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The Paradoxes of Poe's Reception in FranceAuthor(s): Henri JustinSource: The Edgar Allan Poe Review, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring 2010), pp. 79-92Published by: Penn State University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41506391
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Justin
79
The Paradoxes of Poe's
Reception
in
France
Henri Justin
The
history
f Poe's
reception
n France s so eventful nd
fruitfulhat cannot
hope
to do it
ustice
in this brief
essay. My only
aim will be to stress
the
paradoxical
variety
f the
responses
nvolved
over thefirst undred
ears,
from
the
1850's to the 1950's:
purepoetry
s thedetective
tory,
or
xample;
or
the
free
pirit
f nner
xploration
the trict emandsof
structuring
omposition.
Poe
worked
consciously
withthese
contradictions,
eeping
them
ctive. It is
the secret
of his
creativity,
ut t also
explains
thatwhen his
writings
anded
inFrance,they eemed to break ntoa variety fliterary orms, ach one very
much
opposed
to the next.
Before
moving
own
the
hronological
adder,
want o
consider oe's
reception
by
AndrBretonbecause
thatmakes a
good story.
As
leader of the
Surrealist
Movement,
he
was
very
ouchy
nd
ealous,
coming
to be known
as the
Pope
of Surrealism.
He had the ambition
to
register
he free ife of
the
spirit,
o
express
the
unobstructed
tirrings
f the
unconscious. In
this
view,
he carried
out
experiments
n
automatic
writing
nd
dreamnarrative.
reedom nd
chance
werehis warcries. In hisfirst,uiteopen-mindedManifesto fSurrealism ated
1924,
he breaks out into
a
litany
of the
precursors
f
the
movement,
tarting
with the
English
pre-Romanticpoet
Andrew
Young
because of his
"Night
Thoughts."
In this
itany
Swift s surrealistn
malice ....
Hugo
is surrealistwhen
he is not
stupid
...
Poe is
surrealist n
adventure .. Etc.1
Perhaps
Breton
had read
Poe's Narrative
f
Arthur
ordon
in
Baudelaire's
translation,es Aventures 'ArthurGordon
,
or
perhaps
he
actually
aw in
him the
explorer
f
far-out
eaches of
the
psyche
one
way
or the
other,
oe
was
there,
mong
the
prophets,
ollowed
by
Baudelaire,
Rimbaud,
Mallarm,
Jarry,
nd others.
But in
1930,
when
Breton
wrote
Second
Manifesto,
t
was
very
different
n
tone.
The
worldwas in
crisis,
Europe
was
moving
owards
ragedy,
nd
Breton
had
turned
nto a
wounded
ion,
excommunicatingmany
of
his
former
riends
and
fellow-travellers.
e, now,
reckoned t
quite
unnecessary
o
acknowledge
precursors.Even Rimbaud was discarded as well as Baudelaire (because he
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80
Poe's
Reception
in France
had been weak enough, n his last years,to prayto Poe everymorning).
As
forPoe
himself,
he former
dventurer,
as
now felt
by
Bretonto be a traitor
siding
with
he
police
Breton
musthave discovered
n
Poe,
by
then,
he
writer
who
insistedon control
nd textual
composition,
he Poe admired
by Valry.
He had
also
probably
discovered
the
sharp
critic
who dreamed
of
becoming
the arbiter
f letters.
Perhaps, finally,
e
was
disgusted
by
the
vogue
of the
whodunit,
erived
from
Doyle
and Poe
("detective
fiction"
eing
"le
policier"
in French
"police
fiction").
Be that s it
may,
he lashes
out at a
writerwho "is
given
today
s the
master f
the cientific
olicemen
from
herlock
Holmes
to
Valry).
Isn't
it a shame
[he
goes
on]
to be
presenting
nder
n
intellectually
appealing
ight type fpoliceman .. ? to endowtheworldwith police-like
method?
As we
pass
our
way,
et us
spit
on
Edgar
Poe"
("Crachons,
en
passant,
sur
Edgar
Poe").2
That
is
vigorous
anguage
Later,
Andr
Breton
was to
change
his
mind
again,
featuring
oe's
"Angel
of
the
Odd"
in his
Anthology f
Black
Humor
Poe,
he now
comments,
the over
of chance"
("cet
amant
du
hasard"),
"the over
of
fortune,"
ould
not but
rely
"on
thefortunes
f
expression."4
Thus,
Bretonhad
swung,
n thecourse
of his
career,
from
ove to
hate to
love
again,
affording
he
most
picturesque
of
the
paradoxes to be reviewed n thispaper.
In
fact,
t seems
to
me,
Poe
kept coupling
opposites,
pitting
hem
gainst
each
other
n the arena
of the
text,
harpening
heir
ntagonism
while
yoking
hem
to create
an
effect
f
totality,
f
unity
a
very
paradoxical
unity.
It was
a
unity
hat
was
forcibly
maintained
y
the sheer
genius
of
its
conceiver,
unity
that
few
readers,
ven
admirers
f
Poe,
could
actuallygrasp.
