Alchemy and Amalgam: Translation in the Works of Charles Baudelaire

Alchemy and Amalgam Translation in the Works of Charles Baudelaire

FAUX TITRE 246

Etudes de langue et littérature françaises publiées sous la direction de Keith Busby, M.J. Freeman, Sjef Houppermans, Paul Pelckmans et Co Vet

Alchemy and Amalgam Translation in the Works of Charles Baudelaire

Emily Salines

AMSTERDAM - NEW YORK, NY 2004

The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of ‘ISO 9706: 1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence’. Le papier sur lequel le présent ouvrage est imprimé remplit les prescriptions de "ISO 9706:1994, Information et documentation - Papier pour documents - Prescriptions pour la permanence". ISBN: 90-420-1931-X Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2004 Printed in The Netherlands

CONTENTS Acknowledgements

7

Abbreviations

9

Introduction Chapter 1:

11 ‘L’amour du métier’? Baudelaire’s approaches to translation

19

Chapter 2:

Translation in 19th-century France

61

Chapter 3:

Translation and creation in Un Mangeur d’opium

87

Chapter 4:

Le ‘procès baudelairien’ Baudelaire and literary property

121

Chapter 5:

Baudelaire’s aesthetics of amalgame

165

Chapter 6:

The limits of translation

201

Conclusion:

Translation as metaphor?

247

Appendix A: Appendix B: Appendix C: Appendix D:

Chronology of Baudelaire’s translations Annotated extract from Un Mangeur d’opium Literary Property Law of 19 July 1793 ‘Le Joujou du pauvre’ / Morale du joujou

255 261 269 271

Bibliography

275

Index of source authors and translations

299

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr Sonya Stephens, Profs Edward Hughes, Peter Broome and Michele Hannoosh for their invaluable advice and help at various stages of the manuscript. The Centre for Research in Translation at Middlesex University has been the ideal environment in which to develop my ideas about Baudelaire and translation. I thank my colleagues and students of the Centre, who through their comments and questions have enriched my work. I thank the Women Graduates Association for awarding me an emergency grant for the summer of 1995, and Royal Holloway, University of London for awarding me a travel grant in the same year, which allowed me to spend a month at the Bibliothèque Nationale. I am very grateful to Middlesex University for awarding me a period of sabbatical leave in the Autumn of 1999, during which the manuscript was completed. I would like to express my gratitude to Linzy Dickinson for her help and friendship throughout this project. Last but not least, Steve Russell, my family and friends deserve special thanks for their encouragement and support, as well as their patience!

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ABBREVIATIONS The following abbreviations are used: ŒCI and ŒCII: Baudelaire, Charles, Œuvres complètes, ed. by Claude Pichois (Paris: Gallimard, 1975-76). CI and CII: Baudelaire, Charles, Correspondance, ed. by Claude Pichois with the collaboration of Jean Ziegler (Paris: Gallimard, 1973). S L W : Baudelaire, Charles, Un Mangeur d’opium avec le texte parallèle des Confessions of an English Opium Eater et des Suspiria de profundis de Th. De Quincey, édition critique et commentée par Michèle Stäuble-Lipman Wulf, Études Baudelairiennes VI-VII (Neuchâtel: La Baconnière, 1976). EAP: Poe, Edgar Allan, Œuvres en prose, Traduites par Charles Baudelaire, Texte établi et annoté par Y.-G. Le Dantec (Paris: Gallimard, 1951). Ouvrages73: Baudelaire, Charles, Edgar Alan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages, Edition commentée par W. T. Bandy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973). Poe: Poe, Edgar Allan, The Complete Tales and Poems (New York: Dorset Press, 1989).

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INTRODUCTION Est-il normal que, pendant une quinzaine d’années, l’auteur des Fleurs du Mal ait consacré la plus grande partie de son activité à traduire des œuvres souvent médiocres? (...) Pour sa difficulté à créer, Poe lui fut un alibi: les traductions sont une justification, une caution bourgeoise, destinée à rassurer sa mère, Ancelle et luimême.1

Claude Pichois’s question and his answer are emblematic of critics’ general approach to Charles Baudelaire’s translations. ‘Traduire’ – even in the corpus of a canonical writer – cannot but be a stopgap, the sign of a lack, an abnormal activity. Such a view of translation is not restricted to Baudelaire studies, of course. Translation has traditionally been considered as a derivative activity (and one, therefore, that is less worthy of interest). Susan Bassnett describes this tradition very clearly: Translation has been perceived as a secondary activity, as a ‘mechanical’ rather than a ‘creative’ process, within the competence of anyone with a basic grounding in a language other than their own; in short, as a low status occupation.2

Because of its dependence on a source text, translation is generally seen as less valuable than so-called ‘original’ writing, and totally ancillary, dependent on its source. Despite the large volume of Baudelaire criticism, it is not surprising, therefore, to note that, of all his works, his translations have indeed been relatively little studied, and are generally considered as marginal in his corpus, a sign of his crea1 Claude Pichois, ‘Baudelaire ou la difficulté créatrice’ in Baudelaire, Études et témoignages (Neuchâtel: La Baconnière, 1967), pp. 242-61 (p. 246). 2 Susan Bassnett-McGuire, Translation Studies (London and New York: Methuen, 1980), p. 2.

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tive incapacity, manifested in an over-reliance on derivative writing. Very rarely are they seen to be relevant to the poet’s creative process. The few studies which concentrate on Baudelaire’s translations focus mainly on Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe, and mostly from the point of view of a possible affinity between the two authors. They explore mainly the question of Poe’s influence on Baudelaire and thematic echoes between the two writers.3 Of such studies, P.M. Wetherill’s Charles Baudelaire et la poésie d’Edgar Allan Poe is the most complete and enlightening.4 Other traditional paths of enquiry are concerned with Baudelaire’s knowledge of the English language and of English literature, and generally highlight his faulty knowledge of the language and patchy understanding of the literature.5 His interest in Poe is often quoted as an example of his poor appreciation of English / American literature, as Poe’s status as a writer is questioned and belittled. Claude Pichois perpetuates that tradition when he writes that ‘deux écrivains du même nom: un Américain, plutôt médiocre, et un Français de génie’ hide under the name of Poe.6 The reasons for this supposed improvement achieved through translation are rarely explored, critics generally satisfying themselves with pointing out Baudelaire’s genius, although one does find some comparative studies of source and target texts such as P.M. Wetherill’s. In comparison with the Poe translations – which, admittedly, constitute the largest part of Baudelaire’s translation corpus – Baudelaire’s other translations and adaptations have been very little studied. The most notable and useful contributions of critics in the field have 3

Among the best of early studies of this type are Léon Lemonnier’s Les Traducteurs d’Edgar Poe en France de 1845 à 1876: Charles Baudelaire (Paris: PUF, 1928), Edgar Poe et la critique française de 1845 à 1875 (Paris: PUF, 1928), Edgar Poe et les poètes français (Paris: Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue Critique, 1932). These works consider Baudelaire’s translations of Poe in context and explore – and minimize – Poe’s influence on Baudelaire. Also very useful is Patrick F. Quinn’s The French Face of Edgar Poe (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1957), which despite its general title concentrates in fact on Baudelaire’s reading of Poe. See also Louis Seylaz, Edgar Poe et les premiers symbolistes français (Lausanne: Imprimerie la Concorde, 1923). 4 P.M. Wetherill, Charles Baudelaire et la poésie d’Edgar Allan Poe (Paris: Nizet, 1962). 5 See for instance Francis Scarfe’s ‘Baudelaire angliciste?’, Études anglaises, 21 (1968), 52-57, or Margaret Heinen Matheny ‘Baudelaire’s Knowledge of English Literature’, Revue de Littérature Comparée, 1970, 98-117. 6 Pichois, ‘Baudelaire ou la difficulté créatrice’, p. 246.

Introduction

13

been through the publication of parallel text editions. W.T. Bandy and Claude Pichois’s ‘Un inédit: “Hiawatha. Légende indienne”, adaptation de Charles Baudelaire’ offers the French and the English texts in parallel, and includes a short section on ‘Baudelaire traducteur’.7 L e Jeune Enchanteur has also benefitted from W. T. Bandy’s scholarship, culminating with the publication in 1990 of an excellent parallel-text edition.8 Similarly, Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages is an excellent edition by Bandy of Baudelaire’s text in parallel with its sources, with a very thorough introduction.9 In the case of Un Mangeur d’opium and its source texts, Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and Suspiria de Profundis, Michèle Staüble-Lipman Wulf’s edition has provided the most complete introduction to the source and target texts, together with a parallel edition.10 In addition to the above studies, there has been in recent years only a slow movement towards a recognition of the importance of translation for Baudelaire. Nicole Ward Jouve devotes a section of her Baudelaire: A Fire to Conquer Darkness to ‘Baudelaire and Translation’, and suggests that ‘translating from one language into another calls into play attitudes not altogether different from translating paint into words, or life into art’.11 She does not, however, pursue that line of enquiry, and instead produces a study of Baudelaire’s reading of De Quincey rather than of his work as a translator. Alan Astro’s ‘Allegory of Translation in Un Mangeur d’opium’ explores the hybrid nature of this text in terms of translation;12 Mary Ann Caws’ ‘Insertion in an Oval Frame: Poe Circumscribed by Baudelaire’ looks at the interaction between Baudelaire’s translation of Poe’s ‘The Oval Portrait’ with its source text and the poem ‘Un Fantôme’ in Les Fleurs du mal;13 and Mira Levy-Bloch’s ‘La traduction chez Baudelaire: Les 7

Études Baudelairiennes II (Neuchâtel: La Baconnière, 1971), 7-68. Le Jeune Enchanteur, A critical edition by W. T. Bandy (Nashville: Publications of the W. T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire Studies, 1990). See also W. T. Bandy, ‘Baudelaire et Croly – la vérité sur Le Jeune Enchanteur’, Mercure de France (1 February 1950), 230-47. 9 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973). 10 Études Baudelairiennes VI-VII (Neuchâtel: La Baconnière, 1976). The only other notable study of Baudelaire and De Quincey is to be found in G. T. Clapton, Baudelaire et De Quincey (Paris: ‘Les Belles Lettres’, 1931). 11 Nicole Ward Jouve, Baudelaire: A Fire to Conquer Darkness (London: Macmillan, 1980), p. 200. 12 Nineteenth-Century French Studies, 18, 1-2 (Fall-Winter 1989-90), 165-71. 13 in Harold Bloom (ed.), Charles Baudelaire, New York, New Haven, Philadelphia, 8

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trois imaginations du poète-traducteur’ explores the links between translation metaphors and imagination for Baudelaire (but does not take into account Baudelaire’s translations).14 These articles are very valuable but remain inevitably limited in scope. There has been to date no overall study of Baudelaire’s translating technique or of his use of English texts in general, nor has there been any contextualized study of his translation corpus. Nor indeed has there been any attempt to link Baudelaire’s translations and adaptations to his other writings. This book is part of a growing movement in translation studies to reassess the significance of the act of translation, and a questioning of the ancillary position of translation. Particularly representative of this movement is the work of the so-called ‘manipulation’ school, inherited from the polysystem theories of the 1970s and early 1980s.15 As its name suggests, the manipulation school focuses on the transformative powers of translation, which are dictated by the translator’s subjectivity but also, as importantly, the translational norms of the target system (that is to say the prevalent approaches to translation of the receiving culture) as well as the socio-cultural context to which the translations are being transplanted. This resolutely target-oriented approach to translation has the advantage of moving away from concerns of faithfulness to a sacrosanct original. It should be seen, however, in parallel with studies such as those of Lawrence Venuti or Antoine Berman, who explore the appropriating dimension of the act of translation, and emphasize the fallacy of fluency and transparency in translation, arguing that these hide in fact the translator’s tendency to take over the source text and erase the source author’s voice.16 Moving away from the theory of creative incapacity, my aim is, therefore, to respond to the lacuna in Baudelaire criticism and to pursue the line of enquiry set by translation studies by reassessing the Chelsea House Publishers, 1987, pp. 101-23 (initially published in The French Review, 56, April-May 1983). 14 Nineteenth-Century French Studies, 20, 1-2 (Fall-Winter 1991-92), 361-83. 15 See Itamar Even-Zohar, ‘Polysystem Theories’, Poetics Today, 1, 1-2 (Autumn 1979), 287-310; Gideon Toury, In Search of a Theory of Translation (Tel Aviv: Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, 1980); Theo Hermans (ed.), The Manipulation of Literature, Studies in Literary Translation (London: Croom Helm, 1985). 16 Lawrence Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility, A History of Translation (London and New York: Routledge, 1995); Antoine Berman, L’Épreuve de l’étranger, Culture et traduction dans l’Allemagne Romantique (Paris: Gallimard, 1984), and Pour une critique des traductions: John Donne (Paris: Gallimard, 1995).

Introduction

15

significance of the translating act in the Baudelairean corpus and its importance in Baudelaire’s writing technique. In order to achieve that, this study will focus on the interaction between translation and creation and will move away from traditional distinctions between Baudelaire’s derivative and original writings. Instead, it will aim to uncover a common approach to writing both in the translations and in the rest of Baudelaire’s corpus. The scope of this study will be deliberately wide, therefore. It will explore Baudelaire’s translations from English for signs of subjectivity and creativity, and will try and discover forms of translation other than intralingual in the Baudelairean corpus. In other words, it will not only explore the direct translations of Poe’s texts, but instead will also focus on more ambiguous texts, such as the ‘adaptations’ from English (Un Mangeur d’opium, for instance), and other forms of dual writing in Baudelaire’s works as the doublets and transpositions d’art. Thus the term ‘translation’ will be taken in a wide sense, encompassing a range of forms of derivative writings (that is to say texts created through the rewriting of an earlier text), an approach largely influenced by Roman Jakobson’s seminal ‘On Linguistic Aspects of Translation’.17 Jakobson defines three types of translation: 1) Intralingual translation or rewording is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language. 2) Interlingual translation or translation proper is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language. 3) Intersemiotic translation or transmutation is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of non-verbal sign systems.18

Jakobson’s definitions have the advantage of opening up the discussion of translation to forms of writing which would not necessarily be included in more traditional approaches. ‘Translation proper’, that is to say from one language to another, is only one form of translation, which includes rewriting (intralingual) and transposition (intersemiotic). The traditional distinction between translation, adaptation and version should not indeed hide the fact that all these are forms of dual, 17

in On Translation, ed. by Reuben A. Brower (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959), pp. 232-243. See also Aron Kibédi Varga’s commentary on Jakobson’s three types of translation in ‘Pragmatique de la traduction’, RHLF, 1997, 3, 428-36 (pp. 428-30). 18 Roman Jakobson, p. 233.

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or derivative, writing, and are, therefore, part of a common approach to writing. Henri Meschonic, in his article ‘Traduction, adaptation – palimpseste’, shows the links and differences between adaptation and translation: Je définirais la traduction la version qui privilégie en elle le texte à traduire et l’adaptation, celle qui privilégie (volontairement ou à son insu, peu importe), tout ce hors-texte fait des idées du traducteur sur le langage, et sur la littérature, sur le possible et l’impossible (par quoi il se situe) et dont il fait le soustexte qui envahit le texte à traduire.19

Meschonic emphasizes translation as a source-oriented exercise, and adaptation as target-oriented. As Yves Gambier argues, the division between translation and adaptation is based, then, on the implicit idea that translation is ‘un effort littéral, une mimesis de l’original’.20 Gambier attacks what he calls ‘une antinomie intenable’: ‘d’une part, la traduction serait vouée à la littéralité, d’autre part, elle se changerait en “adaptation” dès que son souci cibliste dominerait’.21 From this point of view, Reuben Brower’s approach offers an alternative to the traditional division between translation and adaptation. Brower argues that the word ‘version’ is a better term to refer to the ‘scale of varying but related activities that we call “translation”’,22 because it does not carry the same overtones of literalness as the word ‘translation’. He then details the range of approaches possible: A few of the many degrees on a scale of versions might be named here – from the most exact rendering of vocabulary and idiom to freer yet responsible translation, to full imaginative re-making (‘imitation’), to versions where no particular original is continuously referred to, to allusion, continuous or sporadic, to radical translation, where a writer draws from a foreign writer or tradition the nucleus or donnée for a wholly independent work.23

While Brower’s open concept of version may be too wide for the purpose of the present study (allusions, for instance, will not be considered as forms of translation), his inclusion of varying degrees of 19

Palimpsestes, 3 (1990), 1-10 (p. 1). Yves Gambier, ‘Adaptation: une ambiguité à interroger’, Meta, 37 (1992), 421-25, p. 421. 21 Gambier, p. 421. 22 Reuben Brower, Mirror on Mirror, Translation, Imitation, Parody (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974), p. 1. 23 Brower, p. 2. 20

Introduction

17

closeness to and variation from a source is very helpful as a basis for a study of varying forms of translation in Baudelaire’s works.24 An inclusive (or ‘totalizing’, to use George Steiner’s phrase)25 definition of translation clearly brings the present study within the framework of intertextuality, and the study of palimpsestic writing as explored by Gérard Genette.26 Genette’s analysis of the five levels of transtextuality (transtextuality being ‘tout ce qui met [le texte] en relation manifeste ou secrète avec d’autres textes’) provides indeed the necessary theoretical framework in which to look at the relationship between Baudelaire’s translations and his other writings, and also between the translations and their source texts. Genette details five types of transtextuality – the first type, ‘intertextualité’, is defined as a ‘relation de coprésence entre deux ou plusieurs textes’, as encountered for instance in quotation, plagiarism or allusion; the second type, ‘paratextualité’, which is ‘la relation, généralement moins explicite et plus distante, que, dans l’ensemble formé par une œuvre littéraire, le texte proprement dit entretient avec ce que l’on ne peut guère nommer que son paratexte’, that is to say the relationship between the text and everything that surrounds it (for instance its title, prefaces, cover, etc...); the third type, ‘métatextualité’, is ‘la relation (...) de commentaire qui unit un texte à un autre texte’; the fourth type (the most important within the context of this study), ‘hypertextualité’ describing the relationship between a text B (‘hypertexte’) and an earlier text A (‘hypotexte’) in a relationship which is not metatextual, but rather, based on a creative transformation of text A by text B; and, finally, ‘architextualité’, ‘relation tout à fait muette, que n’articule, au plus, qu’une mention paratextuelle de pure appartenance taxinomique’.27 Genette’s classification has the advantage of providing a useful terminology and a clear distinction between different types of relationships between texts. Underlying the analysis of the place of translation in Baudelaire’s work is the question of the status of 24 George Steiner advocates a similar approach in After Babel, Aspects of Language and Translation (London, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), where he underlines the study of ‘all meaningful exchanges of the totality of semantic communication (including Jakobson’s intersemiotic translation or “transmutation”)’ as the most instructive trend in translation studies (p. 279). 25 Steiner, p. 279. 26 Gérard Genette, Introduction à l’architexte (Paris: Seuil, 1979); Palimpsestes, la littérature au second degré (Paris: Seuil, 1982). 27 Genette, Palimpsestes, pp. 7-16.

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Baudelaire’s translations in relation to their source texts – whether or not they can be considered as hypertexts depends on Baudelaire’s creative input in the target text, and assessing that input will be central to this study. In order to explore the importance of translation in Baudelaire’s works, this book will start with an analysis of the corpus of Baudelaire’s interlingual translations. It will detail the range of Baudelaire’s approaches to the English text and aim to demonstrate that they all represent different forms of translation. It will then replace these approaches within their translational context and outline the main issues at stake in the practical and theoretical hesitations and debates of the 19th century, before focusing on Un Mangeur d’opium as emblematic of the link between translation and creation in Baudelaire’s writing method, and of his ambivalence to his source text. This study will then turn to the issues raised by the ambiguous status of Baudelaire’s translations and adaptations in his corpus, exploring first the questions of translation and literary property and responding to the theory of Baudelaire’s creative incapacity as the main reason for his interest in translation, before situating Baudelaire’s creative translations as part of a wider aesthetics. The final chapter of the book will explore the possibility of an aesthetics based on the concept of translation. It will, therefore, look at other forms of dual writing in Baudelaire’s works, starting with the links between translation and criticism and then turning to intersemiotic and intralingual translations. If the hypothesis of a common approach to all dual writings is verified, the centrality of translation in Baudelaire’s works will have been demonstrated. It will, consequently, shed new light on the poet’s creative method and the means by which poetic alchemy is achieved.

1 ‘L’AMOUR DU MÉTIER’? BAUDELAIRE’S APPROACHES TO TRANSLATION Baudelaire’s approaches to English texts were far from uniform, ranging from very close translation to free adaptations.1 They can, however, be divided into two main strands. On the one hand, there are what could be called source-oriented, direct translations (that is to say translations in which the source text is paramount, and the translating act focuses on the faithful rendering of the original); and, on the other, there are target-oriented adaptations and transformations, in which the source text is appropriated, sometimes even hijacked, to suit Baudelaire’s aims. In the latter, the target text becomes paramount, the source text serving mainly as the bottom layer of the creative palimpsest. As in most classifications, variations do exist within these two main strands, as will revealed in the course of this study. It is nevertheless useful to examine the specific features of direct translations and adaptations separately. The direct translations constitute the bulk of Baudelaire’s activities: this is the approach adopted with Edgar Allan Poe’s works and despite his experiments with freer approaches, Baudelaire never abandoned the use of direct translation. Although the most remarkable of Baudelaire’s direct translations are the Poe translations, other texts follow similar approaches. His first and last translations are both direct translations: Le Jeune Enchanteur, based on an 1836 story by the Reverend Croly, 2 was published in 1846 while ‘Le Pont des soupirs’, based on Thomas Hood’s ‘Bridge of Sighs’, was dictated to Arthur Stevens in 1865. This approach was also applied to English songs by 1

See the chronology of Baudelaire’s translations, in Appendix A. ‘The Young Enchanter – From a papyrus of Herculanum’, in The Forget me not; A Christmas, New Year’s, and Birthday Present for mdccxxxvi (London: Ackermann and CO., 1836).

2

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T. E. Walmisley and Doctor Cooke.3 These, published in Paris on 29 January 1853, were translated for Alfred Busquet, who inserted them in an account of London (Londres fantastique, published in Paris from 16 December 1852 to 30 January 1853). In most direct translations, the source text is fully acknowledged and respected as an original to be reproduced as faithfully as possible. The situation is not always so straightforward, however, as the example of Le Jeune Enchanteur suggests a more complex relationship with the source text. Indeed, W. T. Bandy showed in 1950 that Le Jeune Enchanteur, first published in 1846 under Baudelaire’s name, is in fact an unacknowledged translation. That a relatively close translation should pass as a text by Baudelaire is remarkable and may be an early hint of the link between his translations and his other works and of the fluency of his translation. Such fluency, linked with the dissimulation of the translational nature of Le Jeune Enchanteur, poses clear questions of literary property, questions which also arise from the freer translations where the source text is very infrequently acknowledged. The adaptations, although less numerous than the direct translations, form an important part of Baudelaire’s translation corpus. As in the case of the direct translations, the free translations include work done at the request of a third party. In the same way as the English Songs were translated at the request of Alfred Busquet, the unfinished translation of Longfellow’s ‘Hiawatha’ was ordered by Robert August in 1860, and became the occasion for experiments with the rendering of poetry and with varying levels of transformation. Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages and Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses œuvres, although presented by Baudelaire as his own account of Poe’s life and works, are in fact essays based on American articles which are blended with Baudelaire’s personal comments on Poe’s art. In Les Fleurs du Mal, ‘Le Guignon’ is based on Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ and Longfellow’s ‘A Psalm of Life’, while ‘Le Flambeau vivant’ is a loose translation of a section from Poe’s ‘To Helen’. In both cases, there is no direct recognition of the source text. Finally, Un Mangeur d’opium is, openly this time, both a presentation and a reflexion on Thomas De Quincey’s autobiographical Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and Suspiria De Profundis. Despite the wide range of approaches adopted by Baudelaire in his translations, one is struck by the fact that they stand in their own 3

Published by Alfred Busquet in Paris, on 29 January 1853.

L’amour du métier?

21

right, independently of their original, be it acknowledged or not. In the introduction to his Pléiade edition of Poe’s prose works, Y.-G. Le Dantec emphasizes the fact that the translations are a Baudelairean text,4 and that Poe’s stories are ‘magistralement transcrites’ by Baudelaire.5 It is revealing that, in his project to present Poe’s tales to French readers in the highly prestigious Pléiade edition, Le Dantec should choose to omit the stories which were not translated by Baudelaire on the grounds that Baudelaire’s text cannot be supplemented by another translator’s versions, and that French readers are used to Baudelaire’s presentation and selection. Thus Baudelaire’s version has taken over its original and the canon established by him is eventually seen as more important than Poe’s.6 Claude Pichois expresses the same idea when he writes that: les traductions de Poe sont devenues la substance de Baudelaire et constituent une œuvre d’art appartenant au patrimoine français. Ce qui faisait dire à un humoriste qu’il y avait deux écrivains du même nom: un Américain, plutôt médiocre, et un Français de génie, par la grâce de Baudelaire et de Mallarmé.7

Similarly, Le Jeune Enchanteur is still classified as part of Baudelaire’s ‘essais et nouvelles’ in Claude Pichois’ Pléiade edition, whereas the translations of Poe make up a separate volume. In the same vein, W. T. Bandy’s excellent 1990 edition of Le Jeune Enchanteur does not mention on its title page the fact that the text is a translation, and there is no reference to the source author. It is as if the critics’ last verdict on Baudelaire’s appropriation of Croly’s text was that it was successful, although of lesser importance than Baudelaire’s other works, because of the act of translation it involved.8 U n 4

‘Bien que ce volume ne fasse pas partie des Œuvres de Baudelaire éditées dans la Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, c’est encore un texte baudelairien que nous donnons ici, en publiant une édition des œuvres d’Edgar Allan Poe’, EAP, p. 7. 5 EAP, p. 7. 6 This common view of Baudelaire’s translations seems in contradiction with the no less common critical tendency to see his translating activity as a sideline in the corpus of his works – a contradiction to which we shall return at a later stage. 7 Pichois, ‘Baudelaire ou la difficulté créatrice’, p. 242. ‘La substance de Baudelaire’ describes well the impregnation of Poe’s text with Baudelairean elements, and the phrase ‘une œuvre d’art appartenant au patrimoine français’ calls to mind once more the concept of appropriation through translation already mentioned. 8 Pichois’ notes to Le Jeune Enchanteur state somewhat disappointedly that ‘cette nouvelle n’est qu’une traduction d’un texte anglais’ (ŒCI, p. 1405, emphasis added) and yet ‘on a néanmoins recueilli cette traduction dans cette section [essais et nou[Footnotes continue on next page]

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Mangeur d’opium, although often presented as secondary to its original, is also seen as belonging fully to Baudelaire’s works. Such views imply a strong dimension of appropriation through translation, conscious or unconscious, which will be studied at a later stage in this book. They also emphasize the strength of Baudelaire’s voice as a translator, a voice which makes itself heard not only in the free translations, but also in apparently source-oriented, direct translations. The present chapter will present the corpus of Baudelaire’s translations from English and explore the target texts for the presence of his voice and subjectivity, starting with the direct translations before turning to the free translations.9 Le Jeune Enchanteur is a useful starting point in a study of Baudelaire’s direct translations. As a ‘pseudo-original’ (to use Anthony Pym’s terminology), 10 that is to say a translation presented and read as an original, this text is engaged in a very specific relationship with the target culture and the target translator’s corpus. The reasons why Le Jeune Enchanteur should have been believed for so long to be part of Baudelaire’s ‘original works’ may be found both in the paratext and in velles], celle des traductions ayant été réservée aux poésies.’ (ŒCI, p, 1404). 9 Studying such a large corpus poses methodological issues. Antoine Berman’s Pour une critique des traductions: John Donne (pp. 64-97) provides a useful framework. Berman’s method is complementary to polysystem approaches in so far as it insists on the importance of target-oriented criticism, and contextual studies, and has the additional advantage of highlighting, as Lawrence Venuti does too, the fallacy of a transparent translation. The main characteristic of Berman’s method is that he sees comparisons of source and target texts as only a step in the study of a given translation, advocating an approach which would look at the target text as a text in its own right before turning to the close analysis of passages revealing the foreignness of translational writing, and would take into account the translator’s translational context (the target culture in general as well as its favoured translational approaches in particular, and also the translator’s other translations and creative works if available). The present study of Baudelaire’s translation approaches will be inspired by Berman’s method and will endeavour to look at the target texts as self-standing works before engaging in detailed comparisons of source and target texts. The translations will be replaced in their context in the next chapter. 10 Anthony Pym, Method in Translation History (Manchester: St Jerome, 1998). Pym’s method of translation analysis is focused on the target system and treats pseudo-translations as authentic translations, because they function as such in the target system and display the characteristics expected from a translation by that target system. Similarly, pseudo-originals erase their source and function as authentic originals, thereby revealing the conventions for creative writings of the target system.

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the text of the story. Baudelaire’s statements on Le Jeune Enchanteur claim the story as his own in very unambiguous terms: Tu ignores sans doute qu’il paraît maintenant une nouvelle de moi dans L’Esprit public – j’ai traité à 3 sols la ligne – ce n’est payable qu’à la fin du mois.11 J’ai eu, comme tu sais, une nouvelle à L’Esprit public ces jours derniers.12

The strength of both statements makes it very tempting indeed to take them at face value and to accept Le Jeune Enchanteur as Baudelaire’s without more analysis, and it is not surprising that Baudelaire’s claims of authorship should have remained unchallenged for so long. More importantly, there are in Le Jeune Enchanteur some Baudelairean elements which seem to confirm the paratextual claims. The classicooriental setting of the story allows descriptions and scenes which no doubt appealed to Baudelaire. Callias’s love for luxury and his cynicism make him close to a Baudelairean dandy – and a precursor for Huysmans’ Baudelairean hero, Des Esseintes. His paintings and his arrangement of them according to light reveal the character of an artlover close to Baudelaire. To cite just one example, the description of sunlight as it reaches paintings, rich and dark, announces the translations of Poe’s stories: le soleil prenait plaisir à tamiser ses rayons cramoisis à travers le cristal des fenêtres,13

while the fantastic element in the description of the painting coming to life with sunlight is very close to the thematics of Poe’s Oval Portrait, suggesting a unity in Baudelaire’s translational corpus. Sempronius’s quest for the mysterious priestess, on the other hand, announces the quest for the ideal of Les Fleurs du Mal: Il était amoureux d’un être aussi idéal qu’un brillant habitant des nuées; son amour était l’amour insensé d’un homme qui voudrait faire descendre Diane de la sphère où elle trône glorieusement sur le bord des cieux,14

11

Letter to Madame Aupick, 20-22 February 1846, CI, p. 133. Letter to Madame Aupick, end of February 1846, CI, p. 134. 13 ŒCI, p. 525. 14 ŒCI, p. 533. 12

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while his relationship with his father, referred to in phrases such as ‘cet instrument de la tyrannie paternelle’, echo that of Baudelaire and the General Aupick. To these elements of the plot, one must add the style of the French text, which contains many Baudelairean elements. Some phrases sound distinctly Baudelairean and may have contributed to the lasting impression that Le Jeune Enchanteur is an original work by Baudelaire. Phrases such as ‘amoureuse et pestilentielle étoile’, ‘follement accouplés dans notre enfance dans le burlesque dessein d’apprendre à nous aimer’, ‘les commandements funèbres d’un père’, ‘les étranges et diaboliques délires’ – to quote but a few examples – announce some of the vocabulary, and themes, of Les Fleurs du Mal. In such instances, Baudelaire’s strategy is clearly to domesticate his source, to cover the source author’s voice with his own. And yet, at the same time, the foreignness of the text cannot be denied. As Antoine Berman shows in his excellent L’Épreuve de l’étranger, translation is both appropriation and dialogue with the Other. Caught in the tension between an ethnocentric target system and the foreignness of the source system, the translator is forced to be doubly violent: first to his / her own language on which he / she imposes the foreignness of the source language, and secondly to the foreign language, forced into contact with the translator’s own language. And indeed the ‘injonction appropriatrice’ of translation (that is to say the natural way in which translation domesticates the foreign)15 which has been noted about Le Jeune Enchanteur is balanced out by a very strong presence of the foreign within Baudelaire’s text. First of all, the text is sprinkled with anglicisms, which point to its origin. Such anglicisms are sometimes lexical, as in the case of ‘accointance’, ‘désappointé’, ‘ce maître en magie manègera ses démons’, ‘un couple de chiens’, ‘actuellement’.16 They are also syntactical, the most obvious and repeated example of this being the place of adjectives which in Baudelaire’s text often follows an English order, and give to the target text an almost précieux flavour: ‘la malheureuse, – non, – la désolée, la lamentable situation de mon âme’, ‘religieuses offrandes’, ‘entêté compagnon’, ‘insigne folie’, ‘fatal couteau’ (to quote but a few examples).17 These incursions of English-inspired elements in the French text are symptomatic of the foreignness inherent to translation and of 15

L’Épreuve de l’étranger, p. 16. ŒCI, pp. 538 and 542 (these ‘false friends’ are used in their English meanings). 17 ŒCI, pp. 528, 537, 538, 543. 16

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the tensions between the Baudelairean and the foreign elements of Le Jeune Enchanteur. Such tensions between inside and outside elements are in many ways emblematic of Baudelaire’s approach to translation, and are made all the more obvious as the link between translation and creation was only starting to appear in those early days of Baudelaire’s creative life, and would become more subtle and difficult to grasp in later works such as Un Mangeur d’opium. Moving on from the examination of the target text to a comparison between target text and source text, one of the most striking elements is the general closeness of the translation. Baudelaire’s aim seems to be to render the original text with as few changes as possible. There are, however, a number of modifications operated in the French text – the most obvious (and the most noted by critics) being Baudelaire’s so-called ‘mistranslations’ of the original text.18 I have already quoted examples of ‘false friends’ translated literally into French by Baudelaire, thus changing the sense of the original (‘actual / actually’ translated as ‘actuel / actuellement’, for instance); 19 more interestingly perhaps, such interferences between the two languages seem to trigger more creative translations – a flash of rich-coloured radiance rose, quivered for a moment on the crown of the temple, and then disappeared, high in heaven. une longue flamme rose, d’une riche couleur, trembla un moment sur le fronton du temple, et disparut ensuite dans les hauteurs du ciel.20

The English verb ‘rose’ reappears in the French version, this time as its French homonym, the colour adjective ‘rose’ thus creating what appears as a translation mistake, but also conjuring up in the French text a very different image, which, when the French text is read without reference to the English text (as it was for more than a century), seems most appropriate to the context. Another example of this phenomenon may be found in the translation of one of Callias’s direct speeches: 18 These have been the basis on which critics have argued that Baudelaire’s knowledge of English in 1846 was still very faulty. P. M. Wetherill, basing himself on so-called ‘translation mistakes’ in the Poe translations, argues that such knowledge was never perfect (see chapter on ‘Baudelaire et la langue anglaise’, in Baudelaire et la poésie d’Edgar Allan Poe, pp. 155-68). 19 See for example ŒCI, p. 542. 20 The Young Enchanter, p. 26, ŒCI, p. 536.

26

Alchemy and Amalgam I am an Epicure. I am delicate in my tastes, choice in my acquaintance, careful in my loves and fastidious in my country-houses. Je suis un véritable Épicure; délicat dans mes goûts, réservé dans mes accointances, tendre dans mes amitiés et mes amours, je ne suis cruel et dédaigneux que pour mes pauvres maisons de campagne.21

The use of the archaic ‘accointances’ in the French text is clearly a manifestation of an interference between the English original and its French source, shown by Georges Mounin to be a natural consequence of the act of translation.22 In addition, the translation of the end of the second sentence is based on a transformation of the sense of the word ‘fastidious’, which modifies the meaning of the whole sentence, but which, if read without reference to the English text, makes perfect sense. A similar phenomenon occurs in other early translations, as for example the English songs: Then she made the shepherd call All the heav’ns to witness truth. Never lov’d a truer youth. Puis elle contraignit le berger à appeler Tous les cieux en témoignage Qu’il n’avait jamais aimé une fille plus candide.23

Baudelaire’s translation of ‘never lov’d a truer youth’ overlooks the inversion and makes ‘truer youth’ the object of ‘lov’d’ whereas it is the subject of the verb in the original, and refers to the shepherd rather than to the girl. While this choice may be seen as a misreading on the part of Baudelaire, the target text, if read independently from its source, makes sense, does not in any way betray the spirit of its origi21

The Young Enchanter, p. 11, ŒCI, p. 524. Georges Mounin, Les Problèmes théoriques de la traduction, (Paris: Gallimard, 1963): ‘[L]’influence de la langue que [le traducteur] traduit sur la langue dans laquelle il traduit peut être décelée par des interférences particulières, qui dans ce cas précis, sont des erreurs ou fautes de traduction, ou bien des comportements linguistiques très marqués chez les traducteurs: le goût des néologismes étrangers, la tendance aux emprunts, aux calques, aux citations non traduites en langue étrangère, le maintien dans le texte une fois traduit de mots et de tours non-traduits’ (p. 4).These interferences, born from the contact between the target and the source language, are the manifestation of the foreignness of the source text. 23 ŒCI, pp. 1276 and 242. 22

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nal and in this respect is successful. In this example, as in the previous one, Baudelaire’s deviations from his original might be an indication of his faltering knowledge of English, as critics generally see it, but, on the other hand, his way of overcoming this difficulty reveals the strength of his voice, and is, therefore, a sign of his creative input in the translations. 24 Similarly, when it comes to adjusting the target text to the genius of the French language, as is necessary in the act of translation, Baudelaire’s personal stylistic preoccupations come to the fore. Evidence of this may be found throughout Le Jeune Enchanteur, as in the following examples: Among the chambers of the house of Alcmæon, opened in the excavations made in presence of the King of Naples, on his restoration in 1815, there was found a large fresco, of remarkable beauty, representing a group of nymphs gazing on a principal figure, with a Cupid whispering in her ear. Pendant les fouilles faites en présence du roi de Naples, lors de la restauration de 1815, on trouva dans une des chambres de la maison d’Alcmœon une grande fresque d’une beauté très particulière, qui représentait un groupe de nymphes, dont les yeux étaient tournés vers une figure principale. Derrière celle-ci, un jeune Amour, penché galamment vers son oreille, avait l’air de lui chuchoter quelque mystère.25

The typographical transformation of the name of Alcmæon into Alcmœon may well be due to a printer’s mistake. We can also read it as symptomatic of Baudelaire’s lack of attention to the name or, more interestingly for our present concerns, an unconscious desire to transform his source, to make it his. In addition to this rather small detail, the above passage has more striking examples of Baudelaire’s manipulations of his source text. His version produces two sentences out of one in the source text, thus making the French lighter and more natural while at the same time focusing more on the figure of the Cupid than in the source. The elements of the source are redistributed: the circumstances of the discovery of the fresco are moved to the beginning of the sentence; the main interest of the fresco – the ‘figure principale’ – is pushed to the end of the first sentence, which, because of the preceding four clauses and the delay in its appearance, high24

One could even argue that these mistranslations are a form of deliberate misreading on the part of Baudelaire, as will be seen in Chapter 4. 25 The Young Enchanter, p. 10, ŒCI, p. 523.

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lights it as central. The additions to the description of the Cupid (‘derrière celle-ci’, ‘penché galamment’, ‘avait l’air’, ‘quelque mystère’) bring more life to the scene and attribute more importance to him, announcing the main theme of the story to come. This blending of elements directly translated from the original and Baudelairean elaborations faithful to the spirit of the story are the rule in Le Jeune Enchanteur. Extended further, this blend leads Baudelaire to add a whole passage of his own at the end of the translation: ‘Contemplez mon bonheur, incrédule ami’, dit Sempronius en jetant un regard de passion indicible sur la beauté de sa femme qui tenait déjà un bel enfant dans ses bras. Notre épicurien touché, mais souriant toujours, murmurait tout bas l’hymne sentimental de l’excellent poète latin: C’est l’heure favorable aux baisers; la tempête, Qui blasphème le ciel et fait trembler le faîte, Invite les bons vins du fond de leur grenier À descendre en cadence au conjugal foyer. Car l’intime chaleur de l’âtre qui pétille Sert à rendre meilleurs les pères de famille Et la foudre fera, complice de l’amour L’épouse au cœur tremblant docile jusqu’au jour.26

This is the occasion for Baudelaire to add yet another translation, this time a free version of the Ode to Thaliarch by Horace. The poem produced follows French metre (alexandrines) but its antique origins are appropriate to the context of the Herculanum manuscript. What we have here is Baudelaire’s own reaction to the text he is translating through the introduction of an intertextual link. That this interaction between himself and the source text would go undetected without a confrontation of the source and target texts, suggests a close blending of his creativity and the act of translation, and goes some way to justifying his claims to authorship of the text. Baudelaire’s first translation is revealing in several ways, then: the presence of this substantial addition to the English text in Le Jeune Enchanteur prefigures Baudelaire’s later manipulations of his hypotext(s) in works such as Un Mangeur d’opium; and yet, at the same time, the general strategies of closeness to the source text to be found in this early translation announce the more systematic approaches to Poe’s works. With this first contact with translation, Baudelaire shows 26

ŒCI, p. 544.

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himself to be aware of the possible choices at his disposal regarding the text of the Other – choices which his later translations explore more fully. While Le Jeune Enchanteur displays many characteristics to be found in later translations, the Poe translations offer a more complex, detailed picture. Looking at the target texts without referring to their sources, as a preliminary to a more detailed study of translation approaches, one is struck by the unity and harmony of the Poe corpus. This of course is hardly surprising since all the stories belong to the œuvre of a single author. But there is more to the overall effect of Baudelaire’s collections of Poe’s works than this natural unity. Patrick F. Quinn’s statement that ‘we find represented in the translations of Baudelaire very nearly all (I would say all) of Poe’s greatest and most memorable stories, and enough samples of his less successful ones to illustrate the variety of the work he attempted’ is an early critical acknowledgement of the importance of Baudelaire’s selection of the stories. 27 And indeed the two volumes of Histoires extraordinaires and Nouvelles Histoires extraordinaires reflect clearly Baudelaire’s perception of Poe’s stories. Thus the order in which he presents them is far from innocent: Le premier volume est fait pour amorcer le public: jongleries, conjecturisme, canards, etc. Ligeia est le seul morceau important qui se rattache moralement au deuxième volume. Le deuxième volume est d’un fantastique plus relevé; hallucinations, maladies mentales, grotesque pur, surnaturalisme, etc..... 28

The stories in Histoires extraordinaires and Nouvelles Histoires extraordinaires were published between 1848 and 1857, first in periodicals (mainly Le Pays) and then in book form in 1856 (Histoires extraordinaires) and in 1857 (Nouvelles Histoires extraordinaires).29 The thirteen stories of Histoires extraordinaires are thematically united while offering a representative sample of the generic range of Poe’s stories: the first three (‘Double Assassinat dans la rue Morgue’, ‘La Lettre volée’, ‘Le Scarabée d’or’) each presenting a particular investigation; the next four (‘Le Canard au ballon’, ‘Aventure sans pa27

The French Face of Edgar Poe, p. 111. Letter to Sainte-Beuve, 26 March 1856, CI, pp. 344-45. 29 See appendix A. 28

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reille d’un certain Hans Pfaal’, ‘Manuscrit trouvé dans une bouteille’, ‘Une Descente dans le Maelstrom’) each giving accounts of travel adventures; the last seven (‘La Vérité sur le cas de M. Valdemar’, ‘Révélation magnétique’, ‘Les Souvenirs de M. Auguste Bedloe’, ‘Morella’, ‘Ligeia’, ‘Metzengerstein’) dwelling on the supernatural and the fantastic. The Nouvelles Histoires extraordinaires are less united, thematically, than the stories in the Histoires extraordinaires. As announced by Baudelaire in the passage quoted above, the fantastic element is more developed, however.30 A very strong philosophical content also unites the stories in the volume: ‘L’Homme des foules’, ‘Le Cœur révélateur’, ‘Le Puits et le Pendule’, ‘Petite Discussion avec une momie’, and, more importantly, ‘Puissance de la parole’, ‘Colloque entre Monos et Una’, ‘Conversation d’Eiros avec Charmion’, ‘Ombre’, ‘Silence’ and ‘L’Ile de la fée’ all explore the question of the nature of human life and the difference between life and death, themes which are also present in the numerous stories involving catalepsy (such as ‘La Chute de la maison Usher’ and ‘Bérénice’ among others). Les Aventures d’Arthur Gordon Pym, first published in Le Moniteur in 1857, is, as its title amply suggests, primarily an adventure novel, and from that point of view closely linked to similar texts in Histoires extraordinaires. The fantastic element is, however, also a very strong component, in particular in the final episodes of the exploration to the pole.31 ‘Eureka’, first published in part in the Revue internationale mensuelle (Geneva) in 1859-60 before appearing in book form, published by Michel Levy, in 1864, furthers the philosophical trends of stories translated earlier. Finally, the volume of Histoires grotesques et sérieuses, published in 1864 by Michel Lévy,32 is the least united of the volumes with a blend of fiction and philosophy texts, some stories belonging to the two trends.33 Thematically, however, the texts pursue trends already noted in the other Poe translations. 30 It is particularly prominent in ‘Le Chat noir’, ‘William Wilson’, ‘Bérénice’, ‘La Chute de la Maison Usher’, ‘La Barrique d’Amontillado’, ‘Le Portrait ovale’. 31 The final voyage leading to the fantastic white apparition is the most striking example of this dimension. 32 Most of the individual texts contained in the volume were first published between 1854 and 1862 in magazines and newspapers (see appendix A). 33 ‘Le Mystère de Marie Roget’, ‘Éléonora’, ‘Un Événement à Jérusalem’, ‘L’Ange du Bizarre’, ‘Le Système du Docteur Goudron’ are above all works of fiction, although not devoid of philosophical content, while ‘Le Domaine d’Arnheim’, ‘Le Cottage Landor’, ‘Philosophie de l’ameublement ‘and ‘La Genèse d’un poëme’ are either mainly descriptive or theory texts. The lack of unity of the volume is convincingly

[Footnotes continue on next page]

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Beside the presence of Baudelaire’s subjectivity in the choice of stories to be translated and subsequent organisation of the volumes, it is noteworthy at this stage to emphasize the recurrence of themes of interpretation and decoding at the core of many of Poe’s tales, and which may be seen as mises en abyme of the translating act, itself based on interpretation and decoding. Particularly obvious in the ‘detective’ stories, 34 the theme of investigation is also prominent is stories such as ‘Le Scarabée d’or’, in which the (mis)interpretation of characters’ speech, actions, secret codes and even drawings underlies the narrative.35 Even more strikingly, the final chapter of Gordon Pym, ‘Conjectures’, centres around the decoding of mysterious words in ancient tongues spelt out by the shape of some caves. The theme of the double (or Doppelgänger) is also very strong in the stories, mirroring not only the act of repetition at the core of translation but the sense of identification between source author and translator. ‘Odleb’ in ‘Les Souvenirs de M. Auguste Bedloe’ is, for instance, Bedloe’s double (and his name Bedloe’s reverse translation, so to speak). In ‘Morella’, Morella’s daughter is her mother’s double, and the story culminates with the discovery that the double is in fact the same, the second Morella appearing as a re-incarnation of the first. In ‘Ligeia’, Lady Rowena and Lady Ligeia are described as opposites but in the final scene merge into one. ‘William Wilson’ of course is entirely explained by Patrick F. Quinn (The French Face of Edgar Allan Poe, p. 112) by the fact that the translations were made under the pressure of Michel Lévy who refused to publish a new edition of the earlier volumes which would have contained the stories in Histoires grotesques et sérieuses. 34 Such as ‘Double Assassinat dans la rue Morgue’, ‘La Lettre volée’ and ‘Le Mystère de Marie Roget’. The latter, being set in an imaginary Paris, which is in fact a transposition of New York (numerous footnotes, duly reproduced by Baudelaire, indicate the original locations of the story) encourages the reader to perform an act of translation. Interestingly, ‘La Lettre volée’ and its significance in terms of translation theory have been noted by deconstructionists. See Fritz Gutbrodt, in ‘Poedelaire: Translation and the Volatility of the Letter’, Diacritics, 22.3-4 (fall-winter 1992), 49-68 and John P. Muller and William J. Richardson (eds), The Purloined Poe, Lacan, Derrida, and Psychoanalytic Reading (Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1988). 35 To a lesser extent, ‘Maelzel’ presents the interpretation of a phenomenon by the narrator; ‘L’Ange du bizarre’, by its presentation of a stereotypical German accent in the dialogues, leads both the narrator and reader to decode what is being said by the ‘angel’; ‘Le Système du Docteur Goudron et du Professeur Plume’ hinges around the theme of interpretation and duality of reality (the doctor and his friends are both sane and insane, depending on how one looks at them).

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built on the thematics of the alter ego. A final example among many is ‘Le Portrait ovale’, which explores the relationship between art and its origin, through the opposition of the young bride and her picture. 36 The source texts, then, contain in their very thematics issues of duality, identity and interpretation, which are at the core of the act of translation. Given Baudelaire’s ambiguous relationship to his source texts – an ambiguity already present in the appropriation of Le Jeune Enchanteur – and use of translation for creative ends, the fact that Poe’s texts should themselves play with such questions may well have been a reason for his fascination with Poe and of his choice to translate his works. In addition, if we follow the Benjaminian notion of translatability, that is to say the idea that certain works call for translation, contain the need for translation at their core, and reach their fulfilment only when translated, then Poe’s tales, by their very thematics, not only announce Baudelaire’s transformation and fusion with his source text, but in fact also call for them.37 This fusion makes itself felt in the style and the presentation of the French versions. The translations read as French texts, the presence of the foreign inherent to all translations remaining only a minor part. The Baudelairean dimension of the text appears in many ways, not least through a large number of footnotes and prefaces, in which the translator’s voice comes to the forefront.38 First and foremost, two dedications to Poe’s mother-in-law, Maria Clemm, both by their place and their content, reveal Baudelaire’s voice in the clearest way. The first dedication takes the form of a letter to Maria Clemm, and was published in Le Pays on 25 July 1854, with the first of the long series of tales which appeared in the journal until 20 April 1855, and which would then be published in book form as Histoires extraordinaires and Nouvelles Histoires extraordinaires. The letter is the occasion for Baudelaire to express his profound admiration for Poe; more impor36 The opposition between the young healthy Bérénice and the diseased woman she becomes may be seen as a further example of doubles in the stories. Similarly the schyzophrenic personality of many of the narrators of the stories, not least in Berenice, is a variation on the theme. In La Chute de la maison Usher, Roderick and his sister are two sides of the same personality. 37 Walter Benjamin, ‘The Task of the Translator’, translated by Harry Zohn, in Theories of Translation, ed. by Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992), pp. 71-82. 38 The importance of the paratext in the ‘transaction’ between author and readers has been established by Gérard Genette in Seuils (Paris: Seuil, 1987).

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tantly, it presents his own reading of his author’s character, and reveals Baudelaire’s perception as central. Although the letter is undoubtedly a tribute to Poe, the predominance of the first person throughout the text and the focus on Baudelaire’s work (‘L’Edgar Poe que mon imagination avait créé’; ‘cette ironique antithèse me remplit d’un insurmontable attendrissement’; ‘son fantôme m’a toujours obsédé’; ‘le travail que j’ai composé’; ‘vous me direz si j’ai bien compris’)39 make him ultimately the focus of the text. One could say, therefore, that the letter is more about Baudelaire than about Poe. The second dedication, which replaced the first in 1856, is made up of an envoi and the translation of Poe’s To my Mother, and lessens the presence of Baudelaire’s voice. However, the wording of the envoi suggests the importance of the translation as an independent text. It also presents a Baudelairean reading of the relationship between Poe and his adoptive mother close to Baudelaire’s own aspirations. CETTE TRADUCTION EST DÉDIÉE À

MARIA CLEMM À LA MÈRE ENTHOUSIASTE ET DÉVOUÉE À CELLE POUR QUI LE POËTE A ÉCRIT CES VERS40

Even more strikingly, prefaces and introductions (such as the opening page of Genèse d’un poëme) present Baudelaire’s voice and interpretation of Poe’s life and work as paramount. 41 Such presence of the translator may also be felt in the footnotes to the translations. The contents of the footnotes range from remarks on the translation to precisions on Poe’s art and aims. In Double Assassinat dans la rue Morgue, the following footnote brings information to the French readers about Poe’s knowledge of Paris: ‘Ai-je besoin d’avertir à propos de la rue Morgue, du passage Lamartine, etc., qu’Edgar Poe n’est jamais venu à Paris?’42 At the same time, it creates a foreign space, which is not the Paris known by the French, and, is, therefore, a 39

EAP, p. 16. EAP, p. 13. 41 The fact that Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages, which was the preface of the Histoires extraordinaires, was largely based on English and American sources, suggests a complex relationship between the translator’s voice and that of his source, as will be seen later on in this chapter. 42 EAP, p. 1097. 40

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French translation of the foreign space presented to American readers through the creation of a fictitious Paris. Elsewhere, as in ‘La Lettre volée’, the footnotes are explanatory, for instance: ‘Encore un meurtre dont Dupin refait l’instruction. – ‘Le Double Assassinat dans la rue Morgue’, ‘Le Mystère de Marie Roget’ et ‘La Lettre volée’ font une espèce de trilogie’,43 which puts the story within its context. The translator’s role is metatextual, here: rather than only rendering the source text, he comments on it.44 More importantly, the footnotes sometimes supplement the translation when the latter fails to restitute fully the source text. In ‘Le Scarabée d’or’, for instance, a pun on the words ‘antennae’ and ‘tin’ in the source text prompts Baudelaire to offer an analysis of Poe’s text in a footnote (‘La prononciation du mot antennæ fait commettre une méprise au nègre, qui croit qu’il est question d’étain: Dey aint no tin in him. Calembour intraduisible’),45 and at the same time to acknowledge a failure in the translating act to reproduce exactly the original.46 In ‘Aventure sans pareille d’un certain Hans Pfaall’, a lengthy note offers an account of a note by Poe on various stories on the same subject. The method used by Baudelaire in that note is close to that chosen in Un Mangeur d’opium: paraphrases, translations and commentaries by Baudelaire all form the text of the note.47 In other instances, Baudelaire comments on Poe’s text and justifies modifications made to the original in the target text. For instance, in ‘Metzengerstein’, the footnote to a quotation in French starts as follows: J’ignore quel est l’auteur de ce texte bizarre et obscur; cependant je me suis permis de la rectifier légèrement en l’adaptant au sens moral du récit. Poe cite quelquefois de mémoire et incorrectement,48

thus implying that the translator’s sensitivity to the source text is as important as its author’s. In ‘Révélation magnétique’, first published 43

EAP, p. 1098. This metatextual dimension of translation will be explored in greater detail at a later stage. 45 EAP, pp. 1098-99. Baudelaire’s translation strategies in this story will be looked at in more detail in Chapter 2. 46 On the other hand, in ‘L’Ange du bizarre’, Baudelaire’s choice is to restitute the ‘angel’’s German accent and, therefore, to contradict the translation approach outlined here. 47 EAP, pp. 1100-02. 48 EAP, pp. 1109-10. 44

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in La liberté de penser in 1848, Baudelaire’s voice is even stronger, as extracts from a note to the text will show: Le morceau d’Edgar Poe qu’on va lire est un raisonnement exceptionnellement ténu parfois, d’autres fois obscur, et de temps en temps singulièrement audacieux. Il faut en prendre son parti, et digérer la chose telle qu’elle est. Il faut surtout bien s’attacher à suivre le texte littéral. Certaines choses seraient devenues bien autrement obscures si j’avais voulu paraphraser mon auteur, au lieu de me tenir servilement attaché à la lettre. J’ai préféré faire du français pénible et parfois baroque et donner dans toute sa vérité la technie philosophique d’Edgar Poe.49

Baudelaire describes here the two options offered to him in his presentation of Poe’s text: either paraphrase or, in his own words, ‘servile’ word for word translation. Although the terms in which the latter is alluded to (‘servilement’, ‘français pénible et parfois baroque’) may well imply that the chosen solution is only a compromise, and the digestion metaphor suggests that some sort of appropriation may be taking place, Baudelaire nevertheless favours literal translation and discards a freer approach (‘servilement’ makes the implicit reference to free translation quite clear, by a process of opposition). The dangers of close translation, which are presented as a possible awkward ness of the target text, could be described, in Berman’s terms, as a presence of the foreignness of the source text and language, and therefore a natural part of the act of translation. This reference to a literal approach is confirmed in other places of the paratext to the translations, not least in Baudelaire’s correspondence. His worries before the publication of ‘Le Mystère de Marie Roget’ are particularly enlightening in this respect.50 Vous avez sans doute quelque fois lu de l’Edgar Poe, et vous savez quels sont les procédés de l’auteur. Je n’ai ici que le texte anglais. Marie Roget est une instruction criminelle. Or il y a des paragraphes des dépositions des témoins, et des citations de journaux (PLUSIEURS FOIS RÉPÉTÉS, relatifs à une ombrelle, à une écharpe, à un mouchoir, à une robe, à un jupon, etc.; il faut que 49

EAP, p. 1506 (emphasis mine). Y.-G. Le Dantec retraces in the Pléiade edition (pp. 1138-39) the circumstances of the publication of this story, which was refused by L’Opinion nationale in 1864 and Le Figaro in 1865 and was finally published as part of the Histoires grotesques et sérieuses in 1865. The fact that Baudelaire’s concerns for faithfulness and accuracy to the original should have been expressed as late as 1864 is a sign of his life-long commitment to close translation. 50

36

Alchemy and Amalgam ces paragraphes soient répétés strictement DANS LES MÊMES TERMES, à la fin.51 – Un travail comme Marie Roget, étant une instruction judiciaire, comme L’Assassinat dans la rue Morgue, – demande une exactitude minutieuse dans les plus petits détails, et, en cas de citations tirées du commencement, une similitude absolue dans la répétition de ces citations à la fin. (...) Vous savez, mon cher, que je ne tire vanité que d’une seule vertu, c’est de l’amour du métier.52

Baudelaire’s rigorous approach to his work as translator is well illustrated in the two extracts above, which by their repetitiveness show how important the exact reproduction of the style of the original was to Baudelaire. In fact, the complex history of the publication of ‘Marie Roget’ is emblematic of these concerns: many letters from Baudelaire, then in Brussels, to Michel Lévy and Noël Parfait, are linked with the long process of checking the translation against its original and attempts to stay as close to Poe’s text as possible. ‘L’amour du métier’ remarkably emphasizes the craft of translation as opposed to its creativity: in the same way as the fact that Baudelaire dictated his close translation of ‘Bridge of Sighs’ as late as 1865, the publication of ‘Marie Roget’ in the same year, that is to say after more ‘creative’ translations such as Un Mangeur d’opium had been achieved, points to the important place of literal translation in Baudelaire’s approaches of foreign texts.53 One should not take Baudelaire’s professed concerns for accuracy and subservience to the source text entirely at face value, however. The Poe translations read like Baudelairean texts in many places, both thematically and stylistically. In ‘William Wilson’, the hero leads the debauched life of a dandy. In ‘L’Homme des foules’, the narrator is a flâneur in the city.54 Roderick in ‘La Chute de la maison Usher’ is described as a ‘mangeur d’opium’,55 while opium visions play an im51

Letter to Noël Parfait, 31 May 1864, CII, p. 371. Letter to Michel Lévy, 1 June 1864, CII, p. 373. 53 The closeness of Baudelaire’s translations of Poe is noted by Pamela Faber in ‘Charles Baudelaire and his Translations of Edgar Allan Poe’, Meta, 34, 2 (1989), 253-58. 54 In this respect, it is revealing that at least one of Baudelaire’s prose poems, ‘Les Foules’, should be closely linked to this story, both thematically and stylistically (see Chapter 6). 55 EAP, p. 349. 52

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portant role in ‘Les souvenirs de M. Auguste Bedloe’ and are the occasion for poetic prose close to Baudelaire’s creative texts: Cependant, l’opium avait produit son effet accoutumé, qui est de revêtir tout le monde extérieur d’une intensité d’intérêt. Dans le tremblement d’une feuille, – dans la couleur d’un brin d’herbe, – dans la forme d’un trèfle, – dans le bourdonnement d’une abeille, – dans l’éclat d’une goutte de rosée, – dans le soupir du vent, – dans les vagues odeurs qui venaient de la forêt, – se produisait tout un monde d’inspirations, – une procession magnifique et bigarrée de pensées désordonnées et rapsodiques.56

The transformations operated by opium on the vision of nature are thematically very close to the Paradis artificiels, which, incidently, do quote this passage. 57 Moreover, the rhythm of this passage, which is punctuated by regular pauses, and the inspiration and correspondances derived from the spectacle of nature makes this passage almost a doublet of ‘Correspondances’.58 Monos addresses Una, in ‘Colloque entre Monos et Una’, as ‘ma très-belle et très chère’,59 an appelation used in the Sabatier poems of Les Fleurs du Mal;60 in ‘Manuscrit trouvé dans une bouteille’, the solitary narrator facing the infinity of the sea gazes at a spectacle close to that conjured up in the Spleen et Idéal section of the Fleurs du Mal61 (phrases such as ‘nous promenions nos regards avec amertume sur l’immensité de l’Océan’, ‘descendant avec une horrible vélocité dans un enfer liquide’, for instance, offer a Baudelairean worldview);62 in ‘Le Puits et le pendule’, the term ‘joujou’ in ‘je restai étendu, souriant à cette mort étincelante, comme un enfant à quelque précieux joujou’ 63 echoes the title of ‘Morale du joujou’. In ‘Morella’, the narrator’s alternation between depression and elation is described in terms which are evocative of the dialectics of spleen and ideal in Baudelaire’s works: 56

EAP, p. 238. Le Poème du hachisch, ŒCI, p. 428. 58 The references to opium also take a Baudelairean tone in ‘Ligeia’, in particular in the description of the bedroom. 59 EAP, p. 476. 60 see ‘Que diras-tu ce soir’ and ‘Hymne’. 61 The figure of the albatros is present, while the sea is described in similar terms as in ‘L’Homme et la mer’. 62 EAP, p. 185. 63 EAP, p. 380. 57

38

Alchemy and Amalgam Et ainsi, la jouissance s’évanouissait soudainement dans l’horreur, et l’idéal du beau devenait l’idéal de la hideur, comme la vallée de Hinnom est devenue la Géhenne.64

In ‘La Chute de la maison Usher’, the oxymoron in ‘une nuit d’orage affreusement belle’ conjures up a Baudelairean aesthetics of opposition, while the phrase ‘antique bouquin’, by its mix of registers belongs fully to Baudelaire’s style rather than Poe’s. The descriptions in texts such as ‘Le Cottage Landor’ are true prose poems presenting aesthetics which are close to Baudelaire’s own concerns. Such examples, which emphasize the close link between Baudelairean and Poesque thematics and vision have fuelled the theories of affinity already mentioned, and it is not the purpose of this chapter to review them exhaustively. More importantly, they imply a strong element of creativity in Baudelaire’s act of translation, and show that Baudelaire’s translations of Poe are impregnated with his own poetic sensitivity in a way that makes them part of the Baudelairean corpus. In parallel to the strong Baudelairean presence highlighted above, however, the translations do reveal their foreign origins in places. The clearest indication of the presence of the foreign is through the English words which appear throughout the texts: these may be used for place names, names of characters, measurements, and create an effect of local colour. In ‘Les Souvenirs de M. Auguste Bedloe’, the name of the Ragged Mountains is kept in English, although Baudelaire translates that name as ‘montagnes déchirées’ in a footnote.65 In the same story, distances are expressed in yards, 66 and officers are called ‘gentlemen’.67 In ‘L’Homme des foules’, English is used to describe concepts which do not have French equivalents (‘la gentry’, ‘des steady old fellows’, ‘ce qu’on appelle gentility’).68 Similarly, in Gordon Pym, most place names and distances are expressed in English, as well as names of animals, and objects without equivalent in French. The very title of Le Cottage Landor uses an English word, and one can find in ‘Le Domaine d’Arnheim’ an incursion of English with the phrase ‘la fashion du moment’ (following the French vogue of the word ‘fa64

EAP, p. 248. EAP, p. 237. 66 EAP, p. 238. 67 EAP, p. 143. 68 EAP, pp. 326-27. The italics are Baudelaire’s; their effect is both to emphasize the foreign phrases and to create a distance from the foreign. 65

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shionable’).69 At the same time, the American origin of the translations shows through anglicisms in the French prose, in the same way as Croly’s text makes itself felt in Le Jeune Enchanteur. Such anglicisms appear in the use of French words with English meanings: in ‘Double Assassinat dans la rue Morgue’, the word ‘évidence’ is used with its meaning of the English ‘evidence’, that is to say, ‘proof’.70 In the same story, the phrase ‘détails additionnels’ is another intervention of English into the French text.71 Similarly, ‘magnificence terrifique’ in ‘Manuscrit trouvé dans une bouteille’ reads like a word for word translation of the original, even without reference to the source text. 72 In Gordon Pym, the adjective ‘subséquent’ is used repeatedly, and although it exists in French, it seems that it is dictated by English use.73 More frequently, the foreign may be felt by syntactic choices, which seem influenced by English syntax. As in Le Jeune Enchanteur, the place of adjectives often reflects an English order. In ‘Manuscrit trouvé dans une bouteille’, the substitution of ‘vieux’ to the more customary ‘vieil’ in ‘le vieux homme’ reminds the reader, by the jarring sound created by the hiatus, that the text is a translation: where French usage would have the adjective placed before the noun, the foreignness of the text is created by another subversion of French, in this case the use of an adjectival form which would not normally be suitable in such place. The result is a jarring effect for the reader, together with the awareness, if the reader knows English, that the reason for this awkwardness might be found in the original text. Reminders of the translation nature of the text may also be found in coinages or phrases rarely used in French. This is best exemplified in ‘Le Démon de la perversité’, where the philosophical nature of the text drives Baudelaire to create words to express the ideas of the text, his taste for neologisms finding expression in the act of translation through the following phrases: the ‘organe d’alimentivité’, the ‘organe d’amativité’, ‘de combativité, de l’idéalité, de la causalité, de la constructivité’.74 69

EAP, p. 954. EAP, p. 39. 71 EAP, p. 29. 72 EAP, p. 207. 73 EAP, p. 614. 74 EAP, p. 284. 70

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From this study of the target texts, one can conclude that Baudelaire’s translations are the meeting point between Baudelaire and Poe: the texts read as Baudelairean creations, but contain also in themselves strong elements of the foreign which point out their true nature. A close comparison between a sample translation and its source will help find out how this balance between the Baudelairean and the foreign is achieved in practice. The translation of ‘The Oval Portrait’ (‘Le Portrait ovale’),75 which first appeared in Le Pays on 28 January 1855, exemplifies Baudelaire’s approach to the translation of Poe’s tales at a time when his translating methods were established and his knowledge of English stabilized. The text also has the added advantages of exploring the thematics of the double and of the copy, which are closely linked to the process of translation, and, also, of being particularly brief, which allows for a detailed comparison of source text and target text. As with most other translations of Poe by Baudelaire, a first, general reading of this short story gives the impression of a harmonious text which may be read in its own right, but still renders a distinctly Poesque atmosphere: the description of the room where the narrator chooses to spend the night, for instance, immediately conjures up the atmosphere of many of Poe’s tales: Je pris un profond intérêt, – ce fut peut-être mon délire qui commençait qui en fut cause, – je pris un profond intérêt à ces peintures qui étaient suspendues non-seulement sur les faces principales des murs, mais aussi dans une foule de recoins que la bizarre architecture du château rendait inévitables; si bien que j’ordonnai à Pedro de fermer les lourds volets de la chambre, – puisqu’il faisait déjà nuit, – d’allumer un grand candélabre à plusieurs branches placé près de mon chevet, et d’ouvrir tout grands les rideaux de velours noir garnis de crépines qui entouraient le lit.76

Baudelaire’s translation, with terms such as ‘bizarre architecture’, ‘un grand candélabre à plusieurs branches’, ‘les rideaux de velours noir garnis de crépines’, conveys a typically dark atmosphere and prepares the reader for a fantastic occurrence. Poe’s narrative devices – in which the creation of atmosphere is paramount – are reproduced in the French version. In this sense, Baudelaire’s version can be described as a faithful translation. This impression conveyed at first reading is confirmed by a close comparison of the French and the American texts. 75 76

EAP, pp. 502-05. EAP, p. 502.

