@prefix vivo: . @prefix edm: . @prefix ns0: . @prefix dcterms: . @prefix skos: . vivo:departmentOrSchool "Arts, Faculty of"@en, "French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of"@en ; edm:dataProvider "DSpace"@en ; ns0:degreeCampus "UBCV"@en ; dcterms:creator "Rosenthal, Bessie Gertrude"@en ; dcterms:issued "2011-06-21T20:42:25Z"@en, "1969"@en ; vivo:relatedDegree "Master of Arts - MA"@en ; ns0:degreeGrantor "University of British Columbia"@en ; dcterms:description """This study represents an attempt to determine the extent of Mallarmé's debt to Baudelaire. It is generally recognized that Mallarmé underwent the influence of Baudelaire in the course of the development of his thought and expression. Mallarmé himself recognized this debt and at one period of his life referred to Baudelaire as his master. Yet, a great diversity of opinion exists as to the importance and duration of this influence, a fact borne out by "une vue d'ensemble" of critical opinion. In order to bring Baudelaire's role more clearly into its proper perspective, the first part of this assessment contains a brief discussion of divergent critical opinion, and a summary of other important influences to which Mallarmé is said to have been subjected. Mallarmé's poetry written prior to his encounter with poems of Les Fleurs du Mal is also considered, particularly his religious poems and those in the collection Entre quatre murs. In the second part of this study we compare the aesthetic and metaphysical concepts held by the two poets, and their attitudes towards society, poetry, and the material world. Their physical and spiritual worlds, and the special nature of each poet's ideal are also examined. In part III we examine some of Mallarmé's poems written from 1861 to 1865 - the period in which he is generally believed to have been most completely under the sway of Baudelaire - with a view to ascertaining in more tangible form Mallarmé’s debt to Baudelaire, in terms of themes, imagery, and expression. We also mention certain Baudelairian reminiscences in poems written by Mallarmé after 1865: poems in which the originality and characteristic Mallarméan traits are manifest and undisputed. This study, it is hoped, will help not only to clarify certain concepts held by both great poets, but contribute to a greater understanding of the veritable nature of Baudelaire’s role in the development of Mallarmé's unique contribution to French verse."""@en ; edm:aggregatedCHO "https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/35632?expand=metadata"@en ; skos:note ".AN APPRAISAL OF MALLARME»S DEBT TO BAUDELAIRE by BESSIE GERTRUDE ROSENTHAL B.A. University of Alberta, 1941 B. Ed., University of Alberta, 1947 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS i n the Department of FRENCH We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA September, 1969 In presenting th i s thes i s in pa r t i a l f u l f i lment of the requirements fo r an advanced degree at the Un ivers i ty of B r i t i s h Columbia, I agree that the L ibrary sha l l make i t f r ee l y ava i l ab le for reference and study. I fu r ther agree tha permission for extensive copying of th i s thes i s fo r scho lar ly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representat ives. It is understood that copying or pub l i ca t ion of th i s thes i s f o r f i nanc i a l gain sha l l not be allowed without my wr i t ten permiss ion. Department of The Un ivers i ty of B r i t i s h Columbia Vancouver 8, Canada i i ABSTRACT This study represents an attempt to determine the extent of Mallarme's debt to Baudelaire. It i s generally recognized that Mallarme underwent the influence of Baudelaire i n the course of the development of his thought and expression. Mallarme' himself recognized this debt and at one period of his l i f e referred to Baudelaire as his master. Yet, a great diversity of opinion exists as to the importance and duration of this influence, a fact borne out by \"une vue d'ensemble\" of c r i t i c a l opinion. In order to bring Baudelaire's role more clearly into i t s proper perspective, the f i r s t part of this assessment contains a brief discussion of divergent c r i t i c a l opinion, and a summary of other important influences to which Mallarme i s said to have been subjected. Mallarme's poetry written prior to his encounter with poems of Les Fleurs du Mal i s also considered, particularly his religious poems and those i n the collection Entre quatre murs. In the second part of this study we compare the aesthetic and metaphysical concepts held by the two poets, and their attitudes towards society, poetry, and the material world. Their physical and spi r i t u a l worlds, and the special nature of each poet's ideal are also examined. In part III we examine some of Mallarme's poems written from 1861 to 1865 - the period i n which he i s generally believed to have been most completely under the sway of Baudelaire - with a view to i i i ascertaining in more ,tangible form Malla-me*s debt to Baudelaire, in terms of themes, imagery, and expression. We also mention certain. Baudelairian reminiscences in poems written by Mallarme after 18&5: poems in which the originality and characteristic Mallarmean traits are manifest and undisputed. This study, i t is hoped, will help not only to clarify certain concepts held by both great poets, but contribute to a greater understanding of the veritable nature of Baudelaire1s role in the development of Mallarme's unique contribution to French verse. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION .' ... 