Prestage, E., D. Francisco Manuel de Mello (Aubrey F. G. Bell) Roberts, R. G., The Place-Names of Sussex 238 Sannazaro, Jacopo, The Piscatory Eclogues, ed. by W. P. Mustard 248 Schenck, E. M., La Part de Ch. Nodier dans la Formation des Idées 242 Schmidt, J., Shakespeares Dramen und sein Schauspielerberuf. Shakespeare's Macbeth, ed. by H. J. C. Grierson (G. C. Moore Smith) Spenser, E., The Poetical Works of, ed. by J. C. Smith and E. de Sélin- Waterhouse, G., The Literary Relations of England and Germany in 111 122 Blake, W., Poetical Works of, ed. by J. Sampson Boecker, A., A Probable Italian Source of Shakespeare's ‘Julius Caesar' Ritchie, R. L. G., and Moore, J. M., Manual of French Composition Smith, Russell, Harrington and his 'Oceana ’ 127 WHITMAN IN FRANCE. I. A superficial knowledge of two types of literature so apparently dissimilar as Whitman's Leaves of Grass and the poetry of the French Symbolists might point to the conclusion that no task could be more futile than the attempt to compare the two. It has been said of the Leaves that no such dose of realism and individualism under the guise of poetry, no such break with literary traditions-no such audacious attempt to tally in a printed page the living, concrete man, an actual human presence, instead of the conscious, made-up poet-can be found. in modern literary records. When, in addition to this, it is affirmed. that Whitman's poetry is almost entirely the expression of will and personality, and runs very little to intellectual subtleties and refinements, it might seem that no poetry is more remote from the abstract, cultivated, wilfully obscured lyricism of the Symbolists than Whitman's Leaves. Nevertheless, Whitman has been frequently linked with the Symbolists chiefly, it is true, on account of similarities of poetical form-and in such a way as to suggest a possible influence of the American poet on his French contemporaries. In studying this question, we have found that, in spite of fundamental dissimilarities, there are many striking resemblances between the new forms and ideas which throve on either side of the Atlantic during the second half of the last century. We have no reasons for thinking that there was any effective interaction between the two centres of inspiration at the birth of Symbolism. For although a few early Symbolists knew Leaves of Grass and even translated some of them into French, the force of Whitman's inspiration was not felt in France until the appearance of the complete version, Les Feuilles d'Herbe, in 1909. We can only account for this simultaneous realisation. of similar ideals as the action of a vague but undeniable law which has been observed to operate again and again in the history of the M. L. R. X. 1 development of ideas. How often has it not been said that a great discovery is but the final and triumphant application of ideas that were already in the air'? Whitman seems to have been conscious of this fact when he wrote: This moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone, It seems to me there are other men in other lands yearning and thoughtful, It seems to me I can look over and behold them in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or Japan, talking other dialects, And it seems to me if I could know those men I should become attached to them as I do to men in my own lands, OI know we should be brethren and lovers, I know I should be happy with them1. It is often said that there is a general form of sensibility which imposes itself upon all men of the same epoch. And in this sense M. Tancrède de Visan has written a study, 'proving without violence and by means of appropriate examples that Symbolism, far from being an exceptional literature, a production peculiar to the soil of France, and therefore a school, must be regarded as a general lyrical attitude in conformity with contemporary idealism.' Without aiming at a comprehensive definition, he says, 'Le symbolisme ou attitude poétique contemporaine se sert d'images successives ou accumulées pour extérioriser une intuition lyrique,' and quotes as an example, Les Regards from M. Maeterlinck's Serres Chaudes. In so far as it is an accumulation of successive images this poem was probably inspired by Whitman's 'catalogue' style. This does not mean that Whitman had any considerable influence on Symbolist art; for M. Maeterlinck's case is exceptional. But it may be pointed out that, broadly speaking, the above quoted definition of Symbolism is equally applicable to the poetry of Walt Whitman who begins his Leaves with an 'inscription' having for theme, 'eidólons' or 'images.' I met a seer, Passing the hues and objects of the world, Put in thy chants, said he, No more the puzzling hour nor day, nor segments, parts, put in, That of eidólons3. 1 Calamus, Leaves of Grass, i, p. 154. Camden Book-lover's edition, edited by R. M. Bucke, T. B. Harned, H. L. Traubel. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 2 L'Attitude du Lyrisme contemporain, Paris, 1911. 3 L. of G., i, p. 5. The question of Whitman's influence on modern French poetry is closely allied to that of an equally intricate subject, the origin of the vers libre or modern French free verse. Whitman's poetry is remarkable from the standpoint of form in that it is devoid of rhyme and metre. It consists of rhythmical lines which vary in length and structure according to the poet's inspiration. That expression should correspond as closely as possible to inspiration is the essential principle of French free verse. Moreover, since Whitman was being translated into French in 1886 (a year before the appearance of the first vers libres) by Jules Laforgue, one of the originators of the new form, some writers have suggested that the vers libre was due primarily and directly to the influence of Whitman. This was not the case. Whitman's influence was neither deep nor broad enough to play any considerable part in the liberation of French prosody: this was essentially, if not entirely, a native development. Still, Whitman's influence is constantly (though, we think, erroneously) cited as explaining the origin of the vers libre, and this points at least to some similarity between the form of Leaves of Grass and that adopted by most French Symbolists. Apart from the question of form, it might at first seem incongruous to suppose that there were any further similarities between Whitman's rhapsodic utterances, universal in their appeal, and the esoteric refinement of Symbolist poetry. And, indeed, in practice the resemblance is slight. Nevertheless, it is remarkable how many of the working ideas of the American poet and the Symbolists are identical. This was realised in France as early as 1892. In that year, the date of Whitman's death, a French critic of high standing, M. Teodor de Wyzewa, published a striking article in La Revue Bleue wherein he declared that all the innovations attempted in French literature during the preceding twentyfive years, could be found employed with more or less success in the first edition of Leaves of Grass. The object of M. de Wyzewa's study was however to disprove any influence exerted up to that time upon French literature by Whitman. The opposite point of view was taken by another French writer in 1904. This was M. Émile Blémont who wrote a 'postscriptum' to a new edition of an enthusiastic essay on Whitman first published in 1872. A poet of the old school, M. Blémont seems to suggest that the Symbolists did little but borrow from, and debase, Whitman's original inspiration. Though we find nothing to support this idea, these two essays furnish sufficient proof that marked resemblances exist between the work of Whitman and the Symbolists. These similarities may be briefly considered |