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PIERRE REVERDY'S CONCEPTION OF THE IMAGE"L'oxcellence d'une image est dans la justessedes rapports qui la creent et la laissent ce-pendant absolument inadaptable a tout objetconcret de la realite."1

The importance of Pierre Reverdy's theory of the image has long beenacknowledged, though perhaps more so by poets than by critics. Attentionhas, however, usually been drawn rather to Reverdy's highlighting of therole of the image in poetry th an to the specific detail of his elaborated theory .It is not in fact ontirely appropriate to speak of a definitive theory of theimage and its formation in the case of Reverdy, for relevant statementsare far from being compactly assembled or collectively straightforward,despite their customary individual succinotness. W hat is generally observ-able, nevertheless, in gathering together the multiple fragments of Reverdy'stheory, is the lattor's overall consistency and coherence, the way in whichit blends in with other aspects of Reverdy's aesthetios and, finally, theinterpenetration of aesthotics and creative work at the level of their govern-ing imaginative motifs.

Poets and critics alike have cared to lay some stress upon the significantrole played by the mind in Reverdy's general aesthetic theory as well asin his conception of the image. Their conclusions often suggest a broadlyrational basis for the formation of the image in which poetic control isunquestioned. Little attem pt to embrace the tota lity of Reverdy's thinkingis to be found and still less an attempt to reconcile certain of its paradoxes.*Certainly the role of the mind is not to be underestimated, for m any forcefuldeclarations may be readily adduced from a variety of sources to supportwhat should be merely a critical point of departure, but which neverthelessoften becomes a conclusion. According to suoh Reverdyan declarations,tho mind alone is deemed to perceive those relationships constituting theimage whoso strength is thus considered dependent upon the degree ofintellectualisation present a t its b irth.3 And indeed Reverdy is never reticentin his assertion of the crucial function performed by the mind. Mind is ameasure that permits and supports art.* The image in particular demandstho acquiescence of mind before it may be deemed "admissible" and it is"un acte d'attention volontaire",6 an out-going, grasping gesture, that wouldseem to be primarily responsible for securing this "adm ission". For art isunquestionably felt to involve discipline of the mind:

H n'y a pas d'art sans discipline, il n'y a pas d'art personnel sansdiscipline personnelle.8[. . .] au royaume de l'art oh la discipline de Pesprit est la seule quicompte [. . .]'

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26Pierre Reverdy will in fact go so far as to say that mind equals artist 8 andwe must be careful to recognize that pronouncements such as these, appar-ently uncompromising and somewhat flatly articulated, voice neverthelesswhat is certainly an essential aspect of his aesthetics. Scrutiny of Reverdy'swork, both critioal and creative, clearly reveals, however, as we shall moveto demonstrate, that this and other aesthetic principles governing his con-ception of the image are, in effect, rather more complex, composed of small,often paradoxical yet complementary fragments that provide a finely equi-librated overall mosaic wherein notions of cold intellectuality and dryselection are found to dovetail with notions as warmly mixed as consubstan-tiality, intuition, chance, absurdity and the marvellous.

I t will be useful to begin by affirming the degree to which the conceptionsof mind and thought in Reverdy's aesthetics refuse to limit themselves tosome narrowly encased definition. If it is true th at the notion of dreamoften finds itself negatively connoted and thus lying in opposition to therough, but firm, healthy flesh of primary, concrete reality9not that suohreality may not itself be viewed as anguishing and, in conformity withReverdy's art-nature dichotomy, inferior to the secondary, "antinatural"artistio reality of image, poem or painting, it is nevertheless equally im-portant to observe its positive connotations.10 For the poet's dream is feltto be of a special order, hard and durable, having been finely tempered firstof all by his experience of concrete reality.11 Suoh a dream is fecund, sheddingall notions of the mindless sterility of drifting and sleep. Such a dream is,in effect, a special form of thought:Tous les reveurs ne sont pas poetes mais il y a a des poetes qui sontdes reveurs. Le rive est sterile chez ceux qui ne sont pas poetes. Lereve du poete est fecond. H tien t lieu chez lui de ce qu'on appellechez d 'autres la pensee. Le rfive est done une forme speoiale de lapensee. La pensee e'est l'esprit qui penetre, le rfive l'esprit qui selaisse penetrer. H est peu t-lt re bon que l'esprit du poete se laissepenetrer plus qu'il ne penetre.11The poet's dream is the mind functioning in a particular mode of operationand showing itself to be every bit as much absorbing, admissive and recep-tive, as it is out-going, penetrating and actively seizing.13 The operation ofthe mind and indeed the constitution of the image may thus be said to bebased upon a two-way movement, out-going and appropriating as well asin-coming and somewhat passively assimilating.14 It is a movement thatnot only is to be found throughout the aesthetic doctrine of Pierre Reverdy