1 PART I: CRITICAL OPINION Chapter I: Mallarme's Early Years 8 Chapter II: Mallarme's Debt to Baudelaire 17 Chapter III: Other Influences 29 PART II: AESTHETIC AND METAPHYSICAL CONCEPTS Chapter I: Attitudes of the Poet Toward Society and the World 49 Chapter II:,The Spiritual and Material Worlds of the Poet 56 Chapter III: The Poetic Ideal 61 PART III: BAUDELAIRIAN REFLECTIONS IN MALLARME'S POETRY 88 TABLE 99 CONCLUSION 112 BIBLIOGRAPHY 116 ACOOWLEDGHENTS I wish to express my sincere thanks and heart-felt gratitude to Dr. Edward Bird for his most helpful advice and assistance throughout the work of this study. I am also grateful to Dr. Heather Franklyn for her many valuable suggestions for improving the manuscript. Most sincere thanks are also due to Mr. H.R. MacMillan for a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship awarded in 1967-68, and to the University of B.C. for a Graduate Fellowship received in 1963-69. Finally, I would like to extend my thanks to Dr. L. Bongie, Head of the Department of French, for his advice and encouragement. INTRODUCTION It has been generally acknowledged that Baudelaire's work influenced the development of Mallarme's poetic thought and expression. \"Tous les commentateurs\", wrote Jean-Pierre Richard in 1961, \"ont signale le role fecondant de l'oeuvre baudelairienne, par rapport a celle de Mallarme. Mallarme lui-raeme a d'ailleurs maintes fois affirme sa dette.\"! Mallarme's debt to Baudelaire, however, has not been adequately appraised, and we do not have, as the same critic has pointed out, any comprehensive \"travail d'ensemble\" on the \"rapports profonds\" between these two poets. Earlier, in 1951, the critic, Henri Peyre, had remarked that \"le sujet 'Mallarme et Baudelaire' a recu trop peu d'attention...\"2 Wide reading reveals a remarkable divergence of critical opinion concerning the extent of Mallarme's indebtedness to Baudelaire. Part of the problem in achieving a meaningful appraisal of this debt lies in the difficulty of carefully distinguishing between the purely Baudelairian influence and the other complex forces which combined to shape Mallarme's poetry. Another vexing problem is that of delimiting the meaning of the term \"influence\". Joseph Chiari, for example, favours the theory of T.S. Eliot that \"the problem of influence is integrated into the vaster process of unavoidable growth, a process which, in so far as what preceded unavoidably determines what followed, gives f u l l scope to direct and above a l l to indirect influence.\"3 Leon Cellier moreover, does not give an adequate answer to the question 2 he poses: \"Mais ces mots de fraternity, parente, affinite (sans parler du plus vague de tous: influence), que signifient-ils au juste ?\"V But, he points out, like Chiari, that one must first distinguish between \"fond\" and \"forme\", or between \"l'art\" and \"le reve\".^ In addition to the difficulty of defining \"influence\", there is the delicate task of determining the various contributions of nineteenth century thought which also form a part of this \"debt\". Referring to the various influences to which Mallarme was subjected at the time of his writing the collection of poems entitled Entre quatre murs. Henri Mondor sums them up in the following terms: \"... les unes impu-tables aux affinites electives, aux penchants exauces, les autres venues du hasard, du souvenir des lectures, de 1'atmosphere litteraire xle l'epoque, de la rebellion d'un enfant prisonnier a qui la poesie classique la moins lyrique etait autoritairement et exclusivement imposee.\"0 It is therefore an extremely delicate task to separate even the affiliations of Mallarme with Baudelaire from those of Mallarme with other currents of nineteenth-century poetic thought or to state that Mallarme owed such and such an idea to Baudelaire rather than to an immediate or far-removed predecessor of Baudelaire. In his recent book, R.G. Cohn has thus summarized the evolution of Mallarme's verse: Mallarme's poems are the culmination of a long evolution of French lyricism which began in the Middle Ages, took notable shape in the sixteenth century, and after gathering subtle resources of articulation in the classic period, leaped into Romanticism and its finer heir, Symbolism... ... on the whole, in the nineteenth century, the seminal development from Lamartine through Hugo and Baudelaire to the Symbolists (with major stimulus from coeval English and German writers and the American, Poe) is predominantly an intensification of romanticism, with classicism in a supporting role.? One could, of course, trace the origins of Mallarme's thought even further back than the Middle Ages. It i s often d i f f i c u l t , i f not impossible, to determine the exact f i l i a t i o n of a certain idea. For example, commenting on the theory of the oneness of the universe adopted by Mallarme, Chiari points out: \"The famous theory of the oneness of the universe apprehended in moments of mystical union with the great one i s as old as Plotinus, and again, i s only a derivative of Plato's beliefs. It i s also Schelling's theory, i t f i t s with the Kantian theory of the 'noumenon' , and i t was quite widespread i n England and i n France too... These views are those of Swedenborg, Boehme, Blake and many others...\"8 Y. Park, in his thesis of 1966, traces Mallarme's thought to Plotinus rather than to Plato, and also to Leibnitz, but also points out that i t was not entirely linked to any of these philosophical visions of the universe.^ For similar reasons Guy Delfel contends that neither Hegel's nor Plato's ideas had any real influence on Mallarme, and that Mallarme*s aesthetics were of his own making: \"Comment ne pas voir que, dans ce cas, s i Mallarme a t i r e toute son esthetique de l u i -meme, ell e devient une vivante confirmation de l a logique de 1'atti-tude idealiste en art ? Cette confrontation devient alors une verita-ble experience philosophique et une des plus belles preuves de l a force, de l a logique et de l'ampleur de l a pensee mallarmeenne.