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diff --git a/34327-h/34327-h.htm b/34327-h/34327-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7cdb023 --- /dev/null +++ b/34327-h/34327-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3147 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> +<title>Paul Verlaine, by Stefan Zweig—A Project Gutenberg eBook</title> +<style type="text/css"> +<!-- +body +{ + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +#text-block +{ + max-width: 40em; + margin: 120px auto; +} + +p +{ + margin-top: 0.75em; + margin-bottom: 0.75em; + text-align: justify; + text-indent: 1.5em; +} + +p.center, +#tnote p, +.footnote p +{ + text-indent: 0; +} + +h1, h2 +{ + text-align: center; + clear: both; + margin-top: 0; + font-weight: normal; +} + +h2 +{ + margin: 6em auto 1.5em auto; +} + +ins +{ + text-decoration: none; + border-bottom: 1px dashed #add8e6; +} + +.gesperrt +{ + letter-spacing: 0.2em; + margin-right: -0.2em; +} + +.smcap +{ + font-variant: small-caps; +} + +.center +{ + text-align: center; +} + +.figcenter +{ + margin: 8em auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.caption +{ + text-align: left; + margin-left: 1.5em; + font-style: italic; +} + +.caption .right +{ + text-align: right; + margin-right: 1.5em; + font-size: smaller; + font-style: normal; +} + +a[title].pagenum +{ + position: absolute; + right: 3%; +} + +a[title].pagenum:after +{ + content: attr(title); + border: 1px solid silver; + display: inline; + font-size: x-small; + text-align: right; + color: #808080; + font-style: normal; + padding: 1px 4px 1px 4px; + font-variant: normal; + font-weight: normal; + text-decoration: none; + text-indent: 0; + letter-spacing: 0; +} + +.footnotes +{ + border: 1px dashed #808080; + margin-top: 6em; + margin-bottom: 120px; + padding: 20px; +} + +.footnote +{ + text-align: justify; +} + +.footnote .label, +.fnanchor +{ + vertical-align: super; + text-decoration: none; + font-size: x-small; + font-weight: normal; + font-style: normal; +} + +.poem +{ + width: 90%; + margin: 2em auto; + text-align: left; + white-space: nowrap; +} + +.poem .stanza +{ + margin: 1em 0; +} + +.poem span.i1 +{ + margin-left: 0.5em; +} + +.poem span.i3 +{ + margin-left: 1.5em; +} + +#tnote +{ + width: 26em; + max-width: 90%; + border: 1px dashed #808080; + background-color: #fafafa; + text-align: justify; + padding: 0 0.75em; + margin: 120px auto 120px auto; +} + +@page +{ + margin: 2cm; +} + +@media print +{ + body + { + margin: 2em; + } + + h1, + h2, + .footnotes, + .page-break + { + page-break-before: always; + } + + #tnote, + pre, + .pagenum + { + display: none; + } + + ins, + a + { + text-decoration: none; + border: none; + color: black; + } + + .footnotes + { + padding: 0; + border: none; + } + + .footnote + { + margin: 0; + } + + .footnote .label, + .fnanchor + { + font-size: medium; + vertical-align: middle; + } +} +--> +</style> +<!--[if lt IE 8]> +<style type="text/css"> +a[title].pagenum +{ + position: static; +} +</style> +<![endif]--> +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Paul Verlaine, by Stefan Zweig + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Paul Verlaine + +Author: Stefan Zweig + +Translator: O. F. Theis + +Release Date: November 15, 2010 [EBook #34327] +[This file last updated December 26, 2010] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAUL VERLAINE *** + + + + +Produced by Jana Srna and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div id="tnote"> +<p class="center"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b></p> +<p>Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as +possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation; +changes (corrections of spelling and punctuation) made to the +original text are marked <ins title="transcriber's note">like this</ins>. +The original text appears when hovering the cursor over the marked text.</p> +</div> + +<div id="text-block"> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 410px;"> +<img src="images/frontispiece.png" width="410" height="600" alt="" title=""/> +<div class="caption">PAUL VERLAINE, 1895 +<div class="right">(Zorn)</div></div> +</div> + +<h1 class="gesperrt">PAUL VERLAINE</h1> + + +<p class="center gesperrt" style="font-size: larger; margin-top: 4em;">By STEFAN ZWEIG</p> + +<p class="center" style="margin: 4em auto 5em auto; line-height: 1.5em;">Authorized Translation by<br/> +O. F. THEIS</p> + + +<p class="center smcap" style="line-height: 1.3em;">LUCE AND COMPANY<br/> +<small>BOSTON</small><br/> +MAUNSEL AND CO., LTD.<br/> +DUBLIN and LONDON</p> + + +<p class="center" style="margin-top: 8em; line-height: 1.3em;">Copyright, 1913,<br/> +<span class="smcap">By L. E. Bassett<br/> +Boston, Mass., U. S. A.</span></p> + + + +<p class="center page-break" style="font-size: x-large; margin: 8em;">PAUL VERLAINE</p> + + + +<div class="page-break"> +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_1" title="1"> </a> +<p class="center" style="font-size: xx-large;">PAUL VERLAINE</p> +</div> + + +<h2 style="margin-top: 2em; page-break-before: auto;">PRELUDE</h2> + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> works of great artists are silent +books of eternal truths. And thus it is +indelibly written in the face of Balzac, +as Rodin has graven it, that the beauty +of the creative gesture is wild, unwilling +and painful. He has shown that +great creative gifts do not mean fulness +and giving out of abundance. On the +contrary the expression is that of one +who seeks help and strives to emancipate +himself. A child when afraid +thrusts out his arms, and those that are +falling hold out the hand to passers-by +for aid; similarly, creative artists project +their sorrows and joys and all their +sudden pain which is greater than their +own strength. They hold them out like +a net with which to ensnare, like a rope +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_2" title="2"> </a>by which to escape. Like beggars on +the street weighed down with misery +and want, they give their words to passers-by. +Each syllable gives relief because +they thus project their own life +into that of strangers. Their fortune +and misfortune, their rejoicing and +complaint, too heavy for them, are +sown in the destiny of others—man +and woman. The fertilizing germ is +planted at this moment which is simultaneously +painful and happy, and they +rejoice. But the origin of this impulse, +as of all others, lies in need, sweet, tormenting +need, over-ripe painful force.</p> + +<p>No poet of recent years has possessed +this need of expressing his life to others, +more imperatively, pitifully, or tragically +than Paul Verlaine, because no +other poet was so weak to the press of +destiny. All his creative virtue is reversed +strength; it is weakness. Since +he could not subdue, the plaint alone +remained to him; since he could not +mould circumstances, they glimmer in +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_3" title="3"> </a>naked, untamed, humanly-divine +beauty through his work. Thus he has +achieved a primæval lyricism—pure +humanity, simple complaint, humbleness, +infantile lisping, wrath and reproach; +primitive sounds in sublime +form, like the sobbing wail of a beaten +child, the uneasy cry of those who are +lost, the plaintive call of the solitary +bird which is thrown out into the dusk +of evening.</p> + +<p>Other poets have had a wider range. +There have been the criers who with a +clarion horn call together the wanderers +on all the highways, the magicians +who weave notes like the rustling of +leaves, the soughing of winds and the +bubbling of water, and the masters who +embrace all the wisdom of life in dark +sayings. He possessed nothing but the +sign-manual of the weak who have need +of another, the gestures of a beggar. +But in all their accents and nuances, in +him, these became wonderful. In him +were the low grumbling of the weak +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_4" title="4"> </a>man, sometimes closely akin to the sorrowful +mumbling of the drunkard, the +tender flute notes of vague and melancholic +yearning, as well as the hard accusing +hammering against his own +heart. There were in him the flagellant +strokes of the penitent as well as the intimate +prayers of thanksgiving which +poor women murmur on church steps. +Other poets have been so interwoven +with the universal that it is impossible +to distinguish whether really great +storms trembled in their breasts, +whether the sea rolled within them, or +again, whether it was not their words, +which made the meadows shudder, and +which, as a breeze, went tenderly over +the fields. They were the vivifying +poets, the synthesizers—divinities by +the marvel of creation, and its priests.</p> + +<p>Verlaine was always only a human +being, a weak human being, who did not +even know how “to count the transgressions +of his own heart.” It was +this very lack of individuality, however, +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_5" title="5"> </a>which produced something much rarer—the +purely and entirely human. Verlaine +was soft clay without the power +of producing impresses and without resistance. +Thus every line of life crossing +his destiny has left a pure relief, a +clear and faithful reproduction, even to +the fragrance-like sorrows of lonely +seconds which in others fade away or +thicken into dull grief. The tangled +forces which tempestuously shook his +life and tore it to tatters crystallized in +his work and were distilled into essences.</p> + +<p>This, together with the fact that he +has enriched and furthered literary development +by his poetry, is the highest +and noblest meed of praise that can be +given to a poet. Yet such an estimate +seems too low to many of his followers, +especially the more recent French literati +who celebrate in Verlaine the unconscious +inventor of a new art of poetry +and the initiator of new lyric epochs, +unknowing of the folly of their proceeding. +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_6" title="6"> </a>Verlaine, the literary man, +was a sad caricature distorted by ribald +noise and Quartier-Latin cafés. Even +as such he indignantly denied this intention. +The greatness and power of +his lyricism takes its root in eternity, +in the wonderful sincerity of its ever +human and unalterable emotional content, +and above all in the unconsciousness +of its genesis.</p> + +<p>Intellectuals alone create “tendencies.” +Verlaine was as little one of +these as he was on the other hand the +<i>bon enfant</i>, the innocently stumbling +child into whose open and playful hand +verses fell like cherry blossoms or fluttering +leaves. He was a lyric poet. +Lyricism is thinking without logic (although +not contrary to logic), association +not according to the laws of +thought but according to intuition, the +whispering words of vague emotions, +hidden correspondences, darkly murmuring +subterranean streams. Lyricism +again is thought without consequence, +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_7" title="7"> </a>instinct and presentiment, leaping +quickly in lawless synthesis; it is +union but not a chain formed of individual +links, it is melody but not scales. +In this sense he was an unconscious +creator who heard great accords.</p> + +<p>He was never a thinker. His quick +power of observation, flashing electrically, +his Gallic wit, and his exquisite +feeling for style were able to illumine +splendidly, narrow circles, but he +lacked, as in everything, the power and +ability of logical sequence. He knew +how to seize and throw light upon +waves that came to touch his life, but he +could not make them reflect in the +dark mirror of the universe, nor could +he throw out into the world rays of +curious and tormenting desire for life. +He could not construct a world vision, +revolution, and a sense of distance. +This wild and heroic trait of the great +poets was never his. He preferred, +fleeting and weak spirit as he was, the +indefinite, not quiet and possession, nor +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_8" title="8"> </a>understanding and power, which are +the elemental factors of life. He surrendered +himself completely to the efflorescence +of things, to the sweetness +of becoming and the sadness of evanescence, +to the pain and tenderness of +emotions that touch us in passing; in +short, to the things that come to us and +not to those which we must seek and +strive to penetrate. He was never a +drawn bow ready to fling himself as an +arrow into the infinite; he was only an +æolian harp, the play and voice of such +winds as came. Unresistingly he threw +himself into the arms of all dangers—women, +religiosity, drunkenness and +literature. All this oppressed him and +rent him asunder. The drops of blood +are magnificent poems, imperishable +events, primæval human emotion clear +as crystal.