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Operationalizing Iconicity
Edited by Pamela Perniss, Olga Fischer and Christina Ljungberg
[Iconicity in Language and Literature 17] 2020
► pp. 137–152

Language that thinks us

Iconicity and Christian Bök’s Eunoia

| Bloxham School

My study directs attention to a text that would at first seem unpromising for an investigation into iconicity given that it is produced by an arbitrary constraint: the requirement that each chapter restricts itself to the use of a single vowel. I offer firstly a close analysis of Chapter E of Christian Bök’s Eunoia. What is overtly a retelling of The Iliad is read as an allegory about language and about notions of iconicity and arbitrariness. The investigation then goes on to explore how the use of the lipogrammatic constraints lead to the production of a set of concentrated ‘grammars’. Each ‘grammar’ is shown to generate a distinctive conceptual framework even though this ‘thinking’ is independent of human agency and is produced by the arbitrary constraint. I conclude by considering how this affects our perspectives on iconicity and on language.

Article outline
  • 1.Constraining language: Eunoia as an Oulipian experiment
  • 2.Reading Chapter E: An allegory about language
    • 2.1The construction of Helen
    • 2.2The Fall and the Dream
    • 2.3The constraint undermined
    • 2.4An alternative paradise
    • 2.5Sound effects
  • 3.The behaviour of language
    • 3.1Programming language
    • 3.2Chapter E
    • 3.3Chapter O
    • 3.4Chapter I
    • 3.5Chapter U
    • 3.6Chapter A
  • 4.Concluding thoughts
  • Notes
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 13 May 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.17.08moy
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