This is
why
the
history
f
its
reception
s
very
much
the
history
f a
splitting
part,
he
history
of a
literary ig
bang.
*
This
history
tarted
or
good
with
Baudelaire's
translations
nd
their
ublication
in volumes.
Let
us consider
hese
wo
stages
quickly.
As
translator,
audelaire
was faithful
o Poe's
original
n
many
ways,
though
with
mistakes,
ut
he
rarely
reached
the abstract
enter
of
paradoxical
unity
have
just
evoked.
And
so,
he made
the
texts
more
approachable,
more
readable:
here
lies the
secret
of
the
mmense
popularity
nd
influence
f the
French
Edgar
Poe."
Baudelaire
must have
been
obscurely
aware
of the
shift,
s
his choice
of
a
general
title
shows. Poe's title o theonlyvolumepublishedunderhis controlwas Tales of
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81
the
Grotesque
and
Arabesque.
Baudelaire's
general
titlewas
"Extraordinary
Stories." 'Tales"
can announce
hidden,
encoded
meaning.
"Stories"
... are
stories.
Again,
Tales
of
the
Grotesque
and
Arabesque
refers o art
forms,
he
grotesque ying
hort
f
the
human,
nd the
rabesque
beyond
he
human. With
"Histoires
extraordinaires,"
audelaire settlesfor
ife,
human
ife,
be it
in
its
extreme,
r
"extraordinary,"
anifestations.
Secondly,
as
editor of the Histoires
extraordinaires,
Baudelaire's
practice
undermined
unity
Poe
proclaimed
as
vocally
as the
unity
f
each
tale the
unity f
the tales as a whole.
Poe
always
insistedon it: "these
many pieces
are yetone book," he declared in 1839.5 And again in 1846: "In writing
these tales one
by
one,
at
long
intervals,
have
kept
the
book-unity lways
in
mind that
s,
each
has been
composed
withreference
o its effect s
part
of a
whole."6
This
potential
nity
was first
weakened
by
the fact
that,
orvarious
reasons,7
audelaire did not ranslate
ll the ales. After he uccess of Histoires
extraordinaires
nd Nouvelles
Histoires
xtraordinaires,
e
only
ranslatedeven
more tales.
Twenty-three
e
definitively
eft
ut,
more thanone third f Poe's
production,
nd
they
were all comedies.
So Baudelaire's choices
implied
an
alteration
f the nature f the
corpus
as a
whole,
an alteration
n
favor
of the
so-calledserious tales.
Moreover,
Baudelaire introduced
split
between these translated ales
with
their
publication
n two volumes. He
published
Histoires extraordinaires
n
1856 and Nouvelles
Histoiresextraordinaires
year
ater,
ut all of the
thirty-
six "stories" nvolved had
already
come out in
newspapers
nd
magazines by
1856.
So,
how did Baudelaire deal out the storiesbetween the two volumes?
Along
what
principles?
He
explained
his choice to the
very
nfluential ritic
Sainte-Beuve: "The first olume
is
intended s a bait it is a
teaser,
with
juggling
tricks,
onjectures,
hoaxes,
etc.
'Ligeia'
is the
only important iece
in
it;
t
morally elongs
with he second volume. This second volume offers
higher
randof the fantastic:
hallucinations,
mental
diseases,
pure grotesque,
supernaturalism,
tc."8
True,
Sainte-Beuve seemed
willing
to write
review,
so Baudelaire
anticipated ossible
dislikes. But
still,
except
in the
flippancy
of his
tone,
Baudelaire
was
telling
he truth: he had indeed
split
his storeof
"histoires xtraordinaires"
long
these ines. The first
olume tarts ith
nalytic
stories
"The Murders n the rue
Morgue" having pride
of
place
moves on
to the balloon
stories,
hen the
sea
stories,
hen the
mesmerism
tories,
plus
"Morella,"
"Ligeia"
and
"Metzengerstein."
The
second volume
as
Baudelaire
insists year ater] s ofa moreelevated andmorepoeticnature han wo-thirds
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82
Poe
's
Reception
in France
of the first."9 t opens with"The Imp of the Perverse" and "The Black Cat"
and moves on to
many,
now
famous,
dark
tales,
harbors
five comedies in its
middle,
hen eatures
he
post-mortemialogues
and,
finally, resents
Shadow,"
"Silence,"
"The Island of the
Fay"
and "The Oval Portrait."
Baudelaire,
by
thus
cutting up
the
corpus
into
three
groups
that of the
supposedly
weaker tales
(which
he did not
translate),
hatof the
ighter
ales
(which
he
presentedmostly
n the first
olume,
with few additions n a later
volume),
and thatof
the
greater
ales
(which
made the matter f the second
volume)-
started he
splitting p
that ame
to characterize oe's
reception
n
France (and, to a certain xtent,n Europe). He, himself, id sense thescope
and
unity
f
Poe's
production.
He even wentout of his
way
to translate
ureka.