pertaining to the image, but which, most significantly, provides a nucleusfor m any of the cruoial, controlling imaginative structures of his poetry. I tis possible, in fact, to argue a strong case for the powerful though elusiveaesthetics-orientated metaphoricity of much of Reverdy's poetry.16 In sucha theory-conscious poet we should surely be astonished not to find a deep-structured interpenatration of imaginative motifs at all levels of expression.Reverdy himself has spoken with feeling of the absolute need for a just

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27equilibrium between poetic "personality" and aesthetics.1' Suoh questions asthese, and in particular that of the metaphorical self-reflexiveness of Re-verdy's poetry, though in need of analysis, lie outside the scope of ourpresent examination.What we must permit ourselves to explore briefly, however, in connectionwith the above, is Reverdy's obsession with the concepts of assimilation,appropriation, domination and liberation. The mind is deemed, as we haveseen, to befinallyresponsible for artistic reality and it oxercises this respon-sibility in the realm of poetry by admitting, assimilating and appropriatingnon-artistic reality via a process of verbal transmutation. In this perspec-tive the image is said to bo a unique, though curiously primitive instrumentfor humanising the universe, that is to say for making it part of man, of self:L'homme commence a l'image qui est Pinstrument primitif presqueunique d'humanisation de l'univers. Les ohoses ne sont que cequ'elles sontil n'y a pas dans los choses autre chose que ce qu'ellessont, sauf 1'homme qui s'y est introduit ot les rend humaines et seles approprie par l'image.17Things would remain things, inescapably separate, unapproachable, if itwere not for man's special relationship with them via language and mostespecially the image. Things thus become a platform for the establishmentof self's own word-things. Reality becomes a support for 'Tirrealite" or"la surrealite".18 A secondary "reel" (a rid', as it wereReverdy uses theterm "reel" with either connotation) is built, so to speak, over and abovea concrete, primary "reel" (a rid1) in the poet's continual aspiration towardsan unattainable and even feared absolute reality.19 Surreality, poetic lan-uage and the image, although straining away from nature to become anti-nature, nevertheless allow a certain closing of the gap between self andnature.10 A coming-together is brought about by means of the dual processof grasping penetration and welcoming assimilation.21 It is a process inwhich the reality outside self may become a reality inside self: "[L'image]est l'acte magique de transmutation du reel exterieur en reel interieur, sanslequel l'homme n'aurait jamais pu surmonter l'obstacle inconcevable que lanature dressait devant lui."w In this way a certain consubstantiality isachieved: "Par l'irreel, qui n'est qu'en moi et que j'y mile comma un levain,[le reel] mo devient consubstantiel, il devient moi, ot ma realite s'affirme,s'exalte et flambo dans uno participation transcendante a la saveur incom-parable de la vie."M Via verbal and metaphoric transmutation reality be-comes self. If the image is a privileged entity in Reverdy's aesthotics, it isnot now difficult to see why, for its role is in no way superficial. It acts asa crucial mediator botween self and world in the struggle for the constitutionof the artist's authentic being.1*Poetry and the image offer, then, the possibility of an integration andcommunion of self and world whose absence would leave self utte rly alienatedfrom tho world. Reverdy's shorthand often leads him to refer to the process

