French
Jean Cocteau
by novalark on Tuesday, June 18, 2002 05:15 pmJean Cocteau was born in Maisons-Lafitte into a wealthy Parisian family. His father was a lawyer and amateur painter who committed suicide when Cocteau was nine. Cocteau's father had a lasting influence on his son. According to psychoanalytical critics this tragic event also created his awareness of human weakness which he compensated by putting himself in the service of the performing arts and the mysterious forces in the universe. Poetry was for Cocteau the basis of all art, a "religion without hope." In the secondary school Cocteau was only a mediocre student who was unsuccessful after repeated attempts to pass the graduation examination. He published his first volume of poems, 'Aladdin's Lamp', at the age of 19.
Soon Cocteau became known as 'The Frivolous Prince' -- the title of a volume of poems he published at twenty-one. In 1915 he met Pablo Picasso and fell under his spell. "I admired his intelligence, and clung to everything he said, for he spoke little; I kept still so as not to miss a word. There were long silences and Varese could not understand why we stared wordlessly at each other. In talking, Picasso used a visual syntax, and you could immediately see what he was saying. He liked formulas and summoned himself up in his statements as he summoned himself up and sculptured himself in objects that he immediately made tangible."
In 1918, Cocteau formed an intimate friendship with a 15 year old novelist, Raymond Radiguet. Radiguet strongly influenced Cocteau's art and life. The young writer would die from typhoid fever in 1923. His death was a severe blow to Cocteau and drove him to use opium. During Cocteau's recovery from his opium addiction, the artist created some of his most important works including the stage play 'Orphee', the novel, 'Les Enfants terribles', and many long poems.
In 1954, on the death of his novelist friend Collette, Cocteau took her place in the Belgian Academy. In 1955, he was elected to the French Academy.
In 1959, Cocteau made his last film as a director, 'The Testament of Orpheus'. The elaborate home movie stars Cocteau and also features cameos from many celebrities including Pablo Picasso, Yul Brynner and Jean-Pierre Leaud.
The artist died of a heart attack at age 74 at his chateau in Milly-la-Foret, France on October 11, 1963 after hearing the news of the death of another friend, the singer Edith Piaf.
Soon Cocteau became known as 'The Frivolous Prince' -- the title of a volume of poems he published at twenty-one. In 1915 he met Pablo Picasso and fell under his spell. "I admired his intelligence, and clung to everything he said, for he spoke little; I kept still so as not to miss a word. There were long silences and Varese could not understand why we stared wordlessly at each other. In talking, Picasso used a visual syntax, and you could immediately see what he was saying. He liked formulas and summoned himself up in his statements as he summoned himself up and sculptured himself in objects that he immediately made tangible."
In 1918, Cocteau formed an intimate friendship with a 15 year old novelist, Raymond Radiguet. Radiguet strongly influenced Cocteau's art and life. The young writer would die from typhoid fever in 1923. His death was a severe blow to Cocteau and drove him to use opium. During Cocteau's recovery from his opium addiction, the artist created some of his most important works including the stage play 'Orphee', the novel, 'Les Enfants terribles', and many long poems.
In 1954, on the death of his novelist friend Collette, Cocteau took her place in the Belgian Academy. In 1955, he was elected to the French Academy.
In 1959, Cocteau made his last film as a director, 'The Testament of Orpheus'. The elaborate home movie stars Cocteau and also features cameos from many celebrities including Pablo Picasso, Yul Brynner and Jean-Pierre Leaud.
The artist died of a heart attack at age 74 at his chateau in Milly-la-Foret, France on October 11, 1963 after hearing the news of the death of another friend, the singer Edith Piaf.
L’article en Stephane Mallarme
by Gregory Severance on Monday, January 28, 2002 09:05 pmStephane Mallarme
Born: 1842
Died: 1898
January 19, 2002, Brooklyn, New York, USA: I have nothing to say about Mallarme. So I will look for some chance operations to generate a text. Look for an algorithm, as I walk home through the falling snow.
Descendre en silence Falling difficulties notes and la en not in bottles in Syphonie Les lions l'indolence the indolence dress pieds Maries le
January 19, 2002, Brooklyn, New York, USA: I have nothing to say about Mallarme. So I will look for some chance operations to generate a text. Look for an algorithm, as I walk home through the falling snow.
The text opens with an emphatic reminder of the breadth of the task: to resolve problems as to gain full benefit from this opportunity of debuts sacres du Langage, l'Anglais: Langue Contemporaine be discussed, as language can only be used, idiosyncratically. That but in the case of Mallarme it points to the intrinsic life and power of The English language is particularly suited to a study of this kind
January 19, 2002, Brooklyn, New York, USA: I have nothing to say about Mallarme. So I will look for some chance operations to generate a text. Look for an algorithm, as I walk home through the falling snow.
Qui des reves par plis n'a plus le cher grimoire, Which [linen] no longer has the dear writing of dreams in its folds, De l'horloge, pour poids suspendant Lucifer, of the [sky] clock, with Lucifer as a weight Son pere ne sait pas cela, ni le glacier Her father does not know this, nor the fierce glacier Au matin grelottant de fleurs, ses promenades, In the morning shivering with flowers, her walks Le croissant, oui le seul est au cadran de fer The crescent moon, yes the only one is on the iron dial Que, d'laissee, elle erre, et sur son ombre pas [And still] Abandoned, she wanders, and over her shadow no
Born: 1842
Died: 1898
January 19, 2002, Brooklyn, New York, USA: I have nothing to say about Mallarme. So I will look for some chance operations to generate a text. Look for an algorithm, as I walk home through the falling snow.
