The Prose Poem as Puzzle: Letter Patterns in Rimbaud's

"Mystique"
Catherine Bordeau

Romance Notes, Volume 48, Number 2, Winter 2008, pp. 157-164 (Article)

Published by The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department

of Romance Studies
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/rmc.2008.0006

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/471917/summary

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THE PROSE POEM AS PUZZLE: LETTER PATTERNS

IN RIMBAUD’S “MYSTIQUE”

CATHERINE BORDEAU
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ARTHUR Rimbaud casts the Illuminations as puzzles. He ends “H” by

directing the reader to decipher clues as to the identity of “Hortense.”
He also employs the language of cryptography in “Parade,” referring to
a “key” that is inaccessible to the reader. Atle Kittang notes as well that
the poem “Génie” “exhibe. . . des similarités frappantes avec la structure
sémiologique propre aux mots croisés et aux énigmes” (227). The theme
of the poem as puzzle provides an interpretative framework potentially
applicable to all the Illuminations given their obscurity. Paul Valéry
describes the collection as a whole as “un cryptogramme d’un genre sin-
gulier” (qtd. in Little, Rimbaud 18-19) and Pierre Brunel suggests that
“H” articulates a “poétique de l’énigme” applicable to all the Illumina-
tions (“Poétique” 197). The question is to what extent the notion of the
prose poem as puzzle informs the Illuminations.
If Rimbaud frames the prose poems as puzzles, does he inscribe
“solutions”? Many critics have considered whether the prose poems can
be “decoded,” some debating whether they are even readable.1 Kittang
argues that the Illuminations are not intended to deliver a meaning, but
simply represent “une combinaison d’éléments signifiants” (192), and
Tzvetan Todorov declares that one should not and in many cases cannot
interpret the Illuminations (17). In opposition to Todorov’s position
(Duplicités 108), André Guyaux endorses and develops Robert Fauris-
son’s identification of “Hortense” with “l’Habitude,” masturbation, in
“H” (143-64). More recently, Seth Whidden proposes a solution to the

1
See Pomet, Ascione and Chambon, Kingma-Eijgendaal, and Claes.

157
158 ROMANCE NOTES

puzzle in “H,” while suggesting that his interpretation is only one of

many that are possible (185).
Although critics discuss the prose poem as puzzle most often in ana-
lyzing “H” and “Parade,” many have observed phonetic patterns resem-
bling verbal play throughout the Illuminations.2 Kittang notes such pho-
netic repetition, including an anagram-like structure in “Mouvement”
(254), but conceives of the Illuminations as “games” only metaphorical-
ly, as language freed from the need to communicate (190-92). Stamos
Metzidakis has theorized the existence of meaningful letter repetition,
which in some cases produces an anagram embedded in a sentence in
prose poems (Repetition 85-86). He points out, for example, an anagram
in the first sentence of Rimbaud’s “Ouvriers”: “O cette chaude matinée
de février.” The word “ouvrier” is present in the o and u and the end of
the word “février” (Repetition 87). However, he does not characterize
such anagrams as intentionally produced (Repetition 87). Antoine Ray-
baud similarly observes anagrams appearing in a scattered fashion
across sentences in the Illuminations, but leaves open the question of
whether they are a “marque d’auteur, ou mode de travail, ou inconscient
du texte” (105). Thorsten Greiner provides a particularly persuasive
example of wordplay in “Antique”: he identifies the phonetic presence
of the “satyre” within the word “cithare” (105). This wordplay is mean-
ingful because it corresponds to the prose poem’s themes, in keeping
with Susan Wirth Fusco’s observation that the Illuminations’ coherence
emerges through the “reciprocal interpenetration of . . . semantic, syn-
tactic, phonological and rhythmic factors” (167). Although it is impossi-
ble to prove Rimbaud’s intentions, verbal play that relates to a number of
other features of the prose poem points to deliberate crafting.3
“Mystique” contains such an example of verbal play. In “Mystique,”
palindromic and anagrammatic letter patterns correspond to other struc-
tures and imagery in the poem, suggesting that their presence is not
merely accidental. “Mystique” thus speaks to the nature and signifi-
cance of the puzzle in the Illuminations.

2
For discussions of phonetic patterns in the Illuminations, see also Guyaux, Poétique
du fragment 169-175, Bivort, “Pour une lecture textuelle des Illuminations” 43-44, and
Metzidakis, “Visionner Rimbaud” 77.
3
Many critics have hesitated to attribute intentionality to a given structure in the Illu-
minations. However, Murat has emphasized that formal effects such as rhyme “ne sont
pas des soubresauts d’un ‘marteau sans maître’, mais des procédés porteurs d’intentions
et d’enjeux esthétiques” (371).
 THE PROSE POEM AS PUZZLE 159

