Rimbaud's Fame In Absentia
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None of his Parisian literary friends had more than wild rumors of his whereabouts. His fame grew steadily, all the more so because of his mysterious disappearance. His most famous poem during these years was Vowels:
A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels,
I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins:
A, black velvety jacket of brilliant flies
which buzz around cruel smells,
Gulfs of shadow; E, whiteness of vapours and of tents,
lances of proud glaciers, white kings, shivers of cow-parsley;
I, purple, spat blood, the smile of lovely lips
in anger or in the raptures of penitence;
U, waves, divine shudderings of viridian seas,
the peace of pastures dotted with animals, the peace of the furrows
which alchemy prints on broad studious foreheads;
O, sublime Trumpet full of strange piercing sounds,
silences crossed by Worlds and by Angels:
–O the Omega! the violet ray of Those Eyes!
Opinions of the poem varied widely. Paul Bourde, despite being a childhood acquaintance of Rimbaud, was not sympathetic:
"A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels,
I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins.
From the moment that, in the fixed sense of the word, a writer believes himself free to personally add arbitrary meanings, he speaks to us a language which is no longer ours. Gibberish is the goal of the system."
Félicien Champsaur:
"The decadents express nothing, neither life nor death. For them the words have a color, a taste, a perfume; as to the meaning, it is useless and only good for philistines. With syllables they make music and paint. According to a sonnet by M. Arthur Rimbaud on vowels, A is black, it is “the black velvety jacket of brilliant flies”; E is white; I is purple, like “spitting blood”; O is blue, “sublime trumpet full of strange piercing sounds”; U is green, similar to the “peace of pastures dotted with animals”. And so are words like vowels."
But Vittorio Pica saw a "subtle scientific intuition":
"Well yes, there was a poet, Arthur Rimbaud, who dared to write this strange verse: A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu! Vowels! This, which will seem to you the height of ridiculousness and madness, is in reality a subtle scientific intuition, one of those surprising intuitions which are nevertheless much less rare than one would think in artistic circles. Indeed, without trying to discuss the debate between sounds, flavors and smells, the relationship between sounds and colors is perceptible by each refined nervous system."
Teodor de Wyzewa:
"It is one of the most astonishing works there is. No plan, it is true; one searches in vain for the shadow of a story through these elegant pages. But they are a parade of sumptuous, poignant, and dazzling images; and issued from such a prodigious soul that, under their incoherent appearance, they form a perfect musical suite. Rimbaud has perceived mysterious relationships between things: he takes us through colorful and fragrant worlds; he evokes a painting, in two lines; he is a master without equal."
René Ghil thought the coloring of vowels a masterstroke, except that Rimbaud picked the incorrect colors for his mapping:
"What now arise! The Colors of the Vowels, sounding the primordial mystery. Before going any further, let me salute with all due magnificence the sonnet of the poète maudit Arthur Rimbaud, formulating the theory of the master who rejoices in nuance, Paul Verlaine. Now he saw only that one could more boldly penetrate into the Arcane, and the Vowels which became Colors, raise them to the ultimate progress of resonant Instruments, logically tamed. And Arthur Rimbaud's vision must be reviewed, only for the terrible error of having under so obviously simple a vowel, the U, put a compound color, green. Colored thus, the Five seem to me free from the previous blindness:
"A, black; E, white; I, blue; O, red; U, yellow;
"In the very right royalty of Five ungatherable flowers blooming in the sunny fields: but the strange A in which the own flowering of the Four others is suffocated, for what being the desert it implies all the presences."
Ghil's criticism of the color mapping was a cause for great amusement. Maurice Peyrot:
"[Rimbaud], indeed, had not taken all the care desirable in so grave an operation, and his famous sonnet contained shocking errors which outraged the vision of Mr. Ghil. For example, next to one of the vowels, a simple sound, M. Rimbaud had placed a compound color. Such heresy demanded to be expeditiously erased. Mr. Ghil applied himself to it courageously and was fortunate enough to repair the faults committed."
