60 Potential Literature Mais proche de la croisée au nord vacante, un or Agonise selon peut-étre le décor Des licomes ruant du feu contre une nixe, Elle, défunte nue en ie miroir, encor Que, dans l'oubli fermé par íe cadre, se fixe, De scintillations sitôt le septuor.8 Which gives Onyx? Lampadophore . . , Phénix? Amphore . . . NuJ Ptyx sonore au Styx s'honore Únor? le décor . . . Une Nixe encor se fixe: septuor The angoisse is lampadophore, but also the onyx, just as the amphore also takes the shape of Phénix. Finally, one can guess, in this fashion, what the septuor may be; most exegetes have seen in it the seven stars of Ursa Major, but it may also be the seven rare rhymes of the sonnet. Not every poem may be haikuized; that is, not all poems let themselves be treated—or mistreated—thus. Not every poem withstands such a treatment. The reason for this is simple, I believe: in Mallarme, and particularly in Mallarmé's sonnets, each line is a little world, a unity whose meaning accumulates, as it were, in the rhyming section, whereas in Racine or Victor Hugo, still more in Moliere or Lamartine, meaning runs through rhymes without stopping, so to speak, and one cannot cull it there. Even so, Athalie's dream can be haikuized: Nuit montrée . . . Parée fierté . . . Emprunté Potential Literature 61 visage: outrage. Moi, toi: re dou tables, épouvantables. Se ba i s ser, embrasser, melange fange: affreux. . . ,9 nc will notice that if haikuization is a restriction, the extension of the haiku" is nothing other than a set rhyme. 2. The S + 7 Method consists in taking a text and replacing each substantive with the seventh nllowing it in a given dictionary. The result obviously depends on the ictionary one chooses. Naturally, the number seven is arbitrary. Of * our se, if one takes, for example, a 2,000-word dictionary and uses the X I 2,000 Method, one ends up with the original text. One can also use (Ik- V (verb) + n, Adj. + p, etc. methods, and combine them; finally, n, p . . .are not necessarily constants. A certain number of examples may be found in dossier 17 of the College de Pataphysique. The results are not always very interesting; sometimes, on the other hand, they are striking. It seems that only good texts give good results. The reasons for the qualitative relation between the • urinal text and the terminal text are still rather mysterious, and the question remains open. One will notice that if the inverse of haikuization is the set rhyme, the Inverse of S + 7 is cryptography (or, at the least, a chapter of cryptography): given a text treated by this method, find the original. 3. Isomorphisms ()iven a text, write another one using the same phonemes (isovocalism or i <» i in sonant ism or, even better, isophonientism and isosymphonism) or (In* same grammatical pattern (isosyntaxism). One sees that the S + 7 Method is a numerical and lexicographical variant of isosyntaxism. I Icrc is an example ol isovocalism: 62 Potential Literatuře Le liege, te titane et le sei aujourd'hui Vont-ils nous repiquer avec un bout d'aine ivre Ce mac pur oublié que tente sous le givre Le cancanant gravier des coqs qui n'ont pas fui Un singe d'ocre loi me soutient que c'est lui Satirique qui sans versoir se délivre Pour n'avoir pas plante la lesion oil vivre Quand du pueril pivert a retenti 1'ennui Tout ce pore tatouera cette grande agónie Par ľescale intimée au poireau qui le nie Mais non ľodeur du corps oů le curare est pris Grand pole qu'a ce pieu son dur ébat assigne II cintre, ô cytise, un bonze droit de mépris Que met pármi le style obnubilé le Cygne10 The original text is again taken from Mallarmé: as we can see, Mal-larmé's sonnets are very high-grade material, like the fruit fly in genetics. I conserved the last word of the poem in order to recall the original text, much like the early Cubists, who sometimes painted a nail in the corner of their canvas, for example, as a trompe ľoeil. From isosyntaxism, we move naturally to what I have called (perhaps abusively) the matrical analysis of language. Here, we leave the work in pure potential literature behind in order to broach the borders of quantitative linguistics. The formation of a sentence may be compared to the product of two matrices whose elements are words, the first (those of the matrix on the left) being all formers; the others (those of the matrix on the right) being all signifiers. Of course, I am supposing that the notions sentence, former, and signifier are well defined. By sentence, I mean that which is usually concluded with a punctuation mark, including at least a period. By signifiers, I mean substantives, adjectives, and verbs, and by former, all the other words, including the forms of the verbs tobe and to have. The words in the French language are thus divided into two discrete sets. The product of two matrices of words gives thus a matrix composed of sentences, conforming to the classic rules of matrix multiplication. Example: the has the a has a the had a cat rat lion eaten devoured degusted fish cheese tourist Potential Literature 63 ihe cat has eaten the fish a cat has eaten a fish the cat had eaten a fish the rat has devoured the cheese a rat has devoured a cheese the rat had devoured a cheese the lion has degusted the tourist a lion has degusted a tourist the lion had degusted a tourist ini ihisto"work," the two matrices (on the left of the "equals" sign) must i" associated, such that: (1) In the left matrix: (u) the elements of the first and third columns are articles or possessive pronouns in the masculine singular; 111) the elements of the second column are forms of the verb to have in ihe third person singular. (2) In the right matrix: (ii) the elements of the first and third line are masculine substantives in Ihe singular, beginning with consonants: ) the elements of the second line are masculine singular past participles of transitive verbs. I<> the elements of la may be added ce, certain, maint, quelque, etc. iní. etc., being limited). On the other hand, the right matrix may be indefinitely prolonged toward the right by adding triads, conformant to rules 2a and 2b. For simplicity's sake, let us restrict our consideration to the product of I matrix-line by a matrix-column: gastronomist the x gastronomist degusted caviar || the has the || x = + has x degusted + the x caviar. We see that this "works" only if formers and signifiers alternate regu-Imly. If our matrical calculation is to be applicable in every case, we must |dd to ihe set of formers (respectively, signifiers) a unity-element that we shall call 1 f (respectively Is), or, more simply, 1, when it will not lead to Confusion. Example: ihu I the gastronomist degusts caviar = the x gastronomist + 1 x degusts + the x caviar. Following Le Lionnais's suggestion, we shall call the product of former .ij'ii Hi er bimot; one or the Other may be equal to one (but not both at Ihe s;iinc lime, m order to iivoid redundancy in notation). ŕ 86 64 Potential Literature The addition of "unity-elements" allows us to postulate a theorem which is now trivial: in any sentence, there are as many formers as signifiers. We shall call the result of a first abstraction, considering only the gram matical functions of each word in a sentence, a g-diagram. In a second abstraction {diagram), we shall consider only the number and the alternation of formers and signifiers. The example above will be written (on a single line for more convenience): || X 1 X || x || X X X || (Let us remark in passing the analogy of this writing and, on the one hand, the sentence structure of certain American languages like Chinook, all formers being placed in initial position, and, on the other hand, "Polish" notation in logic.) For the diagram to be correct, primo, as I have said, the two unities must not correspond; secundo, and for the same reason, one must nol have: II .............