Famous Readers of an Infamous Book the Fortunes of Gaspard de La Nuit

Famous Readers of an Infamous Book: The Fortunes of Gaspard de la NuitAuthor(s): Marvin N. RichardsSource: The French Review, Vol. 69, No. 4 (Mar., 1996), pp. 543-555Published by: American Association of Teachers of FrenchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/397288Accessed: 26/07/2010 21:10

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THE FRENCH REVIEW, Vol. 69, No. 4, March 1996 Printed in U.S.A.

Famous Readers of an Infamous Book: The Fortunes of Gaspard de la Nuit

by Marvin N. Richards

... tout condamne Bertrand ' atre un precurseur. ..

-Raymond Schwab

BAUDELAIRE WAS THE FIRST TO CREDIT ALOYSIUS BERTRAND With the inven- tion of a new model for poetry, the prose poem, found in the latter's Gaspard de la Nuit, which served as a model for the poems of the Spleen de Paris: "C'est en feuilletant pour la vingtieme fois au moins, le fameux Gaspard de la Nuit, d'Aloysius Bertrand ... que l'id"e m'est venue de tenter quelque chose d'analogue" (CEuvres 161). But in order for his own project to be original, he had to deny the importance of Bertrand: "Sit6t que j'eus commence le travail, je m'aperqus que non-seulement je restais bien loin de mon mysterieux module, mais encore que je faisais quelque chose (si cela peut s'appeler quelque chose) de singulierement diff6rent" (161). Most critics-who have less at stake than Baudelaire-follow this lead and cite Bertrand in a footnote to the history of the prose poem, but rarely take the time to examine Gaspard de la Nuit or trace the influence it had on modern French poetry. Perhaps this is because the prose poem is a form of modern poetry and as such anachronistic in the Romantic period in which Bertrand wrote (c. 1828). This study will not answer why Bertrand is excluded from the history of the genre he invented, but it will show that poets from Baudelaire to Breton considered him as an important reference.

I have divided the history of Gaspard into three periods. The first begins in 1842 with the initial (posthumous) publication of Gaspard de la Nuit and extends to the death of Baudelaire 1867. A new period begins in 1867 because Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, in his Revue des lettres et des arts, repub- lished many of the texts of Gaspard, which had become rare. Mallarmd was at least partly responsible for this renewed interest, and he also pub-

543

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lished a few prose poems in his friend's Revue. His death in 1898 marks the end of the second period. Finally, Bertrand's importance is an- nounced in the preface of Max Jacob's collection of prose poems, Le Cor- net i~ des, published in 1917, and, in 1920, no fewer than four editors republish Gaspard de la Nuit, bearing witness to Bertrand's popularity among Breton, Reverdy, Eluard, and others.

I. 1842-1867: The birth of a genre

J'ai une petite confession 'a vous faire. C'est en feuilletant pour la vingtieme fois au moins, le fameux Gaspard de la Nuit d'Aloysius Bertrand ... que l'idee m'est venue de tenter quelque chose d'analogue ...

-Baudelaire, Le Spleen de Paris

Maintenant, qu'est-ce que Gaspard de la Nuit? C'est une ewuvre qui a un grand charme et qu'il serait dangereux d'imiter.

-Revue des deux mondes 1 January 1843

Gaspard de la Nuit was first published in November, 1842, nineteen months after Bertrand's death. The manuscript had been sold to Eugene Renduel in 1836, but he had retired to the countryside in 1841 without printing it. Two of Bertrand's friends, the sculptor David d'Angers and Victor Pavie, repurchased the manuscript and printed it with a notice by Sainte-Beuve (reprinted in Portraits litteraires). The Revue des deux mondes gave the first review of Gaspard in January, 1843, but the author G. Mo- lanes was unenthusiastic: "Gaspard de la Nuit a le tort d'etre une suite de tableaux executes sans pinceau et sans crayon avec les procedes unique- ment reserves au crayon et au pinceau" (343). He also remarks that the book is "une oeuvre qui a un grand charme et qu'il serait dangereux d'imiter" (342). La France litteraire published a more positive review, by Emile Deschamps, who predicted that "Gaspard de la Nuit de Louis Ber- trand, sera[it] bient6t dans toutes les mains litteraires" (102).

If Bertrand's book did not find its way into the hands of all the literary figures, it certainly made an impression on some. No mention is made of Gaspard for eighteen years, but in 1861, two significant articles appear in the Revue fantaisiste. The issue of 15 October 1861 contains a study of Ber- trand by Fortune Calmels, "Les Oublids du dix-neuviame sibcle," who notes that Bertrand and his book are unknown and that "Seuls, de trbs rares dilettanti en possedent un exemplaire, et ceux-lk, je vous l'affirme,

GASPARD DE LA NUIT 545

ne le cederaient pas pour beaucoup d'or" (304). Calmels concludes by signaling Bertrand's cult status with a quote from Tennyson: "Sceptique au front assombri, n'approchez point! tout ici est terre consacr&e" (315).

