Oulipo

Oulipo (French pronunciation: ​[ulipo], short for French: Ouvroir de littérature potentielle; roughly translated: "workshop of potential literature") is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians who seek to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. Other notable members have included novelists Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, poets Oskar Pastior, Jean Lescure and poet/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 methods, often based on mathematical problems, such as the knight's tour of the chess-board and permutations.

History

Oulipo was founded on November 24, 1960, as a subcommittee of the Collège de ‘Pataphysique and titled Séminaire de littérature expérimentale.[1] At their second meeting, the group changed its name to Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, or Oulipo, at Albert-Marie Schmidt's suggestion.[2] The idea had arisen two months earlier, when a small group met in September at Cerisy-la-Salle for a colloquium on Queneau's work. During this seminar, Queneau and François Le Lionnais conceived the society.[3]

During the subsequent decade, Oulipo (as it was commonly known) 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 (French) devoted an issue to Oulipo in 1964, and Belgian radio broadcast one Oulipo meeting. Its members were individually active during these years and published works which were created within their constraints. The group as a whole began to emerge from obscurity in 1973 with the publication of La Littérature Potentielle, a collection of representative pieces. In 2012 Harvard University Press published a history of the movement, Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature, by Oulipo member Daniel Levin Becker.

Oulipian works

Some examples of Oulipian writing:

Constraints

Some Oulipian constraints:[4]

S+7, sometimes called N+7 
Replace every noun in a text with the seventh noun after it in a dictionary. For example, "Call me Ishmael. Some years ago..." becomes "Call me islander. Some yeggs ago...". Results will vary depending upon the dictionary used. This technique can also be performed on other lexical classes, such as verbs.
Snowball 
A poem in which each line is a single word, and each successive word is one letter longer.
Lipogram 
Writing that excludes one or more letters. The previous sentence is a lipogram in B, F, J, K, Q, V, Y, and Z (it does not contain any of those letters).
Prisoner's constraint, also called Macao constraint 
A type of lipogram that omits letters with ascenders and descenders (b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, p, q, t, and y).
Palindromes
Sonnets and other poems constructed using palindromic techniques.
Univocalism
A poem using only one vowel letter. In English and some other languages the same vowel letter can represent different sounds, which means that e.g. "born" and "cot" could both be used in a univocalism. Words with the same vowel sound, represented by different vowel letters in English, could not be used - e.g. "blue" and "stew".

Members

Founding members

The founding members of Oulipo represented a range of intellectual pursuits, including writers, university professors, mathematicians, engineers, and "pataphysicians":

Members as of 2012

Note that Oulipo members are still considered members after their deaths.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Seaman, Bill (October 2001). "OULIPO VS Recombinant Poetics". Leonardo 30 (5): 423–430. doi:10.1162/002409401753521548.
  2. ↑ Barry, Robert. "The Exploits And Opinions Of Gavin Bryars, 'Pataphysician". The Quietus. TheQuietus.com. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  3. ↑ Sobelle, Stefanie. "The Oulipo". Bookforum. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  4. ↑ Lundin, Leigh; Grassiot-Gandet (2009-06-07). "L'Oulipo". Criminal Brief. Retrieved 2009-06-10.

Further reading

External links

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