Stéphane Mallarmé
From Henri de Régnier’s Figures et caractères (1901), translated here for the first time
Henri de Régnier (1864-1936)
The figures who were once familiar to our admiration die out, one by one. Their deaths sorrow us, each in proportion to the intellectual kinship we shared with those who are no longer among us. Losses ripple through art, much as they do through life, whether they strike directly or not. Hugo, who held the place of an ancestor in poetry, leaves behind a void that is, and will remain, ancestral. Did not the stern authority of fatherly Leconte de Lisle resonate through an entire epoch of French letters? With Verlaine, more fraternal in his spirit, we lose a kind of comrade; even now, on the roads of memory, we still hear the sound of his pilgrim’s staff and his Franciscan sandals. Some have slipped further into the past, growing more distant from our present; Barbey d’Aurevilly and Villiers de l’Isle-Adam lie side by side in our recollections beneath their emblazoned flagstones. Let us honour their romantic monuments. And now, an unforeseen grave calls us to a new mourning.
Today, we bid farewell, unexpectedly, to one whose thought was deeply interwoven with the reveries of our youth, whose enchanting presence held a special place in our hearts, embodying in an unparalleled way the dual wonder of a poet and a friend—at once revered by the mind and treasured by the heart.
I wish to offer, if not a portrait, then at least a sketch of him; it is the only tribute I can hastily improvise in honour of a memory so noble and so unblemished. I would fear failing in my deepest obligation to him if I did not endeavour to capture the immediate emotion stirred by the sudden, definitive nature of his passing—a figure now transformed into a lasting shadow for those who had known the dear one alive.
The singular mindset that defined him now emerges with crystalline clarity in the light of his abrupt immortality. Here, then, is my humble attempt at a reverent evocation. I shall briefly trace the defining lines of his features and the overarching stature of his spiritual being. And as it is impossible to speak of a magician without touching on his craft, I will say something of his distinctive alchemy, his unique philosophical formula. There are instances in which purely literary criticism proves insufficient, for a man’s true greatness does not always reside solely in his written works but is more evident in the scattered impressions of who he was.
*
To anyone eager to understand who Stéphane Mallarmé truly was, or curious to glimpse how he appeared, I would have suggested spending a Sunday at the Concert Lamoureux. There, you couldn’t have missed him—always seated on the same bench in the gallery, a gentleman of almost short stature, with a slender yet ruddy face tapering into a greying beard, his head crowned with hair of the same hue, thick and resolutely styled. His perfectly shaped nose, a striking forehead, and above all, those extraordinary eyes brought vitality to a face that balanced seriousness with a lively charm. Every aspect of his presence carried an unmistakable air of refinement and quiet dignity. A devoted listener, Mallarmé seemed to question the rhythms with his deep, contemplative, and sensuous gaze. With pencil poised, he traced the intricate arabesques of the symphony, occasionally jotting something down on a slip of paper—perhaps a private reply to the universal voice that is Music. Then, as the piece concluded, the paper would disappear, tucked away until the next movement once again invited him to resume this enigmatic practice.
Stéphane Mallarmé cherished music with a fervour he described as a “sacred pleasure.” He loved it in its grand orchestral form, built upon the triadic principle of woodwinds, strings, and brass. For him, this arrangement concealed a mysterious harmony with nature, embodying what he referred to as “the ultimate and consummate human rite.” Hence, he never failed to attend the Sunday musical ceremony, whose significance was utterly clear to him. Nevertheless, he often pondered how this “mute force” could so powerfully draw an audience, uniting them in such unanimous fascination. What was it that compelled this multitude, “content with the trivial diversions of existence,” to confront the Ineffable and the Pure—“Poetry without words,” as he put it? He reflected on the relationship between “a restrained and sober assembly” and what he termed “the infinite gusts” of the orchestra. At times, he envisioned within this enthusiasm the glimmer of radiant poetic possibilities; at others, he was content to regard it simply as “the Sunday ritual for cleansing the banal.”
Such were his reflections as he made his way from the temple of sound, leaning on the arm of a friend, pausing to indulge in lengthy, meandering, and deeply personal conversations. The subject was, almost by nature, the music they had just experienced, and the pleasure came from the precision and vividness of his words, the delightful unpredictability of the connections he wove between all things. His knack for being at once ingenious and profound, regardless of the topic, lent a unique depth to the exchange. Everything, without exception, found a place in the flow of conversation—the passing news of the day or age-old debates, fleeting matters that barely brushed one’s awareness, and those weightier musings that lingered in the mind forever.
The stroll through ideas would stretch on, in tangible back-and-forths, until the corner of a street or the threshold of a dwelling, with a parting handshake that appeared to sum up all that this marvellous dispenser of himself had just shared with you in spirit.
And thus, it would begin anew with every encounter; yet the longing to once again hear, before the whims of chance stepped in, that gently insistent and refined voice would swiftly draw you to knock upon the Master’s door.