\"^ The role of exterior influence i s also minimized by Jean-Pierre Richard who wrote i n 1961: \" S i Mallarme d'ailleurs a subi bien des influences (de Baudelaire a Wagner, en passant par Poe, Manet, Hegel et les danseuses), c e l l e s - c i l'ont moins modifie qu'approfondi.\"H Mallarme himself affirmed i n 1893 i n his \"Sur 1'Ideal a Vingt Ans\" 4 the minimal importance of \"l'apport hasardeux exterieur qu'on re-cueille... sous le nom d'experience\" compared with \"sa native i l l u -mination.\"^ He also stated in precise and clear terms the source from which he drew his inspiration: Le poete puise en son Individuality secrete et anterieure plus que dans les circonstances.13 By \"Individuality secrete\" Mallarme is no doubt referring to that collectivity of personal, intimate feelings which hide behind the poet's images; and by \"anterieure\" that particular conception which constituted his personal vision of the world prior to certain events, or, as Mme Ayda has explained, \"anterieurement au choc ou chocs qui ont entralne la formation dans son ame, de complexes et de symboles.\"14 The nature of these events or incidents will be taken up in the next chapter. One might ask why one should study the influence to which a great poet has been subjected. Such a study does not seek to un-dermine his merits, but try to show how the poet developed and arrived at his essential originality. The growth of the creative mind is extremely interesting - in Henri Mondor's opinion i t is \"plus in-teressante que celle du corps ou du coeur quand i l s'agit des ecri-vains...\"-^ Mallarme himself gave an excellent commentary on his early poetry and on what distinguished i t from his mature work: II [Taine] ne croit pas qu'un ecrivain puisse entierement changer de maniere, ce qui est faux; je 1'ai observe sur moi... J'avais une prolixite violente et une enthousiaste diffusion, ecrivant tout du premier jet, bien entendu et croyant k l'effusion, en style. Qu'y a - t - i l de plus diffe-rent que 1' ecolier d'alors, vrai et primesautier, avec le litterateur d'a present qui a horreur d'une chose dite sans etre arrangee. 5 The idea that a great poet assimilates, fuses or transmutes the different elements which have influenced him or contributed to. his originality has been expressed by many critics. Paul Valery perhaps over-simplified the problem when he wrote in 1930; \"C'est ainsi que Mallarme developpant en soi quelques-unes des qualites des poetes romantiques et de Baudelaire, observant en eux ce qu'ils con-tenaient de plus exquisement accompli... a peu a peu deduit une ,/maniere toute particuliere, et finalement une doctrine et des pro-blemes tout nouveaux, prodigieusement etrangers aux modes memes de sentir et de penser de ses peres et freres en poesie.\"^ Jean Starobinski expressed a similar idea in an article of 194-8: \"Les materiaux herites de Baudelaire subiront une etrange transmu-tation, selon la l o i d'evolution interne de la production mallar-meenne.\"-^ From the foregoing remarks, i t is apparent that many factors are involved in the complex task of arriving at a just assessment of Mallarme's debt to Baudelaire. It would be impossible in this brief study to attempt to trace and adequately relate a l l the influences which could have contributed to Mallarme's poetic growth or evolution. However, major problems related to this complex question will be discussed together with the comments of major critics before a final appraisal is attempted. NOTES TO INTRODUCTION 1. Jean-Pierre Richard, L'Univers Imaginaire de Mallarme. p.75. . 2. Henri Peyre, Connaissance de Baudelaire, p. 161. 3. J. Chiari, Symbolisme from Poe to Mallarme. The Growth of a Myth, p. 3; theory of T.S. Eliot propounded in Eliot's Introduction to the Selected Poems of Ezra Pound, Faber and Faber, 1928, pp. x-xi. 4. Leon Cellier, Mallarme et la morte qui parle. p. 47. 5. Ibid.. p. 48; cf. J. Chiari op.cit.. pp. 171-172. 6. Henri Mondor, Mallarme lyceen. p. 240. 7. R.G. Conn, Towards the Poems of Mallarme. pp. 1-2. 8. J. Chiari, op. ci t . . p. 41. 9. Y. Park, L'idee chez Mallarme. p. 98. 10. G. Delfel, L'Esthetioue de Stephane Mallarme. p. 70. 11. J.-P. Richard, op. cit.. p. 34. 12. Stephane Mallarme, Oeuvres completes. Bibliotheque de la Pieiade, p. 883. 13. Ibid.. p. 876 14. A. Ayda, Le drame interieur de Mallarme ou l'origine des symboles mallarmeens, p. 94. 15. H. Mondor. op. cit.. p. 8. 16. From a letter to Eugene Lefebure of February 1865. S. Mallarme, Correspondance. pp. 154-155. 17. P. Vaiery, Variete II. \"Lettre sur Mallarme\", p. 215. 18. J. Starobinski, \"Mallarme et la Tradition Poetique Franchise\", i n Les Lettres. t. I l l , p. 44. PART I CRITICAL OPINION CHAPTER I MALLARME'S EARLY YEARS Certain events i n the l i f e of the young Mallarme deeply affected the development of his thought. L£on Celli e r , among other c r i t i c s , such as Mine Ayda and Charles Mauron, has insisted on the capital importance of Mallarme's early years. \"A mesure que l a bio-graphie de Mallarme est mieux connue,\" asserts C e l l i e r , \" i l apparait que les premieres annees de sa vie ont joue dans son destin de poete un role capital. Comme tout poete lyrique i l connaissait l a place essentielle que tiennent dans 1' imagination les souvenirs d'enfance, les extases, les amours et les douleurs enfantines.