THE problem of Isidore Ducasse, who for his Chants de Maldoror adopted the pompous pseudonym of « Comte de Lautréamont, » is now ready for the attention of literary historians. Before 1919 he was only known to, and admired by, a small group of followers. Between 1919 and 1925 his influence became manifest and his work widely known. For example, to André Gide he is « avec Rimbaud, plus que Rimbaud peut-être, le maître des écluses pour la littérature de demain. » (1) The importance of his work has been stressed also by writers such as Bernard Fay, Léon Pierre-Quint, Edmont Jaloux and Ramón Gómez de la Serna. (2) For his most ardent admirers, such as André Breton and Paul Eluard, he is too sacred to be delivered to the publier : « En réponse à votre lettre je tiens à déclarer que selon moi c'est pure folie de soulever publiquement la « question » Lautréamont. Qu'espérez-vous, grand Dieu ? Ce qui a pu si longtemps se garder de toute souillure, à quoi pensez-vous en le livrant aux littérateurs, aux porcs ? » (3) A study of the works of the surréalistes will show that not only do they quote Lautréamont as an authority of last resort, but that their works are dominated by the influence of his style and his ideas.
As a contrast to this, we have an almost complete blank in the field of scholarship. Isidore Ducasse, though eminently worthy, has not yet entered into the domain of literary history. Up until December, 1931, when a short article by S. A. Rhodes, entitled « Lautréamont redivivus, » appeared in the ROMANIC REVIEW, (XXII, pp. 285-90), the name of Lautréamont had apparently never been mentioned in any of the French, English or American reviews devoted to the history of French literature. (4)
Lautréamont is a writer of sufficient importance to deserve careful study, from the point of view of his life, the significance of his work, his sources, his influence. But, considering, on the one hand, the general neglect with which he has been treated by literary historians, and, on the other hand, the often misleading partiality of his admirers, it seems that a general mise au point and presentation of the question should precede any definitive studies. The present article will attempt to do that. It will give briefly a history of the success of Lautréamont's work, at the same time mentioning and commenting upon the principal biographical and critical studies that have appeared to date, and will attempt to present (without solving them) the problems regarding Lautréamont's life and work that remain to be elucidated.
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Before proceeding further, it will be well to give a brief analysis and description of the character of the Chants de Maldoror. It is a poem in prose, running to about 280 pages in length in the complete edition. It is divided into six chants, each of which is subdivided into ten to twelve strophes of varying length. A large part of the work is narrative ; usually each strophe is devoted to a single narrative episode. These episodes (with the exception of the sixth chant, where there is a long narrative sequence) are connected by no thread, except for the presence of the protagonist Maldoror. Here and there strophes in which the protagonist analyzes his character are interpolated among the narrative ones. The first strophe of each of the chants is prefatory in its nature ; and in these strophes the author ironically discusses his intentions and cryptically explains his art poétique. The work has the appeareance of being incomplete. The last strophe concludes the narrative of the sixth chant, but it is hardly a satisfactory conclusion to the poem.
The poem as a whole is an expression of Romantic revolt, possibly the most violent and extreme expression of this revolt that is known. The hero is Maldoror, a sort of superman, described as « l'homme aux lèvres de bronze, » « l'homme aux lèvres de jaspe, » the man who has never slept, has never laughed. He has vast intellectual powers supported by immeasurable pride, but is staines by excessive and extravagant vices that spring from unbridled passions. He defies and attacks the Creator, who is represented as a sort of demon, having as many vices as Maldoror, but in him they are made to appear mean and base, whereas in Maldoror they appear grand and terrible. The Creator, who is shown as a glutton, a drunkard, a sadist, has victimized man ; and Maldoror intends to be the avenger of man. For, though Maldoror despises humanity, he pities it at the same time. Because of his prodigious vices, among which sadism predominates, Maldoror inflicts a great deal of suffering upon human beings, but he loves them at the same time, and he enters into a Homeric conflict with the Creator who has exploited men so shamefully. The battle is a bloody draw ; each of the adversaries is unconquerable.
