It is to be regretted that he has dismissed the subject of periphrasis
in a few lines. We expected an analysis of this curious tendency to
replace by a description the word which is the sign of the thing in
question. This malady, which is very ancient, since enigmas have been
found on Babylonian cylinders (that of the wind very nearly in the
terms employed by our children), is perhaps the very origin of all
poetry. If the secret of being a bore consists of saying everything,
the secret of pleasing lies in saying just enough to be, not understood
even, but divined. Periphrasis, as handled by the didactic poets, is
perhaps ridiculous only because of the lack of poetic power which it
indicates; for there are many agreeable ways of not naming what it is
desired to suggest. The true poet, master of his speech, employs only
periphrases at once so new and so clear in their shadowy half-light,
that any slightly sensual intelligence prefers them to the too absolute
word. He wishes neither to describe, to pique the curiosity, nor to
show off his learning; but, whatever he does, he employs periphrases,
and it is by no means certain that all those he creates will remain
fresh long. The periphrasis is a metaphor, and thus has the same
life-span as a metaphor. It is far indeed from the vague and purely
musical periphrases of Verlaine:
_Parfois aussi le dard d'un insecte jaloux_
_Inquiétait le col des belles sous les branches,_
to the mythological enigmas of a Lebrun, who calls the silkworm
"_L'amant des feuilles de Thisbé_."
Here M. Albalat appropriately quotes Buffon to the effect that nothing
does more to degrade a writer than the pains he takes to "express
common or ordinary things in an eccentric or pompous manner. We
pity him for having spent so much time making new combinations of
syllables only to say what is said by everybody." Delille won fame by
his fondness for the didactic periphrasis, but I think he has been
misjudged. It is not fear of the right word that makes him describe
what he should have named, but rather his rigid system of poetics, and
his mediocre talent. He lacks precision because he lacks power, and he
is very bad only when he is not precise. But whether as a result of
method or emasculation, we are indebted to him for some amusing enigmas:
_Ces monstres qui de loin semblent un vaste écueil_.
_L'animal recouvert de son épaisse croûte,_
_Celui dont la coquille est arrondie en voûte._
_L'équivoque habitant de la terre et des ondes._
_Et cet oiseau parleur que sa triste beauté_
_Ne dédommage pas de sa stérilité._
It should not, however, be thought that the _Homme des Champs_, from
which these charades are taken, is a poem entirely to be despised.
The Abbé Delille had his merits and, once our ears, deprived of the
pleasures of rhythm and of number, have become exhausted by the new
versification, we may recover a certain charm in full and sonorous
verses which are by no means tiresome, and in landscapes which, while
somewhat severe, are broad and full of air.
... _Soit qu'une fraîche aurore_
_Donne la vie aux fleurs qui s'empressent d'éclore,_
_Soit que l'astre du monde, en achevant son tour,_
_Jette languissamment les restes d'un beau jour._