ABSTRACT
Inseparable from the notions of invention and alterity is, as we have had many occasions to observe, the notion of singularity. Singularity has also always been valued and enjoyed in Western art, even though in certain periods the idea of singularity was frowned upon. Literary singularity may be said to derive from—though it is much more than—the verbal particularity of the work: specific words in a specific arrangement. The singularity of the literary work, then, does not lie in any essence of the work, any unalterable and ineffable core or kernel. An unchanging, essential uniqueness would in fact be unreadable and imperceptible, since it would not be open to any of the codes and processes by which we read and perceive. Just as the borderline between the literary and the non-literary is shifting and porous, so is the borderline between what is called "poetry" and what is not.
