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Acolyte, v. 3, issue 1, whole no. 9, Winter 1945
Page 4
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EDGAR POE AND THE FRENCH PARNASSIANS Translated from the French of Leon Lemonnier by Harry Warner, Jr. -o0o- Repeated allusions to the influence of Edgar Poe on both Baudelaire and the first symbolists make it seem fitting to consider the intermediate bond, and to study the connections between Poe and the French Parnassians. If Poe and Baudelaire have remained so closely associated in the memory of the French reading public, certainly it is in no small part due to Gautier. In the obituary that he devotes to Baudelaire in the Moniteur, Gautier speaks at length of Poe; the following year, in his Report on the Progress of Letters, he resumes the task. But most particularly through his edition of the complete works of Baudelaire did Gautier publicly emphasize Poe's importance. He closely united the two men in his preface; with the result that for fifty years, so long as the copyright of Calmann-Levy endured, readers of The Flowers of Evil noticed these remarks. It cannot be doubted that this incited them to read the works of the American. And if it be noted that they occupy three of the seven volumes of the Complete Works of Baudelaire, it will be realised that Gauteir has sent both men forward toward toward glory together. Thanks to him, the work of Edgar Poe has been embalmed in that of Baudelaire, like a strange insect in rare amber. Nor was this done solely from respect to Baudelaire and his well-known admiration for the American. Gautier himself shared that admiration. How much influence Poe exercised on his fantastic tales we shall demonstrate elsewhere. In the roll of poet as well, he has adopted the aesthetic doctrine of Poe. Did not Gautier himself, in his first prefaces and particularly in that for Mademoiselle de Maupin, proclaim the cult of art for art's sake? And he still repeated these principles of his youth two decades later, in the manifesto that announced publication of The Artist, and in his poem on Art. Through psychological reasons quite dissimilar to those of Poe, Gautier arrived at this philosophy independently. Frequenting painters and sculptors, a painter himself, it was in the practise of the plastic arts that he came to feel that art should be free and untrammeled. In Poe's case, this same idea came from an inherent tendency toward aimless dreaming, and from the ecstacy that his logical mind had systematically elaborated. Like Baudelaire, and thanks to him, Gautier was immediately carried away by Poe's doctrine; it brought a psychological foundation and a formal rigidity to what had never been for him anything but a manner of feeling. And in the preface to The Flowers of Evil, he does not spare his admiration. But he shows unskillfulness; he can only repeat, without even paraphrasing, and contents himself with quoting a passage which he believes to be Baudelaire's, but which Baudelaire had borrowed from Poe without definitely acknowledging his debt Thus he shows his powerlessness to re-phrase for himself Poe's aesthetics. II Banville, on the contrary, was able to take inspiration, assimilate, and at length comprehend without servilely repeating. His own aesthetics presented marked similarities to those of Poe. As early as 1845, in verses that are among his loveliest, he had thus described poetry: And captive forever in the inflexible rhythm, It endlessly strives to rise up to heaven... And tries, its eye lost among the open skies -- 4 --
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EDGAR POE AND THE FRENCH PARNASSIANS Translated from the French of Leon Lemonnier by Harry Warner, Jr. -o0o- Repeated allusions to the influence of Edgar Poe on both Baudelaire and the first symbolists make it seem fitting to consider the intermediate bond, and to study the connections between Poe and the French Parnassians. If Poe and Baudelaire have remained so closely associated in the memory of the French reading public, certainly it is in no small part due to Gautier. In the obituary that he devotes to Baudelaire in the Moniteur, Gautier speaks at length of Poe; the following year, in his Report on the Progress of Letters, he resumes the task. But most particularly through his edition of the complete works of Baudelaire did Gautier publicly emphasize Poe's importance. He closely united the two men in his preface; with the result that for fifty years, so long as the copyright of Calmann-Levy endured, readers of The Flowers of Evil noticed these remarks. It cannot be doubted that this incited them to read the works of the American. And if it be noted that they occupy three of the seven volumes of the Complete Works of Baudelaire, it will be realised that Gauteir has sent both men forward toward toward glory together. Thanks to him, the work of Edgar Poe has been embalmed in that of Baudelaire, like a strange insect in rare amber. Nor was this done solely from respect to Baudelaire and his well-known admiration for the American. Gautier himself shared that admiration. How much influence Poe exercised on his fantastic tales we shall demonstrate elsewhere. In the roll of poet as well, he has adopted the aesthetic doctrine of Poe. Did not Gautier himself, in his first prefaces and particularly in that for Mademoiselle de Maupin, proclaim the cult of art for art's sake? And he still repeated these principles of his youth two decades later, in the manifesto that announced publication of The Artist, and in his poem on Art. Through psychological reasons quite dissimilar to those of Poe, Gautier arrived at this philosophy independently. Frequenting painters and sculptors, a painter himself, it was in the practise of the plastic arts that he came to feel that art should be free and untrammeled. In Poe's case, this same idea came from an inherent tendency toward aimless dreaming, and from the ecstacy that his logical mind had systematically elaborated. Like Baudelaire, and thanks to him, Gautier was immediately carried away by Poe's doctrine; it brought a psychological foundation and a formal rigidity to what had never been for him anything but a manner of feeling. And in the preface to The Flowers of Evil, he does not spare his admiration. But he shows unskillfulness; he can only repeat, without even paraphrasing, and contents himself with quoting a passage which he believes to be Baudelaire's, but which Baudelaire had borrowed from Poe without definitely acknowledging his debt Thus he shows his powerlessness to re-phrase for himself Poe's aesthetics. II Banville, on the contrary, was able to take inspiration, assimilate, and at length comprehend without servilely repeating. His own aesthetics presented marked similarities to those of Poe. As early as 1845, in verses that are among his loveliest, he had thus described poetry: And captive forever in the inflexible rhythm, It endlessly strives to rise up to heaven... And tries, its eye lost among the open skies -- 4 --
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