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NEW COMPARISON
A Journal of Comparative and General Literary Studies
Published for the British Comparative Literature Association
Editors: Susan Bassnett (Comparative Literary Theory and Literary Translation,
University of Warwick) Theo Hermans (Dutch, University College London) Holger Klein (Modern Languages and European History, University of East
Anglia)
Editorial Board: Leon Burnett (Literature, University of Essex). Eva Fox-CAI (English and Related Literatures, University of York), Kei th Hoskin (Classics/Education, University of Warwick), George Hyde (English and American Studies. University of East Anglia), Andre Lefevere (Germanic Languages. University of Texas at Austin), Susan Melrose (Drama and Theatre Studies, Murdoch University, Australia), Philip Mosley (Comparative Literature, Pennsylvania State University). Saliha Paker (London/lstanbul), Robert Pynsent (School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London), Brigitte Schultze (Slavonic Studies, University of MaindTranslation Studies Centre, University of Gottingen), Christopher Smith and Clive Scott (Modern Languages and European History, University of East Anglia), Stephen Walton (Scandinavian Studies, University College London), Peter V. Zima (Comparative Literature, University of Klagenfurt).
NEW COMPARISON is published twice yearly, in the Summer and Autumn.
Administration and Subscriptions: Dr Susan Bassnett. New Comparison, Graduate School of Comparative Literary Theory and Literary Translation, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL.
Prices and subscription rates: see last page.
Editorial address: Dr Theo Hermans, New Comparison. Department of Dutch, University College London. Gower Street, London WClE 6BT.
Books for review, etc.: to Dr Holger Klein, New Comparison. School of Modern Languages and European History, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ.
Typing and layout: Carol Haines
0 Individual authors
Printed at the University of East Anglia
NEW COMPARlSON
A J o u r n a l o f C o m p a r a t i v e a n d G e n e r a l 1 2 ~ ~ e r , ~ r \ S ~ u d ~ c
N u m b e r 6 : L i t e r a r y T h e m e s Autumn 1988
E d i t e d by Holger Klein
H O L G E R KLElN ( N o r w ~ c h ) T h e m e s and T h e m a t o l o g y
ANGELIKA CORBINEAIJ-HOFF'M4NN ( k l a ~ n z ) V e n i c e a t F i r s t Sight: P r o l e g o m e n a for a N r w V ~ e w on l l i r r n ; ~ l I<, \
A N D R E E MANSAll (Toulouse) Venice P r e s e r v e d : His tory , Myth and L i t ~ r a r y ( ' r e d [ ~ o n
HANS-GEOHG G R ~ ~ N I N G ( M a c e r a t e ! T h e " T r a i t o r t o h is People": A C o n t r i b u t i o n t o t h e P h e n o m e n o l o g y of T r e a c h e r y in L i t e r a t u r e
GYORGY E. SZONYl ( S z e g e d ) V a r i a t i o n s o n t h e h ly th of t h e M a g u s
T E R E N C E DAWSON (Singapore) V i c t i m s of t h e i r o w n C o n t e n d i n g Pass ions : I lnexptbctcd I)c,;~rh in Adolphe , Ivanhoe , a n d W u t h e r i n g H e ~ g h t s
ELISARETH RRONFEN ( M u n ~ c h ! Dia logue wi th t h e D e a d : T h e D e c e a s e d S e l o v c d as kluat.
S lEGHlLD BOGUMIL ( B o c h u m ) I m a g e s of L a n d s c a p e in C o m t e m p o r a r y F r e n c h I'octr!.: Ponge , C h a r and Dupin
WALTER RACHEM ( R o c h u m ) N a t u r e and P e r c e p t i o n : Vers ions of a I l ~ a l e c t i c . 111
E u r o p e a n C i t y P o e t r y ZlVA B E N - P O R A T ( T e l Aviv) A u t u m n P o e m s a n d L i t e r a r y Impress ionism: C o n c e p t u a l ~ s a t ~ o n , T h e m a t i z a t i o n and C l a s s i f i c a t i o n
WENDY M E R C E R (London) F r o m Idyll t o Arsenal : T h e C h a n g ~ n g I m a g e o f G e r m a n y In F r a n c e a s s e e n through t h e Work of X a v ~ e r M a r m e r 11808-1892)
J U L I A N COWLEY (London) T h e A r t of t h e Improvisers : J a z z and F i c t ~ o n in P o s t - B e b o p A m e r i c a
E. W. H E R D ( O t a g o ) Tin D r u m and S n a k e - C h a r m e r ' s F l u t e : S a l m a n H u s h d ~ e ' s D e b t t o G u n t e r G r a s s
REVIEWS
R E P O R T O N 'WORK IN P R O G R E S S '
NEWS
OBITUARY
THEMES AND THEMATOLOGY
Holger Klein (University o f East Anglia)
"If ever a word was set up to he knocked down", Levin w i t t i l y remarked
twenty years ago, "it is that forbidding expression ..." ("Thematics ...I1,
p.94). Yet we have been bombarded with so many more formidable terms
in various spheres o f cr i t ical inquiry that this particular one may surely
pass. I t is useful: scholars writ ing in French have talked o f th6matolop;ie
at least since Van Tiegham (though he and many others used i t purely as
a translation o f Stoffgeschichte), i t has i ts obvious equivalents in other
Romance languages (tematologia, tematologia, etc.) and is known also e.g.
in Dutch (without the aigu on the el. Moreover, against variously
expressed doubts and opposition1 Thematologie is gaining ground in
cerman2 - not just to dissociate new efforts from what most perceive as
the stuffiness o f traditional Stoffgeschichte and Motivgeschichte, but to
designate a much wider field. Levin prefers thematics, which also has
obvious equivalents; however, there is a tendency to call the'matique/
thematiek1Thematik the thematic elements in particular works and the
methods o f their analysis,3 which again is only one area of the field. On
balance, then, thematology is preferahle as a general term for that branch
o f learning concerned, whether theoretically or i n practice, with the study
of l i terary themes. Using i t contributes a l i t t l e towards a convergence
o f terms and the notions they express - a development which, though
perhaps not essent ia~,~ is certainly apt to help.
The problem is not, o f course, that scholars working in different
languages use different words - that has been our general lot "After
Babel" and is largely remediable by dictionaries5 - but that l i terary
scholars (not exclusively, but perhaps more than those in the other
humanities) using the same language often employ identical terms for
different phenomena and vice versa.6 The reasons for this state o f
affairs, and for the unlikelihood of i ts being wholly overcome afforr!s
opportunities for speculation on the business of crit icism as well as on i ts
materiaL7 That is not my present concern. Nor do I wish to dwell once
more8 on the fact that "theme" and "motif" (as opposed to "motive") - along with a host of related terms - have no generally agreed signifieds
for those writ ing in ~nglish,' that scholarly usage of theme and r n d
drastically varies in French,'' and that, finally, the distinction between
S t o f f and M& is nei ther uniform in German' ' nor, in the dominant
t radi t ion, very serviceable. Jos t urges t h e res t of t h e world t o adopt t h e
German dis t inct ion ( a s if ag reemen t about it existed), obviously in eve ry -
one ' s own language; however , th is would only spread confusion and the
need f o r e l abora te contortions. Weisstein, on t h e o the r hand, r emarks it
might b e helpful if t h e German word S t o f f (which has f requent ly been
t aken ove r in o the r languages)'' w e r e t o b e dropped in favour of T h e m a
(p.137) (and S t o f f t o b e r e t a ined only in t h e sense of Rohstoff /subject
mat ter /mat ikre) . Although h e immediate ly s t eps back from this suggestion , it is more real is t ic and m o r e promising than Jos t ' s and has a l r eady been
frui t ful ly t aken up. If we add t o i t ano the r t e n t a t i v e suggestion, t h i s t i m e
by Rremond, t h a t t h e d i f f e rence be tween theme and motif ( a s opposed t o
mot ive ) l3 i s not o n e of kind but of degree,14 w e may a r r ive a t a
p rac t i cab le scheme.
T h e s o o f t e n l amen ted terminological chaos and wrangling should not
mesmer ize us. Nor must th is d e b a t e b e allowed t o obscure t h e f a c t t ha t ,
par t icular ly in t h e last t w o decades , thematology (under wha teve r name)
has made g rea t progress in cons t ruc t ing f r ameworks of s tudy and opening
perspect ives which, besides account ing fo r a g r e a t dea l of exci t ing work
al ready done, encourage fu r the r promising labours. Tracing i t s own
evolution and ref lect ing on i t s a i m s and me thods a r e t w o ac t iv i t i e s
incumbent on eve ry branch of academic study. Much has been achieved
fo r thematology in both directions, but t h e process must of cour se
continue.
In principle, thematology has t w o a r e a s of p rac t i ca l work, two
approaches t o l i tera ture . One looks mainly a t single t ex t s , perceiving in
them o r endowing them with a s t r u c t u r e of meanings. This might be
cal led a hor izontal , o r dynamic, o r syn tagmat i c approach. T h e o t h e r looks
a t un i t s of con ten t known t o r ecur in var ious (o f t en qu i t e d i s t an t and
unconnected) works, and makes those un i t s i t s principal object of study;
th is might b e cal led a ver t ical , o r s t a t i c , o r pa rad igmat i c approach. As
in o the r branches of ou r discipline, me taphors a r e o f t e n needed t o descr ibe
o u r sub jec t s and what w e d o with them, though they all h a v e the i r
l imita t ions and drawbacks. Of t h e t h r e e metaphorical pairs t h e las t one
s e e m s on t h e whole t h e leas t p rob lemat i c a n d will b e employed here.
l n t r a t ex tua l and in t e r t ex tua l could b e an a t t r a c t i v e a l t e rna t ive , w e r e i t not
t h a t t h e t e r m is by now somewha t charged. Indeed, t h e links, over laps and
differences between thematology and studies o f intertextuality in the
narrower, manageable (as opposed to the universal) sense st i l l await
investigation. 15
The syntagmatic approach to themes belongs mainly to those Wellek
and Warren call "intrinsic" studies (and cherish) - magnificently exemplified
by the New Crit ics and by practitioners o f werkimmanente Interpretation. 16
Themes here have an established place which was never called in
question. They are an integral part of the functional web which fuses
elements o f content and form (Gehalt and Gestalt) into a unique whole -
including cases o f deliberate jarring and disjunction, o f course.
The paredigmatic approach to themes, the one to which many
scholars writ ing in French have unti l fair ly recently confined th6matologie
(Trousson being a conspicuous protagonist), and which flourished as - to
quote the t i t le o f one o f Frenzel's weighty contributions - Stoff-und
Motivgeschichte in German, is to be aligned with the range o f "extrinsic"
studies in Wellek and Warren's system, though they, for slightly different
reasons than croce,17 regrettably did not think much of i t . I8 Inclusive-
ness serves the cause o f l i terary crit icism better than exclusivity. Resides,
not only is the division into intrinsic and extrinsic studies itself problem-
atic, but, while pure concentration on content, ideology, message, etc.
certainly does an injustice to the l i terary work as art, many such works
are inadequately construed in isolation from their environment and
historicity. (And the very vogue for "intrinsic" studies during the mid-
century decades had i ts own historical background that bears thinking
upon.)
I t is perfectly true that many - by no means only early - paradig-
maticstudies of themes are l i t t le more than collections of examples with
summaries and at best cursory comment. Against the strictures which this
kind of thematological study has attracted one may justly argue that even
such collections can be very useful, though they demand (l ike author
concordances and other invaluable tools, on the production of which
l i terary scholars have spent untold years) cogitative complementation.
Moreover, just as with religions, cr i t ical approaches and methods should
be judged not so much by their adherents than their potential. One can
furthermore point out that in discussions of thematology great value has
often been placed on reception, and due regard demanded for the relatiorl-
ship of thematic instance and i ts immediate context19 and that there exist
numerous studies which do o f fe r incisive observations and conclusions.
Both thematic approaches are fruitful, both can enhance our under-
standing and appreciation o f l i terature as well as of i t s relationship to i t s
various contexts. Moreover: in convincing examples o f either sort, they 20 tend to complement one another : the interpretation o f the single work
gains by the consideration o f i t s thematic units in larger contexts, and the
tracing o f the fortunes o f such units within a given synchronous or dia-
chronic scope gains by the close analysis o f the units' functions in
significant texts. What does manifestly not work well and lies, I suspect,
at the root o f much anguish and trouble is the identical use o f termino-
logical systems in both approaches. A way forward offers i tsel f i f one
does not only differentiate between the two approaches, as Pollmann (esp.
pp.182-86) has perhaps most clearly done, but extends this differentiation
to terminology (something he emphatically rejects).
In a given text (or a group o f closely related texts) a theme is
whatever element - more usually an accumulation or rather constellation
o f elements2' - is important enough to characterize the whole or a portion,
making i t possible t o talk o f i t as being about this or that ( in accordance
with the role o f the theme) centrally, mainly, or only in part. In this
sense, any content element can be the theme or contribute t o i t , as may
also formal elements.22 I t is in syntagmatic interpretations that further
distinctions can be helpful. And here some o f the traditional terminology
comes to i ts best use. For, i f there is a measure o f agreement intra- and
interlingually, i t resides in thinking o f theme as a larger, mot i f as a
smaller unit o f significant and distinct content,23 with or trait, i f one
wants t o go further, being st i l l smaller.24 One may add, depending on
what is found in a text, such terms as formula, leitmotif, and symbol to
describe particular uses t o which specific, usually small units are put.
Evidently, identifying a theme - "theming" a text (Prince), "labelling"
(Rimmon-Kenan) or "naming" i t (Hamon) is t o some extent conditioned by
the context of the person who does it.25 Yet there are l imi ts t o arbit-
rariness in "seeing as"26: i t would e.g. require someone o f more than
angelic tongue to convince many that pearls are a theme in Hamlet. On
the other hand, there are personal l imitations t o theme perception,
especially i f a theme is not made explicit in a text. The same applies
t o theme recognition. Yet one can constructively identify a particular
theme (taking i t as what Leroux lp.4501 calls a "th8me possible" or
"intensionnel") in a given work without realising that i t has in itself a
history (is " rke~" or "extensionnel").
In paradigmatic studies these distinctions, useful in the other
approach, hinder rather than help perception and communication. If, as
scholars have frequently observed, a -/trait can become a M-/motif
and vice versa, and i f a StofT/theme may basically be stripped down to
one or several Motive, i f a 1- may through a given work acquire the
characteristics of a StoTf27 - if, in other words, thematic units can change
their appearance and function from text to text, as overwhelming evidence
shows they do - i t is surely appropriate not to hypostasize terms built on
al l sorts of special and variable factors such as area of provenance, first
known or best known example, constellations o f components, frequency of
use in one or another shape. Rather, one might accept, with Bremond
(p.417). that what these elements have in common is their thematic
quality, and for paradigmatic purposes call them, as Dyserinck
(Kompararatistik, p.110) suggests, comprehensively: themes. Advocating
this usage does not entail promoting "nebulous" (Chardin, p.30) imprecision,
but seeks to remove fut i le rigidity which neither meets the volatile
conditions of the material nor the endlessly variable circumstances and
forms o f i t s reception.
Furthermore, there are no convincing grounds to l imit ing (as has been
common in theoretical treatments of thematology unti l about 1970) such
thematic studies to some specific kinds, notably human situations, types,
heroes and heroines. Dyserinck, by contrast, divides themes into two large
groups (pp. l ]Of.): those of various, extra-l i terary provenance,28 and those
that already have a tradition in literature. And he rightly stresses that
both groups are worthy of treatment. He details sub-headings within both
groups, but i t is more practical here to draw for such specificity on
Prawer, who already shows an equally inclusive stance, listing f ive main
groups (pp.99f.; additions that seem apposite are indicated by parentheses) :
(1) Natural phenomena and man's reaction to them (add: man-made
environments and objects); eternal facts of human existence; perennial
human problems and patterns of behaviour (add: ideals, ideas, moods and
feelings). (2) Recurring motifs (better called small themes) in l i terature
and folklore (add: t ~ ~ o i ) . ~ ' (3) Recurrent situations; historical events
(add: conditions). (4) The representation of (professional and other) types.
(5) The representation of named personages "from mythology,30 legend,
earlier l i terature or history". Prawer has no di f f icul ty in pointing to
worthwhile studies for each group, his as well as Dyserinck's (and more
recently e.g. Chardin's) comprehensive concept o f thematology is close to
actual scholarly practice.
Applied syntagmatically to individual texts, thematology can con-
tr ibute to increasing, in the framework o f integrative analysis, the
aesthetic pleasure to be derived from them, and moreover play a v i ta l
role in establishing the scheme o f values they manifest as well as, should
they happen to propound or suggest theses, help to highlight them. Para-
digmatically applied as systematic surveys and/or developmental histories
o f themes ( in the comprehensive understanding of the term), thematology
can contribute to our insight into l i terature in general, and beyond that
into the societies and cultures in which i t was and is being produced. I f
in the course o f such work l i terary scholarship and cr i t ic ism come into
close contact with, draw on and in their turn contribute something to
other disciplines - philosophy and history o f ideas, the analysis and history
o f mentalities, folklore studies, a r t history, sociology, economic and
polit ical history, and many others - so much the better. This should not
deter us but on the contrary be an added incentive and cause for joy.
Not only no man, as Donne says, but no academic discipline is an island,
or rather, should behave as i f that were the case. Moreover, as among
others Pollmann (pp.13f.I has emphasized, the relevance o f l i terary studies
as such has come under very non-idealistic scrutiny, and this f ield belongs
to those where such relevance can most easily be shown - among other
things because the paradigmatic approach rarely gets far wi th an exclusive
concentration on Li terature wi th a capital L, but must cast i t s net more
widely," and indeed does well also look at altogether different kinds of
discourse. 32
Even apart from such considerations a strong fascination attaches to
following the history of a theme or o f a group o f themes: tracing their
increasing or diminishing use and resonance in various periods, studying
their preponderant af f in i t ies wi th certain genres as well as the special
at t ract ion to them o f certain authors, movements, geographical, national
and linguistic entities, and seeing their l i terary representation in relation
to that in other kinds o f texts and in other arts.33 The diff icult ies are
numerous. What constitutes the theme (or whatever other term is chosen,
as the likelihood o f general conformity is small), how much i t may be
varied and st i l l be identifiable - that is by no means always clear.34 The
vastness of l i terature (let alone the arts) and the l imits o f an individual's
spheres o f competence, knowledge and energy can hardly guarantee
exhaustiveness even within certain bounds;35 that aim36 is in itself not
unquestionable, but i f i t is abandoned, the problem arises o f what may be
deemed representative samples. Thirdly, there is the interface o f para-
digmatic with syntagmatic study - how far must, how far can one enter
into the fabric of particular works and take into account the function o f
a theme even i f one's aim is the theme itself, or at least a section or
stretch of i t s history? These and other dilemmas wi l l presumably continue
to beset such investigations and rise in proportion with the scale and
ambition of the enterprise. The fascination nevertheless exerts i ts sway.
Numerous scholars in many countries have, despite real obstacles and all
sorts o f adverse dicta and cautions from other colleagues, continued to
write paradigmatic contributions to thematology as well as syntagmatic
ones. The bibliographies are ful l of them.
One may properly doubt whether comparative l i terature as a disci-
pline has not only a subject differing from those of literary studies
confined to one language or one region or state, but also i ts own, di f fer-
ent methodology. With, for instance, ~ a ~ d a ~ ~ and Jost (Introduction, p.24)
I incline to the view that it does not. Thematological work is to some
extent feasible within a confined national or linguistic framework; how-
ever, the more the paradigmatic approach comes to the fore, the more
obviously such restrictions must recede.38 Thematology is, alongside the
study of genres and that of many movements, a prime domain of compara-
t ive (or general)39 literature; thematic studies are the kind of work in
which i ts ef for ts yield particularly f ru i t fu l results.
Some words about this number of New Comparison are indicated. In line
with our usual policy, the lion's share o f the available space has been
devoted to a specific topic - Literary Themes. A number o f scholars were
invited to wr i te articles on a specific theme of their own choice. It
seemed worthwhile to find out, in this manner, how thematic studies are
being conceived of and practised in various places at the present time, and
to gather the results between two covers. Clearly, a conference would
have been best and might have led to a more intensive interaction of
viewpoints and methods. However, this was not feasible. Instead, the
contr ibut ions coming in d id not only g o through t h e usual bi la teral
edi tor ia l process (without , r eade r s will b e amused t o n o t e while applauding
t h e principle, any persuasion t o unify terminology), but w e r e c i rcular ised
among t h e authors,40 t o whom I wish t o express s ince re thanks. Thus
t h e s e a r t i c l e s a r e based on a knowledge of o n e another , which in s o m e
c a s e s a t leas t g a v e r ise t o cross-references . More one could not aim a t
within t h e given constra ints . T h e s tud ies t r e a t a va r i e ty of t h e m e s - though t h e r e exis t i l luminating c o n t a c t s - and use very d i f f e ren t pro-
cedures , which i s all t o t h e good. And in e a c h case , I think, t h e method
employed shows i t s p rac t i ca l usefulness a s well a s demons t ra t ing t h e
vigour and scope of thematology in general , even though t h e l imita t ions
of s p a c e a l lowed only f o r modest samples.
1. See e.g. Frenzel , S to f f - und Motivgeschichte, p.30; Risanz, "Zwischen S to f fgesch ich te ...", pp. 148, 159; Knapp, "Robbespierre ...Iv, p. 130. Where no de ta i l s a r e given in these notes , t h e contr ibut ion is listed in t h e Se lec t Bibliography below.
2. See e.g. Reller, Thei le , p.49, Dyserinck, even Frenzel ( l a t e , in Motive ..., p.xiv), J o s t in "Grundbegriffe", Dyserinck.
3. S e e e.g. Rrunel/Pichois/Rousseau, p.117 (though t h e dis t inct ion tends t o f a d e o u t l a t e r ) and s o m e con t r ibu to r s t o Pogt ique 16 (in con t ra s t t o t h e organisers: Alleton, Rremond, Pavel , pp.395f.; fu r the rmore Pollmann, p.192, n.31. Kurman follows Levin in choosing Themat i c s ; P r a w e r (p.99) uses both (curiously enough as synonyms fo r Stoffgeschichte) a s does Weisstein, while Cors t ius o p t s fo r Thematology. Ei ther i s b e t t e r than Themat i sm, used by Bernard Weinstein introducing Falk.
4. A s J o s t believes, cf . Introduction, p.177, a l s o Czerny.
5. A ~ a r t i c u l a r l v re levant o n e being Wolfgang V. Rut tkowski and R. E. Blake, ~iteraturw~;terbuch/Glossary o f - l i t e r a r y ?erms/Glossaire d e s t e r m e s l i t t&raires , Rerne and Munich: F rancke , 1969.
6. S e e esp. Bisanz, 'S to f f , Thema , Motic", pp.317f., 321f.
7. S e e e.g. Beller, "Von d e r S to f fgesch ich te ...", p.4, Bisanz, "Zwischen S to f fgesch ich te ...", Dyserinck, Komparat is t ik , pp.l09f., Kurman, pp.471.
8. A s I did in "Autumn P o e m s ..." t h r e e y e a r s ago.
9. Even s tudious observat ions and proposals such a s those submi t t ed by Levin in "Motif". Daemmrich in "Themes and Motifs" o r by F reedman will not help, a s t h e e n t i t i e s themse lves a r e not s t a b l e ( see below, p. ).
10. J u s t o n e fu r the r example: Jeune, p.62 and B~ne l /P icho i s /Rousseau , p. 128 against Trousson, Un problhme, p. 13; c f . a l so general ly Chardin, p.27.
11. S e e f u r t h e r Dyserinck, Komparat is t ik , pp.lO8f.; a l so ( t r ea t ing English a s well a s German) Bisanz "Stoff, Thema , Motiv".
12. E.g Raldensperger/Friederich, B i b l i o ~ r a p h y , Trousson, "Plaidoyer", Weissteln (Chap te r heading), e t c .
13. The two are often linked in discussions of motif; however, motive in the sense of motivation, psychological drive, etc., is clearly something else; interest in i t has led to author-centred but highly interesting thematic studies particularly by Gaston Bachelard. Charles Mauron, Georges Poulet, Jean-Pierre Richard as well as the (frequently attacked) Jean-Paul Weber. I t is feasible and preferable to keep the two terms separate; cf. also Weisstein, p.145. Glaser (see esp. Vol.1, p.7) offers a striking recent example o f the results of oscillation between the two.
14. Bremond, p.417, n.2; he even ventures as far as saying: " ... le mot i f peut &re consider6 comme un thkme."
15. The decision for syntagmatic and paradigmatic in this specific application has i ts precedent in Liithi, "Motiv, Zug, Thema ...". For the two senses in which "intertextuality" is now being applied (and an argu- ment for the narrower sense) see Ulrich Broich and Manfred Pfister, eds., Intertextualitat (Tiibingen: Niemeyer, 19851, esp. pp.11-15, 31, 179; see also my discussion o f reception studies in "Preface: Receiving Hamlet Reception", New Comparison 2 (Autumn 19861, 5-13. 1 have not found any references to intertextuality in discussions o f thematology so far.
16. And again championed with passion and severity by Bernard Weinberg in his Introduction to Falk's book.
17. See Croce's review of a book on the Sophonisba theme in Cr i t ica 2 (19041, pp.483-86, and Weisstein's discussion, p.128. Also Croce's essay "Storia di temi ...". 18. Ren6 Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature (New York: Harcourt, Brace L? World, 1947, 2nd edn 1949, repr. 1956), p.260. A con- venient summary of their and others' standard ohjections is given in Comparative Literature: Matter and Method, ed. A. Owen Aldridge (Urbana: Illinois UP, 1969). Editor's Introduction to Ch.lll "Literary Themes'' pp. 106-08.
19. See Van Tieghern, p.89, Guyard, p.52, Frenzel, Motive, p.xi, Trousson, "Plaidoyer", p.107, Corstius, p.93, Prawer, p.101, etc. An opposite point of view is taken by Sauer (see below, n.31).
20. Cf. Bisanz, "Zwischen Stoffgeschichte ...It, p. 158, Beller, "Thematologie", p.77.
21. Brunel/Pichois/Rousseau, pp.121; see also e.g. Jeannine Jallat, "Lieux balzaciens", Po6tique 16 (1985), pp.473-81, here: 475.
22. See esp. Rimmon-Kenan, p.404f., generally Prawer, p.103, Kaiser, p.90, etc. A practical example o f joining thematology and poetics is Theile's article.
23. Cf. e.g. Levin. "Thematics". ~ .107, Potet, p.376 and 382, Prince, p.425; also: (substhuting Stoff .fo; theme) ~ r e & e l , Stoff- Motiv- und Symbolforschun , p.28, Stoff- und Motivgeschichte, p.12 and Motive, p.v, Greverus, p.39+, Pollmann, p.193, Beller, "Von der Stoffgeschichte ...Iv,
p.39, Kaiser, p.80; and Risanz, "Zwischen Stoffgeschichte ..." p.163 n.42, considers adopting this as the main difference, i n analogy to music.
24. But not so small as the extreme sense o f mot i f advocated by Tomachevski (esp. 268), i.e. as the residual unit o f meaning in every proposition; nor in the related sense o f theme current in linguistics, cf. Rimon-Kenan's discussion.
25. See esp. Hamon, p.431.
26. See esp. Brinker, p.440-43; also Bremond, p.421 and Prince, p.430- 32.
27. See e.g. Frenzel, Stof f - Mot iv- und Symbolfirschunq, pp.23, 73-77 and Stof f - und Motivgeschichte, p.17, Pollmann, pp.182-83, 188, Luthi, "Motiv, Zug, Thema", pp.16, 20, Baeumer, "~be rgang ...", passim, Trousson, Thbmes e t mythes, p.27, Prince, p.427.
28. As opposed e.g. to Guyard, Dyserinck excludes the study o f national auto- and hetero-images (Komparatistik, p.105), which he has so energeti- cally advanced, and gives i t a separate heading (pp.124-131). These images appear, however, as themes in l i terature and cannot simply be hived off.
29. For the enormous development of topology af ter Curtius see esp. the extended research survey by Veit.
30. This corresponds t o long-established practice and theoretical sanction. See esp. Trousson, ~ h k m e s e t mythes ... and e.g. Brunel/Pichois/Rousseau, pp.124-27, though they outline the differences. Chardin (p.29) and others in the volume L a recherche ... argue for completely separating the study o f myths from that o f themes; whereas Weisstein's exclusion o f symbols (p.129) is at least arguable (their study is certainly more profitable in the syntagmatic approach), the exclusion o f myth is neither possible nor desirable.
31. See e.g. Beller, "Von der Stoffgeschichte ...'I, p.15 and Trousson, "Plaidoyer", p.105; also e.g., already Sauer, whose remarks on pp.224 and 227 str ike one indeed as an early recipe for a "Readers' L i terary History". In his radical application, the notion provides ample ammunition for the well-known charge that Stoffgeschichte exhausts itself wi th indiscriminate levelling in the service o f a history o f taste, or - at best - cultural history. (Incidentally, both are neither negligible nor detachable from l i terary history.) By contrast, "High" l i terature above al l st i l l guides the views of Pichois/Rousseau (p. 150). Pollmann (p. 197) handles the issue in a more circumspect manner.
32. For a practical example, see Beller, "Thematologie", pp.85-92; the issue is at least br ief ly considered by Prince, p.433.
33. See Czerny, and for a concrete application e.g. Calvin S. Brown, "Theme and Variations as a Li terary Form", Yearbook o f Comparative and General L i terature 27 (1978). 35-43. In general see the informative dis- cussion by Beller in "Thematologie", pp.dlf., and Giraud's decisive stand (La fable de Daphne, Geneva: Droz, 1969, p.d8), which his study as well as those o f others ful ly bear out. Curiously enough Weisstein, whose concept of, and work in the f ield of the "Mutual Illumination of the Arts" (see his Ch.VII) has proved immensely fruitful, skirts this aspect in his treatment o f thematology.
34. Kaiser's progression from Queen Gertrude's (choric) description o f Ophelia's death to Brecht's "Vom ertrunkenen Madchen" (pp.81-89) demon- strates this as well as Bremond's graph (p.419) or Schulze's deliberations.
35. Though i t seems an obvious step to take, group research as a means o f bridging the gap between material and human capacity has not apparently been employed in work on a specific theme. Thematologists tend to be loners; here is plent i fu l scope for new projects.
36. Stressed e.g. by Sauer, p.227; the problem is pondered with the requisite awe by Brunel/Pichois/Rousseau, p. 127.
37. Gyorgy M. Vajda, "Stand, Aufgaben und methodologische Position der Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft in Ungarn", in Aktuelle Probleme der Vergleichenden Literaturforschung, ed. Gerhard Ziegengeist (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 19681, pp.88-99; here p.95.
38. Cf. e.g. Beller, "Von der Stoffgeschichte ...", p.30 and Prawer, p.176. I t is no accident that thematology has been largely developed by compara- tists and regularly features in surveys o f this discipline, alongside folk tale studies, which have been comparative ah ovo.
39. E.g. Jeune places thematology under Iql i t t6rature g6ndrale - another wide field for terminological wrangling. Simply "Literature" might be best for both comparative and general (as distinct from disciplines studying literature only from one language or one country); hut the odds against replacing traditional nomenclature are high.
40. This was made easier by a grant from the Research Committee of the School of Modern Languages and European History. University of East Anglia, Norwich, which is gratefully acknowledged.
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VENICE AT FIRST SIGHT: PROLEGOMENA FOR A NEW VIEW O N THEMATICS
Angel ika Corbineau-Hoffmann (University o f Mainz)
'I... t h e abundance of a m a t t e r i s o f t e n t o a man a g r e a t e r hindrance than
help".' Th i s observat ion by a man of l e t t e r s2 may b e followed, on t h e
pa r t of any t h e m a t i c s scholar , by a deep, hea r t f e l t sigh. And if th is
scho la r has chose" Venice a s his subject , his image c a n easi ly be t rans-
fo rmed in to t h e c a r i c a t u r e of a man hidden behind his c a r d indexes,
knowing much without unders tanding anything.3 Indeed, themat ics , s ince
t h e ve ry beginnings of compara t ive l i tera ture , has had a bad reputat ion,
encoun te red many c r i t i c s and f ew apologists, and, even worse, t h e most
f amous among t h e fo rmer , but not a lways t h e most reputed among t h e
~ a t t e r . ~ Th i s is, however , not t h e p lace t o t r a c e t h e his tory of themat ics ,
which anyway would b e a sad one ... In modern t imes, during t h e last t w o decades , s o m e a t t e m p t s have
been m a d e t o r ev ive thematics , in pa r t i cu la r by Raymond ~ r o u s s o n ~ and
Manfred ~ e i l e r . ~ T h e discussion cont inues , unanimity among scholars is
not t o b e expec ted , but actual ly a vivid in t e res t in t h e c o n t e n t s of
l i t e ra tu re , neglected for a long t ime, c a n b e d e t e c t e d 7 Th i s is proved
by a special i ssue of Poe'tique, "Du thkme e n litte'rature", in 1985, by a
r ecen t ly published s tudy on topics f rom a linguistic point of view,8 and,
last bu t not leas t , by t h e publication in hand.
Tzve tan Todorov, perhaps speaking not only fo r himself , deplores his
"maigre bagage t h k ~ r i ~ u e " , ~ a l though t h e c o n t e n t s of l i t e ra tu re , t h e
"aboutness" of a text,'' is pa r t of t h e most obvious informat ion it g ives
t o t h e reader . Is t h e problem of t h e m a t i c s only a "chim&re", something
w e b e a r on o u r shoulders wi thout knowing why? I I
A t f i rs t sight, t h e m a t i c s c a n b e summed up and def ined a s t h e
r e fe ren t i a l level of l i tera ture .12 This rough definition, which needs t o b e
m a d e more specif ic , runs g r e a t risk of taking away all possible in t e res t
in s tud ies about themat i c s , s ince t h e evidence does not demand scient i f ic
exploration. T h e "aboutness" of a t e x t s e e m s t o exclude, a f t e r a n initial
look, any o t h e r gl impse a t t h e m a t t e r because of t h e apparen t simplicity
of wha t i s re la ted. If s tud ies in t h e m a t i c s a r e o f t e n isola ted in t h e larger
c o n t e x t of compara t ive l i tera ture ,13 th i s exclusion is perhaps t h e resul t
of the i r own way of t r ea t ing a t ex t , reducing i t t o i t s con ten t or , more
particularly, separating form and content. The following reflections, for
which even a modest word l ike "prolegomena" is not suitable, wi l l t ry to
place a very small aspect o f thematics, namely, the first sight of Venice,
i n i ts poetical context. They want to show that a literary text, in
choosing and treating i ts theme, is merely speaking about i ts own poetics,
and, even more, about the place this theme takes in the realm of human
experience. With some fifteen or twenty pages before us, our subject
must remain only a small section of a larger problem - l ike thematics in
general.
Travelling to I ta ly has, since the late hiliddle Ages, had a long
tradition in the countries of Northern Europe. Considered as a pilgrimage
and, later on, as the grand tour, i t of ten led t o the Venetian Republic, the
capital of which was perceived with astonishment and admiration. The
first sight of Venice, however, inevitable in reality, because the traveller
cannot help looking at the place where he arrives, only hesitatingly finds
i ts way into literature; the reason for this delay is to be sought in the
late discovery of subjectivity in travel literature.14 Indeed, the first
impression Venice makes on i ts visitors implies - besides a personal con-
sciousness - the sensibility for the course of time. The figure o f an
observer struck by the beauty of Venice appears only in the late eight-
eenth century.
Although Francis Mortof t (1658) begins his chapter on Venice by
expressing his astonishment, this reaction can scarcely be called a personal
impression:
Venice I...] which c i t t y is enough to astonish any stranger at f irst sight, to see how the water runs al l about it, being built, as i t were, in the midst o f the sea [...I.
This sentence, summing up a very general f irst vision and the (possible)
astonishment o f any stranger, leads directly t o commentaries on the boats
and "gundaloes", losing sight o f the f irst Venetian impressions.
Another example for an author who preserves his first impressions
in the text he publishes about his travels, is Jean Huguetan in his Voyage
d'ltalie curieux e t nouveau (1681):
Venise nous parut en I'abordant. Cette belle, riche Rr puissante ville, le f~dau des Tyrans, I'azyle des affliggs, & l a Reine de la mer. l6
This way of characterizing Venice by very common and traditional epithets
and metaphors destroys the reader's hope for a personal glance, and the
first sight o f the c i ty conveys less what the author sees than what he
knows: Venice is a commonplace, astonishing, but without any influence
on the traveller's personal view.
These two examples, rare and belated in Venetian travel literature,
serve to show that these accounts, for many centuries, only sum up a
certain knowledge o f the c i t y without finding any personal approach to it.
This impersonality of the f irst impression begins t o change by the middle
o f the eighteenth century: the widespread information about l ta ly in
general, and Venice in particular, calls for innovation, which is given by
travellers l ike Samuel Sharp, Pierre Jean Grosley, Arthur Young and
Hester Lynch Piozzi. A dialogue begins between the town and the visitor.
Through i t s long l i terary tradition, Venice has achieved an obvious inter-
textual density, so that one's f irst perception of the c i ty may evoke other
impressions and recollections, or manifest i t s singularity by comparison and
in contrast to what the visitors know and expect. I n 1720, Edward Wright , speaking of "surprise" l ike many travellers before him, explains this
reaction in evoking a contrast between his expectations and the real scene
before him:
To begin then wi th the distant view o f the Ci ty: 'Tis a pleasure, not without a Mixture o f Surprise, to see so great a c i t y as Venice may be trul ly call'd, as i t were, floating on the Surface o f the Sea; to see Chimneys and Towers, where you would expect nothing but Ship-Masts. 18
The changing language - "pleasure" instead o f "admiration" - announces an
essential difference in perceiving the city. Rut the personal impression
would have been nearly impossible without the previously established
contrast: in the middle o f the sea, indeed, you expect to see ships not
houses and palaces. Venice proves i t s diffkrence at the very moment when
a possible relationship wi th another real i ty comes into sight. Such a
relationship, however, is soon rejected, manifesting the strange peculiarity
o f Venice. I t is by contrast only that this c i t y manifests i t s individuality - i t needs a criterion to measure i t s own value. Young's Travels through
France and l ta ly show the same tendency to value Venice by comparison:
I...] i t was nearly dark when we entered the grand canal. My attraction was alive, a l l expectancy: there was l ight enough to show the objects around me to be among the most interesting I had ever seen, and they
s t ruck m e more than the first en t r ance of any o the r place 1 had been at . 18
It would b e m e r e speculation t o suppose that th is striking impression of
Venice depends on t h e specif ic light when approaching it in the evening
("it was nearly dark"). T h e travel accoun t s before the end of the eight-
eenth century never mention par t icular t imes of t h e day, because they had
not yet discovered any a t t r ac t ion of the atmosphere. The tendency t o
compare Venice with o the r places, t o see it in t h e larger con tex t of what
the t ravel ler had encountered before, t h e discovery of a specif ic a tmos-
phere (of t i m e o r weather) - all t hese innovations a r e t o b e seen in the
con tex t of what may be cal led Venetian relativity: a t t he t i m e I speak
o f , Venice has ceased t o h e incomparable. Si tuated in a g rea te r a r e a of
human experience, t h e c i ty , however, cont inues t o mark i t s individuality,
but only by comparison ("they s t ruck m e more"). Whereas for many
cen tu r i e s Venice had nothing t o b e compared with, t h e t ravel ler now dis-
poses of s o m e prior knowledge, like Pierre-Jean Grosley, who published his
Nouveaux me'moires in 1764:
Ouelque d tude cependant que I'on a i t f a i t e d e ces 6c r i t s 1 sc. su r ~ e n i s e j , on n'est point h I'abri d e la surpr ise qui na?t du premier coup d'oeil: coup d'oeil qui surpasse tou tes les id6es que les rela t ions e t les descriptions peuvent donner ou que I'imagination peut se former. l 9
The "coup d'oeil" of Venice, r epea ted twice, becomes a personal one,
although many writings prepared i t t o such ex ten t tha t it had t o exclude
any so r t of surprise. Venice is not only incomparable, but a lso indescrib-
able: you must have a look a t it. This rescue of Venetian real i ty against
all forms of preparat ive descriptions may b e considered - paradoxically - a s t h e ge rm of Venetian l i tera ture sui generis. T o s e e Venice means t o
feel i t s singularity and difference. Description, a s usual in the traditional
t ravel accounts , i s incompat ible with t h e impression Venice makes on i t s
visitors now. In 1801, Jacques Cambry sums up the l i terary innovations
of his t i m e in writing:
I1 e s t impossible d e ddcr i re I 'effet qu'8 son reveil produit sur le voyageur le premier coup d'oeil su r Venise: c e s canaux bord6s d e b l t i m e n t s d'un goQt si d i f fkrent des fo rmes communes d e I 'archi tecture [...I ici t o u t e analogie e s t interrompue, qui voit Venise voit la ville d'un a u t r e monde. 20
Even i f the singularity is emphasized, this text preserves the idea o f a
correlation: to speak of another world implies a difference to this world - the relationship persists. Strangeness ("&tranget6"), difference, individuality
are only perceptible wi th regard to the normal, everyday experience. This
difference leads to a strange coincidence: Hester Lynch Piozzi, on her
way to Venice, finds the two exactly as i t had been painted by Canaletto - what might seem a fiction of art is confirmed by reality. "It was wonder-
ful ly entertaining", she writes, "to f ind thus realized the pleasures that
excellent painter had given us so many reasons to expect . . .w.~' The
pleasures mentioned are those of art; in her f irst impression of Saint
Mark's Square, Piozzi notices, in particular, a constellation o f ar t i f ic ia l
beauties:
St Mark's Place, af ter a l l I had read and al l I had heard of it, exceedes expectation: such a cluster o f excellence, such a constellation of art i- f icial beauties, my mind had never ventured to excite the idea o f within herself; ... 22
Af ter having heen an admired work of human ingenuity, Venice is now
perceived as a work of art, certainly through Canaletto's influence and
inspiration. Rut whatever the context may be - a l i terary or a pictorial
one - the particular difference o f Venice becomes perceptible only within
a relationship, and by contrast to everyday experience. For many
centuries and for generations o f travellers from the Northern Countries o f
Europe, Venice had been situated within a greater sphere of interest: the
starting point of a voyage t o the Holy Land, later on part o f a journey
through Italy. Certainly, these travellers did not spare their expressions
o f admiration - exceptions confirm the rule - but they were not aware o f
the particular, aesthetic character o f this city. Only by comparison - and
the points o f comparison di f fer from one author to the other - does
Venice prove i ts singularity. When a context o f experience is evoked -
i t may be literary, pictorial or only personal - the special character o f
Venice appears.
I stop for a moment in order to summarise the results and relate
t h e n to the general, theoretical problem o f studies in thematics. If, as
has been said before, the isolation of a thematic approach t o l i terature
seems to ensue from i ts own method, which is to isolate a subject from
i t s context, a glance at Venice illustrates at the same t ime the problem
and i ts possible solution. Venice confirms i ts importance for thematic
studies just at the moment when i t ceases to be an isolated state on the
periphery of Europe, and begins to evoke a larger realm o f human experi-
ence. A t that very moment i t already had a long l i terary tradition, which
is the background for the discovery of i t s individuality. Such a theme may
he considered not only as the content of a text, but also as the result o f
the context of this text. I n a larger sphere o f realistic perception,
aesthetic approach and general human experience, the more or less
accidental content of literature becomes a theme - in the most complex
sense o f the term.23 The tilore the Venetian context grows, the more
literature transforms the first glimpse of Venice into a significant,
striking experience, enriched with personal imagination and linguistic or
l i terary connotations: the "f irst sight" tends to lose i ts only visual
qualities in order to become a metaphor for an insight - and this inner
dimension comprehends, in an intimate dialogue, both the c i ty and the
author.
In describing what he sees and not what he knows - about Venice and
i ts strange situation in the sea - Charles Dickens transforms his nocturnal
arrival in Venice into an "Italian ream".^^ Through such an impressionist
procedure (ante l i t teram) Venice loses al l i t s realistic elements, transform-
ing itself into a dreamy picture the meaning of which has to be decoded
by the reader. For Dickens, Venice is a nameless place, although every
reader recognizes it. The reason for this transformation is twofold: when
approaching the city, the boat passes a cemetery, and the following des-
cription confers upon the c i ty itself the character o f a burial place. As
sleep has been considered as the brother of death since antiquity, the
author's state o f mind becomes strangely similar to the state of the
dying city. Being only a vision and not a realistic image, Venice is
separated from al l information with which former periods had burdened it.
Dickens' "first sight", although meaning, within the framework of the
narrative, the f irst view he gains o f Venice, is essentially a primary one,
as i f the author did not know anything about the city, seeing i t for the
f irst time. In a sort o f mythical construction, this first glimpse is, at the
same time, the absolute beginning and definit ive end, holding reality in
suspense, neutralizing the common differences between past and present,
between l i fe and death, between f ict ion and reality. Even the question
of whether the traveller is asleep or awake is le f t unanswered: in his
dreams, the author wakes up or falls asleep, destroying all possible
specu la t ion about t h e s t a t u s of r ea l i t y in his text . T h e cons t i t u t ion of
sense , d i f f e ren t t o all w e a r e f ami l i a r wi th in t h e l i t e r a t u r e abou t Venice,
is e f f e c t e d beyond realism. In th i s "ghostly c i ty" wi th i t s "phantom
street^",^' visual impress ions a r e n o longer a dup l i ca t e o f t h e c i ty ' s own
s t ruc tu re , but a n agglomerat ion of d e t a i l s wi thout any obvious s ignif icance -
a w a y of suspending all k inds o f meaning o n c e and fo r all. T h e following
passage conf i rms th i s i n t e rp re t a t ion :
O t h e r boats , o f t h e s a m e sombre hue, w e r e lying moored, I thought , t o pa in t ed pillars, n e a r t h e da rk mys te r ious door s t h a t opened s t r a igh t upon t h e water . S o m e of t h e s e w e r e empty ; in some , t h e rowers lay as leep; t owards one, I s a w s o m e f igures coming down a gloomy a rchway f rom t h e in t e r io r o f a palace; gai ly dressed, a n d a t t e n d e d by torch-bearers . 26
Jus t l ike t h e t e x t in general , t h e s ignif icance of t h e s e s e n t e n c e s r ema ins
in a s o r t of darkness. F o r Dickens, t h e r e i s no reason t o desc r ibe Venice
y e t again , a f t e r all t h e t r ave l a c c o u n t s which had m a d e it a sub jec t of
c o m m o n knowledge. T h e ve ry ob jec t of t h i s t e x t is n o longer a c i t y
ca l l ed Venice, but a quest ion ra ised by a t r ad i t i on of l i t e r a tu re beginning
wi th t h e Venet ian f ic t ion by M m e d e S t a e l a n d Lord Byron, namely, t h e
s t a t u s o f reality. By cons t ruc t ing a world m a d e of words, Dickens p l aces
Venice beyond th i s world, in t h e r ea lm of d e a t h and f ic t ion, pe rcep t ib l e
only in a d ream. T h e dissubstant ia t ion could hardly b e g rea t e r . But t h i s
t r anscendance o f Venice s u m s u p f o r m e r a t t e m p t s t o c r e a t e a f ic t ic ious
c i t y , symbol of pol i t ica l d e a t h a n d l i t e r a ry resurrect ion. Dickens' c i t y
wi thout a n a m e is, never theless , impregna ted wi th a meaning which
conce rns not only t h e individual t r ave l l e r , bu t humani ty in general : beyond
o u r world of expe r i ence , w e find a n o t h e r real i ty , a r ea lm of d r e a m and
f ic t ion, a my th ica l p l ace of refuge.
S ince t h e e n d of t h e e igh teen th cen tu ry , t h e c o n t e x t of Venet ian
t r ave l has changed. Ce r t a in ly , i t w a s l i t e r a ry f o r H e s t e r Piozzi just a s
i t w a s fo r Dickens, bu t t h i s l i t e r a t u r e i t se l f w a s sub jec t t o t ransformat ion.
S ince f i c t i t i ous persons l i ke Cor inne o r Chi lde Harold had submi t t ed Venice
t o t he i r own visions, t h e c i t y had a s sumed a l a rge r spec t rum of meaning
t h a n e v e r before . I t s r e a l a spec t , including palaces , paint ings a n d churches ,
had b e c o m e a c ryp tog raphy fo r a d e e p e r sense: t h e d e a t h of beau ty on
e a r t h a n d i t s r e su r r ec t ion in t h e ar ts . T h e dest iny of Venice i s n o longer
a pol i t ica l quest ion, b u t a n a e s t h e t i c and par t icular ly a poet ical one. S o
Dickens ' phantom c i t y does no t only r e f e r t o a f i rs t g l impse of nocturnal
Venice in a dream (all this may be considered as a poetical, f ict i t ious
construction), but also to a l i terary artefact which, during the first
decades of the nineteenth century, had lost much o f i ts referential reality.
Gaining a new sense as a c i ty of death, Venice now implies the experience
of transcendence, and i ts geographical and polit ical situation, as well as
i ts exterior beauty, refer to a place somewhere beyond this world. The
c i ty has a new existence in literature, which cannot be destroyed by the
changing of t ime and the vicissitudes o f fortune. Even i f i t is a dead, a
burial place, in this quality i t survives - paradoxically. The death of
reality guarantees the survival of fiction. Dickens' "Italian Dream", an
impressionistic sketch rather than a realistic description, creates and marks
a new relationship between Venice and literature. The first sight discovers
a c i ty o f death in a metaphorical sense: reality did die, but literature,
even in representing this death, discovers a new sense in the concept of
Venice: geographically marginal in Europe, Venice now becomes the
threshold of another world - at f irst sight.
Although highly unrealistic, Dickens' impressions are not singular and
extravagant. Only a few years later, in 1852, Gautier describes his arrival
in Venice in a comparable way. Night and darkness suspend the ordinary
relationships between objects. Some lights appearing here and there
accidentally lay stress on picturesque scenes:
L'orage qui t i ra i t B sa fin, illuminait encore le ciel de quelques l u e ~ ~ r s livides qui nous trahissaient des perspectives profondes, des dentelures bizarres de palais inconnus. A chaque instant I'on passait sous des ponts dont les deux bouts rdpondaient B une coupure lumineuse dans la masse cornpacte et sombre des maisons. A quelque angle une veilleuse tremblait devant une madone. Des cris singuliers et gutturaux retentissaient au detour des canaux; un cercueil flottant, au bout duquel se penchait une ombre, f i la i t rapidement b c6td de nous; une fendtre basse raske de pr&s nous faisait entrevoir un inte'rieur e'toile' d'une lampe ou d'un reflet, comme une eau-forte de Rembrandt. 27
What was implicit in Dickens' prose, the reference to l i terature and art,
becomes explicit in Gautier's text: the l ight effects make appear "des
figures e m b ~ k m a t i ~ u e s " , ~ ~ cut o f f from their ordinary surroundings. A
world which loses i ts normal relationship receives a strange new structure,
analogous to the isolating process o f art. Gautier's f irst perception of
Venice may be compared to the different ways o f looking at a collection
o f paintings and drawings, and his arrival in Venice resembles a visit to
a gallery. But more than a transposition of well-known artistic impres-
sions into a poetical reality, Venice in Gautier's description becomes a
place of exuberant imagination and mysterious threat. In the passage
quoted above, "bizarre", "singulier", "cercueil flottant", though not the
most significant in this respect, indicate a menace inherent in Venice.
Gautier speaking of "l'hippogriffe d'un cauchemar" and of "un voyage dans
le noir, aussi itrange, aussi mysterieux que ceux qu'on fait pendant les
nuits de c a ~ c h e m a r " , ~ ~ adds a connotation of danger to Dickens' nocturnal
impressions: the dream is now a nightmare. Thus, it appears less as a
state of suspense between fiction and reality than as a realm of imagina-
tion - Venice city of the soul and of its spectres. If it has been empha-
sized before that Dickens' reference was a tradition of fictitious literature,
now this implicit context becomes explicit in Gautier's description:
Nous croyions circuler dans un roman de Maturin de Lewis ou d'Anne Radcliff illustrk par Goya, Piranbe et Rernbrandt. 30
Gautier is right in thinking of the gothic novel, because preromantic and
romantic Venetian fiction often follows this t r a d i t i ~ n . ~ ' His somewhat
excited imagination reaches historical truth. What seems to be exaggera-
ted "est de la r6alitk la plus exacte":
Une terreur froide, humide et noire comme tout ce qui nous entourait, s'ktait emparke de nous, e t nous songions involontairement B la tirade de Malipiero h la Tisbe', quand i l depeint I'effroi que lui inspire ~enise.32
Indeed, Hugo's Angelo, which Gautier refers to, is one of the most striking
examples of Venetian "darkness".33 Transformed into a literary place, a
scene of dramas and novels, Venice presents to the visitor an imaginary
stage decoration:
Cette impression qui semblera peut-btre exage're'e, est de la verite' la plus exacte, e t nous pensons qu'il serait difficile de s'en de'fendre, m6me en philistin le plus positif; nous allons mdme plus loin, c'est le vrai de Venise qui se d6gage. la nuit, des transformations modernes; Venise, cette ville, qu'on dirait planthe par un d6corateur de thkltre, et dont un auteur de drame semble avoir arrange les moeurs pour le plus grand intkrdt des intrigues et des de'n0uements.3~
Venice a theatre of dreams - reality, Gautier tells us, resembles itself:
but what reality? A tourist's first impression turns out to be the effect
of literary knowledge, and Venice, the place of action, is changed into a
stage. The difference between fact and fiction, between geographical
places and imaginary stages, is abolished, and what Gautier calls "reality"
is to be understood as an inextricable mixture of impressions and inven-
tions. Nevertheless, i t is necessary to emphasize a mere fact which, as
i t stands, has nothing to do with any real or fictitious travel to Venice.
Since the end of the Serenissima Repubblica, Venice, the victim of foreign
political interests, has gained in literature what i t lost in politics. Its
insignificance in real (economic, political) l i fe is compensated by new
literary and aesthetic values. The purely imaginary constructions of
literature make Venice the centre of a new interest, and even more,
confer a new reality on the city of fiction. This complex correlation
makes the real sense of Gautier's strange arrival at the city a pragmatic
fact which leads to an encounter with literary reality or real fiction.
I f theatre can be defined as that which is shown - and Gautier
pretends that he has before his eyes all he describes - a fairy tale, as the
term indicates, is something which must be @Id. The marginal situation
of Venice in Europe, which links up with a general tendency of poetical
evasion in the nineteenth century,35 encounters during these 1850s another
paradigm, more literary and even more fantastic. In a forgotten German
text, Pecht's Ein Winter in Venedig, Venice appears as a fairy tale made
of stone:
So ware ich endlich in diesem Stein gewordenen Mlrchen, dieser zauber- haften Stadt angelangt, die mit keiner anderen verglichen werden kann und von keiner anderen an Reiz ubertroffen. Strenge deine Phantasie an, wie du willst, zum Wunderbarsten und Abenteuerlichsten, Venedig wird es iiberbieten. 36
The author's allusion to a fairy tale means more particularly the collection
of A Thousand and One Nights, where Sheherazade tells her stories in
order to remove the menace of death. The analogy to the fate of Venice
and to the function of Venetian literature is quite obvious. In Pecht's
text, Venice is transformed into a scenery of oriental fantasy - a stage
which, for the duration of the fictitious representation, stops the course
of time. This realm of connotations, underlining not only the peculiar
quality of the city, but also i ts mythical power to escape from political
death, refers to the concept of imagination. Definitively, the referential
level of Pecht's text is less the real appearance of Venice than the
author's and the reader's consciousness, or, in Husserl's terms, his "experi-
ence": 37
D a s Z a u b e r h a f t e d i e ses Anbl icks [sc. d e s Markuspla tzes] ist n icht zu schi ldern, Du glaubst in e i n Feenre i ch v e r s e t z t z u sein, e ine jener Erzahlungen a u s Tausend und e i n e r Nach t mi t i h re r iippigen or ienta l ischen Phan ta s i e p lotz l ich vor d i r verwirkl icht zu sehen, d e r Bau, d e r d i r en tgegenf l immer t , ist e i n e r jener f abe lha f t en P a l a s t e a u s Smaragd und D e m a n t mi t goldenem Dache, a u s denen v e r z a u b e r t e F r l u l e i n s von kiihnen R i t t e r n w i e gebrauchl ich e n t f u h r t werden. 38
What a t t h e beginning of t h i s passage s e e m s t o b e only a personal
impress ion ("you think"), changes i n t o t h e r ea l i t y of t h e p l ace itself: not
only does t h e a u t h o r b e c o m e t h e v i c t im of h is illusions, bu t t h e t e x t
n a r r a t e s a fa i ry ta le , t r ans fo rming t h e Venet ia l pa l aces i n to a phan ta s t i c
s c e n e r y - imaginat ion t r ansmi t s i t s f e a t u r e s t o reality. All t h e s e examples
show t h a t l i t e r a t u r e has b e c o m e t h e predominant paradigm of human
e x p e r i e n c e in Venice. T h e p l ace i s now impregna ted wi th f ic t ion - even
in a non-f ic t i t ious g e n r e l ike t h e t r ave l account . Ins tead of multiplying
t h e e x a m p l e s o f Venet ian "first-sight-thematics", which would eas i ly b e
possible, i t i s m o r e impor t an t t o d raw s o m e theo re t i ca l conclus ions from
t h e in t e rp re t a t ions above. In his s tudy T e x t und T h e m a , Andreas Lo t sche r
proves by e x p e r i m e n t t h a t t h e t h e m e o f a t e x t c a n b e recognized by any
r eade r , e v e n wi thout a spec i a l educa t ion in l inguis t ics o r in l i t e r a ry
criticism.3g T h e d i f f e ren t t heo r i e s LGtscher summar i se s - t h e m e a s t h e
r e f e r e n c e o f a t ex t , i t s focus of interest4' - t h e r e f o r e s e e m t o b e of
l i t t l e p rac t i ca l impor t ance fo r t h e unders tanding of a t ex t . Rut t h e
d i f f i cu l t i e s begin when Lijtscher, a lways f rom a linguistic point of view,
t r i e s t o point o u t t h e t h e m a t i c s t r u c t u r e s of texts : t h e m a t i c s not only
r e f l e c t o u r eve ryday expe r i ence , bu t a l so c o n s t i t u t e t h e s t r u c t u r e of dis-
course. Given t h e ex i s t ence of many moda l i t i e s of d iscourse , e v e n beyond
t h e "classical" g e n r e s l i ke narra t ion, descr ipt ion a n d a rgumen ta t ion , t h e
funct ion of t h e m a t i c s mus t b e desc r ibed wi th r ega rd t o t h e d i f f e ren t kinds
o f discourse. T h e p rob lems and compl i ca t ions a t heo ry of t h e m a t i c s
e n c o u n t e r s a r e e a s y t o imagine: if a t h e m e i s considered a s a funct ion
in t h e g r e a t e r ne twork o f a t ex t , a valuable t heo ry of t h e m a t i c s has t o
env i sage t h e l aws of discourse. A t f i r s t sight, a t heo ry of t h e m a t i c s d o e s
not s e e m t o r a i se insuperable di f f icul t ies . A s a t h e m e r e f e r s t o t h e
e x p e r i e n c e of real i ty , i t i s su f f i c i en t t o ident i fy th is r ea l i t y in o rde r t o
unde r s t and t h e text . But t h i s unders tanding comprehends only p a r t of t h e
meaning of a t e x t , t h e l a rge r a n d m o r e impor t an t p a r t r ema ins t o b e
de t e rmined . Reduced t o i t s c o n t e n t , t h e t e x t loses wha t c o n s t i t u t e s i t s
interest: to be, rather than a mirror of reality, an interpretation of it.
A theme becomes functional at the very moment when i t makes possible
a new understanding of reality. As far as I know, this significance of
thematics has, until now, escaped from all attempts of theorizing the
contents of texts.
In literature, which forms only a small section in the production of
texts, the function of a theme seems to be more important than the
theme itself. Indeed, studies in thematics generally show the diffusion of
a theme and illustrate its widespread familiarity. But what could create
the incessant interest in a theme, so well known both to author and
reader, i f not i ts different functions in a text and its way to interpret
reality? Since a theory of thematics from a linguistic point of view
raises many difficulties, there is no reason to believe that it would be
easier to theorize thematics in literature - on the contrary. To describe
and to explain the different functions of a theme, to seize all the conno-
tative meanings a text adds to it, presupposes a theory of discourse and
a theory of literary communication as well - to say nothing of the socio-
logical and psychological aspects of what is naively called the "content"
of literature. The task becomes gigantic. I t has been deplored that
thematics sti l l lack an appropriate theoryi4' some general considerations
concerning the status of contents in literature are probably more necessary
than ever, otherwise thematics will remain a neglected child in the realm
of literary criticism. However, I wonder i f such a theory, once developed,
can resolve all the problems of thematics (or even the most urgent of
them): either i t wil l be too general for a special case, or too specific to
include the variety of themes in literature. I t is tempting, but not very
fruitful, to expect support from linguistics.42 Literary studies in thema-
tics are often too concentrated on their special subject to reflect the
general bearings of their methods.
The example of "Venice at first sight" was not chosen in order to
create or to substitute a theory of thematics. Literature about Venice,
although covering a long period of literary history in Europe, is too small
a subject to inspire such a pretention. But the first impression of Venice
can illustrate that whenever data of concrete reality or of human experi-
ence are taken up by literature - and this process might be considered as
the germ of thematics - they are placed in a new context and become
part of a work of art. Their reference is no longer their importance in
real i ty , but t he i r funct ion in t h e text . T h e t h r e e examples of n ineteenth-
cen tu ry t ravel accounts , analysed above, ob ta in thei r r ight t o b e noted
(given t h e long t radi t ion of Venet ian descr ipt ion) only through t h e f a c t
t h a t t hey change t h e s ignif icance of t h e place. Not power and wea l th a s
before , b u t in Ccncordance wi th human expe r i ence and a r t i s t i c impressions
now makes Venice a t h e m e in l i t e r a tu re . Marginal and e x c e n t r i c qual i t ies
con f i rm t h e symbol ic funct ion of Venice in l i t e r a tu re : impregna ted wi th
a r t i s t i c exper ience, e v e n t r ans fo rmed in to a work of a r t , Venice becomes
a sign fo r t h e s t r a n g e fascinat ion, bu t a lso fo r t h e impo tency of ar t . Ju s t
l ike t h e a r t i s t himself, t h i s r e fuge o f beau ty i s marginal and isola ted -
poet ical ly charming, but politically ins ignif icant - o n e being t h e r eve r se
of t h e other .
If t h e c a s e of Venice is pa rad igma t i c (which r ema ins t o b e proved)
l i t e r a tu re , t ransforming r ea l i t y i n to a "theme", invests r ea l d a t a with a
new significance. T o desc r ibe th i s process would h e o n e of t h e most
c ruc i a l t a sks o f a new themat ics . T h e ve ry h e a r t of my a rgumen t could
inv i t e o t h e r t h e m a t i c s scholars t o wonder if a l i t e r a ry t h e m e is not , in
many cases , a n in t e rp re t a t ion of r ea l i t y and not th is r ea l i t y i t se l f ,
inscr ibed m o r e o r less roughly in a l i t e r a ry text . Croce ' s doub t s about t h e
a r t i s t i c value of t h e c o n t e n t of l i t e r a tu re , h is scruples concerning thema-
t i c s in general , a r e not only a wicked par t i -pr is agains t posi t iv is t ic
procedures deriving, a s i t s e e m s t o him, f rom a d e e p insensibili ty fo r
a r t i s t i c problems:43 they a im a t a c ruc i a l insuff ic iency of t h e m a t i c s not
y e t e l iminated. T h e c o n t e n t s of l i t e r a tu re might appea r a s a poor imi ta-
t ion of real i ty ; a s long a s l i t e r a ry c r i t i c i sm is unable t o revise t h e
s t a t u s of c o n t e n t in a work of a r t , t h e possibili t ies t o r e fo rm t h e m a t i c s
a r e s can t . I t w a s t h e purpose of m y r e f l ec t ions t o show in wha t d i rect ion
t h e neces sa ry revival of t h e m a t i c s could h e e f f ec t ed . A t f i r s t s ight ,
indeed, t h e t r ave l a c c o u n t s s e e m t o sum u p visual impressions, bu t soon
i t becomes obvious t h a t t h e gl impse o f Venice m e a n s m o r e than a mere ly
ex te r io r real i ty - i t a l ludes t o larger c o n t e x t s of knowledge and imagina-
tion, t ransforming t h e c i t y i n to a symbol of human expe r i ence and a r t i s t i c
creat ion. T h e s o r t o f Venice r ep resen ted in modern l i t e r a t u r e coincides
wi th t h e role of t h e a r t i s t in modern socie ty . Although acquir ing imagin-
a r y f ea tu re s , Venice r ema ins a marginal and somewha t e c c e n t r i c place.
T h e r ea l i t y of t h e c i ty , sub jec t o f so many t r ave l accoun t s s ince t h e l a t e
Middle Ages, is r ep l aced by a r t i s t i c values, a p rocedure which p repa res t h e
new significance of a c i ty as a work of art. This transformation makes
the theme refer, first of all, to the text itself, showing i ts genuine poetic
processes. Venice becomes a l i terary theme only on condition that it
changes into a work of art: then i t represents, isolated as i t is in
political and geographic respects, the social conditions of the arts. In this
sense, Venice oddly enough becomes part o f the problem of thematics as
i t was summarised at the beginning of these preliminary notes on an
important issue: the content o f literature, which is so evident - at first
sight. 44
I. G. Gailhard, The Present State o f the Princes and Republics o f I ta ly (...), 2nd edition, (London 16711, p.120 (e.0. 16691.
2. As personal dates cannot be determined, I consider him only as the author of this book.
3. This problem of thematics is a very old one; cf. E. Sauer, "Verwendung stoffgeschichtlicher Methoden i n der Literaturforschung". Euphorion 29 (1928), 222-229.
4. Croce's objections against thematics: "11 tema di Sofonisba" 119041. In Saggi filosocici I: Problemi di estetica e contributi alla storia dell' estetica italiana (Bari 19101, pp.77-84, have been a sort o f ostracism; in their famous Theory o f Literature Renk Wellek and Austin Warren argue in Croce's sense: "'Stoffneschichte' is the least l i terary of histories." - (London 19491, p.272.
5. Cf. for example: Un problkrne de l i t t6rature compar6e: les etudes de thkmes. Essai de mdthodologie, Paris 1965; Thhmes et mythes - questions de nkthode, Bruxelles 198 1.
6. "Von der Stoffgeschichte zur Thematologie. Ein Beitrag zur komparatistischen Methodologie". Arcadia 5 (19701, 1-38.
7. I t was the authority of formalism in all i ts colours which, for a long time, made studies in thematics nearly impossible. (Cf. V. Alleton, C. Bremond et al., "Vers une th6matique1' In: Poe'tique 16, 1985, p.395).
8. A. Lotscher, Text und Thema: Studien zur thematischen Konstituenz von Texten, Tubingen 1987.
9. Introduction B la l i t tkrature fantastique (Paris 19701, p.106.
10. Cf. N. Goodman, "About", Mind 70 (19611, 1-24.
I I. Ch. Baudelaire, "Chacun sa chim8re" (=Le spleen de Paris, VI), In Oeuvres compl&tes, Bd. C. Pichois (Paris 19751, Vol.1, pp.282f.
12. Cf. A. Lotscher, op. cit., pp.7-14.
13. A. Owen points out that "[tjhe subject o f themes is one o f the most controversial in comparative l i terature" and continues by summing up the most common objections against thematics: Comparative Literature: Matter and Method (Urbana: Illinois UP, 19691, pp.106-108.
14. Cf. G. B. Parks, "The Turn to the Romantic in the Travel Literature of the Eighteenth Century", Modern Language Quarterly 25 (19641, 22-33.
15. His Book: Being His Travels through France and Italy 1658-1659, eo. by M. Le t t s (London 19251, p. 181.
16. Lyon 1681, p.199.
17. Some Observations made in Travelling through France, Italy, etc. In the Years 1720, 1721, and 1722. 2 vols (London 17301, 1 , p.45.
18. Travels through France and Italy, during the years 1787, 1788, and 1789, (London 19061, p.252.
19. Nouveaux Mkmoires, ou observations sur I'ltalie e t sur les Italiens, par deux gentilhommes Su6dois ..., 3 vols. (London 17641, 11, p. l f.
20. Voyage pittoresque en Suisse e t en Italie, ..., 2 vols, Paris, an IX de la ~ d p u b l i q u e ; 11, pp. 178f.
21. Observations and Reflections made in the Course of a journey through France, ltaly and Germany, 2 vols (London 17891, 1, p.150.
22. Ibid. p.151.
23. For C. Abastado, t o whom we owe some of the most striking reflections on thematics, a theme is an element of poetics: " ... la notion de 'thkme' e s t commandge par une penske d e s tructure e t n'a d e sens qu'8 partir d e l ' i d 6 d e syst&me." S e e "La trarne e t le licier: des thkmes au discours thkmatique", Revue des Langues Vivantes 43 (1977), 487.
24. Hard Times and Pictures from ltaly (London n.d.1, pp.210-214. Information about the genesis of this work is given by D. H. Paroissien, "Dickens's Pictures from I t a l ~ Stages of the Work's Development and Dickens's Method of Composition", English Miscellany 22 (19711, 243-262.
25. Op. cit. p.210.
26. Ibid. p.211.
27. Voyage en Italie, In: Oeuvres compl6tes. (Paris, 1877-1894, repr. Geneva 19781, vol.1, p.68.
28. Ibid., p.69.
29. Ibid., p.67.
30. Ibid., p.69.
31. E.g. A. Radcliff, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794); F. Schiller, Der ~ e i s t e r s e h e r (1788); H. Zschokke, Aballino der grosse Bandit (1794); M. Savory, Barozzi, o r the Venetian Sorceress (1815); Ch. Nodier, Jean Sbogar (1818).
32. Op. cit., p.69.
33. "( ... ) il y a une chose grande e t terrible, e t pleine d e tbn&bres, il y a Venise." Edition Nationale (Paris 18871, vol.XVII1, p.314.
34. Op. cit., pp.69f.
35. Cf. H. J. Lope. "Der Reiz des Fremden". Exotismus der Ferne und Exotismus der Nahe in den europaischen Literaturen, in: Europaische Romantik 111: Restauration und Revolution (Wiesbaden 1985), pp.619-648.
36. Leipzig 1859, p.3.
37. Erfahrung und Urteil: Untersuchungen zur Genealogie der Logik; esp. § 8.
38. Op. cit., pp.5f.
39. Op. cit., pp.60-71.
40. Cf. pp.7-35.
41. T. Todorov, op. cit.: "La thgorie y est [sc. in thematics] comme interdite de sdjour", p.104.
42. Indeed, Rimmon-Kenan's results are disappointing; cf. "Qu'est-ce- qu'un thkme?" In: Poe'tique XVI (1985), pp.397-405.
43. ''I l ibri che si tengono strettamente in quest' ordine d i ricerche prendono di necessit'a la forma del catalog0 o della bibliografia [...I. Manca (e non pub non mancare) lo studio del momento creativo, che e quello che davvero importa alla storia letteraria e artistica." "La letteratura comparata," in Saggi Filosofici I: Problemi di estetica e contributi alla storia dell'estetica italiana (Bari 1901), p.73.
44. The concept o f perception in Bachem's contribution, Bogumil's poetics of landscape and Dawson's distinction between theme and motive can help to localize my approach to Venice in a larger and more general context. I should like to thank l lolger Klein for his subtle stylistic revision of my text.