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Baudelaire rarely departs from the original text, and often follows it extremely closely, even to the extent of falling once into a blatant anglicism: the painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought. le peintre se tint en extase devant le travail qu’il avait travaillé.77

The repetition of ‘travail’ / ‘travaillé’ reproduces Poe’s repetition of ‘work’ / ‘wrought’, but such a repetition, which is quite common in the English language, is most infelicitous in the French language. This is, however, only a very rare example of awkwardness in ‘Le Portrait ovale’, and it could be argued that Baudelaire’s choice for such a repetition may have been dictated by a desire to reflect Poe’s style and an ignorance of this particularity of the English language. It may also be, to follow once more Berman’s theories, a sign of the foreignness of the source text. Such examples, however, should not obscure the fact that the overall effect of Baudelaire’s translation is a very elegant, poetic, text which follows closely Poe’s prose. This elegance of translation was, understandably, a crucial concern for Baudelaire. Writing to Michel Lévy about the possibility of translating Maturin’s Melmoth, he condemned an earlier translation of the text, in terms which reveal his concern for fluency (and therefore, domesticating tendencies): je viens de relire la détestable traduction faite en 1820, et sous le texte français je devinais partout la phrase anglaise 78

In other letters, this time about Histoire de la guerre de Crimée by Kinglake, Baudelaire stressed the fact that he could judge how inadequate the French translation was even without seeing the source text: je sais que les traductions commandées par Lacroix sont, en général, exécrables. J’en ai eu quelques-unes sous les yeux. Cela est fait à l’économie, et par des gens qui, obligés, par leur état, de savoir deux langues, n’en savent même pas une (Voyez, par exemble, l’Histoire de la guerre de Crimée, par Kinglake. Les contresens se devinent, sans le secours de l’original).79

77

Poe, p. 384, EAP, p. 505. Letter to Michel Lévy, 9 March 1865, CII, p. 471. 79 Letter to Madame Paul Meurice, 18 February 1865, CII, pp. 467-68. (Very similar comments were made in a letter to Michel Lévy on 15 February 1865). 78

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Ironically, such criticisms could easily be applied to the anglicism noted earlier. However, the principle underlying this condemnation of another translation – that a French translation must read like French, and not like translated English, but still render the original text accurately – seems to have been the guiding principle of Baudelaire’s translations of Poe. But there is more: statements such as those quoted above explain the difference between Poe’s and Baudelaire’s texts, the latter being undoubtedly more modern and flowing more easily than the former, which is characterized by archaisms and awkward turns of phrase.80 Stylistic and aesthetic concerns may therefore be the reason for some modifications made by Baudelaire to the original text. The most basic of such modifications is frequent changes in word order: Its decorations were rich, yet tattered and antique. Sa décoration était riche, mais antique et délabrée.81

which are most likely to be due to euphonic reasons (in order to avoid hiatuses). Similarly, in the following sentence, the French version redistributes the elements of Poe’s prose and so produces a French text rather than a word for word translation: In these paintings, which depended from the walls not only in their main surfaces, but in the very many nooks which the bizarre architecture of the chateau rendered necessary – in these paintings my incipient delirium, perhaps, had caused me to take deep interest. Je pris un profond intérêt, – ce fut peut-être mon délire qui commençait qui en fut cause, – je pris un profond intérêt à ces peintures qui étaient suspendues non-seulement sur les faces principales des murs, mais aussi dans une foule de recoins que la bizarre architecture du château rendait inévitables. 82

In this passage, which has already been quoted for the way in which Baudelaire’s version conveys a typically Poesque atmosphere, 80

This difference between Baudelaire’s style and Poe’s led Henri Justin to note in a recent colloquium on Baudelaire and translation held at the École Normale Supérieure Fontenay, Paris (4 April 1998) that Baudelaire’s prose is seductive and flows easily, and creates a distinctive narrative voice which the reader ‘can hear’, while Poe’s prose is deliberately obstructive, blocking the reader’s empathy whereas Baudelaire’s promotes it. 81 Poe, p. 382, EAP, p. 502. 82 Poe, p. 382, EAP, p. 502

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Baudelaire’s text applies the requirements of the French language to Poe’s text and reorganizes the sentence – the main verbal clause appearing at the beginning of the sentence, with the verb in the active form rather than passive. This choice leads Baudelaire to transfer the repetition (‘in these paintings’) to the verb of the main clause (‘je pris un profond intérêt’), automatically changing the focus from the object to the subject, that is to say the narrator. This transformation, mainly dictated by stylistic reasons, places the importance on the readability of the target text, a strategy often leading to a disappearance of the source author’s voice under the translator’s. At the same time, it represents the unavoidable rewriting at work in any act of translation. Baudelaire’s modifications of Poe’s text do not stop here, however. Some seem to be caused by misunderstandings of the initial meaning of the English version and support the critical commonplace that Baudelaire’s knowledge of English was far from perfect:83 But it could have been neither the execution of the work, nor the immortal beauty of the countenance, which had so suddenly and so vehemently moved me. Mais il se peut bien que ce ne fût ni l’exécution de l’œuvre, ni l’immortelle beauté de la physionomie, qui m’impressionna si soudainement et si fortement. 84

Baudelaire’s rendering of the first words of the sentence modifies the whole meaning of his translation, and transforms the text. A more accurate translation of the first words of the English sentence would have been ‘mais ce n’avait pu être ni l’exécution de l’œuvre, ni...’: Baudelaire seems to have translated the phrase ‘it could have been’ out of context, and to have been forced by this choice to displace the negation onto the next clause, thereby modifying the emphasis expressed in the original text. While the English text underlines the certainty of the narrator’s interpretation, Baudelaire’s introduces a notion of doubt. To a lesser extent, the following extract is another example of modifications on the part of the translator: Yet she smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly.

83

See in particular P.M. Wetherill’s Charles Baudelaire et la poésie d’Edgar Allan Poe (‘Baudelaire et la langue anglaise’, pp. 155-68). 84 Poe, p. 383, EAP, p. 503 (emphases added).

44

Alchemy and Amalgam Cependant elle souriait toujours, et toujours sans se plaindre.85

The difference between the two versions is slight, but interesting: Baudelaire does not take any notice of the punctuation of the English text, which leads him to distort slightly the original. It is difficult to know whether the reason for this change is a lapse in Baudelaire’s attention to detail or a conscious decision to produce a version aesthetically pleasing (the rhythm of the French version is regular, poetic, not least because of the chiasmus hinging on ‘toujours’). An argument in favour of the second explanation may be found in other examples where Baudelaire’s intervention is more tangible. In some, this intervention takes the form of semantic changes: And when many weeks had passed, and but little remained to do, save one brush upon the mouth and one tint upon the eye, the spirit of the lady again flickered up as the flame within the socket of the lamp. Et quand bien des semaines furent passées et qu’il ne restait plus que peu de chose à faire, rien qu’une touche sur la bouche et un glacis sur l’œil, l’esprit de la dame palpita encore comme la flamme dans le bec d’une lampe.86

‘Comme la flamme dans le bec d’une lampe’ is a more general comparison than Poe’s, because of the use of the indefinite article where Poe chooses a definite one, a switch which clearly transforms the text. In addition, as Mary Ann Caws shows in her analysis of the text, the translation of ‘socket’ by ‘bec’ loses the connotations of the socket of the eye of a corpse which, according to her, are immediate for an Anglo-Saxon reader.87 In the case of the translation of ‘tint’ by ‘glacis’, Baudelaire’s intervention is more radical. Both ‘glacis’ and ‘tint’ are technical terms referring to the application of colour in painting. ‘Tint’, however, is by nature opaque (it is arrived at by the addition of white to a base colour), while ‘glacis’ (which can be translated by ‘glaze’) is transparent, and the final touch to a painting. By choosing to translate ‘tint’ by ‘glacis’, Baudelaire amends Poe’s text, judging the latter term more appropriate to the context, and drawing on his art knowledge as a critic. The technical addition of ‘glacis’ points to the subtle presence of a Baudelairean tone in ‘Le Portrait ovale’. And at the same time, one could argue that the loss of connotations noted by 85

Poe, pp. 383-84, EAP, p. 504. Poe, p. 384, EAP, p. 505 (emphases added). 87 Mary Ann Caws, ‘Insertion in an Oval Frame’, p. 110. 86

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Mary Ann Caws in the socket / bec pair may be compensated by the term ‘glacis’, evocative of a possibly morbid ‘glacé’. There are many other passages reminiscent of the style of Baudelaire’s poetry, and the prose poems in particular: The chateau into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance, rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night in the open air, was one of those piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned among the Appennines, not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs Radcliffe. (...) Its walls were hung with tapestry and bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial trophies, together with an unusually great number of very spirited modern paintings in frames of rich golden arabesque. Le château dans lequel mon domestique s’était avisé de pénétrer de force, plutôt que de me permettre, déplorablement blessé comme je l’étais, de passer une nuit en plein air, était un de ces bâtiments, mélange de grandeur et de mélancolie, qui ont si longtemps dressé leurs fronts sourcilleux au milieu des Apennins, aussi bien dans la réalité que dans l’imagination de mistress Radcliffe. (...) Les murs étaient tendus de tapisseries et décorés de nombreux trophées héraldiques de toute forme, ainsi que d’une quantité vraiment prodigieuse de peintures modernes, pleines de style, dans de riches cadres d’or d’un goût arabesque.88

The above passages are typical of Baudelaire’s approach to Poe’s stories. As Marilyn Gaddis Rose has noted, Poe’s style ‘allowed Baudelaire full expression of desperation, morbidity, excess; full expression, in short, of the extravagance of feelings beyond the strictures of high bourgeois taste exemplified by his mother and stepfather’.89 In other words, whereas Baudelaire’s strategy is clearly source-oriented, and follows concerns of closeness to the original, the source text also unleashes his poetic creativity. Baudelaire’s version is a highly poetic rendition of Poe’s text, by the vocabulary used (‘fronts sourcilleux’, ‘Appenins’, ‘trophées héraldiques’, ‘d’un goût arabesque’), the sounds and the rhythm of the translation. It is no doubt passages such as this which have prompted critics to describe Baudelaire’s translations as superior to their original, a view which in itself is acknowledging the strength of Baudelaire’s voice even in an act of close translation, where his intervention is kept to a minimum. In addition, to refer once 88

Poe, p. 382, EAP, p. 502. Marilyn Gaddis Rose, Translation and Literary Criticism (Manchester: St Jerome, 1997), p. 32.

89

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more to Marilyn Gaddis Rose, the fact that Poe should normally be more admired in his Baudelairean re-creation may come from the nature of his style, which ‘already sounds exotic’, devoid of specifically American references, and ‘sounds in English as if already translated from French’.90 The strength of Baudelaire’s voice would then be caused by the already Baudelairean tone of the source text. As already mentioned, this interaction between source and target texts is mirrored by the very thematics of ‘Le Portrait ovale’, which explores the relationship between model and painting, the model dying so that art can gain life.91 The impossibility of exact reproduction, and the destruction it brings, which are explored in the story, can easily be applied to the act of translation, and the general critical perception of Baudelaire’s Poe. Mary Ann Caws goes further than this, arguing that Baudelaire’s own art of translation can be seen, strangely, to take the colors from the cheeks of Poe’s own portrait and enframing text, to reframe the story and the model, and eventually, to make yet another lifelike canvas, in a future poem.92

Caws’ idea that Baudelaire’s treatment of Poe’s text for his own purposes and transplantation in ‘Un Fantôme’, which she calls a ‘sort of purloined letter, a Big Steal’, or even ‘literary vampirism’, 93 highlights in very dramatic terms what Berman calls the ‘injonction appropriatrice’ of translation, that is to say the inevitable appropriation of the text of the Other which takes place in the transfer from one language and culture to another.94 This question of appropriation through translation will be discussed at a later stage in this book; it is useful to note it at the present stage, however, as a manifestation of the presence of Baudelaire’s poetic sensitivity and voice even in the direct translation, where the presence of the translator is traditionally expected to be the least noticeable. The study of Le Jeune Enchanteur and the Poe translations reveals a common approach to direct translation. Generally source-centered, 90

Gaddis Rose, p. 31. The significance of these thematics has been explored by Mary Ann Caws in ‘Insertion in an Oval Frame’. 92 Caws, p. 104. 93 Caws, p. 111. 94 Berman, L’Épreuve de l’étranger, p. 16. 91

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these texts show, on Baudelaire’s part, concerns of closeness and faithfulness to their originals. This is not to say, however, that they are carbon-copies of the sources – a concept in itself alien to the act of translation. On the contrary, they involve, to varying degrees, the intervention of the translator. At the most superficial levels, this intervention may appear in mistranslations, through which, consciously or not, the translator modifies the text. At a more complex level, Baudelaire’s presence in the target text ranges from claiming the text as his own to adding a passage of his choice to the translation, as is the case in Le Jeune Enchanteur. In the case of the Poe translations, his intervention is even more complex. Indeed the choice of the author to be translated, followed by the choice of texts from that author’s corpus, reveal his awareness of the creative possibilities of a contact between his sensitivity and Poe’s, while his generally close translating strategies still enable the incursion of his own poetic preoccupations. This link between creativity and translation in the least ‘creative’ approaches in the Baudelairean translation corpus is an encouragement to turn to the second strand of the corpus, that is to say the adaptations and transformations, which in themselves leave wider room for poetic intervention. Baudelaire’s first venture into adaptation took place with Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages, which appeared in the Revue de Paris of March and April 1852. This text was then reworked and became, in 1856, the introduction to the Histoires extraordinaires. W.T. Bandy has already studied the relationship between Baudelaire’s essays and their sources, and outlined the differences between the 1852 and the 1856 versions, and this analysis of both essays will draw extensively from Bandy’s work. It will also look at Baudelaire’s texts from a slightly different point of view, that of the relationship between translation and transformation in Baudelaire’s writing method.95 As Bandy notes, Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages (hereafter referred to as ouvrages) makes extensive use of American sources. Baudelaire used as a basis for his text an obituary by John Reuben Thompson, published in November 1849, and, to a much greater extent, a long review by John Moncure Daniel (March 1850) of the first two volumes of Poe’s works published by Redfield in New York. To these sources, 95

W.T. Bandy, ‘New Light on Baudelaire and Poe’, Yale French Studies, 10 (1952), 65-69; Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages, Édition commentée par W. T. Bandy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973). Hereafter referred to as Ouvrages73.

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Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses œuvres (hereafter referred to as œuvres), adds R. W. Griswold’s ‘Memoir’ which prefaced the third volume of the Redfield edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s works, published in New York in 1853, and James Hannay’s introduction to The Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe published in London by Charles Griffin and Company in 1853. In a letter to Madame Aupick, Baudelaire emphasizes the differences between œuvres and ouvrages: ‘Lisez la notice; – ce n’est pas celle que vous connaissez. – Il n’est pas resté cinquante lignes de la première.’96 However, despite Baudelaire’s statement, the two essays have in fact much more than fifty lines in common, œuvres being a rewriting of ouvrages on which it relies, therefore, heavily. The similarities between the two texts are particularly clear in their opening pages. Both start with an introduction on the theme of the guignon, followed by an overview of documents about Poe: ‘les divers documents que je viens de lire’, ‘dans l’une des ces biographies’, ‘ailleurs, un critique... ’, ‘dans une note que nous verrons’ is echoed, in œuvres, by ‘tous les documents que j’ai lus’, ‘un biographe’, ‘un autre’, which clearly point out the derivative nature of the essays.97 And indeed, both texts follow closely Daniel’s article, but in slightly different ways and degrees. As Bandy points out, Baudelaire’s knowledge of Poe’s works was much better in 1856 than in 1852, and he did not, therefore, need to rely so much on external sources then, and could afford to take some distance from them. As a consequence, the evolution from ouvrages to œuvres partly charts the shift from translation to creation in Baudelaire’s writing. Ouvrages is divided into four sections, of which only the fourth is not based on the article by Daniel. The first three parts of the text combine open summaries of the opinions of American critics (in fact mainly Daniel) followed by Baudelaire’s criticism of these opinions and defence of Poe; biographical details for which the unacknowledged source is here again Daniel’s article; translated extracts from Poe works, found by Baudelaire in the same article, and translated by himself;98 and, finally, Baudelaire’s own comments. The final part, on the other hand, provides Baudelaire’s personal enthusiastic conclusion on Poe’s genius. Œuvres is shorter than the earlier version, but follows a similar struc96

15 March 1856, CI, p. 341. Ouvrages, p. 251; œuvres, pp. 297-98. 98 with from one exception (the extract from ‘The Black Cat’ is in fact translated by Mme Meunier, as W. T. Bandy points out). 97

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ture. There are some differences, however. First, and most visibly, the addition of an epigraph (two quotations: one from Poe’s ‘The Raven’ and one from Gautier’s ‘Ténèbres’), which has the effect of extending even more the intertextual web in which the text is caught. In addition, the long quotations from Poe’s tales present in ouvrages are omitted from the 1856 essay; in fact they were not necessary as the essay accompanied Baudelaire’s translations of some of Poe’s tales. Similarly, Baudelaire’s presentation of Poe’s works is considerably shortened in the 1856 version, leading W.T. Bandy to state that It is curious to observe that the passages that were sacrificed in 1856 were, for the most part, precisely those which were the distinctly original ones, expressing Baudelaire’s own ideas and owing nothing to Daniel or Thompson. 99

Here again, it is as if Baudelaire had decided that the presence of Poe’s stories within the same volume made his presentation unnecessary – the reader is left free to make up his / her own mind about the value of the texts. The translator’s own critical and aesthetic appreciation of the texts is already implicit in the translations, and does not need, therefore, to be expressed elsewhere.100 Another important difference lies in the introduction of additional sources, already noted, and introduced in the third section of œuvres, which follows ouvrages more loosely than in the rest of the text, and blends the material of œuvres with new sources and commentaries by Baudelaire. Despite these differences, the methods of presentation of the foreign text used by Baudelaire are similar in both texts. Those methods range from direct translation (in the case of direct quotations from the sources), to an intricate blending of the source texts and Baudelaire’s opinions, leading in some cases to a rewriting, or even a correcting, of the source text, to suit the essayist’s purpose. Ouvrages and œuvres are linked to the direct translations by the presence of passages closely translated from the source – in ouvrages an extract from ‘William Wilson’ (taken from Daniel’s article), in œuvres a letter from Frances Osgood to Griswold. Interestingly, the extract from ‘Le Chat noir’ to be found in ouvrages is taken from Isabelle Meunier’s translation, a fact which indicates Baudelaire’s limited knowledge of Poe’s works in 1852 and his reliance on the extant French versions for his essay. Despite such passages, most of ouvrages and œuvres is made up 99

Ouvrages73, p. xxxviii. See Chapter 6.

100

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of indirect translations, often closer to paraphrase or summaries. The following passages exemplify this. Daniel’s text reads as follows: He wrote for newspapers, compiled and translated for booksellers, made up brilliant articles for reviews, and spun tales for magazines. But although publishers willingly put them forth, they paid the young man so little, that in poverty and despair he got abundantly near enough to death’s door to ‘hear the hinges creak.’ At last a newspaper in Baltimore offered two premiums – for the best poem and the best prose tale. A committee of distinguished litterateurs – John P. Kennedy at their head – was appointed to judge the productions. Of course they did not read them – the sanction of their names being all that was wanted by the publisher. But while chatting over the wine at the meeting, one of them was attracted by a bundle among the papers written in the most exquisitely beautiful calligraphy ever seen. – To the end of his life Poe wrote this surpassingly perfect hand. Mr Kennedy read a page solely on that account; and being impressed with the power of the style, he proceeded to read aloud. The committee voted by acclamation ‘to the first of geniuses that has written a legible hand.’ The confidential envelope being broken, within it was found the then unknown name of Poe.101

Ouvrages draws heavily on Daniel’s text: Cependant le malheureux écrivait pour les journaux, compilait et traduisait pour les libraires, faisait de brillants articles et des contes pour les revues. Les éditeurs les inséraient volontiers, mais ils payaient si mal le pauvre jeune homme qu’il tomba dans une misère affreuse. Il descendit même si bas qu’il put entendre un instant crier les gonds des portes de la mort. Un jour un journal de Baltimore proposa deux prix pour le meilleur poème et le meilleur conte en prose. Un comité de littérateurs, dont faisait partie M. John Kennedy, fut chargé de juger les productions. Toutefois, ils ne s’occupaient guère de les lire; la sanction de leurs noms était tout ce que leur demandait l’éditeur. Tout en causant de choses et d’autres, l’un d’eux fut attiré par un manuscrit qui se distinguait par la beauté, la propreté et la netteté de ses caractères. À la fin de sa vie, Edgar Poe possédait encore une écriture incomparablement belle. (Je trouve cette remarque bien américaine.) M. Kennedy lut une page seul, et ayant été frappé par le style, il lut la composition à haute voix. Le comité vota le prix par acclamation au premier des génies qui sût écrire lisiblement. L’enveloppe secrète fut brisée, et livra le nom alors inconnu de Poe.102

Clearly, ouvrages follows very closely its source, which it translates fairly directly, adding very little to it. The additions, however, are significant: the adjectives ‘malheureux’, ‘pauvre’ convey Baudelaire’s 101 John M. Daniel, Review of Poe’s Works (Southern Literary Messenger, March 1850), in Ouvrages73, pp. 64-65. 102 Ouvrages, ŒCII, p. 260.

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sympathy for Poe, in the same way as, elsewhere, the essayist attacks his sources whenever he suspects a more or less implied criticism of his author. For instance: Très hypocritement, et tout en jurant qu’il ne veut absolument rien dire, qu’il y a des choses qu’il faut toujours cacher, (pourquoi?), que dans de certains cas énormes le silence doit primer l’histoire, le biographe jette sur M. Poe une défaveur très grave. (...) Mais je crois avoir déjà suffisamment mis le lecteur en défiance contre les biographes américains.103

(Incidently, in 1856, Baudelaire does exactly what he reproaches Daniel for in 1852: ‘une querelle domestique prend ici place, – une histoire bizarre et ténébreuse que je ne peux pas raconter, parce qu’elle n’est clairement expliquée par aucun biographe’).104 To a lesser extent, Baudelaire’s aside (‘je trouve cette remarque bien américaine’) performs the same role, both reminding the reader of the hypotext of the essay, and establishing a distance between that hypotext and Baudelaire, who rejects his sources at the same time as he uses them. A very similar mechanism may be found in the following passage: Immédiatement celui-ci épousa une jeune fille qui n’avait pas un sol. (Cette phrase n’est pas de moi; je prie le lecteur de remarquer le petit ton de dédain qu’il y a dans cet immédiatement, le malheureux se croyait donc riche, et dans ce laconisme, cette sécheresse avec laquelle est annoncé un événement important; mais aussi, une jeune fille sans le sol! a girl without a cent!).105

Here Baudelaire first translates his source text and then attacks it. Other differences between ouvrages and Daniel’s article lie in what appears as mistranslations – when Daniel writes ‘Mr Kennedy read a page solely on that account’, Baudelaire translates ‘M. Kennedy lut une page seul’, a transformation which appears only when one compares the two texts. The mistranslation may well be an indication of Baudelaire’s faltering knowledge of English; it may also be regarded, however, as a symptom of his taking power over his source text, as already noted in the case of Le Jeune Enchanteur or the Poe translations. In other instances, Baudelaire develops Daniel’s text – for instance, Daniel’s ‘the most exquisitely beautiful calligraphy’ becomes 103

Ouvrages, ŒCII, p. 259. Œuvres, ŒCII, p. 302. 105 Ouvrages, ŒCII, p. 261. 104

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in ouvrages ‘un manuscrit qui se distinguait par la beauté, la propreté et la netteté’, an elaboration which is reversed in œuvres (‘une écriture singulièrement belle’), almost as if Baudelaire were back-translating his own text and returning to the phrasing of the source. Despite this example of comparative closeness to the source in œuvres, the 1856 essay is far more concise than ouvrages: Rentré dans la vie littéraire, le seul élément où puissent respirer certains êtres déclassés, Poe se mourait dans une misère extrême, quand un heureux hasard le releva. Le propriétaire d’une revue venait de fonder deux prix, l’un pour le meilleur conte, l’autre pour le meilleur poème. Une écriture singulièrement belle attira les yeux de M. Kennedy, qui présidait le comité, et lui donna l’envie d’examiner lui-même les manuscrits. Il se trouva que Poe avait gagné les deux prix; mais un seul lui fut donné.106

What we have is a summary of ouvrages, and the much more controlling presence of Baudelaire’s voice. Baudelaire’s sense of affinity with Poe is expressed in the reference to ‘certains êtres déclassés’, while Poe’s enduring guignon, even in times of luck, is arguably implied in Baudelaire’s insistence on the fact that he won both prizes but was awarded only one. What we have in this passage, then, is an example of a gradual integration of the foreign text into Baudelaire’s prose, an integration made all the more visible by the co-existence of ouvrages and œuvres in the published corpus of Baudelaire’s works. In many ways, then, ouvrages and œuvres announce the far more complex Un Mangeur d’opium, to which I shall devote Chapter 3. Baudelaire’s experiments with creative translation reach a peak with his work on poetry. His reluctance to produce direct translations of Poe’s poetry, a task deemed impossible, leads him to adopt a very free approach with his poetic source texts, be they by Poe or other authors. As a result, we have hypertexts which gradually obscure their hypotexts, as creation overtakes translation. Such process of gradual covering of the source text (as already noted in the case of ouvrages and œuvres) is made particularly apparent by the co-existence of the two versions of Longfellow’s Hiawatha, although the fact that Baudelaire’s work on this text was ordered by a third party complicates the matter (many of the changes made to the source text were in fact dictated by external factors). The texts left from this aborted project are 106

Œuvres, ŒCII, pp. 302-03.

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two verse translations (Le Calumet de paix, imité de Longfellow, L’Enfance d’Hiawatha) and a prose translation of Hiawatha, Légende indienne. 107 The fact that there should be both a prose and a verse translation of the beginning of Hiawatha points to the fact that Baudelaire was experimenting with translating methods. At the same time, the subtitle to the verse translation (‘imité de Longfellow’) raises questions concerning the status of that version, as it indicates the distance between Baudelaire’s text and Longfellow’s. Baudelaire’s voice may be heard in the form of the poem: the choice of alexandrines, the creation of regular stanzas108 and the choice of rhyming schemes109 all give ‘le Calumet de paix’ a distinctive French flavour. If one compares the source and the target texts, one finds that the transformations do not stop at the introduction of a French metrical form. Even as an unfinished fragment (Baudelaire interrupted his work when it became clear that Stoepel was not going to pay him), the French poem is much more concise than the original. For instance, the lines: Du vent, tous les guerriers de chaque tribu, tous, Comprenant le signal du nuage qui bouge, Vinrent docilement à la carrière rouge Où Gitche Manito leur donnait rendez-vous

eliminate the long enumeration of Indian tribes present in Longfellow’s text: Down the rivers o’er the prairies Came the warriors of the nations, Came the Delawares and Mohawks Came the Choctaws and Camanches Came the Shsoshonies and Blackfeet Came the Pawnees and Omawhas, Came the Mandans and Dacotahs Came the Hurons and Ojibways All the warriors drawn together By the signal of the Peace-Pipe 107

Le Calumet de paix was first published on 28 February 1861 in the Revue contemporaine. 108 The text is divided into six line-stanzas in the first and third sections, five-line stanzas in the second section of ‘le Calumet de paix’ and four line-stanzas in ‘L’Enfance d’Hiawatha’. 109 aabccb in sections one and three of ‘le Calumet de paix’, abaab in its second section; aabb in ‘L’Enfance d’Hiawatha’.

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Alchemy and Amalgam To the Mountains of the Prairie, To the Great Red Pipe-Stone Prairie.

Similarly, in ‘L’Enfance d’Hiawatha’, the first stanza summarizes more than a page of Longfellow’s verse. In the prose version, however, the above passage is still present, a fact which suggests greater intervention on the part of the Baudelaire in the verse version:110 Par les rivières et par les prairies vinrent les guerriers de toutes nations, Delawares et Mohawks, Choctaws et Comanches, Shoshonies et Pieds-Noirs, Pawnies et Omawhas, Mandans et Dacotahs, Hurons et Ojibways; tous les querriers se rassemblèrent, attirés par le signal de la Pipe de Paix, sur le Coteau de la Prairie, dans la grande Carrière de Terre de Pierre Rouge. 111

Even in passages which follow closely the source text, the choice of a verse form naturally imposes some transformations. The first stanza, for instance, redistributes the elements from the source text in order to create the rhyme pattern: Or Gitche Manito, le Maître de la Vie, Le Puissant, descendit dans la verte prairie, Dans l’immense prairie aux coteaux montueux; Et là, sur les rochers de la Rouge Carrière, Dominant tout l’espace et baigné de lumière, Il se tenait debout, vaste et majestueux. On the Mountains of the Prairie, On the great Red Pipe-Stone Quarry, Gitche Manito, the mighty, He the Master of Life, descending, On the red crags of the quarry Stood erect, and called the nations, Called the tribes of men together.

While the rhyme in [i] may have been inspired by the source text (Prairie, Quarry, mighty), the rest of the target text is dictated by the verse form, becoming a variation on, rather than a close rendering of its source. The prose version, on the other hand, appears, at least on a 110

The fact that ‘le Calumet de la Paix’ was published in the Revue de Paris in 1861 and in the 1868 edition of the Fleurs du Mal confirms this since it makes manifest the transplantation of Longfellow’s text in Baudelaire’s poetry. 111 ŒCI, p, 245; ‘The Song of Hiawatha’, in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Selected Poems (London: Everyman, 1993), (hereafter refered to as Longfellow), pp. 117-253 (p. 121); ŒCI, p. 248.

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superficial level, to follow the source text far more closely. The absence of rhyme and rhythm constraints makes the translation of the ‘content’ much easier. This is not to say, however, that even the prose version always remains close to its source, a fact which is all the clearer as Baudelaire went much further with his translation than in the case of the verse version, producing a coherent and complete whole, including the passage of the Peace Pipe and the whole of Hiawatha’s life, from his childhood to his death, thus following the chronology established in the source text. There are, however, large omissions, which may of course have been dictated by Stoepel. Many passages are also summarized, and moved around in order to retain some coherence; for the same reasons some transitions are added to make the joint between disparate parts less visible. The aim in these changes is clearly to create a dramatic, coherent whole – some titles are added, some songs are introduced (only indicated by Baudelaire). Clearly the two versions of Hiawatha, because they are the fruit of the collaboration between Baudelaire and Stoepel, and remain unfinished, cannot form a sufficient basis for a study of Baudelaire’s creative input in his translation. They show, however, that he was experimenting with the translation of verse, and that, even in the case of a work made to order, his translation strategies were varied, and similar to those chosen in texts such as Un Mangeur d’opium. In addition, the freedom with which the source text is manipulated to satisfy Stoepel’s aim gives us an insight into the treatment of foreign texts in the mid-nineteenth century, and puts Baudelaire’s translation in context. Despite these points, however, it is undoubtedly in Baudelaire’s own poems which are loosely based on English and American texts but depart from them and so become free-standing poems that the link between translation and creation becomes particularly visible. In such poems, Baudelaire uses a translation of the foreign text as a starting point for his own work, but adapts the translation to his own poetic purpose and in that way transforms it into a very distinct hypertext. A much discussed example of Baudelaire’s use of translation for his own poetry can be found in ‘Le Guignon’,112 which combines passages translated from Gray’s ‘Elegy written in a Country Church Yard’ and Longfellow’s ‘A Psalm of Life’ to create a distinctly Baudelairean poem: 112

Les Fleurs du Mal, ŒCI, p. 17.

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Alchemy and Amalgam ‘A Psalm of Life’ (lines 13-16) Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our heart, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. 113 ‘Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard’ (lines 53-56) Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 114 ‘Le Guignon’ Pour soulever un poids si lourd Sisyphe, il faudrait ton courage! Bien qu’on ait du cœur à l’ouvrage L’Art est long et le temps est court. Loin des sépultures célèbres, Vers un cimetière isolé, Mon cœur, comme un tambour voilé, Va battant des marches funèbres. — Maint joyau dort enseveli Dans les ténèbres et l’oubli, Bien loin des pioches et des sondes; Mainte fleur épanche à regret Son parfum doux comme un secret Dans les solitudes profondes.

The two quatrains of this sonnet develop what is expressed in the corresponding quatrain from Longfellow’s ‘Psalm of Life’, while the two tercets are based on a quatrain drawn from Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’. The enlightening articles of Paul Bénichou and Graham Chesters on ‘Le Guignon’ (or ‘L’Artiste inconnu’, as it was initially entitled) show the importance of Baudelaire’s contribution, despite the fact that the raw material of the poem is mainly borrowed from two other poems.115 As Graham Chesters writes: 113

‘A Psalm of Life’, in Longfellow, pp. 8-9 (p. 9). Thomas Gray, ‘Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard’, in The Poems of Thomas Gray, William Collins, Oliver Goldsmith, ed. by Roger Lonsdale (London and New York: Longman, 1969), pp. 103-41 (p. 127). 115 Paul Bénichou, ‘À propos du “Guignon”, Note sur le travail poétique chez Baudelaire’, Etudes Baudelairiennes III (1973), 232-240; Graham Chesters, ‘Baudelaire’s “L’Artiste inconnu”’, Modern Language Review, 79, 64-76. 114

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‘L’Artiste inconnu’ is a valuable poem in that its combination of double plagiarism and translation allows insight into the manipulation of raw material, the weighing and balancing of syllable, a restricted number of words and meanings in the poet’s mind.116

The title and the first two lines of the sonnet, which are the only elements not borrowed from Longfellow or Gray, set the tone of the poem and influence our reading of the rest of it. Removed from their original context, Longfellow’s and Gray’s verses take on the meaning intended by Baudelaire: as Bénichou notes, Longfellow’s poem does not have in general a negative tone, but is rather an encouragement to action, while Baudelaire focuses on the difficulties of artistic creation and recognition. By ‘cutting and pasting’ the two poems, Baudelaire links them together and to his title, and blends them with his own poetry. This is confirmed by the fact that Baudelaire, rather than merely translating the two extracts word for word expands on them in order to produce a poem close to his own thematics of guignon. ‘Le Flambeau vivant’117 also exemplifies Baudelaire’s transformation of an English text to create a poem which is his own. This poem is loosely based on the last 19 lines of Poe’s ‘To Helen’: 118 ‘To Helen’ (lines 48-66) But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight, Into a western couch of thunder-cloud; And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained. They would not go — they never yet have gone. Lighting my lonely pathway home that night, They have not left me (as my hopes have) since. They follow me — they lead me through the years. They are my ministers — yet I their slave. Their office is to illumine and enkindle — My duty, to be saved by their bright light, And purified in their electric fire, And sanctified in their elysian fire. They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope), And are far up in Heaven — the stars I kneel to In the sad, silent watches of my night; While even in the meridian glare of day 116

Chesters, p. 73. The question of plagiarism will be tackled in Chapter 4. Les Fleurs du Mal, ŒCI, p. 43. 118 Poe, pp. 80-83. 117

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Alchemy and Amalgam I see them still — two sweetly scintillant Venuses, unextinguished by the sun! ‘Le Flambeau vivant’ Ils marchent devant moi, ces Yeux pleins de lumières, Qu’un Ange très savant a sans doute aimantés; Ils marchent, ces divins frères qui sont mes frères, Secouant dans mes yeux leurs feux diamantés. Me sauvant de tout piège et de tout péché grave, Ils conduisent mes pas dans la route du Beau; Ils sont mes serviteurs et je suis leur esclave; Tout mon être obéit à ce vivant flambeau. Charmants Yeux, vous brillez de la clarté mystique Qu’ont les cierges brûlant en plein jour; le soleil Rougit, mais n’éteint pas leur flamme fantastique; Ils célèbrent la Mort, vous chantez le Réveil; Vous marchez en chantant le réveil de mon âme, Astres dont nul soleil ne peut flétrir la flamme!

The two poems have much in common both thematically and stylistically. The Petrarquist image of the eyes of the beloved as a flame guiding the poet is present in both poems, as is the aspiration to Beauty. A close look at the two poems leaves little doubt about Baudelaire’s debt to Poe in ‘Le Flambeau vivant’. What Baudelaire seems to have done here is focus on the last 19 lines of ‘To Helen’ and adapt their imagery and themes to his poetry and style. The most obvious use of Poe’s poem by Baudelaire is in his direct translations from the English text: ‘Ils sont mes serviteurs et je suis leur esclave’ [7] and ‘Astres dont nul soleil ne peut flétrir la flamme’ [14] are but renderings of Poe’s ‘They are my ministers — yet I their slave.’ [56] and ‘Venuses, unextinguished by the sun’ [66]. These examples are the surest confirmation that ‘To Helen’ is the hypotext of ‘Le Flambeau vivant’. Yet ‘Le Flambeau vivant’ is much more than mere translation. A frequent feature of Baudelaire’s use of Poe’s material is the way in which he concentrates several lines from Poe’s poem into a single line of his own poem: in the first line of ‘Le Flambeau vivant’, ‘Ils marchent devant moi’ recalls ‘Lighting my lonely pathway home that night’ [53] and ‘they lead me through the years’ [55], while ‘ces Yeux pleins de lumières’ concentrates the many references to light which pervade Poe’s poem (for instance, ‘their bright light’ [59], ‘their electric fire’ [60], ‘their elysian fire’ [61], ‘two sweetly scintillant Venuses’ [65-6]). Another way in which he uses Poe’s text is through adaptations of particular lines to his own themes: ‘Ils conduisent mes pas dans la route du Beau’ [6] is loosely

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based on ‘They fill my heart with Beauty (which is Hope)’ [61] but also recall ‘they lead me through the years’. However, Baudelaire’s reference to Beauty has a slightly different meaning from Poe’s, as it refers more directly to poetic inspiration. He also often summarizes chunks of ‘To Helen’ in a single line, as in ‘Me sauvant de tout piège et de tout péché grave’ [5] which is based on Poe’s Their office is to illumine and enkindle— My duty, to be saved by their bright light, And purified in their electric fire, And sanctified in their elysian fire. [57-60],

a method much used in Un Mangeur d’opium, as will be seen in chapter 3. Conversely, Baudelaire sometimes develops Poe’s imagery instead of concentrating it: Poe’s generally Christian imagery (‘to be saved’, ‘purified’, ‘sanctified’, ‘Heaven’), is more specific and extended throughout ‘Le Flambeau vivant’ (‘Ange’, ‘divins’, ‘sauvant’, ‘péché’, ‘cierges’). Similarly, the third stanza of Baudelaire’s poem [9-11] is itself an expansion of Poe’s (and develops at the same time the Christian imagery started in the previous stanza). While even in the meridian glare of day I see them still. [64-65]

The comparison of ‘Le Flambeau vivant’ and ‘To Helen’ shows how indebted Baudelaire is to Poe in this particular instance, but also reveals some fundamental differences between the two poems. By discarding the beginning of ‘To Helen’, Baudelaire chooses to omit the general setting of the poem and to concentrate on its climax: where Poe took 47 lines to create the atmosphere necessary to his poetic effect (melancholic description of the circumstances of the encounter with the woman inspiring the poem — a ‘July midnight’ [l. 3], ‘a fullorbed moon’ [l. 4], an enchanted garden, the supernatural apparition of a woman, the vision of her eyes, 119 Baudelaire launches directly into the theme of the eyes of the Muse as guides to the poet. While the 119

All — all expired save thee — save less than thou: Save only the divine light in thine eyes — Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes. I saw but them — they were the world to me. I saw but them — saw only them for hours — Saw only them until the moon went down. [ll. 37-41]

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general tense of ‘To Helen’ is the past tense, in accordance with Poe’s poetic principle that Melancholy is the most appropriate poetic tone, Baudelaire’s poem is anchored to the present. The absence of supernatural context, together with the sonnet form and the distinctly Petrarquist tone make ‘Le Flambeau vivant’ quite separate from ‘To Helen’, an hypertext in which Poe’s hypotext is only faintly visible through the layers of Baudelaire’s creative palimpsest. To sum up briefly what has been demonstrated in this first chapter, Baudelaire’s translation approaches are extremely varied and complex, ranging from close, source-centred to free, target-centred strategies. In the context of this study of the links between creativity and translation in his works, the co-existence of foreignizing and domesticating impulses in his corpus points to experiments with translation and fluctuating relationships with the source text, in turn preserved and overturned. But in order to understand fully the specificity of Baudelaire’s use of translation, we must look carefully at his translational context, and see to what extent his approaches reflected – or challenged – the trends of his times.

2 TRANSLATION IN 19TH-CENTURY FRANCE No translation or translator can be treated in isolation, since translations and translators inevitably operate in the context of collective norms and models.1

The above statement applies particularly to the case of Charles Baudelaire, whose translating practices took place in a particularly fertile and mutating period of translation history. The aim of the present chapter is, therefore, to explore the literary system of mid-nineteenth-century France, in order properly to situate Baudelaire’s translating activity within its context, and to see to what extent this activity is emblematic of his times, or, on the contrary, challenges them. Such exploration will be selective, and will focus on three main aspects: first, the climate of anglomania and the increase in translation production; second, the inheritance of belles infidèles; and thirdly, the new concerns for source-oriented approaches. Translation theory and practice will be looked at together, and, whenever possible, Baudelaire’s translations will be compared and contrasted with examples of other contemporary translations. Anglomania, inherited from the 17th and 18th centuries,2 was even stronger in the 19th century. As Amédée Pichot, editor of the Revue britannique and himself a prolific translator of English literature, put it:

1

José Lambert, Lieven D’hulst and Katrin van Bragt, ‘Translated Literature in France, 1800-1850’, in The Manipulation of Literature, ed. by Theo Hermans (London: Croom Helm, 1985), pp. 149-63 (p. 151). See also Henri Meschonic, ‘Traduction, adaptation – palimpseste’ in Palimpsestes, 3 (1990), 1-10: ‘Dès qu’on cherche le comment, le quand, le pourquoi, ce n’est plus la traduction qu’on voit, et le texte d’origine encore moins. C’est le traduire. Son historicité, c’est à dire sa situation et sa relation à une poétique, présente ou absente’ (p. 1). 2 See Joséphine Grieder, Anglomania in France, 1740-1789 (Geneva, Droz, 1985).

62

Alchemy and Amalgam Qui ne sait l’anglais aujourd’hui? Quelle est la jeune demoiselle qui ne sort pas de pension avec trois ou quatre romans tout traduits, dont un feuilleton quotidien alimentera pendant six mois ses colonnes à cinq centimes la ligne?3

American culture was more and more fashionable, which led Baudelaire to talk of ‘notre continent déjà trop américain’ in a note to his translation of Poe’s ‘Hans Pfaall’.4 Yet Pichot’s description of the level of knowledge of English should not be understood by early 21stcentury standards – his ‘qui ne sait l’anglais aujourd’hui’ is relative, and describes a situation where education generally, and foreign language knowledge more specifically, were more developed than ever before, but were still limited in scope by modern standards. José Lambert, for instance, notes that readers’ ignorance of foreign languages made them both reliant on translation and incapable of comparing source and target texts.5 Such a situation was of course ideal for the expansion of translation. This is confirmed by Jacques Béraud, who notes that most foreign texts were introduced to the French public through translation: Si l’on peut ainsi établir que l’ignorance de la langue obligeait certains écrivains à recourir au travail d’un traducteur, il faut également se souvenir que d’autres, qui pouvaient pourtant lire l’original, faisaient souvent de même – par paresse ou par commodité.6

Béreaud’s picture of the situation is appropriate to Baudelaire’s case, for, as was seen in Chapter 1, Baudelaire’s first encounter with Poe’s tales was through translation, on which he relied heavily in his appreciation of his author’s works. That English was the language most often translated is confirmed by both translation historians and 19thcentury sources. Eric Partridge’s extremely informative The French Romantics’ Knowledge of English Literature (1820-1848) emphasizes the French readership’s craze for everything English, leading to an 3

Amédée Pichot, Revue britannique, April 1859, p. 518. EAP, p. 1100. 5 José Lambert, ‘La Traduction en France à l’époque romantique, à propos d’un article récent’, Revue de Littérature Comparée, 49 (1975), 396-412. 6 Jacques G. A. Béreaud ‘La Traduction en France à l’époque romantique’, Comparative Literature Studies, 8 (1971), 224-44 (p. 227). Lieven D’hulst points out, however, that Latin dominates over Modern Languages in the period 1810-1840 - see ‘La Traduction: un genre littéraire romantique?’, RHLF, 1997, 3, 391-400 (pp. 395-96). This focus on Latin decreased as the century advanced. 4

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explosion in the production of all forms of translations. 7 Henri Van Hoof, in his excellent Histoire de la traduction en occident8 shows how the internationalization of culture led to a more important role for translation: Son domaine, désormais, embrassera toutes les activités humaines; elle deviendra le pont indispensable à la compréhension entre citoyens d’un monde qui va se rétrécissant sans cesse, l’auxiliaire même du progrès.9

Translation, therefore, becomes emblematic of a new era, and the issues it raises have far-reaching cultural implications: the 19th century set patterns which were to be confirmed in the 20th century, ‘L’âge de la traduction’.10 Van Hoof also confirms the strength of anglomania in Baudelaire’s times: a quick look at the list of works translated in the 19th century provided in his book soon reveals the supremacy of English literature (Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Thomas Moore, Walter Scott, Dickens and many others were hugely popular) and the growing popularity of American literature (Hawthorne, Irving, Longfellow, Poe, Twain, among many). Other literatures (German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, for instance) although becoming more and more popular, could not compete with English and American works. 11 Similarly, Jean Delisle and Judith Woodsworth’s Translators through History looks at the example of ‘France’s infatuation with the Gothic novel’ as symptomatic of the massive export of English literature to France, and the impact of translation from English on French taste and sensitivity.12 19th-century sources present the same picture as 20thcentury translation historians. The very existence of the Revue britannique, of which the main aim was to present foreign texts (mainly English) in translation is a case in point,13 as are the many publica7

Eric Partridge, The French Romantics’ Knowledge of English Literature (18201848), According to Contemporary French Memoirs, Letters and Periodicals (Paris: Librarie Ancienne Édouard Champion, 1924). 8 Henri Van Hoof, Histoire de la traduction en occident, Bibliothèque de linguistique (Paris, Louvain-la-Neuve: Duculot, 1991). 9 Van Hoof, p. 69. 10 Van Hoof, p. 84. 11 Van Hoof, pp. 67 sqq. 12 Jean Delisle and Judith Woodsworth (eds), Translators through History, (Amsterdam: John Benjamins (Unesco Library), 1995), p. 211. 13 Kathleen Jones, La Revue britannique: son histoire et son action littéraire (18251840) (Paris: Droz, 1939).

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tions concerned with English culture which appeared throughout the 19th century. Partridge quotes an article by Charles Lobstein published in 1804 in the Magasin littéraire: Le goût pour les ouvrages anglais est devenu depuis quelque temps universel; nous cherchons à nous approprier leurs ouvrages, soit en publiant de nouvelles éditions, soit en les traduisant.14

Similarly, one B. M. wrote in an article entitled ‘Quelques notes sur les traductions’: Jamais on n’a plus demandé d’originalité à nos écrivains que depuis quinze ans, et jamais notre littérature n’a vécu plus de traductions (...) C’est à l’étude de ces auteurs qu’il faut attribuer sans doute en partie ce qu’il y a d’étrangeté, mais encore d’étrangèreté dans certains de nos poètes modernes.15

The link between translation and literary creation is expressed here by an interaction between the foreign and the national and the influence of the foreign on national creation (B. M.’s notion of étrangeté and étrangèreté clearly announces Antoine Berman’s ‘épreuve de l’étranger’). The rise of translation in general and its impact on literary production are also noted by Madame Élizabeth Celnart in her article ‘De l’éclectisme en littérature’ (1832): Les nations étrangères nous offrent de brillants modèles. On traduit, on lit, on comprend enfin Shakespeare, Gœthe et Schiller.16

In this general literary climate, which increasingly favoured foreign literature, translations from modern languages in general, and from English in particular, it is hardly surprising to see that there was, throughout the 19th century, an ongoing theoretical debate on translation. This, as will be seen, reached much further than practical questions on ‘how to translate’ but explored, directly or indirectly, the relationship between the national and the foreign and questioned the until then undisputed hegemony of French culture. This debate could be described as a tension between two opposed main trends which reflected different views of the French relationship to the foreign: the 14

Partridge, p. 19. Quoted by Eric Partridge, p. 69. 16 Élizabeth Celnart, ‘De l’éclectisme en littérature’, La France littéraire, Volume 2, 1832, 441-473 (p. 454). 15

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belles infidèles inherited from the 17th and 18th Centuries, and new concerns for conveying the foreign nature of the source-text which were to revolutionize translation methods.17 As its name indicates, the tradition of belles infidèles was mainly a French movement, characterized by a search for harmony in translation – by French standards – at the expense of fidelity to the source text. Since the 17th century, when translator and theorist Perrot d’Ablancourt gave the phrase its currency, the belles infidèles had responded to concerns for clarity, concision and elegance, which were following the French Classical taste.18 Resolutely target-oriented, these translations were the agents of domesticating impulses on the part of the French culture and have best been explained by Antoine Berman who, contrasting them with the German Romantics’ foreignizing strategies, has shown that the Classical French language, emprisoned by canons, embraced ethnocentric, domesticating strategies, to reinforce those canons.19 The following extract from Le Tourneur’s preface to his translation of Young’s Nights is exemplary of this domesticating impulse: Mon intention a été de tirer de l’Young anglais un Young français, qui pût plaire à ma nation, et qu’on pût lire avec intérêt, sans songer s’il est original ou copie. Il me semble que c’est la méthode qu’on devrait suivre en traduisant les auteurs des langues étrangères, qui, avec un mérite supérieur, ne sont pas des modèles de goût. Par là, tout ce qu’il y a de bon chez nos voisins nous deviendrait propre, et nous laisserions le mauvais que nous n’avons aucun besoin de lire ni de connaître.20

17 This

dual approach is briefly noted by Lieven D’Hulst in ‘La Traduction: un genre littéraire à l’époque romantique’, p. 396, and more detailed in his excellent Cent ans de théorie française de la traduction, de Batteux à Littré (1748-1847) (Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1990). See also Paul A. Horguelin, Anthologie de la manière de traduire, Domaine français (Montreal: Linguatech, 1981). 18 For a presentation of the belles infidèles approach, see Sylvette Larzul, ‘Les Mille et une nuits de Galland ou l’acclimatation d’une “Belle étrangère”’, Revue de littérature comparée, 1995, 3, 309-22. Fortunato Israel also shows the evolution of adaptation methods in ‘Shakespeare en français: être ou ne pas être?’, Palimpsestes, 3, 1124. 19 Berman, L’Épreuve de l’étranger, p. 238. 20 Le Tourneur, Les Nuits d’Young (Paris 1769), ‘Discours préliminaire’ quoted in Laurence B. West, ‘La théorie de la traduction au XVIIIème Siècle’, Revue de littérature comparée, 1932, 333-55 (p. 333).

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The rhetoric of this passage points to a wish to naturalize the foreign work, and to adapt it to French tastes (‘tirer de l’Young anglais un Young français’). There is also the open expression of a desire to appropriate the foreign text through translation (‘tout ce qu’il y a de bon chez nos voisins nous deviendrait propre’), which is presented as the necessary consequence of this ideal of naturalization of the translated text. The domestication at work is made particularly clear by the expression of the desire to erase the difference between source and target text: the target text hides its source completely, making all foreign elements disappear. Despite the distinct shift in translation approaches which took place in the 19th century (and which will be detailed shortly), the tradition of the belles infidèles did not disappear from the translational landscape of the period. José Lambert shows, indeed, that the advent of French Romanticism did not automatically bring radical changes in all translation approaches. Lambert quotes a statement made by Nerval in 1840 about his translation of Faust, which is highly reminiscent of Le Tourneur’s about Young’s Nights. Contrasting his translation with Blaze de Bury’s, Nerval writes: [Blaze] a dû compter sur le charme de ses vers pour donner de la valeur à certaines scènes obscures ou faibles du Faust posthume, que j’ai désespéré de rendre en prose d’une manière satisfaisante; mais il ne nierait pas le droit que j’ai eu de les élaguer, droit dont usèrent souvent, vis-à-vis d’ouvrages plus célèbres encore, MM. Sévélinge, de Sainte-Alaire, Loève-Veimar [sic] et d’autres traducteurs de premier ordre, qui savent que peu d’ouvrages étrangers peuvent, sans coupures, satisfaire le goût du lecteur français.21

As in Le Tourneur’s statement, we have here the expression of the same desire to satisfy French taste without challenging it. The means used to achieve this aim – suppressing passages ‘lacking in good taste’ – is seen as a right, giving the translator a much more important role than in literal approaches, which place translation in an ancillary position. The 19th-century translational landscape confirms the suggestion achieved by Nerval’s statement that ‘free translations’ of the belles infidèles type were still very frequent. The Revue britannique is an invaluable source for the study of translation trends. The originality 21 Quoted by José Lambert in ‘La Traduction en France à l’époque romantique, à propos d’un article récent’ (p. 399).

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of the Revue (of which one of the professed aims was to introduce new literary forms into the national literature) was that it offered only translations from English, generally based on articles from British reviews and magazines. The first issue of the Revue britannique (1825), which was very typical of later issues, offered articles from the Edinburgh Review, the Quarterly, the Classical Journal, the Monthly, the Asiatic Journal , the Oriental Herald. Clearly, then, the content of the Revue Britannique was far from restricted to literature, which, in the beginning, played only a minor role in the Revue. From the point of view of literary property, however, it is rather striking that the original authors of the texts presented are seldom acknowledged, and that the date of publication of each piece is not always available. It is as if the article, by being published in Revue britannique, became property of the Revue and its origin lost relevance. In other words, translation here seems to mean appropriation, in the same way the belles infidèles did. A closer look at the type of translations offered by the Revue britannique shows a far from uniform approach to translation. Because of the lack of detailed references to the originals mentioned earlier, it is often difficult to assess the faithfulness of the translations available in the Revue. However, the very structure of the translations (whether or not they include comments from the translator and / or the editor; whether or not they include quotations in English; whether or not they follow an introduction by the editor or the translator, etc.) helps us understand the translators’ strategies and already suggests, at the most superficial level, a wide range of variations in approaches. Even more informative, from this point of view, are some rare examples of parallel translation. In the December 1844 issue of the Revue, for instance, can be found a poem by Elizabeth Barrett and its translation: To George Sand Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man, Self-called George Sand, whose soul amid the lions Of thy tumultuous senses, moans defiance, And answers roar for roar, as spirits can: I would some wild miraculous thunder ran Above the applauded circus, in appliance Of thine own nobler nature’s strength and science, Drawing two pinions, white as wings of swan, From thy strong shoulders, to amaze the place

Alchemy and Amalgam

68 With holier light! that thou, to woman’s claim, And man’s, might join beside the angel’s grace Of a pure genius sanctifed from blame; Till child and maiden pressed to thine embrace, To kiss upon thy lips a stainless fame. Elizabeth Barrett

The French version, printed besides Barrett’s poem, is as follows: Traduction libre O femme au large front, homme à large poitrine, Si parfois de tes sens la révolte intestine Cherche à troubler ton âme, à leurs rugissements Sa voix mâle répond et fait taire tes sens; Telle que ces martyrs que la Rome idolâtre Vit dompter les lions dans son amphithéâtre. Un ciel sombre sur toi semble s’appesantir; Mais de ce même ciel un éclair doit jaillir, Miraculeux rayon qui des plus hautes sphères Versera sur tes yeux les divines lumières; Un ange en descendra: de son chaste baiser Il calmera les feux qui semblent t’embraser, Et soudain t’emportant dans le pli de son aile, Te dira: Viens, ma sœur, toi qui fus grande et belle, Sois pure aussi, renais; je veux de mon amour Imprégner ton génie et ton cœur tour à tour, Afin que, consacré par une sainte flamme, Ton nom ait un autel dans tous les cœurs de femme. A. P.

Pichot’s text and its original have little in common. Rather than a translation, what we have here is a poem inspired by Elizabeth Barrett’s text, of which most elements are redistributed and developed in the French version. The first visible element of domestication is the metre used in the French version: the alexandrines immediately convey a French poetic rhythm to the ‘translation’. Although the first line of Pichot’s poem may seem to follow closely its source, the use of the metonymies (‘front’ for ‘brain’, ‘poitrine’ for ‘heart’), in conjunction with the alexandrine, establish from the outset a classical – almost précieux – tone. The rest of Pichot’s text departs even further from the English. The next three lines of his poem are loosely based on lines 2 to 5 of Barrett’s, in that they refer indirectly to ‘tumultuous senses’

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and ‘defiance’ with ‘de tes sens la révolte intestine’, while ‘Sa voix mâle’ could be inspired by George Sand’s masculine name. In the next few lines, Barrett’s image of the lions and the circus is developed by Pichot into classical imagery (‘Telle que ces martyrs que la Rome idolâtre / Vit dompter les lions dans son amphithéâtre’). Further down, Barrett’s Christian imagery is transposed by Pichot into very direct references (‘two pinions white as wings of swan’, ‘holier light’, ‘the angel’s grace’, ‘sanctified’, ‘stainless’ become ‘Miraculeux rayon qui des plus hautes sphères’,‘divines lumières’, ‘Un ange’, ‘sainte flamme’) and is further developed in the images of purification and rebirth which pervade the second half of the French poem. In short, the transposition of the English poem into a French form (rhymes and rhythm) forces Pichot to develop and redistribute completely the elements of Barrett’s poem. Interestingly, despite having openly followed the method of ‘traduction libre’, Amédée Pichot offers in a footnote a more literal rendering: Ceux de nos lecteurs qui ne savent pas l’anglais seront peut-être curieux d’avoir l’idée d’une traduction littérale, espèce de traduction quelquefois plus inexacte encore que l’imitation. Voici le mot à mot de ce sonnet: «Toi femme à large cerveau et homme à large cœur, qui t’appelles George Sand! dont l’âme au milieu des lions de tes sens tumultueux mugit le défi et répond rugissement pour rugissement, comme les esprits le peuvent: je voudrais que quelque étrange et miraculeux tonnerre courut par-dessus le cirque applaudi, et s’adressant à la force et à la science de ta plus noble nature, tirât de tes fortes épaules deux ailes, blanches comme ailes de cygne, pour éblouir la terre par une plus sainte lumière, afin que toi, aux attributs de la femme et de l’homme, tu puisses joindre la grâce angélique d’un pur génie sanctifié du blâme, jusqu’à ce que enfant et jeune fille viennent se presser dans tes embrassements pour baiser sur tes lèvres une gloire sans tache.»

The juxtaposition of a free translation and a literal translation of the same poem encourages a comparison of the two traditions and favours openly the first type. The justification for this choice (literal translation being in fact less faithful than imitation) is typical of the advocates of free translation and even of Belles infidèles as seen in the 17th and 18th centuries. The translation of poetry notoriously poses specific problems and requires, on the part of the translator, a large amount of creativity, and Pichot’s choice seems particularly legitimate in this case. But the fact that the editor of the Revue britannique should choose this mode of translation and argue the case for this choice in such explicit terms clearly implies that it is the preferred approach in the Revue. The juxtaposition of the English text, the literal

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translation and the free translation also dramatizes the various stages leading from the hypotext to the hypertext. Pichot’s ‘Traduction libre’ is indeed a poem in its own right, although loosely based on the hypotext of Elizabeth Barrett’s ‘To George Sand’; the intermediary stage is made obvious by the literal translation which cannot exist but in relation to its original. Free translation (as practised by Pichot) allowed the translator a large amount of creativity and was, therefore, particularly popular with one group of translators, to which Baudelaire belonged: the author-translators. Alfred de Vigny, for instance, defended his translation of Shakespeare’s Othello as follows: J’ai encore cette vérité à vous dire, qu’il n’y a pas au monde une seule bonne traduction pour celui qui sait la langue originale, si ce mot est entendu comme reproduction du modèle, comme translation littérale de chaque mot, chaque vers, chaque phrase, en mots, vers, phrases d’une autre langue. Toute traduction est faite pour ceux qui n’entendent pas la langue mère et n’est faite que pour eux, c’est ce que le critique perd de vue trop souvent. Si le traducteur n’était interprête, il serait inutile. Une traduction ne peut qu’être à l’original ce qu’est le portrait à la nature vivante.22

Vigny emphasizes the importance of translation in the popularization of foreign texts and points out the inadequacy of word-for-word translation. The last two sentences of the above extract explicitly highlight the role of the translator as first and foremost hermeneutic. 23 In addition, the comparison between translation and portrait implies that translation is seen as a creative and subjective art, while the debt and the inferiority of translations to their originals is acknowledged. In the same passage, Vigny goes on to say: J’ai donc cherché à rendre l’esprit, non la lettre. Cela n’a pas été compris par tout le monde, je l’avais prévu; pour les uns, ceux qui ignorent l’anglais, j’ai été trop littéral, pour les autres, ceux qui le savent, je ne l’ai pas été assez. Ainsi ce bronze fait à l’image d’Othello, vient d’être pressé, battu, tordu par la critique entre l’enclume anglaise et le marteau français.24

22 Alfred de Vigny, Lettre à Lord *** Earl of *** sur la soirée du 24 octobre 1824 et sur un système dramatique, in Le More de Venise, Othello, Traduite de Shakspeare en vers français par le Cte Alfred de Vigny, et représentée à la Comédie-Française le 24 octobre 1829 (Paris: Levavasseur, libraire, 1830), p. 30. 23 See Chapter 6, which explores the links between translation and criticism. 24 Vigny, p. 31.

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‘L’esprit, non la lettre’: this seems to summarize the whole approach to free translation and the age-old debate between literal and free translation. Translation is seen indeed as a variation on the original text rather than its mirror image. Such a view makes it impossible for critics to blame Vigny’s translation for its unfaithfulness to Shakespeare’s original. It also confirms the idea of translation as interpretation expressed earlier. George Sand too favoured free translation, and would probably have supported Pichot’s translation of Barrett’s poem about her. Her translation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It confirms the strength of the tradition of free translation, even as late as 1856. In her preface, Sand explains her approach, which was an attempt to adapt Shakespeare’s text to French taste: J’aurai donné (...), j’en suis sûre, l’envie de connaître ou d’approfondir certains chefs-d’œuvres qui sont encore ensevelis sous le suaire glacé de la traduction littérale (...) Le sort des grands maîtres est d’être traduits d’âge en âge, et chaque fois appropriés plus ou moins au goût et à la mode du temps (...) Par conséquent, les traductions libres, et même un peu les traductions soidisant littérales sont une suite d’altérations et d’arrangements. (...) Cette nécessité de mettre quelques vêtements d’emprunt sur le colosse n’est donc ni une profanation ni un outrage; c’est plutôt un hommage rendu à l’impossibilité de le vêtir à la française avec des habits assez grands et assez pompeux pour lui.25

In this passage, Sand first defines the main function of translation as one of popularization and then illustrates with the phrase ‘suaire glacé de la traduction littérale’ the free translators’ argument against literal translation, seen as a method which kills the original text. Appropriation and naturalization are shown as unavoidable consequences of the act of translation, and depicted in positive terms. In the eyes of the defenders of free translation, Baudelaire’s so-called appropriations of De Quincey’s autobiographical texts or of the original text of Le Jeune Enchanteur could then be seen as natural results of the act of translation.26 Similarly, departures from the original are presented by Sand as a mere envelope (‘vêtements d’emprunts’) not to be confused with the core of the work being translated, and whose role is to facili25

George Sand, Préface to Comme il vous plaira, Comédie en 3 actes et en prose tirée de Shakespeare et arrangée par George Sand (Paris: Librairie Nouvelle, 1856), pp. 1516 (emphasis added). 26 See Chapters 3 and 4.

