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The Relationship Between The Poetry Of T. S. Eliot And Saint-John Perse

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The Relationship Between The Poetry Of T. S. Eliot And Saint-John Perse

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Content [i'ortionr> of fa::'!: '.n "rer.c' l. diiivei'alty of fo u tfar!; C a l i f o r n i a , f 1 . '. , 1-71 Lan^uare and f i t c iv r tu r c , ii.oclorn University Microfilms, A X ERO X Company , Ann Arbor. Michigan Copyright © by RICHARD OWEN ABEL 1971 THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE POETRY OF T. S. ELIOT AND SAINT-JOHN PERSE by Richard Owen Abe I A D is s e r ta tio n Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fu lfillm ent of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Comparative Literature) August 1970 UNIVERSITY O F SO U T H E R N CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCH O O L UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES. CA LIFO RN IA 9 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, written by R I C H A r o . . OWEN. ABEL......................... under the direction of h . D i s s e r t a t i o n C om mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by The G radu ate School, in partial fulfillment of require ments of the degree of D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y T r i Dean D ate A u gust,.. 1.9.70 DISSERTATION COMMITTEE To my parents who i nsti I led in me at an early age the desire and endurance to complete t h i s study TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I. INTRODUCTION: PERSPECTIVE AND METHOD II. PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP ...................................... III. PERSE TRANSLATION: "THE HOLLO.V MEN I" IV. ELIOT TRANSLATION: ANABASE ...................... V. MUTUAL LITERARY INDEBTEDNESS . . . . VI. CONCLUSION...................................................................... BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................... CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: PERSPECTIVE AND METHOD T-he r e la tio n s h ip between the contemporaries T. S. E liot and Saint-John Perse (Marie-Rend Alexis Saint-Leger Leger) should naturally a t t r a c t the student of Comparative Literature because of their reputation as poets and because of the scholarly problems it r a i s e s . T. S. Eliot b u ilt a reputation for himself as a c r i t i c , a dramatist, an editor ( Cr i ter i on. 1922-1939), a publisher (Faber and Faber), and, most important, a poet. He is generally considered the most in flu e n tia l figure in Anglo-American poetry of the last one hundred years, and, with William Butler Yeats, the most s u c c e s s f u l . Prior to 1940, Alexis Leger devoted him s e l f e n e r g e t ic a ll y to a diplomatic career with the French government: a foreign servic e o f f i c e r from 1914- to 1924, he became the chef de cabi net of A ristid e Briand (1925- 1932) and then Secrdtai re GgngraI des Affai res £trangferes ( 1933 — 1940). Since 1940, however, he has devoted him self largely to poetry under the name of Saint-John Perse. Generally, Perse is considered, with Paul Valery, the best of twentieth-century poets writing in French. E lio t and Perse both have won the Nobel Prize for Literature: E lio t in 1948, Perse in I960. One would expect the two men, then, to be linked primarily as poets; and that is p recise ly the 2 c a s e . Yet one could hardly ask for two poets more opposed in their a ttitu d e s toward the human condition. Eliot is a cau stic c r i t i c of the modern world, a bold anti-hum anist, a p o l i t i c a l conservative, an a s c e t i c , a man t r a g i c a l l y con cerned with su ffe rin g and u ltim ately deeply Christian in hi s convi cti ons. To Carthage then I came Burning burning burning burning 0 Lord Thou pluckest me out 0 Lord Thou pluckest burni ng1 W e are the hollow men W e are the stuffed men Leani ng together 2 Headpiece f i l l e d with straw. Alasi Perse, on the other hand, is an a r i s t o c r a t i c humanist, a diplomat and adventurer, a shaman giving voice to the poly phony of l i f e and praising as unity the l i f e of the sen ses, the. mind, and the s p i r i t , a man accepting man's f a i l i n g s while celeb ra tin g his dreams and accomplishments. J'honore Ies vivants, j 'a i grace parmi vous.^ *T. 3. E li o t . The Waste Land. I ll ("The Fire Sermon"). I 1. 307-31 I. 2T. S. E li o t , The Ho I I ow Men, I_, II. 1-4. ^Saint-John Perse, "Chanson du Pr£somtif," I. I. ha I toutes s ortes d'hommes dans leurs voies / e t fa9ons. . . . ^ Despite these pronounced d i f f e r e n c e s , however, their own work is linked curiously through the t r a n s la tio n s they once made of one another's poetry. Thus, th eir r e l a tio n s h i p seems one of the more f a s c in a tin g anomalies in tw en tieth - century li t e r a t u r e . To explain t h i s conjunction of op p o s it e s would be perhaps the most s a t i s f y i n g r e s u lt of th is study. The fundamental basis for the re la tio n s h ip between E li o t and Perse can be documented c le a r ly and c o n c i s e l y . The concrete evidence of the r e la tio n s h ip that bulks largest is the t r a n s la tio n s they each made of one another's work. F i r s t , ch ro n o lo g ica lly , comes Perse's French "adap tation" of the opening s e c tio n of E l i o t ' s "The Hollow Men" in the third issue of Commerce, very early in 19 2 5 . ^ Both the English and French t e x t s are printed en regard, the English te x t for the f i r s t time anywhere.^ in 1928, E lio t ^Saint-John Perse, Anabase. X. 5t . S. E l i o t , "Pofcme," adpt. St.-J. Perse, Commerce. I ll (hiver, 1924), pp. f 9 - I I J . ^Commerce seems to have been one o f the f i r s t twenti eth-ceritury literary p e r io d ic a ls to i n s i s t on b i lingual printin gs of poetry in i t s pages: one in the original language, the other in the French language of i t s ed i to r s . | published in his own Month Iy C riterion an English t r a n s l a - ’ i tion e n t i t l e d "From 'Anabase' by S t . - J . Perse," actu ally 7 Canto I of the French o r i g i n a l . Then, in 1930, E liot published in England a complete t r a n s la tio n of Anabase. ! Q with the French te x t appearing on the opposite page. A : j short preface by the tran slator is printed as an introduc- j i ; tion to the poem. In 1938, E lio t revised the original j t r a n s la t io n s l i g h t l y and published it as the f i r s t American; e d i t i o n . 9 Eleven years later, he revised th is ed itio n and issued it as the second American e d iti o n with a new pref- i a c e . F i n a l l y , in 1959, he allowed a fourth e d it i o n of ^T. S. E l i o t , "From 'Anabase' by St. J. Perse," The Monthly C r i t e r i o n . VII, ii (February, 1928), pp. 13 7 - 138. Only the English tr a n s la t io n is printed here. ®Saint-John Perse, Anabasi s . trans. T. S. E l i o t , London: Faber & Faber, 1930. According to Arthur Knodel, , it was Perse who f i r s t i n s i s t e d on printing the French and i English t e x t s en regard. E lio t w i l l i n g l y a g r e e d , a n d the j d ecisio n may wiTl have been written into the publishing | ; contract, for the subsequent e d it i o n s of Anabasi s are al I j ! printed t h is way. I ; ^Saint-John Perse, Anabasi s . tran s. T. S. E l i o t , 2nd ed., New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1938. The preface to the f i r s t e d itio n is printed in fu ll for t h is , " fir s t American e d itio n ," except for the very last sen- ; tence. I I i i ^ S ain t-Joh n Perse, Anabas i s . trans. T. S. E l i o t , 3rd | ed., New York: Harcourt"! Brace, and Company, 194-9. This ; "second American edition" includes in an appendix three j essays on the poem by Lucien Fabre, Valery Larbaud, and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, in English t r a n s la t io n . The preface; ! to the f i r s t e d it i o n precedes the new preface for t h i s j particular e d i t i o n . ! 5 I IAnabase to be released in England, adding a c r y p tic p ref- ! atory note giving the author himself (Perse) credit for j changes in the English t e x t . 11 i i I Elsewhere than in the prefaces to his tr a n s la tio n s of , i IAnabase. Eliot has remarked several times on his r e l a t i o n - j I i j ship to the French poet. The most revealing document prob- lably is the l e t t e r he wrote to Jean Paulhan for the special i I 2 i Cah i ers de I a PI£i ade hommage to Saint-John Perse in 1950. In t h i s le tte r he e x p l i c i t l y acknowledges an indebtedness I i to Perse's poetry, notably the Anabase he had troubled to ! t r a n s l a t e . j . . . i t s C Anabase J influence appears in some j of the poems which I wrote afte r completing t h i s j i tr a n s la tio n : influence of the imagery and per- j haps of the rhythm. C r i t i c s of my later work I may find that t h i s influence s t i l l p e r s i s t s . *3 **Saint-John Perse, Anabasi s . trans. T. S. E l i o t , 4th ed. London: Faber & Faber, 1959. To the t e x t s of the I 1949 e d itio n are added a tr a n s la t io n of an essay by 1 Giuseppe Ungaretti and a last b r i e f preface by E li o t , l2 T. S. E l i o t , "Un feui I let unique," Saint-John P e r s e : Hommage Internat i onaI des 'Cah i ers de I a PI6i a d e1 fPari s , £t£-automne, 1950J, pp. 7-8. . . on voit son influence dans quelques-uns des pofemes que j ' ^ c r i v i s apr^s avoir achev£ la traduction: influence des images et peu t-etre aussi du rythme. Ceux qui examineront mon derniers ouvrages trouveront peut- § t r e que c e t t e influence p e r s i s t e toujours." Ibid.. p. 8. ^The other published document which bears on th e ir r e l a t i o n - j ship is a l e t t e r from E liot to Leger, dated 15 janvier 1927, I 4 printed in Gallimard's Honneur 5 Saint-John Perse in I9°5. i ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------j ;This le tte r deals s o le ly with E l i o t ' s tr a n s la tio n of I ! | ;Anabase. As yet, there is no published document by Saint - | i I John Perse on his r e l a t i o n s h i p with the English poet. 1 j ' Recently, s e v e r a l new pieces of information about j iAnabase and i t s English t r a n s la tio n have come to my a tte n - j tion which add considerably, I think, to one's understand ing of the original text and the rela tio n s h ip between Perse and E l i o t . The most s i g n i f i c a n t of these is the Bodleian |L ibr a ry ’s f i r s t - d r a f t typ escrip t of E l i o t ' s tr a n s la tio n , (completed at least by January, 1927), which Perse himself read and corrected ex t e n s i v e I y . *J Since the f i r s t ed ition I of the Anabasis tr a n s la tio n d i f f e r s greatly from the f i r s t i ---------------- | d r af t at c e r t a i n points, t h i s document is extremely valu- i able in evaluating E l i o t ' s work. Also, thi s ty p e sc r i p t *^T. S. E l io t, "Lettre & Saint-Leger Leg er ,” Honneur I £ Saint-John Perse (Paris: Gallimard, 1965), p. 419. '^Bodleian Library M -3. Don. C. 23/2. I am greatly in debted to Grover C. Smith who informed me of the existen ce of th is ty p e s c r ip t and of P erse's emendations and sug g es tio n s on i t . The typ escrip t includes 29 leaves, all 8 x 10; evidently other leaves once preceded the t r a n s la t io n , for the t i t l e page was f i r s t numbered 8 and the last page I 35. At the bottom left-hand corner of the t i t l e page are I the following words in pen: "From T. S. E li o t , 7 Jan., j 1931." I wish to thank Mrs. Valerie E lio t and the author- i itie*s of the Bodleian Library for permission to consult jjthi s manuscri p t . 7 contains several important notes by Perse about the meaning of Anabase and also about his own poetic methods.*0 The second document is a le t t e r to Professor Arthur Knodel from aclose friend of Saint-John Perse, Katherine Chap in, widow of the late Francis B i d d l e . j h e l e t t e r summarizes a con v ersation that Miss Chapin had early in 1967 with Perse about his r e l a t i o n s h i p to El io t, es peci ally with regard to the Anabasi s t r a n s l a t i o n . As the only statement in writing on P er s e' s a t t i t u d e towards his English t r a n s l a t o r , t h i s l e t t e r is indispensable to my study. It is clear from t h i s evidence tha t the E li o t- P er s e r e l a t i o n s h i p defines i t s e l f along two lines: t r a n s l a t i o n and l i t e r a r y indebtedness. If the conjunction of the two poets is to make sense in i t s e l f and in the larger context of tw entieth-century l i t e r a t u r e , it must be found here. Relevant l i t e r a r y c r i t i c i s m and li t e r a r y theory, like volumes of maps, give the inquiring student a framework in which to work, a landscape to challenge and change, and tools to adapt and use. So as not to set o ff half-cocked on t h i s study of t r a n s l a t i o n s and li te r a r y indebtedness, it *^The French p o e t 's beautiful calligraphy is a b l e s s ing to the scholar s tr a i n in g to decipher manuscript t e x t s , much as his friend Igor Strav in sky 's manuscript calligr ap hy is a blessing to h i s t o r i a n s of music. *"^1 am indebted to Arthur Knodel for allowing the r e production o f passages from th is l e t t e r . See Chapter II, foo t n ote I. would be wise to consult the c r i t i c i s m published on Eliot and Perse in order to se le c t and evaluate those a r t i c l e s and pieces which do say something relevant about t h e ir r e lationship. It would also be helpful to define b r ie f ly one's terms and the methodology used in such a comparative s tud y. To date, the c r i t i c i s m on Eliot is s i g n i f i c a n t l y greater than that on Perse, both in quantity and qual ity , for the simple reason that Elio t has been much more widely read both in English and in other European languages, and for a much longer time, than has Perse. The French poet, it is generally conceded, is read more outside his own country and is s t i l l chara cterized as an enigmatic poet-- I 8 misleadingly, an obscure p oet--for the se le c t few. The same "handle" was hung on E l io t at f i r s t because he d e l i b erat ely used l i t e r a r y al l u s i o n and outright quotation s t r u c t u r a l l y in his poems and because his st yl e was d e l i b era te ly fragmented. Elaborate exegesis has made Elio t famili ar now even to the lay reader; the same may happen to Perse. Then, too, E l io t ceased publishing poetry dur ing World War II, while most of Perse's published work has I 9 appeared since tha t time. ( P t Arthur Knodel, Sa i nt-John Perse : A Study of h i s Poetry (Edinburqh: Edinburgh University Press. Ip5c) . dd 6- 7. ^Exce pt for a few occasional poems Eliot has pub- l i s hed no poetry a f t e r the Four Quartets (1942). Nor do r — " * " sj I ; The canon of Elio t c r i t i c i s m has reached enormous pro- i ! iportions, but it can s t i l l be divided into d e f i n i t e ap- iproaches to his work. These can best be described as I ) his innovations in s t y l e and s t r u c t u r e ; 20 2 ) h is use of ! p I j l i t e r a r y t r a d i t i o n s , including sources; 3 ) his ideas Op about l i t e r a r y c r i t i c i s m and l i t e r a t u r e ; 4) his p h i l o sophical and r e l i g i o u s b e l i e f s ; 2-^ 5 ) his r e f l e c t i o n of the there seem to be any unpublished poems extant, for in an i ntervi ew with Dona Id Ha I I C W r i t e r s at Work: The Par is Rev i ew Intervi ews. Second Seri es ( NewTork ; V i k~i rig j 1965), ; pp. 8 9 - NO ] E lio t claimed that he had written nothing in the way of poetry since that time. In the case of Perse, j h is refusal to publish any work after Anabase (1924) and the revised edition of £ Ioges ( 1925)— a dec!si on he imposed! on himself because of his diplomatic career— and the seizure and presumed destruction of as many as seven manuscripts by i the Germans when they invaded Paris made his return to poetry in the I940's even more spectacular. Since 1942, he has published some eight book-length poems, the longest run-* ning more than one hundred pages. 20Harvey Gross, "T. S. Eliot and the Music of h is j Poetry," Sound and Form i n Modern Poetry. Ann Arbor: Uni vers ity o f M i chi gan Press, 1964. V ~. 6. Matthi essen, The Ach i evement of T. S. Eli o t . 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford U n i - | iversity Press, 1959. 2 l Grover C. Smith, T. S. Eli ot * s Poetry and P l a y s : A Study jn Sources and Meaning. 2nd ed., Chicago: Uni versiTyj of Chicago Press, 196^! Herbert Howarth, Notes on Some Fig-i ures Behi nd T. S. EI i o t . Boston: Houghton, M i* f f I i n~ i"564. 22Victor Brombert, The Cri ti ci sm of T. S. E I i o t : Probjems of an "Impersonal TFTeory o f~ P o e tF y . ir New Haven: IYaIe Uni versTTy Press, r$49" Fei-pai Lu, T. S. Eli o t : the j !Di a Iect i caI Structure of hi s Concept o f Poetry. Chi c a g o : | iUniversity of Chicago Press, I9&6. j 23Kristian Smidt, Poetry and Be Ii ef in the Work o f It. S. E I i o t . rev. ed., London: Chatto, 19^6. Genesius ! Jones, Approach to the Purpose: A Study of the Poetry of S 10 social and metaphysical climate a f t e r World War I; and 6) the e x p l ic a t io n o f individual poems. ^ Only E l i o t ' s use! of autobiographicaI det ail is s u b s t a n t i a l l y lacking. When the Eli ot biography appears, there is l i t t l e doubt that i t s relevance to the poetry will be immense. Of these approaches only one is of immediate importance to t h i s j study: that is the study of E l i o t ' s use of l i t e r a r y s sources. The study of innovations in sty le and s t r u c t u r e and the expl ica ti on of individual poems, too, come within the scope of a study of the E li ot- P ers e r e l a t i o n s h i p ; but they may be more easil y taken singly in the main body of T. S. El i o t (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966). Elizabeth Drew, T. 3. E l i o t : The D e s ign of Hi s Poetry (New York: S c r i b n e r ' s , 194-9 ). 2^Jay Marti n, ed. A Co I Iect i on of C r it ic a l Essays on "The Waste Land" (Englewood C l i f f s : Prentice-HaI I , I965"T< 25B esides Grover C. Smith's book, see Hugh Kenner, The Inv isibl e P o e t : J. S, Eliot (New York: Ivan Obolensky, Inc., 1959; Helen Gardner. The Art of T. S. E l io t (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1959); George Williamson, Reader' s Guide to T. S. E l io t (New York: Noonday, 1957); and Philip Headings, T. S_. El i o t . TUAS 57 (New York: Twayne, 1964). 26out of natural d is c r e t io n , most c r i t i c s of E l i o t ' s work have refrai ned from in t e r p r e t i n g his poetry and/or plays in light of his tr a g i c marriage to Vivien Haightwoodj Yet there can be l i t t l e doubt that his w if e ' s i l l n e s s , and the demands it made upon him, is often central to his much; disguised suffering; and it is t h i s suff eri ng which became; the impetus for some of his gr ea te s t work. Once the f a c t s ' of his marriage and i t s consequences are fully revealed, few people will dispute the contention that Elio t was a I deeply tr a g i c figure. 11 the study. El iot has not been r e l u c t a n t to acknowledge his debt to those men whose work has so impressed him as to influence his own. Among prose w r ite r s he has spoken at one time or another of F. H. Bradley, Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, Charles Maurras, and Remy de Gourmont. But these remain outside the c i r c l e of the present study. Of the poets who impressed him, E l io t has frankly admitted his debt to some of the French poets of the late nineteenth c e n t u r y . A m o n g the f i r s t c r i t i c s to seize on E l i o t ' s r e l a t i o n to French poetry was Rend Taupin in his pioneering study, L' Influence du Symbo I i sme Franca i s sur I a Pods i e Arndr i ca i ne. de I 9 10 £ I 920 (1929). Taupin sees two forces working on E l i o t ' s poetry: the poetry of the Elizabethans and that of the French Sym b o l i s t s . Although he discusses b r ie f l y the impact of Baudelaire, Corbi&re, Apollinaire (erroneously), and even Remy de Gourmont; Taupin s t r e s s e s above a l l , and documents most f u l l y and ca r e fu l ly , the influence of Jules Laforgue. Taupin's ana ly sis has been both challenged and confirmed,28 ^ R e f e r e n c e s to these French poets can be found in E l i o t ' s "Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry" (The Turbull Lectures delivered at Johns Hopkins University, January, 1933) C unpublished J , Houghton Library MS Am 1261; and "To C r i t i c i z e the C r i t i c (1981)," To_ Cr 11 j c i ze the Cr i t i c ( New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux’) 1965), pp. 21-33. ?8 M.-J. J. Laboulle, "T. 3. Eliot and Some French P o e t s , " Revue de 1i t t d r a t u r e comparde. XVI (ju I i — septembre, I93<oJ, PP. 3 8 9 -9 9 ; Warren Ramsey. J u le s Laforgue and the Ironic I n fl u e n c e . New York: Oxford UniversTTy P r e s s , 1953. 12 but it was Edward J. H. Greene in his T_. 3_. El iot et I a France ( I 9 I3I) who f i n a l l y attempted a comprehensive study of French influences at work on E l i o t , both in his poetry and his prose. Greene, too, s tr e s s e s the impact of Laforgue on El io t, but he gives added weight to that of Baudelaire (and th a t of Dante), p a r t i c u l a r l y on the poems a f t e r "Geront i on." Two other books are notable in t h i s context, since they attempt a comprehensive study of all major influences on E l i o t ' s poetry. The f i r s t of these is Herbert Howarth's Notes on Some Figures behind T. S. Eliot ( 1964). Howarth organizes his book chr onologically, but his period divisi ons overlap so frequently as to make his work both r e p e t i t i v e and fragmentary. Also, his purpose in demonstrating and hypothesizing influences is not always clear or co ns is te n t. The book's t i t l e and the a u t h o r ’s disclaimer in the preface make t h i s e x p l i c i t from the s t a r t . ^9 The second, and much more successful, of the two books is Grover C. Smith's fine I* 2. E l i o t ' s Poetry and P l a y s : A Study i n Sources and Meani ng ( i 9 6 0). Smith's study succeeds because he uncovers ana proves sources for the expressed purpose of explicating individual poems. He, too, arranges his book chronological ly, but in terms of individual poems, not, as Howarth does, 29"$ome years ago. . . I t r i e d to persuade Edward L. Mayo to write a book about T. S. E l io t. . . . In place of the work we imagined. . . I only off er these t e n t a t i v e notes and sketc he s." Herbert Howarth, Notes on Some Figures be- h 'nd T. S. El i o t , p . ,’x . -------------------------------- --------------- 13 in terms of general periods and kinds of sources. And Smith confines himself largely to li te r a r y sources. Turning to the Perse c r i t i c i s m , one is struck by i t s seeming formlessness and lack of d ir ec ti o n . Many c r i t i c s seem s t i l l at the stage of apprehending t e n t a t i v e l y the i meaning of’ his poems. Consequently, current studies con tinue to grapple with Per se 's work mainly in terms of his s ty le (imagery, rhythm) and rec urrent ideas or themes.30 As yet, there has been l i t t l e or no work on the sources for Pe rs e' s p o e t r y , 3* nor has anyone chosen to trace his in fluence on French and other poets. Similarly, no one has studied the re l a t i o n s h i p between the fa ct s of his own life and his c h a r a c t e r i s t i c a l l y impersonal poetry. F in al ly , but for one exception, no c r i t i c has attempted to study the whole corpus of Per se 's work, expl ica ti ng each of the poems and es t a b l i s h i n g t h e i r cont inu it y. However, there are two c r i t i c a l works of true s c h o l a r ship on Perse which eventually prove indispensable to the present study as reference sources. The f i r s t is Roger 3°See Albert Loranquin, Sai nt-John Perse (Paris: Gallimard, 1963); Pierr Guerre, Saint-John Perse et I'Homme Paris: Gallimard, 1933; and Mauri ce SaiI Iet, SaTnt-John P e r s e . Po&te de G I o i r e . Paris : Mercure de France^ F952 ! ^Monique Parent makes an abortive attempt in Sa i n t - John Perse et queIques devanc i ers : Etudes sur I a pokme en prose (Pari s : 1960)’. i4 Cai I I oi s 1 La_ Pogt i que de S t . - John Perse ( I 95^). In a thorough and we I I-documented manner, C a i l l o i s analyzes the language of P e r s e ’s poetry, with p a r t i c u l a r emphasis on poetic techniques. This includes his di c ti on , imagery, grammatical preferences, and rhythmic devices. C a i l l o i s i also makes an attempt to explain the s tru ct ur al f e a t u r e s of his poetry. The second work is Arthur Knodel's Sa i nt-John I P e r s e : A Study of hi s Poetry ( 1966), probably the best single book on Perse. Knodel devotes a full chapter to Pe rs e' s po et ic s , a chapter to each of his published volumes, and some a t t e n t i o n to his biography as it r e l a t e s to his role as a poet. It is the only work of c r i t i c i s m on Perse to offer perceptive i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s of all his published p o e t r y . Two other books in the Perse bibliography deserve men tion because of t h e i r special character and because they contain documents ess ent ia l to th i s study. Saint-John Perse has been included, as have several other modern French w r i t e r s , in the two well-known c r i t i c a l s e r i e s published in France, "Po&tes d 1 au jourd ' hu i " and "La Biblioth&que Id6ale": Alain Bosquet, ed., Sai nt-John Perse (Paris: Pierre Seghers, 1956); and Jacques Charpier, ed., Sai nt-John Perse (Paris: 70 Gallimard, 1962). Furthermore, he has been honored by ^^Charpier's book is the much more useful of the two; it includes a d et ail ed biographical chronology, an extensive bibliography, and a number of informative essays. > 15 two unusual c o l l e c t i o n s . The e a r l i e s t is one of a se rie s of "hommages" which a f t e r ;Vorld War II were published by Les Cah i ers de I a PI £ i a d e . It is devoted e n t ir e ly to Perse and includes personal t r i b u t e s , a r t i c l e s on his poems, a new poetic fragment (from Amer s ), and s el ec ti o ns from his prose addresses. ^ The second, Gallimard's Honneu r Sa i n t -y John Perse (1955), is even more unusual and in t e r e s t i n g . This imposing volume of 82 1 pages c o n s is ts of the most ex tensive c o l l e c t i o n of a r t i c l e s ever published on Perse (per sonal t r i b u t e s , a r t i c l e s and documents relevant to single poems, a r t i c l e s on his poetics) and a valuable s e l e c t i o n of public and private documents on his diplomatic care er. It even includes, in t h e ir original format, the a r t i c l e s and t r i b u t e s for Saint-John Perse which appeared in the special i ssue of Les Cah iers de I a PI£i ade. A number of pi eces relevan t to Anabase in this volume have not yet affected the poem's c r i t i c a l understanding, es peci ally in the United States. Of all the c r i t i c a l writings on T. S. Eliot and Saint- John Perse, only one deals exclusively with the r e l a t i o n ship between the two poets. That one is C. E. Nelson's "Saint-John Perse and T. S. E l i o t , " an a r t i c l e which 33 Saint-John P e r s e : Hommage In te rn a t i onaI des "Cahiers d e I a P I € i ade " (Paris, 6t£-automne~ 1956 ). See footnote f2. 16 appeared in Western Human i t i e s Rev i ew ( I 963 ) . ^ Miss Nelson's a r t i c l e begins os ten sib ly as an attempt to furth er the app re c ia ti on of Perse in English. . . . if he C Perse J is to be more widely ap preciated in t h i s country, his poetry — so unlike anything in our contemporary t r a d i t i o n — must be seen in a larger frame and must be placed in r e l a t i o n s h i p to some point of reference that is av ai la b l e to us. Nothing could be more s e r v i c e able in t h i s respect than the work of T. S. E I i o t . 3 5 By the time she concludes, however, her focus has sh ift ed to a comparison of the two poets. . . . L her study J is an attempt to turn to c r i t i c a l advantage the coincidental conjunet ion of two major poets who to a large extent tr ea te d the same subject but as agents of d i f f e r e n t in t e l l e c t u a l and a r t i s t i c temperaments, and an a t tempt by comparison and cont ras t to see them more c l e a r ly in r e l a t i o n to each other and to the p a r t i c u l a r kind of moral t e r r o r that c h a r a c t e r izes our ti me.36 Nelson ac t u a ll y covers several points of the r e l a t i o n s h i p between E l io t and Perse. She spends some time on E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase ( i t s f a i t h f u l n e s s to the o r i g i n a l , i t s qua lity compared to others of P er s e' s t r a n s l a t e d poems, and i t s role in crea ting Pe rs e' s Anglo-American reputation), E. Nelson, "Saint-John Perse and T. 3. E l i o t , " Western Humanities Review. XVII, 2 (Spring, 19 6 3), pp. 163-171. 35 \ bid . , p. 16 3. 3 6 Ibi d . . pp. 170-171. 17 but she a I so discusses the philosophical a t t i t u d e s and poetic techniques of the two poets. Only in c id en ta ll y does she suggest several instances of l i te r a r y influence (Perse on E l i o t ' s "Choruses from The Rock"), and she does not trouble to document them. The a r t i c l e is short, and Nelson handles the subject with neither thoroughness nor d i s t i n c t i o n . In evidencing the two poets' r e l a t i o n s h i p , ! however, she does c i t e E l i o t ' s statement of l i t e r a r y in debtedness to P e r s e , 57 the f i r s t and only c r i t i c to do so. Later chapters of t h i s ' s t u d y evaluate Nelson's a r t i c l e s p e c i f i c a l l y and in greater d e t a i l . In the c r i t i c i s m devoted exclusively to T. 3. El io t, only four works make s i g n i f i c a n t comments on the r e l a t i o n ship between E l io t and Perse. F i r s t comes an a r t i c l e by Vincent Cronin, "T. S. Eliot as a Trans I a t o r . Although he includes a b r ie f biography of Perse and c r i t i c a l com ments on Ana base, Cronin emphasizes E l i o t ' s role in t r a n s lating the poem, recognizing i t s merit, and then bringing off a successful t r a n s l a t i o n . He is the f i r s t c r i t i c to note E l i o t ' s improvements on the poem and to c r i t i c i z e his 37Ibi d. , p. 163. 3®Vincent Cronin, ,"T. S. Elio t as a T r a n s la to r ," T. S. El i o t : A Sympos iurn for hi s Sevent i eth Bi r t h d a y . ed. TCevTlle Braybrooke (New York, 195&), pp. 129-137. 18 shortcomings. Cronin also adds a final paragraph in which he points to two areas of P e r s e ' s influence on E l i o t : one a sp eci fi c sequence of imagery in "Journey of the Magi"; the other, a general change in s ty le . The second work is Edward J. H. Greene's T. S_. El iot et I a Franc e , previously cited. In his lengthy study of French influence on the early poems of El iot , Greene de votes but a paragraph to the influence of Saint-John Perse Instead of pursuing the subject f u r th e r , he busies himself with developing the influence of Baudelaire and Mallarm£ on E l i o t ' s poetry a f t e r The Waste Land. The only concrete evidence Greene perceives of P er s e' s influence occurs in "Journey of the Magi," in it s imagery drawn from Anabase. Greene makes the ambiguous claim that Eliot himself drew a t t e n t i o n to the influence in t h i s poem,-^ and Cronin as sumes t h i s statement is factual in his later a r t i c l e . Greene also suggests th a t the imagery of other poems of thi s period by Eliot bear traces of Pers e's work, but he does not develop the idea. The th ir d work is Grover C. Smith's _T. S3. El i o t ' s Poetry and PI a y s : A Study i n Sources and Meaning. Smi th excludes E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase from his study, 39Edward J. H. Greene, T. S. El iot et la France (Pari s, 1951 ), p. 136, n. I. 19 except to mention it in a sentence while discussing "Jour ney of the Magi." Two statements, however, are made about the sp ec ifi c influence of Anabase on E l i o t ' s own work. The f i r s t is a general reference to the impact of Anabase' s desert s e t t i n g on "Journey of the Magi." The second is more s p e c i f i c , but equally undocumented: phrases from Anabase, IV appear in E l i o t ' s "Triumphal March" from his unfinished C o r i o I a n. The fourth work is Howarth's Notes on Some Fi qures behi nd T. 3_. El i o t . Like Smith, Howarth pays scant a t te n ti o n to E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase. Instead he speaks marginally of the p o s s i b i l i t y of Pe rs e' s influence. The f i r s t note comes as Howarth t r i e s to prove that the French poet Paul Claudel's rhythmic phrasing and h i s " p i c t o - rial or gan ization" helped shape that of E l i o t . ^0 He sug gests, r a th e r i I logically, that Perse is merely a medium for Claudel's influence, since Perse (he assumes errone ously) had imitated Claudel. The other note pr ais es the image of the sea wind which concludes "East Coker, I," as a blend of Perse and Tennyson. Only the knowing reader can see that Howarth means P er s e' s Anabase as the source. Howarth's study, like Greene's, is es peci ally d is a p p o i n t ing from t h i s st u d y 's vantage point since he seems to ^Ho w art h, Notes on Some Fi gures behi nd T. S. El i o t ,p. 166. 20 propose an extensive treatment of E l i o t ’s sources. To ex clude the one poet whose work Eliot chose to t r a n s l a t e and then continuously revise implies a serious lack of simple scholarly i nqu i r y . Those books and a r t i c l e s dealing with the poetry of Saint-John Perse seem as l i t t l e inclined as those on Eliot to discuss the French p o e t 's r e l a t i o n s h i p to his Anglo- American contemporary. A notable exception is the book by Arthur Knodel. E l i o t ' s name crops up repeatedly throughout t h i s work, but Knodel seems to focus on two points of the El io t- P er s e r e l a t i o n s h i p . The f i r s t is E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase. Knodel is most in te re s te d, largely favorably, in E l i o t ' s c r i t i c a l comments on the poem, but he does take E l io t to task ( in c i d e n t a l l y ) on a couple of matters of t r a n s l a t i o n . The second point of the r e l a t i o n s h i p is E l i o t ' s influence on Perse. Knodel documents the possible source for "hommes de p a i l l e " in Vents, I_ 094-6) as E l i o t ' s "The Hoi low Men, I," which Perse had t r a n s l a t e d in 1924. And, i n t e r e s t i n g l y enough, he suggests t h a t PIu i e s (1943) may be an answer to E l i o t ' s asceticism as expressed in The Waste Land. P er s e' s influence on Eliot is confined in Knodel's study to a footnote on Persean imagery in, e . g . , "Journey of the Magi." The only other c r i t i c a l piece on Saint-John Perse which mentions T. S. E l io t in any way is Kathleen Raine's 21 review a r t i c l e , "St.-John P er s e' s Birds," published in the newly revived Southern Rev i ew.^ * Most of the a r t i c l e is devoted to a short c r i t i q u e of the poem and an evaluation of Robert F i t z g e r a l d ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of Oi seaux (1963) into English. But in comparing F i t z g e r a l d ' s e f f o r t with that of Eliot on Anabase. Miss Raine c r i t i c i z e s E l i o t ' s r ath er s t a t i c rhythm and his ina ppropriate Biblical tone. For the f i r s t time, Perse himself is quoted in support of t h i s basic c r i t i c i s m . She also introduces an i n t e r e s t i n g d i s t i n c t i o n , made by Perse himself, between E l i o t ' s etymol ogical i n t e r e s t in words and P er s e' s own in t e r e s t in words gained from his wide experience. There are two more a r t i c l e s which focus on the Perse side of the r e l a t i o n s h i p ; both analyze Pe rs e' s t r a n s l a t i o n of E l i o t ' s short poem in Commerce. The f i r s t , Jackson Mathews' "Third Thoughts on Translating Poetry," has as it s over-all theme the p r i n c i p l e s and problems of t r a n s l a t i n g 42 poetry. For the purpose of exemplifying a t r a n s l a t i o n ' s Kathleen Raine, "St.-John Pe rs e' s Bi r d s . " Southern Rev i ew (Winter, 1967), pp. 255-261. She repeats her remarks with s l i g h t dif fe r e nc es in " S t . - J . Perse: Poet of the Marvellous," Encounter. XXIX, 4 (October, 1967), pp. 51-61. 4? ^Jackson Mathews, "Third Thoughts on Translating Poetry," On Trans Iati on. ed. Reuben Brower (Cambridge: Harvard Uni vers i ty Press, 1959), pp. 6 7 -7 7 . 22 f a i t h f u l n e s s to the original text, the t r a n s l a t o r ' s own voice and invention, and some reasons for m i st r a n s la t io n ; Mathews attempts in the space of about two pages a close c r i t i c a l evaluation of Pe rs e' s "adaptation" of E l i o t ' s "The Hollow Men, I." He concludes that the "transI ation is admi r a b l e , " but acknowledges that it is " l i t t l e known." In the second a r t i c l e , "Quand T. 3. Elio t par I e Perse," Monde Nouveau-Paru, Pierre Leyris examines the problems inherent in t r a n s l a t i n g E l i o t ' s poem into French and then c r i t i c i z e s 43> Per se 's "adaptation" for not solving them s a t i s f a c t o r i l y . Appended to the a r t i c l e is L e y r i s ' s own t r a n s l a t i o n of the poem which, unfortunately, improves very l i t t l e on that of Perse. The c r i t i c a l writings ju s t cit ed confirm, then, that the r e la ti o n s h ip between Eliot and Perse takes two basic forms: th e ir t r a n s l a t i o n s of one ano th er' s work and thei r mutual li te r a r y indebtedness. At the same time they raise several problems, sketchily stated and sketchily answered. The f i r s t problem deals with evaluating each t r a n s l a t i o n ’s f a i t h f u l n e s s to the original te x t, it s innovative or mis taken changes, and i t s success f i r s t as a text in i t s e l f and then in comparison to others of the same a u t h o r ' s work. ^3pjerre Leyris, "Quand T. S. Eliot parle P e r s e , ” Monde Nou veau-Paru, I2e ann£e, 96 (Janvier, I 9 5 6), pp. 7 3 -7 9 . Leyris happens to be E l i o t ' s most respected French t r a n s - I a t o r . 25 Nelson's a r t i c l e poses the second problem, which Knodel also suggests: how has each poet played a role in adding to the li t e r a r y r ep u ta tio n of the other? But most impor tan t, the c r i t i c i s m o ff er s several sp ec ifi c instances of possible and provable l i t e r a r y influence. These suggest i n i t i a l guide lines to follow as well as judgments to c h a l lenge or confirm. That few c r i t i c s have noticed any in debtedness between the two poets, of course, r a is e s the crucial question of whether t h i s alleged l i te r a r y indebted ness has any si g ni f i ca n ce . One may ask if the present study can demonstrate that sig n ifi ca n ce conclusively, say, in comparison with the w el l -e st ab li sh e d influence of Jules Laforgue on El io t. Finally, some o f the a r t i c l e s and books reveal that the two poets were cognizant not only of one an o th er 's poetry, but of one an ot he r' s concept of poetry, poetic method, and individual temperament. Whether one defines trans I at i on fi?om the viewpoint of the li ng ui st or the li t e r a r y c r i t i c , one generally finds agreement on two central points. To Eugene Nida, "Trans lating co ns ist s in producing in the receptor language the cl o se s t natural equivalent to the message of the source language, f i r s t in meaning and secondly in s ty le . To ^Eu gen e Nida, "Bible Tr an s la ti n g, " On T r a n s l a t i o n , ed. Reuben Brower (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959), p. 19. 24 Jackson Mathews, "A whole t r a n s l a t i o n will be f ai th fu l to the m a t t e r , and it will 'approximate the form' of the o r i g i n a l . . . . Both men conceive the t r a n s l a t i o n f i r s t in r e l a t i o n to the t r a n s l a t e d text; in other words, a t r a n s l a t i o n does not ex ist independently of it s o r i g i n a l . Any study of a t r a n s l a t i o n , then, must examine the t r a n s lation and i t s original text as an integral phenomenon. This method of defining t r a n s l a t i o n seems i n f i n i t e l y more c on s tr uc ti v e, as well as i n s t r u c t i v e , in s i t u a t i n g the study of the Eliot and Perse t r a n s l a t i o n s than would an attempt to categorize the d i f f e r e n t kinds of t r a n s l a tion. It is po in t le s s to d i s t i n g u i s h between i n t e r l i n e a r , l i t e r a l , idiomatic, and free t r a n s l a t i o n s , and then d i s t i n guish these from paraphrases, r e - c r e a t i o n s , and even imi t a t i o n s , because all such d i s t i n c t i o n s depend on the r e l a tion between the t r a n s l a t i o n and the o r i g i n a l , which in turn usually depends on the purpose of the t r a n s l a t o r . In th i s case, although he knew he meant to introduce Pe rs e' s poem to th e English public, Eliot decided th a t the purpose of his t r a n s l a t i o n was ". . . only to a s s i s t the English- speaking reader who wished to approach the French t e x t . " ^ 4 5 ja c k s o n Mathews, oja. c_i_t. , p. 67. . s . E l io t, "Note to Revised E d i ti o n , " Anabas i s by Saint-John Perse, 3 rc* ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949), p. 13. H ...................................................................... — ~ " .......................................................' .........' ................... I j iSaint-John Perse, on the other hand, used the word "adapta- j ! jtion" instead of the usual term v e r s ion or even traducti on 'to describe his re ndi ti on of E l i o t ' s "The Hollow Men, I." j ; | (The term "adaptation" suggests less an i n t e r e s t in assistingl ! ithe French-speaking reader to grapple with the English text j i'than in transposing the poem completely into French, r ec r e- I ] ; Sating the poem in French, as it were. j This workinq d e f i n i t i o n of t r a n s l a t i o n , then, clarifiesj I ; several issues of methodology. Since the study of t r a n s l a - j ; t i on should focus on the r e l a t i o n s h i p between the s p ec if i c j j t r a n s la ti o n and i t s original te x t, and since no work in one j language can have an exact equivalent in another language, ! I jthe present study of the Elio t and Perse t r a n s l a t i o n s ana- j jlyzes closely ". . . I) I the 1 loss of information, 2) j C the ] addi tio n of information, and 3) C the 1 skewing of | j i j i nf ormat i on. . . . from one to the other. Such "in f o r - i jmation" includes "matter" and "form," "meaning" and " s t y l e . " i I | The purpose of a t r a n s l a t i o n study, then, is e s s e n t i a l l y twofold: I) to determine the t r a n s l a t o r ' s success in ac- icomplishing what he set out to do, and 2) to determine the i f a i t h f u l n e s s of his t r a n s l a t i o n to the original text. This second purpose also has a co ro ll ar y , in the case of E l i o t ' s four editions of his Anabasi s t r a n s l a t i o n , the added purpose of judging which of several ed i ti o ns is best f i t to be ^ N i d a , 0£. ci t . , p. 67. 1 26 ] i ; jreproduced. Of in t e re s t to the li te r ar y c r i t i c is a th i r d ! ' ! ■purpose, incorporated into th i s study, which Jackson Mathewsj adds to his d e f i n i t i o n of t r a n s l a t i o n : , , it f a t r a n s l a t i o n ] will have a life of its own, which is the voice of ; 1 A ° j the t r a n s l a t o r . " u For once he has compared t r a n s l a t i o n and; Joriginal, the student of l i t e r a t u r e must then take the trans-j i i jlation as an independent tex t in i t s new language. How does| i it stand as a li t e r a r y work of and by i t s e l f ? The question | I 1 . i deserves a t t e n t i o n because a tr a n s l a t i o n is usual ly printed j i as a separate text ( representing the o r ig i n a l) in the new ; language and because i t , rather than the original t e x t , may ; influence w r i t e r s in the new language. The study of I it er ar y indebtedness is another k e t t l e iof fis h . Such indebtedness can take the form of d i r e c t i iquotation from sp ec ifi c t e x t s , the personal influence of ! !w r i t e r s who are fr ie n ds , the use of ma terials or methods i (borrowed from another (ideas, themes, s t r u c t u r e s , s i t u a t i o n s , language, imagery, rhythmic devices), or even r e s i s t ance to a n o t h e r ' s work. The diffuseness of th i s area of i l i t e r a r y scholarship and the ease with which it deteriorates into para I IeI-hunting n e c e s s i t a t e s special c a u t i o n . ^9 ^M at th ew s , ojo. c i t . , p. 6 7. aq Ren£ Wellek and Austin Warren give several examples I of the weaknesses of p ar al le l - h un ti n g in The Theory of I L it e r a t u r e . 2nd ed. (Cleveland: Meridian, 1955), PP. 248- ! 2 W. 27 j The f i r s t problem for the student of li t e r a r y indebt- 1 edness, then, is to marshal the evidence for indebtedness to the point of conclusiveness. He can do t h i s in a ; number of ways. He can discover what he can of the w r i t e r ' s Be Iesenhei t . the books he has read, for the source os p o s sible borrowings. He can examine the overt r e fe r - i ences the writer has made about another from whose work i he may have borrowed. He can a s c e r ta i n whether the writer has translated a work from which he may have borrowed. "For the student of comparative Iiterature," Reuben Browers w rites , "the act of tr an slation is the ideal t e s t case, 50 the laboratory specimen of an influence at work."-' | i F in al ly , i . . . to be meaningful, li te r a r y indebtedness i must be manifested in an i n t r i n s i c form, upon | | or within the literary works themselves. It may be shown in s t y l e , images, characters, themes, ! mannerisms, and it may a ls o be shown in content, j thought, ideas, the general Weltanschauung pre- | sented by the particular works. Of course i t | is necessary to adduce s a t i s f a c t o r y external evidence that the hyp oth e tically influenced author couId have been influenced by the in fluen cing author. . . . But the e s s e n tia l t e s t must be within the works themseIves.5> I 50peUben Browers, "Introduction," On Trans I at i on I (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959), p^ 5. j 5*J. j . Shaw, "Literary Indebtedness and Comparative ! Literature S t u d i e s , ” Comparative L ite r a tu r e : Method and Perspective, ed. Stallknecht and Frenz (Carbonda[e: Southern 11 I i no i s University Press, 1961), pp. 66-7. 28 Ultimately, however, the student of li t e r a r y indebted ness must demonstrate the value of his evidence, for the mere fact of indebtedness may mean l i t t l e in and of i t s e l f . His success will depend on the kind of indebtedness he studies and his purpose in exploring i t . For one, say Wellek and Warren, it is the "most important preparation" for writing l i t e r a r y h i s t o r y . ^ 2 For another, says Haskell Block, the influence of one wri ter on another can provide a d i r e c t illumination of the cr ea ti ve process, and conse quently serve as a means of insight into apprehending the l i t e r a r y w o r k . ^ 3 gut most c r i t i c s agree that the ultimate purpose of the study of I it e r a r y indebtedness should be to con tribute to an understanding of the work of a r t , or the poets involved, and of the l i t e r a r y t r a d i t i o n s in which they are s i t u a t e d . J. T. Shaw puts it most suc cin ct ly: The study of d i r e c t l i t e r a r y r e l a t i o n s h i p s and li te r a r y indebtedness can be indispensabIe to understanding and evaluating the individual work of a r t , not only for placing it in the l i t e r a r y t r a d i t i o n , but also for defining what it is and what i t e s s e n t i a l l y attempts and for determining wherein it succeeds. 54- 52We I I ek and Warren, The Theory of Li t e r a t u r e . pp.?47-8. ^ H a s k e l l Block, 'The Concept of Influence in Compara ti v e L i t e r a t u r e , " Yearbook o f Genera I and Comparat ive Li t e r a t u r e . VII ( 19$B), p. 35. S4 Shaw, ojp. cj_t_. , p. 71. 29 This will be my purpose in the present study, esp eci all y with regard to the chapter on Per se 's influence on El iot . Fin al ly, t h i s study will r e f r a i n from making exag gerated claims about the sig ni fi ca nc e of the l i t e r a r y in debtedness of E l io t and Perse. I mean to r e s t r i c t that indebtedness to the context of individual poems and to p a r t i c u l a r c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s in the body of th e ir poetry. The de fe c ts of many studies of this kind L ' l i t e r ary r e l a t i o n s h i p s ] lie pr ecisely in t h e i r ig noring t h i s t r u t h : in t h e i r attempts to is o l a t e one sin gle t r a i t , they break the work of a r t into l i t t l e pieces of mosaic. The r e la ti o n s h ip s be tween two or more works of l i t e r a t u r e can be d i s cussed p r o f it ab ly only when we see them in t h e i r proper place within the scheme of li te r a r y devel opment. Relationships between works of art present a c r i t i c a l problem of comparing two wholes, two co n fig u ra tio n s not to be broken into isolated components except for preliminary s t u d y . 55 Ultimately, the purpose of the present study is ex pressed moot readily and clearly in the d iv is io ns into which it f a l l s . The next, or second, chapter documents the personal r e l a t i o n s h i p between the two poets, sketching the history of t h e i r meetings and correspondence, and ex p l ai n ing t h e i r general knowledge of one another. This section lays the groundwork for exploring the li te r a r y r e l a t i o n ship which is central to the study. The th i r d chapter analyzes P e r s e ' s "adaptation" of E l i o t ' s "The Hollow Men,I." 55yi/ellek and Warren, The Theory of L i te r a t u re , pp. 248-249. ------------------------------------------------ 30 The fourth, and longest, chapter examines E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a tion of Anabase. In i t , I explain E l i o t ' s reasons for t r a n s l a t i n g the poem and his problems during the act of t r a n s l a t i o n . The five copies of the t r a n s l a t i o n are then evaluated in r e l a t i o n to one another. The f i f t h chapter f i r s t explores E l i o t ' s and P e r s e ' s role as a t r a n s l a t o r in extending and e s ta b l is h in g one an o th er 's reputation. It, then, takes up the question of li t e r a r y indebtedness, with special emphasis given to P er s e' s influence on Eliot. Ultimately, t h i s involves me in the explication of indi v idual poems and in a limited ana ly sis of the men's poe tics. The concluding chapter evaluates the total picture of the r e l a t i o n s h i p between the two poets. CHAPTER II PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP Asked recen tly by Katherine Chapin (Mrs. Francis Biddle), "what was the re la tio n s h ip between himself and T. S. E l i o t , " Saint-John Perse rep lied that "there never was any, " 1 As Katherine Chapin added, Perse meant "a 2 personal r e l a t io n s h i p , " for he has spoken to others of his high regard for the Anglo-American poet and of their mutual f r i e n d s h i p . 3 E liot himself seems to have been of the same opinion, for his widow, Mrs. Valerie E li o t , has written Early in 1967, Katherine Chapin, in a conversation with Saint-John Perse, asked him several questions about his r e l a t io n s h i p with T. S. E li o t . In a le tte r dated April 27, 1967, she communicated her questions and Perse's r e p l i e s to Arthur Knodel of the University of Southern C aliforn ia. This short exchange began their conversa tion . The l e tt e r is highly informative, and Arthur Knodel's permission to use it here is greatly appreci ated. 2 Ibi d. 3 Arthur Knodel has informed me that Saint-John Perse remarked more than once to him personally that he con sidered E lio t a g ifte d poet and that he was pleased to enjoy h is friendship . 31 32 pr iva te ly that although "My husband never knew Mr. Leger intimately. . . . Their fr ie n ds h ip lasted until my hus- A band's death. . . ." The two men met quite a number of times during the nearly forty years of t h e ir acquaintance; however, these meetings were ir r eg ul ar and usually oc casioned by ei th e r matters of business or social functions. As far as I can t e l l , t h e i r correspondence was small and confined to questions and d e t a i l s concerning E l i o t ' s t r a n s lation of Anabase. The record of th e ir meetings and missed meetings reveals the ou tl ine of t h e ir l i t e r a r y r e l a t i o n - shi p. Both men f i r s t traveled and studied in the o t h e r ' s country (or futu re country, in E l i o t ' s case) at about the same time, in the ominous years before World War I. At Harvard University Eliot had read in 1908 Arthur Symons' The SymboIi st Movement i n L i te r a t u r e (1899) and had been struck by the poetry included in the te x t, e s p ec i al l y by that of Jules Laforgue; in 1910, a f te r taking his M. A. at Harvard University, he went to the Sorbonne in Paris, ostens ibly to continue his st udi es in philosophy. During In a l e t t e r dated July 3, 1967, Mrs. Valerie El iot very kindly rep lied to several questions I had put to her about her late husband's r e l a t i o n s h i p with Saint-John Perse. This le t t e r confirms several statements Perse makes in the l e t t e r written by Katherine Chapin to Arthur Knodel. To gether the two l e t t e r s sketch cle arl y the long as s o ci at io n between the two poets. that year in Paris (he returned to Harvard in the summer of I 9 l i ) , Eliot was tutored by A I a i n - F o u r n i e r , 0 a young writer and friend of Jacques Rivi&re, editor of the newly founded iMouvelle Revue F ra ng ais e. A I a i n-Fourn i er , as well as Rivi&re, happened also to be friends of Alexis Leger,® who had just completed his studie s at the University of Bordeaux and was embarking on a diplomatic career. In fact, Alain-Fournier v is it e d Leger in the Pyrenees late in 1911.7 Despite th i s f r a g i l e link, Eliot and Leger seem not to have met. Leger was in Paris during the early part of 1911, but he spent most of the time from 19 10 to 19 1 I in Pau with his family and in Spain studying i n d u s t r i a l , a g r i c u l t u r a l , and trade centers.® It is conceivable that AIain-Fournier may have mentioned Leger to El iot , since Leger's f i r s t volume of poetry was published tha t same 5 Grover C. Smith, T. S_. E l i o t ' s Poetry and P l a y s : A Study i n Sources and Mean i ng (Ch i cago: University of Chicago Press, 19 6 0), p. 4. °Jaques Charpier, ed., Sa i nt-John Perse (Paris: Ga I Ii mard, I 9 6 3) , p. 36. ^ I b i d . ^ Ib id . 34 year; but it is hazardous to speculate about whether they even heard one an o t h e r ' s names. One can only say, at this point, a meeting was very unlikely and the p o s s i b i l i t y of l i t e r a r y in t e r e s t even more remote. The following year Leger spent six months in England, again to study in dus tri al and commercial centers, in prep ara tion for his diplomatic ex aminations.9 But he took the time to v i s i t several prominent English writers (Joseph Conrad, G. K. Chesterton, H ila ire Belloc, Arnold Bennet, William H. Hudson, and Arthur Symons), probably on the sug gestion of his close as s o ci at es on the NRF s t a f f , Rivifere and, by then, Andr£ G i d e . 1^ A deep friendship developed quickly between Conrad and Leger, and Leger is quoted much later as remarking th a t Conrad was "the most perfect aristo c r a t and truest friend I have ever known. . . ."