It was, by tradition, on Tuesday evenings. For the host to be absent, a sudden occurrence had to take over—something out of the ordinary in a distant corner of Paris that would capture the fancy, a unique performance, a one-of-a-kind dance, or a quartet performed with flawless harmony. Otherwise, for twenty years, Stéphane Mallarmé remained unfailingly punctual to the appointment established once and for all, either by a verbal invitation or by one of those notes he knew how to write—stylish, charming, and composed in the simplest terms, often bearing your address inscribed in a quatrain on the envelope.
Those present varied, sometimes a few, sometimes many, often filling the small room to its utmost capacity, surrounded by walls adorned with carefully chosen paintings, standing along a high sideboard carved with rustic sculptures, where pewter and pottery gleamed in the light, and gathered around the table bathed in the soft glow of a lamp, on which lay a book, a red-lacquered inkstand, a Chinese porcelain bowl, or some tobacco.
The cigars, lit and sending up their smoke, soon mingled their thin, airy tendrils into a delicate, almost invisible web, each of us seeming to have woven a thread of it. From time to time, the bell would ring, heralding a guest arriving to partake in the collective enchantment.
Gradually, the first round of talk would quiet in anticipation of the voice we had all been waiting for. We would listen intently as the soft and precise voice traced the contours of an idea, the spoken sentence lingering in the air, suspended, phosphorescent with the images it set into motion. And then, as if a rocket reaching its zenith, perfect and calculated, it would explode in a burst of multicoloured dust, and each of us would gather, in our minds, one of the luminous fragments of this fleeting magic.
It was within these unpretentious walls, on certain evenings of spiritual revelry, that some of the most exquisite and profound reflections on life, art, and the poetry that binds them together were voiced. In these moments, we listened as precious words took shape, unfolding in their essential themes and elegant embellishments, for a select few who caught a glimpse of the marvel—one of the loftiest, most beautiful, and most extraordinary of human reveries. These moments, irretrievably lost, alas, will remain unforgettable for those who were present at that memorable nocturnal spectacle—that august consultation of a man with himself, the clash of his inner doubts or the rapture of his certainty.
A pause followed; then, the once ceremonial gesture would settle into its familiar ease; the marvellous sketch scattered into light, fleeting outlines, while the lofty theory became entwined with charming anecdotes that, in their grace or mischievous wit, drew forth a laugh both pure and measured.
If Stéphane Mallarmé delighted in the company of his friends, he had nothing but disdain for the idle curiosity of strangers—the Parisian throng that swarms and jostles like sheep around a famous name. To all that is labelled reportage, social frivolity, or the airs of snobbery, he responded with a politeness so ceremonious it seemed intentional. Yet, despite the reserved stance he took toward his own profound singularity, he could not help but leave behind, in his wake, the impression of a man both rare and exceptional. More than once, I observed in others a subtle regret or veiled reproach that someone so captivating, so full of witty and original thoughts—thoughts that seemed as though already drafted, pre-written in the fleeting brilliance of his speech—should refrain from wielding this unmatched skill to captivate audiences at packed events. That he declined, too, to abandon the esoteric practices that kept him a heretic on the margins of orthodox letters, and to instead contribute, through widely disseminated volumes or generously remunerated articles, to the annual, weekly, or daily diversions of his contemporaries, puzzled many. Was it not, they murmured, a neglect of opportunity to forgo the means that, in our time, so often bring renown, a yearly income of thirty or forty thousand pounds? Was it not turning his back on the small town house a novel’s profits might secure, or the villa by the sea financed by a successful play? How, they wondered, could he settle for the simplicity of a modest river skiff when he might have owned a sleek yacht moored in the harbours of the Côte d’Azur? And yet, this great voyager—whose explorations extended to the furthest shores of dreams—seemed perfectly content with his humble barque. Along the Seine, from Samois to Valvins, he let it drift with the current, its small, white, rectangular sail gently shifting in the breeze. That sail, as he liked to say with a smile and a finger raised toward it, reminded him of “the page upon which one writes.”
*
If Stéphane Mallarmé’s body of work failed to bestow upon him the material comforts that many who commit their words to print consider their due, it granted him a far loftier compensation: an intellectual triumph. He stood, in his time, as the quintessential embodiment of the Poet, provided that this role is defined by the uncompromising pursuit of Beauty and Truth. Such a distinction, however, does not naturally capture the interest of the public; it satisfies the discerning few while leaving the many indifferent—and rightly so, for this is its very nature. The isolation of such a mind, elevated to its radiant heights, ought to have earned him the tranquillity that is customarily afforded to endeavours of the purest and most speculative kind—those whose results enrich humanity’s collective honour, even if they elude its immediate grasp. Surely, such a pursuit deserves the protection of an inviolable privilege. Such an individual should, once and for all, be granted independence, left in solitude with an unspoken agreement to forget him entirely until the true and intrinsic value of his discoveries can be properly judged—a value that demands, as its price, an unbroken abstention from all other distractions. At the very least, do we not owe the courtesy of silence to the one who so willingly turned his back on applause?
