Rythmes pittoresques (review)

The emerging body of scholarship on gender and modern French poetry calls for critical assessments of women's poetic production that, with the exception of Marceline Desbordes-Valmore's Œuvres poétiques, has not been republished since the nineteenth century. Seth Whidden's flawless edition of Marie Krysinska's first collection of poetry thus is timely and needed. Drawing upon painstaking archival research, Whidden reconstructs Krysinska's texts in context and elaborates on her experimental poetry. Future appraisals of Krysinska's contested contribution to the advent of vers libre will have to reckon with the strong case that this volume makes for including her work in French poetic history.

Introductory comments ("Marie Krysinska: Vie libre, vers libre") shed light on obscure details of Krysinska's biography and bibliography, including the polemic surrounding her date of birth (2–3) and the originality of her poetic practice (11–14). The recovery of original documents by Whidden, notably, Krysinska's "actes de mariage et de décès et des listes d'immigration aux Etats-Unis" (2), affirms Krysinska's birth in 1857, against the unsupported claim that she was born in 1864 (Goulesque), and elucidates the circumstances of her death (5–6). This expert attention to biographical detail includes the most comprehensive account of Krysinska's active participation in the fin-de-siècle literary and artistic circles, among them, the "Hirsutes, Jemenfoutistes, and Zutistes" (3–5). The only woman admitted to the "Hydropathes," Marie Krysinska prominently figured in the cabaret Chat noir as a pianist. Her musical leaning, which she followed at the Conservatoire National de Musique upon her arrival in Paris from Poland as an adolescent girl, but apparently quickly abandoned, played a significant role in her development as a poet. As Krysinska herself explained, "musicienne, nous tentions, avec le moyen littéraire de traduire telle impression musicale, avec son caprice rythmique, avec son désordre parfois; usant des ressources prosodiques comme d'ornementations et de parures librement agrafées, sans symétrie obligée" (4). Whidden's balanced approach to biographical issues prepares his equally careful exposition of Krysinska's critical reception in her day.

Krysinska, like many other women of her century who boldly transgressed boundaries assigned to the female sex, provoked the literary public and garnered many derogatory nicknames targeting her bohemian lifestyle and independence of mind (6–10). The matter of her originality, which stirred a significant quarrel in her day, remains a subject of debate in our own. Whidden follows the textual trace of the original dispute in the nineteenth century and resurgence in twentieth- and twenty-first century criticism (14–19), and offers the uninitiated reader a broad overview of the question of vers libre.

Whidden's fresh presentation of Rythmes pittoresques preserves original typography and orthography (21–112), and is followed by a section titled "Dossier,"which includesa "Chronologie sommaire" (115–16), "Notes" (117–35) and "Variantes" (136–47). The detailed chronology fleshes out important facts about Krysinska's life, while situating her literary production. Ample notes specify dates of initial publication and select bio-bibliographical information about the personages of the fin de siècle to whom Krysinska dedicated individual poems (see also "Index des dédicataires" 177). Typographical variations central to the debate about Krysinska's originality are collected in the "Variantes" section. "Annexe" (148–56) reproduces salient critical reviews of Krysinska's volume in the nineteenth century that frame for the modern reader the culture that vilified the creative woman even while recognizing the poet it had produced. The general bibliography of primary and secondary sources that closes Whidden's edition is without question the most complete to date (157–76). Whidden lists not only Krysinska's books of poetry, short stories, and novels, but also her novellas, critical essays and reviews, musical scores, and correspondence. Translations, official documents, iconography, and criticism from the nineteenth century to the present conclude the extensive list of references. This book provides an excellent resource for teaching and independent research that...