A philosophical interrogation of the concepts of chance, contingency, and eternity through a concentrated study of Mallarmé's poem "Un Coup de Dés.”

A meticulous literary study, a detective story à la Edgar Allan Poe, a treasure-hunt worthy of an adventure novel—such is the register in which can be deciphered the hidden secrets of a poem like no other. Quentin Meillassoux, author of After Finitude, continues his philosophical interrogation of the concepts of chance, contingency, infinity, and eternity through a concentrated study of Mallarmé's poem "Un Coup de Dés,” patiently deciphering its enigmatic meaning on the basis of a dazzlingly simple and lucid insight with regard to Mallarmé's "unique Number.”

The decisive point of the investigation proposed by Meillassoux comes with a discovery, unsettling and yet as simple as a child's game. The Number that "can be no other” can only be revealed to us via a secret code, hidden in the "Coup de dés” like a key that finally unlocks every one of its poetic devices. Thus is also unveiled the meaning of that siren, emerging for a lightning-flash amongst the debris of the shipwreck: as the living heart of a drama that is still unfolding.

With this bold new interpretation of Mallarmé's work, Meillassoux offers brilliant insights into modernity, poetics, secularism, and religion, and opens a new chapter in his philosophy of radical contingency.

The volume contains the entire text of the "Coup de dés” and three other poems, with new English translations.

Quentin Meillassoux teaches philosophy at Université de Paris (Panthéon-Sorbonne), and is author of After Finitude.
Robin Mackay is a philosopher, Director of the UK arts organization Urbanomic, and Associate Researcher at Goldsmiths University of London.