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28as one of taking possession or of domination.M At the same time as thethirst for domination is quenched, the mind achieves an unparalleled degreeof freedom. The formation of the image is, in effect, seen as "le mouvementprodigieux de l'esprit vers sa liberation".28 But what is particularly inter-esting to observe is the way in which the motifs of liberation and dominationintertwine via the interplay of their "sub-motifs". This, moreover, willultimately render more supple our view of the overall patterning of R everdy'sconception of the image. There are two specific points that i t is useful tomake at this juncture . Firstly, the movement towards the mind's liberation,towards a mode of free functioning, should not be confused with ideas offreely associative wording processes. Words in freedom constitu te chaos,bastardisation and as such are poetically ineligible: "Car on ne peut pastout prendre et se servir de tout sous peine de creer, au lieu d'un art pur unar t batard. On ne peut pas tout ecrire, employer tous les mots ni toutesles tournures syntaxiques dans une oeuvre de creation sous peine d'en faireun inadmissible chaos."27 The formation of the image is thus caught be-tween the complementary poles of liberation and selection, freedom andcontrol.18 For, if liberty paradoxically implies measurement and intuitivejudgment2* of what is cognitively and emotionally offered at the altar ofthe mind,80 soand here we have the second point of significanceso doesdomination involve not just a going-forth to take possession, but also aletting-come upon oneself of both reality and its transformer into surreality,the image. Reverdy can therefore say, as we have already seen, th at theimage is produced by a voluntary act of attention. Bu t he can equally say,and indeed he must say to conform to the matrix of his imagination, thatthe image shuns artificial engineering, contrived fabrication, the arrival ofthe image being fundamentally spontaneous, from above, unforeseeable:"II ne s'agit pas de faire une image, il faut qu'elle arrive sur ses propresailes".31 From this we can see that, despite the continuing and essentialmediation of the mind in the formation of the image, the latter is not asrigidly governed by rational, logical processes as may have been thought.Its constitution is, in effect, at once actively selective and somewhat passivelyapproving and, as we shall be able to observe, Reverdy's aesthetic doctrinetakes care to resolve this dialectic only by insisting upon the tautness ofthe equilibrium ultimately achieved, BO to speak, between the two poles.The creation of the image must not then be narrowly confined to somenotion of rigidly calculated mental control. Reverdy is quite explicit a ttimes. The image is uncontrollable.32 The operation the mind engages inis one of subtle but fundamentally chancy speculation.*3 In the drawing-together or nearing process involved in the creation of those relationshipsconstituting the image, the role played by chance, by the arbitrary, seeksto estabUsh itself as of equal importance with that assumed by choice anddomination. Art is, indeed, in the finely allusive words of Reverdy, "uneforme de jeu de l'amour et du hasard".** Once more the imagination tends

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29to construe the act of the image's constitution as carrying with it a certainnotion of partially passive receipt. The arrival of the anomalous, "T absnrdeet l'irrationnel",8* is not specifically summoned. The mind may thus initiatea general volitional drive, a certain "intentionality" directed towards theunformed image. But the m ind waitsfor the image to form itself andpresent itself. I t may then convert its "att en to" into activity. The richesof chance are crucial and they bring themselves, they are not brought.88But the mind, available, goes forth to meet any such offering and to appro-priate it in a flash of intuitive insight (a gesture whose theoretical feasibilitywas questioned by Andre Breton because of what was thought to be itsremaining implication of a certain degree of control and consciousness).87There isand to this question we shall later give fuller considerationanon-specifiable point of contact between the two movemente. On the oneaide lie art, the image, appropriated, dominated reality; on the other, un-refined reality, reality that has not come sufficiently near to the necessarypoint of contact or equilibrium to be reconstituted in terms of approvedartistic reality.

As we are increasingly aware, the mind is no simple mechanism in Re-verdy's aesthetics. It s apparent contradictions and paradoxes arc thosevery substances th at make it whole. I t thrives upon dialectic and tenselyarticu lated resolution. We should not, in consequence, be at all astonishedto hear Reverdy talk of the image in terms that might appear to be some-what lacking in that customary sharpness of definition. Given the contextof private journals and carefully measured public statements in whioh thefull unfolding of his thought takes place, such pronouncemente as we shallnow examine should be considered necessary, essential and representativeof a succinct, though cryptic overview of those principles to which we havegiven atten tion so far. To begin with, the act of transm utation of rid1 intorid', executed by means of wording and imagery pre-eminently, in order toovercome the basic obstacle thrown up by nature, by rid1, is deemed byReverdy to be magical. The magical or the m arvellous are not in reality,bu t in a rt, in poetry, in the image: "H n 'y a que le merveilleux et le magiquequi n'etaient pas dans la realite, parce que le merveilleux et le magique notiennent pas aux choses mais a l'action et au pouvoir factice de l'homme surles choses, sur la combination de ses idees sur les choses. Mais le merveilleuxet le magique sont entrcs dans la realite depuis que l'homme les y a instaurespar le sumaturel pouvoir d'inventer autre chose que ce qui est."88 Man'sneed for the marvellous,89 his aspiration towards some absolute reality,defines him and divorces him from na ture . And yet the self-provision ofthe marvellous reintegrates man with nature, poet with world, in a mutuallyrevelatory and profitable reconstitution of their being. And although themagical, the marvellous were not, prior to their fabrication in words or paintor stone, in primary reality, and indeed never are properly of primaryreality, they are nevertheless capable of entering reality and taking their