But his
editorial hoices had the effect f
starting split
n the
corpus
of the
tales that
would
widen
dramatically.
The first olume of Histoires xtraordinaires as
hardly
ut when
Baudelaire's
friend
Barbey d'Aurevilly,
himself a
vigorous
writer f stories and
novels,
reproached
Baudelaire,
rather
pointedly,
with
having
tried to humor the
public
withminor
ales,
while
keeping
n
storefor he second volume what he
called "the morepregnant ales."10 t thushappenedthatwhat was probably
commercial
loy
on Baudelaire's
part ctually
urned
nto
n actual
forking
f the
ways
n the
reception
f Poe's tales on theone
hand,
he ales of
ratiocination,
the adventures n
"flying
machines,"
the stories at
sea,
the
pseudo-mesmeric
experiments;
n the
other,
he woman
narratives,
he tales of
perversity
nd
criminal
madness,
the tales
of
revenge,
he
Doppelgnger
tales,
and the
post-
mortem
ialogues.
*
By
a
funny uirk
of
history,
t was
precisely
hat
ighter
oe,
theone dismissed
by Barbey d'Aurevilly,
he Poe
of Baudelaire's first
olume,
thatwas to catch
the attention f the
young
Jules
Verne,
known
today
as the
prolific
writer f
pseudo-scientific
dventures
f
exploration.
Verne
became famous
n
1863
with
his first
reat
novel
Cinq
Semaines
en ballon
(
Five Weeks n
a
Balloon),
a
story
partly nspired
y
Poe's balloon tales and
a
year
aterhe
wrotehis
only
review
article,
which was devoted
to
"Edgar
Poe and
his Works."11
Obviously,
while
writing
t,
he had the hree audelaire
volumes
now
published
n front f him
the
two volumes of
Histoires extraordinaires
nd Les Aventures 'Arthur
Gordon
), and he ustreviewed them uperficiallyn the order f their ppearance.
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6/15
Justin
83
The
point s,
he
spent
lmost
all
of
his
long
review n the
irst
olume. Out
of
the
36
pages
devotedto
the
tories,
nly
11 lines are devoted to
thedark tories
in the second
volume
(two
lines for"The Black
Cat,"
seven for
"The Man of
the
Crowd"
and two for The
Fall of theHouse of
Usher")
Verne then nded
up
with a
chapter
on Les Aventures 'Arthur
Gordon
.
Coming
othe
mysteriousnding,
erne ees thenarratives
simply interrupted"
and wonders: Who shallever
pick
t
up?"
He was to write
novel-lengthequel
much
ater,
e
Sphinx
des
glaces, immediately
ranslated nto
English
as The
Sphinx f
the ce Fields.
It did
give
an
ending
o the
tory
f
Pym,
or
rather,
ut
ittoan end.The sphinxholds no secret. Once reached, tsaysall.12
JulesVerne was aware thathe
was
making
narrow election n Poe's works
(even
though
thad been
predetermined
y
Baudelaire).
Poe's
genius,
he
ust
did
not
grasp.
He is not
going,
he
says,
to
"explain
the
unexplainable"13
nd,
forhis
part,
e contents imself
with
sserting
hat oe "has created
genre
hat s all his
own."
Fumbling
or
definition,
e
comes
up
with
djectives
uch as
"strange,"
"odd,"
"curious" and
finally, oncluding
his
paraphrase
f "The Gold
Bug,"
he
sees
the ale as
supreme xemplification
f of what? of "the
iterary enre
nowdubbed thePoe genre"14 Verne aw in Poe a master.But,by singling ut,
almost
xclusively,
audelaire's first
olume,
he cordoned ff he
ighter
ide of
Poe's
imagination,
he one turned owards cientific
uriosities,
nd harnessed
it in
the service
of his
"Extraordinary oyages"
or
"Voyages
extraordinaires"
(as
his collection f novels came
to be
named).
He was thus
reating
ne of the
several strands f
popular
iteraturehat
Poe was to
inspire.
*
The second strandwas that f detective iction. Verne
had
published
his first
novels of adventure
when,
n
1866,
there
ppeared
the first etective
novel,
L'Affaire erougc
The Widow
Lerouge)
by
Emile Gaboriau. Others
followed.
They
are still
highly
readable. Like
Verne,
Emile Gaboriau was an
admirer
of Poe. Like
Verne,
he
extracted ne element
from
Poe,
cut it offfrom he
underlying tructuring nity,
nd
developed
it in
novel form. It is
striking
thatboth writers
were
taking
scion
from
Poe,
as it
were,
and
grafting
t on
the
longer
formof
the novel a form
far too
long
and
unwieldy
for
Poe to
shape
it to his
liking,
but a form n
which the
science-fictional
lement,
r the
adventure
lement,
r thedetective
lement,
nce
grafted,
ould flourishwithin
theaccepted rationalityf theday.
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84
Poe 's
Reception
in France
Conan Doyle,
as one tends o
forget,
as
inspired y
Poe and
Gaboriau,
whose
novels had
immediately
een
translatednto
English.