*J.............. II x II ...........IX.+ I............ II These rules of good construction once having been accepted, the number of possible diagrams of n elements (equal to the index term n + 2 ot Fibonacci's sequence)11 or of n words (equal to 2 to the nth power) may be determined, as well as some simple formulas on constants and varia tions, and the different types of diagrams and their proportions. Then, these will be compared to concrete data from literary texts (or other sorts of texts), which will furnish us with possibly interesting stylistic indices, for they are not the products of the conscious will of an author, and depend undoubtedly on several hidden parameters. 1 must limit myself to allusion to these different problems (likewise to that of determining whether a given sentence corresponds fully to a given diagram and . . . what is a sentence?). I will note, however, the "potential" character of linguistic criteria overlooked by a writer's clear conscience. After Flaubert, the latter will avoid repetition and unrhymed verse (in Latin, he would have searched for metrical clausulae), he will (or not) be attentive to the length of his sentences, the choice of his vocabulary; but he will not seek to disobey Estoup-Zipfs law12 or to use such and such a diagram following such and such a percentage. Until now, that is. Perhaps we shall change that. I shall end on a peda gogical conclusion: granted that there is no longer any hope of reviving the translation into Latin, this marvelous exercise which bridged the gap between the composition in French and the geometry problem, perhaps this function could be fulfilled by Oulipian work on potential literature." Jacques Bens Queneau Oulipian w little research group in experimental literature that formed in 1960 „mind Francois Le Lionnais and Raymond Queneau, under the ambiguous name of Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, has until now confined II .11 to a modest but essential technical role. Its first definitions, its first • i. i bullions of faith stated, for example: I here are two potential literatures: an analytic and a synthetic. Ana-fytl, lipo seeks possibilities existing in the work of certain authors unbeknownst to them. Synthetic lipo constitutes the principal mission of the I Im/i/w; it is a question of opening new possibilities previously unknown U> authors (Francois Le Lionnais). And Raymond Queneau stated explicitly, in order to remove all dubita-itoii of an "artistic" nature: The Oulipo is not a movement or a literary school. We place ourselves i-, wnd aesthetic value, which does not mean that we despise it. Everything had hegun with the Cent Millie Milliards depoemes, which Ruymond Queneau was in the process of composing. When this compo-||ion was finished, the work was hailed by the Oulipians as the first work ol potential literature. It was just that, and doubiy so. Indeed, if the Oulipo, because of lack of time, has been able to define potential literature only through recourse to technical criteria, it is none-Ihclcss true that the notion of "potentiality" brims over amply from the rather thin frame of these definitions. One can state, without for the mo-menl any attempt to delve more deeply, that a potential work is a work winch is not limited to its appearances, which contains secret riches, which willingly lends itself to exploration. One sees, then, all that makes for the potentiality of the Cent Mille Milliards de poěmes: it is not only the example, the archetype they con-Itltute, but also the ninety-nine trillion nine hundred ninety-nine billion nine hundred n i net y-nine thousand nine hundred ninety sonnets that are found, inexpressed but in potential, in the ten others. 65 JL 108 History of the Lipogram 9. Friedman, W. F., and Friedman, E. S. The Shakespearian Ciphm examined. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957. 10. Hocke, G. R. Manierismus in der Literatur. Sprach-Alchimie und esoterische Kombinationskunst. Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1959. 11: Laianne, L. Curiosités Uttéraires. Paris: Paulin, 1845. 12. Lausberg, H. Handbuch der liierarische Rhetorik. 2 vols Munich1 M. Hueber, 1960. 13. Liede, A. Dichtung als Spiel. Studien zur Unsinnspoesie an den Grenzen der Sprache. 2 vols. Berlin: W de Gruyter, 1963. 14. Niceron, J. P, Bibliothěque amüsante. Paris, 1753. 15. Peignot, G. Amusementsphilologiques. Dijon: Lagier, 1842. 16. Pierce, J. R. Symboles, Signaux ei Bruits. Paris: Masson, 1965. 17. Queneau, R. Batons, chiffres et teures. Paris: Gallimard, 1965. 18. Schulz-Besser, E. Deutsche Dictungen ohne den Buchstaben H Ztschr. /. Bücherfreund. 1909-1910; n.f. I: 382-389. 19. Walsh, W. S. Handy Book of Literary Curiosities. London- W W Gibbings, 1893. Jacques Bens, Claude Berge, and Paul Braffort Recurrent Literature I. The Concept of Recurrence in Literature1 I he word "recurrence" evokes a movement of eternal return, of unlimited it jiriition. We would like, under the title "recurrent literature," to enlarge litis llieme through reference to the mathematical connotation that appears In noiions like ''demonstration through recurrence," "recursive functions," i i, We will thus classify under the heading of "recurrent literature" any text linn contains, explicitly or implicitly, generative rules that invite the reader Im die teller, or the singer) to pursue the production of the text to infinity im until the exhaustion of interest or attention). Mic definition we propose implies, for the recurrent text, the existence til u statement about generation, of an algorithm. This is what immediately [times recurrent literature in the category of potential literature. But, of II nu se, many anticipatory plagiarisms become apparent when one examines (he various possible forms of this new literature. All classification being obviously arbitrary in this case, we have adopted a system of incremental complexity, in the mathematical sense of (lie word. We shall thus examine successively: repetitive literature, iterative literature, recursive literature. II. Repetitive Literature This is the simplest form of recurrent literature, and for this reason it bIhuiikIn in anticipatory plagiarisms. We shall distinguish two subclasses: Explicit repetition (or exlensional repetition), which will necessarily lie hunted, in ils written or oi;il presentation, to an initial finite segment. Kio 110 Recurrent Literatuře A well-known anticipatory plagiarism is the song: Je demande á unjoueur d'orgue s'il connatt la Chaussee ď Antin, etc. This example puts an essential semantic constraint into play: the poiH bility of an unlimited cycle of requests for information and efforts ol oil entation on the part of the hero, who translates the topological possibility of circuits in an itinerary on a graph. One may easily foresee the possibll ities of more difficult constraints which a more rigorous consideration n| the properties of the graph in question would raise. In another well-known plagiarism which is also a song: Lundi matin, Vempereur, safemme et ie petit prince . . , the repetiti vene s s is linked to the unlimited return of the days of the wi ■ I etc. —Implicit repetition (or extensional repetition) poses delicate semantl problems. The most elementary form is that of the story in which the first and l,i ■ sentences are identical (innumerable anticipatory plagiarisms, the dcarc»! I to our heart being of course Raymond Queneau's Le Chiendeni). The elaborate form is that of the auto-encased, or "nested" story, whit li fantastic literature is so fond of (Jean