughout the world. It is adivision of being and nothingness, a miming of the act of Creation itself;self-representation through the trace is also a representation of theworld. The Chinese attribute great symbolic importance to the firstbrush-stroke of a painting.

Car le Trait, par son unite interne et sa capacite de variation, est Unet Multiple. II incarne Ie processus par lequell'homme dessinant re­joint les gestes de la Creation. (L'acte de tracer Ie Trait corresponda celui meme qui tire l'Un du Chaos, qui separe Ie Ciel et laTerre.)"

The fascination of Claudel and of Michaux for Chinese calligraphy is inlarge part their admiration for a writing system in which the brush strokerepresents the meeting point between the unique, subjective personalityof the scriptor, and the universal laws of nature. The dynamic lines of theOriental character trace the paths by which the scriptor discovers himselfin the act of recreating the world.

Le calligraphe chino is est un artiste qui cherche a exprimer dans Ietemps et l'espace ce qu'il a de plus secret et de plus profond en lui;

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Hellerstein SYMPOSIUM 337

la calligraphie chinoise est une des formes les plus achevees de l'ex­pression esthetique du moi. 25

We have already seen that the hand and body of the scriptor playa ma­jor role in both poets' conception and execution of their texts. We havealso seen that this experience is profoundly liberating for both poets: theself projected through the Oriental character represents the potentialsuppressed by the strict, narrow channels of Western reasoning. Claudelimplies this in his Preface, in referring to the black ink used by the Orien­tal calligrapher: "Ie baton d'encre de Chine d'abord aussi noir que notrenuit interieure" (137). The blackness of the ink expresses the sombermystery of the unconscious, and the act of tracing the inscription takeson the function of a Rorschach test, a projection of the scriptor's innerworld. Within the collection of poems, several refer to the role of ink inthe same terms:

Cettenuit

Cetteo

c

dans mon litje vois que rna

maintrace une 0

mbre sur Ie murLa lune s'est levee

mbre que me conferela Luneomme une

encreimmaterielle (13)

The oneiric atmosphere and the image of the poet's shadow projected onthe wall emphasize that the self-expression through the ink-trace is in­direct: the self has detoured through the reflecting surface, the blacknessof the ink, the space of the page and the relative distance of the handfrom the speech organs."

Moreover, the poet relies on these material supports-paper, brush,ink-because his own identity is expressed through his relationship withthem. Both poets recognize the importance attributed to writing instru­ments by Oriental calligraphy, which, unlike Western writing, does notconsider them to be purely inert, mechanical auxiliaries. The indirectnessof the poet's self-expression comes from his dependence upon the organ­ic, concrete qualities of his materials and their connections with nature.In Oriental calligraphy, they are considered to be parts of the natural

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world themselves. In order for the scriptor to be able to express himselfin calligraphy, he must first arrive at a state of harmony with hismaterials, called the "Four Treasures," because the human artist is him­self an integral part of the natural world and his own innermost essencecannot be separated from it.27

Thus, the detachment of the scriptural self is a projection of its iden­tity into the world of nature. The elements of nature are charged with therole of defining the scriptor's personality, because human activity issimply another form of the creative energies of nature. Orientalcalligraphy emphasizes the physical participation of the scriptor, becauseit identifies human creativity with the active processes of nature, butthese processes are always seen in an abstract, nonmimetic way. The Ori­ental character does not seek to reproduce the exact appearance of thingsbut their dynamic, linear essence. The Oriental calligrapher's goal is tounderstand and to participate in the dynamic rhythm and energy of na­ture, in its abstract and fundamental laws.28

In both texts we are studying, these ideas play an important role, yetthey are frequently complicated by the two poets' tendency toward whatSieburth calls a "Cratylistic nostalgia.' '29 They alternate between ad­miration for the Chinese or Japanese character's unique form of organicabstraction and a nostalgic preoccupation with its historical origin inmimetic, pictographic representation. Claudel conceives the calligraphicenterprise of the Cent phrases as an infusion of the pictorial qualities ofthe Japanese character into the Western alphabetic system."

o suivant sa jonction avec les autres traits alphabetiques, peut etrele soleil, la lune, une roue, une poulie, une bouche ouverte, un lac,un trou, une TIe, zero.i--la fonction de tout cela.... Et si de toutesces boucles et barres ajoutees nous formons un mot, quel ideo­gramme plus parfait que coeur, oeil, soeur, meme, soi, reve, pied,toit, etc.? (Cent phrases 139-40)

Michaux, too, treats the evolution of the Chinese character in functionof the same kind of "Cratylistic nostalgia."