VENICE PRESERVED: HImORY, MYTH AND LITERARY CREATION
And& Mansau (University of T o u l w s e )
Contemplat ing t h e t h e m e of t h e Preservat ion of Venice against t he
Spanish Plot, a r e w e faced with history o r with myth? We c a n say right
away t h a t t h e Conspiracy is not itself myth but opens t h e way fo r myth -
t h a t of Venice, o r r a the r t h e var ious myths forming t h e complex which
c r i t i c s have dubbed t h e "Myth of Venice". Following on from an original
based on t h e use of historical sources, imita t ion through t h e cen tu r i e s
general ly took t h e form of works which confine themselves t o psychologi-
c a l i n t e rp re t a t ions mainly of P ie r re and Jaff ier . Then, in t h e twent ie th
century, l i t e ra tu re s e e m s t o have rediscovered t h e myth, o f t e n in t h e
process abandoning t h e original s to ry in o rde r t o lay s t r e s s on d i f f e ren t
aspects. T h e following notes will ponder mainly two things: firstly, t h e
Myth of Venice and how it i s linked t o t h e l i t e ra ry t h e m e of t h e
Conspiracy; and secondly, ways in which "Venice Preserved" has, a f t e r i t s
c a r e e r on t h e s t a g e in t h e wake of Otway's success , in t h e modern period
been turned into much wider ref lect ions on t h e f a t e of individuals and
communities.
Is Venice a mythical c i ty? Already t h e f i rs t l i terary t e x t w e have, Saint-
Real ' s L a Conjurat ion d e s Espagnols c o n t r e la ~ 6 ~ u h l i q u e d e Venise e n
JlJ (1674) was guided by de f in i t e political objectives: t o use t h e
historical account for passing judgement on t h e s t a t e of t h e seven teen th -
cen tu ry c i ty , on t h e policies of the Doge, t h e powers of t h e S e n a t e and
t h e Council of Ten; and t o exploit in pa r t i cu la r t h e Spaniards ' a t t e m p t
a t subduing Venice ( t h e bastion of Italian independence) fo r an a t t a c k on
t h e might of Spain and i t s ac t iv i t i e s in t h e peninsula.
A t t h e s a m e t ime, t h e polemical rendering of what was real ly a n a c t
of dis informat ion, a successful turning of public opinion against t h e
Spaniards on t h e p a r t of t h e Venet ians and the i r chief adviser, t h e
Servi t ian Paolo Sarpi, bases itself on several myths: liberty, dea th , and
t h e cul t of t h e sea. T h e l a t t e r i s foregrounded in t h e substant ive , not
merely descr ipt ive evocat ion of t h e ceremonious nupt ia ls of t h e Doge and
t h e Sea. L a t e r l i t e ra ry t e x t s d o not a lways show comprehension of t h e
mythical s ense of these nuptials, reconstruct ing t h e fes t ival wi thout under-
scor ing i t s s ac red meaning. It s e rved t o pe rpe tua te and renew t h e pagan
cu l t of t h e s e a with a political in tent ion comparab le t o t h e abduct ion of
S t Mark's re l ics (or what was supposed t o b e his relics) f rom Alexandr ia
in 829 and t h e superimposing of t h e cu l t of t h e Evangelist on t h a t of t h e
c i ty ' s f i rs t patron, t h e Greek Sa in t Theodore.
Studies of l i terary t e x t s connec ted wi th th is t h e m a t i c complex should
ideally not r e s t sa t is f ied wi th juxtaposing t h e m and the i r historical
sources, o r with demonstra t ing t h e var ia t ions from o n e version t o another.
Such s tudies must a l so show how ce r t a in t e x t s a r e linked t o t h e g r e a t
historical myths about t h e founding by t h e gods of t h e g r e a t ancient
cities. Indeed, a f t e r R o m e and Byzantlum, Venice continued, ou t s ide
his tor ic t ime, a s i t were, t h e c iv i c and religious r i t e s of t h e med i t e r r anean
cross-roads. Thus a n analysis of t h e l i t e r a ry history of t h e Conspiracy c a n
lead t o perceiving, through t h e d i f f e ren t readings and adapta t ions , t h e
t ransformat ion of t h e c i ty ' s image; and i t becomes possible t o show how
t h e his tory of l i t e r a tu re and t h e a r t s r e f l e c t s t h e political potency of t h e
Venet ian myth a s i t was formulated by Michelangelo Muraro: "... once t h e
policy o f expansion and t h e d ream of power had been abandoned, t h e r e
began t o t a k e shape t h e myth of Venice, which cont inued in to t h e e ight-
een th cen tu ry and t o s o m e e x t e n t sti l l ex i s t s today."'
Fernand Braudel, following in t h e foo t s t eps of Lucien ~ e b v r e , * s e e m s
t o help fu r the r t o en t r ench th is mythical image: "Next t o Venice, decep-
t ively immobile, l ies t h e massive industrial cong lomera t e of Mestre. A t
o n e and t h e s a m e t i m e w e a r e immersed in t h e a rcha ic sphe re of insular
worlds and a m a z e d a t t h e e x t r e m e youthfulness o f ve ry old c i t i e s t ha t a r e
open to al l t h e winds of cu l tu re and of profit , and have fo r cen tu r i e s been
watching and devouring t h e sea."3 Y e t Braudel avoids ta lking of myth in
re la t ion both t o Venice and t h e whole Medi terranean by s t ress ing t h e
"infinite sum o f r epea ted s t rokes o f chance, fa i lures and successes which
toge the r amoun t t o history", and ta lking of t h e "tenuous and constant ly
t h rea t ened s p a c e o f t h e c i tyn. l Thus t h e cr i t ic ' s problem i s t o g ra sp how,
f rom t h e seven teen th cen tu ry down t o t h e present , wr i t e r s h a v e m a d e use
of t hese his tor ical modif icat ions o f t h e c i t y whi le present ing o n e spec i f i c
moment: 1618. Beyond t h e l i t e r a ry forms, beyond even t h e myth linked
t o t h e realm of t h e sacred, Venice chal lenges cr i t ic ism t o t a k e in to
accoun t t h e c i ty ' s changing image a l so in t h e r ea lms o f economics and
politics.
Every epoch modif ies not only t h e l i t e ra ry form given t o t h e event ,
but a lso i t s meaning. Thus t h e f i rs t ref lect ion on the l iber ty of Venice,
t h e Squi t t in io del la IibertA vene ta I1618?1, a t r a c t inspired by t h e Marquis
of Bedamar, b e c a m e in the hands of Sarpi and o the r Venet ian propagan-
d i s t s a very d i f f e ren t s to ry indeed, which then led t o the f i rs t l i terary
r ec rea t ion of t h e even t by t h e Savoyard Saint-Rkal, wr i t t en under Louis
XIV and a imed against t h e Spanish inf luence in Italy. Though h e made use
of such his tor ical document s a s were avai lable in France, Saint-Re'al did
not know t h a t it was Paolo Sarpi who told t h e Venet ians what best t o
publish against Spain. During t h e Romant i c period the Austrians, involun-
tar i ly helped by Napoleon, who seized t h e Republ ic and burned the
Bucentaur ( t h e ceremonial ship of s t a t e used for t h e nupt ia ls wi th t h e sea )
in May 1797, managed t o put a n end t o t h e succession of 120 Doges who
had ruled Venice. And i t was in this e r a of t h e c i ty 's history tha t t he
l i t e ra ry t ravel lers - Byron, Musset, George Sand, Stendhal and Delavigne -
used t o s t o p in f ront of t h e black splash e f fac ing t h e por t ra i t of Marin
Fal ier (1274-1355); h is s to ry c a m e t o b e seen a s a parallel t o the
Conspiracy, and t h e d r a m a c r e a t e d around him shows t h e s t a t e s of mind
of a d e f e a t e d he ro who was t o b e e rased f rom t h e his tor ical memory of
Venice.
T h e good for tunes of Venice P rese rved among audiences , r eade r s and
t r ans la to r s hrought about not only imita t ions but an extension of l i terary
t r ea tmen t . T h e forms varied: f rom historical t a l e t o t h e novel of the
absurd, f rom Res to ra t ion d r a m a t o roman t i c d r a m a and a sea rch fo r a new
form of t h e a t r e a l together . L a t e r r ec rea t ions also l e f t behind the tradi-
tion of concen t ra t ing on an his tor ical f igure of t h e Caesa r o r Napoleon
type, turning t o o t h e r f igures r e l a t ed t o Venetian his tory such a s Quevedo
and Fal ier , t h e he ro ic mercena r i e s Renaud, J a f f i e r and P i e r r e in parallel
t o t h e Spanish grandees Osuna, Toledo and Bedamar, and t h e f emale
cha rac te r s : t h e patr ic ian woman, t h e courtesan. T h e r e a lso occur red a
widening of t h e t h e m a t i c complex from t h e specif ic Conspiracy t o con-
spiracy in general , f rom t h e one c i t y t o t h e bir th and decl ine of powerful
c e n t r e s of civilisations. Fur the r g ra f t ings of var iables on t h e original
even t presented s tudies of power, l iberty, death; t h e weight of solitude,
human f e a r in t h e f a c e of c r ime , violence, death , and t h e sense of
sacr i f ice; t h e sacking of c i t i e s and the dest ruct ion of s t a t e s ; t h e com-
patibility of e n d s and means, t h e boundaries be tween t h e r ea l and t h e
imaginary. History is indeed being rejoined by myth. Within the vast
body of literature devoted to Venice, the complex we may call "Venice
Preserved" eventually leaves behind factual history and thematic evolution
in order to pose the question of the individual's role in the fate o f
communities and power structures. I have chosen the two earliest and
three modern versions for a closer look, though in each case i t is only
possible to bring to the fore some salient features.
"Venice Preserved" is often vaguely regarded as a thematic complex of
English origin, but Otway's play was - a common phenomenon in Restora-
tion England - built on a French source, already mentioned above. In
Saint-Real's Conjuration, quickly translated into English (1675, repr. 1679),
the emphasis lies on the city's polit ical system and on "Death in Venice" -
the latter element, init iated by Quevedo, was later to he significantly
developed by Maurice Barrgs, Thomas Mann and Gabriele dlAnnunzio.
La Conjuration presents two categories o f heroes: f irstly the heads
of the conspiracy: Pedro de Toledo, Viceroy of Milan, Pedro Giron, Duke
of Osuna, Viceroy of Naples, and Alfonso de la Cueva, Marques of
Medamar, the Spanish Ambassador to Venice; secondly three soldiers as
a group concretely organising the coup; Jaffier, Renault, and Jacques;
the Creek courtesan merely places her house at the disposal of the con-
spirators. The text - half essay on the plot, half historical novel on the
soldier figures - has at i t s centre Jaff ier's change o f heart after Renault's
address (pp.279-82) and his resolve, watching the nuptials regatta on
Ascension Day (pp.288-89), to reveal the plot to the Council of Ten.
Saint-~e'al 's work demonstrates a Machiavellian view of the world's fickle-
ness: "Fortune is a woman". Venice is preserved, the aristocratic figures
come o f f unscathed, the poor, second-rank conspirators are killed, and
things continue much as before:
Jaff ier fut pris combattant h leur teste, comme un hornme qui ne cherche qu'8 vendre cherement sa vie, R ktant conduit ?i Venise peu de jours apres, il y fut noy6 le lendemain de son arrivge. La mort de ce Malheureux ayant acheve de retahlir la tranquillit6 dans cette grande Ville, le premier soin du Senat fut de demander un autre Amhassadeur
Madrid. (p.320)
La Conjuration contains much material cut out lor a dramatist:
Renault's speech, Jaf fier's hesitation and inner struggle, his appearance
before the Council of Ten, Bedamar's entrance at the session of
t h e S e n a t e - t h e s e and o t h e r por t ions h a v e considerable s cen ic potent ia l ,
on much of which O t w a y could s e i z e when h e t r ans fo rmed t h e his tor ical
novel i n to d r a m a fo r t h e Res to ra t ion s tage.
O t w a y sh i f t s t o a new emphasis by adding t h e love s t o r y of Relvidera
and Ja f f i e r . H e a l so changes t h e original s ense of t h e s t ruggle , turning
i t i n to a f ight agains t t h e pat r ic ians ' power and for a l iber ty impossible
t o achieve, underlining t h e heroism of P i e r r e and J a f f i e r con f ron ted with
t h e Sena te ' s tyranny. Fu r the rmore , h e c r e a t e s addi t ional c h a r a c t e r s with
subsidiary plotlines, in t roducing Antonio and developing t h e anonymous
cour t e san in to Aquilina, and P i e r r e want ing t o help his f r iend J a f f e i r
agains t Sena to r Priuli , Belvidera's c rue l fa ther . O n t h e o t h e r hand,
Redamar and t h e Doge a r e r ende red a s s econda ry c h a r a c t e r s only, and
To ledo a s well a s Osuna a r e l e f t out. Also, in O tway t h e e v e n t s a r e
cha rged wi th a new import der ived f rom his own his tor ical c o n t e x t - in
t h e e y e s of h is London audience, 'Machiavellian' I ta ly and t h e conspiracy
(now shorn of i t s Spanish associa t ions) s tood fo r t h e Popish plot agains t
t h e English King.
A f t e r O tway , La Fosse g a v e a n adap ta t ion combining e l e m e n t s f rom
O t w a y and s a i n t - ~ k a l in Manlius Capi tol inus (16971, whi le Lord Ryron in
Marino Fa l i e ro (1821) t ransposed t h e s t a t e plot and t h e love plot t o t h e
medieval Doge. However , i t w a s O t w a y who, rivalling Shakespeare ,
b e c a m e t h e g r e a t magne t of t h e English t h e a t r e in Paris; par t icular ly
Har r i e t Smithson a s Relvidera (1827) became , not only for H e c t o r Rerlioz
bu t fo r a l l romant ical ly minded people who s a w he r pe r fo rmance , t h e
embod imen t of t h e 'I talian woman in love'.
In t h e win te r of 1904, Hofmannsthal w a s in Venice; h is f i rs t purpose
was t o w r i t e a n adap ta t ion o f Otway 's play. Eventual ly h e dep ic t ed an
in i t ia tory journey and a mee t ing of love and death . P o e t r y and music
r ep resen t Venet ian a r t , and t h e c i ty ' s h is tory is foregrounded: Aquilina
'sees' i t s fall and t h e burning down of t h e Bucentaur , and Zan te ' s d e f e n c e
agains t t h e Turkish e n e m y of Venice i s being evoked.
Venice had a l r eady e a r l i e r on been impor t an t fo r Hofmannsthal ' s
work. D e r T o d des Tiz ian, a sho r t poe t i c d r a m a (1892) pic tur ing fo r th a
'baroque ' Venice provides in i t s Vth A c t t h e ma te r i a l f rom which t h e
d r a m a t i s t now fo rms his r e f l ec t ions on t h e d e a t h of a s t a t e - a d ream,
bu t o n e full o f violence, people being murde red in t h e Venet ian morning
mis t which a f f e c t s l ike a labyrinth, a c laust rophobic pala t ia l space. In
1896 Hofmannsthal read Ben Jonson's Volpone; and even his Jedermann
(19021, the meditation on fate, salvation, and money, is not without links
to our theme.
In Das gerettete Venedig the c i ty is dying, even i f heroic and
mysterious; as Lord Chandos and the last Contarini (cf. also the late
short story "Der Brief des letzten Contarin", 1929). Captain Pierre wi l l die :
"And he is dead, and I have my hands free and may throw myself over-
board and swim in the dark towards a new shore." (p.269). The dream
o f Aquilina, the courtesan (Act II), represents both a personal, fantastic
view and a historical vision:
... Im Traum. Und hier herein zu gehn mit einem Leuchter in der Hand. Auch hier war alles, wie es ist. Nur dort am Pfeiler hing ein Bild von Pierre, ein schones: es schien im Rahmen sich zu regen. I...] [...I Und wie ich starrte, immer lag ein Schatten auf dem Gesicht, und naher hob ich zitternd den Leuchter. Da auf einmal hor ich, ich hore ... (p. 152)s
The conspiracy changes into a dream and a painting of the Venetian night.
The political plot is secondary, the f irst place belongs to Pierre and
Jaff ier looking at Venetian society. Thus Hofmannsthal places at the
centre o f interest the power of art and the agony of a great historic
city.
Les Espagnols Venise by Georges Limbour (text) and Rene' Leibowitz
(music), f irst performed in 1970 at Grenoble, afterwards at the Piccola
Scala at Milan, offers variations to the material by introducing Quevedo
and Death as a mythical personage. In his dedication to Zette and Michel
Leiris, Limbour states that he was inspired by Quevedo's biographers
Ramon Gomez and Rene Bouvier, who imagine the presence of Quevedo
(secretary to Osuna), in Venice in 1618. Although this is not attested, we
do know that dummies o f Redamar, Osuna and Quevedo were burned in the
city. Limbour concentrates on Quevedo, the courtesan, a r ich Turk, a
petty cit izen of Venice called Beppo, finally Death in the shape of a
beggar. Scene 5 derives from Ouevedo's Visita de 10s chistes. Death
speaks with Dinero (Money) and Mundo (the World) at Ouevedo's bedside.
... entro una que parecia mujer, muy galana y llena de coronas, cetros, I...] chapines, tiaras, caperuzas, mitras, rnonteras, brocados, pellejos,
seda, oro, garrotes, diamantes, I...] perlas, y quijarros. Un ojo abierto y otro cerrado y vestia y desnuda de todos 10s colores. Por un lado era moza y por otro era vieja ...6
As the scene develops, we may switch to Limbour in the climactic
passage:
LA MORT Tu es mon poete favori Pokte des songes macabres. Le chantre de non empire Et de mes ravages. J'aime les poetes pessimistes, Ceux qui font gloire ma foule, lnterrogent les squelettes. Sur leur cercueil Agitant des dreapeaux de suaires En langage prCcieux, Tu as brod6 la vanit6 de toutes les choses.
QUEVEDO 0 ma bonne inspiratrice, Pour une nuit, reine de Veni'se, Parcours-la dans une gondole. Les canaux vont exhaler Des odeurs qui t e plafront.
The work closes with a chorus singing "The Triumph of Love in
Venice". In El Lince de Italia Ouevedo has characterised Venice as "the
disturber of the world and I...) the quicksilver among princes; it is a
republic which one can neither believe in nor forget1'.'l Overall, the opera
is clearly guided by Gomez's graphic fantasies about Quevedo's mode of
life in the city:
Head of a group of beggars, Ouevedo wandered about the tavernas of Venice, trying to escape alive from this hell-hole, in which the Ducal myrmidons were in their turn looking for him as for an enemy of the s ta te [...I He remembered the poor of Spain [...I and by a kind of grafting made himself into a povero napoletano, talking away in Italian like a vagabond.
Fanciful and fantastic in a historical as well as a literary sense, & Espannols transforms the theme into a carnival. The meeting of Quevedo,
Death and Venice is presented as a splendid farce in the face of horror.
In 1942, while Mussolini and Hitler were still in power, Simone Weil
adapted Saint-R6al and Otway in her Venise sauv6e. She herself wrote
about this work: "... le besoin d'arniti8 en Europe est mis en lumikre I...] k~ I'entretien Renaud-Jaffier dans le deuxikme acte. Pierre e'voque leur
destinke personelle, leur passe miserable [...I Renaud a 6t6 exile' en
France, Pierre et Jaffier de Provence." Also fascinating are the follow-
ing entries in her Cahiers: "Bedmar comme Richelieu, Pierre d1apr8s Le
Colleone': and: "Renaud=Trotsky pauvre, estimait plus la vertu que les
richesses, mais plus la gloire que la vertu" I...] Horrible amertume, non de
mourir, mais de perdre tout espoir de puissance, de fortune et de gloire".
The historical context holds other interesting facets - we know, for
instance, that Weil had met Trotsky in France, yet two elements o f myth
require particular emphasis here. Firstly, Weil portrays Jaffier while alone
in the ci ty with echoes from Sophocles's Antigone: "Le soleil me fait
peur: la mort met mon h e B nu". More importantly still, Jaffier, as
informer, is no longer a Judas, a traitor betraying his friends, but is
shown alone l ike Christ in the garden of Gethsemane:
Dieu, mon $me a besoin de la chair pour cacher sa honte, la chair qui mange et dort, sans avenir et sans pass& Je tremblerai d'horreur en passant dans 11Qternit6; Trop faible pour la mort, mais comment demeurer vivant?''
As Patricia L i t t le has observed, Jaffier here has lost his human features;
Venice, c i ty o f Monteverdi and Colleone, has to he preserved just as
humanity has to be preserved by Christ's sacrifice. Social, historical and
religious meaning coalesce: Weil remembers art and politics, but she
overlays the conspiracy against Venice with a stratum of myth. Jaffier
does not achieve this status all at once. A t first he intends to kil l :
La vil le et le peuple et la mer vont m'appartenir. La ci te paisible est dans ma main sans le savoir; Mais dans peu de temps elle apprendra qu'elle est a moi: Car voici qu'il vient, le dur moment ob tout d'un coup Ma main va se fermer et I'Bcraser. I...] Ce qu'a tu6 le fer, nu1 soleil ne le voit plus. Quelques heures encore, et la c i t e sera morte. Des pierreq un dbsert, des corps inertes e'pars. Ceux-la qui survivront, ce seront tous des cadavres. Etonn6s et muets, i ls ne sauront qu'oheir. Ayant tous vu souiller ou tuer des 6tres chers, Chacun se h"aera de se soumettre b ce qu'il hait.
In the very universality and intensity o f this anticipatory vision of the
horror we already sense something strange preparing itself within his soul.
In the end, he does not carry out his dire intentions, but betrays to save,
sacrificing himself instead o f others.
A f t e r Jaff ier ' s death, Violet ta looks ou t on t h e ci ty , but does not s e e
t h e Ascension Day's r e g a t t a and enter ta inments , nor t h e Venice built of
s tone amidst t h e wa te r hy t h e tough industry of men and holstered by
t h e abduction of Saint Mark's re l ics f rom Egypt; what she sees is the
primal creat ion: Violetta a t this moment is innocence looking a t t h e first
day of humanity:
Jour qui viens si beau, sourire suspendu Soudain s u r m a ville e t ses mille canaux,
Combien aux hurnains qui r e ~ o i v e n t t a paix Voir l e jour e s t doux!
This is t o d a t e t h e most comple te t ransformation of Saint-Re'al's text .
Taking a broad view of the t h r e e modern plays we have briefly introduced,
and trying t o cha rac te r i se t h e direct ions which the influx of myth has
taken on t h e twent ie th-century s t a g e when adherence t o history concerned
with "Venice Preserved" was abandoned, one might say tha t Hofmannsthal,
medi ta t ing on a r t and t h e dea th of a c i ty , presents a decadent vision;
Limbour and Leibowitz, adapting t h e Dea th figure from Quevedo, o f fe r a
carnivalesque fantasy; Weil, transforming Ja f f i e r on the model of Antigone
and Chris t , gives a version of t h e myth of humanity's preservation.
Chronology
1674 saint- gal, La conjuration des Espagnols ... 1675 Transl. of Saint-Rdal: A Conspiracy of t h e Spaniards ... 1682 Otway, Venice Preserved
1697 Antoine d e La Fosse d'Aubigny, Manlius capitolinus, 1697
1699 Gregorio Leti, Vita di Don Pedro Giron ... 1746 Luc d e Clapiers, Marquis d e Vauvenargues, Dialogue des morts
Pierre-Antoine d e Laplace: Otway Adaptat ion
Antoine Vincent Arnault, Blanche e t Montcassin ou les Venetiens
George Gordon, Lord Byron, Marino Fal iero
Casirmir Delavigne, Marino Fal iero
Giuseppe Revere, Venezia e gli Spagnuoli ... Hofmannsthal, Das g e r e t t e t e Venedig
Weil, Venise sauv6e
Louis Guilloux, Parpagnacco ou la Conjuration
Limbourg/Leibowitz, Les Espagnols Venise
1. Michelangelo Muraro, Les Trbsors de Venise (Skira, 1963), p.27.
2. Cf. Lucien Febvre, Annales 12 (1929), quoted by F. Braudel (11.31, p.10.
3. Fernand Rraudel, La ~e'di terranke: I'Espace et I'Histoire, (Paris: Flammarion, 1977, repr. (1985), "La mer" pp.401.
4. Braudel (n.3), pp.194f.
5. Hofmannsthal: "In a dream. And to go in here/with a candlestick in my hand./Also here everything was as i t is now. Only there/On the pillar hung a portrait of Pierre, a beautiful one/it seemed to stir within i ts frame/[ ...I And as I was gazing fixedly, there was always a shadow/on his face, and I tremblingly/lifted the candlestick closer. Then suddenly I heard/l hear ..!I (my translation).
6. Quevedo, Ohras completas "There entered one who seemed a woman, very elegantly d r e s s e d u n d a n t l y decked with crowns, ceptres, [...I high-heeled shoes, tiaras, hoods, mitres, caps, brocade, hides, silk, gold, garottes, diamants, [...I pearls, and pebbles. One eye she had open and the other closed, and she was clad with, and bereft o f a l l colours. On one side she was young and on the other she was old."
7. Quevedo, Obras completas, "chisme del mundo y I...] azogue de 10s principes; es una republics que n i se had de creer n i se ha de olvidar."
Bibliography
1. quoted Texts Francisco de C)uevedo, Mundo caduco y des varios de la edad i n 10s anos de 1613 hasta 1620; Suenos; E l Lince de Italia; in Obras completas, ed. Luis A. Marin, Madrid: Aguilar, 1943.
CBsar Vichard, Abbe de saint-~e/al , Conjuration des Espagnols contre la R6publique de Venise, 1674; ed. A. Mansau, Geneva: Droz, 1977. English trans. A Conspiracy o f the Spaniards against the State o f Venice. London, 1675, 2nd edn, 1679.
Thomas Otway, Venice Preserved, or A Plot Discovered, 1682; in The Works, ed. J. C. Ghosh, 2 vols, Oxford: Clarendon, 1932; cf. also Venice Preserved, ed. M. Kelsall, London: Arnold. 1969.
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Das gerettete Venedig, 1904; in Dramen, 11, ed. Herbert Steiner, Frankfurt: Fischer, 1954.
Simone Weil, Venise sauvGe, 1942; repr. Paris: Gallimard, 1955, repr. 1968.
Georges Limbourg and Rend Leibowitz, Les Espagnols B Venise, O& bouffe, Opus 60, (1st Performance: 9 Jan. 1970, Grenohle; unpubl.).
2. Historical Texts and Studies Brown, Horatio F. Studies in Venetian History, 2 Vols, London: Murray, 1907.
Cessia, Roberto, Storia della Repubblica di Venezia, 2 Vols, Milan, 1944-45.
Colleccion de documentos ineditos para la historia de Espaiia, Madrid, 1861 . Vols XLVI-XLVII. (On the Conspiracy and Pedro Giron, Duke o f Osuna.)
Daru, P i e r r e A. N. R.. C o m t e de , His toi re d e la ~ 6 p u h l i q u e d e Venise. 8 Vols, Paris: Didot, 1826. (Vols. V, VII, Vllf.)
Fulin, Rinaldo. Studi nell 'archivio degli lnquisitori di Sta to . Venice: Visentini, 1868.
La Lumia, Isidoro. "Ot tavio d 'Aragone e il d u c a dtOsuna, 1605-1623", Archivio s to r i co Italiano, N.S. XVIII, 1855.
Luzio, Alessandro. La congiura spagnuola c o n t r o Venezia nel 1618, second0 i documen t i dell 'Archivio Gonzaga. Venice: Soc ie t a d i s to r i a vene ta , 1948.
Luzio, Alessandro. Miscel lanea di s to r i a veneziana. Venice: R. Diputazione di s to r i a pa t r i a , Se r i e 111, Vol. XIII, 1918.
Ranke, Leopold von. L'Espagne sous Char les-Ouint , Philippe I1 e t Philippe IlJ transl. and augm. J. H. Haiber. Par is , 1873.
Raul ich, Italo. "La congiura spagnuola c o n t r o Venezia", Nuovo Archivio veneto , VI (1893), 586.
Schipa, Michelangelo. "La p re t e sa fe l lac ia del d u c a d'Osuna, 1619-162OW, Archivio s t o r i c o p e r la privincia napoletanea, XV-XXV, XXXV-XXXVII.
Zambler , Amelia. "Contr ibuto a l l a s t o r i a del la congiura spagnuola con t ro Venezia", Nuovo Archivio v e n e t 4 XI, 1896.
3. Gene ra l S tud ie s Bourges, Elkmire. R e v u e d e s c h e f s d'oeuvre, Vol.VI1. Paris, 1880-84.
Bouvier, Renk. Quevedo, h o m m e du diable, h o n m e d e Dieu. Par is , 1928.
Rraudel, Fernand. La Medi terranke: I 'kspace e t I'histoire (Paris: F l a m m a i o n , 1985).
Char lanne, Louis. L'lnfluence f r a n ~ a i s e e n Ang le t e r r e a u XVIl&me sihcle. Paris: Soc i6 tk f r a n ~ a i s e d impr imeurs e t d e Lihrairies, 1906.
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G o m e z d e la Serna, Ramon. Quevedo, in R iog ra f i a s completas . Madrid: Aguilar, 1959.
Johnson, Alfred. Lafosse , O tway , Saint -Rdal : Origines e t t r ans fo rma t ions d'un t h e m e tragique. Paris: Hache t t e , 1901.
Kl ieneberger , H. 9. "Otway's Venice P rese rved and Hofmannsthal ' s Das g e r e t t e t Venedig", &lL.J 6 2 (19671, 292-97.
Mansau, Andr6e. Sa in t -R ia l e t I 'humanisme cosmopolite. Paris: Champion, 1976.
Mansau, AndrBe, "1618: Conjuracidn d e 10s Espanoles c o n t r a Venecia o d e Venecia c o n t r o los Espagnoles?", A c t a s del Congresso Internat ional dos Hispanistas, Sulzoni, Rome: 1982.
Muraro, Michelangelo. Les ~ r g s o r s d e Venise.. Geneva: Skira, 1963.
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T H E 'TRAITOR T O HIS PEOPLE": A CONTRIBUTION T O T H E PHENOMENOLOGY O F TREACHERY IN LITERATURE
Hans-Georg Griining (University of Macera ta )
Treache ry and l i t e ra tu re - t r eache ry in l i t e ra tu re - t r eache tyon t h e pa r t
of le t t r is ts : s o m e a s p e c t s of th is t h e m a t i c complex have been examined, I
but t h e t h e m e has not ye t been approached in i t s ent i re ty . Pal.lensperger/
~ r i e d e r i c h ' general ly list t hemat i c complexes in two sub-species. T h e
first, "individual motifs" (German Stoffe) includes figures like Judas, Medea
and Rrutus. T h e second, "col lect ive mot i f s " (German Motive) dea l s with
t r eache ry itself. This a r t i c l e a t t e m p t s t o out l ine a phenomenology of
t r eache ry by breaking it down into i t s components in o rde r t o focus on
s o m e a rche types of t r eache ry and t o i l l u s t r a t e them through examples in
modern European l i tera ture . T h e intent ion is not t o present a history of
t r eache ry in l i tera ture , but t o enuc lea te t h e concept , using dif ferent
approaches: linguistic-philological, psychoanalytic, social, political, and
juridical analysis.
A useful f i rs t s t e p in outlining a concep t is t o def ine i t by e tymo-
logical and seman t i c analysis. This approach, though dea r t o philosophers,
c a n b e decept ive, a s var ious languages may present t h e s a m e concep t
under fo rms der ived from d i f f e ren t root-words evoking divergent connota-
tions.
F o r t h e s e m a n t i c complex t r eache ry the re a r e t w o main root-words.
T h e first, present in t h e Romance languages and via French also in English,
der ives f rom Lat in t r a d e r e which (changing conjugation) was t ransformed
into Vulgar Lat in t radire , with t h e original meanings of del iver and
t r ansmi t stil l preserved in t h e noun t radi t ion (Tradition, etc.)
and i t s derivatives. T h e adven t of Chris t iani ty added a pejorat ive mean ing ,
a s t h e t e r m was used in t h e New Tes tamen t t o descr ibe t h e 'delivery' of
Chris t by Judas, supplanting in Vulgar Lat in and the Romance languages
t h e classical Lat in t e r m fo r betray: prodere, and i t s noun proditio, excep t
in juridical terminology.
The basic meaning "deliver a person o r a thing, o r t r ansmi t a s e c r e t
t o a third party'' has in German and Dutch been absorbed by t h e t e r m
which der ives from t h e second root. This is of German ic origin, based on
r a t = advice, counsel (verb: raten) with t h e pref ix E-, which originally - confe r red on the word ve r ra t en (nouns: Verrat , Ver ra t e r ) t h e meanings
"mislead s.0. by false advice" or "have in mind s.o.'s ruin", and later
"undertake s.th. for the purpose o f ruining s.o." and "ruin s.0. by revealing
a secret". 3
A t present the verbs hetrav (from Old French trair), trahir, tradire
and verraten have a very similar spread of meanings. The OED distin-
guishes seven groups: I. "to give up to, or place in the power of an
enemy, by treachery or disloyalty." 2. "to be or prove false to (a trust
or person who trusts one); to be disloyal to; to disappoint the hopes or
expectations of". 3. "to cheat, disappoint." 4. "to lead astray or into
error, as a false guide; to mislead, seduce, deceive (the trustful)."
5. "to disclose or reveal with hreach o f faith (a secret or that which
should be kept secret)". 6. "to reveal or disclose against one's wi l l or
intention the existence, identity, real character o f (a person or thing
desired to be kept secret)". 7. "to reveal, disclose or show incidentally;
to exhibit, show signs of, to show (a thing which there is no attempt to
keep secret)". O f these semantic groups (which e.g. the French Robert
presents analogously, arriving at eight groups and over twenty-five
synonyms), not all, but in particular 1, 2, 5 and 6 are relevant. The
corresponding nouns have nearly exclusively pejorative meaning: e, trahison, tradimento, wi th English offering three variants, from the general
betrayal to the more intensive treachery to the specifically political
treason. -- An analysis of grammatical and syntactic constructions offers guid-
ance to the components of the act of treachery. The most comprehensive
construction is: "s.h. betrays s.b. (or s.th.) for a determinate reason and
with a determinate aim to the advantage of s.h. (or s.th.1 in a given
moment and place with (or without) the help o f s.h. and by determinate
means". This, adapted along the lines o f communication models, leads to
a comprehensive scheme o f components:
I. who betrays: the person (or group) who commits the treacherous
act; the 'traitor', his position (insiderloutsider) in relation to the
country, race, religion, ideology, etc., to which he belongs.
2. who or what is betrayed: the object, v ict im of the treacherous act;
one or more people (the feoffor, sovereign, master, friend, wife,
husband), a collective or abstract concept (homeland, fatherland,
country, family, race, culture, religion, ideology).
3. why. t h e motive and aim of t h e t reacherous ac t : personal reasons
(such a s offended honour, love, hate , cowardice, revenge, ambition);
economic reasons; ideological reasons.
4. t o whose advantage: t h e beneficiary of t h e t reacherous ac t : ( a ) t h e
t r a i to r himself o r herself (own profit); (b) o t h e r s (country, s t a t e ,
institution, group; individual; religions, ideas, ideologies).
5. when: t h e historical moment and s i tuat ion in which t h e t reacherous
a c t t akes place: war, civil war, cold war , guerilla warfare , occupa-
tion, revolution, confl ic t situation, peacetime.
6. where: t h e scene of t h e t r eacherous act : an occupied country,
divided country; a country with a mixed population (different e thn ic
groups); a f r e e society, repressed society; a social o r religious o r
ideological grouping; t h e home.
7. with whose help: t h e col laborators , correspondents, advisers,
"seducers".
8. by what means: t h e t r eachery is ca r r i ed ou t principally by two types
of means: (a) passive means - abandoning (German Aufgabe) o r
deser t ion (e.g. of one's spouse), leaving t h e family o r social, political,
ideological group t o which o n e belongs; and (b) active means - surrendering a town, country, e t c . t o t h e enemy (German ijbergabe),
betraying a sec re t t o t h e enemy, changing t o t h e enemy's s ide t o
fight against one's own group (in t h e political sense: treason
(German Landesverrat); an a t t e m p t on t h e l i fe of t h e head of s t a t e ,
an a t t a c k on t h e const i tut ional system (high treason, Hochverrat);
collaboration with t h e enemy, e t c . While t h e first type, t h e a c t of
abandoning, nearly a lways reveals t h e intent ion t o betray, t h e second
type may b e an a c t of open t reachery, a s in t h e c a s e of a renegade,
o r - and this is usually regarded a s most perfidious - an a c t of
sec re t t r eachery (espionage, etc.) cha rac te r i sed by dissimulation, a
mask. 4
Besides t h e interact ion among these components of t r eacherous a c t s
o the r points require emphasising and exploration. Firstly, t h e s t ruc tu re of
t r eachery is usually t r iadic , t h e t r a i t o r being positioned between t h e
betrayed par ty and t h e beneficiary of t h e a c t (though in t h e c a s e o f
deser t ion the re may b e no apparent beneficiary); when, however, t h e sole
beneficiary is t h e t r a i to r himself, t h e s t ruc tu re is dyadic. Secondly, who
def ines somebody a s a t r a i to r and t h e a c t a s t reacherous? llsually t h e
designations represent the point o f view o f the 'injured party'. Rut also
the beneficiary considers the act as treacherous, does not trust the
traitor, suspecting that a person who betrays once wi l l betray again. And
even the 'traitor' himself is normally aware that his action wi l l be con-
sidered treacherous by others, i f not by himself. 5
In the triadic situation the main distinction is between open and
secret treachery. 1. The traitor, either spontaneously or forced by
political, economic or ideological reasons abandons the system to which he
had belonged in favour o f another system into which he wants t o become
integrated, but which often refuses to accept him; on the other hand, he
may leave his own system without any desire to be integrated into another.
2. The traitor appears to remain in his own system hut secretly contacts
another - the f irst phase o f the treacherous act; when, in a second
phase, his treachery is discovered, he wi l l be punished by physical or
psychological elimination, or by expulsion. The beneficiary system either
honours i ts obligations by paying the agreed reward (which may consist,
or partly consist, in acceptance o f the traitor); or i t may not observe the
pact and sometimes even deliver up the t ra i tor (case o f the 'traitor
betrayed'). Thus the trai tor - and this is one o f the nuclei o f the
prohlematic complex o f treachery - finds himself in a no-man's land
position between the two systems.
There is no possibility o f belonging simultaneously to two systems
(communities, groups) o f the same species, and even the attempt to act
as mediator may he counted as a treacherous act; there is no choice:
'either wi th me or against me'. Systems - communities, groups and even
individuals - erect real or conceptual boundaries, perhaps less to defend
themselves against invasion from outside than for interior cohesion. This
kind o f behaviour is typical o f "closed crowds" (canetti).' In their view
the mere act o f leaving, abandoning one's own system (group, etc.) con-
stitutes treachery because i t not only numerically weakens i t but may
cause damage to the economy or the image o f the victim; the abandoned
spouse, the abandoned state. One o f the clearest manifestations of this
protection mechanism is the Berlin Wall, with the order to shoot as the
ult imate attempt to stop Republikflucht, considered as an act o f treason,
a cr ime against the state, a "breaking through the frontier by force"
(gewaltsamer Grenzdurchhruch) and a "treacherous breach o f faith"
(Landesverraterischer Treuebruch). 7
A t th i s point t h e s e m a n t i c field needs t o b e widened t o include rides in i t s d i f f e ren t f o r m s and der ivat ions: conf idence, t rus t , fa i th , loyalty,
Ver t rauen, foi, loyaut6, fede, fiducia, lea l ta , e t c . and t h e nega t ive
va r i an t s l ike b reach o f fa i th , Treuebruch, disloyalty, s leal th , until w e r each
t h e e x t r e m e s of rebel l ion and r e v o ~ u t i o n . ~ T h e German roo t o f break, brechen (a c a l q u e o f La t in infrangere) i nd ica t e s t h e juridical and socia l
d imension of t h e fides complex and expla ins why t reason is considered t h e
vilest of cr imes. T h e t r e a c h e r o u s a c t m e a n s a v iolent breaking of a con-
t r a c t o r o f a socia l pac t ; indeed, t h e G e r m a n t e r m for adul tery ,
Ehebruch, or ig inal ly had t h e meaning of b reach of con t r ac t . Every person
o r g roup is l inked by reciprocal bonds o f f a i t h t o h i s o r he r communi ty ,
political, social, religious sys t em; t h e feudal sys t em is a sup reme
example . O n a m o r e personal, p r iva t e level, t hese mutua l bonds exis t
be tween people in f r iendship and marr iage. T h e socia l p a c t is even
s t ronge r if i t coincides w i th so-cal led 'blood t ies ' , which c a n a lso h e a r t i -
ficially es tabl ished by t h e r i tual a c t of blood-brotherhood. T h e m o r e
c losed t h e g roup o r sys t em, t h e m o r e exclus ive and sec re t , t h e ha rde r i t
is t o l e a v e i t , a n d in e x t r e m e c a s e s t h e a t t e m p t a t dese r t i on i s punished
by d e a t h ( t h e Mafia and o t h e r c l andes t ine organisations).
C lea r ly t h e momen t , t h e political and socia l s i tuat ion and t h e s c e n e
of t h e t r eache rous a c t a r e impor t an t f a c t o r s influencing t h e in t ens i ty of
react ion. T h e person o r co l l ec t ive who f ee l t h r e a t e n e d by a r ea l o r
imagined dange r f rom ou t s ide o r inside fo r t i fy t h e f ront iers . Th i s c a u s e s
a n in tensi f ica t ion of t he i r hyster ical behaviour, in t h e e x t r e m e leading t o
paranoia: potent ia l t r a i t o r s a r e suspec ted eve rywhere ( ' r e d s under t h e
beds') , conspir ing agains t t h e powers t h a t be, agains t t h e s t a t u s quo. 9
Among t h e mass of potent ia l t r a i t o r s t h e r e a r e ca t egor i e s considered m o r e
likely than others , mainly people o r groups of dubious iden t i t y who find
themse lves on t h e per iphery, fo r i n s t ance pacif is ts , cosmopol i tans , homo-
sexuals, hybrids o f e v e r y species. Usually t h e c a t e g o r y ' t ra i tor ' i s not
applied t o individuals o r g roups looked a t d i f f e ren t ly anyway - fore igners ,
a l so in many coun t r i e s Gipsies and ~ e w s , " a s never having been a n
in tegral pa r t of t h e sys t em and thus no t l inked by a fides relationship.
The re fo re o n e of t h e pr incipal c r i t e r i a of t h e t r eache rous a c t i s missing,
though such people could, f rom t h e ideological viewpoint o f a "closed
crowd", fall i n to t h e a l l ied c a t e g o r y o f ' in ternal enemies' . Even Nazi
ideology, e x t r e m e l y a l e r t t o t h e t r a i t o r problem, did not consider J e w s a s
traitors, but as antagonists. Witness the manifest Wider den undeutschen
Geist, issued by the Qrman students' association on 8 Apr i l 1933:
4. Unser gefahrlichster Widersacher ist der Jude und der, der ihm horig ist.
5. Der Jude kann nur iiidisch denken. Schreibt er deutsch. dann liigt er. Der Deutsche, dkr deutsch chreibt, aber undeutsch deikt, ist z n Verrater ! I...]
7. Wir wollen den Juden als Fremdling achten, ...I1
A traitor is here defined as a German who thinks, writes or behaves l ike
a Jew and who has contact wi th Jews. The traitor blurs the demarcation
line between the two groups or systems, which thereby risk losing their
identity; thus to deny the differences between groups is seen as
betrayal. 12
This (frightening) example leads to the consideration of another
aspect of the traitor complex: whether a treacherous act counts as a
legally punishable crime or only as morally or socially reprehensible. This
clearly depends on the ideological basis o f a society or state at a given
time. While in Nazi Germany marriage, cohabitation or mere contact o f
a member of the Aryan race with a person of the 'lower' Jewish race,
or the defence and protection o f Jews, was made a crime called Rassen-
schande viz. Rasseverrat (racial shame, treason of the race), elsewhere and
in other periods the dominant code was different. As we know only too
well, even today racial discrimination exists in some countries, though i t
does not often involve the juridical plane (let alone paralleling the cruel
excesses o f the Third Reich), but operates on the social plane, and in any
' t ra i tor ' is socially demoted or indeed excluded from his own society.
The historical moment as a determinant factor in the treacherous act
has been emphasized not only by Talleyrand in his famous dictum "la
trahison - c'est une question du temps", but by nearly all authors dealing
with the issue. For example Enzensberger asserts that "nearly every
inhabitant of this continent has, in the eyes o f the state power, been at
some moment in his l i fe a traitor".13 This applies in particular to
countries which experience a war, revolution, or other kind of major up-
heaval, for during and after such crises the ideological basis o f a state
often changes, causing a confl ict in individuals and groups (even majority
groups) between their former position and the newly imposed one. They
are forced into ideological treason, because i f they remain loyal to the
f o r m e r sys t em they a r e disloyal t o t h e new one, whereas if t hey a r e loyal
t o t h e new. they be t r ay t h e fo rmer sys t em (and thei r fo rmer convictions);
and, a s w e h a v e seen , e v e n a n i n t e r m e d i a t e position c a n mean t r ea son - t o both sys tems.
T h e t r a i t o r , then, by his own volition o r by fo rce majeure , i s p laced
in a con f l i c t s i tuat ion. H e has t o d e c i d e be tween opposing values
belonging t o t h e s a m e o r t o d i f f e ren t moral ca tegor ies , and in s o doing
becomes gui l ty of t r e a c h e r y t o o n e s ide o r t h e other . In consider ing t h e
t r eache rous a c t , t h e a t t e n t i o n i s focused on him; h e i s a c t o r and/or
v ic t im, t h e o n e who holds t h e balance, t h e th i rd party. Every t r a i t o r may
not b e a t r a g i c figure, but near ly e v e r y t r ag i c f igure is someone who, by
his choosing be tween values, i s cons t r a ined t o c o m m i t an a c t of t reachery.
If o n e t r ies , based on t h e s e c a t e g o r i e s and principles, t o evo lve a
c lass i f ica t ion of t r e a c h e r y in l i t e r a tu re , t h e main considerat ions a r e t h e
sphe re o r sphe res in which t h e t r eache rous a c t occurs , and i t s motivation.
We c a n distinguish t w o spheres : t h e p r iva t e and t h e public. T h e
t r e a c h e r y m a y involve o n e of them, in most cases , however, i t involves
both. Fu r the rmore , i t m a y h a v e b a s e o r noble, sub jec t ive o r ob jec t ive
motives. A s t h e t r i ad i c or, m o r e rare ly , dyad ic s t r u c t u r e of t r eache ry i s
usually t ied t o a h is tor ical o r mythological bas is and i s t h e r e f o r e most ly
cons t an t , var ia t ions developed by individual a u t h o r s mainly conce rn motiva-
tion.
Judas , t h e bes t known t r a i t o r f igure , whose n a m e has b e c o m e synony-
mous wi th t r a i t o r , may s e r v e a s a f i rs t example . T h e be t r ayed pa r ty i s
Jesus , h is mas t e r , t o whom Judas a s a d isc iple i s bound in a personal
re la t ionship of loyalty; bu t J e sus i s a l so a religious and pol i t ica l leader ,
and Judas is a follower of t h i s n e w c reed , s o h i s re la t ionship wi th Je sus
passes f rom t h e p r iva t e t o t h e publ ic sphere. T h e benef ic iary of t h e
t r eache rous a c t , t h e religious, legal and pol i t ica l au tho r i t i e s o f t h e Jewish
community , t o whom Judas a s a m e m b e r o f t h i s communi ty i s obliged t o
b e loyal, a l so belong t o t h e public sphere . Avar ice , t h e mot ive t radi t ion-
a l ly assigned t o Judas ' s t reason, and o n e of t h e mos t vile, i s shown by t h e
symbol ic a c t o f t h e "selling f o r t h i r ty p i eces of silver"; bu t a l r eady fo r
Luke (22.3) and John (13.2,27) t h i s m o t i v e i s not suff ic ient t o expla in such
infamous t r eache ry , s o they a t t r i b u t e Judas's a c t t o t h e work of t h e devil.
A s t h e devil 's tool, Judas i s no t s e e n pr imari ly a s an ac to r , but a s a
v ic t im in t h e s t rugg le b e t w e e n t h e powers o f good and evil. T h e sphe re
of treachery here embraces not only the private and the public but
becomes cosmic. In his Messias Klopstock gives a polit ical motive for
Judas's betrayal: by his act Judas attempted to force Jesus to show his
power. In this light Judas might be regarded as a patriot who felt that
Jesus had failed to come up to expectations, as he had done nothing to
liberate the Jews from Rome or to create the promised kingdom on earth.
Instead, he insisted on the efficacy of the kingdom of heaven. For this
reason Pontious Pilate could eventually charge Jesus with High Treason.
Beyond the public nature o f polit ical motivation for Judas's act, the inter-
pretation of i t as not spontaneous but predetermined (necessary for the
completion of the divine project o f salvation) makes us consider Judas as
himself victim and instrument o f God and not as a tragic person. As he 14 had no possibility to decide, there is no conflict.
Another famous case o f treason is Brutus. Caesar, the victim o f the
treacherous act, is a friend, but is also the head o f state, the "tyrant".
Brutus is hound to him by personal, private bonds of friendship and by
public bonds o f loyalty and subordination. The beneficiary of the treacher-
ous act is the (abstract) republican polit ical ideal. The motive for
Brutus's treason is noble - it has certainly been presented as such in
periods characterised by a marked i n tyrannos attitude (when Caesar him-
self was seen as a traitor to the republican ideals because o f his hunger
for power), whereas in less idealistic than realistic periods more weight
was given to Caesar's value as a statesman. Here again we notice the
oscillation between the private and the public spheres. The Hagen-
Siegfried theme belongs to the same type of treachery: Siegfried is
betrayed by his friend Hagen, who commits the treacherous act out of
loyalty to his feoffor, the beneficiary of the treason. The noble motiva-
tion raises the act to the public level; some interpretations, however (for
instance Hebbel's), introduce the vile motive o f envy or rivalry, thus
lowering the act to a simple, personal level. As F. W. Maitland observes,
"treason is a crime which has a vague circumference and more than one
centre";15 hence the near-impossibility of a precise definition. While the
Judas-Rrutus type has as i ts most important nucleus the juridical dimension
of crimen laesae maiestatis and therefore a fairly clear collocation o f
crime, it is more di f f icul t to classify other types o f traitors in cases
where the relationship between the betrayed person (or group, or ideology)
and the traitor has no juridical component.
O n e such c a s e is t r e a c h e r y fo r love and t h e d a m a g e i t does t o
parents , family, homeland, coun t ry , e t h n i c group, etc.16 T h e Rible
(Genesis 2.24) s a y s t h a t a man (and in a w ide r s ense a woman) has t o
l eave f a t h e r and mother , uni t ing himself (hersel f ) w i th his (he r ) spouse.
This neces sa ry a c t o f ' t reachery ' m a y c r e a t e con f l i c t s be tween man and
wi fe and the i r own families. Pre-exis t ing conf l i c t s be tween t h e famil ies
c o m p l i c a t e t h e case , and then re la t ionships be tween m e m b e r s of t h e s e
groups ( s e e R o m e o a n d Ju l i e t ) may b e judged a s t r eache rous a s re la t ion-
ships w i th t h e e n e m y in war t ime . An a rche typa l f igure for t h i s is Medea,
who be t r ayed he r " f a the r and fa ther land" o u t of love for Jason, but who
f rom t h e beginning i s hersel f t h rea t ened wi th bet rayal . F o r Jason s h e i s
only t h e in s t rumen t by which h e c a n ob ta in t h e Golden Fleece . And,
par t icular ly in Gri l lparzer ' s version, t h e r eac t ion of t h e be t r ayed , her
f a t h e r A ie t e s , exempl i f i e s t h e t r a i t o r problemat ic :
Du has t mich hetrogen, ve r r a t en . Bleib ! Nicht rnehr h e t r e t e n sol ls t du mein Haus. Ausgestossen sollst du se in w i e d a s T ie r in d e r Wildnis, Sollst in d e r F r e m d e s t e rben , ver lassen, allein. Folg ihm, d e m Ruhlen, nach in s e ine He ima t , Te i l e se in Be t t , se in Irrsal, s e ine Schmach, Leb im f r emden Land, e i n e F remde , Verspot te t , v e r a c h t e t , verhijhnt, ver lacht ; E r se lbs t , f u r den du hingibst V a t e r und Vaterland, Wird dich ve rach ten , wird dich ve r spo t t en , ... l 7
A i e t e s r e j e c t s Medea 's a t t e m p t a t conci l ia t ion be tween himself and Jason;
h e i s ca t egor i ca l , only a c l ea r - cu t c h o i c e is possible, e i t h e r w i th him o r
agains t him ("qui non e s t mecum c o n t r a m e est"). H e expe l s Medea a s
a t r a i t o r and prophesies t h a t s h e will b e be t r ayed in he r turn, t h a t s h e
will l ive a s a n e t e r n a l s t r a n g e r in a fore ign coun t ry , t hus th rea t en ing h e r
wi th t h e loss of roo t s and iden t i t y - t h e usual s i t ua t ion of t h e t r a i t o r , who
by his o r h e r a c t c e a s e s t o belong t o a g roup and b e c o m e s a hybrid.
In t h e las t hundred y e a r s ideologies h a v e evolved ve ry f a s t , especia l ly
t hose of communism, nat ional ism, a n d racism. Correspondingly, in t h e
typology and terminology of t r ea son n e w spec ie s h a v e joined t h e s t anda rd
ones. Communism coined t h e t e r m ob jec t ive t r ea son fo r any fo rm of
political devia t ion f rom t h e dominan t system.18 Nat ional Socia l ism,
bes ides adap t ing inhe r i t ed t e r m s l i ke Volksverra t ( r e s t r i c t i ng i t t o t h e
r ac i a l issues) and H e i m a t v e r r a t ( r e s t r i c t i ng i t t o a r e a s w i th e thn ic , i.e.
Ge rman minorities), c r e a t e d neologisms l ike Rasseve r ra t ( a l r eady dis-
cussed)19 and even Kulturverrat. In the wider semantic field of treason
one notes a swarm of such expressions for the treacherous act and the
traitor: f i f th column, collaboration, Dolchstoss, bochisme, emboch6
(germanophile), colkborateur, quisling, ddfaitiste, pacifiste, cosmopolite,
vaterlandslose Gesellen, Nestbeschmutzer; for women having 'treacherous'
love-relationships with the occupying enemy: ~ussenliebchen,~' Amihure,
or with the 'racial enemy': Judenhure. 2 1
The terms and their applications have multiplied, but the nucleus of
treason is the same - and Medea st i l l has progeny. One of her daughters
is called Olga, the heroine of Die Walsche, a novel by the contemporary
South Tyrolian author Joseph Zoderer. Already while discussing the com-
ponents of treason we noticed the importance o f the geographical and
temporal factors which form, in the words of Boveri, the "landscape of
treason". The South Tyrol (similar to regions l ike Alsace and even, in
some respects, Northern Ireland) has proved ferti le ground from this point
of view, and an extremely interesting object of study in the present con-
text: i t is a frontier area with a pluriethnic, plurilingual population, a
land of continual political and social tensions.
The present situation in the South Tyrol was principally brought about
by the decision of Italy's Fascist regime to favour the immigration of
Italian workers and civ i l servants into the region (which Austria had been
forced to cede to Italy after the First World War). This led to an
alteration of the social, political and economic balance; in i ts wake, place
names were changed, and the use of German was forbidden in schools and
in public life. However, after the Second World War and especially after
the Statute of 1972, which granted administrative and cultural autonomy
including plurilingualism, the German ethnic group re-acquired more
importance and power. In fact, the Statute reduced the Italian group,
which had become the majority, into a minority inside the autonomous
province of BozenIBolzano. The experiences during the Fascist era had
hardened the position of the German ethnic group, driving i t into defending
the social, cultural and linguistic character of i ts Heimat (homeland) with
nearly hysterical, paranoiac frontline symptoms. The erection of all kinds
of barriers and restrictions has been described by parts of the Italian group
as a policy of apartheid, while for a large proportion of the German group
every attempt at stepping across the boundaries from the inside, even the
mere use of the other language, constitutes a betrayal of the Heimat or
the Voikstum (the ethnic group, the German essence), because i t entails
jeopardising the ethnic identity. 22
Such is t h e background, the 'landscape' of Zoderer's novel. The
dialect term Walsche (standard German: Welsche) with which German
South Tyrolians designate t h e Italians, the 'interior enemy', is applied t o
Olga, a village schoolmaster's daughter, because a t school she was the
only pupil t o do the Italian homework and was therefore deemed guilty of
an a c t of collaboration with the enemy. Later on she leaves the village
with her mother t o live in a big town and en te rs into a relationship with
Silvano, an Italian from t h e South. We see her trying t o integrate herself
into the Italian ethnic group, struggling not only with linguistic hut also
psychological difficulties. Her position between the two languages and
cultures c rea tes a feeling of insecurity and alienation in Olga (p.15). She
feels a stranger in her new milieu (not through any fault of the Italians,
however, who accept her willingly), and her new, hybrid mentality precludes
a 'homecoming', which is impossible anyway, because her original group
has expelled her a s a traitor, now regarded a s a W- a foreigner, an
enemy; and her private a c t acquires a public dimension - not so much a s
' t reason of t h e race' ( that factor is not emphasised) than a s damage t o
the group because her desertion diminishes i t s numbers.
"Die Heimat ist in Gefahr" ( the homeland is in danger) functions a s
a leitmotif, a s d o some verses of the song "Und kommt der Feind ins Land
hinein - Uns 1st das Land, hal tet ihm die Treue", which near the beginning
(pp.22-23) and the end of t h e novel (pp.118-19) symbolize and comment on
Olga's 'treason', her ac t of disloyalty in a situation of peril, when an
intermediate, conciliatory a t t i tude is not considered possible. Zoderer
cr i t icizes this way of thinking, which reflects t h e logic of the majority in
t h e German ethnic group (and the South Tyrolian mass media) by creat ing
the courageous and humane figure of Olga, who almost transforms the
pejorative expression Walsche into a badge of honour.
Olga's 'treason' has, however, been deemed less serious than that of
her creator Zoderer, who has been reviled by parts of the South Tyrolian
public and i t s mass media. He is being presented as the real t rai tor of
the ethnic group, because by realistically and critically depicting (though
perhaps with some poetic exaggeration) t h e small community of a South
Tyrolian village h e offended his own compatriots and moreover appeared
t o them t o have befouled his own nest; secondly, because h e did not
describe as shameful the relationship o f the 'German' g i r l wi th the
'Italian' enemy; finally, because he tried to mediate between the two
groups.
Zoderer is of course not the only intellectual to have been accused
of treason in our times, especially during and immediately after the two
World Wars. In the various countries there occurred several types of
treason by intellectuals. That which may be called The Treason o f the
clerksz3 shall, for the present, complete our survey,24 with Romain
Rolland and the brothers Mann serving as examples. With his Rildungs-
roman entitled Jean Chr is to~he Rolland had, in a period dominated by hate
between the French and the German nations, tr ied to stimulate mutual
understanding by underlining the complementary character of the two
cultures. In peacetime this attempt at mediation had been acceptable, but
after the outbreak of the First World War the view that enemies are in
reality brothers, that the true fatherland is humanity, and the appeal to
ignore frontiers became obnoxious. During the War the very concept of
pacifism was seen as defeatism, as treason of the collective in France -
and as suspect even on the other side (see Thomas Mann). I t was not
possible t o stay Au-dessus de la m&l;e, the position Rolland took in his
collection of essays published in 1915. Once more the att i tude of "qui non
est mecum contra me est" prevailed.
In his novel Cl6rambault (1917) Rolland, building on his own experi-
ences, treats the theme o f the intellectual seen as a traitor by the public
in his own country. It is the story o f a writer who tries to stop the war
machine and is ki l led by a nationalist fanatic. Faced with a conflict
between his personal conviction o f human solidarity and the abstract
concept of questioning o f which is inadmis~ible, '~ the 'clerk' has
to choose: either he betrays humanity - "et vous la trahissez, si vous
vous trahissez" (p.3) - or he commits the 'crime de he -pa t r i e1 (p.173).
Like Rolland himself, his hero prefers to be a traitor to the patrie in the
narrow sense given to i t by nationalistic ideology, because he is committed
to a different concept:
... les frkres sont shpar6s des frkres, et parquds avec des Btrangers. Chaque Etat englobe des races diffdrentes, qui ne sont nullement faites pour penser et agir ensemble; chacune des familles ou des belles familles qu'on appelle des patries, enveloppe des esprits qui, en fait, appartiennent h des familles diffhrentes, actuelles, passGes, ou a venir. Ne pouvant les absorber, elle les opprime; ils nldchappent a la
des t ruc t ion q u e p a r d e s sub te r fuges I. . . ] Leur r ep roche r d '&tre insoumis 5 l a pa t r i e , c ' e s t r ep roche r aux Irlandais, aux Polonais, d'e'chapper k~ I 'englout issement p a r I 'Angleterre ou p a r la Prusse. Ici e t 18, ces hommes r e s t e n t f idkles k la v ra i e Pa t r i e . (p.139)
This a u t h e n t i c f a the r l and i s t h e "R6publique disperske d e s libres i m e s du
monde entier". Rolland percept ively descr ibes t h e political and his tor ical
processes which c r e a t e t h e p remises fo r t reason, t h e conf l i c t s which may
cons t r a in t h e individual o r whole groups t o b e c o m e t ra i tors .
In his a r t i c l e "Les idoles" (1914) Rol land a t t a c k e d Thomas Mann for
being a suppor t e r of t h e w a r (be t r ay ing t h e principles of humanity). O n
his side, Mann, par t icular ly in Be t r ach tungen e i n e s Unpolitischen (1918),
p re sen ted t h e w a r a s a con f l i c t be tween Kul tur (symbolized hy Germany)
and Zivilisation (symbolized by France) . And h e impugned Rolland's good
fa i th , coupl ing him wi th his own b ro the r Heinrich, t h e Zivi l i sa t ionsl i tera t
pa r excel lence,26 while Heinr ich Mann d i r ec t ly a s well a s indirect ly
accused his b ro the r T h o m a s of having, fo r vile mo t ives (personal g lory a s
a nat ional l i t e r a ry figure), b e c o m e a s l a v e of t h e backward r eg ime
dominat ing ~ e r r n a n y . ~ ~ This ideological Rruderkr ieg (Betrachtungen, p.186)
con f i rms t h a t t h e c lose r t h e re la t ionship b e t w e e n be t r aye r and betrayed,
t h e m o r e deeply t r ea son is f e l t a n d reprehended by t h e l a t t e r , whi le a
fore igner o r e v e n a n enemy, including a n in ternal enemy , i s not normal ly
considered a t ra i tor .
Thus t h e b ro the r s Mann a c c u s e o n e a n o t h e r of treason. Thomas
r e j e c t s t h e charge, f lung a t him by Heinrich, of having renounced his own
inte l lec tual , moral, independent consc i ence in exchange fo r r ewards f rom
t h e ruling c l a s ses (p.13); and coun te r - a t t ack ing , h e c o m e s c lose r t o t h e
t radi t ional s e m a n t i c and concep tua l field of t reason, e v e n though - m a s t e r
of polemical language t h a t h e i s - h e a d d s seve ra l new nuances. H e
a r g u e s t h a t t r ea son aga ins t t h e f a the r l and a s c o m m i t t e d by Heinrich
(unnational, p.50) a l r eady man i fe s t s i t se l f in h is u se of t h e language. 28
Moreover, perceiving a r i f t be tween t h e pacif is t , republ ican rhetores-
bourgeois and sons of t h e Revolut ion (p.24) and t h e honest gen t l eman-
enemy, t h e off ic ia l t radi t ional F rance , Thomas a rgues tha t , a s Heinrich
ident i f ies wi th t h e socia l is t F rench opposition, h is t r ea son i s t h e m o r e
heinous fo r a t t e m p t i n g t o change t h e political o r d e r of a coun t ry f rom
without.
Overall, Thomas Mann's concept in the Betrachtungen is that every
act o f abandoning (even for humanitarian reasons) one's hereditary family,
national, ideological status, especially in times o f conflict, and accepting
the status of an 'enemy', or making the attempt to mediate between one's
own group and the enemy, constitutes treason. And, f irmly convinced that
there can be no justification for treason o f the fatherland (the nation) and
i ts institutions, he closes his argument by quoting Wieland's words about
having every real German patriot, friend o f the people and [true] cosmo-
politan on his side:
... dass ich hierin jeden achten deutschen Patrioten, Volksfreund und Weltburger auf meiner Seite habe und behalten werde. (p.580)
Later on, when the National Socialist flood began to shake all security and
values, Thomas Mann "betrayed", or rather revised his position o f the
Betrachtungen. - We are le f t to ask: is treason really a question of the
times?
1. E.g. Elisabeth Frenzel, Motive der Weltliteratur (4th edn, Stuttgart; Kroner, 19761, s.v. "Verrater", "Der herkunftsbedingte Liebeskonflikt", die heimliche Liebesbeziehung"; and Frenzel, Stoffe der Weltliteratur (Stuttgart: Kroner, 1970), S.V. "Caesar", "Judas Ischariot", "Medea", etc. Margaret Poveri, Der Verrat i m zwanzigsten Jahrhundert (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 19761, offers a panorama of polit ical and cultural treason with special reference to intellectual treason (Hamsun. Pound, etc.). Hans Magnus Enzensberger has attempted a more sociological approach in "Zur Theorie des Verrats" (1964, in Polit ik und Verbrechen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1978), pp.361-97. Jean-Paul Sartre treats the treason complex from a philosophical standpoint in "Qu'est-ce qu'un collaborateur?" in Situations I11 (Paris: Gallimard, 1949), pp.43-61 and in "Des rats et des hommes", - originally the introduction to Andre Gorz's autobiographical novel Le Traitre (Paris: Seuil, 1958), repr. in Situations IV (Paris: Gallimard, 1 9 6 x pp.38-81. For aspects o f the subject (esp. high treason) treated from a juridical point o f view see Mario Sbriccoli, Crimen Laesae Maiestatis (Milan: Giuffr'e, 1974), see esp. Ch.111 "L'ossessione del tradimento", pp.149-72. A psychoanalytic study of treason was presented by Enrico Pozzi in a paper (not yet publ.) at a conference on "The Lie" held in May 1987 at Gargonza, Italy.
2. Fernand Baldensperger and Werner P. Friederich, Bibl io~raphy of Comparative Literature (1950), repr. New York, 1960.
3. Cf. Duden, Herkunftswijrterbuch (Mannheim, 19631, S.V. "Verraten"; also Boveri (n. I), p. 15.
4. The spy; but often the t ra i tor in such cases is the v ict im of professional 'seducers' working for the more or less of f ic ia l intelligence agencies, cf. Enzensberger (n.l), pp.380-82. Governments accept the traitor i f he is a spy as a necessity, but are afraid of open treason in the form of abandoning, mainly because i t cannot be devalued as perfidy.
5. See e.g. lngeborg Bachmann, Das dreiss igste Jahr , in W*, Vol.11, ed. Chris t ine Koschel and lnge von Weidenbaum (Munich: Piper, 19781, p. 119.
6. Elias Cane t t i , Masse und Macht (19601, transl. a s Crowds and Power by Carol S tewar t (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 198 1 ), p. 17.
7. See DDR Handbuch, publ. by Bundesministerium fiir innerdeutsche Angelegenheiten (Cologne: Wissenschaft und Politik, 1975), S.V. "Republik- flucht".
8. Cf. Enzensberger (n.11, p.374: "high t reason is nothing but the juri- dical n a m e for revolution" (here a s l a t e r on, unassigned translations a r e my own).
9. Enzensberger (n. I), pp.37 1-73.
10. Boveri (n.11, p.9: "The J e w who under Hit ler had t o b e ex te rmina ted I...] they a r e all 'potent ia l ' t r a i to r s of a value made absolute".
11. Quoted from Die Biicherverbrennung: Zum 10. Mai 1933, ed. G. Sauder (Munich: Hanser, 1983), p.93 - "4. Our most dangerous adversary is t h e Jew, and t h e o n e who is enslaved by him.15. ~ h & J e w c a n think only in a Jewish way. If h e wr i t e s German, h e is lying. The German who wri tes German but thinks in an un-German way is a t ra i tor! [...I 7. We will respect the J e w a s a foreigner, ...". 12. Cf. Enzensberger (11.11, pp.367-68.
13. Enzensberger (n. I), p.363.
14. See Frenzel, Stoffe (n.1). S.V. "Judas Ischariot"; in Mario Brelich's novel L'Opera del t r ad imento (19751, Poe 's Dupin is cal led in t o solve t h e ' J u d a s Case ' ; i t emerges tha t Judas is not guilty, but sacr i f iced t o higher in te res t s without a chance of salvation; and Jesus begs him for forgiveness.
15. F. W. Maitland and F. Pollock, T h e History of English Law before t h e T i m e of Edward I (Cambridge, 1895), p.503; cf . a lso Sbricolli (n.l.1, p.171.
16. S e e Frenzel, Motive (n.l), pp468-85, discussing this type of t reachery within t h e complex of "love-confllct conditioned by origins".
17. Franz Grillparzer, Die Argonauten, A c t 111; quoted from W-, ed. F. Schreyvogel (Salzburg: Bergland, n.d.), Vol.11, p.240.
18. Cf. M. Merleau-Ponty, Humanisme e t t e r reur (Paris: Gallimard, 19471, p.36, where P ie r re Unik c i t e s t h e formula of Saint-Just.
19. When, by contrast , Lecon te d e Lisle speaks of " t r a i t r e a s a race" in "Le Massacre d e Mona'' (Pokmes barbares), 1.417, he means " t ra i tor t o his people".
20. See e.g. Loni's f a t e in Heinrich Boll, Gruppenbild mit D a m e (1971).
21. Cf. Bertol t Brecht , "Die Ballade von d e r Judenhure Marie Sanders" in Kalendergeschichten (Berlin: Weiss, 1949); he re and elsewhere (e.g. "Die zwei Sohne" and "Lied vom Fraternis ieren" in Mut te r Courage) Brecht inci tes people t o commi t t reason in t h e name of humanity, guided by a real is t ic and mater ia l is t ic view of t h e t reason problem.
22. See J. Kramer, Deutsch und Italienisch in S id t i ro l (Heidelberg: Winter, 1981), p.116; in his novel Das Gliick beim Handewaschen
(Frankfurt, 19841, Zoderer has the hero's father say that the homeland o f the South Tyrolian is the German language (p.111). Mario Wandruzka. "Plurilingismo europeo" in L 'Un i t i d'Europa: A t t i del XV Converno Inter- nazionale dei Studi Italo-Tedeschi (Merano, 19781, p.215, quotes an analogous utterance from a leader of the Breton autonomy movement, also equating homeland and language. Another variant o f cultural-linguistic treason surfaces in J. E. Schlegel's preface to his translation o f a comedy by Destouches where he notes that translators tend nearly to be looked at as traitors to their fatherland and enemies o f Germany's glory, cf. Meister der deutschen Kr i t i k 1: 1730-1830, ed. G. P. Hering (Munich: dtu, 1961). p.45.
23. Julien Benda, La trahison des clercs (Paris, 1927). Benda's interest- ing theses concerning the relationship o f intellectuals and politics are not without internal contradictions.
24. The whole complex of collaboration and i ts reflections in l i terature st i l l demands closer analysis, especially in a comparative perspective.
25. Rolland, Clkrambault: Histoire d'une conscience libre pendant la guerre (Paris: Michel, [1920]), p. 155.
26. Thomas Mann, Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, repr. Frankfurt: Fischer, 1956; cf. pp. 154- 179 against Rolland, pp. 179-213 against Heinrich.