</p> + +<p>Two factors were responsible for +this: an unexampled candor in both +virtue and vice, and his complete unconsciousness, +which, however, was unfortunately +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_9" title="9"> </a>lost in the first waves of his +fame. As he never knew how to weed, +his life forced strange blossoms and +became a wonderful garden of seductively +beautiful, perversely colored +flowers, among which he himself was +never entirely at home. In middle life +he found the courage, or rather an impulse +within him mightier than his will +forced him to do so, and with relentless +tread he left civilization. He exchanged +the warm cover of an established +literary reputation for the occasional +shelter along the highways. +With the smoke of his pipe he blew into +the air the esteem he had acquired +early. He never returned to the safe +harbor. Later, as “man of letters,” he +unfortunately exaggerated this as well +as every other of his unique characteristics, +in an idle exhibitionism, and +made literary use of them.</p> + +<p>Far distant from academies and +journals, he retained his uniqueness uninterruptedly +for many years. He has +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_10" title="10"> </a>described in his verses the errant and +passionate way of his life with that +noble absence of shame which is the +first sign of personal emancipation +from civilized humanity, in contrast to +the primitively natural.</p> + +<p>Much has been said and written as to +whether happiness or unhappiness was +the result of the pilgrimage. It is an +unimportant and idle question, because +“happiness” is only a word, an unfilled +cup in strange hands, and an +empty tinkling thing. At any rate, life +cut more deeply into his flesh than into +that of any other poet of our time. So +tightly and pitilessly was his soul +wound about that nothing was kept +silent, and it bled to death with sighs, +rejoicings, and cries. A destiny which +has accomplished such marvels may be +rebuked as cruel. But we in whom +these pains re-echo in sweet shudderings—for +us, it is fitting that we +should feel gratitude.</p> + + + +<div> +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_11" title="11"> </a> +<h2>CONCERNING “POOR LELIAN”<a name="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2> +</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Whenever</span> Verlaine speaks of his +childhood, there is a gleam like a bittersweet +smile. This hesitant, plaintive +rhythm appears ever, and ever again, +whether in sorrow, musing sigh, or +plaintive reproach. It appears in the +tender and so infinitely sad lines which +he wrote in prison, and likewise in the +<i>Confessions</i>, a vain, exaggeratedly candid +and coquetting portrait in prose. +Gentle memories, fresh and tender like +white roses, creep loosely through all +his work, scattering pious <ins title="fragrance">fragrance.</ins> +For him childhood was paradise, because +his poor weak soul, needing the +tenderness of faithful hands, had not +yet experienced the hard impacts of +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_12" title="12"> </a>life, but only the soft intimate cradling +between devoted love and womanly +mildness—a lulling, sweet unforgettable +melody.</p> + +<p>All impulses are still pure and bud-like. +Love is unsullied, sheer instinct, +entirely without desire and restlessness. +It is silence, peaceful silence, cool longing +which assuages, and so all of life +is kind and large, maternal and womanly—soft. +Everything shines in a +clear, transparent, shimmering light +like a landscape at daybreak. Even +late, very late, when his poor life had +already become barren and over-clouded, +this yearning still rises and +trembles toward these days of youth +like a white dove. The “<i>guote suendaere</i>” +still had tears to give. Gleaming +pure like dew drops, and still fresh, +they cling to the most fantastic and +wildest blooms.</p> + +<p>The first dates tell little. Paul +Marie Verlaine was born in 1844 at +Metz—he did not remember his second +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_13" title="13"> </a>name until the appropriate time of +his conversion. His father was a captain +in the French engineer corps. +Verlaine, however, was not of Alsatian +extraction but belonged to Lorraine, +close enough to Germany to bear in his +blood the secret fructification of the +German <i>Lied</i>. Early in his life the +family removed to Paris, where the attractive +boy with inquisitive, soft face +(as is shown on an early photograph) +soon turns into a <i>gosse</i> and finally into +a government official with skillful literary +talents.</p> + +<p>Several pleasing episodes and a few +kind figures are found within this simple +frame of his external life. Two in +particular are drawn in subdued delicate +colors and veiled with a tender +fragrance. Both were women. His +mother, all goodness and devotion, +spoiling him with too much tenderness +and forgiveness, passes through his life +with uniformly quiet tread; she is a +wonderfully noble martyr. There is +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_14" title="14"> </a>hardly a more poignant story than the +one he tells regretfully in the <i>Confessions</i> +of the time when he first began to +drink and how his mother never voiced +her reproach. Once when with hat on +his head he had slept out the remainder +of a wild night, her only comment was +the silent one of holding a mirror before +him.</p> + +<p>And there is no more tragic incident +among the many sentences of the +drunkard than the verdict of the tribunal +at Vouziers, which condemned him +to a fine of five hundred francs for +threatening to kill his mother. Even +then, though absinthe had changed the +simple child always ready for penance +into a different man, her gesture was +still the noble and inimitable one of +forgiveness.</p> + +<p>There were also other tender hands +to watch over his youth. His cousin +Eliza, who died early, is a figure so mild +and transparent and of so light a tread +that she appears like one of Jacobsen's +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_15" title="15"> </a>wonderful creations who wander and +speak like disembodied souls. She had +the unique beauty of early illness, and +on that account perhaps turned more +toward the absorbed but not melancholy +child, excusing his escapades. +She was loved tenderly, with a child's +love that was without desire and danger.</p> + +<div class="poem" style="max-width: 23em;"> +<div class="stanza"> +“Certes oui pauvre maman était<br/> +Bien, trop bonne, et mon cœur à la voir palpitait,<br/> +Tressautait, et riait et pleurait de l'entendre<br/> +Mais toi, je t'aimais autrement non pas plus tendre<br/> +Plus familier, <ins title="voila">voilà</ins>.” +</div> +</div> + +<p>It was she too who staged his last +youthful folly by giving him the money +for printing the <i>Poèmes Saturniens</i>. +Like a white flame her figure shines +through the dense stifling fumes of his +life. It is as if the soft tread of these +two women had given many of his +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_16" title="16"> </a>verses their seraphic sheen and lent the +mother-of-pearl opalescence to his softest +poems, in which there is a secret +rustling as of the folds of women's +gowns. Even the Paul Verlaine of the +later years, “the ruin insufficiently +ruined,” who saw in woman the most +ferocious enemy, and who fled to the +wolves that they might protect him +from “woman their sister,” even he still +dreamed of the folded hands, of the forgiving +innocent gesture of the earliest +memories. This yearning for mild and +pure women has found many incarnations. +In the poems to his bride, Mathilde +Manté, it is the tender song of +the troubadour; in the hours of his +mystical conversion it becomes a tender +prayer and Madonna cult; in the years +of his decadence it appears as a pathetic +echo, a stumbling plaint and dreamy +childhood desires—the precious hour +between sin and sin. Sometimes this +secret desire is placed tenderly and +simply into lines of verse as into a rare, +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_17" title="17"> </a>fragrant shrine where the dearest possessions +are kept. These are pure, wonderful +lines like the following, full of +longing and renunciation:</p> + +<div class="poem" style="max-width: 20em;"> +<div class="stanza"> +“Je voudrais, si ma vie était encore <ins title="a">à</ins> faire,<br/> +Qu'une femme très calme <ins title="habitat">habitât</ins> avec moi.” +</div> +</div> + +<p>Verlaine soon left these mirror-clear +days of beautiful youth. His father +decided to put him into a boarding-school +at Paris. The dreamy little +boy, looking toward the gay school cap, +gladly assented. This was the turning +point. Here his life in a way was rent +in two parts, and a wide gap appears in +the weakly but not morbid character of +the child. The somewhat spoiled, modest, +and confiding boy is put among +students who are already dissolute and +overbearing. On the very first day he +is sickened by the coldness and barrenness +of the rooms, and frightened by the +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_18" title="18"> </a>first contact with life he is instinctively +afraid of the evil which was to overtake +him after all. Filled with that mighty +longing for tenderness and gentle shelter +which even at fifty he did not lose, +he fled to his home in tears. He was +greeted there with cries of joy and embraces, +but on the next morning he was +taken back with gentle force.</p> + +<p>This was the catastrophe. Verlaine's +weak character willingly submitted to +foreign influences; it became dulled +under the influence of his comrades, +“and the overthrow began.” A foreign +element entered his being, a materialistic +cynical trait, for the present +only <i>gaminerie</i>, while he was still a +stranger to sex. The specific Parisian +character, a mingling of vanity, insolence, +scoffing wit (<i>raillerie</i>) and boastful +bravado, tempted the soft dreamy +boy, but conquered him only for short +hours.</p> + +<p>This conflict between feminine sensitivity +and a <i>gaminerie</i> eager for +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_19" title="19"> </a>enjoyment wages incessant warfare +throughout his life. Sometimes it harmonizes +for brief moments voluptuousness +and idealism, but neither side ever +wins and the struggle never ceases. +The characteristics of Faust and Mephistopheles +never became fully linked +in Verlaine; they only interlaced. +With the overpowering capacity for +self-surrender which he spent on everything, +he could combine the sensual +alone or the spiritual alone completely +with his life, but lacking will, he was +unable to put an end to the constant +rotation, which now dragged him in +penitence from his passions only to hurl +him back again into their hated hands. +Thus his life consists not of an evenly +ascending plane, but of headlong descents +and catastrophes, of elevations +and transfigurations, which finally end +in a great weariness.</p> + +<p>The sense of shame was exceptionally +strong in him, as it is in every case +where it is repressed. All his life long +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_20" title="20"> </a>it made itself heard in the form of +yearning for clarity and purity. Afraid +of mockery, cynicism and indifference +were put forward as a protection until +at length these evil influences overgrew +it entirely. Were it not unwise to reflect +in directions which his life disdained +to follow, it might be interesting +to attempt a portrait of Verlaine as he +might have been if he had continued on +the luminous path of his childhood under +the guidance of kind hands. For +surely and also according to his own +opinion, those years were the humus for +the <i>fleurs du mal</i> of his soul.