I have wished here merely to attempt the historical (or anecdotal)
analysis of an idea, and to indicate, by means of a somewhat elaborate
example, how a word comes to have only the meaning which it is our
interest to give it. Hence I do not believe it necessary to establish
minutely the ground of Stéphane Mallarmé's claims to either hatred or
ridicule.
Hatred is queen in the hierarchy of literary sentiments. Literature is,
perhaps, with religion, the abstract passion which excites men most
violently. True, we have not yet seen literary wars resembling the
religious wars of--let us say--the past; but that is because literature
has never yet descended suddenly to the people's level. By the time
it reaches them, it has lost its explosive force. It is far from
the first night of _Hernani_ to the sale of the play in illustrated
editions. However, it is not hard to imagine a mobilization of German
sentimentality against English humour or French irony. It is because
peoples do not know each other that they hate each other so little. An
alliance marked by close fraternization always ends in cannon shot.
The hatred which pursued Mallarmé was never very bitter, for men hate
seriously, even in matters of literature, only when material interests
come to envenom a little the strife for the ideal; but he offered
no surface for envy, and he bore injustice and abuse as necessities
inherent in the very nature of genius. It was only, then, the pure
and unalloyed superiority of his intelligence that was derided, on
the pretext that he was obscure. Artists, even when depreciated by
instinctive cabals, receive orders, earn money. Poets have the resource
of long articles in the reviews and in the newspapers. Certain of them,
like Théophile Gautier, earned their living in this way. Baudelaire
succeeded ill at it, Mallarmé worse still. It was, then, in his case,
against the poet stripped of every social ornament that the sarcasm was
directed.
There is, by accident, at the Louvre, in a ridiculous collection,
a marvel, an Andromeda, carved in ivory by Cellini. It is a
terror-stricken woman, all her flesh aquiver with fright at being
bound. Where can she flee? It is also Mallarmé's poetry. The emblem
is the more appropriate that, like the sculptor, the poet wrought
nothing but cups, vases, caskets, statuettes. He is not colossal, he
is perfect. His poetry does not present a great human treasure spread
forth before the dazzled crowd. It does not express common, strong
ideas, which easily galvanize popular attention dulled by toil. It
is personal, shrinking like those flowers that fear the sun. It has
no scent save at evening. It yields its thought only to the intimacy
of another thought, trusty and sincere. Its excessive modesty, it is
true, draws about itself too many veils; but there is much delicacy
in this eagerness to flee the eyes and hands of popular appreciation.
Flee, where could it flee? Mallarmé sought refuge in obscurity as in
a cloister. He interposed the wall of a cell between himself and the
understanding of others. He wished to live alone in his pride. But that
was the Mallarmé of the last years, when, hurt, but not disheartened,
he felt himself seized with the same disgust for vain phrases which had
also, in the past, stricken Jean Racine--the years when he created a
new syntax for his own use, when he used words according to a system
of new and secret relations. Stéphane Mallarmé wrote relatively much,
and the greater part of his work is stained by no obscurity; but,
if later and towards the last, beginning with the _Prose pour des
Esseintes_, there are doubtful phrases or irritating verses, it is only
an inattentive and vulgar mind that dreads to undertake the delicious
conquest.
There are too few obscure writers in French. So we accustom ourselves
like cowards to love only writing that is easy and that will soon
be elementary. Yet it is rare that books blindly clear are worth
rereading. It is clearness that constitutes the prestige of classic
literature and it is clearness that makes them so clearly tiresome.
Clear minds are commonly those that see but one thing at a time. When
the brain is rich in sensations and in ideas, there is a constant eddy,
and the smooth surface is troubled at the moment of spouting. Let us,
like M. Doudan, prefer marshes swarming with life, to a glass of clear
water. One is thirsty at times, to be sure. Well, then, one filters.
Literature which gives immediate pleasure to all men is necessarily of
no value. It must first, falling from on high, leap in cascades from
ledge to ledge, in order to flow at last through the valley, within
reach of all men and of all stocks.
If, then, one undertook a definitive study of Stéphane Mallarmé,
the question of obscurity would have to be treated exclusively from
the psychological standpoint, for the reason that there is never
absolute, literal obscurity in an honestly written work. A sensible
interpretation is always possible. It will, perhaps, vary according
to the evening hour, like the play of cloud-shadows on the velvet
lawn; but the truth, here and everywhere, will be what our passing
sentiment shall make it. Mallarmé's work is the most marvellous pretext
for reveries yet offered men weary of so many heavy and useless
affirmations. It may well be that a poetry full of doubts, of shifting
shades, and of ambiguous perfumes, can alone please us henceforward;
and, if the word decadence really summed up all these autumnal,
twilight charms, we might welcome it, even making it one of the keys of
the viol; but it is dead; the master is dead, the penultimate is dead.
1898.
[1] It must be remembered that the Abbé Delille is not at all, as is
commonly believed, a poet of the Empire. Almost all his poems and his
glory date from the _Ancien Régime_.
[2] P. Stapfer, _Des Réputations littéraires_, Paris, 1891.
[3] A genre which has degenerated into the complaint. But the complaint
has had its great period. The oldest poem in the French language is a
complaint and inspired, precisely, by one of the poems of Prudentius.