\"^- The following lines from Mallarme's \"Conference sur V i l l i e r s de 1*Isle-Adam\", written 1889-1890, reveals the large part Mallarme attributed, i n l i t e r a r y creation, to personal memories and to intimate experiences: ... Sait-on ce que c'est qu'Scrire... C'est... s'arroger... quelque devoir de tout recreer avec des reminiscences.... Un a, un, chacun de nos orgueils, les susciter dans leur ante>iorite et voir.2 Mallarme•s correspondance and early works reveal a pious, devout and mystical young Stephane. His childhood and youth, however, were marked by three major events: the death of his mother i n 1847 when Mallarme was five years old, of his sister, Maria, i n 1857, and that of a dear friend, Harriet Smyth, i n 1859. After the death of Mallarme's mother, the notion of religion was henceforth to be linked to her image and memory. Proof of this can be found i n passages of the poems, \"La Cantate pour l a premiere com-munion\"3, written i n 1858, four years after his f i r s t communion, 9 and \"La Priere d'une Mere\"4, one year later. If the pious content of these poems evokes the memory of his mother, declares Mme Ayda, \"Ctest parce que, pour Mallarme 'piet£' signifiera psychiquement 'fidelite ,au souvenir de la mere' que plus tard, ayant perdu la foi religieuse, i l ne cessera d'etre poursuivi par le remords d'etre'hante par l'Azur ' .\"5 These poems and two narrations written by the young Mallarme in 1854, namely, \"La Coupe d'or\" and \"l'Ange gardien\"^, reveal his fi r s t allusion to the invisible world inhabited by angels and saints, presided- over by a powerful, protective and good God - a world in which his mother was present. This world was in constant relationship with the real world. In the dream world in which the young orphan took refuge, he found goodness, purity, harmony and beauty. The mystic years of the young Stephane, those from 1854 to 1857, play an important role in MallarmeTs future development and offer valuable clues to our understanding of his subsequent thought. These years help clarify the ardour with which the poet was later to deny the existence of God. Furthermore, declares Mine Ayda, Mallarme would do his utmost to find in the practice of his poetry the sere-nity he had enjoyed during his mystic years.7 Certainly, as Mallarme wrote in 1864, he wished to reach \"la plus haute cime de serenite ou 8 nous ravisse la beaute\" , but whether i t was because he had already enjoyed \"serenity\" in his childhood is an interesting interpretation of the facts. The death of his beloved sister, Maria, August 31, 1857, was a staggering blow to the young Mallarme, and henceforth he would live haunted by the memory of the untimely event.^ Charles Mauron, like many other critics, attributes great importance to this loss in that he considered i t vit a l to \"1*explication des Poesies, les confi-dences, les lettres ou les 'premiers etats' les plus suggestifs.\"-^ The anguish and sorrow of the young Mallarme after Maria's death can be felt in the cycle of the \"Reveries\" in the collection of poems Entre quatre murs.^\" His sentiments and impressions at the funeral of Maria are expressed in his prose poem entitled \"Plainte d'Automne\", written in 1863 and first entitled \"Orgue de Barbarie\".Maria's name is mentioned three times, but the image of the g i r l remains indistinct. Some time after the death of Maria, Mallarme wrote a story which was inspired by the desire to see his sister return to earth even in the form of a \"fantome\". This story or \"conte\" is usually referred to by the t i t l e , \"Ce que disaient les trois cigognes\" 13 and i s , according to Mme Ayda, of extreme importance - i t is \"le document le plus important qui existe pour la connaissance de Mallarme, la clef la plus utile, la plus efficace dont nous disposions pour de-chiffrer son oeuvre.\"1^ Her chapter entitled \"la genese des symboles\" shows how the poignant memory of his sister, \"la blanche creature\" of the narration will continue to nourish the imagination of Stephane Mallarme and will inspire in him \"bien des images et bien des strophes imperissables...\"^5 Moreover, the incomprehensibility of the young man at the death of his sister, and his desire for an explanation of the absurdity of the acts of Providence lies at the origin of the metaphysical curiosity that will remain with the poet throughout his l i f e . 1 6 Although H. Mondor attributed this \"conte\" to an earlier 11 • 17 period (1857-1853) to the \"epoque s£raphique du poete\" , L.J. Austin suggests that i t was written i n i860 when Mallarme\" became acquainted with Baudelaire's work. In addition to the fact that the style of this narration appears to be superior to the writing of many of the poems i n the collection, Entre quatre murs. written 1859-1860, Austin asserts 18 that i t also contains Baudelairian echoes. Similarly P.O. Walzer: has pointed out some Baudelairian reminiscences i n this \"conte\"19 which would seem to bear out Austin's contention. It does however seem rather contradictory, i n view of the above statement, that Austin could not find i n any of the poems of Entre quatre murs. some of which were written i n 1860^any trace of a knowledge, even superficial, of 20 Baudelaire. Another tragic event which had a marked effect on the young Mallarme was the death i n 1859 of his friend, Harriet Smyth, to whom he had become greatly attached since the death of his sister. In terms of i t s far-reaching influence on his work, this was perhaps the most important c r i s i s through which Mallarme passed.