AWA: Academic Writing at Auckland

Coming Into Speech: substance and subject in Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip

 

Paloma Ozier

 

This dissertation will examine Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip. Published in 2009, the collection is Robertson’s seventh book of poetry, comprising works written over a fifteen year period. Robertson is a contemporary Canadian born author and poet, currently residing in France. Her practice is experimental, while her oeuvre spans an array of topics, including female subjectivity and desire, pornography, nostalgia, and melancholy. Robertson’s poetics traverse the orthodox divide between poetry and philosophy, invoking metaphysical and ontological concepts. Her works commonly cite and appropriate the philosophical and poetic canon of thinkers such as Virgil, Lucretius, and St. Augustine, recognising, and rigorously interposing, a male-oriented tradition.

 

As such, Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip, hereafter referred to as LRMSW, is avowedly ‘after’ Lucretius’ De rerum natura, a didactic Epicurean poem of the first century, which addresses the emergence of language and the metaphysics of the soul. [1] In its reformulation of De rerum natura, Robertson’s collection posits the first spoken vowel, as ‘I,’ in testifying to the genesis of signification and the split condition of the subject therein. The collection contains nineteen pieces, ranging from polemics on the past century to a treatise on lust, plus an additional unentitled fragment on the last page. The dissertation will focus in particular on a close reading of two of the prose poems within the collection, ‘Lucite,’ and ‘Early Education,’ in examining the broader implications of subjective fracture and the ontological origins of language. In doing so, the dissertation will employ the scholarly work of Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva, whose conceptions of subjectivity were both pivotal to the twentieth century. It will principally engage with Lacan’s Seminar XX: On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge, and Kristeva’s Powers of Horror: an essay on abjection, as theoretical rubrics for an analysis of subjective enunciation and abjection.

 

 

 

Genesis and signification

 

The frontispiece of Robertson’s work, preceding any wording in the text, shows the image of a partial sword slicing the page. This figure may be read as rendering a wound, as the blade is embedded in the folio. Further, it may be seen as an initial or elemental cut, indicating that the text itself begins as split or not-whole. Its placement at the beginning of the work establishes the significance of this simple figure.

 

Figure 1.[2]

The wound, or gap, may be interpreted as the topological division, or relation, between an inside and an outside. Robertson’s collection emerges from this cut, as it is this initial slice, this division, which opens a fractured space for the poetics that ensue.  The genesis of the work is thus signified by this cut, giving way to the emergence of the word.

 

However, there is a second illustration preceding the lexical body of the text. On the page immediately before the first piece in the collection there is a simple, roughly sketched diagram, depicting an empty ring, which resembles the outline of a black hole, or the emblem of a void. It also bears likeness to a depiction of a loop, or coil, of twine, rope, or string.

 

Figure 2.[3]

 

This hole, or coil, is substituted for the ‘o’ of the ‘soul’ of LRMSW. If this image is read as an ‘o,’ then this letter has been inscribed again and again, overlaying itself. This diagram is pivotal to LRMSW, insofar as it appears in the title, and also on a page on its own, preceding the lexical body of the text. Moreover, the ‘o’ appears elsewhere within Robertson’s oeuvre. In her chapter, ‘My Eighteenth Century: Draft towards a Cabinet,’ which appears in Assembling Alternatives: Reading Postmodern Poetries Transnationally, Robertson quotes Rousseau: ‘Of all the letters, she first wanted only to make O’s. She incessantly made big and little O’s, O’s of all sizes, O’s inside one another,’ as he describes the ‘natural repugnance’ girls show toward writing.[4] This diagram may be seen as a satirical rejection of Rousseau’s claim, as Robertson begins her own work with this ‘incessantly’ inscribed ‘o,’ causing it to operate as part of the ‘Soul’ of the work.  Similarly, in her collection of essays, entitled Nilling: Prose essays on noise, pornography, the codex, melancholy, Lucretius, folds, cities and related aporias, she cites French author Anne Desclos’ erotic novel Histoire d’O. Robertson posits that Desclos’ character ‘O,’ who caters to the sexual desires of a cult of men, denotes ‘nilling,’ insofar as this letter is figured as naught, as nothing.[5] The O, as both name and letter, signifies the erasure of the woman’s desire. Robertson posits: ‘If I identify with O, I seal myself textually within the pact of self-annihilation […] and I do identify.’[6] Thus, Robertson’s incessant inscription of the ‘o’ may be read as an identification, and admitted, yet qualified, ‘complicity,’ with ‘O.’ Qualified, as Robertson recognises ‘O’ as bound to a ‘monstrous logic,’ a ‘punitive sadism,’ indicating the effacement of female sexuality in favour of that of men.[7] At the same time, Robertson’s inscription affirms the erotic being of herself, of women, and the quandaries therein: ‘O is a story about how being born, writing, reading, and loving as a female is a fall into alignment with […] nilling.’[8] It is from this point, this ‘O,’ that LRMSW commences, marking the ‘incessant,’ yet historically eroded, being of female poetics and sexuality.

 

Insofar as Robertson’s text is avowedly ‘after Lucretius,’ referencing his De rerum natura / The Nature of Things,  or, as an alternative translation reads, ‘Of the real of being-multiple,’ throughout, this empty hole, or ‘o,’ may also be analogised to the void from which Lucretius conceives a materialism.[9] For Lucretius, following Epicurus, all being is conceived from the void. Lucretius’ materialism derives from his privileging of matter as the basis for an ontology. Bodies appear in the form of atoms, as the ‘first beginnings of things,’ from which all phenomena derive.[10] In commenting on De rerum natura, contemporary French philosopher and intellectual Alain Badiou posits that, for Lucretius, ‘all truth establishes itself from a combination of marks, from a rain of letters, atoms, in the pure unpresentable that is the void.’[11] The void is the grounding for Lucretius’ materialism, the point of origin from which all objects and elements materialise. Ontologically, all that is is the void and the subsequent emergence of matter, as truth materialises in the form of inscription: ‘a combination of marks, from a rain of letters.’[12] Robertson’s diagram may thus be read as testimony to this beginning-as-nothing, as LRMSW reformulates De rerum natura.

 

Further, as Lucretius posits, the soul is characterised by its perishability and mortality, in contrast to the permanent and indestructible nature of atoms and the void.[13] He conceives the soul as corporeal, finite, and ultimately bound to dissolve. Thus, the soul and void are distinct in Lucretius’ poetics, yet coincide in Robertson’s, as the ‘o,’ as symbol of the void, establishes the ‘Soul’ of the text. This concurrence is of interest, as that which is conventionally conceived as being without substance - namely, the soul – becomes flesh - the ‘Magenta Whip’ of the tongue. The term ‘Whip’ implies the existence of a substantive thing, or noun, as the ‘Soul’ is embodied in ‘Magenta,’ thus indicating the blooded tongue - ‘colour itself speaks.’ [14]  Such an interpretation is reinforced in Robertson’s depiction of the soul, as noted in her piece Spontaneous Horizontal Restaurant: ‘Others say it’s full of blood.’[15] The soul, as such, is that which speaks, the manifestation of language. For Lucretius, the soul is made up of matter, as opposed to images, ‘the speaking, thinking force […] not less than hand, foot or eyes, […] not different than limbs and senses.’[16] There is thus a relation between language and non-language, apparent in the title of Robertson’s collection. Language, as soul, is traditionally conceptualised as abstract and ephemeral. By contrast, the tongue is profoundly blooded, as part of the material body. Yet, for Robertson, language is inextricable from the flesh. From the void, the two converge in ‘a fortuitous concourse of atoms.’ [17]

 

This second diagram, then, conceives of both void and ‘Soul.’ Paradoxically, however, the void is conceived through signification, as the frontispiece is a representation of a gap, an image of an empty hole in the page, as opposed to nothingness per se. In this way, the ‘pure unpresentable’ condition of the void produces an impasse.[18] The diagram may be seen as a depiction of the void, yet is ultimately, and literally, ‘a combination of [graphic] marks,’ presented to the reader.[19] The positing of genesis, of the genesis of signification, may here be problematised, insofar as any emblem of the void, of nothingness, is always-already bound up as part of an existing symbolic rubric.[20] In being inscribed on the page, the void is illustrated as a material thing. The ontological status of signification is thereby observed, as this initial inscription marks the presence of non-being, and the being of non-presence. A pivotal problem is thus introduced, as this outline of the void demonstrates the contradiction of attesting to a beginning, to an origin, a nothingness, outside of signification.

