Francis Ponge (1899–1988)

French poet, theorist of the parti pris des choses (siding-with-things). Author of Le parti pris des choses (1942), Méthodes (1961), and the prose-poems "Notes pour un coquillage," "Le Galet," "La Pluie," "Le Cageot," "L'Orange," "L'Huître," "La Bougie," "La Cigarette," "L'Automne" (assembled across multiple volumes). Ponge's prose-poetry of the thingly thing — pebbles, oranges, oysters, candles, cigarettes, doors as projets brisés, "l'épaisseur sémantique" of words coextensive with the épaisseur des choses — is the single largest unpublished MP-source for the late vocabulary of épaisseur (grain, texture, density of being). MP's encounter with Ponge in 1948–49 is documented in the most extensive Ponge transcription in MP's corpus (Mexico III, March 1949; Inédits II pp. 318–323).

Key Points

  • Le parti pris des choses (Gallimard, 1942) — the principal prose-poetry collection that establishes Ponge's anti-anthropocentric description of objects from their own side. "Side" (parti) names a structural perspective: the poem speaks from where the thing is, not from where the human gaze is.
  • "L'épaisseur sémantique" (in Méthodes and elsewhere): "proposer à chacun l'ouverture de trappes intérieures, un voyage dans l'épaisseur des mots... une subversion comparable à celle qu'opère la charrue ou la pelle, lorsque, tout à coup et pour la première fois, sont mises à jour des millions de parcelles, de paillettes, de racines, de vers et de petites bêtes jusqu'alors enfouies" (cited MP, Mexico III p. 318).
  • "[Rendre] Les ressources infinies de l'épaisseur des choses... par les ressources infinies de l'épaisseur sémantique des mots" (cited MP, Mexico III p. 318).
  • "Il y a toujours du rapport à l'homme... Ce ne sont pas les choses qui parlent entre elles mais les hommes entre eux qui parlent des choses et l'on ne peut aucunement sortir de l'homme" (cited MP, Mexico III p. 319).
  • Sartre's 1947 essay "L'homme et les choses" (Situations I) — Sartre's reading of Ponge — is the principal mediating text through which MP encounters Ponge. MP transcribes substantial passages of Sartre's essay alongside Ponge's own texts in the Mexico III lecture.
  • "Curieuse spontanéité figée, analogue un peu à cette contention qui fait que le cercle demeure cercle, à lui tout seul... ces objets sont ensorcelés" (Sartre on Ponge, cited MP, Mexico III p. 319).

Role in This Wiki

The Mexico III transcription as philological anchor

MP's six-conference programme at UNAM (Feb–March 1949) culminates in Conference II "Le monde perçu" — and the third version contains the most extensive Ponge transcription in MP's corpus (pp. 317–323). Three texts (A, B, C, all from Sartre on Ponge) are transcribed at length, plus direct citations of Ponge's prose-poems on the galet, the cageot, La pluie, L'automne, the orange, the huître, the bougie, the cigarette, the porte. The transcriptions are not merely citations: MP marks them as philosophical anchors for his own theory of the perceived object as "emblème, imago (psychanalyse)... cristallisation du désir (Breton)" (p. 318).

The lineage Ponge → MP épaisseur

MP's late-career vocabulary of épaisseur (grain du sensible, texture, density of being, flesh) is extensively documented in the V&I working notes (1959–61) and L'Œil et l'esprit (1960). The philological pre-history of this vocabulary is established as: Ponge 1942 → Sartre on Ponge 1947 → MP Mexico III 1949 → MP V&I 1964. The Mexico III transcription is the documentary anchor of this lineage. Cf ponge-as-major-1949-source-for-mp-epaisseur (candidate).

The "Méthodes" / "Métaphysique du langage" connection

Ponge's Méthodes (1961, posthumous-collected from 1948–61 essays) develops the épaisseur sémantique thesis in detail. MP's ENS course "Métaphysique du langage" (Nov 1948–Jan 1949) outlines a parallel project: language as system-of-equilibrium, "logique titubante" (titubant logic), the Stiftung of literary expression (Stendhal, week 6 of the plan). The two projects converge structurally at the level of language as material gesture; the Mexico III lecture is the conference articulation of what the ENS course works out at the pedagogical level.

The thing-perception thesis

MP's reading of Ponge converges on the formula: "l'objet ne lui apparaît pas, comme à Kant, un pôle X, support de qualités sensibles. Les choses ont des sens" (Sartre on Ponge, cited MP p. 318). This is the structural articulation that MP will develop in the V&I "sensible ideas" / flesh doctrine: things are not substrates of qualities but manières d'être with their own raisons à l'état cru ou vif. The Mexico III transcription is the earliest sustained anchor of this anti-Kantian thesis in MP's corpus.

Connections

  • philological source for primordial expression / grain du sensible / texture imaginaire — the épaisseur sémantique lineage.
  • read through Sartre's 1947 "L'homme et les choses" essay — the principal mediating text for MP.
  • contemporary of Breton (Mexico III also cites Breton's L'amour fou on the cristallisation du désir); both anchor Mexico III's analysis of the perceived object as emblème.
  • philological predecessor of the late-MP épaisseur d'être (V&I, 1959–61, working notes).

Sources

  • merleau-ponty-2022-inedits-ii-1947-1949 — the most extensive Ponge transcription in MP's corpus: Mexico III pp. 317–323, including direct citations of Ponge's prose-poems and of Sartre's essay on Ponge. The transcribed texts (A, B, C) are reproduced verbatim by Dalissier from MP's manuscript. This is MP's earliest and most extensive engagement with Ponge — predating any published MP-on-Ponge by a decade.
  • Le parti pris des choses (Gallimard, 1942) — the primary Ponge text MP is engaging.
  • Méthodes (Gallimard, 1961) — the collected methodological essays where the épaisseur sémantique thesis is articulated.
  • J.-P. Sartre, "L'homme et les choses" in Situations I (Gallimard, 1947) — the principal mediating text.