27. Heinrich Mann, Geist und Tat (19311, repr. Munich: dtv, 1963; cf. esp. the essays "Zola" and "Ceist und Tat". For a discussion o f the culture/civilisation debate see Andre Banuls, "Die Rruder-Problematik in Thomas Manns Fiorenza und im Essay iiber den Kiinstler and Literaten" in
hantastisch zwecklos? Essays iiber Literatur (WLirzburg: Konigshausen (L ieumann, 19861, pp. 146-42.
28. Betrachtungen (n.261, p.51; - "He not only thinks in French syntax and grammar, he thinks in French terms, French antitheses, French conflicts, French affairs and scandals. The war, in which we are engaged, seems to him, wholly in line wi th entente thinking, a struggle between 'Power and Spirit'."
VARIATIONS ON THE MYTH OF THE MAGUS'
Gydrgy E. Sziinyi (Univers i ty of Szeged)
I
T h e Magus (or, a s s o m e might ca l l him, t h e Magician) i s en t e r ing his
laboratory . His r e t o r t s a r e full of boiling-bubbling liquids; h i s mind is on
t h e boil too, nursing d reams , noble o r m a d ambi t ions of omniscience, omni-
potence, e t e r n a l life, t h e abi l i ty t o c r e a t e gold o r syn the t i c l i f e - t h e
f amous homunculus. A s t h e G r e a t Work c o m e s t o a hal t , s o m e super-
nal help i s needed. T h e Magus now tu rns t o God, praying fo r m o r e
s t r eng th , or, resor t ing t o il l icit ass is tance, ca l l s on Satan. O f t e n h e i s
con f ron ted wi th o t h e r men, f r iends o r adversar ies , d i l e t t a n t e an t iqua r i ans
o r g reedy princes, who look t o him wi th expec ta t ion o r awe , who t ry t o
s t o p him o r u rge him t o fu r the r e f f o r t s - bu t ce r t a in ly canno t follow him
on his dange rous p a t h towards t h e unknown, t h e forbidden ... Almost
invariably t h e end i s failure. T h e Magus is punished for h is a r rogan t se l f -
conce i t , o r t h e Opus Magnum is d is turbed by in t ruding bo res - t h e r e t o r t
blows up o r t h e adep t c a n n o t endure t h e p re sence of t h e Devil - until
finally t h e a d e p t is paradigmat ical ly killed among t h e f l ames of h is
laboratory .
Th i s n a r r a t i v e p a t t e r n has roo t s a s old a s l i t e r a tu re ; t h e a rche typa l
magician-s tory gained cosmic s ignif icance in t h e Renaissance, and has been
popular e v e r since. Is t h i s a p a t t e r n t aken f rom life, o r mere ly f rom t h e
pressure of l i t e r a ry convent ions , t h e demands of t h e reading public? Does
i t follow t h e logic o f s c i en t i f i c invest igat ion, mixing expe r imen ta t ion wi th
t h e supe rna tu ra l ? Is t h i s all a l legory and parable , o r does i t h a v e a m o r e
d i r e c t re levance? O n e might f ee l su rp r i s e t h a t t h i s l i t e r a ry f r amework has
e v e n passed in to twen t i e th -cen tu ry f ic t ion, v i r tual ly unshaken by t h e
deve lopmen t o f na tu ra l s c i ences and t h e disqual i f ica t ion of mag ic a s a
s c i en t i f i c discipline. O r should w e r a t h e r see th i s l i t e r a ry phenomenon a s
a reac t ion agains t t h e se l f -assuredness of t h e na tu ra l sc iences? Is t h e r e
any way of reconci l ing t h e ra t ional-sc ient i f ic way of thinking and t h e
magical -occul t world view?
This quest ion and many m o r e m a y bo the r t h e r eade r who f inds him-
self in t h e w e b of modern f ic t ion focusing on t h e t h e m e of t h e magus,
such a s Thomas Mann's Doc to r Faustus , Margue r i t e Yourcenar ' s T h e Abyss,
Rober tson Davies's What ' s Bred in t h e Bone, o r Antal Szerb 's T h e Pen-
dragon Legend. Looking at these 'novels o f esoterica' we can clearly see
the fascination o f modern writers wi th the culture and world picture o f
the Renaissance, even i f they place their f ict ion in a contemporary
setting. Due to the fascination wi th the sixteenth century these magus
figures paradigmatically seem to be variations on the character o f the
historical-legendary Faust, perhaps the most famous black magician, o r his
contemporary, the white magus-scientist Paracelsus. I t is the reincarnation
of the Paracelsian type o f magus in modern l i terature that concerns my
essay. A complementary aspect wi l l be the study of the intellectual
undercurrents which are responsible for the recurrence o f this archetype,
thus hoping to get nearer to understand the nature o f esoteric discourse.
11
Trying to map the place o f magic in the complex o f human culture, E. M.
Butler said that she did not want to define i t in any restrictive way such
as "'pseudo-science', or 'pretend art', o r 'debased religionu'.* By treating
magic as a self-contained discipline she did choose a good approach and
at the same t ime pinpointed the areas in relation to which magic should
be treated in i ts fu l l complexity. One may usefully follow her typology
and move from science to religion, f inally to reach the domain of litera-
ture.
Since the scientific revolution science has traditionally been ignoring
magic as something outdated and nonsensical. Even i f art, including
modern fiction, reconsidering the problem, has tried to express some
doubts about the validity o f this verdict, the existence o f the duality o f
the two modes o f thinking - scientific and esoteric-magical - has never
been questioned since the seventeenth century. I t was especially the
contrary movements of Romanticism and Positivism around the middle of
the last century that emphasized a fatal antagonism. The scientists
interpreted the esoteric att i tude as a kind o f primitive phase in the
development of mankind, which, in the course o f intellectual progress,
necessarily had to give way to logical thinking and the experimental
sciences. The adepts of the spiritual sciences, on the other hand, excluded
discursive logic and historical thinking from their field. Let us compare,
for example, two opposed early nineteenth-century statements:
The improvements that have been effected in natural philosophy have by degrees convinced the enlightened part of mankind that the material
universe is eve rywhere subject t o laws, fixed in their weight, measure, and durat ion, capab le of t h e most e x a c t calculat ion, and which in no c a s e admi t of var ia t ion and exception. Reside this, mind, a s well a s m a t t e r , i s subject t o fixed laws; and thus eve ry phenomenon and occur rence around us is rendered a top ic fo r t h e speculat ion of sagaci ty and foresight. Such i s t h e c r e e d which sc i ence has universally prescribed t o t h e judicious and ref lect ing among us.
It was o the rwise in t h e infancy and less m a t u r e s t a t e of human knowledge. T h e chain of causes and consequences was y e t unrecognized; and e v e n t s perpetual ly occurred, fo r which no sagaci ty tha t was then in being was able t o assign a n original. Hence men fe l t themselves habitually disposed t o r e f e r many of t h e appea rances with which they were conversant t o t h e agency of invisible intelligence^.^
At about t h e s a m e t i m e a s William Godwin's proclamat ion of sc ient ism,
Mary Atwood was a l ready working on her e so te r i c philosophy, which was
finally anonymously published in 1850. Due t o a religious revelat ion and
a moral panic, s h e l a t e r considered he r book t o o dangerous fo r t h e general
public and took g r e a t pains t o suppress t h e edition. T h e t e x t has for-
tunately survived and provides u s with valuable insight in to t h s t :node of
thinking which s e e m s t o have changed so remarkably l i t t l e f rom Hermes
Trismegis tus through Paracelsus , J akob Boehme, and Swedenborg t o herself,
Rudolf Ste iner , Madame Rlavatsky, and indeed t o many of ou r own con-
temporar ies . Speaking about a lchemy, Atwood as se r t s i t s real i ty a s
follows:
Rut many things have in l ike manner been considered impossible which increasing knowledge has proved t r u e ...
This may sound near ly sc i en t i f i c but t h e second pa r t of t h e sen tence
touches upon t h e t h e m e which i s corilmon in all e so te r i c thinking:
... and o t h e r s which still t o common sense appear f ic t i t ious were believed in fo rmer t imes, when fa i th was more enl ightened and t h e sphe re of vision open t o surpassing e f fec t s . Daily observat ion even now warns us against s e t t ing l imi t s t o na tu re I...]
T h e philosophy of modern t imes, more especial ly t h a t of t h e present day, consis ts in expe r imen t and such scient i f ic r e sea rches a s may tend t o amel io ra t e o u r social condition, o r b e o the rwise useful in contr ibut ing t o t h e e a s e and indulgences of life; whereas in t h e original accep ta t ion , philosophy had q u i t e ano the r sense: i t signified t h e Love of w i s d o m 4
Relying on this principle, s h e did not see much use in employing a system-
a t i c his tor ical approach when s tudying and explaining t h e H e r m e t i c philos-
ophy. Her s tandpoint i s remarkable , and, considering t h e con tex t of
positivism, hardly reprehensible:
Nothing, perhaps, is less worthy or more calculated to distract the mind from points o f real importance than this very question of temporal origin, which, when we have taken all pains to satisfy and remember, leaves us no wiser in reality than we were before. (p.3)
The more the positivist enthusiasts of the scientific and industrial
revolutions asserted the notion of linear progress and heralded man's
victory over nature, the more the adepts and mystics became imbued with
the search for forgotten, hermetic knowledge. In l i terature we find the
followers of both camps. The writers o f Naturalism considered themselves
the custodians of the legacy of the Enlightenment, so they sided with the
scientists; on the other hand the symbolist poets rejected the primacy of
pure reason and looked for more mystical ways of knowledge. W. 0. Yeats
is just one example of many. The symbolist theories o f language,
expression, o11d poetic inspiration are very much in line with philosophical
mysticism, amplified by the general mood and taste of the f in de sikcle.
A growing cult of the obscure, the exciting, the i l l icit, and the unknown
as well as the rejection of academism by the decadents and the exponents
o f Ar t Nouveau likewise contributed equally to this interest.
The most notorious l i terary reflection of the occult revival was
Huysmans' LB-bas ( IR~I) ,~ in which a tale o f nineteenth-century Satanists
is interwoven with a l i fe of the medieval Satanist Gilles de Rais. The
main characters o f the novel - Durtal, the biographer of de Rais, Des
Hermies, a psychiatrist well versed in homeopathy and occult lore, the
learned astrologer Gkvingey, and the pious bell-ringer - are all hermit-like
figures who separate themselves from the stream of modern l i fe and take
pleasure i n the cult o f the Middle Ages. Durtal's inclination for things
mystical and i l l i c i t is kindled by a strange woman, Mme Chantelouve, who
by day is an unsatisfied bourgeoise but at night becomes a succubus and
a participant in the Black Mass celebrated by the diabolic Canon Docre.
When finally Durtal gains access to the Satanic Mass himself, he finds i t
disappointing and disgusting, very l i t t le mystical, but al l the more charac-
terized by erotomaniacs. This experience leads him toward a new
evaluation of faith which prefigures Huysmans' famous reconciliation wit:]
Catholicism: "Faith is the breakwater o f the soul, affording the only
haven in which dismasted man can glide along in peace" (p.279).
Especially significant for our present concern is the them? o f the
controversial relationship of the occult and the rationalistic sciences, as
manifes ted by Durtal 's and D e s Hermies ' mis t rust of the i r period's positiv-
i s t i c scientism.
What c a n h e believed and what c a n be proved? T h e mater ia l is ts have t aken t h e t rouble t o revise t h e accoun t s of t h e sorcery t r ia ls of old. They have found in t h e possession-cases t h e symptoms of major hyster ia I...] t h e r e remains this unanswerable question: is a woman posjessed because s h e i s hyster ical , o r i s s h e hyster ical hecause s h e i s possessed? Only t h e Church c a n answer. Science cannot . (3.141)
But if s c i ence is weak and unable t o see through appea rance t o t h e very
e s sence of things, t h e H e r m e t i c lore i s imperfect , too. This is what
Gevingey has t o say on spiritism, t h e sensat ion of t h e fin d e si8cle:
... proceeding a t random without sc ience, i t has ag i t a t ed good and bad spir i ts together . In Spir i t i sm you will find a jumble of everything. It i s t h e hash of mystery, if I may b e pe rmi t t ed t h e expression (p.132).
This vacillation be tween a t t r a c t i o n and mist rust t owards both sc i ence
and t h e occul t i s a very cha rac te r i s t i c f e a t u r e of th is 'neo-esoterism' in
l i tera ture: t h e a t t i t u d e has c r e a t e d c h a r a c t e r s such a s t h e madman
haunted by alchemical-esoter ic d reams of t h e Middle Ages and t h e Renais-
sance, who descends t o t h e most dubious pract ices; and t h e scept ical
historian who i s sympa the t i c towards Hermet ic ism hut does not bel ieve
tha t t h e c o n t a c t s wi th t h e supernatural s t i l l have much validity. H e i s
t hen usually confronted with shocking phenomena t h a t cannot b s explained
on t h e basis of discurs ive logic o r expe r imen ta l science. By t h e end of
these novels t h e s u p e r n a t ~ l r a l a lways man i fes t s itself in one way o r
another , hut t h e r e is a lways s o m e m o d e of irony employed by t h e novel-
ists, c r ea t ing uncer ta inty a s t o whe the r t h e inevi table magical a c t s
descr ibed a r e t o be t aken realistically, o r a s t h e product of m e r e men ta l
processes, o r indeed a s a l i terary device , a form of a l legory o r parable.
Somerse t Maugham's ea r ly novel T h e Magician ( 1 9 0 8 ) ~ i s a go>d
example of th is pa t t e rn . It was inevitably inspired by L i -bas a s well a s
by t h e c h a r a c t e r and notor ie ty of Ale i s t e r Crowley, known t o t h e English
press a s " the Wickedest Man in t h e World". T h e main c h a r a c t e r s of t h e
book a r e Ar thur Burdon, a pract ical -minded surgeon, absolutely scep t i ca l
about t h e occult. Margaret Dauncey, his f iancee, is a n innocent, beaut i ful
girl. The re i s Susie Boyd, Margaret ' s room-mate , less a t t r a c t i v e but
sensi t ive and intelligent. D r PorhoEt i s a real s tock cha rac te r , a doc to r
who t akes s o m e historical i n t e res t in t lermet ic ism, who has lived in t h e
East and seen many a strange thing, even published a book on Paracelsus.
And there is the magician, Oliver Haddo, an English magnate, totally
imbued with magical practices, a strange mixture of charlatan and adept.
His goal is to produce a homunculus, and his purposes are vile. Maugham's
novel is well-constructed and elegantly written, but rather shallow, lacking
any original insight into the problems o f mysticism and esoteric knowledge.
I t is st i l l interesting as a document o f a continuing l i terary topos and a
vogue so strongly infi l trati. ig the early modernist movements.
Arthur's scepticism is strongly emphasized at the beginning of the
story, i n order to contrast with his later encounters wi th the supernatural;
i t is also necessary t o create tension between him and Haddo, as this
confl ict brings about the catastrophe o f the book: out of revenge, Oliver
bewitches Margaret, ieduces, then marries her, only to ruin Arthur's l i fe
and use the unfortunate woman for his experiments. D r Porhoet is the
mouthpiece of those obligatory vacillating opinions which wil l not deny the
reality of occult forces, but at the same time cannot take them entirely
seriously. He always approaches the subject from the superior standpoint
of the historian who is outside the range o f phenomena, who always knows
the end of the story (cf. p.56). The most powerful character is undoubt-
edly Oliver Haddo. He makes no concession to modern science, and his
ambitions recall that other great sinner, Goethe's Faust, his seduced
vict im likewise called Margaret. But Haddo's statements about the thirst
for power that consumes the magician remind one even more of the crude
and inf in i te passions of Marlowe's characters, Doctor Faustus and Tambur-
laine:
And what else is that men seek in l i fe but power? I f they want money, i t is but for the power that attends it, and i t is powsr again that they strive for in all the knowledge they acquire. Fools and sots aim at happiness, but men aim only at power. The magus, the sorcerer, the alchemist, are seized with fascination of the unknown: and they desire a greatness that is inaccessible to mankind. (p.76)
The case o f Oliver Haddo introduces a new element to the typology
o f the Magus. While Huysmans drew a parallel between the modern black
magicians and a medieval Satanist, Haddo is 3n the one hand contrasted
with Faustus who represents the black magician, on the other with
Paracelsus, who apparently never got under evil domination and whose aims
were always pious. D r Porhoet vaguely makes this distinction, although
t h e general dr i f t of his opinion ra the r converges with tha t of t h e moraliz-
ing Chorus in b4arlowe1s Doctor Faustus:
It was a s t r ange d ream tha t these wizards cherished. I...) Above all, they sought t o become g r e a t e r than t h e common run of men and t o wield t h e power of t h e gods. They hesi ta ted a t n o t i i i n ~ t o gain their ends But Nature with diff icul ty allows he r sec re t s t o b e wrested from her. In vain they lit their furnaces, and in vain they studied their crabbed books, cal led up t h e dead, and conjured ghastly spirits. Their reward was disappointment and wretchedness, poverty, t h e scorn of men, tor ture , imprisonment, and shameful death. And yet , perhaps a f t e r all, t he re may b e some par t ic le of t ruth hidden away in these dark placer. (p.151)
All t h e e l ements surveyed so f a r a r e uniquely b l e ~ ~ d e d and presented
in an enter ta ining a s well a s a philosophic way in a Hungarian novel
which, despi te i t s translation in to English, has been undeservedly neglected
in t h e European l i terary scene. The wri ter , Antal Szerb, was an excel lent
l i terary historian, while his novels t r e a t e d t h e important intellactual
issues of his age, t h e period between t h e two World Wars. 7 T h e hero of Szerb's T h e Pendragon Legend (1934), JQnos BQtky, i s
a Hungarian scholar who, enjoying s o m e inheritance, se t t l e s down in London,
nea r t h e British Museum, and immerses himself in t h e most exci t ing (and
least apparent ly pract ical) subjects. Dr Bdtky is like Des Hermies and Dr
Porhoet, but h e is more lively. He has amusing and not a t all innocent
adventures with women and also likes t o g o t o evening parties. This is
how h e m e e t s t h e Earl of Gwynedd, who becomes t h e real hero of t h e
story. Their f i rs t meet ing is worth quoting a t length, s ince i t introduces
t h e main topics of t h e book a s well a s shows Szerb 's wry wit:
"At present I'm doing research on t h e English myst ics of t h e seven- t een th century."
"Are you, indeed?" t h e Earl exclaimed. "Then Lady Malmsbury-Croft has again miraculously blundered upon t h e truth. s h e always does. If she s e a t s two men side by s ide thinking tha t they were together a t Eton, you must be su re tha t one of them is German and t h e o the r a Japanese but both of them have special ized in Liberian stamps.''
"So a r e you interested in t h e s a m e subject?" "That is too s t rong an expression in this island of ours. You study
something - we only have hobbies. [...I Because, with us, mysticism somehow belongs t o family history. But tell me, Doctor [...I mysticism is r a the r a vague concept. A r e you interested in it a s a religious phenomenon?"
"Oh, no. I have hardly any feeling for that. I t a k e an interest in [...I t h e myster ious fantasies and operat ions by which in former t imes people wanted t o mas te r nature. T h e s e c r e t s of alchemists, of the
homunculus; the universal panacea, the effect o f minerals and amulets I...] Fludd's philosophy of nature by which he proved the existence o f God by means o f a barometer."
"Fludd?" the Earl looked up suddenly. "Fludd shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as all those fools. Fludd wrote a lot o f nonsense because he wanted to explain things that couldn't be explained at that time. But essentially, I mean about the very essence o f things, he knew much more than today's scientists, who are no longer able even to laugh at his theories. 1 don't know what your opinion is, but I feel that we know a great deal about the minute details o f nature today, whereas then people knew more about the whole. About the great interrelations which can't be weighed on scales and can't be cut neatly into slices l ike ham" (pp.9-11).
There are at least half a dozen layers in the novel, blended with
elegant craftsmanship: the Earl is working on some mysterious biological
experiments which are distinct reflections on the ambitions o f the
Paracelsians, to create an art i f ic ia l man, homunculus. I n the meantime
he is entangled with a crime story: his ex-fiancde and her associates t ry
to k i l l him in connection wi th an inheritance case. Bhtky is dropped in
the whirl of events which develop from everyday mystery to mystical
terror: i t turns out that the old Pendragon castle on the neighbouring hi l l
hides the tomb of Christian Rosencreutz, the legendary founder o f the
Rosicrucians. This Brother Rosencreutz - in the novel Asaph Pendragon,
a fifteenth-century Earl o f Gwynedd - according to the inscription on his
tomb, "POST ANNOS CXX PATERO", is expected to rise from his grave
in 120 years. The legend, well known from the early seventeenth-century
Rosicrucian manifestos, is retold by Szerb and transposed to Pendragon.
The founder o f the Brotherhood was Asaph, and, according to one o f the
subplots, in the eighteenth century another Earl, Bonaventure Pendragon,
made great efforts in the company of Lenglet de Fresnoy and the Count
St Germain to contact him and get from him the Secret of the Adepts.
The Rosicrucian Asaph Pendragon is finally awakened in the early
twentieth century and saves the l i fe o f the present Earl from the
murderers. But he also wants to accomplish the Great Work which has
come to a halt. As he feels abandoned by the heavens, according to the
obligatory pattern, he decides to turn to evil forces. He performs diabolic
magic and sacrifices to Satan the wicked ex-fiancde o f the Earl. In a
trance, B6tky witnesses the whole action, which concludes in a devastating
appearance of the Devil. A l l this drives the Rosicrucian ghost to final
desperation, and he kil ls himself. The last words o f the Earl feed back
t o t h e opening conversation between him and t h e Hungarian philosopher:
"They had been waiting for a ce r t a in moment," h e said. T h e t ime c a m e I...] just now when the re have been no Rosicrucians for a long t i m e and when their sec re t knowledge has been forgot ten by a world smiling a t them. T h e moment coincided with my ordeal. T h e midnight rider, t h e deathless dispenser of justice, has again saved t h e lives of his descendants. But t h e Grea t Work did not proceed. Only black magic, and t h e conjuring up of t h e Devil could help. And for tha t a sacr i f ice was needed. I...] I lef t t h e woman t o her fa te , which finally c a m e t o her. But t h e Grea t Work did not succeed I...] If everything happened a s you told me, t h e Devil had appeared t o him I...] But we don't know all that. We only know tha t h e died in despair. Come, Doctor Bbtky" (p.229).
What makes this novel really enjoyable is t h a t t h e reader will never dis-
cover whether t h e author is serious o r whether h e is just making a
literary-intellectual joke, a parody of t h e genre. Like t h e Chimische
Hochzeit of Johann Valentin Andreae, T h e Pendragon Legend leaves i t s
audience in t h e thrill , awe, and exc i t ement of uncertainty.
While t h e novels reviewed up t o this point emphasized t h e incompati-
bility of science and magic - usually a t t h e expense of t h e former, we
should also mention, however, tha t the re have been e f fo r t s t o bring
together t h e two, and not only in t h e sphere of literature. Around t h e
turn of t h e 20th century, t h e esoter ic philosopher and founder of anthro-
posophy, Rudolf Steiner , proposed his system of epistemology tha t assumes
a happy coexis tence of t h e two. He considered himself a s e e r and
claimed t o have gained immense knowledge by intuition and revelation, but
a t t h e s a m e t ime asser ted tha t t h e natural sciences represent a necessary
phase in t h e development of mankind and suggested tha t occul t knowledge
c a n b e gained by rational pract ices and scient i f ic excercises, too.8 How-
ever , it looks a s if h e did not succeed in bringing together magic and
science, his works ra the r point out t h e deepening gap between t h e two
modes of thinking. With this h e makes us ponder t h e meaning of t h e
d ramat ic dualism of t h e experimental-discursive and t h e intuitive-revelative
types of knowledge:
With our concepts we have moved out t o t h e surface, where we c a m e into con tac t with nature. We have achieved clarity, but along the way we have lost man. (p.11)
Although this dualism has been known from mankind's ear l ies t self-
consciousness, until t h e seventeenth cen tu ry science did not s ide irrevo-
cably wi th either option. For the people o f the Renaissance i t was st i l l
not a decision to deal wi th 'magic or science.' Since all science was
magic, and vice versa, it was rather the intention o f the magician-scientist
that constituted the real watershed, by distinguishing white and black
operations. Modern fiction seems to take this distinction as o f secondary
importance, and i t is rather the universalism and bold endeavouring spirit
o f those Renaissance enthusiasts that is st i l l so attractive for modern
writers. This is why authors l ike Yourcenar situate their plots in the
sixteenth century, and why the contemporary heroes resemble the famous
Magi: in Oliver Haddo we see Paracelsus reflected, while the Earl o f
Pendragon recalls Robert Fludd.
Let us return now to the question of white and black magic, because
this distinction is partly responsible for the extraordinary ef for t by which
two modern disciplines - cultural history and the history of science - have
taken the trouble to t ry to reintegrate magic into the realm of science.
The nineteenth-century historians did not bother with this distinction, as
we can observe in Godwin's already quoted work. He mostly speaks about
witchcraft, only to muddle hopelessly the Arabian Nights with Thomas
Aquinas, Luther with Faustus, and Agrippa with Urban Grandier and the
New England witches. Rut was he not right after all? Didhe not find the
same medley o f ideas in the works o f every occult tradition? In the first
decades o f the century, some historians o f premodern civilization, who
became disillusioned wi th Burckhardt's self-assured judgements about the
enlightened nature o f the Renaissance, suggested a definite 'no'.
People l ike Huizinga, Max Dvorak, and Aby Warburg pointed out the
great importance o f magic and mystical-esoterical systems in an age which
previously had been chosen as the ideal opposite o f the 'Superstitious, Dark
Ages'. Not much later Lynn Thorndike devoted eight volumes to demon-
strate how di f f icul t i t is to distinguish clearly between magic and the
experimental sciences t i l l the eighteenth century. These pioneers started
a long evolution o f cultural history: a neglected canon of texts - the
Hermetic writings - has been recovered, and a generation of great
Renaissance scholars such as A. J. ~estugisre, P. 0. Kristeller, E. Garin,
F. Secret, D. P. Walker and others have established the framework within
which to study the intriguing crosscurrents of Renaissance philosophical
thought.
I n this atmosphere, in the nineteen-sixties, Frances A. Yates boldly
proposed a thesis with the following paradigm: ( I ) the Hermetic texts o f
t h e 2nd and 3rd cen tu r i e s A.D. (which most modern cul tural h is tor ians had
neglected) o f fe red such a n ontology and a c rea t ion myth which fo r t h e
philosophers of t h e Renaissance could appea r a s an accep tab le a l t e rna t ive
t o the re levance of t h e Mosaic Adam. This Hermet i c man of the
"Pimander" has a lot in common with Adam of the Genesis. (2) T h e
Florent ine Neoplatonists, primarily Ficino and Pico del la Mirandola - inspired by the magical passages of t h e Hermet i ca - s e t u p a new
philosophy, in which t h e "dignity of man" was strongly connected t o a
program of turning man into a powerful, c r e a t i v e magus. Ya tes asser ted
t h a t t hese thinkers "emerge not primarily a s 'humanists', not even
primarily a s philosophers, but a s magin.' (3) T h e magical exul ta t ion of t h e
f i rs t Renaissance Magi soon g a v e way t o social concerns a s they s t a r t e d
dreaming about t h e general reformat ion of t h e world, a g rea t instauration
of sc iences , and var ious forms of cha r i t ab le work for mankind. It is easy
t o recognize t h e program of t h e Rosicrucians in this description, who,
because of t h e s t i f fening a tmosphere of t h e new or thodoxies (both Cathol ic
and Pro tes t an t ) a t t h e beginning of t h e seven teen th century, had t o remain
in seclusion. But their a i m s and ideals a f f ec ted t h e methods of new
investigations of t h e scient i f ic revolution a s well a s t h e format ion of t h e
ea r ly scient i f ic societ ies and academies. (4) This is how w e can see t h e
change from magic t o sc i ence a s a more o r less linear development: "If
t h e Renaissance magus was t h e immedia te ances to r of t h e seventeenth-
cen tu ry scient is t , then i t i s t r u e t h a t 'Neo-platonism' a s in terpreted by
Ficino and P ico was [...I t h e body of thought which, intervening between
t h e Middle Ages and t h e 17th cen tu ry , prepared t h e way fo r t h e emer -
gence of science". 10
This concept a lso f i l tered through into contemporary fiction. Looking
a t t h e magus-novels of t h e past f ew decades w e can easily discover t h e
kind of apologet ic cultural-anthropological approach t o magic which has
been s o cha rac te r i s t i c of t h e r ecen t ly prevailing history of ideas. Let us
i l lus t ra te th is wi th t w o novels, a his tor ical o n e se t in t h e t i m e of
Paracelsus, and ano the r o n e in which t h e contemporary se t t ing evokes t h e
spirit of Paracelsus himself. Marguer i te Yourcenar ' s T h e Abyss (1968) I I
o f fe r s in the s to ry of Zeno a complex analysis of human existence. T h e
hero (an amalgam of Paracelsus, Giordano Bruno, Michael Se rve t and
others) represents the Renaissance thinker who pursues "magia naturalis,"
a subject def ined by t h e seventeenth-century ant iquar ian Elias Ashmole a s
follows:
It enables Man t o understand t h e Language of the Creatures , a s t h e chirping of birds, lowing of beasts, e t c . T o convey a spirit in to an image, which by observing t h e influence of heavenly bodies, shall become a t r u e oracle ; and yet th is is not any wayes Necromanticall , o r Devilish; but easy, wonderous easy, Natural1 and ~ 0 n e s t . l ~
The history of Zeno does not c e n t r e around a major t h e m e such as the
hunt for gold or t h e passion for omnipotence. T h e hero represents t h e
genuine searching spirit who i s thrown into the crosscurrents of sc ient i f ic
ideas and supers t i t ions and t r i e s t o find his way in t h e inte l lectual laby-
rinth of his age. And this would not be s o hopelessly difficult if h e were
not also caught in t h e dire network of political forces, religious convic-
tions, and social prejudices. This is how t h e young ambit ious scient is t
becomes a disillusioned, burnt-out exis tent ia l philosopher, determined t o end
on t h e s t a k e of t h e Inquisition. A s t h e au thor herself explains:
On a purely intellectual level, t h e Zeno of th is novel, stil l marked by scholasticism, though react ing against it , s t ands halfway between t h e subversive dynamism of the a lchemists and t h e mechanis t ic philosophy which i s t o prevail in the immedia te future , between he rmet i c beliefs which postula te a God immanent in all things and an a theism barely avowed, between t h e somewhat visionary imagination of t h e s tudent of cabal is ts and t h e mater ia l is t ic empir ic ism of t h e physician. (Author 's note, p.355)
T h e role of Renaissance magic a s presented in Yourcenar's novel corres-
ponds t o t h e verdict of cul tural historians. Paracelsus ' magical medicine,
for example, is seen a s a precursor of modern science, a kind of groping
towards t h e progressively b e t t e r lit a r e a s of logical thinking and experi-
mental investigation, a lbei t stil l d immed by fa lse concep t s which them-
selves can b e useful ca t a lys t s of sc ient i f ic progress. Zeno himself pro-
poses such an opinion:
"Do not a t t r ibu te more worth than I d o t o those mechanical feats ," Zeno said disdainfully. "In themselves they a r e nei ther good nor bad. They a r e like ce r t a in discoveries of t h e a lchemist who lusts only for gold, findings which d i s t r ac t him from pure science, but which somet imes se rve t o advance o r t o enr ich our thinking. Non cogi ta t qui non experitur". (p.334)
Another contemporary novel, Davies's T h e Rebel Angels (1981) 13
approaches t h e Paracels ian philosophy from a more mystically or iented
viewpoint, and his plot, s e t in a modern university, turns " the groves of
academe' ' in to t h e s i t e of a supernatural comba t between Sa tan ic
diabolism and pious white magic. The demonic forces a re evoked by
desires and high ambition, a s is paradigmatic in all magus-stories. We
also have the obligatory pattern of the sceptic scientist who in the course
of events will have to reevaluate his concepts radically; the mild believer ;
the diabolic Satanist; and here also the white magician, this t ime a
biologist-genius who tr ies on Paracelsian principles to turn science back
from "slicing the ham'' to the questions of the big, mysterious wholeness.
The object of desire is a gifted, beautiful student, Maria Theotoky,
who is enchanted by Renaissance mysticism and who also enchants every-
body. There a r e two men, however, who feel even stronger passions than
the gusto for an a t t rac t ive female: an unpublished Rabelais manuscript,
representing a temptation which arouses the beast and warrior in the
otherwise harmless men of letters. Urquhart McVarish, the Renaissance
historian (also a perverted narcissist) and Clement Hollier, the distinguished
medieval scholar, a paleo-psychologist (Maria's idol) struggle for this rare
document. The fight becomes more and more fierce until McVarish
resorts t o theft, while the sober, sceptical medievalist turns t o Maria's
Hungarian-Gypsy mother, asking her t o use magic to destroy the illicit
possessor of the Rabelais letters.
This is no place to analyse the complexities of Davies's many-layered
ironies, nor his magic command of language that so evokes the thrills of
the mysterious in the reader - all the faculties which make this novel one
of the outstanding achievements of contemporary fiction. We must con-
cen t ra te on i t s carefully developed contrast between the dark torments of
passion overtaking the protagonists who finally abuse science, and the
representatives of a superior, purified striving for real wisdom. Maria is
inclined to develop in the direction of a spiritual science, while Professor
Ozias Froats is the champion of experimental verification; a s he says,
"Doubt, doubt, and still more doubt, until you're deadly sure. That's the
only way" (p.248) - but their disparate convictions seem to meet in the
synchretic philosophy of Paracelsus. Froats smiles a t the definition of the
scientist-magus suggested by Paracelsus (p.248). but his work, his scientific
achievement confirms Maria's romantic description: "Surely, Ozias Froats
works under the protection of the Thrice-Divine Hermes. Anyway I hope
so ..." (p.213).
The 'Yates thesis' was very influential for a time, but when i ts
tenets were put to the trial of detailed testing, it was rejected by most
historians of science in the course of a series o f learned debates in the
nineteen-seventies. I t was acknowledged to have been important in calling
attention to a series of neglected phenomena, but i ts underlying assumption
that magic and science are reconcilable has failed to gain credit, just as
Rudolf Steiner's propositions from an occult standpoint have remained
isolated and rejected from both sides. Paolo Rossi, who himself wrote a
study of Francis Bacon, calling him a man "from magic to science,"
formulated the essential theoretical crit icism against Yates's views - "As
years go by I am more and more convinced that to explain the genesis -
which is not only complicated but often confused - of some modern ideas
is quite different from believing that one can of fer a complete explana-
t ion of these ideas by describing their genesis".14 Others, concerned with
the details, successively questioned many of her concrete arguments,
too. 15
Who is the magician, then? Seen from the outside, he is the
representative o f an alternative way of thinking and cultivates a mode o f
perception and interpretation which works wi th analogies rather than
arguments based on observations o f causes and effects. For this reason
he seems to be of no value in the context o f scientific investigations:
"The Neoplatonists, l ike al l occultists, were never interested in matter for
i t s own sake or in general terms. Nature had value t o them either as a
symbolic system, as in hierarchies o f descent from the godhead or in
degrees o f purity ...".I6 . With these words Brian Vickers seems to finish
with the illusions o f synthesis raised by Frances Yates's interpretation of
Renaissance science. And to the question raised by Yates and her
followers, namely what to do with the double intellectual profi le of the
early scientists, with the curious blend of superstition and scientific
reasoning in their works, Vickers offers the traditional answer of the
historians of science: let us reconcile ourselves to the fact that those
thinkers, just as many of their descendants nowadays, were able to l ive
in divided and distinguished worlds. Parallel with the slowly developing
penchantfor observation, experimentation, and discursive logic, man has
retained the fossils of an alternative way of thinking which should not
become the subject o f the history of science, rather o f cultural anthro-
pology. I n Vickers' interpretation the alchemist's mind is more akin with
the primitive tr ibal magician than the simplest philosopher. Magic
becomes a variant of a religious system in this approach, and has to be
t r ea ted in t e rms of t h e s tudy of beliefs.17 Thus w e have seen t h e e f fo r t s
on both sides of magic and science t o c o m e t o a modern reconciliation,
but these e f fo r t s have proved unfounded just a s s imilar a t t e m p t s ear l ier
in t h e past. Discursive logic and intui t ive perception seem t o be again
incompatible; but t h e o the r two areas , religion and ar t , still may provide
some ground for conjecture.
The complicated love-hate relationship of magic and religion, not mention-
ing their s t ructural and functional parallels, cannot be t r ea ted here. One
quotation might well i l lustrate though t h e awareness about this aspect.
The authori ty t o b e quoted, Arthur Versluis, is a contemporary theoret ic ian
of t h e occult, and one c a n easily s e e tha t he ascr ibes importance t o t h e
esoter ic modes of thinking in a radically different way from t h e historians
of science o r t h e s tuden t s of social anthropology, o r even a modern
theologian. In his Philosophy of Magic (1986)18 Versluis considers religion
and magic two descendants of the primordial revelation:
A distinct historical pa t t e rn of division (di-vision) c a n be t r aced in t h e West, a splitting in to two camps a s it were; on t h e one hand, o n e has t h e orthodox religious form which tended t o ignore t h e necessity of individual spiritual t ransmutat ion, and on t h e other , t h e sol i tary magus o r alchemist, who o f t en tended t o ignore t h e necessity of traditional religious form. As a result, both diverged in to mater ia l is t ic o r egois t ic paths. (p.3) '9
The association of magic with l i t e ra tu re likewise implies a love-hate
relationship. T h e idea goes back t o t h e teachings of Plato, who supposed
t h e working of a mystical madness, t h e furor poeticus, in t h e inspired
poets which makes them percept ive for t h e higher reality, which is not
accessible t o ordinary people who possess only t h e ability of ra t ional think-
ing, discursive logic. This intuitive-revelatory knowledge became a power-
ful tool for t h e theoret ic ians of t h e Renaissance a s they spoke about t h e
poet a s c r e a t o r who can make something out of nothing, a s if in a super-
natural act .
Picots Orat ion on t h e Dignity of Man reasser ted t h e old gnost ic
thesis tha t t h e human intel lect was t h e ref lect ion of t h e divine mens, and
though now corrupted, through different operat ions i t c a n e leva te itself
again t o this highest level. Ar t and magic appeared a s two expressions
of t h e s a m e procedure by both sharing t h e quality of divine creat ivi ty .
It is very cha rac t e r i s t i c t ha t thei r con tempora r i e s a l ready cal led famous
a r t i s t s such a s Leonardo o r Michelangelo 'divine' , and t h a t relying on t h e
magical-neoplatonic philosophy of Finico o r Pico, a r t i s t s could c la im for
a s t a t u s equal t o t ha t of t h e magus. Among others , Si r Philip Sidney
s t ra ightforwardly c la imed tha t poe t s a r e like gods and tha t t h e qual i ty of 2 1 thei r c r ea t ion surpasses t h e perfect ion of ~ a t u r e : " E. H. Gombrich,
while explaining t h e na tu re of Renaissance symbolic images, has proved
tha t Botticelli 's P r imave ra i s not simply a painting with c lass ical mot ives
but a g r e a t magical allegory, a not t o o d i s t an t r e l a t ive of Ficino's talis-
manic magic. We find t h e s a m e inspiration of Neoplatonism and magic
in much of s ix teenth-century European l i tera ture , in Michelangelo's
myst ical sonnets, in Ronsard's na tu re hymns, in s o m e mot i f s of Spenser ' s
The Fae r i e Queene. T h e analogy with magic o f f e red new a rgumen t s in t h e
age-old d e b a t e about t h e ontology of a r t : whether i t was a conscious a c t
of imi ta t ion of a l ready exis t ing na tu re o r r a t h e r an exul ted, inspired s t a t e
of "divine madness". We c a n recognize in this d ichotomy t h e Aris tote l ian
and P la ton ic principles of a r t i s t i c creat ion.
By t h e second half of t h e cen tu ry t h e author i ty of Ar i s to t l e was
shaken: P i e r r e d e la ~ a m e ' e quest ioned his logic, and a number of Italian
humanis ts s t a r t e d a t t ack ing his aes thet ics . They c la imed t h e pr imacy of
inspiration, re turning t o t h e Neoplatonic concepts. F rancesco Patr iz i ' s
poet ics i s very cha rac t e r i s t i c for t h e period. H e hailed t h e unl imited
fantasy of t h e a r t i s t and considered il mirabile, t h e wonderful, a s t h e r ea l
e s sence of a good work of a r t . Real i ty was of l i t t le accoun t t o him, and
th is c a n b e understood if we think of t h e general in te l lec tual c l i m a t e of
t h e age: i t w a s t h e end of t h e Renaissance, t h e beginning of a g r e a t
in te l lec tual crisis, one of t h e many 'fin d e s ikcles ' , a world of "sad
people" a s Lucien Fkbvre cal led them. Similarly t o Giordano Bruno, who
proposed a re turn t o t h e sac red and ancient Egyption religion in o rde r t o
find t h e path of t r u e knowledge, Pa t r i z i also turned back and looked for
t h e lost wisdom in t h e works of Zoroaster , t h e H e r m e t i c philosophers, and
t h e magi. F o r him "poesia" becomes t h e a c t of making t h e marvelous, and
t h e poet who c r e a t e s t h i s would sha re t h e qual i t ies of God, Nature , and
an a r t i f i ce r - t o put i t simply, h e should become a magus himself. 22
Up t o t h e t i m e of t h e Renaissance t h e idea of mag ic was s t rongly
in ter l inked with religion a s well a s with art.23 With t h e proclamat ion of
a dualism be tween t h e mechanis t ic universe and t h e stil l surviving
animist ic world pic ture , th is original syncret ism became more and more
suppressed. T h e Romant i c poe t s had visions of a n animist ic cosmos, but
they did not consider themselves messengers of an outer , higher real i ty ;
r a the r they believed tha t it was themselves, their ego, which comprised
this higher reality. This egot is t ical approach is condemned by today 's
theor is ts of magic, although w e should a lso not ice tha t th is a t t i t u d e was
by no means t h e invention of t h e Romanticism. T h e crysta l l izat ion of th is
archetype, t h e Faust ian magus, d a t e s back t o t h e Renaissance, and we
even have examples of i t f rom t h e classical period, such as t h e Biblical
f igure o f Simon Magus. 24
It is t r u e tha t t h e l i t e ra tu re o f Romant ic ism proclaimed a new type
of magic, and tha t th is programme developed well in to the modern era .
There s e e m s t o b e a n enormous s t e p f rom Wordsworth's an ima ted Na tu re
t o Nerval 's a lchemy, Rimbaud's verbal magic, W. B. Yeats 's e so te r i ca and
Wallace Stevens 's Hermiticism. Their vision of the cosmos and man's
p l ace within it , however, show a s t rong cont inui ty of tradition, too. We
find the s a m e phenomena in modern painting, f rom the r a the r external ,
mot ivic fascinat ion of t h e A r t Nouveau t o the most abs t r ac t , conceptual
expe r imen t s of Kandinsky and ~ o n d r i a n . ~ ' This individualised magic,
through which t h e magician 'exal ts himself ' ins tead of exal t ing all things,
i s not approved by modern traditionalists. A wri ter like Versluis charac-
ter ises t h e magical ambit ions of a r t i s t s a s follows:
The Romant i c poets, then, s t and a s i t w e r e midway between two worlds: behind them is t h e unified t radi t ional realm, represented by the H e r m e t i c teachings, while ahead of them i s the modern e ra , t h e under- lying 'aim' of which c a n a lso b e personified in t h e form of t h e magus - albei t in th is case , r a the r than uniting the realms, e a c h seeks t o b e a sole c rea to r , sole manipulator, t o usurp t h e place of t h e Divine r a the r than t o fulfil i t , and s o in the end must m e e t wi th inevi table dissolution (note 18, p.5).
A mingling of magic and a r t t roubles not only t h e modern occul t is t ,
bu t a lso t h e modern philosopher and critic. J acques Maritain in con-
f ront ing this question, expressed most cau t ious views about t h e poet who
t r i e s t o become a magician:
... t h e thought of t h e poet ( a t leas t his subconscious thought) resembles somewhat t h e men ta l ac t iv i ty of t h e pr imit ive man, and t h e ways of magic in the large sense of th is word.
I t is easy t o slip f rom mag ic in t h e large sense t o magic in t h e s t r i c t sense, and from t h e intent ional o r spiritual union t o t h e mater ia l
or substantial one. I think that poetry escapes the temptation of magic only i f i t renounces any wi l l to power, even and first o f a l l in relation to the evoking of inspiration, and i f there is no fissure in the poet's fidelity to the essential disinterestedness o f poetic creation26
Should we end our look at modern magic and art with the same
negative conclusion as in the case of magic and science? Would that
mean that there is no perspective for synthesis in the fatal dualism of
human modes of thinking? We should make an important caveat at this
point. Our emphasis on the dualism intentioned should not induce a
nostalgic idealised image of the past. In fact, there were a great number
o f Renaissance philosophers who ridiculed belief in astrology, alchemy, and
the other mystical sciences, and they, too, continued a tradition which had
been present in European thinking since early Antiquity.
The writers of the 16th century were even more cautious. Few of
them questioned the reality of the supernatural, but we find practically
no work presenting a real magus fully achieving his goal. Perhaps
because - as Georg Luk6cs formulated - poets are always partisans who
point out the phenomena which nurse tension, conflict, or crisis in an age,
the l i terary treatment of the false magician such as Doctor Faustus is
more characteristic even for the Renaissance than the posture o f Prospero.
And even this archetype o f the white magus is treated ambiguously by
Shakespeare. Although seemingly Prospero is victorious by means o f his
high magic, and carries out all what he planned, when he realizes the
"baseless fabric" of his vision, and "of the great globe itself", he resignedly
gives up his magic, breaks his staff, and drowns his books (see 4.1.151ff
and 5.1.50-7).
While the l i terary crit icism of the past few decades was enchanted
by the idea o f a 'harmonious Renaissance,' and crit ics traced the l i terary
distillations o f a great, magical-universalist world picture following in the
footsteps o f Hardin Craig, E. M. W. Tillyard, and C. S. Lewis, most recent
l i terary historians seem to be contented with the idea o f the poet as
partisan. Deconstructionism has developed the cult of the evasive, and the
New Historicists and feminists devote themselves to the recovery of the
latent scars o f casualties and the remains o f cataclysms, even in the most
harmonious-looking works such as Shakespeare's As You Like ~ t . * ~ From
this approach, the magician and his magic take on a new character: the
features of his day-dreaming, his a l ternat ive politics, and his special
system of representation a r e emphasized and t reated a s an element in the
interplay between power and culture. T h e Magus, no longer the custodian
of an e te rna l wisdom, becomes a key figure a s somebody who ref lects on - and tr ies t o manipulate in a different way - t h e tensions and clashes of
social and intellectual power games.
It seems obvious tha t magic and in a broader sense, the occult, has
been, and is going t o be, a n al ternat ive way of looking a t the world. And
a s a coherent system (no mat te r if fa lse o r true), it i s ready t o fertilize
the arts. In fact , it is t h e a r t s which still have the potential of inter-
preting between the more and more distinctly separating epistemological
systems. The archetype of the magus is still a vital and ac t ive inspiration
for modern works, consequently it can justly become the subject of
themat ic studies. The fur ther investigation of this theme is likely to call
on virtually every discipline, and will promote ever new comparisons.
1. I wrote this essay while, enjoying a Fulbright grant, I worked in the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, in August 1987. Thanks a r e due t o the helpful s taff of both libraries and t o Professors Frank Baron and Jocelyn Godwin, who kindly read the manuscript.
2. Butler, The Myth of the Magus [I9481 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1980), p.2.
3. Godwin, Lives of t h e Necromancers: or an account of the most eminent persons in successive ages, who have claimed for themselves, or t o whom has been imputed by others, the exercise of magical power (London: Mason, 18341, pp. 1-2.
4. Atwood, Hermetic Philosophy and Alchemy: A Suggestive Inquiry into t h e Hermetic Mystery [I8501 (New York: Julian Press, 1960, facs. repr. AMS, 1984), pp.v-vii.
5. George-Charles1 ["Joris-Karl"] Huysmans, L'a-bas l18911, trans]. a s Down There 119281, repr. New York: Dover, 1972.
6. Maugham, The Magician, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967.
7. Szerb, The Pendragon Legend [1934]. English edn Budapest: Corvina, 1963.
8. S e e t h e summary in Saul Bellow's Introduction t o Steiner, The Boundaries of Natural Science: Eight Lectures given in Dornach, Switzer- land, 1920, Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophical Press, 1983.
9. Yates, "The Hermetic Tradition in Renaissance Science", in Charles S. Singleton, ed., Art , Science, and History in t h e Renaissance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1967), p.257.
10. Ibid., p.258; for a full explication of her concepts s e e Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, London: RKP; Chicago: Chicago UP,
1964, and The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, London: RKP, 1972.
11. Yourcenar, L'Oeuvre au noir [19681, transl. as The Abyss, New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1976.
12. Ashmole, Introduction to Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (London: J. Grismonde for Nath. Brooke, 1652, facs. repr. London and New York, 19671, fol.Blv.
13. Davies. The Rebel Angels, New York: Viking. 1981.
14. Rossi, "Hermeticism. Rationality. and the Scientific Revolution", in M. L. ~ igh in i -~one l l i and William ~ i ' s h e a , eds, Reason, Experiment. .and Mysticism in the Scientific Revolution (New York: Science History Publications, 19751, p.257.
15. Cf. esp. Robert S. Westman, "Magical Reform and Astronomical Reform: The Yates Thesis Reconsidered1', in Lynn White, ed., Hermeticism and the Scientific Revolution, Los Angeles: W. A. Clark Memorial Library , UCLA, 1977; and Vickers's Introduction to Brian Vickers, ed., Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1984). pp. 1-57.
16. Vickers (note IS), p.6. He further elaborates his thesis in "Analogy versus Identity: the Rejection of Occult Symbolism, 1580-16801', op. cit., pp.95- 165.
17. Cf. also Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in 16th- and 17th-Century England, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson. 1972. reDr. Pennuin University Pa~erbacks. 1973. This mono- graph makes exte.nslve use o f the methods and achi&ements of cultural anthropology (Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard, etc.); cf. furthermore Marcel Mauss, "Esquisse d'une thkorie gbnknerale de la magle" in Sociologie e t anthropologie, 2 vols. Paris, 1960; G. Kippenberg und Brigitte Luchesi, eds, Magie: Die sozialwissenschaftliche Kontroverse iiber das Verstehen fremden Denkens, Frankfurt, 1978; Leander Petzold, ed., Magie und Religion: Beitrage zu einer Theorie der Magie, Darmstadt: WB, 1978.
18. Versluis, The Philosophy of Magic, Boston and London: Arkana, 1986.
19. On the spiritual significance of alchemy see e.g. S. L. McGregor Mathers, Astral Projection, Ritual Magic and Alchemy, London: Spearman, 1971; S. Klossowsky de Rola, Alchemy: The Secret Art, New York: Avon, 1973; Frank A. Wilson, Alchemy as a Way of Life, London: Daniel, 1976; Mircea Eliade, The Forge and the Crucible: The Origins and Structure of Alchemy, 2nd edn, Chicago: Chicago UP, 1978.
20. See Sidney, An ed. C. Churton Collins (Oxford: Clarendon, 1907, repr. 196 I), p.9.
21. See Gombrich, Symbolic Images: Studies in Renaissance Iconology, 1948-1972. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1985; esp. "lcones Symbolicae ...". 22. Cf. Bernard Weinberg, A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago: Chicago UP, 1961), Vol.11, pp.772-5. Although not referring to the figure of the magus (implicit in Patrizi's work), he demonstrates the mechanism of Patrizi's logic. For Patrizi cf. also Tibor Klaniczay, A manierizmus, Budapest: Gondolat, 1975, transl. into German as Renaissance und Manierismus: Zum Verhaltnis von Gelsellschaftsstruktur, Poetlk und Stil, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1977.
23. See Angus Fletcher, Allegory: The Theory of a Symbolic Mode (Ithaca and London: Cornell UP. 1964. reDr. 1986). Ch.1V: "Allenorical causation: Magic and Ritual ~ o r h s " , ip.18i-220. Fletcher's o p i n i i runs counter to traditional definitions of allegory, which describe i t as didactic and definitely non-mystical; his evidence justifies his thesis, however.
24. For the Faustus myth (so vast as to be better skirted here) see, besides the various & bibliographies, P. M. Palmer and R. P. More, The Sources of the Faust Tradition, New York, 1936, and esp. E. M. Butler, The Fortunes of Faust [1952], Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1979.
25. See Maurice Tuchman, The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890- 1985 [exhibition essays], Los Angeles: County Museum of Art, 1986. - 26. Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (New York: Pantheon, 19531, p.232. Maritain does not favour magic entering into the realm of poetry; he does not rule out the encounter of the two either, though considering i t as a danger greatly amplified by the prevalence of rational- ism in the modern world, cf. also p.233.
27. Cf. e.g. Alvin Kernan, The Playwright as Magician: Shakespeare's Image of the Poet in the English Public Theater, New Haven: Yale UP, 1979: Adrian L. Montrose. "The Pur~ose of Plavinn: Reflections on a ~hakes~earean ~ n t h r o ~ o l o ~ ~ ' ~ , Helios 7 (1980), 51-74- (with special reference to The Tempest); and generally the rapidly growing New Historicist criticism.
VICTIMS OF THEIR OWN CONTENDING PASSIONS: UNEXPECTED DEATH I N ADOLPHE, NANHOE,
AND WUTHERING HEIGHTS
Terence Dawson (University of Singapore)
Crit ics have long argued about the precise definition of a l i terary theme.
If, as many would contend, a theme describes the main subject o f a given
work, then the unexpected death of one o f the main characters might not
at f irst appear to be a theme; perhaps the word mot i f would be more
appropriate.' But i f "lovers' meetings and partings at dawn" may be seen
as a theme, then so too can the manner in which a character dies2 This
essay examines the deaths o f three characters in very different works of
the romantic period. Each ends with a death: Adolphe (18161, by
Benjamin Constant, ends with the death of 611dnore; Sir Walter Scott's
lvanhoe (1819) ends with the death of Bois-Guilbert; and Wuthering
Heights (1847), by Emily Bronte. ends with the death of Mr Heathcliff.
I n each case, the death is crucial to the novel's resolution, is unexpected,
and is the consequence o f a violent inner conflict. My premises are
unusual to the extent that crit icism often assumes that the characters o f
a narrative may be seen as individuals, each existing in his or her own
right. In contrast, I want to argue that klldnore, Bois-Guilbert, and Mr
Heathcliff represent an aspect of the personality of one o f the other
characters in the novels in which they respectively feature. I call the
latter figure the axial character, by which I mean to imply that a l l the
other characters in the novel are directly related to this character's con-
cerns. The axial character is not necessarily either the hero or heroine
of the novel in question. By examining these works from such an angle,
I hope to demonstrate that the deaths with which they end are so inter-
linked with their main subject that they deserve to be considered as a
theme in the fullest sense, and not just as a motif.
Novels invariably trace an evolution in the axial character. In
novels wi th only two or three main actors, the hero and the axial
character are usually identical. But where there are several protagonists,
the hero is not always the character most changed by the events. In such
cases, I shall argue, the hero's experiences can be shown to correspond to
a dilemma facing the axial character. This implies that the novel reveals
t w o fundamental ly d i f f e ren t 'levels' of f ic t ional representa t ion; in o the r
words, t h a t t h e re la t ion be tween d i f f e ren t p a r t s of a na r r a t ive i s essen-
tially p ~ y c h o l o ~ i c a l . ~ T h e axia l c h a r a c t e r m a y thus b e def ined a s t h e
c h a r a c t e r whose decisions and ac t ions shape t h e narra t ive , and t h e main
plot of a novel, a s a symbol ic representa t ion of t h e d i l emma facing t h e
axia l c h a r a c t e r in t h e opening chapters .
In Adolphe, t h e axia l c h a r a c t e r is - a t leas t in o n e sense - t h e hero/
na r r a to r of t h e events . But t h e axia l c h a r a c t e r s in lvanhoe and Wuther ing
Heights a r e f igures whose funct ion in t he i r r e spec t ive novels has not been
suff ic ient ly apprecia ted. My intent ion i s t o reveal t h e connect ion be tween
t h e na r r a t ive s t r u c t u r e s of t hese novels and t h e psychological d i l emma
facing thei r axia l cha rac t e r .
"La Mort dans I ' lme"
In t h e ve ry f i rs t c h a p t e r of Adolphe, t h e hero-narra tor t e l l s us t h a t "I'id6e
d e la m o r t [...I m'avait f r appe trBs jeune".4 When 6116nore t e l l s him s h e
would p re fe r not t o s e e him again, h e pleads wi th he r not t o abandon him,
for h e imagines sepa ra t ion f rom h e r a s d e a t h (pp.136, 158). She, too,
r evea l s t h a t s h e is a f r a id t h a t he will sooner o r l a t e r abandon her , and
imagines th i s a s leading t o he r own d e a t h "<<De manikre ou d ' au t r e , m e
dit-elle enf in , vous pa r t i r ez b i en t6 t I...] J e ne s a i s quel pressent iment m e
di t , Adolphe, q u e je mourra i dans vos bras>>" (p.142). Adolphe's decision
t o accompany he r t o Poland s o tha t h e c a n l eave he r wi th he r family
coincides wi th h e r fa ther ' s d e a t h (p.167) and, a l though h e likens thei r
relationship a t t h i s juncture t o t h e wi the red leaves on an uprooted t r e e
(p.168), h e con t inues t o delay "l ' instant fa ta l" of ac tua l ly abandoning her
(pp.192, 194). Finally, h e de t e rmines t o d o so; s h e s imul taneously fa l ls
s ick and dies, whereupon h e loses i n t e re s t in l i fe and a lso w a s t e s away.
Although t h e 'anecdote' is ostensibly published only a f e w yea r s a f t e r t h e
even t s i t records, both Adolphe and klle'nore a r e dead. Dea th i s perhaps
t h e dominant t h e m e of ~ d o l p h e . ' My a im is t o show how ~116nore ' s
dea th corresponds t o t h e 'death' of an a spec t of Adolphe's unconscious,
and tha t t h e novel 's s t r u c t u r e i s de t e rmined by t h e na tu re of t h e d i l emma
facing him.
It is not because Adolphe is a first-person na r r a t ive tha t Adolphe
may b e def ined a s t h e axia l cha rac t e r , bu t because t h e e v e n t s correspond
t o his decisions. 6116nore i s neve r a n agen t ; s h e neve r i n i t i a t e s a
situation. Even her decision t o re turn t o Poland - a turning point in t h e
act ion - is subject t o Adolphe agreeing t o accompany he r ("elle n'irait e n
Pologne que si je I'accompagnais", p.164). T h e even t s a r e a t all t imes
determined by his decisions. His urgent solicitations win Ellinore; his
vacillation causes their equivalent unhappiness ("douleur"), and his decision
t o break with her brings about t h e dhnouement. That t h e even t s a r e
shaped by his decisions confirms tha t h e is t h e novel's axial character .
A t t h e outset of t h e cen t ra l 'anecdote' Adolphe has never been in
love before; h e has never known love a s "ce transport des sens, c e t t e
ivresse involontaire, c e t oubli d e tous les intCrbts, d e tous les devoirs"
(p.163). 6116nore is defined by he r s t a t e m e n t "L'amour e'tait t ou te m a
vie" (p.198). She yields completely t o her love for him, abandoning every-
thing she has in order t o b e with him. She thus personifies J& definition
of love. She wakens him t o love. Her sole desire i s tha t h e should
cont inue t o love her. He would like to, but cannot. He ceases t o love
her - in t h e sense h e defines love - even before h e has won he r "toute
entikre" (p.137). Adolphe is a love-story whose cen t ra l cha rac te r is unable
t o love t h e woman t o whom he a t t aches himself.
Given tha t Adolphe's relationship with ~116nore is seen throughout
from his point of view, t h e novel c a n b e said t o show an ambivalent
challenge facing him. He must e i the r cement his relationship with her in
order t o overcome social opposition t o their union (p.150) o r h e must f r ee
himself from her in order t o begin his c a r e e r (p.172). The tragedy ensues
because h e is unable t o do either. In real life, such a di lemma would not
imply t h e necessary dea th of both partners. Tha t i t should d o so in this
novel suggests tha t their relationship is conditioned by psychological
factors.
Adolphe's initial infatuation with ~ l l e n o r e s t e m s from t h e sight of
his friend's happiness in love. H e wants t o experience a s imilar happiness
himself (p.117). For him, however, "bonheur" resul ts not from loving
someone else, but f rom being loved ("je veux e t r e aim6" p.119). He te l ls
her: "J'ai pris I'habitude d e vous voir; vous avez laiss6 n a h r e e t s e
former c e t t e douce habitude: qu'ai-je f a i t pour perdre c e t t e unique
consolation I...] je dois vous voir s'll faut q u e j e vive" (p. 131). The "douce
habitude" which h e seeks t o preserve has nothing in common with his own
definition of love. Adolphe knows tha t h e must leave E116nore if he is t o
s t a r t a ca ree r ("entrer dans une carrikre. I...] commencer une vie active",
p.1621, and y e t n o necessary reason i s g iven why h e should not s t a r t a
c a r e e r wi th 6l l6nore a s h is mistress. T h e r eade r i s expl ic i t ly told t h a t s h e
won widespread r e spec t for t h e support s h e g a v e t h e c o m t e d e P*** when
h e fell on hard t imes (p.119). We c a n a s sume tha t s h e would have helped
Adolphe in a s imilar way. T h a t h e f e e l s s h e i s incompat ible wi th his
s t a r t i ng a c a r e e r t e l l s us nothing about ~ l l d n o r e ; but i t does te l l us a
g r e a t dea l about t h e way h e 'sees' her. His need ("besoinn) t o see a
woman fo r whom h e i s unable t o mainta in love, his passivity, and his
equat ion of leaving he r and s t a r t i ng his professional life, all reveal t h e
na tu re o f h is image o f her: Adolphe unwit t ingly invests ~ l l d n o r e with
t h e a t t r i b u t e s of a mother . This does no t necessarily imply tha t h e has
a f ixat ion wi th h i s own mother , nor does i t signal regression in Freud's
s ense of th is word. I t mere ly indicates t h a t h e su f f e r s f rom what P i e r r e
J a n e t (1859-1947), t h e F rench psychologist, ca l led "un sen t imen t
d'incomp16tude" and tha t t h e resul t ing "besoin" which h e f ee l s is compensa-
t ed in h i s imaginat ion by a mother-figure. 6
Angered by his f a the r ' s 'measures' t o h a v e ~ l l e ' n o r e expel led from
Pa r i s (p.1571, Adolphe abandons h i s country . This is t h e turning point
which l eads d i r ec t ly t o t h e tragedy. A f t e r s e t t l i ng br ief ly in Bohemia, h e
follows he r t o Poland - her coun t ry - where h e l ives on he r e s t a t e . H e
i s n o longer ab l e t o begin a ca ree r : "Si j e voulais reassais i r mon courage,
m e d i r e q u e I'kpoque d e I'activite' n 'k ta i t pas e n c o r e passke, I'image
d ' ~ l l 6 n o r e s 'dlevait devan t moi c o m m e un f a n t h e , e t m e repoussait dans
le nkant"; h e f ee l s l ike "un a t h l e t e c h a r g i d e f e r s au fond d'un cachot"
(pp.173-4). Be tween him and h i s own vocat ion s t ands k116nore a s a
devouring Mother. A s such, s h e r ep resen t s t h e dea th of h is own virility.
In o t h e r words, by following ~ l l k n o r e back t o Poland, Adolphe brings about
t h e tragedy. It i s crucia l t o note , however, t h a t k l l6nore does not want
t o b e c a s t a s a mother. S h e fo rces Adolphe t o a c c e p t he r 'sacrifice' of
abandoning t h e secu r i ty s h e enjoys wi th t h e c o m t e d e P***, and t o accep t
responsibility for her willingness t o d o s o (p.146-7, 151). When h e hesi-
t a t e s , s h e insists t h a t h e i s responsible fo r he r increas ing b i t t e rnes s
(p.165). In t h e l e t t e r which s h e wri tes , but which s h e l a t e r begs him
never t o open, s h e indicates t h a t i t is up t o him "who does not love her",
t o l eave h e r (p.205). ~ l l d n o r e is not t ry ing t o e v a d e he r own responsibility.
S h e a c c e p t s t h e anx ie ty which his vaci l la t ion causes her; s h e even a c c e p t s
t h a t t he i r relationship will end wi th he r death . S h e assumes c o m p l e t e
responsibility for her feelings. She wants Adolphe t o d o t h e same, for
only by doing so could h e respond t o her a s a partner.
It has long been recognized tha t ~ l l d n o r e is an ambivalent character ,
but t h e distinction between ~ l l d n o r e a s she is and ~ l l d n o r e a s Adolphe sees her has not always been insisted on. She seeks recognition and accep tance - by Adolphe a s a lover, a s his mistress, whereas he seeks a relationship
wlth someone on whom h e c a n lean (p.136). If one c a n describe ~ 1 1 6 n o r e in t h e l a t t e r capaci ty as a mother-figure, then one requires a t e rm t o
describe ~116nore "as s h e isn.
The most striking fea tu re about t h e two main charac te r s is the
unusual number of a t t r ibu tes they share. Adolphe describes himself a s
wanting only t o enjoy his "natural and impulsive feelings" ("impressions
primitives e t fougueuses" p. 110); a s constantly day-dreaming (p. 1 12); a s
o f t e n morose and taci turn (p.113); and yet , perhaps consequently, a s
inclined t o le t his tongue run away with itself (p.114). ~ l l 6 n o r e has
identical qualities:
souvent e l le i t a i t rgveuse e t taci turne; quelquefois e l le parlait a v e c impdtuositi . I...] e l l e ne restai t jamais parfai tement calme. Mais, par ce la m&me, il y avai t dans sa manikre quelque chose d e fougueux e t d'inattendu qui la rendait plus piquante ... (p.121).
Adolphe's t e r ro r of forming new t ies (p. 11 I ) ant ic ipates 6116nore's reiuc-
t ance t o become involved with him (p.134) and, from t h e moment they
become lovers, t h e di lemma facing them is identical. For Adolphe, staying
with 6116nore implies a social and professional dea th (pp.140, 144, 154,
160-1, 162, 173-4, etc.); leaving her would mean personal and emotional
dea th - indeed, when she dies, h e qui te literally cannot live without her.
In s imilar fashion, 6116norets liaison with Adolphe implies he r own social
death; being abandoned by him would, and does, entai l her physical death.
The events, however, a r e seen throughout from his point of view, and
Adolphe idealizes her: " J e la considdrais c o m m e une c rea tu re c6leste.
Mon amour tenai t du cuite" (p.137). Tha t i ~ ~ d n o r e ' s a t t r ibu tes correspond
so closely t o key aspec t s of Adolphe's character , and tha t t h e relation-
ship is described from hls point of view, suggests tha t she represents an
aspect o f his personality. In he r capaci ty a s a potential par tner , she
corresponds t o t h e anima a s defined by Jung: t h e figure of a woman, in
a man's d reams and waking fantasies, which represents his unconscious
image of women. 7
It is with ~ l l6nore in her capacity as anima that Adolphe falls in
love when he meets her for the first time. And yet, although she
continues to personify his definition of love, his infatuation with her
quickly evaporates. I t is ~lle'nore as a potential partner whom he cannot
love. And the reason would seem to be because he has a tendency to
'project' maternal attributes onto her. He cannot accept her as she is.
Thus, ~116nore as anima is 'dead' before they consummate their affair.
Her premonition that she will die in his arms is a reflection of the
'death' she has already undergone in his unconscious. Adolphe can only
relate to a woman whom he invests with maternal attributes.
I f Adolphe's inability to reciprocate kl~dnore's love and his inability
to establish himself in a profession are related, and are directly responsible
for the deaths of the two main characters, then the opposite must also
be true. Had he been able to love ~l ldnore, he would also have been able
to begin a career - in which case, they both would have lived. Thus
Adolphe's inability to maintain his love for Ellenore is crucial, for the
narrative traces an ambivalent challenge facing him. On the one hand,
i f he is to end his emotional isolation, he must cement his relationship
with ~ l l6nore as anina; on the other, i f he is to start a career - which
he sees as the beginning of "une vie active" (p.172) - then he must leave
her (i.e. as mother-figure). This paradox can only be resolved by distin-
guishing between the 'two' ~lle'nores: ~lle'nore as she is, and ~ l l ~ n o r e as
he sees her. I t is Adolphe's inability to relate to ~ l ldnore as anima which
leads to both her death and his.
Death thus serves as a link between the novel's structure and the
dilemma facing the axial character. The novel ends when ~ l ldnore learns
that Adolphe intends to return to France without her. She dies of grief.
The editor's 'frame' implies that Adolphe dies because he cannot live
without her, but the narrative tells us that he dies simply because he
cannot respond to ~116nore as a potential partner. Adolphe has an intima-
tion of love ("Charme de I'amour ...'I, p.1391, but even as he does so, he
cannot believe in his own commitment ("Malheur a qui, dans les bras de
la maftresse qu'il vient d'obtenir, conserve une funeste prescience, et
pr6voit qu'il pourra s'en ddtacher ! ", pp. 137, 153). ~l ldnore's death
corresponds to the death of his anima (= soul, h), and the anima
represents a man's psychic life.8 Adolphe's inability to respond to
k ~ ~ k n o r e signals that a vital aspect of his inner world cannot operate
because o f his need for the nurturing figure o f a Mother. The central
'anecdote' is a dramatisation of the dilemma facing Adolphe in the novel's
first two chapters.
I 1 Death o f the Shadow
lvanhoe is a startlingly different kind of f iction from Adolphe, and yet no
less characteristic o f the romantic imagination. I t is usually considered
from the t i t le hero's polnt o f view, but there are a great many reasons
for questioning whether he is the central character. In none o f the three
great scenes is his function immediately clear. When the novel opens, he
is on his way to a tournament at Ashy-de-la-Zouche, and yet he has
neither horse nor armour, and no explanation is given of why he wishes
to be there. He neither instigates, nor is he an actor in, the siege o f
Torquilstone. Although he plays an important part in the outcome of the
tr ia l by combat at Templestowe, he does not bring i t about: Rois-Guilbert , the Knight Templar whose violent passions are perhaps the most striking
feature o f the novel, dies unscathed by his lance.g Although the plot
revolves around their rivalry, no reason is given why lvanhoe so dislikes
the Templar, nor is there any indication o f what he achieves by the
latter's death. O f what lvanhoe feels, and what motivates him, the reader
learns almost nothing. I f novels invariably trace a transformative
experience, one notes that the title-hero is unchanged by the events o f
Scott's novel.
There is perhaps no better clue to the subject o f a novel than a
comparison of i ts opening with i ts ending. A t the outset, lvanhoe has been
disinherited in order to keep him away from Rowena (p.196); at the end,
he regains his father's favour and marries her. And yet, i f one asks what
is effected in the closing pages, it is not that lvanhoe has won the bride
for whom he has struggled; nor that he has finally defeated the Templar.
I t is that the various offending elements in Norman rule have been
defeated, and that the Saxons hostile to the Norman yoke have accepted
the existent order. The two races have become one: the English (p.515).
Moreover, the character who is most 'changed' by the events is not
Ivanhoe, but his father, Cedric o f Rotherwood. A t the outset, Cedric is
violently opposed to any links with the Normans. A t the end, he accepts
the existing reality. My aim is to reveal that the axial character is
Cedric, and to demonstrate that the rivalry between Ivanhoe and Rois-
Guilbert represents a confl ict between two aspects of Cedric's unconscious
personality. The Knight Templar's death, I argue, represents the death of
Cedric's alter-ego; i t paves the way for him to renounce his unrealistic
ambitions o f restoring a Saxon monarchy.
