cover of Dalí's "Cannibalism in the Autumn" Source
Examples of The Songs of Maldoror and Poetries
To finish with the series dedicated to the poet Isidore Ducasse, known as "Count of Lautréamont", one of the progenitors of poetic modernity and inspirer of the literary avant-garde of the 20th century, we will reproduce some quotes from his two books that illustrate what we have said in the two previous posts (I and II).
The Songs of Maldoror
This work is made up of six "songs", as the author called them, written in prose, which are subdivided into parts of varying numbers each and in different styles, including stories, reflections, lyrical segments, sentences, etc., making up a complex structure, in some cases without coherence between its parts.
This is the discourse of this satanic character, as we indicated, but at the same time very common, who bursts in sharing his experience in the face of cruelty. His name, "Maldoror", has been seen as a construction, already ironic, of the French: "Mal d' Aurore" ("Dawn's Evil").
Being such an extensive and complex work, we will only give a few examples, which is a difficult task.
From Song One:
I pray to heaven that the reader, animated and momentarily as fierce as what he reads,
find, without becoming disoriented, their steep and wild path, through the desolate swamps of
these somber and poisonous pages, then, unless I bring to their reading a logic
and a spiritual tension similar at least to their distrust, the emanations
mortals in this book will impregnate your soul as water does with sugar. It is not
it is good that everyone reads the pages that follow; only some will be able to taste this
bitter fruit without danger. Therefore, shy soul, before you penetrate further into
such unexplored lands, direct your steps backwards and not forwards (...)
In just a few lines I will establish that Maldoror was good during the first years of his life
and he lived happily; it is said. Then he realized that he was born perverse: fatality
extraordinary! He hid his character as best he could, for a great number of years, but in the end
because of that unnatural concentration, every day the blood went to his head,
until, unable to endure such a life any longer, he threw himself resolutely upon the path of
badly... (…)
I have seen, all my life, without a single exception, men with narrow shoulders
perform numerous stupid acts, brutalize their fellow men, and pervert souls by
all means. They call the reasons for their action: glory. Seeing those shows, I have
wanted to laugh like the others; but that, strange imitation, was impossible. I took a knife
whose blade had a sharp edge, and I cut off my flesh where my lips meet. For a
I instantly thought I'd gotten my object. I contemplated in a mirror the mouth mistreated by me
of their own free will. It was a mistake! The blood that gushed from the two wounds called out, by
another part, to distinguish if it was really the others. But after a few moments of
comparison, I saw well that my laughter did not resemble that of humans, that is, that I did not
He laughed. (…)
From Song Four:
Until our times, poetry made a false route; rising up to the sky or crawling on the earth, it has ignored the principles of its existence, and has been not without reason, constantly greyed by honest people. It has not been humble... the most beautiful quality that should exist in an imperfect being! I want to show my qualities, but I'm not hypocritical enough to hide my vices! Laughter, evil, the pride, madness, will appear, alternatively, with sensitivity and love of justice, and will serve of example to human stupefaction: everyone will recognize himself, not as he should be, but as as it is. And perhaps that simple idea, conceived by my imagination, will nevertheless surpass everything that poetry has so far found to be more grandiose and sacred. For if I let my vices transpire in these pages, you will believe more in the virtues that I make shine, and whose aureole I will place it so high that the greatest geniuses of the future will testify to me a sincere recognition. Thus, hypocrisy will be expelled without hesitation from my abode. (…)
It can be noticed in the cited fragments part of what was indicated before as characters of The Songs...; such is the case of the sarcastic irony and the black humor, of the interlocution with the reader, the conscience about his work, of the denial and, for that reason, of the search of the salvation. The latter is what has led critics like Pellegrini to postulate a "constructive pessimism" in The Songs..., since it "attacks, destroys and denies without mercy what is evil, perverse, false; and as a consequence, it creates, awakens, shakes". Hence it is held that it is "a bitter hymn to life".
by Edit Valdemar (Madrid, 2016) Source
Poetries
Towards the end of his days, as we said, Ducasse published some booklets that gathered thoughts and fragmentary constructions that he titled Poetry. In them we still find the paradoxical thought of this odd writer, but perhaps distancing himself from the absolute denial of The Songs...; nevertheless, maintaining his radicalism in the face of different subjects, to provocative extremes. Let's see some quotes:
The heart of man is a book that I have learned to esteem.
Not imperfect nor fallen, man is no longer the great mystery.
Despair is the least of our mistakes.
The beauty of life cannot be judged except by the beauty of death.
Nothing is said. One arrives too soon after more than seven thousand years that men exist.
Plagiarism is necessary. It is implicit in progress. It follows an author's phrase closely, uses his expressions, erases a false idea, replaces it with a just idea.
Poetry must be made by everyone.
There is no doubt that Isidore Ducasse, the "Count of Lautréamont", with his hard and disconcerting work marked some of the outlines of the literature of the future, as understood by the generation of writers of the first decades of the 20th century - who constituted the "literary vanguard" - and this is due, as Pellegrini declares, to the fact that his poetry is a journey of exploration towards the depths of the human.
Bibliographical references
Count of Lautréamont (1979). Complete works (3rd ed.). Introduction and translation: Aldo Pellegrini. Spain: Edit. Argonauta.
If you are interested in what I have published so far on poetic modernity, you can see below the topics and links:
Introduction to literary modernity, German Romanticism, English Romanticism I, English Romanticism II, French Romanticism, Realism, Parnasianism, Edgar Allan Poe I, Edgar Allan Poe II, Walt Whitman, Symbolism, Decadentism, Charles Baudelaire I, Charles Baudelaire II, Charles Baudelaire III, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud I, Arthur Rimbaud II, Arthur Rimbaud III, Arthur Rimbaud IV, Stéphane Mallarmé I, Stéphane Mallarmé II, Stéphane Mallarmé III, Jules Laforgue I, Jules Laforgue II
Written by @josemalavem
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As you say, perhaps the word to define the "Comte de Lautréamont" is strange and disconcerting. In the examples you cite, what you pointed out in the previous publications is very evident: sarcasm and black humor, but also the broad, provocative, radical vision of Lautréamont. Excellent ending for this series about this great writer, @josemalaven. Greetings
Thank you for your ever-attentive reading, @nancybriti. See you next time.
Very interesting
Thank you, @michaelakintola.
Hi, @adsactly!
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