Jules Laforgue and the Ironic Inheritance

JULES LA FORGUE and the Ironic Inheritance WARREN RAMSEY

New York

I9S3

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

COPYRIGHT 1953 BY OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, INC

L,brary of Congress Catalogue Card Number 53-7617

'Nocturne' from Blue Juntata, copynght 1929 by Malcolm Cowley Ten hnes from Prufrock and Other Observatwns by T S ElIOt, copynght 1936 by Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

For Elzzabetb

FOREWORD

THE name of Jules Supervielle 10evltably appears 10 a study of Laforgue and the !rome Inhentance, and It nught '" ell be "ntten 10 large pnnt at the begmnmg of the present book For It \\-as due to the fnendly offices of M Supervielle that 10 the summer of 1950, soon after the death of Georges Jean-Aubry, edItor of the Oewures completes, I was granted access to Laforgue's manuscnpts These papers have had a. vaned rustory smce a December day 10 1887 when Leah. Laforgue wrote a 'teIegramme' to Teodor de Wyzewa, askmg that he stop by her hotel the neAt day because she was leavmg for Menton 10 the even10g and had a favor to ask regardmg her husband's papers The wnttngs she left wIth the Pobsh cntic passed through many hands before find10g therr way back, consIderably reduced 10 number, to Wyzewa, who finally entrusted them to Jean-Aubry Although a great deal IS lost, much remams, mcludmg unpubhshed matenal, for French edttors, hke French poets, have therr 'rules for the eye,' and tend to reject what 15 not m fimshed form Needless to say, what IS un:fimshed can be lughly reveahng of an artiSt and a man, and I am partlcularly grateful to Mme Paule Aubry for permISSIon to reproduce unpubhshed verse and prose 10 the followmg pages, as well as for her graClOUsness 10 openmg her husband's hbrary to me at a dtfficult tIme, and for her many other COurtesles My thanks go also to M. LUCIen JaYs for adVIce and serv1ces cordIally rendered and for the grl't of extremely rare Laforgulana prlvately pnnted for Nous Quatre by Daragnes I further Wlsh to express my appreclation to the edItOrs of the Merczcre de Frtmce for allowmg me to consult Volume VIr of the Oewures completes 10 manuscnpt vu

\111

FOREWORD

AIr Henn Pe·;re has been unfrulmgly senSItlve In hIs encouragement of thIs project SInce Its begtnrungs as a Ph D theSIS at Yale UnIVersIty, my debt to hIm IS great Mr Rene Wellek and Mr Norman Hohnes Pearson of Yale and MISS Margaret GIhnan of Bryn Mawr have made valuable suggestlons lowe speCIal thanks also to Mr Kenneth Cornell and Mr Andrew Morehouse of Yale, Mr John Edwards of the UnIVersIty of CalIfornIa, and Mm Fernand and MIchel Mohrt, all of whom have been most helpful The author of the Ca1ltos and Dorothy Shakespear Pound gave generously of theIr tlme and recollectIOns, and I am grateful for the oprnIOns of Mr Malcohn Cowley and Mr Allen Tate Among earlIer wnters on Laforgue, lowe most to Jean-Aubry, and to Franc;oIs Ruchon, Rene Tauprn, and Edmund WIlson Acknowledgments are also due to the edItors of Comparatwe Lzterature, the Sewanee RWte'W, and Yale French Studtes, In whIch portIons of thIs work have appeared PermISSIon has been granted by Mr Samuel Loveman for the use of 'Locutlons des Plerrots,' translated by Hart Crane And I should certrunly not faIl to express my appreCIatIOn to the staffs of many lIbranes, espeCIally those of Yale and ColumbIa Uruvemtles, the New York PublIc LIbrary, and the BlblIotheque Natlonale Photographs of manuscnpts, sketches, and the frOntlSpIeCe portraIt of the poet are publIshed WIth pernusslon of Mme Aubry FInally, I WIsh to express my SIncere gratltude to the members of the commIttee whIch selected thIS book for the Modem Language ASSOCIatIon-Oxford Uruverslty Press Award Professors One WIllIam Long, WIlliams College, Henn M Peyre and Rene Wellek, Yale UruversIty, Ernest J SImmons, ColumbIa UruverSIty, and Ernest Hatch Wllktns, PreSIdent of OberlIn College, and to the officers and edxtors of the Oxford UruversIty Press for thoughtful servIces SInce thIS book won that award Along WIth those I have named and others I have not, they have helped to make possIble what I now present, 'un bvre de bonne fOI' WR Berkeley, Calrfornta March 1953

CONTENTS

FOREWORD, Vll

I New DImensIOns, 3

II 'For the Eye's Dehght,' IS III Presences and Absences, 32 IV 'The World Is My Idea,' 42 V

The Great Dream, 59

VI AesthetIc Ideas, 74 VII LIterary CrItICISm, 92 VIII Many VOIces, 108 IX !romc EqUIlIbrlUm, 133 X The Broken Otadel, 170 XI 'FurtIve Foster Father,' 178 XII Irony and Legend, 192 XIII Crane and Laforgue, 2 I 3 XIV Lunar Prose, 223 XV MUSIC of Ideas, 233 NOTES,243 BffiLIOGRAPHY, INDEX,

293

263

ILLUSTRATIONS

JULES LL\.FORGt..E

Unter den Ltnden, 1885, frontIspiece 'J'AI PASSE L'AGE TIMIDE'

UnpublIshed verse, 19 'FETE DE .... UIT INAUGURATION DU LION DE BELFORT,'

'CE PAYSAGE D'EN FACE,' 31 EARLY VERSE AND SKETCHES,

47

'UN CIEL DU SOIR PLUVIEUX'

Unpub/tshed verse, 1886, 99 TO EMILE,

1886

'Je me SOU'l.Jtens du temps aU 1e POTtms Bourget,' SKETCHES, C

a

142

1886, 168

A WHEEL OF LIFE

As concewed by Paul-Josepb CbenavllTd md Jules Laforgue, 237

28

JULES LAFORGUE and the lrome Inherttanee

Aber das Wehende hore, dte ununterbrochene N achrzcht, dte aus Sttlle stch btldet Es rauscht Jetzt von Jenen Jungen Toten zu dzr RAINER MARLA RILKE

I

New DImensIons

THE works of Jules Laforgue acqUIre ne\~ dlmensIOns \vlth the passage of tlme Of course, the poet hlmself remams what he has been ever smce 1887, when rus bnef hfe ended before It had properly begun-an evaSlve moonlIt presence peenng over the tops of doors and laughmg at rus forebears, as Paul Verlame wrote of Plerrot m a poem that ranks next to Laforgue's m the wntmgs about that well-loved clown There are tlmes-perhaps a trIck of lIght, a cloud across the moon, or the pathos of distance-when It seems to us that the wraIth-lIke figure has changed Then Verlame's sonnet comes to mmd

Ce n' est plus Ie reveur lunatre du wetl mr Qut runt aux ateux dans les dessus de porte, Sa gatti, comme sa chandelle, hilas' est marte, Et son spectre aUJourd'hut nous hante, 'lmnce et clatr It may seem to us at these tlmes that Laforgue, lIke Plerrot, whom he brought to lIterary perfectlon, has taken on tragIC dunensions, once unsuspected, and we are haunted by a pale and slender specter But then, after a moment, we find rus gaiety mtact, hls candle stIll alIght, and we are very glad that we were wrong Laforgue, the essential Laforgue, wIll never change He wIll sunply have, for hls amusement, a lengthenmg hne of lIterary descendants to add to hls lIterary antecedents The number of hls publIshed wntmgs has mcreased, however So much addttIonal verse and prose has come to hght m the 3

4

Jt.LES L"'FORGUE A.... D THE IROXIC INHERITAIIoCE

last half.century that the 'two small volumes, one of prose, the other of verse,' 1 to wruch Arthur Symons rashly sought to con· fine all of the poet's works, have somehow been transformed mto eIght qUlte bulky ones It turns out that Laforgue produced more verse than most poets smce Baude1aJIe-verse, moreover, that reflects contmual development and falls IOto at least three penods He ",as the author of tales In expenmental prose, 10 addltlon to an early llO'Vella and many fragments that demonstrate how easuyand ",ell he could wnte 10 a realIstIc vern PotentIally a lIterary cntlc of the first order, 10 rus remarks on Baudelarre partIcularly Laforgue has commanded respect from hard-bItten hlstonans who have found hts creatlve work beWlldenng If rus art CntlClSDl falls somewhat below hIs usual level, that 15 because It was tampered WIth by overcautlous edItors whIle the author was snll very young and unknown, Its value as eVIdence of a strong plastIc sense 15 consIderable There IS a whole volume of vlVld cntlClSm of Germany, where Laforgue spent nearly five years of productlve exIle Fmally, and In some ways most Slg· ruficantly of all, thIs young poet had an uncommon flarr for specu· latlve thought-wruch, because It was genUIne, was never pon· derous, heavy-footed or forblddmg HlS COpIOUS notes toward an aesthetlcs kept commg out In the reVIews for years after h15 death, many must snll be consulted 10 manuscnpt It IS not dlflicuIt to find contradlctlons 10 Jottmgs that the author lacked the tune to sut, to alIgn Nevertheless, these Jottmgs represent an attempt of a k10d made by no other poet of the penod-an effort to come to gnps WIth contemporary phIlosophIcal and scIennfic Ideas at first hand All thIS 15 no slender accomplIshment for a moonstruck dreamer dead at twenty·seven, one who complamed so often of ennw, 'frwt of dull lack of CunOSlty,' as Baudelalre defined It, and who has usually been counted WIth the SymbolISts, poets not COnspICUOUS for then- lntellectual endeavor But then Laforgue 15 full of surpnses, dIsavowals, and hts work, whether 10 two volumes or In eIght, has never fit neatly lllto familiar pIgeonholes Born In 1860, he was a contemporary of the men who gathered round MaIlarme, he knew then- auns and contnbuted to theIr magazmes He was oIlly five years older than WIlham Butler

NEW DIME.... SIO},S

5

Yeats, and hardly more the semor of Proust, Valery, and Gide, who put Symbolist lessons to account In the L\ventieth century He was exposed to and had his own way of descnbIng the forces that shaped the SymbolIsts the 'packed and blIndIng' 2 poems of Leconte de Lisle and his Parnasslans, ~ ho made their readers see thIngs clearly, all too clearly, the 'plaIntively nervous' 3 poetry of Baudelaire, POInt of departure for all modern poets, the 'technIcal cunnIng' 4 of the most gIfted of SIngers, VerlaIne Rather late In his career he read RImbaud, 'precocIouS, absolute flower without before or after' 5 And yet Laforgue, who read and responded to the older poets dunng formative years, takes his place among these Imtiators of the SymbolIst movement rather than wIth the true SymbolIsts among whom he has been ranged and the problems of whose poetry he raIses Mallarme wrote that the pure poet 'yIelds the InItIative to the Word' 6 HIS disCIples trIed to do Just that And Albert Thlbaudet, one of the best cntics of SymbolIsm, took up Mallarme's thought In an effort to formulate the dIstInCtiVe quahty of the greatest of the SymbolIsts In Mallarme's verse, he saId, the InItIative IS left to the Word as, In the mystique of pure love, the lmtiative IS left to God In the begInmng of the poem there eXists a frame, an emotive tone, a receptive VOId, an aVaIlability, as, In the begInnmg of pure love, there eXiSts the IndiVIdual Upon this frame, consummatIng It, acts the enchantIng and transfigunng power of words whIch the poet summons up, to whose operation he surrenders hImself 7 There IS probably confusIon here between myStIc and magtcIan For the mystic summons nothIng He merely walts And Mallarme conceived the poet as one possessIng magIcal, quasI-dIVIne powers Le Mattre, par un oetl profrmd, a, sur ses pas, Apatse de Nden fmquzete mervezlle Dont Ie frtsson final, dans sa VOtX seule, evetlle Pour la Rose et Ie Lys Ie mystere d'un nom The Master, WIth hIS deep eye, has, In rus path, Appeased the restless mystery of that Eden Whose final shudder In lus VOIce awakens For LIly and Rose the mystery of a name

6

jLLES L~FORGLE ~"D THE IROl\IC I:r-.HERITAVCE

Yet trus VISIOn of the poet as one who ,,,ruts "WIth a mystIc'S reCeptIVlty for the ,\ ord that b10ds a spell, the "" ord that wIll really have power to call up, to create by bestow1Og a name, to create even man and woman (for that IS the mean10g of LIly and Rose 10 Mallarme's 'Toast funebre'), applies to Mallanne at hIS most 1Otense, and to Va16ry at rus best, and th.t.s IS the Ideal that other Symbolists sought to approXimate Language was regarded wIth a long-lost reverence The magIcal word religIOusly awaIted had, for the Symbolists, sometrung 10 common wIth the dIv10e Word, the Logos A fine cntIc such as Charles Du Bos 8 could quote, apropos of the language of Stefan George, a German Symbolist, the opemng verse of St John's Gospel, and the effect IS not nearly so 1Ocongruous as we mIght have e-xpected It would be too much to say that Laforgue expenenced any such shudder as trus before the Word thus held sacred He reVIsed a good deal on occaSIOn, but the correctIOns seem to have come as the first draft came, wIth a qUite un-Mallarrnean facilIty He was capable of WrIting carelessly, and sometimes we Wish that there were a little more mystical reCeptiVIty or prophetIC serIousness about hIm Underneath there 15 always the abundance, the facility, the sheer unmrubited gIft of language That 15 why he never attams certam 10tensltles to be found m the work of lesser men, mtensItleS 10duced only by resIStances, by h10drances of one k10d or another And yet Laforgue was, In the sober estImate of the best Judges of hIS tlme, a gemusnot one of those who slowly and prunfully dIScover theIr personal VISIon of the world, but one who naturally, WIth lIttle effort, opens new wmdows on reality When ThIbaudet observed that VIctor Hugo's words overBow 10 a powerful stream, that Theodore de BanVIlle's spread out In an easy nver, but Mallarme's 'ooze forth 10 an mhuman chmate, slowly fonn the stalactItes of marvelous poetry,' 9 he was touchmg on another essential charactenstIc of SymbolIsm From BaudelaIre onward, poets gave a promInent place to Jewels, metals, stony, ~ess landscapes, and such 'dehumaruzed' Imagery In part thIS was only an apparent reJectlon of the accustomed lush Imagery of nmeteentb.-century poetry The devIl-the fallen

NEW DIMENSIONS

7 angel-of senttment came back WIth seven other SpIrIts more WIcked than hunself to repossess a house that he found thus swept and gamIshed Man's noble emottons were thrown mto Ingher rehef by the reJectton of tnVlal or facIle ones that found theIr reachest eqUIvalents 10 a humaruzed landscape To some extent, however, It must be admItted that the Symbohsts were sImply not mterested 10 that general fund of feehngs wInch had furrushed the subject matter of Romanttc poetry In tIns respect, they resemble theIr ImmedIate predecessors, the Parnasslans, and they are the poorer for tlus Laforgue was aware of the poettc utthty of the dehumaruzed, could find Images to fit a wasteland of lus own The moon IS gIven a chmate and geograpIncal features such as these Ow, c'est l'automne t1J.ctmtatotre et pe'l'1'J1llnent Sans thermometre, embaumant mers et contments, Etangs aveugles, lacs ophtalmtques, fontames lO De Lethe, cendres d'atr, deserts de porcelatne

Yes, tIns IS autumn permanent and fixed, Thermometerless, balm of seas and lands, Bhnd pools, ophthalmIc lakes, obhvlOUS FountaInS, ashes of rur, porcelam badlands Here he IS wnttng 10 a style that was to be culttvated extensIvely untIl about 1925 ThIS passage, however, IS not typICal of Laforgue's verse, wInch IS, 10 the malO, human, all too human, denvmg some of lts most charactensttc effects from the moods and meters of popular songs In neIther the good nor the bad sense IS Ins verse 'dehumaruzed' NeIther an overruhng paSSIOn nor a SImulated concern for form throws Ins subject matter mto a posltton of secondary Importance In speakmg of the mUSIcal quahttes of Symbohst poetry, we are on familiar ground, Valery havmg wntten that 'what was chnstened Symbohsm can be summed up qUIte SlDlply 10 the common mtentlOn of several groups of poets (hostIle to one another, mCIdentally) to take back from mUSIC theIr own' I I TIns utterance of Valery had been preceded, as was so often the

8

.

]LLLS Lo\FORG"LE O\1'.D THE IRONIC hHERITANCE

case, bv a sInular one of \tfallarme 'MUSIC reJoinS the verse to form, SInce \Vagner, poetrv' 12 It mIght be dIfficult to deCIde \\ ruch e"\.actlv among the propertles of poetry, lost a will.le to mUSIC, were found agam durmg the Symbohst penod VerlaIne "as that rara tf1J1S a discoverer of ongInal rhythmIC patterns, ne\'\> vowel melodIes that have sung In the ears of poets ever SInce Rene Ghil \\ as persuaded that poets had neglected the resources and techruque of InstrumentatIOn, that vowels and consonants, each \\ Ith Its own tImbre, could have InstrumentlIke effects ThIS ''II as an mstructIve error In that It showed how mUSIC and poetry overlapped In the average poetic mInd of 1886 Gustave Kahn, Laforgue's fnend and a Symbohst of the kInd that flounshed dunng the bnef offiCIal bfe of the school, wrote ImprecIse, vaguely sonorous, Wagnenan verse Mallarme endeavored to bnng to poetry a qualIty It had never before possessed, an abstractness that would have Invested words -no longer SIgnS, no longer pOInters to thIngs-wIth the selfsuffiCIency of musIcal notes Valery'S often-quoted formulation of the SymbolIst aim IS valuable though vague The musIcal Intention was fundamental, and closely related to the am of a poet from whose attitudes and techrnques Valery held hImself aloof 'Que ton vers SOIt la chose envolee,' VerlaIne had wntten MUSIC IS the art of the thIng 10 :flIght, the essentially dynamIC art contrastIng radIcally WIth the pictonal, the statiC And pure poetry seems to share WIth mUSIC the dynanuc quality It IS the prOVInce of the plastic arts, of paIntIng and sculpture, to present contours and colors, to reproduce In some measure And It was the 1OtentIOn of ParnaSSIan poets to descnbe, to present the clearest possIble Images of matenal obJects But ImagmatIve wntIng at Its most concentrated, when It IS dOIng the task most umquely Its own, tends to aVOId tellmg how thIngs look or are otherwISe perceIved by the senses It neglects descnptIon and Instead shows objects 10 actIOn In the verse of Mallarme's mature penod we are consCIOUS that he had outgrown PamassIan emphasIS on the pIctOrIal, the sculptural, that he IS descnbmg less and dramatIZIng more, till Un Coup de 15 the barest, most skeletal representation pOSSIble of the lunges and recOIls, the Antosse, of the ego developIng self-

Des

9

conscIOusness To the extent that Valery reltes on more or less labonous descrIptIon, as he does In sectIons of La Jenne Parque, hIS verse 18 less purely poetIC than Mallarme's Symboltst poetry 18 mUSIcal In that It IS dynamIc It 18 musIcal In other ways, too, has rare rhythmIcal and melodIC qualttIes, perhaps even unusual tone color, for the Symbohsts were the most self-conscIOus of poets, bent on realIzmg all the potentlalltleS of theIr medIUm Laforgue's poetry "as certaInly d" namIC, In Its own speCIal way, but It lacks some of the more ObVIOUS mUSIcal traIts It IS not very melodIOUS, for eAample, except when the ImItatIOn of Verlame IS close, or the modehng on a popular rur IS patent, or when the alexandrIne IS of the tradltlonal, conventIonal vanetv Laforgue dIscovered new rhythmIC patterns -he was the only authentic French poet of hIS tIme who wrote any conSIderable amount of free verse, but as hIS contemporanes nghtly observed, he ",as not Interested 10 his free-verse lInes as mUSIcal urnts Rather, he was concerned ," Ith thell" 'psychologIcal' umty There IS no particular expenmentatIon WIth tone color, or WIth the stIlI less tangtble mUSIcal resources On the other hand, there IS more statIC nnagery here than 10 most SymbolIst poetry Laforgue prunts, or etches, memorable word pIctures that remmd us of ImagIst verse of the AngloAmencan poetIc renascence A travers Ie lacts des brtmcbes depomltees Dont l'eau-t0rte sabratt Ie ctel bleu-clatr et trotd, Solttatre et navrant, descendatt l'astre-roz

Across the network of denuded boughs Whose etchIngs carved the cold and clear-blue sky, Lonely and heart-brealang declIned the sovereIgn star en ce Pans, 1ardm Obtus et cmc, l1!Vec son bOU'rgeots de Jourdatn A reveurs, ses vztrllUX tardes, ses vzeux dt'11'lD'l/.ches Dans les quartters ttmnes ou regardent des brancbes Par-dessus les m:urs des penstonnats

lO

JULES LAFORGUE Al-oD THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

m tlus ParIS, obtuse And styhsh garden, wIth Its bourgeoIs Jordan Haunted by dreamers, pnmped wmdo,,", s, stodgy Sundays In weaned quarters where the branches peer Over the walls of gIrls' dormItOnes -Un fin sozcrtre (tel ce trumgle d' ozseaux D'exzl sur ce czel grtS') peut traverser mes heures

-A delIcate sITIlle (lIke that bIrd-trIangle Of eXlle on gray sky!) can traverse my hours Such lInes have theIr share of the verbs that lend VIvIdness to verse naked branches carve the sky, others stare over walls, a delIcately traced smIle persIsts through the hours And yet thIs IS verse m wluch the plastic traIts predommate Trus IS descnptIon, though far from ponderous-sWIft ImpressIOwstIc descnptIon The attentIOn to plastIc detaIl IS the kmd that R.J.lke learned from close aSSOCIation WIth Rodm Some of the objects are 'small, dry thmgs' of the kInd to wruch T E Hulme turned poets' attentIon These lInes of Laforgue are, m other words, emmendy modem, and take theIr place m the maIn current of wneteenthand twentIeth-century poetry But they do not smg, or they SIng In no ordInary fashIon We must try to clanfy the d1:fference from the true SymbolIsts that both Laforgue and hIS contemporanes recogruzed HIStorIcally speakIng, Laforgue began to WrIte a lIttle earlIer than the men who, after hIs mam work was done, began to call themselves SymbolIsts HIS partIcular subjects of admIratIon were the young Paul Bourget (author of delIcate deSCrIptIve verse mspIred In part by the EnglIsh Lake Poets), the Goncourt brothers, and Jons-Karl Huysmans Bourget confumed In hun Ius natural Impulse to probe surgIcally Into the passIOns of the eternal masculIne and femmIne, 1.0 dramatIc lyncs that always verge on verse drama (and once found that form), or In prose mrratlves--and to tell of hIS findIngs unnustakabIy and explIcidy rather than symbohcally UnhappIly, Laforgue also picked up from Bourget some of Ins 'a-quOl-bomsme: hIs fasluonable and

NEW DIMENSIONS

II

facIle 'what's the good of It all' attltude, whIch dId not senously crIpple hIs aCtlVIty but whIch 15 often, on the face of It, dIsagreeable The Goncourts passed on to Lafargue theIr pasSIon for the eIghteenth century, Its pamters and theIr landscapes, the stybzed figures of Its comedy and pantomIme, even, for a tIme, theIr naturalIsm, theIr conVlCtlOn that heredIty and enVIronment shape human bemgs 10 mevitable, sCIentlfically observable "\\ays Moreover-alack, and rue the day-the Goncourts contammated Lafargue wIth theIr 'ecnture artIste,' theIr twISted, snarled, and altogether deplorable manner of wntlng prose From Huysmans the young Lafargue acquIred a whole aesthetICS, ultImately traceable to Baudelarre and the Romantlcs, It IS true, a theory of the beautlful that led htm to welcome IOta hIs verse urban and suburban Imagery, grotesquenes of modem mdustry that selfrespectlng SymbolIsts regarded as unfit for poetry It IS noteworthy that the Goncourts and Huysmans had strong tles WIth pamters, and none of these three masters of Lafargue felt any speCIal attractlon to mUSIC For all these reasons, Lafargue dtd not partICIpate 10 that complex revulSIon agamst mId-century modes of thought, feel109, and expreSSIOn whIch was SymbolIsm The clImate of Ideas that helped to form htm, about 1880, was dtsnnctly dIfferent from that of 1886 At the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Tame was delIvenng lectures-applIcatIons of hIs determtrustlc method 10 Its extreme form-whIch at once fascmated and repelled Lafargue Ernest Renan was apparently stlll busy WIth hIS study of the hIstory of relIgIOns, mamtammg some remnant of hIs faIth 10 the future of SCIence It had not yet become clear, as It dId WIth the publIcatIon of the SouvenzTs 10 1883, that Renan was an aged and undIScnmmatlng skept:lc who dId not really belIeve 10 anythIng At the College de France, Theodule RIbot was expoundmg phIlosophIcal and sClentlfic Ideas, subsequently wnnng them down WIth a clarIty and VIgor remInlscent of Thomas Huxley and Herbert Spencer-whose works, full of faIth 10 evolutIOn, Lafargue also pondered In the domam of art, the ImpreSSIOmsts were paIntlng PICtures calculated to 'make a cab-horse rear,' as a conservanve crItiC put It, and certaIn to make an enthUSIastic dIscIple of a young

12

lLLES L4.FORGLE '\1\D THE IROXIC I:lo.HERITANCI:

poet who was no mean draftsman hunself If It were equItable to borro,," a pamter's term for a man of letters, Laforgue l1l1ght be descnbed as an ImpressIOnIst, for he set out, lIke Manet and Degas, Renolr and Seurat, to capture the beauty of the commonplace under ever-changtng lIght He became one of the embattled advocates of these artISts, wrote about them wIth an excltement that IS bound to remmd the EnglIsh reader of George Moore-the first to wnte about Laforgue In EnglIsh, IncIdentally -not to mentlon James GIbbons Huneker, whose first flIght to Pans comcided "" Ith Laforgue's earlIest years there The lIterary world of 1880 was a world On the Eve As we look backward, It IS easy enough to see that the sIgn had already been gIven, that Mallarme had been publIshmg conspIcuously for some fifteen years However, the Mallarme of 1880 was apparently whIlmg away hIS tlme In trIfung purSUIts The publIcatIon of Huysmans' A Rebours In 1884, wIth Its aesthete-hero pro· clalffimg hIs devotIon to all that was 'decadent' and to Mallarme, changed everythmg so far as Mallarme was concerned and brought the young men flockmg round to form one of those groups wIthout whIch a hterary movement can never get under way In France Mallarme's apartment In the Rue de Rome became a rallymg POInt Laforgue flOUrIshed somewhat In advance, hIS course took hIm a lIttle to one SIde of the mam movement, partly because early experIence had deepened personal qualItles that made It dIfficult for hlffi to gtve hImself to any lIterary movement, partly because Ctrcumstances led hIm to spend Ius most productlve years outsIde France But Laforgue. who was not qUIte a SymbolIst, was consummately htmself HIS verse IS free of some of the faults, the excesses, the blur of the SymbolIsts' Now, nearly three quarters of a century after Laforgue's death, the lessons of SymbolIsm have been learned, apphed, and, so far as actIve poets are concerned. largely forgotten Once more poets dIscourse openly on actIOns, SItuatlons, Ideas A symbol, accordIng to the useful defirutIOn gIVen by Jules Lemairre, IS a prolonged comparIson of whIch the first term IS suppressed-a system of sustaIned metaphors The symbol, the truncated and mystenous comparIson, IS rare In

NEW DnIENsIO.... S

Anglo-AmerIcan poetry SInce ElIot, In French SInce Fargue, In Sparush SInce AlbertI The younger poets are more dIrect, sometImes perhaps for lack of the mtensity that gIves multIple meanIngs to language, but sometImes, too, because of the conflIctIng urgencIes of thIngs to say For the poetry on thIS SIde of SymbolIsm IS not, any more than was Laforgue's on the other, out of touch '\\.Ith hfe and contemporary Ideas Once more, as In 1880, concepts are expressed In verse whose quahty depends on Its style, whIch m turn usually rehes on one or another of the varIeties of WIt Laforgue has much to teach the mterested student of verse at the present tIme 'The poetry's the thIng' where any poet IS concerned, and thIS study IS focused on two volumes of verse and a book of tales closely appertaInmg thereto For reasons already suggested, however, Laforgue "" ould suffer serIOusly from an eXamInatIOn lImIted to hIS poetry alone HIS verse IS far from beIng 'pure,' self-sustaInIng, analyzable m and for Itself It carrIes a rIch freIght of Ideas worthy of exanunatIon Furthermore, hIS career havIng been cut off so soon, the questIon of Influence becomes somethmg lIke a questIOn of prolongation, of observIng how dIScoverIes he made have found theIr applIcation In the works of other men Fmally, Laforgue's hfe IS as mterestIng as that of most pure poets IS dull, and It would be a hfeless tome that would neglect what MIguel de Unamuno called 'mtImate blography'espeCIally In the lIght of many facts not prevIOusly committed to pnnt ThIS book represents an attempt to tell a poet's story, to dIscuss hIS thought, verse, and ImagInatIve prose, ills hterary cntlCIsm, and the Impact of hIS work, all wIthout undue fragmentatIOn AccordIngly, Chapters II, III, v, and x are maInly devoted to Laforgue's hfe, and portIons of mtervenmg chapters fill In the account The fourth chapter IS concerned for the most part WIth reactIons to the IdealIstIc philosophy of the century and to such SCIentIfic and pseudo-sclenttfic Ideas as the poet drew mto hIS verse Chapter VI deals WIth notes on aesthetIc qUestlons, WIth Laforgue as dISCIple of the Romantic phtlosophers, espectally Eduard von Hartmann, phtlosopher of the UnconsCIOUS, and FrIednch SchellIng In the seventh chapter, Laforgue IS dIscussed

14

JLLES L4.FORGuE A....,n THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

as a ltterary cnttc, and m VIII and I\. as Iromc poet and storyteller Nearly all verse and prose passages are translated, except when the pomt IS one of prosody Later chapters center on certam lunar syntheses acrueved m France and Amenca Laforgue's daemomc possessIOn of T S ElIot IS reasonably familiar, although the consequences bear closer scruttny Less well known are the lunar Influences on Hart Crane, the good gIant James Huneker, and Frances Newman, a lIbranan-cnttc-noveIISt from Atlanta, GeorgIa, who translated Laforgue's Moral Tales, dedIcated them to the moonlIt memory of theIr author, and had them bound m deep-mourmng Violet because, as Laforgue SaId more than once, Le 'lltoiet grand-dewl, c'est rna couleur locale

II

'For the Eye's Dehght' And yet It IS Just tlus, tlus mnmate bIography, whlch explams the most to us

MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO


16

J'lLES LUORGtJE A:t-.D THE IRONIC INHERITlliCE

was born In the same CIty of a famIly from Orthez And untold numbers of plam bourgeoIs, from the eIghteenth century nght do\\>n to the present, respectable C1tIZens of the Beam and Na\-arre, have gone off to South Amenca to seek therr fortunes, planrung to return and spend theIr dechmng years In theIr provmce, there to be known pIcturesquely as 'Amencans' Charles Laforgue, the mIsanthropIC, footloose, pure-hearted Gascon, dtd not make hIS fortune, exactly He became, after a few prehmmary hesItatIOns, a teacher Taken to MontevIdeo In 1842 at the age of eIght, he was brought up and educated there, turnIng mto a serIOUS, reserved young man devoted to the poetry of LamartIne and the Ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau He named hIs eldest son EmIle, and Ius second son Jules, after one of those Roman heroes whom Rousseau revered Charles Laforgue became an expert penman, but lost hIs nght hand as the result of a hunttng aCCIdent, and m 1858 founded a lIttle French lycee m the Calle RIncon In MontevIdeo The same year he marrIed one of hIS pupIls, PaulIne Lacolley, who had been born In Cherbourg eIghteen years before Her father, LOUIS LacoUey, had been a French leglOnnarre m the long and savage war of Independence fought by Uruguay agaInst ArgentIna, and had rustIngUlShed hunself In one of Its pnncipal battles before settlIng down as a bootmaker-the bootmaker of the town, by all accounts-WIth a fine shop In the Calle 25 de Mayo Grandfather Lacolley's military recollections were VIVId, and when another war broke out In 1865, between Uruguay and Paraguay thIS time, and the boys played soldiers m the marshland outslde the City, he had herOIC tales to tell of the nme years' Siege of MonteVIdeo Jules Laforgue was born In the dead of a South Amencan wroter, on 16 August 1860, In a house beanng the name La SIrena, On the corner of the Calle Juncal and the west SIde of the Plaza de la IndependenCIa He was to rue In Pans on 20 August 1887, and a generation of cntIcs lIked to maIntain that he had been born Just twenty-seven years before, on 20 August But SInCe the certIficate of baptISm was turned up among the papers of the Church of San FrancISCO de As£s, there has been

'FOR

THE EYE'S DELIGHT'

17

no room for doubt as to the real bIrth date of 'un parvulo JulIo, que naCIO el dia dIez y seiS del presente, ruJo legitImo de don Carlos Lafargue y de dona PaulIna Lacolley, naturales de FrancIa' The poet was to retam clear memones of a checkerboard City With the regular, rectangular streets charactenstIc of coloma! towns, a CIty built on a gramte pemnsula, slopmg down on three sIdes to the broad Rio de la Plata He would remember the wmds that howled over the exposed pomt of land 'In MontevIdeo the wmdy weeks rushed by Sundays we would go a long way wIth grandmother, all dressed up, peelIng bananas, to eat a galette With dIstant relatIves who kept a bakery There were rats behInd the sacks' a The proprIetor of the Panaderia del Sol, for so the bakery was called, was a not-so-dIstant relative, Pascal Darre, a first cousm of Charles Lafargue who '" as shortly to retire to Tarbes, where he would playa consIderable part m the subsequent lIves of the Laforgues 'Another Sunday,' Jules would recall, 'we mIght go to the uncle's who owned a factory How nch everythIng seemed I Two boy COUSIns, adolescents, would already be off horseback ndmg Two gIrl COUSIns would be on hand ' 4 These relatives are umdentdied, but the poor-relation sentiments have their mterest Jules attended, bnefly and desultonly, hIS father's lycee There, as m the two schools he attended later on, he was dreamy and lIstless, and the wartime atmosphere was encouragmg to truancy He used to wander off toward the green shade of a suburb called the Paso del MolIno A lIttle further on was another mVItIng retreat, a park belongmg to a nch German, Jose Buschenthal Arnencan expenences were bnef, however Grandfather and grandmother Laforgue wanted to see the homeland agam before they dIed Moreover, the lIttle school, whIch had never prospered, now collapsed entirely, and Charles Laforgue had to go to work as a bookkeeper m the Calle Cerrito In 1866 he declded to send hIS parents, wIfe, and five cruldren-EmIle, Jules, Mane, Madeleme, and Charles-off to Tarbes, planmng to Jom them there m a year It was from the deck of a sallIng vessel (the captain was

18

JLLES L>\FORGuE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

an acquaIntance of Charles Laforgue) that Jules saw chsappearmg behInd hun the low and level coast lme broken by the Cerro, the abrupt hill '\Vest of the CIty, WIth Its out-of-date dungeon on top In nud-AtlantIc the slup was becalmed for three ,\, eeks, and the voyage to Bordeaux took no less than seventy:five days One after another the duldren fell Ill-'with ennUI,' 5 saId the slup's doctor, who could offer no better ruagnosis The captam traced the general ill luck to the breakmg of a IIl1!ror soon after the passengers had come aboard Jules saw sunsets that he never forgot Nor chd he forget Ius :fits of depressIon dunng the Internunable voyage 'I am prochglOusly bored,' he ""rote from Germany m 1883 'Smce I crossed the Atlantic I have never expenenced such black :fits of spleen' ~ Tarbes m the departement of the Hautes-Pyrenees IS, as Stendhal observed m hts Voyage dttns Ie Mzdz, 'a honzontal town If there ever was one' On unusually fine days, the snow-covered PIC du MIdI de Bigorre can be seen to the south-but the Tarba15 consIder such VISIbility onunous, a SIgn of ram Twenty kllometers up the valley of the Adour 15 Bagneres-de-Blgorre, one of the greenest of mountaIn resorts But the lower valley lacks the mterest of the Landes, the heath and pme country to the north, or the country slopmg down toward Blarntz and SamtJean-de-Luz on the west, or the vme-growmg valleys of the eastern Pyrenees It IS chIefly dlstlngwshed for the growmg of field corn Tarbes m 1866 (It has not changed greatly smce) was a dun-walled, red-tiled town of twenty thousand, a selfsuffiCIent proVInCial center of the kmd one finds scattered over France, WIth small bUSInesses and mdustnes mlrusterIng to broad farmlands, an mgrown, small-mmded place long untouched by wars, food shortages, or Ideas Here Jules Laforgue was to spend some of Ius most susceptible years As he wrote m a bIt of verse heretofore unpubhshed

J'(.U passe rage ttmzde DtmS 1m stllgnant pays au pese 1m cJel tomtie Sur "en que des chtmlps de 'HUllS

'FOR THE EYE'S DELIGHT'

TUlles, choux, commeres du wzsznage, C'est Ja que 1'm passe mon bel age Et Ian Ian

la,

C'est la' Ces bellUx ramters de fmcurze

'I'

I passed the turud age In a stagnant country-sIde Where endless cornfields bear The hot welght of the sky Tues, cabbages, tongue-waggmg old gOOdWIVesAnd there I passed my young hfe, There, there, nowhere But there I Those gentle rmgdoves of mrufference

'J'AI PASsE L'AGE TIMmE'

UnpublIShed verse

19

20

JULES LAFORGUE MD THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

That first, ear the Laforgues ltved 10 the modest rue Sa1OtLoU1s, now the rue Abbe Tome, Just across from the present entrance to the Lower School In 1868 Charles Laforgue arnved, not to stay wIth rus famIly, but to take all except the two oldest boys back '" Ith hun to MontevIdeo, where lIv10g was after all, he had decIded, cheaper EmIle and Jules were left behInd, to become board1Og pupIls at the College Impenal Jules was enrolled at the College-where Th60phIle GautIer and ISIdore Ducasse had been pupIls and FerdInand Foch stIll "as-from I 869 tIll 1876 Dunng these years he receIved only one first pnze, 10 reltgIOus InstructIon He won three seconds, 10 natural SCIence, hIStory, and penmanshIp A pnncipal of the school swnmed It up thIS way 'Dreamy, not very dIltgent, but remarkably 1Otelltgent, young Laforgue was not what at the lycee IS called a good pupil's But the centers of 1Oterest, relIgIOn, SCIence, and hIStory, are sIgruficant We can approach Jules' lIfe at Tarbes by way of references In hIs own wntIngs and through teStImony of those who knew hIm HIS publIshed verse and later prose are relatIvely barren of recollectIons There are generaltzed memones VOtCt venZT les plmes d'zme pattence d'ange 9 C'est la taux dans les dortotrs du lycee qm rentre, C'est la ttsane SImS Ie foyer 10

Now do the UnreIDltt1ng rams descend The cough down corndors where school resumes, The potIon tendered by no fnendly hand But these IDlght be the feelIngs of almost any ImpreSSIOnable schoolboy Laforgue's early works 10clude one revealtng tale, long buned and not publtshed untIl 1946 Stephane Vasstltew IS the story of a nuruature extle In a lycee of southwestern France Stephane's parents are somewhere In RUSSIa, mstead of South Amenca, and they are nch, so that Stephane 15 the sltghtly etlOlated outgrowth of luxury He IS all alone mstead of havIng cousms on the rue

'FOR THE EYE'S DELIGHT'

21

Massey m Tarbes, and at the end of the narratIve he dIes somewhat too rapIdly of gallopmg tuberculosIs But these are nunor transposItIOns, and m all lffiportant respects Stepbtme Vasszlte"W, an early tale by a poet, 18 transparently autoblOgraprucal Young Stephane IS utterly desolate withm the ugly precmcts of hIS school 'Son spleen lUI Vient de tout' the rigId routIne, the bare stone walls, the graveled courtyard, planted wIth meager plane trees, where he does not Jom m the games We find the first mention of Phlloctetes, a figure that IS to reappear at every stage of Laforgue's work Suffering from an advanced case of crulblams (as a boy commg from RussIa would not be, but as Jules actually was), an affuctIon that makes It ImposSIble for hun to go outdoors, Stephane confides to the teller of the tale that a smgle book comforted rum, Fenelon's Telernaque, 'especIally the pages m wruch Pruloctetes tells how he was abandoned on the Isle of Lenmos because of the contagIOn spread abroad m the Greek camp by the wound that was deVOUring hIS foot Stephane feels rushes of mfimte consolatIon as he reads and rereads the words "I was alone for almost the whole tIme of the SIege of Troy, wIthout help, WIthout hope, wIthout relIef f'" And he has underlIned the followmg passage 'Trus Wild, umnhablted Island where I heard only the sound of the sea breakmg agamst the rocks For I was asleep when the Greeks abandoned me Imagme my terror when I awoke and saw the srups dlSappearmg across the waves' 0 shoresl 0 promontOries of thIS Island' To you I make my lament Who else would hear me~ You are accustomed to my lamentatlons' • "The myth of Phlloctetes, the hero who denved a mysterIOUS VlttUe from hIS suffenng, has attracted much attentlon from cnncs See (besIdes Andre GIde's versIon of the legend and 'Phuoctetes the Wound and the Bow' In Edmund Wuson's The Wound and the Bow) 'The Ghost of Henry James,' by Saul RosensweIg, In The Pttrtzsan Revzew for Wmter, I944 Mr RosensweIg finds what he calls 'the sacIlficIal roors' of James' lIterary power In the obscure mJury he suffered at the age of eIghteen-thus redlscovenng the pattern of Wllson's book, to whlch he refers In the next ISSUe of The Part~san Revzew, LlOnel Trillmg objects (as he has contmued to do SInce then) to the notion that power spnngs from pam and neurotic sacnfiee LIterary men make thel! dIfficulnes publIc, as doctors, for example, do not, but the wnter's talents are as mdependent of hls expenence as the surgeon's The Phlloctetes myth, Trillmg mamtams, IS not explanatory but moral 'It tells us, m Its JuxtapOSItIOn of the wound and the bow,

22

JULES LAFORGUE A!\D THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

The term 'unconscIOus' recurs m tlus tale wIth a persIstence that already suggests the UnconscIOus of Eduard von Hartmann's Phz/osophze des Unbe<W'ussten Left alone at the lycee durmg the long vacatlons, Stephane wanders m the countrysIde He 'bakes gently m the burrung sun absorbed m the unconSCIOUS fiXIty of thmgs ' He meditates all afternoon besIde a pond 'At the surface of the pool swarms of lnldges danced, suddenly cut through by fughts of swallows that drank as they flew A cool wmd rose over the meadows, bnngmg wIth It the healthy smell of freshly mown hay The poplar leaves danced With a sllvery sound In the distance, herds turned homeward m huge clouds of dust Carts passed, theIr axles grmdmg Stephane rose, drunken, almost weavmg from tills day passed utterly absorbed m the vast unconSCIOUS lIfe of nature' Stephane IS lIke Shelley's poet m Prometheus Unbound He WIll watch from dawn to gloom The lake-reflected sun Illume The yellow bees m the Ivy-bloom He IS lIke Lamarone (Charles Laforgue's favonte poet), bent above the brook m ills nanve valley

La frrdcheur de leurs ltts, l'ombre quz les couro'll'lle, M'enchatnem tout Ie Jour sur les bards des ruzsserrux, Comme un enfant berte par un chant monotone, Mon ame s'assOUptt au murmure des etrltX The coolness of their beds, by shadow crowned, Bmds me all day above the waters' bnm, Like a chUd lulled by a monotonous round My soul grows drowsy With the sound of them

Agam, Stephane IS lIke George Moore's model wrIter, who reads one book and SIts on a stone m the sun (Moore IS certam to have that we must be aware that weakness does not preclude strength nor strength weakness' So far as Stephane-Laforgue IS concerned, It would seem that the myth a:lforded, precISely, 'mfuute consolaoon'-the moral vlrtUe that must have rendered the other lund avallable, strengthened the will, and so em. Was 1t La Fontame who &alii, 'eest Ie fonds quI manque Ie molUS"

'FOR THE El.E'S DELIGHT'

::3

read some of Laforgue's notes on 'unconscIOus' contemplatIon, pubhshed 10 penochcals of the 'nmetIes, and can help us understand Just what Laforgue meant by surrender to the UnconSCIOUS Nmeteenth-century phIlosoprues of the UnconscIous are only restatements of RomantIc doctnnes of enthusIasm Man IS absorbed by a god that IS VlItUally nature) Toward the end of the story come Stephane's 1OfatuatlOn WIth a CIrcus and Its clowns, his falhng 10 love WIth a pale CIrcus lady, rus desperate break toward unattamable freedom, hIS SWIft tubercular death All this IS cunously prophetIC, as '\\ e shall see Stepbtme Vasszlzew IS mterestmg because of Its RomantIc attItudes-abdicatIon of mtellect, absorptlOn m nature, purSUIt of the ImpossIble, sUlcidalImpulse The figure of the RomantIc sufferer IS enhanced by Its merg10g mto the more fundamental figure of Phlloctetes And m VIew of Laforgue's hterary de\ elopment, It IS worthy of notIce that these attItudes and theIr dramatIc resolutIOns m the narratIve are presented WIthout Irony, straIghtforwardly, andat the end-WIth pathos Nor IS there Irony 10 the fabnc of the prose, WIth Its marufest reverence for the pure Platoruc Imagery of Fenelon Half a dozen years later, Laforgue was to sat1!lze the basaltmonumental, exotIc-mventorymg aspects of Flaubert's style, the style of 'HerodIas,' Salammbo, and the huntIng epISode 10 'La Legende de Samt Juhen l'HospItaher' But his own style m Stepbtme Vasszltew IS heavy WIth Flaubert-the perdurable Flaubert Stephane IS traced m these strokes' touJours des Ill1nes souffreteuses, en toute saISon des foulards d6hcats au cou, tres '-the very frueux, montant pour un nen a l'mfirmene rhythms WIth wruch Flaubert acrueved the same conClSlon The relatIonsrup between Stephane's underlymg attltudes and those of hIS creator IS clear It IS unhkely, however, that this work gIves an accurate ImpresslOn of Laforgue's day-to-day eXIstence at the College Impenal de Tarbes We have the testlmony of an observmg school fnend, Jean Peres, a future psychologISt, who pamts a qUlte un-Vasslhew-hke portraIt of Laforgue as a schoolboy 'He had his share of mtsehtef showed no lack of spontaneIty, the repartee that makes one somebody 10 the schoolboy world I can even say more these youngsters [Jules and Enule]

24

J'LLES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

\vho had come from the other sIde of the ocean to pass theIr boyhood wIthIn the walls of a French lycee enJoyed a certam prestIge In the eyes of theIr comrades because of a touch of newness, freshness dIfficult to descrIbe, and because of the VISIOn of another world they conJured up In the Crusoesque mInds of the schoolboys of those days' 11 There was a profound reserve about the temperament of Jules Laforgue-the ultunate cause of rus defensIve Irony FrIends whom he saw almost dally In BerlIn dId not know that he wrote verse untIl they found hIm correctIng proof for the Complazntes It IS not surpnsmg, Indeed qUIte true to character, that dunng rus school days he should have kept rus deeper feelmgs to hImself UnlIke Stephane, Jules and EmIle had someone to be responsIble for them on Thursdays, fete days, and dUrIng vacatIons ThIS was Pascal Darre, the retIred Montevidean baker, theIr father's first cousm, now hVIng a leIsurely hfe on an acacIa-planted property across from the Massey Gardens Pascal was on the horny-handed SIde and assuredly dId not spOll hIS young relatIons On the other hand, he saw to It that they had regular paIntIng lessons, encouragmg a bent for plastIc art In both boys It IS hard to thInk of the poet as havmg been uncommonly mIserable durIng these years At least one teacher took an Interest In hun, a young studyhall master named Theophile Delcasse, ill spIte or because of an InaUSpICIOUS event One day Jules, turntng around suddenly as the morutor came up behtnd, knocked off h1s eyeglasses, was thunderously reprImanded and sent to detentIon room He took to calling the young man 'Cafardmet' (Snoopy), but student and teacher became good frIends nonetheless Later on m Pans, Delcasse &d hIS best by dmt of pnvate lessons to get Jules through the baccalaureate It was long supposed that the onetune teacher was the author of a frIendly reVIew of the Complttmtes, though It now appears that Laforgue wrote It hunself At least Delcasse let hIS name be used l And It was beCOmIng a well-known name HaVIng tned hIS hand unsuccessfully at playWrIttng, De1casse turned to pohtlcs, where he dtd much better, servIng several tunes as foretgn 1ll1ruster and becommg the archItect of the Anglo-French Entente CordIale

'FOR THE E):E'S DELIGHT'

Jules fell 10 love Her name was l\Iarguente A story of somewhat later vrntage than Stepbane, 'Amours de la qUIOZ1eme annee,' 12 relates 'how at fifteen one changes l I slupped class to go far from town, to roll on the grass and ,,,eep causelessly And every Sunday mornmg, regularly, I found myself stand10g outsIde the church after mass was over, watchmg the gIrls fly off on wmgs of wlute dresses A cntlcal penod, as Joseph Prudhomme well observes, and It was precIsely at thIS tIme that a novel by Balzac took It lOto Its head to fall 1Oto my hands Un Grand H O11'OIze de provtnce aParts I devoured It, I dreamed of It, I had an 10tuItlve VISIon of ParIS That faraway 1Oferno fasclOated me, for Its sake I forgot to eat and drInk LUCIen de Rubempre "as a poet I would be a pa10ter l 'And ImmedIately I broke WIth my comrades, whom I thenceforth regarded as vIle seed of grocers and petnfoggers I spent my spare tIme sketchIng, eIther at the lIbrary or at the museum At rught I worked very late copy1Og Then I began to pamt. JulIen's models, and on Sundays, from eIght m the mornmg tIll SLX m the even1Og, I '" as at the shop of a lIttle plaster-molder whom I had come to know, clear at the other end of town Wlule he poured plaster 10 lus old strung-up molds, I copIed the Danc10g Faun, DIana of Gabu, all the anCIents It was a real cnsIS of work and ambItIOn You can Imagme that love soon )omed m the dance I had already found my Dulcmea At a certam wlOdow m a certam street-I can shut my eyes and see It now'-I had found her It was she

Ie ne te

CO'fmaZS

pas, mats 1e t'az reconrme'

'She must have been at least three years older than I, but she was exqUIsIte 10 her wIStena-framed wmdow, WIth her fine pallor, her great brIght eyes, the eternal blue nbbon In her blond tresses, and her ample embroIdered collar moldmg her shoulders That was all I could see from the street But one day I had a glImpse of her from close at hand I trembled to see m her chm a soft and rosy dImple, a very nest for kISses A look that she cast upon me, a gaze lIke a dy10g gazelle's, firushed me I became qUIte mad The rught was spent m projects Everythmg was over I would love her from afar I would kill myself WIth work I would go to

z6

JuLES LO\FORGtJE MD THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

Pans 1 '\\ ould become famous And I saw myself m the trlUmph of my return, laymg dO'vn my love and glory at her feet 'I "ould have lIked her to be a trIfle more elegIac-her bIrdlIke bram, her great bursts of laughter, mtullldated me, yet 1 adored her-} es, to the pomt of '" eepmg '\\ Ith rage sometImes, at lllght before fallmg asleep , After months of stubborn and devoted tOI~ dunng whIch tIme Marguente pays lIttle attentIon to hIm and appears to be on excellent terms WIth a cousm of hers, one ralOY, chIlly Sunday everung on the way home from the plaster-molder's, thInkIng of Marguente, of her coUSIn, of rus ambItIOns, of ParIS, of the fngId cell m hIs uncle's house to whIch he IS returnmg, he sees Marguente's '''mdow bnghtly lIt and hears mUSIC and laughter A party IS gomg on He throws a rock through the pane and spends the rught In Jall-an unlIkely conclusIOn to an otherwISe engrossmg confesslOn At the end of the 'Amours' the author remarks that they are marned and that they will no doubt have numerous offspring On a vacatIon from Germany, VISItIng Tarbes In August 1883, he was to note In another vein 'Everung, mUSIC In the park-Marguente glImpsed m the crowd, pale, her head hIgh, lost, talkIng WIth a fat and vulgar gentleman' 18 In May 1875, Charles and PaulIne Laforgue came back from MontevIdeo Wlth eIght chIldren, for the famIly now mcluded, besIdes the five brothers and SISters who had arrIved m Tarbes rune years before, PaulIne, LOUISe, Adrlen, Charlotte, and Edouard An eleventh chIld, Albert, was born In November The follOWIng year the whole famIly moved to ParIS There IS no record of the reasons, but the educatIon of Jules and EmIle was undoubtedly a factor The Laforgues settled down In a house With a garden at 66 rue des Momes In the BatIgnolles quarter, but they were not all together for long On 6 AprIl 1876, Mme Laforgue cb.ed glVlng bltth to a twelfth chIld. who did not lIve Tavass presque pas connu rna :mere,' Jules was to wnte m the operung poem of Des Fleurs de bonne 'Volonte Two years after Ius wIfe's death, the elder Laforgue took his cluldren over to the Left Bank so that EmIle could be near the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he was a student, and Jules could

'FOR THE E'lE'S DELIGHT'

be WIthIn walkmg dtstance of the Blbhotheque Samte-Genevle,-e The family moved mto a first-floor apartment at 5 rue Berthollet, a pleasant enough street, some allegations to the contrary notWIthstandIng, runrnng north off Boulevard Port-Royal On one SIde of rue Berthollet wmdows looked over the broad gardens of the mlhtary hospItal of the Val-de-Grace Poems, letters, notebooks, all bear WItness to the poet's affection for this street 14 Charles Laforgue dId not smk mto dIScouraged mdlgence after his WIfe's death For four years, at least, until rus health bro1..e m 1881, he managed to support eleven cruldren, and It was not hIS fault If Emrle remamed a perpetual art student and Jules never succeeded In becommg a bachelzer Jules attended the Lycee Fontanes (now Condorcet) for a while, durmg the years when Henn Bergson "\Nas a pupil there He took the stiff state exanunatIon for the baccalaureate three tImes and once passed the wntten part, but foundered m the oral while hIs father looked on and suffered The ngid educational system had now done Its worst for the Intractable, creative pupil Laforgue's earhest preserved wntIngs are a bundle of notes datIng from this perIOd when the schoolboy was turrnng lDto the creative wnter They mclude a passage extollmg pasSIve surrender to the UnconscIous, rather lIke the one quoted from Sdphane V «sszitew, only trus tIme set lD a ParIS park The motif of the young ladles' boardIng school, already runted at lD 'Amours de Ia qumZleme annee,' makes Its appearance And we find thIs descnptIon of a sunset 'In the evenmg through the wlDdow a sky of deep-mourrnng Violet ' ThIs IS the 'VIolet grand-deuIl: Lafargue's couleur locale, as he IS to tell us over and over One of the most mterestmg of these fragments deals With the celebration that followed the dedIcation of the Lion de Belfort In the Place Denfert-Rochereau ThlS was the day, 20 September 1880, on wruch Laforgue first thought of WDong Complatntes, poems on the order of the complatntes popullllres, ballads of a kInd sung by the people ever smce the Middle Ages The Idea was to bear fruIt lD hIS first real book,15 several years later Entitled 'Fete de nUlt, mauguratIon du hon de Belfort,' the passage begms, charactenstIcally, WIth a few words about the clowns and mountebanks on hand Then come hnes wruch may

'riTE

DE Nl.1IT INAUGURATION DU LION DE BELFORT'

'FOR THE EYE'S DELIGHT'

or may not record the precISe moment when the poet thought of wntIng verse to hurdy-gurdy rhythms, but'" hIch are certamlv essential Laforgue 'A woman of the party vomItIng puddles of wme, a dog lappmg away at It A second female, tappmg the first one on the back maternally, to facilitate matters, muttenng meanwhIle that It Just wasn't sensIble to go for a rIde on the merrygo-round after eatIng and dnnkIng all day long Whole families hIgher than a kIte A pImp shepherdmg along a band of gtrls, one of them adorable and sad, WIth a black eye-all drInkIng WIne The smell of Argand lamps, CrIes of barkers, the melancholy of barrel organs playIng tunes heard m publIc squares m autumn And hIgh up, the vIrg10 and eternal stars Strange, strange planet!' 16 The carnIval was to become an Image of humaruty for Laforgue, who had read BaudelaIre's great prose poem on the old saltImbanque and had seen the CIrCUS pIctures of Manet and Degas He felt the vulgarIty of people massed together, IneVitably drawn toward what IS most garISh, Ignor1Og or stn1.mg down that whtch IS less so-the aged showman to whom BaudelaIre l1kens the worn-out wnter or the prostltute not qUIte as tough as her fellows One of hIS bItterest poems IS 'Complrunte du SOlr des COrnIces agncoles,' m whtch he IS thtnk10g not only of an agncultural show that he saw at Baden-Baden but also of that section of Madame Bovary Into whIch Flaubert put so much of rus hatred of the explOIter and hts compassIOn for the VIctIm In most of the poems, prose passages and piCtures presentIng the carnIval as mIcrocosm, some face, figure, or sketched-In detail remInds us of human asplXatIOn Thus In the poem about the agncultural show a nostalgIc hom-call stands for the Absolute, and In the excerpt above we have 'the vIrg10 and eternal stars' There IS great vanety 10 the rhythms of these prose fragments We pass from Romantic rnInglIng of the grotesque and the sublIme, as Illustrated above, to such Pascal1an analysIS as the follow-

109 Berce-mot, roule-mm, vaste fataltteOn se lazsse aller - Votre mere meurt, V GUS perdez flU ,eu, un amt vous lache,

30

JULES L4.FORGvE MD THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

une femme vous accable de son zndztference 'liOUS tombez 'Jw/ade, la mort est Ja peut-etre

LuII me, cradle me, vast fatalItyYou let yourself go -Your mother dIes, You lose at gambhng, a fnend cuts you off, a woman overwhelms you wIth her 10dlfference you fall Ill, death IS at hand perhaps One passage IS worth qUOtIng 10 Its entIrety as eVIdence of the poet's nascent wIsh that the work of art should be truly new The follow1Og 15 probably hIS earlIest art cntlCISm, wntten 10 a free-floWIng, rapId hand 'The landscape across the way, a splendId twIlIght scene-but too much the picture-a fine sky flecked wIth soft c1Onabar-those two regular hIlls bnsthng wIth black :fir trees, curv1Og-green places for the young firs-above, th,e rosy rum-and further, on the steep wavy descents of green hills WIth the serpentIne of a dusty road, trees, wIth lIttle whIte vermilion-tIled houses set among them-w1Odows sparklIng 10 the last desperate rays of the pIcturesque star-then the church bell 10 the valley-thIs IS Calame, Canon SchmIdt, etc -the weather 15 fine and thIS IS fine and there IS nothIng to say-these Fenelon-lIke landscapes composed for the eye's delIght-thIs nature IS too much arranged-oh, the sIckly Blevre, the meager vlOe-shoots, and those vacant lots ' 17 ThIs IS CntICISm of a pIcture seen m a gallery, and of much else besides-of lIterary works such as Stephane Vasstlzew, for lIlStance, composed chiefly 'for the eye's delIght' Urumpressed by the conventionally IdyllIc landscape on the gallery wall, the cntlc ends WIth words of longmg for the Blevre, tpe lIttle stream, pathetIc even 10 that day, tnckhng past the Gobehns factory lOto the mam sewer of Pans He would hke to see the spmdly v1Oeyards and vacant lots that mark Its course brought mto art owever pleased hIS readers may be wIth Stephane, Its smiling frownmg landscapes and preructable cadences, Jules Laforgue speedIly illssatlsfied WIth It, probably before he had fiUlShed tlng It.

III

Presences and Absences

IN the early days of the recent occupatIon, the German censorshIp m Pans agreed to pernut publIcatIOn of a volume of fifty-sIX letters on COndItIOn that Its tItle be changed from Lettres aGustmJe Kahn to Lettres zen tmZZ, and that the salutatIons should read 'Mon cher amI' rather than 'Mon cher Kahn' Mter some hesItatIons of therr own, the edItor and publIshers accepted the mmor munlatIons. They dId well, smce otherwIse thIs record of one of the memorable lIterary aSSOCIatIons mIght have contInued macceSSIble for some tIme Nearly forty years before, m Symboltstes et Decadents, Kahn had told how, one sprmg day m 1880, at a meetIng of the Qub des Hydropathes-one of those tentative groupmgs of WrIters that preceded the flood tIde of SymbolIsm-he had notIced a young man 'd'aspect un peu clergyman,' 1 somewhat too well dressed for the occasIOn, who lIstened WIth great attentIon to the unremarkable verse that was beIng recited 'HIS qUIet gray eyes lIghted up and rus cheeks grew pmk whenever the poems offered the slIghtest Interest' Smce the author happened to be Kahn, he took note of the appreCIatIve lIstener, and after the readtng of Ins verse was over, wlnle another Hydropathe was dec1anng lamblcally that henceforth he would love only women of stone, he struck up a conversatIon He was as much Impressed by the scope of Jules Laforgue's knowledge and the delIcacy of hls feelmgs as by hls al'tlStlc fervor 'He told me that he wanted to devote rumself to the fustory of art, and was further contem-

a

32

PREsE,,"CES MD ABSE.... CES

33

plating a drama on Savonarola It was agreed that we should see each other agam, we showed each other our lIterary baggage, rus COnsIStmg of a lIttle lyncal study of Watteau and some qrute Impeccable sonnets, sketches of street scenes, ch.tldren wIth faded blouses, and the mam pomts of a serIOUS cosmogony' The two young men were almost of an age, and theIr alms and mclInatIons were sImIlar enough Durmg the spring and summer they took long walks m the ugly mdustrtal outskIrts of Pans, under the mfluence of the naturalIstic novels of the tlme Laforgue 'always carned a book, some mIserable art treatISe by Trune, or a prulosophlcal tome' HIS sonnets were, accordmg to Kahn, pale BuddhIstIc protestatIOns, and he took the credIt for mtroducmg his new frIend to the poetry of Corblere Unfortunately, Kahn managed to suggest m later years that Laforgue owed more to hIS runts and suggestions, than was actually the case Yet he admItted that he counted among Ius best memOries 'those summer afternoons of 1880' And, he saId, 'Tills young sage's mmd, astorushmgly receptive, extremely fine m Its capacIty to grasp relatlonsrups, analogies, mterested me Immensely' Conversations were cut short In the fall Kahn was drafted and went off to North Mnca for four years of military servIce, sometrung from willch Laforgue's fragIle health exempted hIm Jules still went to the cafe where they had sat together, and m mldDecember he wrote the first of Ius letters to hIS fnend, letters valuable for the lIght they shed on several months of Ius lIfe about whIch nothmg had been known Laforgue complams about Sundays m the crowded, famIlyndden apartment m the rue Berthollet He mentions the Pont Samt-Mlchel of a Saturday everung, 'WIth the tumult of the bells of Notre-Dame m the two sonorous towers, the nOIse of the BouI' MIch' drowns out the VOIces of the bells-and how ph.tlosoprucal that IS It symbolIzes the end of ChrIStIaruty TIus has killed that Tills = the tramway horns, that = the VOICes of the melancholy bells':: Here IS the subject of a prose poem that he had Just firushed, 'Les Fiances de Noel' 'ChrIstmas' Christmas m Pans' Sad and cold the wmd blows, and the bells mtone toward the black and ramy sky, but the mcessant commg and gomg of pedestnans m the mud of the Sidewalks, the eternal

H

]t:'LES L-\.FORGUE -\."D THE IRONIC INHERITA.""CE

lumberIng of ponderous omrubuses and broken-down cabs, the dIn of cafes and restaurants, the CrIes of the merchants of Bel' Vaience '-the ,~hole mfemo of the boule, ard drowns the VOIce of the lonely bells' 3 It "as apparently a few months earher that 'trus' had kllled 'that' for Jules Laforgue, the dIn of the Boulevard drowrung the VOIces of the bells, the spmt of the age crusrung orthodox behef In \larch 1882, he was to look back from Germany on what he called hIS 'relIgIOUS neurOSIS' 'For t\\ 0 years now I have belIeved In notrung I am a mystIc pessurust For five months I played at bemg an ascetIc, a httle Buddha wIth two eggs and one glass of water a day and five hours In the lIbrarIes I yearned to go and weep on the Holy Sepulchre Now, a dIlettante, omrusclent, I would be happy to smoke a CIgarette on Golgotha and there contemplate a sunset of unusual hues' 4 AllOWIng for the fact that Laforgue IS not ~rItIng to Kahn here but to a poetess wIth preteDSlons, Madame Mullezer, It seems clear nonetheless that hIs rehglOus faIth was shaken conclusIvely 10 rus twentIeth year He IS able to WrIte In thIs way about relIgIOn because he knows very well what IS at stake, because he has experIenced rather deep rehgrous emotIon BelIef precedes blasphemy It was probably about the ChrIStmas of 1880 that he wrote the folloW1Og NOEL SCEPTIQUE

Noel' Noel? J'entends Ies cloches dans la nutt Et 1'az, sur ces teutllets sans tOt, pose 'Ina plzcme o souvenIrs, chantez' tout mon org;uetl s' enfUtt, Et 1e me sens reprzs de ma grande rnnert'lCfne Ah' des vozx dans la nmt chantant Noell Noell Mapportent de la net qut, Iii-bas, s'tllumzne, Un Sf tendre, un Sf doux reproche maternel Que mon coeur trop gonfle creve dans mil poztrzne

Noel r Noel' I hear the church bells 10 the rught And on thIS fruthless pnnt lay down my pen o memorIes, carol r all of my prIde takes flIght And I am plunged lU bltterness agrun

PRESEI>.CES A"
35

Ah' VOlces m the mght smgmg Noel' Noel' Bnngmg me from the hghted church nave yonder A motherly reproof so mlld and gende My overburdened heart can bear no more Early m 1881, m the rue Berthollet, Laforgue wrote the 'Complamte de la vigle aux IDlDU1ts polarres' Le Globe, vers fatmant, Chermne exactement, Temte de mers $I bleues De Cttes tout en tOtts, De resetrUX de CO'1/!l)ots Quz gngnotent des lzeues

o ma cote en sanglots l Pas 10m de Saznt-Mlllo, Un bozcrg fu:meux 'lJI.vote, Quz tzent sow son clocher, OU grtnce un coq percbe, L'Ex-voto d'un p,lote' The globe toward the magnet steady course has set, Tmted Wlth seas so blue, WIth CIties all of roofs, Wlth networks of convoys That rubble up the mIles

Its

o my coast m sorrow I Not far from Samt-Malo A smoky hamlet struggles, Havmg beneath Its steeple Crowned by a creakmg cock A puot's votive gIft The votive offenng IS nothing less than a young Madonna holdIng

up a ruby-colored heart,

36

j"c:..LES L<\FORGUE A..... D THE IROMC I~HERITANCE

Qut, du sozr ai'aurore, Et de faurore au sozr, Se meurt, de ne pouvozr Satgner, ah' satgner plus encore'

WhIch, from dark till day And dawn till dark again LangUishes because It cannot Bleed, ah, bleed Its secret hfe away By the sprmg of 1881, Charles Laforgue was beg10rung to suffer from shattering coughing fits alternating WIth penods of e"haustIon Like the poor and harassed man he had always been, he tned to treat hImself out of medIcal books Then he made a Wiser deCISIon, decIded to leave the capItal that had brought hIm noth1Og but bereavement and dISappo1Otment, to take all hIS chIldren except the two eldest back to Tarbes and the chilly but secure house of Pascal Darre Emile was off do1Og hIs mIlItary servIce Jules could be left behind because he was work1Og, as he had been smce late 10 1880, as assIstant to Charles EphrusSI, one of the edItors of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts Mane stayed on WIth Jules 10 the rue Berthollet untIl August, but after her brother's bIrthday she, too, left for Tarbes, and one even10g Jules made hIS way out of the Gare d'Orleans feelIng for the first tlme lIke LUCIen de Rubempre, the prov1OcIaI left to hIs own deVIces In ParIS From August tIll November he lIved In a furnIshed room at 2. I rue Monsieur-le-Pnnce, near where that none too fashIonable street slants up to meet the Boulevard Saint-MIchel Baudelaman dandy that he was, Jules had no good to say of that 'sad and banal room where nothing belongs to me, where so many others have passed before me ' HIS uneasmess among the unfnendly furntshmgs of hIS room remmds us of the feehngs of another young poet, Ramer Mana Rtlke, who was to endure the mute hostIhty of Pans lodgtngs a few years later The first rught after hIS SIster's departure, Jules could not bring hnnself to stay 10 the hotel at all, but ran off to a fnend's room, where he spent the rught bundled up In a chaIr And almost every day for weeks he found hIs

PRESEl.'.CES A~D ABSEl.'.cES

37 way back through the LatIn Quarter to the rue Berthollet to pIck up forgotten books (one volume he abandoned defirutely, to the conCIerge's son a cram-book for the baccalaureate) In the morrungs he worked for Ephrussl, mostly on detaIls of that art rustonan's fonmdable volume on Albrecht Durer A natIve of Odessa emlgrated to Pans, Charles EphrusSI took up the ImpresslOmst cause early, encouragIng the ne\v pamters In the Gazette and, mtrabzle dzctu, buymg theIr canvasses After an InconsIderate curator drove Jules out of the Louvre he worked regularly m EphruSSI'S room RaIsmg rus eyes he could see on the wall 'two Pissarro fans, bUllt up sohdly WIth lIttle patIent touches Sisleys-the Seme WIth telephone poles and sprmgtIme sky, or a nver bank In the neIghborhood of Pans, WIth a tramp poetIzmg m the pathways And the apple trees In blossom clImbIng a rull, by Monet And RenOIr's shockheaded wild creature and Berthe Monsot's deep, cool forest shade WIth a woman seated, her chIld, a black dog, a butterfly net And the red-lIpped ParlSlenne m a blue Jersey, by RenOIr agam And that qUIte contrary lady WIth a muff, a lake rose In her buttonhole, agamst a background cleverly wrupped WIth snow And Mary Cassatt's dancer m yellow, green, lIght, russet, red armchaIrS, bare shoulders And Degas' nervous dancers, and Degas' Duranty And Manet's PolIchmelle \\ Ith Banville's verses" 8 Thus Laforgue, wntIng nostalgIcally from Germany afterward The value for an apprentIce poet-cntic of haVIng such works before hIS eyes could hardly be overestlmated, espeCIally a poet who was to wnte better about Plerrot than Banville dId about Pohcrunelle, who trIed In every hne of hIS more mature verse for ImpresSIOnIst VIbrancy, whose aesthetIcs IS a systematIzatIon of ImpresSIOnISt IntUltIons, and who was to be one of the first to bnng telephone poles mto verse Through EphrusSI, Laforgue met most of the ImpressIOnISts personally Thanks to Ephrussl he became a practIcmg art cntIc for the Gazette des BellUX-Arts at a tender age But one envies rum most of all for 'the good hours spent there, bent forgetfully over the Contents of Albert Durer, dreammg m the bnght room enlIvened by the note of a yellow, oh-so-yellow armchaIr" 6 It has often been saId that Jules was poorly paId for these

38

Jl.LES LAFORGUE A."W THE IROMC INHERITANCE

arduous labors, and pIOUS bIographers have \\I oven a legend of poetic poverty around his months In Pans after the departure of his fanuly But Laforgue makes It abundantly clear that the edItor ,,,as really very good to hIm HIS salary, to be speclfic, was two hundred (gold standard) francs a month Now two hundred francs a month In 1881 was the eqUIvalent of :fifty thousand francs at present, or three tImes the salary of an average lIbranan at the BiblIotheque NatIonale In I 88 I the salary of a second lIeutenant was one hundred and mnety francs a month For a bachelor non-bache Iter Just turmng twenty-one, two hundred a month \\las no mean figure The chief eVIdence for the hardness of Jules' lot at this time 15 a letter WrItten to Mane In September It 15 a delIghtful letter, tellIng of his lIfe and habIts WIth a llllXture of aesthetIc detachment and engagIng self-pIty 'Yesterday, Sunday, I was so terrIbly bored, felt so utterly alone In the mIdst of these hordes of people, that It became a sort of artIStiC emotIon In the mormng I had a chocolate bar, coffee, and a morsel of bread Afterward I worked till :five o'clock In my tIny room And then In the evemng' Oh, If you could only have seen me' I went for a walk alone, and saw the crowds dressed In theIr Sunday-best on theIr way home, taking the streetcars by storm And-lIttle thIngs that made me feel my solItude all the more strongly-a woman, also dressed up, COmIng out of a delIcatessen WIth a steammg roast wrapped up In a napkIn, a fanuly repast, and so on and on -You couldn't even guess how I dIned' Oh, I managed very well All I needed was a bakery, a pork-butcher's and a frUIt stand As It happened there were three such places rIght at hand, Just outsIde my door, In my street But I didn't want my conCIerges to see me, and they mIght have, SInce they have a way of takIng the aIr on the doorsill, so I went qUIte a long way, to a bakery where I bought two sous' worth of bread that qUIckly varushed mto the cavernous depths of my pocket As for the pork-butcher's, that was more dlfficult I walked In front of one shop after another Without darmg to go In. Once I was IntimIdated because at the counter two young butcheresses WIth pInk and shInmg cheeks were talking and laughIng With one another, At another shop I didn't should I dare dIsturb the uruverse;1

PRESE:r..CES 4.~D ABSE"'CES

39

have the same excuse because at the counter there '\\ as only an elderly butcheress wIth an old fur neckplece gomg bald m patches But I hesItated, wondenng If a certam substance that I spIed was really galantme Fmally I dId go mto a shop Then I purchased at a frUIt stand, for the modest sum of ten centlnles, a shce of melon, and went back up to my room I locked and double locked the door and munched away, tlun.lung about hie, about you who don't wnte to me, and so on When I had firushed, not WIShmg to leave the melon rmd m my room, smce that would have revealed my poverty to the cleanmg boy, I took my hat and cane, donned my gloves, stuffed the nnd mto my pocket I went out, and pretendIng to be talmg a stroll under the arcades of the Odeon, took advantage of a favorable moment to let fall the rmd '7 LIke most of Jules' letters to Ius favonte SISter, thIs one IS full of affectlon, good counsel, and vlVld sketches of thIngs seen and done We learn, too, that after dIsposmg of the melon nnd he went up to Charles Henry's for coffee But as far as Ius poverty IS concerned, we should have been more convmced If he had not, m tIus same letter, told of bemg measured for a new SUIt of EnglISh cheVIot at a good round pnce Charles Henry, who for several years was to be a closer fnend than Kahn, deserves speCIal mentlon By 1881 he had already served as asSIStant to Claude Bernard, and long after Laforgue's death was to become head of the laboratory of expenmental psychology at the Sorbonne Hen.ty's lasnng bent was for SClence, and he exemphfied herOIcally a spmt of mqw.ry that Laforgue shared m some degree Dunng Laforgue's lIfetlnle, Henry's mterests turned m half a dozen dIfferent dIrectlons, almost anywhere that manuscnpts were to be uncovered, truths dIScovered He was the born pnvate scholar, who, though suffenng steady pnvatlons, refused to take Ius umvemty degrees for fear of wastlng Ius tJ.me and adulteratlng Ius results Laforgue was to spend part of every vacatlon from Germany Wlth Henry and Ius long-suffenng amanueIlSIS-IDlStress m a httle cottage near Chevreuse Whlle Kahn was away In Mnca, Laforgue wrote more often to the SClent:l.St than to the poet The early letters to Kahn melude a sort of mformal chrorucle