 

This problem, or impasse, of signifying that which exists prior to, or outside of, signification, is addressed through the theoretical and psychoanalytic practice of Jacques Lacan. In his Book XX: On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge, Lacan maintains that ‘the nature of things’ is always-already ‘the nature of words,’ as there is only recourse to the concept of a beginning through language. [21] Here, he maintains that the signifier ‘participates […] in that nothing on the basis of which something entirely original was made ex nihilo.’[22] Speaking beings require signification in order to conceive of the void from which a ‘combination of marks,’ ‘a rain of letters,’ emerged.[23] Creation, or Genesis, is thus, for Lacan, bound up with the signifier, as Genesis ‘recounts […] nothing but signifiers.’[24] Robertson’s diagram inscribes this beginning, or origin from nothing. Logos, the language of speaking beings, derives from this void, as the first piece in Robertson’s collection, ‘Lucite,’ begins with a testimony to the inauguration of signification. Insofar as the diagram is a representation of nothing, it is from the outset operating within the confines of signification. The text demonstrates that being par excellence cannot be imagined outside of, or prior to, signification, as there is ‘no genesis except on the basis of discourse.’[25]  

 

 

Lucite

 

The lexical body of Robertson’s collection begins with ‘Lucite,’ a prose piece which posits the first spoken vowel, or the inaugural ‘I.’ Lucite denotes a form of solid, translucent plastic of acrylic base; a non-toxic, and non-porous, synthetic product commonly used in sheet-form as a substitute for glass, and for the production of erotic pleasure devices, or sex toys.

                    

The text begins with two italicised lines in parentheses, one of which is in Latin. These are followed by a third line, which operates as an imperative. The body of the text is presented in three paragraphs delineated by line breaks, supplemented by a fourth section comprised of only one line:

 

                (an amuse-gueule)

                (because the present is not articulate)

         

         Sit us on Lucite gently and we will tell you how knowledge came to us.

 

First the dull mud softened, resulting in putrefaction, lust and intelligence, pearl globs, jewelled stuff like ferrets, little theatres of mica, a purse containing all the evil smells of daily life. Then just the one vowel, iterate and buttressed and expiring; leaning, embracing, gazing. With our claw it devised identity for the sake of food. Selves, it says, feeding us, I adore you, you know.[26]

 

Prior to this seminal vowel, the ‘I,’ it is shown that there is no language, ‘(because the present is not articulate).’[27] The italicisation of this sentence, in conjunction with its demarcation in parentheses, causes it to read as para-text, or as a prelude. Emphasis is placed on the fact that the present is not articulate, for the very reason that it is, as language is necessarily employed through this very claim. Here, the reader is made aware of this paradox, as the speaker articulates the non-presence of articulation. As it is invariably read in the present, this particular ‘present’ is always-already articulate. The text itself thus performs the phantasy of returning to what Lacan terms a ‘prediscursive reality,’ as ‘no formalization of language is transmissible without the use of language itself.’[28] ‘Lucite’ in this way highlights the difficulty, or contradiction, involved in semantically attesting to the lack of a symbolic edifice. Further, pure presence has no mouth, as it lacks substantive, or material, quality, and thus articulation must be attached to a mouth in some way.

 

The speaker instructs: ‘Sit us on Lucite gently and we will tell you how knowledge came to us.’[29] Insofar as it is capitalised, Lucite may be interpreted as a proper noun, a name. The semantic resonances with ‘Lucretius’ are here brought to bear. ‘Lucite’ is a partial amalgam of Lucretius (the former is made up of the letters of the latter, as a truncated form). The sexual implications of this sentence are apposite, since this first line reads as an imperative to ‘Sit us on Lucite gently.’ Lucite, an acrylic material, is commonly used to manufacture dildos, G-spot vibrators, and prostate-stimulating anal toys. Accordingly, the term engenders sexual, or pornographic, imagery, as Lucite operates as a penetrative device that the speaker straddles. However, its synthetic, non-porous quality distinguishes it from human flesh.

 

Lucite derives from the Latin lucere, meaning light.[30] The translucent quality of the material is here pertinent, as the sentence proposes to disclose ‘how knowledge came to us,’ thus making this transparent. The command of ‘sit us on Lucite’ is seemingly addressed to an absent agent, as it is unclear who, or what, ‘sits’ the speaker on Lucite. Knowledge is seen as implicated with sexuality, as the phrase ‘knowledge came to us’ [emphasis my own] may be read as a double entendre.  In this respect, coming to possess knowledge is seen to involve sexual climax, or orgasm, and is thus bound up with bodily pleasure and anticipation. Having ‘come’ also bears allusions to insemination and reproduction, as the latter is achieved through the former. Anticipation is emphasised, as there is a line break between this imperative and the narrative that follows. Insofar as the text bases itself upon De rerum natura, LRMSW in a sense figuratively rests, or ‘sits,’ on Lucretius’ work. Since Lucretius is a canonised male figure, Lucite may be read as a placeholder, or representation, of his phallic part, as the text begins with this impetus to sit the speaker on ‘Lucite.’ Lucretius may thus be likened to a pleasure device, straddled ‘gently’ by the speaker, while the term ‘Lucite’ stands in, as a metonym, for Lucretius’ poetics.

 

The term ‘First’ denotes the beginning of knowledge, as ‘dull mud’ softens and various forms result. Among these, ‘putrefaction, lust and intelligence’ emerge from the softened matter. The first thing to materialise from the mud is decay and disintegration, the ability of objects to putrefy, while lust and intelligence follow in the sequence. This arrangement appears inconsistent, wherein the first thing to come into being is putrefaction, as opposed to growth and flourishing. For decomposition to occur, it is presupposed that there is something present to decompose in the first instance. The relation between growth, or birth, and death appears inverted, as decay is paradoxically shown to precede lust and intelligence, traits which both indicate bodily vitality and virility. The allusion to ‘disintegration’ is significant, as this may be read as ‘dis-integration,’ or non-integration. A lack of cohesion or interconnection is manifest, as disparate items (‘pearl globs, jewelled stuff like ferrets, little theatres of mica’) are disseminated from the mud.[31]

 

The semantics are bolstered in the lexical details. The acute selection and distribution of words in this paragraph is of interest, as the first sentence contains eighteen of the letter ‘l,’ all in lower case. By contrast, the three sentences that follow contain only three ‘l’s’ in total. These are distributed equally among the three sentences, so that each sentence contains one ‘l.’ The heavy concentration of ‘l’s,’ of the first sentence, denotes a commonality between this particular aggregation of words. Despite the ‘dis-integration’ of terms, the thread of ‘ls’ binds, or integrates, them. The sequence is ontologically yoked together, irrespective of the apparent fragmentation of objects as they appear in the arrangement. The letterified, embedded, alliteration of the ‘l’ holds the sentence together, thus contradicting the apparent decay and lack of cohesion. The syntax intensifies the yoking, as the ‘l’s’ are split between the seven sections of the sentence, partitioned by six commas. The ‘l’s’ thus link these otherwise dissimilar forms – ‘pearl globs, jewelled stuff like ferrets...’ Syntactically, ‘lust and intelligence’ are coupled in this sequence, as their emergence is shown as simultaneous or combined, in lieu of a comma separating the terms. The two traits are shown to precede language, as within this arrangement they are situated prior to the first vowel. Within this paradigm that is ‘not articulate’ it is posited that there is matter, or substance, underpinning the initial instance of signification, as prior to the first vowel there is ostensibly a quantity of ‘dull mud.’