Lengthy sections of the poem, in grandiloquent periods of imprecatory rhetoric, describe this conflict in terms of invective and audacious blasphemy. This is alternated with sections of ribald irony, farcical burlesque, parody of many styles of writing, digressions filled with dazzling, amazing figures of speech, and occasional passages of platitude, ineptitude or bathos, doubtless intended to mystify and irritate.
The charge made by certain critics (5) that this work becomes quickly monotonous and that one's interest increase in the second and third chants ; and a climax is reached in the fourth and firth chants. The sixth chant is somewhat in the nature of an anticlimax : it was probably originally intended as a transitional rather than a concluding chant. It is the narrative of Maldoror's successful attempt to seduce and torture Mervyn, an English youth living in Paris. Abandoning the tone of furiously eloquent imprecation that dominates in the first five chants, the author turns to an ironic and puzzling parody of the manner of the adventure novels of Eugène Sue and Ponson du Terrail.
The greatest originality and the greatest interest of this work is not in the subject, but in the style. It is a style that bears some resemblance, no doubt, to that of Bossuet or that of Chateaubriand (or, among the lesser Romantics, to that of Pétrus Borel's Madame Putiphar), but in the main it has no precursors. As to what produces its singular originality, it is difficult to say definitely ; but a few indications may be given. Part of it may be due to the use of simple and effective, but obvious and commonplace, rhetorical devices (rhetorical questions, periodic sentences, etc.) for the expression of ideas and images which are unconventional in the extreme. Another point to be noted is the use of logic in the development of the discourses. It is not the simple paragraph development of a Bossuet, but it is the intricate web of an extremely subtle and skeptical logician, who is aware of the treachery of words and of the fact that in a logical sequence one can pass from sense to nonsense and back, with bewildering rapidity. (6) A further factor in this originality is the emphasis placed upon scientific nomenclature. Whereas Hugo made use of the colorful effects of proper names, for which he ransacked encyclopedias, Lautréamont seems to have ransacked scientific textbooks for terminology, usually biological, which he uses with a most curious and original effect. It is out of this use of scientific terminology that seem many of his figures of speech, often so remarquable. Some of these, such as the famous simile « beau comme la rencontre fortuite, sur une table de dissection, d'une machine à coudre et un parapluie » (7) are merely intended to startle because of their cocasserie, others, such as « beau comme le tremblement des mains dans l'alcoolisme » (8) are surprisingly, subtly true.
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The bare facts of the publication of the Chants de Maldoror are known ; but around them there is almost complete darkness. in August, 1868, there appeared in Paris, from the presses of Balitout, Questroy et Cie, 7, rue Baillif, a thin octavo volume (32 pp.) entitled Les Chants de Maldoror, Chant premier, par ***. The work was completely ignored. Up to the present time no one has discovered any reference to it in any newspaper or review of the period. (9) There is no record whatsoever of anyone having read it or even having possessed a copy, with the exception of Paul Lespès, classmate of Ducasse at the Lycée of Pau in 1864, to whom a copy was sent. When interviewed a few years ago, Lespès, then aged 81, said that there was no indication given as to the author or sender of the volume, but that at the time he received it he had recognized the manner and the ideas of his former classmate. (10)
A second and complete edition of the Chants appeared in 1874, in Brussels. (11) This time the « Comte de Lautréamont » (12) was named as author. Not until 11 year later can one find evidence that the book was beginning to be known. In 1885 the review La Jeune Belgique published a strophe from the first of the Chants, (13) attributing it to the « Vicomte » de Lautréamont. A note accompanying this said that the review would shortly publish a study of the life and work of the author. This study never appeared. However, this publication, in a review which was at the time leading the literary renaissance in Belgium, must have called Lautréamont to the attention of some of the young intellectuals of Belgium, such as Georges Eekhoud, Maurice Maeterlinck and Camille Lemonnier. (14)
At about the same time, that curious personality, Léon Bloy, became acquainted with the work of Lautréamont. In 1886 he published a strange novel, entitled Le Désespéré. In the opening part of the novel a couple of pages are devoted to a discussion of the abysmal despair which seemed to Bloy a keynote of the epoch ; and mention is made of Baudelaire, Mme Ackermann, Ernest Hello, Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Verlaine, Huysmans and Dostoïevsky as manifestations of it. Then the unknown author of the Chants de Maldoror is mentioned as the extreme expression of this tendency. The paragraphs in which Bloy expounded this point deserve to be quoted, as they apparently represent the first existing criticism of Lautréamont's work :
« L'un des signes les moins douteux de cet acculement des âmes modernes à l'extrémité de tout, c'est la récente intrusion en France d'un monstre de livre, presque inconnu encore, quoique publié en Belgique depuis dix ans : les Chants de Maldoror, par le comte de Mautréamont (?), œuvre tout à fait sans analogue et probablement appelée à retentir. L'auteur est mort dans un cabanon et c'est tout ce qu'on sait de lui.
