Jules Laforgue and the Ironic Inheritance

JULES LA FORGUE and the Ironic Inheritance WARREN RAMSEY

New York

I9S3

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

COPYRIGHT 1953 BY OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, INC

L,brary of Congress Catalogue Card Number 53-7617

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

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

For Elzzabetb

FOREWORD

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

\111

FOREWORD

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

CONTENTS

FOREWORD, Vll

I New DImensIOns, 3

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

The Great Dream, 59

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

293

263

ILLUSTRATIONS

JULES LL\.FORGt..E

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

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

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

47

'UN CIEL DU SOIR PLUVIEUX'

Unpub/tshed verse, 1886, 99 TO EMILE,

1886

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

a

142

1886, 168

A WHEEL OF LIFE

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

28

JULES LAFORGUE and the lrome Inherttanee

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

I

New DImensIons

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

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

4

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

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

NEW DIME.... SIO},S

5

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

6

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

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

NEW DIMENSIONS

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

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

8

.

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

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

Des

9

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

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

lO

JULES LAFORGUE Al-oD THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

NEW DIMENSIONS

II

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

12

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

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

NEW DnIENsIO.... S

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

14

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

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

II

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

MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO

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

'FOR

THE EYE'S DELIGHT'

17

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

18

JLLES L>\FORGuE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

'FOR THE EYE'S DELIGHT'

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

la,

C'est la' Ces bellUx ramters de fmcurze

'I'

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

'J'AI PASsE L'AGE TIMmE'

UnpublIShed verse

19

20

JULES LAFORGUE MD THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

'FOR THE EYE'S DELIGHT'

21

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

22

JULES LAFORGUE A!\D THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

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

'FOR THE El.E'S DELIGHT'

::3

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

24

J'LLES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

'FOR THE E):E'S DELIGHT'

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

Ie ne te

CO'fmaZS

pas, mats 1e t'az reconrme'

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

z6

JuLES LO\FORGtJE MD THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

'FOR THE E'lE'S DELIGHT'

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

'riTE

DE Nl.1IT INAUGURATION DU LION DE BELFORT'

'FOR THE EYE'S DELIGHT'

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

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

30

JULES L4.FORGvE MD THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

III

Presences and Absences

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

a

32

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

33

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

H

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

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

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

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

PRESEI>.CES A" 18 he wntes to EphrusSI Countess Hacke may have had another SIde, revealed to less mnocent observers Auguste Gerard, the first of the Empress' French readers, helped compose a book of memoIrs about BerlIn In whIch the first lady-m-waItIng IS descnbed as follows 'Countess AdelaIde Hacke IS a hunchback, and though she lacks the IntellIgence that OrdInarIly distIngUIshes that breed of the human speCIes she has all of Its charactenstIc meanness Her Influence over the Empress, whom she often maltreats, 15 conSIderable She lS the Empress' alter ego, replaCIng her on every poSSIble occaslOn She lIkes Intngue, eXCItement, commotIon Her mlld VOlce has affected IntonatIons She calls everybody "my dear," assumes madonna-lIke aIrS which swear WIth her features, and secretly, mdIrectly, she undermmes the reputatIon of thIs person, speaks ill of that, gIves dIscreetly to understand hmts at the weaknesses of the shortconnngs of MIne X M A spreads her treacherous InSInUatIOns nght and left She 15 evIl WIthout suspecnng It and Injures others not out of malIce but by SImple prompnng of her nature, wInch, beIng ugly, cannot tolerate any trace of nobIlIty In her neIghbor' 14

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

70

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

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

THE GRE4T DREAM

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

72

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

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

_ ........ ~ .....""' ......._....:r

".c ...t..~

1-..._,.. ..1.. ..........

~_A

T .. _....:r ..... _l ......... t... _..... _.

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

THE GRE>\T DRE·nI

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

VI

AesthetIc Ideas

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

AESTHETIC IDEAS

75

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

76

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

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

AESTHETIC IDEAS

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

78

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

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

--

--~-

--... -----; ---------] --- -

~---

' ..h .. ro

-- ----

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

-~---r

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

- -- --- .. --

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

AESTHETIC IDE4.S

79

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

80

JULES LAFORGLE f; of realIsm because they are 'healthy' WIth equal InConsIStency Laforgue wanders from the maIn argument of hIs aesthenC5-'all keyboards are legltlmate'-because of a RomantIc InsIStence that the artlst be possessed by enthUSIaSm Free and uncontrolled as genume artlstlc expresslOn 1S WIth

AESTHETIC IDE4.S

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

88

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

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

AESfHUI(.