40

JLLES LAFORGuE .A:l\D THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

of hterary and artlStlC events m Pans Many of these have slIpped below our honzons We are not greatly concerned wIth the stage vemon of Daudet's lack, even though there are rermruscences of Daudet m Jules' httle prose poems, 'Fiances de Noel', and the fact that George Sand's correspondence was then appearmg m the Revue des deux mondes leaves us unmoved The publIcatlon of Bouva1d et Pecuchet (Flaubert havmg dIed the prevIous Mav) IS of more mterest, and so IS Laforgue's CrltlCIsm of Maupassant's 'En Famille,' which had Just appeared, as 'une nouvelle a la Menmee' 8 Laforgue's project for hIs first novel sounds mterestlng If abortlve 'A charmmg dISCIple of Schopenhauer who kills hImself on the '\ erge of madness for bemg unable to brIng off the followmg '\wrl the macabre epIC of humaruty (hIStOry and the runeteenth century) m three grand tableaux correspondmg to Hartmann's three stages of IllUSIOn, plus a prologue (humaruty of the first days), plus an epilogue (humaruty of the last days, when IllUSIOn will be dead, the CitleS deserted, when man, head shaven, bestrewn WIth ashes, ~ill a~aIt the vOld), and so on and on What plans I But lIfe IS short' 9 The epilogue, as well as 'the three stages of IllUSIon,' IS InspIred by a book to which Paul Bourget had mtroduced Laforgue, Eduard von Hartmann's Phzlosopby of the UnconscIous No doubt the prologue would have been equally faithful to that treatISe on popular pesSImIsm, WIdely successful m Germany, translated mto French m 1877 Laforgue was readmg Hartmann before leavmg ParIS, a good two years earlIer than was once belIeved Jules breaks off one of these early letters to Kahn by saymg that he IS leavmg hIm for hIs 'fnend H Heme' 10 There IS a deepseated relatlon betwen the work of the great German IrOnISt and the verse that Laforgue was prepanng to WrIte We are now concerned, however, WIth the verse he was actually wntmg, his 'volume de phllosophIques' as he calls It, for which he reports that he has twenty-five sonnets ready In February 'I have 1800 hnes of my volume But I'm begmnmg to feel dISgusted With It at tlmes • 11 He was to work on hIs phllosophIcal poems for another two years before hIs dIstaste became msunnountable, before he

PRESENCES <\ND ABSE'CES

abandoned a work that was not to be publIshed unol SIXteen years after hIS death If much of Le Stmglot de la terre IS not really new, however, If some of It IS medIOcre and a pornon dlSt:lnctly bad, It IS nevertheless remarkable for Its responses to major mtellectual developments

IV

'The World Is My Idea'

Le Sanglot de ia terre IS apprecIably more complex than the other sustamed early work, Stipbane Vasszlzew It IS the poetIc record of thoughts acutely felt In the rue Berthollet, m a furrushed room at :z I rue Monsieur-le-Prmce, In comIngs and gOings along many streets and qUaIS, In the lIbranes of Pans If Stiphane IS a romantIc transpOSItiOn of provincIal school days, Le Sanglot de ta terre tells of a provincIal arnved ill the capItal, a sort of Intellectual LucIen de Rubempre pursUing an mtense, haphazard self-educatIOn In words that reproduce rhythmically, almost syllable for syllable, Fenelon's versIOn of Phlloctetes' lament on Lemnos, Laforgue tells how the solItude of the Lycee de Tarbes turned mto that of the ParIS lIbrarIes 'Two years of solItude In the lIbranes, WIthout love, WIthout fnends, m fear of death' ('1 was alone for almost the whole tIme of the sIege of Troy, WIthout love, WIthout fnends, In fear of death,' Fenelon had Pruloctetes say ill the passage wruch Stephane Vassiliew read and reread 1) Laforgue adds, 'Nlghts spent m meditation In an atmosphere lIke that of Mount SInru ' It may well have been on such a rught that he wrote the long and breathlesS- prose fragment that contams, among many other thIngs, the title of rus first collection of verse Apostropluzmg a skull, he muses on all that the lIVillg man, playthmg of uruversallaws, could not have known· 'What was the meanmg of your lIfe, you who knew nothIng of the uruverse, the purpose of the whole, the faraway stars, hIstOry, the Law, umversal evolution, nothmg of the solemn splendors, angwshes, renunCIatIOns, prodIgIes, vertigoes, contemplations, fears, stupors, 4Z

'THE WORLD Is My IDEA'

43

shudders, bedazzlements of the Uruque Bemg, nothmg about the uruversal nusery, eterruty, the miirute, nothIngness, LIfe, the Immense sorrows, tune, space, the death of the suns, you departed knowmg notlung of the outCries of the earth (les sanglots de la terre), Its tragIc odyssey, Its lustory, Its Gods, you suspected notlung-nothmg even about your body, prodIgIOUS mecharusm ' 2 What IS mterestmg m thIS passage-besIdes the tItle phrase and the conceptIon of the earth as sometlung alIve, capable of sobbmgIS the reflectIon of the writer's mterests 'The uruversal mISery,' 'the Immense sorrows' are out of the atmospherIC peSSImISm of the tIme 'RenUnCIatIOnS,' 'prodIgIes,' 'bedazzlements of the Uruque Bemg,' and the hke suggest the Buddlusm and prImltlVe ChrIStIaruty WIth wluch Schopenhauer found lus etlucal teachmgs m accord Another set of words, 'the faraway stars,' 'uruversaI evolutlon,' 'odyssey of the earth,' 'prodIgIOUS mecharusm' of the body, IS the reSIdue of SCIentIfic readmgs and no doubt also of conversatlons WIth the SClentlst Charles Henry There IS a fearful earnestness about the poems of Le Sanglot de la terre TheIr plnlosoplucal cast remmds us of Alfred de VIgny'S last and best book of poems, Les Destmees But whereas the Destznees are sobered and SlIvery, full of the hard-won reflectlons of a poet who matured slowly, Lafargue'S early verse IS mcandescent, as the Ideas of books and textbooks take fire m a youthful mmd We have already seen that Laforgue could reproduce the rhythms of Pascal's mtenor debate Here IS 'Pascal's reactlon,' man's dread before the enormousness and enorrruty of space, revltahzed m terms of 1880

Dans l'mfinz cnbU d'eternelles splendeurs, Perdu com:me 1m atome, znctmnu, solttatTe, Pour quelques 101Cf'S comptes, 1m bloc appeU Terre Vole l1!1Jec sa vermt:ne I1IUX vastes profondeuTs -'MMlocrlte'

•

Etermte' 1JpTdon Ie Ie VOJS, notrre terre N'est, dans l''TJQ'lfVerseJ bostm:llilb des splendeurs, Qu'un atome se 10ue une farce epbemere -'Farce epbemere'

em

44

J'LLES L4.FORGUE MD THE IRONIC hHERITA.,."CE

In the mfirute nddled WIth eternal splendors, Lost lIke an atom, uru..nown and solItary, For certaIn counted days a block called Earth Veers ,\Hth Its vemun toward the vast fronners Eterrutj, pardon I see It now Our earth In the general chOIr of splendors IS no more Than an atom where a passmg farce IS played Or, as Laforgue wrote In a prose note of the penod, 'I am the atom In the mfirute, the atom In the eternal, the SIgh In the tempest, a force eqUIvalent to a breath among the fOrmIdably brutal po'\\- ers of the uruversal mecharusm' 8 There are two lands of Influence, as Andre GIde remarked that felt by an mdlVldual and that undergone by a group The Influence of Schopenhauer In France dunng the 'seventIes and 'eIghtIes was of the second sort ThIs phtlosopher's subjectIve IdealIsm, hIs belIef that Investlganon of the external world could not lead to truth were readtly seconded because they were IntImately related to fundamental nmeteenth-century attItudes The Romanncs had been nothmg If not self-centered, even though a second stage In the work of many a poet-and peSSlmlStIC phtlosopher, too, for that matter-had been a program for SOCIal betterment Along WIth the sCIennfic fatth that knowledge would gIve power over the phySIcal uruverse there had co-eXiSted, often In the mmd of a smgle man-Alfred de VIgny, for mstance-a despatnng awareness that such power had no truth In It, that control over phYSIcal forces could not bnng contact WIth realIty Schopenhauer was the most fOrmIdable of Western BuddhIsts, but before he became known In France a number of wnters, notably Leconte de LIsle and that phYSICIan fnend of Mallarme who called hImSelf Jean Lahor, had proclaImed In BuddhIstIC terms the illusormess of phenomena and found In thts relIgton the hopelessness It usually engenders In a European mmd The BuddhISts had been preceded by other antI-matenahsts who were vaguely ChnstIan Then there had been the mordant analysts of motIves, heU'S of the ruhtlIstlc eIghteenth-century moralIsts And beneath all, mfonrung all, had been the pensIve melancholy of

'THE \VORLD

Is My

IDEA'

45

Rene, of wluch Chateaubnand \v ould ne\ er hat e \\ ntten \\ Ithout examples from beyond the Rlune Schopenhauer found refuge m contemplation, m the play of Ideas, and m veneratlOn of art So had a French generation dISappomted m more oUt\vard hopes by the fallure of the mIdcentury revolution Several of Tame's and Renan's \\ orl\.s are as much monuments to 'pesslIDlSm' as Books I, II, and IV of The World as Wzll and Idea, and Book In of that" ork, 'The Object of Art,' IS the major theoretical document m a European movement of art for art's sake The ground was \VeIl prepared \vhen, m r870, a lIberal JournalIst and pOlItiCIan, Challemel-Lacour, pubbshed the record of hIS pIlgnmage to Frankfurt, home of 'A Contemporary BuddhIst m Germany Arthur Schopenhauer ' 4 Challemel-Lacour hnew lIttle about metaphYSICS and commurucated less But he had vIsIted Schopenhauer at home and at the Hotel d'Angleterre, ,\ here the old phllosopher took lus meals and berated humaruty, and he carned away enough aCId to etch a good hkeness ThIs anecdotic article set off the avalanche A Sorbonne professor named ElmeMarIe Caro dazzled hIS publIc with an eloquent, empty book on runeteenth-century pessImism In z874 appeared a model of lucId expoSItiOn, La Phtlosophte de Schopenhauer by Theodule Ribot, a phllosopher-psychologIst who was later to wnte sigruficantly on the artIStiC Imagmation and the UnconsCIOUS Thereafter came a spate of articles, some of them techruca~ and though Dze Welt als Wzlle zmd VorstelJung was still untranslated, the key Ideas of Schopenhauer were at hand for all to ponder Here was what the age demanded a system of thought based on wIthdrawal from socIety, on conuIlltment to art, on contemplative zeal and heroIsm With compellmg force It gnpped older men like Renan, younger men lIke Bourget, and there was no excuse for a StIll younger man hke Laforgue to remam Ignorant of It, even though hIS German was vIrtually non-eXistent Laforgue never carned Schopenhauer's work about With hIm, readmg and rereadmg It all, as he dId Eduard von Hartmann's Phzlosophy of the Unconsczous Schopenhauer's thought was for htm sometlung underlymg and overshadowmg For that very reason It IS well to look at some of the Schopenhauenan Ideas

46

JLLES L\FORGLE 4..... D THE IRO.... IC INHERIT4.:1I.CE

absorbed mto the 'Catecrusme peSsImIste,' Laforgue's most complete statement of lus arms at the age of about menty For these Ideas, close km to those he took from other sources, became the felt thoughts of lus poetry, "hue the Ideas of Hartmann, studIed later, \¥ere the ra\¥ materlal for an aesthetIcs sometlmes hauled bodIlY mto the yerse 'The \\ orId IS my Idea' Schopenhauer begInS hIs work WIth thIs conCIse statement of the IdealIst pOSItIOn Such a VIew IS far from no\'el One IS remmded of the pOSItIOn taken by the expounder of BIshop Berkeley's phIlosophy to whom Samuel Johnson remarl,ed, 'Pray, SIr, do not leaye us, for we may perhaps forget to thmk of you, and then you will cease to eXist' It was not from Berkeley, however, that the young Laforgue drew rus convIctIOn that there IS no object WIthout a subject, no planet WIthout a percel\ mg eye L'homme, ce fou r§veur d'un pzetre mondzcule

Man, mad dreamer of a petty planet In the most ambItIous of hIs early poems, he addresses the earth these tenns

In

C'etazt un songe, oh l Out, tu n'as Jamats ite' Tout est seul' nul temotn' rten ne VOlt, nen ne pense It was a dream, ah' yes, and thou hast never been' AllIS alone' no WItness' nothmg sees or thInks " If humaruty should become extInct, a pOSSIbIlIty enVlslOned throughout the early poems, the earth would have been rughtmare We even find, In the verse of a later perlod, a poem about TIme and Space as fonTIS of the faculty of knowledge It has a saVIng satIrIcal tItle, 'Complamte du Temps et de sa commere l'Espace' But what other poet of that day (or thIS) would have presumed to Wrlte about the categones, man's means of knowmg about the world that 15 hIs Idea, 'fondement de la connalssance';l There IS no mentIon of causalIty In thIs poem SInce Schopenhauer mam-

'THE VVORLD

Is \h

IDEA'

47

EARLY VERSE AND SKETCHES

tamed, m OppOSItIOn to Kant, that causal relatIon IS as mdlspensable a condItIon of the world-Idea as TIme and Space. thIs poem IS not Schopenhauenan. but no doubt It deserves the epIthet of 'KantIan' whIch Andre Beauruer apphed to It.

48

JLLES L-\FORGUE '\"D THE IRO::-'IC I"l"HERITAl'.CE

The world IS a structure supported by my perceptlons, made possIble by temporal and spatlal and causal relatIons It IS the cause-and-effect relatlon, the 1Oterlock1Og of events, that makes pOSSIble sCIentIfic 10qwry Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and therr literary dl5cIples such as Laforgue were not hostile to SCIencethese three were all amateur SCIentlsts They dId, however, deny that SCIence can deal only wIth the Idea, wIth appearances Witrun and e\erywhere around, 'obJectlfY1Og' ItSelf 10 phenomena of wruch the 10dIvidual 15 one, 15 the ultImate reahty, the Will Phllosophlcally, It IS the trung-1O-Itself, the noumenon, wIth whIch only contemplatlon, never the measurement of trungs sensed, can estabhsh contact PsychologIcally, It IS the potentIal of pm.verful Impulses that dOmInate and dwarf all pOSSIble actiVItles of reason, the 'ferocIOUS and libldmous gorilla' wruch, saId Tame, lurks Withm cIvlhzed man Schopenhauer the morahst, who probably outweIghs m Importance Schopenhauer the metaphysIcIan, was a Writer who commented pIthily on the power of the gorIlla and the shakmess of Its cage Men, especIally the OptImIStlC, SOCIally mmded, forward-Ioo1..mg bourgeoIs whom Hegel's philosophy flattered, were told to recogruze thelr true condltIon, each one alone lO an Illusory world It would be wrong, however, to suppose that man cannot find footlng, attam to reality Some of those who hastened to attach the label 'peSSImlSm' to this IdealIst prulosophy were SImply matertahsts, accustomed to lookmg for matenal rewards Men, If they are worth anything, are m search of reahty, of somethmg approachmg the ultlmate reahty, the thmg-1O-Itseli And here we begm to deal With another kInd of Idea, the Platoruc archetype, to wruch, Schopenhauer tells us, the thmg-lO-itseli bears a strong resemblance The PlatoOlc Ideas, he says, are 'the first degree of objectl:ficanon' of the WIll And the human mtelligence, evolved at first by the Will only as a tool for Its own purposes, can by concentrated attentlon produce a sort of SUperflUIty of Itself capable of regardmg the archetypal Ideas, capable of aesthetlc expenence The geOlus IS the man who can lose hImself utterly lO objectIve contemplatIon The talented artIst and the amateur of art are, m dIfferent degrees, contemplatlves And the aIm for everyone, as Laforgue wntes 10 hIS Catecrusm, IS serene con-

'THE WORLD

Is

1\lY IDEA'

49 templatlon, by wluch one 'escapes from oneself, IS freed for an lOstant from Tune, Space, and Numbers, dIes to the conSCIOusness of one's mdividualIty, and attams to the great lIberty, '\V luch IS escape from the Illusory' 5 It may have been arbItrary, as RIbot pomted out 10 1874 and as many a cntlc has done smce, for Schopenhauer to place the Platoruc Ideas first 10 the senes of phenomena proceedmg from that 'blInd force' wluch IS WIll One must fight down WIll 10 order to contemplate sometlung that IS the outgrowth of Will Nevertheless, thIS paradox wltlun Schopenhauer's thought was, lIke hIS admrrable prose style, eVIdence of the lffiportance he attached to art and It helped to gam lum some of hIS best dISCIples, RIchard Wagner, Fnednch NIetzsche, Laforgue Escape from the multlplIcity of phenomena by means of artIStIC expenence IS rare, however-the pnvIlege of the few So are those degrees of relatlve obJectlVlty reached 10 plulosoplucal and SCIentlfic mqUlry There IS another route of escape, wluch Schopenhauer calls 'the most senous, SInce It relates to the actlon of men, the matter whIch concerns everyone dIrectly and can be foreIgn or mdifferent to none' Moral perfectlon through suppressIOn of the personal will 15 reached by several stages, and the mdIVldual progresses to the extent that he sees through the network of appearances The Just man has so far penetrated the Web of Maya as to perceIve that he should not mterfere WIth the Interests of others, mdividuais lIke lumself But the truly VIrtuous man, reallZmg that all mdlVlduatlon IS Illusory, that all mdlVlduals are lost m the great whole, that one IS SImultaneously the slayer and the slam, WIll feel an actlve sympathy for all hIS fellows, VlCtlms of the same human llmltatlOns So gnevous IS the state of man that love can only take the form of pIty 'The Incentlve to VIrtUouS actlon IS slffiply the knowledge of the suffenng of others, dIrectly understood from one's own suffenng and placed on a level WIth It Pure love (ayWrrj, camas) IS by nature sympathy' 6 As Laforgue wntes 10 hIS Catechism, 'Sympathy, the first gIft of the sage' To the extent that the mdIVldual sees clearly, he wIll seek to share the suffenngs of others, to momfy the WIll WIthIn hlmself So the twenty year old poet sets down hIS rule 'one must suffer for at least two yea.rs fast, mortIfy oneself, bleed WIth pIty

SO

JT...LES Lo\FORGt..E 4.ND THE IRO,\IC INHERIT~CE

and UWl ersal love, VlSlt the hospItals, contemplate hIdeous and pltUul dIseases, all forms of filthIness, become steeped m hIstory m general and m detaIl, tellmg oneself that that IS real, that all these billIons of mwvIduals had hearts, senses, aspIratIOns to happmess, one must read hIstory WIth sympathy lIke Carlyle and MIchelet 7 Remembenng hIs 'two years m the lIbrarIes' 8 and hIs ascetICIsm, we realIze that Laforgue actually tned the more radIcal lands of renunCIatIOn We are m a better pOSItlOn to understand such passages as the follOWIng

Je n'az fazt que souffm, pour toute la nature, Pour les etres, Ie vent, les !leurs, Ie firmrnnent, Souffnr par tous mes nerfs, mzn:utzeusement, Souffnr de n'll'lJozr pas d'ame encore assez pure -'Pour Ie LIvre d'amour' I have done naught but suffer, for all nature, For the creatures, the wmd, the flowers, the firmament, Suffer m bone and nerve and every fiber, Suffer for my soul's ImpedIment When, m 'Pour la Mort de la terre,' the poet asks,

OU done est C;akta, coeur chaste et trop subltme, Quz S4tgntl pour tout etre et dzt lIZ brnme Lot? Et Jesus t'NSte et doux quz douta de la Fot Dom tlll'lJatt vecu, dam zl mowrlltt 'lJ'tctzme? Where now 15 Sakya, chaste heart that aImed too hIgh, Who bled for all and spoke the savmg Word~ And melancholy Jesus who nustrusted The fSlth he lIved and by whIch He would dIe;l We reahze that the :figure of PhIloctetes, subject of early preoccupatlons Wlth the dISCIplIne of suffenng, 15 for the tlme bemg supplanted by other:figures Cuef among these, for Laforgue as for Schopeohauer, 15 the Buddha, although Jesus 15 counted among the very great and good J

'THE WORLD Is My IDEA'

Of course Laforgue was not a SchopenhauerIan only because of the metaphysIcS whIch demonstrates so beautIfully that unseen thIngs are real and that the VISIOn of truth must be prepared by momficanon For hIm as for several generatIOns of wrIters, Schopenhauer was the educator, the dIsqUleter, \" hose saVIngs contaIned the cure for naIvete LIke the S\\ lSS dIanst Anuel, \\ hose searchIng self-exanunatIons were publIshed \\ hen Laforgue \\ as twenty-two, he began WIth Schopenhauer the aphOrISt, and SInce he dId not remaIn a thoroughgoIng phIlosoprucal peSSImIst for long, he may be saId to have ended WIth the aphonsnc Schopenhauer as well Trenchant saYIngs In the mInor works, some of them encountered second-hand, ,,,ere assImllated and helped to shape a POInt of VIew Woman as the 'underSIzed, narrow-shouldered, broad-hIpped, short-legged' adversary, to quote the celebrated passage from the Parerga-a creature WIthout metaphYSIcal aspIranon or capaCIty for obJecnvIty, embodIment of perverse will seekIng to perpetuate Itself by the 'unIversal dupery'-woman thus understood comprIses half the cast of characters In Laforgue's wnnngs True, such a VIew of VtomankInd IS m hIS case an IrOnIC devlce rather than a heartfelt convictlon But from Plerrot to Lohengrm to Hamlet, rus characters act on Schopenhauer's suggestIOn that chastIty IS the only solutIon and resolutely steer clear of further obJecnficanon The refram 'C6lIbat, c6hbat, tout n'est que cehbat,' whIch runs lIke a pure sIlver thread through the verse and prose, IS not so much a statement of fact as a program The poet may have learned somethIng about Irony from the phtlosopher, especIally from the preface to the long-delayed second edInon of Dze Welt ais Wzlle und V orstellung, where Schopenhauer adVIses the Hegehans to contInue theIr twentyfive-year conspIracy of sIlence Indefirutely Key words, mcludmg the all-Important 'ennUl,' have about the same mearung In the two WrIters And the whole legend of Schopenhauer the man worked strongly on a youthful Imagmanon One of the two lIterary pilgrImages Laforgue made was to Frankfurt (the other beIng to Elsmore), at some Inconvemence to htmself and m spIte of the Empress Augusta'S outspoken averSIOn for 'that hornd man ' St1ll another kInd of Idea, In addItIon to the world-Idea and the

52

Jl:LES LAFORGUE MD THE lROMC INHERITANCE

Platoruc archetype, was to occupy Laforgue's lIDag1OatiOn He "\\ as to spend more and more nme wIth Hartmann's Phtlosophy of the Unconsczous, was to hold wIth thIS dISSIdent Schopenhauenan that a WIll wruch goes on obJecnfymg Itself cannot be purposeless, that present and co-ord1Oate wIth WIll In the Absolute must be Idea the creanve Idea of Hegel workIng through rustory, through the marufold acnVInes of the human mInd, to"ard Its own perfecnon A systematIC peSSImIst proceedIng from the assumpnon that the ulnmate realIty IS evIl-that Laforgue emphancally was not A temperamental peSslIDlst lIke LeopardI, 9 able to abIde the VIew of the darkness at the end of a phIlosophy of neganon l°-that he was not eIther 'Un coeur tendre qUI hatt Ie neant vaste et nOlr,' he rebelled In vanous ways agatnst such VIews of man's destInanon FernIe In contrasts as he was, reacnng to the thought of a century, he was even nnged With the rebglOn of SCIence, the poslnvl5m that Schopenhauer conSIdered most perruciOus He neutralIzed a peSSImIstIC world VIew, as dtd VIgny 10 'La BouteIlle a la mer,' by affirmIng that the IndIVIdual's unlucky voyage leads somewhere the observanons one man makes will enable others to aVOId hIS shIpwreck Laforgue wntes of 'the cathedral of Herbert Spencer,' bnngs the evolutiOnary theory Into rus aesthencs And from another posInvlSt, Camille FImnmanon, he seems to have taken the Imagery of hIs longest early poem and the most Strlkmg Imagery of Le Sanglot de ia terre as a whole 'If the Innumerable creanve floods,' wrote Lucrenus In a passage quoted by Flammanon In hIs Pluralzte des mondes habztes, 'surge and flow In mynad vaned forms through Infirute space, should they have brought forth In theIr fecund stnfe only the orb of the earth and Its celesnal vault;l Can we belIeve that beyond thIS world so vast a mass of elements 15 condemned to Idle repose;l If the generanve pnncIples gave blrth to masses whence have ISSued the heavens, the waves, the earth and Its InhabItants, It must be supposed that In the remamder of the VOId the elements of matter have given bIrth to numberless arumated bemgs, to skles, seas, earths, have sowed feet 10 the aenal floods Wherever ~ense matter can find a space to contatn It and no obstacle t& its free expanSIOn, It will give bIrth to hfe 10 vanous

'THE WORLD Is My IDEA'

53 forms, and If the mass of elements 15 such that all ages and all beIngs together would be Insufficlent even to count them, and If nature has endowed these elements wIth the facultles wruch It has accorded to the generatlve pnncIples of our globe, the elements, In the other reglOns of space, must have scattered other beIngs, mortals, and worlds' 11 It would be hard to prove that Laforgue read the curiOus monument to pseudo-scIentJ.fic legend In wruch these sonorous words are quoted But It IS more than hkely that he dId The poet of our tlme who has the most In common wIth Laforgue, Jules SupervIelle, gIves much of the credIt for rus first 1ll1portant volume of verse to a popular treatlse on astronomy that he pIcked up In the early 'twentles It had a hberatlng effect on rus ImagInatIOn, supplyIng rum WIth stnla.ng dynaffilc Imagery Some work had such an effect on Laforgue, and It IS a plauSIble guess that It was Flammanon's PublIshed In 1862, La Pluraltte des mondes habltes was the first book of an astronomer wlth a flarr for populanzatlon and conJecture In the preface to one of the numerous edItlons (twentyfive by 1876), the author expresses surprIse, probably Justlfied, at rus success Twenty years before, nothmg astronomIcal would have been very popular As the century progressed, however, the general ImagInatlon was stlrred more and more by expandIng knowledge of the heavens, and wItrun a decade after Its publIcatIOn Flammanon's book had appeared In ten languages There was lIterally a world-WIde surge of CurIOSIty about what the heavens mlght contaIn On the part of one young poet there was certaInty En tous sens, 1e Ie sazs, sur ces mondes lomtams, Pelerzns comme nous des pales solttudes, Dans la douceur des mats tendant 'VeTS nous les mttms, Des Humanttes soeurs Tevent par multttudes' - 'L'Imposslble' Songez! depuzs des fiots SImS fin d'etemttes, Cet flzur qm tou10UTS en taus les sens Tecule, De tToupeaux de soletls atout 1ifm1l1,S pullute, Chacun d'eux condmsant des mondes habttes • -'Farce ephemere'

54

JULES L-\FORGUE <\''ID THE lRO"
Un com' et tout la-bas derouZement d'espaces A ftnfint l Peu.ples de freres plu.s heureux'

Om 1ze retrouvel ant pas menze, un Jour, nos traces Ouand tis vOytlgeront leur tow par ces lteux' -'Cunosltes deplacees'

a

On every SIde, I know, on those far"" orlds, PIlgnms hke us of the pale solItudes, In the softness of the mghts stretchIng toward us theIr hands, SIster peoples dream 10 multItudes' ConsIder, for unmeasured floods of tIme ThIs azure surg10g forth on every SIde Has swarmed With troops of suns 1Ocessantly, Each one among them wIth Its peopled worlds ThIS lIttle world' And those deploy1Og spaces Ad mfimtum' Races of happIer brothers Who one day will not even know we were, When theIr path crosses where we crossed before The Vedas taught that the human soul sOJourns 10 the stars after Its earthly 1OcarnatIon Xenophanes and EpICUruS belIeved 10 the pluralIty of worlds, and Chnstlaan Huygens wrote 10 Cosmotbeoros 'It 15 not pOSSIble that those who are of the 0plOlOn of Coperrucus and belIeve truly that the earth we lOhabIt IS one of those that turn about the sun and receIve 11ght from It, should not also belIeve that other planets are 1OhabIted, cultIvated and adorned 11ke ours' 12 Kant not only had assumed that other planets were 10hablted but had also establIshed a whole hIerarchy of the perfectIon of thetr 10habItants accordIng to dIstance from the sun 18 Laforgue's first collectIon of verse proVIdes us With the only modem poetry on the subJect Whether under the mfJ.uence of the summary of evolutIonary doctrlne that Flammanon undertakes 10 another place, or as a result of readings 10 Spencer and Darw1O, Lafargue also gtves poetIc expressIon to what has frequently been called 'the key Idea of the mneteenth century' A planet

'THE WORLD Is My IDEA'

55

apres men des steeles de Jours lents, Aux bazsers du soled sem tressatllzr ses /lanes La vte eelot au fond des mers des premze1S ages, Monades, V'tbnons, polypters, eoquzllages PUtS les vastes pozssons, repttles, crustaces Raeltmt les pms geants de leurs dos czurasses PUtS la plamte des bots, la nutt, sous les rafales, Les fauves, les ozseaux, Ie crt-cn des etgales Enfin parait un 1our, grele, bleme d'ejJrol, L'homme au front vers l'azur, Ie grand 1Jzautizt, Ie rot -'Lltarues de mlsere' after many ages of slow days, Feels Its flanks shudder at the sun's embrace Llfe spawns WltIDn the prehtstorIc sea, Monads, vIbrlOnes, polyps, crustacea Then the vast fishes, repttles, thmgs Wlth scales Scrape gIant pme trees WIth theIr armored talls And then the plamt of forests tempest-stIrred, WIld beasts and bIrds and the CIcadas' chtrr UntIl one day, frati and beset WIth fears, Man the accursed, the strugghng kIng appears

In the same poem there IS deSCrIptIon of the blrth of the planets, morgamc evolutIon Un lae mermdeseent tombe et pu1.s s'eparptlle En vtngt blocs qUtZ entralne tnnst quune famtlle. An mcandescent lake falls and IS scattered In twenty masses It leads famIly-hke Another poem has an apostrophe to the mother-nebula

56

Jt.LES L"'FORG"GE ",-"D THE IRONIC I"HERITANCE

o ftelt,,-'e chaotzque, 0 N ebuleuse-mere, Dont sortzt Ie Soletl, notre pere ptttssant -'Crepuscule de dunanche d'ete' ChaotIc nver, mother-nebula \Vhence sprang the sun, our pUISsant father In fact, lffiagery drawn from pseudo-sclenofic and sCIenofic sources IS 10 great part responsIble for the qualIty of Laforgue's strange, troubled, techmcally fluent early poetry Sully-Prudhomme was also wntIng melancholy 'scientUic' verse dur10g the last quarter of the century But Sully-Prudhomme sadly lacked capaCIty for creatIng metaphors Only Lafargue, 10 France, succeeded 10 makIng poetry out of objects revealed by 'the marvelous tube' HIS best sustamed poem of thIS penod IS 'Pour la Mort de la terre' The extInctIon of lIfe upon the earth, or the eXtInctIOn of the lIvmg earth, was much 10 rus mmd at this tIme Perhaps the bIg work on Durer 14 WIth which he was help10g EphrusSI kept scenes of death and apocalypse before hIs eyes, or perhaps the palpItatiOnS of the heart he complamed of late 10 1880 'Pour la Mort de la terre' IS his nearest approach to the 'macabre epIc of humamty' projected 10 his letter to Kahn The opemng quatram IS addressed to the suns

o convoz solennel des soleus magmfiques, Nouez et denouez vos vastes masses d'or, Doucement, trzstement, sur de graves 'lnUszques, Menez Ie deuzl tres lent de votre soeur qUt dort

o solemn progress of resplendent suns, W rod and unw10d your masSIve golden tralls, Mlldly and sadly to relIgIOUS hymns, Conduct the mourmng of your SISter gone In eIght stanzas of eIght hoes each the stages of the world's hlStory are evoked SlX stanzas end Non, dOTS, c'est

men {int, dars pour Ntermte

'THE WORLD Is

.i\h.

IDM'

57

The hue

o

eorwoz solennel des soleds 1111lgnzfiques

returns between stanzas as a refram The poet foresees a tIme when the earth will be tune epave enorme et sohtrure un bloc mette et tragIque,' qUIte dIfferent from "\" hat It "\,\ as toward the other end of Its rustory, when there were only

les pantou111s du vent, la clameur des fiots sourds, Et les bruzssements argentzns des feuzllages the wmd's pantoums, the stubborn waves' complamt, And the silvery murmurs of the fohage However, the mtruder appeared

Mll1.s l'§tre zmpur paratt' ce frele revolte De la saznte Maza deehzre les beaux 'i.lotles Et Ie sanglot des temps 1azlltt VeTS les hozles But the mfirm creature appears, the feeble rebel Snatcrung away the veils of holy Mava The drrge of ages nses toward the stars The MIddle Ages are evoked m RomantIc terms The fifth stanza a senes of exclamatlOns, a hst of thIngs to be lost With earthmventIon, mUSIC, arts and sClence-and although the formal mterest 1S shght, the twentieth-century reader thInks of another VISIon of the echpse of culture, Paul Valery'S, m 'A Thousand Despamng Hamlets' After the musmgs on Buddha and Jesus already quoted, the poem reaches lts rughest degree of concreteness m the penultImate stanza 1S

Et plus rten' <1 Venus de 11ZIlrbr'e' ell:llX-fortes vaznes' Cerveau tau de Hegel' doux retrazns consoJants' Clochers brodes alOUT et conSll!ll'Jis d'eltms Lzvres ou t' homme 'fIt1.t d'znutzJes 'lnctozres' Tout ce qrla la fureur de tes fils enfante,

58

JULES L-\FORGlJE A...,\D THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

Tout ce

qUI

fut ta fange et ta splendeur sz breve,

o Terre, est mazntenant ctmmze U'IZ reve, un g'1and reve Then nothmg more! 0 marble Venus! VaIn desIgns! Mad bram of HegeIT Mdd consohng songs! Lace-hght steeples spent wlth man's asprrmgs Books wherem man hIs futIle gams Inscnbed! AIl that the fury of your sons engendered, AIl of your mIre and momentary splendor, o earth, IS now hke a dream, a great dream ThIS IS oratoncal verse, eloquence of a kmd whose neck Laforgue would be at pams to wnng a httle later on But as the poem ends shppmg mto the Schopenhauenan dark, 'sans nom dans Ie nOIr sans memorre,' we cannot fall to admIre the poet for the amount of mtellectual hIstory he has compressed mto a poem and a collection

v The Great Dream

A SURE Instinct led Laforgue to mtroduce hunself to Paul Bourget The elder by eIght years, Bourget had by 1880 publIshed only two books, both of them verse La V,e mqmett!'-cIear accounts of feehngs rather than lyncs, and Edel-a novel m SpIte of Its flUId alexandrmes, and for that reason the better of the two Durmg Laforgue's hfetune, Bourget was to publIsh more verse, tales, a sound unambItIous novel, and the fine Essazs de psycbologte contemporatne A sharp dlstlnctIon must be drawn between 'l'aine des Jeunes,' as young Bourget was called by hIs younger adnurers, and the later author of mcreasmgly desIccated novels Bourget's natural clanty had not yet degenerated mto dry demonstratIon Even hIs verse IS far from neghgtble-shght, but WIth a crystalline quahty refreshIng after the turbId effuSIOns of a naturalIst such as Jean Rlchepm Laforgue called Bourget 'Lord Buddha,' partly because Ius language was already tInged WIth lXony m hIS twentIeth year, but mostly because he respected the older man nnmensely He owed Bourget an Ideal of hterary elegance and personal dandylSIll, encouragement to study EnglIsh, and the reahzatIon that hIS own poetry left somethIng to be desued 'I remember the tune,' Jules wrote to Em1le from Germany several years later. 'when I used to take Bourget plays, chapters of novels, and whole heaps of verses, thmkmg to myself surely thIS tune he'd be bowled over And the next Sunday he would say, ''You have learned neIther the French language nor the poet's craft, and you are still InCapable of thlOlnng for yourself" When I

60

JULES L<\FORGuE o\.'l.D THE IRO'l.IC INHERITA""CE

read over such of those old thIngs as are st1l1 around I feel ummstakably how nght he was and I congratulate myself on my stay here m so far as tills remoteness from Pans has kept me from pubhshmg nonsense that ,\, auld have made me fret and fume the rest: of my days' J. Probably not much of the 'heaps of verses' survIves m Le Smzglot de ia terre, on whIch Lafargue worked tIll late m 1882 before gIvmg It up m dIsgust We have no record of what Bourget thought of thIs collectIon, but It IS safe to assume that he hked It httle better than he had the earher apprentIce work To wnte, m the year of 1880, about the bIrth and death of the planet must certamly have struck hIm as amusmg The grave, rugh-soundmg, fateful words, the kmd of words that occur to lonely young men m hbranes, would have made hIm reflect, as such dIctIOn made hls fnend Henry james reflect, on how much more dlfficult It IS to wnte by oneself than as a member of a hterary group And m a way Bourget would have been nght the ordmary poetIc moods do not come off m Le Sanglot de ]a terre, only the extraordmary ones do Along WIth plaIn unmetaphoncal platItudes m the vem of Sully-Prudhomme there are reIDlruscences not only of the wnter's poetIc grandfathers and great-grandfathers (fit subjects fnr 1tT1lt
~~------------------------------------------------

not so patently Hugoesque fetfl1.S

S1.Cf'

une tour au 'Inlheu des etmles

Soudazn, eoup de vertzge l un eelatr ou, sans vmles, Ie sondats, grelottant d'effarement, de peur, L'enzgme du Cosmos dans toute sa stupeur l

I was on a tower WIth the stars around Suddenly, dIzztness l an unveiling flash In whIch I penetrated, shuddermg, The erugma of the cosmos m Its vastness 'Spleen des nUlts de JUllle!' lets off sexual steam In the manner of jean Rtchepm There are mfantIle stammenngs straIght out of

61

Verlame and serIes of dIsJo1Oted substantIves that can be descnbed only as Rlmbaidian Naturally the Influence of Baudelarre IS pervaSIve And these remmIscences are not alwa" s decently dIStnbuted 10 separate poems, but occur one after another on the same page Thus, the Runbaud-Baudelarre-Verlame sequence, 10 'Sleste eternelle' 3 Le blanc soletl de 1um amolltt les trottozrs Sur mon Itt, seul, prostre comme en mil sepulture (Close de rtdeaux blancs, oeuvre d'une mam pure), Ie Tiile doucement aux extases des sozrs Un relent enervant exptre d'un mouchozr Et promene sur mes levres sa chevelure Et, cormne un pzano vomn reve en mesure, Ie tournoze au concert rythme des encensotrs Tout est un songe Oh' mens, corps soyeux que fadore, Fondons-nous, et sans but, plus oublteux encore, Et ttedzs longuement atnsz mes yeux fermes Depuzs l'tternzte, croyez-le bten, Mada'me, L' Archet quz sur nos nerfs pznce ces trzstes gammes Appelmt pour ce 10ur nos atomes chttrmes The whIte June sun rus10tegrates the streets Upon my bed, alone, prostrate as 10 my tomb (Closed wIth whIte CUrtaInS, work of a pure hand), I gently gasp at everung's ecstasIes A weakenmg breath StIrS from a handkerduef And touches to my very lIps her harr A neIghbormg plano dreams 10 measure I whIrl wlth the censers' rhythmIc arc AllIS a dream Come, cherIshed sIlken body, Let us love, annlessly, ever more forgetful, And for a long tIme warm my closed eyes, so

62

jt.LES L~ORGt.E A.'I"D THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

From the begmmng, mark It well, Madame, The bow that scrapes sad tunes upon our nerves Ordered for tlus day our enchanted atoms The hne 'comme un plano vOlSln qm reve en mesure' gIves no lunt of subsequent Laforgman pIanos, Just as another poem, 'Crepuscule de dlmanche d'ete,' offers small reason to suppose that tlus poet wIll capture the bleakness of Sunday afternoons for several generations of readers In 'Rosace en Vltrrul' we have some color symbolIsm, far from ortgmal The whIte m the stamed-glass wmdow stands for chIldhood, punty, SImplICIty 'Bleus francs, verts des JUlllets, ecarlates superbes' are mterestIng only m VIew of what will happen to them later, and It IS noteworthy that thIs, a lme of poetry, IS commonplace, '\\
pretensIOns and a cult for dungs Galhc, had already mamtamed two French readers at her court 5 In 1881 the second of these came mto an mhentance and resIgned Bourget and EphrUSSI, but chIefly the former, undertook to secure the pOSItIOn for Lafargue 'I thought of hIm at once for the post,' the novelISt was to recall later 'He had good manners, a mIld and correct way, a bIt fragIle and secret I thought that m Germany he would be able to work as he saw fit, sheltered from need' 6 By 20 November Jules knew of hIS appomtment, and on that day came news of hIS father's death at Tarbes He had not 1.no\vn how III hIS father was Two months before he had been urgmg hIm, through Mane, to see a doctor, to take treatment, addmg, 'He's a good father no\o/, even If he dId read too much JeanJacques Rousseau' 7 Charles Laforgue rued, of tuberculosIS and mIsfortune, on a day when hIS son went to EphrusSI'S as usual m the mornmg, to the hbrary m the afternoon Whether the father had taken Rousseau's pedagogy too senously and treated hIs chrldren WIth mmgled neglect and overseventy IS a questIon that WIll never be answered He had sent hIS eldest sons to school m France, and eventually m Pans, had trted to make EmIle a pamter and Jules a bachelter Before he dIed he had taken hIS remammg chrldren back to the place that was, more than any other, theIr home Yet m letters of 20 and 22 November we find Jules askmg InsIstently whether hIs father had not some 'good word' 8 for rum before hIs death, and there seems to have been none Jean Peres, the psychologISt who knew Jules longer than anyone else outsIde hIS famrly, and wrote about hrm WIth a penetratIon that has never been surpassed, thought that he had hIS father In mInd when he wrote the followmg to the meter of an old French folk song * LE V,AlSSEAU

FANTOME

Il etatt un petzt 'ftIMre Ou Ugohn mena ses fils, Sous pretexte, Ie 1Jteux wrmlm'e' De les fatr' 'Voyager gratts

.. 'n

etalt un pent navl,Ie qw n'avart JamalS naVIgUl'

64

JI-LES LO\FORGUE A1-.D THE IROMC hHERITANCE

Au bout de cmq aszx senurmes, Les 'i.-t'VYes vmrent a11lanquer, Il dzt 'Vous 11lettez pas en peme, JUes fils n' mOnt Ja11laZS degoutel' 01Z tzra z'a Ia courte pazl/e, Formalzte' rtt/finement' Cm cet homme, zl1Z'avazt d'entrazlles Qu' pour en calme? les ttratll'ments Et donc, stotq'lte et Iegendazre, Ugolzn ma1Zgea ses enfants, Afin d'leur conserver un pere Oh' quand J'y song', mon coeur se fend' St cette htstotre vous embhe, C'est que vous etes u?]. sans-coeur' Ah' 1'at du coeur par d'ssus la tete, Oh' rzen partout que rtr's moqueurs' THE FLYING DUTCHMAN

Once there was a httle boat Ugowo boarded WIth Ius sons, Malang belIeve, the sly old goat, It was for sailmg lessons When five or SIX weeks out of port Supphes were dwmdhng sadly, He saId, 'My friends, do not lose heart' My offspring won't do badly" There was a show of drawmg straws FormalIty' Too soon belled' For Ugowo's ravenmg Jaws ExISted to be satisfied And so, stOIC and mytlucal, That honest man Ius sons devouredAh' at the thought my senses faliSo theIr poor father mIght be spared

THE GRE4.T DREAM

If such a tale weanes you, You are Indeed a hardened sartI But I have heart enough for twoAh, mockIng laughter, bItter sport l

If Jules Lafargue confounded In Ius lffiagInatIon the long voyage of ills seventh year wIth the futlle course of the Flying Dutchman, If he saw ills father as a sort of UgolIno sacrIficIng ills offspnng willIe he lIved on unencumbered In \Iontevldeo, he was too charItable to mentlon It e>..cept In the ambIguous medmm .... .t:. .......... _.... _

,\ _..3 .. J:

L. ...... .& ......1.. __ ............. 'L...- ........1..

-.

....t...- ... _____ ..J ___ .... __

..J

___ "-- __

-

Est mort avec un profil severe

My father (shyness hardened him) DIed WIth a stIff and frowmng air Jules dId not go to Tarbes for Ius father's funeral, explam.mg that he had to WaIt In Pans for InstruCtlons from Germany Instead, he wrote two long letters to MarIe, trymg to console her a httle WIth thoughts of the rune thousand francs a year he was gOIng to earn, hVIng In a palace, waited on by a pnvate servant. watched over by a court physICian He promises to support t:wo of ills younger brothers, Charles and Adnen 'If It'S Just a matter of makIng money, I'll do that, you'll see,' 9 he wntes bravely, and one can hardly blame rum for braggmg a httle Nme thousand francs was the salary of a Senator or member of the Chambre des Deputes at that tlme, the eqUlvalent of 1,800,000 francs at present. On the other hand, Jules confesses mmself totally unable to take stock of the family finances For some tlffie Jules had been planrung, 1f he got the pOSItIOn m Germany, to pay a VISIt to Tarbes And now It would seem that he could have managed to attend hIs father's funeral, espeCIally SInce he dtd not leave France for another ten days One suspects that he was appalled at the thought of facmg the land of task that he knew to be most foreIgn to hlffi Early on the morrung of 29 November he left from the Gate

66

jLLES L~FORGUE A..,{D THE IRO.... IC bHERITA}"CE

de l'Est to Journey mto hIs 'great dream,' as he called the German adventure m a farewell note to EphrusSI He departed wIth hIs BuddhIstIc sense of fatalIty 'My heart may beat a lIttle faster But all saId and done I let myself go, for I belIeve that all IS wntten, that everythIng IS marked out m advance It was Written that I should meet you m thIS lIfe, It was wntten that I should go to Coblenz, and how I Will do m all thIs has been deCIded from all eterruty , 10 He had lunch at the BelgIan frontier, dmner at Cologne At eleven o'clock that mght he reached Coblenz A carriage and coachman, a bnsk footman "" ere waltlng In the castle park the paths seemed endless, and gashghts, closely spaced, gleamed on the pomts of steel helmets The carnage set Jules down before a flIght of steps A bIg fellow m a umform bowed and opened a door ThIs was hIs manservant, who had a Wife lIkeWIse delegated to look after the French reader The servants moved about lIghtIng a fire and settIng out a supper on a sllver tray, whlle Jules notIced that hIs apartment mcluded an antechamber, a vast hIghceilinged study WIth two broad wmdows, a desk With wntIng materials m readmess, and other furrushmgs (mcludmg a spittoon and a foot-muff) Left alone, Jules warmed himself and sat down to eat spanngly, because, as he confided m a letter to hIS Sister, thIs kInd of dmner seemed so mSIpid to a stomach that had dIgested so much vache enragee 11 'Everytlung IS qUIet,' he wrote to MarIe on the mght of hIs second day m Germany 'I ask myself whether It lsn't all a dream I pull my curtaIns aSIde and see the long fa~ade of the castle all lIghted up, and the solemn sentinels paCIng back and forth With niles over theIr shoulders' Then he went mto hIs bedroom, where another fire had been lIt, and fell asleep m sheets 'as fine as silk' The ceremomous mtroductIon to the Empress had taken place that mornmg, Jules answenng questions Simply, satISfactorily At 8 30 In the evemng he had read for the first tIme to the seventy-year-old monarch, who meanwhlle dId water colors m the mIdst of her retInue, two pnnces leafing through albums, four young pnncesses embrOldenng, the first lady-tn-WaitIng keeptng a sharp eye on the proceedtngs He read, he reported, 'as

THE GREAT DREn!

m a dream,' was less turud than he had been many tlffies In EphrusSl's office, and slapped rumbly over a passage m" the Re'i.'ue des deux mondes whIch alluded vaguely to IllICIt paSSIOn After the readmg the Empress asked more questIOns, trus tIme about a Pans art exlubItIon, and once more he answered '\\ Ith presence of mmd Bourget and EphruSSI had Judged theIr man \\ ell He \\ as off to a good start and dashed back to hIS apartment to \\ nte to Charles Henry, EphrUSSI, and at great length to \lane He told Henry and EphrusSI about the pnncipal events and the dazzlIng expanses of whIte staIrcase But he told .Mane everytrung, and fimshed exultantly 'Oh, my dear MarIe, the ",orst IS O\,er f I'm saved 1 I'm gomg to blossom out lfl all thls opulence I'm gomg to get used to It, loosen up, pamper my stomach, take care of my appearance, and grmd away at my books, my beloved books -my only ambItIon after all J' l2 The next day, I December, followmg the normal court schedule, Augusta and her household left Coblenz for the wmter palace at Berlm The tram traveled all day through mountams densely bnstlmg WIth dark fir trees, through Idyllic valleys and dIScouraged-lookIng market towns, which were, nonetheless, flagbedecked for the Empress, through mneteen tunnels-Jules counted them, rIdmg m the same compartment WIth the Grand Master of the court and the Empress' phYSICIan, WIth whom he had dmed at Coblenz, tellmg about some of the medIcal books he had pored over m Pans lIbranes In Berlm Jules moved mto quarters even larger than those at Coblenz, m the Pnnzessmnen-Palals, Unter den Lmden He had only three rooms, but the study was large enough to hold SIX tables and much nuscellaneous furmture Wlthout crowdmg FIVe wmdows looked out on the parade ground of the Platz am Zeughaus WIth Its leveled canon, on the Umverslty and the Museum, not to mention the tall, muscular soldIery of Wllhelm I and officers WIth pale monocles thrust m theIr eyes And the young Frenchman who had had his share of provmcIal frugalIty and Panslan parsImony observed WIth saosfactlOn that the three porcelam stoves m his apartment were tended hourly By 5 December, when he wrote to both Henry and EphruSSl agam, he was settled m his schedule Every mommg at nme

68

JLLES L-\FORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITAJ.'1CE

o'clock three ne,,,spapers were delIvered to hl1TI L'Independance BeIge, the Journal des Debats, and Ftgaro He marked the 'Interesnng' artlcles for readIng, and others, 'polItIcal bulletIns and book reVIews,' for summanzmg He also ran through numbers of the Revue des deux mondes for artlcles that the Empress nnght have mIssed Dreary as thIs occupatIon must have been, It was not qUIte frUItless one day In an old Revue he stumbled on an artIcle about Walt WhItman-bad, scoldmg, but nevertheless an IntroductIon to the Amencan poet that had a far-reachIng effect on hIS verse techmque Ordmanly Jules read to the Empress and a SIngle lady-m-waitIng at eleven In the mornmg In a lIttle room hung wIth engravmgs But sometImes the readmg took place m the evenmg Then there would be more ceremony and Jules would go half an hour early to be wIth the Countess Hacke From the start thIs first ladY-In-waItIng showed a tendency to mother the young reader Jules was qUIte ready to return her good wIll He never referred to her except as a sort of good angel smootInng hIs path through the mtncaCIes of court etIquette 'Oh the good and charmmg lady, how she takes me under her wmg!> 18 he wntes to EphrusSI Countess Hacke may have had another SIde, revealed to less mnocent observers Auguste Gerard, the first of the Empress' French readers, helped compose a book of memoIrs about BerlIn In whIch the first lady-m-waItIng IS descnbed as follows 'Countess AdelaIde Hacke IS a hunchback, and though she lacks the IntellIgence that OrdInarIly distIngUIshes that breed of the human speCIes she has all of Its charactenstIc meanness Her Influence over the Empress, whom she often maltreats, 15 conSIderable She lS the Empress' alter ego, replaCIng her on every poSSIble occaslOn She lIkes Intngue, eXCItement, commotIon Her mlld VOlce has affected IntonatIons She calls everybody "my dear," assumes madonna-lIke aIrS which swear WIth her features, and secretly, mdIrectly, she undermmes the reputatIon of thIs person, speaks ill of that, gIves dIscreetly to understand hmts at the weaknesses of the shortconnngs of MIne X M A spreads her treacherous InSInUatIOns nght and left She 15 evIl WIthout suspecnng It and Injures others not out of malIce but by SImple prompnng of her nature, wInch, beIng ugly, cannot tolerate any trace of nobIlIty In her neIghbor' 14

vVIth thIS lIoness, If such she was, Jules lay down lI~e a lamb, trustIng and unexplOlted e"'{cept In minor ",avs True, Countess Hacke made hIm correct her French pronUnCIatIOn for half an hour before the everung readings began, for she spo~e French, she admItted, 'comme un cochon ' But Jules too1.. thIS" Ith :;,Good grace and went dnvIng wIth her past guards who presented arms to the carnage bearing the great lady and Ephrussl's one-tIme aSsIstant Even unfnendly cntIcs found less aCId thIngs to sav about the Empress Augusta She was, they saId, less mtellIgent than she '\lshed to appear (an uncommon traIt, Indeed), InsIsted 'on playing a part, taking Infirute pains to seem hIghly educated, well read, well Informed about everythIng gOing on In the" orld of SCIence and the arts' She sought to make herself popular, and surrounded herself wIth 'favontes who were the first to speak eVIl of therr protector' 15 But there IS somethIng dIStInctly readymade about these detractIons They could be applIed wIthout • alteratIon to so many of the great MarIe LouIse Catherine of Saxe-WeImar, the Empress Augusta, a pnncess of RUSSIan ongIn brought up at WeImar In Goethe's cIrcle, pnded herself on beIng as lIttle German as pOSSIble LIke some other German sovereIgns, she was only dIstantly Interested In her subjects She spoke French almost wIthout accent and inSISted that only French be spoken around her LIke another well-known German of these years, FnedrIch NIetzsche, she detested Wagner and doted on Carmen Immensely proud, elaborately artIficIal In her dress, wIth dlSconcertIng gray eyes that Jarred WIth her forced smile, affectedly plaintIve VOIce, and langUId movements, Augusta seems to have been less deserving of cntlcism than most rulers and easIly the most interestIng person In offiCIal BerlIn Though she suffered from an Improperly treated Injury and had great dIfficulty In standing, she managed to do so on occaslOn 'As for the Empress,' Laforgue wrote after haVIng been her reader for two months and a half, 'she IS the perfect type of great lady, the kind admrred by those who look back longingly to the draWIng rooms of the seventeenth and eIghteenth centunes ' 16 No doubt we are prejudIced In Augusta's favor because of the

70

Jl.LES L~FORGUE A~D THE IROMC I~HERITANCE

lIkIng she took to Laforgue Of course, she could hardly have failed to apprecIate such a paragon He ,vas a model cutter-out and summer-up of artIcles, keepIng Ius eye open for fasluon hInts that nught Interest the ladIes-In-waItlng, he could outlIne a book by James von Rothscluld or choose appropnate passages from Metterruch's Memozrs and deAtrously Introduce small doses of poetry But the Empress' good will was to outlast Jules' early zeal, pursue lum durIng years when he was thoroughly bored and not very conSCIentIOUS about hIS dutIes, nght down to the nme when he would leave Germany WIth the fiancee she dId not want lum to have Sometlung lIke the attractIon of OpposItes was at work Augusta had herOIC qualttIes that Laforgue lacked, and he possessed, or developed dunng the German years, when he matured very rapIdly, a fleXIbIltty of nund of wluch the Empress was qwte mcapable At first the court routlne left Laforgue lIttle nme to stray from the narrow path of rus preparatIons, hIS readmgs, rus conversatIo1\s WIth Countess Hacke He finally VISIted the art gallery because of the Empress' persIstent urgIngs But he knew very ltttle German-rus sentences were formed, he SaId, WIth rIdICulous slowness at the begmmng and unseemly haste toward the endhIs conversanons WIth the servants were mamly pantommle, and he was afraId to enter shops even to make small necessary purchases Meanwhile he was begmnmg to appreCIate the full ugltness of the Berltn scene The workmg gIrls who scurned along beneath hIs WIndows had truck ankles and red noses The palaces, though spaCIOUS, were awkward and none too comfortable we are told, for InStance, that there was not a SIngle bathroom to be found anywhere The corndors were cluttered WIth clumsy plaster figures and the SIttIng rooms lacked any suggestlOn of COZIneSS There was a cramped greenhouse where cruna parrots could be swung out creakIly over shaggy palm trees InSIde the palace as outsIde, the women were Ill-dressed, poorly groomed On afternoon walks he nussed the wrought Ironwork of Pans balcomes, and the houses were all one monotonous dull tan color He dId not admIre the town hall, despite Its celebrated pmklsh tower Vnter den Lmden had struck rum at first as a mtruature Boulevard des Itahens, but as he became familiar WIth It the buIldmgs

THE GRE4T DREAM

looked more and more lIke barracks Hls first lmpresslOn of the Rtver Spree had been 'Quel rUlsseau 19noblel' 11 and that dId not change Frrst and second ImpressIOns had been formed and he "as lU a CurIOuS state of outer calm and lUner be" Ilderment when he made the acquaintance of a French JournalIst stationed m BerlIn Jean-Aubry has quoted at length from the recollections of Theodore LlUdenlaub But certam passages from LlUdenlaub's ongmal letter to Jean-Aubry are worth quoting agam, for the JournalIst was somethlUg of a lIterary cntIc beSIdes bemg a practIced wnter Lmdenlaub had been m BerllU long enough to 1.now both of the preVIOUS French readers, and one day early m December he rang the bell at the Pnnzessmnen-Paials expectIng the second of these, one Amedee PIgeon, to appear Instead he was confronted WIth 'an unfamiliar face, extremely cunous, all fine shades of expresSIOn an almost chIldIsh face, yet so senous, and (now and then) WIth such aged wnnkles, the Breton eyes, sea-colored, looklUg beyond or WItrun' The face was metIculously cleanshaven and Its owner was dressed m a tlght-fittmg black frock coat Lmdenlaub could not ImaglUe what klUd of person he had before hIm HIS first thought was that the Empress, WIth her well-known fondness for Cathohcs, had taken a lIttle Rherush pnest for her reader 'No,' he deCIded, 'not WIth those eyes" Lmdenlaub found Laforgue m a semI-somnambulIstic state 'I have never met,' he saId, 'a belUg more completely lost than Laforgue durmg Ins first days lU Germany, or one filled WIth a more mtense phobIa for creatures and for thmgs That Impenetrable mask, that calm and level VOIce, hId an almost morbId state of tlmldIty and uncertaInty I wonder by what extraordmaty effort of will he managed, from one day to another, to go about Ins dutIes, to keep up the appearances of court hfe, to get dressed, remember Ius hours of work, make an entrance, utter a greetIng. to speak-answer, t:hat 15 to saY-WIthout anyone nOtICIng m the least Ins palpttatlng dIStress • It turned out that Lmdenlaub knew Bourget and Charles Henry, and at the mentlon of these fan::u.har names Lafargue SaId, 'How st:ra.nge l How remarkable" but WIthout eXCitement, as

72

Jt'LES LAFORGuE A..,\D THE IRO:!o.IC INHERITA....... CE

though he knew that some pre-estabhshed harmony had ordame( tlus meeong at Just tlus moment The young men talked for long tIme, and Laforgue told Lmdenlaub more about lus failllly hIs early experience then than he ever dId agam, apparentl: dnven by a deep need to fasten onto someone from the wod he knew is The JournalIst ran small practIcal errands for the newcomer dId chores of the land that Laforgue seemed helpless to perfom for hImself Lmdenlaub, as much attracted as Gustave Kahn ha< been a year and a half before by the combmatIOn of qualItIes, the clerical aIr, the artIstIc tastes, the enthusIaStIC talk about books called agam WIthout delay, brmgmg two musIc-student fnend: WIth hIm These were the Ysave brothers, Eugene, who was t< become one of the greatest of Vlohrusts, and Theo, a plarust The Ysayes were much sought after by musIcal Berlmers, and before long Jules was accompanymg them on SOCIal evenmgs, as dIe Lmdenlaub and another French-speakmg attendant at the court the Empress' BelgIan dentIst Taken In by the httle band, Laforgue could not complam of bemg left alone, though he mentIOned Ius lonehness often enough m letters to PariS He never became a close fnend of Eugene Ysaye, the more .. ~ __ ....... ~.... ..... .,....J

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kept bUSIer by hIS newspaper than Laforgue by the court BU1 from the first Jules lut It off WIth Theo, who was only sIxteen anc If pOSSIble even dreamIer and more mexpenenced than Laforgue hunself Jules was anythIng but a solItary worker, m spIte of the tlmldIty that bIOgraphers have overstressed As he became morc accustomed to Ius dutIes and accumulated readmg matter for ~ month and more ahead, he would spend whole days m the plamst'! room, readmg or malang notes to the sound of the practIcmg He dId not have a deep feehng for mUSIC, hIS ImagmatIon bemg pnmanly VISual, but he found m mUSIC hberatlOn, forgetfulness, contact WIth what he was commg to call the UnconscIous He ltked Theo's student room, so comfortable after the stIff ornateness of the palace, and after the courtly exchange of formalItIe! he hked the broken snatches of student talk Between conversa· tIons, whIle Theo was playmg, and at mght m the PrInzessmnen· Palals after hIS tasks were done, he read WIdely m works that

THE GRE>\T DRE·nI

73 were, as hIS fnends confessed, qUIte foreIgn to theIr understandIng They mcknamed rum 'Colhne,' after the out-at-elbo\\ Splulosopher In a book they read together, Henry l\1urger's Scenes de la we de Boheme They had no way of knO\\Ing that thIS pale, round-faced comrade wIth the carefully brushed hatr, the forward-tIltIng head, the dark, formal garb demanded by hIS POSItion, 'the look beyond or wIthIn,' had the \\Idest-rangmg mmd among wnters of hIS tlme, a mInd qUIte Independent of hIS still cluldish feelmgs, one that delIghted In gomg out to meet phIlosophers on theIr own ground It was Laforgue's destInY, typIcal of the Intellectual, that hls reflective CapaCItieS matured more rapIdly than hIS artiStiC talent HIS novel, Un Rate, WhICh he rose at fh e every mormng to wnte-In spIte of the motherly cautlOnIngs of Countess Hacke-has rusappeared and IS probably no great loss But almost all hIS notes toward an aesthetics, Jottings InspIred by IDS readIngs In the lustory of Ideas, are of Interest, so mearungful and frUitful was hIS dIssatisfaction WIth the matenalIstIc doctnnes he had left belund lum In France

VI

AesthetIc Ideas

'YEsTERDn,' Jules had wntten from Pans early m 188r, 'Tame (whose course I follow regularly m spIte of the Ingres fresco stanng down from the wall) was truly astorushmg on the subject of Ange11co' 1 The course was at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where Enule was a student and Jules, m 1880-81, an audItor The lectures were those that Tame was shortly to turn mto the completed fonn of Ius Phtlosophze de l'art Laforgue was one of those most deeply mfiuenced by trus rustonan-aesthetIClan, those who could hear rum speak, meanwrule medItatIng on how old-fashlOned, how non-ImpresslOrust, how hfeless m spIte of the beautIful drawmg, was 'RO'fJ1!ltius vamqueur d' Acron remporte les depouzlles opzmes, the Ingres fresco on the wall of the hemicycle behmd the speaker's stand Laforgue left a pIcturesque note, unpubhshed tlll now, on one of these lectures 'Tame's course -H15 nruculous trousers, too short, WIth a marked baggmg at the knees -fuch m facts For an hour one 15 transported to the multIfarIOUS Italy of the SIXteenth century I look at the bent skulls of the attentIve audItors, on wruch 11ght falls from above, WIthout nuance, Februarypale These people are chewmg marshmallow creams, they have neckerchtefs, rubbers on theIr feet, flannels, umbrellas They are 11stenmg to the memol!S of Celliru, the hves of the Borglas (see Talne, Pl:nlo d' A en ltalze) , z A dIalogue With Tame, COnslStIng of expostulatIon agamst tlus pomt, grudgmg agreement WIth that, stlrrmgs of obscure d1ssent, runs from one end of Laforgue's notebooks to the other He was 74

AESTHETIC IDEAS

75

one of several to rattle the chams that Tame had forged between the external fact and the work of art Samte-Beu, e, Gautler, Flaubert, and the Goncourts had all protested agamst Trune's deternurusm, lus mSenSltIveness to the spark that makes each ,\ ork of art uruque, rustInct from every other product of the same race, enV1!onment, and lustoncal moment So, mdrrectly, had Bourget, a Tamean m some respects, by the quallty of the mSlght and the extent of the analysIs mtroduced mto lus crltlcal essays Any artIst of that time or smce would have felt sometlung deeply anuss m Tame's Beaux-Arts lectures, 'astorushIng'though they were Nowhere IS the formula of determmatIon by race, milieu, and moment applled qUIte so mecharucally (not e\ en m the Hzstozre de 1ft Ittterature angltltse) as In the lectures on ItalIan and Dutch art Nowhere are the cntena of artIstIc merIt set forth qUIte so ngidly as m the senes of lectures entItled De ['Ideal dans rart And tlus last "Work 15 In fundamental d15accord WIth the other Beaux-Arts lectures It would seem that a thoroughgomg determIrust should recogruze the authentlCIty of many kmds of art, products of an mdefirute number of combmatlons of race, enV1!onment, and lustoncal moment Tame, however, Imposes a narrowly exclUSIve, Helleruc Ideal, and not the Greek Ideal as It was understood by more searchIng students of antIquIty even m Ius tIme-the resolution of tragiC COnflIcts, constantly Impenled, contInually renewed, but as the 'natural' outgrowth of 'stable and beneficent' quahtIes Wlnckelmann's neoclassIc conception of antlqillty turned to the taste of a runeteenth-century lecture audience One of the worst features of tlus work 1S Its unfrumess to Tame lumself, who understood hIS own tIme, If not antIqUIty, much better than tills would mdxcate In De rIdeal dans 1'trrt he IS more than once trapped by rus own prmclples, as when he mterrupts one of rus tIrades agrunst realIsm to say that Rembrandt rud not really produce art at all, but a kmd of poetry Tame IS thus reduced to mamtauung that Rembrandt was not exactly an artIst, and that poetry IS not precIsely an art, because he began by saymg that art 15 mentonous to the extent that It expresses 'the most elementary, mtlmate and general characterIStICS,' whIch charactenstIcs are also the most 'lffiportant,' 'stable: and, more gratUltously stIll, the most 'healthy and sImple' There

76

jT..LES L"'FORGuE A..... O THE IRO"\IC I~HERITANCE

15 a \.'hole hIerarchy of artIstIC \\'orth accordmg to the generahty, l1l1portance, stabIhry, health, and Sl1l1phCIty of traIts represented PIctures 10 "ruch consIderable attentIOn IS paId to dress only suggest the fashIon plate StudIes of manners, of the effect of an en"\ Ironment, a trade, occupatIOnal deformatIOns, are comparatIvely superfiCIal (trus from the author of an epoch-makmg study of Balzac and one of the cruef InspIrers of Zola's naturahsm) The most uruversal, stable, Important charactenstIcs are those of the nude human figure 10 Its SImple health and perfectIOn If the first sectIon of De l'Ideal dims fart 15 arbItrary, the second 15 even more so What IS urnversal, stable, and so on, IS saId to possess 'beneficence' 10 proportIon Tame has rus own defirntIon of trus new term The beneficence of an mdIvidual or a SOCIety IS to be Judged by the ettent to whIch It 'prospers, mcreases Its power' Beneficence begms at home True, Tame mentIons dutIes to one's neIghbor, even says that the hIghest faculty IS that of lOVIng However, he assumes WIthout explanatIon that the quahtIes that enable an IndIVIdual to be Just to,," ard rumself are also those that promote socIal JustIce And he sets up another scale of ment parallel to the first Flatly realistIc art-for e"l{ample, that of Henry Monrner, portrayer of the vapId bourgeOIS of the 1830'S and '40'S -shows us only the hmIted, twIsted, and mean creatures of every day Even the characters of Shakespeare and Balzac are lackmg m nobIhty because they are dIStorted The herOIC Greek nude 15 more Important, more beneficent Tame should have stopped here, smce there IS no place for the samt 10 a system definmg beneficence as h1S does But at trus POInt he leaves room to Imagme that loftIer souls bUIld more stately manSlOns WIth the full force of rus artIStIC InstIncts Laforgue rebelled agaInst TaIne's serene, stOIcally moral Ideal of art, 'wruch leads to the classICally beautIful, to the Greek nude whereIn moral nobIlIty 15 the consummatlon of phYSIcal perfectIon, and whIch IS madequate when confronted by anythIng not of Greek or RenaISsance InspIratIon' (as Laforgue wntes 10 an unpublIshed draft of h1S essay 'L'Art moderne en Allemagne') S How can anyone maIntam that such an Ideal IS elementary, unIversal, In VIew of the masterpIeces of Chtnese and Japanese art or a PersIan rug;l 4 And smce he d15approves of Tatne's habIt of asslgnmg to every

AESTHETIC IDEAS

77 work Its place on a ladder, he suggests whnnslcally that the ladder be kIcked aSIde 5 HaVing looked long at the Egyptian collections In BerlIn, he wntes on the spmtual, death-denYIng qualIties of thIS art, enhanced by stylIzation by no means umversal, as foreIgn to TaIne's matenalIsm as the works of the ChrIStian MIddle Ages Laforgue launches Into enthuSIaStIC appreCIatiOn of the least stable form of aesthetic expresslOn, dress It IS, he says, as Important to the painter as the mental \vorld IS to the psychologIst 'Even In our submerged tlme, paralyzed by the ready-made,' minute dIfferences In dress dIstIngUISh one person from another, reveal character and occupation ClothIng IS no less Important than that other kInd of tOIlette Imposed upon the person, 'the cut of the beard and haIr, care of the natls and shln, manners, bearIng , 6 In thIS defense of artIfice, thIs extenslOn of the very meanIng of 'costume,' we feel the influential presence of BaudelaIre As a champIOn of the ImpresslOrusts, Laforgue attaches much Importance to sigruficant bodIly deformations as well as to costume 'Isn't the nude figure of a workmg gIrl twIsted by her trade, or one of DonateIlo's fraIl nudes, Just as mterestIng as DIana Huntress;l And aren't the busts of the Caesars [whose modem tormented look, lack of clasSIcal equIlIbnum, TaIne had noted], close to us as they are, fully as interesting as the heads of the NlObldes;l'1 The CarIcatunst occupIed a lowly rung on TaIne's ladder Laforgue proclarms his devotion to cancatunsts In general and to Charles Keene In partIcular He lIked the 'deep, harsh, compact' sketches of thIS English desIgner of Master Punch, and he wrote about Keene's work m a way that helps us to understand Lafargue's own aIms 'The pen IS coarse, not a bIt elegant or aIry One mtght take It to be tlmtd and fumbling But look a lIttle closer and see how supple and knowmg It IS These gemuses of the melegant pen, subtle WIthout seemtng to be The pen IS coarse, It blots, 15 Inept at pretty penmanhke hatchings, at renderIng a profile by a smgle feature yes, It 15 coarse and It blots, but how It bears down at 'jUSt, 'JUSt the nght place, and WIth an apparently careless and aCCIdental stroke catches astonISh109 vanetIes of expressIOn' 8 He Imagmes that Jean-Fran~Ols Raffaelli, a parnter of Pans suburbs, must have learned from Keene

78

JLLES L-\FORGUE A...,\D THE IRO"",IC !I>.HERITA....... CE

From 1882 till the end of Ius Me, Laforgue was Interested In the possibilines of polychrome sculpture, statuary relIeved of Its monotony, restored to the vanegated compleXIty of Greek nmes HIS cruef consolanon, returnmg to Baden-Baden In the fall of r883, was a polychrome head modeled In WaA by Henry Cros \Ve __ ..... _ ......... ........ l~ ...- ......... 1.. ... 'h."' ....... J.. ........... ", ...... 1__ 1... .oA ---~---

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"'T"'-'''C''

-~---r

1-..'I',\"" r-"'_"r"< ....t.._.