If
Doyle finally
tole the
show,
think
t
is
because,
after
ttempts
t the
novel,
he had returned o the
short
tory
orm, nd,
with
Sherlock
Holmes,
createda character
wing
much
to
Dupin,
ncluding
his oddities
nd his dark ide. The wide difference
etween
Doyle
and Poe remains
hat
Doyle exploited
a formulawhereas
Poe,
withthe
three
Dupin
tales,
started
something
n
a
new
key"
as
he
said15),
henwent o
far s to create a
cycle
but neverbecame
a
genre
writer.As far s
genre
was
concerned,
Poe "nevertroubled
o workout a
reef,
ut he
ust picked
a
nugget
or
two,
and thenturned
way
to
prospect
elsewhere."16
He
always
remained
rooted n a far-reachingesearch n fictionalomposition, iming t, ndrelying
on,
a
unity
hatwas hidden
deep
at thecenter.
Nearerthe
urface,
e
prospected
in all
directions,
triving
t maximum
variety.17
o wonder the
history
f the
reception
f
his
workmoves
into such
diverging
irections
*
Indeed,
no contrast ould be
morevivid than heone between he
popular
novel
we have
ust
left,
n the one
hand,
and the refinementsf
pure poetry,
reamy
symbolismnd morbid ecadence on theother. n 1864,theyear fJulesVerne's
article,
Stphane
Mallarm
was 22 and made a
major breakthrough
ith his
violently ersonal
poem,
"L'Azur."
Before,
he had
reveredBaudelaire's Fleurs
du Mal
and had written
ery
beautiful
nd
very
Baudelairean
poems.
He had
also been
reading
nd
rereading
oe
(partly,
o
doubt,
n Baudelaire's translations
which he
admired18);
e
had even made tentative
ranslations
f some of Poe's
poems.
With
"L'Azur,"
in
January
864,
he started
eing
true o his ideal of
conscious,
painstaking
omposition,
whichhe
had
found
in Poe.
Sending
the
poem
to his
closest
friend,
e
added this comment:
"More
and more shall
I
faithfully
dhere to
these severe
ideas bestowed
upon
me
by my great
master
Edgar
Poe."19 This was to ead him toa
personal
crisisfromwhichhe
emerged
the
great
and
all but
naccessible)
symbolist oet
we know.
Needless to
say,
the
astoundinggap
between Jules
Verne
and
Stphane
Mallarm
is
directly
proportional
o thebreadth
f Poe's
genius.
Symbolism
became
linked
with
yn
de sicle
decadence,
and
I am now
turning
to the French-decadence
lassic,
A Rebours
because
it
vividly
llustrates
he
movement
fromPoe to
Mallarm.
The
novel
by
Joris-Karl
Huysmans
was
published
n
1884
and is
known n translation
s
Against
the
Grain,
Against
Nature. It is a somber nd lusciousbook rank, ne could say. Itshero,Des
Esseintes,
s a clear
replica
of
Roderick Usher.
We are told
at the start hat
he
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Justin
85
is the sole surviving escendant"
f a
familyhavingpracticed n-breeding
or
two centuries.
And
so,
Duke JohnDes
Esseintes was
"a frail
young
man of
thirty,
naemic and
nervous,
withhollow
cheeks,
eyes
of a
cold,
steely
blue,
a
nose with
wide
wings
but
traight
till and
slender,
kinny
ands."20
He had
cultivated
olitude
from n
early age,
and,
afterhe had been
disappointed
by
social
life nd all but
drained f
his
vitality y
the
frantic
ursuit
f
pleasure,
an
overpowering
ense
of ennui
weighed
him
down,"
and
he
thought
of
finding
some
retreat ar
from is
fellows,
f
nestling
n a hermit's
ell,
of
deadening
..
the nexorable
urmoil
f life."21
So here s thisFrenchRoderickUsher"in a remote pot" n "theouter uburbs"
of Paris
67).
A fastidious
esthete,
e
wraps
himself n the rtificial
ight
f
art,
of all
the
arts,
nd
notably
iterature.
When,
n one of the
ast
chapters,
e
gets
around
o
sorting
ut his
private
ibrary,
ctually
shelving"
ll thebooks
he has
outgrown,
e
comes,
toward
he
nd of his
abors,
o "this
profound
nd
strange
Edgar
Poe."
At
first,
he
view of
Huysmans'
mouthpiece
s balanced
enough;
he relishes
Poe's
"penetrative,
eline
power
of
analysis" applied
to "the realm
of morbid
psychology"
215).
But,
after
aving
acknowledged
this
power
of
analysis
n
Poe,
seeing
him as a
"spiritual
urgeon"
n
a
"brain
clinic,"
he feels
the scales tipping o the side of neurosisand thegradualcollapse of thewill
underthe
pressure
f terror:
"there
were
days
when such
reading
exhausted
him,
days
when t eft
himwith
rembling
ands
and ears strained
nd
watchful,
feeling
himself
onquered,
ike
the amentable
Usher,
y
an irrational
rance,
y
dull
pangs
of dread"
216).