Jules Lemaitre:
"And if you were told that this wretch Arthur Rimbaud believed, by the heaviest of errors, that the vowel u was green, you would perhaps not have the courage to be indignant; because it seems to you equally possible that it is green, blue, white, violet and even the color of cockchafer, of the thigh of a moved nymph, or of crushed strawberry."
Ghil's criticism even occasioned a bit of satirical doggerel from Georges Bouret:
Là, je deviens sublime et, lâchant la routine
Je dégote en douceur la douce veloutine.
En voici la raison: je te parlais plus haut
Des couleurs de la lettre. Un des nôtres, Rimbaud,
Dans un vers inspiré qui passe pour célèbre,
Et qu'on peut, au besoin, prendre pour de l'algèbre,
Nous chante: A noir, E blanc, I rouge, O vert, U bleu.
Ghil en rêve autrement, moi je varie un peu.
There, I become sublime and, letting go of the routine
I gently unearth the soft veloutine.
Here is the reason: I was talking to you before
About colours of the letter. One of ours, Rimbaud,
In an inspired verse which passes for famous,
And which one can, if need be, take for algebra,
We sing: A black, E white, I red, O green, U blue.
Ghil dreams of it differently, me I vary a little.
But Ghil stuck to his guns:
"It has been a long time since I read the famous and original sonnet signed A. Rimbaud with the title of "Voyelles". Having had for a long time a certain intuition of color corresponding to each of the auditory impressions produced by the emission of the different vowels, this interesting composition has only drawn my attention to it again. From then on I began to reflect on the subject in question and despite all my efforts it was impossible for me to assimilate the impressions of the poet. For me the A comes in white color; E with its different modulations of a more or less dark yellow; the I in dazzling vermeil; the grey, luminous O, approaching white or black, depending on whether it is more or less open; the U is dark lilac, something like prune, tending towards carmine."
Ghil was not alone. Eventually, many took up the task of finding the proper relationship between sounds and ideas. Ferdinand Brunetière, unsympathetically reviewing the symbolist movement, named Rimbaud as the progenitor of all that went wrong:
"Baudelaire probably did not foresee all these deplorable consequences. It was reserved for a young poet who, since, disappeared without anyone ever knowing where he had gone, and on whose account multiple legends run, to develop, in a sonnet which has remained famous, the conception of Beaudelaire. Arthur Rimbaud was moreover completely unknown when in 1869 he had the glory, others will say the buffoonish inspiration, of writing his famous sonnet of vowels. Such was the first manifesto of the symbolic school. The road once indicated, all set out, each keen to distinguish himself in more and more subtle searches. The vowels having colors, shades were assigned to syllables, forms to consonants, and it was decided that the alliance of these shades and these colors, the assembly of these forms, should awaken the idea, but not be the idea itself.
"As for surnames and first names, surprising correspondences were also found. It was discovered, for example, that Charles was of black marble, Emile of green lapis, etc., etc. And, from this intuition which linked together the most distant objects, then arose astonishing comparisons which realized the inexplicable. Stéphane Mallarmé, the supreme leader of this pleiad, had the skill to make his verse even more unintelligible, by suppressing the very statement of the comparison, so that the reader; to understand, must...
Let your verse be fortune telling
Scattered in the tense morning wind,
Who goes smelling mint and thyme ..,
And all the rest is literature.
"These verses are certainly charming, and if the decadents had only committed such verses, we would not dream of picking a fight with them. Unfortunately, this indecision of rhythm and form, which in Verlaine is of a graceful and disturbing preciousness, quickly turns into incomprehensible puzzles, in those of his disciples who, having neither the flexibility of his talent nor the liveliness of his poetic imagination, tried in their turn to write by following the precepts contained in this poetry. Intoxicating themselves with big words and insubstantial theories, they fell into the strangest errors. It was thus that Mr. René Ghil, whom his colleague in symbolism, Stuart Merrill, calls "a Spaniard lost in the mists of Flanders", found this thing which seems a challenge to clarity of style and common sense: Spoken instrumentation or colored hearing."