^ It was only with Mondor's discovery of some of Mallarme's notebooks, published i n Mallarme lyceen i n 195422, that the fact became known that the heroine celebrated i n the two elegies, \"Sa fosse est creusee\" and \"Sa tombe est fermee\" ,was really known and loved by Mallarme. It i s interesting to note that i n 1938 Kurt Wais expressed the hypothesis - at a time when the heroine of the two poems was not known - that one can find i n these two works the germ of a l l Mallarme's poetry, and that the tragedy they contained caused the poet to lose faith i n religion and therefore l i e s at the.root of his subsequent longing for a \"paradis ant£rieur\".23 jn a subsequent work on Mallarme, Wais 12 abandoned this hypothesis, one with which Mme Ayda finds herself i n agree-ment. The psychic and moral upheaval caused by the deaths of Maria and Harriet, she states, \"determinera les conditions dans lesquelles s'edifiera 1*architecture du symbolisme mallarmeen\".2h The word \"anterieur\" which occurs frequently i n Mallarme's poetry i s used with the meaning \"anterieur au doute\" or \"anterieur aux evenements qui ont provoque le doute\" or \"anterieur de l a perte de l a foi\".25 The depth of the moral c r i s i s which shook Stephane Mallarme i n the year 1859 can be more justly measured when one reads the poems in the collection Entre quatre murs. Five months after he had written the long poem \"Priere d'une mere\" (1859) in which he had expressed the feeling that prayers alone could save him from danger, and in which he asked God to leave his faith intact, Mallarme wrote a poem i n which he expressed his indignation that his prayer had not been granted. In \"Colere d'Allah\", written December 7, 1859, we find such lines as, Allah le regardait d'un o e i l indifferent and Allah le regardait froid comme un Dieu de marbre.^''' With Harriet's death, the interior universe of Mallarme underwent a deep transformation. The pious child i s seen emancipating himself from the moral and doctrinal constraints that had dominated him u n t i l then. Henceforth, other themes appear i n his work. In Entre quatre murs. writes L.J. Austin, \"une orientation toute nouvelle apparait... a cote des plaintes elegiaques des fanfaronnades bacchiques et bientot, des reveries erotiques et des eclats blasphematoires. Ce sont des vers d'un adolescent trouble...\"^ The c r i s i s of 1859 brought about a revolt against God, and loss of faith. •a- /; *• # 29 Entre quatre murs contains over 1400 lines. Of the large quantity the young Mallarme composed i n such a short time (1859-1860), L . J . Austin has observed, \"Ce recueil... su f f i t ainsi a. battre en breche T l a legende imbecile de sa st£rilit£ hative, de.son im-puissance'. II faut dire pourtant, que c Test Mallarme le premier qui a imprudemment cree cette legende; mais i l ne f a l l a i t pas prendre au pied de l a lettre ses nombreuses allusions, dans ses poemes et ses lettres de jeunesse, a. sa ' s t e r i l i t e ' et a. son Timpuissance' .\"30 Thus, when Mallarme complained of \" s t e r i l i t e \" or \"impuissance\" i t was not due to the fact that he could not write poetry, but that he could not write the kind of poetry he wished. Both H. Mondor and L . J . Austin, who have made a careful study of the poems of this collection, state that the quality i s rather mediocre, and does not presage the exquisite verse to come.-^ It i s interesting to note that i n Mallarme's poem \"Cloche des Morts\"32> 0ne finds the quadruple repetition of \"Heias\" , a device subsequently used by Mallarme i n \"L'Azur\" and which has been gene-r a l l y attributed to the influence of Poe.33 Moreover, L . J . Austin did not find any trace of Baudelaire's influence i n the poems of Entre quatre murs.-^ Although one can find numerous references to such Baudelairian terms as \"chevelure\", \"tresses\", and \"parfum\"-^ , these, according to H. Mondor, preceded Mallarme's acquaintance with Baude-lai r e ' s work. Mondor seems anxious not to attribute any influence to Baudelaire at this stage. He argues i n favour of Hugo's influence 14 regarding, for example, the use of \"fleurdelise\": \" l a lecture de 1' adjectif fleurdelise m*ayant rappele dans Spleen de Baudelaire que Mallarme recopiait en i860, l e vers \"Son l i t fleurdelise se transforme en tombeau\" je crus d'abord a cette influence; mais i l est plus vraisemblable que les deux poetes cadets avaient lu, dans Hugo (les Contemplations): \"Et f a u t - i l qu'a, jamais pour moi, quand vient le soir Au l i e u de s'etoiler le l i t se fleurdelise...\"36 The major influences on Mallarme at the time he wrote Entre quatre murs were, as both H. Mondor, L.J. Austin and others have pointed out, those of Lamartine, de Musset and above a l l of Victor Hugo. It i s as a disciple of Musset, declares Austin, that Mallarme opens his collection, but this influence was not lasting, and the last borrowing from Musset seems to date from July 1859.37 Mallarme himself recognized the presence of \"l'ame lamartinienne\" i n himself: ... puis j ' a i traverse bien des pensions et lyc£es, d'ame lamartinienne avec un secret desir de remplacer, un jour, Beranger...33 Leon Ce l l i e r points out that \"l'ame du jeune Mallarme etait lamarti-nienne parce que sa priere etait celle de 1'enfant a son revel 1.\"^ The influence of Lamartine i s also to be found i n the pious poems written preceding the collection Entre quatre murs. Mme Ayda also argues for the influence of Lamartine, as well as that of Victor Hugo, in the two elegies, \"Sa fosse est creuseV 1, and \"Sa tombe est fermee\".40 From February 1859, Mallarme reveals himself a f a i t h f u l d i s -ciple of Victor Hugo. This major influence which w i l l be taken up again i n a later chapter, persists throughout the collection of poems, even when other elements are included.41 15 There were other minor influences of the Romantic poets^; surprisingly, Vigny i s the only one (according to L.J. Austin) of a l l the great Romantic poets who does not seem to have influenced Mallarme. The influence of these poets, contends Mme Ayda, was to remain with Mallarme throughout his l i f e : \"Des sa tendre adolescence Mallarme s*etait nourri des merveilles du Romantisme et son esprit etait imbu des themes romantiques. II ne fera que chanter ces themes jusqu'a l a f i n de sa vie... Le jeune Mallarme empruntera aux Romantiques non settlement leurs themes, leurs images, mais aussi leur terrainologie, leurs symboles. Le vocabulaire du jeune Chretien s'en trouvera trans-forme.