User:Emily/RW&RM/Trimester 01/05
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE OULIPO
by Jean Lescure, New Media Reader
The following text is my annotation about the main ideas of each page and outline of the article.
The difficulty Raymond Queneau encountered when he went along with the sonnets writing, may "brings us to the very heart of Oulipian thought". After Le Lionnais's suggestion to Raymond of starting "a sort of research group in experimental literature", Lionnais, Raymond and other five members had their first meeting. During the meeting, a question "The next day in written form" was been asked, but not yet answered.That's the very beginning of Oulipo.
Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, workshop of potential literature) changed its name from the original S.L.E(seminar, literature, experimental), and it introduces important difference that is indicated "Oulipo members shared for beautiful work and good deed: out of respect for both fine arts and morals; they also judged it advisable to settle themselves squarely on an objective notion, on a real fact of every literary being, his potential". "Oulipo intended to demonstrate that the constraints of literature are felicitous, generous and are in fact literature itself." They went further to ask themselves "is it possible that inspiration might cease to be capricious and that any and everybody might find it faithful and compliant to his desires?" It is concluded that like mathematics, literature could be explored
Oulipo members then started to explore language, began by relying on its properties. The author points out a new concreteness "which is not only that of the thing referred to by the words but also that of the words themselves. Language is a concrete object. "A system of concreteness at once both very ancient and very new: literature itself."
Experimentation reintroduced into the Oulipo, to give direction to their exploration. For the most of the experiments, it can be revealed that every literary text is literary because of an indefinite quantity of potential meanings. But Oulipo intended to seek a specific potentiality for their own purposes. Oulipian activity applies systematic and predictable treatments to materials. They concluded an Oulipian task.
The goal of potential literature is to furnish future writers with new techniques which can dismiss inspiration from their affectivity.