Such was not the case for Stéphane Mallarmé. His work—so rare, so exceptional, perched at the most parlous apex of literature, put together for the most refined of critical attentions and the most scrupulous of examinations—fell, by a curious accident, into the hands of hasty, incidental assessments and the untrained judgment of both the press and the crowd. To counterbalance the weight of such intricate thought, public opinion reached instinctively for the most reductive arguments of common sense. The purveyors of the daily column set out to evaluate this enigmatic creation as if it were just another commodity to be appraised. Yet what such a poet and such a body of work required was precisely the opposite—circumstances, dare we say, almost Byzantine in their sophistication, an ambiance steeped in a culture refined to the point of pedantry, so meticulous it came dangerously close to obsession. Surely, one might have imagined at least a curious few gathering briefly to marvel at this peculiar meteorite—dark, unreadable, fallen as if from some unthinkable elsewhere—before quietly dispersing. But no. Surprise curdled into anger. First one, then nearly all, seized that unknown stone and turned it into a weapon to strike the poet himself.
It is hard to find a precedent for this: two decades of sustained irritation aimed squarely at a man lost in his own dream. The ire waxed and waned, punctuated by lulls and sudden outbursts—now muted, now deafening. Insults, coupled with foolish dismissals and sneering laughter, assailed writings of remarkable beauty for no reason other than the mystery they contained. Their intricate nature, their deliberate crypticness, ignited a simmering and persistent hostility, even among those who made no effort to approach them or uncover their secrets. This most abstract and speculative of poets found himself enveloped in a cacophony of public scrutiny, akin to that which accompanies the most celebrated figures. His pure and discreet masterpieces were treated as though they were incendiary pamphlets lashing at public opinion or dramatic works designed to stir fiery passions, subjected to a barrage of relentless polemics. This dreamer bore the clamour and caricature of a fame better suited to a successful playwright, a contentious pamphleteer, or a best-selling novelist—complete with mockery, parody, and ridicule directed at the likes of a Dumas, a Drumont, or a Zola. Remarkably, a few enigmatic pages, an intricate stanza or two, an elliptical sonnet, or a single obscure line of verse encountered the same tumultuous fate as works born of the moment—works that rise from, and inevitably sink back into, the ephemeral tides of their time.
This kind of commotion, echoing from all quarters, seems to belong exclusively to writers who bring life to the page through vivid and tangible imagery. Their fiction mirrors reality with exacting precision, recreating nothing more than the palpable face of human passions. Their creations teem with characters so authentic that each might plausibly step into our world. For such writers, storytelling becomes a way to expand the ranks of the living with figures scarcely imagined, who slip effortlessly into the daily tableau of life. On the written page, they extend life itself, recounting its incidents, adventures, twists of fate, and calamities. This endless exchange between fiction and reality, where each continually lends to the other, has enthralled audiences for centuries. The public, with its simple tastes, reserves its admiration for those who excel at this artful deception, for it rarely finds itself moved by anything that doesn’t mirror its own likeness. Even then, it prefers a reflection that is precise and personal—less universal, perhaps merely emblematic. Take Balzac, whose abstract science of humanity is only indulged because he cloaked it in the countless guises of his characters. What the public truly seeks from a writer is not so much an explanation of the mysteries of existence but rather the continuation of life’s grand illusion. Stéphane Mallarmé, with the deeply metaphysical nature of his poetry, seemed immune to the discordant hum that often surrounds solitary contemplation. Yet even he could not escape the noisy din of the press, the endless prattle of idle gossips, and, most troubling of all, the vacuous verbosity of self-styled literati. These so-called dilettantes and amateurs, armed with their jargon-laden drivel, infest critical discourse, derailing the fair and thoughtful critique that every work—even those beyond their grasp—deserves to receive.
Be that as it may, the phenomenon remains both rare and intriguing: a poet, wielding nothing but the sheer force of verse, managed to awaken the habitual apathy of an age indifferent to anything beyond its direct and concrete reflection—and achieved this without drawing on the world’s spectacle for more than allegorical ends.
It is, of course, an unshakable truth that the shared foundation of all art is life itself. This condition is unavoidable. Yet, for most, the universe is made up of characters, emotions, passions, places, customs, and other details that, for a Stéphane Mallarmé, are no more than symbols to be interpreted—holding meaning only in their relationships and the order they obey. Taken as a whole, for those with the clarity to see it, they coalesce into truth itself.
*
Stéphane Mallarmé has left behind a body of work that fully supports the claims made above. Their validity could easily be confirmed through a closer examination of his poems—both in verse and prose—and the didactic fragments that represent this exceptional mind’s endeavour, committed to paper, to articulate the foundations of his speculative and literary beliefs. Such an undertaking would reward us with the delight of revisiting an author who not only demands to be reread but amply rewards the effort. He is a writer whose unparalleled poetic talent I hold in ever-growing admiration, along with the bold, almost mathematical logic that led him to a mode of writing so singular that he claimed, through pure genius, the exclusive right to it. It was an informed intuition, almost divinatory in nature, that steered him in this extraordinary pursuit of a unique language. For it was only through gradual refinement that he succeeded in stripping his style of all ties to what he described as “the crude or immediate state of speech.”