** But Eliot had returned to the United States at the time, to continue his studies toward a doctorate in philosophy at Harvard, and there was no chance for the two men to meet. Furthermore, a f t e r Elio t did decide to s e t t l e in London in 9 Ibi d. . p. 37. IOr k . , I b i d . * * Igor Stravi nsky and Robert Craft, Dial ogues and a Diary (Garden City: Doubleday, 1963), p~ T90. 35 1916,12 his c i r c l e of li te r a r y friends did not include the aging Conrad. From 1911 unti l 1922, the two men could not have be come acquainted personally, nor is it likely that they could have chanced on one a n ot he r' s work. Leger was as signed to Peking on a temporary mission in 1916 t h a t re- su I ted in his staying five y e a r s ; ^ meanwhile, the poetry he had published from 1909 to 191 I went largely unread in France. E l i o t ' s work, which began appearing in 1915, was not readily a v ai la b le to him. Eliot made several t r i p s to the European continent in the early 1920's (with Wyndham Lewis in the late summer of I9 2 0, !^ during which t r i p they met James Joyce i n Par is early in I 92 I; * ^ a I one i n the autumn of 19 2 1 to Lausanne, Switzerland, to recover from a nervous breakdown1^) but all occur before Leger returned 2See Smith, 0£. c i t . , p . 5 , for a brief summary of E l i o t ' s whereabouts in the f i r s t years of the war. For the reasons which led to his d ecisio n to s e t t l e in London, two of E l i o t ' s l e t t e r s to Isabella (Stewart) Gardner in 1915 provide the most accurate information. Houghton Library bMS Am 1691 (79). '3ch arpi e r , o£. c r t ., p. 39. ^Wyndham Lewis, "Early London Environment," T. S. E li o t , compiled by Richard Marsh and Tambimuttu (London, i W T , p . 30 . '^Gilbert Stuart, ed., The Letters of James Joyce ( New Ygrk: Viking, 1957), 156-7. Also, see Lewis, oj3. c i t . , p. 16 According to a packet of documents t i t l e d "Bel rathe r c i r c u i t o u s l y to Paris with Aristide Briand in 1922. From 1922 u n ti l 1924, the two men's lives seem to overlap at two points. At the same time th a t he began editing and publishing the new li te ra r y qu ar te r ly , The C r i t e r i 0 n [ I, i (October, 1922) D, Eliot took on the a s signment of co nt ri b ut i ng as a foreign edi tor to the NRF; three of his a r t i c l e s appeared in the journal from 1922 to 1923.*® Since Leger, on his retu rn to the Quai d'Orsay, had i n t en s if ie d his a s s o c ia t io n with the NRF group, ^ E s p r i t , " in the Houghton Library, Pound's story of the a f f a i r [ Time. LV, 10 (March 6 , 1950),p. 24; New York Ti mes (June 17, 1923), 111, p . 18; and D. D. Paige, ed., The Let t e r s of Ezra Pou nd (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Com pany, 1950),pp. 172- 6 ] is but h a l f true--even though unan imously accepted. In an exchange of l e t t e r s , in 1940, Henry Ware E l i o t , J r . , and Frank MorIey reveal th a t E l io t "scotched" the idea of a Bel Es pri t Fund for himself "as soon as he got wind of i t . " Also, the bank job had l i t t l e to do with E l i o t ' s nervous breakdown and consequent t r i p to Lausanne; it was his w i f e ' s mental i l l n e s s which wore him down. Houghton Library *AC9 EI464 Y922p. ^ C h a r p i e r , 0£. c i t . . p. 41. ^Donald Gallup, T. 3. E l i o t : a Bi bIiography (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 195977" pp. 87-88. '^prodded by several of his close fr iends at the NRF. Perse published Anabase. "Amitid du Printge," several oc casional poems, and a revised edi tion of EIoges. See Arthur Knodel, Sai nt-John Perse (Edinburgh"!! Ed i nburgh University Press") 1966 ), p. 3$; and Wallace Fowlie, "A Tri b ute to S t . - J . Pe rs e," P o e tr y . XCVII, 4 (January, 19 61), p. 256; for two s l i g h t l y d i f f e r e n t accounts of the publica- t i on of Anabase. 37 there was every p o s s i b i l i t y that he might discover those three a r t i c l e s . But if he did, he has never mentioned the fac t; perhaps they simply did not i n t e r e s t him. The sec ond possible link between the two at t h i s juncture i n volves the bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, run by Sylvia Beach in Paris on the Rue de l'Od£on, and the small " l i b r a i r i e " across the s t r e e t owned by Adrienne Monnier, In the 19 2 0 ' s , Mile Monnier's " l i b r a i r i e " became a ga th er ing place for the new French w r i t e r s 20 while Miss Beach's bookshop become a haven fcr ex pat ria te w r it e rs from 2 1 . . England, Ireland, and the United States. This proximity led to the creation of the Ami s de Shakespeare and Company which united the two g r o u p s . ^ When Eliot v i s i t e d Joyce in Paris in 1921, he undoubtedly met Miss Beach and Mile Monnier, for they were both caught up in p ri nt ing UIysses. However, Eliot never became part of the Paris c i r c l e and Saint-John Perse, C un ti tl e d J, Rue de IjOdgon: Adrienne Monni e r , ed. Maurice Sail let (Paris: Editions Alb in Michel, I96 0),p . 10. Also, see Gisele Freund and V. B. Carleton, James Joyce i n Pari s : Hi s Final Years London: Cassell, 1965/ P I c ' Her lending library of books and the names of her c l i e n t s reads like a li st of the important l i t e r a r y f i g ures writing in En g li sh ,i n the 1920's. See Sylvia Beach, Les Annies v i n g t : Les Ecr i vai ns Am£r i ca i ns |_ Par i s et I eurs ami s (I $2(3-1936), Exposition du I"! Mars au 2$ Avri I 1959, Centre Cultural Am£ricain, Paris. 22 lb id.. pp. 25-6. ' ' ’ ~ ~ ~ ~ 38] ! i ionly returned much later as a g u e s t . 23 Leger evidently frequented Adrienne Monnier's shop on occasion, but he him-; s e l f admits that his li te r a r y friends went there more ! ; I o f t e n ; 2^ he kept him self quite busy at the Quai d'Orsay. i i ! i Consequently, though a chance meeting between the two men j ! in the Rue de l'Od£on was p o s s i b l e , it seems u n lik ely to i ;have occurred. ; In 1924, Valery Larbaud, Paul Valery, Leon-Paul Fargue, and the in te n tio n a ll y unmentioned Saint-John Perse (all friend s who met regularly at the Villa Romaine in j I I V e r s a i l l e s , the home of Roffredo and Marguerite Caetani, j Prince and Princess of Bassiano) founded the periodical ; ■ ! I i Commerce for the publication of contemporary European | ! — — — — — j w r i t e r s . 25 Marguerite Caetani financed t h i s daring and j very successful enterprise from beginning to end and i ! worked t i r e l e s s l y to keep it a l i v e . Some time during the j summer or autumn of 1924 (the exact date is unknown), ^Undoubted I y , E liot v i s i t e d the shop in 1925 when he ! was in Paris with the Princess Bassiano, but he did not I read before "Amis de Shakespeare and Company" until 1936. See Sylvia Beach, og_. c i t . . p. 59. 2^Sai nt-John Perse, Rue de I ’Odgon: Adri enne Monni e r . p. 10. 25The f u l l e s t treatment of the founding of Commerce can be found in Iris Origo, "Marguerite Caetani." A tla n tic Monthly, CCXV, 2 (February, 1965;, PP. 81-2; and in j Franci s Biddle, A CasuaI Past ( New York: Doub I eday, 1961), I PP. 328-9. 1 39 Marguerite Caetani persuaded Leger to t r a n s l a t e a new poem by Eliot for publication in Commerce. 2^ Leger apparently balked at the original suggestion because he needed her as surance th a t Eliot had been helpful to t h e i r magazine . 27 One can infer quite easil y from th i s fac t that he was t o t a l l y or largely unfamiliar with the Anglo-American poet at th i s time. Why Marguerite Caetani should have chosen something by Eliot for the new periodical is c l e a r : be sides being the poet of the day, Eliot was her main con t a c t with the current English l i t e r a r y scene--and, then, she and El io t were c o u s i n s . 2^ P e r s e ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of the Eliot poem, which soon a f t e r appeared in England as "The Hollow Men I," was printed with its English original in the third issue of Commerce ( hiver, 1924 ) . 29 Perse has confided th a t he worked h a s ti ly to ready it for publi cat io n, and th e re is no 2^"She persuaded Perse to write his t r a n s l a t i o n of the 'Hollow Men' (which he says he did very h a s ti ly — for Com merce ) because Marguerite assured him that Eliot had been so k i nd and helpful to the magazine." Quoted from page 3 of Katherine Chapin's l e t t e r to Arthur Knodel, April 27, 1967. 2 7 Ib i d . 2^0rigo, 0£. c i t ., p. 85. 2^T. S. El iot , "Pofeme i n £ d i t , " with t r a n s l a t i o n by S t . - J . Perse, Commerce. Ill (hiver, 1924), pp. 7-9. 30 jrecord that he ever communicated with E lio t about the poem. I I b eliev e that might have been the end of any r e l a t io n s h i p between the two poets, but for E l i o t ' s next move, which was d e c i s i v e . In the preface to the f i r s t ed ition of his t r a n s la t io n of Perse's Anabase. Eliot notes that he was "drawn to the ! poem by a friend whose ta s te T he J t r u s t e d . "31 He d i s c r e e t ly avoids naming that friend and gives no date. Some twenty years later in his le tte r to Jean Paulhan in honor of Saint-John Perse, he repeats t h i s information and adds that he discovered £ Ioges and Anabase at the same time; he further t e l l s us that t h is all happened some time in 1 9 2 5 . On the basis of these statements.two con clu s io n s seem in order. F irst of a l l , E li o t was probably unaware of P erse's poetry until 1925, shortly a fte r his : own poem had been translated by the French p o e t . 33 And 3 0 s ee note 2 6 . | s # E l i o t , "Preface," Anabasis by S t . - J . Perse (London: Faber and Faber, I930jj p. 7. 32j. 3 , E l i o t , "Un f e u i l l e t unique," Saint-John P e r s e : Hommage Internati onaI des "Cah i ers de I a PI Siad e, " Paril ! ; (£tg-automne, 1950), p. 7. 3 3 j n hjg trib u te to Jacques Rivi&re— "Rencontre," Nouvelle Revue f r a n q a is e . XII, 139 ( a v r i l , 1925), PP. 657- 5 5 8 — EIi ot makes no reference to Perse, whom he would have a s soc iated naturally with Rivi&re had he known him. Nor does he mention Perse's name in the introduction to an English t r a n s la t io n of Paul Valery's Le Serpent, published I in 1924. i 41 even if he had heard of Perse before th is date (as I have shown was pos sib le) , he must not have read his poetry, or, i f he did, not given it much thought. Secondly, the d e c i sion to t r a n s l a t e Anabase was his and his alone. Perse had nothing to do with it (as he has confirmed),"^ nor, it seems, did anyone else. The friend Eliot mentioned in his f i r s t preface has never been id e nt if i ed . Nowhere in his writings does he take the trouble to say anything more about the incident. Perse, too, has said that he does not know of whom E l i o t speaks. j n t h i s case, conjecture seems permissible. My choice is Marguerite Caetani. It was she who persuaded Perse to t r a n s l a t e E l i o t ' s poem in 1924. Since she had asked such an unusual favor of the hard-pressed diplomat, she probably f e l t compelled to praise his own works to the important AngIo-American poet he had so kindly tr a n s l a t e d . And she had been in close touch with Eliot in 1925 and 1926, accompanying him to George A n t h e i l ' s BaI let m£canique and e n t e r t a i n i n g members of his family on t h e i r vacation to ^ He had read P er s e' s poem and decided to embark on the English t r a n s l a t i o n of i t , before they had ever met." Quoted from page I of Katherine Chapin's l e t t e r to Arthur KnodeI, ApriI 27, 1967. 35 "I asked Perse if he knew who th i s was; he did not." Quoted from page I of Katherine Chapin's l e t t e r to Arthur KnodeI, ApriI 27, 1967. 42 France and I t a l y . 36 it was she, too, who had arranged the f i r s t meeting between the two poets when Perse did not answer E l i o t ' s original le t t e r of i n t e n t . 37 it was she who supported the Commerce venture f i n a n c i a l l y and personally, and who wished to remain unnoticed in the background. This would explain E l i o t ' s reserve in naming her. Finally, it was she who, as E l i o t ' s cousin, probably acted as one of his primary connections with the I iterar y groups in France. That she should be the friend Eliot r e f e r s to would be only poet i c j u s t i c e . According to Perse, Eliot wrote him at the Quai d'Or- say, "asking a long l i s t of questions about the t r a n s l a - -z o tions of various words." Perse was so busy, probably in his new post as A ris tid e Briand's chef de c a b i n e t , that he could not bother with l i t e r a r y matters; at any ra t e , he did not answer. Eliot then apparently asked his cousin, 3^Sylvia Beach, Shakespeare and Company, p. 124. The co l l e c t i o n of miscellaneous mater i a I r e l a t i n g to T. S. Eliot at the Houghton Library (^AC El 464 Zzs) contains a postal card from H. W. Eliot to his mother, postmarked April 23, 1926, Paris, which r e f e r s to a stay with the Princess Bassiano. 3 7 "EIiot wrote to him, asking a long l i s t of questions about the t r a n s l a t i o n s of various words. Perse was very busy at the Quai d'Orsay and did not answer. Finally through Marguerite Caetani (Princess Bassiano then) a meet ing was arranged." Quoted from pages I and 2 of Katherine Chapin's l e t t e r to Arthur Knodel, April 27, 1967. 58 Ibid. 4 3; Marguerite Caetani, to arrange a meeting for him, since alone he could not get Perse to respond. Perse tel Is how E l io t came to his o f fi ce in Paris where they discussed at length the t r a n s l a t i o n of individual words and phrases. At one point he grew quite exasperated and !!began to despair of exp I a n a t io n . "39 if his account is accurate, thi s may explain Perse's apparent coolness to, and muted praise of, his famous AngIo-American contemporary. This f i r s t meeting between the two poets seems to have occurred in 1926. Eliot would have needed some time from the moment he decided to t r a n s l a t e Anabase in 1925 to come up with a comprehensive l i s t of de t a il e d questions on t r a n s l a t i o n . And we know th a t by January, 1927, he thought the t r a n s l a t i o n nearly in shape for publication; in fact, he expressed to Perse the wish to bring out both the French and English texts en_ regard (as Perse s t i p u l a t e d ) in one volume in March or April of tha t same y e a r . ^ The fact that E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a ti o n of Anabas i s did not appear until 1930, three years la te r, may be explained by a ce rt ai n 39 i b i d . . p. 2. ^®T. S. Eliot, "Lettre & Saint-Leger Leger," Honneur & Saint-John Perse (Paris: Gallimard, I965),jx4l9. "Je voudrais f a i r e para'ftre le volume au mois de mars ou avril . . . . J ’espfere que vous renverrez bienfSt le co nt rat , afin que nous puissions y insurer la clause que vous d £ s i r e z J " . . . .'^Reproduction i n t e r d i t e hors des pays de Iangue angI ai s e ." 44 hesitancy on E l i o t ' s part to go through with the pub li ca t i o n . ^ 1 This was probably because of P e r s e ' s d i s s a t i s f a c tion with his original te xt in the 1927 ty p e s c r i p t . Perse has mentioned, too, that, however few, other meetings took place between the two poets during these years, but he has not elaborated on them. He does note b r i e f l y a v i s i t with Eliot in London when he had to travel there with his mi nister, Briand, on a diplomatic mission; but t h i s seems to have occurred a f t e r E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n was published. Certainly the two poets corresponded a f t e r th e ir f i r s t meeting, at least on the matter of the Anabas i s t r a n s l a tion; but only one le t t e r from Eliot to Perse has come to I i g h t . From the time that E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase was f i r s t published until the end of World War II , some f i f t e e n years, there is no av ai lab le record of contact be tween the two poets. E l io t had turned to the the at re in the I930's and had to strugg le to keep the Cr i ter i on going A curious le t t e r to Eliot from Clive Bell, dated September 22, 1928, London, quite probably r e f e r s to Eliot's t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase; yet the refer enc e is too ambiguous to be c e r t a i n . * ' t am glad you h e s i t a t e d no longer. I liked the poem even be tt er on a second acquaintance. Oddly enough--though nothing could be more admirably impersonal-- i t makes me want to meet the author." Houghton Library bMS Am 169 I . ^ S e e note 40. 45 unti I 1939. Perse was named Ambassadeur and Seer^ta i re g£n£ra I d es a f f a i res £trang£res in 1933, a year a f t e r the dis co nt in u at io n of Commerce. Without any very real ex ternal or personal t i e s , the two simply parted ways. El io t probably wrote Perse concerning the second edition of Anabasi s . prepared for an American audience in 1933, but t h i s cannot be documented. When Perse fled his country in 1940, he stopped in England on his way to the United States; but although he met a number of f rie nds and d i g n i t a r i e s (Lord V a n s i t t a r t , Churchill, Halifax, L l o y d ) , ^ he seems not to have vi s it e d Eliot. It was only a f t e r World War II that the two poets' paths crossed again, and, as might now be expected, Eliot came to see Perse in Washington, 0. C. Apparently, when ever Eliot was in the American c a p i t a l , from the end of the war until his death, he would v i s i t Perse in ex i le at his permanent residence in G eor get ow n. ^ These meetings were s o c ia l , i n t e r m i t t e n t , and b r i e f , ^5 and evidently Perse ^ J a c q u e s Charpier, Sai nt-John P e r s e . p. 48. ^"My husband never knew M. Leger in timately, but used to v i s i t him a f t e r the War, when he was in Washington." Quoted from Mrs. Valerie E l i o t ' s l e t t e r to the author, 3rd July, 1967. ^5". . . Then they met in the United States a f t e r the War, rather i n t e r m i t t e n t l y and b r i e f l y . ” Quoted from page 4 of Katherine Chapin's le tt e r to Arthur Knodel, April 27, 1967. 46 never went to London to return them. For the 1949 edi tion of E l i o t ' s Anabasis t r a n s l a t i o n , the two poets worked together qu ite c l o s e l y . ^ Whether Eliot visit ed Perse as he had in 1926 is doubtful; all matters of revision seem to have been carried on by co r respondence. This is suggested by the l e t t e r Elio t wrote to Jean Paulhan for the special Cah i ers de I a PI 4 i a d e i s sue of 1950, in which he speaks of Perse as i f from a d i s t a n c e . ^ That l e t t e r gives no sense of a personal f r ie n ds h ip between the two men. For the 1959 revised ed i ti on of the Anabasis t r a n s l a t i o n , E l io t allowed Perse to make all the corr ect ion s or changes he wanted. Ob viously they corresponded on the p r o je c t, but they seem not to have worked in a close t e t e - a - t e t e c o ll ab o r at io n . To conclude, Eliot and Perse never seem to have es tablished a close frie nds hip , although they were always on friendly terms. However, they did work together closely on the f i r s t and third ed i t i o n s of E l i o t ' s t r a n s lation of Anabase. probably as closely as any two poets of "In t h i s revision I have depended heavily upon the recommendations of the author, whose increasing mastery of English has enabled him to detect f a u l t s previously un observed. . . T. S. El iot, "Note to Revised Editi on, " Anabasi s by S t . - J . Perse (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949} p. 14. ^ T . S. El iot , "Un f e u i l l e t unique," p. 7. 47 d if f e r e n t languages ever have. It would be more accurate to call t h e i r s a l i t e r a r y frie nds hip , a kind of li te r a r y partnership, having a tang ible r e s u l t . Their personal a t t i t u d e towards one another is less c l e a r . ^ From all ind ications, Eliot admired and respected Perse greatly. That he made no public statement on Pe rse's acceptance of the Nobel Prize for L it er at ur e in I960 should not be taken as a sign of disapproval or negligence; he was not given to making such statements unless he was called upon for a special pu blication that allowed him, especially at the age of seventy-two, time for d e l i b e r a t i o n . It was he who had decided to communicate with Perse, who had under taken the formidable task of tra ns l.at i on, and who co n t in ued to v i s i t him a f t e r World War II. Perse, for his part, seems to have remained r a th e r d i s t a n t , only once v i s i t i n g the Anglo-American poet "at home." E a r l i e r , he, too, had made no public statement on E l i o t ' s acceptance of the Nobel Prize in 1948; in f act , he has never mentioned Eliot in any of his published w r it i ng s. But he is not unlike Eliot in A curious and ambiguous reference by ei th er Igor Stravinsky or Robert Craft is relevant here: And he C Eliot 3 said that what he most liked about S t . - J . Perse was his 'hand writing and his i n t e l l i g e n c e , ' which both raised the question, and forbade one to ask i t , whether he meant he did not like the poems. Igor Stravinsky, "Memories of T. S. E l i o t , " Es q ui r e, LXIV, 2 (August, 1965), p. 93. 48 th i s regard. This aloofness in his r e la ti o n s h ip with Eliot can be explained, I think, at least in p a r t. In the early 19 20 1s , Perse had decided to keep his diplomatic and poetic careers s t r i c t l y separate, with the former given p r i o r i t y . Eliot approached him while he was deeply en gaged in a f f a i r s at the Quai d'Or say, and I imagine that Leger re s is te d as much as possible t h i s int ru sio n of the li te r a r y world (and English, at t h a t ) . Then, too, he seems to have lost patience with some of the small prob lems of t r a n s l a t i o n E l io t brought him. Fin ally, he found Elio t to be temperamentally his opposite: a scholar, quite r e l i g i o u s , and p o l i t i c a l l y c o n s e r v a t iv e .^9 None of th i s contributed to his understanding of the Anglo- American, and the i n i t i a l impression seems to have pe r si s te d with him for the duration of the ir re l a t i o n s h i p . Yet, despite t h i s , or perhaps because of i t , E l io t has exerted a greater influence on P er s e' s poetry than has been noted previously, and he has unfortunate Iy c o n t r i b uted to P er s e' s rathe r unusual concept of the English language and what he cal ls "Anglo-Saxon po et ry. " Per se 's influence on E l i o t ' s poetry has gone equally unnoticed, and it is of even more sig n ifi ca n ce . 4-9»perse himself says that temperamentally they were completely d i f f e r e n t . Eliot was a scholar, was very r e l i gious, and in p o l i t i c s very c o n s e r v a t i v e . ” Quoted from page 4 of Katherine Chapin's l e t t e r to Arthur Knodel, April 27, 1967. CHAPTER I I I PERSE TRANSLATION: "THE HOLLOW M EN I" "A translator is to be like his author: it is not his business to excel him." Samuel Johnson The public conjunction of the names of Saint-John Perse and T. S. E liot f i r s t occurred suddenly and un expectedly in 1924 when, in a new Iy-1aunched Paris quar t e r l y , one of E l i o t ' s f i r s t new poems since The Waste Land was published along with i t s t r a n s la t io n into French by Saint-John Perse. The event was inauspicious and went unheralded. Furthermore, it boded l i t t l e of the future r e l a tio n s h i p between the two poets in which E lio t learned so much from Perse's poetry. It is t h i s neglected side of the P er se -E lio t r e l a tio n s h i p which I want to examine in th is chapter. I think it important because, f i r s t , it s e ts up the right connections for E l i o t ' s later d ecision to tr a n s la t e Anabase and, second, it permits an evaluation of a little-known aspect of Saint-John Perse's work. E l i o t ' s new poem, e n t i t l e d simply "po&me in£dit" (which later became "The Hollow Men I"), appeared en regard with Saint-John Perse's "adaptation" in the third issue of Commerce (hiver, 1924). It happened to be but the second 49 50 t r a n s l a t i o n of E l i o t ' s poetry into F r e n c h , 1 That Commerce should have t h i s honor was not unusual. Its edi tor s, three of the leading French poets of the d ay, 2 had determined to publish the work ("creative writing rather than c r i t i c i s m or scholarship") of contemporary w rit ers not only in France but in the whole of Europe.-^ The f i r s t issue of Commerce contained Valery Larbaud's t r a n s l a t i o n of fragments from ! James Joyce's Ulysses (then being readied for print ing at 4 Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Company), prefaced by Larbaud's in f lu en ti al introductory essay. The second i s sue introduced several French poems by Rainer Maria Rilke. Donald Ga I I up , T_. 3. El i o t : a Bi b I i oqraphy ( New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1953), p.l 22. The f i r s t t r a n s l a t i o n was done by Andr£ Germain of ,"PreIudes" and "Morning at the Window," as "Preludes," Ec r i ts Nou veaux. IX ( av r il , 1922), pp.[32]-33. Shortly a f t e r " t h e Commerce t r a n s l a t i o n appeared, Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier t r a n s l a te d "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" for the f i r s t i ssue of L_e Nav i r e d ' Argent (June I , 19 25) , pp. (233-29. The three were Paul Valery, Valery Larbaud, and L£on- Paul Fargue. Saint-John Perse, who actually made a fourth, did not allow his name to be printed on the magazine's cover or t i t l e page because of his diplomatic career. •^Quoted from a l e t t e r from Valery Larbaud to Marguer it e Caetani (1924) in I r i s Origo, "Marguerite Caetani," Atlan tic Month Iy. CCXV, ii (February, 196 5), p. 82. ^Stuart Gi Ibert, ed., Letters of James Joyce (New York: Viking, 1957), pp. 162, 178, 199. 51 The fourth included poems by the young I t a l i a n poet Giuseppe Ungaretti^ and t r a n s l a t i o n s of his countryman Giacomo Leopardi and of the Englishman Sir Thomas Wyatt. The f i f t h introduced poems by an American, Archibald MacLeish,^1 and some of the f i r s t French t r a n s l a t i o n s of Friedrich Hblderlin. The sixth included poems by the Russians,Boris Pasternak and Osip Mandelstrom, and essays by Ortega y Gasset and Hugo von Hofmannsthal.^ Commerce. then, played a considerable part in introducing the work of Europe's contemporary w ri te r s to one another, and the exchange proved f r u i t f u l . Before 1922, E l i o t ' s name was f am il ia r ( f i r s t as a c r i t i c and second as a poet) to the French l i t e r a r y c i r c l e c; Giuseppe Ungaretti himself t r a n s l a t e d Anabase into I t a l i a n for F r o n t e , 2 (1931). ^ShortIy , t h e r e a f t e r , Archibald MacLeish read Per se 's two volumes, EIoges and Anabase. and became an intense ad mirer of his poetry. Pe rs e' s influence on MacLeish was considerable, as is a t t e s t e d in The Ham Iet of Arch i ba I d Mac Leii sh (1928), New Found Land ( 1930), and Conquistador ( 1932). Unfortunately, that Tnfluence seems to have Ied more often to im itation in his poetry than to a s s im i la t io n . ?HofmannsthaI wrote a preface for the German t r a n s l a tion of Anabase by Bernard Groethuysen and Walter Benjamin. The t r a n s l a t i o n , scheduled for public ati on by Insel-Verlag in Leipzig in 1929, did not appear; but Hofmannsthal's es say was printed under the t i t l e "Einige Worte als Vorrede zu Saint-John Perse Anabase" in the Neue Schwei tzer Rund schau (May, 1929); and under the t i t l e "Emancipation du lyrisme f r a n 9ai s" in Commerce. XX (Et£, 1929). 52 which frequented Adrienne Monnier's bookstore and lending library, La Maison des Amis des Livres, and Sylvia Beach's similar Shakespeare and Company on the Rue de l'Od<?on. The NouveI Ie Revue Franca i se respected Eliot enough to ask him to write a s e r i e s of l e t t e r s on the current l i t e r a r y scene in England.^ »V i th the pu b li ca ti on of The Waste Land in the October, 1922, issue of the C r i t e r i o n and in the November, 1922, issue of D i a l . E l i o t ' s name was soon famous through out Europe. It was only natural for Commerce to seek some thing of his for it s pages. The impetus probably came from Marguerite Caetani who, besides being E l i o t ' s cousin and friend, provided the real dr iving force behind the e n t e r pr ise . Since Perse presided in v i si b ly as a kind of u l t i mate au t h o ri ty on matters of t a s t e and judgment on poetry for Commerce, he may have had to decide whether E l i o t ' s poem would be printed or n o t . 9 P e r s e ' s "adaptation" of what la ter became "The Hollow Men I" is his only published t r a n s l a t i o n , unless one counts ^Both Jacques Rivilre and Andr£ Gide communicated with Eliot in 1922 about t h i s co nt ri b ut i on to the Nouvelie Revue Frangaise. In a l l . Eliot wrote three a r t ) c l e s for them: "Lettre d'Angleterre I," NRF, IX, 104 (May I, 19 2 2 ) , pp. 617- 24; "Lettre d'Angleterre I I , " NRF. X, III (December I, 1922), pp. 751-6; "Lettre d'AngleterFe I I I , " NRF. XI, 122 (November I, 1923), pp. 619-25. a See Origo, "Marguerite Caetani , "pp.81-2; and Francis Biddle, A Casual Past (Garden City: Doubleday, 1 9 6 1 ), p.328 . his revision of E l i o t ' s Anabasi s tr a n s l a t i o n ( I 9 5 9 ) . ,(") One wonders, if (as he often explained) he was so caught up in ; I a f f a i r s at the Quai d'Orsay, why he agreed to do it at a l l . ! Apparently, t r a n s l a t i n g held l i t t l e i n t r i n s i c appeal for him] and he has maintained all along tha t poetry is ultimately ! u n tra n sl ata b le .* * .Vhy could not one of the other members ofj the Commerce c i r c l e have performed the^ task more readi ly ! than Perse? Unquestionably, the time al fo t ed the t r a n s l a t o r of E l i o t ' s poem was short. In i t s printed form the poem is dated "Nov. 1924," a scant month or two before the third jissue of Commerce went to the p r i n t e r . To ready the poem jfor inclusion in tha t issue demanded skill under pressure, jsomething none of the ed i to r s lacked. Yet L^on-Paul jFargue, for one, although highly regarded for his own jpoetry, knew p r a c t i c a l l y no English. Besides, one of his [f ailings — undependability— was legendary and probably ex cluded him from such an un de rta k in g . *^ Paul Valery, at ■ As Eliot writes in his prefatory note to the 1959 ;edition, "the author is solely responsible for revisi on s in (this new e d i t i o n . " However, Perse s t i l l has in his poses- isi on several manuscripts of t r a n s l a t i o n s of Pindar's odes |which he made while a un iv e rsi ty student at Bordeaux; none ;has ever been published. Jacques Charpier, Sai nt-John Perse I(Paris: Gallimard, 1963), P. 34. | * *See part of an unpublished l e t t e r Perse wrote to Archibald MacLeish in 1941 concerning Exi I . quoted in Arthur Iknodel, 3a i nt-John Perse (Edinburgh: Ed 1nburgh University jPress, I 966), p~ 97. j * ^See SyIv i a Beach's story of L^on-Paul Fargue in 54 f i r s t glance, would seem the likely choice for t r a n s l a t i n g the Anglo-American poet, sin c e e a r l i e r t h a t same year E l i o t had w r i t t e n a complimentary p reface to an English e d i t i o n of h is poem Lje_ S e r p e n t . ^ However, i t seems t h a t he, too, knew English only s l i g h t l y ; in f a c t , ne could not converse in i t at a l l . Accordingly, i t is cu rio u s to see his name appended to several French t r a n s l a t i o n s of English poems in la t e r is s u es of Commerce. * 4 Indeed Valery Larbaud was the only one of the th r e e d eclared e d i t o r s whose knowledge of English would have been equal to the job. Famous for his t r a n s l a t i o n s o f Samuel B u t l e r , L a r b a u d u s ually r e s t r i c t e d h im se lf to prose works (for which h is own t a l e n t was best s u i t e d ) ; but he did, on o ccasion, c o n t r i b u t e a number of Shakespeare and Company (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956), PP. 149-51. *^T. S. E l i o t , "A B rief I n tr o d u c t io n to the Method of Paul V alery," Le S e r p e n t , t r a n s . Ward Ie (London: Cobden- Sanderson, 192477 PP. 7-15. I 4 Thomas Hardy, " F e llin g a T ree," Texte a n g l a i s et tr a d u c t i o n par Paul Valery, Commerce. XIV (automne, 1927), pp.6-9. E. A. Poe, "Quelques fragments des ' M a r g i n a l i a , ' " t r a d u i t s de I ' a n g l a i s et annot<?s par Paul Valdry, Commerce, XIV (automne, 1927), pp. 12-41. I 5 Larbaud t r a n s l a t e d most of Samuel B u t l e r ' s t o t a l oeuvre into French: Erewhon. A i ns i va to u te chai r . Nouveaux Voyages in Erewhon, La Vie et I'Habitude, and C arnets. 55 poetry t r a n s l a t i o n s to Commerce.*° In the end, S a in t - John Perse became the t r a n s l a t o r of the f i r s t English poetry p rin t e d in Commerce. probably because Marguerite Caetani knew of his p r o f ic i e n c y in English and because he was more e x c l u s i v e ly a poet than was Larbaud. Then, too, she normally deferred to Perse on the choice of poetry to be p rin t e d in Commerce; i t would have been n atural to ask his aid in t r a n s l a t i n g i t . Although the real d e c is io n to t r a n s l a t e T. 3. E l i o t ' s "po&me in £ d i t" was M arguerite C a e t a n i ' s , Perse was s u f f i c i e n t l y impressed with the poem to agree to t r a n s l a t e i t h im s e lf. One of the f i r s t q u e s ti o n s to ask of any t r a n s l a t o r is how f a m i l i a r he is with the language in which his t e x t is w r i t t e n . No rule r e q u i r e s a b s o l u t e l y t h a t a t r a n s lator know t h a t language n e a rly as well as he knows his own; re c e n t t r a n s l a t i o n s by Lowell and Auden make t h i s p l a i n . 17 However, the e x t e n t of a t r a n s l a t o r ' s a b i l i t y ^ A r c h i b a l d MacLeish, "Pofemes": "Trai n - s t o p : Night," " P a s t o r a l , " t e x t e a n g l a i s et t r a d u c t i o n par Valery Lar baud, Commerce . V (Et£, 1925 ), pp. 128-131. Archibald Mac Leish "Pokmes":"Return," "Gobi," t e x t e s a n g l a i s et t r a duction par Valery Larbaud, Commerce. XII (Printemps, I 927 ), pp. 44-51 Edith S i t w e l l , "An in terv iew with Mars from 'The Death of V enus,'" t e x t e a n g l a i s et t r a d u c t i o n par Valery Larbaud, Commerce. VII (h iv e r, I 926 ), pp. | 14-123. Larbaud also e d i te d , and helped t r a n s l a t e , the f i r s t French e d i t i o n of Walt Whitman's poetry. ^ R o b e r t Lowell, of course, chose the t i t l e Im ita t i o n s (New York: F a r r a r , S t r a u s , and Giroux, 1967)", for 56 with the second language does determ ine what kind of t r a n s l a tio n he a t t e m p t s . Several p ie c e s of evidence suggest t h a t P e r s e 's k now I - edge of the English language p r i o r to his t r a n s l a t i o n of E l i o t ' s poem in Commerce was c o n s i d e r a b l e . Most important are the l e t t e r s Perse wrote in f a r b e t t e r than schoolboy English as early as 1912 and 1913. Two of h i s h an d -w ritten l e t t e r s to Valery Larbaud (one dated "London Oct. 23 X II," the other dated "Paris, 14 Avril X I I I" ) are now preserved 18 in the Centre Culturel Valery Larbaud c o l l e c t i o n at Vichy, But even in 191 I, in a c o n v e r s a t i o n with Andr£ Gide, Perse thought h im se lf f a m i l i a r enough with E nglish to analyze the d i f f e r e n c e between that language and h is own. Je lui [ Gi de J d£non<;ai , pour ma p a r t , I 'o p a c i t y d'une langue C English J aussi c o n c r e t e , la r ic h e s s e excessive de son v o c a b u l a i r e et sa complaisance & vouloir r £ i n c a r n e r la chose elle-meme, comme dans l ' 6c r i t u r e i d^ograph i que, au lieu que le franijais, h is c o l l e c t i o n o f poems based on o r i g i n a l poems by Euro pean poets from Villon t o P a s te rn a k , because he does not pretend to give us exact t r a n s l a t i o n s . At the most he hopes to r e c r e a t e in E nglish th e tone or s p i r i t of the o r i g i n a l . W. H. Auden, in his r e c e n t t r a n s l a t i o n s from the Russian (Voznesensky, Mandelstrom, Akamatov), is less s c ru p u lo u s . He admits only t h a t he bases h i s versions on l i t e r a l prose p arap h ras es done by someone who does know Ru s s i a n. ^ A r t h u r Knodel k indly allowed me to examine xerox copies of these l e t t e r s in t y p e s c r i p t . 57 langue plu s a b s t r a i t e , et qui c h e r c h a i t 5 s i g n i - f i e r bien plus qu'S f i g u r e r , n 'e n g a g e a i t le signe f i d u c i a i r e du mot que comme valeur d'£change mon£taire. L 'a n g l a i s , pour mo i , en £ t a i t encore au t r o c . 1 9 This bold d i f f e r e n t i a t i o n between French and English has 20 p e r s i s t e d ever since in P e r s e ' s thought. One l a s t proof of P e r s e ' s knowledge of English comes to light in E l i o t ' s 1927 t y p e s c r i p t of the Anabase t r a n s l a t i o n . That t y p e s c r i p t includes a co n s id e ra b le body of notes Perse added in h is b e a u t if u l c a l l i g r a p h y fo r E l i o t ' s use in working up a f i n a l d r a f t fo r p u b l i c a t i o n . E v id e n t ly E l i o t sent the t y p e s c r i p t to Perse in January, 1927, along with the l e t t e r published much la t e r in G a l l i m a r d 's Honneur Sa i nt-John Perse (I 96 5 ). ^ I Be si des the notes in French, Perse wrote down English synonyms and r e p h r a s in g s of passages t h a t he questioned in E l i o t ' s i n i t i a l version. 19 S a in t -J o h n P erse, "Face aux l e t t r e s f r a n g a i s e s : 1909," Nouve I i e Revue Franca i se : Hommage Andrg Gi de (29 mai I 95 I ) ,p.&3 . This a r t i c l e appeared as "Andr£ (aide: 1909," t r a n s l a t e d by Mina C u r t i s s , in Sewanee Rev i ew. LX, 4 (October-December, 1952), pp. 593-60W. ^ S e e Arthur Knode I ' s e x c e l l e n t a n a l y s i s of t h i s d i s t i n c t i o n in his c h a p t e r , "The P o e t i c s , " in Sa i nt-Joh n P e r s e , pp. 98-104. 2 IT. S. E l i o t , " L e t tr e & S aint-L eger Leger," Honneur h Sai nt-John Perse ( P a r i s : G allimard, 19 6 5), p. 419. 58 O ccasiona lly he abandoned French a l t o g e t h e r to tr y to speak d i r e c t l y in E n g lis h : "The meaning is : the p le a s u r e form ing i t s e l f , s e c r e t i n g i t s e l f , growing, w ithin them selves, in s id e them. (". . . mais le p l a i s i r au flan c des femmes p p se compose: Canto IX). “ It was c e r t a i n l y p o s s i b l e , then, for Perse to work alone in hasti ly t r a n s l a t i n g the poem M arguerite Caetani gave him la te in 1924. The Commerce issue of w in te r, 1924-25, opens with a s h o rt poem, " C h a n s o n , u n d e r the s i g n a t u r e of " 3 t - J . P e r s e , " which is followed by E l i o t ' s poem in English and then P e r s e ' s " a d a p ta tio n " of i t . The English t e x t is un t i t l e d except for an in t ro d u c to ry page bearing the d i r e c t i v e : "Po&me." Except for the lack of a t i t l e , the t e x t is i d e n t i c a l to t h a t p rin te d la te r as "The Hollow Men I," f i r s t in the Cr i t e r i on (January, 1925), in Dial (March, 1925), and f i n a l l y in the Co I Iected Poems, 19 0 9 - 1925 (November, 1925). E l i o t has even chosen the epigraph ("A penny for the Old Guy") in t h i s f i r s t p r i n t i n g . In summary, P e r s e ' s purpose in t r a n s l a t i n g E l i o t ' s poem was not f u l l y his own; he had n e i t h e r a comprehensive 2 2T. S. E l i o t , C Xerox copy of a t y p e s c r i p t of the Anabasis t r a n s l a t i o n 3 (Oxford: Bodliean Library MS. Don. C. 2 3 /2 ), p. 22. 2^This poem became the "Chanson" which precedes the ten cantos in Anabase (1924). 59 a p p r e c i a t i o n of E l i o t ' s poetry nor any personal d e s i r e to in troduce h is poetry to the French re a d e r. The poem was scheduled to appear in the upcoming issue of Commerce, and Perse was given the job of rendering it into French as quickly as p o s s i b le for the p r i n t e r . He had no c r i t i c a l work to o r i e n t him and no time to c o n s u lt the author him s e l f as to the general tone of h is p o e t r y . ^4 Thus, his use of the word a d a p ta t i on inste ad of versi on or t r a d u c t i o n seems to have been determined less by design than by n e c e s s i t y . I t is d i f f i c u l t to say whether Perse intended h i s " a d a p ta tio n " p r im a rily as a means by which the French- speaking reader could approach the English t e x t , since he o f f e r e d no p r e f a t o r y note for the poem (nor did Commerce seem to think such notes r e l e v a n t ) . The f a c t t h a t the t r a n s l a t i o n and the o r i g i n a l t e x t are p rin te d en regard s u g g e s ts t h i s c o n c lu sio n , but t h i s is hardly adequate 25 proof. All one can say is t h a t Perse seems to have aimed fo r a r e c r e a t i o n which would be as f a i t h f u l as p o s s i b le to 2^See Chapter II, fo o tn o te 26. 25 One could in fe r from the agreement between Perse and E l i o t only to publish Anabasi s en regard (see Chapter II, f o o tn o t e 40) th a t the same purpose was o p e r a t i v e here, but one must remember t h a t Perse did not communicate with E l i o t about the t r a n s l a t i o n . Besides, Commerce seems to have made a special e f f o r t to p r i n t i t s poetry t r a n s l a t i o n s en r e g a r d . 60 i t s o r ig i n a l and which could also be read as an independent t e x t . Given the circ u m s ta n c e s, h is performance is admir able, although the " a d a p ta tio n " c o n t a in s several s e r io u s flaws and does bear the in d ividual stamp of the French p o e t ' s s t y l e . A penny for the Old Guy We are the hoi low men We are the s t u f f e d men Leani ng to g e th er Headpiece f i l l e d with straw. Alas! Our d rie d voices, when We whisper to g e t h e r Are q u i e t and meaningless As wi nd in dry grass Or r a t s ' f e e t over broken g la ss In our dry c e l l a r Shape without form, shade without c olour, Paralysed f o rc e , g e s tu re without motion; Those who have crossed With d i r e c t eyes, to d e a t h ' s o t h e r Kingdom Remember us— i f at a l l - - n o t as lost Violent so u ls , but only As the ho I Iow men The s t u f f e d men. Nov. 1924. T. S. E l i o t ( Po&me i n£di t ) . Aumone aux hommes de peu de poids. Nous sommes Ies hommes sans substance, nous sommes les hommes f a i t s de p a i l l e . P resse s en fouIe f r a t e r n e l l e , t e t e s bourrges de p a i l l e . HelasI Nos voix s t £ r i l e s , si tout bas nous murmurons en fo u le , sont voix plus douces et plus vaines que le s o u f f l e du vent parmi I'h e rb e s t e r i l e , que la course des r a t s sur les d e b ris de v e rre, dans nos caves s t £ r i l e s . 61 Ombres sans forme, nuances sans c o u leu r, fo rc e sans mouvement et geste qui ne bouge. . . Ceux qu i s ' e n f u r e n t d r o i t devant eux, vers I ' a u t r e Royaume de la Mort, songeant & nous, s ' i l s songent & r i e n , n'dvoquent / p o i nt des 'ames v i o l e n t e s et perdues, mais seulement Ies hommes sans substance les hommes fa i t s de p a i l l e . (Adaptation de S t . - J . P . ) . A cursory glance at the two poems in Commerce gives one the com fortable impression t h a t Perse is fo llowing the form of E l i o t ' s "po&me i n £ d i t" e x a c t l y . The English t e x t and the French " a d a p ta tio n " each c o n t a in eighteen l i n e s , divided r e s p e c t i v e l y into th ree p a r a l l e l s e c t i o n s of te n , two, and six li n e s each. And the syntax of nearly every line in P e r s e ' s t e x t matches th a t in the o r i g i n a l . The words, "A penny f o r the Old Guy" and "Aumone aux hommes de peu de p o i d s , " p r i n t e d at the beginning of the poems, how ever, b e l i e such a f a c i l e s i m i l a r i t y . Their i n i t i a l p o s i tio n in the poems and t h e i r s t r i k i n g d i f f e r e n c e make them a good point at which to begin a c l o s e a n a l y s i s and e v a l u a tio n of the Perse t r a n s l a t i o n . E l i o t intended the phrase, "A penny for the Old Guy," to be an epigra ph for his poem, and i t has appeared as such in a l l subsequent p r i n t i n g s of the t e x t . In t r a n s l a t i n g t h a t phrase, Perse preserved i t s epigraph form by p r i n t i n g it in i t a l i c s and to the r i g h t side of the poem, as in the 62 o r i g i n a l but at the same time he a l t e r e d i t s meaning. In English the phrase is a formula used by c h i ld r e n as they s o l i c i t money for firew orks and for the r i t u a l burning of strawmen on Guy Fawkes Day, the f i f t h of November. E l i o t uses i t , I th i n k , to i d e n t i f y the strawman n a r r a t o r of the poem and also fo r i t s nuance of a h i s t o r i c a I - s o c i a I c o n t e x t: the p a s t has cheapened into empty g e s t u r i n g . Perse seems e i t h e r to have misconstrued "Old Guy” (which, as I have mentioned, r e f e r s to Guy Fawkes, who p l o t t e d to blow up the E nglish Parliament on November 5, 1605) as slang or to have^ decided that t h i s p a rt of th e a l l u s i o n could not be t r a n s la ted , for he renders i t as "hommes de peu de p o i d s ” (men of l i t t l e weight or w o r t h ) . T h i s is like t r a n s l a t i n g The H orse1s Mouth as La Bouche du ChevaI. U n fo rtu n ate ly , then, the a l l u s i o n s in the English epigraph (and the complemen tary l i t e r a r y a l l u s i o n in the words "hollow m e n " ) ^ are The English t e x t in Commerce, however, is p r i n t e d in i t a l i c s while the epigraph appears in r e g u l a r type. ^ S e e Jackson Matthews, "Third Thoughts on T r a n s l a t ing P o e try ," On T r a n s l a t i o n , ed. Reuben Bowers (Cambridge: Harvard Uni versi ty P re s s , 1959), p. 72. Perse had used the phrase himself in the f i r s t canto of Anabase (1924), P A The a l l u s i o n probably is to Conrad's i n s i s t e n t use of th e phrase to s t i g m a t i z e the " p i l g r i m s , " the b r i c k l a y e r , and o th e rs in h is n o v e l la , Heart of Darkness ( 18 9 8 ). Kurtz, then, would be a good example of " l o s t v io l e n t s o u l s . " 'completely lost in the French t e x t . Even i f he recognized the a l l u s i o n s , Perse faced an insurmountable problem; the only way to have handled the epigraph would have been to j Presort to an e l a b o r a t e f o o t n o t e (as i t is, t h i s is neces- I sary for the American r e a d e r ) . Yet, since the h i s t o r i c a l (context is im portant to the idea of s u f f e r in g and p a s s i v i t y i iin E l i o t ' s poem, w ithout i t the French " a d a p ta tio n " loses ! jsome of the o r i g i n a l ' s s u g g e s tiv e power, and the s u f f e r i n g i takes on a q u ite d i f f e r e n t c a s t . The Perse epigraph r e f e r s to an e x p l i c i t a c t of s u p p l i c a t i o n (the begging for alms), an act of which th e "hollow men" in the English t e x t are incapable; t h e i r s u p p l i c a t i o n remains i n d i r e c t and ambigu ous. On th e b a s i s of t h i s im portant change, one can argue | t h a t Perse has a c t u a l l y c re a te d another poem. Because E l i o t ' s epigraph c a l l s up an image of the straw f i g u r e s or e f f i g i e s burned on Guy Fawkes' Day to r id the community r i t u a l l y of g u i l t , ^9 he needs mention them d i r e c t l y but once— "Headpiece f i l l e d with s t r a w . " Perse, | on the o th e r hand, f i n d s i t n ece ssary to change the ambigu ous " s t u f f e d men" into "les hommes f a i t de p a i l l e " (which is less harsh)30 fo r the sake of c l a r i t y . His straw 29see Grover Smith, T. S. E l i o t ' s Poetry and PI a y s : A Study in Sources and MeanTng. 2nd ed. (Chicago: U n iv e rs ity jof Chicago P ress, i960), p. 105. 30see P i e r r e L ey ris, "Quand T. S. E l i o t p a r l e P e r s e , " Monde Nouveau-Pau. I2e ann£e, no. 96 ( j a n v i e r , 1956), p. 74-. 64 f i g u r e s lack any sense of g u i l t and l i t t l e sense of degen e r a t i o n ; one cannot be sure of the reason for t h e i r c o n d i t i o n . The absence of t h i s h i s t o r i c a l co n te x t in the French t e x t , then, tends to s t r e s s t h e i r immediate physical co n d i t i o n and the seasonal images of " p a i l l e " and I'h e rb e s t £ r i le." The word s14r i Ie is p a r t i c u l a r l y important be cause Perse h im se lf s t r e s s e s i t in rhyme. The absence of v i t a l or r e p r o d u c t iv e energy which is i m p l i c i t in the c o n c r e t e English word dry becomes e x p l i c i t in the a b s t r a c t 3 I French word s tg ri I e . In d e s c rib i n g the "hollow men" E l i o t can choose highly concre te terms with the necessary a b s t r a c t c o n n o t a tio n s , since the context of t h e i r s i t u a t i o n is c l e a r . Perse, on the other hand, is forced to be more e x p l i c i t in his d e s c r i p t i o n , f o r his f i g u r e s occupy a r a t h e r vague p o s i t i o n . Furthermore, P e r s e ' s choice of s t£ r i I e over sfeche or dessech£e is q u e s ti o n a b le ( e s p e c i a l ly in "caves s t £ r i l e s " ) for i t adds a tone of l i t e r a r y ab- ; s t r a c t n e s s which the English t e x t avoids in the f i r s t 32 s ta n z a . The d i r e c t n e s s of the French t e x t here is r e versed two lines l a t e r , but with a f a r d i f f e r e n t r e s u l t , when Perse t r a n s l a t e s "Paralysed fo rce" as "force sans 3 1 Cf. E l i o t ' s use of the word dry in "G erontion," in which the meaning is much more a b s t r a c t and c o n n o t a tiv e . 32 Leyris, 0£ . ci t ., p. 74. jmouvement." The impact of E l i o t ' s a d j e c t i v e , one of the (s trongest words in the English poem, d i s s i p a t e s in French. The second stanza p r e s e n t s one of the most s e r i o u s d i f f i c u l t i e s of the whole poem. II faut avouer que ce vers e s t p a r t i c u I i e r e m e n t d^courageant pour un t r a d u c t e u r : I 'o p p o s i t i o n de concepts ( ' s h a d e ' - ' f o r m ' ), le p a r a l l £ l i s m e j sonore ( ' s h a p e ' - ' s h a d e ' ) qui re n f o r c e celui des | [ deux ' w i t h o u t , ' le double sens de 'shade' e t , d'une ; manifcre g£n£rale, I'Equivoque du vocabulaire qui e s t phiIosophique sans I 'a v o u e r , to u t c e l a accumule | vraiment beaucoup de d i f f i c u l t y en six m ots.-^ Not unexpectedly, Perse f a i l s to catch the f u l l essence of the English t e x t in these l i n e s . He p re s e rv e s d e f t l y the dichotomy between the a b s t r a c t and the c o n c re te , the rhythm, |and even some of the sound p a t t e r n . But he also loses some i of the p h ilo so p h ic a l c a s t by using two synonyms ("Ombres" and "nuances") for "shade" while abandoning "shape a l t o g e t h e r. Since the s i n g u l a r ombre can mean "ghost" to a Frenchman, Perse is forced in line eleven to make both key words p l u r a l ; whereas the English s i n g u l a r s t r e s s e s the empty unanimity of the "hollow men," the French p lu ra l s t r e s s e s t h e i r number and s e p a r a t e n e s s . This is not to say, of co u rs e, t h a t t h e re is nothing to admire in P e r s e ' s " a d a p t a t i o n . " Far from i t . " P re sses en foule f r a t e r n e l l e " a c t u a l l y improves on the lin e, "Leaning i t o g e t h e r , " without any a t t e n d a n t loss of meaning. "Presses en f o u le " d e s c r i b e s the l o s t , i n s i g n i f i c a n t souls of the 3 3I b i d . , p. 7 7. 66 "hollow men" gathered in a crowd by reason of fear and weakness; " f r a t e r n e I Ie" adds the c o nnotation of depending, of leaning, on one a n o t h e r . 54 j h e s ix th lin e , "nous murmurons en f o u l e , " is doubly successful because "murmur- ons" a c c u r a t e l y renders "We whispered" in t h i s c o n t e x t and "en fo u le " is a repea ted phrase as is i t s English e q u i v a le n t, " t o g e t h e r . " P e r s e ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of "gesture w ithout motion" as "geste qui ne bouge" (the grammar negates the a c t i v e verb) nearly compensates fo r the loss involved in "force sans mouvement." As I suggested e a r l i e r , one of the main s t r e n g t h s of t h i s t r a n s l a t i o n ' s f i d e l i t y to the English t e x t l i e s in P e r s e ' s i m i t a t i o n of i t s s y n t a c t i c a l s t r u c t u r e . This is most c l e a r l y v i s i b l e in the f i r s t and la s t two lin e s of both t e x t s . We are th e hollow men We are the s t u f f e d men Nous sommes les hommes sans substance, nous sommes les hommes f a i t s de p a i l l e . In E l i o t ' s poem the second line in both in s ta n ces p a r a l l e l s the f i r s t in syntax and s t r e s s e s ; in the " a d a p ta tio n " the second p a r a l l e l s the f i r s t in syntax and s y l l a b i c length. The phrasing of stanza two in both t e x t s i s also nearly exact; E l i o t ' s v a r i a t i o n comes a t the beginning of 3^See Matthews, ££. c i t . , p. 72. 67 lin e eleven, P e r s e ' s comes a t the end. Furthermore, Eliot's r e p e t i t i o n of th e word dry in the f i r s t stanza is matched by P e r s e ' s r e p e t i t i o n of s 16r i I e . Yet a close examination of the rhythm and phrasing of the two t e x t s does d i s c l o s e a fundamental d i f f e r e n c e which r e f l e c t s on the two p o e t s ' in d iv id u a l s t y l e s . E l i o t ' s syntax c h a r a c t e r i s t i c a l l y is s p a r e , s tr ip p e d of d e f i n i t e a r t i c l e s , at times fragm entary, o f t e n r e s t r i c t e d to s h o r t c la u s e s and phrases, and d e l i b e r a t e l y r e p e t i t i o u s . To follow h is model, Perse r e s t r i c t s h i s own syntax in his t r a n s l a t i o n , but h is n atu ra l expansiveness is not always checked. For example, in the f i r s t s tan za he adds a p r e p o s i t i o n a l phrase to the f i r s t l i n e and a p a r t i c i p i a l m odifier to the second lin e , and so lengthens each s l i g h t l y . Nous sommes les hommes sans s u b s t a n c e . Nous sommes les hommes faits~~de pai iTe. S i m i l a r l y , he adds several p r e p o s i t i o n a l phrases to lines e i g h t a n d n i n e . que le s o u f f l e du vent parmi I 'h e r b e s t £ r i le, que la course des r a t s sur les d e b r i s de_ v e r r e . F i n a l l y , in the la st s ta n z a , Perse uses two verbs ("Ceux . . . songeant b nous. . . n'dvoquent p o in t. . . . " t o t r a n s l a t e j u s t one ("Those. . . remember us. . . not as . . . . " ) ; the r e s u l t is b e a u t i f u l l y r e s o n a n t , but inac c u r a t e . Without q u e s tio n , the t a u t a u s t e r i t y so e s s e n t i a l 63 to E l i o t ' s poem is loosened in the Perse " a d a p t a t i o n . " S y n ta c tic a l p a t t e r n s normally form the underlying rhythm of E l i o t ' s p o e t r y , b Ut in t h i s "pokme in d d it" rhyme assumes a f u n c t i o n of nearly equal importance. Al though i r r e g u l a r in s ta n z a s one (aabcabcccb) and three (abacdd), i t is d e f i n i t e and does c o n t r i b u t e to the poem's u n i t y . End-rhyme is n o ti c e a b l y absent from P e r s e ' s " a d a p ta tio n " (except for " s t e r i l e " — " s t e r i l e s " ) , as i t is from his own poetry as w ell. Instead he makes use of a l l i t e r a t i o n and assonance w ith in c e r t a i n lines ("Nous sommes les hommes sans s u b s t a n c e s , " "Presses en fo u le f r a t e r n - e l l e , " ". . . sont voix plus douces et plus vaines/que le s o u f f l e du vent. . . .") which lend a sonorous q u a l ity to the poem t h a t i s at d e f i n i t e odds with the meaning. The f a i n t , dry b r i t t l e n e s s of E l i o t ' s tone is s oftened and muted in the French t e x t ; the r e s u l t i s a vaguely d i s t u r b ing d i ssona nce. Even ta k in g in to account the changes P erse has made in the poem in the a c t of t r a n s l a t i o n , his " a d a p ta tio n " is a u n i f i e d whole in tone and focus, except fo r one c r i t i c a l e r r o r . The p a r e n t h e t i c a l " i f at a l l " (li n e f i f t e e n ) in 35ge e Harvey G ross' f i n e a n a l y s i s of t h a t rhythm in "T. S. Eli ot, th e Musi c of his P oetry, " Sound and Form i n Modern Poetry (Ann Arbor: U n iv e rs ity of Mi ch iqan P r e s s . 