Poetics and Poetry: Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Poe, and Mallarms Eternal Logic

eric touya de marenne

In the second part of the nineteenth century, music led language to an impasse that reached its paroxysm when it put an end to the exclusive reign of clarity in literature (Austin 22). The romantic period had brought forth the notion that every art had musical principles, that each aspired to the condition of music. In the age of symbolism however, this alleged pre-eminence persisted to the point where it contested the dominion of letters. Wagners work in particular challenged literature and the hegemony of the poet.1 Conveying the totality of human experience, according to the composer, musics sublime discourse escaped from the grasp of the logos. But Mallarm responded to the defiance of the composer, making of music, as Yves Bonnefoy pointed out, the task and the responsibility of the poet (8). The tone of the conclusion of his essay on Wagner, published in 1885, was quasi solemn. In it, the poet marked his distance from the musician who had asserted the limits of poetry: Voil pourquoi, Gnie, moi, lhumble quune logique ternelle asservit, Wagner, je souffre et me reproche [. . .] de ne pas faire nombre avec ceux qui [. . .] vont ldifice de ton Art, pour eux le terme du chemin (546). Adhering to an eternal logic, he would not follow the cortege of Wagnerians who saw in the musicians uvre the ultimate accomplishment of artistic expression. The aim of this essay is to explore the source of Mallarms opposition. What was he referring to when he spoke of an eternal logic? How did the ultimate course he envisioned for his art differ from the musicians terme du chemin? Nine years after his essay on Wagner, in a conference entitled La Musique et les Lettres, the poet reasserted his position when he alleged the intelligibility, and hence the superiority, of his art: La Musique et les lettres sont la face alternative ici largie vers lobscur; scintillante l, avec certitude, dun phnomne, le seul, je lappelai lIde (649). Twenty years before however, Mallarm had experienced with the loss of the self (Je suis parfaitement mort 1: 207, 240) a

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memorable crisis that would later greatly influence his conception of poetry: La littrature ici subit une exquise crise, fondamentale, he acknowledged in Crise de vers (360). How should we, in light of this change, interpret the new path he foresaw for literature and poetry? It is our contention that, in order to answer this question, we need to examine the work and criticism of three authors (Baudelaire, Nietzsche and Poe) in the context of the poets musical experience, and by way of a return to a pre-structuralist (and poststructuralist) view of Mallarm. Much has been written in the second part of the twentieth century about the fundamental change that occurred in literature through Mallarm. Emphasizing on the precedence of language over the author, the structuralists undertook a systematic and internal approach of his poetry. Underlining its fundamental hermetic nature, the poststructuralist critics envisioned his work later beyond meaning, via the relative convergence of signs that negated any possible exegesis (Kristeva 14). This new reading that highlighted gaps between signifier and signified illustrated also the texts autonomy (Blanchot 48), the demystification of logo-centric thinking, and the continual displacement of language and subjectivity (Derrida 241). Most of the French critical thinkers since the 1960s in this respect, including Barthes and Foucault, single out Mallarm as a pioneer who brought about a quantum leap in literature; and some of their arguments derive from the poet. By putting an end to any order of transcendence, they claim, his work announced the end of the Book and the beginning of writing. Not surprisingly, references to Mallarms recognition of the crisis of literature have abounded in contemporary literary criticism and theory. His ideas influenced twentieth century thinkers and one could argue that his impact is greater today than it was at the time of his death. In spite of their important achievements however, the structuralists and poststructuralists rarely based their interpretation on how Mallarm himself perceived the implications of these changes. Beyond the realm of meaning and intention, they examined his text not as a function of its author but of a system, and, through the lenses of a scholars scientific objectivity, they neglected, in opposition with the exegete, the uniqueness of his work, with the exception of Blanchots ontological investigation. Rejecting totalizing concepts and traditional aesthetic assumptions, they uncovered through the poets uvre a fragmented reality beyond which nothing existed. In contrast with the latter viewpoint however, one could argue that the source of poetry, according to Mallarm, was not based on a linguistic, structural or post-structural model. His definition of poetry given in a June 27, 1884 letter to Lo dOrfer (La Posie est lexpression, par le langage humain ramen son rythme essentiel, du sens mystrieux de lexistence: elle doue ainsi dauthenticit notre sjour et constitue la seule tche spirituelle 2: 266), con-

