Refus Global (Total Refusal) & the CBC

I found two CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/ Radio-Canada) documentaries concerning Refus global (Total Refusal). I kept expecting to view a video, but there was no video just words. Therefore, in order to listen to the recordings one must scroll down to the bottom of a black space and press on the start button, the triangle. There are no pictures, but there is a text.

However, before listening, it would help to read the following comments. I had to listen two or three times to understand some of the words.

The Manifesto was launched at a bookstore: Henri Tranquille‘s FR[i] bookstore. The second floor of the bookstore was a large area where artists could exhibit their work. Their art was becoming less and less figurative or representational.

Alfred Pellan,[ii] is the artist who had studied in Paris and returned to Montreal transporting a large quantity of works demonstrating that art could follow new paths. The signatories of Refus global learned about André Breton‘s “pure psychic automatism.”

André Breton, the founder of Surrealism, wrote the Surrealists’s Manifesto in 1924 (Manifeste du surréalisme). Borduas had also traveled to France and was acquainted with various “isms:” Cubism, Fauvism, the work of Joan Miró and Breton’s Surrealism.

According to one of the narrators, the Great Depression was a catalyst in Borduas’s rapid shift from representational art to non-figurative art. Poverty is unbelievably humiliating. In Refus global, Borduas makes a list of the fears of Québécois, one of which is poverty.

Fears

“In the vain hope of erasing their memory, I will name the things we feared:

fear of prejudice, fear of public opinion, fear of persecution and general disapproval

fear of being abandoned by God and by a society that invariably leaves us to our lonely fate

fear of ourselves, of our brothers, of poverty

fear of the established order, of the mockery of justice

fear of new relationships

fear of the irrational

fear of needs

fear of the floodgates that open onto our faith in man, of the society of the future
fear of anything that could inspire in us a transforming love
blue fear – red fear – white fear: each one another link in the chain that binds us.”

“Christianity”

It would be my opinion that Borduas’s use of the word “Christianity” refers to a powerful and then repressive human institution. Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew who lived in Palestine, which, at the time, was controlled by Rome. Jesus is not the founder of a Church; a Church was founded in his name.

Borduas: un penseur (a Thinker)

In the second documentary, one of the narrators calls Borduas “un penseur,” a thinker, an intellectual who attracted students to his house, rue Napoléon. One of the institutions named in the documentaries is le Collège Sainte-Marie, a fine Jesuit school where theater was promoted: le théâtre du Gesù.

Jansenism & Society

“We are a small people, the product of a Jansenist colony, isolated, defeated,left a powerless prey to all those invading congregations from France and Navarre that were eager to perpetuate in this holy realm of fear (in-fear-is-the-beginning-of-wisdom!) the blessings and prestige of a Catholic religion that was being scorned in Europe. Heirs of papal authority, mechanical, brooking no opposition, past masters of obscurantist methods, our educational institutions had, from that time on, absolute control over a world of warped memories, stagnant minds and misguided intentions.”

Paul-Émile Borduas refers to Jansenism (4th paragraph). My posts on Phèdre tell that story. Many of the early settlers of New France were Jansenists. They arrived on the North-American continent during the seventeenth century, the Jansenist era. Predestination was a tenet of Jansenism. Like Jean Racine’s Phèdre, many Québécois felt they had been abandoned by God: “fear of being abandoned by God.”

However, French-Canadians had also been abandoned by society, by France, and many of the “Patriotes” of the 1837-1838 Rebellion EN had died. A dozen or so were hanged and 58, deported to Australia, then called Nouvelle-Hollande. They were soon returned to their homes, but exile had nevertheless transformed them into martyrs.

The French-language Wikipedia entry on the Rebellion of 1837-1838 FR provides a more detailed account of the events of 1837-1838 than the English-language entry.

Conclusion

I have written a short biography of Paul-Émile Borduas. It is still a draft, but it will be posted. The art displayed in this post is not yet the abstract l’Étoile noire and Froissement (Wrinkling), shown at the very bottom of this post. One of the persons interviewed by the CBC/ Radio-Canada states that the Refus global signatories rejected everything. Global or Total is Global, Total. But there is some expression of hope. Borduas speaks of a “future collectivity” (near the end of the document). He expresses “hope” as does his art and that of his students, not to mention Refus global/ Total Refusal itself. Refus global clears the table (Descartes‘s tabula rasa).

