Between Text and Image, East and West: Henri Michaux’s Signs and Christian Dotremont’s “Logogrammes”

Citation

Parish N (2008) Between Text and Image, East and West: Henri Michaux’s Signs and Christian Dotremont’s “Logogrammes”. Monti E (Editor) RILUNE - Review of European Literatures, 8, pp. 67-80.

Abstract
From their material manifestation on the page or on the table, it is obvious that the signs of Henri Michaux and the “logograms” of Christian Dotremont bear traces of ideographic and calligraphic forms. Like many painters and writers, Michaux and Dotremont were interested in these systems of meaning, which operate very differently from the Western alphabet. Several creators, although fascinated by the formal qualities of the ideogram, did not understand or understood little of the way this system establishes meaning. In this article, we will examine the reasons why Michaux and Dotremont were seduced by the creative possibilities of the ideogram and their respective appropriations of this form.

Keywords
Michaux, Henri; Dotremont, Christian; Logograms; signs; ideograms

Journal
RILUNE - Review of European Literatures: Volume 8

People

Professor Nina Parish

Professor in French & Francophone, Literature and Languages - Division