The naysayers notwithstanding, Rimbaud's symbolist vision was ultimately victorious in this aesthetic tussle, and he became famous in absentia. Baju, writing in Le Décadent, talked about plans to erect a statue in his honor:
"The glory emanating from Arthur Rimbaud's pages has overflowed the world. In all literary circles we talk about the great French poet, we comment on his works, we discuss his life and we lament his sudden disappearance. Mr. Maurice du Plessys, who has just made a long trip abroad, is amazed at this colossal reputation. He tells us that all the scholars flocked to him to ask him if Rimbaud's work is complete, if there is not yet some mysterious holder of unpublished sonnets. Finally, from all sides we receive letters eager for information about the poet, we are assailed with questions and even several of our honorable correspondents are indignant to see that Rimbaud does not yet have a statue in Paris.
"It is, so to speak, under the influence of public opinion that a Committee has just been formed to render to the author of the Illuminations the supreme homage reserved for men of genius. The centenary of the French Revolution must not pass without Rimbaud having his monument in Paris. It is in the middle of the Exhibition and in front of a cosmopolitan multitude that the inauguration must take place. We want 1889 to be the feast of freedom and the feast of intelligence.
"A competition is open between all the artists for the project of the statue, as well as a subscription to cover the costs."
In a coincidence, Paul Bourde, the childhood friend quoted above who was not fond of Voyelles, was the first to discover Rimbaud's whereabouts, as he happened to strike up a conversation with Rimbaud's employer on a French steamship crossing the Mediterranean. He sent a note to be passed along to Rimbaud:
"Living so far from us, you are doubtless unaware that in Paris you have become, among a little coterie, a sort of legendary figure, one of those people whose death has been announced, but in whose existence certain disciples continue to believe. Certain young people (whom I find naive) have tried to base a literary system on your sonnet on the color of letters. This little group, who claim you as their Master, do not know what has become of you, but hope you will one day reappear, and rescue them from obscurity."
Rimbaud, not wanting anything to do with literature, and perhaps sensing Bourde's opinions, tore up the letter without a response.
A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels,
I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins:
A, black velvety jacket of brilliant flies
which buzz around cruel smells,
Gulfs of shadow; E, whiteness of vapours and of tents,
lances of proud glaciers, white kings, shivers of cow-parsley;
I, purple, spat blood, the smile of lovely lips
in anger or in the raptures of penitence;
U, waves, divine shudderings of viridian seas,
the peace of pastures dotted with animals, the peace of the furrows
which alchemy prints on broad studious foreheads;
O, sublime Trumpet full of strange piercing sounds,
silences crossed by Worlds and by Angels:
–O the Omega! the violet ray of Those Eyes!
Opinions of the poem varied widely. Paul Bourde, despite being a childhood acquaintance of Rimbaud, was not sympathetic:
"A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels,
I shall tell, one day, of your mysterious origins.
From the moment that, in the fixed sense of the word, a writer believes himself free to personally add arbitrary meanings, he speaks to us a language which is no longer ours. Gibberish is the goal of the system."
Félicien Champsaur:
"The decadents express nothing, neither life nor death. For them the words have a color, a taste, a perfume; as to the meaning, it is useless and only good for philistines. With syllables they make music and paint. According to a sonnet by M. Arthur Rimbaud on vowels, A is black, it is “the black velvety jacket of brilliant flies”; E is white; I is purple, like “spitting blood”; O is blue, “sublime trumpet full of strange piercing sounds”; U is green, similar to the “peace of pastures dotted with animals”. And so are words like vowels."
But Vittorio Pica saw a "subtle scientific intuition":
"Well yes, there was a poet, Arthur Rimbaud, who dared to write this strange verse: A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu! Vowels! This, which will seem to you the height of ridiculousness and madness, is in reality a subtle scientific intuition, one of those surprising intuitions which are nevertheless much less rare than one would think in artistic circles. Indeed, without trying to discuss the debate between sounds, flavors and smells, the relationship between sounds and colors is perceptible by each refined nervous system."