Descendre en silence Falling difficulties notes and la en not in bottles in Syphonie Les lions l'indolence the indolence dress pieds Maries le
January 19, 2002, Brooklyn, New York, USA: I have nothing to say about Mallarme. So I will look for some chance operations to generate a text. Look for an algorithm, as I walk home through the falling snow.
The text opens with an emphatic reminder of the breadth of the task: to resolve problems as to gain full benefit from this opportunity of debuts sacres du Langage, l'Anglais: Langue Contemporaine be discussed, as language can only be used, idiosyncratically. That but in the case of Mallarme it points to the intrinsic life and power of The English language is particularly suited to a study of this kind
January 19, 2002, Brooklyn, New York, USA: I have nothing to say about Mallarme. So I will look for some chance operations to generate a text. Look for an algorithm, as I walk home through the falling snow.
Qui des reves par plis n'a plus le cher grimoire, Which [linen] no longer has the dear writing of dreams in its folds, De l'horloge, pour poids suspendant Lucifer, of the [sky] clock, with Lucifer as a weight Son pere ne sait pas cela, ni le glacier Her father does not know this, nor the fierce glacier Au matin grelottant de fleurs, ses promenades, In the morning shivering with flowers, her walks Le croissant, oui le seul est au cadran de fer The crescent moon, yes the only one is on the iron dial Que, d'laissee, elle erre, et sur son ombre pas [And still] Abandoned, she wanders, and over her shadow no
January 19, 2002, Brooklyn, New York, USA: I have nothing to say about Mallarme. So I will look for some chance operations to generate a text. Look for an algorithm, as I walk home through the falling snow.
diminution in the level of achievement considered be no been so attracted what might have seemed a which it is the ways in which in the piece of Manet's paintings in 1874 the level of achievement considered there can be the distinctiveness of his own achievement in about its ultimate possibilities be imperfect for if to the aspiring writer him not to despair of literary that the English language is particularly rich in roots showed remarkable instance of the be no such thing as trait aux the text opens with the breadth of the task to to gain full benefit from this opportunity l'Anglais Langue Contemporaine be discussed as language can only in the case of Mallarme it points to the intrinsic of the English language is of this kind
January 19, 2002, Brooklyn, New York, USA: I have nothing to say about Mallarme. So I will look for some chance operations to generate a text. Look for an algorithm, as I walk home through the falling snow.
chez les l'aube blanche et me souviens de ton lait jadis Fenetres fenetre instrument-milk-paradise paramount In Don du music and woman her natural by staying up and greed for private
January 19, 2002, Brooklyn, New York, USA: I have nothing to say about Mallarme. So I will look for some chance operations to generate a text. Look for an algorithm, as I walk home through the falling snow.
admiration for one of his books. In short, the reader, to the cards on the table. The sweeping effects produced by the great people, this new public is never offered a straightforward and a column of silence blossoming alone in some secluded garden it the maddening traditions of Poetry from behind a hedge, from above the wall and, without letting on
SOURCES:
Robert Greer Cohn, Toward the Poems of Mallarme, expanded edition (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 70, 50, 65.
Judy Kravis, The Prose of Mallarme: The Evolution of a Literary Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), pp. 49, 78, 72.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Mallarme, or the Poet of Nothingness, trans. Ernest Sturm (University Park, Penn.: Penn State University Press, 1988), p. 60.
CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Mallarme, Stephane. Collected Poems. Trans. and with a commentary by Henry Weinfield. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1994.
Millan, Gordon. A Throw of the Dice: The Life of Stephane Mallarme. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1994.
Jean Genet
by Niblo Crosby on Friday, August 31, 2001 12:24 amJean Genet was born on December 19, 1910 in Paris, France and soon afterwards abandoned by his unmarried mother. Raised by a family of peasants, he began stealing, and getting caught, at a young age. He became accustomed to harsh reform schools as a child and easily made the transition to prison as an adult.
The seedy life of the professional small-time criminal became his theme, and he described this life with unprecedented realism. His concept of degradation as a aesthetic life-choice anticipated Herbert Huncke and William S. Burroughs, while his raw, lushly scatalogical images of common life present another window into the visions of Henry Miller.
He did not begin writing until 1942, when he wrote 'Our Lady of the Flowers' while in prison. After producing many works of brutalist prose, he began a new phase of conceptual Absurdist drama. In 1968 he made an unusual trip to America to protest the Vietnam War alongside Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Terry Southern at the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago.
Genet died on April 15, 1986 in the city of his birth, Paris.
Online excerpts from his writings can be experienced at the Jean Genet Page.
The seedy life of the professional small-time criminal became his theme, and he described this life with unprecedented realism. His concept of degradation as a aesthetic life-choice anticipated Herbert Huncke and William S. Burroughs, while his raw, lushly scatalogical images of common life present another window into the visions of Henry Miller.
He did not begin writing until 1942, when he wrote 'Our Lady of the Flowers' while in prison. After producing many works of brutalist prose, he began a new phase of conceptual Absurdist drama. In 1968 he made an unusual trip to America to protest the Vietnam War alongside Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Terry Southern at the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago.
Genet died on April 15, 1986 in the city of his birth, Paris.
Online excerpts from his writings can be experienced at the Jean Genet Page.