The most obvious r ivalry in the novel is between lvanhoe and Rois-
Guilbert, who is determined to avenge the defeat he suffered at the
tournament at Saint John of Acre (pp.54-5). lvanhoe has assimilated the
best o f Norman practices, and thus represents the desired union - i.e. the
emergence o f an English, as opposed to either Saxon or Norman, nation.
Bois-Guilbert represents, not the Normans, but the Templars. The ef fect-
ive opposition, then, is not between Saxons and Normans, but between a
notion of Englishness and the Knights Templar. The hurrahs at each of
the three great scenes confirm this. The batt le cries on the second day
of the tournament at Ashby are "Desdichado" and "For the Temple"
(p.137). A t Torquilstone, the battle cries on the outside are "St George
for merry England" and, on the inside, for the three leaders, amongst
whom is the Templar (p.312). The final major scene of the novel opposes
"the royal standard of England" and "the Temple banner" (p.508). As the
Templars retreat, the shout is raised: "Long L i f e to Richard with the
Lion's Heart, and down with the usurping Ten~plars!" (p.511). With their
preceptory disbanded, the way is paved for the hostile distinction between
Saxon and Norman to disappear completely.
I f the greatest change effected by the no;el concerns Cedric, and
Bois-Guilbert personifies hosti l i ty to the union of the two races in one
nation, i t is worth looking closely at their relation. The nature o f this
is suggested by the startl ing number of attributes that they have in
common. Both men are irascible. Prior Aymer, speaking to the Templar,
describes Cedric as "proud, fierce, jealous, and irritable'' (p.26). Only a
few pages later, on being informed that the two Normans are at his gate
requesting hospitality, Cedric muses:
"Bois-Guilbert! That name has been spread wide for both good and evil. They say he is valiant as the bravest of his order; but stained with their usual vices - pride, arrogance, cruelty and voluptuousness - a hard- hearted man, who knows neither fear of earth nor awe o f heaven." (p.38 )
The parallel is suggestive. One notes, moreover, that Bois-Guilbert's
qualities are an extreme version o f Cedric's. The Saxon's valour is a kind
of recklessness, as in his assault on Torquilstone without the protection of
armour (p.333); the Templar's valour s tems from an overbearing confi-
dense in his own military skill (pp.261, 336). Cedric's t reatment of Gurth
and Fangs is the result of a hasty temper rather than a native tendency
to cruelty; although not naturally "hard, selfish, and relentless". Bois-
Guilbert admits t o having become so since being spurned by Adelaide d e
Montemare (p.253). Cedric's voluptuousness extends only t o a well-laden
table; whereas Bois-Guilbert, in spite of having taken vows of chastity.
has a sensual love of women. Cedric's hard-heartedness towards his son
is unnatural; Bois-Guilbert's hard-heartedness towards Rebecca is both
callous and brutal.
But the most significant parallel is that both men dream of unreal
future states. Cedric believes in the possibility of a restored Saxon
dynasty. Bois-Guilbert dreams of establishing an order of Templars with
"wider views" than those of i ts founders (p.255). Cedric's dominating
ambition is t o see his ward, Rowena, married to Athelstane, thus joining
the two strongest claimants to a Saxon monarchy: "The restoration of the
independence of his race was the idol of his heart, t o which he had
willingly sacrificed domestic happiness and the interests of his son" (p.195).
It is for this reason that he impugns Norman rule. His ambitions take no
account of Rowena's feelings:
It was in vain that he at tempted t o dazzle her with the prospect of a visionary throne. Rowena, who possessed strong sense, neither considered his plan practicable nor a s desirable, so fa r a s she was concerned, could it have been achieved. (p.197)
Bois-Guilbert joined the Templars a f te r being disappointed in love, and
immediately became a leader of those who impugned the authority invested
in i t s high officers (p.395). He tr ies to dazzle Rebecca with a similar
prospect, which she also derides:
"Thou shalt be a queen, Rebecca: on Mount Carmel shall we pitch the throne which my valour will gain for you, and I will exchange my long-desired batoon for a sceptre !'
"A dream," said Rebecca - "an empty vision of the night, which were it a waking reality, a f fec t s me not." (p.442)
The linguistic parallel between these two passages suggests that t h e manic
intensity of Cedric's ambitions for Rowena corresponds t o Bois-Guilbert's
daemonic love for Rebecca. Cedric's inner conflict finds i t s counterpart
in t h e Templar .
Such paral le ls a r e t o o c lose t o b e fortuitous. Given tha t t h e novel
spans a change of a t t i t u d e by t h e Saxon leader , they suggest t ha t Bois-
Gui lber t r ep re sen t s an e x t r e m e a spec t of Cedr ic ' s personality. O n e no te s
t ha t Cedr i c is unaware t h a t h e has s o many qual i t ies in common with t h e
Templar . T h e re la t ion be tween them thus corresponds t o t h e re la t ion
which Jung distinguished be tween t h e e g o and t h e dream-f igure which h e
cal led t h e shadow and which personifies " the 'negat ive ' s ide of t h e person-
a l i ty , t h e sum of all t hose unpleasant qual i t ies w e like t o hide".1° T h e
shadow i s not necessar i ly evil , just a s t h e Templa r is not evil. It personi-
f ies a spec t s of a n individual's personal i ty which h e o r s h e does not see ,
and does not wan t t o see , in him- o r herself.
T h e plot is s e t in mot ion when lvanhoe and Bois-Guilbert m e e t a t
Rotherwood. lvanhoe recognizes his fa ther , but Cedr i c does not recognize
his son, who i s disguised a s a palmer. If Ivanhoe personifies t h e union
of Saxon and Norman qual i t ies , and i t is th is which i s brought about a t
t h e end of t h e novel, t hen Cedr ic ' s inability t o recognize him symbol izes
t h e Saxon leader ' s inability t o a c c e p t t h e union of t h e t w o races. lvanhoe
thus r ep resen t s an a s p e c t of h is f a the r ' s 'unconscious' personality. One
no te s t h a t i t is Cedr ic ' s pride, irascibili ty, and ambi t ions (= aspec t s of his
shadow personality) which a r e responsible for h is repressing both his
na tu ra l a f f ec t ion fo r his son, and his des i r e for a uni ted kingdom.
Although both Ivanhoe and Bois-Guilbert a r e mil i tary men, a t Rotherwood
both a r e wear ing t h e d re s s of a religious order . Such ambivalence
suggests t h a t t he i r r ival ry belongs t o a n essent ia l ly symbol ic level of
representa t ion. This is co r robora t ed by thei r encoun te r a t a tournament ,
a symbol ic conf l ic t pa r excel lence. Vis-a-vis Cedr ic , t he i r r ival ry symbol-
izes a conf l ic t be tween 'light' and 'dark' a spec t s of h is unconscious
personality.
T h e ending of t h e novel s ca rce ly requires any comment . Ivanhoe
a r r ives just in t i m e t o de fend R e b e c c a from being burned a s a witch.
A f t e r a hard ride, and stil l suffer ing f rom his wound, h e i s in n o f i t s t a t e
t o joust. H e i s ne i the r responsible fo r t h e dea th of Bois-Guilbert, nor
does h e ach ieve anything by it. T h e Templa r dies, "a v ic t im t o t h e
violence of h is own contending passions" (p.5061, which signals t h e end of
Cedr ic ' s ambitions.
Thus, although lvanhoe may be t h e hero, Cedr i c i s t h e novel's axial
character . T h e even t s d o not t r a c e a son's difficult relationship with his
fa ther ; t hey o f f e r a symbolic representat ion of a fa ther ' s d i f f icul ty in
submit t ing t o something which his 'son' symbolizes. There i s no reason
why t h e motif o f dispossession must r e fe r to t h e disinherited party; it c a n
also be seen from t h e o the r point of view. Cedr i c has disinherited his
son. Ivanhoe personifies a repressed qual i ty ('Englishness') which Cedric
must acknowledge if h e , i s t o f r e e himself f rom a n a t t achment t o a
redundant o rde r - i.e. a Saxon nation. Bois-Guilbert personifies all those
tendencies in Cedric's personality which h e must 'overcome' if h e i s t o
d o this. It is nei ther Ivanhoe nor Providence which kills t h e Templar.
Bois-Guilbert's dea th is a symbolic ant ic ipat ion of Cedric's accep tance of
t h e exis tent real i ty of t h e world in which h e lives - a real i ty which,
because i t i s synthetic, i s a lso more dynamic than e i the r a Saxon o r a
Norman nation.
This in terpreta t ion not only provides a link between t h e major change
spanned by t h e na r ra t ive e v e n t s and t h e novel's conflict, but it a lso
suggests t h a t lvanhoe i s a much more important novel than is usually
thought. A charac te r i s t i c of Go th ic and Romant i c fiction i s fo r t h e he ro
o r heroine t o b e drawn towards a n unreal world of archetypal characters .
In Ivanhoe, t h e opposi te occurs. Cedr i c is not t empted t o t r y t o marry
Rowena himself; consequently, Ivanhoe (= his b e t t e r nature) i s not
t empted t o want Rebecca fo r himself. Rut Cedric's ambit ions fo r Rowena
a r e nonetheless manic, and the re i s a dark s ide - a n unacknowledged
egocentr ic i ty - t o even a n a l t ruis t ic ambition. Bois-Guilbert's daemonic
love fo r Rebecca - surely t h e most vivid e l emen t in t h e novel - symbol-
i zes t h e unreal na tu re of Cedric's 'romantic' plans for a res tored Saxon
dynasty. Ivanhoe's re ject ion of Rebecca thus r e f l ec t s t h e b e t t e r s ide of
t h e axial cha rac te r ' s personality: Cedric ' s refusal t o be drawn into t h e
world of archetypal fantasies, no m a t t e r how powerful and appealing these
might be. Thus, if t h e tendency t o b e drawn towards t h e symbolic (i.e.
t h e archetypal) may b e descr ibed a s cha rac te r i s t i c of t h e romant ic imagination, lvanhoe may be cal led a n 'anti-romantic' novel.'' Although
lvanhoe i s o n e of t h e mos t s tyl ized of roman t i c heroes, h e functions a s
a promoter of realism. Paradoxical though i t might seem, Ivanhoe i s a
romance whlch refuses to bel ieve in romance.
111 Death o f the Father
The deaths o f Cathy and Mr Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights are at once
the most impressive and the most extraordinary in romantic fiction. The
novel opens wi th a date, 1801, when Mr Heathcliff is the undisputed
master o f both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, while Hareton
and the second-generation Catherine are at each other's throats. The
antepenultimate chapter also begins with a date: 1802. The reader learns
that Mr Heathcliff 's unexpected death a few months after the init ial
events coincides with Catherine making her peace with Hareton and
acknowledging him as her "cousin."12 I shall argue that the simultaneity
o f these two otherwise separate events is a key to the two deaths which
l ie at the heart o f this novel.
Given that Wuthering Heights ends with Catherine's engagement to
Hareton, i t is worth looking closely at the way in which she is introduced.
In November 1801, she is living amongst three hostile men in a house
which appears t o be hateful to her. Cr i t ics have frequently commented
on Lockwood's ineptitude in the opening scenes; they all too rarely
consider the cause for this. Although Catherine is described as the
"missis," she simply stares at him "in a cool, regardless manner, exceeding-
ly embarrassing and disagreeable" (p.8). She refuses to play the part of
a hostess. She rejects any connection with her surroundings. She refuses
to enter into a normal social interaction. She is gratuitously offensive to
both Lockwood and Hareton, and she snaps at her father-in-law.
The most striking feature o f chapters I 1 and 111 is that the attributes
of each o f the three male residents o f Wuthering Heights correspond to
an aspect o f Catherine's personality. The house itself is defined as a
"perfect misanthropist's Heaven'' (p.1); Catherine has become a perfect
misanthropist. I ts three male residents are grim and taciturn; so is
Catherine. Joseph, aptly described as "vinegar-faced" (p.7), is a model of
"peevish displeasure" (p.2); so too is Catherine. Although a gentleman,
Mr Heathcliff is a savage bully who wi l l snap at Catherine and even
strike her; Zillah says o f Catherine, just before the events wi th which the
novel begins: "She'll snap at the master himself, and as good as dares him
to thrash her; and the more hurt she gets, the more venemous she grows"
(p.298). Hareton is characterized by his "free, almost haughty'' bearing;
Catherine is ''as chil l as an icicle, and as high as a princess" (p.296). The
three male residents thus 'mirror' primary aspects of Catherine's character.
M r Heathcliff's and Hareton's misanthropy (pp.1, 6, 9) reflect her lack of
interest in Lockwood (p.8). Hareton's absence o f any refinement reflects
her scorn of social conventions such as hospitality and domesticity (pp.9,
28-29). Joseph's pharisaism reflects her self-righteous contempt for al l
around her (p.297).
Lockwood is captivated by "the pretty girl-widow" whom he sees at
Wuthering Heights, and seeks to find out more about her from Nelly.
Although hlrs Dean chooses to begin her story from the very beginning,
all of i t - including the earliest events - is an explanation of how
Catherine came to be in the horrendous circumstances in which Lockwood
discovers her. The novel begins wi th a description of a household whose
three male inmates reflect aspects o f her personality, and ends with her
engagement. And the second half explains how she came t o be imprisoned
at Wuthering Heights.
Catherine grows up in total isolation at Thrushcross Grange. Apart
from the Grange servants, her father is the only man whom she knows
and, apart from Nelly Dean, her nurse, he is her only teacher and com-
panion. When she is thirteen - i.e. at puberty - he leaves her for the
f irst time. She is immediately drawn towards Wuthering Heights, where
she meets Hareton. She is happy to have him show her "the mysteries of
the Fairy cave" (p.1971, but as soon as she learns that he is her cousin,
she behaves l ike a spoiled brat (pp.194-5, 222). She rudely rebuffs him;
she cannot bear the thought that she is related to someone so unlike her
father. "'Papa is gone to fetch my cousin from London - my cousin is a
gentleman's son,"' she tells him, and returns home i n a sulk (p.195).
Linton is "an ailing, peevish creature" (p.182) who looks remarkably l ike
Edgar: he "might have been taken for [Edgar's] younger brother, so strong
was the resemblance" (p.200). He also possesses the qualities of intellec-
tual capability which Catherine associates wi th her father. She is drawn
to him because he is her "real cousin'' (p.199). In other words, she
rejects Hareton, her maternal cousin, in favour o f Lindon, her paternal
cousin.
Catherine can only value what she can associate wi th her father.
Edgar is always uppermost in her mind (p.273). The more he dominates
her thoughts, the more she seeks a relationship in which she can "with
some slight coaxing" dominate Linton - i.e. someone l ike her father
(p.242). Edgar's responsibility for Catherine's preference is implied by his
words t o Nelly: "hard though i t b e t o crush he r buoyant spirit , I must
persevere in making her sad while I live" (p.257). He does not mean to;
h e i s simply unconscious of t h e damage h e has done he r by bringing her
up in comple te isolation. In themat i c and psychological terms, Cather ine 's
imprisonment s t e m s from her ove r -a t t achment t o her fa ther .
Cather ine 's history t r a c e s t h e consequences of her "fantas t ic prefer-
ence" for Linton r a the r than Hareton (cf. p.100). Her s e c r e t relationship
with him d raws h e r increasingly f requent ly towards Wuthering Heights until
s h e i s bruta l ly imprisoned by Mr Heathcl i f f , in order t o fo rce her t o mar ry
Linton, his son. Mr Heathcl i f f te l ls her: "I shall b e your f a the r to-
morrow - all t h e f a the r you'll have in a f ew daysn (p.271). Immediately
a f t e r Edgar Linton's funeral, " that devil Heathcliff" comes t o col lect he r
f rom Thrushcross Grange: "'I'm c o m e t o f e t c h you home'", h e te l ls her,
"'and I hope you'll b e a dut i ful daughter '" (pp.286, 287). He i s - a s Nelly
Dean phrases i t - "her new father'' (p.291, cf . p.271). Ca the r ine finds
herself a lone in a n alien masculine house, feel ing "like death" (p.294). She
has lost c o n t a c t with he r own home, and can no longer manifes t ordinary
f emale qual i t ies (p.299). This i s h e r s i tuat ion in 1801. And tha t t h e t h r e e
ma le res idents of Wuthering Heights r e f l ec t a spec t s of her own personality
suggests tha t t h e re la t ion be tween he r and i t s ''surly indigenae" is essen-
tially psychological. T h e Mr Heathcl i f f encountered in t h e opening
chap te r s is a n archetypal tyrannical fa ther . I t i s no coincidence tha t
Hareton also acknowledges him a s his f a the r - his "devil Daddy" (p.109,
cf. p.321).
T h e novel's extraordinary symmet r i e s thus per ta in t o t h e second-
generat ion Catherine. She i s f aced by a "choice" between t w o cousins:
Linton, who looks l ike he r fa ther , and Hareton, who "is a t t a c h e d [ to Mr
Heathcl i f f ] by t i e s s t ronger than reason could break" (p.321). Her cho ice
implies a choice be tween two fathers : Mr Linton, a benign fa ther , and
Mr Heathcl i f f , who is also a father-figure. A t t h e ou t se t of t h e novel,
Cather ine 's 'benign' f a the r i s dead, and both s h e and t h e l eg i t ima te owner
of Wuthering Heights a r e dominated by a devilish father-figure.
Thus, somewhat surprisingly, o n e notes t h a t Cather ine 's history does
not require t h e e v e n t s of t h e f i rs t -generat ion t o explain it. T h e second
half of t h e novel o f fe r s a qu i t e suff ic ient explanat ion of Cather ine 's
s i tuat ion in 1801. Such a reading implies t h a t t h e first-generation e v e n t s
should b e seen in re la t ion t o those in t h e second-generation, and not - a s
their chronology suggests - vice versa. The first part of Nelly's story
culminates in Cathy's death, barely two hours after giving bir th to
Catherine. Given that Catherine is "a puny, seven months' child" (p.164).
the novel's central scenes (those between Mr Heathcliff's return to the
vicinity of Gimmerton in September 1783, and Cathy's death on the night
of 19th-20th March, 1784) correspond to Catherine's gestation. They
provide a 'prehistory' of Catherine's condition: they symbolize Catherine's
dilemma throughout the winter o f 1801 - her inabil i ty to see her way out
o f her predicament. One remembers that Catherine is at Wuthering
Heights while Nelly tells Lockwood her story. Cathy's yearning to return
to Wuthering Heights in "1784" which leads inevitably to her death,
symbolizes Catherine's irrational resignation to remaining there in "1801-
1802.11~~
This suggestion is corroborated by the simultaneity o f the events
which bring the novel to a close. Nelly's story finishes with Zillah's
account o f Catherine's gratuitously offensive behaviour towards Hareton
("I can't endure you! I'll go upstairs again, i f you come near me" p.296).
Lockwood thereupon decides to return south. While visiting Wuthering
Heights for the purpose o f taking his leave, he overhears Catherine
tormenting Hareton unti l the lat ter can bear i t no longer and slaps her
(p.302). As her cousin leaves the room, Mr Heathcliff enters and
comments on Hareton's resemblance to Cathy (3.303). In September 1802,
while holidaying in the north, Lockwood learns that Catherine's reconcilia-
t ion wi th Hareton coincided with Mr Heathcliff seeing Catherine's
resemblance t o Cathy (pp.320-322). Thus, as soon as Catherine stops
whining about her father and begins to adopt an independence similar to
that which motivated her mother, Mr Heathcliff loses his grip on reality
and wastes away. His death frees her not only to repossess her home, but
also to marry Hareton.
I t is generally assumed that the events in the 'first generation'
determine those i n the 'second generation.' Rut the structure given us
by Emily Bronte - as opposed to that reconstructed by crit ics according
to i ts chronology - suggests that Catherine is the novel's axial character;
that the 'main plot' concerns her unconscious attempt to free herself of
a tyrannical father. She frees herself from the degradation she suffers
at Mr Heathcliff's hands only when, recognizing that she is "stalled" (i.e.
has no other course open to her), she acknowledges Hareton as her cousin.
Mr Heathcliff thereupon loses his hold on her, and dies. In o the r words,
a s soon a s Cather ine recovers something of her mother 's archetypal
vitality, she f rees herself f rom a psychological imprisonment by a tyran-
nical father.
The coincidence of t h e beginning of Mr Heathcliff 's s t r ange behaviour
and Catherine's change of a t t i tude towards Hareton implies tha t these
even t s a r e related. It suggests tha t t h e t w o men a r e personifications of
different a spec t s of Cather ine 's unconscious personality. Hareton corres-
ponds t o Jung's definition of t h e animus, t h e image of a man in a
woman's dreams and waking fantasies which personifies her notions about
men and masculine 'spirit.'14 One remembers tha t Wuthering Heights is
identified with Hareton throughout t h e novel: his name is carved above
i t s door. The inmates of Wuthering Heights ref lect different a spec t s of
Cather ine 's animus. Paradoxically, she is 'imprisoned' the re only so long
a s she re jec t s any relationship with Hareton, whose ignorance symbolizes
he r ignorance of t h e world of men. S h e seeks t o educa te him, because
educat ion is t h e highest value she has inherited from her father. She does
not understand tha t Hareton's worth & his rough good nature. It i s not
for h e r t o seek t o change him according t o notions derived from her
fa ther , but t o respond t o him a s h e is. For only by doing so could she
respect tha t pa r t of her own uncultivated na tu re which is no less feminine
for not being associated with conventional notions of femininity. Only by
accept ing Hareton a s h e is could she accep t herself a s she is.
Instead, s h e seeks t o dominate him, just a s Cathy, her mother,
thought tha t Heathcliff would obey her in everything. When she accep t s
Hareton a s her cousin, i t i s because she has c o m e t o accept him a s an
extension of her own personality. One notes tha t this is how Ca thy
thought of Heathcliff ("I 9 Heathcliff"). There a r e good reasons, then,
for supposing tha t t h e engagement with which t h e novel ends is "con-
trary'' - t h e last words given t o them in t h e novel (p.307) - for i t r epea t s
t h e t r ag ic pa t t e rn evident in t h e first-generation events. Thus Ca the r ine
has not resolved t h e di lemma facing he r in t h e opening chapters. She has
merely obtained a respi te f rom t h e "degrading oppression" she suffers a t
Mr Heathcliff 's hands. T h e novel's ending is considerably more ambivalent
than tha t of Ivanhoe. T h e engagement contains t h e seeds of fu tu re dis-
cord, with a suggestion tha t t h e ou tcome will b e similar t o tha t in t h e
first-generation - i.e. t h e dea th of t h e heroine.
My main intention has been to illustrate that the deaths of ~lle'nore,
Bois-Guilbert, and Mr Heathcliff require consideration of their psychologi-
cal implications. The analyses imply that each of the three novels we
have discussed begins with a challenge facing its axial character (to relate
to 6lle'nore; to overcome Bois-Guilbert; to acknowledge Hareton) and
continues with a symbolic dramatisation of the resulting dilemma. In each
case, the death with which the novel ends represents the death of an
aspect of the axial character's personality. The 'contending passions'
from which Cll&ore, Bois-Guilbert, and Mr Heathcliff die are directly
related to a change of attitude by Adolphe, Cedric, and Catherine respect-
ively. For this reason, from such a psychological perspective, death has
many possible meanings. It may signal the axial character's failure to
integrate a psychic element, as in Adolphe, or the successful overcoming
of a negative tendency in the axial character's personality, as in lvanhoe
or Wuthering Heights. The latter achievement can be either lasting, as
in Ivanhoe, or only tentative, as in Wuthering Heights, whose ending hints
at a possible future tragedy. From these readings, it is evident that the
unexpected deaths which bring about their different resolutions are an
integral part of each novel's main concern, and in this sense, may be
regarded as a major theme of each work.
1. For a discussion of this problem, see Holger Klein, "Autumn Poems: Reflections on Theme as 'Tertium Comparationis"', in Proceedings of the Xlth lCLA Congress, Paris 1985 (forthcoming).
2. Arthur Hatto, Eos: An Enquiry into the Theme of Lovers' Meetings and Partings at Dawn in Poetry, The Hague: Mouton, 1965.
3. Thus although the axial character may be defined as the character from whose point of view the narrative events are seen, my definition does not fit with the point of view theories of either Genette, Ra!, or Lanser. Nonetheless, Susan Lanser's recognition that the sex of a narrator is an im~ortant asvect for consideration anticbates the distinction I make: see The ' ~ a r r a t i v e ' Act: Point of View in prose Fiction (Princeton: Prince- ton UP, 1981), p.47. See also her criticism of Genette, p.37.
4. Adolphe, ed. Paul Delbouille (Paris: soci6t6 "Les Belles Lettres," 1977), p.112. Subsequent references are to this edition.
5. See John Middleton Murry, The Conquest of Death, London: Peter Neville, 1951.
6. For a discussion of this notion, see C. G. Jung, The Collected Works, ed. Sir Herbert Read (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953-761, vo1.3, pars. 171-2.
7. See Jung, op. cit., vo1.9, pt.ii, pars.20-29.
8. Jung, op. cit., vo1.9, pt.i, par.66.
9. Ivanhoe, ed. A. N. Wilson (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1982). p.506. Subsequent references are to this edition.
10. Jung, OD. cit., vo1.7, par.103, note 5.
11. See Joseph E. Duncan, "The Anti-Romantic in Ivanhoe," Nineteenth- Century Fiction 9 (1955): 293-300.
12. Wuthering Heights, ed. Ian Jack (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1981). p.313. Subsequent references are to this edition.
13. See my article, "An Oppression Past Explaining: The Structures of Wuthering Heights," in Orbis Litterarum, forthcoming.
14. See Jung, OD. cit., vo1.13, pars.57-63.
DIALOGUE WlTH THE DEAD: THE DECEASED BELOVED AS MUSE
Elisabeth Bronfen (University of Munich)
v Woman is not a poet: She is either
Muse or she is nothing (Robert Graves)
Death is the actual inspiring Genius or the Muse o f Philosophy (Schopenhauer)
I. A Fatal Exaggeration
In Berlin, on the night o f December 29, 1834, Charlotte Stieglitz (aged
twenty-two) sent her husband Heinrich to a concert in order to be alone
while committ ing an incredible act. A f te r having washed, dressed in a
clean white nightgown and placed a white cap on her head, she went to
bed and there stabbed herself clirectly in the heart with a dagger she had
bought as a bride.' In her farewell note, Charlotte suggested that her
suicide be understood as an act of self-sacrifice meant to inf l ic t such pain
and sense o f loss on her manic-depressive husband that he would break
free from his psychic lethargy. I n this way she hoped to liberate his
petrif ied poetic powers. His wife's violent death would enable him to
regain what he had lost - his self and his poetic genius.
Although Charlotte's death failed to inspire a new phase o f poetic
creativity in her husband, i t did make her into a public Muse. Triggering
a 'vicarious' pain, her suicide provoked a plethora of interpretations from
her contemporaries. Some saw her sacrifice as an act of 'true feminine
genius,' bridging the gap between flesh and spirit, others as an attempt
to renew not only her husband's stif led energies but in fact the suppressed
or thwarted efiergies o f an entire generation of Germans suffering under
the constraints o f Biedermeier society. On the other hand, opponents of
the writings of the Jungdeutsche, who idealized her death, saw her suicide
as an emblem o f the dangers of free morals. Far more striking than the
ideological intentions inherent in the texts wr i t ten about her, however, is
the fact that Charlotte, who had never had any public role during her l i fe-
time, came by her suicide to leave such an impressive mark in the public
realm. One has the impression that in i ts Biedermeier garments, her dead
body became the site for the interpretive inscriptions o f her survivors - inscriptions that say more about those interpreting than the object being
interpreted.
Susanne Ledanff suggests that what makes Charlotte's story so com-
pelling is that she took the bombastic metaphors of self-obliterating love,
heroism, self-sacrifice, and liberation of the soul from the body seriously,
rather than treating them as quotations from previous cultural texts; that
is, she made the fatal mistake of applying literary conventions to her own
personal history. Yet even more disquieting, and for a critic also more
fascinating, is the strange mixture of seduction by a false pathos of
romantic and pietistic delusions and the calculation of effect inherent in
her act, the doubling of deluded victim and consciously responsible
actress. For she exposes the conventions of feminine self-sacrifice at
exactly the same moment that she fatally enacts them. Far from being
innocent or naive, her suicide is pregnant with literary citations; in fact
it is a clichk - suggestive of both Werther's and Caroline von Guenderode's 2 suicides after failed romances, of the iconography of sacrificial brides and
martyrs dressed in white, for whom death is a mystic marriage and an
erotic unity with God, as well as that of women dying in childbirth. At
the same time her act perverts the image of the selflessly devoted house-
wife by introducing violence into the idyllic bedroom, by adding self-
assertion to self-submission. Her act of self-sacrifice is so disquieting
because it is both an imitation of c~tltural clichks, hovering between irony
and kitsch, and a self-conscious effort to make herself into an object of
discourse.
Due to the exaggerated manner in which she performed her suicide,
however, this act also lays bare several implications of the traditional
notion of creative power as an external gift bestowed upon a chosen artist
by his Muse. For one, her act suggests that death transforms the body
of a woman into the source of poetic inspiration precisely because it
creates and gives corporality to a loss or absence. Since her gift to the
poet is the removal of her body, what occurs is the exchange of one loss
for another, the implication being that her presence has displaced his
poetic genius. This equation reveals the central dichotomy of the Muse-
artist relation: the poet must choose between a corporally present woman
and the Muse, a choice of the former precluding the ~ a t t e r . ~ That is to
say, what must occur is the transformation of a direct erotic investment
of the beloved woman into a mitigated one (of the same woman who is
now absent, or of another woman who never was present). The distance
thus created by loss, the shift from presence to absence, opens up the
space for poetic creation. I n this respect the relation between Muse and
artist is, of course, only an augmentation o f the prerequisite of symboliza-
t ion in general. As Jacques Derrida explains "What opens meaning and
language is writ ing as the disappearance o f natural presence".4 Yet
although any form of absence would suffice, the death o f the beloved is
i ts perfect embodiment, i t seems, because i t secures the distance and the
loss for ever. In an uncanny manner Stieglitz seems to collapse Graves's
definition of woman's relation to art: by making her self 'nothing' she
makes herself into the ult imate incorporation o f the Muse.
A t the same time Charlotte's suicide, and the rhetoric surrounding
it, point to the interconnection between artistic renewal as a form o f
giving bir th and death. She and Heinrich both call her act a Caesarean
which saves the child while destroying the mother. Through her death she
hopes to mother the genius o f her husband while at the same time endow-
ing him with the faculty of giving birth. For his poetry, wr i t ten "in
memory of" the deceased, by invoking and making present her who is
absent, w i l l be a rhetorical animation o f the dead beloved.' The dis-
turbing twist Charlotte's suicide gives to the relationship between artist
and Muse is the suggestion that poetic renewal - that is, the bir th of the
poet - necessarily entails someone else's death. Extreme as her form o f
self-textualization might be, i t is nevertheless only an exaggeration o f the
changed conception o f the Muse that informs the nineteenth-century
imagination. In order to discuss the inversion that occurs here i t is
necessary, however, to recall the original function ascribed to the Muse.
While i t is not clear whether in classical Greek culture the Muse had
an objective divine reality or was merely a projection, a familiar and
convenient metaphor for the creative process, her invocation points to a
conception of the poet's g i f t as being dependent on an appeal to a higher
power other than itself. Divine inspiration was the designation given to
that element in poetry which exceeded craftsmanship, and the exchange
between poet and Muse implied a moment o f loss of Self and possession
by an Other. The Muse was thought to speak through the poet, making
him the medium of her speech. She was mother to the poet in the sense
that she l i terally inspired by singing her material to him - that is, she
animated his poetic ability by breathing her song into him. As Plato in
the famous passage in Phaedrus explains, the Muse was the source o f
divine possession or madness, stimulating the lyr ic poet's untrodden soul
t o r ap t pass ionate expression: "glorifying t h e count less might deeds of
ancient t imes for t h e ins t ruct ion of posterity".6 On t h e o the r hand, for
a poet not t o acknowledge t h e holy breath of t h e Muses a s quintessential
t o poet ic c rea t ion and t o depend on his skill a lone was t o result in poe t i c
fa i lure and public oblivion. T h e self-sufficient poet and his work would,
in Plato's words be "brought t o nought by t h e poetry of madness I...] thei r
p lace I...] nowhere t o b e found". For a mythic version of t h e Muse's
in tolerance fo r rivalry one could c i t e t h e s to ry of Thamyris, a s found in
Homer. Because h e boasted that h e could surpass them in a compet i t ion,
t h e Muses maimed him, taking away his "voice of wonder'' and thus making
him a "singer without memory". 7
Ecstat ical ly devoted t o t h e Muse, t h e poet 's u t t e rances were a lso
meant t o glorify her, t hus suggesting t h e occur rence of a two-way
exchange. For t h e Muse's g i f t t o t h e poet allows him t o give birth t o a
t e x t celebrat ing her. Tha t is, s h e inspires o r an ima tes his poet ic power
s o tha t h e may, by v i r tue of his invocation, in turn r ean ima te t h e Muse.
A s a f igure of inspiration, s h e is d i r ec t ly addressed, and thus se rves a
threefold function in this poet ic dialogue. She is simultaneously maieut ic
producer, object of reference, and privileged addressee of t h e poet 's speech.
In addition s h e is a lways incomplete ly accessible, a lways beyond reach.
For t h e rhetor ic of invocation, a lways one of apostrophe, requires her
absence while a t t h e s a m e t i m e making t h e lack of presence, t he d i s t ance
of t h e addressee, i t s privileged t h e m e and causing her, a s t h e object
reanimated by t h e poet 's speech, t o t a k e on t h e s t a t u s of presence-in-
absence (life-in-death), a kind of double presence.8 What is important t o
s t ress , however, i s t h a t t h e Muses w e r e t h e daughters of Zeus and
Mnemosyne - goddess of memory. Thus t h e apostrophe not only served t o
render t h e bodily absent addressee present, but also through her t o make
present an absent past knowledge o r a l t e r io r truth. T h e Muses not only
ini t ia ted t h e poet in to pass ionate expression, a s Hesiod's archetypal re la t ion
of his poe t i c expe r i ence a t t h e foot of Mount Helicon suggests, but a lso
se rved a s t h e source of knowledge outs ide t h e poet 's realm of experience. 9
P o e t s invoked t h e Muses t o m a k e present what they were not present t o
see, needed them t o remember , including tha t which was never par t of
the i r own personal history. Pu t ano the r way, by addressing t h e absent
Muse, t h e poet a t t e m p t e d t o ove rcome his absence a t previous historical
events , his lack of comple te knowledge.
In the course o f the centuries, the v i ta l i ty attr ibuted to the Muse
paled, as Steele Commager puts it, into an abstraction, so that one could
characterize her "biography as the history of a fading metaphor".10 What
in Classical Greece was a conviction became in Augustan Rome a conceit.
By assigning to the Muses a merely decorative status or seeing them re-
incarnated in specific human beings, as Propertius does when he declares
his mistress Cynthia's folly to serve as source and subject o f his poetry,
the poet, as Commager argues "no longer feels himself the creature o f
some higher power, but assumes that his own creative potency is suf-
ficient"." That is to say, in the same rhetorical move that gives a
concrete body to the Muse, secularizes her so to speak, she is denied that
divine power which would be other and more encompassing than the poet's.
As such she becomes a figure for the poet's peculiarly own poetic powers,
mothering genius that is innate rather than inspired; a metaphor for the
poet as "possessing a special abil i ty rather than as possessed by it", with
the apostrophe addressing "his own peculiar I n the late Middle
Ages Dante takes up again the tradition of invocation, and he too trans-
fers the role o f the Muse to a real woman, Beatrice, who, by virtue o f
his idealization and her early death, is corporally never accessible. The
change from the Muse as metaphor for a divine inspirational source to
that of metaphor for the poet's singular g i f t is also visible in Petrarchan
love poetry. As Silverman points out, the fixed distance between lover
and Muse, which functions as a precondition for poetic production, has the
effect o f transforming the lady into a divine signifier, "pointing beyond
herself to Godn, l 3 thus asking the reader to concentrate not on the woman
but on that toward which she leads. The Muse is thus not only reduced
to a rhetorical figure, but to the allegorical pretext for a signifier other
than herself.
2. Reanimating a fading metaphor
What is remarkable about the Romantic inversion o f the poet-Muse relation
is the fact that the status of Muse is transferred again onto a corporally
existent beloved, only now she is dying or already dead. The thematic
interplay between poetic creation and loss, distance, o r absence of the
beloved is thus given a new twist: the rhetorical invocation refers quite
l i terally to a female body, as though not only the poet's gift, but also the
fading metaphor were to be reanimated. Yet i n the course of this re-
conception several important changes occur. It is no longer the poet,
daring to disown the Muse, who is punished for his audacity, but instead
the woman chosen to be Muse. What she gives is not her song but rather
her body and her life. And though it is her death which inspires the
poet and takes possession of him, whether it provokes the experience of
ecstasy or the production of narratives, the concept of possession has also
taken on a duplicitous character. For while the original act of taking
possession and giving birth to the poet is mimicked, the Romantic inversion
is in fact an example of the poet's taking ultimate control over the
departed woman.
The questions with which I want to confront several nineteenth-
century texts involving the inspirational power of a dead beloved are thus
aimed both at the function and at the reference or signifier of this
image. Roland Barthes suggests that to stage absence in language is to
remove the death of the other I...] to manipulate absence is to prolong the
moment I...] where the other will move from absence to death. l4 But
when the object of this invocation is already dead, whose death is being
deferred? Is the invocation of the dead beloved an attempt to preserve
her artificially against death, or an attempt to eternalize the poet's skill?
Whose triumph is it, when the poet reanimates and resurrects a dead
beloved, and what desire is enacted when the artist defies the irrevoca-
bility of death? Above all, what is ultimately being signified by this
dialogue? While on the one hand the addressee of this invocation is a
beloved woman quite literally dead, she simultaneously serves a figurative
function, namely as metonymy for death.
Once again the focus slips between her and where she leads. We
thus have another duplicitous situation, for although she is being reanima-
ted, she is likewise being effaced again when used as an emblem for
something else, to which she is (in the end) incidental. Again one could
say that this is involved in every form of translation, a process which, as
J. Gerald Kennedy explains, "entails duplication and effacement, a re-
tracing which both mirrors the original and abolishes it in the sense that
every translation sacrifices the letter of the original text to reconstitute
its spirit in another language."15 In the invocation of the dead beloved,
however, the original seems to be effaced more than once, literally by
virtue of her death, and rhetorically not only because she is replaced by
a text, but also because she serves an allegorical function amid this
replacement. For i f the reference to the figure is the concrete death o f
a woman, i t seems that more than just a rhetorical or textual convention
is involved.
Novalis's f irst mention of Sophie von Kiihn's death is a stark entry
in his diary on March 19, 1797 - "This morning half past nine she died - 15 years and 2 days His reactions to her death, the satisfaction
he obtains from his mourning are, however, minutely recorded in his
journal over a period of three months, from Apri l 18 through July 6. As
though to stage textually the intermediary position which a dialogue with
the departed Sophie implies, everything appears twofold. He counts by two
dates - the calendar day and the days since Sophie's death, thus emphasi-
zing that her death is both an end and a beginning. His ambivalent
emotional reaction, a cross between sadness, psychic petrif ication and
happiness, revivification, is duplicated by a style which is both pragmati-
cally sober and enthusiastically idealizing. One has the impression he is
trying in an impartial and distanced voice to keep minutes of the changes
in his emotional state as he records his acts o f remembrance, while at the
same t ime attempting to transmit the ecstatic revelation Sophie's death
provokes. Conjuring up her image in his mind or visiting her grave
becomes a means by which to keep her alive as addressee o f their dialogue,
making her present in absence. This dialogue, however, is two-way, for
his invocation animates him as well - he is "von ihrem Andenken belebt." l7
I t is meant to serve the purpose o f being "ganz bei ihr," in the sense o f
sharing the place in which she is now, i.e. to make her grave his own.
Because above all the dead Sophie, semanticized as his soul, his inner or
better life, his angel, serves as a kind o f Doppelganger, signifier not only
for a departed beloved but also for the part o f the self lost at birth, from '
which he feels alienated during his conscious, earthly existence. A t the
same time, she also metonymically stands for death, so that his ef for t to
reanimate her i n order to be with her is the rhetorically displaced
expression of his desire for the original state o f identity and unity before
the dynamic difference and opacity inherent to life; that is to say, his
desire to be reunited wi th her also articulates his longing for reunion with
a 'lost' self, for the anorganic peace o f death.
The name he gives t o Sophie i n a short text written in 1796 - Klarisse - indicates that she never was a l iving body alterior to himself
but rather always a mirror for self-reflection, clear, transparent and cold,
in short an image of deathlike quality. Her death thus only finalizes what
she was all along: a figure (not a living woman) serving his narcissistic
self-projections, whose signified belongs t o the paradigm of death. Because
he makes t h e dead Sophie t h e central axis of his life from which h e can
draw power, meaning a s well a s a new chronology ("she is t h e highest - t h e only being I...] everything must be brought in relation t o her idea")18
she inspires both an intensive self-absorption ("incessant thinking about
myself and what I feel and don) and the idea of suicide a s liberation.
This duplicitous desire recalls the image of the self-engrossed (and self-
possessed) Narcissus wilfully pining away as he tr ies t o become identical
with his image projected on the water's surface.
Her loss translates into his gain because it opens a wound that is the
prerequisite for any s t a t e of desiring - "A lover must feel the gap
eternally, t h e wound must always be kept open. Let God preserve for
ever I...] the wistful memory - this brave nostalgia - the male decision and
t h e firm belief. Without my Sophie I am nothing - with her
As a perennial 'loss' she becomes the secure measure on which his inter-
pretation of the world and his self-definition can be based, a void he can
fill with explanations and poetic texts. At t h e same t ime her death
endows his existence with a new meaning because i t allows him qkite
explicitly t o concentrate on where a reunion with her would lead. The
wound her death inflicts is not to be filled, a s Charlot te Stieglitz's
mimicry had intended it to be, with narratives a s an ac t of self-assertion
in and for the world, but rather a security that h e will imitate her act.
His self-assertion is not defiance against, but rather an embracing of
death's triumph. To Schlegel he writes. "Nevertheless, I experience a
secret joy a t being close t o her grave. It draws me ever closer I...] i t
is very clear t o m e what celestial coincidence her death is - a key t o
everything, a wonderfully adequate m o v a n 2 ' That is t o say, by dying
Sophie performs an exemplary ac t he can then emulate. As Muse she is
not only meant t o show him the way to his poetic voice but also t o lead
him in his flight from the world. Her death not only opens t h e wound
that secures desire, but also marks the promise that his longing will be
quenched.
His descriptions of his sojourns a t her grave suggest that he wishes
to be possessed by her, made into her object, sucked out in order even-
tually t o become identical with her (whereby, slnce she is his double, this
is in fact a displaced form o f self-absorption). In "Hymen an die Nacht,"
her duplicitous nature is explicit ly understood as that of a bloodsucking
revenant. He reanimates her so that she may deanimate him, a form of
reversed birthgiving: "tender beloved I...] you made me into a human - draw on my body with ghostly ardor so that I aerial may mingle with you
more intensely and our wedding night last forever." 22 In all o f his invoca-
tions the beloved merges with the image o f the mother, suggesting that
a reunion would be the repetition of the symbiotic union with the
maternal body, and death a second birth, so that the invoked Sophie
recalls the semantic tr iad Graves assigns to the Muse: mother, seductress,
and death. Although his dialogue with the dead Sophie is part o f the cult
o f the distant and unattainable woman, i ts charm for him lies in the fact
that it allows him t o imagine a cancellation of the distance between him
and the state for which the departed beloved stands: self-obliteration,
eternal continuity, resolution of tension, movement, difference, and desire.
Turning to Edgar Allan Poe's treatment of the dead beloved as Muse,
we find an interesting shift in focus. As Marie Bonaparte suggests, his
wife, Virginia Clemm, "served as the unwitt ing Muse who first called Poe's
genius as a writer o f imaginative prose to life." 23 The pale young woman
dying of tuberculosis repeatedly functioned as model for his half-dead,
prematurely buried, or (through metempsychosis) resurrected heroines
Madeline, Morella, Bernice, and Ligeia. A t the same time, Virginia's ill-
ness, which forbade any direct consummation of erotic desire, inspired
those texts in which the fascination for a woman is dependent precisely
on her unattainability - that is, her being physically absent while present
when remembered or artistically recreated. In contrast to Novalis, who
reanimates a dead beloved precisely because he wants to be made the
object o f death's desire, Poe's various speakers hold an intermediary
position, balanced between an embrace o f death and a successful denial
or repression of it. The continued bond with a departed lover marks death
not as the sought-for goal but rather allows the speaker to acknowledge
both the mysterious way in which death penetrates the world o f the living,
while using his poetic inscriptions to f i l l the gap created by loss. L ike
her predecessors, Virginia, whether as model or as implicit addressee,
serves as a signifier for the poet's own psychic states, wi th the focus
again on where she leads. The important difference is, however, that her
invocation now has as reference the ambivalent states of psychic petri-
f ica t ion caused by a n obsessional clinging t o t h e dead and t h e hopeful
de f i ance of o r t r iumph o v e r dea th by v i r tue of poet ic inscription.
A comparison of t h e poems "Ulalume" and "Annabel Lee" will help
i l l u s t r a t e t hese t w o variations. In t h e f i r s t poem,24 t h e speake r descr ibes
his involuntary r e tu rn t o t h e vaul t of h is beloved Ulalume. While h e has
repressed all memory of he r death , signaled by his not recognizing t h e
pa th h e i s moving along, s h e i s preserved in t h e form of an incorporation
in h i s unconscious, poet ical ly rendered a s a n a m e "on t h e door o f t h i s
legended tomb." In what c a n b e unders tood a s a s e m a n t i c reversal of
Novalis's v is i t s t o Sophie's grave, t h e speake r dep ic t s himself a s unwitting-
ly possessed by t h e dead, h is r e tu rn a s a n unconscious obsession.
Ulalume's vampir is t ic hold, fur thermore, s t a n d s in d i r e c t r ival ry t o Psyche,
represent ing t h e soul's s ea rch for a new e r o t i c a t t achmen t , s o tha t he r
warning "let u s fly" r ema ins unheeded. What P o e descr ibes is t hus a
psychic impasse, f o r whi le t h e dead beloved d raws t h e speake r t o he r t omb ,
binding him so tha t h e i s not f r e e t o find an a l t e rna t ive ob jec t of des i r e
among t h e living, s h e does not lead him t o death. While P o e l eaves
unexplained t h e kind of e r o t i c s a t i s f ac t ion such an a r r e s t of libidinal
dr ives enta i l , h e makes expl ic i t t h a t t h e speake r i s in a dupl ic i tous
position, ne i the r d i r ec t ed toward t h e living nor willing t o g ive up l i f e -
t h a t is, exper iencing dea th by proxy, in t h e sense t h a t h is incorporat ion
of t h e dead beloved tu rns his emot iona l s t a t e i n to a 'death-in-life.'
"Annabel Lee", 25 implicitly addressed t o Virginia, c a n b e r ead a s t h e
jubilant coun te rpa r t t o t h e obsessive-compulsive form of memory.
Although t h e speake r invokes his lost br ide in o rde r t o ideal ize t he i r love,
t h i s recol lect ion u l t ima te ly se rves t o i l l u s t r a t e his imaginat ive gnd poet ic
powers, by v i r tue of which h e p l aces himself beyond t h e na tu ra l law of
death . T h e r a r i t y of t he i r love - "more than love" - consis ts for o n e thing
in i t s exclusivity: "she lived with n o o t h e r thought t han t o love and b e
loved by me." T h e measu re of i t s value lies in t h e f a c t t h a t i t both
a t t r a c t e d t h e covet ing envy of t h e Se raphs and surpassed t h e resul t of
t he i r usurping desire. F o r while Annabel 's "high kinsmen" bea r h e r away
and "shut he r u p in a sepulchre" ( a me taphor used t o i nd ica t e he r af f in i ty
t o angels) h is imaginat ive powers g u a r a n t e e t h a t nothing "can e v e r d i s seve r "
t he i r souls. F o r his response t o t h e physical loss of h is beloved i s t o
endow his surroundings imaginat ively wi th h e r ubiquitous p re sence and
r e su r rec t h e r in h is poe t i c u t t e r ance . While h e i s drawn t o t h e t o m b of
his beloved ("all t h e night-tide") t h i s a t t r a c t i o n t o t h e s i t e of dea th
u l t ima te ly leads t o i t s poe t i c rendition, a 'sepulchre' surpassing he r t o m b
because i t not only p re se rves but makes he r ' re-presented, ' present-in-
absence.
While on a l i tera l level t h e invocatory reanimat ion of Annabel s e rves
t o prove t h e inseparability of thei r souls, t h e displaced signified of th is
f igure is t h e power of his poe t i c t r iumph o v e r death. In con t r a s t t o
Novalis, t h e focus In these depic t ions of t h e presence-in-absence o f a dead
beloved shif ts t o t h e quest ion of what i t means t o mainta in a 'fixed
dis tance ' , regardless of whether t h i s leads t o compulsive repet i t ion o r t o
compensat ion and subst i tu t ion of loss through poe t i c resurrection. Or, t o
put it ano the r way, t h e emphasis sh i f t s t o an expression of t h e unfulfil la-
bili ty o f desire.
3. inver t ing t h e inversion t o expose t h e t radi t ion
What has been t ac i t l y implied in t hese examples i s admi t t ed and expl ic i t ly
t hema t i zed with astonishing candidness by Henry J a m e s - namely tha t t h e
poet not only gains his a r t i s t i c powers a t t h e loss of a beloved but t ha t
h e p re fe r s h is r ean ima ted version of he r t o t h e real woman. Like Novalis,
J a m e s recorded his r eac t ions t o t h e dea th of a woman - h i s New York
cousin Minny Temple , who died of tuberculosis while h e was visiting
England. In several le t ters , J a m e s expla ins wherein t h e cha rm and sa t is -
fac t ion of privileging a supplement lies. 26 T h e most s t r ik ing f e a t u r e o f
his response is i t s ambivalence. H e confesses t o "feeling a singular
mix tu re of p leasure and pain", a sks both h i s mo the r and h i s b ro the r for
de t a i l s about h e r last hours, finding "something so appeal ing in t h e pathos
o f he r final weakness and decline" while expressing g ra t i t ude 'that h e did
not himself see he r su f f e r and mater ia l ly change. While h e repeatedly
a s s e r t s t h a t "it i s t oo soon t o talk o f Minny's dea th o r p re t end t o feel
itn, h e expresses a c e r t a i n sa t i s f ac t ion a t having wr i t t en more than twe lve
pages about h e r t o his brother. Th i s p re fe rence for t h e 'soft idea' over
t h e 'hard fact ' in r e spec t t o Minny' s dea th s ignals t h e more global
t endency t o p re fe r a f ixed dis tance, t o privilege t h e mi t iga t ed and
vicar ious ove r t h e immediate . I t s e e m s t h a t t h i s d i s t ance a l lows t h e
depa r t ed beloved to b e c o m e a n ob jec t en t i r e ly a t h is i n t e rp re t a t ive
disposal and thus t h e c e n t r a l s t a k e in h i s self-definition as a n ar t i s t .
F o r Minny's dea th i s not only t h e key t o t h e past, inspiring a host
of memories , but a lso t h e means by which h e c a n t a k e possession of th is
pas t and s t r u c t u r e i t a s a meaningful whole. H e r e i t e r a t e s t h a t h e r dea th
is a de f in i t e 'gain' - " the happiest, f ac t , [sic] a lmos t in he r whole career."
While t h e r e may b e a c e r t a i n validity in t h i s appraisal when o n e considers
he r illness, i t s e e m s t h a t t h e gain i s m o r e his t han hers. F o r a s a dead
body s h e becomes an "unfaltering luminary in t h e mind,'' a n image. A s
a living body s h e was a "divinely res t less spi r i t - essent ia l ly one of t h e
'erreconcilable'" - "flickering" in t h e sense tha t , l ike any living being, s h e
w a s ambivalent and f ickle enough t o e lude any a t t e m p t a t fixing he r
meaning. As a dead body, however, s h e is t r ans l a t ed f rom "This changing
realm of f a c t t o t h e s t eady realm of thought." A s a n image preserved
in his mind s h e becomes a f igure o f whose s t a b l e meaning h e canno t only
b e sure, but which h e c a n a l so seman t i ca l ly des igna te a t h is will. She c a n
thus s t and for "sereni ty and purity" a s a "sort of measu re and s t anda rd of
br ightness and repose" o r s h e c a n t a k e on t h e function of represent ing
a s p e c t s of h is life. H e thus sees the i r re la t ion a s an exchange o f
ene rg ie s - s h e "sinking ou t of br ightness and youth in to decl ine and death,' '
while h e "crawls f rom weakness and inact ion and suffer ing in to s t r eng th
and hea l th and hope."
By reducing her purpose in his l i f e t o " the bright in tensi ty of her
example", t h e emphasis ye t again i s on where s h e leads. Her inspiration
has a double goal, fo r s h e not only r ean ima tes him by serving a s t h e
guiding example toward a n e m b r a c e of l i fe whi le herself yielding th is
in tensi ty , t hus s tanding a s a n emblem of his youth and t h e end of a n
episode in his development . A s a dead beloved s h e also- becomes a
privileged ob jec t fo r memory - a "pregnant r e f e rence in fu tu re years.''
Embalmed in his mind, l ike Snow White "locked away, incorruptibly, within
t h e c rys t a l wal ls of t h e past" and wai t ing t o b e reanimated, s h e becomes
above all t h e measu re fo r h is skills a t recol lect ing and creat ing. While
h e r l i f e was a "question", disquieting because h e could not o f f e r " the
e l e m e n t s of a n answer", he r absence, i t seems, could b e m e t wi th such
sa t i s f ac t ion because i t both f ixes he r i n to a s t ab l e f igure - "incorruptible"-
and opens t h e s p a c e fo r a p le thora of poe t i c i n t e rp re t a t ions within which
h e could design, shape, and r e c r e a t e he r (and the i r relationship) in inf in i te
variations.
In his work, James repeatedly used the 'memory' of Minny as model
for his heroines, notably Isabel Archer and Mi l ly Theale (as well as in his
autobiography, Notes o f a Son and Brother). Yet he also wrote narratives
which, doubling his own biography, can be read as a cr i t ical reflection on
his relation to a dead Muse and the aesthetics inherent in this relation,
above all from the point o f view o f mourning and erotic desire. In "The
A l ta r o f the ~ e a d " , ~ ~ the protagonist Stransom creates a shrine o f
remembrance for his "religion of the Dead", as a means by which to stay
"in regular communion with these alternative associates", o f whom Mary
Antrim, who died after their wedding-day was fixed, is the central voice.
He understands this dialogue as a "connection more charming" than any
possible in l i fe (AD, p.871, and designates the ef for t o f keeping the dead
alive by force o f his memory to be the central purpose o f his life. What
might on one level be seen as an attempt to possess the past, animating
a departed lover in order to appropriate the shared experience she metony-
mically stands for, turns into Stransom's possession of the dead. As the
central measure used t o evaluate and interpret his world (AD, p.911, his
dead also eclipse other emotional bonds. Because this form o f "communion"
allows the absent woman to prove more powerful than her corporally
present rival (signaled by the fact that the lat ter remains "nameless"), i t
becomes for Stransom a way to shield himself from any diyect erotic
investment, thus becoming emotionally deathlike. That is to say, the
exchange places both i n an intermediary position: her presence-in-absence
is reciprocated by his absence-in-presence, i.e. his inability to invest the
living, immediate world wi th any form of desire. Ult imately she inspires
the wish to share her position, to become the last candle on the altar, and
thus f i l l the existent gap with his own body.
There is, however, another component t o this exchange: while the
nameless woman is rejected as a direct object o f desire, i t is for her
benefit that he wishes to translate himself into the one last candle to
f i l l and complete the altar, asking "Isn't that what you wanted?" (AD,
p.118). Their dispute had centered around the fact that she used his altar
to worship the memory o f the one friend he had rejected among his
dead - Acton Hague. The knowledge he gains in the church when Mary's
"far-off face" smiles at him from the "glory of heaven" is an insight not
only into the rapture that his communion with Mary affords him, but also
that this is marred by the fact that he refuses bliss to the other woman.
Death suggests itself a s t h e resolution of his ambivalent position between
t h e t w o women and of his jealousy fo r t h e "unnamed" woman's communion
with Ac ton because i t allows him t o appropria te Acton's position and cas t
himself a s t h e absent addressee of her worship. In what seems t o b e both
paradoxical and repetitious, his concept ion of his own dea th entai ls both
a unity with Mary and t h e opening of a new gap in respect t o t h e "un-
named" woman, thus leading not, a s in t h e c a s e of Novalis, t o the
cancel la t ion of all d i f ferences , d is tances , and barriers, but r a the r t o t h e
preservat ion of t h e intermediary position, which i s informed by a tension
be tween the living and dead. It t r ans l a t e s in to a glorification of loss and
dis tance, not i t s e f f acemen t . His loss is also seen a s his gain, because
the d i s t ance of dea th i s understood as t h e way t o have a communion with
t h e nameless woman tha t would not be possible in life. While Stransom
recal ls Char lo t t e Stieglitz 's ac t , h e inver ts t h e Romant i c version by
imagining fo r himself t h e position of t h e Muse, who will inflict loss on a
survivor a s a way t o procure his reanimation. What is striking is both the
reversal of gender roles, making the man Muse t o t h e woman, and t h e
f a c t t ha t th is concept ion t akes a d absurdum t h e t radi t ional privileging of
a 'fixed dis tance ' over ' immediacy, ' t h e 'reanimation' over 'd i rect
presence.' In s o doing, t h e t e x t brings into play an e l emen t of ironic
dis tance between protagonist and implied reader, who, c a s t in to the role
of outs ide observer, i s led t o question and thus destabi l ize t h e pr imacy of
mit igat ion and approximation. T h e na r ra t ive s t ance of J a m e s i s thus in
itself duplicitous, in that , without condemning o r offer ing a n a l ternat ive ,
i t simply leaves t h e question of gain and loss open.
In "Maud-Evelyn", 28 t h e reanimat ion of a depa r t ed lover helps the
mourner t o appropria te o r r a the r c r e a t e a past post f a c t o and thus se rves
a s a measure not only fo r his desi re fo r vicarious, mit igated exper iences
but a lso his imaginat ive skills. Marmaduke decides t o join the Dedricks
in their religion of mourning, consec ra t ed t o the i r daughter Maud-Evelyn,
who died when she was fifteen. A s t h e na r ra t ive progresses i t becomes
c l e a r t h a t by dedicat ing himself t o her memory, h e can successfully keep
his f iancee Lavinia a t bay. T h e Dedricks' ritual, however, consis ts not
only in cherishing preserved re l ics but a lso in t h e cons tan t imaginat ive
enlargement of t h e past, t h e growth of a legend, wherein real e v e n t s a r e
supplemented by "f igments and fictions, ingenious imaginary mementoes and
tokens {ME, p.344). In t h e course of the i r mourning, they invent whole
exper iences for her, which grow t o include a n engagemen t and mar r i age
t o Marmaduke, leaving him u l t ima te ly a s h e r widower.
Graves suggests t h a t when a Muse tu rns i n to a domes t i c woman s h e
f a d e s in he r abi l i ty t o inspire, and engenders t h e poet 's demise. Th i s
leads o n e t o specu la t e whe the r t h e Roman t i c fascinat ion with t h e dea th
o f a young br ide i s not connec ted with a des i re t o prevent t h e Muse from
turning domes t i c and thus ceas ing t o function a s inspirational source. 29
What g ives t h i s ins tance i t s par t icular poignancy is, however, t h e f a c t t ha t
t h e r ean ima ted woman Marrnaduke privileges ove r Lavinia i s a c o m p l e t e
s t r ange r t o him and t h e pas t not shared but invented. T h e sa t i s f ac t ion
th is vicarious loss o f f e r s s e e m s t o lie in t h e f a c t t ha t t h e g a p c r e a t e d by
dea th c a n b e inscribed wi th f a r less cons t r a in t t han if t h e r e fe rence of
t h e memory corresponded wi th s o m e factual ly ver i f iable pas t experiences.
Not only does t h e dead Maud-Evelyn lend hersel f t o emblema t i za t ion in
a way t h e living Lavinia neve r would, but t h e remembering Marmaduke has
to t a l f reedom in r e spec t t o t h e c o n t e n t and s e n a n t i z a t i o n of h is reanima-
tion.
And y e t again t h e emphas i s i s on where t h e dead beloved leads, fo r
what Marmaduke s t r e s ses i s t h e heu r i s t i c qual i ty of h is cu l t of mourning:
" the m o r e we l ive in t h e pas t t h e m o r e th ings w e find i t it" (ME, p.355).
His a c t o f memory l e t s him g row in to "a person wi th a position and a
history", a g rowth whose c h a r m l ies in t h e f a c t th& i t is invented, t h e
resul t of a change wi thout t h e process o f changing. Tha t i s t o say, not
only does h i s reanimat ion of Maud-Evelyn en ta i l a n invention of he r
expe r i ence but, s ince s h e i s invoked a lways in he r re la t ion t o him, i t a lso
l e t s him invent himself, endow himself w i th a pas t h e never lived. A s in
t h e previous s tory , t h e na r r a t ive f raming s tabi l izes t h e privileging of t h e
supplement , t h e vicar ious o v e r t h e immed ia t e and di rect , without offer ing
a new hierarchy, l e t t i ng a judgment of t h e c a s e slip be tween "self-
decept ion" (ME, p.348) and "really beaut i ful" (ME, p.352).
Ye t t h i s 'case' i s t h e most e x t r e m e version o f t h e e f f a c e m e n t of t h e
signified woman in t h e Muse-poet re la t ions discussed in th is paper, and
could b e r ead a s an example of how t h e theme , by turning upon itself,
exposes i t s own limitation. While in t h e previous examples t h e absence
of t h e dead woman al lows h e r t o s e r v e as a f igure f o r signifying something
else, in t h e sense t h a t t h e l i t e r a l s ignif ier r e f e r r ing t o a woman's dea th
is d isplaced in f avour o f ano the r t h a t r e f e r s t o t h e speaker ' s emot iona l and
poetical s t a t e , in th is s to ry her absence is doubled. Maud-Evelyn i s
present-in-absence in a n en t i r e ly rhetor ical manner, a feminine n a m e only,
severed complete ly f rom any l i tera l body and leading t o a chain of
supplementary signifiers which e m a n a t e f rom and re f l ec t solely the speake r .
Tha t is t o say, her invocation s t ages t h e absence not only of he r body but
of her signified a s well, t h e glorification of a n empty, closed-circuit sign
with no r e fe rence excep t t o i t s own s t a t u s a s signifier. A s such i t s
funct ion i s t o a r t i cu la t e t h e omnipotence of t h e speaker , who, denying t h e
real i ty of any immedia te world, d isappears e v e r more into his museum and
t emple (ME, p.3581, which houses a f ic t ional past, until h e eventual ly
was te s away "with an excel lent manner" (ME, p.359). This 'case' shows
t h e power of imagination and t h e desi re for dis tance t aken t o such an
e x t r e m e t h a t i t collapses t h e Muse-poet re la t ion in to a tautology, reducing
t h e tension of a dialogue o n c e again t o a rhetor ical convention, t o a
fictional figment.
What th is compara t ive reading of several n ineteenth-century t e x t s
involving the poe t i c reanimat ion of a dead beloved reveals, then, is t ha t
one of t h e cen t ra l motors of western l i terary production is t h e fo rce of
effacement . T h e absence of a natural body a s prerequis i te fo r i t s
symbolic representat ion, t h e privileging of t h e mit igated and vicarious ove r
t h e direct and immediate , and t h e p re fe rence fo r the presentat ion of a
rhetor ical figure ove r t h e presence of a natural body a r e pers is tent enough
in our cul tural discourses not t o b e l imited t o a discussion of t h e Muse-
poet relation. My reading could thus lead one t o reconsider t h e ~ p r e -
suppositions underlying more general tendencies in nineteenth-century
poetics. A t t h e s a m e t ime, because these chosen t ex t s concerned with t h e
Muse-poet re la t ion both question and re inforce t h e gradual occul ta t ion of
t h e signified woman, they expose ( somet imes unwittingly) Woman's
privileged function a s f igure for desi res and meanings ex te r io r t o herself.
T h e e f fec t iv i ty of these t e x t s lies in the i r ex t r emi ty , for they depict
ins tances where poet ic c rea t ion necessarily en ta i l s a woman's death, where
t h e movement f rom l i tera l body t o f igure i s u l t imately taken q u i t e l i ter-
ally. A s such they point out t h e e x t e n t t o which i t now seems urgent t o
question the way nineteenth-century society - and not only this period - h a s regarded Woman, in respect both t o ou r cul ture 's g a z e and i t s e s t e e m
of her. 30
I. See Susanne Ledanff, Charlotte St~egl i tz: Geschichte eines Denkmals, (Frankfurt/M: Ullstein, 1986) for a detailed discussion and documentation of this incident.
2. Ledanff points out that the confusion was shared by her contempor- aries as well. Gutzkow calls her Caroline Stieglitz.
3. See Susanne Kappeler, Writing and Reading in Henry James (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980) chapter 7, "A l i terary Taboo", pp.75-82.
4. See Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravory Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1976). p.159 and Barbara Johnson, "Translator's Introduction'' to Jacques Derrida, Dissemination (Chicago: Chicago UP, 198 1 ), pp.vii-xxxiii.
5. For a discussion o f reanimation and i ts rhetorical function see Barbara Johnson, "Apostrophe, Animation, and Abortion", in A World o f Difference (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1987), pp.184-199.
6. Plato, The collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton: Princeton UP), p.492.
7. Homer, The Iliad, trans. Richard Lattimore (Chicago: Chicago UP. 195 I), pp.91-92 (lines 594-600).
8. See Sarah Kofman, Melancolie de I'art (Paris: ~a l i le ' , 1985).
9. Steele Commager, The Odes o f Horace: A Cri t ical Study (Blooming- ton: Indiana UP, 1967), p.9.
10. Ibid., p.3.
I I. Ibid., p.8.
12. Ibid., pp.20 and 23.
13. Kaja Silverman, The Subject o f Semiotics (Oxford: Oxford UP, 19831, p.279.
14. Roland Barthes, Fragments d'un discours amoureux (Paris: Seuil, 1977). p.22: "la mise en scene langagi'ere [de I'absence] kloigne la mort de I'autre I...] manipuler I'absence, c'est allonger ce moment I...] o i ~ I'autre pourrait basculer skchement de I'absence dans la mort". Barthes is referring to Ch.11 o f "Beyond the Pleasure Principle", in which Freud describes a child's game with a spool and the articulation of the two words "fort" (away) and "da" (here) that significantly accompany this game: see "Jenseits des Lustprinzips" (1920), in Studienausgabe, Band 3 (Frankfurt : Fisher, 1975), pp.222-227. What has not sufficiently been appreciated, to my knowledge, by cr i t ics discussing this text is the way in which i t is in part informed by the death o f Freud's favourite daughter Sophie, who died of influenza1 pneumonia January 25, 1920 at the age o f twenty-six. The ~ rob lems involved would reouire further discussion: see also lacoues - . Derrida, "Coming into One's Own" in Psychoanalysis and the Question o f the Text, ed. Geoffrey H. Hartman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1978).
15. J. Gerald Kennedy, Poe, Death, and the L i f e o f Writ ing (New Haven: Yale LIP, 19871, p.61.
16. Novalis, Werke, Tagebucher und Briefe Friedrich von Hardenbergs, ed. Richard Samuel (Munchen: Hanser, 19781, vol. 1, p.456.
17. Novalis, p.462.
18. Novalis, p.465. "Sie ist das Hochste - das Einzige I...] Alles in Reziehung auf ihre ldee zu bringen."
19. Novalis, p.468: "Unaufhorliches Denken an mich selbst und das, was ich e r fahre und thue."
20. Novalis, p.471: "Der Liebende muss die Liicke ewig fiihlen, die Wunde s t e t s offen erhalten. Got t e rha l t e mir immer I...] d ie wehmiithige Erinnerung - diese muthige Sehnsucht - den mannlichen Entschluss und den felsenfesten Glauben. Ohne meine Sophie bin ich g a r nichts - Mit Ihr Alles."
21. Novalis, p.633. "Dennoch habe ich eine geheime Freude, s o nah ihrem Grabe zu seyn. Es zieht mich immer naher I...] e s list] mir ganz klar I...] welcher himmlischer Zufall Ihr Tod gewesen ist - ein Schliissel zu allem, e in wunderbar schicklicher Schritt."
22. Novalis, p.151: "za r t e Gel iebte I...] du hast I...] mich zum Menschen gemach t - zehre mit Geis terglut meinen Leib, dass ich luftig mit dir inniger mich mische und dann ewig die Brautnacht wahrt."
23. Marie Bonaparte, The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe: A Psycho- Analytic Interpretat ion (London: Imago, 1949), p.260.
24. Edgar Allan Poe, Poe t ry and Ta les (New York: Library of America, 19841, pp.89-91.
25. Edgar Allan Poe, Poe t ry and Tales, pp.102-103.
26. S e e Henry James , Let ters , ed. Leon Edel, vol. 1, 1843-1875 (London: Macmillan, 1974) especially t h e l e t t e r s t o hlrs Henry J a m e s Sr., William James, and Grace Norton, pp.218-229.
27. Henry James, "Altar o f t h e Dead" in Se lec ted Tales (London: Dent, 1982). Further references a r e marked in t h e t ex t with "AD" and t h e page number.
28. Henry James, "Maud-Evelyn," 14 Stor ies by Henry J a m e s (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1947). Further r e fe rences a r e marked in t h e t e x t with "ME" and t h e page number.
29. Robert Graves, T h e White Goddess (London: Faber Rr Faber, 1948, 3rd edn. 19591, p.449.
30. A slightly expanded version of this a r t i c l e will b e included in Sex and Death ed. Regina Barreca (London: Macmillan, 1989).
IMAGES OF LANDSCAPE IN CONTEMPORARY FRENCH POETRY: PONGE, CHAR AND DUPIN
Sieghild Bogumil (University of Bochum)
Introduction
Even a f t e r a cen tu ry of poet ic war waged agains t landscape, i t is sti l l
forcefully present in modern poetry. Disintegration in Raudelaire, who
remarked tha t "tout I'univers visible n'est qu'un magasin dlimages",' was
followed by Mallarmh's indif ference - "La Na tu re a lieu, on n'y a joutera
pas t t2 - also fe l t by Ri lke towards t h e end of his life.3 T h e "auberge
ver te" closed be fo re Rimbaud's eyes, even though h e re ta ined "un pied prgs
d e [son] ~ o e u r " , ~ and Kafka 's "Description of a Struggle" indicates t h e
terminal point of th is development : having rehearsed a s t e r eo typed praise
of t he landscape's beauty , t h e "fat man" c loses his e y e s and conjures i t
t o vanish so tha t he might breathe , t h e landscape dissolves and t h e beau ty
is revealed a s t hea t r i ca l machinery.5 Against th is background i t is in ter-
es t ing t o ask why landscape reappears so intensively today. An answer
may b e gained by observing t h e wri t ings of t h ree of t h e bes t known
con tempora ry French poets: Francis Ponge, R e n e Char , and Jacques n u p i n .
Despi te considerable d i f f e rences among them, o n e may discern , in t h e
techniques they sha re (such a s t h e des t ruct ion of r ep resen ta t ive language
and mime t i c poetry, t h e f r agmen ta t ion of t h e word, and t h e const i tu t ion
of meaning on t h e level of t h e signifiers) a t t e m p t s t o recover t h e image
of landscape.