Ray furnished a fine illustration of this in Malpertuis). The constraint—eminently semantic—is the following: at the end ol the story, the circumstances are such that all the parameters have regainnl the value they had in the beginning, and the reader is thus led to imagim that the story is about to begin again in identical fashion—most often. Um happens in adventures during which the hero finds himself on the horns til the most horrible dilemmas. Two versions are then possible. In the first, the repetition is apparent the first version is a dream and the second (the last) is reality. The dream was premonitory and the reality in general leads to the hero's death. The second version—the only one that concerns us—contradicts Hit-Second Principle of Thermodynamics, because the "time" parameter can not be reinitialized. This permits us to illustrate here what one of us means by "theoretical literature" (by analogy to theoretical physics or chemistry). An utteraru I of theoretical literature might in fact be: Theorem: Every nondegenerate, intentionally repetitive story necess&l ily develops in the fantastic genre. Recurrent Literature 111 Among the rarely explored avenues of intentionally repetitive literature, ,,<>int out "cross-nested" stories: story A contains the evocation of Him y It, which itself contains the evocation of story A. III. Iterative Literature A purely repetitive story is a generator of texts producing—efficiently or mi infinite series of identical texts. || we replace the identity requirement with a weaker requirement ot .....l,tude (on the condition that the notion of similitude be beyond all ,.,. mm) we obtain a richer literature that we call "iterative." 11, ic again, popular songs furnish us with a wide choice of anticipatory mi isms: Atouette, gentilte alouette . . . J'ai le foie qu'est pas droit. . ■ , etc. In ,,».st instances, it is a case of enumerations that are too long to be Himustive. The numerable infinity they sometimes evoke appears clearly ttllH Y a qu'un cheveu sur la tete ä Mathieu . . . In, h uses moreover a process of iteration followed by a mirror. ^ Iteration can also imply a spiral, as in the theme of Schnitzler s La In (act amorous passion (the propagation of venereal diseases) and the «nil Auger Showers of cosmic radiation evoke, for the mathematician, »iMH.-sccnt situations that already put recursive procedures and structures 11,1,1 P'av- ,. j . ■ u ■ Many structures and constraints may be generalized by iteration. It is Ihus lhal the general Lescurian structure Ci + Ni,1 where Ci denotes ,-...mmalical categories and Ni the whole numbers associated with them, limy he generalized as Ci + Ni + Mi Lherc Mi is the "step" associated with the category Ci. Kit example, {S + 7 + 1.V + 5 + 2} engenders, beginning from .....nilial text, a series of texts which is, in principle, unlimited, through I, ..lauiig first the substantives (respectively, the verbs) with the substan-Hvrs (respectively, the verbs) situated 7 (respectively, 5) steps further Ihm, i,i a dictionary chosen in advance. The second text will be engen-ilru-ď by taking R (respectively, 7) as the intersubstantive (respectively, llilci verb) distance, the third by taking <) (respectively, 9), etc. 00 112 Recurrent Literature IV. Recursive Literature As repetitive literature is a particular category of iterative literature (wlirn the increment is null), so the latter is a particular category of recursiv» literature—so the "constant" and "following" functions are "elementary" recursive functions. This is to say that the domain of the recursive, properly so called, U highly receptive to potentiality. We shall confine ourselves here to presenting three examples with h view toward future meditations and suggestions. The Lescurian with variable arithmetic First, one chooses the syntactic category or categories that engender lit» lexical transference. The length of the transference is then determine»! with the help of a simple (recursive) arithmetical function of one or severní parameters of the word tobe transferred: number of syllables, length, elc, Regarding constraints of this sort, one may pose interesting inverw problems: given two texts, a source and a target, let us determine a sei or morphological parameters and (recursive) functions on these parameti n permitting the passage from one text to the other, applying the correspond ing Lescurian. It will be noted that the two texts must be homosyntactu Let us suppose, for instance, that one determined the set permitting Ihi passage from Latis's to Duchateau's texts in the homosyntactic exercisai of Oulipo ] (p. 176).3 It would be interesting to apply this particular Lescurian again to I >ii chateau's text (or to Queneau's, etc.). This leads us to evoke another theme from theoretical literature (as..... of us understands it) in the form of a problem: Problem: What condition must be imposed on the choice of the param eters and the functions on these parameters, in a generalized Lescurian. in order for all the Lescurians that satisfy the condition to form a group'.' || this group Abelian? (This problem is known, in the literature, as Brafforľl Lescurian "Problem") Cellular prosody This is a system of constraints inspired by the English mathematician ('< in way's "the game of life," a particularly simple and elegant variant ol thl notion of the cellular automaton developed by Von Neumann and Ulam The general idea is the following: one defines an "organism" by a con figuration of points on a grid. Then, one specifies the metabolism ol lilt-organism with the help of a set of rules determining: Recurrent Literature 113 the conditions for the death of an existing point; -the conditions for the appearance of a point on a vacant node of the Hi id. In the case of "the game of life," a point dies of isolation if it has 0 or 1 in if.lilior, of suffocation if it has more than 3 neighbors. A point is born mm ii node of the grid if this node has exactly 3 neighbors occupied by llillllts. It may be demonstrated that certain organisms survive indefinitely, that illiťis engender configurations which repeat themselves with a certain pe-Hulieity, etc. i tue can easily imagine the possibilities offered by the application of an lljiorilhm of this sort to prosody. Indeed, let us consider a fixed form: a sonnet, an ode, a virelay, etc: lliľ words therein constitute a certain configuration that we shall consider I Ihe initial organism. One may then imagine innumerable laws of evolution that cause words to appear and disappear in function of the relations lliey bear to their neighbors: alphabetical, lexical, syntactic, or semantic ii hit ions, 'IWo attitudes are then possible: "direct" research, where one postulates in advance the laws of metabolism and seeks to define a poem which, through the application of these i tws, will give birth to an infinite series of poems possessing given prop^ tľtics; —"inverse" research, where one postulates in advance a series of poruis, and seeks laws of metabolism that permit the engendering (re-»|HTting or not the given order) of this series. For instance, one might pose the following (difficult) problem. ľroblem: Find the metabolism which, when applied to the first poem of i ■< Irrende des siěcles, engenders, in order, the other poems in this work. Mitapragmaticprogram literature Tin- division between the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects of Im linage (traditional since Morris) is well known. Syntax is concerned with the relations that linguistic objects maintain muoiig themselves. Semantics is concerned with the relations that linguistic objects maintain with the "exterior" universe they are supposed to represent. hagmatics specifies