- -- --- .. --

delIghted wIth It, sIckly smlle and all, mentIorung It gratefully In letters 10 and In Ius dIary 11 What was more, he trled to stIr up enthusIasm for polychrome sculpture, to find buyers for Cros' work Although he does not seem to have been partIcularly successful as an agent, such wax figures helped hun to formulate hIS polychrome Ideal 'Just as I prefer to a scene reproduced In an engravIng the ongInal WIth all Its Vibrancy of tone and atmosphenc values, so do I prefer to marble or bronze thIs bust modeled out of wax, WIth blue eyes or black, wlth the harr and necklace and all the rest' 12 ThIs much IS from the Melanges posthumes In an unpublIShed continuation of tms thought Laforgue goes on to say that If there were only more such polychrome busts TaIne and Renan would not be oblIged to speak of sculpture 'Wlth such a funereal aIr' Men who refer to evolution so often should be more aware of the self-reneWIng potennalItIes of art As we mIght suspect, the poet has no patience wlth any standard of beneficence SometImes hIS OpInIOnS are superbly unsupported by argument 'No, that IS sunply not the way tmngs are In art Nero, an ann-socIal creature, a sort of deadly germ, was nght when he saId, "QualIS artIfex pereo'''' 18 He does not say why, except that 'art IS a matter of beIng Interesting' 14 In Laforgue's best-known story, Hamlet dies wlth the same last words of Nero on ms lIps, and there they are dlStlnctly appropnate because Hamlet IS a notonous aesthete But here, If Laforgue really means:i() take up the good fight agamst 'dIdactic heresy; moral message In art, we should lIke to see the steps of the argument Failing that, we tend to regret Just a lIttle the earlIer noo.on of art as a form of moral dISCIplIne By way of Opposlnon to Tame's VIew that great art expresses 'stable' characterlStlcs, Lafargue proposes an 'ephemeral' Ideal, the term probably beIng hfted from De PIdeal dans Part, where

AESTHETIC IDE4.S

79

Tame uses It repeatedly 'Ephemeral creature that I am, the creature of a day mterests me more than the perfect hero, Just as a human bemg m everyday garb appeals to me more strongly than a sculptor'S nude model A Pans worktng gIrl, a young lady m a drawmg room, a Burne-Jones head, a PanSIan as seen by NIttlS, Orpheus' malden as conceIved by Gustave Moreau-these are the figures that touch our hearts, because they are the true SIsters of our mortalIty, WIth theIr aIr of bemg of our own day, theIr COIffure, theIr toilette, theIr modern look" 15 In the same way BaudelaIre had tnsisted on the arnst's obltgatlOn to show us 'how great and poetic we are m our neckties and patent-leather shoes'-had urged the artISt to draw from the humblest detaIls of the contemporary scene a sense of the herOIsm of modem hfe Laforgue IS demonstratmg here hIS sympathy for the very great aesthetICIans, those who do not tie the protestIng body of art to a Procrustean bed of preconceptions, but who wm theIr way from the work of art toward the values It reluctantly reveals We remember how the Reverend James Bowyer urged the young Colendge to wrIte not about the Plenan Sprmg but about the clOIster pump. and how faIthfully Colendge'S cnticism teaches that poetry must aSSIIDllate the famIlIar, the near-at-hand Laforgue's terms for the near-at-hand are the 'ephemeral,' the 'quotidIan' He would not have made lus clear call for moderruty WIthout BaudelaIre's example, nor would Jons-Karl Huysmans, although thIS IS not to dlffilrush the Importance of eIther of these 'Decadents ' Laforgue admIred Huysmans SIncerely, 10 spIte of the 'heavyJomted style' ('style aux lourdes attaches') that he was heard to deplore m Berhn 16, and Huysmans, for hIS part, considered Laforgue the most grrted among the SymbolIstS aT The poet's second pubbshed pIece of wntlng was a br1ef apprecIative reVIew of Huysmans' En Memzge, m a German penodlcal, Magazm fur d,e Ltteratur, and several tImes we find lum urgmg thIS novel upon rus fnends En Menage IS basIcally a sunple tale about two f!lends, a lymphatic WrIter who can hve neIther WIth nor WIthout hIS dull Wife, and a cholerIC, bnlliant pa10ter It 15 not a partIcularly well-sustamed work But the fifth chapter 15 of coOSlderable 10terest because Cypnen, the pamter, makes a spmted bnef ex-

80

JULES LAFORGLE <\"'"\D THE IRONIC I~HERITA.."\CE

posltlon of a workmg aesthetics of c r88o-belIefs, tendenCIes, preJuruces of the artistIc as opposed to the Tamean tmnd-whIch Laforgue approved '" holeheartedly Cypnen propounds, accordmg to Laforgue m rus reVIew, 'artistic theorIes as valId, m our 0pIOlon, as they are remarkable, concerrung what IS nowadays called "moderruty'" 18 The tone of a landscape was, accordmg to Cypnen, 'lent by factory chunneys rIsmg above the treetops, spewmg flakes of soot mto the clouds' 19 (Laforgue was to call rumself 'the poet of factory crumneys ') The pamter confesses to exultant bursts of JOY when, seated on the talus of the old walls of ParIS, his gaze plunges far mto the dIstance, talung m 'the gasometers rearIng up mto the sky, theIr dark skeletons shot through wIth lIght, lIke blue-walled amphitheaters borne up by black columns ' and all the other beautiful monstrOSIties of the mdustrIal landscape Like Dostoevskyan heroes, lIke BaudelaIre and Corblere, he smgs the beauties of the morrung twilight, the CIty streets dIsgorgmg at dawn the delIghts that few have eyes to see, certamly not the 'old charlatans who come up WIth ready-made enthusIasms about anCIent basilicas or those chalets of rough-hewn stone they call the marvels of Greek art' May they all go to the devIl WIth theIr Parthenon, one tied on m front and another behind' Or let them set up shop m front of the Bourse and they'll see another Parthenon, trus one a bIt hvened up though, because someone has had the good sense to put up a bIg clock m front and plant a few chimneys on top, all of which breaks the harmony of those grand stupId lInes' Cypnen regrets that people seem destIned to admIre the Venus de' MedICI for some tIme yet He exclauns, and the words undoubtedly were at the back of Laforgue's tmnd when he wrote the passage quoted above 'The Venus that I, for one, adIDIre, the Venus I worsrup on my knees as the type of modern beauty, IS the g:trl who scampers along the street, the factory gIrl Just as she 15 m her coat and dress, the tmlhner WIth her sallow compleXIOn, her mISChievous eyes full of pearly ghmmers, the errand gIrl wlth her pale lIttle face, her breasts that shake an<\ lups that sway" Underlymg Cypnen's enthUSIasms and condemnations 15 a sense of commuruon WIth those who bear the heat and brunt of

AESTHETIC IDEAS

81

creatIOn, those who are not only exIled from socIety but actIvely at odds WIth It The artISt of 1880 IS begmrung to regard hImself as a transvaluer of values The posItlon ImplICIt m Cypnen's words IS explIcIt m Laforgue's, who spea1.s of 'poets too febne, too debde to be cnmmals anarchIsts, ruhilists nounshed 10 the crItlcal school but who have abandoned It and cast themselves out IOta lIfe the only bemgs who no longer acknowledge any dIscIplIne whether Imposed by conSCience or by soclety' 20 If we pursue Huysmans' and Laforgue's conceptIOns of the value of what IS novel, If we reflect on the ImplIcatIons of Laforgue's belIef that 'every mdlVldual IS a keyboard played on by the UnconsclOu<;,' 21 that what each human bemg says IS Important, we may decIde that the poet was more Tamean than he acknowledged, that he was only carrvmg out to Its logIcal conclUSIOn a detenrurusm of race, milieu, and moment and preser; mg Tamean doctrme from Its own negatIon of Itself m De l'Ideal dtms I'art He was, moreover, mdebted to the plulosopher-lustonan for a cnDcal method mto wluch he lapsed mvoluntarIly, as when he wrote, m a so far uncollected artIcle, of the 'faculte-maitresse' of the German pamter Adolph Menzel 22 Though he was persuaded that the work of art was neIther stable nor beneficent, he Judged It as Tame dId by the 'convergence of effects'-dIfferent effects Fmally, the emphasIS placed on the 'nerves,' especIally m the notes on BaudelaIre, IS traceable to De l'Intelhgence One conclUSIOn from the Beaux-Arts lectures IS sure the lecturer emerged from hIS mvestlgatIons of Buddlusm and Chnsnaruty untouched by eIther There IS no place for SpIrIt m these sweepmg condemnaDons of medIeval art, tlus praIse for the healthful works of peoples 'bIen portants et contents de VIvre' Tame attached suffiCIent Importance to the unconscIOUS human I1llnd, the slumbermg force m each man, he could not have been deeply mterested m the kmd of UnconscIOUS that came to preoccupy Laforgue more and more dunng hIS years m Gennany Jules had been an orthodox CatholIc chIld, a convmced BuddhISt In Ius teens, the antl-relIglOus revulSIOns of hIS twentles are those of a relIgIOUS temperament The aggressIve matenahsm of the Beaux-Arts lectures must have IrrItated lum qUIte as much as the

82

]t.Lr:S L-\FORGuE A'I\D THE IROMC I'1HERIT<\""CE

plgeonhohng Durmg the wmter of

1880-8 I

he had already be-

gun to read a ,vork that", as to satIsfy hIs need for metaphysIcal explanatIOn wIthout offendmg hIS cult for SCIence, and to provIde OptImIStIC solutIons to peSSImIStIC problems ThIs remarkably versatIle work was called (If we translate Its German tItle mto EnglIsh) The Phzlosophy of the Unconsczous Speculatzve Results accordzng to the Inductzve Method of Physzcal Sczence Written by a one-tIme German army officer of twenty-seven, Eduard" on Hartmann, and pubbshed m 1869, It was translated mto French eIght years later By December 1880 Laforgue was sufficIently familIar WIth It to be planrung an epIC based on the three stages of illUSIOn described In the work 23 Durmg hIs first year In Germany he was In the habIt of carryIng the Phtlosophy WIth hIm to Theo Ysaye's room, to cafes, everywhere-no small tribute, consIdermg Its eleven hundred pages-and had the hero of hIs unfirushed novel, Un Rate, dreammg about another runeteenth-century epIC 24 Hartmann's work did much to shape Laforgue's aesthetIc Ideas, and the Hartmanruan UnconscIOUS became a key term In hIS wrItmgs Nowadays we are used to understandmg by the term 'unconSCIOUS' the submerged part of the human mInd Hartmann and Laforgue were InCidentally concerned WIth the unconscIOUS In thIs sense as well as WIth the subcOnscIOUS, the transItIon zone between unCOnsCIOUS and conSCIOUS Dze Phzlosophze des Unbewussten and Laforgue's many references to the UnconscIOUS reflect conjectures made concerrung the nature of the human mmd ever smce Descartes had grounded hIs long cham of reasonIng on Ideas somehow and somewhere 'Innate,' smce LeIbruz, upholdIng the eXIStence of such Ideas, had argued that the unconscIOUS mInd 15 formed from a multItude of 'petItes percepttons' and had declared that unconSCIOUS Ideas are the bond uruttng each bemg to the rest of the uruverse Kant had devoted part of hIs Anthropology to 'the Ideas whIch we have WIthout bemg conSCIOUS of them: and had remarked on the pauCity of 'the illUmInated spots on the great chart of our mInds' Schopenhauer had spoken of the mInd's 'unconsCIOUS rumInatIon,' and of the conSCIOusness of subordInate nerve centers m the human body Ha.rtmann Was pursumg a lIne of mqmry already well marked out when he brought bulky

AEsTHETIC IDEAS

eVIdence to show that the mmd IS more than ratIOnal HIS language was metaphorIcal, to be sure, but the unconsCIOUS could not then have been wntten about m any other tenus HIS thoughts on the dlVldedness of so-called mdlVlduahty are especIally Interestmg HIs conceptIOn of WIt as a 'flash,' somethIng gIven, attracted the attentron of Freud The PbtZosophy of the UnconSCtOUS IS a valuable pIOneerIng work m the field of psychology Hartmann was chIefly concerned, however, WIth the unconSCIOUS human mmd m so far as It gIves access to somethmg qrnte dIfferent, an Unconsclous-a dIVlne understandmg, a prunordtal bemg, what phIlosophers call an Absolute Kant had not attnbuted unconsCIOusness to the Absolute, WIthIn whIch, he saId, the dlStmctIOn between perceiver and perceIved IS lost But Ius follower FIchte had said that the Absolute works Its way toward conSCIOUSness In the mInds of IndIVIduals Hartmann stated what FIchte had Imphed, he called the Absolute unconSCIOUS And he reverted to FIchte's definItIOn of the Absolute as both Reason and WIll m Opposltlon to Schopenhauer's VIew that It was Will alone Hartmann mamtamed that he was raISIng up Reason from the 'false and subordmate' posltlon accorded It by Schopenhauer He was, however, only a lIttle less concerned than the sage of Frankfurt WIth demonstratlng the unreasonableness of vohtton and the mISery of eXIstence It was trus peSSImIsm, thIS prolongatron of Romantlc melancholy, that first drew the attentlon of the late Romantrc poet that was Jules Laforgue LIke other Romantlc phtlosophers, Hartmann leans heavlly on Chnstlan temunology, and he IS as dIsturbed as any other IdealIst by the contrast between thmgs seen and unseen For Hartmann the blessed state-wholeness of the UnconSCIOUS as both Will and Reason-IS reserved for a tune before the Fall and after a final Revelatron At the Fall the two elements of the UnconsCIOUS became separated, Reason was cut off from Will The latter rules the world as we know It. In order to encourage men to perpetuate themselves, to obstruct progress toward rurvana, Will fosters three dlusIOns (a) that happmess IS actually attamable at a gtven stage of the world's development, IS WIthIn the grasp of the mdlvldual dunng hIs earthly hfe, (b) that men will be happy m a hereafter, (c) that the race will some day be happy m thIS world The first of these IllUSiOns was

84

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

chenshed by the anCIents and IS entertamed by every rnan dunng hts childhood, the second was charactenstlc of the MIddle Ages and IS typIcal of the young rnan, the thIrd IS peculIar to rnodem tImes and the mdivIdual grown old And the world WIll dIe Just as the mdlVldual dIes Reason, gradually dIspellIng the three IllusIOns one after another, WIll so far enlIghten rnankmd, brmg It to such a degree of conscIOusness, that all rnen WIll sirnuitaneously thwart the actlVltv of Wlll, deny the \Vlll to lIve, and attam mrvana by a kmd of race sUlcide The denouernent of Hartmann's 'HIstory of the UnconscIOus m the W orId,' as he calls a sectIon of hIS book, IS grotesque and has provoked merrIment 10 WIdely scattered camps NIetzsche called Hartmann's systern a 'phtlosophIcal Joke,' and 10 our day FrederIck Copleston, S J ,25 one of the best htstonans of pessIrnIsm, wntes as though he agreed WIth NIetzsche on thts pomt at least The Phzlosophy of the Unconsczous has consIderable histoncal Irnportance, however, as eIght edItIons and a translatIon withm a decade of publIcatlon testIfy It eVIdently satIsfied a popular demand for a work equally sensltlve to pesslInlstlc attItudes and to Darw1O's Ortgtn of Speczes PeSSImIsts of every descrIptlon were legIon Almost equally nurnerous were those who based an OptImIStIC faIth on the power of orgamsms to become Hartmann's systern holds two conflIctlng pomts of VIew 10 uneasy suspensIOn Yet the thtrd part IS an mterestmg rnehonstlc document awaItlng mrvana, men go about Irnprovmg the lot of therr fellows And Hartmann's book IS a necessary background for understand10g what Lafargue meant by the UnconSCIOUS, a world prmclple workmg by dIverse rneans, 'loves, relIgIOns, languages, SCIences, arts, SOCIal apostolates, mYStlCISmS,' 26 to regam an ongmal umty that philosophers and artIsts had glImpsed wlthtn the Absolute Lafargue'S UnconscIOUS IS, obVIOUSly, only a rernote forebear of the unconscIOUS of the surrealIsts, for the unconscIOUS mvoked by Andre Breton and hts group IS the unconsclous hurnan mmd lOvesttgated by Freud More closely related to the CollectIve UnconSCIOUS of Jung, It IS even beyond and above that Of course, hke Hartmann and rnany a phtlosopher and poet before htm, Laforgue was fascmated by the unconsCIOUS hurnan mmd, Its mystery and Its vastness In Hartmann's book he found

AESTHETIC IDEAS

a sentence from the German RomantIc poet Johann fuchter 'Our measurements of the rIch terrItory of the Me are far too small or narrow when we onnt the nnmense realm of the Unconsczous, thIs real InterIOr Mnca m every sense' Laforgue's ImagmatIon runs rIot as he quotes thIs phrase and mvents mhabItants of the moer realm 'The fury of wantIOg to know oneself, of desmng to plunge beneath one's COnsCIOUS culture toward "the mtenor Mnca" of our unCOnsCIOUS domam And there were reconnOltenngs step by step, pushIng aSIde the branches, the undergrowth of the coppIces, nOISelessly, so as not to fnghten the rabbIts that play by moonlIght, ImagIOIOg themselves alone r feel so meager, so overfamIlIar, I, Lafargue, In relanon to the outsIde world And yet I possess nch mIOes, veIns, submarme worlds that ferment unknown There It IS that r would be, there would I dIe Strange flowers that turn slowly llke wax harrdressers' heads upon theIr stalks, faIry Jewels where Moreau's Galatea slumbers watched over by Polyphemus, happy dreamless corals, ruby creepers, subtle flowenngs whIch the eye of conSCIOusness has not ravaged WIth axe and fire Whole days spent spymg withm oneself, Observe the mstmcts motIonless as the monks of Mount Athas 'WIth all posszbJe absence of calculatIon, denuzl of 'WIll, for fear of 1I'1IJkmg them. dewJate from thezr natural course, for fear of tnfiuencmg them' 27 Laforgue sought and found In a plulosophy of the UnconscIOUS delIverance from IOtellectual constramts, freedom for exploratIon of a domaIn relanvely new to ImagmatIve wntIng And as hIs sense of dIScovery recalls that of Johann RIchter before hun, so does It suggest that of the surrealIsts to follow Passages such as that quoted above are part of a current that runs from the German RomantIcs to ApollInarre and a consIderable body of wntmg done m the 'twentIes and 'thIrtIes The lInage of the 'wax harrdressers' heads upon therr stalks' IS partIcularly prophetIc, not only of Breton's prose but of verse wntten on the fnnge of surrealISm by Jules Supervlelle, HenrI MIchaux, and Leon-Paul Fargue But Laforgue's UnconscIous IS only InCIdentally 'a dOmaIn wruch has recently revealed to SCIence the vrrgtn forests of hfe 1 IS PnrnarIly It IS the world-essence, essentIally perfect, self-suffiCIent 'the last dtVlOlty, the mystIc Utllversa! pnncIple revealed m

86

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

Hartmann's Phtlosophy of the Unconsctous, the only mVIDlty mInutely present and everywhere watchful, alone mfalhble-because of Its unconscIOusness-the only dlVlnlty truly and serenely mfimte, the only one that man has not created 10 hIs own lffiage ' 29 AccIdentally, the Unconsclous IS mcomplete, 'obJecnfymg Itself 10 exploratory worlds toward consclOusness ' 30 Mamfest10g Itself 10 artlsnc productlon, one of Its means of fulfillment, the UnconSCIOUS finds Its own way 'I bestlr myself tool But the UnconsclOus leads me,' as Lafargue succmctly puts It 'The geruus has no dIrecnon of rus own, he IS the lffimedlate pnest of the UnconscIOUS,' 31 he says elsewhere Or, as we find 10 unpublIShed notes on Schel!mg, 'Geruus IS the mysncal manlfestanon, SIgn of the Immemate elect of the UnconSCIOUS, able to speak dIrectly 10 Its name' 32 The gemus 1S merely the 10strument of the UnconscIOus that 'bloweth where It lIsteth ' S3 The UnconSCIOUS that chooses Its vessels 10 tills manner IS overwhehrung In rus chapter on aesthetlc Judgment and artlsnc producnon Hartmann quotes the letter 10 wluch Mozart descnbes hIs heaven-sent creatlve Impulse He CItes the passage from the Phaedrus 10 praIse of frenzy, CIcero on furor poettcus, Shaftesbury on enthUSIasm, makmg It clear that all these thmkers were really wnnng about the UnconscIOus Slmllarly Laforgue speaks of 'the transcendent force that lffipels Beethoven to SlOg, DelacrolX to exert lumself to find tonal combInatlons, BaudelaIre to ransack rus language, Hugo to be prorugrous' 34 And as Hartmann dISdaInS mmor artIsts, or consCIOUS craftsmen, so does Laforgue dISmISS the mInor paInters of the Low Countnes whom Tame had admrred as expressive of a race, enVIronment, and moment 10 hIStory 'Tame admrres the Dutch pamters because they are bourgeOIS sansfied With lIfe, not eccentrlc, not hypertropluc Well, those Dutchmen dId the lIterary paIntlng of medlOcre bourgeoIS, deVOId of geruus (gemus, elect of the UnconsClous) 'Tame excepts the Low Country patnters from hIs general stnct:JlI't>f; of realIsm because they are 'healthy' WIth equal InConsIStency Laforgue wanders from the maIn argument of hIs aesthenC5-'all keyboards are legltlmate'-because of a RomantIc InsIStence that the artlst be possessed by enthUSIaSm Free and uncontrolled as genume artlstlc expresslOn 1S WIth

AESTHETIC IDE4.S

reference to the artIst, It IS not purposeless, because the UnconSClOUS mo\ es to" ard an end The arts are 'enfeoffed' to the Impro\"ement of the race The arts have only a secondarv, but man eloush· necessan, Importance for the dl\ me ends 'theIr functIon IS to de, elop mdefimtelv the respectIve organs they explOIt and to contnbute therebv to a ceaseless refinmg of the \\ hole orgamsm, to a dn matory mto::ucatlOn of the bram m a \\ ord to the punficatIon of the mIrror \\herem the CnconscIOus see:hs Itself' The 'OptIC arts' have a speCIal proVInce, 'de,elopment to the uttnost of the e'Xplolted organ, the Eve Is there anv need to recall the already famIhar truth, that lu..e e, erv \ Ital force, the e, e, color-bhnd at first, learned only graduallv to percelve the \\ aves, more and more rapId and less and less long, from red to VIolet, and contmues lts e\ olutIon to\, ard perceptIOn of the ultraVIOlet that the eye learned only ltttle by ltttle to search lOto the comphcatIon of hnes and perspectl\ es, mIngled and confhctIng m nch VIbratIOns ' 3~ At thIS pomt \, e must mterrupt Laforgue's most sustamed presentatIon of hIS aesthetIc Ideas, the openmg sectIon of hIS essay, 'L'Art modeme en Allemagne,' to protest that though a smgle paIr of eyes can acqUIre traIts, It cannot transmit them LIke many who have been seduced by one form or anotheI of evolutIonary theory-one thtnks especIally of DIderot-Laforgue fell IDto the Lamarckian error He beheved that m the course of tIme eyes orgarucally superwr to earher ones had developed 'In short, the ImpreSslOmst eye IS, In human evolutIon. the most advanced eye, the organ whIch up tIll now has perceivec and regIstered the most compllcated known combmatIons oj shadmgs' 36 Needless to say, no grounds eXISt for such a bellef There are not many aesthetIc systems, Laforgue says m tht! same essay, 'there are exactly two, and these so mutually IDtoleran1 that ten llnes from a book suffice to show WIth whtch cam! sympathtes he that whtch classtfles and Judges schools 10 the name of some Ideal or other, and that whtch, naturaltstIc ane determtnlSltc, professes only to arrange documents' NeIther the SClenttfic nor the tradItIonally IdealISt approach IS the nght one he tells u.s The determtnlSts are able to descnbe the 'how' 0: geruu.s and Its works but unable to explam the 'why' or the es· sence, and have to accept works of art as so many 'legttImat~

88

JlLES L>\FORGl.E >\...... D THE IRONIC hHERITA:!'I.CE

phenomena ' .Meanwlule the IdealIsts, ,'Ith an explanation for inSpIratIOn and geruus, ha\ e alwa\ s been forced to Judge by the standard of a fiJ!..ed Ideal Lafargue takes Issue With the determlrusts on the grounds that 'thought IS Identical wIth Its object and that metaphYSIcal knowledge IS In accord with transcendental realIty,' and then proceeds to offer hIS own kind of Ideal, one that '\\ ill change mysteriously With the times, evolved by the UnconscIOUS 'In an Indefirute becoming' 81 There IS conSiderable oblIgatIOn to Fnednch SchelImg In tlus argument, that plulosopher of RomantiCIsm haVIng recogruzed two fundamental dIrections of Inquuy, the sCIentIfic and the tradItionally IdealIst, havmg found fault WIth both, and haVing offered rus own kmd of IdealIsm, taking as the baSIS of knowledge Identity between the thInking subject and the object At many pOints In rus dISCUSSIOn of the UnconscIOUS and Its actIVIties, Hartmann acknowledges hIS debt to Schelhng, as well he might, Since It IS a short step from the 'uruversal aCtiVIty' of Schelling's system to Hartmann's dynanuc UnconsCIOUS If Hartmann IS a secondary figure, a derivatIve phIlosopher, Schelling, In whose thought Colendge found 'gemal COinCIdences' WIth hIS own, IS a major one Laforgue's obhgatIOn to Hartmann has long been taken for granted About the relationshIp With SchelImg lIttle or nothing has been said, partly because It has been difficult to gauge how much Laforgue knew about rum directly and to what extent he encountered rum second-hand through Hattmann Fourteen pages of notes for an essay on Schelhng among the poet's unpublIShed papers make us reasonably certain that he had studied and profited from the Trtmscendental ldealzsm Itself ThIS essay on SchelImg would probably have had as an epIgraph an unWieldy sentence from Hartmann 'Philosophy, as the ultunate expression of Ideas donunant at a gIven penod of CIvilization, as the conSCIOUS flower In wruch blossoms spontaneously the unCOnsCIOUS VIrtue of ffistory, Can alone express In a few conCISe and converuent formulas the spmt of that penod ' 88 Lafargue wntes trus sentence boldly across the first page of hIS notes, IndIcatIng that It comes from the first book of Hartmann's work and that the translation Into French IS hIS own There IS a certain JUstIce In thIS salnte to phIlosophy by a poet, Schelling

AESfHUI(.

IOH::'

bemg of all phIlosophers the one "ho held poem m hIghest esteem Begmrung ru. a dIscIple of Fichte, he soon came to feel, lIke Coleridge, that the thought of that subJectn e IdealIst dId not alIo" enough Importance to nature .l\s befitted a man \\ ho ,,, as to become the chIef of Romantic philosophers. Schellmg sought m nature the 'hierogh phs of the soul,' expressIOns of splrltual meanmg such as the poet XO\ ahs "as also seekmg-at the same tIme and m the same place-at lena on the e\ e of the nmeteenth century The System of Transcendemalldeabsm, pubhshed m 1800, represents the attempt of a po" erful poetIc lmagmanon to find In the outer world equl\ alents for mner realitIes, one realIty m partIcular the confrontatIOn of a reflectIng mmd \\ Ith somethIng not qUIte Itself, Its 'unconscIOus' LIke a great S, mbol1st poem, SchellIng's transcendental IdealIsm projects th1S drama, thIs polarItY 'W IthIn the human mmd, across nature At e, erv le\'el, matter possesses some degree of consCIOusness And ho\\ ever obVIOUS the poetIc analogy may be, at least It alIo\\ ed poets to recover the pnmItive sense of a umverse "here nothIng 15 qwte IDarumate, In whIch man can lose himself the more readdy because Its lIfe dIffers from hIS only m IntensIty These marufestatIons of conSCIOusness, weakenIng but dIstInct, mIght be compared to npples on a pool, except that the movement IS all In the other dIrectIOn ConscIOusnesS IS forever StrIVIng to break free from Its Inert part 'All bemgs have one thmg In common,' Laforgue writes, 'd1Scontent WIth the stagnatlon of theIr present state, paSSIon for ascent, et cetera The plasma dreams vaguely of that unknown world two hInged halves of an oyster shell that open and shut Man 15 tormented by the Idea of progress The POInt In common 15 possessIon by the demon of the Infimte Thts POInt 15 theIr Inmost nature All these souls are not only of the same famIly but have a SIngle soul And the uruversal flower 15 the mdefimte torment of the Ideal' 39 WIth regard to aesthetic mtultlon, the hIghest power of Splrlt accordIng to Transcendentalldealtsm, Laforgue's most SIgruficant pronouncement 15 probably one collected m the Melanges posthumes 'Object and subject are Irremedtably m motIon The hghtmng flashes of ldentlty between subJect and object-that IS the attrIbute of geruus' 4& Thus Heme had spoken of the bghtnmg

90

]t.LES L-\FORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITA......CE

:Bashes of artIStlC 1Otultlon Thus Colendge, 10sprred by Schelling, had called the artIst the 'shaper lOto one,' the 'esemplast' LIke other creatlve artists of his century, Laforgue drew from Schelling a conceptlon of the uruque power of aesthetlc 1OtUltIOn More than most other poets, he had felt the weIght of the POSItlVIStIC argument, the Importance of the SClences Yet 10 the notes on Schellmg he could wnte as follows on the restrlcted role of SCIence 'True phIlosophy, 10 spIte of the autonomous emanCIpatlon of the SCIences (a God IS above beavers), must forever remaID the first, uruversal, and last SCIence ' And further on 'None of the cathedral of Herbert Spencer We must have poets The SCIences 10 therr lImIted anarchy must remam the anczllae dzltgentes of phIlosophy, of metaphYSICS All these poor SCIences are based on common sense, the arbItrary They don't have to trouble themselves about first pnncipies BeSIdes, therrs IS only the sort of fung that urchins make when they sow their oats The progress of specIalIzed SCIences can only, 10 the long run, brlOg them back to the first and last SCIence, to metaphYSICS The radIcal VIce of the SCIences IS that they are Impersonal, whereas a metaphYSICS spr10gs from a soul' 41 Laforgue's most conSIderable debt to SchelllOg, after all, was contracted lOdrrectly through the denvatIve phIlosophy of Hartmann Mter hav10g refuted the POSItiVIsts, as he thInks, by the argument that a transcendental realIty must eXISt because we can conceIve one, Laforgue proposes an aesthetic Ideal 'placed 10 an 10defirute becommg and 10 such a category-unconscIOusness that the subject can only conceIve It withlO the hIll1t of his capaCIties conditloned by an ephemeral stage of an mdefirute evolutlon ' By SItuatIng the Ideal where human bemgs can perceIve It only Imperfectly, and WIth driferent eyes at each epoch, Laforgue belIeves that he can be both an IdealIst and a guardIan of claIms of the 'ephemeral' Duong the rest of these notes he 15 really concerned WIth two Ideals, the one WIthin the UnconscIOUS and another whIch the Creatlve UnconsClous presents to the artIstlc conSCIOusness of each epoch ThIS lS somewhat confus1Og, because Lafargue lS an aesthetic IdealIst only 10 a speClal, not to say transcendental, sense He lS above all a relatiVISt, amnous to prove what he reproaches the pOSltIVISts for behevmg, that all works of

AESTHETIC IOE-\s

art are so many legttimate phenomena, that all ke\ boards are legltlmate He may play on the meanmg of the v; ord 'Ideal,' but the statement of Ius aesthetlc faIth 15 not ambIguous ''\lv sentlment at thlS moment before "orks of art of any grven genre, epoch, or latltude has no more suffiCIent authontv than that "Iuch I possessed at other moments of mv mdIVldual e\ olutlon But from the total of these sentIments, at the conclusIOn of my e\ olutlon, can be drawn my sentlment of the beautiful ;\h; sentlment of the beautIful '" III ha\l'e no more suffiCIent authonty than those of mv contemporanes But our epoch \\ III be summed up by a certam formula of aesthetlc sensibIlItv' In thIS longest statement of Ius aesthetIc posmon, 'V Art moderne en Allem;gne,' Laforgue JUStifies m hIs o"'n mmd the sIgmficance of the 'ephemeral' The outworn concepts of whIch he has made use, hIS mconSlstencies along the way, are less Important than the fact that he has prepared the groundwork for hls crItlcISm and hIS poetry

VII

LIterary CntIcism

LIKE Colendge, Laforgue would have traced hl5 poetry and hIS aesthetics to the same profound 'stIrnngs of power,' and would have acknowledged no dIfference between the sprmgs of truth and of poetry He IS one of the authentic amateur phIlosophers of lIterature However, the cOgitations of such poet-thmkers denve much of theIr Importance from the poetry, whIch should be tested, whenever pOSSIble, by the qualIty of the poet's reaction to other wnters As It happens, Laforgue's lIterary cntIcl5m 15 always stImulating and sometImes so Important as to lend weIght to all the rest of hIS work That most penetrating and meluctable of lIterary rustonans, Gustave Lanson, could hardly be accused of overmdulgence for Laforgue or for any other wnter chronologIcally too close to hIm He descnbed the Moralttes legendatres eqUIvocally as 'the mspl!ed hoaxes of a young man In whom there begms to burgeon an artIst and a geruus ' 1 Of the notes on Baudelme, on the other hand, he declared that they showed 'an extraordInary openness of mmd,' 2 and he had read. only the small fractlon that appeared In the edItion of 1903 Laforgue's lIterary cntIClSffi eXISts only m fragmentary state, m telegrapruc style, as Jottings toward essays never pulled to.gether However, four sheaves of such notes give ample eVidence of hIS cotIcal capaCIty Hl5 remarks on Hugo are bnef, barely more than a reView of one of the last volumes, La Ftn de Sattm, yet a good deal of substance 15 compressed mto two pages of workshop cntlcl5m The tnbute to Hugo's breadth and stature IS more generous than

LITERAR\ CRITICIS \1

93 nught have been expected from a young \\ rIter onh' a ,ear after the great man's death We are told of 'the ennUI of these perIOdIcal pavmg stones rolled do\, n from the customary SmaI, these three hundred and fifty pages of hea'Vy paper, large pnnt,' and that 'there seems to be no reason for thIs e, er to stop' But Laforgue IS duly appreclatn e of the dIsclpimed, easy rh, mes and the techrucal VIrtuOSIty "hlch male the reader 0\ erIook the paraSItiC adjectives S Hugo seatIng hunself at hIs organ even· morrung IS lIke the great Bach heapmg score on score without botherIng hImself about the consequences He has hiS BastIlle Day aspect,' but pIeces such as 'CantIque de Bephthage' ,\tIl last as long as poetry Itself One of the mterestIng passages IS the comparIson of Hugo WIth Flaubert, though It IS hardly necessary to say \\ hlch "rIter 15 favored by a CrItIC leanIng so heavIly to\\ard UnconsclOu<; abundance Set the poems on BiblIcal subjects beSide 'Herodlas,' 'Samt Juben,' Samt-Antome, he tells us, 'lnd see ho" labOrIOUS Flaubert IS m comparIson The tales are 'passable because they are prose, and Flaubert's prose, and because they are still alone of theIr kmd But ImagIne them put mto verse bv a poet equivalent to the prose~wrIter Flaubert They \\ ould be deCidedly meager'S There IS somethmg wrong WIth the reasonIng here, for a poet eqUlvalent to the prose-wnter Flaubert could only be a great poet Laforgue IS nght, however, about the heavy gOIng m the exotic tales, and he pomts to the comparative lIfelessness of these works only to do more honor to L'Educatton sentzmentale, which he places among the very great novels e The remarks on Mallarme make up the least satisfYIng page of Laforgue's cntICIsm He had been readmg the author of 'Toast funebre' ever smce 1881, had spoken of rum In enthUSIastiC though general terms m letters When It came to takIng notes toward an essay, probably m 1885, he lapsed too readily mto the everlasting arms of the UnconscIous He IdentIfies Mallarme With 'the UncoIlSCIous, the prInCIple (after effort, the apotheOSIS of the Pamasstan artlStlc conSCIence consolIng Itself WIth BuddhIstic protestations) the prInCIple of stammenng, of WIthdrawal In poetry' 1 What BuddhIStIc protestations, we wonder, and what kmd of stammerIng;! What has the UnconscIOUS

94

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE lRO:r-.'1:C INHERITANCE

to do WIth one of the most delIberate of all lIterary artIsts, the one who most thoroughly rejected all forms of enthusIasm- 'Not the stammermg of the chtld m pam,' Laforgue adds, 'but that of the Sage dlvagatmg-never a dlvagatIon of lffiages as m dream and unCOnsCIOUS ecstasy, but realOntng dIvagatIOn HIS techruque lS equally reasoned, conSCIOUS, and one perce1ves that there lS nothmg of the first Jet about It ' S nus lS more ltke It, but one remark pretty well cancels out the other Laforgue acknowledged too handsomely rus poetic debt to Mallarrne 'Mter havmg favored eloquent developments: he wrote to Henry, 'then Coppee, then Sully's Justtce, then Baudelane, I am becommg, as far as form 15 concerned, Kahnesque and Mallarrnean ' 9 Actually the resemblances to Mallarme are slIght, occaSIOnal reproductIOns of caesura patterns The aImS and techruques of the two poets were radlcally dlfferent When the Complatntes appeared, Mallarrne tranSmItted rus good opmIOn of the book through Gustave Kahn, one of the faIthful m the rue de Rome Laforgue's reply lS valuable for Its frank avowal of dIfficultIes encountered The same day he wrote to Kahn saymg Just how many of Mallarm6's then uncollected poems he had read Important omISSIOns are partly explamed by hIs absence from France He was gIven further opportumty to Judge Mallarme when three prose poems were publIshed m the first number of La Vogue 10 Of one, 'Frl5son d'ruver,' he wrote appreclatIvely, quotIng two memorable sentences the evocatIon of a Saxon clock-'Pense qu'elle est venue de Saxe par les longues diligences d'autrefolS'-and the delIcate recreatIon of a season-'ll n'y a plus de champs et les rues sont vIdes, Je te parleral5 de nos meubles' The two other prose poems, based on farfetched conceIts, he dISapproved The close readmg IS revealIng even on Mallarrne It was too early for a general eStImate of the most :abstruse of the Symbohsts Runbaud lS unmentIoned untIl 1885, after Verlame's Poetes maudtts had lIfted rum above the hterary hOrIZon, and It was .only after readmg the 'IllummatIons' m La Vogue that Laforgue -called Rnnbaud 'the precoclouS absolute flower WIthout before -or after, the only Isomer of Baudelarre ' 11 Apropos of Runbaud, there lS arrestIng reflectIon on the word as father of the Idea 'A

95

poem IS not the utterance of a preconcen ed sennment Let's admIt the Importance of the dnft of the rh\ me, the de\ lanons for Iuds finds, the une'--pected s\ mphonv ansmg to accompan\' a monf, Just as a pamter IS led to tIns pearl-gra\ tone for no particular reason, or to that gratwtous geranIum, or as the mUSICIan IS sho\\ n the \\ ay to the apparently paraSItIC harmony' 1_ The remarks on Tnstan Corblere are se. eral nmes as e,-tenSl\ e as those on any of the other poets so far mentIoned and correspondmglY more Important. For Laforgue, \\ ho had the mterest any ne\\comer ",as bound to haye m Hugo, Mallarme, and Rtmbaud, had specIal reasons for scrutlnIZmg the Breton poet closely The most thoughtful re, Ie" er of the C0111p/,7I1ues labeled Its author a Decadent of the school of Corblere, so, m effect, dId Remy de Gourmont later on The poet prot~ted, but a glance at lus letters IS enough to shO\, that he had time, and hIS first book proves that he took occasIOn., to profit from the no\ el IdlOm that Corblere brought mto French ,erse 'Corblere has stvle and I ha\ e humor,' Lafargue \\ rate 'Corblere flutters and I purr, I lIve b\ an absolute phtlosophv and not by nervous rn Itchmgs, I am a plam blunt man, not too spmted to lay a finger on, love, for me, IS not yellow but whIte and deepmourrung Violet Fmally, Corblere troubles hIS head about neIther stanzas nor rhymes (except as a spnngboard to conceIts) and never about rhythms, and I am suffiCIently preoccupIed WIth all three to have deVIsed new stanzas, rhymes, and rhythms, I aIm for symphony and melody, and Corbu~re sa\\S away on that one everlastIng fiddle of hIs' 18 He IS wIllIng to admIt only 'a gram of couslnsrup' With Corblere, the 'Breton nuance' Laforgue's Breton ongIns are open to questIon, but the cousmslup, at least a gram of It, IS not. Lafargue's Gascon Wit only goes to show that he 15 on the defensive, and the study of Corblere that he told hIs reVIewer he had In mInd IS the sort of CntICISm m wruch the CrItIC has much at stake 'BohemIan of the ocean picaro and crackpot,' the notes for that essay begm, and Laforgue recalls that Edouard-Joadum Corblere, for so he was chrIStened, adopted the name of an earher Breton kmght-errant of sorrowful countenance He sees Corblere as a sort of lean satyr, lIbldmOUS, droll, unkempt, tIed to a mast

96

JLLES L-\FORGUE <\"'i'D THE IRONIC bHERITA'i'CE

'" Ith hIS hands behInd hun, stanng off to sea, soaked by the searam, hIs felt hat flung do\vn besIde hun The poet IS as strIdent as the gulls and as tIreless The wlOd of the Breton coast lOspires hlID to lOvent and savor the word 'plangorer' And at the same time he 15 always warrung hIS readers not to take him senously 'All th15 IS for effect, I'm poslOg, I'll even let you 10 on how It's done" 1<1 Was the SaIlor-satyr obscene- Huysmans 10 a famous passage of A Rebours had SaId that he was, that the strange congenes that 15 Corblere's verse lOcluded traveltng-salesman pleasantnes Laforgue finds no obsceruty He adIruts that Corblere IS gutlty of a 'leger pnapisme de barnere'-a sltght waterfront excess of deSIre Yet hIs verse IS wholly free from provocative plCtunngs, and despIte h15 own diSappOlOtIng expenences, he reserved for womanklOd the term 'Madame,' the reverent word of the medIeval courts of love Laforgue IS, lOCldentally, nght A fresh salt breeze dislOfects Corblere's pages The Breton 15 gIven due credIt for rus vlVld language, rus aversIOn for paddlOg, rus aVOIdance of rhetoncal bluff But Laforgue finds ltttle else to prruse 10 the poems, wruch he dIVIdes lOto two kinds those that splo a yarn m straIghtforward verse that would dISlOtegrate WIthout the wruplash of the language, the others 'more mtImate, subJective, WIthdrawn lOto the self, eIther III Pans or upon the water' 15 Just where the boundary between these two groups would come IS none too clear The first would undoubtedly lOclude the great poem about the hunchback Bitor, the saIlors' mascot and sacnfiCIal VICtim, and the equally great 'Rapsodle forrune et Ie pardon de SalOte-Anne' Here, too, we would probably have to put a number of dramatic lyncs, of wruch 'Steam-Boat' IS a good example But what would we do WIth certaIn poems partaking of the essay m verse, vastly energetIc, ramblIng IruXtUres of metaphor and abstraction, neIther narrative nor medItative- Under the second headIng would certaInly fall the handful of poems m whIch Pam 15 half stage setnng, half dramatic personage, among them the autobIOgraprucal pIece begmrung 'Batard de creo:J,e et Breton,' a few of the Breton poems, and the lovely 'Rondels pour apres ' Smce the ment of thIS verse resIdes III Its StIng, Its spmt, Its 'Romantic staccato,' It lacks what Laforgue calls 'plastic mterest,'

LnERo\R\ CRITICIS't

shapelIness No hne can be smgled out as beautiful The techmque IS 'stupId,' the stanzas lacI..mg m mdn IdualItv The frequenc,o at eleven-syllable lInes meant to be ale"andrmes mdIcates an mcurable IndelIcacy of ear HabItual faIlure to alternate masculIne and fenurune rh" mes betrays an Inherent carelessness corrected, occasIonally, WIth a Iabonousness paInful to obseI'\·e QtIng rhymes 'neIther nch nor poor, merely msufficlent and hapha.7ard -preter and nmer, couS'Zt and decollSU, malS011 and n071, ,our and 1ourLaforgue digresses to delI\"er a hundred-v. ord hIstory of rh) me In the seventeenth century, rhymes were mostly stereotyped. the word that counted commg \\ Ithm the lIne The reactIon agamst clasSIcal techruque centered on Its \,eak POInt, the rh\-mmg. nil the tmle came when Hugo 'reallv v. fote for the sole pleasure of turnIng up out-of-the-v. ay rhymes' 16 Corblere's rare ofigmal rhymes are too ongmal, outlandIsh, and alv. avs poured lOto the same mold, a low-down word bemg rh\ med \\ Ith a rugh-toned one We are confronted by t\\ 0 vIrtual homoO\ ms that are far from bemg synonyms, by cOmbInatIons lIle coqllebcot and calzcot, pastIlle du sermi and azl, pllTadls and radts l~ The trouble 15 that for each such pall' of rhymes culled from Corblere, such shotgun weddIngs of 'red poppv' v.lth 'calIco,' 'harem pastIlle' and 'garhc,t 'paradIse' and 'radIsh,' the reader of Lafargue can readlly counter WIth etegzaques and claques, veulent and s'engueulent, demOISelles and vlltSselles-'eleglac' and 'opera-hats,' 'destre' and 'mud-shng,' 'young ladles' and 'dIShes' WIth a certaJO self-nghteousness, Lafargue IS protestIng agamst a use of paradox that IS defirutely a part of hIS own procedure, espeCJallV 10 the

Complamtes Corblere's 'gongonsms of antithesIS' can be accounted for psvchologtcally He IS a man who declares hIS love WIthout wantIng to be lIstened to, who flees society and complams about betng left alone-the spalled chIld who refuses rus soup and then blubbers when It 15 taken away 18 The least hterary of poets, m Laforgue's 0plnlon. mfiuenced neither by Romanllcs nor by ParnassIans, Corblere admired most of all the customs-house coast guard who stndes along the shore Wlth hIS pipe between hIS teeth, too full of genlllne1y poetic feehngs to bother Wlth false poetry" He was so wary of all the

98

JULES L<\FORGUE ~D THE IRONIC INHERITA.....CE

pItfalls that beset the lyrIc poet-the apocalyptr.c, fatal, tubercular, lunar, and upnght-CltlZen postures-that he ended by hav10g no lync qualIty to speak of, e"!cept, on Breton subJects, an oversunphfied ballad mUSIC 'The most dehcate, the most tenuous, the purest' part of h1s work 15 the 'Rondels pour apres,' poems such as 'BlOgraphle'

Aims 11 fut flottant, mon berceau, FaIt comme Ie '!ltd de POtseau Qw couve ses oeujs sur la boule Mon Itt d'llmour fut un hu:mac, Et, pour tami3t, l'espere un sac Leste d'un bon cazllou qUI roule A floatr.ng trung, my cradle was, Wrought hke the nest of the brrd That broods her eggs on the wave My bed of love was a hammock, And, for anon, I hope for a sack WeIghted WIth a fine rolling stone DespIte a certam haste on the part of Laforgue to flog Corblere for h1S own faults and laud hun for h1S own quahtr.es, we are confronted here WIth ,acute cntr.ClSm of one of the great lWtr.ators of modem poetry, 10deed the best cntr.ClSm that has so far been wntten on thlS extremely dJ.fficult subJect Lafargue knows qwte well that all the blemlShes to whIch he po1Ots are conCOmltant to Corblere's smgular power, that the Breton had performed a remarkable feat 10 shattenng beyond all pOSSlbility of real repa!! a tra.d!tr.on of eloquence, the 'epIC natr.onal guard' stop 10 the Hugoesque organ He was msuffiClently aware that Corblere had pondered well all the rules he broke, that not the least unportant aspect of h1S poetry IS Its unphClt cntr.clSm not only of Hugo but of other predecessors, h1S negatr.ve oplWon of LamartIne and Ius appreClatr.ve View of Musset. But he says that all of Corblere's shortcommgs as an artISt must be fOrgIven for the sake of 'perfect and munortal plamts hke Le Patte ctmt1mZaCe' (10 whIch, 10cldentally, Corblere proves that he was steeped 10 the hterature of

LlTERARl CRITICIS\1

99

'UN CIEL DU 80m PLUVIEUX'

Unpublzsbed verse, 1886

ROmantlCISm) Lafargue saves for the end the sample gwen above of the ballad muSIc that he had pretended to condemn, wluch happens to be some of the author's best A smular sort of sunph-

100

JLLES L<\FORGUE .Al\D THE IRONIC INHERITA,"CE

fied mUSIC constItutes some of Laforgue's best verse And If he clutches too eagerly at straws of dtfference between Corblere and hImself, observes that the earlIer poet IS not gnpped by 'modern cosmologIes, dead stars, unechomg stellar deserts,' 19 and notIces defiCIencIes m musIcal qualItIes m whIch Laforgue hImSelf dId not abound, these remarks are of mterest for what they reveal about hIs own aspIratIons There IS no such overmvolvement m the notes on Baudelarre 'To understand hIm better,' Laforgue wntes toward the begmrung of the notes, 'thmk for a moment of the OppOSIte pole, of the sIck and Chnst-lIke cruld, no Creole, who really dId plumb the depths of human phIlosophy, who gave way to hIS cnses, WIthout pose-Heme' 20 It IS ImpossIble to say whether years of development, fillmg m youthfully spare outlInes, would have gIven to Laforgue's works the substance of Heme's, but at least he was of the same race of poets Laforgue wntes of Baudelarre wlth the perspectIve afforded by rus radIcal dIfference from the author of Les Fleurs du mal

Presumably these notes are that 'conmbutIon to the cult of BaudelaIre' whIch Laforgue mentIoned m a letter of February r88S to Kahn To thIs day they can be read complete only In the Entrettens poltttqttes et lzttertttres for Apnl 1891, for the 1903 edItors of Laforgue were too much concerned WIth form and left out whatever was unpolIshed Some, but by no means all, of the rematrung notes were publIshed m the ConnalSsance edItIon of 1920 In theIr entIrety, the notes filled nmeteen pages They begm where most studIes of Baudelarre have begun and too many have ended-With the poet's temperament Partlcularly mterestIng at a tIme when the RUSSIan novel was only begmrung to be known In France IS the comparISon of BaudelaIre With Marmeladovof Crzme tmd Pumshment Early In 1885 Lafargue had read the first French translatIon of thIs mqUISItIOn mto the nature of gwlt, confessmg to splOtual perturbatlons as he dId so He found m the creator of Les Fleurs du mal and In Dostoevsky's passIve WItness of eVIl the same pleasure m self-defilement Baudelarre was, moreover, 'temfied by the dIscouragmg and dIabolIcal revelatIons of modern mecbcme, seemg only neuroslS and finally beIng overwhelmed by It'

LITERAR\ CRITlCIS'\l

101

Of modern poets In general Laforgue wntes 'SlOce the\' are Idle and duldhke they have time to be afraId of death and are fnghtened by all Its calls, the w10ds of autumn rughts, 1:\\ Ihghts, the whIStles of express trams-they need to be pItied, comforted, and are sad for everytlung and for noth1Og-hfe passes for them as for a grave and cunous cluld '" ho turns through fine colored pIctures and finds among them fnends, and traItors, and beautIful forlorn ladles whom he consoles' Of Baudelarre 10 partIcular 'He IS enthUSIastiC about hIS toys, then breaks them-cnes for the moon on a sIlver platter and sulks when It IS offered to hIm A poet An eternal grown-up chIld, saddened by the CIrCUS and the tIreless reframs of balls-1O love '''lth glon and the cro,,,n of thorns for lumself and those he loves fore\er pubescent, In spite of hav10g overtaxed hIS senses eady He sees each season corne and go With the JOY and sadness of a gIrl' And lIke a cluld he seeks to make Iurnself Interesting to gro\\ n-ups The learned pose, the paSSIon for Ironbound fobos, IS merely a marufestatIon of thIS deSIre to be Interesting It IS the more InlSleadlOg because Baudelarre, accardlOg to Lafargue, neIther reasons nor learns He IS fundamentally credulous, lIVlOg WIth bo\\ ed head But he does pIllage scraps of erudItiOn far and ,\. Ide, and assumes a BenedIctIne aIr for the benefit of the deIStIC bourgeoIS It may be dIfficult for the Amencan reader to see how BaudelaIre's dISgUSt for democracy could have been appreCIably strengthened by Poe's 'Monos and Una', but Lafargue thlOks that It was Ventunng toward the more dIsturblOg motives for Baudelarre's actions-and It IS not wholly clear how the cluld fell so Ill-he quotes from 'BenedICtIon' Taus ee'lQ: qti'Jl veut iltmer l'observent flVee crtttnte, s'enhardzssant de sa tran.qtalltte, Cherchent quz sauril lut tITer une plaznte, Et fom sur lut l'essttt de leur fer-oeste

au bten,

a

All those whom he would love VIew rum WIth fear Or else made bold by hIS pasSlVlty See whIch can be the first to make bIm wrumper, Trymg on bun the!! own feroCIty

102

JULES

LAFORGUE AlI<'D THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

Laforgue dIscovers 'four abysses of psychology' m these four verses LZS-111OZ

pour apprendre Ii 11Z'at11Zer,

A11Ze curzeuse quz SOUff1 es Et vas cherchant ton pa1adts, Platns-moz' smon, 1e te 11Zaudzs' Read me that you may learn to love me Cunous soul that suffereth And go seekmg your paradIse PIty mel Or else I curse you l Of the four abysses, or needs-for love, suffenng, heaven, and pIty-the second, that of the soul that caresses Its suffenng, 15 apparently consIdered the most profound In the hnes

Soyez benz, man Dzeu, quz donnez la souffrance Comme un dzvzn remede anos zmpuretes Be blest, my God, that grantest suffenng, Refirung fire for our ImpurItIeS Laforgue sees only masocrusm, a VICIOUS cycle of self-purushment and debauchery toward further self-purushment At thIs pomt, WIth Laforgue's refusal to see any purpose m suffenng, we begm to ghmpse the hmlts to rus VIew of Baudelarre's mmd ThIs cntICISm oscillates between dISCUSSIOn of Baudelarre as man and as artISt It IS contmually endowmg the poetry WIth the traIts of a poet whose fundamental ambItIOn, accordmg to the cntIC, IS to astorush Just as the rehglOus Imagery and Its refinement, the satanlc, are meant to shock bourgeoIS hearts, so are poems of the kInd that would nowadays be called 'pure,' poems on the slenderest of subjects, arry as the beat of a fan, meant to make the Unmloate mqUll"e when they are over, 'and then~ , Inasmuch as readers are used to tlunkmg of theIr poets as mspIred, BaudelaIre 'proclauns the necessJ.ty of work, patIence, calculatIon, charlatanISm' HIs onginahty IS 'shrewdly willed and wrought' If hIs verse has 10 It the sense of steel, the nunera~ the stenle, that

LITERARY CRITIers,!

103

because the bourgeoIS are accustomed to finding therr humane sentnnents reflected m lush, humaruzed landscapes BaudelaIre '\Vas the first poet to break conclusl\ely ''!lIth the publIc he systematlcally InSulted, the first to wnte for the happy few a book that would be the bIble of a cult-a smgle book, a qumtessentIal book mto whIch he had dIstilled all hIs pasSIon, 'and as a result, Laforgue notes, 'devotlon of the faIthful and outsIde these precmcts no salvatlon ' Laforgue's presentatlon of BaudelaIre as the mfantde antIbourgeOIS IS not \ ery satlsfymg He \\ ould have had trouble, If pressed, explammg \\ hat he meant by the bourgeOIs of Baudelarre's tIme, whose lack of heroISm dId not depnve them of comple"'Oty or vanety 'It IS welllno\\n,' Laforgue \Hltes, 'that the antI-Chnstian or atheIStIC pIeces are a game for the benefit of the SImpletons \\ ho call themselves materIalIsts, the V oltamans of the age' Well, were the VoltaIrlans matenabsts or \,ere they not~ The Homais of the epoch, people lIke the pharmaCIst 10 Madame Bovary, were matenalIsts who would have had no reason to be offended by antI~Chr1StlaOlty or atheISm But Lafargue thInks that there are some others who would have been offended, and 10 thIs he IS perfectly nght There were the materIalIst and the non-matenalISt bourgeOIS, and It does not Illumme BaudelaIre greatly to say that he was defyIng people whose POInts of View remam so III defined NeIther honestly relIgIOUS nor honestly mtellectual, the Baudelarre of Jules Laforgue tends to be too httIe the grave and cunous chlld and too much the posturmg adolescent It 15 10 hIs close readIng of Baudelarre's verse that Laforgue reveals hIs CapaCItIes, hIS potentIahoes as a cntIc Mter the 'chaste and fatalIstIc' VIgny, the 'apotheotIc, bucolIc, and rIdiculously gallant' Hugo, 'the worldlIng and declamatory schoolboy,' Musset, after the lachrymose LamartIne, came BaudelaIre, 'the first to wnte 10 a moderate, confessIonal manner,' leavmg off the 10spIred arr

IS

Ies matSons) dont la brLrme allonge 10. btlUteur

un brouzllaTd sale et 1ll'lDle

104

-

JULES L<\.FORGLE A:t-.D THE IRONIC hHERITANCE

-,..,......~m

I

1_

the rurty yellow fog the suburb Jolted by the ponderous carts Laforgue IS aware of the unportance of Samte-Beuve's poetry, unmspl!ed but expertly pItched, m prepanng the way for BaudelaIre Through hIs frIend Paul Bourget, a student of the Enghsh Lake poets, Laforgue probably knew that Wordsworth had exerCISed an mfluence on Samte-Beuve Yet among French poets It was Baudelrure who had the geruus to WrIte at once moderately and poencally The verse fonn that carne most naturally to BaudelaIre was neIther moderate nor confessIOnal It was the rhymed couplet, 'unquesnonably the perIod of the preacher,' Laforgue says, the longIsh poem In rhymed couplets, sustamed and tendmg to be unctuous The charactensnc rhythms are ample, grandlOse, Blbhcal 'Ta peau ml!01te, ta demarche-un serpent au bout d'un baton, ta chevelure un ocean, ta tete se balance avec la mollesse d'un Jeune elephant, ton corps se penche comme un fin valSSeau qUI plonge ses vergues dans l' eau, ta sahve remonte a tes dents comme un flot grossl par la fonte des glaCIers grondants' Yet there 15 m these descrIpnons of woman as BaudelaIre sees herDehlah, sphInx In spIte of herself, 'deshabillable vI1 anunal ou du mOlns aVIhssable'-a new note, somethmg that Laforgue calls 'AmencanISm apphed to the Song of Songs' So It 15 that BaudelaIre never prolongs hIs BIbhcal rhythms unduly, or YIelds to the temptanon of eloquence He never 'beats hIS breast, never InSISts or charges' Indeed, at VItal pomts hIS poetry stands opposed to a whole tradItron of eloquence

La 'll!mt s'ep(l1Sszssatt omst

qu''lIffJe clozson

The final word lets us tumble ahnost as far from the hIgh plane of that adrnrrable love poem, 'Le Baleon,' as Its EnglISh eqUlvalent, 'parntron,' would have done Here, where the tradItronal poet would have found some oratoncal llIlage, BaudelaIre makes a

LITERARl CRITICIS\l

10;

'Vankee companson' Suddenly, In the mIdst of a hJrmomous penod, he 'plants Ius foot In the plate' Not unnaturally, BaudelaIre \\as the first poet to "nte of Pans as one of Its dally galley sla, es, to tell of Its gas hghts "a\ enng 10 the "Ind, the prostitutes, the restaurants and theIr aIr ,ents, the hospItals, gamblIng dens, cats, beds stocJ...mgs, perfumes of modem manufacture In short, Baudehllre "as the first to \\ rIte what CrItiCS after Laforgue have learned to call urban poetry But as BaudelalIe IS never overeloquent, someho\, he IS ne\ er 0\ erfammar eIther All of these e, ervda\ obJects are descnbed In a way that IS somehow lofty, supenor 'BaudelaIre IS "ell-beha\ed He IS courteous to the ugly' Sometimes he redeems b,," means of the claSSIcal reference Inserted \\ Ith the utmost naturalness 'Andromaque, Je pense a \OUS" he e\.clalms, hav10g deSCrIbed the hurly-burly of the CIty streets 10 \, hleh the 5\' an 15 wandermg And he adds, 'Veuve d'Hector, helas"-the mteqectIon belOg neither a bIt of classical pomp nor paddmg, but hal 109 'great and touchmg subtlety' SometImes the Instrument of hlS transformlOg power IS more mysterIOUS, as m the memorable hnes

Ii r beure ou sous les czeux et clam Ie TrtrOati s'evezlJe, oi'l la vome Pousse un sombre O1.tI'llgan dans fatr sziencllntx Fro~ds

at that cold clear hour When Labor rouses, when the scavengers Fracture the sIlence With the!! somber dust-storm But always the 'courtesy' IS there, and that IS "hat dlStlnguIShes BaudelalIe from hIS d1Sciples, 'who have set Pans out on dlSplay hke provIncIals dazzled by a tum on the boulevards and weary of the tyranny of theIr brassenes • Laforgue ffilSSes much of BaudelaIre, partly because he IS wnt109 10 1885 The Eents mtrmes had not yet been pubhshed If Lafargue had read them he Il11ght not have been able to d.J.snuss the rehglous quest10n With a few casual references and the remark. 'metaphySlca1 angUISh could not touch hnn, the epldernus of hIs soul was of dIfferent stuff' The whole question of Baude-

106

JULES LAFORGUE A......n THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

laIre's possIble converslOn to the Chnstlan rehglOn asIde, the problem of behef "\\-as of the greatest urgency for hun The pnvate notebooks make dus especIally clear, but then some of the Fleurs du mill are almost as reveahng The emanCIpated Laforgue was SImply not a good Judge on such matters He IS, unfortunately, httle better on the subject of BaudelaIre's mtellectual powers At one pomt he declares, 'NeIther a great heart, nor a great mmd, but what plamtIve nerves, what nostnls open to everythmg, what a magtc vOIce' BaudelaIre's superb CntICISm, Ius aesthetIcs that has kept most other poets gomg ever smce, the archItectural deslgn to whIch the poems of Les Fleurs du mal were firmly subjected, almost any of the JOttIngs m hIs Journals, IS enough to confound such a statement Yet m one way or another, Laforgue manages to touch on several of the dIScovenes of that mmd as well as to acknowledge many of the quahtIes of that VOIce Here, m the poems 'atry as the beatIng of a WIng,' IS the prophecy of 'pure poetry,' poetry detached from events, concerned WIth essences, the kInd developed by Mallarme and Valery Here IS the conceptIon of the poem as a work paInStakIngly constructed rather than msprred, a theory for wluch Poe was responsIble and whIch Baudelatre welcomed WIth enthusIasm and passed on to Mallarme and Valery Here, most certamly, IS apprecIatIon of the conversatIonal note struck by Baudelarre-not the first, smce poets of antIqUlty had had therr satIres and epIStles, lffiltated over the centurIes, and before the Lake poets there had been Matthew Pnor and, for that matter, several mttmate French poets among the ClassICISts-yet a note that Baudelatre could strIke WIth the sureness of geruus By ImphcatIon, recogruzmg Baudelatre's power to transform mrre mto gold, Laforgue does a general sort of JUStIce to Baudelarre's ldeal1S01 Unci Valery no poet of consequence was to wnte so well on Baudelarre As m any cntIC1S01, we must look for the unage of the cntlc, and we; find It In that of the 'grave and cunous chIld' We are told of both Corblere and Baudelarre that they were chIldren who asked only for the patn of havmg WIShes granted or the pleasure of havmg them refused We cannot help notICIng that tlus descnptlon fits Corblere rather ill, Baudelarre somewhat bet-

LITERARY CRITICIS'\1

107

ter, but Laforgue (unt1l the last year of hIs lIfe) admU'ably As in any cnnCIsm of a poet by a poet, "e must look for the element of the marnfesto, the thmly veIled announcement of what he plans to do lumself The emphasIs Laforgue places on Baudelru..re's 'Yankee,' ann-eloquent traIts will help us matenallv to understand the progress of hIs 0\\ n verse

VIII

Many VOIces

THE Empress' schedule was vaned only once durmg Laforgue's years m Germany In r884> when her health was bad, she stayed on longer than usual m Berlm OtherwIse she left on the nIneteenth of April for Baden-Baden-the watermg place that Jules hated most of all and upon whIch he finally took hls revenge m one of hiS stones, 'Le MIracle des roses' Coblenz, where the court spent June and July. had more m Its favor, the way the Moselle cast Itself mto the RhIne was 'a sIght for sad eyes' The first three weeks of August were passed m Potsdam at the Castle of Babelsberg-many details of wruch were to crop up m 'Hamlet', and It was usually from there that Jules left on hls generous vacatIOns, two months and a half on the average, wruch from r882 till r88S he spent m France The first of November he would reJoIn the court at Coblenz, m tnne for the Journey back to the wmter palace In Berlm Thls was the order of events, mamtamed wIth a regulanty befittmg the Empress' age and temperament, that shortly had Jules 'teanng m shreds the bItter fern of spleen' 1 Yet the country holIdays fUffilShed the unforgettable landscapes of Laforgue's poetry casJllOS by the water m season and out of season, valleys wIth homs and huntIng calls m autumn And even the dull meVItability of the round had lts advantages It would be a sImphficatIon to say that Jules detested the vegetatmg kmd of hfe he saw about hIm He was SImultaneously attracted by It, especially at Baden-Baden, where he never could get down to work-there were too many 'tentatIons de promenades' 2 He knew that he loS

;,\h.~l

Y oleES

I(X)

must try hard to keep m touch \\lth poetn as It \\ as understood m ParIs 'The plaCIdIty of BerIm e'\asperates and fnghtens me,' he remarked m a letter 'I never \\nte a phrase, a hne of verse, \Vlthout trymg for the surazgti, Just to prove to myself that I am not gomg mto a dechne But no doubt the brandy of Berlm IS herb tea m Pans' 3 If the Complamtes have the sa, or of honest alcool, and they do, the dtstillmg flame \, as fed by mIscellaneous fuel the art cntlCIsm that the edItors of the Ga'Zette des Beaux-Arts patched up almost beyond recognItlon, the odd Iv assorted readmgs for the Empress, the atmosphere of the resort to\\ ns "Ith theIr usual boredom and dlstractlons By May 1882 Laforgue \\as conclusnelv dlssatlsfied \\lth Le Sanglot de Ia terre and Its eloquence SIX months later, \ ... fltlng from Coblenz m front of rus wmdow overloolung the Rhme, he confides to Charles Henry that he has m mmd a \ olume of 'entIrely new poems whIch wIll be called Compltll12tes de In 7..'le or the Ltvre des Complamtes, deplorable poems rh\ med any old way mcludmg the Complamtes du Solell, du petlt hvpertrophlque, des quatre salsons, de la Vledle Fllle, du Foetus, du Pharmaclen, du Pere eternel, de Pan, et cetera' 4 ObvIOusly, the tone of the volume IS set A year and a half later, the book finIShed except for correctlons, he WrItes to hIS SIster about hIS new poems 'They wIll perhaps seem strange to "ou, but I have abandoned my Ideal of the rue Berthollet, my phIlosoprucal poems It seems stupId to me now to assume a solemn alr, to play the stops of eloquence Nowadays, be10g on the one hand more skeptlcal, less eaSIly carned away, and on the other hand possess1Og my language m a more mmute, clown-ltke fashton, I compose whtn1Slcal httle poems wIth only one purpose 10 nund, orIg1Oahty at any cost' ~ In November 1882 he had only five Complm'ntes 10 hand By the follow1Og August he was able to WrIte 10 the Agenda he used for a dIary dunng 1883 that he had finIShed hIS book of forty poems (later 10creased to fifty) The burst of actlVIty IS startlIng. the more so smce he had brought few projects to completlon durmg Ius first year 10 Germany We must look beyond mere clanficanon of poetlC purpose for the explanatlon We do not know much about 'R.,' the woman referred to by

1 10

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

that lDltIal a score of tunes m the Agenda EVIdently she was attached to the court, gomg to Baden-Baden along WIth the officIal retinue Theodore Lmdenlaub could remember only one occaslOn when Laforgue had mentioned her (not a surpnsmg fact, consIdenng the poet's talent for secrecy) and he cautiously Identified 'R' as the daughter of a burgomaster of eIther Cologne or ~lAnl7 '1~+,;JJe."M'nJ nn",l"lrn"""1 avtrernpl"lT CPTlc<,,,.,'up '!un,.,.,,," ?! almost stormy dlspOSltIOn ' II .l:!;ntnes m the Agenda bear out the stormmess, at any rate On 16 Apnl 'Readmg-then at R's-mtermmable scene-Iceberg and firebrand' Two days after arnvmg at Baden-Baden, 'Mad walk WIth R Lamentations of an ambItiOUS slave' On 1. 3 May 'Scene WIth R , Schemes of fortune, market for PICtures and sketches ImpresslOrusm and wax sculpture" 27 May 'BIg scene WIth R She was born to be a mother' 30 May 'Done m -Tenderness at R's ExploSlon' On 5 June, after an eventful rught spent WIth others 'R, when she saw my sorry appearance-' 8 June 'Scene of the unworthy' 7 (' to be loved by so pure a creature,' accordmg to the exegesIS of Theodore Lmdenlaub, who puzzled over the passage later) On 19 July there 15 the record of another clash, and that 15 the last we hear of R m the Agenda ThIS does not mean her dtsappearance from Laforgue's hfe, however, but SImply that he left on hIS vacation He contlnued to see her untIl some undetermmed later date Several prose fragments, mcludmg the folloWIng unpubhshed one, deal WIth the adventure WIth R 'The rendezvous to whIch she dtd not come An hour after the tune agreed on he IS still wandenng about, eyes streammg, teeth clenched He comes back from the street comer to look at the clock-on the m.gn before the watchmaker's shop It's a good ten o'clock He keeps gomg He wants to hoard up all the gnef there IS, to the pomt of burstmg, to the pomt of tears. before gomg home He walks along mngmmg word by word the scene he WIll make tomorrow, and Ius face acts out the words What WIll she .find to say:' The second tIme thts week she has faded hlm' He will be unplacable' Though the heavens had fallen be wouldn't have mISSed a rendezvous, would have let her know, et cetera • On the way home he real1zed that he loved her madly He swore to hunself to make an '",'I't

MA........~ YOICES

I II

end of all tIus The very ne'\1: day he \.., ould propose, or carry her off She loved hun There \\ ould be nothIng to It He had hesItated too long as It was, had no doubt alio" ed her passIon to cool He nnagmed the scene of tears and eternal vo" s tomorrow

Ie t'en tfLazs cumbie, 1e t'e'll '4-eux accabler

'8

From such Jottmgs and transposlOons It IS easy enough to reconstruct the SItuatiOn a man ot twenn.'-three, \\ Ith no resources beyond those prOVIded by hIS some", hat humlhatmg post, 10 full tIlt after the ImpOSSIble That young man does not cut an admIrable figure Two years later, \, hen he \Vntes sourly to Charles Henry, '1 am beg10rnng to thmk that It '\\ as mv \\ hole person whIch dISpleased the Illustnous R,' 9 \ \ e find It 10 ourselves to agree WIth hIm An amblOous slav e 10 more \\ a\ s than one, mO\109 WIth deep-seated uneaSIness In bored and bonng soclet\, gIrdIng hImself WIth defensIve bravado, the LafOlgue of 188 1 IS far from haVIng found hImself AmId adventures Intellectual and emotional, cOmpOSItiOn of the Complatntes proceeded, sometimes on a day dIrectly follo\\109 a quarrel WIth R Under date of 2 August we find the words, 'Ferme mes Complamtes' At once Laforgue began castmg about 10 Ius mmd for a hkely pubhsher 10 He would have lIked lus poems to appear 10 the Ktstemaeckers editlons, along WIth the worl.. of Huysmans. Catulle Mendes and Maupassant But Inqumes by letter and 10 person durmg hIs vacation In France were equally unfruItful, and It was not untIl March that he came to terms \\ Ith Leon Varner, 11 Verlame's pubhsher He promIsed to pay Varner two hundred francs 10 July (by thIs tlme he was hvmg as a matter of course on Ius salary for the next quarter) Lengthy delays ensued The poems lay 10 manuscnpt at the pubhsher's shop on the Quai Samt-MIchel untIl July 1885. whIle thetr author raged and despatred and gave Varner the rnckname of FablUs Cunctator The manuscnpt was not neglected, however, SInce Laforgue charged both Vanter and Henry to make corrections for hun, and made some hImself whIle 10 ParIS 10 1884 At least once he confessed that he was glad of the chance to revISe Dur109 the spnng and early summer of 1885 seven of the poems came out m the reVIew Lutece, provokIng a slashmg attack from

II2

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC I!\HERITA.",CE

Edmond Haraucourt 12 At length, m July, Les Complamtes de Jules Lafargue appeared m a sky-blue bmdmg WIth the epIgraph, 'Au pent bonheur de la fatalIte,' expressIve of the author's aesthetICS and of hIs sense of fatalIty 'I am very parncular about the empmcal aesthencs of the Complamte,' 13 he wrote to Charles Henry We have mentIOned that 'empl!lcal' OrIgm m an earlIer chapter Durmg the carruval after the dedicanon of the LIon de Belfort m September 1880, he had conceIved the Idea of wrInng songs a shade more lIterary than those sung by organ grInders on the streets, by entertamers m the publIc squares Like the popular smgers, he would count rus lIne lengths on the baSIS of syllables actually pronounced, disregardmg the mute 'e's' when he dId not throw them out entIrely He would make lIberal use of lInes of eIght syllables or less, because the caesura IS moblle m short lInes He would employ ballad measures and reframs And he would keep hIS verse close to the candIdly sennmental and sattrical feelIngs of the people The outrageously sentImental 'Chanson du pent hypertropruque,' mennoned m letters of February and November 1882, IS pretty certamly the first Complamte wrItten, even though Laforgue left It out of the volume and hIs edItors eventually placed It m Le Sanglot de la terre It mIght almost have been sung by an organ gnnder on that carruval rught of September 1880 The boy's mother, we are told m the first stanza, has dIed of heart dIsease On rzt d' mot dans les rues, De mes mzn's mcongrues La-t-tou/ D'enfant saoul, Ab' Dzeu' C'est qU' chaqU' pas fetouf!', mOt, 1e chancelle l femends man coeur qw. btrt, C'est nzfrmt.m quz ntappelle'

a

Non, tout Ie monde est mechant, Hars Ie coeur des couchants,

M~,,'\ VOICES

TtT-Ian-Iazre' Et ma mere, Et l' veux aller la-bas Fatr' dodo z'avee eUe JUon coeur bat, bat, bat, bat Dzs, M,vnan, ttt m'appelles? The popular smger would slur the mute 'e's' m Just thIs ,\av, and plug the gaps bet\.\reen vo," els ,uth such a 'z' sound Another rejected experIment, the 'Complamte de lorgamste de ~otre­ Dame de Nlce,' has stanzas of more merIt that pomt to,,,ard both earher and later'\\. ark

VOlet que les corbeaux hl'i-'ernaUx Om psahnodte paron 110S cloches,

Les averses d'autO'l1FJle som proches, Adteu les bosquets des casmos Le Jour qu'elle qwttera ce moude, ] e vatS 10uer 1m Mtserere S: cosmzquevzent desespere QU'll faudra men que Dteu me rep011de f N 011, 1e resteTat seul, let-bas,

Tout aia chere moTte phtmque, Ber;ant mon coeur trop hypertrophtque Aux eternelles fUgues de Bach

Now that the flIghts of wmter crows Have psaJmodtzed upon our eaves The autumn downpours menace us, Goodbye to groves of casmos The day she leaves tius world behInd, I will mtone a Have mercy 011 us • In all ewo.oos of Le SrmgJot de lIZ terre thlS verse reads 'MOD coeur bat, bat, bat • Leon Gwchard pointed out, 10 a letter of 5 September 1949 to G Jean-Aubry, that another syllable IS needed to make the hoe fit the pattem of the poem

114

JULES L
Full of such cosnuc hopelessness That God cannot but make a SIgn' Yet though the tIme be out of Jomt I'll hnger on, vowed to the dear departed, Lulhng my hypertropruc heart WIth Bach's eternal counterpomt Some of the best and most spmted of the Com.plazntes are only one remove from the popular source, beaten out to the rhythms of popular dIttIes COMPLAlNTE DU PAUVRE JEUNE HOMME

Sur l'azr populazre 'Quand Ie bonho'l11fl1'i rewnt du bozs' Quand ce 1eune hormm' rentra chez IUt, Quand ce 1eune hom:m' rentra chez Juz, Il przt adeux mazns son vzeux crane, QUt de sczence etazt un PUtts' Crane, R1.che crane, Entends-tu Ia Folze quz plane? Et quz demande Ie cordon, Dzgue dondazne, dzgue dondazne, Et quz demande Ie cordon, Dzgue dondazne, dzgue dondon? To the popular ~ 'When the good man carne back,:loom the wood'

tt

When the young man went back to room, When the young man went back to IDs room, In rus two hands he grasped IDs skull WInch of rugh knowledge was so full' Skull, Rlch sl..'1lll, Do you hear Madness' hovenng ca1l~ Asking for the rope or kmfe

\h. . . . y

VOICES

As bIg as lIfe, as bIg as lIfe, Aslang for the rope or krufe, as bIg as lIfe:

There are five more stanzas of slll'lllar form The poor young man hears scales bemg practiced on a nelghbonng plano, as Laforgwan heroes are wont to do He laments that her husband has closed the house to rus "ISIts and remarks

Arne,

Ma belle ame, Leur butte est trop sal' pour til {ial1rme' Soul,

o my rare soul, Your flame's too fine for their crude oIl' He further notes that hIs wIfe has left rum, haVIng first taken the trouble to dtsconnect the gas so that he could not asphV'\1ate hImself He finally has recourse to a razor