The palindromic and anagrammatic letter patterns occur in the first

sentence of “Mystique”: “Sur la pente du talus les anges tournent leurs
robes de laine dans les herbages d’acier et d’émeraude.” The sentence is
composed of three parts, two prepositional phrases that mirror each oth-
er and a main clause at the center, and each of these segments includes a
palindromic pattern in which a series of letters is repeated in reverse
order. In the first prepositional phrase, the letters s, u, l, a and t in “sur
la pente” recur in reverse order in the word “talus.” With all the letters
of “talus” appearing in “sur la pente,” the palindromic pattern becomes
striking and provides as well the first instance of an anagrammatic
structure in the poem. In the main clause, the letters n, l and r in “tour-
nent leurs” similarly recur in reverse order in “robes de laine.” In the
final prepositional phrase, the mirroring effect becomes more complex,
occurring in the sequence d, r, d in “dans les herbages d’acier” and
“d’émeraude” and in the assonance surrounding the two ds at the center:
the two [a] sounds in “herbages d’acier” and the three [e] sounds in
“acier et d’émeraude.” Not only does each segment of the sentence con-
tain the same type of pattern, but this pattern corresponds to the syntax
of the sentence as a whole: the inverse repetition creates a mirroring
effect emphasizing the center, just as the two prepositional phrases mir-
ror each other and emphasize the centrality of the main clause. More-
over, these recurring patterns correspond to the image of the “hillock” in
the poem: the inverse repetition suggests two “slopes” that converge at
the center, the “sommet du mammelon.”
The importance of the center in this pattern encourages a further
step: the combination of the letters at the center of each segment to form
an overarching word. Such an anagrammatic structure coincides with
the pattern established in the first segment, in which “talus” is inscribed
in “sur la pente.” The central letters in the first two segments are t and r.
The final segment is more complex, the mirroring effect occurring in
part through two instances of assonance involving different sounds. If
the assonance is factored into the pattern, the letter i functions as a
“summit” as the vowel between the [a] and the [e] in acier. The word
created by joining the center of each segment is “tri,” whose meaning
corresponds to the process of its own creation, that is, the extraction and
combination of the repeating letters within each segment of the sentence
and then the extraction and combination of the letters at the center of the
segments. In sorting the letters in the first sentence, the reader enacts the
160 ROMANCE NOTES

“tri,” experiencing and actualizing the word’s meaning. Furthermore, the

reference of the prefix “tri” to the number three corresponds to the three
segments making up the pattern in the sentence.
The letter patterns in the first sentence correspond as well to the
structure that Roger Little observes in the last sentence of “Mystique”:
“La douceur fleurie des étoiles et du ciel et du reste descend en face du
talus, comme un panier, – contre notre face, et fait l’abîme fleurant et
bleu là-dessous.” In “Rimbaud’s ‘Mystique’: Some Observations,” Little
identifies a pattern he describes as a “parabola”:

Working from the outside of the stanza in, one finds the following balancing terms which
in four cases are a clear sound echo of one another and in the fifth related but opposing
concepts: ‘la douceur’ ‘là-dessous’; ‘fleurie’ ‘fleurant’; ‘des étoiles et du ciel et du reste’
‘l’abîme’, where both are expressions of the infinite, one upwards, the other down . . . ;
‘en face’ ‘notre face’; and finally ‘comme’ and ‘contre’. (286)

As in the set of patterns in the first sentence of “Mystique,” the last sen-
tence creates a mirroring effect. Little similarly notes the significance of
the center of this pattern: “it is no accident that ‘panier’ . . . stands at the
centre of a series of palindromic elements” (286). Much as in the case of
the i at the center of “acier,” the word “panier” does not represent a
palindromic element, but occupies the center of the structure. Little
identifies the palindromic pattern with the curved shape of the basket, a
connection analogous to the correspondence of the letter patterns to the
hillock in the first sentence (286). The repetition of the same pattern at
the beginning and end of “Mystique” reinforces the mirroring of the two
parabolic images, the hillock and the basket.4
The word “tri” also relates to the image of the basket. The word “tri”
and the image of the basket convey the complementary notions of sepa-
ration and combination, themes developed in a religious context in
“Mystique.” The theme of spiritual separation emerges in the second
paragraph, which evokes Judgment Day, a division between the “homi-
cides” and “battles” on the “left” and “progress” on the “right.”5 By con-

4
The placement of the letter patterns in the first sentence and their mirroring in the
palindromic structure at the end of “Mystique” correspond to Macklin’s observation
about the importance of beginnings and endings in the Illuminations.
5
For a discussion of the image of Judgment Day in “Mystique,” see Brunel, Eclats de
la violence 397-98.
 THE PROSE POEM AS PUZZLE 161

trast, the basket, as a receptacle, corresponds to the inclusiveness con-

veyed by a joining together of “heaven” and the “abyss.”
In this context, the third paragraph may refer to the first sentence of
“Mystique,” evoking both its form and its relationship to the final para-
graph of the prose poem:

Et tandis que la bande en haut du tableau est formée de la rumeur tournante et bondis-
sante des conques des mers et des nuits humaines,
La douceur fleurie des étoiles et du ciel et du reste descend en face du talus, comme
un panier, – contre notre face, et fait l’abîme fleurant et bleu là-dessous.

