Subject
Nabokov and Verlaine
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My apologies again for the last mail; something went wrong and it was sent
before I had hardly started it! Here goes again.
Reading Paul Verlaine's poem 'Aspiration', which begins thus: *Cette vallée
est triste et grise: un froid brouillard/Pèse sur elle...*, I was struck by
the following lines, in which the poet long for *ces pleines...dont l'echo
lointain, de mon coeur palpitant/ Trouble la fibre:*
*
*
Là, rayonnent, sous l'oeil de Dieu qui les bénit,
Des fleurs étranges,
Là, sont des arbres où gazouillent comme un nid
Des milliers d'anges;
Là, tous les sons rêvés, là, toutes les splendeurs
Inabordables
Forment, par un hymen miracileux, des choeurs
Inénarrables!
Là, des vaisseux sans nombre, aux cordage de feu,
Fendent les ondes
D'un lac de diamant où se peint le ciel bleu
Avec les mondes;
Là, dans les airs charmés, vol`tent des odeurs
Enchanteresses,
Enivrant à la fois les cerveaux et les coeurs
De leurs caresses.
I immediately recalled the following and well-known passage from *Invitation
To A Beaheading*:
There, tam, là-bas, the gaze of men glows with inimitable understanding
[...]...*There, there* are the originals of those gardens where we used to
roam and hide in this world; *there* everything strikes one by its
bewitching evidence, by the simplicity of perfect good; *there* everything
pleases one's soul, everything is filled with the kind of fun that children
know; *there* shines the mirror that now and then sends a chance reflection
here... (Chapter 8, p. 94, Firts Vintage Internatonal Edition, 1989)
Note also the antithesis of Verlaines *là* with *ce monde impur où le fait
chaque jour/ Détruit la rêve:*
*
*
Loin de ce bagne où, hors le débauché qui dort,
Tous sont infâmes,
Loin de tout ce qui vit, loin des hommes, encor
Plus loin des femmes
Of course, Verlaine's poem is undoubtedly inspired by Charles
Baudelaire's *L'invitation
au Voyage*, but being aware of Nabokov's love for Verlaine's poetry, I wond
whether this is a deliberate hommage or 'just' an allusion.
Hafid Bouazza
(Note to the editor: I apologize again for my first two bungled mails.)
Search archive with Google:
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Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
before I had hardly started it! Here goes again.
Reading Paul Verlaine's poem 'Aspiration', which begins thus: *Cette vallée
est triste et grise: un froid brouillard/Pèse sur elle...*, I was struck by
the following lines, in which the poet long for *ces pleines...dont l'echo
lointain, de mon coeur palpitant/ Trouble la fibre:*
*
*
Là, rayonnent, sous l'oeil de Dieu qui les bénit,
Des fleurs étranges,
Là, sont des arbres où gazouillent comme un nid
Des milliers d'anges;
Là, tous les sons rêvés, là, toutes les splendeurs
Inabordables
Forment, par un hymen miracileux, des choeurs
Inénarrables!
Là, des vaisseux sans nombre, aux cordage de feu,
Fendent les ondes
D'un lac de diamant où se peint le ciel bleu
Avec les mondes;
Là, dans les airs charmés, vol`tent des odeurs
Enchanteresses,
Enivrant à la fois les cerveaux et les coeurs
De leurs caresses.
I immediately recalled the following and well-known passage from *Invitation
To A Beaheading*:
There, tam, là-bas, the gaze of men glows with inimitable understanding
[...]...*There, there* are the originals of those gardens where we used to
roam and hide in this world; *there* everything strikes one by its
bewitching evidence, by the simplicity of perfect good; *there* everything
pleases one's soul, everything is filled with the kind of fun that children
know; *there* shines the mirror that now and then sends a chance reflection
here... (Chapter 8, p. 94, Firts Vintage Internatonal Edition, 1989)
Note also the antithesis of Verlaines *là* with *ce monde impur où le fait
chaque jour/ Détruit la rêve:*
*
*
Loin de ce bagne où, hors le débauché qui dort,
Tous sont infâmes,
Loin de tout ce qui vit, loin des hommes, encor
Plus loin des femmes
Of course, Verlaine's poem is undoubtedly inspired by Charles
Baudelaire's *L'invitation
au Voyage*, but being aware of Nabokov's love for Verlaine's poetry, I wond
whether this is a deliberate hommage or 'just' an allusion.
Hafid Bouazza
(Note to the editor: I apologize again for my first two bungled mails.)
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/