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Acolyte, v. 3, issue 1, whole no. 9, Winter 1945
Page 6
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wanted to write a melancholy poem, and did not in the beginning choose a subject; seeking instead a sad and sonorous word to put at the end of each strophe. He found Nevermore--jamais plus. And, he said, around that word he constructed his poem, by means of mathematical deductions. Banville proceeds in exactly the same way: "I imagine that you think of Ariane abandonned by Thesee...A clear word--decisive, familiar, and tragic at the same time--will rise to your thought." And from that word--"left", from the final rhyme--Banville believes he can make his reconstruction. The influence of Poe is not arguable here. No doubt Banville had not awaited Poe to realize the agitation produced by rhymes in certain minds; it was enough for him to notice what took place in himself. But in the quoted passage, Banville expresses himself with that appearance of mathematical rigor (or, if preferred, with that scientific charlatanism) that is certainly the individual mark of Poe. Thus the American has acted upon the Frenchman. Finding in Poe an adept of the doctrine of art for art's sake and recognizing in himself bonds with the artificial versifyer of The Raven; Banville has, thanks to him, perfected that theory which gives to the rhyme the primary role in poetic production. It is not a question here of accidental meeting. There is, in the last analysis, the same essential conception of poetry. Removed from all thought and feeling, it is before all a music, rougher and more sonorous with Banville, more fluid with Poe; but reached with both through logical and ingenious means. Reduced to being only a form and a music, poetry permits the obtaining through ecstacy of a superterrestrial truth. Banville and Poe represent purs and ethereal lyricism in contrast to the personal and passionate lyricism of the great French romantics. And that analogy has its consequences from the viewpoint of literary history. It escaped neither Baudelaire nor Mallarme; it explained the cult that both of them had for Banville and Poe. Both have written it: if they have loved Banville, it is because he does not describe life and its passions, but the enchantments of a dream world. And it is certainly for that reason that they have loved Poe. Banville has been too long considered as an amuser; too much has been made of him as a versifying rope-dancer, the clown of the rhyme and the Pierrot of the pun. Baudelaire and Mallarme have admired in him, as in Edgar Poe, the pure lyricism. And despite his too visible errors, he must be considered beside the American as one of the masters of symbolism. III Among the younger poets, the pure Parnassians offer very little evidence of the influence of Poe. But they knew him, in particular one of the more obscure among them, Armand Renaud. Collaborator of The Contemporary Parnassian, he was the colleague of Verlaine at L'Hotel-de-Ville, and frequented the home of Nina de Villars. It is certain that through him the Parnassians heard a great deal about Poe. After Baudelaire's death and during the exile of Mallarme in the provinces, Armand Renaud made of himself Poe's interpretor. In the Parisian Review in 1864 he devotes a long article to Poe's poems, even translating some of the more important ones. He does not class Poe with the supreme artists, putting him on the same level with Longfellow. He is most impressed--as would be expected of a Parnassian--by the strangeness of form: "Edgar Poe, in his poetry, particularly loves the effects produced by repetition. There are many doubled rhymes, chimes... There results from this aggregation of similar sounds a sort of monotony, but so artistic a monotony that, instead of inciting boredon, it becomes something strange that fascinates -- 6 --
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wanted to write a melancholy poem, and did not in the beginning choose a subject; seeking instead a sad and sonorous word to put at the end of each strophe. He found Nevermore--jamais plus. And, he said, around that word he constructed his poem, by means of mathematical deductions. Banville proceeds in exactly the same way: "I imagine that you think of Ariane abandonned by Thesee...A clear word--decisive, familiar, and tragic at the same time--will rise to your thought." And from that word--"left", from the final rhyme--Banville believes he can make his reconstruction. The influence of Poe is not arguable here. No doubt Banville had not awaited Poe to realize the agitation produced by rhymes in certain minds; it was enough for him to notice what took place in himself. But in the quoted passage, Banville expresses himself with that appearance of mathematical rigor (or, if preferred, with that scientific charlatanism) that is certainly the individual mark of Poe. Thus the American has acted upon the Frenchman. Finding in Poe an adept of the doctrine of art for art's sake and recognizing in himself bonds with the artificial versifyer of The Raven; Banville has, thanks to him, perfected that theory which gives to the rhyme the primary role in poetic production. It is not a question here of accidental meeting. There is, in the last analysis, the same essential conception of poetry. Removed from all thought and feeling, it is before all a music, rougher and more sonorous with Banville, more fluid with Poe; but reached with both through logical and ingenious means. Reduced to being only a form and a music, poetry permits the obtaining through ecstacy of a superterrestrial truth. Banville and Poe represent purs and ethereal lyricism in contrast to the personal and passionate lyricism of the great French romantics. And that analogy has its consequences from the viewpoint of literary history. It escaped neither Baudelaire nor Mallarme; it explained the cult that both of them had for Banville and Poe. Both have written it: if they have loved Banville, it is because he does not describe life and its passions, but the enchantments of a dream world. And it is certainly for that reason that they have loved Poe. Banville has been too long considered as an amuser; too much has been made of him as a versifying rope-dancer, the clown of the rhyme and the Pierrot of the pun. Baudelaire and Mallarme have admired in him, as in Edgar Poe, the pure lyricism. And despite his too visible errors, he must be considered beside the American as one of the masters of symbolism. III Among the younger poets, the pure Parnassians offer very little evidence of the influence of Poe. But they knew him, in particular one of the more obscure among them, Armand Renaud. Collaborator of The Contemporary Parnassian, he was the colleague of Verlaine at L'Hotel-de-Ville, and frequented the home of Nina de Villars. It is certain that through him the Parnassians heard a great deal about Poe. After Baudelaire's death and during the exile of Mallarme in the provinces, Armand Renaud made of himself Poe's interpretor. In the Parisian Review in 1864 he devotes a long article to Poe's poems, even translating some of the more important ones. He does not class Poe with the supreme artists, putting him on the same level with Longfellow. He is most impressed--as would be expected of a Parnassian--by the strangeness of form: "Edgar Poe, in his poetry, particularly loves the effects produced by repetition. There are many doubled rhymes, chimes... There results from this aggregation of similar sounds a sort of monotony, but so artistic a monotony that, instead of inciting boredon, it becomes something strange that fascinates -- 6 --
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