1964), pp.' 169-214. 69 the English t e x t becomes " s ' i l s songent & r i e n " in the French. E l i o t ' s phrase c o n tin u e s to place the burden of a t t e n t i o n on "us," "the hollow men," as i t should. Perse i n a d v e r t e n t l y m i s d i r e c t s the r e a d e r ' s a t t e n t i o n to "Ceux qui s ' e n f u r e n t / d r o i t devant eux, vers I ' a u t r e Royaume de la M ort." This m i s t r a n s l a t i o n d i s t o r t s the des ired e f f e c t of " i f at a l l ” (which u ndercuts the tenuous p o s i t i o n of the "hoi low men" with brutal irony) with the r e s u l t th a t th e final French s tan za has not the cumulative impact of the Eng Ii sh t e x t . Even though Perse more than does j u s t i c e to E l i o t ' s "po&me i n £ d i t " in some of his rhythmic p a t t e r n s and in his r e p e t i t i o n of words, his a d a p t a ti o n , among th e three French t r a n s l a t i o n s of th e work, is probably the l e a s t s u c c e s s f u l— p a r t i c u l a r l y if o n e 's c r i t e r i o n in judging i t is f i d e l i t y to t h e o r i g i n a l t e x t . - ^ The o th e r two surpass his e i t h e r On I y two othe r French t r a n s l a t i o n s of E l i o t ' s "po&me" have been p rin t e d since P e r s e ' s " a d a p ta tio n " a p peared in Commerce. The f i r s t was p a r t of a complete t r a n s I a t i on of The Ho I Iow Men done by George Cattaui E"Les Hommes Creux," Mesure. I I , ii i (July 15, 1936), pp. 56- 6 7 J, who l a t e r wrote one of t h e few books on E l i o t in French (T. S. E l i o t . P a r i s : G allimard, 1951). Oddly enough, The Ho I Iow Men is the only major poem by T. S. E l i o t not to appear in any of the French volumes of h is t r a n s l a t e d poetry [ th e f i r s t was Pofemes 1910- 1930. t e x t e a n g l a is e p re s e n t^ et t r a d u i t par P i e r r e Leyris, E d i tio n s du S e u i l : P a r i s , 194-7. Included in t h i s volume are some valuable notes c o n t r i b u t e d by E l i o t ' s close f r i e n d John Hayward; they have not been published in E n g lis h .! The second t r a n s l a t i o n of the "po&me" was appended to a c r i t i q u e of 70 in a more l i t e r a l accuracy in word choice ( p a r t i c u l a r l y in th e epigraph) or in a c l o s e r f i d e l i t y to the rhyme, in reproducing the d i f f i c u l t second s ta n z a or in c o n t r o l l i n g th e p a t t e r n s o f co n n o ta tio n . U n fo rtu n a te ly , all th re e must be f a u l t e d for t h e i r i n a b i l i t y to cope with the simple phrase, " - - i f at a l l - - , " in the l a s t s ta n z a . P e r s e ' s t r a n s l a t i o n by P ie r r e Leyris, published in the Monde- Nouveau-Paru ( j a n v i e r , 1956) C see f o o tn o te 50 3. In both c r i t i q u e and t r a n s l a t i o n , Leyris seems completely unaware of the Cattaui t r a n s l a t i o n ; and, as E l i o t ' s c h i e f French y t r a n s I a t o r , he would be the man most l i k e ly to have come a c r o s s i t . C ' e s t nous les hommes creux C ' e s t nous les hommes em paill£s Penchant ensembIe Tetes bourr£es de p a i l l e . H£lasJ Nos voix s&ches, lorsque Nous chuchotons ensemble Sont calmes et vides de sens Comme le vent dans I'herbe s&che Ou des p a t t e s de r a t sur du v e rre b r is £ Dans notre cave d£ssech<?e Forme sans r e l i e f , ombre sans c o u leu r, Force p a ra l y s £ e , geste sans mouvement; Ceux qui ont pass£ Avec des yeux d r o i t s , dans I ' a u t r e R&gne de la mort Se souviennent de n o u s - - s ' i l s se souviennent--non / comme Des ames v i o l e n t e s perdues, mais seulement Comme des hommes creux Des hommes empai II 6s. George Cattaui Nous sommes les hommes vid£s Les hommes empaiI I 6s Cherchant appui ensemble La Caboche p le in e de bourre. H6 lasJ 71 This judgment, however, m i s r e p re s e n ts badly the Perse " a d a p t a t i o n . " Under the c r i t i c ' s gaze, as under the b o t a n i s t ' s , i t r e f u s e s to be i d e n t i f i e d as of the same species as the o t h e r s . Whether intended or not, P e r s e ' s a l t e r a t i o n of the o r i g i n a l epigraph and h is r e l i a n c e on his own sense of p o e t ic rhythm have led to a new poem s i g n i f i c a n t l y d i f f e r e n t from E l i o t ' s . E l i o t ' s "hollow men" may be symbolic of a kind of men in t w e n t i e t h - century Europe, in such a s t a t e of des p air as to be beyond pity and hope. "Those who have crossed/W ith d i r e c t Nos voix d£ssech£es, quand Nous chuchotons ensemble Sont sourdes, sont inanes Comme le s o u f f l e du vent parmi le chaume sec Comme le t r o t t i s des r a t s sur les te ssons b r i s k s Dans notre cave & sec. Apparence sans forme, ombre decolor£e, Geste sans mouvement, force paralys£e; Ceux qui s ' e n f u re n t (I) Le regard d r o i t , vers I ' a u t r e Royaume de la Mort Gardent m£moire de nous— si q u e l q u 'u n — non pas Comme de v i o l e n t e s ames perdues, mais seulement Comme des hommes vid£s Des hommes e m p a ill ^ s . Pi e rre Leyr i s The Cattaui v e rs io n of E l i o t ' s poem s c a rc e ly resem bles the e a r l i e r (by twelve y e a rs ) Perse vers io n . A fter conspicuously dropping the major epigraph ("Mister K u rtz -- he dead") from beneath the t i t l e for the whole sequence, Cattaui t r a n s l a t e s q u ite l i t e r a l l y the epigraph for P a rt I (or "pofcme i n £ d i t " ) : "Un denier pour le vieux Guy." Un f o r t u n a t e l y , t h i s i s not much b e t t e r than P e r s e ' s mis t r a n s l a t i o n , because no explanatory fo otnote is provided. 72 eyes. . . are men of the p a s t, no longer e x i s t e n t , whom the hoi low men envy but find impossible to emu late or follow . Their c o n d i t i o n is r e f l e c t e d in the r e s t r a i n e d h arshness of the poem's tone. P e r s e ' s " les hommes sans s u b s t a n c e , " on the other hand, are a race of men who seek p i t y , but whom Perse q u ie tly r e j e c t s by c a l l i n g them "hommes de peu de p o i d s . " Although he speaks in the c o l l e c t i v e voice of "Nous sommes," h is epigraph adds a s l i g h t l y i r o n i c note to his point of view. The irony i n c r e a s e s as t h a t voice becomes more r e s o n a n tl y e loquent. Cattaui both improves on and d i l u t e s P e r s e ' s i n i t i a l e f f o r t . His improvements come largely in th e f i r s t s tan za . Besides being more acc u rate than "Nox voix s t £ r i l e s , si t o u t bas, " "Nos voix s&ches, lorsque" has a h a r s h e r , more a p p r o p r i a t e sound. Following t h i s are two lin es th a t are exemplary for the way they r e c r e a t e the sound and sense o f the English t e x t . Sont calmes et vides de sens Comme le vent dans I 'h e r b e sfeche Where Perse r e p e a t s the noun and adds words to change the ph rasin g and lengthen the line, Cattaui meshes syntax and rhythm p e r f e c t l y . His added a l l i t e r a t i o n and assonance, i n s te a d of s o f te n i n g the lin e s , t i g h t e n them n i c e l y . In the d i f f i c u l t second stanza he shapes the second line into a more l i t e r a l order and p re s e rv e s in the f i r s t line the "Shape"— "shade" r e l a t i o n in "Forme"— "om bre.” Unfor t u n a t e l y , "Forme sans r e l i e f " s u b s t i t u t e s the sense of o u te r for inner s t r u c t u r e implied in the E l i o t lin e. In his changes, however, Cattaui begins to go a s t r a y in the very f i r s t li n e s . Creux has not th e c o n n o t a tiv e r i n g of hoi Iow. which comes through in P e r s e ’s "sans sub s t a n c e . " Also, the prolonged rhythm in line two c o n t r a d i c t s the English t e x t and d i s r u p t s the balance both E l i o t and Perse had achieved. Cattaui a t te m p t s fewer rhymes than Perse; and when he does, they have not the f o r c e of s t £ r i I e - - s t £ r i l e s . But most d i s t r e s s i n g perhaps i s the change Cattaui makes in the Perse line ( f i f t e e n ) which a l t e r e d the e f f e c t of his f i n a l s ta n z a ; he makes 73 Looking at the Perse " a d a p ta tio n " as an independent t e x t , one observes i t s i n a c c u r a c i e s again in a d i f f e r e n t l i g h t . For one, the m i s t r a n s l a t i o n in stanza t h r e e , a l though it d i f f e r s sharply with the English t e x t , is not r e a l l y so i n c o n s i s t e n t with P e r s e ' s tone and fo cu s . His t h i r d stanza is d iv id ed , in i t s a t t e n t i o n , between the two kinds of men (whereas E lio t focuses c l e a r l y on the hollow men), and he seems le ss i n t e r e s t e d in summing up a who I ly the same m istake, only more economically. "Se souviennent de n o u s - - s ' i l s se s o u v i e n n e n t - - ” (th e sonorous r e p e t i t i o n im i t a t e s Perse) m i s d i r e c t s o n e 's a t t e n t i o n to "Ceux qui ont p a s s £ , ” and the irony of the simple " i f at a l l " escapes like a i r from a b u rs t balloon. The t h i r d French version of the E l i o t "po&me" is the r e s u l t , P i e r r e Leyris t e l l s us, of his r a t h e r a p o l o g e t i c c r i t i q u e of the Perse " a d a p t a t i o n " : ", . . j ' y s u is con- t r a i n t par les probl&mes que j ' a i soulev<5s en cherni n et auxquels je me do is d ' a p p o r t e r une mani&re de s o l u t i o n e t , to u t se t e n a n t , de s o l u t i o n g l o b a l e . " (p. 78) This strikes one as r a t h e r d isinge nuous, coming from th e man who has t r a n s l a t e d most of E l i o t ' s poetry into French. The overly p o l i t e tone of the a r t i c l e sug g es ts th a t Leyris may be playing th e game of "one-up-manship." Beginning both h is c r i t i q u e and his t r a n s l a t i o n with the f i r s t line of E l i o t ' s "poeme," Leyris ignores com p l e t e l y and in e x p lic a b ly the epigraph, "A penny fo r the old Guy." This n e g l e c t is c o s t l y , e s p e c i a l l y sin c e Leyris is otherw ise d i s c e r n i n g and t a l e n t e d as a t r a n s l a t o r . His version of El i ot ' s f i r s t two lines dem onstrates t h a t s k i l l qu i te e f f e c t i v e I y . Nous sommes les hommes vid£s Les hommes empai Il£s He uses the same "Nous sommes les hommes" c o n s t r u c t i o n as did Perse, but he drops the noun and verb in the second line with s u r p r i s i n g r e s u l t s . This enables him to p r e serve the English s i x - f i v e s y l l a b i c lines and to s t r e s s the modifying a d j e c t i v e s , as E l i o t intended. Rhyming th e a d j e c t i v e s u n d e r l i n e s t h i s emphasis while a t the same time approximating E l i o t ' s rhyme in the o r i g i n a l . The choice of "vid£s" for hoi Iow c a tc h e s the co n n o ta tiv e ring 74 n egative view of the world and in judging "les hommes sans substance" than he is in evoking an a l t e r n a t i v e view by means of t h e i r op p o s ite . In d e s c r ib i n g the se o t h e r s , h is t r a n s f o r m a t i o n of "Remember" into "songeant. . . n'dvoquent p o in t " emphasizes t h a t t h e re is a substance to them which even death has not o b l i t e r a t e d . The use of the word s o n g e r . which is so c r u c i a l in Anabase (1924). makes i t tempting to imagine t h a t the n a r r a t o r of t h a t poem crossed expressed in "sans s u b s t a n c e , " but absent from " c re u x ." In the se two li n e s Leyris unquestionably is the best of the th re e t r a n s l a t o r s . His success can a lso be seen in othe r passages from the f i r s t s ta n z a . Again modifying the syntax in line seven ("Sont sourdes, sont in a n e s " ) , Leyris equals the improve ment Cattaui made on Perse. While "inanes" is less s t r i k ing than "vide de s e n s , " "sourdes" is d e f i n i t e l y s tro n g e r c o n n o ta tiv e Iy than the mild "calm es." Although the next line r e p e a t s the long Persean phrase, "le s o u f f l e du vent p a rm i. . . the choice of "le chaume sec" for "dry grass" is both more e v o c a tiv e and more concrete than "I' herbe" in the other two t r a n s l a t i o n s . Leyris a l s o p r e serves a meaningful approxim ation of E l i o t ' s rhyme scheme throughout the f i r s t s t a n z a : " v id £ s ," " e m p a i ll £ s ," " b r i s l s " (and the in t e rn a l " d £ s s e c h £ e s " ); " s e c ," "sec"; " e n s e m b l e ,” "ensemble." Given th e genera lly succes s fu l f i r s t stanza and his e x c e l l e n t a n a l y s i s of the problems in the second, it is d i s c o n c e r t i n g to read L e y r i s ' s own version of how he would r e s o lv e the l a t t e r . Here he rhymes where E l io t does not, and the rhyme simply does not work. F i r s t of a l l , i t f o r c e s him to change E l i o t ' s repeated wi thout c o n s t r u c t i o n (which p a r a l l e l s "Shape" and "shade") into two balanced lin es (which p a r a l l e l "Apparence" and "G este," "ombre" and " f o r c e " ) . To be s u re , "Apparence sans forme" is more f a i t h f u l to th e English phrase than are the Perse and Cattaui v e r s i o n s , but the rearran g e d syntax and conceptual order confuse badly the r e l a t i o n s E l i o t meant to draw. There are other d i s t u r b i n g elements in L eyris' t r a n s l a t i o n . "La Caboche ple in e de bourre" d e s c r i b e s "les hommes vid£s" more g ro te s q u e ly than does the English t e x t ; 75 P e r s e ' s mind several times during the act of tr a n s I a t i o n .37 S aint-John Perse would be adamant probably in h is d i s agreement, but it might not be amiss to suggest t h a t t h i s " a d a p t a t i o n , " because i t is stamped so c l e a r l y as h i s own, deserves to be p rin te d in h is c o l l e c t e d works as one of his minor poems. although t h e irony and a l l i t e r a t i o n in the line are p ro vo c a tiv e , th e image makes i t a l l seem too c l e v e r . S i m i l a r ly, the a l l i t e r a t i o n and rhythm of line nine are marred by the word t r o t t i s and by the redundant "les te s s o n s b r i s k s . " F i n a l l y , in his c r i t i q u e Leyris chides Perse for using songer i ns tead of sje sou ven i r (or i t s equi va I e n t ) in line f i f t e e n , but he f a i l s to note the e r r o r in t r a n s l a t i n g " — i f at al I - - . " This leads in e v i t a b l y to a nother mis t r a n s l a t i o n , th is time compounded by a phrase which is gram m atically ambiguous: "— si quelqu'une— ." Coming so near the end of the poem, such an u n f o r t u n a t e ambiguity makes for a serious muddle. 37 " p u i s s a n c e , tu c h a n t a i s sur nos routes nocturnes! . . . ^ Aux ides pures du matin que savons-vous du songe, n o tre a i n e s s e ? " Anabase. I. CHAPTER IV ELIOT TRANSLATION: ANABASE " T r a n s la t io n s are like women, homely when f a i t h f u I , and u n f a i t h f u l when l o v e ly ." French saying " I t is a t e s t (a p o s i t i v e t e s t , I do not a s s e r t t h a t i t is always v a l i d n e g a t i v e l y ) t h a t genuine po etry can communicate before i t is u n d e rs to o d . " T. S. Eli ot Few problems face the s tu d e n t bent on a n alyzing the t r a n s l a t i o n S a in t-J o h n Perse made of the f i r s t p a r t of T. S. E l i o t ' s "The Hollow Men." The s tu d e n t has but one s h o rt t e x t in each language to c o n s u l t , and he can r e c r e a t e the background to the t r a n s l a t i o n quickly and with some de gree of c e r t i t u d e . The case is q u i t e d i f f e r e n t with E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of P e r s e ' s long poem, Anabase (Gallimard, 1924). E liot published no less than four s e p a r a t e t e x t s of the Anabasis t r a n s l a t i o n ; in a d d i t i o n , he preserved a f i r s t - d r a f t t y p e s c r i p t o f the e n t i r e poem, the f i r s t canto o f which was published in Commerce (February, 1928). Also, the background to the Anabas i s t r a n s l a t i o n appears much more complex and obscure than in the case of P e r s e 's t r a n s l a t i o n of "The Hollow Men." For reasons 76 77 which must be explained, E l i o t decided on h is own to t r a n s l a t e the long French poem, and he p e r s i s t e d long in t h a t decision. E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase is a s i n g u l a r i t y taken in the c o n te x t of his published work, much like a k i l l e r whale in a large sea aquarium. Quite simply, it is his only major venture in the t r a n s l a t i n g of poetry (and how d i f f e r e n t a poetry from h is own!)* As is well known, E l i o t has devoted an unusually large number of c r i t i c a l essays and i n t r o d u c t i o n s to fe ll o w w r i t e r s , both English and other wise, deceased and l i v i n g . 2 Even several c o n t i n e n t a l poets whom he b e lie v e d were most i n f l u e n t i a l to h is own work (and he has f r e e l y acknowledged t h e i r influence a t every op p o r t u n i t y ) have received h is in dividual a t t e n t i o n : Dante, One is reminded here of Sain t-Jo h n P e r s e ' s s i n g l e t r a n s l a t i o n o f "The Hollow Men I . " However, E l i o t had pub lish e d in the Harvard A dvocate, the undergraduate l i t e r a r y magazine, a near t r a n s l a t i o n of J u l e s Laforgue, "S pleen," and two i m i t a t i o n s of the same poet, "Nocturne" and "Humoresque." In Prufrock and Other Observat i ons (1917) he a l s o published a v a r i a t i o n on L aforgue 's "Autre Complainte de Lord P i e r r o t " in "Conversation Galante" (composed in 1909). 2 It is the se es s a y s , and not those such as " T r a d i t i o n and the Individual T a l e n t , " which E l i o t h im se lf th i n k s "have the b e s t chance of r e t a i n i n g some value for f u t u r e r e a d e r s . . . ." T. S. E l i o t , "To C r i t i c i z e the C r i t i c ( I 96 I )," To C r i t i c i z e the C r i t i c (London: Faber and Faber, 1965), p. 187 F. R. Leav i s ta kes up t h i s opinion with even more s t r i n g e n c y , in "T. S. E l i o t and the Life of English L i t e r a t u r e , " M assachusetts Review, X, i (Winter, 19 6 9), p. 10. 78 some of th e French Symbolists, Baudelaire, and V a l e r y . 3 But, with the exception of Laforgue, he has t r a n s l a t e d none of them. I t is tru e th a t E lio t published a t r a n s l a tio n of one of Charles Maurras' c r i t i c a l p i e c e s . ^ But th a t essay is social and c u l t u r a l c r i t i c i s m , and Maurras has had only a minor impact on E l i o t — and t h a t on h i s p o l i t i c a l ideas and prose s t y l e . 5 Only two poets to whom E l i o t is indebted, then, are not s u b j e c t s for kind and e x te n siv e "A B rie f In tr o d u c t io n to the Method of Paul V a le ry ," Le Serpent par PauI V aI£ry, t r a n s . by Mark Ward Ie (London: Cobden-Sanderson, 1924), pp. 7-15. "Dante," The Sacred Wood (London: Methuen, 1920), pp. 159-171. D a n te . New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1948. " I n t r o d u c t i o n , " The Art of Poetry (C o lle c te d Works of Paul Valery, e d i te d by J. Mathews, Vol. VII),(New York: Pantheon, 1958), pp. vi i — xx i v . "Le9on de VaI£ry, " Cahi ers du Sud: PauI VaI£ry Vi vant (1946). pp. 74-81. "The Lesson of B a u d e l a i r e , " Tyro. I (1922), p. 4. "Review of Baudelaire and th e Symbolists by P eter Q uennell," The Cr i t e r i o n . IX, 35 (January, 1929), pp. 357-59. "Talk on D a n t e , ” The A d e Ip h i, XXVII ( F i r s t Quarter, 1951), pp. 106-14. C "The V an eti es of Metaphysical Poetry." The Turbull l e c t u r e s d e l i v e r e d at Johns Hopkins U n iv e rs ity in Baltimore, January, 1933 5 Houghton Library MS Am I 26 I . ^Charles Maurras, "Prologue to an Essay on C r i t i cism ," t r a n s . by T. S. E l i o t , Month Iy Cr i t e r i on. VII, i (January, 1928), pp. 5-15. Charles Maurras, "Prologue to an Essay on C r i t i c i s m I I , " t r a n s . by T. S. E l i o t , Month Iy Cr i t e r i o n . VII, i i i (March, I 928 ), pp. 204-218. u. ^Herbert Howarth, Notes on Some Fi gures Behi nd T _. S. El jot (Boston: Houghton, M i f f l i n , 1964), pp. 175-78. Eli 01 h im se lf admitted the e a r l y influence o f Maurras in "To C r i t i c i z e the C r i t i c ( 196 I )," To C r i t i c i z e th e C r i t i c , p . 17. 79 a p p r a i s a l in h is c r i t i c a l e s s ay s . His n eg lect of the f i r s t , J u l e s Laforgue, E l i o t apologized for in one of his l a s t e s s a y s .^ The o th e r, S a in t-Jo h n Perse, alone among th e poets E l io t g re a t ly admired and learned from,he chose to t r a n s l a t e . The unique s t a t u s given to P e r s e ' s then longest and most ambitious poem, Anabase (1924), suggests the m erit E l i o t found in the French p o e t ' s work. In f a c t , E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase. f i r s t published in 1930, was only th e second t r a n s l a t i o n of the poem to be made.^ If t h i s were not enough, E l io t confirmed and extended h is admira t i o n by r e v i s i n g the poem for several subsequent e d i t i o n s . After th e unbound copies of the 1930 e d i t i o n of the r T. S. E l i o t , 0£. c i t . , p. 22. He a l s o a p o lo g iz e s f o r not saying more about T r i s t a n Corbi&re. ^The f i r s t , preceded by an i n t r o d u c t i o n by P e r s e ' s cl o s e f r i e n d , Valery Larbaud, was a Russian t r a n s l a t i o n by G. Adamovitch and G. Ivanoff which had been p r in t e d and d i s t r i b u t e d to a very limited audience of Russian e x i l e s in P a ris in 1926. A German t r a n s l a t i o n by Bernard Groethuysen and Walter Benjamin (Leipzig: I n s e I - VerI a g , 1929), was to have appeared before E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n , but i t s p u b l i c a t i o n was suspended; i t was f i n a l l y p r i n t e d in Das Lot ( B e r l i n ) , IV (Oktober, 1950). Two t r a n s l a t i o n s appeared in I t a l y and Mexico in 1931: Anabase, t r a n s l a t i o n by Guiseppe U n g a r e tt i, Fronte (T urin), IT (1931); Anabas i s . t r a n s l a t i o n by Octavi o Barreda, Mexico: Ed. Contemporaneos, 1931. In 1932, a t r a n s l a t i o n by Ion Pi Mat (Bucharest: Carten Romaneses), appeared in Romania. And in 1939, a Swedish t r a n s l a t i o n by Arthur Lundvist ap peared in the anthology Ikarus F l y g t , Stockholm: Bonniers. 80 English Anabasi s were r e is s u e d in England in 1937, E l io t re v is e d his t r a n s l a t i o n for a s t r i c t l y American p r i n t i n g in I9 3 8, and then rev is ed t h a t same American t r a n s l a t i o n for a second e d i t i o n in 1949, which followed immediately upon his acceptance of the 1948 Nobel P rize for L i t e r a t u r e . E l i o t was hardly o b li g a te d to underta ke the job of p u tt in g out a d i f f e r e n t American e d i t i o n ; and he seemed under no external; p r e s s u r e to r e v i s e the t r a n s l a t i o n again f o r another e d i t i o n in 1949. The f o u r th e d i t i o n of Anabasi s , p rin t e d in London in 1959, fo r the B r i t i s h re a d e r, seems to have been P e r s e ' s idea, for E l i o t (in a c u r io u s l y b r i e f note) says fr a n k ly t h a t the author alone is r e s p o n s i b l e for changes from the preceding t e x t s . ^ In a l l , these t r a n s l a t i o n s sug gest no small i n t e r e s t on E l i o t ' s p a r t . The question which n a t u r a l l y a r i s e s i s : why such an unusual and sustain e d enthusiasm for t h i s p a r t i c u l a r poem? As Kathleen Rai ne has asked, ". . . what a f f i n i t y II could 3 such poetry C have 3 had with E l i o t ' s own th eory and pra c - g t i c e as a poet. . .?" What is i t in Anabase to which Q "The a l t e r a t i o n s to the English t e x t of t h i s e d i t i o n have been made by the author h im se lf, and tend to make the t r a n s l a t i o n more l i t e r a l than in previous e d i t i o n s . " T. S. E l i o t , "Note to the Third E d i t i o n , " Anabasi s (London: Faber and Faber, 1959), p. 15. ^Kathleen Raine, " S t.- J o h n Perse: Part of the Marvel lo u s , " E ncounter. XXIX, 4 (October, 1967), p. 51. 81 E l i o t responded so quickly and e n t h u s i a s t i c a l l y , more than to the same a u t h o r ' s EIoges ( 1925) which he a lso read at t h a t t i m e . 1^ And why should he want to introduce the a l most unknown S aint-John Perse to an English audience and not, fo r example, continue to encourage p e rs o n a ll y the t r a n s l a t i o n of Paul V alery ? 11 The reasons behind E l i o t ' s d e c i s i o n to t r a n s l a t e Anabase may continue to elude us, s ince many f a c t s about t h a t period in h is l i f e remain un c l e a r . But I would like to suggest several which, I be li e v e , c e r t a i n l y influenced him in th a t d e c i s i o n , reasons which provide an i n s i g h t into E l i o t ' s p o etic method and in to h is understanding of the poem he was to t r a n s l a t e . The foI Iow in g ,th en , is an attem pt to r e c o n s t r u c t the r e l e vant c o n t e x t in which E l i o t came upon P e r s e ' s poem and the i n t e r e s t s he brought to t h a t encounter. I th in k i t im perative, f i r s t of a l l , to und ers tan d as c l e a r l y as p o s s i b l e what absorbed E l i o t ' s a t t e n t i o n in the e a rly I9 2 0' s p rio r to the moment he conceived h i s plan to ®"II y a u r a , b i e n f o t v i n g t - c in q ans, j ' a i connu pour la premiere f o i s EIoges et Anabase. et je me s u i s mis & t r a d u i r e en a n g l a i s le second de ces polities." This comes from th e l e t t e r E l i o t wrote to Jean Paulhan, December 7, 1949, for the Hommage I n t e r n a t i ona I des "Cahi e r s de I a PIe i ade " (Parish 6te-automme, f950), p. 7. * 1T. 3. E l i o t , "A Brie f I n tr o d u c t io n to th e Method of Paul V a le ry ," L£ Serpent par Pau I Va I 6 r y . pp. 7-15. 82 t r a n s l a t e Anabase. S p e c i f i c a l l y , I mean, what held h is i n t e r e s t in the c u rre n t goings-on in the a r t s which could have a f f e c t e d h i s own l i t e r a r y u n d e rta k in g s ? What events d e f i n i t e l y were a f f e c t i n g his work? It is commonly known th a t E l i o t r a r e l y r e s t r i c t e d hi mself to a s i n g l e vocation, and some of h i s p u r s u i t s seem to have led him to Perse. The one e n t e r p r i s e which undoubtedly took up most of E l i o t ' s time and energy during th e s e years was The C r i t e r i o n . * 2 Discussed s k e tc h i ly and hopefully as e a r l y as 1920,*-^ and brought out almost s in g le -h a n d e d ly in October, 1922, The C r i t e r i o n burdened E l io t with enormous problems of e d i t i n g and p r i n t i n g for which he alone was la rg e ly r e s p o n s i b l e . I f anything, the c o n s ta n t p r e s s u r e s involved in keeping such an e n t e r p r i s e merely running should have kept him from o th e r endeavors. Yet he c e r t a i n l y was not s hackled. Those pres s u res are at le ast p a r t i a l l y re s p o n s i b l e for his own q u a n t i t a t i v e l y meager output of poetry from 1922 to 1930.*^ But they a l s o s tren g th en ed and 12 EIi ot began The Cr i t e r i on as a q u a r t e r l y in 1922, but for one and a h a l f years, from 1927 to 1928, it ran as The Month I y C r i t e r i 0 n . From then on it r e v e r t e d to a quar t e r l y u nt i 1 IT ceased p u b li c a ti o n in January, 1939. '^H erbert Read, "T, S. E . — A Memoir," T. 3. Eli o t : The Man and Hi s Work, ed. Allen Tate (New York: Del I “ 19 6 6 ), p p. 15-1sy ^ E x c e p t f o r several incomplete poems p r i n t e d in p e r i o d i c a l s , E l i o t ' s only poetry during t h i s e i g h t - y e a r 83 r e f in e d his co n n ec tio n s with the c u r r e n t thought and w r i t ing on the European c o n t i n e n t . Although E l i o t ' s e d i t i n g The Cr i t e r i on would seem to have l i t t l e bearing d i r e c t l y on the Anabasi s t r a n s l a t i o n , 1 * the purpose of the review did draw him into the o r b i t of the French l i t e r a r y group which included S aint-John Perse. One of E l i o t ' s unw ritten p o l i c i e s , according to K r i s t i a n Smidt, was to renew " th a t sense of the unity of European c u l t u r e which the e d i t o r always thought sd im p o r ta n t"; *^ The Cr i t e r i on was to be E l i o t ’s c h i e f veh icle in t r y i n g to m a in ta in and continue the European l i t e r a r y t r a d i t i o n . ". . . i t was my aim to find and p r i n t work of the best c o n t i n e n t a l w r i t e r s , of all n a t i o n s , with some community of period was The Ho I Iow Men and t h r e e of the "Ariel" poems. Contrary to the most commonly held opinion, E l i o t was less p r e s s u re d by h is bank job and by his e d i t o r s h i p of The C r i t e r i o n than by h is w i f e ' s i IIness. "As you know, of course, The d i f f i c u l t y in Tom's case was th a t V i v i e n 's continuous i l l n e s s , or i l l n e s s e s , were what kept him pinched, and t i e d to the Bank. F urtherm ore, i t w a s n 't the bank drudgery t h a t cu t down h is l i t e r a r y output but Vivien's r e q u i r i n g all of his spare time as a nurse to h e r s e l f . . . . Furthermore (in such a m ysterious way does Providence perform) i t s t r i k e s me as doubtful whether i f Tom's output had been g r e a t e r in volume, i t would have been as g r e a t in q u a l i t y . " [ Henry Ware E l i o t , J r . , "L etter to F. M. M orley," (Cambridge) February 3, 194-0 3 Houghton Library *Ac9 EI 4 6 4 y922 p. ^ K r i s t i a n Smidt, Poetry and Be I i ef i n the Work of T. S. E l i o t , rev. ed (New York: Human i t i es, 19617^ p. 27. 84 i n t e r e s t s , though not a narrow or s p e c i a l i s e d on e . "*6 Be s id e s the e s s ay s , book reviews, and e d i t o r i a l commentaries which comprised the bulk of each issue, E l i o t a lso pub lished the work of contemporary co n tin e n ta l w r i t e r s . 3y 1929, he was able to r e f l e c t " th at the C r i t e r i o n was the f i r s t l i t e r a r y review in England to p r i n t work by such w r i t e r s as Marcel Proust, Paul Valery, Roman Fernandez, Jacques Rivi&re, Charles Maurras, Henri Massis, .Vilhelm Worringer, Max S ch eler, E. R. C u rtiu s, and o t h e r s . " 1"^ In t h i s r e s p e c t , the Cr i t e r i on was not unlike Commerce, which began pub Iica tion. with the support of Marguerite Caetani (P rin ces s Bassiano) in the f a l l of 1924, less than two y e a rs a f t e r E l i o t ' s q u a r t e r l y f i r s t appeared. Clear evidence of t h i s simi l a r i t y , which may have involved some arrangement behind the scenes, is provided by the f i r s t i s s u e s of each p e r i o d i c a l : Valery Larbaud's essay on Joyce 1s UIysses appear ed in The C r i t e r i o n wh i Ie a s e c ti o n r O of his t r a n s l a t i o n of Ulysses appeared in Commerce. This T. S. E l i o t , C " T r a d it io n in the P r a c t i c e of Poetry" (address d e l i v e r e d by T. S. E. probably at the Book Fair in London, 1935), pp. 12-13 ] Houghton Library bMS Am 16 9 1 (27). *7t . 3. E l i o t , "A Commentary," The C r i t e r i o n , VII, 33 ( July, 1929), p. 577. James Joyce, "Ulysses: Fragments," t r a n s . VaIery Larbaud and Auguste Morel, Commerce, I (£t£ 1924), pp. 121- 158. Valery Larbaud, "James Joyce," The C r i t e r i o n , I, i 85 r e l a t i o n s h i p between the two p e r i o d i c a l s can a lso be seen in P e r s e ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of E l i o t ' s "The Hollow Men I , " at the i n s i s t e n c e of Marguerite Caetani, for Commerce III ( h iv e r , 1924). As I have explained in Chapter II ( p p . 38-42) E l i o t acted as M arguerite C a e t a n i ' s c h i e f source of inform- ! a t i o n on English a r t s and l e t t e r s ; and she, in t u r n , p ro b ably introduced E l i o t to Anabase. Thus, The Cr i t e r i on seems to have tu rn ed E l i o t ' s f r i e n d s h i p with his cousin M arguerite Caetani into a working r e l a t i o n s h i p , linking him d i s t a n t l y with Commerce and, subsequently, with S a i n t - J o h n P erse. I t is i n t e r e s t i n g to note t h a t E l i o t l a t e r chose to p ublish in The C r i t e r i o n the f i r s t f ragment of his Anabasi s t r a n s l a t i o n , j u s t as Perse had published h is t r a n s l a t i o n of "The Hollow Men I" in Commerce. But to r e t u r n more s p e c i f i c a l l y to some of E l i o t ' s i n t e r e s t s in the early I9 20's. His c r i t i c a l s t u d i e s of the E l iz a b e th a n and Jacobean d r a m a t i s t s * ^ and h i s personal f a s c i n a t i o n for the music h a l l l e d him to c onsider s e r i o u s l y (October, 1922), pp. 94-103. The Larbaud essay was f i r s t p u b lishe d in t h a t othe r i n f l u e n t i a l French p e r i o d i c a l . NouveI Ie revue franqai s e . XXIV (avri I 1922), pp. 385-409. *9"Ben J o n s o n , " The Sacred Wood (London; Metheun, 1920), pp. 104-122. "Hamlet and hi s Problems," The Sacred Wood, pp. 95-103. "Notes on th e Blank Verse of Chr i stopher Marlowe," The Sacred Wood, pp. 86-94. " P h i l i p M a s sin g e r," The Sacred Woo'd', pp. I 23- 143. 2 0T. S. E l i o t , "In Memorium: Marie Lloyd," The C ri teri on, i f 2 (January, 1923), pp. 192-195. 86 the q u e s ti o n of c r e a t i n g a new form of poetic drama s u i t able for h is a g e . 21 His early experiments in t h i s d i r e c t i o n can be seen in the dramatic d ia lo g u e s in the second p a r t of The Waste Land (I9 2 2 )22 and in the two fragmentary scenes pub Ii shed i n I 926 i n The Cr i t er i on as Sweeney Agoni s t e s . 2-^ To confirm the r i g h t n e s s of h is e f f o r t s , E l i o t followed c l o s e l y the e x p e rim e n ta tio n c u r r e n t l y going on in several of the a r t s . 2^ Germane to t h i s study is h is review of a b a l l e t produced in London in the summer of 1921, a few months before ( h is doctor having advised him to seek r e s t for h is nervous c o n d i t i o n ) he s a t down beside Lake Geneva to compose The Waste Land.2^ That b a l l e t was S t r a v i n s k y ' s 2 T. S. E l i o t , "The P o s s i b i l i t y of P oetic Drama," Dial, LXIX (November, 1920), pp. 441-447. Also, The Sacred Wood pp. 60-70. 22E l i o t took great s a t i s f a c t i o n in Bonamy D obr£e's r e marks a t the time on the success of the dramatic s e c t i o n s of The Waste Land. In f a c t , Dobr£e noticed t h a t E l i o t seemed to warm only to c o n v e r s a t io n s on dramatic techniques. Bonamy Dobr£e,"T. S. E l i o t : A Personal Rem iniscence," T. S. E l i o t : The Man and h i s Work, p. 67. 2^T. S. E l i o t , "Fragment of a P ro lo g u e," C r i t e r i o n . IV, 4 (October, 1926), pp. 713-718. T. S. E l i o t , "Fragment of an Agon," Cr i t e r i on. V, I (January, 1927), pp. 74-80. 2^Sylvia Beach, Shakespeare and Company (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 19567^ p. 124. ^ A p p a r e n t I y , t h i s was only the second performance of the b a l l e t whose premiere in P a r i s on May 29, 1913, q uic k ly became a s e n s a tio n a l scandal. S a in t -J o h n Perse attended 87 Le Sacre du Pri ntemps. The modernity of S t r a v i n s k y ' s music struck E l i o t i m- med i a t e l y : The music was c e r t a i n l y too new and strange to ple a se very many people. . . . To me the music seemed very rem arkable— but at all events s tru c k me as p o s s e s s in g a q u a l i t y of modernity which I missed from the b a l l e t which accompanied i t . 27 However, E l i o t noted more e x a c tly t h a t the performance was an unusual " i n t e r p e n e t r a t i o n " of the p r i m i t i v e and the t h a t premiere and gives the follow ing account as reporte d in Igor S tra v in sk y and Robert C r a f t , Dialogues and a Pi ary (Garden City: Doubleday, 1965), p. 197: "He C Perse 3 says t h a t a t the premiere of Le Sacre he saw men swinging t h e i r canes a t each o th e r, anT" openi ng and s h u t t i n g umbrel las. 'I was with Debussy before and a f t e r that perform ance, and I remember how e x c ite d he was by the music at f i r s t and then how he changed when he understood t h a t with it you C S tra v in sk y ] had taken the a t t e n t i o n of the new g e n e r a tio n away from him. He f e l t abandoned, and he began to criticize it.'" ^ S e e Ezra Pound's "Bel E s p r i t " pamphlet, "184: To William Carlos Williams, P a r i s , 18 March, 1922," L e t t e r s of Ezra Pound. e d . D. D. Paige (New York: H a rc o u rt, B race, T95O), p p . 172-3. Eliot's nervous breakdown and h i s conse quent c o n v a l e s c e n t stay in Switzerland were p r e t t y c l e a r l y the r e s u l t of the in t e n s i v e care h is w i f e ' s i l l n e s s de manded of him. Henry Ware E l i o t , J r . , speaks of h is period in a l e t t e r to F. M. Morley, C Cambridge 3 February 3,1940 (Houghton Library #Ac9 FI464 Y922p ): "And s tr a n g e l y enough, i t is probably owing to V iv ie n 's p e r s e c u t i o n s and his own anguish, t h a t The Waste Land got w r i t t e n ; in f a c t , Tom has said as much him self in a l e t t e r to me not long ago." See fo o tn o t e 14. 27T. S. E l i o t , "London L e t t e r , " D ia l, LXXI (October. 1921), p. 452. -------- 88 modern: "The s p i r i t of the music was modern, and the Q s p i r i t of the b a l l e t was p r i m i t i v e ceremony."^ This theme of the i n t e r p e n e t r a t i o n of past and p r e s e n t , so dear to E l i o t in h is c r i t i c i s m ( e . g . , "T rad itio n and the Individual T a l e n t" ) and in h is poetry ( e . g . , "Sweeney among the Night i n g a le s " and "Burbank with a Baedeker: B l e i s t e i n with a C i g a r " ) , with S travinsky assumed a new and s i g n i f i c a n t form: the past becomes the p r i m i t i v e , here the V egetation Rite "of th a t vanished mind of which our mind is a c o n t i n u a t i o n . " * ^ And i t was not the i n t e r p e n e t r a t i o n which so e x c i te d E l i o t , but the "metamorphosis" ("In a r t t h e re should be i n t e r p e n e t r a t i o n and metamorphosis.")-3® which he saw very c l e a r l y in an a r t form other than his own. Whether S t r a v i n s k y ' s music be permanent or ephemeral I do not know; but i t did seem to transform the rhythm of the steppes i nto the scream of the motor horn, the r a t t l e of machinery, the grind of wheels, the g r a t i n g of iron and s t e e l , the roar of the_ underground railw ay, and the other b a r b a r i c c r i e s of modern l i f e ; and to transform the se d e s p a i r i n g noises in to mu s i c . 3 I 28 Ibi d ., p. 453. Ib i d # 31 I b id . The p r i m i t i v e rhythms emerged in modern noises which them s e l v e s then coalesced in to p a t t e r n s of music. S u b s t i t u t e l i t e r a r y t r a d i t i o n or, more pro p erly , myth fo r " p r im i tiv e rhythms," and the sentence reads like E l i o t ' s b l u e p r i n t in i m iniature f o r w r iti n g modern poetry. As Grover Smith has ; i suggested, E l io t seems to have c a r r i e d it out e x p l i c i t l y inj j The Waste Land. He might almost have been s ketching his own plans ; for a work applying a p rim iti v e idea to contemporary li f e . . . . In The Waste Land he imposed the j f e r t i l i t y myth upon the world about him .32 | R e fle c tin g on E l i o t ' s comments on S tra v in sk y , one has to conclude th a t he was p e c u l i a r l y r e c e p t i v e to what he considered were a r t i s t i c experiments which sought to r e la te s a n t i q u i t y and the modern age, the p r i m i t i v e and the c i v i l - . ized. I n t e r e s t i ng I y enough, in his review of Le_ Sacr e du i Printe m ps, E lio t a l l u d e s to an a n c i e n t l i t e r a r y hero whose story acts as a u n ify in g p a t t e r n in another contemporary j work: "The e f f e c t C of mu sic and b a l l e t J was like Ulysses with i l l u s t r a t i o n s by the best contemporary i I I u s t r a t o r ."33 E l i o t ' s choice of a comparison was probably no ac- j i i c i d e n t . He had met Joyce for the f i r s t time e a r l i e r in ; 7p I Grover C. Smith, T. S. E l i o t ' s Poetry and PI ay s : A Study i n Sources and Mean i nq (Chicago: Uni v e r s i t y of Chicago P re s s , I960), p. 71. i 3 3 j . S. E l i o t , "London L e t t e r , " p. 452. j ! t h a t same y ear, had read the s e r i a l p u b l i c a t i o n of UIysses i ' n L i t t l e Re v i evv, and was undoubtedly informed of I Sylvia Beach's plan to publish it in book f o r m . ^ 4 When i la te in 1923 the book did appear, a year a f t e r i t was ! i | o r i g i n a l l y scheduled, E l i o t wrote an e n t h u s i a s t i c review of' i j 1 i t for D i a l .35 j n ex p lain in g J o y c e 's method, he r e t u r n s toj j j j the ideas f i r s t expressed in h i s review of Le_ Sacre du , I ; ! Pri ntemps. but now he speaks with th e g r e a t e r c e r t a i n t y j I I ! gained from his own experience with The Waste Land. : ; i In using the myth C of the Odyssey J , in manip u l a t i n g a continuous p a r a l l e l between contem- ! ; p o ra n e ity and a n t i q u i t y , Mr. Joyce is pursuing | ! a method which o t h e r s must pursue a f t e r him. j ! . . . It i s simply a way of c o n t r o l l i n g , of o rd e r- ! ing, of giving a shape and a s i g n i f i c a n c e to the j | immense panorama of futi Iity and anarchy which ! is contemporary hi s t o r y . 36 ; i This "mythical method," as he c a l l s i t , is one of the few : i means by which, according to E l i o t , the modern a r t i s t can j j i | c r e a t e a meaningful a r t in the modern world. | Instead of n a r r a t i v e method, we may now use the j mythical method. It i s , I s e r i o u s l y b e l i e v e , a j | step toward making the modern world p o s s i b l e fo r I | a r t . . . . And only th o s e who have won t h e i r ; | own d i s c i p l i n e in s e c r e t and without a i d , in a j | 34gee ch a p te r I I , fo o tn o t e 15. j ^> -)T . S. E l i o t , "Ulysses, Order and Myth," Dial . LXXV | (November, 1923), pp. 480-3. ! ^ I b i d .. p. 483. world which o f f e r s very l i t t l e a s s i s t a n c e to t h a t | end, can be of any use in f u r t h e r i n g t h i s a d v a n c e .37 In s tead of using the n a r r a t i v e method of p l o t , c h a r a c t e r , I i ! and s e t t i n g to control a work's s t r u c t u r e , one could use , I the perennial p a t t e r n s of myth to control and shape s t r u c - . ■ t u r e . In the de g e n e ra tio n and r e g e n e r a t i o n myths c o n t r o l - j j ! ling Geront i on and The Waste Land. one can see th a t E l i o t i ! i | i s speaking for him self as well as for Joyce. | Although i t cannot be demonstrated c o n c l u s i v e l y , I be— | | lieve t h e re is enough evidence to suggest t h a t E l i o t ' s ! i n t e r e s t in w r i t i n g which t r i e d to c r e a t e , in mythic struc-j ! i | j t u r e , a "metamorphosis" of the " i n t e r p e n e t r a t i o n " or juxta-l ; p o s i t i o n between a n t i q u i t y and th e p r e s e n t caused him to bej highly r e c e p t i v e when he was f i r s t shown P e r s e ' s Anabase i nj i ! 1925. The poem depicted a b a rb a ri c people in a b a r b a r i c I j s e t t i n g , p a r t of which was a d e s e r t or wasted land which | must have reminded E l io t of his own The Waste Land; y e t j j I | t h e re was a p e c u l i a r modernity in Anabase1s t o t a l e f f e c t . ! j ; I That modernity was the r e s u l t , f i r s t of a l l , of an un- i ! u s u a ll y v iv id and r e a l i s t i c imagery which c r e a t e d a stro n g ! i ! sense of immediacy and i n i t i a l l y caught E l i o t ' s a t t e n t i o n . | I 37 ! j I b i d . For an il lu m i n a t i n g study of th e symbolic I form of myth in E l i o t ' s poetry, see Genesis Jones, An Ap- j j proach to the P u rp o se ; A Study of the Poetry of T. S. ' E l i o t (New York: Barnes and Noble, 19 6 6), pp. 59 and 293. ! 92 : That imagery formed a liv in g web of a n c i e n t c i v i l i z a t i o n , 1 j but i t was s t r i p p e d for the most p a rt of h i s t o r i c a l a s s o c i a t i o n s , freed from any very s p e c i f i c locus in time or I space. This allowed i t to s t r i k e the r e a d e r ' s senses as I 1 i f i t were immediately p r e s e n t , as i f one were living an i ! f j ! experience which, as the images p i l e d up one a f t e r another,; j soon became overwhelming. j i ! I But the poem's modernity was the r e s u l t even more of , j a seemingly obscure method of o r g a n i z a t i o n . i i . . . any o b s c u rity of the poem, on f i r s t read- ! ings, is due to the s u p p re s s i o n of ' l i n k s in the c h a i n , ’ of e xplanatory and connecting m a tte r, , | and not to incoherence, or to the love of c ry p to - j gram. The j u s t i f i c a t i o n of such a b b r e v i a t i o n of ! method is t h a t the sequence of images c o i n c id e s ; and c o n c e n t r a t e s in to one i n t e n s i v e impression I I of b a r b a r i c c i v i l i z a t i o n . The reade r has to a I- ; i low the images to f a l l into his memory s u c c e s s iv e l y without q u e s tio n in g the re a s o n a b le n e s s of ; each a t the moment; so t h a t , at the end, a t o t a l ! e f f e c t is produced.38 ; I Such an e l l i p t i c a l s t y l e of o r g a n i z a t i o n resembles E l i o t ' s ’ j own method as employed in his longer poems, The Ho I low Men ; i ; j ( 1925) and espec i a I Iy The Waste Land ( 1922). E l i o t seems I to have recognized t h i s , and b e lie v e d as well t h a t Perse j was working out a problem he h im s e lf had resolved in The Waste Land: to discover some u n i f i e d p a t t e r n in the v a r i - ; ety of d e t a i l s e x i s t i n g in the h i s t o r i c a l or mythic 38 T. S. E l i o t , " P re f a c e , " Anabasi s (London: Faber ancj | Faber, 1930), p. 8 . I i ! _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ i 93 consciousness while s t i l l p r e s e n ti n g the f u l l complexity of I . t h a t c o n s c i o u s n e s s . - ^ The p a r a l l e l s between v e g e t a t i o n myths, f e r t i l i t y myths, the C h r i s t i a n R e s u r r e c t i o n , and the Grail quest of p u r i f i c a t i o n provided E l i o t with a means of org an iz in g the mass of m a te ria l in the contemporary general Western consciousness into a s t y l i s t i c a l l y fragmented, but i th e m a t i c a l l y c o h ere n t, poem. The r e s u l t was a poem in I which h i s t o r i c a l d e g e n e ra tio n and the search for s p i r i t u a l r e g e n e r a t i o n e x i s t e d in a balanced t e n s i o n . The " an ab as is " myth of r e g e n e r a t i o n in movement and c r e a t i o n , which was ! both concre te and a b s t r a c t , geographical and s p i r i t u a l , a l - i lowed Perse to order h is " st e n o g ra p h ic " or "cinematographic" technique of p i l i n g up images for t h e i r cumulative e f f e c t : to reveal e t e r n a l (and contemporary) human f o r c e s and ac- ; t i o n s sharply focused in a b a r b a r i c c i v i l i z a t i o n . ^ Be- j s i d e s , both poets had used the d e s e r t as a symbolic place | fo r r e g e n e ra t i on. For E l i o t , t h i s inner s t r u c t u r e and con-! | c r e t e n e s s of imagery were P e r s e ' s c h i e f o r i g i n a l i t y . And j I -^For an e x c e l l e n t d i s c u s s i o n of t h i s problem in ; E l i o t ' s p oetry, see F. 0. M athiessen, "The Problem of the ' Contemporary A r t i s t , " The Ach i evement of T, S. Eli o t , 3rd | ed. (New York: Oxford 'University P re s s, 1955”), pp. 34-55. | ^Com pare t h i s d e s c r i p t i o n of P e r s e ' s technique with the technique which Johannes F a b r i c i u s sees in the mature poetry of T. S. E l i o t and in the theory of montage in Ex p r e s s i o n i s t film a r t . Johannes F a b r i c i u s , The Unconscious and Mr. E I i o t : A Study i n Express i oni sm (Copenhagen : NYt j Nordisk For leg Anold Busck, I9&7), PP^ 29-48. he was so impressed with what he believed was a real in novation in French poetry that he compared P er s e' s success with his method in Anabase to Joyce's success in his later work, such as Anna L i v i a Plurabel 1 e . ^ 1 i One final point of contention remains over E l i o t ' s 1 i decision to t r a n s l a t e Anabase. In more than one interview j E l io t has admitted quite frankly th a t his c r e a t i v i t y ‘ seemed to have dried up a f t e r Th e Ho I Iow Men. "I thought h O , i my poetry was over af te r 'The Hollow Men.'" Yet a little; more than two years later he began for Geoffrey Faber the ; se r ie s of poems later e n t i t l e d "The Ariel Poems." It would! be convenient to say, as at least one c r i t i c has, that j E l io t turned to French poetry, as he had in the past, for ! j some kind of stimulus to recover his i n s p i r a t i o n . ^ Re cently Eliot himself in d i r e c tl y gave credence to such a ; i hypothesis. Questioned about the French poems he composed! in 19*7, he repli ed: | ^ 'T . S. Eli ot, " P re fa c e ," p. I I . ■^John Lehmann, "T. 3. E l i o t Talks about Himself and the Drive to C r e a t e ," New York Ti mes Book Review, LVIII, ! 43 (November 29, 1953), p. 5. Henry Hewesl " £ I Tot on ! E l i o t : 'I feel younger than I did a t 6 0 , ' " Saturday j Review, XLI (September 13, 1958), p. 32. ^3\/incent Cronin, "T. S. E l i o t as a T r a n s l a t o r , " ! T. S. Eli o t : A Symposi urn for h i s Sevent i eth Bi r t h d a y . ed.j N eville Braybrooke (New York, 195871 pi 134’. 95! : That was a very cu rio u s t h i n g which I c a n ' t a l - ! to g e th e r ex p lain . At th a t period when I thought ! I'd d rie d up co m p lete ly — I h a d n 't w r i t t e n any thing for some time and was r a t h e r d e s p e r a t e - - I ; s t a r t e d w ri t i n g a few t h i n g s in French and found t h a t I could, at t h a t p e rio d . I think i t was tha t when I was w r iti n g in French I d i d n ' t ta ke the poems so s e r i o u s l y , and t h a t , not taking them I s e r i o u s l y , I was not so worried about not being able to w r i t e . I did the se th i n g s as a sort of j tour de force to see what I could do. That went j ! on for some months. . . i 1 ; j | This in c id e n t may well have s e t a p a t t e r n in E l i o t ' s study ; ! of French p oetry. ! i ; At any r a t e , i t was his r e a d in g s in Laforgue (and to ; I - I ' a le sser ex ten t B audelaire and Corbi&re) t h a t led E l i o t to I I i I j compose the important poems in h i s f i r s t volume, Prufrock j ; and Other Observati ons (1917). It was the a c t of com- ; posing in French t h a t i n i t i a t e d his second volume, Poems ; (1920), for whose s h o r te r poems Th£ophile Gautier served as| ; i I a model, a t the i n s i s t e n c e of t h a t i n v e t e r a t e te a c h e r , I ; 1 Ezra Pound. It was his study of the poetry of Paul Valery,! I the French poet E l i o t c o n s id ere d the most i n t e r e s t i n g l a t e ; i . ! i in 1923, which seems to have exerted some influence on ; ; The Ho I low Men ( I 925) . ^ And f i na I I y , i t was Sai nt-Jo h n 44Donald H all, "T. S. E l i o t , " W rite rs at Work: Ihe Pari s Revi ew I n t e r v i e w s . Second Seri e s . ed. George Pl impton (New York: VTki ng, T9’ 6571 pT 98. ^ G r o v e r Smith, T. S. E l i o t ' s Poetry and P l a y s : A Study i n Sources and Rfeanj ngs. p. 102. Herbert Howarth, Notes on Some Fi'gures~behi nd T. S. E l i o t , p. 190. 96 : Perse who became, s h o r t l y a f t e r 1925, E l i o t ' s primary | French stim ulus by i n s p i r i n g in p a rt his f i r s t " A r i e l ” poem in 1927, "Journey of the Magi." T h e r e a f t e r , among French I poets, only B audelaire, whose in flu e n c e is n o t i c e a b l e ; j throughout, had an impact on E l i o t ' s work equal to t h a t of Perse. Why should E l i o t in 1925 have turned away from Paul Valery, who was but a g e n e ra tio n older than he, to embrace the unknown poet S a in t - J o h n Perse? E l i o t ' s p r a is e of Valery, in h is 1924 in t r o d u c t i o n to the English t r a n s l a t i o n of Le Serpent and in his l a t e r remarks, is capped with the i o b s e rv a tio n t h a t Valery re p r e s e n t e d the c u lm ination of a ; ; I l i t e r a r y movement in i t s completed development (French sym b o l i s m ) . ^ Although he admired the grace and i n t e l l e c t u a l ’ s u b t l e t y of V a l e r y ' s verse, he did not find i t p e r t i n e n t to 1 his own. Valery had p e rfe c t e d an instrum ent which denied ! ! i t s use by an o th e r. E l i o t may have been tempted to fu rth e r! : 4 6 tl> , . jn the second h a l f of the n in e te e n t h century the g r e a t e s t c o n t r i b u t i o n to European poetry was c e r t a i n l y made in France. I r e f e r to the t r a d i t i o n which s t a r t s with B audelaire , and culm inates in Paul V a le ry ." T. S. ! E l i o t , "Talk on D ante," The AdeIphi. XXVII ( F i r s t Q u a rte r, 1951), p. 116. "Undoubted Iy~ ValTFy does not r e p r e s e n t the !most 'advanced' ex p erim en tatio n of French verse: t h a t ex- I p e rim e n ta tio n wiI I be r e i n t e g r a t e d into the t r a d i t i o n by a la te r g e n e r a tio n : what Valery r e p r e s e n t s , and for which he is honoured and admired by even the youngest in France, is the r e i n t e g r a t i o n of th e symbolist movement into the great t r a d i t i o n . " T. S. E l i o t , " I n t r o d u c t i o n to t h e Method I of Paul V alery," Le_ Serpent par Pau I Va I 4 r y , pp. 7 -8 . 97 the t r a n s l a t i o n of Valery in to E n g lish, but h i s discovery o f Sain t-Jo h n Perse rendered any such th o u g h t le s s i n t e r e s t ing. The l a t t e r ' s o r i g i n a l i t y mined an area E l i o t had made! h is own, and i t was s u c c e s s fu l in a way which was new to him. Here was a poet to learn from. In 1929, then, E l i o t f e l t h im se lf s t i f l e d in h i s own | poetic c r e a t i v i t y , unable to break out of the prison of j despair which had shaped i t s e l f into The Ho I Iow Men. i . . . it is my exp e rie n c e t h a t towards middle age j a man has three c h o i c e s : to stop w ri t i n g a l t o - ! g e t h e r , to re p e a t h im se lf with perhaps an i n c r e a s - ; ing v i r t u o s i t y , or by ta k in g thought to adapt him s e l f to middle age and find a d i f f e r e n t way of i worki ng.4-7 j I Most men e i t h e r c l i n g to the experiences of youth, so t h e i r w r i t i n g becomes an in s in c e re mimicry of t h e i r e a r l i e r work, or they leave t h e i r passions behind, and w rite only from the head, with a hollow and wasted v i r t u o s i t y .48 i That l a s t statement seems to come from a man on the borders! 1 of trage dy. Whether or not he sought consciously to "re- j ] lease t h e stream" through the d i s c i p l i n e of i n t e n s i v e l y I studying another po et, E l i o t was c e r t a i n l y in a p o s i t i o n to: respond s tr o n g ly to any s tim u lu s another might provide. His excitem ent over new methods of p a r a l l e l i n g , juxtaposing^ 47 ; T. 3. E l i o t , "The Poetry of W. B. Y eats," an address C n . p ., n.d. J [ Houghton Library bMS Am 16 9 1 (57) 3 , pp. 4-5. 