IOH::'

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

90

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

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

AESTHETIC IOE-\s

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

VII

LIterary CntIcism

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

LITERAR\ CRITICIS \1

93 nught have been expected from a young \\ rIter onh' a ,ear after the great man's death We are told of 'the ennUI of these perIOdIcal pavmg stones rolled do\, n from the customary SmaI, these three hundred and fifty pages of hea'Vy paper, large pnnt,' and that 'there seems to be no reason for thIs e, er to stop' But Laforgue IS duly appreclatn e of the dIsclpimed, easy rh, mes and the techrucal VIrtuOSIty "hlch male the reader 0\ erIook the paraSItiC adjectives S Hugo seatIng hunself at hIs organ even· morrung IS lIke the great Bach heapmg score on score without botherIng hImself about the consequences He has hiS BastIlle Day aspect,' but pIeces such as 'CantIque de Bephthage' ,\tIl last as long as poetry Itself One of the mterestIng passages IS the comparIson of Hugo WIth Flaubert, though It IS hardly necessary to say \\ hlch "rIter 15 favored by a CrItIC leanIng so heavIly to\\ard UnconsclOuue ames octrozs -'Ballade,' Fleurs de bonne volonte Whenever I make bold to turn my gaze WIthIn I find there, I adnut, drawn up at table Such a heterogeneous band of people As makes me wonder how they ever got m \\as aware of the diversIty Wltlun the mdlVldual, the compleXity of the SUbcOIlSClOUS mmd Smce he also beheved m the UnconSCIOUS as a spmtual pnnclple, a supeno! force dnvmg the mc:bvldual toward self-fulfillment m a SWIft succesSIOn of unpulses, he felt moved to wnte about an mdlVldual dIVIded m tIme as well as In space We have, for Instance, the emotIon and Its negatIon In the same poem, 'La Complamte de la bonne defunte,' begmrung as mgenuously as Yeats' 'Song of the Wandermg Aengus,' and endmg With a Heme-lIke dIsavowal Laforgue's l!ony, whtch spnngs from these psychologIcal depths, will be dIScussed later Oosely related to the drama of the l!ony 15 the dramatIC form of the most cbaractenstlC Complamtes In the earlIest of these the poet dId as he had done nowhere In hIS 'plulosophtcal' verse He assumed a. role, a mask 'Le PetIt hypertrophtque,' ~L'Orgaruste de

\h.,\

'·OlCf"i

119

Notre-Dame de ~lec' The"ie h neal monologue.. led naturally to dIalogues, stdl on the popular le\ e1, the 'Compl:unte de l'epou1: outrage' IS a eom ersatlon ben\ cen man and \\lfe The popular accent IS presen ed m poems \\ here \\ e can see the poet \\ orkmg hts \\3\ back to\\ ard dlstmetn e themes In the 'Comphmte de cette bonne lune' "e hear from '1 chorus of 't.iN as \\ ell as from Our Lady the \loon, and the accent of both partIes IS f.rubO'llrzen Certam dIalogues, ho\\ e\ er, 'md '\ en Import'lnt one.. (the 'Complamte des 'Ol~ SOU'i Ie figUler bouddhlquc: for e''1mple), tum about problems clm,e to the poet s heart. and lte t.Ouched In qUite un-~aturallStIc language The dramatlc dec;lgn of th.... group of Complamtes IS retamed e,"en "hen a fundament'll mtentlon, reproductIOn of popullr spech, 1 raw materlal for the fine passage 10 Dermer Vers Bref, 1'allazs me donner d'un 'Je vous azme' Quand 1e m'avtsaz non sans pezne Que d' abord 1e ne me possUms pas men moz-meme (Mon Mot, c'est Galathee aveuglant Pygmalton' Imposszble de modIfier eette SItuatIon)