“A new collective hope will dawn.

It is already demanding the passion of exceptional insights, anonymous union in renewed faith in the future, in the future collectivity.”

There is fear, but “in-fear-is-the-beginning-of-wisdom!” (fourth paragraph)

The CBC Documentaries

Refus global.1

http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/arts-entertainment/visual-arts/le-refus-global-revolution-in-the-arts/launching-of-le-refus-global.html

Refus global.2

http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/arts-entertainment/visual-arts/le-refus-global-revolution-in-the-arts/the-automatists.html

Marie-Pierre – Les fruits merveilleux (The Marvellous Fruit), by Paul-Émile Borduas

_________________________

[i] There is a CBC/ Radio-Canada) documentary, an interview, about Henri Tranquille. The interviewer speaks European French and Henri Tranquille has a Quebec accent. It is a precious testimonial which should be translated. Among other things, Tranquille speaks about the Index or List of Prohibited Books. The police could investigate.

http://archives.radio-canada.ca/arts_culture/litterature/clips/15809/

[ii] Alfred Pellan and Borduas were not friends. Pellan had received the first scholarship allowing a Quebec artist to study in Paris.

Refus global: the Index librorium prohibitorum (November 6, 2012)

A Glance at Refus global & the News (November 4, 2012)

Phèdre’s “Hidden God” (October 8, 2012)

Jean Racine, Gabriel Fauré & Alexandre Cabanel: a Canticle (October 6, 2012)

November 9th, 2012

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Refus Global & the Index Librorum Prohibitorum

06 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, History, Quebec

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Fernand Leduc, Henri Fantin-Latour, Index Librorum Prohibitorum, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Marcelle Ferron, Paul-Émile Borduas, Pierre Gauvreau, Poète maudit, Refus global, Signatories

Bégonia, by Paul-Émile Borduas (1924) NGC/GNC[i]

Paul-Émile Borduas (November 1, 1905 – February 22, 1960)

Refus global (l’intégral, en français)

Refus global or Total Refusal (text in English)

Images: please click on Paul-Émile Borduas

Refus global

The above painting is an early work, by Paul-Émile Borduas. In fact, it is a study and, to a certain extent, a child-like study. Consequently, looking at this painting (watercolour on graphite), one does not suspect that Borduas would ever publish Refus global (Total Refusal), an “anti-establishment and anti-religious manifesto released on August 9, 1948 in Montreal by a group of sixteen young Québécois artists and intellectuals that included Paul-Émile Borduas and Jean-Paul Riopelle.” (Refus global, Wikipedia). Other than Borduas, only one of the signatories of the Refus global, Jean-Paul Riopelle, achieved international renown. A number of his works were exhibited at the State Hermitage Museum, in Saint Petersburg in 2006.

The Church

“We are a small people huddling under the shelter of the clergy, who are the only remaining repository of faith, knowledge, truth, and national wealth; we were excluded from the universal progress of thought with all its pitfalls and perils, and raised, when it became impossible to keep us in complete ignorance, on well-meaning but uncontrolled and grossly distorted accounts of the great historical facts.”

Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations are from Refus global (Total Refusal), The Canadian Encyclopedia.[ii]

How knowledge was concealed or “distorted”

I have already quoted the above paragraph. It is an indictment of the Church. According to Borduas, the Church excluded Québécois from the “universal progress of thought,” or it “distorted” the truth. However, just how was knowledge concealed or “distorted.” For one thing, in the Quebec of my childhood, books had to be approved by the Church before they were put on the shelves of libraries or sold to students. The book was acceptable if in contained the words “nihil obstat” or imprimatur. Before the Révolution tranquille or Quiet Revolution, one could not buy or borrow books that were prohibilited under the List of Prohibited Books, the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

Index Librorum Prohibitorum

“The magical harvest magically reaped from the unknown lies ready in the field. It was gathered by all the true poets. Its powers of transformation are as great as the violence practised against it, as its continued resistance to attempts to make use of it (after more than two centuries, there is not a single copy of the Marquis de Sade* to be found in our bookshops; Isidore Ducasse [le comte de Lautréamont],[iii] dead for more than a century, a hundred years of revolution and slaughter, is still too strong for queasy contemporary stomachs, even those accustomed to present-day filth and corruption.”

*If you are a sensitive person, reading le Marquis de Sade could make you sick.