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30place, images or "poemes-objets", alongside other pre-existing, purely con-crete things.40 It is to discover and delight in those marvellous, unheard-ofrelationships between things that the poet writes

41and it is via the spon-taneous combustion of the image that such miracles mayoccur. If there aremiracles in which man may no longer believe, there is, nevertheless, theBUperb compensation of those miracles available to man at any time via his"image-ination" and next to which the former can merely pale into in-significance.48 The miracles of the imagination may gather around them acloak of mystery and inexplicabilityindeed, it is important to recognisethe irreducible and finally inexplicable mystery of both the image and theheterocosmic ensemble of the poem itself, but their inexplicability should

not bo thought equivalent to their incomprehensibility.43 As we shall seemore clearly later, secrecy and hermeticism are viewed negatively and areto be guarded against by the poet's notion of the "justesse" of the relation-ships involved in a given image. Yet, twisting and turning in his efforts tohonestly embrace the full paradoxically of his conception of the image,Reverdy deorees the inexplicable, the mysterious, the marvellous in animage or work of art, to be directly proportional to its duration.44 The actof poetic or lyrical revelation demands a certain degree of finely gaugedspiritual control and yet what is revealed is above self,4* ultimately myster-ious and miraculous, fleeing the grasp of control. It remains at that tensepoint of equilibrium between control and uncontrollability where the mys-terious may be held to be comprehensible, appreciable; where art, whilsttending towards the least arbitrary, recognizes the pull of the unjustifiable;44where the image's irrationality and anomalousness are embraced for then-very validity. To obtain a more oomplete picture of "cette justesse dansl'absurde",47 we should firstly take a closer look at questions of relationships,nearing and distance; and finally we should briefly confirm the degree towhich the motifs of "justesse" and equilibrium pervade the imagination ofPierre Reverdy and particularly his conception of the image.

We have seen th at the concrete world of sensory experience is deemed byReverdy to be a primary reality, rough, coarse, anguishing even, yet whole-some and essential. We have seen, too, that the reality of art, of the poem,of the image, is a superior, marvellous domain of being to which the poetnecessarily aspires. The two worlds, though operating at different levels,nevertheless may be said to maintain contact with each other. The poem retainsa certain porosity which enables a nearing to occur without damaging theessential distance between the two realities of art and nature. This porosityof art permits the necessary nearing of art and nature which safeguards artfrom the pure fantasy of a distance that would "denature" it. Art is some-how centrally placed and the questions of nearing and distance are as im-portant there as in the conception of the image. The latter's "realities" arenot, of course, art and nature. They are the two explicit or implicit com-ponent parts of the image. But the image is neither one of them. It is a

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31locus for the touching of separates, "un troisieme terme",48 "un troisiememilieu",49 where without imitation or comparison,60 a reconstitution anddrawing together of two realities may be accommodated and something newmay come into being. The image, then, somewhat like ar t itself, perchesitself in a "central" position, at a point of reconciliation of the nearing anddistancing processeswith respect both to the question of its constituentparts or realities and to the question that art in general treats, that of thetension between the natural and the fantastic.Pierre Reverdy's refusal of overt comparison may be seen to pertain tohis desire to foster a certain distance between the two "realities" of theimage. Comparison, blatant simile, involves a closing of the gap that destroysthe marvellous third realm of the image proper. Comparison merely positsthe basis of a relationship between two realities. A relationship is indeedrevealed, but nothing magically revelatory occurs. There is no constitutionof a newly created entity.61 Moreover, comparison renders the nearing pro-cess cumbersome and tends to erode its element of crucial spontaneity.Conversely an image that relies too manifestly upon surprise for its effecttends rather towards opposition than towards a "just" and valid revelation:"Deux r6aliti6s qui n'ont aucun rapport ne peuvent se rapproacher utile-ment. II n'y a pas creation d'image. Deux r6aliti6s contraires ne se rappro-chent pas. Elles s'opposent."6* Surprise from, opposition is rarely found tobe genuinely, deeply forceful, nor does it foster relationships any more thanthe superimposition of identical elements.53 For the excessively oppositionalimage, involving surprise, "brutality" or some fantastic quality,64 denotesan image in which the distance between the realities at hand has becometoo great and where the counterbalancing pull of nearing has ceased to befelt. And yet Reverdy stresses th at the creative work paradoxically cravesa newness, an aura of surprise.68 Poetic language generally, Reverdy re-marks, "pour garder sa vigueur et sa puissance comme facteur d'emotion,est [. . .] constamment oblige de se renouveler et de conserver une certainedistance entre ses termes propres et les objets de la reality".M To preservethis distance and the distance between the two components of the image,whilst maintaining at the same time an adequate degree of nearing in bothrespects, is a fundamental aim of tho poet. His acute sense of the mostdistant relationships linking things is perpetually at stake, as he binds to-gether in a new and revelatory "surrealite" elements that are either moreor less,67 very,58 or preferably the most,69 distant from each other. Indeed,Reverdy is categoric: the greater the distance, the greater the surreality.80If Pierre Reverdy concerns himself with the nature of the relationshipsbetween realities, it is because they are the substanco that sustains andsupports the image. Upon their strength depends th at of the image. Thedesired strength stems neither from an excessive opening nor from a some-what stultifying closing of the compass poin ts, bu t from a tension, a finetautness, botwoen nearing and distancing.81 Tho point of greatest strongth

