Quenina¶
quenina · form · validated
The sestina generalised to any number of end-words for which the rotation exhausts every position before returning to the start. The checker verifies the end-word rotation only, not metre.
Provenance¶
- Source: Raymond Queneau and Jacques Roubaud, in Oulipo, La Littérature potentielle (1973)
- Attribution:
primary— a named author, work and year this catalogue stands behind - Checkability:
self— decidable from the text and its parameters alone - Attested:
author-stated— the originator set this rule down
Details¶
- Kind: restrictive
- Languages: en, fr
- Requires:
tokens - Deterministic: yes
- Also known as: n-ine
- In other languages: Quenine (fr)
Prompt hint¶
Choose a workable number of end-words and rotate them until every position is used.
Parameters¶
| Name | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
n |
— | None |
Words per stanza; inferred if unset. |
Examples¶
three-word-quenina¶
en — this text satisfies the procedure.
x a
x b
x c
x c
x a
x b
x b
x c
x a
Parameters: n=3
Source: constructed example; the generalisation is Queneau and Roubaud's
no-rotation¶
en — this text does not satisfy the procedure.
x a
x b
x c
x a
x b
x c
Parameters: n=3
Source: constructed counterexample
size-inferred-from-the-text¶
en — this text satisfies the procedure.
x a
x b
x c
x c
x a
x b
x b
x c
x a
Source: constructed example; the same three-word quenina with n left out, so the size is read off the end-words. Every case above passes n, which is how the inference went uncovered while returning 1 for every text and scoring whatever it was given 1.0.
no-rotation-size-inferred¶
en — this text does not satisfy the procedure.
x a
x b
x c
x a
x b
x c
Source: constructed counterexample; the case the broken inference used to pass. The end-words repeat by stanza instead of rotating, and with the size inferred rather than given that is now a failure.
quenine-a-trois-mots¶
fr — this text satisfies the procedure.
il part mer
il part nuit
il part vent
il part vent
il part mer
il part nuit
il part nuit
il part vent
il part mer
Parameters: n=3
Source: constructed example; the generalisation is Queneau and Roubaud's
aucune-rotation¶
fr — this text does not satisfy the procedure.
il part mer
il part nuit
il part vent
il part mer
il part nuit
il part vent
Parameters: n=3
Source: constructed counterexample