\"^ Mallarme wrote of his personal preferences and of his ideal i n A p r i l I860 : Moi, quand j'etais petit et que j'etais classique J'etais a parler franc, fort peu melancolique J'aimais le sucre d'orge et les vers de Racine. Des fleurs ?... je connaissais les fleurs de papier peint: Les fleurs de rhetorique et les fleurs du Parnasse. Mon ideal etait ces vieux coqs etames Qui grincent betement sur les clochers ruines: (Reponse a une Piece de Vers)44 Thus, Mallarme traces his passage from classicism to Parnassianism, and then to Romanticism. As early as 1859 Mallarme appears to recognize the mediocrity of his poetry for he wrote i n one of his poems: \"Ces vers sont bien mauvais.\"^-* Accordingly, he set out to improve his poetry by copying out certain works of his favourite poets. Three notebooks containing Mallarme's copyings, each dated I860 and entitled \"Glanes\", were found by Mondor at the same time as the notebook containing Entre quatre murs. The t i t l e s of the poems that appear i n these notebooks are li s t e d i n Mallarme lyceerr , and the number of lines transcribed is given as .more than Why did Mallarme copy so many lines ? Mondor ex-plains that i t was because Mallarme, dissatisfied with his volume of poetry, felt the necessity of studying other poetry \"et d'abord en III artisan. ** L.J. Austin expresses a similar opinion, \"... l'on peut se demander si Mallarme n'avait pas cesse sa production personnelle pour etudier de plus pres son metier.\"49 In his personal anthology of I860, Mallarme included nine poems by Poe and twenty-nine by Baudelaire; many poems by 16th cen-tury poets were also included. Regarding his choice of Baudelaire's poems, Mondor commented that i t represented \"toutes les cordes baude-lairiennes\", especially \"les plus specifiques, morbides et sinistres: le romantisme noir herite de 1820, la recherche d'etrangete pronee par Gautier, le gout du macabre et le sublime du familier dus a Sainte-Beuve.\"^ What a contrast between this selection and Mallarme's \"Cantate pour la premiere communion\" or his \"Priere d'une mere\" '. L.J. Austin agrees with Mondor that the poems chosen from Baudelaire were among \"les plus virulents\"^ 1, but he claims that \"toutes les cordes baudelairiennes\" are not represented: \"Ce qui frappe dans ce choix, ce sont les omissions autant que les poemes retenus... tous ces elements essentiels du recueil echappant pour le moment au jeune lyceen qui bientot pourtant devait assumer pleinement 1'heritage de Baudelaire.\"52 Thus, i t was the romanticism of Baudelaire that first impressed Mallarme. Indeed, i f Mallarme had such a fervent admiration for Baudelaire, i t was no doubt because he considered him the last of the great Romantics. CHAPTER II MALLARME'S DEBT TO BAUDELAIRE Most critics agree that the reading of Baudelaire's poems .had a very great influence on Mallarme. After reading les Fleurs du Mal. wrote Mondor in 1954, Mallarme realized the weaknesses of his volume of poetry Entre quatre murs and abandoned any idea of publishing i t : \"Apres la lecture des Fleurs du Mal. en effet, tout ce premier vol-ume que les ouvrages non decourageants de Victor Hugo avaient a la fois inspire et facilite dut lui paraitre tout a. fait pueril.\"-^*-It was Baudelaire who, according to the same critic, liberated Mallarme's spirit and indicated the path he was to follow. 55 In an article of 1956, L.J. Austin echoed Mondor's opinion that Baudelaire, and then Poe, \"mettent Mallarme... dans la voie qu'il cherchait jus-56 qu'alors en vain.\" It was the following lines by Baudelaire written in 1857, that, in Mondor's opinion, turned Mallarme away from Victor Hugo: ... toute ame eprise de poesie pure me comprendra quand je dirai que parmi notre race poetique, Victor Hugo serait . moins admire, s ' i l etait parfait, et qU'il n'a pu se faire pardonner tout son genie lyrique qu' en introduisant de force et brutalement dans la poesie ce qu'Edgar Poe considerait comme.l'her£sie moderne capitale: l'enseignement.^' A different explanation for Mallarme's turning away from Hugo's poetry was given by Albert Thibaudet, namely, that in his two poems, \"Sa fosse est .creusee\" and \"Sa tombe est fermee\"-which Thibaudet published for the first time-^- Mallarme.tried to attain Hugo's oratorical style, and that he failed so completely that any further attempt was out of the question. 7 Thibaudet goes on to say that the author of these two poems had, i n 1859, much to unlearn; that i t was, f i r s t of a l l , the influence of Baudelaire, which was to govern him u n t i l 1870, and afterwards i t was especially that of the English poets that \"mit f i n chez l u i a. toute velleite hugolienne et qui nous aide a voir dans ces vers q u ' i l ecrivait a dix-sept ans une maniere de rougeole poetique.\" 6 0 The viewpoint expressed by Thibaudet i s not shared by many other c r i t i c s . Gardner Davies wrote in 1947: \"This harsh judgment does not seem altogether j u s t i f i e d and i s of l i t t l e value as an explanation of Mallarme's swing toward Baudelairian poetry.