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355
Willard Bohn
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Table of contents
List of Illustrations 7
Acknowledgments 9
Introduction 11
Conclusion 127
Bibliography 129
Index 141
List of illustrations
1
Christopher Logue, New Numbers (New York: Knopf, 1970), p. 81.
12 Apollinaire on the Edge
2
See for example, Johanna Drucker, The Visible Word: Experimental Typography
and Modern Art, 1909-1923 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), and two
books by myself: The Aesthetics of Visual Poetry, 1914-1928 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1986; Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1993) and Modern
Visual Poetry (Newark, Delaware: University of Delaware Press, 2000).
Introduction 13
scholarship. It argues as well that his fondness for this genre reflects
his predilection for unmediated experience.
The final chapter examines Les Mamelles de Tirésias (The
Mammaries of Tiresias), which was destined to play an important role
in the evolution of modern French theater. First performed in 1917,
this resolutely anti-realistic work shocked and delighted the audience
by turns. Insisting that it was more faithful to reality than traditional
plays, Apollinaire added the subtitle “drame surréaliste.” While in-
vestigating what he meant by that term, which was later appropriated
by André Breton and his colleagues, the chapter discusses the role of
surprise and relates it to Apollinaire’s fascination with novelty and
modernity. After considering several possible sources, it provides a
detailed analysis of the play and proposes a new interpretation. In
particular, it argues that Les Mamelles de Tirésias is not didactic and
that, despite their obvious immediacy, the themes of feminism and
repopulation serve a higher purpose.
Chapter 1
1
Anne Hyde Greet, Apollinaire et le livre de peintre (Paris: Minard, 1977), pp. 57-
151. Subsequent references to this study will be cited in the text. See also Claude
Debon, “Relire et revoir Le Bestiaire ou cortège d’Orphée d’Apollinaire,” Que Vlo-
Ve?, Bulletin International des Etudes sur Guillaume Apollinaire, 4th ser. No. 1
(January-March 1998), pp. 1-32. Apollinaire had published eighteen of the poems in
La Phalange on June 15, 1908: “La Tortue,” “Le Cheval,” “La Chèvre du Thibet,”
“Le Chat,” “Le Lion,” “Le Lièvre,” “Le Lapin,” “Le Dromadaire,” “La Chenille,”
La Mouche,” “La Puce,” “Le Paon,” “Le Hibou,” “Ibis,” “Le Boeuf,” and three texts
that would later be attributed to Orpheus.
2
See the “Petite Bibliographie du Bestiaire” published in Que Vlo-Ve?, Bulletin
International des Etudes sur Guillaume Apollinaire, 1st ser., No. 28 (April 1981), pp.
16-18.
3
A list of artists and composers who have been attracted to Le Bestiaire appears in
ibid. Debon discusses some of the former in “Relire et revoir Le Bestiaire ou cortège
d’Orphée d’Apollinaire” and provides a list of illustrators on pp. 28-29.
16 Apollinaire on the Edge
4
Ibid., p. 19.
18 Apollinaire on the Edge
5
Marc Poupon, “Quelques énigmes du Bestiaire,” La Revue des Lettres Modernes,
nos. 146-149 (1966), special issue Guillaume Apollinaire 5, p. 87.
6
Stéphane Mallarmé, letter to Henri Cazalis written in October or November 1864,
Correspondance, ed. Henri Mondor and Jean-Pierre Richard (Paris: Gallimard,
1959), Vol. I, p. 137.
Contemplating The Bestiary 19
7
For additional information about this tradition, see Pol-P. Gossiaux, “Sur les
chérubins du Bestiaire”" Revue des Lettres Modernes, Nos. 249-253 (1970), special
issue Guillaume Apollinaire 9, pp. 169-70.
Contemplating The Bestiary 21
8
W. J. Strachan, The Artist and the Book in France (London: Owen, 1969), pp. 48-
49.
24 Apollinaire on the Edge
precieux” (“a precious substance”) in his mouth. And like the Locust,
which nourished John the Baptist in the desert, his poetry will
hopefully appeal to superior individuals. The last text portrays the poet
backing away, like the Crayfish, from a delicate situation. Since Greet
reports that “l’écrevisse s’éloigne traditionnellement de l’objet des ses
désirs” “the crayfish traditionally retreats from the object of its
desires”) (p. 118), one suspects that Apollinaire’s ambivalence
concerns his love life.
In a similar manner, four of the woodcuts depict verbal meta-
phors: the Mouse, the Flea, the Octopus, and the Owl. As we saw ear-
lier, the Mouse represents the passage of time, nibbling away
relentlessly at the poet’s life. Dufy’s illustration portrays a cute little
animal, no bigger than the strawberry beside it. By contrast, the Flea is
magnified a hundredfold or more until it resembles a terrible monster.
One of the few unpleasant beasts in Le Bestiaire, it is less threatening
than the Serpent but more irritating than the Fly. Not surprisingly,
since fleas have tormented mankind for ages, Apollinaire casts the
insect in a sadistic role.
10
Fongaro suggests a slightly different interpretation: that Apollinaire is evoking his
ability to assimilate various texts he has read (Ibid., p. 43).
Contemplating The Bestiary 27
11
A photograph of Apollinaire smoking a similar pipe appears in Peter Read, Picasso
et Apollinaire: les métamorphoses de la mémoire 1905-1973 (Paris: Place, 1995), p.
62.
Contemplating The Bestiary 29
12
See Guillaume Apollinaire, Oeuvres poétiques, ed. Marcel Adéma and Michel
Décaudin (Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1965), p. 530.
13
Ibid., p. 1038.
30 Apollinaire on the Edge
14
Roland Barthes, “Le Message photographique,” Communications, No. 1 (1961),
p. 134.
15
Ibid., pp. 130-31.
32 Apollinaire on the Edge
Dufy, the strategies he chose to employ, and the manner in which the
woodcuts comment on the verbal text.
One such device is trucage—trick effects that are intended to
deceive the viewer. Barthes cites a widely circulated photograph of
Senator Millard Tydings talking to a notorious Communist in 1951.
Although the photograph was actually a fake, it caused the senator to
lose the next election. Conceivably a realistic painting of the two men
standing together could have achieved the same effect. Since Dufy’s
woodcuts do not pretend to depict reality, they do not employ this
procedure, which is better suited to photography.
However, the artist makes abundant use of a second device which
Barthes, drawing on a study by Edgar Morin, labels “photogenia.” By
adjusting technical variables such as lighting, exposure, and printing,
photographers can manipulate the physical image (and thus its
connoted message). Art possesses a similar set of variables that govern
the elaboration of a painting or a drawing (pictogenia). The image
may be embellished by modifying various elements such as texture,
contrast, line, and color. Like all good artists, Dufy knew how to
exploit the technical possibilities of his medium. Unlike some of his
colleagues, who liked to emphasize the grain of the wood, he preferred
to work on a smooth surface. Although his illustrations possess
considerable texture, this was added by Dufy himself as a finishing
touch.
Since woodcuts are traditionally printed in black ink on white
paper, they derive much, if not all, of their effect from contrast.
Although black and white are fairly evenly distributed in Le Bestiaire,
Dufy adjusts their proportion occasionally in order to achieve certain
effects. The best example is the Elephant which, except for its tusks
and toenails, is solid black.
16
See, for example, Pol-P. Gossiaux, “Sur l’éléphant du Bestiaire,” Revue des Lettres
Modernes, Nos. 217-222 (1969), special issue Guillaume Apollinaire 8, pp. 211-12
and Etienne-Alain Hubert, “Petit Cortège pour le Bestiaire,” Que Vlo-Ve?, Bulletin
International des Etudes sur Guillaume Apollinaire, Ser. 4, No. 2 (April-June 1998),
pp. 36-37.
34 Apollinaire on the Edge
water, for example, we know it is a lively animal. The fact that the
Hare is portrayed from the rear with its forelegs and hindlegs far apart
signals that it is running. Since the Cat is sitting on the table with its
tail curled around its feet, one suspects it feels comfortable there. That
Pegasus appears with one foreleg raised and his wings spread tells us
he is impatient to take flight. Similarly, since the Dove extends its
wings in a cruciform pattern, we know it symbolizes the Holy Ghost.
Balanced on its hind legs with its forepaws outstretched, the Lion’s
heraldic pose reminds us that it is a royal emblem. Occasionally a pose
conveys both symbolic and factual information. If the phallic
connotations of the Serpent’s pose are unmistakable, as we have seen,
the fact that it is standing upright indicates that the scene take place
before the Fall.
Another connotative procedure is that of aestheticism. Some-
times, Barthes observes, photographs try to transform themselves into
works of art. No longer content simply to transmit factual information,
they cultivate certain stylistic effects. Since Dufy’s woodcuts already
are works of art, this distinction needs to be modified. In general, the
illustrations combine a decorative style inherited from the Nabis with
a more primitive, Fauvist style. However, some of them depart from
this basic model, at least partly, and adopt other styles. The waves in
“Le Dauphin,” for example—especially the bow wave preceding the
Dolphin—seem to have been influenced by Japanese block prints. The
same remark applies to the smoke issuing from the steamship’s funnel,
which resembles coils of hair. By contrast, “La Colombe” is heavily
indebted to a different model: religious iconography.
evokes the Trinity, the burst of light symbolizes divine radiance and
power. Although “Le Paon” utilizes the same triangular composition
as “La Colombe,” with which it is paired, it exhibits traces of yet
another style. As Greet notes, its graceful curves and flowing lines
betray the influence of Art Nouveau (p. 138).
In addition, Barthes declares, pictorial objects play a significant
role, since they generate certain associations in the viewer’s mind. “Ce
sont donc les éléments d’un véritable lexique,” he asserts, “stables au
point que l’on peut facilement les constituer en syntaxe” (“They are
thus elements of a veritable lexicon, stable enough to be easily
constituted into syntax”).17 This describes the objects in Dufy’s
woodcuts, which not only provide the animal with an appropriate
habitat but often tell an interesting story. That the Dromedary is
surrounded by date palms, for example, suggests it inhabits an Arabic
land. Since two pyramids are depicted in the distance, one deduces
that the country is Egypt. The Buddhist temple, the arched bridge, and
the towering mountains in “La Chèvre du Thibet” exercize a similar
function. One scarcely needs to consult the title to identify the country
in question. In “Le Serpent” the objects are replaced by human beings
(the only ones in the volume, besides Orpheus), who play an identical
role. The fact that the Serpent is flanked by Adam and Eve establishes
a crucial interpretive context.