Exit Poe.
What has
escaped
Des Esseintes
s that
Poe,
as
writer,
tays
mmune
n the
wings,pulling
he
strings,
onstructing
he
fall
of the
house of
Usher,
or
coming
to the nvention
f the detective
tory,
r
developing
his
theory
f
iterary omposition.
There now
remains
n Des Esseintes'
hands
only
two
thinvolumes
put
together
by
himself:
one is a selectionof
poems
by
Mallarm in
which,
he
thinks,
literature
s condensed
nto "a sublimateof
art"
220);
the other
s a
selection
of
prose
poems ending
with
sundrypieces
by, again,
Mallarm
pieces
in
whichMallarm's
prose
structure
s indeed seductive
nd, think,
angerously,
though
alculatedly,
oose.
This is the final iterature:
When he had closed
his
anthology,
es Esseintes
told himself hathis
library, losing
on this ast
volume,
would
probably
grow
.. nevermore
221-22)."
Clearly,Huysmans
s
still
thinking
f Poe. He
goes
on: "Here
[in
Mallarm's
prose poems]
was to
be
found,
ushed
to ts final
xpression,
he
quintessence
f Baudelaire and Poe
... It was thedying pasmof the old tongue."22Now indeed,withMallarm,
the
ecstatic
downfall s in the
writing
tself.
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86
Poe
's
Reception
in France
The other nterest f thischapter f A Rebours s theeffectt had on Stphane
Mallarm's career. Mallarm was
forty-two y
then. He had
shaped
his
aesthetics
wenty ears
beforebut
had been
writing
n
relative
bscurity
ll that
time.
Huysmans'
nthusiastic ommentsmade himknown o a wider
pubUc.
He
now started
eceiving
is admirersn his smallParisian
dining-room
n
Thursday
nights
nd soon
completed
his
translations
f Poe's
poems,
started
when
he
was
eighteen. They
were
published
n Brussels n
1888 and
again
in
Paris
in
1889,
accompanied
with
undry
omments. The one relevant o
my
subject
bears on
"The
Philosophy
of
Composition."
What
Poe does
in
this
counterpart
o "The
Raven,"
Mallarm
says,
s to
apply
to
yricalpoetry
he ubtle rt f architectural
and musical structure.Lyricism nd structure.Mallarmuncovers thegreat
secrethere.
Does structural
omposition
work
gainst nspiration
as
Bretonwill
think,
ne
generation
ater)?
No,
says
Mallarm,
"chance must be banished
frommodern
productions;"23nspiration
nd structuralization ustworkhand
in
hand;
poetic composition
s like
putting
nto
place,
with a view
to a
single
effect,
ll
theelements f a
complex,predetermined uzzle
a creed which
ed
Mallarm to
poetic
summits oe could
only
have dreamedof. With
Mallarm,
even the
split
Poe
worked with ll his
life,
the one between
prose
and
poetry,
seems to have been healed.24
The
split
would show
up again
in a minor nstanceof Poe's
reception
before
the
ink
of Pomes
d'Edgar
Poe was
dry.
The
publication
of these Pomes
in
Brussels
had
been fostered
y
a Flemish
poet
who was a
great
admirer f
Mallarm in the ate 1880's and
by
whom Mallarm felthimselfunderstood:
Emile Verhaeren.As a matter f
course,
Verhaeren eviewed
he limvolume
wonderfully
while
evincing very nterestingplit
n his
reception
f Poe
in
the
ntroductoryaragraphs.25
t takes heform f
a
nave,
endearing
onfession.
MallarmtookPoe whole:
tales,
poems,
criticism.
o much
o,
Verhaereneads
us to
understand,
hathe and other
ymbolists,
hough hey hought
ittle f the
tales,
did not dare
say
so. But now that he
poems,
translated
y
Mallarm,
"reach as
high
as
any poetry"
Verhaeren
oes
on he can allow
himself o
say
it: "We believe that he
most
part
of the histoires
xtraordinaires
re not
worthmuch"
"As to the
poems"
well,
"they
eem
to come from
omebody
else. In
them,
othing
actual,
nothing
istorical,
r
anecdotal,
r
calculated,
or
ingenious,
or
accurate,
or
possible,
or
verisimilar.
No
dates,
no
known
place,
almost no
setting.
We are in a
far-out
ountry
f dreams and
chimeras,
hat
s,
inside
ourselves,
very
lose."26 One
sees how
an intense
eeling
for he
poems
here
goes together
ith
rejection
f most
of the ales.
Never were Poe's
poems
placed so high and so cut offfrom he restof hiswritings.
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10/15
Justin
87
Now,
with
Valry,
we are
going
to witness a
complete
reversal
again.
It can
be said,with some
simplification,
hatBaudelaire
specialized
in the
prose
of
Poe, Mallarm,
n his
poems,
and
Valry,
n his criticism. But
Baudelaire and
Mallarmhad
clearly
eceived hewhole of Poe's
oeuvre s thework f a
genius.