Q'UO.nd ies croq'rnorts vmrent chez lUI, Q'UO.nd ies cToq'morts mnrent chez lut, Ils mrent que c'hQzt Wle belle dme, Comme on n'en flUt plus aulourcfhuz 'When the howlers hIed themselves upstaIrS, 'When the howlers hIed themselves upstaIrS, They saw thIS soul was of a superIor kmd Now dtscontmued by the manufacturers The 'Complainte de l'epoux outrage,' In whIch the offendIng WIfe stubbornly mamtams that the officer WIth whom she was speakIng In a comer of the church was ChrIst, IS In about the same veIn, of about the same vmtage, and sIIDllarly fitted to the rhythmIcal pattern of a popular tune So IS the 'ComplrunteVanatlons sur Ie mot fl11ot, falotte/ one of the poems most generally appreCIated dunng Lafargue's hfetlme The quahty of the Complazntes that Impressed contemporanes, that eventually moved even Gustave Lanson, uncompre-

rr6

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

hendIng at first, to adIIl1t that they were 'une date dans l'historre poetIque de la fin du XIXe,' was the bold appropnatlOn of popular speech Most sigruficant, no doubt, was the use of It In tradItionally elevated poetic contexts, so that Laforgue unIIl1stakably does what he credIted BaudelaIre wIth domg 'puts hIS foot In the plate,' expresses rugh thoughts In low language, lIghts upon 'Yankee' comparIsons Instead of lofty, harmOnIOUs ones Due lIDportance, however, must be attached to the slIDplest kmd of Complamte, where Laforgue's VIgorous dIctIOn appears m all Its lIDpure purIty Of the fifty titles, all but five begm WIth 'Complamte de We are turned loose m a wIlderness of genItives But If we cannot qUIte agree wIth James Joyce that the subjective and objective genItives explam the world, we at least find them very servIceable m cleanng up the IIl1crocosm of the Complamtes There are, m the first place, the songs put m the mouths of someone or somethmg on the order of the 'PetIt hypertropruque,' though usually far dIfferent from It In tone the 'ComplaInte du foetus du poete,' 'ComplaInte de Lord Plerrot,' 'Complamte du ROI de Thule,' and so on In the same class come the poems spoken by two or more figures the 'Complamte des VOlX sous Ie figUIer bouddhIque,' 'Complamte de cette bonne lune,' 'ComplaInte de l' orgue de Barbarle,' and the lIke All these are titles m wruch the gerutIve IS subjective the foetus's, Lord Plerrot's, the Kmg of Thule's, the VOIces' complamts In the second place we have the Complamtes on a given theme 'de la bonne defunte,' 'd'un certam dimanche,' 'de la fin des Journees,' and so on Here the gemoves are obJectove 'Complamt concerrung the Good Deceased,' 'Complamt concerrung a Certam Sunday' Fmally we have the five otles In wruch the stated theme IS the object of a prepOSItiOn other than 'de' 'Complamte prop1t1atorre a l'InconscIent,' 'Complamte sur certams ennuIS,' and three others In these otles, InCIdentally, Laforgue deployed all of hIS conSIderable IngenUIty We find such rubIlcs as the 'Complamte des pubertes dlffiCIles,' 'Complamte des nostalgIes prerustonques,' 'Complamte dn pauvre chevaher-errant,' 'Complamte des formahtes nuptIales,' 'Complamte des noces de Plerrot,' 'Complamte

du vent qUI s'ennUle la nUlt,' 'Comphunte-Lltarues de mon sacrecoeur,' and others no less colorful The poems of the second land Just named are h neal e"panslons of personal emotion, they are called 'complaIntes' to preserve the uruty of the collection, but mIght almost equalh~ '\\ ell ha\ e been entitled 'elegIes,' or SImply 'La Bonne DHunte,' 'Un Certam Dlmanche,' 'La F10 des }oumees' In the grav lonelIness that IS the subject of the 'ComplaInte de la fin des Joumees' '\\e redISco\er

l'enfant qUI wt de ce nom, poete' Il se revfrlt, seul, pansam Pb,loctete Aux nu,ts de Lemnos, au, 10m, grele ascete the chIld who answered to trus name, poetlc, Dreamed of hImSelf, alone, tendIng Philoctetes In Lemnos' rughts, or, far off, frail ascetIc The cruld IS none other than Stephane Vassmew, '\\ ho 10 the desolate lycee of Tarbes dreamed of tending Phdoctetes A poem of protest such as the 'Complamte de la lune en prov1Oce' IS even more revelatory of personal mood, the mood of late summers when Laforgue vegetated at Tarbes The 'Compla1Ote d'un certam dunanche' IS a graceful elegy, a farewell to R , '\\ 1th 1Oterest10g 'lIberated' alexandrmes

L'homme n'est pllS mecbtmt, 111.111 femme epbemere Ah' faus dont au CIlSZ1ZO battent Ies talons, Tout homme pleure U1J 10ur et toute femme est mere, Nous S011fJ1tes taus filtals, allons' Man IS not Wicked nor IS woman ephemeral Madmen whose lOltenng heels pound at the casmo, Each man weeps one day, each woman's maternal, We are all fihal, come now' The classIcal caesura after the SJXth syllable could not be more marked than m the first lIne, and It IS suffiClently clear m the thud But the second !me IS dIVided With unusual effect after the second and seventh syllables

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Laforgue s nund, "luch ,,,as foreyer dIsmtegratmg the tradItIonal ,erse hne, tIme-hallo" ed sequences of unagery, the conceptIon of the \\ ork of art as 'the e'<presslOn of a donunant charactenstlc,' could not remam satIsfied wIth the kmd of poetry that gn es direct e"\presslOn to personal emotIon What, to begm WIth, IS the 'mdi"'ldual'-etymologxcally 'one'~ From Hartmann, Laforgue had learned to tJunk of the human mdlVldual as an aggregate, a sum of many mdividuais He had noted Hartmann's quotatIon from Spmoza, 'the human body conSISts of several mdn lduals of "anous nature, each of whIch IS very complex' 14 He had pondered Hamnann's enlargement on thIS Idea m the second part of hIS ,\ ork The poet" ho wrote, satmcally,

Quand 1'orgfl111Se fme descente en MOl, fen cO'm,,'Ze11S,1e trO'lt'IJe la, attabtee, Une SocIete un peu bten melee, Et que 1e n'm pOint '1..>ue ames octrozs -'Ballade,' Fleurs de bonne volonte Whenever I make bold to turn my gaze WIthIn I find there, I adnut, drawn up at table Such a heterogeneous band of people As makes me wonder how they ever got m \\as aware of the diversIty Wltlun the mdlVldual, the compleXity of the SUbcOIlSClOUS mmd Smce he also beheved m the UnconSCIOUS as a spmtual pnnclple, a supeno! force dnvmg the mc:bvldual toward self-fulfillment m a SWIft succesSIOn of unpulses, he felt moved to wnte about an mdlVldual dIVIded m tIme as well as In space We have, for Instance, the emotIon and Its negatIon In the same poem, 'La Complamte de la bonne defunte,' begmrung as mgenuously as Yeats' 'Song of the Wandermg Aengus,' and endmg With a Heme-lIke dIsavowal Laforgue's l!ony, whtch spnngs from these psychologIcal depths, will be dIScussed later Oosely related to the drama of the l!ony 15 the dramatIC form of the most cbaractenstlC Complamtes In the earlIest of these the poet dId as he had done nowhere In hIS 'plulosophtcal' verse He assumed a. role, a mask 'Le PetIt hypertrophtque,' ~L'Orgaruste de

\h.,\

'·OlCf"i

119

Notre-Dame de ~lec' The"ie h neal monologue.. led naturally to dIalogues, stdl on the popular le\ e1, the 'Compl:unte de l'epou1: outrage' IS a eom ersatlon ben\ cen man and \\lfe The popular accent IS presen ed m poems \\ here \\ e can see the poet \\ orkmg hts \\3\ back to\\ ard dlstmetn e themes In the 'Comphmte de cette bonne lune' "e hear from '1 chorus of 't.iN as \\ ell as from Our Lady the \loon, and the accent of both partIes IS f.rubO'llrzen Certam dIalogues, ho\\ e\ er, 'md '\ en Import'lnt one.. (the 'Complamte des 'Ol~ SOU'i Ie figUler bouddhlquc: for e''1mple), tum about problems clm,e to the poet s heart. and lte t.Ouched In qUite un-~aturallStIc language The dramatlc dec;lgn of th.... group of Complamtes IS retamed e,"en "hen a fundament'll mtentlon, reproductIOn of popullr spech, 1<, abandoned TIll'. l'i not, of course, to say that Laforgue aI" 3\ s ... uce. eeds In findmg \, ords and sentIments SUitable to dramaoc peNonagC'i and detached from hImself Some paradoucal ode!> slmph conceal the unburderung of pm, ate emotIons From bottom to top of thle; first and most numerous group of the Complamtes, ho\\ ever, there Ie; a mOl ement to\\ ard dramatIzatIon, a tendenc" havmg lte; orlgm In self-a\\ areness and self-defense. to e"(tenonze the lvnc emotIon ThiS mo\ ement \\ as ulomatelv to occaSlOn 'Le Conctle feenque: a 'Ii erse drama Mean\\ htle It IS felt 10 dramatic ,erse And It IS by the diversIty and 10terest of thIS drama that Laforgue dlStmgulshes hImself from another poet, Tnstan Corblere, \\ hose startIng pomt was also the cbl111son p()pulazre None of these poems 15 better kno\\n, or deserves to be, than 'Autre Compla1Ote de Lord Plerrot,' a conversatlon between ingenuous female and medItatIve male, whIch w1l1 be mentIoned later as an example of the poet's !fony There are equally 10terestmg dIalogues of dtffenng VOICes, some of them more sustamed and furnIshed WIth a prologue and conclusIOn, which thl5 Plerrot poem does not have Three such poems are the 'Compla1Ote des grands ptns dans une villa abandonnee,' the 'Complatnte des pIanos dans les quartIers alSes,' and the 'ComplalOte du S011" des conuces agncoles' Sometunes the VOICes emerge hesttantly, uncert2lnly, as though from sleep. so that we are not always certrun to whom they belong They suggest, as they are meant to do. the mtnd loolang

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

lOto Its own depths, gIven over to revene, or awakenlOg The VOIces are thus blurred 10 the 'ComplalOte des grands plOs,' but the contrast between them IS certam The lOtroductlOn IS 10 alexandr10es Tout hzer, Ie solezl a bowJe dans ses brumes, Le vent 1usquau matm n'a pas deco/ere, Mats, nous poznt des coteaux la-bas, un oetl sacre Qw va vous bousculer ces paquets de bttwne l All day long yesterday the sun stayed hIdden, UntIl daybreak the w10d dId not relent, But now dawns on the hills an eye lOtent On break10g up those masses of bItumen r Except for the frulure to rhyme a plural 10 's' wIth a word endIng 10 's' (a commandment of the old prosody wruch Laforgue learned to break early 10 hIS career) the alexandr10es are conventIonal The rruddle caesura of the thIrd hne IS weakened, whlCh lOcreases Its rhythmlc Interest The first VOIce now speaks 10 octosyllables -Ah' vous m'avez trop, trop vanne, Bals de dUl'mants, hanches roses, Et, men sUr, Je n'ettlf,s pas ne Pour ces choses -Oh you have done for me but right, but right, Ghttenng dances, rosy hIpS, One thmg 15 certam, I was never meant For thIngs hke thIS The second VOIce comments 10 claSSIcally dIVIded alexandr10es -Le vent Jusqu'au mtttm n'n. pas decolere Ohl ces qutntes de toux d'un chaos bzen posthu:me -UntIl daybreak the w10d dId not relent Oh these coughIng fits of a posthumous chaos

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For the 'posthumous chaos' we are referred to the end of the poem, where we learn that the storyteller's parents are dead, or, to the next to last quatram, where we are told that he IS ill of tuberculosIs The Gaspard Hauser-llke story contInues -Elles, coudes nus dans les fruzts, Rtant, changeant de dozgts leurs bagues, Cormne nos plages et nos nuzts Leur sont vagues'

-They, wIth bare elbows plunged m ffUlts, LaughIng and toymg wIth therr nngs, To them our beaches and our mghts Must seem such far-off thmgs' Then comes the exclamatIOn Ob' ces quzntes de toux d'un chaos bzen posthwne, Chantons comme Mern:non, le solezl a filtre

Oh these coughmg fits of a posthumous chaos, Now SlOg lIke Memnon' The sun's broken through For once, a LaforgUlan speaker IS glad to see the sun, there IS none of the antI-solar lOvectlve so conspICUOUS elsewhere The mythologIcal reference, lIke thIs one to the statue that bursts mto song at the touch of the sun's rays, wlll become more and more frequent as a means of reconclllOg Images The parts of the 'Complamte des grands plOs,' the narratIve lOterrupted by a kmd of choral commentary, were 10 danger of ruspersIOn Laforgue met the dIfficulty, partly, by uslOg the rhymes of the first paIr of alexandnnes throughout -Et mot, 1e SUts dans ce Itt em De cho:mbre d'hOtel, fade chcnnbre, Seul, battu dans les vents bourrus De novembre -Qm, consolant des vents les nozrs Mtsereres, Des nuages en fwte eponge flU 10m l' ecurme

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-Berthe aux sages yeux de lzlas, QUt pnazs Dzeu que 1e re'1J'tnsse, Que fazs-tu, manee la-bas, En pro'1Jtnce? -And here I am m tlus bare bed, TIns hotel room WIth rattlIng bhnds, Alone and shaken by the rude November wmds _ Wluch, comfortmg the black Misereres of the wmds, Sponges away the foam of flymg clouds -Bertha of the vlOlet gaze Who prayed God for my homecommg, What are you domg, marned, far away From everythmg~ The last two paIrS of alexandnnes have more rhythnucal vanety than the early ones

-Me1I'fllons, ventrzloquons' Ie cher astre a filtre Et Ie vmla qm tout tmthentzque s' exhwme' -Il rom:pt ses dtgues l vers les grands labours quz fument' Stttnt Sacrement l et Labarum des Nox rrae l

-Ventnloqwze hke Memnon l the dear star's broken through And ill good earnest comes to hie agam l -Breakmg Its dIkes toward the broad smokIng plowlands l Blessed Sacramentl and Labarum of Nox trae' The last verse IS Romantic trimeter dlVldmg evenly mto three parts, wIth a strong accent on the last syllable of each, and the first of these hnes IS classlCally ruvided m two But hnes two and three are 'lIberated' verses, ruVISIble Into three parts accordIng to the once revolutionary patterns of 4-5-3 and 4-6-2 The unaccented sIXth syllable m both hnes disappomts clasSIcal expectations, allowmg the long ffilddle parts of the lInes to convey the

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sensatIon of great breaths of w10d The poem ends wIth these quatra1Os, 10terrupted by a last choral comment -Oh' quel vent' adzeu tout sommetl, Mon Dteu, que 1e SUtS men malade' Oh' notre crOtsee a:u soletl Bon, a Bade -Et btentot, seul, 1e m'en traz, A Montmartre, en eznqmeme elasse, Lmn de pere et mere, enterres En Alsaee

-Oh' What wmd' and so farewell To any sleep How sIck I am' And oh our w1Odow 10 the gentle SunshIne at Baden -And soon, alone, I w1l1 be gomg Off to Montmartre 10 baggage class, Far from father and mother sleep10g In Alsace AlliteratIOn, as 10 the fourth of these lmes, IS frequent m the poetry of Laforgue, who needed a formal element to strengthen purposely broken rhythms The rareness m the poem of rtmes nehes, or rhymes Wlth three slffillar sounds mstead of the 'sufficIent' two, IS equally typIcal of the later verse The 'Complamte des grands pms' IS dated from Baden-Baden, October 1882, m the copy of the Complazntes that Jules gave to hIS SIster Mane Reconstructmg the CIrcumstances that led up to Its cOmpOSItIon, we may suppose that the poet, walkmg one day m the outsktrts of the town, came upon an empty vIlla To the sound of the autumn wmd m the pmes, he lffiagmes how It mlght have come to be empty, because of the dreammess of someone lIke Gaspard Hauser-the wIstful and unfortunate grandnephew of the Empress JosephIne, about whom Verlame wrote one of hIS memorable poems-someone who 'was not born

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for these tlungs,' who was sIckly and unsure of rumself and allowed rumself to be ruIned Such a story could have been told by the quatrams alone, and the poet may have WrItten It that way first, as he wrote a slffillar poem m quatrams m a later collection, before msertIng verses of choral commentary But the comment, conceIved on one level as the VOIce of the pme trees that have been wItnesses to these thmgs, permIts a chfferent tone, a savmg Irony, whIch keeps us from Imagmmg that the poet rums elf IS Gaspard Hauser, even though he may be lymg 'm a bare bed' WaitIng for daylIght The deSIgn of the 'ComplaInte des planas qu'on entend dans les quarners aises' IS the same as that of the 'Grands Pms', and It happens to be well known m trus country because It was one of the poems publIshed by Ezra Pound m an mfluentIal number of the Lzttle Revzew (February 1918) The mtroductIOn IS, agam, four lInes long A lIterary young man IS shown strollmg down the rue Madame m the spnngtIme, and m the sound of the practIcmg commg from the wmdows he hears the plamt of ffilserable lffipnsoned souls

Menez fame que Ies Lettres ont men nourne, Les pzanos, Ies pzanos, dans Ies qun:rtzers azses Premzers sozrs, sans pardessus, chaste fianerze, Aux complazntes des nerfs mcomprzs ou brzses Conduct the soul well versed m lIterature, PIanos, pIanos, m the prosperous quarters Fust evenmgs, coatless, mnocent adventure, To the complaInts of nerves mISunderstood or shattered He wonders

Ces enfants, aqUOt revent-elles, Dans les ennuts des rttournelles? Tell me, what do they dream of, tell, In the ennUlS of rltournelles;l and the VOIce of the pIanos replIes

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-'Pre/1:llX des SOtrs, Cbrtsts des dOtiOtrs ' 'Tu t' en vas et tu nous latsses, Tu nous latss's et tu t'en VIlS, Defatre et refat'fe ses tresses, Broder d' eternels canevas' -'Schoolyards at rughtfall, Carved ChrlSts upon the wall' 'You go away, we stay behmd, We stay behmd, you go away, We b10d our tresses and unb1Od, EmbrOIder everlastlng frames' Once more the poet has borrowed a rhythm, even a lme, quoted exactly further on, from a popular song of the day 'Tu t'en vas et tu nous qUlttes' The poem contlnues thus, a quatram of commentary succeeded by the two VOICes Many detaIls are memorable, for example, the beautlful Baudelaman thIrd hne 10 the followIng Fatales cUs de Ntre zm berm 10ur apparues, psztt l aux hereaftes en ponctuels ferments, Dtms Ie bal tncesstmt de nos etrtmges rues, Ahl penstonnats, theatres, 10U'f"fUlUX, romtmS' Keys of all be10g one day burst10g out In punctual ferment to heredltles, In the 10cessant ball of our strange streets, Ah' schools, playhouses, dally papers, stones' The follow1Og bnef couplet has Imagery of mterest to FreudIan psychologISts, whlle the quatram suggests the medIeval Image of the rose as woman -'RJdeo:ux tIres, Peut-on entrer?

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'Tu t'en vas et tu nous lazsses, Tu nous latss's et tu t'en vas, La source des frats rosters bazsse, Vrazment' Et lut qUt ne vzent pas -'Curtatns drawn, May one come In';) 'You go away, we stay behInd, We stay belund, you go away, The rose tree sprIng IS runnIng dry, Truly' And he who doth delay , The power of observatlon and the humor are equally acerb

Allez, sterzles rztournelles, La vze est vrme et cmmnelle II vzendra' Vous serez les plZ'lllUf'es coeurs en faute, Ftances au remords CO'f'l6/ne aux essazs sans fond, Et les sufftsants coeurs cossus, n'ayant d'autre bOte Qu'rm trm'fl-trllt.n pavozse d'estrme et de cbtffons MO'l&rtr~

peut-etre brodent-elles, Pour rm oncle Ii dot, des bretelles~

The devll, stenle ntournelles, Lae lS real and crlmmal' He'll come all nght' You'll be the tumd souls at fault, Pledged to remorse as to unendtng tnal, And the stout busthng souls boastl.ng no other thought But the gay round of prestIge and apparel Dymg';l Or maybe she embroIders For some nch uncle, bnght suspenders';l Few poems of SIxty ltnes run so WIde a gamut of perceptIons One of Laforgue's earhest prose fragments, we remember, dealt WIth a gIrls' boardmg school The motIf turns up agam

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7

here and the gIrl of the gray convent school IS equated wIth the ShulamIte, the bnde m the Song of Songs -'Coeurs en przson, Lentes sazsons' 'Tu t' en vas et tu nous quzttes, Tu nous quztt's et tu fen vas' Couvents grzs, choeurs de Sulamztes, Sur nos sems nuls crozsons nOs bras'

-'Hearts m pnson, SluggIsh seasons' 'You go away, we stay behmd, We stay behmd, you go away' Gray convents, chOIrs of ShulaIDltes, On our flat breasts press our arms tightly' The file or chorus of gIrls appears and reappears m Laforgue's poetry after Le Sanglot de la terre, a symbol WIth several meanmgs SometImes the 'keys of bemg' are vIewed pesslIDlstlcally mdeed, as a 'faIthful vegetable' ('Complamte de rorgue de Barbone bane') Woman IS the 'httle beast WIth a hank of harr of she-cat, body of IVY, futIle masterpIece' ('Complalllte des VOlX sous Ie figuler bouddhIque') But more often the poet seems lllchned to absolve her, as he does m another part of the 'Complamte des VOIX' Certamly m the 'Complamte des pIanos' the feehng IS one of sympathy for fellow VIctIms of the bIg houses, the drawn curtams, the other lIDages of bourgeOIS obtuseness Often the gIrls are shown gomg off to church, prayer books clasped firmly m gloved hands, therr appearance suggesting souls snffiy starched, and then, WIth morrung or evemng churchbeils rmgmg above, they are symbols of the fruth that Lafargue had abandoned The churchgoers are not mvanably stIff 'Yesterday I wept, nght m my prayer book" ('Flgurez-vous un peu,' Des Fleurs de bonne volonte) But most often, and m one of Laforgue's last and best poems, 'DImanches,' begmmng

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Le ctel pleut sans but, sans que nen 1,'emeuve, 1l pleut, tl pleut, bergere' sur je fieuve The sky rams purposeless and unperturbed, It rams, It rams, shepherdess, on the flood we find the gIrlS of the boardmg schools as Laforgue first notlced them, herded along on Thursdays and Sundays In double file In tills last poem one of the gIrls breaks out of hne, runs to the bank of the stIll, ramed-on rIver and throws herself 10 At the end of the 'Complamte des pIanos' the second VOIce ends the poem by saymg,

'Tu t'en vas et tu nous latsses, Tu nous lazss's et tu t' en vas Que ne suzs-Je morte a10. messe' o mots, 0 lznges, 0 repas" 'You go away, we stay behmd, We stay behmd, you go away I would to God that I had dIed I o months, 0 three meals a day" The 'Complamte du SOlr des comlCes agncoles' (dated from Baden-Baden 10 Mane's copy) IS another poem In whIch two VOIces dlscourse on dIfferent levels after a bnef mtroductIOn

Deux royaux cors de chasse ont encore un duo Aux ecbos, Quelques fusees rentfient s'etoufjer la-haut' Two royal huntlng horns make up a duo To the echoes, A few stray rockets gutter and out they go These openmg lInes are noteworthy for several reasons They show Laforgue 111 at ease In the alexandnne Trymg more and more to shape each lme to Its emotlve Idea, accordIng to Its own lOgIC, he found that It sometlmes turned out longer,

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sometunes shorter than the prescrIbed twelve syllables What he really had m mmd here was a fifteen-syllable lme A httle later he would be wnnng out such verses as they occurred to hIm, havmg freed hlmself from the constramt of the tradItIonal measure Lme three of thIS mtroductIon contaIns one of Laforgue's rare experlIllents m syntax He was by no means an mnovator m tru~ domam, as Mallarme was, and rus expenmentatIon was almost exclUSIvely WIth rhyme, rhythm, and vocabulary Here, however, to the vast subsequent mrugnatIon of M Brunot, a venerable hIStonan of the French language, he uses the verb 'rerufler' somewhat as though It were 'aller' or 'verur ' The result 15 at once pyrotechmcal and untranslatable, somethIng hke 'A few rockets snuff (and) go out up there' It IS of some mterest, too, that the beat of the popular VOIce,

Allez, allez, gens de la noce, Qzi on s' en donne '!me fiere bosse' Come along, come along, men of the party, Let's get Wlld as wIld can be' had been used by Gerard de Nerval m rus satlncal farewell to the parhamentanans 'Nos adteux a. la chambre des deputes de I'an 1830, ou, Allez-vous-en Vieux mandataIres' Fmally we encounter here, m CIrcumstances that can be descnbed only as sordtd and m a sItuatIon that must be tenned lforucal, those huntmg horns that even Laforgue usually reserves for romantIcally pOIgnant SItuatIons ('La Complamte des formahtes nuptIales,' 'La Ugende des tr015 cors,' m Dermers Vers, and so on) The dISgust for human vulgartty marufest m thIs poem IS all but SWlftlan The best way to take leave of the Complatntes and trus stage of Laforgue's poetic development 15 to look at hIS own valedtctIon to hIS phtlosoprucalldeal The 'Preludes autoblograpruques' of the Com:pltZ1!1ltes 15 dated '1880, S. rue Berthollet,'-by wruch notation Lafargue 15 probably only renundmg hImself of rus most troubled penod The greater part of the poem seems to have been wntten on 22 March 1883, when he mentions 'Prologue a. mes Complamtes' m hIS Agenda He attached considerable Importance to

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tlus poem, argumg agaInst Kahn,15 Henry, and VanIer for Its mclusion The publIsher havIng urged that It be omItted, Laforgue wrote In an unpublIshed paragraph of a letter (AprIl 1885), 'It remaIns my firm convIctIOn that to take away the first pIece would be to leave out what IS morally half of the volume' 16 Ah' derzsozre creature' Fleuve arefiets, OU les deuzls d'Unzque ne durent Pas plus que d'autres' L'at-Je reve, ce Noel Oit Je lJrUIats de pleurs notrs un mouchotr reel, Parce que, debordant des chagrms de la Terre Et des freres Solezls, et ne pouvant me fazre Aux monstruosztes sans but et sans temom Du cher Tout, et men las de me meurtrtr les pomgs Aux steppes du cobalt sourd, wre-1nort de doute Ie vwotatS, altere de NIhU de toutes Les czternes de man Amour?

Ah' derIsory creature' Rlver WIth shadows, where grIef for the UnIque SurvIves no others DId I dream that ChrIstmas When I burned WIth due tears a handkerchIef, ChokIng WIth sorrow for the gnefs of Earth And brother Suns, not to be reconcIled To the pOintless unwItnessed outrages Of the great Whole, weary of brwsIng my fists On steppes of deaf cobalt, drunken WIth doubt Barely allve, thIrStIng for NothIngness WIth all the cIsterns of my Love~ ThIs ChrIstmas IS 'gras,' as Laforgue has told us, It IS Just the OppOSIte of hIs 'Noel scepnque' He IS aware now of the stubborn msens1tlvlty of created thmgs, hImself among them, for he has not contInued to mourn the death of mcarnate chanty The sorrows of the earth and suns now seem far away The word 'Vlvoter' ('to lIve sparely') had fitted hIm then, for It was so that he had lIved, mortI£ymg hlIDself In hIS search for the Absolute, drunk WIth doubt, thustlOg for the BuddhIstIC VOId.

MANy

VOICES

Seul, pur, songeur, Me eroyant hypertrophzque' eomme un plongeur Aux mouvants bosquets des savanes sous-mllrmes, J'avllts rou/e par les lzvres, bon mtsogyne

Alone, pure, dreambound, Dreannng myself hypertrophic' lIke a dIver In mov1Og groves of submanne savannahs, I roved through many books, nusogyrust Here 15 a speCImen of the new and 10terestmg Imagery that comes after Le Sanglot underwater lIfe representmg 10 Laforgue's nund the profound, obscure lIfe of the UnconscIOUS, and 10 our nund stand10g for his strugglIng adolescence One after another the poet dlSnusses the themes of hIS earlIer verse Catbedrale anonyme' en ee PaTts, Jardtn Obtus et ehze, wee son bourgeotS de ] ourdam A reveurs, ses 'l.ntraux tardes, ses 'l.neux dtmll1lches

Nameless cathedral' 10 dus Pans, obtuse And stylISh garden, With Its bourgeOIS Jordan Haunted by dreamers, prImped w1Odows, stodgy Sundays Tlus refers to the color symbol1Sm of hIS long poem about the stained-glass Window of Notre-Dame de Pam Laforgue speaks of the mother-nebula 10 more offhand style than he had done 10 'Crepuscule de dlffianche d'ete,' and he recalls l!orucally hIS solemn quesnonmgs of death and destiny m 'EclaIr de gouffre ' He wonders how he could ever have supposed that hIS cry toward other worlds nught find an echo mon Crt me Jlltllmant des moelles,

On verrazt, mon Dzeu, des szgnaux dans les etozles? my Cry ar1510g from my very marrow, Would SIgnals, Lord, be SIghted 10 the stars;' He explICItly dISclaImS whatever ambitions he may once have entertaIned to save the world

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PUtS, tou devant ce czel qUI touJours nous bouda, Ie revazs de precher la fin, nom d'zen Bouddha! Oh' pale matzte, d'un qUI mazme me suwe f Fazsant de leurs cztes une zenzque Ntntve, Mener ces chers bourgeots, touettes d'alteluzas, Au Satnt-Sepulcre maternel du Nzrvana! Mlltntenant, 1e m' en lave les moms (concurrence Vztale, fargent, ['art, PUts les lOts de la France

)

Half crazed beneath the ever-frowrung sky I dreamed, m Buddha's name' of preaclung the last days, Pale, strlcken, crymg, 'Let whoso loves me follow" Turnmg theIr CItIeS to one Nmeveh, Leadmg these bourgeOIS lashed WIth allelUlas To the maternal Sepulchre of NIrVana But ,pow I wash my hands of It (the struggle For sUl"Vlval-money, art-besIdes the laws of France

)

The penulomate lme-wh1ch the unehded mute 'e' followmg the caesura VIrtually dlvides mto two parts, one of SIX and one of five syllableS-IS only one of many boldly conce1ved verses m a poem that reqUIres throughout new rhythms to fit new substance The divers1ty of V01ces m the Complazntes, the somet1mes uneasy orlgmahty of rhythms and Imagery, and the systematlc reversal of fonner sentIments brmg us to the problem of the poet's ltony

IX

IronIC EquIlIbrIum Today the European Hamlet stares at mullons of ghosts But he 1S an mtellectual Hamlet He medItates on the hfe and death of truths For phantoms he has all the subjects of our controversIes, for regrets he has all our otles to glory, he bows under the Weight of ruscovenes and learrung, unable to renounce and unable to resume thIS llIDltless aCtlVlty He reflects on the boredom of recommencmg the past, on the folly of aiways str1vmg to be ongmal He wavers between one abyss and the other, for two dangers snll threaten the world order and diSorder PAUL VALERY

THE first of January 1886, Laforgue, stlll reader to the Empress but growmg more and more restless 10 that post, VISIted ElSInore 'The whole heartbreakIng Irony,' he wrote to Kahn, 'of bemg 10 these rockbound, wmdswept Islands on the first day of '86 (the year when we'll check out, perhaps) , He erred by only a few months 10 hIS predIctlOn, and he was entrrely nght and true to hIS own vem when he went on to say, '10 any case we shall have spoken mto the WInd a respectable number of relatlvely Immortal words' 3. He mentlOns, among other events of that wmd-tormented day, the cOmpOSltlOn of some 'lIterature' By thIs he dId not mean 'Hamlet, ou les Consequences de la Plete fibale,' though he was then In the process of wntmg that tale, and It was certaInly on Its account that he had ventured beyond the pIcture gallerIes of Copenhagen and exposed hImself to the seven-hour boat trIp between Ktel and Korsor Nor dId he mean rus bttle sketch, 'A 133

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propos de Hamlet,' wInch eventually appeared in the magazine Le Symbolzste He was referrmg to a poem that apparently surpnsed hIm on the Journey, the spare and confessIOnal 'Avertlssemento' m wInch many of the emotions of 'Hamlet' are brought to a poetIC pomt 'Avertrssement' IS mterestmg throughout, WIth Its mne unsettled syllables to the lme and the colloqUIal slurnngs by which that number IS often obtamed, With Its lOclSlve detaIls'My father, a timId man, hence hard, DIed WIth a stiff and frown109 alt', WIth Its establIshment of tms Hamlet as a lIterary man Alors, lat fatt d'la lttterature, Mats Ie Demon de Ia Vente ~1ffiotatt tout ['temps ames cotes 'Pauvre' as-tu fim tes ecrtturer?

So then I determmed to be a wnter, But the Demon of Truth at my elbow Had a way of murmunng soft and low, 'Well, lad, have you spoded enough paper~' The poem ends C'est pourquoz 1e vtvotte, vzvotte, Bonne gzrouette aux trent'-s1X sa1sons, Trop nombreux pour dzre OUt ou non -Jeunes gens l que 1e vous serv' d'llote'

And that IS why I struggle and veer LIke a weathercock WIth the wmds that blow, Too vanous to say yes or no Young men' There's a moral here'

Of course, 'AvertIssement' mlght never have been wntten WIthout Verlame's poem on Gaspard Hauser But whereas 'Je SUIS venu, calme orphelm' was a sort of happy aCCIdent ('travail de manoeuvre,' as Baudelaire nught have called It), Laforgue reabzes Baudelalte's deslte that the poet be thoroughly aware of what he 15 dOing Undoubtedly Laforgue had read Corblere's autobIOgraphIcal 'Batard de creole et Breton,' and perhaps taken

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suggestIOns from It But If we compare Corblere's quatrams WIth Laforgue's we see that the latter are dIstmguIShed by more compleXity, more salutary Irony 'AvertIssement' IS conspIcuously Iromcal It was unexpected that a poet should make such deprecations wIth such mtonatlons And beneath the Irony of expressIon he profounder Iromes of sItuatiOn ThIS Hamlet IS the first to notice the dispanty between what he IS able to do and all that ought to come out of what he should be domg He IS lIke Marlow In Conrad's Lord Jzm, the observer WIse to the world's ways, who cannot help the VICtim, and he IS also lIke JIm, the actor who cannot act He IS the slayer and the slam To present thIS kmd of Irony not many words are necessary, only enough to cover the gIven segment of the human SItuatiOn In Des Fleurs de bonne volonte and m Dernzers Vers, Laforgue's last two collectIOns, we have come a long way from the verbal self-Indulgences of the young poet exulting In hIs mstrument and In hIS newly dIscovered manner of usmg It-the 'logopoetlc' ltomes of some of the lesser Complamtes HaVIng looked at some of the themes and Images that are treated straIghtforwardly m Laforgue's early work, we mIght do well to IndIcate what IS meant by Irony susceptible to 'eqilllIbnum' We must proceed warily, of course, for Irony IS lIke Syrmx, the nymph restored to hie m the most purely dehghtful of Laforgue's tales-a figure that flees before the pursuer and vamshes when pressed, leaVIng only the syrmx, a somewhat pathetic reed Instrument, m overanxIOus hands We are grateful for every mdIrect, hght-footed approach to the subJect of Irony Ezra Pound wrote, out of hIs enthUSIasm for Laforgue, that 'the Iromst IS one who suggests that the reader should thInk,' and 'thIs process beIng unnatural to the maJonty of mankInd, the way of the tromst IS beset by snares and furze-bushes' 2 ThIs, wlule It does not define, IllUmInes So does another crItiC'S deSCrIption of Laforgue's trony as a magneSIUm spark struck out between the halves of a diVIded personalIty S Even a defimtIOn of Irony as 'the fragile Inhentance of anCIent French WISdom'
I3 6

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

evanescent essentlal qualIty of Laforgue's work has been qUlte frmtless The essence of !Ioruc utterance IS OpposIteness Not the expected, but the unexpected, and even the contrary of the expected thIng, IS saId Of course, unexpectedness In some degree IS charactenstlc of most WItty remarks, of WIt m general Lafargue's !Iony IS always vergmg on the melancholy pleasantry, as when he Writes m a love poem wordlly entltled 'Autre Complamte de Lord Plerrot,'

Celle quz dozt me mettre au courant de Itt Femme' N ous luz dtrons d' abord, de mon atr Ie moms frozd 'La somme des angles d'un mangle, chere ame, Est egaZe a deux drozts' She who on womankInd must be my mentor, We shall tell her at once, m my least chllhng tones, 'The angles of a tnangle, my dear, Equal, all told, two rIght ones' The reader IS surpnsed by such hnes In a poem of putatIvely amorous Intent He 15 probably taken aback by the contrast, Wlthm the hnes, between the theorem and the ceremoruous 'chere ame' 'Celle qUi dOlt me mettre au courant de la femme' IS not exactly a RomantiC formula for the beloved, and the plural 'nous' 15 more In the style of the prefect of a French departement than that of a proper poet WIthin the title Itself there IS a colllSlOn between the terms 'Lord' and 'Plerrot' The surprlSe occasIoned by these and other differences between the reader's expectatlon and the poet's statement IS eVidence of the Irony If the early I A RIchards was rIght, If the dttferences between reader and poet are shght, If the poet IS only a person somewhat more profiCIent than the reader at channehng lus Impulses, the poet himself must be astonlShed by the contranetles proceeding from the dlVlded 'mdlVldual,' by the chorus of nuxed VOIces arlSmg from that 'compagme un peu bien melee' WIthIn the self In matter-of-fact discourse, the understandmg of the Iromc remark as the oppOSIte of the expected one IS suffiCIent But In

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the further reaches of connotatIve language It becomes clear that what IS OpposIte on one level of sigruficatlon may be appoSIte on another In a poem a word or group of words may have more than one meanmg In the quatram Just quoted, for example, the remark that contrasts so sharply wIth the expected Romantic protestation IS also, on another plane of mearung, 10 dead earnest thIs geometrIcal theorem IS one of the symbols of Lafargue's sense of fatahty The speaker of the poem IS, among other thmgs, tell109 the lady that what wIll be IS bound to be In poetry, OpposIteness between expectatIon and fulfillment can eXist only along wIth other relatIonshIps between the thmg Said and the thmg anticIpated But the fact that thIs Irony, thIs OpposIteness, eXIsts on one level IS at once a revelatIOn and a safeguard of the multIfanousness of expenence The flash of Irony Illummes for an lOstant, If not the chaos, at least the complexIty of the reader's mmd-'the equilibrIUm of opposed lIDpulses,' as I A RIchards calls It, eXiStIng there That equilibrIUm, says RIchards, 'whIch we suspect to be the ground-plan of the most valuable aesthetic responses bnngs mto play far more of our personalIty than IS posSIble 10 expenences of a more defined emotion We cease to be orIented In one defirute dIreCtiOn, more facets of the mmd are exposed ' 6 A flash born of IrOnIC utterance illummates the compleXIty, the 'equIbbnum' WithIn the reader's mind, whIch he then surmIses to eXIst WIthIn the poet's In any case, lromc poetry, a poetry of inclUSIOn rather than exclusIOn, whIch puts several kInds of poetic force to work upon the page, satisfies that need for hght on hIS own mmd whIch the reader learns to expect from poetry A procedure of Lafargue's WIt closely related to the IrOnIC COnsIStS In the unexpected confrontation of Ideas 10 mIXed words Sometimes the mventIon IS as amusmg as that of Heme's poor lottery agent, who bragged that the great Baron RothschIld had treated hIm as an equal, qUlte 'famtlhonalre' In the 'Complamte des nostalgles prehistonques,' the cry of someone 'vIOlupte a vIi' IS heard from the bushes Elsewhere 'volupte' IS wedded to 'nuptial' In ''VOIUptlal ' We read of the 'spleenuosites' mstead of the 'smuosltes' of CItIes The prelude to the Complamtes has one of the most ambItIouS of these combmatIons

13 8

JULES LAFORCxUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

Mondes vzvotant, vaguement etzquetes De lzvres, soU! ]a celeste Eternullzte Worlds Joggmg along, IdentIfied obscurely By books, beneath the celestIal Eternulltty 'Sangsuelles' IS untranslatable, SInce there IS no way of fittIng 'blood' Into a word soundIng exactly ltke 'sensual'

Mazs, fausse soeur, fausse hwmame, fausse mortelle, Nous t'ectrrtelerons de hontes sangsuelles -'Complamte des VOIX sous Ie figUler bouddhIque' But, false sIster, false human, false mortal, We WIll draw and quarter you wIth dIsgrace sangsueUes Nor can we do much wIth 'crucifiger,' where the word ends In the eqUIvalent for 'clot' But no reader familtar wIth BaudelaIre's 'Harmorue du SOIr,' where 'Le solell s'est noye dans son sang qUI se fige,' could faIl to be struck by

Soled qut, satgnant son quadrtge, Cabre, s'y cruczfige l7 Not all of these cOmbInatIOns are Instantly plausIble 'Omruvers' 8 and 'omruversel,' for Instance, fall rather flat But the pasSIOn for verbal Inventlon, sometimes successful, sometImes not, was endUrIng 'Love me over a slow fire, Inventory me, massacre me, massacruege me,' 9 Elsa appeals to LohengrIn m the tale bearmg that hero's name And we read of 'elephantastlc'lo Jokes In 'The Two PIgeons,' one of the last storIes Like the examples of Laforgue's Irony, these mIxed words are unexpected But whereas the Iroruc utterance depends on the degree of dlfference between what IS expected and what IS SaId, here success seems to be m proportIon to the closeness wIth whIch the new Inventlon fits an anticIpated syllable-pattern, the nearness WIth whIch It mISSes a mark The LatImsms that Laforgue rehshed-'alacre'l1 from 'alacer,' 'albe'12 from 'alba,' 'errabundes'18 from 'errabundus'-are regularly pressed mto IrOnIC serVIce, and clash wIth colloqUlal vocables

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10 the same or prOXImate hnes Words lIfted or denved from the nch and fine sIXteenth-century language-'arbnllon'14 meanmg 'lIttle tree,' 'plgnte' 15 for 'Idleness'-are Iromcally erudIte Equally so are the SCIentIfic terms We read 10 'Lohengnn' 'The golden valves of the Tabernacle dehlsce,'-the verb ordmaruy be10g reserved for rIpe pods that open to release their seeds When Lohengnn appears 10 the ruck of tIme to save Elsa from the executIOners, the latter 1OquIre, 'Who IS tills fine krught advanc10g over the seas, melodIOUS wIth gallantry, hIS forehead carunculated wIth fidehty~' 'Carunculated,' lIke 'aptere'16 (w1Ogless) and 'fOngOSlte,' 17 IS a bIOlogIcal term SO IS the adjective 10 the descnptIon of Plerrot, 'hydrocephalIc asparagus' 18 Naturally, 10 poetry WIth strong popular ties, the colloqUial word IS lIkely to let down the lync mood 'C'est Ie pr10temps qUi s'amene,' we read 10 the 'Compiatnte des prlOtemps,' and the word 's'amener' IS one WIth whlch a worklOgman mIght urge along rus laggard WIfe on a Sunday OUtIng Puns such as 'dIes trraeffilSsibles' 19 and 's'1O-Panfiltrer' 20 reflect the same satmc lOtent Rtmbaud had already made free use of SCIentIfic and popular words 10 poetry RomantIC verse, espeCIally Hugo's, had enrIched the poetIC vocabulary on a masSIve scale The Decadents of the Left Bank cotenes lOto whIch Laforgue had ventured as a very young man were addIcted to neologIsms, and the Symbohsts who followed them comed rare and mystenous vocables for mUSIcal effect It IS, however, accurate to state that no young wnter of the last hundred years has expenmented WIth a more vaned vocabulary than Laforgue's In none has the 'lIfe of words' been more ebulhent No other runeteenth-century wnter antICIpates so clearly the mtense word-consclOusness, the hngUIStIC mnovatIons of Leon-Paul Fargue and James Joyce After the uneven Comptamtes, where the verbal 1OventIons are not uruformly happy, and where the arrangement of hnes of vaned length 10 novel stanza-forms IS often arbItrary, Laforgue moved toward dehcately balanced poetic discourse 10 two qUIte different collections The first IS the volume of forty-one poems, most of them bnef, whlch appeared early 10 1886, dedicated 'to Gustave Kahn and also to the memory of httle Salammbo, pnestess of Tamt' L'hmtatton de Notre-Dtmte la Lune

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

The most llIruted tonally of Laforgue's collectIOns, thIS IS the one In whIch he most consIstently attams that suratgu for whIch he strove dunng hIs years m Germany The moon IS exalted at the expense of the sun the elaborate antI-solar InVectIve openIng the book shows a poetry of praIse YIeldIng to one of recnmmatIon The poet who now calls the sun 'old trooper plastered all over wIth decoratIons and crosses,' and who fills another hne WIth mIscellaneous abuse-'fop, pImp, ruffian, low adventurer'-had once Invoked the 'pIcturesque star,' hke any docIle dIscIple of the Romantics, and had wntten the conventIOnal sunset passages of Sttphane Vassthew There have been a number of attempts to seIze the symbohc sIgmficance of Our Lady the Moon Jean Peres remarked on the sterIlIty, the death-lIke attnbutes of the planet m hIS fnend's verse 21 Fran<;:oIs Ruchon finds the LaforgUlan moon to be 'queen of SIlence and of Stenhty , 22 Marc Eigeldmger sees In It a symbol of BuddhIstic renunCIatIOn 'the moon IS raIsed to the dIgnIty of a symbol, representing a world empty of all Intellectual content, escape lOto nIrvana, aSpIratIOn to death In nothmgness' 23 ThIS apphes at least as well to Laforgue's aquarIUm symbol as to Our Lady of the Evemngs AssocIatIng the moon WIth an IrratIOnal UnconscIOus and pomtmg to Its non-temporal connectIons, Anna Balahan consIders It a symbol of dehumanIzatIOn 24 But what Mallarm6's symbols Illustrate very well, Laforgue's hardly exemplIfy Our Lady the Moon should have a meanmg that would not rob a notonously human poet of hIS humanIty Of Kant's HIStory of Nature and Theory of the Heavens Laforgue knew at least the passage In whtch the phtlosopher makes the fineness of bodIes and facultIes In hts serIes of InhabIted worlds depend on distance from the sun For Laforgue as for Kant, the sun was a source of grossness, It IS a short step to make the moon source and symbol of the OppOSIte qualIty Of course, Our Lady the Moon has a perfect nght to change her meanIng, and she doe'>, standIng, hke any frequently recurnng poetic Image, for a number of thlOgs for stenlIty, for evaSIOn by sUICIde, for unrealIzable Romantic aSpIratIon She also represents, frequently and SImply, finesse Framed by half a dozen prefatory poems and a dozen conclud~

IRONIC EQUILIBRIUM

109 ones, twenty-three poems presentlOg Pierrot or expound1Og hIs Ideas form the lunar center of the volume For Pierrot IS first and last the creature of Our Lady the Moon, despIte a famtly tree spr1Og1Og dIrectly from the commedza dell' arte Before the first Pierrot (or Pedrol1Oo) there had been Paghacco, who dlffered from other buffoons of Itahan farce 10 that he wore no mask but had rus face wrutened wIth flour He was a butt, an unsuccessful lover, a lackey At the end of the sIxteenth century came Pedrolmo (or Plero) Shghtly more complex than rus predecessor he rather resembled the butts In Mohere's farces, he was a vaInglOrIOUS coward, a cuckold on occasIOn, but not Invarlably VICtlmlzed, and was endowed WIth a rough, comfortIng common sense The gIve and take between comIC characters was such, moreover, that for a whtle Plero lost hIS IdentIty to hIS hated rIval, Arleccruno, who had a fancIful twIst to hIs humor, and Harlequm was the first Plerrot-type to appear 10 France, when compames of Itahan players began to perform for ParIs audIences about the begInnIng of the seventeenth century He speedIly became naturahzed, assumIng the sentIments along wIth the accents of popular songs, hesltatlng dehcately between comIC and pathetIc, for HarlequIn-PIerrot-and thIs IS hIs distIngUlshmg quahty-lost hIS buffoon-hke traits to take on the profounder nature of the clown Laforgue and some of rus elders were devoted to elghteenthcentury prmts and paIntlngs, among them Watteau's pIcture of GIlles, a close cousm of Plerrot But It remaIned for an actor at the celebrated Theatre des Funambules to gtve Plerrot the costume that we recogruze In Laforgue's word-portraIts, the black s11k skullcap and ample blouse At the Theatre des Funambules, Plerrot earned the rtght to say thIngs that people would tolerate from no one otherWISe attIred, because what he had to say was too much lIke their shamefast thoughts Thanks to the gemus of a mIme named Deburau he became once for all a clown rather than a figure of farce Baudelaire remarked that what dIStlnguIShed the French from the Enghsh Plerrot was rus melancholy, moonpale aIr French wnters who flourIShed a decade or two before Laforgue thus had a famlhar clown-hke figure at hand, and they mterpreted rum accordlJlg to lOdlVldual lIghts Gautler wrote enthus1astlcally

To Emite, 1886 'JE

ME SOUVIENS J)U TEMPS 0'0'

JE

PORTAlS

ABOURGET'

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about Deburau and composed L'Esquzsse d'un Pzerrot postlmme Theodore de BanvIlle was concerned for the most part WIth lIghter aspects of the figure, but he also wrote the 'Saut du TremplIn,' 10 whIch the CIrCUS clown prays for a loftIer sprmg, a mIghtier bound, and vaults lOto etermty And hIS Promenade galante has wraIth-hke figures surpnsmgly hke those that Verlame fitted 1Oto hIS better known Fetes galantes VerlalOe, 10 a later sonnet, reflected a change that had been wrought 10 the character of PIerrot, whlle others, lOcludmg Jons-Karl Huysmans and Leon Henmque, authors of that Pzerrot sceptzque 25 whlch Laforgue urged upon Charles Henry 10 1881, were eXplOItIng Plerrot's appeal to theater audIences Once we have traced PIerrot's long lmeage and glanced at treatments that attracted Laforgue's attention, we are struck more than ever by the ongmahty of tlus young poet's clown, by the VIbrancy of the hfe Laforgue IS able to mst1ll 10 a figure that another mlght have regarded as qUIte lIterally played out He was WIthout nval when he turned the venerable flour-faced creature lOto one sub) ect to all the hesltatlOns and mtenor debate charactenzmg an ItnpreSslOnable man of the tIme HIS Plerrots (for Laforgue often used the plural, thereby gam109 a greater degree of Iromc detachment) are whlte-faced, 10 obedIence to tradItion In fact, everythmg about them IS whlte except the black skullcap and the scarlet mouth C' est, sur un cau quz, razde, emerge D'une frazse em:pesee Idem Une face zmberbe au cold-crea:m, Un azr d'hydrocephale asperge

Les yeux sont noyes de l'opzU?n De l'zndulgence unwerselle, La bouche clO"l.lJ'J1,esque ensorcele Comme un szngulzer geranzum Bouche quz va du trau sans bonde GJacullement desopzle, Au transcendental en-aile Du sourzs vazn de ]a Joconde -'Plerrots'

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

You see a neck that, stUf, emerges From a ruff starched tlght as a drum, A beardless face smeared Wlth cold cream Like a hydrocephahc asparagus The eyes are blurred wlth the oplUm Of uruversal tolerance, The scarlet clown-lIke mouth enchants Llke a smgular geranium Mouth supremely :fleXlble, From the hole gap10g glaCIally To the transcendental fadeaway Of Mona L15a's futJ.le sm1le When they dme as Laforgue runed 10 rus Pans days, their food 15 wrute, or at least appropnate to pllgnms of the Absolute

lIs vont, se sustentant d'awr, Et prrrfoJS 1JUSS% de legumes, De nz plus bltmc que leur costUme, De 'fnImdrmnes et d'oeujs durs lis sont de la secte du Bleme -'Plerrots' They rune upon the absolute And occaslOnally on vegetables, On nce bleached wru.ter than their dress, On hard-bolled eggs and a httle frwt They are of the pallid sect They have

Le coeur bltmc ttltoue De sentences 11JlTlll1.res, Their wrote hearts tattooed WIth lunar sentences,

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these 'blancs panas,' these 'purs plerrots,' for they are as wrote 10side as they are out, abstammg archly from such consolatlOns as other men seek The Plerrots

n' ont personne Chez eux, qU't les trzctzonne D'un conJugal onguent have nobody at home, No one to rub them down WIth conjugal balm But then they do not want anyone, or profess not to Of course, It IS all a Joke, gIven away 10 the fifth and sIXth of this set of 'Plerrots' and m nearly all the 'LocutIOns des Plerrots' that follow Lafargue really belIeves 10 trus world and

Qu'zl taut pas Ie trazter d' hOtel Garnz vers un plus zrmnortel, Car nous sommes fatts fun pour l'autre That It shouldn't be treated lIke a hotel Toward some less mortallodgmg place, For we're by nature complementary Some of h15 finest verse IS to be found m these poems 10 wIDch the human fragIlIty pIerces through the Irony And yet, paradoxIcally, Laforgue was possessed by an Ideal of 1Otactness, of punty It IS, to say the least, lTomcal that Plerrot, for centunes the dISappOInted or deceIved lover, should become the dlsappomter and gay deceIver, the ostentatiously chIlly creature of the poems and the httle play, Pzerrot f1J!mtste, who subjects rus lawful wIfe ColumbIne to the harshest kmd of mrugnlty before overwhelmmg her wIth affectlon one mght and then abandonmg her utterly We thmk of Lohengnn, an extensIOn of the Plerrot figure, hard pressed by Elsa on the marrIage bed, gnppmg h15 plllow so hard, so lIDplonngly that It turns mto the swan that lIfts him safely away from the WIll to LIve We trunk of Andromeda and Salome, funously self-possessed m theIr dIfferent ways, and of

146

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

Synnx, who ran away Never was there a Plerrot, or a gallery of Pierrotic characters, hke tms Even Verla1Oe's Plerrot allowed ColurnblOe to lead hun by the nose But If the SWISS Annel, another WItness to the hesItatIons of the late nlOeteenth-century Intellectual, had W!1tten smilingly lroruc verse Instead of tormented dianes, It ffilght have been somethmg hke Laforgue's If the VOIce of the Plerrots 15 sharper, keener than that of any speakers 10 Laforgue's early verse, that of IDS feffiln10e Interlocutor (the human one, not the Moon) IS correspondIngly graver and more Ingenuous Out of tills calculated dramatIc OppOSItIon the poet drew one of IDS best bnef rualogues, 'Plerrot on a des pnnClpes,' compactly plotted, melodiOUS, With two final quatraIns abstammg rucely on the pOInt of eloquence

Mats VOtCt q'liurz beau SOtr, tnfortzmee aPOtnt, Elle meurt'-Oh' la, la, bon, chrmgement de theme' On Satt que f:U dotS ressusctter Ie tromeme JO'ICY, Stnon en personne, du mozns Dans l'odeur, les verd'lDes, les eaux des beaux mOts' Et f:U tras, levant encore bien p/:us de dupes Vers Ie Zatmph de la Joconde, vers la Jupe f 11 se pourra mime que l' en SOtS But now suppose that some fine evenmg She died' aha' Now there's a change of tune' You will, needless to say, be resurrectIng On the thIrd day, If not In person, then In summer's fragrance, In the leaves and waters And you'll go on collectIng mnocents Toward Mona LIsa's Vell, toward the skU't' I do not say I won't be one of them ThIs clear defimtlon of the partIes to the dIalogue was accompamed by a general whettIng of tools The Imztatlon contalns Laforgue's most pohshed verse GettIng away from the Involved stanza ruVlSlons of the C01I'tjJlazntes, so often artlfiClal and confus109, he makes excellent use of alexandrInes rhymmg 10 couplets,

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of octo syllables In quatraIns wIth the usual abab or abba schemes, and WrItes some of the most VIgorous decasyllables sInce the sIxteenth century Vozla Ie N eant dans sa pale gangue, Votla notre Hostte et sa Saznte-Table, Le seul bras d' amz par l'lnconnatssable, Le seul mot solvable en nos toiles langues! Au dela des ens chotSZs des epoques, Au dela des sens, des larmes, des 'TJZerges, Vozla quel astre mdzscutable emerge, Vozla l'zmmortel et seul solzloque!

There IS the ore of N othmg unrefined, There IS our sacrament and Its holy board, The only arm outstretched through the Unknown, In our mad tongues the sIngle solvent word Beyond the senses, beyond tears and VIrgInS, Beyond the chosen utterances of lustory, There the unchallengeable star emerges, There the Immortal lone solIloquy The metaphors stand for the moon In Its whIteness, and the ongInahty of three of them, together wIth the Iroruc 'solvable' and 'dIscutable,' lends the qualIty of Laforgue's later verse to hnes possessIng the rhythmIc vItahty of hIS earher Such metncal and rhythnucal expenmentatlon as there IS succeeds The first of the 'Locutlons des PIerrots' has an unprecedented COmbInatIOn of ten- and seven-syllable hnes There IS an Interestlng pattern of sevens and threes In 'Stenhtes' The tenth of the 'Locutlons' IS In those five-syllable hnes that have more movement than any other verse In French, and the fourteenth poem of the same group, whIch by a certaIn heartlness of manner recalls Corblere, also has five-syllable lInes ']eux' IS a skillful exerCISe In runes Altogether, the uneven, the tmpazr recommended by VerlaIne, receIves Its share of attentlon

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

As far as rhymIng IS concerned, Laforgue IS not qUlte so perversely Intent as before on upsettIng the Malherbian applecart But the rzmes rzches are decIdedly In the mInorIty (about one In seven), and often these rhymes are far from 'unexpected,' as sound tradItIOn prescrIbed, but aSSOCiate too obVIOusly SImIlar words No attempt IS made to satIsfy the caprIcIous rules 'for the eye' SIngulars rhyme regularly WIth plurals In the absence of rhyme, words are hnked by assonance or by SImIlar consonants What IDlght have been rIch or sufficIent rhymes or true assonances are often rendered 'false' by dIfferIng vowel quahty From Lafargue's productIon up to and IncludIng L'lrmtrmon we mIght conclude that he wrote verse eIther apprecIably less free than that of the Decadents or perceptIbly more so, he IS not at ease WIth a Verlalruan techruque of guarded hbernes He can WrIte strong-membered Parnasslan alexandr10es haVIng neIther more nor less mUSIcal tImbre than the tradItIOnal French measure usually has 10 capable hands It IS as though he sometImes consented that hIS verse should SIng, and SIng bravely, us10g the firmest accentual patterns the language afforded ThIS means, fundamentally, the bInary alexandrIne Sache que les Pzerrots, phatenes des dolmens Et des nympheas blancs des lacs dort Gomorrhe, Et tous les bzenheureux quz paturent l'Eden TOU1ours przntanzer des renoncements,-t'abhorrent

au

It means, 1OCIdentally, the rIng10g decasyllables of 'Au Large,' WIth theIr pauses after the fourth syllable In tIDS lyrIcal verse there are no 1OnovatIons to speak of MeanwhIle the other and prIncIpal current, the conversatIonal monologue, IS stra1010g the dIkes and dams of tradItIonal versIficatIon In the thIrd and fourth hnes of 'Plerrot on a des prInCIpeS' CIted above, for InStance, the overflow of 'Jour' IS awkward Lme three was cry10g to be WrItten thus On Stl1t que tu dozs ressusczter Ie tromeme JOur

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1..J.9

except that the poet would then have had a lIne of at lea!.t fourteen syllables, fifteen If 'sle' were counted as tWO, as It ..hould have been all the tIme L'Imttatzon offers many examples of lll-pOlsed conventlOnal measures The most smk10g examples of hnes draggmg thel,r anchors, however, are to be found 10 Des Fleurs de bonne voiOI/tI1, a collectIon on whIch Laforgue worked at 10tervals between I 81{ 3 and 1886 Un Sozr, Je crus en Mot' j'en fatllts me fianeer' Est-ee posszble Ou done tout fa est-tl passe' Chez mOt, e'est Galathee aveuglant Pygmahon' Ah' faudrazt modzfier cette sztuatton

Laforgue had good reasons to abandon these hnes e:xcept a!> raw materlal for the fine passage 10 Dermer Vers Bref, 1'allazs me donner d'un 'Je vous azme' Quand 1e m'avtsaz non sans pezne Que d' abord 1e ne me possUms pas men moz-meme (Mon Mot, c'est Galathee aveuglant Pygmalton' Imposszble de modIfier eette SItuatIon)

The earher hnes are manageable as alexandrxnes only by dlfik lilt synaereses, and even so are unconsclOnably broken up The c;ame ldeas and Images find 10evltable form 10 five verses of uneven length The foIlow1Og passage IS lIkewIse subJect to tran.,furmatIon

sat

Oh' qu'une, d'Elle.Jffleme, un bellU SOlr, venzr, Ne voyant que bOlre Mes Lewes' ou mounf••

a

Je m'enteve rten que d'y penser' Quel baptlme De glotre tntrmseque, attzrer un 'Je vous azme" L'atttrer a travers la SOCIete, de 10m, Comme l'azmant la foudre, un', deux' nz plus, m moms

150

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

Ie t'tttme l comprend-on? Pour mot tu n'es pas comme Les autres, Jusqu'zcz c' hazt des messzeurs, l'Homme

Tills becomes ObI qu'une, d'Elle-meme, un beau sozr, sUt ventr Ne voyant plus que bozre mes lewes, ou mourtr'

a

ObI Bapteme l ObI bapreme de mtl Ratson d'etre' Fatre nattre un 'Ie t'azme" Et q'Zltl vtenne travers les bommes et les dzeux, Sous ma fenetre, Batssant les yeuxl

a

a

Ql1zl vzenne, comme l'tt/!11'1I:mt la foudre, Et dans mon ctel d'orage quz craque et quz s'ouvre

The eJaculatlons ObvIOusly gam VIvIdness wIth brevIty, and the contrastlng SIXth lIne has Its hInt of grandeur, albeIt IrOnIC Why should not the Ideas, 'under my wmdows' and 'lowenng ills eyes,' be expressed 10 four syllables each~ Sometlmes the poet delIberately adds a word that dIsrupts the neat rhythIDlc pattern of an earlIer effort N ous nous azmtons cormne deux fous, On s' est quzttes sans en parler (Un spleen me tenazt exzlC Et ce spleen me venazt de tout)

remams the same except for the loss of the's' on 'qUlttes' and the last lIne, WhiCh becomes Et ce spleen me venmt de tout Bon

These are examples of the free verse that Laforgue began to compose early 10 1886-ten poems pubhshed 10 La Vogue between August and December of that year, willch ills edItors eventually assembled 10 the volume they called Dermers Vers There have been numerous attempts to say what free verse IS, there have even been some demals that It ever was, on the not

IRONIC

EQUILIBRIUM

15 1

wholly unreasonable grounds that verse IS never free but always has Its own laws However, to deny the eXIStence of free verse IS to assume a superbly paradoXIcal, unhistoncal pOSItiOn For there IS no doubt whatever that Runbaud mcluded m hIS lllumzna'tf,ons two poems free as poetry had never been before, that Gustave Kahn theorIZed at length on the nature of free verse and dId what he could toward proVldmg examples to fit rus theones, that Jules Laforgue theonzed very lIttle but wrote a substantIal volume of a kmd of verse that represents a logical final step m the evolution of nmeteenth-century poetry CntIcs of the tlme perceIved that a new fonn had developed and felt called upon to define It 'True free verse,' saId Remy de Gounnont, 'IS conceived as such, that IS to say as a fragment deSigned on the model of ItS emotIve Idea and no longer determmed by the law of number' 26 A lme of free verse IS ordmanly a umt unto Itself, obedIent to a law of Its own, what Gourmont called Its 'emotive Idea' There IS no overflow, the hne finds Its own length, longer or shorter, and a stanza usually forms a sentence The question of who first used It (after Rnnbaud) has been much vexed, and none too profitably One claimant for the honor was a certaIn Mane Krysmska, famIharly known m lIterary CIrcles of the tlme as 'The Queen of Poland' After readIng 'L'Olseau cruclfie,' whIch verges on vers ltbre, Laforgue commented, 'Marie Krysmska does have an ongInal artIstIc sensIbIhty, but one pretty well submerged In fasruonable rhetonc' 27 The Judgment IS a farr one and could be applIed to most other free versIfiers wntIng m France durIng the nmeteenth century, Rlmbaud and Lafargue excepted However fine the artIstIC sensIbIlItIes of the other vers-bbrtstes, however praIseworthy therr attempts to parcel the poem mto portIons correspondmg to the broken lInes of ImpresslOOlst pamtIng, therr gIfts were not up to therr asprratIons Gustave Kahn, theonst of the movement, prescnbed better than he was able to perform As Jules Supervielle, hlIDSelf a vers-hbrtste at one tIme, has wntten 'There has been much conjecture as to whether Laforgue or Gustave Kahn was the first to use free verse In France For me the question does not arISe I don't know whether Kahn IS a poet so far as other people

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

are concerned, for me he IS not Consequently hIS verse does not Interest me, It IS non-eXlstent, whereas Laforgue IS always wIth us, a poet even when he errs' 28 RImbaud's efforts In thIS dlrectlOn havmg consIsted of two brIef poems only, Lafargue IS preemmently the poet of free verse In France dUring the runeteenth century, and It IS of partlcular Interest to the American reader that ills earhest ventures were translations from Walt WhItman In thIS as In many other domaIns, Lafargue was avant-gcrrdzste No one of consequence had translated WhItman Into French The enthuslasm of Andre Glde and the NaturISt poets for Leaves of Grass was all to come, even In Germany, where fervor for the American poet was one day to approach the proportlons of a cult, he was known only to the few One experiences a certaIn mIld surprIse, commg upon Laforgue's translations In that hIghly artlStIC perIodlcal whlch was the first Vogue 29 Walt seems to be keepmg queer company WIth the last of the Decadents, the first of the SymbolIsts, and the barbanc yawp of several 'InscrIptions' and 'A Woman Walts for Me' somehow Jars wlth the usual tone of the retIrmg reader to the Empress of Germany It IS I, you women, I make my way, I am stern, aCrId, large, undissuadable, but I love you, I do not hurt you any more than IS necessary for you, I pour the stuff to Start sons and daughters fit for these States, I press WIth slow rude muscle Thts Laforgue translates manfully

e'est mot, fem:me, Je vozs mon chemzn, Ie SUtS lrUstere, apre, zmmense, memcmlable, mazs Je t'mme, Allons, Je ne te blesse pas plus qu'zl ne taut, Ie verse l'essence qut engendrera des gcrr90ns et des fitles dtgnes de ces Etats-Unzs, 1'y vats d'un 'l1'l'Uscle rude et attentzonne The dIfferences between the two poets, however, are not as great as they appear at first WhItman was a Byroruc dandy, although an Inverted one Laforgue was a Baudelatnan dandy WhItman saw In nature a vague automatIc Impulse resemblIng the

153 Hartmanman UnconscIOus And Wlutman's verse IS as strongly Impregnated throughout by the Ideas of nmeteenth-century SCIence as Laforgue's was at the begmnmg Wlutman also wrote about the nebular hypotheSIS and uruversal evolution, about planets and suns bIOlogIcally conceIved Thus, m one of the poems that Laforgue translated IRONIC EQUILmRIUM

Star crUCIfied-by traItors sold, Star pantmg o'er a land of death, herOlc land Sure as the slup of all, the Earth Itself, Product of deathly fire and turbulent chaos, Forth from Its spasms of fury and Its pOIsons Etozle crucrfiie, vendue, par des traztres, EtOtle palpztante sur un pays de mort, herozque pays Aussz sUrement que Ie vmsseau de tout, la Terre elle-mbne, Produtt d'un mcendze de mort et du ttcmultueux chaos, Se degageant de ses spasmes de rage et de ses de1ectzons

The lmes of thIS free verse are rhythmIc uruts tendmg to compose a stanza-sentence

o star of France, The bnghtness of thy hope and strength and fame, Ltke some proud slup that led the fleet so long, Beseems today a wreck dnven by the gale, a mastless hulk, And 'IDld Its teemmg maddened half-drowned crowds, Nor helm nor helmsman

o Etotle de France, Le rayonnement de ta fOt, de ta pmssmce, de til glotre, Comme quelque orguezlleux vazsseau quz S'/. longtemps mena toute l'escadre, Tu es 11:U1ourd'hm, desastre pousse par la tourmente, une carcasse dematee, Et au mtlteu de ton eqUtpage ajfoJe, demt-submerge, Nt tilmon, m tzmomer

154

JULES LAFaRGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

At cntical POInts these rhythms are strengthened both by allIteratIon and by assonance, though there IS less need for eIther In EnglIsh than In French

o star' 0 ShIp of France, beat back and baffled long' Bear up 0 SmItten orb' 0 ShIp contlnue on Words are re1terated at pomts of dIfferent stress m the rhythmIC uruts Star crucUied-by traItors sold, Star pantlng o'er a land of death, herOIC land, Strange, pass1Onate, mockmg, fnvolous land Here, m short, are all the mam charactenstics of free verse It would be unprofitable to argue that Lafargue learned to wnte vers Jtbre from Wh1tman Suffice It to say that at a cntIcal stage m hIs development as a poet he was studymg WhItman WIth the translator's concentrated attent10n The Dernzers Vers have a rough kmd of plot 'L'HIver qUI Vlent,' the openmg sectIon, treats autumn for the most part m pastoral terms but has one stanza full of urban Images The motif of the hom call makes 1ts appearance, preparmg the next sectIon, 'Le Mystere des trOIS cors,' a lIttle allegory on the fortunes of mtroverts and extroverts Poems III and IV, both enntled 'DImanches,' work out LaforgUIan themes 10 a kmd of SundayImagery now famIlIar SIngly or In groups the young ladles go off to church, while the 'Polar Bear,' the 'Lord HIgh Chancellor of AnalysIS,' observes them from afar 'Pennon,' poem v, IS a medItanon on young gtrls, how they are

lumms frrmches, Ou Ie patng sur la hrmche and a firm statement of op101On on how they ought to be-comradely-somewhat 10 the fashIon of WhItman's Woman who Walts In VI, 'SImple Agome,' we seem to have weathered 'Ies annees mortes,' the dymg and dead part of the year, ' et reVOlCl les sympathIes de mal' A phrase of thiS SIxth poem mtroduces the next secnon, 'Solo de lune,' m whIch the speaker 15 shown takmg a long, heart-rendmg Journey away from the be-

IRONIC EQUILIBRIUM

155 loved 'Legende,' VIII, IS a dream-lIke respIte For after these 'clots of memones,' after strangely pOIgnant evocation of loss,

Ah' ce n'est plus l'automne, aIors, Ce n'est plus l'exzl C'est la douceur des legendes, de l'age d'or, Des legendes des Antzgones, Douceur quz fazt q1ion se demande 'Quand donc cela se passatt-z1 2'

Ah' It IS no longer autumn then, Nor any longer eXile Rather a legendary mtldness, an age of gold Befitting legends of AntIgones, Such gentleness as makes one ask, '\VIlen dId all thIS come to pass~' After two more dreamlIke rnterludes (or only one, for sectIons IX and x were publIshed by the author as one poem, 'Les Amours,' later dIVIded by the edItors) rn a dIfferent vern-IrOnIC VISIOns of love satisfied-autumn closes down agam m the final sectIOns N ozre bzse, averse glapzssante, Et fieuve nozr, et maT.sons closes, Et quartzers sznzstres comme des Morgues, Et l'Attttrde quz Ia remorque trdtne Toute Ia mzsere du coeur et des choses, Et la souzllure des mnocentes quz trmnent, Et crze l'averse 'Oh2 arrose, arrose Mon coeur sz brUlant, ma chmr sz znteressante"

a

a

BItter blast and howlIng ram, Somber nver, and houses shut, And quarters sIDlster as morgues, And the belated Soul who drags behInd rum HIS heart's ffilsery and all creation's, And the defilement of strayed mnocents, \VIlo cnes to the torrent, 'Oh, assuage, refresh My burnmg heart, my so exceptJ.onal flesh"

15 6

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

The concludIng hoes are a fall" example of the poet's latest manner of turnIng upon hImself, averttng the penl of overstatement Structure has seldom been as flexIbly bent to matenals Thus, among many 1Ostances, these hnes from the opemng sectton

Soletls plenzpotentzazres des travaux en blonds Pactoles Des spectacles agrzcoles, Ou etes-vous ense'1)elts~ Pierupotentiary suns of labors 10 gold-beanng torrents Of agncultural landscapes, Where have you vanIshed to~ The broad burst of Sixteen syllables stands for the energy of the summer sun and the works carned on beneath It, thIS energy dWindles VISIbly to the seven ll"OnIC syllables of the second hne and the query of the thIrd ImmedIately afterward the 'pIcturesque star' of the poet's early wntmgs-a star that IS stIll persomfiedIS treated offhandedly 10 hnes taperlOg off a syllable at a time from the thIrteen of the first

Ce smr un solezl fichu gtt tnt ham du coteau, Gtt sur Ie fitmc, dans les genets, sur son mtmteau Un soletl bltmc C0111f1ne un crachat d' estamznet Sur une lzttere de Jaunes genets Agam the dImInutIOn 15 commuOlcated by the shape of the verses We are better able to see the sun fadlOg, decllOlOg on the hilltop, because the poet presents the scene 10 verses of thIrteen, twelve, twelve, and eleven syllables Thuteen- and eleven-syllable hoes are especIally hard to bnng off because they are so lIkely to give the effect of alexandrInes that have mIssed fire Poetic success has COme with the surmounttng of two obstacles, and Indeed the vanants of these later poems, whIch DUJardlO and Feneon lOcluded 10 thelr editiOn of 1890, show the poet overcomlOg many and dIverse dIfficulttes He reJected, plcked, chose, happened on a more vlVld word by the way and finally fitted It lOto the rhythmIC frame that had first occurred to hIm, almost as though he had not been a poet wrIttng by dll"ect dictation of the UnconSCIOUS Here, for Instance, are the stages of one of the conc1udlOg

IRONIC EQUILIBRIUM

157 lInes of 'Avernssement,' the poem conceIved at Elsmore, In WhICh the poet sees hIS HamletIc hesItatIOns In the gUIse of a weathercock's wavermgs Bonne gtrouette aux quatre satsons lvre gtrouette aux quatre sazsons Bonne gtrouette aux quatre satsons Bonne gtrouette aux trent' StX sazsons Gtrouette peznte aux trent' StX satsons Bonne gtrouette aux trent'-Stx Satsons

In the extraordInarIly plastIc verse of the Dermers Vers the maJor LaforgUIan themes reappear, assummg the forms most peculIarly theIr own Poems on autumn open and close a cycle, and WIth the death of the year IS assocIated the death of the IndIVidual Most often the death ImplIed IS tubercular In 'Le Mystere des trOIS cars,' on the other hand, It IS by SUICIde Then there are the less radIcal forms of demal of hfe the sense of separatIon from SOCIety, the sense of mcapacity for lIfe 10 SOCIety, the theme of eXIle These are the great Romannc subJects WIth wruch Laforgue deals In verse that contrIves never to be portentous, smce the theme IS nothmg WIthout ItS embodIment The expansIve descrlpnon of a season IS purposely made overexpansIve, grandIOse, and we are shortly told of some quondlan consequence for human bemgs Death, by whatever cause, IS suggested 10 the barest of terms The appreCIatIOn of the dlfference between Shaun the Postman and Shem the Penman, Fortmbras and Hamlet, extrovert and mtrovert, IS profound, but IS expressed by trontc marupulanon of an Image dear to the RomantIC mInd, the call of the hunnng horn And the hfe from wruch the speaker of these poems-a prolongatIOn of Plerrot and an annCIpatIOn of Hamlet-sees hImself cut off IS most often represented by the gIrls' boardIng school, the detachment beIng felt WIth certam reserves 'Forever astonIshed' and astomshIng, tempestuous, connnually bursnng free of the Iffimedlate deSIgn to whIch theIr author would subordInate