Baudelaire was certainly not deaf to this memorial, for in the next issue of the Revue fantaisiste (1 November 1861), he published nine prose poems, under the heading (for the first time) of "Poemes en prose." These were not his first attempts; in fact, he had published two texts as early as 1855, "Le Crepuscule du soir" and "La Solitude," whose initial versions differ greatly from the later ones. The original poems bear a considerable formal resemblance to Bertrand's model, with four short paragraphs which could almost be called couplets (the term employed by Bertrand [301]).

Soon after these poems were published in the Revue fantaisiste, Baude- laire sent two more manuscripts of prose poems to Houssaye with the letter dated Noel 1861 that would later serve as the preface to Le Spleen de Paris:

"I1 y a plusieurs anndes que je rave a mes poemes en prose ... Mon point de depart a ete Gaspard de la Nuit d'Aloysius Bertrand, que vous connaissez, sans aucun doute; mais j'ai bien vite senti que je ne pouvais pas perseverer dans ce pastiche et que l'oeuvre etait inimitable" (Le Spleen de Paris 215-16).

According to Prarond, Baudelaire read Gaspard as soon as it was published (when he was twenty-one), and his enthusiasm for the book may have been the reason for Asselineau's edition of 1868: "Je dois noter l'impression que firent sur lui [Baudelaire], des qu'elles parurent, les Fantaisies d'Aloysius Bertrand. Il en garda la marque, et c'est a cette estime parti- culiere, dont herita plus tard Asselineau, que Gaspard de la Nuit doit son edition de Paris-Bruxelles, 1868" (Prarond 11, cited in Rude 47). In any case, we know that Baudelaire worked on and published several of his prose poems from 1855 until his death in August, 1867, just two months before Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's Revue des lettres et des arts started to republish some of the poems of Gaspard de la Nuit, which had become a rarity.

1867 marks a new period, then, in the history of Bertrand's fortunes, for he became available to a new generation who read Villier's Revue, and a new edition with an introduction by Asselineau was to appear in 1868. Adding to this interest was of course Baudelaire's "confession" of Ber- trand's influence (first published in La Presse on August 26, 1862, with nine prose poems) which accompanied the posthumous publication of the Petits Poemes en prose (1869). As Rude explains, "Toujours est-il qu'au moment oii mourait Baudelaire, Bertrand devenait accessible a une nouvelle generation de pontes: Lautreamont, Rimbaud n'ont pas pu ne pas le connaitre et allaient se retrouver en lui" (51).

II. 1867-1898: The symbolists discover Bertrand

... un anachronisme a causi son oubli. -Mallarmd to Victor Pavie

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Mallarme represents probably the most enthusiastic reader of Bertrand, and, interestingly, he was born in the same year as Gaspard, 1842. Mon- dor suggests that the poet read Bertrand's work as early as 1862 and remarks that Mallarme certainly read Calmels's article on Bertrand as well as Baudelaire's prose poems in the Revue fantaisiste (Mallarm6 CEuvres completes 1550-51). The most evident signs of Mallarme's enthusiasm for Bertrand may be found in three letters he addressed to Ber- trand's first publisher, Victor Pavie, in 1865 and 1866. Mallarm6, who was then teaching English at Tournon, wanted a copy of Gaspard and wrote to Pavie for one. He also suggested that Pavie reprint the book. The major passages deserve quotation in toto:

Monsieur, J'ai comme tous les pontes de notre jeune generation, mes amis, un

culte profond pour l'ceuvre exquis de Louis Bertrand, de qui vous avez eu la rare gloire d'etre l'ami. Exile, pour un temps, dans une petite ville de province, je souffre de voir ma bibliotheque, qui renferme les mer- veilles du Romantisme, privee de ce cher volume qui ne m'abandonnait pas quand je pouvais l'emprunter a un confrere.

S'il vous restait encore quelques exemplaires de Gaspard de la Nuit je vous demanderais en grace, Monsieur, de vouloir bien me ceder l'un d'eux: croyez qu'il ne serait nulle part plus religieusement conserve. J'ose esperer que vous ne me refuserez pas cette supplique, et je vous remercie deja, tout heureux....

Tournon, 30 d6cembre 1865.

[January 1866] Monsieur,

Je vous remercie infiniment d'avoir encore retrouve pour moi un volume de Louis Bertand. C'est un ami que vous me rendez, et vous de- vinez quelle peut etre ma gratitude....

-Maintenant, avant de terminer cette lettre, permettez-moi une question indiscrete. Pourquoi ne faites-vous pas une nouvelle edition de Gas- pard de la Nuit? outre ce qu'il y aurait de noble a faire refleurir l'ceuvre d'un porte, vouee A l'oubli par une vraie fatalitY, je crois meme, grace au bruit que ferait autour de mes Maitres et de mes amis qui deplorent son abandon, que vous y auriez un avantage reel ...

[February 1866] Bien cher Monsieur,

... Mais on peut reAditer Louis Bertrand de loin! Ce que vous me racontez m'a navr&. Un volume en vingt-sept ans!

Cependant celui que possede la Bibliotheque imperiale ne quitte pas les mains des lecteurs au point qu'on ne peut l'avoir. Si vous placiez douze exemplaires chez Pincebourde ... il les vendrait-inevitablement! ...