Henry Miller
by dwim on Thursday, August 16, 2001 01:23 am
Henry Miller was born on December 26, 1891 in the Yorkville section of Manhattan to first generation German-Americans. It was his mother, Louise, who spurned the writer and the rebel in him. She beat up his sister for the "crime" of being retarded, scolded his father for being a dreamy alcoholic, and hid Henry's typewriter in a closet to hide the embarrassment of having a writer for a son. His childhood was not easy. He was a great reader, reciting Old Testament stories out loud even before he stared elementary school. He graduated second in his class from Eastern District High School in Brooklyn.
He dropped out of City College after two months because he didn't like the reading list they gave him. "If I had to read stuff like that," he said, referring to 'Fairee Queene' by Spenser, "I give up." He went to work at a series of jobs he found himself unsuitable for.
Henry Murger: La Vie De Boheme
by Niblo Crosby on Wednesday, July 4, 2001 02:18 pm
Henry Murger is barely remembered in literary circles today, but he wrote one of the most culturally influential works of all time. Scenes de la Vie de Boheme (Scenes of the Bohemian Life) popularized the idea of the Bohemian: the prototypically rebellious and indifferent young starving artist living on the left bank of Paris.
Murger was born in Paris in 1822, the son of a tailor. His born name was Henri Murger, though he later chose to distinguish himself by modifying the spelling of his first name, as well as placing a meaningless "umlaut" over the "u" in his last name.
He explored various potential careers as a young man. He labored as a messenger boy for a lawyer, experimented with painting and poetry and served as secretary to a mysterious Russian diplomat, Count Tolstoy, during the exciting revolutionary year of 1848. It is still not clear what political activities this Count may have engaged in, and what part young Murger may have played in them.
Mainly, though, Murger was a struggling artist and writer, and he had many friends in the same class, including such notable or soon-to-be notable figures as Champfleury, Nadar and Baudelaire. One group of literary aspirants Murger was close to went around calling themselves the "Water Drinkers", a sarcastic reference to the fact that they could not afford more expensive drinks.
A small newspaper called the "Corsaire-Satan" allowed Murger to begin writing articles about contemporary life, and it is here that he began the series that would later form the basis of his famous novel.
A good starving artist must be filled with revulsion and doubt about his own choices, and Murger was. His early writings and correspondences show much distaste for his friends and for his own lifestyle, and this ambivalence to Bohemian culture gave his articles in the "Corsaire-Satan" a richness and depth that a more superficial participant in this lifestyle could not have captured.
Murger's "Scenes" were noticed but not particularly successful. The big break came in 1849 when a successful play was launched based on these sketches. They were published in book form for the first time in 1851, but the play was more successful and well-known in Murger's time than any of the prose forms of the work.
Most of the characters in Scenes de la Vie de la Boheme were based on his friends and associates. Mimi and Musette were, in real life, Lucille Louvet (who died in 1848) and Marie-Christine Roux.
As often happens to the ambivalently famous, Murger allowed his newfound literary stature to wane. He got sick and died in 1861, poor and unhappy, at the young age of 38.
It is interesting to note how Murger's career would be mirrored a hundred years later by that of Jack Kerouac. Both writers drew highly honest, searingly critical sketches of their "crazy friends" and their own debauched lives. But in both cases the intended ambivalence was ignored and the lifestyle was popularly celebrated, labelled and packaged as a one-word cliche.
However, Murger's own persona never achieved the mythic status of Kerouac's. Today he is mainly remembered in the popular imagination as the author of the original work upon which Puccini's opera La Boheme is based.
His final words were "No more music! No more alarums! No more Bohemia!" Little did he know.
Marcel Proust
by dwim on Monday, June 18, 2001 02:21 pmMarcel Proust was born on July 10th, 1871 in Auteuil, France, a suburb of Paris. His father, a doctor well known for his work in epidermiology, was married to a stockbroker's daughter of Jewish descent. Marcel was sick from the time he was born, and from the age of nine began suffering from severe asthma, which harmed his chances for a conventional professional career.
In the 1890's he contributed sketches to magazines such as "Le Figaro" and "Le Banquet." He published "Pleasures and Days," a collection of short stories, poetry, and essays, in 1896. His very active social life led to acquaintances with members of the wealthy and aristocratic classes. In 1894, he began an affair with a pianist, Reynaldo Hahn, which prompted him to realize his homosexual tendencies, a realization that came with anguish.
In 1898, Emile Zola published a letter defending Colonel Dreyfus, who was facing charges of treason. Proust became known as "the first Dreyfusard," an identification he welcomed. By the time Dreyfus was cleared of the charges, Proust's social life was already shattered due to anti-Semitism and political hatred.
Proust spent time in a sanitorium in 1905, after the death of his mother. His health failing, he withdrew himself from society and devoted his time to writing. In 1913 he published a piece called "Swann's Way," which would turn out to be the first installment of a larger series that would become his masterwork.
Another installment, "Within a Budding Grove," was published in 1919. This won the Goncourt Prize and, along with it, instanteous fame and recognition. "The Guermantes Way" and "Sodom and Gomorrah" were published in his lifetime before Proust passed away on November 18th, 1922. The reamining volumes in what was to become known as "In Search of Lost Time" (also known as "Remembrance of Things Past") were published shortly after his death: "The Captive" in 1923, "The Fugitive" in 1925, and, finally, "Time Regained," in 1927.