The influence of Banville and Baudelaire runs deep in his early poetry: from Banville, it draws its lyrical elasticity; from Baudelaire, its terse solemnity. It also shares a kinship with Gérard de Nerval, resonating with his sibylline tone. Over time, his work achieves, in certain poems, an exquisite maturity. Consider L’Après-midi d’un Faune: listen as the eclogue’s flute weaves a reverie of intoxication and sunlight. The reed retains the freshness of the natal spring where it was plucked, before hardening in the parching winds to become the pointed tip that etches, on the tablet, a sonorous arabesque—a kind of musical contour for the idea. His prose, too, undergoes a transformation. Gradually, his sentences strip away their vibrant hues, retaining only the relief of their structure, translucent and refined. Secret motifs and an overarching purpose guided the poet in shaping for himself a flawless instrument of evocation, endowed with a power of suggestion that was not only strikingly original but distinctly his own. This evolution was no mere literary caprice but a deliberate endeavour to demand of words, through verse, a fresh and astonishing function. Mallarmé himself expressed this vision in terms resembling these:
Verse, which, out of several vocables, makes a total word, entirely new, foreign to the language, and almost incantatory, achieves that isolation of speech; negating, with a sovereign blow, despite their repeated reformulations between sound and sense, the arbitrariness that remains in the terms, and gives you the surprise of never having heard that fragment of ordinary eloquence before, while the object named is bathed in a brand new atmosphere. (Divagations. Translated by Barbara Johnson, Belknap Press, 2009.)
It would be tempting to probe deeper into the merits or limitations of so singular a method, to precisely chart what Stéphane Mallarmé achieved through it. Yet my aim here is merely to draw the reader into the spectacle of this lucid and audacious mind. It is for anyone to prefer poems like Hérodiade, shimmering with verbal jewels, over a sonnet of more austere rigour, crafted with an almost mathematical precision of thought. Of course, someone will raise the familiar objection: that with Stéphane Mallarmé, such preferences are hardly free—that he often veiled the meaning of his poems within an impenetrable web of musical intricacies, leaving readers disheartened at the task of unravelling the enigmatic mummy’s wrappings, even if, once laid bare, it might reveal a flesh that is both magical and vividly alive. Let such a reader abstain, then. Stéphane Mallarmé has been analysed by more than enough commentators for me to feel any need to add to their number. Besides, can anything truly be explained to anyone—least of all poetry? As Mallarmé himself mischievously observed: “That would imply the verses are obscure.”
The chief complaint levelled against Stéphane Mallarmé was his supposed obscurity. Clarity, it seemed, had been decreed an indispensable prerequisite for poetry. Such a curious demand. The Ancients embraced Lycophron, and the English continue to revere Mr George Meredith. Yet here, indignation flared merely because a man, withdrawn and faithful to his genius, quietly dedicated himself to a mysterious endeavour—the same endeavour, in essence, that every writer undertakes. The difference lay in this: for his own private satisfaction and personal joy, this man, playing as his own partner, had altered the chessboard’s colours and reshaped its pieces, following a solitary, idiosyncratic vision.
But in the end, what does “obscurity” even mean?
Dante is obscure through his intricate allusions and symbols, through the layered meanings that permeate his poetry. Readers simplify as they see fit, interpreting in accordance with their understanding. Rabelais, too, is obscure—not only through his allegory but also through the riotous profusion of his language, with its composite richness and tangled origins. He reveals himself only in stages: first, through a painstaking study of his vocabulary, which unlocks the text; and then, through the gradual unravelling of his allegory, which leads to the book’s universal and human truths. Every writer—be it Dante, Rabelais, or another—who ventures beyond direct reality into the realm of emblem and symbol risks being labelled obscure. Even those who forgo such tools and draw solely from life are no less vulnerable to this charge. For the meaning of words is inherently mutable—shaped by context, transient in nature, and deeply personal. Understanding between reader and writer is not immediate; it is built slowly, piece by piece. A writer might hope to be grasped by their contemporaries, but in later generations, comprehension survives only through tradition. And, to be frank, a writer is never truly understood by anyone but themselves.
Certainly, Stéphane Mallarmé is an obscure writer. His obscurity stems as much from the very nature of his genius—entirely steeped in transposition and symbols—as from the meticulously rational style he constructed for himself, operating outside and above the prevailing norms of his time. To reach an understanding with him is a long, arduous, and delicate task. In every page or verse of Stéphane Mallarmé, the elements necessary for clarity are all present. They are, however, dispersed—deliberately placed where they best serve the graphic elegance of his sentences. Engaging with his work requires the reader to unlearn certain habits he insists they relinquish. This readiness to adapt, this patient effort, is the universal requirement for approaching any manifestation of nature or thought. Every being has its own unique mimicry, just as every mind has its distinctive alphabet of gestures, which must be deciphered according to its conventions. Every book contains a language waiting to be unravelled. Whether one reads Racine or Shakespeare, the principle holds true. Every literary obelisk or stele carries its own hieroglyphs and its peculiar abbreviations. Nothing is unreadable to those who truly wish to read. Edgar Allan Poe held that every cryptogram is solvable, asserting that no one can think a thought that another cannot also think anew. I believe that understanding Stéphane Mallarmé does not require one to be the remarkable Monsieur Dupin of The Murders in the Rue Morgue or The Mystery of Marie Roget. Nor does finding the meaning within his exquisite verses demand suspending a scarab from a thread through the eye socket of a skull, as was famously required to unearth the treasure of the illustrious Captain Kidd.