Teodor de Wyzewa:
"It is one of the most astonishing works there is. No plan, it is true; one searches in vain for the shadow of a story through these elegant pages. But they are a parade of sumptuous, poignant, and dazzling images; and issued from such a prodigious soul that, under their incoherent appearance, they form a perfect musical suite. Rimbaud has perceived mysterious relationships between things: he takes us through colorful and fragrant worlds; he evokes a painting, in two lines; he is a master without equal."
René Ghil thought the coloring of vowels a masterstroke, except that Rimbaud picked the incorrect colors for his mapping:
"What now arise! The Colors of the Vowels, sounding the primordial mystery. Before going any further, let me salute with all due magnificence the sonnet of the poète maudit Arthur Rimbaud, formulating the theory of the master who rejoices in nuance, Paul Verlaine. Now he saw only that one could more boldly penetrate into the Arcane, and the Vowels which became Colors, raise them to the ultimate progress of resonant Instruments, logically tamed. And Arthur Rimbaud's vision must be reviewed, only for the terrible error of having under so obviously simple a vowel, the U, put a compound color, green. Colored thus, the Five seem to me free from the previous blindness:
"A, black; E, white; I, blue; O, red; U, yellow;
"In the very right royalty of Five ungatherable flowers blooming in the sunny fields: but the strange A in which the own flowering of the Four others is suffocated, for what being the desert it implies all the presences."
Ghil's criticism of the color mapping was a cause for great amusement. Maurice Peyrot:
"[Rimbaud], indeed, had not taken all the care desirable in so grave an operation, and his famous sonnet contained shocking errors which outraged the vision of Mr. Ghil. For example, next to one of the vowels, a simple sound, M. Rimbaud had placed a compound color. Such heresy demanded to be expeditiously erased. Mr. Ghil applied himself to it courageously and was fortunate enough to repair the faults committed."
Jules Lemaitre:
"And if you were told that this wretch Arthur Rimbaud believed, by the heaviest of errors, that the vowel u was green, you would perhaps not have the courage to be indignant; because it seems to you equally possible that it is green, blue, white, violet and even the color of cockchafer, of the thigh of a moved nymph, or of crushed strawberry."
Ghil's criticism even occasioned a bit of satirical doggerel from Georges Bouret:
Là, je deviens sublime et, lâchant la routine
Je dégote en douceur la douce veloutine.
En voici la raison: je te parlais plus haut
Des couleurs de la lettre. Un des nôtres, Rimbaud,
Dans un vers inspiré qui passe pour célèbre,
Et qu'on peut, au besoin, prendre pour de l'algèbre,
Nous chante: A noir, E blanc, I rouge, O vert, U bleu.
Ghil en rêve autrement, moi je varie un peu.
There, I become sublime and, letting go of the routine
I gently unearth the soft veloutine.
Here is the reason: I was talking to you before
About colours of the letter. One of ours, Rimbaud,
In an inspired verse which passes for famous,
And which one can, if need be, take for algebra,
We sing: A black, E white, I red, O green, U blue.
Ghil dreams of it differently, me I vary a little.
But Ghil stuck to his guns:
"It has been a long time since I read the famous and original sonnet signed A. Rimbaud with the title of "Voyelles". Having had for a long time a certain intuition of color corresponding to each of the auditory impressions produced by the emission of the different vowels, this interesting composition has only drawn my attention to it again. From then on I began to reflect on the subject in question and despite all my efforts it was impossible for me to assimilate the impressions of the poet. For me the A comes in white color; E with its different modulations of a more or less dark yellow; the I in dazzling vermeil; the grey, luminous O, approaching white or black, depending on whether it is more or less open; the U is dark lilac, something like prune, tending towards carmine."
