Lettres à José-Maria de Heredia (review)

In the absence of a complete edition of his correspondence, this volume usefully fills the gap between the only two collections of Leconte de Lisle's letters, those of the years from 1838 to 1840 to his friend Julien Rouffet, and those of the period between 1885 and 1889 to his cousin Émilie Leforestier. The sixty-nine letters here reproduced, written from 1863 to 1894, are of special interest for the insight they offer into the relationship between the leader of the Parnassians and the fellow poet who was both his closest friend and favourite and most fervent disciple. There are, for example, strikingly detailed commentaries on the poems which Heredia religiously submitted to his mentor before publication. As the thorough footnotes attest, de Lisle's criticism of obscurity, both syntactic and semantic, awkward sound patterns and various prosodic uncertainties in 'Le Serrement de mains' (letter xxix) is all taken on board; similarly, de Lisle does not hesitate to point out the superfluous, the vague, or the excessively abstract in certain lines of 'Blason céleste' (xxxii), but his suggestions are tempered with what seems a genuine admiration for the whole. In one of the few known replies, the relevant sections of which appear in the footnotes, Heredia expresses his gratitude for these 'bons avis sans lesquels il me semble de plus en plus impossible de mettre mon nom sous un alexandrin' (p. 118). Elsewhere, the letters of 1871 provide a valuable first-hand account of the siege of Paris, juxtaposing a surprising aesthetic reaction to the bombardments ('le tout ne manquait pas d'une sorte de beauté farouche') with dry understatement: 'il est fort agaçant de se laisser massacrer sans pouvoir riposter' (xvi). Indeed, these dozen letters, describing the destruction of Paris, the starvation of its inhabitants, and political and social tensions, would give students of the period a useful primary resource. De Lisle is an engaging correspondent, turning his withering scorn on countless targets, from the 'bandits monstrueux' and 'infects idiots' of the Commune (xxi), or the squabbling hordes of both republicans and monarchists, to his fellow Parnassians Sully-Prudhomme and Banville. We even find an amusing parody of Coppée's 'Petit Épicier': 'Bref, cet épicier n'était pas heureux. Voilà' (xxvii). Yet while the humour, affection and self-deprecating tone which characterize much of the correspondence belie the poet's reputation for austerity, we also find the familiar disdain for 'la vie active' (xi) and utter dedication to Poetry, 'la seule chose sérieuse qui soit en ce misérable monde' (xlvi). The volume is meticulously annotated and clearly presented, with an index of names, chronological bibliography of both poets and an appendix featuring four of Heredia's interviews and speeches dedicated to his friend. The reader's only regret is that, although the modernization of the spelling of various proper names is no great loss, the poet's capitalization of certain nouns and adjectives has been corrected. Despite the editor's assurance that de Lisle indulges in this quirk 'sans aucune régularité' (p.19), it is a pity that it could not be left to the reader to judge the interest of these idiosyncracies.