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  • Verlaine: La parole ou l’oubli by Yann Frémy
  • Alan English
Frémy, Yann. Verlaine: La parole ou l’oubli. Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia-L’Harmattan, 2012. Pp. 187. isbn: 978-2-8061-0085-6

Yann Frémy’s book is a most welcome and significant addition to existing critical interpretations of Verlaine’s work. While the two concept words of the book’s attractive title are part of the commonplace vocabulary used in Verlaine studies and do not, in themselves, suggest an entirely original reappraisal of his verse and poetics, there is nonetheless much in this study which is refreshingly thought-provoking, original, and engaging—not least those occasions when the author invites us to challenge some longstanding and often widely held views in relation to Verlaine, poet and man. In his first chapter, Frémy points out, for example, that visual representations of the poet (sketches, sculptures, photos) when considered together, show a complex character, with some depicting an energy and vitality clearly at odds with the languor and listlessness traditionally associated with much of his early poetry; while in La Bonne Chanson, usually considered Verlaine’s happiest and most positive recueil, Frémy underlines the expression of an anguish and negativity more typical of Poèmes saturniens. Equally, the book’s second chapter invites us to consider whether the poet’s works as a whole could be interpreted as aspiring towards a certain (neo-)baroquism and the author seeks to redress what he considers an undeserved and critical underestimation of La Bonne Chanson whose seventh and eighth poems, it is argued, play decisive roles in the development and elaboration of Verlaine’s “système.” Frémy sketches out, here and throughout his book, a more cerebral image of the poet than we are used to, given his self-styled “simplicité.”

In addition, the author chooses a refreshingly varied sample of Verlaine’s writings on which to base his arguments: while two of the most substantial chapters are dedicated to the well-known Romances sans paroles and Sagesse, Frémy also finds [End Page 298] room for an original study of the prose text “Notes de nuit: jetées en chemin de fer” (142–47), some detailed commentary on the “Lucien Létinois” series of poems in Amour (chapter seven) and, as mentioned, a convincing argument in favour of reappraising the often-relegated La Bonne Chanson. Particularly engaging and interesting is Frémy’s consideration of the poetics of Romances sans paroles, through two of its best-known “Ariettes oubliées”: “Il pleure dans mon cœur…” and “Le piano que baise une main frêle…” The possible interpretations and implications of these poems’ epigraphs are teased out in an informed and pleasantly logical way, the author skillfully and seamlessly weaving together biographical and contextual information, personal interpretation and critical opinion in an effort to identify and characterize the distinctive voice of Verlaine and differentiate it from that of Hugo, of Baudelaire, and, most especially, of Rimbaud. The complexity and centrality in the early 1870s of the relationship with and influence of Rimbaud is excellently presented here and allows Frémy to specify the originality of Verlaine’s impersonal but subjective poetry in Romances sans paroles (and in particular its distinctiveness from Rimbaud’s “poésie objective”), his modern conception of memory and absence, his personal brand of post-Romantic “spleen,” termed “mélancolisme,” and an innovative poetics built on the simultaneous realization and undermining of utterance.

Frémy’s book is well-written, abundantly referenced, and clear in its objectives: it lays no claim to exhaustivity in terms of text and recueil chosen for specific comment, and the author is deliberately content on occasion to suggest the validity of a particular reading or perspective, rather than seeking here to commit to one, as instanced by the interrogative title of chapter two: “Verlaine baroque?” Placing evidence for and against competing interpretative potentialities before us and indicating the merit of further research in certain areas of Verlaine’s work, Frémy’s book is an engaging and serious introduction to the poet and to literary criticism on his work.

It is possible, too, to imagine how...

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