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

them, the Jeunes filles of Laforgue are the most VIVId In French hterature unttl we come to those of Jean Gltaudoux WIthout neglectmg the Balzaclan Woman of Thl!ty-an 'agmg smner' appears m both 'Legende' and 'Solo de lune'-Laforgue succeeds m turrung attennon to a woman of half that age The Me of the world from whIch the poet sees rums elf dlVlded finds other symbols, and memorable ones, mcludmg the casmos of 'Legende' But Laforgue, who had pomted so knowmgly to the spoIled chIldren m Baudela1!e and Corblere, understands perfectly well that hIs exIle IS self-mfhcted

Je SU'tS 14 Gondole enfant cherte Quz arrtve a 14 fin de Itt fete, Par Je ne sats qUOt, par boudeTte, (Un sozr trop beau me monte ala tete/) Me VOtCZ deja pres de la dtgue, Mats 14 fouie sotte et pavozsee, Ah/ n'accourt pas al'Enfant Prodtgue/ Et danse, sans perdre une fusee Ah/ c'est comme fa, femmes volages' C'est bzen Je m'extle en ma gondole (Sz frele t ) flUX mouettes, flUX orages, Vers Ies malheurs qu'on vozt au Pole/ -Et PUtS, j'attends sous une arche nOtre Mats nul ne vzent, Ies Ittmptons s'etezg;nent, Et Je maudzs la nuzt et 1« glozre' Et ce coeur quz veut qu'on me dedat.g;ne' I am the favonte chIld canoe That arnves toward the party's end, I couldn't say why, but sullenly, (Too fine an everung goes to my head')

Here I am almost at the water-wall, But the foolIsh crowd In Its finery Doesn't rush out to welcome the Prodlgal And dances on gtdduy

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159

So that's the way of It, fhghty females I All rIght, I'll Just take my frail vessel (My fragile canoe l ) toward the gulls and the gales And the penIs that lurk at the Pole Then I pause beneath a somber archway But nobody comes The lanterns are dead And I execrate rughttune and glory, And thl5 heart that deSIres to be scorned I The last lme was a second or thrrd thought It had been Et tout ce quz fatt qu'on me dedazgne' Mon coeur quz veut qu'on me dedazgne' Ce coeur quz veut qu'on me dedatgne l As It stands It IS probably the weIghtiest one-lme demonstration of Lafargue's abIhty to see around !us own pOSItion, that clairvoyance that made hun the greatest of French Romantic lIOrusts Among the unpubllShed papers of Laforgue 15 the followmg note, mspired no doubt by rus own and hIS brother's art studIes 'In the great glassed-m hall of anCIent art, espeCIally about mIdday, when he was alone sketchmg among the whIte and calm statues The room was deserted It was the great silence of noon There were echoes of footsteps on the tIles as the pupIls of the school went to lunch-But he stayed on, forgettIng rus hunger-A near-by bell (St -Suipice or St -GermalO-des-Pres) tolled, addmg a further note of solemruty to the vast noonday calm under the full dayhght falhng from above, on the tranqullhty of those wrote and motionless statues Solemn thoughts came to hIm He was m an Ideal hie far from the narrow and muddy streets of the clamorous left bank, far from garrets, far from greasy pub-keepers, taIlors, tradesmen, he was there transported to other ages, far from our fevensh democracy, dehghting m a calm and noble lIfe -The bourgeolS who stare you down m the street, casting glances at your shoes-a Jack of poverty on rus arrIval m ParISdlOners at fifty centlmes-shoes down at heel-rus health threat-

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ened-theadbare cuffs from whIch one smps the threads ' At the end of the passage, In the handwrItIng of a later perIOd, IS the comment 'Hello, dear Jack' Snll your lIttle cosmIC cares~' 30 There could be no more graphIc demonstratIOn of the dIfference between the Laforgue of 1880 and the WrIter of 1885-6, when the bulk of the Moralttes iegendatres were composed And we do not approach the later man and hIS works WIthout certaIn mISgIVIngs Was there somethIng to the OpInIOn of that doughty defender of good prose, H L Mencken, that no one can possess a prose style before the age of thIrty~ So much mysterIous nssue, Incarnate experIence, enters mto authentIc prose Its absence IS less palpable so long as obJectIves are lImIted, models eVident, as m the passage Just quoted, It IS only too apparent In a work such as the earlIest Moraltte, 'Le MIracle des roses' The tales, however, are progresSively better 'Lohengnn' and 'Salome,' datIng from 1885, are mfenor to 'Hamlet,' firushed In 1886 'Persee et Andromede' and 'Pan et la Syrmx,' the last wntten of these works, prove that Mencken, who applIed quantitatIve measurements to the wrong kInd of subJect matter, was mIstaken Half-realIStIC, 'Le MIracle des roses' IS remarkable for Its broadSIdes agamst Baden-Baden, that resort of valetudInanans and vacatIOners, and for Its record of a bullfight wItnessed at San Sebastian In 1883 There IS a gossamer veIl of plot Ruth, a VICtIm of advanced tuberculOSIS, spreads an even more baneful RomantIc aftbCtlon about her her path IS strewn WIth SUICIdes, from the Pans art amateur and the prestdente of the bullfight to a young man of the Corpus Chnstl proceSSIOn who works the final wry miracle penruttIng her to see roses rather than blood Lafargue conveys the ImpreSSIon that Ruth IS averse to none of the gore, or to the disembowelment of the horses either Sound observatIons remlruscent of Menmee and Maupassant are couched In an exasperatIngly parenthetIcal style 'Patrick s'assled au chevet de sa soeur 11 tIent son mouchOlr dlaphane comme un parfum, sa bonbonruere de cachou a l'orange, son eventatl (un eventatl, 0 Irorue et tnste capnce de la derruere heure I ) son flacon de musc naturel (Ie derruer reconfort des mourants) , Such a sentence merely shows that the style of

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I6I

Stephcrne Vasszhew has dls1Otegrated, and that noth1Og has ansen

Its place 'Lohengrm, fils de ParsIfal' has good touches Elsa's apparent mdlfference to everythmg but her own unage 10 a mIrror as she awaIts the krught whose defecnon would bnng about her blmd109, the transformanon of the lordly execunoners mto shuffimg yokels when Lohengrm flIes 10 on rus swan ('How rIch and refined hiS famIly must bel Oh l 10 what magIC groves must they be takmg Ices, at thiS very hourf') There are more dated detaIls, such as Lohengrm's mtroducnon of rumself to the dazzled company 'No, I am not EndymIOn I come dIrectly from the Holy Grall 1 am Lohengrm, Kmght Errant, the lIly of future crusades for the emanclpanon of woman In the meannme, however, I was SImply too bored 10 my father's offices (I am a tnfJ.e hypochondnac by nature) , The suspense 10 the nupnal vIlla IS well managed, as Elsa ImpatIently mVItes the obJecnficanon of the UnconscIOus and Lohengnn reSIsts untIl rus swan-pIllow bears hun away, as he says, 'toward the Holy Grall where my father ParsIfal IS prepanng a blueprmt for the redempnon of our lIttle SIster, so human and so down to earth toward those glaCIer mIrrors that no young gIrl wIll ever tarrush WIth her breath 10 order to trace her name and the date' The dIalogue of thIS pIece IS properly pomted, and the LaforguIan word-mme lS by thIS tIme 10 full productIOn, turrung out such rugh-grade ore as Elsa's 'MassacrIlege mef' and her mqUlry, 'Child, chIld, are you farrullar WIth the volupnal ntes~' A prose prolonganon of themes and Images of L'Imttatton de Notre-Dame la Lune, 'Lohengnn' IS weakened by a certam fundamental lack of control The sanre of 'Salome' IS too obVIOUS ThIS IS the only MoralIte that would JustIfy an uncharItable descnpnon of the collectIOn as the 'ParodIes arnficlelles' Style, characters, major and mmor epIsodes of Flaubert's 'Herodtas' are aped 10 a manner vergIng dangerously on that of the class yearbook Here, for mstance, 10 a style meant to suggest Flaubert's packed sentences, lS Laforgue's nonon of an old Palesnruan pleasantry 'The followers of the Northern Prmces could be heard laughmg hugely, 10 the court where the gutters converged, Iaughmg WIthout understand109 one another, playmg at qUOIts, swappmg tobaccos The 10

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Tetrarch's followers were showmg theIr foreIgn colleagues how wrute elephants prefer to be curned 'But back home we don't have any whlte elephants,' the Visitors gave to understand And they saw these stablemen cross themselves, as though to conjure ImpIOus thoughts' A clever sophomore turns 'Herodlas' upsIde down, changmg Herod Antlpas to Emeraude-Archetypas of the Esotenc WhIte Isles, a weary aesthete, Vltellius to an emIssary of the Prusslan mIlItanzed state, John the Baptlst to a deported soclallSt agItator, hIs spectacles tIed up wlth bIts of stnng, Salome mto yet another etlolated dIlettante who exacts John's head after havmg tnfled WIth rus affectIons It IS all qUIte WItty and It IS all, consldenng the model, a lIttle dlSappOlOtlng Yet the most adverse cntlcs of Laforgue could hardly deny the Interest of the elements held 10 suspensIOn by tills none too lImpId prose At the fatal feast are the clowns of the Idea, the WIll, and the UnconsclOus, characterlZlOg clearly If summanly the Absolute accordlOg to the HegelIan, Schopenhauenan, and Hartmanruan pilliosoprues 'Idea chattered about everythmg, WIll knocked his head agamst the scenery, and UnconsclOus made the large mystenous gestures of someone who knows more than he 15 yet permItted to reveal Tills tnmty had, moreover, a smgle refralO

o proffilSed land Of utter vOId I o VOId, a pox On all your books OChtmatm

Du bon Neant l N etmt, 1a Mecque Des btbltotheques

Tros comes from Vlmztatton de Notre-Dame La Lzme After the chorus of the clowns, Salome, dressed m JonquIl yellow crofton Wlth black dots, chants to the mUSIC of her lIttle black lyre an ample dIscourse on the UnconsClOus Here, too, mserted willy-

IRONIC EQUILIBRIUM

16 3

roIly 10 the tale IS a reVlsed verslOn of the prose poem 'L'Aquanum,' Laforgue's most sustamed sequence of unagery treatmg of the unconsclOUS mmd Here IS satlre on authonty 10 the shape of those PrlOces of the North who have eJected Iaokanaan from therr terntones, who gloat over rum 10 rus dungeon One of them cannot refram from observlOg 'Ah hal There you are, IdeologlSt, scnbbler, ex-conscnpt, bastard of Jean-Jacques Rousseau So tills IS where you came to get yourself hanged, you broken-down pamphleteer, you I And how ruce your unwashed top-pIece 15 gomg to look m some gulllotme basket ' It appears that the revolutlon Iaokanaan had engmeered 10 the North has failed, and the orgaruzer, who for a moment unagmed that tills was a conclhatory ffilSSlon sent by the royal famlly, dIes thoroughly dlsllluslOned LIke other commuruty leaders of the penod, the PrlOces of the North are Darwlillans, convlOced POSltlVlsts, mehonsts Et tout honnete homme, d'azllezcrs, professe Le perfectzonnement de l'Espece

Every gentleman, of course, beheves In the perfectmg of the specIes If 'Salome' IS a heterogeneous effort, 'Persee et Andromede' IS as skillfully urofied as so ongInal a work could be From the beglnnmg we are struck by the symbohc value of the sea Young, red-harred, nublle, Andromeda IS surrounded, along WIth her guardIan dragon, by a sea as profoundly monotonous as her hfe, a sea that IS, 10 fact, the obJectlve eqUlvalent for a hfe When, unspeakably bored and restless, she rushes out mto the unfurhng waves, she IS retummg to the mother and matnx of her bemg The amlable dragon, who before the end of the story manages to Identlfy rumself WIth most of the dragons of antlqUlty, cherIShes Andromeda WIth unreqUlted affecnon, until the day when a dalOtlly elegant Perseus wmgs m on hIS hlppognff Andromeda all but goes off Wlth rum mstanter But the dragon shows a httle fight, and IS not turned to stone because the Gorgon, at the crltlcal moment, closes her eyes 'The good Gorgon recogruzed our Monster She recalled that rIch and spaCIOUS tlme when

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

she and her two sIsters hved next door to trus Dragon, at that time keeper of the Garden of the HesperIdes, the marvelous Garden of the Hespendes located m the neIghborhood of the Columns of Hercules No, no, a thousand tImes no, she would not petnfy her old friend" Enraged because of hIS III success and Andromeda's first skeptIcal smile, Perseus runs the dragon through, mutIlatIng hIm unnecessarily-so much so that Andromeda realIzes that he had been a fatrly good dragon after all, had gratIfied all her caprices (wlthm the bmlts of hIS mcome, of course), collectIng and polIshmg a whole heap of precIOUS stones for her sake In the pmch she refuses to go off WIth the mterloper, who files away mdlgnant and abUSIve Andromeda weeps over her slam guardIan 'She recalls that he had been a good fnend to her, an accomplIshed gentleman, an mdustrIouS scholar, an eloquent poet And her lIttle heart bursts WIth sobbmg 'She even asks, m words that sound very much hke Phdoctetes on Lemnos, 'WIth what lamentatIOns can I now make these stony shores resound~' Then, after openIng one eye and telhng hIS story, the Monster IS transformed Into a personable young man 'LeanIng agaInst the entrance of the cave, hIS human skIn mundated WIth the enchantment of moonlight, he speaks of the future' PenetratIng thus deeply toward the mythIcal foundatIons, appropnatIng as much as he needed of the story of Perseus and Andromeda to tell the story of Beauty and the Beast (the Monster had hInted to hIs uncomprehendIng ward that he could not be changed Into hImself untIl she loved rum, that he was Impnsoned WIthIn a VICIOUS cIrcle), Laforgue IS at hIS best and hIS most rewardmgly complex 'Pan et la Synnx' IS an equally graceful story, dealIng WIth love and the artIst's self-dIscovery In loss, but It does not alter the mam lInes of the myth There 15 no fUSIOn of legends as In 'Persee,' nor IS the prose qUIte so prophetIc As unmIStakably as the rhythms of RImbaud's lll'lfflmnttttons, of Lautteamont's Chmts de Maldoror, cadences of 'Persee et Andromede' are echoed by later Writers 'And then there came those strange Argonauts, whose lIkes we shall not see agaIn,' the dragon remmIsces 'SplendId epochs' Jason was theIr leader, Hercules followed, and hIS fnend Theseus, and Orpheus who undertook to charm me WIth hIS lyre (and who was later to come to

IRONIC EQUILIBRIUM

such a tragIc end') and also the twms Castor, tamer of horses, and Pollux, clever at fistIcuffs Vamshed epochs' Oh, therr bIVouacs, and the fires they Inndled m the evenmgs" 81 Some of the grandeur and none of the bourdon of Samt-John Perse are m these hnes Ghrnmermg throughout IS the fantasy, the rrony of the greatest of Fargue, the best of Supervielle And more Important even than mtonatIons so dIstmct that they could not but be caught and repeated IS the step taken beyond realIsm, toward mytluc structure The Importance of the Moralztes Iegendazres IS due partly to theIr chronologIcal place Laforgue's mventIve power, mcreasmg steadIly throughout hls career, found Its freest play m hIS lastWritten works In hIS verse, too, he had been m search of the fundamental though changeful figure Hls hero, 'un PlulIppe de Champaigne/Mals ne Plerrot,' 32 belonged to 'L'ecole des cromlechs/Et des tuyaux d'usme,' and fished m troubled waters for her who IS at once 'Eve, Joconde, et DalIla' ss The RomantIc parr escaped together toward an Isle that was SImultaneously Eden, the Pole, and Eldorado The evolutIon of a passage m Dernzers Vers shows Laforgue accumulatIng fables He begIns by thmkmg of 'un cunetIere plem d' AntIgones,' adds a reference to a gravedIgger suggestIng Hmnlet, then a mentIon of PhIlomela, and finally the words 'Alas, poor Yonck" to clInch matters He ends wIth

C'est 'fautomne, l'u:utcmme, l'autO'l1'Nle, Le grand vent et toute sa sequeUe De represazlles! Et de 'InltS'tques! Rzdeaux tzres, c/Ot1.Cre annuelle, Chute des feutlles, des Antzgones, des Phzlomeles Mon fossoyeur, Alas poor YOrick' Les remue a14 pelle! Now It IS autumn, autumn, autumn, The wmd In earnest and all Its crew Of repnsals and concertos' Drawn curtams, yearly closmg-down,

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

Fall of leaves, Antlgones, and Phtlomelas My gravedIgger, Alas poor Yorzck' Turns them by shovelsful l FIgures from three tragedIes combme wIth the fallIng leaves, rugh wmd, drawn curtams, to yIeld one uOlversal, the fallmg away of everytrung It IS pnmanly the last wntten of the prose tales, however, wruch convmce us that Laforgue would, tIme allowmg, have employed on a larger scale a dramatIC techrnque based on the flUId sillft of personage mto related dramatlc personage tills Monster who IS at once nearly all the dragons of antlquIty and the Beast transformed by Beauty's lIberatlng love, dus Andromeda who IS also Beauty, who comforts and resurrects-the female prmclple 'Hamlet, ou les SUItes de la plete :fihale' cannot be dIscussed m qwte the same way as the author's other works can Laforgue wrote 'Persee' In a short tlme durmg the spnng of 1886 'Pan' was composed WIth dIspatch, despIte phYSIcal handIcaps, In Pans the followmg wmter Though 'Hamlet' was put down on paper In 1885-6 It had, m an lffiportant sense, been a work In progress for at least seven years, ever smce Lafargue's :first mentlon of the Shakespeanan hero In an early poem Jean-Aubry Said WIth conSIderable Justlce that HalIllet was for Laforgue what Saint Anthony was for Flaubert The story whereby Laforgue sought to lay one of rus oldest ghosts IS not hIs best, It was too close to rum, as another Hamlet may have been to Its author, but there IS no doubt about Its fascmatlOn ThIs HalIllet IS, If not a clown, at least the brother of a clown one of the graveruggers In the lIttle cemetery reveals that the pnnce and Yonck were sons of the late long by the same gypsy mother SlOce poor YOrIck's remaIns are now bemg dlsmterred to make room for OphelIa's, Hamlet strays over to the open grave, pIcks up lus brother's craruum, and solIloqwzes In words that are hke an lrOrnc echo to Laforgue's Pascahan apostrophe of some years before As far as content IS concerned, the two speeches to a skull are not very dlfferent the underlyIng attltudes are equally pesslffi15tlC, there 15 a Slmllar lack of confidence In rehglOn, and In both the earth 15 dlSnussed as one of an overwhelmIng

IRONIC EQUILIBRIUM

number of planets What IS new IS the tone, the defenSIve Irony, the twISt at the end 'As for me, wIth my geruus, I could have been what IS commonly called a MeSSIah, but here I am, too, too spoIled, a verItable benJam10 of Nature I understand everythIng, I adore everyth1Og, I want to fecundate everythmg That's why, as I have observed 10 a lImp10g dIStIch carved m my bed My rare faculty of assImIlation Cannot but thwart the course of my vocation'

Ma rrtre faculte d'asstmzlatzon Contrrtrtera Ie cours de ma vocatzon Hamlet IS also, If not a wrIter, at least one who aspIres to be a wrIter, and even before he spIes the band of strollIng players across the stagnant bay we know that the play's the thmg What Hamlet would really lIke would be to unshoulder the few responSIbilitIes he has not already dIsclaImed and be off to Pans, where a group of neo-Alexandnans IS fiounshmg around Mount Samte-Genevieve Smce that appears to be ImpOSSIble, he has tackled the theme of hIs play 10 earnest, and the longer he has spent WIth thIS work deSIgned, on one level, to ferret out the murderers' guIlt, the more he has become convmced that he has got hold of a really first-rate subject The arrIval of WIlham and Kate and theIr fellow players, hIS enthUSIastIc readmg of hls work, Its performance and alamung reperCUSSIOns, even hIs mcreasmgly fnendly feelIngs for the actress, are purely subordmate to hIS lIterary ambItion, and toward the end we find hIm headmg for Pans after all, WIth Kate But on the way he stops off at the cemetery for Just a moment, as an act of filIal pIety, IS stabbed by a Laertes who does not seem too persuaded of the Importance of what he IS domg, and rues murmuTlng, 'Qual1S arufex perea I' If the rare faculty of a5SlIDllatIOn dIsplayed m 'Hamlet' works agamst ItS Ulllty, If Its somewhat haphazard endmg makes It mfenor to both 'Persee' and 'Pan,' It nonetheless encompasses more charactenstlCally Laforgman themes and Images, more Iroruc OppoSItIOns sprmgmg from mner contradIctIOns, than any other

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SKETCHES, C

1886

tale Hamlet speaks of hIS 'dear Pluloctetes,' and has had, he says, Ius 'moment of apostohc madness' He 15 endowed Wlth a 'slXth sense, a sense of the mfirute,' and chenshes the 'lmmemonal sadness of a troy chord struck on the plano' HIs tower room, hke Ius spmt, 15 lnvaded by 'an Insoluble, an lIlcurabie autumn'even m July, for 'today 15 the fourteenth of July 160 I, a Saturday, tomorrow 15 Sunday and all over the world gu-ls wlll go artlessly to church' He had been fond of Opheha, and yet- 'She would never have understood me Whenever I stop to thInk of that'

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169

No doubt she was adorable and mortally SenSltlVe, but scratch the surface and you would have found the Enghshwoman talllted from bIrth by the egotlstlcal phIlosophy of Hobbes "Nothlllg IS more agreeable about the possesslOn of our own property than the thought that It IS superior to other people's" That was the way Opheha loved me, as a pIece of property "Method, method,' he exclaIms, 'what have you to do wIth me~ You know very well that I have eaten of the fruIt of the UnconsclOus ' Yet he remams 10 spIte of that, as Gustave Kahn saId, a reasoner, a methodIcal doubter, a searcher Over Hamlet, tills final embodIment of Laforgue's Irony exposed to all the wlllds of doubt, veers the metaphorIcal weathercock of 'Avertlssement,' the poem he wrote the day he VISIted Elsmore Bonne gzrouette aux trent'-szx sazsons, Trop nombreux pour dtre OUt ou non

x The Broken CItadel

LIFE m Germany became less and less bearable for Laforgue durmg the Winter of 1885-6 The autumn had begun well enough, WIth a VISIt from Kahn m September Two months later, however, the clatter and WhIStlIngS of the freIght trams along the Rhme near Coblenz filled hIm WIth blank despaIr 1 In December he came back to a Berlm WIthout Theo Ysaye The plawst was contmumg rus studIes In Pans-the Pans of Charles Henry, the Pans where the star of SymbolIsm was nSIng over the cafe-table edltonal office of Kahn's Vogue Four wmters and spnngs Laforgue had managed to contam rus nostalgta for 'the gallenes of the Odeon, the SIckly skIes one sees from the Pont de la Concorde, the fine puddles 10 the Place of that name, the funerals at the Madeleme and St AugustIne's, and the resIgned and somnolent cab-nags' 2 HIS homeSIckness, growIng WIth rus averSIOn for Germany, had filled letter after letter, but actual plans for throwmg up hIS Job had remamed vague Back m the PrInzessmnenPalaIS m December the chore of readmg and summarIZmg from the meVItable three newspapers, the eternal Revue des deux mandes, the novels that were changmg as to tItle but constant m theIr medlocrlty seemed Intolerable as never before He had complaIned about hls ennUI, had filled hIS COpIOUS correspondence WIth rus dISSatIsfactIon Now he wrote few letters, and these were mostly perfunctory, lacomc In one he speaks of hIS 'mhilism,' the utter VOId of everythmg ImmedIately after ChrIStmas he fled to Denmark and medItated on Hamlet In the second week of January he deCIded to take EnglIsh lessons

17 1 'MISS Lee, 57 Koruggraezer Strasse' IS one of the names and addresses wntten on the back flyleaf of the Agenda for 1883 It could eaSIly have been Jotted down there after the end of that year, and there IS no reason to belIeve that Leah Lee had been In BerlIn longer than Jules SaId In a letter of September 1886, 'for two years, lIvIng partly on what she receIves from her father, partly on proceeds from EnglIsh lessons' 8 Jules had always been an anglophtle He had lIked the CIty of Hamburg because of the numerous EnglIsh people there, had been equally devoted to the 'penslOnnats de young ladzes' at Coblenz and the dIaphanous figures of Kate Greenaway albums He had argued that there are 'three sexes, male, female, and the EnglIshwoman,' 4 and hIs wntmgs leave us In no doubt about whIch of the two latter he preferred Long before any mentIon of Leah Lee he had propheSIed lIghtly to Theo Ysaye that he would marry an EnglIsh schoohrustress 5 Leah was, Jules wrote to hts SIster, 'very thIn, very, very EnglIsh, WIth chestnut harr WIth reddIsh tInts a chtldtsh face, a IDlSchIevous smtle and great, tar-colored, forever-astorushed eyes educated as all grrls are, WIth, besIdes, what can be learned from travel and two foreIgn languages and whatever she may have been able to retaIn from our Intermmable conversatIons ,~ The courtshIp proceeded slowly Leah studIed patntIng, so Jules took to brIngIng her engravIngs, books on art, and finally one of hIs artIcles about an exhIbIt In BerlIn One day In Apnl he ventured to propose that they VlSIt the museum together 'She blushed, looked down, dtd not answer'-and Jules rushed home to wrIte a letter of apology Not long afterward Leah suggested that they VlS!t the museum Then Jules, who for some ttme had been gIvmg her the opera tIckets that fell to hIm as court reader, began to keep one of them, the adjacent seat, for htmself By the end of Apnl Laforgue was perfectly certaIn that he was spendtng hIS last months In Berlm 'It IS deCIded, defirutely deCIded,' he wrote m an unpublIshed and finely Laforgman letter to Theodore LIndenlaub In Pans 'I am gomg to start sendmg my books and tnnkets along to Kahn's I've had enough The THE BROKEN CITADEL

17 2

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

prospect of spendmg another wmter here, between Oberwallstrasse, Renz [the cafe], Bauer and the Brandenburger Tor and the Schutzmann before my wmdow and the same carts lutched to the same famIshed beasts, and the guard-house across the way, and all the valets' mugs wIth whIskers and coffee-colored gaIters, etc, etc, that prospect would certainly drIve me to Jom the Mormons or to get myself castrated for the Sistme ThIs IS my last wmter" True, he has no clear notion of how he wIll earn hIS hvmg m Pans But m spIte of past extravagances, now regretted, he counts on arrIvmg there wIth at least two thousand francs, enough to g1Ve lum tIme to look around In any case, 'Better squat as a typesetter 10 some cellar than spend another wmter here' FIve years of facmg the same heads IS too long for one who IS not always perfecrly sure of keepmg his own' '( He left BerlIn as usual for Baden-Baden and dId not see Leah agam untIl the first of September HaVing resIgned as reader and made all preparations to leave, he kept puttmg off hIS departUre untIl that day, the SIxth of September, when they were out walkmg and he asked her 'WIth many cIrcumlocutions' If she would hke to pass her lIfe wIth hIm 'I remember my strangled VOIce and the tears m my eyes, and I dId not gIve her tIme to answer but launched forthwIth mto protestations She Said yes, lookmg at me 10 an extraordmary way' 8 Even now, and mdeed unnl some tIme afterward, Jules dId not call her by her first name, only 'petit personnage ' One can understand why Paul Bourget, who reframed from wrIting about Lafargue because of the scant admIratIOn he felt for his young frIend's poems and stones, 'Sl peu traclItIonnels,' 9 should have felt moved to do so after readIng Jules' letter to rus SIster announcmg hIs engagement Here the tormented 1romc defenses are down, revealIng all the chIldlIke charm, not WIthout Its wll.es From tlus letter one gathers that Jules had not deeply changed Since the mght In the great apartment at Coblenz almost five years before, when he had had to wnte first to hIS SISter about the broad statrcases, the SlIver dIshes, and the servants, but above all about hIS resolve to wrIte many books and support two of rus younger brothers

THE BROKEN CITADEL

173

Des ans vont passer la-dessus, On s' endurczra chacun pour SOt The years will have therr way wIth thIS, We wIll grow hard, each one for each But Jules dId not harden, despIte the German court, despIte hIS strammg for the surazgu, despIte the rigIdIty and poverty of the reIgrung phIlosophIes And that constancy, whether Paul Bourget could perceIve It or not, IS apparent In rus poetry

Je ne SUts pOtnt 'ee gatllard-laJ' nz Le Superbet Mats mon ame, qu'un crt un peu eru exacerbe, Est au fond dzsttnp;uie et fraiche eomme une herbe I am not 'that fellow there" nor The Superb But my soul, wruch the slIghtest shrIllness can dISturb, Is at bottom dlstIngUlshed and fresh as an herb The 'petlt personnage' stayed on In BerlIn tIll the end of September to teach some last EnglIsh lessons Jules went to BelgIUm for the wedding of Eugene Ysaye Afterward, WaitIng for Leah at Verviers, he wrote Theo a letter qUlte dIfferent In tone and content from the one to rus SIster' More than ever I feel myself to be the slave of destIny What we agree to call our normal state IS at the mercy of passing, overwhelmmg intOXicatIOn It IS frIghterung and dIVIne at the same tlme What does our fate depend on, I was thInking On pathetlc (and temfYIng) chances, a stray smIle In a vIllage awakenIng the Shakespearean In us, crystallIzmg our destIny And I thought about our mad mortal aSpiratlOnS after the Umque Irorucally I breathed the proud aIr of long Journeys Then twIlIght came and WIth It an hour's walt In a lIttle statIOn I strolled about, looking now and then at the sky, so astorushmgly full of stars A lamp was burnmg In the WIndow of a ponderous bourgeoIs house (a lamp WIth a pmk shade, I remember), and I fell to meditatlng agam The Connnes, the OphelIas, and so on, all that IS a snare and a delUSIOn After allIS saId and done we have nothIng but the lIttle Adnennes WIth kmd hearts and long eyelashes, WIth ephemeral and chIld-

174

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

Ish szrules, the lIttle Adnennes wIth beautIful complexlOns whom chance (and there IS nothmg but chance) sets upon our path Yes, everythmg IS chance, for If there hadn't been an AdrIenne there would have been a Leah, and If there hadn't been a Leah there would have been a Nml, and so on That's why we are enJomed to devote ourselves to the first one chance presents to us, and we will love her alone, because she was the first, forsakmg all others I wIll see her m half an hour My heart IS poundmg, and forty years from now I will remember how slow the moment was In commg , 10 Laforgue's expectatIons were hIgh, hIS mood POSItIve, when he came down to Pans from Belgmm Kahn, hIs closest fnend dunng the last years of hIS hfe, tells of hIS serene and creatIve gaIety, the penod of plerutude mto whIch he seemed to be entenng He tells of Laforgue's enthusIasm and that of hIs fellow poets theIr forgetfulness of nme, theIr oblIVIOUS workmg all mght, the dawn of Symbohsm cOIncldmg WIth dawns breakmg over the BOIS de Boulogne From Kahn we learn what Laforgue hoped from marnage, 'an ordermg of hfe that would prevent waste of tlIDe, vague restless moods, and create a CItadel about the wrIter' 11 Jules and Leah were mamed In the Church of St Barnabas, AddISon Road, London, on the last day of December 1886 R R Bolgar,12 who cOIlSulted the pansh regIster and learned what he could about Leah's famIly, has shown that she mIsrepresented more or less Innocently when she gave Jules to understand that she had a brother who was a lawyer m Folkestone, another who was a clergyman m New Zealand, another an officer In Zululand Leah Lee gave as her London address a poor neIghborhood She was probably the daughter of a blacksmIth, had certamly suffered more hardshIps than her husband, and can hardly be blamed for wantlng to forget about them Theo Ysaye, Kahn, and EmIle Laforgue had found an apartment on the top floor of a buIldmg at 8 rue de CommaIlle, Just off the rue de Babylone, and Jules had furrushed It There were some gaps In the fUrDlShIngs, but there were also ob1ets d'art, collected durlng prosperous years, and on the table stood a resplendent sllver tea servIce, a gIft from the Empress who had been so unwillIng to let her r~ader go The apartment bwldmg was hand..

THE BROKEN CITADEL

175

some, wIth a fine carved doorway operung on the Square It lS stlll the property of the famIly who bUllt It three years before Jules and Leah came there to lIve Tills street and square are assocIated WIth the memory of another Celt, Rene de ChateaubrIand, a glanng whIte bust of whom now stands OpposIte Laforgue's doorway FIve mmutes away was Paul Bourget's apartment m the rue MonsIeur Laforgue had brought rus brIde to that nchly mterestmg quarter of Pans that he must have admrred the most as an uncertaIn apprentIce wrIter when he had come to VISIt Bourget on Sunday afternoons seven years before Jules, who had such good reasons for feelIng hopeful about ills artIstIC future, was qUIte unarmed for the bourgeolS present LIttle m hIS StudIOUS and sheltered hfe had prepared hIm for the plunge mto Grub Street The struggle began Immediately-for he had not, of course, arrIved m Pans WIth anythmg lIke the two thousand francs he had counted on-and contInued relentlessly Of hIS thIrty notes and letters WrItten durIng 1887, all but half a dozen are entreatIes for payment, or advances, or loans The edItors of the newly founded Revue zndependtmte 'endeavored to pay thel! contrIbutors,' as one of them explamed a lIttle mealIly later on, but on conditIon that they contnbute thel! first article for nothmg Laforgue had to beg advance payment for ills second 'Chroruque pansienne' (a genre of artIcle m wruch he parodIed ills own manner), proIDlsmg to make It espeCIally good Henn de Regruer recorded that one evenmg he was at the home of an amateur of letters when 'lIttle Laforgue' appeared, wantIng to know what the fee would be for translatIng some artIcles mto Enghsh Puffing on hIS pIpe, the frIend of lIterature replIed that he, fortunately, was not oblIged to earn h1S lIvmg and that such small sums dId not Interest rum Laforgue lIstened, head bent, ObVIOusly very weary, and from tIme to tIme he coughed 18 Severe though such dLflicultIes were, they could have been weathered Bourget and EphrussI, angry at first because Jules had gIven up rus Job WIthout warrung them, began to help WIth sums of money Teodor de Wyzewa arranged for the sale of artIcles to a noneXlstent PolIsh penodical What could not be met or apparently even gauged was the SWlft and ternble onslaught of

17 6

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

dlsease, here, very close to the end, hes the true pathos, the real waste and shame of Laforgue's story Durmg all the years m Germany he had shown few slgns of tuberculosls But now the 'stubborn cold' caught m January on the Enghsh Channel on the way back from London refused to Yleld Bourget arranged for treatments by hls own doctor, one of the best known of the tlme, yet the illness seems to have been Ignorantly dlagnosed and treated prmclpally wlth 0plUm pIlls Jules contlnued to go about rus busmess as best he could All through the sprmg and tornd early summer he walked to the doctor's, to the pubhshers' where he was trymg to place artIcles, stones, and especIally hIS book about Germany, to the art dealers' where he sold one by one rus well-loved albums and cunos An artIst and connOIsseur to the last, he hngered before the art dealers' wmdows along the boulevards Nearly every afternoon he met fellow wnters at the Cafe Juhen Some of them notIced that rus old cheerfulness was gone, hIS pace slower He was hke someone who had been obhged to walt a long tIme However, he would soIl speak, If asked, about L'lle, the novel he had begun m Germany Most of these men had known hlm dunng hIS carefree vacatlons of earher years Few of them knew how poor he was now, and none how III Jules had always been a good keeper of secrets, dunng hIS schooldays m Tarbes and Pans, and at the German court, where he had been sent because of hIs natIve reserve No one had ever been able to guess rus deeper feelIngs, or about rus poetry, unless he chose to tell Now he faIthfully kept rus last secret In July he wrote to Mane that he would not be able to spend the wmter In ParIS, that he and Leah would soon be leavmg, probably for Algena, where Bourget was trymg to find him work as a translator The second of August he asked If she remembered theIr father's coughmg fits and suffocatlons-'well, mme are hke that now, they keep on half the mght 'On 20 August, four days after Jules' twenty-seventh blrthday, Leah Laforgue awoke to find her husband dead He had dIed qUIetly, perhaps from sheer drugged exhauStlon Bourget arranged for the funeral, 'a plaln funeral,' as Kahn recorded, 'WIthout any kmd of hangmg at the door, a hurrIed

THE BROKEN CITADEL

177 funeral, the processIOn leaVIng wIthout an mstant's delay for any possIble latecomer' Leah Laforgue rode m a carnage wIth some dIstant relatIves Bourget, FelIx Feneon, Jean Moreas, Paul Adam, and Kahn walked behmd, across the rue des Plantes, 'through the sordId quarters, the quarters of grmdmg poverty, neghgence and mdIfference '14 It was a long walk, beyond the lImIts of ParIs Bagneux Cemetery was new at that tlme The grave gaped ugly and lonely m the ground, under a brackIsh, low-hangmg yellow fog As the brIef ceremony ended Leah burst mto hysterIcal laughter, was shut m the carnage and taken away A few days less than a year before, Jules Laforgue had asked her to become hIS WIfe We all but lose sIght of Leah Laforgue after that In December she was hvmg 10 the Hotel de Londres et de MIlan, whence, on the seventh, she wrote to Teodor de Wyzewa askIng hIm to call the next day, for she had a favor to ask regardIng her husband's papers She handed Wyzewa that bulgmg valIse full of Jules' manuscrIpts whIch, sadly dImInIshed after a long odyssey, was to find Its way back mto Wyzewa's hands some twenty years later 'Le petIt personnage' dIed at Menton the year after her husband's death, of the same dIsease Thus ended Jules Laforgue's modest dream of hVIng by hIS own work 10 the CIty that had drawn hIm back after five years of partIal exile

Eh men, aycmt pleure l'Hzstmre, j'az voulu vwre zm brzn heureux,

C'hazt trop demander, faut crozre, j'avazs l'azr de parler bebreu

XI

'FurtIve Foster Father'

-Lctforgue, furttf noumcter, Vozs-moz, 1e deperzs, dazgne enfin me sevrer Delzvre-mOt de la tutelle De tes 'f1.gueu:rs spmtuelles, Souffre que 1e SotS Supervzelle f Ensezgne-moz l'zngratztude, N ecessazre beatztude, Lom de ta chere Ombre zmportune Ah f fats-mOt une Petzte place dans la Lune' 1 -Laforgue, furt!.ve foster father, Look down, I beg of you, dehver Your wasong pupil from the spell Of your ngors spmtual And let me be SuperVlelle' Instruct me m mgraotude, Reqwsite beaotude, Far from your dear Importune Spmt grant me as a boon Just a httle place m the moon' IN France only Jules SuperVIelle has pubhcly confessed the lmporturuty of Laforgue's shade and besought dehverance from It But one suspects that several others must have done so sllently, or pnvately, or at the very least ought to have done so

'FURTIVE FOSTER FATHER'

179

In the wlute wmter of that plam-speakmg old age wluch finally rendered hIm one of the most fascmatmg of the Symbohsts, Gustave Kahn used to complam that the f!lend of lus youth had been 'pillaged' The word 15 probably too strong Nevertheless the presence of Laforgue has been one of the most VItal smce 1887 Kahn was omy statmg negatIvely what could have been expressed pOSItIvely It was natural that a poet whose most Important verse rod not appear m volume form untIl three years after lus death, whose unpublIshed manuscnpts passed through many hands to be portIOned out to edItors and publIshers for more than SIxty years, should exert an mfluence somehow subterranean, germmal The fragmentary thoughts pnnted m the magaZlnes, glVlng lIterary form to some of the most fecund of modern Ideas, set mmds ill motIOn, mVIted contlnuatIon The ImpreSSIons and sketches mtended as notes for stones sometImes served that purpose after all MeanwhIle, If Laforgue was changed lUto rumself by eterruty, as Mallarme saId that the poet IS transformed, he became sometrung a lIttle dIfferent from rums elf m tlme one of the founders, the IrutIators, to whom the new wnters look back, seemg what they must see and talang what they need Lafargue's exaltatIon of the ephemeral was a prel1mmary to Andre GIde's enthUSIasm for the momentary m Les N ourntures terrestres HIS passages about the UnconscIOUS had more than a lIttle to do WIth Theodule RIbot's and Remy de Gourmont's mqUlnes mto the role of the subconscIOUS 10 artIstlC creatIon In the surrealIst mmd the dIStInctIon between the Laforgulan UnconsclOus and the FreudIan unCOnsCIous was pretty well lost, Laforgue was, 10 any case, one of the explorers of mtenor Afncas HIS wntlngs became pretexts, turned up facets that the poet hunself mIght not have suspected, and that, as always, was a guarantee of authentlclty From whatever angle one VIewed hIS work It was obVIOUS that Laforgue was one of the authentIc moderns, one of the breakers of molds, those whom NIetzsche called 'the great destroyers' HIS pnncipal lever of destructlon-and of the affirmatIon attendant thereon-was hIS Irony The Morlllttes Ugendazres had already appeared m magazmes WIth some of hIS last energy Lafargue made them ready for

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

publIcatIon m volume form InevItably the SymbolIsts praIsed them hIghly, even hyperbolIcally Mallarme called them the 'contes de VoltaIre du SymbolIsme,' apparently mmdful of Voltrure's vlItUes and espeCIally of hIS Irony Teodor de Wyzewa's approval of the Complmntes had been quahfied, hIS praIse of the later verse restraIned, but he dId not hesItate to proclaIm the author of the Morahtes a gemus 2 And It was chIefly the Moralztes that prompted SIlU1lar Judgments from many contemporarIes AlaIn-Fourruer, one of Laforgue's finnest admIrers, took the trouble to count the mentIOns of hIS name m Jules Huret's gOSSIpy Enquete sur I' evolutzon lztterazre, a serIes of mterviews wIth hterary figures of the day He reported that Laforgue's name appeared no less than thIrteen tImes, and that when asked who m theIr 0plDlon were the world's great men the Symbohsts were hkely to reply, 'Shakespeare-Pascal-Laforgue '3 The hann done by such rash compansons was conSIderable, and yet Laforgue had dIscovered somethmg new, or new for the time, m the Moralttes, the best of whIch took a lIght and sprmgy step beyond realIsm A small host of WrIters armed wIth Irony sprang up, perhaps from the blood of the dragon Perseus slew on the coast of EthlOpia Marcel Schwab advanced beyond realIsm, though wIth no speCIal lIghtness Undoubtedly he profited from Laforgue's example, as from that of GautIer, Robert LOUIS Stevenson, Mark TWaIn, and a number of others mcludmg the arch-realIst Defoe, for It was Schwob, WIth hIs characterIstic lUCIdIty of mmd, who gave the preSCrIptIOn for the fantastIC tale-to deSCrIbe WIth utmost metIculousness the most ImpossIble events Schwab's creative powers were not equal to hIs analytIcal ones, and It was only by palpable effort, by a laymg-on of thIck colors, by unremlttmg appeal to fundamental passlOns, that he lent VItalIty to the Vtes zmagtnazres Yet Schwob was genumely concerned WIth the natlIre of tragedy (WItness the thought-provokmg essay, 'Terror and PIty'), and he was capable of a grotesque mtenslty remImscent of that EnglIsh dramatist to whom he devoted one of hIS lIDagmary lIves, Cynl Toumeur 'He sought to free hImself from hIs youthful sentImentahsm,' Remy de Gourmont wrote of Laforgue 'As a tool he used Irony,

'FURTIVE FOSTER FATHER'

lSI

but the sentlmentahsm resIsted and he was never able to conquer It ' 4 Gourmont had nothmg to fear on the score of sentlmentahty He had, as an artlst, nothmg to 'conquer' but Ius sensualIty, It reSIsted so stubbornly, so pertlnaclOusly that Ius tales have httle but aphrodlSiac value nowadays PathetIc as were the crrcumstances that brought on tlus mtense smgle-mmdedness-Gourmont, lIke Schwob, was a gnevously affucted man-we cannot but wonder why so lmpatlent a cntlc should have allowed lumself to be so repetltlve Se repher, quel mal de t§te, as Laforgue observed At the same tlme, Gourmont defirutely made use of the same mstrument Laforgue used, ll"ony, and m fantastlc tales, such as the Hzstozres magzques, and It seems to have occurred to Gourmont Iumself that he and Laforgue had somewhat slffillar techruques of ratlOcmatlon HIS deep-rooted ll"ony was refreshed by many hvmg sprmgs, among wIuch may well have been the Complazntes and the Moralztes Paul-Jean Toulet, who translated Arthur Machen and belonged to the group of poets who styled themselves Fantaisistes, told the story of Jason and Medea 10 the vem of the Moralztes, callIng It 'La Pnncesse de Colchlde' ('Then I passed over to ColchlS, where the Golden Fleece would land ' the Monster had Said 10 'Persee ') Laforgwan themes and lffiages crop up 10 the quatrains 10serted 10 that tale The stanza IS of a form that Toulet deVIsed and called a contrenme lInes of eIght, SlX, eight, and SlX syllables rhym10g abba subtly confound the effects of the abba and abab quatrams Here are some samples, LaforgUlan 10 substance and Imagery, from the volume Contrertmes DimS Ie szIenczeux automne D'un 10ur mol et soyeux, Je t'ecoute en fermant Ies yeux, Vozszne monotone Ces gammes de tes dozgts hardzs, C' hazt de1a des gammes Quand n'hazent pas encor des dames Mes cousznes, 1adzs

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

Toulet turned these WItty quatrams to a remarkable vanety of purposes, the most charactenstlc bemg satIre of an obJeCtIVIty that Laforgue mIght eventually have attamed DIfferent facets of Laforgue's work shone agam fitfully ill that of other wnters Theo Varlet entItled an mterplanetary novel L'Agonze de la terre, and the speaker of hIS poems IS often an IroOlcally self-deprecatmg hero of the klnd Laforgue made familIar Tnstan Dereme shared WIth Laforgue an lrOOlC tone, systematIc use of assonance, and dIffered from hIm 10 that Dereme came to deploy these through longer, more dIscurSIve poems Another FantalSIste, he prIzed 'les choses mmuscules,' -we almost translate trus by the famous 'small, dry thmgs' of T E Hulme, whIch had so much to do WIth the obJectIves of the ImagIsts-the poetry of the quotIdIan At about the same nme that Dereme was dlscussmg Laforgue sensItIvely ill Vers et Prose, a penodIcal that was mstrumental 10 moldmg the cntIcal mmd of Jacques RlVlere, he pubhshed Les Irontes senttmentales The promIses of that early work were reahzed 10 L'Enlevement au clazr de lune and Le Zodzaque au les etozles sur Parts, verse as pleasant as It IS unpretentIous FmaIly, we must mentIon among the lesser lrOOlStS the art CrItIC who called hlmSelf Tnstan Khngsor and demonstrated knowledge of the cadences of the Dernters Vers ill the poems of Sheherazade, set to mUSIC by DarIUS Mllhaud In Leon-Paul Fargue we are confronted WIth a poet of a stature qUIte dlfferent from that of the poets Just mentIoned Th1s dISCIple of MaIlarme-acadeIOlcally as well as artIstIcally, smce he sat ill the class of that reluctant schoolmaster-followed the wellcharted course of a symboltste moyen sensuel untIl he emerged rather suddenly 10 the 'twentIes as one of the maJor poets of rus tlme An early lync tale, Tancrede, was beclouded by a vaporous Symbohst vocabulary He combmed an mgenuousness suggestIve of FrancIS Jammes WIth a VerlaJOlan mUSIC ill the slender collectIon that comprIsed the total of hiS poems untIl he was more than forty years old Dunng thls tIme hIS most Laforgulan productlons were probably the Ludtons, SWIft IrOnIC npostes Here, however, from Poemes, 15 a reconcIhatlon of the spmts of geometry and finesse remtruscent of Laforgue's 'la somme des angles d'un tnangle, chere arne'

'FURTIVE FOSTER FATHER'

En vam la mer fazt Ie voyage Du fond de l' horzzon pour bazser tes pzeds sages Tu les retzres T ouJO'lCI'S temps

a

Une meduse blonde et bleue Quz veut s'mstruzre en s'attrzstant Traverse les hages bondes de la mer, N ette et clazre comme un ascenseur, Et decozffe sa lampe fieur d'eau Pour te vozr fetndre sur Ie sable Avec ton ombrelle, en pleurant, Les trOts cas d'egalzte des trzangles

a

In vam the ocean Journeys up From the honzon's nm to kISS your cautIous feet WhIch you Withdraw Always m tlme A blond and blue medusa Desmng Wisdom WIth expenence Traverses the thronged storeys of the sea Clear and hght lIke an elevator, And unshades Its lamp at water level To see you slffiulate upon the sand WIth your parasol, m tears, The three mstances of equalIty of tnangles The lffiportant poetry that Fargue finally found It m hIm to wnte IS as memorable for Its Dostoevskyan breadth and depth of perception as for Its realIzation of long-standmg Symbohst aims The cult of the Word IS there, Fargue IS the only lffiportant modem comer of vocables m a language that resISts such mnovatIon much more stoutly than joyce's Enghsh IncIdentally, he appropnates more than hIS share of the techrucal and special vocabulanes m whIch modern poets reJoIce-the language of trammen, for example, m hIs finest poem, 'La Gare' WIth Mallarme and the SymbolISts generally, he refuses to diStinguIsh between poetry m

18 4

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

verse and poetry m prose, and h1s most pecuharly personal expresslOn was In prose poems, stray cadences of wh1ch recall the Moralttes Ugendazres But Laforgue was ch1efly for Fargue what he has been for several other poets m full posseSSIOn of the1r powers, a sort of W1tty momtor challengmg the authentiCIty of thls or that lync fhght The twentieth-century French poet havmg most In common w1th Laforgue 1S undoubtedly h1s fellow Beama1s Jules Supervielle L1ke Laforgue, Supervlelle IS an mveterate storyteller, findmg 1t natural to spm a yarn whether In verse or In prose Some of hls best poems reVIve the narratIve form too generally neglected by modern poets And hIS fanCIful prose tales, such as 'L'Arche de Noe,' have added nearly as much to hIS reputanon as has hls verse The storIes wntten after the begmnmg of the Second World War, verslOns of classIc myths collected In Le PeUt Bms and Orpbee, are not h1s best No doubt for that reason the models, the Moralztes among them, are the more apparent In Its own way Supervlelle's verse Illustrates somethmg proved several times over by that of North Amencans the catalyzmg power of Laforgue PoetIc worlds separate the early Poemes de fhwmour trzste from the Important Gravztatzons, the poet whose qualIty lS so much to be felt 10 the first title had hIS part m SuperVlelle's d1scovery of rumself The autonomous verse hnes of the Dernters Vers were at the back of Supervlelle's mmd when he wrote, still comparatively early, the lovely 'San Bernardmo'

Que J'enferme en ma memozre, Ma memozre et mon amour, Le parfum tbmnm des courbes Colomes, Cet enfant nu-fieurz dans La manttlle notre De sa mere passant sous La conque du 1our, Ces plantes al'enVt, et ces feutlles quz pltent, Ces verts m07llVants, ces rouges frats, Ces ozseaux znesperes, Et ces boules d' barmomes, j' en aurat besom un Jour j'auratS besom de vous, souventrs que 1e veux Modeles dans l'bonneur hsse des czels beureux,

'FURTIVE FOSTER FATHER'

ISS

V ous me V1Stterez secourables audaces, Azur vwace d'un espace

May I m memory enfold, In memory and love enfold, The fenunme fragrance of the swellIng Colorues, ThIs chIld nude-bloommg m the black mantilla Of hIS mother passmg beneath the shell of day, These emulous plants, these bendmg leaves, These movmg greens, these cool reds, These bIrds beyond all dreams And these surgmg harmomes, I wIll have need of them one day I wIll have need of you, memOrIes Shaped m fiowmg praIse of happy skies, You wlll come back to me, good bravenes, U ndymg azure, azure of a place Gravttatzons contams much vers ltbre But the dIStInCtiVe VIrtUe of Laforgue's verse has been to engender somethmg qUIte dIfferent from Itself 'tighter, more concentrated form,' 5 as Supervielle has testIfied, the alexandrme and the octosyllable The compactly wrought eIght-syllable lInes of Oubheuse Mhnmre are m partIcularly sharp contrast to all the varIeties of free verse, Just as the broodmg gentleness of SupervIelle's later poetry leaves adolescent Iromes and despaIrS far behmd The passage quoted at the begmnmg of thIS chapter IS probably an overhandsome acknowledgement of mdebtedness One of the most honest of poets, anxIOUS to escape a dOIDmlOn he was the readIest to admIt, SupervIelle was never possessed by Laforgue to the same degree as T S ElIot was Nor, for that matter, were any other French poets For somethmg comparable to ElIot's fellow feelIng WIth Laforgue, we must turn to a prose wnter who, mCIdentally, acted as ElIot's French tutor durmg hIs stay m France after leaVIng Harvard-Alam-Follrnler, author of Le Grand Meaulnes There IS no more attractIve story of a young man's devotion to a faVOrIte wnter than that of Alam-Fourmer for Laforgue as revealed by Ius letters Jacques RIVIere, Fourmer's

186

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

correspondent, did not share his fnend's enthUSIasm The letters exchanged by one of the most authentic creators and one of the most acute cntlcs of the century weIgh Laforgue's merits better than any of the hterary hlstones or formal cntlclsms have done Born m the Sologne, that profoundly rural reglOn east of Tours and south of Pans, the son of a country schoolmaster, Fourmer had spent two years m naval school (to no one's satIsfactiOn) before becommg a student at the Lycee Lakanal m the southern outsklrts of Pans When m the summer of 1905 he went to England to learn the language, he wrote long letters to RIVIere, lus schoolfellow at Lakanal, letters full of talk about hterature and especially about Laforgue HIS opmlOns are fervent but not lffimature The half-peasant cluldhood of which he was to tell m Le Grand Meau1nes, expenence more vaned than that of most schoolboys, the creator's Jealous concern for everythmg touchmg hiS craft-all combmed to toughen hlS hterary mmd, to arm hiS Judgment He had, to begm WIth, httle use for RImbaud (compare WIth Ellot's slmuar opmlOn) Rlffibaud IS an "mcomplete gemus a fou for unrestricted adm1!atlon for Laforgue,' 6 who IS remarkable for h1S completeness, for the abundance of resources on wruch he draws, for rus 'strange diverSity of means of evocatlon ' HlS enthUSiasm begms With Laforgue's letters, especially the one of September 1881 m whIch the poet tells lus SIster of hiS slufts for keepmg body and soul together (RIViere rephed that a sat1!lC wnter does not have the rIght to pity hlffiself) Fourmer falters WIth Le Sanglot de 1a terre 'Why should the fellow wear hImself out WIth a lot of nonsense about the revolutions of the earth, the hie of the planets, the rottenness of hfe, the vueness of bodIes, etc, etc why dIdn't Ideahsm cure hIm of all that" EnthUSiasm 15 reVIved more vigorously than ever With the Complcnntes and Des Fleurs de bonne volonte, espeCIally the 'Complalnte d'une convalescence en mal' and the 'Dlffianche' that bew gms, 'Le fleuve a son repos domlmcal ' But then on almost every page of Laforgue's poems, Fou1'1ller finds verses, phrases expressw mg somethmg pOlgnandy, perfectly, evoking a 'VIsion' These verses, these fragments gave the effect for which Fourruer was lookmg m rus own work somethmg to make him forget the

'FURTIVE FOSTER FATHER'

words And he copIed out for ills fnend some of the bIts that gave hIm tills mtense ImpreSSIOn of thmgs seen

o cloztres blancs perdus Solezls soufres croulam dans les bozs dipouzlles S'entrer un cruczjix mazgre et nu dans Ie coeur PUtS les squelettes de glycznes trUX ficelJes

o lendemazns de noce' 15 brtdes de dentelle' Soeur fazsazt du crochet, Mere montazt la lJrmpe

o lost whIte

clOIsters

Sulphur suns crumbhng m the leafless woods To plunge a naked crucIfix m the heart Then the wlstena skeletons on stnngs

o weddmg morrows' Bndle rems of lace' SIster was crochetIng, Mother brought up the lamp WIth a humdrum word Laforgue was able 'to gIve a profound and even gentle ImpressIon'

Premzers SOtrs, sans pardessus, chaste fianerze Fust evenmgs, coatless, mnocent excursIOn The element of the commonplace IS exaggerated because Laforgue 'hves m dread of poetry whIch IS merely beautiful, whlle nght at hand IS lIfe Itself, mcludmg probably a large share of uglmess ' But when Laforgue goes further and defirutely assumes the Iroruc tone, FournIer confesses he can no longer follow, 'because he saw the paInful everywhere and tned to exasperate hIs pam by pretendmg to make fun of It, because by dmt of hIs efforts to see the pamful and the stUpId, he saw falsely'

188

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

Tlus attempt to see around a hterary hero was occaslOned by RIviere's accusatIon that he had 'created his own Laforgue out of whole cloth' From begmmng to end of these epistolary conversatIons covermg a full year, RIVIere'S pOSItIOn underwent no real change, and his pOSItIOn remams that of the average culnvated French reader nght down to the present day He confesses himself offended 'm hIS need (a very French need) for hterary decorum' He knows that It IS a 'slIghtly bourgeOls need,' but there 15 nothmg he can do about It Laforgue rubs hIm the wrong way 'I am shocked by the mcoherence, calculated though It be I find It all somewhat facIle and bewIldermg The Ideas make such enormous, giddy leaps 'He concedes certaIn happy touches In the 'Convalescence en mal' He realIzes what Laforgue was trymg to get at, the blurred and haggard dreams of a SIck man gettmg well The trouble seems to be that for RIVIere thiS poet IS a perpetual convalescent or even a chrome InvalId HIS complamts reek With self-pIty RIVIere has no patience WIth a personalIty that F ourmer defends on the grounds of extreme senSItIveness Such dIvergent VIews could be reconclled only by the calmest of dehberatIon, and thiS RIVIere undertook WIth all the claIrvoyance of hiS cnncal mmd Leavmg to hIS fnend 'the supenor mtuitIOnS of enthUSIasm,' aspUIng to no more hlong for the poet than nnght be acqUlred by methodical Industry, he set about examlll1ng Laforgue He found In him 'an admirable Splrlt, one that refused to be crushed by the pressure of enVlrOnIng medlOcnty, an extraordmary capacity for expresslOn, mcomparable verbal skill, an uncommon knack for subJectIng the whole of hIStory, hterature, and fantasy to rus own personal vlsIon' And he found three corollary obJectIons 'a spmt not qUite admirable enough to adjust Itself to the mewocrtty of eXistence and transfigure It, an excess of verbal sklll, ghbness almost, IntOXicatIon With words-he has so many words at hiS dlSposal that he IS forever expressmg the same thought m different dress, the very fact that he reduces the whole of lustory, lIterature, and fantasy to hiS own personal VISion That tdee fixe of hIS IS really exasperatIng Mter all, the nnsunderstandmg between the sexes IS all rIght, but there are so many other thmgs ,

'FURTIVE FOSTER FATHER'

The hostile hIStorIans-of whom Rene Lalou IS the cruef-have added lIttle but vIolence of tone to tills estImate, and the foreIgn reader of French verse must dIssent wIth proper cIrcumspection There IS no doubt that Laforgue IS pnmanly the poet of the quarrel between the sexes as seen by a twenty-year-old, too steadIly and hence not whole Laforgue's verse IS, to use one of rus own words, a tnfle 'monocorde ' Poets are not celebrated, however, for theIr neglect of the most powerful of metaphors, the sexual one If the poet happens to be a Romantic, even though a late-bloommg and Iromcal one, the mIsunderstandmg between the sexes may stand for other mIsapprehensIOns, the one between the poet and socIety, for example The attentive reader must seek to dIscover the meanmgs of that personal VISIOn of the world to whIch Laforgue, lIke any true wrIter, reduced illstory and experIence RiVIere faIled to allow for all the values of Laforgue's tdee fixe He had no mtlmatIon of the depth and breadth of Laforgue's mtellectual world It IS true that Laforgue was not, spIrItually speaking, qUite admrrable enough The boredom of wruch he complamed (untIl the last year of hIS hfe) was, unfortunately, more than a worldly posture, It betrayed a certam lack of spIrItual energy, a refusal of hfe and experIence, defiCIency m that gram of herOIsm that would have enabled hIm to accept and transform the commonplace Two of RiVIere'S remarks bear on Laforgue the man, and upon the ostensIble content of rus verse As for the smgle Judgment passed on the VItal question of Laforgue's artiStiC form, one cannot deny that the abundance verges on ghbness Yet the CrItiC must resist the temptation to condemn the WrIter who does rus work easily, to revenge the dIfficulty of hIS own lucubrations Havmg conceded that an author's verbal skill IS extraordmary, mcomparable, It would seem that an mdlspensable next step IS to examIne the curIOusly nch language that has somehow got down on paper, the language that IS so obVIously the poetic heart of the matter RlVlere gets only a httle beyond Laforgue's person and rus own personal prejudIces Fourruer's enthUSIasm, hIS creative Impulse m search of a master, IS more fruItful, nor does It merely manufacture a pnvate Laforgue The nascent novelIst perceives the 'VISIOn,' the lack of 'wrItten' qualIty, the poetry of the qUOtIdIan,

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

the assmulatIOn of the ugly, the grotesque He remarks correctly that where Lafargue saw only the ugly, the grotesque, he falsIfied rus VISIOn HaVIng rus specIal reasons for bemg mterested m the narratIve techruque of the Moralztes, he observes that there IS no 'petIte rustorre,' that the pomts of VIew are multIple 'WIth Lafargue there IS no character at all, that IS, he says to the devll WIth characters He IS at once author, character, and reader' RlVIere acknowledged WIth some reluctance the techrucal 'francruse' of these pIeces In thIS dIalogue between the finely pOIsed cntIcal mmd of RIVIere and the creatIve mlOd of F ourruer, destmed to grope Its way for several years yet, It IS the latter who sees the more clearly, the more deeply-and who was lOsufficIently aware that he dId so Apparently overawed by the C!ltIC'S authentIc-sound109 remarks, Fourmer was wntIng before the year was out about 'the glorlfied medlOcnty, the warned medlOcnty prone to burst out 10 a few lrremedIable words, the self-exaltmg medlOcnty' of the man whom he had so lately been defendlOg and JustIfYlOg We find rum abuslOg Lafargue as 'Homals devant la sCIence' Trus m the same letter In wruch he speaks of 'the pure and paSSIOnate soul' of Lafargue No one havlOg such a soul was, 10 Fourruer's scheme of thlOgs, medIocre RIVIere'S taste, whIch seems to have prevaIled, IS correct but lImIted, as he htmself obscurely felt It to be BewIldered by the qualItIes that faded to fit lOto a closed natIOnal tradItIOn, by the ellipses, by the dIsregard of canons and decorum, RIVIere mIssed the Laforgue that proved most stimulatmg to the creatIve mmd m general and the Anglo-Saxon mmd m partIcular He saluted hIS fnend's 'supenor lOtultIons' a lIttle rromcally As It happens, such mtultIons, the enthUSIasm that prompted them, the current that passed between creatIve mlOds not once but many tImes, far outweIghs m lmportance. such cautIous claSSICIst Judgments as RlVlere's In spIte of announced change of mmd, Fourruer contInued to look for that whtch was new, whICh was capable of renewmg, for what he had already found 'For the moment,' he had SaId, 'I would lIke to start from Laforgue, but wnte a novel ThlS sounds contradIctory But It would not be contradIctory If one

rus

I

'FURTIVE FOSTER FATHER'

191

made up, out of the hves and stones of one's characters, only dreams that cross (des reves quz se rencomrent) I use tlus word "dream" because It IS nght at hand, even though a tnfie l!ntatmg and threadbare What I understand by "dream" IS tlus a VlSlon of the past, of past hopes, a past day, that returns to meet a VlSlOn dlsappearmg, the memory of a meetmg of an afternoon, the remembered whiteness of a parasol and the freshness of another thought' The work that lay at the end of trus route taken from Laforgue was Le Grand Meaulnes, one of the romor masterpleces of twenneth-century lIterature because It fuses the VlSlonary Wlth the wakmg world, because It takes In ltS own way the step beyond reahsm So many Important works have begun with a departure from Laforgue that we may well ask ourselves whether rus pecuharly ammatmg poetry was not even more lffiportant for Its consequences than for Its mtnnslc ments In any case It becomes clear that Fourruer was nght and that the adverse cntlcs have consistently missed the pomt

XII

Irony and Legend

WHAT has Laforgue meant to the AmerIcan lIterary m1Od~ What, more specIfically, dId he mean to our most active poets over a perIOd of some twenty years, from about 1908 until the late 'twentIes~ Mallarme IS a much greater poet than Laforgue Corblere seems, on a first or second readIng, to be a more vIgorous one, and after several readIngs and mIscellaneous mqUlrIeS It seems clear that Laforgue had from Corblere some of what seemed newest 10 the Complatntes Rlmbaud was a more Intense creator, wIth some glImmer of the RomantIC VISIOn Yet the poetry of Mallarme was met WIth comments haVIng many of the marks of vague 1OcomprehensIOn Corblere has remamed a CUrIOSIty Rlmbaud, read WIth enthUSIasm, has provoked enthUSIasm, but not for Rlmbaud Rather than any of these less eqUlvocal creators It was the evaSive, understating, lroruc Laforgue, a prophet InSuffiCIently honored 10 hIS own country even today, who exerted the unmIStakable mfluence 10 ours The best explanation 15 stIll the succ10ct one gIven by Ezra Pound Laforgue was an angel WIth whom the AmerIcan poetic Jacob had to wrestle The eVIdence shows that those who wrestled were those who found the strength to affirm themselves, SQllletlmes 10 a LaforgUlan, sometimes 10 a qUIte dIfferent way 'I myself owe Mr Symons a great debt,' ElIot was to say 'But 1 should not, 10 the year 1908, for havmg read hts book have heard of Laforgue or Rlmbaud ' 1 The Symboltst Movement tn Lzterature (1899) represented a change of heart SIX years earher Arthur Symons had pubhshed an artIcle not calculated to

IRONY

AND LEGEND

193

mtroduce anyone to any very sigruficant aspect of French lIterature In a carpmg essay entItled 'The Decadent Movement m LIterature,' he had touched on none of the more wholesome connotatIOns of the term 'decadent,' had lumped Decadence, SymbolIsm and ImpresslOrusm all together as badges of 'lIttle separate clIques, nOIsy, bra1O-sick young people who haunt the brasseries of the Boulevard Sa1Ot-MIchel, and exhaust theIr mgenmtIes theorIz1Og over the works they cannot wrIte' 2 He had made tentatIve gestures 10 the dlIeCtIOn of Huysmans, the Goncourts (on whom he IS the least unsatIsfY1Og), Verla1Oe, MaeterlInck and Mallarme But he was qmte unable to make up hIs mmd about 'Vers lzbre, 'thIS apparently structureless rhythm 10 the hands of most of the experImenters It becomes mere rhymeless m the hands of Gustave Kahn and Edouard IIregular prose DUJardm It has, It must be admItted, attamed a certam beauty of Its own' 8 From such nay-saY1Og and exqmsite error to Symons' valuable 1Otroductory volume 15 no small dIstance Well chosen quotatIons m the chapter on Laforgue must have become Imbedded 10 ElIot's memory, they became, at any rate, the models of lInes m 'PortraIt of a Lady' and The Waste Land There IS no mIStakmg the proveruence of Well' and what If she should dIe some afternoon,

m

Mats 'Vozez qu'un beau sozr, znfortunee Ii poznt, Elle meurt' -'Plerrots-(On a des pnncIpes)' or at least from these lInes

10

comb1OatIon WIth

Enjin, sz, par un sozr, eUe meurt dans mes lwres -'Autre Compla1Ote de Lord Plerrot' Another passage quoted by Symons, the solemn morutlOn endmg a sectIon of the Dermers Vers

o 'lJOUS qut 'I1iecoutez, rentrez c'acun chez 'Vous,

194

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

leads du-ectly to '0 you who tum the wheel and look to wmdward'ill The Waste Lcmd But there are other good thmgs m Symons' artIcle-remarks on what some would call Laforgue's death wIsh, lus macabre Imagery, and on hIS paradox, especIally paradox In the prose 'We learn from books of medIeval magIc that the embraces of the devIl are of a coldness so mtense that It may be called, by an allowable figure of speech, fiery EverythIng may be as strongly Its OpposIte as Itself, and that IS why thIS balanced, chIll, colloqUIal style of Laforgue has, m the paradox of ItS mtens1ty, the essenTIal heat of the most ObvIOusly emoTIonal prose' 4 Symons translates gracefully from Hamlet's monologue (he seems to have more feelmg for the prose than for the poetry) HIS pOSITIOn regardmg free verse remams mystlfymg We are told that Laforgue WrItes 'vers lzhre, but at the same TIme correct verse, before vers lzhre had been mvented 'II Toward the end he remarks that Laforgue, 'commg as he does after fumbaud, turnmg the dIVInation of the other mto achIeved results, IS the eternally grown up, mature to the pomt of self-negatIOn, as the other IS the eternal enfcmt temble' 6 The statement has been properly dIsputed Laforgue was never more than prematurely mature, except perhaps durmg the last two years of hIS lIfe, when the artIfiClal aus Symons wrongly takes to be adult begm to dISappear But thIS mIstaken pronouncement IS by way of dIgreSSIOn from Symons' mam argument that Laforgue, an artIst 'of the nerves' In the GoncoUrtlan sense of that term, found release In utterance fundamentally paradoXical And thIS chapter has more IllummatIng CrITICISm of Laforgue than any that ElIot, mlublted by lus polemIcal classIcISm and lus mstInct to yoke Laforgue WIth the EnglIsh MetaphyslCals, has been able to produce In the same year as Symons' essay on Decadence there had ~ppeared 10 Scrr.bner's a remarkable study by Alme Gorren, an all but forgotten translator of Rlffibaud 'The French SymbolIStS/ T as her artIcle IS called, has extremely Interestmg thmgs to say about Laforgue's tal~, about SymbolIst aesthetIC doctrIne, even about Mallarme We find, for example, the valuable dIStincTIon, made by too few CrItics early or late, that 'the anachrorusm of the Morahtes JegendtlZres never degenerates mto parody'

IRONY AND LEGEND

195

Laforgue's anachrorusm IS sometlung altogether more far-reach109 The pre-emmence of Pound and Ehot among AmerIcans who have learned from Laforgue should not make us overlook lesser, 10dependently formed poets who profited from the French Iron15t Walter Conrad Arensberg, a contnbutor to Alfred Kreymborg's Others, translated 'Autre Complamte de Lord Plerrot' and 'Jeux' adrOItly, and some of lus own poems, hke 'The Inner Slgmficance of the Statues Outside the Boston Pubhc LIbrary,' hve up to thel! Laforgman pronuse Maxwell Bodenhelm ht upon Laforgulan themes 10 poems such as 'Sunday In a Certam CIty Suburb' But the best of the mt.nores 15 certamly Donald Evans PartIcularly 10 hls second book, blZarrely entttled Sonnets from the Patagonttm (1914), when he was no longer unduly m1luenced by lus French models and had not yet begun to repeat lumself, Evans gave proof of unnustakable VlSlonary mteOSlty He lmltates neIther Laforgue nor any other poet We are remmded, If of anyone at all, of Runbaud or Hart Crane In h1S poetry as 10 the conduct of h1S hfe Evans sought 'systemattc derangement of the senses' That may have been partly the reason for such verse asthlS And she was sad smce she could not be glad, And every star fled amorous from the sky, Her pampered knees fell under her keen eye And It came to her she would not go mad The gauchenes were tummg the last screw, But there was stIll the Island 10 the sea, The harndan chorus of etenllty, That let her smIle because he saw she knew What we have 15 a bodY1Og-forth of emOtIonal depths that mIght never have been accompllShed Without exposure to French (or Patag011lan) examples Malcolm Cowley was one of those who, seOSlttve to Pound and Ehot, Amy Lowell and the Inta.gJStS, began to write 10 the years ImmedIately followmg the FlrSt World War 'After the war we dnfted to New York,' he has recorded, 'to the dlStnct south of Fourteenth Street, where we could occupy a hall bed-

196

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

room for two or three dollars weekly Our college textbooks and the complete works of Jules Lafargue gathered dust on the '8 Dusty but symbohc, the works of Lafargue mantelpIece helped provoke 'a sort of crooked sentIment, a self-protectIve smIrk' characterIStiC, as Cowley says, of the postwar WrIters And though Cowley ceased to beheve In hIS own verse he was capable, when he dusted off the volumes on hIS mantelpIece, of turnIng out two of the best Enghsh renderIngs of Lafargue We do not soon forget rus adaptation of 'Dlmanches' In whIch hfe IS compared to a potato peehng, Laforgue dId not thInk of that SImIle, but he undoubtedly would have If he had ever occupIed a hall bedroom south of Fourteenth Street And the follOWIng vanatIon on the theme of the 'Complamte des planas' IS deft NOCTURNE

Mother has washed the dIshes, lImped upstaIrs, Mother has dISappeared Into the lIght, porches are filled where WIcker rockmg chaIrs creak through the emptmess of mght creak scrape, as If they would repeat the chorus of the daughters of the street Htrmburg steak for dznner, runs zn our hose, nobody speaks of them, everybody knows meettng me at 1JWtltght he htmded me a rose wtll he come?

