Leconte de Lisle: entre utopie et république (review)

It is hardly surprising that Caroline De Mulder begins this substantial study of Leconte de Lisle's poetry and ideas on a defensive note, citing, for instance, Sartre's dismissal of the poet's republicanism and his relegation to the status of a source of anthology pieces for classroom explication de textes. This is a far cry from the same poet's standing in, for example, Lagarde et Michard, where he is hailed as the 'chef de file' of the mid-century generation of poets and is given more prominence than any of the later triumvirate of Verlaine, Rimbaud and Mallarmé. De Mulder's bibliography bears out this fall from grace in more recent times. Only a sprinkling of articles are listed for the last twenty years, most of them written by Edgard Pich and the author herself, along (bizarrely) with a single monograph, dated 1995, by the pseudonymous duo Marius-Ary Leblond, born according to the catalogues in 1877 and 1880: a clear case of a misprint, of a reprint or of remarkable longevity. Given this current disfavour, de Mulder's method, more expository than interpretative, is most appropriate in this clearly written, informative, highly systematic and very thorough intellectual biography, concentrating mainly on Leconte de Lisle's political ideas in relation to his poetry. The author does announce in her introduction that she will draw on Bakhtin's notion of the 'chronotope' as a guiding principle of interpretation, but the concept is very loosely applied and seems to be equated with an attitude to a particular historical period ('le chronotope médiéval') or to a thematic scheme ('un chronotope de la décadence'). The strength of this study is threefold: in its detailed survey of the extraordinary broad scope of the poet's frames of reference and ideas; in the analysis of his extensive use of the rich treasury of myths and histories of bygone ages to comment on present political conflicts; and in the analysis of the inextricable links between his poetry and his political views. This study will not restore Leconte de Lisle to the eminence that he once enjoyed, but it will undoubtedly contribute importantly to the fulfilment of the poet's own wish, which appears as the epigraph to the introduction of this study: 'Je n'aimerais guère rester entièrement ignoré'.