</p> + +<p>In these formative years of ungainly +figure and uncertain dreaming the poet +grows out of the boy. A malign influence, +puberty, forces the creator in him. +“The man of letters, let us say rather, +if you prefer, the poet was born in me +precisely toward that so critical fourteenth +year, so that I can say proportionately +as my puberty developed my +character too was formed.” This is +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_21" title="21"> </a>surely a womanly and feminine trait, +for in women the entire spiritual development +usually trembles as the resonance +of the inner shock. Physical +crises are transformed into catastrophes +of the soul, and the pressure of the +blood and its beating waves are spiritualized +into the soft melancholy and +sweet dreams from which his verses rise +like tender buds.</p> + +<p>It is not out of intellectual growth or +out of the persistent impulse to link the +universal to his personality, as in the +cases of Schiller, Victor Hugo or Lord +Byron, that these soft notes rise. They +have their origin in a sultry restlessness +of the nerves, in the well-springs of +fruitful impulse, in emotions and shadowy +presentiments. They are the early +outpouring of creative masculinity and +youthful yearning. They are half a +question and half an answer to life. +They are melancholy and vague, filled +with uncertain gleaming and a rustling +darkness.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_22" title="22"> </a> +If poetry consists in a certain sensitiveness +of soul and reaction to slight +and cautious stimulation, and not in an +active, wild, subduing force, Verlaine +certainly has sensed the deepest fount +of the orphic mysteries. If poetry is so +understood, the boy who wrote the +<i>Poèmes Saturniens</i> on his school +benches, already saw the reality of life +and even the future mask. His acute +ear heard the oracle which foretold his +destiny, but he did not know how to interpret +what the Pythian voice had +whispered until everything was fulfilled. +To understand this, sensitiveness +must not be confused with sentimentality. +Sentimentality may grow +out of a pessimism which has been acquired +intellectually. Sensitivity is not +only the child of emotion but at the +same time the sum and substance of all +feelings. It is both an inherent tendency +and an innate possession, and is +primæval and indestructible as is the +gift of poetry itself. The gift of poetry +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_23" title="23"> </a>implies the power of distilling emotions +into that form in which they are +already essentially existing and fixing +the fleeting and ephemeral permanently +as by a chemical process which knows +no law but only presentiment and +chance.</p> + +<p>There is, of course, no art without its +technique, understanding technique not +in the derogatory sense of a mere implement +but somewhat in the sense of the +material which the painter uses, who +must apply it individually and thus +adds something unknown and unique to +what he has acquired by education and +copying. Verlaine learned his technique +early, and he never wrote a line in +which his own guidance could be felt. +His earliest teachers were Baudelaire, +Banville, Victor Hugo, Catulle Mendès +and other Parnassiens, cool idealists or +frosty exotics, measured and stiff even +in their melancholy, but wise architects +of slender and firmly founded verse-structures, +artists in language, chisellers +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_24" title="24"> </a>of form. The pliant, soft yielding +manner of Verlaine quickly embraced +their influences. The student is already +master of the <i>métier</i>. Even the relentless +and unhappy rhymester into which +“poor Lelian” turned, late, very late +in his career, retained this eminent skill +of reproducing forms smoothly and +precisely, and writing verses of an +agreeable, melodic flow and a beautiful +rhythmic movement.</p> + +<p>The years of puberty were the time +of the production of the <i>Poèmes Saturniens</i>. +Sexuality had not yet developed +sufficiently and was not strong and self-willed +enough to operate destructively. +Its influence was only felt in slight impacts +and produced the feeling of sweet +unrest. This unrest, somewhat veiled +and turning toward melancholy, trembles +through these early poems and +lends them the unique beauty of sad +women. All the art of Verlaine's poetry +is already found in these first +poems.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_25" title="25"> </a> +The book appeared, thanks to the assistance +of his cousin Eliza, under Lemerre's +imprint, curiously enough on +the same day as François Coppée's first +work, and had a “<i>joli <ins title="succés">succès</ins> de hostilité</i>” +with the press. The great writers—Victor +Hugo, Leconte de Lisle, +Theodore de Banville, and others—wrote +him encouraging letters, but the +public at large did not overburden the +young man with its admiration.</p> + +<p>At that time Verlaine was a clerk in +the Hôtel de Ville and lived a quiet, +almost well-to-do life, with his mother. +All the indications were in favor of a +smooth, unclouded future. But there +was a conflict in him, which he could not +master. It is like raising and lowering +two weights which he never succeeds in +balancing. On the one hand is the passionate, +wild, sexual element, the impure +glow and the blind surrender, the +“black ship which drags him to the +abyss,” and, on the other, the pure, +simple, tender mode of his child-like +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_26" title="26"> </a>heart, which, a stranger to all passion, +yearns for soft, <ins title="womenly">womanly</ins> hands.</p> + +<p>In normal sexuality the yearning of +the senses and the soul unite during the +seconds of intoxication and become the +symbol of infinity, through the passionate +absorption of contrasts and the permeation +of spirit with matter, and form +with substance, elements which in their +turn are the creative symbols of all life. +In Verlaine, however, there was always +a cleft: now he is pure pilgrim of +yearning, now roué; now priest, now +gamin. He has wrought the most +beautiful religious poems of Catholicism, +and at the same time has won the +crown of all pornographic works with +perverse and indecent poems. As the +flux of his blood went, so was he—a +<i>pure reflex of his organic functions</i>. +That is to say he was infinitely primitive +as a poet, and infinitely complicated +and unaccountable as a human +being.</p> + +<p>Whenever his impulses were elastic +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_27" title="27"> </a>and his senses sharpened or stimulated, +the untamed and wild beast of sensuality +is unchained in his life, turbulent +after satisfaction, incapable of restraint +by intellectual deliberation. After the +crisis physical exhaustion disengaged +the psychic elements of penitence, consideration +and tender longing, which +later became piety.</p> + +<p>Verlaine was a poet of rare candor +and shamelessness, both in the best and +worst sense. This is the essentially +great element in his otherwise feminine, +weak and absolutely <i>negative</i> personality. +The primæval powers of the body +and soul are the eternal elements of all +humanity and the starting-point of all +philosophies; the conflict between them, +betrayed in the accusing and self-revealing +manner of his verse, is <ins title="transferrel">transferred</ins> +unchanged into his poetry, filling +it with the force of life and the tragedy +of the universally human.</p> + +<p>In his entire life there seem to have +been only two brief periods of cessation +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_28" title="28"> </a>in the struggle; during the short +honeymoon or period of normal sexuality +and during his first religious epoch, +when he was sincere, and enthusiasm +and yearning, transfused in the symbols +of faith and religious veneration, interpenetrated +and inflamed each other.</p> + +<p>The <i>Fêtes Galantes</i> were published +soon after the <i>Poèmes Saturniens</i>. Artistically +they are far superior, because +their form is more individual, their +structure more original, and their architecture +more compact. Yet they do not +appear to me to represent balance, but +rather the short trembling, to-and-fro +wavering of the scales of his impetuous +and sensitive character.</p> + +<p>They are coquettish; and coquetry +is sensuality with style, tamed accordingly, +but not conquered. They are at +the same time modest and impudent, +attack and careful retreat. They are +not pure sensuality, but desire, masked +by a demand for modesty.</p> + +<p>It is the most characteristically +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_29" title="29"> </a>French of his books, drawn as with the +maliciously kind brush of Watteau. In +these poems, in which Verlaine's muse +trips on high-heeled shoes through gardens +which shimmer in the gleam of a +mocking moon, in these whispering dialogues +between Pierrots and Columbines, +in these gallant landscapes, an +anxious presentiment weeps plaintively +in the bushes. This sad mode makes +the dallying faces gleam underneath +tears. The true voice of the yearning +soul is poured out and dies away in the +imperishable <i>Colloque <ins title="Sentimentale">Sentimental</ins></i>, a +dark pearl of indefinite, infinite sorrow. +Out of masks and pantomimes, the +poet's face stares sadly bewildered into +the black mirror of reality.</p> + +<p>At that time an evil influence had +broken into his life, perhaps the most +destructive, “the one unpardonable +vice,” as he himself confesses. Verlaine +began to drink. At first it was bravado, +recklessness, persuasion; later it was +desire, torture, flight from the qualms +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_30" title="30"> </a>of his conscience, “the forgetfulness, +sought in execrable potions.”</p> + +<p>He drank absinthe, a sweetish, greenish +liquid, which is false as cat's eyes +and treacherous and murderous like a +diseased harlot. Baudelaire's hashish is +comprehensible. It was the magician +who raised fantastic landscapes, it +quieted the nerves, it was the poet of +the poet. Verlaine's absinthe is only +destructive and obliterating, a slow poison +which does not kill but unnerves +and undermines like the white powders +the dreaded secret of which the Borgias +held. Absinthe wrought silently and +inexorably in Verlaine's life. By degrees +it absorbed the tender, soft, +yearning, vague qualities of his heart +of a child; it made the hard, passionate, +depraved man strong, and awakened +the sensualist and cynic in him. Even +when the high-arched churches and the +figures of the Madonnas no longer offered +him a place of refuge, “the atrocious +green sorceress” was still his only +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_31" title="31"> </a>comforter, into whose arms he willingly +cast himself.</p> + +<p>He himself tells regretfully how at +the time of his cousin Eliza's death, soon +after the appearance of his first book, +he joined sorrow and vice in tragic +manner. For two days he had not +touched food. But he drank, drank +without interruption, restlessly, and returned +to the offices a drunkard, drowning +the reproof of his superior in a new +absinthe. Everything that was hard, +bitter, wild, which later broke loose in +him so tempestuously, compelling the +law to step between him and his wife, +his mother and his friends, was called +forth by the green poison in the silent, +kindly nature which loved soft words +and was inclined even to his last years +to the power of hot tears. With pitiless +force this most dangerous of his +vices drew taut the chain, by which the +passions and sudden catastrophe of his +destiny dragged him on to the road of +misery.