effigy of alphabetic straw

To read materially is to make the word a crude effigy of alphabetic straw.

effigy and shadow

Every real effigy has a shadow which is its double; and art must falter and fail from the moment the sculptor believes he has liberated the kind of shadow whose very existence will destroy his repose.

—Antonin Artaud, preface to The Theatre and its Double, translated by Mary Caroline Richards