Constraint and Convention: The Formalism of the Oulipo

Abstract

This article begins by examining two recent attempts to define the literary constraint (la contrainte) as it is used by Oulipo and other formalists. It is argued that both attempts rely on a legalistic view of language that conflates rules and regularities. For that reason they fail to recognize the fundamental differences between constraints (which resemble rules) and generic conventions (which are a kind of regularity). The rule/regularity distinction is clarified by reference to the work of the philosophers Ziff and Quine. The differences between constraints and conventions are then detailed, drawing on the work of genre theorists (Fowler, Todorov, Genette) and on what certain Oulipians have said about their practice (Roubaud, Bénabou). The article concludes by remarking on the complex interactions of constraints and conventions in the work of Oulipo, and proposing an explanation for the constraint's paradoxical liberating effects.