\"^ It i s interesting that almost every statement made by Thibaudet i n the a r t i c l e of 1933 has been c r i t i c i z e d by others. With the exception of Mme Ayda and 62 Leon C e l l i e r , the c r i t i c s seem to agree that with the reading of l e s Fleurs du Mal. Mallarme transferred his allegiance from Hugo to Baudelaire, although the decisive cult of Baudelaire co-existed for a short time with that of Hugo i n Mallarme's mind.^3 •* # * From the slight evidence available, we can infer that there was nothing i n the way of a friendship, or personal relationship, between Mallarme and Baudelaire. 6 / + The statement made by Leon Leraonnier i n 1923 that there was no direct personal influence of Baudelaire on Mallarme seems to be highly plausible: \"II ne semble pas que Baudelaire et Mallarme aient jamais eu une entrevue de quelque importance, ni qu'ils aient jamais echange de lettre; i l n'y a done point eu d'influence personnelle directe et c'est l a seule comparaison de leurs ouvrages qui peut reveler leurs relations in t e l l e c t uelles.\"^-> The fact that Baudelaire evinced l i t t l e interest i n Mallarme's poetry i s suggested by the following two excerpts from Mallarme's correspondence. Both letters were written A p r i l 1864, the f i r s t being taken from a letter from Emmanuel des Essarts to Mallarme: J'ai montre tes vers a Mery, a Vacquerie et a Baudelaire. Baudelaire les a ecoutes sans disapprobation ce qui est un tres grand signe de faveur. S ' i l ne les avait pas goutes, i l m'eut interrompu.°6 The following lines are included i n a letter from H. Cazalis to Mallarme: Nous [Emmanuel et Henri ] avons dine avec Baudelaire; une cousine qui... m'a demande tous tes vers, a f a i t l i r e a Emmanuel Les Fenetres et 1'Azur. le maitre a ecoute avec une tres fine attention, mais selon l'usage... n'a rien dit.°7 In a letter of December 1864 Cazalis wrote to Mallarme that Baudelaire appeared to hate him: II parait que ton dieu Baudelaire te hait, et c'est bien mal recompenser, tu me l'avoueras, l a religion, le culte pur de son croyant le plus f i d e l e . 0 ^ Mallarme's feelings for Baudelaire do not seem to have been modified to any extent by the above lines from Cazalis. Up t i l l 1867 he expressed great admiration for his master. He referred to the poet as \" l e grand Baudelaire\"*^ and \"cet extraordinaire et pur genie\"70. In his review of poems by Des Essarts, i n \"Le Senonais\", March 22, 1862, Mallarme referred to les Fleurs du Mal and Banville's les Odes funambulesques as \"les derniers chefs-d'oeuvre du siecle\".''' 1 In a le t t e r to Cazalis of July 1864, Mallarme praised Baudelaire's poetry and indicated the qualities he most admired: Car tu est un f i e r poete, mon ami... Toi seul, Edgar Poe et Baudelaire etiez capables de ce poeme qui, comme cer-tains regards de femme, contient des mondes de pensees et. de sensations... Tout y est merveilleusement dispose pour 1'effet a produire, et malgre cet art, le tableau reste simple et vivant. Je suis fou de ces vers parce qu'ils r^sument toute mon esthetique...72 It was the \"effet\" produced, the sensation caused by the careful arrangement of words and ideas that Mallarme liked i n Baudelaire's poetry. In a letter to Lefebure, regarding a recently published drama, Ellin by V i l l i e r s de 1*Isle-Adam, there i s another such reference: Vous ressentirez une sensation a. chacun des mots, comme en lisant Baudelaire. II n'y a pas la. une syllabe qui n'ait ete pesee pendant une nuit de reverie.73 In the same letter Mallarme writes of his dislike for Des Essarts' book Les Elevations, and declares that the words are \"mis souvent au hasard\" and added that \"On ne ressent a. cette lecture aucune sensation neuve\"74 Other than such scattered fragments culled from Mallarme's corres-pondence, we do not have a precise statement of Mallarme*s opinion of Baudelaire's quality as an a r t i s t . As to Mallarme's poetic theory, he attributed i t to Poe. In a lett e r to A. Albert Collignon, A p r i l 11, 1864, Mallarme had expressed the intention of publishing an a r t i c l e \"sur le spleen de Paris et sur l'oeuvre de ce maitre\"75, but this a r t i c l e was either not written or has not come down to us. He had also expressed the intention of writing a thesis dedicated to Baudelaire and to Poe.7° The only a r t i c l e Mallarme devoted to Baudelaire was the second movement of his prose poem \"Symphonie Litteraire\"'' 7'^ and the only poem was \"Le Tombeau de Baudelaire\" 78 Although Mallarme alluded, i n a letter of May 14, 1867 to Cazalis, to a certain detachment from Baudelaire's influence79 > we may nevertheless conclude that the disciple always admired and venerated his master's poetry from the time of his f i r s t encounter . 80 with i t i n i860 , even i f after 1867 he evolved a more unique and personal expression. It i s noteworthy that Mallarme never openly expressed criticism of Baudelaire, and that after 1867 his direct allusions to him cease. •a- # # Mallarme was regarded by his friends as Baudelaire's disciple.81 When they wanted to praise his poems, they likened these to Baudelaire's. In June 1862 Lefebure wrote to Mallarme (probably referring to \"Le Sonneur\" and \"Spleen printanier\"): \"Baudelaire s ' i l rajeunissait pourrait signer vos sonnets.\"^ After reading \"L'Azur\", Armand Renaud, i n a letter of February 12, 1864, assured Mallarme that i t was a poem \"de l a famille de Poe et de Baudelaire mais avec plus de spiritualisme.\"^3 i n his Vie de Mallarme Henri Mondor cites a surprising remark, which he declares, Mendes attributed to Charles Cros: \"Mallarme est un Baudelaire casse dont les morceaux n'ont pu se r e c o l l e r . \" ^ In his book of 1920, Ernest Raynaud had, on two different instances^, also quoted the above statement which Charles Cros was supposed to have made. But Raynaud had commented that this remark should not be taken too seriously, although he had affirmed that Mallarme continued to revere Baudelaire. In a recent a r t i c l e (1967) L.J. Austin contends that Cros did not make the above state-ment: \"Cette boutade amusante, mais excessive et injuste, est consi-dered comme apocryphe et invraisemblable de l a part de Cros par L. Forestier et Pascal Pia dans leur edition des Oeuvres completes de Charles Cros.