 

Following this, the seminal ‘I’ is advanced as ‘just the one vowel.’ The commencement of articulation – coming into speech - corresponds to the testimony of subjectivity, whereby the ‘I’ is the pronoun of the subject as the first speaking being. The concept of the ‘I,’ relative to genesis, appears throughout Robertson’s oeuvre. In Nilling, she posits, ‘the linguistic aptitude accompanies the beginning of humans […] through which each subject, uttering “I,” […] emerges and survives or perishes.’[32] Furthermore, she maintains that ‘Each body, each birth, each coming into speech, bears […] radically unquantifiable potential.’[33] Such potential is demonstrated throughout LRMSW, as the inaugural ‘I’ establishes the subject par excellence, and the concomitant semantics.

 

However, ‘Lucite’ demonstrates that utterance renders the subject disjunctive, split by the loss of the ‘expiring’ vowel. The ‘I’ requires the opening of the mouth to produce this phoneme. The positing of ‘I,’ as subjective testimony, is thus inseparable from the open mouth, as this speech-act implicates the material body of the speaker. The mouth is opened, the lips forming the shape of an ‘O,’ or ‘o.’ The mouth, as an elementary orifice, is physically stretched by articulation, in birthing the ‘I.’ The mouth may, in this sense, be analogised to the vaginal opening, as the delivery of the ‘I’ stretches it in the same way that the birth canal is stretched during labour, subsequently giving way to a new being, or infantile form, which splits off from the body that formed it. The mouth is, in this respect, pivotal to subjectivity, as testifying to one’s being requires its opening and a subsequent phonetic emission. While the open mouth is crucial to the positing of the ‘I,’ the physical ‘whip’ of the tongue is not, as the tongue is flattened against the floor of the mouth as the ‘I’ is uttered. 

 

 

 

Splitness and Abjection

 

 

Robertson’s work more generally addresses the body, speech, subjectivity, and the topology therein. In her collection of polemical prose, Nilling, Robertson deals extensively with the condition of speech and subjectivity. Here, she maintains that speaking beings ‘constitute ourselves according to the movement of subjectivity in language.’[34] Further, ‘The ego is the one who linguistically addresses another, and it is only through this address that each, in a reciprocal entwining, may fashion herself as “I.”’[35] Thus, the ‘I’ is conceived as a linguistic relation between speaking beings, inextricably linked to the ego, as a constitutive means of self-testimony. The ego, or subject, is engendered via the tongue, as language is bound to the body: ‘the tongue like an ego to me.’[36] Moreover, Robertson refers to ‘the bodily movement of language amongst subjects,’ in drawing attention to the ambiguous relation and inseparability between the body, speech, and subjectivity. [37] Through Nilling, as in various other works, she examines the way in which, as opposed to existing as separate and self-contained, the body and speech are mutually-constitutive, as the membrane of the body is blurred through its relation to the symbolic order and an ostensible outside. In this respect, LRMSW, and the emergence of the ‘I’ therein, are part of a broader thematic rubric, comprised within Robertson’s oeuvre.

 

Further, the abject and split condition of the subject is addressed throughout Robertson’s work. In her collection of prose essays, Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture, Robertson posits, ‘Words are fleshy ducts.’[38] Here, the lack of a clear delineation between body and language is indicated, as words are rendered bodily channels through which signification passes. Identity becomes indistinct from space, as the body is not considered intact: ‘The surface of us overlaps with other phyla.’[39] Through Soft Architecture, as in LRMSW, Robertson seeks to undo the ‘propriety of borders,’ in illustrating the subject’s ‘indiscrete threshold.’[40] Robertson maintains that the body is ‘not a secluding membrane or limit,’ and that ‘Amongst these membranes [are] speaking beings.’[41] The body is porous; its orifices, including the mouth, facilitate the passage of phonemes, excrement, food, and other material. In this respect, the abject quality of the body is demonstrated, as the margins of the body are rendered ambiguous through the introjection of content. Furthermore, in Nilling, Robertson’s more general concern with subjective splitting is exemplified: ‘[the] text itself acts out a splitting, a severance within the structure or texture of identity. For me this split is the site of an extreme readerly discomfort, as well as an identification.’[42] The simultaneity of affective unease and familiarity are fundamental traits of the abject, as the subject, and text, are shown to be un-whole and split from themselves.  

 

Robertson’s conception of the subject bears a certain relation to Lacan’s conception of such. For Lacan, the subject is always-already of language, as there cannot be a subject conceived outside of the symbolic order.[43] When a subject attempts to speak of herself, she invokes the ‘I.’[44] This speech-act invariably presupposes a subject, insofar as there is a being that speaks. However, the subject is not filled, or substantiated, with content by this utterance and thus rendered cogent, or complete. Rather, the ‘I’ that is uttered remains lacking, disjunctive. The subject of enunciation exists at the point of speech and thought and is without material being, or embodiment. Subjectivity is thus inconsistent, and dis-integrated, lacking unity, as the ‘I’ is not where the subject is. Rather, the subject crucially remains split, existing at once as the subject that speaks, testifying as ‘I,’ and the ‘grammatical’ ‘I’ that remains as a representation within the sentence that is enunciated.[45]

 

Lacan thus maintains that a gap is manifest between the subject and the ‘I.’ Here, he binds the speech act, as verb, with his conception of the subject, arguing that ‘what speaks […] makes me “I,” subject of the verb.’[46] The subject is shown to be a constituent ‘of the verb,’ as the ‘I’ is engendered relative to another being, or entity, to ‘what speaks.’  Further, he posits that ‘the “I” is not a being, but rather something attributed to that which speaks.’[47] In this sense, the ‘I’ is by no means an innate part of the speaking being, but rather a linguistic product that is not consistent or synonymous with the subject. The ‘I’ and speaking being are disjunctive and untotalisable, as they cannot merge into a singular entity. The question of ‘what speaks’ in ‘Lucite’ is in this sense apposite, insofar as the ‘I’ is attributable to something, namely a mouth, as it is not articulated ex nihilo. It may then be presupposed that this ‘one vowel’ is formed by the tongue of a speaking being, from which it is subsequently split, and with which it is ultimately incommensurable.  

 

Yet, Lucite’s ‘I’ becomes part of the subject, or the self, as the vowel itself is imbued with the ability to lean, embrace, gaze, and is thus granted bodily attributes. The ‘I’ is imparted with the ability to speak, as the text shows that ‘it says,’ as it is speaking to the ‘selves.’ Furthermore, the ‘I’ is ‘buttressed,’ propped up by something external to itself:

 

First the dull mud softened, resulting in putrefaction, lust and intelligence, pearl globs, jewelled stuff like ferrets, little theatres of mica, a purse containing all the evil smells of daily life. Then just the one vowel, iterate and buttressed and expiring; leaning, embracing, gazing. With our claw it devised identity for the sake of food. Selves, it says, feeding us, I adore you, you know.[48]

                 

To the extent that it emerges from the mud prior to the ‘I,’ ‘a purse containing all the evil smells of daily life’ may be interpreted as a mouth from which the ‘I’ is ‘iterate.’ This material body part is shown to precede the ‘I.’ A purse has flaps, or lips, which can be clasped, shut, and opened. The strings of a purse are tightened, analogous to the ‘pursing’ of one’s lips. Mouths contain the ‘evil smells of daily life’ - they chew, breath, and belch. Moreover, mouths include, and disseminate, words, as phonemes require the flap, or flick, of the lips and tongue. The ‘evil smells of daily life’ may thus be interpreted as words, as the mouth’s abject emissions.

