Théophile Gautier's Absence

In the concert last Saturday, one of the songs sung was set to music by Debussy from a collection of poems entitled Images, written by a French poet called Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier (August 30, 1811 – October 23, 1872), who was also a dramatist, novelist, journalist and art and literary critic, born in Tarbes, the capital of the Hautes-Pyrenées. Later, Pierre Gautier's father, a minor civil servant moved his family to Paris, where he attended the Collège Louis Le Grand, the school of Voltaire and Baudelaire. Although he completed the remainder of his education at Collège Charlemagne and whose alumni included Charles-Augustin Saint-Beuve. . While at school, Gautier got to know Gérard de Nerval and became lifelong friends. It is through Nerval that Gautier was introduced to Victor Hugo, who remained a major influence on Gautier and is credited for giving him, an aspiring painter at the time, an appetite for literature.

After the 1830 Revolution, Gautier's family was forced to move to the outskirts of Paris where he experimented with a Bohemian lifestyle in the Doyenné district of Paris and became part of an influential group of artists including Gérard de Nerval, Alexandre Dumas, pere, Petrus Borel, Alphonse Brot, Joseph Bouchardy and Philothée O’Neddy (real name Théophile Dondey) called the Petit Cénacle, a group modeled on the Cénacle of Victor Hugo but much looser.  

According to the Wikipedia, while he defended Romanticism, it is not easy to classify to which literary movement he should be associated. His writing however influenced many subsequent literary traditions like Parnassianism, symbolism, the Decadent, Modernism and was revered by such other artists as Balzac, Baudeliare, Goncourt Brothers, Flaubert, Proust and Flaubert and Oscar Wilde. In connection with his work as an art and theatre columnist and journalist for La Presse, Gautier travelled to Spain, Italy, Russia and Egypt and he wrote about them in a very personal style later in Voyage en Espagne (1843), Trésors d’Art de la Russie (1858), and Voyage en Russie (1867),considered the best of travel writing in the 19th century. He also became director of the influential review Revue de Paris from 1851-1856 during which time, he left La Presse for Le Moniteur universel, the official newspepaper of the Second Empire and later became the editor of L’Artiste in 1856 through whose editorials, he advocated his art for art's sake views. In 1862, he became the chairman of the Societé des Beaux-Arts, having begun life as a painter himself, and was familiar with such artists as Eugene Delacroix, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Edouard Manet, Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse and Gustave Doré. His views were much influenced by the works of such Spanish painters as Murillo, Velàquez and Ribera. Instead of accepting the view that art involved knowledge of color, composition and line, Gautier was strongly influenced by Denis Diderot's idea that the critic should have the ability to describe the art such that the reader can "see" the art through his description. He also wrote reviews of the works of Balzac and Baudelaire, whom he also personally knew.

Gautier began writing poetry as early as 1826. In fact, he dedicated his collection of Dernières Poésies to his many friends, including Hérbert, Madame de la Grangerie, Maxime du Camp and Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, a niece of Napoleon III who gave him a sinecure as her librarian.

Théophile Gautier, his wife Ernestina Grisi-Gautier and their daughters Estelle and Judith. Photograph taken around 1857.

.

Portrait of Théophile Gautier, in L'Illustration, after a photograph by M. Bertall, 1869.

 Poetry

• Poésies, published in 1830, is a collection of 42 poems that Gautier composed at the age of 18. However, as the publication took place during the July Revolution, no copies were sold and it was eventually withdrawn. In 1832, the collection was reissued with 20 additional poems under the name Albertus. Another edition in 1845 included revisions of some of the poems. The poems are written in a wide variety of verse forms and show that Gautier attempts to imitate other, more established Romantic poets such as Sainte-Beuve, Alphonse de Lamartine and Hugo, before Gautier eventually found his own way by becoming a critic of Romantic excesses.
  
• Albertus, written in 1831 and published in 1832 is a long narrative poem of 122 stanzas, each consisting of 12 lines of alexandrine (12-syllable) verse, except for the last line of each stanza, which is octosyllabic. Albertus is a parody of Romantic literature, especially of tales of the macabre and the supernatural. The poem tells a story of an ugly witch who magically transforms at midnight into an alluring young woman. Albertus, the hero, falls deeply in love and agrees to sell his soul.
  
• Les Jeunes-France ("The Jeunes-France: Tales Told with Tongue in Cheek"), published in 1833, was a satire of Romanticism. In 1831, the newspaper Le Figaro featured a number of works by the young generation of Romantic artists and published them in the Jeunes-France.
  
• La Comédie de la Mort, published in 1838, is a period piece much like Albertus. In this work, Gautier focuses on the theme of death, which for Gautier is a terrifying, stifling and irreversible finality. Unlike many Romantics before him, Gautier's vision of death is solemn and portentous, proclaiming death as the definitive escape from life's torture. During the time he wrote the work, Gautier was frequenting many cemeteries, which were then expanding rapidly to accommodate the many deaths from epidemics that swept the country. Gautier translates death into a curiously heady, voluptuous, almost exhilarating experience which diverts him momentarily from the gruesome reality and conveys his urgent plea for light over darkness, life over death.
  
• España (1845) is usually considered the transitional volume between the two phases of Gautier's poetic career. Inspired by the author's summer 1840 visit to Spain, the 43 miscellaneous poems in the collection cover topics including the Spanish language and aspects of Spanish culture and traditions such as music and dance.
  
• Emaux et Camées  (1852), published when Gautier was touring the Middle East, is considered his supreme poetic achievement. The title reflects Gautier's abandonment of the romantic ambition to create a kind of "total" art involving the emotional participation of the reader, in favour of a more modern approach focusing more on the poetic composition's form instead of its content. Originally a collection of 18 poems in 1852, its later editions contained up to 37 poems.
  
• Dernières Poésies (1872) is a collection of poems that range from earlier pieces to unfinished fragments composed shortly before Gautier's death. This collection is dominated by numerous sonnets dedicated to many of his friends.

What follows is his poem Absence and my translations. 

       Absence                                 Absence                                                       不在

Reviens, reviens, ma bien-aimée!   Come back, come back, my dearest beloved  回來， 回來，我的至愛

Comme une fleur loin du soleil,     Like a flower far from the sun,              如一遠離太陽的花朵

La fleur de ma vie est fermée,          The flower of my life is withered           我生命之花已合上

Loin de ton sourire vermeil.           Far from your rosy smile.                        遠離你玫瑰色的笑容。

 

Entre nos coeurs quelle distance, Between our hearts what a distance     我們的心距離多麽遠

Tant d'espace entre nos baisers!  So much space between our kisses!        我們的吻與吻間多麽多空間

O sort amer, ô dur absence!          Oh bitter fate, oh severe absence!   噢苦澀的命運，噢要命的不在！

O grand désirs inapaisés!             Oh big unappeased desires!                      噢永難平伏的欲望！

 

D'ici là-bas que de campagnes,  From here to there, how many fields,  從這到哪，多麼多田野

Que de villes et de hameaux,      how many towns and villages,               多麽多城鎮和村落

Que de vallons et de montagnes,How many valleys and mountains,     多麼多河谷和山巒

A lasser le pied des chevaux!     To tire the horses' feet!                            使馬蹄疲憊不堪！