# Cent mille milliards de poèmes

> 1989 digital work by Raymond Queneau

**Wikidata**: [Q132200159](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q132200159)  
**Source**: https://4ort.xyz/entity/cent-mille-milliards-de-poemes

## Summary
*Cent mille milliards de poèmes* (Hundred Thousand Billion Poems) is a 1989 digital work by the French author Raymond Queneau. It is a digital adaptation and application based on his earlier 1961 combinatorial poetry book of the same name.

## Key Facts
- **Title:** Cent mille milliards de poèmes
- **Author:** Raymond Queneau
- **Publication Date:** 1989
- **Nature:** Digital work and application (software)
- **Instance Of:** Creative work, application
- **Is An Edition Or Translation Of:** *Hundred Thousand Billion Poems* (the 1961 print book)
- **Identifier:** elmcip_id 8390
- **Wikidata Description:** 1989 digital work by Raymond Queneau

## FAQs
**Q: What is *Cent mille milliards de poèmes*?**
A: It is a digital work created in 1989 by Raymond Queneau, functioning as an application that digitally implements his combinatorial poetry concept.

**Q: Who created *Cent mille milliards de poèmes*?**
A: The work was authored by the French writer and mathematician Raymond Queneau, known for his experimental literary techniques.

**Q: When was *Cent mille milliards de poèmes* published?**
A: This digital version was published in the year 1989.

**Q: What is the relationship between the 1989 digital work and the 1961 book?**
A: The 1989 digital work is an edition or translation of Queneau's 1961 print book *Hundred Thousand Billion Poems*, adapting its combinatorial sonnet structure into a digital application format.

**Q: Is *Cent mille milliards de poèmes* a book or a software program?**
A: It is classified as both a creative work and an application (software), representing a digital implementation of a literary concept.

## Why It Matters
*Cent mille milliards de poèmes* represents a significant early example of digital literature and combinatorial art, translating a complex manual poetic system into an interactive digital format. It demonstrates the application of computational thinking to creative writing, predating widespread digital poetry platforms. As a work by a major 20th-century author, it bridges traditional literary avant-garde practices with emerging digital media, highlighting the potential for software to enable new forms of generative art and reader participation. Its existence in 1989 places it at a pivotal moment in the history of electronic literature, showcasing how classic experimental techniques could be reimagined through technology.

## Notable For
- **Early Digital Adaptation:** It is an early digital implementation (1989) of a combinatorial literary structure originally conceived for print.
- **Author's Legacy:** It is a work by Raymond Queneau, a foundational figure in the Oulipo group (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle), which explored constrained writing techniques.
- **Combinatorial Scale:** It digitally realizes the potential for 100,000,000,000 unique poems from a set of base components, a number derived from the original book's design.
- **Hybrid Classification:** It is notable for being classified simultaneously as a creative work and an application (software), embodying the intersection of literature and code.
- **Preservation Identifier:** It is catalogued with the specific electronic literature identifier `elmcip_id: 8390` in the Electronic Literature Organization's directory.

## Body

### History and Origin
*Cent mille milliards de poèmes* was published in 1989 as a digital work. Its author is Raymond Queneau (1903-1976), a French novelist, poet, and critic who was a co-founder of the Oulipo group. The work is a direct digital descendant of his 1961 printed book *Cent mille milliards de poèmes* (*Hundred Thousand Billion Poems*), which contained 10 sonnets with each line on a separate strip of paper, allowing readers to combine lines to generate new poems.

### Nature and Format
The entity is explicitly defined as a **digital work** and an **application**. This dual classification indicates it is a software program designed to implement the combinatorial poetry system. It functions as an end-user application, allowing users to interact with and generate poems from the underlying set of verses, moving beyond the physical manual process of the 1961 book.

### Literary and Technical Basis
The entire structure and content of the 1989 digital work are derived from its source material. It is an **edition or translation of** the 1961 print book *Hundred Thousand Billion Poems*. The digital format automates the combinatorial process, where the original book's 10 sonnets (each with 14 lines) provided 10^14 possible combinations. The application likely presents the lines in a selectable or shuffling interface, making the vast poetic space accessible.

### Classification and Identity
Within knowledge bases, the work is an **instance of** two primary classes: **creative work** and **application**. This reflects its dual identity as both a literary artifact and a functional software program. Its specific identifier in the field of electronic literature is **elmcip_id: 8390**, linking it to the Electronic Literature Organization's directory of works.

### Context within the Author's Oeuvre
Raymond Queneau's involvement places this work within the tradition of the Oulipo (Workshop of Potential Literature). The original 1961 book is one of Oulipo's most famous examples of "potential literature," where a set of rules or a combinatorial structure generates a vast number of possible texts. The 1989 digital version represents an early technological realization of an Oulipian constraint, using software to manage the combinatorial explosion that would be physically impossible to experience manually.

### Significance in Digital Literature
As a 1989 digital work, it is a historically early example of:
1.  **Generative Literature:** Software that produces novel textual combinations from a fixed set.
2.  **Interactive Poetry:** A form where the user's actions (selection, randomization) directly shape the output.
3.  **Adaptation of Print to Digital:** A faithful but mechanized translation of a print-based combinatorial system into a digital environment.
Its existence demonstrates the interest of established literary figures in exploring digital media and provides a clear case study for the transition from paper-based to computer-based generative art.