4 5 I b i d . . p. II. or i n t e r p e n e t r a t i n g the a n c i e n t and th e modern, thereby c r e a t i n g a thoroughly contemporary work of a r t , made him s i n g u l a r l y r e c e p t i v e to P e r s e ' s Anabase. F i n a l l y , he was s tru c k by P e r s e ' s e x t r a o r d i n a r y imagery and by his o r i g i n a l i t y in using an e l l i p t i c a l o r g a n i z a t i o n , which he took to resemble his own. The process of t r a n s l a t i o n seems to have played no small p a r t in E l i o t ' s r e tu r n to poetry with ! "Journey of the Magi" in 1927. As i t was n ecessary to i n v e s t i g a t e P e r s e 's p r i o r qual-; j i f i c a t i o n s for t r a n s l a t i n g from the English language into French, so is i t necessary to q u e s ti o n those of E l i o t . The French poet, as I have shown, displayed a d e f i n i t e i i competence in E n g lis h , even to the p o in t of fluency in c a r rying on re g u la r correspondence. D espite h i s own r e s e r v a - ; i t i o n s , th e Anglo-American poet was no less s k i l l e d in Aq French. j Upon r e c e i v i n g h is M. A. degree in 1910 from Harvard I U n i v e r s i t y , E l i o t had learned enough French to study in P a r is fo r nearly a year. His study t h e r e a p p a r e n tly took philosophy for i t s p r i n c i p a l s u b j e c t ; he could hardly have chosen a more d i f f i c u l t f i e l d . It is well known t h a t he attended Henri B ergson's l e c t u r e s at the Sorbonne and ^ D o n a l d H a ll, C T. S. E l i o t (In te rv ie w ) TSs. ( a u to graph c o r r e c t i o n s ) , 1959 D C Houghton Library bMS Am 18 10 (17) J, pp. 9- 10. 99 ‘ understood the i n f l u e n t i a l French philosopher so well as to i c o n s id e r h im se lf for a time a convert to "Bergsom sm. j | Although E l i o t never published an essay in French on philos-n j ophy (he c o n t r i b u t e d a knowledgeable essay on Bergson to | I j The Sacred Wood), he did something in a d i f f e r e n t mode in- i ! i | volving equal d i f f i c u l t y . In 1917, he composed in French j ] i | a t le a st a h a l f dozen poems, four of which were included im j C I ' | the Poercs volume of 1920. Neither p a r t i c u l a r l y o r i g i n a l j | nor s t r i k i n g l y s u c c e s s f u l , th e s e poems are at b e s t compe- j i I | t e n t ( s t y l i s t i c a l l y , they show the influence of Laforgue j land Corbifere, almost to the p o in t of p l a g i a r i s m ) . They do ; I j | not compare, for in s ta n c e , with Ri Ik e 's French poems of | j i | about the same p eriod. In w r i t i n g these poems E l i o t may | have been playing with the idea, which f i r s t occurred to } him in 1910, of abandoning the English language for French j I I ; 1 5 2 I I in h is p o e t r y . | 5 0 « r j s t i a n Smidt, Poetry and Be I i e f i n the Works of I I* S. E l i o t , p. 17. See, a l s o , E l i o t ' s notes on the lec- , t u r e s o f Henri Bergson, P a r i s , 1910-11 II Houghton Library ; j bMS Am I6 9 I (130) 1; and the manuscript of a paper on Bergson, P a r i s , I 9 10—I I [ Houghton Library bMS Am 16 9 1 i j ( 132) 1 . j I ! j ^ D o n a l d H all, "T. S. E l i o t , " W rite rs at Work: The I P a r i s Review I n te r v i e w s : Second S e r i e s , pp. 9&-99. ! , | 52n [ Ha I I; J Did you th in k a t all about becoming a ' French s y m b o list poet like the two American sym bolist poet^l V i e I 6- G r i f f i n and S t u a r t M e r r i l l ? L E l i o t r J I only did t h a t during t h e romantic year I spent in Paris a f t e r Harvard. I| 1 had at t h a t time the idea of giving up English and t r y i n g | to s e t t l e down and somehow scrape along in P a r i s and j Perse could s c a rc e l y have found another English poet whose mastery of French was so thorough and r e f i n e d . In 1922, Valery Larbaud asked E l i o t to read the proofs of the English t r a n s l a t i o n of his a r t i c l e on UI ysses (p r i n t e d in the f i r s t issue of The Cr i t e r i o n ) : "Your p e r f e c t knowledge of French a s s u r e s me t h a t the t r a n s l a t i o n , made under your d i r e c t i o n , will be p e r f e c t . A year l a t e r , Paul Valery r e p l i e d to a personal l e t t e r from E l i o t , "Vous £crivez d£Iicieusem e nt en f r a n g a i s . C ' e s t une r£v£I a t i o n I "5^ in t h i s r e s p e c t , he was perhaps the most q u a l i f i e d of all P e r s e ' s t r a n s l a t o r s . E l i o t ' s continued mastery of French has been acknowledged as l a t e as 19 6 1, when Robert Lowell consulted him on h is own " i m i t a t i o n s " of Hugo, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarm£, and V a l e r y . 55 g ra d u a lly w rite F rench." Donald Ha II, C T. S. E l i o t ( I n— te rv iew ) 3 C Houghton Library bMS Am 18 19 (17) 3, p. 10. ^ V a l e r y Larbaud, L e t t e r to T. 3. E l i o t . London, March 18, 1922 (Houghton Library bMS Am 1432). -^Paul Valdry, L e tte r to T. S. E l i o t , London, 17 Novembre 1923 (Houghton Library bMS Am 1432). 55 Robert Lowell, " I n t r o d u c t i o n , " Imi t a t i ons (New York F a r r a r , S trau s and Giroux, I9 6 I), p. xiv. w/hen the English t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase appeared in 1930, not one c r i t i c a l review was devoted to it in any of the l i t e r a r y j o u r n a l s or magazines of the d a y . 5° This is I odd because, except for the th re e poems w r i t t e n fo r Faberb : 37 ■ Christmas " A rie l" s e r i e s , E l i o t had published no verse since his Col Iected Poems, 19 0 9 - 1925 (1923). Then, w ithin ! ; a month, he had two new and very d i f f e r e n t books of poetry ! on the market: Ash-Wednesday (Apri I 24 and Apri I 29) and ; i cO : Anabasi s (May 22). Vet the t r a n s l a t i o n was read, as both; Sylvia Beach and Kathleen Raine a t t e s t , i f only because : E l i o t had done i t ; his fame was a lre ad y so widespread as to. i confer r e s p e c t on anything to which he attach e d h is n a m e . 59; : ^ Ren4 Taupin had stu d ie d the French in flu e n c e on | T. S. E l i o t in h is L1 InfIuence du symboIi sme f ranga is sur j J_a pofes i e am£ri cai n~ de I9 I0^T920 ( I 9 2 9), but he makes no i ; r e f e r e n c e to A nabasis~Tn "The C lassicism of T. S. E l i o t , " 1 Symposiurn. I l l ( J a n u a r y , 1932), pp. 64-82. Nor does ; ; MaIco Im Cow ley, who knew the French and English l i t e r a r y ; ! scene w e l l , in "Af t e r thou ghts on T. S. E l i o t , " New Repub lie ,j I LXXXVII, 1120 (May 20, 1936), p. 49. The most s u r p r i s i n g j absence of a l l is in S. A. Rhodes, "The Poetry of S a i n t - j | John P e r s e , " Sewanee Review, XLIV, i (1936), pp. 25-50. ’ ; Rhodes quotes from E l i o t ' s "Pre face" to the Anabasi s ed i- I t i o n , but he never once mentions the t e x t . I ; i ! 57jhese were "Journey of the Magi" (1927), "A Song for! j Simeon" (1928), and "Animula" (1929). j j 5 For s p e c i f i c inform ation on th e p u b l i c a t i o n d ates ! ! see Donald Gallup, T. S. E l i o t : A Bibliography (New York: j Harcourt, Brace, 1953), pp. 13-15. ! ! i 59Sy| via Beach, Shakespeare and Company, p. 175. i Kathleen Raine, " S t.- J o h n P erse: Poet of the M a rv e llo u s," I Encounter , p . 5 I . I Some reason for t h i s s i l e n c e around E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a - i t i o n is given in one of the f i r s t reviews of i t , w r i t t e n by M. D. Zabel for Poetry magazine in May, 1937: . . it ; appeared in a limited e d i t i o n , and only now is i t r e i s s u e d ." ^ 0 Zabel believed t h a t i t was limited because the pages were o v e r s iz e and the c o s t r a t h e r high. But t h a t is not r e a l l y the c a s e , f o r Donald Gallup notes t h a t Faber and ; Faber p r i n t e d , and published on May 22, 1930, f650 copies | (no small number) of t h i s f i r s t English e d i t i o n in o rd in ary ; i s s u e and 350 copies of a lim ited signed e d i t i o n ( a t 31s. I j r * j 6d . , th ree times more c o s t l y ) . One issue of t h i s f i r s t ; e d i t i o n seems to have escaped G a l l u p 's eye, fo r unbound j page proofs of a limited e d i t i o n re c e iv e d by the Harvard I ! i U n iv e r s it y Press on December 14, 1929, bear a colophon | whi ch reads : i This signed e d i t i o n , p r i n t e d on English hand made paper, is limited to f iv e hundred and f i f t y i | co p ie s. Of these, three hundred numbered c opies i i are res erv ed for s a l e in the United S t a t e s of i ! America and two hundred for s a l e in England. 6°M. D. Zabel, "The Poetry of U n r e s t," P o e t r y . L, ii j (May, 1937), p. 91. Two o th e r reviews of the f i r s t Ameri-j can e d i t i o n (Harcourt, Brace, 1938) soon followed Zabel: j Louise Bogan, "Verse," New Yorker I probably 1938 ] C n.p.lj and Eda Lou Walton, "T. S. E l i o t ' s T r a n s l a t i o n of P e r s e , " j New York Ti mes Book Revi ew (Apr i I 24, 1938), [ n,p. 1 . Houghton Library *AC9 EI 464 Zzx. 61 Donald Gallup, T. S. E l i o t : A Bi bIi ography. p. 14. 103 The remaining f i f t y copies are for p r e s e n t a t i o n : only. 62 This copy is number . . . ; F u rth e rm o re , the t i t l e page of t h i s issue includes the name of a publishing house in New York, Covici, F rie d e , I n c . , i [along with the name of Faber and Faber Limited. One hypo- j | ! : t h e s i s would be t h a t t h i s is a copy of th e limited e d i t i o n j s p e c i f i c a l l y issued for s a le in the United S t a t e s . Yet thej i 'colophon of the bound limited e d i t i o n , according to Gallup,! ! does seem to c o n t r a d i c t the unbound copy: "This signed j | e d i t i o n , p r in t e d on E nglish hand-made paper, is lim ited to j [ t h r e e hundred and f i f t y numbered co p ies. This copy is ■ 63 i [number . . . C signed 3 T. S. E l i o t ." Only Faber and i | Faber is l i s t e d on i t s t i t l e page, implying t h a t th e se 350 \ [c o p ie s were to be d i s t r i b u t e d only in England. The b i b l i - , ographer may be able to re s o lv e t h i s c o n t r a d i c t i o n and per-! j [ [haps explain f u r t h e r why the 1930 e d i t i o n of Anabas i s went j i ; I unnoti c e d . I ! ^ S a i n t - J o h n Perse, Anabas i s . t r a n s . T. S. E l i o t , ; | London: Faber and Faber, New York: Covici, F r ie d e , In c ., I I 1930 (Houghton Library #Ac9 El 464 93oe ba). I n s c r ib e d in j pen below the a b s e n t copy number is "E, H. from T. S. E. i 25 i i i 3 0 . " The date seems to c o n t r a d i c t the Harvard Uni- ; J v e r s i t y Press stamp o f December 14, 1929. | I | ^ D o n a l d Gallup, o jd . c i t . The Houghton Library houses copy number 100 of t h i s e d i t i o n ; i t also houses a copy of t h e ordinary e d i t i o n with the following i n s c r i p t i o n penned [ on the in s id e cover page, ”H. W. E l i o t and T. G. E l i o t from! I T. S. E l i o t . " (Houghton Library , *AC9 El464 93oe and 93oe ; j b ). r From a l l i n d i c a t i o n s , E l i o t and Perse d e l i b e r a t e l y set out to r e s t r i c t the poem to a sp ecia l audience. By 1937, Gallup w r i t e s , l i t t l e more than fiv e hundred copies of t h i s : 1930 e d i t i o n had been sold, d i s t r i b u t e d , or given out, and 64 " 1,101 s e t s of unsold sh eets of the f i r s t e d i t i o n " were i r e i s s u e d in London on February 3, in a s m a l le r , less ex- j ; pensive format ( 5 s . ) . I t was t h i s second issue which came j ! to Z a b e l ' s a t t e n t i o n in t h a t same year and prompted h i s andj 1 j 1 othe r e n t h u s i a s t i c a r t i c l e s . 1 j . . . i t s delay in reaching us is u n f o r t u n a t e , p a r t i c u l a r l y since an exceptional t r a n s l a t i o n has j e x i s t e d for almost eight y e a rs . . . . It o f f e r s imagery, c r a f t , and formal beauty of a very high ; o r d e r , a l l r e a l i z e d with great s e n s i t i v e n e s s in ! . Mr. E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n . . . . °5 ; j : For the next twenty years and more, t h i s opinion continued ; ; unabated: given the poem's d i f f i c u l t y , "Few will doubt ! t h a t E l i o t has s uccee ded. ' j ! I However, in the l a s t few years an o p p o s i t e r e a c t i o n | seems to have s et in. Two reasons account for t h i s . First^ | all of P e r s e ' s published poetry has now been t r a n s l a t e d in-' I to E n g lis h , each of the seven major volumes by a d i f f e r e n t j j j | ^ D o n a l d Gallup, oja. c i t .. p. 15. °5m. D. Zabel, 0£. c i t .. pp. 9 1 , 96. ! ^ C r o n i n , oja. cj_t. , p. 136. 1 i I 1 i - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - i 105 ; t r a n s l a t o r . ^ This means t h a t E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n , which occupies th e vulne ra ble p o s i t i o n of being f i r s t chronolog i c a l l y , ^ ^ must now be judged a g a i n s t the other s ix . Both ' C. E. Nelson and Kathleen Raine now consider E l i o t ' s i ; Anabasi s le ss successful than some of the more re c e n t and ; I eleg an t Bo I lingen S e rie s t r a n s l a t i o n s of P e r s e ' s work. To j be f a i r , Miss Raine seems to have modified her p o s i t i o n of j I l a t e , for her most rece n t a r t i c l e is le ss c r i t i c a l of j ; E l i o t . ^9 Secondly, (although somewhat h a l te d by his death ; in 1965) a negative r e a c t i o n is d i s c e r n i b l e in E l i o t c r i t - i icism which n a t u r a l l y encompasses all of his work, even ; t r a n s l a t i o n . Donald D a v ie 's a r t i c l e , "Mr. E l i o t , " in the ; ^EI oges and Other Poems. t r a n s l a t e d by Louise Varlse,i . 2nd ed. r e v is e d and c o r r e c t e d , New York: Bo I lingen S e rie s | ; (no. 55), Pantheon Books, 1956. Exi Ie and Other Poems, j ' t r a n s l a t e d by Denis Devlin, New York: Bo I I ingen Ser 1es (No. 50), Pantheon Books, 194-9. W i n d s . t r a n s l a t e d by Hugh ! ; Chisholm, New York: Boll ingen Ser i es ( No. 3 ^ ), Pantheon , Books, 1953. Seamarks. t r a n s l a t e d by Wallace Fowlie, New i | York: Boll ingen S e rie s (No. 6 7 ), Pantheon Books, 1958. j ! Chroni que. t r a n s l a t e d by Robert F i t z g e r a l d , New York: : Bo I I i ngen S e r ie s (No. 59), Pantheon Books, I960. B i r d s . ' | t r a n s l a t e d by Robert F i t z g e r a l d , New York: Bo I lingen ; S e r i e s (No. 82), Pantheon Books, 1966, All of the se are j b i Ii nguaI edi ti ons. ; j 0t and Eugene J o la s share the honor of f i r s t | I t r a n s l a t i n g P e r s e ' s poetry in to E nglish. E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a - ; i t i o n of Canto I from Anabase. p r i n t e d in the February, I I 1928, is s u e of his Month Iy Or i t e r i on, appeared s im ultan- j eously with J o la s ' t r a n s l a t i o n of some s e l e c t i o n s from i £ I o g e s : "Poems by S t . - J . Perse," from "to C elebrate a | uhildhood" and "Eulogies," Trans i t i on, II (February, 1928) j I pp. 93-105. j________69Kath leen Raine, op. c i t . . p. 60. | ; io6 New Statesman (II October 1963), pp. 4 9 6 - 4 9 7, and John R. J H a rris o n 's provocative book, The Reac t i onar i e s , New York: jSchocken Books, 1967, are somewhat r e p r e s e n t a t i v e of the jgrowth of t h i s r e a c t i o n . ( | This c o n f l i c t of opinion s e t s the stage for the f o l - ; | Mowing c r i t i c a l a n a l y s i s and e v a l u a t i o n of the t r a n s l a t i o n j It . S. E l i o t made of S aint-John P e r s e ' s Anabase. Instead ofi j 1 jdwelling f u r t h e r on the f u l l spectrum of t h a t opinion, a t j ^ appropriate moments in my study I will acknowledge any bor- i rowings from e a r l i e r a r t i c l e s , develop those borrowed ideas ! jl find p r o p i t i o u s , and take ex ce p tio n to a number of e s t a b - Mished views. The f i n a l e v a l u a t i o n , then, will be pro p erly j I my own. To a c c u r a t e l y gauge the success of E l i o t ' s translation,} M t is im portant f i r s t to c l a r i f y his purpose, as f a r as i t i I lean be determined, and to e s t a b l i s h th e t e x t from which he j i I iworked. Then, sin c e not one, but four s e p a r a t e e d i t i o n s ofj i i 'th e English t r a n s l a t i o n have been issued under E l i o t ' s name} | ! i t would seem most f r u i t f u l and expedient to focus the j ! ; a n a l y s i s by comparing the e a r l i e s t e d i t i o n , the 1930 English: : p r i n t i n g , with i t s French c o u n t e r p a r t , and so apprehend t h e i r s i m i l a r i t i e s and d i f f e r e n c e s , and the changes for ; b e t t e r or worse for which E l i o t and Perse are r e s p o n s i b l e . |The development of the t r a n s l a t i o n from the 1927 t y p e s c r i p t I . | t o the f i n a l version published in book form in 1930 will j 107 ;pI ay a key ro le in t h i s comparison. In his l e t t e r to Perse |in January, 1927, E l i o t had informed Perse t h a t he wanted I to pu b lish his t r a n s l a t i o n in March or April of the same i y e a r . ^ However, P e r s e ' s many c r i t i c i s m s of the 1927 type-, I i ' s c r i p t led to a delay of th re e years in i t s p u b l i c a t i o n d a te . The fragment, "From 'A na base'" C Canto I J , printed in! ;the F e b r u a r y , 1928, issue of The Monthly C r i t e r i o n is nearly! I i [ i d e n t i c a l to the 1927 t y p e s c r i p t , o m ittin g the Perse nota - j j t i o n s ; E l i o t and the p r i n t e r , between them, are re s p o n s ib le ; j i ;for the few changes. i I i ! In the comparison between the French and English te x t ;in th e 1930 B r i t i s h e d i t i o n the follow ing will be examined ■ I in d e t a i l : s u bstance, c o n t i n u i t y , d i c t i o n , syntax, and [rhythm. Once the se have been explored, the changes I 7^"Je vous envoie c i - i n c l u s la t r a d u c t i o n compl&te ' j d ' Anabase. J 'y ai a j o u t£ quelques n ote s. Je vous p r i e de i : l i r e a l te n ti v e m e n t t r a d u c t i o n et notes (qui sont des ! [ q u e s ti o n s que je vous pose), et de me donner le p r o f i t de j vos i d£es avant que je n' envoi e la t r a d u c t i o n aux imprimeursj ! J 'e s p k r e que vous pouvez me r£pondre dans quelques [semaines, ou peut-cjtre un mois. Je voudrais f a i r e para?tre[ 1 Ie voIume au moi s de mars ou avr i I . " T. S. Eli o t , " L e t tr e ; h. S ain t-L eg er Leger, 15 j a n v i e r 1927," Honneur £ S a i n t - J o h n i P e r s e , p. 419. ! 7 1 E l i o t or the p r i n t e r makes th r e e p u nctuation co r- [ i r e c t i ons to correspond to the French t e x t ; but the p r i n t e r i a I Iows " s a l t " in strophe 3 to be c a p i t a l i z e d erro n e o u s ly , i In the la s t strophe E l i o t changes "wake" to "waken" and j "launching from" to "drawing t o . " [ ji ncorporat ed in each r e v i s i o n of t h a t 1930 English t e x t may t>e s tudie d more c l e a r l y . My u l t i m a t e aim will be to decide i Which of the fo u r v e rs io n s is most f a i t h f u l to the o r i g i n a l French t e x t , and then determine i t s value as the only ver sio n of Anabase in E n g lis h . Throughout t h i s study I wi I I i jtry to heed the follow ing warning by Renato P o g g i o l i : The reviewer of a t r a n s l a t i o n in p r i n t who, before re c o g n iz in g i t s worth with f a i n t , f i n a l p r a is e t h a t sounds like a s u p e r c i l i o u s d i s m i s s a l , y i e l d s j for too long to the nasty s e l f - i n d u l g e n c e of Schadenfreude, e n d l e s s l y and sneerin g ly l i s t i n g a il the o cca sio n s on which the poor t r a n s l a t o r | fumbled and stumbled, is a worse sin n e r than h e . 72 The French t e x t of Anabase which E l i o t used in making h i s t r a n s l a t i o n was "Exemplaire X I I," one of "soixante-deux jexemplaires sur verg£ des p a p e t e r i e s n a v a r r e , " a second e d i t i o n "de luxe" p r i n t e d in Di jon by Maurice Darantifere in June o f 1924.73 He probably came by t h i s sp ecia l e d i t i o n through M arguerite C a e t a n i . This te x t d i f f e r s in no r e s pect from th o s e p a r t s of the poem published in France J p re v io u s ly .74 And the t e x t remained unchanged u n t i l 72Renato P o g g io li, "The Added A r t i f i c e r , " On T r a n s l a t i o n . ed. Reuben A. Brower (Cambridge: Harvard Uni versi ty P ress, 1959), p. 144. 73 eo d leian Library MS Don C 23/3. 7^From the opening and clo sing Songs which appeared unsigned in the Nouvelle revue fran cais ( a v r i l , 1922) and in Intenti ons (novembre, 1922), re s p e c tiv e ly ; through the Gallimard issued a f o u rth e d i t i o n of the poem in 1948; even then, the changes involved in the f o u r th e d i t i o n amounted to only minor c o r r e c t i o n s by the a u t h o r . ^ Consequently, a ll four e d i t i o n s of E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n are based on the I same t e x t ; the changes in the French Anabase are so minor I I j as to be i n s i g n i f i c a n t f o r t h i s a n a l y s i s . I Anyone looking for a simple purpose behind E l i o t ' s j t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase must com e away from reading the j preface to the 1930 English e d i t i o n somewhat d i s s a t i s f i e d , j Except for two r e f e r e n c e s in the f i r s t and la s t paragraphs j of t h a t four-page essay, E l i o t ' s remarks could apply to the| i j French t e x t alone (in t h i s r e s p e c t , it resembles h is intro-i ductory essay on V alery). He might j u s t as well have been ! w r iti n g an explanatory i n t r o d u c t i o n to the f i r s t p r i n t i n g of the French t e x t in England. j fragments p rin t e d under the s i g n a t u r e " S t . - J . Perse" in thei Nouvelle revue f r a n g a i s e ( j a n v i e r 1924); through the f i r s t j complete e d i t i o n p r i n t e d by Gallimard in 1924; to t h i s ! s p ecia l second e d i t i o n — the t e x t is the same. | 75 . i Jacques Charpier, Sai nt-John P e r s e . La Biblioth&que I id £ a le ( P a r i s : Gallimard"! 19 6 2), pp. 265-66. According i to Mi cheI Dassonv i I Ie, "Di s c r e t Appendi ce & la Pogt ique de j Sai nt-John Perse de Cai 1 I oi 3, " Revue des Sc i ences humai n e s .! f a s c . 113 ( ja n v ie r-m a rs , 1965), p. &2, th e only c o r r e c t i o n j is found in Canto X where "pour I'empennage des a r c s " be- i comes "pour I'empennage des fl& ch es ." ! I am by no means convinced that a poem like Anabase r e q u i r e s a p reface at a l l . It is b e t t e r to read such a poem six times, and dispense with a p r e f a c e . But when a poem is presented in the form of a t r a n s l a t i o n , people who have never heard of i t are n a t u r a l l y i n c lin e d to demand some t e s t i monial. So I give mine h e r e u n d e r , 76 E l i o t ' s tone is s l i g h t l y o f f e n s i v e , but h is remarks are ; s t r a i g h t f o r w a r d . In t h i s opening paragraph he does not j call a t t e n t i o n to h i s t r a n s l a t i o n at the expense of the | i French t e x t ; i n s t e a d , he recommends reading the o r i g i n a l i i and even d is p e n s in g with p r e f a c e s . For the E n g lis h - speaking re ad e r who lacks a competent knowledge of French, however, E l i o t has decided to provide "the form of a i t r a n s l a t i o n " so t h a t he may get a f e e l i n g for Anabase. In - f a c t , E l i o t had shown in his l e t t e r to Perse t h a t he would be only too pleased to compose a t r a n s l a t i o n which would be the equal of th e French p o e m , ^ Yet the t r a n s l a t i o n c l e a r l y is to be considere d s u b o rd in a t e . Furthermore, E l i o t plays down h i s own ro le as a t r a n s l a t o r by suggesting! th a t P e r s e ' s c o l l a b o r a t i o n is re s p o n s ib le for making the ! .. t r a n s l a t i o n as s u c c e s s fu l as i t is. ?6 T. S. E l i o t , " P re f a c e , " p. 7. j 77"|_e pofeme me semble un des plus grands e t plus ! s i n g u l i e r s des temps modernes, et si je peux p a rv e n i r & | f a i r e une t r a d u c t i o n qui s o i t presque digne d'un te l c h e f- d'oeuvre je s e r a i s tout S f a i t c o n t e n t . " Honneur & Sa i n t - John P e r s e . p . 4 1 9. ; As for the t r a n s l a t i o n , i t would not be even so I s a t i s f a c t o r y as i t is, i f the author had not c o l - j laborated with me to such an ex ten t as to be h a l f - t r a n s l a t o r . '.Vhat i n a c c u r a c i e s remain are due to ; my own w i l f u l n e s s , and not to my ig norance, which th e author has c o r r e c t e d .78 | The honesty of t h i s statem ent should soon be c l e a r . I f these p r e f a t o r y remarks a re accepted l i t e r a l l y , onej ! I 'can conclude t h a t E l i o t o f f e r s the t r a n s l a t i o n less as a : s u b s t i t u t e for the French t e x t than as a means for the | ! i |E n g l i s h reade r to get into and respond to the French t e x t. | ! j : E l i o t h im se lf f i n a l l y says as much in h i s note to the 194-9 I re v is e d American e d i t i o n : " I t s purpose is only to a s s i s t | the E n g lis h -s p e a k in g reader who wishes to approach th e ‘ | 7 9 i ; French t e x t . " He probably had in mind the wise words of Hugo von Hofmannsthal on Anabase: " . . . a work of t h i s ! ; ik ind is fran k ly u n t r a n s l a t a b l e . . . . In such cas es trans-i j : | l a t i o n s can do no more than o ffe r a very exact and con- ! j s c i e n t i o u s r e p o r t . " ^ j | I i D es p ite th e se d e c l a r a t i o n s , something in th e 194-9 ; | p r e f a t o r y note is puzzling. j 7 8 T. S . E l i o t , " P re f a c e , " p. I I . i i i ( 7 9 t . s t E l i o t , "Note to the Revised E d i t i o n , " Anabasi s.j I 3rd ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949), p. 13. j i 80"preface by Hugo von Hofmannsthal," Anabasi s . trans.; T. S. E l i o t , 3rd ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949), : p. 107. ' The t r a n s l a t o r . . . was then f 1930 1 concerned, I here and there, less with rendering the exact j sense of a phrase, than with coining some phrase in English which might have equivalent value; he may even have taken l i b e r t i e s in the i n t e r e s t of I o r i g i n a l i t y , and sometimes interposed his own i idiom between author and reader.3l 1 I |One ought to be grateful for E l i o t ' s honesty in judging his j 'own e f f o r t s , and not quibble over the ambiguity of the ex tent of his admitted inexactness. But the second part of | I the statement is expressly at odds with his aim of a s s i s t - | jng the English reader to approach the French text; several | i c r i t i c s have noted a similar conclusion in comparing the j , two t e x t s . Eliot admits to straying so far on occasion as S I ; ! to nearly compose an original poem of his own based on the j French t e x t , imposing h is own poetic idiom on that of h is ! : i author. The temptation to equal P e r s e ' s achievement may j ; have been too s tr o n g for him to r e s i s t . ^2 | i j E l i o t ' s acute awareness of th is discrepancy between j I 1 ' j what he intended and what he a c tu a lly accomplished in the I i ! ! f i r s t e d itio n of Anabasi s may be one of the principal i I l ; reasons why he revised h i s t r a n s la t io n so many times. If j | 3 I C. E. Nelson concludes from E l i o t ' s "Note" and her i own reading of t h e t r a n s l a t i o n that ", . . in i t C Anabas- i s J two important poets can be seen. Both are p o I i t e , and E lio t i s d e fe r e n tia l to P erse, as the b u sin e ss demands, but s ti ll , there i s an im perfect melding of the two person a l it i e s." "Saint-John Perse and T. S. Eliot," Western Humani ties Rev i ew. XVII, 2 (Spring, 1963), p. 164. 113 s o , i t says something for his integrity and for his metic- i julousness in composing. The odd thing is that he rarely : revised any of his ov/n poems once they had been printed; in fa c t , he has acquired a reputation for publishing only i ' t Q ? : poems which are absolutely in their final form. J Only in j t h i s tr a n s la tio n did he return again and again to achieve j 84 ; "a greater f i d e l i t y to the exact meaning. . . . " j ! i Perse, in a note in 1941 on one of his later poems w ritten in the United States (Exi I ), provides an i n t r o ductory warning with respect to any evaluation of E l i o t ' s t r a n s la t io n of Anabase. I'm not even sure that a work like t h i s can be published in French in the United S ta tes . And surely i t is untranslatable: not so much in in- : t e l l e c t u a l terms, but in i t s a b s tr a c tio n s , e l - 1 li p s e s , and conscious ambiguities, as in physical terms, in i t s a l l i t e r a t i o n s , assonances and in- j cantations (bound to the rhythm of sea-waves). And in l i t e r a l terms, too, in the etymological 1 resources of certain of i t s words, the most j simple and disembodied o n e s . 85 ^ C o i nc i denta I I y , Saint-John Perse has acquired a s imi Iar reputat i on. 84T. S. E l i o t , 0£. c i t . I 85saint-John Perse, Letter to Archibald MacLeish ac companying manuscript and typ escrip t of E x i I. dated '9 Sept. 1941’ [ Library of Congress Rare Book C o lle c tio n PQ 2623 E386 E9 3. Quoted in Arthur Knodel, Saint-John P er se .‘ PP. 97, 187. i (Did Perse b e lie v e , too. that Anabase was untransIatabIe, j even after E l i o t ' s version had been printed in two ed itio n s (1930 and 1938)? It will be i n t e r e s t i n g to see in the f o l low ing pages i f E liot did indeed have d i f f i c u l t y with the jvery elements of his poetry which Perse thought "untrans- j j I a t a b I e . " ! Anabase (1924) was the f i f t h f u l l - l e n g t h poem by Saint-John Perse to be published in France and the f i r s t l lafter his return from his fiv e-y e a r diplomatic mission in I C h i n a . 86 P erse's story of i t s discovery by Valery Larbaud (has become j u s t l y famous; one only wishes that Larbaud had been able to convince Perse to publish the other 86fhe two chansons opening and c lo sin g Anabase were f i r s t published separately and without si gnature: the f i r s t in Nou veI Ie revue frangai se (avr i 1, 1922), and the second in Intentions (novembre. 1922). The poem appeared for the fi r s t time (though incomplete) under the signature of Saint-John Perse in Nouvelle revue frangaise (janvier, 1924). Shortly thereafter^ i t was published in book form: jSaint-John Perse, Anabase. Paris: Gallimard, 1924. A second deluxe ed itio n "grand i n-foIi o , de grande typographic" was published by Gallimard in 1925. From 1925 t o 1945 Perse refused to allow any reprinting or r e v isin g of the t e x t. In 1945, an American e d iti o n of the French t e x t , without a tr a n s la tio n , was published by Bretano's, New York. A third e d iti o n published by Gallimard in 1947 was withdrawn by the author because of errors in the t e x t . In 1948, Gallimard published a fourth e d itio n of Anabase. revised and cor rected by the author; i t i ncIuded the prefaces to the f o r eign e d it i o n s by Valery Larbaud, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, T. S. E li o t , and Guiseppe Ungaretti. A f i f t h ed ition of the poem was published in Saint-John Perse, Oeuvre Pogtique I_, Paris: Gallimard, i 9 60. I 15 manuscripts which accompanied Anabase. for they were lost forever in 19 4 0. Anabase has been generally recognized as the most widely known of P erse's poems, and, conse quently, as the most i n f l u e n t i a l . Its achievement was ap parent to a limited c i r c l e of readers from the beginning, for several poets, e x c e lle n t in th eir own righ t, quickly translated i t into their own languages and thereby guaran teed i t eventual widespread c r i t i c a l a t t e n t i o n . 88 Despite t h is a t t e n t io n , the c r i t i c a l in terp re ta tio n s of Anabase have been less than unanimous.^ ^ P e r s e ' s own account of th is episode appears in Pierre Mazar's "Une journge 5 la villa 'Les Viqneaux.1" Honneur £ Sa i nt-John P e r s e . p. 621. Arthur Knodel repeats the story wi th mi nor changes in Sai nt-John Perse. p. 38. Compare these two versions with the story which Wallace Fowlie tel l s in his a r t i c l e , "In Tribute to Saint-John Perse," Poetry. XCVII, 4 (January, 1961), p. 256. For information concerning the manuscripts lost in 1940, see Knodel, Sai nt- John Perse, p. 5. ^ T h e follow ing two tr a n s la t io n s are notable: Anabas- i s , t r a n s la tio n and preface by Octavio Barreda, Mexico: EcT. Contemporaneos, 1931; and Anabase. t r a n s la tio n by Guiseppe u n g a r e t t i , Fronte (Turi n), Tl (1931), and Rome: Edizione di Novissima, 1936. Also, Rainer Marie Rilke had begun work on a German tr a n s la t io n of Anabase shortly be fore his death in 1925. This information is in Troi s Agendas d 1 Adri enne Monni e r . t e x t e dtabli et annot£ par Maur ice Sa i I Iet (Ti rmi n-D i d o t , J 960), p. 27; and is r e peated in Arthur Knodel, "Towards an Understanding of Anabase. " PMLA, LXXIX (June, 1964), p. 343. 89Most o f the numerous commentaries on Anabase are short and laudatory, especially the early revi ews whi ch at best note i t s originality and summarize i t s movement and themes as a n a r r a tiv e . Four o f the earliest and b est of The following e v a l u a t i o n of the t r a n s f o r m a tio n of the 1927 t y p e s c r i p t into the 1930 Anabasis e d i t i o n in c lu d e s , . t h e r e f o r e , a summary a n a l y s i s to c l a r i f y the poem's themes ■ land s t r u c t u r e . My i n t e r p r e t a t i o n is not new, fo r it owes 1 : jmuch to several e x c e l l e n t commentaries provided by e a r l i e r { c r i t i c s ; i f I neglect to acknowledge any borrowings, I must| 'p le a d f a i l u r e of memory or method. Vet the i n t e r p r e t a t i o n [ 1 th e s e a r e : Lucien Fabre, " P u b lic a tio n d 1Anabase," Les Nouve I I es L i 11 £ r a i res (23 aoGt 1924), p. W; Va'Tery Larbaud, | j "Pr 6face pour une t r a d u c t i o n ru s se d ' Anabase, " NouveI Ie I :Revue Frangai s e . CXLVIII ( j a n v i e r 1926T, pp. 64-67; Hu go [von HofmannsthaI, "Einige Worte a Is Vorrede 2u S a in t -J o h n ; j Per se Anabase," Neue Schwe i zer Ru ndschau (May 1929 ); and |T. S. E l i o t , " P re fa c e ," A n a b a s is . t r a n s . T. S. E l i o t j [(London: Faber and Faber^ 1936), pp. 7-1 I. However, [ c r i t i c a l i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of the poem did not begin in earnest S unt i I in th e YaIe French Stud i es ( F a l l - W i n t e r , I 948) ap- j , peared Renato P o g g i o l i ' s long a r t i c l e on "The Poetry of !S a in t - J o h n P e rs e ," eight pages of which were devoted to ! Anabase. The v e r s a t i l e I t a l i a n - b o r n s cholar contended ! | t h a t the poem was less n a r r a t i v e or epic than " e p i c - I y r i c a I | :. . . i t s s t r u c t u r e . . . r h a p s o d i c . " U n fo rtu n a te ly , Poggiolij [based h is argument less on e l u c i d a t i n g i t s "fragmentary j [ s t y l e " than on a c a n to -b y -c a n to a n a l y s i s of the n a r r a t i ve. : Short commentaries soon followed in two general works on j [ P e r s e ' s p o e try : Maurice Sai I l e t , Sai nt-John P e r s e . Pofete | de G10 i re ( P a r i s : Mercure de France, 1952), pp. 62-76; and: [Alain Bosquet, S aint-John P e r s e , C o l l e c t i o n "Po&tes f d ' au j o u r d ' hu i ," no. 35 ( Par i s : P i e r r e Seghers, 1953), pp. ; 32-43. Neither took a bold look at Anabase. Two r e c e n t exegeses of the poem, however, propose a more complex, and i ! c o n t r o v e r s i a I , " t h r e e - l e v e l i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , " as Arthur j ; Knodel has labelled i t . (Knodel has sharply d e l i n e a t e d t h e : [weaknesses of t h i s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n in "Towards an Under- ; stan d in g of Anabase," pp. 3 4 1 - 2 .) The c l e a r e s t statem en t ofi [ t h i s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n is found in Monique P arent, Sai nt-John i I Perse et queIques devanc i e r s : Etudes sur I e poeme en prose ; ( Par i s : Kl 1 ncksi eck, I 9 6 0 ), PFK IB 7— 2 1 2 : ". . ^ Tes t r o i s themes dont nous avons p a r l e : celui de la conquete mi l i - t a i r e , ce lu i de I 'a v e n t u r e po£tique, celui de I ' a v e n t u r e ihumaine. . . ." (p. 212). The most d e t a i l e d , however, is [ ' d e r iv e s e q u a lly from my own study: that is, a close ■scrutiny of the French t e x t , a comparison of the poems in [the Perse canon, and a c r i t i c a l reading of the few comments :about the poem which Perse h im se lf has divulged. : The t i t l e S aint-John Perse chose for his long poem c a n ■ i serve as a key to th e poem's meaning and, i n c i d e n t a l l y , as j an index to the level of E l i o t ' s i n i t i a l comprehension of ' t h e poem. E l i o t ' s own e x p l a n a ti o n of the t i t l e as found in; i h i s 1930 "Preface" to Anabas i s makes a good beginning. , I did not need to be t o l d , a f t e r one reading, t h a t ! the word anabasi s has no p a r t i c u l a r re f e r e n c e to i Xenophon or the journey of the Ten Thousand, no ; I p a r t i c u l a r r e f e r e n c e to Asia Minor; and t h a t no ! map of i t s m ig ra tio n s could be drawn up. Mr. ! Perse is using the word anabasi s in the same qo ! i l i t e r a l sense in which Xenophon him self used i t . y ■ | Bernard Weinberg, " L fAnabase de S aint-John P e r s e , " Saggi e_ r i cerche d i l i t t e r a t u r a f r a n c i s e . I ( i 9 6 0), pp. 209-2bb; i tr a n s I a t e J “ by the author as "Saint-John P e r s e ' s Anabase. " j I Chi caqo Revi ew, XV, 3 ( W in t e r-S p rin g , I 9 6 2), pp. 75-124. j Weinberg1-! I engthy, but i n a c c u r a t e , a n a l y s i s of the them- ; i a t i c development of imagery leads him to conclude t h a t j ■ Anabase i s " e s s e n t i a l l y l y r i c a l " in s t r u c t u r e and can best ; i be 1n t e r p r e t e d on t h e th re e le v e ls quoted above. Of the I books on S aint-John Perse t h a t have appeared since I960, j when he won the Nobel Prize for L i t e r a t u r e , only one has ; added s i g n i f i c a n t l y to our under s tanding of the poem: | Arthur Knodel, S aint-John Perse (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Uni — j ! v e r s i t y P re s s , 1966), pp. 36-53. A ctually, t h i s c h a p t e r on' i Anabase is a shortened r e v i s i o n of the a u t h o r ' s "Towards anj Understanding of Anabase," PMLA. LXXIX (June, 1964), pp. j '329-343. Knodel an aly zes the system of " c r o s s - r e f e r e n c i n g " J 'which focuses the them atic development of imagery; he also r e s t s h is case heavily on the s tatem ent of i n t e n t i o n a t - | t r i b u t e d to Perse by P i e r r e Mazars in "Une journ£e & I a j I v i l l a ' Les Vi gneaux' , " Ue Fi gar 0 Ii 114rai re (5 novembre I960). | 9°T. s # E l i o t , " P r e f a c e , " p. 8. j E l i o t ' s point is c o r r e c t , but h is tone is condescending or d efen s iv e ; a li ttl e -k n o w n episode li e s behind i t . The f a c t is t h a t he did need to be reminded by Perse th a t the word :anabasi s was meant in i t s s im p l e s t etymological sense and not as an a l l u s i o n to Xenophon's h i s t o r y of the e x p e d i t i o n of the Younger Cyrus or to any o th e r p a r t i c u l a r h i s t o r i c a l event. For in his l e t t e r w r i t t e n in January, 1927, E l i o t informed P erse tha t he intended to publish his t r a n s l a t i o n with the t i t l e in Greek s c r i p t , a move he should not have contemplated had he r e a l l y grasped the meaning of the t i t l e ;As proof of h i s i n t e n t i o n , the enclosed t y p e s c r i p t read : ANABASIS.9 ' P e r s e ' s reply to t h i s d i s t o r t i o n of his own purpose was a simple c l a r i f i c a t i o n , yet not one designed to assuage !EIi o t ' s sensi ti vi t y . Le mot " a n a b a s e ," n e u t r a l i s t dans ma penste j u s q u ' i I'e ffa c e m e n t d'un terme u s u e l, ne d o i t plus s u g g t r e r aucune a s s o c i a t i o n d ' i d t e s c l a s s i q u e s . Rien & voir avec Xenophon. Le mot e s t employt ici a b s t r a i t e m e n t et in c o rp o r t ! au f r a n g a i s courant avec to u t e la d i s c r e t i o n n t c e s - ' s a ire --m o n n a ie usagte e t signe f i d u e i a i r e - - d a n s le | simple sens ttymologique de: "expedition vers | ^ " j ' a i I ' i n t e n t i o n de f a i r e imprimer le t i t r e en c a r - iact&res g r e c s : ANABASIS ." " L e t tr e h Saint-Leger Leger," IHonneur £ Sai nt-John P e r s e . p. 419. It could be argued jth a t E l i o t ' s i n t e n t i o n was a simple f a l s i f i c a t i o n from ig- inorance; however, i t is probably more f a i r to say t h a t 'pedantry or l i t e r a r y a f f e c t a t i o n was the real cause. I ' i n t £ r i e u r , " avec une s i g n i f i c a t i o n h la f o i s r i g£ographique et s p i r i t u e l l e (amibgUitd v o u l u e ) . ' ^ ( P e r s e ' s p re fe re n c e fo r the n e u tra l d e n o t a t i v e meaning of a I word, including i t s etymological o r i g i n s , and h is avoidance! i of l i t e r a r y a l l u s i o n — both c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of h is p o e t r y - - i ! are unmistakable here. It is t h i s note which probably ac- j j (c o u n ts for E l i o t ' s tone in the 1930 " P r e f a c e . " And even , I 1 I I 1 now, a f t e r some f o r t y y e a rs , the note s t i l l provides a good; I i ( i n t r o d u c t i o n to the poem. ■ In i t s s im p le s t term s, then, Anabase has for i t s sub- I i ; i i j e c t a journey or e x p e d i tio n into the i n t e r i o r ( 'kvdfla.Tis I — a going up and i n t o ).^3 "Anabase e s t I ' h i s t o i r e d'une j | j i mont£e depuis le rivage de la mer jusqu'aux d e s e r t s de | ' I'A s ie c e n t r a Ie. . . . That journey is geographical in; ( t h a t a people move from t h e i r c o a s ta l c i t i e s (whose j 92Th j s note is w r i t t e n in pen to the r i g h t of the j t i t l e on the t i t l e page. In a l e t t e r to Dag Hammerskjold I | (p r i n t e d in Honneur Sai nt-John P e r s e . p. 667) on the i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of Chronique ( 19597^ Ferse wrote s i m i l a r l y ( o f t h a t t i t l e : "Chron i que. i prendre au sens £tymol- ! ogi que. . . ." I I 93|>/,onique Parent u n d e rs ta n d s the Greek word for the I j t i t l e in t h r e e sen s es : the act of climbing or ascending, j ! the a c t of mounting a h o rs e, an e x p e d i tio n from a c o a s ta l ' region f a r into the i n t e r i o r o f , a country. Sai nt-John | (P e rs e e t quelques d e v a n c ie r s : Etudes sur la po&me en prosei ! p. 192. | 94-\/alery Larbaud, "Preface pour une E d itio n russe I d ' Anabase." Honneur & Sai nt-Jo h n Perse, p. 427. ' 120 fo u ndation is r e t o l d ) westward up and into the i n t e r i o r I ; d e s e r t and p l a i n s (ap p a re n tly on the f r o n t i e r of t h e i r country ) to f i n a l l y a r r i v e "au lieu de I ' Ar bre Sec, " an i | exhausted land which they will r e b u i l d and r e p l e n i s h . But ; as Perse i n s i s t s , the journey is h i s t o r i c a l and s p i r i t u a l | (thus mythic) as w ell, in t h a t the n a r r a t o r renews his own j i i | and his p e o p l e ' s c o n ta c t with the "songe" of t h e i r past as i | he u n i t e s h im se lf in s o l i t u d e to " Ies Mortes" and then, I ' through the women of the Western Provinces, e n v i s i o n s the | f u t u r e which will enfold as a consequence of t h e i r a c t i o n s .' ! With the n a r r a t o r as a kind of focus of c o l l e c t i v e con- ! j , J s c io u s n e s s , t h e i r journey becomes an eternal a c tio n of i ] l j s p i r i t u a l renewal and f u l f i l l m e n t without transce ndence. I Most commentators of Anabase (Fabre, E l i o t , P o g g io li, ‘ Weinberg, Knodel) have t r i e d to deduce from th e poem's ten : : cantos a schematic synopsis of a c t i o n which would summarize! the s ta g e s of the journey Perse d e p i c t s . Although th e re i ! 1 are major d i s c r e p a n c i e s among them, p a r t i c u l a r l y with re - i QR I gard to Canto II, the commentators p r e t t y much agree on ' | ' the main Iines of movement generated in the poem. Let me | I reproduce here Knodel's v ers io n of t h i s synopsis, because ^ A c c o r d i n g to E l i o t and Fabre, Canto II is "Tracing th e Plan of th e C ity"; to P o g g io li , i t is a " T r a n s it io n : Impure D e s ir e s " ; to Knodel, i t is a "Chthonic R i t u a l " ; to J Weinberg, i t is simply un c le a r. i his appeared l a t e s t and seems the most c l e a r - s i g h t e d . I. Establishm ent of a new order in a c o a s ta l reg io n I I. Chthonic r i t u a l I I I . R e a ffirm a tio n of the p r i n c i p l e of a c t i o n IV. Founding of the c i t y ! V. Nocturne: s o l i t u d e of the Leader I VI. Propaganda and r e c r u i t i n g j ' VII. The eve of d e p a r t u r e j VIII. M igration to the Western Lands | ; IX. Reception by the women of the new country ! j X. C e l e b r a t i o n , census, and the p u r s u i t s of j Iei sure 96 j i I Yet, as Knodel h im se lf seems to r e a l i z e , such a synopsis i u l t i m a t e l y does not succeed as a summary of the poem: J ". . . i t is not always easy t o say j u s t what i s going on i i I w ith i n each c a n t o . "97 E l i o t , too, c l e a r l y sensed a weak- j : i ! ness in the scheme he borrowed nearly verbatim from Lucien j I J \ Fabre, and he shied away from p u tt in g too much s t o r e in i t : ' ; " I t is a scheme which may give the reader a l i t t l e guidance! ion h is f i r s t reading; when he no longer needs i t he w ill ' I f o r g e t i t ."9® I share t h i s s u s p i c i o n fo r, to apprehend j ! I i P e r s e ' s poem c l e a r l y , I think t h i s kind of synopsis tends ! : to d i s t o r t i t s meaning at l e a s t as much as i t e x p l a i n s i t . ! | F i r s t of a l l , the scheme of ten d i v i s i o n s corresponding ^ A r t h u r Knodel, Sai nt-Jo h n P e r s e , p. 45. 97 i b i d .. p. 44. 98T. 3. E l i o t , " P r e f a c e , " p. 8. 122 t o t h e p o em 's t e n c a n t o s i g n o r e s t h e o p e n i n g and c l o s ing c h a n s o n s which f r a m e t h o s e t e n c a n t o s . This n eg l e c t h as led R en ato P o g g i o l i so f a r a s t o d e t a c h t h e two c h a n s o n s from t h e t e x t o f t h e poem: " B e g i n n i n g and e n d i n g w i t h two i n d e p e n d e n t poems, Anabase i s gq d i v i d e d i n t o t e n d i s t i n c t u n i t s . . . . " Nothing c o u l d be f u r t h e r from t h e t r u t h , as both A r t h u r Knodel and B e r n a r d Weinberg have shown q u i t e c o n v i n c i n g l y . 10® To i g n o r e t h e s e two c h a n s o n s , s h o r t as t h e y a r e , c e r t a i n l y is t o deal w i t h t h e poem u n j u s t l y . However, t h e most i m p o r t a n t w e ak n e ss t h i s k i n d o f s y n o p s i s a ssu m es i s s i m p l y a m a t t e r o f f o c u s . The p u b l i s h e d su m m aries o f t h e t e n c a n t o s a c c o u n t most e a s i l y f o r t h e a n a b a s i s in t e r m s of an e p i c m i g r a t i o n w i t h d e f i n i t e ( b u t n o t s p e c i f i c ) g e o g r a p h i c a l g o R e n ato P o g g i o l i , "The P o e t r y o f S a i n t - J o h n P e r s e , " The Spi r i t o f t h e L e t t e r s : E s s a y s i n E u r o p e a n Li t e r a t u r e ” TCambr i d g e : Cam bri dge U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1965), p. 232. * ^ ^ A r th u r K nodel, Sai n t - J o h n P e r s e , pp. 40-53; B e r n a r d Wein berg , " S a i n t - J o h n P e r s e ' s A n a b a s e . ” pp. 75-124. The o p e n i n g c h a n s o n s e t s up f o r t h e r e a d e r a c e n t r a l but am biguous r e l a t i o n s h i p b etw een t h e e n i g m a t i c f i g u r e o f " I ' S t r a n g e r " and t h e anonymous n a r r a t o r and h i s p e o p l e . A t o n e o f e x p e c t a n c y and e x c i t e m e n t , i n s t i l l e d in t h e n a r r a t o r by " I ' S t r a n g e r , " 123 and c h r o n o l o g i c a l s t a g e s ; bu t t h e y a c c o u n t l e s s t h a n a d e q u a t e l y f o r t h e s p i r i t u a l or m y t h ic e v o l u t i o n of t h a t a n a b a s i s . P a r t i c u I a r I y , t h e y do no t e x p r e s s w e ll t h e i n t e r r e l a t i o n s h i p b etw e en t h e p h y s i c a l a n d the s p i r i t u a l , nor do t h e y r e v e a l t h e i r mutual d e v e l o p m e n t . The t r o u b l e i s t h a t , even w i t h t h e b e s t i n t e n t i o n s , o f h e l p i n g t h e r e a d e r , t h e k i n d o f s y n o p s i s t h a t c r i t i c s have p r o p o s e d t e n d s t o d i s t o r t t h e poem by f o c u s i n g on i t s n a r r a t i v e c o n t i n u i t y . But t h e poem u s e s , i n s t e a d o f t h e n a r r a t i v e m eth o d , s o m e t h i n g v e r y c l o s e to what E l i o t has c a l l e d t h e " m y t h i c a l method " in con t r o l l i n g i t s e x t r a o r d i n a r y i m a g e r y . J u s t w h a t is t h i s method t h a t E l i o t f o u n d so o r i g i n a l ? I t h i n k one way t o an s w e r t h e q u e s t i o n i s to s t u d y t h e n a r r a t i v e p o s i t i o n o r t h e poem 's p o i n t o f view. Anabase i n v o l v e s an i n d e f i n i t e but s u r e l y long p e r i o d o f t i m e , v a s t s p a c e s , g r e a t p h y s i c a l movements d o m i n a t e s t h e t h r e e s t r o p h e s , a s i t d o es most of t h e poem. The c h a n s o n a l s o i n t r o d u c e s s e v e r a l t h e m a t i c images ( pouI a i n . a r b r e . m o r t s . h e r b e . voi e s . chemi ns ) which r e c u r r e p e a t e d l y in t h e f o l l o w i n g t e n c a n t o s . The e n d i n g c h a n s o n forms a b a l a n c e d whole w i t h the o p e n i n g ch a n s o n by r e t u r n i n g t o t h e h o r s e f i g u r e , "mon c h e v a l a r r e t s s o u s I ' a r b r e . . . . , " i n what can o n l y r e p r e s e n t an i n t e r l u d e o f r e s t in t h e g r e a t and c o n t i n u i n g movements o f t h e a n a b a s i s . 124 over th e e a r t h , and a whole people in the context of its p a s t , p r e s e n t , and f u t u r e l i f e . Perse does not choose these f e a t u r e s to aggrandize or to g l o r i f y his f i r s t - p e r s o n n a r r a t o r ; i t is the othe r way around. The n a r r a t o r has been chosen to lo c a l i z e , to make con c r e t e , larger physical and s p i r i t u a l designs. I think t h i s may have been part o f P e r s e 's meaning in a con v e r s a t i o n r e p o r t e d by P i e r r e Mazars: J ' a i voulu rassem ble r la synthfese, non pas passive mais a c t i v e , de la re s s o u rc e humaine. Mais on ne t r a i t e pas de thfemes psycho Iogiques par des moyens a b s t r a i t s . II a f a l l u ’ i I — l u s t r e r 1 : c ' e s t le pofeme le plus charg£ du c o n c r e t . . . . 10 1 To begin w ith, Perse uses h is n a r r a t o r ' s con s c io u s n e s s , or f i r s t - p e r s o n point of view, r a t h e r u n iq u e ly . He does not make of the ten cantos and two chansons a s e r i e s of monologues or s o l i l o q u i e s to develop the p a t t e r n of t h e n a r r a t o r ' s thoughts, i n dependent o f any immediate and continuous o b j e c t i v e r e a l i t y , as T. S. E lio t does in "The Love Song of J. A lf r e d Prufrock" (1915), or as Paul Valery does even * ^ P i e r r e Mazars, "Une journ^e & la v i l l a ' Les V ig n eau x ,'" Honneur £ S a in t - J o h n P e r s e , p. 621. 125 more thoroughly in "La Jeune Parque" (1917). He speaks, with obvious f a s c i n a t i o n and love, of th e ob j e c t i v e r e a l i t y r e f l e c t e d in the n a r r a t o r ' s c o n s c io u s ness; but he does not mean only to reveal t h a t r e a l i t y . I n s te a d , his purpose involves the n a r r a t o r in close y et changing r e l a t i o n to h is immediate world, and, to h i s past and f u t u r e . Then, what kind of n a r r a t o r is at th e c e n t e r of th e imagery and movement of Anabase? C e r t a i n l y he is not a c l e a r l y defined in d i v i d u a l . Nor is he an a u t o b io g ra p h ic a l f i g u r e , as in some of P e r s e ' s early I OP poems. Instead, the n a r r a t o r in Anabase is highly impersonal, even m u ltip le and changing. He des crib e s h im s e lf v a r i o u s l y as th e law-giver, "Ma?tre de g rain , 102 "Pour F§ter une Enfance," composed in 1907 and pub Ii shed in the NouveI Ie revue f r a n c a i se (avr i I 1910), has a f i r s t person n a r r a t o r , the young A lexis, who p r a i s e s th e family p l a n t a t i o n environment in which he lives his childhood. " R e c i t a t i o n & I'lfloge d'une Reine," a lso composed in 1907 and published • in the Nouve I I e revue f rancai se (a v r i I 1910), is spoken by the anonymous leader of a male chorus of w orshippers. The la s t line of each of th e four p a rts i s highly impersonal (th e whole chorus speaks) and i s i r o n i c a l l y juxtaposed to the sexual d e s i r e s u f fu s in g the l e a d e r 's words. "ifcrit sur la P o r t e , " w r i t t e n in 1908 and pu b lish e d as the opening poem in 126 maTtre du s e l , " a leader of g re a t s t r e n g t h and p rid e , a s p i r i t u a l f o r c e , and as a poet on whose brow is in s c r i b e d "ce chant de to u t un p e u p l e . " * ^ The n a r r a t o r a l s o plays the r o le of a simple ob s e rv e r during the foundation of the c i t y , and he becomes in the la s t two cantos a medium, f i r s t , fo r the prophecies of a steppe woman and, then, fo r a v i s i o n o f his p e o p l e 's f u t u r e . The ending chanson seems purposely vague, for the horseman who £ l o g e s . P a r i s : E d i tio n s de la NouveI Ie revue f r a n - cai s e . 1911, has as i t s f i r s t - p e r s o n n a r r a t o r a Caribbean p l a n t a t i o n owner who p r a i s e s h is daughter as h is complementary o p p o s ite . 