SOURCE: “Language Techniques in Jean Arp's French Poetry,” in Papers on Language and Literature, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1974, pp. 159-74.

In the following essay, Kotin examines the linguistics unique to Arp's French poetry.

The Alsatian artist and poet Jean Arp (1887-1966) produced during his lifetime many volumes of poetry in both French and German. Much has been written about him as an artist—sculptor, graphic artist, dada and surrealist painter—and there is a major study devoted to his German poetry to 1930 by Reinhard Döhl.¹ But Arp's French language poetry has never been given more than a brief introduction or a rapid “appreciation,” usually by other artists, in spite of the fact that two major collections of his work appeared during his lifetime. Le Siège de l'air (Paris, 1946) contains all his published French poetry from 1915 to 1945, some with important revisions and additions, and a few translations of his...