Stéphane Mallarmé’s conversation singularly illuminated the understanding of his written work. In the ease of his familiar speech, one could hear echoes of many remarks later immortalized on the printed page. These intimate exchanges not only provided invaluable insights into the intentions behind certain poems but also quickly inspired profound respect for a man so charming and kind, of an exquisite simplicity of heart, deeply sympathetic to the anxieties of those who turned to him as an infallible and benevolent arbiter of literary disputes and youthful uncertainties. No one displayed greater attentiveness than he to any endeavour that showed even the faintest concern for beauty. None was ever a more generous appreciator or a more supportive guide. He possessed the clearest and most discerning view of contemporary efforts in all their disparate variety, judging them with an unerring impartiality and an almost prophetic intuition for their eventual failure or success. His opinions were always tempered by the most admirable courtesy. There was nothing of the authoritarian schoolmaster in him—no tendency to dictate, to gather followers, or to exclude. His influence was entirely unintentional, never provoking the literary servility that often clings to a master figure. His sole aim was to awaken in others what lay dormant within them and to inspire thought. If he offered direction to someone in doubt, it was done with discretion, almost as though by a gesture. The only lesson he ever gave was the example of his noble bearing and his unceasing intellectual vitality. No one, more meticulously or more profoundly, ever knew both himself and the universe.
“The world,” Stéphane Mallarmé once said, “is made to culminate in a beautiful book.” Quietly, and with great secrecy, he poured himself into the pursuit of that lofty ideal. For many years, the sublime project steadily took shape on his desk, growing into a mass of countless notes. The poet often hinted at this work, which was to embody the ultimate essence of his universal meditation. Did death cut this endeavour short? Does it survive only as fragments, or has nothing endured beyond the wondrous intention, scattered here and there in faint traces? Did it emerge from those scattered pages where the daily discoveries of his thought were carefully recorded, forming the fertile ground for that final, perfect bloom? Or are we to look instead to the works we already know, those partial legacies of a mind so vast and profound, for signs of its existence?
It is worth taking a moment to clarify the precise meaning Stéphane Mallarmé attached to what he liked to call “pages.” He was insistent that these brief pieces of verse or prose be considered in a particular light—not just for what they were in and of themselves, but above all for their relative significance. What he wished was for them to be understood as true intellectual forecasts rather than being assigned a position in his mental hierarchy that they were never meant to hold. When reprinting these works, he took care to add, as a safeguard, the following explanation: “The overblown focus these trifles receive makes it impossible for me to leave them out.” These “trifles,” then, should be viewed as the occasional exercises of someone trying out their instrument, finding it in tune, and setting it aside after modulating a fleeting motif—one that, while undoubtedly drawn from the fundamental theme, serves only as an ornament, a reminder, or an echo.
A certain haughty coquetry, perhaps, yet I resist wholly conceding the paradox it suggests. I prefer, instead, to see in these fragments of such rarefied sculpture that “cloister which, even in ruins, would still breathe its doctrine to the passer-by.”
I cannot presume to outline here a work so monumental. I seek only, in its awaited presence—or its absence—to briefly suggest the doctrine dispersed across these “pages,” where it undeniably exist. Stéphane Mallarmé appears within them in his true and rightful grandeur: standing tall, one foot firmly planted on the imaginary soil of a new artistic realm—a dazzling mirage glimpsed within himself—from which he returned to us, with bold resolve, bearing a radiant fragment.
Just as Richard Wagner achieved the union of Drama and Music, Stéphane Mallarmé pursued the integration of Music and Poetry. This explains why, every Sunday, amidst the attentive crowds drawn to the musical program, he sought out the enigmatic rival he envisioned—dreaming of subjecting her harmonious profusion to the definitive law of the Word. In his vision, the Book would become “the spiritual instrument.”
“Certainly, I never sit on the terrace of a concert without perceiving, within its obscure sublimity, an outline of one of the poems immanent to humanity, all the more comprehensible for being stilled, in its original form, and that, if asked to trace the line of its vast progeny, the composer felt this facility of suspending even the temptation to explain himself. I imagine, following an unextractable and no doubt writerly prejudice, that nothing will remain without being proffered, that we are stuck at precisely the point of searching, faced with the breaking up of classic literary rhythms (I’ve spoken about this above) and their dispersion into articulated shivers close to instrumentation, for an art of achieving the transposition into the Book of the symphony, or merely to take back what is ours: for it is not through the elementary sounds of brasses, strings, or woods, but undeniably through the intellectual word at its height that there should result, with plenitude and obviousness, as the totality of relations existing in everything, the system otherwise known as Music.” (Mallarmé, Stéphane. Divagations. Translated by Barbara Johnson, Belknap Press, 2009.)