103 The n a r r a t o r of "Amiti£ du P rince" (1924) d e s c r ib e s the Prince in words which are s tr o n g l y r e m i n is c e n t of the n a r r a t o r of Anabase: Tu es le G u£risseur et I 'Assesseur et I'Enchanteur aux sources de I ' e s p r i t ! Car ton pourvoir au coeur de I'homme e s t une chose Strange et ton aisanc e e s t grande parmi nous. J ' a i vu le signe sur ton f r o n t et j ' a i consid£r£ ton r o le parmi nous. Tiens ton visage parmi nous, vois ton visage dans nos yeux, sache q u e l le e s t ta ra c e : non point d £ b i l e , mais p u i s s a n t e . has n a r r a t e d the whole poem now speaks of "mon fr&re le po&te." Accordingly, I think i t is in a c c u ra te to r e f e r to the n a r r a t o r of Anabase as e i t h e r "le po&te" or "the Leader. "*04 Knodel pe rc e iv e s his purpose c l e a r l y : . . he serves as the focal image of the res s o u rce humai ne- - t h a t r e s e r v o i r of human p o t e n t i a l i t i e s t h a t Perse seeks to p re s e n t in the poem."105 He is a complex f i g u r e , ab sorbing or p r o j e c t i n g the numerous f a c e t s or r o l e s which reveal h is p e o p l e 's breadth and depth of being. As the c e n t e r of a f i e l d of cons cio u s n es s , he is much more suc c e s s fu l than is T e i r e s i a s in The Waste Land, whom E l i o t a l l e g e d l y intended to serve a s i m i l a r fu n c tio n . There fore , the n a r r a t o r of Anabase is not absorbed in c o n s t r u c t i n g an image of h im se lf as an in d iv id u a l perso n a l i t y . He stands a t the physical and s p i r i t u a l c e n t e r of a whole people; as such he is conceived so as to respond to th e very powerful, i n v i s i b l e f o r c e s determ in in g h is world and h is people. These are not purely psychological f o r c e s (as Mazars' q u o ta tio n of Perse would mislead us to b e l i e v e ) f o r the n a r r a t o r never becomes anything like an 104 See Monique P arent, Sai nt-John Perse e t queIques devanc i e r s . pp. 193-5; and Arthur Knodel, Sai n t-J o h n P e r s e , pp. 40-41. ' ^ A r t h u r Knodel, ojq. c i t . . pp. 40-41. ; 128 : in dividual p e r s o n a l i t y ; in s te a d , he is an impersonal f ig u r e I i of the h ig h e st order. Nor a re th e se f o r c e s h i s t o r i c a l , i : j s o c i a l , economic, or p o l i t i c a l , except in a general sense, I | for the c u l t u r e Perse d e p i c t s purposely is never defin e d in, i j I ; i terms of a s p e c i f i c time or pla ce. They find e x p re s s io n i ! i q u i t e f r e q u e n t l y as n atural p h e n o m e n a - - ^ so I e i I . I a mer, j I ' ! la t e r r e , le v e n t , la p l u i e - - b u t , with the impulses s t i r - j r in g w ith in the n a r r a t o r , al I seem manifestations of a | j fundamental " p u i s s a n c e . " And t h i s "puissance" is linked ! with the "songe" or unconscious a n c e s t r a l a s p i r a t i o n s of i ; the n a r r a t o r and h is people. I ; | P uissance, tu c h a n t a i s sur nos r o u te s noc- t u r n e s l . . . Aux ides pures du matin que savons- ! nous du songe, notre aTnesse? (Canto I) ' i Here is the mythical method in a c t i o n . The n a r r a t o r ' s con-: ! t I I s c io u s n e s s becomes e s s e n t i a l l y a vast arena in which the se j : i j f o r c e s (both external and i n t e r n a l ) wax and wane, c o n f l i c t | j and harmonize, s ta g n a t e and are renewed. The poem's move- ! ; ment, then, in c lu d es the physical a c t io n t h a t the n a r r a t o r j j ; j and h is people embark on as well as the s t r u g g l e of fo rc e s j ; which c r e a t e and in fuse th a t a c t i o n . I think t h i s may help: i ! ! to e x p la in what Mazars re p o rte d Perse as saying in 1960: : j I ; "Anabase a pour o b j e t le po&me de la s o l i t u d e dans j I ' a c t i o n . " The n a r r a t o r ' s c o n s ciousness r e v e a l s the ! l0^ P i e r r e Mazars, ojj. ci t . , p. 621. I 29 s p i r i t u a l c e n t e r , "la source" of men's a c t i o n . The magni- i f i c e n t imagery of natural phenomena which d i s t i n g u i s h e s i Anabase gives to t h i s s p i r i t u a l or mytnical "drama" an i n- | c r e d i b l e scope and grandeur. At the same time, i t gives ! t h a t "drama" a very r e a l , a very c o n cre te s e t t i n g . In this; j way, the physical a n a b a sis and the s p i r i t u a l a n a b a sis be- ! I I ; come one. And the s p i r i t u a l anaba sis is not of the in- ; dividual s e l f , but of an e n t i r e race of people: "Au point I 7 I ; s e n s i b l e de mon f r o n t ou le pofeme s ' e t a b l i t , j ' i n c r i s ce i j chant de to u t un peuple. . . . " E l i o t ' s e a r l y i n t u i t i v e grasp of the "mythical method" i ; in Anabase was not lost in the process of t r a n s l a t i o n ; it developed in to real u n d ers tan d in g . For the most p a r t , ; E l i o t t r i e d scru p u lo u sly to define the n a r r a t o r and his i p o in t of view ex ac tly as they were conceived in the French ; | t e x t ; and he c a r e f u l l y t r i e d to avoid adding anything | | which might cause the two t e x t s to d i f f e r . The n a r r a t o r < ; of both, t h e r e f o r e , is in t e n s e , complex, and m u l t i p l e in j ' i h is r e l a t i o n s with " I 1E t r a n g e r ," his own people, the dead, I i and the young women of th e Western P ro v in c e s . For in- i s ta n c e , in an important passage in Canto I d e f i n i n g the n a r r a t o r ' s role among h is people, except fo r one word ; which Perse e a s i l y convinced E l i o t to change, the English t r a n s l a t i o n followed the French t e x t q u i t e c l o s e l y . ' . . . Or je h a n t a i s la v i l l e de vos songes e t i j ' a r r S t a i s sur Ies marches d e s e r t s ce pur com merce de mon tme. . . . Anabase . , , So I haunted the City of your dreams, and I e s t a b l i s h e d on the d e s o l a t e markets the pure communication of my s o u l. . . . 1927 t y p e s c r i p t l . . . So I haunted the City of your dreams, and ; I e s t a b l i s h e d on the d e s o l a t e markets the pure j commerce of my soul. . . . Anabasi s . 1930 | Where the t r a n s l a t i o n seemed to err in d e s c r ib i n g the i j narrator, Eliot was quick to accept Perse's suggestions for j g r e a t e r accuracy; and th e re were a number of passages in j ! the 1927 t y p e s c r i p t in which E l i o t had obscured P e r s e ' s j j meaning. In Canto V, E l i o t had t r a n s l a t e d ", . . 0C 1 I tr o u v e r I'eau nocturne qui lavera nos yeux?" as ", . . I I where is found the water of n ig h t t h a t s h a ll bathe our eyes?" Perse suggested t h a t E l i o t r e s t o r e the emphasis on the n a r r a t o r : ", . . where sh all I find the water of n ig h t to bathe our eyes?" In Canto VI, he had d i s t o r t e d the j phrase "de r£gner sur I ’absence" by t r a n s l a t i n g i t "to ' re ig n in absence ," which Perse changed to "to r u l e over 1 a b s en ce ." The d i f f e r e n c e in p r e p o s i t i o n s is c r u c i a l , f o r j the concept of absence here i s linked to the d e s t i t u t e provinces and to the s o l i t u d e w ith in the n a r r a t o r . In Canto IX, in one of a number of c u rio u s phras in g s which he introduced in to the t e x t on h i s own i n s p i r a t i o n , E l io t in a d v e r te n t ly had changed the n a r r a t o r ' s a t t i t u d e rad i c a I l y . ; Despuis un si long temps que nous all ions en < Guest, que savions-nous des c h o s e s / p e r i s s a b I e s ? Such a long time now we were making westward, , what were we up to, what did we know of those ; th ings which are p e ris h ab le? i ^ i ; The phrase "what were we up t o , " coming as i t does j u s t be — j i i : fo re the climax of th e poem, makes the n a r r a t o r sound in - j ! j I e x p l ic a b l y befuddled about the purpose of the anaba sis and . ; i ! h i s own f u n c t i o n in i t . As with most a d d i t i o n s of t h i s I ] I s o r t , Perse persuaded E l io t to d e l e t e t h i s phrase from the ; I pub Ii shed t e x t . i i | E l i o t a l s o encountered some d i f f i c u l t y in a number of | passages which involve the n a r r a t o r and his people. In th e ! i i opening chanson the f i g u r e of "ma f i l l e " (" d a u g h te r" ) a t i the ends of th e f i r s t and t h i r d s tro p h e s is linked ambig- i i uously with the reference to "Mon ame, grande f i l l e " ("My j ! ! s oul, great g i r l " ) a t the end of the second s tr o p h e . Eliot: j | removed the ambiguity in h i s 1927 t y p e s c r i p t by tra n s l a tin g : : i j the second s tro p h e as "My s o u l, my d a u g h t e r ." On P e r s e ' s j ! s u g g e s tio n , the ambiguity i s preserved in the 1930 e d i t i o n ■ I I of Anabas i s . making the t r a n s l a t i o n no less obscure than j ; j the o r i g i n a l t e x t . 1*^ j n Canto VII, E l i o t compounded these! I ' i t e x t u a l d i f f i c u l t i e s by stubbornly r e s i s t i n g P e r s e ' s emen- j i | d a t i o n s . The line, ". . . c e s t e r r e s jaunes, notre | *^^See Arthur Knodel's remarks on t h i s o b s c u r i t y in | Sai nt-John P e r s e , p. 43. I 132 | d 6 l i c e . . . . , " he f i r s t t r a n s l a t e d as ". . . these yellow i I lands, our playground . . . This gave the passage a jc o n n o ta ti o n completely a t odds with the substance of the i ' | poem. In s te a d of accepting P e r s e ' s l i t e r a l c o r r e c t i o n of !". . . th e s e yellow lands, our d e l i g h t . . . ," E l i o t chose i ! ! | for the 1930 e d i t i o n a euphonious but r a r e l y used word ! ! which s t i l l r e t a i n e d the sense p I ay ground: ". . . th e se jyellow lands, our p leasance. . . ." Then, in the same j 1 canto E l i o t f i r s t t r a n s l a t e d as "Levy a g l a s s - f o l k on the j : boneyard of stream s. . . ." the obscure passage, "Levez uni Ipeuple de m i r o i r s sur I ' o s s u a i r e des f l e u v e s . . . . " i 1 |(w hich r e c a l l s th e important passage in Canto V, "Due d'un | jpeuple d'im ages. . . Perse suggested for the word I peupIe t h r e e a l t e r n a t i v e s : t h r o n g , swarm, and h o s t . Un- | f o r t u n a t e l y , E l i o t changed the t e x t completely in th e 1930 I e d i t i o n : "Levy a w ilde rne ss of m irrors on the boneyards of stream s. . . ." Although g I a s s - f 0 1k is u n a c c e p ta b le , 1 ! ! it did r e f e r to the French t e x t ; wi Iderness had no re la tio n ! j I j to i t at a l l . I t is i n t e r e s t i n g to note here th a t the j : J phrase " w ild e rn e s s of m i r r o r s ” a l s o appears in the l a s t ' I stanza of "Gerontion" (1920); i f E l i o t thought the sense of; i I ; the phrase in t h a t poem was a p p l i c a b l e to Anabase. he was j i ! sadly mistaken. This example is but one of several in i I j which E l i o t w i l f u l l y ignored or r e j e c t e d P e r s e ' s more ac- j ; c u ra t e a l t e r n a t i v e s and took " l i b e r t i e s in the i n t e r e s t of j ;o r i g i n a I i t y , and sometimes imposed h is own idiom between j author and r e a d e r . " 1^0 i E l i o t ' s f i d e l i t y to the French t e x t in i t s conception |o f major c h a r a c t e r s other than the n a r r a t o r , again for the ■ i 1 i i + most p a r t , is admirable. " L 'E tra n g e r" and the young steppe i women, for in s t a n c e , play the same important r o l e in the |E n g l is h t r a n s l a t i o n as they do in th e o r i g i n a l t e x t . Only | I | t i n two p la c e s does he s tra y far from h is purpose. In Canto: VI, which involves horsemen whose r e l a t i o n to th e n a r r a t o r j j : land h is people is ambiguous but who d e f i n i t e l y o f f e r a : i ! c h a l le n g e to him, E l i o t f i r s t t r a n s l a t e d "Je connais c e t t e j ! j race £ t a b l i e sur les p entes: c a v a l i e r s d£mont£s dans les j . c u l t u r e s v i v r i & r e s . " as "I know t h i s fo lk s q u a t t i n g on the | s lo p e s , horsemen unhorsed, t i l l e r s of th e e a r t h . " Fo I k is , | too a n t h ro p o l o g ic a l or derogatory for r a c e . and s q u a t t i n g j is much too s p e c i f i c an a c ti o n for £tab_l_i_e. The phrase, j i I ; j " t i l l e r s of th e e a r t h , " has no b a s i s grammatically or i | | semanticaI Iy in the French t e x t . U n f o r tu n a te ly , Perse him-! ! ; s e l f f a i l e d to c or re c t E l i o t here, and t h i s d i s t o r t i o n of i the horsemen's i d e n t i t y was p r in t e d in the 1930 e d i t i o n of 1 Anabasi s . Secondly, and more im p o rta n tly , in h i s r e fe re n c e | to the dead, who a l s o play such an im portant r o l e through- ; out the poem, E l i o t confuses a s i g n i f i c a n t d i s t i n c t i o n made I08j. 5 # E l i o t , "Note to the Revised E d i t i o n , " p. 13. by the French t e x t . Perse uses the u n c a p i t a l i z e d masculine noun morts in all but one canto, Canto V, where he describes the cru c ia l experience of the n a r r a t o r : "Arne j o i n t e en s i l e n c e au bitume des M ortesI" E l i o t makes no such d i s t i n c t i o n between the dead women of Canto V and the more general dead of the other cantos; he a l s o c a p i t a l i z e s Dead i in a l l but one passage, in Canto VII. For the English read-j er who does not know French, then, the union with the dead | i women in Canto V does not stand out as i t should; nor does j i t complement the union with the living women in Canto IX. ; Consequently, a s i g n i f i c a n t link in the thematic develop- i ment of images is broken. And the development of t h i s j imagery i s c e n t r a l to the a n a b a sis movement of the poem. ' A second means of understanding the ’’mythical method" j of Anabase. and e s p e c i a l l y the spiritual aspect of the j journey into the i n t e r i o r , i s , then, to understand i t s j unique imagery. The more one reads the poem, the more one i n o ti c e s t h a t t h i s imagery fall s into c a r e f u l l y developed j elliptical p a t t e r n s , which may be compared to the montage j te chniques of film-making ( i . e. , th e s a l t - t h i r s t imagery ; of Canto I and the eye imagery of Cantos V-X). So, the ^ imagery provides not only the main substance of the poem, | but a l s o , in i t s c o n t r o l l e d p a t t e r n s , the poem's continuity.; I The imagery p a t t e r n s themselves emphasize the more s i g n i f i cant a c t i o n s of th e a n a b a sis theme. For i n s ta n c e , the ! 135 p a t t e r n of eye imagery links the n a r r a t o r ' s communion with the dead in Canto V and the sexual union with the young women of the .Vestern Provinces in Canto IX; a f t e r which the f u t u r e , evoked in the m a g n ific e n t v is io n of Canto X, s t r e t c h e s c l e a r l y before the n a r r a t o r and h is people as if alre ady f u l f i l l e d . Here, too, even in the imagery the physical and s p i r i t u a l a n a b a sis become o n e . '09 E l i o t was one of the f i r s t to recognize t h a t the se p a t t e r n s of imagery, while c o n t r i b u t i n g to Anabase1s d i f f i c u l t y , served Perse well in achieving h is purpose. His i n s i g h t suggested how one should read the poem. . . . any o b s c u r it y of the poem, on f i r s t r e a d ings, is due to the su p p re s sio n of " l in k s in the c h a i n , " of explanatory and connecting m a tte r , and not to incoherence, or to the love of cryptogram. The j u s t i f i c a t i o n of such a b b r e v i a t i o n of method is t h a t the sequence of images c o i n c id e s and con c e n t r a t e s into one in te n s e im pression of b a rb a ri c c i v i l i z a t i o n . The reader has to allow the images to f a l l into h is memory s u c c e s s i v e l y without q u e s ti o n in g the re a s o n a b l e n e s s of each a t the moment; so t h a t , a t the end, a t o t a l e f f e c t is produced. I 10 am indebted to Arthur Knodel, "Towards an Under s ta n d in g of Anabase." for much of t h i s i n t e r p r e t a t i o n . **®T. S. E l i o t , " P re f a c e , " p. 8. Several c r i t i c s have followed t h i s sug g es tio n and observed the development of the poem's imagery in order to explain i t s meaning. See Bernard Weinberg, " L 'Anabase de S a in t -J o h n P e r s e , " and Arthur Knodel, "Towards an Understanding of Anabase." The method i t s e l f , however, does not p reclude m i s i n t e r p r e t a - t i o n . Bernard Weinberg's d e t a i l e d a n a l y s i s of Anabase' s 136 The i n s i g h t served him w ell, fo r in his t r a n s l a t i o n , even in the 1927 t r a n s c r i p t , E l i o t revealed a good grasp of imagery with which he was la rg e ly u n fa m i li a r. In the 1927 t r a n s c r i p t E l i o t had t r a n s l a t e d the sub stance of the p a t t e r n of s a l t - t h i r s t imagery in i t s en- i t i r e t y , with one e x ce ption. For some reason, in Canto I he; 1 shortened the phrase, ". . . et l 'i d £ e pure comme un sel t i e n t ses a s s i s e s dans le j o u r , " to ", . . and the pure idea holds i t s a s s i z e in the day." Perse convinced him to i r e s t o r e the words "comme un s e l " in the 1930 e d i t i o n of > Anabasi s : ". . . and the idea pure as s a l t holds i t s a s - | ! siz e in the l i g h t - t i m e . " (However, Perse had suggested Ii g h t , not the incomprehensible I i q h t- t i me. for day.) Perse a l s o proved helpful in improving the phrasing of several o th e r passages involving t h i s p a t t e r n of imagery. E l i o t f i r s t t r a n s l a t e d ". . . Au d £ li c e du sel sont t o u t e s ' lances de I ' e s p r i t . . as ". . . The spears of the s p i r i t ! press toward the p le a s u r e of s a l t . . From several a l t e r n a t i v e s o ffe re d by the French poet E l i o t chose . . In the d e l i g h t of s a l t the mind shakes i t s tumult ! imagery goes badly awry because he m isc onstrues the n a r - j ! r a t i v e point of view and because he grasps the poem's move-! ment in a d i s t o r t e d f a s h io n . By c o n t r a s t , Arthur Knodel ; has worked out an equally e l a b o r a t e , but f a r more a c c u r a t e , | exege sis of the poem by studying i t s "combination of 'cross- r e f e r e n c i n g ' and them atic development of imagery." I of s p e a rs . . Perse also got him to change "He knows i l i t t l e I th in k of th e s o u l ' s communion. . ("je lui f a i s peu c r e d i t au commerce de I'ame. . to "I t r u s t him I l i t t l e in th e commerce of the soul. . These changes i ! al I r e s u l t in g r e a t e r accuracy and a more n atu ra l rhythm. j : The p a t t e r n of e ye-e yelid imagery, which is s e t in | Canto V, r e v e a ls even more c l e a r l y the c o l l a b o r a t i o n be- i j I tween poet and t r a n s l a t o r in f i n i s h i n g th e English tra n s l a -i | t i o n . The f i r s t re fe r e n c e to the eye, in Canto I I I , ". . .: i f a i t 4c la t e r I' amande de mon oei I I ", E l i o t had gen era lize d ! ; in to " s h a t t e r rny s i g h t ! " P e r s e 's l i t e r a l t r a n s l a t i o n in a j ! | note, " b u r s t (?) t h e almond of my eye!", spurred E l i o t to ! c r e a t e a more s t a c c a t o , more onomatopoeic phrase: "crack ! the nut of my eye!" However, the success of t h i s image | seems to have hindered E l i o t s l i g h t l y in Canto VII in I t r a n s l a t i n g "De la f i s s u r e des paupi&res au fi I des cimes ; m ' u n i s s a n t . . . ." Perse suggested t h a t he change h i s I | | ; i n i t i a l p h ras e, "From the e y e s l i t to th e h i l l t o p I j o i n i ; | myself. . . which was too ambiguous, to the more * * * EIi ot also drew upon the fo llow ing l i n e s from "The I Wind Sprang Up at Four O'clock" (1924): I saw across th e blackened r i v e r ' The camp f i r e shake with a l i e n s p e a rs . Here, across d e a t h ' s other r i v e r The T a rt a r horsemen shake t h e i r s p e a rs . 138 l i t e r a l "From the f i s s u r e of my eye to the level of the h e ig h ts I j o i n myself. . . E l i o t printed in the 1930 Anabas i s e d i t i o n a phrase t h a t r e c a l l s , somewhat d i s t u r b ingly, the phrase in Canto I I I : "From the crack of my eye to the level of the h i l l s I j o i n myself. . . In Canto V, however, E lio t accepted P e r s e ' s advice completely in order to c l a r i f y th e unusual lin e , "cousues d ' a i g u i l l e s nos paupiferesl loude I ' a t t e n t e sous nos c i l s ! " : "our e y e l i d s sewn with th re a d , and under our brows the w a it in g " became "our e y e l i d s sewn with needles! p r a i s e to the w a iting under; our e y e l i d s ! " He a l s o accepted in Canto IX a s u g g e s tio n from Perse which c l a r i f i e d an im portant link between t h a t i canto and Canto V. ", . . our bodies C the steppe women J j quickened with sap?" (". . . nos corps s 'e m p l i s s e n t d'une s a l i v e ? " ) became . . our bodies f i l l e d with a s p i t t l e ? " , ! which p a r a l l e l s . . his eye C th e Stranger ] is f u l l of ; a s o r t of s p i t t l e . . . ." (". . .son oei I es t p l e i n d'unej . I saIi ve. . . ."). | D espite t h i s c l o s e c o l l a b o r a t i o n , the two poets found ! t h a t sometimes Anabase1s imagery s tro n g ly r e s i s t e d t h e i r ! e f f o r t s to t r a n s l a t e i t . In Canto I the image t h a t f i r s t i introduces the concept of songe and i t s r e l a t i o n to the j n a r r a t o r and his people was p a r t i c u l a r l y troublesom e: "que! A savons-nous du songe, notre a i n e s s e ? " The c l a r i t y of the phrase, e s p e c i a l l y the analogy "n o tre aTnesse," is ! ■ e s s e n t i a l for the subsequent uses of the key word s onge. E l i o t f i r s t t r a n s l a t e d the q u e s tio n as "what know we of the prim o g en itu re of dream?" Pri mogeniture caught the sense of| r i g h t of i nheri tance in a t nesse q u i t e we I I , but i t does not; ; s p e c if y t h a t the dream o r i g i n a t e d from the n a r r a t o r ' s j ; a n c e s t o r s (b e s id e s , i t t r a n s l a t e s a t w o - s y l l a b l e word into j i f i v e s y l l a b l e s ) . Perse t r i e d e i g h t d i f f e r e n t wordings fo r | " n o tre a tn e ss e " and was s a t i s f i e d with none of them.**^ i j ; For the 1930 Anabasis e d i t i o n E l i o t chose a word even more j re c h e rc h £ , entai I (fix e d line of d escent or i n h e r i t a n c e ) : | I ' i "what know we of our e n t a i l of dream?" E l i o t p l a i n l y was ! : s t u c k , for nothing in English seems any b e t t e r . j As t h i s a n a l y s i s of two imagery p a t t e r n s in the e a r l y 1 t s t a g e s of the English t r a n s l a t i o n confirm s, E l i o t seemed to; understand P e r s e ' s method of " c r o s s - r e f e r e n c i n g " r a t h e r ! | j - well as a c h i e f means of c r e a t i n g an in t e r n a l s t r u c t u r e j 1 for the poem. However, i t is worth noting a t t h i s p o in t I ! t h a t Perse h im se lf c o n t r i b u t e d in v a lu a b ly to E l i o t ' s s u e - ! ' i | ! I c e s s in reproducing t h i s s t r u c t u r e . His emendations to thej j i : 1927 t y p e s c r i p t of the t r a n s l a t i o n c o n s i s t e n t l y focused and| : j i emphasized the " c r o s s - r e f erenc i ng" and c l a r i f i e d key images! j E l i o t had been unable to convey in E n g lis h . Without the j j I I ---------------------------------------- ; ' l i p j ^"dreams, our e I d e r - s i s t e r s ? ; our b i r t h r i g h t ? ; ! J p rim ogeniture ?; previous l i f e ? ; d escent; b i r t h p l a c e ; an- ! ] t e r i o r l i f e ; p r i o r , e l d e r , sen io r l i f e ? " Bodleian Library j MS Don C 23/2. All f u r t h e r notes by S a in t-Jo h n Perse are j from t h i s t y p e s c r i p t u n le ss so d e s ig n a t e d . | 140 a u t h o r ' s a s s i s t a n c e and r e s t r a i n i n g hand, E l i o t ' s tendency to s tr a y from the t e x t might have s e r i o u s l y undermined his t r a n s l a t i o n . For in s ta n c e , in Canto IX the r e p e t i t i o n of ; the important word sources is lo s t because Perse did not i | n o ti c e t h a t E l i o t had used two d i f f e r e n t words, s p r i n qs | and fountai n s . instead of one, probably for v a r i e t y and : euphony. Alone, E l i o t might have been able to help the j English reader become aware of the " c r o s s - r e f e r e n c i n g " o f imagery in the French t e x t , but he probably could not have i ( r e a l i z e d t h a t " c r o s s - r e f e r e n c i n g " in the English t r a n s l a - i t i o n without help him self from the French poet. 1 I I | P e r s e ' s c o n t r i b u t i o n to the English t r a n s l a t i o n can | be seen in o th e r examples of imagery, more i s o l a t e d and un- j u s u a l, and perhaps more s t r i k i n g in t h e i r immediate e f f e c t . | One of the most complex of the se occurs in the second Iine j i of Canto VII. ! L'Et£ plus vaste que I'Empire suspend aux t a b l e s i I de I 'e s p a c e p l u s i e u r s Stages de c l i m a t s . La t e r r e j v a s te sur son a i r e ro u le & p l e i n s bords sa b r a i s e ] pale sous les cendres. i j This unusual m e teorological or b i r d ' s - e y e view of the e a r t h | involves in the second p a rt of the passage a mi sunderstand-l ing of syntax on E l i o t ' s p a r t . The vast e a r t h on i t s s u p e r f i c e over-flow ing r o l l s ; i t s pale embers under the ash 1927 t y p e s c r i p t j Even with P e r s e ' s c o r r e c t i o n s , the line in the 1930 Anabas-i I | | j_s e d i t i o n ('The e a rth huge on i t s area r o l l s overflow ing j i t s pale embers under the a s h e s . " ) only obscurely v i s u a l iz es the embers glowing before ca tc h in g f i r e as the ashes of the e a r t h ' s su rfa c e are s i f t e d with i t s r o l l i n g motion under the g r e a t summer layers of a i r . In the same canto E l i o t m i s t r a n s l a t e d . . je s a i s la p i e r r e tach<?e d ' o u i e s . . as " . . . I know the s to n es p i t t e d with e a r h o l e s j . . . ." Perse wrote in a note on the 1927 t y p e s c r i p t , j " J ' a i pens£ aux plaques de lichen sur les p i e r r e s , et par , I a s s o c i a t i o n aux ou ie s, £ c a i l l e s , d a r t r e s des l i z a r d s . " j E l i o t d u t i f u l l y changed the line to "I know the s to n e s j I | 3 g i l l - s t a i n e d . . . The e f f e c t of P e r s e ' s c o r r e c t i o n , 1 i is also s t r i k i n g in Canto VI. i . . . nos chevaux sobres et ra p i d e s sur les ' semences de r £ v o l t e et nos casques f l a i r £ s par la f u r e u r du j o u r . . . Anabase . . . our horses s t a i d and s w ift on the furrows ! of r e v o l t and our helmets trac ked by the fury of the day. . . . 1927 t y p e s c r i p t i . . . and our horses sober and s w i f t upon C ? ] ' the seeds of s e d i t i o n and our helmets scented j by the fury of the day. . . . Perse . . . and our horses s t a i d and s w i f t upon the ; seeds of s e d i t i o n and our helmets s n i f f e d by the fury of the day. . . . Anabasi s , 1930 E l i o t ' s poor judgment in r e t a i n i n g s t a i d is compensated ' 1 ^ A l th o u g h th e images d e s c r ib e two d i f f e r e n t s to n e s , one p i t t e d with small holes and the o th e r s ta in e d with a kind of lichen, e i t h e r would be an a p p r o p r i a t e image. for by h is a d d i t i o n of s n i f f e d . F i n a l l y , in Canto IX E l io t revea led an unusual r e s e r v e and awkwardness in t r a n s l a t i n g . . le p l a i s i r au flan c des femmes se compose. . . ." (". . . the p le a s u r e in c o n t a c t with the thigh of woman a rra n g e s i t s e l f . . . .") A fter reading E l i o t ' s f i r s t d r a f t of these words, Perse observed, probably with a sm ile: "The meaning i s : the ple a su re forming i t s e l f , s e c r e t i n g i t s e l f , growing w ith in themselves, in s id e them ( C 'e s t une femme qui p a r l e ) . " As a consequence, the 1930 e d i t i o n read much more c l e a r l y : ". . . the p le a s u r e forms i t s e l f w ith in the womb. . . . " A s i m i l a r r e s e r v e or r e luctance kept E l i o t from t r a n s l a t i n g the word s £ d u i t . which Perse wanted preserved in the f i r s t line of Canto 114 ! X. At his i n s i s t e n c e , E l i o t changed " S elect a big hat with the border pulled down" to "S elect a wide hat with j the brim s e d u c e d . " 1^ " J ' a i m e r a i s grandement qu'on put garder le mot "seduce" en r a i s o n de I ’a t t r a i t de son etymologie l a t i n e , (se+ducere) pour le f r a n ^ a i s comme pour I ' a n g l a i s . " **5"At one famous line (Anabase X), Fais choix d'un j grand chapeau dont on s e d u it le bord, Perse began to de s p a i r II s i c J of e x p l a n a ti o n s so he s a i d , ' i f you cannot think of i t p o e t i c a l l y , think in terms of etymology: C s i c ] S e-d u ire from th e Latin s e - d u c e — to lead toward y o u r s e l f , s e d u ire a woman, a natio n , a world; II s ic J you draw them to y o u r s e l f , C s i c J to your bosom (with g e s t u r e s ) so, you tu r n the brim of your hat down toward y o u r s e I f . 1 " Quoted ; from page two of a l e t t e r from Katherine Chapin to Arthur KnodeI, Apri I 27, 1967. But E l i o t did not respond like an obedient novice to all of P e r s e ' s recommendations on the poem's imagery; he sometimes ignored or r e j e c t e d them o u t r i g h t . A dramatic I example occurs in Canto VII, the same canto in which he had r e s i s t e d P e r s e ' s wishes in the opening lin e: . . ces i i t e r r e s jaunes, notre d ^I ice. . . . " I r e f e r to the j b e a u t if u l image of h i l l s encountered on the anaba sis which j advance like camels into the f u r t h e s t d is ta n c e where they seem to kneel down in the powder and dust clouds of the c e n t r a l d e s e r t . ^ . Charnelles douces sous la t o n t e , cousues de mauves c i c a t r i c e s , que les col lin es s'achem inent sous les donn£es du c i e l a g r a i r e - - q u ' eI Ies chemi- nent en s i l e n c e sur les incandescences p i l e s de la p la in e ; et s ' agenoui I I ant i la f i n , dans la fumee des songes, l& 0C 1 les peuples s ’a b o l i s s e n t aux poudres mortes de la t e r r e . E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n in the 1927 t y p e s c r i p t involves a glar-j | i ng s y n t a c t i c a l e r r o r , for he makes a vocative of Chame I I esi and t u r n s the line into nonsense. | Camels, g e n tle in s h e a r in g , skins crossed with mauve s c a rs ; let the h i l l s march f o r t h under the ble ss in g of the h a r v e s t sky — . . . . i To c o r r e c t t h i s , Perse wrote, "(Ce sorit les col lin e s qui sont a s s i m i l $ e s & des charnelles sous la t o n t e ) . " Evidently E l i o t e i t h e r misunderstood t h i s note (which seems h ig h ly | i u n l i k e l y ) or w i l l f u l l y ignored i t , for the 1930 Anabasi s ed i t i on reads : j 144 ; Camels, g en tle beneath the sh ears , sown with j mauve s c a r s , let the hi I Is march f o r t h under the j f a c t s of th e h a rv e s t sky— . . . . i ! i i jS im ilarly , in Canto VIII E l i o t turned " C av aliers au t r a v e r s j de t e l l e s f a m i l i e s humaines. . . ." into " C a v a l ie r s , acrosq i , j I such human f a m i l i e s . . . . " , again ignoring P e r s e ' s note: ^ :"f\lon pas au v o c a t i f , mais en a p p o s i t i o n . . . ." One is at j : | |a loss to explain t h i s n egligence . i Yet th e re were times when, even though E l i o t accepted i jP e r s e 's ad v ice, the r e s u l t s in the English t r a n s l a t i o n were; ! Ie s s than f e l i c i t o u s . Most of these involved an unusual or i j I u n c le a r image in the French t e x t . In Canto V Perse de- ! ; ! I iscribed a woman awakening and s t r e t c h i n g her whole body from ihead to fo o t in the simple p h r a s e , " . . . la femme s ' £ t i r e : sur son ongle. . . ." E l i o t ' s i n i t i a l t r a n s l a t i o n used jother words to d e s c r ib e the a c t i o n , but h is was more ac- i c u r a t e th a n P e r s e ' s u n id i o m a t ic , l i t e r a l t r a n s l a t i o n . . . . the woman s t r e t c h e s her arms (??? ). . . . ! j 1927 ty p e s c r i pt ; . . . the woman s t r e t c h e s h e r s e l f above her n a i l . . . . I Perse i ! . . . the woman s t r e t c h e s h e r s e l f from nail to nai I . . . . Anabasi s . 1930 1 Jin Canto IX the phrase ". . . sous I ' a r b r e - f i I Ie de mes J 1 Jveines. . . spoken by th e young steppe woman, c re a te d j la s i m i l a r d i f f i c u l t y . The phrase probably is meant to re - I ! 1 ; icall d i s t a n t l y the c l u s t e r of imagery in the opening 145: I ichanson: . . un poulain . . . un a rb re . . . ma f i l l e j. . . I ' c t r a n g e r . . . ." Perse was at a loss to ex p lain jit to E l i o t and could only ask, "Comment tradu i rez-vous I ' a r b r e ' veineux en anatomie?" Neither E l i o t ' s sap Ii ng nor P e r s e ' s femaIe t r e e give much sense of the branching ! i inetwork of veins to which the French t e x t seems to r e f e r . j i | iOne of the se passages, in the opening Chanson, r e s u l t e d in j j ; ja s u b s t a n t i a l loss of meaning: "que la trom pette m 'e s t , jd£lice et la plume savante au scandale de I ' a i l e ! " The j [second h a l f of the line is a p e r f e c t example of P e r s e ' s con-i [junction of the a b s t r a c t and the c o n c re te . In the 1927 ty p e - [ i s c r i p t E l i o t t r a n s l a t e d only p a rt of t h i s : ". . . and the [scandal of the wing!" Perse must have d e l i b e r a t e d over t h e ' i ; [phrase fo r some time fo r he suggested ". . . and the f e a t h e r [ s k ill e d or t r a i n e d to or through the scandal of the w in g l, " | [which E l i o t then changed in to the enigmatic ". . . and the j i i [feather adept of the scandal of the wing!" The t r o u b l e here j i [is t h a t n e i t h e r f e a t h e r adept of nor the scanda I of the wi ntj | : [is at alI c l e a r , and the word scandaI fra n k ly sounds wrong [ | jin E n g lis h . Perse has confirmed t h i s r e c e n t l y by : | i [ . . . i n d i c a t i n g t h a t scandale and the a l l i e d j | esc I and re are o fte n used by him without p e j o ra - | t i ve i n t e n t , but r a t h e r with the meaning of £cI a t . Perhaps an English e q u iv a le n t such as [ "sudden and b r i l l i a n t d i s c l o s u r e " may catch some th in g of t h i s r a t h e r s p ecia l use of the word. I 16 | * ^ A r t h u r ^ K n o d e I , "Towards an Understanding of [Anabase." p. 3 d l , fo o tn o t e 6.________ _______ ! ' " " “ " " 146 j ! As a consequence, the "mobility of nomad l i f e " as v i s u a l - i | ized in the " f e a t h e r p e r f e c t l y aligned in the soaring ; wing" does not emerge in the 1930 Anabas is e d i t i o n . * * 7 | In the preceding paragraphs I have t r i e d to do j u s t i c e : to P e r s e ' s co.J.1 aborat i on with E l i o t in t r a n s l a t i n g impor- ; I ; ta n t p a t t e r n s of imagery and unusual i s o l a t e d images which proably did not l i e w ithin the range of the English p o e t ' s | e x p erien ce. The point of P e r s e ' s c o n t r i b u t i o n needs em- j p h a s iz i n g , but I do not want to seem to be d e p r e c a tin g ! E l i o t ' s own achievement. He was well able on his own to I | come to terms with Anabase' s imagery, o c c a s i o n a ll y even i ; s u rp a s s i n g the French t e x t with a v iv id n e s s which s a c r i fice d nothing in accuracy. For i n s ta n c e , in Canto VII I i | E l i o t made " C av aliers du songe au lieu des poudres mortes ! . . ." much more s t r i k i n g with his choice of an i n i t i a l j : I word which caught the a c t io n of horsemen on the a n a b a s i s : ; j "HorsetrampIings of dreams in the place of dead powders | I . . . ." In Canto IX the ending image, which ". . . seems to e s t a b l i s h a connection between the f e r t i l i t y of the 1 earth and the f e r t i l i t y of the women," loses none of ; i t s s t a r t l i n g f o r c e : ". . . the g i r l s made water 117 1 b id ., p. 331. 1181 b id . , p. 340. 147; s t r a d d l i n g and holding aside the painted c l o t h of t h e i r gowns." (". . . les f i l l e s u r i n a i e n t en £ c a r t a n t la t o i l e p e i n te de leur r o b e . " ) . However, the real evidence of j E l i o t ' s s k i l l in r e c r e a t i n g Anabase' s imagery appears in j the e a r l y cantos. The most s u s t a in e d example comes near j j the end of Canto I. j I . . . f l a i r e u r s de s ig n e s , de semences, et con- j f e s s e u r s de s o u f f l e s en Ouest; suive^urs de p i s t e s , de s a i s o n s , leveurs de campements d a n s . l e p e t i t ; vent de I'aube; o ch ercheurs de p o in t s d'eau sur I ’gcorce du monde; o c h e rc h e u rs, o t r o u v e u rs de j r a i s o n s pour s ’en a l l e r a i l l e u r s . . . . Anabase 1 . . . s e e r s of signs and seeds, and c o n f e s s o r s of the western winds, t r a c k e r s of b e a s ts and of seasons, b reak e rs of camp in the l i t t l e dawn wind, j s eek ers of w aterc o u rs es over the wrinkled rind of i the world, 0 s e e k e rs , 0 f i n d e r s of reasons to be j up and be gone. . . . Anabasi s . 1930 j To be s u re , Perse was r e s p o n s i b l e fo r seeds in place of j i sowi n g s . but the r e s t is a l l E l i o t . . . b re a k e rs of | camp in the l i t t l e dawn wind. . . ." is p a r t i c u l a r l y r e - j f r e s h i n g in i t s rhythm and in i t s co n cise statem en t of ; I actual e xperience. Several c r i t i c s have p ra is e d E l i o t fo r j the image, ". . . over the wrinkled rind of the world . . . ,"119 j t ,• s i n t e r e s t i n g to note t h a t Perse wrote oh the 1927 t y p e s c r i p t a more l i t e r a l t r a n s l a t i o n as an a l t e r C n a t iv e f o r E l i o t : ", . . upon the bark of th e world. . . ."! j * ^ V i n c e n t Cronin, "T. S. E l i o t as a T r a n s l a t o r , " p. ! 136. 120 i To avoid the homonym b a r k , E l i o t chose to r e t a i n h is own phrase for i t s euphony and for i Ls image of a seed or f r u i t in which r e s i d e s a dormant germ inative power. One must applaud him because the seed image is not without impor tance in the poem, and not out of place in t h i s c o n t e x t. The l a s t two lin es of Canto II a lso reveal E l i o t a t his best in ca tc h in g the impact of the French t e x t . II v ie n t, de ce c$t£ du monde, un grand ma I v i o l e t sur I es eaux. Le vent se Ifeve, Vent de 1 mer. Et I a I ess i ve p a r t i comme un p r e t r e mis en pi&ces. . . ! j Comes from t h i s side of the world a g reat purple doom on the w a te rs . Rises the wind, the sea-wind. And the linen exposed to dry | s c a t t e r s ! like a p r i e s t torn in p ie c e s . . . j Reproducing the syntax of the f i r s t phrase, he gets the j same e f f e c t with "a g r e a t purple doom on the w aters" (be- j j cause of i t s p o s i t i o n and s t r e s s p a t t e r n ) as Perse does | with "un grand ma I v i o l e t sur I es eaux." The syntax of thej next two s h o rt phrases he changes to p a r a l l e l the f i r s t and to s t r e s s wi nd. but a t the same time he keeps the balance ! of t h e i r rhythm while adding emphasis with "se a-w in d ." i The la s t phrase of the line (whose la st word begins the j ! f i n a l lin e ) has a s t r i k i n g e f f e c t in English because E l i o t I I j po i See, for in s t a n c e , the image a t the end of Canto V: "Et la t e r r e en ses g ra in e s ai l£es, comme un po&te en j ses propos, voyage. . . . " 149 yokes two s t r e s s e s p r e c i s e l y at the enj ambernent: "And the I + * s y | linen exposed to dry / s c a t t e r s ! " That e f f e c t resounds in j I the fin a l phrase in two more yoked s t r e s s e s , complemented I : I by an a l l i t e r a t i o n E l i o t ta kes over from the French: " lik e l J i ✓ * * ! ! a p r i e s t to rn in p ie c e s . . ." The image is one of the most; s t a r t l i n g in the whole poem, and i t is E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n | | of the rhythm (without P e r s e ' s a s s i s t a n c e ) which makes i t j ! so e f f e c t i v e in E nglish. i : The vocabulary of S a in t-Jo h n Perse has been widely j and v a rio u s l y acclaimed: encyclopedic, u n i v e r s a l , a r i s t o - I I P I ! c r a t i c , s c i e n t i f i c , r e c o n d i t e , e x o t ic , a u s t e r e . ' Some I c r i t i c s have even t r i e d to convince themselves t h a t i t is I f a n c i f u l . yet one can be c e r t a i n a t le a s t of two | t h i n g s . F i r s t , ", . . almost a l l the s tr a n g e words oc- j c u r r in g in his poetry may be found in the large s tandard | French d i c t i o n a r i e s . . . # " 1 23 Second, P e r s e ' s ; *2lpor a d e t a i l e d a n a l y s i s of S aint-John P e r s e ' s ! p o e tic vocabulary, see Roger Cai I lo is, La Po£t i que de : S a in t -J o h n Perse ( P a r i s : Gallimard, 195^), pp. 17-23. | See, a l s o , the concise remarks of Arthur Knodel, Sa i n t - John P e r s e , pp. 12-13 and 115-116. i ,22R0ger Cai I l o i s e l u c i d a t e s the e r r o r s of men like j | Mauri ce S a i I le t in his Po£t i que de S t . - John P e r s e . pp. 19 f — f 98. See. a l s o . Arthur Knodel, S a in t-Jo h n Perse, pp. 1 23-24. I 2^ •^Arthur Knodel, S a in t-J o h n P e r s e , p. 13. 150: j vocabulary r e f e r s c o n s i s t e n t l y to a world of ob s e rv a b le or j e x p e r i e n t i a l n atural f a c t ; in o th e r words, i t is extremely j n o m i n a I i s t i c . At the same time, one of i t s more remarkable I • f e a t u r e s is the ease with which i t encompasses a c a r e f u l l y ; j a r t i c u l a t e d common speech and a g reat number of te c h n ic a l , i and s c i e n t i f i c terms. As could be observed in the previous; paragraphs, t h i s makes f o r an unusually p r e c i s e but d i f - j f i c u l t imagery which would c h a lle n g e any t r a n s l a t o r . 1 I ! In i t s vocabulary, with i t s p r o d i g a l i t y of e x o t ic • | words and images, Anabase probably o f f e r s the toughe st j j c h a lle n g e of a l l S a in t-J o h n P e r s e ' s poems. Besides having; j an e l l i p t i c a l o r g a n i z a t i o n which te le s c o p e s and concen- j 1 I t r a t e s images and a c t i o n s while om ittin g o v e rt connective ; m a t e r i a l , the poem i n h a b i t s a very unique m i lie u which | l i m i t s i t s language. Except for one a n a c h r o n i s t i c r e f e r - i i ; i ence to the B ie lid e s meteor shower, *24- Perse scrupu I ous I y ! i : 1 1 ; avoids using any word which could r e f e r to an h i s t o r i c a l 1 i i ! event o c c u rrin g a f t e r the b i r t h of C h r i s t . Nor does he j r e f e r , except p e r i p h e r a l l y , to any s p e c i f i c s i t e or people ! in the a n c i e n t world. At the same time, he avoids j u s t as; i | s c r u p u lo u s ly any words which might be considered a r c h a i c , fo r the c i v i l i z a t i o n he d e s c r i b e s is not to be seen a c ro s s j 124-Arthur Knodel, "Towards an Understanding of Anabase," p. 336. ; the reaches of h i s t o r i c a l d i s t a n c e ; i t is to be immediately i | experienced. Consequently, the language of Anabase abounds; ; in an imagery which is r e s t r i c t e d to an u n h i s t o r i c a l con- : i te x t of o b s e r v a t i o n . F ascinated as he was by P e r s e ' s i j ! vocabulary, E l i o t found h im se lf se v e re ly te s t e d in t r y i n g | j to t r a n s l a t e i t in to English. | Kathleen Rai ne r e c e n t l y rev ea led what S ain t-Jo h n Persej | him self t h i n k s was a major reason for E l i o t ' s d i f f i c u l t y , i In c o n v e r s a t io n with M. Leger C sic 1 I once sug- j gested t h a t a point of a f f i n i t y between h is own j j w r i t i n g and t h a t of his f i r s t English t r a n s l a t o r , | T. S. E l i o t , might be found in the exact use, by \ i both p o e ts, of many unusual words; an i n t e r e s t in j words as such. No, he s a id , f o r E l i o t ' s i n t e r e s t j ; in words was l i t e r a r y and etym ological; he learned i about words by reading th e Oxford d i c t i o n a r y ; ! whereas his own vocabulary comes from his knowl edge of many s k i l l s and c r a f t s in which he has J engaged. . . . 1 2 5 J j Miss Raine seems to agree with t h i s sharp d i f f e r e n t i a t i o n j | between poet and t r a n s l a t o r ; a t l e a s t she does not questior) i : | i t . Yet as I have a lre ad y shown p a r e n t h e t i c a l l y in his j I | | use of an ab a se. chroni q u e . and ££duj_t, and as he him self i ! says in his 194-1 l e t t e r to MacLeish, P e r s e ' s own i n s i s t - : ence on the purely etymological meaning of words b e l i e s I I the sharpness of his d i s t i n c t i o n . Also, the remark i ^Kathleen Raine, " S t.-J o h n P e r s e ' s B i r d s ." Southern Rev i ew (Winter, 1967), p. 251. Her account is s l i g h t l y j d i f f e r e n t in " S t.-J o h n Perse: Poet of the M arvellous," ; Encounter , XXIX, 4 (October, 1967), p. 52. ! i I ,2 6 s ee f o o tn o t e 8 5. Also, Etiemble, " S aint-John I ! P e r s e , " Valurs (A I e x a n d r i e ), II ( j u i l l e t 1945). about E l i o t ' s l i t e r a r y i n t e r e s t in words barely h i n t s at the f a c t t h a t the vocabulary of Anabase deprived him, in | the a c t of t r a n s l a t i o n , of one of his most c h a r a c t e r i s t i c p o e t ic te c h n i q u e s — l i t e r a r y a l l u s i o n . I t would seem, then,! i th a t the r e s p e c t i v e v o c a b u l a rie s of the two poets may be i more s i m i l a r than Perse r e a l i z e s and t h a t , more im p o rta n t -! ly, E l i o t ' s d i f f i c u l t y in t r a n s l a t i n g the d i c t i o n of j Anabase had other sources besides those suggested by the i a u th o r. ! The notes Perse appended to the 1927 t y p e s c r i p t of j E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n emphasize an important f e a t u r e of Anabase’s vocabulary. In them Perse showed an acute con- j — . r r - j cern for the p r e c i s e degree of a b s t r a c t n e s s or c o n c r e t e - ! ness to p a r t i c u l a r words and phrases. This is very r e - ; i vealin g about h is poetic method, for i t i n d i c a t e s t h a t he i was not at a l l i n t e n t on e l im i n a tin g the a b s t r a c t from j his poetry by means of a s t r i c t nominalism. In Anabase1s vocabulary, e s p e c i a l l y , he sought to achieve a c e r t a i n I co n ju n c tio n or harmony between the a b s t r a c t and the con- | c r e t e , for the anabasis i t s e l f was both geographical and i i s p i r i t u a I , c o n cre te and a b s t r a c t . Even at the level of ! the lowest common denominator, vocabulary, Perse had worked d i l i g e n t l y for the union of the physical and s p i r - j itual a n a b a s i s . His concern, of course, also should have been helpful to E l i o t in h is o verall understanding of I | 153 I ! Anabase and in h is t r a n s l a t i o n of p a r t i c u l a r passages. U n fo rtu n a te ly , t h i s was not always the case. P e r s e ' s i n s i s t e n c e on a word's general a b s t r a c t n e s s and c o n c r e te n e s s has a lre ad y been evidenced in h is note on the meaning of the t i t l e . In Canto I I I , however, he took 1 issue with E l i o t on the t r a n s l a t i o n of several words on ! I | | j u s t t h i s p o in t . In i s o l a t i o n they may seem of small j | i n t e r e s t , but c o l l e c t i v e l y they add up to an unusual de- j I s i r e for p r e c i s i o n . Take the phrase, "sous Ies m a g n ifi- j j ! | cences de la chaux," which is p a r t of the n a r r a t o r ' s d ia - i j t r i b e a g a i n s t the sun in the second lin e. As i f looking | j | I back to h is "Tom Sawyer" childhood days on the M is s is s ip p i j i J'River, E l i o t f i r s t t r a n s l a t e d the line as ". . . under the i i ! glare of the whitewash. . . ." Perse advised e i t h e r | "lime" or "chalk" for "whitewash" and then took the j ! i | t r o u b l e to note t h a t "magnificences" should be t r a n s l a t e d j ; with an a b s t r a c t word, like " s p l e n d o u r." E l i o t e l e c t e d to i i ! ! follow Perse only h a l f way and p r i n t e d the line in the ; ! 1930 e d i t i o n as ". . . under the g la re of the calcium \ I j . . . ." This concern for a b s t r a c t n e s s is matched by i t s ! ! o p p o s ite in the phrase immediately prece ding: "0 Frondeur! I f a i s 6c l a t e r I'amande de mon 0ei II" Here Perse o b je cted ! i | t h a t E l i o t ' s English v e rs io n was not co n c re te enough; fo r j j " f a u l t f i n d e r ! s h a t t e r my s i g h t ! " he suggested "0 S lin g e r ! j s h a t t e r bu rs t (?) the almond of my eye!" S ubsequently, inj the 1930 p r i n t i n g , while c r e a t i n g the superb image, "crack I the nut of my e y e ! , " E l i o t at the same time m istakenly d i s - I t o r t s the line again by changing "0 S l i n g e r ! " to "mud- , „ I 27 : s l i n g e r ! " 1 ‘ I ! These two passages alone could suggest merely a con- I 1 cern for p r e c i s i o n , but Perse was a lso concerned t h a t j j u x t a p o s i t i o n s in French between the a b s t r a c t and the con-! | c r e t e would be c a r r i e d over in to the English. In the I phrase, " l e s f l e u v e s emphatiques" ( s t i l l in Canto I I I ) , he; j wanted "d'im poser S a n g l a i s le meme £ c a r t , dans I'accouple-: 1 | I ment fo rc£ des deux mots." Accordingly, Perse changed | i I "tumid r i v e r s " in the 1927 t y p e s c r i p t to "emphatic r i v e r s . '! ; ! I U n fo rtu n a te ly , he lo s t both " I 1accoupIement" of sound and ! metaphor; he must not have r e a l i z e d t h a t emphatic had not 1 ! i the meaning of exaggerated or o v e r s t a t e d t h a t the French ! | 1 emphatique has. Although tumid comes c l o s e to the French i " : meaning, i t does not approximate the sound ( swolien would j i , i ! have been b e t t e r ) . Following P e r s e ' s advice, E l i o t e r e - 1 1 I ! a t e d , with " s t r e s s e d r i v e r s , " an incomprehensible metaphor ! in the 1930 e d i t i o n of Anabasis. An even more troublesome j _ _ _ _ _ ! phrase for E l i o t i n i t i a l l y was "Les mers f a u t i v e s aux 1 127 ; E l i o t may have been th in k in g wrongly of the f i g— I u r a t i v e sense of the word F ro n d eu r, or even more wrongly ! of the in s u r g e n t s in the French c i v i l wars between 1648 ! and 1653. 155 I d d t r o i t s " (also in Canto I I I ) , which he had t r i e d to gloss i . :with "The dangerous seas and t h e i r s t r a i t s . " Perse pointed to the ambiguity of the word f a u t i v e . both co n c re te and ab- i I p 'A j s t r a c t , as e s s e n t i a l to the e f f e c t he d e s ire d here. , I E l i o t understood p e r f e c t l y , for he accepted P e r s e ' s phras- ; |ing of "The seas f a u l t y in t h e i r s t r a i t s " by only s u b s t i - | t u t i n g for the a d j e c t i v e " f a u l t y " the more p r e c i s e verbal j i "err i ng." i Conclusive evidence of P e r s e ’s concern and E l i o t ' s grasp of h is i n t e n t can be seen in the t r a n s l a t i o n s ta g e s j |o f the la s t line from Canto I. In his o r i g i n a l d r a f t , i El i o t was s u re ly groping in the dark when he t r a n s l a t e d I I", , . h nos c h a n t i e r s t i r a n t d ' immorteI Ies car&nesj" as : . . launching from our ways the keels u n f o r g o tt e n un- | i ' f o r g e t t a b l e . " P e r s e ' s note on the t e x t should be read in ! ! i i c o n ju n c ti o n with what he had said about the t i t l e , and also! I in r e l a t i o n to h is 1941 l e t t e r to Archibald MacLeish (foot-i : | ; note 85). ' i M aintenir malgr£ to u t le mot " i mmort a I " ; ! . . . . J ' a i bien voulu I'employer dans son I sens a b s t r a i t et t r a n s p o s e , pour une s u g g e s tio n purement i mmat£ri eI I e . (Comme il e s t d i t d'une oeuvre de I ' e s p r i t . ) II y a done I ci une ambiguity I s p i r i t u e l l e 5 conserver dans la s t y l i s a t i o n angIai s e . j *^®"Tout I ' e f f e t voulu e s t dans I ' e c a r t du mot I ’f a u t i v e ’ et son ambiguity e n t re les deux a c c e p ti o n s , ; a b s t r a i t e e t co n cre te. I D espite t h i s , Perse changed the English line very l i t t l e : s " . . . launching from our ways immortal k e e l s ! " E l i o t ' s | r e v i s i o n , however, was remarkable. He came to the point i j c l e a r l y and worked in an a l l i t e r a t i v e p a t t e r n and a rhythm | f i t t i n g to both the image and the c a n t o ' s climax: "draw- ; ing to our dockyards e t e rn a l k e e l s ! " In the word i m- ! morteI Ies E l i o t had a Gordian Knot. He must have r e a l i z e d j | t h a t "immortal keels" tended to d i s t o r t the image by seem- i I ing to p e rs o n ify the s h ip s ; on the o th e r hand, "etern a l ! k e e l s " missed the idea of "enduring" which i mmortelies ! c l e a r l y conveyed. U ltim a te ly , no one English word seems i I ! to catch all the nuances Perse in te n d s . The theme of an | enduring, renewable anaba sis of body and s p i r i t , des crib e d in the d e s e r t march of the poem proper and hinted a t in | the sea voyage alluded to in t h i s canto and a t the end of i Canto X, impresses one less c l e a r l y here in the English t e x t than in the French. I i As may have been noticed in some of the previous j I q u o ta tio n s ( e . g . , in Canto IX "the p le a s u r e in c o n t a c t with the th igh of woman a r ra n g e s i t s e l f " ) , E l i o t ' s d i c t i o n I in the 1927 t y p e s c r i p t is o c c a s i o n a l l y more l a t i n a t e and I i obtuse than the French t e x t would allow. In h is own | p oetry, of course, E l i o t was a master of the a b s t r a c t l a t i n a t e phrase, so d i f f i c u l t and seemingly out of place ; in the c o n te x t of Imagism, the Anglo-American movement 157 |which developed concurrently with his own begin n in gs.*^9 ! In Anabasi s . however, E l i o t ' s overly la tin a te d i c t i o n some- i times cre a tes an a r t i f i c i a l l y formal tone and frequently ; reduces the immediacy-of the poem. The most extreme case ! of t h is is found in Canto VII where E lio t makes of . jdes bIeuissements de vignes improbables. . . . " a pseudo- j ( s c i e n t i f i c neologism " . . . the c e r u l i s a t i o n of doubtful j vin e s ." To correct E l i o t ' s pedantry, Perse noted simply, j j "En frangais ce mot s e r a i t i n t o le r a b le . " As Perse sug gested, the 1930 Anabasi s e d itio n read ". . . the fading (blue of doubtful vines." A more lastin g controversy arose , I I i over E l i o t ' s tr a n s la t io n of ", . . au pas des b£tes sans j a l l i a n c e s . . . . "i n Canto VIII. His original d r a ft, . ! 1 ; . . to the pace of the c e l i b a t e b easts. . . . , ” brought ! I t h i s reaction from Perse: I i | J'ai voulu exprimer, ou sugg£rer, une id6e tout I | f a i t d if f £ r e n t e : celle de la s o lit u d e absolue de j la vie animale, cel l e de I'herm^tisme sacr£ des j b^tes, qui ne sont en rapport avec rien d'autre j et pour-suivent leur destin£e c l o s e en dehors de to u te s r e l a t i o n s . | The real problem here is that few Frenchmen would take j I | "sans a ll ia n c e s " to have the meaning Perse a t t r i b u t e s to i t . To complicate matters Perse suggested no less than *^ T . S. E l i o t , "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," II. I 11-119; "Preludes, IV," II. 6-9; "Gerontion," II. 6 l- 65; "Burnt Norton II," II. 24-36. ten English phrases for tr a n s la tin g the ambiguous passage. For the 1930 ed ition of Anabasi s E li o t simply changed "celibate" to the more unfortunate "eremite. The r e l i giously moral tone which t h i s word introduces into the text is quite out of place. The s t i l t e d la ti n a te phrasing is cle a r ly out of tone in several other passages as w e ll. Most of them f a i l e d to catch Perse's a tten tio n , and so E lio t made no attempt to change them. In the 1930 Anabas i s ed itio n ". . . gens. . . de tou tes fa?ons. . ." (Canto I) became ". . . folk of divers d ev ic es. . ."; "plus ample I ' h i s t o i r e de ces feui Mages. . . ." (Canto III) became "more generous the story of frondage. . . and " Sac rific e au matin. . . ." (Canto VIII) became "Matutinal s a c r i f i c e . . . ." The worst example occurs in Canto VI where Eliot destroys the sy n ta c tic a l and rhythmic balance of "des a ctio n s sans nombre et sans mesure, des volont£s puissantes et d is - s i p a t r i c e s . . . . " b y t r a n s la tin g it as "gestes innumer able unmeasured, puissant and d e s t r u c t iv e w i l l s . . . ." However, Perse did convince him in Canto VII to change ". . . a great land of immemorable grass. . . ." to ". . . a great land of grass without memory. . . ." (". . . un *30i f j nC j Arthur Knodel's suggestion of "forever so lita r y " quite good in t h i s context. igrand pays d'herbages sans memoire. . . . " ) , and in the | c lo sin g song to change the Tennysonian . . an immemorial i jtree. . . to . . an old tr e e . . . ("un v i e i l jarbre"). F in a lly , in Canto V at one point Perse's e f f o r t s | |to improve the English te x t led to an even more la tin a te i |phrasi ng. Des compagnies d ' £ t o i l e s passent au bord du monde, i s'annexant aux c u is in e s un as tre domestique. Anabase squadrons of s ta r s cross the edge of the world, attaching a domestic planet to th eir commissariat ; 1927 ty p es crip t I squadrons of stars pass on the edge of the world, i e n l i s t i n g from the kitchens a domestic star. | Perse squadrons of s ta r s cross the edge of the world, engaging from the kitchens a domestic luminary. Anabasi s . 