the relations that linguistic objects maintain with ilu users of the language, the "locutors." The pragmatic aspect of semiotie studies is relatively impoverished. In lllnalure, il appears only very episodically and allusively in texts of the-iiin such ;is pragmatic dialogue 34 114 Recurrent Literature character—I'm leaving! He leaves. Or, better: character—I'm leaving! He does as he says. Anglo-Saxon analytic philosophy and contemporary linguists Imvf identified, in the universe of discourse, a certain number of situationl wherein the pragmatic aspect becomes preponderant. This is the casi I particular, of "illocutionary acts," where the utterance of a proposition It the affirmation itself, as in the sentence: "I promise it to you" which both states and is a promise. The reader is probably already thinking of several possibilities of »pen ing new domains for recurrent literature offered by the systematic expli nation of the pragmatic aspect of natural language. Let us thus imagine a text A which contains a rule for generating ic*l B; we may represent this formally with the expression: B«-(£A (text B is the result of the execution of instructions given by text A). If the generative rules and text B have been properly chosen, tcxi H may well be of the sort <1>C, and so forth. One may imagine the power and depth of such an approach in reflect« on the behavior of the most elementary text constructed in this spirit, tli* text A-0'A' (text A is confined to the order: execute the text whose only name is "A") For the algorithm expressed by this text obviously leads the author wish ing to conform to it to impose upon himself an unlimited silent meditation It is thus preeminently the formula of all potential literature. Claude Berge For a Potential Analysis of Combinatory Literature en, at twenty years of age, Leibniz published his Dissertaüo de Arte binaloria,' he claimed to have discovered a new branch of mathe- „cs with ramifications in logic, history, ethics, and metaphysics. He rented all sorts of combinations therein: syllogisms, juridical forms, color«, sounds; and he announced two-by-two, three-by-three, etc., combi-nnltons, which he wrote: com2natio, com3natio, etc. . . . In the field of plastic arts, the idea was not entirely new, since Breughel (he lilder several years before had numbered the colors of his characters m order to determine their distribution by a roll of the dice; in the field of ..... u-, people were beginning to glimpse new possibilities, which were to inspire Mozart in his "Musical Game," a sort of card index that allows Hiyoiie to achieve the aleatory composition of waltzes, rondos, and minuets. But what about literature? One has to wait until 1961 for the expression combinatory literature to It used, undoubtedly for the first time, by Francois Le Lionnais, in the postiace to Raymond Queneau's Cent Mille Milliards de poěmes. Litera- ...... is a known quantity, but combinatorics? Makers of dictionaries and encyclopedias manifest an extreme degree of cowardice when it comes to living a definition of the latter; one can hardly blame their insipid imprecision, since traditional mathematicians who "feel" that problems are of combinatory nature very seldom are inclined to engage in systematic and Independent study of the methods of resolving them. In an attempt to furnish a more precise definition, we shall rely on the iniii'ept of configuration; one looks for a configuration each time one tlidposes a finite number of objects, and one wishes to dispose them according to certain constraints postulated in advance; Latin squares and Unite geometries arc configurations, but so is the arrangement of packages lis 116 For a Potential Analysis of Combinatory Literature of different sizes in a drawer that is too small, or the disposition of wm or sentences given in advance (on the condition that the given consilium! be sufficiently "crafty" for the problem to be real).2 Just as arithmiaPorta to »Mle and publish a "factorial" novel, whose pages, unbound, may be read I,, „,iy order, according to the whim of the reader.4 hi, ally, in 1967, the Oulipo stated that it no longer «peeledI toy;good .......ne from pure, unbridled chance, and Jacques Roubaud published his „nation of poems, É (Galtimard, 1967), wherein the author proposes ,!„■ reading of the 361 texts that compose it in four different but well-i. hi mined orders. Another more elaborate form of combinatory poetry: Fibon^cdan „„ems We call thus a text which has been split into elements (sentences u"!,' words), and which one recites using only elements that were not luxlaposed in the original text. „•„-«*. the This type of poetry is called Fibonaccian because, with n elements, the „umber of poems one can engender is none other than Fibonacci s Number": F = 1 +■ n\ (n-1)! («-2)! 3!(h-5)! (M-3)! UOl-1) 2!(«-3)! 3!(«-5)! 4!(n-7)! Mere is an example, whose origin is easily recognizable: Feu lilanl, ilŕjň snnmicilhml, 2967 118 For a Potential Analysis of Combinatory Literature bénissez votre OS je prendrai une vieille accroupie vivez les roses de la vie!5 Unfortunately, it is difficult to invent texts that lend themselves to NIM l> manipulations or rules for intervals that permit the conservation of hicmiy quality. In the Cent Mille Milliards de poěmes, Raymond Queneau introdutM ten sonnets, of fourteen verses each, in such a way that the reader nttty replace as he wishes each verse by one of the nine others that correspond to it. The reader himself may thus compose 10*" = 100,000,000,000.wxt different poems, all of which respect all the immutable rules of the sonrml This type of poetry could be called "exponential," for the numbn iij poems of n verses one can obtain with Queneau's method is given by ihr exponential function, 10". However, each of the hundred thousand billion poems may also be considered as a line drawn in a graph of the mhI indicated in figure 1. According to this point of view, it should be in ih ■( that the reader advances in a graph without circuits; that is, he can rwvoi encounter the same verse twice in a reading respecting the direction ol thj arrows. For this reason, in 1966 we proposed the dual form, the antipode: tlmi is, poems on graphs without cocircuits. Without wishing to define a cm n cuit here, let us say that these graphs are characterized by the propi'riy that, beginning from a given point, one can always end up at a poinl determined in advance. Let us consider the simplified example of figure 2. Other pathway procedures were proposed by Paul Braffort and Francoll Le Lionnais at the 79th meeting of the Oulipo. This principle is also be hind Raymond Queneau's "A Story as You Like It," This text, submiiial at the Oulipo's 83rd working meeting, draws its inspiration from the in structions given to computers, the reader at each moment disposing of two continuations, according to whether the adventures of the "three alert peas" suit him or not. Presented in the form of a bifurcating graph (figim-3), imbrication of circuits becomes apparent, as do converging paths. etc. . . . whose properties might be analyzed in terms of the Theory ol Graphs. [See figure 4 for additional Queneau graphs.] Finally, it should be noted that in his Drailles (Gallimard, I96K), Jell) Lescure travels pleasantly through a graph of order 4: Feuille de rose porte d'ombre Ombre de feuille porte rose For a Potential Analysis of Combinatory Literature 119 Figure 1 ... ipu of the graph of the Cent Mille Milliards de poémes (not all of the arcs and vertices have been drawn) 2nd verse 3rd VERSE He bends over • Ě^------ When one ^•# -ÉL*#- ^ When one day •1 The marble \tt— When everything ^.