In:Operationalizing Iconicity
Edited by Pamela Perniss, Olga Fischer and Christina Ljungberg
[Iconicity in Language and Literature 17] 2020
► pp. 137–152
Language that thinks us
Iconicity and Christian Bök’s Eunoia
Published online: 13 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.17.08moy
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.17.08moy
Abstract
My study directs attention to a text that would at first
seem unpromising for an investigation into iconicity given that it
is produced by an arbitrary constraint: the requirement that each
chapter restricts itself to the use of a single vowel. I offer
firstly a close analysis of Chapter E of Christian Bök’s
Eunoia. What is overtly a retelling of
The Iliad is read as an allegory about language
and about notions of iconicity and arbitrariness. The investigation
then goes on to explore how the use of the lipogrammatic constraints
lead to the production of a set of concentrated ‘grammars’. Each
‘grammar’ is shown to generate a distinctive conceptual framework
even though this ‘thinking’ is independent of human agency and is
produced by the arbitrary constraint. I conclude by considering how
this affects our perspectives on iconicity and on language.
Article outline
- 1.Constraining language: Eunoia as an Oulipian experiment
- 2.Reading Chapter E: An allegory about language
- 2.1The construction of Helen
- 2.2The Fall and the Dream
- 2.3The constraint undermined
- 2.4An alternative paradise
- 2.5Sound effects
- 3.The behaviour of language
- 3.1Programming language
- 3.2Chapter E
- 3.3Chapter O
- 3.4Chapter I
- 3.5Chapter U
- 3.6Chapter A
- 4.Concluding thoughts
Notes Acknowledgements References
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