Some of the collaborations between Dufy and Apollinaire turn out
to be even more successful. In several instances, the woodcut
completes the text so profoundly, so intimately, that it is difficult to
tell where one begins and the other leaves off. The final synthesis
stems not from the image of the animal so much as from the objects
surrounding it. Complementing the text and the image simultaneously,
they link each to the other while developing their latent meaning. One
of the poems that exemplifies this remarkable symbiosis is “Le
Cheval.”
17
Barthes, “Le Message photographique,” p. 132.
Contemplating The Bestiary 37
While “Ibis” and “Le Boeuf” anticipate the poet’s death and re-
surrection, they are firmly anchored in the present. “Le Cheval” is the
only poem in Le Bestiaire that is situated entirely in the future. It not
only celebrates Apollinaire’s poetic inspiration but looks forward to
his eventual triumph. As Greet remarks, Pegasus “est un emblème de
la gloire aussi bien que de la poésie” (“is an emblem of glory as well
as poetry”) (p. 87). Whether Apollinaire conceives of his verse as a
model of excellence or as a visionary instrument, he is determined to
dominate modern poetry. Dufy’s woodcut depicts a high-spirited
animal that will make a fitting steed for the ambitious poet. From all
indications, the scene takes place at the foot of Mt. Helicon, the home
of the nine Muses. Issuing from the Hippocrene spring, created when
Pegasus stamped on the rock, a stream cascades down the mountain
and continues to the Gulf of Corinth.
Although Apollinaire boasts that he will tame Pegasus, like Belle-
rophon in the well-known myth, the moment has not yet come. That
the horse is wearing neither a bridle nor a saddle indicates he is
completely wild. This conclusion is reinforced by the mysterious
trefoil patterns, masquerading as vegetation, that dot the slopes behind
Pegasus. A Cabalistic food according to one of Greet’s students, their
role has long puzzled critics (p. 88). Additional research reveals that
these strange designs possess a doubly symbolic function. In the first
place, the clover leaf symbolizes the Trinity (which explains why
three-lobed arches were so popular in medieval architecture). “When
it is located upon a mountain,” one authority adds, “it comes to signify
knowledge of the divine essence gained by hard endeavor, through
sacrifice or study.”18 Thus the trefoils in “Le Cheval” echo the theme
of poetic inspiration embodied by Pegasus. In the second place, clover
is also a plant as well as a symbol. Since it possesses divine properties,
it makes an ideal fodder for the winged horse. Although there are
many different varieties, one suspects the specimens depicted by Dufy
are examples of crimson clover (trifolium pratense). Known in French
18
J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, tr. Jack Sage, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1971), pp. 50-51.
38 Apollinaire on the Edge
Upon reflection, one realizes that the illustration contains the key
to the enigma. Since the Lion assumes a rampant pose, as if it were
emblazoned on a coat of arms, it constitutes a heraldic emblem. In
fact, it symbolizes both an individual and a city. For if the Lion
represents Christ and royalty in general, it is also the symbol of Saint
Mark. And when the citizens of the former Venetian empire adopted
the evangelist as their patron saint, they adopted his symbol as well. In
retrospect, one perceives that the illustration’s background represents
a Venitian scene. With a little effort, we can make out the piazza San
Marco on the left bordered by the Campanile, the Byzantine basilica
(two of whose domes are visible), and the Doge’s palace. On the right,
Dufy depicts the church of San Giorgio Maggiore, designed by
Palladio, and three sailing ships representing the former empire’s
maritime power. Like the Lion, that “malheureuse image / Des rois
chus lamentablement,” Venice is the symbol of a glorious past. In this
role, it is contrasted with modern Hamburg, where the King of the
Beasts is simply an object of curiosity.
A similar situation exists in “La Carpe,” whose ancient protag-
onist is also associated with a former era. As in the previous two
works, the scenery proves to be an indispensable part of the poem.
The first question that confronts the viewer is the identity of the
palace in the background. One wonders where the scene is situated
and why the artist has chosen this particular setting. For Gérard
Bertrand, the illustration evokes “la grande pièce d’eau de Versailles
ou de Chantilly” (“the large ornamental lake at Versailles or
Chantilly”).19 On the other hand, Greet suggests it depicts a Roman
atrium (p. 122). Exhaustive research reveals that the scene takes place
in the gardens at Versailles, near the Orangerie. Although the final
illustration is somewhat ambiguous, Greet reproduces an earlier
version that is much more specific (p. 121). Despite the picture’s
extreme foreshortening, which seriously distorts the perspective, the
view is unmistakable. Looking toward the north, toward the royal
palace, we see the equestrian statue of Louis XIV by Bernini, the
ornamental pond known as the Pièce d’Eau des Suisses, and finally
the Escaliers des Cent-Marches whose twin staircases embrace the
Orangerie. The facade adorned with friezes and arcades in the
background belongs to the Escaliers des Cent-Marches. The palace
itself is too large to be included in the picture. Like the hapless Lion,
who is associated with the Venetian empire, the Carp evokes France’s
glorious past. The sole remaining witness of Louis XIV’s triumphs, it
recalls the splendor of the French court as it contemplates the present
age. Once again modern civilization suffers by comparison—whence,
at least in part, the melancholy that pervades the last line. In addition
to the Classical era, the Carp longs for its former friends. Left with
nothing but its memories, which are still vivid, it is isolated both in
time and in space. Like the Lion, the Carp symbolizes a glorious ideal
that has become obsolete. Like the Lion, it has witnessed the decline
of royalty and the rise of modern democratic society. The melancholy
fate of both animals is emphasized by the objects around them, which
facilitate a rich dialogue between the illustration and the text.
The final connotative device that Barthes identifies is syntax. As
he points out, it makes a considerable difference whether a photograph
is printed separately or as part of a series. When several photographs
are viewed together—for example in an illustrated magazine—they
acquire a broader meaning that encompasses all of them. The whole
19
Gérard Bertrand, L’Illustration de la poésie à l’époque du cubisme 1901-1914:
Derain, Dufy, Picasso (Paris: Klincksieck, 1971), p. 54.
Contemplating The Bestiary 43
turns out to be larger than the sum of its parts. How the photographs
are ordered, moreover, determines the message they will ultimately
convey. The same thing is true of works of art, as Apollinaire clearly
realized, for the illustrations in Le Bestiaire are carefully orchestrated.
Many of the portraits are arranged in pairs, for example. The Cat is
juxtaposed with the Lion, the Octopus with the Jellyfish, the Dove
with the Peacock, and so forth. Similarly, a number of poems, such as
“La Puce” and “Le Poulpe,” are grouped together thematically. In
addition, one notes a gradual progression from the Classical world,
presided over by the Orphic poet, to the modern world, where he is
transformed into a messianic figure. Since the poet is engaged in a
divine mission, Apollinaire declares in the notes, he is destined to
become immortal. “Ceux qui s’exercent à la poésie,” he concludes, “et
n’aiment rien autre que la perfection qui est Dieu lui-même” (“Those
who practice poetry and who only love the perfection that is God
himself”) will surely be reborn in heaven.
Chapter 2
Born and raised in Rome, where he spent the first eight years of
his life, Apollinaire harbored a permanent affection for Italy. Aided by
his ability to speak the language, he also developed extensive relations
with a number of Italian artists and writers over the years.1 His
involvement with Italy reached its highest point in 1914, when the
Italian Futurists visited Paris in the spring. During their stay, they
clustered around Apollinaire and his journal Les Soirées de Paris,
whose office even housed several of them for a while. During this
period Apollinaire discussed artistic matters with his guests on a daily
basis. In addition, he published texts by Ardengo Soffici and Giovanni
Papini in Les Soirées de Paris and collaborated on their journal
Lacerba. Following repeated requests for some poetry, Soffici later
recounted, Apollinaire allowed him to look through his papers and
choose whatever he liked.2 The twenty-two short texts that he
discovered appeared in four issues of Lacerba published between
April 1914 and February 1915.3 Although the first batch was entitled
“Banalités,” Apollinaire asked Soffici to call the remainder “Quel-
conqueries” (“Whatnots”) because he found the title more amusing.4
After he returned to Florence, Soffici received another poem entitled
“Arrivée du paquebot” (“The Arrival of the Steamship”), which for
some reason was never published. Since it concluded with the naked
1
Although the bibliography has become quite lengthy, the basic text is still P. A.
Jannini’s La fortuna di Apollinaire in Italia, 2nd ed. (Milan: Istituto Editoriale Cis-
alpino, 1965).
2
Letter from Ardengo Soffici to Alfred Vallette, Mercure de France, May 15, 1920.
Repr. in Guillaume Apollinaire, Oeuvres poétiques, ed. Marcel Adéma and Michel
Décaudin (Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1965), pp. 1147-48.
3
See Apollinaire, Oeuvres poétiques, pp. 370, 516, 562, 590-92, 594, 656-73.
“Arrivé du paquebot” is reprinted on p. 735.
4
Letter from Guillaume Apollinaire to Ardengo Soffici dated April 30, 1914. Repr.
in Apollinaire, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Michel Décaudin (Paris: Balland-Lecat, 1965-
66), Vol. IV, p. 762.
46 Apollinaire on the Edge
poet sucking a prostitute’s breasts, he may have feared the issue would
be confiscated.5
Wishing to defend the dead poet’s reputation in 1920, Soffici
insisted that Apollinaire attached no importance to these pieces, which
he had simply written to amuse himself. Privately, one suspects that
Soffici did not know what to make of the “Quelconqueries,” which as
late as 1960 he described as “curiose bizzarrie inedite” (“curious
unpublished oddities”).6 To be sure, many critics would doubtless
agree with him today. Others would probably agree with Antoine
Fongaro that the texts are completely worthless.7 By contrast, the
“Quelconqueries” elicited vociferous support from the Dadaists and
the Surrealists, who admired their persistent iconoclasm. Citing the
Whatnots and the conversation poems in the Second Surrealist
Manifesto, André Breton declared that Apollinaire deserved to be
ranked with Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and the Comte de Lautréamont. In
contrast to all the other writers, he explained, “ils ont voulu vraiment
dire quelque chose” (“they really tried to say something”).8
By 1914, the Belle Epoque was drawing to a close and with it the
Symbolist mode that had dominated French letters for so many years.
Although it was a time of intense intellectual ferment, readers were
not prepared for the “Quelconqueries,” whose audacity caught them
by surprise. As a result, the texts were greeted largely with silence.
Since then, the world has witnessed numerous literary and artistic
movements, which have become increasingly radical over the years.
