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Acolyte, v. 3, issue 1, whole no. 9, Winter 1945
Page 8
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And on each eyelid, an urgent finger Came to weight the thicker night around it. An angel slowly unfolded its great wing, And under its leaden fingers sank my eyes, Then all vanished, sorrow, struggles, memory, And I felt my form float before me. And my thoughts of myself, or of shame or glory, Fled pell-mell from my body lawlessly. A form floated that seemed to be my image... Exactly as in The Raven, all these repetitions stir capriciously, but in a very definite and regular frame; they can never descend below the minimum that the poet has fixed himself from the beginning. A certain impression of terror and mystery in a few poems, an artificial manner of entwining repetitions--that is all that Dierx owes to Poe. Very little, altogether, had he not transmitted to Verlains, that soft monotony which so softens Parnassian roughness. IV Leconte de Lisle's debt is even slenderer, and could be ignored did it not show that Poe haunted all the poets who followed Baudelaire, even those who in no way resembled him. de Lisle has written a poem which is called The Raven, and his bird strongly resembles the American's. The epithets are identical. Ungainly, it is exactly like "awkward and heavy" ("gauche et lourd"); gaunt, "of a terrible thinness" ("d'une maigreur affreuse"); "shorn", "completely de-feathered" ("tout deplume"); his fiery eyes, "his eyes flamed" ("ses yeux flambaient"). In both cases, this very old raven is sent by Satan; it appears to a recluse--poet or monk--whom a single though obsesses, and answers so well to the preoccupation of the man that it soon appears like a symbol. Here the superficial resemblance stops. There are few similarities between the fierce, greedy bird of carnage and the sad bird of regret. Poe and de Lisle remain completely distinct. Probably both have realised the union of science and poetry, but one turned towards mathematics, the other towards history. Poe's art is musical; he would evoke indefinite visions, dreams. Leconte de Lisle, on the other hand, is graphic; he wants to reconstruct, with an objective precision, the vanished eras. The one's poetry is lighted by a gentle, melancholy style limned with the light of Beyond; that of the other blazes with the glaring noonday sun. Altogether, the links between Poe and the French Parnassians may be reduced to two points; the same conception of the autonomy of art, and the same artificial curiosity of form. Poe has brought them a smooth use of repetition; especially has he furnished clear aesthetics. To the extent he has acted upon the orthodox Parnassians, he has turned them aside from the tendancies peculiar to the school. In the bronze of the strophe, he has induced a kind of flaw. In a plastic doctrine that was to reproduce the matter, he introduced a musical and immaterial element. In a modest way, he has doubtless been one of the elements which have split up the Parnassians. ----ooo0ooo---- (Editorial Note: This article appeared originally in Revue de Litterature Comparee Vol. 9, No. 4, October-December 1929. To our knowledge, it has never before appeared in English. By way of explanation, it should be pointed out that, while the text of this essay has been put into fairly colloquial English, the translator thought it best to leave the examples of verse in a literal translation. It also might be mentioned that the quotations from Poe may be somewhat inexact, as we have not collated them with the original. FTL/SDR) -- 8 --
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And on each eyelid, an urgent finger Came to weight the thicker night around it. An angel slowly unfolded its great wing, And under its leaden fingers sank my eyes, Then all vanished, sorrow, struggles, memory, And I felt my form float before me. And my thoughts of myself, or of shame or glory, Fled pell-mell from my body lawlessly. A form floated that seemed to be my image... Exactly as in The Raven, all these repetitions stir capriciously, but in a very definite and regular frame; they can never descend below the minimum that the poet has fixed himself from the beginning. A certain impression of terror and mystery in a few poems, an artificial manner of entwining repetitions--that is all that Dierx owes to Poe. Very little, altogether, had he not transmitted to Verlains, that soft monotony which so softens Parnassian roughness. IV Leconte de Lisle's debt is even slenderer, and could be ignored did it not show that Poe haunted all the poets who followed Baudelaire, even those who in no way resembled him. de Lisle has written a poem which is called The Raven, and his bird strongly resembles the American's. The epithets are identical. Ungainly, it is exactly like "awkward and heavy" ("gauche et lourd"); gaunt, "of a terrible thinness" ("d'une maigreur affreuse"); "shorn", "completely de-feathered" ("tout deplume"); his fiery eyes, "his eyes flamed" ("ses yeux flambaient"). In both cases, this very old raven is sent by Satan; it appears to a recluse--poet or monk--whom a single though obsesses, and answers so well to the preoccupation of the man that it soon appears like a symbol. Here the superficial resemblance stops. There are few similarities between the fierce, greedy bird of carnage and the sad bird of regret. Poe and de Lisle remain completely distinct. Probably both have realised the union of science and poetry, but one turned towards mathematics, the other towards history. Poe's art is musical; he would evoke indefinite visions, dreams. Leconte de Lisle, on the other hand, is graphic; he wants to reconstruct, with an objective precision, the vanished eras. The one's poetry is lighted by a gentle, melancholy style limned with the light of Beyond; that of the other blazes with the glaring noonday sun. Altogether, the links between Poe and the French Parnassians may be reduced to two points; the same conception of the autonomy of art, and the same artificial curiosity of form. Poe has brought them a smooth use of repetition; especially has he furnished clear aesthetics. To the extent he has acted upon the orthodox Parnassians, he has turned them aside from the tendancies peculiar to the school. In the bronze of the strophe, he has induced a kind of flaw. In a plastic doctrine that was to reproduce the matter, he introduced a musical and immaterial element. In a modest way, he has doubtless been one of the elements which have split up the Parnassians. ----ooo0ooo---- (Editorial Note: This article appeared originally in Revue de Litterature Comparee Vol. 9, No. 4, October-December 1929. To our knowledge, it has never before appeared in English. By way of explanation, it should be pointed out that, while the text of this essay has been put into fairly colloquial English, the translator thought it best to leave the examples of verse in a literal translation. It also might be mentioned that the quotations from Poe may be somewhat inexact, as we have not collated them with the original. FTL/SDR) -- 8 --
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