^. ^-^ ^-^ .4 120 For a Potential Analysis of Combinatory Literal Uľľ Feuille, porte ľombre d'une rose Feuille rose ä ľombre d'une porte Toute rose ombre une porte de feuille Srnce Potocki's famous novel, Un SSirlttä Í7 " «ally since the episodic novels of Eugene Sue ZZlJ^T'" ined characters who relate Édwntu^^^SÍ" h«7 'J roes who in turn relate other adventures, which leadTto a whľ....... SľJSSä0"in the ot,her In his;iÄ™£3í far as to embed progressively six sets of parentheses [see figu, Figure 2 overnpe fruits looking for the man who spits in the pitcher Hamilwnian Poems," which corre*nnn/,n ™ , snorlest Path- He can also constru, I For a Potential Analysis of Combinatory Literature 121 Figure 3 i Hii>i# graph representing the structure of Raymond Queneau's "A You Like It," Lettres Nouvelles, July-September 1967. (We owe this sagittal representation to Queneau) I ^ 4 S 5r ^8 6k 16 ~ 'w f^\\0 12 13 14 ©V" "—---------->------ aL* 20 21 Itt order to describe or count the agglomerations of parentheses in a Bold, the Polish logician Lukasiewicz established the bases of a math-Btical theory; it is to this theory that we refer in figure 6, where we present the structure of the first canto of Raymond Roussel's Nouvelles >ij>ii:\xions d'Afrique by a bifurcating arborescence. It may be remarked .....this arborescence is much less complex than that of figure 7, for in- llMicc . . . which seems to open the door to a new field of research for lltr Oulipo. Wo could not conclude this little inventory without mentioning bi-Latin lllrmiure and the work begun within the Oulipo by the author with Jacques ľľiibaud and Georges Perec. Since Euler, combinatorics has been inter-Hied in Latin bi-squares; a Latin bi-square of order n is a table of n x a »i|iuires, filled with n different letters and n different numbers, each square t out inning a letter and a number, each letter figuring only once in each line and each column, each number figuring only once in each line and •Hell column. Figure 4 Graphs of the Ternary Relation: X Takes Y f or Z {paper delivered In Raymond Queneau at the 26 December 1965 meeting of the Ouli, NORMAL SITUATION Each person takes himself for himself and takes the others for what they are LUNATIC ASYLUM o B 0 + -»q\ O Three luniHK« *\ taking them C O----0 \\ O selves (in N">"' I eon VAUDEVILLE Each person 3f§f takes himself for himself and mistakes the identity of the two others DOUBLES ROMANCE Prince's son Poor slob Foster father aware of the secret A confuses doubles B and C c ď o ,c O-.-.-Ch+íO OEDIPAL SlTUATrON .O Jocasla'sson O 0 O Oedipus Q* V+Qf^rp Jocasta 0—"Ot+lO Dentist Cosinus at home Cosinus at the dentist's COSINUStAN [1ISTR ACTION 0 + +0<-+4p Madame Belazor jO"* Madame X Figure 5 n.c i {'presenting the embedding of the parentheses in Raymond Roussel, Nouvelles Impressions d'Afrique, canto I {the encircled numbers f$prcxent the number of the verse wherein the parentheses are opened or closed) (as the occupant knows (power of the retoucher! to run the eievator) she changes into a sister) (59 a heavy weight) [20 (as it is asked . wandering slowly on the ceiling) (sometimes a . spark . , . . . which boils) {the sun marble) 124 For a Potential AnaIysis of Combinatory Literature Figure 6 system of parentheses Figure 7 «*»«»*. * T„, of a bifurcating arborescence er of parentheses: [{ )]{[( jjj ^f"" of the table . Each hSÍ2£?* (JepreSented «V the 10 columns corresponding square ^0^:, • 'f™^ by the letter <* *■ the corresrx,nding quare keW,SC determined b* the «■*« <" For a Potential Analysis of Combinatory Literature 125 Figure 8 Specimen of the Latin bi-square of order 10; the letters represent a • haracteristic attribute: A = violent lover, B = stupid as an ox, ■ rascal; etc. . . . The numbers represent the dominant action of the rafter: 0 = does nothing, 1 = steals and assassinates, 2 = behaves in a strange and inexplicable way; etc. . . . a o E & 5 3 Ü C 1 Q > "í Q U U T) E u < O Bi) U .C H >> B C 1 Q o Q 1 E u Story number 1 A. c, F. E. Jl I. H, li J. B, c. D. 2 H, B, H. A, G. F. A. J. G, D. E. 3 It c, B, D, G. E, F. 4 J« I. J. «1 c, E. B. D, A. Et F, G, A, H, I. J. F. G. 5 I. J. H, c, E, G« B. Gt A, 6 c. I> H, F, A, B» B( 7 F, E. D. J. F. A, c. G. B. H. G» 8 ct F. E» G. B. A. I. ■I, J. 9 c. D. F, H, to A. D. Ei H. It 'ľhese 10 stories contain thus all the possible combinations in the most economical fashion possible. Moreover, they are the result of a century of arduous mathematical research, for Euler conjectured that a Latin tastbare of order 10 could not exist, and we had to wait until I960 for Bose, Parker, and Shrikhande to prove him wrong. . . ? It is clear that the contribution of combinatorics to the domains of words, rhymes, and metaphors is more complex than it seems, and that it is tar from the anagrams of the Rhétoriqueurs or the stammerings of the Protean poets. 142 Prose and Anticombinatorics He will be called upon to solve a series of enigmas, and the machine will furnish him with clues (inspired by the game of cork-penny) as to hi« groping progression in the text. Type 3: Author^>Computer-*Reader^Computer-f\Vork With this third type we enter into the domain of projects that are....... distant and more technically complex. In Marcel Benabou's "artilii III aphorisms," the author furnishes a stock of empty forms and a stock u| words destined to fill them; the reader then comes along to fbrmuluti i request, and, following this request, the machine combines words mid forms to produce aphorisms.8 The reader's participation is limited, but it nonetheless necessitate! I few elementary flexions in the resultant text. In spite of everything, mil may affirm that the author dominates his material in these aphorisms; ih|« is not so in the case of the S.S.A.Y.L.I. (Short Story As You Like In project. The goal of this enterprise is to produce diversified short stories in very large quantities according to the precise and various wishes formulaci by the reader (he may choose the length, the theme, the decor, the character», and the style). Beginning with a few homosyntactic short stories, Paul Braffort mul Georges Kermidjian attempt to establish an extremely supple general on-sature and a stock of "agms," minimal unities of action or description. Their exact description is in permanent evolution, but one may sny, roughly, that they are the intermediary unities between the word anil (hi sentence, which in theory ought to permit one to avoid both the pitfall:. o| grammar and the feeling of suffocation provoked by sentence types that recur incessantly (as in the work of Sheldon Kline). Each of these agin« receives specific attributes which will come into play according to (lie reader's wishes. The interest of this project is triple: first, it allows one to produce slim t stories, and this is nice when one likes producing short stories; second, n enables one to elaborate a particular grammar prudently, step by stop; third, it allows one to constitute a stock of agms that may be used on othai occasions. But it is a long-term project that is only beginning. It will takl patience, work, and time (= money).