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tate the transfer from one culture to another. Truly literal translation is seen as an impossible fallacy (‘soi-disant fidèle’). Linked to this distrust of literal translation, the fashion for adaptations was very strong, and one finds in the translation corpus of the period many examples of texts which are in some ways comparable to Baudelaire’s approach in Un Mangeur d’opium. In March 1852, for instance, the Revue britannique presented an anonymous article entitled ‘Biographie et mémoires littéraires; Thomas Moore’.27 Written after the death of Thomas Moore, the article is a blend of obituary, analysis of Thomas Moore, and quotations from his works. Superficially at least, the approach seems to be similar to Baudelaire’s in Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages and Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses œuvres, which perform the same function as the article about Thomas Moore. To a lesser extent, Un Mangeur d’opium also shares similar strategies, although with very different purposes. A comparable approach to translation may be found in another periodical which made wide use of foreign material, the Revue de Paris. In the first issue of a new series (October 1851) of the Revue de Paris, Théophile Gautier stated the aims of the Revue as complete freedom and diversity of approach, a diversity reflected by the opening up of the Revue to foreign literature. The method of translation of this foreign literature was announced as faithful, and the aim of translation seen as a means to introduce foreign works to a new readershi p and to broaden its knowledge: Notre rédaction ne sera pas restreinte à la France seule. Des traductions scrupuleuses d’Henri Heine, d’Achim d’Arnim, d’Auerbach, de Clément Brentano, de Freilegrath, d’Edgar Poë, d’Emerson, de Leopardi, d’Alfred Tennyson, d’Espronceda, etc..., tiendront les lecteurs de la Revue au courant du mouvement intellectuel dans le vieux et le nouveau monde. 28

However, despite those professed aims of faithfulness and universality, the Revue de Paris’s foreign sections quickly concentrated on English and American literature, and the ‘translations’ offered are better described as a blend of translation, commentary and summary, than straightforward translations. They are therefore close to U n Mangeur d’opium in technique if not in intent. Philarète Chasles, for instance, introduces as follows his presentation of ‘Quakerism, or the 27 28

Revue britannique, March 1852, 343-61 (part 1); April 1852, 455-72 (part 2). Revue de Paris, Octobre 1851, p. 10 (emphasis added).

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story of my life, by a lady who for forty years was a member of the Society of Friends’:29 nous espérons intéresser les esprits curieux, en donnant successivement à nos lecteurs les extraits raisonnés, accompagnés de quelques commentaires, des livres les plus utiles et les plus amusants qui se publient aujourd’hui en Europe et en Amérique.30

The technique announced by Chasles is typical of many articles in the Revue de Paris. According to him, there are three ways of introducing foreign works to the French readers: translation, analysis, and allusion. The method adopted by the Revue de Paris combines these three ways: in Chasles’ article, extraits raisonnés and commentaires mix translation and analysis, while in many other instances, foreign works are mentioned and commented on very briefly. Similarly, André de Goy’s presentation of Thackeray’s The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century in the issue of 15 April 1854 is typical of a generalized approach to foreign texts.31 As de Goy himself states: Nous ne saurions donc mieux faire que de suivre M. Thackeray dans la voie qu'il s'est tracée, c’est-à-dire dans ses écrits biographiques, en nous réservant, néanmoins, le bénéfice d’une courte halte, et d’une appréciation personnelle, à chacun des points saillants où la marche de l’historien se confond avec celle du critique.32

Here again, therefore, the translator / reviewer does not, in fact cannot, exclude his own opinions from the article. And indeed de Goy, concentrating only on the first of Thackeray’s lectures (on Swift) presents Thackeray’s presentation of Swift. As a consequence, his own analysis of Thackeray’s text could also apply to his own text:

29

Translated as Le Quakerisme, Histoire de ma vie, par une dame qui a fait partie, pendant quarante ans, de la société des amis. The whole article is entitled ‘Mémoires d’une Quakeresse, écrits par elle-même’, Revue de Paris, October 1851, 144-53. 30 ‘Mémoires d’une Quakeresse’, p. 145. 31 ‘Les Humoristes anglais du XVIIIème siècle’, par W. M Thackeray, Revue de Paris, 15 April 1854, 248-262. 32 ‘Les Humoristes anglais’, p. 249.

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Nous ne pourrions donc prendre le change sur la modestie très-louable assurément, mais en même temps fort exagérée de M. Thackeray, lorsqu’il se pose en simple biographe.33

Thackeray’s lack of neutrality is mirrored by de Goy, who comments on and criticizes his author’s position. For instance: Pour nous, tout en admirant le génie de Swift, nous ne partageons ni l’enthousiasme ni les indignations qui, tour à tour, transportent le critique passionné de l’illustre poëte. Nous serions plutôt disposé, tout en faisant quelques réserves, à nous rallier à l’opinion de Voltaire, bien qu’elle soit, en quelque sorte, l’antithèse des appréciations fiévreuses de M. Thackeray.34

Terms such as passionné, fiévreuses both assess and criticize Thackeray’s approach; at the same time, an alternative, less passionnate view of Swift is offered (ni l’enthousiasme ni les indignations) through the judgement of another author, who, significantly, is French (Voltaire). De Goy’s account of Thackeray’s text is, therefore, coloured by his own subjectivity. The translator is not seen as a neutral intermediary between the foreign text and the French reader, but rather as an agent of integration of the foreign text into the French corpus. De Goy’s reading of Thackeray’s text appropriates it, links it to French culture (as, for instance, with the reference to Voltaire), much more than a straight translation would. We are not very far from Baudelaire’s approach in Un Mangeur d’opium. The link between Baudelaire’s adaptations and the practices of his age is even clearer when one looks at the previous French versions of De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater, and although Un Mangeur d’opium will not be studied in detail until the next chapter, detailing those previous versions at this juncture sheds light on the translational context. Indeed Baudelaire was not the first French author to show an interest in the Confessions. Their first appearance in French took the form of an anonymous summary entitled ‘Confessions d’un Anglais mangeur d’opium’ in La Pandore of the 29th and 30th of September 1827. After noting that the original work is ‘un petit livre qui a fait beaucoup de bruit à Londres’, the author of the article goes on to summarize the main points of De Quincey’s autobiography, and to illustrate them with extensive quotations. Compared to the Confessions and Un Mangeur d’opium, the two articles in 33 34

‘Les Humoristes anglais’, p. 249. ‘Les Humoristes anglais’, p. 262.

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La Pandore are very short and simplify De Quincey’s work (both take up only three columns each, or a total of 230 lines of narrow newspaper columns). Yet, in many respects, the approach seems to be similar to Baudelaire’s: La Pandore offers what could be called ‘edited highlights’ and conveys a rather clear image of De Quincey’s text; some passages are briefly summarized, while others are freely paraphrased or vaguely translated. There are even a few comments added by the author of the article, for instance a reference to Madame de Staël: ‘Le dernier des rêves que raconte notre auteur pourrait faire le pendant du songe de Jean Paul, traduit par Mme de Staël dans son Allemagne’. 35 Quotations are introduced in a similar way as in Un Mangeur d’opium, and transitions seem to resemble Baudelaire’s method. For instance, the article of the 29th of September, which is devoted to what De Quincey calls ‘the pleasures of opium’ is concluded by : ‘Maintenant la scène change, et nous voyons commencer les souffrances de l’opium’. Baudelaire ends ‘Voluptés de l’opium’ by ‘...bientôt le décor va s’assombrir, et les tempêtes s’amoncelleront dans la nuit’, using also a theatrical metaphor.36 La Pandore’s version, clearly focusing on the experience of the opium-eater, and the evolution of the effect of opium on his constitution, does not on the whole betray De Quincey’s text and offers a faithful – if somewhat simplistic – account of the work. There is, of course, no mention of the Suspiria de Profundis, which were published in 1845, and the article’s conclusion is ‘...et l’auteur, au moment où il écrit, assure au public qu’il se porte mieux que jamais’. Compared to Un Mangeur d’opium, this first version is interesting inasmuch as it reveals some similarities in approach which could well be attributed to their medium. The fact that both the article in La Pandore and Baudelaire’s Un Mangeur d’opium were serialized can explain some stuctural similarities (for instance the transitions quoted above), as well as the necessity to summarize or quote some appropriate passages rather than translate the whole work. The blend of quotations and summaries which can be found both in La Pandore and Un Mangeur d’opium may also be a clue to the taste of 19th-century readers, and show that Alphonse de Calonne (director of La Revue Contemporaine, which published Un Mangeur d’opium under the title of ‘Enchantements et tortures d’un mangeur d’opium’) knew what his readers wanted. 35 36

La Pandore, 30 September 1827. ŒCI, p. 471.

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After La Pandore, the next version of the Confessions was published by Mame et Delaunay-Vallée in 1828. It was signed by the initials A.D.M. (Alfred de Musset), and entitled L’Anglais mangeur d’opium. Musset’s approach is very different from Baudelaire’s: there is no explicit mention of the original text in Musset’s version whereas Baudelaire presents Un Mangeur d’opium as a translation / analysis of the autobiography of an author he admires.37 Musset adapts and truncates De Quincey’s text, with large additions of his own creation (as for instance a Spanish dream, or a ball where the narrator meets Ann (called Anna in Musset’s version), many years after her disappearance). His focus in L’Anglais mangeur d’opium is on the story told by De Quincey which is for Baudelaire secondary, compared, say, with the philosophical elements of the autobiography.38 Despite these differences, it is interesting to note that like Baudelaire, Musset, as if contaminated by his original, sometimes uses English words in his prose (‘...mon sommeil n’était jamais autre chose que ce qu’on appelle dogsleep’; ‘Plusieurs de ces femmes m’avaient défendu souvent contre les watchmen...’ ) . 39 More significantly, the blend of translation and creation in Musset’s approach may be seen, like Un Mangeur d’opium, as an example of domesticating strategies and of the blurring of distinctions between translation, adaptation and creation. As Arthur Heulhard’s preface to L’Anglais mangeur d’opium states it: Il traduisit [les Confessions] avec amour, mais un peu à la façon de Perrault d’Ablancourt, dont on appelait les traductions ‘les belles infidèles’. S’il tombe en communauté d’impressions avec son auteur, il se laisse aller à des digressions personnelles; il n’hésite pas à se substituer à lui et à prendre les effets de l’opium pour son compte.40

37 This is all the more obvious in the subtitle to ‘Enchantements et tortures d’un mangeur d’opium’ in La Revue Contemporaine (Confessions of an English opium eater, being an extract from the life of a scholar, and Suspiria de profundis, being a sequel to the Confessions, by THOMAS DE QUINCEY ). 38 As Michèle Stäuble-Lipman Wulf says: ‘Le jeune Musset a adapté sans scrupules le texte de De Quincey au goût français du jour en transformant un œuvre visionnaire et poétique en un roman à la mode.’ (SLW, p. 34). 39 Œuvres complètes en prose d’A. de Musset, texte établi et annoté par Maurice Allem et Paul Courant (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), pp. 3-64 (pp. 16 and 19). 40 Arthur Heulhard, Notice to the second edition of L’Anglais mangeur d’opium (Paris: Le Moniteur du bibliophile, 1878), p. 16.

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After Musset, Balzac also tackled the theme of the opium eater, in a short story in La Caricature of 11 November 1830. The title of the story is ‘Fantaisies’ with as a subtitle ‘L’opium’, and the whole is signed by Le Comte Alex. de B.... This narrative bears little resemblance to De Quincey’s text, and is probably based on Musset’s version, as Michèle Stäuble-Lipman Wulf points out.41 The story retraces the various stages of opium addiction through the experience of a central character, who takes opium with an Englishman, searching for death. As the narrator of the story says: ‘C’est une mort tout à fait fashionable’, emphasizing the link with an English original (or at least referring to Musset’s version) by using an English word within the French text, and further on concludes the story with another direct reference to the hero of L’Anglais mangeur d’opium and an address to opium highly reminiscent of De Quincey’s text: Ô prestigieux opium!... Et ces deux hommes moururent sans pouvoir se guérir, comme toi, poète inconnu, jeune Mée, qui nous as si bien décrit tes joies et tes malheurs factices!

Balzac’s version, only remotely linked to the Confessions, represents a last stage towards the integration of a foreign source into a target system through its complete domestication and eventual disappearance under the successive rewritings it generates. Although there are other signs of the possible influence of De Quincey’s autobiography – if only through Musset’s version – on 19th-century writers (Stäuble-Lipman Wulf mentions Gautier and Nerval, for instance), the three versions I have briefly surveyed are the only self-contained literary accounts of De Quincey’s experience prior to Un Mangeur d’opium. Interestingly enough, though, Doctor Jean Moreau de Tours used L’Anglais mangeur d’opium in his 1845 treatise Du Hachich et de l’aliénation mentale, which in turn influenced Baudelaire’s Paradis Artificiels: Baudelaire’s link with De Quincey was both direct and indirect. The only one of these previous versions to Un Mangeur d’opium which Baudelaire may have known is Musset’s version (although he was not aware of its author), which he did not like.42 Nobody before him presented the Suspiria in the French language. It is, 41

SLW, pp. 34-35. Baudelaire’s discovery of Musset’s version is recounted by Pichois in ‘Baudelaire, Musset et De Quincey’, in Baudelaire, Études et témoignages, pp. 141-44.

42

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however, interesting to see that no matter how superior his version of the autobiography may be compared to what had been produced before, there are in earlier versions some elements that also appear in Un Mangeur d’opium: the tendency to combine quotation and summary in his presentation of De Quincey's autobiography, the transitions imposed by the serialized form of his own text, the use of English words in a French text, the blending of translation and creation, all had been done to a lesser extent before, on a similar subject, and based on the same text. Baudelaire’s own variations on his treatment of English texts are, thus, mirrored by 19th-century theory and practice. Free translation was still a very strong tradition at the time when Baudelaire was engaged in his translating activity. The fact that it was a method chosen by authors such as Nerval, Vigny or Sand points to its attraction for creative writers – Baudelaire’s choice of this approach in texts such as Un Mangeur d’opium should, therefore, be seen as part of a wider phenomenon, inherited from the belles infidèles, which blended translation and creation. It would be wrong, however, to see Baudelaire’s translation method in such texts as only a late example of domesticating strategies advocated by the belles infidèles, and to see his manipulations of his source texts as motivated by a desire to adapt them to French taste. From the sole point of view of translation approaches (leaving aside for the moment the question of the productive encounter with the foreign which takes place in his translations), the 19th century was very much a transition period, in which domesticating strategies were increasingly denounced. One of the loudest and most influential voices in favour of literal, faithful translations was Madame de Staël, who writes in 1816 about the art of translation: Il ne faut pas comme les Français, donner sa propre couleur à tout ce qu’on traduit; quand même on devrait par-là changer en or tout ce que l’on touche, il n’en résulterait pas moins que l’on ne pourrait pas s’en nourrir; on n’y trouverait pas des aliments nouveaux pour sa pensée, et on reverrait toujours le même visage avec des parures à peine différentes. (...) On trouverait assez difficilement, dans la littérature française, une bonne traduction en vers, excepté celles des Géorgiques par l’abbé Delille. Il y a de belles imitations, des conquètes à jamais confondues avec les richesses nationales; mais on ne saurait

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citer un ouvrage en vers qui portât d’aucune manière le caractère étranger, et même je ne crois pas qu’un tel essai puisse réussir.43

The use of the Midas myth enables Madame de Staël to depreciate the embellishments achieved by some belles infidèles and to underline the sterility of such transformations and the cultural uniformity to which they lead. At the same time, Madame de Staël acknowledges the beauty of some unfaithful translations (‘changer en or’; ‘des conquêtes à jamais confondues avec les richesses nationales’), while her conquest metaphor helps her underline the process of appropriation linked to belles infidèles.44 The ideal of faithfulness to the original shown became the rallying cry of many 19th-century theorists and practitioners of translation and contrasted strongly with the tradition of free translation. Chateaubriand’s introduction to his literal translation of Milton’s Paradise Lost delivers a message similar to Madame de Staël’s: Me serait-il permis d’espérer que si mon essai n’est pas trop malheureux, il pourra amener quelque jour une révolution dans la manière de traduire? Du temps d’Ablancourt les traductions s’appelaient de belles infidèles; depuis ce temps-là on a vu beaucoup d’infidèles qui n’étaient pas toujours belles: on en viendra peut-être à trouver que la fidélité, même quand la beauté lui manque, a son prix.45

Both Madame de Staël and Chateaubriand pose the problem in terms of an opposition between concerns of beauty and of faithfulness, and point to faithfulness as the most important criterion to judge the quality of a translation. The ‘révolution dans la manière de traduire’ called for by Chateaubriand may partly be attributed to the impact of the Romantic movement, which, in its focus on individuality and original creation gave more importance to the source text, derivative writing receiving less priority.46 In addition, the Romantic taste and search for the new in content and form gave close translation a privileged role as it chal43 Madame de Staël, ‘De l’esprit des traductions’, in Œuvres, tome 3 (Paris: Lefèvre, 1838), p. 602. 44 Staël clearly refers to the same type of translation as Pichois in the passage quoted earlier. 45 René de Chateaubriand, ‘Remarques’, in Le Paradis perdu (Paris: Belin, 1990) (first publication: 1836). 46 This will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 4.

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lenged the established canons of the age. The translation of Shakespeare is a striking example of this, offering the basis for an opposition to and subsequent replacement of Classical aesthetics. As is shown in Delisle and Woodsworth’s Translators through History, the hybrid nature of many of these translations (Le Tourneur’s and Ducis’, for instance), which combined domesticating impulses with a preservation of the foreign in the source text, facilitated their import into the French literary system: ‘in trying to reconcile the conventional and the innovative, translators often produced an unclassifiable target-language text’, and therefore challenged the target culture’s existing literary forms. 47 The fact that it is specifically with translations from English into French that such a turning point in translating methods and the French literary system was achieved is emphasized by Antoine Berman’s illuminating article on ‘la traduction des œuvres anglaises aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles’. Berman shows the case of translation from English into French as central to an understanding of the issues in translation theory and practice, and, therefore, to be a particularly rich field of study.48 English was the first ‘vulgar’ language to be massively translated into French – this move, from the classics (Greek and Latin) to a modern language and literature, created, according to Berman, a shock in translation approaches. This shock was particularly powerful as translation from English introduced a writing mode entirely foreign to French classical norms.49 The contact between French and English brought on the need for a new way of translating, the ‘révolution dans l’art de traduire’ mentioned by Chateaubriand, which is the result of the ‘rencontre historique avec une langue et une écriture qui ont un statut paradoxal, puisqu’elles se caractérisent pour nous (et pour nous seulement) par leur absolue étrangeté et leur absolue non-étrangeté’. As Berman puts it, ‘la traduction française, au siècle dernier, a son centre de gravité radical dans le domaine

47

Jean Delisle and Judith Woodsworth (eds), Translators through History (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, Unesco Publishing), p. 79. 48 Antoine Berman, ‘La Traduction des œuvres anglaises aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles: un tournant’, Palimpsestes, 6 (1991), 15-21. 49 According to Berman, English is ‘peut-être pour nous [les Français] la plus étrangère (la plus étrange) des langues européennes’ (p. 15). Berman emphasizes the specific duality of the English language, both a communication language and and iconic one, and attributes the French fascination with English to this duality.

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anglais’. 50 The theory and practice of English translation in 19th-century France are, therefore, emblematic of the problematics of translation in general. Within this context, Baudelaire’s choices and experiments are not only interesting from the point of view of his creative technique, but also from the wider point of view of the evolution of translation approaches. These, through contact with the novelty of the English language, gave rise to a range of experiments and innovations, and challenged concepts of originality and creativity, the national and the foreign, and, most importantly of all, definitions of the work of art. As Madame de Staël’s and Chateaubriand’s comments about translation suggest, then, close, source-oriented translations, reflecting the new impulses elaborated above, started appearing, truly producing a translation revolution. As already seen, Baudelaire’s translations of Poe generally follow close translation strategies, their central aim being the faithful restitution of Poe’s text for French readers. And yet, this distinctly source-oriented approach has produced canonical texts, perceived by many as superior to their original, and which have received very little challenge from later translators. So, what makes the Poe translations stand out from other versions? Despite the fact that Baudelaire was the first translator of many of Poe’s tales, there were, in some cases, some prior versions of some of the stories. Baudelaire’s own reliance on Isabelle Meunier’s translation of ‘the Black Cat’ in Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages has already been mentioned, and, as has already been said, it is likely that Baudelaire’s first encounter with Poe was through translation. Comparing those prior translations with Baudelaire’s may enable us to situate his approach and understand its specificity. With spiralling figures of interpretation at its core,51 The Gold Bug seems to be calling for its own translation – and it was, unsurprisingly, among the first texts by Poe to be translated, first appearing in the Revue Britannique in November 1845. Baudelaire’s version appeared for the first time in 1856 in the first volume of the Histoires extraordinaires. Both translations adopt similar strategies: at the most superficial level, it is to be noted that the source author’s name appears clearly, and the nature of the text presented is made very appar50 Berman,

‘La Traduction des œuvres anglaises’, p. 21. The ‘non étrangeté’ mentioned by Berman lies in the presence of French within the English language. 51 ‘The Gold Bug’ belongs to the group of Poe’s stories concerned with the thematics of interpretation, deciphering and translation, where codes have to be cracked and (mis)interpretation is the focus of the narrative.

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ent. In contrast, the name of the translator (Alphonse Borghers) in the Revue Britannique is obscured, appearing as A. B. only; in the case of Baudelaire, however, the fact that the text appeared as part of the Histoires extraordinaires makes the translator’s name quite visible, while at the same time replacing the story within the context of Poe’s works, with all the intertextual implications such a context adds to the reading of the story. In the case of the Revue Britannique, the fact that ‘Le Scarabée d’or’ is published within a generally journalistic environment, as part of a section entitled Miscellanées, tends to deflate the literary value of the text, whereas Baudelaire’s version is far more concerned with Edgar Allan Poe’s worth. As a result, Borghers’ version is freer with the source text than Baudelaire’s: some passages are omitted and others distorted. In the following passage, for example, Borghers omits a sentence and modifies the rhythm of the narration: In the inmost recesses of this coppice, not far from the eastern or more remote end of the island, Legrand had built himself a small hut, which he occupied when I first, by mere accident, made his acquaintance. This soon ripened into friendship – for there was much in the recluse to excite interest and esteem. I found him well educated, with unusual powers of mind, but infected with misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate enthusiasm and melancholy. He had with him many books, but rarely employed them. His chief amusements were gunning and fishing, or sauntering along the beach and through the myrtles, in quest of shells or entomological specimens.52 C’est dans la partie la plus épaisse et la plus retirée de ce bocage, non loin de l’extrémité orientale de l’île, que Legrand s’était construit une petite case, qu’il habitait lorsque notre rencontre accidentelle fut, comme je l’ai dit plus haut, le prélude des relations amicales qui s’établirent bientôt entre nous. Je trouvai en lui un homme instruit, doué d’une rare intelligence, mais enclin à la misanthropie et sujet à des accès alternatifs d’enthousiasme et d’humeur noire. Il avait beaucoup de livres et lisait peu: ses principaux amusements consistaient à tirer des oiseaux et à pêcher, ou bien à flâner sur le rivage et parmi les myrtes, à la recherche de coquillages et surtout d’insectes. (Borghers) Au plus profond de ce taillis, non loin de l’extrémité orientale de l’île, c’est à dire de la plus éloignée, Legrand s’était bâti lui-même une petite hutte, qu’il occupait quand, pour la première fois et par hasard, je fis sa connaissance. Cette connaissance mûrit bien vite en amitié, – car il y avait, certes, dans le cher reclus de quoi exciter l’intérêt et l’estime. Je vis qu’il avait reçu une forte éducation, heureusement servie par des facultés spirituelles peu communes, 52

Poe, p. 449.

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mais qu’il était infecté de misanthropie et sujet à de malheureuses alternatives d’enthousiasme et de mélancolie. Bien qu’il eût chez lui beaucoup de livres, il s’en servait rarement. Ses principaux amusements consistaient à chasser et à pêcher, ou à flâner sur la plage et à travers les myrtes, en quête de coquillages et d’échantillons entomologiques. (Baudelaire)53

Whereas Baudelaire – with the notable exception of the addition of the adjective ‘cher’ in ‘le cher reclus’ – follows the source text almost word for word, combining fidelity and stylistic harmony, Borghers omits part of a sentence (‘for there was much in the recluse to excite interest and esteem’, translated by Baudelaire as ‘car il y avait, certes, dans le cher reclus de quoi exciter l’intérêt et l’estime’), links two sentences (‘C’est dans la partie... entre nous’), and modifies the logic of the text, eliminating the opposition in ‘He had with him many books, but rarely employed them’ (emphasis added), or adding, by the use of the punctuation, an explanatory link where Poe used only juxtaposition, a stylistic feature reproduced by Baudelaire (He had with him many books, but rarely employed them. His chief amusements...’, translated by Borghers as ‘Il avait beaucoup de livres et lisait peu: ses principaux amusements...’, and by Baudelaire as ‘Bien qu’il eût chez lui beaucoup de livres, il s’en servait rarement. Ses principaux amusements...’). Elsewhere, however, Borghers may seem to be closer to the original: his attempt to convey Jupiter’s accent contrasts with Baudelaire’s choice to avoid it. And yet, one could say that Baudelaire’s version does more justice to Poe’s text than Borghers’, even in such passages. For instance, in the passage, already quoted, which plays out a quid pro quo based on Jupiter’s misunderstanding of his master’s language, Borghers omits the pun while Baudelaire points it out: Figurez-vous une créature de la grosseur d’une noix d’hickory,* un corsage d’un magnifique jaune doré, avec deux taches d’un noir de jais près d’une des extrémités du dos, et un autre un peu plus longue à l’extrémité opposée; les antennes... – Et moi répéter à vous, massa Will, interrompit ici Jupiter, carabé être d’or massif, dedans et tout, excepté ailes. *Espèce de noyer d’Amérique, d’un bois très dur. (Borghers)

53

EAP, pp. 77-78

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Il est d’une brillante couleur d’or, – gros à peu près comme une grosse noix – avec deux taches d’un noir de jais à une extrémité du dos, et une troisième, un peu plus allongée, à l’autre. Les antennes sont... – Il n’y a pas du tout d’étain sur lui,* massa Will, je vous le parie, interrompit Jupiter; le scarabée est un scarabée d’or, d’or massif, d’un bout à l’autre, dedans et partout, excepté les ailes. *La prononciation du mot antennae fait commettre une méprise qui croit qu’il est question d’étain: Dey aint no tin in him. Calembour intraduisible. Le nègre parlera toujours dans une espèce de patois anglais, que le patois nègre français n’imiterait pas mieux que le bas-normand ou le breton ne traduirait l’irlandais. (Baudelaire)54

Both translators have added a footnote. But whereas Borghers is concentrating on the word hickory, which introduces local colour into his text, Baudelaire comments on the source text and his translation choices, rejecting Borghers’ choice to try to reproduce Jupiter’s dialect, and bringing the English text to the forefront by quoting it. While Borghers omits the pun totally, Baudelaire scrupulously translates Poe’s text. He attempts a recreation of the pun (étain / antennes does play on similar sounds, as does antennae / tin) and supplements it with explanations where needed. The interest of such explanations is twofold: first, it sheds light on Baudelaire’s translating choices and reveals his meticulous approach to his source text; second, it emphasizes his interaction with Poe’s text, and the form his creativity takes in his direct translations, which aim at a close rendering of the source text while letting his voice resurface in key passages. But maybe, even more importantly, we could argue that Baudelaire’s footnote has an additional effect: that of making him more visible as a translator, emphasizing his role and presence in the French text. Baudelaire’s approach in ‘le Scarabée d’or’ is emblematic of the Poe translations. Compared with a previous version of the same story, Baudelaire’s text proves to be part of a general movement towards source-oriented approaches, but at the same time, it reveals specific characteristics which explain the canonical status given to his translations: the care taken (already noted in the case of ‘le Mystère de Marie Roget’), together with his efforts to produce a coherent whole of Poe’s works in the Histoires extraordinaires and Nouvelles Histoires extraordinaires and his admiration for his author, mean a commitment to the target text which goes much further than the simple presentation of a foreign text for the entertainment of French read54

EAP, pp. 79 and 1098-99.

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ers. That Baudelaire should have subjected his creativity to his source text suggests of course a respect for Poe’s work; it also indicates, given the sheer bulk of direct translations produced by him, his role in the establishment of new translation traditions in France. Just as importantly, it suggests, by contrast with texts such as Un Mangeur d’opium, a choice of translation strategy dependent on the type of source text and the use intended. Creativity and translation are, therefore, closely linked in his corpus, and are to be expected to interact accordingly. As has already been suggested, this interaction is nowhere more complex and varied than in Un Mangeur d’opium. This text is emblematic of both the range of translation approaches chosen by Baudelaire and of the context in which his translations were produced. In addition, because of the unique blend of translation and creation it displays, Un Mangeur d’opium provides a key to the relationship between the two in Baudelaire’s writing technique and a bridge between the translation corpus studied so far and the ‘creative’ corpus. This text will, therefore, be looked at in detail in the next chapter, as illustrating central issues to be explored in the rest of this study.

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3 TRANSLATION AND CREATION IN UN MANGEUR D’OPIUM ‘Analyser ainsi, c’est créer’ VICTOR HUGO1

Although Charles Baudelaire’s association with Thomas De Quincey has often been mentioned, it is only with G.T. Clapton in 1931 and Michèle Staüble-Lipman Wulf in 1976 that more precise analyses of their relationship have been made and that the texts of Baudelaire’s Un Mangeur d’opium and De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and Suspiria de Profundis have been more systematically compared. G.T. Clapton’s conclusion at the end of his study is that ‘la contribution personnelle de Baudelaire, comme il l’a suggéré lui-même, est fort restreinte’.2 Michèle Staüble-Lipman Wulf’s point of view is very similar. In her chapter entitled ‘Méthode de travail et originalité de Baudelaire’, she briefly surveys Baudelaire’s various approaches in his treatment of De Quincey’s text, before asking herself how important Baudelaire’s personal interventions are in Un Mangeur d’opium. Quoting from Baudelaire’s notes for his Belgian conferences in 1864 (‘J’ai fait un tel amalgame que je ne saurais y reconnaître la part qui vient de moi, laquelle, d’ailleurs, ne peut être que fort petite’),3 she writes: ‘L’analyse des réflexions personnelles de Baudelaire montre que “la part qui vient de lui” n’est en effet “que fort petite”’.4 This view of Un Mangeur d’opium as secondary to its original is in 1

Victor Hugo, 19 July 1860, in Lettres à Baudelaire, ed. by Claude Pichois, Études Baudelairiennes IV-V (Neuchâtel: La Baconnière, 1973), pp. 192-93 (p. 192). 2 G. T. Clapton, Baudelaire et De Quincey, p. 116. 3 ŒCI, p. 519. 4 SLW, p. 78.

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fact widespread in Baudelaire studies although it is also always stressed that the excellence of Baudelaire’s version makes Un Mangeur d’opium a great literary work in its own right. StäubleLipman Wulf concludes her chapter on Baudelaire’s methods by stressing the originality of Un Mangeur d’opium: ‘Un Mangeur d’opium est une œuvre personnelle de Baudelaire’;5 Claude Pichois insists on the fact that Baudelaire’s version is ‘un livre français – et classique’ in the same way as Galland’s Mille et Une Nuits is.6 Similarly, Alan Astro argues in ‘Allegory of Translation in Baudelaire’s Un Mangeur d’opium’ that Baudelaire’s handling of De Quincey’s original is disguised translation but also stresses that Baudelaire’s version is ‘a literary work in its own right and thus a symbol for the canonical status that translation confers upon its original’.7 It seems to be rarely disputed that in presenting De Quincey’s autobiography the way he did, Baudelaire made Un Mangeur d’opium part of his own works. Yet the originality of Un Mangeur d’opium lies partly in the ambiguity of its nature and its hybrid structure which are made obvious by the paradoxical views held by critics about this work. Un Mangeur d’opium is seen as a translation (Clapton, Astro), an adaptation (Stäuble-Lipman Wulf), and an analysis (Pichois). The paratext does not resolve this ambiguity: Baudelaire often described Les Paradis artificiels as a ‘traité sur les excitants’, presenting them almost as a a scientific treatise and underlining his own authorship of the work.8 When referring specifically to Un Mangeur d’opium, however, he always acknowledges his debt to De Quincey and tends to minimize his own participation in the work. In a letter to Alphonse de Calonne, he calls it ‘la description d’un livre très compliqué’;9 to Alfred de Vigny he writes: Voici les Paradis auxquels j’ai la faiblesse d’attribuer quelqu’importance. La première partie est entièrement de moi. La seconde est l’analyse du livre de

5

SLW, p. 80. ŒCI, p. 1364. 7 Alan Astro, ‘Allegory of Translation in Baudelaire’s Un Mangeur d’opium’, p . 171. 8 Letter to Victor de Laprade, 23 December 1861, CII, p. 199. 9 10 November 1858, CI, p. 522. 6

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De Quincey, auquel j’ai ajouté par-ci par-là quelques idées qui me sont personnelles, mais avec une grande modestie,10

focusing once more on his debt to De Quincey. Some of his letters and notes suggest, however, much more input on his part than is acknowledged elsewhere. In one of his most significant letters, he emphasizes his creative input in the text: ce n’était pas une petite affaire que de donner à ce résumé une forme dramatique et d’y introduire l’ordre. De plus il s’agissait de fondre mes sensations personnelles avec les opinions de l’auteur original et d’en faire un amalgame dont les parties fussent indiscernables.11

Baudelaire’s ambivalence towards his work and the corresponding critical uncertainty regarding the nature of Un Mangeur d’opium, together with its hybrid structure, make this text a highly problematic one. Compared to the far more straightforward Poe translations, Baudelaire’s work on De Quincey’s autobiography raises central questions about the relationship between creativity and translation, the ownership of discourse and the status of so-called derivative works in the corpus of a creative, canonical writer. Baudelaire, as has been noted, was not the first to tackle the Confessions, and his approach in Un Mangeur d’opium was partly the fruit of the fashion for adaptations of foreign works, in particular English, for a French readership. It would be wrong, however, to see Baudelaire’s text as only a product of its times: the genesis of Un Mangeur d’opium, through the different stages in its composition, points to a greater complexity than its precursors have to offer, and a more problematic relationship to De Quincey’s text. Un Mangeur d’opium was first published in La Revue contemporaine under the title of ‘Enchantements et tortures d’un mangeur d’opium’ on 15 and 31 January 1860 before becoming part of Paradis artificiels at the end of May 1860. Baudelaire’s initial project seems to have been an article on opium, as a letter to Auguste Poulet-Malassis suggests:

10 11

Around 16 December 1861, CII, p. 195. Letter to Auguste Poulet-Malassis, 16 February 1860, CI, p. 669.

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This first mention in Baudelaire’s letters of a study on opium is soon followed by a letter to Madame Aupick (9 July 1857) in which the project has undergone revision. After announcing les Confessions du mangeur d’opium as one of his projects, he goes on to explain: Le mangeur d’opium est une nouvelle traduction d’un auteur magnifique, inconnu à Paris. C’est pour Le Moniteur.13

Yet, as the director of Le Moniteur, Julien Turgan, hesitated to publish the translation (‘au Moniteur on résiste, la bizarrerie de l’ouvrage les épouvante’),14 the project was modified in 1858 to satisfy Alphonse de Calonne (director of La Revue contemporaine) who had agreed to publish it. The translation being too long to be published entirely in La Revue contemporaine, Baudelaire had to adapt his work to its new medium, and from then on, Un Mangeur d’opium was no more described as a translation, but rather as a summary: Je vous assure que ce n’était pas une chose facile que d’enfermer dans un PETIT espace la description d’un livre très compliqué et sans omettre aucune nuance.15

Baudelaire’s three successive projects explain partly the complex structure of Un Mangeur d’opium: the blend of analysis, reflection, summaries, paraphrases and quotations it offers is in fact a combination of initially separate intentions. Baudelaire’s varying focuses make Un Mangeur d’opium all at the same time an ‘article’, a ‘translation’ and a ‘description’ of De Quincey’s autobiography. The process of rewriting that the genesis of Un Mangeur d’opium implies (an article modified into a translation, itself modified into a summary) brings to mind the image of a palimpsest made up of the different stages in Baudelaire’s creativity. The 12 13 14 15

18 March 1857, CI, p. 385. CI, p. 418. Letter to Madame Aupick, 13 May 1858, CI, p. 495. Letter to Alphonse de Calonne, 10 November 1858, CI, p. 522.

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bottom layer is the article he intended to write on opium, and includes his own ideas on the subject plus perhaps a first impression of De Quincey’s experience through his autobiographical writings. On top of that layer rests a literal translation of the Confessions. Over this is the summary written for La Revue contemporaine under the title of ‘Enchantements et tortures d’un mangeur d’opium’, which includes elements of the first two levels and additions made necessary by the new project (it is only at that stage that the part based on the Suspiria was introduced). Matters are made even more complex by Baudelaire’s parallel project to publish the ‘Enchantements...’ in book form, together with ‘De l’Idéal artificiel – le hachisch’, previously published in La Revue contemporaine on 30 september 1858. Il est indispensable que nous fassions aussi une brochure: L’opium et le haschisch; en sous titre: L’idéal artificiel; brochure composée de cinq feuilles de la Revue contemporaine, presque un livre. Nous sommes sûrs de la vente d’une telle brochure16

This project was successfully carried through in collaboration with Auguste Poulet-Malassis in May 1860: Les Paradis artificiels (with ‘Opium et hachisch’ as a subtitle) included Le Poëme du hachisch and Un Mangeur d’opium – and formed the uppermost layer of Baudelaire’s creative palimpsest. The shift in title is also significant. From ‘De l’Idéal artificiel – le haschisch’ to Le Poème du hachisch, there is a distinct move from a treatise-like title to a poetic approach. This poetic transformation of the title of the first part of Les Paradis artificiels is echoed by the suppression of the original subtitle to ‘Enchantements...’ (i.e. the full titles of De Quincey’s two texts), which erase all direct mention of the English text from the paratext, and the new title Un Mangeur d’opium which focuses more on the character of the opium-eater than on his experiences with opium (although the latter remain of course a crucial component of Un Mangeur d’opium). With this shift, Baudelaire effectively claims ownership over the text, first by erasing the hypotext from the title, and, secondly, by emphasizing its belonging to the artificial paradises diptych. The shortening of the two titles also has the effect of em16

Letter to Auguste Poulet-Malassis, 29 April 1859, CI, pp. 566-68.

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phasizing the words ‘hachisch’ and ‘opium’, clearly linking the two texts together. This link is further emphasized in the opening section of Le Poème du hachisch (‘Le Goût de l’infini’) where Baudelaire makes the common purpose of the two texts explicit. After noting the similarities between opium and hachisch in the search for the idéal artificiel, Baudelaire announces his purpose as l’analyse des effets mystérieux et des jouissances morbides que peuvent engendrer ces drogues, des châtiments inévitables qui résultent de leur usage prolongé, et enfin de l’immoralité même impliquée dans cette poursuite d’un faux idéal,

before announcing Un Mangeur d’opium by saying that le travail sur l’opium a été fait, d’une manière si éclatante, médicale et poétique à la fois, que je n’oserais rien y ajouter. Je me contenterai donc, dans une autre étude, de donner l’analyse de ce livre incomparable qui n’a jamais été traduit en France dans sa totalité,17

and then turning to his current purpose (‘aujourd’hui, je ne parlerai que du hachisch’). Baudelaire’s playing down of his involvement with De Quincey’s text (‘je n’oserais rien y ajouter’), should not be taken at face value, therefore. Instead it should be read in the context of his transplantation of his hypotext within the Paradis artificiels, to fit his own literary purpose. Baudelaire does in fact ‘add’ quite a lot to De Quincey’s text, as will be demonstrated by a study of the different components of Un Mangeur d’opium (direct translation, paraphrase, summaries and authorial interventions). The very structure of Un Mangeur d’opium makes it impossible to describe this work as plain translation. There are, however, many passages in the text which are in fact directly translated from De Quincey’s autobiography, and presented as direct quotations. The material reason for the large proportion of quotation in Un Mangeur d’opium has already been mentioned: while complying with Calonne’s wish, Baudelaire kept as close as possible to his initial aim simply to translate De Quincey’s Confessions. Similarly, the relative brevity of Baudelaire’s treatment of the Suspiria de Profundis can be explained by the fact that, refusing to reduce even more the length of the part based on the Confessions, Baudelaire 17

ŒCI, pp. 403-04.

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agreed to offer a shortened version for the Suspiria. This he achieved by omitting the second part of De Quincey’s work and by reducing his own interventions to a minimum while quoting De Quincey’s words as much as possible. Yet, however great the role played by material conditions in the structure of Un Mangeur d’opium, Baudelaire seems to have also had deeper motives. His own appreciation of De Quincey’s art played against the unabridged translation of his works. J’abrègerai sans doute beaucoup; De Quincey est essentiellement digressif; l’expression humourist peut lui être appliquée plus convenablement qu’à tout autre; il compare, en un endroit, sa pensée à un thyrse, simple bâton qui tire toute sa physionomie et tout son charme du feuillage compliqué qui l’enveloppe.18

This refusal of digression is expressed in stronger terms in a letter to Auguste Poulet-Malassis in February 1860: De Quincey est un auteur affreusement conversationniste et digressionniste, et ce n’était pas une petite affaire que de donner à ce résumé une forme dramatique et d’y introduire de l’ordre.19

This view was expressed after Un Mangeur d’opium had been published and can be seen as a justification of the structure of the finished book. Yet it also confirms that the form of Un Mangeur d’opium, although originally made necessary for material reasons, seemed aesthetically valid to Baudelaire: it results from his reflection on De Quincey’s art and style, and emphasizes his own creative input. However critical Baudelaire may have been of De Quincey’s style, he still cited extensively a large proportion of quotations in his analysis. It has already been pointed out that this may have been a consequence of his initial plan just to translate the Confessions, but Baudelaire’s justifications throughout Un Mangeur d’opium are of an aesthetic nature. Le morceau suivant est un de ceux que je ne peux pas me résigner à abréger. Il est bon d’ailleurs que le lecteur puisse de temps en temps goûter par lui même la manière pénétrante et féminine de l’auteur.20 18

ŒCI, p. 444. Letter to Auguste Poulet-Malassis, 16 February 1860, CI, p. 669. 20 ŒCI, p. 447. 19

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Such statements may, in part, be aimed at Alphonse de Calonne in order to prevent any objections he might have to lengthy quotations. They also show that quotations are a crucial component of the analysis. Their beauty cannot be summarized, and the reader needs to feel first-hand the quality of De Quincey’s prose. They also have another effect. De Quincey’s direct interventions within the summary of his own experience give more life and pace to Un Mangeur d’opium, and this method is highly reminiscent of the structure of Le Poème du hachisch, which Baudelaire justifies as follows in the last paragraph of ‘Le goût de l’infini’: Aujourd’hui, je ne parlerai que du hachisch, et j’en parlerai suivant des renseignements nombreux et minutieux, extraits des notes ou des confidences d’hommes intelligents qui s’y étaient adonnés longtemps. Seulement, je fondrai ces documents variés en une sorte de monographie, choisissant une âme, facile d’ailleurs à expliquer et à définir, comme type propre aux expériences de cette nature.24

This typical soul is described further on in terms which announce the opium eater: Pour idéaliser mon sujet, je dois en concentrer tous les rayons dans un cercle unique, je dois les polariser; et le cercle tragique où je les vais rassembler sera, comme je l’ai dit, une âme de mon choix, quelque chose d’analogue à ce que le XVIIIe siècle appelait l’homme sensible, à ce que

21

ŒCI, ŒCI, 23 ŒCI, 24 ŒCI, 22

p. p. p. p.

468. 484. 513. 404.

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l’école romantique nommait l’homme incompris, et à ce que les familles et la masse bourgeoise flétrissent généralement de l’épithète d’original.25

This ‘homme sensible’ and ‘incompris’ is clearly the opiumeater’s brother. In Un Mangeur d’opium, the source author is, indeed, presented in almost exactly the same terms: quel sera l’effet [de l’opium] sur un esprit subtil et lettré, sur une imagination ardente et cultivée surtout si elle a été prématurément labourée par la fertilisante douleur, – sur un cerveau marqué par la rêverie fatale, touched with pensiveness, pour me servir de l’étonnante expression de mon auteur?26

which is echoed, in the conclusion, by: je dois me souvenir que le but de ce travail était de montrer, par un exemple, les effets de l’opium sur un esprit méditatif et enclin à la rêverie.27

In short, De Quincey fulfils the same textual function as the imaginary subject in Le Poème du hachisch. Baudelaire has only one source, but De Quincey plays the same role as the many ‘witnesses’ summoned in Le Poème du hachisch: he is the exemplary soul, an archetype particularly sensitive to opium. Baudelaire’s admiration for the poetic quality of De Quincey’s visions, together with the decision to see in De Quincey an emblematic opium-eater, incites him to withdraw and let his author speak for himself, expanding on the structure used in Le Poème du hachisch. This very similarity between the two works points to a more complex handling of quoted text than may appear at first, however. The parallel between the fictional hachischin presented in the Poème and the real opiumeater of the second section of the Paradis suggests that the border between the imaginary and the real is flexible, and that the opiumeater may well be as much a Baudelairean creation as his hachisch counterpart, resulting from a similar process of ‘idealisation’. Thus the large number of quotations in Un Mangeur d’opium does not obscure Baudelaire’s presence, which, as will now be seen, makes itself felt strongly even in passages where he apparently lets his author speak for himself without intervention. 25

ŒCI, p. 429. ŒCI, p. 444. 27 ŒCI, p. 515. 26

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This presence appears, for example, in the translation choices made by Baudelaire, who was an experienced translator when he tackled De Quincey’s text (he had published most of his translations of Edgar Allan Poe’s works). The passages already quoted above clearly indicate Baudelaire’s admiration for the beauty of De Quincey’s style. In addition, his fascination with the English language is well known, and expressed once more in Un Mangeur d’opium in a remark on the difficulties he is encountering as a translator: ‘Je désespère de rendre convenablement la magie du style anglais.’28 This love for the language can also be glimpsed in the many English words which sprinkle the French text. In ‘Précautions oratoires’, for instance, Baudelaire’s prose blends English and French harmoniously, creating a sense of ‘local colour’ and foreignizing the target text, but also commenting on it: (…) car l’abaissement des salaires peut faire de l’ale et des spiritueux une orgie coûteuse; (…) sur un cerveau marqué par la rêverie fatale, touched with pensiveness, pour me servir de l’étonnante expression de mon auteur.29

Baudelaire’s admiration for the English language also manifests itself in word for word translations of English phrases, as for instance in ‘Confessions Préliminaires’: Quel est l’homme nerveux qui ne connaît pas ce sommeil de chien, comme dit la langue anglaise dans son elliptique énergie?30

This modest attitude is contradicted by Baudelaire’s boasting in a letter to Alphonse de Calonne about the second part of the Suspiria de Profundis: ‘Cette partie là n’a jamais été traduite, pour cette raison bien simple qu’elle est intraduisible. Moi seul, je puis me jouer dans de telles difficultés.’31 These alternating attitudes (modesty and boasting) sum up Baudelaire’s attitude to his source text: humble fidelity to the original text and extreme accuracy – most noted in the Poe translations, but also in the direct quotations of Un Mangeur d’opium – combined with free poetic adaptation, as ex28

ŒCI, p. 488. ŒCI, p. 444. 30 ŒCI, p. 454. 31 Letter to Alphonse de Calonne, 15 December 1859, CI, p. 631. 29

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emplified by the transformations achieved on De Quincey’s text. There are numerous instances of Baudelaire’s literal rendering of De Quincey’s words and style. The very first paragraph of Un Mangeur d’opium is exemplary, exactly following De Quincey’s original text (last paragraph of ‘The Pleasures of Opium’):32 vocabulary and syntax are often word for word the same. This calque occurs regularly throughout Un Mangeur d’opium in many of the quotations. Yet a close study of such seemingly close passages soon shows that Baudelaire, while remaining true to the English text, adapts his translation to the nature of the French language as he does in the Poe translations. The changes involved range from basic syntactical modifications to elaborate tranpositions of images and other stylistic devices. In the first lines of Un Mangeur d’opium, Baudelaire’s highly poetic rendering of the English ‘From the anarchy of dreaming sleep’ (‘Et du chaos d’un sommeil plein de songes’) adapts the poetry of the English original to the French language. The choice of the words songe and chaos compensates for the apparent flatness – compared to the English original – of ‘plein de’. A more striking example of this is Baudelaire’s translation, in ‘Confessions préliminaires’, of ‘drest in earliest light’: ‘Parées des premières lueurs.’33 Here Baudelaire abandons the archaism but successfully keeps the alliteration that is the main poetic element of the original. Both versions contain the liquid sound [l], but while the English phrase repeats the sounds [s] and [t], its French translation uses the sounds [p] and [r]. As a consequence, although using different elements, both versions have comparable imagery, sounds and rhythm. This point is even more apparent in the translation of the narration of De Quincey’s escape from school, still in ‘Confessions préliminaires’:34 The groom was in the utmost alarm, both on his account and on mine: but, in spite of this, so irresistibly had the sense of the ludicrous, in this unhappy contretems [sic], taken possession of his fancy, that he sang out a long, loud, and canorous peal of laughter, that might have wakened the Seven Sleepers. At the sound of his resonant merriment, within the very ears of insulted authority, I could not myself forbear joining in it. 32

SLW, pp. 101 and 163. SLW, p. 113; ŒCI, p. 447. 34 SLW, p. 117; ŒCI, pp. 449-50. 33

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Alchemy and Amalgam Le groom était dans une frayeur horrible pour son propre compte et pour le mien; mais en dépit de tout cela, le sentiment du comique s’était, dans ce malheureux contretemps, si irrésistiblement emparé de son esprit, qu’il éclata de rire, – mais d’un rire prolongé, étourdissant, à toute volée, qui aurait réveillé les Sept Dormants. Aux sons de cette musique de gaieté, qui résonnait aux oreilles mêmes de l’autorité insultée, je ne pus m’empêcher de joindre la mienne.

The phrase ‘he sang out a long, loud, and canorous peal of laughter’ contains strong musical imagery: sang and canorous are reinforced by peal of laughter, which combines the image of a chime and that of an outburst of laughter. While rendering the idea of the chime with the phrase à toute volée, Baudelaire’s version of the same sentence seems to lose most of the musical imagery; but the following sentence reestablishes the balance by translating merriment by musique de gaieté, and resonant as the principal verb of the next clause. Baudelaire’s rendering of the last sentence of the description of one of De Quincey’s visions in ‘The Pains of Opium’ is also interesting: ‘my agitation was infinite,– my mind tossed – and surged with the ocean’ becomes ‘mon agitation devint infinie, et mon esprit bondit et roula comme les lames de l’Océan’.35 Here Baudelaire transforms the metaphor created by the words tossed and surged into an explicit comparison.36 Respecting the constraints of the French language, Baudelaire’s version often reshuffles the distribution of images within the text, but ends up very close to the original, as much from the point of view of the meaning as from the point of view of the style and the imagery. His text is a translation in the true sense of the word: a transposition of all the nuances of the English original into the French language. Baudelaire’s creativity appears, therefore, in his close translation strategies, as is the case with Poe’s stories. But there is more. Besides such neutrality, many passages reveal differences suggesting a deeper intervention on Baudelaire’s part. One of the first indications of this clearly lies in his very choice of quotations. The decision to omit certain passages and to summarize, paraphrase, or quote others is motivated by Baude35

SLW, p. 191; ŒCI, p. 483. Baudelaire’s fondness for comparisons introduced by ‘comme’ in his poetry i s well known. 36

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laire’s own critical appreciation of the English text and his own artistic purpose. This becomes even more evident if one takes into account the fact that Baudelaire also reshapes the Confessions and the Suspiria by redistributing De Quincey’s text within his own according to his own literary aim. The first paragraph of Un Mangeur d’opium, for instance, is not the translation of the beginning of the Confessions, but, on the contrary, the conclusion of ‘The Pleasures of Opium’. By choosing to translate this passage first, Baudelaire implicitly reveals his own view of it: these lines are representative of De Quincey’s style and impassioned prose as he called it, they also clearly state what the main subject matter is and the point of view adopted by De Quincey, and they are sufficiently catchy to attract the reader’s attention. Baudelaire therefore subverts the role of this passage, which in the Confessions was the last praise of opium before the description of the ‘Pains of Opium’, to fit his own introduction to De Quincey. His manipulation of the passage does not stop here. Acknowledging the structural importance of the passage within the Confessions, Baudelaire he repeats the first and last sentences of the paragraph at the end of his ‘Voluptés de l’Opium’, making them a leitmotiv for the whole section and justifying his choice: «Ô juste, subtil et puissant opium!... tu possèdes les clefs du paradis!...» C’est ici que se dressent ces étranges actions de grâces, élancements de la reconnaissance, que j’ai rapportées textuellement au début de ce travail, et qui pourraient lui servir d’épigraphe. C’est comme le bouquet qui termine la fête. Car bientôt le décor va s’assombrir, et les tempêtes s’amoncelleront dans la nuit.37

Such a method is recurrent throughout Un Mangeur d’opium, in different forms. In other instances, it is the internal structure of the quotation that is modified by Baudelaire. This occurs very frequently, in particular whenever Baudelaire omits a part of the quotation, thus operating a selection on what is worth rendering and what is not in the context of his own purpose. Such omissions range from a single word or clause to whole sentences or even paragraphs. Most small omissions seem motivated by Baudelaire’s desire to lighten De Quincey’s digressive style. This is the case in his treatment of the following sentence: 37

ŒCI, p. 471.

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Alchemy and Amalgam The issue was not death, but a sort of physical regeneration: and I may add, that ever since, at intervals, I have had a restoration of more than youthful spirits, though under the pressure of difficulties, which, in a less happy state of mind, I should have called misfortunes.38

Here Baudelaire keeps only the first part (‘Le résultat ne fut pas la mort, mais une sorte de renaissance physique...’), before translating the subsequent sentences.39 This method is pushed to the extreme in some passages where Baudelaire’s version is a lace of extracts from De Quincey’s – with large gaps. The quotations from the Suspiria, and in particular ‘Levana et nos Notre-Dame des tristesses’ are most representative. Some of the many excisions made by Baudelaire are recognisable by the many suspension points that sprinkle the text, especially in the description of ‘Notre-Dame des Soupirs’: Baudelaire chooses to omit very large parts of De Quincey’s text, which is largely made of enumerations.40 The list of the people ‘visited’ by Our Lady of Sighs is drastically shortened by Baudelaire who retains only the most representative ones and omits the longer descriptions. This obviously shortens the quotation – and we know that this was one of Baudelaire’s imperatives in the part based on the Suspiria – but it also has an effect on the overall style of the text. In omitting ‘Murmur she may, but it is in her sleep. Whisper she may, but it is to herself in the twighlight’, but still translating the following sentence (‘Mutter she does at times...’), Baudelaire avoids a repetition of the same idea, but also chooses to lose the effect produced by the repetition of the same structure in the English text. Here, Baudelaire’s intervenes on De Quincey’s style. The opening paragraph of Un Mangeur d’opium, addressed to opium, provides a further example of such tendency: that with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath; and t o the guilty man, for one night givest back the hopes of his youth, and hand washed pure from blood; and to the proud man, a brief oblivion (...)

38

SLW, p. 209. ŒCI, p. 492. The suspension points indicate the gap in Baudelaire’s translation. 40 ŒCI, p. 510; SLW, p. 251. 39

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toi qui, par ta puissante rhétorique, désarmes les résolutions de la rage, et qui, pour une nuit, rends à l’homme coupable les espérances de sa jeunesse et ses anciennes mains pures de sang; qui, à l’homme orgueilleux, donnes un oubli passager (...)41

Where De Quincey repeats the same grammatical structure, Baudelaire chooses to invert the structures: the result is in De Quincey’s text a repetitive rhythm, which Baudelaire break,s producing, in the process, a chiasmus (‘qui (...) rends à l’homme’ / ‘qui, à l’homme orgueilleux, donnes’). The presence of Baudelaire’s subjectivity is also sometimes apparent in his choice of vocabulary. In the same passage, his translation adds both nuances and poetry to De Quincey’s original. ‘That with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath’ becomes ‘toi qui, par ta puissante rhétorique, désarmes les résolutions de la rage’: Baudelaire’s version discards the archaism and the idea of stealth and adds a more violent nuance with ‘désarmes’. Further on, his translation of ‘suffering innocence’ by ‘innocence immolée’ adds poetry and a strengthens the nuance of sacrifice that was only slightly implied by the original ‘suffering’.42 Similarly, his translation of ‘a boy, so passionately fond of books, and dedicated to intellectual pursuits’ by ‘un garçon comme moi, amoureux des livres, adonné aux recherches de l’esprit’ alludes somehow to drugs, and therefore opium, with ‘adonné’, something which was not in De Quincey’s text. 43 Baudelaire is in fact adding a brushstroke to the characterization of De Quincey by showing him as prone to addiction, whether intellectual or physical. ‘Both these parts of my lighter reading, having furnished me often with matter of reflection, now furnished me with matter for my dreams’ becomes ‘Ces deux parties de mes lectures de loisir, ayant souvent fourni matière à mes réflexions, fournissaient maintenant une pâture à mes rêves’.44 Baudelaire rewrites De Quincey’s sentence, avoiding the repetition of the word ‘matter’ (but retaining that of ‘furnish’) and replacing it with a highly suggestive metaphor that implies an inescapable tyranny of the dreams which is close to the themes of his own poetry. In other instances, Baudelaire’s inter41

SLW, p. 101; ŒCI, p. 442. ŒCI, p. 442. 43 SLW, p. 115; ŒCI, p. 448. 44 SLW, p. 187; ŒCI, p. 482. 42

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vention reveals itself in the adding of words or phrases that were not in the original text. Such additions range from more emphasis in the quotations (as in ‘J’étais forcé de vivre avec lui, hélas!’, to quote only one example of this type) 45 to the development or even introduction of new ideas or images. Elsewhere, ‘Over every form, and threat, and punishment and dim sightless incarceration, brooded a sense of eternity and infinity that drove me into an oppression as of madness’ is translated by Baudelaire as ‘Sur chaque être, sur chaque forme, sur chaque menace, punition, incarcération ténébreuse, planait un sentiment d’éternité et d’infini qui me causait l’angoisse et l’oppression de la folie.’46 The closeness of this sentence to Baudelairean themes is emphasized by his choice of vocabulary: ‘éternité et infini’ are close renderings of ‘eternity and infinity’ but sound distinctly Baudelairean, an impression which is strengthened by phrases such as ‘incarcération ténébreuse’, ‘l’angoisse et l’oppression de la folie’, which, although obviously based on the English text, develop and Baudelairize it. Indeed, while ‘sightless’ conveys the notion of darkness as an absence of sight, ‘ténébreuse’, a very Baudelairean term, has more sinister connotations.47 The phrase ‘l’angoisse et l’oppression de la folie’, by erasing the comparison of ‘an oppression as of madness’ and adding the notion of anguish only implied in the source text, strengthens the impact of phrase. Similarly, the rendering of ‘The morning came, which was to launch me into the world’ by ‘Le matin arriva, où je devais me lancer sur la mer du monde’ also reveals Baudelaire’s intervention with the addition of the metaphor, only implied in ‘launch’.48 The intrusion of Baudelaire’s own poetic concerns also appears in ‘et à la fin, avec le sentiment que tout était perdu, paraissaient des formes de femmes, des visages que j’aurais voulu reconnaître, au prix du monde entier, et que je ne pouvais entrevoir qu’un seul instant’ which is reminiscent of ‘ À une passante’ in Les Fleurs du Mal.49 These few examples (among 45

ŒCI, p. 486 (emphasis added). SLW, p. 195; ŒCI, pp. 485-86. 47 The words ‘ténèbres’ and ‘ténébreux/se(s)’ are extremely frequent in Baudelaire’s works – examples of Baudelaire’s uses of the terms may be found in ‘Au Lecteur’ (ŒCI, p. 5), ‘Correspondances’ (ŒCI, p. 11), ‘J’aime le souvenir...’ (ŒCI, p. 12), ‘Bohémiens en voyages’ (ŒCI, p. 18), ‘L’Homme et la mer’ (ŒCI, p. 19). 48 SLW, p. 113; ŒCI, p. 447. 49 ŒCI, pp. 488, 92-93. 46

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many) of small textual changes operated by Baudelaire are symptomatic of a wider phenomenon: his tendency to blend his own subjectivity and De Quincey’s by rewriting De Quincey’s quotations. Another indication of this rewriting may be found in Baudelaire’s widespread habit of inverting De Quincey’s word order, in enumerations for instance. Sometimes such changes may seem dictated by euphonic reasons, as when ‘secure and deep’ becomes ‘profonde et assurée’, which avoids a hiatus. However, this is contradicted by most other instances, as for instance ‘inquiet et instable’ for ‘restless and unquiet’. Such inversions seem too frequent to be attributed to chance. They may be a sign of Baudelaire’s tendency to appropriate De Quincey’s prose. This appears also in the way the quotation signs within the English text are often omitted in the French text and thus blended with it. Such a change, however small, is at very least evidence of Baudelaire’s rewriting of De Quincey’s prose. Even more significant is Baudelaire’s handling of tenses. In the English text, some of the descriptions of De Quincey’s dreams under the influence of opium are extracts from his diaries, and, therefore, written in the present tense. Thus, the sequence of the Malay dream starts as: ‘I have been every night, through his means, transported into Asiatic scenes’.50 By translating it in the past tense (‘J’étais chaque nuit transporté par cet homme au milieu de tableaux asiatiques’), Baudelaire presents the passage as memories of a past experience described a posteriori, and thereby changes the tone. He reverses the operation further on, when the past tense used by De Quincey becomes a present tense in his text: ‘The dream commenced with a music which now I often heard in my dreams’ is definitely the description of a past event, with no implication of any link with the present, while Baudelaire’s translation ‘Le rêve commençait dans une musique que j’entends souvent dans mes rêves’ suggests such a link, possibly resulting from a contamination with ‘now’ in the source text.51 Thus, through the use of tenses, Baudelaire has modified De Quincey’s text. The above examples are only the tip of the iceberg. Baudelaire’s rewriting of De Quincey’s prose leads him to a more thor50 51

SLW, p. 191; ŒCI, p. 484. SLW, p. 200; ŒCI, p. 488.

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ough blending of his own poetry with De Quincey’s. ‘Le palimpseste’ in ‘Visions d’Oxford’ seems particularly representative: this section reproduces only a shortened and modified version of the last two pages of De Quincey’s corresponding ‘Palimpsest’. Baudelaire’s manipulation culminates in the last paragraph of the section, where elements from De Quincey’s text are completely redistributed and blended with Baudelaire’s additions: The bewildering romance, light tarnished with darkness, the semi fabulous legend, truth celestial mixed with human falsehoods, these fade even of themselves as life advances. The romance has perished that the young man adored; the legend has gone that deluded the boy; but the deep, deep tragedies of infancy, as when the child’s hands were unlinked for ever from his mother’s neck, or his lips for ever from his sister’s kisses, these remain lurking below all, and these lurk to the last. À mesure que l’être humain avance dans la vie, le roman qui, jeune homme, l’éblouissait, la légende fabuleuse qui enfant le séduisait, se fanent et s’obscurcissent d’eux-mêmes. Mais les profondes tragédies de l’enfance, – bras d’enfants arrachés à tout jamais du cou de leurs mères, lèvres d’enfants séparées à jamais des baisers de leurs sœurs – vivent toujours cachées, sous les autres légendes du palimpseste. 52

Baudelaire’s sentence not only draws from the passage which it is supposed to translate (from ‘The legend’ to ‘the last’), but also from the preceding sentences: ‘À mesure que l’être humain avance dans la vie’ is loosely based on ‘as life advances’, ‘l’éblouissait’ on ‘bewildering’, ‘la légende fabuleuse’ on ‘the semi-fabulous legend’, ‘se fanent et s’obscurcissent d’elles mêmes’ on ‘fade even of themselves’, while many elements belong to Baudelaire. It is quite appropriate, therefore, that such a method should be applied in a paragraph on the theme of the palimpsest, the target text building on, but transforming, the source text. To conclude this study of direct quotations in Baudelaire’s text, one can say that even in the translations from the Confessions and Suspiria which by nature could be expected to be neutral and a clear indication of Baudelaire’s submission and faithfulness to his original, there is a clear sign of his appropriation of De Quincey’s text. As seen above, his very choice of the passages to be quoted, his ‘cutting and pasting’ of De Quincey’s prose, his personal addi52

SLW, p. 246; ŒCI, p. 507.