Et qui sait si, alors, avec un peu de bruit facile dans les journaux, il n'y aurait pas un rel avenir pour une belle .dition, pr1c~dde de notices, et d'une douzaine de pokmes, A la mdmoire de Bertrand, par les meilleurs pontes de ce temps? Ce monument 6lev6 par notre g~ndration & Louis Bertrand serait d'autant plus naturel qu'il est vraiment, par sa


forme condensee et precieuse, un de nos freres. Un anachronisme a cause son oubli. Cette adorable bague jetde, comme celle des doges, a la mer, pendant la furie des vagues romantiques, et engoufrde, apparait maintenant rapportee par les lames limpides de la maree.

. Mais comme on reve, en parlant de ceux qu'on aime! Adieu, cher

Monsieur, pensons tous deux, cependant, a ce songe qui se realisera peut-etre! (Correspondance 1 188, 196-200)

The editors of the Correspondance remark correctly apropos of this letter that "Mallarme songe donc, pour la premiere fois, a un Tombeau: ici, celui de Louis Bertrand, jamais execute" (199). The absence of such a monument to Louis Bertrand does not mean that Mallarme lost interest in Gas- pard. As Suzanne Bernard notes, "Causerie d'hiver et La Thte sont tous deux divises en courts couplets" (259), the model provided by Bertrand, but the importance goes beyond mere borrowings of stylistic elements and resides in a shared aesthetics of poetry.

Several critics have pointed out this affinity. Schwab, for example, be- lieves that "Beaucoup des Divagations sont sffrement une sequelle de re- veries sur Gaspard" (6). Mondor writes, "Baudelaire et Aloysius Bertrand sont ... au point de depart de l'incursion que fit Mallarme dans le domaine du poeme en prose" (Mallarme CEuvres completes 1551). Bernard remarks upon an "esthetique de la suggestion" (70) and compares Ber- trand and Mallarme first on the basis of a common reverence for the evo- cative power of the word, and secondly from the importance accorded to "les blancs" (70). Both Milner and Richer insist on this latter element and rightly so, for it represents one of the important aspects of Bertrand's formal innovations as well as one of the fundamental principles of poetry explored by Mallarm&.

Milner's discussion focuses on the features of Bertrand's style which distinguish his from the other poetic prose of early Romanticism: "[Ber- trand] deconstruit la logique narrative du recit et donne a celui-ci une allure enigmatique et inquietante" (25). Commenting on Bertrand's revi- sions of "La Citadelle de Wolgast" (237-38), he notes, "Dans la version definitive, ne subsistent plus que quelques details, separes par un blanc qui resume mieux que toute parole le tragique de la situation et l'isole- ment de la citadelle heroique" (27). Milner points out that Bertrand "avait parfaitement conscience de l'importance de ces blancs, qui donnent a ses poemes leur allure elliptique et lacunaire" (27), and he quotes the poet's instructions to the type-setter: "Regle generale. -Blanchir comme si le texte etait de la poesie... [M. le Metteur en pages] jettera de larges blancs entre ces couplets comme si c'etaient des strophes en vers" (301).

No one who is familiar with the "Coup de des" can read these lines without some surprise, given the importance of both "les blancs" and the haunting "COMME SI" that opens and closes the fourth page. My space is too limited to undertake a longer analysis of the role of the whiteness in the texts of Bertrand and Mallarmb, but Bertrand's instructions clearly

548 FRENCH REVIEW

demonstrate that his aesthetic goes beyond the narrow category of "petit romantique" to which he is often assigned.

If Mallarme never wrote the tombeau for Bertrand, he probably influenced Villiers de l'Isle-Adam to publish poems from Gaspard in the Revue des lettres et des arts in 1867. In the first and second issues of the Revue (October 20 and 27), we find, under the title "Pages oubliees-Poemes en prose," Mallarme's "Causerie d'hiver," "Pauvre Enfant pale," and "L'Orgue de Barbarie." In the fifth issue (10 November 1867), we read, "La Revue des lettres et des arts se propose de publier certaines oeuvres rares, oublides ou inconnues" (125). Over half of the pieces of Gaspard de la Nuit were reprinted from November 1867 to March 1868. During this period, the Revue continued to publish prose poems by Mallarme, as well as contributions by Verlaine ("Nevermore," "Les Loups") and other prose poems (by Monoelle, Louis de Lyvron, and anonymous authors) which show a strong influence of Bertrand.