** Italo Calvino Prose and Anticombinatorics The preceding examples concerned the use of the computer as an aid to literary creation in the following situations: The structures chosen by the author are relatively few in number, but ílu- possible realizations are combinatorily exponential. ()nly the computer may realize a number (more or less large) of these potentialities. ()n the contrary, the assistance of the computer takes on an anticombi-mitory character when, among a large number of possibilities, the computer selects those few realizations compatible with certain constraints. Order in Crime I have been working for some time on a short story (perhaps a novel?) which might begin thus: The fire in the cursed house In a few hours Skiller, the insurance agent, will come to ask for the Computer's results, and I have still not introduced the information into the electronic circuits that will pulverize into innumerable impulses the secrets ni the Widow Roessler and her shady pension. Where the house used to Hand, one of those dunes in vacant lots between the shunting yards and the scrapyards that the periphery of our city leaves behind itself like so tunny little piles of trash forgotten by the broom, nothing now remains but scattered debris. It might have been a cute little villa beforehand, or just ns well nothing other than a ghostly hovel: the reports of the insurance Company do not say; now, it has burned from the cellar to the attic, and nothing was found on the charred cadavers of its four inhabitants that might enable one to reconstitute the antecedents of this solitary massacre. A notebook tells more tlum these bodies, a notebook found in the ruins, 143 01 144 Prose and Anticombmatorics entirely burned except for the cover, which was protected by a sheet d plastic. On the front is written: Accounts of horrible acts perpetrated in this house, and on the back there is an index divided into twelve headings, in alphabetical order: ToBind and Gag, To Blackmail, To Drug, To Pros titute, To Push to Suicide, To Rape, To Seduce, To Slander, To Spy Upon, To Stab, To Strangle, To Threaten with a Revolver. It is not known which of the inhabitants of the house wrote this sinistci report, nor what was its intent: denunciation, confession, self-satisfaction, fascinated contemplation of evil? All that remains to us is this index, which gives the names neither of the people who were guilty nor those ol the victims of the twelve actions—felonious or simply naughty—and it doesn't even give the order in which they were committed, which would help in reconstituting a story: the headings in alphabetical order refer to page numbers obscured by a black stroke. To complete the list, one would have to add still one more verb: To Set Ablaze, undoubtedly the final act of this dark affair—accomplished by whom? In order to hide or destroy what? Even assuming that each of these twelve actions had been accomplish« by only one person to the prejudice of only one person, reconstituting the events is a difficult task: if the characters in question are four in number, they may represent, taken two by two, twelve different relations for euch of the twelve sorts of relations listed. The possible solutions, in consc quence, are twelve to the twelfth power; that is, one must choose amonn solutions whose number is in the neighborhood of eight thousand eighl hundred seventy-four billion two hundred ninety-six million six hundred sixty-two thousand two hundred fifty-six. It is not surprising that our over worked police preferred to shelve the dossier, their excellent reasoning being that however numerous were the crimes committed, the guilty died in any case with the victims. Only the insurance company needs to know the truth, principally be cause of a fire insurance policy taken out by the owner of the house. Tin-fact that the young Inigo died in the flames only renders the question thai much thornier: his powerful family, who undoubtedly had disinherited ami excluded this degenerate son, is notoriously disinclined to renounce any thing to which it may have a claim. The worst conclusions (included ol not in that abominable index) may be drawn about a young man who, hereditary member of the House of Lords, dragged an illustrious title nvn the park benches that serve a nomadic and contemplative youth as bedl and who washed his long hair in public fountains. The little house rented to the old landlady was the only heritage that remained to him, and he had been admitted into it as sublessee by his tenant, against a reduction ol tft already modest rent. If he, Inigo, had been both guilty incendiary and Prose and Anticombmatorics 145 victim of a criminal plot carried out with the imprecision and insouciance that apparently characterized his behavior, proof of fraud would relieve ihe company from payment of damages. But that was not the only policy that the company was called upon to honor after the catastrophe: the Widow Roessler herself each year renewed a life insurance policy whose beneficiary was her adopted daughter, a fashion model familiar to anyone who leafs through the magazines devoted to haute couture. Now Ogiva too is dead, burned along with the collection of wigs that transformed her glacially charming face—how else to define a beautiful and delicate young woman with a totally bald head?—into hundreds of different and delightfully asymmetric characters. But it so happened that Ogiva had a three-year-old child, entrusted to relatives in South Africa, who would soon claim the insurance money, unless it were proved that it was she who had killed (To Stab? To Strangle?) the Widow Roessler. And since Ogiva had even thought to insure her wig collection, the child's guardians may also claim this indem-nization, except if she were responsible for its destruction. Of the fourth person who died in the fire, the giant Uzbek wrestler Belindo Kid, it is known that he had found not only a diligent landlady in the Widow Roessler (he was the only paying tenant in the pension) but ulso an astute impresario. In the last few months, the old woman had in tact decided to finance the seasonal tour of the ex-middleweight champion, hedging her bets with an insurance policy against the risk of contract default through illness, incapacity, or accident. Now a consortium of promoters of wrestling matches is claiming the damages covered by the insurance; but if the old lady pushed him to suicide, perhaps through slandering him, blackmailing him, or drugging him (the giant was known in international wrestling circles for his impressionable character), the company could easily silence them. My hero intends to solve the enigma, and from this point of view the story belongs thus to the detective mystery genre. But the situation is also characterized by an eminently combinatory aspect, which may be schematized as follows: 4 characters: A, B, C, D. 12 transitive, nonreflexive actions (see list below). All the possibilities are open: one of the 4 characters may (for example) rape the 3 others or be raped by the 3 others, One then begins to eliminate the impossible sequences. In order to do this, the 12 actions are divided into 4 classes, to wit: I to incite to blackmail to drug 146 Prose and Anticombinatorics appropriation of a secret sexual appropriation murder to spy upon to brutally extort a confession from to abuse the confidence of to seduce to buy sexual favors from to rape to strangle to stab in the back to induce to commit suicide Objective Constraints Compatibility between relations For the actions of murder: If A strangles B, he no longer needs to tulí him or to induce him to commit suicide. It is also improbable that A and B kill each other. One may then postulate that for the murderous actions the relation o two characters will be possible only once in each permutation, and n will not be reversible. For sexual actions: If A succeeds in winning the sexual favors ol It through seduction, he need not resort to money or to rape for the sumfl object. One may also exclude, or neglect, the reversibility of the sexual rapporl (the same or another) between two characters. One may then postulate that for the sexual acts, the relation ol twfl characters will be possible only once in each permutation, and it will tuH be reversible. For the appropriation of a secret: If A secures B's secret, this see ml may be defined in another relation that follows in the sequence, betw. i u B and C, or C and B (or even C and D, or D and C), a sexual relation. 