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tions and the intrusion of his own vocabulary in those quotations point to the presence of his subjectivity even within what is presented as direct translation, and, therefore, as devoid of subjectivity. That this should be the case suggests that the appropriation of De Quincey’s text, already noticeable in the quotations, is even clearer in the other forms of presentation of the Confessions and Suspiria, which allow a greater blending of source and target authors’ sensitivities. Baudelaire’s handling of quotations is indeed symptomatic of his need to restructure De Quincey’s text in order to suit his own aesthetic purpose. In the following passages, some of which have already been quoted above, Baudelaire insists on the guiding principles of his approach: (...) c’est d’un autre ton que le Haschisch; c’est plus abandonné (en apparence) et plus saccadé. Les détails biographiques occupent une bonne place; mais, outre qu’ils sont amusants, ils étaient nécessaires pour servir de clef à la fantasmagorie tout individuelle de l’Opium. Espérons que M. de Quincey adressera une belle lettre de remerciements à votre journal.53 Vous serez satisfait de l’Opium; ce sera brillant et dramatique.54 De Quincey est un auteur affreusement conversationniste et digressionniste, et ce n’était pas une petite affaire que de donner à ce résumé une forme dramatique et d’y introduire l’ordre.55

‘Saccadé’, ‘dramatique’, ‘ordre’: the idea of a strong rhythm and structure to his presentation of De Quincey’s autobiography seems to have been paramount to the conception of Un Mangeur d’opium. It is moreover interesting to note, in the first of the above quotations, the parenthesis en apparence: the sense of easy flow and carefree rendering of the original text which is conveyed by Un Mangeur d’opium is in fact shown to be the result of strong manipulations of the text. Baudelaire’s concern about the physiognomy of his work is another sign of his own involvement in the structure of Un Mangeur d’opium:

53 54 55

Letter to Alphonse de Calonne, 10 November 1858, CI, p. 522. Letter to Auguste Poulet-Malassis, 1 May 1859, CI, p. 569. Letter to Auguste Poulet-Malassis, 16 February 1860, CI, p. 669.

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The recurrence of the possessive (‘mon opium’, ‘mon livre’) points to a shift in the authorship of the text, the translator / adaptor taking possession of the source text. Baudelaire’s desire to introduce order and rigour in his account of De Quincey’s text (perceived as digressive) and the use of the term dramatic to describe the intended result suggest a distinctly different focus in the text. While the digressions are at the core of De Quincey’s text, and contribute heavily to its philosophical dimension, Baudelaire’s attempts to ‘dramatize’ the autobiography emphasize his interest in the narrative dimension of the text. The author of the autobiography is brought to life: the large number of quotations and, as a consequence, the presence of De Quincey’s voice, in Baudelaire’s text could be seen as a dramatic element in the pure sense of the word. From this point of view, despite Baudelaire’s effort to differentiate Un Mangeur d’opium from Le Poème du hachisch, the similarities between the two texts are striking: as already noted, both texts present an emblematic subject’s experience with drugs, and the fictionalization started with the titular shift from ‘Enchantements’ to Un Mangeur d’opium is further achieved within the text, through Baudelaire’s strategies to refer to his source author. De Quincey is indeed often referred to as a fictional character: ‘le jeune homme’, ‘notre aventureux jeune homme’, ‘notre écolier’, ‘notre jeune vagabond’, ‘notre héros (certes il mérite bien ce titre)’.59 It is only in the context of the experience of opium and the opium dreams Baudelaire calls him ‘le mangeur d’opium’.60 This is not to say that his authorial dimension is completely masked – he is also referred to as ‘l’auteur’, ‘notre auteur’:61 this emphasizes 56 57 58 59 60 61

Letter to Madame Aupick, 11 December 1858, CI, p. 532. Letter to Auguste Poulet-Malassis, 16 February 1860, CI, p. 669. Letter to Madame Aupick, 18 May 1860, CII, p. 48. Pp. 446, 446, 450, 472. Pp. 445, 477, 490. Pp. 452, 464, 466, 481, 488, 490.

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the duality of his function in the English text, both narrator and hero of his own autobiography. The shift from biography to fiction can also be felt in sections of Un Mangeur d’opium where Baudelaire’s voice makes itself stronger and comments on the text – this is the case in ‘Un faux dénouement’, which disputes the verisimilitude of De Quincey’s autobiography, and therefore judges this work (or at least parts of it) as a piece of fiction, using terms which emphasize this dimension. Baudelaire hesitates momentarily on the real nature of his source text, wondering whether it is a ‘confession véridique ou pure conception de l’esprit’, and, while emphasizing his opinion that De Quincey’s Confessions are authentically autobiographical, he also questions their verisimilitude, arguing that their denouement seems ‘artificiel’, and might well be ‘une invention’.62 This sense of illusion is reinforced by the description of the narrative of Un Mangeur d’opium as the ‘tapisserie fantastique’ of De Quincey’s life, the phrase echoing ‘Le Théâtre de Séraphin’ in Le Poème du hachisch in its emphasis on the idea of representation or visualization. This echo is made particularly potent by the recurrence, in Un Mangeur d’opium, of theatrical metaphors already noted in Chapter 2.63 More importantly, the ‘dramatic tension’ announced by Baudelaire as central to his work on De Quincey’s autobiography may be felt in the narrative reordering of the source text. If De Quincey is considered as the ‘hero’ of his own story, if this story is re-told by Baudelaire, then De Quincey’s autobiography becomes the raw material of Baudelaire’s own ‘narrative’. De Quincey’s prose can thus be seen as a discourse quoted, summarized, paraphrased and commented on by Baudelaire treating De Quincey’s text in the same way as a narrator might treat his / her own characters’ speech. In fact, Baudelaire’s manipulations of De Quincey’s text fit in very easily with Gérard Genette’s categories of speech presentation outlined in ‘Discours du récit’: De Quincey’s text, or speech, appears in turn as ‘discours narrativisé, ou raconté’, ‘discours transposé’, and ‘discours rapporté, de type

62

ŒCI, pp. 490, 494, 491. See, for instance, ‘le rideau ne se relèvera que sur la plus étonnante, la plus compliquée et la plus splendide vision...’(p. 464). See also, p. 471: ‘Car bientôt le décor va s’assombrir.…’.

63

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dramatique’.64 Baudelaire alternates indeed between these three categories, as a passage in ‘Voluptés de l’opium’ illustrates.65 Having dwelt so much on this first and leading error, in respect to opium, I shall notice briefly a second and a third; which are, that the elevation of spirits produced by opium is necessarily followed by a proportionate depression, and that the natural and even immediate consequence of opium i s torpor and stagnation, animal and mental. L’auteur nie également que l’exaltation intellectuelle produite par l’opium soit nécessairement suivie d’un abattement proportionnel, et que l’usage de cette drogue engendre, comme conséquence naturelle et immédiate, une stagnation et une torpeur des facultés.

Baudelaire narrates De Quincey’s discourse to produce what Gérard Genette calls ‘discours narrativisé ou raconté’: the original text is summarized and paraphrased at the same time, but the result remains faithful to the ideas expressed by De Quincey. The same strategy, but this time closer to indirect speech, is also used in Baudelaire’s next sentence: The first of these errors I shall content myself with simply denying; assuring my reader, that for 10 years, during which I took opium at intervals, the day succeding to that on which I allowed myself this luxury was always a day of unusual good spirits. Il affirme que pendant un espace de dix ans il a toujours joui, dans la journée qui suivait sa débauche, d’une remarquable santé intellectuelle.

Obviously, Baudelaire’s versions both summarize and rephrase De Quincey’s text, it is not, therefore, a translation in the conventional sense of the word. However, this passage conforms with Genette’s definition of ‘discours transposé’, which uses terminology which can be applied to translation (‘mimétique’, ‘fidélité littérale’, ‘transposer’, ‘interprète’): Bien qu’un peu plus mimétique que le discours raconté, et en principe capable d’exhaustivité, cette forme ne donne jamais au lecteur aucune garantie, 64

Gérard Genette, ‘Discours du Récit’, in Figures III (Paris: Seuil, 1972), pp. 65282, (pp. 191-2). 65 From ‘L’auteur nie également’ (ŒCI, p. 466) to ‘qui lui convenaient le mieux’ (ŒCI, p. 467). The English source is SLW, pp. 153-54 (from ‘Having dwelt s o much’ to ‘I allowed myself but seldom’).

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et surtout aucun sentiment de fidélité littérale aux paroles ‘réellement’ prononcées: la présence du narrateur y est encore trop sensible dans la syntaxe même de la phrase pour que le discours s’impose avec l’autonomie documentaire d’une citation. Il est pour ainsi dire admis d’avance que le narrateur ne se contente pas de transposer les paroles en propositions subordonnées, mais qu’il les condense, les intègre en son propre discours, et donc les interprète selon son propre style.66

The imprecisions and modifications in Baudelaire’s version, compared to De Quincey’s original text, are in fact only indications of the transfer of De Quincey’s discourse into Baudelaire’s and of the contact between the two sensitivities: De Quincey’s text is interpreted by Baudelaire. This transfer can also take the form of a variation of ‘discours transposé’, this time in free indirect style: Certainly, opium is classed under the head of narcotics; and some such effect it may produce in the end: but the primary effects of opium are always, and in the highest degree, to excite and stimulate the system. Que l’opium, conformément à la qualification sous laquelle il est rangé, agisse vers la fin comme narcotique, cela est possible; mais ses premiers effets sont toujours de stimuler et d’exalter l’homme.

Baudelaire, in his paraphrase of De Quincey’s text, inevitably appropriates it, in the same way as a narrator does his / her character’s discourse. In such an interpretation of the structure of Un Mangeur d’opium, the direct quotations do of course play the role of direct discourse (‘La forme la plus ‘mimétique’ [...], où le narrateur feint de céder littéralement la parole à son personnage’),67 the changes made by Baudelaire symbolizing the gap between what is represented as authentic direct quotations in literature and a possible original to these quotations. Here again, Genette’s terminology emphasizes the link with translation – the literality referred to applies both to the representation of character’s speech and translation, and is in both cases an illusion. Baudelaire’s strategies in his report of De Quincey’s autobiography are not limited to the range of methods of discourse representation. I have noted earlier his tendency to select some appropriate 66 67

‘Discours du récit’, p. 192. ‘Discours du récit’, p. 192.

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quotations from De Quincey and to use them in a different order from the original text. This feature of Un Mangeur d’opium, which takes on many other forms than the one just described, is in fact another example of Baudelaire’s narratorial ploys. The following passage of ‘Confessions Préliminaires’ is exemplary of Baudelaire’s method: he selects from De Quincey’s text the elements which are the most relevant to his narrative, and omits the various parentheses, digressions, explanations in the original text. The result is a more focused, rhythmical narrative. In short, the target text is more dramatic: Unfortunately for me (and, as I afterwards learned, to this worthy man’s great indignation), I was transferred to the care, first of a blockhead, who was in a perpetual panic, lest I should expose his ignorance; and finally, t o that of a respectable scholar, at the head of a great school of an ancient foundation. The man had been appointed to his situation by ------- College, Oxford; and was a sound, well-built scholar but, (like most men, whom I have know from that college) coarse, clumsy, and inelegant. A miserable contrast he presented, in my eyes, to the Etonian brilliancy of my favourite master: and besides, he could not disguise from my hourly notice, the poverty and meagerness of his understanding. It is a bad thing for a boy t o be, and to know himself, far beyond his tutors, whether in knowledge or i n power of mind. Malheureusement notre helléniste précoce fut enlevé à cet excellent maître; et, après avoir passé par les mains d’un grossier pédagogue tremblant toujours que l’enfant ne se fît le redresseur de son ignorance, il fut remis aux soins d’un bon et solide professeur, qui, lui aussi pêchait par le manque d’élégance et ne rappelait en rien l’ardente érudition du premier. Mauvaise chose, qu’un enfant puisse juger ses maîtres et se placer au-dessus d’eux.68

In the beginning of the passage (Malheureusement.... ignorance), Baudelaire does not delete much of De Quincey’s text but his style is less broken and more harmonious and flowing. Stripped of De Quincey’s digressions, the details he offers are presented as an integral part of his narrative. But his intervention on the style of the narrative becomes much more significant when he starts compressing his material to a greater degree and injecting his own style into the text (‘ardente érudition’ for ‘Etonian brilliancy’, for instance). The following sentence is an even more striking example of this technique. 68

SLW, pp. 110-11, and ŒCI, p. 446.

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But, as to London in particular, though, doubtless, my father had in his life-time had many friends there, yet (as ten years had passed since his death) I remembered few of them even by name: and never having seen London before, except once for a few hours, I knew not the addresses of even those few. D’ailleurs, où les trouver, ces amis de son père mort il y avait alors dix ans, amis dont il avait oublié les noms, pour la plupart du moins?69

The rhetorical questions and the compression of De Quincey’s elements undoubtedly makes Baudelaire’s version more striking and the rhythm of his style more varied. The two passages quoted above are just selected examples of a very recurrent feature of Baudelaire’s rewriting of De Quincey’s prose in order to make it more direct. Yet the range of Baudelaire’s narratorial interventions is wider than mere stylistic changes. Baudelaire creates in his text a sense of progression – perhaps even of suspense – through the order in which he re-tells De Quincey’s story. Baudelaire also reshapes De Quincey’s narrative through what Genette calls ‘anachronies narratives’, that is ‘les différentes formes de discordance entre l’ordre de l’histoire et celui du récit’.70 The complex narrative structure of Un Mangeur d’opium – Baudelaire’s telling of De Quincey’s autobiography, and, therefore the presence of two narrators within the same text – points to different times of the story and of the narrative within the text. There is the time of De Quincey’s experience, the time of his own narrative of this experience in the Confessions and Suspiria, the time of Baudelaire’s reading, and then the time of his description of his own perception of De Quincey’s book. All these levels coexist in Un Mangeur d’opium and give rise to a number of prolepses and analepses as Baudelaire moves from one level of the palimpsest to the other. An indication of this may be found in the use of tenses in Un Mangeur d’opium. Throughout his text, Baudelaire refers to the past or the future of his character, placing him in a temporal context and giving more rhythm to the narration of his life.

69 70

SLW, p. 135, and ŒCI, p. 458. ‘Discours du récit’, pp. 78-89.

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By describing his young character as ‘le futur mangeur d’opium’, Baudelaire puts him instantly in a temporal context and refers to his evolution from child to opium eater. The fact that he is starting the narration of his character’s childhood by reminding us of his future, somehow links his education to his later addiction: the temporal element inscribed within that phrase is therefore crucial to the reader’s reaction to the narration. Another method used more commonly by Baudelaire is linked to the choice of tenses: Autrefois, dans ses misères de jeune homme, tout en rôdant dans Oxford Street, dans les nuits pleines de lune, il plongeait souvent ses regards (et c’était sa pauvre consolation) dans les avenues qui traversent le cœur de Mary-le-bone et qui conduisent jusqu’à la campagne; et, voyageant en pensée sur ces longues perspectives coupées de lumière et d’ombre, il se disait: «voilà la route vers le nord, voilà la route vers..., et si j’avais les ailes de la tourterelle, c’est par là que je prendrais mon vol pour aller chercher du réconfort!» Homme, comme tous les hommes, aveugle dans ses désirs! Car c’était là-bas, au Nord, en cet endroit même, qu’il devait trouver ses nouvelles souffrances, et toute une compagnie de curieux fantômes. Mais là aussi demeure l’Électre aux bontés réparatrices, et maintenant encore, quand, homme solitaire et pensif, il arpente l’immense Londres, le cœur serré par des chagrins innombrables qui réclament le doux baume de l’affection domestique (...), l’homme s’écrie, comme autrefois l’enfant: «Oh! si j’avais les ailes de la tourterelle, c’est par là que je m’envolerais pour aller chercher la consolation!»72

In the same passage can be found references to four different times through a play on tenses and temporal indicators. The parallelism between De Quincey as a child and as an adult – that is to say as the narrator of the Confessions – expressed by ‘l’homme s’écrie, comme autrefois l’enfant’ is reinforced by that between ‘autrefois’ and ‘maintenant encore’. This is supported by the past tense (‘plongeait’, ‘c’était là-bas’...) and the present tense (‘demeure’, ‘arpente’, ‘attend’). Between these two poles, a reference to the future of De Quincey as a child (which has become the past of De Quincey as an adult) creates yet another temporal level and a pro71 72

ŒCI, p. 445. SLW, p. 463.

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lepsis in Baudelaire’s narrative structure by referring to sufferings which are described further on (in ‘Tortures de l’opium’). Besides these three temporal levels, there is also a present tense that can be ascribed to another level, that of Baudelaire writing (‘les avenues qui traversent le cœur de Mary-le-Bone’). This time of Baudelaire’s own narration can be perceived through the first lines of ‘Voluptés de l’opium’: Ainsi que je l’ai dit au commencement, ce fut le besoin d’alléger les douleurs d’une organisation débilitée qui engendra chez l’auteur de ces mémoires l’usage fréquent d’abord, ensuite quotidien, de l’opium.73

By referring to the beginning of his work, that is to say to the first paragraph of the ‘Confessions préliminaires’, Baudelaire introduces a sense of a progression in his discourse. Furthermore, by using the personal pronoun ‘je’, he fully reveals his own presence in the text and his role in its structure.74 The sense of progression produced in the above passage can also be noticed in many other examples, this time with prolepses, as in the following passages: Plus tard, parmi les jouissances octroyées par le généreux opium, nous verrons se reproduire cet esprit de charité et de fraternité universelles, mais activé et augmenté par le génie particulier de l’ivresse.

and Ann a-t-elle tout à fait disparu? oh! non! nous la reverrons dans les mondes de l’opium; fantôme étrange et transfiguré, elle surgira lentement dans la fumée du souvenir, comme le génie des Mille et une Nuits dans les vapeurs de la bouteille.75

The prolepses, together with the use of the personal pronoun ‘nous’, fully involve the implied reader in the narrative. The temporal manipulations briefly (and far from exhaustively) mentioned above are of course aimed toward a reader and the personal pronoun is but one manifestation of this implied reader within Un Mangeur d’opium (the presence of the implied reader is even more 73

ŒCI, p. 464. ŒCI, p. 465. 75 ŒCI, pp. 456 and 462. 74

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obvious in passages where Baudelaire explicitly addresses the reader).76 A consequence of Baudelaire’s implied dialogue with his reader is the presence of his own subjectivity through a wider range of textual interventions than those mentioned until now. One of the many explicit manifestations of authorial presence in Un Mangeur d’opium may be found in Baudelaire’s remarks in passing about De Quincey’s story and experience. Notre aventureux jeune homme prend un grand parti; il fuira l’école. Il écrit à une charmante et excellente femme, une amie de famille sans doute, qui l’a tenu enfant sur ses genoux, pour lui demander cinq guinées. Pendant l’été précédent, un événement douloureux, qu’il ne nous explique pas, avait frappé assez fortement son esprit.77

In the above examples, Baudelaire adds some explanations and details which are not in the source text, and therefore intervenes once more in the narration; he also establishes a link with his reader by presenting himself as an interpreter of De Quincey’s prose. An interesting example of this is when Baudelaire interrupts his account of the English text in order to offer his own comments and guide his reader to the ‘right conclusions’ about the text. This occurs quite frequently throughout Un Mangeur d’opium, and the effect of such pauses is a distinct change of tone and focus in the text. Having presented the extent of the opium eater’s addiction at the beginning of ‘Tortures de l’opium’, Baudelaire addresses directly the reader: Je dirais volontiers à tous ceux qui ont désiré un baume, un népenthès, pour des douleurs quotidiennes, troublant l’exercice régulier de leur vie et bafouant tout l’effort de leur volonté, à tous ceux-là, malades d’esprit, malades de corps, je dirais: que celui de vous qui est sans péché, soit d’action, soit d’intention, jette à notre malade la première pierre! Ainsi, c’est chose entendue.78

76

As for instance in the transitions already quoted. ŒCI, pp. 446, 466, 472. The added italics indicate Baudelaire’s additions to the information provided by De Quincey. 78 ŒCI, p. 472. 77

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In other words, Baudelaire points his readers in the right direction and shapes their reaction to his narrative. This effect is achieved to an even greater extent through footnotes, the ultimate form of authorial intervention in Un Mangeur d’opium, which enables Baudelaire with an even closer contact to his reader. In ‘Tortures de l’opium’, for instance, he uses a footnote to contradict De Quincey’s claim that his creativity had been damaged by opium: *Quoi que dise De Quincey sur son impuissance spirituelle, ce livre, ou quelque chose d’analogue, ayant trait à Ricardo, a paru postérieurement. Voir le catalogue de ses œuvres complètes.79

The ‘catalogue’ he is referring to is in fact another footnote, this time at the end of ‘Un faux dénouement’, and written at the time of De Quincey’s death. The long footnote underlines a discrepancy between what Baudelaire says in the main text of the chapter and reality: puisse ce pénétrant écrivain, ce malade charmant jusque dans ses moqueries, nous être conservé plus longtemps encore que le fragile Voltaire, qui mit, comme on a dit, quatre-vingt-quatre ans à mourir* *Pendant que nous écrivions ces lignes, la nouvelle de la mort de Thomas De Quincey est arrivée à Paris...80

The effect of this footnote, which is signed and therefore makes Baudelaire’s voice even more distinct than elsewhere, creates a sense of reality for his contemporary readers, but also alerts them to an element of ‘fiction’ in the main text and changes their perception of the rest of the work. In Genette’s classification, as outlined in Seuils, Baudelaire’s footnotes in Un Mangeur d’opium are both ‘allographes’ to De Quincey’s text (that is to say not included by De Quincey and as such foreign to the text), and ‘auctoriales’ to Baudelaire’s (that is to say included by Baudelaire).81 In both cases, they add a metatextual dimension to the text, as Baudelaire comments on his reading of De Quincey’s text, and, therefore, adds clearly his own subjectivity to the source text. 79

ŒCI, p. 479. ŒCI, pp. 494-95. 81 Genette, Seuils, pp. 293-315. 80

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A further example of Baudelaire’s presence within Un Mangeur d’opium may be found in the expressions of his own reaction to the Confessions and the Suspiria, which give Un Mangeur d’opium the effect of a metatext (when Baudelaire’s comments are of a critical nature) and, at the same time, of a dramatization of Baudelaire’s act of reading as he in turn embodies an implied reader, that of De Quincey’s text. Baudelaire’s reactions to De Quincey’s Confessions and Suspiria are indeed often of a critical nature. I have already quoted some of Baudelaire’s statements of his admiration for De Quincey, and there are indeed many more similar expressions of this feeling as well as his ‘plaisir du texte’. As remarkable are the more analytical passages of Un Mangeur d’opium, where we find a depth comparable to that of Baudelaire’s literary criticism (see Chapter 6). These analyses range from textual studies of De Quincey’s style to commentaries on structural elements of his autobiography. The most striking is the first part of ‘Un faux dénouement’,82 as this passage includes most characteristics of other analyses throughout Un Mangeur d’opium. Baudelaire starts by explaining his own reaction to De Quincey’s text: Je me souviens que la première fois que je le lus, il y a de cela bien des années (et je ne connaissais pas la deuxième partie, Suspiria de profundis, qui d’ailleurs n’avait pas paru), je me disais de temps à autre: Quel peut être le dénouement d’un pareil livre?,

thus dramatizing typical reader-response, and narrating his own experience of literature. The word ‘dénouement’, together with the idea of a narrative progression in the autobiography, approaches the autobiography as a work of fiction. Similarly, Baudelaire’s questions give his analysis of the work a dynamic dimension close to narration. The problem raised, that of the verisimilitude of De Quincey’s conclusion at the end of the Confessions (i.e. that he is liberated from opium), both assimilates the autobiography to fiction by questioning the reliability of the narrator, and introduces a sense of expectancy on the reader’s part: Donc le dénouement était pour moi tout à fait inattendu, et j’avouerai franchement que quand je le connus, malgré tout son appareil de minutieuse 82

ŒCI, pp. 490-91.

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vraisemblance, je m’en défiai instinctivement. J’ignore si le lecteur partagera mon impression à cet égard; mais je dirai que la manière subtile, ingénieuse, par laquelle l’infortuné sort du labyrinthe enchanté où il s’est perdu par sa faute, me parut une invention en faveur d’un certain cant britannique, un sacrifice où la vérité était immolée en l’honneur de la pudeur et des préjugés publics.

After such a statement, the apparently detached and impartial ‘Quoi qu’il en soit, voici ce dénouement’ does not erase the influence of Baudelaire’s analyses on the reader’s response, both to De Quincey’s text and to Un Mangeur d’opium. This passage fully reveals the importance of Baudelaire’s interpretation of the Confessions and Suspiria. It is also the epitome of Baudelaire’s attitude to the text he is basing himself on, by providing a clear and fascinating insight of his act of reading and reaction to the text. Indeed it is perhaps not exaggerating to say that some of the attraction of Un Mangeur d’opium for twentieth-century readers lies in some sort of voyeuristic discovery of Baudelaire’s pleasure of the text. This pleasure of the text is all the more apparent in passages where De Quincey’s text clearly triggers Baudelaire’s imagination, as for example in the central episode the young prostitute, Ann. As can be seen in Appendix B, this passage is emblematic of Baudelaire’s transformations of his source text, which he summarizes, develops, comments on and quotes in turn. The commentaries added to the episode are both a manifestation of the metatextual dimension of Un Mangeur d’opium and of Baudelaire’s reaction, as a reader, to his source text, already noted in other passages.83 His description of Ann goes further than this, however.84 Ann’s main characteristics are taken from De Quincey – her innocence, her vulnerability, her grace and goodness are all rooted in the English text. At the same time the Baudelairean dimension of the above passage is undeniable. The imagery and the style have indeed little to do with its hypotext. The reference to Faust – and the satanic connotations the character cannot but evoke – are added by Baudelaire and colour Ann’s character. The duality of Gœthe’s character (she is both innocent and seduced by Faust, and, more importantly, the prison scene shows her saved from evil in extremis) is amplified in her Baudelairean portrait, which is based on opposi83 84

Appendix B, paragraphs 2, 12. Appendix B, paragraph 4.

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tions: ‘Ann n’est pas’ / ‘Ann est’; ‘démon’ / ‘auréole’; ‘abjection’ / ‘grâce’; ‘petite Marguerite aux mains rouges’ / ‘créature immortelle’. Such contrast between satanic and ideal beauties is closer to Baudelaire’s aesthetics than to De Quincey’s: Baudelaire takes the focus away from Ann’s purity and transfers it onto her ambivalence, which is reminiscent of poems such as ‘Hymne à la beauté’, which is entirely built on oppositions: ciel / abîme; infernal / divin; couchant / aurore; gouffre / astre, and explores the ambiguity and duality of Baudelairean beauty. Ann becomes a Baudelairean character, to such an extent that even when her innocence is emphasized, the term ‘femelle’, which for Baudelaire expresses woman’s animality, and therefore her horror, undermines the whole description and lets through a fundamentally negative view of woman. The underlying irony of the passage somewhat destroys the image of the innocent prostitute, a point which is reinforced further on, where Ann’s saving hand is that of ‘la créature perdue’. Translation here becomes a fusion between Baudelaire’s and De Quincey’s imageries, thus bringing to a climax the interaction between translation and creation of which other manifestations have been found in the various types of Baudelairean interventions outlined above. This overview of Baudelaire’s approaches to De Quincey’s text confirms the complexity and the problematic status of Un Mangeur d’opium. The extent of the manipulations of the source text achieved by Baudelaire makes it difficult to define Un Mangeur d’opium as a translation in the general sense of the word, and to study it as such. And yet it is clear that the French text is heavily based on De Quincey’s, of which it presents a version. In addition, its translational context, as outlined in the previous chapter, should serve as a caveat against judging it by 20th-century translation standards. Un Mangeur d’opium is very much a product of its times, as its similarities with earlier versions suggest. In many ways, it can be also seen as bringing together all the translation trends of the mid-nineteenth century, its blend of direct and indirect translation reflecting the hesitations which were at the centre of 19thcentury translation debates and practices. Alan Astro, in contrast to this approach, argues that Un Mangeur d’opium is an ‘allegory of translation’, and disregards the translational context. Astro’s thesis is based on the idea that Baudelaire’s strategies of presentation of De Quincey’s text are

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emblematic of what occurs in translation: Translation routinely involves quotation (the translator speaks in the place of the author), close translation (in the case of passages that admit of it), paraphrase or deletion (in the case of aspects of the text that are untranslatable) and commentary.85

Of all the above manipulations, Astro argues, the most significative are the paraphrases, which ‘allow Baudelaire to distance himself from De Quincey’ through the change from the first to third person, and yet, at the same time to appropriate his text: by writing ‘il’ instead of ‘je’, Baudelaire could do away with quotation marks and present the Englishman’s sentences as his own. This strategy can be read, in terms of the allegory of translation, as symbolizing the translator’s inevitable appropriation of his author’s language.86

Astro’s approach is interesting inasmuch as it points out the centrality of the notion of authorship and appropriation to the act of translation, and tries to demonstrate the emblematic function of Un Mangeur d’opium as far as such issues are concerned. Its limitations, however, lie in the fact that it adopts a somewhat reductive stance towards Baudelaire’s input into the target text. Un Mangeur d’opium may well be emblematic of the transformative powers of translation, but it is also – because of its position within Paradis artificiels and, more generally, Baudelaire’s corpus – symbolic of the interaction between translation and creation within his works. Despite some similarities with earlier versions of De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Baudelaire’s Un Mangeur d’opium raises issues which are specific to Baudelairean writing. The complex structure of Un Mangeur d’opium, which reflects both the various stages of the genesis of the book and the intertextual relationship between the English text and the French text shows that there is more to Un Mangeur d’opium than the qualities of a good adaptation of a previous work, and that Baudelaire’s skill in using and manipulating the narrative elements in the autobiography, his presence in the text both as author and reader, the fusion of his own poetry with De Quincey’s (through the beauty of his 85

Astro, ‘Allegory of Translation in Baudelaire’s Un Mangeur d’opium’, pp. 16566. 86 Astro, pp. 168-69.

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translations and his own creations) contradict his own minimization of his additions to the original work. This is not to say that Astro’s views should be dismissed, however. The richness of Un Mangeur d’opium lies in its ambiguities, as it disrupts pre-established concepts of original and source, translation and creation, tradition and innovation and challenges received views of what constitutes creation. Un Mangeur d’opium can indeed be seen as an allegory of translation, but an allegory of translation in Baudelaire’s works. The appropriation of De Quincey’s Confessions and Suspiria, and their subsequent transplantation into Paradis artificiels are symbolic of a mechanism which also applies to Baudelaire’s other, seemingly less problematic, translations. As Fortunato Israel argues in his article ‘Shakespeare en français: être ou ne pas être’,87 ‘adaptation’ is the manifestation of a refusal, a desire to overtake the source text, but is also at the core of the translation process – in this respect Un Mangeur d’opium, as a result of Baudelaire’s refusals of aspects of the source text, additions of his own concerns, and also inevitable modifications, becomes symptomatic of the relationship between creativity and translation in his writings. For this reason, the issues raised by Un Mangeur d’opium – in particular the question of authorship and creativity in translation and Baudelaire’s (un)conscious aesthetic choices in his use of foreign texts for creative purposes – are significant for the entire translation corpus and the question of the links between translation and creativity, which will be explored in the next chapters of this study.

87 Fortunato Israel, ‘Shakespeare en français: Être ou ne pas être?’, Palimpsestes, 3 (1990), 11-24.

4 ‘LE PROCÈS BAUDELAIRIEN’ BAUDELAIRE AND LITERARY PROPERTY Note sur les plagiats. – Thomas Gray. Edgar Poe (2 passages). Longfellow (2 passages). Stace. Virgile (tout le morceau d’Andromaque). Eschyle. Victor hHugo.1 Je dénonce moi-même les imitations...2 Je suis passablement exaspéré par tous ces plagiats et ces reproductions non autorisées.3

Seen in conjunction with his extensive use of the text of others, and his equivocal treatment of source texts such as De Quincey’s Confessions, Baudelaire’s self-accusations or attacks of his own plagiarists make his position regarding literary theft ambiguous and suggest a complex attitude to his sources. Such ambiguity is reflected in critics’ views about the status of Baudelaire’s derivative works. As a consequence, the large number of borrowings throughout his works, both from foreign and French texts, has been the basis for the longest-lasting accusation made against him, namely that of plagiarism. The very title of Robert Vivier’s L’Originalité de Baudelaire summarizes well a concern common to many Baudelairean critics, that is to say the question of Baudelaire’s originality seen against the background of his numerous translations, adaptations and borrowings. 4 Vivier’s approach, although it may appear dated in many ways, has left its mark on critics’ perceptions, and should therefore be looked at in some detail. In the introduction to his book, he divides Baudelaire’s works into 1

Projets de préface pour Les Fleurs du Mal, ŒCI, p. 184. Ibid., p. 186. 3 Letter to Michel Lévy, 31 August 1864, CII, p. 402. 4 Robert Vivier, L’Originalité de Baudelaire (Bruxelles: Publications de l’Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises, 1926). 2

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two parts – the works in prose and those in verse, and determines that the prose works (with the exception of the Petits Poèmes en prose), because of their heavy reliance on translations and adaptations, cannot be considered original. Turning to Baudelaire’s verse, he continues to say that ‘c’est donc principalement sur les Fleurs du Mal que le procès baudelairien doit être jugé, car c’est là la seule œuvre qui se présente à nous comme l’expression personnelle et entière du poète, et qui constitue son plaidoyer pour l’immortalité.’5 The terminology used by Vivier (‘procès’, ‘jugé’, ‘plaidoyer’) explicitly presents borrowings as a crime. Originality – seen as the measure of a writer’s worth – is viewed as incompatible with derivative writings. Accordingly, translation, traditionally seen as ancillary to original works, is perceived as exemplary of a lack of creativity. The success of Vivier’s views among critics may be felt in several articles by Randolph Hughes in the Mercure de France. In ‘Baudelaire et Balzac’,6 Hughes stresses his agreement with Vivier’s approach, and adds: ‘quant à l’indigence des facultés créatrices de Baudelaire, nous y avons déjà fait allusion, et il faut insister là-dessus. Il n’y a pas de doute qu’il était très pauvrement doué en tant qu’artiste et il en était pleinement conscient lui-même.’ 7 Even if we leave aside the polemical style characteristic of Hughes’s articles in the Mercure de France, there is little doubt concerning his position on Baudelaire’s lack of creativity and poetic gift. Like Vivier’s, Hughes’s opinion is based on the observation of Baudelaire’s numerous borrowings and self accusations. Several months later, Hughes made his views even more explicit. Quoting ‘Le Guignon’ as an example of the extent to which Baudelaire appropriated other texts, he concludes that Baudelaire committed plagiarism through his borrowings from other authors’ texts, emphasizing that Baudelaire’s input is very small (‘Baudelaire n’y a guère ajouté de son cru’).8 The terms he uses are very close to Vivier’s, and emphasize the criminal nature of Baudelaire’s use of sources, described as thefts (‘ces vols-ci’), while the enquiry into Baudelaire’s originality is seen as ‘un procès’. 9 Hughes’ conclusion, with its focus on transformation, (‘toute cette question 5

Vivier, p. 16. Mercure de France, 1 November 1934, 476-518. 7 Ibid., p. 485. 8 Randolph Hughes, ‘Réponse à trois critiques sur “Baudelaire et Balzac”’, Mercure de France, 1 January 1935, 211-15 (p. 213). 9 Ibid., p. 213. 6

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d’influences aurait une importance bien secondaire si Baudelaire avait réussi à transfigurer ses plagiats, à les élever à une puissance vraiment supérieure’),10 raises points central to the question of plagiarism – what distinguishes plagiarism from borrowings is the dose of creativity involved in the process – and makes the ‘judgement’ a subjective act. Paul Valéry’s passing remarks about Baudelaire’s use of Poe’s Philosophy of Composition are very significant, in this respect: Or Baudelaire, quoique illuminé et possédé par l’étude du Principe poétique, – ou, bien plutôt, par cela même qu’il en était illuminé et possédé, – n’a pas inséré la traduction de cet essai dans les œuvres mêmes d’Edgar Poe; mais il en a introduit la partie la plus intéressante, à peine défigurée et les phrases interverties, dans la préface qu’il a placée en tête de sa traduction des Histoires extraordinaires. Le plagiat serait contestable si son auteur ne l’eût accusé luimême comme on va le voir: dans un article sur Théophile Gautier, il a reproduit tout le passage dont je parle, en le faisant précéder de ces lignes très claires et très surprenantes: Il est permis quelquefois, je présume, de se citer soi-même pour éviter de se paraphraser. Je répéterai donc... Suit le passage emprunté.11

Valéry highlights two central issues – that of the absence of the required level of transformation of the source text, and that of Baudelaire’s claiming of the text of the Other as his own. Implicit in his comments is the lack of recognition of translation as a creative act, and the idea that a translation is mainly a copy and repetition. Such views are also to be found in more recent criticism. P. M. Wetherill talks about plagiarism in the case of Le Flambeau vivant, deeming, therefore, Baudelaire’s modifications of his source text as insufficient to bring the French text the status of a creation.12 Furthermore, although put more mildly than the views of Vivier and Hughes, Claude Pichois’s remarks, as expressed in his article on ‘Baudelaire ou la difficulté créatrice’, follow in many ways Vivier’s tradition: Baudelaire is shown as lacking the creative impulse seen as necessary to poetry, and, more than that, his works are divided into two parts – those which are by him and those which are inspired by others. Referring to the Crépet nineteen-volume edition of Baudelaire’s Œuvres

10

Ibid., p. 214. Paul Valéry, Variété II (Paris: Gallimard, 1963), pp. 147-48. 12 Wetherill, pp. 233-39. 11

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Complètes, Pichois notes that six volumes contain Baudelaire’s letters, five, his translations of Poe, and three, posthumous works. Restent cinq volumes. Les Paradis artificiels ont, certes, paru du vivant de Baudelaire; peut-on, cependant, en créditer entièrement celui-ci, qui s’est fait l’adaptateur et le génial commentateur des Confessions of an English Opiumeater? (...) A côté de trois volumes posthumes dont l’attribution à Baudelaire ne saurait être contestée: les Petits Poëmes, Curiosités esthétiques et L’Art romantique, on ne citera qu’un volume paru du vivant du poète: Les Fleurs du Mal.13

Such a division of Baudelaire’s works rests on concerns for originality as central to creation. Those works which do not seem to be the product of pure originality are shown both as sidelines in Baudelaire’s literary activities and symptoms of his creative incapacity. The ambiguous status of Un Mangeur d’opium is stressed by the phrase ‘génial commentateur’, which points to the blend of creativity (‘génial’) and metatextuality (‘commentateur’) of the text, and emphasizes the importance of the former over the latter in the attribution of the work to Baudelaire. No such redeeming creative dimension is generally attributed to Le Jeune Enchanteur, which is the text most often quoted as an example of Baudelaire’s plagiarisms. Pichois’ accusation (‘Au sujet du Jeune Enchanteur ne faudrait-il pas prononcer le redoutable mot de plagiat?)14 is echoed by Roland de Chaudenay in his playful Dictionnaire des plagiaires,15 where Le Jeune Enchanteur is seen as Baudelaire’s most indisputable plagiarism. That this text should be a translation is far from unimportant in this respect – as already noted, of all literary activities, translation is generally seen as the least creative medium, because indebted to original texts, and therefore more like a copy than an autonomous text. 16 The concept of plagiarism is at the core of critics’ attacks on Baudelaire, and of their attempts to reconcile Baudelaire’s ‘thefts’ with his other works, seen as the most worthy of interest because of their originality, which is the proof, in their eyes, of Baudelaire’s ‘creative genius’. In this context, translation is often viewed as a stop13

in Claude Pichois, Baudelaire, études et témoignages, pp. 242-61 (pp. 242-43). Ibid., p. 244. 15 Roland de Chaudenay, Dictionnaire des plagiaires (Paris: Perrin, 1990). 16 Jean-Claude Polet explores this hierarchy source text / target text in ‘Le Patrimoine des traductions littéraires en français’, Revue d’Histoire Littéraire de la France, 1997, 3, 401-12. 14

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gap activity inferior to Baudelaire’s other works: Pichois, for instance, calls the translations ‘une activité de compensation et à la fois de justification ’.17 Within this context, critics’ discovery of unacknowledged sources for Baudelaire’s works is equivocal, as it fulfils the double purpose of revealing their intertextual dimension but also of probing the poet’s creative input (and therefore confirming his ‘genius’). W. T. Bandy’s discovery of the source text of Le Jeune Enchanteur in 195018 led him to say that the French text is ‘in fact merely a translation and not an original work by Baudelaire’, thus implying by the adverb ‘merely’ that the text is of less value because it is a translation. In the case of La Fanfarlo, shown in 1993 by Willy Alante-Lima to be based on a short story by Privat d’Anglemont entitled ‘Une grande coquette’ published in La Patrie (29 and 30 November 1842), Claude Pichois’ remarks follow similar principles: ‘l’unique nouvelle originale de Baudelaire est moins originale qu’on ne le pensait. Et il n’y a plus qu’à récrire les notices sur ce texte. Mais, dans La vraie Fanfarlo, le talent éclate’19 as it focuses on questions of originality as part of the assessment of the value of the text. In addition, the notion of ‘talent’ emphasizes Baudelaire’s personal input, making clear that the quality of La Fanfarlo lies in that input. Baudelaire’s widespread use of outside sources as a basis for his writing may not necessarily be explained only by his lack of creativity and tendency towards plagiarism, however. As Bandy warns us, again using metaphors of legal trial: ‘in judging Baudelaire’s behaviour, we must first of all take into account the literary mores of his time, and not attempt to convict him on the basis of practices and attitudes that prevail in our own time.’20 Pichois also warns critics of the ‘grave risque d’anachronisme’ there is in applying 20th-century concerns to 19th-century facts and ideas.21 Following Bandy’s and Pichois’s advice is particularly relevant to the question of plagiarism, as the 19th century was in many ways a transition period, both in the 17

Prof. Marcel Monnier and Claude Pichois ‘La maladie de Baudelaire’, Baudelaire, études et témoignages, p. 239. 18 W.T. Bandy, ‘Baudelaire et Croly – la vérité sur Le Jeune Enchanteur’, and Introduction to the 1990 Critical Edition, pp. 10-36. 19 Claude Pichois, ‘“La Fanfarlo” de Privat d’Anglemont découverte par Willy Alante-Lima’, Bulletin Baudelairien, vol. 28 (December 1993), 47-60 (p. 60). 20 Ouvrages73, p. xxxix. 21 ‘Baudelaire en 1847, petit essai de sociologie’, in Baudelaire, études et témoignages, pp. 95-121 (p. 98).

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aesthetics and the legality of literary property. Baudelaire’s hesitations regarding the use of his sources reflect a wider chaos, then, that of a period in which romantic concerns for originality were fighting against traditional aesthetics of imitation, in which the debate on literary property was part of a wider debate on property itself, and in which the rise of the bourgeoisie made such debate particularly meaningful. Baudelaire’s (self) accusations of plagiarism, however, raise questions other than the historical issue. To decide whether his translations belong to his creative corpus or not is to take a stance on his relationship to the foreign text and the role of translation in his writing method. At the same time, Baudelaire’s originality trial is part of a wider-ranging debate about what constitutes creativity, and whether translation is an act of creation or of imitation. Is the translator an author, or is he / she subservient to the original author? The outcome of the ‘procès baudelairien’ depends on the answer to such questions. The importance of the French Revolution in the evolution of literary property and its laws is crucial. As Priscilla P. Clark stresses, ‘Les droits d’auteurs décrétés par la Convention sont aussi significatifs dans leur domaine que les Droits de l’Homme qu’ils ont suivis de près.’22 By underlining private property as one of its most important principles, the Revolution made it necessary to draw a number of laws to protect it, and this included literary property.23 The first attempt to legislate on literary property took place on 13 January 1791 with a law protecting the representation of dramatic and musical works. This law was followed by an even more fundamental one, on 19 July 1793, dealing this time specifically with literary property (see Appendix C): an end was put to the system of privilèges which had been the rule 22 Priscilla P. Clark, ‘Stratégies d’auteur au XIXe Siècle’, Romantisme, 17-18 (1977), 92-102, (p. 93). A good history of copyright is provided by A. and H.-J. Lucas in Traité de la propriété littéraire et artistique (Paris: Litec, 1994), pp. 4-20. See also Roland Dumas, La Propriété littéraire et artistique (Paris: PUF, 1987), p. 13. 23 Article 17 of the Déclaration reads: ‘La propriété étant un droit inviolable et sacré, nul ne peut en être privé, si ce n’est lorsque la nécessité publique, légalement constatée, l’exige évidemment, et sous la condition d’une juste et préalable indemnité’. See Geneviève Koubi (ed.), Propriété et révolution : actes du colloque de Toulouse, 12-14 octobre 1989 (Paris : Éditions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique ; Toulouse : Université de Toulouse I, Service des publications, 1990); Grégoire Madjarian, L’invention de la propriété : de la terre sacrée à la société marchande (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1991).

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until then.24 As Sam Ricketson points out, the French laws were particularly significant as they saw the rights protected ‘as being embodied in natural law. Accordingly, the laws were simply granting formal recognition to what was already inherent in the “very nature of things”’.25 As a consequence of this view of literary property as a natural right, the Revolutionary laws shifted the focus from publishers to authors, from diffusion to creation, and made literary property a personal right rather than a transferable privilege.26 Authors were indeed given the right to sell and to control the reproductions of their works, as unauthorized reproduction became illegal. Equally, their inheritors were given the same rights for ten years after their death. As André Françon notes, the 1791 and 1793 laws were so fundamental that they remained the charter of literary property in France until March 1957, when the present law on literary property was established.27 In addition, Ricketson points out that the two laws reverberated through Europe, as they inaugurated a general move towards the protection of the authors of artistic works.28 The only changes brought to the 1793 law during the 19th century related to the length of the right after the author’s death, increased in the first instance to twenty years (3 August 1844) and then to fifty years (law of 14-19 July 1866). Despite the fact that strong literary property laws were in force as early as the 1790s, it is much later that international agreements were reached, starting on 28 August 1843, between France and Sardinia, translation rights being reserved for only one year. As noted by J. B. Duvergier in 1860, ‘à cette époque, la législation et la jurisprudence ne refusaient point aux auteurs étrangers la propriété des ouvrages qu’ils publiaient en France; mais elles ne considéraient point comme une contrefaçon la reproduction en France d’un livre publié à l’étranger.’29 This meant that unauthorised translations of foreign texts 24

See Augustin-Charles Renouard, Traité des droits d’auteurs, dans la littérature, les sciences et les beaux-arts (Paris: Jules Renouard et cie, 1838). 25 Sam Ricketson, The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works: 1886-1986, (London: Kluwer, 1987), pp. 5-6. 26 Henri Desbois, Cours de propriété littéraire, artistique et industrielle (Paris: Les cours de droit, 1970), pp. 20-22. 27 André Françon, Cours de propriété littéraire, artistique et industrielle (Paris: Les cours de droit, 1992), p. 147. 28 Ricketson, p. 6. 29 J. B. Duvergier, Du Droit international en matière de propriété littéraire (Paris: Annales de la propriété industrielle, artistique et littéraire, 1860), p. 2. See also M. [Footnotes continue on next page]

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were not outlawed. The law applied only to national authors, and did not cross frontiers. Ricketson explains that ‘while protecting the works of their national authors, [most countries] did not regard the unauthorised exploitation of foreign works as either unfair or immoral’, but on the contrary as a source of enrichment.30 In fact, there was no mention of translation in the 1793 law, although jurisprudence, based on a case judged on 23 July 1824, tended to give translators the same rights as authors, who, nevertheless, retained control of translation rights: ‘[les traductions] appartiennent à celui qui les a faites, sans que cependant il soit défendu à quiconque de faire une autre traduction, du moment bien entendu que l’ouvrage est tombé dans le domaine public.’31 The ambiguity of the judgement lies in the fact that foreign texts were not covered by the 1793 law, so that in effect translations were unregulated. On 27 February 1834, another judgement – this time about adaptations rather than translations – followed the same principle: ‘Celui qui a abrégé, refondu, annoté un ouvrage tombé dans le domaine public est propriétaire de son œuvre, mais non de l’ouvrage ancien, à propos duquel un travail semblable peut être fait par une autre personne.’32 Here, of course, the notion of public domain is of more relevance as the judgment applies to the manipulation of French texts as well as foreign texts. As with translation, adaptations are considered as original works, although at the same time they are subservient to their original. Jurisprudence was not sanctioned by law until much later. The difficulty of the translation issue came from the fact that international agreements were necessary for translation rights to have any significance. As a rule, it is only in the middle of the century that literary property rights crossed frontiers, as individual agreements with other countries followed the agreement with Sardinia, the most notable of which (within the context of this study) is the convention signed between France and England and Ireland on 3 November 1851 and which outlawed the unauthorised reproduction of English texts in France.33 Translation rights were reserved for only Larnaude, De la Protection de la propriété littéraire dans les rapports internationaux (Paris: Achaix et Cie, 1878). 30 Ricketson, p. 18. 31 Fliniaux, Législation et jurisprudence concernant la propriété légale et artistique (Paris: Ernest Thorin, 1867), p. 23. 32 Fliniaux, pp. 22-23. 33 Jules Delalain, Législation de la propriété littéraire et artistique (Paris: Jules Delalain, 1854), p. 2.

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five years, however, which suggests that translation was viewed as more creative than straight reproduction: this creative dimension was recognized, while at the same time the original author retained the overall sovereignty over his / her text. The series of agreements between countries culminated on 28 March 1852, when an Imperial decree ruled that French literary property laws should be applied unilaterally to all works published abroad. The 1852 decree is particularly significant as it indicates a strong concern in France for the protection of all literary works, to such an extent that France was ready to take the unilateral decision to achieve this protection, in the hope that bilateral agreements would follow (they did so in the years following the decree, thus ensuring the protection of French works abroad). In addition, there was an increasing move towards international rights, starting in 1858 with the Congrès de la propriété littéraire et artistique held in Brussels from 27 to 30 September. Among the resolutions of the Congrès, article 6 proposed that translation rights should be reserved for ten years after the publication of the original work as long as the right was exercised within the first three years after publication. As far as French law was concerned, Fliniaux noted in 1867 the limitations of the current laws regarding translation (‘Le droit de traduction devrait aussi appeler l’attention du législateur’),34 echoed in 1878 by the Congrès littéraire international held that year, when the need to regulate translation was stressed (‘En ce qui concerne la traduction et l’adaptation, le Congrès littéraire international exprime le vœu que les traités internationaux réservent à l’auteur le droit exclusif d’autoriser cette traduction et cette adaptation’).35 As a result, the ALAI (Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale) Conference, held in Berne in 1883, supported the complete assimilation of translation rights: Art. 5 - Les auteurs ressortissant de l’un des États contractants jouiront, dans tous les autres États de l’Union, du droit exclusif de traduction pendant toute la durée de leur droit sur leurs œuvres originales. (...) Art. 6 - La traduction autorisée est protégée au même titre que l’œuvre originale.36

34

Fliniaux, p. 82. Congrès Littéraire International, De la protection de la propriété littéraire dans les rapports internationaux, rapport présenté par M. Larnaude au nom de la 2e commission (Paris: A. Chaix & Cie, 1878), p. 10. 36 Ricketson, p. 962. 35

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This proposal was, however, rejected, and the Berne Convention (9 September 1886) limited the translation rights to ten years after the publication of the original work (Article 6), while at the same time translations were ‘expressément assimilées aux ouvrages originaux’ (Article 7).37 Although the Berne convention came about well after Baudelaire’s death, it should now be clear that discussions about international literary property were under way towards the end of his life. As I have argued, however, translation remained in an ambiguous position. On the one hand the translator was subjected to the author of the text, but on the other hand, he / she was entitled to the same protection as an original author. Translation was both recognized as authorship and seen as subservient to its original. Baudelaire’s hesitations regarding copyright in the United States – a country with which there was no separate agreement – at the time of his translations of Poe reflect these uncertainties about the legal status of translations. In a letter to Victor Lecou, who wanted to publish the Histoires Extraordinaires, he wrote: Vous vous rappelez votre insistance pour que nous ne commencions l’impression de mon livre qu’après que je vous aurais montré l’autorisation de l’héritière de M. Poe; – et mon insistance à vous soutenir que c’était inutile. – M. Lévy publie La Cabane de l’oncle Tom. – On me dit que vous en publiez aussi une traduction. – Vous considérez donc la question comme tranchée? Du reste, je me suis adressé au Consulat, et je n’ai pas encore de réponse.38

Baudelaire’s reluctance to enquire into literary property laws (‘c’était inutile’) is in full accordance with his normal practice, but, more interestingly, this letter points out the inconsistencies on the subject of the status of translations and implies that concerns for the copyright of translations were paid sometimes little more than lip-service. One of the main reasons offered for the non-inclusion of translations in the literary property laws was that translation was often seen as a creative process. Comparing translator and counterfeiter, J. B. Duvergier noted that:

37

Ricketson, p. 967. Letter to Victor Lecou, 13 October 1852, CI, p. 203. Claude Pichois records that the following handwritten note by Baudelaire – in English – was found: ‘Nothing known at present about the Copyright treaty between France and the U.S. It may be brought up next Congress.’ (CI, p. 821). 38

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Chez l’un il y a quelque chose de personnel; chez l’autre rien qui lui est propre. Dans l’œuvre intelligente du premier, on peut apercevoir le germe d’un droit; dans l’acte matériel du second on ne peut trouver que le motif d’un châtiment. Beaucoup de traducteurs ont l’amour des lettres et non celui de l’argent.39

The contrast between ‘œuvre intelligente’ / ‘acte matériel’, ‘amour des lettres’ / ‘celui de l’argent’ established by Duvergier echoes the concerns of the literary property laws, which were intended to protect creation. The connotations of the word ‘œuvre’ (both work and work of art), furthered by the epithet ‘intelligente’, leave no doubt as to the importance of the personal input of the writer in questions of authorship, while, in the case of the counterfeiter, what is underlined is precisely the lack of personal input, the neutrality of ‘acte’ serving as a foil for ‘matériel’, which stresses the lack of inspiration involved in the process. Translation, for Duvergier as for many of his contemporaries, was a form of creation and, accordingly, ‘unauthorized’ translation was less of a crime than the unauthorized reproduction of literary texts. The growing movement to include translation in the literary property laws which took place in the 19th century may be explained, at least partly, by growing concerns for faithfulness in translation which reduced the imaginative, creative process of the exercise. In 1852, Jules Delasalle argued that ‘la traduction n’a rien qui lui soit propre, rien de spontané, et a d’autant plus de prix et de succès qu’elle est la reproduction plus fidèle et plus exacte de l’ouvrage modèle’, 40 and that, as such, it should be regulated in the same ways as other forms of reproductions. An article by Hippolite Castille, entitled ‘De la Propriété Intellectuelle’ and also published in 1852-53, uses very similar arguments. 41 Castille’s argument rests on the idea that unauthorized translation is as much of a crime as plagiarism because of its entire dependence on the original work. His article dramatizes the debate on the subject by reproducing the view of a M. Jobard, from

39

Duvergier, p. 11. Jules Delasalle, Thèse de doctorat sur la propriété littéraire (Paris: Thunot et cie, 1852), pp. 60-61. 41 Castille, ‘De la Propriété Intellectuelle’, Revue de Paris (December 1852), 71-95 (Part I); (January 1853), 33-60 (Part II). The article was written at the time when it was decided that French laws would apply to works published abroad. 40

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Brussels:42 comparing the work of the translator to that of a cabinet maker transforming raw material into furniture, Jobard concludes that ajoutant son travail au mien, [il] le façonne en meubles, plus ou moins élégants, et les présente à une autre classe d’acheteurs, sur laquelle je n’avais pas le droit de compter. – Cet homme a fait une traduction de mon ouvrage, il ne me doit rien.43

The translator’s input is two-fold, according to Jobard: first of all it involves a transformation of raw material, second, from the materialistic point of view, it opens new markets, deserving, therefore, payment. Castille answers by claiming that Jobard’s comparison does not work – unlike the cabinet maker, the translator cannot do what he / she chooses with the textual raw material: Le traducteur me sert de truchement, il met ma pensée à la portée de tel ou tel peuple, mais cette pensée n’est pas moins la mienne. Sans moi le traducteur n’existait pas; il n’est qu’une conséquence. S’il y a service, c’est bien moi qui l’ai rendu. Il n’a fait que m’aider à le rendre en le mettant à la portée de tel peuple. Lui attribuer mon droit de producteur, ce serait attribuer la propriété d’une marchandise à l’entrepreneur de roulage ou au caboteur qui la transporte.44

While Jobard was emphasizing the creativity of the translator, Castille focuses on the question of originality and ownership of ideas, the translator being only an intermediary. The terms used (‘truchement’, ‘conséquence’, ‘m’aider’) stress a view of translation as ancillary, secondary to literary creation, and oppose Jobard’s idea of translation as creation. In these circumstances, Castille argues, the translator is not entitled to any rights or protection. The interest of this article is that Jobard and Castille, in their debate about the application of literary property laws to translation, echo the debate about translation outlined in chapter 2; they also dramatize the theoretical uncertainties on the subject, and, as a consequence, the marginality of translation in the literary property debate.

42

The fact that the defender of unauthorized translation should be Belgian is not innocent – Belgium was particularly renowned for its lack of literary property concerns. See Pascal Pia, ‘L’Édition belge au temps de Baudelaire’, Études Baudelairiennes III (1973), 80-87 (p. 81). 43 Hippolite Castille, January 1853, p. 34. 44 Ibid., p. 36.

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That literary property in general was more easily recognized, at least in theory, than literary property applied to translation does not mean, however, that it was firmly recognized in practice. On the contrary, despite the extent of the literary property debate throughout the century and the clear movement towards a recognition of literary property, the reality of such recognition proved, in practice, to be patchy at best. Baudelaire’s irritation with a situation in which, as late as 1864, plagiarism was generalized, points to a lack of rule in this respect, despite the fact that literary property laws were being voted.45 An extreme example may be the newspaper Le Voleur, which, as its title implies, devoted itself to the reproduction of texts and illustrations published elsewhere: Il se publie à Paris, dans le courant de chaque mois, 136 journaux quotidiens et périodiques (...). C’est un choix de tout ce que ces feuilles contiendront de saillant, de neuf et d’intéressant en tout genre, que nous nous sommes proposé de faire. (...) Le Voleur pillera partout où il trouvera à prendre. 46

The above editorial takes prides in flaunting openly the literary property concerns of its times, emphasizing its awareness of the criminal dimension of its activities, but, by the use of the term ‘pillera’, arguably glamourizes the thefts, presenting them as acts of piracy, or even revolutionary acts. Not to follow the literary property laws is a cause of pride here. The case of Le Voleur, extreme as it may seem, was not isolated – in fact it was only making explicit a widespread practice, described for instance by Ludovic Lalanne in his book Curiosités littéraires, which relates anecdotes linked to the question of plagiarism.47 Another revealing example is the scandal which involved Poe’s ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’ and two French versions of the text. 48 The ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’ were the unacknowledged source 45

See letter to Michel Lévy quoted page 110. Editorial of the first issue of Le Voleur, 5 April 1828. 47 Ludovic Lalanne, Curiosités littéraires (Paris: Paulin, 1845). See also Georges Maurevert, Le livre des plagiats (Paris: Fayard, [n.d.]), which includes a large section on the 19th century, and mentions ‘les peccadilles de Charles Baudelaire’ (p. 210), without any mention of Le Jeune Enchanteur (which suggests that Maurevert’s book was written before Bandy’s discovery in 1950). 48 The episode has already been recounted by W.T. Bandy, in his preface to Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages (Ouvrages73). It is useful to retrace this episode here, as it helps to highlight important features of the century’s approaches to literary property and translation not emphasized by Bandy. 46

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text of Gustave Brunet’s ‘Un Meurtre sans pareil dans les fastes de la justice’ (although the foreign origin of the text was implied in the subtitle: ‘Histoire trouvée dans les papiers d’un Américain’) published in La Quotidienne, on 11, 12 and 13 June 1846. On 12 October 1846, Old Nick (that is to say Émile Daurand Forgues) published ‘Une sanglante énigme’ in Le Commerce. ‘Une sanglante énigme’ was also an adaptation of Poe’s ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’, and Poe’s name was not mentioned there either (all Forgues mentions is that the story belongs to a ‘feuilletoniste américain’). On 13 October 1846, La Presse attacked Forgues, accusing him of plagiarism in retaliation for an earlier humiliation, caused by Forgues’ discovery of an earlier plagiarism published in La Presse (the article starts with a reminder of that episode, ironically thanking Forgues for letting the paper know that ‘M. de Courchamps (...) en vendant [à La Presse] de prétendus mémoires de Cagliostre, n’avait fait que copier un ouvrage de M. le Comte Potocki imprimé depuis vingt ou trente années’). The attack followed, in the same ironic tone: M. Forgues ne pourra que nous savoir gré de lui apprendre à notre tour, que le feuilleton qu’il a publié lundi dans le Commerce sous ce titre: LE THÉÂTRE ET LE MONDE, Causeries, UNE SANGLANTE ÉNIGME, et signé de son pseudonyme OLD NICK, est, à quelques mots près, entièrement pris et textuellement copié dans le feuilleton de la Quotidienne qui a paru les 11, 12, et 13 juin dernier sous le titre: MEURTRE SANS EXEMPLE DANS LES FASTES DE LA JUSTICE, histoire trouvée dans les papiers d’un Américain. Seulement, l’écrivain cumulard du National et du Commerce s’est donné la peine de changer les noms des personnages et de transporter la scène de Paris à Baltimore, aux Etats-Unis. Quelle précaution inutile!

This accusation was followed by a close comparison of the texts of La Quotidienne and Le Commerce, which were printed in parallel text. What this article shows is that the question of plagiarism was rather confused – on the one hand plagiarism was very common, and on the other hand to be accused of plagiarism was an infamy. The glee with which the journalist of La Presse reveals the origin of Forgues’ text is a clear proof of this, as is the title of the article, ‘Petites représailles.’ In addition, the importance of the notion of authorship is implied by the insistence on authors’ names – the fact that Forgues has used a pseudonym seems to compound his crime by suggesting some cowardice on his part. The episode, however, went further. In an immediate answer, published by Le National of 15 October 1846, Forgues revealed that the origin of his text was Poe’s tale. His conclusion was:

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il ne s’agit ni de plagiat, ni de vol, ni de copie, ni rien qui en approche. Et la source de l’article en question n’est pas celle qu’il indique, mais bien celle-là même où avant moi, ce semble, un rédacteur de la Quotidienne avait trouvé les éléments du récit que j’ai reproduit à ma guise.

The extent of Forgues’s modifications to the original text – alluded to by his opponent (a change in location) and by himself in the beginning of his reply not reproduced here (he argues that his text is much shorter than the original) – seem, in his own eyes, to absolve him from the accusation of plagiarism, which he finds, however, insulting enough to publish an additional letter on 17 October 1846, in the National again, demanding an apology for the ‘injure d’une accusation de plagiat’. Another interesting aspect of this dispute is that it proves also how varied definitions of plagiarism could be (according to Forgues, any modification of the source text makes the appropriating text original). In addition, the fact that the source text is foreign allows the French writer to modify it as he wishes – Forgues’s ‘j’ai reproduit à ma guise’ epitomizes the contradictions of his century regarding the treatment of foreign texts, which was a blend of copy (‘reproduit’) and invention (‘à ma guise’). The phrase also suggests double standards depending on the language of the source text: as W.T. Bandy noted, ‘stealing from a fellow-countryman was a crime, but stealing from a foreigner was permissible’.49 The literary property laws and their recognition (or lack of it) in practice are only the tip of the iceberg in the literary property debate which took place throughout the century, and which it is necessary to analyse to understand the background of Baudelaire’s so-called ‘plagiarisms’. As P. J. Proudhon noted in his work on literary property, Les Majorats littéraires, ‘[La question de propriété est] la plus grande peut-être du dix-neuvième siècle, attendu qu’elle intéresse également le droit, la politique, l’économie politique, la morale et jusqu’à l’esthétique.’50 Baudelaire’s work, like that of any author, is the product of its age, and reflects aesthetic and political dimensions which underlie the literary property laws and practices outlined in the previous pages.

49

Ouvrages73, p. xi. P.J. Proudhon, Les Majorats Littéraires (Paris: Librairie internationale, A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven & Cie, editeurs, 1868), p. 44. 50

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The importance of Romanticism in the elaboration of the concept of authorship and, by extension, literary property, cannot be overstated. It is well known that the advent of Romanticism in early 19thcentury France brought an aesthetic revolution in which the self and individuality were given primary importance, and in which originality thus became a paramount concern. Victor Hugo’s influential 1827 Préface de Cromwell, which summed up many of the aims of Romanticism, denounced the Classical ideals of imitation as a prison for creative genius: On répète néanmoins, et quelque temps encore sans doute on ira répétant: – Suivez les règles! Imitez les modèles! (...) Le reflet vaut-il la lumière? le satellite qui se traîne sans cesse dans le même cercle vaut-il l’astre central et générateur? Avec toute sa poésie, Virgile n’est que la lune d’Homère.51

Insisting on the need to liberate poets from the ‘fils d’araignée’ of rules, tradition, and imitation, he explicitly opposed Classical theories, as illustrated for instance in the article ‘Imitation’ of the Encyclopédie (in the ‘Poésie, Rhétorique’ section), which established a link between imitation and creation: Rien n’est plus permis que d’user des ouvrages qui sont entre les mains de tout le monde. (...) Ainsi, l’imitation née de la lecture continuelle des bons originaux, ouvre l’imagination, inspire le goût, étend le génie, et perfectionne les talens.

The Romantic reaction against Classical ideals focused mainly on the concepts of originality, imagination, individualism and genius. Following a Kantian definition of genius, the Romantics insisted on the incompatibility of genius and imitation. Kant indeed defined genius as follows: Genius is the talent (natural endowment) which gives the rule to art. Since talent, as an innate productive faculty of the artist, belongs itself to nature, we may put it this way: Genius is the innate mental aptitude (ingenium) through which nature gives the rule to art. 52

51

Victor Hugo, Préface de Cromwell (Paris: Garnier Flammarion, 1968), pp. 86-87. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952), (first published in 1790). Critique of Judgement, part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement, §46 Fine art is the art of genius, p. 168.

