Faux dictionaries and encyclopedias
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| + | [[Image:Mona Lisa Smoking a Pipe.jpg|thumb|right|200px|This page '''{{PAGENAME}}''' is part of the [[derision]] series.<br>Illustration: ''[[Mona Lisa Smoking a Pipe]]'' by [[Eugène Bataille]]]] | ||
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| - | :It is precisely the exclusive and definitive quality of dictionaries that have made them of interest to various writers and there are a number of obvious precursors of the ''[[Critical Dictionary]]'' which have exploited these qualities by subversion. More or less successful examples include Flaubert's ''[[Dictionary of Received Ideas]]'', Bierce's ''[[Devil's Dictionary]]'', Eluard and Breton's ''[[Dictionnaire abrégé du surréalisme]]''. Two of the contributors to the Critical Dictionary had also written dictionaries of their own. In Leiris' Glossaire: j'y serre mes gloses (which first appeared inside words, suggested by their phonetics, attached to the original, but sufficiently fluid to admit the subjective, and are thus infected with emotion, penetrated by the formless. Artaud commented: "Yes, from now on language has only one use – as a means for madness, for the elimination of thought, for rupture, a labyrinth of irrationality, not a DICTIONARY where certain pedants in the neighbourhood of the Seine channel their spriritual strictures." Einstein's Encyclopaedia Bittanica, subtitled a Handbook of Art Knowledge, put forward less radical defintions: SCULPTURE. – Take a bit of this and a bit of that, position in space and make assertions. If lacking in courage, enter the Collection of Drainpipes, head held high, and discourse upon historical continuity. MERDE. – Value judgement of a sensitive idealist anticipating a private paradise. ''[[Encyclopaedia Acephalica]]'', from the preface | + | *Ambrose Bierce's ''[[The Devil's Dictionary]]'' (1900s-10s) |
| - | + | *Gustave Flaubert's ''[[Dictionary of Received Ideas]]'' (1911-13) | |
| + | *Georges Bataille's ''[[Critical Dictionary]]'' (1929-30) | ||
| + | *Raymond Queneau's ''[[Encyclopédie des sciences inexactes]]'' (written between 1930-34) | ||
| + | *Paul Eluard and André Breton's ''[[Dictionnaire abrégé du surréalisme]]'' (1938) | ||
| + | *Acéphale's ''[[Encyclopaedia Da Costa]]'' (1947-?) | ||
| + | *Jorge Luis Borges's ''[[Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge]]'' (1942), a fictitious taxonomy | ||
| + | *Umberto Eco's [[Cacopedia]] | ||
| + | ==See also== | ||
| + | *[[Dictionary]] | ||
| + | *[[Fictitious entry]] | ||
| + | *[[Subversion]] | ||
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Current revision
Illustration: Mona Lisa Smoking a Pipe by Eugène Bataille
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- Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary (1900s-10s)
- Gustave Flaubert's Dictionary of Received Ideas (1911-13)
- Georges Bataille's Critical Dictionary (1929-30)
- Raymond Queneau's Encyclopédie des sciences inexactes (written between 1930-34)
- Paul Eluard and André Breton's Dictionnaire abrégé du surréalisme (1938)
- Acéphale's Encyclopaedia Da Costa (1947-?)
- Jorge Luis Borges's Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge (1942), a fictitious taxonomy
- Umberto Eco's Cacopedia
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See also
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