Sonnet of Exemplary Sentences From the Chapter Pertaining to the Nature of Pronouns in Emile Benveniste’s ‘Problems in General Linguistics’ (Paris 1966)

Sonnet of Exemplary Sentences From the Chapter Pertaining to the Nature of Pronouns in Emile Benveniste’s ‘Problems in General Linguistics’ (Paris 1966)

Sonnet of Exemplary Sentences From the Chapter Pertaining to the Nature of Pronouns in Emile Benveniste’s ‘Problems in General Linguistics’ (Paris 1966)

Anne Carson
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Sonnet of Exemplary Sentences From the Chapter Pertaining to the Nature of Pronouns in Emile Benveniste’s Problems in General Linguistics (Paris 1966)

This time I forgive you but I shall not forgive you again.
I observe that he forgives you but he will not forgive you again.
Although I eat this fish I don’t know its name.
Spirits watch over the soul of course.
I suppose and I presume.
I pose and I resume.
I suppose I have a horse.
How in the world can you afford this house I said and she said
 
I had a good divorce.
Strangers are warned that here there is a fierce, fast dog.
Whores have no business getting lost in the fog.
Is it to your ears or your soul that my voice is intolerable?
Whether Florinda lays a hand on his knee or his voluble, he pleads a headache
and the narrator concludes, The problem is insoluble.

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Anne Carson


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