Mallarmé et l'écriture du corps

2007 Winter; 35(2): 367-83. Abstract This article is an analysis of the representation of the female body in Stéphane Mallarmé's first published poem, "Placet" (1862). The author argues that Mallarmé's use of an anachronistic sonnet form and its depiction of a gallant seduction obfuscate a series of underlying textual operations which serve to subjugate and expose its female recipient. Here the surreptitious blurring of the various "degrees of visibility" contained in the poem call into question the commonly held notion of Mallarmé's "discreet eroticism." This discussion serves as a springboard to a more general reconsideration of Mallarméan poetics and the critical matrices which are frequently used to analyze it. Looking specifically at psychoanalytic theory (often employed to explain both the poet's eroticism and his approach to language), the author contends that this model cannot fully account for Mallarmé's representational project. The author posits instead a phenomenological reading of his "corporal writing." (In French) (DS)