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A Companion to Victorian Poetry.
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A Neglected Phase of the Aesthetic Movement: English Parnassianism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 March 2021
Extract
In an Epilogue to the Queen, with which Tennyson closed his Library Edition of 1873, the Laureate noted, among many threats to the “mightiest of all people under heaven,” the danger to art from “poisonous honey stol'n from France,” Readers from queen to commoner could nod their heads in pious agreement, for they shared Tennyson's Gallophobia. Deeply distressed that Swinburne should have contributed a sonnet in praise of Mademoiselle de Maupin to Le Tombeau de Gautier (1873), he could only regard those who sipped such honey as un-British to the core. Tennyson was not thinking of his contemporaries, Thackeray and Arnold, who, though they may not have seen France whole, at least had left it steadily. Rather, he reserved his strictures for those later Victorians who seemed willing, even eager, to embrace French culture, though the fruit of that embrace might be lubricity and aestheticism.
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References
1 Albert J. Farmer, Le mouvement esthétique et “décadent” en Angleterre (1873-1900) (Paris, 1931), and Louise Rosenblatt, L'idée, de l'art pour l'art dans la littérature anglaise pendant la période victorienne (Paris, 1931), ignore this phase completely. Limited aspects are treated in Helen Louise Cohen, Lyric Farms from France (New York, 1932) and The Ballad, (New York, 1915), and Henri Vigier, “François Villon en Angleterre,” Revue germanique, DC (1913), 412-427. J. H. Buckley's book, The Victorian Temper, (Cambridge, Mass., 1951), is the first which definitely recognizes the contribution of Dobson, Henley, and other formalists to the aesthetic movement.
2 “The Influence of France upon English Poetry,” French Profiles (London, 1913), p. 369.
3 Dante Gabriel Rossetti (New Haven, Coon., 1949), p. 615.
4 Lloyd Eric Grey, William Morris (London, 1949), p. 40.
5 See J. W. Mackail, The Life of William Morris (London, 1912), I,133-134.
6 Samuel C. Chew, Swinburne (Boston, 1929), p. 11.
7 Edmund Gosse, The Life of Algernon Charles Swinburne (London, 1917), p. 55.
8 Humphrey Hare, Swinburne, A Biographical Approach (London, 1949), p. 43.
9 Georges Lafourcade states that Rossetti introduced Swinburne to the work of Villon (La Jeunesse de Swinburne, Paris, 1928, II, 99), but he give, no authority. Prof. P. F. Baum feels that Lafourcade may have gotten the introduction turned around (letter to writer, 4 Jan. 1951). Certainly Swinburne could have discovered Villon at Oxford or in his uncle's, the Earl of Ashburnham's, famous collection of early French literature (see Gosse, Swin-burne. p. 80). Also see letter to Stéphane Mallarmé dated 5 Feb. 1876, in The Letters, of Algernon Charles Swinburne, eda. Gosse and Wise (New York, 1919), I, 241: Swinburne writes that shortly after Oxford be began to translate Villon's ballade-épitaphe.
10 Lafourcade, II, 100, and Chew, p. 153.
11 Lafourcade, II, 420.
12 The Education of Henry Adams (New York, 1931), p. 140.
13 Lafourcade, II, 421, and Chew, p. 83.
14 Swinburne had a lifelong, admiration for Hugo at man, political thinker, novelist and lyric and dramatic poet; and the influence Hugo exercised was great. Songs before Sunrise, for instance, leans heavily on Les Châtiments.
15 See Algernon Charles Swinburne, Félicien Cossu, a Burlesque, ed. with introd, by Edmund Gosse, C.B. (London, Printed for Private Circulation, 1915), Introd., p. 5.
16 Lafourcade, II, 99.
17 William Blake, A Critical Essay (London, 1906), p. 100. In a footnote to this essay, Swinburne praised Villon, whose “gift of writing admirable songs ... has perhaps borne better fruit for us than any gift of moral excellence” (p. 146 n.).
18 Gosse, Swinburne, p. 148.
19 Swinburne himself encouraged the usual, but exaggerated, view of his change in outlook. See his letter to W. M. Rossetti of 9 Oct. 1866, quoted in Lafourcade, Swinburne, A Literary Biography (London, 1932), p. 142.