Gaspard de la Nuit was certainly "in the air" in 1867, a fact that, along with the enthusiasm shared with Baudelaire for Bertrand, may have prompted Asselineau to print a new edition in 1868, supplemented with excerpts from Le Provincial penned by Bertrand. In the first sentences of his introduction, Asselineau wrote,

Une collection de Curiosites Romantiques devait atre inauguree par Louis Bertrand. Il represente en effet plus complatement, plus manifestement que nul autre, une des pretentions cardinales du programme de la revolution litteraire d'il y a quarante ans: innovation ou plut6t renovation dans le style; revision du materiel de l'art et des moyens d'expression. (i)

Asselineau confirmed the importance of Bertrand for later generations: Le premier, il [Bertrand] eut le sentiment de l'importance des mots et de leur valeur dans la phrase poetique ... Il fallait retrouver le rapport direct de la pensee et de l'expression, de la sensation et du vocable, et redonner enfin au verbe toute sa puissance de figure, de son et de relief. Bertrand le comprit; et c'est la sa gloire. Et c'est parce qu'il a eu ce sentiment si juste et si net du danger present, et cette intuition si lucide de l'avenir, que son livre a dure et ne perira pas ... Bertrand fut une des grandes curiosites de notre jeunesse. Il a ete, vers 1845, un des saints du calendrier poetique, et de ceux dont la niche n'etait pas la moins fetee. (ii-iv)

1867 is also the year in which Isidore Ducasse established himself in Paris. The first Chant was published in 1868 and the five others in 1869. Rude's claim, "Lautreamont, Rimbaud n'ont pas pu ne pas le [Bertrand] connaitre et allaient se retrouver en lui" (51) acquires some credibility when we consider the remarkable similarities between the Chants de Mal- doror and Gaspard de la Nuit. I cannot undertake an exhaustive compari- son of these two texts, but I will cite a few of the common features.

Gaspard is divided into six "books" comprising fifty-three "fantasies," whereas six cantos, regrouping fifty-eight strophes, form the body of Les Chants de Maldoror. The paratextual framing employed by Bertrand gives


the impression of a collection of poems (a recueil) with no narrative link- age between them. Lautreamont's text, on the other hand, seems more like a narrative, yet Suzanne Bernard considers it to be a collection of prose poems (230-32) because there exists a discontinuity which ruins the notion of a novel. There is a similar, albeit inverted, structure in Gaspard, which has a narrative aspect insofar as the fantasies represent series of events or experiences during the ramblings of M. Gaspard de la Nuit. Likewise, the Chants seem to recount the adventures of the diabolical Maldoror, who shares many characteristics with the devils of Bertrand's work, both Scarbo and the narrating Gaspard who, like Maldoror, is at times a victim as well.

The metamorphoses of Gaspard find a counterpart in Lautreamont's work, a universe populated by fantastic animals and insects. Although the phenomenon is probably more evident and certainly better docu- mented in the case of the Chants, some precedents found in Gaspard are surprisingly similar. This famous passage from the seventh stanza of the fifth chant may owe something to Bertrand: "Chaque nuit,... une vieille araign"e de la grande espece sort lentement sa tete.... Elle m'etreint la gorge avec les pattes, et me suce le sang avec son ventre. .... Prends garde a toi, tarentule noire. . . . je romprai le charme avec lequel tu retiens mes membres dans l'immobilit'" (Ducasse 312). In the first text entitled "Scarbo" (Gaspard de la Nuit 135-36), the dwarf menaces the narrator with the following threat: "Tu auras pour linceul une toile d'araignee, et j'ensevilirai l'araign&e avec toi!" To this the narrator replies, "[A]imes-tu donc mieux que je sois suce d'une tarentule a la trompe d'6l6phant?"

We also find an example of a metamorphosis that prefigures the Chants in "Depart pour le sabbat":

Et lorsque Maribas riait ou pleurait, on entendait comme geindre un archet sur les trois cordes d'un violon demantibul&.

Cependant le soudard etala diaboliquement sur la table, a la lueur du suif, un grimoire oii vint s'abattre une mouche grill&e. Cette mouche bourdonnait encore lorsque de son ventre enorme et velu une araignee escalada les bords du magique volume. (103-104)

When Villiers wrote to Mallarme in 1867 concerning the latter's prose poems, he alluded to this poem:

Je viens de lire vos admirables pomes en prose! Je lirai samedi ... chez de Lisle, Le Demon de l'analogie que j'etudie profondement. Mais c'est une chose qui, pour le bourgeois, me parait encore plus terrible que vos vers, mon pauvre cher ami! Celle-la est, vraiment, sans piti&! Jamais, on n'a vu ni entendu sa pareille, et il faut absolument 6tre au diapason du "violon demantibul&" de Louis Bertrand pour saisir la profondeur de votre idde et le talent excellent de la composition. (Mallarmd Correspondance I, 260, note 2)

550 FRENCH REVIEW

The redissemination of Gaspard through Villier's Revue and Asseli- neau's new edition, undoubtedly aided by the publication of the Spleen de Paris, initiated a period of renewed interest in Bertrand. Although no solid evidence that Rimbaud read Gaspard de la Nuit exists, he must have read Baudelaire's praise for it in the Spleen de Paris, and, given that Verlaine published some of his early poems in the Revue des lettres et des arts, Rimbaud certainly could have read some of Bertrand's texts published there. Furthermore, when Rimbaud met Mallarme in 1872, the latter was already an avid reader of Bertrand.