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firmed this assertion. Written a year before the essay on Wagner in which Mallarm would reflect on the pompes souveraines de la Posie (541), the poets elucidation of his art alluded to the mystery of human existence. In Richard Wagner, Rverie dun pote franais he would also situate his argument from an anthropological perspective: LHomme, puis son authentique sjour terrestre, changent une rciprocit de preuves. Ainsi le Mystre (545). Away from the old theater (le thtre caduc), the poet envisaged through his art what he saw as the drama of humanity, and, beyond the real, he contemplated by way of le Monstre-Qui-ne-peut-tre! the spectacle of the fragment du seul drame faire [. . .] celui de lHomme et de lIde (Correspondence, 11: 35). Through his vision of poetry, Mallarm justified not only his opposition to Wagner, but also to his musical achievement in which, he argued: Tout se retrempe au ruisseau primitif: pas jusqu la source. At the antipode of the musician, the French poet saw the source as presence (la Figure que Nul nest), which he envisaged, beyond space and time, through la Fable, vierge de tout, lieu, temps et personne sus [. . .] emprunte au sens latent en le concours de tous [. . .] (544). The theories formulated by his twentieth century literary critics often failed to acknowledge, in this respect, Mallarms poetic and humanistic vision (lHomme is at the center of his Rverie), and hence the new path he envisaged for poetry. Regarding this shortcoming, Avital Ronell underlined, in a recent study, the depletion of poetic funds in our treasury of academic values, [arguing that] the theory-minded academics have rigorously repudiated or forgotten poetry. 2 This scapegoating of poetry in literary criticism, she contended, that has long-term repercussions, reflect[ed] a technicization, not to say impoverishment of critical language (17). In the framework of our postmodern age, in which criticism has found its limits (nothing is above suspicion and nothing is beyond belief Cascardi 12), Ronells argument highlights the extent to which the question of poetry needs to be revisited. Taking into account these issues that are or should be at the heart of contemporary debates in literary theory (i.e., the recognition of the limits of interpretation and yet in several instances, the systematic dismissal of the authors intention or purpose), Ronell invites us indirectly to reexamine the eternal logic Mallarm envisaged for poetry, in light, as Wagner put it, of the emergence of music as a supreme art form.3 An assessment of the challenge the latter and German philosophy (Schopenhauer and the early Nietzsche) presented will allow us to explore in its historical context the significance of the poets conclusion. Through the presumed supremacy of his art, the composer envisioned the necessary demise of poetry and its only possible recovery in music and philosophy.4 Beyond the impasse he recognized for letters however (and in contrast with many tenets of twentieth century criticism), Mallarm still aimed at achieving a form of absolute transcendence

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through his art. His affirmation, at the end of his essay on the musician (moi, lhumble quune logique ternelle asservit), gave support to this hypothesis. What is remarkable here and makes his poetic experience unique, is that, after the demise of God (ce vieux et mchant plumage) and after encountering death and experiencing the loss of the subject, the dialectical dimension of his poetics (absence/presence, void/beauty, real/ideal) remained, along with his intuition that the universe may be knowable as lexplication orphique de la Terre. Here, Baudelaire played a significant role when he argued that la Posie na dautre but quElle-mme, and also Edgar Poe from whom Mallarm would learn that nul vestige dune philosophie [. . .] ne transparatra in poetry (872). Thus, bounded to an eternal logic and in search of a higher form of transcendence, Mallarm argued, faced with Wagners ideas, that poetry, more than the sounds of the orchestra, expressed the totality of human experience. Wagners work challenged his art, yet Mallarm had previously given testimony twenty years earlier to his vision of the crisis of literature, and this recognition had led to a new path, an attempt to envisage in a new way the beyond. Music therefore comprised both a stalemate and a resolution, and it is particularly revealing, taking into account the modernity of his experience, that, in strikingly different terms than the composer, Mallarm referred to a Classical elucidation of this rival art: Employez ce mot [Musique] dans le sens grec, au fond significant Ide, ou, rythme entre les rapports.5 It is in light of these differences that Mallarm did not wish to be among the pilgrims who went to the edifice of Wagners art, for them the supreme artistic and existential achievement (le terme du chemin). He could not have expressed his respect (Voil pourquoi, Gnie [. . .]) but also his opposition (Je souffre et me reproche [. . .] de ne pas faire nombre avec ceux qui [. . .] vont droit ldifice de ton Art [. . .]) in more explicit terms. Taking the defense of poetry, he upheld the belief that literature, the logos (hence the poets logic), conformed to the principles of a higher order than music itself. In this context, poetry was no longer subservient to a celestial harmony, but, in face of the void, it divulged a form of absolute beauty that proceeded from an eternal logic. From such an abstract perspective, Mallarm could not have embraced the composers mythical and legendary aspects of his work. Beyond nothingness, the foundation and raison dtre of poetry implied an ideal dream of beauty (Aprs avoir trouv le Nant, jai trouv le Beau 1: 220) that Wagners music simply did not fulfill. Yet, as he was about to compose his rverie, the poet could read in the May 8, 1885 issue of La Revue wagnrienne, the composers argument according to which la grandeur du pote se mesure surtout par ce quil sabstient de dire [car] cest le musicien qui fait entendre clairement ce qui nest pas dit, et la forme infaillible de son silence retentissant est la mlodie infinie (Dujardin