1930 Unfortunately, in the 1927 ty p es crip t Eliot resorted to an inordinate number of words which echo jarringly in !the ambience of Anabase. Although Perse was not fam iliar 1 |with some at the time and allowed far too many to creep 1 'unobserved into the 1930 Anabasi s e d itio n , simple pedantry Ion E l i o t ' s part, coupled with sheer obstinacy, seems to ac count for the presence of most of them. It would appear ’that Perse's gradual rec ognition of t h i s pedantry in his jEnglish t r a n s l a t o r ' s language led to his later remarks, re- i jported by Kathleen Raine, on the d iffe r e n c e between their I ;resp ective i n t e r e s t in words. 160 For instance, E li o t occa s io n a lly would choose an archaic word over a more common one to simulate the a n tiq u i- i | ty of the poem's subject matter. In Canto VI he preferred [the rare springes over snares or n e t s . which Perse had sug- ! j gested as a more natural tr a n s la tio n for pi feges. In Canto ; i VIII, he ignored P e r s e ’s more l i t e r a l choice of Ii qhtni ng j ; for Eclair and inexp licably replaced his original flash withj I the archaic Ievi n. In Canto IX he again ignored Perse, whoj had strongly suggested shri I Ii ng or screechi ng for cri ard es, by replacing his own w a iI ? ng with the li te r a r y term, keen- j i ng. In Canto X E li o t retained the S c o ttis h word r i evers I for pi I Iards. which Perse had wanted changed to robbers or \ pI underers or pi I la g e r s , and jerk i n for v^tements. both of ; which introduced an a r t i f i c i a l medieval context into the t r a n s la tio n . Perse must not have realize d that the Englishj i ; i word q e s t e s . which E lio t used for hi stori es in the opening ; I song and for a c tio n s in Canto VI, had gone out of common i usage in the seventeenth century; i t , too,, added to the medieval flavor wrongly imposed on the t e x t. Perse was knowledgeable enough, however, to object to E l i o t ' s trans- ! , lation of Conteur in Canto X as Bard. which, i f it did not j | suggest the kind of wild creature in Thomas Gray's poem, ! ! at least summoned up the shade of Shakespeare, j S im ila rly , E lio t c a r e l e s s l y introduced several anach- i ronisms into the English t e x t . For one, i t is disturbing j 1 6 1 i | indeed to hear the narrator in Canto III crying out, ", . . i j the bird sin gs 0 SenectusJ" (in French, simply . . j l ' o i s e a u chante: 3 viei I I e s s e ! "); even an English bird |sounds s i l l y singing that. But some readers find even more i j d i s t r e s s i n g E l i o t ' s tr a n s la t io n of ", . . ses calegons de f i I l e s . . . in Canto IV, as . . the g i r l s ' cami- i knickers. . . Unfortunately, Perse had something to do ! iwith t h i s , too, for he had suggested as an a l t e r n a t i v e to E l i o t ' s i n i t i a l l y adequate t r a n s l a t i o n , . . the g i r l s ' ; linen. . . the more colloq u ial and s p e c i f i c ". . . the g i r l s ' drawers. . . ." E lio t seems to have gone to ! the extreme in trying to be more s p e c i f i c ; perhaps he had in mind the t v o i s t ' s "camisoles" in The Waste Land III. ' ' jPerse was more successful in gettin g E lio t to replace the imodern term hostel with the s l i g h t l y more general hospices | — ; for hospices in Canto X. But he allowed to pass untouched the c o llo q u ia l wai nsfuI for tombereaux in Canto IV. I Probably in a mistaken attempt to help c e r t i f y the I an tiq u ity and d ignity of Anabase. E lio t also introduced ! several recognizably Biblical words into the 1927 type s c r i p t . Perse c o n s i s t e n t l y tried to d e le te t h i s B iblical | language in which E lio t was indulging. In Canto VI he sug- |gested ". . . speaking all languages. . . ." (". . . i jparlent tou tes les langues. . . .") for ". . . speaking Jdivers tongues. . . E lio t compromised and printed 162 ". . . speaking alI tongues. . . In Canto X, Perse |convinced him to change raiments to eveni ng robes ( v£ te- ments du soi r ). F i n a l ly , in one of the important thematic images of j Canto V (". . . son oeiI est p le in d'une s a l i v e . . . ! i | E l i o t ' s u s e o f t h e word s p i t t l e c o n t a i n s a f a i n t a l l u s i o n j ! to C h r is t 's use of h is own s p i t t l e to miraculously res to re j j s i g h t . 1^1 The act of restoring sight or opening the eyes i is germane to the pattern of eye imagery developed in S Anabase. but the C hristian context is misleading. Perse was a b l e t o weaken t h e a l l u s i o n by g e t t i n g E l i o t t o t r a n s - | late the phrase l i t e r a l l y : ". . . his eye is f i l l e d with I a ki nd of s p i t t I e . . . ." Eliot made a number of other changes in d ic t i o n which ; d i r e c t l y a ffe c te d the poem's tone as printed in the 1927 ! t y p e s c r i p t . The most c o n s is te n t of these changes involved ; ! a p articular connotation of the word d u st. In the English ; | t r a n s la t io n dust appears no le ss than twice in Canto VII j i and once a t t h e b e g i n n i n g o f C an to V I I I , each t i m e a s a j ! t r a n s l a t i o n f o r p o u d r e s . ! 1 J . . . where the peoples find amend in the dead dust | of earth. HorsetrampIings of dreams instead of dead dust. . . 1^ 1 See St. John. 9:6. 163 . . . an unknown substance, woven wi th dust and | i n s e c t s . . . Whether con sciou sly intended or not, the word's Christian connotation of m ortality and sin is unmistakable.*-^ in the jFrench t e x t , however, the word used is poudre. not pous- !si fere, and Perse convinced Eliot to use the more neutral and literal word powder in each of the three passages. - The word poussi fere does occur in Anabase in Canto I, ! . . gens du poussifere. . . .", where i t suggests man's ic ondition of mortality; but again E liot adds a connotation | to his tr a n s la t io n that is not present in the French. Over his inaccurate f i r s t draft of the passage, ", . . dusty j ipeople. . . Perse wrote in the l i t e r a l ". . . men of idust. . . E l i o t , however, changed the te x t to read ". . . creatures of dust. . . . ," giving a negative turn ! to the phrase which detracted from the humanity of the !people described. His frequent use of the word foIk in ' t h i s line (". . . fo lk o f d iverse d ev ic es. . . ." and ". . . folk of the f r o n t i e r s . . . ,") and elsewhere (in Canto III ". . . the folk of a ll races. . . . , " in Canto VI "this fo lk squatting on the slop es. . . . , " in Canto X ’ . . the h i l l f o lk . . . .") was s im ila rly misguided. 133 j t ^ Genesi s . 3 : 19: "In the sweat of thy face s h a lt thou eat bread, t i I I thou return unto the ground, for out of i t wast thou taken; for dust thou a r t . and unto dust i shalt thou return. '330f th ese, Perse only tr ie d to change ". . . folk of: 164 It is hardly appropriate to the affirmation of humanity which l i e s at the heart of Anabase. Besides these changes in connotation and tone, E lio t j and Perse were both responsible for simple inaccuracies of ; d ic tio n in the 1930 ed itio n of Anabasi s . Yet Perse had been very helpful in elim in atin g quite a few important ones from the 1927 t y p e s c r ip t. In Canto IV E liot had i translated ". . . une cai l i e C quai I 1 dans un s o u lie r j : j de s a tin rose.)" erroneously as " . . . a shell in a slipper, i of rose-coloured s a t i n . ) , " which made the a ll u s i o n to a boy's s o l i c i t a t i o n for h is s i s t e r even more o b s c u r e . *^4 In Canto VII E lio t evidently took "les cancers du camphre et de la corne. . ." as a reference to the c o n s t e l l a t i o n , for h is tr a n s la t io n came out as "the Crab of camphor and ; the Crab of horn. . . . " Perse simply corrected t h is I with the sim ilar English word c a n c e r s . Then, in Canto VIII, E l i o t tran slated "des m^sanges" as "mockingbirds," | which Perse c r i t i c i z e d because l) "le 'mockingbird' e s t u n ! ! oiseau du nouveau-monde" and 2 ) there was no ". . . id£e j | de moquerie dans ce rapprochement." Over Perse's suggested " titm ice," Eliot chose the more colloq uial British term, I the f r o n t i e r s . . . ." to . . men from afar. . . . , " ' u n s u c c e s s f u I ly . j ! I " = 5 4 -' Arthur Knodel, "Towards an Understanding of ; Anabase. " p. 336. "tomti t s ." j Unfortunately, E lio t a ls o ignored one of Perse's ! sound suggestions while following two which were not. In Canto I E lio t had translated . . nos routes nocturnes:" as . . our ways of bivouac and v i g i l ! " which made the expedition e x p l i c i t l y m ilita ry in nature. Perse's sug- ! gestion of the general and ambiguous phrase, "our nocturnal i j roads or paths," E li o t ignored completely; he simply changed h is own ways to t r a c k s . In Canto VIII, however, i E li o t accepted P er se 's s u b s t it u t e of the English word | prevar i cat i ons for his own equ i vocat i ons to tr a n s la te I ! pr£vari cat i on s. However, prevar i cat i on' s French meaning | (betrayal of t r u s t ) has been obsolete in English for cen- ■ t u r i e s . 1^ j n Canto IV E l i o t has been praised by some | c r i t i c s for improving the last line, ". . . marchand de I fla c o n s ," with ". . . dealer in s c e n t - b o t t I e s . "*36 The I f a c t i s that E li o t had f i r s t written " . . . dealer in ! b ottles" and changed i t when Perse suggested fI asks or i I s c e n t - b o t t I e s . Yet the change is far from an improvement, I ^SRaymond Mortimer, "Mr. Eliot and M. Perse: Two ! Fine Poets in Tandem. Anabasi s A Poem by St.-John Perse. ; Translated by T. S. EIiot (Paber 15s)" C London Times I Literary Supplement; sometime in 1959— after the publica- j tion of the 1959 British e d iti o n of Anabasi s and before the awarding o f the I960 Nobel Prize for Literature to Perse J. I Houghton Library *AC9 EI464 Zzx. *36vincent Cronin, op. c i t .. p. 136. 166! j for Perse himself declared recen tly "that the boy's father deals in the most basic of items for desert areas: a con- ; tainer for liquids,"*-^ not perfume. At t h i s remove, it is i d i f f i c u l t to explain Perse's error in his "correction" of i | the 1927 t y p e s c r ip t . Despite h is care, a number of inaccuracies which Persej i might have been expected to notice slipped by. Admittedly,; i I neither he nor E l i o t could have foreseen that the word | j penthouse, which in Great Britain in 1930 was an acceptablej I 1 | equivalent for auvent in Canto X, would acquire a second j J I i meaning, e s p e c i a l l y in the United S ta te s , which would make j i i j the phrase ", . . budding p o p u l a r it i e s under the pent- | house. . . ." inconceivable, to say the le a st. But Perse j 1 ; I | did not object to the inscrutable phrase, ". . . pale ! meaningless r i v e r . . . which E li o t used to t r a n s l a t e j j j 1 ". . . ce fleu v e p t l e , sans d es tin . . . . "i n Canto IV. j i ! ; Raymond Mortimer seems much c lo ser to the truth when he i conjectures that the French phrase probably refe rs to ; I | " . . . a river that like many in A s i a tic deserts never : ! reached the sea (or possibly one the ownership of which ! was undecided). . . j n Canto VII E lio t misread j '^A rth u r Knodel, 0£. c i t .. p. 336, e s p e c i a l l y f o o t note 14. 1 1-^Raymond Mortimer, 0£ . ci t . !". . . dans les barbes du vent. . . (in the wind's barbs) as . . in the wind's beard. . . he als o mis takenly turned ". . . I'arbre ju jub ier. . . ." (jujuba | t r e e ) into ". . . the juniper t r e e . . . (perhaps sup- i ported by his use of the tree in Ash-Wednesday 11) . * ^ i I Furthermore, Perse seemed not to care that the Anglo- ! j j American poet rendered the phrase, "toutes s o r te s d'hommes j !dans leurs voies et fa^ons. . . . , " at the beginning of ; . . i the sixth and longest line in Canto X,as "all conditions : of men in t h e ir ways and manners" and at the end of that ! | I same line as "all sorts of men in th e ir ways and fashions i ; ! . . . ." The exact r e p e t i t i o n in the French t e x t , which ! serves as a frame for the line, looks like a c a r e l e s s ap- | [ proximation in English. In the preceding a n a ly s is of E l i o t ' s t r a n s la t io n of I j I Anabase' s vocabulary, two things s t r ik e one about P er se 's ( i concern with language. F irst is h is in s is t e n c e on c l a r i t y ; | and p recision; second is his equal in s is t e n c e on a neces- | sary ambiguity of meaning. His notes to E li o t on Anabase' s i ■ i I imagery and on the a b stractn ess or concreteness of in- j dividual words give clea r evidence of t h i s i n s i s t e n c e . The> ! world of Anabase is experienced with a sharp immediacy, y e t I ' I *39This s e c tio n of Ash-Wednesday appeared f i r s t as "Salutation" in Saturday Review of L ite r a tu r e . IV, 20 ! (December 10, 1927), p. 427; then in C r i t e r i o n . VII, i j (January, 1928), pp. 31-2. ! ! i 168 i t s dual theme of a physical and s p ir it u a l expedition into the in te r io r is apprehended in a ca r e fu lly balanced ambi guity, as in the word anabasi s i t s e l f . It was Perse's un usual p recision and his e x p l o i t a t i o n of ambiguities in- ! # I herent in the French language which caused E liot d i f f i c u l t y ; | i in t r a n s la tin g Anabase. not any gap between the range of j j the i r resp ective vocabularies. j i However, ce r ta in c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s of E l i o t ' s thought j I i iand language did compound his d i f f i c u l t i e s . The pedantry he acquired in his litera ry and philosophical s t u d i e s , and j ’which marks the s t y l e of his essays and reviews during the j j j time of The C r i t e r i o n 's p u b lica tio n, reveals i t s e l f in the j 'rare words, archaic words, and anachronisms that he intro- I ; j jduced d e li b e r a t e ly into the te x t of Anabasi s . Also, his own moral temperament and his newly strengthened r e l i g i o u s j j ] jv ie w s 1^ seem to have o c c a s io n a lly imposed a r e s t r i c t i v e j ; I ; tone on the narrator's voice and to have weakened s l i g h t l y : I the poem's affirm ation of humanity. Yet, given the d i f — i I I j ferences between the two poets and the challenge of i j ! i Anabase' s vocabulary, E l i o t ' s achievement in the 1927 |t y p e s c r i p t tr a n s la t io n was remarkable. With Perse's re- j ! luctant but considerable a s s i s t a n c e , in the f i r s t ed ition | *^°Eliot, of course, was confirmed in the Anglican !Church in 1927. it became quite impressive. According to most commentators, none of P erse's major poems obey the conventions of t r a d iti o n a l French prosody, the most important of which is the c l a s s i c a l alexandrine line. With their extremely long and irregular li n e s , ap parently devoid of a metrical base and c e r ta in ly devoid of I i end-rhyme, these poems frequently have been c l a s s i f i e d , j not as vers I ib re. but as pofemes en prose ( i . e . , Monique | Parent, Saint-John Perse et queIque devanci e r s : Etudes s u r; le pofeme en prose. I960). Although I think it is wise to j re fr a in from eith e r c l a s s i f i c a t i o n (sin ce P erse's poems j d i f f e r quite a bit s t r u c t u r a lly from the "po&mes en prose" | I of B a u d e la ire , Rimbaud, Mallarm£, and r a d i c a l l y from the ! I "vers li b r e " of Laforgue, A p o l l i n a i r e , Fargue, and o t h e r s ) , : in t r a n s la t in g Anabase E li o t did have to grapple with the j i question that faces anyone d iscu ssing poems which approach prose: what is i t that gives them t h e i r rhythmic structure; i of sound? As with the others of Perse's poems, Anabase' s | over-all structure i s shaped by several prominent large- | sc a le or ample rhythmic movements. One, c e r t a i n l y , is the imagery patterns which convey the anabasis theme, but these control rather than create the rhythmic structure.*^* The j l •^Arthur Knodel, Saint-John P er se, pp. 95-96. For a | d eta iled examination of P e r s e l s ideas on poetic rhythm, seei PP. 91-97. most important of these la r g e -sc a le rhythms in Anabase are j jsimply grammatical: sy n ta c tica l coordination or p a r a l l e l ism and careful r e p e t i t i o n . And because Perse abandoned \a tr a d itio n a l metric, r e p e t i t i v e sonorous devices frequent- I ; ly shape the structure of individual strophes and lin e s. The 1927 t y p e s c r i p t o f Anabasi s r e v e a I s t h a t E l i o t was !quite aware of the poem's ample rhythmic movements and took | some trouble to approximate them in English. i In the previous paragraph I wrote that P erse's poetry | is "apparent Iy devoid of a metrical base" because I am not convinced that most c r i t i c s are correct in saying that it j | i s . Although nowhere in his i n f lu e n t ia l book, Po£t i que de Sai nt-John Perse (1954), does Roger CaiI lois mention a j ' ;metrical basis for Perse's poetry, several recent stud ies ] jhave found evidence for i t . *42 Besides, my own study of * ^ E m il ie Noulet has discovered, "Ainsi, hauss 6 de ton ! loin de la m£lodie, apte au language g lo r ieu x , I ' o c t o s y l - 1 labe d 'Amers devient la m£sure, non de la chanson, mais de | I ' o d e . " C "L'OctosyIlabe dans ' Amers'," Honneur & Sai nt- i John P e r se , p. 320. 1 S im ilarly, in looking at tfie early j poems Robert Goffin concludes: "II semble que dans ses ! premiferes oeuvres, la po£sie de Saint-John Perse r e v tt un cdt€ ex t£ rieu r, avec les alexandrines, les o c t o s y ll a b e s et les e muets. " C FfI d 'Ariane pour la po£sie (P aris: A. G. NizeT, 1964), p. 2^973 §uFprisi ngTy, even a reviewer of the 1959 e d i t i o n of Anabasi s n o tic e s a m£sure: ". . . in any case my poor Eng Ii sh ear, which can catch the rhymes and assonances, is apt to miss the alexandrines and o c to s y l l a b l e s on which he C Perse ] bases h is rhythmical s tru c t u r e . " [Raymond Mortimer, 0£. c i t .] These remarks a ll re- Icall the words of Valery Larbaud in his preface to the ’ Russian t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase in 1926: ". . . his prosody, I 171; i 1 Anabase a I so suggests that i t s rhythm r e s u l t s in part from I [unusual and irregular combinations of tra d itio n a l French ; lines: alexandrine, ha If-aIexandrine, "octosyI Ia b e ," and i | "doubIe-octosy11abe." Perse seems to have shaped these 1 S into longer lines which are frequently strung out in ! chains or in recurring waves, or e l s e blocked in strophe formations, by means of p a r a lle lism and r e p e t i t io n . For j I example, the short Canto II contains quite a number of i a Iexandrines, two of which occur at the beginning: Aux pays frequent£s sont les plus grands s i l e n c e s , j aux pays frequent€s de cr iq u e ts ik midi. [Translating t h i s in the 1927 ty p e s c r ip t , E lio t concerned [h im s e lf with neither the alexandrine rhythm nor the r e p e t i - 1 tio n : "In the populous lands are the g rea te st s i l e n c e s , [ the lands of the locusts at noon." In correcting t h i s , ! Perse rein stated the p a r a lle lis m and, miraculously, a sense i I of the rhythm: "In the busy lands are the greate st s i - j lences, in busy lands with the c r i c k e t s at midday." E lio t i j decided to r e ta i n the euphony and stressed ending of "lo- j cu sts at noon" for the 1930 e d it i o n . Although I think the 1 , [ point about Anabase1s metrics is worth noting, it does not have much e f f e c t on the English t r a n s la t io n . There were based on the AIexandrine." C"Pr£face pour une Edition russe d ’Anabase. " Honneur 5 Sai nt-John Perse, p. 427. ] 1 7 2 ! other ampler rhythms that were more important to both E liot and Perse. Of the s y n ta c tic a l patterns which d is tin g u is h Perse's poetry from others' and which contribute to the rhythmic structure of Anabase. the two most important come under i the heading of coordination. The f i r s t has become well known as the homologous s e r i e s — the name (" ser ies . ! homo Iogiques") Roger C a llo is gave t h i s phenomenon in his i nvaluabIe study, Po£ti que de Sa i nt-John Perse ( 1954). Le pofete f a i t appel S i la t o t a l i t y du monde pour , £ t a b l i r , dans I ' i n f i n i e vari£t£ des ph£nom£nes o f f e r t s , des homologies f r a g M e s et tenues. Leur o ccu lte raison d 'e tr e apparaft lentement, & mesure que I'accumulation des donn£es tr a h it davantage, et f a i t surgir S i la f in , le moyen terme. la te n t, ! qui explique la c o a l i t i o n p r o d ig ie u s e .1 43 ! i Nearly every one of Perse's major poems contains such homo-! ! logous s e r i e s ; Anabase has f i v e ; in Cantos I, I II , IV, VI, j ! and X. I caI I t h i s a form of coordination because eith e r ( ; ! ; one p redication pattern i s repeated in a long s e r i e s j i i (Canto I I I ) or a sequence of one or more prodigiously re- | peated co n s tr u c tio n s is placed in apposition to a noun or noun phrase (Canto I ). For instance, the tenth canto of i Anabase includes no less than three s e t s of t h i s la t t e r kind of s e r i e s : one in apposition to "choses v iv a n te s , 3 , ! choses excel I e n t e s l ", another in apposition to "toutes | j '^ R o g er C a i l l o i s . Po£tique de Saint-John Perse, p. 92. ! I73| i : ; I so rtes d'hommes dans leur voies et fagons," and a third in ! apposition to "Toute chose." j Even in the 1927 t y p e s c r ip t, E lio t was very careful toi i I reproduce the sy n ta c tica l bases for Canto X's s e r i e s . In j ;the few places where he deviated s l i g h t l y from the French j !t e x t , P er se 's c orr ection s were followed in the 1930 prin t- i i ng. j . . . et I'homme de nuI metier: homme au faucon, homme S i la flu'te, homme aux a b e i l l e s . . . . . . and the unemployed; the falcon er , the f l u t e - | player, the bee-keeper. . . . (E li o t) | . . . and the man of no trade (?): man with the j hawk, man with the f l u t e , man with the bees. . . I (Perse) i At one point Perse himself changed the English text to eliminate a variation in the French: . . . les ramasseurs de c a i l l e s dans les pi is de te r r a in s , ceux qui r £ c o l te n t. . . . . . the trappers of quail in the wrinkled land, those who hunt. . . . (E li o t) . . . those who c o l l e c t quail in the wrinkled land, ; those who hunt. . . . (Perse) It is partly for t h is reason that the English version of Canto X i s as cumulatively e f f e c t i v e as is the French. E l i o t ' s success in Canto X is repeated in the shorter and more ir regular homologous s e r i e s in Canto VI, but he ran into trouble in the b r i e f f i r s t s e r i e s in Canto I. The source of d i f f i c u l t y lay in a d i s t i n c t i o n which the French ! language makes and the English does not. The f i r s t h alf of t h i s can to's s e r i e s is b u ilt on the following c o n s t r u c t i o n : j i "Hommes, gens de. . . gens de. . . gens des. . . et gens d' j . . . 3 gens de. . . gens des. . . ." The d iffe r e n c e in i ! French between a group of individuals ( hommes) or that igroup as a s in g le body (g e n s ) allows Perse to s t r e s s both man's e s s e n t ia l in d iv id u a lity and his e x isten ce in com- i imunity, in s o l i d a r i t y . In English the s in g le word men covers both of these meanings. Instead of dropping the be ginning "Hommes" and building on a "men of. . ." construc tion , or even attempting to reproduce the d i s t i n c t i o n (per- |haps with men and peopIe). in the 1927 ty p es crip t E lio t jused a number of synonyms that create a bewildering variety. ! Men, dusty people and folk of divers d ev ic es, people j of business and of le is u r e , folk of the f r o n t i e r s and foreign men, 0 light folk blown by a breath of wind out of the memory of these places; people of the v a l l e y s and of the plateaux and of the highest slopes of t h i s world beyond our shores; . . . Perse recommended a number of changes for the sake of c l a r - i i t y and p r e c i s i o n , but he made l i t t l e e f f o r t to res to re the I uniformity of the grammatical s e r i e s . The r e s u lt is an order in disarray in the 1930 Anabasi s e d it i o n . The other method of coordination in Anabase is Perse's use of e l l i p s i s for an economy of phrasing which gains con siderably in expressive power. E l l i p s i s is e s p e c i a l l y e v i - |dent in the homologous s e r i e s , but i t appears as well e l s e - jwhere. Perse is p a rticu la rly fond of noun c l u s t e r s , in 175 i iseries (as i l l u s t r a t e d above) and in emphatic i s o l a t i o n I ("Bitume et ro s es , don du chant!"). These he likes to bring together in pairs and t r i a d s , omitting the noun that . . . gens de poussi&re et de toutes fa fo n s, gens de n£goce et de l o i s i r . . . . (I) i Couleur de soufre, de miel, couleur de choses i m m o r t e I l e s . . . . (VII) ! . . . con struction s de c i t e r n e s , de granges, de bitiments pour la c a v a l e r ie . . . . (X) Within the homologous s e r i e s (excluding that in Canto I), i EIi o t 1s f a i t h f u l n e s s to Perse's e l l i p t i c a l pairs and triad s |of noun c l u s t e r s is c o n s i s t e n t l y admirable. Only in "Sul fur colour, honey colour, colour of immortal things. . . ." (VII) does he have to repeat the noun and s l i g h t l y rear- range the lin e , probably because repeating "of" would have made for awkward rhythm and sound. However, the change in rhythm and loss of compactness is hardly n o ticea b le. Perse was s u f f i c i e n t l y s a t i s f i e d to make no c orr ection s on th is matter of t r a n s l a t i o n . However important are the homologous s e r i e s and e l l i p s i s to the rhythmic structure of Anabase. several other individual matters of syntax, as revealed in the 1927 type s c r i p t , r e s i s t e d E l i o t ' s e f f o r t s even more n oticeably. Some, unfortunately, can be attrib u ted to c a r e l e s s n e s s , as | i n Canto I : itechn ically would be repeated. I A nos chevaux Iivr£e la t e r r e sans amandes nous vaut I ce ciel i n c o r r u p t i b l e . This f r u i t l e s s e a r t h given over to our horses is more j to us than II s ic J t h i s i n c o r r u p t i b l e sky. j |With P e r s e ' s d i r e c t i o n E l i o t t u r n s t h i s into a b e a u t i f u l j i j image in the 1930 e d i t i o n . i ! | Given over to our horses t h i s s e e d l e s s e a r t h d e l i v e r s I to us t h i s i n c o r r u p t i b l e sky. i JOthers betray an ignorance of a p a r t i c u l a r idiom, as in i iCanto IV: "The bird was." (" L 'o is e a u s ' e n f u t i " ) . P e r s e ' s "The bird is gone, is o f f " E l i o t then changed to "The bird made o f f I" F i n a l l y , the grammatical complexity iof the second strophe in the c l o s i n g song must have f r u s t r a t e d E l i o t g r e a t l y for he allowed two unaccountable e r r o r s to mar h is o r i g i n a l d r a f t . Et ce n ' e s t point qu'un homme ne s o i t t r i s t e , mais se levant avant le jo ur et se te n a n t avec prudence dans la commerce d'un v i e i l a r b r e , appuy£ du menton & la dernifere 6t o i l e , il v o i t au fond du c i e l jeun de grandes choses pures qui to u rn e n t au p l a i s i r . . . Let a man be sorrowful and heavyladen, but le t him ! I r T s e before day, and bide circ u m s p e c tly in the com munion of an immemorial t r e e , lean on a fading s t a r , he sh all behold, f a s t i n g he sh all b eh o ld , a t the end of the skyroad g r e a t m y s te r ie s and pure t h a t unfold to d e l i g h t , (my i t a l i c s ) Even with P e r s e ' s c o r r e c t i o n s , Raymond Mortimer s t i l l con s i d e r e d the t r a n s l a t e d passage a "paraphrase C which J makeC s 1 the meaning even more d i f f i c u l t C . 1 4 4 Raymond Mortimer, 0£. ci t . And t h a t a man be not sad, but a r i s i n g before the ! day and biding circumspect I y in the communion of an old t r e e , leaning h is chin on the l a s t fading s t a r , he beholds a t the end of the f a s t i n g sky g reat | th i n g s and pure t h a t unfold to d e l i g h t . . . . j I Besides the s y n t a c t i c a l c o o r d i n a t i o n or p a r a l l e l i s m d iscussed above, the r e p e t i t i o n of c e r t a i n phrases is ; t i i fundamental to the l a r g e - s c a l e rhythms of Anabase' s a r c h i - I t e c t u r e . They fu n c tio n e i t h e r to emphasize the theme of j the a n a b a s i s or to give a canto some kind of frame- s t r u c t u r e . The f i r s t purpose governs t h i s r e p e t i t i o n in ! Canto I: "Et le so IieI n ' e s t point nomm£, mais sa p u is - I j sance e s t parmi nous. . . ." The second purpose i s served | in Canto III ("A la moisson des orges I ' homme s o r t . " ) and i Canto X ( " t o u t e s s o r t e s d ’hommes dans le u rs voies et fagons. . . and most unusually in a p r o g re s s io n from the p r e s e n t to the f u t u r e in Canto VI: ". . . avec nos fi Ile s parfum£es qui se v e t a i e n t d'un s o u f f l e , ces t i s s u s . . . . " . Both purposes are served in Canto IX in the c o n t i n u a l l y re p e a te d phrase of the young steppe woman, "Je t'a n n o n c e les temps d'une grande. . . ." These r e p e t i - ! t i o n s in Anabase resemble le ss the r e f r a i n s c h a r a c t e r i z i n g j some of P e r s e ' s e a rly poetry than the l i t u r g i c a l p a t t e r n of | r e c u r r i n g phrases in his l a t e r poems: PIu i e s . Ne i g e s . V ents. Amers. The word I i turgi ca I best catches the *^5«athleen Raine d e s c r ib e s t h i s phenomenon and quotes | i l l u s t r a t i v e passages from Amers in " S t.-J o h n Perse: Poet ! of the M arv ello u s," p. 56. See a l s o , Neiges II and P lu ie s 1 vi I .____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ^solemnity and grandeur of th e se r e p e t i t i o n s ; but i t should be taken in the t y p i c a l l y Persean d e n o t a t i v e and neutral ! sense, fo r the solemnity and grandeur have nothing to do with any re Iigious r i t u a I . j E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of the se r e c u r r i n g phrases in Anabase is beyond reproach in the 1927 t y p e s c r i p t . In f a c t , they seem to have impressed him so much t h a t he took to add ling r e p e t i t i o n s on h is own. Two of th e s e occur in the th r e e s tr o p h e s of the opening song. Under the bronze leaves a c o l t was f o a le d , under I the bronze I e a v e s . S tr a n g e r . The Stranger who passed, (my i t a l i c s ) Here E l i o t has d e l i b e r a t e l y repea ted a phrase t h a t appears | jbut once (in i t s li n e ) in the French t e x t , and h is r e p e t i t i o n follow s close on the o r i g i n a l . In the f i r s t words of Canto I he employs the same kind of r e p e t i t i o n : "I have b u i l t myself, with s t r e n g t h and d i g n i t y have I b u i I t myseIf on t h r e e seasons. . . ." In the second strophe of the c l o s i n g song E l i o t makes one la s t a d d i t i o n : ". . . he shall behold, f a s t i n g he shaI I b ehoId. . . ." Perse took care to d e l e t e a l l but one of the se r e p e t i t i o n s as he read over th e 1927 t y p e s c r i p t , but one must s t i l l ask what E l i o t in tended oy them. None of E l i o t ' s a d d i t i o n s seem to serve the same purpose as P e r s e ' s r e c u r r i n g p h ras es : they neither emphasize the theme nor make a s t r u c t u r a l c o n t r i b u t i o n . Al though E l i o t does seem to be i m ita tin g Perse, h is i r e p e t i t i o n s draw a t t e n t i o n to words and phrases which do notj r e q u i r e i t . Repeating " S tranger" and "have I b u i l t m yself"! u n n e c e s s a r i ly gives added importance to the n a r r a t o r and the S tra n g e r. The r e p e t i t i o n of "under the bronze leaves" is grammatically awkward and is p a r t i c u l a r l y d i s t u r b i n g s ince i i i t comes in the f i r s t line of the poem. The la st r e p e t i - i jt io n , in the c l o s i n g chanson, gives undue a t t e n t i o n to an I a rc h a ic B ib l ic a l p h ras in g , "he shall b ehold." S t i l l , one wonders i f E l i o t ' s mistaken notion of ex p e n d i n g P e r s e ' s method of r e p e t i t i o n alone p roperly ex- I j p l a i n s h is remarkably few s y n t a c t i c a l a d d i t i o n s to the French t e x t . Perse h im s e lf has suggested a n o th er. In a t y p e s c r i p t note on the line beginning Canto I I I , "Je ne ' s a i s qui de f o r t & p a rl£ sur mon t o i t " (which E l i o t had rendered "The voice of the s tro n g has been heard on my r o o f " ) , Perse warned h is t r a n s l a t o r with h is usual d i r e c t ness: "(ffviter a u t a n t que p o s s i b l e to u t e a l l u s i o n b ib - lique; il n'y en a aucun i c i , ni a i l l e u r s ) . " Perse is r e f e r r i n g here probably to Joe I 3:10-17 or ReveI a t i ons 5:2 in the King James t r a n s l a t i o n ; but he seems aware of o t h e r s elsewhere in th e 1927 t y p e s c r i p t t e x t . Recently, in h is con v e r s a t i o n with Katharine Chapin (Mrs. F ra n c is B iddle), Perse again mentioned a B ib l ic a l element in his only com p l a i n t about E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase: ". . . in j s p i t e of the beauty of h i s C E l i o t ' s 3 language. . . i t is r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " ....... " " . . . . . . . . . . . - . . . . . . . . . . T 8 d ! jalmost too B ib lic a l in i t s c a d e n c e . " 1^ A p e r f e c t example I i o f P e r s e ' s complaint comes in the second sentence of the opening chanson, "Un homme mit des baies am£res dans nos J m a ins," which E l i o t t r a n s l a t e d as "Came such an one who laid b i t t e r bay in our h a n d s . "*^7 j^e in v e rs io n of the verb | i i jand the a b s t r a c t n e s s of an one produce a f o r m a l i t y which is |awkward and a r t i f i c i a l , and q u i t e B iblica l in s t y l e . 1^® j I r o n i c a l l y , Perse made no change in the sentence as i t ap peared in the 1927 t y p e s c r i p t . But, he is s u r e ly r i g h t in i c r i t i c i z i n g any B ib l ic a l cadence and a l l u s i o n in such an un- B ib l ic a l poem. L a s t ly , Anabase p r e s e n t s a s i n g u l a r euphony of sound p a t t e r n s . One of the most common of th e s e , end-rhyme, is j (conspicuously a b s e n t from a l l of P e r s e ' s major published p o e try . S t i l l , one is s tru c k by the frequency of a l l i t e r a t i o n , consonance, assonance, and in t e rn a l rhyme which a c c e n t u a t e h is remarkable imagery. Several lin e s in the open ing chanson of Anabase suggest the complexity and range of ^ ^ K a t h e r i n e Chapin, " L e t te r to Arthur Knodel" (April 27, 1967), p. A. !47EI io t uses the word bay f o r b e r r y , which is the meaning of bai e in French. However, bay is a r c h a ic in English; to th e modern re a d e r, th e n , E l i o t ' s use of bay seems to r e f e r to the leaf of th e laurel t r e e . j * ^ S t . Matthew. 3 :1 - 2 : "In th ose days came John the B a p t i s t , preaching in the w ild e rn e s s of I n d i a , / And saying, j Repent ye: fo r the kingdom of heaven is a t hand." 181 i these sonorous devices; they also let us gauge E l i o t ' s con- [ cern with euphony in his t r a n s la t io n . The f i r s t example, in the f i r s t strophe, is a vein of assonance which suddenly becomes a d e f i n i t e internal rhyme: " n a i s s a i t," "baies," l "passait," "gr£," and "I'ann6e." The last three words, ! which end c la u s e s , come before pauses, and thus create a j c h a r a c t e r i s t i c Persean way of uniting the f i r s t strophe. | The same pattern of assonance appears,but not so prominently, ! in the third strophe. The second example is a rich pattern of assonance and a l l i t e r a t i o n , which als o h ig h li g h t s two phrases in the f i r s t strophe (as well as the th ird ): Un homme mit des baies amfcres dans nos mains. Je vous salue, ma fi Me, sous la plus grand des arbres de I ' ann£e. As might be expected, none of these sound patterns is carried over into the English t r a n s la t io n . The c l o s e s t E li o t comes to acknowledging them is in the short phrase, "laid b i t t e r bay." However, in the opening chanson E liot j does work in a number of sound patterns on his own, p a r t i c u larly in strophe two. "For the Sun enters the sign of the Lion. . . ("Car le s o l e i l entre au Lion . . . .") makes a superb beginning with i t s advancing Sun, en-. s i g n , - ion rhythm. This is followed by the a l l i t e r a t i v e link be tween "Lion" and the two verbs, "laid" and "laughed." E lio t als o accepts one of P er se 's c o rr ectio n s , "What ease ir our ways!" for his own awkward and redundant "How I 8 2 j : I I j I comfortable to me are our tracks!" (Qu'il e s t d'aisance I ; dans nos voies!" ), not only for i t s economy and accuracy, ; but for i t s rhythm and euphony. F in ally, in the third j i | I j strophe he pushes one pattern of assonance to monotonous I i lengths: "Roses and bitumen, g i f t of song, thunder and ! j f l u t i n g of fI u te -p I a y e r s in the cool rooms." Perse simply | deleted the words "of fIute-pIayers" and "cool," which E lio t had seen f i t to add to the t e x t. ! For the most part, however, E l i o t ' s t r a n s la t io n has I far less euphony in i t s sound patterns than has the o r i g inal French t e x t . An i l l u s t r a t i o n of t h is opens Canto VI, in which the luxury of the "grands gouvernements mi I i - taire s" is suggested in t h i s r e p e t i t io n of sounds: nous £tabl?mes en haut lieu nos pi&ges au bonheur. Abondance et b ie n -e tr e , bonheur! E l i o t ' s version, which has l i t t l e euphony and a strange mixture of d i c t i o n , is barely adequate: we set in high places our springes for happiness. Plenty and w ell-b ein g, happiness! ! One exception to t h i s general conclusion occurs in Canto I, not out of any forbearance on E l i o t ' s part, but because most of the English words are very clo se to the French in s p e lli n g and pronunciation. Et Ie so Ie iI n' est point nomm£, mais sa puissance est parmi nous et la mer au matin comme une pr£somption de I ' espri t. r ' " ' ......................~ 183 I The Sun i s unmen- I tioned but his power is amongst us and the sea at morning Iike a presumption of the mi nd. ' F i n a l l y , it is to E l i o t ' s c re d it that nowhere does he introduce end-rhyme as a means to add euphony to his trans-j : ! | I ati on. ! j j At least one c r i t i c b e li e v e s that the "prime merit of l ! E l i o t ' s version C of Anabase ] is that i t captures the j i rhythm of the o r i g i n a l : extremely long lines hovering, even in French, very clo se to p r o s e . "*^9 j can only agree, with minor re s e r v a tio n s. E l i o t ' s re -c r e a tio n of Anabase1s p a r a ll e li s m and r e p e t i t i o n i s , for the most part, e x c e l- I j le nt. Only in the loss of euphony and in a slackness of | rhythm does the t r a n s la tio n su ffe r s e r io u s ly . In t h i s , E li o t has made Anabasi s sound far too prosaic in comparison to the French t e x t . Recently in the "Introduction" to his c o l l e c t i o n , Imitatfons (1961), Robert Lowell wrote: "Boris Pasternak i has said that the r e l i a b l e tra n s la to r gets the l i t e r a l mean- j ing but misses the tone, and that in poetry tone is of I course e v e r y t h i n g . " * ^ In Saint-John Perse's poetry tone • ^ V i n c e n t Cronin, 0£. c i t .. p. 136. Eda Lou Walton, op. ci t . *50Robert Lowell, "Introduction," Imi ta ti ons (New York: Noonday, 1961 ), p. x i . I may not be " e v e r y t h i n g / ' but i t is c e r t a i n l y a g re a t d e a l, ; i : I ; e s p e c i a l l y in Anabase. Lucien Fabre was quick to recognize th is in one of the f i r s t reviews afte r i t s publication: j . . . I'£nigme de son chant s e r a i t i n d £ c h i f f r a b I e , i j sans le ton du po&me. C'est l& une des grandes o r i g i n a l i t £ s de ce [ pofete: c ' e s t I'accent de son pofeme qui est la c l £ | de ce po&me. 151 ; j S hortly t h e r e a f t e r , Paul Morand caught the a s t r i n g e n c y , i j the peculiar starkness of Anabase with the phrase, "une I sorte de jans^nisme du p i t t o r e s q u e . "152 The complexity ; • i j and s p i r i t u a l depth of the narrator, the e l l i p t i c a l pat terns of imagery, the precise yet exten sive vocabulary, the long p arallel s e r i e s and the complex euphony, all unite in a singular tone that is both harsh and indulgent, solemn and impassioned. Whatever i t s shortcomings, E l i o t ' s tr a n s la tio n of Anabase in the 1930 British e d i t i o n rec reates nearly the fu ll diapason of i t s tone. In 1938 Louise Bogan could w rite, . . we are more free than Mr. E li o t once supposed we could be to appreciate the power of the original work *5*Lucien Fabre, "Publication d ' Anabase. " Les Nou- ve I I es Li t t g r a i r e s (23 aouit, 1924), p. 4, *^2Paul Morand. Papiers d 1i d e n t i t y (Paris: Grasset, 1931), p. 165. I 185 i : j i[ his t r a n s la tio n ] and to enter into enthusiasm about i ; I C - * l i t . " The unusual strength and in te n s ity of the nar r a to r 's voice and the sharp immediacy of the events he re- jlates find expression in the English text in a measured but i impassioned formality created by E l i o t ' s t r a n s l i t e r a t i o n of the imagery and p arallelism so e s s e n tia l to the poem's ; a r c h ite c tu r e . Yet serious d iffe r e n c e s do separate the French and English t e x t s of the poem. In the English t r a n s la tio n the narrator's voice is muted, even a lte r e d , by E l i o t ' s la tin a te language and somewhat by h is Biblical phrasing and s l i g h t l y p ejorative terminology. The rhythm of the English t r a n s l a t i o n , perhaps unavoidab Iy, is far more prosaic than the origin al text; while Perse employs simul taneously a broad range of rhythmic d ev ic es, E liot r e l i e s heavily for rhythm on sy n ta c tic a l patterns. Most important ly, the con tin u ity of the English te x t is disrupted, not only by variation s in tone, but by occasional incorrect or inadequate t r a n s l a t i o n s of imagery and d ic t i o n crucial to I ! Perse's methods of cro ss-refer en cin g and r e p e t i t i o n . Con s e q u e n t l y , the e l l i p t i c a l s t y l e of organization, which makes a f i r s t reading of Anabase so d i f f i c u l t , becomes even more fragmentary in the English t r a n s l a t i o n . Paradoxically, going counter to E l i o t ' s purpose, the English reader !53i_ouise Bogan, 0£. ci t . (sometimes has to resort to the French te x t to help c l a r i f y 1 i the English t r a n s la t io n . One point needs repeating. The changes between the I 1927 f i r s t draft typ escrip t and the 1930 British e d i t i o n of i 1 ; ! Anabasi s are very considerable; in a l l , they make a sub- ! | _ | Istant i a I i mprovement in the Eng Ii sh t e x t . The i n terest i ng j [fact is that the person responsible for most of these 1 (changes was the author h im self. E lio t simply accepted many of P er se 's emendations and recommendations. And when he rejected P er se 's advice, he often went astray because of a confessed w i l l f u l l n e s s or misunderstanding. In retr o sp ect i t is hard to b eliev e th a t, as he says in his le tte r of January, 1927, E li o t was so convinced of the quality of the 1927 ty p es crip t that he should want to publish it immedi a t e ly afte r P erse's proofreadi ng. The French p o e t 's d i s s a t i s f a c t i o n with the ty p e s c r ip t te x t and his innumerable suggestions and emendations brought E lio t up short in h is publication plans. He went ahead and printed Canto I from the Anabasi s ty p es crip t in the February, 1928, issue of i The Month Iy Cr i teri on. but he held o f f p rinting the work in i t s e n tir e ty for another two years. It may be that he considered not publishing it at a l l . Without a doubt, though, Perse's c lo se co lla b o r a tio n with his English tr a n s lator contributed heavily to the success of the English t r a n s la t io n . E liot admitted as much in the simple remark ! concluding his "Preface" to the 1930 e d itio n of Anabas i s : i "As for the t r a n s l a t i o n , it would not be even so s a t i s factory as i t i s , i f the author had not collaborated with | me to such an extent as to be ha I f - t r a n s l a t o r . "*^ As one i might expect, the success of the r e v i s i o n s of Anabasi s ! which followed the 1930 British ed itio n were also to de- J j pend greatly on Perse's "collaboration" with E li o t . i i On March 3, 1938, 1000 copies of the " fir s t American ed it i o n , " of Anabase. printed by Harcourt, Brace, began being d is tr ib u te d from New York C i t y . 1^ "For th is American e d iti o n ," w rites Donald Gallup, "which was not i j published in Great Britain, T. S. E li o t revised and cor- ' rected h is t r a n s l a t i o n . ”*-^ According to a note in the | bibliography of Knodel's book on Perse, t h i s e d itio n "Re produces the 1930 e d it i o n , with minor revisi on. "157 i f one means by r e v i s i o n a change in the t r a n s l a t i o n ' s pur- 1 pose or the discovery of some new meaning in the work, then E l i o t ' s r e v i s i o n s for the 1938 American e d iti o n are ! ’5^T. s . E l i o t , "Preface," p. II. ^55oonald Gallup, T. S. E l i o t ; A Bi bIi oqraphy. p. 15 1561b jd. , 57Arthur Knodel, Saint-John Perse, p. 199. I c e r t a i n l y minor. However, i f one means simply changes i I ; towards g r e a t e r accuracy and g r e a t e r f i d e l i t y to the Frenchj ! t e x t , the number of r e v i s i o n s t u r n s out to be co n s id e ra b I e . j i ! ! From all i n d i c a t i o n s , E l i o t alone is re s p o n s ib le fo r d i f - j f e r e n c e s between the f i r s t B r i t i s h and American e d i t i o n s of jA nabasis. As S e c r e t a r y General of Foreign A f f a i r s in 1 I France from 1933 to 1940, the diplomat Alexis Leger was I obliged to abandon almost e n t i r e l y his l i t e r a r y a c t i v i t y ; he could do l i t t l e to a s s i s t the Anglo-American poet in h is I e f f o r t s . So t h i s was the only one of the four e d i t i o n s of Anabasi s on which E l i o t worked alone. E l i o t seems to have had only one thing in mind in r e v is in g h is E nglish t e x t : to change the vocabulary of the t r a n s l a t i o n , in in d iv id u a l words, so t h a t i t more c l o s e l y resembled the vocabulary of the French t e x t . The opening Song and the f i r s t four cantos of the f i r s t American e d i t i o n of Anabasi s c o n t a in few changes, in kind or number, and the c l o s i n g Song appears e x a c tly as in the f i r s t : B r i t i s h e d i t i o n . All but one of th e s e changes are simply m a tte rs of f i n d i n g words which more a c c u r a t e l y t r a n s l a t e the French t e x t . At l e a s t h a l f of them make a d e f i n i t e improvement: " f l o e s of s a l t " for " la y e rs of s a l t " ("ban- qu is e s du s e l " ) in Canto I, "wares of the d r u g g i s t " fo r "chemical pro d u cts " ( " l e s p r o d u i t s p h arm a ceu ticq u es " ) and "voices p r a c t i c i n g " for "voices t r i l l i n g " ( " l e s v o c a l i s e s " ) i 189 i : i i I I in Canto IV. However, a number do not. In Canto III E liot! I I errs badly in changing "The saddles of the weakling" ("la seI Ie du malingre") to "The s t o o l s of the weakling." In i i the same Canto he changes the connotation of "I'homme ! i ; enthousiasm£ d'un vin" by s u b s t it u t in g for "man inspired I l ' by wine" the ambiguous "man ex c ite d by wine." In Canto II he m is tr a n s la te s I 'a is s e I Ie (which had been competently rendered as armpi t )as a x i 1. in English a purely botanical term. F i n a l ly , in Canto IV E li o t himself seemed d ispleased with camiknickers. (c a I e c o n s ) which he changed to knicker- bockers; unfortunately, the archaic American word is c er ta in ly no better than i t s B ritis h counterpart. The bulk of the r e v i s i o n s in the 1938 e d iti o n of I I Anabasis., however, occur in the last six cantos; and, for the most part, the changes in d ic t i o n here aim at a greater f i d e l i t y to the French t e x t . For instance, several errors in the 1930 e d itio n are r e c t i f i e d . In Canto VI the inac curate phrase, "horsemen unhorsed, t i l l e r s of the e a r th l," I : becomes "horsemen dismounted among the food crops" ("cava l i e r s dfemont^s dans les c u ltu res vivriferes. "). In Canto VII "the wind's beard" becomes "the wind's barbs" (" les barbes du vent"), and "the juniper tree" becomes "the jujuba tree" (I'arbre ju jubier" ). In Canto VIII "squared out" i s replaced by "seasoned" ( "assaisonn£e"). Several other improvements appear at the beginning of Canto V. I 190 | : i I I : i E l i o t r e a r r a n g e s the f i r s t line s l i g h t l y and chooses a more^ euphonious word for " a v i v £ s " : "in towns an hundred f i r e s j ; revived by the barking of d o g s ." He a l s o changes the ! t i t u l a r word, Lord. in "Due d'un peuple d'im ages. . . j i j ! to "Leader of a people of dreams. . . . " | [ Many improvements come in Canto X, which c o n t a in s nearly twenty r e v i s i o n s in a l l . "In the sound of h i s voice" becomes more p r e c i s e l y "in the p i t c h of h is v o i c e ” 1 ("du timbre de sa v o ix " ), as does "the worms of the palm- t r e e " in "the maggots of the palm tree" ("des vers de palmes"). "the player of the game of g o b le ts " is shortened simply to "the j u g g l e r . " The m istakenly awkward d e s c r i p t i o n , "the hermit bedecked by the hands of g i r l s , " is c o r r e c t e d to read "the hermit with hands like a g i r l ' s " ( T e r m i t e orn£ de mains de f i l l e " ) . The l a t i n a t e phrasing of "my thought i s not estrange d from the n a v ig a to r" is r e moved in "my thought is not h e e d le s s of the n a v i g a to r " ( "ma pens£e n ' e s t point d i s t r a i t e du n a v i g a t e u r "); while j the c o n c r e te n e s s of "many omens t r a v e l l i n g , many seeds t r a v e l l i n g " gives way to the more a b s t r a c t "many omens on th e way, many seeds on the way" ("beaucoup de signes en voyage, beaucoup de g ra in e s en voyage"). F i n a l l y , E l i o t ta k e s another crack at " le s corv£es d ' e n t r e t i e n . . . de chemins en l a c e t s . . . . " : " f a t i g u e - p a r t i e s for upkeep" is h a rd ly le ss ambiguous than " p a r t i e s for upkeep," but 191 i ^"zigzag roads" is more a c c u r a te than "ribbon roads" ( " s w it c h - b a c k s " is what Perse means). During th e r e v i s i o n of Cantos V through X, E l i o t r e turned several times to P e r s e ' s s u g g e s tio n s in the 1927 I t y p e s c r i p t . In Canto V he accepted P e r s e ' s more l i t e r a l ( " p ra is e d be the w aiting under our e y e l i d s " ("lou£e I ' a t t e n t e ! |sous nos c i l s " ) for " p r a i s e to the w a it in g . . . ." In i |Canto X he shortened "he who noses the phosphorous odour of genius in th e f r e s h l y cracked stone" to "he who s n i f f s th e odour of genius in th e f r e s h l y cracked s t o n e , " because he r e a l i z e d the a l l u s i o n to phosphorus was c l e a r in the l a t t e r image. *58 in the same canto he r e v e r t e d to the j f i r s t of P e r s e ' s s u g g e s tio n s , "beneath the unleavened fine !weather" ("sous I'azyme du beau temps"), a f t e r having chosen h is second s u g g e s tio n , "beneath the azyme of f i n e w e a th e r," in the 1930 e d i t i o n . In Canto IX, however, he r e v e r t e d to h i s own " sa p lin g of my veins" ( I ' a r b r e - f i I Ie de mes v e i n e s " ) , which is probably more s a t i s f a c t o r y than I P e r s e ' s " f e m a l e - tr e e of my v e i n s . " Also, in Canto VI he changed "his dau g h ters" to "his g i r l s " d e s p i t e P e r s e ' s acquiescence in the f i r s t vers io n . I5S"(par an a lo g ie et a s s o c i a t i o n d ' i d g e s = odeur de phosphore, odeur c 6r £ b r a l e , odeur de fondre du genie: I'odeur f u l g u r a n t e et s u b t i l e , I'odeur chimique et s p i r i - t u e l l e de la c e r e b r a t i o n ) . ( c f. odeur du si l e x .) " ! 1 9 2 i For a l l h is improvements in the 1938 American e d i t i o n i i I ! of Anabasis. E l i o t a l s o c o n t r i b u t e d a number of major errors! ! ! and c o n fu s io n s , p a r t i c u l a r l y in th e area of the poem's | i imagery. To begin with, two of the most s t r i k i n g and d i s t o r t e d images in Canto VII re c e iv e d but s l i g h t a t t e n t i o n . i In th e v i s i o n of h i l l s s t r e t c h i n g o f f like camels to the ! horizon, E l i o t merely changed Came Is to Mi Ich-cameIs (Charnelles). For the passage, "La t e r r e vaste sur son a i r e ro u le S i p l e i n s bords sa b r a i s e pale sous les c e n d r e s - - , " he changed "The e a rth huge on i t s area r o l l s overflowing i t s pale embers under the a s h e s — " to "The huge e a r t h r o l l s I on i t s s u r f a c e over-flow ing i t s pale embers under the j a s h e s — ," which, p a r a d o x i c a l l y , is grammatically u n fa it h f u l, ! i yet decid ed ly more c l e a r . The real confusion in imagery be gins in Canto V. ". . . engaging from the k itc h e n a do m estic luminary" had not been the most f e l i c i t o u s t r a n s l a t i o n for ", . . s 'a n n e x a n t aux c u i s i n e s un a s t r e do- mestique" (P ers e had suggested a q u it e l i t e r a l p h ra s in g : ! ". . . e n l i s t i n g from the k i t c h e n s a domestic s t a r . " ) , but E l i o t or th e p r i n t e r rev ers ed the act awkwardly by changing from to f o r . E l i o t produced an even more obvious confusion by changing "when the s t a r put up for the n ight in th e s e rv a n t g i r l s * q u a r t e r s . . . ." (which Perse had convinced him to use) t o "when the s t a r was held up f o r the n ig h t in the s e rv a n t g i r l s ' q u a r t e r s . . . . " . The ambiguity of I he Id up is p lain ly undesirable. In Canto IX E liot replaced ! ; the l i t e r a l phrasing Perse had recommended, . . the : night. . . draws i t s pleasure at the womb of women" . . la n u it. . . t r a i t son p l a i s i r au flanc des femmes”), with : the patent euphemism, . . the night. . . has i t s p le a s ure at the breast of women." F ina lly , at two junctures, E l i o t m is tra n s la tes the important word fum£e. In Canto i VII, ", . . in the smoke of dreams. . . (". . . dans la fum£e des songes. . . .") becomes . . in the fantasy of dreams. . . It is p recise ly the r e a l i t y , the con c r e ten ess , of dreams which Perse wants to s t r e s s here, not th eir f a l s i t y or fantasy; consequently, the word is j a r ringly out of place. A similar m istran slation occurs in Canto X, at the conclusion of the f i r s t long s e r i e s of tableaux and a c t io n s , where E li o t replaced ". . . the smokes of mankind everywhere. . . ." ("la fum£e des hommes en tous lieux. . . ." with "the reek of mankind everywhere. . . ." One is astonished at the confusion en gendered by the pejorative word reek, for the very next line begins with the a ffir m a tiv e , "ha! all conditions of men in th eir ways and manners!" All in all, in his rev isio n of the Anabasi s tran sIa- tion for the 1938 American e d it i o n , E l i o t takes about one and a h alf steps forward for every one backward. Correc t io n s for t h i s e d iti o n are r e s t r i c t e d almost e x c lu siv e ly it o matters of d ic t i o n , while errors and confusions are mostj i ! n o ticea b le in the poem's imagery. Although the f i d e l i t y of! the English t e x t ' s vocabulary to that of the French i n- ! creases measurably, E lio t does l i t t l e to change the muted voice of his narrator, the prosaic quality of the t r a n s l a t i o n ' s rhythm, and the disrup tion s in the con tinu ity of the! I [poem's imagery. In f a c t , in his m is tra n s la tio n of fumee. j he disrupts that continuity even more. If one had to choose between the f i r s t B ritish and American e d i t i o n s of Anabasi s . e i th e r choice probably could be j u s t i f i e d . As i f to break the deadlock, two more r e v isio n s of E l i o t ' s trans la tion were to appear. j | The 1949 second American e d itio n of Anabasis was pub lished on November 10, again by Harcourt, Brace, and Com pany, to the number of 3000 c o p ie s, none of which were to be sold in Great B r i t a i n . 