SOURCE: "Jules Laforgue: Constructing the Text," in Orbis Litterarum, Vol. 46, No. 5, 1991, pp. 276-93.

In the following essay, McCann explains the creation of meaning in Laforgue 's poetry as a process characterized by intertextuality and the changeable nature of language.

Many readers may share James Hiddleston's bafflement when faced with Laforgue's writing:

Calembours, jeux de mots, barbarismes, anacoluthes, non-sens, babil, intertextes saccagés, comment sortir de ce tournoiement chaotique de signifiants apparemment coupés pour toujours de leurs signifiés?

Hiddleston here outlines the main difficulties confronting the reader who tries to establish the meaning of Laforgue's verse. But there is a problem with what Hiddleston proposes as the central principle underlying these semantic difficulties: what are 'signifiants apparemment coupés … de leurs signifiés? Surely a 'signifiant' presupposes a linkage to a 'signifié' or 'signifiés'? This point seems to be conceded by Hiddleston when he uses...