Readers and viewers have been affected by this aesthetic revolution as
much as artists and writers. We have become more accustomed to
works that challenge the intellect in new and unforeseen ways. The
time has come to rehabilitate the “Quelconqueries,” therefore, many of
which were written with publication in mind. One of the things that
make them so remarkable is their incredible diversity, which is
unprecedented in a single collection by a single author. Four texts
5
The original version was even bawdier. See Michel Décaudin, “Autour de Stavelot:
deux cahiers et un agenda,” Que vlo-ve?: Bulletin International des Etudes sur
Apollinaire, 3rd ser., No. 21 (January-March 1996), p. 19.
6
Ardengo Soffici, “Apollinaire poeta e amico,” Omaggio ad Apollinaire, ed.
Giovanni Sangiorgi and Jacopo Recupero (Rome: Ente Premi Roma, 1960), p. 26.
7
Antoine Fongaro, “Un Poème retrouvé d’Apollinaire,” Studi Francesi, Vol. I, No. 2
(May-August 1957), p. 252.
8
André Breton, Second Manifeste du surréalisme in Oeuvres complètes, ed.
Marguerite Bonnet et al. (Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1988), Vol. I, p. 815.
Apollinaire and the Whatnots 47
9
For a detailed description, see Décaudin, “Autour de Stavelot: deux cahiers et un
agenda,” pp. 4-25. The notebook includes manuscript versions of “Arrivée du
paquebot,” “Té,” “Le Repas,” “La Chaste Lise,” “Un Dernier Chapître,” “0,50,” “Le
Tabac à priser,” “Le Matin,” “Acousmate,”, “Etoile,”, “A Linda,” and “Fagnes de
Wallonie."
10
Apollinaire, Oeuvres poétiques, p. 1146.
48 Apollinaire on the Edge
11
Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of
Literature (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), p. 183.
12
Georges H. F. Longrée, “Apollinaire parallèle: le cas des ‘Quelconqueries’ et de
‘La Fin de Babylone,’” Les Cahiers des Paralittératures, Vol. I (l989), pp. 108-09.
13
See in particular Michel Sanouillet, Dada à Paris (Paris: Pauvert, 1965) and Elmer
Peterson and Stephen C. Foster, Paris Dada: The Barbarians at the Gates (New
York: Hall, 2001).
Apollinaire and the Whatnots 49
A Slice of Life
Apart from two or three traditional poems, the bulk of the “Quel-
conqueries” are experimental and break with convention in a number
of important ways. Apollinaire was attempting an exploratory oper-
ation in an effort to expand (and revitalize) the concept of poetry. One
of his more significant innovations was to choose a trivial subject and
to describe it in a flat, matter-of-fact style--whence the initial title
“Banalités.” As Marguerite Bonnet states, “il a cru à l’existence d’une
matière poétique dans la vie” (“he discovered poetic subject matter in
life itself”).14 In other words, he believed that ordinary existence
possessed a beauty of its own. Apollinaire not only extended the realm
of poetry into the everyday world, moreover, but made it available to
the man in the street. For the fact that something is “ordinary” simply
means it is important to the average person. At the same time, Apol-
linaire redefined his own function in keeping with the radical new
poetry that he envisioned. In particular, he rejected the lofty role
traditionally accorded the poet. Instead of drawing his inspiration from
the Muses or from his own genius, Longrée observes, he reveled in
“son rôle de bricoleur, de fournisseur de restes, d’accomodeur de
rebuts” (“his role as handyman, as purveyor of scraps, as adapter of
left-overs”).15 In contrast to the conversation poems, which record
what Apollinaire hears, the “slice of life” poems record what he sees.
He is present not so much as a participant but as a neutral observer.
While some of them contain humorous touches, the texts in this
category tend to be descriptive, objective, and factual. “By maximiz-
ing discursive simplicity and directness,” Susan Harrow explains,
“Apollinaire challenges the arbitrary separation of poetic lyricism and
lived language, and the absolute separation of language and its
14
Marguerite Bonnet, “Aux sources du surréalisme: place d’Apollinaire,” Revue des
Lettres Modernes, Nos. 104-107 (1964), special issue Guillaume Apollinaire 3, p. 70.
15
Longrée, “Apollinaire parallèle: le cas des ‘Quelconqueries’ et de ‘La Fin de Baby-
lone,’” p.110.
50 Apollinaire on the Edge
While “Le Repas” does not sound like a poem, it manages to look
like one—as do the majority of the “Quelconqueries.” Despite the
lack of a formal rhyme scheme, it possesses other properties that have
come to be associated with the genre. Since each line begins with a
capital letter, the reader recognizes that it is a poem immediately. This
impression is confirmed by the white borders and by the way in which
the lines are arranged on the page. Although the text is written in free
verse, its rhythm is surprisingly regular. The poem opens with three
decasyllables, for example, one of which is dislocated to form the
second and third lines. The use of definite articles where one would
expect indefinite articles—as in “Il y a la fenêtre”—reinforces the
presentational mode adopted by Apollinaire. Again one is tempted to
compare the text to a painting. The mention of capes studded with
olive trees in the following line situates the poem on the Côte d’Azur,
16
Susan Harrow, The Material, the Real, and the Fractured Self: Subjectivity and
Representation from Rimbaud to Réda (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004),
p. 73.
Apollinaire and the Whatnots 51
17
Décaudin, “Autour de Stavelot: deux cahiers et un agenda,” p. 24.
18
Mary Ann Caws, A Metapoetics of the Passage (Hanover, New Hampshire:
University Press of New England, 1981), p. 85.
52 Apollinaire on the Edge
Since the table is featured in the title, one would expect it to play a
prominent role in the poem.19 Following its initial appearance, however,
it vanishes without a trace. The first line merely serves as a point of
departure. “‘Table’ met à la fois l’accent sur l’indétermination des
événéments quotidiens,” Longrée declares, “et sur les actes du scripteur
engagé dans la production de son texte” (“‘Table’ emphasizes both the
randomness of daily events and the actions of the writer engaged in the
production of his text”).20 Or rather, it reveals how the two themes are
intertwined, how ordinary objects trigger thoughts and memories that
interfere with Apollinaire’s plans. For the poem is not really about
working but about wanting to work and not being able to. Following this
frustrated admission, the poet discourses on blotting paper, introduces a
fleeting metaphor, and describes several objects lying on the table.
19
A photograph of the table in question is reproduced in Pierre Cailler, Guillaume
Apollinaire: documents iconographiques (Geneva: Cailler, 1965), plate 16.
20
Longrée, “Apollinaire parallèle: le cas des ‘Quelconqueries’ et de ‘La Fin de Baby-
lone,’” p. 110.
Apollinaire and the Whatnots 53
(It is precisely art that I would like to banish from the arts or
if not art, specially the artist and those who imitate artists, who
attach more worth to a diamond than to a box of matches, to a
rose than to a smoked herring … There is too much taste and
too much devotion to conventional beauty.)21
21
Letter from Guillaume Apollinaire to Georgette Catelain dated November 7, 1915.
Repr. in “Des lettres inédites du mal-aimé à une amie,” Le Figaro Littéraire, No. 1174
(November 4-10, 1968), p. 9.
22
Paola Antonelli, Humble Masterpieces: Everyday Marvels of Design (New York:
Regan, 2005), p. 1.
54 Apollinaire on the Edge
A
T T
E
N T
ION
DANGER DE MORT
Trivial Pursuits
Mention should also be made of “Le Tabac à priser” (“Snuff”),
another whimsical poem in which tobacco plays a prominent role.
Like “Le Repas,” it is set in Provence and was composed while Apol-
linaire was living on the Côte d’Azur. Comprising four unrhymed
stanzas, the text includes bits and pieces of earlier poems arranged to
form a kind of mosaic. As Décaudin observes, this construction antici-
pates that of many of Apollinaire’s mature poems, which skillfully
exploit “la technique discontinue de découpage et de collage” (“the
discontinuous technique of cutting and pasting”).23 Not only is each
stanza a different length, but the lines themselves vary in length from
one stanza to the next. Although the poem is rhymed initially, Apol-
linaire abandons this idea after the third line. The first stanza sketches
an idyllic portrait of the Provençal countryside.
23
Décaudin, “Autour de Stavelot: deux cahiers et un agenda,” p. 9. Reprinted on
pp.9-10, the original version contained two more stanzas, one of which was concerned
with the Dreyfus affair. James Lawler believes the latter remarks are uttered by
Apollinaire, while Décaudin attributes them to a gendarme mentioned in the poem.
However, they actually seem to be pronounced by an old man who appears in the
following stanza.
Apollinaire and the Whatnots 57
24
Interestingly, Raymond Roussel used the same song to generate the tale of “Le
Poète et la moresque” in Impressions d’Afrique, which Apollinaire saw with Francis
Picabia and Marcel Duchamp in 1911 or 1912.
25
Timothy Mathews, Reading Apollinaire: Theories of Poetic Language (Man-
chester: Manchester University Press, 1987), p. 162.
58 Apollinaire on the Edge
A Adnil
Danil
Nadil
Nalid Alnid
Dilan Aldin
Lanid Ildan
Linda Landi
Ilnda Naldi
Nilda Dalni
Indla
Indal
Lnida
Lndia
Lndai
Lidna
Lidan
26
Georges H. F. Longrée, L’Expérience idéo-calligrammatique d’Apollinaire, rev. ed.
(Paris: Touzot, 1985), p. 117.
27
See ibid. for additional similarities between Apollinaire and Mallarmé.
Apollinaire and the Whatnots 59
28
Mathews, Reading Apollinaire: Theories of Poetic Language, p. 162.
60 Apollinaire on the Edge
29
Apollinaire often creates the next term in the series by reversing two or three letters
at the beginning of a word or at the end. In one instance (“Nalid”/”Dilan”), he
reverses the entire word.
30
This explains why three of the words begin with Lnd, which is virtually
unpronounceable: Apollinaire wanted to preserve the assonance at all costs.
31
Culler, Structuralist Poetics, p. 177.
Apollinaire and the Whatnots 61
32
John J. White, Literary Futurism: Aspects of the First Avant-Garde (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1990) p. 263. See p. 183 as well.
33
Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, ed. Charles Bally, et al., tr.
Wade Baskin (1916, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. 15.
34
Longrée, L’Expérience idéo-calligrammatique d’Apollinaire, p. 117.
35
Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, pp. 67-70.
62 Apollinaire on the Edge
36
Antonelli, Humble Masterpieces, p. 1.