'WIll he come WIth gallant eyebrows, chestnut haIr, wIll he come and rock beSIde me m the chair, WIll he press my fingers neatly, say dIscreetly, lIfe IS real, lIfe IS true, wIll he tell Its every secret, but dIScreetly, havmg reahzed how sacredly I feeP' 9 The subJect IS the same as that of Laforgue's Complatnte, the crIbbed, cabIned, and confined hfe of the gIrlS, and so IS the treatment, the VOlces of the gIrls and a medItatIve young man

IRONY AND LEGEND

197

alternatmg Here even are eqruvalents for the dashIng Rolands of Laforgue's poem and an echo of hIs memorable lIne, 'La vIe est vrue et crunmelle ' Hart Crane was the prmclpal poet among those who kept Laforgue's works on the mantelpIece, Allen Tate, who wrote a Laforgulan 'Elegy for EugeneslS,' 10 was another But we are pnmanly concerned WIth two older poets responsIble for the conspIcuous posItIon of Laforgue 'Have found a new good poet named ElIot,' Pound wrote to hlS father 2 October 1914 And the next day, to H L Mencken 'I enclose a poem by the last mtelligent man I've found-a young Amencan, T S ElIot (you can wnte hIm dIrect, Merton College, Oxford) I thInk rum worth watchIng-mmd not "pnnutIve " HIS "lady" IS very rucely drawn' 11 'POrtraIt of a Lady' was the second-composed of the four poems ElIot hunself has ranged 'sous Ie slgne de Laforgue ' 'Conversation galante' had been the first, 'Prufrock' and 'La Flgha che Plange' were the thIrd and fourth 12 These pIeces were preceded by three less fa.rru1.1ar and equally Laforgwan ventures wntten whlle ElIot was at Harvard, publIShed In the Harvard Advocate Here IS one of them SPLEEN

Sunday thIS satlSfied processIon Of defirute Sunday faces, Bonnets, sllk hats, and COnsCIOUS graces In repetItion that dIsplaces Your mental self-pOSSessIon By thIS unwarranted dIgressIOn Everung, lIghts, and tea I ChIldren and cats In the alley, DejectIon unable to rally Agamst tlus dull consPIracy And hfe, a lIttle bald and gray, Langwd, fastIdiOus, and bland, WaIts, hat and gloves 111 hand,

198

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

Punctilious to tJ.e and SUIt (Somewhat lIDpatJ.ent of delay) On the doorstep of the Absolute 18 The theme lS, at the outset, peculIarly Laforgwan But what begms as the lync expanslOn of a mood becomes, before the end, a poem about a persorufied abstractJ.on capable of passmg such splenetlc Sundays, 'unable to rally/AgaInst thIs dull conSPIraCY' 'Lue' has some of the dIstlnCtlve traIts of J Alfred Prufrock A second poem, 'Nocturne,' has In It the germ of 'Conversatlon Galante' The thIrd of these expenmental poems IS avowedly Laforgulan, It lS also the most complex, the most mterestIng of the three HUMOURESQUE

(after J

Laforgue)

One of my manonettes IS dead, Though not yet tIred of the game,But weak In body as In head, (A JumpIng-Jack has such a frame) But thIS deceased manonette I rather hked a common face, (The kInd of face that we forget) Pmched In a comIC, dull gnmace,

Half bullymg, half 1ll1.plormg aIr, .....1.. ......... ........1 +-_ hL 1 •. 1\~

HIS Who-the-deVll-are-you stare, Translated, maybe, to the moon

WIth LImbo's other useless thmgs HarangUIng spectres, set rum there, 'The snappIest faslu.on sInce last sprIng's, 'The newest style on Earth, I swear 'Why don't you people get some c1ass;l (Feebly contemptuous of nose), 'Your damned thm moonhght, worse than gas'Now In New York'-and so It goes

IRONY AND LEGEND

199

LOgIC a manonette's, all wrong Of premIses, yet In some star A hero ,-Where would he belong:J But, even at that, what mask bzzarre'l4 ThIs poem seems to have grown out of a sIngle stanza of 'Encore un LIvre' (quoted by Symons In hIs Symbolzst Movement) Encore un de mes pzerrots mort, Mort d'un chronzque orpheltnzsme, C'ettUt un coeur pletn de dandysme Lu:nazre, en un drole de corps

All the pierrOtIC traits noted m Laforgue's quatraIn are preserved The 'chromc orphelmlsm' leads to the 'half bullyIng, half ImplorIng arr ' The 'heart full of dandYISm' passes over roto 'the snappIest fashIOns SInce last sprmg's '-a 'dandysme lunarre,' translated, maybe, to the moon MeanwhIle a Plerrot 15 happIly metamorphosed rota a manonette-translated successfully to Anglo-Saxondam And Ehot's try at colloqU1al speech IS more successful here than ro some other places, the second part of The Waste Land, for example Altogether an extremely InterestIng poem, though too much Laforgue's to be qU1te ElIot's At twenty-two Ehot was proceedmg WIth charactenstIc dehberatIOn, and he was to 'work out the lIDphcatIons of Lafargue,' l5 as he has Said, for several years, WIth the most SIgmficant consequences What would have happened or faIled to happen pour tel coche manque, If he had not subjected hImself to the dtsclphne of fresh artIstIC forms;' Conrad AIken was wrItIng fluently, WIth undemable melodic gIft, ro the Advocate dunng the same years, and at least one of hIS college poems 15 a httle better than anythIng ElIot did whIle at Harvard Ehot has called the relatlon between Laforgue and hImself 'a sort of possessIon by a stronger personahty' 16 He took from the French poet lmages, rhythInlc patterns, the deSIgns of whole poems, findIng In Lafargue a plastIc ImagInatlon and an InStInct for dramatIc SltuatlOn akIn to hIS own In so far as we are ever mdebted to more than one poet at a tIme, Laforgue had a part

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m the 'sawdust restaurants wIth oyster-shells,' the yellow smoke that 'lIcked Its tongue mto the comers of the everung,' the 'head [grown slIghtly bald] brought m upon a platter' and other Images mextlrpably 1mbedded In our conSClOusness The debt to specIfic lInes IS marufest 'Rhapsody on a Wmdy NIght' IS not one of the poems recogruzed by Ehot as partIcularly LaforgUlan There, howevel, Midrught shakes the memory As a madman shakes a dead geranIUm The remmiscence comes Of sunless dry geraruums The geraruum Image, and probably the mearung attached to It, comes from Des Fleurs de bonne volonte

Dans un album, Mourazt fosstle Un gerantum Cuetllz aux !les Un fin Jongleur En wed zvozre Rmllazt la fieur Et ses hzstozres -'Un requzem l ' Demandmt-elle -'Vous n'aurez rten, 'Mademozselle I'

In an album A-dymg lay A geraruum Plcked far away A fine old smger In IVOry

IRONY AND LEGEND

20t

Scoffed at the flower And at her story 'A threnody" The flower 1mplored 'No, young lady, 'Never a word" Add to this the title of the next poem but one m this collection, 'Mamaque,' and we have the elements of another Eliotic syncretism 'Mamaque de bonheur,' 17 wntes Laforgue m Dermers Vers, and elsewhere, 'Pauvre mamaque de bonheur' Between those two mentIOns of the geramum m Eliot's poem comes 'Regard the moon, La lune ne garde aucune rancune,' a reV1SIOn of Laforgue's -La, voyons, mfl11'izelle la Lune, N e gardons pas aznsz rancune -'Complamte de cette bonne lune'

And tms 1S followed by Just the land of aC1duious descnption of the planet to be found m L'Imttatton de Notre-Dame la Lune Was Ehot msprred by Laforgue to use underwater lffiagery;l D1d he find the foetus lffiage m the Complazntes? Mr Apolhnax laughs hke· an rrrespons1ble foetus HlS laughter was submarme and profound Qwte as mteresting as the borrowmgs, m any case, are the comCldences It 15 unhkely that Ehot ever delved mto La Vogue, and he could not otherw1se have known of the followmg hues, part of the prose poem prompted by V1S1ts to the Berhn Aquanum et mot, serms-1e donc sz deplace, sur Ie dos, parrm ces lzmules? 18

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and I, would I have been so out of place, upon my back, among those kmg crabs~ ThIS bIt was cut out when the 'Aquanum' was revIsed and fitted mto 'Salome' But the !mes that sum up Prufrock's heSItatiOnS, I should have been a paIr of ragged claws Scutthng across the floors of sIlent seas,

have a good deal more 10 common WIth Lafargue's hnes than, as has been suggested, 19 WIth Shakespeare's 'Yourself, SIr, should grow old as I am, If hke a crab you could go backward' 20 Prufrock and the speaker of Laforgue's prose poem express the same deSIre to be rudden from the hght of upper day The four poems Ehot placed 'under the SIgn of Laforgue' even retrace 10 mlwature the curve of development seen 10 Laforgue's versIfication 'ConversatlOn Galante' IS a compactly wrought colloquy 10 IambIC pentameters vaned by hnes of three and four feet at the stanza ends, the poems of whIch 'Autre Complamte de Lord Plerrot' IS the model are dIalogues 10 alexandrmes WIth bnef lmes endmg the strophes 'PortraIt of a Lady,' 'Prufrock' and 'La FlglIa che Plange' are all 10 free verse of the land toward wruch Laforgue's poetry evolved rrregular lInes representmg emotive Ideas compose a stanza-sentence, WIth rrregular rhyme and assonance lendmg firmness to flUld structure Two poets anxlOus to capture the 'ephemeral,' to 'borrow every changIng shape/To find expressIon,' felt the need for stretched and broken rhythms, for verses contracted or dIstended Through most of hIS first book ElIot explOIts the mstrument developed by Laforgue m hIS last The free verse forms discursIve solIloqUIes of a thoroughly modern sort, Images slffiulatIng the flow of Ideas wlthm the consclOUSness The vers ltbre of Ehot and Laforgue realIzes many of the posslblhtIes of aSSOClatIonal form, stream-of-consclOusness techroque Formal resemblances between Laforgue and the early ElIot are far more Important than thematIc sumlarltles The moon would not have figured as conspIcuously m 'Conversation Galante' and 'Rhapsody on a Wmdy NIght,' however, Without Our Lady

IRONY AND LEGEND

20 3 the Moon Nor would womanland have been dlsIDlssed qUlte as roundly as 'eternal enemy of the Absolute,' wlthout a number of peSSlmlStIC poems whose female personage IS clearly an ancestor of the lady lU Ehot's 'Portralt' Ellot's CritICIsm has been as fernle lU new aSSOCIatIOns, 'new objects caught lU new lUtmtIons' as Santayana mtght have Said, as has hIS poetry It oblIges us to compare Laforgue's free verse and the blank verse of the later EIlZabethan and Jacobean play!1ghts, they are, ElIot tells us, 'free verse lU much the same way' 21 Not qmte the same the hnes of Dernzers Vers are more selfsufficlent, more cohesIve, not constructed out of two or three 'emotIve Ideas' as Webster's frequently are Nevertheless, there IS a rough klnd of parallel between the evolutIon of the alexandnne durlUg the lllUeteenth century and that of the blank verse hne dUring the Ehzabethan penod, between two kmds of verse made lUcreaslUgly free by growmg awareness of the techmques of perceptIon Is there as much resemblance between Laforgue's psychologtcal notatlon and the conceIt, the fanCIfully elaborated Image of the Enghsh Metaphysicals';l Ehot tells us that the two are 'CUrIously simllar' 22 and quotes the first ten hnes of the Dermers Vers, Sectlon X, as eVIdence that Lafargue 15 close to 'the school of Donne' G M Turnell, on the contrary, argues that the resemblance IS slIght 28 Offhand there would seem to be httle lU common between the assoClatlomst, enthUSlastlC poet that was Laforgue and the lIDposer of ratlonal deSIgn that was Donne To aSSOCIate the authors of the Dernters Vers and the Songs tmd Sonnets this closely IS to leave out of account the modem revolutlon of sensIbllIty begun by Dlderot However, If the new combmatlons, the new 'objects' of Ehot's critICIsm carry less convictlOn than rus poetry, If hIS cntlClsm here tllummes Ehot more than hIS subject matter, It has the great ment of makmg us thmk about the two kmds of verse lU quesnon and shows what dIverse faces Lafargue'S work has turned up to a great modem poet NothlUg IS more Important, lU concluslOn, than to recall where Ehot began 'The form m which I began to wnte, m 1908 or '09,' he saId m an lntroductIon to the Selected Poems of Ezra Pound, 'was dIrectly drawn from the study of Lafargue together WIth

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the later Ehzabethan drama, and I do not know anyone who started from exactly that pomt' 24 Another IDlportant poet had come upon Laforgue somewhat later 10 Ius career 'I was a man 10 a hurry,' Pound remarked 10 1948 'When I got to London 10 1908 I was an extremely unsopluStlcated mdlVldual ElIot was bom wIth all that, Laforgue and so on I had to acqwre It' Pound thereby demonstrates once more a capacIty for self-exammatIon that has enabled hIDl to move restlessly from stage to stage of artIstic development He g'lVes eVIdence of a certam absence of varuty But to have done mstead of not domg thIs IS not VanIty that must always have gone along With hIS superb role as the prmcipal ammator of Anglo-Amencan poetry 10 the twentieth century And he pays proper heed to a poet, ElIot, whose hIStory IS Inseparable from hIS own The framework of Pound's relatIonslup WIth Laforgue 1S fmly fannhar Pound began to read the Com:platntes and L'Irmtatzon de Notre-Dtrme la Lune about 1914, probably hav10g been 10troduced to them by F S FlInt,21 and certamly bemg remmded of them by Ehot's early poems In the precedmg half a dozen years spent In London, 10 Italy, 10 the Uruted States. he had publIshed Ius first verse, 10 wruch the manner of the early WIlham Butler Yeats IS eVIdent A Lume Spento, the Personae of 1909. and Exulttmons are full of 'stIll forest pools' and the very 'Crepuscular Splrlt 10 Modem Poetry' whIch Pound deplores 10 one of these very poems The followmg passage, By the still pool of Mar-nan-otha Have I found me a brIde That was a dog-wood tree some syne She hath called me from mme old ways, She hath hushed my rancour of councI~ BIddIng me pratse Naught but the Wind that flutters 10 the leaves,

IRONY AND LEGEND

IS hardly Pound as we thInk of hIm DespIte a poem In praISe of Robert BrownIng, thIs passage IS a farr sample of Personae as a whole These hnes are not representative of Pound as he WIshed to be thought of, even as early as 1912, when RJpostes appeared FIrst and last, Pound valued the final letter on 'Imagiste' and 'Imagisme' mentioned In thIS volume, It served to fix a great gulf between the movement as he conceIved It and the avatar animated by Amy Lowell In rus pronouncements concerrung the nature of the Image, Pound dId not hffilt valId poetic Imagery to the VISUal But T E Hulme, on whose aesthetIc speculations Pound and hIS fnends leaned more or less heavIly, vIrtually makes thIs hmItaoon, and so does the 1915 manifesto of the Imagtst group, a document based In great part on Pound's oral CntICIsms and the pnncipies dedUCIble from hIs famous blue-pencIhngs of hIS fellow craftsmen's efforts In practIce the ImagISts were poets of objects clearly seen HavIng learned the poeoc value of small, dry trungs, they orrunanly aVOIded the graceful pIcturesque On the other hand, they were rarely able to suggest realIoes beneath appearances Structurally speakIng, the ImagISt poem tends to be the elaboratIOn of a SIngle VIsual Image, or else It places end to end a senes of such Images, In a compound but not a complex relatIonsrup The ambItiOUS poets among the ImagIstsPound In so far as he was an ImagIst-sensed hmItaoons of method, straItness of VIeWpOInt, WIthIn theIr program, and began to cast about for techniques that would perIDlt them to respond to complex reahoes In a complex way It was at about tills pomt of creaove dIssatisfacoon that Pound began to read Laforgue He saw In the work of the French poet, pnmartly, an mtellectual element whIch he called 'logopoela' and defined as 'the dance of the Intellect among words' Usmg the term first In 1918, he came to reserve It almost exclUSIvely for Laforgue 'Unless I am rIght In dlscovenng It In PropertIus,' he remarks In How to Read, 'we must almost say that Laforgue mvented Jogopoeta, observIng that there had been a hmtted range of logopoeia In all saore, and that Heme occasIOnally uses somethmg lIke It At any rate Laforgue found or refound logopoela'

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Thus Pound 10stituted a crItical term of some value, 10 additlon to makmg a bolder and more accurate estImate of Laforgue's dynamtc slgmficance than anyone had made up to that time, In France or elsewhere Laforgue, said Pound, was a finer artIst than eIther Corblere or Rimbaud not as VIgorous a draftsman as the former or as firm a colorIst as the latter, he was the most dtscnmlllatlllg of the thlee and accord1Ogly had the most to teach It has been generally agreed that Pound, most actIve of poetpedagogues, contnved to 10struct others concern1Og Lafargue, to transffilt lessons of craftsmanshIp 10herent 10 the French poet's verse and partlcularly apphcable to the Amencan poenc m10d Beglllmng to wnte about Laforgue m 1917, In the London Egmst and In Harriet Monroe's Poetry, he loaded 1918 numbers of the Lzttle Rewew With translation from Laforgue's verse, WIth a prose pastiche based on one of the tales, With seven poems reprlllted m French along wlth crItical comment As a result of thIs determmed presentation Hart Crane, Allen Tate, and an undetermmed number of young Amencan WrIters made thel! first acquamtance With Lafargue A more contested pomt has been how much dIrect 10fiuence Laforgue exerted on Pound's own poetic practice Rene Taupm 10 Ius Influence du symboltsme fr4nf4tS sur 14 poeste trmertcatne found httle or none The contrary could, I belIeve, be shown, and one could begm by contrastmg an earlIer quatram WIth two later ones The first 15 taken from Pound's Imagist volume Rtpostes, the poem With the good Imagtst tItle 'ApparuIt,' and IS characterIStic of that volume Half the carven shoulder, the throat aflash WIth strands of lIght Inwoven about It, lovelIest of all thIngs, fraIl alabaster, ah me' SWift 10 departmg The second and tlurd are chosen almost at random from Hugh Selwyn MtJtUberJey

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207

'Szena mz fe', dzsfecemt Maremma' Among the pIckled foetuses and bottled bones, Engaged In perfectIng the catalogue, I found the last SCIOn of the Senato!1al famlhes of Strasbourg, MonsIeur Verog, and from the first poem of the group, wIth Its tttle borrowed from Ronsard, 'Ode pour l'electton de son sepulcre,' Unaffected by the 'march of events,' He passed from man's memory m l'an trentzesme De son eage, the case presents No adjunct to the Muses' dIadem These and other quatrams of Mauberley lead back to the French poet whom Pound had been studY10g 10 the years smce the pubhcatIOn of RJpostes They represent a kInd of mtellectual dISCUSSIOn that can be pertmently descnbed as 'iogopoela ' One of Laforgue's favo!1te Images, that of the foetus, turns up The chche, 'march of events,' IS pressed mto IroOlc serVICe, accordIng to characte!1stlc Laforgman procedure The verse depends on the hterary reference as Laforgue's does, WIth 'l'an trentJ.esme de son eage' woven In Here too are the long 'mtematlOnal' words out of Latln, the sort of polysyllables to whIch Laforgue resorted on shght pretext At the end of the thIrd quatram, 'No adjunct to the Muses' dIadem' furmshes a familiar Iroruc sparkle of grandeur Taken s1Ogly, no one of these traIts would JUstIfy the term 'Laforgman' Occurrmg all together, sustained by the IroOlcally learned tone whIch was Laforgue'S contrlbutlOn to runeteenthcentury verse, they send us back to the Plerrot poems Noone, I thInk, would be more hkely than Pound to maIntam that the structure of the hterary work of art begms WIth and comes round agam to the qualIty of the dISengaged word It IS not Irrelevant to recall that Maubedey's 'true Penelope was Flaubert'-Mauberley's, Pound's and several other North and South Amencan poets' who would recogruze no dIfference 10 kInd between the 'mUSIcal phrases' of thel! own verse and the

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fragments from 'Un Coeur sImple' whIch Pound fits mto Canto VII One could profitably dwell on the dIstance separatmg the falsely archruc, unduly sImphfied dICtiOn of the early Personae from the properly complex, Iroruc wordmg of Mauberley, bearmg WItness to acttvIty on the mtellectuallevel, ehcltlng more than one land of response from the reader But wordmg does not make the poem, even though Pound would say that the men of rus group were pnmarlly concerned WIth that rather than WIth 'Imagery' Symbohsts m several places have reIterated the lesson of the eIghth chapter of ArIStotle's Poetzcs, the structural order of the mCIdents also counts, espeCIally m the poem of epIC or dramatic pretensIOns Stefan George, whose poems are mostly brIef, wrote that the worth of a body of poetry IS not to be determmed on the baSIS of Isolated beautIes, however unmIstakable, m hnes, strophes or longer passages 'dte zusl1'I1m1enstellung, the relation of separate parts to one another, the mevitable development one out of another-these are the rustmgUlsrung marks of rugh poetry' 26 Paul Valery, some of whose poems are lengthy, remarked on the many beautiful hnes WrItten by bad poets We must thmk of how a poem IS or IS not held together Pound's reputatIon Wlll m the long run depend not on any alleged accord between rus poetic practice and farfetched poetic theones of hIs own, but on whether he has ever achIeved that mterrelatIon of dIverse parts m WhICh the best work of the Symbohsts resembles that of theIr best European predecessors The larger problems of compOSItIOn arIse WIth parncular force when a poet has WrItten verse suffused wlth Celtic twIlIght, then ImagIStiC croquzs, equally brIef eplgrammatIc poems, and finally undertakes 'a poem of some length,' the Cantos In the long work he IS faced WIth the necesslty of nsmg from Image and remark to some land of general desIgn The unsuccessful Cantos WIll be those m whIch the poet falls to rISe from the particular to the general-those, I would say, m whIch he follows most fruthfully hIS so-called 'IdeographIc' or ChInese-picture-WrIting method of heapmg dISconnected parnculars together Granting that the cluttered Cantos are too numerous, It IS nonetheless uncntical to speak, as IS qUIte commonly done, of all the Cantos as equally

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209

scrappy, evenly graced wIth exqUlSlte but gratwtous passages There IS a good deal of dlfference In qualIty between Canto and Canto In some of them Pound acrueves COmpOSltIOnal order, general deSlgn OrdinarIly he does It by findIng the common denomInators In Greek and Proven~allegends In Canto IV, for example, he compels us to recall that the boy Itys was gIven to hls father Tereus to eat, by way of revenge for the rape of Prulomela, and that an outraged husband served the baked heart of the troubadour Cabestan to Soremonda The common theme of both legends IS that of the loved object offered to the lover to eat Very adrOItly Pound shows figures meltIng Into correspondlng figures and then WIth a bilingual pun TIS TIS 'YtlS' Actaeon Introduces the figure of the mortal hunted by hounds ThIS figure IS at once Actaeon and Perre VIdal, a slIghtly extravagant troubadour who out of pure devotIon to hls lady, whose name suggested 'she-wolf,' donned a truck wolfskm and InVlted PursuIt by dogs and mastIffs and greyhounds If AchaIa IS Provence, It IS not unreasonable to :find 'Troy In Auvergnat,' where the fifth and twenty-thIrd Cantos put It Pound recalls that still another troubadour, Perre de Maensac, stole away the wIfe of a CertaIn Bemart de TIerCl The latter, IdentIfied Wlth Menelaus, pursued the seducer northward, where he had taken refuge WIth the powerful Dauphin of Auvergne The parallel breaks down at one pOint the DauphIn protected the lovers successfully for the rest of therr days, and thIS second IlIon dId not fall When Pound wntes near the end of Canto XXIII that was when Troy was down, all nght, superho IlIon before packIng Aeneas off WIth Anch15es, he can only mean the ongmal Troy Several tunes In the early Cantos the poet hints at the IdentIficatIon of Eleanor of AqUltame WIth Helen of Troy The convergence 15 clearest In II and VII But It 15 nearly as defirute In VI,

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and the reIterated epIthets helenttUs, helandros, heleptolts-'shlp-, man- and clty-destroYIng'-apply to the composIte figure Canto VI begIns What you have done, Odysseus, We know what you have done And that GUIllaume sold out hIS ground rents Grullaume, duke of AqrutaIne, 'sold out rus ground rents' In order to take part In the Frrst Crusade to partIC1pate, that 15, In war financed by mortgage or sale of real estate, In war the breeder of Usura and much else of what Pound detests Another Crusader mentIoned In the same Canto, Lorus VII of France, Eleanor's first husband, dealt slIllllarly WIth hIS possessIOns ObVIOusly Pound IS lookIng to the MIddle Ages for ongInals of the modern mortgaged warrIOr Is he lookIng to antIqruty as well~ He was undoubtedly famIlIar WIth those accounts that would make of the TrOjan War merely another commerCIal IncursIon, an attack on the nch CItadel of the Hellespont by seafanng Greeks, some of them homeless Yet there IS no eScapIng the catalogue of the srups m the second book of the Ilzad many of the leaders and their men were assocIated With specIfic localItIes Odysseus, along With other heroes, 1S returnIng to a fixed abode Pound may have lffiagIned rum settlng forth from home under cIrcumstances not much dIfferent from those governmg Guillaume of Aqrutame, LoUlS VII, and all the feudal lords who sold or pledged their property, glVlng modern capltahsm one of Its mam lffipuIslOns If tills were the case, we should have a plaUSIble explanation for the placmg of a long translatIon from the Odyssey as the first Canto Canto I would relate to Usura, the mam theme of all the Cantos In many other places Pound thus brmgs one out of many HIS thoughts tum to the retnbutIve murderer (Canto V) and LorenZInO de' MedICI's assassInatIon Duke Alessandro remmds hIm of Clytemnestra's slaymg of Agamemnon LoreUZlno appears agaIn In the seventh and twenty-fifth Cantos, and there IS a certaIn appropnateness m Pound's preoccupatIon WIth thls character For Lorenzmo 'pondered Brutus,' as Pound tells us, or rather, he pondered two Brutuses, the earlIer one who brought about the

IRONY AND LEGEND

2II

eXIle of the proud Tarqums and the later one who put an end to Caesar Lorenzmo Imagmed that he was both Brutuses and one heroIc tyrannICIde, acruevmg m rus nund, If not 10 the medIOcre verse he composed, somethmg lIke that bold fUSIon of figures 10 a telescoped tune whIch charactenzes Pound at hIS best There was more 10 common between Pound and Laforgue 10 early stages of development than has been apprecIated Both had plastIC Imag1OatIons of great VIVIdness, were deft at rendenng vl5ual partlculars LIft certam passages out of Laforgue's early poems and those of hIs mlddle penod and they would do qUlte well as ImagIst poems In the course of theIr development, both poets were more and more moved to comment 10 rather bare, conceptual terms, to asslIDllate refractory matenals Into verse that tore loose from tradItIonal prosodIC moonngs, a 'Vers hbre founded on the autonomy of the rhythmIC umt The degree of freedom attamed by the Dermers Vers 10 the 'eIghtIes was no less remarkable than that of the Cantos 10 our tune If there IS lIttle SImllarIty of tone between the early Cantos and the Dermers Vers, tone, for craftsmen lIke Pound and Laforgue, IS a secondary conSIderatIon In any case more tonal resemblance can be detected between the Dermers Vers and the Pzsan Cantos, where the 'Vae solz, the cry of lonelIness runnIng through Laforgue's last poems, 15 echoed 10 the lInes presentmg the gonlla cage, the deal table, and other emblems of Pound's CaptIVIty a man on whom the sun has gone down and the wmd came as hamadryas under the sun-beat Vae soh are never alone amId the slaves learrung slavery LXXIV Fmally, Pound and Laforgue derlve umty from dIverSIty by SInular means For we have seen Laforgue arnvmg at fUSIOn of " legendary figures m Just such a 'contInuous present' as Pound's Lohengnn and EndymIOn dIssolved 10 a smgle moonstruck lIDage of mascuhne beauty, a femmme figure who 15 at once Eve, Ia Gloconda, and Dehlah, a monster who IS most of the dragons of

2I2

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

anoqUlty besIdes bemg the Beast hberated by an Andromeda metamorphosed mto Beauty Two bodIes of ImagInative work, Pound's and Laforgue's, show a development from more or less haphazard allusIveness toward IncreasIng correlatIon of allUSIOns In two bodIes of verse, for the most part loosely woven, faIthful to the InCOnclUSiveness of the InterIor conversatIon, the same kInd of knot IS occaSIOnally oed very tIghtly Both of these modern poets find In the metamorphosIs of mytrucal figures the bases of dramatIc UnIty Beyond them lIes the tauter UnIty Imposed by the syntheSIZIng personage, by Tiresias In The Waste Land, of whom ElIot could say 'TIresIas, although a mere spectator and not Indeed a "character," IS yet the most Important personage In the poem, unItIng all the rest Just as the one-eyed merchant, seller of currants, melts Into the Phoemcian SaIlor, and the latter IS not wholly dIStInct from FerdInand Pnnce of Naples, so all the women are one woman and the two sexes meet In Tiresias' NeIther Pound In the Cantos nor Laforgue In any of hIS works presents a central figure of whom It could be saId, as Ellot says of TrresIas, that what he sees IS, 10 fact, the poem Pound lacked the sure InstInct that led ElIot to deVIse such a personage, and Laforgue dId not have tlme to develop an InSMct he certamly possessed (WItness rus mulople POInts of VIew In the Morahtes Iegendazres as noted by AlaInFourmer) Yet the Cantos and the Moralztes fUrnIsh precedents for the one-eyed merchant, the PhOenICIan SaIlor, the PrInce of Naples, and Eleanor of AqUltame, TlercI's WIfe, Soremonda, and a multItude of other female figules do tend-lIke Eve, la GlOconda, and Dehlah-to compose one Helen

XIII

Crane and Laforgue

IN Apnl 1910 Hart Crane wrote a poem called 'EpISode of Hands' A warmhearted autoblOgrapluca1 narrative renuruscent of Walt Wlutman and Sherwood Anderson, It tells of the bandagmg of a factory worker's damaged hand by the factory owner's son that was Hart Crane The senttment and the pIctonal detall come out equally clearly, but 'EpISode of Hands' IS the land of free and easy verse that unnumbered young Amencans were to be wntlng m the 'twentles and 'tlurtles LIke most of what Crane wrote before 1910, It IS dIStInctly romor m quahty Just a year after 'Eplsode of Hands,' m Apnl 1911, Crane wrote another poem, 'The Bndge of Estador, an Impromptu Aesthettc TIrade' Taken as a whole, It IS as tIl-assured as Its subtltle But 'The Bndge of Estador' contams such mttmattons, Awatttng far consummations of the tides to throw clean on the shore some wreck of dreams But some are twISted WIth the love of thmgs llTeconcllable,The everlaStIng eyes of Plerrot, Or, of Gargantua, the laughter, wluch we recogruze respecttvely 'At MelvtIle's Tomb,' 'For the Marnage of Faustus and Helen,' and 'PraISe for an Um,' that

In

213

214

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

tlus early poem about a bndge has undemable sIgmficance It IS charactenzed by a rude but healthy Irony, HIgh on the bndge of Estador Where no one has ever been before, I do not know what you'll see,-your VISIon May slumber yet In the moon, a marufest deSIre to Include rather than exclude the elements of expenence, to Increase rather than duru.ru.sh the lync total There IS a fine new preclSlon of observatIOn a lake, perhaps WIth the sun Lapped under It Much, to quote another compact phrase from thIS poem, has here been 'tied bundle-wiSe' Poeta nascztur And wIthout any WiSh to Violate the mystery of what has occurred, It IS Important to note that between 'EpIsode of Hands' and 'The Bndge of Estador,' In the fall of 1920, Crane had ordered and receIved from Pans the works of Rlmbaud, Vlldrac, and Laforgue Crane's readIng was presumably not lImIted to books he purchased HIS poem of 1918, 'Modern Craft,' With ItS opemng hne, 'Though I have touched her flesh of moons,' and Its preoccupation further on WIth a GalbcIzed Opheha, would tend to show that he had come by a copy of Laforgue earher A good deal of the LaforgUlan quahty must have reached Crane by way of Prufrock and Other Observatwns In 1917 The tIme at whIch he took venfiable contact WIth French verse IS of Interest, however, the more so because It seems to have COinCIded WIth a fallow penod of great Importance to hIs development From October 192.0 tIll the end of the followmg January he wrote httle or no verse 'It was,' Brom Weber, hIS most recent bIographer, has wntten, 'as If he were resting qUIetly, summIng hImself up, endeavonng to ascertaIn Just who and what he was' 1 And In February of 1921 he produced the first poem In hIS mature manner, 'Black Tambourme ' No doubt It would be dIfficult to find two poets presentlng greater temperamental, enVlronmental, Intellectual dtfferences Laforgue lIke rus own Hamlet, Crane beanng some resemblance

CRANE

AND

LAFORGUE

21 5

to what the 'IndIgent et posltlf Pnnce FortJ.mbras' IDlght have been If we had seen more of lum In the same tale Laforgue, ardent, but on another plane, nounshed at !us most Intense by the reglme of a BuddhIst ascetic and by the BIbhotheque NatIonale, Crane, far SImpler, Ignorant as the VlslOnary IS Ignorant, not sealed by 'la marque complexe de l'mtellectuel ' And there 1S another, equally fundamental dlss1ID1lanty The poetry of Crane Imposes a VlSlOn on the lmagmatIon, 1S 'phanopoetic,' to use the word Pound apphed to RImbaud's verse, wlule the poetry of Laforgue IS 'logopoetIc,' sometlung ltke 'a dance of the mtellect among words' Thus It happens that Crane's verbalISm, a tratt for wluch he may have found a sort of authonzatIOn 10 Laforgue, comes off much less well than Laforgue's In the Complmntes and the Dernzers Vers the apparently prohx passages, the seemmgly Idle exlubltIons of verbal VIrtUOSIty, are almost always for a good reason, and are usually balanced by some calculated leanness not far away In' AtlantIS' the swollen dICtiOn blurs the edges of a poetic VISIon DIfferences recogruzed, It becomes all the more slgruficant that Crane, 10 a word, Itked Laforgue, and that he lIDltated and translated !um dunng the deCISive years when rus own dlSslIDllar style was bemg formed 'Certatn educated fnends of rome,' he wrote to Allen Tate m 1922, 'have lamented my scant education, not 10 the acadeIDlc sense, but as regards my acceptance of and enthUSIasm about some Modem French work WithOUt havmg placed It 10 relation to most of the older "claSSICS," wluch I haven't read I have offered apologIes, but continue to accept fate, wruch seems to hIIDt me contmually m some dIrection Nevertheless, my affection for Laforgue IS none the less genmne for bemg led to rum through Pound and T S Ehot than It would have been through BaudelaIre There are always people to class one's adIlliratIons and enthUSIasms illegltlmate, and though I scll have to have the dtctIonary close by when I take up a French book, a certatn sympathy WIth Laforgue's attitude made me an eaSIer translator of the three poems m the D D than perhaps an accomplIshed hngutst IDlght have been However, no one ought to be partIcularly happy about a successful translation I dtd them for fun •2

216

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

'D D' stands for the Double Dealer, one of the most lmagInatlve of the lIttle magazInes of the tIme, publIshed In New Orleans between I92I and 1926 The poems are three 'LocutIons des Plerrots' (the first three In the senes), translated durIng I92I and publIshed In May I922 In them Crane confronts typIcal LaforgUlan attItudes and themes Plerrot half deprecatIng, half exaltIng hImself, Plerrot sufferIng defeat In and detachment from romantIc love Crane's translatIOns were long neglected Left out of the Collected POe111S, they were publIshed at last by Brom Weber In an appendIX to hIS study of Crane LOCUTIONS DES PIERROTS

I

Your eyes, those pools WIth soft rushes, o prodIgal and wholly dIlatory lady, Come now, when WIll they restore me The onent moon of my dapper affectIons For lffimInent IS that moment when, Because of your perverse austentIes, My cnsp soul will be flooded by a languor Bland as the WIde gaze of a Newfoundland Ah, madame' truly It's not nght When one Isn't the real GlOconda, To adaptate her methods and deportment For snanng the poor world In a blue funk

n Ah' the dlVlne Infatuatlon That I nurse for CydalIse Now that she has fled the capture Of my lunar senSIbility' True, I rubble at despondenCIes Among the flowers of her domaIn To the sole end of dlScovenng What IS her uruque propensIty'

CRANE AND LAFORGUE

21 7

- Wluch IS to be mme, you say~ Alas, you know how much I oppose A suff denIal to postures That seem too much Impromptu III

Ah' wIthout the moon, what wlute nIghts, What nIghtmares nch WIth mgenUIty' Don't I see your whIte swans there~ Doesn't someone corne to turn the knob~ And It's your fault that I'm thIs way, That my conSCIence sees double, And my heart fishes In troubled waters For Eve, GlOconda and Dahla Oh, by the mfinIte crrcumflex Of the archbeam of my cross-legged labors Come now-appease me Just a httle WIth the why-and-wherefore of Your Sex' Crane's dIcuonary was sometImes at fault The second quatraIn should have been somethIng lIke, 'It will soon be an hour now that my cnsp soul languorously slakes, WIth the bland gaze of a Newfoundland, Its thrrst for your perverse austentles' In the last hue of that poem 'poor chaps' ffilght be read for 'poor world,' SInce Laforgue wrote 'pauv' monde' III, 4> could be changed to 'DIdn't someone Just now turn the latch;!' for 'VIent-on pas de toumer la clenche~' Such flaws would not be suffiCIent to destroy the effect of an otherwIse successful rendermg And It 1S perfectly true, as Crane sald In a note, that 'a StrIctly hteral translation of Laforgue 15 meanIngless The natIve ll"nphcatIons of rus IdlosyncratIc style have to be recast In Enghsh garments' But when we set the EngllSh beside the French we see that the poems have not qUIte been recast Several rereadmgs do not dlScover a firm rhythffilcal armature In such hues as 'When one Isn't the real GlOconda ' More successful translatlons than these demonstrate that the eVasIve

uS

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

rhythms of French verse have to be rendered by more decIded stress rhythms In Enghsh Moreover, wlule Laforgue's tendency was to break: the basIc verse hne of hIS language mto a multItude of curIously shaped fragments, Crane's natural techrucal progresSlon was away from free verse toward a steady and assured meter In the drafts of 'Chaphnesque,' of 'Garden Abstract,' agam and agam m the worksheets of rus poems, the development IS away from free verse and m the dIrecnon of blank verse, Mariovian by preference Confronted by the relaxed rhythms of Laforgue's hnes, Crane lS techrucally 111 at ease Fonnally, as mtellectually and morally, he struggles counter to Laforgue The most successful hne m the translanons, a hne worthy and charactensnc of Crane at rus best, lS certamly What rughtmares nch wlth mgenulty' And If we set thIs hne, Wlth ltS nch tones and overtones, lts nealabsence of lXony, beslde the ongmal

Quels ctrUcbemars plesns de talent' we have already taken a long step toward comparmg Crane and Laforgue These dIfferences and dlfficulnes consIdered, Crane dld reasonably well at conveymg plerrotlc moods and outbursts He was to do still better he was to remforce a tradltIon of Romantic clownlShness WIth the figure of an authentiC popular art!st Under the double Impact of Laforgue and Chaphn's The Kzd, In the fall of 1921, he wrote 'Chaphnesque,' captunng what D H Lawrence once called 'the :Bash of pure beauty' m the gentle-hearted :nus:fit In hIs own way and on Ius own terms Crane approached the most advanced stage of Laforgue's lXony, the attltude of pathetic buffoonery for whIch Laforgue found a precedent m Shakespeare's clowns Laforgue would certamly have approved 'Chaphnesque' The devoted amateur of the Remz Qrcus m Berhn, the young poet who once wrote U,? a fnend that he had gone to the ClXCUS five rughts m a row and who further declared that he had rrussed Ius manIfest destiny as a clown, would have underhned the 'we' m the openmg hne of each of the :first three stanzas,

CRANE AND LAFORGUE

21 9

We make our meek adjustments For we can still love the world We will sIdestep, and to the final smrrk The 'we' bobs up agam m strophes four and five, We can evade you, and all else but the heart but we have seen The moon

10

lonely alleys

Tlus 'we' pleasantly and conclUSIvely equates poet and comedIan and sets hIm off agamst the machme-tooled general obtuseness represented by the 'you' Here 15, of course, the romanoc rebelhon agamst enVlIonment wInch 15 at the bottom of both Crane and Laforgue m spIte of all thel! dIfferences The earher Plerrot who had not seen Charlot would have hked everytlung about thIs poem-the 'random consolaoons' WIth wInch 'we' take up and comfort the famIshed lotten 10 'warm tom elbow coverts', the fine Identlficaoon of the 'you' WIth the gendarmery, whIch, as 10 The Ktd, 'slowly chafes Its puckered mdex toward us' ('Index' be1Og, we Imagme, both the 10dex finger, as 10 The Ktd, and an rndex of forbIdden thmgs) He would have appreCIated 'our' VICtones, smce 'we' somehow do get away after all, tyranruzed ultImately only by the heart Itself Laforgue would have been enthuslasnc about the fine generahzaoon of 'our' smtrks mto a 'gnul of laughter' 10 the last strophe, where the gratl15 redeemed, so to speak, made up-to-date and Amencan by Its IdenoficatIon WIth an empty ash can The game enforces smIrks, but we have seen The moon 10 lonely alleys make A graIl of laughter of an empty ash can And through all sounds of gaIety and quest Have heard a lotten 10 the WIlderness If 'Chaplmesque' 15 Crane's best poem 10 what may honestly be called a Laforgwan vern, 'For the Marnage of Faustus and

220

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

Helen' was lus :first lengthy and very ambltIous poem, and one whose style Allen Tate found to be 'heavIly Influenced' by Laforgue 8 There mayor may not be LaforgUlan Irony In the chOice and land of epigraph The expansive and solemn bIt of rhetOrIC from Ben Jonson's Alchemzst wluch Crane puts at the head of ius poem 18 the land of passage WIth which Laforgue llked to prepare an IrOnIC catastrophe The passage, In Itself serlOus-seemmg enough, And so we may arrIve by Talmud skill And profane Greek to raISe the buIldmg up Of Helen's house agalnst the Ismaellte occurs at a cunous pomt m Jonson's play, spoken by a parodIed Helen to a satl1'1Zed Faust Crane may have had an IrOnIcal mtentlon, personally, I doubt that he did 'Hypogeum,' meanmg cellar and aIr-rod cellar m the explOSive tlurd part, 18 taken eIther from Laforgue or from Noah Webster In the lovely passage begmrung 'The earth may gllde dIaphanous to death,' Crane may have been respondIng to Laforgue's use of the word 'dlaphane' at the most mtense POInt of all lus love poetry, the begmrung of the tenth poem m Dermers Vers And In the remarkably syncopated second part of 'Faustus and Helen,' among the 'snarllng halls of melody' on a penthouse dance floor, there IS the hypnotically pOlSed passage wluch mIght be a thoroughly naturahzed bit of Laforgman unexpectedness And you may fall downstaIrS With me With perfect grace and equarumtty Or, plalntIvely scud past shores Where, by strange harmOnIC laws All relatIves, serene and cool, Sit rocked m patent anncha!rs But even these llnes make us thInk, qwte as much as of Laforgue, of hypnosIS as one of the means mentIoned by P D Ouspensky (to whose Tertncm Orgrmzmz Crane was so devoted) for entry Into the noumenal world There can be no questlon that throughout tlus poem full of such splendId dynanuc !IDagery Crane IS lookmg hopefully for somethmg that Laforgue, once

CRANE AND LAFORGUE

22 I

lus penod of mortmcatlOn m Pans was over, resIgned qillte hopelessly a pomt of VIew that can only be descnbed as reltglOus Crane's heroIc deSIre to tIrrow a bndge from one world to the other IS already eVldent The mtention of lus poetry turnmg out to be radIcally different from Lafargue's, structure and style will be dIfferent too Resemblances will be mCldental, m the chOIce of a word, the placmg of a passage, thIs IS already the case m 'Faustus and Helen' And what concerns us most about 'Faustus and Helen' IS a four-ltne passage whIch dId not, as a whole, enter mto the poem, but contrIbuted elements thereto It IS the begmrung of a projected poem on adolescence wntten m 1921 and soon dIscarded as too denvative Brom Weber nghtly attaches consIderable Importance to the quatrain as the :first sample of Crane's mature style Two of the ltnes are particularly Important The mmd shall burst Its aquariUm vagueness, Its melon opacity of graduate dawn Part of the second hne passed mto 'Faustus and Helen I,' Until the graduate opacities of everung, part of It also, I belIeve, mto the second seCtlon of the poem, Let us take her on the mcandescent wax Stnated WIth nuances, nervoSIties, for Crane seems to have been much possessed by Images of gradation, of regular succesSion The :first of these two verses was not asSImilated mto Crane's publIshed poems But It IS very slgru:ficant even where It IS, among the reJected fragments For the noun-turned-adjective 10 thIs lIne IS hIghly Laforgulan Lafargue developed the aquanum symbol at length 10 two places, as a prose poem publIshed separately In Gustave Kahn's Vogue, then, radtcally revISed, 10 'Salome' WIth Laforgue as With Crane the aquanum stands for the uncertamty, the vagueness-very preCISely noted by Laforgue-of the poet's youthful mmd It IS more than lIkely that Crane came upon the aquarIUm passages m the three thm volumes of Laforgue's work

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

that he got from Pans Whether he dId or not, the aquarIUm of Laforgue, WIth Its scrupulous notatlOn of strangely wavenng, vacIllatmg, submerged hfe, IS an appropnate symbol of that lIDagmatlVe world wrnch Crane explored and from whIch he turned wIth a clearer understandmg of ills own

XIV

Lunar Prose Good prose

IS

founded on doubts

FRANCES NEWMAN

AT the same time that Laforgue was exerting a dlIect or galvaruzIng Influence on AmerIcan poets, hIs MOTalztes tegendazres was beIng apprecIated In dIfferent quarters Ever SInce the 'mnetles there had eXIsted In the Umted States a succeSSIOn of WrIters and CrItics who, WIthout much patlence for poetry as they saw It praCtIced about them, were serIously devoted to an Ideal of good prose Such was the prophet crymg In the turn-of-the-century wIlderness, James GIbbons Huneker He proclaImed the Importance of BaudelalIe before anyone else In AmerIca and wrote about the lIves and works of post-Baudelaman poets too, but WIth none of the pasSIOn that he focused on Flaubert Huneker seems to have felt about the verse of hIs time what Stendhal felt about the poetry of hIs epoch, that It dId not express 'les nuances du coeur,' that It 'always SaId too lIttle or too much and regularly beat a retreat before the approprIate word' Such were the OpInIons of the CrItic on whom Huneker's mantle descended, H L Mencken, whose lOeptltude when confronted by a book of verse was notonous, who dechned to pubhsh ElIot's 'PortraIt of a Lady' and heaped superb scorn on Hart Crane, yet dId stout seIVlce for the cause of AmerIcan prose, to whIch he added some notable pages hImself Huneker was not exactly responsIble for the fact that the true Penelope of the foremost Amencan wnters became Flaubert 223

224

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

That could not have come about WIthout an mVInCIbie attractlon on the part of Pound and Ehot, Cowley, and the postwar group for French prose represented ultnnately by Flaubert But Huneker, archetype of those Amencans who went abroad to study theIr craft and see what they could see, was m prose as In other domaInS a great lever of dIscovery He first got to Pans m 1878 and was afterward able to descnbe the artlStlC clImate of the tlme and place wIth unequaled gusto Dnven back to the Umted States by cruel exIgencIes, obhged to wnte wIthout letup at a tJ.me when cntlC1sm (not JUst CntlC1Sm 'aux Etats-Urus, ou plutot dans ce com des Etats-Ums ou ron pense,' as someone remarked apropos of Huneker In the Mercure de Frrmce) had thrown Itself mto the arms of the ImpreSSIOnISts m order to aVOld those of Brunetlere, Huneker was guIlty of many an Ill-orgamzed artIcle Yet by hIS persIStence m calling attentlon to what he felt to be good and hIS stubbornness m dlSInlSsmg what he knew to be bad, by hls traIned taste m several arts, rus ImagmatIon often 'lunary,' ... Huneker lIfted untold dead weIght from creatIve mmds In Amenca Dunng the last forty or fifty years there must have been few Amencans, mterested In all that ElIot meant by 'the • To use a word of T S Ellot's, In a reVIeW of Egouts 'Now that Arthur Symons IS no longer actJ.ve m Ena-IISh letters, Mr James Huneker alone represents modernIty m cnncISm l'ew cnncs are possessed of so much erudlnon, yet there are few so detennmed to consIder subjects only of the most modern mterest In fact, he IS far too alert to be an AmerIcan, In Ius style and In Ius temper he IS French Then, too, he lS a mUSlCl1ln, plays bnnself, and has WrItten an lllterestmg hie of ChopIn, has WrItten also a volume on contemporary European drama, and can speak llltelhgently of art All of thIS, III an Amencan (or Enghsh) crlnc Of lIterature, IS qwte unusual 'Huneker's style may:unpress us as unpardonably hasty, crammed, staccato, a: notebook and JOumahso.c style But (among AmerIcan wrIters, snll further d1Stmcnon) a style It deCldedly IS, and shares With that of Mr Henry James (from wluch, we need nOt add, It dlffers In almost every other respect) what I should call a conversaoonal qUalIty, not conversaoonal In adnuttmg the shashod and maladroIt, or a meagre vocabulary, but by a certam Infonnwty, abandonm~ all the ordmary rhetonc:al hoaxes for securmg attennon In the matter of J£nghsh style, by the way, hIS cntlC1SJll, m Overtones, of the later Henry James IS illummatmg , the EgOIStS ate all men-French and German-Of hIghly mdIvldual, some of pervexse and lunary, geru.us Parncularly good IS the Cl'loque of Huysmans, the geruus of flUth, also the note on Francl$ POlctevlD, a forgotten hterary specialist' Harvard Ad'fJocllte, S October 1909, p ]6

LUNAR PRosE Gallic mmd,' who have not devoured at least a dozen of the neat volumes of unsystematlZed articles and mcurred a great debt to the only lIIlpOrtant Amencan cnnc of the twenty years or so leadmg up to the World War Only Huneker among producnve AmerIcan cnncs had an unfaIlmg sense of the contemporary, only Huneker steadlly kept European works of art before Amencan eyes, lookIng forward to a day when Amencan arttsts should cease to be prOVIncIal He wrote twIce at some length on Laforgue, and on both occasIOns had much more to say about the prose than about the poetry The first was best 'A Masterplece of Irony, the Hamlet of Jules Laforgue,' 10 the New York Sun for II January 1903 Hav10g gone over dIfferent VerslOns of the Hamlet legend, Huneker makes the none too startlmg suggestIon that FrederIC Moreau of Flaubert's Educatum sentJmentale IS also a kInd of Hamlet suffenng m a bourgeoIs milieu from ImpaIrment of the will But the Hamlet of Jules Laforgue, he says, 18 the one that WIll be 'nearest and dearest to the chIldren of thIs age,' the Hamlet who lOStJ.ncnvely knows NIetzsche and h1S Joyless JOYousness, though he has not read NIetzsche ThIS Hamlet 18 a moral anarch, pure and complex, desplSlOg all methods He 'behaves as a man trepanned, the moral nature removed' And therem hes h1S SIgmficance The essay that Huneker wrote a dozen years later on Laforgue IS less vlVld, the veteran of hundreds of thousands of enforced cnncal words 18 a httle weary, and perhaps chilled by the thought that rus effort 18 destJ.ned to appear 10 that qwte un-Nletzschean J.f suffiClendy Hamlenc aeglS of respectability. The North AmertclNl Revtew 'The Buffoon of the New Eterrunes Jules Laforgue' Jumbles too many nnpressloIlS and mUSIcal analogies together However, Huneker's honesty of reacnon before a dlfIicu1t subject IS undlmmlShed He had saId that George Moore had done a poor Job of mtroducmg the poet of the Complatntes to the EngllSh pubhc because Laforgue was above all The Man of Fme Shades-whereas George Moore was not Now he observes truly that 'one never gets Laforgue With hlS back to the wall, he vanlShes 10 the shmmg cloud of a Witty abstraction' Huneker mslStS on Laforgue's Importance as an IdeallSt ('the spmt 10 him, the "shadow," devoured hIs soul, pulvenzed

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

Ius WIll, made of rum a Hamlet wIthout a propelhng cause, a doubter 10 a world of cheap certItudes and msolent fatUItIeS, but barred rus proffenng hIS pearls to pIgS') and as an ante-Nletzschean transvaluer of values Of the relatIve ments of Laforgue's poetry and prose he has trus to say 'Perhaps Laforgue's verse IS doomed, It was born WIth the hectIC flush of early dlssolunon, but It IS safe to predIct that as long as lovers of rare hterature eXIst the volume of prose wIll SUrvIve' In both these essays Huneker IS preponderantly concerned WIth the contents and quahtIes of Laforgue's prose And If we follow rum back to M'Ue New York, the gaudy, arty httle penodlcal wruch he and hIS fnend Vance Thompson held together for a tIme, we find that Huneker's penchant for prose was revealed early Thompson, a poet of sorts, pnnts snatches of Laforgue's poems 10 the margms and translates others 10 the text Huneker contrlbutes a prose epIsode, 'Venus VICtrlX,' suggestIve of Remy de Gourmont 10 the subject matter and Lafargue In the manner A poet advanced the reputatIon In Amenca of Lafargue's prose when Ezra Pound, 10 the famous 1918 volume of the Ltttle Revzew, pubhshed 'Our Tetrarchal PreCleUSe (A DIvagatIOn from Jules Laforgue),' a translatIOn of 'Salome' WIth much omItted In fact, too much IS oIOltted, for example practIcally all the pages descnbmg the attachment of Salome, bluestockmg of the Esotenc Wlute Isles, for Jao Kanaan, the mcarcerated labor agltator Pound apparently WIshed to preserve Laforgue's name from any stam of sentlmentahty And that IS a pIty, because 1£ we do not know about Salome's tender sentlments we cannot understand why Jao kept rus head as long as he dId or why he finally lost It Moreover, we cannot understand Salome, for whom such emotIOns were momentous Notwlthstandmg all the whlmslcal appearances, the theme of 'Salome' IS the rather senous one central to Laforgue's work punty and how It shall be retamed The eruwte tomboy Salome, who reCItes cantIcles to BuddhIstIC renunCIatIon and the UnconSCIOUS (whIch Pound also deletes as non-essentIal), defends her VIrgInlty Just as Lohengrm, Plerrot frumtste and many a Plerrot of the poems defend theIrs DespIte the sparkhng beglnnmg of Pound's pIece we have a feelmg that even a dIvagatIOn ought to dIvagate In some dIreCtion, and that

LUNAR PROSE

Pound has made a mere rhetoncal exerCISe out of a tale wlth a malU pomt and several subordInate ones He understands perfectly that Laforgue IS talang off Flaubert's marmoreal manner and successfully takes over the take-off 'There arose, as from a great ossIfied sponge, the comIc-opera Florence-NIghtIngale hght-house, wIth Junks beneath It chckmg 10 vespenal meretncIOUS monotony, behmd them the great cM obtrudmg solItary lUtO the oily, poluphlOlSblOUS ocean, lIftIng Its confectIon of pylons, the poplar rows, sunk yards, Luna Parks, etc, of the Tetrarchal Palace, polIshed Jasper and basalt, funereal, undertakenal, lugubnous, blIstenng 10 the hlgh-hghts under a pale esotenc sun-beat, encrusted, bespattered and damascened Wlth cynocephah, sphmxes, wmged bulls, bulbuls, and other sculptural by-laws The screech-owls from theIr Jungle could only look out upon the shadowed parts of the sea, whIch they dId wlthout OptIC mconvemence, so deep was the obscured contagIon of theIr afforested blackness' ThIS IS apprOXImately as effectIve as the correspondmg passage from 'Salome' and only half the length But here, as m so many other places, Pound IS too easily satIsfied wlth exclUSIvely verbal and stylIstIC aspects of a work Frances Newman, even If she had only paraphrased 'Salom6'-she translated It mstead-would not have fruled to get across the pomt of the work Nor would she have IDlssed certam slgm:6.cant details She would never, for example, have rendered 'double file de peuphers vloiet-gros-deull en calsses' flatly and meagerly by 'poplar rows,' as Pound does m the passage Clted above A natIve of Atlanta, GeorgIa, who labored as a lIbranan durmg most of her hfe, Frances (not Cardmal) Newman, as she dehghted 10 Slgmng herself, wrote her first reVlews for CarnegIe LIbrary quarterhes Thereafter she pubhshed many reVlews, remarkably good ones, m a varIety of penodIcals She was first and last a crItIC, perhaps even, m a flatterlUg sense of the term, a reVIewer Next to bemg mstalled 10 a garden seat With the Moralztes legendazres, a thm crescent moon begmmng to show over the poplars, Frances Newman was never so happy as when narrowly scannmg a reVIewer's copy of some contemporary clrum to Immortahty She could not forbear to Judge a great many bad books by the standards of a great many good books she had read as an

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ugly-ducklmg chIld m a large famIly There can be no doubt that her Alcestlan frankness obstructed recogmtlOn of her own books both dunng her hfetlme and afterward Few of her vlctlms were as chantable as James Branch Cabell, who sought her out after a vIolent attack on one of hIS books and became her firm fnend Her first appearance m prmt was wIth The Short Story's Mutatzons (1924), an anthology of tales mamly fantastlc, wIth cntlcal mtroductIOns Some of the choIces are Irreproachable Petromus's 'Matron of Ephesus,' the fablIau 'Le Vilam qUl conqUlt paradIs par plaIt,' Hans Chnstlan Andersen's 'The Shepherdess and the ChImney Sweep' On the other hand, why the anthologIst should have chosen Chekhov's 'The Dallmg' and Laforgue's 'MIracle of Roses' out of many more hkely possIbIlItIes IS almost as dIfficult to say as why Paul Morand should be there at all (represented by hIS 'NUlt Nordlque') As her choIce from Maupassant ('Les BIJOUX') and several of the other authors mdlcates, Frances Newman was parnal to stones illustratlng recogrutlon and reversal-narratlves that firush smartly and a lIttle trlcklly At bottom It was probably the mfluence of 0 Henry and rus endmgs She seems to be cntIcal of preCIosIty of style, when It IS denvatlve, remarkmg accurately that 'Osbert SItwell 15 StlU decoratlng hmpmg Henry James stones WIth the mterJectlons and the curves and almost the very phrases of Laforgue "Every mornmg at twelve o'clock, to the drorung snort of a brass band, Mr Dearborn, In wrute flannel trousers (oh' how long ago was that day m the garden of Walter Pater ') would descend the steps of the sugar-pmk terrace" , The trouble IS that there are too many curves, conceIts, and COnsCIOUS graces In Frances Newman's own style The cntlcal comment 15 both learned and ahve, yet the book 15 marked and marred by a 'self-protective smIrk' After the Muttttzons, Frances Newman pubhshed two novels The Hard-Botled Vtrgzn' (1925) was resolutely experImental With never a word of conversatlon, purportlng to tell the thoughts and feehng of ces 1eru.nes filles-1eu:nes filles such as the type WIth whIch Laforgue endowed French hterature It was followed m the spnng of 1928 by Dead Lovers Are Fa1thful

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229

Lovers, wluch Cabell descnbed as the dyIng sparks of the earher novel's bnlhance Meanwhtle Frances Newman was planrung the translatlon of one of the books she had read the oftenest and admIred the most 'I am bent on translatlng Lafargue,' she had wntten to Cabell In 1924, 'and on dOIng an IntroductIOn and gettIng It pubhshed beauhfully WIth a pIcture for each one [of the Moralttes] perhaps ' And to Horace LIvenght four years later 'I have been wondenng If you would let me do the Jules Laforgue Moralttes Ugendatres I talked to you a lIttle about them the very first hme I ever saw you ' In the spnng of 1928 she went to France to consult wIth Paul Morand about the translatlon of puzzlIng passages, to acqUire a remarkably complete knowledge of Laforgue's bIography In a short nme, and to look for some 'ethereal and mdigent young artIst who wlll be able to dlustrate Laforgue WIthout Irrutahng Aubrey Beardsley' It was durmg thts tnp that her eyes began to trouble her severely In July she returned to the Uruted States, where Amencan doctors were as helpless as the French had been to relIeve the 'rumblIngs and roarIngs' m her head Unable to use her eyes at all, workmg WIth a secretary, suffenng from excrucIatlng headaches, she had Just hme to firush her translahons and mtroductlOn before she dIed m September, one of the most honest of Amencan wnters, m her way, and one of those whose death has been least lamented Szx Moral Tales IS neIther wholly correct as translatlon nor as lucId and gracIOus prose as MIss Newman was capable of WrItIng when she stopped trymg to be clever But the EnglISh IS very good Just the same, full of a dash and relIsh astorushIng when one conSIders the CIrcumstances In whIch the work was done The versIOns do not conshtute lIDphcIt CrItlClSm of style, as does Pound's pasnche In fact, Frances Newman lIked least among the moral tales the one that IS most obVIously a StyhstiC exerCIse, and at the begmnmg of 'Salome,' WIthOUt regard for Lafargue's satlnc mtent, she pruned and tIdIed the long, choked sentences On the other hand, there IS full translatIon of the abstract passages that Pound Ignored, and the problem of the UnconsciOus 15 tackled ill the mtroductIon 'Laforgue knew the UnconscIOUS about whtch we have Just begun to learn,' she tells us, 'and lus Hamlet's play contams a

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quatram whIch mIght have been wntten by a FreudIan of the second generatIon' She quotes

Dans Ie Jardtn de nos tnstmcts, allons cuezllzr de qUat nous g;uerzr ThIS quatram mIght have served as a program for several WrIters who emerged dunng or soon after the FIrst World War, valetud10arIans who wandered 10 the garden of the mstmctIve We thInk of the lyncal self-revelatIOns of D H Lawrence, Sherwood Anderson. and others And Laforgue probably dId 'know the unconscous,' as any good Wrlter does, better than any psychoanalyst However, Frances Newman IS here gUilty of the confUSIon of the surreahsts-of whom she luckIly IS not one the confuslOn between the UnconscIOUS as metaphysIcal Absolute and the unCOnsCIOUS as a regIOn of the human m10d Tlus quatram represents only one of many confuctIng Impulses that find expreSSIOn 10 Laforgue's 'Hamlet' There were more currents of BuddhIstIC renUnCIatIOn and pessimIstlc 10dIfference to cure m Laforgue than were dreamed of many second-generanon Freud1an's phIlosophy So were there 10 Frances Newman, though her dIscourse IS larded WIth FreudIan terms, though she ralls agamst 'the ladles who are find10g that an Electra complex, and a talent for lawn tenms, and a taste for poultIc1Og the souls of the poor, wIll excuse cehbacy 10 the eyes of theIr contemporarIes ' She says that Lohengr1O ('as complex as any hero conceIved m the complex brain of a FreudIan of the second generanon') may be Vl.ewed as 'one of those young gentlemen who used to be gIven two years 10 ReadIng Gaol, but who are now glven hterary to belIeve that pnzes ' But she adnuts that 'It IS also posslble he was only suffenng from the stIgmata of a soul and body p1erced by the chaste emerald rays of the Holy Grall ' It 1S ImpossIble to read Frances Newman's Hard-Boded Vtrgtn, or her mttoduCtlon to S'x Moral Tales, wlthout concludmg, by a process of analysIS FreudIans have made famlhar, that she was haunted by the Ideal of punty that she made a pomt of condemn109 In her own tWIsted and embittered way she felt, hke Alam-

23 1 Fourruer, that Laforgue chenshed a certam mtactness, and ill that feelmg she herself was mvolved Of 'Hamlet' she has lIttle to say beyond makmg grotesque claims for her author's WIt as supenor to Shakespeare's, and for nontheatncal wnnng as tpSO facto supenor to drama But about 'Lohengnn' (whlch she puts first 10 her collection mstead of 'Hamlet,' altenng Laforgue's order), about 'The MIracle of Roses,' 'Pan and the Synnx,' she has much to say The theme of all these stones IS purlty The prose of Laforgue and Rlmbaud, 10 Frances Newman's op1OIOn, 'created the EnglIsh prose of the elghteen-runetIes whIch IS creating the EnglIsh prose of the nmeteen-twentIes Laforgue has lIterary descendants who have probably never read one of hIS beautiful sentences and who are not lIkely to have heard rus name' The relatIonsrup between these French poets, the Enghsh 'nmetIes, and the AmerIcan 'twenties, whIle close, was hardly that of the degrees of a genealOgIcal tree Thls exaggeration remmds us of all that was overdrawn about Frances Newman, the hlgh pnce she placed on the fancIful, the weansome play of conceIts m her early prose, her novels m whIch we are never allowed to forget an expenmental form determmed m advance-form that does not grow out of her subject but IS lffiposed upon It In short we are remmded that Frances Newman was not one of the prose artIsts of her time, only one of those craftsmen 10 whom the excesses of a penod are betrayed Her work IS one of those stony surfaces against whlch the hvmg fioo~ of genumely lmagInatIve wnnng nses and breaks, WIthout wruch It might never nse at all Thls rock IS cunously carved-'cuneusement taillee,' as Laforgue mlght have SaId W nters of the 'twentles were m search of techruques, of expertzse, even of a certam SkeptlCISm IndIspensable, as Gounnont SaId, to the work of the artlst They found, among other wnters and attItudes, Laforgue and 'rrony' Laforgue's poetry proVlded major poets With models that had the fascmatlon of the unfamtllar, were lffiltated, and had soon served therr purpose The Moralttes legendazres made a more lasnng ImpreSSIon on at least one prose wnter, Frances Newman, who should probably not be rebuked, as she was by John Macy, for 'rummg a fine mtellIgence by a false and flashy bnlliance' Such cntIcs of Cabell, LUNAR PROSE

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Joseph HergesheImer, Frances Newman, and a score of WrIters who cultIvated the hypertrophIc Image, the strIkIng phrase that mIlItates agaInst a total effect, forget that at a certaIn penod In the development of a hterature preCIosIty has Its place There was a salutary preCIOsIty In the AmerIcan WrItIng of the 'twentIes Much unformed talent was stImulated, provoked to actIOn and reactIon, educated, by such wrItIng as we find In Frances Newman's essays and reVIews WIth the kInd of wrItIng that Frances Newman dld, Laforgue had more than a lIttle to do And her fragmentary VISIOn of Laforgue as a sort of preternaturally clever artIst-psychologIst of the 'twentIes serves to complete the VIews of Laforgue as the NIetzschean transvaluer of values, as the moonlIt astronomer of the IVOry tower, as the type of InCISIVe creator-crItIc, whIch Huneker, Symons, and Pound respectIvely provIde

xv MUSIC

of Ideas

book began Wlth the assumptlon that a hfe IS symbolIc, and Laforgue's hfe fits several representatlve patterns of personal hIstory He was, first of all, the 'Amencan' as that term 15 understood ill a regIOn of France-the Bearoals born abroad lIke Lautreamont and Supervlelle, who came back to make contact wIth 'la ville de ses peres' In a more general way he resembled a number of French poets of the past century who have had good reason to be preoccupIed wIth exotIC Imagery-poets such as Leconte de LIsle and SaInt-John Perse, born on thetr remote colorual Islands, or HeredIa who came from Cuba, Moreas from Greece, Apolhnalre from Rome and Poland, Stuart Merrill and FrancIS VIele-Goffin from the Uruted States-for Symbohsm ill partIcular has called Its own from a dIstance Laforgue further belongs to that even more mcluslve and illfiuentlal group that D H Lawrence descnbed SImply as those who 'must be Wllling to go away', he was one of the modem eXIles If he was not ohhged, hke Lawrence's apprentlce wnter, 'to lIve on three pounds a week,' that sum IS symbolIc too, standmg for a sloughmg-off of the accustomed ThIS, for Laforgue, was brought about by the reversal of rus former fortunes He was less at home WIth hIS 1,800,000 francs a year (as It would be m terms of today) than he would have been WIth somethmg lIke hIS old wage as EphrusSI'S asSIStant In any case, the Laforgue that we remember, the adrrurable poet, the prose wnter whose mvennons annclpate those of Proust and Joyce, the first-rate cntle, would THIS

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almost certamly not have eXlsted without the bitterly lamented absence from France Laforgue went to Germany a bewIldered boy, an aVid prIvate scholar whose psychological development was not nearly so advanced as his readmg At twenty he was well along the way to contlOulOg EphrussI's work as an art rustorIan, but rus poetry and ImaglOatIVe prose lagged far behmd rus learnlOg He returned from BerlIn five years later, a worldlywise young man with two Important publIshed books to rus crerut and notes for several more In and around the Gennan court he had rubbed shoulders WIth people he dId not hke, but who had much to teach a bookIsh young poet all the same, whose very dIfference from hImself had stimulated rum to self-dIScovery Laforgue takes hts place lO the company of those who have gone away to dtscover, If not the uncreated conSClOusness of a race, at least a dlstlOct personal conSClOusness We can see the Gennan sOjourn now m the hght of what It brought forth Otherwise It nught stnke us as a futile penod lOdeed The top-hatted figure that SkarblOa palOted unter den Lznden m z885, the pallId young man lU black lUtellectual lIvery, lackey to the hterary pretenslOns of a seventy-year-old monarch, seems at first glance to be stuff of wruch revolutions are made It IS stuff of wruch revolutions have been made Nothmg could be much more remote from our own tIme and place than those scenes of Gennan Impenal grandeur lO whIch Laforgue spent the better part of five years-the palaces bursting WIth cumbrous furmture, mtngue and stagnation, the comIc-opera watenngplaces, the parade-ground soldIery, all fiounsrung at the expense of an mtlmldated and stupefied cltlzenry Yet we must not forget that such leIsure, however unenhghtened on the whole, dId foster the excrescence that IS art Our 'fevensh democracy,' as Lafargue called It, IS well calculated to make the poetic mmd herOIC, conSCIOUS of Its obhgatIon to hve 10 the nudst of suffermg, but It rarely allows the time, the detachment, the RomantIC Irony that makes first-rate work pOSSIble The fraudulent SOCIal system sheltered a poet It IS to Laforgue's lastmg credIt as a man that he hated more and more fervIdly the pOSItIOn of patroruzed eIghteenth-century mtellectual mto wruch he had been thrust, that he broke away

MUSIC OF IDEAS

from It as soon as he was able, or sooner The leap cost hun Ins hfe and Ins generaoon Its most gtfted wnter But It gave to tIns fratl post-Baudelall'l.all poet Ius umversal slgmficance and Ins partIcular claun to our attentIOn By Ins marnage and return to Pans, Laforgue sought to take hIs proper place m socIety He revealed hunself as Fausnan man, the modern man par excellence, who wants somethmg of the world not a great deal, to be sure, nothmg ltke the total possessIon, the grand deSIres, of the earlIer Fausts, only a tIny comer of the world, a hearth, a chance to earn Ins bread by dOIng the land of work that comes naturally to hIm, or If It cannot be exactly Ins own work, somethmg not too unltke It-Chromques parzszennes, let us say, or artIcles about French ltterature for exportatIOn, such as he was tryIng to have translated the day not long before Ins death when Henn de Regmer encountered hIm If modem man cannot work as a land surveyor he IS WIlling to labor as a Jarutor, lIke K m Kafka's story wInch Max Brod (also a cntIc and translator of Laforgue) has mterpreted He will make almost any comprOmISe WIth the mysterIous Castle, will efface lnmself to almost any extent to protect Ins shrmkIng fractIon of the world But IT he IS ltke K or Laforgue, a man symbolIc of man's modem COndItion, he IS ltkely to be crowded off even the bare floor of the classroom It IS Ins duty to sweep out If a tellIng of Laforgue's personal story IS essentIal to any appreCIatiOn of Ins Slgruficance, so certamly IS some mqmry Into Ins thought. For thIS young man WIth the medItative forward nIt of the head was a slgmficant artIst only for the last :five years of Ius Me, a hero only toward the end, but a penetratIng student of Ideas for a full decade He was the only creatIve wnter of Ins tIme to follow the evolutIonary doctrme, CIrculatIng everywhere m 1880, through works of Instory, cnOClsm, and plnlosophy, back to Its source In Spencer and Darwtn TIus was only one eVIdence of Ins desrre to come to gnps WIth Ideas He admIred Tame smcerely and sympatlnzed WIth the Tamean Impulse to wnte Instory shOWIng parallels between actIVI0eS of the human mmd Yet he felt profoundly that Ta.me's determIrusm, Ins accounting for the work of art by Its mIlIeu, was mIStaken Through Hartmann and the UnconsCIOUS, Laforgue found hIS way back to Schellmg, the hv-

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

lng source of nlOeteenth-century phtlosophIZlOg about the ImagInation, and there are passages 10 rus notebooks that tend to show that he mIght one day have wntten somethlOg comparable to the Blographul Lltertrrta, the work of another poet-aesthetlcian equally Imbued wIth the Ideas of Schelhng Certamly Laforgue would have wntten more lOCIsIvely about artistIc lOtuItIon than hIs fellow-student at the Lycee Condorcet, HenrI Bergson, he would have spoken out of more dIrect artIstIc expenence, and would have been as effectIve a transmItter of RomantIc prulosophy We cannot know what Lafargue mIght have done as a thlOker on aesthetIc subjects, smce he dId not reach the age when such Ideas become clear HIS thoughts on art are occaslOnally as entangled as those of Paul-Joseph Chenavard, the pamter-aesthetICllln after whom he traced a Wheel of LIfe However, we can test the qualIty of hIS lIterary Judgments by hIS notes on Hugo, Rtmbaud, Corblere, and partIcularly on BaudelaIre In possesslOn of a sound CrItICal Judgment from the age of eIghteen, he leaped full-armed IOta lIsts dotted maInly WIth feeble ImpreSSIOnIsts Rounded out, rus 'Notes on BaudelaIre' would have made a formIdable essay As they stand, In telegrapluc style, they are unexcelled among cntICIsms of BaudelaIre, for no others so combme perceptIveness WIth rustoncal ImmedIacy AccordlOg to the system of Ideas whIch Lafargue made hIS own, the supreme aCtIVity of the human mlOd 15 the poetic In the last analYSIS, trus has been the story of a poet who, hke the best of the earher RomantIcs, sought to UnIfy much knowledge lUto an artlStIC VISIon We have seen how hIS early verse charactenzed by dIrect expresslOn of emotIon IS succeeded by a different kInd of utterance-less satIsfYIng, the first of It, than the candId expreSSIOns of feelmg had been Le Stmglot de III terre may have been somewhat underesttmated by Bourget and by Lafargue rumself More lyncal than the verse of Sully-Prudhomme and represen1:lng a more senous attempt to broaden the subject matter of poetry, It Impresses us nowadays as the best poetry of Ideas that had been wrItten 10 France s10Ce Vlgny'S Destinies Pubhshed earlIer than 1903, when It appeared as part of the first Oeuures completes (so far from complete), It could not have been popular any more than were VIgny'S poems To one of the best and most

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237

A WHEEL OF LIFE

As concewed by Paul-Joseph Chena'oard and Jules Lafargue

recent htstonans of Symbohsm, Guy MIchaud, on the other hand, some of the lyrIc and medItatIve verse of Laforgue's first collecnon seems supenor to later pIeces m whtch he finds the humor forced Too many of the Complatntes are merely comphcated, full of obvIOusly Jarnng VOICes L'lm:etatzem de Notre-Dame la LWIle

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

IS better, but the tensIOns of that work are mordmate, the tone shnll, the conceits stramed Before the end of hiS bnef career, however, Laforgue had written some poems, m Des Fleurs de bonne volonte and especially 10 Dernzers Vers, which finely reconclle the fatmhar and the remote, the offhand and the tender, the dlssentmg vOices of mstmct and Judgment, and reflect the author's expenence farrly Smce he was 10 the habIt of usmg the same Images over and over agam wIth vanatIOns, embellIshments, changed angles of View, It IS posslble to observe the shift from dIrect to oblIque presentatiOn The central concern of thIS book has been to show how thls change took place, offermg later wnters the example of a new techOlque, a fresh attltude The realIstic descnptIon of a sunset m Stephane Vasszltew leads to the burlesque magruloquence of the sea sunset 10 'Persee et Andromede ' In Le Sanglot de la terre the center of the solar system IS treated WIth dlStInct, even POSItiViStiC, respect But m the collectIon of verse that followed, the sun has become a solet.l malade, and the 1Onocent moon has acqurred a cracked complexiOn that she does not lose until the Dernlers Vers SpecIfic SItuations are reversed the poet was much possessed by the thought of a man apostrophlzmg a skull, and the Iroruc passage 10 which Hamlet caresses Yonck's craruum has a solemn avatar, an early prose fragment As the poet's Imagery and Ideas become more dlverse, so do his rhythms The staunch tradItiOnal alexandnnes of Le Sanglot gIve way Less and less attempt 18 made to satisfy the arbitrary rules 'for the eye,' and we find false rhymes, slurred mute 'e's,' alexandnnes With caesuras 10 unheard-of places, 110es With uneven numbers of syllables 10 novel groupmgs The alexandnne had been subject to much stretching and stralOlng smce the first flush of RomantICIsm, and Verlame's name had become assOCIated WIth 'lIberated' verse But Laforgue With his ImpresslOOlstlc Ideal of fidelIty to the mstantaneousness of perceptlOn, carned the fragmentation much further He was the author, mdeed, of most of the authentic free verse wntten m France durmg the runeteenth century For RImbaud composed only two poetns In vers lzhre, both of them brIef, Gustave Kahn and Edouard DUJardm can no longer be regarded as poets, If they ever were, and It IS hard

MUSIC OF IDEAS

239 for the dispasslOnate observer to work up enthusIasm for the verse of Henr! de Regruer or FrancIs VIele-Goffin An Amencan can hardly fall to be mterested m Laforgue's free verse, on the other hand Walt WhItman had at least a httle finger m the concoctIon, and any reader of T S Ehot's Prufrock and Other Observattons wIll feel at home WIth Lafargue's Irregular lmes, sudden rhymes, and assonances LIttle dIstmCtIOn need be made between a poet's lmagmatIve prose and rus verse But Laforgue found hImself first m the more relaxed rhythms of prose, early examples of wruch mIght have compelled more attentIOn-If Bourget had not dIscouraged pubhcanon-than hIS apprentIce verse It has a competence, a hmpIdIty of flow wlthm lts Flaubertlan frame, whlch are eVldence of an ImpreSSIve word sense And perhaps because Moralztes tegend(tJ,res was hIs last work, It gIves eVIdence of a bolder techruque than does rus verse-a fUSIOn and reductlOn of characters m a connnuous present, a slmphficatIon m the dl!ectlOn of mythology, of whlch rus verse contams only hmts Stream-of-conscIOusness COmpOSItIOn IS antICIpated m Hamlet's ramblmg medItatIons even more than m the flUld stanzas of the Dermers Vers Loosely woven and mconcluslve as mpnolog;ue znterzeur must be, for the most part, the emotIve ldeas are sometimes urufied by the means that has proved most frmtful m twentIeth-century wntIng dISsolVIng of several figures roto a smgle figure that assumes mythlcal proportIons Expenmennng WIth stream-of-conscIOusness construcnon, as Edouard DUJardIn was to do m Les Launers sont coup,h a few years later, Laforgue was taking a step beyond the realIsm of Stendhal, Flaubert, and thel! followers The fiUld transItIOns of hIs later wnnngs suggest developments m the work of recent EnglIsh and Amencan wnters who have won through realIsm In much the same way But the way back to the pnme poetIc foundatIons has to be redIscovered after each epoch of realIsm Lafargue found early and surely the route taken by lmportant wnters smce hls nme. Hasty ImpresslOns of hIS hfe and works have seldom been eIther favorable or revealIng, as several rustones of hterature testIfy Laforgue's superfiCIal traIts are agaInst hun He looks much hke a weary fin de stecle dandy, plunged In an 'a-quol-bomsme' ex-

2.40

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

actly contemporary wIth the German EmpIre He seems to have wntten poems that are hopelessly sentImental or uneasIly flIppant, crammed wIth undIgested Ideas And Laforgue undoubtedly ilid wnte some lll-pOlsed verse But when thIS much has been saId, only the surface has been scratched Beneath the adolescent mannensms IS the Laforgue who possessed Ehot 'hke a stronger personahty,' daemomcally, for a decade, who had an almost equal fascmatIon for Alam-Fourmer and half a dozen slgmficant French poets, who exerted, thanks to Ezra Pound, a cunous attractlOn for Amencans of qUlte dlsSlnular temperament As we look more closely at thIS undemably mfluentIal, superfiCIally bewildermg Writer, we see that each negatIve traIt co-eXisted WIth a pOSItIVe one The fashlonable peSSImISm was only extenor, the RomantIc prehmmary to genUlne mtellectual mqUlry ThIS poetry IS charged WIth mtellectual hfe Laforgue's Iromcal attItude IS, at best, the Irony WIth whIch Fichte beheved that a true poet was bound to regard rus own work, because to the extent that a work of art IS complete, ItS author must be detached from It Even as quotI
MUSIC OF IDEAS

forgue' was sometlung a ltttle vague but perfectly real, a sort of synonym for 'rrony' Amencan wnters who came of age about 19 20 learned, sometlmes 10 a rather drama1lc way, the advantages of the 10drrect approach Laforgue, more than any other s10gle wnter wIth the excep1lon of the Laforgwan early Ehot, was the lever of thIS dIscovery F 0 Mattluessen descnbes Ehot's poetry-wIthout reference to Laforgue's-as 'musIc of Ideas' Better than any other, the term seems to apply to the verse of Ehot's first master, verse that does not answer to any of the meanmgful descnp1lons of SymbolIsm, that develops concepts as well as Images 10 a freely aSSOCla1lve medIUm Laforgue was not a mUSICIan of the Word 10 the SymbolIst sense, had he been, he would have effaced concepts from lus poetry as Mallarme chd, leavmg only the pure multlvalent shell of Imagery But Laforgue was a s10ger at least to the extent that the Roman1lcs were, and Matthiessen's term has the great ment of recogOlz1Og 10 a certam lond of verse Ideas not to be found 10 pure SymbolIst poetry To put the matter sImply, It seems to me that the poetry of Eltot and Laforgue develops lInes of thought, an argument, as Mallarme's sonnets (and Hart Crane's 'Voyages') do not WIth a lIttle atten1lon we can follow these lInes of thought HIS poems have exact meanmg, they are not vases of eleC1lon for any of several mearungs Tlus IS not to raIse the ques1lon as to whether poetry presentlng concepts IS better or worse than essen1lally SymbolIst poetry (It lS less 10tense, because less pure), but slffiply to say that such verse IS cb:fferent from the Mallarmean vanety, and fully as ahve today Indeed, Laforgue's poetry, wruch preceded by a lIttle that of the hIstOrIcal SymbolIsts, has far more 10 common WIth the poetry of the post-SymbolIsts than has Mallarme's In France there has appeared what the ClI1lC Gabnel Bounoure calls 'poetry of the pure event'-conversa1lonal, phenomenolOgIcal rather than archetypal In Amenca, Auden, Shaprro and others have wntten verse qUIte dIfferent from the SymbolIst vanety, dxstmgulshed from prose by Its ellIpses, by the qualIty of lts WIt, by Its meter and movement, but not by lts symbols Much of the French and Amencan poetry of recent years has In common WIth the poems

242

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

of Laforgue the dlstmCtlVe mUSIC, the pecuhar dynaIDlsm lent by the development of Ideas upon the page Such, seen m the hght of our day, IS the lunar poetry of Jules Laforgue It IS eVIdence of the mexhaustlble abundance of works of art that thIs poetry IS very much wIth us, turnmg a qUIte dIfferent face to us than It dId even to such a devoted reader of the 'twentles as Frances Newman, not to mentlon readers of earher decades And It IS Jules Laforgue's destmy as an artist to be forever contemporaneous, fixed neither m the attitudes of rus own pe!lod nor m those of any other, to escape forever from all solemruzatIOns of the words he wrote wIth a llght heart For that, all SaId and done, was the way he wrote-wIth more gentle humor than any other poet smce Heme, and wIth the gaiety of the artist that transcends all CIrcumstances

NOTES

Chapter 1 The SymbolISt Movement m LJterature, 1899, p 105 Melanges posthumes, p 119 3 Notes on Baudel3.ll'e EntretJens pol,tzques et Itttermres, I

2

II,

Apnl

189 1

4 'Et dans Verlame des roublardlSes de meoer d'une Innocence suprme' Lettres aun /Pm, p 178 5 'Rnnbaud, fleur Move et absolue sans avant ttl apres' Melanges posthumes, p 129 6 'Voeuvre pure unphque la dtspanoon elocutolre du poete, qUl cede rlDltlaOVe aux mots, par Ie heurt de leur megahte mobllISes ' 'VanaooIlS sur un suJet,' Oeuvres completes, Edmon de la PI61ade, p 366 7 HutoJre de la lztterature frangaJse de 1789 a nos JOurs, 1936, p 480 8 ApproXJ1fUltJons, 1930, 4e sene, P 188 9 HutoJre de la l.tterature frangaue, pp 480-81 10 'Chmat, faune et flore de la lune,' L'ImztatJon de Notre-Dame la Lune I I 'ce qUl fut bapose Ie syxnbohsme se resume tres sunplement dans l'mtenoon commune a plusleurS families de poetes (d'a:illeurs ennem1es entre elles) de reprendre a. la MUSIque leur bIen ' Vmetes, I I2 'Ourr rmchscutable rayon-comme des traIts dorent et d6durent un meandre de melodIes ou la MUSIque reJomt Ie Vers pour former, depUlS Wagner, la Poesle' 'VarlaOOIlS sur un suJet,' Oeuvres completes, p 365

Chapter 11 I 2

'Preludes autoblographlques: Les Complmntes, Oeuvres,

I,

p

62

'n etaIt ne-ceo n'est pas une blague-d'une bretonne qUl etaIt 243

NOTES

3 4

5 6 7 8

9 10 II

11

13 14

vraIment un brm gasconne et d'un gascon rrusanthrope, vagabond et pur comme un breton Arrangez cela comme vous pourrez' Prose fragment, Revue blanche, XII, I May 1897, p 523 Prose fragment, Entrettens pohttques et lttteratres, III, September 1891 Loc CIt MarIe Labat (nee Laforgue) man mtervlew wIth Jean-Aubry at Tarbes To Charles Henry, December 1881, Oeuvres, IV, p 65 Unpubhshed manuscrIpt 'D'une nature fantalsIste, peu travailleur, malS remarquablement mtelligent, Ie Jeune Laforgue n'etalt pas ce qu'on appelle au lycee un bon eleve' Letter to Jean-Aubry Dermers Vers, I Loc CIt Jean Peres, 'Sur Jules Laforgue Idees et souveOlrs,' Revue de l'Amertque lattne, June 1911, p 132 EdItIon Connaissance, I, pp 31-6 'Agenda de l'annee 1883,' Oeuvres, VI, p 254 Where two more poems were conceIved than was generally lmown before 1931, when the volume of the Complatntes that Jules presented to MarIe was put up for sale by a ParIs bookseller The dedlcanon reads A ma chere et untque MarJe (en attendant de te dea,er parttculterement quelque chose) J'at date la plupart des pteces Tu reconnattras bten dans les Preludes, la Vzgte, etc Ie CQeur de ton pauvre Jules du 5' rue Bertholet II n'a pas change, ce coeur, tl est touJours aum gros II est devenu un peu plus Imeralre, votla tout Jules Coblentz, Mardt 26 1udlet 188)

The 'Preludes autoblographlques' are dated '1880, 5 rue Berthelot (rrusspeIlmg of Berthollet In all edItions, Laforgue corrected to '1881, 5 rue Berthollet') In his SIster's copy he dated by hand 'La Complamte de la Vlgie aux rrunUlts polalXes,' '( 188 I) 5 rue Berthollet', 'Complamte des condoleances au solell,' '5 rue Berthollet, 1881' 15 'Je te dlXal a to,!. gue ~a m'est venu, 1a prerruere Idee, ala f~te de l'mauguranon LIon de Belfort, carrefour de l'ObservatolXe' Letter to Chades Henry, August 1885

dd'

NOTES

245 16 'Une femme de Ia noce vonusSatt des flaques de Vln, ou un cluen lappalt Une autre lUl tapatt maternellement dans Ie dos pour excIter, faciliter, bougonnant-tl n'y avatt pas de bon sens, apres aVOlr bu et mange toute Ia Journee, aaller tourner sur des chevaux de bOlS- Des menages d'lvrognes Un souteneur falsant sortII une bande de nIles dont l'une adorable et trlSte avalt un bleu sous l'oetl-elles buvalent du Vln Odeurs de qUlOquets, glaplSSement des montreurs, melancolte des orgues Jouant des aIrS de carrefours d'automne, en haut les etotles vlerges et etemelles Drole de pIanete P Revue blanche, x, IS Aprll 1896, p 367 17 'Le paysage d'en face, un crepuscule splendtde-mals trop tableauun beau clel tachete de flocons cmabre tendre-Ies deux collmes regulteres henssees de saplOS nom,-places vertes des Jeunes 1~

.. jL

I.

