The number and the siren : a decipherment of Mallarmé's Coup de dés
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The number and the siren : a decipherment of Mallarmé's Coup de dés
Urbanomic, 2012
- Other Title
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Nombre et la sirène
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Note
Translated from the French
Includes bibliographical references
Description and Table of Contents
Description
A philosophical interrogation of the concepts of chance, contingency, and eternity through a concentrated study of Mallarme's poem "Un Coup de Des."
A meticulous literary study, a detective story a la Edgar Allan Poe, a treasure-hunt worthy of an adventure novel-such is the register in which can be deciphered the hidden secrets of a poem like no other. Quentin Meillassoux, author of After Finitude, continues his philosophical interrogation of the concepts of chance, contingency, infinity, and eternity through a concentrated study of Mallarme's poem "Un Coup de Des," patiently deciphering its enigmatic meaning on the basis of a dazzlingly simple and lucid insight with regard to Mallarme's "unique Number."
The decisive point of the investigation proposed by Meillassoux comes with a discovery, unsettling and yet as simple as a child's game. The Number that "can be no other" can only be revealed to us via a secret code, hidden in the "Coup de des" like a key that finally unlocks every one of its poetic devices. Thus is also unveiled the meaning of that siren, emerging for a lightning-flash amongst the debris of the shipwreck: as the living heart of a drama that is still unfolding.
With this bold new interpretation of Mallarme's work, Meillassoux offers brilliant insights into modernity, poetics, secularism, and religion, and opens a new chapter in his philosophy of radical contingency.
The volume contains the entire text of the "Coup de des" and three other poems, with new English translations.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Part One: Encrypting the Number
- Part Two: Fixing the Infinite
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1: The Poems
- Appendix 2: The Count
- Translator's Note
by "Nielsen BookData"