Apollinaire and the Whatnots 63
to prove, one suspects the text was taken from a French grammar, for
it illustrates an important grammatical principle: a past participle
must agree with a preceding direct object. Since “pris” follows a femi-
nine pronoun in the second line, it becomes “prise.”
Freed from its original mooring, “0,50” became a floating signifer
drifting aimlessly with the cultural current. For this reason, the most
promising interpretations are anchored in contemporary reality. While
one can imagine a number of realistic scenarios, such as paying the
bill at a sidewalk cafe, additional interpretations exist at the meta-
phoric level.37 In particular, the image of money changing hands can
be viewed as a metaphor for linguistic exchange. More precisely,
since it refers to purely denotative language, it describes the exchange
of factual information. That “0,50” assumes the form of a dialogue
makes this interpretation all the more attractive. The metaphor itself
goes back at least to Mallarmé who, contrasting poetic discourse with
direct discourse, described the latter as follows:
37
For example, Scott Bates observes that pièce de dix sous was slang for “anus” in the
19th century, which suggests a different scenario than the one that follows. See his
Dictionnaire des mots libres d’Apollinaire (Sewanee, Tennessee: privately printed,
1991), p. 221.
38
Stéphane Mallarmé, “Crise de vers” in Oeuvres complètes, ed. Henri Mondor and
G. Jean-Aubry (Paris: Gallmard/Pléiade, 1956), p. 368.
64 Apollinaire on the Edge
his desire to liberate every literary genre.39 Stressing the historical im-
portance of works like “Le Phoque” and “Chapeau-Tombeau,” he de-
clared: “Apollinaire s’est entendu mieux que tout autre à faire passer
dans l’expression … quelques-unes des attitudes les plus caracté-
ristiques de l’humour d’aujourd’hui” (“Apollinaire managed to
express … some of the most characteristic attitudes of today’s humor
better than anyone else”). Breton’s remarks are especially applicable
to Dada and Surrealism, whose adherents possessed a vivid sense of
what he called “humour noir”—humor with a wicked twist to it. As he
declared, this describes the humor in the “Quelconqueries,” which is
direct, powerful, and often perverse.
Not surprisingly, Apollinaire’s comic imagination assumes a
number of different guises. Like the previous poem, “1890” consists
of a brief dialogue. Thanks to the title, we know exactly when the con-
versation supposedly takes place. Although one speaker is anony-
mous, the other is identified as Alfred Capus, a journalist, novelist,
and playwright who specialized in bourgeois comedies. In contrast to
another text by Apollinaire, which portrays him as a lecherous
scoundrel, “1890” depicts Capus as a cynical misogynist.40 Apropos of
absolutely nothing, the first speaker remarks that every woman
between 45 and 50 remembers falling in love with Victor Capoul—an
operatic tenor who sang at the Opéra-Comique from 1861 to 1870.41
To which Capus sarcastically replies: “Et de bien d’autres” (“And
with lots of other men too”). Women are fickle creatures, he implies,
who fall in love at the drop of a hat. A confirmed sceptic, Capus was
famous for uttering acerbic boutades like the one attributed to him by
Apollinaire.42 Indeed, one begins to suspect that “1890” records an
actual rejoinder. Transformed into a “Quelconquerie” by Ardengo
39
André Breton, Anthologie de l’humour noir (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1966), p. 311.
40
Guillaume Apollinaire, “Lettre de Paris,” Le Passant, November 25, 1911. Repr. in
Guillaume Apollinaire, Oeuvres en prose complètes, ed. Pierre Caizergues and Michel
Décaudin (Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1991), Vol. II, p. 382.
41
Capoul was especially famous for singing the role of Romeo in Gounod’s Roméo et
Juliette. According to the Robert encyclopedia, “il a donné son nom à une coiffure
qui comporte une raie au milieu de la tête, les côtés du front dégagés et le milieu
recouvert de deux petites boucles” (“he lent his name to a hair style consisting of a
part down the middle, twin forelocks, and two little curls in the middle of the
forehead”).
42
Léon Treich reproduces numerous examples in L’Esprit d’Alfred Capus, 2nd ed.
(Paris: Gallimard, 1926), pp. 23-72.
Apollinaire and the Whatnots 65
43
The original version is reprinted in Décaudin, “Autour de Stavelot: deux cahiers et
un agenda,” pp. 10-11.
66 Apollinaire on the Edge
Asia, we have no idea where Blue Lanchi is located. The town could
be in Turkey or Japan or anywhere in between. The original text speci-
fied that it was located in China. Nor do we have any idea where
Gaspard is headed (or why)—he simply sets off on a mysterious
journey. In the original version, he was going to visit Hindu sages in
India. A number of other questions come to mind. What is Gaspard’s
real name? Why does he conceal his identity? Where does he come
from? What was he doing in Blue Lanchi? Why does he only travel at
night? And finally, why is it such a bad idea to follow the Milky Way?
Since Gaspard (or Gaspar) was the name of one of the Three
Wisemen, perhaps he is following a sacred star to Bethlehem. Or,
since he seems to be an adventurer, perhaps he is merely following his
own star—like Marco Polo before him.
“Té” presents a different set of problems, one of which confronts
readers before the poem begins: how are we to interpret the title?
Since neither the letter T nor its homonym thé (“tea”) appears to make
any sense, the explanation must lie elsewhere. Reviewing the various
possibilities, one discovers that té is an exclamation of surprise in the
south of France (a deformation of tiens), which might be translated as
“Hey!” in English. Since the poem consists of six unrelated thoughts,
ranging from the witty to the absurd, this would seem to be the best
choice. Like several other “Quelconqueries” (or parts of them), “Té”
seems to have been especially composed for Lacerba. More precisely,
since the individual texts were composed years before, they seem to
have been collected for Lacerba. One wonders whether Apollinaire
decided which ones to include or whether he left that task to Soffici.
In either case, the six texts were clearly chosen at random. Like the
fourth and fifth excerpts, which were borrowed from the cahier de
Stavelot, the others were jotted down on different occasions over the
years.
The first text takes the form of an aphorism: “En matière de
religion la première cause de doute est souvent l’ennui surtout chez les
jeunes gens” (“the first cause of religious doubt is often boredom
especially where young people are concerned”). This observation
recalls several statements by the Duc de La Rochefoucauld, who
claimed that human behavior was frequently influenced by ennui.
Hovering in the background, the sardonic author of the Maximes is
quickly displaced by another 17th century philosopher, who initiated
the cult of reason. Parodying a celebrated passage in the Discours de
Apollinaire and the Whatnots 67
44
For more information about Nyctor, see the introduction and notes to Le Poète
assassiné in Apollinaire, Oeuvres en prose completes, Vol. I.
68 Apollinaire on the Edge
Like “Fiord,” “Le Petit Balai,” and “Voyage à Paris,” this poem
was taken from a comic operetta entitled Le Marchand d’anchois (The
Anchovy Merchant), which Apollinaire composed in 1906.45 Ori-
ginally meant to be sung (to the tune of “Le Pendu”), “Le Phoque” is
written in octosyllabic verse with alternating rhymes. Even a cursory
glance reveals why André Breton included it in his Anthologie de
l’humour noir. A wicked satire in the tradition of “Monsieur
Prudhomme,” it is thoroughly amusing. Like Verlaine, who satirized
pompous bourgeois fathers, Apollinaire directs his barbs at pompous
literary figures. As in the earlier poem, the dramatic monologue
allows the speaker to reveal his own inadequacies. Unaware of his
serious limitations, the latter behaves like a fatuous ass—or rather,
like a big fat seal. Instead of bleu marin (“deep blue”), as Gerald
Kamber points out, the reader is surprised to encounter the term “veau
45
See Apollinaire, Oeuvres en prose completes, Vol. I, pp. 984-1007. The manuscript
of “Le Phoque” is discussed on p. 1459 and reproduced in Album Apollinaire, ed.
Pierre-Marcel Adéma and Michel Décaudin (Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1971), p. 183.
Apollinaire and the Whatnots 69
46
Gerald Kamber, Max Jacob and the Poetics of Cubism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1971), p. 149.
47
Césaire Villatte provides the following German equivalents: Dummkopf, einfältige
Gans, and Blökerin. See his Parisismen, ed. Rudolf Meyer-Riefstahl and Marcel
Flandrin, rev. ed. (Berlin-Schöneberg: Langenscheidt,1912), p. 286.
48
Michel Décaudin, La Crise des valeurs symbolistes: ving ans de poésie française,
1895-1914 (1960) (Geneva: Slatkine, 1981), p.168.
70 Apollinaire on the Edge
49
Ernest d’Hervilly, Les Bêtes à Paris (Paris: Launete, 1885). Each of the thirty-six
poems is accompanied by a marvelous illustration by G. Fraipont. Besides the seal,
the performing animals include an organ grinder’s monkey and—incredibly—a
marmot dancing to the music of a hurdy gurdy.
Apollinaire and the Whatnots 71
On a niché
Dans son tombeau
L’oiseau perché
72 Apollinaire on the Edge
Il a vécu
En Amérique
Ce petit cul
Or
Nithologique
Or
J’en ai assez
Je vais pisser
(Marooned
On your bonnet
His tomb
There upon it
He came from
Martinique
One dumb
Ex-parakeet
That’s
Enough for me
I’ll take a pee)
50
Apollinaire, Oeuvres poétiques, p.1146.
Apollinaire and the Whatnots 73
51
Apollinaire, “L’Esprit nouveau et les poètes,” Oeuvres en prose complètes, Vol. II,
p. 949.
52
Ibid., p. 951. Margaret Davies discusses this principle in “Un Mouchoir qui tombe,”
En hommage à Michel Décaudin, ed. Pierre Brunel et al. (Paris: Minard, 1986), pp.
193-201. When Vigny’s translation of Othello was performed in 1829, the audience
responded with cries of outrage at the unbearably common word “handkerchief.” See
Alfred de Vigny, “Lettre à Lord *** sur la soirée du 24 octobre 1829 et sur un
système dramatique” in Oeuvres complètes, ed. F. Baldensperger (Paris: Gallimard/
Pléiade, 1964), p. 291.
Chapter 3
1
Katia Samaltanos, Apollinaire: Catalyst for Primitivism, Picabia, and Duchamp
(Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1984), pp. 9-60. Jean-Claude Blachère comes to
much the same conclusion in Le Modèle nègre: aspects littéraires du mythe primiti-
viste au XXe siècle chez Apollinaire, Cendrars, Tzara (Dakar, Abidjan, Lomé: Nou-
velles Editions Africaines, 1981), p. 70.