« Il est difficile de décider si le mot monstre est ici suffisant. Cela ressemble à quelque effroyable polymorphe sousmarin qu'une tempête surprenante aurait lancé sur le rivage après avoir saboulé le fond de l'Océan.
« La gueule même de l'imprécation demeure béante et silencieuse au conspect de ce visiteur, et les sataniques litanies des Fleurs du Mal prennent subitement, par comparaison, comme un certain air d'anodine bondieuserie.
« Ce n'est plus la Bonne Nouvelle de la Mort du bonhomme Herzen, c'est quelque chose comme la Bonne Nouvelle de la Damnation. Quant à la forme littéraire, il n'y en a pas. C'est de la lave liquide. C'est insensé, noir et dévorant.
« Mais ne semble-t-il pas à ceux qui l'ont lue, que cette diffamation inouïe de la Providence exhale, par anticipation, — avec l'inégalable autorité d'une Prophétie, — l'ultime clameur imminente de la conscience humaine devant son Juge ?... » (15)
It was the same Bloy, who, four years later, published in La Plume an article on Lautréamont entitled « Le Cabanon de Prométhée. » (16) It was somewhat more detailed and informative, but contained the same tone of violent and exaggerated, but not undiscriminating, admiration, as the paragraphs in Le Désespéré. It also repeated the statement that the author was a madman. It is difficult to decide whether Bloy had actually been told that, or whether it was a fruit of his own imagination working upon fancied autobiographical details in Maldoror.
In 1894 Bloy's attitude toward Lautréamont had not changed. in a letter which he quoted in his published journal, he sent to his friend, the artist Henry de Groux, a series of projectsof illustrations for a work which was being prepared by the poet, Roinard, and which was to be entitled Portraits du prochain siècle. Among them was to be « Lautréamont — Henry de Groux invitant un monstre à pénétrer dans son atelier. » (17) The Portraits du prochain siècle was published in that same year — but without the portrait or mention of Lautréamont.
By 1890 the Chants de Maldoror had a few readers, but who the so-called « Comte de Lautréamont » was, remained a mystery. Publications of 1890 and 1981 cleared up that mystery to a certain extent. Toward the end of the year 1890, the work of Isidore Ducasse was reprinted by the publisher L. Genonceaux. (18) The publisher himself wrote a short preface in which he disclosed that the real name of the Comte de Lautréamont was Isidore Ducasse, that he was born in Montevideo of French parentage and that he died very young (Genonceaux says at the age of 20) in Paris, Nov. 24, 1870, in a hotel located 7, rue du Faubourg-Montmartre. (19) Genonceaux then gave various unsubstantiated details concerning Ducasse's manner of life, and devoted several pages to disproving Bloy's assertion that the author of the Chants de Maldoror was mad.
