Mallarmé, vers quelque fenêtre

This article tackles one of the most common themes in Mallarmé’s poetry, a transparent or shimmering surface, pane of glass or window. From one of the earliest poems “Les Fenêtres” right up to more enigmatic poems like “Une dentelle s’abolit” or “Sainte”, we shall show how the word “window” hardly ever evokes actual glass but rather is used to suggest the very function of language itself, a surface woven out of sound and light.