76 Apollinaire on the Edge
Childish Games
Fongaro’s discovery has shed important light on a number of
poems, especially those written during the First World War, which in-
corporate snatches of barracks ballads. He also noted in passing that
“Fusée” (“Flare”) contains a verse taken from a children’s rhyme:
“Une souris verte file parmi la mousse” (“A green mouse flees among
the moss”).4 The rhyme in question, or at least one version, goes as
follows:
Une souris verte
Qui courre dans l’herbe.
On l’attrape par la queue,
On la montre à ces messieurs.
Ces messieurs me disent:
“Trempez-la dans l’huile,
Trempez-la dans l’eau;
Il sortira un escargot.”
(A green mouse
Scurries through the grass.
I caught it by the tail,
I showed it to those gentlemen.
2
See Antoine Fongaro, “‘Les Sept Epées’ et Le Plaisir des dieux,” Revue des Lettres
Modernes, Nos. 327-330 (1972), special issue Guillaume Apollinaire 11, pp. 111-19
and “Sources gaillardes (suite),” Revue des Lettres Modernes, Nos. 677-681 (1983),
special issue Guillaume Apollinaire 16, pp. 171-74.
3
. Michel Décaudin, “Alcools” de Guillaume Apollinaire (Paris: Gallimard, 1993), p.
53. For an excellent description of Apollinaire’s poetic technique, see pp. 43-54.
4
Fongaro, “Sources gaillardes (suite), p. 174, n. 1.
Apollinaire and Children’s Rhymes 77
5
Pierre Roy, Cent Comptines (Paris: Jonquières, 1926), n.p.
6
Jean Baucomont et al., eds. Les Comptines de langue française (Paris: Seghers,
1961), p. 175.
78 Apollinaire on the Edge
A. B. C. D.
Les Français ont gagné,
Les All’mands ont perdu,
Le Kaiser sera pendu.
7
Antoine Fongaro, “Un Acrostiche peu visible,” Que Vlo-Ve? Bulletin International
des Etudes sur Guillaume Apollinaire, 4th ser., No. 6 (April-June 1999), pp. 84-85.
8
The experience was recounted in the first version of La Femme Assise, published in
1920. See Apollinaire, Oeuvres en prose, ed. Michel Décaudin (Paris: Gallimard/
Pléiade, 1977), Vol. I, p. 1363-64.
Apollinaire and Children’s Rhymes 79
(A. B. C. D.
The French have won,
The Germans have lost,
The Kaiser will be hanged.
9
Guillaume Apollinaire, “Le Folklore des jeux d’enfant,” Paris-Journal, June 26,
1914. Repr. in Oeuvres en prose complètes, ed. Pierre Caizergues and Michel
Décaudin (Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1991), Vol. II, p. 793. The projected volume was
interrupted by World War I but finally appeared in 1926 with 45 illustrations. See
note 5.
80 Apollinaire on the Edge
(Children
From this world or the other
Were singing those rounds
With absurd lyric verses
That are doubtless the relics
Of humanity’s
Oldest poetic monuments.)
Like the article cited previously, “La Maison des morts” reveals
that Apollinaire was acquainted with folklore scholarship. For al-
though scholars dispute the exact age of children’s rhymes, they agree
that most of them are ancient.10 According to several authorities, some
10
According to Iona and Peter Opie, 85 per cent of children’s rhymes are probably at
least than 200 years old, and a quarter date from before 1600. See the Oxford
Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp.
6-7.
Apollinaire and Children’s Rhymes 81
As Thérèse Roméo notes, this idea was borrowed from the following
comptine, which has several variations:
Enfilons les aiguilles de bois
Dans le jupon de ma grand-mère.
Enfilons les aiguilles de bois
Dans le jupon du Chinois.
Refrain:
Passe, passe, passera
La dernière, la dernière restera.
11
Thérèse Roméo, “Apollinaire paysagiste,” paper presented at the Colloque
Apollinaire in Nice, June 1980, apparently unpublished. Cf. Baucomont et al., eds.
Les Comptines de la langue française, pp. 311-12.
82 Apollinaire on the Edge
12
Mechtild Cranston, “A la découverte de ‘La Blanche Neige’ de Guillaume
Apollinaire,” French Review, Vol. XXXIX, No. 5 (April 1966), p. 685. We now know
Apollinaire witnessed the Cologne Mardi Gras in February. See Apollinaire,
Correspondance avec son frère et sa mère, ed. Gilbert Boudar and Michel Décaudin
(Paris: Corti, 1987), p. 39.
13
LeRoy C. Breunig, “The Chronology of Apollinaire’s Alcools,” PMLA, Vol.
LXVII, No.7 (December 1952), p. 919.
14
. Michel Décaudin, “La Blanche Neige,” Revue des Lettres Modernes, Nos. 104-
107 (1964), special issue Guillaume Apollinaire 3, p. 128.
15
Cranston, “A la découverte de ‘La Blanche Neige’ de Guillaume Apollinaire,” p.
693.
16
Mario Richter, Apollinaire: il rinnovamento della scrittura poetica all’inizio del
novecento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990), pp. 67-78. Entitled “‘La Blanche Neige’
d’Apollinaire”, an earlier version appeared in Etudes autour d”Alcools”, ed. Anne de
Fabry and Marie-France Hilgar (Birmingham, Alabama: Summa, 1985), pp. 41-50
and earlier in Que Vlo-Ve?, Bulletin International des Etudes sur Apollinaire, 2nd ser.,
Nos. 6-7 (April-September 1983), paginated separately.
17
Antoine Fongaro, “Des Sources d’Apollinaire,” Revue des Lettres Modernes, Nos.
146-149 (1966), special issue Guillaume Apollinaire 5, pp. 112-114.
18
Michael Riffaterre, Semiotics of Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1978), p. 19.
84 Apollinaire on the Edge
19
Guillaume Apollinaire, Alcools, ed. A. E. Pilkington (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970), p.
128.
20
Guillaume Apollinaire, Alcools, tr. and ed. Anne Hyde Greet (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1965), p. 82.
21
Décaudin, “La Blanche Neige,” p. 126
Apollinaire and Children’s Rhymes 85
the key to the poem, which depicts a fantasy world where anything
can occur. Like every good children’s story, it strives to be enter-
taining. When Apollinaire reminds us of his presence in the last two
lines, it comes as quite a shock. Like the imaginary children grouped
around him, we are so immersed in the tale that reality—and the adult
world—takes us by surprise.
“La Dame”
Besides stylistic and thematic traces of children’s rhymes, “La
Dame” contains several quotations. Unlike the innocent fantasy pre-
sented in “La Blanche Neige,” the drama that it enacts borders on the
bizarre. In contrast to the first poem, which is perfectly coherent, the
second is fragmentary and fraught with mystery.
“La Dame” was originally taken from a much longer work entitled
“La Clef” (“The Key”), whose female protagonist sets out in search of
a symbolic key.22 When she returns with the object of her quest, she
discovers her lover is dead and drowns herself in a lake. Published in
1903, “La Dame” was conceived initially as a dialogue between the
woman and an anonymous bystander. Originally entitled “Le Retour”
(“The Return”), it consisted of five octosyllabic lines rhyming
22
Guillaume Apollinaire, Oeuvres poétiques, ed. Marcel Adéma and Michel Décaudin
(Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1965), p. 553.
86 Apollinaire on the Edge
23
Décaudin, “Alcools” de Guillaume Apollinaire, p. 52.
24
Didier Alexandre, Guillaume Apollinaire, “Alcools” (Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France, 1994), pp. 51-52.
Apollinaire and Children’s Rhymes 87
dead man”).25 Ultimately, the garden and the vacant house belong to
Death, which presides over the first three lines.
Despite the stanza’s morbid thematics, which seem far removed
from the experience of childhood, several echos of children’s rhymes
can be detected. Since the latter contain frequent references to death,
this is not terribly surprising. A simple comptine like that quoted by
Pierre Roy could conceivably have served as a point of departure:
25
Marc Poupon, “Sources allemandes d’Apollinaire,” Revue des Lettres Modernes,
Nos. 530-536 (1978), special issue Guillaume Apollinaire 14, p. 14.
88 Apollinaire on the Edge
26
Baucomont et al, Les Comptines de la langue française, p. 293.
27
See Madeleine Boisson, Apollinaire et les mythologies antiques (Paris: Nizet &
Fasano: Schena, 1989), p. 354 and Marie-Jeanne Durry, Guillaume Apollinaire:
“Alcools” (Paris: SEDES, 1964), Vol. II, pp. 120-23, respectively.
28
Baucomont et al, Les Comptines de la langue française, pp. 312 and 311-12
respectively.
Apollinaire and Children’s Rhymes 89
29
Durry, Guillaume Apollinaire: “Alcools,” Vol. II, p. 64.
30
However, Poupon thinks the conclusion depicts the departure of the dead man’s
soul, which is disguised as a mouse (“Sources allemandes d’Apollinaire,” p. 14).
31
Apollinaire, Alcools, tr. and ed. Greet, p. 266.
32
Scott Bates, Dictionnare des mots libres d’Apollinaire (Sewanee, Tennessee: pri-
vate printed, 1991), pp. 142-43 and Alexandre, Guillaume Apollinaire, “Alcools,” p.
52.
90 Apollinaire on the Edge
33
Michel Décaudin, Le Dossier d’”Alcools”, rev. ed. (Geneva: Droz and Paris:
Minard, 1965), p. 200.
34
Apollinaire, Alcools, ed. A. E. Pilkington, p. 148. Greet also notes their resem-
blance to nursery rhymes.
35
Eugène Rolland, Rimes et jeux de l’enfance (1883) (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose,
1967), p. 27.
Apollinaire and Children’s Rhymes 91
Unlike the Three Blind Mice (who are frankly repulsive) or the
star of “Hickory Dickory Dock” (who seems demented), la petite
souris embodies a whole series of human virtues. In contrast to her
Anglo-Saxon cousins, she is a civilized mouse—which is to say a
French mouse. According to all indications, she is clever, pious, and
talented. Not only does she know how to tell time, but she is also an
accomplished lace-maker. By contrast, the little mouse in “La Dame”
merely serves as a metaphor. Despite her virtual existence, she is far
more than a pale reflection. Indeed, since her metaphorical function is
largely implicit, she is endowed with a surprising presence. The fact
that she has an extensive history means that she is accompanied by
substantial cultural baggage. A popular figure in her own right, she
completely eclipses the lady whom she supposedly represents.