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

sat

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

a

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

150

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

a

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

a

a

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

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

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

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

IRONIC

EQUILIBRIUM

15 1

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

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

154

JULES LAFaRGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

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

IRONIC EQUILIBRIUM

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

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

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

a

a

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

15 6

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

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

IRONIC EQUILIBRIUM

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

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

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

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

IRONIC EQUILIBRIUM

159

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

160

JULES LAFaRGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

IRONIC EQUILIBRIUM

I6I

Stephcrne Vasszhew has dls1Otegrated, and that noth1Og has ansen

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

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

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

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

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

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16 3

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

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

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

IRONIC EQUILIBRIUM

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

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

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

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

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

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SKETCHES, C

1886

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

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

x The Broken CItadel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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175

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

17 6

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

THE BROKEN CITADEL

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

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

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

XI

'FurtIve Foster Father'

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

'FURTIVE FOSTER FATHER'

179

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

180

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

'FURTIVE FOSTER FATHER'

lSI

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

182

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

'FURTIVE FOSTER FATHER'

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

a

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

a

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

18 4

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

'FURTIVE FOSTER FATHER'

ISS

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

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

186

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

'FURTIVE FOSTER FATHER'

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

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

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

o lost whIte

clOIsters

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

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

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

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

'FURTIVE FOSTER FATHER'

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

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

rus

I

'FURTIVE FOSTER FATHER'

191

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

XII

Irony and Legend

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

IRONY

AND LEGEND

193

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

m

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

10

comb1OatIon WIth

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

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

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

IRONY AND LEGEND

195

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

196

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

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

IRONY AND LEGEND

197

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

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

198

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

(after J

Laforgue)

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

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

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

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

IRONY AND LEGEND

199

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

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

200

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

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

IRONY AND LEGEND

20t

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

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

202

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

IRONY AND LEGEND

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

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

IRONY AND LEGEND

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

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

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207

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

208

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

IRONY AND LEGEND

209

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

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

IRONY AND LEGEND

2II

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

2I2

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

XIII

Crane and Laforgue

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

In

213

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

CRANE

AND

LAFORGUE

21 5

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

216

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

I

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

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

CRANE AND LAFORGUE

21 7

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

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

uS

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

CRANE AND LAFORGUE

21 9

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

10

lonely alleys

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

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

CRANE AND LAFORGUE

22 I

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

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

XIV

Lunar Prose Good prose

IS

founded on doubts

FRANCES NEWMAN

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

224

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

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JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

LUNAR PROSE

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

228

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

LUNAR PRoSE

229

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

230

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

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

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

232

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

xv MUSIC

of Ideas

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

233

234

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

MUSIC OF IDEAS

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

23 6

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

MUSIC

OF IDEAS

237

A WHEEL OF LIFE

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

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

23 8

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

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

MUSIC OF IDEAS

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

2.40

JULES LAFORGUE AND THE IRONIC INHERITANCE

actly contemporary wIth the German EmpIre He seems to have wntten poems that are hopelessly sentImental or uneasIly flIppant, crammed wIth undIgested Ideas And Laforgue undoubtedly ilid wnte some lll-pOlsed verse But when thIS much has been saId, only the surface has been scratched Beneath the adolescent mannensms IS the Laforgue who possessed Ehot 'hke a stronger personahty,' daemomcally, for a decade, who had an almost equal fascmatIon for Alam-Fourmer and half a dozen slgmficant French poets, who exerted, thanks to Ezra Pound, a cunous attractlOn for Amencans of qUlte dlsSlnular temperament As we look more closely at thIS undemably mfluentIal, superfiCIally bewildermg Writer, we see that each negatIve traIt co-eXisted WIth a pOSItIVe one The fashlonable peSSImISm was only extenor, the RomantIc prehmmary to genUlne mtellectual mqUlry ThIS poetry IS charged WIth mtellectual hfe Laforgue's Iromcal attItude IS, at best, the Irony WIth whIch Fichte beheved that a true poet was bound to regard rus own work, because to the extent that a work of art IS complete, ItS author must be detached from It Even as quotI 92, 100-107. :1.36, and 'dehumaruzatlon,' 6, and Laforgue'S aesthetICS, I It 77, 79, and tone ID Laforgue's verse, 61, 94. and 'Ie crepuscule du matln,' 80, language 10, S6t 104> 105, 107. I x6, temperament as seen by Laforgue, JOO, 101, ISS, and Poe, 101, and 293