In 1874, Huysmans published his first work, Le Drageoir ia apices, a collection of prose poems where the influence of Bertrand is manifest. The resemblance is so strong that the editors of the Anthologie du pastiche in- clude some texts by Huysmans as pastiches of Bertrand's style (161-62, 184). Of course, Huysmans's novel A rebours (1884) achieved more fame for the author, and it includes an homage to Bertrand. In the chapter devoted to literature (XIV), des Esseintes has an anthology of prose poems printed for his personal use: "Cette anthologie comprenait un selectae du Gaspard de la Nuit de ce fantasque Aloysius Bertrand qui a transfere les procedes du Leonard dans la prose et peint, avec ses oxydes metalliques, des petits tableaux dont les vives couleurs chatoient, ainsi que celle des emaux lucides" (221). Des Esseintes's meditations on the prose poem, his favorite genre, recall the alchemical and novelistic aspects of Bertrand's text: "Maniee par un alchimiste de genie, elle [la forme du poeme en prose] devait . . . renfermer, dans son petit volume, A l'atat d'of meat, la puissance du roman" (A rebours 222).

During this same period, Coppee mentions Gaspard in his "Coucher du soleil" (149-50) as a bibliophile's delight, fulfilling, in a way, the pro- phecy of the opening poem of Gaspard de la Nuit, "Alors, qu'un bibliophile s'avise d'exhumer cette 2euvre moisie et vermolue" (Bertrand 81). The following year, 1883, the Vignettes romantiques by Champfleury contain a brief mention of Bertrand (210-13), and Banville, who disparaged the prose poem in his Petit Traite de poesie franpaise (1872), published La Lanterne magique. Subtitled "Tableaux rapides," this collection of prose poems "a un tres grand avantage sur tous les autres livres contempo- rains" according to Banville in his "Avant-propos": brevity. He explains, "mon livre est, apres les Fantaisies de Gaspard de la Nuit de Bertrand et les Poemes en prose de Baudelaire, le seul qui contienne des compositions as- sez courtes pour pouvoir etre lues en deux minutes. Mais les deux ouvrages que je viens de citer etant ranges parmi les chefs-d'2euvres et par consequent dedaignes, je pense que mon livre est le seul destine' atre lu" (n.pag.)

In 1884, the weekly meetings at Mallarme's residence on the rue de Rome commence. This represents another means of diffusion of Gaspard de la Nuit which surely had its place in a few of the discussions. Noel Richard claims that Gustave Kahn participated in some of these in 1885


and that "Le Maitre [i.e., Mallarme] lui preta des ouvrages d'Aloysius Bertrand, de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam et de Leon Dierx" (358). The following year, of course, Kahn published his article on the vers libre (in L'Evenement, 28 September 1886; see Ireson 79-94), but the prose poem, especially Bertrand's model, remained in the back of his mind. An article in the June 1898 issue of La Revue blanche by Kahn contains a reference to Bertrand, and an edition of Gaspard de la Nuit at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, which belonged to Kahn, has a manuscript prose poem written on the opening (blank) pages. To my knowledge, this piece has never been published.

La Revue blanche, of course, was an important forum for the symbolists. It published Mallarme's "Variations sur un sujet" in 1895 and his "My- stere dans les lettres" in 1896. 1898 saw the article with the mention of Bertrand, but in a sense this year also marked the end of an era, with the death of Mallarme and Georges Rodenbach. I will close this section with a letter from J. Chasle-Pavie to Etienne Port which the latter included in his edition of Gaspard de la Nuit of 1920:

Theodore de Banville appelait l'ceuvre de Louis Bertrand, la mythologie des Lettres franqaises. Champfleury le goitait et le citait entre inities. Coppee en faisait dans un de ses contes la supreme convoitise d'un bibliophile. Moreas n'en parlait qu'avec effusion et regrettait que Verlaine ne l'eGt pas place dans la galerie de ses pontes maudits. Hervieu en a gland des citations typiques dans ses Heures de Route. Et j'entends encore Rodenbach interrompant un dejeuner, quelques semaines avant sa mort, pour chanter d'une voix religieuse et en faqon de rosaire les versets de Haarlem [a poem from Gaspard]. Mallarme adorait Bertrand. C'etait, nous dit sa fille, sa supreme source pour la distraire, quand elle ne savait plus quoi lire: "Prends Bertrand, lui disait son pere, on y trouve tout!" (cited in Sprietsma 235)

In the interim between 1898 and the appearance of Jacob's Cornet a' des in 1917, the history of Gaspard's fortunes enters what can be called a "para-literary" stage. In other words, the work begins to interest artists of non-literary media. In 1903, for example, the first edition of Gaspard containing elaborate art work is published, inaugurating a practice which allows the number of illustrated editions of the book nearly to equal the strictly literary ones.' Seche in 1905 and Andre Pavie in 1909 published materials which supplemented the information on Bertrand's biography, which had been basically limited to the original notice by Sainte-Beuve. In 1908, Maurice Ravel composed what was to remain one of his most difficult works for the piano, Gaspard de la Nuit: trois poemes pour piano d'apres Aloysius Bertrand. Finally, in 1911, J. Chasle-Pavie revealed Mal- larme's veneration of Bertrand when he published (in the Revue de Paris) the three letters by Mallarme cited above.