Most of the information given by Genonceaux dedicated his preface. Lacroix was, it seems, the real publisher of the 1874 edition of Maldoror — the name « Typ. E. de Wittmann » given in that edition being purely fictitious. According to Genonceaux's account the volume was set up and ready to be published in 1869, but Lacroix held up the publication through fear of the censors. The publisher of the 1890 edition went to the banker, Dosseur, successor of Darasse, who had been banker for the Ducasse family, and obtained from him two letters of Isidore Ducasse addressed to Darasse. One of them he reproduced in facsimilé (preceding the frontispiece), the other he quoted in the preface. The first contains some interesting details. It was written March 12, 1870 ; and in it Ducasse states that his inability to get a work of his published had taught him a lesson and that he was planning another piece of work in an entirely new vein. The preface to this (60 pp.) was already written. This undoubtedly authentic letter confirmed Genonceaux's statements as to the difficulties experienced by Ducasse in having his work published by Lacroix.
As to the other work mentioned by ducasse, definite light was thrown on it by investigation carried on at the time by Remy de Gourmont. In February, 1891, he published in the Mercure de France (20) a critical study of Maldoror, followed by certain bibliographical notes. The critical study, which was far from definitive, was less interesting than the discoveries revealed in the bibliographical notes. At the Bibliothèque Nationale Gourmont had come across the 1868 edition of the Chants de Maldoror, and he now made its existence known to the literary world — over 22 years after its publication. He also noted the curious variants between the edition of 1868 and the later ones. Furthermore he found two small plaquettes published in 1870 under the title of Poésies ; par Isidore Ducasse. (21) He ended his article with a few quotations from these so-called « poésies. » The nature of the work made it evident that this was the « préface » to which Ducasse had referred in the letter to his banker. (22)
As a further contribution to the biography of Isidore Ducasse the Mercure published, later in the same year, (23) under the heading « Curiosités », his acte de naissance, showing that he was born April 4, 1846, in Montevideo. No indication was given as to how or by whom this had been obtained, but its authenticity has been demonstrated by investigations in Montevideo in recent years. (24)
It is also in the Mercure de France, and in the same year, that we find Lautréamont's work referred to with unqualified admiration for the first time. In a preface which Camille Lemonnier wrote to Rachilde's La Sanglante Ironie he commented as follows :
« D'analogie (between Rachilde and Lautréamont) il n'en est point, à part peut-être la communauté d'injustice qui les voue à d'immérités silences. Je signale simplement le fait de ce tumultueux et imprécatoire rhéteur, de ce musicien des grands orgues littéraires, de cet infant de lettres qui mourut sans avoir régné et probablement ne sera reconnu Prince spirituel que par un très petit nombre de ses pairs. » (25)
Following this period (1885-1891) when the mysterious Comte de Lautréamont was identified as Isidore Ducasse, when certain facts about his life were discovered, when his work was reviewed by certain writers of importance, there ensued a period of some twenty years in which his work had practically no success. It had become known too late to attract the attention of the earlier symbolist poets ; and as for the later symbolist poets, with a few exceptions, they either ignored it absolutely or regarded it as of no importance. (26) Certain of the opinions of members of that generation, expressed in Le Cas Lautréamont, are interesting in that connection. Edouard Dujardin, the author of Les Lauriers sont coupés and, among other things, editor of the Derniers Vers of Laforgue, says, for instance : « ... pendant toute la période symboliste, je n'ai pas entendu prononcer une seule fois le nom de Lautréamont, et, comme je ne vivais aucunement en sauvage, j'ai tout lieu de croire qu'il était aussi inconnu à mes camarades qu'à moi-même. » (27)
As we have indicated above, Maeterlinck could have known the Chants de Maldoror as early as 1885, but he did not remain an admirer ; in the Cas Lautréamont the author of L'Oiseau bleu says : « Aujourd'hui ... je crois bien que tout cela me paraîtrait illisible... » (28)
Paul Valéry is another who seems to have neglected Lautréamont. According to his testimony :
« Je le connais à peine, si c'est même connaître que d'avoir feuilleté, il y a un temps infini, un exemplaire des Chants de Maldoror ? Il me semble toutefois que je puis expliquer pourquoi je n'ai pas poussé ma curiosité plus profondément dans cette œuvre ; j'avais dix-neuf ans, et je venais de recevoir le petit volume des Illuminations ... » (29)