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In other words, Genius is seen as an innate quality which cannot be acquired by education. We are very far from what the Encyclopédie said about imitation as the stimulus of genius and imagination. Such opposition to the Classical views of creation is made very clear by Kant: Every one is agreed on the point of the complete opposition between genius and the spirit of imitation. Now since learning is nothing but imitation, the greatest ability, or aptness as a pupil (capacity), is still, as such, not equivalent to genius. Even though a man weaves his own thought or fancies, instead of merely taking in what others have thought, and even though he go so far as to bring fresh gains to art and science, this does not afford a valid reason for calling such a man of brains, and often great brains, a genius.53

Kant’s notion of genius as ‘natural endowment’54 leads hims to insist on imagination and its creative powers as central to the manifestation of genius and the production of art, and to see genius as ‘the exemplary originality of the natural endowments of an individual’.55 This focus on imagination and originality as the prerequisites of genius had a wide influence on 19th-century aesthetics – and romanticism in particular.56 The Romantic revolution has had a lasting influence on conceptions of art: Thomas McFarland emphasizes our inurement to ‘the high value placed on originality’,57 and, as a consequence, our rejection of imitation as inferior to the ideals of pure creativity. Defining plagiarism as ‘the appropriating, in the name of an individual’s needs, of the insignia of another individuality’,58 McFarland shows how that very appropriation, because it is sacrilegious of romantic ideals now taken for granted, becomes taboo in our culture. The notion of literary property, which focuses in France more than in any other country on the writer rather than on the text,59 is a direct consequence of what 53

§ 47 Elucidation and confirmation of the above explanation of genius, p. 169. Ibid., p. 170. 55 § 49 The faculties of the mind which constitute genius, p. 180. 56 Jean Starobinski’s description of romanticism as the reign of imagination as genius and creative power makes this influence particularly striking, in ‘Imagination’, in Actes du IVe Congrès de l’Association Internationale de Littérature Comparée, edited by François Jost (Fribourg: [n. pub], 1964), 952-63. 57 Thomas McFarland, Originality & Imagination (Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1985), p. 4. 58 McFarland, p. 22. 59 Isabelle de Lamberterie (ed.), Le droit d’auteur aujourd’hui (Paris: Éditions du 54

[Footnotes continue on next page]

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Roland Mortier calls the ‘terrorisme artistique’ of originality.60 This very terrorism is also a key to the critical bias against Baudelaire’s translations, adaptations and imitations noted in the introduction to this chapter. That Romantic aesthetics and the literary property laws should be entangled is made clear by the importance given by Romantic authors to literary property. Lamartine, for instance, was particularly involved in the campaign for the recognition of literary property as a natural, and therefore perpetual right. As Geoffroy explains, On discutait aussi sur la nature exacte du droit d’auteur. Lamartine voyait dans ce droit une propriété, «la plus sainte des propriétés»; cette idée d’une véritable propriété était au contraire combattue, en 1838, par Renouard, dans son Traité des droits d’auteurs, et en 1862 par P. J. Proudhon, dans un pamphlet véhément Les majorats littéraires.61

The contrast between Lamartine and Proudhon is particularly helpful for this study, as it symbolizes a clash of ideologies which goes much further than the subject of literary property. It is particularly significant that Lamartine, both one of the great Romantics and a politician in the 1840s – and most remarkably in 1848 – should have been one of the fiercest campaigners for the creation of a perpetual literary property right for authors. Although Lamartine’s voice made itself heard throughout the debate, his role as rapporteur of a bill for the extension of literary property rights to fifty years after the death of the author was the occasion on which he expressed his views on the subject in the greatest detail. On 13 March 1841, in a speech made at the Chambre des députés as an introduction to the bill, Lamartine insisted on the sacred nature of authorship and emphasized the distinction between ideas (‘l’idée qui ne tombe jamais dans le domaine inférieur d’une loi pécuniaire’) and their physical manifestation, books:

CNRS, 1991), p. 3. The phrase ‘droit d’auteur’, in contrast to the Anglo-american notion of ‘copyright’, reminds us of this difference in focus. 60 Roland Mortier, L’Originalité, une nouvelle catégoire esthétique au siècle des lumières (Paris: Droz, 1982). See also Albert Léonard, La Crise du concept de littérature en France au XXe siècle (Paris: Corti, 1974, pp. 87-88; Françoise Meltzer, Hot Property, The Stakes and Claims of Literary Originality (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1994). 61 Georges Geoffroy, Étude historique et critique de la législation française sur la propriété littéraire (Paris: V. Giard et E. Brière, 1905), p. 57.

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L’idée vient de Dieu, sert les hommes et retourne à Dieu en laissant un sillon lumineux sur le front de celui où le génie est descendu, et sur le nom de ses fils; le livre tombe dans la circulation commerciale et devient une valeur productive de capitaux et de revenus, comme toute autre valeur, et susceptible à ce titre seul d’être constituée en propriété.62

Protecting books, therefore, would be a way to salvage the sacredness of authorship at the same time as a way to protect capital – the link between literary property, aesthetics and economy could not be clearer. Another argument of Lamartine’s, often used by defenders of literary property, hinges around a comparison between physical and intellectual work. After reminding his audience of the fact that labour other than intellectual is rewarded by perpetual property, Lamartine goes on to describe the situation of the writer: Un autre homme dépense sa vie entière, consume ses forces morales, énerve ses forces physiques dans l’oubli de soi-même et de sa famille pour enrichir après lui l’humanité ou d’un chef-d’œuvre de l’esprit humain, ou d’une de ces idées qui transforment le monde: il meurt à la peine, mais il réussit. Son chefd’œuvre est né, son idée est éclose. Le monde intellectuel s’en empare. L’industrie, le commerce, les exploitent. Cela devient une richesse tardive, posthume souvent. (...) Tout le monde y aurait droit, excepté celui qui l’a créé, et la veuve et les enfants de cet homme, qui mendieraient dans l’indigence à côté de la richesse publique et des fortunes privées, enfantée par le travail ingrat de leur père! Cela ne peut pas se soutenir devant la conscience, où Dieu a écrit lui-même le code ineffaçable de l’équité.

Lamartine’s rhetoric, which rests on a glorification of the creative act (presented as a sacrifice, the artist / creator assuming a Christ-like position by offering his work to humanity) and an exploitation of the myth of the poverty-stricken artist, underlines what he sees as the injustice of the situation in 1841. This injustice is clearly seen in economic rather than aesthetic terms: Romanticism and capitalism link up in Lamartine’s rhetoric to defend literary property as a natural right. By equating intellectual work with any other work, the poet makes indeed perpetual literary property the only logical conclusion to his demonstration and presents his bill for a fifty-year posthumous right 62 Reproduced in Le Moniteur universel of 14 March 1841. See also A. Dechambre’s account of the ‘grande discussion de 1841’ in Congrès de la propriété littéraire et artistique (Paris: Librarie Victor Masson, 1858), p. 2; Édouard Laboulaye, Études sur la propriété littéraire en France et en Angleterre (Paris: Auguste Durand, 1858), pp. 18-21.

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as only a step towards this aim: ‘[le législateur] n’aura qu’à dire: toujours, où notre loi a dit: cinquante ans, et l’intelligence sera émancipée.’ That Lamartine, one of the strongest figures of French Romanticism, should defend with such passion the notion of literary property is hardly surprising. Himself an author, and, moreover, belonging to a movement for which individual genius and artistic creation were central concerns, it was natural that he be drawn to that side of the debate. The fact that his argument should be strongly based on capitalist views highlights the entanglement of aesthetics and economics noted by Proudhon, who, as one might have expected, was therefore Lamartine’s most outspoken opponent. Proudhon’s famous ‘La propriété, c’est le vol’63 epitomizes both his ideology and his style: the voluntarily shocking phrase – because it hinges on an apparent contradiction – is an attack on the French Revolution’s ideal as expressed in the Déclaration des Droits, which presents the right to property as a natural right. Taking part in the on-going debate on literary property and its validity in comparison to property in general, Proudhon wrote in 1862 an attack on the notion of literary property: Les Majorats littéraires. Proudhon was not the only opponent of the concept of a perpetual literary property right, but his approach has the added interest of being part of a philosophy which is against the bourgeois, capitalist ethos dominant at the time. Responding to an attack by Lamartine (‘un sophiste a dit: la propriété, c’est le vol. Vous lui répondrez en instituant la plus sainte des propriétés, celle de l’intelligence: Dieu l’a faite, l’homme doit la reconnaître’),64 Proudhon proceeds to demonstrate that the concept of literary property is a nonsense on economic, moral, aesthetic, and social grounds. While the moral, aesthetic and social demonstrations rest on the idea that literary works should fulfil a social and moral role and, therefore, become public property rather than bring personal success to their authors, Proudhon’s economic demonstration hinges on the distinction between production and property and the notion of an exchange value for literary works:

63

P.J. Proudhon, Qu’est-ce que la propriété? (Paris: J.F. Brocard, 1840), p. 2. Alphonse de Lamartine, Letter to the president of the Congrès de la propriété littéraire held in Brussels on 27 September 1858, published in Indépendance belge, 18 août 1858, and reproduced by Proudhon, Qu’est-ce que la propriété?, p. 1. 64

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La possession, c’est le terme propre, quand on parle du droit du producteur et de l’échangiste sur le produit, commence pour chacun avec le produit, rien de plus, rien de moins, et finit à l’échange. (...) Chantez-moi votre poëme, racontez-moi votre histoire; enseignez-mois vos procédés, vos secrets, et je vous logerai, vous nourrirai, vous défrayerai pendant une semaine, un mois, un an, pendant tout le temps que vous serez mon instituteur. Les produits et services échangés, que se passe-t-il? Chacun des échangistes fait son profit personnel de ce qu’il a reçu, se l’assimile, le distribue à ses enfants, à ses amis, sans que le vendeur ait droit de protester contre cette communication.65

Arguing that literary works cannot be called a property in the same way as land properties, because they are part of a common intellectual fund, Proudhon grounds his attack on the concept of perpetual literary property as supported by Lamartine on the exchange value of literary works. The last sentence of the above passage, which implies the acceptability of appropriation (‘se l’assimile’) could be the basis of a defence of Baudelaire’s ‘borrowings’, as will be seen later in this chapter. The idea of an exchange between author and readers, which leads to the reader becoming owner of the work bought, clearly attacks any notion of plagiarism and appropriation as crimes. In fact, Proudhon goes much further than this. Quoting, a few pages later, the example of Lucan and Dante, both inspired by Virgil, he demonstrates the value of imitation in art and its evolution, thus clearly opposing the Romantic ideals of originality and individuality. Proudhon’s intervention in the literary property debate is one more clear sign of the link between the concept of literary property and the rise of capitalism. His description of the literary climate of his times confirms such a link: Pour se donner une apparence d’originalité et de profondeur, on refait les règles, on dénigre les classiques, qu’on ne comprend seulement pas; on remplit des bout-rimés impossibles; on revient à la langue des troubadours; on réhabilite, au nom de la nature, le laid; on cultive le vice et le crime; on déborde en descriptions, en déclamations, en conversations diluviennes; puis le bulletin de la librairie enregistre le succès. Cela s’appelle littérature.66

In this passage, Proudhon highlights the contradictions in the literary practices of his days: he witnesses, on the one hand, a rejection of the French literary tradition, a loss of identity through imitation and linguistic neologisms, and, on the other hand, a frantic search for origi65 66

Qu’est-ce que la propriété?, p. 19. Les Majorats littéraires, p. 82.

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nality and new forms, all these tendencies aiming at one thing: financial success. As part of the move towards a mass market for literature which took place during the century, the importance of attracting customers becomes central to literary creation, the book becoming a product to be sold. 67 As Jean-Michel Ducomte notes, ‘l’œuvre d’art devient objet de commerce, valeur économique’ and therefore subject to the market laws.68 Pierre Bourdieu describes this evolution in Les Règles de l’art, 69 showing that the reign of money and the rise of capitalism created a new dominating class which imposed its tastes on literary production. The unprecedented extent of the market for cultural goods led to a massive increase in the production of literature, and in the number of people aiming at making a living through literature, and literary professions had to bring income as well as recognition and artistic fulfilment to those who chose them. The importance of the concept of the new within such a context has been analysed by T.W. Adorno in Aesthetic Theory. Emphasizing the link between originality and marketability, he concludes that originality is a product of historical change. It is therefore implicated in the injustice of history, specifically in the hegemony consumer goods have in a bourgeois market society. In order to attract customers, these goods, which are forever the same, must pretend to be forever new and original.70

Here again, the link between Romanticism – in particular its focus on originality – and capitalism, which makes such originality crucial to the economic survival of the artist, is stressed. To this, one may add that a crucial element in the marketability of the work of art is the author’s name, which emerged in Baudelaire’s time as a commodity. In a context in which periodicals – of which the number had drastically increased in a few years – relied heavily on feuilletons and were ready to pay large amounts of money to certain authors (such as Du67

This evolution of literary production has been studied, among others, by Priscilla P. Clark in ‘Stratégies d’auteur au XIXe siècle’, Romantisme 17-18 (1977), 92-102. See also James Smith Allen, Popular French Romanticism: Authors, Readers and Books in the 19th Century (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1981). 68 Jean-Michel Ducomte, ‘La Révolution française et la propriété littéraire et artistique’, in Geneviève Koubi (ed.), Propriété et Révolution, pp. 109-126 (p. 110). 69 Pierre Bourdieu, Les Règles de l’art, Genèse et structure du champ littéraire (Paris: Seuil, 1992). 70 T.W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, translated by C. Lenhardt (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984, first publication in German: 1970), p. 247.

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mas, Eugène Sue and Lamartine), authors’ names and texts were like labels to be acquired or imitated in order to make as much profit as possible. As Walter Benjamin remarked: The generous fees paid for everyday literary merchandise necessarily led to abuses. When publishers acquired manuscripts, they occasionally reserved the right to print them under the name of a writer of their choice. This was predicated on the fact that some successful novelists were not fussy about the use of their names.71

The question of author’s names and the attribution of a given text to a particular author is clearly central to the issues of plagiarism and authentication. The relatively recent concept of authorship appeared at the same time as concerns for individuality and originality made their mark on literary production and plays a central part in our appreciation of literature today. The extent to which the concept of authorship has been internalized by modern criticism and is now taken for granted is pointed out by Jorge Luis Borges in ‘Tlön, Uqbar, Orbius Tertius’. Describing the fantasy world of Tlön, in most matters different from ours, the narrator notes that: It is uncommon for books to be signed. The concept of plagiarism does not exist: it has been established that all works are the creation of one author, who is atemporal and anonymous. The critics often invent authors: they select two dissimilar works – the Tao Te Ching and the 1001 Nights, say – attribute them to the same writer and then determine most scrupulously the psychology of this interesting homme de lettres...72

The world of Tlön should act as a reminder that authorship is but a convention, an arbitrary critical construct used as a basis for futile intellectual exercises (as the narrator of ‘Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote’ points out).73 What Borges merely suggests is analysed in detail by Michel Foucault, who goes beyond the arbitrariness of the concept of authorship and shows in ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur?’ how it

71

Walter Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire, A Lyric Poet In The Era Of High Capitalism (London: Verso, 1973), p. 30. 72 Jorge Luis Borges, ‘Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’, translated by James E. Irby, in Labyrinths, Selected Stories and Other Writings, ed. by Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), pp. 27-43 (p. 37). 73 Jorge Luis Borges, ‘Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote’, translated by James E. Irby, in Labyrinths, pp. 62-71.

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is pivotal in the existence and status of texts within modern society. 74 Indeed, an author’s name permits the classification of texts, their circulation and their consumption; it also singles out an individual as accountable for the text. 75 In this respect, Flaubert’s and Baudelaire’s trials in 1857 are emblematic of the double-edged function of authors’ names in our society – they are indications of both individuality (and therefore genius) and responsibility. Curiously, too, as Foucault shows, it is only from the moment when texts become attributable to individuals that their appropriation becomes possible, and at the same time, criminal. Clearly, Baudelaire’s ‘plagiarisms’ should be seen within a context in which importance is placed for the first time on the notion of authorship. In addition, his appropriation of the text of the Other may be seen as a form of experimentation with that very notion of authorship, and an exploitation of the financial reward it offered, as well as a play on the possibilities of subversion that came with it, as the analysis of his complex motivations will show. The financial dimension of literary production and authors’ names as commodities is playfully described by Baudelaire in Comment on paie ses dettes quand on a du génie. Pastiching Balzac’s style, this short piece, published in 1845 in Le Corsaire Satan and in 1846 in L’Écho, recounts with much irony an anecdote in which Balzac, never named but described very explicitly, manages to pay his debts by promising to a publisher ‘deux grands articles Variétés sur Les Français par euxmêmes, deux grands articles de moi et signés de mon nom’,76 for the sum of 1500 francs, and getting a young writer to write one of the articles for 150 francs:‘“Édouard, il me faut demain matin trois grandes colonnes Variétés sur Les Français peints par eux-mêmes; le matin, entendez-vous, et de grand matin; car l’article entier doit être recopié de ma main et signé de mon nom; cela est fort important”’, 77 and asking another writer – identifiable as Théophile Gautier – to write the

74

See also Roland Barthes, ‘De l’Œuvre au texte’, in Le Bruissement de la langue, Essais critiques IV (Paris: Seuil, 1984, article first published in 1971), pp. 71-80 (p. 76). 75 Michel Foucault, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur?’, Bulletin de la Société française de Philosophie, 63, No.3 (1969), 73-104. 76 ŒCII, p. 7. 77 ŒCII, p. 8.

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other. The epilogue of the anecdote reveals even more the extent of the speculation on authors’ names: Le premier article parut le surlendemain dans Le Siècle. Chose bizarre, il n’était signé ni du petit homme ni du grand homme, mais d’un troisième nom bien connu dans la Bohème d’alors pour ses amours de matous et d’OpéraComique.78

From an unknown writer to Balzac, and then to Nerval,79 the literary piece changes author in order to increase value. Foucault’s analysis of the importance of authors’ names in the literary exchange is therefore confirmed by Baudelaire’s picture of his own literary field. This reality of literary work is acknowledged again in Conseils aux jeunes littérateurs, in which Baudelaire stresses that ‘la littérature (...) est avant tout un remplissage de colonnes; et l’architecte littéraire, dont le nom seul n’est pas une chance de bénéfice, doit vendre à tous prix’.80 This emphasis put on authors’ names, seen as possible guarantees of commercial success depending on the status of a particular author, is echoed in Baudelaire’s correspondence. Both the attention paid to his own name, and its variations, suggest an awareness of the seriousness of the question of authorship. The hesitation between possible names – Ch. Baudelaire, Baudelaire-Dufaÿs, Baudelaire Dufaÿs, Baudelaire Dufays, Charles Baudelaire De Fayis, Charles Baudelaire Defayis – in the 1840s is a first indication of the importance given to the question of his name and the awareness of the role of this name in the establishment of his literary fame.81 When Antonio Watripon asked him to give him some biographical details for an biographical note to be included, according to Pichois, in Maurice Lachâtre’s Dictionnaire universel,82 Baudelaire lists all pen-names (‘Baudelaire (Charles Pierre) a signé aussi Baudelaire Dufaÿs, Pierre Dufaÿs, et Charles DeFays’)83 echoing his presentation of Samuel Cramer in the first lines of La Fanfarlo (‘Samuel Cramer, qui signa autrefois du nom de Manuela de 78

ŒCII, p. 8. Claude Pichois notes that this third author can be identified as Gérard de Nerval thanks to the work of Spoelberch de Lovenjoul. 80 ŒCII, pp. 14-15. 81 The play on his name carries on, but less seriously, as a letter to Théophile Gautier, in 1863, signed Baldélario, shows (CII, p. 314). 82 See CII, p. 815. Pichois notes that the entry was not included despite Watripon’s efforts. 83 Letter to Antonio Watripon, around 10 May 1852, CI, p. 199. 79

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Monteverde quelques folies romantiques’):84 in both instances, names define individuals, and this is why they are stressed. Such importance of the name is even clearer in the frequent comments to his correspondents regarding the spelling of his name, and the increasing anger at seeing his name transformed by mistake: prenez bien garde, je vous en supplie, à l’orthographe de mon nom: du Faÿs, en deux mots, avec un y, un tréma et une s. Il m’est insupportable qu’on me confonde avec ce drôle qui se permet de s’appeler Dufaï, fort heureusement avec un i et sans s à la fin.85 Puisque je suis en train de puérilité, je vous rappelle que mon nom ne s’écrit pas Beaudelaire, mais CH. B AUDELAIRE86 Quand on estropie mon nom, je pardonne difficilement.87 vous avez transformé mon nom d’une manière extraordinaire. Je n’ai aucun besoin d’être nobilifié; et un baudelaire, substantif barbare dont les Latins ont fait baltearis, ne peut pas prendre d’e au commencement, pas plus que baudrier.88 Gare aux fautes d’orthographe dans les noms de l’auteur et du traducteur: Edgar Poe. Ch. Baudelaire.89 Quand on a quelque chose à réclamer à quelqu’un, on a soin de s’informer de son nom. Je trouve très inconvenante la manière dont vous estropiez le mien.90

The reasons for this importance of the name are two-fold. There is undoubtedly on Baudelaire’s part a natural desire to establish his identity, and his irritation at the transformations is partly caused by wounded pride. But there is no doubt that another, very strong, reason for such irritation comes from the awareness that his name plays a role in his marketability. Commenting on the title page of Les Fleurs du Mal, he complained about the size of his initials (‘le C. B. seul me 84

ŒCI, p. 551. Letter to Julien Lemer, May 1846, CI, p. 139. 86 Letter to Jean Wallon, 30 January 1854, CI, p. 263. 87 Letter to Auguste de Chatillon, 27 January 1859, CI, p. 541. 88 Letter to Mario Uchard, 7 January 1863, CII, p. 287. 89 Letter to Michel Lévy, November 1863, CII, p. 331. 90 Letter to Aubourg, 1864, CII, p. 359. 85

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paraît un peu petit’);91 similarly he objected to the absence of his name on a reproduction of ‘Assassinat dans la rue Morgue’ in Le Petit Journal, which he suspected to be unauthorized, although the reproduction rights belonged to Michel Lévy (‘en supposant votre autorisation, pourquoi supprime-t-on mon nom?’).92 Conversely, he insisted for his name not to appear on Hiawatha, to express his dissatisfaction with the general project (‘M. Stœpel trouvera naturel que mon nom ne figure pas sur le livret malgré tout le soin que j’ai mis à le faire’). 93 At the core of all the above concerns is, first, the desire to establish the exchange value of his name and then the wish to exploit that exchange value. This is particularly clear in the last few years of his life, as his anxiety to exploit his past writings is expressed more and more recurrently in the correspondence. The despairing ‘se pourrait-il que mon nom n’eût plus aucune valeur?’,94 together with the far more optimistic ‘avec mon nom, mon rang et mon âge, je suis intéressé, moi, à ne confier mes livres qu’à des éditeurs très accrédités’95 both illustrate this anxiety, while the speculation on the possible increase in the value of his name is the constant subtext to his calculations, and is also clearly expressed as in a letter to his mother, where he adamantly refuses the possibility of selling his rights to publishers: ‘Plus tard, mon nom ayant augmenté de valeur, étant plus près de la mort, et n’ayant pas d’héritiers, je ferai peut-être de ces marchés-là.’ 96 Within such a context, Baudelaire’s temptation to ‘coller [son] nom’ on the texts of others (in this case the Satyricon) is, therefore, far from innocent.97 It is an expression of both his admiration and the wish to claim authorship – and therefore financial reward – for the text of the Other. Clearly, translation, because of the occasion for double authorship it offers, is the form of writing which makes such a claim the most possible. That the need to sell should be a very strong motivation in the appropriation of the text of others is also confirmed by the emphasis laid by Baudelaire on the commercial dimension of the literary exchange. In Pierre Dupont, the example of Balzac is summoned again 91

Letter to Auguste Poulet-Malassis, 16 or 17 March 1857, CI, p. 382. Letter to Michel Lévy, 31 August 1864, CII, p. 403. 93 Note for Robert Stœpel, 4 December (?) 1860, CII, p. 109. 94 Letter to Madame Aupick, 31 July 1864, CII, p. 391. 95 Letter to Madame Aupick, 15 February 1865, CII, p. 463. 96 Letter to Madame Aupick, 17 February 1866, CII, p. 603. 97 Letter to Auguste-Poulet Malassis, 31 October 1864, CII, p. 416. 92

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as the embodiment of the poet subjected to capitalist forces: ‘le poète doit vivre par lui-même; il doit, comme disait Honoré de Balzac, offrir une surface commerciale. Il faut que son outil le nourrisse.’98 Similarly, in Conseils aux jeunes littérateurs, the literary activity is described in economic terms: Aujourd’hui, il faut produire beaucoup; – il faut donc aller vite; – il faut donc se hâter lentement; il faut donc que tous les coups portent, et que pas une touche ne soit inutile.99 La poésie est un des arts qui rapportent le plus; mais c’est une espèce de placement dont on ne touche que tard les intérêts, – en revanche très gros. 100

The second extract, presenting poetry as an investment, clearly places itself within a capitalist framework. As Jérôme Thélot argues in his analysis of ‘Le Chien et le flacon’, the awareness of the commercial exchange between author and reader is at the centre of Baudelaire’s poetry.101 Analysing the imagery of the prose poem, Thélot decodes it into a metaphor for the exchange between author and reader and points out that Citadin, le poète moderne découvre la poésie inséparable des circuits de l’économie, et constate qu’il présente avec son œuvre, son parfum, l’un des produits du marché nécessairement collectif. (...) L’œuvre a une valeur marchande à laquelle souscrit même l’artiste; elle relève d’un tissu social, non d’une conscience unique; et l’artiste propose une transaction commerciale. 102

Such awareness of the market forces at play is even more conspicuous in the correspondence, which is notoriously full of references to money, particularly the lack of it, and schemes to remedy his poverty: 103 ‘Trouver de l’argent pour en gagner’ is how Baudelaire descri98

ŒCII, p. 30. ŒCII, p. 17. 100 ŒCII, p. 18. 101 The picture of capitalism presented in le Spleen de Paris is also studied by Margery Evans in Baudelaire and Intertextuality, Poetry at the Crossroads (Cambridge: CUP, 1993), and particularly in her chapter entitled ‘Exchange Codes’ (pp 21-40). 102 Jérôme Thélot, Baudelaire, violence et poésie (Paris: Gallimard, 1993), p. 29. 103 See Claire Brunet’s introduction to Claude Pichois’ edition of Baudelaire’s art and music criticism (Paris: Gallimard, 1992), p. i, where she talks of ‘l’obsession financière et le comptage des sommes dûes’ which can be found in the correspondence. 99

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bes his own vicious circle in October 1852. 104 The letters to Madame Aupick are particularly revealing in this respect. In the particularly desperate letter of 4 December 1847 (in which he is asking for financial help), for instance, Baudelaire explains his desire to devote himself to the writing of novels by his admiration for the genre but also by its financial appeal – ‘bon ou mauvais, tout se vend’.105 In 1855 he reminds her of l’admirable faculté poétique, la netteté d’idées, et la puissance d’espérance qui constituent en réalité [son] capital.106

Similarly, he exclaims in 1864: Dois-je réellement croire que tous ces articles que j’ai si douloureusement écrits sur la peinture et la poésie n’aient aucune valeur vénale? Quand je pense à toutes ces ordures et à ces niaiseries qui se vendent si facilement!,107

speculating on the commercial value of his works in a tone which contrasts sharply with the optimism of his youth and reveals his disillusion with his capitalist environment. This is echoed in 1865 when he writes to his mother that his books are ‘valeurs perdues pour le moment’.108 It comes as no surprise, therefore, that translations should often be regarded for their exchange value. In a reply to Jean-Marc Baud, who was asking for his advice regarding the quality of a translation done by his sister and on financial matters linked to the sale of translations, Baudelaire writes: Relativement aux renseignements que vous m’avez demandés, que votre sœur évite bien de vendre à des maisons qui, comme la maison Hachette, font de la traduction une entreprise de camelote. – Tous les journaux et tous les libraires sont disposés à imprimer des traductions; toute la question est donc de trouver des ouvrages propres à faire une grande impression.109

The above passage echoes the ‘tout se vend’ applied to novels, and strongly suggests that a paramount motivation for Baudelaire’s translating activity was the market value of the exercise. In May 1860, for 104

Letter to the Doctor Véron, 19 October 1852, CI, p. 205. CI, p. 145. 106 20 December 1855, CI, p. 327. 107 Letter to Madame Aupick, 14 August 1864, CII, p. 397. 108 Letter to Madame Aupick, 23 December 1865, CII, p. 553. 109 CII, pp. 68-69. 105

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instance, he offered to refund his debt to Eugène Crépet by giving him a translation of Maturin’s Bertram (‘Maturin paiera cela’).110 This view of translations chiefly as a source of money is confirmed in other letters, and in particular in a letter to Madame Paul Meurice, in which he writes that his translations are ‘un moyen de paresseux de battre monnaie’,111 expressing a cynical acceptance of market forces. Similarly, Baudelaire could say a posteriori: Combien je regrette la ridicule aliénation de mes droits sur ma traduction pour 2000 francs comptants, desquels je n’ai même pas pu dépenser un sou pour moi. Ces cinq volumes étaient une rente approximative de 400 à 600 francs par an, malgré l’exiguïté de mes droits.112

and, a year later: Puisque je n’ai aucune fortune, il faut que mes livres me fassent une petite rente, et j’aime mieux, croyant fermement au succès, recevoir une série indéterminée de petites sommes. J’ai aliéné à tout jamais ma traduction de Poe, et je m’en suis mille fois repenti.113

Here, Baudelaire’s concerns for copyright are very clearly linked to income considerations rather than ideals of authorship. The usefulness of the literary property laws to the generation of income is stressed in more general terms in another letter to his mother: Tu as bien compris maintenant que quand un écrivain reste maître de sa propriété, et qu’il a un certain nombre d’ouvrages d’une vente facile, il possède une espèce de rente. (...) Être propriétaire de ses propres ouvrages (si quelques-uns de ces ouvrages sont de nature à se vendre longtemps), c’est être presque riche.114

Baudelaire’s frequent references to the capitalist dimension of literary activities of his days in both his works and his correspondence point to the importance of this aspect in his work as a writer. His endless struggle for an income throughout his life made the question of literary property crucial for him. Seeing literary property as both a guarantee of income and an obstacle for the appropriation of the texts 110

CII, p. 41. CII, p. 467. 112 Letter to Madame Aupick, 11 February 1865, CII, p. 457. 113 Letter to Narcisse Ancelle, 16 February 1866, CII, p. 601. 114 Letter to Madame Aupick, 22 December 1865, CII, p. 552. 111

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of others, Baudelaire naturally entertained an ambivalent attitude to plagiarism. Whereas the unauthorized reproduction of his works and the misuse of his name deprived him of the possibility of an income, the usurpation of the text of the Other offered an easy way to increase his own market value. From this point of view, translation, less regulated than more direct forms of reproduction, was a convenient target. It also presented fewer risks than other forms of plagiarism thanks to the inaccessibility of the source text to the general reader. In addition, even acknowledged translations – such as the Poe translations – offered the possibility to put his name onto the text of the Other, and in this way to make the text of the Other his, bringing income and recognition to himself. Although the financial motivations noted above undoubtedly played an important role in Baudelaire’s literary activities, it would be a mistake to explain Baudelaire’s ambivalence towards literary property solely in terms of financial concerns. W. T. Bandy notes, for instance, that Baudelaire’s use of John Moncure Daniel’s and John R. Thompson’s articles as a basis for ‘Edgar Allan Poe: sa vie et ses ouvrages’ brought Baudelaire very little pecuniary benefit (his forty-page article brought him only seventy-two francs fifty centimes).115 The reason for this ambivalence is therefore much deeper, and reflects his political hesitations, his attitude to the bourgeois, and his view of the place and role of the artist within this context. The ambiguity of Baudelaire’s position towards the bourgeoisie has often been commented on,116 and may be central to his attitude regarding literary property. As Richard D.E. Burton reminds us in the preface to his Baudelaire and the Second Republic, critics may be divided into two groups – those who judge Baudelaire’s political involvement in the 1848 revolution as a minor element in his personality and the formation of his literary aim, and those who, following Walter Benjamin, see that political involvement as central to his life and work. Given the role played by 115

W.T. Bandy, Ouvrages73, p. xl. See Annie Becq, ‘Baudelaire et “L’Amour de l’Art”: La dédicace “aux bourgeois” du Salon de 1846’, Romantisme, 17-18 (1977), 71-78 (p. 71); David Carrier, ‘The Style of the Argument in Baudelaire’s “Salon de 1846”’, Romance Quarterly, 41, 1 (Winter 1994), 3-14; Bernard Howells, ‘“L’Individualisme bien entendu” and the Salon de 1846’, in Howells, Bernard, Baudelaire. Individualism, Dandyism and the Philosophy of History (Oxford: Legenda, 1996), pp. 28-63; Lois Boe Hyslop, Baudelaire, Man of His Time (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980). 116

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political convictions in the literary property question, probing Baudelaire’s political position offers clues to his position regarding literary property. In this respect, his relationship with P. J. Proudhon, whose symbolic position in the literary property debate has already been noted, provides a good starting point. Claude Pichois and Jean Ziegler emphasize in their biography of the poet his lifelong admiration for Proudhon the man, a point which is confirmed by the correspondence, and particularly in letters written while in Belgium.117 Not surprisingly, it is in 1848 that this admiration was at its strongest, and that, as Pichois and Ziegler recount, Baudelaire tried to become part of Proudhon’s circle.118 A letter he wrote Proudhon on 21 August 1848 to warn him of a danger of assassination illustrates this admiration: Celui qui vous écrit ces lignes a une absolue confiance en vous, ainsi que beaucoup de ses amis, qui marcheraient les yeux fermés derrière vous pour les garanties de savoir que vous leur avez données. Ainsi, à la prochaine émotion, ne soyez pas chez vous. Ayez, si vous le pouvez, une garde occulte ou sommez la police de vous protéger. D’ailleurs le gouvernement accepterait volontiers peut-être un pareil cadeau de la part des bêtes féroces de la propriété; ainsi il vaut mieux peut-être vous protéger vousmême.119

The phrase ‘bêtes féroces de la propriété’ clearly reveals Baudelaire’s position in the property debate in 1848. It is tempting to extend this position to the literary property debate itself, which, as I have shown earlier, was so entangled with general questions of property. Baudelaire’s statement in his 1851 Les Drames et les Romans honnêtes that ‘Proudhon est un écrivain que l’Europe nous enviera toujours’ shows that his admiration extended from Proudhon’s politics to his writing.120 One could argue, therefore, that Baudelaire’s attack on the ‘bêtes féroces de la propriété’ applied as well to literary property (although one should bear in mind that Proudhon’s text on literary property, Les Majorats littéraires, appeared only in 1862). A letter to Théophile Thoré, in which he defends Manet against accusations of pastiching Goya, certainly confirms this hypothesis:

117

Claude Pichois and Jean Ziegler, Baudelaire (Paris: Julliard, 1987). Baudelaire, pp. 265-68. 119 CI, p. 152. 120 ŒCII, p. 40. 118

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M. Manet, à l’époque où nous jouissions de ce merveilleux musée espagnol que la stupide république française, dans son respect abusif de la propriété, a rendu aux princes d’Orléans, M. Manet était un enfant et servait à bord d’un navire.121

Clearly, the ‘respect abusif de la propriété’ attacked here applies to the arts, Baudelaire mourning the dispersion of the galerie du comte Pourtalès and the return of the paintings to their legal owners. His dismissal of property concerns, in a letter devoted to questions of literary property, and his assimilation of his own use of Poe’s text to Manet’s possible imitation of Goya (‘on m’accuse, moi, d’imiter Edgar Poe’) suggest a strong link in his mind between property concerns in general and artistic property in particular, while the phrase ‘la stupide république française’ echoes Proudhon’s attack on the Revolutionary sanctification of property. So, how does Baudelaire view his own relationship to his source material? The ragpicker poems (‘Le Vin des chiffonniers’ in its many versions, and its prose doublet in Du Vin et du hachisch) provide a good starting point to answer this question. Many critics – and most notably Walter Benjamin and Richard D. E. Burton – have insisted on the political importance of the image of the ragpicker in the middle of the 19th century. In Charles Baudelaire, A Lyric Poet In The Era Of High Capitalism, Benjamin shows how the ragpicker embodied for writers and revolutionaries alike the sense of revolt against the sociopolitical situation: The ragpicker fascinated his epoch. The eyes of the first investigators of pauperism were fixed on him with the mute question as to where the limit of human misery lay (...) A ragpicker cannot, of course, be part of the bohème. But from the littérateur to the professional conspirator, everyone who belonged to the bohème could recognize a bit of himself in the ragpicker. Each person was in a more or less obscure state of revolt against society and faced a more or less precarious future.122

In such a context, Baudelaire’s many versions of ‘Le Vin des chiffonniers’, on which he worked between 1851 and 1857,123 are shown by

121

Letter to Théophile Thoré, 20 June 1864, CII, p. 386. Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire, pp. 19-20. 123 Pichois notes that ‘C’est le poème dont les versions sont les plus nombreuses’ and groups the manuscripts in three main versions of the poem (plus one prose doublet in Du Vin et du haschisch) – ŒCI, pp. 1047-1052. 122

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Burton to be a distinct move towards revolutionary politics.124 In conjunction with the political content of the poem, the image of the poet as ragpicker is particulary relevant to this study. Souvent, à la clarté rouge d’un réverbère Dont le vent bat la flamme et tourmente le verre Au cœur d’un vieux faubourg, labyrinthe fangeux Où l’humanité grouille en ferments orageux, On voit un chiffonnier qui vient, hochant la tête, Butant, comme aux murs comme un poète, Et sans prendre souci des mouchards, ses sujets Épanche tout son cœur en glorieux projets.125

The explicit comparison (‘comme’) leaves very little doubt of the assimilation of the image of the ragpicker to the poet. The awkwardness of the ragpicker (‘butant’) reinforces the comparison and is reminiscent of poems in which the poet’s lack of ease among men is stressed (as for instance ‘L’Albatros’). In addition, the poem, insisting on the magical powers of wine, seems to act as a reminder of the poet’s alchemical gift: ‘solennelle magie’ (line 21) and, more importantly, ‘Le vin roule de l’or, éblouissant Pactole’ recall the transmutation described in ‘Alchimie de la douleur’.126 Within this context, the prose doublet, first published in 1851, offers an insight into Baudelaire’s attitude to the text of the Other: Voici un homme chargé de ramasser les débris d’une journée de la capitale. Tout ce que la grande cité a rejeté, tout ce qu’elle a perdu, tout ce qu’elle a dédaigné, tout ce qu’elle a brisé, il le catalogue, il le collectionne. Il compulse les archives de la débauche, le capharnaüm des rebuts. Il fait un triage, un choix intelligent; il ramasse, comme un avare un trésor, les ordures qui, remâchées par la divinité de l’Industrie, deviendront des objets d’utilité ou de jouissance. (...) Il arrive hochant la tête et butant sur les pavés, comme les jeunes poètes qui passent toutes leurs journées à errer et à chercher des rimes. Il parle tout seul; il verse son âme dans l’air froid et ténébreux de la nuit. C’est un monologue splendide à faire prendre en pitié les tragédies les plus lyriques.127

124

Baudelaire and the Second Republic, Writing and Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), Chapter 6. 125 ‘Le Vin des chiffonniers’ (1857 version), ŒCI, p.106. 126 For a more detailed analysis of the alchemical metaphor, see Chapter 5. 127 ŒCI, p. 381.

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Here again, the comparison between the poet and the ragpicker is explicit (‘comme les jeunes poètes’); it is developed further than in the verse version, as the ragpicker’s discourse is equated with literature (‘les tragédies les plus lyriques’). But what this prose version adds is the description of the work of the ragpicker, which could in many ways be seen as a metaphor for the work of the poet. The city as source of inspiration is commonplace in Baudelaire’s poetry, and is best exemplified in the projets d’épilogue for the 1861 edition of the Fleurs du Mal.128 Here, the ragpicker-poet is shown collecting refuse from the city which is reminiscent of the ‘boue’ from the 1861 epilogue (‘Tu m’as donné ta boue et j’en ai fait de l’or’).129 But more than that, the act of picking up objects rejected by the city is shown as a creative one: ‘il fait un choix intelligent’. The act of transmutation of the refuse into riches is very close to alchemy, since it involves the transformation of base material (‘les ordures’) into a treasure, in the same way as alchemy makes gold out of base metals. The triple gesture of the ragpicker, selecting, picking and transforming refuse is also that of the poet finding inspiration from the city. The refuse from the city may also be seen to symbolize the text of others, collected and recycled by the act of writing. In this connection, the use of the term ‘remâché’ points to a process of assimilation to which I will come back in due course. This interaction with the outside world should not obscure the fact that the ragpicker’s interaction with the city and its refuse does not lead him to a communion with it, but rather to an autonomous, single voice, which seems to negate the raw material he is transforming. The focus on the ragpicker’s loneliness (‘tout seul’) echoes the topos of the poet as isolated amongst men already noted, while his ‘monologue’ suggests both his fellow men’s lack of understanding of him and his own impossibility of communicating with them or of acknowledging their input in his own text. The revolutionary image of the ragpicker, explicitly associated by Baudelaire with that of the poet, contains therefore in itself his ambivalence towards literary property – the rejection of the bourgeois world and its concerns for property embodied by the ragpicker claiming ownership over what the bourgeois have thrown away combines with the negating of that raw material, which once transformed becomes his monologue and disappears into his own text without trace. In other words, the 128 129

ŒCI, pp. 191-2 ŒCI, p. 192.

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source material is presented as refuse, which only the creative input of the poet will transform into gold, proving the poet’s superior genius. The same phenomenon occurs in the first essay on Pierre Dupont, first published in 1851, in which the poet is shown as a resonance chamber for his century: 130 Le poète, placé sur un des points de la circonférence de l’humanité, renvoie sur la même ligne en vibrations plus mélodieuses la pensée humaine qui lui fut transmise; tout poète véritable doit être une incarnation.

There is here, far more than in the ragpicker texts, the sense of a communion between the poet and his fellow human beings. At the same time, however, the poet is also seen as a superior being (an ‘incarnation’), in an echo of Romantic concerns of genius which the essay, paradoxically, tries to oppose. Here again, the appropriation of others’ thoughts are shown as the poet’s prerogative, because of his exceptional quality. The figure of the ragpicker gradually gives way to that of the poet as a superior being – a sort of poetic percursor of the Nietszchean Übermensch. Such a shift is no surprise. Baudelaire’s socialist ideals are ambiguous at best, and even his admiration for Proudhon is far from unproblematic. Indeed, his statements of admiration for the thinker in the 1860s are not without irony. A recurrent feature in his letters is the criticism of Proudhon’s literary abilities, which suggests a rejection of his views on literature: S’il était question d’art, oui, vous auriez raison de dire de Proudhon: Il est fou. – Mais en matière d’économie, il me paraît singulièrement respectable. 131 Proudhon n’avait jamais lu Victor Hugo; il aurait dû lire les poésies; mais on lui prêta Les Misérables (le déshonneur de Hugo); il annota les deux premier volumes ligne à ligne. Ce devait être une merveille de drôlerie; la logique corrigeant l’absence de logique!132

This is confirmed in Baudelaire’s essays. The Balzac depicted in Comment on paie ses dettes quand on a du génie cannot by any stretch of the imagination be assimilated to a revolutionary figure. The playful evocation of the novelist’s exploitation of his own name to accu130

ŒCII, p. 27. Letter to Narcisse Ancelle, 8 February 1865, CII, p. 453. 132 Letter to Narcisse Ancelle, 12 February 1865, CII, p. 460. 131

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mulate wealth belongs more to a cynical acceptance of the rules of capitalism than their rejection. There are many other instances of such acceptance. The Conseils aux jeunes littérateurs, far from being antibourgeois, present the bourgeois as a customer to seduce. Quoting successful but more frivolous authors such as Eugène Sue and Paul Féval, Baudelaire advises: Allumez autant d’intérêt avec des moyens nouveaux; possédez une force égale et supérieure dans un sens contraire; doublez, triplez, quadruplez la dose jusqu’à une égale concentration, et vous n’aurez plus le droit de médire du bourgeois, car le bourgeois sera avec vous.133

Baudelaire’s ambivalence may be felt in the above passage, in which the bourgeois is seen as an outsider needed for financial success. This even clearer in the dedication of the Salon de 1846 which shows, by its very ambiguity, Baudelaire’s complex relationship to the bourgeois. His appeal to the bourgeois to support the arts is based on a flattery of the taste of the majority, and suggests, once more, the acceptance of the capitalist rules of artistic production; on the other hand, the chapter entitled ‘Des écoles et des ouvriers’ rests on an attack on republicanism: Avez-vous éprouvé, vous tous que la curiosité du flâneur a souvent fourrés dans une émeute, la même joie que moi à voir un gardien du sommeil public, – sergent de ville ou municipal, la véritable armée, – crosser un républicain? Et, comme moi, vous avez dit dans votre cœur: «Crosse, crosse un peu plus fort, crosse encore, municipal de mon cœur. (...) L’homme que tu crosses est un ennemi des roses et des parfums, un fanatique des ustensiles, c’est un ennemi de Watteau, un ennemi de Raphaêl, un ennemi acharné du luxe, des beaux-arts et des belles-lettres, iconoclaste juré, bourreau de Vénus et d’Apollon!134

The reproach made to republicanism is that it prevents the search for beauty and the ideal in art by substituting it with the aim of usefulness. This passage, with its encouragement to violence against Republicans also echoes the anti-Proudhonnian ‘Assommons les pauvres!’ in which socialist ideals are denounced as ridiculous, and as the title suggests, a similar violence is defended. Ironically, the terms used by Baudelaire to refer to the act of reading at the beginning of the prose poem are flavoured with the imagery of assimilation which, one could 133 134

ŒCII, p. 14. ŒCII, p. 490.

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argue, belongs to a Proudhonnian aesthetic but is immediately negated: ‘J’avais donc digéré, – avalé, veux-je dire, – toutes les élucubrations de tous ces entrepreneurs de bonheur public’, 135 the point being that the digestion (or assimilation) does not occur, as the text of the Other is only swallowed, and remains foreign, because not worth this assimilation.136 ‘Des écoles et des ouvriers’ also uses this imagery, in the passage which emphasizes the importance of artistic schools in the development of art and stresses the role of genius and presents strong literary figures as deserving complete submission from weaker ones. In the context of the present chapter, the last page of ‘Des écoles et des ouvriers’ is particularly relevant, as it contrasts weak and inspired appropriations. Il y a des gens qui voleront un morceau dans un tableau de Rembrandt, le mêleront à une œuvre composée dans un sens différent sans le modifier, sans le digérer et sans trouver la colle pour le coller. Il y en a qui changent en un jour du blanc au noir: hier, coloristes de chic, coloristes sans amour ni originalité; demain imitateurs sacrilèges de M. Ingres, sans y trouver plus de goût ni de foi. Tel qui rentre aujourd’hui dans la classe des singes, même des plus habiles, n’est et ne sera qu’un peintre médiocre; autrefois il eût fait un excellent ouvrier. Il est donc perdu pour lui et pour tous.137

The ‘singe’, that is to say the uninspired imitator, is described as incapable of creative appropriation. By contrast, Baudelaire presents the ideal appropriation with metaphors which emphasize the chemical (colle / coller) and transformative (digérer) action involved in the act. Artistic schools, he goes on to say, enable strong artists to use weaker artists for their own purposes: Les singes sont les républicains de l’art, et l’état actuel de la peinture est le résultat d’une liberté anarchique qui glorifie l’individu, quelque faible qu’il soit, au détriment des associations, c’est-à-dire des écoles. Dans les écoles, qui ne sont autre chose que la force d’invention organisée, les individus vraiment dignes de ce nom absorbent les faibles; et c’est justice, car une large production n’est qu’une pensée à mille bras.138

135

ŒCI, p. 357. On the relevance of metaphors of ingestion and digestion in the description of literary creation, see Chapter 5. 137 ŒCII, p. 492. 138 ŒCII, p. 492. 136

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The second paragraph of the above quotation, although applied to art rather than literature, seems to summarize the other side of the coin of Baudelaire’s attitude to the foreign text: the concept of the strong artist’s swallowing the work of the weaker could account for the appropriation of texts such as The Young Enchanter, while that of artistic school could explain the sense of recognition in writers such as Poe and De Quincey, which led to a much more respectful use of the foreign text, as part maybe of a search for a common artistic aim. The crudest of Baudelaire’s plagiarisms would then be caused by a sense of his own artistic superiority and the desire to submit writers considered weaker to his own literary aim, and his quest for the new. Baudelaire’s urge to create something new, best formulated at the end of ‘Le Voyage’ (‘Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu’importe? / Au fond de l’Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau’),139 may be motivated by romantic concerns for originality or the desire to make his work marketable within the capitalist system by advertising it as new, but beyond these motivations lies a creative issue, which is the relationship to models and sources. Here again, Baudelaire’s position is not clear-cut. ‘Le Chien et le flacon’, which, as Jérôme Thélot shows, is a thinly disguised discussion of the relationship between author and public, offers a useful starting point. As Thélot points out, the first sentence of the prose poem (‘– Mon beau chien, mon bon chien, mon cher toutou, approchez et venez respirer un excellent parfum acheté chez le meilleur parfumeur de la ville’) emphasizes the fact that the gift offered is not the personal creation of the poet. The quality of the gift is confirmed by the fact that it is the creation of a third party, consecrated as the best possible source: le maître a eu recours à un tiers: il est allé chercher chez un autre ce qu’il ne produit pas lui-même, il donne pour sa propre gloire un parfum dont il n’est pas l’auteur. Comme si l’artiste, réclamant les suffrages, fraudait sur ses mérites réels, usurpait l’opinion due à un autre, et comme si l’œuvre ne relevait pas d’une subjectivité solitaire mais d’un commerce touchant l’ensemble de la collectivité.140

Thélot emphasizes the notion of usurpation which is central to the modern concept of plagiarism. The terms used are negative (‘fraudait’, 139 140

ŒCI, p. 134. Thélot, p. 28.

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‘usurpait’) and the question of legitimacy is placed at the foreground of the exchange of which the social dimension and the commercial nature are also stressed. If one opens up Thélot’s excellent analysis to the question of Baudelaire’s plagiarisms, one may argue that Baudelaire’s self-accusations follow the same principles as those underlying the exchange in ‘Le Chien et le flacon’. They may be seen as a paradoxical way of gaining the trust of the public by using the text of the Other as a guarantee of quality. The unacknowledged plagiarisms, on the other hand, could be seen as an attempt to gain commercial recognition by the recycling of texts known to be successful. Thélot’s reading of ‘Le Chien et le flacon’ opens up other issues. His analysis of the concept of authorship as a combination of forces rather than a single subjectivity has more than commercial implications. If we accept that ‘Le Chien et le flacon’, besides its obvious attack on the public’s bad taste, is based on a blurring of the definitions of literary ownership, then the implications for Baudelaire as translator are wide ranging. Indeed, translation is the clearest instance of a blurring, or extension of authorship, and, arguably, the most extreme step which Baudelaire could take in his exploration of the limits of authorship and the uses of the text of the Other as part of his own writing. As Lawrence Venuti puts it, ‘in copyright law, the translator is and is not an author’.141 The ambivalence of literary property laws which has already been noted is in itself the inevitable consequence of the unique situation of translation, best highlighted by Sherry Simon’s excellent analysis of ‘la double signature du texte traduit’.142 Simon notes that the birth of the concept of translation as subservient to an original is simultaneous with the birth of the author in the Renaissance, and rests on a definition of text as a closed, sacrosanct entity.143 The hierarchical dimension of the relationship between author and translator is so firmly established that any disruption to that order becomes highly subversive, and challenges the roots of the concept of authorship and authority. The importance of that challenge is best exemplified by the attempt of the belles infidèles:

141

Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility, p. 9. Sherry Simon, ‘Conflits de juridiction, La double signature du texte traduit’, Meta, 34, 2 (1989), 195-208. 143 See also Luce Guillerm, ‘L’auteur, les modèles, et le pouvoir ou la topique de la traduction au XVIe siècle en France’, Revue des sciences humaines, 180 (1980), 5-31. 142

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soudain le traducteur s’affirme, revendique son pouvoir, se dresse contre celui qu’il proclame quand même être son idole: l’auteur. Il n’y aurait pas que l’auteur qui fait montre de ‘style’ et de ‘pensée’. Ainsi d’Ablancourt (préface à Arrian): ‘Cet Autheur est sujet à des repetitions frequentes et inutiles, que ma langue ny mon stile ne peuvent souffrir’ et Jules Pilet de la Menardière: ‘J’ai pris la liberté de mesler souvent mes pensées parmy celles de notre Autheur’.144

Baudelaire’s manipulations of his source texts, best exemplified in Un Mangeur d’opium, have much in common with the strategies of the advocates of the belles infidèles: there is in Un Mangeur d’opium the same refusal of the inessential and the same desire to give prominence to his own voice. As Simon shows, the belles infidèles are the manifestation of a crisis in the relationship between author and translator and definitions of authorship. They are a reminder that translation, both original and derivative, calls into question traditional definitions of authorship, and in fact disrupts the very concept of ‘author’. This disruption is analysed by Lawrence Venuti in his account of the translation projects of the 19th-century Italian writer Iginio Ugo Tarchetti. Particularly relevant to the present study is Venuti’s account of Tarchetti’s appropriation of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s ‘The Mortal Immortal’, which, somewhat like Le Jeune Enchanteur, was disguised translation. Tarchetti’s motivations are similar to Baudelaire’s – Venuti mentions financial difficulties, and the fact that ‘the legal status of translation was just beginning to be defined in 1865’.145 More importantly, Venuti points out the ‘violation of the individualistic notion of authorship on which copyright is based’ at the core of Tarchetti’s project.146 Tarchetti’s view that the act of translation which had produced ‘Il mortale immortale (dall’inglese)’ warranted his claim of the text as his, and his status as that of an author, echoes Baudelaire’s views about Le Jeune Enchanteur. In both cases, translation redefines authorship, and collapses ‘the distinction that an individualistic notion of authorship draws between author and translator, creator and imitator’.147 Or, as Terry Eagleton puts it: ‘[w]hat is being displaced, in other words, is the mythological notion of the founding or primary text’.148 144

Simon, ‘Conflits de juridiction’, op. cit., p. 199. Venuti, pp. 163-65. 146 Venuti, p. 165. 147 Venuti, p. 166. 148 Terry Eagleton, ‘Translation and Transformation’, Stand, 19, 3 (1997-98), 72-77 145

[Footnotes continue on next page]

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The socio-cultural context in which Baudelaire’s translations were produced, on which the present chapter has been concentrating until now, highlights the complexity of the question of plagiarism, and the ambiguity of translation in this respect. Interestingly, the historical approach I have adopted so far is compatible with the views of deconstruction theorists. The latter analyse the subversive function of translation in terms which shed light on the historically ambiguous position of translation in copyright law. As Edwin Gentzler summarizes, the main questions asked are: what if one theoretically reversed the direction of thought and posited the hypothesis that the original text is dependent upon the translation? What if one suggested that, without translation, the original text ceased to exist, that the very survival of the original depends not on any particular quality it contains, but upon those qualities that its translation contains? What if the very definition of a text’s meaning was determined not by the original, but by the translation? What if the ‘original’ has no fixed identity that can be aesthetically or scientifically determined but rather changes each time it passes into translation?149

Jacques Derrida’s ‘Des Tours de Babel’ is particularly useful for an exploration of such issues. 150 In his reading of Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Translator’s Task’, Derrida explores the question of debt as central to translation: Le traducteur est endetté, il s’apparaît comme traducteur dans la situation de la dette; et sa tâche c’est de rendre, de rendre ce qui doit avoir été donné.151

Yet, as Derrida shows in Donner le temps, the question of don and debt is far from straightforward: Pour qu’il y ait don, il faut que le donataire ne rende pas, n’amortisse pas, ne rembourse pas, ne s’acquitte pas, n’entre pas dans le contrat, n’ait jamais contracté de dette.152

(p. 73) 149 Edwin Gentzler, Contemporary Translation Theories, pp. 144-45. 150 Jacques Derrida, ‘Des Tours de Babel’, in Difference in Translation, Edited and with an Introduction by Joseph F. Graham (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 209-48. 151 ‘Des Tours de Babel’, p. 219. 152 Jacques Derrida, Donner le temps, 1. La Fausse Monnaie (Paris: Galilée, 1991), p. 26.

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The translator’s debt, then, is the result of a false gift, since if the text was really given to the translator, the translator would be free to use the text as he / she would wish. Instead, the translator is tied by the obligation to render, or give back (Derrida plays with the two meanings of the word). Derrida is quick to point out, however, that this debt does not necessarily involve an exchange of meaning: the translator’s debt is in fact to respond to the text’s call for translation. Within these conditions, fidelity to an ‘original’ is not a prerequisite: la dette n’engage pas à restituer une copie ou une bonne image, une représentation fidèle de l’original: celui-ci, le survivant, est lui-même en procès de transformation. L’original se donne en se modifiant, ce don n’est pas d’un objet donné, il vit et survit en mutation.153

The transformation – potentialisation – achieved through translation, and the need that the original has of such potentialisation, means that the debt eventually gets reversed: si la structure de l’original est marquée par l’exigence d’être traduit, c’est qu’en faisant la loi l’original commence par s’endetter aussi à l’égard du traducteur. L’original est le premier débiteur, le premier demandeur, il commence par manquer et par pleurer après la traduction.154

Still reading Benjamin, Derrida points out that this need of the original for translation suggests ‘qu’à l’origine il n’était pas là sans faute, plein, complet, total, identique à soi’.155 Translation is not about copying or representing, therefore, but rather about augmenting and modifying the original. It is a subversion of the concept of originality. As a consequence, the attempt of copyright laws to control the relationship between original and derivative works both reflects and denies this double bind of translation – while recognizing the potential for ‘originality’ through form at the core of translation, the copyright laws still place the original above the translation, and, therefore, deny the complexity of the exchange at work in translation. Within this context, Baudelaire’s translations, and various degrees of ‘fidelity’ to his source, are symptomatic the subversive nature of translation. Whether one looks at Baudelaire’s use of foreign texts from the perspective of literary history or adopts a deconstructionist ap153

‘Des Tours de Babel’, p. 226. ‘Des Tours de Babel’, pp. 226-28. 155 ‘Des Tours de Babel’, p. 232. 154

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proach, the conclusion remains the same: the ‘procès baudelairien’ is based on a misunderstanding of translation and an uncritical acceptance of the concept of authorship. Baudelaire’s unacknowledged translations, such as Le Jeune Enchanteur, may well have been motivated by an awareness of the ambivalence of his century regarding copyright as applied to translation and the desire to exploit the capitalist forces at work. But in the case of texts such as the Poe translations, and, perhaps more remarkably, Un Mangeur d’opium, a very conscious play on authorship seems to be at work. Baudelaire’s ‘transgression créatrice’ (to use Pierre Bourdieu’s phrase) includes, then, a challenge to authorship.156 In the context of Derrida’s study of debt and its reversal, Baudelaire’s statement on the improvement of De Quincey’s text achieved by his version (‘espérons que M. De Quincey adressera une belle lettre de remerciements à votre journal’, which puts emphasis on what De Quincey owes Baudelaire rather than what Baudelaire owes De Quincey), makes Un Mangeur d’opium exemplary of the challenge to authorship explored in ‘Des Tours de Babel’ and other deconstructionist texts. Translation, because of its obvious use of outside sources, but also its inevitable transformative dimension, makes particularly clear the tension between indebtedness and creation which is at the hear of Baudelaire’s, and modern writing. It is this very tension which is at the heart of Baudelaire’s aesthetics of amalgame.

156

Pierre Bourdieu, Les Règles de l’art, p. 95.

5 BAUDELAIRE’S AESTHETICS OF AMALGAME [T]raduire un ouvrage qui nous a plu, c’est pénétrer en lui plus profondément que nous ne pouvons le faire par la simple lecture, c’est le posséder plus complètement, c’est en quelque sorte nous l’approprier. Or, c’est à cela que nous tendons toujours, plagiaires que nous sommes tous, à l’origine. VALÉRY LARBAUD1

In the prose poem ‘Les Vocations’, the first child explains that one of the attractions of the theatre for him comes from the fact that ‘cela donne envie d’être habillé de même, de dire et de faire les même choses, et de parler avec la même voix’,2 expressing what Jérôme Thélot calls Baudelaire’s ‘passion mimétique’.3 The desire for imitation, and the tendency to identify with admired models expressed by the character in ‘Les Vocations’ echoes both Baudelaire’s and his alter ego Samuel Cramer’s relationships with the text of others. The hero of La Fanfarlo is indeed characterized by his disposition towards appropriation: après une lecture passionnée d’un beau livre, sa conclusion involontaire était: voilà qui est assez beau pour être de moi! – et de là à penser: c’est donc de moi, – il n’y a que l’espace d’un tiret.4

The strong irony of the portrait of Samuel should not obscure the resemblance between this passage and Baudelaire’s statements on his admiration for Poe: 1

Valéry Larbaud, Sous l’Invocation de Saint Jérôme (Paris: Gallimard, 1986 – first published 1946), p. 73. 2 ŒCI, p. 332. 3 Thélot, p. 137. 4 ŒCI, p. 554.

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Such affinity, presented by Baudelaire as the initial impulse that led him to translate Poe,8 is also implied with respect to De Quincey in Un Mangeur d’opium, where Baudelaire refers to the ‘charme presque fraternel’ of his author’s text.9 In both Samuel Cramer’s and Baudelaire’s cases, the reader sees himself in the admired author’s text, in which he finds a formulation of his own ideals and literary aspirations. The ‘épouvante et ravissement’ described by Baudelaire summarize the ambivalence such a discovery brings. The delight of finding a literary model is only matched in intensity by the horror of discovering that originality is not possible, that all has already been said: in other words, the poet finds himself prone to what Harold Bloom called the ‘anxiety of influence’, that is to say aware of the loudness of the voice of his precursors and of the need to establish himself in relation to them.10 Baudelaire’s anxiety 5

Letter to Madame Aupick, 27 March 1852, CI, p. 191. Letter to Armand Fraisse, 18 February 1860, CI, p. 678. 7 Letter to Théophile Thoré, around 20 June 1864, CII, p. 386. 8 Many critics have commented on the importance of this notion of affinity: t o quote but a few, Léon Lemonnier talks about the ‘affinité de tempérament avec l’auteur interprété; in his study of Les Traducteurs d´Edgar Poe en France (18451875) (Paris: PUF, 1928), p. 185. Paul Valéry in his ‘Situation de Baudelaire’ emphasizes the ‘magique contact de deux esprits’ (p. 131, while P. M. Wetherill devotes a whole section of his Charles Baudelaire et la poésie d’Edgar Allan Poe t o affinities between the two writers. 9 ŒCI, p. 516. Here again, critics, and in particular Michèle Staüble-Lipman Wulf, have highlighted the link between the two authors. Wulf notes that Un Mangeur d’opium and the influence of the English original onto Baudelaire are ‘les témoignages d’une affinité élective’ (SLW, p. 82). 10 Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975). 6

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of influence (also called by Derrida his ‘rivalité mimétique’)11 is expressed in many instances in his correspondence and criticism alike where the authority of earlier authors is frequently invoked as an example, or in contrast with his own experience of writing. Balzac in particular appears as the archetypal prolific and successful writer, the very frequency of his presence within Baudelaire’s text pointing to the latter’s preoccupation with creativity and his position in relation to such an imposing literary figure. In the case of Poe, and to a lesser extent, De Quincey, the awareness of the precursor’s literary importance combined with the identification with the admired author leads to an overlapping of voices. Michel Schneider’s psychoanalytic interpretation of plagiarism complements Bloom’s theory of influence: in Voleurs de mots, Schneider views plagiarism as an attempt to cure the incapacity to write induced by the weight of literary tradition.12 According to him, there are four possibilities available to the writer reduced to silence by his precursors: ‘la souffrance d’être écrasé ou devancé par les grands, le mimétisme involontaire, le labeur acharné où la lecture des livres entrave, mais aussi permet, l’écriture propre, et enfin le parti de la copie’.13 Baudelaire’s reactions and approaches to the text of others blends all four possibilities, culminating in plagiarism through unacknowledged translation. The relationship with the literary father entails both the desire to be that father but also to erase his identity – within this context, plagiarism becomes the most complete solution to the anxiety of influence. From the desire to speak the words of the admired other to the appropriation of his text, there is only one step (or one tiret, as Baudelaire put it in La Fanfarlo).14 The concept of literary filiation as part of the writing experience has been explored by Jorge Luis Borges, who says that Poe ‘en11

Derrida, Donner le temps, p. 147. Michel Schneider, Voleurs de mots, Essai sur le plagiat, la psychanalyse et la pensée (Paris: Gallimard, 1985). 13 Schneider, p. 22. 14 This process of identification and appropriation has been studied in homoerotic terms by Dominique F. Fisher in ‘The Silent Erotic / Rhetoric of Baudelaire’s Mirrors’, in Articulations of Difference: Gender Studies and Writing in French, ed. by Dominique D. Fisher and Lawrence R. Scher, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1997, pp. 34-51 (pp. 49-51). 12

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gendered Baudelaire’ in ‘Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote’.15 Borges’ explorations of the problematics of authorship and writing – which raise similar issues to Derrida’s – provide a useful angle from which to look at the significance of the work of the Other in Baudelaire’s writing method. In many ways, Baudelaire’s activity as a translator makes him the incarnation of one of Borges’ most striking characters, the hero of ‘Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote’. Borges’ story revolves around the attempt, by Pierre Menard, to recreate Cervantes’ Don Quixote, two centuries after Cervantes: ‘His admirable ambition was to produce pages which would coincide – word for word and line for line – with those of Miguel de Cervantes’, the narrator says, before detailing Menard’s strategy: to be, in some way, Cervantes and to arrive at Don Quixote seemed to him less arduous – and consequently less interesting – than to continue being Pierre Menard and to arrive at Don Quixote through the experiences of Pierre Menard.16

Through the imaginary account of Menard’s attempt, Borges suggests that repetition does not result in identity, but, rather, in difference: ‘Cervantes’s text and Menard’s are verbally identical, but the second is almost infinitely richer’.17 The comparison of a passage, first written by Cervantes, and then recreated by Menard is ‘a revelation’, the two seemingly identical texts being in fact strikingly different because of the gap between the two authors. The narrator of ‘Pierre Menard’ concludes his investigation by reflecting on the palimpsestic nature of Menard’s recreation: I have reflected that it is permissible to see in this ‘final’ Quixote a kind of palimpsest, through which the traces – tenuous but not indecipherable – of our friend’s ‘previous’ writing should be translucently visible.18

The repetition of Cervantes’ text by Menard brings together the two authors’ creativities, which means that Menard’s version, by adding to Cervantes’ text a whole new intertextual network and therefore enriching it, is more complete. Exact repetition is impos15 16 17 18

Borges, ‘Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote’, p. 67. Borges, p. 66. Borges, p. 69. Borges, p. 70.