'Image' is he re taken t o mean a s ense figuration which is cons t ruc t ed
by t h e poet ic discourse. It exists, a s Bachelard puts i t , outs ide o f , and
pr ior to, all thought, making sense by means of i t s intrinsic dynamic while
never theless preserving i t s communica t ive "transsubjectivity".6 Thus i t
funct ions a s an or iginat ive and in i t ia t ing even t - th rough which t h e poet ic
subject es tabl ishes a link be tween itself and t h e world. T h e specia l image
of t h e landscape is, of course , control led by this inaugural discourse.
T h e notion of ' landscape' has t radi t ional ly been def ined a s a pa r t of
na tu re which is external ly l imi ted by t h e horizon and in ternal ly organised
a s a f igurat ive uni ty of natura l e lements . I t s cohe rence i s cons t i t u t ed by
t h e e y e movement of a n observer looking a t i t for enjoyment , whi le t h e
dis tance be tween t h e person and t h e landscape de t e rmines i t s d is t inct ive
features . 7
In this aesthet ic sense, landscape no longer exists in the work of the
three poets selected; above all, the coherence seems to be missing.
While analysing their poetic procedures one has to ask oneself in what
sense it is nevertheless possible t o speak of landscape.
Ponge: Landscape a s "The impossible which persists"
In Ponge's work, the image of landscape is rooted in a critique of the
traditional aesthetic landscape, up to the point of negating landscape alto-
gether. A t first sight, his "Petite suite vivaraise" ( 1 9 3 7 1 ~ which scrupu-
lously describes the Vivarais, seems to be an exception. On close reading,
however, one can recognise that there is no observer placed in the land-
scape who enjoys i t and could unify Its separate elements. The descrip-
tion merely results in an automatic enumeration which makes no sense
because i t forms no landscape. Yet the beauty of the separate elements
persists in being a source of enjoyment. The same happens when a
sensitive man is, on the contrary overwhelmed by a beautiful sight, such
a s a single flower, which even can hurt him (L, p.14), o r a beautiful land-
scape. It evokes so great a "number of images" (LM, p.405) in his mind
that he is lost among them. Describing the sky above La Mounine, "beau
pleurer" (LM, p.405). Ponge is unable to control his feelings (LM, p.405)
and cannot complete his text. He is lost in an incoherent abundance of
beauty. Yet he still feels joy, so that Ponge comes to ask himself why
man derives pleasure from this dlspersion of nature which lacks aesthetic
unity. His answer is, in the case of landscape, that man preserves a
mental image of the whole. He does not even need t o look a t it, for he
knows what a landscape is. A glance suffices (AC, pp.230, 235).
Thus landscape becomes the prime space in which man can satisfy
his "dhsir d'6vasionm (PR, p.198). His feelings do not correspond any more
to the concrete object; the name of beauty, which gives sense to the
landscape, has no referent and becomes interchangeable: "Beau est un mot
qui en remplace un autre" (LM, p.404). This remark may be considered
a s the starting point of Ponge's critical approach to the aesthet ic land-
scape. It focuses on the problem of, beauty, intimately linked to a
critique of feelings, which leads to a new conception of the 'beautiful'.
The new approach becomes necessary, for losing the coherence of the
world of natural objects, o r landscape, the man of feeling, who persists,
has lost his natural living spaces outside and inside himself.
T h e u l t ima te cause of th is deadly lack of sense i s t ime. Man n o
longer has t i m e t o look. T h e landscapes of which Ponge speaks appeared
t o him in passing - t h e s e a a t Biot, t h e countrys ide a t Craponne (LM,
p.3981, and La Mounine. Time, too, passes and does i t s des t ruc t ive work - in a twinkle. A s opposed t o Paudela i re , who welcomed t i m e and made i t
a cr i ter ion of beauty, Ponge sees it a s o n e of beauty 's defects . T o halt
des t ruct ion, h e s e t s agains t t h e va r i e ty and movement t h e naming and the
contemplat ion of landscape, agains t i t s evocat ion t h e 'expression' of
landscape.
Thus Ponge's image of landscape i s in keeping with his general poe t i c
discourse. It leads t o t h e abolishment of landscape because t h e basis of
Ponge's writing conf l i c t s with landscape's requirements. Landscape is
multiple, but for Ponge t h e poem's way "ne mene hors d e s choses" (PP,
p.411, t h e poem's world is a f ac to ry not organised by a "gbom8tr ie dans
I'espace" (P, p.131). Landscape c l amours for descr ipt ion, Ponge's wri t ing
i s 'expression'; in a word, his poetry goes agains t "la beau t6 ou Itint6r&t
d e la Nature" (M, p.199) - and landscape disappears in a poet ic d iscourse
in which i t s cons t i t u t ive e l emen t s express n o more than t h e c r i t i ca l
s t r a t egy of t h e text.' "Les Berges d e la Loire" (RE, p.257f.l shows th i s
very forcibly. T h e landscape is n o longer a natura l scenery but a c r i t i ca l
notion in which c r i t i que and landscape become interchangeable .
T h e c o n c r e t e landscape i s hardly visible in Ponge's poetry , t h e writing
has re legated i t t o t h e poem's horizon - t o i t s c o n c r e t e margin, b e i t t h e
opening, a s in "La Mounine", b e i t t h e end, a s in "Carnet du bois d e pins".
And i t i s th is d i s t ance which, in e f f e c t , con fe r s s ense on it. The following
poem may se rve t o demons t r a t e th is negat ive poe t i c of landscape:
Le Paysage L'Horizon, surlignk d ' accen t s vaporeux, s emble kcr i t e n p e t i t s ca rac tk re s , d 'une e n c r e plus ou moins pdle se lon les jeux d e lumi8re.
D e ce qui e s t enco re plus proche je ne jouis plus q u e c o m m e d'un tableau,
D e ce qui e s t e n c o r e plus p roche q u e c o m m e d e sculptures , ou d 'archi tecture ;
Puis d e la rkal i te m d m e d e s choses jusqu'8 mes genoux, c o m m e d'aliments, a v e c une sensa- tion d e vkr i table indigestion,
Jusqu ' i ce qu'enfin, dans mon co rps tout s 'engouffre e t s 'envole par la t&te , c o m m e pa r une chemin6e qui d6bouche e n plein ciel. (P, p.54)
Beyond t h e re ject ion of t h e c lass ical landscape t h e poem implies a c r i t i que
of t h e var ious a e s t h e t i c real isa t ions of landscape with which man has
progressively abolished t h e d i s t ance sepa ra t ing him from nature , finally
making his s t a t e s of soul t h e landscape's vegeta t ion, which provokes a
feel ing of s ickness in Ponge. If o n e r eads t h e poem backwards, however,
t h e landscape r econs t i t u t e s i t se l f , and t h e pleasure r e tu rns a s t h e d i s t ance
increases. On t h e horizon, i t becomes legible - a t t h e limit of illegibility.
Recogni t ion of t h e landscape - a s of Ponge's 'objects' - i s gained a t t h e
threshold of d isappearance (cf. LM, p.401). D i s t ance has a f f e c t e d t h e
landscape by wi thdrawing i t f rom t h e organising look of man: d is tance,
conceived in c lass ical a e s t h e t i c s a s a n organised expanse within landscape,
has become external ised and es tabl ishes t h e d e g r e e of s epa ra t ion be tween
man and landscape. This cr i t ica l , de s t ruc t ive d i s t ance of landscape, wi th
regard t o itself and wi th regard t o man, i s t h e precondition for Ponge
when h e wan t s t o a c c e p t landscape a s a subject in h is poetry. 'Describ-
ing' i t ha s become moving i t in to a d is tance. I t i s t h e r emoteness of i t s
loss. Ponge does not oppose himself t o t h e evolut ion of t ime, bu t a c c e p t s
i t and reveals in i t a new sense.
If t h e image of landscape i s not a c e n t r a l conce rn in Ponge's poetry ,
i t is never theless an impor t an t t heme , fo r man himself is a t stake. T h e
poem "La Mounine" is one of t h e f ew t e x t s in which Ponge a t t e m p t s t o
"bien ddcrire" (LM, p.404) a s t r e t c h of Provencal landscape a s i t appeared
t o him, not by a rapid g l ance but in a profound "vision". T h e a t t e m p t
assumes t h e dimensions of a ve r i t ab l e f ight (cf. LM, p.392) t o make tha t
speak which seemed for e v e r t o s lumber in silence. A t t h e momen t in
which t h e landscape has become what e v e r y pa r t of t h e f lora is in itself,
i.e. wholly "une volont6 d'expression" (PP, p.921, i t pronounces i t s
"formule", which se rves man by making "un pas i I'esprit" (LM, p.404).
I t s "formule" o r r ea l n a m e i s beau ty being about t o vanish. It is i t s "loi
e s thk t ique e t morale"; in o t h e r words, in o rde r t o know t h e real land-
s c a p e i t i s necessary t o follow i t t o i t s quasi-extinction. This is t h e way
"La Mounine" develops.
T h e f i rs t passages of "La Mounine" present t h e landscape's isolation
a s an e v e n t in t h e very in ter ior of fugi t ive s p a c e and time. Viewed a t
a d i s t ance from t h e bus passing by, t h e landscape moves t o a stil l more
r e m o t e place; a t t h e end of t h e journey, i t appea r s fixed in t h e memory.
T h e spa t i a l isolation is increased by put t ing t h e landscape o u t of t ime:
De ce paysage il faut que je fasse conserve, que je le mette dans I'eau de chaux (c'est-&-dire que je I'isole, non de I'air ici, mais du temps). (LM, p.387)
Preserving the breeze or the breath of the landscape he makes i t a frag-
ment of nature in the midst o f nature. This fragment becomes manage-
able because i t is simple (LM, p.400) and contingent. It has become one
o f the objects characteristic o f Ponge's poetry - with one important
difference. A t the extreme point o f the distance, at that moment when
landscape has been voided of al l meaning, the distance is turned into a
constructive signifier which itself becomes a new image: the azure. Yet
even this is too present, because o f i t s insistence, being reinforced by the
memory of Mallarmk, who is metonymically evoked in the larger context
by the reference to the "encre":
II s'agit d'une congestion. (Tant d'azur s'est amass6e.) I...] 11 s'agit de I'explosion en vase clos d'un mil l iard de p6tales de violettes bleues. (LM, p.401)
Ponge puts even the azure at the distance of the cr i t ical discourse in
order to regain awareness and breath, and thus finally become able to
describe it. In this "pas nouveau" (LM, p.dlO) he manages to speak o f the
distance at a distance and t o render i ts absence present. In i ts intensity
the azure turns dark and, in the light of dawn (cf. LM, p.3971, brings forth
"la nuit intersidkrale, que, les beaux jours, I'on voit par transparence, et
qui rend si foncb I'azur des cieux m6ridionaux." (LM, pp.4lOff.) The
"formule" is found some paragraphs later: 'I... la clairihre donnant sur la
nuit intersiddrale" (LM, p.412). Night appears in day, the inf in i te i n the
finite, eternal t ime and endless space arise (LM, p.413) - in the concrete
space and time o f the poem. And faced with this sky, man finds himself
before the "gravity" (LM, p.413) o f the eternal, which is the real place.
Yet what kind of place is i t concretely, or, in other words, what does this
concept o f gravity imply?
The poem remains unfinished and ends with an "etc.". The poetico-
logical continuation may be found in "De la nature morte et de Chardin".
In this poetic crit icism of Chardin's paintings it emerges that the true
name o f the habitable space o f man is his destiny, called death. A t the
same time it is the name of beauty. The beautiful landscape acquires a
tragic aspect; i t becomes a landscape o f destiny, and the enjoyment o f
i t i s t ransformed in to a kind of Rimbaldian 'hygiene':
Voili donc no t re 'santd'. Voi l i no t re beaut6. Quand tout se rhordonne, sans endimanchement , dans un
ec la i r age d e destin. (AC, pp.234f.l
Dea th i s t h e "moral law" which cons t i tu t e s t h e landscape. I t renders t h e
new "paysage mdtaphysique" a "nature morte" (AC, p.235). T h e opposite
i s a lso true: t he "nature morte" i s living na tu re surrounded by death. In
t h e d i s t ance between himself and landscape removed t o a "nature morte" 10
man, "qui, l e t emps d e s a vie, c h e r c h e le lieu d e son repos, enfin: d e s a
mortn (AC, p.2351, finds assurance o f his place. It i s t h e equat ion of l i fe
and death, l ife continually threatened with death. As "nature morte",
landscape i s thus t h e c o n c r e t e image of "I'impossible qui dure" and which
i s human l i fe (M, p.198).
Char: T h e Landscape o f Creat ion, o r "Dismissing the Windn
If in Ponge's poetry landscape acquires i t s sense by dying away, t h e e n t i r e
Provencal landscape in all i t s aspects1 ' "quasi s ans choix", (NT, p.289) 12
including the people living in it , fil ls t h e poetry of Char. Also t h e way
in which landscape i s present d i f f e r s from t h a t of Ponge. In Char , t h e r e
is no d i s t ance between man and landscape; i t i s both brimful wi th man's
history and impregnated with t h e poet ' s desire. Indeed, t h e poet himself
becomes landscape. He has "la langue rocheuse" (DNG, p.1151, his hands
a r e "rivikres soudainement grossies" (FM, p.129), t h e wind i s his breathing
(FM, p.137). Even his writing i s inseparable f rom t h e landscape, it is "le
liseron du sang puisk i mdme l e rocher" (ChB, p.541).
Thus t h e landscape i s predicated a s t h e exclusive and continuously
present space of poetry. Even prior t o ar t iculat ion, poetry is landscape,
landscape is t h e precondition of speech. What Char s a y s of poetry, there-
fore, applies equally t o landscape. A s t a t e m e n t made in a n interview i s
par t icular ly re levant here, all t h e more as it implies a cr i t ique of Ponge's stand. Char , employing a Pongian t e rm, s a y s t h a t "la po6sie n'est pas une
legon" (CA, p.822); one may add t h a t for Char , landscape i s not reduced
t o a "formule". I t i s not only t h e result of speech, but a lso i t s foundation.
It i s "sur la pointe e t dans le sillage d e la fl8che" (RBS, p.712). Talking
of landscape in a referent ia l way would fall shor t with regard t o Char.
T h e landscape turns ou t t o b e "communication e t [...I l ibre disposition des
choses entre elles & travers nous" (Fb4, p.160), revealing i ts fundamental
and organising laws.
This movement o f the word between the outside and the inner world
o f the subject becomes concrete in the image o f a path through the land-
scape, the poetic organisation of the natural elements being at the same
time the path; this means that the concrete image fulf i ls at the same
time the cr i t ical function of poetological self-reflexiveness. Landscape is
not only a pleasurable spectacle offered to an observer, but also a place
of work demanding one's entire attention. This path under construction
is the only way, and i t has a twofold character: on the one hand, i t is
rough - "Parole, orage, glace et sang finiront par former un givre commun "
(FM, p.189); on the other hand, i t exceeds al l boundaries, assuming varied
forms of passage - wind, sky, nudity, tr ickl ing light. "La liberte' n&t
I...] n'importe oh" (NT, p.490). The shock of the encounter o f these two
opposite paths, achieved by the movement of the words, leads to their
inextricable intertwining, which finally is the real path:
A I'embouchure d'un fleuve oh nu1 ne se jette plus parce qu'il fait du soleil d'excrkments sous les eaux panachkes, le po&te seul illumine; assainissement des antagonismes, Bdification des prodiges, ddclin collectif. (MP, p.71)
I t is impossible to delineate one particular path. The indissoluble
unity of i t s two forms creates a new image o f remote boundaries, that o f
the estuary. I n their crossing the two delimited forms o f impossible paths
become displaced from the centre to the threshold, which itself opens up
as a passage. In it, the poet stands at the most remote point o f the
material world:
Au seuil de la pesanteur, le poete comme Ifaraign6e construit sa route dans le ciel (FM, p.165).
Unlike Ponge, Char enters into the distance of the withdrawing landscape,
withdrawing himself to i ts extreme remoteness, where the distance reacts
on the bounded forms o f landscape. There i t opens a new passage which
leads to - and at the same time is - the poet's desire. The threshold or
passage is i ts new sense figuration. Appearing as a landscape beyond
landscape in the landscape itself, i t is the image o f pure, that is, o f never
fulf i l led desire:
Le poeme e s t I 'amour rkal ise du des i r e demeurk d6si r (FM, p.162).
The path , multiplying, displacing, dispersing i t se l f , t u rns o u t t o b e an
"odyssee d e s a cendre" (FM, p.134). T h e wandering in and of t h e ashes, t h e
disseminat ion of t h e dissemination, t h e pure instability, is t h e s t a b l e ground
of t h e poet ' s moving forward. T h e r e f l ec t ion of t h e landscape i s i t s
r e f r ac t ion in to a mu l t i t ude of pa ths which toge the r become t h e only way
of t h e poem, because they help t h e poet t o f r e e himself. I t s instability
i s i t s s t ab l e ground:
En poesie, on n 'habi te q u e le lieu q u e I'on q u i t t e (RBS, p.733).
C h a r ca l l s "percept ion princibre" (CA, p.824) t h e awareness of th is
r e f r ac t ion of t h e pa ths which r ende r s visible a th i rd one, neve r a t t a inab le
but a imed a t in e v e r y poem. It i s t h e momen t where man recognises t h e
"c rea t ive method" (Ponge) of poetry , y e t not , a s Ponge pu t s i t , in t h e
wri t ing process, but i n n a t u r e i t se l f , which, however, is poe t ry in i t s
natura l form. Char , a s opposed t o Ponge, i s not a t t r a c t e d by landscape
for i t s beau ty but for t h e c r e a t i v e na tu re in it , which Ponge again assigns
exclus ively t o poetry. F o r Char , c r e a t i v e na tu re and t h e poem in progress
a r e inseparable:
Na tu re non s ta t ique, peu apprkciee pour s a beau t6 convenue ou se s productions, mais associke au couran t du pobme o b e l l e in tervient a v e c f r equence c o m m e mat ikre , fond lumineu:, f o r c e c rka t r i ce , suppor t d e demarches inspirkes ou pessimistes, grace . D e nouveau, e l l e agit . (RBS, p.731)
T h e passage, descr ibing Rimbaud's concep t of nature , appl ies equal ly t o
Char ' s own poetry; whi le i t s t r e s se s t h e even t c h a r a c t e r of t h e poe t i c
word, showing i t a s t h e product ivi ty of na tu re i t se l f , i t con fe r s a deepe r
meaning on t h e natural landscape by inextr icably linking i t t o poetry. It
appea r s a s t h e e x t r e m e landscape of c r ea t ion a t t h e borders of exis tence,
of t h e survival and t h e ex t inc t ion of man, of his words, and his world.
It is a landscape on t h e horizon, where t h e hor izon dissolves in to a land-
scape. Like Rimbaud's h inter land, Cha r ' s Provensal landscape (cf. RBS,
p.732) i s all movement , becoming c l e a r and again wi thdrawing a t t h e s a m e
t ime, bathed in t h e c r e a t i v e light of t h e purifying movemen t beyond, o r
t h e absence. T h a t which be fo re was heaviness and ashes (cf. FM, p.134)
becomes f reshness and flame.
The poem "Congk a u Vent" may s e r v e a s a n example a t t h i s point.
Congk au Vent
A f lancs d e c o t e a u du village bivouaquent des champs fournis d e mimosas. A I'kpoque d e la cuei l le t te , il a r r ive que, loin d e leur endroit , on fasse la r encon t r e ex t r&me- ment odoran te d'une fil le dont les b ra s se sont occupes durant la journke aux f ragi les branches. Parei l le A une lampe dont 11aur601e d e d a r t 6 se ra i t d e parfum, e l l e s 'en va, l e dos tourn6 ou soleil couchant .
I1 s e ra i t sacr i lege d e lui adresser la parole. L'espadrille foulant I'herbe, ckdez-lui l e pas du chemin,
Peut-&tre aurez-vous la c h a n c e d e dis t inguer su r s e s lhvres la c h i m e r e d e 18humidit6 d e la Nuit? (FM, p.130)
Right from t h e beginning, t h e poem is t ranspor ted t o t h e border, "i flancs
d e coteau", where t h e poet ic even t t akes place. It is in i t ia ted by t h e
harsh juxtaposition of t h e charming image of a flowery field and t h e rough
neologism followed by t h e no less s t rong "fournis". This roughness
balances t h e whole poem's tenderness , s e t t i ng in motion t h e t w o impossible
paths, s o t h a t t h e border is displaced t o t h e horizon where finally t h e
poem is ac tua l i zed in t h e ephemera l even t of t h e young girl appearing-
disappearing in a complex g a m e of r e f r ac t ing t races .
T h e hinterland of t h e landscape is t h e f igure of t h e c r e a t i v e subject
a s pure des i r e which appears , approaches , withdraws, g rows larger, l ighter,
darker ; i t breaks in to t h e landscape and t r ans fo rms i t in to a c r e a t i v e
"matiere-6motion1' (MP, p.621, which is t h e poem, t h e basis of which is,
however, nothing more than a narrow line, t h e t r a c e of t h e gi r l ' s
"espadrilles". Again one th inks of Char ' s c o m m e n t about h is poet ics of
t h e path, especially where h e emphasises t h a t t h e path is no more than
a "modique en ta i l l e d e la t e r r e I...] t r a c k e gbne ra l emen t par l e pas repCtk
des blcherons", t ha t is a "raccourci, une entr6toi le" (CA, p.824). Wrapped
in h e r au reo le of perfume, t h e girl appea r s a s such a t r a c e of t h e "entre-
toile", vanishing to t h e fa int t r a c e of t h e "humidit6 d e la Nuit". In t h e
girl , t h e horizon projects i tself a s c o n c r e t e f igure of t ha t absence which
i s t h e movemen t of t h e poem going beyond. Liberation of sense , o r
l iberty, and night form a pai r (cf. NT, p.490) leading to a stil l more
e lus ive dis tance, where i t becomes unrecognisable, t ha t is leading t o t h e
"humidity". This dissolution, however, remains on t h e periphery of t h e
poem, t h e l a s t lap of landscape o r pa th leads t o t h e l imi ts of t h e poetry
a l together .
What was initially said about d i s t ance c a n now b e formulated more
precisely. A s has been shown, man and landscape a r e one. Nevertheless,
d i s t ance i s not lacking. It has been shif ted t o t h e landscape's interior, yet
not t o re-establish the re a nice o rde r of t h e landscape's e lements , but t o
establish itself a s a sense figuration within and through t h e pe r fec t dis-
o rde r of these elements. S i tua ted right in t h e inter ior of his natural
world, man remains uprooted, for his na tu re i s t h e des t ruc t ive and cons-
t ruc t ive d i s t ance itself, which i s nothing o the r but his desire. His longing
na tu re is t h e reason why h e i s a lways e lsewhere , being never theless within
his world. T h e without is t h e within; t h a t which one imagines t o be t h e
imaginary i s a l ready t h e real (FD, p.610). Man pursues a vertiginous r a c e
against t i m e t o m a k e s u r e of a lost reality. Hence t h e impor tance of
immediacy in Char 's poet ic work; it is his way t o make su re of the place
which h e leaves behind, which i s - already t h e real.
Dupin: a ma te r i a l landscape
A poem by Dupin r eads like a n explicit commenta ry of t h e spat io- temporal
foundations of landscape in Char:
Tu ne m16chapperas pas, d i t le livre. Tu m'ouvres e t m e ren- fermes, e t t u t e c ro i s dehors, ma i s t u es incapable d e so r t i r c a r il n'y a pas d e dedans. Tu es d 'autant moins libre d e t '6chapper que l e pikge e s t ouvert. Est I 'ouverture m8me. C e piege, ou c e t au t r e , ou l e suivant. Ou c e t t e absence d e pikge, qui fonct ionne plus insidieusement encore , i ton chevet , pour t 'empecher d e fuir. (E, p.70)
Here w e find t h e s a m e framing of t h e a l ready-there and t h e e lsewhere ,
of t h e e lsewhere in the present place, e v e n t h e s a m e gliding of t e r r a in a s
in Char: "le seuil d e l a lisibilit6 [of t h e landscape] se d6placet1 (D, p.30).
So g r e a t a r e t h e s imilar i t ies t h a t they seem t o point t o a n identical image
of landscape in Char and Dupin. Also in Dupin i t is organised around a
path while being tha t path which unfolds be tween t h e s a m e e l emen ta ry
oppositions "de l a base e t du sommet" (Char) and uses t h e s a m e contra-
diction of the subject exiled in his own terr i tor ies ; a lso in Dupin t h e path
exceeds i t s own boundaries in o rde r t o a r r ive in t h e night and t h e pure
movement of air. Ye t t h e r e a r e striking d i f f e rences - especial ly t h e
amorphous c h a r a c t e r of t h e landscape, t h e ar idi ty and petr i f icat ion of t h e
e lements , t h e endless dr i f t ing of words of which t h e t e x t quoted above
speaks among others; t h e imagery drawing t h e a t t en t ion t o t h e process
of writing, the presence o f the body, and the violence o f destruction.
Despite similarities wi th Char's image o f the Provence one is, in
fact, dealing with quite a different landscape in Dupin. Beyond the new
topics, the landscape here becomes in i ts totality a new sense figuration,
as i t is the result of an inextricable mingling of a l l elements: the world
o f objects, the words, and the body. Obscure and impenetrable, they
control the approach to the landscape. Thus Dupin's poetry moves in the
midst of "Night" - "Tant que ma parole est ohcure, il [the poem and i t s
subject] respire" (D, p.48); he delves into the night, looking for light. In
Char the night is the end o f a l l words; in Dupin i t is the point of
departure:
"... Le rocher, o'u f in i t la route et o'u commence le voyage, devint ce dieu abrupt et fendu auquel se mesure le souffle." (C, p.76)
Under the rule o f distance, o f the unknown, and the void, landscape
no longer has "rien des apparences actuelles" (Rimbaud). It caves in, and
"On ne peut kdif ier que sure des ruines". In this remark Dupin summar-
ises his historical and poetic starting point, which he expresses in terms
o f landscape in a poem chosen from among his many poetological reflec-
tions:
Rompre et ressaisir, et ainsi renouer. Dans la fordt nous sommes plus prks du bicheron que du promeneur solitaire. Pas de contemplation innocente. Plus de hautes futaies traversees de rayons et de chants d'oiseaux, mais des stkres de bois en puissance. Tout nous est donne', mais pour Bte force, pour dtre entame, en quelque faqon pour dtre dhtruit, - et nous dbtruire. (E, p.76)
How violently opposed to Char's is this destructive gesture; i t has the
vigour and endlessness o f Rimbaud. No "modique entaille de la terre, h peine aperque" serving Char as "hamac", but near-complete destruction of
the landscape involving the subject. Everything caves in, is removed, and
the poet instals himself in a complete drifting, such as i t is inscribed in
another poem bearing the programmatic t i t le "Le soleil substitub":
Une pierre roule, puis une autre, parmi les tstes, dans I'Bboulement du rempart. Ce n'est pas par la distorsion d'une pratique ancienne que le glissement, la dhrive, la migration se poursuivent et s'amplifient I...] Dans le l ivre et hors du livre. Oir le soleil s'obstine a demeurer la mhtaphore enjouie du soleil, le spectre ablouissant de sa substitution . 11 s'avance au-devant du texte comlne sa pierre d'achoppement, de rupture, et la brkche oh se rafraTchit le rayon d'une t h e absente. (D, p.33)
Everything slides, t r a c e s t h e t r a c e of o the r t races . T h e me taphor a s t h e
s p e c t r e of i t s substituGon is t h e metaphor of a metaphor which in i t s turn
is metaphor. An oblique mode of writing t ranscends t h e e l emen ta ry
opposition of t h e e a r t h and t h e sky by including i t in t h e "book" which a t
t h e s a m e t i m e i s t o b e filled up with t h e blood of the body.
T h e landscape is, of course, a f f e c t e d by this. I t s r e fe ren t i a l coher-
e n c e is destroyed. From t h e Ardkche, Dupin's nat ive region which
furnishes him with t h e basic image-material, nothing more remains than
fragments. However, t h e apparent chaos is, s o t o speak, organised and
opens on t o a complex sys t em of poet ic space. T h e f r agment s a r e placed
on d i f f e ren t levels, where they insert themselves into dif ferent forms of
landscape, for space i s no longer uniform. It is r e f r ac ted ac ross t h e t e x t
which, in calling itself t race , multiplies t h e dis tances , which a r e a s many
perspect ivisat ions of t h e horizon. T h e e l emen t s of living nature, like t h e
grass, t h e flowers, t h e sun, t h e air, t h e d e w bring into relief a second
na tu re produced by t h e poet ic ac t iv i ty which is projected into t h e pr imary
one, and on t h e textual su r face t h e most appa ren t image of a rough and
host i le landscape a l ready a r t i cu la t e s itself a s ano the r t race . There i s a
complex g a m e of Mallarmkan "ref le ts rdciproques" of landscapes governed
by t h e horizon o r distance.
The poem projects these s imultaneous ref lect ions into a sense figura-
tion progressing of a landscape in progress f rom hardness, opaci ty , and a
lack of a i r t o a weightless, well-aired, and illuminated landscape. This
t ransformat ion is produced by a poe t i c operat ion in which t h e subject risks
his identity.
"Ce tison la distance", one of Dupin's ear l ies t poet ics of landscape,
i s a cen t ra l example of th is sys t emat i c operation. It is t o o long t o b e
quoted here; however, t h e t w o first verses and t h e last one may give an
idea of what has been developed:
Et l e paysage s 'ordonne au tour d'un mot lance i l a legere e t qui reviendra cha rge d'ombre. Au rebours d e s laves, no t re e n c r e s tahre , s'irise, prend conscience, devient t ranslucide e t brirlante, i mesure qu'elle gravi t la p e n t e du volcan. I...]
I1 n'y a qu'une f e m m e qui m e suive, e t elle ne m e sui t pas. Pendant que ses habi ts b r i l en t , immense e s t la roske. (G, p.87)
T h e s t a r t ing point of t h e image of t h e landscape i s i t s obscure notion
("mot [...I chargk d'ombre") denouncing the opacity of a language which
is i ts own double trace. The twofold remoteness o f the poetic word is
indicated by the conjunction "Et", which connotes a prior reality of the
poem, and by the shadow which partial ly obscures it. This dark sense
figuration consumes itself as the poem progresses and becomes an illumina-
ted trace o f an inaugural landscape.
The reciprocal reflections of the two forms of landscape are well
illustrated, too, by Dupin's comments on paintings by Max Ernst, another
'poet': "En allant vers cet te nature rude, aux vastes 6tendues desolees
et b r i l i es de soleil, le poete a peut-Stre retrouvk la terre nue des
premiers Lges telle que I'imagination se la reprksente, le paysage original,
celui qui convenait a un art qui tenait de ressaisir l e monde dans I'dclat
de sa conscience." (Ead, p.51) The landscape in which the poetic
process inverts itself is i tself the image o f creation. As opposed to the
landscape o f creation in Char, the elements are strictly selected in Dupin,
none but those of a negative character being admitted: bleak stretches,
an inhuman heat, and, above all, stones, rocks, and frozen water -
elements of stark materiality. That which for Char is living nature is
dead nature for Dupin, a nature morte, but in the original sense, not in
that which Ponge gave the term. I t is the function of poetry to animate
i t by giving i t air, which is to say the breach o f the poet's voice. Con-
sidering the hard and impenetrable material i ty of objects, poetry needs
more than ever to seek support from art in order to assume i t s role of
creating the world. Art, by being artifice, ends in being nature.
The opaque word contains the landscape. No longer the laws of
external geography organise it, but the very material i ty of the objects
expressed in the material i ty of the words. Only now, the objects find
that independence which Ponge sought for them, because the poet with-
draws his 'mental factory' in order to allow the things to speak from
within. Once more Dupin's own procedure is illustrated by his comments
on works of art, as when he remarks that Mir6 respects the personality
of the objects, approaching them with an attentive love for their material,
and that the objects respond by making a present of their inner l i f e (Ead,
p.142). In the opaque word, landscape is congealed; the word is the
image o f the dead landscape, word and object being the same. To re-
place the word i n the poetic discourse means to stir i t up and make a
landscape flash forth across the text, just l ike the meteor evoked in a
poem from t h e cyc le De singes e t d e mouches. It shoots down and burs ts
in to a
Constel la t ion j e t6e hors e t d i s t r a i t emen t
encrde.
T h e end of representat ion i s definitive, t h e word i s i t s own mirror
which, in pronouncing t h e dispersed objects, does not reproduce them but
produces a new real i ty o r sense figuration. A dark mirror which does not
know i t s own image but discovers i t by project ing i t on t h e page, where
it appears a s an 'approximate abyss' , a s in t h e following verses:
Tu dois t16vader, Mais dans l e nomhre e t la r e s e m b l a n c e , Blanche 6c r i tu re tendue Au-dessus d'un ab7me approximatif. (G, p.10)
Within t h e poet ic discourse t h e word l iberates itself through t h e writing,
where it r e f l ec t s itself in a number which i t does not know, t h a t is, in
a plurality organised in the image of landscape, which only approximates
t h e inner nature of the word, i s only i t s resemhlance, because t h e writing
is but i t s multiple t race.
T h e e l emen t s of living o r dead na tu re become components of a new
sense figuration which is t h e landscape transcending i t s boundaries, where
t h e poet ic subject , t h e world of t h e objects , and language form a new
coherent reality. A s in Char, all t hese e l emen t s , considered in their
connect ion t o t h e poet ic discourse, a r e ul t imately revealed in their qual i ty
of living na tu re while a t t h e s a m e t i m e showing t h e naturalness of t h e
poet ic word as even t and speech. Everything, however, i s rooted in the
mater ia l i ty of t h e wor(l)d.
T h e revaluation of t h e ma te r i a l a s t h e source of t h e c r e a t i v e poet ic
movement lends, a t t h e very c e n t r e of t h e spontaneous flashing for th of
t h e word, a par t icular pa t i ence t o t h e subject. Char 's ver t iginous r a c e
across fields and t imes i s a t a n end in Dupin, t h e slow pace of a regular,
ca l cu la t ed work, progressing and a t t h e s a m e t i m e s tanding still , imposes
itself. It is a p a c e of r epea ted spontaneity. T h e path ends a t each
repeated s t e p and obliges t h e poet t o g o on. Once t h e word i s pronounced,
all has been said and nothing has happened, because everything had al ready
been said long before, because everything i s mirror and t race; nothing 5
yet a change has occurred within these very similarities.
The poem "Le coeur par dkfaut" from the cycle L'Epervier expresses
this in terms of landscape and by constructing the figure of a new land-
scape:
Entre ce roc bond6 d'6toiles et son sosie le gouffre, L'6difice du souffle est une seconde prison.
A la place du coer Tu ne heurteras, mon amour, que le luisant d'un soc Et la nuit grandissante ... (G, p.54)
The "roc bond6 d'6toilesn and the "gouffre" are but one, because the
opacity of the rock - signalling by its impenetrable material a clear
landscape constellation - mirrors itself in the abyss; that, in its turn,
takes light from the stars and opens itself to a sti l l darker night, for the
intrinsic nature of light is, as we have seen already, night. Nothing has
changed except that the night has deepened. We have progressed into the
object, into its opacity, and that signifies a step towards lucidity. Rut
everything has to be done again because the path begins where the path
ends, in the night - because, as Dupin expresses it, "NaTtre" is "N'Btre que
silex". But beinR silex is saying it, and that is already the "Scintillement
du tranchant de la lettre" and the "Eclat de I'gtre"; to be is to be born,
but to be born "A la surface humide des labours" (Ads, p.85). To be born
in the poem is to be in the work of poetic practice, or to work in order
to be born. In terms of landscape one could say: to be or to be born
is to find oneself as nature in action or landscape about to be constructed , i t is to be en route.
Conclusion
A brief comparison of the images of landscape in the work of the three
poets will permit approaching an answer to the question asked at the
beginning. I t is no longer possible innocently to speak of landscape; it
has become a task to be performed. These poets integrate i t into their
work and assign i t a privileged place. Landscape becomes the concrete
workshop of poetry. Its image no longer reflects a preconceived organisa-
tion of nature, but shows the nature of the organisation of the poetic
world. As this world presents itself under the sign of an initiating word,
the landscape is the very image of a new world or new reality. Hence
i ts function is to establish the link between man and nature, and to pro-
nounce the nature o f man. Landscape functions as man's natural language,
as the voice o f what' he considers to be his nature. But the ways of
reaching the new reality, and with i t the images o f landscape, di f fer in
the three poets; the apparent constants cease to be invariables when con-
sidered i n the functioning of the poetic discourse by which the landscape
is constituted. I n these different images, the historical situation o f each
poet becomes obvious.
This applies already to the notion of the simple and common object
which is constitutive for the landscape. I n al l three poets, this notion
underscores the material i ty and u t i l i t y o f the poetic material, but in each
case with a specific nuance and in a different role. Ponge sustains the
simplicity o f the landscape by strengthening i t s vanishing character, which
he holds - in this respect following Mallarme' - in the "formule", and that
is the "nature morte". In Char, as in Rimbaud, the landscape has the
simplicity o f a natural operation; but unlike that o f his predecessor, i t
turns into the configurated nature o f the poet's emotional vibration.
Dupin, finally, while also placing himself in the line established by
Rimbaud, concentrates on the material i ty of the landscape in order to
break i t open and reveal a new world within i t which includes the poet's
body and the language.
Another constant feature o f the three poets is the fact that they
remove the landscape. Absence is i ts organising principle. Yet distance
varies i n the different images, becomes itself an operative figure which
multiplies itself, wi th consequences that af fect the entire image of the
landscape. In Ponge, distance shows i tsel f one-dimensional and static. I t
surrounds the landscape and al l i t s elements, but i t does not operate in
the interior o f the image, which thus retains traces o f the classical
concept o f landscape. I t is the landscape signified in i ts entirety which
becomes a signifying element in the production of the text, where a
distance o f i t s own is created.
In Char, the distance is operative within the interior o f the landscape.
The lat ter unfolds as the image o f the horizon, where man has relegated
both himself and the landscape. Thus distance retains contact wi th
material reality while going beyond it. One might say that Ponge puts at
stake the reality of expression, whereas Char risks the reality o f the
objects themselves.
Landscape in Dupin presents itself a s an image which incorporates
these two figures, while substantially differing from both. Not only does
Dupin enlarge t h e image of t h e landscape by integrating into it t h e real i ty
of the subject 's body, but changes i t entirely through t h e multiplication
of horizons whose foundation is, on the one hand, t h e irreducible plurality
of man, of words, and objects, and on the o the r hand t h e hard and
impenetrable mater ia l i ty of these const i tuent e lements themselves. By
t reat ing each par t of that multidimensional unity a s a discrete body with
i t s own landscape and diverse levels of horizon, Dupin ends, in his figure
of t h e landscape, with a new image of reality. An image which loses
itself in i t s own traces , leaves behind t ime and mater ia l while installing
itself in the materiality, and standing still a t t h e dead point of time. 18
1. Charles Baudelaire, "Le gouvernement de I'imagination", in Oeuvres complbtes, ed. Claude Pichois (Paris, 19761, 11, p.627.
2. Stephane Mallarme, "Le musique e t les lettres", in Oeuvres complktes , ed. Henri Mondor e t G. Jean-Aubry (Paris, 19561, p.647.
3. See Rainer Maria Rilke, l e t t e r da ted 13 Jan. 1923, addressed t o Lou Andreas-Salom6, in Briefe in zwei Banden, ed. Rilke-Archiv Weimar in Verbindung mit Ruth Sieber-Rilke und Karl Altheim (Wiesbaden, 19501, pp.4791.
4. Arthur Rimbaud, "Ma bohkme (Fantaisie)", in Oeuvres completes, ed. Antoine Adam (Paris, 19721, p.35.
5. Franz Kafka, "Beschreihung eines Kampfes", in Gesammelte Werke, ed. Max Rrod (Frankfurt, 1976), V, pp.24ff.
6. Gaston Bachelard, La poktique de I'espace (Paris, 19671, Introduction. His method, however, which leaves aside "le probleme d e la composition d'un poeme", can obviously not b e adopted here.
7. For previous a t t e m p t s a t conceptualising and analysing the function o f landscape s e e esp. Joachim Rit ter , "Landschaft: Zur Funktion des Aesthetischen in de r modernen Gesellschaft", in Subjektivitat. Sechs A u f s l t z e (Frankfurt, 1974), pp.141-90; Michel Collot "L'horizon du paysage", in Lire le paysage, Lire les paysages: Ac tes du colloque 24-25 novembre 1983, CIEREC, Universite d e S t Etienne (19841, pp.121-29.
8. Editions f a t a mornana. The followinn abbreviations will be used: P P - L e parti pris dgs c h o s e s P r - P r o ~ m e s ; RE - La rage d e I'expression; LM - La Mounine '(all in Vol.1, Paris, 1965); L - Lyres: M - Mhthodes; P - Pieces (all from Le grand recueil, Paris, 1961); A C - L'Atelier contemporain (Paris, 19771.
9. See for a nearly similar view J.-M. Gleize and R. Veck, Objet: Francis Ponge, 'Actes ou Textes' (Lille, 19841, pp.56f.
10. Cf. Prat iques d e 1'8criture (Paris, 19841, pp.l8f., where Ponge also cal ls t h e landscape a nature morte.
11. Cf. Georges Mounin, "Vers I 'arbre-frkre aux jours compt6sV, Cahiers du Sud 342 (Sept. 19571, 307.
12. For Char, the following abbreviations wi l l be used: MP - M& premier; DNG - Dehors F M - Fureur et mystere; PA - La parole en archipel; ACh - Aromates chasseurs; NT - La nuit talismanique qui bri l lait dans son cercle; ChB - FO - Fenstres dormantes e t portes sur le toit; RBS - Recherche de la base e t du sommet' CA - Sous ma casquette amarante: Entretiens avec France Huser, all in) the Pleiade edn Oeuvres compl&tes, ed. Jean Roudaut, Paris, 1983.
13. Cf. "... la raison ne soupsonne pas que ce qu'elle nomme, la 18g&re, absence, occup6 le fourneau dans I'unite'." (FM, p.140).
14. The following abbreviations wi l l be used for Dupin: G - Gravir (Paris, 1963); E - LIErnbrasure (Paris, 1969); D - Dehors (Paris, 1975); Ead - L'Espace autrement di t (Paris, 1992); Ads - Une apparence de soupirail (Paris, 1982).
15. Rimbaud, "Jeunesse", in Oeuvres compl&tes (note 4 above), p.148.
16. Dupin, "Comment dire?", Empkdocle 2 (19491, p.93.
17. For the metapoetical character of Dupin's art crit icism see also Georges Raillart, Jacques Dupin (Paris, 1974) and Dominique Viart, LIEcriture seconde: La pratique po6tique de Jacques Dupin, Paris, 1982.
18. 1 should l ike to thank Holger Klein, whose abridgment and translation of my French typescript provided the basis of the present version.
NATURE AND PERCEPTION: VERSIONS OF A DIALECTIC I N EUROPEAN CITY POETRY
Walter Bachern (University of Bochum)
The development of European city poetry can roughly be divided into three
phases, starting around 1800 in England, 1850 in France, and 1900 in
Germany. The different socio-economic and cultural conditions did, of
course, leave their mark on the poems; one could even argue that i t was
in city poetry in particular that those 'external' influences found a
germane locus for deployment. In the absence of urban sociology or
psychology, city poems played a crucial role in raising and shaping con-
sciousness of a kind of reality that many poets deemed below their poetic
stature and standard. Satirical disgust was poured on the new subject-
matter, or pastoral idylls conjured up to foil or recuperate the ugly and
threatening side of the emergent metropolis.
However, often the same writer adopted a different stand on the
city, depending on whether he wrote in prose or poetry. Samuel Johnson
is a case in point. In his "London" poem of 1738, an imitation of
Juvenal's third Satire, he draws an analogy between London's physical and
moral decay; in his essays in the Rambler and the Adventurer, however,
his melancholic vein and keen social observation jointly proffer some
penetrating insights into the urban psyche. A blind spot that Pope's
august idea of man could not fathom.
I t was not until the Romantics entered the literary scene, and the
city, that the situation began to change. Their epistemological interest
in the status of the self, in (modes of) perception, and in the world of
"naturel'l programmed a head-on collision with the city and with what i t
represents. At the same time, it can be demonstrated that their concrete
experience of the city helped them significantly in crystallizing their more
general beliefs and ideas.
In what follows i t will be shown to what extent an increased aware-
ness of aspects of external and internal nature were instrumental in the
poet's way of seeing the city and in formulating his views on the nature
of perception. In the experience of the city, i t is claimed, the two
strands converge in the sense of a 'dialectic'. This also means that many
city poems came into being because of such a dialectical tension, so that
the production of city poems and the problematic they project can be seen
a s having a common source.' Poems from t h r e e histprical junctures have
been se l ec ted in order ' t o i l lus t ra te d i f f e ren t versions of th is d i a l ec t i c that
informed t h e formal, semant ic , and t h e m a t i c s t ruc tu re of many c i ty poems
for abou t a hundred years.
Blake's poem on "London" f rom Songs of Experience (1794) was
wr i t t en by a s taunch c i t y dwel ler who l e f t London only o n c e t o enjoy l i fe
in t h e coun t ry fo r t h r e e years. There t h e con t ra s t between country and
c i t y is acu te ly fe l t , although his percept ion of Felpham is a s much built
upon his imagination a s on ac tua l experience.3 Similarly, t h e c i t i e s he
was then beginning t o 'build' (The Four Zoas; Jerusalem) a r e imaginat ive
cons t ruc t s r a the r than concre te ly real ized urban environments. Focusing
on his ea r ly poem cal led "London", however, w e a r e immediate ly s t ruck
by i t s s tark , re lent less realism and simplicity. Unredeemed by "celestial
voices", i t never theless projects a s t rangely disembodied, phantasmal kind
of city. Voices seem seve red from human agen t s and cons t i tu t e an aural
s p a c e whose semio t i c t h e wandering speaker is about t o decipher. For
what looks disconnected, h e re-connects, but in s o doing h e applies t h e
s a m e method and language which t h e dominant discourse, a s projected in
t h e poem, is predicated upon, namely t h e principle of ident i ty and same-
n e s 4 No different ia l play is allowed t o unfold, which would allow us t o
see a d i f f e rence be tween na tu re and cul ture , river and s t r ee t . T h e
r epea ted a t t r i b u t e "charter 'd" fo rces a false, ar t i f ic ia l and commercial ized
kind of real i ty on us, a f a c t made much more explicit in a line d ra f t ed
in a notebook: "The chea t ing waves of cha r t e r ' d stream^".^ In t h e final
version, comment has thus been turned into a f a c t of perception, a dai ly
reality. Free-flowing movement and act ion, denoted by words like
"wander", "flow" o r "meet", i s contained and t a in t ed by rhyme (flow-woe;
s t r e e t l m e e t ) a s well a s seman t i c and syn tac t i c repetition.
T h e s a m e formal p a t t e r n s tha t in Songs of Innocence radiated an
au ra of lightness and purity (of dic t ion and s t ance ) he re - in the con tex t
of c i ty and 'experience' - s e r v e t o foreground t h e speaker ' s en t r enched
mode of percept ion and his sense of enclosure. Blake re inforces this
e f f e c t by subt ly fusing subject and object , a s t h e syn tac t i c var ia t ion of
"markn suggests; i t i s used a s a ve rb and a noun (object). O r by means
of g rammat ica l ambiguity, which allows us t o read "mind-forg'd manacles"
in t h e sense of manacles f e t t e r ing t h e mind o r f e t t e r s forged by t h e mind.
In such a reading t h e mind would b e seen a s both agent and pat ient , a s
instrumental in producing i ts own (inherent) constraints and as suffering
external constraints. The discrete pun in "forg'd" that suggests both
physical manufacture and the (fraudulent) mental construction of discourse
discreetly subverts the principle of identity that structures the poem. The
represented speaker, however, is absorbed, i f not constituted by what he
sees and hears. For the semiotic of the city is real pJ fabricated as
much as nature is presented as being concrete and constructed (i.e.
"charter'd").
Blake's indebtedness to Biblical sources (e.g. Revelation 13:16-17;
Ezekiel 9:4; Lamentations 4:13-14) only supports our point: what we see
as being real is already figured, no matter what source or selection of
codes is operative in the act of perception. However, Blake leaves no
ambiguity as to whether the selected codes suggest a violation of human
nature and human rights or not. Naturally, discourse elements such as the
political and commercial term "charter'd" can be perceived differently,
depending on one's political leanings. There is, for instance, Tom Paine's
reversal of the term's Whig definition, which suggests that i t "is a perver-
sion of terms to say, that a charter gives rights. I t operates by a
contrary effect, that of taking rights away.lt6
The crit ical reception of the poem provides plenty of evidence for
the assumptions made concerning concepts like human nature or freedom.
What needs stressing here is that perception is an effect of discourse and
that the kind of discourse operative at a particular point in time also
depends on how i t defines i ts relationship with nature. The poem supplies
a model for deconstructing any reading of it. Whereas Blake's speakers
in Songs of lnnocence and Songs of Experience seem unaware of their
perceptual limitations and their contexts, the reader is called upon to
detect discourse elements that inform the surface and the deep structure
of the text. Otherwise a play of identity and difference cannot come into
being. How we see Blake's city (poem), then, ultimately depends on what
we understand by nature or natural. lnnocence may, in fact, be in dire
need of experience, as some of the 'songs of innocence' suggest, because
it, too, limits our construction of the real. Conversely, experience may
profitably feed on innocence, because otherwise its constructions may sound
false and i ts forms look grotesque or paradoxical (e.g. "Marriage hearse").
I t is this kind of a dialectic which the last lines of the poem seem to
adumbrate: 'infancy' of l i fe and of (marital) relationship is doomed, i f
i t is predicated on an opposition, r a the r than a d i f f e rence between
innocence and exper ience - a s t w o d i sc re t e 'states' of being o r modes of
perception. 7
Not unlike Blake, fo r whom percept ion has t o be redeemed by a
vision tha t t ranscends t h e purely p h y s i c a ~ , ~ Wordsworth "Looks/ln s teadi- 9 ness" (Prelude, VII, 710f.) a t a par t icular object t o re lease i t s hidden
meaning, which is o the r than purely self-generated. He has t o 'ground'
his percept ions t o give his figurings s o m e weight. He is also highly con-
scious of t h e basic ambiguity of images in tha t t hey a r e twinned t o
physical and mental realities. This insight explains his known dread of
solipsism and his suspicion of decep t ive appearances. What b e t t e r tes t ing
ground, then, could t h e r e be fo r studying such appearances than the
addict ive g l i t t e r of t h e metropolis! His account of t h e "growth of a
poet 's mind" the re fo re includes t h e whole of Book VII. Rut his exper ience
of London has several layers; h e imaged it o n c e while craving for the
"power ... in all things", a s ''that vast Metropolis,/The Fountain of my
Country 's destiny/And of t h e dest iny of Ea r th itself" (VIII, 755f., 746-8).
T h e qualification just made i s important , s ince mentioning t h e con tex t of
percept ion is crucial t o an understanding of VJordsworthls poetry, a s h e
urges us t o encounter London "wholly f r e e f rom dangerous passions" (VII,
71f.).
His r e t rospec t ive description of London, of course, is not exclusively
covered by Book VII; r e fe rences a lso c rop up in o the r parts. Early
childhood images of t h e capi ta l natural ly undergo a ser ies of permutat ions ,
a s d o o the r key exper iences recounted in t h e poem, such a s t h e pond o r
t h e gibbet episodes. T h e r e i s of course a tendency in everyone t o wan t
t o a r r e s t moments and ob jec t s in space and t ime , especially when one
considers oneself, a s Wordsworth once did, "lord and master", thinking tha t
t h e "outward sensel ls but t h e obedient se rvan t of her will." (XI, 271-73)
Wordsworth r e fe r s here t o those "spots o f time" whose na tu re it is t o
resist narcissistic possession, s ince they a r e with us and of us, but not
because of us. They inject in to momenta ry exper i ence a sense of ident i ty
and dif ference, and a s such form a vi ta l e l emen t in a potent ia l ly endless - process of self-definition.
Wordsworth's expe r i ence of London and i t s bewildering sign system,
i t s constant ly moving crowds and f luctuat ing images, has t o be seen in
this context . For, desp i t e i t s apparent di f ferent ia t ion of s u r f a c e pheno-
mena, Wordsworth can find in it l i t t l e tha t i s of growth-inducing quality.
Unlike Baudelaire, who discovered in his beloved and hated Pa r i s a huge
terra in and potent ia l for self-definition, Wordsworth fe l t pressured t o l eave
t h e c i ty in o rde r t o salvage a few images and episodes in the quiet of a
natural re t reat . Only there , away from t h e "hell1For e y e s and ears!" (VII.
6591.3, c a n h e find a natural ground for rehearsing and processing his
previously made perceptions. They a r e then replayed a s a kind of "second-
s igh t procession, such a s glides1Over still mountains, o r appears in dreams"
(VII, 602f.l. Even d reams - for which the re i s o therwise l i t t l e room in
Wordsworth - seem preferable t o t h e 'mirror' world (VII, 250) of the city.
T h e shadowy C a v e of Yordas, therefore , looks pe r fec t a s an anti-setting
t o London, where t h e now internalized images of London a r e conjured up
again in quiet and resonant darkness, a s if t o give London in re t rospect
some spectra l dignity1' while allowing the mind t o pene t ra t e and imagin-
a t ively t ransform t h e images perceived. Only then can t h e "unmanageable
sight" (VII, 732) of London gain contour again, even if a t t h e pr ice of
producing a still-life: "The scene before him lies in pe r fec t view,/Exposed
and lifeless, a s a wr i t t en book." (VIII, 726f.) Rut a s s o o f t e n in Words-
worth, t h e scene will soon b e reanimated, London gains meaning through
t h e work of memory and t h e imagination. I ts images appear intermingled
with "forests and lakes,/Ships, rivers, towers, t h e Warrior c l ad in Mail,
I...] A Spec tac le t o which t h e r e i s no end.'' (V111, 737-41) First
impressions have t o be re-appraised, s i f ted through, abandoned, maybe
picked u p la ter ; deferr ing u l t ima te signification is ge rmane t o Words-
worth's poetics.
His sonnet "Composed upon Westminster Bridge, Sep tember 3, 1802"
projects just one par t icular picture; in o the r s h e t r i e s t o adopt t h e
perceptual f r a m e o f o the r people. T h e poem "Written A f t e r t h e Death of
Charles Lamb", for instance, also suggests t h e inspiring influence of the
c i t y on Lamb's c r e a t i v e work; and "The Fa rmer of Tilsbury Vale", who turned his back on t h e country, s e e m s re juvenated by t h e c i ty 's v i ta l i ty - a f t e r his bankruptcy a t home ("He s e e m s t e n bir thdays younger, i s green
and i s stout;/ Twice a s f a s t a s be fo re does his blood run about"), and
Smithfield with i t s "breath of t h e cows" reconnects his hea r t wi th the
dis tant Tilsbury vale." Humorous in tone, t h e poem never theless allows
for a l t e rna t ive London experiences.
Wordsworth seems to shy away from straight Popean satire, though
some of the London passages in the Prelude are reminiscent o f i t ; he
therefore often intersects them with bits o f Romance, or Miltonic lines,
i f only to keep urban pressures at bay or carve out some meaning in a
retrospect. The city's systemic absence o f meaning and order is emblem-
atized for him in the phantasmal spectacle o f Bartholomew Fair, which he
later contrasts and balances with the moderate rustic fair on Mount
Helvellyn that opens Book VIII. Several messages emerge from this rather
long description: first, i t s spectacle is so overwhelming that i t lays "The
whole creative powers" o f the poet to rest (VII, 655); second, the poet's
imaginative numbness is reflected in a virtual absence o f any controlling
metaphor or redeeming lyricism, as found in other parts of the same Book;
third, fairs and festivals reflect the people's imaginative need, i f only
expressed i n superstition or a belief in "the marvellous craf t /Of modern
Merlins" (V11, 6861.); and fourth, differences seem levelled down "to one
identity", whilst those that do exist "have no law, no meaning, and no end".
(VII, 704f.) Bartholomew Fair becomes the c i ty for Wordsworth - at that
point in time, but there are other moments and images that di f fer from
the previous ones and thus faci l i tate human 'experience'. 12
Wordsworth's catalogue o f sights simply reflects the contingency of
sense impressions. Nothing is repeated, everything is new, and thus no
memory-trace can be perceived or inscribed in the place. By contrast, the
country-fair is seasonal, famil iar characters re-emerge from the past, and
the whole atmosphere is governed by a spirit o f play, and o f interplay with
surrounding nature. Differences can be organically located and signified;
human nature can therefore be perceived i n f inite terms, which makes the
city's non-ending stream of l i fe look l ike blasphemy, since severed from
''early converse with the works o f God'' (VII, 719).
As a man-made artifact, the c i ty presents itself as a "work that's
finish'd to our hand" (VII, 6531, leaving nothing or l i t t l e to do for the
imagination. I ts profusion o f signs represents an over-signified reality -
wi th i ts "string of dazzling Wares,/Shop af ter shop, wi th Symbols, blazon'd
Names,/And all the Tradesman's honours overhead" (V11, 173-5). Significa-
t ion is prestructured, and the self is reduced to a parrot-like reception and
imitat ion of (sense) data. Reduced to the role o f a passive spectator
rather than (partial) creator, the c i ty dweller, as the hack artist, may feel
an urge to assume the role of a god-like signifier, positioned on "some
lofty Pinnacle" in order to produce the definitive version of reality, taking
in a "whole horizon on all sides" such as in "microscopic vision, Rome
itself" (VII, 273). preferably including the surrounding landscape ("every
tree1Through all the landscape", in short, "All that the Traveller sees when
he is there." (VII, 277-2001 Wordsworth here parodies the search for
semiotic plenitude and an all-inclusive vision of the worid,13 suggesting
that it simply reflects an absence of meaning, alienation from nature, and
a compensatory demonstration of power as i f to exorcise the specular
demons that seemed to have possessed the city mind. This exorcism will
inform structure and Imagery of some expressionist poems.
While at Cambridge, Wordsworth was already able to study a micro-
scopic picture of urban life. Unlike the penetrating mode of perception
demonstrated in the boat episode of Book IV, where objects are captured
in an experiential sequence that follows the organic relatedness (of similar
items as here), the Cambridge gaze goes through the motions of glancing
at an arbitrary arrangement of contiguous items. No room is left to
"fancy moren (IV, 253) The "rare" item must compensate for contextual
meaning; its underlying desire for singularity and novelty Wordsworth was
to observe later on in London.
Also the social aspect of contiguity was present in Cambridge, not
only in the 'poetic diction' that had become social practice there, but also
in the socially divisive power of the clothing system . Such divisiveness he also meets in London, whose street theatre he
rejects in favour of the stage, especially the performance of Jack the
Giant-killer, who connects him with boyhood reading, whereas the London
Street cuts him off from his past while pressuring him into a stunned
presence. Unlike the "Invisible" Giant, he is not safe "from the eye/Of
living mortaln. (VII, 305f.) In a related scene Wordsworth describes the
encounter with a Blind Beggar, a scene which has the makings of a "spot
of time". The man is standing propped against a wall, with an explanatory
"label" on his chest (VII, 614f.). Standing apart from the crowds, his
blindness seems to reflect their own sightless anonymity.
Although London could not offer Wordsworth a prime place or self-
definition, he nevertheless kept his steady eye quite open and gazed in
horror at his arch-enemy, the senselessly specular. Blindness is its ulti-
mate negation, and the natural or supernatural its companion forms - "As
if admonish'd from another worldn. (VII, 623) The Blind ~eggar 's epi-
phanic appearance amidst the city crowds therefore embodies "the utmost
that we know". (V11, '619)
The story of nineteenth-century Paris is reflected and fractured in the
story of Baudelaire's l i fe and work. Individual poems can be and have
been related to personal and social events, structures, and imagesJ4 Thus
an image of a poetic identity emerges that is built upon a series of
ruptures - familial, social, political. The traumatic break with his family
meant that he had to start a new life, seek new (personal and class)
alliances, and face an urban reality that posed a permanent threat of
engulfment. His initial poetic response, therefore, was to put on
'pastoral' lenses and ennoble the Parisian scene.
In order to put this programme into practice, he avails himself of
"Le Soleil", both as symbol and a physical energy, and aims to dissolve
"les soucis vers le cieI1', l5 turn the lame into maypole dancers, and
generally reanimate the human heart. I t is, in fact a social programme,
whose urgency is reflected in tone and diction; both sound as forced as
the whole vision looks unnatural. The sun's appearance is willed "Quand,
ainsi qu'un pohte, il descend dans les villes" (FM, p.266). The sun's
presence seems both unnatural and necessary in a city, since light is shed
freely on everything, poor or rich; like the poet himself, i t cares in an
uncaring environment. His perception thus is informed and transformed
by the sun's energy and "equality", and the caring voices its effect on
urban man: "le soleil cruel frappe a traits redoublb/sur la ville et les
champs, sur les toits et les b16s" (FM, p.265). However, poet and sun are
joined in a central ambiguity, which reveals as much as i t hides: slums
are not stubble fields. The reader is lured into perceiving the social as
natural, an effect partly achieved by the sing-song of the rhythm. Never-
theless, i t is the naturalizing cliche that works most effectively in a
context of social ugliness, since i t reflects perception as impaired and
impoverished. The poverty of the clich6 always refers to potential but not
actualized plenitude in meaning. Raudelaire creates an image of gener-
osity that spills into the l i fe of brains and bees (FM, p.266). The urban
mind feeds on such visions, since i ts endemic meanness reflects the
absence of nature's riches. Pastoral promise is thus basically introduced
as a structure of desire, as an energy rather than a full-fledged picture.
Baudelaire's bucolic discourse is always self-conscious, a s the opening
lines of "Paysage" suggest: "Je veux, pour composer chastement mes
bglogues,/Coucher auprks du ciel, comme les astrologues" (FM, p.265).
Like "Les Aveugles" who keep their eyes fixed on the far skies they
cannot see, he seeks inspiration from a visualized transcendence that is
not to obscure or transfigure his perception of urban squalor. Unlike the
entrenched mode of perception that Blake projects in "London", Baudelaire
continually refers t h e eye t o the "other" (and i t s manifold manifestations)
while remaining grounded in the physical and social presence of the city.
Like \Vordsworth's beggar, his blind men serve a s figures against the
ground of urban hubbubb and i t s specular analogues.
In a sense, even those blind beggars or blind 'seers' look like idylls
because of their difference rather than opposition to the urban scene, of
which they a re firmly a part. In their "spectacle' Baudelaire images what
has been done to them, whose names were once the order of the day:
"Vous qui fCtes la g rsce ou qui fiites la gloire,/Nul ne vous reconnatt! " (FM, p.274). As virtually disembodied eyes and voices, they accost like
ghosts the passer-by, t h e flaneur who affords himself t ime to reflect on
them, and write their history in verse.
Unlike so much urban poetry that interpolates idyll to redeem the
city, Baudelaire's eye concentrates on i t s child-like innocence: "tout c e
que I'ldylle a d e plus enfantin" (FM, p.256; my italics). l6 For he senses
in the child's mode of perception a "cruel" fairness ("le soleil cruel", FM,
p.265), which clarifies the mind in order to pierce the veil of hard and
shiny appearances without loss of sensibility. In short, Baudelaire's vision
of Paris is that of a child and an adult a t the same time, analytical and
naive. The two perceptions of the world (of the city) intersect, a s in
some of Blake's poems. Memory traces and 'cobblestones' have to
collide in order to get his "fantasque escrime" - literally - off the ground.
That childhood memory was crucial for him is evidenced, for instance, in
his version of d e Quincey's idea of the 'Palimpsest of Memory'. 17
Baudelaire's pastoral transformation of Paris has method: "Et quand
viendra I'hiver aux neiges monotones,/Je fermerai partout portieres e t
volets/Pour batir dans Is nuit mes fCeriques palais." (FM, p.265) Sobbing
fountains and singing birds a r e drummed up to shut out s t ree t riots that
may taint his vision of natural beauty, and of 'social' beauty. For the
Parisian workshop (we would now call it a factory), which h e "sees" (FM,
p.265) from his garret as being turned into a place ,of spontaneous self-
expression ("l'atelier qui chante e t qui bavarde") receive a retroactive dis-
claimer: the joint presence of social unrest and social peace forces i ts
paradoxical nature on the reader, makes him think about the social con-
structlon of nature and the ac t of naturalizing the ci ty as a prominent
locus of politics and history. To improve the natural (emotional) and
social cl imate of Paris, the poet avails himself of paradox, a s in the final
lines, of the conceit of "tirer un soleil d e mon coeur" (FM, p.265). Thus
the sun, whose human analogue is the heart, is invoked for the sole
purpose of combating social and individual indifference, since both fields
and the heart a r e m a t o grow a. Child-llke insistence and modern
self-consciousness a r e joined to energize perception, and open it again t o
see the 'other', all that has been suppressed o r oversignified - which
ultimately amounts to the same thing.
The speaker's ostentatious disinterestedness in 'things political', as
projected in "Paysage", is simply childish rather than anti-political; i t s
abrupt gesture of shutting out the voice of the people looks immature.
Yet it is also indicative of a highly matured consciousness that playfully
handles familiar discourse. Thus social and natural c l i c h b are employed
t o secure interest or connivance in the reader. Poets a r e 'naturally'
placed in their garrets, and nature is evoked through common-place
imagery ("neiges monotones", "fiieriques palais", "jets d'eau pleurant",
'oiseaux chantant", etc.). Baudelaire's seemingly simple urban pastoral
draws attention to its own constructedness a s much as t o the heterogene-
ous materials he works with. Framed by a "wintry" mood, his picture o f ,
Paris is composed of the playthings of childhood and the stumbling-blocks
of an adult.
"Rbve Parisien" could be regarded as a companion piece, although
placed towards the end of the Tableaux Parisiens. A t first it seems to
have little in common with the other one, since nature, and any "v6gCtal
irr6guliern (FM, p.284) have been banned from the dream. "Colonnades"
stand in for trees, "glass" becomes synonymous with water, and "objective"
light (i.e. light produced and contained by the object) eschews natural
light. In short, nature has been replaced by a glittering artifact, composed
of metal, marble, stone, and glass. Its building materials seem t o have
been selected solely for their mirror function, namely t o reflect the
image of i t s architect who, like the "huge naiads", can marvel a t himself.
Here " the eyes alone" i s in imperial command. I t i s a concep t of a r t t ha t
l a t e r will f a sc ina t e Jean-Paul S a r t r e in L a Nausie , fo r not dissimilar
reasons. Fo r th is "terrible" kind of const ruct ion s e e m s t o afford t h e
only e scape f rom t h e urban mess, i t s cont ingencies , i t s vulgar "nature";
clinical s ter i l i ty usurps t h e domain of organic g rowth and filth. So, i s t h e
t i t l e o f t h e poem a misnomer? And i s t he re only a slim link be tween t h e
t w o poems, as Leakey s t a t e s ? l9
T h e opening of t h e poem conf ron t s t h e r eade r with t h e perceptual
shock t o which t h e speake r awakens, and whose origin is unclear. Pa ra -
doxically, t h e " terr ib le terrain' ' does not haunt bu t ravish t h e speaker , i t s
s educ t ive image spilling in to his waking consciousness - of t h e d ream and t h e c i ty , a s if t o e l ic i t a comparison be tween t h e 'miraculous' ("Sleep is
full of miracles!") and t h e profane. But what a mi rac l e w e a r e allowed
t o wi tness! It i s a world empt i ed of life, in which " the s i l ence of t h e
Void" reigns, f rom which i r regular meanderings, hidden corners , rough
edges, growth and his tory h a v e been removed, and where to t a l inspection
and survei l lance g o unpunished. How much c loser c a n w e g e t t o Baron
Haussmann's - admi t t ed ly well-meaning - geomet r i ca l ideal of re lent less
'regularisation' and se l f - representa t ional 'boulevards' ? 20 T h e c i t y i s
mean t t o have i t s own discourse, manifes ted in a n au to t e l i c sys tem, just
l ike Baudelaire 's ' terribly' intriguing "Parisian Dream". Haussmann's slum-
c lear ing p rog ramme s e e m s t o have been inscribed in it; ironically, i t is
his "l'horreur d e mon taudis" h e r e tu rns to, and wi th i t r e tu rns "La pointe
des soucis maudits", and of re lent less c lock time. (FM, p.286) T h e t w o
f a c e s o f Paris, blended in to t h e compos i t e p ic ture of a d ream, r e f r ac t
each other , something t h e speake r i s anxious t o prevent by sepa ra t ing them
o u t a t t h e level of s u r f a c e discourse. T h e s e m a n t i c building blocks of t h e
poem, however, be t r ay the i r urban blueprint. I t is a c i t y mind t h a t builds
i t s "fgeriques palais" ("Paysagen, FM, p.2651, and t h e f lowers of i t s land-
s capes a r e of me ta l and glass. T h e harmony of a pas tora l idyll has not
been dis turbed here , a s in t h e o t h e r poems, but negated, and turned in to
a n anti-pastoral. Childhood play s e e m s t o h a v e ma tu red in to an adul t
still-life, but i t s horr i f ic beau ty r e f e r s us back t o i t s na tu ra l sou rces of
inspiration.
Since Baudelaire 's 'Parisian' d ream i s not only of Pa r i s but a l so in
Paris, a n e s c a p e in to na tu re amoun t s t o a n e s c a p e in to t h e past, whose
r ea l i t y has t o b e ca rved o u t of t h e present , a s is suggested in "Le Soleil"
(Fh4, p.265f.l. Such 'eerie' collisions with the past tend to turn the
present, and presence of Paris into a spectral scene, whose images cling
to its dwellers. Instead of being only an intermediary stage between a
specular and an imaginative encounter with the real, as it was for Words-
worth, the spectral is for Baudelaire one of the mainsprings of his poetry.
It forms part of present-day perceptions rather than being neatly separated
out like a bad dream. It is inscribed and comes alive on the cobblestones
of Paris, as in the guise of a "Squelette Laboureurn (FM, p.276f.1, the
"Danse Macabre" (FM, p.279ff.) or the spectral procession (not as a willed
Wordsworthian "second-time procession") of "Les Sept Vieillardsn (FM,
p.270ff.l or "Les Petites Vieilles" (FM, pp.272-275).
In the latter poem, old women appear as remains and reminders (of
an "other" Paris) that can be picked up and inherited by the "flaneur".
They are walking paradoxes, like those "Aveugles" who look like
"mannequins" (FM, p.275). They are ghosts that do not fit into the world
of the imaginary, since there history has become anathema. Dwarfed in
size to match the coffin of a child, and their life story emptied into a
hiatus between birth and death "nouveau berceau", they nevertheless
possess one identifying and functioning organ: their eyes "per~ants comme
une vrille". However, it is not the eyes of the imaginary gaze that
freezes the "other"; instead it contains it in the sense of child-like
wonder. Their eyes are "les yeux divins de la petite fille", still able to
marvel "A tout c e qui reluit" (FM, p.272). a faculty and passion they share
with the speaker in "Rgve Parisien" (FM, p.284ff.l.
The ambiguous nature of perception is thrown into relief in the way
the speaker can both share their wonder and analyze their appearance.