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32will be that at which the distance between the two realities is such that acompensatory nearing must be intuitively observable and beyond which thefantastic or the hermetic would lie. At this point of maximum tautnessthe necessary "justesse" is present, perhaps in immediate appearance onlytenuously existent, yet offering upon further scrutiny and absorption thegreatest degree possible of mysterious revelation. As Pierre Reverdy alsoremarks, for this tense equilibrium to be achieved," the poet finally dependsupon the reader. W ithout his ability to recreate, by discovery or validpersonal addition, this now vulnerable strength, the "justesse" of the imageremains merely latent, the aesthetic emotion it seeks to release lying dor-mant.83 The reader's inadequacy is therefore, though uncontrollable, crucial.

The motif of "justesse", with its intimately fused notions of appropriate-ness, authenticity, truth and precision, can be seen to be deeply embeddedin Reverdy 's aesthetics. I t is, in effect, the ultimately determining factorin the establishment of the relationships posited by the image, "La puissanceet la liberty de l'imagination n'ayant pas, en d6finitive, de plus sur appuique la justesse."6* A process of braking66 and validation is engendered, whosefull significance becomes evident only at a point of straining beyond whichcontact is lost and relationship reduced to non-relationship. If the imagedraws its strength from maximum distance, Reverdy's insistence upon thecomplementary strength of "justesse" makes it clear that nearing anddistance are locked together, the one being modified by a shift in the other.A tru ly powerful image will offer a maximum distance which will be renderedoptimal by the fact of its "justesse". There will be a maximum strainingaway from the banal relationship to the point where all slackness has beentaken up and the image may be considered "justement assise", as it were.The attainment of such a tautness "suscite rhannonie, l'6quilibre et cetteimpression de structure logique qui, precis6ment, dans une oeuvre 6meutsans duperie".86 The d ata borne on the winds of chance have been intuitivelysifted, admitted, at the optimal relational point where contact binds revela-tion and mystery into a necessary whole whose authenticity is beyonddispute. The image is neither "real", as a stone may be said to be, nor isit " true" according to any ordinary understanding of the term . Art itselfperforms, like the image, a magical tight-rope walk between what are seen,aesthetically, as two voids: truth as raw nature or its idolatrous imitationor evocation; and utter falseness.87 The dangers of disequilibrium are doublymenacing. Error of judgment is implicitly associated with spiritual im-prisonment.68 "Justesse" alone provides that freedom sought by the poetor artista freedom not from responsibility, measurement and decision, butone which embraces them in an understanding of their unique and para-doxically liberating properties. "Justesse" is thu s linked to the notion of"artistic truth" and as such is to be prized "avant toute chose".69

