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Montaigne and Gide's La Porte étroite

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Frieda S. Brown
Frieda S. Brown*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill
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Extract

The writing of La Porte étroite occupied André Gide from May 1905 to October 1908. During at least part of that period, the novelist was certainly reading the Essais of Michel de Montaigne, for he notes in his Journal on 24 November 1905 that he has carried a Montaigne with him on a visit to the Louvre, and, although in early March of the following year he declares that Pascal has replaced the essayist in his readings (JAG, p. 200), on 21 March we find him “patiently advancing” in the “Apologie de Raymond Sebond” (JAG, p. 203), very probably a deliberate choice on his part, since that essay has long been considered the most complete statement of Montaigne's religious philosophy, and La Porte étroite was to have distinctly religious overtones. If we consider, as we must, the element of mysticism and Jansenism in the novel and the actual place the great seventeenth-century French classicist has in it (OC, v, 193—194, 230, 235–236), it is understandable that Gide should at this moment have turned to Pascal, but it is significant that this self-confessed “creature of dialogue” whose works demonstrate a constant search for balance recognized that there are and always will be in France “division et partis; c'est-à-dire dialogue. Grâce à quoi, le bel équilibre de notre culture: équilibre dans la diversité. Toujours, en regard d'un Pascal, un Montaigne; et de nos jours, en face d'un Claudel, un Valéry” (JAG-S, 13 Feb. 1943, p. 191). On 8 April Gide takes a copy of Montaigne with him on a stroll to the bois (JAG, 1906, p. 206), and home in Cuverville in May 1906, he again records that he has read some Montaigne (JAG, p. 220).

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 82 , Issue 1 , March 1967 , pp. 136 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1967

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References

1 Journal 1889–1939 (Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1939), p. 183. Hereafter all references to the Journal will be to this edition, abbreviated JAG, and to the Journal 1939–1949-Souvenirs (Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1960), cited as JAG-S, and will appear in the text. Wherever possible the date of the entry will be given to facilitate its location in other editions. References in the text to OC, followed by the volume and page number, are to the 15-volume edition of Œuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1932–39). All citations from Montaigne are to the Essais, éd. Pierre Villey (Paris: Alcan, 1922–23), 3 vols. Indicated in parentheses in the text are the volume, chapter, and page respectively.

2 Si le grain ne meurt, in JAG-S, p. 523. In 1894, the projected novel was entitled Mort de Mlle Claire, and in June 1905 Gide speaks of it as La Route étroite. On 10 July 1905 he calls it La Porte étroite, but its heroine still bears the name Geneviève on the last day of that month.

3 The same interpretation and translation is suggested by Germaine Brée, Gide (New Brunswick, N. J., 1963), p. 153.

4 Gide's special interest in Montaigne's evolving ideas on death may well have resulted from the fact that both writers exhibited a premature concern with death. In his later years, Gide was again to recall the essayist in this respect and to wish to “mourir au loin, dans je ne sais quel accident, d'une mort rapide, loin des miens, comme souhaitait aussi Montaigne” (JAG, 15 Feb. 1940, p. 16). Cf. Montaigne: “Si … j'avois à choisir [ma mort], ce seroit, ce croy-je, plustost à cheval que dans un lict, hors de ma maison et esloigné des miens” (iii, ix, 260), which Gide cites in OC, xv, 28.

5 Gide's references to Montaigne are far too numerous to be indicated here in any but the most incomplete manner. The reader may, however, gain some idea of the frequency with which the essayist's name appears in Gide's writings by perusing the latter's discussions of such diverse topics as Nationalisme et littérature, OC, vi, 1–20; Les Dix Romans français que …, OC, vii, 447–458; Réflexions sur l'Allemagne, OC, ix, 131–143; and Iiis Billets à Angèle, OC, xi, 33–63. See Justin O'Brien, Index détaillé des “Œuvres complètes d'André Gide” (Paris: Editions Prétexte, 1954), for all mentions of Montaigne in the OC.

6 Both Montaigne and Gide claimed to be of one mind in this respect, and it is Gide himself who establishes this relationship between the two: JAG, 10 Jan. 1923, p. 752, and OC, xi, 283. Cf. OC, iii, 270. See also OC, xv, 45–46. For Montaigne's use of books, see, for example, i, xxv, 175; xxvi, 188; ii, x, 105–106; xviii, 452; iii, xii, 366.

