Key Arguments

• He explicitly states: 'The body cannot be compared to the physical object, but rather to the work of art.'
• In painting or music, 'the idea cannot be communicated other than through the arrangement of color or sounds'; analyses of Cézanne’s oeuvre leave open 'several possible Cézannes' until we perceive his actual paintings, which alone reveal 'the uniquely existing Cézanne' and give analyses their full sense.
• He extends this to language arts: 'It is well known that a poem, if it carries a primary signification that can be translated into prose, also leads a secondary existence in the mind of the reader that defines it as a poem.' This secondary, existential modulation is not reducible to paraphrasable content.
• He likens poetry to expressive speech and gesture, where 'accent, tone, gestures, and facial expressions' reveal 'the source of his thoughts and his fundamental manner of being' rather than simply the propositional content, and claims that 'poetry – while it may be accidentally narrating and signifying – is essentially a modulation of existence.'
• He distinguishes the poem from the cry: the cry uses the naturally given body, 'poor in expressive means', whereas the poem uses a 'specialized language' such that the existential modulation 'finds in the poetic apparatus the means to make itself eternal'; nonetheless its meaning is still materially bound—'locked up between the words on some fragile piece of paper.'
• Similarly for the novel, the abstract 'thought' or summary 'is drawn from a larger signification, just as the description of a person is drawn from the concrete appearance of his physiognomy'; the novelist's task is 'not to set forth ideas, or even to analyze characters, but rather to present, without ideological commentary, an inter-human event' whose narrative order and perspectives are integral to its sense.
• He generalizes: 'A novel, a poem, a painting, and a piece of music are individuals, that is, beings in which the expression cannot be distinguished from the expressed, whose sense is only accessible through direct contact, and who send forth their signification without ever leaving their temporal and spatial place.'
• He then applies this model to the body: 'It is in this sense that our body is comparable to the work of art. It is a knot of living significations and not the law of a certain number of covariant terms.'
• He illustrates this by bodily example: 'A certain tactile experience of the arm signifies a certain tactile experience of the forearm and the shoulder, as well as a certain visual appearance of the same arm,' not because they share an intelligible 'arm‑idea', but because 'the arm seen and the arm touched, just like the different segments of the arm itself, together perform a single gesture.' This parallels how elements of an artwork jointly enact one expressive whole.

Source Quotes

What unites the “tactile sensations” of the hand and links them to the visual perceptions of the same hand and to perceptions of other segments of the body is a certain style of hand gestures, which implies a certain style of finger movements and moreover contributes to a particular fashion in which my body moves.11 [b. The unity of the body and the unity of the work of art.]* The body cannot be compared to the physical object, but rather to the work of art. In a painting or in a piece of music, the idea cannot be communicated other than through the arrangement of color or sounds.

In a painting or in a piece of music, the idea cannot be communicated other than through the arrangement of color or sounds. If I have never seen his paintings, then the analysis of Cézanne’s oeuvre leaves me the choice between several possible Cézannes; only the perception of his paintings will present me with the uniquely existing Cézanne, and only in this perception can the analyses take on their full sense. And even though they are composed of words, the same is true of a poem or a novel.

It is well known that a poem, if it carries a primary signification that can be translated into prose, also leads a secondary existence in the mind of the reader that defines it as a poem. Just as speech does not merely signify through words, but also through accent, tone, gestures, and facial expressions, and just as this supplemental sense reveals not so much the thoughts of the speaker, but rather the source of his thoughts and his fundamental manner of being, so too poetry – while it may be accidentally narrating and signifying – is essentially a modulation of existence. The poem is distinguished from the cry because the cry employs our body such as nature gave it to us, that is, as poor in expressive means, whereas the poem employs language, and even a specialized language, such that the existential modulation, rather than dissolving in the very instant that it is expressed, finds in the poetic apparatus the means to make itself eternal.

But even if it is independent of our living gestures, the poem is not independent of all material support, and it would be irremediably lost if its text was not perfectly preserved. Its signification is not free and does not reside in the heaven of ideas; it is locked up between the words on some fragile piece of paper. In this sense, like every work of art, the poem too exists in the manner of a thing and does not eternally subsist in the manner of a truth.

As for the novel, although it can be summarized, and although the novelist’s “thought” can be abstractly formulated, this notional signification is drawn from a larger signification, just as the description of a person is drawn from the concrete appearance of his physiognomy. The novelist’s role is not to set forth ideas, or even to analyze characters, but rather to present, without ideological commentary, an inter-human event and to allow it to ripen and burst forth to such an extent that every change in the order of the narration or in the choice of perspectives would modify the novelistic sense of the event. A novel, a poem, a painting, and a piece of music are individuals, that is, beings in which the expression cannot be distinguished from the expressed, whose sense is only accessible through direct contact, and who send forth their signification without ever leaving their temporal and spatial place.

The novelist’s role is not to set forth ideas, or even to analyze characters, but rather to present, without ideological commentary, an inter-human event and to allow it to ripen and burst forth to such an extent that every change in the order of the narration or in the choice of perspectives would modify the novelistic sense of the event. A novel, a poem, a painting, and a piece of music are individuals, that is, beings in which the expression cannot be distinguished from the expressed, whose sense is only accessible through direct contact, and who send forth their signification without ever leaving their temporal and spatial place. It is in this sense that our body is comparable to the work of art.

A novel, a poem, a painting, and a piece of music are individuals, that is, beings in which the expression cannot be distinguished from the expressed, whose sense is only accessible through direct contact, and who send forth their signification without ever leaving their temporal and spatial place. It is in this sense that our body is comparable to the work of art. It is a knot of living significations and not the law of a certain number of covariant terms. A certain tactile experience of the arm signifies a certain tactile experience of the forearm and the shoulder, as well as a certain visual appearance of the same arm.

A certain tactile experience of the arm signifies a certain tactile experience of the forearm and the shoulder, as well as a certain visual appearance of the same arm. This is not because the different tactile perceptions in themselves, or the different tactile and visual perceptions together, all participate in a single intelligible arm (in the manner that all perspectival views of a cube participate in the idea of the cube), but rather because the arm seen and the arm touched, just like the different segments of the arm itself, together perform a single gesture. [c. Perceptual habit as the acquisition of a world.] Just as we saw above that the motor habit sheds light on the particular nature of bodily space, here habit in general likewise clarifies the general synthesis of one’s own body.

Key Concepts

• The body cannot be compared to the physical object, but rather to the work of art.
• only the perception of his paintings will present me with the uniquely existing Cézanne, and only in this perception can the analyses take on their full sense.
• poetry – while it may be accidentally narrating and signifying – is essentially a modulation of existence.
• its signification is not free and does not reside in the heaven of ideas; it is locked up between the words on some fragile piece of paper.
• The novelist’s role is not to set forth ideas, or even to analyze characters, but rather to present, without ideological commentary, an inter-human event
• beings in which the expression cannot be distinguished from the expressed, whose sense is only accessible through direct contact, and who send forth their signification without ever leaving their temporal and spatial place.
• It is in this sense that our body is comparable to the work of art. It is a knot of living significations and not the law of a certain number of covariant terms.
• because the arm seen and the arm touched, just like the different segments of the arm itself, together perform a single gesture.

Context

Subsection '[b. The unity of the body and the unity of the work of art.]', where Merleau-Ponty uses analogies with painting, poetry, and the novel to articulate a conception of the body as an expressive individual whose meaning is immanent in its sensible presence and gestures.