For behind the physical presence of a "swarming" Paris, the speaker dis-
covers a problem of geometry ("mbditant sur la g60m6trie8', FM p.2731,
since the women's bodies show up "membres discords" (FM, p.2731, that
he finds disturbing, like that "v6g6tal irr6guliern in the other poem:
"Combien de fois il faut que I'ouvrier varie/La forme de la boqte oh I'on
met tous ces corps"? In the poet's "dreamn of Paris, of course, the
formal structuring of matter is an easier task; any natural resistance such
as an ocean represents can be 'tamed' and contained by the poet's will
and imagination (FM, p.285). Unlike concrete 'materials' such as the
human body, mental pictures are more on a par with aesthetic perception,
but even here nature's irregularities can cause life-long problems for the
urban artist, as Baudelaire confesses in the prose poem "Le Confitgor de
IfArtisten: "Nature, enchantresse sans piti6, rivale toujours victorieuse,
laisse-moi !" 2 1
To hold nature in check, Raudelaire interpolates in many of his
poems cultural referents as models of perception, mainly from the Fine
Arts. Rut the picturesque effect of his painterly or sculptural images are
often framed by signifiers of nature, usually of basic human expression
(grief, joy, pain, etc.). Moreover, since the speaker's discourse in the
Tableaux parisiens is often dynamized by speech acts of hope, wish,
exclamation, command, questioning, etc., he demonstrates human involve-
ment rather than aesthetic detachment, as often claimed. He wants
others to share primarily his experiential rather than his cultural knowledge.
Raudelaire does not have to prove in his poetry that he is an outstanding
art critic. But he certainly would not mind i f readers attracted by
learned allusions would also learn to reflect upon the natural roots of such
poetry and such a voice.
Thus "Les Petites Vieilles" foregrounds cultural stereotypes such as
"Madonne transperc6en (FM, p.273) or "De Frascati d6funt Vestale
enamour6e" that refer the reader to the voice of nature, and speech acts
denote dialogic involvement: "Monstres brisds, bossus/Ou tordus, aimons-
les !" (Fh4, p.272, my italics). The social responsibility is stressed, as in - the lines: "Avez-vous observ6 que maints cercueils de vieilles/Sont presque
aussi petits que celui d'un enfant?" (FM, p.273, my italics). The "soul" is
here clearly invoked as the organ of perception, as the "heart" is in many
other poems. Unlike his poetry up to the mid-1850s, where the propo-
sitional dimension of his poems overruled pragmatic concerns and
strategies, his explicitly urban poems situate a pained and more isolated
speaker. He anxiously seeks contact, since mutually shared knowledge and
experience seem no longer guaranteed, i f it ever was. The early rhetoric
of persuasion now has to fight on a different ground, and speech acts have
to be switched accordingly. The addressee, too, is less stereotyped, more
typical of real men and women of the street. One poem is addressed "A
une Mendiante pousse", another to a woman passing by ("A une Passante").
In Baudelaire's Parisian Pictures frames of perception and images of
nature (and its metonyms such as the human body, dreams, or desire)
intersect in ways unseen so far in the history of urban poetry. Related
motifs and oppositions such as chiIdhood/adulthood, life/death, present/past
o r cu l tu re lna tu re a r e closely woven into t h e poem's texture . T h e resulting
pic tures a r e the re fo re no longer decipherable on t h e level of neat opposi-
tions; only d i f f e rences e m e r g e from these pictures, because t h e desi re
tha t produced them i s inextricably wedded t o i t s source of frustration.
"VoIupt6" o r "sensationn, then, a r e mediators between inner and ou te r
nature , but t h e images they th r ive on a r e essent ia l ly urban, and thus tend
t o nega te what they stimulate." It is this, I think, what Baudelaire
mean t when h e cal led "les images, m a grande, m a pr imit ive passion".
Baudelaire's passion fo r images remains unparalleled in c i t y poetry; ye t
t h e pain and confusion they c a n cause will be fu r the r investigated,
especially by t h e German Expressionists, who work with s imilar s e t s of
motifs, but work them into much more radical fo rms of involvement, and
even engulfment.
German c i t y poetry emerged in t h e 1880s in t h e con tex t of l a t e industrial-
izat ion and a s t rong pastoral tradition, and developed through dis t inct
s tyl is t ic s t a g e s from Naturalism, neo-Romanticism and Symbolism until i t
reached i t s c l imax in Expressionism (especially between 1910 and 1920).
Arno Holz played a crucial role in this development both in t e r m s of
s ty l e and subject-mat ter ; h e and s o m e of t h e o t h e r naturalists, especially
Jul ius Hart , Bruno Wille, and Karl Henckell, in t roduced us t o a c i t y tha t
works, and where work spills over in to leisure, and alcohol acce le ra t e s
deter iorat ion.
Industrial iconography recur s in modera te variation; sooty factory
chimneys overshadow Berlin's "Mietskasernen" (such a s those on t h e
Ackers t rasse) , narrow s t r e e t s and t r ee l e s s cour tya rds add t o a general
a tmosphere of claustrophobia. Here t h e natural is t poet shows his commi t -
men t in redirect ing t h e victims' percept ion away from their confinement
towards t h e large expanses of f reedom such a s Bruno Wille's seraphic
skies in " ~ o l k e n s t a d t " . ~ ~ Pa le housewives and sweat ing workers a r e urged
t o look upward and marvel a t t h e poet 's Alpine idyll while angel ic children
look down on t h e urban squalor in horror. However, t h e pastoral counter-
image t o t h e c i t y fa i ls t o ene rg ize perception, which remains caught
be tween t w o s t a t i ca l ly opposed pictures. What seem t o b e dialogic speech
a c t s (i.e. requests, commands) s e r v e t o re inforce t h e speaker's paternal is t ic
s t a n c e and self-engrossed r ap tu re a t his own vision of escape. It i s a
rhetor ic and dic t ion Wille shares with the o t h e r Naturalists. In Holz's
"Grosstadtmorgen", fo r instance, t h e poem also divides in to two contras t -
ing worlds, but they converge in a momentar i ly divided consciousness: "Da,
plotzlich, wie? ich wusst es selber nicht,/fuhr mir durchs Hirn
phantastisch ein Gesicht,/in Traum ..." (R, p.44). T h e remembered idyll
?i la Eichendorff, who half a cen tu ry ea r l i e r employed t h e s a m e technique
t o keep t h e real i ty of Berlin a t bay, c a n now unfold, ye t is c lear ly
intended t o le t i t s Utopian flow spill in to t h e final s e t of clipped and
chilly propositions: "Die Friedrichstrasse. Krumm an seiner Krucke/ein
Be t t l e r ...". (R, p.45) T h e speaker ' s self-presentation in t h e first few
lines ("da schr i t t ich miide durch d ie FriedrichstadtJbespritzt von ihrem
Schmutz bis in die Seelev', R, p.44) t e l l s u s what Paudelai re shows; his
"soul" may well b e soiled by t h e c i ty , but the poem shows no t r a c e of it.
T h e homely, self-absorbed mood and dic t ion give him away: "An was ich
dachte , weiss d e r Kuckuck nur./Vielleicht a n meinen Affenpintscher Fips"
(R, p.44).
'Biedermeier' a t i t s best, and no real urban collision t o disrupt it.
Violent exchanges, if t hey d o occur, a r e quickly contained by the powers
tha t be, a s t h e fight between a coach dr iver and a policeman in Henckell 's
"Von de r Strasse" shows. But he re t h e speaker becomes ironic, l e t s t h e
law-abiding ci t izens admi re t h e brave policeman (R, p.50) and then goes
on t o question t h e seemingly trivial incident by making us look a t a
violent potent ia l amongst t h e urbanites: "Doch aus winzigen Schnee-
ballchenlwachst laut los d i e Lawine, d i e verheer t lund jah verschlingt ...Iq
(R, p.50). On t h e whole, however, t hese poems d o not ye t project a
reservoir of violence; t h e des t ruc t ive s ide of human na tu re is not yet
allowed t o express itself freely. If a t all, i t is embedded in an energized
diction, rapidly switching points of view (supported by quickly sequenced
de ic t i c signals) and a general ly more aggressive imagery.
Although natural is t poems a r e still a f a r c r y away from t h e
expressionist epi tomes, t h e kinet ic quality of s o m e passages comes c lose
t o t h e expressionist mode. An interes t ing example in this r e spec t is one
of Jul ius Hart ' s poems, which opens with t h e line "Vom Westen kam ich,
schwerer Heideduft/umfloss mich noch ...Iq (R, p.59) suggesting a rural
mode o f percept ion t h a t i s allowed, for one s t anza a t least, t o feed on
t h e pic turesque countryside through which the self is travelling in a t ra in
o n i t s way t o Berlin. In t h e third s tanza, however, t h e pastoral cha rm i s
brusquely brushed aside ("Vorbei die Spiele!", R, p.60) t o let a voice of
experience and i t s re'spective mode of perception take over; this is why
and when the countryside 'changes', it becomes more aggressive as the
train races through the September mists a s if penetrating some resistent
veil o r wall. While following the rapid sequence of images picked up by
the perceiving eye, the same images seem t o reflect the traveller's
entranced frame of mind, his fascination for the engine's ubiquitous power;
he inhabits i t s field of energy ("vom dumpfen Schall/stohnt, drohnt und
saust's im engen Eisenwagen").
Nevertheless, we can still feel a distance between the observer and
his object, although much less so than in impressionistic poems where
images simply dance on the nerves of the beholder without engaging him
in any deeper sense. It is a distance that is given up (within a few lines)
in Stadler's "Fahrt uber die Kolner Rheinbriicke bei Nacht", where outer
and inner images stimulate each other towards an e ro t ic climax, followed
by an ebbing out of intensity ("Stille. Nacht. Besinnung. ~ i n k e h r " ) ' ~ and
renewed ecstacy. In Hart 's poem the descriptive mode is still dominant,
also a t arrival in Berlin, whose sight a t first is leaden, then volcanic (R,
p.60). Here perception absorbs clearly visionary elements, although in the
next line we a r e thrown back to the tangible reality of the train in
preparation for a more physically detailed city. Such oscillation between
perception and vision, outer and inner motion informs the structure of the
rest of the poem. The 'surge' of the crowd seems to control, indeed, to
become individual desire, i.e. internal - like a dream; outer and inner
lines of energy can no longer be clearly distinguished. By contrast, the
form of the poem - i t s al ternate rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter,
which even holds t h e self's repeated questioning in check ("Wohin?
wohin?") - frames the contingency of i t s content. What seems a contra-
diction, however, may find a possible solution in a new concept of form,
which Stadler's programmatic poem "Form ist Wollust" explicates:
Form ist klare Harte ohn' Erbarmen, doch mich treibt es zu den Dumpfen, zu den Armen, Und grenzenlosem Michverschenken Will mich Leben mit Erfiillung tranken. 25
Form marks t h e boundary that enables transgression to take place,
and as such It becomes an enabling devlce for the poet t o remain within
poetic convention deploy a structure of transgression. Similarly,
individual des i r e i s ' formed' only by being objectified. In Har t ' s poem,
t h e use of deixis and ve rb phrase ("zwischen ... t r e ib ich dahin") re inforce
th i s conjecture , because they foreground des i r e a s an object (like "deathn)
which o n e c a n move towards and away from. A similar d is tance, inciden-
tally, i s mainta ined in Liliencron's "In e ine r grossen Stadtn , although
sepa ra t ing ou t l i fe and t i m e from a more privileged vantage-point. (R,
p.92) In Har t , t h e self, by implication, renounces any responsibility for
such (potent ia l ) engulfment , s ince a new agent , namely t h e c i ty , i s about
t o t a k e c a r e of individual l i fe and t h e future. And t h e pointed coupling
of folksie "Lebenslust" and "drunken" in toxicat ion se rves t o clinch t h e pac t
be tween a pas t coun t ryman and a present city-dweller.
T h e p a t t e r n and sequence of initiation t o t h e c i t y is a lways t h e
same: Innocent fascinat ion wi th t h e c i t y a s a spec t ac l e i s followed by an
increased in toxicat ion wi th it , and ending up in (dreaded) self-engulfment
("jahlings hinabgerissen"). A s in Har t ' s poem, i t o f t e n r ep resen t s a journey
f rom innocence t o expe r i ence (and sexual self-awareness), and t h e propel-
ling fo rce invariably is t h e specular , of whose subvers ive qual i ty Baudelaire
was t h e f i rs t t o become fully conscious and find a concep t for: "voluptk"
o r "sensationn, which signify t h e f r e e flow of energy be tween inner and
o u t e r nature.
T h e German na tu ra l i s t s in tui ted a bas ic link between t h e way w e
pe rce ive t h e world and (human) nature , but i t was Expressionists who
t r ans l a t ed th is intuition in to the i r p r a c t i c e of writing. However, before
they e n t e r e d t h e scene, neo-Romant ic and Symbolist poe t s fil led t h e gap,
in m o r e than o n e sense. F o r t hey f e l t somewhat f r ightened, a s s o m e of
t h e na tu ra l i s t s did, by t h e c r a c k s tha t surfaced in t h e prevailing (poet ic)
discourse, and w e r e de t e rmined t o s i lence t h e c i ty ' s 'body' and i t s
d e m a n d s z 6 S t r ange ly enough, ea r ly Expressionists l ike S tad le r a t t e m p t e d
t o c o m b a t a s imilar anxie ty , a s in his "Dammerung in d e r Stadt": "Der
Abend spr icht mi t l indem/Schmeichelwort d i e Cassen l in Sch lummer ..."." Irrespect ive of d i f f e ren t s t a g e s and c i ty images which Heym's work
embodies, w e no t i ce a m o r e aggress ive qual i ty in his images and a more
methodical handling of t hem than in ea r l i e r poems. T h e moon, for
example , in Bruno Wille's "Strasse" plays t h e role of a n observer of c i t y
life; i t s ref ra in- l ike s i lent c o m m e n t s a t t h e end of e a c h s t a n z a a r e a s
harmless a s t h e urban happenings t h e moon's f a c e i s t o r e f l ec t (R, pp.50f.).
By con t r a s t , in Heym's nDle D l m o n e n d e r StBdten t h e moon is s t r a t eg i -
cally obscured by one of t h e demons (R, p.112) so tha t their nightly
t e r ro r c a n run i t s deadly course, unimpeded by an observant witness.
Otherwise t h e moon is presented a s an agen t o r pat ient of aggression (e.g.
"schwarz zerrissen/Von Mondenstrahl", R, p.114), o r light appears in red,
which i s with black his favouri te colour. T h e spheres of dea th and desire
a r e thus given their visual correlates , a s t h e monstrous birth in "Die
Damonen d e r Stadt" dramatizes:
Ihr Schoss klaff t rot und lang Und blutend reisst e r von d e r Frucht entzwei. I...] Erdbebsn donnert durch d e r S t a d t e Schoss Um ihren Huf, den Feuer iiberloht. (R, p.112)
T h e demons' aggression i s directed a t t h e city's womb and c a n thus be
interpreted a s a de te rmina te negation (Hegel) r a the r than a s an anarchic
a c t of destruction. Their cat- l ike scream, which is hurled in to t h e dark
skies, is joined by a pregnant woman's sc ream tha t shakes t h e room and
rends t h e aural fabr ic of t h e c i t y (R, p.112). Animal-like, t h e woman's
sc ream thus echoes man's primeval scream, a s if t o shortcircui t his
evolutionary history in which t h e building of c i t i e s (and cul ture) and t h e
subjection of nature have formed a vi ta l dialectic.
If we, fur thermore, t a k e t h e allegorical figurations tha t dominate t h e
ci ty , for example in Heym's "Der Got t d e r Stadt", a s emanat ions of i t s
governing spirit , t h e a c t of i t s destruct ion a f fo rds us a glimpse into i t s
uncannily ambiguous nature. A s a source and product of culturally
invested energy, t h e pride of progress and civilization, t h e 'City' begins
t o turn upon i t s own frui ts by swallowing them up like "monstrous"
children. C i ty symbols such a s towering churches and factory chimneys
anxiously ga the r round ancient Baal's throne, a symbol of modern man's
'second nature ' , sacrificing themselves like the i r ancestors in a Corybant
ritual dance (R, p.113).
What Heym's poems seem t o project, in short, is a 'dialectic of
enlightenment' , a s diagnosed and described by Horkheimer and Adorno some
thir ty yea r s later. 2R They point t o a mythical s ide of modern reason,
which recurs in fo rms of uncontrollable na tu re because of their sys temat ic
subjection. 29 Heym's two poems c a n the re fo re b e seen a s a 'determinate'
negation3' of such a system in o rde r t o make us 'see' what t h e c i t y tends
t o hide and suppress. Th i s is perhaps why Heym places his "god of the
A W M N POEMS AND LITERARY IMPRESSIONISM CONCEPTUALIZATION. THEMATIZATION AND CLASSIFICATION
Zlva Ren-Pomt (Tel Aviv University)
This paper studies a number of autumn poems, all of which can be - or
have been - described as impressionist. The aim of this thematic study
is to throw some light on the relationship between literary thematizations
and representations. The basic notions are:
- The assignment of a theme to a poem in the process of i ts inter- pretation is actually an identification and a modiflcation of a cultural concept; 1
- This dual process is based on the poem's use of a representational system whose components correspond - a t least in part - to the common- est attributes of the cultural concept (1.e. the 'mental picture', 'model', 'subschema', o r 'representational system' - according to various cognitive schools);
. - Periods, schools and individual authors differ in their claimed and achieved degree of distance between a presented theme and i ts concep- tualized representations;
- Impressionism, the French school of painting of the 1860-1870s, includes, as one of i ts major tenets, the most radical form of the demand to dissociate a theme from its conceptualized representational systems.
- The technical solutions of the impressionist painters can be - and have been - translated Into a poetics. Poems (and other texts) written in accordance with this particular poetics a re often labelled nimpressionist."
- The usage of impressionist poetics does not entail the break between theme and concept (referred to above). 'Impressionism' (as a theory or ideology) 1s not the same as 'impress~onism.'
- When such a break occurs, the reader experiences difficulties in thematizations either a conflict between a declared theme (e.g. in a title) and i ts representation, o r an inability t o integrate the components of the representation into one thematic whole.
- Under certain circumstances poetic thematizations yleld novel conceptualizations of reality.
- A comparative study of 'impressionist' and 'Impressionist' poems on an established theme, whose reality base (and therefore conceptual attributes) is well known, could provlde us with insights t o the relations between theme, concept and representation.
The paper begins, then, with a short discussion of the relationship
between the impressionist school of painting and l i terary 'Impressionism'
h e . acknowledged schools or ideological affinities) or 'impressionism' (i.e.
poetics), and with a presentation o f the concepts and representational
systems o f the chosen theme - autumn. This general introductory section
ends with a hypothesized 'true' lmpressionist poem.
An analysis of two poems by Detlev von Liliencron shows that school
aff i l iation does not entail an adherence to the basic Impressionist impulses
(the generators of the particular painting technique and i t s l i terary equiva-
lents). The two poems are shown to he conventional conceptualizations
of autumn wri t ten in the impressionist style. An analysis o f an autumn
poem by the nineteenth-century poet John Clare shows how lmpressionism
(i.e. the ideal of an exact rendition of the world as perceived in a parti-
cular moment and presented free o f pre-categorization) is a poetic possi-
bi l i ty, and how the execution o f a 'true' lmpressionist poem creates a
problem of thematization.
While in painting French Impressionism of the nineteenth century
fulf i ls al l the requirements for categorization as a s c h o o ~ , ~ l i terary
lmpressionism poses a much harder problem of classification. There are
scholars who claim that l i terary lmpressionism is altogether a myth;
others believe that i t is a rather loose aggregation o f styl ist ic features.
Most historians o f l i terature agree, however, that there is a German
lmpressionist school in poetry, and that Symbolism in France and Imagism
in England and the United States are i ts parallels. That is to say that
these three national schools occupy in their respective l i terary systems the
same position which Impressionism holds in the plastic arts system. I t is
true that Symbolism, for example, i n i ts reaction to l i terary realism and
naturalism parallels the revolt of lmpressionist painting against Academic
Realism and even pictorial Naturalism. Like pictorial Impressionism l i ter-
ary Symbolism is characterized by the impulse to arrest and present the
moment in which sense impressions become an experience (or create one),
using the associative and arbitrary (vs. the logical) concatenation of those
impressions, the overlapping of bounds, the hlurring o f forms and the
integration o f different sense impressions (i.e. synesthesia), and focusing
on the ef fect which an object creates rather than on the concept which
i t represents. Furthermore, the Symbolist poets actually socialized closely
with the Impressionist painters: they exchanged ideas, showed their works
t o each other, and commented on t h e works - a s well a s on the theoreti-
ca l issues - in pr ivate and in public. In this sense the Symbolist poets a r e
part o f the Impressionist school. Nevertheless i t is evident tha t t h e very
concept of a Symbol - t h e meaning implied by the image which has been
c rea ted with these techniques - is alien t o the most basic tenet of
Impressionism. A symbol involves conceptualization as well a s t h e
communication of an idea, whereas lmpressionism aims a t de-conceptualiza-
tion in order t o present t h e world as i t is revealed in a particular moment
and under particular conditions. 3
Such a crucial difference between the acknowledged corresponding
schools cal ls into question t h e validity of their identification a s variet ies
of a l i terary Impressionism. But the problem does not end there. Even
if w e give up t h e notion of a school and limit the concept of literary
impressionism t o a bundle of features - the basic problem of lmpressionism
a s well a s t h e difficulty of switching media s t ays with us.
As mentioned before, t h e primary impulse of Impressionism, out of
which grow almost all i t s distinctive features - or, rather, those qualities
commonly connected with Impressionism - is t h e wish to s e e t h e world as
i t is and t o present it a s a complex of sense impressions without using
pre-existing categories. The difficulty of realizing such an ideal is two-
fold: the problem of seeing without conceptualizations, and t h e problem
of representing t h e world through highly subjective lenses without distorting
it. 4 Oskar Walzel formulated the first problem when he pointed out the
questionable nature of t h e assumption that seeing without ready-made
pat terns (Vorstellungen) is possible. What is problematic already with
regard t o our visual experiences seems t o be al together impossible when
t h e ar t is t ic medium is poetry. Any representation of the world in words
could not possibly evade t h e use of concepts. 5
The idea of a representation leads us to the second inherent
difficulty. If t h e work of a r t is a presentation of an impression (i.e. a
processed piece of information) what does i t represent - the perceived
object o r the perceiving mind? The confusion between the two polarized
views finds expression in t h e words of Ford Madox Ford (Hueffer), whom
t h e Imagists labelled "an impressionist",6 or in Zola's laudatory review of
Manet, whom h e praises in the s a m e breath for presenting his personality
and for "seizing nature broadly in his hand and planting upright before us
that which he sees there.lf7
However, possible or impossible, subjective or ohjective, pictorial
Impressionism is a historical fact; and art in general and l i terature in
particular - i f we are to believe Sklovski and other Russian Formalists -
aim at, and often achieve a defamiliarization of the familiar world, which
is similar to a reconstruction o f our ready-made patterns. Armed with
this knowledge we can ask another question. How can a verbal art (in
this case poetry) present - or create the illusion o f presenting - a world
which has not been precategorized? Or, to put i t differently, what
happens when a text presents uncategorized or only partial ly categorized
impressions? As I said before, one o f the best ways to answer this
question is to study one theme in a number o f texts belonging to different
cultures, periods and schools. And this is the point where autumn poems
enter the picture.
Autumn is a theme which cuts across temporal and spatial bound-
ar ies8 A study o f over two hundred autumn poems and songs, whose
results I have made known in various places,9 shows that as a rule poetry
contains conceptualized presentations of autumn. Like any other concept,
that o f autumn is determined by the function assigned to i t in a particular
context. The components of any particular autumnal representation are
determined by the established meaning o f that particular concept. For
instance, autumn conceptualized as a symbol o f decay or old age wi l l be
represented by falling leaves, bare branches, howling winds and darkening
skies. Such a representation may contain an image o f a harvested field
or ripe fruit, but i t w i l l never contain references to ful l granaries, cider
making or blooming squills (a mediterranian autumn flower). The fact that
these flowers, activit ies and objects exist in reality (and are characteristic
as well as specific to the season) is irrelevant.
I f autumn had only one signifying function we could have expected
one basic model of autumnal representation. Since autumn fulf i ls several
such functions we find a number o f such models. Each one has a reper-
tory o f representational elements, which may change culturally or
periodically (elements may be added or deleted) but whose principle of
selection is rather fixed. Effoliation, for example, may be represented by
the yellowing ash-tree in one place and by the redness o f the maple in
another; migrating cranes and ducks may be replaced by the "giant red-
widow" i n Zulu autumn songs; but each presentation has i ts basic
repertories with their fixed semantic functions on, all levels: realemes
(i.e. objects from realia), vocabulary and organizing patterns. As I have
described in detail elsewhere it is possible t o reduce t h e multifarious
actualizations into three basic models (i.e. three systems of representation
related t o three concepts of autumn):
- Autumn a s a symbol of fer t i l i ty and plenitude;
- Autumn a s a symbol of decay and death;
- Autumn a s a symbol of a particular mood: nostalgic resignation
to the human predicament.
The majority of t h e t ex t s which can be thematically grouped as
autumn poems does indeed fit into this classification. In most cases one
model is actualized and t h e autumnal presentation represents one of the
th ree concepts. However, superimposition, aggregation o r parodic t reat-
ment of models a r e possible, a s a r e attitudinal inversions (e.g. sad autumn
makes m e happy). But a t t h e core of the varied poet ic representations
of autumn there always seems t o 5e one of the th ree permanent cultural
models. T h e model functions, apparently, a s a mental pattern, necessary
for the reception and interpretat ion of t h e presentation. 10
Theoretically, a ' true' Impressionist autumn poem would be one whose
presentation of autumn is not an actualization of any of the three models.
T o be Impressionist, t h e presentation should be based on a recording of
particular autumnal impressions, specific t o their t ime and place; the
cultural function of the resulting presentation should not be predetermined,
the representational system should not be identical with the given reper-
tory of any model; and the poetics of t h e presentation should accord with
impressionist poetics (part of which has been mentioned above; a fuller
description follows in the course of the analysis of concre te examples).
The first tes t c a s e is, naturally, a poem from the corpus of 'official'
Impressionist poetry. In t h e selected works of Detlev von Liliencron I I
there a r e two relevant examples: a short lyric ent i t led "Herbst" (Autumn)
and a three s tanza unit from a poem which describes a particular land-
scape in the different seasons, "Haidebilder" (Moorland Pictures).
Herbst.
Astern bliihen schon im Garten, Schwacher t r i f f t der Sonnenpfeil. Rlumen, die den Tod erwarten Durch des Frostes Henkzrbeil.
Brauner dunkelt langst die Haide, Blatter zittern durch die Luft. IJnd es liegen Wald und Weide Unbewegt im blauen Duft.
Pfirsich an der Gartenmauer, Kranich auf der Winterflucht. Herbstes Freuden, Herbstes Trauer, Welke Rosen, reife Frucht.
Haidebilder.
In Herbstestagen bricht mit starkem Fliigel Der Reiher durch den Ne belduft. Wie st i l l es ist! kaum hor ich um den Hiigel Noch einen Laut in weiter Luft.
Auf eines Birkenstammchens schwanker Krone Ruht sich ein Wanderfalke aus. Doch schlaft er nicht, von seinem leichten Throne Augt er durchdrungend scharf hinaus.
Der alte Pauer mi t verhaltnem Schritte Schleicht neben seinem Wagen Torf. Und holpernd, stolpernd schleppt mi t lahmem Tr i t te Der alte Schimmel ihn ins Dorf.
I t is not di f f icul t t o see what would be considered impressionist
about these poems; primarily because the typical characteristics of
l i terary Impressionism in general - and the German school in particular -
have frequently been abstracted by cr i t ics from these and similar poems,
and have been formulated by their authors.
Both poems present an aggregation of impressions whose order o f
presentation seems to be unmotivated. I t is, indeed, possible to recon-
struct a coherent movement o f the eye from the sky t o the ground in the
autumnal moorland picture: in the f irst stanza the heron is flying, in the
second the falcon rests on a tree, and in the third the farmer treads the
ground with heavy steps. Rut there is no causative or other logical
justification for this spatial arrangement of the images. The watching eye
could have moved in the opposite direction or back and forth as i t does
in "Autumn". I n that poem the first description is that o f asters blooming
in the garden, the second, of the surrounding forest. and meadow, and the
third presents fruit-trees in the garden. Sky and earth are intermingled
in all three descriptions: the flowers are related to the sun, the grassy
meadow to the trembling air, and the peach trees to the escaping crane.
Horizontal and vertical movement alike are completely arbitrary.
There is an intensive appeal to the senses: many references to
colours, sounds and smells as well as their blending in synesthesic con-
figurations. The most striking examples are the "Nebelduft" (the smell of
fog) and the "blauen Duft" (the blue smell). Typical are the direct
references to colour with the emphasis on change: "Brauner dunkelt langst
die Haide" (long since the moor has darkened its brown). Equally typical
are the indirect evocations of colours through references to colourful
objects, be they specific flowers, trees or animals. In the "Moor Pictures, " for example, grey and white become the dominant colours without ever
being mentioned. They are first evoked with the heron and the fog, then
they accompany the peregrine-falcon on the birch, and finally they
characterize the old horse ("Schimmel").
The pictorial qualities of the presentation result not only from the
appeal to the eye but also from the additive principle of composition and
the suppression of narrative potentials. Even elements which can be
presented as connected are simply placed alongside each other. Thus the
blooming asters are separated from the impending death-by-frost by the
description of the weakened sun rays. All potential links are repressed.
The result - and from the reader's viewpoint the cause - of this repression
is the suppression of the actions and of the verbs which express them.
Complete elimination of verbs appears with the frequent use of nominal
phrases (as in the last stanza of "Autumn", where there is no verb).
Weakening of their potential for action is achieved in a number of ways:
use of the passive voice, choice of verbs which express inaction, modifica-
tion by the use of adjectives which arrest the action, or simple negation,
and a consistent use of the present tense. In both texts no other tense
is used. 12
The presence of a perceiving consciousness finds expression either in
the dramatization of the speaker or in interpretative generalizations. In
"Moor Pictures" both forms can be found. In the first stanza an "I" is
introduced in order to illustrate the prevailing silence. The appeal to the
sense of hearing combines direct references to silence ("Wie still es ist 1")
with an indirect ac tual izat ion of t h e sound which s t rong wing s t rokes
produce - "Noch e inem Laut" ( ano the r sound) fo rces t h e r eade r t o ac tua l i ze
t h e sound which is implied in t h e descr ipt ion of t h e heron. Very c lear ly ,
however, t h e funct ion of t h e d rama t i zed speake r i s t o enhance t h e
impression of a n immed ia t e exper ience, wi thout conveying any informat ion
concerning t h e speake r himself. An in t e rp re t a t ive comment , such a s t h e
suggestion of t h e royal n a t u r e of t h e fa lcon ("seinem le ichten Throne" [ h i s
light throne]) i s m o r e revealing of t h e workings of t h e perceiving mind.
But, l ike i t s coun te rpa r t s in "Autumn" ("Blumen, d i e den Tod erwarten";
"Winterflucht" [ f lowers which a r e awai t ing death; w in te r flight]) i t does
not te l l us much about t h e individual speaker. Even t h e concluding
general iza t ions ("Herbstes Freuden, Herbstes Trauer" [Autumn's joys,
Autumn's pains]), while moving us f rom t h e natural t o t h e human realm,
a r e cul tura l c l ichks r a t h e r than indications of a n individual emot ional o r
in te l lec tual situation. In th is way t h e precar ious balance be tween a n
ob jec t ive descr ipt ion and subject ive percept ion i s maintained.
T h e major i ty of t h e cha rac t e r i s t i c f ea tu re s of t h e t w o poems can,
indeed, b e co r re l a t ed with t h e a i m s and p recep t s of pictorial Impress ionism.
Each poem c a t c h e s t h e momen t when sense impressions become a n
experience. In e a c h t h e a r r e s t ed momen t has a dynamic qual i ty in sp i t e
of t h e suppression of all action. T h e impressions a r e processed by an
individual who, however, does not use i t t o convey his ideas, bel iefs o r
emotions. Only o n e quest ion r ema ins open: Is each poem a presenta t ion
of a non-categorized (o r p repa t t e rned ) real i ty? A comparison of t h e
abs t r ac t ed cha rac t e r i s t i c s o f t h e t w o poems with t h e model ic f ea tu re s of
o n e of t h e t h r e e bas ic autumnal representa t ions will help us r each a n
answer.
In my ar t ic le , "Represented Rea l i t y and L i t e r a ry models"13 I l isted
t e n model ic cha rac t e r i s t i c s of t h e presenta t ion of t h e concep t of ' autumn
a s a mood' (because of th is emot ional conceptual izat ion I labeled th i s
model 'pa thet ic ' o r 'sentimental ') . Six ou t of t e n model ic f e a t u r e s a r e
ac tua l i zed in t h e t w o t e x t s with varying deg rees of qualifications. T h r e e
a r e complete ly absent. T o m a k e t h e concord o r discord c l e a r e r I shall
quo te my original descr ipt ion o f e a c h cha rac t e r i s t i c and then qualify i t
when necessary.
1. The geographical location is the border between wild and cultivated nature, while from t h e point of view of t ime the poem takes place mostly in the evening, the border between day and night (op. cit.,p.44).
The temporal aspect is only implied in the twilight atmosphere of the
two poems (created by the combined e f fec t of the "Schwacher Sonnenpfeil"
[weak sunshaft] and "dunkelt" [grows dark] in "Autumn", and the implica-
tion of the old farmer and t h e tired horse being on their way home in
"Moor Pictures"; but implied actualizations a r e a s effect ive a s explicit
references to a particular feature. The geographical aspect is more
explicit. Wood and moor join the garden in "Autumn" and t h e farmer
relates agriculture to wild nature in "Moor Pictures."
2. The repertory of representational elements consists of the European reality-base phenomena in a catholic variety (effoliation and ripe fruit, foggy skies and pure light, etc.). Their usage is regulated by their compatibility with the speaker's nostalgic o r resigned mood (Ibid.).
One should note t h e absence of 'falling leaves' from "Moor Pictures";
and yet, effoliation might be implied in the "Birkenstlmmchens" [ the
birch's 'small' trunk], and i t s absence is compensated by the old age and
weariness of farmer and horse. After ail, old age is the conventional
analogue of autumn (in our categorized representational systems).
3. The core of the presentation is pictorial. Individual events a re rendered s ta t ic by various devices (mostly parallel structures implying simultaneity).
4. Representational elements of particular analogous human situations become part of the autumnal representational system (Ibid.).
For reasons which will be explained shortly the actualization of this
modelic feature is minimal. In "Moor Pictures" the analogous potential of
fatigue and old age is toned down by the juxtaposition of the old farmer
with the kinetic energy of the resting falcon or the powerful flight of the
heron. It would have been enhanced if the same picture had been
paralleled with withering flowers, falling leaves or a picture of the setting
sun. Even farther removed from i t s most typical actualization is the
suggestion of human loneliness in the first s tanza of "Moor Picturesn. The
speaker's declaration concerning the complete silence around him indicates
solitude. But this is a fa r c ry from a statement of farewell o r a
declaration of longing for missing fr iends In "Autumn" the human analogy
finds expression only in the figurative language - in 'frost' as a hangman
and in the waiting o f flowers for their death.
5. The visual and auditory qualifiers are selected in accordance with the overall sentimental effect. Colours are soft with a marked prefer- ence for pastels and minimal concretizations. Paleness and dusk play a central role. Sounds are muted. Natural sounds are personified. Human sounds are emotionalized. Music plays a central role (Ibid., No.7) .
This cluster o f modelic features is hardly realized. Rut that which
is actualized is in line with the specified principles. The dominant sound
is silence; the dominant colours are implied white and grey; colour
concepts are mentioned in deconcretizing contexts (a blue smell; a
darkening brown = a process rather than the quality o f an object).
Objects which evoke colours (such as asters, roses, peaches) are mentioned
without adjectives o f colour. Since no individual actualization o f a
general model manifests al l i t s features, partial or even zero actualizations
do not interfere wi th the identification of a model.
6. The speaker's presence is manifested emotionally, whether i t is a narrator's voice or a dramatized persona. But there is no individual characterization beyond the autumnal mood (Ibid. p.44-5, No.9).
In both poems the emotional colouring o f the scene - the projection
o f the perceiving subject as someone who feels or thinks - is minimal.
Typical actualizations o f this model contain much more explicit and
conspicuous emotional expressions. This impressionist restraint becomes
evident when one compares the emotional closure o f autumn ("Herbstes
Freuden, Herbstes Trauer/Welke Rosen, rei fe Frucht" [Autumn's joys,
Autumn's pains/wilted roses, ripe fruit]), with that o f Goethe's "Herbst-
gefihl":
Und euch betauen, ach! Aus diesen Augen Der ewig belebenden Liebe Vollschwellende Tranen.
[and you are bedewed, alas, by great welling tears of ever-vivifying love
from my eyes.] 14
Four modelic features are either non-existent or drastically suppressed
in Liliencron. Actually, it could be argued that the annihilation of one
entails al l the other changes. The crucial missing feature is the 'pathetic
fallacy', and with it disappear t h e personification of .autumn, t h e abundant
use of emotional qualifiers, and t h e thematizat ion of t h e poem a s an
anthropocentr ic presentat ion of autumn (i.e. a poem ahout t h e sadness of
parting/dying/aging in autumn).
Two things need t o be said about these missing modelic features.
T h e logic behind their elimination is an expression of t h e lmpressionist
object-orientation. And i t i s t h e s a m e logic which explains all t h e
modifications and par t ia l actual izat ions of those modelic f ea tu res which
a r e actualized. On t h e o the r hand, t h e non-actualized fea tu res leave some
traces: he re a personification of a natural object ('death-awaiting
flowers') which c a n be read a s a metonomy for t h e season of dying; the re
a generalization in t e r m s of human emotions (Autumn's joys and pains), and
an overall a tmosphere of swee t sadness, of weakness and resignation, which
is realized even without t h e explicit r e fe rence t o such emotions. In par t
those ' t races ' may be 'external ' additions t o t h e t e x t - part of an inter-
pretat ion process which is shaped by t h e reader 's famil iar i ty with both t h e
concept and t h e l i terary model. Rut such an interpretat ion is qui te
inevitable when t h e t ex t uses t h e conventional representational system.
A poet may le t t h e speaker express t h e established cul tural function of
this par t icular reper tory in i t s specif ic combinations, o r refrain, like
Liliencron, from s o doing. But t h e reader always associates t h e well-
known representational ob jec t s with t h e par t icular conceptualization which
makes them a representat ional system.
Ultimately t h e acknowledged lmpressionist poem might have intro-
duced a new l i terary model of autumnal representation, whose charac te r -
is t ic f ea tu res justify t h e label 'impressionist'; but it has not l iberated t h e
natural object f rom i t s existing conceptualization. Liliencron's specific,
impersonal and accura te renditions of sight and sound impressions do not
yield uncategorized presentat ions similar t o t h e purple wa te r and pink
fields o r t h e 'dissolved reality' of t h e most consis tent lmpressionist
painting. 15
T h e opening question, concerning t h e possibility of such a dissociation
of concept and representat ion in poetry remains open.
It is in t h e poetry of an ea r l i e r nineteenth-century poet, the "farmer-poet
f rom Northampton" John Cla re (1793-1864), t h a t I found t h e c lea res t
example of what I called a "true" Impressionist poem.16 Although his
poetry is generally characterized by "accurate observation" of forms and
colours and "naturalistic knowledge",17 there is only one text whose
autumnal presentation breaks away completely from the three basic models
o f representation.
Autumn
The thistledown's flying, though the winds are al l still, On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill, The spring from the fountain now boils l ike a pot; Through stones past the counting i t bubbles red-hot.
The ground parched and cracked is l ike overbaked bread, The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead. The fallow fields gl i t ter l ike water indeed, And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed.
Hill-tops l ike hot iron gl i t ter bright in the sun, And rivers we're eyeing burn to gold as they run; Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air; Whoever looks rounc! sees Eternity there.
I f we compose a hierarchical list o f the characteristic features o f
the theoretical 'true' lmpressionist poem, basing i t on the primary
lmpressionist impulse (defined above) and on the application of character-
istics from lmpressionist painting to poetry, we can see most of them
actualized i n Clare's poem. 18
I. Observation o f nature as i t is with disregard for the conceptual
categories related t o it.
This, as I said, is the primary and most problematic tenet of
Impressionism. Clare's presentation is composed of natural objects which
do not belong to any of the three established repertories. The downy
seeds of the thistle, the bubbling of the spring water, the spider's webs
on the weeds, the glittering o f fields, rivers, hills and air in the sunlight - none o f these has even a small part o f the potential for symbolizing
autumn o f "leaves trembling in the air" or "ripe fruit" coupled with "wilted
roses".
Because the building blocks o f the presentation are not components
o f an established repertory of an autumnal representation, they do not
have a given cultural function in this context; they have no given
emotional qualities, and their ef fect on the receiver is not pre-determined.
T h e a f fec t ive and seman t i c openness of a 'system-free' object (as f a r
a s autumn i s concerned) c a n b e demons t ra t ed with a lmost any object
referred t o by Clare. Thistledown, fo r example, c a n b e re la ted t o old
age, because of i t s wh i t e head. In this way i t forms a pa t t e rn with t h e
dried-up ben t s and t h e parched land. But t h e images of dryness and dea th
a r e counterbalanced in a number of ways: by t h e wa te r imagery, t h e
positive connotat ions of baked (even overbaked) bread, and t h e light flight
of t h e thistledown, associated with t h e g reen grass (traditionally youthful
and hopeful) and d i r ec ted upwards.
A s a consequence of th is openness (i.e. lack of established themat i za -
tion) t h e presentat ion cannot s tand for something e l se - b e i t a mood, a n
a tmosphere , a fixed phenomenon o r a typical human situation. It repre-
s e n t s only tha t which i t presents. It i s stil l t r u e t h a t I have used many
conventional conceptual izat ions in m y interpreta t ion, just a s I conceptual-
ized t h e image by giving it a di rect ion and a focus - in terpreta t ion is
impossible without both! But t h e ca tegor i e s which I have used a r e not
re la ted t o common conceptual izat ions of autumn.
Even t h e concluding general izat ion ("whoever looks round sees Eterni ty there") does not change t h e un-symbolic na tu re of t h e presenta-
tion. T h e lack of a conventional (here synonymous with 'modelic') correla-
tion be tween "Eternity" and t h e representat ional ob jec t s - e a c h one
separate ly and a s a sys t em - makes t h e s t a t e m e n t a summing up of a n
impression, without turning t h e presentat ion in to a symbol. T h e f a c t t ha t
r eade r s may still find this e thical conclusion unmotivated and injurious t o
t h e poem is irrelevant, o r symptomatic . Such a react ion to t h e c losure
might reveal t h e inevi table uneasiness a r eade r feels when faced with
modelic inconsistency (not t o ment ion changing tastes). A s imilar uneasi-
ness, fe l t by a Victorian confronted with such a revolutionary presentation,
might have or iginated it.
11. Captur ing t h e moment in which sensory d a t a become a n impression.
This feature , con t ra ry t o t h e f i rs t , manifes ts t h e subject ive impulse
of Impressionism - t h e expression of t h e perceiving consciousness. It is
actual ized in t h e poem not only in t h e concluding remark discussed above,
but also in t h e f igurat ive language. I t i s t h e mind which finds resem-
blances and likens t h e bubbling of spring w a t e r t o a boiling pot, parched
land t o overbaked bread and sun infused hill-tops t o hot iron. In all t hese
instances the transition from visual data to conceptualization is evident.
The eye sees the cracked dark brown material; the mind identifies i t as
parched ground and finds an object possessing matching features. The
preference for similes (over metaphors) contributes to the realization o f
that particular moment o f 'translation.' A metaphor would suggest a new
entity created by the speaker. The simile reveals an impressed observer.
Symptomatically, even though al l these similes relate natural
phenomena to human civi l ized life, they do not even approach the 'pathetic
fallacy' - a central feature o f the sentimental model. There are no
personifications. 'Dead bents' is not similar to "flowers awaiting death"
in i ts metaphoric and symbolic potential. And rivers which ''burn to gold"
are metaphoric only out o f context. But within a frame o f reference
which focuses on the ef fect o f sunlight on the ground, the water and the
air i t is an accurate observation of objective reality. These golden fields
and rivers are as l i teral as a purple ocean and pink grass.
Cultural consciousness may be very active in the interpretation of
this poem. I t can identify the semantic f ield from which all similes and
metaphors are drawn - burning. I t may even relate i t to the role o f f ire
in human history and to the ancient philosophy which sees fire as one of
the four elements endowed with purifying power. Thus the reader might
add a philosophical motivation for the metaphor o f "rivers ... burn to
gold." But such motivations and associations are very clearly external to
the text. In the poem the supremacy o f the things themselves over the
emotions or thoughts which they evoke is maintained consistently; and i t
is enhanced by the emphasis on the situation o f observation ("we're eyeing";
"whoever looks round sees").
More important still, there is one crucial thing that the cultural
consciousness cannot do: i t cannot relate the presentation to any o f the
established autumnal presentations, even i f the thematic classification is
dictated by the poem's title.
111. The arrested moment is a dynamic entity.
The rebellion against conventional models of presentation (i.e. those
o f Academic Realism and Naturalism) led the Impressionist painters to
develop a technique in which there is no room for contour lines. Com-
bined with the interest in science and research in optics, colour theory and
photography, i t led to the elimination o f the use o f pure colours i n well-
def ined planes. In t he i r s t e a d c a m e t h e obse rvab le . brush layings and t h e
mul t ip l ic i ty of i n t e rac t ing colour spots. This technique enables Impression-
ist painting t o under l ine t h e constant ly changing na tu re of things seen.
T h e l i t e r a ry equivalent of t h i s blurring of boundaries and fo rms is t h e
pa r t i cu l a r lmpressionist vocabulary and t h e mode of organization.
In t e r m s of unmot iva t ed organizat ion Clare ' s poem resembles
Liliencron's "Autumn." T h e var ious ob jec t s which compr i se C la re ' s
autumnal landscape p i c tu re a r e not p re sen ted according t o any spat ia l
principle whatsoever. I t i s impossible t o expla in i t by a movemen t f rom
t h e nea r t o t h e f a r (Gossamers and weeds c o m e a f t e r a general v iew of
t h e turf and t h e fa l low fields), nor does i t move in t h e opposi te d i rect ion
( t h e th is t ledown appea r s be fo re t h e gene ra l view); horizontal o r ve r t i ca l
e y e movemen t s a r e a l so ruled out: sho r t and smal l ob jec t s appea r among
high and big ones and v i ce versa. A hill is presented in t h e f i rs t s t anza ,
and o t h e r hill-tops in t h e third. T h e burning light, which paints t h e whole
p i c tu re in gold, moves f rom t h e spr ing t o t h e ground, t o t h e hills, t o t h e
wa te r , t o t h e ground and up t o t h e a i r again.
T h e poem does h a v e a s t rong c losure , y e t t h e unmotivated na tu re of
t h e ca t a logue of plants, a i r movemen t s and light e f f e c t s l eaves t h e
impression of a n a rb i t r a ry cu t t i ng off. Th i s a rb i t r a ry framing, coupled
wi th t h e incessant movemen t (flow of a i r , flying o f thistledown and
tw i t t e r ing of gossamers), t h e t r ans fo rma t ion - e v e n t ransf igurat ion - of
ob jec t s ( f ie lds i n to w a t e r and a i r t o liquid) which cu lmina te s in t h e tdcing
o v e r of t h e world by light, makes t h e poem a t r u l y Impressionist picture.
Clare ' s poem, which does no t belong t o an acknowledged group of
lmpressionist poems, exhibi ts t h e na tu re of ' t rue ' poe t i c Impressionism.
This has been proved both in posi t ive t e r m s - a descr ipt ion of i t s cha rac -
t e r i s t i c f e a t u r e s and the i r af f in i ty w i th lmpressionist painting, a n d in
nega t ive t e r m s - t h e absence of t h e cul tura l ly es tabl ished autumnal
representa t ional systems.
T h e twofold def ini t ion corresponds t o a bas ic division of lmpressionist
fea tures . These c a n b e divided in to t w o groups:
1) cha rac t e r i s t i c s der ived f rom t h e a i m s of Impressionism, which h a v e
t o d o wi th conceptual izat ions and representa t ions;
2) cha rac t e r i s t i c s which r e l a t e t o t h e means developed in lmpressionist
painting to achieve those goals. Features belonging to the second group
can be dissociated from the aims which originated them. That is why the
adjective 'impressionist' can be ascribed to different works, including those
which remain conventional with regard t o the relationship between world,
concept and representation. A 'true' lmpressionist work, as we have
seen, is one which sustains an obligation to the ideal of non-conceptualized
presentation, and gives up existing representational systems. This absence
has i ts price - though i t is nothing l ike a rejection from the Salon or the
contempt of the viewers. Separated from i ts t i t le the poem would not be
recognized as a presentation of autunn.19 Thematization, the assigning
of a theme to a verbal construct such as a poem, is - from the speaker's
point of view - inseparable from conceptualization and representation.
The presence o f the basic systems of autumnal representation - be
i t whole or partial, explicit or implicit, straightforward or parodic,
immediate or mediated - is not simply the result o f inertia, dominance o f
canonized models or lack o f interest and a failure to observe nature as
i t is. Their presence is a prerequisite for the successful function of the
presentation in an act o f communication. Readers who share a certain
cultural consciousness require elements from the established repertory in
order to relate to the text. Only a reader who identifies the particular
autumnal conceptualization can relate to i t as an autumn poem, respond
emotionally and evaluate innovations or changes. A complete de-categor-
ization yields at f irst different thematizations, based on the use o f
elements which are categorized as representative of other concepts. But
thematization can be forced on the reader - given a t i t le rather than
construed from the text. I n that case the reader is led to modify his
concept. I f the in i t ia l ly unconnected repertory of representational objects
and modes o f organization is repeatedly used and thematized - a new con-
cept o f autumn might develop. A 'true' lmpressionist poem, such as
Clare's, may then become another autumn poem just as Impressionist
paintings today seem realistic and conventional.
The conclusions of this comparative study of lmpressionist autumn
poems are not l imi ted t o this particular theme nor to that particular
school. The relationships which have been demonstrated above between
a concept, a representational system, a particular poetic presentation and
the active thematizations performed by a reader apply in al l l i terary
presentations and their interpretations. The exact rendering of an
impression is possible even if our perception and cognition are model-
dependent. Poetry can reshape our c ~ n c e ~ t u a l i z a t i o ~ s of the world around
us in various ways: slight changes in an established repertory can modify
the inventory of signs which evoke the same response; a dissociation of
representational elements from their established cultural functions can
affect the emotional or social content of the represented concept; and,
most radically, the imposition of a concept - through the announcement
of a theme - on a presentation based on representational systems not
associated with it can result in a completely new conceptualization.
I. On the subject of theme, concept and thematization consult ~ o e t i q u e 16 (1985). In particular: Claude Bremond, "Concept e t thhme", Gerald Prince, "Thbmatiser", Menachem Brinker, "Thkme e t interpretation", and Georges Leroux, "Du topos au th8me1'. In this present issue the most closely related article is Angelika Corbineau-Hoffmann's "Venice At First Sight". In particular, her conclusion is very pertinent to mine and to the research programme for thematics which is implied in my conclusions.
2. See, for example, the definition in the OED: "The body of persons that are or have been taught by a particular master I...] who are united by a general similarity of principles and methods."
3. The strongest proof is probably the way in which lllonet described his technique or work process, emphasizing the need to forget the object being painted and to focus on the colourful spots and lines before the eye (Lila Cabot-Perry, "An interview with C. Monet", American Magazine of Art 19, No.5, March 1927). From another angle this (sometimes latent) - tendency to dissociate presentation from concept, which points towards abstract art, can be illustrated by criticisms of impressionism produced by the painters who have outgrown their lmpressionist stage: Gauguin who condemns the fact that the Impressionists "heed only the eye and neglect the mysterious centers of thought'' (Intimate Journals, tr. Van Wyck Brooks, New York, 1936, p.134). or Ckzanne, who is convinced that "the analytical methods of the impressionists had led to a certain dissolution of reality" (Herbert Read, The Philosophy of Modern Art, New York: Meridian Books, 1955, p. 18).
4. Oskar Walzel, Deutsche Dichtung von Gottsched bis zur Gegenwart, Vol.12,lI (Wildpark-Potsdam: Athenaion, 1927-19301, pp.218-9. Quoted in Shimon Sandbank, Two Pools In The Wood (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 19761, pp.49-50.
5. While some people will deny the possibility altogether, others will accept it in part. Ezra Pound, for example, claims that "the conception of poetry is a process more intense than the reception of an impressiorist and conseauentlv "lmoressionism belongs to oaint. it is of the eve." The two quota'tions-are 'taken from sta;ey K: ~ d f f m a n Jr., lmanism: A A Chapter for the History of Modern Poetry (New York: Octagon Books, 19721, p.140. His source is Pound, Ezra, "The Book of the Month," The Poetry Review I, No.3 (March, 19121, pp.133-4.
6. Coffman (op. cit.) quotes from Hueffer's essay "On Impressionism" (Poetry and Drama 11, No.2, June, 1914, p.175): "The Impressionist gives you himself, how he reacts to a fact; not the fact itself; or, rather, not
so much the fact itself. [...I lmpressionism is a frank expression of a personality." But then he quotes another passage, from "Techniques," (The Southern Review I, No.i, July 1935, p.31): "You must render: never report" "an impression of a moment."
7. Quoted by Lionello Venturi in History o f Ar t Criticism (New York: Dutton, 1964). p.259.
8. For references consult Holger Klein, "Autumn Poems: Potential and Limitations of Theme as tertium comparationis." Paper presented to the 11th Congres of I.A.C.L. (Paris, 1985).
9. The major publication in English is Ziva Ren-Porat, "Represented Reality and Literary Models", Poetics Today 7, No.1 (1986). pp.29-58.
10. In her article "Images of Landscape in contemporary poetry" Sieghild Bogumil deals with similar problems. It is possible to relate my notion o f the cultural model (concept and representational system) to Bachelardls concept o f the "image" as Bogumil uses it. The two articles seem to me complementary in other ways as well. My analysis of (autumnal) landscape descriptions which are quite conventional provides a foil for the innovative descriptions - or lack thereof - of the contemporary poems which she describes. Her analysis o f the modern practice o f laying bare devices as a mode of coping with petrif ied models supplies an aspect which I could not deal with in this paper (I discuss i t in my "Represented Reality ...", see above, n.9).
11. Detlev von Liliencron Ausgewahlte Gedichte (Berlin und Leipzig: Schuster & Loeffler, 1909), pp.8, 77.
12. On the style o f German Impressionism consult: Walzel (op. cit.), and Louise Thon, D) Munich: Hueber, 1928.
13. See n.9.
14. Leonard Forster, ed., The Penguin Book o f German Verse (Harmonds- worth: Penguin, 1957), p.207.
15. I t should be noted that this is strictly a descriptive comment, carrying no evaluation. Some of the best-known poems in the history o f poetry exhibit the same characteristics. For example, Hofmannsthal's "Vorfriihling" and George's "komm in den totgesagten park."
16. John Clare, Selected Poems, ed. J. W. Tibble and Anna Tibble (London: Dent, 19731, pp.304-5.
17. The phrases i n quotation marks are from the back cover o f Clare's Selected Poems - an indication of a common view.
18. Although my list has been worked out from studies of Impressionist painting, it owes a great deal to various studies of l i terary impressionism. In particular i t may have been influenced by the work o f Sandbank (see above, n.4).
19. 1 did t ry the poem in Hebrew translation on Israeli students. Not one out o f twenty interpreted i t as an autumn poem (obviously the students did not have the title). The same students had no problem in identifying the theme of another o f Clare's autumn poems: "I love the f i t fu l gust that shakes ...'I.
FROM IDYLL T O ARSENAL: . T H E CHANGING IMAGE O F GERMANY IN F R A N C E A S SEEN
THROUGH T H E WORK O F XAVIER MARMIER (1808-1892)
Wendy M e r c e r (Univers i ty Co l l ege London)
I. 'IL'ALLEMAGNE, LA R ~ V E U S E , LA P O ~ I Q U E , LA M~LANCOLIQUE ALLEMAGNE"
Xavier Marmier (1808-1892), c r i t i c , t ransla tor , t ravel ler , journalist and
novelist, w a s a well-known and influential f igure in nineteenth-century
France. Acc red i t ed wi th s o m e ninety volumes and numerous ar t ic les ,
f l uen t in a t leas t e igh t languages, and in l a t e r yea r s a n outspoken
m e m b e r of t h e French Academy, h e w a s a n ea r ly compara t i s t who owed
his reputa t ion initially t o his innovatory work on Germany, i t s l i t e r a tu re
and cul ture . Desp i t e being largely fo rgo t t en today, his fo rmer widespread
recognition and inf luence m a k e him both a sou rce and a r e f l ec t ion of
French a t t i t udes towards Germany from t h e ea r ly 1830s until t h e Franco-
Prussian war. 1
Until t h e publication in 1813 of M m e d e Stael ' s D e I 'Allemagne t h e
French w e r e largely ignorant and disdainful of thei r German neighbours.
However, th is work and t h e few avai lable t ransla t ions of German l i t e r a t u r e ,
most notably of Goethe 's D ie Leiden d e s jungen Werthers , began t o
s t imu la t e a des i re for fu r the r informat ion about t h e coun t ry and i t s l i ter -
a ture . In response many journals began t o include a r t i c l e s on German
themes, and in 1826 t h e Revue germanique was founded wi th t h e exclus ive
a im of bringing a g r e a t e r understanding of German l i fe and cu l tu re t o t h e
~ r e n c h . ~ A s few journalists w e r e equipped t o wr i t e on these subjects , in
1831 t h e Revue germanique sen t t h e young Xavier Marmier t o l ive in
Germany, learn t h e language and send back regular articles. 3
Although h e had no prior knowledge of t h e language, Marmie r ful-
fi l led th i s task beyond all expecta t ions . A f t e r about nine months h e began
t o supply a r t i c l e s regular ly t o several reviews, and his work soon c a m e t o
domina te t h e of which h e b e c a m e general ed i to r in
1835. His contr ibut ions include a s e r i e s of ' e t u d e s biographiques', which
h e in i t ia ted in January 1833 wi th a n a r t i c l e on E. T. A. Hoffmann, and
in which a d i f f e ren t man of l e t t e r s w a s p re sen ted eve ry month until 1835.
H e a lso sen t numerous t ransla t ions and a r t i c l e s both on his t r ave l s and on
German l i fe and le t ters . H e w r o t e a pe rcep t ive s tudy of Kleist in 1833,
when the lat ter was virtually unknown in France and l i t t le appreciated in
Germany. His other writings include a study o f Goethe, offering the first
commentary on Faust, Part 11 to appear in France; the first translation
o f Hermann und Dorothea for th i r ty years, which effectively launched the
work in France; translations of Goethe's dramas, o f Schiller's plays and
poems, of Hoffmann's tales; translations and studies of works by Tieck,
whom he knew personally, and of such contemporaries as Uhland, Schwab
and Chamisso. 4
This article deals wi th the changing view of Germany that emerges
from his publications. In the first part we see the idyll ic picture given
by the early articles, summarised by Marmier as "I'Allemagne, la rfveuse,
la poGtique, la mklancolique ~ l l e m a ~ n e " ; ~ in the second, we witness a
growing awareness o f the tensions that were ult imately to lead to the
Franco-Prussian war.
From his earliest visits to Germany Marmier was impressed by the
widespread nature o f intellectual act iv i ty in the country. In 1835 he
comments in the Revue ~ermanique that, "J'ai vu des ouvriers qui
menaient une rude vie, et qui connaissaient par coeur les plus belles
tragkdies de ~ o e t h e . " ~ The same phenomenon is recorded in the Voyage
pittoresque en Allemagne, where a direct comparison is made with the
intellectual act iv i ty in France:
Je me souviens qu'un soir, en rentrant dans ma demeure, je trouvais le Hausknecht, un portier de troisieme ordre, tenant sur ses genoux un gros l ivre qu'il lisait avec une profonde attention. C'dtaient les oeuvres de Schiller. A Paris, nos portiers ne lisent que les plus mauvais romans.
He attributes this difference partly to the high standard of public educa-
t ion in the German-speaking countries. I n 1834, for example, he remarks
that in Austria, "le plus pauvre apprenti, le plus obscur berger, sait tout
au moins l i re et kcrire; si I'instruction de peuple ne s'k16ve guhres plus
haut, c'est qu'il ne l e veut pas."8 I n the same year articles in the Revue des Deux Mondes entit led Y e s universitks allemandes. Goettingue " and
Se ipz ig et la l ibrairie allemande: both stressing the important o f learning
in This emphasis is even more striking in Marmier's Voyage,
much of which is devoted to the educational institutions in the areas
visited. Throughout he emphasizes the high standards in every part o f
Germany, writ ing about Swabia for example:
C'es t I'un d e s pays d e I 'Allemagne o h I ' instruction d ldmen ta i r e e t I ' instruction c lass ique o n t Btd po r tkes 31 l eu r plus haut point d e ddveloppement. P a s une ville qui n'ait son gymnase e t une ou deux d e ces exce l l en t e s 6coles pra t iques qu'on appel le d e s Realschule; pas un vi l lage qui n'ait d e s ins t i tu t ions pr imaires d ignement r e t r i b u C s e t pa r f a i t emen t organisdes. Ici, c o m m e dans l e s d t a t s du nord d e I'Allemagne, e t c o m m e e n Danemark, il s e r a i t d i f f ic i le d e t rouve r dans une paroisse quelques jeunes hommes e t quelques jeunes fil les qui n'eussent pas a u moins appr is 'a lire, B gcr i re , H compter . (Voyage, I, p.34)
In t h e cour se of Voyage pi t toresque h e a l so surveys t h e history and scope
of t h e German universities, giving a chronological list of t h e d a t e s when
t h e y w e r e founded. This survey underlines t h e deep-rooted t radi t ions of
scholarship in t h e country , offer ing de t a i l ed discussions o f t h e univers i t ies
of Tiibingen, Prague, Leipzig, Rreslau, Berlin, Konigsberg, Got t ingen, J e n a
and wiirzburg.10 A fu r the r r emark in t h e Souvenirs d'un voyageur about
a t t e n d a n c e a t t h e univers i t ies a lso r e in fo rces t h e ea r l i e r c o m m e n t s about
t h e widespread na tu re o f educat ion and in te l lec tual ac t iv i ty :
Erlangen, Tubingue, Heidelberg, Bonn, Goe t t i ngue sont q u e d e s p e t i t e s villes oh I'on n e c o m p t e q u e quelques mil l iers d ' lmes . Mais il y a I i d e s universiths f rdquentees a s s i d b e n t pa r d e s l6gions d16tudiants, d e s bibliothbques conside'rables, d e s mus6es e t d e ma7tres d'un grand renom.11
Marmier a l so c o m m e n t s on t h e except ional r a t e of a c t i v e l i terary
production in Germany. H e r e f e r s t o t h e coun t ry a s a n " immense
Schr i f ts te l lere in , and c o m m e n t s t ha t "L'Allemagne e s t d e tous l e s pays d e
I'Europe celui oh I'on c o m p t e propor t ionel lement l e plus grand nombre
d'dcrivains."l2 Again, t h e universal na tu re of t h e phenomenon is noted:
"J'ai vu parfois d e s rgunions o'u I'on ne buvait q u e d e bien mauvais vin,
mai o'u I'on n'arrivait p a s s a n s appor t e r son sonnet ou s a cantate."13 T h e
only s ignif icant except ion t o th is rule, i t would seem, a r e t h e c i t i zens of
Hamburg, who appea r t o h a v e l i t t l e l i t e r a ry inclination:
Quand on a vecu quelques jours parmi l e s Hambourgeois, on sen t qu'il n e f a u t leur par ler ni d ' a r t ni d e po6sie. Leur l ivre d e l p & i e , c ' e s t l e r eg i s t r e d e r e c e t t e s e t d e depense ouve r t s u r l e pupitre.
This i n t e re s t in l i t e r a tu re and t h e a r t s amongst all ranks of soc i e ty
occasionally gives rise, fo r a foreigner, t o a n apparent contradic t ion in his
percept ion of t h a t socie ty:
Les m6mes Allemands que vous voyez si absorb& dans 11appr6ciation d'un beefsteak et dont I'avide app6tit vous choque peut-6tre comme une grosse sensualite', vous pouvez les voir un instant aprhs s'extasier devant un beau point de vue, &outer avec un profond recueillement une po6sie de Schiller ou d'uhland, et entonner en choeur avec une harmonie parfaite un ancien choral ou une mklodie de Schubart [sic?]. (Voyage, 11, p. 1)
Generally, however, an appreciation of literature is presented as an
integral part o f the domestic tranquillity which he notes in Germany. In
one of his earliest articles, "Des soirges d'Allemagnen, he records a
memory o f settling down with the family to read: "Quelquefois nous nous
mettions tous en rond autour de la table et nous lisions. Nous lisions les
Paraboles de Krummacher, Hermann et Dorothee I...] ou les pohies
lyriques d'LJhland."15 Marmier recaptures his impressions in a poem
entitled ~ o i r 6 e allemande, which appeared ten years later:
Oh ! oui, c'est bien cela. C'est la chambre tranquille, Pleine de poCsie, humble toit, doux asyle, Oh l'on aime B s'asseoir sur le canape' bleu Pour causer et chanter le soir au coin de feu.
Another reminiscence, this t ime much later, in 1860, also links the domes-
t ic scene with poetic and l i terary images; in the Voyage pittoresque, he
returns to Saxony and rememhers:
Que des fois, au milieu de ces paisibles intrhieurs, j'ai song6 aux idylles de Voss et de Goethe! Que des fois j'ai cru reconnaTtre la vivante image de la bonne Louise ou la belle Dorothee. (Voyage, 11, p.51)
The picture o f domestic tranquility suggested by such phrases as
"chambre tranquille", "doux asyle" and "paisibles int6rieurs1', is an impor-
tant feature o f Marmier's presentation o f things German. In his second
article published in the Nouvelle Revue germanique in 1832, he speaks of
"les vertus domestiques, la simplicitk et la candeur dans les relations, la
paix et I'union dans 11int6rieur des famillies".17 The fact that the
Germans choose to spend their free t ime reunited in the family obviously
impresses Marmler: "Le soir, quand i ls ont f in i leur teches de la journde,
ils aiment 'a s'asseoir 'a la table de famille" (Voyage, 11, p.144). In the
Souvenirs d'un voyageur he also reminds the reader that the average
German "a I'amour du travail et I'amour de la famille" (Souvenirs, p.90).
Further, he connects this love of the home with the open, hospitable
nature of the people, who do not hesi ta te t o share their home with a
stranger. He says that:
C e t t e hospitalitd est une des qualites d e I'Allemagne. Dans c e pays, I t i t ranger es t r e p avec une bonne grace. I...] Un mot au crayon, sur une c a r t e d e visite, suff i t pour l e recommander i une lointaine distance. (M. )
The origins of this a t t achment t o home, and thus of t h e Germans'
hospitality, seem t o Marmier to lie in religious observance. The people
of Saxony, w e a r e told, remain t rue t o their
ver tus primitives, aux sent iments religieux, aux habitudes cordiales e t hospitalibres I...] J e m e rappelle des excursions que j'ai souvent fai tes autour d e Leipzig. Que d e fois je suis en t r6 dans les maisons des paysans! J 'y entrais pour demander un verre d'eau ou une tasse d e lait, e t j'y restais, s6duit par l e tableau qui s 'offrait & mes regards. (Voyage, 11, p.50)
Marmier at t r ibutes this particular e f f e c t of religious observance t o the
fac t that the Germans, unlike t h e French, t r ea t religion as a pleasure
ra the r than a s a duty, hence i t is more influential. He explains this in
part by the different philosophy behind Protestant and Catholic ways of
celebrating religious occasions. The Catholics, h e feels, tend towards "le
jeine, la tristesse, e t la maceration d e la chair", whereas h e summarises
t h e Protestant e thic in Luther's declaration: "Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib
und Gesang,/Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben tang," and concludes that:
Ainsi les protestans s e font toujours un jour d e joie d'un jour d e solenni t i religieuse, e t c e t t e coutijme ne r t e - t - e l l e pas avec el le quelque chose d e profond e t d e bien moral?
As examples of these different philosophies h e considers t h e way the two
nations spend Sunday, suggesting that the domest ic bliss he admires in the
Germans derives from religious observances; in France Sunday is a "jour
d e repos presque toujours ma1 passe; ici dans I'ennui, 121 dans la d6bauche.
Le sent iment religieux ne brille pas", whereas in Germany it is a "jour d e
fgte, un saint jour [...I l e jour des reunions e t des fgtes d e famille, des
dfners d'apparat e t d6s r6jouissances d ~ m e s t i ~ u e s . " ' ~ Religion, then, leads
to domest ic happiness for the Germans:
its ont le bonheur l e plus vrai e t le plus durable, celui qui naft d e la simplicite' des habitudes, d e la paix d'une honnste conscience e t d e
I'expression d'une franche et ouverte nature. (Voyage, 11, p.116)
I t should perhaps be stressed, however, that the Catholic Marmier, despite
his open-minded emphasis on the positive facets o f the Protestant religion,
does not always attr ibute this happiness and virtue to it. Elsewhere he
ascribes the same virtues to Catholicism, as, for example, in the Voyage
pittoresque (I, p.1481, where he explains the exceptionally low rates o f
crime and illegitimacy of the people o f the Tyrol by their devout Cathol-
icism. As we shall see, he was not impressed by all aspects of Protest-
antism and does not hesitate to crit icise "la fanatisme des partisans de
Luther" (Voyage, I, p.91).
In a poem first published in 1834, entit led simply Panthgisme,
Marmier presents a different type o f religious thought that was to reach
France from Germany. For Marmier the concept of pantheism is pro-
foundly German in character, and has i ts roots in the ancient mythological
traditions of the country:
L'Allemagne, la rgveuse Allemagne a [...I peuple' les eaux, les bois, les cimes des montagnes, les entrailles du sol, d'une le'gion d'8tres surnaturels, et je me complaisais dans ce naif pantheisme. (Voyage, I, p.2)
In another context he describes mythology as "ce culte myste'rieux de la
nature", "cette espbce de pantheisme secret dont le moyen tge a toujours
admis le principe sans jamais le fo rmu~er" . *~ But i ts l i terary significance
extends far beyond the source o f pantheism. Marmier argues that folklore
is a form o f l i terature neglected in France, "car son langage est rude, et
rude aussi est son allure. Elle ne sait point porter sur ses e'paules
1'8charpe des coins, ni se draper dans l e manteau i franges d'or, ni faire
reh i re sur son front .le diadkme itincelant"; nevertheless folklore merits
a consideration equal t o that afforded to classical literature, because "son
front respire la candeur, et son regard indique la force. Sa voix a des
vibrations &ranges, et son sourire laisse dans 1'7me une indkfinissable
rn61anco1ie."~'
Marmier tries t o rect i fy this deficit by introducing German mythology
to France. I n 1836 and 1837 he published two articles in the Revue de
Paris entit led "Traditions d ' ~ l l e m a ~ n e " ; ~ ~ in 1841 he published Souvenirs
de voyages e t traditions populaires, which reproduces these articles; they
appear again, slightly modified, i n Voyage pittoresque en Allemagne (1859)
under t h e t i t l e "Les Lkgendes d e ~ ' ~ l l e m a ~ n d . ~ ~ H e a lso g a v e a s e r i e s
of l ec tu re s on fore ign l i t e r a tu re a t t h e university of Rennes. These proved
s o overwhelmingly popular t h a t h e acquired t h e s t a t u s of a cu l t figure.
Although only t h e inaugural l ec tu re w a s published, t hese seem t o have
cove red German folklore in s o m e detail . Having s t a t e d t h e c a s e for con-
sidering "la l i t t 6 ra tu re populaire" a longside c lass ical l i tera ture , h e c i t e s t h e
German example: "Peu d e pays poss6dent une col lect ion d e Ikgendes, d e
romances, d e bal lades aussi nombreuse e t va r ibe q u e I'Allemagnen, and
concludes wi th a promise t o cove r t h e subject in g r e a t e r dep th in sub-
sequent lectures.