Of this second symbolist generation two writers at least read and appreciated the work of Ducasse. They are Léon-Paul Fargue and Alfred Jarry. A few years ago Fargue, when interviewed by Frédéric Lefèvre, declared that Lautréamont was among his literary preferences. (30) As for Jarry, it is certain that he had read the Chants de Maldoror as early as 1894. In that year he mentioned Lautréamont admiringly in a book review he contributed to L'Art littéraire, of which he was one of the editors. (31) Furthermore, in the bizarre play, Haldernablou, (included in the book Minutes de sable mémorial, published in the autumn of 1894) he inserted an interesting allusion to an episode of the Maldoror, referring to « cet autre page que mon ami le Montévidéen lança contre un arbre, ne gardant dans sa main que la chevelure sanglante et rouge. » (32) A careful study of the work of Alfred Jarry should demonstrate the existence of considerable influence of Lautréamont.
The first mention of Lautréamont by a writer in a foreign language occurs at this period. In some way or other the Hispano-American poet, Rubén Darío, came to know the Chants de Maldoror and devoted to them a chapter of his book, Los Raros (1893), a series of impressionistic critical studies of unusual literary figures. This study, — an intelligent, poetic appreciation, — does not seem to have attracted the attention of Spanish readers to Lautréamont very rapidly.
However, during these years, the Chants de Maldoror must have been read to a certain extent, even though they were not understood. There was a rather curious reference to them in the popular review Je Sais Tout in the year 1911. In an article, entitled « La Fleur du mauvais goût », and signed « Henri Duvernois » (33), they were discussed as a good example of incoherence and bad taste. For instance, « en lisant ce style chaotique du comte de Lautréamont, par exemple, un homme de goût verra tout de suite ce que produira une pensée d'où la réflexion est absente et que pousse un vent de folie ; il remarquera que les phrases ne sont pas rattachées entre elles par ce lien logique et solide que l'on retrouve chez tous les grands classiques... » (34) Any one who has read Lautréamont with comprehension or attention will note how singularly inexact is that last criticism. The sentences in the Maldoror are always attached to each other by the firm link of logic ; in fact the logic of the developments is in some cases, and with ironic intent, pushed to ludicrous extremes.
The year, 1914, may be said to have seen the beginning of the vogue of Lautréamont — a vogue that was delayed somewhat by the War, but that sprang up again in 1919 and continued until it reached its height in 1925-1927. Valery Larbaud played an important part in the beginning of that vogue. In a recent article he has confessed to owing a personnal debt to Isidore Ducasse, stating that the Maldoror, « un classique de demain sans doute », was one of the livres de chevet with which his bed was constantly cluttered in his late 'teens (about 1897-1900). (35) In 1914 Valery Larbaud published in La Phalange (36) a critical study of Ducasse — the best that had appeared up to then, — entitled « Les « Poésies » d'Isidore Ducasse. » This study was principally concerned with the Poésies, but it also contained some sane judgments as to the value of the Chants de Maldoror and as to the character of the author. The same year saw the republication, in the review, Vers et Prose, edited by Paul Fort, of the first of the Chants, along with the Genonceaux preface and the two letters that had accompanied this preface. (37)
As we have said, the discovery or rediscovery of Lautréamont took place immediately after the War. Among the chief instigators of the movement were Philippe Soupault, André Breton, Louis Aragon and Paul Eluard, who were to be, in the years following, among the leaders of the dadaist and surréaliste movements. Between 1919 and 1927, the Chants de Maldoror were reissued twice, the Poésies three times, and a number of articles of varying importance on the author or his work were published. The writers of the advance guard, the surréalistes, and those more or less in sympathy with them, cited Lautréamont on every occasion — some admiring him as an important influence, a genuine source of inspiration, the more fanatical regarding him as a god. The extent to which the vogue of Lautréamont went may be shown by the fact of the existence in Paris, about 1929-1930, of a cabaret named « Maldoror ». This cabaret (the barman of which was, of course, called Isidore) was opened under the auspices of the surréalistes, who had it decorated in the spirit of some of the wilder episodes in the work which had inspired it.