Eric Touya de Marenne

68). What Mallarm recognized is that through this revolutionary evaluation of music that differed from his own, the future and the legitimacy of poetry were at stake.6 In this context, the reflections of Baudelaire, Nietzsche and Poe on the subject will help us elucidate Mallarms rich and complex thought on music and poetry, what caused him to dissociate himself from the musician, and, in light of his opposition, how he re-conceived the tenets of his art. In a debate that is still relevant today, the five protagonists addressed, at a relative distance from one another, the origin and meaning of the work of art that the concepts of infinite melody and eternal logic put in question.7 Wagners theoretical work constituted a significant challenge. The musician claimed that his art, more than any others, divulged the totality of human experience (or, as Schopenhauer attested, the inner essence of the world). Going beyond the diversity of languages, he argued in his Lettre sur la musique, that music was universally intelligible to all mankind, and that it was a sovereign medium whose power of expression could not be equaled. This supremacy hypothesized the poets acquiescence, for only music, Wagner believed, could achieve the opus metaphysicum to which all artists aspired. Thus, Mallarm remained attentive to the German composers assertions, and this interest found its origin in Baudelaire who, twenty-five years earlier, had discovered with Wagner a new form of transcendence.8 Based on his listening experience, Baudelaire could measure the sublime and powerful expression of music. In spite of the initial and lasting hostility that Wagner had faced in and outside the French concert halls, he identified in Richard Wagner et Tannhuser Paris, written in 1861, the parallels between his work and the musicians. Yet, his overall interpretation would also prepare the grounds for Mallarms opposition to Wagner9 and question avant la lettre the notion of a direct influence of music on French letters through the so-called impact of Schopenhauer on the symbolists.10 The French poets logic and conception of music diverged in fact greatly from the German composers. From this angle, several parallels can be made between Mallarms reception of Wagner, and his predecessors. After his first listening experience, Baudelaire initially acknowledged an impasse: Ce que jai prouv est indescriptible [. . .] (2: 1453). The sublime character of his music presented something new (quelque chose de nouveau) that he could not fully comprehend nor put into words: Jai reconnu limpossibilit de tout dire (2: 1453). Yet, as captivated as he had been when he expressed his reconnaissance: Cette musique tait la mienne (2: 1452), Baudelaire also underlined the distance that separated him from the musician. Beyond the initial obstacle, he reformulated in poetic and literary terms the meaning of Wagners uvre, uncovering in it a lacuna that only the poetic imagination, he felt, could complete. Thus, poetry and literature like music, he contended, could pretend to the universal, all forms of beauty (including music) possessing an

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absolute and a relative dimension: Toutes les beauts contiennent quelque chose dternel et quelque chose de transitoire (2: 493). Wagner was modern, in this context, because of lintensit nerveuse [de la musique], la violence dans la passion et dans la volont [. . .] lnergie passionne de son expression (2: 806). But he was also close to Antiquity par le choix de ses sujets et sa mthode dramatique (2: 806). In his Rverie dun pote franais, Mallarm would thus prolong in 1885 the reflections of his predecessor. Wagners passion and intensity conveyed the ephemeral, the fugitive and the contingent, the half of art of which the other half was the eternal and the immutable. During the same period, the poet affirmed in Le Peintre de la vie moderne that la modernit, cest le transitoire, le fugitif, le contingent, la moiti de lart dont lautre moiti est limmuable (2: 695). Thus, the modernity of Wagners music opened the imagination of the listener to a subjective realm of experience until then ignored, to a new epiphany of the beyond that Baudelaire wished to define (as Mallarm would, even though in a distinct manner and with different implications) within the scope of his poetic principles. From sense to knowledge, volupt to connaissance, he uncovered through music a method of composition and a structure of which the mathematical and architectural laws he subordinated to his consciousness: Les notes musicales deviennent des nombres si votre esprit est dou de quelque aptitude mathmatique (1: 419). Via such a transposition, he concluded that Wagners music was formally determined, that sounds suggested color that in turn gave the idea of a melody, all things having always been expressed through a reciprocal analogy, ever since God uttered the world in a complex and indivisible totality (2: 784). Through his testimony that sought to demonstrate the primacy of imagination and of the poetic mind, Baudelaire foretold Mallarm in his writing on Wagner even though his logic, according to which all art forms were systematically determined by universal laws of dialectical nature, contrasted with that of his successor. In spite of these divergences, the influence of Baudelaires essay on the master of the rue de Rome was significant. His doctrine of correspondence and analogy constituted a poetic framework based on which his heir would conceive his poetry in abstract terms and beyond nothingness. The architecture of Les Fleurs du Mal gave a moral and allegorical representation of the world, a quasi musical harmony of forms, rhythms and sounds, and Mallarm would pursue in the aesthetic domain the order envisioned ethically and dialectically by his predecessor. Baudelaire adhered to the idea that a moral infinite summoned the universe (lharmonie ternelle [was divulged] par la lutte ternelle Correspondance, 2: 86), while Mallarm later subscribed his creation, after the loss of God, to an infinite beauty. We should not be surprised in this respect that, in spite of their difference in age, a common heritage brought the two poets together. As Baudelaire pro-

