< previous page page_101 next page >

Page 101
blank is really a proper space (which has been muffled by some chance noise), then it could only contain an extra A, which means he has uttered «apple». At this stage Eve devises her own recitar cantando, an Edenic Sprachgesang: in other words, a kind of musical theater:
(16)
ABBBA.

Here the sing-song voice hovers at a heightened tone on the last B, with the result that we cannot tell whether she has sung out ABBBA (Serpent), or simply doubled the final B of «beautiful». This considerably upsets Adam, because it suggests a real possibility that language is responsible for ambiguities and deceptions. So he transfers his anxiety away from the pitfalls of language onto the meanings which the commandment issued by God had put into question: 'to be or not to be' can only result in 'edible/inedible', in Adam's situation, but, when he sings out his dilemma, he is fascinated by its rhythm, for language is beginning to crumble to pieces in his mouth; he has found the way to give it a totally free rein:
(17)
ABA
BAB
ABA
BAB
ABA
BAB
BAB
BB
B
A
BBBBBBAAAAAABBBBBB
BAAAA
AA

The poem sets free an explosion of words, the Futurist parole in libertà.
But, at the very moment he recognizes that he has invented incorrect words, Adam begins to see more clearly why the others were correct. At last he can visualize the generative rule which stood at the center of his language system (X, nY, X). It is only when he violates the system that Adam comes to understand its structure. At this precise moment, while he is wondering if the last line is the acme of grammatical disorderliness, he is bound to realize that the sequence AA does in fact exist, so he will ask himself how and why the language system can allow it. He therefore thinks back to (15) and the problem which occurred to him in that case, concerning the blank space. It comes clear to him that even a blank constitutes a full space in the system, and that the sequences AA or BB, which both struck him originally as anomalous, are actually correct, because the rule (X, nY, X) certainly does not prevent the value of n from being Zero.
Adam has arrived at a comprehension of the system at the very moment in which he is calling the system into question and therefore destroying it. Just as he comes to understand the rigid generative law of the code which

 
< previous page page_101 next page >