PATAPHYSICS-THE-POETICS-OF-AN-IMAGINARY- SCIENCE_C_Bok

itself over the entirc agglomeration of words-in-freedom,"
thereby eliminating any question which localizes its doubt
upon only one point of awareness (110); instead, every
potentiality is considered in its simultaneity, be it plus
or minus ( 2 ).'
Such equations suggest that, "by
(addressing themselves phonically and optically to the
numerical sensibility)" (110), 'pataphysicians might reveal
the potential for a chiasm between mathema and poiesis.
Roubaud argues that, for Oulipo, to compose poetry is
to undertake a mathetic analysis of language itself (both
algebraically and topologically ) : " [w] riting
under[. ..]constraint is[ ...] equivalent [to] the drafting of
a mathematical text, which may be formalized according to
the axiomatic method" (89). Like Buchanan, who proposes
treating metaphor mathematically end mathesis metaphorically
(13) in order to explore their reciprocal influences,
Oulipo endeavours to demonstrate that, only through the
hybridity of such ' pataphysical dilettantism,' can science
ever hope to produce the novelty of anomaly.
Just as
advances in the nomic tradition of mathema depend upon a
ludic sedition against the numerary, so also do advances in
the nomic tradition of poiesis depend upon a ludic sedition
against the literary. 5