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claimed, all the effects of all the arts, and especially those of the great rival, music, were within the scope and compass of poetry: La posie sest affirme la premire [. . .] elle a engendr ltude des rgles. Telle est lhistoire inconteste du travail humain (2: 793). Similarly, according to the master of the rue de Rome, poetry did not consent to being inferior: La Posie, proche lide, est Musique, par excellence ne consent pas dinfriorit (381), and not surprisingly, when Debussy informed him that he wanted to put to music LAprsmidi dun faune, he replied that he had already accomplished this task in the poem.11 Through timbres and harmonic effects, the rapport between the sections of the poem, the superposition and the counterpoint of its movements, conveyed a composition and an orchestration of sounds and sense. Much closer to Debussy than Wagner, Mallarms abstract and suggestive language privileged nuance and fluidity. Hence, in Richard Wagner, Rverie dun pote franais, Mallarm would pursue the meditations of Baudelaire who, attesting to the solemnities that accompanied the performance of the composers uvre, alluded to the French mind (lesprit franais, esprit logique, amoureux dordre 2: 815) that would ultimately elucidate Wagners revolutionary work. The same words and images would later inspire Mallarm. By redefining music in more abstract terms (la vritable musique suggre des ides analogues dans des cerveaux diffrents), Baudelaire had overcome the music of the orchestra. According to his principles, the sensibility of the heart, displayed by the musician, was not favorable to the poetic work, for, contrary to the intelligence of the mind, the passions introduced un ton blessant, discordant, dans le domaine de la Beaut pure, trop violente pour ne pas scandaliser les rgions surnaturelles de la Posie [for] le Coeur contient la passion [and] limagination seule contient la Posie (2: 115).12 Wagners work thus called for a new meditation on art and creation and for this reason alone, Mallarm would remain attentive to his predecessors reflections. The intensity of his musical experience had divulged quelque chose de nouveau, and, along with it, the limits and the near suppression of the self, the je, which, as Baudelaire attested, enferme lcrivain dans les limites les plus strictes de la sincrit (779). Through music therefore, Baudelaire bared witness to the threatened loss of language and the self that would in turn lead Mallarm to envision the fate of his art from a new angle. As the latter had acknowledged in a letter of 1866 to Henri Cazalis, poetry originated from nothingness (le Nant) and after the death of God, language became the new and only ontological support that would lead, beyond Baudelaires vision of the eternal (2: 686),13 to an unending path. From this standpoint, Mallarms eternal logic constituted indirectly a response to Nietzsches idea that what we name culture and civilization would be submitted to Dionysos, ruler of an eternal justice,14 on the last days