20 P. Martino, Parnasse et Symbolism, (Paris, 1930), p. 23.
21 Gautier, Victor Hugo (Paris, 1920), pp. 103-104. This was written in 1835.
22 Baudelaire's stature and influence are not discussed here, for they do not properly fall within the limits of this paper. Before 1880 Les Fleurs du Mal influenced the early poems of Verlaine and Mallarmé (see Aaron Schaffer, Parnassus in France, Austin, Texas, 1929, p. 173 et passim). Swinburne and Saintsbury were about the only English writers of the sixties and seventies who were interested in him.
23 La Vie Littéraire, (Paris, 1892), IV, 238.
24 “Théodore de Banville.” Les contemporains Première série, 1884 et 1885 (Paris, 1904), p. 7.
25 Tableau historique. et critique, de la poésie française et du théâtre français au XVI siècle (Paris, 1828), p. 12. In his new edition of 1842, Sainte-Beuve qualified his harsh judgment: “mais, avec un peu d'indulgence et de patience, on se radoucit envers Villon; en remuant son fumier, on y trouve, plus d'une perle enfouie” (p. 12).
26 See Å’uvres complètes de François Villon, par Paul Lacroix, pseud. le Bibliophile Jacob (Paris, 1854); Antoine Campeux, François Villon, sa vie et ses æuvres (Paris, 1859); and Sainte-Beuve, “François Villon,” Causeries du Lundi (Paris, n.d), XIV, 280.
27 See Poésies complètes, red par Charles d' Héricault (part of Nouvelle collection Jannet). The Abbé Sallier had discovered and published Orléans' works in 1734. An edition of 1803 at Grenoble was neither complete nor accurate.
28 Gautier paid Banville the compliment of replying to one of the odelettes with his ar-tistic manifesto, “L'Art,” and Sainte-Beuve, in his causerie on Banville, praised him for “ronsardizing.” Causeries du Lundi, XIV (12 Oct. 1857), 82. Banville's “A la Font-Georges,” for instance, derives from Ronsard's “A la Fontaine Bellerie ”
29 “La Voie Lactée,” Les Cariatides (1841). For more on Banville's attitude toward Villon, eee Henri Vigier, “François Villon en Angleterre,” Revue germanique, IX (1913), 412-427, and Aaron Schaffer, “The Trente-six ballades joyeuses of Théodore de Banville,” MLN, XXXVII (1922), 328-333.
30 See Edmund Gosse, “An Appreciation,” Austin Dobson: Some Notes, ed. Alban Dob-son (London, 1928), p. 34. The Petit Traité was first published in 1872.
31 Autobiography of Sir Walter Besant (New York, 1902), passim.
32 Many years later Lang wrote, “I think I can remember, in the sixties, hearing Mr. Ruskin ask,‘Who is Villon?‘and certainly I lent him the works of that poet, with whom he had been unacquainted.”—“At the Sign of the Ship,” Longman's, XXXIV (1899), 95.
33 Hall Caine, My Story (New York, 1909), p. 137. Edmund Gosse wrote Helen, Louise Cohen in 1911: “Do not suppose that any of this interest in the ‘forms’... dates back earlier than 1870 in England. Roseetti never sympathised with it [at] all.” Quoted in Cohen The Ballade, p. 318.
34 In “Song of a Fellow-Worker” he wrote: “I carve the marble of pure thought until the thought takes form, / Until it gleams before my soul and makes the world grow warm!” (Songs of a Worker, p. a). Later in the same volume there is a section entitled : “Thoughts in Marble. Poems of Form.”
35 See J. P., “Virelai,” St. Pauls, IV (1869). 465, republished under title “Kyrielle” in Songs, of Life and Death (London, 1872).
36 Thomas Wright, The Life of John Payne (London, 1919), p. 48.
37 On Saintsbury and Stapfer, see A. Blythe Webster, “A Biographical Memoir,” A Saintsbury Miscellany (New York, 1947), p. 35.
38 Roger Lancelyn Green, Andrew Lang (Leicester, 1946), p. 42
39 See Lang's letter to Helen Louise Cohen, written in 1911 and quoted in The Ballade PP.318-319.
40 See Andrew Lang, “Three Poets of Freach Bohemia,” Dark Blue, I (1871), 281-293. In an earlier number of Dark Blue (I, 26-35) Lang published an article on Gautier.