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_32" title="32"> </a> +For a moment it seemed as if everything +were to come to a good end. He +fell in love with the explosive vehemence +and despairing persistence with +which the weak are accustomed to cling +to an idea. The step-sister of his +friend, de Sivry, had fascinated him. +As a matter of fact the engagement +came about. In these days, separated +from his bride, Verlaine wrote the slender +volume of songs, <i>La Bonne Chanson</i>. +It is his most quiet and balanced +book. According to his own repeatedly +expressed opinion, he considered it the +most beautiful of his works and the one +dearest to him. In the best and noblest +sense they are “occasional verses.” +Almost daily one is written and sent to +his beloved. It was only in small selection +that they were united in print.</p> + +<p>Here the idea of modesty subdues +passion like a wonderful sordine, and +surrender and tenderness intertwine +with the ideals of modesty. The cleft +in Verlaine's personality closes in the +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_33" title="33"> </a>consonance of a soul which has found +peace. It represents the first period of +peace in his life and career and is +humanly his most perfect moment and +poetically his purest. Vice and passion +have disappeared in a hesitating yet desirous +surrender, melancholy has dissolved +in melody.</p> + +<p>Victor Hugo, the sovereign coiner of +great phrases, called the <i>Bonne Chanson</i>, +“<i>une fleur dans un obus</i>.” There +are poems in this slim volume which +seem as if they had been woven out of +the gushing flood of moonlight. There +are poems which gleam like pale pearls +and lonely pools. Word and sense, +form and emotion, foreboding and being, +life and dreams, are their woof. +Here appeared that marvel of French +lyric poetry, the wonderful poem.</p> + +<div class="poem" style="max-width: 11em;"> +<div class="stanza"> +“La lune blanche<br/> +<span class="i1">Luit dans les bois;<br/></span> +<span class="i1">De chaque branche<br/></span> +<span class="i1">Part une voix<br/></span> +<span class="i1">Sous la ramée....<br/></span> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_34" title="34"> </a> +“Oh bien-aimée! +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +“L'étang reflète,<br/> +<span class="i1">Profond miroir,<br/></span> +<span class="i1">La silhouette<br/></span> +<span class="i1">Du saule noir<br/></span> +<span class="i1">Où le vent pleure ...</span> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +“Rêvons: c'est l'heure. +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +“Un vaste et tendre<br/> +<span class="i1">Apaisement<br/></span> +<span class="i1">Semble descendre<br/></span> +<span class="i1">Du firmament<br/></span> +<span class="i1">Que l'astre irise ...</span> +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +“C'est l'heure exquise.” +</div> +</div> + +<p>From this point on the life-story in +which the germ and seed of such wonderful +fruit ripened is painful. The +descent was not sudden. Verlaine was +one of those wavering characters who +require energetic impulsion for good as +well as for evil. He never slid as on an +inclined plane, but he sank like a scale +weighed down by something unsuspected. +Thus it is possible to name the +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_35" title="35"> </a>catastrophes and to set the milestones +of his misfortunes.</p> + +<p>The great wrench which in 1870 +shook his country, also affected his life +and tore it apart. His wedding occurred +during the days of the war. +The fever of political over-excitement +seized him and he, the almost bourgeois +government clerk who never troubled +about politics, became a communist as +a favor to several friends. The anecdote +that he once wished to assassinate +Emperor Napoleon III was a hoax +which he told his comrades for the sake +of the sensation, something like the +story which Baudelaire told of the +“savoriness” of embryonal brains.</p> + +<p>His work consisted in reading the +articles on the Commune which appeared +in the newspapers and marking +them whether they were favorable or +unfavorable. Nevertheless this insignificant +part, which he himself did not +take seriously and spoke of as “This +stupid enough rôle which I played during +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_36" title="36"> </a>two months of illusions,” cost him +his position. This was the break with +well-ordered life and the sign-post +which showed him the way into the +Bohème.</p> + +<p>The old wounds re-opened. Verlaine +began to drink again during his +activities in the Commune. Recriminations +and scenes rose as the result of +this relapse. Suddenly came the decisive +act of the drunkard; he struck +his wife the first blow. New misunderstandings +followed, but the household +still held together, soon to be increased +by the arrival of a son.</p> + +<p>The final element is still lacking. +Abstractions are weak against realities, +things that have happened may change +men but they cannot vanquish them. +So far everything has been only inchoate +power and a foreshadowing +threat, but not enchantment. It is only +the magic of a passion, an elemental +and unfathomable magnetic power +which links one human being to another, +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_37" title="37"> </a>the intangible, which can conquer +a poet. He can overcome want and life +because he despises them; he can make +evil powerless because he repents; +chance he can bridge; but he cannot +hold back destiny, nor win battles with +the incomprehensible.</p> + +<p>A new influence enters Verlaine's +life—Arthur Rimbaud.</p> + + + +<div> +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_38" title="38"> </a> +<h2>THE RIMBAUD EPISODE</h2> +</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">No</span> matter how much a writer may +have striven for the unusual or have +tried to order confusing ways with intelligence +and form, his fiction does not +reach the depths nor is it as tragic as +this one which life devised. The beginning +is simple, the climax grandiose, of +such wildness and rising to such heights, +that the end no longer could be pure +tragedy. It turned into tragi-comedy, +that grotesque sensation which we feel +when destiny grows beyond human +beings and over-towers them, while +they are still struggling with pigmy +hands to master a monstrous force +which has long gone beyond their control.</p> + +<p>The beginning was conventional. +One day Verlaine received a letter from +an acquaintance in the provinces, in +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_39" title="39"> </a>which poems by a fifteen-year-old boy +were enclosed. Verlaine's opinion was +asked. The poems were: <i>Les Effarés</i>, +<i>Les Assis</i>, <i>Les Poètes de sept ans</i>, <i>Les +Premières communions</i>. Every one +knows they were Arthur Rimbaud's, +for the poems of this boy are among +the most precious of French literature. +He began where the best stop and then, +at twenty, threw literature aside as +something irksome and unimportant. +Verlaine read them and was filled with +enthusiasm. He wrote to the boy in a +tone of glowing admiration. In the +meantime the poems made the rounds +in Paris. Words of characteristically +French emphasis are quickly coined. +Victor Hugo with his regal gesture +declared the author to be “<i>Shakespeare +enfant</i>.”</p> + +<p>The provincial associations of Charleville +filled Rimbaud with disgust and +unrest. Verlaine in his enthusiasm +wrote to him “Come, dear great soul, +we are waiting for you, we want you.” +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_40" title="40"> </a>He himself was without a position and +his own life in Paris at that time was +threatened with chaos and uncertainty, +but with the marvellous folly of yielding +and emotional natures he invited +a stranger as guest into his shaken +destiny.</p> + +<p>Rimbaud came. He was a big, robust +fellow filled with a demonic physical +force like that which Balzac has +breathed into his Vautrin types. He +was a provincial with massive red fists +and the curious face of a child that has +been corrupted early in life—a gamin, +but a genius. Everything in him is +force, over-abundant, wild, exceptional +virility, without aim and turned toward +the infinite.</p> + +<p>He is one of the conquistador type, +who first lost his way in literature. He +pours everything into it, fire, fulness, +force, more, much more than great +creators spend. Like a crater he +throws out his mad fever dreams and +visions of life such as perhaps only +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_41" title="41"> </a>Dante has had before him. He hurls +everything up into the infinite as if he +would shatter it to bits. Destruction +teems in this creation, a force ardent +for power, a hand that would seize +everything and crush it.</p> + +<p>His poems are only sudden gestures +of wrath. They resemble bloody tatters +of raw flesh that have been torn +with wild teeth from the body of reality. +It is poetry “outside and above” +all literature. Has there ever been a +poet of modern times who thus threw +poems on paper and then let the scraps +flutter to the four winds? Without +pose, unlike Stefan George or Mallarmé, +who calculate carefully, he despised +the public and literature. He +never had a single line printed by his +own efforts, he was utterly regardless +of the fleeting examples of his gigantic +power. At twenty he left his fame and +companions behind to wander through +the world. In Africa he founded fantastic +realms, he sat in prison and there +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_42" title="42"> </a>played a part in world history preparing +under King Menelik for the struggle +which cost Italy her provinces. But +in three years he wrote many poems +full of power and fire, including the +eternal poem <i>Le bateau ivre</i>, a staggering +fever dream, into which all the colors, +sounds, forms and forces of life +seem to have been poured, bubbling in +curious forms and seething in the glow +of a feverish moment. His life was +like a dream, as wild, as mighty and as +little subject to time.</p> + +<p>Verlaine gladly sheltered the awkward +boy. Madame Verlaine was less +enthusiastic and never concealed her +dislike. Perhaps, with a woman's instinct, +she unconsciously foresaw the +danger which threatened Verlaine in +this new companion.</p> + +<p>The bond of friendship grew closer +and closer. Verlaine's <i>gaminerie</i> which +was ever in contrast with his sensitivity, +awakened suddenly. His tendency +toward strong, cynical and lascivious +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_43" title="43"> </a>conversation met a genial match in +Rimbaud. The primitive element in +Verlaine was suddenly enchained by +the primæval, purely human and brutal +masculinity of Rimbaud's personality. +The feminine in his nature was feeling +for completion. As if predestined for +each other for years, their personalities +dovetail. Without any affection, by +necessity rather than by friendship, +their union becomes closer and closer. +One day in 1872 Verlaine leaves wife, +child and the world in which he lived to +wander with Rimbaud into the unknown.</p> + +<p>Without doubt there was an element +of the abnormal in the relations between +Verlaine and Rimbaud, but to +understand their friendship it is neither +necessary nor essential to know whether +the dangerous potentialities that inhere +in so strong a personal enthusiasm ever +became material facts.</p> + +<p>Their path led over the highways +and also through prisons. “An evil +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_44" title="44"> </a>rage for travelling” had seized the two. +Through Belgium, through Germany +and England they wandered; usually +they were without means. They stayed +in London for a while, supporting +themselves by teaching languages and +delving deeper than ever into social +politics. Rimbaud left and returned +just in time to convey the sick Verlaine +home. The terrible life which he had +led had broken him down. He himself +has concealed the tragic incidents of +those days in a novelette, “<i>Louise Leclercq</i>.”