777nf. ;l~~-.~---,

onduleux des collmes vertes avec Ie serpentement d'un chemm poudreux, des arbres, et posees plttoresquement, les maISonettes blanches a tulles vermilion-des fenetres etmcelant aux demlers rayons desesperes de l'astre plttoresque- PUlS la cloche dans Ia vallee- C'est Calame, chanome SchmIdt, etc -ll faIt beau et c'est beau, 11 n'y a flen a dIre-Ie paysage de Fenelon "compose a souhalt pour l'oetl"-cette nature pose par trop-oh l Ia Blevre mahngre, les sarments malgres des Vlgnes, et les terrams vagues' Revue blanche, x, IS Aprli 1896, P 367

Chapter III TIns and followmg passages quoted from Symboltstes et Det;adents, 1901, pp 181-99 1 'avec, Ie samedl SOlt, Ie tumulte des cloches de Notre-Dame dans les deux tours sonores, Ie tapage du Boul' MIch' couvre la VOlX des cloches, c'est tres phllo <;a symboltse Ia fin du chnsUa.n.tsnle CeCl a tue ceIa CeCl = les trompes des tramways, cela = Ia VOlX des cloches trlStes' Lettres un amt, p 18 3 'Noel' Noel' Pans' Ttlste et frOId, Ie vent souffie, chantent Ies cloches vers Ie clel pIuVleux et nOIr, mats l'mcessant va-et-Vlent des pletons dans la boue des trottOIrS, l'eternel roulement des pesants ommbus et des nacres eremtes, Ie tapage des cafes et des restaurants, Ies ens des marchands de Bel' Valmee' tout l'enfer du bouvelard couvre Ia VOlX des cloches solttatres' Edmon Connatssance, I, p 13 4 'J'etats croyant DepulS deux ans, Je ne crolS plus Je SUlS un pesslmlSte mysuque Les vltraux de Notre-Dame m'ont rendu malade 1

a

a

NOTES

souvent Pendant cmq rnoIS, )'al )oue a l'ascete, au petit Bouddha avec deux oeufs et un verre d'eau par Jour et clnq heures de blbhotheque J'al voulu aller pleurer sur Ie Samt-Sepulcre Mamtenant, dIlettante, revenu de tout, )'Irals furner une cIgarette sur Ie Golgotha en conternplant quelque couchant aux tons medlts' Oeuvres, IV, p Xl7 5 'Deux eventaIls de Plssarro batIS sohdement par petItes touches patIentes -De SIsley, Ia Seme avec poteaux telegraphIques et clel de prlOtemps Ou une berge des enVIrOns de Pans avec un voyou bucohsant par les sentIers -Et les pommlers en Reurs escaladant une collme, de Monet -Et la sauvageonne ebounffee de Renoir, et de Berthe Monsot un sOUS-bOIS profond et fraIs, une femme aSSlse, son enfant, un chIen nOIr, un filet a papIllons Et de Renoir encore, la Panslenne aux levres rouges en Jersey bleu Et cette tres capncleuse femme au manchon, une rose laque la boutonruere, dans un fond spmtuellernent fouette de neige Et la danseuse de Mary Cassatt en Jaune vert blond roux, fauteuIls rouges, nu des epaules Et Ies danseuses nerveuses de Degas, et Ie Duranty de Degas-et Ie Pohchmelle de Manet avec les vers de Banville" Oeuvres, IV, p 42 6 'les douces heures passees la, a m'oubher sur les tables d'Albert Durer, a rever dans votre chambre claire ou eclatalt Ia note d'un fauteull Jaune, Jaune, tres Jaunel' Loc CIt 7 Oeuvres, IV, pp 6-8 8 Lettres un amz, P 37 9 'Un charmant dISCIple de Schopenhauer, qUl se rue de se senm devenrr fou de ne pouvolr arrlver reahser cette oeuvre l'epopee macabre de l'humarute (l'histOIre et Ie XIXe siecIe) en trOIS gds cartons correspondant aux troIS stades de l'IlluslOn de Hartmann, plus un prologue (l'humanlte des premIers ,ours), plus un epIlogue (l'humarute des derruers JOurs quand 1'1lluslOn sera morte, que les Cites seront desertees, que l'hornme, la tete rasee, couverte de cendres, attendra Ie neant), etc, etc, Que de plans! Mals la VIe est courte' IbId p I I 10 'Je vous qUltte pour relIre mon anu H HeIne' IbId p 23 I I 'J'al I 800 vers de mon volume Mats II commence a me degouter padoIS' IbId p 37

a

a

a

Chapter IV I

'Deux ans de solItude dans les blbhotheques, sans amour, sans amIS, la peur de la mort' Melanges posthumes, p 7

NOTES

2

3 4

5

'J e demeurru presque pendant tout Ie sIege de Troye seuI, sans secours, sans esperance, sans soulagement' Les Aventures de Telemaque, xv 'A qUOl bon ta VIe, tu ne sus nen de l'uruvers, du but de tout, des astres Iomtams, de l'hlStorre, de Ia Lo!, de l'evolunon uruverselle, nen des splendeurs solennelles, des angolSSes, nen des renoncements, des prodIges, des vernges, des contempIanons, des epouvantes, des stupeurs, des frlSsons, des ebloUlSSements de l'Etre umque, de la mlSere de tout, de l'etermte, de l'mfim, du neant, de la VIe, des grandes trlStesses, du temps, de l'espace, de Ia mort des soleus, tu panlS sans avorr conou nen des sanglots de la terre, sa tragIque odyssee, son hIstorre, ses Dleux, tu ne soup~onnas nen nen de ton corps mecamsme prodlgteux' Revue blanche, x, IS April 1896, P 373 Melanges posthumes, p 18 'Un BouddhlSte contemporam en Allemagne Arthur Schopenhauer,' Revue des deux mondes, LXXXVI, 1870, pp 296-332 'Par la contemplanon sereme, estMnque, sCIennfique ou phllosophIque (ces deux dermeres sont les plus sTIres de qUletude) on echappe a SOl, on est affranchI pour un mstant du Temps, de l'Espace et des Nombres, on monte la grande Liberte -sornr de l'Illusorre' Melanges posthumes, p 1 I The World as WJll and Idea, translated by Haldane and Kemp, I, 1891, P 485 'n faut souffnr au moms deux ans Jeu.ner, souffnr de la connnence, salgner de pIne et d'amour uruversel, VISIter les hOpltaux. toutes les maladles hIdeuses ou trlStes, toutes les saletes, se penetrer de l'hlstorre generale et IOlOuneuse, en se dlsant que cela est reel, que ces millIards d'mdlVldus aValent des coeurs, des sens, des asprranons au bonheur, la lrre avec sympathte comIlle Carlyle ou Michelet' Melanges posthumes, p 12 Letter to Sandah Mahah (Mme Mullezer). March 1882, Oeuvres,

a

6 7

8

lV. p 128 9 J M CarrIere, however, has drawn an mterestmg parallel between a Laforgue poem, 'Solt de Carnaval,' and Leopardl's 'La Sera del di dl festa' 'Jules Laforgue and Leopardl,' Romamc Re'Vte'W, :X::X::X:lV, February 1943, pp 50-53 10' the dark 1II1presslOn of that nothmgness whIch we dIScern behmd all VIrtUes and holmess as thel! final goal. and whIch we fear as chudren fear the dark' The World as W,ll and Idea, I. p 53 2

NOTES

De Rerum Natura, II, vv IOSI-75 Flammanon lIDproves Ius case slIghtly Huygens wrItes 'Flen V1X potest, Frater opnme, S1 qUIS cum CoperOlco sentIat, Terramque, quam lUcollIDus, e Planetarum numero unum esse eXIStImet, qUI ClIca solem Clrcumferantur, ab eoque lucem omnem acciplant, qum mterdum cogitet haud a ratione abenum esse ut, qUImad.mo~ dum noster Iuc Globus, Ita caeten estu, cultu ornatuque, ac fortasse habitoribus non vacent' Oeuvres completes, XXI, 1944, P 68 3 13 Allgememe Naturgeschzchte und Theorze des Hzmmels, III, Kant's Klemere Schrzften zur Naturphzlosophze, 1909, p 178 14 Laforgue revlewed EphrusSI'S book two years later m hIS sIXth publIshed pIece Gazette des Beaux-Arts, xxv, 1 June 1882, pp 608~

II

Il

16

Chapter V 1

:1

3 4 5

6

'Je me SOUVlens du temps ou Je portals a Bourget des PIeCeS de theatre, des chapltres de roman, et des masses de vers, en songeant de ce COUp-CI, 11 va etre epate' Et 11 me repondalt Ie dlmanche SUlvant "Vous ne savez pas encore Ie fran~als, nIle metIer du vers, et vous n'en etes pas encore a penser par vous-meme" Quand Je rells ce qUl me reste des vleilles choses, )e sens comblen 11 aValt raISon et Je me fehcIte de man seJour ICI en ce que cet elOlgnement de ParIS m'a empeche de pubher des sottIses qUI m'auralent ensUIte faIt fme du maUValS sang toute ma VIe' Letter of Aprl! 1886 (month changed from July to Aprll by lean-Aubry 10 Ius personal copy), Oeuvres, v, p 146 In an 10tervlew by ClaudIne Chonez, 10 Une Semame dans I.e monde, I May 1948, summarlzed In the Mercure de France, July 1948, p 55 1 Sonnet enclosed 10 a letter to Mme Mullezer, 2 July 188% 'Je me SUlS aper~u que mon volume de vers etalt un ramasSls de petItes saletes banales et Je Ie reials avec rage' 2 February 188%, Oeuvres, lV, p I Xl The first was Auguste Gerard, who became French ambassador to Japan The second, Amedee PIgeon, was a CrItIC and novelIst 'Je pensats tout de SUIte Lafargue, 11 aValt de bonnes marueres, un all' correct et doux, un peu fragile et secret Je Jugeals qu'll pourralt travailler Ii a sa gutse, a l'abn du besom' Quoted by Gerald Bauer, reViewIng Berlzn, la cour et la wlle, Echo de Pans, 18 January 19:13

a

NOTES

7 'C'est un excellent pere, va, bIen qu':d alt trop Iu Jean-Jacques Rousseau' September 1881, Oeuvres, IV, p IZ 8 'V01S-tu, Je seral trlSte pour toute Ia Vle, 51 papa n'a pas dlt un mot bon pour mOl avant de mourrr' IbId pIS 9 Letter of 22 November 1881, IbId P 21 10 Letter of 28 November r88r, IbId p 24 II IbId P 33 I2 IbId P 38 13 Letter of 7 December 1881, IbId P 52 14 Berhn, la cour et la 'lnlle, Appendlx, p ISZ IS IbId pp 154-5 r6 To EphrusSI, I2 February 1882, Oeuvres, IV, p II4r7 To EphrusSl, 5 December r881, zbtd p 43 r8 'Serre dans une redmgote nOIre, rase, Ie vlSage presque enfantm, malS 51 seneux, et (par mstants fugtnfs) avec des pllS 51 ages, les yeux bretons, couleur de mer, et un regard au deli ou mteneur, Je ne saValS qUI j'avalS devant mOl 'Mon ImpreSSIOn de la prenuere seconde,-la plus nette de toutes, de beauconp,-fut celle-cl "La Vleille Imperatrlce, avec son gout pour les cathohques, auralt-elle fim par prendre pour lecteur un pettt pretre rhenan? MalS non, c'est ImpOSSIble avec ces yeux-la' , Je n'al JamalS rencontre un etre qUI flit plus absolument depayse que Laforgue en ces prenuers JOurs de la-bas, ru domme par une plus mtense phoble des etres et des choses 'Ce masque Impenetrable, cette VOlX umforme et calme recouvralent un etat de tlmlwte, d'mcerotude presque morblde Je SUlS encore a me demander par quel effort extraordmarre de volonte :d put, du JOur au lendemam, assurer Ie foncnonnement reguher et les dehors mruspensables de sa "Vle de cour" sImplement s'habiller, ne pas oubher les heures, entrer, saIuer, parler, c'est-a-drre repondre, sans qu'on remarquat nen de cette detresse d'olSeau effarouche 'Des les premIeres paroles, nous nous enons trouve des connalSSances ou anus communs Paul Bourget Charles Henry d'autres encore A chaque nom Laforgue ponctualt d'un "C'est curIeux' c'est smguller'" comme s':d y aValt une harmorue preetabhe ou Je ne salS que! dessem commandant que Je fusse venu Justement a ce moment-Ia 'Nons causames bIen longtemps, et des ce prenuer Jour, :d me dtt presque tout de sa famille, de ses ascendances, }amalS :d ne se

NOTES

conna davantage, un besom IrresIsoble de s'accrocher a quelqu'un de Pans et de son anCIen milIeu' Letter from Theodore Lmdenlaub to Jean-Aubry, 26 June 1921, quoted 10 the Introducoon to BeriJn, la cour et la V1-11e, p 35

Chapter VI I

'Hler Tame (dont Je SUlS reguherement Ie cours malgre la fresque d'Ingres qu'on a devant les yeux), Tame a ete etonnant sur AngelICO' Letter to Kahn, 27 January 1881, Lettres un amt, p 30 'Le cours de Tame-pantalons rIdIcules, trop courts avec la forte marque des genoux-Nourrl de faIts Pendant une heure on est dans l'Italle parsemee du XVI slede Je regarde ces cranes penchees des audlteurs attenofs, sur qUl tombe la IUffilere d'en haut sans nuance, fevrIer-blafarde Ces gens machent des pates de gUlmauve, ont des foulards, des caoutchoucs aux pleds, de la flanelle, des paraplUles TIs ecoutent les memoIres de Celhru, la VIe des Borglas (v Tame, Phtlo d'A en ltalte) , UnpublIShed manuScrIpt 'lequel abouot au beau dasslque, ace nu grec OU la noblesse morale acheve la perfection physlque, et demeure msuffisant, par consequent, devant ce qUl n'est pas lIlSprraoon helIemque ou RenaISsance' Unpubhshed draft of 'L'An modeme en Allemagne' 'que devlent votre Ideal devant les merveilles des arts chmolS et Japonrus';) devant des tapIS persans;l' Melanges posthumes, p 151 'M Tame pose "un prmclpe qUl asslgne a chaque oeuvre un rang dans l'echelle" Encore une fOlS un tapIS est une oeuvre, une paroe de notes est une oeuvre, un gnffonnage de Rembrandt ou de Degas sont des oeuvres VOllS voyez qu'u n'y a plus qu'a mer l'echelle' ibId p 161 'ce dehors m'lffiporte a mOl, pemtre, autant que votre dedans, psychologue PUlS, ce dehors, ce decor (meme en notre temps submerge, paralyse par Ia confectlon, c'est la physlOnorrue, Ie geste, Ie beau,l'mteressant de mes personnages On peut l'oter Je VOlS des gens habilles avec d'mfimes en un tour de mam~ nuances selon Ie rang, Ia pose, Ie caractere mdlvlduel, l'heure, l'occupation La toilette qu'on ote en un tour de malO est aUSSl preCleuse que celIe qu'on se greife, la coupe de Ia barbe, des cheveux, Ie som des ongles et des pleds, la touette de la peau, la touette du geste, les manleres, l'aIlure sont une touette aussl' Melanges posthumes, p ISO 'Le nu est-u toute la sculpture? Et cela etant, Ie nu d'une gnsette

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deformee par Ie metler au Ie nu grele d'un DonatelIo, n'est-u pas aUSSI mteressant que ceIUl de Ia DIane chasseresse~ Et Ies bustes des Cesars de la decadence (VOIr Tame), SI congeneres des notres ne sont-us pas aUSSI mteressants que les tetes des NlObldes~' IbId p x46 8 'La plume est grosse, pomt elegante et envoI6e, on drrrut que c'est turude et tatonnant, regardez comme c'est soupIe et savant Ces gerues a la plume melegante et subttle sans Ie paraitre La plume est grosse, elIe crache, elIe est mexperte aux Johes hachures calIlgraphlques, aux profils enleves d'un traIt am, elIe est grosse et crache, malS comme elle s'ecrase bIen a l'endrolt Juste Juste, et avec un nen qUI para!t sale et attrape de hasard etabht des physlOnonues d'une vanete d'expresslOns etonnante' IbId p 174 9 'une CIre de Cros qUl me sount maladIvement, adossee ala lampe' To EphrusSl, 5 November x883 (not 6 November 1882), Oeuvres, IV, p 203 10 To Henry, 6 November 1883, Oeuvres, v, p 55, Lettres un amt,

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P44 II I'1.

13

14 15

16 17

'Agenda of 1883,' Oeuvres, VI, p '1.57 'MalS de meme qU'au-dessus d'une scene reprodUIte en gravure Je mets cette meme scene reprodwte avec toute sa VIe de tons et de valeurs dans l'atmosphere, autant Je mets au-dessus d'un buste en marbre on en bronze, ce buste, en CIre par exemple, avec les yeux les cheveux et la parure, etc ' Melanges posbleus au norrs thumes, p 147 'Eh bIen, en art, non Neron, etre ants-SOCIal, vlbnon, mlcrobe monstrueux, aVaIt raison de dIre qualzs arttfex pereo" IbId p 152 Lac CIt 'telIe gnsette de ParIS, telIe Jeune filIe de salon, telIe tete de BurneJones, telIe panslenne de NlttlS, la Jeune fille d'Orphee de Gustave Moreau,-nous fera seule sangloter, nous remuera Jusqu'au trefond de nos entraIlies, parce qu'elIes sont les soeurs unmedIates de notre ephemere, et cela avec son allure d'auJourd'huI, sa coIffure, sa touette, son regard moderne' Melanges posthumes, p X6I Letter from Theodore Lmdenlaub to lean-Aubry dIscussmg Laforgue's readmg whtle m Berhn, dated 16 July I9'1.I 'Quant aux symbollStes, ne m'en parlez pas, tIs ne souiRent plus mot de CelUl d'entre eux qUl avalt Ie plus de talent et qUI est mort, c'est Jules Lafargue 'JorIS-Karl Hnysmans, Enquetes sur l'evolutzon htteratre, Jules Huret, 1891, p 184

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18 'Un des personnages de son roman nous expose des theOrIes d'art.

19 20

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17

aUSSI Justes, a notre aVIS. que remarquables, a propos de ce qu'on appeUe aUJourd'hUl la moderntte Son dermer ouvrage nous offre dans ce chapltre une abondance de documents precleux sur la VIe de certams quartlers parIsIens' Magazzn fur dte Ltteratur des In- und Auslandes, 28 May 1881, reprInted m Ohve Jacobs' 'Une Page oubhee de Jules Laforgue,' Mercure de France, CCCIV, I November 1948. p 463 These and quotatIOns followmg are from En Menage, 1881. pp 109- 1 4 'poetes trop chats. trap debiles pour ~tre cnmmeis anarchIstes, ruhIllStes-nourns dans l'ecoie crItlque maIS qUl en sont sows et se sont reJetes dans Ia vie-les seuls ~tres qUl ne reconnalSsent plus aucune dlSclphne U1 de conSCIence U1 de sante, U1 de socIete' Melanges posthumes, p 157 'Chaque homme est selon son moment dans Ie temps, son milleu de race et de condltlon soclale, son moment d'evolutIOn mdlvlduelle, un certam claVIer sur lequel Ie monde exteneur Joue d'une certame falton Mon claVIer est perpetuellement changeant et Il n'y en a pas un autre ldentlque au mIen T ous les clavlers sont Iegltlmes' IbId p 141 ThIs essay 15 mcluded m Volume VII of the Oeuvres completes December 1880. Lettres a un amt, pp 22-3 'Un rate de geme Et vlerge, qUl reve quatre grandes fresques l'epopee de l'hUmanlte. la danse macabre des dermers temps de Ia planece. les trotS stades de l'Illuston' Fragments of 'Un Rate,' Melanges posthumes, p 9 Author of Arthur Schopenhauer, Phdosopher of Pesstmtsm, 1946 Melanges posthumes, p lor 'La rage de voulOlr se connaitre, de plonger sous sa culture conSCIente vers "1'MrIque mteneure" de notre mconSClent domalne Et c'etaIent des eplements pas i pas, en ecartant les branches, les broussailles des tallhs, sans brUlt. pour ne pas effaroucher ces lapms qUI Jouent au claIr de lune, se croyant seuls J e me sens SI pauvre, Sl conou tel que le me connalS mOl, Lafargue, en relatIon avec Ie monde exteneur Et J'al des mInes rIches, des gIsements, des mondes soug..marms qUI fermentent mconnus Ah' c'est III que Je voudraIS VIvre, c'est Ii que Je voudralS mourll" Des fieurs etranges qw tournent comme des t~tes de Cll'e de cOIffeurs Ientement sur leur ttge, des plerrerles feerIques comme celles dort Galatee de Moreau survelllee par Polypheme, des coxaux

ou

NOTES

2.8 29

253 heureux sans reve, des lIanes de rubIS, des fiOraISons suboles ou l'oeIl de la conSClence n'a pas porte la hache et Ie feu n passaIt des Journees a s'epler en dedans, avec l'unmobilite des mOInes du Epzer des mstzncts avec autant que possIble abMont-Athos sence de calcul, de volante, de peur de les fazre devzer de leur naturel, de les mfiuencer' Entrettens pohtzques et imeralres, IV, February 1892, P 49 'n est un domaJ.I1e qUI, on Ie salt, vlent d'ouvrrr a la SCIence les forets VIerges de la VIe ' Melanges posthumes, p lor 'Ie dermer dIVIn, Ie prInClpe mystIque umversel revele dans la Phzlosophte de l'Inconsclent de Hartmann, Ie seul dlVIn mmutIeusement present et veillant partout, Ie seul mfailllble-de par son InCOnSClence-, Ie seul vraunent et sereInement Infim, Ie seul que l'homme n'alt pas cree son unage' IbId pp 201 IbId P 102 IbId P 179 'Le geme est la venue mystIque, sIgne d'elu unmedlat de l'InconSCIent, pouvant parler unmeruatement en son nom' Melanges posthumes, p 108 'La force transcendante qUl pousse Beethoven a chanter, DelacrolX chercher des tons, Baudelarre fouiller sa langue, Hugo etre enorme 'IbId P 147 'Les arts n'ont qu'une unportance secondarre, maIS merveilleusement necessarre, pour les fins dIVInes leur mISSIOn est de developper mdefimment les orgamsmes respecnfs qu'lls exploltent et de concounr aJ.I1Sl, dans un affinement sans frem de tout 1'0rganISme, l'etat d'lvresse ruvmatorre du cerveau en un mot, al'epuratIon du rrurorr ou se cherche I'!neonsClent Done, en ce qUl nous occupe, les arts OptIques, la COndItIOn szne qua non du beau pour les oeuvres, sera avant tout Ie developpement a outrance de l'organe explOlte, l'OeIl Est-Il besom de rappeler ICI cette vente d'mer, que, comme toute force de VIe, ehaque organe est en evolutIon~ Que, par exemple, roell, sens chromatIque, prurutIvement en pleme aehromatopS1e, n'a apprIS que graduellement connaltre les andes, de plus en plus rapldes et de moms en maIns longues, du rouge au VIolet, et contlnue son evolution n'a appns que peu peu vers l'ultra-vIOlet Que l'oeIl fouiller Ie comphque des hgnes et des perspeCtIves melees et se combattant en nehes VIbratIons ' Melanges postbumes, pp 205-

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254

36 'En somme l'oeIlunpressIonlste est dans l'evolutlon humame l'oeIl Ie plus avance, celUl qUI JUSqU'ICI a salSl et a rendu les combmalsons de nuances les plus comphquees connues' Melanges posthumes, p 137 Bruce Morrissette po1Ots out thIS flaw 10 Laforgue's theory 10 Ius Aspects fondamentaux de l'esthetzque symbolme, 1933, Chapter 3 37 Melanges posthumes, pp 196-9 38 'La phIlosophle comme l'expresslOn demiere des Idees dommantes a telle penode de Civilisatlon comme la fleur conSClente en laquelle s'epanoult d'elle-meme la Vertu Inconsclente de l'HlstOlre peut seule donner dans quelques formules conClses et acceSSlbles l'ame de cette perlOde ' 39' un POUlt commun a tous les etres, c'est Ie mecontentement de la stagnatlon de leur etre present, la possesslOn de monter, Ce plasma reve vaguement de ce monde 100Ul deux valves etc d'hultre a charmere qUl Jouent L'homme est tourmente de progres, etc Ce pOInt commun est d'etre possede du demon de 1'1Ofim Ce pomt est leur ame-Toutes ces ames sont non seulement de la meme famIlle, malS une meme ame umque Et la fleur umverselle est Ie tourment lOdefim de l'Ideal ' 40 'L'obJet et Ie sUJet sont donc lrremedlablement mouvants Les eclaIrs d'Identlte entre Ie sUJet et l'obJet, c'est Ie propre du geme' Melanges posthumes, p 141 41 'La vraIe phIlosophle-en depit de l'emanClpatlOn autonome des SCIences (un Dleu est au-dessus des castors) dOlt touJours rester la SCIence premIere et UOlverselle et dermere Rlen de la cathedrale Herbert Spencer-Il faut des poetes Les SCIences dOlvent rester les ancsllae dtltgentes de la phIlosophle, de la metaphyslque, dans leur anarchle bomee Toutes ces pauvres SCIences sont basees sur Ie sens commun, sur l'arbitratre Elles ne dOlvent pas se pemer de premIers prmclpes -D'aIlleurs ce n'est qu'une fugue de gamlOs qUl Jettent leur gourme Le progres des SCIences speclahsees ne peut a la longue que les ramener a la SCIence preIOlere et dermere, la metaphyslque -Le VIce radIcal des SCIences c'est qu'elles sont unpersonnelles-Tandls qu'une metaphysIque Vlent d'une arne '

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Chapter VII I

Revue untversttatre, 1903, II, P 424

z IbId 1904, I, P 322

NOTES

3 'L'ennw de ces penodlques paves roules du Smal couturmer, trolS cent cmquante pages de gros papler, en gros caracteres n n'y a pas de raIson pour que s:a firusse [MalSJ la strophe, et Ie vers, et la rIme et les cesures dlSCIplmes et axses Et a presque tous les tournants de page, faxsant oubher un peu Ie paraslosme des adJecofs, les torols de fantalSles techruques des Chansons des rues et des bo~s' Melanges posthumes, p 13 0 4 'C'est la Basolle, la lIberte et les dJ.vagaoons humarutarres (QueUe corvee')' IbId p 131 5 '<,;a va parce que c'est de la prose et que la Slenne est encore seule en ce genre MaiS songez a ces lIvres rms en vers par un poete eqwvalent au prosateur Flaubert Ce SeraIt decidement honorablement pauvre ' IbId P 131 6 Lettres Ii un amI, p IDS 7 'L'Inconsclent, Ie pnncIpe, apres l'effort, l'apotheose de Ia conSCIence arosoque parnasslenne se consolant dans des protestaoons bouddhIques, Ie prmcIpe en poesle du begatement, de l'en aile' Melanges posthumes, p Il8 8 "ce n'est pas Ie begalement de l'eruant qUI a mal, malS le Sage qUI dwague, ce n'est JamalS une dJ.vagaoon d'Images comme dans Ie reve et l'extase mconSCIente, c'est-a-drre de senoments expnmes avec 1'1mmedlat de l'eruant qUI n'a a sa dISpOSIoon que Ie repertorre de ses besolOS, malS de Ia dIvagatIOn ra~sonneuse Sa techmque est egalement rauonnee, consclente et ron VOlt souvent qu'elle n'est pas de prermer Jet' IbId p Il8 9 'Mes Idees en poesle changent Apres avorr aIme les developpements eIoquents, pUIS Coppee, pws Ia Justzce de Sully, pUlS baudeIamen Je devlens (comme forme) kahnesque et mallarmeen' Letter of December 1881, Oeuvres, IV, p 66 10 'FrlSson d'hIver,' 'PIamte d'automne,' 'Le Phenomene futur' I I 'Runbaud, fieur MtIve et absolue sans avant m apres Ie seul tsomere de BaudelaIre' Melanges posthumes, p Il9 Xl 'Une po6s1e n'est pas un senoment que ron commuruque tel que cons:u avant Ia plume Avouons Ie peot bonheur de la rIme, et les deVIatIons occaslOnnees par les trouvatlles, Ia symphome unprevue Vlent escorter Ie motZ{, tout comme un pemtre est amene la-a ce grxs perle a propos de bottes, a ce geranlUm tel Ie mUSlClen avec ses harmomes qUl ont l'aIr parasItes' Loc CIt. 13 'Corblere a du chIc et )'at de l'humour, Corblere papillotte et Je ronronne, Je VlS d'une phtlosophIe absolue et non de tICS, Je SU1S bon a tous et non msalslssable de frmgance, )e n'at pas l'amour

NOTES

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15 16

17 18 19 20

Jaune, malS blanc et VIOlet gros dew! Enfin, Corblere ne s'occupe m de la strophe m des rlmes (sauf comme un tremplm a concetn) et JamaIs de rythmes, et Je m'en SUlS preoccupe au pomt d'en apporter de nouvelles et de nouveaux, fal voulu faue de la symphome et de la meIodle, et Corblere Joue de l'eternel crmcnn que vous savez' Oeuvres, lV, p 137 'Tout ~a, c'est faIt de ChIC, Je pose Je valS meme vous exphquer comment ~a se fabnque' Melanges posthumes, p IZO Loc Clt 'Un Hugo au fond avec son enorme cerveau ne VIVaIt que pour cette seule volupte des rImes droles' Notes on Baudelme, Entrettens polJtJques et ImeraJreS, II, April 1891 Melanges posthumes, pp IZ3, 1%4 IbId P 1%5 Loc Clt These and followmg passages on Baudelaue are translated from 'Notes,' Entrettens polJtJques et lmerazres, II, April 189 1 , pp 971%0

Chapter VIII I 'Je dechIquette la fougere amere du spleen' Oeuvres, IV, p 119 2 Oeuvres, VI, p 228 3 'La plaClchte berhnolse m'exaspere et fen III peur, ausSl Je n'ecrlS pas une phrase, un vers sans voulOlr du suralgu, pour me prouver Berhn est que Je ne m'en ValS pas MalS sans doute l'alcool tIsane Paru' Letter to Henry, January 1882, Oeuvres, IV, p 91 4 Ibld P 208 5 'J'Ill voulu te recopler quelques vers Ils te paraitront peutetre blZarres MalS fal abandonne mon ldeal de la rue Berthollet, mes poemes phIlosophlques J e trouve stupIde de fme la grosse VOlX et de Jouer de l'eloquence AUJourd'hw que Je SUlS plus scepnque et que Je m'emballe moms wement et que, d'autre part, Je possMe rna langue d'une fa~on plus mmutIeuse, plus clownesque, J'ecrIs de petIts poemes de fantalSle, n'ayant qu'un but fatre de l'ongtnal tout pm' To MarIe, Oeuvres, v, p 20 6 'Je crolS me rappeler, vaguement, une seuZe et wmque allUSIon une Jeune £i.lle de rentourage de l'lffiperatrIce-reme que L m'aValt cht, sans la nOIIlffier, dlSnnguee, mtellectuelle, analyste, ultraSenSIble, presque orageuse Elie auralt etc nne d'un bourgL ne m'en aVlllt dlt que mestre de Cologne (au Coblentz';)') ce seul mot "Nous sommes deux: malheureux " lUI QValt-elle

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257

dlt un JOur 'Letter from Theodore Lmdenlaub to Jean-Aubry, 28 July 1921 '-Lecture-pws chez R -scene mternunable -BanqUlse et oson , '-Promenade folIe avec R lamentaoons d'ambloeux esclave-' 'Scene avec R , proJets de fortune, Halle aux tableaux et desslllS ImpressloUlsme et cIre" 'Grande scene avec R Elle emt nee pour etre mere-' '-Eremte-Tendresses chez R ExplosIOn' 'R devant ma rnme-' '-Scene de l'mdlgne' Oeuvres, VI, pp 223-3 8 'Le rendez-vous ou elie ne Vlent pas-IT erre encore une heure apres l'heure iixee, les yeux sumtants, les dents serrees IT reVlent du com de la rue VOir l'horloge-enselgne de l'horloger IT est bel et bIen IoLIT erre encore, quelque chagrm 11 y a, 11 veut en amasser avant de rentrer chez lUl, Jusqu'a deborder, Jusqu'aux larmes II erre unagmant mot a mot la scene qu'l1lUl fera demam, et sa physlOnorme prend la rmrmque de ses paroles mentales Que repondra-t-eIle- C'est Ie second rendez-vous dans cette semame qu'elle manque II Jouera l'Irreparable-LUl, quand Ie clel eut croule, n'auralt pas manque un rendez-vous, eut falt Slgne etc En rentrant par les rues, 11 s'aper~t qu'l1 l'adoralt comme un fou-11 se promettalt d'en finrr, des Ie lendernam 111Ul proposeralt de l'epouser, ou de l'enlever Elle l'alIDalt Cela Irart seul II n'avart que trop heslte Elle s'en etalt sans doute atnedle n lIDagmrut la scene de larmes et d'amour eternel que cela feralt demaln Je t'en avalS comb16e, Je t'en veux accabler' UnpublIshed prose fragment 'Je commence a crOIre que c'est toute rna personne qUl a deplu l'illustre R "October 1885, Oeuvres, v, p 140 Letter to Charles Henry, 27 July 1883, Oeuvres, v, p 42 Unpubhshed letter of 14 March 1884 to VanIer 'Quelles etranges rnachmes vous avez pubhees dans votre nurnero de Verd'auJourd'hUl' Je parle des vers [de Laforgue] Cet lame, en pubhant ses poetes rnaudIts, aura falt plus de mal que Gagne et l'Ururerde SI ~a contmue, 11 suffira dans 10 ans 1 0 de n'avoIr nen adire, 2 0 de Ie dire en mauvaIS vers et en vers faux, 3 0 d'ecrIre comme un JavanaIS pour etre un poete de gellle Et vous, savez-vous que vous aurez votre part de responsablhte' Lutece, 19 March 1885 'J'aJ. mSIste sur l'estheoque empmque de la compla1Ilte' August (rather than July) 1885, Oeuvres, v, p 131 Eth~cs, Th 2, PrOpOSItiOn 7. Post 1 February 1885, Lettres un amI, p 74

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16 'Je reste d'aVls qu'enIever la prenue.re PIece du volume c'est enIever moralement toute une mOltle de ce volume'

Chapter IX 1

'Et tout Ie drole navrant d'etre dans ces ties dechlqUetees et venteuses, Ie premIer Jour de 86 (annee ou nous claquerons peutetre) QUOI qu'Il en SOlt nous aunons dlt au vent bIen des propos relatlvement lffimortels' Lettres un arm, p J44 Make zt New, 1935, p 171 'Eo se penchant sur "son propre PUlts" Ie poete, avec une clarrvoyance aIgUe, dlscerne l'opposltlon de ses tendances, Ie confut de ses mstlncts, et son "mOl" dIVlSe contre IUl-meme Son Irome, c'est l'etlOcelle de magnesIUm qUI JaIlht au choc des forces contrmes et qUI, une seconde, 6clme Ie chaos de son ime' Jacques NanteuIl. L'lnqutetude reltgteuse et les poetes d'au10urd'huJ, 19t5. P t8 Dumont-WIlden, Le Crepuscule des ma'itres, 1947. p II9 Jules Laforgue, sa V1.e, son oeuvre, pp 143-7 Pnnctples of Lzterary Cnttczsm, sth edltlOn, J934, p lSI 'CompIamte II. Notre-Dame des som' Revue blanche, VIII, 1895, P 553 Oeuvres, m, p I3 l Moralttes Jegendalres, 190t, p 253 'L'Eternel qUlproquo' 'A Paul Bourget,' Les Complamtes 'Preludes autoblographlques,' Les Complamtes Revue blanche, VlIl, 1895, P SSt 'Amours de la qUlIlZleme annee,' EdItlon ConnalSSance, I, p 32 'ComplalOte de l'autoxnne monotone' Oeuvres, m, p ISO 'Plerrots,' I, Oeuvres, I, p 221 Oeuvres, I, p 181 'ComplalOte des moUDlS de Montmartre' 'AntlClpatlons des prlIlC1pes de la psychanalyse dans l'oeuvre d'un poete fra~a1S,' Journal de psychologze normale et pathologJque, 1ge annee, 19t2 Jules Laforgue, sa VIe, s~n oeuvre, p 85 L'Evolutton dynmmque de rzmage dans la poesle fran;azse du Romant1sme nos tours, 1943, p 168 Anna Balaklan, L,terary Orzglns of SurrealIsm, 1947. PP 106-8 To Charles Henry, Oeuvres, lV, P 67

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259 26 'Le vrar vers hbre est con~u comme tel, c'est-a-dlre comme frag-

ment dessme sur Ie modele de son Idee emotlve, et non plus determme par la 101 fixe du nombre' Esthettque de la langue tran;atse, 1894, p 229 27 'Mane Krysmska a une sensrbilite artISte a fond orrgmale, mars tout cela est bIen noye dans Ie rheto a la mode, n'est-ce pas-' Letter :first pubbshed In VArt moderne, 1.5 March 1888, p 99 There are other references to Mane Krysmska In letters wntten 17 July 188 3 and 14 July of the same year, Oeuvres, v, pp 27. 38 28 'On se demande Sl c'est Laforgue ou Gustave Kahn qUi a fonde

Ie vers hbre en France Pour mOl la questlon ne se pose pas Je ne sars pas Sl Kahn est un poete pour d'autres, en tout cas 11 ne l'est pas pour mOl Par consequent son vers ne m'Interesse pas, 11 est mexlstant, tandlS que Laforgue est touJours 1:1, poete, meme quand 11 se trompe' Letter of 22 April 1949 to the wrIter 29 For Laforgue's translatIons from WhItman and the order of therr pubhcatlon m La Vogue, see Blbhography for the year 1886, p 265 30 'Dans la gde salle vltree des antlques surtout vers mrdl, quand 11 eta!t seul dessmant parmr les statues blanches et calmes La salle etalt desertee C'etart Ie gd s11ence de fildl On entendart les echos des pas sur les dalles par l'ecole des eleves qw allarent dmerLur restalt la oubhant sa farm-Une cloche VOlSme (St Sulplce ou St Germarn des Pres) sonnart, mettant une sorte de solenrute de plus dans ce gd calme de rruru sous Ie plem JOur tombant d'en haut. Dans Ie recueillement de ce peuple de statues blanches et rmmobrles Des conceptlons solennelles lUI venalent n etalt dans une Vle Ideale lorn de la Vle bruyante des rues etrOltes et boueuses de la nve gauche, 10m des mansardes des orgues, des mastroquets grarsseux, des tarileurs, des fournrsseurs, 11 etalt l:l transporte dans d'autres temps, lorn de notre d6mocratle enfievree, JoulSSant d'une belle Vle calme et noble-les bourgeolS qur dans la rue vous devlSagent en passant et Iarssent tomber un regard sur vos soubers-un Jacques de xmsere a l'arnvee a Pans-dmers :l 50c-bottlnes 6cuIees-la sante menacee-Ies pOlgnets effiloches dont on coupe les iils-' 'BonjOur cher Jacques l TouJours tes petIts SOUClS COSfilques" Unpubhshed prose fragment 31 'Et VlIlrent alors ces etranges Argonautes, comme on n'en reverra plus! Epoques splenrudes l Jason etalt leur chef, Hercule SUlValt, et son anu Thesee, et Orphee qur se farsart fort de me charmer

NOTES

260

avec sa lyre (et qUl devalt aVOlr plus tard une fin SI traglque') et aUSSI les deux Gemeaux Castor, dompteur de chevaux, et Pollux, habue au puguat Epoques evanoUles' Oh' leurs bIvouacs, et les feux qu'us allumalent aux SOlrS" 'Persee et Andromede,' Oeuvres, In, p 255 32 'GUltare,' L'lmztatzon de Notre-Dame la Lune 33 'Locunons des Plerrots,' III, L'lmztatton de Notre-Dame la Lune

Chapter X 1 Oeuvres, v, p 142 2. 'les galenes de I'Odeon, les clels malades que 1'0n VOlt du pont de la Concorde, les belles flaques de la place de ce nom les enterrements a la Madeleme et a Samt-Augusnn, et les rosses reslgnees et somnolentes des fiacres ' Letter to EphrusSI, 9 January 1882, Melanges posthumes, p 241 3 Melanges posthumes, p 318, and Oeuvres, v, p lSI 4 'Vous savez qu'u y a trOIS sexes l'homme, la femme, I'Anglalse Letter to Henry, 12. August 1882, Oeuvres, IV, p I8S 5 'Oh' mOl, J'epouserat une msntutrlce anglalSe" Jean-Aubry, Introducnon to Berlm, la cour et la vtlle, p lxlll 6 8 September 1886, Oeuvres, v, pp Iso-59 7 'C'est decIde, archI-declde Je valS commencer a expedler mes hvres et mes bIbelots chez Kahn J'en al assez La perspecnve de repasser un autre hlver ICl, entre I'Oberwallstrasse, Renz, Bauer et la Brandenburger Tor et Ie Schutzmann devant rna fenetre et les menues carrl0les attelees de chevaux famellques, et Ie corps de garde en face, et toutes les tetes de valets favorls et guetre cafe au latt, etc, etc, cette perspecnve me pousseralt des fOlS a m'en aller chez les Mormons ou a me falre chatrer pour Ia SlXtme C'est mon derruer hlver' • plutot crouplr typographe dans un sous-sol que de passer un autre hIver lCl Cmq ans en face des memes tetes, c'est trop pour un homme qUI n'est pas toUJours tres sur d'avolr la slenne' UnpublIshed letter to Lmdenlaub 8 Letter to MarIe quoted above 9 UnpublIshed letter to Vle16-Grlffin 10 Letter of 30 September 1886, Oeuvres, v, pp 162-4 I I 'Ie marage, qu'u cOnsIderatt comme un amenagement pOSSIble de la VIe, supprImant les pertes de temps, les pmodes vagues d'mqule.' 'Les Derrueres rude, creant une cu;a.delle autour de l'ecnvaln annees de Jules Laforgue,l NouveJles lttteratres, 2.6 January 192.9

a

NOTES 12

26r

'Jules Laforgue,' French Studzes, Oxford, IV, July 1950, pp 193-

20 7 13 Henn de Regmer, Nos Rencontres, 1931, pp 95-6 14 Symboltstes et Decadents, 1902, p 197

Chapter Xl Jules SuperVlelle, 'Poeme,' Les Dzts modernes, August 19 19 Teodor de Wyzewa, Nos Mattres, 1895, pp 23 6-7 3 Alam-Fourmer to Jacques R..tVlere, 10 January 1906, Correspondance, j Rwzere et Alam-Fournzer, 1926, pp 210-21 4 'La Senslbilite de Jules Laforgue,' Promenades lmerazres, 1904, 1

2

I,

P

106

5 'Je goute aUJourd'hUl une forme plus resserree, plus concentree

que celle de Laforgue, malS comment ne pas etre touche par Je crOlS que Laforgue auralt faIt des l'accent de cette poesle merveilles s'u avart vecu Tel qu'u est, U a apporte un ton nouveau dans la poesle franlralSe et meme uruverselle' Jules SuperVlelle ill a letter to the Writer, 21 Apru 1949 6' un repoussOlr pour admrrer Laforgue sans restrIctton' To RiVIere, 13 September 1905, Correspondance, J Rwzere et AlamFournzer, I, p 100 The remammg quotattons In thxs chapter are taken from thxs correspondence

Chapter Xll 1 2

3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10

II I%

13

Introductton to Selected Poems of Ezra Pound, London, 1928 Harper's New Monthly Magazme, !.XXXVII, June-November 1893, p 85 8 IbId P 863 The Symbolzst Movement m Lzterature, 1899, p 108 IbId P 106 IbId P II4 Scrzbner's, XIII, March 1893, pp 337-5 2 Blue junzata, 192 9, p 33 IbId P 37 The Fugzt1ve, October 1922 Letters of Ezra Pound, edIted by D D Parge, 1950, p 41 AccordIng to the order establIshed by E J H Greene and corroborated by Ehot, 'Jules Laforgue et T S Ehot,' Revue de htterature comparee, July-September 1948, p 369 Harvard Advocate, !.XXXVIII, January 1910, p 114

NOTES

14 IbId P 103 15 'On a Recent PIece of CrItIclsm,' Purpose, April-June 1938, pp 91- 2 16 In a letter to E J H Greene, Revue de Ittterature comparee, July-September 1948, p 365 17 Entrettens polttzques et lttterazres, IV, May 1892, p 207, and Edl-

tion Connalssance,

II,

p

119

18 'L'AquarIum,' La Vogue, no 6, 29 May 1886, p 193 ('Llmules'

was mIspnnted 'lmnules') 19 By Elizabeth Drew, T S Eltot the DeSIgn of hts Poetry, 1949, 20

21 2.2 23

2.4 25

2.6

p 36 Hamlet, Act n, Scene XI Introduction to Ezra Pound's Selected Poems, 192.8 'The MetaphysIcal Poets,' Selected Essays (1})17-1932), 1932., P 248 'The Poetry of Jules Laforgue,' Scrutmy, v, September 1936, pp 128-49 Introducnon to Ezra Pound's Selected Poems 'FlInt, m retum for havmg been resurrected, has put me on some very good contemporary French stuff Remy de Gourmont, de Regruer, etc' To Isabel W Pound, 12 February 19IZ Letter preserved m the lIbrary of Yale Uruverslty 'dIe zusammenstellung, das verhaltrus der emzelnen telle zuemander, dIe notwendIge folge des emen aus dem andem kennzelchnet erst die hohe dlchtung' 'Uber Dlchtung I,' Tage und Taten, Berhn, 1933, p 85

Chapter XIII Hart Crane, 1948, p 93 Publlshed complete for the first nme m Inventano, AutumnSprmg 1946-7, pp 89-90 3 ReactIonary Essays on Poetry and Ideas, 1936 I

2

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I

WORKS OF LAFORGUE

Publtshed durmg ms ltfettme

1880 'Les FIances de Noel Tnptyque en prose,' La Vze moderne, 2e annee, no 52 (25 December), p 821

1881 RevIew of Huysmans' En Menage, Magazln fur dIe Lzteratur des Inund Auslandes, May 28 PublIshed m French translatlon by OlIve Jacobs, 'Une Page oublIee de Jules Laforgue,' Mercure de France, CCCIV (I November 1948), pp 460-64 'Le PublIc des dImanches au salon,' La Vze moderne, 3e annee, no 23 (4 June), p 359 'Tnstesse de reverbere,' La Vze moderne, 3e annee, no 36 (3 September), PP 575-6 'Ballade de retour,' L'Art de la mode, m (September), p 34

r882 'Albert Durer et ses desstns ' ReVIew of the book by Charles EphrusSI, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, xxv (I June), 608-16 'ExpOSItIOns de rUmon artlStlque de BerlIn,' Chromque des Arts et de la Curtonte (8 July), PP 185-6

188 3 'Le Salon de BerlIn,' Gazette des Beaux-Arts, PP 170 - 81

XXVIII (I

August),

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1884 'Correspondance de Berlm Exposltlons de M Adolphe Menzel la Nanonal-Galene,' Gazette des Beaux-Arts, xxx (I July), pp 76-84

a

r88S 'Complamte proplnatOlre

a l'Inconsclent,'

'Complalnte de Faust fils,'

Lutece, 8 March 'Complamte de cette bonne lune,' Lutece, 22 March 'Complamte des blackboules,' Lutece, 17 May 'Complamte sur certams temps deplaces,' 'Complamte des condoleances au soleu,' Lutece, 21 June 'Complamte-l1tames de mon sacre coeur,' Lutece, 19 July Les Complamtes de Jules Laforgue, volume of 145 pages wIth the epIgraph, 'Au peot bonheur de la fatahte-Mucb ado about N otbmg Shakespeare' Vamer Letter to Trezemk, Lutece, 4 October 1886 'Exposltlon de la cmquantenme de Menzel a Berhn,' Cbromque des Arts et de la Curzostte (9 January), pp 13-14 'Correspondance de Berhn EXpOSItiOn de sculpture polychrome la Nanonal-Galene,' Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XXXIII (r February), PP 166-70 'Menues dragees au camphre,' La Vogue, I, no 3 (25 Apru), PP 73-6 Ten reflecnons

a

Une femme almee qUl a la consolation Frmt arner de l'expenence Pagamsme et Chnstlamsme Pourquol dites-vous une vule n est des moments en amour Que penser des classes dmgeantes Remarquez que la plupart des femmes Autre remarque, et des plus seneuses Rentrez chez SOl'

Vamte' Vamt6' 'PrMace,' 'Romance,' 'SOltS de fetes,' 'Les Chauves-sourlS,' La Vogue, I, no 4 (2. May), pp Il3-I7

BIBLIOGRAPHY

'L'Aquanum,' With dedIcatton to Gustave Kahn, La Vogue, (29 May), pp 192-6

I,

no 6

'Salome,' first and second parts, La Vogue, I, no 9 (21 June), pp 295306 , tlurd part, no 10 (28 June), pp 329-34, tlurd part, connnued, no I I (5 July), pp 380-87 L'Irmta'tton de Notre-Dame la Lune, selon Jules Lafargue, pIaquette of 72 pages Wlth the epigraph, 'Ah' que! JwlIet nous avons luverne, Per armca sslentta lunael-lle de la Mamau (Lac de Constance)' Vamer 'Les Bnns d'herbe Tradwt de l'etonnant poete amencam Walt Wlutman-J L (DedIcaces Je chante Ie sOI-meme Aux naoons etrangeres A un lustonen A une ce.ttame cantatnce Ne fermez pas vos pones Poetes a verur A vous ToL, Lecteur),' La Vogue, I, no 10 (28 June), pp 32 5-8 '0 EtoIle de France,' translatton from Wlutman, La Vogue, I, no I I (5 July), pp 388-90 'Le ConcI.le feenque,' La Vogue, I, no 12 (12 July), pp 405-13 Le Conclle feerUJue Plaquette of 16 pages, edItton La Vogue 'Lohengnn, fils de Parmal,' first part, La Vogue, n, no I (19 July), pp 1-12, second part, no 2 (26 July), pp 46-54 'Une femme m'attend,' translatton from Wlutman, La Vogue, II, no 3 (2 August), pp 73-6 'L'Hlver qw Vlent,' 'La Legende des trolS cors,' La Vogue, D, no 5 (16 August), pp 156-62 'D1II1anches,' La Vogue, II, no 7 (30 August), pp 226-3 2 'Aquarelle,' Le Decadent lJtteraJre, no 23, 25 September 'Paul Bourget,' Les Hommes trau1ourtrhw, VI, no 285, Vamer 'Persee et Andromede, ou Ie plus heureux des trolS,' La Vogue, II, no 9 (13 September), pp 289-30X, no 10 (20 September), pp 343-55 'ExpoSItton du centenaJ.re de I'Academxe royale des arts de Berhn,' Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XXXIV (I October), pp 339-45 'Pennon,' 'S1II1ple agowe,' La Vogue, m, no II (18 October) 'Hobo,' Le Symbolute, 15 October 'Le MlIacle des roses,' La Vogue, m, no 2 (18 October), pp 5x-64 'A propos de toIles <;a et Ia,' Le Symbo/.ute, 20 October 'A propos de Hamlet,' Le Symbolute, 2% October

z66

BIBLIOGRAPHY

'Solo de lune et legende,' La Vogue, III, no 3 (25 October), pp 8z-90 'Sur une Defunte,' Revue %ndependante, I, no I (November), pp 457 'Hamlet,' La Vogue, III, no 5 (IS November), pp 145-7, no 6 (zz November), pp 186-z03, no 7 (Z9 November), pp ZI7-2.7 'Les Amours,' WIth the epIgraph 'AIretons-nous, amour, contemplons notre glOlre (Petrarque)', La Vogue, III, no 3 (6 December), pp z615 188 7 'Bal de gala ala cour de Prusse,' under pseudonym Jean Vlen, F'garo, Literary Supplement, 2.9 January 'Chromque panslenne,' Revue mdependante, II (February), pp 165-9 'Bal de l'Opera de Berlm,' under pseudonym Jean Vlen, F'garo, Literary Supplement, I2. February 'Chromque parislenne,' Revue mdependante, II (March), pp 340-45 'L'Empereur d'Allemagne,' under pseudonym Jean VIen, F%garo, Literary Supplement, 12. March 'Chromque panslenne,' Revue zndependante, III (AprIl), pp 24-31 'Pan et la synux,' Revue zndependante, III (Apru), pp 12.1-51 'Chromque parlSlenne,' Revue zndependante, III (May), pp 214-2.0 'Mesaventure berllOolSe,' under pseudonym Jean Vlen, L'Illustratton, 7 May 'Chroruque panslenne,' Revue tndependante, III (June), pp 341-4 'Chromque parlSlenne,' Revue zndependante, IV (July), pp 30-34 'Chromque pansienne,' Revue mdependante, IV (August), pp 158-61

Posthumous works 188 7 'Les Amours de la qU1nZleme annee,' La Vte moderne, 2.7 August 'L'Imperattlce d'Allemagne,' under pseudonym Jean Vlen, Ftgaro, 17 September 'Le brave, brave Automne,' 'Complalnte des crepuscules c6hbatalres,' L'Art moderne, VII (9 October), pp 3Z1-2. Moralttes tegendmres, puhhshed by the Revue zndependante, 2.3 1 pages

BmLIOGRAPHY

'Lettres merutes de Jules Laforgue aun de ses arms,' (Charles Henry),

L'Art moderne, vn (December), pp 386-9, 396-7, 403-5, 4II

1888

a

'Lettres medltes de Jules Laforgue un de ses amls,' (Charles Henry), L'Art moderne, vnI, pp 2.0-21, 36, 59, 9I, 99, I07, :u8, 2.59, 2.82., 2.9I, 306, 364, 372., 4 19

'Les deux pIgeons,' Revue mdependante, VI (January), pp I-6 'Des Fleurs de bonne volonte,' wIth blbhographIcal note by Edouard DUJardm, Revue tndependante, vn (AprIl), pp 5-53 Mettons Ie d01gt sur la plale Maruaque Rtgueurs a nulle autre pareilles Je fatS la cour a rna destmee D:unanches (0 D:unanches banms ) D:unanches (Oh' ce plano ) Flute (L'Espace ) QUlproquo (Drolte en selle ) Pente pnere sans pretennons ) D:unanches (Le Clel pleut sans but Cythere (Quel Iys sut ombrager rna Sleste D:unanches (Je m'ennUle, natal') Albums (On rn'a rut la VIe ) D:unanches (Je ne nens que des molS ) Pentes mlseres d'octobre Gare au bord de la mer ImpOSSlblhte de l'mfim en hosnes Ballade (Oyez, au physIque ) Pentes Inlseres d'hIver D:unanches (Quand revlendra l'automne,) D:unanches (N'achevez pas Ia ntourne1le,) L'Ex1Stence qu'elles me font mener D:unanches (Mon sort est orphelm,) Pentes mlseres d'automne (Je me souVlens,) D:unanches (J'atme' oh' de toute rna IDlSere') Des Crepuscules cehbatalres Pentes Inlseres (On dlt l'express l ) AIr de BlUlOU Passants, n'm'mdUlsez pamt en beautes d'aventure EspOlI d'aurore (VO1S, les steppes stellmes)

268

BmLIOGRAPHY

Dunanches (Une qw me parlalt,) Gwtare (Pour un coeur authennque,) Et la coIffure, l'art du front 'Le Gemuth, etc etc,' Revue lzbre, May, pp 38-42 'Complamte du hbre arbltre,' La Cravache par,s.enne, 26 May 'Vers medlts de Laforgue,' Revue mdependante, IX (December), 46680 Cellbat, cehbat, tout n'est que cehbat (Sucer la Chalr ) L'Ile (c'est l'lIe, Eden entoure d'eau de tous cotes Le ValSseau fantome (II etalt un pent naVlre ) Dunanche (Le dunanche on se plait ) Dunanche (Ils enselgnent ) ) La melancobe de Plerrot (Le premIer JOur Cas (Ah' notre arne a sept facultes) Slgnalement (Chatt de l'autre sexe ) NOlIe blSe, averse glaplssante 'Lettres [quatre] ber

a Max KlInger,' La Cra'llache parmenne,

)

8 Septem-

1890 Les Dem.ers Vers de Jules Laforgue, 'des Fleurs de bonne volonte, Ie ConClle feerlque, Derruers vers, edltes avec toutes les varlantes, par Mm Edouard DUJardm et Febx Feneon,' Tours 189I 'Dragees gnses,' tIurty-four aphonsms, Entret,ens pol.tU/ues et lsttba.res, n (January), pp I-IQ PremIere entrevue d'avellx (Melanges posthumes, p 63) Marlage d'amour (M p, p 64) La femme mervell1eux suppot du Progres (M p ,p 6S) HlStolIe de femmes (M p ,p 66) La Femme achalande l'EnnUl (M p, P 66) Ce qUl falt pour mOl Ie charme du passe (M p, P 67) Releve sur Ie hvre (Connasssance n, p 79) Tu reVlens de votre voyage de noces (M p, P 67) SJ. j'etalS femme (M p, p 67) L'eternelle formule (M p, P 68) Les femmes me font souvent l'e1Iet de bebes (M p, P 68)

26 9

BIBLIOGRAPHY

La VIe a beau etre reahste (M p, p 69) Pour :oucher rrreparablement une femme (M p, p 69) De meme qu'on firut (C n, p 60) La Clvilisatlon (C n, p 60) Devant un VISage de femme (C n, p 45) La VIe est un amour de tete (C n, p 61) Voyage de noce (C n, p 106) Etre heureux (C II, P 50) Les commuruantes (C n, P 59) On a chante leurs mollets (C II, P 4z) Chercher les ralSons phYSlOlogrques (M p, P 70) POurqUOI est-elle heureuse (M p, P 70) Nous avons a la posseder (C n, P 58) Edgar Poe (C II, P 76) J e ne trouveral beau et pur (M P ,p 70) L'Innocence (C II, P 59) D'ailleurs la fin de l'homma approche p ,p 71) Quelles reflexlOns font-elles (M p, P 71) Je crouplS dans les Usmes du Negatlf (C n, p sz) La douleur (M p, P 7Z) Je Vlens de gagner une gageure (M p, P 4z) Dans un bal blanc p, p 72) Je voudraIS trouver des pensees

eM

eM

'Notes medltes de Laforgue sur Baudelaire,' Entrettens polmques et httermres, n (Apnl), pp 97-120 'Notes medltes de Laforgue sur Corblere, Mallarme, Runbaud,' Entrettens pohttques et Ittteratres, In (July), pp 1-17 'EnnUIS non runes,' Entretzens polttzques et Imerazres, m (September), pp 81-93 Poemes en prose dates de partout (C II, P 85) EcrlXe une prose tres claire (M p, p :z 3) Poemes en prose-Le chat (C n, p 86) n pleut a verse (C II, P 19) Ce sentlment de melancolte (M p, p :z I) Tu n'es plus 19. (Mp, P z:z) Qu'll etart de tous Ie plus adonne aux songel'Ies Et a MontevIdeo les seffialDes (C II, P 33) n 6t;ut temps d'en finu: Complamte du faux convalescent (M p, P 45)

27 0

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Toute l'mcomprehenslble, l'msaJ.Slssable desolation d'eXll (C

II,

P 43)

Ces dlmanches de ievrler en provmce (M p, pp 36-8) Apres diner, tornde et stagnante (M p, P 38) 'Notes medltes de Lafargue,' (November), 153-9

Entret~ens

polttzques et Imerazres,

III

Un gram de cachou parfume (first stanza), (M p, P 61) Les Fleurs du bon Elle Ie preffiler Jour (C II, P 92) Eve-Elle tres-Jeune (M p, p 63) Seuls blJOUX permis (C II, P 19) VIctorIa-theater (C II, P 25) La Lltterature la Legende de la VIe (C II, P 40) Bade-Cet eternel orchestre ( C II, P 17) Je cesserat de VIvre (M p, p 15) Se maner a mort (C II, P 45) Note l'atr fige a blanc Cette frousse arumale, reflexe Aune Jamais pour mal (C II, P 48) L'ame s'affine-t-elle Le gras suffete Hannon De Bordeaux a Parts (M p, P 41) 1892

'Notes medItes de Lafargue,' Entretzens pohtzques et Ittteraz'I'es, (January), pp 1-I2 Genre d'esprlt a. trouver (C II, P 86) Ecnre un roman (C II, P 93) Elle me bouche l'horlzon (C II, P 47) Franchement un vol de medItatlons (C II, P 93 ) Analyser un marlage (C II, P 87 ) Un volume mtltule NIhIl (C II, p 93) Pour eCrlre mon roman (C II, P 99) Un sage de la planete Lune (C II, P 87) Roman-Je ne veux pas raconter cet amour Man roman Elle (C IX, P 97) Roman-et pourtant (C IX, P 97) Ah I tu firuras (C lI, P 46) o reve caresse des anges

IV

BIBLIOGRAPHY

On se roule les uns les autres Sems nedes Berhn-Ia fran~alSe est trop habituee (C n, p 24) AVIS amounr (C II, pIS) La pOlgnance lomtaIne de ces valses (C II, P 19) n n'y a que la Jeunesse (C II, P 61) Je SalS des cloches en provInce Les AnglaIS n'admettent pas de plalsantene TrlSte et matelas aux encheres 10 h du sorr (C n, p 20) Je SUlS Infinunent plus tnste Berhn-Icl elles s'echauifent plus Vlte (C n, P 25) 'Notes medites de Laforgue,' Entrettens polttzques et lttteratres, IV (February), pp 49-57 and IV (May), pp 198-207 PP 49-57

La rage de voulorr se connaitre (C II, P 4r) AUjourd'hUl tout preCOnISe (C II, P 64) Le nu nous aftole (C n, P 55) La tete seule est nue (C II, P 56) Tout cela est voIle (C n, pIlI) Les ongles longs (C n, p II9) Rappelle-tOl-autrefolS seul (C n, P 5 I ) pp 198-207 Chapltre Voyons, pOurqUOl SU1S-]e fou d'elle (C II, P 104) Le DesIr est tout (C II, P 109) La possesSIon degoute (C II, pp 107-9) Les mouettes blanc d'argent sam (C II, P 22) La rue est ces jOurS-Cl un chantler (C n, P II) Leur systeme, voyager de fa~on (C II, P 106) Le surlendemam de ce dunanche (C II, P 102 ) Juillet-S h-du mam (C n, P 15) FredoIInant cette phrase de Mendelssohn (C n, P IOI) Le type de l'adorable (C II, P 46) Comme elle est belle (C II, puS) 'Plerrot fUl1l1Ste,' Entrettens polztzques et 1meralres, IV (June), pp 2476z

'Cmq poemes,' ('Nuage,' 'SolutIons d'automne,' 'On a des prmClpes,' 'La Complamte des montres,' 'Moeurs,') Entretf,ens poltttques et htterazres, v (October), pp 173-9

BIBLIOGRAPHY

27 2

1893 'Ineruts de Lafargue Notes,' Revue anarchtste,

1

November, pp 65-8

Ow, l'Ideal de la l1berte C'etalt un caractere cousu d'mcerntudes (M p, P 19) Nous dlsons humams (M p, p 47) La concurrence vItale est ternble D'autres de parfaltes cavales blondes (M p, P 48) Sa pOItrme est remarquable (M P ,p 49) Elle est delIcate et frele (M p, P 50) El1es causent avec des Jeunes gens L'homme n'a qu'un but (M p, P 50) Poetes et ecnvams Elles sont betes comme des enfants gates Les femmes, ces etres meruocres et magIques (M p, p 47) Comedle etemelle (M p, p 59) La femme-la Iegende femmme Au fond la femme (M p, p 47) Homme au femme (M p, P 51) La femme est un etre vaillant (M p, P 51) C'est la femme qUl sauvera Ie monde (M p, P 51.) 1894 'Pauvre petIt coeur sur la mam,' Les lbzs, IV 'InMIts de Lafargue Notes,' Revue blanche, vn (October), pp 195-