I should point out as well that it was during this period that non- French writers like Stuart Merrill and George Moore became aware of Bertrand. The former published translations of texts from Gaspard in his

552 FRENCH REVIEW

Pastels in Prose (1890), and the latter mentioned Bertrand in his Confes- sions of a Young Man (1888).

III. The Surrealist revolution and rediscovery of Bertrand

Bertrand est surrialiste dans le passe'. -Breton Ier Manifeste du surrialisme

Two texts of 1917 point to a renewed interest in Bertrand: Pierre Re- verdy wrote a review in Nord-Sud, claiming Bertrand as a precursor to the modern poetry to which the journal was dedicated. More impor- tantly, Max Jacob claims Bertrand as (co-)inventer of the prose poem in his preface to Le Cornet ai des (signed September, 1916). Jean de Palacio finds several instances of Bertrand's presence in the work of Jacob:

un autre fantastique se fait egalement jour dans Le Cornet a' des qui em- prunterait alors ... des formes plus proches du Gaspard de la Nuit que de Baudelaire. Il s'accommode en effet de la recurrence, en d but de verset, de formules quasiment incantatoires et de certains effets cyclique ... La disposition typographique previent deja le lecteur des intentions du po'te: le poeme comprend en effet quatres "strophes" ou "versets" de- coupes comme ceux du Gaspard de la Nuit et comportant une formule ini- tiale identique qui est celle meme du titre. (167)

Such relations lead Palacio to conclude that Jacob "se situe par rapport a lui [Bertrand], ce qui est en pleine harmonie avec la preface de 1916. Le Cornet ai des pourrait etre considere comme un anti-Gaspard de la Nuit" (170).

One of the reasons for the interest in Bertrand is the presence of dreams, folly, and the fantastic in his work, which find a place among the Surrealists. As Milner notes, "[les cauchemars de Gaspard de la Nuit] con- tribuent a crier dans le recueil de Bertrand ce flottement entre le present et le passe, entre le reel et le merveilleux" ("Romantisme" 44). It is from this perspective that Milner suggests we should understand Breton's statement from the first Manifeste, "Bertrand est surrealiste dans le passe" (37): "Entendons non pas que Bertrand est un surrealiste d'hier ou d'avant- hier ... mais que le passe est a la fois le lieu et le moyen de son Sur- realisme" ("Romantisme" 36).

Breton made several references to Bertrand besides that of the Manifeste, including a review of one of the four new editions of Gaspard printed in 1920, published in the September 1920 issue of the Nouvelle Revuefrangaise (reprinted in Les Pas perdus 77-80). After claiming that the book "donne a penser qu'il n'existe pas de condition morale de la beaute" (455), he con- demns Bertrand (and Baudelaire) for inventing the "cadre" of the prose poem which became a model for anyone to copy, including Breton's con- temporaries. He concludes his review, however, on a positive note:

Malgre tout je trouve bon que Bertrand se plaise a nous pr~cipiter du present dans un passe ofi aussit8t nos certitudes tombent en ruines. Je le


loue aussi de recourir au dialogue chaque fois qu'il veut faire &clater le malentendu. Il n'est pas de lecture apres laquelle on ne puisse continuer a chercher la pierre philosophale. L'humanite n'a pas vieilli. Dans la nuit de Gaspard, qu'importe s'il faut etendre longtemps la main pour sentir tomber une de ces pluies tres fines qui vont donner naissance a une fontaine enchantee? (457-58)

The reference to the philosopher's stone is undoubtedly an allusion to the first preface of Gaspard ("l'art, cette pierre philosophale du XIXe si&- cle," 61). Commenting on this reference, Milner adds: "Breton soupqonna-t- il qu'il y avait la autre chose qu'une metaphore? Je le crois, car dans l'une des lettres qu'il adressait a Jacques Doucet entre 1920 et 1922 pour l'aider a constituer sa bibliotheque, il lui recommendait l'achat du Grand Art de Raymond Lulle, 'dont s'inspire avant tout, &crit-il, la poesie d'Aloysius Bertrand"' ("Romantisme" 36)

Bertrand also figures in several of Breton's Entretiens. Discussing the style of Reverdy's poetry, he notes, "Une telle faqon de dire n'a pour moi rien perdu de son enchantement. Instantandment, elle me r6introduit au cceur de cette magie verbale qui, pour nous, etait le domaine oih Reverdy operait. Il n'y avait eu qu'Aloysius Bertrand et Rimbaud a s'etre avances si loin dans cette voie" (47). Breton confirms Bertrand's place in the Sur- realists' ancestry when commenting on the Dadaist manifestations: "Le gilet rouge, parfait, mais a condition que derriere lui batte le c2eur d'Aloysius Bertrand, de Gerard de Nerval et, derriere eux, ceux de Nova- lis, de Hilderlin, et derriere eux, bien d'autres encore" (64).