With
Valry, hings
were a littledifferent.
*
When Mallarm's translation f the
poems
came
out,
Valry
was
eighteen.
He was
reading
Baudelaire. Art and
poetry
were food to him "essential
nourishment,"e says,even "a supernaturalood."27He readA Rebours and
remained ttached o
Huysmans'
novel.28
From A
Rebours,
he moved on to
Mallarm and
dismissedBaudelaire. Then he started
eading
oe
and,
n 1
890,
wrote o
Mallarm,
and
again
in 1891
(he
was then
20),
expressing
his love of
pure poetry
nd his devotion
to Poe. Then he read
and reread
"The
Murders
in the Rue
Morgue,"
"The
Purloined
Letter,"
"The Domain of
Arnheim,"
and Eureka and found
himself
moving
n a new
direction,
trictly
ritical,
analytical.
He was
"possessed" by
Poe,
as he later
aid,
adding
that oe's action
on
himworked
perhaps
more
gainst
the ntention f
writing oetry
han n ts
favour."29 fterOctober
1892,Valry toppedwriting oetry;
he had become
himself,
heobserver f his own
mental
rocesses,
he
nalyst
f consciousness.
And
ust
as Verhaeren ould
not,
before
his
review
of
Les Pomes
d'Edgar
Poe,
confess to Mallarm thathe dismissed most of Poe's
tales,
in the same
way
Valry, avingdeveloped
an
intimacy
with he
ging
Mallarm,
ould neverdare
confess to the older
writer is doubts as to the value of the
poetic experience
and thefact hat hosedoubtshad been sown n him
by
his
reading
of Poe.
Poe
had made
Dupin say
that ne mustbe "mathematician
nd
poet,"
but
sceptical
Valry
ut the ink. And Mallarm died in
1898.
WithValry,we move intothe20th entury,nto the 1920's and 30's, already
represented
n this
paper by
Andr
Breton,
nd we
have seen how Breton all
but
pit
on
Valry
himself s
part
f the
iterary olice
force I am
now
coming
to thetwo ast
splits
wantto mention. The first
ne,
between
symbolism
nd
formalism,
as
already
been
broached.
We have seen
symbolism
aught
n the
hroes f
decadence.
Indeed,
Mallarm's
poems
and
prose poems
are a sublime
impasse.
Valry,
fervent
ymbolist
in his
youth,
eacted to the
fin
de sicle
feelingby
drawing
new
energy
from
intellectualnalysis. As he said of himself ttheturn f thecentury: I found
an almost animal
satisfactionn
the habitof
exercisingmy spirit:
because
the
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11/15
ss
Poe 's
Reception
in
France
mind s a kind ofbeast,with ts nstincts."30 uriously, rnot,the same kind
of break
was to be found n
Russia and was
accompanied,
again, by
a full
reversal n
Poe's
reception.
At the
end of the
19th
entury,
ecadent
ymbolism
flourished here
and
fed
on Poe.
Then formalism
prang
n
the wake of the
1917 revolution n
reaction
gainst
bourgeois symbolism
nd chose as one
of
its sources of
nspiration
..
Edgar
Allan Poe' Then
Roman Jakobson
was,
with
Paul
Valry,
he source
of French
tructuralism,
hich
flourishedn the
1960's
and 70's. That s
where come
from,
ut
come from arther ack
too: I never
lost
sight
of
my
Romantic
eanings.
Hence
my
ife-long tudy
f Poe. In
my
view,
Poe's
creativity
ies
precisely
t the
nterface etween
Romanticism nd
structuralism,nd more
generally
between
opposites
be it
morbidity
nd
energy,yricism
nd
detection,
nspiration
nd
control,
magination
nd
analysis.
Or
again,
drama
and
comedy,poetry
nd
prose,
creation nd
criticism,
opular
and
elitist
iterature.Or
again,
theend and
the
beginning
f
the
text,
r theend
and the
beginning
f
the cosmos:
this s
how,
n
Eureka,
he
came to
imagine,
the
big
crunch and
the
big bang.
Now,
the
Gothic is
sometimes
defined
precisely
along
these
lines: as a
type
of
literature
hriving
n an
unstable
borderland.But
Poe strikes
eyond
that.
Take one of the mostfamous "Gothic"tales,"Ligeia." The chamberbuiltand
decorated
by
thenarrator or
elf-hallucinationakes on a
clearly
metafictional
dimensionwhen
he
imagines
ts
effect n "one
entering
heroom"
one he soon
calls "the
visitor,"
s if the
chamberwas some
kindof installation.
Let us note
the esson in
reading
he
unconsciouslygives
us.
