French poetry 101 – Paul Verlaine
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foudebassanFrench poetry 101 - Paul Verlaine
All these poetry posts should be readable by English speakers, otherwise I’d have filtered them for froggie eyes only. Sorry if it wasn’t all that clear.
Today,
Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) is best described as wishy-washy.
He couldn't really make up his mind whether to write happy or sad poems, whether he preferred men or women, or even whether he wanted to breach poetical taboos or to stay within the tight bounds of convention.
The result is a large poetical production that first sounds a bit bland, but whose inner contrasts do deserve some attention.
Verlaine was born in the small bourgeoisie. His elder sister, who is 19 years old when he is born, is instrumental in his early education; he suffers a great deal when she leaves them to live with her new husband, and mourns her deeply when she dies in childbirth.
He studies in a good school, gets a good job as a civil servant, meets a nice girl, Mathilde Mauté, writes a poetry book for her (La Bonne Chanson), and she accepts to marry him despite her parents' disapproval.
Verlaine also discovers Baudelaire and his early work (especially Poèmes Saturniens) shows strong links to Baudelaire's. It is around that time that his writes
Je fais souvent ce rêve étrange et pénétrant
D'une femme inconnue, et que j'aime, et qui m'aime,
Et qui n'est, chaque fois, ni tout à fait la même
Ni tout à fait une autre, et m'aime et me comprend.
Car elle me comprend, et mon cœur, transparent
Pour elle seule, hélas ! cesse d'être un problème
Pour elle seule, et les moiteurs de mon front blême,
Elle seule les sait rafraîchir, en pleurant.
Est-elle brune, blonde ou rousse ? — Je l'ignore.
Son nom ? Je me souviens qu'il est doux et sonore
Comme ceux des aimés que la Vie exila.
Son regard est pareil au regard des statues,
Et, pour sa voix, lointaine, et calme, et grave, elle a
L'inflexion des voix chères qui se sont tues.
(I often have this strange and penetrating dream
Of an unknown woman, that I love, and who loves me,
And who is never, each time I see her, entirely the same
Nor entirely another, and she loves me and understands me.
For she understands me, and my heart, transparent
To her alone, alas! Ceases to be a problem
To her alone, and the dampness of my bleak brow
She alone knows how to refresh it, by weeping.
Is she brown-haired, blond, or red-haired? - I do not know.
Her name? I remember it is sweet and high-sounding
Like those of the loved ones that Life exiled.
Her gaze is like the gaze of statues,
And, as to her voice, remote, and calm, and deep, it has
The inflexions of the dear voices that speak no more.)
Freud would've had a field day on this one.
Verlaine tries his hand at symbolism; he writes De la musique avant toute chose, a poem whose verses have an uneven number of syllables.
In 1870, Prussia invades the Empire, dismisses Napoléon III, and declares German unification in Versailles' Galerie des Glaces. Paris takes it as a good opportunity to start yet another revolution, the Commune, in which Verlaine takes part; for the first time in history, what happens in Paris does not change the course of France's destiny and the rebellion is crushed. Verlaine and his wife flee, fearing repression.
When they come back, Verlaine gets a letter from a young poet. It makes a good impression on him, and he answers positively; his correspondent takes it as an invitation to come and stay. The young poet is Arthur Rimbaud and their meeting will shake French poetry to its roots - but that is tomorrow's story.
Victorian wives are conditioned to suffer and obey, up to and including their husbands keeping mistresses under their noses and bringing syphillis back to them. But buggering the male uninvited house-guest is the last straw, and Mathilde throws them both out. They go to Brussels and live in the house of Verlaine's mother. In a drunken lover's quarrel - Verlaine is addicted to absinth - he takes a gun and shoots Rimbaud in the arm. Arthur is scared, and calls the police; Verlaine is tried and condemned to two years in prison, more perhaps for his blatant homosexuality than for the assault itself.
Strangely, he finds peace in prison. He has a revelation one night, and converts himself to catholicism. All his last poems will be marked by calm, serenity, what he chooses to call wisdom - Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit, si bleu, si calme. He meets Rimbaud again upon coming out, tries to share his mystic awakening with his lover, chanting the praises of chastity and measure, but ends up fucking him al fresco instead. Rimbaud laughs at the pitiful old man he has become, and dumps him for good.
Despite his pleas for reconciliation, Mathilde divorces him, an extraordinary measure for that time and social class. Verlaine takes to teaching, first in England then in France, where he falls in love with one of his pupils, Lucien Létinois. They live together briefly, but Lucien dies, as does Verlaine’s mother and Rimbaud.
Verlaine’s alcoholism gets worse, and he is interned in various Parisian hospitals more than half the time. He does meet the last love of his life, a woman called Eugénie Krantz. They live together whenever Verlaine is not drinking at some pub or in hospital, recovering from his latest delirium tremens.
His poems are however met with increasing success, and he even gets a pension for his literary efforts. But the bad thing with excessive absinth consumption is that it shortens people's lifespans quite drastically, and Verlaine makes it to an early grave. Legend says the hearse went by a statue of Poetry, and that her arm fell off right after the coffin had passed by.
In 1944, the London radio chose the first stanza of Chanson d'automne as a codeword to warn the French resistance of the imminent débarquement.