 

Besides, this mouth/purse analogy is synesthetic, since the purse, as mouth, contains the smell of words, or phonemes, rather than the sound of such. The idea of synaesthesia in language is closely associated with abjection for Robertson, as the body’s sensory capacities become enmeshed in language. The sixth piece of the collection, ‘First Spontaneous Horizontal Restaurant,’ reads: ‘I made a perishable structure of comportment shaped by the synaesthesia of eating.’[49] Here, the act of eating is implied as detached from the mouth, as synaesthesia involves the displacement, or transposition, of a particular sense impression from its associated body part. In this case, food is necessarily dissociated from the act of ‘eating’ in order for synaesthesia to occur. The ‘purse’ is also a reference to female genitalia, as slang, or innuendo, for the vagina. The ‘evil smells’ of the mouth may here be read in a more literal sense, as the smells associated with vaginal discharge - the off-white, milky substance ‘of daily life.’

 

The abject condition of the body is here alluded to, as the products of its vulgar internal workings, its contents, are referred to as ‘evil.’ Insofar as the contents of the mouth are interpreted as words, the words themselves are ‘evil smells.’ Thus, the ‘I,’ the seminal utterance, or word, emitted from the mouth, may be conceived as an abject thing that the mouth secretes. Once the ‘I’ is emitted – a qualitatively singular phoneme – it cannot be swallowed back into the mouth and body. It cannot be ingested, only projected, or ejected. The ‘I’ is consequently unable to unify with the body, as it is split from it via enunciation, remaining a grammatical being without substance. The dissemination, or secretion, of the ‘I’ as vowel may, in this respect, be interpreted simultaneously as an affirmation of subjective presence, and also as something that the mouth, or subject, seeks to purge or dispose of.

 

Robertson’s allusions to abjection are further enriched when looking to the work of Julia Kristeva. In her work Powers of Horror: An essay on Abjection, Kristeva extends and revises Lacan’s conception of the subject as split, in conceptualising subjective being as abject. In doing so, Kristeva interrogates the conventional subject/object dichotomy, arguing that, through abjection, the relation between the body and an ostensible outside is collapsed. While the symbolic establishes order between objects and entities, via signifying chains, the abject is that which signifies nothing.[50] Abjection matches nothing, and is thus without referent or signified. Rather, the abject is characterised by a violence and lack of familiarity, an impasse of recognition. Following Lacan, Kristeva maintains that the abject is crucially associated with the split ego. It is that which is impossible, residing within, but at the same time fundamentally foreign. The abject is, above all, a non-object.[51] There is an unclear, ambiguous, distinction between ‘I/Other,’ and ‘Inside/Outside,’ as the abject conditions the subject’s topological relation to the world.[52]

 

For Kristeva, the subject is that which emerges from the chaos of the pre-verbal, the pre-linguistic situation, as it is constituted in language. The emergence of bodily pollutions, secreted from orifices, threatens to destabilise the dichotomous arrangement set up by the symbolic, between interior and exterior. Food, like faeces and menstrual discharge, exists as a form of contamination, insofar as it corrupts an imagined pure interior.[53] Such substances traverse the tissues of the body. Kristeva posits that this is the reason these substances are so repulsive; they are fragments of the body’s interior, as the inside is excreted in the form of ‘urine, blood, sperm, excrement.’[54] The margins between inside and outside are brought into question, with matter that traverses bodily parameters via the orifices, the fluid that escapes. The abject is crucially not something entirely other.

 

Rather, in expelling the abject, the subject effectively expels herself, eliciting horror at the dissolution of her body’s limits. Kristeva maintains that, ‘I spit myself out, I abject myself within the same motion through which “I” claim to establish myself.’[55] Crucially, ‘It is not I who expel,’ rather ‘“I” is expelled.’[56] In this sense, the subject is fissured, fractured, outside of herself. Here, the subject, or the one, ‘includes himself among them [his abjections], thus casting within himself the scalpel that carries out his separations.’[57] Therefore, the self is formed at the moment in which it is eliminated, and split from itself.[58]

 

Kristeva’s conception of the abject resonates, to an extent, with Robertson’s theoretical work on the body. As Robertson’s Soft Architecture reads, ‘synthetic interior space […] can separate or detach from the propriety and biology of the human,’ thereby compromising the conventionally conceived borders of the skin.[59] In Nilling, Robertson maintains that subjectivity is bound to the point at which the ‘I’ emerges through utterance, as the work addresses the ‘primacy of this linguistic beginning.’[60] In commenting on Robertson’s work, literary critic Adam Dickenson terms Robertson’s conflation, or melding, of the body and language, ‘Biosemiotics,’ whereby ‘semiosis is the basis of biological life,’ and thus of the body.[61] Robertson terms her own method ‘border-work,’ as she proposes to augment the ‘thinkability of bodily thresholds,’ and thus ‘add to the body the vertiginously unthinkable.’[62] This ‘vertiginously unthinkable’ appears closely related to the abject, as that which invokes vertiginous nausea, revealing a lack of subjective intactness. For Robertson, the soul, at the intersection of language and the tongue, ‘is afflicted by the black bile of the body and the socius,’ and thus simultaneously marred by that which is putatively external, and that which appears to be biologically innate.[63]

 

Lucite’s ‘I’ may also be read as an abject emission, as it is at once constitutive, while eliminated from the body. As Kristeva posits, the ‘“I” is expelled.’[64] Similarly, Robertson’s ‘I’ is only established insofar as it is expelled via enunciation. In this respect, the ‘I’ may be read as included within the abject. The body, that which is substantive, cleaves the ‘I’ from itself, yet only declares, and establishes, itself through this utterance, as it is released from the mouth. Throughout LRMSW, the subject expels herself, as the body is rid of substances which formulate her ‘from the inside.’[65]

 

References to the abject condition of the subject are thus manifest throughout Robertson’s collection. The seventh piece, ‘Wooden Houses,’ alludes to the collapse of the flesh/language dichotomy: ‘The tissue is syllables.’[66] Similarly, ‘Spontaneous Horizontal Restaurant,’ addresses the ambiguity between the body’s interior and objects of the external world. It reads, ‘We call this food, and it fabricates us / From the inside. But much does drip and escape / From the corporeal tissues.’[67] The poem examines the porous condition of the subject, as bodily membranes are penetrated by foreign objects, such as food, which subsequently seeps and escapes, traversing the demarcated border of the skin. Breastmilk is a prime example of this, as imagery of infancy, milk, and breasts -‘abundant fountains of milk,’ ‘pearl-sized nipples’ - recur throughout the text.[68] Milk is a bodily product, an abject discharge, but at the same time a form of sustenance, as the fertile nipple is the infant’s foremost object of desire.

