Oulipo
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Oulipo stands for "Ouvroir de littérature potentielle", which translates roughly as "workshop of potential literature". It is a loose gathering of French-speaking writers and mathematicians, and seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. Other notable members include novelists Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, and poet and mathematician Jacques Roubaud.
The group defines the term 'littérature potentielle' as (rough translation): "the seeking of new structures and patterns which may be used by writers in any way they enjoy".
Constraints are used as a means of triggering ideas and inspiration, most notably Perec's "story-making machine" which he used in the construction of Life: A User's Manual. As well as established techniques, such as lipograms (Perec's novel A Void) and palindromes, the group devises new techniques, often based on mathematical problems such as the Knight's Tour of the chess-board and permutations.
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History
Oulipo was founded on November 24, 1960, as a subcommittee of the Collège de ‘Pataphysique entitled Séminaire de Littérature Expérimental. However at their second meeting, this first name was withdrawn in favor of today's Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, or OuLiPo, at Albert-Marie Schmidt's suggestion. The idea, however, preceded the first meeting by roughly two months, when at small group met in September at Cerisy-la-Salle for a colloquium on the Queneau's work. During this seminar, Queneau and François Le Lionnais conceived of the society.
During the subsequent decade, Oulipo was only rarely visible as a group. As a subcommittee, they reported their work to the full Collège de 'Pataphysique in 1961. In addition, Temps Mêlés devoted an issue to Oulipo in 1964, and Belgian radio broadcast one Oulipo meeting. Its members were, however, individually active during these years, and the group as a whole began to emerge from obscurity in 1973 with the publication of La Littérature Potentielle, a collection of representative pieces.
Oulipian works
Some examples of Oulipian writing:
Roubaud's La Belle Hortense, a whimsical detective story, in which six princes, all brothers, are suspects. All six appear in turn, in a different sequence each time. One of the six breaks the pattern: this is a clue that he is the culprit.
Queneau's Exercices de Style, in which he tells the same simple story ninety-nine times, each in a different style.
His Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes (Hundred Thousand Billion Poems) is inspired by children's picture books in which each page is cut into horizontal strips which can be turned independently, allowing different pictures (usually of people) to be combined in many ways. Queneau applies this technique to poetry: the book contains 10 sonnets, each on a page. Each page is split into 14 strips, one for each line. The author estimates in the introductory explanation that it would take approximately 200 million years to read all possible combinations.
Constraints
Some Oulipian constraints:
The "S + 7" method: replace every noun in a text with the word that falls 7 places ahead of it in the dictionary. Thus "Call me Ishmael. Some years ago..." (from Moby Dick) becomes "Call me islander. Some yeggs ago...".
The prisoner's constraint (a.k.a the "macao" constraint) consists of writing a text using no letters with legs (i.e., b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, p, q, t, and y are banned).
Snowball: a poem in which each line is a single word, and each successive word is one letter longer.
Members
The founding members of Oulipo are Noël Arnaud, Jacques Bens, Claude Berge, Jacques Duchateau, Latis, François Le Lionnais, Jean Lescure, Raymond Queneau, Jean Queval, and Albert-Marie Schmidt, representing a range of intellectual pursuits including writers, university professors, mathematicians, engineers, and 'pataphysicians.
Oulipo members in 2005. Note that oulipo members are still considered members after their deaths, although dead members are excused from group meetings. Noël Arnaud, Valérie Beaudouin, Marcel Bénabou, Jacques Bens, Claude Berge, André Blavier, Paul Braffort, Italo Calvino, François Caradec, Bernard Cerquiglini, Ross Chambers, Stanley Chapman, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Duchateau, Luc Etienne, Frédéric Forte, Paul Fournel, Anne Garetta, Michelle Grangaud, Jacques Jouet, Latis, François Le Lionnais, Hervé Le Tellier, Jean Lescure, Harry Mathews, Michèle Métail, Ian Monk, Oskar Pastior, Georges Perec, Raymond Queneau, Jean Queval, Pierre Rosenstiehl, Jacques Roubaud, Olivier Salon, Albert-Marie Schmidt.
References
- Mathews, Harry & Brotchie, Alastair. Oulipo compendium. London: Atlas, 1998. ISBN 0-947757-96-1
- Motte, Warren F. (ed) Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature. University of Nebraska Press, 1986. ISBN 0803281315.
See also
External links
- Excerpts from the Oulipo Compendium (http://www.oulipocompendium.com/html/excerpt_frame.html)
- A website inspired by the Oulipo group (http://www.constrained.org)
- An Oulipo Bibliography (Articles by and about the group) (http://madinkbeard.com/oulipo/bibliography.html)
- Official Oulipo website (http://www.oulipo.net/) (in French)
- Oulipo mailing list (http://quatramaran.ens.fr/mailman/listinfo/oulipo/) (in French)de:Oulipo fr:Oulipo it:Oulipo