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

Notes to Chapter 5
l~ronicall~, the openness of the quotation mark
in Canadian "Pataphysics calls to mind the openness of the
ellipsis marks in the last line of Doctor Faustroll:
"Pataphysics is the science. . . . " (Jarry 1965 : 256 ) . The
original sentence in French can be translsted as either a
completed thought or a suspended thought (as if to suggest
that such a science marks the unfulfilled expectation of a
solution, whose completion occurs only in the imaginary):
"the irreverence of the common herdl . . . ] sums up the science
of "Pataphysics in the following phrase: " (TRG 1980: 13 ) .
'~eabershi~ in these imaginary thinktanks is
always virtual:
The Toronto Research Group is comprised of
McCaffery and Nichol; the Institute for Linguistic
Ontogenetics is comprised of Dean, Truhlar, Riddell, et al;
and the "Pataphysical Hardware Company is comprised of
Nichol alone. Other organizations include the Institute for
Creative- Misunderstanding, the Institute for Hmmrian
Studies, and the Institute for Applied Fiction, al1 of which
appear and vanish without warning throughout the recent
legacy of literary research in Canada,