II y eut pourtant une epoque, ou les signes etaient encoreparlants, ou presque, allusifs dejA, montrant plutot que choses,corps ou matieres, montrant des groupes, des ensembles, exposantdes situations. tIdeogrammes 77)

In their insistence on the representational and mimetic origin of theOriental character, both poets are yielding to the temptation of whatGenette calls a "reverie sur la ressemblance, et done sur la securite duMeme."31 The pictographic foundation of the Oriental character repre-

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sents the minimal separation between the sign and the world, a form ofreturn to the Origin. This Cratylism reflects a nostalgia born of the post­Mallarmean crisis in the nature and function of poetic language, as For­mentelli has shown.

Depuis Mallarme et Crise de vers, c'est sur l'arriere-fond d'unelangue morte (perdu, en lambeaux, inconnue, impossible, caviardee)que s'esquisse, dans le desespoir linguistique, legeste d'ecrire.Rever l'ideogramme ou de l'ideogramme, c'est rever de reincarnerla lettre, une lettre initiale, plus ronde, une, pleine d'un «a voir»que la poesie refuse de trouver dans la lettre du mot litterature.f

The Cratylistic dream of the ideogram is the survival of the nostalgia fora totally "motivated" language." However, both Claudel and Michaux,as heirs of Mallarme, are also fully aware of the illusory character of thisdream. In the Cent phrases and the Ideogrammes, they confront its im­possibility and finally resolve the conflict by recognizing the uniquely dy­namic qualities of the Oriental character's relationship with nature. Aswe have seen, the scriptor's gesture is of primordial importance in thephilosophy and practice of Oriental calligraphy: thus, it is the physicalact of writing the character that truly connects the visible trace to theworld of nature. The physical gesture of the scriptor retraces the charac­teristic lines of the object's essential life-principle, in a kind of mobilemimeticism based on the fundamental resemblance between the dynam­ics of human psychic energy, the rhythms of scriptural gesture, and thoseof nature."

Both poets come to understand this "remotivating" function of thescriptor's physical gesture because of their own permanent, profoundpreference and sympathy for the concepts of movement and dynamism.Michaux's tendency towards a "poetics of movement" is well known,and his own personal experiments with ideogram-like India-ink draw­ings were clearly influenced by the mobility and freedom of Chinesewriting. In the text of the Ideogrammes, we follow his personal, symbolicvoyage, from his initial attachment to the primitive pictographic ideo­gram, to his final understanding of the modem Chinese character's ab­stract, dynamic organicism. It is the scriptor's physical participation thatresolves the conflict between pictographic representation and abstrac­tion. The modem character represents an equilibrium that expresses thedynamic rhythms of living beings and the human energy of the scriptor,while at the same time fulfilling the linguistic function of the sign."

Ne plus imiter la nature. La signifier. Par des traits, des elans....Tels qu'ils sont actuellement, eloignes de leur mimetisme d'autre-

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fois, les signes chinois ont la grace de l'Impatience, l'envol de lanature, sa diversite, sa facon inegalable de savoir se ployer, rebon­dir, se redresser. (Ideogrammes 99)

Similarly, Claudel resolves the conflict between mimeticism and the ar­bitrary linguistic code by attributing a central role to the scriptor'sgesture. In the Preface to the Cent phrases and in other texts, he con­trasts the superior visual resources of the synthetic Oriental writingsystem with the analytic abstraction of the Western letter. The movementof the Western scriptor's hand introduces into his mechanical order thecorporal energy that will reanimate the connection between signifier andsignified and impart to the Western word the organic dynamism of theOriental character.

Et la lettre Occidentale, telle qu'au fil de notre pensee elle s'integreen mots et en lettres n'est-elle pas dans le geste qui la lie a sesvoisines quelquechose d'aussi anime et peremptoire que le sigleChinois? (Cent phrases 140)

The solution to the problem of mimesis lies in this emphasis on thephysical and psychological energy of the scriptor; for both poets, exter­nal reality is present in words through the creative intervention of theSubject, who incorporates and then restores it by his own participation inthe scriptural act. "Ainsi le reel n'est-il jamais donne, il est en creationpermanente.v'" In both works, the visual level of the text plays an impor­tant role in the reading experience, as we have seen, but its function is notto double the subject matter of the text with pictorial representation. It isto introduce the scriptor's corporal energy and the symbolic geography ofhis cultural explorations into the reader's concrete experience of the work.

