Yet, in the case of Mallarmé and of a literary group, the idea of
decadence has been assimilated to its exact opposite--the idea of
innovation. Such judgments have made a particular impression upon
men of one generation because, doubtless, we ourselves were involved
and foolishly flouted by "right-minded" critics; they were, however,
merely the clumsy and decrepit modern version of those decrees with
which the mandarins of every age have sought to curse and to crush the
new serpents breaking their shell under the ironical eye of their old
mother. Diabolical intelligence laughs at exorcisms, and the University
has been no more able than the Church to disinfect it with its holy
water. In the past a man rose up--buckler of the faith--against
heresies and novelties. He was the Jesuit. To-day it is too often
the Professor who arises as champion of the rules. Here again we
have the antinomy which surprises us in Voltaire and the Voltairian
of yesterday. The same man, so courageous where justice or political
liberty is concerned, recoils the moment it is a matter of literary
novelty or liberty. When, reaching Tolstoy and Ibsen, he alludes to
their glory, he adds (in a note): "Are these reputations--especially
Ibsen's--firmly established? The question whether the author of
_Ghosts_ is a mystifier or a genius has not yet been settled."[2]
Such, confronted with the unknown--with the not yet seen or read--is
the attitude of a writer who, in the very volume here quoted, proves
that he possesses praiseworthy independence of judgment. I need not
add that, in his pages, the "decadents" are scouted on every occasion.
How, after this, can we be surprised at the dull raillery of lesser
minds? A new way of stating the eternal truths is always a scandal for
men--especially for men who are too well-educated. They feel a sort of
fright, and to recover their assurance they have recourse to denial,
to abuse, to derision. It is the natural attitude of the human animal
in the presence of physical danger. But how have we come to regard as
a peril every real innovation in art or in literature? Why, above all,
is this assimilation one of the maladies peculiar to our time--perhaps
the gravest of all, since it tends to restrict movement and to obstruct
life?
For years Delacroix and Puvis de Chavannes, so different in
their genius, were hooted and rejected by the juries. Under
evidently contradictory pretexts, a single explanation is
discovered--originality. The guardians of art feel themselves menaced
by a work which reveals almost no trace of previous methods--one
not visibly attached to something known and already understood. Each
of them reacts to the provocation according to his own peculiar
temperament. Formulae change, too, periodically. The eighteenth century
considered non-imitation a breach of taste, and that was a serious
matter at a time when Voltaire was erecting a temple, which was only a
templet, to this sprightly god. For ten years, and up to a few weeks
ago, artists and writers who refused to rifle the masters were branded
decadents or symbolists. This last insult prevailed in the end, being
verbally more obscure and consequently easier to handle; it contains,
moreover, precisely the same abhorrent notion of non-imitation.
It was said long ago, considerably before M. Tarde had developed his
theory of social philosophy, that "imitation rules the world of men, as
abstraction that of things." This law is very evident in the particular
domain of art and of literature. Literary history is, in sum, nothing
but the chart of a succession of intellectual epidemics. Some have
been brief. Fashion changes or continues in accordance with caprices
impossible to foresee and difficult to determine. Shakespeare had no
immediate influence. Honoré d'Urfé, during his life and after his
death, was, for half a century, the master and inspirer of all romantic
fiction. He would have reigned still longer, had it not been for _La
Princesse de Clèves_, the clandestine work of a _grande dame_. The
seventeenth century, part of whose literature was merely translation
and imitation, was not, however, averse to moderate and prudent
novelties. The reason is that, if it would have been discreditable not
to imitate the ancients--or, strange as it may seem, the Spaniards,
but only the Spaniards!--in their fables and phrases (Racine trembled
because he had written _Bajazet_), it was a mark of honour to be able
to give classic borrowings an air of freshness and novelty.
However, this literature itself very quickly became classic. There was
thus a second source of imitation; and, since it was more accessible
than the first, it soon came to be almost the sole spring sought by
successive generations to drink and pray and water their ink. Boileau
was deified before his death. As soon as he could read at all, Voltaire
read Boileau. The principle of imitation was thenceforth supreme in
French literature.
Leaving aside the exceptions--however memorable--this principle
has remained very powerful and so well understood, with the spread
of education, that a critic has only to invoke it, for a shamefaced
reader to cast aside a new work which he has found refreshing. Thus the
newspaper critics have kept Ibsen from being acclimatized in France.
Thus, too, verse plays, imitative works par excellence, succeed even
on the boulevards! These theatrical events, always much magnified by
advertising, furnish excellent illustrations for a theory.
The idea of imitation has, then, become the very soul of art and of
literature. It is no more possible to-day to conceive of a novel which
is not a counterpart or sequel of a preceding novel, than it is to
conceive of rhymeless verse, or verses whose syllables have not been
scrupulously scanned. When such innovations nevertheless occurred,
altering suddenly the accustomed aspect of the literary landscape,
there was a flutter among the experts. To conceal their embarrassment,
they began to laugh (third method). Then they uttered judgments.
Since these productions in verse or in prose are not imitated after
the latest models, or the works praised by the handbooks, they must
necessarily spring from an abnormal source, since it is not familiar
to us--but which? There were attempts at explanation by means of
Pre-Raphaelitism, but they were not decisive; they were even a little
ridiculous, so profound and invulnerable was the ignorance on every
hand. But about this time appeared a book which suddenly enlightened
all minds. A parallel imposed itself inexorably between the new poets
and the obscure versifiers of the Roman decadence, praised by des
Esseintes. The movement was unanimous, and the very ones thus decried
accepted this opprobrious epithet as a distinction. Once the principle
was admitted, there was no lack of comparisons. Since no one--not even
des Esseintes himself, perhaps--had read the depreciated poets, it was
no trick at all for any critic to compare Sidonius Apollinaris, of whom
we knew nothing, with Stéphane Mallarmé, whom he did not understand.
Neither Sidonius Apollinaris nor Mallarmé is a decadent, since both
possess, in different degrees, their own originality; but for that very
reason the word was justly applied to the poet of _L'Après-midi d'un
Faune_, for it signified obscurely, in the minds of the very persons
who employed it, something little known, difficult, rare, precious,
unexpected, new.
If, on the contrary, it were desired to restore to the idea of literary
decadence its real and really cruel meaning, it is not, we suspect,
Mallarmé or Laforgue, or any symbolist still writing, who should be
named to-day. The decadent of Latin literature is neither Ammianus
Marcellinus, nor Saint Augustine, each of whom fashioned a language
in his own manner, nor is it Saint Ambrose, who created the hymn, nor
Prudentius, who developed a literary genre, the lyrical biography.[3]
We are beginning to have a greater indulgence for Latin literature of
the second period. Tired, perhaps, of ridiculing it without reading
it, we have begun to glance at it a little. Before long, this simple
notion will be admitted, that there is no inherent distinction between
good Latin and bad Latin; that languages live and that their changes
are not necessarily corruptions; that a man could have genius in the
sixth century as well as in the second, in the eleventh as well as
in the eighteenth; that classic prejudices constitute an obstacle
to the development of literary history and to integral knowledge of
the language itself. Had they been better understood, the poets in
the library at Fontenay would not have served to christen a literary
movement, unless the intention had been to compare idealistic with
Christian innovators--a difficult and rather ridiculous undertaking.