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judgment. The poets vision differed greatly from the German philosophers, who, in The Birth of Tragedy, celebrated with the musician the rebirth of the Dionysian. Since both were contemporaries (the former was born in 1842 and the latter in 1844), and each experienced in his own terms the death of God, a comparison of their appreciation of the composers work and ideas will allow us to understand from a different outlook the meaning of Mallarms conclusion, and the originality of his interpretation. Wagners uvre expressed for the philosopher the essence of the world and the Dionysian character of its supremacy was furthermore divulged to him (at least initially) in light of its relation with the birth of the German nation. As he commented on the grandeur of the music drama, Nietzsche argued that la valeur dun peuple ne se mesure prcisment qu sa capacit dimprimer sa vie le sceau de lternit (127). As we have previously seen, Mallarm rendered with the concept of eternal logic a more abstract and impersonal testimony than Nietzsches allusion here to the seal of eternity even though one could consider that it is in the context of the Franco-German rivalry that the poet asserted at the end of his rverie: La Cit, qui donna pour lexprience sacre un thtre, imprime la terre le sceau universel (545). Yet, rather than claiming for Paris the universal seal, one could contend that, based on the principles of his poetics, he rather wished to express the pre-eminence of the lieu par excellence (not as place but presence, from which emerged le Mystre) over Bayreuths stage.15 Let us remember that what Mallarm envisioned beyond the musician was vierge de tout, lieu, temps et personne sus [. . .] (544). Hence, the abstract theater of the mind, le seul thtre de notre esprit (300), was for him the source of all artistic representation, not the myths and legends of Wagners drama. One also recalls the privilege the poet granted, in his conception of theater, to the abstract manifestation of la Figure que Nul nest (545). Mallarms conclusion on the musician diverged from Nietzsches main arguments and the poet explored the questions raised by the musician from a very different point of view.16 Yet, his allusion to an eternal logic responded to both the musicians and the philosophers contentions.17 What was at stake, he recognized, was the fate of poetry, and beyond, the question and destiny of art and humanity. It is no coincidence that in 1885, twenty years after he evoked the crisis of literature and a little over ten years after the publication of The Birth of Tragedy (dedicated to Wagner), the poet had taken full measure of what opposed him to the musician and the philosopher. From Nietzsches perspective, the musical phenomena justified in itself the existence of the world. It embodied the irrational and primal forces of life, and beyond, through the annihilation of the individual, the repossession of unity. The poet, for his part, would remain distant from Bayreuths celebrations that elevated the pilgrims toward an unconscious form of sublime that he sought to restrain. Adhering

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to the literary principle, he viewed the Book as humanitys supreme ideal. For Mallarm, poetry alone embodied the greatest venue for artistic expression. It presented through the drame de lesprit the attempt of humanity to reach its plenitude. Each of its readers thus envisaged by way of the theater of the mind, the mystery of what was beyond the real (le Monstre-qui-ne-peuttre). Strictement imaginatif et abstrait, donc potique (544), the French mind subordinated music to the Book, and from this standpoint, it is not Wagner but Edgar Poe who was the model on which rested the new path Mallarm conceived for poetry. The Americans dream to compose the poem of the Universe would guide his ascetic experience, and the essential role played by Poe in the formation of the French poets attitude toward language implied a universal self separated from all belief: Je rvre lopinion de Poe, nul vestige dune philosophie, lthique ou la mtaphysique ne transparatra (872). Thus, the Genesis of a Poem summed up the art of composition, and beyond the years of crisis, Mallarm contemplated the universe with the optic of Eureka, conceiving his poems as a drama, and under the law of a divine transposition: [. . .] la majestueuse ouverture sur le mystre dont on est au monde pour envisager la grandeur (314). After having found Nothingness, he pursued Poes vision of beauty as the only legitimate domain of poetry. The American had endeavored to resolve the secret of the universe and Mallarm shared, with le Livre, the same dream of a complete work whose ultimate aim would be lexplication orphique de la Terre.18 Faithful to an eternal logic, Mallarm sought to seize, through poetry, the relation among all things that existed in the totality of the universe: La Nature a lieu, on y ajoutera pas [. . .] tout lacte disponible, jamais et seulement, reste de saisir les rapports, entre temps, rares ou multiplis [. . .] la totale arabesque qui les relie [. . .] chiffration mlodique tue, de ces motifs qui composent une logique, avec nos fibres (647). Abstract elucidation of Nature and the Earth, Music, as the poet defined its meaning, no longer defied him. In the Greek sense, as rythme entre les rapports, it resulted from lintellectuelle parole, and it is from this perspective that he summed up the intention of the symbolists of taking back from music (the rich and sublime sounds of the orchestra) what rightly belonged to their art: the expression of the mystery of existence.19 In so doing, he pointed to the superiority and the intelligibility of his creation, turning toward music in quest of obscurity, to in the end, as he would assert in La Musique et les lettres, exalt poetry in the name of clarity. Away from the effects of music on the sensibility, the poets vision sought to go beyond the dynamic resources of the orchestra, to reach the source of artistic creation and representation, and transcend the language of popular fiction common to all, the spectacle of the thtre caduc (542). From the Symphony to the Book, the magic of poetry liberated la dispersion volatile de lesprit, qui na que faire de rien, outre la musicalit de tout (366). This transposition