 

The ‘Honey, sap and other lucky seepage’ of the lactating breast is, moreover, considered, as the text refers to the ‘most intimate aspects of animals.’[69] The figure of the female is likened to an animal throughout Robertson’s work - ‘the girl or animal wakes up.’[70] These two ‘creatures’ are thus shown as synonymous. The animal is of the non-speaking body, the body without the ‘I.’ The conflation of the animal and the girl nominally equates the female with her body parts, as substance without speech. Moreover, the female body invokes imagery of mouth, breast, and tongue, as reproductive labour – including breastfeeding - requires the tongue and mouth of the suckling infant. Imagery of reproduction – ‘a child comes screaming rosy fluids’ – appears throughout.[71] Robertson refers to the girl’s consumption of ‘milky pablum,’ a form of wheat-based infant feed, supplementing breastmilk, as the figure of the female and that of the nursling are brought into relation.[72] Like genital fluids, milk, for Kristeva, induces abjection, as ‘food loathing’ is a rudimentary manifestation of the abject. Here, she posits, ‘When the eyes see or the lips touch that skin on the surface of milk […] I experience a gagging sensation and, still farther down, spasms in the stomach […] nausea makes me balk at that milk cream, separates me from the mother and father who proffer it.’[73] Milk is a form of female discharge, through which the infant and mother are bound. Simultaneously, it is a repulsive, primal, substance, eliminated as the female body’s ‘most intimate aspects.’

 

Through critical prose, poetry, and polemics, both Robertson and Kristeva comprehensively address the concept of the female body and the abjection therein. Such a focus may be attributed to the fact that both writers are, to an extent, working in the vein of poststructural semiotic feminism, whereby the structural normativity of logocentrism and phallocentrism is contested. In this respect, various theoretical and semantic parallels exist between their respective practices, as the figure of the female, her sexuality and embodiment, is of critical interest. Robertson’s work significantly devotes itself to questioning ‘the classic theme of a woman suffering,’ as imagery of the female body, relegated a sensuous object lacking intellect, has been historically reified.[74]  The literary obfuscation of female desire is, for Robertson, ‘This masking,’ as she posits, ‘what gets called humanae vitae authors no greater horror.’[75] ‘Humanae vitae’ is a seminal treatise of the Catholic Church, pertaining to the regulation of women’s bodies, in prohibiting the use of birth control and abortion. This text, then, ‘authors no greater horror,’ as Robertson contests the literary and material dominance of the male word, and the antipathy therein, throughout her oeuvre.  

 

Imagery of the female body, and its associated desires, is therefore of essential interest for Robertson. Her references to breasts, bodily seepage, and intimacy bear sexual connotations. ‘Sap and other lucky seepage’ may be inferred as an allusion to vaginal discharge, as that which is ‘most intimate’ is released from an elementary orifice.[76] The term ‘Honey,’ in particular, is associated with female genitalia, as the ‘clean’ vagina is colloquially referred to as a ‘sweet spot,’ and ‘honey hole,’ insofar as it is deemed a coveted object. Thus, the body’s emissions, or seepage, – milk, cum, saliva – are at once conceived as abject and coveted. Like the milk ducts of the breast, orality, and the mouth par excellence, represent an opening of the symbolically designated boundary between the body and the external object. The mouth is thus crucial, as it threatens the perceived ‘clean and proper body’ of the self; an orifice of the foreign and familiar.[77] For Kristeva, food is rendered abject when it traverses two separate spaces, or things, for instance, between that which is human and that which is non-human (animals, synthetic beings/matter). Food, and milk, as that which is invariably subject to decay, may thus pose a threat to the ‘clean and proper body.’[78] The utterance of the ‘I’ wholly relies upon a conception of a binary between inside and outside, yet at the same time confuses the symbolic, albeit material, separation between the body and external world.

 

 

 

Early Education

 

While ‘Lucite,’ as the first piece within Robertson’s collection, addresses the genesis of the ‘I,’ and the split condition of the subject, the following prose poem, entitled ‘Early Education,’ similarly testifies to seminal experiences of language and the abject associations therein. Here, the ‘I’ emerges, in infantile form, into its educative relation to a ‘dominant.’[79] The piece is a philosophical ‘autobiographic mediation,’ in its appropriation of Book I of Augustine’s Confessions.[80] The Confessions, fusing Platonism and Christianity, address, among other things, the sins and alienation of the infant, made up of body and soul. Here, Augustine confesses his childhood proclivity toward bodily pleasure over academic diligence, in admitting to his sins.[81] Similarly, ‘Early Education’ attests to the child’s formative experiences of language, her ‘fibbing’ and moral ‘impurities’: ‘to excite and to tempt you I will relate the ways of my past.’[82] Robertson demonstrates how an ‘Early Education’ involves coming into language, and in doing so, coming into one’s own body and amorality.

 

The impossibility of unifying dual, or multiple, parts is demonstrated, as language is shown to split and estrange; there is no purity therein, only ‘fibs.’[83] The poetic prose is partitioned into eight components by Roman numerals. There is also an opening segment, an italicised paragraph situated at the start of the piece. The prose incorporates Latinate terms and translations, which are fluidly interspersed throughout the paragraphs, the terms intersecting with their English counterparts. The invocation of Latin is of interest insofar as LRMSW as a whole borrows from Lucretius’ De rerum natura. Thus, ‘Early Education’ signals both the text’s primary precursor and its particular appropriation of Augustine.

 

The sense of an ontological beginning through articulation, or naming, is carried into this second piece in the collection. ‘(Another version of the same beginning is simpler and more direct…).’[84] As in ‘Lucite,’ the italicisation of prose, and its enclosure within parentheses, here signals that this text reads as a fore note, or para-text, relative to that which follows. In ‘Early Education,’ the ‘seminal vowel,’ alluded to throughout ‘Lucite,’ is invoked through narration, as the speaker herself takes up this pronoun. The ‘I’ appears as such, for the first time within the text.

 

The sole use of lower case letters may be inferred as an allusion to, or performance of, submission within the text. This submission is explicit within the first line, as the speaker posits, ‘I designed my own passivity.’[85] The exception to this use of lower case letters is the ‘I,’ the inaugural vowel. This upper case letter which also signifies the self is imparted with a particular import.

 

Under section II, the text reads:

 

the dominator is cuddled inside me: what would you call that? when we quibble and feast, what would you call that? since tua quidquid fades, has faded, this quidquid that’s your name. all that’s feral in me, whatever being I am, eats into my docent. I invoke dominance to undo myself.

I had no enemies, no parent, no clock. dominant you filled the nurse’s tits and so abundantly taught me to sip. I’m telling you about things I don’t remember, nothing more, fibbing and sipping, sipping and fibbing, very similar.[86]

 

The dichotomy between interior and exterior is here brought to bear through the opposition between dominator, a misappropriation of Augustine’s God, and docent, as subordinate.[87] This may be read as a reformulation of Augustine’s conception of the ‘ineffable encounter between God and the soul in man’s inmost subject-self,’ as throughout the piece, the dominant appears both internal and external to the speaker. [88] Here, ‘the dominator is cuddled inside me,’ whereas within the next paragraph the dominant is external, or other, referred to as ‘you’ as opposed to ‘I’: ‘dominant you filled the nurse’s tits and so abundantly taught me to sip.’[89]  The intertexuality of Augustine is significant, as the speaker catalogues her own ‘vast itinerary of errors.’[90] She thus attests to her impurity and misdeeds, as, like Augustine, her appetite for pleasure exceeds her desire for erudition, ‘the soft odour of books.’[91] Moreover, the dominant ‘eats into my docent.’ Here, the speaker possesses the docent, or subordinate; it is her own, while she at once invokes ‘dominance to undo myself.’ Dominance is thus shown to at once constitute and undo the ‘me’ that is the subject as speaker. Dominance is constitutive insofar as it nourishes the subject by filling ‘the nurse’s tits,’ and teaches her to sip. Yet, the speaker appears to have agency or influence over ‘dominance,’ as such, as she actively invokes it, as a part of herself.