The Index was promulgated by Pope Paul IV in 1559 and its first version is called the Pauline Index. The list of publications prohibited by the Catholic Church underwent modifications. For instance, the Council of Trent‘s Tridentine Index was less severe than the Pauline Index, but even the more relaxed forms of the Index were an obstacle in the “freedom of enquiry” (Index Librorum Prohibitorum, Wikipedia). The list, or Index, was abolished by Pope Paul VI, in 1966.

Obviously, Quebec was not threatened, in the manner Galileo was. Catholic cosmology would not accept heliocentrism, sometimes called Copernicanism, the theory put forth in Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium cœlestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres). Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) died the year he published his findings, in 1543, but Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), was not so fortunate. Galileo Galilei was found guilty of heresy by the Roman Inquisition in 1615. He was forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest (Galileo Galilei, Wikipedia).

trips, studying abroad & “sexual experience”

“Foreign travel became more common, with Paris as the main attraction. Too distant in time and space, too lively for our timid souls, a trip to Paris was often just an excuse to spend a holiday acquiring some long-overdue sexual experience and enough of the polish provided by a stay in France to intimidate the masses back home. With very few exceptions, our physicians, for example, whether or not they had actually made the trip, began behaving scandalously (we-have-a-right-to-make-up-for-those-long-years-of-study!).

In many cases, these trips also served as an unexpected wake-up call. Minds were growing restless, and more people began reading forbidden books, which brought some small hope and comfort.”

However, in 1948, the Index was still in force but it was losing ground in Quebec, partly because of trips and studies abroad. Paul-Émile Borduas had travelled to France and died in France. At the time, Québécois often went to Europe to complete their studies as Quebec universities had yet to offer complete programs. Even now, persons who wish to do a Doctorate in Law or another degree travel to Europe. After earning his law degree at the Université de Montréal (1943), Pierre Trudeau obtained a master’s degree in political economy at Harvard University‘s Graduate School of Public Administration. He studied in Paris, France in 1947 at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris. He also enrolled for a doctorate at the London School of Economics, but failed to finish his thesis (Pierre Trudeau, Wikipedia).

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

Les Poètes maudits: Verlaine (far left), Rimbaud (second to left) depicted in an 1872 painting, by Henri Fantin-Latour

Les Poètes maudits or Accursed Poets

“Our minds were energized by the poètes maudits, who, far from being monsters of evil, dared to give loud and clear expression to feelings that the most wretched among us had always shamefully repressed for fear of being swallowed alive. The example of these men, who were the first to come to grips with everyday concerns about pain and loss, showed us the way. Their answers were so much more challenging, precise, and fresh than the age-old bromides being fed to us in Québec and in seminaries around the world.”

Borduas also mentions les poètes maudits (accursed poets).[iv] He is referring to François Villon (c. 1431–1464), Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud and, to a lesser extent, to Lautréamont and Alice de Chambrier. Paul Verlaine published a book entitled Les Poètes maudits and the term has been used to describe works written in countries other than France. Sir Alfred Hitchcock has been described as “the only poète maudit to encounter immense success.” (film director Jean-Luc Godard, in Poète maudit [Wikipedia]). I should think the list of Poètes maudits would now include Sir Salman Rushdie (1947-).

Gérard Bessette’s Le Libraire (1960)

To understand to what degree Québécois bookstore owners were afraid of selling books listed in the Index, Gérard Bessette‘s Le Libraire (1960) is the novel one must read. It is short, beautifully structured and clever.

_________________________

[i] Photo credit: National Gallery of Canada (Borduas) & Wikipedia (Fantin-Latour, Poète maudit)

[iî] Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations are from Refus global (Total Refusal), The Canadian Encyclopedia.

[iii] dates:

Index Librorum Prohibitorum: 1559 (Pope Paul IV) – 1966 (Pope Paul VI)

Lautréamont, le comte de: (4 April 1846 – 24 November 1870)

Sade, le marquis de: (2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814)

[vi] French poètes maudits of the nineteenth century abused drugs and alcohol.