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implied a significant transformation: Luvre pure implique la disparition locutoire du pote, qui cde linitiative aux mots [. . .] ils sallument de reflets rciproques comme une virtuelle trane de feux sur des pierreries [. . .] (366). Yet Mallarms experience of death, as Dominique Rabat explained, originated from a tension between the personal and the impersonal, from which the poetic voice emerged.20 The poet himself adhered to the eternal logic of the Book as stage and theater of our mind and aspirations. From this standpoint, it was not from the elementary sonorities of brass, strings and woodwinds, but from the intellectual utterance that Music found its ultimate expression.21 Thus, Mallarm could assert the right of poetry to Mystery: Je sais, on veut la Musique, limiter le Mystre; quand lcrit y prtend (385). Having learned from Nature and the Heavens alternations of shade and light, music and letters presented reciprocal facets of creation. The sounds of the orchestra possessed great emotive power in this regard, but, without the listener and analyst, they were deprived of any intelligible significance. It was a facile occultism which provoked inscrutable ecstasies and it was henceforth the poets responsibility, not musics, to give Nature its meaning. Mallarm dreamed of great festivals wherein the whole of humanity would be called to celebrate the divinity latent in every soul. And while waiting for the day of these new Ceremonials, the Book, he felt, could adequately stand for all other art forms: Tout, au monde, existe pour aboutir un livre (378). Everything in the world existed to end in a Book, theater of limaginaire. Fruit of an eternal logic, poetry resulted from a teleology without end. Whereas for Hegel the human mind was denied for the achievement of the absolute spirit, Mallarm envisioned, through the never-ending path of poetry, a work that rehabilitated each individual and reader as an active participant in creation. The poet unveiled an inexhaustible future, an unachieved totality that was, for him, salutary. Mystery was preserved, the promised land never reached, and this incompletion allowed the quest for meaning to be pursued eternally. Thus, conceived out of the void, poetic language divulged a glorieux mensonge before the infinite universe. Faithful to this eternal logic, the faun discovered that his ultimate aspirations could not be fulfilled. Summing the polarity of past and present, birth and destruction, Mallarm contended that the only subject that poetry could forever express was the conflict between the human dream and destiny: [. . .] il nest point dautre sujet, sachez bien: lantagonisme de rve chez lhomme avec les fatalits son existence dparties par le malheur (300). Hence, after having envisaged Wagners work, he stood at a distance to seek un repos [. . .] lisolement, pour lesprit, de notre incohrence qui le pourchasse, autant quun abri contre la trop lucide hantise de cette cime menaante dabsolu [. . .] que personne ne semble devoir atteindre (546). All was vain however outside this redemption through art, which for Mallarm, was poetry: Tout est vain en dehors de ce

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rachat par lArt (11: 34), for the very source that we sought resided within ourselves: ce spirituellement et magnifiquement illumin fond dextase, cest bien le pur de nous-mme par nous port, toujours, prt jaillir . . . (334), vide et abstrait en soi, impersonnel (542). Many years before Wagnerism became a cult in Europe and a new religion, Mallarm had considered, beyond the void (le rien qui est la vrit), what was for him the ultimate path for his art. Through it, the poet bared witness to la divinit qui jamais nest que Soi (391) and to la Fable, vierge de tout, lieu, temps et personne sus [. . .] emprunte au sens latent en le concours de tous [. . .] (54445). The spectacle he conceived on the stage was founded on the tacite envol dabstraction and it brought to silence the tumult of the orchestra. Music, as the poet conceived of it, uttered the world through the transposition of un fait de nature en sa presque disparition vibratoire [. . .] (368). Through it, Mallarm dreamed of an ideal, as he wrote to Cazalis in April 1866, of which he knew the inexistence, beauty slanant forcenment dans le Rve quelle sait ntre pas. Distant, yet attentive, before the official ceremonies, he could envision, twenty years later, beyond the representations of the music drama, the pompes souveraines de la Posie (541), and discern lternelle blessure glorieuse qua la Posie, ou mystre, de se trouver exprime dj, mme si prs du silence [. . .] (860).
Department of Languages and International Studies Adelphi University Garden City, ny 11530

notes
1 In an essay published in French entitled Lettre sur la musique, Wagner argued in 1860 that luvre la plus complte du pote devrait tre celle qui, dans son dernier achvement, serait une parfaite musique [and that] la musique sest dveloppe et est parvenue une puissance dexpression dont il nexiste encore aucune ide (25, 35). 2 Ronell, Avita: Nowadays, the poetic word has remained largely without shelter [. . .] as if the eviction notice served by Plato were finally enforceable (1617). 3 The question concerning the link between Mallarms recognition of the crisis of literature and the supremacy of music envisioned by Wagner in the second half of the nineteenth century is unresolved. With respect to the relation between Mallarm and the musician, the considerations of the poet are far from being understood. See for example Pateman for whom Mallarms poetry sought to emulate Wagners work (177, 180), and Lee (54). 4 Il ne restait dsormais la posie que deux voies pour se dvelopper: il fallait quelle passt dune manire complte dans le champ de labstraction, de la pure combinai-

