the paradoxes of poe's reception in france

7/26/2019 The Paradoxes of Poe's Reception in France

1/15

Penn State University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Edgar Allan Poe

Review.

http://www.jstor.org

enn State University ress

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

Accessed: 21-10-2015 12:52 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of contentin a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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/http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=psuphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/41506391http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/41506391http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=psuphttp://www.jstor.org/


2/15

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

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/15

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



4/15

Justin

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



5/15

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.



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.



7/15

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



8/15

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.



9/15

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.



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



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



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.



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

.



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

Google

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.)



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.

the paradoxes of poe's reception in france

Documents