36
Baucomont et al., Les Comptines de la langue française, pp. 233-34.
92 Apollinaire on the Edge
“Salomé”
Published in Vers et Prose in 1905, “Salomé” has attracted far
more critical attention over the years than “La Dame.” Since it re-
volves around a legendary femme fatale, this is not particularly sur-
prising. However, “Salomé” is also much more ambitious than the
preceding poem, more finely crafted, and—doubtless for this reason—
ultimately more successful. And yet, despite their obvious differences,
the two compositions have quite a bit in common. Like “La Dame,”
for example, “Salomé” features a female protagonist whose loved one
has recently passed away. Like the earlier poem, it encompasses a
garden whose lilies are strangely wilted. In addition, the two works
possess the same structure and are similarly indebted to children’s
rhymes. Finally, as numerous critics have commented, they are both
ambiguous—although not as much as is generally supposed. Most of
“Salom锑s ambiguity stems from readers’ failure to grasp the under-
lying assumptions that govern the text.
Celebrated by the Symbolists in particular, Salomé was an
extremely popular character at the dawn of the twentieth century. As
Décaudin remarks, she was “une figure privilégiée, chargée des rêves
et des phantasmes de l’époque”(“a privileged figure, expressing the
dreams and the fantasies of the period”).37 In France alone, according
to Maurice Kraft, 2789 poets celebrated the dancer during the fifty
years preceding World War I!38 By the time Apollinaire decided to
write about her, she had acquired mythic proportions. Nevertheless,
while the cult of Salomé was widespread, the tradition was gradually
coming to an end. Few aesthetic options remained that had not already
been explored. For someone like Apollinaire, who prized originality
above all else, this presented a serious problem. Instead of simply
writing a pastiche, he chose to create a revolutionary new poem, one
that would make the literary world sit up and take notice. Toward this
end, he devised four principal strategies.
Apollinaire first decided to create a radical new mise-en-scène.
Defying spatial and temporal conventions, he transposed the biblical
tale to a different country and a different historical period. Readers
37
Michel Décaudin, “Un Mythe ‘fin de siècle’: Salomé,” Comparative Literature
Studies, Vol. IV, Nos. 1-2 (1967), p. 110.
38
Cited in ibid., p. 109.
Apollinaire and Children’s Rhymes 93
39
Durry, Guillaume Apollinaire: “Alcools”, Vol. III, p. 146 and Robert Couffignal,
L’Inspiration biblique dans l’oeuvre de Guillaume Apollinaire (Paris: Minard, 1966),
p. 35.
40
Jacqueline Bellas, “L’Equivoque de Salomé dans la littérature et l’art ‘fin de
siècle’” in Poésie et peinture du symbolisme au surréalisme en France et en Pologne,
ed. Elzbieta Grabska (Warsaw: University of Warsaw, 1973), p. 46.
94 Apollinaire on the Edge
43
Apollinaire, Oeuvres en prose, Vol. I, p. 125.
Apollinaire and Children’s Rhymes 97
The first stanza orients the reader with respect to the story and
evokes Salomé’s extraordinary talent. Elsewhere Apollinaire calls her
“la danseuse au pied prompt.”44 As this felicitous phrase implies,
Salomé is totally consumed by dance. Dancing is not only her favorite
pastime but her raison d’être. And yet, while the first two lines
acknowledge her remarkable gift, they are also deeply ironic. Al-
though her marvelous dancing brought about John the Baptist’s death,
it is powerless to restore him to life. Even the heavenly seraphim—
who according to Talmudic lore are dancing-masters—could not ac-
complish such a feat.45 While the third line is uttered by Salomé, as is
the entire work, in reality it is concerned with her mother. Here and
elsewhere, Salomé serves as an unconscious mirror, reflecting the
actions of those around her. We never view the other characters
directly. Only through her, for example, do we learn that Herodias has
a sad expression on her face.
Like Salomé’s sudden grief, this discovery comes as a
considerable surprise. Since her mortal enemy John the Baptist is
dead, one would expect Herodias to be jubilant. As the story unfolds,
however, the reader gradually perceives that her daughter has lost her
mind. This is the source of Herodias’ sadness. But what could have
happened to drive Salomé insane? As it turns out, there are two
answers to this question. The first one is relatively simple: she is
suffering from midsummer madness. Her illness stems from
Midsummer’s Night itself, which exerts a mysterious influence over
her. The second explanation is more complicated.
44
Apollinaire, Oeuvres poétiques, p. 1030.
45
Scott Bates, “Notes sur ‘Simon Mage’ et Isaac Laquedem,” Revue des Lettres Mo-
dernes, Nos. 123-126 (1965), special issue Guillaume Apollinaire 4, p. 68.
98 Apollinaire on the Edge
46
Bates, Dictionnaire des mots libres d’Apollinaire, pp. 247 and 160 respectively.
47
Poupon, “Sources allemandes d’Apollinaire,” pp. 14-18. Antoine Fongaro, “Des
‘lys,’” Que Vlo-Ve? Bulletin International des Etudes sur Guillaume Apollinaire, 4th
series, No. 14 (April-June 2001), pp. 42-45.
48
Décaudin, Le Dossier d’”Alcools,” p. 140.
49
Couffignal, L’Inspiration biblique dans l’oeuvre de Guillaume Apollinaire, p. 35.
100 Apollinaire on the Edge
popular comptine. Like her, the miller’s daughter loves to dance but
ends up losing her garter.54
C’est la fille de la meunière
Qui dansait avec les gars;
Elle a perdu sa jarretière,
Sa jarretière ne tenait pas.
Gibouli, giboula,
On dit qu’elle est malade;
Gibouli, giboula,
On dit qu’elle en mourra.
59
Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion,
abridged ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1963), p. 730.
60
See, for example, Apollinaire, Alcools, ed. A. E. Pilkington, p. 129.
61
L. C. Breunig, “Les Phares d’Apollinaire,” Cahiers du Musée d’Art Moderne, Vol.
LXXXI, No. 6 (1981), p. 66.
104 Apollinaire on the Edge
“Rien ne m’intéresse.”
“Rie, en aimant, Thérèse.”
—Robert Desnos,“Dialogue”
3
For example, David Grossvogel in The Self-Conscious Stage (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1958), p. 46 and Jacques Guicharnaud, in his Anthology of 20th
Century French Theater (Paris and New York: Paris Book Center, 1967), p. 44.
4
Michel Décaudin, preface to Revue des Lettres Modernes, Nos. 123-126 (1965),
special issue Guillaume Apollinaire 4, p. 3.
5
Henri Béhar, Le Théâtre dada et surréaliste (Paris: Gallimard, 1979), p. 77.
The Mammaries of Tiresias 107
actors, and the placards on stage were inspired by Ubu roi. In addition
to rapid rhythms and abrupt transitions, Peter Read adds, both plays
also make abundant use of caricature.6
As we saw in Chapters 2 and 3, one way in which Apollinaire
strove to revolutionize modern aesthetics was by importing cultural
artifacts. Besides games, common objects, and children’s rhymes, he
incorporated posters, handbills, graffiti, and bits of everyday speech
into many of his works. In addition to compositions like “Le Pont
Mirabeau,” “La Dame,” and “Salomé,” this describes the conversation
poems, the calligrams, the Quelconqueries, the simultaneous poems,
and Les Mamelles de Tirésias. Like its companions, the latter
constitutes “un hybride de culture populaire et de recherches d’avant-
garde” (“a hybrid of popular culture and avant-garde experiments”).7
In particular, Apollinaire drew heavily on popular forms of theater
such as the circus, the music hall, silent films, marionettes, and Punch
and Judy shows (which also fascinated Jarry).8 Parodying American
cowboy movies at one point, two clowns called Presto and Lacouf
draw their pistols, fire at each other, fall down dead, and miraculously
come back to life.
As Apollinaire insisted in the prologue to Les Mamelles de
Tirésias, the modern age demanded a new kind of theater—one that
would reflect modern experience. In contrast to Classical French
drama, with its emphasis on decorum, verisimilitude, and the three
unities, the new theater would be brash, provocative, and absurd. In
contrast to the Naturalist theater, with its trompe l’oeil effects and
“slice of life” philosophy, it would be profoundly anti-realistic. Des-
pite its aversion to mimesis, Apollinaire added with a paradoxical
flourish, the new theater would actually be more realistic than
traditional theater. Privileging human experience over visual
perception, it would “faire surgir la vie même dans toute sa vérité”
(“conjure up life itself in all its truth”). Focusing on basic principles
rather than physical phenomena, the latter concept was crucial to
6
Peter Read, Apollinaire et Les Mamelles de Tirésias: la revanche d’Eros (Rennes:
Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2000), p. 65. Alfred Jarry discusses several of these
devices in “De l’inutilité du théâtre au théâtre,” Oeuvres complètes, ed. Michel Arrivé
(Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1972), Vol. I, pp. 405-10.
7
Read, Apollinaire et Les Mamelles de Tirésias: la revanche d’Eros, p. 72. For a list
of the different kinds of modern media that figure in the play, see p. 73.
8
Pierre Caizergues, “Apollinaire, le cirque et les marionnettes,” Berenice (Rome),
Vol. II (July 1981), pp. 32-44.
108 Apollinaire on the Edge
9
For a more extensive discussion of Apollinaire’s surrealism, see Willard Bohn, The
Rise of Surrealism: Cubism, Dada, and the Pursuit of the Marvelous (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2001), pp.122-29. Curiously, Picasso once told his
dealer that he invented the term surréalisme. See Read, Apollinaire et Les Mamelles
de Tirésias: la revanche d’Eros, p. 140.
10
Guicharnaud, Anthology of 20th Century French Theater, pp. 40-41.
11
Guillaume Apollinaire, Oeuvres en prose complètes, ed. Pierre Caizergues and
Michel Décaudin (Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1991), Vol. II, pp. 941-54.
The Mammaries of Tiresias 109
In the Tradition
In fact, as Apollinaire well knew, the reversal of gender roles has
an extensive history going back to Classical antiquity. For example,
three of Aristophanes’ comedies portray worlds dominated by women:
Lysistrata, Thesmophoriazousae, and Ecclesiazousae. As Froma Zeit-
lin observes in her exhaustive survey of Classical Greek literature, the
reversal of gender roles is usually symmetrical. “When women are in
a position to rule men,” she concludes, “men must become women.”15
Not only does Euripides’ The Bacchae contain a similar reversal,
12
Guillaume Apollinaire, Oeuvres poétiques, ed. Marcel Adéma and Michel Décaudin
(Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1965), pp. 865-66. The basic comparison dates back at least
to 1913. See Apollinaire, Oeuvres en prose complètes, Vol. II, p. 525.