I have only read one book of his, "The Captive," and I intend to start reading "The Fugitive" shortly. I don't think he's easy to read. I became aware of Proust after the second reading of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," noticing that Dean Moriarty seems to be reading his works from time to time. Towards the end of the book, Sal imagines Dean to be reading it on a train while crossing the continent in search of him. It also seems to me, having read "The First Third" by Neal Cassady (the real-life figure upon which Dean Moriarty is based), that Neal followed the Proustian style and theory of writing.
In the 1890's he contributed sketches to magazines such as "Le Figaro" and "Le Banquet." He published "Pleasures and Days," a collection of short stories, poetry, and essays, in 1896. His very active social life led to acquaintances with members of the wealthy and aristocratic classes. In 1894, he began an affair with a pianist, Reynaldo Hahn, which prompted him to realize his homosexual tendencies, a realization that came with anguish.
In 1898, Emile Zola published a letter defending Colonel Dreyfus, who was facing charges of treason. Proust became known as "the first Dreyfusard," an identification he welcomed. By the time Dreyfus was cleared of the charges, Proust's social life was already shattered due to anti-Semitism and political hatred.
Proust spent time in a sanitorium in 1905, after the death of his mother. His health failing, he withdrew himself from society and devoted his time to writing. In 1913 he published a piece called "Swann's Way," which would turn out to be the first installment of a larger series that would become his masterwork.
Another installment, "Within a Budding Grove," was published in 1919. This won the Goncourt Prize and, along with it, instanteous fame and recognition. "The Guermantes Way" and "Sodom and Gomorrah" were published in his lifetime before Proust passed away on November 18th, 1922. The reamining volumes in what was to become known as "In Search of Lost Time" (also known as "Remembrance of Things Past") were published shortly after his death: "The Captive" in 1923, "The Fugitive" in 1925, and, finally, "Time Regained," in 1927.
I have only read one book of his, "The Captive," and I intend to start reading "The Fugitive" shortly. I don't think he's easy to read. I became aware of Proust after the second reading of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," noticing that Dean Moriarty seems to be reading his works from time to time. Towards the end of the book, Sal imagines Dean to be reading it on a train while crossing the continent in search of him. It also seems to me, having read "The First Third" by Neal Cassady (the real-life figure upon which Dean Moriarty is based), that Neal followed the Proustian style and theory of writing.
Charles Baudelaire
by Niblo Crosby on Tuesday, April 3, 2001 11:10 pmCharles-Pierre Baudelaire was born into a comfortable middle-class family in Paris, France on April 9, 1821. The story of his life apparently hinges on a trauma he suffered as a young boy, according to his own description (later commentators, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, would agree with this self-analysis).
His father died when he was five. He was an only child, and he and his mother banded together and became very close in the year that followed. This closeness was suddenly shattered when his attractive young mother met and married a French soldier.
Apparently the arrival of his new stepfather planted the seeds of perversity, anger and desperation he would go on to express in both his writing and in his life decisions. He nurtured a Hamlet-like, deliciously rich self-hatred that would energize his poems at the same time that it sabotaged his career. He was a great poet but never a successful one, and his frustrated life expresses the same philosophy of eternal spiritual conflict that emerges from his words.
As an adolescent his poetry experiments were derided as overly weird, and he attempted to study law until, at the age of twenty-one, he received a large inheritance that promised to make him financially independent. He entered Paris party life with a vengeance, spending a tremendous amount of money on various indulgences from fine clothing (he was a fastidious dresser, in certain moods) to opium and prostitutes.
Soon he had spent so much of the inheritance that his mother and stepfather sued to remove his control over his own finances, putting him on a small monthly retainer that destroyed his spirited party routine.
His poetic abilities sprung to life when he discovered the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was the greatest influence on Baudelaire, and Baudelaire translated his works into French and worked hard to promote his reputation (which, to this day, like that of Jerry Lewis, remains higher in France than elsewhere).
The radical politics of mid-19th Century Europe excited him, but conviction was impossible to sustain. In 1865 he wrote: "Yes! Hurrah for the Revolution! Always! In spite of all! But me, I am no dupe, I have never been a dupe. I cry Hurrah for the Republic the way I would cry Hurrah for Destruction! Hurrah for Expiation! Hurrah for Punishment! Hurrah for Death!".
His most important work of poetry was a sprawling volume called "The Flowers of Evil", originally published in 1857. These poems are as sinister and chillingly gothic as Poe's, but they have the added subliminal power of free verse poetry. He writes alarmingly of the Satanic underpinnings of everyday life, and posits boredom as an evil more monstrous than any other. "The Flowers of Evil" was immediately banned, but unlike later writers who cleverly spun their censorship battles into greater fame (like Henry Miller and Allen Ginsberg), Baudelaire seemed to crumble and give up.
It was not easy being a "Goth" in the mid 19th Century. Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor have recording contracts, and Yizrael Abyss at least has friends and a video camera. Their 19th Century predecessors had nothing but their own dark visions to subsist on. In America, Edgar Allen Poe died a lonely death, impoverished and diseased. In Europe, his greatest fan Charles Baudelaire died in the same fashion. Briefly staying in Brussels, he was hospitalized for paralysis and other complications of syphilis, and died on August 31, 1867.
Neither Poe nor Baudelaire had any reason to expect to be appreciated by future generations at the times of their deaths. Baudelaire would be immediately celebrated by the next generation of poets, the Symbolists like Rimbaud and Verlaine.
