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Deleuze and the Baroque diagram

  • Tom Conley
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Dimensions of Iconicity
This chapter is in the book Dimensions of Iconicity

Abstract

In Gilles Deleuze’s writings the diagram is protean form, at once a compositional principle, a philosophical operative, and a creative process. Mixing writing and drawing, the diagram is an intermediary shape between an object conceived and an object realized. A composition of abstract traits, lines, zones, and even patches of color, its generative character is the object of Deleuze’s readings of Francis Bacon’s paintings (in Logique de la sensation), while its poetic, political and philosophical virtue is studied in his work on Michel Foucault (especially Foucault, published in 1986), for whom the diagram is a map of possibility, of a devenir exceeding an “archive” or historical repository of forms. Diagrams inhere in the very texture of Deleuze’s writing, notably where he appeals to his mentor-poets, Henri Michaux and Herman Melville. For this end a study of the cartographic “diagram” of the Galapagos in Melville’s “Encantadas” (of the Piazza Tales) caps this short essay.

Abstract

In Gilles Deleuze’s writings the diagram is protean form, at once a compositional principle, a philosophical operative, and a creative process. Mixing writing and drawing, the diagram is an intermediary shape between an object conceived and an object realized. A composition of abstract traits, lines, zones, and even patches of color, its generative character is the object of Deleuze’s readings of Francis Bacon’s paintings (in Logique de la sensation), while its poetic, political and philosophical virtue is studied in his work on Michel Foucault (especially Foucault, published in 1986), for whom the diagram is a map of possibility, of a devenir exceeding an “archive” or historical repository of forms. Diagrams inhere in the very texture of Deleuze’s writing, notably where he appeals to his mentor-poets, Henri Michaux and Herman Melville. For this end a study of the cartographic “diagram” of the Galapagos in Melville’s “Encantadas” (of the Piazza Tales) caps this short essay.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Preface ix
  4. Introduction xi
  5. Part I. Phonic dimensions
  6. The effect of iconicity flash blindness 3
  7. Iconic treadmill hypothesis 15
  8. Tracking linguistic primitives 39
  9. Continuity and change 63
  10. Iconicity in English literary neologisms 85
  11. Part II. Cognitive dimensions
  12. Toward a theory of poetic iconicity 99
  13. The ocean of surging emotion 119
  14. Ekphrasis, cognition, and iconicity 135
  15. Part III. Multimodal dimensions
  16. Deleuze and the Baroque diagram 153
  17. Bridging the gap between image and metaphor through cross-modal iconicity 167
  18. Iconicity, ‘intersemiotic translation’ and the sonnet in the visual poetry of Avelino De Araújo 191
  19. Reading across the gutter 209
  20. The role of iconicity in package design 229
  21. Part IV. Performative dimensions
  22. Iconicity in Buddhist language and literature 249
  23. Iconization of sociolinguistic variables 263
  24. Performative iconicity 287
  25. Part V. New dimensions of iconicity
  26. Why notational iconicity is a form of operational iconicity 303
  27. Iconicity, ambiguity, interpretability 321
  28. The iconicity of literary analysis 331
  29. Author index 345
  30. Subject index 347
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.15.09con

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Preface ix
  4. Introduction xi
  5. Part I. Phonic dimensions
  6. The effect of iconicity flash blindness 3
  7. Iconic treadmill hypothesis 15
  8. Tracking linguistic primitives 39
  9. Continuity and change 63
  10. Iconicity in English literary neologisms 85
  11. Part II. Cognitive dimensions
  12. Toward a theory of poetic iconicity 99
  13. The ocean of surging emotion 119
  14. Ekphrasis, cognition, and iconicity 135
  15. Part III. Multimodal dimensions
  16. Deleuze and the Baroque diagram 153
  17. Bridging the gap between image and metaphor through cross-modal iconicity 167
  18. Iconicity, ‘intersemiotic translation’ and the sonnet in the visual poetry of Avelino De Araújo 191
  19. Reading across the gutter 209
  20. The role of iconicity in package design 229
  21. Part IV. Performative dimensions
  22. Iconicity in Buddhist language and literature 249
  23. Iconization of sociolinguistic variables 263
  24. Performative iconicity 287
  25. Part V. New dimensions of iconicity
  26. Why notational iconicity is a form of operational iconicity 303
  27. Iconicity, ambiguity, interpretability 321
  28. The iconicity of literary analysis 331
  29. Author index 345
  30. Subject index 347
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