159 E li o t prefaced t h i s e d itio n with a note saying that P e r se 's reputation had led him to decide "that the t r a n s la tio n should be revised and cor rected." But at t h is stage i t was f e l t that "a greater f i d e l i t y to the exact meaning, a more l i t e r a l t r a n s la t io n , was what was n e e d e d . A r t h u r Knodel has written that l59Qonald Gallup, 0£, ci t . S. E li o t , "Note to the Revised Edition," p. 13. i 1 9 5 i f o r t h i s e d i t i o n t h e 1938 A m er ic an e d i t i o n was " c o n s i d e r a b l y r e v i s e d . " * ^ * However, i n t e r m s o f t h e number o f c h a n g e s , i f one e x c l u d e s c h a n g e s o f p u n c t u a t i o n , t h e s e c - I i ond A m eric an e d i t i o n h a s f e w e r t h a n t h e f i r s t . Yet t h e e f - ! ; f e e t of these changes makes the 194-9 e d itio n read much bet- \ ! ! ter than e i th e r of the e a r l i e r p r in tin g s . As E lio t had in- I j tended, t h i s time nearly all of h is r e v i s i o n s and correc- j t io n s improve the English t e x t . The reason may have been | th a t, as he admitted, " . . . I have depended heavily upon the recommendations of the author. . . ."162 Although there are no other notes, manuscripts, or l e t t e r s to demon s t r a t e it con vin cin gIy, the coI Iaboration between Perse and | h i s t r a n s l a t o r may hav e bee n n e a r l y as c l o s e a s t h a t b e - j tween them on the very f i r s t ed itio n of the poem in 1930. A number of important images and abstract words which had given him trouble in the e a r l i e r e d iti o n s of Anabasi s again received E l i o t ' s a t t e n t io n for the second American ■ e d it i o n . For one, evidently he had grown d i s s a t i s f i e d with i the recherchg word entai I for the important concept of atn esse in Canto I. In c a s tin g about for an a l t e r n a t i v e , he decided on a suggestion Perse had made on the 1927 Arthur Knodel, 0£. c i t . . pp. 199-200. , 62T. S. E l i o t , 0£ . c i t .. p. 14. ! t y p e s c r i p t : . . what know we of our dream, older than ! i 1 ourselves?" (". . . qui savons-nous du songe, notre : a in es s e? " ). The new t r a n s la t io n had the virtu e of being ! c l e a r , simple, and more general in i t s reference; yet it j ' retained the sense of inheritance only weakly by implica- j i ' j tio n . In Canto III E lio t tried to r e c t i f y the incompre hensible metaphor of "stressed rivers" (" les fle u v e s em- phatiques"), which Perse mistakenly had led him to c re a te. His choice now s e t t l e d on "imposing r i v e r s . " Though it lacked the sharpness of the French metaphor, it caught the sense of "deceptively impressive, f a l s e l y grand," which the French required. In the same canto E lio t was even more successful in his r e v is io n of "mudslinger. . . . under the glare of the calciums. . . ." ("0 Frondeurl . . . . sous les magnificences de la chaux. . . ." ) . He took over com p le te the suggestion by Perse which he had once rejected for the f i r s t e d i t i o n of Anabasi s : "0 Slinger! . . . under the splendour of the quicklime. . . ." This was I ju st the degree of a b stractness and gen erality that Perse desired . F in a lly , in Canto X E lio t abandoned the de plorable "reek of mankind everywhere" for the far more ac curate "firesmoke of mankind everywhere." With i t s more s p e c i f i c firesmoke. t h is improved on the 1930 e d it i o n of the t r a n s l a t i o n , "smokes of mankind everywhere." E l i o t ' s r e v i s i o n s for the 1949 Anabasi s e d iti o n were 1re s p o n s ib I e , a ls o , for the loss of several archaic or anach4 r o n i s t i c words. In Canto VI E lio t f i n a l l y removed the archaic and inaccurate g estes in the tr a n s la tio n of "des actio n s sans nombre et sans mesure. . . "deeds i n- jnumberable unmeasured. . . Regrettably, he s t i l l saw i f i t to keep the word in the opening song: . . how many gestes to the year. . . ." ("tout d ' h i s t o r i e s el l ’ann£e . . . In Canto I, P erse's note on the 1927 typ e s c r ip t or h is conversation convinced E lio t to elim inate the paradoxical m il ita r y and r e l i g i o u s language of . . you sang on our tracks of bivouac and v i g i l " by t r a n s la t in g ", . . tu chantais sur nos routes nocturnes!" as . . you sang as we march in darkness." In the short homologous s e r i e s , again on Perse's su ggestion , E liot dropped the euphonious, but archaic, "folk of the f r o n t i e r s and foreign men" for "men from the marches and those from beyond" ("gens des confin s et gens d ' ai I Ieurs"). Already the form of the co lla b o ra tio n between E li o t i and Perse has begun to grow c l e a r . In the d i f f e r e n c e s in d i c t i o n between the f i r s t and second American e d i t i o n s , it is revealed even more c le a r ly in Cantos I-VI, where occur l63perse had crossed out "ways of bivouac and v i g i l ! " and w ritten over it "nocturnal paths or roads." In the 194-9 t e x t , march is most probably a typographical error, ' for i t should read marched to agree with sang. |most of the changes E li o t made in the tr a n s la t io n . Many ofj I ! these changes demonstrate graphically eith er that E lio t o fte n deferred to P er se 's notes on the 1927 ty p es crip t or that Perse in his suggestions for the 194-9 ed itio n had not l changed his mind s u b s t a n t ia ll y since 1927. I n Canto I I I , j for instance, I have already noted E l i o t ' s acceptance of j "Slinger. . . under the splendour of the quicklime. . . ." In the same canto the ambiguous image, "bending the yellow h e e l , " becomes a metonomy for a man walking away from one, "showing the h e e l ' s yellow colour" (". . . montrant c e t t e couleur jaune du talon. . . ." ). In Canto V Eliot cor r e c t s ". . . engaging for the kitchens a domestic luminary" with Perse's i n i t i a l suggestion, ", . . e n l i s t i n g from the kitchens a homely star" (". . . s'annexant aux c u i s i n e s un as tre domestique"). However, "homely," with i t s meaning of "lacking beauty," is hardly a synonym for "domestic." In Canto IV E lio t also attempted once again to tr a n s la te "ses cale?ons de f i l l e s " by changing " girls' knicker bockers" to Perse's suggestion of "girls' drawers." Al though anything would be better than knickerbockers or camiknickers. the homonym of drawers (the s l i d i n g recep t a c l e in a dresser or desk) and the comic connotation from farce and melodrama d etract from i t s d e s i r a b i l i t y . A number of other r e v i s i o n s in the f i r s t six cantos suggest th a t, although he did not accept P erse's advice e n t i r e l y , E li o t did return to passages in the 1927 1 9 9 ] typ escrip t over which the two had d if f e r e d . The previous ! j examples from Canto I provide a good c r o s s - s e c t i o n of t h i s i i i kind of r e v i s i o n . Others include the simple change of j "trackers of beasts" to "followers of t r a i l s " ("suiveurs j de p i s t e s " ) , and the second line, in which E lio t rearranged} the syntax and corrected the image of the earth, as c a lle d | i I for in the French t e x t; "This husk of earth given over to i j 1 our horses. . . ." becomes "Given over to our horses th is i ■ see d le s s earth. . . ." ("A nos chevaux livrge la terre i sans amandes. . . .")• Also in Canto III E li o t altered i i the ambiguous phrase, "more generous the story of the l frondage on our w alls. . . .," to "ampler the story of the leaf shadows on our w alls. . . ." ("plus ample | I ' h i s t o i r e de ces feui Mages & nos murs. . . ." ). In Canto IV he corrected the focus of "(de grands 6cobuages vus du large. , . .)" by changing "(great turf-burnings seen from afar. . .)" to "(great t r a c t s of burnt-over land seen from afar. . . . ) . " In Canto VI several improve- i ments in d i c t i o n are in evidence: "a f i e r y b u lle tin " for "a fervent report" ("une ardente chronique"), "our horses abstemious" for "our horses staid" ("nos chevaux sobres"), "in exhausted lands" for "in fa in t lands" ("aux pays £puis£s"), and "their fa v o r it e tale" for "the t a l e of their fashion" ( " I ' h i s t o i r e de leur gout"). Although the le ast number of changes in the 194-9 Anabasis e d iti o n occur in the last four cantos, they too i r e v e a l t h e " g r e a t e r f i d e l i t y t o t h e e x a c t m ea n i n g " which E lio t was s e e k i n g . In C an to VIII E l i o t r e t u r n e d t o an j ! emendation by Perse on the 1927 typ escrip t in changing "of | a peculiar substance" to "of a marvellous substance" ("I'une substance merveiI Ieuse"). In Canto IX he changed "I'arbre-i f i l l e des mes veines" again, from "sapling o f my veins" to J ‘ "virgin branches of my veins," which is accurate in i t s ;reference to the g i r l ' s v i r g i n i t y and in i t s a ll u s i o n to I the important tree image. In Canto X a number of examples of more precise r e f e r ence suggest that Saint-John Perse himself probably was l responsible for their inclusion in the 19^9 e d iti o n . i i "spreading of hay on the roofs with forks" becomes "turning i of hay on the roofs, on the prongs of forks" ("la v e n t i l a - jt io n d'herbages, & bout de fourches, sur les t o i t s " ) . "red terra cotta" becomes "rose red terra cotta" ("terre c u i t e et ro se" )— als o in Canto VI. "bulletins at the arrival of caravans, and e s c o r t lic e n s e s in the quarters of money changers" becomes "the invoicing at the arrival of caravans, and disbanding of e s co rts in the quarter of money-changers" ("les 6c r i t u r e s & I'arrivge des caravanes et les l i c e n c i e - ments d 'e s c o r t e s aux quartiers des changeurs"). Also, the i t a l i c s which unnecessarily emphasized "Who ta lk s of build ing?" ( o r i g i n a l l y Perse's idea) have been omitted. Final- | I y , in the c l o s i n g song E liot replaced the half-hearted and i | inaccurate "once more he has written well" with "once more ihe has written a song of great sweetness" ("II a g c r i t ' I ! encore une chose trfes douce"). In conferring with Perse for the 1949 ed itio n of Anabasis, E li o t a ls o became aware of some of the errors he j - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - j had introduced into the 1938 e d iti o n , and he reverted to j the more accurate 1930 p rinting wherever p o s s i b l e . In j Canto II, for instance, "at the armpit" replaced "at the i a x i l . " In Canto III "the man inspired by wine" replaced "the man excited by wine," and "the saddle of the weakling" replaced "the s t o o l s of the weakling." In Canto IX Perse's suggestion of "night. . . takes i t s pleasure from the womb jof women" replaced "night. . . has i t s pleasure at the I breast of women." E lio t a ls o made a point of correctin g d ev ia tio n s of punctuation in the English t e x t , probably again at Perse's request. The most important of these comes in the c l o s i n g song where "glory. . .)" becomes "glory). . . Whatever th e s e c o n s id e r a b le gain s which appeared in ! the 1949 Anabasi s e d i t i o n , however, El i ot' s temperament or I | p lain misunderstanding led him to other less fortunate changes in the t e x t . In Canto V he removed the ambiguity o f "when the star was held up in the servant g i r l s ' quar ters" with the accurate, but pedantic, "when the star was benighted in the servant g i r l s ' quarters." In Canto VIII he changed "camp f ir e s " (which had replaced the l i t e r a l but ivague "fires" in the 1930 e d i t i o n ) to the more accurate but | f i I ! much too euphemistic "heavenly f i r e s . " And in Canto X he changed "sealed and placed at the crossways" to the highly ambiguous "planted at the crossways" ( " fa i t s c e l l e r aux c a rr efo u rs" ). But the most important change occurred in the j jsecond line of Canto I, where E li o t replaced "Our burnished arms are f a i r in the morning. . . . " w i t h "Beautiful are bright weapons in the morning. . . ." ("Les armes au matin sont b e l l e s . . . ." ). The change in rhythm and the be ginning a l l i t e r a t i o n speak well for E l i o t ' s poetic t a l e n t s , but the conscious or unconscious Biblical a l l u s i o n ( c f . , PsaIms 1:1) and the c h a r a c t e r i s t i c Biblical phrasing (cf, S t . Matthew 5 :3-1 I ) are far from we I come. Because the phrase fo llo w s immediately on the Biblical phrasing in the f i r s t line of Canto I and in the opening song, it adds un- necessari ly to the r e l i g i o u s tone which E lio t o cca s io n a lly let creep into Anabasi s in i t s f i r s t pages. ! Apparently, in 1958, Saint-John Perse was s t i l l un s a t i s f i e d by E l i o t ' s English t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase. a l though he him self had suggested many of the improvements ’^ T h e reference to Sjt. Matthew is, of course, to the Beatitudes of C h r is t 's Sermon on the Mount. PsaI ms 1:1 reads as fo llo w s : "Blessed is the man that walketh not in | the council of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of s in - iners, nor s i t t e t h in the seat of the scorn fu l." I for the 1949 American ed itio n of the poem. In his prefatory! note to the 1959 ed itio n of Anabasi s . published by Faber and Faber, T. S. E lio t admits his own small role in publishing the tr a n s la tio n : "The a l t e r a t i o n s to the English te x t of j t h i s e d iti o n have been made by the author himself, and tendj I to make the t r a n s la t io n more l i t e r a l than in previous edi- j j t i o n s . " * ^ While Perse seems to have requested and then j carried out the newly revised t r a n s la t io n , E lio t or Faber and Faber probably decided that i t s publication should be j r e s t r i c t e d to Great Britain, since the two previous revised | e d it i o n s had been published in the United States and only the original 1930 ed itio n had been a v a ila b le in Great [ Britain. Arthur Knodel l i s t s t h is last e d itio n of the | j Anabasis t r a n s la tio n as the most "radically revised" of all, and one must c e r t a in ly agree, i f only in terms of the number of changes. But, more important, t h i s ed itio n is much altered in the crucial matter of tone. Besides cor recting for errors and imprecise d ic ti o n or imagery once ! again, Perse sought to clear away some of the English text which impinged on the tone of the o r i g i n a l . In t h i s he was careful to preserve E l i o t ' s voice in the tr an slation ; h is purpose was not to publish a t r a n s l a t i o n e n t ir e ly of '^5t . s. E li o t , "Note to the Third Edition," Anabasi s (London: Faber and Faber, 1959), p. 15. I h i s own making, even i f he had been capable of i t . The i t i t l e page s t i l l reads " t r a n s l a t e d by T, S. E l i o t . " In p a r t , the change in tone in the l a s t r e v i s i o n of IAnabasi s grows out of P e r s e ' s u n r e l e n t i n g concern for the i - nuance of a b s t r a c t n e s s or c o n c r e te n e s s in a p a r t i c u l a r jpassage. At several p o in ts he changed an a b s t r a c t word to I a co n c re te one, even when h is own French t e x t did not r e q u ire i t . In Canto IV, for i n s ta n c e , "under the white pea cock of the sky" r e p l a c e s the ambiguous "under the white peacock of heaven." In Canto IX "the l u s t r e of the day" r e p l a c e s the more a b s t r a c t "the n o t o r i e t y of the day" ("la c g ( 6b r i t £ du j o u r " ) . And in Canto VII, a t a most important | j u n c t u r e , Perse removed "in the f a n ta s y of dream s," with its j erroneous c o n n o t a tio n s uggesting t h a t the dreams were not real or r e l e v a n t , for "in the smoke of dreams" ("dans la fum£e des so n g e s " ). But Perse was equally i n t e r e s t e d in making the a b s t r a c t language of the English t e x t more pre- I S e is e . Accordingly, in Canto VII he changed the u n clear ! "under the f a c t s of the h a r v e s t sky" to "under the scheme j of th e h a r v e s t s ky." F i n a l l y , in Canto X he modified ever so s l i g h t l y "the firesmoke of mankind everywhere. . . ." to "the firesm oke of man everywhere. . . " t o e l i m i n a t e the c o n n o t a tio n of u n iv e rs a l u n ifo rm ity in the word manki nd. | One can observe the change of tone Perse is a f t e r even i more c l e a r l y in h is d e l e t i o n of E l i o t ' s overly l a t i n a t e i ...................................................... ~ .............“ " 205 ■ 1 i I i d i c t i o n . In the opening song "under the most c o n s i d e r a b l e j ! ; of the t r e e s " i s dropped for the simple "under the t a l l e s t J t r e e " ("sous le plus grand des a r b r e s " ) . In Canto I "The j Isun i s unmentioned" becomes "The Sun is not named" (" le s o l e i l n ' e s t p o in t nomm£"), and "folk of d i v e r s d e v i c e s " be-i : v i icomes "folk of d i v e r s ways" ("gens. . . de to u t e s f a ^ o n s " ; . i [ j The most n o ta b le of th e se changes comes in Canto I I I where j |P erse f i n a l l y r i d s the English t e x t of the anachronism, "0 i S e n e c t u s i , " by r e p la c in g i t with "0 g r e a t age!" In Canto VII "Erect s to n e s to my fame, e r e c t s to n es to s i l e n c e " becomes "Raise stones to my fame, r a i s e stones to s i l e n c e , " In Canto VIII "Matutinal s a c r i f i c e " becomes " s a c r i f i c e d , in the morni ng." C losely r e l a t e d to th e se changes are those in which Perse i n s i s t s on a more common speech. The a rc h a ic g e s te s in the opening song f i n a l l y d is a p p e a r s in "how many t a l e s to the y e a r . " The condescending " t h i s f o l k s q u a t t i n g on the s lo p e s " in Canto VI is transformed into the f a r more ac c u r a te " t h i s race s e t t l e d on the s lo p e s " ( " c e t t e race 6t a b l i e sur les p e n t e s " ) . In Canto VIII the o b s c u r i t y of "eremite b e a s t s " is removed fo r "the b e a s ts akin to none," which i s decid ed ly simpler but hardly le ss obscure. In the same canto le v in becomes Ii ghtni ng. and in Canto IX the I r i s h "widows keening" becomes "widows c r y i n g . " As one can see, several of E l i o t ' s highly c o n n o ta tiv e words have a l s o i disappeared. In Canto IV Perse changes E l i o t ' s "under the I I ^ la b ia l s of a holy name" to "under the la b ials of a c l e a r - sounding name" ("sous les la b ia le s d'un nom pur"). The ! r e l i g i o u s connotation in E l i o t ' s phrase was p la in ly un- j : d e s ir a b le , and Perse's phrase renders the context of pur j quite well; yet, in the end the change i s c l o s e to para- i phrase. C o l l e c t i v e l y , the above changes in d ic tio n create a i tone which i s far less formal and le ss d is ta n t than was the tone of the e a r l ie r Anabasi s e d i t i o n s . E l i o t ' s screen of I at i nat e and a r t i f i c i a l I anguage, though not eIi mi nated, has been s u b s t a n t ia ll y reduced. The narrator speaks a more natural common speech, without resorting to the colloq uial or slang; and the immediacy of his in te r i o r l i f e and of h is and h is people's actions i s sharpened. His "force," "puissance," and "douceur" are no longer burdened with the s t i l t e d formality that b e f i t s the English gentleman. But tone was hardly Perse's s o le in t e r e s t in his re- ! v i s i o n of E l i o t ' s tr a n s la tio n . At several points he made very s l i g h t changes so that the grammatical form of the English and French t e x t s was i d e n t i c a l . For example, in the opening song "What ease to our ways, and how. . . ." becomes "What ease to our way] how. . . ("Qu'il e s t d 'aisan ce dans nos vo ie si que. . . ." ). In Canto I "Him who has not" becomes "He who has not" ("Qui n'a"). In jCanto III "— but say to the Prince" becomes "— But say to j the Prince" ("— Mais dis au Prince"). With t h i s scrupulous a tte n tio n to matters of grammar, it is disappointing to see ! two printing errors on the f i r s t page of Canto I in t h i s j 1959 e d itio n: periods are placed at the ends of lines two ! | I 1 and three where there should be none. ! ! Perse was in te r e s te d , too, in simply increasing the ac- jcuracy of the English t e x t in i t s d ic tio n . For his success in t h is endeavor— which, by the way, suggests the e x c e l- ! Ience of his knowledge of the English language— a few ex amples will s u f f i c e . In Canto I he replaced the ambiguous "in the light time" with "and the idea pure as s a lt holds i t s a s s i z e in the day light" ("et l'id £ e pure comme un sel t i e n t ses a s s i s e s dans le j o u r ." ) , and changed "Seers of signs and seeds" to "Scenters of signs and seeds" ( " f l a i r - eurs de s ign es" ). In Canto V he must have remembered his note on the 1927 ty p e s c r ip t , J'aurais souhaitg un mot qui put rendre, pour | I'absolu du pofeme, ce qu' i I y a & la f o i s d ’£coeurant et de sacr£ dans ’ I ’odeur de vi scferes1 du matin. ( c f . id£e prim itive du s a c r i f i c e e n t r a i l l e ) . for he changed "in the sick smell of morning!" to "in the s t a l e smell of morning!" ("dans I ’odeur fade du matin!"). In Canto VI he returned to the 1930 British e d iti o n by changing "the shadows of h is daughters" back to "the shadows of his g i r l s . " In the same canto Perse changed 208 | | j E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of "les t r i b u t s levts dans les pays ! enthousiasmtsI," "tribute levied in delighted lands!" ! (which must sound naive to any kind of tax-payer), to show I jmore c l e a r l y the impact of the narrator on other peoples: i I "tribute levied in lands roused to passion!" One cannot ' i ibe ce r ta in that these lands received the narrator as a I S friend, but at least his power has transformed them. In jCanto VII he corrected E l i o t ' s "a place of stone of quartz" to "a place g l i t t e r i n g with mica" ("Un lieu de p ie r r e s S i mica!"), and in Canto VII changed "on the marches of the s p i r i t " to the more l i t e r a l "on the f r o n t i e r s of the s p i r i t " ("sur les frontiferes de I ' e s p r i t " ) . In Canto IX he replaced the vaguely derogatory "squatting on the I |h eig h ts " with "seated on the heights" (" a ss is sur les hauteurs"). And in Canto X he got rid of "under the pent house" by replacing i t with "under the shed" ("sous I' auvent"); then he eliminated the human design in "the earth parcelled out" by changing it to "I have seen the earth I I spread out in vast spaces" ("J'ai vu la terre d i s t r i b u t e en de v astes espaces. . . ."). Besides these improvements in f i d e l i t y , Perse made a number of changes to c l a r i f y some of the important images of the poem. In the opening song E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of "et la plume savante au scandale de I ' ai l e i , " "and the feather adept of the scandal of the wing!, " had appeared i in all three previous e d iti o n s of Anabasis. Perse made the " f i r s t h a lf of the passage quite clear: "the feather revelsj in the scandal of the wingl" Yet t h i s f a i l s to represent j i I ( the French te x t which has the narrator, not the fea th er, | I revel in or enjoy the sudden clap of the wing. Unfortu- j | nately, "scandale de I ' a i l e , " which is Perse's own p ersonal i image of the majesty and mobility of the bird, remains i obscure in both the French and English t e x t s . In Canto VII ! Perse f i n a l l y c o r r e c t e d E l i o t ' s grammatical error in tran s la ting "Charnelles. . . que les col line s s ' acheminent. . . "Mi Ich-cameI s. . . let the h i l l s march forth. . . ." I became "Like mi Ich-cameI s. . . the h i l l s march forth . . . ." Also, in Canto VIII Perse retranslated E l i o t ' s vague "the unconfined, unreckoned year" as "the year without t i e s or anniversaries" (". . . I'ann£e sans liens et sans an- n i v e r s a i r e s . . . ."). The tr a n s l a t i o n is l i t e r a l and gives a much cle a r e r sense of the future, which l i e s be fore the narrator and his people and into which they have i ; been journeying. In a number of other important passages, Perse's changes in the English t e x t ' s imagery were le ss fortunate. One such change involves a simple matter o f c a p i t a I i z a t i o n . In Canto III E lio t had translated "Et des mortes sous le sable" as "And the Dead under the sand," c a p i t a l i z i n g dead as he had done everywhere e l s e in the poem except in Canto : 2 1 0 | VII. E i t h e r Perse or the p r i n t e r removed the c a p i t a l i z a - ' I ' t i o n in Canto I I I , but not in the opening song. The r e s u l t is t h a t whereas the French t e x t d i s t i n g u i s h e s between "des ! Mortes" (dead women) of Canto V and the other "des mortes" i j ; of the poem, th e English t e x t in the 1959 e d i t i o n sug g es ts j I m istakenly a d i f f e r e n c e between "the Dead" of the opening song and of Canto V and "the dead" of Cantos II I and VII. i j This te nds to confuse the r e l a t i o n s h i p between the n a r r a t o r and the dead women of h is a n c e s t o r s . Another s i g n i f i c a n t c r o s s - r e f e r e n c i n g of imagery is nearly lo s t in P e r s e ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of the word sa l i v e . In Canto V he changed "a s o r t of s p i t t l e " to "a s o r t of s a l i v a , " and in Canto IX he changed "a s p i t t l e " to "a s a p ." The r e p e t i t i o n I of saIi v e . and s p i t t I e . had s t r e s s e d the r e l a t i o n s h i p be tween th e f u l f i l l m e n t and expectancy of the eye imagery in Canto V and th e f u l f i l l m e n t and expectancy in th e women's wombs in Canto IX. F i n a l l y , in Canto V E l i o t had t r a n s lated " I ' e n f a n t , qui ne r£ve pas encore de lui c r e v e r un j o e i l . . . " a s "the c h i l d , to whom i t does not yet occur to knock out one of h is eyes. . . ." The importance of the eye image in Canto V and of the horse f i g u r e throughout the poem i n t e r s e c t here in an image of subversion or r e b e l l i o n a g a i n s t the an ab a sis design; E l i o t c a tc h e s t h i s r a t h e r w e ll. Perse t r a n s l a t e s i t d i f f e r e n t l y : "the c h i ld , who has not y e t , in dreams, s t o l e n one o f h is e y e s . " He i r e i n s t a t e s one part of the phrase which E liot had neglected ( r e v e ). but the change from knock out to stoIen is radical. The act of taking rather than destroying is somewhat in- | explicab le; i s it for himself? does i t further or impede j the anabasis movement? What was once clear in French has j become obscure in English. | There are a number of other questionable changes and j errors in Perse's r e v i s i o n , a ll of which, however, are r e l a t i v e l y minor. In the opening song Perse changed "bit ter bay" to "bitter f r u i t . " Although bay i s too archaic i j for bai e s . f r u i t is almost too general a term for the I f le s h y , many-seeded f r u i t Perse had in mind. Then in Canto I he transformed "In a comely robe among you." into , i "In a s i n g l e robe and pure, among you." ("En robe pure parmi vous," ). The s y n ta c tica l rearrangement and the choice of si ngIe (might it be a typographical error for s imp Ie? ) are puzzling, for they are c e r ta in ly not called for in the French t e x t . In Canto VI he trie d to make "a | shudder of space shaking an iron tree!" more precise with "a shudder from afar of space shaking an iron t r e e l" ("un fr£missement du large dans un arbre de f e r i " ) . However, the phrasing is no clearer and quite a bit more awkward. F i n a l ly , in Canto VIII Perse changed "tomtits" to "crested t i t s , " which, because of the homonym t i t , comes c l o s e to being a f a i n t l y vulgar joke, in American English. Of the four e d iti o n s of E l i o t ' s Anabasi s tr a n s l a t i o n s published in Great B r i t a i n and the United S t a t e s t h e re 1 I ; should be l i t t l e q u e s tio n of th e 1959 B r i t i s h e d i t i o n ' s I . i ! s u p e r io r ity , in s p it e of what seems to have been a hurried j | job on the part o f the British proofreader. Each of the j e d i t i o n s improves on i t s predecessor in that i t tends towards a greater accuracy, towards a greater f i d e l i t y to j the French t e x t , at le ast in terms of syntax, vocabulary, | and imagery. But the 1959 e d iti o n includes more r e v i s i o n s ] | than either of the others, in both degree and kind, and I | they are c o n s i s t e n t l y more accurate. The imagery is I ! sharper, c l e a r e r , than ever before. More importantly, Perse's changes in t h is last e d i t i o n ' s d i c t i o n produce a s i g n i f i c a n t change in the poem's tone. The uninhibited i voice of the narrator is p a r t i a l l y restored; the pedantry and occasional r e l i g i o u s connotations are s u b s t a n t ia ll y ' reduced. Yet one can hardly claim that the fourth e d iti o n of Anabasi s is without f a u l t . Its weaknesses are s t i l l num erous, many of which have persisted through all four e d i t io n s . In the realm of d ic t i o n , for instance, neither i | E li o t nor Perse c l a r i f i e d in Canto IV "the f a t e of t h is | pale, meaningless river" ("ce fleuve p3le, sans d estin " ), 213 ! | j and Perse, in Canto VII, did not correct "a wilderness of mirrors" ("un peuple de m iroirs"). Neither poet nor trans lator removed such archaic and pedantic words as springes and prevari cati on s. Kathleen Raine characterized t h i s kind i o f d ic t i o n as "sedate 17th century, i . e . , 'earth is brought! i 166) |to bed of wonders' for 'la te r r e enfante des m a r v e i l l e s . ' " | In i t s phrasing, unfortunately, the 1959 e d it i o n , if any- I jthing, is even more prosaic than the previous e d itio n s ; the occasional metrical rhythm of the French te x t is s t i l l ■largely absent, and Perse's demand for greater p recision in i I [vocabulary has resulted in some loss of euphony. The mud- idle E l i o t made of the homologous s e r i e s in Canto I and the |paraphrase that evolved from the second strophe of the ^closing song have not been corrected. And the Biblical phrasing and a ll u s i o n so prominent in the beginning lines of the poem s t i l l color the tone of the narrator's voice. F i n a l ly , in the important matter of imagery patterns and la r g e-sc a le rhythms, which gradually grow clearer with each e d i t i o n , the continuity of the cantos is marred s l i g h t l y in the 1959 e d it i o n . The confusion over d iffe r e n c e s in morts- Mortes and dead-Dead and the f a i l u r e to preserve the cro s s - referencing between words such as saIi ve ra ise questions *^Kathleen Raine, "St.-John Perse: Poet of the MarveI I o u s , " p. 60. I L • 2 1 4 ; i j about the coherence of the English tr a n s la t io n . It may i seem uncalled for, what with four e d itio n s of Anabasi s a l - j ; i ; ready published (though as of th is writing none is in j I i p r i n t ) , but I think another c a r e f u l ly revised e d iti o n of j : E l i o t ' s tr a n s la t io n would be in order, e s p e c i a l l y i f the j I I I a r t i s t r y the English te x t promises is to be r e a l iz e d . I One should observe, in conclusion, that it is a measure of Saint-John P e r se 's s i g n i f i c a n c e as a c o l l a b o rator with E li o t that the two times he was most deeply i n- | volved in the process of t r a n s la t io n produced the g r e a te st i changes and improvements: between the 1927 ty p es crip t and the 1930 B ritish e d it i o n , and between the 1949 American and 1959 B r itis h e d i t i o n s . His s k i l l and achievement be l i e his own b e l i e f in the u n tr a n sI a ta b iI ity of his poetry. And his influence on E l i o t ' s tr a n s la tio n of Anabase is as remarkable as h is influence on E l i o t ' s own poetry. CHAPTER V MUTUAL LITERARY INDEBTEDNESS Immature poets i m i t a t e ; mature poets s t e a l ; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make i t into something b e t t e r , or at l e a s t something d i f f e r e n t . T. S. E l i o t S a in t -J o h n P e r s e ' s rushed " a d a p ta tio n " of E l i o t ' s poem in Commerce ( h iv e r , 1924) had an e f f e c t in France u n lik e t h a t in Great B r i t a i n and the United S t a t e s of E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase in the f i r s t B r i t i s h and American e d i t i o n s . The poem was very s h o r t and so c re a te d s c a r c e l y a r i p p l e of public n o t i c e . However, Commerce was f a s t be coming an im portant journal to the l i t e r a r y c i r c l e s in France and even o u t s i d e i t s b o rd ers . Also, P e r s e ’s v ers io n was only the second French t r a n s l a t i o n of the poetry of the man whose a r t i c l e s on English l e t t e r s had appeared a year before in the NouveI Ie Revue Franpai se and whose n o t o r i e t y from the f u r o r over The Waste Land was spreading throughout Europe. Although i t is im possible to be sure from a v a i l a b l e s o u rc e s , several of the subsequent t r a n s l a t i o n s of E l i o t ' s work may owe something to P e r s e ' s t r a n s l a t i o n . Within six months of the Commerce p u b l i c a t i o n , "The Love Song of J. 215 I Alfred Prufrock" was t r a n s l a t e d by S ylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier for Le Na v i r e d 1 A rgent. | (June I, 1925), j I 1 pp. 23-29. As owner of the bookstore and lending l i b r a r y ,j Shakespeare and Co., Miss Beach undoubtedly knew E l i o t ' s ! ! . i poetry q u it e w ell; as the p r o p r i e t o r of La Mai son des Amis j i d e s Livres and the p r i n t e r of Commerce. Mile. Monnier was ! i q u i t e f a m i l i a r with the Perse t r a n s l a t i o n . I t is p o s s i b l e | t h a t Miss Beach's i n t e r e s t in E l i o t and th e example of P e r s e ' s t r a n s l a t i o n combined to i n s p i r e the two women to t r a n s l a t e in to French E l i o t ' s f i r s t im portant published poem. These two t r a n s l a t i o n s then probably influenced Jean de Menasce's d e c i s i o n to t r a n s l a t e The Waste Land complete f ° r E s p r i t . I (May, 1926 ), pp. 174-194. It is i n t e r e s t i n g to note, f i n a l l y , t h a t the next t r a n s l a t i o n s of E l i o t , both by de Menasce, were, like t h a t of Perse, new poems pub lishe d in Commerce which l a t e r became s e c t i o n s of a longer poem, A s h - W e d n e s d a y From 1924 on, no o th e r l i t e r a r y jo urnal published as many of E l i o t ' s new poems as did I j Commerce. i This i s not th e place to w r i t e a h i s t o r y of the ’Donald Gallup, T. S. E l i o t ; A Bibliography (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1953), p. 122. ^ Ib i d . " D i f f i c u l t i e s of a Statesman" a l s o appeared in Commerce. XXIX (Winter, 1931/1932), pp. C 79 0 -87. 2l7j j v i c i s s i t u d e s of T. S. E l i o t ' s r e p u t a t i o n as a poet in | I France. Others more competent than I and more knowledge able of the l i t e r a r y scene in France a f t e r 1920 may do j u s t i c e to the task and p l o t E l i o t ' s in fl u e n c e , i f s i g n i f i cant, on the l a s t two g e n e r a tio n s of French p o e t s . In such a h i s t o r y , however, P e r s e ' s " a d a p ta tio n " of "The Hollow Men, I" might be seen to play a small but s i g n i f i c a n t p a r t in extending E l i o t ' s r e p u t a t i o n in France by making h is poetry b e t t e r known. And the r o l e of Commerce would be even more s i g n i f i c a n t . In c o n t r a s t , the r e p u t a t i o n of S aint-John Perse in the E n g lis h -sp e a k in g world, e s p e c i a l l y th e United S t a t e s , owes a c o n s i d e r a b l e debt to E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase and to h is o r i g i n a l "Preface" to the poem. Before 1930, the French poet was almost unknown to English r e a d e rs ; and un t i l 1944, he was known to them s o l e l y by the two e d i t i o n s of E l i o t ' s Anabasis t r a n s l a t i o n . Furthermore, fo r more than te n y e a rs h i s 1930 "P reface" provided th e only English i n t r o d u c t i o n to P e r s e ' s themes and te c h n iq u e s . Men like Archibald MacLeish could read Perse in h is n a t i v e tongue, and could read th e £loges volume (1925) as well as Anabase; most, however, had to r e l y on E l i o t . I n i t i a l l y , the poem and t r a n s l a t i o n drew r e a d e rs for one simple reas o n : E l i o t , perhaps unconsciously and c e r t a i n l y u n w i l l i n g l y , was becoming the l i t e r a r y d i c t a t o r of SEngIi sh l e t t e r s . People went out and read or refused to read what E l i o t wrote about. They a l s o took t h e i r E l i o t n e a t , j u n d i l u t e d with other reading; as with Dryden, i j Samuel Johnson, and the sev en te en th century p r e a c h e r s , j | A fter the Waste I and. J e s s i e Laid low Weston went out i | of p r i n t . A fter Ash-Wednesday. the Book of Common j ' Prayer had a l i t e r a r y c i r c u l a t i o n , as i f like the I ! Bible i t too had become a monument of English prose; | j and indeed i t may be said t h a t t h e r e sprung up a I whole l i t e r a r y g e n e ra tio n whose only knowledge of l C h r i s t i a n i t y was what they got by reading E l i o t — j I mean those who did not read the prayer book. Again, E l i o t r e b u i l t Baudelaire on the rock of ! o r i g i n a l s i n , which is a t l e a s t fir m e r ground than th e perfumed swoon in which Arthur Symons had l e f t him. Again, p a r t l y because of E l i o t ' s q u o t a t i o n s in his own poems from Dante and p a r t l y from th e e f f o r t s of h is long essay on him, a " c u l t " for Dante spread through Bloomsbury and Cape Cod. No modern c r i t i c has had anything like the e f f e c t of E l i o t on the l i t e r a r y p e o p l e . 3 Consequently, Anabasis was widely read by the younger poets of the I9 30's. In England, e a r l y r e a d e rs included Stephen Spender, W. H. Auden, and Edith S i t w e l l , the l a t t e r two of which published poetry h e a v ily influenced by t h e i r study of the t r a n s I a t i o n . ^ Spender has even w r i t t e n t h a t he b e l ie v e s Anabasi s to be one of the most i n f lu e n t ia l o f a ll French Ipoems on modern English p o e t r y . 5 in the United S t a t e s , 3 r. P. Blackmur, "In the Hope of S t r a i g h t e n i n g Things Out," T. S. £ I i o t : A Co I Iecti on of Cri ti caI E s s a y s , ed. Hugh Kenner (Eng Iewood 1 1i f f s : Prent i ce-HaI I~ 19°2), pp. 14 0 - 14 1. ^Stephen Spender, "Un b a s - r e l i e f , " Honneur & Sa i nt-John Perse ( P a r i s : Gallim ard, 1965), p. 107. See, aTso, Edith SitweI I ' s "The Song of the Cold" and "The Shadow of C ain." 5 1 b i d . r " " ” ............. 219' El i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n found a sympathetic ear with such men as i Louis F is h e r , who included a p o r t r a i t of Perse in h is book, Men and P o l i t i c s (New York, 1941).® Another early reader of i ;the t r a n s l a t i o n , which he c a l le d somewhat s l i g h t i n g l y a 1 I i I ! " p a r a p h r a s e ," was the p o e t - c r i t i c Allen Tate, who f i r s t met j ithe French poet at the Library of Congress in UVash i ngton, |d . C., in the f a l l of 1943.^ The most im portant of P e r s e ' s jAmerican r e a d e r s , of c o u rs e , was Archibald MacLeish, who as L i b r a r i a n of the Library of Congress in 1941 persuaded the I ex ile d diplomat to accept a modest post of C o n s u lta n t in French L i t e r a t u r e t h e r e , and who l a t e r helped Perse p ublish the new poems he was suddenly i n s p ir e d to w r i t e a f t e r a pro longed s ile n c e . ® MacLeish had begun reading P e r s e ' s poetry in the e a r l y 1920's at Adrienne Monnier’s bookstore in P a r i s ; and even before E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n appeared, h is own poetry was i m i t a t i n g c l o s e l y P e r s e ' s language and sub j e c t . 9 By helping Perse publish h is poems composed in ®Louis F is h e r, "Une audience d ' A l e x i s Leger," Honneur I Sai nt-John P e r s e , p. 784. ^Allen Tate, "Myst£rieux P e r s e , " Honneur h S a in t-Jo h n P e r s e , pp. 136-137. ®Arthur Knodel, S a in t-Jo h n Perse (Edinburgh: Edin burgh U n iv e rs it y Press*j 1966), pp. 60-6 I . ^Archibald MacLeish, "Le Temps de la louange," Honneur k Sai nt-John P e r s e . p. 104. j e x i l e and then by reviewing them favorably, MacLeish prob ably did as much as E lio t to extend Perse's reputation in the United States. The i n t e r e s t which the 1938 Anabasi s j I e d iti o n had e l i c i t e d from American reviewers continued un- i I | : abated with the publication of "Exi I " in Poetry (March, | i 1942) and the tr a n s la t io n s by Denis Devlin of "Rains," Sewanee Review (October, 1944), "Snows," Sewanee Review | (April, 1945), and "Poem to a Foreign Lady," Sr i arc Ii f f 1 Quarter Iy (January, 1946) . 10 In f a c t , American poets and c r i t i c s , such as E l i o t ' s long time friend Conrad Aiken, I were among the f i r s t to review these "exile" poems. 11 I When Perse arrived in the United States in 1940, a fte r i j j the c o l la p s e of France, he had l e f t behind most of h is ' f r i e n d s and family, a shattered diplomatic career, and all I of h is unpublished poetry, which was seized and presumably destroyed by the Nazis. He was alone and desperately wished to be alone.- He had few frie n d s in t h i s country, I but among them was the U. S. Attorney General, Francis 1 ; Biddle. He had published no poetry for over f i f t e e n years. lOThe reviews of Zabel, Bogan, and Walton are lis te d in Chapter IV, page 102. For more detailed information on the early "American" poems of Perse, see Jacques Charpier, Saint-John Perse (Paris: Gallimard, 1962), pp. 268-271. **Conrad Aiken, "Whole Meaning or Doodle: Rai ns by Saint-John Perse," New Repub l i e . CXI I, 15 (Apri I l6 , 1945), p. 512. Herbert Steiner, "Saint-John Perse's Poems," The Yale Review. XXXIV, i (Autumn, 1944), pp. 181-182. Archi- baId MacLei sh, "Living Spring," Saturday Review. XXXII, 24 (July 16, 1949), pp. 8-9. 'Yet he soon discovered t h a t , through the medium of E l i o t ' s ' [ Anabasis t r a n s l a t i o n and the a d m iration of Archibald j MacLeish, h is e a rly poetry had a r e p u t a t i o n in the United ! S t a t e s nearly equal to t h a t in France. With the unexpected! j I jr ec o v ery of h is p o etic voice and h i s r e j e c t i o n of th e temp- f t a t i o n to n i h i l i s m and death d e s c rib e d in Vents (1946), I Perse was assured of an e n t h u s i a s t i c and ded icate d American audience. Recognizing h i s achievement as a poet and h is r e c e p t i o n in the United S t a t e s , the Bollingen Foundation ! j began in 1944 to pu b lish French-EngIish b i l in g u a l e d i t i o n s | i o f P e r s e ' s poetry in i t s s e r i e s with Pantheon Books. All I j of P e r s e ' s major poems, except Anabas i s . are now a v a i l a b l e I | in th e Bollingen S e r i e s , the most re c e n t in expensive large- i | format p r i n t i n g . 12 Only Paul Valery, among t w e n t i e t h - century French p oets, can claim a simi lar d i s t i n c t i o n . T. S. E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase. then, has played an u n u sually c r u c i a l p a r t in c r e a t i n g , extending, and s u s t a i n i n g S a in t - J o h n P e r s e ' s r e p u t a t i o n as a poet in the I i E n g lis h -sp e a k in g world. To C. E. Nelson, who f i n d s Anabase d i f f i c u l t and "the l e a s t su c c e s s fu l of P e r s e ' s more impor t a n t poems," t h i s is u n f o r t u n a t e . 13 However, th e late.* 12 See Chapter IV, fo o tn o t e 67. '3 C. E. Nelson, " S ain t-J o h n Perse and T. S. E l i o t , " Western Humanities Review. XVII, 2 (Spring, 1963), p. 164. Miss Nelson seems unaware t h a t P e r s e ' s r e p u t a t i o n in the United S t a t e s is q u it e high, because of Anabasi s . I poems Vents (194-6) and Amers (1957) seem to me no less d i f f i c u l t than Anabase. and most c r i t i c s agree that Anabase is impressively s u c c e s s f u l .* ^ The paperback e d it i o n of ! iWallace Fowlie's tr a n s la t io n of Amers. for instance, now j I probably has as many readers as does E l i o t ' s Anabasi s ; yet Fowlie's t r a n s la t io n i s one of the le ast successful English renderings of all Perse's poems.*-* In any case, E l i o t ' s |Anabasi s t r a n s la t io n has had more of an impact on Anglo- American poetry than has any of the Bollingen Series trans la ti o n s . Whatever and however ex ten sive i t s f a u l t s may be, |as I have shown in the previous chapter, Anabasis measures up to the t e s t of a good t r a n s la t io n . And as E li o t once said, "The best stimulus to influence is a good trans- . . . 16 l a t i o n . " | There are two ways in which a li te r a tu r e may be renewed— I mean two purely jiterary ways: for l i t e r a t u r e of course needs als o to be constantly r e l a t i n g to the changing world about i t , as well *^See Chapter IV, page 115. *5saint-John Perse, Seamarks, trans. Wallace Fowlie, New York: Harper, 1961. *^T. S. E l i o t , "A Brief Introduction to the Method of Paul Valery," Le Serpent, trans. Ward Ie (London: Cobden- Sanderson, 19257, p. 14. 2 2 3 to the things which are always the same. The two ways of c r o s s - f e r t i l i z a t i o n are by a new contact with an older period of i t s e l f , or by contact with a foreign lite r a tu r e ; and I think that both are desi r a b I e . 17 Despite E l i o t ' s rather personal statement, Saint-John Perse i j seems to owe less to influences from lite r a r y sources, j French or otherwise, than do most major poets. Instead, ! his renewal of French poetry represents a strong, conscious r e b e l lio n against the exhaustion and r i g i d i t y of i t s principal conventions. Of course, Perse undoubtedly learned from h is early t r a n s l a t i o n s of Pindar's odes and from his discovery of the early poems and p oetic plays of Paul Claudel; but his poetry has i t s impetus in a unique humanistic vision of the world, in a l i f e of far-ranging observation and experience, and in a highly personal con cept of language. When he did respond to lite r a r y works or th eo rie s which forced themselves on h is consciousness, his reaction was often one of r e j e c t i o n or opp osition , as I I a in the case of Paul Valery. His response to T. S. E li o t , however, does not follow t h i s pattern exactly. 17 t. s , E l i o t , C "Tradition in the Practice of Po etry" 3 , address delivered by TSE probably at the Book Fair in London, 1935 C Houghton Library bMS Am 1691 (27) 3 , p. A. *®Arthur Knodel, Saint-John Perse, pp. 87- 88. j Perse evidently knew nothing of E l i o t ' s poetry before the f a l l o f 1924, when the Princess Bassiano (Marguerite C aetani) persuaded him to tr a n s la t e for Commerce the poem which later became "The Hollow Men, I." Since he became ; fam iliar with E l i o t ' s work afte r that date, i t i s conceiv- i ' I l able that Perse could have used material from nearly any of E l i o t ' s poems in his own poetry written after his ar rival in the United S t a t e s . 1^ Yet the short poem he translated for Commerce alone seems to have made a lastin g impression on him. Twenty years a fte r that t r a n s la t io n , "The Hollow Men, I" became a minor c a t a l y s t in the then longest poem of Perse's "American" period, Vents (1946). Now Vents happens to be a crucial poem in Perse's work At i t s center is a personal c r i s i s which had f i r s t found expression in "Exil" (1942) and continued in "Pluies" (1943). The dramatic and unexpected climax of that c r i s i s marks the poem's climax, "and the calm of the last cantos prepares the way for the great poems of r e c o n c i I i a t i o n : i o n Amers. Chronigue. and 0 is e a u x ." The personal drama in *^In a private conversation, Arthur Knodel informed me that Perse himself had mentioned h is f a m i l i a r i t y with E l i o t ' s work. He did not say, however, when he had read E l i o t . Any influence which the manuscripts w ritten between 1924 and 1940 may have revealed must, because of the Nazi plunderers, remain forever unknown. 20Arthur Knodel, op. ci t . . p. 129. I am indebted to Knodel's illuminating chapter on Vents in many of the f o l - Iowi ng remarks. 2 2 5 ’ I I V ents, however, becomes involved in the "world-wide con- ] 2 I f l i c t s of the f i r s t h a l f of the tw e n t ie th c e n t u r y , " with the e x p l o r a t i o n of the New World and the seeking a f t e r a new age, and with the impersonal m ysterious fo rc e s ; (C’£ t a i e n t de trfcs grands vents sur t o u t e s f a c e s de ce i imonde. . . . " ) c o n t r o l l i n g man's h i s t o r y . This leads Paul I 22 j Claudel to c a l l Vents "an epic of the outward voyage." [ C l a u d e l ' s remark s uggests t h a t Vents may have some s i m i l a r i t i e s to Anabase. one of whose t r a n s l a t o r s was T. S. E l i o t ; and a comparison o f the two poems bears t h i s out. Both poems re ly on the theme of the journey to c r e a t e t h e i r inner s t r u c t u r e . In Anabase. the march into the in- t e r i o r p rovince s of gras s lan d is p a r a l l e l e d by a s p i r i t u a l journey r e c o n c i l i n g past and f u t u r e . In V ents. the d i s covery and conquest of the New World of the Americas is p a r a l l e l e d by the p o e t ' s own disco v ery and e x p l o r a t i o n of t h a t world. The n a r r a t o r in Anabase. who u n i t e s the two journeys in one, then resembles the n a r r a t o r of V e n ts . who i , holds t o g e t h e r the p a r a l l e l voyages into the New World. However, the two poems' resemblance a l s o can be seen in 21 I b i d . . p. 105. 22PauI C la udel, "A Poem by S t . - J o h n P e r s e , " Wi n d s . t r a n s . Hugh Chisholm (New York: Pantheon, 1953), P. 224; j o r i g i n a l l y p r i n t e d , in French, under the t i t l e , "Un Pofeme j de S a in t-Jo h n P e r s e , " in Revue de P a r i s (novembre 1949). ithe re c u rre n c e of s p e c i f i c images. For i n s ta n c e , the image j i ' of the t r e e , which occurs in th e opening and c lo s in g songs ;of Anabase and which is a s s o c i a t e d with the sign of the n a r r a t o r ' s control over the Western Provinces in Canto VIII,i i ! becomes an important symbol in Vents, p a r t i c u l a r l y in the i i f i r s t and l a s t c a n to s . Now a sham anistic t r e e in troducing the sham an is tic nature of the n a r r a t o r , i t suggests "a p r i n - 23 c i p l e of c o n t i n u i t y , the e s s e n t i a l humanity of man. . . ." The concept of d i s t a n t p ro v in ce s and the image of "un grand pays d ’herbages" in Anabase a l s o seem to reappear in "Des Terres neuves" of V ents. I I , i and in " I ’herbe n ouvelle" of I I I , v. The number of r e c u r r i n g images is too large to examine here, nor would i t s u i t my purpose. What t h i s b r i e f comparison does reveal is t h a t Perse seems to have turned q u it e consciously to Anabase in w r i t i n g V ents, for i n s p i r a t i o n perhaps, but d e f i n i t e l y fo r imagery and thematic mate r i a l . And in the process of borrowing from his poetry of the I9 2 0 's, he a l s o turned to h is " a d a p ta tio n " of T. S. • E l i o t ’ s "pofeme" in Commerce. What Perse found very a p p r o p r i a t e for his own poem was the c e n t r a l image of the " a d a p t a t i o n , " " le s hommes f a i t s de p a i l l e . " At the beginning of V ents. I, i, the men l e f t in the wake "de tr&s grands vents sur t o u t e s face s de ce monde" 23 Arthur Knodel, 0£. c i t .. p. 107. i 2 2 7 are d e s c rib e d as "hommes de p a i l l e , en I'an de pai I Ie | I Ai, . . . . " For " I ' u s u r e et la s£cheresse au coeur des ihommes i n v e s t i s " have been exposed to the a i r , and t h e i r world is now f u l l of "ce goQt de p a i l l e " and of blown straw s c a t t e r e d by the wind. As Perse begins in the second p a r t j of the f i r s t canto to in troduce the image of "un grand a r b r e , " the c en tu ry , to o , is des crib e d as r u s t l i n g "dans la s£ ch eres s e de sa p a i l l e , parmi d ' £ t r a n g e s d e s i n e n c e s . " In Canto iii, the straw men's "murmure de s^ c h e re s se " c l e a r l y r e c a l l s the straw men in P e r s e ' s " a d a p t a t i o n " : "Nos voix I s t e r i l e s , si to u t bas/ nous murmurons en fo u le . . . In Canto vi i , even the young poet, facin g the winds and abyss, i s judged "de peu de poids" in a phrase rem in is cen t of the epigraph to the " a d a p t a t i o n " : ", . .hommes de peu de p o i d s . " Although t h e i r s i m i l a r i t i e s are s t r i k i n g , the straw men i of the two poems have q u it e d i f f e r e n t f u n c t i o n s . In the end, the hollow men of E l i o t ' s "pofeme" are judged in com p a ris o n to the l o s t v i o l e n t souls and the s a n c t i f i e d dead of the p a s t . And throughout the poem, t h e i r tone of voice ex p re s s e s a d e s p a i r beyond p ity or hope. The "hommes de j I p a i l l e " in V ents. I, however, serve as a c o n t r a s t to the living who, as th e main f i g u r e s addressed by the n a r r a t o r , are now face to face with the g r e a t winds and abyss. As the f i r s t images in the poem to r e p r e s e n t the i n t e l l e c t u a l d i s a s t e r and s p i r i t u a l f a i l u r e of Western man in the 2^ Ibi d .. p. 106, Knodel is the f i r s t c r i t i c to p o in t out t h i s "echo of E l i o t ' s 'The Hollow Men'" in Vents. (twentieth century, Perse's straw men are a warning of grave) i j danger and r isk . To avoid th eir f a t e , the shaman-narrator i s determined that "sa parole est aux vivants; ses mains aux vasques du futur." In c e l e b r a tio n , he en trusts himself and all men to the great fo r c e s in the winds, and the "parole de vivant!" echoes throughout the canto. The per sonal c r i s i s of Vents. the temptation to n ih ilis m and no th in gn ess, is f i r s t expressed, then, in images which E lio t 'him self used to convey his own personal c r i s i s in the I920's. j Moreover, by means of t h i s imagery, both were able e f f e c t i v e l y to a s s o c ia t e th eir own c r i s e s with the general c r i s i s of tw entieth-century Europe. Although E li o t may have i d e n t i f i e d him self more strongly with the straw men of The Ho I low Men than did Perse with those of Vents, both men sought to e x t r i c a t e themselves from such a f a t e . It is well to note that E l i o t ' s way out, C h r i s t i a n i t y , s i g n i f i c a n t l y does not appear as even a p o s s i b i l i t y in Vents. | The importance of E l i o t ' s influence on P er se 's poetry, th erefo re , b e l i e s i t s s l i g h t n e s s . Moreover, i t may not be limited e x c l u s i v e l y to individual poems, for E li o t may also have exercised some influence on P erse's genera I iz a ti o n s about what he c a l l s "Anglo-Saxon" p o e t r y . ^ d iffe r e n c e -'See Arthur Knodel, Sai nt-John Perse, pp. 90-104, for an e x c e l l e n t discu ssion of f*erse ’ s poetics in r e l a t i o n to "Anglo-Saxon" poetry. 