MICHAEL BISHOPDalhousie University

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34in our view, have to remain extremely sensitive to such considerations, although, it ist rue , a structuralist-formalist approach would demand a considerable degree of in-dependence for the proper development of its argum ents. A straightforward confronta-tion of theory and practice to assess the degree of their convergence would, however,be difficult to validate objectively. H ow , after all, are "distance" or "justesse" to bejudged? And are those notions not only subjectively ga uged, bu t also con stan tly shifting(even with the individual) in time, so that the "surprising", the "arbitrary", the "phan-taamagorical", are perhaps not stable, verifiable entities or criterialike the artist,the oritio would be "redu ced " to intuition? I t is for consideration? of this order t ha twe might think that the most solidly grounded work on Beverdy's imagery is to beachieved either along structuralist lines (whioh, as suggested however, might tend toestablish ontena different from Reverdy's own), or, preferably (for m this way the full"flavour" of theory in poetry would be brought out), by adopting a phenomenologicalapproach (which would willingly incorporate the imaginative motifs of theory intothose of the poetry). I t will be im porta nt to remem ber, too, tha t m any ontios inadvisedlyclaim t ha t Re verd y's work reveals a general lack of imagery. A remarkable statem entin many regards to apply to such a theorist, it is nevertheless partially understandable.Certainly much of Reverdy's prose writing (poems and short stones) is intensely, riohlymetapho no and quite observably so. How ever, in muc h of his verse poetry (especiallypre--Ferrotfle), the m etaph ono presenoe is som ew hat less obvious. W ha t, I believe, isfrequently overlooked, is that a Reverdyan image may often extend over the wholepoem and yet refuse to indicate the secondary metaphono pole of its compari or anyspecific ground, between comparant and compari. Certain poems may supply belatedly(thus drawing out in a novel way the "distance" between poles) a compari, but notalwayB and not obviously (very often subhminally, because of the discontinuous syn-tax) . Many oritics have therefore considered Reverdy's poems to be "notations" of afragme ntary b ut merely direct order. We should strongly argue th at Rev erdy 's wholeaesthetio-criticaJ output works powerfully and consciously against suoh misinterpreta-tion. Some good, bu t limited work has, of course, been done, particularly by An thonyRizzuto, but muoh remains to be accomplished if the full measure of Reverdy's ownimagery is to be felt." Cf. " L'esthe tique et l 'es pn t", op. oit., p . 674. En Vrac, p. 161.11 Cf. En Vrac, pp. 190-1. Mortimer Guiney suggests (La Poisie de Pierre Reverdy,Geneva: Georg, 1966, p. 29) that Reverdy's conception of the image is in itself indicativeof the "im po rtan ce" attached to the phenomenal world. The latter point has beenshrewdly commented by Jean-Pierre Riohard (Onze Etudes tur la Poisie mo derne, Seuil,1964) and Roger Cardinal ("Pierre Reverdy and the reality of signs", in Order andAdventure in Post-Romantic French Poetry, Blackwell, 1973)." Cf. L* Gant de Grin, Flamm arion, 1968, p . 44.10 Cf. Le Livre de mon Bord, pp . 162-3: "C 'est grace aux m ots, o'est grace au langage,o'est grace aux images que l'homme B'appropne le monde exten eur . II est dans lemonde, le monde insensible, et il s'y meut et ll y vaino grace a 1'image qu'il s'en fait.Image creee de rapports jus ea entr e ce mo nde insensible et lui!" Ro bert Greene quotesthis passage and oonoludes: "Nowhere else does Reverdy dwell on man's capacity to'abs orb ' the world, to give it meaning with words and m etaph ors" , (p. 64). Our argu-ment is intended to remedy this neglect of an important aspect of Reverdy's aestheticswhioh, present in germ in earlier texts, is perhaps only fully revealed in texts publishedafter 1948whioh would account for the fact that Greene is able to quote EmmaStojkovio in app aren t support of his olaim. The passages quoted here adjust, it ishoped, this imbalance.11 Cf. "La fonotion poetique", op. cit., p. 689." "L a fonction poe tique", op. cit., p. 689.u En Vrac, p. 191." Anthony Rizzuto (op. oit., pp. 171-2) briefly bnt observantly relates metaphor to"the quest for unity" and brings out a certain paradoxicality in the question of self-world union.u Cf., for example, "Note etemelle du present", Afinotaure, Vol. 1, No. 1 (June1933), 38." En Vrac, p. 6." "L'emotion", Nord-Sud, No. 8 (Oct. 1917), 6." As suoh it may be deemed part of what Apollinaire called "oette longue querelie. . . /De l'Ordre et de 1'Aventure .