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son des ides, de la reprsentation du monde au moyen des lois logiques de la pense, or cette uvre est celle de la philosophie et non celle de la posie; ou bien elle devait se fondre intimement avec la musique, et avec cette musique dont la symphonie de Beethoven nous a rvl la puissance infinie (36). 5 Mallarm affirmed in the same letter: Je fais de la Musique et appelle ainsi lau-del magiquement produit par certaines dispositions de la parole [. . .]. Vraiment entre les lignes et au-dessus du regard, cela se passe en toute puret [. . .] cest la mme chose que lorchestre, sauf que littrairement ou silencieusement (6: 26). 6 Wagner foresaw the crisis of literature in very different terms than Mallarm. For the latter, poetry ne peut subsister quen questionnant sa nature et sa raison dtre [and subjectivity] se trouve tre lobjet de poursuite au sein de la posie mme (Maulpoix 1114). 7 A study of the French and American poets influence on Mallarm will enable us to examine how the latter envisioned a new path for his art. Furthermore, an investigation of what separated Mallarm from Nietzsche, poetry from philosophy (taking into account Wagners argument), will help us to consider the question from a critical and metaphysical standpoint. 8 According to Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe: Cest de lentre de Wagner sur la scne franaise quil faut dater en matire desthtique tout au moins, lentre en France de la mtaphysique allemande et la divulgation des thses fondamentales du romantisme spculatif (3738). 9 In Hrsies artistiques lArt pour tous, published a year later, Mallarm saw in music the celebration of Mystery that called for the future consecration of poetry: Toute chose sacre et qui veut demeurer sacre senveloppe de mystre. Les religions se retranchent labri darcanes dvoiles au seul prdestin: lart a les siens. La musique nous montre un exemple. Ouvrons la lgre Mozart, Beethoven ou Wagner, jetons sur la premire page de leur uvre un oeil indiffrent, nous sommes pris dun religieux tonnement la vue de ces processions macabres de signes svres, chastes, inconnus et nous refermons le missel vierge daucune pense profanatrice. Jai souvent demand pourquoi ce caractre ncessaire a t refus un seul art, au plus grand [. . .] je parle de la Posie. Les Fleurs du mal sont imprimes avec les caractres dont lpanouissement fleurit chaque aurore les plates-bandes dune tirade utilitaire [. . .]. Ainsi les premiers venus entrent de plain pied dans un chef-duvre [. . .]. Quadvient-il de cette absence de mystre? (25759). 10 Schopenhauers aesthetics of musicalisation influenced Wagner, Baudelaire and Mallarm and French symbolism (Murray 778). See also Huebner (11). 11 For an exploration of the correspondence between the Prlude and the poem, as each illustrated the dream and aspirations of the faun, see Touya de Marenne (20924). 12 Cest limagination qui a enseign lhomme le sens de la couleur, du contour, du son et du parfum. Comme elle a cr le monde, il est juste [de dire] quelle le gouverne (2: 621).