 

The ‘I,’ and ‘me,’ emerge here, as the speaker appears to consume herself: ‘all that’s feral in me, whatever being I am, eats into my docent.’ A sense of self-estrangement is thus manifest, as the speaker struggles to grasp, or articulate ‘whatever being I am.’ The sense of a feral part, or component, existing within the speaker, is ostensibly out of her direct control or influence. The splitness, or lack of cogency, of the self is thus evident. That which is feral is not the ‘me’ as such, rather it is ‘in me,’ as though contained somewhere within the body or the unconscious. Domination is generally conceptualised as an external force. Yet, here this relation is inverted, as the dominator is ‘cuddled’ within, as though it were a ‘feral’ animal ‘in me.’ The ‘feral’ being, as that which is purely sensory, as opposed to scholarly, is in this respect, shown. The speaker alludes to language as a transgression, as opposed to a facet of scholarship: ‘a word’s an illicit verb.’[92] Robertson’s use of the term docent is of interest, as the term’s foremost definition is a member of university staff, directly below professional rank. A docent also denotes a guide in a museum, gallery, or zoo. This first definition resonates with the Confessions, insofar as a docent is scholarly, and Augustine’s avowed sins relate to his privileging of bodily desire over diligence.[93]  Similarly, the speaker posits: ‘dominant my ink’s not diligent.’[94]

 

This relation appears as a tension internal to the speaker, as the docent is her own, and dominance is invoked to ‘undo myself.’ If the ‘I’ renders the self inconsistent with herself via signification, then language may be seen to instigate this undoing. Further, the dominant may be read as an allusion to literary theorist Roman Jakobson’s dominant, as that which, in poetry, ‘dominates the entire structure and thus acts as a mandatory and inaliable constituent dominating all the remaining elements.’[95] The dominant conditions the whole of a poetic epoch. It operates as indispensible, binding the individual poem to an overarching structure, or normative conception, or system, of the poetic. Such a reading is apposite, as the speaker of Early Education seeks out linguistic authority: ‘dominant give me your superb sign.’ [96]

 

The language of dominance is continued in the following section of the prose. The section is partitioned into two paragraphs, the first of which reads:

 

dominant my soft word, no memoria could have prepared me for your earth. I am the first suckling among multa, your artifice, your animal, gaudy with cries, gaudy with hunger and lovely with hunger and hunger.[97]

 

Here, the ‘I’ is ‘the first suckling among multa, your artifice, your animal.’ In this respect, the ‘I’ takes on a seminal function, as in ‘Lucite,’ as ‘the first suckling,’ the first instance of signification. The ‘your’ is represented by the ‘dominant,’ as the authority addressed within the text. Further, dominance is shown to be linguistic, as the ‘dominant [is] my soft word.’ There is thus juxtaposition between the term ‘soft’ and the connotations of harshness and discipline that the term ‘dominance’ invokes. The word, or the ‘I’ is ‘soft,’ as the ‘I’ of the speaker situates themselves as submissive, relative to the dominant which is at once internal and overarching.  The ‘I’ is conceived as a suckling, feeding from its dominant, to which it belongs, in seeking out the ‘superb sign.’ The dominant is associated with edification and instruction, as the text reads, ‘dominant you filled the nurse’s tits and so abundantly taught me to sip.’[98] This is reinforced by the title of the piece, as an ‘Early Education’ involves an infant learning to breastfeed and to mouth words. Imagery of ‘fibbing’ and ‘sipping’ appear as part of this process, while both acts involve the mouth and tongue. Utterance and consumption are here brought together as formative experiences. The two terms are arranged in a chiasmic pattern, engendering assonance: ‘fibbing and sipping, sipping and fibbing, very similar.’[99] The imagery of sipping and suckling milk may moreover be analogised with the consumption or intake of language – ‘a word’s a precious vase to sip from’ - as infants are absorbed into the symbolic order.[100] A word is sipped and consumed in the way one sips milk, ‘spilling over tongue.’ Further, the speaker asserts, ‘my ego’s made from milk.’[101] In this way, the consumption of breast milk is related to the formation of the ego in language, as milk and language are both absorbed, or consumed, and thus constitutive - the speaker’s ‘first part.’[102]

 

Moreover, the piece alludes to the relation between the metaphoricity of language and punishment. The speaker’s use of language, as lie, is cause for whipping: ‘my fibs are ordinary as belts flicking.’[103] Yet, a lie is not an aberration. It is part of the everyday disposition of language, as the speaker poses the question, ‘who doesn’t finger lies?’[104] The text resonates with Fredrich Nietzsche’s conception of language as untruthful, advanced in his seminal piece ‘Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral sense.’ Here, Nietzsche maintains that truth is not an inherent or necessary characteristic of language, as that which ‘designates only the relations of things to man.’[105] Rather, the relation between language and objects, or things, is borne in abstraction, as the rendering of concepts. Honesty has no essential character, as language is premised upon equating that which cannot be equated. Truthfulness, for Nietzsche, is merely the mobilisation of ‘metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms,’ as part of an established representational nexus.[106] Language thus has no means of accessing being, par excellence. Robertson’s text appears to evince a similar position, as it reads: ‘my soul’s bulky […] with fibs.’[107] The soul, as language and tongue, is thus laden with untruths: ‘I’ll tell each dilated fib with my dripping tongue.’[108] Yet, despite the ordinariness, and amorality, of such untruths, the speaker is punished for her relation to language, which appears as the entity ‘for whom welts fatten.’[109]

 

As such, insofar as the ‘I’ purports to her being as ‘artifice,’ it may be posited that the ‘I’ is a deception, belonging to the dominant. Here, the ‘I’ is both a falsehood and an animal. The speaker, as ‘I,’ belongs to the dominant: ‘I am […] your artifice, your animal […] I remember the fibs of my infancy.’[110] This animal part of the ‘I’ may be taken as its body, its primitive, corporeal form and instinct, as ‘all that’s feral in me.’ Thus, the body, as such, is shown to be paradoxically ‘in’ the ‘me,’ rather than the ‘me’ inhabiting the physical body. The deceptive part of the self may be read as its utterance, as ‘artifice,’ the linguistic trick of ‘fibbing.’ All that’s feral, or primordial, is contrasted to that which is constructed, artificial, but at the same time these are inextricable, as the body cannot be conceived without language. In this sense, the subject is split, as the ‘I’ is made up by physicality, animal flesh, and utterance, the artificiality of language - that of her ‘fibbing.’

 

In commenting on LRMSW, literary critic Emily Critchley notes the relation between the text’s references to dominance and the title of the work itself.[111] The imagery of whipping and punishment manifest throughout Early Education, and the relation of such to language, is analogous to the ‘Magenta Soul’ as tongue. Here, Critchley posits: ‘who shall ‘scape whipping? The ‘Magenta Soul’ of this poem is certainly self-flagellatory; she ‘invoke[s] dominance to undo’ herself, [and] ‘console’ her “welts.”’[112] This self-flagellation is apparent with the conflation of the docent and dominant, as the two are inextricable, existing as a singular entity. The tongue – ‘like an ego’ - ultimately disciplines, and undoes itself, as the docent is at once the punished subordinate and disciplinarian. The body and utterance are once again shown to be inseparable, as the punishment delivered via language, and the tongue – ‘belts flicking’ - is rendered material, appearing in the form of ‘welts.’

