François Le Lionnais and the Oulipo. The Unexpected Role of Mathematics in Literature

Abstract

“The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry” (Bertrand Russel, Mysticism and Logic, 1910). This sentence, quoted by François Le Lionnais in his work La Beauté en Mathématiques in [1], reflects his conception of a deep bond between mathematics and literature. He had a multifaceted education and was an erudite and founder of the Oulipo with Raymond Queneau. Even though he was neither a “professional” mathematician nor a “professional” man of letters but only an épicurien passionné as he defined himself [2],1 while alive, he channelled his interests in the theorisation of the so-called littérature potentielle (potential literature) “pour exciter les curieux d’insolite et faire réfléchir les passionnés de littérature aussi bien que le fanatiques de mathématiques” [3]. The purpose of this chapter is outline the figure of François Le Lionnais (who we will refer to from here on as FLL as he himself liked to do [4]) through the analysis of his most meaningfulworks,2 which, in the current literature, appear as subordinated to the works of the more famous and researched Queneau.