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Visual and Spatial Imagery in Verlaine's Fêtes galantes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 December 2020
Abstract
The poems of Fêtes galantes by Paul Verlaine have marked visual and musical aspects with which criticism often deals by comparing the subject matter and style of the poems with those of paintings by Watteau and music by Debussy. It is more rewarding to study similarities of basic artistic form in these works about the Rococo dream world; in particular, the visual and spatial imagery shared by Verlaine and Watteau helps elucidate Fêtes galantes.The vague, ambiguous, and shifting impressions sought by Verlaine are created visually by Watteau as the latter varies sharp delineation with hazy blending. The paintings tend to have either detached foreground figures or a merging of figures into a misty background. Verlaine uses these effects of detachment and merging in virtual space, verbally rendered, and coordinates them with the recurrent themes of his suite of poems. A visualized pattern along a time line results as he shifts from one effect to the other in individual works and in the total composition. Much of the musicality of the work is thus produced through visual and spatial imagery in sequence. Increased understanding of Ver-laine's creation of artistic form suggests the need for study of the relationships between this form and the contents of the poems.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1972
References
1 For the text of the poems my source is the Pléiade edition of Verlaine's Œuvres poétiques complètes, ed. Y.-G. Le Dantec and Jacques Borel (Paris: Gallimard, 1962).
2 Eléonore M. Zimmermann, Magies de Verlaine (Paris: José Corti, 1967), examines the meaning of “paysage” for Verlaine in Ch. x.
3 “Images formelles dans Clair de lune de Verlaine,” Revue des Sciences Humaines, Fasc. 130 (April-June 1968), pp. 259–66.
4 Poésie et profondeur (Paris: Seuil, 1955), p. 166.
5 Paul Verlaine (Paris: Mercure de France, 1961), p. 94.
6 A selection of critical studies concerned with the relationships between Verlaine's poetry and music should include the following: Antoine Adam, Verlaine, l'homme et l'œuvre (Paris: Hatier-Bovin, 1953); Albert Béguin, Poésie de la présence (Neuchâtel: La Baconnière, 1957); Pierre Fortassier, “Verlaine, la musique et les musiciens,” Cahiers de l'Association Internationale des Eludes Françaises, 12 (June 1960), 143–59; V. P. Underwood, “Sources théâtrales de Verlaine,” Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France, 57 (April-June 1957), 196–203.
7 French Review, 40 (April 1967), 627–35.
8 An interesting use, or abuse, of musical terms by art historians is found in Pierre d'Espezel and François Fosca, Histoire de la peinture (Paris: Somogy, 1958), p. 130; they write of Watteau's paintings, “Le véritable sujet d'un tableau de Watteau est une nuance de sensibilité que le langage serait incapable de préciser. Au lieu de leurs titres vagues, ses œuvres devraient être désignés par des indications de nuances musicales: dolce, allegretto, appassionato, etc.”
9 Etudes verlainiennes: Lumières sur les Fêtes galantes de Paul Verlaine (Paris: Nizet, 1959), passim.
10 L'Œuvre et ses techniques (Paris: Nizet, 1957), pp. 71–84.
11 For paintings by Watteau and other artists, see François Fosca, The Eighteenth Century: Watteau to Tie-polo (New York: Skira, 1952), esp. the chapter “Watteau's Dreamworld.”
12 Bornecque notes that Verlaine originally wrote this poem without interior punctuation, p. 156.