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

294

INDEX

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

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

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

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

%04> 21 5, 22S, 237

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

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

295

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

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

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

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

INDEX

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

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

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

BOU'lJard et Pecuchet, 40, 'Un

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

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

Les Fleurs du mal, quoted, 4,

100,

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

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

'

Freud, Sigmund, and Hartmann 83 84

'

,

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

GautlOr, Th Rlmbaud, 94-5, Corhlere, 95-100, Baudelaire, 100-107, Germany, spleen, 108-9. 'R,' 109-II, 117, 'Ferme mes CompImmes,' III, Les Complamtes, 1 I 2-30 (see also Les Complamtes and 'Complamte ') , Hamlet, 133-4. 'AVertlSSement,' 134-5, defimtlons of Irony, 135-6, an example, 'Autre Complamte " 1,6, Iroruc eqUlhbrlum, 137, mixed words, 137-8, broademng of poetic vocabulary, 139. L'hmtat~on de Notre-Dame la Lune, 140, moon-symbohsm, 140, the PlerrOt poems, 140-49 (see also L'I~ta­ 'han ), prose wntlngs early realtsm, 159, 'Le Mtracle des roses,' 160, 'Lohengrm " X6I, 'Salome,' 161-2, 'Persee '(fusion of myths 10), 163-5, 'Hamlet " x66-9, growmg diSlIke of Germany, 170-72, Leah Lee, X717, marnage, 174, illness and death, 175-6 Prolongations, continuations 10 France reputation among SymbollStS, 180, Marcel Schwob, 18o, Gourmont, 180-81, Toulet, 181-2, Derente, t8l, Fargue, X82-

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

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

a

63-5

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

7

16-1

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

Lanson, Gustave, 92 Lautreamont, Comee de, IS, 20, x64, 2H Lawrence, D H, 218, 130, 133 Leconte de LIsle,s. 4th 233 Lelbmz, 81 Lemaitre, Jules, u Leopardl, Giacomo, S2 Lettres un ami, 32, 33- lSI. 164, 186, American reaction to, 192, compared With Laforgue by Symons, 194. 195. c:ompare 215, 231, 236 R.1vlere, Jacqueo;, 182, 185, 186, on Laforgue, 188, !lInltatlOns of 1115 crItiCIsm, 189-90 Rodm, Auguste, 10 'Rosace en vltrail,' 62, quoted, 187 RosensweIg, S'lUl, 1 I Rothschild, James von, 70 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 16, 63, 163 Ruchon, Frangols, 135, 140 Samte-Beuve, 75, 104 Samt-John Perse, 165, 233 'Salome,' 145, 160, satIre on 'Herodlas,' 161-3, 202, 221, Pound's dIvagatIon from, 226-7, 129 Sand, George, 40 Le Sanglot de Ia terre, 42, as poetry of Ideas, 43-4, 54-8, 62, 236, quoted, 46, 50, 53, 51, 60, 109. I U, U7, IF, 186, 238 Santayana, George, 203 Savonaroh, 33 Scenes de la vze de Boheme, 73 Schelhng, FrIedrIch, I h Laforgue's Notes on, 86, 88-90, powers of spmt 10 Nature, 89, subject-object IdentIty, 89, modest role of SCIence, 90, Transcendental I dealIsm, 88, 89. 235, 236 SchmId, Canon, 30 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 40, 43, pervasive mfluence of, 44, and fundamental nmeteenth-century attitudes, 44-5, popularIzatIon 10 France, 45, Schopenhauerlan Ideas In the 'Catechlsme peSSlmlste' and Le Sanglot de la terre, 46-50, 10fiuence as morahst, St, The World as Wtll and Idea (D,e Welt als W#le und V(}1'$tellung) , 45-51, quoted, 49, Parerga, 5I Schwob, Marcel, 180, 18x Shaftesbury, Thu'd Earl Qf, 86 Shakespea.re. 76, 165. 180. 202, :uS, 13 1 Shaplro, Karl, :141 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, :a: 'Sxeste etemelle,' 61·:1

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

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

30 %

INDEX

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

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

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

ISO,

152, 201, 221

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