In this period (from the rediscovery of Lautréamont to the present) there have appeared three works of considerable amplitude, which will be analyzed briefly as a conclusion to this review of Lautréamont criticism.
In 1925 the Belgian literary review, Le Disque Vert, published as a special number an enquête entitled Le Cas Lautréamont. It consists of a series of essays, brief quotations of opinions, quotations from earlier critical studies, and a bibliography. The essays and opinions do not give any definitive stydy, but are of value, since they present a fair indication of the attitude toward Lautréamont of three generations in both France and Belgium. The section of quotations from critical studies presents a series of selections of the essentials of a number of articles that would otherwise be quite inaccessible. The bibliography, by R. Simonson, is quite good.
Philippe Soupault, one of the most enthusiastic of the post-War discoverers of Lautréamont, published in 1927 an edition of the Œuvres complètes du comte de Lautréamont (Isidore Ducasse). (39) In addition to the Chants de Maldoror and the Poésies, this edition contains five letters (three added to the two earlier published by Genonceaux), a biographical material. The edition is of considerable value, since it assembles in one volume the texts (hitherto published in limited editions and relatively inaccessible) and the letters, along with documents and biographical and bibliographical material which was not new, but which had never been collected. one can easily criticize a certain lack of scholarly method in the presentation, and find certain errors and certain lacunae. The biography is the weakest part. The new material, which Soupault added, is generally considered to be erroneous and had the unfortunate result of getting the editor into a quarrel with the other members of the surréaliste group. As for the rest of the biography, it is chiefly an embroidering upon the account given by Genonceaux, which itself hardly bore the stamp of scientific accuracy.
Finally, in 1928 and 1929, there appeared for the first time critical appraisals of the work of Lautréamont that may be called complete and adequate. They are by Léon Pierre-Quint, already known for an important critical and biographical study of Marcel Proust, and for his articles on contemporary writers published in the Revue de France under the title of « Lectures. » Pierre-Quint's first article on Lautréamont appeared in the Revue de France. (40) It was a general study of the man and his work. The same general interpretation, elaborated and completed, was given by the book published a year later with the title of Le comte de Lautréamont et Dieu. (41) Pierre-Quint has made no attempt to exhaust the subject, (in particular, he left practically untouched the complicated problems of the biography of Isidore Ducasse) but his work presents a reliable criticism and, on the whole, would make an excellent introduction for the general reader to the Chants de Maldoror.
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The first problem connected with Lautréamont demanding the attention of the student is that of his life. It is doubtful whether much new material can be discovered at this late date. At any rate the biographer of Ducasse should not be obliged to make a trip to Montevideo, since the question of the birth of the author of Maldoror and the doings of his family in South America has been gone into rather extensively, (42) possibly more extensively than was necessary, for Ducasse left South America at a fairly early age, apparently never to return ; and the country must have had of Isidore's school days in southern France was published in the Mercure de France of Jan. 1, 1928. Further investigation in the region of Tarbes and Pau might bring additional facts to light. The question of Isidore's life in Paris will require especially careful handling. The existant accounts, chiefly based upon legend, must be rejected, with the exception of a few details. Ducasse's letters are of interest and deserve careful study ; and a few autobiographical details may be sifted out of the Maldoror or the Poésies.