41 Austin Dobson, “A Note on Some Foreign Forms of Verse,” Latter-Day Lyrics, ed. W. D. Adams (London, 1878), p. 345 n.
42 Lang reviewed both Bridges and Gosse for the Academy. See “Bridges-Poems,” Academy, V (1874), 53-54, and “Gosse—On Viol and Flute,” Academy, V (1874), 108.
43 In Dobson's first collection of poems. Vignettes in Rhyme (London, 1873), “The Dying of Tanneguy du Bois” recalls Morris' “A Good Knight in Prison,” and Dobson's “Palo-mydes” reflects in viewpoint and phraseology Morris' description of Palomydes in “Sir Galahad, a Christmas Mystery.”
44 See my article, “Austin Dobson and the Rondeliers,” in MLQ, XRV (1953), 31-42, Saintabury's review of Proverbs in Academy, XI (1877), 548-549, and Banville's letter of congratulations dated 12 Aug. 1877 (quoted in Alban Dobson, Dobson, pp. 98-99). The preoccupation of Dobson and lus friends with fixed forms was, of course, not wholly attributable to the influence of French writers. In part they were reacting to tht poetry of the Spasmodic School; in part their activity testified to personal estimates of endowment: honestly regarding themselves as minor poets, they set out to cultivate competently a care-fully limited sort of poetry.
45 Sat. Rev., XLIV (1877), 460 See also review by Edmund Gosse in Academy, XI (1877), 336, and comment in Dobson's “A Note on Some Foreign Forme of Varse,” Latter-Day Lyrics, p. 347.
46 R. L. S., “François Villon, Student, Poet end Housebreaker,” Cornhill, XXXVI (1877), 215-234, and Edward Dowden, “On Some French Writers of Verse, 1830-1877,” ibid., pp. 278-296. The Cornhill', editor, Leslie Stephen, in the sixties had been as insular as Tennyson. His acceptance of these articles Illustrates a change in popular taste.
47 From Les Cariatide, (1841), Stevenson translated the rondel, “Nous n'irons plus au bois,” to “We'll walk the woods no more” (see Letters . . . of Robert Louis, Stevenson, ed. Colvia, N. Y, 1911, I, 113). Payne translated from Gringoire (1866) the “Ballade des pauvres gens,” which appealed in Songs of Life and Death, (London, 1871). Lang was the chief Banvillizer. He translated from the Trente-six balledes, the “Ballade de Banville aux enfants perdus” and the “Ballade sar les hôtes mysterieux de la forêt,” sad be did en adap-tation oi the “Ballade de Victor Hugo père de tous les rimeurs.” Remembering Banville's envoi, which ran: “Gautier parmi ces joailliers / Est priace, et Leconte de Lisle / Forge l'or dans ses ateliers; / Mais le père est la-bas, dans l'tle,” Lang addressed his praises to the notable on Wight in his “Ballade for the Laureate ”The envoi runs “Prince, Arnold's jewel-work is bright, / And Browning, in his iron style, / Doth gold on his rude anvil smite- / The Master's . yonder, in the ISle!”
48 ThiS poem Swinburne reprinted in Poems and Belled, Second Series. Payne was the only other English contributor to Le Tombeau.
49 Andrew Lang, too, learned much from Gautier. At Merton he wrote an article on Gautier's poems containing translations still unprinted. (See Green, Lang, p. 119.) Gautier was the chief French influence on the ideas of Pater, as ia especially apparent in Peter's, essays oa Winckelmann, Leonardo, and Wordsworth.
50 Ronsard was not the only member of the Pléiade to leave hi. mark. Du Bellay inspired Pater's famous essay in The Renaissance (1873), a collection animated by aesthetic ideals derived to a considerable degree from Pléiade and Parnassien theory.
51 In Les Cariatides, Banville wrote a series of “Caprices en dizains. à la manière de Clément Marot,” and Dobson wrote five dizains in 1876 which be called “A Case of Cameos,” and another, “As to the pipe,” which served aa the prefatory veras to Lang's XXII Ballades in Blue China (1880).
52 The previous year Banville had brought out his Rondels, à la manière de Charles, d'Cr-léans, and Lemerre had published d'Héricault's edition of Orléans' poems in the Nouvelle Collection Jannet.