*
Whatever fate awaits this lofty ambition to equip poetry with new means of expressing humanity—not in its self-centred individuality, but in its interconnectedness with all things—Stéphane Mallarmé will always be celebrated for envisioning the union of two arts into one, creating a joy that is at once singular and dual. To embark on such an undertaking demands a rare mental heroism, for failure is almost a foregone conclusion, hemmed in by the constraints of existence and the frailty of human effort. It is to take upon oneself a task that spans centuries. No one ventures along this path without first measuring the steep ascent of the goal and accepting, even in advance, the likelihood of never attaining it. Only the dawn, with its rosy light, reveals the unreachable glacier glimpsed in the distance. For men of this kind, the certainty of a potential possibility is enough—to know themselves as “the one who carries a share of a secret splendour” or whose “mental scintillation forever marks their bust with the diamond of a solitary order.”
To those who gazed past the pleasant and reserved man he knew how to present, Stéphane Mallarmé emerged in this more exalted light when, closing the door on his dreams, he would step into the world with a brisk, unassuming stride, as though he had just journeyed back from far-off lands, a warm smile on his face, his hand extended in welcome. In this manner, he earned the affection and admiration of many—for the scrupulous loyalty of his friendship and the unmatched grace of his conversation. He took quiet pleasure in the innocent misunderstanding or the deliberate narrowing of perspective that some held of him, and he did not mind being mistaken for an ordinary passer-by: a man captivated by music and poetry, attuned to the beauty of women, and charmed by the serenity of landscapes, forests, and waters. To him, glory was not found in the outward homage it inspired but in the inner assent it commanded. It was this profound self-awareness he hinted at with his proud and final declaration: “Glory! It wasn’t until yesterday that I truly understood its meaning, and nothing summoned by such a name from another’s lips will ever interest me again!”
Memory of Valvins
In the midst of the universal uproar of the past weeks, I doubt that any newspaper took note of the anniversary of Stéphane Mallarmé’s death. It was, after all, last year at this same time, in mid-September, that a sudden and unexpected illness claimed the life of the dear and delightful poet. No one has drawn attention to this sad event that, just the year before, had cast its shadow over that gentle curve of the Seine by Valvins, the forest of Fontainebleau, with a silent and poignant procession of admirers and friends.
I can still see them gathered in the small, sun-dappled garden of the rustic house where Stéphane Mallarmé, from spring until the first nip of winter, sought solace away from Paris. I can still see them following the coffin, laden with flowers. There were faces etched with genuine sorrow, and that day I felt, in the hearts of all those present, a lasting, sure, and reverent remembrance of the one they had come to honour for the last time. The poet had left behind an image of himself in them, one that would never fade. Indeed, I believe no one who was there at that solemn moment could fail to feel, on its anniversary, the same faithful sorrow once again. More than one soul likely retraced, at least in thought, the path they had once walked together, but I wish the more distracted, forgetful public had been reminded of that recent grave, bearing a stone with a name of glory.
I know well that Stéphane Mallarmé sought his glory not in outward symbols but in inner satisfaction, and that he valued self-esteem more than the praise of others. So, in death, just as in life, he remained as discreet and aloof as ever. The respect of those close to him spared him the usual posthumous fuss that is so often heaped upon the famous. There were no letters published, no scraps of paper put on display. Everything unfolded with dignity and simplicity. His work, locked away in the books he himself had confined it to, will remain for posterity to leaf through at its own pace. As for his memory, it rests with all those who loved and knew him, and who admired in him, alongside his kindness and grace, one of the most original and inventive writers of our time—someone, in short, truly exceptional.
*
There are many portraits of Stéphane Mallarmé. I believe I recall that he did not care for all of them, as what he valued most was not so much physical truth as spiritual likeness. Among these numerous depictions, there were two he held dear and took great pride in. One was the oil portrait by Manet, the other the lithograph by Whistler—the first dating from his youth, the second more recent. The first is tortured, almost painful, where he seems absorbed in thoughts of the future; the second is more resigned, almost smiling, where he already appears attuned to the past. He loved this double masterpiece, finding pleasure in reliving his image twice—through the bold brush of one and the delicate pencil of the other, both great artists and friends of his. Friendship, after all, was one of the great joys of his life. Few practised it as he did, with such delicacy and grace. I wonder, in fact, if he didn’t take a certain pleasure in being impeccable and flawless in this regard.
There was a unique power of attraction in him, likely rooted in his ability to give so much of himself without ever asking for anything in return. One could not approach him without feeling this generosity of mind and heart, and he was one of those rare souls whom it’s hard not to wish to see every day. This personal gift of drawing others close and keeping them near was one of the reasons for his immense influence over the minds of our generation. Stéphane Mallarmé was, whether he liked it or not, a leader of a school, and he became so almost without meaning to—driven not just by aesthetic considerations, but by reasons I could almost describe as mundane.
While he offered his close circle the example of a difficult, elevated, and mysterious art, he also gave them the pleasure of conversation—charming and forceful, endlessly varied, but always, through the most inventive detours, leading back to the most fundamental questions of Poetry. Stéphane Mallarmé was a master of speech, not as an orator delivering a lecture or a teacher imparting knowledge, but in its most alive and animated form—the conversation that ebbs and flows, halts and picks up again, meandering its way through the wings of fancy and the delicate smoke of cigarettes.