Marmie r s t a t e s t h e sou rces of his ma te r i a l openly. We learn f rom
t h e p re face t o t h e Souvenirs d e voyage e t t radi t ions populaires t ha t h e
p re fe r s t o t a k e informat ion from local people whereve r possible, "et quand
les r i c i t s du peuple m e manquaient j'avais r ecour s aux livres." H e
applauds t h e recogni t ion afforded by German men of l e t t e r s t o t he i r folk-
lore and thei r e f f o r t s t o record and s tudy what h e considers t o b e the i r
national her i tage:
En Al lemagne, 1'6tude d e s pobsies populaires a b t 6 en t r ep r i se d e bonne heu re e t poursuivie a v e c ardeur. Ici, les hommes qui se l ivra ient B c e t t e e t u d e Btaient soutenus non seu lemen t p a r I'amour d e la sc ience, mais pa r un sen t imen t d e nationalitb. (Discours, p.315)
H e r e g r e t s only t h e lack of any s tudy under taken by t h e Austr ians t o
record t h e legends connec ted wi th t h e Danube, and w e the re fo re infer t ha t
h e has personally ga the red all t h e informat ion presented on this subject :
"11 f au t q u e l e voyageur l e s che rche l e long d e son chemin" (Voyage, I,
p.312). T h e deta i led bibliographies, s t i l l unusual in a n a r t i c l e in th is
period, ment ion Rrentano, Biisching, Ger le , Mailath, Massmann, Schreiber ,
Ge ib and Grimm. This las t r e f e rence i s significant, for i t may b e t h a t
Marmier ' s c o n t a c t wi th t h e b ro the r s Gr imm i s par t ly responsible for
s t imulat ing his i n t e re s t in German folklore. 24
Although h e uses t h e s a m e ma te r i a l in d i f f e ren t publications, Marmier
p re sen t s German folklore comprehensively and persuasively. H e begins wi th
t h e p remise tha t , e v e n in t h e nineteenth cen tu ry , Germany is supremely
t h e land of mythology:
Ici, t o u t e s les plaines o n t leur g in i e s , t ou te s l e s montagnes leurs g r o t t e s myst6rieuses, t ous l e s l ac s l eu r s pala is d e cr is ta l ; ici, t ou t e s l e s fe'es n e son t pas mortes , e t t ous l e s sylphes n'ont pas dkpouillb leurs a i les
d'or; ici, quand la nuit silencieuse s'abaisse sur la terre, les flots de I'Elbe et du Rhin ont encore des soupirs d'amour, les arbres frissonnent au souffle des esprits, et les chgteaux racontent du haut de la colline leurs histoires de guerre. (Voyage, I, p.57)
He distinguishes clearly between the concepts of myth and legend, using
the term "lggende historique" to denote 'legend' and "lkgende merveilleuse"
to convey 'myth':
A mesure que le peuple etait &mu par un Bvenement, ou surpris par un ph6nom&ne, il composait une I6gende, il inventait un mythe I...] Ses Iggendes historiques reposent sur une base certaine, sur des faits ave'r6s, mais elles ont 6t6 tellement embellies par la caprice des conteurs qu'on ne peut y saisir parfois qu'un trait de moeurs et un nom. Ses Ikgendes merveilleuses proviennent de ce culte mystCrieux de la nature, de cette esphce de pantheisme secret dont le moyen Bge a toujours admis le principe sans jamais le formuler. (Voyage, I, p.58)
The mythological figures are presented according to the element or natural
phenomenon with which they are normally associated, and there are
sections on the stars and the planets, on metals, plants, birds, mountains,
earth and water. He describes briefly the spirits that are found most
frequently: "Les Elfes, les Nains, les Koboldes, les Nixes, composent le
cycle habitue1 des Ikgendes" (Voyage pittoresque, I, p.691, and attempts to
explain their symbolism, as for example, "Dans la symbolique du Nord, les
geants representent la force brutale, la matiere, et les nains, la faculte'
d'esprit, I'intelligence" (Voyage, I, p.61). There are legends connected with
the devil, and a humorous generalisation about the Satanic legends:
Quand on lit toutes ces histoires des d6ceptions du diable, repandues travers les plus beaux monuments de I'Europe, depuis la merveilleuse cath6drale de Cologne jusqu'; celle de Lund, en SuBde, on est vraiment tent6 de plaindre l e malheureux artisan de tant d'oeuvres si diff ici les dont il a tire si peu de bCn&fice, et il me semble tout nature1 de croire que de I& vient la denomination de pauvre diable appliquQ B I'homme qui se trompe dans ses sp6culations et Bchoue dans ses tentatives. (Voyage, I, p.313)
There are linked with religious legends and legends associated with par-
ticular places: Kiffhauser and Frederick Barbarossa, the story o f
Rolandeck, the Loreley, and the Rhineland tales; legends o f the Tyrol,
including Maximilian and the Zips, the Wunderberg, Charlemagne, the
legends of Silesia, including Beer and the Wends and their folksongs. The
legends o f Mecklenburg are described in some detail, and include the sagas
of Doberan, Ludwigslust and Henri d e Lion. He also ment ions Tris tan and
Isolde, Arthur, Parzival, Kynast, Kunegunde, and o the r f igures t aken from
t h e l i t e ra tu re of the Middle Ages.
Finally, Marmier also s t resses t h e ubiquitous presence of music in
Germany, linking it, again, wi th t h e national 'melancholy'. In t h e Voyage
p i t t o r e s a u e h e recalls, "Une d e s rilles d e madame T [...I i I 'a t t i tude
mklancolique d e la f e m m e du Nord, nous chan ta i t d'une voix harmonieuse
les plus suaves chan t s d e I'Allemagne" (m 11, p.86). But melancholy
has i t s counterbalance; Marmier no tes tha t , in general, t h e Germans seem
t o exper i ence both "une vague mklancolie, ce po i t ique penchant des r aces
du Nord, e t parfois une impetueuse animat ion qui, dans l e s villes
ktranghres, leur donne I'air d'kcoliers e n vacances" (Voyage, 11, p.27).
Music expresses both these e x t r e m e s and an infinite range of moods
be tween them: "musique a l lemande joyeuse, grave, B l e v b , infinie,
in6puisablen (Souvenirs d'un voyageur, p.91). H e also emphasises t h e vast
r epe r to i r e of t h e many ta lented composers f rom Germany:
... valses d e Schubert , mklodies d e Mozart , pastorales d e Beethoven, dernihre pens6e d e Weher, chan t s dramat iques d e Meyerbeer, hymnes religieuses d e Haydn. (w)
Like l i tera ture , music is not t h e preserve of a n e l i te , but is present in all
social s i tuat ions and ranks, par t icular ly s ince "les Allemands ont I'oreille
e t la voix justes" (Ibid.). H e c o m m e n t s on t h e "musique d e s postillons
assis su r leur s iege d'Eilwagen ou d 'Extrapostn (@&I, on t h e "troupe
d'ktudians, c o m m e vous l e s a s i bien de'peintes Mme d e Stael , qui s'en
vont l e soir, e n chantant , t r ave r s l e s rues",25 t h e "musique d e la f l i t e
e t du piano dans l e salon d e famillen, and t h e "musique d e s o rches t r e s b
t ou tes l e s tables d'h8ten (Souvenirs, p.91).
Marmier's p ic ture of a domest icated, musical and poet ic Germany
s t eeped in mythology and melancholy is in teres t ing not only in itself, but
a lso in the light of subsequent l i terary t r ends in France. Although i t is
difficult t o t r a c e t h e specif ic inf luence of his work in this a rea , his
emphasis on t h e domes t i c idyll, in German l i fe and more specifically in
a work such a s Herman und Dorothea, may have a bearing on t h e French
rust ic novel. Lecon te d Lisle's P&mes barbares o r Hugo's L e Rhin may
perhaps answer t h e cal l fo r a new in te res t in folklore and mythology. T h e
Parnassians may also have been influenced by t h e religious discussions,
particularly on the subject o f Pantheism. As such developments suggest,
the most striking aspect o f Marmier's picture o f Germany in the early
years o f his work there is i ts positive emphasis: i t is d i f f icul t t o find
adverse comment in his earliest works on Germany; but despite his
enthusiasm, he was astute enough to discern more negative elements as
t ime went by, in particular the expansionist power of Prussia, which he
came to see as a growing international threat.
11. "A CHANGE CAME O'ER THE SPIRIT OF M Y DREAM"
Thus Marmier expressed his realisation that not all aspects o f nineteenth-
century Germany were so idyll ic as his early visits could have led him t o
believe (Voyage, I, p.3). The first really outspoken remarks occur in 1839,
some seven years af ter he began his work there, in a review o f Quinet's
Allemagne et ~ t a l i e . ~ ~ It is important to notice that Marmier was by no
means the first to awaken to the Prussian threat: Quinet had forecast i t
as early as 1831 in L'Allemagne e t la Rkvolution, foreshadowing Marmier's
change o f heart by some eight years. In this review, Marmier speaks for
the f irst t ime o f "les haines traditionelles cach6es sous le manteau du
stoicisme", and the "miseres politiques voil6es par le voile d'or de la
po6sien (p.52). He recognises that 1813 has not been forgotten, and that
there is st i l l a strong feeling towards unification, and the need to present
a united front in Germany. Even from this early date in his career, he
expresses some misgivings about the ways i n which i t could be achieved:
II est bien kvident, comme le di t M. Quinet, que ce mouvement de nationalit6 allemande, si 6nergique dans son principe, si large et si restreint par les froides deliberations de la dihte germanique, n'a pu 6tre Ctouf f i dans son germe, ni paralysk dans son d6veloppement. II est 6vident que cette id6e d'6mancipation politique, de liberte' nationale, qui enthousiasma I'Allemagne en 1813, subsiste encore I...] Mais quand et comment cet te condition sera-t-elle accomplie? (p.52).
The following year, 1840, saw the beginning o f a dkbscle between
Marmier and the German press which accelerated his growing disillusion
with the country. It began wi th an article published in the Revue des
Deux Mondes, entit led "Revue ~ i t t d ra i re de I'Allemagne", in which he
claimed that the golden era i n German l i terature was passed: "Le temps
n'est plus ob les grands hommes de Weimar ktonnaient le monde par la
majestk de leurs oeuvres I...] Les genies kminens sont morts, et les
hommes secondaires qui leur ont s u r v k u s'arrgtent dans la lice."27
This article prompted an angry response from the German press, and
Marmier responded first with an article In which he attributes this reaction
largely to the tense situation between the two countries concerning the
Rhine provinces, but also complains bitterly about the unreliable and
extreme reactions of the Germans:
Elle [I'Allemagne] passe en un instant du raisonnement h I'apostrophe, de I'admiration & I'outrage. Hler, elle louait encore I'esprit, le caractire du pays qui I'avoisine; demain, elle le condamne sans piti6. Hier, elle rendait justice 'a vos travaux, elle vous proclamait un de ses disciples, elle vous adressait, avec des paroles flatteuses, des dipl6mes honoriflques, demain, elle efface d'un trait de plume tout le passe' et vous appelle un ignorant.28
1841, however, saw Marmier with far clearer and more significant
polltlcal targets for his discontent with Germany. No longer is
"1'Allemagne" in general attacked, but more precisely, "la ~ r u s s e " . ~ ~ In
this article in the Revue des Deux Mondes, Marmier reviews anti-French
pamphlets, which he claims to have been far more numerous in recent
weeks than any other type of llterary output. This subject gives him the
opportunity to raise the question of the Prussian danger, since "Les
krivains prussiens se distinguent entre tous par leur ton tranchant et
leurs paroles hauta ine~" .~~ He writes of their ominously aggressive
patriotism:
11 faut les voir, quand ils se dunissent dans quelque solennit6 militaire ou scientifique, avec quelle ardeur ils entonnent leur chant national, avec quel accent emphatique chacun d'eux s'6crie: Ich bin Prussen [sic] (je suls Pr~ssie*~ On dirait que tous les autres titres ne sont rien a cat6 de celui-18.
The rest of the article contains strong warnings about .the strengths
and intentions of Prussia. He Insists on the danger of her geographical
position in relation to other countries:
hendue comme un long cordon militaire du nord au sud, de la Pologne h la France, resserrBe entre deux lignes de royaumes et de prlncipalite's, il faut nbessairement qu'elle s'Blargisse sous pine d'etre BcrasCe, et certes elle a bien montre qu'elle comprenait sa situation.32
The possible threat to France becomes even clearer as he underlines
the Insidious way in which Prussia has annexed the neighbouring states:
"Elle se les assimlle peu 'a peu par des tentative3 dont elle seule peut-8tre
comprend d'abord toute la portke, aujourd'hui par son systeme mongtaire,
demain par son r6seau d e douanes". 33
The phrase "dont el le seule peut-dtre comprend d'abord toute la
port6en shows Marmier's obvious conviction of ulterior motives in the
political machinations which he does not wish to pass unnoticed. The
total implication of his s tatement is of course the great potential danger
for the French. If other s ta tes were to join forces with Prussia in a war,
they would form a mighty alliance:
Nous parlons encore du d6faut d'unit6 d e I'Allemagne. C e dkfaut est hien plus apparent que r6el. Vienne une guerre, IIAllemagne cesse d'6tre un compos6 d e petites principalites dont chacune a son histoire, ses intkrgts, sa vie a part; I...] e t qui sait quels fruits porterait alors c e t t e longue e t patiente infiltration des iddes prussiennes repandues d e c6tk e t d'autre I...]. 34
After this, it is difficult to find precise references to the political
situation until 1859 in his Voyage pittoresque en Allemagne, (I, pp.1-4).
In the intervening period, there a r e only vague hints of his feelings that
there is something wrong. In the introduction to his translation of
Hoffmann's tales, in 1843, he speaks of the " tableaux un peu trop
poktiques e t trop enthousiastes d e Madame d e Staiil "(p.l), and in the intro-
duction to Un BtB au bord d e la Baltique e t de la mer du Nord (18561, he
speaks wistfully of the Germany he first knew:
Ceux qui parcouraient I'Allemagne, il y a une vingtaine d'anndes, avec une studieuse pen&e, e t qui y retournent aujourd'hui, y retrouveront difflcilement les kmotions qu'ils ont dG 6prouver I'a e n leur premier voyage I...]. (Un 6 t i au bord d e la Baltique, etc. p.1)
Although he at tr ibutes this lack of enthusiasm t o t h e new industrial-
isation of Europe, Germany in particular, which reminds him of America.
the reader familiar with his other comments on Germany will wonder
whether the dream is not also broken by political developments in the
country. A partial answer comes just three years later in the Voyage
p i t t o r e s ~ u e e n Al lema~ne . In the first volume, h e describes in detail a
modern-day journey around Berlin, "cet te capitale d'un peuple essentielle-
ment guerriern (I, p.175). The military presence is very evident, and the
sight of the soldiers prompts him t o remark:
J e m e rappelais, e n les observant, I'impression d e terreur qu'a laiss6e dans ma ville natale d e Pontarlier l e passage des regiments Kaiserliche,
qu'on appel le les K..., Dieu nous ga rde pour tant d e les voir jamais f ranchir nos f ront i6res c o m m e e n 1814, ma i s qu'ils viennent e n amis. (ibld.)
Chronologically, i t Is a l so in teres t ing tha t a t th is juncture a comment
about Marmie r by Hol te i appea r s in 1864, in t h e form of a n o t e on a
l e t t e r t o Tieck. Marmie r s a y s in t h e l e t t e r (which is undated) t h a t his
f r iends in Pa r i s find him "bien germanisi". Holtei, who was ve ry c lose t o
Marmier , i s prompted t o wonder whe the r in present c i rcumstances ,
Marmle r would stil l find th is a compliment : " J e t z t lebt e r in P a r i s [ ...I Ob
man ihn do r t immer noch "bien ge rman i s i " finden, o b e r s ich noch da ran
e r f r euen mag?"35 Holtei i s obvlously a w a r e t h a t Marmier has reservat ions
about t h e coun t ry now. Hol te i may h a v e been par t icular ly sensi t ive o n t h e
point, s ince they spen t t he i r t i m e t o g e t h e r in Prussia.
T h e s t ronges t warning of all agains t t h e Pruss ian t h r e a t c o m e s in
1867, in Souvenirs d'un voyageur. O n c e again, h e r eco rds a visit t o
Berlin, and th is t i m e his impressions a r e s imilar t o those noted in Voyage
p l t t o re sque , but now re l a t ed m o r e forceful ly and a t g r e a t e r length. It
begins, q u i t e simply, w i th how everything in Germany has changed for t h e
worse s ince his f i rs t v is i t s there :
J e su i s assez r e t rog rade pour r e g r e t t e r l a p o b i e d e ses anciennes institutions, d e ses cen ta ines d e principautbs, d e ses souverainete's 6piscopales I...] mais pas une d e ces cap i t a l e s qui se dkveloppent dans d e s propor t ions d&mesur6es, e t a t t i r e n t e t absorbent la richesse, l e pouvoir, I'action d e s provinces. (Souvenirs, p.8 1)
H e real ises t h a t h e i s seeing t h e real isa t ion of his prophecy in 1841 of
Pruss ia annexing and swallowing up all t h e r e s t of Germany. H e reminds
his r e a d e r o n c e m o r e in forceful t e r m s of Prussia 's expansionist and
mil i tar is t ic tendencies, placing these in t he i r historical con tex t , and
showing t h e logical o u t c o m e of such developments :
C 'es t pa r la gue r re q u e l a P rus se s 'est g radue l l emen t cons t i t uee e t aggrandie. C'est pa r l a gue r re qu 'e l le a Bt6 dc ra s6e aprhs l a ba t a i l l e dt1&na. C'est p a r la gue r re qu'elle s 'est 61evbe a v e c une nouvelle audace e t u n e ambi t ion qui n e peut plus se contenir . (Souvenirs, p.104)
T h e emphasis on t h e "ambition qui n e peu t plus se contenir" i s of cou r se
highly significant, and i s a t h e m e which is developed in t h e r e s t o f t h e
book, a l though i t i s a l r eady obvious t o what h e alludes. H e indicates
c l ea r ly t h a t Pruss ia has t h e mil i tary m e a n s t o fulfil t h i s ambition. In t h e
Voyage pi t toresque h e had a l ready ment ioned t h e "arsenal qui s 'e leve e n
f a c e du mus6e" (I, p.1751, th is t i m e h e descr ibes t h e s c e n e in more deta i l :
[ . . .I c e t arsenal e n f a c e d u mus ie , ces canons align& p res d e I ' a cadkmie , c e s o f f i c i e r s qu'on r encon t r e a chaque pas e n grand uniforme, fa isant si f i e r emen t r6sonner su r l e pave leur s ab re e t leurs Bperons, ces pa rades perpe'tuelles e t ces troupes a pied e t h cheval I...] qui, pour f a i r e leurs exercices , envahissent jusqu'aux a l l6es du parc; on sen t qu'il y a la un espr i t mar t i a l plus puissant q u e I'esprit scientifique. L e plan m d m e d e la ville, e t les principales oeuvres d 'ar t qui l a dkcorent , po r t en t c o m m e une e m p r e i n t e d e r&ve belliqueux. (m pp.104-5)
In addition t o this arsenal , h e underlines t h e o n e necessary f a c t o r not
ment ioned before: a leader. From ea r ly on in t h e t ex t , i t is c l e a r t ha t
Marmie r sees Bismarck a s a n undesi rable innovation in Germany, c lass ing
him along wi th o t h e r changes which make him reg re t t h e past: "En ce
temps-18, il n'y ava i t e n c o r e e n Al lemagne ni t 6 1 6 ~ r a ~ h i ~ u e s Blectroniques,
ni chemins d e f e r I...]. Elle ignorait aussi q u e Bismark lui Btait nC"
(Souvenirs, p.8 1 ).
It becomes c l e a r t ha t Bismarck is v iewed a s a danger : whereas
fo rmer Prussian l eade r s had occupied themselves with learning, Bismarck
is i n t e re s t ed only in political gain:
L e de rn i e r roi d e Prusse, Frkder ic Gui l laume IV, vivait dans I ' intimit6 dtAlexandre d e Humboldt, d e Varnhagen, d e Schelling, e t des principaux professeurs d e Berlin I...] e t I...] n 'aspirait pas, c o m m e son successeur , M. d e Rismark f a i r e une nouvelle r6volution. (Souvenirs, p.84)
Although t h e d i r ec t dange r t o F r a n c e f rom his revolut ionary ideas is not
expressed d i r ec t ly here , t h e position is c lar i f ied l a t e r in t h e work, when
Marmie r r e l a t e s a discussion be tween himself and a German friend, Carl.
(Souvenirs, pp.121-163). T h e discussion cove r s t h e history of Pruss ia and
ends wi th spec i f i c augur s of war wi th France. T h e c h a r a c t e r of Ca r l is
careful ly chosen t o i nc rease t h e impac t o f t h e warning. H e i s p re sen ted
a s a f r iend of Marmier , a n a v e r a g e man, ce r t a in ly not a fanat ic ; h e i s
even a Cathol ic , a minor i ty in Prussia, and the re fo re m o r e likely t o view
t h e French c a u s e m o r e sympa the t i ca l ly t han t h e m o r e dogmat i c P ro t e s t an t
e l emen t (" ... les infle'xibles prdtent ions du protes tant isme", p.125). Yet
desp i t e being presented a s a thoroughly modera t e cha rac t e r , h e u t t e r s s o m e
ex t r eme ly ant i -French r emarks e v e n t o a Frenchman h e considers his
friend. T h e impl icat ion i s c lear : t ha t F r a n c e has much t o f e a r f rom a
people whose mos t m o d e r a t e m e m b e r s speak o f "notre devoir L.4 d e c h l t i e r
I 'ambition d e l a France" (p.161). Marmie r e n d s wi th his own warning: "I1
y a d e s Pruss iens convaincus que l e royaume providential du vieux F r i t z
e s t des t ink sqaccroTtre d e t e l l e s o r t e qu'un jour Pa r i s s e r a son point
c e n t r a l e t s a capitale." (p.163).
Thus in t h e y e a r s leading up t o t h e Franco-Prussian war, Marmie r had
not hes i t a t ed t o m a k e public his misgivings and f ea r s of t h e dange r f rom
Prussia. His warnings, however, w e r e des t ined general ly t o fall on dea f
ears , and Marmie r was pr ivate ly horr i f ied of t h e government ' s in tent ion
t o g o t o war w i th Prussia. In his Journal l on 12th June 1870, h e no te s
t h a t "I 'empereur v a f a i r e l a gue r re & l a Prusse. En vain quelques hommes
sensks, e n vain l e plus s ens6 d e tous, M. Thiers, essayent- i l s d l a r r&te r l e
gouvernement dans c e t t e formidable d6termination." (Journal 11, p.160).
Marmie r w a s a c lo se f r iend of Thiers, dining regular ly a t his house, and
could well h a v e encouraged him t o oppose plans fo r war. 36
When t h e w a r b roke out , Marmie r s t ayed in P a r i s throughout t h e
s iege, and recorded all h is impressions in his diary. I t would b e i r re levant
t o examine his c o m m e n t s a t t h i s juncture, bu t t h e y a r e e x t r e m e l y informa-
t i ve about t h e s i ege conditions. I t i s s ignif icant t h a t a f t e r th is da t e , h e
would appea r t o h a v e m a d e no fu r the r v is i t s t o Germany: ce r t a in ly no
such r e fe rences a r e t o b e found in e i t h e r published o r manuscr ipt mater ia l .
Y e t h e did not t o t a l ly s eve r h is l inks wi th t h e country . A f ew col lect ions
of sho r t s to r i e s published in his old a g e con ta in German tales: a col lec-
t ion en t i t l ed Nouvelles du Nord (Paris, Hache t t e ) which appeared in 1882
includes a (poor and the re fo re a typical ) t ransla t ion of S to rm ' s Immensee;
k l a ville e t 'a l a campagne (Paris, Hache t t e , 1885) con ta ins o n e folk-tale
of German origin, en t i t l ed "L'heureuse journ6e du loup ; and Au Sud e t
au Nord (Paris, Hache t t e ) published in 1890, just t w o yea r s be fo re
Marmier ' s dea th , compr i se s a l a rge se l ec t ion of shor t personal, historical,
and mythological anecdotes , most ly o f German origin. A t approximately
t h e s a m e t ime , Marmie r m a d e his last e n t r y in his d iary (now held a t t h e
Acaddmie d e Besanson): a fill1 t r i b u t e t o his long-deceased and much
r e g r e t t e d parents , wr i t t en predominant ly in German. Thus his a t t a c h m e n t
t o t h e coun t ry w a s deep-rooted enough t o wi ths tand e v e n t h e war , t o a
c e r t a i n ex ten t . Nei ther was h e fo rgo t t en by t h e Germans. In 1889, t h e
Univers i ty of Leipzig addressed a t r i b u t e t o t h e "Bminent acadkmicien qui,
a u mois d e f6vr ier 1839, f u t r e p d o c t e u r e n philosophie A c e t t e
~ n i v e r s i t k " . 37
1. An account of Marmier's work on Germany is given in my Ph.D. thesis: Xavier Marmier (1808-1892): a study in Franco-German literary relations (London, 1986). The modern-day neglect of his work is largely due to the influence of inaccurate comments by L. Reynaud in Francais e t Allemands. Histoire de leurs relations intellectuelles et sentimentales (Paris: Fayard, 1930) and L'lnfluence allemande en France au XVllle et au XIXe siecle (Paris: Hachette, 19221, and is analysed in my latest article: "Xavier Marmier (1808-1892): setting the record straight" (forth- coming).
2. The name of this publication was frequently changed. In 1826 it was known as the Bibliothbgue but it changed its name in 1827 to the Revue germanique. Between 1829 and 1834 it was called the Nouvelle Revue germanique, and in 1835 it reverted to its former title of Revue germanique until 1837, after which it was taken over and given the new title of Revue du Nord. Other journals featuring articles on German subject matter included Le Globe (founded in 1824) the Revue de Paris (founded in 1829). and the influential Revue des Deux Mondes, (also founded in 1829). In subsequent references, the abbreviation & will be used for Revue germanique, for Nouvelle Revue germanique, r~ for Revue de Paris, and RDM for Revue des Deux Mondes. Marmier contri- buted to all these on a regular basis.
3. This information and date are found in a letter to Paul Lacroix dated 14th January 1832, conserved in the Bibiiothbque de I'Arsenal, Fonds Paul Lacroix. Additional information is found in Marmier's Journal, ed. Kaye, 2 vols (Geneve: Droz. 1968), 1. p.312.
4. X, Marmier, Etudes biographiques. "Henri de Kleist", a, XIV, 1833, No.54, pp.99-119; Etudes sur Goethe (Paris: Levrault, 1835); Hermann et Dorothde par Goethe, traduit par X. Marmier, (Paris: Heideloff); Th6ltre de Goethe traduction nouvelle, revue, corrigge, et augmentge d e e prkface par M. X. Marmier, (Paris: Charpentier, 1839); Th6itre de Schiller, traduction nouvelle, pr6ced6e d'une notice sur sa vie et ses ouvrages, par X. hlarmier, (Paris: Charpentier. 1841); Pogsies de Schiller, traduction nouvelle par M. X. Marmier. ~rkcedke d'une introduction Dar le traducteur. (Paris: Charoentier . , . 1844); Contes fantastiques dl~offmann traduction . nbuvelle de ' M. x.. h?armier.- traducteur, (Paris: Charpentier, - . 1843). Translations and studies of his contemooraries are too numerous to detail here, but a full bibliography is asseinbled in my Ph.D. thesis Xavier Marmier (1808-1892): a study in Franco-German literary relations.
5. X. Marmier, Un 6th au bord de la Baltique et de la mer du Nord (Paris: Hachette, 18561, p.1. (This work is referred to henceforth as & bt6 au bord de la Baltique, etc.)
6. X Marmier, [Introduction], &, 3e skrie, I, No.1 (18351, pp.3-21 (p.11). 7. X. Marmier, VoyaRe 2 vols (Paris: Morizot, 1859-60), 11, p.85. This work will be referred to henceforth as Voyage.
8. X. Marmier. "Journal de voyage. Viennew, NRg, 2e sgrie, I, No.4, ( 1834). pp.359-377 (p.364).
9. X. Marmier, " Les ~niversiths allemandes - Goettingud', E M , 3e skrie, 1, 1834, pp.434-448. "Leipzig et la librairie allemandg, m M , 3e dr ie , 1 (1834). pp.93-105.
10. VoyaRe, op. cit. Details of Tibingen and Prague universities are to be found in Vol.1, pp.43 and 497 respectively, and details of Leipzig, Breslau, Jena and WUrzberg are found in Vol.11, pp.90, 152, 195, 384 and 454 respectively.
11. X. Marmier, Souvenirs d'un voyageur (Paris: Didier, 18671, p.82. Henceforth: Souvenirs.
12. VoyaRe, op. cit., I, p.95.
13. X. Marmier, [Introduction], Q, 3e s6rie, I, No.1 (18351, pp.3-21 (P. 10). 14. X. Marmier, "Souvenirs de voyages. Berlin, le Mecklembourg, Ludwigslust, Hambourgn. RP (1837), pp.60-69 (p.65).
15. X, Marmier, 'Qes soir6es d'Allemagne': NRg. XV, Nos.57 and 58 (joint issue), pp. 161-173 (p. 163).
16. X. Marmier, Podsies d'un voyageur (Paris: Felix Locquin, 18441, p.55.
17. X. Marmier, 'Moeurs de I'Allemagne. Premier article: le Dimanche", NRI, XII, No.47 (18321, pp.266-277 (p.266).
18. Moeurs de I'Ailemagne. Premier article: ie Dirnanchg, art. cit., p.271.
19. Woeurs de I'Allemagne. Premier article: le Dimanchd', art. cit., pp.268-9.
20. X. Marmier, Souvenirs de voyanes e t traditions populaires (Paris: Masgana, 18411, p.204.
21. X. Marmier, "Discours prononce I'ouverture du cours de litterature Btrangkre la Facult6 des lettres d e Rennes: Nouvelle Revue de Bretagne, 1 (1839). pp.305-321 (p.309). (This lecture is referred to subsequently as 'Discours'.)
22. X. Marmler, Traditions d'Allemagnd', RP, XXXVI (1836). pp.246-264, and XXXVIII, 1837, pp. 177-191.
23. Voyage, op. cit., I, pp.57-87.
24. An interesting inscription in Marmier's copy of Deutsche Mytholoxie states that "Achet6 le 6 juillet 1886 sur le quai des Augustins, heureux de retrouver une des oeuvres de ces deux savants si justement renommes qui en 1834 a Gattingen furent si bons pour moi. " 25. X. Marmier, [Introduction], Q, 3e skrie, I, No.1 (18351, pp.3-21 (P. 13).
26. X. Marmier, Cr i t ique litt6raire. Allemagne e t italie, de M. Edgar Quinetl: RP, 3e skrie, IV (18391, pp.49-55.
27. X. Marmier, "Revue ~i t tdra i re de ~ '~ l lemagne" , m M , XXI (18401, pp.712-725 (p.715).
28. X. Marmier, "Revue littgraire de I'Allemagne: a M , XXV (1841). pp.705-729 (p.705).
29. X. Marmier, "Revue litt6raire de I'Ailemagne: m M , XXVI (1841). pp.627-655.
30. Revue iitt6raire de I'Allemagne'l, a r t cit., RDM, XXVI, p.630.
31. "Revue littiraire de I'Allemagne", art. cit., E M , XXVI, p.631.
32. "Revue littdraire de I'Allemagnef', art. cit., RDM, XXVI, p.630.
33. "Revue littdraire de I'Ailemagne", art. cit., RDM, XXVI, p.630.
34. "Revue littdraire de I'Allemagne", art. cit., RDM, XXVI, pp.630-1.
35. A. Wagner, Briefe an Ludwig Tieck, ausgewahlt und herausgegeben von Karl von Holtei (Breslau: Trewendt, 18641, IV. p.331.
36. Marmier's reputation has suffered unjustly from claims by critics such as L. Reynaud, in Francais e t Allemands. Histoire de leurs relations intellectuelles e t sentimentales (Parls: Fayard, 1930, p.278) that Marmier not only failed to warn France about the danger from Germany, but also endangered the security of the country by his 'lmb6cillite' d'esprit". More recently, A. ~onchoux~concludes his &ay "Un romantique franiais ami de 1'Allemagne: Xavier Marmier " (Connaissance de I'Etranger: MBlanges offerts 'a la m6molre de Jean-Marie CarrB, Paris: Didier, 1964, p.96) with the question: " Quel rapport entre ce t te image e t I'Allemagne pan- germaniste, conque'rante e t brutale qui allait, si peu de temps aprks, decevoir les Fransais? Marmier fut-il dupe? Complice?" The second part of this article puts these accusations in a new light.
37. This information is found in a newspaper cutting which it has unfortunately not been possible to trace, pasted into the largely unpub- lished manuscript of Night Side of Society 6, held at the Acade'mie de Besanson:
Le doyen de I'Unlversit6 de Leipzig vient d'adresser M. Xavier Marmier un trks curieux diplSme, inprim6 en souvenir du cinquantenaire de I'6minent acad6micien qul, au mois de f6vrier 1839, fut re$u docteur en philosophie ?i cet te UniversitB.
Les philosophes de Leipzig souhaitent au vdnCrable membre de I'Institut, d6ji ag6 de plus de quatre-vingt ans [sic], une longue e t heureuse vieillesse, e t ils le remercient d'avoir fair conna'ltre 21 la France, par ses traductions, les oeuvres littkraires e t podtiques du pays
THE ART OF THE IMPROVISERS: JAZZ AND FICTION IN POST-BEBOP AMERICA
Jullan Cowley (King's College London)
"A saxophonist who continues to 'play like' Charlie Parker cannot under-
stand that Charlie Parker wasn't certain that what had happened had to
sound like that." LeRoi Jones (Imamu Amiri Baraka), in 1964, emphati-
cally denied that a series of practised and polished musical mannerisms
emulating the technical virtuosity of a great jazz musician constitutes
extension of that player's creative spirit. "Hunting", Jones pointed out,
"is not those heads on the wall"' art does not proceed merely from the
mastery of formulas, no matter how stimulating, challenging, or revelatory
the models from which they were drawn may have been. Parker's genius,
Jones argues, resided in his restless inquiry, tireless investigation of the
forms an improvisation might take. The music, familiarly termed bebop,
of which he was a leading exponent, emerged in the 1940s as "at a certain
level of consideration, a reaction by young musicians against the sterility
and formality of Swing as it moved to become a formal part of the main-
stream American culture".' It was an exploratory mode of jazz, whose
cutting edge was forged and honed by remarkable soloists, who released
again, in celebration if also in anger or anguish, energies that had been
neutralized when channelled into the well-made, easily assimilated,
arranger-dominated musical patterning of Swing, music characterized by
"rhythmic regularity and melodic predictability". 3
But by the late-1950s, as Jones recognized and A. R. Spellman
corroborates, "The discovery had gone out of bebop - it had become as
formalistic as any movement does once it has solved its original problem".
Spellman's analysis also concludes that "it was that indefiniteness of not
knowing how the music was going to sound before it is played that
enhanced its emotional expression" and, identifying Ornette Coleman as
pioneer of music that revitalized the 1960s, he remarks that "the new
musician has been primarily involved in the cultivation of the Marvelous.
And he judges his work more by the frequency with which the Marvelous
occurs than by comdositional value^".^ A comparable orientation is
evident in the writer Donald Barthelme's claim that he would "rather have
a wreck than a ship that sails. Things attach themselves to wrecks.
Strange fish find your wreck[ ...I to be a good feeding ground; after a
while you've got a situation with possibilities".5 Rarthelrne's first
collection of stories, Come Back, Dr Caligari, appeared in 1964. In the predominantly sterile atmosphere of cultural conservatism in
America in the 1950s, allegiance to bebop was a declaration of cultural
radicalism. While many such declarations were undoubtedly faddist, there
were writers of enduring significance who readily acknowledged affinity.
The correspondence of poets Robert Creeley and Charles Olson is peppered
with admiring references to Parker; Jack Kerouac's fiction made clear
his devotion. Ronald Sukenick has cited Olson's essay "Projective Verse",
so concerned with possibilities of the breath, and Kerouac's "Essentials of
Spontaneous Prose: expressing his desire to write as a jazz musician
blows, as key documents releasing energies for creative work since the
fifties. Numerous writers who, like Sukenick, began to publish their fiction
in the mid- or late-sixties, have spoken of personal indebtedness to the
paradigm of bebop. In 1963, in the magazine Kulchur, which first pub-
lished several of LeRoi Jones's essays on jazz, Gilbert Sorrentino, for
example, published "Remembrances of Bop in New York, 1945-1950?
Ishmael Reed takes Parker as a model for his Neo HOODOO aesthetic;
Raymond Federman, once a jazz musician himself, has a section entitled
'Remembering Charlie Parkern in his novel Take It Or Leave It (1976);
Steve Katz has said: "Jazz was my childhood. Whenever I could I snuck
out to Birdland, sat on the wooden chairs In the No Minimum gallery,
getting closer and closer with every set to Bud Powell, Charlie Parker,
Zoot Sims, Miles Davis, Max Roach, Clifford Brown, Lennie Tristano. Lee
Konitz, Thelonius Monk, all my heroes - John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy". 6
During the fifties, jazz submitted once again to the demands of tidy
orchestration, carefully crafted arrangements executed with dutiful pre-
cision. Some fine music was produced - the Modern Jazz Quartet, the
Gerry Mulligan group, Miles Davis's collaborations with Gil Evans - but In
the hands of the copyists the 'cool' was merely tepid. At the end of the
decade, Ornette Coleman arrived in New York and proceeded to transgress
recognized limits for individual and collective improvisation, courting
surprise, constantly testing, reassessing, revlsing "a musical syntax which,
though necessarily derived from Charlie Parker, was a copy of no one". 7
Sukenick recalls hearing Coleman for the first time, at a bar called the
Five Spot, frequented by self-consciously American painters, film-makers,
and writers, drawn to jazz as a distinctly American art form. He was
struck by t h e intensity of the musicians, and t h e audacity of their music,
and compares his response t o tha t of those Parisians who were stunned by
t h e premi6re of Stravinsky's R i te of Spring. 8
John Litweiler, in The Freedom Principle, analyses ear ly recordings
of Coleman solos and remarks tha t "as t h e faint, lingering shadow of
chorus s t ructures disappears, classic narrat ive form [...I becomes irrelevant.
That's because music with a beginning, middle, and end imposes the
s t ruc tu re of fiction on t h e passage of life, says Coleman implicitly".
Similarly, wri ters such as Sukenick, Federman, Sorrentino, Reed, and Katz
made t h e decision t o disgard Aristotelian narrat ive form, taking a
critically reflexive s tance toward t h e mechanics of narration, so their
writing becomes a thrust toward reality existing beyond t h e s t ructures of
fiction upon which w e habitually rely t o organize experience. Their work
is predicated upon acceptance of contingency and uncertainty, recognition
of which is, according t o Litweiler, embodied in Coleman's playing:
The organization of these Coleman solos makes clear tha t uncertainty is t h e content of life, and even things tha t w e t ake for cer taint ies (such a s his cell motives) a r e e v e r altering shape and character . By turns h e fears or embraces this ambiguity; but h e constantly faces it , and by his example, h e condemns those who seek resolution or finallty as timid. 9
One cannot neglect t h e racially specific socio-economic factors tha t
have contributed t o the ethos of radical jazz throughout i t s history. Com-
poser Robert Ashley has s t a ted tha t h e learnt music from listening t o
jazz, but h e appreciated tha t i t s pract i t ioners spoke, in e f fec t , a different
language t o his own: "In other words, t h e s tor ies tha t were told by jazz
music were s tor ies tha t I didn't grow up with; they weren't my stories".
Nonetheless, he applied himself to understanding "how those s tor ies could
be applied t o s tor ies tha t I understood - my stories. I was trying to
figure out how t o make procedures tha t would invoke spontaneity". 10
There appears t o be a suggestion here tha t the improvisatory skills of jazz
musicians ref lect the need for flexibility and immediacy of response in
s t rategies for survival necessarily adopted by black Americans, given the
large part played by 'accident and t h e unknown in their lives, personally
and communally. Ishmael Reed's novels cer tainly endorse this correspon-
dence. The s tor ies told by jazz a r e not determinist ic s t ructures , but
models for dealing with constant change. Saxophonist Archie Shepp
s t r e s sed t h a t t h e avan t garde, t o which h e belonged in t h e sixties, w a s not
a narrowly def ined movemen t , but a s t a t e of mind. Sukenick, Federman,
and Ka tz m a k e i t c l e a r t h a t wi th the i r wri t ing they seek nothing less t han
a new epistemology.
O r n e t t e Co leman has expressed profound admirat ion fo r Richard
Buckminster Fuller, and has ded ica t ed music t o him. I t may appea r
cur ious t h a t a jazz iconoclas t should r eve re t h e theoret ic ian of comprehen-
s ive an t i c ipa to ry design sc ience, bu t Fuller 's vision of global order ing of
services and ut i l i t ies s e rved t h e end of real iz ing a technoanarchis t ic
socie ty , promoting maximum f reedom of ac t ion for individuals. In his
essay, " T h e Music o f t h e New Lifd', Ful ler con tends tha t "in t h e world of
music and in t h e world of a r t , human beings h a v e a t t a ined much spontane-
ous and r ea l i s t i c coordinat ion" , l l his point being t h a t t h e l ibera tory
potent ia l of avai lable technology may b e real ized only a f t e r t h e co l l ec t ive
adopt ion of new modes of unders tanding and behaviour, t o which c e r t a i n
ar t i s ts , and especia l ly musicians, a r e most c losely a t tuned. Co leman may
be seen a s exempli fying "spontaneous and real is t ic coordination".
In Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, Ishmael Reed a lso considers t h e
prospect of "an anarchotechnological paradise". His s a t i r i ca l t e m p e r would
not a l low him (even in Cal i fornia in 1969) t o engage in unqualitied
opt imism, but t h e Ful ler vision se rved a s a touchstone t o coun te r t h e
"stupid historians", who support ves ted in t e re s t s through legi t imat ion only
o f dras t ica l ly r e s t r i c t i ve p rog rammes for co l l ec t ive composi t ion of fu tu re
societies. Reed, se l f -procla imed sabo teu r of historical orthodoxy, who
con t inues t o decons t ruc t t h e mythologies and icons of WASP America ,
a s sumes t h e jazz a t t i t u d e t h a t anything c a n happen; a novel "can be
anything i t w a n t s t o be, a vaudevi l le show, t h e six o'clock news, t h e
mumblings of wild m e n saddled by demons".12 Char l i e Pa rke r would have
supported th is s en t imen t ; Robe r t Reisner r eco rds him saying: "They t e a c h
you the re ' s a boundary line t o music. Rut, man, there ' s n o boundary line
t o art".13 In p rac t i ce , h e refused t o b e conf ined t o evolving his ma te r i a l s
f rom jazz t radi t ion alone, and w a s highly responsive t o developments in
European c lass ical music, t o t h e e x t e n t of consul t ing Edgar Varsse , whose
explorat ions in sound h e found exciting.
This openness and ec l ec t i c i sm is considerably m o r e pronounced in t h e
work of a l a t e r gene ra t ion of music ians - those of t h e A r t Ensemble of
Chicago, o r o t h e r Associa t ion for Advancemen t of C r e a t i v e Musicians'
virtuosi, such a s Muhal Richard Abrams, Leroy Jenkins, o r Anthony Braxton.
Jacques At ta l i has claimed tha t "free jazz, a meeting of black popular
music a n d the more abstract theoretical explorations of European music, eliminated the distinction between popular music and learned music". 14
In l i terature a comparable elimination has occurred, with thriller, science
fiction, o r Western modes being employed by wri ters of t h e calibre of
Burroughs and Mailer. S teve Katz freely acknowledges t h e influence of
both Kafka and t h e Marx Brothers; Kurt Vonnegut expresses grat i tude t o
Joyce, but discloses tha t his deepest cultural deb t s a r e to American
comedians, who "are o f ten a s brilliant and magical a s our best jazz
musicians". 15
Humour is character is t ic of r ecen t American fiction which offers
al ternat ives to tha t construction of real i ty found in works of conventional
'realism'. It may be playful even when handling grim materials, a s in
Slaughterhouse-5 (1969), Vonnegut's t r ea tment of the fire-bombing of
Dresden, o r in Federman's writings around the extermination of his family
in a Nazi death-camp. The absurd and the gratuitous a r e employed to
c r e a t e comic effects , but they have simultaneously a profoundly serious
function in works that const i tute a cr i t ique of the role of language in
mass-consumer society, in t h e service of t h e war being waged in the Far
East, in historical registration of such atroci t ies a s t h e Holocaust and
dropping of the atom-bomb. A parallel may be drawn t o Dada activity,
which responded t o t h e official rhetoric of World War I by dismantling
received cultural codes, engaging in f ree play with existing signs, creat ing
new ones without anter ior meaning, revealing t h e ideological basis of
'common sense'.
The interest shown by contemporary wri ters in t h e Dada approach t o
language and i t s relation to the world provides another point of con tac t
with jazz. Litweiler comments upon t h e Dada atmosphere of a perfor-
mance by Roscoe Mitchell's 1967 quartet. T h e t rumpeter with tha t fore-
runner of t h e Art Ensemble of Chicago, Lester Rowie, played in a carnival , a s well a s playing bebop, before joining t h e group; his t a s t e for playful
combination of t h e seemingly incongruous is manifested in a piece on his
1983 album, The One and Only (ECM 12471, tellingly and qui te appropriate-
ly ent i t led "Miles Davis Mee ts Donald Duckn. An AEC performance will
shif t from t h e austerely avant ga rde t o pure circus, in a manner tha t
recalls t h e freedom claimed for t h e novel in Yellow Back Radio Broke-
Down, a book whose he ro i s branded "crazy dada nigger" by a social
real is t c r i t i c (p.35). LeRoi Jones, au thor of t h e poem "Black Dada
Nihilismusn, has wr i t t en a s to ry of t h e bebop e r a , cal led "The S c r e a m e r b ,
in which Big J a y McNeeley i s designated "the first Dada coon of t h e age",
and i s compared, a s h e lies on his back screaming through his saxophone,
wi th Duchamp's notorious 'L.H.O.O.Q.', " the Mona Lisa with t h e
mustache".l6 Ronald Sukenick, in Down and In, ment ions a pa r ty given
by Ted Joans, a t t ended by Charl ie Parker ; "it was dedicated t o Surreal-
ism, Dada, and t h e Mau Mau" (p.50). T h e poet and t h e musician shared
a fascinat ion with Dali 's work. Joans's col lect ion of poems, Afrodisia
(19701, contains some of his visual collages, which emphasize a Surreal is t
a l l iance of erot ic ism and revolution, inseparable f rom jazz in his work.
T h e new jazz musician's quest for the marvellous finds sanct ion in
Andrd Breton's dic tum t h a t nothing but t h e marvellous i s beautiful, but the
Freudian basis of Surreal ism does not find favour among pract i t ioners of
t h e new fiction. Their work i s r emarkab le for t h e lack of re l iance on any
system. Li twei ler r emarks t h a t for Alber t Ayler music began "with sound
itself, and from t h e r e you can c r e a t e what relationships you wish without
t h e baggage of theory".17 Similarly, a wr i t e r like Ka tz avoids manifestoes,
s t a r t s wi th words themselves. Soprano saxophonist S t e v e Lacy recal ls t h a t
"when O r n e t t e hi t t h e scene, t h a t was t h e end of t h e theories. He
destroyed t h e theories. I r emember a t t h a t t i m e h e said, very careful ly ,
'Well, you just h a v e a ce r t a in amount of s p a c e and you put what you want
in it1. And t h a t was a revelation".18 In T h e Exaggerat ions of P e t e r
P r ince (sic) (19681, K a t z r e f l ec t s upon t h e p rac t i ce of writing a s "just
trying these e m p t y spaces with luminous motion, and things".lg T h e tech-
nique of col lage favoured by Dada a r t i s t s and Surrealists, who adopted it
f rom Cubism, i s c l ea r ly appropria te t o this project of accumulat ion.
Col lage f r ees t h e wr i t e r f rom received hierarchies and p a t t e r n s of cause
and e f fec t . Nar ra t ive proceeding from this basis c a n accommoda te dis-
continuities, and move with bold improvisatory logic.
Char l ie Pa rke r may again be c i t e d a s exemplary, for, a s jazz wr i t e r
Max Harrison has noted, disjunction was "a positive feature" of s o m e of
his solos. H e specif ies 'Klactoveedsedstene ' ( t h e t i t l e of which resembles
not o n l y Slim Gaillard's verbal playfulness, but a lso t h e Dada invention of
nonsense words) a s demonstra t ing t h e a l tois t ' s "ability t o impart shape and
coherence t o improvisations m a d e u p of shor t , apparent ly unrela ted
snippets".20 The process of improvising is not just expediency in the
absence of a definitive archaeological o r teleological programme; i t is a
s t rategy for release tha t is revelatory. Sukenick has wri t ten that:
Improvisation releases you from old forms, s t a le thoughts, it releases things that a r e released only with difficulty on a psychological basis. It allows in surprising things tha t a r e creeping around on the edges of consciousness. It prevents you from writin cliched formulas. It's a release finally, a release of the imagination.ffi
Among contemporary writers, he regards a s t h e most accomplished impro-
viser S teve Katz, who speaks of his ear ly exposure t o jazz as crucial
because i t was "the first a r t in which I began t o perceive what form was,
and tha t thrilling tension between t h e freedom of blowing and the
imperatives of order. And I began t o real ize tha t a r t has a formal
influence on t h e emotions, and is permit ted through form t o enrich t h e
intellect. It's instantaneous a t t h e moment tha t the form is perceived".
Katz recognized how shape and coherence could be granted t o apparently
unrelated snippets through t h e virtuosity of a musician such a s Parker, and
that t h e emergence of form in a solo is not t h e consequence of mechani-
cal imposition, but is an emotionally and intellectually charged process.
LeRoi Jones claimed tha t jazz & American reality, and Katz clearly
concurs with this in t h e sense tha t i t provides a model for his writing to
regis ter t h e energies and rhythms of American life. His refusal t o make
consonant the various and divergent voices of his fiction is indicative of
commitment t o a verisimilitude beyond t h e merely descriptive. J a z z was
instructive here too; t h e way it is "voiced by different individuals within
one framework surely freed m e t o wri te my individual works in a manner
I'd cal l multidirectional". 22
During t h e ear ly 1960s, multiple voicing in jazz assumed unprece-
dented freedom with Orne t te Coleman's double quartet performance of
Free Jazz , t h e John Coltrane Orchestra's Ascension, and t h e Arkestra
playing Sun Ra's The Heliocentric Worlds. Conservative cr i t ics were quick
to dismiss such ventures a s 'anti-jazz', just a s those hostile t o the
procedures of innovative fiction spoke of t h e 'anti-novel', and gloomily
prophesied t h e imminent demise of t h e novel proper. Such a response
shows a failure t o perceive tha t the avant-garde had invariably assimilated
t h e a r t of t h e past, and far from being a negation of i t was an a t t empt
t o discover t h e contemporary relevance of i t s lessons and achievements.
While Albert Ayler began with the sounds his saxophone could produce,
rather than any musical theory, he was deeply conscious of the contexts
in which such sounds had previously occurred, and of the associations they
might evoke. Valerie Wilmer has pointed out that while "his Down Beat
obituary claimed that his playing 'bore l i t t le resemblance to any other
jazz, past or present"', in fact "his music encompassed every thread woven
into the fabric of so-called jazz. He took as his source material the
spirituals, funeral dirges, bugle calls and marches of the past, and, though
he seldom did so, he could really play the blues". 23
In like manner, writers who have been bracketed as deviants from
the Great Tradition may claim, with Shklovsky, that Sterne's Tristram
Shandy is the archetypal novel, and may argue, as Sukenick does, that i t
is truer to our apprehension of reality than is Robinson Crusoe. Raymond
Federman has nominated that great fabulator, Franqois Rabelais, the first
major jazz fictioneer. The claim is not, then, that prose improvisation is
something new, but that contemporary cultural conditions heighten the
appropriateness of i ts procedures. Federman has published crit ical work
on Samuel Reckett's fiction, and finds that also comparable, in its
unpredictability and the kind of coherence i t achieves largely by virtue of
that unpredictability, to jazz performance. His own novels are striking
attempts to preclude identification of hunting with those heads on the
wall; to prevent the crystallization of fixed meaning, and to enhance the
process of continuous production of meanings, he adopts strategies of
cancellation and contradiction. In the unpaginated novel Take I t Or Leave
I t (1976) he refers to his own writing as "a long uninterrupted tenor - saxophone solo". Elsewhere he has remarked:
The language of my novels just goes on and on, improvising as i t goes along, hitting wrong notes all the time - but, after all, jazz also builds itself on a system of wrong chords that the player stumbles upon and then builds from. 24
The point here, as in Jones's remark about Parker, is that the writer is
not certain that what has happened had to be written like that.
In Double Or Nothing (19711, Federman works with 'paginal syntax',
the materials on each page being arranged in a unique pattern, without
referene to any a priori scheme. This constitutes a destructuring through
dissemination of received syntactical unity. The familiar trajectory of
reading - left to right, top to bottom - is superseded by an invitation to
engage with t h e possibilities of a multidirectional visual field. A more
famil iar method of introducing mult idi rect ional i ty into narrat ive , exempli-
fied by "The Elevator" in Rober t Coover's Pricksongs and Descan t s (19691,
involves indication o r even real izat ion of a l t e rna t ive pa ths a s to ry might
take. Li terary an teceden t s for th is s t r a t egy include not only Flann
O'Brien's At-Swim-Two-Birds, but a lso Denis Diderot 's J acques l e Fatal is te .
There i s a venerable tradition, then, fo r works of this kind. They
tend t o rely extensively on parody, playing var ia t ions upon well-known
t h e m e s and forms. Donald Barthelme's Snow White (1967) exploi ts t he
immense popularity of Disney's version of t h a t s to ry t o comic e f f e c t , and
with t h e intensely serious a im of recuperat ing t h e value of t h e particular,
amid t h e banal i t ies of faci le c lass i f icat ion and prefabr icated aspirations.
Katz 's T h e Exaggerat ions of P e t e r Pr ince evokes a n obvious precursor - Smolle t t ' s a l l i t e ra t ive t i t l e s for his var ia t ions on a picaresque t h e m e -
only t o viola te in p rac t i ce all t h e convent ions and, indeed, t h e presiding
logic of t h a t form. Ishmael Reed subversively re-writes const i tu t ive
myths of t h e American s t a t u s quo in works such a s Mumbo Jumbo (1972)
and Fl ight t o Canada (1976). Gi lber t Sorrentino, in Aberrat ion of Star l ight
(1980), supplements a natural is t ic dialogue with meaningless footnotes t h a t
a c t like noise disrupting a melody in o r d e r t o highlight t h e a r t i f i ce of
composition. Parody demons t ra t e s t h a t things d o not have t o be t h e way
they a re ; a s i t ident i f ies limits, i t a lso t ransgresses them - defining con-
tou r s a r e blurred, e v e n obl i tera ted by excess, while internally, conventional
cont inui t ies a r e f ractured. J a z z has a lways had a t endency t o parody.
Since bebop, t h e tendency has been increasingly marked; one h a s only t o
listen t o John Col t rane 's "My Favouri te Things: o r Ayler's version of
"Summertime1' t o hea r how standards , famil iar popular tunes c a n be
subjected t o radical reassessment. T h e a r t i s t thus refuses t h e cons t r a in t s
imposed by "a conce rn f o r maintaining tonalism, t h e pr imacy of melody,
a dis t rust of new languages, codes, o r instruments, a refusal of t h e
abnormal" - charac te r i s t i c s c i t e d by At t a l i a s common t o tota l i tar ian
regimes, such a s t h a t of Nazi Germany, which was not only hostile t o
avan t ga rde music, but banned jazz. 25
Reading a work such a s T h e Exaggerat ions of P e t e r P r ince requires
nei ther recol lect ion nor ant ic ipat ion of t h e kind needed t o make sense of
conventionally s t ruc tu red narrative. T h e eponymous he ro of t h a t book is,
in f ac t , just a name, which does not r e f e r consis tent ly t o a s t ab le ident i ty ,
but l ike other terms within the novel shifts and changes, partaking o f the
vibrancy o f the improvisatory moment. Katz as narrator remarks: "1
never know where to catch up with him. His past erases itself like a
disappearing wake" (p.162). Sukenick, in Out (1973) and 98.6 (1975), and
Rudolph Wurlitzer, in Flats (1970). adopt the tactic o f altering the names
by which characters are identified, being interested above all not in
registration of the known, but exploration o f the unknown.
Katz asks: "How can I ever finish this book when it's always
beginning?" (p.162). LeRoi Jones, considering the artistry o f Don Cherry,
that remarkable trumpeter who contributed so much to the groups of both
Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler, remarks that i t rests upon the under-
standing that "the completion o f one statement simply reintroduces the
possibility of more".26 In 1958, Coleman envisaged a time when music
would be sti l l more free: "Then the pattern for a tune, for instance, wi l l
be forgotten and the tune itself wi l l be the pattern, and won't have to be
forced into conventional patterns".27 This might be taken as prophetic of
the aims o f contemporary innovative fiction in America, and o f the
epistemology i t proposes. Ishmael Reed co-edited an anthology o f writ ing
entitled Yardbird Lives: (1978). I t took i ts name from the slogan 'Bird
Lives', that appeared on walls throughout New York following Charlie
Parker's death. In Down and In, Sukenick mentions this aff irmative
graff i t i as encapsulating the spirit o f Parker's music, i ts legacy for writers
as for musicians, "the flight of the imagination toward freedom and
incandescent l i fe" (p.86).
1. LeRoi Jones (Imamu Amir i Baraka)," Hunting Is Not Those Heads On The Wall': i n The Poetics o f the New American Poetry, eds. Donald Allen Rr Warren Tallman (New York: Grove Press, 1973), pp.378-382 (p.380).
2. LeRoi Jones, Black Music (London: MacGibbon R Kee, 19691, p.16.
3. m. p.79.
4. A. B. Spellman, Four Lives in the Bebop Rusiness (London: MacCibbon & Kee, 19671, p.83.
5. Anything Can Happen: Interviews with Contemporary American Novelists eds. Tom LeClair Rr Larry McCaffery (Urbana: Illinois IJP, 19831, p.34.
7. Spellman, p.79.
8. See Ronald Sukenick, Down and In: L i f e in the Underground (New York: Beech Tree Books/William Morrow, 1987), pp.58 and 142. Further references are to this edition.
9. John Litweiler, The Freedom Principle: J a z z Af te r 1958 (Poole, Dorset: Blandford Press, 19851, p.39.
10. John Rockwell, AIl American Music: Composition in the La te Twentieth Century (London: Kahn & Averill, 1985), p.100.
11. R. Buckminster Fuller, Utopia o r Oblivion: The Prospects for Humanity (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 19721, p.95.
12. Ishmael Reed, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down (London: Allison L?
Busby, 19711, pp.24 and 36. Further references a r e t o this edition.
13. Robert Reisner, Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker (London: Quartet Rooks, 19741, p.27.
14. Jacques Attal i , Noise: The Political Economy of Music, trans. Brian Massumi (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1985; original title: Rruits, 19771, p. 140.
15. Kurt Vonnegut, "Preface", in Between Time and Timbuktu, o r Prometheus-5: A Space Fantasy (St Albans: PantherIGranada, 19751, p.xvii.
16. LeRoi Jones, Tales (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 19691, pp.76 and 77.
17. Litweiler, p. 170.
18. Quoted in Derek Bailey, Improvisation: i t s nature and pract ice in & (Ashbourne: Moorland Publishing, 19801, p.73.
19. S teve Katz, The Exaggerations of P e t e r Prince (New York: Holt, Rinehart Rr Winston, 19681, p.165. Further references a r e t o this edition.
20. Max Harrison, "Charlie Parker'; in Jazz, eds. Nat Hentoff Pr Albert McCarthy (London: Quartet , 19771, pp.275-286 (p.278).
21. AnythinR p.291.
22. fi. p.223.
23. Valerie Wilmer, As Serious As Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz (London: q u a r t e t , 19771, p.94.
24. Anything Can Happen, p.131.
25. Attali, p.7.
26. Jones, Black Music, p.170.
27. Quoted in Litweiler, p.34.
TIN DRUM AND SNAKE-CHARMER'S FLUTE: SALMAN RUSHDIE'S DEBT TO GUNTER GRASS
E. W. Herd (University of Otago, New Zealand)
Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children, first published by Jonathan
Cape in 1981, was awarded the 1981 Booker Prize, and re-published as a
Picador paperback in 1982. Reviews - in T.L.S. and in the Sunday Times - were quick to point out aff init ies between this novel and Giinter Grass's
The Tin Drum,' but perhaps because Midnight's Children was also com-
pared to Tristram Shandy, Finnegan's Wake and Heart o f Darkness, the
comparison with The Tin Drum was not usually pursued any further.
Ulrich Enzensberger's review o f the German translation in Der Spiegel, for
example, was entit led "E in Rlechtrommler aus Bombay", but made no
detailed comparison.
The similarities between the two novels are immediately and super-
f icial ly noticeable, and further reflection reveals correspondences even in
details. Both novels are r ich in their use o f colour; the pervasive white
and red o f Oskar's drum and the Polish f lag parallelled by the saffron and
green of the Indian colours (MC, pp.114, 181, 377, 423). Saleem's grand-
father Aadam had eyes o f "a clear blue, the astonishing blue o f the
mountain sky, which has a habit o f dripping into the pupils of Kashmiri
men'' (p.13) and Saleem inherits these "ice-blue eyes" (p.161), and discovers
them in his presumptive son: "I observed their colour, which was blue,
Ice-blue, the blue o f recurrence, the fateful blue o f Kashmiri sky ..." (p.425). Sky-blue is the colour o f Saleem's cr ib in a sky-blue room
(pp.141, 282), the clocktower near Methwold's Estate is pale blue (pp.146,
172), as though the observer's world takes on the colour o f his eyes.
Already i n this detail, then, Saleem Sinai is Oskar's brother, for Oskar is
"a blue-eyed type" (TJ, pp.11, 212, 359, 421), as was Jan Bronski (pp.37,
72, 133, 2231, and this blue is transferred to the bags in which sugar is
packed (p.42), to the wool o f knitted children's harness (p.691, to an
enamel cook-pot (p.931, to the canopy over Agnes Mat zerath's bed (p. 152),
and to that over the cradle of Oskar's son (p.296). Even Leo Schugger has
watery blue eyes (p.161), and in the Church o f the Sacred Heart in
Danzig Oskar discovers the dreamy blue Bronski eyes in the figure of
Jesus, "those Bronski eyes, those eyes which misunderstood me l ike a
father, which had been painted into Jesus's face" (p.1341, and the smaller
Jesus figure, propped u p on t h e Virgin Mary's r ight thigh, l ikewise had
"cobalt b lue Bronski eyes" (p.136). T h e blue e y e s d o not only connec t
Saleem with Oskar, but through t h e blue-eyed Je sus es tabl ish a fu r the r
correspondence be tween t h e t w o novels, for blue i s not only t h e colour of
t h e Kashmiri sky, but in India t h e colour of Krishna. A snake c h a r m e r
wi th bright-blue skin is "Krishna c o m e t o chas t i s e his people", and " the
sky-hued Je sus of t h e missionaries" (MA, p.136 and c f . 103), and Resham
Bibi a l so tu rns "bright blue, Krishna-blue, b lue a s Jesus, t h e blue of
Kashmiri sky, which some t imes leaks in to eyes" (p.44). T h e Jesus-blue of
t h e Indian novel could just a s well h a v e leaked in to i t f rom T h e Tin Drum . Oskar a s J e sus becomes pa r t of t h e Holy Family (TJ, p.1421, and
Matze ra th ' s second wife "wasn't just ca l l ed Maria; s h e was one" (p.255).
When Oskar and Ulla a r e working a s a r t i s t ' s models in Diisseldorf, s h e
becomes t h e Madonna, whi le h e s i t s for J e sus (p.464). It would seem a t
f i rs t sight t h a t a Holy Family would h a v e n o pa r t t o play in Saleem's
India, bu t Saleem's mo the r h i res a Chris t ian ayah, Mary Perei ra , and "like
e v e r y Mary s h e had h e r Joseph. Joseph D'Costa, a n order ly a t a Pedde r
Road Clinic" (MC, p.1041, and Mary loves t h e child "like he r own uncon-
ce ived and inconceivable son" (p.205). This Chris t ian Holy Family is
para l le l led by a Hindu one, s ince Saleem's son is in r ea l i t y t h e son of
Shiva and Parvat i - the-Witch, " fa ted t o m e e t by t h e divine des t iny o f thei r
names" (p.389).
Oskar's imi t a t ion of Chr i s t r ema ins a powerful fo rce t o t h e end of
his story. On his t h i r t i e th bi r thday h e f inds i t urgent ly necessary t o
consider t h e fu tu re di rect ion of his l ife, and s ince Chris t was about t h i r ty
when h e wen t fo r th t o g a t h e r disciples, s o Oska r t o o must consider t h e
possibility: "Jus t because I happen t o b e th i r ty , I g o ou t and play t h e
Messiah they see in me" (m, p.577). Oska r knows t h e impor t ance of t h e
th i r t i e th birthday, and t h e thirty-year-old he ro r ecu r s throughout European
~ i t e r a t u r e . ~ I t is not however so s ignif icant in Hindu o r Mohammedan
traditions, y e t Sa l eem Sinai t oo i s t h i r ty when h e wr i t e s h is history,
complet ing i t on his th i r ty-f i rs t b i r thday (MA, p.462).
T h e impor t ance of t h e ' im i t a t io Chris t i ' t h e m e in t h e Tin Drum i s
fu r the r parallelled in Midnight 's Chi ldren by r e f e r e n c e t o de i t i e s f rom t h e
Hindu pantheon. T h e narra tor , Sa l eem Sinae, is born wi th a "rampant
cucumber of [a] nose" (MA, p.124, cf. p.154). This ou t s i ze monstrous nose
of t h e Mohammedan child c o n n e c t s him t o t h e Hindu e lephant-headed god,
Ganesh (p.155). Much later Saleem's son - although "he was the child of
a father who was not his father" - putative parentage playing as important
a role in this novel as in The Tin Drum - "was the true great-grandson
of his great-grandfather, but elephantiasis attacked him in the ears instead
of the nose - because he was also the true son of Shiva-and-Parvati; he
was elephant-headed Ganesh; ..." (p.420). Now Ganesh is the patron of
literature, partaking as he does of the two most intelligent beings, man
and the elephant; it is therefore propitious that the narrator should have
an elephantine nose and his son elephantine ears. But Ganesh is also the
child of Parvati, wife of Shiva, and In the novel Saleem's son is the child
of Parvati-the-Witch and Shiva, the true son of Saleem's parents. Both
Parvati and Shiva are connected in Hindu mythology with destructive
forces. In the novel Shiva is able to destroy men by crushing them
between his knees and is the destroyer of Saleem. The goddess Parvati
is, however, also Kali, the black goddess, and in the fusion of the black
goddess and the name of Saleem's first wife, Parvati-the-Witch, we are
inevitably reminded of Grass's 'schwarze K6chin' who appears in the
English translation as the Rlack Witch (m, p.579). Rushdie's Black Angel
Parvati-Kali is also the Widow, lndira Gandhi, and at this stage of the
novel (towards the end) Rushdie further emphasises the many-faceted
aspects of Kali by likening Indira Gandhi to Devi (p.438) and by introducing
a figure called Durga (p.445), whose name is also that of another of the
many terrifying forms assumed by the wife of Shiva.
To return to the narrator, Saleem Sinai, who hears "the soft footfalls
of the Black Angel of Death" (p.447): he has now revealed himself as
Oskar Matzerath's kin:
... a t the Shadipur bus depot[ ...I was an angled mirror above the entrance to the bus garage; I, wandering aimlessly in the forecourt of the depot, found my attention caught by its winking reflections of the sun[ ...I Looking upwards into the mirror, I saw myself transformed into a big- headed, top-heavy dwarf. (MA, pp.446-7)
Oskar Matzerath of course chooses to be a dwarf. He "felt obliged to
provide a plausible ground for my failure to grow" (m, p.57) and arranges
a plausible injury by throwing himself down the cellar steps: "from the
ninth step, I flung myself down, carrying a shelf laden with bottles of
raspberry syrup along with me, and landed head first on the cement floor
of our cellar'' (p.58). Saleem Sinai, at the end of his narrative, "raises
questions which a r e not fully answered, such as: Why did Saleem need an
accident t o acquire his powers?" (MA, p.460). The accident was "a
cleansing accident" (p.356), it induced amnesia: "everything ended, every-
thing began again, when a spittoon hit m e on the back of the head" and
"Saleem, [...I had gone; I...] for the moment, anyway, there is was only t h e
buddha L.1 who remembers neither fathers nor mothers; for whom mid-
night holds no importance; I...] who lives both in-the-world and not-in-the-
worldn (p.356). "In-the-world and not-in-the-worldn is of course also the
situation of Oskar in his bed in the mental hospital o r of Oskar the adult
in the body of a child. Saleem now, "with his nose like a cucumber and
his head which rejected memories families histories, which contained
nothing except smells" (p.351), who "can track man o r beast through
s t ree t s o r down rivers" (p.356). i s employed a s a man-dog tracker in the
fighting in East Pakistan in 1971; h e i s assigned t o a CUTlA unit (Canine
Unit for Tracking and Intelligence Activities) of the Pakistani army. The
acronym nCUTIA" is also Hindi for a bitch, one of Saleem's linguistic
jokes, which also remlnd one of Grass.
Saleem's accident i s not arranged like Oskar's; Oskar takes a
decision, makes a choice; Saleem is an air-raid victim (MC, p.343). This
difference between their 'accidents' is typical of their roles in the respec-
t ive novels. Oskar i s act ive throughout; he i s the drummer, the glass-
shat terer , the leader of the Duster gang; his act ions lead t o the deaths
of Jan Bronski and of Matzerath; h e decides t o be Tom Thumb and
announces himself a s Jesus. Saleem Sinai, on the other hand, suffers
things done t o him: he i s a changeling just a f t e r his birth; he i s a
"clownish figure [...I somehow conspired againstn (MC, p.2541, the "sort of
person t o whom things have been done; [...I perennial victim" (p.237). In
spi te of this, Saleem's very passivity enables Rushdie t o use him a s the
agent of the main structural device h e has borrowed from Grass: the
reflection of public events through and against a private story.