The problems of a more general literary nature that remain to be attacked may be divided into four groups. First, would be general studies of the work and its significance : The importance of the Chants de Maldoror, the author's relation to the literary movements of his century and his period, his style, etc. A special point to be settled is the problem of Ducasse's apparent recantation as expressed in the Poésies (to be compared, of course, to Rimbaud's abandoning of poetry at about the same period).
A second type of literary problem to be studied is that of the genesis of the Maldoror, of the method of composition, of the revisions introduced into the Maldoror, of the method of composition, of the revisions introduced into the second edition, etc. This problem has already been treated summarily by André Malraux, (43) but is sufficiently interesting to warrant more ample treatment.
A study of the sources of Lautréamont may prove to be sterile. As has been suggested above, his style is exceedingly original ; and it is hard to find sources for it. It has been pointed out that the Maldoror contains reminiscences (probably intentional) of Hugo, Musset, Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare, of Ponson du Terrail, Eugène Sue, etc. (44) It might be profitable to search the works of 19th century writers named by Ducasse in his Poésies and his letters (for instance, Mickiewicz's Konrad Wallenrodt and Ernest Naville's Problème du Mal) for the source of his ideas. Another vein to be mined, — and where patient digging might bring to light something of interest, — is the scientific detail which abounds in the Maldoror.
The most important literary problem connected with Lautréamont, that most likely to produce real contributions to scholarship, is that of his influence. It is quite evident that there is a considerable amount of influence on the post-War generation of writers, especially on the surréaliste group. (45) This should be definitively studied some day. Today, the writers of 1919-1929 may be too close to us to be judged in a definitive way, but it would be well for students to go to work and assemble the materials for such a study. They are now easily available, and their importance should not be underestimated.
HENRY A. GRUBBS, JR.
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
(1) Préface (p. 3) to Le Cas Lautréamont, Paris, 1925, — enquête of the Disque vert, a Belgian periodical edited by Franz Hellens and Henry Michaux.
(2) See Le Cas Lautréamont, passim.
(3) André Breton's opinion, quoted in Le Cas Lautréamont, p. 90. See also Eluard's opinion, p. 95.
(4) Neither the Year's Work in Modern Language Studies (London) nor the bibliographical chronicle of the Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France has, up to 1933, mentioned the name of the author of the Chants de Maldoror.
(5) See, for instance, R. Lalou's Histoire de la Littérature française contemporaine, Paris, 1923, p. 172.
(6) As he says : « Mes raisonnements se choqueront quelquefois contre les grelots de la folie ». (Œuvres de Lautréamont, éd. Soupault, Paris, 1917, p. 217).
(7) Œuvres, p. 306.
(8) Ibid., p. 266.
(9) The book went into the dépot légal, however, and is mentionned by the Bibliographie de la France.
(10) See François Alicot, « À propos des Chant de Maldoror. Le vrai visage d'Isidore Ducasse », Mercure de France, 1er janv. 1928, pp. 199-207, esp. pp. 202-06.
(11) « Typ. de E. Wittmann, » in-12°, 332 pp.
(12) « Lautréamont », hero of Eugène Sue's novel of the same name, has been suggested as probable source of Ducasse's pseudonym.
(13) Strophe 11 (éd. Soupault, pp. 85-92), a scene of a family gathered round a table, with Maldoror as the intruder (La Jeune Belgique, Vol. IV, 1884-1885, pp. 496-500, Oct., 1885).
(14) See Le Cas Lautréamont, pp. 93, 94-95, for the statements of Maeterlinck and Eekhoud regarding their early knowledge of Lautréamont. For Lemonnier, vid. infr.
(15) Bloy, Le Désespéré, Paris, Soirat, 1886, in-18°, pp. 39-40.
(16) La Plume, Vol. II, 1er sept., 1890, pp. 151-154. This study was reprinted in Bloy's book Belluaires et Porchers, Paris, 1905, pp. 1-19.
(17) Le Mendiant ingrat (Journal 1892-1896), Bruxelles, 1898, in-8°, p. 238 (3 juillet, 1894).
