(1858-1915)
As in prose, Remy de Gourmont found his own form, so also in poetry,
influenced presumably by the medieval sequaires and particularly by
Goddeschalk's quoted in his (de Gourmont's) work on "Le Latin Mystique,"
he recreated the "litanies." It was one of the great gifts of
"symbolisme," of the doctrine that one should "suggest" not "present";
it is, in his hand, an effective indirectness. The procession of all
beautiful women moves before one in the "Litanies de la Rose"; and the
rhythm is incomparable. It is not a poem to lie on the page, it must
come to life in audition, or in the finer audition which one may have in
imagining sound. One must "hear" it, in one way or another, and out of
that intoxication comes beauty. One does no injustice to De Gourmont by
giving this poem alone. The "Litany of the Trees" is of equal or almost
equal beauty. The Sonnets in prose are different; they rise out of
natural speech, out of conversation. Paul Fort perhaps began or rebegan
the use of conversational speech in rhyming prose paragraphs, at times
charmingly.