The Poet in Society: Art, Consumerism, and Politics in Mallarme (review)

In The Poet and Society: Art, Consumerism, and Politics in Mallarmé, Damian Catani endeavors to reveal a Stéphane Mallarmé quite unlike the now mythical image of the Absolute Poet whose ghost seems to float, unhindered by social or political concerns, at the very highest levels of the Occidental cultural imaginary. Catani argues that instead of inhabiting the hermetic ivory tower of impossible poetic perfection, Mallarmé in fact was quite aware of issues of political and economic reality. The author refers throughout his study to Mallarmé as "socially egalitarian," and advances an understanding of the poet schoolteacher as a man who recognizes the positive impact of the commercialization and democratization of literature, and whose fundamental conception of aesthetics is at core non-hierarchical and anti-elitist, while his ideological position in the relationship - more often the conflict - between art and life can be described as a form of social commitment.

While such an approach may seem at first surprising, particularly to the readers of Mallarmé's notoriously difficult, even esoteric sonnets and other pieces in verse, there is of course a critical history, dating even from before Mallarmé's death in 1898, that has striven to unveil, ironically perhaps, a Mallarmé more complex than the simple conception of embodying a complicated poet. Yet while Catani recognizes the analyses carried out by such figures as Jacques Rancière and the, in my view, acutely keen Bertrand Marchal, particularly in their efforts to contextualize Mallarmé's entire œuvre in a more inclusive light, highlighting his diverse and subtle work in prose and rethinking the cultural aura in which he wrote, Catani argues that critics such as these still neglect the economic and political pressures involved in the poet's literary production, pressures that, for Catani, actually serve not as obstacles to his work but as reminders of the ways in which the rest of the world operates, as a conduit to the desires and sufferings of la foule.

Catani focuses in large part on two periods in Mallarmé's writerly career, first on the articles from the 1870s that the poet published on the London Universal Exhibition as well as his pieces in the 1874 fashion magazine written and edited entirely by Mallarmé alone, La Dernière Mode. Texts such as these reflect, in Catani's view, the work of a journalist curious about the culture of consumerism and the impact of the economic forces of the era. Catani also treats pieces from the 1890s, such as La Musique et les lettres (1894) and Variations sur un sujet (1895), contending that in this later period Mallarmé's focus shifts to a more general stance on political issues, particularly with regard to the formulation of a socially-inclusive Livre that would necessarily include prose pieces of an apparently more pragmatic nature. Anticipating perhaps some reaction against his view of a politicized Mallarmé, on the part of those who might be tempted to favor for the honor of Political Writer a more flashy rabble-rouser such as Zola, Catani argues that this error lies in misunderstanding Mallarmé's conception of social engagement, unusual in that it is non-ideological, associated with no specific political party or movement.

Most engaging is the discussion centering on the dynamics of language in the work of Mallarmé, for Catani refers to the traditional stance in which it is held that Mallarmé aimed to restore to language an original, primitive, and universal function, best exemplified in the notion of le drame solaire, a context in which the human drama of light and darkness, of abandonment and reassurance, offers the names of gods as emblems of these struggles. Going further, then, Catani advances the idea that Mal-larmé's goal was to rediscover in language a means to communicate with the largest possible number of human interlocutors, unfettering language from specific usage or context, opening it to deep meanings shared by us all. And, suggests the author, every...