When I read Baudelaire for the first time, my first surprise was that T. S. Eliot had so obviously borrowed his poetic voice directly from this source. I'd known that Eliot was inspired by the Symbolists, but I hadn't realized the extent of the influence, especially on Eliot's phrasing. But Eliot lived the comfortable life of a successful literary master. Baudelaire, the original hypocrite lecteur, had no comfort except that of revenge. He'd promised himself a miserable life at the age of seven, and he kept the promise.
His father died when he was five. He was an only child, and he and his mother banded together and became very close in the year that followed. This closeness was suddenly shattered when his attractive young mother met and married a French soldier.
Apparently the arrival of his new stepfather planted the seeds of perversity, anger and desperation he would go on to express in both his writing and in his life decisions. He nurtured a Hamlet-like, deliciously rich self-hatred that would energize his poems at the same time that it sabotaged his career. He was a great poet but never a successful one, and his frustrated life expresses the same philosophy of eternal spiritual conflict that emerges from his words.
As an adolescent his poetry experiments were derided as overly weird, and he attempted to study law until, at the age of twenty-one, he received a large inheritance that promised to make him financially independent. He entered Paris party life with a vengeance, spending a tremendous amount of money on various indulgences from fine clothing (he was a fastidious dresser, in certain moods) to opium and prostitutes.
Soon he had spent so much of the inheritance that his mother and stepfather sued to remove his control over his own finances, putting him on a small monthly retainer that destroyed his spirited party routine.
His poetic abilities sprung to life when he discovered the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was the greatest influence on Baudelaire, and Baudelaire translated his works into French and worked hard to promote his reputation (which, to this day, like that of Jerry Lewis, remains higher in France than elsewhere).
The radical politics of mid-19th Century Europe excited him, but conviction was impossible to sustain. In 1865 he wrote: "Yes! Hurrah for the Revolution! Always! In spite of all! But me, I am no dupe, I have never been a dupe. I cry Hurrah for the Republic the way I would cry Hurrah for Destruction! Hurrah for Expiation! Hurrah for Punishment! Hurrah for Death!".
His most important work of poetry was a sprawling volume called "The Flowers of Evil", originally published in 1857. These poems are as sinister and chillingly gothic as Poe's, but they have the added subliminal power of free verse poetry. He writes alarmingly of the Satanic underpinnings of everyday life, and posits boredom as an evil more monstrous than any other. "The Flowers of Evil" was immediately banned, but unlike later writers who cleverly spun their censorship battles into greater fame (like Henry Miller and Allen Ginsberg), Baudelaire seemed to crumble and give up.
It was not easy being a "Goth" in the mid 19th Century. Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor have recording contracts, and Yizrael Abyss at least has friends and a video camera. Their 19th Century predecessors had nothing but their own dark visions to subsist on. In America, Edgar Allen Poe died a lonely death, impoverished and diseased. In Europe, his greatest fan Charles Baudelaire died in the same fashion. Briefly staying in Brussels, he was hospitalized for paralysis and other complications of syphilis, and died on August 31, 1867.
Neither Poe nor Baudelaire had any reason to expect to be appreciated by future generations at the times of their deaths. Baudelaire would be immediately celebrated by the next generation of poets, the Symbolists like Rimbaud and Verlaine.
When I read Baudelaire for the first time, my first surprise was that T. S. Eliot had so obviously borrowed his poetic voice directly from this source. I'd known that Eliot was inspired by the Symbolists, but I hadn't realized the extent of the influence, especially on Eliot's phrasing. But Eliot lived the comfortable life of a successful literary master. Baudelaire, the original hypocrite lecteur, had no comfort except that of revenge. He'd promised himself a miserable life at the age of seven, and he kept the promise.
Paul Verlaine
by Levi Asher on Sunday, April 1, 2001 03:16 pmPaul-Marie Verlaine was born March 30, 1844 in the town of Metz on the Eastern border of France. His father, a French army officer, brought the family to Paris when Paul-Marie was seven years old.
As a young man, Verlaine made several attempts at a normal life, studying law for a couple of years, working as an insurance clerk. He married a young woman named Mathilde in 1870, and they had a son, Georges. He socialized in "bohemian" crowds as well as at more upper-class salons. He became fascinated with the poetry of Baudelaire, and worked with a publisher to arrange the publication of his own first volume, "Poemes Saturniens," in 1866.
Verlaine's sardonic, wistful early work had much in common with the impressionist art that was being invented elsewhere in Paris at the same time. His poems were neat, sparse miniatures of life's moments: first kisses, seashells, mimes on the street.
But Verlaine was uniquely open to the influences of his surroundings, and would soon evolve his style, and his life, through several phases. When Paris fell into revolutionary havoc in 1870, Paul Verlaine cast his lot with the Commune, and worked as a censor with the radical improvised government that held the city for only a brief time.
His next phase was completely apolitical. He received a letter from an unknown teenage poet named Rimbaud in 1871. Verlaine recognized Rimbaud's poetic talent and despite the fact that he was apparently heterosexual (or at least had been up to this time) fell madly in love with him. The two poets travelled together for a short time, and Verlaine helped Rimbaud become a literary celebrity in Paris. But when it became clear that Rimbaud was going to move on and leave Verlaine behind, the older poet could not stand the loss. A series of bitter fights ensued, and Verlaine ended up firing a gun at Rimbaud, injuring his wrist. Rimbaud pressed charges, sending Verlaine to prison for two years, before fleeing the world of literary fame in disgust.