53 See R. L. S., “Charles oi Orléans,” Cornhill, XXXIV (1876), 695-717. Stevenson, too, like Lang, Dobson, Payne, and Gosse, had begun with the Parnassiens In fact, in January 1875 he had proposed to the Academy a series of article, on such poets as Banville, Coppée, and Sully Prudhomme; only after the proposal was rejected did he turn to the 15th-century studies which led to articles on Orléans and Villon.
54 Stevenson had contemplated Vilion since 1875, when he had studied French poetry at Fontainebleau. He was familiar with Auguste Longnon, “François Villon et sea léga taires,” Romania, II (1873), 203-236; Auguste Vitu, Notice sur François Villon . .. (Paris, 1873); and Auguste Longnon, Etude biographique sur François Villon (Paris, 1877), in which Villon's real name was for the first time revealed.
55 First published in Temple Bar, LI (1877), 197-212.
56 Gosse, Swinburne, p. 233.
57 Jeunesse, II, 100.
58 About the only minority report on Swinburne's Villonizing appeared in the British Quart Rev., LXVIII (1878), 549. The general press, influenced perhaps by friendly reviews by Watts-Dunton in the Athenœum (6 Jury 1878), 7-9, and Saintabury in the Academy, XIV (1878), 25-26, was appreciative. The Westminster Review, cx (1878), 563-564, noted that only a short time before, tie translations from Villon and the sonnet on Mademoiselle de Maupin would have been severely censured, yet now they could be praised.
59 See J. E. Bernard, ed. “Note by Buxton Forman and four letters of John Payne relating to the foundation of the Villon Society and Payne's translations,” Univ of Texas, Dept. ef English, Studies in English (1942), pp. 199-206.
60 In his unpublished “Autobiography,” Payne wrote savagely of those whom he called “Poets of the Deliquescence,... men like XXXXX [Wright's note: ”a very wellknown man of letters“], Lang and others who are jealous of me, and who, having obtained complete, control over the press, contrive to keep my name and work not only from receiving its due recognition, but even from coming to the knowledge of the public ...” On the next page he speaks of “mere handicraftsmen like XXXXX, Lang and XXXXXX” (Wright, Payne, pp. 157-158). XXXXX is obviously Gosse; XXXXXX the writer believes to be Dobson. It could be Henley, who was not an admirer, yet it is unlikely, for Payne wrote a sonnet of tribute on the occasion of Henley's death. (See Wright, Payne, p. 135.)
61 See two letters, the first undated, the second dated 27 March 1877, from Dobson to Gosse, Brotherton Collection, Univ. of Leeds, Vol. I.
62 See Gosse to Dobson, 27 Nov. 1878, in Alban Dobson (comp), An Austin Dobson Letter Book (Cleveland, 1985), p. 9.
63 Sat. Ret., XXVI (1878), 560-562.
64 Academy, XIII (1878), 455.
65 Hopkins gave the group this name. See his letter dated 25 May 1888, quoted in The Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins to Robert Bridge, ed. Abbott (London, 1935), p. 276.
66 See Henley's letter of 1881 to Dobson, quoted in John Connell W. E. Henley (London, 1949), p. 93. The “aesthetic” Grosvenor Gallery had been opened by the Prince of Wales In 1877, the year Payne founded the Villon Society.
67 See Henley's letter to Dobson of 1881 (previous to that cited in n. 66), quoted in Con-nell, p.94.
68 It wss not until very recently that a competent English pott, Norman Cameron, translated Villon fully. See his Poems of François Villon (London, 1951).
69 Payne's sacrifices to what he recognised as “the somewhat illogical squeamishness of the day” (Pref. Note, p. ix) are dealt with by Bernard, op. cit., p. 204 n.
70 See, e,g., Dobson's rondeau, “In After Days,” and his ballade, “On a Fan,” Lang's “Ballade for the Laureate,” Gosse's ballade, “Théodore de Banville,” and Henley's double ballade, “Of Dead Actors.”
71 Though A Century was all written early in 1883, Swinburne actually wrote rondels as early as 1875. See “Parting,” Athenaum (7 Aug. 1875), 181.
72 Swinburne recalled that Rossetti's rondeau, “To Death, of his Lady,” was a melodious translation of a Villonian original.
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