13
Pierre Reverdy, “L’Image,” Nord-Sud, No. 1 (March 1918), not paginated.
14
Apollinaire, Oeuvres en prose complètes, Vol, II, p. 950.
15
Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 384.
110 Apollinaire on the Edge
16
Marianne Bouchardon, “Les Mamelles de Tirésias: le retour de Dionysos,” Que
Vlo-Ve?, Bulletin International des Etudes sur Guillaume Apollinaire, 4th ser., No. 16
(September-December 2001), pp. 108-13. In addition, she argues that Les Mamelles
de Tirésias was inspired by Dionysiaque rites. See also Willard Bohn, Apollinaire and
the Faceless Man: The Creation and Evolution of a Modern Motif (Rutherford, New
Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1991), pp. 16-76.
17
Michel Décaudin, “Tirésias et Max Linder,” Que Vlo-Ve?, Bulletin International
des Etudes sur Guillaume Apollinaire, 3rd series, No. 19 (July-August 1995), p. 84.
18
Caizergues, “Apollinaire, le cirque et les marionnettes,” p. 40.
19
Mihaïlo Pavlovic, “La Repopulation et Les Mamelles de Tirésias,” Revue des
Lettres Modernes, Nos. 166-169 (1967), special issue Guillaume Apollinaire 6, pp.
133-50.
20
Jean Laude, contribution to a debate on literary cubism, Cahiers du Musée National
d’Art Moderne, No. 6 (1981), p. 137.
21
Pol-P. Gossiaux, “Sur une source possible des Mamelles de Tirésias: le Tirésias de
Piron,” Revue des Lettres Modernes, Nos. 576-581 (1980), special issue Guillaume
Apollinaire 15, pp. 172-73 and “Les Mamelles de Tirésias: note historique et
anthropologique,“ Berenice (Rome), Vol. II (July 1981), pp. 25-27.
The Mammaries of Tiresias 111
(The hour is near when men with large brows and chins of
steel will prodigiously give birth, with a single effort of their
tremendous will-power, to giants with infallible gestures).23
22
Read, Apollinaire et Les Mamelles de Tirésias: la revanche d’Eros, pp. 171-72.
Anne Clancier, “Amour parental et amour filial dans l’oeuvre de Guillaume Apolli-
naire,” Revue des Lettres Modernes, Nos. 805-811 (1987), special issue Guillaume
Apollinaire 17, pp. 16-22. While Clancier attributes Apollinaire’s fascination with
gender reversal to his sexual ambiguity, Read relates it to his broader preoccupation
with the androgyne. See also Peter Read, “Apollinaire et la fécondité masculine,” Que
Vlo-Ve? Bulletin International des Etudes sur Guillaume Apollinaire, 4th series, No.
20 (October-December 2002), pp. 118-120.
23
F. T. Marinetti, Mafarka le futuriste (Paris: Sansot, 1909), p. xi. The final chapter,
which is devoted to precisely this project, contains several similar statements.
24
Seven states have towns named Paris: Illinois, Texas, Tennessee, Idaho, Arkansas,
Kentucky, and Missouri.
112 Apollinaire on the Edge
25
Apollinaire, Oeuvres en prose complètes, Vol. II, p. 1265.
26
There is a medical condition called “couvade syndrome,” when a man develops
sympathetic symptoms in response to his wife’s pregnancy.
The Mammaries of Tiresias 113
The Plot
Like Goethe’s Faust, Peter Read notes, Les Mamelles de Tirésias
begins with a lengthy prologue—delivered by an actor representing
Apollinaire.27 Dressed in a tuxedo and carrying a canne de tranchée
(used to climb in and out of frontline trenches), he emerges from the
prompter’s box like a rabbit from a top hat. According to an earlier
manuscript, “Il est extrêmement pâle et il boite” (“He is extremely
pale, and he is limping”).28 Written in the first person, the prologue is
divided into two equal halves consisting of an allegory and an ars
poetica respectively. Speaking for the wounded poet, the actor re-
counts how the Germans extinguished the stars with their cannons and
how the French artillery managed to relight them. “As a light shining
in the darkness,” J. E. Cirlot remarks, “the star is a symbol of the
spirit.”29 For Apollinaire it symbolized the human spirit in particular
and all that it had accomplished. Not only is traditional theater is
mired in the past, the actor complains, but it is hopelessly pessimistic.
A new theater is needed, he continues, that will portray the joy and the
complexity of modern life. The remainder of the prologue consists of
a defense and illustration of the new aesthetics and a general call to
arms.
The published version of Les Mamelles de Tirésias differs from
that performed at the Conservatoire Renée Maubel in quite a few
respects. In 1917, for example, the first act consisted of just three
scenes.30 By the time the play appeared in print, however, Apollinaire
had divided it into nine scenes. The first of these presents the two
main characters and initiates the crisis that will drive the rest of the
play. As Béhar rightly observes, Les Mamelles de Tirésias was
27
Read, Apollinaire et Les Mamelles de Tirésias, p. 133. Two fragments of a
preliminary manuscript are reproduced on pp. 134-35. The actor was presumably
carrying the poet’s own cane, which Jacqueline Apolllinaire later gave to André Billy.
See Jean Adhémar et al., Apollinaire (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1969), item 395.
28
See Willard Bohn, “Autour des Mamelles de Tirésias,” Que Vlo-Ve?, Bulletin
International des Etudes sur Guillaume Apollinaire, 4th series, No. 20 (October-
December 2002), p. 111.
29
J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols. Tr. Jack Sage. 2nd ed. (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1971), p. 309.
30
Rehearsal scripts by Germaine Albert-Birot, Harry Ransom Humanities Research
Center, University of Texas. The second act originally consisted of six scenes instead
of seven.
114 Apollinaire on the Edge
31
Béhar, Le Théâtre dada et surréaliste, p. 77.
32
Pierre Caizergues, “Apollinaire inventeur d’un nouveau langage théâtral?” in
Apollinaire inventeur de langages, ed. Michel Décaudin (Paris: Minard, 1973), pp.
187-88.
33
This character was played by an individual named Howard who seems to have been
an artist (Apollinaire, Oeuvres en prose complètes, Vol. II, p. 1422). Apollinaire’s
address book contains an entry for an American sculptor named Cecil Howard (1888-
1956), who is doubtless the same person (Que Vlo-Ve?, Bulletin International des
Etudes sur Guillaume Apollinaire, 2nd ser., No. 1 {January-March 1982}, p. 7). See
Janis Conner and Joel Rosenkranz, Rediscoveries in American Sculpture: Studio
Works, 1893-1939 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989), pp. 63-70.
34
Like several other devices in the play, this idea was taken from an earlier
pantomime entitled A Quelle Heure un train partira-t-il pour Paris? —which
borrowed it from the Italian Futurists and an opera by Alberto Savinio. See Bohn,
Apollinaire and the Faceless Man, pp. 144-50.
The Mammaries of Tiresias 115
35
Pieds de cochon Sainte-Menehould are the specialty of a town in the Marne region.
The precooked trotters are covered with bread crumbs, broiled, and served with
mustard or a special sauce.
36
Guillot de Saix, La France, June 25, 1917. Repr. in Que Vlo-Ve?, Bulletin
International des Etudes sur Guillaume Apollinaire, 1st series, No. 15 (January 1978),
p. 20. The actors’ copies at the University of Texas contains a different reply: “Mange
tes pieds, espèce de cochon!” (“Eat your own feet, you filthy pig!”). And before that,
Thérèse said: “Mange tes fesses, espèce de cochon!” (“Eat your buttocks, you filthy
pig!”). See Read, Apollinaire et Les Mamelles de Tirésias, p. 122.
116 Apollinaire on the Edge
she makes a face, thumbs her nose at the audience with both hands,
and throws them some balls she has in her bodice.
In the following scene Thérèse adopts the name Tiresias and sets
out to conquer the world. Before she leaves, she overpowers her
husband, dresses him in her skirt, puts on his pants, cuts her hair, and
borrows his top hat.37 While she goes on to experience a series of
masculine triumphs, her former mate remains at home caring for all
the children he has produced. Following various trials and tribulations,
Thérèse and her husband are eventually reunited. How and why they
get back together will become clear as we proceed.
37
Apollinaire envisioned a different scene initially: “Il pleure, elle le bat, il tombe,
elle le ligotte, lui tire le pantalon et le tirant par les jambes l’allonge et l’attache d’un
bout à l’autre de la scène” (“He cries, she hits him, he falls down, she ties him up,
pulls off his pants, and by pulling on his legs, stretches him and attaches him to
opposite ends of the stage” (ibid.).
38
Read examines these themes in more detail in Apollinaire et Les Mamelles de
Tirésias, pp. 159-68.
39
Guicharnaud, Anthology of 20th Century French Theater, p. 41.
The Mammaries of Tiresias 117
42
Barbara Lekatsas, ed. The Howard L. and Muriel Weingrow Collection of Avant-
Garde Art and Literature at Hofstra University: An Annotated Bibliography (West-
port, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1985), p. 9.
43
Scott Bates, “Erotic Propaganda in Apollinaire’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias,” French
Literature Series, Vol. X (1983), pp. 35 and 40.
44
Pierre Caizergues, “De la femme allemande à la fille-soldat ou la femme et l’amour
dans les chroniques et les échos d’Apollinaire,” Revue des Lettres Modernes, Nos.
805-811 (1987), special issue Guillaume Apollinaire 17, p. 37.
45
Guillaume Apollinaire, Soldes, ed. Pierre Caizergues (Fontfroide: Fata Morgana,
1985), not paginated. This poem probably dates from 1898-1899.
The Mammaries of Tiresias 119
46
Guillaume Apollinaire, “Mademoiselle par René Maizeroy,” “L’Intransigeant, Au-
gust 2, 1911. Repr. in Apollinaire, Oeuvres en prose complètes, Vol. II, pp. 1177-78.
47
Francesco Meriano, “Umane lettere: Il simbolismo in soffitta (Tre scrittori francesi:
Apollinaire, Jacob, Cendrars),” Il Giornale del Mattino (Bologna), March 28, 1918.
Repr. in Quaderni del Novecento Francese, No. 14 (1991), p. 249.