(18) Comte de Lautréamont, Les Chants de Maldoror, Chants I-VI. Frontispice de José Roy, Paris, L. Genonceaux, 1890, in-12°. The frontispiece is not a portrait, but a rather poor illustration of the 35th strophe (Chant III, éd. Soupault, pp. 198-212). The volume is dated 1890, but was recorded in the Bibliographie de la France in the week of Jan. 31, 1891.
(19) This is verified (except for the age at the time of death, which was 24) by the death notice, first published by the Révolution surréaliste, n° 2, Jan. 15, 1925 ; later by Soupault, in his edition of the Œuvres (p. 414).
(20) Vol. II, pp. 97-106.
(21) Poésies ; par Isidore Ducasse, I, II, Paris, Balitout, Questroy et Cie, in-8°, 15 pp., 16 pp.
(22) Gourmont's study was reprinted, in a slightly different form, in his Livres des masques (Paris, 1896, in-18°, pp. 139-49), without the bibliographical notes and the selections from the Poésies. It was preceded by a « portrait » by Félix Valloton, generally believed to be an imaginary portrait.
(23) Vol. III, pp. 318-19.
(24) See Guillot-Munoz, « Isidore Ducasse », Revue de l'Amérique latine, vol. IX, 1925, pp. 101-105 (1er février, 1925).
(25) Mercure de france, Vol. II, 1891, p. 66.
(26) It is perhaps this attitude which brought about such a neglect that caused the reaction against that group of poets on the part of the generation of 1920-1930. (For instance, the works of Moréas, Régnier, Vielé-Griffin, etc., are omitted from the Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie française as being out of harmony with the spirit of the new French poetry.)
(27) Le Cas Lautréamont, p. 97.
(28) Op. cit., p. 93.
(29) Le Cas Lautréamont, pp. 93-94.
(30) Lefèvre, Une Heure avec ... 5ème série, Paris, 1929, p. 278.
(31) See L'Art littéraire, 3me année, nouvelle série n° 1-2 (janvier-février, 1894), p. 30. The book reviewed was
(32) Minutes de sable mémorial, Paris, 1932, p. 106. The episode referred to is the adventure of Maldoror and Falmer. see strophe 42, éd. Soupault, pp. 250-54.
(33) According to Valery Larbaud (La Phalange, 20 février, 1914, p. 149), it was later denied that Duvernois had written this. I was unable to verify this.
(34) Je Sais Tout, 15 septembre, 1911, p. 180.
(35) See Valery Larbaud, « Le Gouverneur de Kerguelen, » Nouvelle Revue française, 1er mai, 1933, p. 759.
(36) La Phalange, 20 février, 1914, pp. 148-55.
(37) Vers et Prose, tome 36, janvier-février-mars, 1914.
(38) The only written account of this cabaret that I have located is in Ramón Gómez de la Serna's Ismos, Madrid, 1931, pp. 286-87.
(39) Paris, Au Sans Pareil.
(40) 15 janvier, 1928, pp. 301-29.
(41) Marseille, Les Cahiers du Sud, 1929.
(42) Cf. G. and A. Guillot-Munoz, Lautréamont et Laforgue, Montevideo, 1925 (I refer to this work at second hand only, having been unable to locate a copy), and Contreras, « L'Origine du comte de Lautréamont, » Mercure de France, 15 juillet, 1927, pp. 474-78.
(43) « La Génèse des Chants de Maldoror, », Action, avril, 1920, fasc. 3, pp. 33-35. Reprinted in part (or possibly, in extenso) in Le Cas Lautréamont, pp. 119-23.
(44) See Le Cas Lautréamont, pp. 18-19.
(45) It may be added that, during last April, there was held in New York an exhibition of drawings and etchings prepared by Salvador Dali, the surréaliste artist, for the Chants de Maldoror. See p. 192 of this issue of the ROMANIC REVIEW. [Editor's Note].