Rushdie's maln structural device is indeed the linking of the narra-
tor's s tory with contemporary lndian history. The narrator, Saleem Sinai,
was born a t the very moment of Indian Independence, and witnesses,
participates in, occasionally causes political events of the next 30 years,
from t h e massacres which accompanied Par t it ion, through the language
r iots in Bombay, t h e Ayub Khan coup in Pakistan, t h e Indo-Chinese war,
the Indo-Pakistan war, t o lndira Gandhi's proclamation of the S t a t e of
Emergency. The technique o f inter-weaving private and public spheres is
reminiscent o f The Tin Drum in general, but also in detail. Oskar
Matzerath concludes his narrative as follows:
What more shall I say: born under light bulbs, deliberately stopped growing at age o f three, given drum, sang glass to pieces, smelled vanilla, coughed in churches, observed ants, decided to grow, buried drum, emigrated to the West, lost the East, learned stonecutter's trade, worked as model, started drumming again, visited concrete, made money, kept finger, gave finger away, fled laughing, rode up escalator, arrested, convicted, sent to mental hospital, soon to be acquitted, celebrating this day my thir t ieth birthday and st i l l afraid o f the Black Witch. (m, p.578)
Here the public sphere is present mainly by allusion; the novel has
previously established the connection between Oskar's drumming and a
Nazi parade, between the ants and the Russian occupation o f Danzig,
between concrete and the fortif ications of German-occupied France,
between making money and the Black Market. In Midnight's Children the
connection between public and private is made more explicit, almost
programmatic:
I was born in the c i ty of Bombay ... once upon a time. No, that won't do, there's no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar's Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. And the time? The t ime matters, too. Well then: at night.1 ... 1 On the stroke o f midnight, as a matter o f fact. [...I at the precise instant o f India's arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world. There were gasps. And, outside the window, fire-works and crowds[ ... 1 For the next three decades, there was to be no escape. Soothsayers had prophesied me, newspapers celebrated my arrival, polit ics rat i f ied my authenticity. I was lef t entirely without a say in the matter. I, Saleem Sinai, later variously called Snotnose, Stainface, Raldy, Sniffer, Buddha and even Piece-of-the- Moon, had become heavily embroiled in Fate - at the best o f times a dangerous sort o f involvement. And I couldn't even wipe my own nose at the time.
Now, however, t ime (having no further use for me) is running out. I wi l l be thirty-one years old. (MC, p.9)
If, as David Roberts has said, "it is not so easy to see any connexion
between [Oskar's] private fantasies and the great world of politics and war
i n which he is inescapably caught up, the more so as German and European
history is treated as the mere backdrop for Oskar's personal recollec-
t i ons~ ' ,~ Rushdie is at pains both to keep historical events in the fore-
ground, and to insist on the close involvement o f private and public
destinies. The historical and polit ical aspect o f Midnight's Children is
emphasised continually by references t o specif ic dates , people, even t s and
places, and these references a r e assiduously intertwined with t h e narrator 's
personal story, even when no direct parallel o r connection can be estab-
lished (e.g. MA, pp.292-3). But Saleem is not only frequently direct ly
involved o r act ively participating in public affairs. The Midnight's
Children's Conference - t h e te lepathic communication between t h e 581
children born a t midnight on Independence Day - is Saleem's work, and it
i s Saleem who t r i e s t o exploit their g i f t s by urging them t o adopt a
programme o f act ion, ''our own Five Year Plan" (MA, p.255). And when
t h e children a r e subjected during lndira Gandhi's Emergency t o vasectomy,
hysterectomy, t e s t ec tomy and (Saleem's neologism) "sperectomy: the
draining-out of hope'' (p.4371, the re is still hope tha t a new generat ion of
their descendants will be a n ac t ive fo rce in t h e affairs of India. This
interweaving of pr ivate and public is not only demonstrated by t h e
incidents of t h e narrative, it i s offered a s a programme for t h e s t ruc tu re
of t h e novel:
I was linked t o history both literally and metaphorically, both act ively and passively, in what our (admirably modern) scient is ts might t e rm 'modes of connection' composed of dualistically-combined configurations of t h e two pairs of opposed adverbs given above. This is why hyphens a r e necessary: actively-literally, passively-metaphorically, actively- metaphorically and passively-literally, I was inextricably entwined with my world. (p.238)
The na r ra to r goes on t o explain t h e t e r m s t o his bewildered l is tener and
ends with:
And finally the re is t h e 'mode' of t h e 'active-metaphorical ' , which groups together those occasions on which things done by o r t o m e were mirrored in t h e macrocosm of public affairs, and my private exis tence was shown t o b e symbolically a t one with history (p.238).
T h e bewildered listener t o Saleem's narrat ive is his second wife (or
very nearly), Padma: she is introduced a t t h e beginning of t h e second
chap te r of t h e book, and whether listening t o o r reading t h e narrat ive over
Saleem's shoulder, she interrupts and questions; Padma "with her down-to-
ear thery, and he r paradoxical superstition, he r contradictory love of t h e
fabulous," is always a t t h e narrator 's elbow, "bullying m e back into t h e
world of linear narrative, t h e universe of what-happened-next" (MA, p.381,
"getting i r r i ta ted whenever my narrat ion becomes self-conscious" (p.65).
"This is what keeps me going: I hold on to Padma, Padma is what
matters I...] Padma my own pure lotus I...] who, embarrassed, commands:
'Enough. Start. Start now"' (p.294). Padma is not only a more fully
drawn character than Oskar's warden, Bruno. She is an integral part of
the novel's structure, and as such has not been borrowed from Giinter
Grass, but is Rushdie's own successful addition to the form of The Tin
Drum.
Saleem and Oskar are brothers not only because o f their blue eyes,
their deformities, their unusual gifts, their claims to leadership, and their
roles as private reflections of public events. Also as narrators they have
much in common. Both adopt the stance of the unreliable narrator, who
rejects omniscience and openly admits his weaknesses. Oskar repeatedly
qualifies his statements with a proviso that his memory may not be
entirely reliable (TD, pp.27, 98, 164) and makes a point of casting doubt
upon the accuracy of his narration: "I have just read the last paragraph.
I am not too well satisfied, but Oskar's pen ought to be, for writ ing
tersely and succinctly, i t has managed, as terse, succinct accounts so often
do, to exaggerate and mislead, i f not to lie" (p.240). The distinction
drawn here between the "I" and "Oskar's pen" reveals the two levels on
which the narrative proceeds. The narrator is constantly playing with the
idea o f the traditional acceptance o f authorial report: "Don't ask me,
please, how I know'' (p.287). Examples of narrative uncertainty are so
numerous as to show that they constitute a deliberate styl ist ic device.
(Cf. also pp.246, 282, 301, 315, 323, 460, 513.)
Rushdie's narrator adopts a similar pose; he too reviews what he has
wri t ten and directs the reader's attention to his unreliability as a narrator:
"Re-reading my work, I have discovered an error in chronology[ ... 1 Does one
error invalidate the whole fabric? Am I so far gone, in my desperate
need for meaning, that I'm prepared t o distort everything - to re-write the
whole history of my times purely in order to place myself in a central
role? Today, in my confusion, I can't judge" (MC, p.166). Rushdie is
indeed on record as admitt ing that this is a narrative principle in his
novel: "I made my narrator, Saleem, suspect in his narration: his mis-
takes are the mistakes of a fallible memory compounded by quirks of
character and of circumstance, and his vision is fragmentary".4 Padma,
the narrator's interlocutor, clearly stands for the reader when the narrator
says to her: "Padma, i f you're a l i t t l e uncertain of my reliability, well,
a little uncertainty is no bad thing. Cocksure men do terrible deeds"
(MC, p.212). It is Padma who keeps the narrator on the rails, but being
kept on the rails does not vouchsafe freedom from error (cf. p.270). Keith
Wilson speaks of the "participatory but implicit contract that Rushdie has
with his reader, a contract premised on his reader's knowledge of the
conventions and deceptions of the narrative act." Rushdie may have
learned not only from Grass, but possibly from Max Frisch and Christa
Wolf when he discounts the primacy of 'real' events: "What actually
happened is less important than what the author can persuade his audience
to believe" (pp.270-I). Oskar's admissions of defective memory are also
part of Saleem's techniques (MA, pp.386, 406-7, 4131, but Midnight's
Children is much more consistently than The Tin Drum "a novei centrally
concerned with the imperfections of any narrative act I...] a novel that
deliberately invites a questioning of the credentials of the nove~ist ."~
Grass may have given the original impetus, but Rushdie develops the
technique into a narrative programme.
Both narrators constantly intrude into the narrative, by comments
placed In parenthesis or by addressing the reader directly (E, pp.300, 355,
461, 466, 502. 514. 519, 531; MA, pp.12-13. 179, 293. 335). Both there-
fore involve the reader directly in the process of narration, and both
comment on the possibilities open to the narrator with the connivance of
the reader. Grass, for instance, has Oskar reflect on how to begin his
story: "You can begin a story in the middle and create confusion by
striking out boldly, backward and forward. You can be modern C.1 Or you
can declare a t the very start that it's impossible to write a novel nowa-
days, but then, behind your own back so to speak, give birth to a whopper , a novei to end all novels" (m, p.13). Saieem asks the reader's permission
''to tell the story the right way" (s, p.335) and makes the reader's
participation in the narrative a principle of narration: "I have not, I
think, been good a t describing emotions - believing any audience to be
capable of joining in; of imagining for themselves what I have been
unable to re-imagine, so that my story becomes yours as well I...]" (p.293).
As a consequence o f , this postulated collaboration between narrator and
reader, both Oskar and Saleem make frequent use of the rhetorical
question (or question addressed to the reader?) to move the story forward
(e.g. Z , p.119; MC, pp.144-5).
This device is the most pervasive one common to the two novels.
It implies in both cases a rejection o f the straightforward story line o f the
narrator who claims to be in fu l l control. This rejection is further
illustrated in the way the two narrators resort to recapitulation at
frequent intervals and t o hints of what is st i l l to come, thus constantly
pointing backwards and forwards: Oskar promises to speak o f something
in a moment (TJ, p.951, introduces a theme and defers it, saying "that is
another subject" (p.1141, promises to speak o f something later on (p.229)
or warns the reader that "we haven't seen the last of Corporal Lankes,
the master of 'concrete' art;" (pp.336-7). Saleem admits: "I'm talking as
i f I never saw him again; which isn't true. But that, o f course, must get
into the queue l ike everything else [...I (MA, p.299) and promises his inter-
locutor the excitement o f events yet to come: "I'm not finished yet!
There is to be electrocution and a rain-forest; a pyramid o f heads on a
field impregnated by leaky marrowbones; narrow escapes are coming, and
a minaret that screamed! Padna, there is st i l l plenty worth telling ..." (p.346).
Both Grass and Rushdie are rumbustious, breathless story-tellers.
Take the passage from The Tin Drum in which Oskar recalls his dream
of the terrifying merry-go-round (TJ, pp.404-5) and compare i t with
Saleem's account o f his feverish dream (F&, pp.207-8). The breathless
haste o f the narration is achieved by a fugal concatenation of simple
clauses with repetit ion of phrases, and accumulation of verbs. I t is a
technique which prevades both novels. Both novelists have a predilection
for place-names, street-names, names o f buildings: Rombay is evoked with
the same loving attention to convincing local colour as Danzig. Oskar
drums "from Labesweg to Max-Halbe-Platz, thence to Neuschottland,
Marienstrasse, Kleinhammer Park, the Aktien Brewery, Aktien Pond, FrBbel
Green, Pestalozzi School, the Neue Markt, and back again to Labesweg"
( a , p.59). Saleem's parents drive "past Band Box Laundry and Reader's
Paradise; past Fatboy jewels and Chinalker toys, past One Yard of
Chocolate and Reach Candy gates, driving towards D r Narlikar's Nursing
Home ..." (MA, p.114). Saleem could be speaking for Oskar too when he
says that there is "no escape from recurrence" (p.285). Both narrators
play wi th traditional narrative devices, such as "once upon a time"; Oskar
most remarkably in the chapter "Faith, Hope, Love" with the eighteen
variations on the "once there was" theme i n eight pages. Saleem borrows
this technique for t h e chap te r en t i t l ed "At t h e Pioneer Caf@': "Once upon
a t i m e the re was a mother , who ..." (p.213), and "Once upon a t i m e the re
was a n underground husband, who ..." (p.216).
Another s tyl is t ic device used by both novelists is t h e insistence on
t h e s imultanei ty of public and pr ivate events, using t h e conjunction 'while'
t o suggest an interrelationship (e.g. E, p.362; @, pp.379-80, 461). But
the re i s still another important s t ructural device in Rushdie's novel which
is not t o b e found t o t h e s a m e ex ten t in T h e Tin Drum. T h e T.L.S. reviewer described Midnight's Children a s a "cinema-obsessed narrative",
and cer ta inly t h e narrator frequently admi t s t o t h e use of film-techniques:
"Reality is a question of perspect ive [ ..J Suppose yourself in a large
cinema, s i t t ing a t f i rs t in t h e back row, and gradually moving up, row by
row, until your nose is a lmost pressed against t h e screen. Gradually the
s tars ' f aces dissolve into dancing grain; tiny detai ls assume grotesque
proportions ..." (s, pp.165-6). "I permit myself t o insert a Bombay-
talkie-style close-up ...'I (p.346). India produces more films than any o the r
country in t h e world, except Japan. lndian cinemas a r e packed full from
mid-morning t o l a t e a t night: t h e appe t i t e for films seems insatiable and
t h e appe t i t e is for t h e Bombay-talkie, by Western European s tandards a
naive, e lementary use of t h e c inema t o produce unsophisticated and
garishly coloured s tor ies of love and violence. Thus, when t h e narrator
has t o recount a ser ies of d ramat ic incidents, he comments ironically:
"Melodrama piling upon melodrama; l i fe acquiring t h e colouring of a
Bombay-talkien (p.148). The cinema, being such an all-pervading par t of
t h e lndian cul tural scene, must reach into t h e novel itself. Saleem's uncle
Hanif
had not only succeeded in becoming t h e youngest man e v e r t o be given a film t o d i rec t in t h e history of t h e lndian cinema; h e had also wooed and married o n e of t h e brightest s t a r s of tha t celluloid heaven, t h e divine Pia [...I she s t a r red in his f i rs t feature , which was par t ly financed by Homi Ca t rack and par t ly by D. W. R a m a Studios (Pvt.) Ltd - i t was called The Lovers of Kashmir (p.142).
Saleem's film-actress aunt, t h e divine Pia, incidentally, although s o much
of t h e world of t h e Bombay talkie, nevertheless has something in common
with t h e world of T h e Tin Drum. Jus t a s Oskar's grandmother "had on
not just one skirt, but four, o n e over t h e o the r [...]distinguished by a
lavish expanse of mater ia ln which "puffed and billowed when t h e wind
came'' (E. p.14). so Saleem's aunt Pia "was a divine swirl o f petticoats
and dupatta" (MA, p.248); just as Koljaiczek hides from the police under
the grandmother's skirts, so does Saleem hide from a nightmare, "nestled
against my extraordinary aunt's petticoats" (MC, p.248).
"Hanif Aziz, the only realistic writer working in the Bombay fi lm
industry, was writ ing the story of a pickle factory" (p.244). which presages
Saleem's last refuge and introduces the theme o f narrating as pickling and
vice-versa, hut "in the indirect kisses of the Lovers o f Kashmir he fore-
told my mother and her Nadir-Quasim's meetings at the Pioneer CafC"
(p.244). Whereas Oskar observes the physical rumblings of the love-play
between his mother and Jan Bronski (TJ, pp. 65, 153), Saleem watches his
mother and her lover play out their love-scene "through the dirty, square,
glassy cinema-screen o f the Pioneer Cafk's window" (MC, p.216), but their
love-play "is, af ter all, an Indian movie, in which physical contact is
forbidden" and "so i t was that l i fe imitated bad art" (p.217; cf. p.241).
But even the f i lm theme has i ts antecedents in The Tin Drum.
Describing Koljaiczek's encounter wi th Duckerhoff on the 'Radaune', Oskar
says: "We know the scene from the movies'' (m, p.28). and l ike Saleem,
Oskar was himself an avid picture-goer (p.146, also p.50). Jan Rronski had
"a collection o f movie stars out o f cigarette packages'' (p.51). and the
dramatized account o f the breakfast on the pill-box o f the Atlantic wall,
wi th the discreet reference to movie-houses and newsreels, could well he
a film-script (pp.326-36). Pathos is offered "as in the movies" (p.418; cf.
also pp.478, 569, 571). For both narrators film-techniques are an inferior
form o f shaping and forming events, and are used to parody banality in
art. Form and shape are for both narrators explicit concerns. "Everything
has shape, i f you look for it", Saleem Sinai proclaims, "There is no
escape from form" (M-C, p.226). He appears to believe that this is an
Indian characteristic (p.300). Even towards the end, when he fears dis-
integration, he cannot abandon form: "Form - once again, recurrence and
shape! - no escape from it" (p.440). The longing for form is something
imposed from without; he has "always been in the grip of a form-crazy
destiny" (p.444), and i n his sustained analogy between the pickling process
and the art o f the story-teller, he comes to the same conclusion: "The
art is to change the flavour i n degree, but not in kind; and above all ( in
my thir ty jars and a jar) to give i t shape and form - that is to say,
meaning'' (p.461). Oskar's analogy is not wi th pickling, but wi th drumming,
and when his drumming a t t r a c t s admirers, "they led Oskar to discipline his
ar t , to strive for greater formal purityn (TD, p.100). He has a passion for
order (p.203) and rejects "uninspired interpretations" which "can be read
into any text you please" (TJ, p.396). He sees significant form in the
tapering shapes of coffins, finds happiness in shaping stone, and in the
form of his let ter Os, which always had "a fine regularity and endlessness"
about them, "though they tended t o he too large," a comment perhaps on
his own narrative design (p.436). Here again Rushdie is more explicitly
programmatic than his mentor, but the parallel suggests that Grass may
have provided the initial impetus. The "willingness to confront, shape and
communicate the inevitable compromises of illusory fictional realismvw6 is
integral t o The Tin Drum, and is carried over into Midnight's Children.
Rushdie has certainly borrowed from other sources, as well a s The Tin Drum, most obviously from A Thousand and One Nights. The connec-
tion with Germany is established through Dr Aziz's bag, which he brought
back from Heidelberg, where he actually had a friend named Oskar.
Saleem seems t o have inherited some of his grandfather's German con-
nections; he can speak of Valkyries and'GrtlndIsseg, and there a r e several
moments in his narrative when h e seems close t o other authors than
Grass. His unique gift of smell is reminiscent of Biill's Clown; his search
for totality in art , parodied in the account of Lifafa Das, and of the
painter Nadir Khan, "whose paintings had grown larger and larger a s he
tried t o get the whole of life into his art" (MA, p.481, suggest an acquain-
tance with the work of Hermann Broch; Ahmed Sinai, who had the
"peculiarity of always being in a good mood until a f te r he had shaved - af te r which, each morning, his manner became stern, gruff, business-like
and distant" (p.68) recalls the daily changes of mood of Brecht's Herr
Puntila; and his insistence that memory has i t s own special kind of truth
is a motif to be found both in Max Frisch's Wilderness of Mirrors and in
Christa Wolf's Quest for Christa T.
Grass, however, is the mainspring of German influence on Midnight's
Children. In spi te of Padma, the narrator's interlocutor, and in spite of
t h e Bombay-talkie background, the similarities between the two novels in
s tructure and style, in overall intention and in significant detail, constantly
arrest the reader's attention. The immense culture-gap between Danzig
and Rombay is bridged by a brilliant adaptation by Rushdle of the
techniques employed by Grass. Rushdie could not have borrowed so much
and so successfully from Crass unless he had had some aff in i ty wi th him.
He shares with Crass a zest for story-telling, and for tel l ing ta l l stories;
a warm sense o f humanity, sympathy for the under-dog, the victim, the
l i t t le man; and a contemptuous hatred o f the oppressors. Because o f this
af f in i ty he can borrow from Crass a novel-structure, motifs and stylistic
devices, and successfully adapt them to a totally different culture.
And hecause o f this he can use his narrator's life-story as a mirror
o f his country's history in his lifetime. David Roberts says of Oskar:
"His l i fe is the symbol of the journey o f a nation into callective schizo-
phrenia, guilt and denied guilt, the story o f the fatal pact wi th the devil
and the triumph of the powers of the uncons~ious."~ Saleem as one o f
Midnight's Children, who is born at the exact moment o f Indian indepen-
dence and whose l i fe is of f ic ia l ly proclaimed hy Jawaharlal Nehru himself
as a mirror of Indian history (cf. MC, p.122). is finally castrated on lndira
Gandhi's orders. The new lndia which is born with Saleem is mutilated
by Indira Gandhi's emergency decrees of 1976, and what Saleem's Canesh
nose finally smells is "the sharp aroma of despotism" (p.424). L ike the
Rlack Witch of The T in Drum, i t is finally the Widow who presides over
catastrophe. "the Widow, who was not only Prime Minister o f lndia but
also aspired to be Devi, the Mother-Goddess in her most terrible aspect,
possessor of the shakti of the gods, a multi-limbed divinity with a centre-
parting and schizophrenic hair ..." (p.438). Just as Oskar-Germany suc-
cumbs in the confl ict between Tom Thumb and the Imitation of Christ, so
is Saleem-India destroyed by the Rlack Goddess who is Parvati, Devi,
Durga and the Widow, Indira Gandhi.
And this is probably the weakness o f Rushdie's novel when compared
with The Tin Drum. The menace o f the 'schwarze Kochin' is all-pervading
and al l the greater because she is not clearly identified. She represents
the unnamed, undefined powers o f evil, and as a figure o f truly mythol-
ogical proportions ( in spite o f or perhaps because o f her origins in a
children's rhyme), her menace is al l the more powerful. Rushdie similarly
invokes the mythological power o f Kali, the Black Goddess, who is also
Parvati (and by extension the character in the novel Parvati-the-Witch) and
is Durga and Devi, but makes specific the identif ication of the goddess
with the Widow, Indira Gandhi. The concentration o f the evil in a
country's history on to the specific events o f the 1976 emergency, reduces
the scale o f the menace to the incidental. The Black Witch o f The T in
Drum s t ands for a t h r e a t of evil which t r anscends t h e incidenta l evil of
National Socialism; Rushdie's Black Goddess, when ident i f ied wi th t h e
Widow, loses t h e mythological dimension which t h e na r r a t ive has t r i ed t o
build up. And yet , in s p i t e of th is weakness, Midnight's Chi ldren r ema ins
a magnif icent tour-de-force in adapt ing t h e techniques of a novel f rom o n e
cu l tu re t o po r t r ay a view of public and p r iva t e history from a n en t i r e ly
d i f f e ren t cu l tu re , and i t i s o n e of t h e f ines t novels y e t t o appea r by an
Indian novelist wri t ing about India.
1. T h e edi t ions used h e r e a r e t h e P icador edi t ion of Midnight 's Chi ldren (1982; in references: MC) and t h e Penguin t ransla t ion of T h e Tin Drum (1969; in references: TJ), a t ransla t ion by Ralph Manheim f i r s t published in 1961, t w o y e a r s a f t e r t h e publication of D ie Blechtrommel .
2. Cf. R. S t Leon, "Rel igious Motives i n Kafka's D e r Prozess", AUMLA 19 (1963), p.25.
3. D. Rober ts , T o m Thumb and t h e Imita t ion of Christ!', AULLA XIV Proceedings and P a p e r s (Dunedin, 19721, p. 160.
4. Quoted by Ke i th Wilson, 'Midnight 's Chi ldren and Reade r Responsi- bility", Cr i t i ca l Quar ter ly , 26, No.3 (1984), p.26.
5. Wilson, Ioc. cit., p.30.
6. Wilson, loc. cit., p.36.
7. Rober ts , loc. cit., p.172.
REVIEWS
Horst S. and Ingrid Daemmrich. Themes and Motifs in Western Literature :
A Handbook. Tubingen: Francke, 1987. pp.xii, 255. ISBN 3-7720-1776-2.
Handbooks on l i terary terms or materials necessarily overlap, but never so
thoroughly that a useful new one, as cleverly conceived as this is, wil l
fai l t o make i t s mark. The Daemmrichs stake out a distinct cultural
terr i tory by favouring the l i terary periods from Romanticism to the
present and emphasising the Anglo-American, French and German traditions.
They are interested in creative transformation in i ts historical particularity.
The user should pass at once from their terse preface to the discursive
entries on 'figure', 'motif ' and 'theme' for their view on how recurrent
elements and patterns are articulated. Not just the lack o f pictorial
reproductions separates their more str ict ly l i terary ef for t from such works
as J. C. Cooper's global I l lustrated Encyclopedia o f Traditional Symbols or
George Ferguson's specialised Signs and Symbols in Christian Art. The
Daemmrichs make virtually no mention of iconological matters aside from
a br ief glimpse at the 'emblem'. Even a select iconological term such as
'hieroglyph' does not appear despite the Romantic fascination for it.
Although the relevant vocabulary occurs in the course o f other discussion,
they of fer no separate entries on terms such as 'myth', 'archetype' and
'symbol' wi th which their subject area - relevant, they think, to "other
disciplines concerned with human behaviour" (p.xi) - is of ten associated in
contemporary theory.
Hence they clearly are not vying to displace J. E. Cirlot's extensively
iconological, as well as l i terary, A Dictionary o f Symbols (translated from
Spanish into English by Jack Sage) which opens with some 50 pages on
these topics influenced by Jung, Eliade, and other myth-analysts. The
Daemmrichs resemble Cirlot, though, in avoiding prolix technical arguments
about the l i terary encoding of cultural systems and i n employing common-
sensical distinctions between paradigmatic and syntagmatic features. With
a text almost double as long, Cirlot naturally covers more items, whether
things, images, concepts, systems, basic plots, or mythological figures. But
while managing to include also some mildly exotic terms l ike 'yang-yin',
'zodiac', 'unicorn', 'sefirot', etc., Cir lot in contrast is missing some obvious
latter-day ones l ike 'ennui' and 'picaro' and carries l i t t l e information on
the 'double' and 'incest'. The Daemmrichs share the post-Romantic
German fascination for doubles, rogues, inimical brothers, and incest that
has attained voluminous proportions - and richness of reference - in
Elisabeth Frenzel's well-established Motive der Weltliteratur. They supple-
ment Frenzel with treatment of such important motivic systems as
'alchemy', 'city', 'garden' and 'labyrinth', and their predilection for the
kind of complex thematology these headings embrace reveals their ulti-
mately greater proximity to Cirlot. The modern slant in their handbook
strikes the eye right at the start of the alphabet in substantial entries on
the 'absurd', 'abyss', 'androgyne', 'alienation', 'apocalypse', 'automaton',
etc.
Frenzel's other well-known handbook Stoffe der Weltliteratur bears
the same subtitle as her Motive der Weltliteratur: "Ein Lexikon
dichtungsgeschichtlicher Langsschnitte". The Daemmrichs, too, want to
further our appreciation of the relevance of such longitudinal, that is,
diachronic, dimensions in the literary repertory, but they stress less the
comprehensiveness of a register of materials than the possible insights we
may gain into "often unsuspected relationships between literary works",
"themes and motifs" as powerful shaping forces in texts, their imprint as
"structural patterns" (pp.x-xi). Items that Frenzel lists separately as
literary Stoffe - real historical persons treated in literature, characters
from story and legend, Biblical and mythological lore, famous stories as
basic plots - appear scattered across the volume Themes and Motifs (e.g.
Abelard and ~dloise, the Grail, David, etc.).
Arguing that 'a chain or complex of motifs yields a Stof?, Frenzel
asserts the 'German concept Stoff ' (roughly: 'story material') is encom-
passed 'far less precisely' in French and Anglo-American research by the
word 'theme' (Foreword to 4th printing, 1970). However, as the t i t le of
their earlier German version, Wiederholte Spiegelungen: Themen und
Motive in der Literatur (19781, shows, the Daemmrichs do not employ the
combination 'theme and motif' under any linguistic constraint. Whereas
in her foreword Frenzel assigns both 'more abstract, as i t were unembodied
(entstofflichten)' themes like 'friendship' and even 'smaller story or plot
(stofflichen)' units like the 'double' to her separate motif collection, the
American authors deliberately assemble under one roof the smallest
symbolic elements (e.g. 'hand', 'mirror'), qualities, states and motivating
principles ('power', 'disease', 'fear', 'honour'), human types ('artist', 'clown' ,
'dandy', 'hero'), fundamental plot-lines ('journey', 'revenge'), and embodied
roles, historical c a s e s and mythological f igures ('Don Juan', 'Mary Stuart ' .
'Prometheus'). Their point is t o encourage m o r e rapid cross-reference
ver t ical ly among compositional levels of l i terary t e x t s and t o p romote o r
suggest fundamental approaches in interpreta t ion. In this r ega rd t h e
Daemmrichs both cont inue t h e s t ructural is t he r i t age s ince Russian formal-
ism and t e m p e r it with a keen r e spec t for " the historical position of a
writer" (p.x). They d o not t ake any expressed position vis-'a-vis m o r e
r ecen t narra tological theor ies regarding s to ry contents.
It goes without saying tha t ce r t a in dif f icul t ies spring from t h e very
na tu re of their enterpr ise . In o rde r t o maintain a compac tness appropria te
t o a dictionary, i t i s necessary t o use examples drawn mainly from well-
known works, t hus allowing considerable foreshortening, but in p rac t i ce
this means constr ic t ing t h e fuller European range t o accommoda te t h e
favouri te academic readings of English-speaking, Franco- and Germanophi le
America. And then e v e n t h e most exper t foreshortening will somet imes
produce unintended distortions; of course, t h e proffered weal th of
examples i s not mean t t o furnish pat definitions but t o spur more ca re fu l
exegesis. T h e internal ev idence indicates tha t t h e authors a r e qu i t e
capab le of g rea t ly expanding t h e 'horizontal ' (quant i ta t ive) reper tory of
per t inent i t e m s and may perhaps h a v e sacr i f iced sui table e n t r i e s under
s p a c e res t ra ints . Obviously the i r pr imary decision h a s been for qual i ta t ive-
ly deepe r explorat ion of a m o r e t ight ly del imited corpus. They o f t e n
recommend fu r the r r ep resen ta t ive l i t e ra tu re for a n e n t r y and always
append a cr i t ical bibliography, c i t i ng e f f o r t s principally of t h e past f ive
decades , s o t h a t s tuden t s c a n quickly expand upon par t icular topics and
find their way t o t h e cu r ren t s t a t e of knowledge. Compara t i s t s devoted
t o l i t e ra tu re from t h e l a t e e ighteenth cen tu ry t o t h e present a r e bound
t o be most pleased, because - a s ment ioned above - in determining t h e
select ion of entr ies , t h e Daemmrichs privilege topics of broad r e l evance
a f t e r 1750 (e.g. ' t he noble savage', 'decadence', etc.).
Stanford University Gerald Gillespie
Gisber t Kranz: Meis terwerke in Bilduedichten: Rezevt ion von Kunst in
d e r Poesie. Frankfur t a m Main: P e t e r Lang, 1986. pp.421. ISBN
3-8024-9091-4. Das Bildgedicht: Theorle, Lexlkon, Blbliographi, vo1.3. Kiiln:
Biihlau Verlag, 1987. pp.34 1. ISBN 3-4 120-2087-7. Das Architekturgedicht.
Koln: Bohlau Verlag, 1988. pp. 176. ISBN 3-41 20-6387-8.
It is no exaggeration to say that Gisbert Kranz single-handedly 'discovered'
and mapped out the territory of the Bildgedicht ('Gedichte auf Werke der
bildenden Kunst'), and proceeded t o an exhaustive cataloguing of i t s flora
and fauna. He was quick to grasp the interdisciplinary and pedagogical
potentialities of his subject when he embarked on his anthology of
European examples of the genre, Gedichte auf Bilder: Anthologie und
Galerie (1975): "Nicht nur fur die Kunstwissenschaft und die Literatur-
wissenschaft wiire eine repriisentative Sammlung von Rildgedichten
aufschlussreich; auch Soziologie, Linguistik, Psychologie, Komparistik und
Xsthetik konnten dieses Material verschiedenen Untersuchungen zugrunde-
legen". This anthology remains one of the too few genuinely comparative
anthologies. But it represented only a small fraction of the six thousand
examples of the Bildgedicht that Kranz's preliminary researches had
unearthed, and he published others with a more specific focus: Deutsche
Bildwerke im deutschen Gedicht (1975), and, on exclusively Christian
material. Rildmeditation der Dichter (1976). These anthologies had already
been preceded by a collection of interpretations - 27 Gedichte interpretiert
(1972) - and a thoroughgoing exploration of the history and theoretical
background of the genre - Das Bildgedicht in Europa: Zur Theorie und
Geschichte einer literarischen Gattung (1973). It was in this lat ter work
that Kranz outlined his taxonomy of the Bildgedicht, which has served
him, with appropriate modifications, in all his subsequent publications. His
classifications a r e a model of their kind, sensitive t o every generical and
expressive nuance.
Meisterwerke in Bildgedichten resumes the interpretational thread in
Kranz's venture, surveying 657 poems in 19 languages on 13 artworks
ranging from the Nike of Samothrace t o Van Gogh's Cornfield with Crows,
works chosen precisely because they a r e so productive for 'Rezeptions-
geschichte', because they have preoccupied so many generations, so many
different cultures. What is s trange is that the majority of these
examples did not provoke a literary response immediately, but lay dormant
for years, a s if gathering their power of rayonnement before i t s release,
embedding themselves in consciousness; Leonardo's Mona Lisa, for example,
had t o wait 350 years for i t s first poet, and Direr 's Melancolia (1514) was
celebrated in a poem for the first t ime only in 1834. Kranz is careful
t o adapt his critical method t o the peculiar demands of each artwork, to
those modes whereby it has exerted i t s appeal. Unfortunately the critical
intentions a r e often frustrated by anthological obligations, and arguments
a r e frequently no more than glimpsed. Brueghel's Landscape with the Fall
of Icarus, for example, "fordert auf Partei zu ergreifen, und die Autoren
der Gedichte auf dieses Gemalde tun das auch; ihre Texte vor allem
unter diesem Gesichtspunkt zu diskutieren, drangt sich geradezu auf" (p.8);
but the sheer weight of the material and t h e necessarily touristic treat-
ment produce embryonic observations such a s "Arendt ergreift Partei gegen
lkarus ftlr den Bauer" (p.363) o r "Rosemary Dobson steht nicht auf der
Seite des Hirten [...I, was aber nicht bedeutet, dass s ie zu lkarus hiilt"
(p.364). Similarly, the chapter on Watteau's L'Embarquement pour Cyth6re
examines first those poems whose reading of the picture seems to coincide
with the overt pictorial evidence, and then those which explore the unseen . suggesting that the la t te r understand their Watteau better than the
former. But this suggestion is made only in the final sentence, and the
remainder of the chapter is an enumerative sequence of poems, with the
author providing little more than captions. But it would be churlish to
insist. This book is full of illuminations, leads one along untrodden poetic
paths, and organizes i t s large corpuses with admirable critical dexterity.
The chapters on the Venus d e Milo, Laokoon and the Mona Lisa a r e
particularly rewarding fea t s of ordered investigation.
The third volume of Das Bildgedicht: Theorie. Lexikon, Bibliographie
is a 'Nachtragsband' for t h e first two, which appeared in 1981. Kranz
must bear t h e cross shared by all researchers enterprising comprehensive-
ness: the delighted discovery of omissions by reviewers. The process of
supplementation is without end. And what chaff is t o be winnowed out
from what grain? Kranz also adds texts which, had they come t o his
notice or been published in time, would have formed part of his commen-
taries in Meisterwerke in Bildgedichten. New departures in this volume
a r e provided by t h e "Register der Bildwerke" (pp.127-62) and t h e "Register
der Bildgedicht-Autoren nach Sprachen und Zeitfolge" (pp.325-35). Listings
like these make every one of Kranz's volumes an indispensable work-aid.
The latest addition to Kranz's seemingly inexhaustible undertaking is
a survey of Das Architekturgedicht, with an anthological appendix of 16
tex ts accompanled by photographs of the si tes celebrated. As in Kranz's
previous works, this s tudy contains cross-referring checkl is ts (selective), of
t h e buildings t o be found in poems and of t h e poets who have discovered
a source of u t t e rance in buildings, f rom Apollonios Rhodios t o Apollinaire,
f rom Angilbert von Centula t o Michael Ziillner; a bibliography of
secondary l i t e ra tu re is a lso included. T h e book opens with some reflec-
tions on t h e na tu re of a rch i t ec tu re in re la t ion t o t h e o the r ar ts : a
building is non-mimetic, o r only metamimetic , non-thematic and profoundly
functional. These assertions may seem t o many too categorical: one
might cal l t o mind Baudelaire's "Grand bois, vous m'effrayez c o m m e d e s
cath6dralesn ("Obsession"), o r wonder about t h e role of decorat ion in
buildings, o r ask whether anything which can be genericized c a n avoid
being thematized. Kranz occasionally falls vict im t o his own taxonomic
drive, which is displayed t o much more persuasive e f f e c t in his subsequent
typologies of t r ea tment ('Transposition', 'Suppletion', 'Memoria', 'Symbolik'
and 'Metaphorik' - t h e last-named a t t r ac t ing disproportionate a t tent ion) ,
intention ('Deskriptiv', 'Panegyrisch', 'Pejorativ', 'Politisch', 'Scherzhaft ') ,
s t ruc tu re ('Rhetorisch', 'Episch', 'Zyklisch') and Real i ta tsbezuq ('Kumulativ',
'Fiktiv', 'Ideal', 'Generell', 'Ruinenpoesie'). But despi te and beneath these
a p t and necessary discriminations, t h e architecture-poem reveals a broad
unanimity of purpose: t o resurrect t h e organic in t h e mineral and t r a c e
t h e animated and animating flow of t ime through t h e motionless monument:
"Es le is te t poetische Verwandlung d e s Stat ischen ins Dynamische, des reglos
Steinernen ins Wachst3mliche, des Raumlichen ins Zeitliche, kurz
imaginat ive Beseelung des Unbeseelten" (p.82). Kranz's work, too, is a
magnificent monument, energized by t h e tirelessness of i t s builder.
University of East Anglia, Norwich Clive Sco t t
Schenk, Christiane. Venedig im Spiegel de r Decadence - Li te ra tu r des Fin
d e Sikcle. (European University Studies Se r i e s XVIII: Comparat ive Liter-
a t u r e Vo1.45.) Frankfurt on Main, Berne, New York: P e t e r Lang, 1987.
pp.562. ISBN 3-8204-9720-X.
Schenk has read a lot of books and has paraphrased many of them in this
work, which observes fin-de-siicle depict ions of Venice in French, German,
English and, t o a degree, Italian literature. T h e subject is worthwhile, a t
least for a lengthy article. She quotes a large number of c r i t i c s very
extensively, and seems t o have few views of her own. What w e end up
with is a tedious, ineptly written, less than scholarly, sometimes coffee-
morningesque catalogue with l i t t l e analysis or speculation.
Furthermore, her paraphrases help neither our memory nor our under-
standing o f the works she considers. In many cases, however, she does
widen the usual scope by including works which flow only just in the mein-
stream of Decadent literature, l ike Barrss's La Mort de Venise, and some
which are certainly not widely known, l ike 'Ginko' and 'Biloba's' & volupheux voyage ou les PBlerines de Venise or lsolde Kurz's " ~ e k r o ~ o l i s * .
The only mainstream Venice work missing is probably Arthur Symons's
piece on Venice in Cities (1903). I t is, no doubt, facetious of me to
observe that Schenk does not mention any o f the dozen or so important
Czech Decadent novels or poems which deal wi th Venice.
The reader becomes more and inore tetchy about Schenk's frequent
comments o f the following sort: "The work o f the French poet Henri de
Regnier is hardly known ir! Germany today" (p.208). No one cares whether
i t is or not, and certainly all students of the period wi l l know Regnier.
The following advice is worse: "The works of RarrBs's followers are
di f f icul t or impossible to obtain in Germany" (p.170). She is often
repetetive; for instance, we learn on both pp.482 and 485 that The Savoy
had only a one-year run in 1896. She shows a lack o f general knowledge
about the l i terature o f the period. For example, she tells us that Adrien
Mithoucard makes frequent use o f synaesthesia and that that reminds her
o f Barrks (p.1931, appearing unaware that synaesthesia and oxymoron were
very much part o f the Decadent code. Three pages later she leads us to
doubt whether she has any sense o f l i terature whatever, when she writes:
"Epigones, i t appears, are of ten second-rank also in their style." The
Bibliography lacks three most important books on Decadence, Barbara
Charlesworth, Dark Passages (Madison and Milwaukee, 19651, Jean Pierrot.
Merveilleux e t fantastique (1974, English Translation The Decadent
Imagination, Chicago and London, 1981) and R. K. R. Thornton, The Decadent Dilemma (London, 1983).
Nevertheless, Schenk comes close to understanding the function o f
Venice i n Decadent literature. She writes that artists before the
Decadents and af ter them had paid their tr ibute to this c i t y which was
"between land and water, between being and appearance, between history
and reality" (p.41, "a wonderland made o f real i ty and imagination" (p.1 l I),
and as a dream c i ty (pp.218-19, 274-75). However, in those descriptions
she is essentially only repeat ing what t h e wri ters themselves say. Deca-
dent writers ' main concern was intermediate s ta tes . (The Bulgarian c r i t i c
Sonia Kanikova uses t h e t e rm 'interstatuality'.) Decadent l i t e ra tu re
describes intermediate s t a t e s , grows ou t of writers ' perception of them-
selves a s existing in intermediate s t a t e s and, indeed, o f t en uses inter-
mediate forms (e.g. t h e prose poem or highly lyricised prose in l i terary
criticism). Schenk has failed t o comprehend tha t Venice itself provided
a pe r fec t intermediate s t a t e for the Decadent imagination. T h e beauty
of decay, t h e orgasm of dying, t h e non-real real i ty of dreaming, semi-
s tagnant w a t e r all combine t o c r e a t e an a p t background to, o r picture of,
t h e senses, t h e sensitive aes the t i c mind a t work. This c i t y comprised an
archi tectural embodiment of the panerethism t h e Decadents cul t ivated in
the i r s tudies and cafds. Venice forms pa r t of the Decadents' conception
of their age, an age of decay, but an a g e which they fel t was bringing the
new glorious whi te barbarians who would destroy cu l tu re and rejuvenate
t h e world.
Schenk's book would probably have benefi ted from more intensive
supervision by t h e t eachers she thanks in her Foreword. Yet for all I have
said, i t might well be useful t o some s tudents of things Decadent a s a
work of reference.
School of Slavonic and East European Studies University of London
R. B. Pynsent
P e t e r Edgerly Firchow, The Death of t h e German Cousin: Variations on
a Li terary Stereotype, 1890-1920. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP; London and
Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1987. pp.242. ISBN 0-8387-5095 -8
Firchow's appendix, T h e Na tu re and Uses of Imagology", succinctly out-
lines t h e theoret ical basis of this s tudy "of English l i terary representat ion
of Germansdur ing the decades immediately preceding and following the
turn of the century" (p.184). Tha t representation, i t is claimed, is
necessarily a "study of English self-representation", s ince "even t h e most
serious kinds of l i terature function t o re inforce s tereotypes of our own
group identity, usually by con t ras t with o the r group identities" (p.185).
T h e "Introduction" briefly examines theories of r a c e current in academic
and popular c i r c l e s during t h e period, showing how a British sense of
racial superiority initially accepted Germany a s a 'cousin'. Tha t special
relationship gradually deteriorated under the pressures of economic and
mil i tary expansion during the Second Reich, so that eventually the 'Huns'
came to be viewed as an inferior and barbaric race. Firchow indicates
that such quasi-racialist theories, now usually associated with National
Socialism, were current in Britain for much of this century.
The beginning of the hostile stereotyping of Germans Firchow locates
in the unification of Germany. The first chapter, "The Death of the
German Cousin", contains nothing essentially new, but i t usefully ties
together previous research on ' l i terary' attitudes to Germany into a
coherent whole, which covers the complete range of l i terary production
(including newspapers and boys' comics) and of attitudes, from pre-war
invasion hysteria to neutralism. A l l of this culminated in the ki l l ing o f f
o f the old cousinhood-myth in Cecil Chesterton and others.
More interesting are the following chapters, which examine in some
depth well-known authors' attitudes to, and portrayal of, Germany and the
German. The second chapter, "Joseph Conrad's Diabolic and Angelic
Germans", necessarily includes some reference to Polish views on
Germans, which helps to account for a certain virulence of presentation,
and concentrates on Wilhelm Schomberg ("Falk" and Victory), Captain
Hermann ("Falk") and Stein (Lord Jim). The first two, argues Firchow, are
"two-pfennig villains" and grotesque, whilst the German Captain and Stein
in Lord Jim are partly actors in Conrad's re-working of Goethe's w, with J im as an unintellectual Faust, "determined to strive eternally against
everything that stands in the way of what he conceives to be his destiny"
(p.57). Traces o f Goethe's Torquato Tasso further suggest that Jim is also
an unpoetical Tasso. The conclusion to this chapter breaks o f f with a
forgivable but tantalizing mention of Kurtz (Heart o f Darkness), who
intensifies Conrad's stereotype o f the bad German - Firchow continues the
argument only briefly and in general terms in his "Conclusion" (pp.185-6).
Chapter Three, "E. M. Forster's Rainbow Bridge", first establishes Forster's
liberal attitudes to, and knowledge of, German culture, before suggesting
that the deeper mythological substratum of Howard's End is Wagnerian in
i ts use o f Germanic mythology. The author carefully guards against too
'pat' a transposition of such German elements into the plot o f that novel,
however, whilst also offering some illuminating views of i t .
The sexual implications of the national stereotype are taken up in
the fourth chapter, "The Loves o f English Women and German Men",
which, except for Ford Madox Hueffer (Ford), is devoted to women wr i te rs ,
including Katharine Mansfield and Dorothy M. Richardson. Interesting here
is the pervasiveness of the idea that German men are unable to make
suitable husbands for English women, however sympathetic these women
may be to Germans initially. Apparently, British culture tended t o be
viewed a s feminine, German a s masculine. Chapter Five, "The Mental
Slum", is largely devoted t o a very thorough examination of Kipling's Mary
Postgate, which arrives a t an even-handed conclusion about Kipling's
ignorance a s t o how people's prejudices a r e often confounded by t h e
reality of suffering. "Wellington House and the Strange Death of a
Liberal Professor" (ch.6) concentrates, a f te r a brief summary of John
Buchan's and Thomas Hardy's propaganda efforts, on the work and post-war
at t i tudes of Gilbert Murray, the 'liberal professor' whose later disillusion-
ment arose from awareness of his own complicity in the spiritual and
intellectual corruption of propaganda. Firchow is a l i t t le unfair to
Murray, viewing Murray's resigned irony about war a s "equanimity" (p.125).
One of the most interesting parts of this book is t h e seventh c h a p t e r ,
"'Into Cleanness Leaping': Brooke. Eliot, Shaw and Lawrence". Here,
Firchow links these four writers by their view of death of the old self a s
a necessary s tep towards re-birth of a 'Life Force', war a s t h e only means
by which decadence can be overcome. It is a daring but often convincing
comparison between four wri ters usually considered so disparate.
In concluding that t h e notion of the German cousin was altogether
dead by 1915, Firchow claims that t h e stereotype of the efficiently bar-
baric Hun is unlikely to be eradicated from British minds until a t least the
end of this century. Firchow's thesis on Anglo-German relations between
1890-1920 is that t h e induced image of German cruelty and militarism,
along with many literary productions about a Prussian invasion of this
country, predisposed t h e British to mass hysteria and hallucinations about
atroci t ies once the war began, and made resistance t o the war-effort all
but impossible. Whllst this may sound like a s tatement of the obvious,
Firchow's merit lies in demonstrating convincingly both the general
development and the finer distinctions of the British mentality 1890-1920.
Wittily erudite, and with a frequently wry elegance, Firchow dispels many
cherished British myths about Germans and about British superiority.
University of Hull E. A. McCobb
Concepts ed. by Peter
Boerner. Raden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1986. pp.262. ISBN
3-7890- 1304-8.
This volume consists of a collection of twelve papers read at a conference
of American and European academics at Indiana University in 1985, the
aim being an exploration of the meaning and the dimensions of the com-
plex notion of national identity. In order to ascertain whether an inter-
disciplinary dialogue on this topic might be profitable, the scholars invited
to participate included researchers in language, literature, history and
political science, although scholars from the disciplines of sociology and
psychology were surprisingly absent. In an attempt to avoid what Roerner
terms "the limitations and partisanship that so easily cling to discussions
of a particular nation" (p.16). the participants follow a path of comparative
investigation, dealing with certain nations of Western Europe (Germany,
France and Austria), Eastern Europe (Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria)
and the nation-states of Africa.
The first two papers provide a general background to the topic.
Raymond Grew (pp.31-43) suggests that national identity is a concept
consciously constructed from specific moments in history (for example, the
French Revolution), and used to enhance the image of the nation-state
through the creation of symbols and myths. ~ i h e l y Szegedy-MaszBk (pp.
45-61) distingulshes the term 'national character', as a Romantic or
inherited notion, from the wider term 'national identity1, and suggests
that to view national character as an organic entity is a dangerous con-
cept, since i t can lead to mistrust among nations.
The division of study shows a marked concentration on Germany,
three of the remaining ten papers discussing German national identity from
the pre-Romantic era to modern times. Lacking political unity, since
historically they have not lived within fixed borders, the Germans created
a Kulturnation (national culture), rather than a national identity. The
papers conclude that, since no uniform image of Germany exists to create
a national identity, German national identity lies not in a concrete realisa-
tion of identity, but in a desire for it.
The broad theme of national identity suggested what may be termed
'counter-topics'. These are expressed in papers on counter-identity,
regional identity, and internationalism. Counter-identity (that is, how
members of nation-states view their homologues across the border) must
be studied in order to achieve balanced investigation and t o avoid stereo-
type, while a growing emphasis on regional identity (for example, in
Scotland and Brittany) is seen as indicative of the extent t o which
national identities a re loslng their significance. In dealing with France,
Konrad Bieber (pp.79-87) delineates points of view which go beyond the
limitations of nationalism towards positive internationalism, o r what is
termed 'supra-nationality'. However, with regard t o Austria, William
Johnston (pp.177-86) suggests that supra-nationality can be a negative
concept, becoming an expression of statelessness, thereby classifying
Austria as a "natlon without qualitiesn (p.177). Arguably the most inter-
esting points raised in this volume detail the national tendencies of s ta tes
run along the lines of Internationally oriented ideologies, such as Socialism
and Communism, which have long viewed national leanings as suspect. In
a paper on East European nations in the 1980% Robin Remington (pp.105-
22) suggests that in the Balkan s ta tes international Communism is
expressed in conjunction with a resurgence of national identity, leading to
an at t i tude the author describes as "socialist in form, national in contentn
(p. 122).
The conclusion of the conference Is that there exists no definition
of the term 'national identity' which could satisfy all the demands placed
upon it. To at tempt such a definition the conference should perhaps have
limited itself to a study of a specific area or period, thereby retaining the
comparative approach and facilitating an approach a t a definition.
Furthermore, within i ts chosen framework there a re obvious omissions, such
as Amerlca and Great Britain. The voiume ends with the first bibliography
on national identity t o encompass more than one or two countries, and
provide an excellent review of the llterature available on this wide topic.
University of Dundee Kay Chadwick
Gerhart Hoffmelster, Deutsche und europaische Barockliteratur. Stuttgart:
Metzler, 1987 (Sammlung Metzler. Bd.234). pp.208. ISBN 3-476-10234-3.
This is a welcome addition to the admirable Metzler series, which already
contains a number of useful works on German baroque literature, including
one by Gerhart Hoffmeister on petrarchistic lyric poetry (M 119). That
is a wlde-ranging comparative survey, and so is this, a s indeed i ts t i t le
indicates. I t is badly needed, for baroque studies are flourishing in various
fields amid a welter o f confused terminology. Baroque means something
different in Germany and in France, is not used in England (though i t is
in America) and not well thought o f in Holland. And so on. Hoffmeister
therefore begins with a history of the term and i ts applications, and closes
with the sensible though not exactly new conclusion that i t is a "Hilfs-
begriff der Forschung zur Bezeichnung der Epoche", in other words a con-
venient piece o f shorthand. I n this way the danger of hypostatisation is
neatly sidestepped. In this whole discussion one looks in vain for a
mention o f James Mark or Odette de Mourgues.
Hoffmeister then has a series o f useful and illuminating sections on
the different national brands of baroque in Italy, Spain (but not Portugal),
France, England, Holland, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and finally Germany.
This is followed by a set of parallel treatments of cultural exchanges
("Barocke Wechselbeziehungen") between Germany and each of these areas,
which open up many fresh perspectives. Then he goes on to deal wi th
factors in European baroque l i terature as a whole, starting with the
question of whether there is any such thing (he discerns "ein gewisse
Einheitlichkeit der Phanomene" p. 1 13). These factors are well chosen:
social bases (absolutism etc.); Lat in tradition; rhetoric and emblem;
Jesuit poetry; Marinism (but surprisingly not petrarchism, on which
Hoffmeister is an authority, or stoicism); and finally genres and themes.
He gives a good account o f what is there but does not deal with what is
not, e.g. the absence o f biography, autobiography, diary and let ter in
Germany in contrast to England and France is not touched upon. , The
final chapter on the reception and exploitation of baroque in later
German l i terature is particularly welcome, as i t brings together much
hitherto unrelated work, especially on the Romantics (on whom Hoffmeister
is also an authority, as is plain from his Metzler volume M 170), though
i t is odd that he does not refer to the echo of Bidermann's Cenodoxus in
Chamisso's Peter Schlemihl; he brings the tradit ion down to our own day
with Giinter Grass's Das Tref fen in Telgte (not van Telgte). A l l in all an
invaluable and well-informed survey, which sums up what is already known,
draws interesting parallels and points out some white spots on the map.
Seizidmistes and dix-septiemistes o f a l l colours wi l l constantly need to
refer to it.
REPORT ON 'WORK IN PROGRESS'
"LITERARY TRANSLATION IN KOREA DURING THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD (1895-1940)"
Since the 1970s theorists have focused on the role that translated litera-
ture may play in a l i terary system depending on the degree o f famil iarity
o f the texts to be translated and the state o f development o f the target
system (see Lambert, D'Hulst and van Rragt 1985: 149-163). Starting with
the supposition that during the early twentieth century in Korea western
literature was translated with an innovative aim, an attempt wi l l be made
to discover variations on the functioning of translation in a literary
system. The results o f this research can he integrated into broader
studies on the translation of western literature in Asian countries.
Statistical data are examined concerning the selection of texts and
techniques. Documents o f the period are studied for information about the
stated aims o f translators, cr i t ical opinions, the policies of publishers and
the reactions o f readers. Based on this statistical and documentary
evidence the supposition concerning the innovatory role o f translation in
establishing a new literary system, or in f i l l ing a l i terary vacuum, wil l be
modified. (For the Polysystem approach to the study of translated l i ter-
ature see Even-Zohar 1978: 117-127.) The dates 1895-1940 mark the
first appearance o f western literature in Korea, during the enlightenment
period when the 'new literature' movement was developing, to the outbreak
o f World War I 1 when l iterary activity in Korea ceased or went under-
ground.
The first section surveys the selection o f texts to be translated and
considers the motives for selecting them. The statistics are analysed
concerning the selection or rejection o f texts by country, language, author,
genre. Documentary evidence concerning motives for choosing texts to be
translated is gathered through l iterary journals, articles by the translators,
prefaces to volumes o f translations and other primary sources o f the
period. The texts from the early period (1895-1909) were mostly re-trans-
lations from Japanese and many were adaptations, condensations or plot
summaries rather than ful l translations. Foreign l i terary works were
chosen for their effectiveness in encouraging patriotism, and the socially
committed 'new literature' owed a debt to these early translations.
Magazines aiming t o e d u c a t e patriotic, l iberal youths a c t e d a s an impetus
t o translation of l i terary works which w e r e thought t o have an edifying
e f fec t . During t h e following decade t h e importa t ion of western l i t e ra tu re
began in earnest , and journals specializing in l i terary t ransla t ion s t a r t e d t o
appear. In the 1920s t h e r e was a marked increase in t h e number of trans-
lations. T h e dual a i m s s t a t e d in an edi tor ia l of the review Foreign
L i t e ra tu re typify t h e period: t o cons t ruc t national l i t e ra tu re and t o
widen t h e boundaries of world l i t e ra tu re through translation.
Sect ion T w o will consider t h e e x t e n t t o which translation s t r a t eg ies
r e f l ec t t h e sea rch fo r a new model of r ea l i ty through wes te rn l i tera ture .
During t h e ea r ly twen t i e th cen tu ry Korean wr i t e r l t r ans l a to r s a t t e m p t e d t o
t ransmit western l i terary t r ends such a s Romant ic ism and Naturalism which
had become popular in Japan. An example of t h e select ion process a t t h e
level of technique is t h e adaptat ion of wes te rn s t anza ic and me t r i ca l
pa t t e rns t o replace t h e t radi t ions of Chinese formalism, which were fe l t
t o b e inadequate t o express modern emotions.
T h e next sect ion, on the publication and distribution of t ransla ted
l i tera ture , will examine in more de ta i l t h e journals specializing in trans-
lation, and t h e s e p a r a t e volumes of t ransla ted l i tera ture , concen t ra t ing on
t h e manner in which these publications a imed t o int roduce foreign liter-
a ture . A survey of t h e c o n t e n t s will reveal t h e range of choice of
t ransla ted l i tera ture . For t h e most par t t h e t ransla t ion journals which
appeared in the 1920s w e r e unable t o cont inue publication beyond a few
issues fo r financial o r political reasons. During t h e 1930s, although the re
were no new reviews devo ted exclusively t o t ransla t ing l i terary works,
t ransla t ions appeared with increasing f requency in a va r i e ty of journals.
T h e number of s e p a r a t e volumes of t ransla ted l i t e ra tu re was ex t remely
small until 1940. T h e overall c i r cums tances of publication, t h e f ac to r s
limiting publication and distribution, t h e composition of t h e readership, t h e
con ten t s of the journals, and policy s t a t e m e n t s by ed i to r s and publishers
will b e included.
T h e following sec t ion will consider t h e recept ion of t ransla ted liter-
a t u r e a s r e f l ec t ed in r eade r response, d e b a t e be tween t r ans la to r s and
cr i t ic ism of t h e s t a t e of l i terary translation. In addition t o a rgument s
ove r method and technique, t h e r e was much cr i t ic ism of t h e cons t r a in t s
due t o lack of training and financial resources. T h e debates , cr i t ic ism and
response of r eade r s a r e t o b e found most ly in l i terary reviews o r journals
of translated literature.
The final phase involves a consideration of the changes which took
place as modern Korean literature rapidly evolved from the late 1890s to
approximately 1940. Correlations will be made between translated western
texts, chosen for their innovative role, and the new approaches to
literature. The final chapters will contain case studies for the reception
and assimilation of certain foreign authors or genres through translation.
Professor Theresa M. Hyun Department of French Kyung Hee University
I Hoeki-dong, Dongdaemoon-gu Seoul 130-701, Korea
LAMBERT, ~os6, Lieven D'HULST and Katrin van BRAGT, "Translated Literature in France, 1800-1850", in Theo Hermans (ed.), The Manipulation of Literature: Studies in Literary Translation (London: Croom Helm, 19851, pp. 149- 163.
LEFEVERE, Andrk, "Translation: The Focus of the Growth of Literary Knowledge", in James S. Holmes et al. (eds.), Literature and Translation (Leuven: Acco, 19781, pp.7-28.
TOURY, Gideon, In Search of a Theory of Translation. Tel Aviv: Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, 1980.
EVEN-ZOHAR, Itamar, "The Position of Translated Literature Within the Literary Polysystem", in J. S. Holmes et al. (eds.), Literature and Trans- lation (Leuven: Acco, 1978), pp. 1 17- 127.
NEWS
RESEARCH DIRECTORY O F THE INTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE LITERATURE ASSOCIATION
This useful booklet was assembled for t h e ICLA's Research Development Commi t t ee by Mario Valdks and his col leagues a t Toronto. It l ists a d d r e s s , professional affiliations, fields of specialization and principal publications. (A second edition is being planned - consolation for those who missed the deadline for sending information this t ime round.)
Copies may be obtained (on sending two international postage coupons) from: David Jordan, C e n t r e for Comparat ive Li terature , 14045 Robarts Library, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontar io M5S IA I, Canada.
DICTIONNAIRE INTERNATIONAL DES TERMES LITTERAIRES
The SFLGC has taken s t eps t o revive this project, now directed by Jean- Marie Grassin (Limoges). Fascicules t o E will he printed now, while for t h e l a t e r ones preparation for printing and revision will occur simultane- ous] y.
An international c o m m i t t e e is being formed t o organise cr i t ical reading of existing contributions, t h e finding of (near-)equivalent t e r m s in 15 languages for t h e l emmata (which will b e French), and the assignment of new en t r i e s tha t remain t o be written.
Anyone interested in t h e Dictionnaire, e i the r wanting information o r volunteering cooperation, is requested t o g e t in touch with: Professeur Jean-Marie Grassin, Universit6 d e Limoges (Let t res) , 36 rue Camil le Gu6rin, F-87036 France Cedex (Telephone: 01033/55/012619).
JOURNAL O F RUSSIAN STUDIES
O n e of our members, Margaret Tejerizo, is now Reviews Editor of this publication. She c a n be con tac ted a t t h e following address: hl. H. Tejerizo, Dept. of Slavonic Languages, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G I 2 84Q.
A NEW JOURNAL: KRIEG UND LITERATUR/WAR AND LITERATURE
A very successful international Remarque Symposium (13-15 October , 1988) a t Osnabrilck will provide t h e mater ia l for t h e first number of this new publication, which accep t s contributions in English and German (and will add a synopsis o f each a r t i c l e in t h e o the r language). T h e journal will b e edi ted and published by a t eam assemhled by Tilman Westphalen, and will b e linked t o fu r the r scholarly even t s organised by t h e Remarque Society.
Anyone interested in this a r e a should contact : Professor Dr Tilman Westphalen, Erich - Maria - Remarque Dokumentationsstelle, Fachbereich Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft, Universitat Osnabriick, Postfach D-4500 Osnabriick, West Germany.
FUTURE ICLA EVENTS
The ICLA general mee t ing a t Munich, during which Earl Miner (Pr inceton) was e l e c t e d Pres ident , de t e rmined tha t t h e Xlllth CONGRESS will b e held in l a t e August 1991 a t Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo.
T h e general t h e m e is: "THE FORCE O F VISION", divided in to I: Dramas of Desire, 11: Visions of Beauty , Ill: Visions of History, IV: Powers of Narra t ion, V: Re-Vision of L i t e r a ry Theory, VI: Orienta l ism and Occidenta l ism, VII: Inter-Asian Compara t ive Li tera ture .
T h e Meet ing a t Munich hea rd a n invi ta t ion from t h e Pres ident of t h e University of Edmonton (Alber ta) fo r t h e 1994 Congress, and accep ted it in principle.
T h e r e was a lso an invi ta t ion f rom New Delhi University for e i t h e r 1994 o r 1997, and t h e mee t ing tended t o favour going t o India in 1997.
T h e lCLA Li t e ra ry Theory C o m m i t t e e (which, incidentally, o n e of our members , Elinor Shaffer , helped t o found) announces a COLLOOUIUM on t h e subject "ARE THERE LAWS IN LITERARY HISTORY?". The colloquium is t o b e held on 16 March 1989 a t Lisbon University, in conjunct ion with t h e Congress of t h e Por tuguese Compara t ive L i t e r a t u r e Association.
Fo r fu r the r de t a i l s p lease wr i t e to: Professor Elrud Ibsch, Vrije Universiteit Ams te rdam, Facu l t e i t d e r L e t t e r e n , Postbus 7161, NL-1007 MC Amste rdam, T h e Netherlands.
FUTURE BCLA EVENTS
BCLA Vth TRIENNIAL CONGRESS, STAMFORD HALL, LEICESTER, 3-6 JULY, 1989. "LITERARY REPRESENTATIONS O F T H E SELF" Fur the r de t a i l s and t h e second (and las t ) ca l l for papers wen t ou t with New Comparison No.5 (Summer 1988). By ea r ly Oc tobe r , around 180 pape r s had been ag reed (ca. 100 from British academics , t h e r e s t from overseas). T h e deadl ine fo r o f f e r s is 30 November , t h e provisional pro- g r a m m e will g o ou t ea r ly in t h e new year .
It is of cou r se possible t o a t t e n d wi thout giving a paper. Members a r e requested t o wr i t e t o t h e S e c r e t a r y by ea r ly January if they wish t o pa r t i c ipa t e in this way. It will help overal l planning.
During t h e Congress t h e topic of t h e next triennial even t (1992) will b e discussed and, it is hoped, decided upon. T h e r e will a l so b e e l ec t ions of t h e Association's o f f i ce r s and execu t ive c o m m i t t e e members .
T h e WORKSHOP CONFERENCES "THE PICARESOUE" (19901, and "META- MORPHOSES" (19911, will both b e held in ea r ly July (not December , t h e fo rmer t i m e for BCLA conferences) . De ta i l s will b e announced in New Comparison 7 (Summer 1989).
Inquiries a r e a l r eady welcome. P l ease wr i t e t o t h e Sec re t a ry , Dr H. M. Klein, EUR, Univers i ty of Eas t Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ.
T H E SECOND BITE: A CONFERENCE ON TRANSLATIONS O F TRANSLA- TIONS AND O N RE-TRANSLATIONS. Univers i ty of Eas t Anglia, Norwich, Sa tu rday 6 May 1989. This one-day even t , organised by Chris topher Smith and Holger Klein,
follows similar conferences (Enemy Images, Hamlet Reception, Poetics of Protest) held a t UEA. It deals with the intriguing questions raised by works like North's Plutarch through Amyot and Kilmartin's revision of Moncrieff. 7-8 short papers (around 20 minutes) will be delivered and discussed. Costs are kept t o a minimum.
Papers and general participation are invited. Please write to: Dr Christopher Smith, EUR, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ.
The Centre for Low Countries Studies. UCL, announces "THE LOW COUNTRIES AND THE WORLD: AN INTERNATIONAL AND INTER- DISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE", 12-15 April, 1989, a t University College London. Plenary Speakers include: Christopher Brown (The National Gallery, London) and Simon Scharma (Harvard University).
For information and registration please write to: The Centre for Low Countries Studies. University College London, Gower Street, London WClE 6BT.
The translation Studies Centre a t Gottingen University announces an INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM: "'HISTORY' AND 'SYSTEM' IN THE STUDY OF LITERARY TRANSLATION", 10-13 April. 1989. There will be about 15 papers, followed by intensive discussions.
For details please write to: Der Sprecher des Sonderforschugsbereichs 309, "Die literarische Ueber- setzung", Georg-August-Universitat, Humboldtallee 17, D-3400 Gottingen, West Germany.
In Richard N. Coe the study of French, Comparative and General Litera- ture has lost a leading exponent, and many a colleague a good friend. He co-founded Comparison and gave support t o i t s successor, serving on i ts Editorial Board. We shall hold him in grateful memory.
The Literary Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Hungarian Comparative Literature Association sorrowfully announce the death of lstv6n Stiter, a former Director of the lnstitute and fourth President of the International Comparative Literature Association. His loss will be keenly felt by the profession in his home country and world- wide.
NEW COMPARISON
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given in a footnote.
Contributions restr icted to individual works, writers or l i t c ra tu r rs a r r
welcome provided they are o f suff icient interest t t ) the non-specialist and
raise issues of more than purely local s~gnif icence.
Submissions should be sent in two copicxs to the e d ~ t o r i a l address.
Decisions concerning publication wi l l be made w ~ t h i n approx ina t r l y six
weeks.
Editorial address: I)r Theo tlermans, N e w Comparison, Department o f Dutch, Un ivers~ ty College London, Gower Street, LONDON W C l E 6RT.
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should be sent to the reviews editor:
Dr Holger Klein, New Comparison, School of Modern Languages and European History, Universrty of East Anglia, NORWlCH NR4 7TJ.
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Dr Susan Bassnett, New Comparison, Graduate School of Comparative L i te ra ry Theory and L i te ra ry Translation, University of Warwick, COVENTRY CV4 7AL.
NEW COMPARISON I (Summer 1986): "Literary Translation and Literary Systemn: M. Tymoczko (Massachusetts), Translation in Twelfth-Century France; T. Hermans (London), Li terary Translation: the Birth of a Concept; L. Korpel (Utrecht) , Translation Discourse in the Netherlands 1750-1800; E. M. Gruber (Edmonton), Translation and Spanish Romanticism ; S Paker (London/Istanbul), Translation in 19th-Century Ot toman Literature; A. Lefevere (Austin), Heine in Translation; E. Blodgett (Edmonton), Translation in Canadian Literature; R. van den Broeck (Amsterdam), Generic Shif ts in Translation; G. ~ i l m e n (Budapest), Borderline Cases of Translation.
NEW COMPARISON 2 (Autumn 1986): "Hamlet a t Home and Abroad": -t Anglia), Receiving Hamlet Reception; E. Maslen (London), Scenes Unseen in Hamlet ' E. Joyce (Trent), Hamlet from Prince t o Punk; G. Hall (~arwick),;h Hamlets; R. Lethbridge (Cambridge), Bourget, Maupassant and Hamlet; H. Golomb (Tel-Aviv), Hamlet in Checkov's Plays; S. Paker (LondonIIstanbul), Hamlet in Turkey; M. Pfis ter (Passau), German Political Interpretat ions of Hamlet; T. Dawson (East Anglia), Hamlet and English Romantic Poetry; I. Clarke (Loughborough), Shakespeareana Victoriana; C. Smith (East Anglia), Italian Players and Hamlet; J. Hilton (East Anglia). Dissecting Hamlet.
NEW COMPARISON 3 (Summer 1987): "Comedy": M. Slawinski (Lancaster), A Renaissance commedia and i t s models; A. Calder (London), Renaiss,ance Theories of Comedy; J. Coombes (Essex), Absolutist Drama in England, France and Japan; A. Stillmark (London), Kleist and ,Gogol; S. Walton (London), Ludvig Holberg and lvar Aassen; K. F. Hilliard (Durham), Molikre and Hofmannsthal; W. D. Howarth (Bristol), Anouilh and Ayckbourn; M. Tymoczko (Massachusetts). Translating Humour in Irish Hero Tales; B. Garvin (London), Comic Features of Belli; A. Easthope (Manchester), Aristophanes and Wilde; T. Dawson (East Anglia), The Dandy in Dorian Gray; D. Delabast i ta (Leuven), Translating Puns; K. S. Whitton (Bradford), Humour in t h e German Lied.
NEW COMPARISON 4 (Autumn 1987): "Scandinavia": J. Jesch (Notting- ham), Women Poe t s in t h e Viking Age; L. Burman (CambridgeIUppsala), The Swedish Sonnet; M. Wells (Cambridge), The Master Builder, John Gabriel Borkman and When We Dead Awaken; S. J . Walton (London), Illusion in Ibsen's Main Characters ; E. Page (Cambridge), Magdalene Thoresen; L. HelmIJ. Roed (OdenseILondon), Thomasine Gyllembourg; M. Robertson (Loughborough), Strindberg: Life, Plots and Letters; E. Vannebo (Oslo), Biblical Motives in Olav Duun; T. Selboe (Oslo), Women's Poetry in Norway; A. Maset (Budapest). Conception and Praxis of the Writer in Contemporary Norwegian Prose; L. Forster (Cambridge), Ernst Robert Curtius Commemorated.
NEW COMPARISON 5, with Special Sect ion "Literature and Philosophy": M. J. Robertson (Augsburg), Conference Report , Durham 1987; D. Reynolds (Lancaster), Kant on t h e Sublime and MallarmC's "Un coup d e D6s"; R. H. Roberts (Durham), Reception of Hegel's "Lord and Bondsman"; H. M. Robinson (Liverpool), Nietzsche, Lawrence and Romanticism; P. V. Zima (Klagenfurt), Towards a Sociology of Fictional Texts; D. Sco t t (Dublin), Academicism and Modernity in Nineteenth-Century French Poetry; S. E. Grace (Vancouver), Neige noir, Caligari, and t h e Postmodern Film Frame- Up; P. Mosley (Glasgow), The Reassociation of Li terature and Medicine; G. M. Hyde (Norwich), Hamlet the Pole; A. Menhennet (Newcastle), Tensions in Reuter's and Moliire's Comedy; R. Chapple (Florida). Turgenev, Anderson, Hemingway, The Torrents of Spring; G. Kums (Antwerp), The Waste Land and Under t h e Volcano.