 

From paragraph VII, the dominant is named, and referred to as ‘rex,’ the Latin translation of which is ‘King.’ The speaker addresses her dominant, asserting, ‘rex I’ll serve you.’[113] Paragraph VIII reads:

 

‘a word’s a precious vase to sip from, an illicit verb.  both kids and scholars sip there the sweet lubricity spilling over tongue and rex I sipped also I can safely say this now since I sip from you no other figment no other persona no other sentence rex what is suspended between us’[114]

 

Here, ‘rex,’ or the dominant, is a word sipped from, and thereby consumed in moderation; a sweet lubricant, ‘spilling over tongue.’[115] The animal qualities of the subject are alluded to throughout, as the subject, despite existing as a speaking being, bears likeness to an animal, with ‘all that’s feral in me.’ Furthermore, Augustine’s ‘God’ is inverted, becoming ‘dog’ – ‘the grace of dogs.’[116] Given the name rex, it is domesticated, and subordinated, as a ‘pet.’[117] The only noun that is capitalised within the piece is ‘Human,’ despite ‘rex’ being a proper noun. ‘Rex’ simultaneously signifies king, dog, dominant, and the reversal of God. Further, ‘rex’ is referred to as ‘figment,’ ‘sentence,’ and ‘persona,’ thus appearing as a linguistic fabrication. ‘God’ is effectively demoted from a place of transcendence, to an innocuous animal: ‘rex I’ll serve you what are called tidbits and each locution and scribble and number...’[118] Here, rex is fed scraps, in the form of phrases, numbers and letters. The term scribble signifies that which is written, and is thus an allusion to the inscribed letter, as opposed to utterance. Thus, the dominant is sustained by the symbolic. ‘Rex’ is a word sipped, and thus ingested and consumed, brought inside the body. Language, like milk, is formative for the infant, as both are sipped, absorbed, internalised. In this sense, the subject is made up of that which belongs to the external world.

 

Further, the dominant also signifies both parent, and lover. The dominant teaches the infant to sip, rendering the ego ‘made from milk.’ The dominant, or father, here whips the speaker as punishment. However, whipping also bears sexual connotations. The dominant appears as the speaker’s lover, as ‘I fornicate towards you.’[119]  Allusions to sex continue throughout the piece: ‘I speak to you in the syllables of your name dominant and as a bonus I make for you a nest of my ordinary thighs.’[120] Insofar as the piece reformulates Augustine’s Confessions, there is admission of wrongdoing relating to the sating of one’s erotic impulses. A word is here ‘an illicit verb […] rex I sipped.’ Insofar as this verb is ‘illicit,’ it may be read as ‘to fuck.’ For a child, the use of this word is forbidden, the act of ‘fucking’ more so. The verb is at once a material ‘doing’ and a semantic thing, as both utterance and act are ‘illicit.’ Coming into one’s sexuality is part of an ‘early education,’ however, as Robertson’s speaker, like that of Augustine, grapples with her linguistic being and the temptations therein. 

 

 

Samesame

 

The subject’s relation to itself, but also to the external world, is demonstrated throughout LRMSW. Ultimately, language remains productive, in the sense that it engenders speaking beings, thus enabling signified relations with others. Yet, signification exists as a double-edged sword (the diagram of the partial blade at the beginning of LRMSW may here be recalled), as semantic interactions remain disjunctive. Language does not manifest as cohesion, purity, and truthfulness. Rather, it engenders subjective splitness and abjection, rendering the fragmentation of the self, as the ‘I’ is enunciated. Throughout the text, the idea of a unified subject is questioned, as ‘the idea of “oneself”’ is brought to bear.[121]

 

There is the absence of guidance throughout the work, as a whole, as the collection lacks a table of contents. The reader thus has no ‘prior’ knowledge of how the work will unfold, or eventuate. The lexical body of the text develops without direction, as all that situates the reader is the poems themselves. Nothing guides the semantics therein. Beginning with ‘Lucite,’ the speaker ‘circles’ throughout the text, ‘livid as an animal.’[122] She is without explicit direction, or linearity, ‘scattered’ and anxious under the ‘weight of her mortality.’[123] The pieces themselves do not constitute a totalisation, from beginning to end. Rather, the collection ends by questioning the conception of unity. In the final fragment of the work, the speaker asks, ‘must / all motion be unified?’[124] In this sense, the lack of cohesion, established in ‘Lucite,’ remains manifest at the end of the work, as the collection subtly loops back on itself.

 

In the same way, subjective and linguistic totalisation remains unattainable throughout LRMSW, as the speaking being is fractured. The relation to the Other is, accordingly, partial, as the speaker laments the aporia of signification: ‘We’re this pair or more which can’t absorb one another in a meaning effect.’[125] Sexual relations, and the attempt to affix oneself to an Other, remains an underlying concern throughout the text, as the speaker enacts a ‘Platonic striving for the missing part of ourselves,’ a desire for ‘A likeness.’[126] Yet, the subject remains irrevocably split, through utterance, and sexual relations provide no remedy for this condition. Language thus causes the profound severance of sexuation. The speaker nonetheless seeks out amorous relations, with urgency. Erotic yearnings of adolescence are bound to ‘mortality,’ as ‘girls die of fierce love.’[127]

 

Yet, Critchley is dubious of the speaker’s amorous pursuit. She notes that, within Robertson’s work, the urge to access the Other – in particular the sexual partner – results as an inward-looking exercise, a ‘narcissistic feeding of oneself.’ [128] This is emphasised in the final paragraph and last line of ‘Lucite,’ as it reads: ‘Something might seduce us. A likeness. A knowledge. / Samesame pouring through it.'[129] The ‘Samesame’ appears as a duality, as the term ‘same’ is doubled. In ‘Early Education,’ a variable of ‘Samesame’ appears in Latinate form as ‘quidquid’ (translated as ‘whatever’ or ‘whichever’). This term effectively performs a reiteration of the same, as ‘quid’ is doubled. However, it simultaneously denotes a neutrality, or ambivalence, as either/or, ‘whichever,’ as both ‘quids’ are effectively identical.[130] This ‘Samesame’ is here the image of the self, since the speaker is seduced by both knowledge of self, and her own ‘likeness.’

 

The hunger for knowledge and language is in this way posed as an expression of vanity, resulting in a ‘buttressed’ ‘I,’ ‘the tongue like an ego to me.’[131]  Insofar as the tongue, as ‘Magenta Soul,’ produces utterances, the first of which is ‘I,’ it is, perhaps pessimistically, shown to be a mechanism for self-projection. The tongue, ‘like an ego,’ savours its aptitude for self-aggrandisement, for ‘vanity itself.’[132] In Nilling, Robertson posits: ‘the soul is this device […] it inflates us or fucks us.’ [133] The tongue, and its utterances, have the ability to inflate the ego, in projecting the self. However, on the other hand, it ‘fucks us,’ bears both negative and sexual connotations. This is the tongue’s destructive function, its impetus to ‘undo’ itself in the ‘savage transaction of negation.’[134] It is, after all, language that causes the speaker’s ‘welts.’[135] Yet, at the same time, it is masturbatory, massaging and ‘seduc[ing]’ itself semantically, ‘soft as Narcissus.’[136]

 

Our egoism, as ‘Samesame,’ could thus be to our detriment. As Critchley argues, the speaker’s tendency to look inward is damaging, as self-observation makes apparent her own mortality: ‘She, herself, is likely to leave nothing permanent to the world but a stream of used-up images, phantasmagoria of herself, “a vain wreath of milk.”’[137] For Robertson, language remains ‘shadow and concept,’ constituting an ephemeral thread of meaning, a ‘liquid rope,’ left ‘folded under the sky when I go.’[138] The ‘I,’ as one among these linguistically rendered concepts, is phantasmagoria, separated from the substance of the body.[139] A command of language does not equate to a command of being, as Nietzsche demonstrates.[140] Rather, there remains a gap, or impasse, between the thing in itself and the designation of the thing, as there is a split between the body of the subject and the enunciated, grammatical ‘I.’