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Stéphane Mallarmé was never particularly pleased when people brought up his extraordinary talent for conversation. He saw it as no more than the ordinary by-product of his skill as a writer, and it irked him when others clung to his spoken words while neglecting the written, definitive form of his ideas. He felt keenly the contrast so often made between the conversationalist and the writer—a distinction that all too frequently diminished one to the benefit of the other. Mallarmé consciously avoided leaning on the effortless charm and grace of his speech, which might have allowed him to engage more directly with the general public. His desire was to be understood fully, in his entirety, with the meticulous purity that defined his style.
This resolve was evident in the lectures he gave in England and Belgium, where he scrupulously avoided any compromises. He spoke in prose that was both magnificent and painstakingly refined. Perhaps he preferred to leave his audience astonished, safeguarding his reputation as a challenging, enigmatic writer, rather than recast himself as the clearest, most effortlessly eloquent speaker—a role he could easily have played. This was the Mallarmé familiar to those who found delight in the warmth of his gatherings, whether in the modest salon on Rue de Rome or the riverside home in Valvins. To them, he was a master of understated perfection, crafting light, elegant phrases that, sadly, vanished almost as soon as they were spoken.
I have always lamented that Mallarmé, among his circle of friends, never encountered his equivalent of Goethe’s Eckermann. If he had, we might now possess a book that, if not preserving the sound of his voice, would at least have captured the rare precision and depth of his thoughts. But such chroniclers are all too often careless—or too self-absorbed.
Mallarmé’s work remains deprived of the living commentary he so often gave—not in any pedantic or professorial way, but by letting his audience glimpse the restless, wandering ideas before he locked them into place, carving his captive, twisted chimeras from ebony with an artist’s hand.
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In those intimate and leisurely conversations, Stéphane Mallarmé often spoke of what he regarded as the secret goal of his life—a monumental and ambitious project that he had been quietly working on for many years. It was to be a work of remarkable scope, a brilliant and comprehensive embodiment of the poet’s doctrine, distilled from the vast and wandering reflections of his mind. This monument to his solitude grew, stone by stone, dust mote by dust mote, as he contributed to it each day. The materials were already assembled; all that remained was to weave them together, to bind them into a unified whole. Mallarmé looked forward with palpable joy to the moment when the preparatory studies would be complete, and he could finally set to work, reaching for his ultimate triumph. He spoke of it with such confidence, such infectious certainty, that it became the focus of our last meeting.
It was the spring of 1898. Stéphane Mallarmé was preparing for his departure to Valvins. He counted on the tranquillity of that retreat, the peace of his modest home, the gentle charm of the landscape, and the serene grandeur of the forest to provide the ideal conditions for his task. He already envisioned his work completed and, like a man finally freed from a daunting burden, he began, even then, to reflect on the long struggles that had plagued his mind—the gnawing anxieties, the relentless doubts, the hesitant experiments, and the thousand moments of despair. He had accumulated a vast collection of notes, covering countless pages, from which he intended to spark the final, decisive flame of creation.
“Yes,” he confided, “I have fought one of the great battles of the mind.” Then, with his subtle, almost playful smile, he added: “After the victory, the dead must be buried. You’ll come to Valvins, and we’ll dig a great pit in the middle of the field to bury that painful past. We’ll lay to rest all those papers that carry so much of my life!”
We did go to Valvins. A pit was indeed dug in the warm earth, but it was a coffin that was lowered into it. The unfinished work disappeared with the Poet himself—or, at least, with his earthly form. Yet Stéphane Mallarmé left behind a garland of poems. If they are not the full sheaf of ripened grain he had hoped to gather with his scythe—alas, broken forever—they nevertheless form a fragrant wreath for his tomb, and I am certain that many of these blossoms will never fade.
ABOUT MALLARMÉ
From Henri de Régnier’s Portraits et souvenirs (Mercure de France, 1913), translated here for the first time
The tribute paid to Stéphane Mallarmé, marked by the unveiling of a commemorative plaque on the house in the rue de Rome where he lived for many years, has once again brought attention to the poet who wrote The Afternoon of a Faun—a work so intriguingly and uniquely transformed into a musical pantomime by the Russian dancers at the Châtelet. These two events have sparked quite a number of articles in the press. While Mallarmé is rightfully celebrated as an audacious, subtle, and painstaking artist, and his noble persistence and selfless devotion to the art of writing are acknowledged, the old criticism of obscurity continues to resurface around his work. This very critique was so often levelled at the difficult and elusive author of Hérodiade and many other poems, whose reading does indeed demand a certain degree of attentive effort and intellectual engagement—habits that, I admit, our public is not always eager to embrace.