\"°° Another surprising comment on the relationship between Mallarme and Baudelaire was made by Charles Coligny and appeared i n 1'Artiste of June 15, 1865: \"Stephane Mallarme est un lyrique forcene et sera toujours un hyper-lyrique: Shakespeare et Edgar Poe sont ses dieux, et i l dit que ses dieux le conduisent a M. Charles Baudelaire.\" 8^ -a- * -si-Cr i t i c s have seldom agreed as to the importance, duration and durability of Baudelaire's influence on Mallarm6. The number of errors or prejudices concerning this problem of influence was under-lined by Mrae Ayda 8 8 who blamed Henri Mondor for the legend of the abrupt and overhelming discovery of Baudelairian poetry by Mallarme i n the year 1861. But Mondor i n his Vie de Mallarme8'7' wag quoting from an a r t i c l e by Henry Charpentier^ i n which the latter related the anecdote about Mallarme buying the second edition of les Fleurs du Mal when he was very young: the year \"1861\" i s stated i n the footnote. Thus the year \"1861\" was generally accepted as the date of Mallarme's acquaintance with Baudelaire's poetry. 7 Of course, with the discovery of the notebooks of \"les Glanes\", i t became known that Mallarme was already copying some of Baudelaire's poems i n I860, and he could have been acquainted with his poetry even as early as 1859. 9 2 As to the importance or value of Mallarme's a f f i l i a t i o n s with Baudelaire, the differences of opinion are often perplexing. 23 In 1923 Leon Lemonnier attributed great importance to the artistic affinities between Baudelaire and Mallarme in the literary history of France: \"L*influence de Baudelaire sur Mallarme est le lien qui unit les differents mouvements litteraires du siecle dernier.\"^ Mallarme's debt to Baudelaire was also considered important by Paul Valery who wrote in 1930 that \"la plus grande gloire de Baudelaire... est sans doute d'avoir engendre quelques tres grands poetes. Ni Verlaine, ni Mallarme, ni Rimbaud n'eussent ete ce qu'ils furent sans la lecture qu'ils firent des Fleurs du Mal a I'age decisif .\"94 For L.J. Austin, writing in 1967, Valery owed his poetic awakening to Mallarme, who, in turn, owed his to Baudelaire.95 . The majority of critics, while conceding that Baudelaire had a great influence on Mallarme, claim that this influence did not prove lasting. In his article of 1923 Leon Lemonnier restricted Baudelaire's influence to the poems that appeared in the Parnasse Contemporain of 1866*^ and which were written before Mallarme was twenty-five. He concludes, \"C'est done en sa jeunesse que Mallarme fut le disciple de Baudelaire.\"97 Mme Noulet, in her work of 1940, expressed agreement with Lemonnier and gave reasons why Baudelaire's influence on Mallarme could not be lasting. She would restrict the influence of Baudelaire even further than did Lemonnier: \"II faut oser £tablir une demarcation plus precise. Si l'on a quelque raison de croire, ainsi que je l'ai montre, qu'Aumone, Angoisse. Tristesse d'Ete ont ete ecrits, comme Le Guignon et Le Sonneur. avant ou pendant 1862, 1'influence de Baudelaire s'arrete cette annee-la; avant les vingt ans, a l'age ou l'on refait les vers des autres. Pas au dela. A partir de 1863, elle s'attenue si elle n'est pas completement dominie ou reniee.\" 9 8 Mme Noulet contends that Mallarme 1s a r t i c l e \"L'Art Pour Tous , l 9 < 7, written i n 1862, already expresses the original ideas of the author and shows that Mallarme was even at that time rejecting the influence of Baudelaire. Henri Mondor, in his Vie de Mallarme. concedes that Baude-laire's influence on Mallarme was \"massive, imperieuse\", but that i t lasted for only three or four years. He claims that when A. Thibaudet in his a r t i c l e of 1933 (\"A l'Ombre des Contemplations\") had fixed 1870 as the date up t i l l which Baudelaire's influence was to dominate, he '(Thibaudet) had a r b i t r a r i l y lengthened the duration.-^ Mondor, moreover, takes at face value the remark made by Mallarme in the letter to Cazalis, that he had separated from Baudelaire: \"Le l i v r e de Dierx est un beau developpement de Leconte de Lis l e . S'en s£pare-r a - t - i l comme moi de Baudelaire ?\"101 In an a r t i c l e of 1926, \"De Stephane Mallarme\", Henry Char-pentier had written that even earlier than 1867, Mallarme i n his \"Symphonie litteraire\"^- (- ,2 bidding Baudelaire (and also Banville and Gautier) farewell: \"... i l [Mallarme] rend a. Baudelaire, a. Gautier et a Banville les honneurs q u ' i l leur doit, mais qui sonnent comme un adieu.\"103 j n a recent and noteworthy a r t i c l e entitled \"Mallarme sur Baudelaire\", Austin G i l l presents a convincing argument that Mallarme did not present Baudelaire i n a very favourable light i n his \"Symphonie l i t t e r a i r e \" and that Mallarme's poems \"Le Guignon\" and \"Les Fleurs\"104 express an anti-Baudelairian bitterness. This point of view, however, has not found wide acceptance. Many other c r i t i c s have followed the opinion of Lemonnier, Charpentier, Noulet, and Mondor that the influence of Baudelaire on Mallarme was limited. Thus Jacques Scherer wrote i n 1947: \"Au reste 1 !influence de Baudelaire sur Mallarme n'a £te importante que pendant un tres petit nombre d'ann£es; l e jeune bachelier hugolatre ne decou- . vre les Fleurs du Mal qu'en 1861 et des 1867, i l se dira ' separ