Breton cites Bertrand's importance (among others) for the history of Surrealism in another interview (99), and in response to Francis Du- mont's question, "Qu'attendiez-vous de l'esoterisme?" he replies, "A di- verses reprises, j'ai souligne l'interet que, du debut du XIXe siecle a nos jours, les pontes n'avaient cesse de marquer a la pensee soterique (il suffit, une fois de plus, de mentionner Hugo, Nerval, Bertrand)" (276). It should be noted that these conversations occurred in the 1950s, thus over twenty-five years after the "rediscovery" of Gaspard de la Nuit. Breton's inclusion of Bertrand in the Surrealist's lineage leads one to believe that the impression made by that work decades earlier was still fresh. Among the other Surrealists to cite Bertrand, we find Paul Eluard, who published a prose poem entitled "Aloysius Bertrand, Gaspard de la nuit" in Litt6- rature, (#16, 1920; cited by Milner, "Romantisme." 37 and Rude 66); Rude finds a rapport between Bertrand's poetry and the writings of Julien Gracq, Henri Michaux, and Marcel Bealu (70).

To close this study, a note by Maurice Blanchard which he sent along with two prose poems to the editors for the first issue of Le Pont de l'dpee, devoted entirely to Bertrand: "Veuillez trouver ci-joint un po'me qui, je pense, entre dans la nature d'Aloysius Bertrand, l'admirable porte que j'ai beaucoup suivi et qui &claire encore la route de la podsie aujourd'hui" (67). Bertrand can be considered then as both a trace-in the works of

554 FRENCH REVIEW

those he influenced-and, here, as a beacon. Further studies of his work are necessary to elucidate the complex intertextual web in which Gaspard de la Nuit is entangled. For it engages a dialogue with its own past and precursors (every prose poem is accompanied by one if not two or three epigraphs) while serving as well as a point of departure for a certain modernity of poetic discourse, an aspect which has received little atten- tion in the criticism that confines Bertrand to a role of petit romantique, a mere footnote in the history of the prose poem.

JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY

Notes

'Beaujour makes some interesting comments on the relation between the prose poem and the art book (46-47).

Works Cited

Asselineau, Charles. Introduction. Gaspard de la Nuit. Paris, 1868. i-xxvii. Banville, Theodore de. La Lanterne magique. Tableaux rapides. Camees parisiens. La Comedie

franpaise. Paris, 1883. Baudelaire, Charles. CEuvres completes. Paris: Robert Laffont-Bouquins, 1980.

. Le Spleen de Paris. Paris: Librairie Generale Franqaise-Livre de Poche, 1972. Beaujour, Michel. "Short Epiphanies: Two Contextual Approaches to the Prose Poem."

Caws (39-59). Bernard, Suzanne. Le Poeme en prose de Baudelaire jusqu'~ nos jours. Paris: Nizet, 1959. Bertrand, Aloysius. Gaspard de la Nuit: fantaisies a la maniere de Rembrandt et de Callot. 1842.

Paris: Gallimard, 1980. Breton, Andre. Entretiens. Paris: Gallimard, 1973.

Manifestes du surrealisme. Paris: Gallimard-Folio,1988. Nadja. 1964. Paris: Gallimard-Folio, 1987. Les Pas perdus. 1924. Paris: Gallimard-L'Imaginaire, 1990. Rev. of Gaspard de la Nuit by Aloysius Bertrand. Nouvelle Revue Frangaise (Sept.

1920): 455-58. Calmels, Fortune. "Les Oublids du XIXe siecle-Aloysius Bertrand." La Revue fantaisiste (15

Oct. 1861): 303-15. Caws, Mary Ann, and Hermine Riffaterre, eds. The Prose Poem in France. New York:

Columbia UP, 1983. Chasle-Pavie, J. "Aloysius Bertrand." La Revue de Paris (15 Aug. 1911): 772-94. Coppee, Franqois. Contes en prose. Tome 1 of CEuvres completes. Paris: Lemerre, 1886. Deffoux, Leon, and Pierre Dufay. Anthologie du Pastiche. Vol. 1. Paris: Cres, 1926. D. S. [Emile Deschamps]. "Revue litteraire." Rev. of Gaspard de la Nuit. France litteraire (20

July 1843): 102-103. Ducasse, Isidore (Comte de Lautreamont). CEuvres complates d'Isidore Ducasse Comte de

Lautreamont. Paris: Jose Corti, 1973. Eluard, Paul. "Chronique." Litte'rature 16 (Sept.-Oct. 1920). Huysmans, J.-K. A rebours. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1978.

Drageoir a'e pices. Paris, 1874. Ireson, J.C. L'CEuvre podtique de Gustave Kahn. Paris: Nizet, 1962. Jacob, Max. Art podtique. Paris: Emile-Paul, 1922.


. Le Cornet a' dis. 1917. Paris: Stock 1923. Johnson, Barbara. Difigurations du langage poetique. Paris: Flammarion, 1972. Kahn, Gustave. "Les Poemes." Revue blanche (June 1898): 153. Mallarme, St6phane. Correspondance. Ed. H. Mondor. Vol. 1. Paris: Gallimard, 1959.

. CEuvres completes. Eds. H. Mondor and G. Jean-Aubry. Paris: Gallimard-Bibliotheque de la P16iade, 1979.