Eric Touya de Marenne

13 Toutes les beauts contiennent quelque chose dternel et quelque chose de transitoire (2: 493). 14 De ce fondement de toute existence, de cette arrire-fond dionysiaque du monde, ne doit tout juste en pntrer la conscience de lindividu que ce que ce pouvoir appolinien de transfiguration peut son tour en surmonter, de sorte que les deux pulsions de lart soient obliges de dployer leurs forces dans une proportion rigoureusement rciproque selon la loi dune justice ternelle (134). 15 Jacques Rancire elucidated Mallarm on the question: On appellera esprit ce qui consacre le lieu de lexistence dans son immanence, comme monde ou sjour de lhomme. On appellera mystre le systme de rapports entre les aspects de lexistence propre cette conscration (29). On the subject of poetry and the Book as drama and theater, see Alcoloumbre. 16 Nietzsches work began to be translated in France in the early 1900s, yet the main ideas developed in The Birth of Tragedy were known in the literary milieus, particularly in the context of the philosophers controversial relation with Wagner. Regarding what opposed Nietzsche and Mallarm, see Le Rider (6770) and Deleuze (38). 17 After having admired the musician in the 1870s, the philosopher would later condemn through his work the great imposture of transcendence and the decadence of Bayreuths theater. Beyond what would ultimately separate them, Mallarm could attest how both had celebrated the supremacy of music, as manifestation of the will. 18 Jai toujours rv et tent autre chose [. . .] un livre qui soit un livre architectural et prmdit [. . .]. Jirai plus loin, je dirai: le Livre, persuad au fond quil ny en a quun [. . .] lexplication orphique de la Terre, qui est le seul devoir du pote et le jeu littraire par excellence (2: 301). 19 Mallarm sought to curtail and transcend the Dionysian dimension of music. As Vladimir Janklvitch contended: De tout temps, lhomme fru dallgorie a recherch la signification de la musique ailleurs que dans le phnomne sonore (17). 20 Cest sans doute chez Mallarm que la conscience de cette disparition (la fameuse disparition locutoire) se fait le plus profondment, devient ncessit du deuil de la parole lyrique pour accder la posie. Mais encore faut-il noter que cest dans un rapport personnel limpersonnel. Le pote est celui qui fait lexprience du sacrifice de son moi personnel pour laisser place la voix potique (73). 21 Je me figure par un indracinable sans doute prjug, que rien ne demeurera sans tre profr; que nous en sommes l prcisment, rechercher, devant une brisure des grands rythmes littraires et leur parpillement en frissons articuls proche de linstrumentation, un art dachever la transposition au Livre de la Symphonie, ou uniment de reprendre notre bien: car ce nest pas des sonorits lmentaires par les cuivres, les cordes, les bois, indniablement mais de lintellectuelle parole son apoge que doit, avec plnitude et vidence, rsulter, en tant que rapport existant dans tout, la Musique (36768).

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works cited
Alcoloumbre, Thierry. Mallarm. La potique du thtre et de lcriture. Paris: Librarie Minard, 1995. Austin, Lloyd James. Mallarm on Music and Letters. The John Ryland Library (1959): 1939. Baudelaire, Charles. uvres compltes. Ed. Claude Pichois. 2 vols. Paris: Gallimard (Bibliothque de la Pliade), 1975. . Correspondance. Ed. Claude Pichois. 2 vols. Paris: Gallimard (Bibliothque de la Pliade), 1973. Blanchot, Maurice. La Part du feu. Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1947. Bonnefoy, Yves. Mallarm et le musicien. Ed. Michle Fink, Posie, Peinture, Musique. Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 1995: 721. Cascardi, Anthony, ed. Literature and the Question of Philosophy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1987. Deleuze, Gilles. Nietzsche et la philosophie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1962. Derrida, Jacques. La Dissmination. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1972. Dujardin, Edouard, ed. La Revue wagnrienne. Genve: Slatkine Reprints, 1968. Huebner, Steven. French Opera at the Fin de Sicle: Wagnerism, Nationalism and Style. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999. Janklvitch, Vladimir. La Musique et lineffable. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1974. Kristeva, Julia. La Rvolution du langage potique. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1974. Lacoue-Labarthe, Phillipe. Musica Ficta. Figures de Wagner. Paris: Christian Bourgois Editeur, 1991. Lee, Owen. Wagner. The Terrible Man and his Truthful Art. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1999. Le Rider, Jacques. Nietzsche et la France. De la fin du xixme sicle au temps prsent. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1999. Mallarm, Stphane. uvres compltes. Ed. H. Mondor. Paris: Gallimard (Bibliothque de la Pliade), 1945. . Correspondance, 11 vols. Paris: Editions Gallimard, 19591985. Maulpoix, Jean-Michel. La Posie malgr tout. Paris: Mercure de France, 1996. Murray, Chris. Encyclopedia of Literary Critics and Criticism. 2 vols. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999. Nietzsche, Friedrich. La Naissance de la tragdie. Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, tr. Paris: Editions Gallimard, 2000. Pateman, Roy. Chaos and Dancing Star. Wagners Politics, Wagners legacy. Lanham: UP of America, 2002. Rabat, Dominique, ed. Figures du sujet lyrique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1996.

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Rancire, Jacques. Mallarm. La Politique de la sirne. Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1996. Ronell, Avital. On the Misery of Theory without Poetry: Heideggers Reading of Hderlins Andenken. Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 120.1 (2005): 1632. Touya de Marenne, Eric. Mallarm et Debussy: Exgse musicale de LAprs-midi dun faune. Essays in French Literature 39 (2002): 209221. Wagner, Richard. Lettre sur la musique. In Challemel-Lacour, tr. Quatre pomes dopra. Paris: Librairie Nouvelle, 1861.

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