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sible: when one says again, one inevitably transforms what one is repeating, by adding one’s own voice to it. This impossibility of repetition is emphasized in the preface to Le Spleen de Paris, when Baudelaire indicates Aloysius Bertrand’s Gaspard de la Nuit as his direct model: J’ai une petite confession à vous faire. C’est en feuilletant, pour la vingtième fois au moins, le fameux Gaspard de la Nuit, d’Aloysius Bertrand (un livre connu de vous, de moi et de quelques-uns de nos amis, n’a-t-il pas tous les droits à être appelé fameux?) que l’idée m’est venue de tenter quelque chose d’analogue et d’appliquer à la description de la vie moderne, ou plutôt d’une vie moderne et plus abstraite, le procédé qu’il avait appliqué à la peinture de la vie ancienne, si étrangement pittoresque.19

That the acknowledgement of a source of influence should be introduced as ‘une petite confession’ is reminiscent of the issues raised by the ‘procès baudelairien’ investigated in the previous chapter. The confession is the answer to an implicit (self) accusation, which gives influence and imitation the connotations of a crime, or, at least, a flaw to be acknowledged. Indeed, the sacrosanct precept of originality has not been followed. Baudelaire’s further comments on his model, however, emphasize the failure of imitation: Mais, pour dire le vrai, je crains que ma jalousie ne m’ait pas porté bonheur. Sitôt que j’eus commencé le travail, je m’aperçus que non seulement je restais bien loin de mon mystérieux et brillant modèle, mais encore que je faisais quelque chose (si cela peut s’appeler quelque chose) de singulièrement différent, accident dont tout autre que moi s’enorgueillirait sans doute, mais qui ne peut qu’humilier profondément un esprit qui regarde comme le plus grand honneur du poète d’accomplir juste ce qu’il a projeté de faire.20

Or, in other words, in the ‘canevas de la dédicace’: Mon point de départ a été Aloysius Bertrand. Ce qu’il avait fait pour la vie ancienne et pittoresque, je voulais le faire pour la vie moderne et abstraite. Et puis dès le principe, [je me suis aperçu] que je faisais autre chose que ce que je voulais imiter. Ce dont un autre s’enorgueillirait, mais qui m’humilie, moi, qui crois que le poète doit toujours faire juste ce qu’il veut 19 20

ŒCI, p. 275. ŒCI, p. 276.

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or, again, in a letter to Arsène Houssaye, to whom Le Spleen de Paris is dedicated: Mon point de départ a été Gaspard de la Nuit d’Aloysius Bertrand, que vous connaissez sans aucun doute; mais j’ai bien vite senti que je ne pouvais pas persévérer dans ce pastiche et que l’œuvre était inimitable. Je me suis résigné à être moi-même.22

All three passages emphasize the desire to imitate and the humiliation of the impossibility to achieve this aim. The ‘jalousie’ expressed in the dedication clearly inserts Baudelaire’s relationship to his literary model within the ‘anxiety of influence’ outlined by Bloom. At the same time, the impossibility of repetition is presented in terms of failure (‘humilier’, ‘m’humilier’, ‘je ne pouvais pas’, ‘je me suis résigné’). This repeated statement of failure is not as straightforward as it may seem, however. The strength of the first person ‘je’ in all three passages points to the prominence of Baudelaire’s voice, not only in the statements but in the whole of Le Spleen de Paris. Within the context of romantic concerns for originality, and Baudelaire’s search for the new (as expressed in ‘Le Voyage’), it is difficult to take the disappointment of the ‘différent’ and ‘autre chose’ created by Baudelaire at face value. The letter to Houssaye confirms this impression. Gaspard de la nuit is only a starting point, and pastiche – clearly undestood as imitation, since ‘inimitable’ is equated with impossible pastiche – not an option. ‘Être moi-même’ emphasizes the resurgence of Baudelaire’s own voice and self in the text. Within this context, Baudelaire’s selfdescription as ‘un esprit qui regarde comme le plus grand honneur du poète d’accomplir juste ce qu’il a projeté de faire’ is highly ambiguous in that one cannot but feel that the strength of Baudelaire’s voice, clearly presented as the cause of the failure of imitation, is exactly that ability to do what he wanted to do with his source. Baudelaire’s lament at the failure of imitation is ironic, then, since it is through that failure that he achieves his new poetic form. The departure from the literary model is both inevitable and productive, despite Baudelaire’s surface disappointment at the fail21 22

ŒCI, pp. 365-66. CII, p. 208.

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ure of repetition: it is the purpose of the present chapter to explore this ambivalence as manifest in Baudelaire’s translations. Translation is indeed axiomatic of the fallacy of the ideal of exact repetition, a fallacy traditionally denounced in pejorative terms (traduttore traditore), and more recently, in more positive terms, by translation theorists (André Lefevere, for instance) who attempt to emphasize the rewriting dimension of the act of translation.23 Fidelity, so long believed to be the ideal of translation, is now frequently denounced by theorists as impossible. As Amparo Hurtado Albir reminds us, the concept of fidelity has to be looked at within the context of an involvement of subjectivity, historicity and functionality in the act of translation, and cannot, therefore, exclude an element of transformation.24 This impossible – and undesirable – repetition and fidelity is also clearly noted by Jacques Derrida in ‘Des Tours de Babel’. Derrida stresses that that the relationship between translated text and translating text is not one of copy or representation: ‘si le traducteur ne restitue ni ne copie un original, c’est que celui-ci survit et se transforme. La traduction sera en vérité un moment de sa propre croissance, il s’y complètera en s’agrandissant’.25 From this point of view, the canonical status of the Poe translations repeatedly pointed out by critics emphasizes the improvement of the source text achieved by translation. Asselineau, for instance, states that Baudelaire’s translation of Poe is ‘classique et indétrônable’ before underlining Poe’s debt towards Baudelaire: ‘[p]our moi, en lisant cette prose si claire, si souple, si agile, j’ai peine à me persuader que Poë n’ait pas profité en quelque chose à une telle interprétation’).26 And indeed Baudelaire appears to be fully aware of this dimension of his work, writing: ‘[e]spérons que M. De Quincey adressera une belle lettre de remerciements à votre journal’.27 In both Asselineau’s and Baudelaire’s statements, the traditional debt of the translator towards the original is reversed. This idea of the enrichment brought to the 23

See for instance André Lefevere, Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame (London and New York: Routledge, 1992). 24 Amparo Hurtado Albir, La Notion de fidélité en traduction (Paris: Didier Érudition, 1990). 25 Derrida, ‘Des Tours de Babel’, p. 232. 26 Charles Asselineau, Charles Baudelaire, p. 61. 27 Letter to Alphonse de Calonne, 10 November 1858, CI, p. 522.

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source text by translation echoes Borges’ notion of impossible repetition. Fidelity to the source text, if understood as identical repetition, does not exist. Such views have been the basis for a reconsideration of the concept of fidelity and a focus on its relativity. Sherry Simon’s notion of doubly-authored text, discussed in the previous chapter, acknowledges the fallacy of the traditional power relationship between author and translator and seeks to overturn the hierarchy between translator and author, and, therefore, translating text and translated text.28 Simon stresses the analogy between translator and woman – best exemplified in the phrase ‘belles infidèles’– to show the extent to which the translator is normally subjected to the dominant power. Such views are also expressed by Barbara Johnson, who concentrates, like Simon, on the sexual connotations of the term ‘faithful’, playing around an analogy between the translator and the bigamist, the translator’s loyalties being ‘split between a native language and a foreign tongue’, before emphasizing the incestuous relationship to the mother tongue at the core of the enterprise of translation and the impossibility of ‘faithful’ translation as explored by Derrida.29 What recent developments in translation theory, together with the fidelity debate which has been taking place over the centuries, suggest, is that at the core of translation lies the question of the possibility or impossibility of an ideal, exact repetition of a given source text. From this point of view, translation becomes the dramatization of questions which are at the heart of all forms of writing. ‘Écrire, car c’est toujours récrire, ne diffère pas de citer’, writes Antoine Compagnon in his enlightening study of quotation, La Seconde Main ou le travail de la citation. 30 This rewriting dimension of the creative act is explored by Roland Barthes’ Le Degré zéro de l’écriture : ‘[u]ne rémanence obstinée, venue de toutes les 28

Sherry Simon, Gender in Translation (London: Routledge, 1996). Barbara Johnson, ‘Taking Fidelity Philosophically’ in Difference i n Translation, pp. 142-48 (p. 143). See also Jacqueline Henry’s ‘La Fidélité, cet éternel questionnement. Critique de la morale de la traduction’, Meta, 40, 3 (1995), 367-71. 30 Antoine Compagnon, La Seconde Main, ou le travail de la citation (Paris: Seuil, 1979), p. 32. 29

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écritures précédentes et du passé même de ma propre écriture, couvre la voix présente de mes mots’.31 This naturally palimpsestic nature of writing (‘toute l’écriture est collage et glose, citation et commentaire’, Compagnon writes ) 32 is made all the clearer by Baudelaire’s use of translation, especially in texts such as Un Mangeur d’opium where the quoted text is also translated, that is to say repeated in Baudelaire’s language, resulting in a fusion between source and target. The entanglement of writing and repetition which brings the text into being is analysed by Compagnon in terms which are highly relevant to the case of Baudelaire: Il y a toujours un livre avec lequel j’ai l’envie que mon écriture entretienne une relation privilégiée, ‘relation’ valant ici pour son double sens, celui du récit (de la récitation), et celui de la liaison (de l’affinité élective).33

The notion of relationship referred to by Compagnon, and particularly the idea of an ‘affinité élective’, conjures up the link between Baudelaire and Poe. It is interesting, in this context, that Borges (whose ‘Pierre Menard’ is also studied by Compagnon) should, as has already been noted, refer to this link in passing (Menard is referred to as ‘essentially a devoté of Poe, who engendered Baudelaire’),34 thus inserting it into the thematics of repetition and rewriting at the centre of his story. The metaphor of filiation between Poe and Baudelaire is very significant here. It not only holds psychoanalytical connotations made all the more striking by studies such as Bloom’s Anxiety of Influence, but it also provides a paradigm for the relationship between source and target text. Derrida, in a passage which once more echoes Borges, explores the same idea and negates the concept of exact reproduction: Benjamin le dit, dans la traduction l’original grandit, il croît plutôt qu’il ne se reproduit – et j’ajouterai comme un enfant, le sien sans doute mais avec la force de parler tout seul qui fait d’un enfant autre chose qu’un produit as31 Roland Barthes, Le Degré zéro de l’écriture, suivi de Nouveaux Essais critiques (Paris: Seuil, 1953 and 1972), pp. 6-65 (p. 16). 32 Compagnon, La Seconde Main, p. 32. 33 Compagnon, La Seconde Main, p. 35. Laurent Jenny, in his excellent article o n intertextuality (‘La Stratégie de la forme’, Poétique 7 (1976), 257-81) also points out that ‘L’analyse du travail intertextuel montre assez bien que la redite pure n’existe pas’ (p. 279). 34 Borges,‘Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote’, p. 67.

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To return to Compagnon, his idea of ‘relation’ clearly emphasizes the interaction between two subjectivities which is at the core of rewriting – and translation: Cela ne veut pas dire que ce livre [i.e. le texte ‘qu’écrivant je désirerais récrire’] j’aurais aimé l’écrire, que je l’envie, que je le recopierais volontiers ou le reprendrais à mon compte, pour modèle, que je l’imiterais, l’actualiserais ou le citerais in extenso si je le pouvais; cela ne préjuge pas non plus de mon amour pour ce livre. Non, le texte qui est pour moi ‘scriptible’, c’est celui dont la posture d’énonciation me convient.36

In this context, Baudelaire’s identification with Poe (and Samuel Cramer’s with the authors he admires), has to be seen as part of an encounter with a text to which Baudelaire is sensitive and which enables a fusion of his writing and that of Poe’s. The ‘fantasme fusionnel’, as Compagnon calls it, is at the core of any attempt to repeat, and integrate the text of the Other into one’s writing.37 Such interpretation, of course, is one more argument (besides those explored in the previous chapter) against the dismissal of Baudelaire’s translating activity as indicative of his creative incapacity and his tendency to plagiarize admired authors. Instead, translation can be seen as a form of quotation, more or less integrated into his corpus, and prompted by the awareness of possible links and interactions between the foreign voice and his own. In addition, Compagnon’s point that quotation does not necessarily imply identification with the text quoted and admiration for its author clearly applies to Baudelaire’s ambivalence towards some of his source texts, in particular Un Mangeur d’opium. His statements about De Quincey’s ‘affreusement digressioniste’ style do indeed qualify his description of his author as ‘un auteur extraordinaire’ – rather than a total identification, what we have is an encounter and a fusion of two compatible creativities and sensitivities. Indeed, Baudelaire’s statements about Un Mangeur d’opium seem to announce Compagnon’s ‘fantasme fusionnel’:

35

Derrida,‘Des Tours de Babel’, p. 234. Compagnon, La Seconde Main, p. 35. 37 Compagnon, La Seconde Main, p. 354. 36

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Il s’agissait de fondre mes sensations personnelles avec l’opinion de l’auteur et d’en faire un amalgame dont les parties fussent indiscernables.38 J’ai fait un tel amalgame que je ne saurais y reconnaître la part qui vient de moi, laquelle, d’ailleurs, ne peut être que fort petite.39

The repetition of the word ‘amalgame’ at a four year interval and in very different circumstances (a private letter, and a public address) to describe the structure of Un Mangeur d’opium suggests the importance of the concept, which is further reinforced by the verb ‘fondre’. Derived from the Greek ‘malagma’ (the act of kneading) and, more directly, from the Latin of alchemists ‘amalgama’, ‘amalgame’ is defined in the Trésor de la langue française as ‘alliage du mercure avec un autre métal’, and, by extension, as ‘mélange, alliance d’éléments hétérogènes et parfois contraires’.40 This double meaning clearly applies to the general structure of Un Mangeur d’opium, which mixes translation, commentary, analysis and blends Baudelairean and De Quinceyan elements like two metals. Baudelaire is very fond of the word, which recurs frequently in his writings, as for instance in a letter to Madame Sabatier in which he explains his idôlatrie in very similar terms (to be particularly noted is the idea of the impossibility of defining the exact nature of the blend): Supposez un amalgame de rêverie, de sympathie, de respect, avec mille enfantillages pleins de sérieux, vous aurez un à peu près de ce quelque chose très sincère que je ne me sens pas capable de mieux définir.41

The word ‘amalgame’ is also used in the criticism to describe the fusion of disparate elements, for example in the works of Cladel (in Les Martyrs ridicules par L. Cladel). The alchemical connotations of the term are exploited in the same article (‘Quant à la moralité du livre, elle en jaillit naturellement comme la chaleur de certains mélanges chimiques’).42 In the article on Les Misérables, fusion and 38

Letter to Auguste Poulet-Malassis, 16 February 1860, CI, p. 669. Exorde et Notes pour les conférences données à Bruxelles, en 1864, ŒCI, p . 519 . 40 Trésor de la langue française, Dictionnaire de la langue du XIXe et du XXe (Paris: CNRS, 1973). 41 Letter of 18 August 1857, CI, p. 422. 42 ŒCII, pp. 185-87. 39

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alchemy are paired again, when Baudelaire talks about the way in which Hugo ‘a jeté dans une indéfinissable fusion, pour en faire un nouveau métal corinthien, les riches éléments consacrés généralement à des œuvres spéciales (le sens lyrique, le sens épique, le sens philosophique)’,43 referring clearly to alchemy and transmutation with ‘nouveau métal’. The use of the alchemical semantic field to refer to literary texts is not isolated in Baudelaire’s writings, and it generally emphasizes the idea of a blend of disparate elements, as well as that of transformation. The more complete the transformation, the more difficult it becomes to deconstruct the hybrid nature of the result. From this point of view, Un Mangeur d’opium may be seen as the reverse of the Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym in which Poe presents his text as a collaboration with the hero of the story in terms which are, in Baudelaire’s translation, very close to Un Mangeur d’opium, although what is being described is a poorly integrated blend: Après cet exposé, on verra tout d’abord ce qui m’appartient, ce qui est bien de ma main dans le récit qui suit, et l’on comprendra aussi qu’aucun fait n’a été travesti dans les quelques pages écrites par M. Poe. Même pour les lecteurs qui n’ont point vu les numéros du Messager, il serait superflu de marquer où finit sa part et où la mienne commence; la différence du style se fera bien sentir.44

In Un Mangeur d’opium, we have the same encounter between two separate elements as Poe suggests for his tale. But whereas in Poe’s text the aim is to suggest a dual authorship when in fact there is only one author, in Baudelaire’s case the amalgam seeks to establish the illusion of a single voice, when in fact there are two. This search for unity and perfect fusion is central both to the alchemical and the writing projects.45 In the presentation of ‘Révélation magnétique’, Baudelaire describes the search for a ‘mystérieuse unité’ for some writers, including Poe.46 Once more, the 43

ŒCII, p. 221. EAP, pp. 513-14 (emphasis added) 45 The significance of the alchemic metaphor for literary creation has been studie by John P. O’Donnell in ‘The Alchemical Image in the Later Poetry of Paul Éluard and Pablo Neruda: The Poetics of Materialism’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of London, 1996). 46 ŒCII, p. 248. 44

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choice of terms (‘mystérieuse’) likens the writer to a magician. In the case of Baudelaire, the search for unity is a very strong concern, most visibly expressed in the ‘Correspondances’ sonnet. As Christian Milat argues, dans son œuvre, Baudelaire n’a point de cesse qu’il ne forge l’unité de toute chose, s’emparant d’un des éléments constitutifs de celle-ci pour lui adjoindre son élément opposé et complémentaire, métamorphosant ainsi l’imperfection du séparé en l’absolu de la totalité.47

Milat’s article focuses primarily on Baudelaire’s poetic project, and does not include the translations and adaptations. His choice of words, however, is highly reminiscent of Baudelaire’s amalgam statements about Un Mangeur d’opium. If we accept Milat’s thesis of Baudelaire’s search for unity based on blend and transformation, then Baudelaire’s approach in Un Mangeur d’opium may be seen as part of his experimentation with this search, and the ‘amalgame’ aimed at appears as part of a much wider creative purpose. That translation can be central to the search for unity has been shown by Antoine Berman in his study of the translation project of the German Romantics. The concept of ‘versabilité infinie’ analysed by Berman, which manifests itself in universal translatability, is indeed based on the idea of a fundamental unity between apparently disparate, separate elements,48 an idea which is emphasized in Goethe’s Faust as central to the alchemical quest: For here two worlds to union are invited, Upper with lower happily united.49

Closely linked to that concept of unity, the alchemical connotations of the term ‘amalgame’ are, indeed, far from accidental for Baudelaire. Alchemy is indeed a very strong theme in Baudelaire’s poetry. In ‘Au lecteur’, the notion of alchemy is only implied in the reference to Hermès Trismégiste:50 47

Christian Milat, ‘Baudelaire , ou la dualité de l’artiste à la poursuite de l’unité primordiale’, Revue d’Histoire Littéraire de la France, 1997, 4, 571-88 (p. 487). 48 Berman, L’Épreuve de l’étranger, pp. 111-39. 49 Faust, Part Two, Translated by David Luke (Oxford: OUP, 1994), lines 6139-40. 50 The importance of the figure of Hermes is analysed in C. G. Jung’s The Spirit Mercurius, in Alchemical Studies, translated by R. F. C. Hull (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967), pp. 191-250.

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Sur l’oreiller du mal c’est Satan Trismégiste Qui berce longuement notre esprit enchanté, Et le riche métal de notre volonté Est tout vaporisé par ce savant chimiste.51 –

In ‘Alchimie de la douleur’, the figure of the alchemist is developed more fully, however: Hermès inconnu qui m’assistes Et qui toujours m’intimidas, Tu me rends l’égal de Midas, Le plus triste des alchimistes; Par toi je change l’or en fer Et le paradis en enfer;52

The ‘chimiste’ and the ‘alchimiste’ of the two poems are the two sides of the same coin, both representing the ideal of transmutation. That alchemical transmutation should be a central concern of Baudelaire’s is confirmed by other passages such as the following: J’ai pétri de la boue et j’en ai fait de l’or.53 Anges revêtus d’or, de pourpre et d’hyacinthe, Ô vous! soyez témoins que j’ai fait mon devoir Comme un parfait chimiste et comme une âme sainte. Car j’ai de chaque chose extrait la quintessence, Tu m’as donné ta boue et j’en ai fait de l’or.54

The use of the verb ‘pétrir’ in the bribes is reminiscent of the etymology of the word ‘amalgam’. This reference to alchemical transmutation is made all the clearer in the ‘projet d’un épilogue pour l’édition de 1861’, which explicitly links poetic creation with alchemy. The transmutation at the core of poetry is emphasized here: addressed to the city, the last two lines illustrate Baudelaire’s method of treatment of his subject matter: the work of art is created by drawing the essential out of his subject matter, in this case the

51

ŒCI, p. 5. ‘Alchimie de la douleur’, Les Fleurs du Mal, ŒCI, p. 77. 53 Bribes, ŒCI, p. 188. 54 [Projet d'un épilogue pour l’édition de 1861], ŒCI, p. 192. 52

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city, and transforming it into Beauty, a transformation which is also emphasized in ‘Le Vin des chiffonniers’. Baudelaire’s fondness for alchemical imagery, generally to refer to artistic creation, is well known. The double dimension of alchemy – the search for the quintessential and for transmutation – is, therefore, very prominent in his writings, particularly in the art criticism. In the Salon de 1846, the same phrase as in the ‘projet d’épilogue’ is applied to ‘purs dessinateurs’ seen as ‘des philosophes et des abstracteurs de quintessence’.55 In the article on the Exposition universelle (1855), Baudelaire notes that David, Guérin and Girodet are ‘abstracteurs de quintessence’.56 Similar terms are found in Le Peintre de la vie moderne, where Baudelaire writes that ‘le mot dandy implique une quintessence de caractère’, and that Modernity is arrived at by those who know how to ‘extraire [d’une époque] la beauté mystérieuse qui y peut être contenue’, or that ‘pour que toute modernité soit digne de devenir antiquité, il faut que la beauté mystérieuse que la vie humaine y met involontairement en ait été extraite’.57 In the Salon de 1859, for instance, Baudelaire criticizes Millet’s inability to ‘extraire simplement la poésie naturelle de son sujet’.58 Within this context, Baudelaire’s statement of the fact that he is presenting De Quincey’s autobiography ‘à l’état de simple extrait’,59 both echoes the ‘car j’ai de chaque chose extrait la quintessence’ of the ‘projet d’épilogue’ and other alchemical uses of the term elsewhere in his writings. Art is alchemy. Delacroix is seen as an ‘alchimiste de la couleur. Miraculeux, profond, mystérieux, sensuel, terrible; couleur éclatante et obscure, harmonie pénétrante’.60 Similarly, Baudelaire notes that ‘la peinture est une évocation, une opération magique’, and emphasizes Rembrandt’s and Delacroix’s ‘magie profonde’,61 and, in L’Art philosophique, praises the ‘magie suggestive’ of pure art, describing it as a unity between ‘l’objet et le sujet, le monde

55

ŒCII, p. 426. ŒCII, p. 583. 57 ŒCII, pp. 691 and 195. 58 ŒCII, p. 661. 59 ŒCI, p. 444. 60 Sur la Belgique, ŒCII, p. 965. 61 Exposition universelle (1855), ŒCII, pp. 580 and 596. 56

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extérieur à l’artiste et l’artiste lui-même’.62 Nowhere is this magical dimension of writing more clearly expressed than in the Fusées, XI: ‘De la langue et de l’écriture, prises comme opérations magiques, sorcellerie évocatoire’,63 and in the article on Théophile Gautier: ‘Manier savamment une langue, c’est pratiquer une espèce de sorcellerie évocatoire’.64 There are many more examples of Baudelaire’s use of alchemical imagery to describe artistic and poetic creation, as Marc Eigeldinger’s ‘Baudelaire et l’alchimie verbale’ shows,65 and it is now commonplace to note that Baudelaire est, avec Nerval et avant Rimbaud, le premier poète en France à concevoir la poésie comme une ‘alchimie du verbe’, une opération magique et un acte de métamorphose qui présente des analogies avec la transmutation alchimique.66

This alchemical ideal, although widely commented on by critics in their study of Baudelaire’s poetry, has not until now been applied to Baudelaire’s translations, despite a clear link between alchemy, transmutation and the question of translation. The alchemy / translation analogy is perhaps nowhere clearer than in Goethe’s Faust (Part I), in which Faust is shown in the act of translating immediately before his pact with Mephistopheles: My mind is moved this hour to consecrate, In simple, honest will to understand The sacred codex, and its truth translate In the loved accents of my native land. (He opens a volume and sets to work.) ‘Tis writ, ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ I pause, to wonder what is here inferred. The Word I cannot set supremely high: A new translation I will try. I read, if by the spirit I am taught, This sense: ‘In the beginning was the Thought.’ 62

ŒCII, p. 598. ŒCI, p. 658. 64 ŒCII, p. 118. 65 Études Baudelairiennes II (1971), 81-98. 66 Eigeldinger, p. 81. 63

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This opening I need to weigh again, Or sense may suffer from a hasty pen. Does thought create, and work, and rule the hour? ‘Twere best: ‘In the beginning was the Power.’ Yet, while the pen is urged with willing fingers, A sense of doubt and hesitancy lingers. The spirit comes to guide me in my need, I write, ‘In the beginning was the Deed.’67

Behind the philosophical play on word, thought, power and deed, Faust’s manipulations of his source text and his hesitations clearly link translation to transformation, and, inevitably, alchemical transmutation. Within this context, the use of the word ‘amalgame’ to describe Un Mangeur d’opium, just like the word ‘extrait’, is far from accidental. That the alchemical dimension should be central to Baudelaire’s purpose in Un Mangeur d’opium is further suggested by the presence of the figure of the alchemist at the core of the French text. Particularly revealing is the introduction of a reference to Faust in the description of the young prostitute, Ann, befriended by De Quincey in London.68 In the English text, there is, indeed, no mention of Faust, nor of Marguerite to whom Ann is compared and contrasted in Un Mangeur d’opium. Instead, we find in the Confessions a reference to Blue Beard, which is not applied to Ann, but to the unnamed child with whom the narrator shares a disreputable lawyer’s house: as for the poor child, she was never admitted into his study (if I may give that name to this chief depository of parchment, law writings, &c.) that room was to her the Blue-beard room of the house, being regularly locked on his departure about six o’clock, which usually was his final departure for the night.69

Ann is, in De Quincey’s text, one of a series of female characters who are all defined by their weakness, their innocence, and their sisterly relationship to the narrator, and who are all facets of the 67 Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Faust, Part One, Translated by Philip Wayne (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1949), p. 71. 68 See Chapter 3. 69 SLW, p. 127.

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same prism through which femininty is defined. The ‘poor child’ mentioned in the above extract is another version of Ann, and the reference to Perrault’s tale, in this instance, serves as a reminder of the child’s naivety by providing an insight into her imagination. At the same time, however, the darkness of the tale colours De Quincey’s text and implies that the child’s fear may have sexual origins (in the tale, the heroine is fact Blue Beard’s wife, and she escapes murder by the last-minute intervention of her brothers). The link between this first female character and Ann is made explicit in De Quincey’s text through the expression of the narrator’s sadness at having lost both of them. They become one in his memories, and are described in very similar terms (the first child is ‘a poor, friendless child’, ‘this forlorn child’, ‘the poor creature’, ‘the forsaken child’, ‘the poor child’ and Ann is ‘this poor friendless girl’, ‘that unhappy girl’, ‘poor orphan companion’, and both are described as not particularly beautiful).70 That Baudelaire should have erased any mention of Blue Beard and substituted for it the Faust reference is highly revealing:71 in Musset’s version – L’Anglais mangeur d’opium – the Blue Beard reference is in fact expanded upon. Interestingly, the Midas figure, which appears in the Confessions, is, unlike the Blue Beard reference, maintained in Baudelaire’s text: as Midas turned all things to gold, that yet baffled his hopes and defrauded his human desires, so whatsoever things capable of being visually represented I did but think of in the darkness, immediately shaped themselves into phantoms of the eye; and, by a process apparently no less inevitable, when thus once traced in faint and visionary colours, like writings in sympathetic ink, they were drawn out by the fierce chemistry of my dreams, into insufferable splendour that fretted my dreams.72

In Un Mangeur d’opium, this becomes:

70

SLW, pp. 125-33. See my article, The Figure of the Innocent Prostitute in Two French Versions of Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater’, in Women i n French Studies, Winter 1997, 205-14. The links between De Quincey’s female characters has also been noted by Nicolae Babuts in ‘Baudelaire’s “Le Voyage”: The Dimension of Myth’, Nineteenth-Century French Studies, 25, 3&4 (SpringSummer 1997), 348-59 (p. 352). 72 SLW, p. 183. 71

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Midas changeait en or tout ce qu’il touchait, et se sentait martyrisé par cet ironique privilège. De même le mangeur d’opium transformait en réalités inévitables tous les objets de ses rêveries.73

Baudelaire summarizes De Quincey, keeping only the essential of the Midas comparison, but making it also more striking because of its concentration, thus confirming by the very mention of Midas the link between the amalgam and alchemical metaphors and opiumeating and the transformations it encourages. But more importantly, it repeats the image of transmutation which pervades much of Baudelaire’s works, and echoes the Faust reference introduced earlier. Since the translation of Goethe’s play by Gérard de Nerval in 1828, the figure of Faust and, by extension, the alchemist, was very strong in 19th-century France, and embodied many of the Romantic ideals. As a consequence, there was, throughout the century, an explosion of Faust-related works of art.74 This importance is reflected in Baudelaire’s writings in the recurrence of references to Faust and alchemy, particularly in the art criticism. Such recurrence is in itself a testimony of the success of Goethe’s text in France and its impact on artists’ consciousness.75 At the same time, Baudelaire’s tendency to focus on the various versions of the Faustian themes by his contemporaries also indicates his own interest and sensitivity to it.76 That Faust should have been on his mind in the writing of Un Mangeur d’opium is also suggested by a letter to Alphonse De Calonne dated 15 December 1859, in which he writes that ‘il y a entre les deux parties [i.e. Confessions and Suspiria] la différence proportionnelle qui existe entre les deux Faust’.77 Obviously, the success of Goethe’s play in France means that any mention of Faust can be explained as resulting from Baudelaire’s sensitivity to the spirit of his age. I would not follow Paul 73

ŒCI, p. 488. See Charles Dedeyan, Le Thème de Faust dans la littérature européenne, volume 4 (Paris: Lettres Modernes, 1961). 75 In Salon de 1845, for instance, Baudelaire notes ‘la prédilection de certains coloristes pour un sujet si commun’ (ŒCII, p. 382). 76 See for instance Salon de 1846, ŒCII, p. 439; Exposition universelle (1855), ŒCII; p. 594, Salon de 1859, ŒCII, p. 649. 77 CI, p. 631. 74

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Arnold’s Ésotérisme de Baudelaire, which, although it has the merit of pointing out the importance of the figure of Hermès Trimégiste in Les Fleurs du Mal, is unconvincing in its argument that hermetic and alchemical literature is a direct influence for Baudelaire.78 One cannot refute that hermetic philosophy is present in Baudelaire (and in particular through the figure of the alchemist), but the influence seems to be more diffuse – alchemy was a fashionable subject, and Faust its most popular expression. Rather than a direct influence, alchemy, for Baudelaire, is a way of exploring and expressing themes of unity and transformation central to his writing project. And yet, alchemy is not the only semantic field used by Baudelaire to describe his work. Two letters to Alphonse de Calonne, written just a few months apart, use different, but equally revealing, imagery: Je pourrai demain reprendre votre Opium, et cela sera bien vite avalé.79 je crains bien que je ne puisse accoucher des dernières pages du Mangeur d’opium que là-bas, dans ce petit coin dont je vous ai parlé.80

Although the colloquial meaning for ‘avalé’ (‘finished’) is the most obvious here, the word may also describe indirectly Baudelaire’s swallowing of De Quincey’s text, i.e. the amalgam between De Quincey’s sensitivity and his own. In the second extract, the metaphor for creation emphasizes this time the effort involved in the process, rather than its facility as in the first quotation. If linked together, however, the notions of ‘avaler’ and ‘accoucher’ evoke the idea of fusion between the two authors since in both cases De Quincey’s text is seen as part of Baudelaire. In a different context, the significance of eating, and its relationship to giving birth, is explored by Mikhaïl Bakhtin in Rabelais and his World: In the act of eating (...) the confines between the body and the world are overstepped by the body; it triumphs over the world, over its enemy, cele78 Paul Arnold, Ésoterisme de Baudelaire (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1972). 79 8 September 1858, CI, p. 514. 80 8 January 1859, CI, p. 537.

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brates its victory, grows at the world’s expense. (...) [T]he triumphal banquet is always universal. It is the triumph of life over death. In this respect it is equivalent to conception and birth. The victorious body receives the defeated world and is renewed.81

Bakhtin’s concern is with the figure of the banquet, which he is very careful to differentiate from private eating. His interpretation of the act of ingestion as appropriation and renewal provides, however, a useful angle of study of Baudelaire’s recurrent imagery of food for creation, text and reading, already noted in passing in the previous chapter.82 As with the alchemical metaphors, the food metaphors are often used to signify artistic creation: Quand il possède bien l’art des sauces, des patines, des glacis, des frottis, des jus, des ragoûts (je parle peinture), l’enfant gâté prend de fières attitudes, et se répète avec plus de conviction que jamais que tout le reste est inutile.83 Toute la question, c’est la sauce, c’est à dire le génie.84

In the above two passages, ‘sauce’ is taken first in a derogatory sense, suggesting technical achievement without inspiration, while, in the second instance, it describes just the opposite, that is to say the individual treatment of subject matter. In both cases, however, the connotations of the terms used evoke ideas of manipulation and transformation which are very similar to those associated with alchemy. More importantly, especially if we bear in mind Bakhtin’s interpretation of food ingestion, the work of art feeds the viewer / reader, who savours it: Voilà, mon cher ami, le commencement de ce ragoût délicat.85 81 Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, Translated by Helene Iswolsky (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984, Russian edition published i n 1965), pp. 282-83. 82 In Baudelaire and Intertextuality, Poetry at the Crossroads, Margery Evans devotes a chapter, entitled ‘Poetic cookery’ to the importance of food themes and imagery in Le Spleen de Paris (pp. 95-109), but not from the point of view of transformation and creation. 83 Salon de 1859, ŒCII, p. 613. 84 Lettre à Jules Janin, ŒCII, p. 237.

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or, sometimes, has to make an effort to digest it as in the case of difficult prose: Il faut en prendre son parti, et digérer la chose telle qu’elle est.86

The same idea of reading as consumption is expressed, in negative terms, in ‘Le Chien et le flacon’ in which the public is compared to a dog (‘si je vous avais offert un paquet d’excréments, vous l’auriez flairé avec délices et peut-être dévoré’),87 or, in Mon Cœur mis à nu , in a passage which can be considered as a doublet of ‘Le Chien et le flacon’: Le Français est un animal de basse-cour, si bien domestiqué qu’il n’ose franchir aucune palissade. Voir ses goûts en art et en littérature. C’est un animal de race latine; l’ordure ne lui déplaît pas dans son domicile, et en littérature, il est scatophage. Il raffole des excréments. Les littérateurs d’estaminet appellent cela le sel gaulois.88

Within the thematics of ingestion / digestion, the reference to excrements completes the cycle, and one may say that, behind the clearly pejorative description of readers’ poor appreciation of art, there is the same idea of the literary text as product of corporeal transformation, expressed elsewhere in more positive terms by the metaphors of giving birth. The references to bodily functions to describe the relationship with external reality include sexual metaphors. In Mon Cœur mis à nu, Baudelaire expresses the artist’s ambivalence: Foutre, c’est aspirer à entrer dans un autre, et l’artiste ne sort jamais de luimême,89

while in Fusées he emphasizes the potential violence of the encounter with the outside world: L’amour veut sortir de soi, se confondre avec sa victime, comme le vain85

Letter to Julien Turgan, 9 December 1857, CI, p. 434. Présentation de Révélation magnétique, ŒCII, p. 248. 87 ŒCI, p. 284. 88 ŒCI, p. 698. 89 ŒCI, p. 702. 86

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queur avec le vaincu, et cependant conserver des privilèges de conquérant.90

The impossibility for the artist to ‘sortir de soi’ echoes the ambivalence of the fusion with the Other combined with the desire to keep control over the Other – a situation which can be seen as reflecting the relationship with the text of the Other, with which Baudelaire fuses his own sensitivity, while transforming it according to his own purpose. Seen from this point of view, the following passage from Un Mangeur d’opium combines ingestion imagery (‘morceau’, ‘goûter’) with diffusely sexual connotations (‘la manière pénétrante et féminine’), and seem to bring together the two strands pointed out by Bakhtin: Le morceau suivant est un de ceux que je ne peux pas me résigner à abréger. Il est bon d’ailleurs que le lecteur puisse de temps en temps goûter par luimême la manière pénétrante et féminine de l’auteur.91

The fact that amalgame should be achieved nowhere more explicitly than in Un Mangeur d’opium suggests another link, this time between the artificial paradises and alchemy. That the work of art can be associated with an intoxicating substance is suggested in Salon de 1859 where Delacroix’s paintings are compared to wine: Il m’est impossible de dire: Tel tableau de Delacroix est le meilleur de ses tableaux; car c’est toujours le vin du même tonneau, capiteux, exquis, sui generis.92

Baudelaire’s enthusiastic praise of wine for its intoxicating value is well known, and best illustrated in ‘Le Poison’ (in Spleen et Idéal) and Le Vin in Les Fleurs du Mal, where the magical transformation powers of alcohol are emphasized: Le vin sait revêtir le plus sordide bouge D’un luxe miraculeux Et fait surgir plus d’un portique fabuleux Dans l’or de sa vapeur rouge, Comme un soleil couchant dans un ciel nébuleux.93

90

ŒCI, p. 650. Un Mangeur d’opium, ŒCI, p. 447. 92 Salon de 1859, ŒCII, p. 636. 93 ‘Le Poison’, ŒCI, p. 48. 91

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In both the above passages, wine and alchemy are associated, wine bringing on, through the same ‘solennelle magie’, the transmutation of harsh reality into gold. As has already been seen in the previous chapter, ‘Le Vin des chiffonniers’ can be seen as an allegory of literary creation, the ragpicker / writer picking up refuse / subject matter abandoned by others and transforming it. The presence of alchemical metaphors in the poem underlines, once more, Baudelaire’s idea of ‘sorcellerie évocatoire’, and links it to the artificial paradises. Text and wine can have the same power, as the following note from Mon Cœur mis à nu suggests: ‘Ivresse littéraire; souvenir des lectures’.95 Clearly, wine is not the only intoxicant with transformative powers. Opium and hachisch are studied by Baudelaire for the visions they conjure up. From this point of view, the following statement about Un Mangeur d’opium is highly revealing: Pour que le lecteur ne perde rien des tableaux émouvants qui composent la substance de son volume, l’espace dont je dispose étant restreint, je serai obligé, à mon grand regret, de supprimer bien des hors-d’œuvre très amusants, bien des dissertations exquises, qui n’ont pas directement trait à l’opium, mais ont simplement le but d’illustrer le caractère du mangeur d’opium. Cependant le livre est assez vigoureux pour se faire deviner, même sous cette enveloppe succincte, même à l’état de simple extrait.96

As already noted, the food metaphor (‘hors d’œuvres’) is linked to others which conjure up connotations of drug-taking as well as alchemical manipulations (‘substance’, ‘extrait’). The latter are echoed in the notes for the Brussels conferences: jusqu’à quelle dose ai-je introduit ma personnalité dans l’auteur original, c’est ce que je serais actuellement bien empêché de dire.97

94

‘Le Vin des chiffonniers’, ŒCI, p. 106. ŒCI, p. 679. 96 ŒCI, p. 444. 97 ŒCI, p. 519. My emphasis. 95

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Within the context of the Paradis artificiels, the recurrence of such metaphors is far from accidental, and suggests an assimilation linking drug-taking and the creative process. Baudelaire insists throughout the Paradis that one of his purposes is to explore the effect of excitants on imagination (in the case of the opium-eater, ‘les effets de l’opium sur un esprit méditatif et enclin à la rêverie’),98 and, as a consequence, drug-taking and imagination are often associated. The transformative powers of hachisch and opium, as explored in Les Paradis artificiels can, therefore, be seen as a mise en abyme of the manipulations and transformations of his subject matter by the writer. Text, drug, and alchemy all belong to the same thematics of transformation and transmutation, and are inextricably linked in Baudelaire’s expression of creation. The following passage describes the process which creates hashish in terms which are very close to both alchemy and the way in which Baudelaire describes his manipulations of De Quincey’s text: Pour obtenir cette résine, on réduit la plante sèche en poudre grossière, et on la lave plusieurs fois avec de l’alcool que l’on distille ensuite pour le retirer en partie; on fait évaporer jusqu’à consistance d’extrait; on traite cet extrait par l’eau, qui dissout les matières gommeuses étrangères, et la résine reste alors à l’état de pureté.99

The disappearance of secondary, unessential matter is echoed by the stripping of the thyrse of De Quincey’s thought (‘simple bâton qui tire toute sa physionomie et tout son charme du feuillage compliqué qui l’enveloppe’),100 and, as in alchemy, produces pure quintessence. The linked metaphors of alchemy, food and intoxicants all point to the transformative process of which the Baudelairean text is the result. What I have called Baudelaire’s aesthetics of amalgame is based on the encounter of his and another’s poetic sensitivities and concerns, and of his manipulation and transmutation of the text of the Other. Translation becomes, therefore, the tip of the intertextual iceberg: it makes the transformation of the source text more visible and dramatizes the passage from one voice to another. 98

ŒCI, p. 515. Le Poème du hachisch, ŒCI, p. 407. 100 ŒCI, p. 444. 99

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The fantasme fusionnel, which occurs, according to Antoine Compagnon, when the distinction between oneself and the Other, one’s text and the Other’s, disappears, is at the core of Baudelaire’s attempt to transmute De Quincey’s autobiographical text. Such transmutation makes Un Mangeur d’opium exemplary of Baudelaire’s manipulation of his source materials. How is this amalgame achieved in practice? As has already been noted, Baudelaire’s translation methods and uses of translation for creative ends are all characterized by a very strong presence of his subjectivity within or around the translated text. In the case of Poe, the presence of this subjectivity is encouraged by a perceived affinity with his author. Lawrence Venuti argues in The Translator’s Invisibility that the concept of empathy between author and translator (which he calls ‘simpatico’), historically favoured by theorists as a condition for successful translation, is in fact ‘a development of these assumptions to characterize the practice of translation (it was transparent) and to define the role of the translator (identification with the foreign author’s personality)’.101 In other words, the ideal of an identification between translator and author is based on an understanding of translation as ancillary to the original text, the illusion of a transparent translation, and a disappearance of the translator’s subjectivity from the equation. But, as Venuti points out, the translator becomes aware of his intimate sympathy with the foreign writer only when he recognizes his own voice in the foreign text. Unfortunately, the irreducible cultural differences mean that this is always a misrecognition as well, yet fluency ensures that this point gets lost in the translating.102

In the case of Baudelaire, the perceived – and professed – sympathy felt for the source author is also the occasion for the blending of two sensitivities. While in some texts, such as ‘Révélation magnétique’, Baudelaire’s decision to produce ‘du français pénible et parfois baroque’103 is close to Venuti’s definition of ‘resistant translation’ (that is to say ‘a translation strategy based on an 101

Venuti, p. 275. Venuti, p. 306. 103 EAP, p. 1106. 102

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aesthetic of discontinuity’ and difference104 and the search for the foreign as analysed by Antoine Berman), in other texts, Baudelaire’s voice becomes as strong as the source author’s and sometimes covers it. Of these texts, Un Mangeur d’opium is undoubtedly the most complex, and the most representative of his amalgam aesthetics as achieved through translation. What theorists such as Venuti would call domesticating strategies can be seen to be at work in the approaches to De Quincey’s text: the rejection of the source author’s perceived defects is an attempt, by Baudelaire, to make the target text his. The modification of De Quincey’s ‘essentiellement digressif’, or ‘affreusement conversationniste et digressioniste’ style and restructuring of his ‘sinueuse’ thought,105 are clearly a manifestation of Baudelaire’s attempt at amalgam. The encounter between two styles is paralleled by the encounter between two sensitivities and imagination, and the blend of two imageries. The shift in the portrayal of the young prostitute, Ann, has already been noted along with what this shift reveals about the transmutation at work in the French text. Another example may be found in Baudelaire’s translation of De Quincey’s London. In the autobiography, the City, and more specifically Oxford Street, is central and becomes the matrix of related topoi, namely the city as wilderness, the city as labyrinth, and the city as ogress. Oxford Street becomes a central character in the autobiography. As a backdrop to the narrator’s early experience of destitution and homelessness and to his encounter with Ann, the city quickly assumes mythical dimensions. The narrator is shown wandering the street, describing himself as a ‘walker of the streets’, a ‘wanderer’ or a ‘rambler’, and his first opium experience belongs to the city. Related to this main component, architecture and labyrinthine houses are also very present in the text, as for instance the school from which the future opium-eater escapes, or the house where he finds shelter in London, or in the description of Piranesi engravings. It is no surprise, given the central place of the city and related themes, that these should appear throughout the opium visions, together with other phantasmagoric landscapes. The influence of the city on later dreams is clearly stated in the ‘Pleasures of opium’: 104 105

Venuti, p. 306. Respectively ŒCI, p. 444, CI, p. 669, ŒCI, p. 515.

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For all this, however, I paid a heavy price in distant years, when the human face tyrannized over my dreams, and the perplexities of my steps in London came back and haunted my sleep, with the feeling of perplexities moral or intellectual, that brought confusion to the reason, or anguish and remorse to the conscience.106

The invocation to opium at the end of the same section is also exemplary: ‘thou buildest upon the bosom of darkness, out of the fantastic imagery of the brain, cities and temples’.107 And indeed the visions conjured up by opium are chasms, sunless abysses, Gothic halls, lakes, oriental landscapes, mountains and cities imaginary and real.108 The affinities between Baudelaire and De Quincey extend from the picture of the effects of opium to the presence and use of city imagery within the English text. The opium eater, presented by De Quincey as a walker of the streets,109 is very close to Baudelaire’s flâneur, and is often referred to by Baudelaire as a ‘vagabond’, a term which emphasizes this image. More importantly, Baudelaire quotes and paraphrases extensively a very long passage in De Quincey where the opium-eater is shown rambling the streets of London on Saturday nights, enjoying a sense of unity with the crowd. Reacting to De Quincey’s text, Baudelaire recreates the atmosphere of the city and soon departs from the source, adding his own comments and imagery to his rendering. L’ancien écolier veut revoir cette vie des humbles; il veut se plonger au sein de cette foule de déshérités, et comme le nageur embrasse la mer et entre ainsi en contact plus direct avec la nature, il aspire à prendre, pour ainsi dire, un bain de multitude.110

106

SLW, p. 161 SLW, p. 163 108 See my article, ‘The Opium Landscape in Translation: Baudelaire’s Un Mangeur d’opium and De Quincey’s Autobiographical Writings’, New Comparison, 2 1 (Spring 1996), 22-39. 109 As, for instance, when De Quincey writes: ‘Thus I have shown that opium does not, of necessityproduce inactivity or torpor; but that, on the contrary, it often led me into markets and theatres.’ (SLW, p. 161). 110 ŒCI, p. 468. 107

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Baudelaire is following De Quincey, in so far as he translates an idea which is implicit in the original text, but he does so in terms which are closer to his own poetry. The ‘bain de multitude’ announces the first lines of ‘Les Foules’ (itself inspired by Poe’s ‘Man of the Crowd’ – the intertextual spiral is endless): Il n’est pas donné à chacun de prendre un bain de multitude: jouir de la foule est un art; et celui-là seul peut faire, aux dépens du genre humain, une ribote de vitalité, à qui une fée a insufflé dans son berceau le goût du travestissement et du masque, la haine du domicile et la passion du voyage.111

Closely related to this concept of the flâneur and the attraction of the crowd, the city as object of poetic meditation is a concern both of De Quincey’s and Baudelaire’s, which leads the latter to infuse his own thematics and images into Un Mangeur d’opium. [A]nd more than once it has happened to me, on a summer-night, when I have been at an open window, in a room from which I could overlook the sea at a mile below me, and could command a view of the great town of L–, at about the same distance, that I have sat, from sun-set to sun-rise, motionless, and without wishing to move. Plus d’une fois, il lui est arrivé de passer toute une belle nuit d’ été assis près d’une fenêtre, sans bouger, sans même désirer de changer de place, depuis le coucher jusqu’au lever du soleil, remplissant ses yeux de la vaste perspective de la mer et d’une grande cité, et son esprit, des longues et délicieuses méditations suggérées par ce spectacle.112

Baudelaire’s version transforms De Quincey’s text to fit his own poetic preoccupations: the shift in the name of the city (a specific city in De Quincey’s text, any city in Baudelaire’s) and the insistance on meditation bring the French version closer to Baudelaire’s poetry : we are very close to the first poem of the ‘Tableaux parisiens’, ‘Paysage’, in which the poet is gazing at the cityscape and deriving his poetic aspiration from it. Similarly, the reference to ‘la vaste perspective de la mer’, although clearly based on De Quincey’s ‘I could overlook the sea at a mile below me’, brings immediately to mind ‘L’Homme et la mer’ in ‘Spleen et Idéal’,

111 112

Le Spleen de Paris, ŒCI, p. 291. SLW, p. 161; ŒCI, pp. 470-71.

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and, therefore, blends De Quincey’s imagery with that of De Quincey.113 The poetic process triggered by the reading of De Quincey’s text is analysed by Baudelaire at the beginning of his rendering of the Suspiria: En parcourant mainte et mainte fois ces pages singulières, je ne pouvais m’empêcher de rêver aux différentes métaphores dont se servent les poètes pour peindre l’homme revenu des batailles de la vie; c’est le vieux marin au dos voûté, au visage couturé d’un lacis inextricable de rides, qui réchauffe à son foyer une héroïque carcasse échappée à mille aventures; c’est le voyageur qui se retourne le soir vers les campagnes franchies le matin, et qui se souvient, avec attendrissement et tristesse, des mille fantaisies dont était possédé son cerveau pendant qu’il traversait ces contrées, maintenant vaporisées en horizons. C’est ce que, d’une manière générale, j’appellerais volontiers le ton du revenant; accent, non pas surnaturel, mais presque étranger à l’humanité, moitié terrestre et moitié extra-terrestre, que nous trouvons quelquefois dans les Mémoires d’outre-tombe, quand, la colère ou l’orgueil blessé se taisant, le mépris du grand René pour les choses de la terre devient tout à fait désintéressé.114

The verb ‘parcourant’ echoes De Quincey’s use of the wandering metaphor for the act of reading: Now, then, reader, from 1813, where all this time we have been sitting down and loitering – rise up, if you please, and walk forward about three years more.115

In addition, by referring to his own experience of poetic imagery and to his reaction to De Quincey’s style, Baudelaire offers a clue to the importance of the contact with others’ poetry for his own work — ‘rêver aux différentes métaphores dont se servent les poètes’ seems to be the first step towards the emergence of his own voice through his translation or presentation of De Quincey’s text. Such emergence can be perceived throughout Un Mangeur d’opium, leading to the creation of a distinctly Baudelairean landscape: ‘c’est bien là le ciel morne et l’horizon imperméable qui enveloppent le cerveau asservi par l’opium. L’infini dans l’horreur 113

ŒCI, pp. 82 and 19. ‘Le génie enfant’, ŒCI, p. 496. 115 SLW, p. 167. Baudelaire does not translate the metaphor and instead only writes ‘Peu de temps avant 1816’ (ŒCI, p. 473). 114

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et dans la mélancolie, et, plus mélancolique que tout, l’impuissance de s’arracher soi-même au supplice!’116 Baudelaire’s paysage opiacé, with its ‘ciel morne’ and its tendency to create apathy and melancholy, is very close to the darkest of the spleen landscapes conjured up in his poetry, most remarkably in the Spleen et Idéal section of Les Fleurs du Mal. The perceived affinity with the source text leads, indeed, to their transformation and the emergence of Baudelaire’s voice. In this respect, Harold Bloom’s concept of misreading sheds some light on the mechanism at work – as Bloom shows, ‘to live, the poet must misinterpret the father, by the crucial act of misprision, which is the re-writing of the father’.117 In other words, the establishment of the new creative voice is dependent on a transformation of earlier voices. What Venuti denounces as undesirable in translation (that is to say the pretext of affinity used for domesticating strategies and destruction of the source text) is in fact inevitable in the act of literary creation. For Baudelaire, translation is never purely the result of a desire to reproduce an admired text, but instead, that of transmuting it into his own – poems such as ‘Le Guignon’ or ‘Le Flambeau vivant’ being the most obvious examples of his creative misprision, the voice of the earlier poets (Hood, Gray, Poe) forming only the bottom layer of his creative palimpsest. As Baudelaire writes in Un Mangeur d’opium, expanding on De Quincey’s text, ‘le palimpseste de la mémoire est indestructible’,118 and the memory of earlier texts is always at the core of his writing, but distorted and transformed by amalgam and transmutation.119 Translation, clearly, is the ideal form of appropriation, in this respect. As Jaume Pérez Muntaner says: 116

ŒCI, p. 476. Harold Bloom, A Map of Misreading (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 19. 118 ŒCI, p. 507. 119 See also William Olmsted, ‘The Palimpsest of Memory: Recollection and Intratextuality in Baudelaire’s “Spleen” II’, Romanic Review, 77 (1986), 359-67. Richard Burton’s analysis of ‘Le Cygne’ highlights the same characteristics i n Baudelaire in 1859, A Study in the Sources of Poetic Creativity (Cambridge: CUP, 1988), pp. 149-69: ‘Baudelaire’s poem does not merely derive its pivotal theme and image froma a well-known Virgilian episode but itself springs froma desire t o ‘plagiarize’ its original in the sense (...) of imitation, elaboration and implicit subversion’ (p. 156). Burton also emphasizes the importance of the image of the palimpsest in his conclusion (pp. 174-75). 117

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traduire un texte est la meilleure manière, la plus directe, de le lire, de l’interpréter et, en conséquence, de le trahir de manière intelligente, c’està-dire de se l’approprier et de la convertir en sa propre poésie. La lecture, comme l’interprétation et la trahison, sont les conditions de la création littéraire.120

It would be wrong, however, to see amalgame as working only one way. The close encounter with De Quincey’s text is not without effect on Baudelaire. The contact with De Quincey’s text and digressive style, and his description of it as a caduceus, provide Baudelaire with one of his most striking images. In Un Mangeur d’opium, the recurrence of the references to the thyrse , inspired by De Quincey’s remarks on his own style, are a clear indication of impact of the source text on Baudelaire’s imagination. De Quincey’s image of the caduceus, in the ‘Introductory Notice’ of Suspiria de Profundis, is indeed very striking in its imagery and the link it establishes between text and opium: [T]he whole course to this narrative resembles, and was meant to resemble, a caduceus wreathed about with meandering ornaments, or the shaft of a tree’s stem hung round and surmounted with some vagrant parasitical plant. The mere medical subject of the opium answers to the dry, withered pole, which shoots all the rings of the flowering plants, and seems to do so by some dexterity of its own; whereas, in fact, the plant and its tendrils have curled round the sullen cylinder by mere luxuriance of theirs.121 The true object of my ‘Opium Confessions’ is not the naked physiological theme, – on the contrary, that is the ugly pole, the murderous spear, the halbert, – but those wandering musical variations upon the theme, – those parasitical thoughts, feelings, digressions, which climb up with bells and blossoms round about the arid stock; ramble away from it at times with perhaps too rank a luxuriance; but at the same time, by the eternal interest attached to the subjects of these digressions, no matter what were the execution, spread a glory over incidents that for themselves would be – less than nothing.122

Baudelaire does not translate, nor summarize, the above passages as part of ‘Le Génie enfant’, which generally follows De Quincey’s 120

Jaume Pérez Muntaner, ‘La Traduction comme création littéraire’, Meta, 38, 4 (1993), 637-42 (p. 639). 121 SLW, p. 296 122 SLW, p. 297.

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‘Introductory Notice’ in Suspiria. Instead, the passages are transplanted into the ‘Précautions oratoires’ and ‘Conclusion’. While in De Quincey’s text they are only one page apart, in Un Mangeur d’opium they are separated by the whole account of De Quincey’s work: il compare, en un endroit, sa pensée à un thyrse, simple bâton qui tire toute sa physionomie et tout son charme du feuillage compliqué qui l’enveloppe.123 Ici comme dans les parties déjà analysées, cette pensée est le thyrse dont i l a si plaisamment parlé, avec la candeur d’un vagabond qui se connaît bien. Le sujet n’a pas d’autre valeur que celle d’un bâton sec et nu; mais les rubans, les pampres et les fleurs peuvent être, par leurs entrelacements folâtres, une richesse précieuse pour les yeux. La pensée de De Quincey n’est pas seulement sinueuse; le mot n’est pas assez fort: elle est naturellement spirale.124

The repetition of the reference to the thyrse in the introduction and the conclusion of Un Mangeur d’opium, in terms which are clearly very similar, seems to echo De Quincey’s spiral thought. There is, despite the similarities, a shift in Baudelaire’s perception of his author’s style, which leads him to separate the two references. While in the introduction, the focus is on the need to extract the essential out of De Quincey’s digressive style, in the conclusion the core of his author’s thought is shown to be nothing without its envelope. The first sentence of the conclusion emphasizes the importance of the digressions: Ces longues rêveries, ces tableaux poétiques, malgré leur caractère symbolique général, illustrent mieux, pour un lecteur intelligent, le caractère moral de notre auteur, que ne le feraient désormais des anecdotes ou des notes biographiques.125

The dichotomy between digression and the essential established at the beginning of Un Mangeur d’opium is resolved, and erased, at the end of the text, which celebrates the complexity of the thyrse. Even more strikingly, the image of the thyrse is developed in the 123

ŒCI, p. 444. ŒCI, p. 515. 125 ŒCI, p. 515. 124

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prose poem of the same name, in a movement which proves the interaction between De Quincey’s writing and Baudelaire’s. ‘Le Thyrse’ has often been read as emblematic of Baudelaire’s poetics.126 One can, also, see it as illustrating his aesthetics of amalgame. Clearly, the text is inspired by De Quincey’s caduceus passage, and is reminiscent of the passages in Un Mangeur d’opium where the image of the thyrse is exploited to refer to De Quincey’s style: the presence of the image of the thyrse in the Spleen de Paris is a self-contained example of the fusion at work in Un Mangeur d’opium. In the same way as De Quincey’s text is transplanted into the Paradis artificiels, and by that very transplantation, blended with Baudelaire’s, De Quincey’s caduceus image is imported into the prose poem, and blended with Baudelaire’s poetic purpose. That more than a mere allusion is at work here will be proved by the comparison of the relevant passages. In many ways, ‘Le Thyrse’ may be seen as an expansion on the passages in Un Mangeur d’opium which refer to the thyrse, and have already been quoted: physiquement, ce n’est qu’un bâton, un pur bâton, perche à houblon, tuteur de vigne, sec, dur et droit. Autour de ce bâton, cans des méandres capricieux, se jouent et folâtrent des tiges et des fleurs, celles-ci sinueuses et fuyardes, celles-là penchées comme des cloches ou des coupes renversées. Et une gloire étonnante jaillit de cette complexité de lignes et de couleurs, tendres ou éclatantes. Ne dirait-on pas que la ligne courbe et la spirale font leur cour à la ligne droite et dansent autour dans une muette adoration? Ne dirait-on pas que toutes ces corolles délicates, tous ces calices, explosions de senteurs et de couleurs, exécutent un mystique fanfango autour du bâton hiératique? Et quel est, cependant, le mortel imprudent qui osera décider s i les fleurs et les pampres ont été faits pour le bâton, ou si le bâton n’est que le prétexte pour montrer la beauté des pampres et des fleurs?127

The description of the thyrse in the prose poem uses the same terms as in Un Mangeur d’opium: we find a similar contrast between the ‘pur bâton’ and the ‘pampres’ and ‘fleurs’. The repetition of the same words is more than a simple echo, it points directly to Un Mangeur d’opium as the hypotext of the poem. The fusion between 126

See for example Marc Eigeldinger, ‘Le Thyrse, lecture thématique’, Études Baudelairiennes, VIII (1976), 172-83; Melvin Zimmerman, ‘La Genèse du symbole du thyrse chez Baudelaire’, Bulletin Baudelairien, 2 (31 August 1966), 8-11. 127 ŒCI, pp. 335-36.

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Baudelairean and De Quinceyan thematics and poetics occurs through the shift that Baudelaire operates on the image. The thyrse image refers, both in De Quincey’s and Baudelaire’s texts, to aesthetics, and is applied to arts (literature and music). But whereas in De Quincey’s text the caduceus is a way to express his taste for digression, in Baudelaire’s – whether in Un Mangeur d’opium or in ‘Le Thyrse’ – it symbolizes the encounter between two heterogeneous, complementary bodies, and the impossibility to decide which is essential. This encounter is described in sexual terms: the passage already quoted suggests so (‘coupes renversées’, ‘font leur cour’, ‘muette adoration’), and the rest of the text makes it even more explicit – c’est l’élément féminin exécutant autour du mâle ses prestigieuses pirouettes.

The two poles of masculinity and femininity are represented respectivetly by the ‘ligne droite’ and the ‘ligne arabesque’, or, in other words, the straight branch and the flowers wrapped around it. The entanglement, and ultimate fusion, of both components is at the core of Baudelaire’s interest in the thyrse: Ligne droite et ligne arabesque, intention et expression, roideur de la volonté, sinuosité du verbe, unité du but, variété des moyens, amalgame toutpuissant et indivisible du génie, quel analyste aura le détestable courage de vous diviser et de vous séparer?

The initial duality of the two separate components is erased and replaced by a fusion, best expressed in sexual and / or alchemical terms. Remarkably, the term ‘amalgame’ is used within the context of the prose poem and its exploration of artistic creation: Baudelaire, by isolating the image of the thyrse from Un Mangeur d’opium, and linking it to the concept of amalgam, points out clearly the search for unity between disparate elements as central to his aesthetics. This sentence could describe texts such as Un Mangeur d’opium, and be read as a warning to critics obsessed with textual origins and authorship. Translation takes on, therefore, a new significance within Baudelaire’s works. A subversion of Romantic concerns of authorship and originality, translation is based on the transmutation of pre-existing writing, and, therefore, the fusion between at least two sepa-

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rate subjectivities and discourses. The frequency, and the importance, of alchemical metaphors within Baudelaire’s writings to refer to artistic creation points to the relevance of the concept of transformation and rewriting within his creative method. Translation, then, far from being a marginal, merely money-making activity in Baudelaire’s creative life, becomes emblematic of Baudelaire’s writing method, a mise en abyme, so to speak, of the process at work in his other texts, and of his search for quintessence, which in many ways announces Walter Benjamin’s notion of pure language as the quest of the translator.128 In addition, Baudelaire’s obsession with dual writing (as illustrated by the notion of amalgam) suggests that interlingual translation is only one form of such approach in his corpus. Indeed other forms of translation illustrating a similar aesthetics of duality and assimilation, difference and repetition, separateness and amalgam may be found in his writings and will be the focus of the final section of this study.

128

Walter Benjamin, ‘The Task of the Translator’, translated by Harry Zohn, i n Theories of Translation, An Anthology of Essays from Dryden to Derrida, ed. b y Rainer Schulte and John Biguenet (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 71-82 (first publication in German, 1923).