November 6th, 2012

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piece: « Hymn: Urbs Jerusalem, 4. AM 694b »

performers: Monastic Choir of the Abbey of Saint Pierre de Solesme,

director: Dom Joseph Gajard

Géranium, by Paul-Émile Borduas (1923)

NGC/GNC

(please click on picture to enlarge it)

A Glance at “Refus global” & the News (michelinewalker.com)
The Art of Fantin-Latour & Canadiana (michelinewalker.com)

A Glance at “Refus global” & the News

04 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Canada, United States

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

André Breton, Canadian Encyclopedia, Jansenism, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Paul-Émile Borduas, Refus global, United States, Wikipedia

: Borduas’s Black Star

Refus global (Total Refusal)

I am working on perhaps two posts dealing with Refus global (1948). Its author was Quebec artist Paul-Émile Borduas (November 1, 1905 – February 22, 1960). There were 16 signatories, listed in Refus global (Wikipedia). Only 400 copies were published, selling for a dollar a piece, half of which did not sell. Refus global says little about abstract art and André Breton‘s surrealist automatism, or stream of consciousness. It’s about Quebec.

Here are links to the complete and very short text.

Refus global (l’intégral, en français)

Refus global or Total Refusal (text in English)

Refus global (The Canadian Encyclopedia‘s entry)

Images: please click on Paul-Émile Borduas

Refus global (Total Refusal) “was an anti-establishment and anti-religious manifesto released on August 9, 1948 in Montreal by a group of sixteen young Québécois artists and intellectuals that included Paul-Émile Borduas and Jean-Paul Riopelle.” (Refus global, Wikipedia) I will quote a section (one paragraph) of Refus global that describes Québécois as the “priest-ridden” and economically downtrodden province it was called (the Church was rich, the people were poor).

The Church being the “repository” of “faith, knowledge, truth, and national wealth,” Québécois were kept unaware of “the universal progress of thought,” or in “complete ignorance” of the “progress of thought” or may have learned about it in an expurgated or “distorted” manner. The paragraph I am quoting provides a mere glance at Refus global, in its totality, but it is revealing. However, the “establishment” is not confined to the Church. Moreover, the manifesto mentions the influence of Jansenism and addresses such questions as ethnocentricity and fear (see the video).

“We are a small people huddling under the shelter of the clergy, who are the only remaining repository of faith, knowledge, truth, and national wealth; we were excluded from the universal progress of thought with all its pitfalls and perils, and raised, when it became impossible to keep us in complete ignorance, on well-meaning but uncontrolled and grossly distorted accounts of the great historical facts.” (Refus global in The Canadian Encyclopedia)

Early comments

I was a child in the province condemned by Borduas and fifteen other signatories. At the time, nuns (sisters) were our teachers and boys and girls attended different schools. The nuns, many of whom came from France, ours did, were so devoted to us. They did not work from nine to five. They were always preparing learning material for us and often used innovative teaching approaches. They made sure we could study music for little or no money, and provided practice-rooms. They played baseball with us. They took us on outings: factories, etc. They fed the children who arrived at school famished and, on cold days, they made sure we returned home dressed to face a blizzard.

The American Presidential Election

Thousands of New Yorkers must find temporary lodgings. Sandy was the storm of a lifetime and a wake-up call regarding the environment. How will voters get to polling stations? It could well be that, compared to the Quebec of my childhood, a Republican administration might soon invite a much sterner Total Refusal than Borduas’s Refus global. However, I would not dare underestimate the citizens of the United States of America as I would insult some of the finest minds in the world, beginning with President Obama.

The News

The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/

The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/

The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Le Monde diplomatique: http://mondediplo.com/ EN

The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Montreal Gazette: http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html

CBC News: http://www.cbc.ca/news/ ←

CTV News: http://www.ctvnews.ca/

Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/

Le Monde diplomatique: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/

Le Devoir: http://www.ledevoir.com/

La Presse: http://www.lapresse.ca/

Die Welt: http://www.welt.de/

Micheline Walker©

November 4th, 2012

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Comments & the News: 14 September 2012

14 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Mulatto, Music

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Chevalier de Saint-George, French Revolution, Haydn, Paris Symphonies, Paul-Émile Borduas, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Begonia, by Paul-Émile Borduas, 14 January 1924

Paul-Émile Borduas (November 1, 1905 – February 22, 1960)

Photo credit: National Gallery of Canada

Our mini-series on Joseph Bo(u)logne, Chevalier de Saint-George should by now be complete.