Milner, Max. Preface. Bertrand (7-57). "Romantisme et surr6alisme: la red'couverte des petits romantiques." Cahiers du

XXe siecle 4 (1975): 33-47. Molnes, G. de. Rev. de Gaspard de la Nuit by Aloysius Bertrand. Revue des Deux Mondes (1

Jan. 1843): 339-53. Palacio, Jean de. "La Posterite du Gaspard de la Nuit: de Baudelaire a Max Jacob." Revue des

Lettres Modernes 336 (1973): 157-89. Prarond, Ernest, and Jules Buisson. "Lettres a Eugene Crepet sur la jeunesse de Baudelaire."

Mercure de France 322 (1 Sept. 1954): 5-31. Reverdy, Pierre. "Poemes en prose." Nord-Sud 3 (15 May 1917): 2. Revue des Lettres et des Arts. Paris, 1867. Richard, Noel. Profils symbolistes. Paris: Nizet, 1978. Richer, Jean. Introduction. Gaspard de la Nuit by Aloysius Bertrand. Paris: Flammarion 1972. Rude, Fernand. Aloysius Bertrand. Coll. Pontes d'aujoud'hui 198. Paris: Seghers, 1971. Sainte-Beuve. "Aloisius Bertrand." Portraits litteraires. Paris: Garnier, 1862: 343-64. Schwab, Raymond. "L'Aventure d'Aloysius Bertrand." La Bouteille ~a la Mer 48 (Oct. 1945):

n. pag. Sprietsma, Cargill. Louis Bertrand (1807-1841) dit Aloysius Bertrand. Paris: Champion, 1926.

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Issue Table of ContentsThe French Review, Vol. 69, No. 4 (Mar., 1996), pp. 543-700Front MatterAbstractsFamous Readers of an Infamous Book: The Fortunes of Gaspard de la Nuit [pp. 543-555]Le Premier Homme, le roman inachev d'Albert Camus [pp. 556-565]La Rforme du baccalaurat en France [pp. 566-582]La France contemporaine: pourquoi l'tudier et comment l'enseigner? [pp. 583-594]Reading, Writing, and Recovering: Creating a Women's Creole Identity in Myriam Warner-Vieyra's Juletane [pp. 595-604]Calixthe Beyala: entre le terroir et l'exil [pp. 605-615]Fantasmes de maternit dans les films de Jacques Demy, Coline Serreau et Franois Truffaut [pp. 616-625]DepartmentsFrom Our Readers [pp. 626-629]

ReviewsLiterary History and CriticismReview: untitled [pp. 630-631]Review: untitled [pp. 631-632]Review: untitled [pp. 632-633]Review: untitled [pp. 633-634]Review: untitled [pp. 634-635]Review: untitled [pp. 635-636]Review: untitled [p. 637]Review: untitled [pp. 637-638]Review: untitled [pp. 638-639]Review: untitled [pp. 639-640]Review: untitled [p. 641]Review: untitled [pp. 641-642]Review: untitled [pp. 642-644]Review: untitled [pp. 644-645]Review: untitled [pp. 646-647]Review: untitled [pp. 647-648]Review: untitled [pp. 648-649]Review: untitled [pp. 649-650]Review: untitled [pp. 650-651]Review: untitled [pp. 651-652]Review: untitled [pp. 652-653]Review: untitled [pp. 653-654]Review: untitled [pp. 655-656]Review: untitled [pp. 656-657]Review: untitled [pp. 657-658]Review: untitled [pp. 658-659]Review: untitled [pp. 660-661]

CivilizationReview: untitled [pp. 661-662]Review: untitled [pp. 662-663]Review: untitled [pp. 663-664]Review: untitled [pp. 664-665]Review: untitled [pp. 665-666]Review: untitled [p. 667]Review: untitled [p. 668]Review: untitled [p. 669]Review: untitled [p. 670]

LinguisticsReview: untitled [pp. 671-672]Review: untitled [pp. 672-673]Review: untitled [pp. 673-674]Review: untitled [pp. 674-675]Review: untitled [pp. 675-676]

Textbooks, CAI Software, and MethodologyReview: untitled [pp. 676-677]Review: untitled [pp. 677-678]Review: untitled [pp. 678-679]Review: untitled [pp. 679-680]

Creative WorksReview: untitled [pp. 680-681]Review: untitled [pp. 681-682]Review: untitled [pp. 682-683]Review: untitled [pp. 683-684]Review: untitled [pp. 684-685]Review: untitled [pp. 685-687]Review: untitled [pp. 687-688]Review: untitled [pp. 688-689]Review: untitled [pp. 689-690]Review: untitled [p. 691]Review: untitled [pp. 691-692]Review: untitled [pp. 692-693]

FilmReview: untitled [pp. 693-695]Review: untitled [pp. 695-696]Review: untitled [pp. 696-697]Review: untitled [pp. 697-698]Review: untitled [pp. 698-699]

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Documents

Famous Readers of an Infamous Book the Fortunes of Gaspard de La Nuit