</p> + +<p>There he wrote: “The few half-crowns +which he earned daily in giving +lessons, they spent in the evening on +Portuguese wine and Irish beer. The +stomach was forgotten, the head became +affected and the lessons were not +given, and thus hunger and nervosity +overcame the reason of this brave fellow.”</p> + +<p>The patient is taken to Bouillon, a +small town in the Ardennes, where +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_45" title="45"> </a>Charles van Lerberghe, the great Belgium +poet, lived, but he has hardly half +recovered when he plunges out into the +world again with Rimbaud. Mental +unrest is transformed into physical unrest. +The lack of stability which operated +most impulsively in that crisis, appears +in his external life. There is +nothing definite for which he is seeking +yet he is unsatisfied. Verlaine, man of +moods <i>par excellence</i>, adjusts himself +to life in his own manner. He becomes +boorish, subject to fits of passion, violent +and unaccountable. His tenderness +seems to have been strangled by +hunger, drunkenness and wild destiny. +The friendship for Rimbaud also assumes +evil shapes. More and more frequently +they quarrel; almost every +hour Rimbaud's foaming temperament +and Verlaine's temporary hard, wild +manner come in conflict. Of course, as +a rule, they were drunk. Rimbaud, who +was strong, drank because of his feeling +of strength and because he yearned for +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_46" title="46"> </a>the intoxication in which colors glowed, +in which impulses became wilder, and +association more rapid, acute and +bolder. Verlaine fled to absinthe to +drown out repentance, anguish and +weakness; and from this sweetish drink, +in which all the evil forces of life seem +to be distilled, he drew brutality and +feverish disorders.</p> + +<p>Once Verlaine ran away, but became +repentant and asked Rimbaud to join +him. Rimbaud followed him to Belgium. +All difficulties were about to be +solved. Madame Verlaine was ready +to forgive and was on her way to meet +the penitent. Then Rimbaud too declared +that he would leave him. No +one knows how it happened, whether it +was jealousy, anger, hatred, love or +only drunkenness, at any rate the disaster +followed on the public street of +Brussels. Verlaine pursued Rimbaud +and shot at him twice with a revolver, +wounding him once. The police came, +and though Rimbaud defended and excused +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_47" title="47"> </a>Verlaine, the latter was arrested. +The sentence was two years in prison, +and these Verlaine spent at Mons. +The immediate result was a divorce, +upon which Madame Verlaine insisted +with every possible emphasis and in +spite of Victor Hugo's intervention.</p> + +<p>This conclusion, however, was too +banal and trite for so heroic a tragedy. +The friendship persisted. Verlaine and +Rimbaud corresponded. Verlaine sent +occasional poems from prison and told +Rimbaud of his conversion. The latter +hardly pleased Rimbaud, who was at +that time cold and indifferent toward +everything except that he was filled +with a thirst for something unique and +infinite and looking forward to new adventures. +Verlaine had hardly been released +before he tried to convert Rimbaud +to this religious life in order to +link their lives anew. “Let us love +each other in Jesus Christ,” he wrote in +his proselyting ardor and with the enthusiasm +which in the beginning he always +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_48" title="48"> </a>felt for everything. Rimbaud +smiled mockingly and finally declared +that “Loyola” should visit him in +Stuttgart.</p> + +<p>Now the moment arrived when +comedy outdid the tragedy of the reunion. +Verlaine arrived at Stuttgart +and attempted the conversion—unfortunately +in an inn, a place little adapted +for proselytes and prophets, for both +the saint and the mocker still had in +common their passion for drink. No +one witnessed the scene; only the result +is known. On the way home both were +drunk, and a quarrel ensued and a +unique incident in the history of literature +followed.</p> + +<p>In the flooding moonlight by the +banks of the Neckar the two greatest +living poets in France fell upon each +other in wild rage with sticks and fists. +The struggle did not last long. Rimbaud, +athletic, like a wild animal, a man +of passion, easily subdued the nervous, +weakly Verlaine, stumbling in drunkenness. +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_49" title="49"> </a>A blow over the head knocked +him down. Bleeding and unconscious, +he remained lying on the bank.</p> + +<p>It was the last time they saw each +other. Verlaine disappeared on the +next day. The episode had come to an +end, but nevertheless several letters +passed back and forth. Then Rimbaud's +grandiose Odyssey through the +entire world began. For many years +his friends in Paris believed him dead, +and even to-day relatively little is +known of his life afterward.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p>In Vienna he was under arrest as a +vagrant, in the Balkans he was a merchant. +Then fulfilling his early prophecy +in the <i>Bateau ivre</i> he said farewell +to Europe and in Africa became discoverer, +general, conqueror. In these +unexpected fields he spent to the last +limits his titanic energy, which in +youthful crises had been expended on +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_50" title="50"> </a>the fragile and for him too weakly material +of language and rhyme. Until +the day of his death, he, <i>the only true +despiser of literature of these days</i>, +never wrote another line, and endeavored +only to give form to his wild and +fantastic dreams in the material of life, +dying in fever as feverishly he lived.</p> + +<p>For Verlaine it was an episode—the +most important, it is true, in a life +which was torn to many tatters. After +his conversion, which will be discussed +more fully later, he returned to Paris +and literature, and died in harness, +physically in 1896, as artist much +earlier.</p> + + + +<div> +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_51" title="51"> </a> +<h2>THE PENITENT</h2> +</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is well known that at the moment +when he left the prison at Mons, Paul +Verlaine, the prisoner, entered the +ranks of the great Catholic poets. A +complete transformation took place in +his life. He turned from the material +to the spiritual. The penitent mood of +his childhood days glimmered again +when he thought of the Nazarene. The +soft early yearnings which were forgotten +in his years of wandering became +symbolized into a definite idea. Nor is +this surprising in one who never could +understand his intellectual processes, +but who was moved entirely by the ebb +and flow of emotion, and who always +wavered unsteadily in all the crises of +life.</p> + +<p>In general it is almost a necessity +among poets that poetic feeling should +be transmuted into religious feeling. +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_52" title="52"> </a>But the creative poets of active mentality +and intellectuality build their own +religion, while the sensitive or passive +poets pour out their flood of feeling +for God in the form of existing rites +and symbols. Balzac clearly shows this +relationship when he says in <i>The Thirteen</i>:</p> + +<p>“Are not religion, love and poetry, +the threefold expression of the same +fact, the need for expression which fills +every noble soul? These three creative +impulses rise up toward God, who concentrates +in himself all earthly emotions.”</p> + +<p>Religion is only a certain form of +association in which things are placed +in relationship with each other. Similarly +the sensation of evening, of the +cool pure air after rain, of the whispering +of the winds and the play of clouds, +or whatever else is caught up in the +nervous fever of poetic sensibility, +hearkens back to the infinite after it +has been permeated by the poet's own +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_53" title="53"> </a>sorrow or joy. He feels that the infinite +has a soul which understands and +atones for all sorrows, and thus he conceives +it as divinity. The poet's religion +is derived from the one great faith +with which he must be filled, which is +the necessity for being understood. It +is only one step further when he finds +that his soul's outflow must lead somewhere, +and then he gives a name, a form +and an interpretation to what has been +incomprehensible.</p> + +<p>But a more definite element in Paul +Verlaine drove him into the arms of +Catholicism. It was his <i>impulse to confession</i>, +which I have tried to show was +the most intensive element in his personality. +A soul which lacks ethical +authority for self-control, in its helplessness +must turn with accusation and +pleading toward others, toward something +outside of the self.</p> + +<p>Cry and sigh are the original forms +of all lyricism, and just as they are a +sweet compulsion to expel an inner +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_54" title="54"> </a>overflow by utterance, so confession is +only deliverance from an inner pressure, +from guilt and penitence, from +mighty forces, accordingly, which the +confessor wishes to transmit to others. +It is a need for explanation, a marvellous +deception, a means to tame forces +by trust, a trust which is not felt toward +one's self. Goethe's much-quoted +words of the fragments of the “great +confession” are still to the point, no +matter how often they have been used. +As he wrote to rid his mind of incidents +which he had experienced, so Verlaine +told of himself, now to the public, now +to the confessor. The fundamental +process, however, is identical.</p> + +<p>Many other things coöperated. +There was the great antithesis between +flesh and spirit, between body and soul; +contempt for the sensual and continual +fall into sin—the immanent conflict of +childish and animal feeling which +flooded forever wildly through Verlaine's +years of manhood. This also has +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_55" title="55"> </a>been for centuries the symbol of the +Catholic Church. In it sensitive and +mystical emotion found a dogmatic +form, through the fundamental principle +of the antithesis between the earthly +and the transcendental. In the same +way the consciousness of the value of +the sensual as sin and of the pure as +virtue is only a reflex of the subjective +impressions of pure souls. Here Verlaine +found a definite form for the +warning which flickered unsteadily in +him. By confession he was able to place +his sins into the dreamy hands of the +immaculate Virgin; in her form he was +at last able worthily to give substance +to the dream-like shadows of the soft +unsensual women, which glimmered +like stars over his life. It was the need +for quiet after storms, confession after +sins.</p> + +<p>Childhood bells called him back to +the church. Pale ancient memories led +him—the pomp of the solemn great +processions which he saw in Montpellier. +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_56" title="56"> </a>The <i>bon enfant</i> awoke in him +again. The memory of his own folded +hands, of his timid child's voice lisping +prayers, and of his sacred soft baptismal +name, <i>Marie</i>, rose in him. The dark +mysticism and the wonderful blue half-lights +of Catholic faith called the +dreamer. The same incense shadow of +vague violent emotion led the romantic +dreamers, Stolberg, Schlegel and Novalis, +from the cool, clear and transparent +air of Protestantism into a foreign +faith. The <i>leitmotiv</i> of Verlaine's +poetry was his yearning and the infinitely +beautiful and persistent impulse of +the unhappy toward childhood and the +magic of a primitively reverent life +close to God. These wrought the miracle.</p> + +<p>If trust were to be put in the corrupt +man of letters who wrote the <i>Confessions</i>, +it was a true miracle, like that in +the cell of Saint Anthony, which +brought him into the arms of the +Church.