Joseph Bologne conducts the “Paris Symphonies”

With respect to the biographical video accounts of Bologne’s life and Wikipedia’s entry, I would situate myself between the two. However, I have to state that it is amazing that the black Mozart should have influenced Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It is equally amazing that as the Director of the Concert de la Loge Olympique, he should have commissioned Symphonies from Franz Joseph Haydn (31 March 1732 – 31 May 1809), the famous “Paris Symphonies” (1785-1786), and premièred them.

The Chevalier de Saint-George was an esteemed composer and conductor as well as a virtuoso violinist. Moreover, he was an accomplished swordsman and equestrian. He was admired by George IV of England, the Prince of Wales, which is not a trivial detail. Would that Saint-George had fled to England rather than join the French army when the French Revolution started to spin out of control.

Next Post: Paul-Émile Borduas (Refus Global)

The News

English

The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/

The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Montreal Gazette: http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html

The National Post: http://www.nationalpost.com/index.html

Le Monde diplomatique: http://mondediplo.com/ EN

CBC News: http://www.nationalpost.com/index.html

CTV News: http://www.ctvnews.ca/

French

Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/

Le Monde diplomatique: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/

Le Devoir: http://www.ledevoir.com/

La Presse: http://www.lapresse.ca/

German

Die Welt: http://www.welt.de/

September 14, 2012

WordPress

composer: Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-George

Rondeau, Violin Concerto Op. 8

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau & Happiness Unattainable

09 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Canada, Literature

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Anne Hébert, Bob Rae, François Xavier Garneau, French Canadian, Gilles Marcotte, Jean Paul Lemieux, John Glassco, Paul-Émile Borduas, pessimism, Saint-Denys-Garneau

Pavane pour une infante défunte, Jean Paul Lemieux (1924) NGC

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau (1912 -1943)

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau (June 13, 1912 – October 24, 1943) is a revered French-Canadien poet, a place he shares with Émile Nelligan (December 24, 1879 – November 18, 1941). He is also an older cousin to acclaimed poet and novelist Anne Hébert (1916-2000). Both are descendants of historian François-Xavier Garneau (1809-1866) and Hector’s father, Alfred Garneau (1836-1904), was also a writer.

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau was found dead, apparently of a heart attack, while canoeing alone near the family manoir at Sainte-Catherine-de-Fossambault. Garneau suffered from a rheumatic heart condition that had forced him to interrupt his studies. At the age of 31, he was too young to die, but he left for posterity a large number of poems as well as a Journal he did not intend to publish. Yet the Journal is in print and it constitutes an exceptionally revealing document.

Two Comments

In this blog I will make only two comments. First, I would like to point out that, in Garneau’s writings, we have an example of a widely spread feeling, among French-speaking Canadian authors. For these writers, happiness is unattainable. Happiness is in fact dangerous. Moreover, I would also like to draw attention to the pictorial quality of the poems of Saint-Denys Garneau who had studied painting under the tutelage of Jean Paul Lemieux.

happiness is Dangerous

You may remember that in my blog on Maria Chapdelaine (1914) a regionalistic novel, I wrote that Maria could not be expected to marry François Paradis, the man she loves, as this would have brought her happiness, which is deemed a forbidden destination. This very sentiment is echoed in Saint-Denys Garneau’s posthumously published Journal, prefaced by Gilles Marcotte and including comments by Robert Élie, a friend of Saint-Denys Garneau, and Roger Le Moyne.

The Journal (1954)

Both Saint-Denys Garneau’s Journal and Poésies complètes have been translated into English by John Glassco.[i] I do not own a copy of John Glassco‘s translation of Garneau’s Journal and must therefore play translator. In his Journal, Saint-Denys Garneau wrote:

Que le bonheur est dangereux, et toute puissance, et toute ivresse ! Il faut par une longue discipline de soumission et d’amour avoir été rendu maître de soi pour résister au danger du bonheur.

“How dangerous are happiness, and all power, and all pleasure! In order to resist the danger of happiness, one must have become master of oneself by practicing at long length submissiveness and love.” Journal, February 12, 1935. (p. 54)

The Poésies complètes (1949)

Regards et jeux dans l’espace is a collection of poems published in 1937 by the author himself. However, Saint-Denys Garneau’s Poésies complètes (1949) contains a second collection of poems entitled Solitudes. The Complete Poems of Saint-Denys Garneau reveal similar if not more pessimistic sentiments than the Journal.