11| a relation of murder, or of the appropriation of will, or of the appropriation of another secret. After that, A no longer needs to obtain the same so n ■ from B by another means (but he may obtain a different secret by a ditl'ci ent means from B or from other characters). Reversibility of the acts >■! appropriation of a secret is possible, if there are on both sides two ditlnviii secrets. For the appropriation of will: If A imposes his will on B, this impuftl do n may provoke a relation between A (or another) and B, or even he tween B and C (or A), a relation that may be sexual, murderous, tin appropriation of a secret, the appropriation of another will. After (hut, A Prose and Anticombinatorics 147 m longer needs to impose the same will on B by another means (but he limy. etc.). Reversibility is possible, obviously, between two different wills. Up./it of sequences |n i .ich permutation, after an action of murder has taken place, the victim may no longer commit or submit to any other action. Consequently, it is impossible for the three acts of murder to occur In Ihc beginning of a permutation, because no characters would then be kit to accomplish the other actions. Even two murders in the beginning would render the development of the sequence impossible. One mur-iln m the beginning dictates permutations of 11 actions for 3 charac- Ipis Mil optimal case is that in which the three acts of murder occur at the flu! I lie sequences given by the computer must be able to reveal chains of I vi nis held together by possible logical links. We have seen that the acts ol will and of secret can imply others. In each permutation will be found nimleged circuits, to wit: tbc appropriation of a secret of a sexual appropriation of a murder determines an appropria- fa murder tion of will that determines < a sexual [appropriation the appropriation nl a will leads to a murder a sexual appropriation that determines, etc. an appropriation of a secret I -m h new relation in the chain excludes others. Subjective Constraints I.....mpatibility of each character with certain actions committed or sub- ......cd in. The 12 actions may also he divided according to a second sort nl system, classifying them in-/ subjective categories. 39 148 Prose and Anticombinatorics acts of acts of disloyal acts that ci/i/h! physical persuasion acts another's nrttť strength ness to extort to incite to abuse the to buy good. confidence graces to rape to seduce to stab in the back to blackiii.nl to strangle to induce to commit suicide to spy upon to drug —Of A it is known that he is a man of enormous physical strength, It that he is also an almost inarticulate brute. A cannot submit to acts of physical strength. A cannot commit acts of persuasion. —Of B it is known that she is a woman in complete control of ha-.HI with a strong will; she is sexually frigid; she hates drugs and drug luldk'tll she is rich enough to be interested only in herself. B cannot submit to acts of persuasion. B is not interested in acts that exploit another's weakness (she \\ n\\\ interested in buying sexual favors, she does not touch drugs, she h;r. mi motive for blackmail). —Of C it is known that he is a very innocent Boy Scout, that he \<< i great sense of honor; if he takes drugs, he vomits immediately; his innii cence protects him from all blackmail. C cannot submit to acts that exploit another's weakness. C cannot commit disloyal acts. —Of D it is known that she is a terribly mistrustful woman and physiciilly very weak, D cannot submit to disloyal acts. D cannot commit acts of strength. An ulterior complication could be introduced!!!! Each character could change in the course of the story (after certain actions committed or submitted to): each might lose certain incompatibll ities and acquire others!!!!!!!! For the moment, we forgo the exploration of this domain. Esthetic Constraints (or subjective on the part of the programmer) The programmer likes order and symmetry. Faced with the huge nunibtl of possibilities and with the chaos of human passions and worries, hr Prose and Anticombinatorics 149 I to favor those solutions that are the most harmonious and ......nical. ||r proposes a model, such that: Lhfaction be perpetrated by one and only one character and have É tnul only one character as a victim; .he 12 actions be equally distributed among the 4 characters; that is, |, of them perpetrates 3 actions (one on each of the others) and is the „, of 3 actions (each perpetrated by one of the others); each of the 3 actions perpetrated by a character belongs to a different uhjiH'live) class of actions; the same as above for each of the three actions submitted to by any ''toweľľtwo characters there be no commutativity within the same -» of actions (if A kills B, B cannot kill A; likewise, the three sexual llllons will occur between differently assorted couples). ■ it possible at the same time to take account of the subjects con-, ilnts and of the so-called esthetic constraints? Ii,is is where the computer comes in; this is where the notion of com-luiri aided literature" is exemplified. I c\ us consider, for instance, 4 characters whom we shall call: ARNO CLEM DANI BABY A very simple program permits us to engender selections of 12, mis-■Irals. Each of these selections might be, in theory, the scenario our hero |l trying to reconstitute. 1 lere are a few examples of such scenarios: SELECÍ ARNO BUYS ( 1.1 uvi EXTORTS A CONFESSION FROM ARNO CONSTRAINS ARNO EXTORTS A CONFESSION FROM CLEM RAPES ARNO CUTS THE THROAT OF DANI CONSTRAINS HAI1Y EXTORTS A CONFESSION FROM CLEM POISONS DAN! EXTORTS A CONFESSION FROM ARNO ABUSES CLEM EXTORTS A CONFESSION FROM CLEM ARNO ARNO BABY DANI DANI BABY ARNO ARNO CLEM ARNO CLEM 40 150 Prose and Anticombinatorics SELECÍ ARNO POISONS ARNO DANI SEDUCES DANI BABY SPIES UPON CLEM BABY RAPES CLEM BABY EXTORTS A CONFESSION FROM DANI CLEM SPIES UPON ARNO CLEM THREATENS CLEM DANI CONSTRAINS BABY DANI EXTORTS A CONFESSION FROM BABY DANI EXTORTS A CONFESSION FROM ARNO CLEM ABUSES BABY BABY BLACKMAILS ARNO SELECÍ DANI SEDUCES ARNO BABY CONSTRAINS ARNO ARNO SPIES UPON DANI BABY ABUSES ARNO CLEM RAPES CLEM BABY CUTS THE THROAT OF DANI ARNO STRANGLES ARNO DANI BUYS ARNO ARNO ABUSES ARNO DANI CUTS THE THROAT OF CLEM DANI SEDUCES CLEM ARNO CONSTRAINS BABY The absurdity of these scenarios is obvious. In fact, the program mh»i| is completely stupid: it permits a character to commit a misdeed aguiiml himself. The program can be improved in imposing: —that autocrimes be excluded; —that each character figure only 3 times as criminal and 3 timet É victim. One then obtains scenarios like the following: SELEC2 DANI POISONS ARNO BABY THREATENS CLEM BABY SPIES UPON ARNO CLEM BLACKMAILS ARNO Prose and Anticombinatorics 151 EM EXTORTS A CONFESSION FROM MANI SEDUCES DANI STRANGLES ARNO RAPES \ I i Y CUTS THE THROAT OF RNO CONSTRAINS RNO ABUSES LEM BUYS SELEC2 ARNO CONSTRAINS CLEM BLACKMAILS ANl BUYS RNO CUTS THE THROAT OF ARNO EXTORTS A CONFESSION FROM ABY RAPES LEM SEDUCES DANI THREATENS i L.I.M ABUSES ABY STRANGLES HABY POISONS DANI SPIES UPON SELEC2 ABY SPIES UPON ARNO CUTS THE THROAT OF DANI STRANGLES DANI THREATENS BABY BLACKMAILS DANI BUYS ( I .KM EXTORTS A CONFESSION FROM HABY RAPES CLEM CONSTRAINS ARNO ABUSES ARNO SEDUCES CLEM POISONS BABY BABY CLEM BABY DANI CLEM DANI DANI CLEM ARNO ARNO BABY DANI CLEM BABY CLEM DANI DANI ARNO BABY CLEM DANI CLEM ARNO ARNO BABY BABY DANI DANI BABY CLEM ARNO This new program still comprises obvious insufficiencies Thus in the hrst scenario it is not possible for Clem to blackmail Arno who has already been poisoned by