6 THE LIMITS OF TRANSLATION The wide range of interlingual translation approaches to be found in Baudelaire’s works points, as we have seen, to both the importance of translation and his experiments with possible strategies with foreign texts. The co-presence, in the Baudelairean corpus, of relatively close, ‘faithful’ translations (in the case of the Poe translations), and much freer, transformative, texts (Un Mangeur d’opium), has additional significance: it reveals the relativity of the concept of translation (and related concepts such as fidelity, authority, and creativity). It also raises questions regarding translation strategies: what led Baudelaire to adopt such different approaches in his treatment of Poe’s and De Quincey’s works? Does his choice of strategy have something to teach us about what constitutes translation? The notion of amalgame, which blends the voices of source and target authors, is particularly useful in this context: through the study of the Baudelairean experiment, we are led to question the notion of translation and its limits. The purpose of the present chapter will be to answer such questions, through the exploration of Baudelaire’s use of the mechanisms of translation in his art criticism, his transpositions d’art and his doublets. In other words, it is hoped that his inter-semiotic translations (to use Roman Jakobson’s terminology), will help us complete the definition of Baudelairean translation, and, more generally, understand the theoretical implications of its limits. Apart from a few notes in the paratexts in his translations and some passing comments in Un Mangeur d’opium, Baudelaire never writes directly about his translation approach or a theory of translation. There are, however, important elements to be found in his literary and art criticism, where, as will be seen shortly, the recurrence of the term ‘traduction’ and its cognates (to refer to the interaction between the verbal and the visual) points to the importance of the

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concept for him. Within the corpus of Baudelaire’s non-translation works, criticism is the genre with which translation is the most immediately comparable. At the most superficial level, a first hint of the link between the two may be found in the fact that Baudelaire’s activity as critic, just like his activity as translator, ran in parallel to his poetic activity, and span his creative life. The very simultaneity of both activities, although in itself not enough to justify any theory of a common approach, indicates on Baudelaire’s part considerable time and effort devoted to ‘derivative’ writings, and suggests, therefore, a commitment to this form of writing. As Sherry Simon reminds us, the link between translation and criticism is rooted in the origins of the two activities, which were once seen as one: Les termes qui désignent l’activité de traduction en grec et en latin indiquent que la traduction était conçue, d’une part, comme un cas particulier d’une activité plus générale (l’exégèse) et, d’autre part, comme une activité elle-même multiple. Le grec herméneuein veut dire à la fois ‘expliquer’ et ‘traduire’. Le latin ‘interpres’ désigne le traducteur et l’exégète.1

The strong historical link between translation and criticism is confirmed in practice when one explores the mechanisms which underlie them. Roland Barthes’ definition of new criticism as a ‘parole dédoublée’, or ‘seconde écriture avec la première écriture de l’œuvre’ could indeed also apply to translation, another dual discourse.2 Both translation and criticism are palimpsestic writings. In addition, they present readings of their source text, and are the fruit of the translator’s or critic’s subjectivities. Here again, Barthes provides a useful basis in his definition of criticism as ‘cet autre discours qui assume ouvertement, à ses risques, l’intention de donner un sens particulier à l’œuvre’.3 This ‘sens particulier’ given by criticism to the text is partly created by the critic’s subjectivity, the otherness of the critical discourse reflecting this subjectivity. Clearly, such a definition applies to translation as well. Indeed, even when its aim is to be as faithful as possible, a translation reflects the translator’s reading of the source text and his / her choices and decision to develop or not some aspects of his / her source text. These

1

Sherry Simon, ‘Conflits de juridiction’, p. 196. Roland Barthes, Critique et vérité (Paris: Seuil, 1966), pp. 13 and 14. 3 Critique et vérité, p. 56. 2

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choices are the result of a critical appreciation of that text.4 Although Barthes dismisses an identification of translation and criticism on the grounds that translation reveals meaning while criticism actually makes it, I would argue, however, that this perceived incompatibility is based on a limited definition of translation and an overlooking of its metatextual dimension. Barthes’ definition of criticism could in fact apply to translation: Certes, la critique est une lecture profonde (ou mieux encore: profilée), elle découvre dans l’œuvre un certain intelligible, et en cela, il est vrai, elle déchiffre et participe d’une interprétation. Pourtant ce qu’elle dévoile ne peut être un signifié (car ce signifié recule sans cesse jusqu’au vide du sujet), mais seulement des chaînes de symboles, des homologies: le «sens» qu’elle donne de plein droit à l’œuvre n’est finalement qu’une nouvelle efflorescence des symboles qui font l’œuvre (...) La critique n’est pas une traduction, mais une périphrase.5

Barthes’ concession that criticism is interpretation makes the link with translation very natural, although he is at pains to show the differences, rather than the similarities between the two activities. It seems, however, that the periphrastic quality of criticism may also be found in translation, in so far as translation does not just provide a signified of the source text, but a recreation, a discourse based on it. This metatextual dimension has been looked at most convincingly by James S. Holmes in ‘Forms of Verse Translation and the Translation of Verse Form’,6 where he insists on the fact that criticism and translation both belong to ‘meta-literature’, that is to say an extension of Barthes’ definition of criticism as a ‘secondary language or meta-language’.7 After pointing out the difference between criticism and translation (mainly to do with form, length, and material), Holmes stresses that ‘in a very real if special sense [criticism] “translates” the poem into another linguistic system as 4

Antoine Berman reminds us of this fundamental characteristic of translation when he writes: ‘tout texte à traduire présente une systématicité propre que le mouvement de la traduction rencontre, affronte et révèle. En ce sens, Pound pouvait dire que la traduction était une forme sui generis de critique, dans la mesure où elle rend manifestes les structures cachées d’un texte.’ (L’Épreuve de l’étranger, p. 20). 5 Critique et vérité, pp. 71-2. 6 in The Nature of Translation, Essays on the Theory and Practice of Literary Translation, ed. by James S. Holmes (The Hague, Paris: Mouton, 1970), pp. 91105. 7 The Nature of Translation, p. 91.

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well as providing a critical interpretation’;8 similarly, ‘all translation is an act of critical interpretation’.9 Similarly, there are many ways in which one could see Baudelaire’s transpositions d’art as a form of translation. First of all, their very duality links them to translation: they are based on an earlier source, of which they present a reading, and are, therefore, intertextual by nature. In addition, transpositions d’art are the result of a transfer, from one medium to another, and also from one context to another: as interlingual translation aims at reproducing in a given culture a text originated in another, similarly transpositions d’art are the result of a transfer from the visual to the verbal, and, therefore, from one cultural system to another. Indeed, form and content are inseparable in art, which means that a difference in medium inevitably brings a difference in expression and in content. While concentrating on Baudelaire’s figurative use of ‘traduction’ and related terms, one should, however, bear in mind that this use is far from uniform and that its application to the work of the critic is only one aspect of the metaphor.10 In addition, as Michele Hannoosh has shown, Baudelaire was far from alone in using the translation metaphor, which was indeed increasingly common. Particularly interesting in this respect is Delacroix. who writes in 1857 that La gravure est une véritable traduction (...), c’est-à-dire l’art de transporter une idée d’un art dans un autre, comme le traducteur le fait à l’égard d’un livre écrit dans une langue et qu’il transpose dans la sienne. La langue étrangère du graveur, et c’est ici que se montre son génie, ne consiste pas seulement à imiter par le moyen de son art les effets de la peinture, qui est comme une autre langue. Il a, si l’on peut parler ainsi, sa langue à lui qui marque d’un cachet particulier ses ouvrages, et qui, dans une traduction fidèle de l’ouvrage qu’il imite, laisse éclater son sentiment particulier.11

Delacroix’s explicit parallel between interlingual translation and intersemiotic transposition echoes Baudelaire’s metaphoric and literal uses of the term.12 The interest of the co-presence of figurative 8

The Nature of Translation, p. 92. The Nature of Translation, p. 93. 10 Michele Hannoosh, for instance, analyses the use of the term to refer to artistic creation in ‘Painting as Translation in Baudelaire’s Art Criticism’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 22 (1986), 22-33. 11 Eugène Delacroix, Journal, Paris, Plon, 1980, pp. 619-620. 12 Not surprisingly, this literal use of the term is mainly to be found in the literary 9

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and literal senses in Baudelaire’s text is that it proves that both were present and linked in Baudelaire’s mind, as they are in Delacroix’, who exploits the connotations of the term ‘traduction’ to their full. Similarly, Baudelaire’s choice to use the term ‘traduction’ metaphorically is a conscious choice, made in full awareness of the resonances of the word. In ‘À quoi bon la critique?’ (a section of Salon de 1846 to which we shall soon come back), Baudelaire describes the best criticism of a painting as ‘celle qui sera ce tableau réfléchi par un esprit intelligent et sensible’.13 In other words criticism offers a mirror to art, but – and this is the other meaning of the verb ‘réfléchir’ (to reflect on, to think about) – also offers an interpretation of it through analysis. The mirror image applies well to translation too, since a translation is often viewed as a double of its source text and is expected to reproduce the source text exactly.14 As Lawrence Venuti argues, however, this idea of exactness is a mystification which masks a rewriting of the source text. In fact, to continue the metaphor, any difference between source and target texts may be seen as due to the distortion-effect of the mirror, that is to say the subjective element in the reflection. What Goethe wrote about a translation of his Hermann and Dorothea may help us to understand the implications of the mirror image as applied to translation and / or criticism: I contemplated it [the poem] as it were in a mirror which, as we know from experience and more recently by entoptics, has the ability to exert a magical influence. Here, in a much more formed language, I saw my feelings and

criticism, although it does also appear to a lesser extent in the art criticism: t o quote only one example, in Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris, Baudelaire refers to his reading of German texts in translation (ŒCII, p. 789). It is in the literary criticism and the paratext to the translations, however, that the term recurs the most. See for instance the ‘Notes pour la rédaction et la composition du journal Le Hibou philosophe’, ŒCII, p. 50; Puisque réalisme il y a, ŒCII, p. 57; Théophile Gautier, ŒCII, p. 151; Anniversaire de la naissance de Shakespeare, ŒCII, p. 226;Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages, ŒCII, pp. 260, 261 and 274; Présentation de Bérénice, ŒCII, pp. 289 and 290; Dédicace des Histoires Extraordinaires, ŒCII, p. 291; Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses œuvres ŒCII, p. 336; Avis du traducteur, ŒCII, p. 347. 13 Salon de 1846, ŒCII, p. 418. 14 The aptness of the mirror metaphor for translation is exploited by Reuben Brower in his book Mirror on Mirror, Translation, Imitation, Parody.

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The ‘magical influence’ of the mirror, under the pen of the author of Faust, brings us back to the alchemical metaphors already evoked. Importantly, it emphasizes the transmutation achieved by translation, while retaining at the same time the concept of the translation as a double of its original: sameness and difference coexist in the act of translation. As Antoine Berman has shown, the German Romantics adopted a similar approach to translation and criticism, which they saw as part of the same type of writing. Goethe’s view of translation could also be applied to criticism, therefore, and is very close to Baudelaire’s own definition of criticism. Translation and criticism alike provide a mirror-image of their subject tempered by the subjectivity of the translator / critic. This latent similarity betweeen the two activities is made more explicit elsewhere in the criticism, as, for instance, in the Salon de 1859, where the verb ‘traduire’ refers to the critical act: [c]ertes je n’essayerai pas de traduire avec ma plume la volupté si triste qui s’exale de ce verdoyant exil.16

Two passages of Le Peintre de la vie moderne echo this use of the verb: il est difficile à la simple plume de traduire ce poème fait de mille croquis.17 [ces images] sont grosses de suggestions, mais de suggestions cruelles, âpres, que ma plume, bien qu’accoutumée à lutter contre les représentations plastiques, n’a peut-être traduites qu’insuffisamment.18

The accent on the medium used by Baudelaire (‘plume’) suggests strongly that the word ‘traduire’ is used in its literal meaning. What we have here is the transfer of the visual text into a verbal text: to talk about translation in this context is indeed to accept Roland Barthes’ view of the visual as a language,19 that is to say to see 15

tr. C. A. M. Sym, quoted in the English translation of Antoine Berman’s L’Épreuve de l’étranger: The Experience of the Foreign, translated by S. Heyvaert (New York: State University of New York Press, 1992), p. 66. 16 Salon de 1859, ŒCII, p. 636. 17 Le Peintre de la vie moderne, ŒCII, p. 702. 18 Le Peintre de la vie moderne, ŒCII, p. 722. 19 Roland Barthes, ‘La peinture est-elle un langage?’ in L’Obvie et l’obtus, Essais

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painting as a code that can be interpreted into another code. Barthes’ semiotic approach to paintings in ‘la peinture est-elle un langage?’ is echoed by Jurij Lotman’s in The Structure of the Artistic Text.20 Defining language as ‘any communication system employing signs which are ordered in a particular manner’, Lotman argues that art is a structured language conveying a message to the viewer. Stressing the specificity of art, he implies the possibility of decoding and recoding the artistic language into another language, that is to say, of translating it: The language of art (...) is the scene of a constant struggle between the notion that there is only one language and the possibility of choice between artistic communicative systems, all of them adequate in some measure.21

As G. M. Vajda argues in his presentation of Lotman’s theories,22 such decoding involves a transcription of the visual language through the use of a verbal language – literally, a translation. That a semiotic approach provides a good basis for the study of inter-art translations is confirmed by Gérard-Denis Farcy in ‘L’adaptation dans tous ses états’.23 Farcy’s notion of ‘adaptation’ does indeed cover the transfer from one art to another, which he calls ‘adaptation transsubstantielle’.24 The latter is defined as a transfer from one semiotic system to another. As Farcy argues, the link between adaptation and translation is very strong: ‘dans son sens étroit’, he writes, ‘la traduction n’est rien d’autre que l’adaptation à un autre code linguistique assortie de la conviction que le calque est possible’ before asserting the appropriateness of the tools of traductology to the study of adaptations.25 Clearly, Farcy uses the term ‘traduction’ in its narrowest sense, and applies it exclusively to interlingual, direct translations. That he should note the similarities Critiques III (Paris: Seuil, 1982), pp. 139-141. Article first published in 1969 i n the Quinzaine littéraire. 20 Jurij Lotman, The Structure of the Artistic Text, translated from the Russian b y Ronald Vroon (University of Michigan: Ann Arbor, 1977; first published in Russian in 1970). 21 Lotman, p. 18. 22 G. M. Vajda, ‘Méthodes de la comparaison des lettres et des arts’, in Literature and the Other Arts, op. cit., pp. 331-36. 23 Gérard-Denis Farcy, ‘L’Adaptation dans tous ses états’, Poétique, November 93, 387-414. 24 Farcy, p. 391. 25 Farcy, p. 390.

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between such translations and adaptations, however, points to strong links between the two, and suggests, once more, that transsubstantial adaptations (to use his terminology) are a form of translation and can be studied as such. The ‘plume’ mentioned by Baudelaire emphasizes, therefore, the fact that a new verbal code is being chosen to express the visual source. The type of translation at work here is what Roman Jakobson classifies as ‘intersemiotic translation or transmutation’, that is to say ‘an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of non verbal sign systems’.26 Except, in the case of Baudelaire’s criticism, that the interpretation is into a verbal sign system, rather than out of it. Another very important aspect in Baudelaire’s statements already quoted is the expression of the difficulty of translation from art to words. When he writes ‘je n’essayerai pas de traduire’, Baudelaire points to the gap between art and literature and presents translation as impossible. Similarly, the ‘simple plume’ referred to in Le Peintre de la vie moderne underlines the inadequacy of the critic’s medium, while the second extract emphasizes the violence of the translating act (‘lutter contre’) and admits to possible failure. The fact that the difficulty of interlingual translation is described in similar terms suggests a common approach to both intersemiotic and interlingual translation. Talking about Gautier, for instance, he says: que de gloire pour le traducteur intelligent qui voudra lutter contre ce grand poête.27

Similarly, he writes about Poe that: une traduction de poésies aussi voulues, aussi concentrées, peut être un rêve caressant, mais ne peut être qu’un rêve;28

or that ma très humble et très dévouée faculté de traducteur ne me permet pas de suppléer aux voluptés absentes du rythme et de la rime.29 26

Roman Jakobson, ‘On Linguistic Aspects of Translation’, p. 233. We can note in passing Jakobson’s use of the term ‘transmutation’ which has clear alchemical connotations and echoes, therefore, Baudelaire’s amalgam through translation. 27 Théophile Gautier, ŒCII, p. 151 (emphasis added). 28 Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses œuvres, ŒCII, p. 336. 29 Avis du traducteur, ŒCII, p. 347.

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Poetry is seen as untranslatable, in the same way as the visual arts may be. Similarly, in Un Mangeur d’opium, Baudelaire often comments on his own translation: tristes mots pour traduire l’intraduisible; [j]e désespère de rendre convenablement la magie du style anglais.30

The difficulty encountered in the translating act and the notion of the ‘untranslatable’ alluded to here both apply to interlingual translation and inter-semiotic translation. 31 The violence of the ‘lutte’ is clearly proportional to the degree of ‘intraduisibilité’ caused by the specificity of each art, which is asserted very strongly in L’Art philosophique. After emphasizing the fact that the arts are seen as distinct from the point of view of their subject matter (‘il y a des sujets qui appartiennent à la peinture, d’autres à la musique, d’autres à la littérature’),32 Baudelaire goes on to denounce his contemporaries’ attempts to apply the language of one art to another: Est-ce par une fatalité des décadences qu’aujourd’hui chaque art manifeste l’envie d’empiéter sur l’art voisin et que les peintres introduisent des gammes musicales dans la peinture, les sculpteurs, de la couleur dans la sculpture, les littérateurs, des moyens plastiques dans la littérature, et d’autres artistes, ceux dont nous avons à nous occuper aujourd’hui, une sorte de philosophie encyclopédique dans l’art plastique lui-même?33

The phrases ‘gammes musicales’, ‘couleur’, ‘moyens plastiques’ and ‘philosophie encyclopédique’ are indeed short cuts to refer to specific artistic languages. The non-transferability of these languages according to Baudelaire is the key to the expression of the difficulty of translation from one to another. At the same time, however, the very concept of the specificity of artistic languages points to the necessity of translation to move from one art to an30

Un Mangeur d’opium, OCI, pp. 473 and 488. We may note in passing that this concept of a difficulty of translation is not only one way – the transfer from literature to art is seen as just as difficult, if one judges by a very similar presentation of Delacroix, described as ‘cet homme extraordinaire qui a lutté avec Scott, Byron, Gœthe, Shakespeare, Arioste, Tasse, Dante et l’Évangile’ (Salon de 1859, ŒCII, p. 632). 32 ŒCII, p. 598. 33 ŒCII, p. 598. 31

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other. In addition, the frequent use of the term ‘plume’ to refer to Baudelaire’s medium, while emphasizing on the surface the difference between art and the written word, as already noted, concentrates on the tool rather than on the end-result, and therefore minimizes that difference at the same time as it points to it. Between ‘plume’ and ‘pinceau’, the distinction is not so great as between, say, ‘mots’ and ‘peinture’ – and in fact the existence of ‘dessins à la plume’ (‘pen and ink drawings’) emphasizes the overlap between the two instruments.34 Baudelaire’s use of the term is paradoxical, therefore, as it both emphasizes and minimizes the difference between the visual arts and the written word. The similarity between the two is particularly clear in the passages already quoted from Le Peintre de la vie moderne where the description of a visual work as a poem blurs the distinction between the visual arts and literature, and contrasts sharply with the passage from L’Art philosophique discussed above. This blurring occurs across the arts. Thus in Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris, music, text and painting are linked and presented as equivalent. Gautier’s article about Tannhäuser is praised in terms which associate all the arts: Théophile Gautier, très ému par une représentation de Tannhäuser, avait cependant, dans le Moniteur, traduit ses impressions avec cette certitude plastique qui donne un charme irrésistible à tous ses écrits.35

The links between the arts as well as their translatability are made particularly clear here by the use of the adjective ‘plastique’ which describes in visual terms Gautier’s writing, itself a translation of music. Words, the pictorial arts and music all correspond. Here again, Un Mangeur d’opium springs to mind. In ‘Savannah-laMar’, Baudelaire prefaces his translation of De Quincey as follows: À cette galerie mélancolique de peintures, vastes et mouvantes allégories de la tristesse, où je trouve (j’ignore si le lecteur qui ne les voit qu’en abrégé peut éprouver la même sensation) un charme musical autant que pittoresque, un morceau vient s’ajouter, qui peut être considéré comme le finale d’une large symphonie.36 34

The compatibility of the pictorial and the verbal tools is implied in the Salon de 1859 where Baudelaire refers to Fromentin’s ability to use ‘deux outils pour exprimer [sa] pensée’ as that of a true inheritor of ‘peintres anciens’. (ŒCII, p . 650). 35 Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris, ŒCII, p. 780. 36 ŒCI, p. 513.

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Here, Baudelaire links again painting, music and literature. What Antoine Berman calls the versabilité infinie of the arts (that is to say the possibility to translate from one art into another) is clearly central to Baudelaire’s thought,37 and plays a crucial role both in his criticism and his ‘transpositions d’art’, which are closely linked in approach and will be explored at a later stage. Within this context of overlap between translation and criticism, the work of interpretation achieved by the critic is explained in more detail in L’Art philosophique, the form of art which is the closest to literature (and is therefore, according to Baudelaire, a ‘monstruosité’):38 Il faut, dans la traduction des œuvres d’art philosophiques, apporter une grande minutie et une grande attention; là les lieux, le décor, les meubles, les ustensiles (voir Hogarth), tout est allégorie, allusion, hiéroglyphes, rébus.39

Allegory, allusion, hieroglyphs and rebus alike are languages to be decoded. By using these terms, Baudelaire emphasizes that philosophical art is a language which has to be interpreted by the critic, whose primary task is to discover the signified hidden behind various signifiers, as the translator does with the source text. The hermeneutic dimension of criticism is underlined: in the same way that there is more to the work of literature than what it says, there is more to the painting than what it openly shows. In both cases, the reader / viewer brings out the hidden meaning through his / her interpretation. The dangers of misinterpretation are the same for the critic and the translator of poetry: D’ailleurs, même à l’esprit d’un artiste philosophe, les accessoires s’offrent, non pas avec un caractère littéral et précis, mais avec un caractère poétique, vague et confus, et souvent c’est le traducteur qui invente les intentions. 40

The very notion of ‘artiste philosophe’ of course provides a bridge between art and the written word; in addition, Baudelaire describes the work of the ‘artiste philosophe’ and the interpretation of the 37

Berman, L’Épreuve de l’étranger, pp. 111-139. ŒCII, p. 599. 39 L’Art philosophique, ŒCII, p. 600. 40 L’Art philosophique, ŒCII, p. 601. 38

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critic in literary terms (‘littéral’, ‘poétique’, ‘traducteur’). Interpretation is described in terms which echo the translation debate of the 19th century between literal and free translation. The input of the critic is likened to that of the translator, in this case in negative terms as it comes just after an attack on Michelet’s interpretation of Dürer’s Melancholia (Baudelaire judges ‘son interprétation (...) suspecte, relativement à la seringue, particulièrement’).41 The fact that Baudelaire attacks the concept of ‘art philosophique’ in his essay should serve as a caution against generalisations, but one may nevertheless argue that the decoding seen as necessary in this form of art is possible, to a lesser extent, in other forms – the only difference being that elsewhere the translation is more difficult, because of the wide gap between visual and verbal languages, and that therefore more is left to the critic’s interpretation. It is this very difficulty which authorizes the creativity of the translation. As ‘traducteur’, the critic is giving his own response to the artist’s mental universe, his subjectivity informing his interpretation of the work of art. The same idea of interpretation is implied when Baudelaire shows that Guys’ engravings may be interpreted in different ways: Ces gravures peuvent être traduites en beau et en laid; en laid, elles deviennent des caricatures; en beau, des statues antiques.42

The transfer from art to interpretation is emphasized as not neutral; interpretation, like translation, is a lens through which the work of art is looked at and transformed. The interaction between art and criticism does not stop here, however: if criticism transforms art, the language of the critic is also influenced by the language of the visual text, and will vary according to its hypotext, just as in interlingual translation. In the case of Constantin Guys, Baudelaire justifies a digression as follows in way that could apply to his work on Un Mangeur d’opium: Les considérations et les rêveries morales qui surgissent des dessins d’un artiste sont, dans beaucoup de cas, la meilleure traduction que le critique en puisse faire.43

41

L’Art philosophique, ŒCII, p. 600. Le Peintre de la vie moderne, ŒCII, p. 684. 43 Le Peintre de la vie moderne, ŒCII, p. 712. 42

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This highly subjective dimension of criticism is the direct consequence of the ‘untranslatability’ noted earlier. Faced with the difficulty of translation from one art into another, the only solution for the critic as translator is the expression of subjective reactions to the work of art. Let us go back to the section ‘À quoi bon la critique’ in the Salon de 1846 which explores this question of the creativity of criticism: Je crois sincèrement que la meilleure critique est celle qui est amusante et poétique; non pas celle-ci, froide et algébrique, qui, sous prétexte de tout expliquer, n’a ni haine ni amour, et se dépouille volontairement de tout espèce de tempérament; mais, – un beau tableau étant la nature réfléchie par un artiste, – celle qui sera ce tableau réfléchi par un esprit intelligent et sensible. Ainsi le meilleur compte rendu d’un tableau pourra être un sonnet ou une élégie. Mais ce genre de critique est destiné aux recueils de poésie et aux lecteurs poétiques. Quant à la critique proprement dite, j’espère que les philosophes comprendront ce que je vais dire: pour être juste, c’est-à-dire pour avoir sa raison d’être, la critique doit être partiale, passionnée, politique, c’est-àdire faite à un point de vue exclusif, mais au point de vue qui ouvre le plus d’horizons.44

Baudelaire eschews the metatextual, explanatory sides of criticism in favour of its creative, subjective dimensions. Thus the characteristics of texts such as Un Mangeur d’opium, in which we have found a prominence of Baudelaire’s subjective reactions to his source to be central to his translational strategy, are outlined in the criticism as part and parcel of intersemiotic translation. The two possible types of criticism outlined by Baudelaire – on the one hand poetic criticism and on the other hand subjective criticism – both place a heavy emphasis on the importance of the reaction of the critic to the work of art and the expression of this reaction. We are very close to the approach found in ‘Le Guignon’ or ‘Le Flambeau vivant’, where translation gives way to transposition, the source text playing the part of a catalyst in the creation of poems independent from their source. Baudelaire’s response to the untranslatable is to express the suggestions that arise from the work of art and his reactions as viewer. In other words, ‘Le spectateur est ici le traducteur d’une traduction toujours claire et enivrante’:45 the

44 45

Salon de 1846, ŒCII, p. 418. Le Peintre de la vie moderne, ŒCII, p. 698.

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subjectivity of artistic vision is matched by the subjectivity of the critic. These differing media of the arts lead to very different systems of expression: Toute bonne sculpture, toute bonne peinture, toute bonne musique, suggère les sentiments et les rêveries qu’elle veut suggérer. Mais le raisonnement, la déduction, appartiennent au livre.46

In the same way as verbal languages are indicative of cultural differences, similarly the different artistic media belong to separate systems: according to Baudelaire, the visual and the auditory media express, (in his words, suggest) feelings and reveries, that is to say diffuse moods and impressions, while the verbal articulates ideas. In other words, each art uses its specific tools and means of expression which are appropriate to its subject matter, itself specific to each art and medium. In the same way as verbal languages are culturally different and used to express different realities, the arts also belong to specific systems and are caught in specific intertextual relationships and specific cultural systems. It is as a result of this very differences that Baudelaire notes the tensions of translation in his art criticism, tensions very similar to those highlighted by Antoine Berman in reference to interlingual translation. This difference in medium, and therefore in cultural systems, leads inevitably to a degree of cross-fertilization between the two systems. Through the transplantation of the visual into the verbal, the verbal and all its cultural context transform the visual, and the visual affects the verbal. In the same way as the target language and culture affect the source language and culture after having been affected by it through the process of translation of a given source text. In addition, another transformation occurs through the contact of two subjectivities – in the same way as the translator is affected by the source author’s subjectivity and in turn renders the source text with the colouring of his / her own subjectivity, transpositions d’art are a result of the contact of the sensitivity of the source artist and the target poet. In this respect, the fact that poetry is normally the favoured form chosen for transpositions d’art may be explained by the fact that the two art forms are the most similar of all, enabling the kind of mirroring of sensitivities of which 46

ŒCII, p. 598.

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Baudelaire was so fond. As David Scott stresses, the poem can, like the painting, convey sensations rather than articulated meaning: 47 in pictorialist poetics, the poem asserts itself not only as a text to be read as in conventional discourse, but also, like the painting, as an artistic arrangement of signifiers. Its language functions primarily on an aesthetic level, the communication of meaning sometimes playing a merely subsidiary role. In the same way, the poem operates as a structure capable of promoting some of the static, framed, sensual impact of the pictorial image.

Underlying Scott’s account of transpositions d’art is the idea that the contact between art and poetry not only brings a transformation of poetic functioning, but also emphasizes the similarities in the poetic and the pictorial media. In addition, his mention of the ‘pictorial image’ is a reminder of the fact that its poetic counterpart, the ‘verbal image’, by its very existence, suggests a parallel between the two art forms (although it is also arguable that the phrase ‘verbal image’ is only a figure of speech, with no visual aspect at all). That there should be a correspondence between poetry and painting is suggested by Baudelaire in the art criticism. In the Salon de 1859, for instance, Baudelaire notes that Paul Huet’s landscapes are ‘de véritables poèmes pleins de légèreté, de richesse et de fraîcheur’, and that the painter ‘donne à toutes ses compositions un caractère amoureusement poétique’; a similar idea is expressed about Boudin for whom, Baudelaire says, a painting is created by ‘l’impression poétique rappelée à volonté’.48 Similarly, in Le Peintre de la vie moderne, Poe’s Man of the Crowd is emphatically referred to as ‘un tableau (en vérité, c’est un tableau!)’. The term is used in the same way as in the ‘Tableaux parisiens’:49 it refers to both a spectacle and a painting, and in both cases highlights the visual aspect of the subject matter. In another instance a work by Guys is called ‘un poème’, this time the visual being perceived as poetic.50 The list could go on, but the above examples are enough to suggest that the poetry perceived by Baudelaire stems from the idea of an equivalence between poetry and painting – and, 47

David Scott, Pictorialist Poetics, Poetry and the Visual Arts in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge: CUP, 1988), p. 2. 48 ŒCII, pp. 664-65. 49 ŒCII, p. 689. 50 ŒCII, p. 693.

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therefore, their translatability – and creates a bridge between the visual stimulus and its verbal rendering. This poetic impression is the basis for the transpositions d’art: Baudelaire’s receptiveness to it is what leads him to the poetic recreation of the painting. That a translation process should be at work in such instances is, once more, suggested by comments in the art criticism about transfers from one medium to another which echo Baudelaire’s treatment of his visual hypotexts. In such cases, the word ‘traduction’ and its cognates are used to refer to intersemiotic transfer in a way which is very similar to the uses already noted in the case of criticism seen as a form of translation. The difference, however, is that while in the art criticism the translation at work is mainly hermeneutic, the intersemiotic transfers from one art to another are mainly creative. In Peintres et aquafortistes, Baudelaire mentions, for instance, Legros’ illustrations of Poe’s tales as ‘ces quelques pages où Edgar Poe se trouve traduit avec une âpre et simple majesté’;51 in L’Œuvre et la vie d’Eugène Delacroix, the painter is described as ‘le traducteur émouvant de Shakespeare, de Dante, de Byron et d’Arioste’,52 or, a few pages later, the lack of printed copies of Delacroix’s works is also seen in terms of translation, the transfer from the painted work to the printed reproduction appearing as similar to the transfer between words and the visual (and the reverse): D’autres fois [Delacroix] citait avec envie les anciens maîtres, qui ont eu presque tous le bonheur d’être traduits par des graveurs habiles, dont la pointe ou le burin a su s’adapter à la nature de leur talent, et il regrettait ardemment de n’avoir pas trouvé son traducteur.53

Although Delacroix’s wish for an appropriate translator refers to engravings rather than poetry, there is in the above passage the expression of a need for translation of the work of art which echoes the reversal of the debt of interlingual translation studied earlier. This is confirmed by the subsequent statement: Cette friabilité de l’œuvre peinte, comparée avec la solidité de l’œuvre imprimée, était un de ses thèmes habituels de conversation.

51

ŒCII, p. 740. ŒCII, p. 747. 53 ŒCII, p. 769. 52

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The translation of painting into printed form gives life to the work of art, in the same way as interlingual translation potentializes the source text. As with the English text, then, Baudelaire is sensitive to the translatability of the visual source, a sensitivity which is clearly the first step towards its actual translation. That a translation should be involved in the transfer from literature to art, and vice versa, is also apparent in the Salon de 1859, where the term is again used ‘il n’est permis de traduire les poètes que quand on sent en soi une énergie égale à la leur’, as Baudelaire emphasizes the notion of an affinity between painter and poet as the necessary basis for an effective transposition; such affinity is of course the basis for the incursion of the translator’s subjectivity, in the same way as is the case in interlingual translation. The distinction made by Baudelaire between ‘critique proprement dite’ and poetic criticism in the Salon de 1846 is thus illustrated by the co-existence in his corpus of art criticism and transpositions d’art. This co-existence echoes that of the direct translations and his transformative translations, and may thus provide a key to translations and its limits for Baudelaire. In practice, the elements of translation within the criticism range from rephrasings of text to passages of prose poetry based on visual sources. Ne vous étonnez donc pas que la banalité dans le peintre ait engendré le lieu commun dans l’écrivain.54

The above passage, which is both a ‘public relations’ exercise on Baudelaire’s part – he is after all writing to the director of the Revue française and also addressing his readers – and a justification of his approach, also presents the work of the critic as a mirror image of the painting he is describing. Here again we have the same contrast as noted before, this time between peintre / écrivain rather than between plume and pinceau. The transfer from one medium to another leads to a system of equivalence, lieu commun being synonymous with banalité. In terms of translation, what we have, therefore, is the description of the relationship between source text and target text, a relationship presented as faithful since the end result depends on the quality of the source. Baudelaire’s criticism 54

ŒCII, pp. 608-09.

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often follows this formula – although it may be argued, as it has been for his interlingual translations, that his versions of paintings are superior to their originals. The act of translation, for the critic, seems to start with the title of the painting analysed, as a playful passage from the Salon de 1859 suggests: Amour et Gibelotte! Comme la curiosité se trouve tout de suite en appétit, n’est-ce pas? Je cherche à combiner intimement ces deux idées, l’idée de l’amour et l’idée d’un lapin dépouillé en ragoût. Je ne puis vraiment pas supposer que l’imagination du peintre soit allée jusqu’à adapter un carquois, des ailes et un bandeau sur le cadavre d’un animal domestique; l’allégorie serait vraiment trop obscure. Je crois plutôt que le titre a été composé suivant la recette de Misanthropie et Repentir. Le vrai titre serait donc: Personnes amoureuses mangeant une gibelotte.55

Beneath the clearly sarcastic tone, what comes through is, on Baudelaire’s part, a decoding of the title, of which the process is detailed step by step. First of all an interrogation, and then an interpretation, followed by a rephrasing, a translation. More importantly, the art criticism presents many descriptions of paintings, many of which are purely metatextual, that is to say aiming at conveying in words the general aspect of the paintings and at commenting on their quality. In the Salon de 1859, for instance, a painting by Théodore Rousseau is succintly described: Un marécage miroitant, fourmillant d’herbes humides et marqueté de plaques lumineuses, un tronc d’arbre rugueux, une chaumière à la toiture fleurie, un petit bout de nature enfin, deviennent à ses yeux amoureux un tableau suffisant et parfait.56

Similarly, a few pages later, about a landscape by Eugène Lavieille: une chaumière sur une lisière de bois, avec une route qui s’y enfonce. La blancheur de la neige fait un contraste agréable avec l’incendie du soir qui s’éteint lentement derrière les innombrables mâtures de la forêt sans feuilles.57

In both passages, Baudelaire’s text is primarily descriptive, detailing the components of each painting as neutrally as possible – although 55

Salon de 1859, ŒCII, p. 615. ŒCII, p. 662. 57 ŒCII, pp. 663-4. 56

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of course, subjectivity is present in both the choice of components and the aesthetic judgement which accompanies the descriptions (negative in the case of Rousseau, and positive in the case of Lavieille). The metatextual dimension of the act of translation is what is exploited here. However, passages such as these are not entirely representative of Baudelaire’s criticism – there are other passages which suggest a more complex approach. Often, Baudelaire’s method, as in Un Mangeur d’opium with De Quincey’s text, is to use the painting as a basis for his own inspiration. In the Salon de 1859, a painting by Legros is looked at in two stages. First of all, Baudelaire gives a description of the painting: La première fois que j’aperçus son tableau, j’étais avec notre ami commun, M. C..., dont j’attirai les yeux sur cette production si humble et si pénétrante. Il n’en pouvait pas nier les singuliers mérites; mais cet aspect villageois, tout ce petit monde vêtu de velours, de coton, d’indienne et de cotonnade que l’Angelus rassemble le soir sous la voûte de l’église de nos grandes villes, avec ses sabots et ses parapluies, tout voûté par l’âge, tout parcheminé par la brûlure du chagrin, troublait un peu ses yeux, amoureux, comme ceux d’un bon connaisseur, des beautés élégantes et mondaines.58

The description is subjective – ‘humble’ and ‘pénétrante’ clearly giving Baudelaire’s own opinion of the painting, and remaining somewhat ambiguous (one may indeed wonder whether the adjective ‘humble’ applies to Legros’ method or his subject matter). The focus on the villageois dimension of the painting is based first on the title of the painting, the Angélus being mainly a rural phenomenon.59 In addition, the characters depicted, their clothes and general aspect all point to the fact that they are indeed villageois. In his description of them, Baudelaire gives his reading of the textures of the paint by translating it in terms of materials (‘velours’, ‘coton’, ‘indienne’, ‘cotonnade’). At the same time, the use of the plural (‘ses sabots’, ‘ses parapluies’) operates a generalisation on the basis of one single item of the painting, that is to say the folded umbrella lying on the floor. No clogs are to be seen in the painting, unless Baudelaire viewed the shoes of the child in the background 58

Salon de 1859, ŒCII, p. 629. For a reproduction of the painting, see plate 42 i n Jonathan Mayne (ed.), Art in Paris, 1845-1862, Salons and Other Exhibitions, Reviewed by Charles Baudelaire (London: Phaidon Press, 1965). 59 Millet’s famous Angelus was painted in 1858-9 (see Mayne, plate 55).

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as clogs, for indeed they are the only feet to be seen in the painting. The ‘petit monde’ of the painting is seen as emblematic of the poor, as the focus on their physical and mental exhaustion, and more importantly, Baudelaire’s interpretation of the reasons for such exhaustion, suggest (‘tout voûté par le travail, tout ridé par l’âge, tout parcheminé par la brûlure du chagrin’). The most problematic element in Baudelaire’s account of Legros’s painting is the reference to ‘la voûte de l’église de nos grandes villes’. First of all, there is a shift from what was initially referred to as a village scene to a city scene worthy of the Spleen de Paris or some passages of Un Mangeur d’opium. Secondly, the vault mentioned here is based on nothing in the painting, which focuses on the ground level of the church, and in fact minimizes the church architecture. In Baudelaire’s text, however, not only do we have a reference to the vault of the church, and the implications of imposingness that come with it, but there is also an ambiguity as to whether the term is used metaphorically to refer to the ‘temple’ of the city. From villagers to city dwellers, we are definitely moving towards Baudelaire’s own poetic concerns. The possessive in ‘nos grandes villes’ (my emphasis) indicates further the intrusion of the critic – and his readership – into the description. This intrusion is made even clearer a few lines later: Par une association mystérieuse que les esprits délicats comprendront, l’enfant grotesquement habillé qui tortille avec gaucherie sa casquette dans le temple de Dieu, m’a fait penser à l’âne de Sterne et à ses macarons. Que l’âne soit comique en mangeant un gâteau, cela ne diminue rien de la sensation d’attendrissement qu’on éprouve en voyant le misérable esclave de la ferme cueillir quelques douceurs dans la main d’un philosophe. Ainsi l’enfant du pauvre, tout embarrassé de sa contenance, goûte, en tremblant, aux confitures célestes. J’oubliais de dire que l’exécution de cette œuvre pieuse est d’une remarquable solidité; la couleur un peu triste et la minutie des détails s’harmonisent avec le caractère éternellement précieux de la dévotion.60

The first person (‘m’a fait penser’; ‘j’oubliais’) reinforces the impression of subjectivity.61 Here, Baudelaire turns away from the foreground and directs his attention to the background, dramatizing the gaze of the beholder. The analogy between the poor child 60

Salon de 1859, ŒCII, p. 630. Such incursions of the critic’s subjectivity are very similar to the translator’s interventions.

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and the donkey is the fruit of his own perception of the painting. Furthermore, the incursion of a reference to Sterne into the analysis gives an intertextual dimension to the presentation and dramatizes Baudelaire’s reader response. Such a feature is characteristic of Baudelaire’ s criticism, which often bases itself on analogies and equivalences between works of art. This is also the case in the Salon de 1846, where for instance Baudelaire links Penguilly-l’Haridon with Punch ( ‘Le Polichinelle, qui est essentiellement comique, rappelle celui du Charivari anglais’).62 One may say that such an analogy is a form of translation, in so far as it offers an equivalence between two images. Pushed one step further, the criticism is the occasion for the unleashing of the viewer’s imagination and poetic sensitivity. In the Salon de 1846, the presentation of Théodore Rousseau’s paintings moves away from description and concentrates on general effect, as the use of the plural suggests: M. Rousseau est un paysagiste du Nord. Sa peinture respire une grande mélancolie. Il aime les natures bleuâtres, les crépuscules, les couchers de soleil singuliers et trempés d’eau, les gros ombrages où circulent les brises, les grands jeux d’ombres et de lumière.63

This is even more striking in what Baudelaire writes about Eugène Boudin’s works: Je n’exagère rien. J’ai vu. À la fin tous ces nuages aux formes fantastiques et lumineuses, ces ténèbres chaotiques, ces immensités vertes et roses, suspendues et ajoutées les unes aux autres, ces fournaises béantes, ces firmaments de satin noir ou violet, fripé, roulé ou déchiré, ces horizons en deuil ou ruisselants de métal fondu, toutes ces profondeurs, toutes ces splendeurs, me montèrent au cerveau comme une boisson capiteuse ou comme l’éloquence de l’opium. Chose assez curieuse, il ne m’arriva pas une seule fois, devant ces magies liquides ou aériennes, de me plaindre de l’absence de l’homme.64

The very subjective account of Baudelaire’s reaction to the painting is very similar to passages of Un Mangeur d’opium in which he presents his reading experience of the foreign text.65 In both cases, 62

Salon de 1846, ŒCII, p. 451. ŒCII, p. 484. 64 ŒCII, p. 666. 65 The sense of this subjectivity is created, in particular, by the recurrence of the first person. 63

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the perception of the visual or verbal text serves as a stimulus for Baudelaire’s imagination – the poetry of Boudin’s paintings resides in their ability to awaken Baudelaire’s poetic sensitivity and his desire to recreate in words his experience of them. The comparison of the visual experience with the effects of wine or opium sheds more light on its function for Baudelaire. The artificial paradises are indeed valued for their effect on the poetic imagination, as in the case for Un Mangeur d’opium which focuses on the effect of opium on ‘un esprit subtil et lettré, sur une imagination ardente et cultivée’;66 similarly, the painting acts like a drug on Baudelaire, unleashing his imagination, and leading to the creation of a prose poem.67 As we have seen, the analogy between text and stimulants is far from innocent – the text of the Other, like drugs, is the trigger of creativity. In this context, that a painting should be compared to an artificial paradise confirms the hypothesis of a common approach to visual and verbal texts. What Baudelaire provides is indeed far from an accurate description of Boudin’s studies of clouds, but rather a transmutation of the image based on his reaction to it – he collapses all the examples of Boudin’s skies he has seen into one.68 The plural (‘tous ces nuages’, ‘toutes ces profondeurs, toutes ces splendeurs’) indicates such a process, while the rest of the passage is characterised by a blending of its hypotext and Baudelaire’s sensitivity, imagery and poetic style – the rhythm, punctuated by the repetition of the demonstrative adjective ‘ces’ and the breaks created by the commas, combines with the sounds (dominated by whistling and plosive consonants), the vocabulary (‘ténèbres chaotiques’, ‘fournaises béantes’), the colours, all of which are an attempt to recreate in words the turmoils of Boudin’s skies, their aesthetic effects on the viewer, and are, therefore, intensely Baudelairean inasmuch as they present Baudelaire’s poetic reaction to his visual stimuli. We find a similar approach in the presentation of Meryon’s etchings: J’ai rarement vu représentée avec plus de poésie la solennité naturelle d’une ville immense. Les majestés de la pierre accumulée, les clochers montrant 66

ŒCI, p. 444. Claude Pichois emphasizes the poetic dimension of this passage from the Salon de 1859 and compares it to ‘L’Étranger’ in Spleen de Paris (see ŒCII, p. 1407). 68 For examples of Boudin’s skies, see Yann le Pichon, Claude Pichois, Le Musée retrouvé de Charles Baudelaire, pp. 42-43 and 140-41. 67

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du doigt le ciel, les obélisques de l’industrie vomissant contre le firmament leurs coalitions de fumée, les prodigieux échafaudages des monuments en réparation, appliquant sur le corps solide de l’architecture leur architecture à jour d’une beauté si paradoxale, le ciel tumultueux, chargé de colère et de rancune, la profondeur des perspectives augmentée par la pensée de tous les drames qui y sont contenus, aucun des éléments complexes dont se compose le douloureux et glorieux décor de la civilisation n’était oublié.69

Baudelaire is not referring to any particular etching, here. In the lines which precede the above passage, he refers to Meryon in the past tense (‘il y a quelques années un homme puissant et singulier (...) avait commencé une série d’études’; ‘M. Méryon rappelait les vieux et excellents aquafortistes’), before launching into the description of Meryon’s works – Baudelaire is not concentrating on the Salon anymore, but rather giving a general example of successful landscape painting. The fact that what is presented here is an emblem of Meryon’s work is heavily suggested by the recurrence of the plural – Meryon’s works are seen globally rather than individually. Baudelaire’s work as a critic is therefore synthetic – he presents the general characteristics of Meryon’s art by recreating in words a typical work of his. Despite the presence of the plural, however, it seems that Baudelaire’s recreation is firmly based on one particular etching, entitled The Clock Tower, Paris and which dates from 1852.70 All the elements of the text may be found in the etching. The clocktower, as the title of the etching suggests, is the main focus of Meryon’s work; the ‘obélisques de l’industrie’ are present in the etching in the form of smoking chimneys; the scaffoldings of the etching are mentioned by Baudelaire (‘les prodigieux échafaudages’); similarly the perspectives admired by Baudelaire appear in the etching, with the houses that form its background. On the basis of these elements, Baudelaire constructs his own prose poem. That Baudelaire’s rendering of Meryon’s etching should deserve such a name may be first suggested by the first sentence of his treatment: ‘J’ai rarement vu représentée avec autant de poésie...’. The equivalence between the visual arts and poetry is implied by this statement, and therefore indirectly justifies Baudelaire’s choice of prose poetry to translate the etching. The sounds of the rendering make this passage poetic. In the first sentence alone (but this occurs throughout the passage), the allitera69 70

Salon de 1859, ŒCII, p. 667. See Mayne, plate 63.

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tions (‘rarement’, ‘representée’, ‘naturelle’; ‘solennité naturelle d’une ville’), the assonances (‘rarement’, ‘représenté’, ‘immense’; ‘poésie’, ‘solennité’, ‘ville immense’), as well as the rhyme between ‘représentée’ and ‘solennité’, all convey a poetic tone, which pervades the whole passage. In addition, the images contribute to the same effect. Metaphors abound. ‘[M]ontrant du doigt le ciel’ is an echo of Wordsworth, which came to Baudelaire’s knowledge through Gautier, as J. Crépet has shown.71 It is, therefore, a manifestation of Baudelaire’s response, that is to say his providing of an intertext to the etching, thus indicating his presence and the incursion of his own perception, as the use of the italics implies. The other metaphor (‘les obélisques de l’industrie vomissant contre le firmament leurs coalitions de fumée’) joins with the quotation from Wordsworth to suggest the majesty of the cityscape, a theme, needless to say, dear to Baudelaire. ‘Ciel’, ‘firmament’, ‘ciel tumultueux’ are topoi of romantic poetry. What Baudelaire adds to these topoi, as elsewhere in his poetry, is their application to the city. Likewise, the notion of the ‘beauté si paradoxale’ seems to echo the famous ‘le beau est toujours bizarre’. Here, as in many passages from the criticism, art becomes the expression of the effects on the imagination of the viewer. This is explained in more detail in the presentation of Delacroix’s Mise au tombeau: Il est impossible qu’un amateur un peu poète ne sente pas son imagination frappée, non pas d’une impression historique, mais d’une impression poétique, religieuse, universelle, en contemplant ces quelques hommes qui descendent le cadavre de leur Dieu au fond d’une crypte.72

The ‘amateur un peu poète’ is clearly Baudelaire himself, the poetic impression created by painting paving the way for the transpositions d’art, and announcing a creativity of intersemiotic translation which echoes Baudelaire’s experiments with interlingual translation. The art criticism provides a reading of visual sources, and does that far more explicitly than the poems generally classified as transpositions d’art.. One may argue, however, that what distinguishes transpositions d’art from criticism is their function. While, in the case of criticism, the main aim is to provide a description of the 71 72

See ŒCII, note 6, p. 1408. Salon de 1859, ŒCII, p. 634.

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painting under scrutiny as a basis for an aesthetic appreciation, in transpositions d’art the aim is much different and needs to be studied in detail as it clearly influences the way in which the visual hypotext is rendered. As David Scott puts it: whereas in the systems governing [art criticism] the latter are fundamentally semantic and logical, attuned to a reading or a thinking through of the picture, in poetry these systems are complicated by others (formal, prosodic) geared towards recreating the sensual experience of seeing the painting. While what art criticism ultimately proposes is a text, an abstraction, the transpositional poem proposes a more fully integral object.73

In other words, while the relationship between art works and art criticism is primarily metatextual, in the transpositions d’art what is produced is a self-standing hypertext: the ‘reading or thinking through’ of the visual source mentioned by Scott is indeed fully dependent on that source, which it never overtakes but only comments on; on the other hand, the ‘fully integral object’ produced by transpositions d’art goes beyond and gains independence from its source. We have seen, however, that some passages in the art criticism seem to turn away from a purely metatextual function, and instead exploit the creative possibilities offered by the transfer from one medium to another. Such examples suggest a poetic dimension for the art criticism – but does that mean that the poetic passages in the art criticism and the transpositions d’art adopt the same approach to the visual text? A comparison of the poem ‘Le Masque’ and the passage in Salon de 1859 devoted to Ernest Christophe’s statue is enlightening in this respect. 74 The two texts are indeed based on the same visual source of which they offer two different versions. Highlighting the similarities and differences between these two versions should bring forward some of the distinguishing features of transpositions d’art in relation to the art criticism. The two versions have many characteristics in common. First, both texts point explicitly to their source. In the Salon de 1859, the description is introduced by a sentence stating the name of the sculptor, while the poem indicates its source through its subtitle (‘Statue allégorique dans le goût de la renaissance’) and the dedication (‘À 73 74

Scott, p. 98. ŒCI, pp. 23-24; ŒCII, pp. 678-79.

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Ernest Christophe, Statuaire’). In addition, both texts focus on the visual and the spatial, reminding the reader of their visual source: ‘Le Masque’ is dominated by visual vocabulary (‘contemplons’, l.1; ‘vois’, l. 8 and 15; ‘approchons, et tournons’, l. 16; ‘regarde’, l. 22) as is, to a lesser extent, the description in the Salon (‘vue en face’, ‘spectateur’, ‘en faisant un pas de plus ou à droite, vous découvrez’, ‘vos yeux’). Both texts present a dynamic account of the artistic experience, which is made all the more lively as the verbs of perception and movement already quoted are in the first person plural or second person singular (in ‘Le Masque’) or in the second person plural (in the Salon). In both cases, the choice of a personal form implies a communication with the reader who is directly addressed; more importantly perhaps, it puts the emphasis on Baudelaire’s experience of the visual, which is at the origin of both texts. The similarities between the two versions do not stop here. Both texts emphasize the same aspects of their visual source – the allegorical nature of the statue and its interpretation. Indeed, where the Salon refers to the statue as ‘gracieusement allégorique’ as a preliminary to its analysis, the poem also stresses this aspect at its outset, in its subtitle (‘statue allégorique dans le goût de la renaissance’). Both texts follow a similar structure – first a description which recreates the visual and spatial experience of the statue (in ‘Le Masque’, the first three stanzas, in the Salon, from ‘Ce dernier’ to ‘l’agonie’), and then an interpretation (the last two stanzas in the poem, and in the criticism from ‘Ce qui avait’ to ‘remords’). The two texts echo each other semantically: both note the ‘florentine’ aspect of the work, and the woman represented by the statue is described in similar terms (both texts use the adjectives ‘mignard’ and ‘robuste’). And both texts emphasize the element of surprise at work in the effect of the statue. And yet the differences between the two texts are as important as the similarities. The metatextual dimension of the account of the statue in the Salon is paramount, the aesthetic appreciation of the work of art following its interpretation (from ‘Dans cet ouvrage’ to ‘succès’) while the poem concentrates on what the statue represents rather than the way in which it represents it, and concludes with its interpretation, thus focusing on meaning rather than form. While the Salon offers constant reminders that what is being described is a work of art, an allegory, the poem, on the other hand, does not refer to its source anywhere other than in its title. As a re-

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sult, it creates an ambiguity – the impression is given that a woman, rather than a statue, is being described (‘Cette femme’, l. 4; ‘La femme au corps divin’, l. 18; ‘elle vit’, l. 33); on the other hand, the immobility of the object described, contrasting with the viewer’s movement (‘approchons, et tournons’, l. 16) points to its nature. While the passage in the Salon gives only a brief outline of the thematics of the statue, the poem is built to convey these thematics, creating the impression that the criticism is but the draft version of the poem, its preparatory sketch.75 The duality of the statue briefly noted in the Salon is fully exploited and developed by the poem, which is constructed to emphasize this duality. The most obvious and far-reaching difference between the two texts lies, however, in their character. The account of the statue offered in the Salon belongs to a metatextual context which it reflects. ‘Le Masque’, on the other hand, is both a free-standing poem – as its first publication in the Revue contemporaine demonstrates – and part of Les Fleurs du Mal. This double transplantation (first into a verbal context, and second into the Fleurs du Mal) is clearly not without effect on the impact of the poem, which loses all metatextual dimension and gains, in its Fleurs du Mal context, intertextual links with the other poems of the collection. In the Salon, the context reemphasizes the metatextual dimension of the presentation of the statue, since the intertextual echoes are only with other visual sources and mainly descriptive passages. In the Fleurs du Mal, ‘Le Masque’ shares the thematics of duality and opposition of the Spleen et Idéal section to which it belongs, and, more specifically, the poems which surround it in the 1861 and 1868 editions. Indeed, these thematics are explored in ‘Hymne à la beauté’, of which the first line ‘Viens-tu du ciel profond ou sors-tu de l’abîme’76 echoes the two faces of the statue conjured up in ‘Le Masque’. Similarly, the conclusion of ‘Tu mettrais l’univers entier dans ta ruelle’ (‘Ô fangeuse grandeur! sublime ignominie’),77 with its play on oxymorons, explores further the same contrast. This theme of opposition and duality is also linked to the evocation of 75

The first publication of ‘Le Masque’ was on 30 November 1859 in the Revue Contemporaine; the Salon de 1859 was published in the Revue française between 10 June and 20 July 1859. ‘Le Masque’ can, therefore, be read as a reworking of the Salon. 76 ŒCI, p. 24. 77 ŒCI, p. 28.

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beauty, which is at the core of poems such as ‘La Beauté’, ‘L’Idéal’ and ‘Hymne à la beauté’. In addition, the last two stanzas of the poem, which move away from the descriptive and offer Baudelaire’s reading of the significance of the statue, seen as emblematic of the sufferings of humanity, complete the appropriation of the visual source for his own purpose. ‘Le Masque’, then, is fully integrated to its new context, in the same way as ‘Le Guignon’ and ‘Le Flambeau vivant’ are. In the former as in the latter, the hypotext is far less visible and forms the basis of a much more elaborate rewriting than in the criticism, the final poem becoming a self-standing hypertext. Most transpositions d’art follow similar principles. ‘Une Gravure fantastique’, although much briefer than ‘Le Masque’ and apparently mainly descriptive, is very close in approach – the first stanza details the engraving while the second stanza blends a description and its allegorical interpretation. Similarly, in ‘Le squelette laboureur’, the dual structure of the transposition is made clear by the two distinct sections of the poem. Here again, what we have first is a reference to the visual starting point of the poem, while the second section is Baudelaire’s subjective reaction to the drawings. That reaction is, in particular, expressed through the address to the skeletons (‘vous fouillez’, ‘vos vertèbres’, ‘vos muscles’, ‘Dites’, ‘Tirez-vous’, ‘Avez-vous’, ‘Voulez-vous’),78 which dramatizes Baudelaire’s thoughts at the view of the drawing. The last three stanzas go further as the verbs move from the second person to the first person (‘envers nous’, ‘tout (...)nous ment’, ‘il nous faudra’, ‘notre pied’),79 and the drawings are given an emblematic dimension (‘Épouvantable et clair emblème!’), and a universal meaning. ‘Danse macabre’ follows the same pattern: first a description of the visual source (stanzas 1-4), then its aesthetic appreciation (stanzas 5-10) which focuses on Baudelaire’s reaction (‘Tu réponds, grand squelette, à mon goût le plus cher!’) opposed to that of the general public (an opposition made particularly clear by the balance of the first person and the third person in this section). Finally, the poem concludes by giving a signification to Christophe’s statue, or, rather, to the experience it creates for the viewer. Rather than the statue itself, it is people’s disgust of the skeleton which is analysed and presented as illogical, the statue 78 79

emphases added. emphases added.

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symbolising humanity’s mortality and the viewer’s disgust its denial. ‘Une Martyre’ , like the other transpositions d’art, starts with a description and then shifts to the subjective reaction of the viewer, but this time leaves out any universalisation, focusing only on Baudelaire’s reflections. In ‘L’Amour et le crâne’, the first three stanzas are descriptive (although the first two lines, ‘L’Amour est assis sur le crâne / De l’Humanité’, already point to an allegorical reading of Goltzius’ engraving), while the last two stanzas give Baudelaire’s interpretation (‘J’entends’)80 and the allegoric signification of the engraving. In the epigraphs (which by definition appear alongside the work they comment on), a descriptive section would be redundant, and is therefore excluded from ‘Vers pour le portrait de M. Honoré Daumier’ and ‘Lola de Valence’, which, by their reliance on the visual text they support, become a commentary rather than a translation. ‘Sur Le Tasse en prison d’Eugène Delacroix’ is, on the other hand, closer to transpositions d’art than the other epigraphs – the sonnet is largely descriptive, although the description itself is laced with Baudelaire’s subjective reading (in particular in the evocation of the atmosphere of the prison). The second tercet opens up the signification of the evocation of the imprisoned poem by pointing to its emblematic nature (‘Voilà bien ton emblème, Âme aux songes obscurs’). The double meaning of the word ‘emblème’ (image and symbol) offers a key to the art transposition – Delacroix’s painting is first pictured in words and then interpreted. ‘Les Phares’, however, presents another type of transposition. In this poem, the transfer from the visual to the poetic is the most complex. Indeed, while in poems just reviewed the visual sources are clearly identified single works, in the case of ‘Les Phares’ each stanza concentrates several works, in some cases even the general impression created by the whole œuvre of the chosen painter / sculptor. Each artist is indeed named and defined in a few lines by their works. In such cases, it would be difficult to talk of translation, were it not for the fact that Baudelaire’s commentary on his stanza on Delacroix in his text on the Exposition Universelle of 1855: Un poète a essayé d’exprimer ces sensations subtiles dans des vers dont la sincérité peut faire passer la bizarrerie: 80

emphasis added.

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Alchemy and Amalgam Delacroix, lac de sang, hanté des mauvais anges, Ombragé par un bois de sapins toujours vert Où, sous un ciel chagrin, des fanfares étranges Passent comme un soupir étouffé de Weber. Lac de sang: le rouge; – hanté des mauvais anges: surnaturalisme; – un bois toujours vert: le vert, complémentaire du rouge; – un ciel chagrin: les fonds tumultueux et orages de ses tableaux; – les fanfares et Weber: idées de musique romantique que réveillent les harmonies de sa couleur. 81

In this passage, Baudelaire focuses on the effect of Delacroix’s paintings on the viewer (the ‘impression riche, heureuse ou mélancolique’ mentioned a few lines earlier). Each element of the stanza is a concentrated reference to striking aspects of Delacroix’s paintings. That a process of translation is at work is suggested by Baudelaire’s prosaic decoding of his own stanza – the poetic language provides equivalences for the visual language, each signifier pointing to a visual signified. The above passage is doubly revealing, then: first, it presents a poetic translation of Delacroix’s art, in the form of a transposition d’art inspired by Delacroix’s paintings. Secondly, Baudelaire translates his own text by giving keys to his imagery. Translation occurs at two levels, therefore – from a painting to a text, and then from one text to another, an aspect to which the second part of this chapter will come back. The stanza on Delacroix is exemplary of the whole of ‘Les Phares’, which adopts the same approach to the eight visual artists it praises. The last three stanzas, on the other hand, move away from the evocation of the visual sources, and instead give the significance of the enumeration they follow: a second translation is at work – this time of the first section of the poem. The collective works of the phares are interpreted by Baudelaire as part of the same call of humanity. What we have, therefore, is first a descriptive account of the visual hypotexts, followed by an interpretation of that account. Despite differences in focus, then, all transpositions d’art present a similar combination of the descriptive and the interpretative. In David Scott’s words, Baudelaire’s transpositional project contains two steps: first an evocation of the image, and then an ironic interrogation of it. Although of course a merely structural account of the transpositions d’art remains unavoidably superficial 81

ŒCII, p. 595.

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and schematic, it does help to understand better the transpositional mechanism, in which the ‘evocation of the image’ suggested by Scott may be seen as a reproduction of the signifier of the visual source, the second section of the poem being, on the other hand, an expression of its signified. If such is the case, then a process of translation is clearly at work, and on two levels – first from the visual to the verbal, and then from the descriptive to the interpretative. This double translation is each time highly subjective: the description of the painting is by nature selective, all the more so as the medium used is poetry, and dictated by Baudelaire’s concerns and his reading of the visual source (a point which should serve as a warning regarding the artificiality of the dual structure outlined above); the interpretation of that description, already subjective by the process of selection it involves, is itself the fruit of the poet’s perception. We are close to the transformations of the source text noticed in ‘Le Guignon’ or ‘Le Flambeau vivant’, and more generally the concept of misprision highlighted by Bloom. Indeed, the visual hypotext is read according to Baudelaire’s own concerns, and transformed accordingly. Similarly, in ‘Sur Le Tasse en prison d’Eugène Delacroix’, the title of the source painting is transformed and the description of the painting focused onto elements suggesting creative incapacity and isolation, making le Tasse part of an allegory: from the first words (‘Le poète au cachot’), which are echoed in the tercets (‘Ce génie enfermé’), the sonnet emphasizes the loneliness of the poet; the second line (‘Roulant un manuscrit sous son pied convulsif’) is an elaboration on the painting, in which we see indeed some papers abandoned on the floor, but more at the periphery of the painting than in its centre as suggested by Baudelaire. Baudelaire is only expanding on what is suggested in his source, however – the importance of the manuscripts is suggested in the painting, with the hand of one of the onlookers pointing, from the left of the painting, at some sheets of paper lying next to the Tasse. Similarly, the shift from Delacroix’s title (Le Tasse dans la maison des fous) to Baudelaire’s is a response to the bars in the top left corner of the painting, which clearly signify emprisonment. Although David Kelley argues that the difference between Baudelaire’s poem and the painting is due to an additional – and hidden – source of the poem (Piranesi’s Carceri d’invenzione), from the transpositional point of view, what is parti-

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cularly significant here is that the poem presents Baudelaire’s subjective response to Le Tasse dans la maison des fous and the blending of his own visual memories and poetic concerns with his hypotext. This demonstrates that what is at work here is a very similar mechanism to that of interlingual translations.82 Clearly, Baudelaire’s transpositions d’art, just like his interlingual translations, are far from simple renderings of their sources: they involve a subjective selection and rereading of their hypotexts, and their subjective transformation. As David Scott puts it: the tensions and ambiguities of the visual source are better expressed through recreation in linguistic terms, an exercise involving (...) the mobilization to the full of the formal and expressive resources of the poem. It is here that transpositional poetry’s aims differ from those of art criticism proper: whereas the systems governing the latter are fundamentally semantic and logical, attuned to a reading and a thinking through of the picture, in poetry these systems are complicated by others (formal, prosodic) geared towards recreating the sensual experience of seeing the painting.83

This subjective recreation, and the transformations of the source which accompany it, is comparable to what happens in Baudelaire’s poems which are based on interlingual translations, and which have been shown to lend a different meaning and impact to the text. This difference can be explained, both in the case of the art transposition or that of the transformative translation, by Baudelaire’s focus on his reaction to the hypotext, a reaction which aims less at an accurate rendering of the source than at the triggering of his imagination and creativity. This view is confirmed by Alison Fairlie, who writes, in her study of ‘Une Gravure fantastique’, that ‘Baudelaire throughout is using the picture not as something to be accurately transposed into words, but simply as the stimulus to his own creation.’84 In other words, Baudelaire’s reader response to the visual or verbal text is what is represented, or translated, in the poems. Perhaps the clearest explanation of the processes at work in the transpositions is to be found in the Salon de 1859, in which Baudelaire describes the figurine on which ‘Danse macabre’ is 82

See Le Musée retrouvé, p. 175, and Kelley, p. 185. Scott, p. 98. 84 ‘Reflections on the successive versions of “Une Gravure fantastique”’, Études Baudelairiennes III (1973), 217-31 (p. 225). 83

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based:85 Figurez-vous un grand squelette féminin tout prêt à partir pour une fête. Avec sa face aplatie de négresse, son sourire sans lèvre et sans gencive, et son regard qui n’est qu’un trou plein d’ombre, l’horrible chose qui fut une belle femme a l’air de chercher vaguement dans l’espace l’heure délicieuse du rendez-vous ou l’heure solennelle du sabbat inscrite au cadran invisible des siècles. Son buste, disséqué par le temps, s’élance coquettement de son corsage, comme de son cornet un bouquet desséché, et toute cette pensée funèbre se dresse sur le piédestal d’une fastueuse crinoline. Qu’il me soit permis, pour abréger, de citer un lambeau rimé dans lequel j’ai essayé non pas d’illustrer, mais d’expliquer le plaisir subtil contenu dans cette figurine, à peu près comme un lecteur soigneux barbouille de crayon les marges de son livre.86

The prose description constrasts sharply with the verse poem in its conciseness, and can be seen as an intermediary level between the actual figurine and its poetic translation, despite the fact that it was written after ‘Danse macabre’. While in the Salon, Baudelaire focuses primarily on the description of the statue (and we have here again the illustration of the difference between art criticism and transpositions d’art noted earlier), in the poem he blends the description and the reaction one has to the statue. In the Salon this reaction is only alluded to, when Baudelaire notes in passing ‘l’horreur de l’idée et son impopularité’. What makes the passage devoted to Christophe’s figurine in the Salon de 1859 particularly interesting is the fact that, having produced the succinct description just quoted, Baudelaire proceeds to cite the first five stanzas of ‘Danse macabre’ as a commentary on the statue. The distinction Baudelaire makes between ‘illustrer’ and ‘expliquer’ sheds light on what is at stake in the transpositions d’art. The focus on ‘le plaisir contenu dans cette figurine’ clearly confirms subjectivity as central to the process of transposition. The nature of this subjectivity is explained by the analogy with the ‘lecteur soigneux qui barbouille de crayon les marges de son livre’ – an analogy which, again, emphasizes the link between the visual and verbal arts and emphasizes the palimpsestic nature of transpositions in the same way as translation does. Transpositions d’art, like interlingual translations, are first and foremost a subjective reading for Baude-

85 86

A reproduction of the figurine can be seen in Mayne, plate 62. ŒCII, p. 679.

