I haven\u2019t had much time for reading lately. Poems and stories I\u2019ve read in the past pop into my head a lot though. Mallarm\u00e9\u2019s \u2018Brise marine\u2019 is one of those. I find most of his work incomprehensible but that\u2019s a poem I enjoyed as a boy and still do now. It\u2019s obviously very much under the influence of Baudelaire\u2019s dream voyages but gives a completely different sensation to them and I thought I\u2019d try to say something about the difference.<\/p>\n
One of its obvious beauties is how perfectly formed it is, line by line, so that much of it reads like a series of haunting aphorisms:<\/p>\n
La chair est triste, h\u00e9las! et j\u2019ai lu tous les livres.
\nFuir\u00a0! l\u00e0-bas fuir! Je sens que des oiseaux sont ivres
\nD\u2019\u00eatre parmi l\u2019\u00e9cume inconnue et les cieux\u00a0!
\nRien, ni les vieux jardins refl\u00e9t\u00e9s par les yeux
\nNe retiendra ce coeur qui dans la mer se trempe
\n\u00d4 nuits\u00a0! ni la clart\u00e9 d\u00e9serte de ma lampe
\nSur le vide papier que la blancheur d\u00e9fend
\nEt ni la jeune femme allaitant son enfant.
\nJe partirai! Steamer balan\u00e7ant ta m\u00e2ture,
\nL\u00e8ve l\u2019ancre pour une exotique nature\u00a0!<\/p>\n
Un Ennui, d\u00e9sol\u00e9 par les cruels espoirs,
\nCroit encore \u00e0 l\u2019adieu supr\u00eame des mouchoirs\u00a0!
\nEt, peut-\u00eatre, les m\u00e2ts, invitant les orages,
\nSont-ils de ceux qu\u2019un vent penche sur les naufrages
\nPerdus, sans m\u00e2ts, sans m\u00e2ts, ni fertiles \u00eelots \u2026
\nMais, \u00f4 mon coeur, entends le chant des matelots\u00a0!<\/p>\n
Simply murmuring the words aloud gives me an intense, almost sensuous pleasure in the formation of their sounds, both on a phonetic level and in the cadence of the phrases (though of course different readers do pitch these phrases differently). Moreover, though the broad Baudelairean influence is obvious, what\u2019s striking is how original<\/em> line after line, image after image, statement after statement is in the way it encapsulates the ideas and sensations it expresses. \u00a0This is what gives them such imaginative bite. With what stunning sweep \u2018La chair est triste, h\u00e9las! et j\u2019ai lu tous les livres\u2019 brings together physical and intellectual malaise to suggest a comprehensive jadedness with what the speaker\u2019s actual life offers. The very hyperbole of \u2018tous<\/em> les livres\u2019 suggests an exacerbating state of nervous exhaustion. Almost every statement seems to me to realise its idea with almost equal precision and penetrating power. What\u2019s really striking, though, is that although the power of these lines depends on the way they suggest ideas through concrete images, these images are so generalised as to hover on the edge of abstraction. Nothing makes us imagine the steamer, the anchor, the alien clime, the waving handkerchiefs, the storm, the fertile islands with any particularity. This is a strength of a very different kind to what we find in Baudelaire\u2019s poems of southern and eastern voyaging. In them there\u2019s a sensual, almost carnal physicality to the imagery, as when, smelling his mistress\u2019s hair, he imagines<\/p>\n Un port retentissant o\u00f9 mon \u00e2me peut boire Sense slides into sense in a way that blurs together dazzlingly visual, tactile and kinaesthetic impressions. The very sound of the words seems to be impregnated with the sensations they describe. Some such impressions are difficult to explain. I\u2019m not sure I know why \u2018glissant\u2019, coming between \u2018vaisseaux\u2019 and \u2018dans l\u2019or et dans la moire\u2019 embodies an impression of sliding so vividly, though I think it has something to do with the way the fractional blockage of the hard \/g\/ emphasises the rapid gliding of the clear \/l\/ that follows it, and the way the sound of \u2018slip\u2019 (in English) seems so apt to what it describes. However, the mimetic effect in \u2018retentissant\u2019 is obvious in the double echo of the \/t\/ and \u2018en\u2019 \u2018ant\u2019 sounds. I think the sound and movement of \u2018Ouvrent leurs vastes bras pour embrasser la gloire\u2019 are equally expressive but what really interests me here is how the echo of \u2018bras\u2019 in \u2018embrasser\u2019 drives home the idea that the ships\u2019 sails open like arms to embrace the light. So the physical evocativeness works on several levels at once: fused with the image of ships unfurling their sails is one of people joyfully spreading their arms. More elusively, it seems to me that the very sound and movement of the line give a sense of space<\/em>, and that space is filled with heat and light (\u2018un ciel pur o\u00f9 fr\u00e9mit l’\u00e9ternelle chaleur\u2019).<\/p>\n So there\u2019s an immediate contrast between the sensuality of Baudelaire\u2019s imagination and the way the images by means of which Mallarm\u00e9 embodies ideas are themselves almost as dis<\/em>embodied as images can be. There are advantages to each approach, though I personally find the Baudelairean one the more profoundly engaging.<\/p>\n The physicality of Baudelaire\u2019s imagination relates to another of his great gifts. This is his empathy. Often, of course, the intensity with which the external world impinges on his imagination produces horror, disgust or irritation. At other times it sweeps him outside himself, as in the image at the end of \u2018Il est amer et doux\u2019. In that poem the very metaphor by which he expresses his own despairing sense of creative paralysis produces a stunning evocation of a far more absolute, physical and final failure of power:<\/p>\n Moi, mon \u00e2me est f\u00eal\u00e9e, et lorsqu’en ses ennuis Semble le r\u00e2le \u00e9pais d’un bless\u00e9 qu’on oublie <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I haven\u2019t had much time for reading lately. Poems and stories I\u2019ve read in the past pop into my head a lot though. Mallarm\u00e9\u2019s \u2018Brise marine\u2019 is one of those. I find most of his work incomprehensible but that\u2019s a poem I enjoyed as a boy and still do now. It\u2019s obviously very much under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,212],"tags":[214,213],"class_list":["post-2946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charles-baudelaire","category-mallarme","tag-charles-baudelaire","tag-stephane-mallarme"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2946"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2947,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2946\/revisions\/2947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u00c0 grands flots le parfum, le son et la couleur
\nO\u00f9 les vaisseaux, glissant dans l’or et dans la moire
\nOuvrent leurs vastes bras pour embrasser la gloire
\nD’un ciel pur o\u00f9 fr\u00e9mit l’\u00e9ternelle chaleur.<\/p>\n
\nElle veut de ses chants peupler l’air froid des nuits,
\nII arrive souvent que sa voix affaiblie<\/p>\n
\nAu bord d’un lac de sang, sous un grand tas de morts
\nEt qui meurt, sans bouger, dans d’immenses efforts.<\/p>\n