30 7

a

Le Soled torrxde son apogee (M p, P 15) J'alffie, J'atme (M p, P 40) Un crepuscule frdeux (M p ,p 17) Des femmes les bras nus (C XI, P 39) Dans sa rue perdue (C n, p 47) ChaIr presente (C IX, P 100) Le bonheur (M p, p 13) Nous n'avons pas, memes malades (M p, pI,) En pleme effervesc d'amour (C IX, P So) Je sws fiancee (C II, P 105) Ohl qU'elle fut blessee (C II, p. 46) Un Enterrement (C IX, P 19) Cette odeur (C IX, P 103) Je SalS qu'll en est qUl s\~talent

BIBLIOGRAPHY

273

Le montre de la denture des Anglruses (M p, p 59) Une toute Jeune Tout cela-lettres et Journal brUle (C II, p 49) En frut de rehglOn (M p, p 14) Le bonheur poslOf (C II, p 63) J e SUIS dans une annee (C II, P 44) Une hIstolIe de Jeanne d'Arc (C II, p 93) Passe une fin de Journee en proVInce (M p, P 36) A buddhIst catechIsm (C II, P u 3) Sous ses fen~tres, 0 tresor (C II, P 16) Voyez un clatr de lune (M p, p lS) Quand on a passe un mOlS malade (C II, P 6l) L'actlon est Ie deboucheS naturel (M p ,p 16) Dans un parc (C II, P 35) MourlI suffoque dans l'extase (C II, P 49)

Poeszes completes les Complazntes, l'[mttauon de Notre-Dame la Lune, Ie Conczle feertque, Dernzers Vers, WIth a preface by Edouard DUJardm, Varner 1895 'Inedlts de Laforgue,' Revue blanche, vm (IS June), pp 549-60 Novembre (M p, p 19) Un JOur au sequestre (C 11, p 34) Dans Ie roman p, p 41) OrgIes d'orange (C 11, P So) Central hOtel (M p, P 41) Fond de tlIoJ..r (C II, P 80) C'est comme Sl tu chsalS Un Jeune sectalIe naturahste Je SIDS pour une matInee (C 11, P 20) Le calme du Rhm plat (C II, pIS) Ah' se dlSalt-Il (C 11, puS) Elle ava1t ceCl et ceia Luxueux en allemand luxurzose (C. II, P 67) Les fiacres pns en automne (M p, P 42) Un cabInet de travaIl (M p, P 42) MonsIeur que V01C1 (C 11, P 61) Dlffianche SOir-IO h Comme eIle est pure (M p ,p 56) Elle ne me dlt nx des voluptes (M p, p 57) Crepuscule de InI-Juillet S h (M P ,p 35) A l'aquarlum de Berhn (M p, P 35)

eM

BIBLIOGRAPHY

274

Contes pour 1a Jeunesse (C II, P 87) S'abandonner a cette force uruque (M p, P 16) Dlmanche, Ie Rhm (C II, P 16) Enfant au lycee (C II, P 33) La Revue (C II, P 94) Souvemrs-PuvlS de Chavannes (C II, P 74) L'Ile (M p, p 79) Et les nUlts d'orage (M p, P 8o) Et la lourdeur des Jours (M p, P 80) Enlevee (M p, P 8:1.) Les prenuers temps (M p, pp 82-4) Et des taplSSerles (M p ,p 84) Lac de Constance Et la melancolIe des marmes (C II, P 28) De la terrasse (C II, P 2I ) GUlzot-a dIt en publIc Et ma hberte d'allures (M p, P 30) Effet de nelge legere-Apres l'extase (C II, pp 23, 40) 'Lettres et Vers,' Revue blanche, IX (August), pp IlO-18 Letters to Madame Mullezer ('Sandah Mahah') From Coblenz 2 July 1881, contammg the poem 'Sleste eternelle' (Oeuvres, lV, pp 173-5) From Coblenz 13 July 1881, contalnlng the poem 'N'allez pas devant ces vers-Cl' (Oeuvres, lV, pp 176-7) Letter headed 'Dlmanche matm, Spleen,' February 188:1. (Oeu'Vres, lV, pp 121-4) Letter headed 'Mereredl' March 1882, contauung the first tWo verses, WIth varIants, and the beguunng of the thIrd verse of the poem 'Encore cet astre' (Oeu'Vres, lV, pp 125-31) From Tarbes, September 188:1. (Oeuvres, IV, pp 195-6) From Tarbes, 13 October 1882 (Oeu'Vres, IV, pp 197-8) Poems 'La Chanson du petIt hypertJ:opluque' 'Spleen des nUlts de Juulet' 'L'An moderne en Allemagne,' Revue blanche, IX (1 October), pp 29 1-3 00

a

1896 'Un camet de notes,' Revue blanche, x (IS March), pp 241-9 Un ouvrage Palettes et factures Neghgez les chefs-d'oeuvre finIS (M p, p 173)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Clarlfier sa pemture (M p, p 175) Les manns d'eremtement (M p, p 39) Ce qu'Herbert Spencer appelle (C II, P 71) L'eternel duahsme (M p, p 175) lis dlsent Ie prinCIpe esthetlque (M p, P 176) C'est a rerruser (M p, pIn) Dire L'emotlon esthetlque Dans la )OUlSSanCe d'une toile (M p, pIn) Pour Ie monde de l'oeil (C II, P 72) L'Eghse de l'avenIr (C II, P 75) Les statues de nos gloIres (C II, P 75) La femme prendra (M p, P 17S) Les VIrtuoses en muslque (M p, P 17S) Les medaillons de Clre (C II, P 75) Fran~ols del Sarte (C II, P 124) L'hOtel Drouot (C II, P l2 3) La forme et l'ldeal dans l'art (C II, P U 3) Pendant mes vacances (C II, P 85) Esthenque-Allemagne (C II, P 71) RehabIllter Lebrun (C II, P 93) Avant 1l y a eu l'Ecole des nobles hgnes (M p, p 179) Clel bleu de sevres ( C II, P 23) La ville (C II, p 24) On trouve naturels les uruformes (C II, P 17) Nlsard N'est-ce donc pas un bonheur (C II, P u8) Quel est donc ce fonds li me semble (C II, P u8) Avec un peu plus de respect (C II, puS) Aller chez sa ma1tresse (C II, P 56) Le sceau de l'adoptlon (C II, P 127) Un de nos hommes (C II, P 127) Le Clel pour dedommager les femmes (C II, P I Z 7) La trlSte necesslte du VIce (C II, P u7) J'abordaI toutes les voluptes (C II, P 127) Sentant dlStlnctement (C II, P u7) Tout, autour de mOl (C II, P 127) J'etaIs aIffie (C ll, P 128) Reher-etoffes d'ete (C II, p 74) Rubens (C II, P 80) La slllguhere abondance (C II, P 79)

275

BIBLIOGRAPHY

La Grammal.re de l'omement (C II, P IZ3) WIllIam Hunt (C II, P IZ3) Esthetlque (M p, p 179) L'Inconsclent ( C II, P 66) Et dans les sensatlons (C II, P 67) Elle est belle en SOl (M p, P 58) Le Marche Samt Martm (C II, P 72) Cultlver la frakheur du premIer Jet Caldecott (C II, P 74) 'Feuilles volantes,' Revue blanche, x (IS April), pp 367-77 Le paysage d'en face (C II, P IZ) A Chevreuse (M p, P 31) Des JOurs de soleIl (C II, P 36) Comme on est bIen (M p, p 17) VOIC1 Ie crepuscule (M p, p 43) Autre type de chanteur dans les cours (M p, p 44) L'horloge sonne gravement (C II, P 38) Fete de nUlt-mauguratlon (C II, P 13) Un SOlr de prlntemps (M p, P 32) Au mur de sa petlte chambre (C II, P 34) Les folIes rages de l'amour (C II, pp 25-8) Boulevard Bourdon (M p, p 33) En JUln quand l'astre (two quatrams wIth varIants) Un sage contemporam (C II, P 91) L'meVltable anthropomorphlsme (C II, P 65) Nous aVlons meme un gar90n negre (C II, P 61) Vne preuve que Ie Mal (M p, p 19) Aux Indrfferents (M p, P 20) 'Notes sur Ie Musee du Luxembourg en 1886,' Revue blanchl (June), pp 556-62 'Lettres de Jules Laforgue aM *' (Charles EphrusSl), Revue XI (I September), pp 219-28 From Pans, 20 November 1881 (Oeuvres, IV, p 19) From ParIS, 28 November 1881 (Oeuvres, IV, p 23) From Coblenz, 30 November 1881 (Oeuvres, IV, pp 27-30) From BerlIn,s December 1881 (Oeuvres, IV, pp 40-44) From Berhn, 7 December 1881 (Oeuvres, IV, pp 51-5) From BerlIn. 13 December 1881 (Oeuvres, IV, pp 60-64) From Berhn, :%4 December 1881 (Oeuvres, IV, pp 69--71)

277

BIBLIOGRAPHY

From Berlin, 31 December 1881 (Oeuvres, IV, pp 79-8:) From Berhn, 9 January 188: (Oeuvres, IV, pp 85-9) 'Lettres de Jules Laforgue II M *, (Charles EphrUSSl), Revue blanche, XI (IS September), pp :71-6

From Berhn 13 January 188: (Oeuvres, IV, pp 94-7) From Berhn :9 January 188: (Oeuvres, IV, pp 106-9) From BerlIn, : February 188: (Oeuvres, IV, pp IIO-ll) From BerlIn, Xl February 188: (Oeuvres, IV, pp II3-I7) From Berlm, 13 March 188: (Oeuvres, IV, pp II8-:0) 'Lettres de Jules Laforgue II M >II' (Charles EphrusSl), Revue blanche, October), pp 313-:0

XI (I

From From From From From From From From

Berhn, 31 March 188: (Oeuvres, IV, pp IP-4) Berhn, 9 April 188: (Oeuvres, IV, pp 138-41) Wlesbaden, 26 April 1882 (Oeuvres, IV, pp 147-9) Baden-Baden, I May 188: (Oeuvres, IV, pp ISO-52) Baden, I2 May 188: (Oeuvres, IV, pp 158-60) Baden,s November 1883 (Oeuvres, IV, pp 203-6) Berlm, 24 December 1882 (Oeuvres, IV, pp 1I4-17) BerlIn, December 1883 (Oeuvres, V, pp 59-62)

'Notes d'estheoque,' Revue blanche,

Xl (I

December), pp 481-8

Le regne de la statuaxre (M p, P 146) Tralter Comehus Sculpture (Mp, p 147) M Tame de meme que M Renan Le but et Ie CrIterIum V Hartmann (M p, p 147) Seion Renan, I'art (M p ,p 148) Tame-Estheoque (M p, P ISO) Les puISsances souverames de Ia nature (M p, PP 151-6) De la pemture sans spasme d'o~ (M p, P 156) Selon la formule de Bourget p 1 P 156) Tame-Tout cela (M p, p 157) L'oplUlon de Tame Comment s'est passee notre puberte (M p, pp 156-7) BlenfaISance de caractere (M p, PP IS8~3)

eM

'Plans de nouvelles et notes,' Revue blanche, Xl (IS December). pp 543-7

BIBLIOGRAPHY

NUlt d'aout (M p, pp 74-9) Dans la scene de la prall'le (C

II,

pp 36-8, 80)

1897 'Hlstorre de femmes (Plans de nouvelles et notes),' Revue blanche, m (1 May), pp 518-24 Des Ie premIer rendez-vous (C II, P 103) J'ar honte que tu me demandes S1 peu (C II, P I 17) Son amour (51 ralsonneur) ( C II, P II 8) Le cauchemar lUI etreignalt les genclves Elle dormalt (C II, P II S ) Reflecrus50ns (C n, p I 10) Une de ces paSSIOns platomques (C II, P 87) Les levers-les hts d6farts (C II, P 88) Cherchez la femme, cherchez l'Inconsclent (C II, P 88) Un refram lUI meiopealt (C II, P 88) J e ne pUIS pas la planter la ( C II, pp 89-9 I ) n etalt ne d'une bretonne (C II, P II 3) Eh bIen f la table est mIse ( C II, P I I 3) Us ne se donnalent )amars Ie bras (C II, P II4) Je sens Ie passe (C II, P lIS) 1901-1902-19°3 Oeuvres completes' de Jules Lafargue, EdItIon du Mercure de France Morahtes legendazres ('Hamlet, ou les SUItes de la Plete fihale,' 'Le Mrrac1e des roses,' 'Lohengnn, :fils de ParsIfal,' 'Salome,' 'Pan et la 5ynnx, ou l'mventlon de la flute sept tuyaux,' 'Persee et Andromede, ou Ie plus heureux des trOlS,' 'Les Deux PIgeons') II Poeszes. Part I, Le Sanglot de la terre, twenty-mne poems Complarnte de 1'0rganlSte de Notre-Dame de NIce SOlt de carnaval La chanson du petit hypertrophlque Spleen des nwt;s de Juillet Farce Apotheose Encore cet astre Sieste eternelle M6dIocnte

I

a

a

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CurlOSltes deplacees Marche funebre Fanta1S1e Rosace en Vitrall Lltames de mlseres Pour Ie lIvre d'amour HypertrophIe Crepuscule de dlmanche d'ete Couchant d'hlver Noel sceptIque PetIte chapelle L'Imposslble Devant la grande Rosace Sonnet pour eventau MeditatlOn gnsatre Les tetes de mort EclaIr de gouffre La dermere nUlt Intanssablement La CIgarette followed by Les Complazntes and Le Concde feertque Part II, L'Imttatton de Notre-Dame la Lune, Dern1ers Vers, and Des Fleurs de bonne volonte m Melanges posthumes Part I, 'Pensees et Paradoxes,' 'Paysages et ImpresslOns,' 'Notes sur la femme,' 'Plerrot funuste • Part

II,

'Lltterature,' 'CrItIque d'art'

190 3 'Correspondance medIte de Jules Laforgue Lettres a sa soeur,' OCCIdent, m (January), pp 18-13, (February), pp 78-85, (March), pp 168-78

19 18

Oeuvres chotstes de Walt Wmtman poemes et proses traduztr par 1 Laforgue, L Fabulet, A Gzde, V Larbaud, J Schlumberger, F V,eleGrz!fin, WIth an mtroductIon by Valery Larbaud, EdItIon N R F TranslatIons by Laforgue (repnnted from La Vogue, 1886), pp 5160, 68, 150

BIBLIOGRAPHY

280

19 20 'Agenda de 1883,' commurucated to the N R F by Jacques-Emlle Blanche, Nouvelle Revue Frangatse, I October, pp 5II-38 Chromques parzsJennes, Ennuzs non rJmes, Textes znedJts, edIted by Andre Malraux, EdItiOn Connaissance, Vol I 'Les FIanCes de Noel,' 'Le Pubbc des dlffianches au salon,' 'Tnstesse de reverb ere, 'Amours de la qumzIeme annee,' 'L'Aquanum,' 'Bobo,' 'A propos de Hanllet,' pp 1I-57 'Chroruques partSiennes' (1887), pp 63-120 Dragees, Charles Baudelazre, Trzstan Corbtere, textes znedtts, edIted by Andre Malraux, Edmon Connaissance, Vol II Fragments arranged under completely arbItrary headmgs, pp 9-128 Notes on Baudelaire not pubbshed by the Mercure Edmon, pp 135-56 Notes on Corblere not pubbshed by the Mercure EdItiOn, pp 161-8 Drawmgs by Laforgue, on five unnumbered pages 19 21

Extl, Poesze, Spleen, textes znedm, EdItion Connalssance, Vol 'Lettres a un poete,' Madame Mullezer, pp 17-35 Facsimlle of three letters, pp 41-52 'Lettres a un arm,' Charles Henry, pp 53-160 'Le Gemuth, etc etc,' pp 165-71

III

Verse PortraIt of Charles Henry, La Connazssance, 2e annee, no 5 (June) 'Une Vengeance a Berlm' (onglnally entitled 'Mesaventure berMOISe'), Revue de Geneve, III (October), pp 460-67 19 22

Berltn, la cour et la vdle, nons de la 8Irene

WIth

an mtroductIon by Jean-Aubry, Edl-

Oeuvres completes de Jules Laforgue, EdltIon Mercure de France I

II

Poeszes Le Sanglot de la terre, Les Complamtes, L'lmttatton de Notre-Dame la Lune Poeszes Des Fleurs de bonne volonte, Le Conc~le feenque, Der~ nters Vers, AppendJce

BIBLIOGRAPHY

281

19 2 3 Les Complamtes Cent vm.gt-hu~t l~thographes de Georges A Drams, Edltion Kra 'SelZe lettres medltes de Jules Laforgue,' Cah~ers sdeal~stes, no 8 (May) 192 4 Oeuvres completes, Edltion Mercure de France III Moralstes legendatres {'Hamlet, ou les SUltes de la plere filtale,' 'Le MIracle des roses,' 'Lohengrm, fils de ParsIfal,' 'Salome,' 'Pan et la syrmx,' 'Persee et Andromede. ou Ie plus heureux des trolS ' Hamlet et quelques poestes, wlth a blograprucal note by Georges Duthwt, Les ContemporaIns, no 37 19 2 5 Oeuvres completes, Edmon Mercure de France IV Lettres-I (1881-2) Introduction and notes by G Jean-Aubry v Lettres-n (x883-7) Notes by G Jean-Aubry 192 7 P,errot fumsste de Jules Laforgue, wlth engravmgs by Charles Marnn

193 0 Oeuvres completes, Edltion Mercure de France VI En Allemagne Berlsn La Cour et la vslle, Une Vengeance Berim, Agenda Introductlon and notes by G Jean-Aubry

193 2 Les Plus Belles PoeSJes de Jules Laforgue, Wlth a preface by ProlX and an otlgtnal etchlng by Jean Demailly

a

Jean

1941 Lettres un amt (1880-86), 'Wlth the facsurule of an unpubllShed letter to S Mallarme, mtroduction and notes by G Jean-Aubry. Mercure de France FeuiJles, plaquette of unpubhshed fragments by Jules Laforgue edited by 'Nous Quatre,' (G Jean-Aubry, Jean Gabne1 Daragnes, Jules Laloux, Luclen ]alS), Montmartre, 20 COples only

a

BIBLIOGRAPHY

282

1943 Poes~es

completes,

2

volumes, ed1ted by G Jean-Aubry EdItIOn de

Cluny

1944 PoesJes, Edmon V1au, Buenos Arres 1945 Le MJracle des roses, SUWI par Lohengrm et les Deux PIgeons, EdInon Cultura Moderna, Rome

1946 Stephane Vamlzew, avec une mtroductlOn de Fran;oJS Ruchon et l'Iconographze complete de Jules Laforgue, ed1ted by PIerre Cailler, Geneva

II

TRANSLATIONS

ARENSBERG,

W C

'Complamt of Lord Plerrot' ('Autre Complamte de Lord Plerrot'), 'ConceIts' ('Jeux'), Poems, 1914, pp 100-103 BATTISTESSA, ANGEL DE Two prose fragments m wruch Laforgue recalls h1S MonteVldean chlldhood, Nosotros, Buenos Aires, AprIl 1923. pp 517-21 'CantJ1ena del pobre Joven,' Verbum, Buenos Aires. 1932, pp 1457 BITHELL, JETHRO

'For the Book of Love,' Modern Book of French Verse, I920, p 240 Bt.EI, FRANZ

'Plerrot, der Spassvogel,' 'Uber rue Frauen,' P#erTot, der Spassvogel, Ezne Auswabl von Franz Ble. und Max Brod, Berlm, 1908, pp. 2139. 71- 6 BRaD, MAx 'Das L1ed des kletnen HypertrophlSchen,' 'Ole erste Nacht,' 'Ole Ztgarette,' 'Beldagung dleses goten Mondes,' 'Beklagong der PlanOS die man m den wohlhabenden Stadtvi~rteln hort,' 'Beklagong des Foetus etnes Poeten,' 'Beklagung der Schrlfswache in

BIBLIOGRAPHY

polaren Mmuten,' 'Beklagung der HochzeJ.tsiormhchkeJ.ten,' 'Solo des Mondes,' '0, kame eJ.ne " 'Mondsehem,' 'Plerrots,' 'Reden des Plerrots XII, XV,' 'Das Wahre an der Saehe,' 'Soontage' ('Es regnet ungeruhrt und ohne SInn, Es regnet m der Strom, Schaferm l '), 'Festabende' ('Ieh bm dle Gondel, me zu spat '), 'Unsere klelne Gefahrnn' ('Wenn meJ.n Bhck euch etwas sagt'), 'Sonntage' ('Man sagt m Sontags Glanz'), P,errot, der Spassvogel, Eme AUS'Wahl von Franz Ble. und Max Brod, Berhn, 1908, pp 40-70 'Eme Augustnacht,' 'Ole belden Taubchen,' Ibid pp 77-81, 8%-99

°

CRANE, HART

'Loeutlons des Plerrots

I, II, III,'

The Double Dealer, May 19%2

DmZ-CANEDO, ENRIQUE

'Encore un hvre,' 'Ton geste,' 'Je ne SUlS qu'un V1Veur lunau:e,' 'Solo de lune,' La PoesM francesca del romannczsmo al superrealzsmo, Buenos AIres, 1945 DRAKE, WILLIAM A 'Another Complamt of Lord Plerrot,' Poet Lore, XXXIV, 1923, P 460 LEGGF, J A 'Another Book,' 'Certam ennUlS,' ChantJcleer A Study of the French Muse, 1935, pp %57-60 LEVIN, HARRY

'Two Pigeons,' Accent, Sprmg, 1944. pp 131-9 LE'WlSSOHN, L

'Encore un hvre,' The Poets of Modern France, 1918 MACKWORTH, CEClLY

'Complamte de Ia fin des }ournees,' 'CompIamte de l'oubb. des morts,' A M.rror for French Poetry, 1840-1940, London, 1947

NawMAN, FRANCES 'The MIracle of the Roses,' The Short Story's MutatIOns, 19%4> pp 1.¢-63 SIX Moral Tales from Jules Laforgue 'Lohengrm, Son of Parslfal,' 'The MU'acle of the Roses,' 'Pan and the SyrInX, or the InventIon of the Flute With Seven Reeds,' 'Hamlet, or the Consequences of FIlla! PIety,' 'Salome,' 'Perseus and Andromeda, or the Happiest One of the Tnangle,' 19%8

POtJNJ), EzRA 'Scene courte maxs typlque' (Mte.t the Plerrots of Jules Laforgue), bttle Rmew, IV, May 1917, PP IX-U (Under the pseudonym 'John Hall') Reprmted m Pa'IJlt1m8s and. Dwmons, 1918, pp 43-4

BIBLIOGRAPHY

RED, D 'ImpresSlorusmus von Jules Laforgue,' from the 'CrItIque d'Art' (Melanges posthumes), Kunst und Kunstler, Berlm, 1905, pp 5016

SAMARANI,

PAOLO

La Malznco'ma dz Jules Laforgue (Poems from Laforgue's :five collecnons), Milan, 1945 T 'Our LIttle Helpmeet,' (,Notre Pente Compagne'), Poet Lore, ~, 1925, P 626

SHIPLEY, JOSEPH

SMITH, WILLIAM JAY

'The Oowns' ('Plerrots' I-V), Poetry, July 1951, pp 110-15 'ComplalDt of that Lovely Moon,' 'The Fl!st Ntght,' 'The ImposSible,' 'ComplalDt of the Kmg of Thule,' 'Another for the Sun,' 'Funeral March for the Death of the Earth,' 'Foreword,' 'Unparalleled Severity,' 'Romance,' 'Carmval Evemng,' 'The Phantom Vessel,' 'Complamt of the Moon m the Provmces,' 'Spleen of July Nights,' 'Complamt of the Orgarust of Our Lady of Nice,' 'ApotheoSlS,' Wake 10, 1951, pp 37-50 WIEGLER, P Sagenhafte Sznnspzele (Moralztes legendazres), Berlm, 1905

III

MUSICAL ARRANGEMENT

NINO AND bERT,

J

Persee et Andromede, ou Le Plus Heureux des TroIS,' Opera m two acts by Nmo, from the Moralztes legendazres, With musIc by Jacques !bert, 1928 The same, With text translated mto German by Andre G Bloch, 1929.

IV

CONCERNING LAFORGUE

(Selective)

L'Art moderne. vm (8 January 1888), 1lIlSlg1led essay on the MoralJtes Jegenda,res, pp xo-u :x: (30 November 1890), UOSlgned essay occasloned by the x890 emtlOn of Dermers Vers, pp 377-9

BIBLIOGRAPHY

28 5

JEAN-AUBRY, G 'Jules Laforgue,' Revue de Hongrze, XI (15 May 1913), pp 379-95 'Jules Laforgue,' La Pluma, Madrld, February 1911, pp 79-83 'Jules Laforgue et la musIque,' Revue de Geneve, III (October 1911 ), pp 443-59 'La Nostaigle de Jules Laforgue,' Revue de l'Amerzque latme, I (February 1911 ), pp 130-37 Introducnon and notes to Beritn, la cour et la vzlle, 1911, PP lX-XCll, LIfe of Laforgue, pp XCIll-CX, BIbhographIcal descrlpnon of the tale 'Une Vengeance a Berhn' Exchange of letters wIth Jean Peres, 'Au SUJet de Jules Lafargue,' regardmg Aubry's Idea of Laforgue's 'nostalgIa,' Revue de l'Amenque latme, I August 1911, pp 351-1 'MontevIdeo, Parnasse frans:als,' Ftgaro (probably February), 1923 'Au Berceau de Laforgue,' Les N ouveUes lttteratres, September 19 26 Notes, Oeuvres completes, II, III, IV, V, VI, espeCIally II, pp 210-47 on the poetry and varIants, III, pp 275-319 on the Moralttes Ugendazres, VI, V-Xl, pp 5-7 'Jules Laforgue au travail, avec un texte medlt,' Mercure de France, ccxcvm (July I940-December 1946), pp lIZ-17 Introducnon, PP 5-16, and notes to Lettres Po un amt, 1941 BALAKIAN, ANNA E Ltterary Orzgms of Surreahsm a New Mysnctsm tn French Poetry, 1947 BARRE, ANDRE Le Symboizsme, X9II, on Lafargue, PP 344-7 BATTISTESSA, ANGEL J 'Gulraldes y Laforgue,' Nosotros, Buenos AIres, February 1942, pp 149-70 BAtiFR, GERALD 'Le "BerlIn" de Jules Lafargue,' Echo de Parts, 18 January 1913 BFAUNIER, ANDRE 'La Poesle nouvelle, Jules Laforgue,' Revue bleue, XVI (August 1901 ), PP 23 8-43 BUN, GEORGES

'A la Recherche de l'mfim Laforgue et Baudelalre,' Revue hebdomadasre, 5 November 1938, PP 84-93

286

BIBLIOGRAPHY

R R 'Jules Laforgue,' French StudJes, Oxford, July 195 0 , pp 193-l07

BOLGAR,

BROD, MAX

'Jules Laforgue,' mtroductIon to PJerrot, der Spassvogel, Berhn, 1908, pp 5-l0 CARRIERE, J M 'Jules Laforgue and Leopardl,' Romamc RevJew, XXXIV (February 1943), pp 50-53 CHAMBERLAIN, HOUSTON S Lebenswege memes Denkens, Muruch, 1919, pp 33l-4 CLOUARD, HENRI

'La POeSle de Jules Laforgue,' Le Dwan, xv (May 19l3), pp l619

La POeste fran9aJSe moderne, 1914, pp II8-16 Hmotre de la lztterature fran9azse, du symboltsme anos Jours, 1947,

PP

70-75

CRos, Guy-CHARLES 'Strophes pour ceux qll1 se sont tus,' Vers et Prose, xv, 1908 CUISINlER, JEANNE

Jules Laforgue, Pans, 1915 TRISTAN 'Jules Laforgue,' Vers et Prose, xxx (19u), pp :u 1-16 and XXXI, pp 104-7

DEREME,

DOYON, RENE-LoUIS

'Lettres de Jules Laforgue,' Extl, POeSte, Spleen, EdItion Connalssance, II, pp 7-14 La Canne de Jules Laforgue et la statue de BobJilot, Les Llvres du Mandarm, 4° sene no 1, November 1939 DUFOUR, MEDERIC

Etude sur l'esthettque de Jules Laforgue, 1904 DUJARDIN, EoOUARD

'BlbhographIe d'un volume de vers 10edlts par Jules La.forgue,' Revue mdependante, VII (AprIl 1888), PP 1-4 'Les Prenuers Poetes du vers hbre,' Mercure de France, CXLVI (IS March 191I), pp 577-611. The sa.me 10 book form, 1911 DURRY, MARIE-JEANNE

Jules Laforgue Poetes d'auJourd'hul, 1951 EIGELDINGER,MARC

L'Evolutton dynamtque de lj~mage dans la poes" fran;4lse du Romantlsme nos Jours, Neuchatel, 1943, pp 163-170

a

BIBLIOGRAPHY ELIOT,

T S

'London Letters,' Dzal, April 1921, p 452 'The MetaphysIcal Poets,' Homage to John Dryden, London, 1924, pp 24-33 'Donne lfl Our TIme,' A Garland tor John Donne, Harvard Uruverslty Press, 1931, pp 2-19 'On a Recent PIece of CntlClSm,' Purpose, April-June 193 8 'Propos,' Une Semame dans Ie Monde, 1 May 1948 FARGUE, LiON-PAUL

'Jules Laforgue,' Revue de PartS, 4ze annee (April 1935), pp 78390 FOWLIE, WALLACE

'Jules Laforgue,' Poetry, ChIcago, Vol 78 (July 1951), pp 216-222 GoLFFING, FRANCIS

'Jules Laforgue,' Quarterly ReVIew ot Lzterature, 1946). pp 55-67

III

(Summer

GORREN, ALINE

'The French Symbohsts,' Scrzbner's,

XIII

(March 1893), pp 337-52

GOURMONT, RiMY DE

Le Lzvre des masques, 1896. pp 203-9 Promenades lztterazres, 4e sene, 1910, PP 105-10 GREENE,

E J H

'Jules Laforgue et T S Ellot,' Revue de lztterature comparee, zze annee (July-September 1948), pp 363-97 T S Elzot et la France, 1951 GUICHARD. LEON

Jules Lafargue et ses poeszes, Grenoble. 1950 HUNEKER, JAMES

'A MasterpIece of Irony, the Hamlet of Jules Laforgue,' New York Sun, I x January 1903 'Jules Lafargue,' North Ammcan Revzew, CII (July 1915), pp 8091 The same, reprInted as 'The Buffoon of the New Etermtles Jules Laforgue,' Ivory Apes and Peacocks, 1915, pp 32-51 HURET.

JULES

Enqudte sur Nvolutton lttteratre, 1891 KAHN, GUSTAVE.

'Jules Laforgue,' Les Hommes d'au1ourd'huz, VI, no 298 (1886) 'Jules Lafargue,' Revue blanche, x (1896), pp 122-6 'Les Ongmes du symbollSme,' Re'I)Ue blanche, XXVI (X901), pp. 32148 The same, reprInted in SymboltStes et Decadents, 1902

BIBLIOGRAPHY 288 'Jules Laforgue,' Symbolzstes et Decadents, pp 181-99 'Jules Laforgue,' Mercure de France, CL'C (December 1922), pp

289-3 1 3

'Jules Laforgue,' Le Ftgaro, 25 August 1923 'Trente Ans de symbohsme, Jules Laforgue en Allemagne,' Les Nouvelles htteratres, Xl January 1929 'Trente Ans de symbohsme, les dernleres annees de Jules Laforgue a ParIS,' Les Nouvelles lttterazres, 26 January 1929 LALOU, RENE

Htstozre de la lztterature franf4zse contemporame, edmons smce 1922 LANSON, GUSTAVE

RevIew datres, RevIew pletes,

of the Mercure de France edmon of the Moralttes legenRevue unwersztazre, II (1903), p 424 of the Mercure de France edmon of the Oeuvres comRevue unwermatre, I (1904), p 322

LEHMANN, A G

The Symboltst Aesthetzc m France, Oxford, 1950 MARTINO, PIERRE

Parnasse et Symboltsme, 1925 'La Poesle decadente Laforgue,' PP 147-50, 'Note compI6mentalre,' p 161

Jules

MAUCLAIR, CAMILLE

'Une Causerle avant des poemes,' L'Ermttage, 7e annee (January 1896), pp Xl-21 'Essat sur Jules Laforgue,' Mercure de France, XVII (February 1896), pp 159-78 and (March) pp 302-27 The same In volume form, I902 'Le Cmquantenme de Jules Laforgue,' Revue de PartS, 15 July 1937,

pp 34X-5 1

G. 'Laforgue e l'unpresslOrusmo,' Rassegna d'Itaita, nos pp 25-34

MESlRCA,

IX-I2

(1947),

MICHAUD, GUY

Message poetzque du symbolisme, IX (1947), pp 299~3I4 MIOMAND~E,

FRANCIS DE

'Jules Laforgue,' Mercure de France, XLV (J903), pp. 289-3J4 'Notes et unpresslons sur Jules Laforgue,' Revue de 'Parts, 44e annee (AuguSt 1937), pp. 666-71.

BIBLIOGRAPHY MOORE, GEORGE

'Two Unknown Poets Rlmbaud and Laforgue,' Impresszons and Optntons, London, 1891, pp 95-102 MORIER, H£NRI

Le Rythme du vers ltbre symboltste,

II

(1943-4), pp 142-5

MORRISSETTE, BRUCE A

Les Aspects fondamentaux de l'esthettque symboltste, 1933, pp 10513 0 MUNoz, GERVASIO AND ALVARO

Lautreamont et Laforgue, MontevIdeo, 1925, pp 69-93 NEWMAN, FRANCES

The Short Story's Mutatzons, 192.4, pp 144-5 Szx Moral Tales from lules Lafargue, 192.8, pp 9-26 PERES, JEAN

'Antecedents Franco-Amencams d'un poete franclUs,' Bullettn de l'Amertque latzne, March-Apnl 1918, p 198 'AnnclpatlOns des prmclpes de la psychanalyse dans l'oeuvre d'un poete francaIs,' Journal de psychologze normale et pathologtque, 1ge annee (192.2.), pp 92.1-7 'Sur Laforgue Idees et souverurs,' Revue de l'Amertque latzne, June 19 2 2., pp 130-35 Exchange of letters wIth Jean-Aubry, 'Au sUJet de Jules Laforgue,' Revue de l'Amerzque latzne, 1 August 192.2., pp 351-2. 'Notes sur Jules Laforgue Une epoque, un age de la VIe, une phIlosophie vecue,' Revue bleue, 63e annee (192.5), pp 300-306 POUND, EZRA

'Irony, Laforgue and some Saore,' Poetry, XI (November 1917), pp 93-8 'A Study of French Modern Poets,' Lzttle Revtew, February 1918 'A Study In French Poets' (the Lzttle Revtew arncle WIth mmor changes and a concludmg essay on Laforgue), Insttgattons, 192.0, PP 7-19 The same reprmted In Make tt New, 1935, pp 159-2.47 QUENNELL, PE'l'ER

Baudelazre and the Symbolms, London, 1929, PP 131-51 RAYMOND, MARCEL

De Baudelatre au surreal#sme, 1933 REGNIER, HENRI DE

Faces et profits, souventrs sur Vtllters de l'Isle-Adf11Jz, Jules Laforgue, Stephane Mallarme, 1931 The c;ame ec;~ay, 'Jules Laforgue: 10 Nos Rencontres, I931, PP 85-96

BIBLIOGRAPHY

RzvrERE,

JACQUES

Correspondance, J Rzv1ere et Alatn-Fourmer, 1905-1914, 1926-8 'Alam-Fourmer,' Nouvelle Revue Franfazse, XIX (December 1922), pp 643-68 The same reprmted as mtroductlOn to Mtracles by Alam-Fourmer, 1924, pp 11-89

RUCHON, FRAN~OIS

'Jules Laforgue,' La Sematne lztterazre, Geneva, 13 January 1923,

PP 15- 17

lules Laforgue, sa vze, son oeuvre, Geneva, 1924 IntroductIon to Stephane Vasszlww, 1946, pp 7-21 SCHMIDT, A-M La Lztterature symbohste, 1942, pp 42-50 SOUZA, ROBERT DE

Etudes sur la poesze nouvelle Le Lyrzsme sentnnental et la poesze populatre, 1895 'Un Cmquantenalre Jules Laforgue, l'homme et l'oeuvre,' Mercure de France, CCLXXIX (1 November 1937), PP 453-87 SYMONS, ARTHUR

'The Decadent Movement 10 LIterature,' Harper's New Monthly Magazme, LXXXVII (November 1893), pp 858-67 The Symboltst Movement zn Lzterature, London, 1899, especIally pp 10I-II TAUPIN, RENE

L'lnfiuence du symboltsme franfazs sur la poesze amencazne (de 1910 a 1920), 1929. especIally pp 150-55, 225-32 THmAUDET, ALBERT

ReView of Chromques parlSzennes, EnnuIS non nmes, Edmon Connalssance, III, Nouvelle Revue franfatSe, xv (1 December 1920). P 952 Hmozre de la htterature franfazse de 1799 nos 1ours, 1936,

a

pp

468, 488

TURN ELL, G M 'IntroductIon to the Study of TrIStan Corblere,' Crtterzon, xv (Apr1l 1936), PP 393-417 'The Poetry of Jules Lafargue,' Scrutmy, v (September 1936), pp 128-49 'Jules Laforgue,' Cornmll Magazme, London, no. 973 (WlOter 1947-8 ), PP 74-90 TWENIK,

LEo

ReVIew of the Camplarmes, Lutece, 9-l6 Aprrl 1885

BmLIOGRAPHY WILSON, EDMUND

Axel's Castle, 193 [ WINTERS, YVOR

Pmmtwmn and Decadence, 1937 WYZEWA, TEODOR DE

Nos Mattres, etudes et portratts ImeraJres, 1895. PP 135-40

INDEX

Adam, Paul, 117 Aiken, Conrad, 199 Albern, R'\fael, 13 AmIel, HenrI-FrederIC, 51, 146 'Amours de la qUlOzleme annee,' 25-6 Anderson, Sherwood, 230 AngelIco, Fra, 74 Apolbnalre, GUIllaume, 85, 233 'A Propos de Hamlet,' 134 'L'Aquanum,' 201-2 A Rebours, ll, 96 Arcnsberg, W C, 195 An~totle, 208 'L' Art moderne en Allemagne,' 76, 87, 9 1

Aubry, G Je'\n-, 71, 113, 166 Auden, W H, 241 Augusta, Empress, 51, 62, 66, 69-70, 71, 108, 109, 133, 174 'Au Large,' 148 'Autre Complamte de Lord Plerrot,' 119, 136, 193, 195, 202 'AvcrtISsement,' quoted, 65, 134, 135, 157. x69 Bach, J S, 93 Balaktan, Anna, 140 'Balhde' (Des Fleurs de bonne volonte) , uS Balz IC, Honore de, 25. 76 BanvIlle, Theodore de, 6, 37, 142 Baudelaire, Charles, Laforgue's Notes on, 4> 92, 100-107. :1.36, and 'dehumaruzatlon,' 6, and Laforgue'S aesthetICS, I It 77, 79, and tone ID Laforgue's verse, 61, 94. and 'Ie crepuscule du matln,' 80, language 10, S6t 104> 105, 107. I x6, temperament as seen by Laforgue, JOO, 101, ISS, and Poe, 101, and 293

'charlatamsm,' 102, 106, and 'four abysses,' 102, and pure poetry, 102, 106, eonfesslOnal tone m, 103, cult of, 103, and Samte-Beuve's verse, 104, and 'urban' poetry, 105, and 'travau de manoeuvre,' 134, and Plerrot, 141, Hart Crane's readmg of, 215, Huneker's appreclatlOn of, 223 'Le Baleon,' 104, 'BenedIctIon,' 101-2, 'Le Cygne,' quoted, 105, Eents znttmes, 106, 'Eplgraphe pour un lIvre eondamne,' quoted, 102, Les Fleurs du mal, 100, 106, 138, quoted, 4, 101-5, 'Harmome du sOlr,' 138, 'Les Sept VIeulards,' quoted, 103-4, 'Le Vleux Saltlmbanque,' 29 Beardsley, Aubrey, 229 Beaumer, Andre, 47 Beethoven, LudWIg van, 86 'BenedictIon,' IOX-2 Bergson, HenrI, 27, 236 Berkeley, George, 46 Bernard, Claude, 39 Bodenhelm, Maxwell P, 195 Bolgar, R R, 174 Bounoure, Gabrxel, 241 Bourget, Paul, Laforgue's admIratIon for, 10, 59, lOtroduees Laforgue to PhIlosophy of the UnconSCIOUS, 40. and peSSlOllSm, 45, crltlc of Laforgue, 59, 60, 62, 236, obtams post for Laforgue, 62-h 67, 71, as dl~clple of Tame, 75, and Lake Poets, 104, 17'2., 173, 175, and La~ forgue's last days, 176, 177 Edel, 59. Elsats de psychologte contem~ porame, 59, La Vte mqwete, 59 Bowyer, James, 79 Breton, Andre, 85

294

INDEX

Brod, Max, 235 Brownmg, Robert, 205 Brunetlere, Ferdmand, 224 Brunot, Ferdmand, 129 Buddhlsm, 34, 43-4, 81 Burne-Jones, E, 79 Buschenthal, Jose, 17 Cabell, James Branch, 228, 229 Calame, Alexandre, 30 Cantos, The, 208-1 I Carlyle, Thomas, 50 Caro, Elme-Mane, 45 Carnere, J M, 247 Cassatt, Mary, 37 'CatechISme pesstmISte,' 46, 48, 49-50 Celhm, Benvenuto, 74 Challemel-Lacour, Paul-Armand, 45 'Chanson du petIt hypertrophlque,' 112-13, II6, 1I8 Chants de Maldoror, 164 ChaplIn, Charhe, 1I8-19 'Chaplmesque,' 218-19 Chateaubrland, Rene de, 45, 175 Chenavard, p-J, 236 CIcero, 86 Chopm, Fredenc, z:Z4 'Chronlques parlslennes,' :Z3S 'Un CIel du SOlI pluvleux,' 99 'Chmat, faune et flore de la lune,' quoted, 7 Colendge, Samuel Taylor, 79, 88, 89, 90 , 92, :Z36

Commedza dell' arte, 141 'Complamte a Notre-Dame des SOlrs,' quoted, 138,' de cette de la bonne lune,' II6, II9, ' bonne defunte,' II 6, lI8, ' de la fin des )ournees,' 116, xx7, , de la lune en provmce,' x17, , de la vlgte aux mmults pode l'epoux outlalres,' 3S-6,' rage,' lIS. U9, ' de Lord PIerrot,' x16,' de l'organISte de Notre-Dame de NIce,' II3, uS, , de l'orgue de Barbane,' u6, I27,' de l'oubh des morts,> quoted, 187, I des fonnalxtes nuptlales,' u6, U9,' des grands pms dans une VIlla aban-

donnee,' 119-24, des noces de Plerrot,' 116, des nostalgtes preillstonques,' rr6, 137, des pIanos 9.u'on entend dans les qual tIers alses,' 119, 124-8, . des pubertes dlfficJles,' 116, des VOIX sous Ie figUler bouddhlque,' rr6, II 9, 127, 138,' des prmtemps,' 139, du foetus du poete,' 116,' d'un autre dlmanche,' quoted, 93,' d'un certam dunanche,' II 6, II7, ' d'une convalescence en mal,' 188, , du pauvre chevaher-errant,' 116, du pauvre )eune homme,' rr4-xs,' du ROI de Thule,' u6,' du SOlI des cornIces agrlcoles,' 29, x19, 128""9, , du Temps et de sa commere l'Espace,' 46,' du vent qUI s'ennule la nUlt,' Il7,' -LItanies de mon sacre-coeur,' II7, , propltlatolre a l'Inconsclent,' u6, quoted, x87, ' sur certams ennUIs,' II6,' -VaIlaoons sur Ie mot falot, falotte,' IX5

Les CompJazntes, %4, %7, 94-5, 97, 109, 1 IX-IZ, 'empIrIcal aesthetICS' of, xu, early examples, 112-13, 'ComplalOte du pauvre )eune homme' as a type, II4-IS. genltlves 10 tItles, 116, elegIac ComplalOtes, X17, dramatlc form 10 118-19, dIalogues, 119-29, 1OtIma· tlOns of free verse 10, 129, e~en­ mentatIon 10 syntax, 129, the preludes,' a valedIctIon, Xl9-32, 137. 139, 146, 180, 18x, x86, 192, 20r,

%04> 21 5, 22S, 237

'Le Conctle reerlque,' 119 'Conversatlon Galante,' 197. 198, 2.0;& Conrad. Joseph, 135 CopernIcus, 54 Copleston, Frederxck, S J, 84 Coppee, Fran901s, 94 Corbl~re, Tnstan, and 'Ie crepuscule du matm,' 80, Laforgue's Notes on; 95~IOO, l36, Breton OIlglOS of, 956, literary kmshIp WIth Laforgue, 95, II9, 134. quahty of humor, 96.

INDEX parado\. 10 language, 97, temperament as &l.cn by Laforgue, 106, 158, compared to Laforgue, 135, and fourtcenth of 'LocutlOn~,' 147, American reaction to, 192, Pound's estImate of, 2.06 'Le Poete contumacc,' 98, 'Rapf>odlc forame,' 96, 'Rondels pour apr(..s,' 98 'Couchant d'luver,' quoted, 9 'Un Coup dc D(..s,' 8-9 Cowley, Malcolm, 195-7, 'Nocturne,' 196-7, 2.2.4, 140 Crane, Hart, 2.13-33 'Black Tambourme,' 214, 'The Bndge of Estador,' 2.13, 'Chaplmesque,' 21819. 'EpIsode of Hands,' 2.13-14, 'For the MarrIage of Faustus and Helen,' 2.13, 2.19-2.1, 'LocutIons des Plerrots' x, II, m, translated, 216-17, 'Voy'lges,' 241 'Crepu~cule de dlmanche d'l;.te,' 56, 62, 131 Cros, Henry, 78 'Cunoslti:~ deplacees,' S4 'Le Cygne,' quoted, 105 Darre, Pascal, 17, :1.4, 36 Darwm, Charles, 54. 84t :1.35 Daudet, Alphonse. 40 Deburau. Jean-Gaspard. 141-2. 'Decadents,' the, 79, Laforgue and, 95, concerned wIth neologlSms, 139, 148, IS::, Symons' essay on, 193, 194 Defoe. Damel. tSo Degas, Edgar. 12, 28, 37 DeiacrolX, Eugene, 86 Delcasse. Theophlle, 24 Dereme, TrIStan, 18% Derniers Vers, quoted, %0, 129, I 3S. reVISion of carher verse for, 149"SO, archItecture of, 154-5, structare of verse hnes In, 156, major themes In, 157-8, fables m, 165-6, 182, 184, quoted by Symons, echoed by Eliot, 193. lOX, ElIot's quotatlon from, 203. 2H, ~l,l5, ale>, 138, :flUid monologue In, 239 Descartes, :RenA 82

295

Les Destlnees, 43, :1.36 Les Deux PIgeons,' 138 DldclOt, DelliS, 87, 203 'Dllnanches' ('Le clel pleut'), 128 Donatello, 77 Donne, John, 203 Dostoevsky, Fedor, IOO Drew, Ehzabeth, 26:1. Du Bos, Charles, 6 Ducasse, ISidore, see Lautreamont DUJard1O, Edouard, 156, 193, 2.38, 239 Durer, Albrecht, 37, 56

Elgeldmger, Marc, 140 ElIot, T S, 13, 14, 60, 185, 186, 195, :u5, and Tbe Symboltst Movement m Lzterature, 192, Laforgwan hnes, I93-4, Pound on, 197, and unphcanons of Laforgue, 1992.02, poems 'under the sIgn of Laforgue,' 20:1., as CrItIC of Laforgue, 203, on free verse, 2.°3, on Laforgue and 'the school of Donne,' 203. Laforgue as pomt of departure, 203-4, Cowley on, 240, F 0 Matthlessen on, 2.41 'ConversatIon Galante,' x97, 198, 202, 'La Flgha che Plange,' 197, 202., 'Humouresque (after J Laforgue),' 198-9, 'Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock,' 197-8, 201-2., 'Pomalt of a Lady,' 193, X97, 202, :1.03, 223, Prufrock, 214, 239, 240, 'Rhapsody on a WIndy NIght,' 200, 20X. 202, 'Spleen,' 197-8, Tbe Waste Land, 193. 194. 199, notes to, quoted, 2%2, reVIew of Huneker's Egozsts, quoted. 2%4 'EcIaLt' de goutire,' 60, 131 'Encore un LIvre,' 199 EphruSSI, Charles, 36. 37, 56. 62, 63, 66, 67, 68, 69, x7S, 234 EPICuruS, 54

Essass de psychologJe cO'Tl.tempora1'lle, 59

Evans, Donald, 195 'Farce eph6mere,' 43, quoted,46, 53 Fargue, Leon-Paul, 13, 85, and 'hie of words,' 139, x65, 18%-4

INDEX

Fenelon, and Phlloctetes on Lemnos, ZI, 23, prose rhythms echoed by Laforgue, 42 Feneon, Fehx, 156, 177 'Flances de Noel,' 33-4. 40 Flchte, Johann, 83, 89, and lEony, 240

'La Flgha che Plange,' 197, 2,01, 202 'Flgurez-vous un peu,' 12.7 FlammarlOn, Camille, 52, 53, 54

Plurallte des mondes habJtes, 52, 53 Flaubert, Gustave, and style of Stephtme VasnlJew, 23. 75. compared WIth Hugo, 93, 166, Mauberley's 'true Penelope,' 207, and Huneker, 223, zzs, 224. zz7, 239

BOU'lJard et Pecuchet, 40, 'Un

Coeur Slffiple,' 2.08, L'Educanon sennmentafe, 93, ZZ5, 'Herodlas,' 23, 93, satllized m 'Salome,' 161-2, 'La Legende de Samt Julien,' 2.3,

Madame BO'IJary, 2,9, 103, SamtAntome, 93, Salammb8, 2,3 Des Fleurs de borme volome, 26, 135, 'hberated' verse In, 149, 186, 2,00, 2,38

Les Fleurs du mal, quoted, 4,

100,

106, quoted, 101-6, 138 Fhnt, F S, 204 Foch, F, 20 Fourruer, Alam-, 180, 185, enthUSIasm for Laforgue, 186"'7, and dlS-

tulctness of Visual unagery In Laforgue, 187, 189, and 'the quoodIan' m Lafargue. 187, 189, and multIple POInts of VIew In Lafargue, 190, :U2, Laforgue and Le Grand Meaulnes, 19<>-91, 230, 240 Free verse, Laforgue's approach to, 9. 184-5, Laforgue's evolunon toward, 149. In Dermers Vers ISO Lafargue's place as 'Uers-lJbnste • 15 1 - 2, 238 , and 'emonve Idea,' 151: and WhItman, 152-4. plastIc qualIty of, 156, Symons on, 194, 202, 2. I I, and ElIzabethan blank verse 20 3

'

Freud, Sigmund, and Hartmann 83 84

'

,

Gare au bord de la mer,' quoted. 10 'Gaspard H'luser chante,' IZI, 123, I24. 134

GautlOr, Th<..Ophde, 20, 75, 141, ISo

Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 36, 37, 109 George, Stefan, 6, :z08 Gerard, Auguste, 68, 248 Ghll, Rene, 8 Glde, Andre, 5, :%1, 44, 152, 179 Glraudoux, Jean, 158 Goethe, 69 Goncourt, Edmond and Jules, 10, and 'ecrlture artiste,' II, 75 Gorren, Aline, 194 Gourmont, Remy de, on Corblere and Laforgue, 95, on free verse, lSI, 179, on Laforgue and 'sennmentallSm,' 180, and lEony, 181, 216, 231

GrawtatJons, 184 Greenaway, Kate, 171 Greene, E J H, 26:z GUichard, Leon, 113 Gulilaume d'Aqultame,

210

Hacke, Adelaide, 66, 68-9. 70, 73 'Hamlet, ou les SUItes de Ia plete filiale,' 5 I, 78, 108, 133. 160, 166-9, 170, 214. 2%5, 229. 230, 231. 238

See also 'A Propos de Hamlet' Haraucourt, Edmond, I U 'HarmonIC du SOlr,' 138 Hartmann, Eduard von, 13. n, 'three stage'! of IllUSIon,' 40, 83-4, 45, and Laforgue's aesthetIcs, 46. 48, 52, on the unconscIous mind, 82-3, on WIt, 83. on the UnconSC.lOUS as Absolute, 83, crItICS of, 84. 86, 88, go. on mdlvldualxty,

118, 235 See also UnconsClQus, the He$'Cl, 48, 52, 57, 58 HeUle, HelMIch, 40. on aesthetic lntuItlon, ag. cQmpared WIth Bal."ldelalre, 100, 137. z05. 242 Hennxque, Leon. 142. Henry, Charles, 39. 43. 67. 7 1, 94t log, JII,

xu,

130, 142, 170

Henry, 0, u8 H~eshelmer. Joseph, 232

CSeiOdJaS,'

23. 93. 161-2

INDEX

Hobbes, Thomas, 169 Hugh Selwyn MauberZey> %07 Hugo, Victor, 6, 86, compared with Flaubc..rt, 92-3> La Fm de Satan, 9%, 'Cantlquc.. de Bcphthagc..,' 93, 95. 97, 10 3, 139, 23 6 Hulme, T E, la, 181 'Humouresque (after J L'1forgue),' 198-9 Huneker, Jamc..s, 11, 14, 113-6, Ehot on, %14, 23 2 Huret, Jules, 180 Huxley. Thomas, II Huygcns,54 Huysmans, Jotl~-Karl, la, II, 11, 'style aux lourde~ attaches; 79, aesthetics In En Menage, 79-81, on Corblere, 96, I I I , and Pterrot scepttque, 141, 193, 224 A Rebours, 12, 96

Les Hydropatbes, 3Z IlIad, HO Les lllZmllfJattons, 94. lSI, 164 Imagism. 9, 195. lOS, :u I

L'bmtatton dt.. Notre-Dame 1« Lune,

dtdlcatlon, 139, moon-symbohsm In, 140. the Plerrot poems, 140-49, Plerrot, lunar creature, 140-42, Ideal of Intactness, 145, experiments 10 verSification. 146-7, 148, antlclpatlOnS of free verse In, 1489. 16[, 161, 204, 237, 240 'L'Imposslble,' 53 hnpresslonlsm. I r , and Laforgue':aesthetlc~, n, 37, 87, 193 Ipgres, 74 Irony, 23, dlstlngulshmg Laforgue from Corblere, 135. definltlons or, 135-6, In verse, 136-7. 137-67 pasmn, 180, Gourmont and, lSI, Flchre on, 240, 140"41

'J'al passe l'ige tlmlde,' r8-19 James, Henry, :a, 60, :uS Jammes, FtanclS, 181 'Je me souvtens du temps " 'Jeux,' 147, 195 Johnson, Samuel, 46 Jonson, Ben, :uo

:u,.,

14)

Joyce, James, 116, 139, 233 jung, C'lrl, 84 I<..afka, Franz, 235 Kahn, Gustave, 8, Symbohstes et

Decadents, 32 -3, 33, 34, 39, 40 , 56, 72, 94, 100, 130, 133, 139, 151, 169, 170, 171, 174, 176, 177, 179, 193, 221, 238 1'>.'1nt, Immanuel, 47, 5,., 82, 83, 140 Keene, Charles, 77 Kltngsor, Tristan, 182 Kreymborg, Alfred, 195 Krysmska, Mane, 151 Labat, Marie (nee Laforgue), 17,36, 38, 63, 65, 66, 67, 123, u8, 171, 176 L'1colley, LOUIS, 16 La Fontame, Jean de, 22 Laforgue, Adnen, Albert, Charles (fils), Charlotte, Edouard, LOUIse, Madeleine. Paulme, 17, 26, 65 Laforgue, Charles, 16, 17, 18, 10, 22, 27, 36, Jules' relationship With, 63-5 Laforgue, EmIle, 16, 17, 20, 23, 26, 27, 36, 59, 63, 74. 174 Laforgue, Jules, scope and diversity of hIS works, 1-2, Inmator or SymbolIsm rather than SymbolIst, 4-10, as a writer of 1880, 10-13, antecedents, IS-16, In Montevideo, 16-17, Tarbes, 17-26, Pans, 26-9, earhest CrltlClSm, 27-30, the Hyaropathes, 32, Kahn, 31-3. Buddhism and reactIon. 34. 'Noel sceptlque,' 34-5, rue Monsleur-IePrmce, 36, Ephrussl and the ImpreSSlonlSts, :n, letter of September 188r to Marie, 38-9, Charles Henry, 39. early proJects, 40-41, ph.tlosophlcal Ideabsm, Schopenhauer, 44-5 I, POSItIVIsm, evolutIonary dOCtrine, 52. La PluralJte des mondes habltes, 52-4, evolutionary doctrme m the verse, 546, 'Pour 1a Mort de la terre,' 56-8, Bourget. sg-60, Le Sanglot de la terre, 60-6%, Berlm-bound, 62-3, death of Charles Laforgue, the

2,.,

INDEX

Laforgue, Jules (Cont), father-son relatIOnship, 'Le Valsseau fant6me,' 63-5, Journey to Coblenz, 65-6, first ImpresSlOns of Germany and the court, 66-7, Berhn, the Empress, and the Countess Hacke, 67-70, Theodore Lmdenlaub, his Impressions of Laforgue, 71-2, Eugene and Theo Ysaye, 72, Un Rate and Ideahsm, 73, Tame's course, 74-5, reactIon agamst Tame's PhIlosophy of Art, 76, an aesthetics of the 'ephemeral,' 76-9, 81, Huysmans' En Menage, 79-80, The PhIlosophy of the UnconscIous, 81-7 (see also UnconsclOUS, the), and Schellmg's Transcendental IdealIsm, 88-9, an aesthetIC Ideal, 90, 'All keyboards are legmmate,' 9I, ImpresSlOmst crItICIsm of Hugo, 92-3, Flaubert, 93, Mallarme, 93-4> Rlmbaud, 94-5, Corhlere, 95-100, Baudelaire, 100-107, Germany, spleen, 108-9. 'R,' 109-II, 117, 'Ferme mes CompImmes,' III, Les Complamtes, 1 I 2-30 (see also Les Complamtes and 'Complamte ') , Hamlet, 133-4. 'AVertlSSement,' 134-5, defimtlons of Irony, 135-6, an example, 'Autre Complamte " 1,6, Iroruc eqUlhbrlum, 137, mixed words, 137-8, broademng of poetic vocabulary, 139. L'hmtat~on de Notre-Dame la Lune, 140, moon-symbohsm, 140, the PlerrOt poems, 140-49 (see also L'I~ta­ 'han ), prose wntlngs early realtsm, 159, 'Le Mtracle des roses,' 160, 'Lohengrm " X6I, 'Salome,' 161-2, 'Persee '(fusion of myths 10), 163-5, 'Hamlet " x66-9, growmg diSlIke of Germany, 170-72, Leah Lee, X717, marnage, 174, illness and death, 175-6 Prolongations, continuations 10 France reputation among SymbollStS, 180, Marcel Schwob, 18o, Gourmont, 180-81, Toulet, 181-2, Derente, t8l, Fargue, X82-

4, SupervleUe, 178, 184-5, AlamFourmer, 185-91, CrltlcIsm, Fourmer, RIViere, and others, 187-91 And the Anglo-AmerIcan lIterary mmd Symons, 192-4, Aline Gorren, 194-5, Cowley, 195-7, Eliot, I97-204 (see also Eliot), Pound, 204-IZ, 226-7 (see also Pound), Crane, 213-11 (see also Crane), Huneker, 225-6 (see also Huneker), F Newman, 117-33 (see also Newman) Laforgue's Me a representative one, 233-5, Importance of hiS mterest m Ideas, 235-7, 240, poet's progress, 237-9, 'mUSICian of Ideas,' 24I, 'poet of pure event,' 241, authentiCIty, 242 'Amours de la qumzleme annee, 25-6, 'A Propos de Hamlet,' 134, 'L'AquaflUm,' 201-2, 'L'Art moderne en Allemagne,' q v, 'Au L'lrge,' 148, 'Autre Com.elamte de Lord Plerrot,' q v, Ballade,' 118, 'Notes on Baudelaire,' 4, 92, lOO-I07, 236, 'Ca.techlsme peSSlmlste,' qv, 'Chanson du petit hypertrophlque,' q v, 'Chromques panslennes,' 235, 'Un Clcl du SOIr pluvleux,' 99, 'Chmat, faune et flore de la lune,' quoted, 7, 'Le Concile feerlque,' 119, 'Couchant d'hlver,' quoted, 9, 'Ctepuscule de dlmanche d'ete,' q v, 'Curlosltes deplacees,' 54, Dermer! Vers, ~ v. 'Les Deux Pigeons,' 138, DImanches ('Le clel pleut'),' u8, 'EclaIr de gouffre,' 60, 131, 'Encore un LIvre,' 199, 'Farce ephtimere,' q v, 'Fiances de Noel,' q v, 'Flgurez-vous un peu,' 11.7, Des Fleurs de hO'nne llJolome, q v, 'Gare au bord de la mer,' quoted, 10, 'Hamlet, au les suites de lit plete filIale,' q v • 'VImposSlble,' 53, 'J'Itl passe l'lge tuxlldc,' 18-19. 'Je me souvlens du tem~ " 1430 'Jeux,' q v, Lettres Ii un arm, 32, 33-4, 'utames de mlse.re,' 55, 'LocutIOns des Plerrots;' q v, 'LocutIons " q v.,

INDEX 'Lohengrm, til ~ dc P1r~lfaI,' q v , 'Ma01nque,' 201, 'M"dIOCrlt(..,' q v, 'Un Mot 1U \olell pour commencer,' quoted, 207, 'Nod scepnque,' q v, 'Pan I.t In Syrln,!(,' q v, 'Pe"t.e et Andromede,' q v , 'Plerrot fumlste,' 145, 'Plerrots' (serIes), q v, 'Plerrots (On a des prmClpes),' q v , 'Pour Ia Mort de Ia terre,' q v, 'Pour Ie LIvre d'amour,' So, 'Prdudes 1utobl0graphlques,' q v , 'Rlgueurs nulle autre parcllIes,' quoted, 100, Un Rat" q v, 'Rosace en vltrad,' 9 v, 'Salome,' q v, [e Sane;lot de la terre, q v, Note~ on Schellmg, see Schelhng, 'Sleste etemelle,' 61-2, 'SoIr de camaval,' 247, 'Spleen de~ nUlts de )UInet,' 60, Stephane VasszlJe'W, q v, 'SterllItes,' 147, 'Le Valsseau f1nrome,'

a

63-5

Laforgue, 1.e111 (nee Icc), 171-7 Laforgue, MarIe, see L1bat Laforgue, P'1.ulme (nee Lacolley),

7

16-1

Lahor, Jean (HenrI Cazabs), 44 Lake Poets, xo Lalou, Rene, r89 lamartine, Alphonse de, x6, n, 98, 103

Lanson, Gustave, 92 Lautreamont, Comee de, IS, 20, x64, 2H Lawrence, D H, 218, 130, 133 Leconte de LIsle,s. 4th 233 Lelbmz, 81 Lemaitre, Jules, u Leopardl, Giacomo, S2 Lettres un ami, 32, 33-<1Llndenlaub, Theodore, 71, 72, X10,

a

171

'Lltanles de mlS!re,' 55

Little RI'tnI'W, The, u4t 206, u.s Lrverlght, Horace, n9 'Locunot\S des Plerrots,,' 145, 147. 216-1 7. r, xr, xu. translated by

Crane. :u6--11

'I.ohengnn, Sl$ de Plrsd'al: 51, 138, 139t 145, 160, ~J, 13X

2.99

'Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, The,' 197-8, 101-1 Lowell, Amy, 195, 205 LucretlU~, 52, 53

Lutece,

III

Mlchen, Arthur, 181 Macy, John, 231 Mallarme, Stephane, 4, 'Toast fun(..bre,' quoted,s, 6, 93, on mUSIC and poetry, 8, 'Un Coup de Des,' 8-9, Xl, 44, Laforgue's Notes on, 93-4, prose poems, 94, 95, 106, 129, 140, on the MoralJtes legendtm'es, 180, 182, 183, 192. 194, 241

Manet, Edouard, Xl, 28, 37 'Mamaque,' 201 Matthlessen, F 0, 241 Maupassant, Guy de, 40. III, 160 'MedIOCrlte,' 240 43

Melanges postbwnes, 78, 89 Mencken, H L, 160, 197, 223 Mendes, Catulle, I I I Menzel, Adolphe, 81 Mer1Il1(..e, Prosper, 40, 160 MerrllI, Stuart, 233 MetternIch, 70 MIchaud, Guy, 237 MIchaux, HenrI, 85 Mlchelet, Jules, So Mllhaud, Dmus, 182 'Le MIracle des roses,' 108, 160, 231 Mohere, 141 Monet, Claude, 37 MonnIer, Henry. 76 Moore, George. 12, 22, U5

Moral,tes legendaJres, 14, 92, 16069. Mallanne on, 180, 181, 1840 190, 1940 'lIl, U3. 217, u9, 231, 139, see also Lafo~e, Alam-Fourruer. Newman, 'Hamlet " 'Le MIracle des roses,' 'Lohengrm ,"Pan " 'Persee " 'Salomc' Morand, Paul, U9 Moreas. Jean, 177, 2.33 Moreau, Gustave, 79 Monsot, Berthe. 37 Momssette, Bruce, zS'" 'Un Mot au sole.tl pour commencer,' quoted. 2.07

INDEX

Mozart, 86 Mullezer, Mme (Sandah Mahah) , 34 Murger, HenrI, 73 Musset, Alfred de, 98, 103 NanteuIl, Jacques, 258 Nerval, Gerard de, 129 Newman, Frances. l4, U3, 227, 2289, translates the Moralztes legendazres, 229, on 'Hamlet,' 230, 231, emphasIS on 'Lohengrm,' 2.31, on unportance of Laforgue's prose, 231, hmltatlons and slgwficance, 231-2, 2.42

NIetzsche, FrIedrIch, 49, 69, 84, 225 'Nocturne,' 196-7 'Noel scepnque,' 34, 62, 130 NovalIs,89

Odyssey,

210

Ouspensky, P D, :no

Poemes de l'humoUT trme, 184 'PortraIt of a Lady,' 193, 197, 202, %03, 213

Pound, Ezra, 124, on 11'ony, 135, on Laforgue and AmerIcan WrIters, 192, 195, to Mencken, on ElIOt, 197, 203, 204, on L'lforgue and logopoela, 205. Laforgue compared WIth Corblcre and lUmbaud, 206, logopocla In Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, 207. fUSIon of myths In the Cantos, 208-1I. lU, l15. 224, 'Tetrarchal PreCleuse,' 226-7, l29, 23%, 240

'Pour Ia Mort de la terre,' quoted, 46, 50, 56-8. 62, quoted, 187 'Pour Ie Livre d'amour,' SO 'Preludes autoblographlques,' quoted, 9, u9, quoted, 130-32, 138 PrIor, Matthcw, 106 Proust, Marcel, 5, 233

Prufrock and Other Obseroano1lS, 214, 239, 240, quoted, 100, 201,

'Pan et la Synnx,' ]46, 160, 1640 166,

l02, 203

%3]

Parnasslan Poets. 5, 7, 8, 97 Pascal, Blaise, 43, 180 Peres, Jean, 23-4, 63, ]40 'Persee et Andromede,' 145, 160, 163-5, fUSIon of myths m, 166,

167,

18],

238

10 Stephane VaSSll.ew, 21, 23, 4%, 50, ]64 Philosophy of the Unco1lScZOUS (Ph#losophJe des Unbewussten). %2, 40, 45, p, 82-4. 86 See also

Pluloctetes, myth of,

Hartmann. UnconsClOus, the

Plerrot, 3, 37, 51, 139. hneage of, ]41- 2 , lunar a11', 142-5, and other Laforgulan figures, 145--6, 157, 199%16, 219, :n.6 'PI¢,rrot' (Vcrlaxne), quoted, 3 'Plerrot fUIll1ste,' ]45 'PletrOts (On a des pnnclpes),' 146, 148 'PlerrOts' (series), ]'P-5, z07 PIgeon, AIIlI~dee, 248

PlSSal'ro, Canulle, 37 Plato, 86 Poe, Edgar Allan, lor, 106

'R,' 109-XI, XI7 RaffaellI, Jean-Fran~ols, 77 Un Rate, 73, 82 Regmer, Henri de, 175, 235. 239 Rembrandt, 7S Renan, Ernest, 1 x, 'The Poetry of the CeltiC Peoples,' 15, 45, 78 Renolr, Pierre-Auguste, u, 37 R6'lJUe 170 R6'lJUe

des de'l/.X manaes, 40,

67,

68,

Jndependante, 175 'Rhapsody on a Wmdy NIght,' %00, 201, 202

Ribot, Theodulc, 1 I, 45. 49, 179 RIchards, I A. 1 ~6, 137 Rlchepln, Jean, 59. 60 RIchter, Johann, 85 'lUgueurs a nullo lutre pare1l1es,' quoted, 200 Rtlke, Rainer Marla, 10, 36 Rlmbaud, Arthur. Laforgue on,S, 94'"5. 61, x39. and free verse, ISla, 238, Les lllummatJo'llS, 94> lSI. 164, 186, American reaction to, 192, compared With Laforgue by Symons, 194. 195. c:ompare
INDEX Laforgue by Pound, 206, 214> 215, 231, 236 R.1vlere, Jacqueo;, 182, 185, 186, on Laforgue, 188, !lInltatlOns of 1115 crItiCIsm, 189-90 Rodm, Auguste, 10 'Rosace en vltrail,' 62, quoted, 187 RosensweIg, S'lUl, 1 I Rothschild, James von, 70 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 16, 63, 163 Ruchon, Frangols, 135, 140 Samte-Beuve, 75, 104 Samt-John Perse, 165, 233 'Salome,' 145, 160, satIre on 'Herodlas,' 161-3, 202, 221, Pound's dIvagatIon from, 226-7, 129 Sand, George, 40 Le Sanglot de Ia terre, 42, as poetry of Ideas, 43-4, 54-8, 62, 236, quoted, 46, 50, 53, 51, 60, 109. I U, U7, IF, 186, 238 Santayana, George, 203 Savonaroh, 33 Scenes de la vze de Boheme, 73 Schelhng, FrIedrIch, I h Laforgue's Notes on, 86, 88-90, powers of spmt 10 Nature, 89, subject-object IdentIty, 89, modest role of SCIence, 90, Transcendental I dealIsm, 88, 89. 235, 236 SchmId, Canon, 30 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 40, 43, pervasive mfluence of, 44, and fundamental nmeteenth-century attitudes, 44-5, popularIzatIon 10 France, 45, Schopenhauerlan Ideas In the 'Catechlsme peSSlmlste' and Le Sanglot de la terre, 46-50, 10fiuence as morahst, St, The World as Wtll and Idea (D,e Welt als W#le und V(}1'$tellung) , 45-51, quoted, 49, Parerga, 5I Schwob, Marcel, 180, 18x Shaftesbury, Thu'd Earl Qf, 86 Shakespea.re. 76, 165. 180. 202, :uS, 13 1 Shaplro, Karl, :141 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, :a: 'Sxeste etemelle,' 61·:1

fllsley, Alfred, 37 Skarbma, Franz, 234 'Solr de carnaval,' 247 Spencer, Herbert, I I, $2, 54> 90, 235 Spmoza, u8 'Spleen,' 197-8 'Spleen des nUlts de Julllet,' 60 Stendhal, 18, 223, 239 Stephane Vasszltew, 2.0-2.3, and myth of Phdoctetes, 2. I, absence of Irony In, 23, 238, 24, 25, '1.7, 30, 4 2, 117, 140, 161 'Steniltes,' 147 Stevenson, R L, 180 Sully-Prudhomme, Armand, 56, 60, 94,23 6

Supervlelle, Jules, IS, 53, 85, on Laforgue and free verse, 151-2, 165, 'Laforgue, fumf nourrlcler,' 178, myth ID, 184, 'San BemardIDO,' 184, 185, 233 Symbohsm, alms of, 5-9, Laforgue WIth reference to, 6, 7, 9-13, 241, )2, 174, 193 Le Symbolme, 134 Symbolmes et Decadents, 32.-3 Symbohsts, 5-9, 10, Xl, IS, 94, 1S2, 179, 180, 183, 208 Symons, Arthur, 4, 19 2 , 193, on Laforgue, 194, 199, 224> 232, The Symbolist MO'IJement In LIterature, quoted, 4> 19 2, 199 System of Transcendental IdealIsm, 88,89 Tame, Hlppolyte, IX, 15, 45, 48, La Phtlosophle de l'art, 10, 74> 75, 76,78,81, at the Ecole des BeauxArts, 74. Laforgue's dtalogue WIth, 74-8, 'De l'Ideal dans ran,' 75, 76, 78, 81, Hmozre de 14 Imerature anglazse, 75, 79, 81, De t'lTIItellzgence, 8x, 86, 235 Ta.te, Allen, 197, 206, lXS, 220 Taupm, Rene, 206, L'Infiuence du tymbolume fran;azs sur 14 poesze ammcflme, %06 Thlbaudet, Albert, 5, 6 Thompson, Vance, :z:a6 'Toast funebre,' quoted, 5. 6, 93

30 %

INDEX

Toulet, Paul-Jean, 181, 182 Toumeur, Cyril, 180 TrIllmg, LIOnel, Zl Tumell, G M, 203 TWaln, Mark, 180

'Le Vleu'C Saltlmbanque,' 29 Vlgny, Alfred de, 43, 44, 52, 103, 236 Vildrac, Charles, 214 Vilhers de l'Isle-Adam, Counts of, IS

La Vogue, 94, Unamuno, Miguel de, 13, quoted, 15 UnconsclOus, the, 22, 23, 27, 72, 81, as regIOn of the human m1Od, 823, 85, as metaphysical Absolute, 83, 'History of the UnconscIOus 10 the W orId,' 83-4, dlst10gulshed from Freudian-surrealIst unconSCIOUS, 84, 230, as quasl-dlVmlty, 86, m artistic creation, 86, as utilItarian pr1Oclple, 87, 88, 90 , 93, 140, 153, 179, 226, 229, 235 'Le Valsseau fantome,' 63-5 Valery, Paul, 5, 6, on SymbolIsm, 7, 8, 'La Jeune Parque,' 9, 57, 106, quoted, 133, 208 Vamer, Leon, Ill, 130 Varlet, Theo, IS2 Vedas, the, 54 Verlame, Paul, 'Plerrot,' quoted, 3, Laforgue on,S, on poetry, 8, 9, 61, 94, Ill, Il3, 134, 142., 146, 147, 238 See also 'Gaspard Hauser chante' Vers lIbre, see Free Verse Vlele-Gnffin, FrancIS, 233, 239

ISO,

152, 201, 221

Wagner, Richard, 8, 49, 69 Waste Land, The, 193, 194, 199, notes to, quoted, 212 Watteau, Anto1Oe, 141 Weber, Brom, 214, 216, 221 Webster, John, 203 Whitman, Walt, 68, Laforgue's translatIOns from, 152-4, the poems and translations as free verse, 153-4, 239 WIlson, Edmund, 21 Wmckelmann, Johann JoachIm, 75 Wordsworth, WIlham, 104 World as W,ll and Idea, The, 4551, quoted, 49 Wyzewa, Teodor de, 175. 177. ISo Xenophanes, 54 Yeats, WIlham Butler, 5, u8, %04 Ysaye, Eugene, 72 Ysaye, TheophIle, 72, 170, 17 1, 173, 174 Zola, Emde, 76