7 Gide's comments to this effect are frequent. See, for example, JAG, 12 July 1914, p. 437; OC, vi, 361.

8 In a radio broadcast on 11 Nov. 1949, cited in Pierre Lafille, André Gide, romancier (Paris: Hachette, 1954), p. 29, Gide spoke of his disappointment and of how it hindered his productivity. Montaigne, on the other hand, was quite pleased and emboldened by the public favor his Essais received (iii, ix, 242).

9 Jean Delay, La Jeunesse d'André Gide (Paris: Gallimard, 1956), i, 506, sets the book much farther back in time than either Gide or his contemporaries would have considered: “La Porte étroite, cette réplique d'André Walter, est elle-même un livre anachronique, un roman de chevalerie, et son héroīne une vierge du XIIIe siècle, une figure de vitrail.” Elsewhere in this volume, he speaks of Alissa as a feminine replica of André Walter (p. 28).

10 George D. Painter, André Gide: A Critical and Biographical Study (London, 1951), p. 90.

11 Justin O'Brien, Portrait of André Gide (New York, 1953), p. 218.

12 “Ce voyage n'est que mon rêve, / nous ne sommes jamais sortis / de la chambre de nos pensées,— / et nous avons passé la vie / sans la voir” (OC, i, 364–365).

13 P. 7. Jean Hytier, André Gide (Alger, 1938), p. 141, whose book Gide felt was the best study on his work (JAG, 25 Aug. 1938, p. 1314), also insists that a total view may be obtained only by considering all of the novelist's writings.

14 Published in Jean Schlumberger, Madeleine et André Gide (Paris: Gallimard, 1956).

15 Published in Elsie E. Pell, André Gide: L'Evolution de sa pensée religieuse (Grenoble, 1935), pp. 9–10.

16 Cited in Lafille, André Gide, romancier, p. 39. In JAG, 29 March 1906, p. 204, Gide also records that he is rereading his old letters to his wife in a vain effort to find “quelque aliment pour mon roman.”

17 The effort to achieve such detachment in his relating of personal experiences which clearly affected his whole life undoubtedly contributed to Gide's difficulties in writing the novel.

18 Cf. Oscar Wilde: “J'ai mis tout mon génie dans ma vie,” which Gide quotes in JAG, 29 June 1913, p. 389, and in OC, iii, 474.

19 “Feuillets,” in JAG [1911], p. 354.

20 In Œuvres complètes (Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1964), i, 5: “Je forme une entreprise qui n'eut jamais d'exemple, et dont l'exécution n'aura point d'imitateur. Je veux montrer à mes semblables un homme dans toute la vérité de la nature; et cet homme, ce sera moi.”

21 Ibid., pp. 1148 ff.

22 Frieda S. Brown, Religious and Political Conservatism in the Essais of Montaigne (Genève, 1963), p. 45.

23 Brée, Gide, p. 161.

24 La Jeunesse d'André Gide, i, 506.

25 JAG, 7 Nov. 1909, p. 276; March 1913, p. 380.

26 “Mais la [Alissa] retenir, mais forcer la porte, mais pénétrer n'importe comment dans la maison, qui pourtant ne m'eÛt pas été fermée, non, encore aujourd'hui que je reviens en arrière pour revivre tout ce passé … non, cela ne m'était pas possible, et ne m'a point compris jusqu'alors celui qui ne me comprend pas à présent” (OC, v, 208).

27 La Jeunesse d'André Gide, i, 492–519. Cf. Jérôme's plea: “Alissa! … pourquoi t'arraches-tu les ailes?” (OC, v, 195).

28 In a letter of 18 June 1909, in Correspondance Paul Claudel et André Gide, 1899–1926 (Paris: Gallimard, 1949), pp. 103–104, Gide wrote: “j'aurai fait suffisamment si j'amène quelqu'un comme vous à plaindre et à aimer—d'un amour qui comporte un peu d'admiration—mon Alissa.”

29 Quoted in Lafille, André Gide, romancier, p. 43.

30 Cf. ii, xii, 346.

31 Gide quotes this passage in OC, xv, 25, as an argument against Montaigne's religious sincerity. Clearly, it is not in that light that the citation is made in this text.

32 Quoted in Lafille, André Gide, romancier, p. 43.

33 The translation is mine.