After two years in jail Verlaine went through a Catholic phase, experimented with farming, and in 1881 published a book of mature, spiritually conservative book of poetry, "Sagesse" ("Wisdom"), that sold better than any of his previous books and greatly increased his literary reputation.
But he would return to darker themes. He spent his later years drinking absinthe in Paris cafes and behaving bizarrely in front of admiring crowds. In 1894, two years before his death, he published a volume entitled "The Posthumous Book". His poetry became increasingly self-referential, and the cliched image of the absinthe-soaked celebrity poet became the central theme of his work. He died on January 8, 1896 at the home of a prostitute.
To read Verlaine's poetry from any of his life phases is a pleasing and enjoyable revelation. His life story seems fierce and self-indulgent, but his verses always betray a humble, affectionate touch and a humane sense of life. I once chose a book of original Verlaine poems printed alongside their English translations to teach myself French; his vocabulary is simple and the meanings are always clear.
Bob Dylan memorialized Verlaine, humorously, by alluding to his famously ruinous love affair on the album "Blood on the Tracks":
"Situations have ended sad
relationships have all been bad
mine have been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud's".
In the mid 1970's a punk musician named Tom Miller, soon to be in a punk band called Television, also memorialized Paul Verlaine by changing his name to Tom Verlaine.
As a young man, Verlaine made several attempts at a normal life, studying law for a couple of years, working as an insurance clerk. He married a young woman named Mathilde in 1870, and they had a son, Georges. He socialized in "bohemian" crowds as well as at more upper-class salons. He became fascinated with the poetry of Baudelaire, and worked with a publisher to arrange the publication of his own first volume, "Poemes Saturniens," in 1866.
Verlaine's sardonic, wistful early work had much in common with the impressionist art that was being invented elsewhere in Paris at the same time. His poems were neat, sparse miniatures of life's moments: first kisses, seashells, mimes on the street.
But Verlaine was uniquely open to the influences of his surroundings, and would soon evolve his style, and his life, through several phases. When Paris fell into revolutionary havoc in 1870, Paul Verlaine cast his lot with the Commune, and worked as a censor with the radical improvised government that held the city for only a brief time.
His next phase was completely apolitical. He received a letter from an unknown teenage poet named Rimbaud in 1871. Verlaine recognized Rimbaud's poetic talent and despite the fact that he was apparently heterosexual (or at least had been up to this time) fell madly in love with him. The two poets travelled together for a short time, and Verlaine helped Rimbaud become a literary celebrity in Paris. But when it became clear that Rimbaud was going to move on and leave Verlaine behind, the older poet could not stand the loss. A series of bitter fights ensued, and Verlaine ended up firing a gun at Rimbaud, injuring his wrist. Rimbaud pressed charges, sending Verlaine to prison for two years, before fleeing the world of literary fame in disgust.
After two years in jail Verlaine went through a Catholic phase, experimented with farming, and in 1881 published a book of mature, spiritually conservative book of poetry, "Sagesse" ("Wisdom"), that sold better than any of his previous books and greatly increased his literary reputation.
But he would return to darker themes. He spent his later years drinking absinthe in Paris cafes and behaving bizarrely in front of admiring crowds. In 1894, two years before his death, he published a volume entitled "The Posthumous Book". His poetry became increasingly self-referential, and the cliched image of the absinthe-soaked celebrity poet became the central theme of his work. He died on January 8, 1896 at the home of a prostitute.
To read Verlaine's poetry from any of his life phases is a pleasing and enjoyable revelation. His life story seems fierce and self-indulgent, but his verses always betray a humble, affectionate touch and a humane sense of life. I once chose a book of original Verlaine poems printed alongside their English translations to teach myself French; his vocabulary is simple and the meanings are always clear.
Bob Dylan memorialized Verlaine, humorously, by alluding to his famously ruinous love affair on the album "Blood on the Tracks":
"Situations have ended sad
relationships have all been bad
mine have been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud's".
In the mid 1970's a punk musician named Tom Miller, soon to be in a punk band called Television, also memorialized Paul Verlaine by changing his name to Tom Verlaine.
La Boheme
by Levi Asher on Sunday, April 1, 2001 01:09 pmIt takes courage to break rules. The various experimental, counter-cultural or otherwise Bohemian literary movements of 19th Century Europe found this courage by banding into tribes. It is particularly impossible to study the works of seminal French poets like Baudelaire, Verlaine or Rimbaud without feeling smothered by labels, cross-groupings, re-definitions of previous boundaries and other contemporary attempts to define their right to create free verse about honest feelings.
The purpose of this page is to describe the actual meanings of the various groupings below, and as much as possible to understand the origins of the terms and the meanings they help to those who, whether voluntarily or not, were known by these names.
Romantics
The Romantic movement originated in late 18th Century England, and is primarily identified with English writers such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The Romantic "craze" was well known in France, though, and certainly helped to inspire some of the French crazes that would follow.
"Romantic poetry" does not indicate goofy verses about roses, violets and hearts. Rather, it evokes the medieval literary form known as the "romance", a popular, exciting type of story that usually described the heroic and tragic adventures of ancient lovers with names like Tristan, Isolde, Floire, Blanceflor or Havelock the Dane.
