著者

熊谷 謙介 Kumagai Kensuke

出版者

神奈川大学人文学会

雑誌

人文研究 (ISSN:02877074)

巻号頁・発行日

no.178, pp.1-29, 2012

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This paper focuses on the question of "chance" in Mallarmé's Un coup de dés, in relation to the figures of the woman(siren)and man (Hamlet)who appears in the second half of this poem. Quentin Meillassoux's The Number and the Siren: A Decipherment of Mallarmé's Coup de dés(2011)shows that the ambiguous relation of chance and necessity in this poem titled A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance, is not contained in a Master's choice: whether to throw a pair of dice or not, but in the count of this poem's words (707). I argue against this view that the choice of throwing dice or not, the central question of Igitur, remains in Un coup de dés, and that "the unique Number that cannot be another" is 12, the number of the two dices of Igitur and of alexandrine syllables, or rather the visual principle of verses applied to both traditional poetic forms and a radical type such as Un coup de dés. The difference between Igitur and Un coup de dés lies in the fact that the hero Igitur got lost in this alternative logic in an attempt to fulfill in vain the destiny of his ancestors, but Un coup de dés has two heroes, namely the Master and his child("childlike shade")who tries to answer the question of chance in a different way from his father and Igitur : to combine chance with infinity. It is true that Meillassoux's iscussion poses the question of infinityin relation to siren, but it doesn't examine closely the opposition of thefemale figure("siren")with the male figure("bitter prince of reef")in view of gender and literary texts : Ophelia and Hamlet, mobility and immobility, fluidity and solidity, horizontality and verticality, curved lineand straight line. Therefore, the child of the Master is composed of these two characters who contradict but complete each other to challenge the question of chance. After the tradition of "romantic" interpretation of Un Coup de dés, according to which the human being tries to abolish chance between abyss and sky even if in a fictional manner, it is time to reflect on the multiple signification of this poem as a chimera-siren, in relation to its formal features and Mallarmé's poetics.