The imagery in the third paragraph corresponds to the first sentence of

“Mystique” in several ways. The first sentence does constitute a type of
“band” at the top of the artwork as it is the first paragraph of the prose
poem. The description of the band as both visual and auditory relates to
the graphic and phonetic dimensions of the letter patterns in the first
sentence. The notion of “turning” sounds corresponds to the fact that the
letter patterns are organized around a center and repeat across the sen-
tence. In addition, the conjunction “tandis que” conveys the relationship
between the first and last sentences of the poem as they mirror and con-
trast with each other, the first inscribing the “tri” and the image of the
hillock and the last the notion of oneness and the image of the basket.
The letter patterns in “Mystique” support the notion expressed in the
third and fourth paragraphs that the artwork coexists and merges with
the cosmic scene it depicts. Not only does the palindromic structure cor-
respond to the hillock, but the acts of separating and joining emerge
both as divine gestures and as actions performed in discerning the letter
patterns. The reader becomes a “mystic” connected to the divine through
the act of deciphering and the letter patterns evoke a hermetic text, in
keeping with the use of anagrams in the Kabbalah and other esoteric tra-
ditions.6 Above all, the hidden word “tri” concerns the process of deci-
phering itself, suggesting Rimbaud’s development of a specifically liter-
ary hermeticism requiring the reader to find patterns in cryptic writing.
“Mystique” thus confirms Olivier Bivort’s notion that Rimbaud’s her-
meticism, his “alchimie du verbe,” is poetic (“Remarques” 146).

6
Lalanne’s Curiosités littéraires (1857) reflects such a conception of anagrams in
nineteenth-century France: he notes the importance of anagrams in the Kabbalah and
speculates on their use in alchemy and “occult sciences” (8).
162 ROMANCE NOTES

Rimbaud’s use of anagrammatic and palindromic patterns in “Mys-

tique” is not surprising given the description of his writing in Une sai-
son en enfer: in his “alchimie du verbe,” he manipulates letters, attribut-
ing color to vowels and establishing “la forme et le mouvement de
chaque consonne” (106). Moreover, he explains his “alchimie du verbe”
in part by evoking his taste for “la littérature démodée, latin d’église,
livres érotiques sans orthographe, romans de nos aïeules, contes de fées,
petits livres de l’enfance, opéras vieux, refrains niais, rhythmes naïfs”
(106). His preference for the old-fashioned, the obscure and the juvenile
is consistent with his interest in the poetic puzzle, a secondary poetic
genre practiced notably in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.7 By
the nineteenth century, puzzle forms were not current, but represented
“curiosities,” as seen in their inclusion in Ludovic Lalanne’s discussion
of “curiosités littéraires” in 1857. Rimbaud’s use of puzzle forms in the
Illuminations represents a reinvention of this old-fashioned, obscure,
and playful poetic genre.
Whereas the traditional poetic puzzle is in verse, the puzzle-like
structures in the Illuminations emerge as a feature of the prose poem as
a distinct genre. The palindromic and anagrammatic structures in “Mys-
tique” suggest the embedding of a reinvented poetic form in prose. The
use of repeated sounds aligns the form with that of verse, yet the form
corresponds specifically to the images and ideas in the prose poem, that
is, the shape of the hillock and the acts of separating and joining. The
embedded structures thus function much as the poetry that Rimbaud
envisions in the “Lettre du voyant,” in which the poet chooses a form
corresponding to his visions: “si ce qu’il rapporte de là-bas a forme, il
donne forme; si c’est informe, il donne de l’informe. Trouver une
langue” (252). Because the form is unique to the work and embedded in
prose, it is relatively difficult to perceive.
The model of the prose poem as puzzle accounts for the difficulty of
perceiving the reinvented poetic form in prose. The reader must become
highly active in searching for form and meaning, a challenge conveyed
by the word “tri,” which alludes to the operations necessary to find
the hidden word. The “tri” confirms what Kittang terms Rimbaud’s
“poétique du faire” (187), while at the same time challenging Kittang’s

7
See Chaplot’s discussion of the poetic jeu d’esprit (6).
 THE PROSE POEM AS PUZZLE 163

notion that the Illuminations are a “game” only in a metaphorical sense,

as autonomous play divorced from communication (190-92). The “tri”
points to Rimbaud’s engagement of the reader in actual games, poetic
jeux d’esprit.
The notion of the prose poem as puzzle does risk giving the impres-
sion that only one valid interpretation exists, representing the “solution.”
However, as Little has pointed out, the puzzle is simply a type of literary
form and the solution to the puzzle is a part of that form; the prose
poem’s potential meanings exceed the puzzle’s solution (“H” 140).
“Mystique” confirms Little’s insight. The palindromic and anagrammat-
ic patterns in “Mystique” do not encapsulate the prose poem’s meaning,
but represent a formal structure contributing to the development of the
work’s themes and images. The palindromic structures draw attention to
the mirroring shapes of the hillock and the basket, the word “tri” con-
tributes to the themes of separation and combination, and the letter pat-
terns as a whole elucidate the idea of a link between the “tableau,” the
artwork itself, and the spiritual landscape. The submerged patterns in
“Mystique” bring the work’s broader patterns into greater focus.

LYON COLLEGE

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