Ghil was not alone. Eventually, many took up the task of finding the proper relationship between sounds and ideas. Ferdinand Brunetière, unsympathetically reviewing the symbolist movement, named Rimbaud as the progenitor of all that went wrong:
"Baudelaire probably did not foresee all these deplorable consequences. It was reserved for a young poet who, since, disappeared without anyone ever knowing where he had gone, and on whose account multiple legends run, to develop, in a sonnet which has remained famous, the conception of Beaudelaire. Arthur Rimbaud was moreover completely unknown when in 1869 he had the glory, others will say the buffoonish inspiration, of writing his famous sonnet of vowels. Such was the first manifesto of the symbolic school. The road once indicated, all set out, each keen to distinguish himself in more and more subtle searches. The vowels having colors, shades were assigned to syllables, forms to consonants, and it was decided that the alliance of these shades and these colors, the assembly of these forms, should awaken the idea, but not be the idea itself.
"As for surnames and first names, surprising correspondences were also found. It was discovered, for example, that Charles was of black marble, Emile of green lapis, etc., etc. And, from this intuition which linked together the most distant objects, then arose astonishing comparisons which realized the inexplicable. Stéphane Mallarmé, the supreme leader of this pleiad, had the skill to make his verse even more unintelligible, by suppressing the very statement of the comparison, so that the reader; to understand, must...
Let your verse be fortune telling
Scattered in the tense morning wind,
Who goes smelling mint and thyme ..,
And all the rest is literature.
"These verses are certainly charming, and if the decadents had only committed such verses, we would not dream of picking a fight with them. Unfortunately, this indecision of rhythm and form, which in Verlaine is of a graceful and disturbing preciousness, quickly turns into incomprehensible puzzles, in those of his disciples who, having neither the flexibility of his talent nor the liveliness of his poetic imagination, tried in their turn to write by following the precepts contained in this poetry. Intoxicating themselves with big words and insubstantial theories, they fell into the strangest errors. It was thus that Mr. René Ghil, whom his colleague in symbolism, Stuart Merrill, calls "a Spaniard lost in the mists of Flanders", found this thing which seems a challenge to clarity of style and common sense: Spoken instrumentation or colored hearing."
The naysayers notwithstanding, Rimbaud's symbolist vision was ultimately victorious in this aesthetic tussle, and he became famous in absentia. Baju, writing in Le Décadent, talked about plans to erect a statue in his honor:
"The glory emanating from Arthur Rimbaud's pages has overflowed the world. In all literary circles we talk about the great French poet, we comment on his works, we discuss his life and we lament his sudden disappearance. Mr. Maurice du Plessys, who has just made a long trip abroad, is amazed at this colossal reputation. He tells us that all the scholars flocked to him to ask him if Rimbaud's work is complete, if there is not yet some mysterious holder of unpublished sonnets. Finally, from all sides we receive letters eager for information about the poet, we are assailed with questions and even several of our honorable correspondents are indignant to see that Rimbaud does not yet have a statue in Paris.
"It is, so to speak, under the influence of public opinion that a Committee has just been formed to render to the author of the Illuminations the supreme homage reserved for men of genius. The centenary of the French Revolution must not pass without Rimbaud having his monument in Paris. It is in the middle of the Exhibition and in front of a cosmopolitan multitude that the inauguration must take place. We want 1889 to be the feast of freedom and the feast of intelligence.
"A competition is open between all the artists for the project of the statue, as well as a subscription to cover the costs."
In a coincidence, Paul Bourde, the childhood friend quoted above who was not fond of Voyelles, was the first to discover Rimbaud's whereabouts, as he happened to strike up a conversation with Rimbaud's employer on a French steamship crossing the Mediterranean. He sent a note to be passed along to Rimbaud:
"Living so far from us, you are doubtless unaware that in Paris you have become, among a little coterie, a sort of legendary figure, one of those people whose death has been announced, but in whose existence certain disciples continue to believe. Certain young people (whom I find naive) have tried to base a literary system on your sonnet on the color of letters. This little group, who claim you as their Master, do not know what has become of you, but hope you will one day reappear, and rescue them from obscurity."
Rimbaud, not wanting anything to do with literature, and perhaps sensing Bourde's opinions, tore up the letter without a response.