The idea of a return to the literary simplicity and immediacy of medieval romances must be understood as a revolt against the modern, rational, scientific style of life in post-medieval, "enlightened" Europe. A medieval romance stressed emotion over logic, and was typically written in a vernacular language (such as Italian) rather than a classical language such as Greek or Latin. The poets of the late 18th Century and early 19th Century felt oppressed by classical influence and wanted to plumb the murky depths of human experience rather than waft upwards to intellectual or rational heights.
The romantic revolt against classicism calls to mind other artistic movements based on regression to more pleasing, less lofty forms, such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez's evocation of Guthrie-era folk in the age of "rock and roll", or Picasso and Braque's employment of African primitive art forms in their first cubist paintings.
For many decades, the Romantics were exclusively British. The first were Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, quickly followed William Blake and then by an amazingly attractive new generation of wild Romantics, Lord Byron, Percy Byshhe Shelly and Mary Shelley (the Peter, Paul and Mary of British poetry) and John Keats, all of whom became personal celebrities as well as major poets.
The boundaries of Romanticism could not be contained by England, though. Later writers known as Romantics included Victor Hugo ("Les Miserables") and Stendhal in France, Pushkin in Russia, and even Ralph Waldo Emerson and the other Transcendentalists in America.
Decadents
Though the group of French poets we are mainly concerned with here are often now known as Symbolists, the term "Symbolist" was consciously created to replace a word they were already known by, which had less healthy connotations. Charles Baudelaire was frequently called a "Decadent" poet, particularly when his works were being banned and his character assassinated. In the late 19th Century a group of writers including Jules LaForgue tried to embrace this term, and a review called Le Decadent went into print.
Parnassians
Mt. Parnassus, in the Pindus range in central Greece, was sacred to Apollo, the God of the Sun. A group of French writers, including the poet Leconte de Lisle, claimed inspiration from this mountain, and began to call themselves the Parnassians. Like the British Romantics, they were a freethinking and intellectually adventurous group, but they stressed the importance of order, tradition and technical excellence in poetry, and in this sense were seen as less radical and more "mainstream" than the original Romantics. The term "Parnassian" is not widely known today, but the influence of this group was very present in the the intellectual circles of this era. A popular journal known as Le Parnasse Contemporain was launched in 1866.
Symbolists
Naturally, the Parnassian's lukewarm rejection of Romantic extremities produced a virulent rejection in reverse. The best (though not the most successful) poets of the time, such as Paul Verlaine and Stephan Mallarme, felt oppressed by the bland perfectionism of the Parnassian crowd, and proudly threw off the Decadent label to proclaim themselves Symbolists in 1866. On September 18 of this year, a manifesto to this effect, composed by the poet Jean Moreas, was published in the Le Figaro. This is the label these poets are typically known by today.
The term "Symbolist" refers to a literature that stresses indirect suggestions, emotional shadings and ironic references in place of direct and intelligible statements. The idea of "symbolism" may best be understood as something akin to Freudian or Jungian psychology. An image from a dream is an example of the kind of symbol these poets considered valuable. As in the original tenets of Romanticism, literature is reaching into murky depths, plumbing the subconscious, and submitting to the moral and spiritual void that may (or may not) be found there.
Bohemians
The final term we must discuss is perhaps the most confusing in that it refers to an actual nation, Bohemia, which had virtually nothing to do with the literary or cultural movement that borrowed its name. Bohemia, a minor Eastern European kingdom caught between larger kingdoms, ceased to exist after World War I, when it was absorbed into Czechoslovakia (the Bohemian lands, including the city of Praque, are now a part of Czech Republic). In Western Europe, the term "Bohemian" was often incorrectly used to refer to Gypsies, even though Gypsies are now known to have emerged from somewhere within the Middle East, which is nowhere near the Czech Republic.
The first usage of the term "Bohemian" (meaning, literally, "Gypsy") to refer to the disaffected and impoverished young artists and students of Paris has been traced to a popular French journalist and dramatist, Felix Pyat, who wrote a series of essays about "kids today" in a publication called Nouveau Tableau de Paris au XIX Siecle in 1834. He described this personality type as "alien and bizarre ... outside the law, beyond the reaches of society ... they are the Bohemians of today."
The term did not catch on in a huge way, though, until 1845 when a writer named Henry Murger, himself a bohemian (and the model for his own character Rodolphe), began producing a series of stories about himself and his friends for a small Paris newspaper called Le Corsaire-Satan. These stories were later collected in book form and staged as a play, Scenes de la vie de Boheme, which was a tremendous hit and an almost unbelievably definitive influence on French society. Today this play is mainly known as the source of the Puccini opera 'La Boheme', but the opera was not introduced until 1896, when the Bohemian youth movement had already been old news for decades.
I have no idea how any of this relates to the Queen song "Bohemian Rhapsody".
The purpose of this page is to describe the actual meanings of the various groupings below, and as much as possible to understand the origins of the terms and the meanings they help to those who, whether voluntarily or not, were known by these names.
Romantics
The Romantic movement originated in late 18th Century England, and is primarily identified with English writers such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The Romantic "craze" was well known in France, though, and certainly helped to inspire some of the French crazes that would follow.
"Romantic poetry" does not indicate goofy verses about roses, violets and hearts. Rather, it evokes the medieval literary form known as the "romance", a popular, exciting type of story that usually described the heroic and tragic adventures of ancient lovers with names like Tristan, Isolde, Floire, Blanceflor or Havelock the Dane.