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laire, a writing over the source text, which, however, never really disappears. This very strong hypotextual presence in the transpositions d’art, the criticism and texts such as ‘Le Guignon’ points to the importance of the conscious – and explicit – rewriting of a primary source in Baudelaire’s works. The case of the criticism and the transpositions d’art suggests that Baudelaire’s interlingual translations and his use of the English text in his creative method are only the most visible manifestations of a more general approach to writing and confirms the thesis of an aesthetics heavily based on the tranformation of the text of the Other, which overturns any anxiety of influence and instead celebrates its interaction with multiple hypotexts. In other words, the transpositions d’art, seen in conjunction with texts such as Un Mangeur d’opium and ‘Le Guignon’ or ‘Le Flambeau vivant’ do more than just point to a unifying aesthetics based on the act of translation. The fact that the source text should, in the case of the transpositions d’art, extend to the visual encourages us to look at other forms of translation and rewriting in Baudelaire’s works, and other types of source texts. Antoine Compagnon, in his article on ‘Montaigne: de la traduction des autres à la traduction de soi’, shows the strong link there can be between translation and ‘citation, glose, commentaire, réécriture, appropriation, incorporation’.87 The Renaissance is a particularly interesting period in terms of translation history and theory, as it highlights the fallacy of modern distinctions between translation, imitation and creation. Baudelaire clearly belongs to another translation tradition, but the characterististics of his own practice of translation, however, are often comparable to Renaissance traditions, in their questioning of the ideals of originality.88 Compagnon’s argument is that the move from translation to writing is very natural, and inevitable. He points out ce que l’écriture des Essais doit à la traduction, à la pratique (...) et aussi à la théorie de la traduction à la Renaissance, au passage insensible qu’elle ménage de l’imitation à l’interprétation, de la traduction au commentaire, de la paraphrase à l’écriture de soi.89 87

Littérature, 55 (1984): 37-44 (p. 37). This fact makes his distinct Petrarquisation of Poe’s ‘To Helen’ in ‘Le Flambeau vivant’ particularly appropriate. 89 ‘Montaigne: de la traduction des autres à la traduction de soi’, p. 39. 88

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As has already been suggested, the simultaneity of translation and creative writing in Baudelaire’s life points to the possibility of overlap between the two activities, a possibility which is verified in the most hybrid of Baudelaire’s translations, but also in the intersemiotic transfers at work in the criticism and the transpositions d’art. But this tendency towards dual writing goes further than the examples looked at so far. In the same way as one can find in Montaigne’s Essais the mark of translation as a writing method, there is in Baudelaire’s works a similar awareness of the creative possibilities of dual writing. Indeed, besides the translations and adaptations from English, the transfers from the visual to the verbal, or from art to poetry, the corpus of Baudelaire’s writings includes other forms of dual, derivative writings and rewritings. All texts, of course, are engaged in intertextual relationships with the works of other authors, and such echoes and rewritings are to be expected in the œuvre of all writers. In addition, it is not surprising to find in the corpus of a given author some thematic or even stylistic repetitions. In the case of Baudelaire, however, such repetitions are far too systematic and conscious to be dismissed as a phenomenon common to all writers. The transmutation of the text and language of the Other at work in Un Mangeur d’opium or ‘Le Masque’, for instance, should indeed be seen in conjunction with another type of rewriting – that of his own text. The doublets are the most striking example of Baudelaire’s experiments with rewriting and self-translation. It would be outside the scope of this study to engage in an in-depth comparison of verse and prose doublets – which has already been done very successfully elsewhere – 90 and I will therefore, concentrate only on these aspects from the poems which support the argument that the doublets are a form of translation. As Barbara Johnson reminds us in Défigurations du langage poétique, verse and prose poetry are very different media, which follow different rules and purposes. 90

Barbara Johnson has provided the most enlightening studies of doublets: see ‘Quelques conséquences de la différence anatomique des textes. Pour une théorie du poème en prose’, Poétique, 7 (1976), 450-65; Défigurations du langage poétique, la seconde révolution baudelairienne (Paris: Flammarion, 1979), hereafter referred to as Défigurations; ‘Poetry and Its Double: Two “Invitations au voyage”, in Charles Baudelaire, ed. by Harold Bloom (New York, New Haven, Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), pp. 35-62

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Verse and prose being two different languages, the transfer from one to another can be described as a translation. In the same way as transpositions d’art may be considered, to some extent, to be a form of translation (with all the distortions, appropriation and rewriting it always involves), the doublets present a transfer from one art form to another, from one context to another, and as such are more than a mere reformulation. Johnson notes that the prose poems are ‘un espace paradoxal d’imitation et de nouveauté, de différence et de répétition’91 – and indeed they are, in many ways, one more manifestation of Baudelaire’s aesthetics of amalgame. The ‘conjonction paradoxale du nouveau et du répété’ studied by Johnson in the case of the aesthetics of the prose poems echoes indeed the question of originality and plagiarism already examined and should be extended to Baudelaire’s other writings. As we have already seen, the very dedication of Le Spleen de Paris raises questions of influence and originality, and also claims difference from the hypotext as the unavoidable result of the creative act. Baudelaire presents his departure from his model as a failure, but on the other hand such departure is an integral part of imitation. Valerie Worth notes indeed in Practising Translation in Renaissance France that imitation is caught in the dialectic of similarity and difference: On the one hand, to what extent may the ‘copy’ move away from the ‘source’ and still be an imitation, or on the other hand, how closely may a ‘copy’ imitate the ‘source’ without becoming a mere reproduction?

In this respect, translation poses the same problems, since it is, in Worth’s words, ‘a skilful balancing act between similarity and difference’.92 The dedication which prefaces le Spleen de Paris, although it does not primarily address the question of the doublets, clearly places the aesthetics of the text within the framework of issues of difference and repetition, of which the doublets are the strongest manifestation, and is, therefore, an important key to the nature of the experiment at the basis of the doublets. That, as Johnson reminds her readers, the prose poems should have long been seen as ‘une forme inférieure, imparfaite’ of their verse versions echoes the 91

Défigurations, p. 9. Valerie Worth, Practising Translation in Renaissance France, The Example o f Étienne Dolet (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp. 1-2. 92

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general critical perception of Baudelaire’s translations as a sideline in his creative activity.93 In addition, the essentially derivative nature of prose poetry (because it is a hybrid genre) also noted by Johnson echoes the situation of translation: le poème en prose, tout en bouleversant l’idée même de généalogie, s’annonce, dès le début, comme un phénomène résolument dérivé, nonoriginel, explicitement greffé sur l’existence d’une œuvre antérieure.94

The highly symmetrical ‘La Chevelure’ and ‘Un Hémisphère dans une chevelure’ offer a good example of the process at work in the doublets. As Johnson notes, there is some uncertainty regarding the date of composition of both pieces, despite the fact that the prose version was first published in 1857 and the verse version in 1859.95 Consequently, it is impossible to decide which text is a rewriting of an earlier version: hypo- and hypertexts are interchangeable, a fact which calls into question, once more, the very concept of derivation and precedence, translation and original shedding light on each other and, as in a game of mirrors, erasing their differences just as they highlight them. The two poems are closely linked in structure – the seven paragraphs of the prose poem echoing the seven stanzas of the verse poem – and share the same themes and images, each paragraph of ‘un Hémisphère’ developing the same ideas as its corresponding stanza in ‘la Chevelure’, as the repetition of words and phrases between the two poems confirms. Johnson notes, for instance, in the sixth stanza / paragraph, the enumerations ‘De l’huile de coco, du musc et du goudron’ (verse) / ‘du goudron, du musc et de l’huile de coco’ (prose), which, by their difference in word order, and therefore in rhythm and sounds, illustrate the difference of language between prose and verse.96 Similarly, the second stanza / paragraph, the same elements are differently distributed in the verse and prose versions: Comme d’autres esprits voguent sur la musique,

93

Défigurations, p. 34. Johnson also notes that the prose poems have been seen as signs of Baudelaire’s intellectual and creative decline – an approach reminiscent of the traditional views about Baudelaire’s translations. 94 ‘Quelques conséquences de la différence anatomique des textes. Pour une théorie du poème en prose’, p. 451. 95 Défigurations, p. 33. 96 Défigurations, pp. 35-36.

238

Alchemy and Amalgam Le mien, ô mon amour! nage sur ton parfum. (verse) Mon âme voyage sur le parfum comme l’âme des autres hommes sur la musique. (prose)

There is a sense, when reading the prose version, that it provides an elucidation of the verse version, as in the first stanza / paragraph, the metaphors of the verse being explained in the prose: O toison, moutonnant jusque sur l’encolure! O boucles! O parfum chargé de nonchaloir! Extase! Pour peupler ce soir l’alcove obscure Des souvenirs dormant dans cette chevelure, Je la veux agiter dans l’air comme un mouchoir! Laisse-moi respirer longtemps, longemps, l’odeur de tes cheveux, y plonger tout mon visage, comme un homme altéré dans l’eau d’une source, et les agiter avec ma main comme un mouchoir odorant, pour secouer des souvenirs dans l’air.

‘La Chevelure’ and ‘Un Hémisphère dans une chevelure’ illustrate, therefore, the main principles of the doublets: the two texts follow a similar structure, and share the same thematics, but use different signifiers to express them. This is not to say that both texts share the same signifieds: as in all translations, the transfer from one medium to another, from one context to another, differenciates the two texts. The two Invitations au voyage pose slightly different problems to ‘La Chevelure and ‘Un Hémisphère’. In the prose and verse versions of ‘L’Invitation au voyage’, the symmetry between the two texts is more difficult to establish: the prose version is much longer and more developed than the verse version, which is constructed in just three stanzas separated by the refrain ‘Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté, / Luxe, calme et volupté’, while in prose we have ten paragraphs. A closer look reveals, however, some parallels. The prose version retains the refrain: Un vrai pays de Cocagne, où tout est beau, riche, tranquille, honnête; où le luxe a un plaisir à se mirer dans l’ordre; où la vie est grasse et douce à respirer; d’où le désordre, la turbulence et l’imprévu sont exclus; où le bonheur est marié au silence; où la cuisine elle-même est poétique, grasse et excitante à la fois; où tout vous ressemble, mon cher ange.97 97

ŒCI, p. 301.

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And, four paragraphs later: Un vrai pays de Cocagne, te dis-je, où tout est riche, propre et luisant, comme une belle conscience, comme une magnifique batterie de cuisine, comme une splendide orfèvrerie, comme une bijouterie barriolée! Les trésors du monde y affluent, comme dans la maison d’un homme laborieux et qui a bien mérité du monde entier. Pays singulier, supérieur aux autres, comme l’Art l’est à la Nature, où celle-ci est réformée par le rêve, où elle est corrigée, embellie, refondue.98

The sense of repetition, created by the phrase ‘Un vrai pays de Cocagne’, is reinforced by ‘te dis-je’, and two paragraphs which start with the same syntax: ‘Oui, c’est là qu’il faut respirer’ and ‘Oui, c’est dans cette atmosphère qu’il ferait bon de vivre’.99 While the verse version makes the exact repetition of a refrain possible, the prose adapts the idea of the refrain to the new medium, and develops the resonances implied in the verse. Similarly, the prose makes more explicit what is only implied in the verse, and in this respect can be read as a translation of the verse, which it develops. And yet at the same time Barbara Johnson’s brilliant study of the two poems points out the process of elimination at work in the prose poem, which deletes some of the implications of the verse and inserts new ones (Johnson notes, for instance, the attenuation of the sexual imagery in the prose): Entre le poème en prose et le poème en vers, le travail de mutilation et de correction s’engage donc indéfiniment, dans les deux sens. Chacun des textes sert de pré-texte à l’autre; aucun ne peut s’approprier la priorité sur l’autre: la ‘matière première’ est déjà un texte mutilé.100

This process of transformation is present in the very thematics of the poems, as a mise en abyme of the transfer: as nature into art, the subject matter is ‘corrigé’ and ‘refondu’, in a movement which echoes the alchemy of translation. Thus Baudelaire’s statements that the Spleen de Paris ‘c’est encore Les Fleurs du Mal’, or that it acts as a ‘pendant’ to the Fleurs du Mal’101 should not obscure the fact that the two works follow different projects, and as such use 98

ŒCI, p. 302. ŒCI, p. 302. 100 Défigurations, p. 159. 101 CII, pp. 615 and 523. 99

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their subject matter differently. Doublets do not occur only in Les Fleurs du Mal and Le Spleen the Paris, but may also be found in other cases of repetition and reuse of material. The importance of the shift in context in the signified of the text has already been noted in the case of ‘le Masque’ and its version in Salon de 1859. A similar example may be found in the double version of ‘Le Vin des chiffonniers’ in Les Fleurs du Mal and Du Vin et du hachisch. Another instance may be found in the case of ‘le Joujou du pauvre’ and its echo in Morale du joujou.102 The latter is anterior to the former: La Morale du joujou first appeared in Le Monde littéraire on 17 April 1853, while the first publication of ‘le Joujou du pauvre’ came out on 24 September 1862 in La Presse. The prose poem is based on an extract from Morale du joujou,103 which is, therefore, deprived of its initial context and at the same time given another one. It has already been seen, in the case of Un Mangeur d’opium, that quoting a text is never repeating it, a point which applies also to self-quotation. The fact that the immediate context of the extract is omitted immediately changes the focus of the passage, which becomes selfstanding whereas in La Morale du joujou it was part of a wider analysis of children’s toys. Similarly the difference in titles operates a shift in emphasis, from morale to pauvre. And the text itself is slightly modified:104 on the most superficial level, ‘le Joujou du pauvre’ comprises more paragraphs than Morale du joujou – the two paragraphs of the latter are indeed split into eight in the prose poem, a division which modifies the rhythm of the narration, and recreates somehow the stanzas of a poem. In addition, and although the prose poem follows closely the extract from Morale du joujou it is based on, it departs from its source in several instances. First of all, the concluding line of the first paragraph from Morale du joujou is moved to the opening paragraph of ‘le Joujou du pauvre’, and at the same time developed (‘Je veux donner l’idée d’un divertissement innocent. Il y a si peu d’amusements qui ne soient pas coupables!’). The use of synonyms in ‘Le Joujou du pauvre’ to emphasize the idea of an innocent entertainment (‘divertissement’ / ’amusement’, ‘innocent’ / ‘pas coupable’), where the Morale was 102

ŒCI, pp. 304-05 and pp. 584-85. From ‘Tel est le joujou du pauvre.’ (p. 584) to ‘Les parents avaient tiré le joujou de la vie elle même’ (p. 585). 104 See appendix D. 103

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only mentioning the entertainment dimension in passing (‘C’est là certainement un grand divertissement), may be a way for Baudelaire to make the voice of his narrator stronger by letting it filter through this subjective account (the innocence of the entertainment in question being highly questionable). In addition, and in the context of the thematics of difference and repetition which the prose poems develop, it could be seen as a kind of mise en abyme of the blend of repetition and transformation at work in prose poetry, each synonym translating and repeating one term, and by this repetition differing from the Morale, therefore reminding the reader of the transformative powers of the act of repetition. Another difference between the two texts can be found in the omissions and additions within the second version. For instance where Morale du joujou relies on an anaphoric reference to the previous paragraph (‘le polichinelle plat, mû par un seul fil; les forgerons qui battent l’enclume; le cheval et son cavalier en trois morceaux, quatre chevilles pour les jambes, la queue du cheval formant un sifflet, et quelquefois le cavalier portant une petite plume, ce qui est un grand luxe’) with ‘ces petites inventions’, ‘le Joujou du pauvre’ has to give examples of the toys referred to as compactly as possible – ‘le cavalier et son cheval dont la queue est un sifflet’ summarising the much longer description in Morale du joujou. In the same paragraph, there is, however, another interesting change in the final sentence: ‘leurs mains happeront avidement le cadeau’ is replaced, in ‘Le Joujou du pauvre’ by ‘leurs mains agripperont vivement le cadeau’, a modification most likely to be motivated by euphonic considerations, the second version flowing more smoothly as hiatuses and the harsh repetition of [a] are eliminated. In Morale du joujou the transition between the paragraph on poor children’s reactions to toys and the comparison between poor and rich children is achieved by one sentence which is totally omitted in ‘le Joujou du pauvre’: ‘À propos du joujou du pauvre, j’ai vu quelque chose de plus simple encore, mais de plus triste que le joujou à un sou, – c’est le joujou vivant’. Such a transition, necessary in Morale du joujou (where the passage on the poor child’s toy is only a section in a wider-ranging essay), disappears in ‘le Joujou du pauvre’, which by its title, provides the unity and the link between both anecdotes. The omission of the transition is far from unproblematic, however – the prose poem shifts sharply from the

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general to the particular, the present to the past, the descriptive to the narrative. The juxtaposition of the two sections seems to recreate the similar separation as the one, symbolized by the gate (‘barreaux symboliques séparant deux mondes’), between the two children. It also lets the reader establish the link between the two sections, having drawn him / her into the text through the direct addresses to him / her in the first half of the prose poem, thus achieving the reader / writer relationship which Marie Maclean has noted as central to the narrative performance of Baudelaire’s prose poetry.105 The second section of the prose poem differs from Morale du joujou mainly through a shift in focus and the addition of details to achieve this shift. All the elements added in the prose poems contribute, indeed, to emphasizing the difference between the two children before negating it in the last sentence. ‘[U]n vaste jardin’, ‘la blancheur d’un joli château frappé par le soleil’, contrast sharply with the ‘chardons’ and ‘orties’; ‘ces enfants-là si jolis, qu’on les croirait faits d’une autre pâte que les enfants de la médiocrité’ emphasizes the notion of difference more than in Morale du joujou (‘on ne les croirait pas faits de la même pâte que les enfants de la médiocrité’).106 The description of the poor child as ‘fuligineux, un de ces marmots-parias dont un œil impartial découvrirait la beauté, si, comme l’œil du connaisseur devine un peinture idéale sous un vernis de carrossier, il le nettoyait de la répugnante patine de la misère’ plays on the duality on which the whole poem is based, and emphasizes the thematics of transformation which are at the core of so much of Baudelaire’s work: the ‘peinture idéale’ echoes the gold arrived at through alchemy, or the discovery of the quintessential which is the aim of Baudelaire’s transmutation of his sources. Within such a context, the final sentence, which suddenly negates the concept of difference on which the poem is built, creates another break in the text and symbolizes the writing process at work – Morale du joujou and ‘Le Joujou du pauvre’ are both same and different, and as such fit perfectly in the more general duality of the prose poems. The changes made to the Morale du joujou to create ‘Le Joujou du pauvre’ are symptomatic of Baudelaire’s use of his own text, both repeated and transformed to fit its new con105

Marie Maclean, Narrative As Performance, The Baudelairean Experiment (London: Routledge, 1988). 106 emphases added.

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text, in just the same way as the translations of foreign texts are amalgamated with his own creative concerns. According to Roman Jakobson’s classification of types of translation, the transpositions d’art and the doublets can be considered as intersemiotic translations – although in the case of the doublets, there is, of course, a blurring of the distinction between intersemiotic and intralingual transfers. The doublets are both a rewriting, a reformulation within Baudelaire’s language and a translation from one art form to another. As was suggested earlier, such doublets are not the only example of Baudelaire’s play on difference and repetition. Other instances of repetition and rewriting of material in the Baudelairean corpus range from the reoccurrence of similar phrases and sentences (the alchemical ‘tu m’as donné ta boue et j’en ai fait de l’or’ and its permutations being a case in point), to self-quotations (as in the case of ‘Danse macabre’). Such repetitions are in themselves symptomatic of Baudelaire’s tendency to reuse and rewrite material. Far more revealing, though, are examples of reworkings of similar passages in different contexts – Morale du joujou and ‘Le Joujou du pauvre’, ‘Danse macabre’ and the description of Christophe’s figurine in Salon de 1859, ‘Le Masque’ and, again, the description of Christophe’s statue in Salon de 1859, all being instances of such reworkings. To conclude this analysis, a final example – that of the translation of Poe’s ‘Man of the Crowd’ (‘L’Homme des foules’),107 a passage in Un Mangeur d’opium,108 the prose poem ‘Les Foules’109 and two passages in Le Peintre de la vie moderne – is enlightening:110 Vous souvenez-vous d’un tableau (en vérité, c’est un tableau!) écrit par la plus puissante plume de cette époque, et qui a pour titre L’Homme des foules? Derrière la vitre d’un café, un convalescent, contemplant la foule avec jouissance, se mêle par la pensée, à toutes les pensées qui s’agitent autour de lui. Revenu récemment des ombres de la mort, il aspire avec délices tous les germes et tous les effluves de la vie; comme il a été sur le point de tout oublier, il se souvient et veut avec ardeur se souvenir de tout.

107

EAP, pp. 323-32. ŒCI, p. 468. 109 ŒCI, pp. 291. 110 Claude Pichois indicates that ‘Les Foules’ and Le Peintre de la vie moderne are ‘à peu près contemporain[s]’. 108

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Alchemy and Amalgam Finalement, il se précipite à travers cette foule à la recherche d’un inconnu dont la physionomie entrevue l’a, en un clin d’œil, fasciné. La curiosité est devenue une passion fatale, irrésistible!111 La foule est son domaine, comme l’air est celui de l’oiseau, comme l’eau celui du poisson. Sa passion et sa profession, c’est d’épouser la foule. Pour le parfait flâneur, pour l’observateur passionné, c’est une immense jouissance que d’élire domicile dans le nombre, dans l’ondoyant, dans le mouvement, dans le fugitif et l’infini.112

The above passages are interesting for many reasons. First, they reassert Baudelaire’s tendency to establish correspondences between the arts, already noted in this chapter. Second, if seen together with ‘L’Homme des foules’, ‘Les Foules’ and Un Mangeur d’opium, they enact different degrees of integration of an English source text. ‘L’Homme des foules’ is a direct translation of Poe’s text, and as such remains close to the source, with only minor transformations.113 In Le Peintre de la vie moderne, the hypotext – ‘L’Homme des foules’ – is explicitly mentioned, and summarized, but integrated in a visual context, that of art criticism. In ‘Les Foules’, the hypotext disappears entirely, and what we have, instead, is a prose poem which develops the themes and ideas suggested by Baudelaire’s reading of the text. And in Un Mangeur d’opium, we have only a passing allusion to Poe, through the phrase ‘bain de multitude’. All texts echo and rewrite each other. In ‘Les Foules’, the amalgam between Poe’s text, Le Peintre de la vie moderne, and Baudelaire’s new purpose in the Spleen de Paris is the most complete, to such an extent that ‘Les Foules’ is a totally independent, self-standing poem. And yet the echo between all texts is very clear. For instance, in ‘Les Foules’, we read: Le poète jouit de cet incomparable privilège, qu’il peut à sa guise être luimême et autrui. Comme des âmes errantes qui cherchent un corps, il entre, quand il veut, dans le personnage de chacun. Pour lui seul, tout est vacant; et si de certaines places paraissent lui être fermées, c’est qu’à ses yeux elles ne valent pas la peine d’être visitées.

In the above passage, as in Le Peintre de la vie moderne, we have 111

ŒCII, pp. 689-90. ŒCII, p. 691. 113 See my article, ‘Baudelaire and Poe’s Man of the Crowd’, in Emily Salines and Raynalle Udris (eds), Modernism and Intertextuality in Comparative Literature (Dublin: Philomel, 2003). 112

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the same expression of the ideal communion between the poet and the world, and the ultimate identification which is the privilege of the poet. In many ways, ‘Les Foules’ and Le Peintre de la vie moderne elucidate each other: while in Le Peintre de la vie moderne the flâneur described is a convalescent, in ‘Les Foules’ he is a poet. The experiences described, however, are very similar, and, as already said, complete each other. Both characters indeed identify with the Other – ‘être lui-même et autrui’ (‘Les Foules’) and ‘la recherche d’un inconnu’ (Le Peintre de la vie moderne) are both an opening to the Other. In the context of this study, one cannot but read these passages allegorically: the ‘inconnu dont la physionomie entrevue l’a, en un clin d’œil, fasciné’ and the ‘passion fatale, irrésistible’ this encounter with the Other brings, can be seen as symbolising Baudelaire’s encounter with Otherness, manifested in the text – English, visual, or his own. The different degrees of integration visible in these passages can also be read as a mise en abyme of Baudelaire’s relationship to translation. They show how interrelated, and how central to Baudelaire’s writing his interlingual, intralingual and intersemiotic translations are: the English text is all at the same time translated into French, associated to the visual in the art criticism, and to prose poetry in Le Spleen de Paris in a movement which emphasizes the unity of Baudelaire’s works and the constancy of his preoccupation with translation and transposition.

The field of Baudelaire’s transpositional writings is a very rich one, and the present chapter is only an outline of their links with translation. The aim was to explore the possibilities of a common approach to the source text which would suggest a more integrated place for the interlingual translations in the Baudelairean corpus, and to demonstrate the validity of such a proposition. Baudelaire’s approach to criticism, together with his experiments with rewritings, suggest on his part a continued interest in the possibilities afforded by dual writing, of which translation from English is only the most explicit example. The transformations and manipulations achieved by Baudelaire on his English source texts in order to produce hypertextual canonical translations should be seen, therefore, as manifestations of his ideal of amalgam, to be found in his other writings:

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translation for Baudelaire means more than repetition, and is, in all its forms, in fact central to writing at the core of his poetic experiment. In addition, Baudelaire’s frequent comments on the untranslatable dimension of some works of art noted earlier in this chapter, and his choice of creative transposition as a result of the untranslatability, are full of implications for translation theory. Translation is a relative, rather than absolute reality, which needs to be looked at in its historical, cultural and ideological context. As importantly, the nature of the source text, and its aesthetics mechanisms need to be taken into account – with Baudelaire, we are reminded of the subjectivity of the aesthetic experience. A consequence of such subjectivity may be that the aim of translation is not so much to transfer the work of art into another language, than to express the emotions and the subjective nature of the artistic experience.

CONCLUSION Poets not ordinarily thought of as translators can often be detected in the act of translating, imitating and parodying other writers: Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot are obvious examples. Many successful translators in the past have been, and now living are, poets. Chapman, Pope, Robert Lowell, Richmond Lattimore, Robert Fitzgerald are among the names that come t o mind. REUBEN BROWER1

The starting point of this book was an awareness of the coexistence of translation and creation in the Baudelairean corpus and a desire to explore what this coexistence suggests about both the translating and the creative acts, and, ultimately, too, to account for many poets’ fascination with translation (as noted by Reuben Brower). The aim was to investigate the links between translation and creation in Baudelaire’s works, links which would account for the intensity of his activity as a translator throughout his creative life. In order to achieve this aim, it has been necessary to review the corpus of Baudelaire’s interlingual translations according to his translational approaches. In the course of this study, it has been shown that the latter range from close, direct translations to free adaptations and transformations of English source texts, suggesting that, for Baudelaire, translation is the object of a quasi-alchemical experiment with varying degrees of subjectivity and creativity. Translation for Baudelaire is never a copy, but rather a more or less intricate exercise in transmutation, a form of palimpsestic writing culminating in a Baudelairean hypertext. In order to understand the specificity of Baudelaire’s use of translation, it has then been necessary to consider its translational context – a period in which debates on translation were raging, and close and free approaches coexisted. The term ‘translation’ in 19th-century France applied to a wide range of transformations of a foreign language source text, 1

Reuben Brower, Mirror on Mirror, Translation, Imitation, Parody, p. 1

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all of which may be found in Baudelaire’s corpus. From this point of view, Un Mangeur d’opium has been shown to be particularly interesting as it blends the full range of these approaches within a single work, and can, therefore, be seen as emblematic of Baudelaire’s approaches to translation. As importantly, the explicit presence of Baudelaire’s subjectivity in this text – through the manipulation and modification of the source text, the intrusion of the translator’s voice, and the transplantation of De Quincey’s autobiography within the Paradis artificiels – makes Un Mangeur d’opium central to the question of the interaction between creativity and translation in Baudelaire’s writings. The appropriation of the source text apparent in most of Baudelaire’s translations, and particularly clear in Un Mangeur d’opium, raises questions regarding the status of the source text for Baudelaire, and more specifically, the issue of literary property. Turning again to the literary context for Baudelaire’s translations, I have explored the situation of literary property in 19th-century France as well as its ideological implications and highlighted the complexity of translation (a doubleauthored text) in terms of literary property. Both original and derivative, translation calls into question the very act of writing, making explicit the intertextual dimension of all texts. In the case of Baudelaire, this intertextual dimension is central to writing, as I have shown in my analysis of his aesthetics of amalgame: writing is for him an alchemical blending and transmutation best achieved through translation in all its forms, Un Mangeur d’opium representing the culmination of such textual alchemy. Convinced of the importance of the concept of translation for Baudelaire, I have then gone on to consider his other writings, investigating the possibility of a common approach to writing as well as the presence of translation as a writing method within his other works. Starting with criticism as the form of writing that is the closest to translation, I have explored the recurrence of the verb ‘traduire’ and its cognates to refer to the act of criticism and highlighted the similarities of approach in the two fields. I have then turned to Baudelaire’s transpositional writings as forms of intersemiotic and intralingual translations, concentrating mainly on the art transpositions and on the doublets, but considering also other examples of rewriting in the Baudelairean corpus. Translation, taken in the sense of a double-authored, dual form of writing, is not restricted to its interlingual variety and instead encompasses a wide range of source texts

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and their transmutation. Baudelaire’s interlingual translations, then, are far from marginal in his corpus: they are at the very heart of the writing process. Thus translation is emblematic of Baudelaire’s writing method – characterized by a dialogue with the text of the Other, and its gradual blending into Baudelaire’s voice. It is, to use Antoine Berman’s words, a ‘mise en rapport’, that is to say essentially a relationship with the Other – as Berman puts it, the aim of translation is to ‘ouvrir au niveau de l’écrit un certain rapport à l’Autre, féconder le Propre par la médiation de l’Étranger’.2 For Baudelaire, this fecundation arises as a result of a play on the dual authoring at work in translation, and an exploitation of the rewriting and transformative dimensions of the act. That there should be a link between translation and writing has been highlighted by John E. Jackson. who argues that ‘écrire (...) est une activité de traduction intérieure à la langue de l’écrivain. Écrire est pratiquer les choix d’une autre langue dans sa langue propre’.3 Alchemy better than any other metaphor accounts for Baudelaire’s fascination with the act of translation. In this way, the inevitable amalgam of two sensitivities and the transmutation of the source text it implies are at the heart of his creative writing. The art criticism and, more importantly, the transpositions d’art and doublets, suggest that translation is more than a sideline in Baudelaire’s writings, and instead is central to his poetic concerns because of its play on duality and transformation. And, of course, the alchemy of translation noted in this thesis is not very different from another, more frequently noted, alchemy in Baudelaire’s works – that of poetry. Indeed it has been seen that the alchemical metaphors used by Baudelaire to describe Un Mangeur d’opium echo strongly his poetry, which is first and foremost presented as a magical, transformative experience. Poetry is alchemy, a ‘sorcellerie évocatoire’.4 For Baudelaire, both translation and poetry are based on the transmutation of source material, and for these reasons both forms of writing belong to the same creative impulse. This is made 2

L’Épreuve de l’étranger, p. 16. ‘Le Même et l’autre, l’écriture comme traduction’, Revue de littérature comparée, 1995, 1, 13-18 (p. 15). 4 Fusées, ŒCI, p. 658; Théophile Gautier, ŒCII, p. 118. See Marc Eigeldinger’s ‘Baudelaire et l’alchimie verbale’. 3

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particularly clear in the essay on Victor Hugo (first published in the Revue fantaisiste in 1861) and the Salon de 1859, where the link between translation and poetry is emphasized: [T]out est hiéroglyphique, et nous savons que les symboles ne sont obscurs que d’une manière relative, c’est-à-dire selon la pureté, la bonne volonté ou la clairvoyance native des âmes. Or qu’est-ce qu’un poète (je prends le mot dans son acception la plus large), si ce n’est un traducteur, un déchiffreur? Chez les excellents poètes, il n’y a pas de métaphore, de comparaison ou d’épithète qui ne soit d’une adaptation mathématiquement exacte dans la circonstance actuelle, parce que ces comparaisons, ces métaphores et ces épithètes puisées dans l’inépuisable fonds de l’universelle analogie, et qu’elles ne peuvent être puisées ailleurs.5

‘[J]e prends le mot dans son acception la plus large’, Baudelaire says about the word ‘poète’. As I hope to have shown, the openness of the definition applies also to ‘traducteur’. In the above passage, ‘traducteur’ is equated with ‘déchiffreur’, presenting the translation at work in poetry as primarily a decoding of a secret language. That code is the hieroglyph of nature, a language which needs to be understood and conveyed in the poet’s own language. ‘La nature n’est qu’un dictionnaire’, Baudelaire writes in the Salon de 1859, quoting Delacroix, before making the image of the dictionary explicit: On y cherche le sens des mots, la génération des mots, l’étymologie des mots; enfin on en extrait tous les éléments qui composent une phrase et un récit; mais personne n’a jamais considéré le dictionnaire comme une composition dans le sens poétique du mot. Les peintres qui obéissent à l’imagination cherchent dans leur dictionnaire les éléments qui s’accordent à leur conception; encore, en les ajustant avec un certain art, leur donnentils une physionomie toute nouvelle. Ceux qui n’ont pas d’imagination copient le dictionnaire.6

The metaphor of the dictionary embraced by Baudelaire clearly links nature and language. It echoes the letter to Alphonse Toussenel of 21 Jaunuary 1856, in which Baudelaire writes that ‘la Nature est un verbe, une allégorie, un moule, un repoussé’.7 Art, then, is presented as the interpretation, articulation and expression of that language. The emphasis placed on the transformative dimension of 5

ŒCII, p. 133. ŒCII, pp. 624-25. 7 CI, p. 337. The italics are Baudelaire’s. 6

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art echoes Baudelaire’s play with translation and transmutation of his source text. This is confirmed further on in the Salon de 1859, where he writes: Tout l’univers visible n’est qu’un magasin d’images et de signes auxquels l’imagination donnera une place et une valeur relative; c’est une espèce de pâture que l’imagination doit digérer et transformer.8

The digestion metaphor echoes those already noted in Chapter 5 and the ‘magasin d’images et signes’ could just as well be describing the source texts to Baudelaire’s transformative translations – the hypotexts for ‘Le Guignon’, ‘Le Flambeau vivant’, some passages of Un Mangeur d’opium, the transpositions d’art are all treated in the same way as the visible universe by the artist’s imagination. In addition, the pâture metaphor, which reinforces digérer, clearly admits to appropriation as part of the creative act. That such appropriation is not limited to the outside world is clearly emphasized in the same essay where the intertextual nature of art is shown to be inevitable: Un bon tableau, fidèle et égal au rêve qui l’a enfanté, doit être produit comme un monde. De même que la création, telle que nous la voyons, est le résultat de plusieurs créations dont les précédentes sont toujours complétées par la suivante; ainsi un tableau conduit harmoniquement consiste en une série de tableaux superposés, chaque nouvelle couche donnant au rêve plus de réalité et le faisant monter d’un degré vers la perfection.9

That the above passage should be focusing on painting created through the superimposition of layers makes the image of the palimpsest particularly immediate. The process of recreation echoes that of rewriting, and suggests once more a conscious choice on Baudelaire’s part. The ‘universelle analogie’ referred to in the passage from the Victor Hugo essay quoted earlier reinforces the link with translation. Poetic language is, indeed, presented as the search for correspondences. In this respect, metaphor and comparison, which are based on the establishment of an analogy between initially disparate elements, are themselves forms of translation. The concept of universal analogy is in itself the logical consequence of an aesthetics as heavily based on dual writing as I have shown. In this respect, 8 9

ŒCII, p. 627. ŒCII, p. 626.

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Baudelaire’s experiments with translation are similar to those of the German Romantics, if we follow Antoine Berman’s analysis of their concept of ‘versabilité infinie’ and the ‘traduction généralisée’ to which it leads.10 According to Antoine Berman, the German Romantics’ fascination with translation is based on a belief in the universality of the concept of translation and its links with poetry. The duality of natural language / art language emphasized by Baudelaire is also present in the German Romantics, who, according to Berman, can be seen as providing a ‘première version’ of Baudelaire’s theory of correspondences.11 The recurrence of the verb ‘traduire’ and its cognates in Baudelaire’s writings is, then, not only due to the openness of the concept in his aesthetics, but also the result of a conscious choice of translation as emblematic of the act of writing. The ‘Correspondances’ sonnet, then, becomes the culmination of Baudelaire’s play on translation as a creative method. The search for correspondences should, indeed, be seen in parallel with the quest for equivalence in translation. Similarly, ‘the confuses paroles’ and the ‘forêts de symboles’ of nature are a foreign language to be decoded and expressed through poetry, and the ‘profonde unité’, the condition of universal translation, is at the core of the Baudelairean alchemy. In ‘La traduction chez Baudelaire: les trois imaginations du poètetraducteur’, Mira Levy-Bloch analyses the importance of translation in Baudelaire’s imagination, but constantly uses inverted commas to refer to translation, as if Baudelaire’s concept of poetry as translation were only a metaphor: Le sens de la ‘traduction’, particulier à Baudelaire, provient de la riche composition et de l’opération complexe de son imagination. La ‘traduction’ est l’opération essentielle effectuée dans l’imagination baudelairienne au cours de la création artistique.12

Levy-Bloch is right to point out the specificity of the concept of translation for Baudelaire, but she fails to extend it to his interlingual, intersemiotic and intralingual translations and instead restricts 10

L’Épreuve de l’étranger, Chapter 5 (‘Révolution romantique et versabilité infinie’, pp. 111-39. 11 L’Épreuve de l’étranger, p. 149. 12 Mira Levy-Bloch ‘La Traduction chez Baudelaire: les trois imaginations du poète traducteur’, p. 378.

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it to a metaphorical use which applies to poetic creation only. I have shown that poetry as translation is, in fact, the last stage of the integration of translation and creation in Baudelaire’s works – the fulfilment of his lifelong experiments on the creative dimension of translation. Translation is indeed the common denominator in Baudelaire’s writings, which explore the duality and the alchemical transformation of translation in all its forms. Poetry and translation interact in the Baudelairean corpus and must be looked at as part of the same creative impulse. Translation, then, far from being a mere metaphor, is in fact synonymous with creation in the Baudelairean experiment and an important key to our understanding of his search for alchemical unity.

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APPENDIX A CHRONOLOGY OF BAUDELAIRE’S TRANSLATIONS Note: in the case of multiple publications, only the first publication has been noted here except in the case of republication in book form of texts initially published in periodical format. In the case of texts published in part before appearing in full, only full publications are given here. 1846 Le Jeune Enchanteur, published in L’Esprit Public (20-22 February 1846), and translated from The Young Enchanter, by Rev. Croly.

1848 ‘Révélation magnétique’, published in La Liberté de penser (15 July 1848), and translated from Poe.

1852 Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages, published in La Revue de Paris (March and April) – parts of this article were directly translated from articles found in American Newspapers. ‘Bérénice’, published in L’Illustration (17 April 1852), and translated from Poe.

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‘Le Puits et le pendule’, published in Revue de Paris (October 1852), and translated from Poe. ‘Les Souvenirs de M. A. Bedloe’, published in L’Illustration (11 December 1852), and translated from Poe.

1853 Translation of two English songs published in Paris (29 January 1853). ‘Le Cœur révélateur’, published in Paris (4 February 1853), and translated from Poe. ‘Le Corbeau’, published in L’Artiste translated from Poe.

(1 March 1853), and

‘Philosophie de l’ameublement’, published in Le Monde littéraire (27 March 1853), and translated from Poe. ‘Le Chat noir’ and ‘Morella’, published in Paris (13-15 November 1853), and translated from Poe.

1854 New translation of ‘Philosophie de l’ameublement’ in the Journal d’Alançon (21 and 28 May 1854) Histoires extraordinaires and Nouvelles Histoires extraordinaires published in Le Pays from 25 July 1854 to 20 April 1855 [some of these had been published before and are not reproduced here]: ‘Entretien d’Eiros avec Charmion’ (27 July 1854) ‘L’Homme-Caméléopard, ou Quatre bêtes en une’ (28 July 1854) ‘La Barrique d’Amontillado’ (3 September 1854)

Appendix A

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‘Puissance de la parole ‘ (5 August 1854) ‘L’Ombre’ (5 August 1854) ‘Mort ou Vivant, le cas de Mr Valdemar’ (26 September 1854) ‘Le Démon de la Perversité’ (14 September 1854) ‘Metzengerstein’ (17 September 1854) ‘Le Diable dans le beffroi’ (20 September 1854) ‘Petite Discussion avec une momie’ (11, 12 December 1854)

1855 ‘Manuscrit trouvé dans une bouteille’ (21, 22 January 1855) ‘Colloque entre Monos et Una’ (22, 23 January 1855) ‘Le Roi Peste’ (22, 26, 27 January 1855) ‘L’Homme des foules’ (27, 28 January 1855) ‘Le Portrait ovale’ (28 January 1855) ‘L’Ile de la Fée’ (28, 30 January 1855) ‘Le Canard au ballon’ (31 January - 2, 3 February 1855) ‘Ligeia’ (3, 4 February 1855) ‘Une Descente dans le Maelstrom’ (3, 6, 7 February 1855) ‘La Chute de la Maison Usher’ (7, 9, 13 February 1855) ‘William Wilson’ (14, 15, 18, 19 February 1855) ‘Être un lion, conte moral [Lionnerie]’ (19, 22 February 1855)

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‘Le Silence’ (22 February 1855) ‘Le Masque de la Mort Rouge’ (22, 23 February 1855) ‘Hop-Frog’ (23, 24, 25 February 1855) ‘Double Assassinat dans la Rue Morgue, Facultés divinatoires d’Auguste Dupin, I’ (25, 26 February - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 March 1855). ‘La Lettre volée, Facultés divinatoires d’Auguste Dupin, II’ (7, 8, 12, 14 March 1855) ‘Aventure sans pareille d’un certain Hans Pfaal’ (14, 15, 16, 22, 27, 31 March; 1, 2, 14, 17, 20 April 1855) ‘Le Guignon’, first published on 1 June 1855 in Revue des Deux Mondes, and which includes passages translated from Longfellow and Gray. (NB Manuscript dates from 1851 or 1852)

1856 Histoires extraordinaires published by Michel Lévy (includes ‘inédits’: Edgar Poe, sa vie et ses œuvres – parts of which are translated from American articles – and ‘Le Scarabée d’or’) (12 March 1856).

1857 Les Aventures d’Arthur Gordon Pym, published by the Moniteur (25 February to 18 April 1857), and translated from Poe. Nouvelles Histoires extraordinaires, published by Michel Levy (includes ‘inédit’: the Notes nouvelles sur Edgar Poe) (8 March 1857).

Appendix A

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‘Le Flambeau vivant’, published on 20 April 1857 in Revue Française, and which includes a passage translated from Poe (NB: manuscript sent to Mms Sabatier on 7 February 1854).

1858 Les Aventures d’Arthur Gordon Pym, published by Michel Lévy (13 May 1858).

1859 ‘Éléonora’, published in the Revue française ( 10 March 1859), and translated from Poe. ‘Un Événement à Jérusalem’, published in the Revue française (20 March 159), and translated from Poe. La Genèse d’un poème’ published in the Revue française (20 April 1859), and translated from Poe.

1860 ‘Enchantements et tortures d’un mangeur d’opium’, in the Revue contemporaine (15 and 31 January 1860), and adapted from De Quincey. ‘L’Ange du bizarre’, in La Presse (17 February 1860), and translated from Poe. Les Paradis artificiels, published by Poulet-Malassis (end of May 1860), including Un Mangeur d’opium, adapted from De Quincey. Baudelaire agrees on 20 November 1860 to translate part of Longfellow’s ‘Song of Hiawatha’ for the composer R. Stoepel.

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1861 ‘Le Calumet de paix’, published in the Revue Contemporaine (28 February 1861), and translated from Longfellow’s ‘Song of Hiawatha’.

1862 ‘Le Joueur d’échecs de Maelzel’, published in Le Monde illustré (12, 19, 26 July, 2 August 1862), and translated from Poe.

1863 ‘Eureka’, published by Michel Lévy (25 November), and translated from Poe.

1865 Histoires grotesques et sérieuses, published by Michel Lévy (16 March 1865) (includes, ‘inédits’: Le Mystère de marie Roget, Le Domaine d’Arnheim and Le Cottage Landor). Baudelaire dictates to Arthur Stevens his translation of Thomas Hood’s ‘Bridge of Sighs’ (8 April 1865).

APPENDIX B ANNOTATED EXTRACT FROM UN MANGEUR D’OPIUM (Followed by source text) Note: Paragraphs have been introduced in order to indicate more clearly the range of manipulations operated by Baudelaire. Numbers in brackets are used to show the correspondences between the two texts. Bold type indicates Baudelaire’s additions to the source text. Square brackets in the target text indicate Baudelaire’s omissions. Summary (1)

Dans les rues de Londres, plus encore que dans le pays de Galles, l'étudiant émancipé était donc une espèce de péripatéticien, un philosophe de la rue, méditant sans cesse à travers le tourbillon de la grande cité.

Commentary (2)

L’épisode en question peut paraître un peu étrange dans des pages anglaises, car on sait que la littérature britannique pousse la chasteté jusqu’à la pruderie; mais, ce qui est certain, c’est que le même sujet, effleuré seulement par une plume française, aurait tourné au shocking, tandis qu’ici il n’y a que grâce et décence.

Summary (3)

Pour tout dire en deux mots, notre vagabond s'était lié d'une amitié platonique avec une péripatéticienne de l'amour.

Development (4)

Ann n'est pas une de ces beautés hardies, éblouissantes, dont les yeux de démon luisent à travers le brouillard, et qui se font une auréole de

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Alchemy and Amalgam leur effronterie. Ann est une créature toute simple, tout ordinaire, dépouillée, abandonnée comme tant d'autres, et réduite à l'abjection par la trahison. Mais elle est revêtue de cette grâce innommable, de cette grâce de la faiblesse et de la bonté, que Gœthe savait répandre sur toutes les femelles de son cerveau, et qui a fait de sa petite Marguerite aux mains rouges une créature immortelle.

(6) Que de fois, Modification of textual order (5)

à travers leur monotones pérégrinations dans l'interminable Oxford Street,

Summary (6) à travers le fourmillement de la grande ville regorgeante d'activité, l'étudiant famélique a-t-il exhorté sa malheureuse amie à implorer le misérable qui l'avait dépouillée, lui offrant de l'appuyer de son témoignage et de son éloquence! Modification of textual order (7)

Ann était encore plus jeune que lui, elle n’avait que seize ans.

(8)

Combien de fois le protégea-t-elle contre les officiers qui voulaient l’expulser des portes où il s’abritait!

Paraphrase (9)

Une fois elle fit plus, la pauvre abandonnée: elle et son ami s’étaient assis dans Soho Square, sur les degrés d’une maison devant laquelle depuis lors, avoue-t-il, il n’a jamais pu passer sans se sentir le cœur comprimé par la griffe du souvenir, et sans faire un acte de grâces intérieur à la mémoire de cette déplorable et généreuse jeune fille. Ce jourlà, il s’était senti plus faible encore et plus malade que de coutume; mais, à peine assis, il lui sembla que son mal empirait. Il avait appuyé sa tête contre

Appendix B

Translator’s intervention (10)

263 le sein de sa sœur d’infortune, et, tout d’un coup, il s’échappa de ses bras et tomba à la renverse sur les degrés de la porte. Sans un stimulant vigoureux, c’en était fait de lui, ou du moins il serait tombé pour jamais dans un état de faiblesse irrémédiable. Et dans cette crise de sa destinée, ce fut la créature perdue qui lui tendit la main de salut, elle qui n’avait connu le monde que par l’outrage et l’injustice. Elle poussa un cri de terreur, et, sans perdre une seconde, elle courut dans Oxford Street , d’où elle reving presque aussitôt avec un verre de porto épicé, dont l’action réparatrice fut merveilleuse sur un estomac vide qui n’aurait pu d’ailleurs supporter aucune nourriture solide.

Quotation (11)

«O ma jeune bienfaitrice! combien de fois, dans les années postérieures, jeté dans des lieux solitaires, et rêvant de toi avec un cœur plein de tristesse et de véritable amour, combien de fois ai-je souhaité que la bénédiction d’un cœur oppressé par la reconnaissance eût cette prérogative et cette puissance surnaturelles que les anciens attribuaient à la malédiction d’un père, poursuivant son objet avec la rigueur indéfectible d’une fatalité! – que ma gratitude pût, elle aussi, recevoir du ciel la faculté de te poursuivre, de te hanter, de te guetter, de te surprendre, de t’atteindre jusque dans les ténèbres épaisses d’un bouge de Londres, ou même, s’il était possible, dans les ténèbres du tombeau, pour te réveiller avec un message authentique de paix, de pardon et de finale réconciliation!»

Commentary (12)

Pour sentir de cette façon, il faut avoir souffert beaucoup, il faut être un de ces cœurs que le malheur ouvre et amollit, au contraire de ceux qu’il ferme et durcit. Le Bédouin de la civilisation apprend dans le Sahara des grandes villes bien des motifs d’attendrissement qu’ignore l’homme

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Alchemy and Amalgam dont la sensibilité est borné par le home et la famille. Il y a dans le barathrum des capitales, comme dans le désert, quelque chose qui fortifie et qui façonne le cœur de l’homme, qui le fortifie d’une autre manière, quand il ne le déprave pas et ne l’affaiblit pas jusqu’à l’abjection et jusqu’au suicide. Un Mangeur d’opium, ŒCI, pp. 456-8

Source text Summarized (1)

Being myself at that time of necessity a peripatetic, or a walker of the streets, I naturally fell in more frequently with those female peripatetics who are technically Street-walkers.

Moved and applied to Ann only (8)

Many of these women had occasionally taken my part against the watchmen who wished to drive me off the steps of houses where I was sitting.

Summarized (3)

But one amongst them, the one on whose account I have at all introduced this subject

Omitted

[– yet no! let me not class thee, Oh noble minded Ann ––, with that order of women; let me find, if it be possible, some gentler name to designate the condition of her to whose bounty and compassion, ministering to my necessities when all the world had forsaken me, I owe it that I am at this time alive.]

Summarized (5)

– For many weeks I had walked at nights with this poor friendless girl up and down Oxford Street, or had rested with her on steps and under the shelter of porticos.

Summarized and moved (7)

She could not be so old as myself: she told me, indeed that she had not completed her sixteenth year.

Appendix B

265

Summarized (6)

By such questions as my interest about her prompted, I had gradually drawn forth her simple history Her’s was a case of ordinary occurrence (as I have since had reason to think), and one in which , if London beneficence had better adapted its arrangements to meet it, the power of the law might oftener be interposed to protect, and to avenge. But the stream of London charity flows in a channel which, though deep and mighty, is yet noiseless and underground; not obvious or readily accessible to poor houseless wanderers: and it cannot be denied that the outside air and framework of London society is harsh, cruel, and repulsive. In any case, however, I saw that part of her injuries might easily have been redressed: and I urged her often and earnestly to lay her complaint before a magistrate: friendless as she was, I assured her that she would meet with immediate attention and that English justice, which was no respecter of persons, would speedily and amply avenge her on the brutal ruffian who had plundered her little property. She promised me often that she would; but she delayed taking the steps I pointed out from time to time: for she was timid and dejected to a degree which showed how deeply sorrow had taken hold of the young heart; and perhaps she thought justly that the most upright judge, and the most righteous tribunals, could do nothing to repair her heaviest wrongs. Something, however, would perhaps have been done: for it had been settled between us at length, but unhappily on the very last time but one that I was ever to see her, that in a day or two we should go together before a magistrate, and that I should speak on her behalf. This little service it was destined, however, that I should never realise.

Paraphrase /summary (9)

Meantime, that which she rendered to me, and which was greater than I could ever have repaid her, was this: – One night, when we were pacing

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Alchemy and Amalgam slowly along Oxford Street, and after a day when I had felt more than usually ill and faint, I requested her to turn off with me into Soho Square: thither we went; and we sate down on the steps of a house, which, to his hour, I never pass without a pang of grief, and an inner act of homage tot he spirit of that unhappy girl, in memory of the noble action which she there performed. Suddenly, as we sate, I grew much worse: I had been leaning my head against her bosom; and all at once I sank from her arms and fell backwards on the steps. From the sensations I then had, I felt an inner conviction of the liveliest kind that without some powerful and reviving stimulus, I should either have died on the spot – or should at least have sunk to a point of exhaustion from which all reäscent under my friendless circumstances would soon have become hopeless. Then it was, at this crisis of my fate, that my poor orphan companion – who had herself met with little but injuries in this world – stretched out a hand to me. uttering a cry of terror, but without a moment’s delay, she ran off into Oxford Street, and in less time than could be imagined, returned to me with a glass of port wine and spices, that acted upon my empty stomach (which at that time would have rejected all solid foods) with an instantaneous power of restoration: and for this glass the generous girl with out a murmur paid out of her own humble purse at a time – be it remembered! – when she had scarcely wherewithal to purchase the bare necessaries of life, and when she could have no reason to expect that I should ever be able to reimburse her.

Quoted (11)

– Oh! youthful benefactress! how often in succeeding years, standing in solitary places, and thinking of thee with grief of heart and perfect love, how often have I wished that, as in ancient times the curse of a father was believed to have a supernatural power, and to pursue its object with a

Appendix B

267 fatal necessity of self-fulfilment, – even so the benediction of a heart oppressed with gratitude might have a like prerogative; might have power given to it from above to chase – to haunt – to way-lay – to overtake – to pursue thee into the central darkness of a London brothel or (if it were possible) into the darkness of the grave – there to awaken thee with an authentic message of peace and forgiveness, and of final reconciliation! Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, SLW, pp. 131-33

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APPENDIX C LITERARY PROPERTY LAW OF 19 JULY 1793 Art. 1er – Les auteurs d’écrits en tout genre, les compositeurs de musique, les peintres et dessinateurs qui feront graver des tableaux ou dessins, jouiront durant leur vie entière du droit exclusif de vendre, faire vendre, distribuer leurs ouvrages dans le territoire de la République, et d’en céder la propriété en tout ou en partie. Art. 2 – Leurs héritiers ou cessionnaires jouiront du même droit durant l’espace de dix ans après la mort des auteurs. Art. 3 – Les officiers de paix seront tenus de faire confisquer, à la réquisition et au profit des auteurs, compositeurs, peintres ou dessinateurs et autres, leurs héritiers ou cessionnaires, tous les exemplaires des éditions imprimées ou gravées sans la permission formelle et par écrit des auteurs. Art. 4 – Tout contrefacteur sera tenu de payer au véritable propriétaire une somme équivalente au prix de troix mille exemplaires de l’édition originale. Art. 5 – Tout débitant d’édition contrefaite, s’il n’est pas reconnu contrefacteur sera tenu de payer au véritable propriétaire une somme équivalente au prix de cinq cents exemplaires de l’édition originale. Art. 6 – Tout citoyen qui mettra au jour un ouvrage soit de littérature ou de gravure, dans quelque genre que ce soit, sera obligé d’en déposer deux exemplaires à la Bibliothèque nationale ou au Cabinet des estampes de la République, dont il recevra un reçu signé par le bibliothécaire, faute de quoi il ne pourra être admis en justice pour la poursuite des contrefacteurs.

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Art. 7 – Les héritiers de l’auteur d’un ouvrage de littérature ou de gravure, ou de toute autre production, de l’esprit ou du génie qui appartient aux beaux-arts, en auront la propriété exclusive pendant dix années. (Source: Georges Geoffroy, Etude historique et critique de la législation française sur la propriété littéraire, Paris, V. Giard et E. Grière, 1905, pp. 47-48.)

APPENDIX D MORALE DU JOUJOU / ‘LE JOUJOU DU PAUVRE’ Extract from Morale du joujou Tel est le joujou du pauvre. Quand vous sortirez le matin avec l’intention décidée de flâner solitairement sur les grandes routes, remplissez vos poches de ces petites inventions, et le long des cabarets, au pied des arbres, faites-en hommage aux enfants inconnus et pauvres que vous rencontrerez. Vous verrez leurs yeux s’agrandir démesurément. D’abord ils n’oseront pas prendre, ils douteront de leur bonheur; puis leurs mains happeront avidement le cadeau, et ils s’enfuiront comme font les chats qui vont manger loin de vous le morceau que vous leur avez donné, ayant appris à se défier de l’homme. C’est là certainement un grand divertissement. À propos du joujou du pauvre, j’ai vu quelque chose de plus simple encore, mais de plus triste que le joujou à un sou, – c’est le joujou vivant. Sur une route, derrière la grille d’un beau jardin, au bout duquel apparaissait un joli château, se tenait un enfant beau et frais, habillé de ces vêtements de campagne pleins de coquetterie. Le luxe, l’insouciance et le spectacle habituel de la richesse rendent ces enfants-là si jolis qu’on ne les croirait pas faits de la même pâte que les enfants de la mediocrité ou de la pauvreté. À côté de lui gisait sur l’herbe un joujou splendide aussi frais que son maître, verni, doré, avec une belle robe, et couvert de plumets et de verroterie. Mais l’enfant ne s’occupait pas de son joujou, et voici ce qu’il regardait: de l’autre côté de la grille, sur la route, entre les chardons et les orties, il y avait un autre enfant, sale, assez chétif, un de ces marmots sur lesquels la morve se fraye lentement un chemin dans la crasse et la poussière. À travers ces barreaux de fer symboliques, l’enfant pauvre montrait à l’enfant riche son joujou, que celui-ci examinait avidement comme un objet rare et inconnu. Or ce joujou que le petit souillon agaçait, agitait et secouait

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dans une boîte grillée, était un rat vivant! Les parents, par économie, avaient tiré le joujou de la vie elle-même. ‘Le Joujou du pauvre’ Je veux donner l’idée d’un divertissement innocent. Il y a si peu d’amusements qui ne soient pas coupables! Quand vous sortirez le matin avec l’intention décidée de flâner sur les grandes routes, remplissez vos poches de petites inventions à un sol, – telles que le polichinelle plat mû par un seul fil, les forgerons qui battent l’enclume, le cavalier et son cheval dont la queue est un sifflet, – et le long des cabarets, au pied des arbres, faites-en hommage aux enfants inconnus et pauvres que vous rencontrerez. Vous verrez leurs yeux s’agrandir démesurément. D’abord ils n’oseront pas prendre; ils douteront de leur bonheur. Puis leurs mains agripperont vivement le cadeau, et ils s’enfuiront comme font les chats qui vont manger loin de vous le morceau que vous leur avez donné, ayant appris à se défier de l’homme. Sur une route, derrière la grille d’un vaste jardin, au bout duquel apparaissait la blancheur d’un joli château frappé par le soleil, se tenait un enfant beau et frais, habillé de ces vêtements de campagne si pleins de coquetterie. Le luxe, l’insouciance et le spectacle habituel de la richesse, rendent ces enfants-là si jolis, qu’on les croirait faits d’une autre pâte que les enfants de la médiocrité ou de la pauvreté. À côté de lui, gisait sur l’herbe un joujou splendide, aussi frais que son maître, verni, doré, vêtu d’une robe pourpre, et couvert de plumets et de verroteries. Mais l’enfant ne s’occupait pas de son joujou préféré, et voici ce qu’il regardait: De l’autre côté de la grille, sur la route, entre les chardons et les orties, il y avait un autre enfant, sale, chétif, fuligineux, un de ces marmots-parias dont un œil impartial découvrirait la beauté, si, comme l’œil du connaisseur devine une peinture idéale sous un vernis de carrossier, il le nettoyait de la répugnante patine de la misère. À travers ces barreaux symboliques séparant deux mondes, la grande route et le château, l’enfant pauvre montrait à l’enfant riche son propre joujou que celui-ci examinait avidement comme un objet rare et inconnu. Or, ce joujou, que le petit souillon agaçait, agitait et secouait dans une boîte grillée, c’était un rat vivant! Les

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parents, par économie sans doute, avaient tiré le joujou de la vie elle-même. Et les deux enfants se riaient l’un à l’autre fraternellement, avec des dents d’une égale blancheur.

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INDEX OF SOURCE AUTHORS AND TRANSLATIONS Baudelaire’s source authors Abbé Croly: 13 (note 8), 19, 21, 39, 125 (note 18).

150-153, 159, 164, 167-171, 173, 201, 208, 216. T. E. Walmisley and Doctor Cooke: 20.

John Moncure Daniel: 47-51, 151. Titles of translations Thomas De Quincey: 13, 20, 71, 74-78, 87-120, 121, 159, 164, 166, 167, 171, 172, 176, 178-81, 186-195, 201, 210, 219, 248.

‘Aventure sans pareille d’un certain Hans Pfaall’: 34. Les Aventures d’Arthur Gordon Pym: 30, 31, 38, 39.

Thomas Gray: 20, 55-57, 121, 192.

‘Bérénice’: 30, 32 (note 36).

R. W. Griswold: 47, 49.

Le Calumet de paix: 52-53.

John R. Thompson: 47, 49, 151.

‘Le Canard au ballon’: 29.

Thomas Hood: 19, 192. Henry Wadford Longfellow: 20, 52-57, 63, 121. Edgar Allan Poe: 11, 12, 13, 15, 19, 21, 29-45, 48, 52, 58, 59, 79, 81, 82, 89, 96, 97, 121, 123, 124, 130, 132, 134, 146,

‘Le Chat noir’: 30 (note 30), 49. ‘La Chute de la maison Usher’: 30, 32 (note 36), 36, 38. ‘Le Cœur révélateur’: 30.

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‘Colloque entre Monos et Una’: 30, 37.

Hiawatha, légende indienne: 52, 55, 147.

‘Conversation d’Eiros avec Charmion’: 30.

Histoires extraordinaires: 2930, 32, 33 (note 41), 81, 84. Histoires grotesques et sérieuses: 30, 35 (note 50).

‘Une Descente dans le Maelstrom’: 29. ‘Double Assassinat dans la rue Morgue’: 29, 31 (note 34), 33, 34, 39. ‘Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses œuvres’: 20, 47-52, 72. ‘Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages’: 20, 47-52, 72, 81, 151. Enfance d’Hiawatha: 20, 5255, 146. ‘Enchantements et tortures d’un mangeur d’opium’: 75, 89-91.

‘L’Homme des foules’: 30, 36, 38, 243-45. ‘L’Ile de la fée’: 30. Le Jeune Enchanteur: 13, 19, 20-29, 32, 39, 46, 47, 51, 71, 124-25, 133 (note 47), 161, 164. ‘La Lettre volée’: 29, 31 (note 34), 34. ‘Ligeia’: 29, 30, 31, 37 (note 58).

‘Le Flambeau vivant’: 20, 5760, 123, 195, 213, 227, 231, 233, 234 (note 88), 251.

Un Mangeur d’opium: 13, 15, 18, 20, 22, 25, 28, 34, 36, 52, 55, 59, 72, 74-77, 84, 85, 87120, 124, 161, 164, 166, 173177, 181-84, 187, 188, 190, 191, 193, 200, 201, 211, 212, 213, 219-222, 234, 235, 240, 243, 244, 248, 249.

Genèse d’un poëme: 30 (note 33), 33.

‘Manuscrit trouvé dans une bouteille’: 29, 37, 39.

‘Le Guignon’: 20, 48, 52, 5557, 122, 195, 213, 227, 231, 233, 234.

‘Metzengerstein’: 30, 34.

‘Eureka’: 30.

‘Morella’: 30, 31, 37.

Index

301

Nouvelles Histoires extraordinaires: 29-30, 32, 84.

‘Révélation magnétique’: 30, 34, 176, 186 (note 86), 190.

‘Ombre’: 30.

‘Le Scarabée d’or’: 29, 31, 34, 31-84.

‘Petite Discussion avec une momie’: 30. ‘Le Pont des soupirs’:19. ‘Le Portrait ovale’: 30 (note 30), 40-46.

‘Silence’: 30. ‘Les Souvenirs de M. Auguste Bedloe’: 30, 31, 37, 38. ‘La Vérité sur le cas de M. Valdemar’: 30.

‘Puissance de la parole’: 30. ‘Le Puits et le Pendule’: 30, 37.

‘William Wilson’: 30, 31, 36, 49.