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_57" title="57"> </a> +In his narrow room, in which he read +Shakespeare and other worldly books, +hung a simple crucifix, unnoticed at +first. Of it he wrote:</p> + +<p>“I know not what or Who suddenly +raised me in the night, threw me from +my bed without even leaving me time +to dress, and prostrated me weeping +and sobbing at the feet of the crucifix +and before the supererogatory image of +the Catholic Church, which has evoked +the most strange, but in my eyes the +most sublime devotion of modern +times.”</p> + +<p>On the following day he asked for +a priest and confessed his sins. At +that hour, Verlaine, the Catholic poet, +was born. He was wonderfully primitive, +like the early poets of the Church, +and his verses were as full of profound +mystic poetry as those of the saints, +Augustine and Francis of Assisi, and +those of the German philosopher poets, +Eckart and Tauler.</p> + +<p>During these two years the neophyte +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_58" title="58"> </a>wrote <i>Sagesse</i>, a volume which appeared +later under the imprint of an +exclusively Catholic publisher. It is +the deepest and greatest work of +French poetry, “the white crown of his +work,” Verhaeren calls it in his brilliant +study of Verlaine. Here again, as +once in the <i>Bonne Chanson</i>, the divergent +forms of his character unite. In +the unrestrained solution of everything +personal in the divine, in “the melting +of his own heart in the glowing heart +of God,” impulse and yearning are +purified. Eroticism becomes spiritualized +into fervor; hope, into sublime +enlightenment; passion, devouring +earthly dross, takes the form of mystic +surrender. Thus the impulsive in Verlaine, +permeated by hours of pure emotion, +obtains its wild power of beauty, +and trembles in the inexplicable mystery +and in the stream of visionary +light, so that his entire life now seems +illumined.</p> + +<p>In his religion likewise it is the purely +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_59" title="59"> </a>human element which is so wonderful. +Verlaine does not possess the seraphic +mildness of Novalis, nor the consumptive, +girl-like, sickly-beautiful inclination +of the pre-Raphaelites toward the +miraculous image. He is passionate +and vehement. He is masculine where +the others become feminine. Like a +timid girl, Novalis dreams of Jesus as +his bride. “If I have Him only, if He +only is mine,” he says and his words +become a chaste love song.</p> + +<p>Verlaine, however, is a reverberating +echo of the great seekers after God, of +the church fathers, of St. Augustine +and of the mystics, and he wrestles for +an almost physical love of God. His +passion is often impious in its earthiness; +his yearning, sacrilege.</p> + +<p>In his sonnet cycle, <i>Mon dieu m'a dit</i>, +is a place where the soul, wounded by +the lighting of divine love, cries out, unconscious +whether in joy or pain:</p> + +<div class="poem" style="width: 17em;"> +<div class="stanza"> +“Quoi, moi, moi pouvoir Vous aimer.<br/> +<span class="i3"><ins title="Etez vous">Êtes-vous</ins> fous?”</span> +</div> +</div> + +<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_60" title="60"> </a> +In these impious words God is humanized +vividly, and yet, by the very +bitterness of the struggle with His all-goodness, +the poet imbues Him with an +absolute perfection.</p> + +<p>Here Verlaine's tormented soul is +entirely cast out of himself, and +plunges in a sudden flood into the infinite. +Ecstasy overcomes the feminine +element in him, just as in his life vulgar +drunkenness roused his hard, +coarse and brutal qualities. For a +moment Verlaine is not only a genuine +and marvellous, but also a truly strong +and creative poet; no longer elegiac +and sensitive, but creative.</p> + +<p>In the reflux of enthusiasm come +silent tender hours with songs in which +the notes are muffled. They are the +poems he wrote in the prison which +gave him quietude and shelter, and in +the silence of which the soft voices of +his childhood rose again. Each one of +these poems is noble, simple, and chaste. +It is only necessary to name the titles to +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_61" title="61"> </a>hear the soft violin note of their mild +sadness—“Un grand sommeil noir,” +“Le ciel, est, par dessus le toit,” “Je +ne sais pas pourquoi mon esprit amer,” +“Le son du cor,” “Je ne veux plus +aimer que ma mère Marie.”</p> + +<p>It is truly “<i>le <ins title="coeur">cœur</ins> plus veuf que +<ins title="tout">toutes</ins> les veuves</i>” that speaks in them.</p> + +<p>When the “<i>guote suendaere</i>” again +went out into life which he had never +been able to master, and the wild restlessness +and torment began which tore +his heart into tatters, nothing remained +of the two years in prison except his +pious faith and a sorrowful memory. +The four walls which had enclosed him +also had protected him. “He was truly +himself only in the hospital and in +prison,” says Huysmans.</p> + +<p>Poor Lelian's longing plaint is for +this silence. “Ah truly, I regret the +two years in the tower.” His song +says “Formerly I dwelt in the best of +castles.” His yearning for the elemental, +“far from a curbed age,” never left +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_62" title="62"> </a>him since those hours, and least of all +in Paris, the city of his crowning fame +as a poet. Faith he soon lost, but never +the yearning for faith.</p> + +<p>In addition Verlaine wrote a long +series of Catholic poems. As will be +shown later, he outraged his unique +qualities and thus destroyed them. The +unconscious portion, the wonderful +fragrance of his early religious poems, +which were entirely emotional, soon dissipated. +He constructed an infinite +number of pious verses, verses for +saints' days, religious emblems, and +compiled volumes of poetry for Catholic +publishers. At the same time he +edited pornographica and all manner +of indecencies. His conversion had +created a sensation. He had been +thrust into a rôle and felt it his duty +to play the part and to retain the costume. +This was the reason for the antithesis. +I do not believe the faith of +his later years to have been genuine. +He has called himself “the ruin of a +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_63" title="63"> </a>still Christian philosopher already +pagan,” and in his obscene books turned +the rites of Catholic faith, which he +elsewhere glorified, into phallic and +other sexual symbols.</p> + +<p>He was unable to escape the realization +of the comedy of this situation. +In his autobiography, <i>Hommes d'aujourd'hui</i>, +he attempted a very ingenious +but exceedingly unsatisfactory +justification. “His work,” he explains, +speaking of poor Lelian, “from 1880 +took on two very sharply defined directions, +and the prospectuses of his future +books indicated that he had made up +his mind to continue this system and to +publish, if not simultaneously, at least +in parallel, works absolutely different +in idea—to be more exact, books in +which Catholicism unfolds its logic and +its lures, its blandishments and its terrors; +and others purely modern, sensual +with a distressing good humor and +full of the pride of life.”</p> + +<p>Can this be the program of the “unconscious?” +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_64" title="64"> </a>A few lines further on he +has given another explanation. “I believe, +and I am a good Christian at this +moment; I believe, and I am a bad +Christian the instant after. The remembrance +of hope, the evocation of a +sin, delight me with or without remorse.” +This is the truth. Verlaine +was a man of moods, he was always +only the creature of the moment. +After a few seconds the movement of +his will contracted limply and momentary +desires overflooded his consciousness +of personality. His faith may +have been as capricious and restless, as +each one of his tendencies of passion. +Great poems, however, in the sense of +great in extent, are not conceived in a +moment. Moods spread like a fine mist +over the poet's hours, they permeate +them and fill them through and through +for a long time before a poem takes +form.</p> + +<p>Verlaine, the man of letters and poet +according to program, is a hateful +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_65" title="65"> </a>shadow limping behind his great works. +Consciously and with feverish eagerness +and a productivity forced by need, +he rhymed in what he thought his +unique manner. The poor old man +whom interviewers sought in the hospital +was no longer the poet, Paul Verlaine.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to tell how long the +flame of personal faith still glowed in +him. Probably it was as little extinguished +as his soft dream of childhood. +In the dusk of his last years it often +struggled upward with tears, as a symbol +of sorrow over his broken life.</p> + +<p>As all his thought began to tend +toward senile mistiness, his emotions +also slowly deteriorated in indifference +and drunkenness. It was not his companions +in his cups who understood him +best, but the poets who saw his life in +the illuminating perspective of distance.</p> + +<p>In a short story, <i>Gestas</i>, Anatole +France has marvellously described in +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_66" title="66"> </a>his insistent, quiet, dignified fashion the +mingling of purity and depravity in +this life of curious piety. It is merely +an anecdote. Stumbling, a drunkard +enters church in the early morn to confess +his sins. The priest has not yet +arrived. The drunkard begins to grow +noisy, beats the prayer desks; he rages +and weeps, he has so endlessly many +sins to confess, he wants only a little +priest, a very, very little one.</p> + +<p>In these few pages everything is +compressed, “the prodigal child with +the gestures of a satyr.” All the traits +of Verlaine are here, the accusing one +of the penitent which he never lost, the +angry one of the drunkard, the yearning +tenderness of the poet, all the childishly +wise, and yet in its simplicity so +marvellously wonderful, faith of the +good sinner.</p> + + + +<div> +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_67" title="67"> </a> +<h2>LEGENDS AND LITERATURE</h2> +</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">One</span> hesitates to relate the last years +of this curious life. From the moment +that Verlaine returned to Paris the +tragedy lacks æsthetic significance. +There are no longer sudden descents +and elevations, but his life is slowly +stifled in <i>camaraderie</i>, lingering disease +and depravity. His poetic force crumbles +away, his uniqueness becomes extinguished. +It is no longer a foaming +wave crest that carries him away, but +dirty little waves.</p> + +<p>When he came to Paris, he had been +forgotten. His books were lying unsold +with the publishers; the majority +of his friends avoided him, evidently +because their frock coat of the Academy +made recognition difficult, until suddenly +the younger generation began to +noise about his name; and now more +people quarrel over starting this movement +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_68" title="68"> </a>than there were cities to claim +Homer's cradle.</p> + +<p>It was a period of development. +French lyric poetry was passing +through a revolutionary crisis. For the +first time the marble image of “<i>beauté +impassible</i>” trembled in the hands of +the poets. But not one of them was a +strong enough artist to create a new +ideal. At this moment the younger +men began to remember Verlaine. His +Bohemian life, the soft, fluctuating +dreamy manner of his art, the frenzy of +his life, his recklessness, loyalty and elementalness +were a marvellous antithesis +to the well-bred “<i>impassibilité</i>” of +the Academy. His name was used as +a battering-ram against the Parnassians. +In kindly fashion, without +choice, Verlaine, the old man, who was +beginning to feel chill, accepted the late +enthusiasm and veneration.</p> + +<p>Literature alone is not yet sufficient +to create fame in France. It was only +when the great journals began to take +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_69" title="69"> </a>an interest in his life that he became +popular. And at that time a mass of +paltry legends began to gather around +his name. He became the “naive child +of modern culture,” the “Bohemian,” +the “Unconscious,” the “New François +Villon,” and even to-day these +stereotyped phrases are industriously +repeated.