The idea of a return to the literary simplicity and immediacy of medieval romances must be understood as a revolt against the modern, rational, scientific style of life in post-medieval, "enlightened" Europe. A medieval romance stressed emotion over logic, and was typically written in a vernacular language (such as Italian) rather than a classical language such as Greek or Latin. The poets of the late 18th Century and early 19th Century felt oppressed by classical influence and wanted to plumb the murky depths of human experience rather than waft upwards to intellectual or rational heights.
The romantic revolt against classicism calls to mind other artistic movements based on regression to more pleasing, less lofty forms, such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez's evocation of Guthrie-era folk in the age of "rock and roll", or Picasso and Braque's employment of African primitive art forms in their first cubist paintings.
For many decades, the Romantics were exclusively British. The first were Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, quickly followed William Blake and then by an amazingly attractive new generation of wild Romantics, Lord Byron, Percy Byshhe Shelly and Mary Shelley (the Peter, Paul and Mary of British poetry) and John Keats, all of whom became personal celebrities as well as major poets.
The boundaries of Romanticism could not be contained by England, though. Later writers known as Romantics included Victor Hugo ("Les Miserables") and Stendhal in France, Pushkin in Russia, and even Ralph Waldo Emerson and the other Transcendentalists in America.
Decadents
Though the group of French poets we are mainly concerned with here are often now known as Symbolists, the term "Symbolist" was consciously created to replace a word they were already known by, which had less healthy connotations. Charles Baudelaire was frequently called a "Decadent" poet, particularly when his works were being banned and his character assassinated. In the late 19th Century a group of writers including Jules LaForgue tried to embrace this term, and a review called Le Decadent went into print.
Parnassians
Mt. Parnassus, in the Pindus range in central Greece, was sacred to Apollo, the God of the Sun. A group of French writers, including the poet Leconte de Lisle, claimed inspiration from this mountain, and began to call themselves the Parnassians. Like the British Romantics, they were a freethinking and intellectually adventurous group, but they stressed the importance of order, tradition and technical excellence in poetry, and in this sense were seen as less radical and more "mainstream" than the original Romantics. The term "Parnassian" is not widely known today, but the influence of this group was very present in the the intellectual circles of this era. A popular journal known as Le Parnasse Contemporain was launched in 1866.
Symbolists
Naturally, the Parnassian's lukewarm rejection of Romantic extremities produced a virulent rejection in reverse. The best (though not the most successful) poets of the time, such as Paul Verlaine and Stephan Mallarme, felt oppressed by the bland perfectionism of the Parnassian crowd, and proudly threw off the Decadent label to proclaim themselves Symbolists in 1866. On September 18 of this year, a manifesto to this effect, composed by the poet Jean Moreas, was published in the Le Figaro. This is the label these poets are typically known by today.
The term "Symbolist" refers to a literature that stresses indirect suggestions, emotional shadings and ironic references in place of direct and intelligible statements. The idea of "symbolism" may best be understood as something akin to Freudian or Jungian psychology. An image from a dream is an example of the kind of symbol these poets considered valuable. As in the original tenets of Romanticism, literature is reaching into murky depths, plumbing the subconscious, and submitting to the moral and spiritual void that may (or may not) be found there.
Bohemians
The final term we must discuss is perhaps the most confusing in that it refers to an actual nation, Bohemia, which had virtually nothing to do with the literary or cultural movement that borrowed its name. Bohemia, a minor Eastern European kingdom caught between larger kingdoms, ceased to exist after World War I, when it was absorbed into Czechoslovakia (the Bohemian lands, including the city of Praque, are now a part of Czech Republic). In Western Europe, the term "Bohemian" was often incorrectly used to refer to Gypsies, even though Gypsies are now known to have emerged from somewhere within the Middle East, which is nowhere near the Czech Republic.
The first usage of the term "Bohemian" (meaning, literally, "Gypsy") to refer to the disaffected and impoverished young artists and students of Paris has been traced to a popular French journalist and dramatist, Felix Pyat, who wrote a series of essays about "kids today" in a publication called Nouveau Tableau de Paris au XIX Siecle in 1834. He described this personality type as "alien and bizarre ... outside the law, beyond the reaches of society ... they are the Bohemians of today."
The term did not catch on in a huge way, though, until 1845 when a writer named Henry Murger, himself a bohemian (and the model for his own character Rodolphe), began producing a series of stories about himself and his friends for a small Paris newspaper called Le Corsaire-Satan. These stories were later collected in book form and staged as a play, Scenes de la vie de Boheme, which was a tremendous hit and an almost unbelievably definitive influence on French society. Today this play is mainly known as the source of the Puccini opera 'La Boheme', but the opera was not introduced until 1896, when the Bohemian youth movement had already been old news for decades.
I have no idea how any of this relates to the Queen song "Bohemian Rhapsody".
Arthur Rimbaud
by Meg Wise-Lawrence on Tuesday, October 1, 1996 02:13 pm
Jean-Nicholas-Arthur Rimbaud was born on October 20, 1854 at Charleville in provincial France. His family was abandoned by their father and forced into poverty. Intrigued by the conditions, the young Rimbaud would sneak out and play with the neighborhood children. His mother, horrified that her children might become coarsened, found the means to move her brood from the worst to the best part of town.
Madame Rimbaud showed little affection to her children, instead focusing her ambitions on her two sons. Forbidden to play with other boys, Rimbaud immersed himself in his studies. Stimulated by a yearning for more in life, he became a gifted student.