 

Ultimately, as Nietzsche posits, we have only access to metaphors for being, or, as Robertson shows, there is only a ‘format of saying, a frayed ligature.’ [141] Language does not render us whole, nor does it eternalise our being, as the speaker’s testimony to her presence, as ‘I,’ is bound up with the finite condition of the flesh. There is nonetheless an interminable, tenacious desire to possess both language and knowledge, to overcome the ‘illuminus corpus,’ and understand that which is not transparent.[142] The state of the subject remains that of an intellectual animal, a ‘human creature,’ imparted with the capacity to speak, of a body that ‘keeps confessing to me / of existence.’[143] Our abject being, then, is not simply nihilistic or self-flagellatory. In the end, the speaker’s ‘welts’ are consoled; there is ‘some form of satisfaction to vindicate legendary torment.’[144] Despite the condition of language, which remains split from, and incommensurable with, the thing that it seeks to signify, we resolve to continue to exist, and converse, as speaking beings, ‘perus[ing] the long world that flares with souls.’[145]

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Emily Critchley. ‘Review of Magenta Soul Whip.’ HOW2. Nd. http://www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal/howto/howto.html.

[2] Lisa Robertson. Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip. Toronto: Coach House Books, 2009, n.p.

[3] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, n.p.

[4] Lisa Robertson. ‘My Eighteenth Century: Draft towards a cabinet.’ In Assembling Alternatives: Reading Postmodern Poetries Transnationally, edited by Romana Huk, 381-396. Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2003.

[5] Lisa Robertson. Nilling: Prose essays on noise, pornography, the codex, melancholy, Lucretius, folds, cities and related aporias. Canada: Bookthug, 2012, 31-32.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid, 34.

[8] Ibid, 33.

[9]Alain Badiou. Infinite Thought: Truth and the Return to Philosophy. Translated by Oliver Feltham and Justin Clemens. London: Continuum, 1998, 107.

[10] ‘Lucretius.’ Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. 2004. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lucretius/.

[11] Badiou, Infinite Thought, 107.

[12] Ibid.

[13] ‘Lucretius,’ Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.

[14] Robertson, Nilling, 21.

[15] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 35.

[16] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 35.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Badiou, Infinite Thought, 107.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Jacques Lacan. On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge. Translated by Bruce Fink. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1999.

[21] Lacan, On Feminine Sexuality, 73.

[22] Ibid, 40.

[23] Badiou, Infinite Thought, 107.

[24] Ibid, 41.

[25] Ibid, 11.

[26] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 7.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Lacan, On Feminine Sexuality, 119.

[29] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 7.

[30] ‘Acrylic Sheets Textured Lucerne FFV.’ TAP Plastics. N.d. http://www.tapplastics.com/product/plastics/cut_to_size_plastic/acrylic_sheets_textured_lucerne/523.

[31] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 7.

[32] Robertson, Nilling, 73.

[33] Ibid, 75.

[34] Robertson, Nilling, 73.

[35] Ibid.

[36] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 12.

[37] Robertson, Nilling, 74.

[38] Lisa Robertson. Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture. Toronto: Coach House Books, 2011, 60.

[39] Robertson, Soft Architecture, 121.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Robertson, Nilling, 73.

[42] Ibid, 30.

[43] Jacques Lacan. Ecrits. Translated by Bruce Fink. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.

[44] Ibid.

[45] ‘Subject of the Enunciation/Subject of the Statement.’ Concept and Form: The Cahiers pour l’Analyse and Contemporary French Thought. N.d. http://cahiers.kingston.ac.uk/concepts/subject-of-the-statement-enunciation.html.

[46] Lacan, On Feminine Sexuality, 120.

[47] Ibid.

[48] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 7.

[49] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 33.

[50] Julia Kristeva. Powers of Horror: An essay on Abjection. Translated by Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982, 69.

[51] Ibid.

[52] Ibid, 7.

[53] Ibid.

[54] Ibid, 53.

[55] Ibid, 3.

[56] Ibid, 4.

[57] Ibid, 8.

[58] Ibid, 207.

[59] Robertson, Soft Architecture, 69.

[60] Robertson, Nilling, 75.

[61] Adam Dickenson. ‘Paraphysics and Biosemiotics in Lisa Robertson’s Office for Soft Architecture.’ Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. (2011): n.p. doi: 10.1093/isle/isr084.

[62] Robertson, Soft Architecture, 69.

[63] Robertson, Nilling, 53.

[64] Kristeva, Powers of Horror, 71.

[65] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 34.

[66] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 43.

[67] Ibid, 35.

[68] Ibid, 12, 51.

[69] Ibid, 34.

[70] Ibid, 35.

[71] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 22.

[72] Ibid, 34.

[73] Kristeva, Powers of Horror, 3.

[74] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 51.

[75] Ibid, 11.

[76] Ibid, 35.

[77] Kristeva, Powers of Horror, 75.

[78] Ibid.

[79] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 10.

[80] Daniele Borgogni. ‘Point of View, Intertextuality and the Uses of Translation in Lisa Robertson’s Early Education.’ Linguistics and Literature Studies 4, 2 (2016): 131-141. DOI: 10.13189/lls.2016.040206.

[81] Saint Augustine. St. Augustine’s Confessions: Volume I. Translated by William Watts. London: William Heineman, (1631), n.p.

[82] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 9.

[83] Ibid, 10.

[84] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 10.

[85] Ibid, 9.

[86] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 10.

[87] Borgogni ‘Point of View, Intertextuality and the Uses of Translation in Lisa Robertson’s Early Education,’ 34.

[88] Saint Augustine, St. Augustine’s Confessions, n.p.

[89] Magenta Soul Whip, 10.

[90] Ibid, 13.

[91] Ibid. 12.

[92] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 14.

[93] Saint Augustine, St. Augustine’s Confessions, n.p.

[94] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 13.

[95] Roman Jakobson. Poetry of Grammar and Grammar of poetry: Volume 3 of Selected Writings. Mouton: The Hague (1981), 751-756. 

[96] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 12.

[97] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 10.

[98] Ibid.

[99] Ibid.

[100] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 14.

[101] Ibid, 11.

[102] Ibid, 13.

[103] Ibid, 12.

[104] Ibid, 14.

[105] Fredrich Nietzsche. On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. London: Penguin, 1994, 4.

[106] Ibid, 2.

[107] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 12.

[108] Ibid.

[109] Ibid.

[110] Ibid.

[111] Critchley, Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip, n.p.

[112] Critchley, Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip, n.p.

[113] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 13.

[114] Ibid, 14.

[115] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 13.

[116] Borgogni. ‘Point of View, Intertextuality and the Uses of Translation in Lisa Robertson’s Early Education,’ n.p.

[117] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 14.

[118] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 13-14.

[119] Ibid, 13.

[120] Ibid, 10-11.

[121] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 85.

[122] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 27.

[123] Critchley, Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip, n.p.

[124] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 97.

[125] Ibid, 7.

[126] Critchley, Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip, n.p.

[127] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 13.

[128] Critchley, Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip, n.p.

[129] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 8.

[130] Ibid, 10.

[131] Ibid, 13.

[132] Ibid, 12.

[133] Robertson, Nilling, 53.

[134] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 44.

[135] Critchley, Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip, n.p.

[136] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 68.

[137] Critchley, Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip, n.p.

[138] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 11.

[139] Ibid, 28.

[140] Nietzsche, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense, 5.

[141] Ibid, 7.

[142] Robertson, Magenta Soul Whip, 11.

[143] Ibid, 26.

[144] Ibid, 12.

[145] Ibid, 27.