The
figures
n the
draperies
"partook
f
thetruenature f
the
rabesque
only
from
single
point
of view ...
but .. as thevisitor
moved his station n
the
hamber,
e saw
himself urrounded
by
an endless
succession of the
ghastly
ormswhich
belong
to the
superstition
of
the
Norman,
r arise n the
guilty
lumbers f the monk."31 n
other
words,
he
was then
aught
n the
midst f a Gothic world. But
the deal readerknows
better nd looks for
he one
point
of view fromwhich
Poe's world
partakes
f
the true
nature f the
arabesque,
that
s,
becomes
strictly
on-figurative.32
t
that
secret,
bstract
point,
Poe's art achieves the clear and forcible
bringing
together
f
opposites.
Ultimately,
oe named these
opposites
Attraction nd
Repulsion.
Theirmutual
fronts the
creative ine
n
his
work,
omething
ike the ensitiveboundaries
n
plate
tectonics.
There he stands. It is an
extreme,
erilous position,
difficult
to hold.
But it is the
single vantage-point
we,
readers of
Poe,
must
discover,
beyond the characters f the tales, beyond the action,beyondthe narration
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12/15
Justin
89
itself. AfterBaudelaire andMallarm,thesecretwas all but ost. Hence the
paradoxes
n the
history
f Poe's
reception.
*
I would ike to end on a final
iece
of
history
which find
ery
unny, ery
much
in
the ine of
my
argument
nd all to the
advantage
of Poe. It
has to do with
psychoanalysis
nd is
very
well known. In
1933,
Marie
Bonaparte,
who had
been a student f Freud
and was theco-founder f theSocit
Psychanalytique
de
Paris,
published
her
famous
study,
Poe
-
The Man and His
Works. All
through erbig book, Poe is thepatienton the couch "poor Eddy," as she
calls him
repeatedly.
His tales are to be read as direct
confessions of his
impotence
nd various neuroticdisorders. In
a
way,
Poe is then
upposed
to
be the
pre-surrealist
ndrBretonhad
hailed a few
years
before,
writing
nder
thedictation
f his unconscious.
Now,
the
funny
hing
s that
nly twenty-two
years
ater
not
ven one
generation),
oe was
propelled
rom he
patient's
ouch
to the
psychoanalyst's
rmchair
y Jacques
Lacan. WithLacan
and his famous
"Sminaire sur a
'Lettre
vole,"'
a seminaron
"The Purloined
Letter"
given
in
1955,
Poe
became the master
nalyst,
he
super-brain
ith
clear
working
conception f the Lacanian "letter" tself, precursor fgenius. I seem tobe
joking,
but thetruth
s,
Lacan's
seminar ffers
trail-blazing
eading
of
Poe's
tale. Ten
years
ater,
acan
placed
it at the
forefrontf his
collected
writings.
Marie
Bonaparte
s not
as
stupid
as Lacan
likes to make her
appear,
but the
point
s,
such
a
spectacular
eversal n
nterpretation,
uch a
swing
between wo
extreme ritical
positions,
ould
only
happen
to
Edgar
Allan Poe.
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13/15
90
Poe 's
Reception
in
France
Notes
1. Andr reton.
Manifestes
u
surralisme.
Paris:
Gallimard,Ides,"
1966),
39.
In this
ssay,
ll translationsremine
nless therwise oted.
2.
Breton,
1.
3. The firstditions dated
1939;
other ditions ollowed.
4.
Bretonwrites: "on
s'expliquerait
mal
que
cet amantdu Hasard n'et
pas
aim
compter
vec es hasards e
expression
(quoted y
ClaudeRichard
n
Poe
Contes-
Essais-PomesParis:Robert affont,
Bouquins,"
989],1414).
5. Preface o Tales
of
the
Grotesque
nd
Arabesque.
n
Edgar
Allan Poe.
Tales
and
Sketches.
d. . O. Mabbott.
Cambridge:
he
Belknap
ress fHarvard
niversity
Press,
978),
473.
6.
Letter o
Philip
. Cooke of
August
,
1846.
In The
Collected
etters
fEdgar
Allan
Poe.
Ed. JohnW.
Ostrom,
urton
.
Pollin,
Jeffrey
.
Savoye.
(New
York:
Gordian
Press,
008),
595-16.
He
was one of thefew
American riticswhose
opinion
oe
respected
see
Dwight
homas& D. K. Jackson.
ThePoe
Log.
[Boston:
G.
K.
Hall,
1987], Biographical otes," xi). Poe also seems o humor iscorrespondentn his
letters
o him.
7.
Some
he
may
have
found
weak,
thers
oo
topical
nddifficultor
is
public,
umor
being
ontext-based
nd
puns
difficulto translate.
8. Letter
o Sainte-Beuve
fMarch
6,
1856.
In
Charles
audelaire.
Correspondance.
(Paris:
Gallimard,
Bibliothque
e
la
Pliade,"
1973),
,
344.
9.
Letter
o Sainte-Beuve
f March
,
1857.
Baudelaire.
Correspondance,
80.
10.
Barbey
'Aurevilly.
ur
Edgar
Poe.
Ed. Marie-Christine
atta.
Bruxelles:
ditions
Complexe,
990),
48:
"
les
uvres
ortes."
11. Jules
Verne.
Edgar
Poe
et ses
uvres.