Next time, Rimbaldian Revolt.
All these poetry posts should be readable by English speakers, otherwise I’d have filtered them for froggie eyes only. Sorry if it wasn’t all that clear.
Today,
Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) is best described as wishy-washy.
He couldn't really make up his mind whether to write happy or sad poems, whether he preferred men or women, or even whether he wanted to breach poetical taboos or to stay within the tight bounds of convention.
The result is a large poetical production that first sounds a bit bland, but whose inner contrasts do deserve some attention.
Verlaine was born in the small bourgeoisie. His elder sister, who is 19 years old when he is born, is instrumental in his early education; he suffers a great deal when she leaves them to live with her new husband, and mourns her deeply when she dies in childbirth.
He studies in a good school, gets a good job as a civil servant, meets a nice girl, Mathilde Mauté, writes a poetry book for her (La Bonne Chanson), and she accepts to marry him despite her parents' disapproval.
Verlaine also discovers Baudelaire and his early work (especially Poèmes Saturniens) shows strong links to Baudelaire's. It is around that time that his writes
Je fais souvent ce rêve étrange et pénétrant
D'une femme inconnue, et que j'aime, et qui m'aime,
Et qui n'est, chaque fois, ni tout à fait la même
Ni tout à fait une autre, et m'aime et me comprend.
Car elle me comprend, et mon cœur, transparent
Pour elle seule, hélas ! cesse d'être un problème
Pour elle seule, et les moiteurs de mon front blême,
Elle seule les sait rafraîchir, en pleurant.
Est-elle brune, blonde ou rousse ? — Je l'ignore.
Son nom ? Je me souviens qu'il est doux et sonore
Comme ceux des aimés que la Vie exila.
Son regard est pareil au regard des statues,
Et, pour sa voix, lointaine, et calme, et grave, elle a
L'inflexion des voix chères qui se sont tues.
(I often have this strange and penetrating dream
Of an unknown woman, that I love, and who loves me,
And who is never, each time I see her, entirely the same
Nor entirely another, and she loves me and understands me.
For she understands me, and my heart, transparent
To her alone, alas! Ceases to be a problem
To her alone, and the dampness of my bleak brow
She alone knows how to refresh it, by weeping.
Is she brown-haired, blond, or red-haired? - I do not know.
Her name? I remember it is sweet and high-sounding
Like those of the loved ones that Life exiled.
Her gaze is like the gaze of statues,
And, as to her voice, remote, and calm, and deep, it has
The inflexions of the dear voices that speak no more.)
Freud would've had a field day on this one.
Verlaine tries his hand at symbolism; he writes De la musique avant toute chose, a poem whose verses have an uneven number of syllables.
In 1870, Prussia invades the Empire, dismisses Napoléon III, and declares German unification in Versailles' Galerie des Glaces. Paris takes it as a good opportunity to start yet another revolution, the Commune, in which Verlaine takes part; for the first time in history, what happens in Paris does not change the course of France's destiny and the rebellion is crushed. Verlaine and his wife flee, fearing repression.
When they come back, Verlaine gets a letter from a young poet. It makes a good impression on him, and he answers positively; his correspondent takes it as an invitation to come and stay. The young poet is Arthur Rimbaud and their meeting will shake French poetry to its roots - but that is tomorrow's story.
Victorian wives are conditioned to suffer and obey, up to and including their husbands keeping mistresses under their noses and bringing syphillis back to them. But buggering the male uninvited house-guest is the last straw, and Mathilde throws them both out. They go to Brussels and live in the house of Verlaine's mother. In a drunken lover's quarrel - Verlaine is addicted to absinth - he takes a gun and shoots Rimbaud in the arm. Arthur is scared, and calls the police; Verlaine is tried and condemned to two years in prison, more perhaps for his blatant homosexuality than for the assault itself.
Strangely, he finds peace in prison. He has a revelation one night, and converts himself to catholicism. All his last poems will be marked by calm, serenity, what he chooses to call wisdom - Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit, si bleu, si calme. He meets Rimbaud again upon coming out, tries to share his mystic awakening with his lover, chanting the praises of chastity and measure, but ends up fucking him al fresco instead. Rimbaud laughs at the pitiful old man he has become, and dumps him for good.
Despite his pleas for reconciliation, Mathilde divorces him, an extraordinary measure for that time and social class. Verlaine takes to teaching, first in England then in France, where he falls in love with one of his pupils, Lucien Létinois. They live together briefly, but Lucien dies, as does Verlaine’s mother and Rimbaud.
Verlaine’s alcoholism gets worse, and he is interned in various Parisian hospitals more than half the time. He does meet the last love of his life, a woman called Eugénie Krantz. They live together whenever Verlaine is not drinking at some pub or in hospital, recovering from his latest delirium tremens.
His poems are however met with increasing success, and he even gets a pension for his literary efforts. But the bad thing with excessive absinth consumption is that it shortens people's lifespans quite drastically, and Verlaine makes it to an early grave. Legend says the hearse went by a statue of Poetry, and that her arm fell off right after the coffin had passed by.
In 1944, the London radio chose the first stanza of Chanson d'automne as a codeword to warn the French resistance of the imminent débarquement.
Next time, Rimbaldian Revolt.
