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Parnassian Poetry on the Franco-Prussian War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Aaron Schaffer
Aaron Schaffer*
Affiliation:
The University of Texas
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Extract

One of the chapters of M. Maurice Souriau's Histoire du Parnasse is entitled “la Question Déroulède.” In this chapter, M. Souriau describes the popularity of Paul Déroulède's Chants du soldat (1872) and of its sequels, such as Nouveaux chants du soldat (1875), as well as the hostility of Flaubert, Leconte de Lisle, and most of the Parnassians to this type of poetry. Insinuating that this hostility was due, in part at least, to the huge sales of Déroulède's volumes, Souriau attacks this attitude bitterly, praises Déroulède's modesty, and allows his critical judgment to be so completely warped by his own chauvinism as to find in Déroulède both an important writer and a great thinker, even greater, perhaps, than Leconte de Lisle because his work “a communiqué à ses' auditeurs le plus vivifiant patriotisme” while that of Leconte de Lisle “a développé trop souvent, trop longtemps, devant ses lecteurs, le plus noir pessimisme.” He calls attention to Calmettes' criticism of Leconte de Lisle as “un adversaire déclaré des Muses patriotiques” and adds: “Il l'était pendant le siège.” He concludes his chapter with the words: “Il [Déroulède] a comblé la lacune du Parnasse.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , December 1932 , pp. 1167 - 1192
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1932

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References

1 (Paris, Editions Spes, 1929), pp. 329–338.

2 His exact words are: “En 1872, paraissent les Chants du soldat, puis toute la série des autres Chants; le succès est tel que les jalousies s'éveillent vite” (Histoire du Parnasse, p. 331).

3 Ibid., p. 338.

4 Fernand Calmettes: Leconte de Lisle et ses amis (Paris: Librairies-réunies, n.d.), p. 217—cited by Souriau, p. 332.

5 In “A mes amis,” from Marches et sonneries (1881).

6 Chants du soldat (Paris: Fayard, n.d.), p. 7.—This edition is made up of selections from several of Déroulède's volumes of verse.

7 Ibid., p. 31.

8 Ibid., p. 32.

9 Ibid., p. 59.

10 Ibid., p. 81.

11 Ibid., p. 87.

12 Ibid., p. 94.

13 Ibid., p. 101.

14 Ibid., p. 106.

15 Ibid., p. 125.

16 Catulle Mendès has an “Odelette guerrière” (dated December, 1870) among the four “Pièces datées” published in his Intermède, Poésies (Paris: Ollendorff, 1885). Léon Valade's Poésies diverses, included in his Poésies posthumes (Paris: Lemerre, 1890) contain two patriotic poems, “Aux drapeaux de 1880” and “la Jeune France.” These specimens, however, can not stamp Mendès and Valade as chauvinistic poets. As for Verlaine, we find him declaring in one of the poems of Bonheur (1891) in Œuvres complètes (Paris: Messein, n.d.) vol. ii:

L'amour de la patrie est le premier amour
Et le dernier amour après l'amour de Dieu.

The most militant of all his poems is one called “Metz” (in Invectives, published in 1896—Œuvres, vol. iii); but, though he participated in the war and in the Communist uprising, there is no reference to either of them in his poetry of the period.

17 (Paris, Lemerre, 1886), pp. 77–81.

18 Lacaussade's “Poèmes nationaux” are included in his volume, les Epaves (Paris: Lemerre, 1896). The cited passage occurs on p. 237.

19 Included in vol. ii of Banville's Poésies complètes (Paris: Charpentier, 1878), pp. 335–435.

20 A previous reader of the edition of the Idylles prussiennes consulted by the present writer had made the following marginal comment, in pencil, at this point: “Niaiserie colossale—romantisme” (p. 380).

21 Œuvres complètes (Paris: Lemerre, n.d.), ii, 4–13.

22 To be found in vol. ii of his Œuvres (Paris: Lemerre, n.d.). The quotations are from pp. 80, 86, and 97 of this volume.