Dani. In the second scenario, Baby , «„no, rape Clem, because Arno has already cut the latter s throat, etc. p,„| li atlort, who ensures the development in computer science nee- 96 152 Prose and Anticombinatorics essary to the progress of our work, has also written a series of pru«, for «jettons that progressively account for the constraints our sto TPht 5SS2 "Ť "i0gÍCal!y" and '^hologically» accept? This clearly demonstrates, we believe, that the aid of a comp „a I«, ELJi^tt Creative act of ,he artlst> Permits the ta«» »2r 1 ít!r t™'í m the SlaVery °f a combi"^y search, allow c n J^ befř,ChanCe 0f co"centrati"g on this "clinamen" which, ,í' can make of the text a true work of art. Raymond Queneau The Relation X Takes Y for Z I Paul Braffort remarked during the meeting of 14 January 1966, the i. iii.n y relation "X takes Y for Z" may be represented by a multiplication: *i V Z. The "graphs" of 26 December 1%5 (see Claude Berge, "For a htii'iitial Analysis of Combinatory Literature") will be replaced by multi-jilii iition tables (see II for the difficult cases). / utmples: Normal Situation a b c a a b c b a b c c a b c Vaudeville Situation a b c a a c b b c b a c b a c Amphitryon L J M Am S Al Jupiter J M Am S Al Mercury J M Am S Al Amphitryon J M Am S Al Sosia Am S Am S Al Akinetic Ani S Am S Al IM Raymond Queneau A Story as You Like It Tpll7n SUbmiHed f ft 83rd meetinS °fthe 0™*r de Lit«,,«*» Patentee, „as msptred by the presentation of the instructions 12 coders, and by Pro8rammed teacking. It is a structure an2 meeting /"W"' h F™*°ÍS U Li°™™ « »" "* 1. Do you wish to hear the story of the three alert peas? if yes, go to 4 if no, go to 2 2. Would you prefer the story of the three big skinny beanpoles' ii yes, go to 16 if no, go to 3 3' ^yeUsdgyoTifr the St0ry °f the three mÍddIÍng mediOCre bu*'" if no, go to 21 4. Once upon a time there were three peas dressed in green who win fast asleep m their pod. Their round faceYbreathed thlľh the Í |tľ , their nostrils, and one could hear their soft and harmonious snoring if you prefer another description, go to 9 if this description suits you, go to 5 5. They were not dreaming, in fact, these little creatures never dream if you prefer that they dream, go to 6 tf not, go to 7 6. They were dreaming. In fact, these little creatures always dream ■■„. their nights secrete charming dreams. y if you wish to know these dreams, go to 11 if you don't care about it, go to 7 ISfi A Story as You Like It 157 if you prefer gloves of another color, go to 8 if this color suits you, go to 10 8. In bed, they wore blue velvet gloves. if you prefer gloves of another color, go to 7 if this color suits you, go to 10 l>. Once upon a time there were three peas rolling along on the great lnp.liway. When evening came, they fell fast asleep, tired and worn. if you wish to know the rest, go to 5 if not, go to 21 10. All three were dreaming the same dream; indeed, they loved each itiher tenderly and, like proud mirrors, always dreamed similarly. if you wish to know their dream, go to 11 if not, go to 12 11. They dreamed that they were getting their soup at the soup kitchen, mid that upon uncovering their bowl they discovered that it was ers soup. Horrified, they woke up. if you wish to know why they woke up horrified, consult the word "ers" in Webster, and let us hear no more of it if you judge it a waste of time to investigate this question further, go to 12 12. Opopo'i! they cried when they opened their eyes. Opopo'i! what a ilrcum we dreamed! A bad omen, said the first. Yessir, said the second, lhal's a fact, and now I'm sad. Don't worry like that, said the third, who was the sharpest of the three. We must comprehend rather than despair; in »hort, I will analyze it for you. if you wish to know the interpretation of this dream right away, go to 15 if you wish on the contrary to know the reactions of the other two, go to 13 13. You bore us to tears, said the first. Since when do you know how to iui:tlyze dreams? Yes, since when? added the second, if you too wish to know since when, go to 14 if not, go to 14 anyway, because in any case you won't learn a thing 14. Since when? cried the third. How should I know? The fact is that I ft .mice analysis. You'll see. if you too wish to see, go to 15 if not, go to 15 aiso, for you will see nothing 15. Well then, let's see! cried his brothers. Your irony doesn't please tlic a bit, replied the other, and you'll not learn a thing. Moreover, during Hus rather sharp conversation, hasn't your sense of horror been blurred, in even erased? What use then to stir up the mire of your papilionaceous Unconscious? Let's ruihcr go wash ourselves in the fountain and greet this .<- 158 A Story as You Like It gay morning in hygiene and saintly euphoria! No sooner said than duim they slip out of their pod, let themselves roll gently to the ground, a........, joyously to the theater of their ablutions. if you wish to know what happens at the theater of their ablutions M to 16 if you do not wish to know, go to 21 16. Three big beanpoles were watching them. if the three big beanpoles displease you, go to 21 if they suit you, goto 18 17. Three middling mediocre bushes were watching them if the three middling mediocre bushes displease you go to 21 if they suit you, goto 18 18. Seeing themselves voyeurized in this fashion, the three alerl pri» who were very modest, lied. ' if you wish to know what they did after that, go to 19 if you do not wish to know, go to 21 They ran very hard back to their pod and, closing the latter all» , went back to sleep. if you wish to know the rest, go to 20 if you do not wish to know, go to 2] There is no rest and the story is finished. In this case, the story is likewise finished. 19 them 20 21 Paul Fournel in collaboration with Jean-Pierre Enard The Theater Tree: A Combinatory Play nciple: At the outset, the objective was to produce a play using the inture of the tree. The problems encountered in a project of this sort pi numerous, and some of them appeared practically insoluble. A "tree" piny would, more particularly, demand an almost superhuman effort of memory on the part of the actors. We thus elaborated a new graph which gives the audience all the ap- l» u.dices of the tree, but avoids the disadvantages for the actors: 1st choice 2nd choice 3rd choice 4th choice _____________END I erections for use: The actors play the first scene, then invite the audi- ..... to determine that which follows, in choosing between two possible nosfll and III). The minhliiics of this choice should be determined in IV> 8234 OULIPO A PRIMER OF POTENTIAL LITERATURE translated and edited by WARREN MOTTE E] I ldkey An hiv* I'reM 1 i.....r"ľ" i.....Ion i lopyrighl«> 1986 by the University of Nebraska Press First Dalkey Archive edition, 1998 Second printing, 2007 All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Oulipo: a primer of potential literature /edited and translated by Warren F. Motte, Jr. — 1st Dalkey Archive ed. p. cm. Originally published: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, C1986. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-56478-187-9 {alk. paper) 1. Oulipo (Association) 2. French literature—20th century—History and criticism. 3. Literature—Societies, etc.— France. 4. Literature and science—France. 5. Literary form. Í. Motte, Warren F. PQ22.Ü809 1998 840'.6'044—dc21 97-51428 CIP Partially funded by grants from the Services du Conseiller Culturel and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and by the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign AHUM w vv w.dalkeyarchive. com Printed ">i permanent/durable acid-free paper itiul bo.....I ni 11«- I iniled Slates of America For Marie, Nicholas, and Nathaniel