Thus, this excursion into the Oriental writing system represents a pro­foundly liberating experience for the two poets. The role of the Orientalscriptor permits the poet to enter into intimate communication with theforces of the universe, and at the same time, its association of thephysical and psychic mechanisms of textual creation offers him a con­crete, palpable means of access to the hidden recesses of his own being.Moreover, this participation in the Oriental writing experience is also anexperiment with cultural identity, an imaginary and scriptural "Oriental­ization" of the self. It is a spatial experience, an imaginary voyage into adifferent world, because, as Michaux says, "Toute langue est universparallele" iIdeogrammes 101). The heightened experience of space inthese two works becomes a way of being Oriental, of entering imagina­tively into its culture, through the organization of the page, through thephysical gestures of the calligrapher, and through the identification of

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the poet with the Chinese or Japanese scriptor. Through their physicaland imaginative participation in Oriental calligraphy, the two poets pur­sue an exploration of identity: the scriptural self is an Oriental double, aperformer upon the stage of the text, charged with enacting the drama ofunion with the creative forces of nature in the self.

The University of Georgia

1. See for example Etiemble's recent study of the history of relations between Europeand China, L'Europe chinoise (Paris: Gallimard, 1988), and in particular Vol. I, Chap.XVII, on Leibniz's view of the Chinese ideogram. See also Viviane Alleton: L 'Ecriturechinoise (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1970) 5-9.

2. Francois Cheng, L 'Ecriture poetique chinoise (Paris: Seuil, 1977) 11.3. Although a Chinese character designates a particular spoken unit, it does not con­

stitute the transcription of a sound, but represents rather "une syllabe avant un sens." It isnot the equivalent of a word, because many words are made up of two characters, but everycharacter corresponds to a meaning. V. Alleton, "Ecriture Chinoise," Tel Quel 48/49(1972): 48, 51.

4. Eliane Formentelli, "Rever l'Ideogramme: Mallarme, Segalen, Michaux. Mace,"Ecritures: Actes du colloque international de l'Universite de Paris VII, 22-24 avril 1980(Paris: Le Sycomore, 1982) 209.

5. It is Japanese writing that forms the reference for Claudel in his Cent phrases poureventail. Although written Japanese has a different relationship from Chinese with thesounds of the spoken language, the essential qualities of its calligraphy, which influencedClaudel, are similar to those of Chinese, from which it was borrowed. See Alleton,L'Ecriture chinoise, 111-14.

6. Paul Claudel, Cent phrases pour eventail, ed. Michel Truffet (Paris: Les Belles­Lettres; Besancon: Annales Litteraires de l'Universite de Besancon, 1985). Henri Michaux,Ideogrammes en Chine, in Affrontements (Paris: Gallimard, 1986). All subsequentreferences to these two works will be indicated in the text. Unless otherwise indicated, ourquotations from Claudel's ideas about the Japanese character will be taken from hisPreface to the Cent phrases.

7. Leon L.-Y. Chang, La Calligraphie chinoise (Paris: Le Club Francais du Livre,1971).

8. See Renee Riese Hubert. "Paix dans les brisements: Trajectoire verbal etgraphique," L 'Esprit Createur 26, 3 (1986): 75.

9. Chiang Yee, Chinese Calligraphy (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1938) 38, 117.10. Rudolf Arnheim, "Spatial Aspects of Graphological Expression," Visible Language

12.2 (1978): 168.11. For the graphological reference, see Arnheim, 166. In her Henri Michaux and the

Poetics ofMovement, Stanford French and Italian Studies 42 (Saratoga, CA: Anma Libri,. 1985) Laurie Edson points out that this vertical-horizontal opposition also has a

psychological dimension for Michaux, in that the vertical axis represents stability, balanceand a pause in the horizontal, forward, progressive mode which is Michaux's more charac­teristic direction (102, 111). The verticality of the Ideogrammes refers to a permanent per­sonal attraction as well as to a cultural experiment.