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35** Cf., for example, Le Oant de Crin, p. 44 and En Vrac, p. 5.M Cf. Self-Defence (n.p.).11 Le Oant de Crin, p. 33. Cf. ibid., p. 32, Le Livre de m on Bord, p. 156 and En Vrac,

p . 6. Suoh tex ts varyingly point to the spontane ity, the explosiveness and independentgushing forth associated with the image's formation." Cf. "Ciroonatances de la poesie". L'Arche, No. 21 (Nov. 1946), 7.* Cf. "Note eternelle du present", op. oit., p. 38.u En Vrac, p. 176. Cf. ibid., p. 238.u Circonstances de la poesie", op. oit., p. 7.** Cf. Le Livre de mon Bord, pp. 94-5." In his first Manifesto Andre Breton questions the possibility that the mind mayseize in full consciousness at the moment of their formation the relationships positedby the image. Pierre Caminade deals fairly extensively with the Breton-Reverdy"debate" and shows, with Alquie, that Breton ultimately uses phrasing almost identical

to that of Reverdys' original definition to speak of the mind's seizing oapaoity in theimage formation prooess. Moreover, Pierre Reverdy no doubt never considered themind to be engaging in a fully rational process of evaluation and verification of theirrationalthe notions of ohance, intuition, etc, that permeate his aesthetics, must betaken to indicate a certain olosenoss of thinking that neither poet perhaps fully ap-prec iated . Cam inade suggests th at th e final difference sep arat ing the conceptions ofthe two poets resides in the stress placed by Breton upon the arbitrary, by Reverdyupon th e notion of "justes se". This is not en tirely tru e, for, as we hope to have finallyshown, Reverdy's conception of the image warmly and luoidly embraces both factorsan d his thin king rem ains incomp lete with the omission of either. Th e difference be-tween Breton and Reverdy arises rather from Breton's view that Reverdy's aestheticsreposes on a basis of o posteriori selection via whioh the poetio merit of the image isassessed. Fo r Bre ton does no t quibble with speoifio images of Rev erdy 's po etry.Re verd y is, indeed, "su rreak ste chez lui ". Their differences are revealed on the some-w ha t inflexible platform of pubh o de ba te. The y lie in then* sepa rate views of w hat apoem may be, in their separate resolution of the question of the poet's right to rejectwhat is constituted as image by the mindat whatever stage of the image's formationor being. In th is regard it is wo rth noting th at Rev erdy onoe or twice refers to thespontaneous gushing forth of his poems (not merely of the images whioh, m fact, subor-dinate them selves to the "needs of the poem as a whole), whioh are then only veryrarely touohed up . The "p ull " of "jus tess e" exerted upo n the image is, the n, relatedto the intuitively seizing and synthesizing gesture of the mind and tends to counter-balance the "pull" of arbitrariness and chance arrival m a spontaneous and taut re-conoihation of what perhap s only appear to be contraries. Certainly any final relationalequilibrium is instantaneously achievedthe premeditated, the foreseeable and thecontrived in the image are as unpalatable to Pierre Reverdy as to Andre Breton.

" En Vrac, p. 152. Cf. Le Livre de mon Bord, p. 12. Cf. Le Oant de Crtn, p. 36.41 Cf. "Ciroonstances de la poesie", op. cit., p. 8.41 Cf. Le Livre de mon Bord, p. 12.41 Cf. Self-Defence (n.p.).44 Cf. ibid.: "La duree d'interet d'une oeuvre est peut-etre en raison directe de l'in-explioable qu'elle renferme. Inexplicable ne veut pas dire incomprehensible!" Let usnot overlook, once more, the Reverdyan "perhaps".** Cf. Le Oant de Crin, p. 36. In the Braque essay Reverdy also speaks of the il-lumina tion received from the image's "surn ature l eclat". Terms like "sur na ture l"

provide the basis for Caminade's (and others') argument that Reverdy's aesthetics andreligious thinking tend to merge. We should not overlook the faot tha t "s um atu rel " isalso very close to Reverdy's synonym for artistic, namely "antinaturel"." Cf. "Ciroonstances de la poesie", op. cit., p. 7." Cf. ibid.4 i "La fonction poetique", op. oit., p. 686.4 t Pablo ptcasto, Nouvelle Revue Francaise, 1924, p. 4. Caminade draws our atten-tion to Je an Rioard ou's notion of "le point oommun' between "com par e" and "com-pa ra nt " (p. 90); a th ird realm is founded in a new " he re " where the image proper aimumnalife. And didn't Mallarme speak of a "tiers aspect fusible et olaix"?