Regards et jeux dans l’espace[iii]

« Accompagnement » (p. 101)

In « Accompagnement », Saint-Denys Garneau writes that he is walking beside a joy, which suggests that there can be no convergence of the poet and joy.

Je marche à côté d’une joie

D’une joie qui n’est pas à moi

D’une joie à moi que je ne puis prendre [literally: to take]

(I walk beside a joy

A joy that is not mine

A joy of mine that is not mine to enjoy) (Glassco, p. 75)

« Un mort demande à boire » (p. 63)

In the same collection, Garneau also writes that “A dead man calls for a drink” (Glassco, p. 45). A man cannot be both dead and alive, except, of course, in French-Canadian or Québécois Literature. So Saint-Denys Garneau paints un mort-vivant, a dead man alive, as if he inhabited a middle-earth or purgatory. « Un mort demande à boire » is one of two landscapes: Deux paysages. Saint-Denys Garneau organizes his poems into groups.

Solitudes

« Après les plus vieux vertiges » (p. 139)

Embedded in a group of six poems collectively entitled La Parole de la Chair (The Word of the Flesh), Saint-Denys Garneau expresses his inability to engage in sexual intercourse (“After the oldest of the vertigoes,” [Glassco, p. 107]). It brings death, not la petite mort (an orgasm), nor death as in the cycle of birth and rebirth, i.e. l’amour, la mort, but death: Ton lit certain comme la tombe (“Your bed as certain as the tomb,” [Glassco, p. 107]).

La Pointe de l’Islet, 1964

Jean Paul Lemieux, R.C.A. (1904-1990)

La Galerie Walter Klinckhoff (with permission)

Ut pictura poesis

After reading Sub Rosa’s Ut pictura poesis[iv], I thought of Saint-Denys Garneau who viewed poetry as pictorial. As I have already written, Saint-Denys Garneau was a trained artist, a student and friend of Jean Paul Lemieux and Paul-Émile Borduas. For instance, as noted above, he uses the word paysage, or landscape, to denote poems. Moreover, in Regards et jeux dans l’espace, the poet looks at (regards) and plays with (jeux) space (l’espace). He is therefore giving shape to space: As is painting, so is poetry. Sub Rosa’s literal translation sits well with me. All poetry is pictorial and good portraits are more than a record of physical features.

« Le Jeu » (p. 35)

In « Le Jeu » (The Game), one of five poems constituting Les Jeux, Garneau writes:

Ne me dérangez pas je suis profondément occupé

Un enfant est en train de bâtir un village

C’est une ville, un comté

Et qui sait

Tantôt l’univers

(Don’t bother me I’m terribly busy

A child is busy building a village

It’s a town, a county

And who knows

By and by the universe) (Glassco, p. 21)

Musicologists have investigated the relationship between music and poetry. For instance, there is a great deal of musicality in the poetry of Verlaine, musicality achieved by traditional devices: the number of pieds, or syllables, in a line of poetry; alliteration: the repetition of similar consonants (b, c, d, f, etc.) and assonance, the repetition of the same vowel (a, e, i, o, u).

In French poetry, a comparison with pictures is not a frequent conscious occurrence, but Rimbaud wrote « Voyelles », a poem in which letters are given a colour and Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918 [Spanish flu]) gives a shape to some of his poems.[v] And let us not forget synesthesia, all senses compelled.

Breakfast, 1965

Jean Paul Lemieux, R.C.A. (1904-1990)

La Galerie Walter Klinckhoff (with permission)

______________________________

[i] John Glassco started to translate Garneau’s Journal in 1958, perhaps a little earlier. Glassco’s translation of the Journal was published in 1962 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart), but he did not publish his outstanding translation of the Complete Poems of Saint-Denys Garneau until 1975 (Ottawa: Oberon Press).

[ii] Saint-Denys Garneau, Journal (Montreal: Beauchemin, 1963 [1954]), p. 54.

[iii] Saint-Denys Garneau, Introduction de Robert Élie, Poésies complètes, Regards et Jeux dans l’espace et Les Solitudes (Montréal: Fides, 1970[1949]).

[iv] Sub Rosa, Ut pictura poesis, (WordPress, June 7, 2012)http://theme.wordpress.com/credits/omstreifer.wordpress.com/

[v] See the Wikipedia entry on Guillaume Apollinaire.

* * *

June 9, 2012

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