12. See for example Francois Cheng, Vide et plein (Paris: Seuil, 1979) 40--69; and Mai­Mai Sze, The Way of Chinese Painting (New York: Vintage, 1959) 106-12.

13. See Truffet's excellent discussion of Claudel's use of space in the poetry of the Centphrases (20, 31-5).

14. See Cheng, L 'Ecriture poetique 14. See also for these aspects of the Chineselanguage Ernest Fenollosa's detailed and famous essay on The Chinese Written Character

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as a Medium/or Poetry, ed. Ezra Pound (San Francisco: City Lights, 1936). His somewhatcontroversial theories have nevertheless influenced and enriched modem poetry, accordingto Francoise Han, "Devant l'Ideogramme," Corps Ecrit 25 (1988): 170.

15. aaudel, Le Poete et Ie shamisen. Le Poete et Ie vase d'encens. Jules ou l'homme­aux-deux-cravates, ed. Michel Malicet (Paris: Les Belles-Lettres; Besancon: AnnalesLitteraires de l'Universite de Besancon, 1970) 115.

16. Michaux, Passages (Paris: Gallimard, 1950) 123.17. Cheng, Ecriture, 22.18. This is primarily true of Claudel, who personally traced the calligraphy of the

original edition of the Cent phrases. Our discussion of this aspect of the Ideogrammes, willrefer to Michaux's commentary alone, because the Chinese characters that illustrate it weredone by others. However, Michaux experimented extensivelyin other works with India-inkdesigns that very much resemble Chinese characters.

19. John Hay, "The Human Body as Microcosmic Source of Macrocosmic Values inCalligraphy," Theories 0/ the Arts in China, eds. Susan Bush and Christian Murck (Prince­ton: Princeton UP, 1983) 88.

20. Truffet, ed., in Claudel, Cent phrases, 57.21. Alleton, "Ecriture chinoise," 54--5.22. Claudel, Connaissance de l'Est, ed. Gilbert Gadoffre (Paris: Mercure de France,

1973) 136.23. Michaux, Emergences, resurgences (Paris: F1ammarion, 1972) 7. See also Edson's

pertinent remarks on this question: "The fluidity, playfulness, and free-spirited innocenceof the single line is analogous to the ever-conscious "I' of Michaux's written works, the selfthat explores its own possibilities in a context of detached abandon" (93).

24. Cheng, Vide et plein, 43.25. Chang, 4.26. For this aspect of the Cent phrases, see Nina Hellerstein, "L' 'Art Poetique' des

Cent phrases pour eventail de Paul Claudel," Hommages a Jacques Petit, ed. MichelMalicet, Vol. I (Paris: Les Belles-Lettres; Besancon: Annales Litteraires de l'Universite deBesancon, 1985) 484. See also Cheng Vide for a succinct summary of the expressive valueattributed to the black ink by the Chinese: "Le regard du peintre est tourne vers le dedans,puisque apres une lente assimilation des phenomenes exterieurs, les effets de l'Encre qu'ilsuscite ne sont plus que I'expression nuancee de son lime" (54--5).

27. See Sze, Chapter Three, for a discussion of the instruments of painting or callig­raphy, the "Four Treasures," and their symbolic significancein the Chinese aesthetic tradi­tion.

28. Cheng, Ecriture, 15.29. Richard Sieburth, "Ideograms: Pound/Michaux," L'Esprit Createur 26.3 (1986): 25.30. The subject of Claudel's preoccupation with the mimetic dimension of language has

been treated by Jean-Claude Coquet, "La Lettre et les Ideogrammes Occidentaux," Poeti­que 11 (1972): 395-404; Gerard Genette, "L'Ecriture en Jeu," in Mimologiques (Paris:Seuil, 1976), 329-49; Truffet in his edition (25-30); and myself ("The Poet as Linguist,"Australian Journal 0/French Studies 15 [1978]: 268-78).

31. Genette, 349.32. Fonnentelli, 210.33. The term "motivation" is used here in a specifically linguistic sense: a motivated

signifier reproduces the qualities of its signified in its physical form. Onomatopoeia is theclearest example of linguistic motivation. See for these questions the special issue of Poeti­que 11, "Puissances du Langage," cited in note 30.

34. Lucy Driscoll and Kenji Toda, Chinese Calligraphy (New York: Paragon BookReprint Corp., 1964), 5-6, 60.

35. Sieburth, 24--7.36. Truffet, 56.

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