ABSTRACT
Jacques Derrida's response to the writing of Francis Ponge is in part an act of recognition: recognizing the achievement of one of the most inventive and risk-taking of twentieth-century French writers, and recognizing in Ponge's texts an enactment of some of the concerns. Signeponge was first delivered as a lecture at a colloquium on Ponge held at Cerisy-la-Salle in 1975; and first published in its full form in a bilingual edition, Signeponge/Signsponge, translated by Richard Rand. TN Derrida uses two spellings of the French word for "abyss," abyme and abime. TN In French, pre means "prairie" or "meadow," but also the prefix "pre-." In the phrase une verite qui soit verte, translated as "a verdant verity," the word verte is the word verite minus the letter i. TN "Sapates"—a kind of Christmas stocking found in southern France, and also, according to Littre, a big gift disguised as a small one, as when a diamond is concealed within a lemon.