120 Apollinaire on the Edge
and raises his hand to slap her. Thus the husband turns out to be the
male chauvinist pig, not Apollinaire. Although he adopts the codfish
as his official emblem, he consistently behaves like a swine. He is so
obsessed with food, moreover, that Gossiaux concludes he suffers
from bulimia. The reason the husband assumes his wife’s role, he
adds, is not to ensure the survival of the species but to satisfy his
gargantuan appetite. His innumerable children “n’ont d’autre fonction
... que de l’enrichir et le nourrir” (“have no other function ... than to
provide him with riches and nourishment”).48
Not only is Thérèse perfectly justified in leaving her husband,
therefore, but she is the most important character in the play. By
comparison, we know virtually nothing about her spouse, who is
simply referred to as “Le Mari.” An anonymous figure with no real
presence, identity, or history, he is a function rather than a person. To
be sure, he spends more time on stage than Thérèse, but she appears in
five key scenes situated at the beginning and the end. After setting the
drama in motion, she disappears for a while but returns in time to
resolve the central conflict. Interestingly, feminist critic Gloria
Orenstein argues that Thérèse is the first in a long line of Surrealist
heroines. “The most interesting aspect of this play,” she declares, “is
not the fact that Thérèse gives up the conventional woman’s role but
that her metamorphosis occasions her total psychic emancipation and
that she is ... transformed into a visionary, a seer.”49 Apollinaire
depicts women both as the victim of man’s stupidity and as the hope
of his salvation. By the end of the play, when Thérèse returns, she has
become a fortune teller and a clairvoyant. Symbolizing her uncanny
ability to see into the future, her skull is illuminated electrically.
Casting off her exotic robes, Thérèse informs her husband that
she has finally decided to return. While she has achieved many
impressive accomplishments since she left home, she has discovered
they are meaningless without his love. By this time, she has become a
woman again and has resumed her original shape—with one im-
portant difference. Whereas formerly she was well-endowed, her
husband is dismayed to discover that she is as flat as a pancake. When
he offers to restore her breasts (with some balls and balloons), she
replies: “Nous nous en sommes passés l’un et l’autre / Continuons”
48
Gossiaux, “Les Mamelles de Tirésias: note historique et anthropologique,” p. 28.
49
Gloria Orenstein, The Theater of the Marvelous: Surrealism and the Contemporary
Stage (New York: New York University Press, 1975), p. 100-01.
The Mammaries of Tiresias 121
(“We have both gotten along fine without them / Let’s continue like
that”). To which the husband readily agrees.
Although Apollinaire insists in the preface that the play contains
no symbols (in response to a reviewer’s comments), this is not strictly
true. Not only do the balls and balloons symbolize Thérèse’s breasts,
but her breasts possess a symbolic function as well. In retrospect, the
entire play can be seen to revolve about her (former) female
attributes—which are celebrated in the title. Although her slim profile
anticipates that of the flappers in the 1920’s, it is far more than a
fashion statement. The reason Thérèse discards her breasts, as one
contemporary critic realized, is because they are “fâcheux symboles
d’une servilité devenue insupportable” (“distressing symbols of a
servility that has become unbearable”).50 They symbolize woman’s
traditional subservience to man. This is why Thérèse says “Envolez-
vous oiseaux de ma faiblesse” (“birds of my frailty”). By divesting
herself of her breasts, she is freeing herself from her symbolic chains.
That the husband readily acquiesces to Thérèse’s demands at the
end of the play signals another important development. Since he is
prepared to accept his wife on her own terms, he is no longer a male
chauvinist. Both he and Thérèse have progressed significantly since
their original dispute. She has experienced a change of heart, and he is
prepared to treat her as an equal. Their symmetrical evolution ensures
their successful reconciliation. Thus Les Mamelles de Tirésias ends
happily as Thérèse and her husband set about creating a model
marriage. Ironically, the original performance ended on a different
note—not with the triumph of feminism but with Thérèse’s
capitulation. According to one reviewer, she begged her husband to
take her back with tears in her eyes.51 Apollinaire himself says she
returned home “repentante et résignée,” promising to have lots of
children.52 A set of proofs at the University of Texas contains the
following conclusion:
50
F. Laya, “Guillaume Apollinaire: Les Mamelles de Tirésias,” L’Eventail, April 15,
1918. Repr. in Que Vlo-Ve?, Bulletin International des Etudes sur Guillaume
Apollinaire, 4th series, No. 4 (October-December 1998), p. 113.
51
Gaston Picard, “Les Mamelles de Tirésias ou la folle journée,” intended for the June
29, 1917, edition of Le Pays but never published. Repr. in Que Vlo-Ve?, Bulletin
International des Etudes sur Guillaume Apollinaire, lst series, No. 19 (January 1979),
p. 19.
52
Reported by G. Davin de Champclos in “Les Mamelles de Tirésias,” Le Petit Bleu,
June 26, 1917. Repr. in ibid., Nos. 17-18 (July-October 1978), p. 29.
122 Apollinaire on the Edge
Final Considerations
Apollinaire insisted repeatedly that he sought to accomplish two
time-honored goals in the play: to entertain and to instruct. Faced with
hostile criticism from several quarters following the performance, he
downplayed the first goal and emphasized the second. Les Mamelles
de Tirésias was a patriotic gesture, he insisted, which sought to alert
the public to the danger of depopulation. Although this claim seriously
misrepresented the play’s goals, it silenced a few critics who did not
wish to appear unpatriotic. Conceived essentially as a political
The Mammaries of Tiresias 123
53
See Willard Bohn, “Giorgio de Chirico et le Portrait de Guillaume Apollinaire,”
Revue des Lettres Modernes, special issue Guillaume Apollinaire 22, forthcoming
and “Giorgio de Chirico’s ‘Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire’ of 1914,” The
Burlington Magazine, CXLVII (November 2005), pp. 751-54.
54
Béhar, Le Théâtre dada et surréaliste, p. 79.
55
Orenstein, The Theater of the Marvelous, p. 99.
56
Victor Basch, “Les Mamelles de Tirésias, drame sur-réaliste de M. Guillaume
Apollinaire,” Le Pays, July 14, 1917. Repr. in Que Vlo-Ve?, Bulletin International des
Etudes sur Guillaume Apollinaire, 1st series, No. 20 (April 1979), p. 30.
57
René Wisner, “Manifestation Sic—Les Mamelles de Tirésias, par Guillaume
Apollinaire,” Le Pays, June 24, 1917. Repr. in ibid., No. 19 (January 1979), p. 15.
124 Apollinaire on the Edge
58
Read, Apollinaire et Les Mamelles de Tirésias, p. 175.
59
Ibid., p. 96
The Mammaries of Tiresias 125
60
Claude Debon, “Relire et revoir Le Bestiaire ou cortège d’Orphée d’Apollinaire,”
Que Vlo-Ve?, Bulletin International des Etudes sur Guillaume Apollinaire, 4th series,
No. 1 (January-March 1998), p. 7. According to Scott Bates, both words are slang
terms for “sexe de la femme.” See his Dictionnaire des mots libres d’Apollinaire
(Sewanee, Tennessee: privately printed, 1991), pp. 243 and 246.
61
Bates, “Erotic Propaganda in Apollinaire’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias,” p. 39.
62
Bates, Dictionnaire des mots libres d’Apollinaire, p. 194.
Conclusion
Although Apollinaire spent much, if not most, of his life working
on the aesthetic edge, his innate sensibility prevented him from
making a serious misstep. Like a performer on the high wire, he
managed to maintain a delicate balance between sense and nonsense.
Long before he composed “La Jolie Rousse” (“The Pretty Redhead”),
he succeeded in reconciling tradition and invention, order and ad-
venture. While his experiments extended into every conceivable
domain, Apollinaire was far from indiscriminate. He loved to ex-
periment with new ideas, especially those that were surprising, but he
knew instinctively whether a project was sound or not and could
defend it brilliantly if need be. Many of the people who knew him
have left accounts testifying to what an extraordinary conversationalist
he was and how much they enjoyed listening to him.
While Apollinaire left few theoretical writings, he had an
excellent grasp of modern aesthetics and a profound understanding of
the issues confronting modern artists and writers. One of the reasons
he became the leader of the avant-garde, as “L’Esprit nouveau et les
poètes” demonstrates, was because he understood exactly what the
modern movement was trying to accomplish. At the same time,
Apollinaire possessed an excellent grasp of the principles underlying
his own work. He knew precisely where he was going, what he was
trying to achieve, and why it was necessary in the first place. The best
example is Les Mamelles de Tirésias, where he describes his aesthetic
program in detail—first in the preface and then in the prologue.
Although comparable documents are lacking for the other three genres
we have examined, he was perfectly aware of their theoretical
underpinnings. Like the play, the bestiary, the whatnots, and the
poems inspired by children’s rhymes display meticulous attention to
detail. Like Les Mamelles, each employs a distinctive new way of
viewing the world and of representing reality itself.
Many of Apollinaire’s acquaintances recalled what a hearty ap-
petite he possessed and how much he appreciated good food. The truth
is that he possessed a tremendous appetite for life in general. “Je suis
ivre d’avoir bu tout l’univers” (“I am intoxicated from drinking the
whole universe”), he exclaimed in “Vendémiaire.” Coupled with his
insatiable curiosity, this hunger drove him to explore the world around
him and to experiment with its endless artistic possibilities. And since
128 Apollinaire on the Edge
_____. Alcools. Tr. and ed. Anne Hyde Greet. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1965.
_____. “Le Folklore des jeux d’enfant.” Paris-Journal, June 26, 1914.
_____. The Rise of Surrealism: Cubism, Dada, and the Pursuit of the
Marvelous. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001.
_____. “La Blanche Neige.” Revue des Lettres Modernes, Nos. 104-
107 (1964), special issue Guillaume Apollinaire 3, pp. 125 -29.
_____. “‘Les Sept Epées’ et Le Plaisir des dieux.” Revue des Lettres
Modernes, Nos. 327-330 (1972), special issue Guillaume Apollinaire
11, pp. 111-19.
Frazer, Sir James George. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and
Religion. Abridged ed. New York: Macmillan, 1963.
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Subjectivity and Representation from Rimbaud to Réda. Toronto:
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Opie, Iona and Peter. Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes. 2nd ed.
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Treich, Léon. L’Esprit d’Alfred Capus. 2nd ed. Paris: Gallimard, 1926.
Ray, Man, 60
Read, Peter, 107, 110-111, 113,
124
Rees, Garnet, 102
Reverdy, Pierre, 109
Richter, Mario, 83
Riffaterre, Michael, 83
Rimbaud, Arthur, 46
Roméo, Thérèse, 81