23 In les Paroles sincères, in Œuvres, v, 129.

24 Ibid., pp. 185–186.

25 Des Vers français (1905), in Œuvres, vi, 283.

26 Ibid., vi, 48.

27 Poésies (Paris: Lemerre, 1899), iii, 206, 213, 216, 217.

28 One of a group of Epigrammes, also in vol. iii of Coran's Poésies. The poem is dated July, 1879.

29 Paris: Librairie internationale, 1870. The poem is described as a “poésie dite au Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin, le 21 novembre 1870, par M. Fleury-Gceury du Théâtre de l'Ambigu.”

30 Poésies (Paris: Lemerre, n.d.), ii, 221–235.

31 This and the following quotations from Sully Prudhomme are found in his Poésies, iii, 151–161.

32 Vide Catulle Mendès: la Légende du Parnasse contemporain (Brussels: Brancart, 1884).—The “première conference” of this volume is largely devoted to Glatigny.

33 Poésies complètes (Paris: Lemerre, 1879), p. 360 et seq.—This poem is dated Lillebonne, September 1871.

34 (Paris: Lemerre, 1878).

35 Ibid., p. 177.

36 André Theuriet, Souvenirs des vertes saisons (Paris: Ollendorff, 1904).

37 (Paris: Lemerre, n.d.), pp. 228–239.

38 (Bordeaux: Boussin, 1878).—The Strophes were “lues par M. L. de Vedrines, à l'assemblée générale du Cercle de l'Union de Bordeaux, le 11 janvier, 1878.” Salles' verse-collection, la Vie du cœur (Paris: Lemerre, 1873), contains two other poems inspired by the war, “Lettre à Jules Levallois” and “Fragment.”

39 (Besançon: Jacquin, 1900), p. v.—The verse-citations are from pp. 130, 173 and 181, respectively.

40 (Paris: Lemerre, 1871).—The quotations are from pp. 25 and 31.

41 The three poems here discussed are to be found in vol. iii of Soulary's Œuvres poétiques (Paris: Lemerre, n.d.). The passages cited occur on pp. 220–225.

42 Sentiments similar to these are expressed in their most crass brutality by Joseph Autran who, in several of the sonnets in his Sonnets capricieux and in some of the poems of his la Comédie de l'histoire, ferociously attacks German art and literature, particularly Goethe.—See Œuvres complètes (Michel Lévy: Paris, 1875–81), Vols. IV and VIII.

43 Vide his les Parnassiens (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1882), p. 44.

44 (Paris: Charpentier, 1887).

45 Ibid., p. 186.—The next quotation is to be found on pp. 192–193.

46 (Paris: Charpentier, 1885).—The quotations are from pp. 89–90.

47 Vide the preface to his Poésies complètes (2 vols., Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1899), i, x.—The citation is from ii, 327.

48 Included in Vesper, 1886–96, in Poésies complètes (Paris: Fontemoing, 1904), pp. 226, 245–246, 249, 250, 281, 291, 292.

49 From Gallica, 1896–1903 (also included in the Poésies complètes). The quotations are from pp. 328 and 362.

50 (Paris: Lemerre, 1884).

51 Found in vols. v and vi, respectively, of his Œuvres (Paris: Lemerre, n.d.).

52 Œuvres, v, 250.

53 It should be noted that many of the poets who might truly be called Parnassians, though they did not contribute to the first Parnasse contemporain, did not write any poetry on the war. Among these are Anatole France, who helped edit the 1876 volume and has specimens of verse in this recueil and its predecessor, and Jules Breton, who first appears in the third volume. On the other hand, many of the contributors to the 1876 Parnasse contemporain composed poems on the war. These include Mme. Louise Ackermann, almost the only outspoken pacifist of all the ninety-nine poets in the three recueils, Camille Delthil, Emile Blémont, Mélanie Bourotte, Charles Grandmougin, and Emile Bergerat, the son-in-law of Théophile Gautier. These poets have not been cited because of the possibility of the charge, justifiable in only some of the cases, that they were not Parnassians. Two names, however, may here be added to those discussed in the body of this paper: Au bruit du canon (Paris, Lemerre, 1871), a 16-page brochure containing three poems by Armand Renaud, one of the original Parnassians; and les Saintes colères (Paris, Lemerre, 1871), a most vindictive volume by Louisa Siefert that is a fit pendant to Pendant l'invasion of Joséphin Soulary, to whom it is dedicated. Finally, it should be pointed out that the 1876 Parnasse contemporain contains two poems, both called “Pendant le siège,” by Ernest d'Hervilly.