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36" Cf. Le Qant de Crin, pp . 31-2, for exa mple.11 Cf. ibid., p. 30 and p. 36, for example." "L ' Image" , Nord-Sud, N o. 13 (Mar. 1918), 3." Cf. Le Qant de Crin, p. 31.M Cf. ibid, and "L'Image", op. oit., p. 3. It is interesting to note an unexpectedself-reflexive touch m a line from "Les amants reguhers" where excessive distanoe islinked to brutality of comparison: "On va cheroher bien loin les oomparaisons brutales"(B%sques et PirUa, Flammanon, 1988, p. 60). In one of his Picasso essays Reverdyalso links fantasy and surprise to disequilibrium (Note EterneUe du Priaent, p. 197)." Cf. "Cinematographe", Nord-Sud, No . 16 (Oct. 1918), 8. Rob ert Greene sug-gests that in Le Lime de mon Bord Reverdy is "perhaps belatedly echoing Bretoirs1924 manifesto" with his recognition of the role of arbitrariness and surprise in themiage's fabrication. B ut R eve rdy has already recognized the role of the inexplicablein Self-Defence (1919) and the function of surprise in art in Nord-Sud (1918). Althoughthe references are generally applicable to art and not speoifio to the image, the basis

for Reverdy's overall "logio" of the image is, it would seem, already laid." Georges Braqu e. Une ave nture me thodique", op. oit., p. 385.17 Cf. Le Gant de Crin, p. 30.M Cf. ibid., p. 32. Cf. Le Livre de mon Bord, p. 112.10 Cf. ibid, and Le Gant de Crin, p . 30." It is useful to note in connection with these notions of tautness and equilibrium,that the mind iteelf is deemed to be a locus where opposing forces are at play and whereits pivotal, stabilizing function must prevail in order to reconoile the swinging, "tidal"mo vem ents affecting it. The concluding lines of "L a te te pleine de be au te" (in which" to i " is equated to mind) express much of this: "Toi, parure des oiels oloues BUT lespoutres de 1'innni. Plafond de s idees contrad iotoires. vertigineuse pesee des forcesennem ies. Chemins meles dans le fracas des ohevelures. [ . . . . ] Toi, clou de diamant.Toi, purete, pivot eblouissant du flux et du reflux de ma pensee dans les hgnes dumonde". (Flaquea de Verre, p. 135).

The notion of equilibrium appeals greatly to Re verd y's imag ination. Excessive-ness in an y direction, in any oonte xt, is baneful. Reve rdy 's essay on Gargallo is lndio-ati ve : ". . . si Gargallo eat habile, ll a cette habilete des grands artistes qui consiste aetre juste a la mesure des besoms et des faoultes lntene ures d'expression. Trop d'habileteou trop peu ga te, l 'artistetro p le perve rtittrop peu le gene et le redu it a l'impuiasance("L'ongmahte de Gargallo", in Note EterneUe du Priaent, p. 110). Cf. "Ciroonstanoes de la poesie", op. oit., p. 6.M Au Soleil du Plafond, Paris: Tenade, 1955, pp. 23-4.M Pierre Caminade suggests that the braking is to avoid temptation and vertigo(op. oit., p. 20)which the surrealists tend to welcome. TTi stress , in our view , is overlynegative.M Ibid., p. 24." Cf. Le Gant de Crin, p. 9: "L'amo ur d u vrai pousse & fond en a rt le nie et le de truit.H y a dono une mysteneuse hmite que l'esprit doit savoir atteindre et ne pas depasser."u Cf. ibid., p. 174: " L a vie libre de l'esprit, o'est de decider. Cha que fois que l'es pritprend une decision ju ste, ll se hb ere; chaque fois q u'il pique dans l'erreur, ll se sentenchatme".* Cf. En Vrac, p. 167. Pierre Caminade devotes a useful section of his book Imageet Mitaphore to the notion of "justesse", as opposed to "arbitraire", oonoentratingupo n its presence in contem porary poetic theo ry. H e particularly relates its functionto the question of an art-nature homologouaness in the writings of Roger Caillois aboutpoe try and Perse, especially. Surely, too, the notion of "juste sse" is to be quite w idely,tho ugh in different wayB, rela ted tofor example Claudel's conception of "Tem pe-rance" ("Elle eat la mesure oreatrice, elle est la forme de l'etre, /Elle est la regie de vie,la pince aux sources de la vie qui maintient l 'exacte tension", Cinq Grandes Ode*,Gallimard, 1970, p. 103); to Char's expansion of the thinking of Heraclitua with regardto the resolution of contraries in "antiphysical" harmony and poetic truth (of. Fureuret Mysttre, GaUimard, 1962, p. 72); to Jaccottet's view of the necessity of non-excessive-nesa, of the desirability of the tensions of contradictions (of. La Semaiton, GaUimard,1971, p. 20).

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