(La
Rochelle:
Rumeur
es
Ages,
1993).
Originally,
Edgard
Po et
es
uvres
[sic].
Muse des
Familles
April
1864):
193-
208.
12.Le
Sphinx
es
glaces
was
published
n 1897.
Its
firstranslation
as
by
Mrs.
Cashel
Hoey
n
1898.
The
full
nglish
itle
eems
ohave
ntarctic
ystery,
r
The
phinx
of
he
ce Fields
A
Sequel
to
Edgar
Allan
Poe's Narrative
f
Arthur ordon
.
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14/15
Justin
91
13.Verne, .
14.
Verne, , 8, 10, 19,20, 21;
"le
genre
ittraireitmaintenant
enre
o
38.
15.
Ostrom,
ollin nd
Savoye,
95.
16.SirArthuronan
Doyle.
The
Uncollectedherlock
olmes,Ed. Richard
. Green.
(New
York:
Penguin
ooks,
1983),
33.
17.
As he
put
t
n
the etter
lready uoted:
"Were ll
my
ales
now
beforeme
n
a
large
volume nd as
the
omposition
f
another themerit
which
would
principally
arrestmy ttention ould e thewide
diversity
nd
variety."
ettero
Philip
.Cooke
of
August
, 1846,
n
The
Collected etters
328-29. See
Kenneth .
Hovey.
"'These
Many
Pieces Are Yet
One Book': The
Book-Unity
f Poe's
Tale
Collections."Poe
Studies 1
(1998),
1-16.
18.
Stphane
Mallarm.
uvres
ompltes.
Paris:
Gallimard,
La
Pliade,"
1945),
223:
"
ds
V
nstant le
grand
audelaire
roduisit
es
Contes
noubliables
"
Let
us
note hat
Mallarm alls them
Contes
(Tales),
not
Histoires"
19. Letter to
Henri Cazalis of
January
(?)
1864. In
Stphane
Mallarm.
CorrespondanceLettres ur a posie. Ed. Bertrand archai. (Paris: Gallimard,
"Folio
classique,"
995),
161.
20.Joris-Karl
uysmans.
Rebours.
d. Pierre
Waldner.
Paris:GF-Flammarion,
978),
61.
My
translation,
ith he
help
f
Against
he
Grain
scanned
y
n
1997from
theDover
dition f
1969,
tself
republication.
ranslator
nnamed.
ntroduction
y
Havelock llis.
For "a nosewith
wide
wings"
he
riginal
eads:
"
au
nez
vent
"
but
"
vent as an
adjective
eferring
o
thenose
appears
n
no
dictionary.
interpret
his
"windy
ose" s
"wide-winged,"
sign
fDes
Esseintes'
ensuousness.urther
eferences
tothis
ranslationre
from his
dition nd
noted
arenthetically
n
the ext.
21.
Huysmans,
6.
My
translation
ith
he
help
of
Against
he
Grain
22.
Huysmans,
22-23.
My
translationith
he
help
of
Against
he
Grain
23.
Mallarm,
euvres
ompltes
230.
24. Note
that
Mallarm
tarted
ranslating
oe in
verse
hen
hanged
o
prose,
hus
helping
o
egitimate
isown
pomes
n
prose"
nd
posie
ritique."
See,
n
the
new
Pliade.
Oeuvres
ompltes.
Vol 2.
(Paris:
Bertrand
archai,
003),
the
Dossier
des
Pomes
d'Edgar
Poe',
with
Mallarm's
irst
ranslationsn
his
cahier
Glanes
(1860),789-820.)
This content downloaded from 150.134.245.19 on Wed, 21 Oct 2015 12:52:11 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp7/26/2019 The Paradoxes of Poe's Reception in France
15/15
92
Poe 's
Reception
in
France
25.EmileVerhaeren.LesPomes 'EdgarPo traduitsarStph.Mallarm [s/c]
(L'Art
moderne
August
,
1888),
252-53.
26.
Verhaeren,
52.
27. Paul
Valry.
uvres.
Paris:
Gallimard,
La
Pliade,"
1957),
,
1380.
28.
Letter
o Pierre
eyris
fNovember
9,
1890.
In Paul
Valry.
ettres
quelques-
uns.
Paris:
Gallimard,
L'Imaginaire,"
1952),
35:
"c'est mon
ivre."
29.
Letter
o Henri
Mondor
f
February
6,
1941,
231.
30.
Letter
o
Georges
uhamel
f
1929,
179.
The
paragraph
tarts: Je
me ivrai
depuis
1892,
des
penses
et
des
problmes
oujours lus
loigns
e la
posie,
etmme
e toute
ittrature
raticable
" Let us
note hat
he nstinctual
leasure
o
be
found
n the xercise
f
the
nalytic
aculties
s the
opic
fthe
irst
aragraph
f"The
Murders
n the
Rue
Morgue."
31.
Poe,
322.
32.
See
"The
Philosophy
f
Furniture,"98,
where
rigidly
rabesque"
means
trictly
non-figurative.