It would be naive to deny that Mallarmé’s poetry, depending on one’s perspective, is either “tainted” with or “shrouded” in obscurity. M. Victor Margueritte, in the fine study he recently published in Le Figaro on the master of Valvins, acknowledges this with candour, and M. Léopold Dauphin, who has just shared with us some delightful and valuable memories of the man he considered a dear friend, affirms it as well. Stéphane Mallarmé was indeed a difficult and enigmatic author, although it’s important to note that this obscurity varied in degree. Between the early poems he contributed to Parnasse contemporain and the cryptic piece A Throw of the Dice—which, if I’m not mistaken, marked his final and most ambitious exploration of his gift for elliptical expression—there is a vast difference. As Mallarmé grew more demanding of himself, so too did he raise the expectations placed on his readers. This close collaboration between poet and reader was, in fact, one of the cornerstones of his poetic philosophy. For him, verse was less a tool for direct communication than a way to suggest, a form that only reached its full meaning and resonance in the intellectual interaction it prompted.
This concept of verse was just one aspect of Mallarmé’s broader view of poetry, though there were other facets—too many to expand on here—that are to his credit, for he sought them out, provoked them, endured them, and fully embraced them. In choosing, as a matter of conviction, to abandon the conventional methods used before him, and in creating for himself, with all its risks and challenges, a distinctly personal form of art, Mallarmé accepted from the beginning that he would be hounded by the criticism of obscurity, a charge he met with the most admirable and gracious dignity.
Did it bother him? I cannot say for sure, but I believe he was spared any real regret by the sense that, in doing what he did, he was following an inner logic to which he bowed. That didn’t stop him, though, from sometimes wryly pushing back against the reputation for obscurity that clung to him. I recall hearing him say once, “X… is a delightful fellow, but why on earth is he explaining my verses? It might give people the idea that they’re actually obscure.”
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Certainly, I’m the first to admit it: Stéphane Mallarmé’s verses are often obscure (though what beauty shimmers within their transparent shadow!), but they are never unintelligible. It’s striking, then, to recall the fury they stirred. Those who were part of the Symbolist movement in 1885 haven’t forgotten the sarcasm, the jibes, and the outrage that greeted the few poems Mallarmé published—both in the press and among the public. People would track them down in the little magazines where they appeared, only to poke fun at them. The irritation they provoked often became directed at Mallarmé himself. We found ourselves witnessing something rather strange—a man of remarkable discretion and unfailing refinement, an artist of unquestionable integrity and immense talent, being vilified and insulted simply because he chose to compose, in relative solitude, a body of poetry that leaned toward the enigmatic—poems whose meaning, always subtle, precise, and profound, did not immediately reveal itself.
And I assure you; I’m not exaggerating. It would be worthwhile to someday compile the articles written about Stéphane Mallarmé from 1885 to 1895. In doing so, one would witness the treatment that a poet endured simply for the choice to shroud his thoughts beneath the veils of symbolism, to refine them with subtle allusions, to strengthen them with ellipses, and to break free from the conventional means of expression—in short, to embrace the role of an obscure author.
That clarity stands as one of the most beautiful qualities of our literature—an attribute that not only contributes to its enduring strength but also lends it a precious brilliance—I do not contest this in the slightest. However, it’s equally important not to overlook the fact that obscure and challenging authors occupy an essential and well-deserved place in our French literary tradition. Some of our most celebrated writers are not exempt from this criticism of obscurity. Should I mention Rabelais, whose encyclopedic work is neither readable nor comprehensible without ongoing explanation? Or Ronsard, whom even his contemporaries deemed necessary to clarify with commentaries?
But, without aiming for such lofty heights, wouldn’t it be possible to draw up a list of writers whose delicate and singular works create a somewhat secluded group in the shadows of our literature? Their somewhat exceptional writings pique curiosity precisely because they seem to dwell outside the bright main thoroughfare, from which their authors have distanced themselves through refinement and a pursuit of a more subtle or specialized art—one that doesn’t conform to the tastes of their time, and which signifies a particularly original mindset. Why should we hold their bolder explorations and more adventurous intentions against them? Why, in light of their uniqueness, do we not free them from the usual modes of expression? Why not overlook a certain lack of clarity? Let us acknowledge that they may not belong to the grand literary architecture of an era, nor be indispensable to it, but let us also recognize their ornamental value within the overall structure. Let us honour their discreet chapel tucked alongside the cathedral. It adds a mysterious recess, its darkness illuminated by a small flame, all the more alluring as it glows behind a strangely twisted grille.
It is in the shelter of this imaginary grille that I would gladly gather a whole series of works and writers, whose place seems distinctly marked for me within this reserved enclosure that merits our respect, as it completes the vast edifice to which the diverse forces of French poetry have contributed. I certainly won’t name every craftsman who has added their more or less oddly shaped stones to the admirable mass of our collective effort, but I can easily picture, in this oratory, a gathering side by side of a Nerval with his mystical sonnets from Chimères, a Rimbaud with his astonishing Illuminations, a Laforgue with his delightful Moralités légendaires, and a Paul Claudel with his Connaissance de l’Est. Among them, I can clearly discern Stéphane Mallarmé, awaiting the day, perhaps, when he will be called to join the choir where his fine, high voice will harmonize with the grand organs of poetry.
This is one of 50+ rare French literary texts translated into English for the first time on this site.
Léon Hennique Novel 