</p> + +<p>Indeed his life was strange. In hospitals +the poet sought shelter. With +a white cloth wound like a turban +around his bald, Socrates-like head, he +was always surrounded by contemporary +literature, which strove to rise with +the aid of his name. He received interviewers, +and wrote his poems on prescription +blanks and smeary tatters. +When he was well, he wandered from +café to café, holding forth and gesticulating, +getting drunk, and associating +with lewd women, always with a certain +ostentation whenever he noticed that +the public was watching him. As a +senile Silenus, he presided over the most +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_70" title="70"> </a>remarkable bacchanalia. Like a second +Victor Hugo, he patronized the +younger men with benevolent gesture. +A forced merriness seemed in those +days to tremble electrically through his +nerves. Yet never before had his life +been filled with deeper tragedy and +yearning, and there were many hours +when he himself felt this keenly. +Crushed and torn by the teeth of life, +he, like all Bohemians, at last desired +only peace. Never was the sweet +dream of his childhood days more +poignant than in just this period of dissolute +play-acting and vain exhibitionism.</p> + +<p>Taine has very accurately shown that +creative art consists in the automatization +of the creative individuality, in +overhearing and imitating inherent +qualities, and in objectifying the personal +elements. This process too became +operative in Verlaine's life, more +markedly because in him life and personality +were immanent interaction.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_71" title="71"> </a> +He caricatured himself and re-drew +the delicate lines of his soul with crude +pencil. Consciously he tried to make +the unconscious elements take plastic +form again by way of reflection. He +was no longer elemental, but he strove +hard to be. He prayed to God “to +give me all simplicity,” because he +knew it was expected of him. Since he +was counted among the Catholic poets, +he tried again to pass through the +storm of sacred emotion. The effort +resulted in pompous, well-constructed +religious poems, plump like botched +Roman churches.</p> + +<p>He attempted to show the unconscious +in himself by striving to explain +the creative impulse and placing mirrors +behind his juggler's tricks. The +wonderful gesture of surrender which +destiny and sorrow had taught him, he +learned by heart like an actor who reproduces +a gesture mechanically at +the seventy succeeding performances, +though he is truly an artist only at the +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_72" title="72"> </a>moment when he first discovers and understands +its significance in studying +the part. Thus Verlaine carefully reconstructed +all the characteristics which +the journals declared were his own. +Coquettishly he exhibited the “poor +Lelian” and the “<i>bon enfant</i>”—mere +costumes of a poetical fire that +had long died out. His manner became +more and more childlike; he was trying +to enter entirely into the rôle of +“<i>guileless fool</i>,” while his sharp but +unlogical intelligence never gave way.</p> + +<p>The poet retired further and further +into him. The more he rhymed (and in +the last years with morbid frequency), +the fewer poems were produced. Now +and then one came, when pose and impulse +joined in minutes of sad (or +drunken) melancholy, and when the +mysterious fluid of the unconscious and +great indefinite emotions made him +silent, simple and timid.</p> + +<p>Otherwise he alternately turned +erotic incidents and adventures in alcoves +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_73" title="73"> </a>into rhyme, and wrote literary +mockeries and parodies of Paul Verlaine, +and for purposes of contrast, +verses in praise of Catholic saint days. +Every artistic pride was soon forgotten +in the need for money. He sold his +poems at one hundred sous apiece to his +publisher Vanier, who cruelly printed +them often against the active protest +of the poet; recently again a volume of +“Posthumous Works,” which easily +may be denominated as one of the most +disagreeable and worst books published +in France. This portion of the +tragedy of his life no one has as yet +fully told.</p> + +<p>During his last years he wrote two +books which must not be ignored even +though they do not fit in the customary +picture of the <i>bon enfant</i>. These were +<i>Femmes</i> and <i>Hombres</i>. They could +not appear publicly but were sold in +five hundred numbered copies each. In +them Verlaine broke abruptly with the +tradition of agreeable nastiness of a +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_74" title="74"> </a>Grecourt, in order to produce works of +an unheard-of subjective shamelessness. +In form the poems are smooth and in +structure they are clever, but their subject +matter and the poet's self-revelation +is such as to place these volumes +among the most unhappy that have +ever been produced. They are naked +and obscene.</p> + +<p>From an æsthetic point of view this +publication, even if it was clandestine +was without excuse, and it was the deepest +descent of the poet. The effect of +this depravity of an old man writing +down with unsteady hand vices and +nakednesses on prescription blanks for +the sake of a few francs with which to +buy an absinthe, is tragic. The existence +and the spread of these books +must destroy absolutely the legend of +the “guileless fool.” This is the only +value which can be attributed to them.</p> + +<p>The carnival comedy took place before +Ash Wednesday. When Leconte +de Lisle died, the younger generation +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_75" title="75"> </a>advertised and arranged for the choice +of the king of poets, never realizing to +what extent they were guilty in bringing +about the artistic degeneration of +the chosen poet. The faun-like, mockingly +sagacious head of Paul Verlaine, +who was ill and growing old, received +the crown. Poor Lelian became “king +of the poets,” a mark of great affection +on the part of the younger men, but +only a title after all, which was unable +to give Paul Verlaine the necessary +dignity and strength of personality. +After Verlaine, Stéphane Mallarmé inherited +the imaginary crown, and after +him it was worn in obscurity by Leon +Dierx,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> a not very distinguished, but +agreeable and dignified poet of the +former Parnassus. The coronation was +only a pose and voluntary choice, and +would hardly be worth considering were +it not for the fact that this admiration +for Verlaine's work indicated an underlying +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_76" title="76"> </a>tendency in modern French poetry.</p> + +<p>To the younger generation Verlaine +represented not only a great poet, but +to them he was also the regenerator of +French lyric poetry. The legend that +Verlaine consciously changed poetic +valuations is entirely due to a single +poem, the “<i>Art Poétique</i>.” It is absolutely +necessary to quote it, because on +the one hand it is characteristic of +Verlaine's instinct concerning his own +work, and because on the other hand it +is the basis of all the formulas which +became dogmas among the verse jugglers. +(An English translation of this +poem is given on <a href="#Page_90">page 90</a>.)</p> + +<div class="poem" style="width: 19em;"> +<div class="stanza"> +“De la musique avant toute chose,<br/> +Et pour cela préfère l'Impair<br/> +Plus vague et plus soluble dans l'air,<br/> +Sans rien en lui, qui pèse ou qui pose. +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +“Il faut aussi que tu n'ailles point<br/> +Choisir tes mots sans quelque méprise:<br/> +Rien de plus cher que la chanson grise<br/> +Où l'Indécis au Précis se joint. +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_77" title="77"> </a> +“C'est des beaux <ins title="yeaux">yeux</ins> derrière les voiles,<br/> +C'est le grand jour tremblant de midi,<br/> +C'est, par un ciel d'automne attiédi,<br/> +Le bleu fouillis des claires étoiles! +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +“Car nous voulons la Nuance encore,<br/> +Pas la Couleur, rien que la nuance!<br/> +Oh, la nuance seule fiance<br/> +Le rêve au rêve et la flûte au cor! +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +“Fuis du plus loin la Pointe assassine,<br/> +L'Esprit cruel et le Rire impur,<br/> +Qui font pleurer les yeux d'Azur<br/> +Et tout cet ail de basse cuisine! +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +“Prends <ins title="l'eloquence">l'éloquence</ins> et tords-lui son cou!<br/> +Tu feras bien, en train d'énergie,<br/> +De rendre un peu la Rime assagie,<br/> +Si l'on n'y veille, elle ira jusqu'où? +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +“Oh! qui dira les torts de la Rime?<br/> +Quel enfant sourd ou quel nègre fou<br/> +Nous a forgé ce bijou d'un sou<br/> +Qui sonne creux et faux sous la lime? +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +“De la musique encore et toujours!<br/> +Que ton vers soit la chose envolée<br/> +Qu'on sent qui fuit d'une âme en allée<br/> +Vers d'autres cieux à d'autres amours. +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_78" title="78"> </a> +“Que ton vers soit la bonne aventure<br/> +Éparse au vent crispé du matin<br/> +Qui va fleurant la menthe et le thym ...<br/> +Et tout le reste est littérature.” +</div> +</div> + +<p>Without question certain words in +these lines, somewhat veiled by the +poetic form of expression, harmonize +with the fundamental conceptions of +modern impressionistic lyric poetry. +France never was the land of pure +emotional poetry. There is too much +sense of the formal, too much of a keen-sighted +almost mathematical type of +intellect mingled with a gallant pleasure +in pointedness among the French, +and these make them turn into logic +the elements of mysticism which must +be in every poem, whether in its emotional +content or its vague form of expression. +Goethe has proclaimed the +incommensurable as the material of all +poetry, but among the French the tendency +to crystallize it in the solution of +their positivist habit of thought is ever +imperceptibly betrayed. The feeling +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_79" title="79"> </a>for the line and style shows through. +For them poetry is architecture; intuition, +their intellectual formula; the +marble of conceptions is their material, +and rhyme the mortar.</p> + +<p>Clarity and orderly arrangement are +the preliminary conditions for Victor +Hugo, for the Parnassians and even +for Baudelaire, even though the latter, +by his visionary form and the opiate of +his dark words, created for the first time +solemn, that is to say poetical, impressions +instead of those of pomp alone. +It seems therefore an error to look for +the revolutionary tendency and literary +importance of a Verlaine in the looseness +of his verse structure and more +careless (or intentionally careless) use +of rhyme. His merit is rather that he +was able to illume chaos, darkness, and +presentiments by the very indefiniteness +and the vague music of his soul. +This enabled him to endue his poems +with their mystical trembling melody, +not by abstracting his inner music in +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_80" title="80"> </a>definite melodies, but by fixing it in +assonance, rhymes and rhythmic waves.