Reading Boileau: An Integrative Study of the Early "Satires"

Chapter Six - Withdrawal

Chapter Six Withdrawal The playful tone of the speaker/donkey's reductive pronouncement at the close ofSatire VIII brusquely shifts in the following poem. Like Satire VII, an internal debate between two elemental voices in the speaker's aesthetic psyche, Satire IX is reiterative , operating as a comprehensive conclusion to the preceding nine poems.! Implicit and explicit systematic allusions to images and themes of the Discours au Roy and Satires I to VIII amplify the resumptive function of Satire IX. In its contemptuous and angry reproof to "mon Esprit," the first voice immediately recalls the words and character ofRaison as portrayed in Satire VII, vv. 69-73, where a reproachful "on" advised "Pauvre Esprit" to desist from the perilous genre of satire.2 The speaker's insistence on his own pleasure and instinctive inclination for this "mechant metier" (VII, v. 2) in turn provoked his attitude toward Raison in Satire IV: Souvent de nos maux Ia Raison est Ie pire. C'est EIle qui farouche, au milieu des plaisirs, D'un remords importun vient brider nos desirs. La Facheuse a pour nous des rigueurs sans pareilles; C'est un Pedant qu'on a sans cesse ases oreilles. (vv. 114-18) The stiffly formal, condescending demeanor and sharp, selfrighteous tone of the first voice in Satire IX conjures up this trouble-fete "Facheuse." Forbearance at long last exhausted, the voice I shall call Raison has yet again launched into a long lecture, in effect sternly interrupting the burlesque hijinks of Esprit's talking jackass in Satire VIII:3 "Mais puisque vous poussez rna patience about, / Une fois en rna vie, il faut vous dire tout" (vv. 5-6). 102 Withdrawal Explicit reference in v. 10 to the interlocutor of Satire VIII assures continuity between the two poems. Esprit's freewheeling assault on Raison in the preceding poem at length prompts this explosion of anger and frustration. Raison minces no words in his harsh attack on Esprit's moral sense and lack of self-control. Esprit's audacious pronouncements in Satire VIII on man's place in the cosmos here receive ironic commentary in vv. 11-12: "Qu'estant seul acouvert des traits de la Satire, / Vous avez tout pouvoir de parler et d'ecrire." In Satire IX Raison intends to turn the tables. In his blunt judgment, Esprit's numerous "defauts" (v. 2), his "jeux criminels" and "insolence" (v. 4), are an elaborate disguise concealing an absence of real poetic taste and inspiration. Tautologically labeling the Satires "libres caprices" (v. 7), Raison condemns the sense of anarchic liberation that the Satires might provide the reader. Raison's frank amusement at Esprit's serious wish to "reformer la ville" (v. 16) underscores the profound rift between these two components of the speaker's mind. Conversely, Raison reveals character traits that connect him to the free-spirited, impudent Esprit. In the midst of his nagging and patronizing reprimands, Raison lets fly brief satirical barbs that are strangely reminiscent of Esprit's distinctive manner . In v. 18 a humorous aside mocks the lawyer Gautier's caustic intensity. In vv. 27-28 the aspersion cast on l'Abbe de Pure harks back to the first derisive slur of Satire II: "Sije veux d'un Galant depeindre la figure, / Ma plume pour rimer trouve l'Abbe de Pure" (vv. 17-18). These reflexlike movements ofthat "quinteuse " (II, v. 16), La Rime, in Satire IX expose a kind of central nervous system that ties together Esprit and Raison, which are, after all, linked components of our speaker's mind.4 Suggested by the unre!enting questions posed by Raison in vv. 19-28, a third, unnamed, figure linking the two figures enters the picture and provides the answer to Raison's queries ("... QueUe verve indiscrette / Sans l'aveu des neuf Sreurs, vous a rendu Poete?" [vv. 19-20]). Satire VII assists the reader: it is, ofcourse, the ever-present Muse who controls Esprit. Not surprisingly, the down-to-earth, "sensible" voice of Raison is totally oblivious to the Muse's commands.s We must not forget that the Muse is an "esprit divin" (v. 22)! Insulting his Muse as an agent of an evil destiny, "Cet ascendant malin qui vous force arimer" (v. 30), Raison suggests103 Chapter Six following the example of Satire VII-the alternative genre of panegyrique. Allusions to the Discours au Roy and Satire I aside,6 Raison's view of poetry...