</p> + +<p>Unconsciously he recognized that +lyric art is the most immaterial of all +and is most nearly related to music. +Its aërial trembling and immateriality +may meet the soul in waves of glowing +fire, but intellectually it is unseizable. +He tried to preserve this musical element +by means of harmony and assonance, +but it was not he himself so +much as the unconscious gift of poetry +that played mysteriously in him and +made him find the fundamental secret +of lyric effects. Émile Verhaeren, the +only other French poet who is a more +vehement and constructive character, +sought and found the musical element +of lyric poetry by the only other way, +that is, in verbal rhythm or consonantal +music. Thus to volatilize the material +simultaneously in the form and to join +the technical with the intuitive elements +is the highest quality of lyric poetry. +It makes it immediate, organic, that is +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_81" title="81"> </a>to say, its spiritual elements permeate +the material in immanent reaction, and +thus the mystery of life is renewed in +individual artifacts. Self-evidently this +intuitive recognition is no discovery. +It has been present in the great lyric +poets of all time, a mystery like that +of sexual reproduction, which awakens +only at the age of ripeness. It was new +in France only because, besides Villon, +Verlaine was the first lyric genius of +the French.</p> + +<p>The mystery of the German folk-song +with its simple, sweetly mysterious +essence became realized in him, perhaps +because there was an undercurrent of +national relationship. Because of the +weakness, submissiveness and child-like +confusion of his emotionality, the vibrations +became tonality, sound and, because +he was a poet, music, instead of +intellectual structures.</p> + +<p>Such art must be more effective as +contrasted with all intellectualism because +it springs from deeper sources, +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_82" title="82"> </a>just as simple weeping is more eloquent +than passionate wailing aloud. +Surely it also contains an artificial element, +not artistry, but magic art, or the +“alchemy of the word” which Rimbaud +<ins title="believed, to">believed to</ins> have discovered, a relationship +between colors, vowels and +sounds depending on <ins title="idiosyncracy">idiosyncrasy</ins>. It +is a secret touching of the ultimate +roots of different stems. It is always +necessary to assume an inter-relation +between lyricism and the lawless, enigmatic +and magic elements of the human +soul and to associate vague threshold +emotions with soft music.</p> + +<p>Verlaine's poetry during his creative +period possesses this vagueness, which +is like a voice in the dark or music of +the soul. It also has the lack of coherence +which emotions must have when +they sweep in halting pain through the +body. This element must remain incomprehensible +to commercially sharp +intelligences of the type of Max Nordau, +who try in a way to subtract the +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_83" title="83"> </a>net value of purely intellectual elements +and “contents” which could be +reduced to prose from the gross value +of poems. Lyricism is magic and the +precious possession of a spiritual communion +which finds its deepest enjoyment +in just these almost impalpable +elements.</p> + +<p>To limit the most important element +of Verlaine's significance to his neglect +of rhyme is showing poor judgment. +In the first place it is unimportant and +secondly incorrect, for he never wrote +a poem without rhyme, except in the +later unworthy years, when now and +then he substituted assonances. In addition +he has himself protested in +<i>L'Hommes d'Aujourd'hui</i>:</p> + +<p>“In the past and at present too I +am honored by having my name mingled +with these disputes, and I pass for +a bitter adversary of rhyme because of +a selection published in a recent collection.—Besides +absolute liberty is my +device if it were necessary for me to +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_84" title="84"> </a>have one—and I find good everything +which is good in despite and notwithstanding +rules.”</p> + +<p>To many it was insufficient to celebrate +Verlaine as one of the marvels of +a nation, a truly elemental human being +whose soul uttered the finest and +most tender lyric moods and who, as if +awakened out of bell-like and clear +dreams, produced true and melodic +poetry out of the darkness of his life. +His admirers have also praised him as +a prose writer. But the prose-writer +must be an intellectual creator, and +know how to master form. This Verlaine +was unable to do. He never +really understood the world, and knew +only how to tell of himself, and accordingly +his novelettes are for the most +part concealed autobiographies. They +have brilliant portions of characterization. +His intellect, which is paradoxical, +self-willed, lyrical, and abrupt, +flashes up and then crumbles.</p> + +<p>His <i>Confessions</i>, which have been +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_85" title="85"> </a>highly praised, remind one of Rousseau's +all too confidential and hypocritical +confessions. They are only +documents of personal sharp-sightedness, +unfortunately much over-clouded +by literary pose. He also tried the +theatre. His comedy, <i>Les Uns et les +Autres</i>, has Watteau-like style and +Pierrot elegances, as well as flexibility, +but is of no importance. Another play, +<i>Louis XVI</i>, remained a fragment. All +Verlaine's literary productions, like +biographies, introductions, etc., give +a painful impression because they are +forced and have sprung from evil +<i>camaraderie</i>.</p> + +<p>He has also been called a great +draftsman. It is true that an excellent +and characteristic skill in the figures +and scribblings which he sprinkled +throughout his letters cannot be gainsaid. +There is even a pathetic element +in their self-confessed technical imperfections. +The caricatures are playful, +without malicious or serious intent, +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_86" title="86"> </a>jotted down with childish self-satisfaction, +but, of course, they need not be +taken seriously. They are little marginalia +to his life, and addenda to the +numerous sharp and bright sketches +with which his intimate friend and artistic +Eckermann, F. A. Cazals, has +fixed him for posterity. They show +Verlaine in all his moods—in his bonhomie, +despair, grief, “<i>gaminerie</i>,” sexuality, +disease, even to the last sketches +which show him in death. They form +a gallery of his life from childhood to +childhood along the dark way of his +destiny. And as in his poetry, notwithstanding +all the exuberant passages, +the final impression is a wailing +note of sadness—the stroke of melancholy's +bow.</p> + + + +<div> +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_87" title="87"> </a> +<h2>POSTLUDE</h2> +</div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> only thing which now remains is +to ascertain whether Paul Verlaine's +life-work, beginning in Metz and ending +in a small lodging-house room in +Paris on a January day in 1896, contains +the elements which we would call +“lasting” because we are afraid of the +proud and resounding word “eternal.” +The significance of great poets passes +the boundaries of literature and ignores +what is known as “influences” and +“artistic atmosphere.” The eternal +element of great works of poetry +reaches back toward eternity. For +humanity poetry is infinity which it +joins with the ether, and the great poets +are those who were able to help in +elaborating the wonderful bond which +stretches from the distant darkness to +the red of the new dawn.</p> + +<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_88" title="88"> </a> +It does not diminish Verlaine's stature +if we do not count him among the +heroes of life. He was an isolated phenomena, +too significant to be typical +and too weak to become eternal. There +was beauty in his pure humanness, but +not of the kind which remains permanent. +He has given nothing which was +not already in us. He was a fleeting +stream of life passing by; he was the +sublime echo of the mysterious music +which rises within us on every contact +of things, like the ring of glasses on a +cupboard under every footstep and impact.</p> + +<p>His effect is deep, but yet on that +account not great. To have become +great it would have been necessary for +him to conquer the destiny which he +could not master and to liberate his will +from the thousand little vices and passions +which enwrapped it. He is one of +the writers who could be spared, whom +nevertheless no one would do without. +He is a marvel, beautiful and unnecessary, +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_89" title="89"> </a>like a rare flower which gives +sweetness and wonderful peace to the +senses, but which does not make us +noble, strong, brave and humble.</p> + +<p>He was, and herein lies his greatness +and power, the symbol of pure humanity, +splendid creative force in the weak +vessel of his personality. He was a +poet who in his works became one with +the poetry of life, the sounds of the +forest, the kiss of the wind, the rustling +of the reeds and the voice of the dusk +of evening. Humanly he was like us +who love him. He was one of those +who, no matter how great a chaos they +have made of their own life, are yet +inappeasable, and drink the stranger's +pain and the stranger's bliss in the precious +cup of glorious poetry. They +manifold their being and their emotions +because of a blind and uncreative yearning +for the universal and infinity.</p> + + + +<div> +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_90" title="90"> </a> +<h2>ART POÉTIQUE</h2> +</div> + + +<div class="poem" style="width: 18.5em;"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="smcap">No</span> laws should rule by force or guile,<br/> +But let your verse go singing soft,<br/> +And in the solvent air aloft<br/> +Find music, music all the while. +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +Nor be too diffident in phrase,<br/> +But let your song grow drunk with wine<br/> +Where mystic unions vaguely shine<br/> +In luminous and errant ways. +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +Like veilèd eyes your song should be,<br/> +Like noondays trembling in the sun,<br/> +Like autumn dusks when days are done<br/> +And stars and sky join secretly. +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +Not vivid colors should adorn,<br/> +But shades alone when dream to dream<br/> +Is wed, and tender shadows gleam<br/> +Like flute notes mingled with the horn. +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +The “point” which slays and cruel wit,<br/> +And smile impure you should despise,<br/> +For like base garlic they arise<br/> +To spoil the poem exquisite. +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +<a class="pagenum" name="Page_91" title="91"> </a> +Take eloquence and twist its neck!<br/> +And sophist rhyming which would lead<br/> +You headlong into sing-song speed<br/> +'Tis well for you to hold in check. +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +Oh, who shall tell of evil rhyme!<br/> +A trinket coin with hollow ring,<br/> +A barbarous or childish thing<br/> +Passed downward idly to our time. +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +Music, music, evermore,<br/> +The burden of your song should be,<br/> +Inherent like the melody<br/> +Of souls a-wing to distant shore; +</div> +<div class="stanza"> +Or like the brave emprise and pure<br/> +Of morning breezes which imbue<br/> +The thyme and mint with honey dew—<br/> +The rest belongs to literature. +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnotes"> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a> In French <i>Pauvre Lelian</i>, an anagram of Paul Verlaine, +which Verlaine often used when speaking of +himself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" href="#FNanchor_2_2" class="label">[2]</a> A Biography and a volume of Rimbaud's correspondence +have recently been published by his +brother-in-law, Paterne Berrichon. They throw much +light upon his remarkable career.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" href="#FNanchor_3_3" class="label">[3]</a> Leon Dierx died in 1912 at the age of 74, and Paul +Fort, the author of the famous <i>Ballades Françaises</i>, +was chosen as “king of the poets” to succeed him.</p></div> +</div> + +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Paul Verlaine, by Stefan Zweig + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAUL VERLAINE *** + +***** This file should be named 34327-h.htm or 34327-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/3/2/34327/ + +Produced by Jana Srna and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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