2 2 9 between modern French poetry and "Anglo-Saxon" poetry, ac cording to Perse, r e s t s on an e s s e n t ia l d iffe r e n c e between the two Ianguages--which he had f i r s t noted as early as 1911.26 j n a | et t e r to the BerkeIey Revi ew in 1956, how ever, Perse expressed a second explanation of t h i s d i f - ference which he considered even more persuasive. The trouble is that the Anglo-Saxon mind has so long been accustomed to the d is c u r s iv e method of English poetry— a poetry of ideas, and thus of d e f i n i t i o n and e lu c id a tio n , always e x p l i c i t and l o g i c a l , because rational in i t s o r i g in , and by that very f a c t given to the formal sequences of an i n t e l l e c t u a l and moral d i a l e c t i c . Modern French poetry, on the other hand, f e e l s i t is not r e a l l y poetry unless it merges with i t s living object in a live embrace, u nless it informs the object e n t ir e ly and even becomes a part of i t s very substance, to the point of complete id en tity and unity of subject and o b ject, of poet and poem. . . . . G o i n g far beyond any mimetic action , i t fi na I ly jjs the thi ng i t s e I f , in that thi ng' s own movement and duration. This poetry liv e s the thing and 'animates' it t o t a l l y and most scrupulously and with i n f i n i t e variation submits to the th in g 's own measure and rhythm. . . .All t h i s , of course, i s far removed from the 'dualism' of English poetry, wherein the expression, from the o u ts e t, s t r i v e s to be 'e x o te r ic ' and always seems to proceed from some 'a p r i o r i ' — a fa c t that always renders quite le gitim ate, no matter what i t s theme, the I, for my part, deplored the denseness of such a concrete language, the ex ce ss iv e richness of i t s vocabu lary and i t s pleasure in trying to reincarnate the thing i t s e l f , as in ideographic writing; whereas French, a more abstract language, which t r i e s to s i g n i f y rather than represent the meaning, uses words only as fiduciary sym bols like coins as values of monetary exchange." Saint- John Perse, "Andr6 Gide: 1909," trans. Mina Curtiss Sewanee Review. LX, 4 (October-December, 1952)', p. 601. 2 30 preserving of i t s s o b riety , since the elements of which it is made up are already conclusions, i t s progression a s e r i e s of a ffirm a tio n s , and i t s very accentuation a strong reinforcement in the exer cise of i t s prerogatives. English poetry seems always to be born of meditation and not of trance, to follow the line j of a modulation rather than the inherent com p le x ity of an incarnation. Always seriatim or thematic, it shuns e l l i p s e as a nonsequitur and most harmoniously avoids spasm so that there will be no c r i s i s to resolve . l/Vhat i t p roffers seems le ss a re v e la tio n than an intim ation. No matter how concise it may be, English poetry s t i l l remains commentary and paraphrase.27 Perceptively, Arthur Knodel sees in Perse's "extravagant d i s t i n c t i o n " his own continuing r e b e l l i o n "against the 'pseudo-Cartesian tr a d iti o n of 'reason' and ' c l a r i t y ' that lurks everywhere in French art and literatu re" and his " i r r i t a t i o n at the f a i l u r e of some English-speaking c r i t i c s to comprehend one very fundamental aspect of h is poetry"— h is use of e l l i p s i s to d e le te all d is c u r s iv e m a t e r i a l . ^8 Perse could hardly c r i t i c i z e E li o t for f a i l i n g to under stand t h i s aspect of h is work, p a r tic u la r ly in Anabase; nor could he mean that E l i o t ' s poetry "shuns e l l i p s i s . " But he could, from his experience of E l i o t ' s problems in Saint-John Perse, "A Letter from Saint-John Perse," BerkeIey Revi ew. I (Winter, 1956), pp. 36, 38. I n te r e s t ingly enough, Perse uses nearly the same words to describe modern French poetry here as he did to describe the English language to Andr£ Gide in 191 I. 28Arthur Knodel, o^. ci t . , p. 102. : 23lj i I i Itranslating that poem, buttress the idea that "Anglo-Saxon" ' ! ; poetry is c h i e f l y d is c u r s iv e , m editative, "rational in i t s o r ig in . . . and given over to the formal sequences of an {in te lle c tu a l and moral d i a l e c t i c . " E l i o t ' s e f f o r t s to r e- i i create his work in English surely must have v e r i f i e d the gap he f e l t e x iste d between poetry in the two languages. Besides, much of E l i o t ' s later poetry, as well as Auden's— | w i th which Perse is a ls o familiar,29 a c tu a ll y would f i t this d e s c r ip ti o n w e ll. F i n a l ly , P er se 's erroneous view of i E l i o t ' s i n t e r e s t in words as c h i e f l y litera ry and etymol o g i c a l , ^ probably impressed on him during the tr a n s la t io n of Anabase. may als o have lent support to h is ideas about the sources of "Anglo-Saxon" poetry. In conclusion, while E l i o t ' s influence on Perse was advantageous in a minor way to his own poetry, i t seems only to have confirmed his r e j e c t io n of what he took to be the t h e o r e tic a l foundation or t r a d it i o n of "Anglo-Saxon" poetry. As he rejected Paul Valery's concept of po^sie i ;pure, so did Perse r e j e c t the d is c u r s iv e method of "Anglo- Saxon" poetry. However, the word r e j e c t io n can scarcely be 29igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Dialogues and a Diary (Garden City: Doubleday, 1963), pp. 20l-2d)2. ■^Kathleen Raine, "St.-John Perse's B i r d s , ” Southern Revi ew. I l l (Winter, 1967), p. 257. ; 232 1 i I : jused to characterize Perse's influence on E l i o t , for that influence happens to have been both advantageous and per s i s t e n t . i | j j In contrast to Perse, literary "contacts" with an I i l"older period of" English li te r a tu r e or "with a foreign ! litera tu re" are unusually conspicuous in T. S. E l i o t ' s poetry, plays, and c r i t i c i s m . E l i o t ' s o r i g i n a l i t y in using them has led to major innovations in the d ic t i o n , rhythm, jand structure of modern Anglo-American poetry. In some of j jhis poems he even has created, to many r e a d e r s ’ chagrin and j jannoyance, a method of organization based almost e n t i r e l y on a l l u s i o n s to litera ry tr a d iti o n s and individual literary i works. C r i t i c s were quick to recognize E l i o t ' s ways, and h is contacts with older and foreign l i t e r a t u r e s have pro vided endless g r i s t for the c r i t i c a l and scholarly m i l l . Source-hunting and para I IeI-hunting have flou rish ed as never before. And E lio t has abetted t h is research by admitting at | ;every opportunity the litera ry influences he b e li e v e s have acted upon his work and by remarking on the w riter s he has admired to the point of thieving from them. The most thorough accounting by E li o t o f these in- Ifluences occur in h is unpublished Turbull Lectures, "The V a r ie tie s of Metaphysical Poetry," delivered at Johns Hopkins University in January, 1933, and in one o f his last i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ” . . . . . . . . . . . " “ 233] l 1 e ssays, "To C r i t i c i z e the C ritic" (I96l).-^1 The l i s t in - ; eludes Laforgue and other French Symbolists, the E l i z a bethan and Jacobean dramatists, the English metaphysical poets, Baudelaire, and, most important of a l l , Dante.^2 Nearly all of these references have received adequate or e xce ssive treatment by the c r i t i c s , Dante only recen tly in the learned but presumptuous Approach to the Purpose: A Study of the Poetry of T. S. E lio t by Genesius Jo n es .33 There are, o f course, several w riters whose influence has I gone unremarked by E lio t; many o f these can be found in Grover C. Smith's T. S. Eli o t 1s Poetry and PI a y s : A Study i n Sources and Meani ng. The most serious, ^ T. S. E l i o t , "The V a r ie t i e s of Metaphysical Poetry," Three lectures delivered at Johns Hopkins University (The Turbull Lectures), in January, 1933 C Unpub I i shed 1 1 (Hough ton Library, bMS Am 1261), pp. 6-7. T. S. E f i o t , "To Cri ti ci ze the Cri ti c ( 196 I )," To Cri ti ci ze the Cr i ti c ( New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux']; I9&5), PP. 21-23. ^ 1 leave out Paul Valery, in part because of E l i o t ' s j own remark in "Le5on de Valery," Cahi ers du Sud: PauI : VaI4ry Vi vant (1946), p. 78: "It is strange, but my i n t i macy with his poetry has been largely due to my study of what he has written about poetry." ^ G e n e s i u s Jones, Approach to the Purpose: A Study of the Poetry of T. S. EI i o t . New York: Barnes and TJob I e, 1966 C I9o4~T. In his avowed purpose o f e x p li c a tin g Dante's influence on E l i o t , Philip Headings is much less s u c c e s s - f u l: T. S. E l i o t . TUAS 57, New York: Twayne, 1964. 2 3 4 j i n t e r e s t i n g l y enough, is Tennyson.3^ However, a number of other w riter s E li o t has mentioned, among them George Herbert, St£phane Mallarm£, and Edward Lear,35 have been ignored by a ll c r i t i c s ; and to that l i s t must be added the jmost important of a l l : Saint-John Perse. I Considering E l i o t ' s method of alluding to litera ry t e x t s to carry or r elea s e meaning and his dedicated study ! | of other poets to develop his own c r a f t , it is odd that no one has pursued the p o s s i b i l i t y that Perse may have exerted j some influence on E lio t through the Anabasi s t r a n s la t io n . i j Indeed, c r i t i c s have pursued other p o s s i b i l i t i e s of in- ! jflu e n c e having far le ss b asis, among them Guillaume j Apo I I i nai re, Paul Claudel, and Walt Whitman. 36 ^ncj those | who have recognized the r e l a tio n s h i p between the two poets c o n s i s t e n t l y have minimized the debt E lio t owes his French ^ S. Musgrove, "Appendix: E l i o t and Tennyson," T. S. EI i ot and Wa 11 Whi tman (New York: Haskel I House, 1965" ; C 1948 1 ), pp. 85-69. Also, see pp. 39-47. | ^ I g o r Stravinsky, "Memories of T. S. E l i o t , " Esqu i r e . LXIV, 2 (August, 1965), p. 92. 36Ren6 Taupin, L'Influence du SymboIi sme Franca i s sur la Po^si e Amgricaine, de 1910 £ 1920 (Pari s. 1929), p. 220. Bruce Morr i s s e t t e , ^T. S. E li o t and Gui I Iaume A p o llin a ir e ," Comparati ve Li t e r a t u r e . V (Summer, 1953), pp. 262-268. Herbert Howarth, Notes on Some Fi qures Behi nd T. S. E li o t (Boston, 1964), ppT T52^T677 S. Musgrove, T. S. Eli ot and WaIt Whi tman. 2 3 5 i j j contemporary. ^ Yet ft is not d i f f i c u l t to see that the understanding p rer e q u isite to a competent tr a n s la tio n like > Anabasis would be bound to exert some kind of pressure on a poet like E lio t who was so s u s c e p tib le to pressure sym- | ! pathetic to his own d ev ic es. E li o t himself gives us a hint of the extent of Perse's influence in his "Forward" to Joseph C h i a r i' s anthology, Contemporary French Poetry (1952): I could wish that more space could have been j given to St.-John Perse, not only for the i n t r i n s i c l value o f h is poems, but because I think he will prove to have had a greater influence upon Anglo- American verse than is yet r e c o g n ized .38 E l i o t ' s references to Perse in his published work are rare, his remarks on Perse's e f f e c t on him even rarer. ! Something beyond his normal r e t i c e n c e , except when ca lled on to write or speak about a li te r a r y fig u r e , can explain t h i s . Between 1925 and 1940, the diplomat Alexis Leger rebuffed a ll attempts to involve him in the French litera ry scene; he had determined to devote himself e x c l u s i v e ly to ; his diplomatic career; he did not want the world of Saint- i John Perse to impinge on his work at the Quai d'Orsay. 37 See Chapter I, pages 15-22. -^T. S. E l i o t , "Forward," Contemporary French Poetry, ed. Joseph Chiari (Manchester, 1^52), p. I"4. ^ P res u m ab ly , he was n o t o v e r l y p l e a s e d by E l i o t ' s d e c i s i o n t o t r a n s l a t e h i s A n ab ase i n t o E n g l i s h . A c c o r d i n g t o A r t h u r K n o d e l, upon p u b l i c a t i o n o f Ana basi s P e r s e a s k e d E l i o t to r e f r a i n from c a l l i n g a t t e n t i o n t o h i s p o e t r y and c e r t a i n l y t o h i s d i p l o m a t i c c a r e e r . - ^ E l i o t c o m p l i e d w i t h P e r s e ' s r e q u e s t and w r o t e n o t h i n g a b o u t t h e F r e n c h p o e t e x c e p t what he n ee d ed t o say i n h i s " P r e f a c e " t o t h e 1930 e d i t i o n o f A n a b a s i s . Even a f t e r P e r s e had f l e d t o t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s and r e t u r n e d t o p o e t r y , E l i o t r e m a i n e d s i l e n t u n t i l J e a n j p a u l h a n r e q u e s t e d s o m e t h i n g from him f o r t h e Cahi e r s de la I I P I 4 i a d e : Hommage I n t e r n a t ionaI S Sai n t - J o h n P e r s e ( 1950). E l i o t ' s l e t t e r t o P a u l h a n c o n t a i n s a c r y p t i c , b u t s p e c i f i c a d m i s s i o n o f P e r s e ' s i n f l u e n c e on h i s own p o e t r y . I | Mais on v o i t s o n i n f l u e n c e C P e r s e J d a n s q u e l a u e s - u n s d e s pofemes que j ' g c r i v i s aprfcs a v o i r a c h e v e la t r a d u c t i o n : i n f l u e n c e d es images e t p e u t - ^ t r e a u s s i du r y t h m e . Ceux qui e x a m i n e r o n t mes d e r n i e r s o u v r a g e s t r o u v e r o n t p e u t - t t r e que c e t t e i n f l u e n c e p e r s i s t e t o u i j o u r s . ^ As will be s e e n , t h i s i s a c l a s s i c ex a m p le o f u n d e r s t a t e - I m e n t . 3 9 i n a p r i v a t e c o n v e r s a t i o n , A r t h u r Knodel i n f o r m e d me o f t h i s a g r e e m e n t betw e e n P e r s e and E l i o t which he had l e a r n e d from P e r s e h i m s e l f . S. E l i o t , "Un f e u i l l e t u n i q u e , " S a i n t - J o h n P e r s e : Hommage I n t e r n a t i ona I d es ' C a h n e r s djj J_a P1 4\ ad e ' ("Par i s, ^ t £ - a u t o m n e , 19 5 0 ) , p. ti. 1 To b e g i n t h i s a n a l y s i s o f P e r s e ' s i n f l u e n c e on E l i o t , i no word s a r e more a p r o p o s t h a n t h e f o l l o w i n g by G e n e s i u s i J o n e s : i ! My d i s s a t i s f a c t i o n w i t h t h o s e who hav e p u b l i s h e d I r e c o r d s o f t h e a l l u s i o n s in Mr. E l i o t ' s p o e t r y i s I t h a t t h e y h a v e n o t shown in many i n s t a n c e s t h e i s p e c i f i c p o i n t o f t h e a l l u s i o n s , or f i t t e d them i n t o an o r g a n i c a l l u s i v e f u n c t i o n ; and o f t e n , w i t h n o t h i n g t o g u i d e them, hav e f r e e - a s s o c i a t e d a l i n e o r p h r a s e w i t h an i r r e l e v a n t b a t c h o f l i t e r a r y e c h o e s . 4-1 A t e l l i n g ex ample o f J o n e s ' c r i t i c i s m i s S. M u s g r o v e ’s T. 3_. EI i o t and Wa 11 Whi tman (194-8). In an a t t e m p t " t o examine what t h e r e i s in E l i o t t h a t can be a s c r i b e d t o an 42 a b i d i n g memory o f W h itm an ," Musgrove l o o s e s a t o r r e n t o f f r e e l y a s s o c i a t e d p a r a l l e l s t h a t q u i c k l y c a r r i e s one i n t o a m a e l s t r o m o f c o n f u s i o n . The p o i n t o f a s t u d y o f l i t e r a r y i n d e b t e d n e s s i s t h a t i t s h o u l d show e i t h e r t h a t any demon s t r a b l e a l l u s i o n s or q u o t a t i o n s have a d e f i n i t e f u n c t i o n in t h e work o f a w r i t e r , or t h a t any s o u r c e or i n f l u e n c e f i t s i n t o o r c r e a t e s a d i s c e r n i b l e p a t t e r n in h i s work. O t h e r - w i s e , such a s t u d y becomes a l i s t o f v e r y d u b i o u s v a l u e . A l s o , a s t u d y o f i n d e b t e d n e s s m ust show i n t h e b e g i n n i n g t h a t a w r i t e r had some kno w led g e o f t h e s o u r c e from which he a l l e g e d l y b o rr o w ed o r l e a r n e d ; o t h e r w i s e , p a r a l l e l s ^ G e n e s i u s J o n e s , A ppro ach t o t h e P u r p o s e . p. 155. 4-2 s . M usgro ve, T. S. El i o t and Wa 11 Whi t m a n . p. 10. I become c o i n c i d e n t a l . I In t h e f o l l o w i n g p a g e s , t h e n , I p r o p o s e t o e l u c i d a t e ; t h e s e v e r a l ways in which t h e p o e t r y of S a i n t - J o h n P e r s e i n f l u e n c e d t h a t o f T. S. E l i o t . S i n c e E l i o t a p p a r e n t l y | f i r s t became aw are o f P e r s e ' s p o e t r y in 1925 and s e t o u t t o t r a n s l a t e i t in 1926, o n l y t h o s e wo rks o f E l i o t p u b l i s h e d a f t e r t h a t d a t e can p o s s i b l y hav e been i n f l u e n c e d by t h e F r e n c h p o e t . These i n c l u d e a l l o f E l i o t ' s poems from " J o u r n e y o f t h e Magi" (1 9 2 7 ) t o L i t t l e Giddi ng (194-2) and ! hi s two p l a y s , The Rock ( 1 9 3 4 ) and Murder i n t h e C a t h e d r a I ( 1 9 3 5 ) . ^ S i n c e P e r s e p u b l i s h e d no p o e t r y b etw e e n 1925 and 1942, o n ly h i s f i r s t two vo lumes o f p o e t r y , £ Io ges (1 9 2 5 ) and Anabase ( 1 9 2 4 ) , which E l i o t r e a d in 1925, ca n hav e l e f t a mark on E l i o t ' s work. Becaus e o f E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n , Anabase a s s u m es a l m o s t s o l e i m p o r t a n c e . In t h i s c h a p t e r I have a v a i l e d m y s e l f o f what I b e l i e v e a r e t h e best- i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s o f t h e poems w i t h i n t h e s c o p e o f t h i s a n a l y s i s . I have p u r s u e d t h e l e a d s o f i ; s e v e r a l c r i t i c s and p r o f i t e d g r e a t l y from t h e b l i n d a l l e y s and dead e n d s o f o t h e r s . W he re ver p o s s i b l e I have d o c u mented my own i n d e b t e d n e s s t o them. My p u r p o s e i s t o b r i n g 43 I hav e e x c l u d e d t h e l a s t f o u r p l a y s , The Fami Iy Re- u n i o n ( 19 3 9), The C o c k t a i I P a r t y ( 19 4 9 ) , The C o n f i d e n t ! ' a T Cl e r k ( 1953), ancT The E l d e r S t a t e s m a n (\9 5 & T , b e c a u s e t h e y show no e v i d e n c e o ? ~ P e r s e a n i n f I u e n c e . i the weight of P e r s e ' s influence on E l i o t to bear on the ' und ers tan d in g and a p p r e c i a t i o n of the Anglo-American p o e t ' s J w ork . I hav e no i n t e n t i o n s o f u s u r p i n g D a n t e ' s p l a c e of i m p o r t a n c e i n E l i o t ' s p o e t r y and i n s t a l l i n g P e r s e in h i s i s t e a d . D a n t e i s u n q u e s t i o n a b l y t h e m a s t e r b e h i n d E l i o t ' s w ork . Nor do I wish t o a r g u e t h a t t h e i n f l u e n c e o f P e r s e on E l i o t i s g r e a t e r t h a n t h a t o f any o t h e r F re n c h p o e t . In E l i o t ' s e a r l y p o e t r y , L a f o r g u e i s t h e d o m i n a n t and some t i m e s e x c l u s i v e i n f l u e n c e ; in t h e l a t e r p o e t r y P e r s e has t h e r o l e , e s p e c i a l l y in m a t t e r s o f t e c h n i q u e . My main i n t e r e s t i n t h i s s t u d y i s t h e s i g n i f i c a n c e o f P e r s e ' s i n f l u e n c e on E l i o t ' s p o e t r y . I t i s my c o n t e n t i o n t h a t an u n d e r s t a n d i n g of t h i s i n f l u e n c e h e l p s e x p l a i n t h e c o m p a r a - S t i v e s u c c e s s and f a i l u r e o f a number o f E l i o t ' s poems and t h a t i t c l a r i f i e s some d e v e l o p m e n t s in h i s p o e t i c t e c h n i q u e . One poem, " J o u r n e y o f t h e Magi" ( 1 9 2 7 ) , I t h i n k , p r o v i d e s t h e c l e a r e s t i n t r o d u c t i o n t o t h e k i n d o f i n f l u e n c e ! S a i n t - J o h n P e r s e had on E l i o t ' s p o e t r y . E l i o t h i m s e l f once s i n g l e d i t o u t , t o Edward J, H. G r e e n e , as b e a r i n g some s i m i l a r i t y t o t h e F renc h p o e t ' s w o r k . ^ " J o u r n e y o f t h e Magi" i s E l i o t ' s f i r s t c o m m is s io n e d poem, w r i t t e n e x p r e s s l y ^ E d w a r d J. H. G re e n e , T. S. EI i o t e t la F r a n c e (Paris* 1951), p. 136, f o o t n o t e I. 2 4 0 i j J f o r p u b l i c a t i o n in t h e A r i e l s e r i e s o f C h r i s t m a s poems on ( s h i l l i n g g r e e t i n g c a r d s w h ich E l i o t ' s c o l l e a g u e , G e o f f r e y F a b e r , had i n a u g u r a t e d in 1927 a t F aber and F a b e r . And i t i s h i s f i r s t e x p l i c i t l y C h r i s t i a n work, t h e f i r s t t o f o l l o w i h i s c o n f i r m a t i o n in t h e A n g l i c a n C h u r c h , w i t h an a p p r o p r i a t e C h r i s t m a s c a r d t h em e: t h e w i s e m e n ' s j o u r n e y t o p r a i s e i l C h r i s t ' s b i r t h . These f a c t s n o r m a l l y would lead one to j e x p e c t a r a t h e r m e d i o c r e poem; i n s t e a d , what one f i n d s i s a r e m a r k a b I e o n e . " J o u r n e y o f t h e Magi" i s a m o n o lo g u e, as a r e s e v e r a l o f E l i o t ' s e a r l i e r poems: i t s n a r r a t o r can n e i t h e r b e l i e v e nor d i s b e l i e v e , and he i s r e s i g n e d t o a l o s t p a s t , an u n a c c e p t a b l e p r e s e n t , and an unknown f u t u r e . But u n l i k e t h o s e o t h e r n a r r a t o r s who, f o r a l l t h e i r c o m p l e x i t i e s , i n h a b i t a c o n t e m p o r a r y w o r l d , t h i s n a r r a t o r i s a h i s t o r i c a l f i g u r e who s p e a k s a t a s p e c i f i c moment in h i s t o r y , some y e a r s a f t e r C h r i s t ' s b i r t h and i n a kingdom t o t h e e a s t o f P a l e s t i n e w h e r e , a s one o f t h e m a g i, he m e d i t a t e s on t h e | meaning o f h i s e x p e r i e n c e . In " P r u f r o c k , " " G e r o n t i o n , " and The Waste Land ( a l t h o u g h c e r t a i n s i t u a t i o n s and s c e n e s r e c a l l o r embody t h e h i s t o r i c a I , r e l i g i o u s , o r l i t e r a r y p a s t ) t h e n a r r a t o r i n h a b i t s t h e modern w o r l d . In " J o u r n e y o f t h e Magi" he l i v e s in an a n c i e n t kingdom o r b a r b a r i c c i v i I i z a t i o n , u n e a s y in t h e m i d s t o f t r a n s i t i o n . The n a r - i i r a t o r o f A n a b a s e . which El io t had j u s t t r a n s l a t e d i n f i r s t I draft form, inhabited a sim ilar barbaric world. Besides, i ! I ! P erse's narrator a ls o had to enter and cross the desert on : a journey of s p i r i t u a l , as well as p h ysical, f u l f i l l m e n t . In h is case a vision was both i t s beginning and i t s end, the recovery of the ancestral dream in Canto v/ and the ! I I dream of the future in Canto X. In the case of the magus ' j the vision Christ brought, alluded to in stanza two, was I j i t s unrecognized end, as revealed in stanza three. This suggests that the choice of narrator and theme for "Journey i j of the Magi" may have come as much from E l i o t ' s t r a n s la t io n ! of Anabase as i t did from his reading one of Lancelot Andrewes' Christmas sermons, from which he l i f t e d with few changes the f i r s t f i v e lines of the poem.^5 Firmer e v i dence of Anabase1s influence on "Journey of the Magi," j however, l i e s in the l a t t e r ' s d ic t i o n , imagery, and rhythm. Only Grover C. Smith has noticed the resemblance be tween the imagery in E l i o t ' s poem and that in Anabase. and ^Most c r i t i c s have noticed t h i s borrowing, which E li o t conveniently quotes in his essay on "Lancelot And rewes"; some have even thought the poem derived nearly completely from the Anglican Bishop— i . e . , Helen Gardner, The Art of T. S. Eli ot (New York: Dutton, 1950), pp. 122— 125; Hugh Kenner. The I n v i s i b l e P o e t : T. S. E li o t (New York: Obolensky, 1959), pp. 244-9. The pFose rhythm and syntax of the sermons do seem to have influenced E l i o t ' s s t y l e , and Andrewes' obsession with the meaning of words may have inspired E l i o t ' s verbal play with Bi rth and D eath: T. S. E l i o t , "Lancelot Andrewes (1926)," Selected Essays, new ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1950), p. 305. I he was c o n t e n t t o make l i t t l e o f i t . ^ 6 Yet t h e b u l k o f th e i ! ■ I f i r s t s t a n z a , l i n e s 6 - 1 5 , owes much t o t h e im ager y o f I | C a n t o s VI-IX in A n a b a s e . And t h e c a m e l s g a l l e d , s o r e - f o o t e d , r e f r a c t o r y , Lying down in th e m elting snow. Th ere were t i m e s we r e g r e t t e d The summer p a l a c e s on s l o p e s , t h e t e r r a c e s , And t h e s i l k e n g i r l s b r i n g i n g s h e r b e t . i Then t h e camel men c u r s i n g and g r u m b l i n g I And r u n n i n g away, and w a n t i n g t h e i r l i q u o r and women, I And t h e n i g h t - f i r e s g o i n g o u t , and t h e la c k o f s h e l t e r ^ j And t h e c i t i e s h o s t i l e and t h e town s u n f r i e n d l y ! And t h e v i l l a g e s d i r t y and charging hi gh p r i c e s : A h a r d t i m e we had o f i t . ; The r e s t i n g c a m e l s may r e c a l l t h e s t r i k i n g m e t a p h o r o f h i l l s l i k e c a m e l s in C an to VI I . ^ L i n e s 8 - 1 0 , h o w e v e r, a r e c l e a r l y a c o m p o s i t e o f s e v e r a l images l i f t e d o u t o f t h e b e- 48 g i n n i n g o f C an to VI. ^ G r o v e r C. S m ith , T. S. E l i o t 1 s P o e t r y and P l a y s : A S tu dy i n S o u r c e s and Meani ngs (Chi c a g o l 6 h i c a g o U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 19 6 0 ) , p . 123. ^ " C h a r n e l i e s d o u c e s s o u s la t o n t e , c o u s u e s de mauves c i c a t r i c e s , que Ies col l i n e s s ' a c h e m i n e n t s o u s Ie s d o n n £ e s i du d e l a g r a i r e — q u ' e l l e s c h e m i n e n t en s i l e n c e s u r I e s i n- ; c a n d e s c e n c e s p d l e s de la p l a i n e ; e t s ' a g e n o u i I I e n t & la fin, d a n s la fum£e d e s s o n g e s . . . . " D e s p i t e P e r s e ' s e f f o r t s t o c o r r e c t hi m , E l i o t c o n t i n u e d t o m i s t r a n s l a t e t h i s l i n e in t h e f i r s t t h r e e e d i t i o n s o f Ana basi s — c a l l i n g more a t t e n t i o n t o t h e c a m e l s t h a n t o t h e hi I I s . One s h o u l d no t f o r g e t , o f c o u r s e , t h a t c a m e l s a r e a p a r t o f t h e t r a d i t i o n al C h r i s t i a n s t o r y o f t h e t h r e e w i s e men. ^ L e o n a r d Unger t r i e s t o s e e in t h e s e l i n e s an echo o f J o s e p h C o n r a d ' s s t o r y , "An O u t p o s t o f P r o g r e s s . " Un ger, " L a f o r g u e , C o n r a d , and E l i o t , " T. S. E l i o t : Moments and P a t t e r n s ( M i n n e a p o l i s : U n i v e r s i t y o f M i n n e s o t a P r e s s . 1 9 6 5 7 , PP. 1 4 6 - 1 4 7 . Omnipotent in our g r e a t m i l i t a r y governments, with our scented g i r l s clad in a breath of si Ik webs, we s e t in high p la c e s our s p rin g e s fo r happiness. Plenty and w e l l - b e i n g , happiness! For so long the ice sang in our g l a s s e s , like Memnon. . . And d e f l e c t i n g a c r o s s in g of l i g h t s to the co rn e rs of t e r r a c e s , g r e a t charges of gold held up by the handmaidens, smote the w eariness of the sands, at the c o n f in e s of the world. This b r i e f passage, coming a t the c e n t e r of the f i r s t stanza of "Journey of the Magi," allow s a backward look at the s u n l i t luxury and ease which the magi have l e f t to embark on a long, co ld , and arduous journey of dubious consequence. The r e t u r n to th e s e lands in stanza t h r e e , however, we re tu rn e d to our p l a c e s , th e se Kingdoms, But no longer a t ease h e re , in the old d i s p e n s a t i o n . c o n t r a s t s sh a rp ly with th e development of the journey in Anabase. At the end of Canto VI, the n a r r a t o r imagines a r e t u r n ". . . one evening, des cen t in to the c o a s t provinces, towards our lands of g r e a t ease and towards our / 's cen te d g i r l s , who s h a ll soothe us with a b re a t h , s i l k e n webs . . . ’ ." I n s t e a d , h i s a n a b a s i s ends f a r o f f in the Western Provinces among o th e r women. In "Journey of the Magi," some of the f o r c e of E l i o t ' s co n clu sio n comes in the n a r r a t o r ’s v i s i o n of ", . . an a l i e n people c l u t c h i n g t h e i r gods. . . ," which c o n t r a s t s i r o n i c a l l y with "the s i l k e n g i r l s brin g in g s h e r b e t" in the f i r s t s t a n z a . The magus r e t u r n s home profoundly d i s t u r b e d , a s t r a n g e r to his ! land and among his people. i The imagery in the f i r s t stanza of "Journey of the t Magi" seems to have been stimulated p a r t i a l l y by E l i o t ' s j t r a n s la tio n of Perse's Anabase. The second stanza at f i r s t ; seems unrelated in any way to that poem, but the p r in c ip le behind i t s conjunction of imagery a c tu a lly resembles P er se 's . Both poets were adept at joining seemingly un related images in e l l i p t i c a l patterns to create a puzzling ' and, u ltim a te l y , powerful e f f e c t . As E lio t discovered in | reading Anabase. the plenitude of concrete imagery quickly seduced a reader with i t s unusually vivid p recision and force. Only a f t e r several readings, however, did one begin to see c l e a r ly the anabasis pattern, the conceptual design, which a c tu a lly c o n tr o ls that imagery. But t h i s design is subordinate, c e r ta in ly at f i r s t , to the immediacy of the imagery. In his early poetry, E li o t frequently joined isolate d urban images in e l l i p t i c a l patterns; but his 49 purpose primarily was connotative, to o b j e c t if y an emotion. | The emotion or f e e l i n g , then, co n trolled the choice and pattern of imagery. In the poems from "Gerontion" to The ^ M o s t of E l i o t ' s more important poems of t h i s period employ these patterns; "The Love Song of J. Alfred Pruf- rock," "Preludes," and "Rhapsody on a Windy Night." Also, see E l i o t ' s remarks on the "objective co r r e la tiv e " in "Ham let and h is Problems." The Sacred Wood (London: Metheun. 1920), p. 100. 2 4 5 Ho I Iow Men. E liot tended to employ e l l i p t i c a l patterns of imagery for a d i f f e r e n t end, to symbolize a c o n d i t i o n . 50 For the most part, the imagery is subordinated to the sym bolized condition or conceptual design. The surreal i imagery of The Waste Land. V (I I . 378-385) is an important | e x c e p t i o n . 51 i In "Journey of the Magi" the second stanza seems to reveal a further development of E l i o t ' s use of e l l i p t i c a l imagery patterns. Then at dawn we came down to a temperate v a lle y . Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation, With a running stream and a water-mill beating the / d a r k n e s s , And three tr e e s on the low sky. And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we came to a tavern with vine-1 eaves over the / l i n t e l , Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of s i l v e r , And f e e t kicking the empty w ine-skins. These is o la te d concrete images describe the natural land scape of the valley into which the magi have traveled at the end of th e ir journey. As the story goes in Sai nt 5Qfhe Waste Land i s p a r tic u l a r ly iI I u s t r a t i v e , for i t s widely d { verse patterns of imagery are united by the c y c l i c myth of degeneration and regeneration. 5 , The strangeness of t h i s imagery a r i s e s from i t s vivid literaT d escrip tion and not from i t s symbolic mean ing, which i s rather obscure. By con trast, the strangeness of the imagery at the beginning of The Ho 11ow Men. II stems from the obscurity of i t s reference, for the literaT"^ d e s c r ip tio n is quite vague. I Matthew, 2, they are given no information and find the I ' Christ child on th e ir own: . . i t was (you may say) s a t i s f a c t o r y . " This sequence of imagery is the most memo rable in the whole poem, and E li o t him self has confessed i that at least two of the images are engraved deeply in his m e m o r y ,52 But the a t t e n t i v e reader is arrested at line 24, for the "three tr e e s on the low sky" seem to allude to the C rucifixion. From t h is point on, a strange s u ggestiven ess 1 invades the poem, to be heightened in line 27 by the ap parent a l l u s i o n to the s o l d i e r s c astin g lots at the foot of the cross and to the betrayal money of J u d a s . 53 The image ry seems to foreshadow the l i f e and death of Christ; but since i t i s not yet charged, e s p e c i a l l y for the magus, with 54 symbolic s i g n i f i c a n c e , i t remains mysteriously s u g g e stiv e . T. S. E l i o t , The Use of Poetry and the Use of Cr i t i c i sm (London: Faber ancJ"“Fab er, I $33), p. 148. It is i ntr i gui ng to imagine E li o t himself as the narrator when some o f t h i s imagery is so personal. 53Grover C. Smith (T. S. Eli o t ' s Poetry and PI a y s , pp. 123-4) and Genesius Jones (An Approach to tne Purpose, pp. 196-207) indulge in some ir rele v a n t speculation on the r e l i g i o u s meaning of t h i s whole stanza. S. Musgrove (T. S. E lio t and Walt Whitman, p. 66) mistakenly t r i e s to paral lel much o f thi s i magery with Whitman. -^The imagery here is quite orthodox and simple; the mystery comes from i t s a l l u s i v e s u g g estiv en es s. By con t r a s t , in lines 378-385 of The Waste Land. V, the mystery comes from the imagery's IiteraI reference which i s highly unorthodox. I In "Journey of the Magi," then, a suggested conceptual de- I sign (unrecognized by the narrator), and not an emotion or a d e f i n i t e symbolic con dition , co n tr o ls the second stan z a's imagery. But, as in Perse's Anabase. that suggestiven ess | is subordinated to the immediacy of the imagery. It i s quite p o s sib le that E l i o t ' s development of e l l i p t i c a l j I imagery patterns here is indebted to h is t r a n s la tio n of I | Anabase. In any case, t h i s comparison of the two poets reveals E l i o t ' s mastery of the technique by which he in tr o - j duced, in "Journey of the Magi," a theme which later became j central in Four Q u artets: "We had the experience and j missed the meaning. . . ." (Dry SaIvaqes. I I ). ! The influence of the Anabasi s tr a n s la tio n on "Journey I of the Magi" can als o be seen b r i e f l y in i t s rhythm. There is no experimentation here with the long verse E lio t later used to advantage in the choruses of The Rock and Murder i n the Cathedra I. but the basic metric of the poem is quite unusual in E l i o t ' s poetry: a " fa lli n g rhythm eith er of I two-or-three-syI IabIe f e e t and with f i v e or six f e e t in a v e r s e . T h e rhythms of Anabase could hardly have in fluenced E lio t in his choice of t h i s metric, but the syntax of the poem at one point does seem to suggest some 5 5 s i s t e r M. Martin Barry, 0. P., An Anaiysi s of the Prosod i c Structure of SeIected Poems of T. S. EIi o t . new ed (Wash i ngton: Catholic University of America Press, 1969), p. 46. 2 4 8 j in f l u e n c e , d e s p i t e E l i o t ' s a l le g e d debt to Lancelot Andrewes. The passage comes in stanza one immediately fol-J lowing the images l i f t e d from Canto VI: i i Then th e camel men cu rs in g and grumbling J And running away, and wanting t h e i r liquor and women, And the n i g h t - f i r e s going o u t, and the lack of j / s h e l t e r s , I And the c i t i e s h o s t i l e and the towns u n f r ie n d l y And the v i l l a g e s d i r t y and charging high p r i c e s : A hard time we had of i t . E l i o t employs t h i s long s e r i e s of gerundial phrases in ap p o s i t i o n to "hard time ( to g e t h e r with polysyndeton and the cae su ra of a l l i t e r a t i v e vers e) to e f f e c t i v e l y convey the monotony and misery of the m a g i's journey. However, such 56 a s e r i e s has no precedent in h i s e a r l i e r p o e try . Might i t not have been suggested by th e homologous s e r i e s so c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of S a in t-Jo h n P e r s e ' s p oetry, e s p e c i a l l y Anabase ( i . e . , Cantos I, IV, and X)? I would like to think so, fo r t h i s passage seems to i n i t i a t e a p a t t e r n of homologous s e r i e s in E l i o t ' s subsequent poetry. "Journey of the Magi," then, is exemplary of the I p o s i t i v e in fl u e n c e E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n of Anabase had on ^ " P re lu d e s , I" c o n t a in s a s e r i e s of urban images, but they form several independent c l a u s e s . "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" in c lu d e s a number of sharp images in a p p o s i t i o n , but they are simple nouns s e p a r a t e d by s u b o rd in a te c l a u s e s and phrases. "Gerontion" has a s e r i e s of nouns in li n e s 21- 2 9, but they are divided in to several phrases of simple c o o r d i n a t i o n . The Waste Land. V c o n t a in s a sh o rt s e r i e s much like t h a t in " G e rontion." *" I h is own poetry in i t s choice of a n a r r a t o r , i t s imagery, ! , and i t s rhythm. C l e a r l y , h is borrowings from Perse were i anything but s e r v i l e . As t h i s f i r s t " A riel" poem i l l u s t r a t e s , E l i o t fash io n ed them to h is own s t y l e and t a s t e , i and to the i n t e r n a l demands of in d iv id u a l poems. In la t e r i i poems, however, h is experiments in i n t e g r a t i n g what he learned from Perse i n t o his own work do not always succeed. i In those works (Ash-Wednesday. "Marina," Cor i oI a n . and the choruses from The Rock and Mu rd e r i n th e Cathedra I ) one can see c l e a r l y th e ex te n t of E l i o t ' s learning from Perse and i t s s i g n i f i c a n c e in judging the success of h is own work. [ The p e r s i s t e n c e of P e r s e ' s in f l u e n c e on E l i o t ' s verse p r e t t y c l e a r l y fo llow s the l i n e s E l i o t h im s e lf noted in h is l e t t e r to Jean Paulhan in 194-9: " in flu e n c e des images et p e u t - e t r e aussi du rythme." The " in flu e n c e des images," however, is e a s i l y the more v i s i b l e of the two. The s im p le s t way to dem onstrate the p e r s i s t e n c e of t h i s in flu e n c e is to observe s p e c i f i c words, p h ra s e s , and images ! t h a t occur throughout the Anglo-American p o e t ' s work, from "Journey o f th e Magi" on, and which can be tra c e d back to the f i r s t few v e r s io n s of the Anabasi s t r a n s l a t i o n . These occur in no le ss than h a l f a dozen poems. In " D i f f i c u l t i e s of a Statesman" the p h r a s e , " . . . the f l e t c h e r s and ja v e Iin -m a k e rs and sm iths. . . . , " is rem in is cen t of several r e f e r e n c e s in the long homologous I s e r i e s in Anabasis, Canto X: ", . . the h e a l e r with i ■ i n e e d le s , and the s a l t e r ; the to I I - g a t h e r e r s , the smith . . . ." and ", . . he who drags a dead eagle like a | faggot on h is t r a c k s (and the plumage is given, not sold, I i f o r f l e t c h i n g ) . . . ." The v a rio u s committees and com m issions and t h e i r a c t i v i t i e s a l s o remind one of several enumerations in t h i s same canto and in Canto IV. Two years l a t e r , in "Choruses from The Rock" E l i o t uses the e p i t h e t of S tran g er to d e s c r i b e the symbolic f i g u r e of The Rock (who r e p r e s e n t s S aint P e t e r ) in choruses I and I I I . The Rock. The Watcher. The S tr a n g e r . He who has seen what has happened And who sees what is to happen. The Witness. The C r i t i c . The S tra n g e r. When the S tran g er says: "What is the meaning of t h i s / c i ty ? Do you huddle c l o s e t o g e t h e r because you love each / o th e r? " • • • • And the S tra n g e r wi I I d e p a r t and r e t u r n to the d e s e r t . 0 my soul, be prepared fo r the coming of the S tr a n g e r , Be prepared fo r him who knows how to ask q u e s t i o n s . ; Si nee "I ’S t r a n g e r " of Anabase resembles The Rock (he, too, comes from the d e s e r t to i n s p i r e ) , i t may be t h a t E l i o t had t h a t poem in mind in c r e a t i n g h i s c h a r a c t e r . Then, in the f i r s t chorus o f h is second play, Murder in the C a t h e d r a l . E l i o t seems to have remembered from A n a b a s is . Canto VII, th e phrase, "Sulphur c o l o u r, honey c o l o u r, colour of im mortal t h i n g s , the whole grassy e a r t h . . . . , " along with | the parenthetical remark "(Man colour)" from the beginning J of Canto VIII, in the lin e , "And the labourer bends to his piece of earth, earth-colour, his own colour. . . And j in the chorus's presentiment of evi I at the end of Part I, I i he also seems to have drawn on another image from Canto i I j VII, "— and from the green sponge of a lone tree the day i draws i t s v i o l e t j u i c e s , " for "What is the s ic k ly smell, the vapour? The dark green light from a cloud on a with ered tree?""^ In his last long poem, Li t t I e Gi ddi ng. the meeting be tween E li o t and "a fam iliar compound ghost," in the second ( movement, opens with the latter . . . walking, lo i t e r i n g and hurried As i f blown towards me like the metal leaves Before the urban dawn wind u n r e s is tin g . In the o r ig in a l manuscript of t h i s poem, however, E l i o t had f i r s t w ritten " l i t t l e dawn w i n d . "5® The source of t h is C7 Edward J. H. Greene, th erefo re , is mistaken in his i T. S. El i ot et j_a France (Paris, 1951), p. 136: "Les oeuvres ctramaTiques d ' E l i o t , The Rock (1934). Murder i n the Cathedra I (1935), et The Family Reunion (1939), ne portent pas de trace s d 'in flu e n c e frangai s e . " 5®T. S. E l i o t , C L i t t l e Gidding J Xerox of MS in Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge, England C n . p . , n.d. J (Houghton Library MS Am 16354), p.C3J. The a l l u s i o n to Dante's encounter with Brunetto Latini in the Inferno. XV is clea r in the ms., for E li o t has the narrator cry out in greeting, "Are you here, Sir Brunetto?" | 2 5 2 | iwording probably is in Canto I of Anabas i s . in the c a t a logue of men addressed by the narrator, where E li o t tran s la te s one phrase as . . breakers of camp in the l i t t l e dawn wind. . . leveurs de campements dans le p e t i t vent de I'aube. . . This image, if retained, perhaps would have been more s u c c e s s f u l l y ambiguous; for while it would seem to have threatened destruction in the jair raid, it would have foreshadowed more c le a r ly the s p ir it u a l experience to come.^® In t h i s , the image would have pa ra lleled more c l o s e l y the dual role of f i r e through out the poem as death and p u r i f i c a t i o n . F in a lly , in the f i f t h movement of L i t t l e Gi dding one fin d s the word com merce used in the sense of i t s French meaning (now rare in E nglish): ". . . An easy commerce of the old and the new. . ." It is not unlikely that E lio t had in mind eith er the f i r s t canto of Anabase. ". . . So I haunted the City of your dreams, and I estab lish ed on the d esolate markets the 5 9 £ |j o t i s also alluding, of course, to the trembling sea wind at dawn in Purgator i o . _I_» pp. I 15-1 17. In "Dif f i c u l t i e s of a Statesman" and in East Coker. _ I_ one finds a sim ilar a ll u s i o n to t h i s r e l i g i o u s experience. Herbert Howarth is probably incorrect in describing t h i s last image as a blend of Perse and Tennyson: Notes on Seme Fi gures Be hi nd T. S. EI i o t . p. 289. ^ S e e Genesius Jones' in t e r e s t i n g a n a ly s is of wind imagery in E l i o t ' s poetry: Approach to the Purpose, pp. 207-12. However, Jones is dismayingly extravagant in his remarks on t h i s particular passage. 2 5 3 I pure commerce of my soul. . . or the French periodical I edited by Larbaud, Fargue, and Valery (and Perse) and pub lished by Marguerite Caetani, the t i t l e of which originated i . from that very passage in Anabase. : Although it p e r s i s t s through E l i o t ' s last published i i volume of poetry, Perse's "influence des images" i s most j important in two poems written about the time that the I Anabasis tr a n s la t io n was f i r s t published. In one, "Dif- I — —— — — f i c u l t i e s of a Statesman," E lio t took an image from the I I openinq song of Anabasis. ". . . under the most consider- i | able of the tr e e s of the year," to describe further the I "palm tree at noon" from "Triumphal March": " . . . A s t i l l i j moment, repose at noon, set under the upper branches of ! noon's widest tr e e . . . . 1 In f a c t , the images used to suggest "the s t i l l point of the turning world" in both poems of Cor i oI an r e c a l l , not only the tree of Anabasi s . I personally do not think the meaning of noon in | "Triumphal March" and e s p e c i a l l y as it is stressed i n "Dif f i c u l t i e s of a Statesman" has been adequately explained. Donald F. Theall a s s o c i a t e s the "palm tree at noon" with the sacrament of the Eucharist, but without giving reasons: "Traditional Satire in E l i o t ' s 'C oriolan,'" Accent. XI, 4 (Autumn, 1951), p. 201. Genesius Jones makes it an a l lusion to Dante's Purqatorio (Approach to the Purpose, p. 123), but in fa c t he refers to a time oT~ni ghtfaI I . Un fo r tu n a te ly , Grover Smith f a i l s to n otice the Persean imagery in " D i f f i c u l t i e s of a Statesman" and a t t r i b u t e s several u n id e n tifie d phrases in "Triumphal March," rather dubiously, to Canto IV of Anabase: 7\ S. E l i o t ' s Poetry and Pi a y s , pp. 160-165. 254 i but a lso the horseman f i g u r e in the c l o s i n g song. There he is now, look: There is no i n t e r r o g a t i o n in h is eyes Or in the hands, q u ie t over the h o r s e ' s neck, l And the eyes w atch fu l, w a it in g , p e rc e iv in g , i / i ndi f f e r e n t . ! O hidden under the d o v e 's wing, hidden in the / t u r t l e ' s breast, | Under the palmtree at noon, under the running water j At the s t i l l p oint of the tu r n i n g world. 0 hidden, I | "Triumphal March" I 1 0 hidden under the . . . Hidden under the. . . Where i / ‘ tiie 1 d o v e 's foot r e s t e d and locked for a moment, A s t i l l moment, repose of noon, s et under the upper j branches of noon's w idest t r e e i Under the b re a s t f e a t h e r s t i r r e d by th e small wind / a f t e r noon. " D i f f i c u l t i e s of a Statesman" I have h a l t e d my horse by the t r e e of the doves, I w h i s t l e a note so sweet, . . . I have h a l te d my horse by the dove-moaning t r e e , I w h i s t l e a note more sweet. . . Anabas is In h i s i n i t i a l attem p t, then, to convey the meaning of the im portant " s t i l l p o in t" concept, in p a rt E l i o t seems to have r e l i e d on the s i t u a t i o n and imagery in the opening anc c lo s in g songs of A n ab as is . ^ This is most i n t e r e s t i n g , for the horseman n a r r a t o r at the end of P e r s e ' s poem is h a l te d momentarily in the midst of the c o n tin u in g an ab a sis movement. ^ G . Wilson Knight b e li e v e s the six lines in "Triumph- phaI March" are drawn from N ietzsch e's Thus Spake Zara- thustra (I, 35 or II, 13): "T. S. E lio t: Some Literary Im pressions," T. S. E l i o t : The Man and his Work, ed. Allen Tate (New York: D ell, 1966), p. 248. 2 5 5 iFurthermore, as narrator he is the central focus for the unity of the physical and s p ir itu a l journeys; in f a c t , he j ! represents a kind of " s t i l l point" in a world of incessant j movement. In the second poem, Ash-Wednesday. E li o t seems to have adapted from the introduction to the vis io n in Anabase. Canto X, and from the s a l t pattern of imagery in Canto I j (along with a passage from the "Sermon on the Mount"), the following crucial line s in part VI; I j And the blind eye creates The empty forms between the ivory gates j And smell renews the s a l t savour of the sandy earth. I Whereas Perse had chosen Homer and V e r g il 's gate of livin g I chalk, of true dreams, to focus the c lim actic v is io n of i Anabase; E li o t chose in t h i s poem the ivory gate of f a l s e dreams to focus the deception to which he believed joy in the senses, and even the memory of sensuous happiness, calls one. In the very next line he then negated the s p ir it u a l s i g n i f i c a n c e of s a l t , which Perse had attrib u ted to it in Anabase. by making t h i s "the sandy earth" and by renewing i t s s a l t savour through the sense of smeI I. Consequently, Ash-Wednesday concludes on a note of a s c e t i c renunciation that is d iam etricaIly opposed to Perse's humanistic stance in Anabase. In f a c t , the devotional humility of Ash- Wednesday. complemented by the imperfect s a t i r e of Cor i o I an,, c o n s t i t u t e s E l i o t ' s strongest statement in poetry against 256 humanism and for "the need of a new a s c e t i c i s m . "63 No other two works probably focus the d iffe r e n c e between the two men so sharply as do Ash-Wednesday and Anabase. E l i o t ' s cautious statement that he sensed the i n f l u ence of Perse not only in terms of imagery but "peut-£tre aussi du rythme" is r e f l e c t e d in the fa c t that c r i t i c s in terested in the E li o t - P e r s e r e l a t io n s h i p have paid far le ss a tt e n t io n to Perse's influence on the rhythm of his poetry than to that on his imagery.64 This is unfortunate, for the French p o e t 's influence came at a time when the . S. E l i o t , "Commentary," Cr i t e r i o n . X, 39 (Janu ary, 1931), p. 309. Also, see T. S. E l i o t , "Review of God: Be i nq an Introducti on to the Sci ence of Metabiology by John Middleton Murray," CrTter i on~I IX, 33 (January, 1930), P. 334. Cf. G. WiI son Kni ght ("T. S. E l i o t : Some Literary Impressions," p. 249) who b e li e v e s that in Ash- Wednesday. "Eliot was searching within a humanistic, or Renai ssance, f i e l d for a p o s i t i v e d ir e c t io n to follow The Waste Land and The Hoi low Men. " ^ S e e , for instance, C. E. Nelson, "Saint-John Perse and T. S. E l i o t ," Western Humanities Review. XVII, 2 (Spring, 1963), p. 163. Herbert Howarth, in f a c t , ignored the obvious suggestions of t h i s influence and tried to link E li o t with one of P er se 's mentors, Paul Claudel, whom E lio t had read in France in I9M : Notes on Some Figures Behind T. S. Eli o t . pp. 162-167. However, according to Edward J. H. Greene, E lio t read l i t t l e of Claudel a fte r that date and never "avec I 'a t t e n t io n que merite son oeuvre.": T. S. E li o t et la France, p. 136. (Greene's source was a personal leTter from E lio t dated "28 novembre 1947"). See, a ls o , M .-J.-J. Laboulle, "T. S. E li o t and some French Poets," Revue de I i tttfrature comparge. XVI (1936), pp. 389-399; and Grover Smith. T . S. E l i o t ' s Poetry and Plays: A Study in Sources and KTeanmg, pp. 123. 160. j rhythm of E l i o t ' s poetry was going through some marked changes. The c h a r a c t e r i s t i c form of E l i o t ' s poetry before 1927 can be described, in his own words, as a kind of "free verse. . . in which the regular and estab lish ed meters are i broken up alm ost--not q u ite — out of rec ogn ition . The pleasure one gets out of the ir r e g u la r i ty of such verse is due to the shadow or suggestion of regular meter behind. The later poetry r e l i e s less and le ss on t h i s kind of i r regu larity and r e v e a ls , as The Waste Land foreshadows, con- js id e r a b le experimentation with individual rhythmic forms | |and with the mixing of d i f f e r e n t rhythms. The change from the early to the later poetry is hardly as uniform and i I | simple as Helen Gardner would have i t , but it is d e f i n i t e l y I more ex tensive than S is te r M. Martin Barry, 0. P., would a d m i t . ^ Neither recognize th a t, p a r tic u la r ly in the later poetry, it is 65T. S. E l i o t , C "The Poetry of Walt Whitman" J Hough ton Library bMS Am 16 9 1 (34) C Transcri pt of a Lecture on Whitman / Delivered by / T. S. EIi ot / At the Church I I I Club, London / February 2, 1944 / (Kindness of Lt. Col. D. C. GaI I up ) J , p. I. ^^Helen Gardner, The Art of T. S. E I i o t . pp. 16-29. S is te r M. Martin Barry counters tFTis hypothesis in An Analysis o f Prosodic Structure of SeIected Poems of £. S. EI i o t . pp. I l l - l i b . S is t e r Barry lim its her a n a l y s i s , how ever, to a purely prosodic a n a ly s is of but fourteen sele c te d poems. 258 i E l i o t ' s syntax C that ] c a r r ie s the base line 1 of his prosody. Through a d elib e r a te and id iosyn c r a ti c use of repeated grammar and repeated words, E li o t achieves q u a l i t i e s common to both music and p o etry--the f e e l i n g s of arrest and motion, of be- ! ginnings and endings, of s t r i v i n g s and s t i l l n e s s . "Musical syntax" forms a basic element in the E lio t s t y l e and method.67 It is in terms of syn tac tical construction, in f a c t , that i I Perse's influence on E l i o t ' s rhythm suggests i t s e l f most ’ 68 i c l e a r l y . This seems to take two forms: the homologous i I 1 s e r i e s and long verses of more than one line in length whose ample rhythms are largely determined by euphony and s yn tax. | The short gerundial phrases in the f i r s t stanza of [ "Journey of the Magi" represent the f i r s t of a number of 1 | like s e r i e s in E l i o t ' s poetry. Another appears in "Marina," J the fourth "Ariel" poem, where the parataxis of the second | stanza may owe something to Perse. | What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands I What water lapping the bow j And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog | ^^Harvey Gross, Sound and Form i n Modern Poetry (Ann Arbor: University of Mi ch i gan Press, 1964), p. 171. Pro fes s o r Gross' a n a ly s is makes a f i n e s y nth esis of the ex treme p o s itio n s of Gardner and Barry. 6% l i o t him self had noted, "the method of the author of Anabase. his syntax and his rhythm, are o r i g i n a l . . . . ” T. T. E l I i o t , "Note to Revised Edition," Anabasi s (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949), p. 13. What images return 0 my daughter. Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning Death Those who g l i t t e r with the glory of the hummingbird, Death /meaning Those who s i t in the stye of contentment, meaning Death Those who suffer the ecstasy of the animals, meaning Death Are become u n su bstantial. . . . This rather unusual syn tac tical construction r e c a l l s a similar passage in Canto X of E l i o t ' s Anabasis t r a n s la t io n . . . . those who c o l l e c t q u ails in the wrinkled land, those who hunt among the furze for green-speckled I eggs, those who dismount to pick things up, agates, a pale blue stone which they cut and fashion at the gates of the suburbs. . . In i s o l a t i o n , E l i o t ' s stanza of four lines is a homologous s e r i e s of a d je c tiv e clauses which, with i t s enjambement emphasis on the phrase, "meaning Death," i n t e n s i f i e s the fear of catastrophe to which P e r i c l e s awakens in the f i r s t stanza. That fear d i s s o l v e s into a vague hope when the j s e r i e s suddenly turns into the subject of the f i r s t sen tence in stanza three. The arrested movement of the second sta nz a 's parataxis, which at f i r s t seems an extended ap p o s itio n to "what images return," suddenly begins to flow in a new d ir e c tio n with the sy n ta c tic a l change in stanza three. In t h i s passage E li o t d is p la y s a s k i l l f u l use of syntax for maximum rhythmic and emotional e f f e c t . 260 ! The two poems of E l i o t ' s unfinished Coriolan contai n i I several s e r i e s or catalogues, but only one in " D i f f i c u l t i e s of a Statesman" even remotely suggests the French p o e t's i i nfIuence.^9 i l A committee has been appointed to nominate a com- of engineers /m iss io n To consider the Water Supply. A commission is appointed For Public Works, c h i e f l y the question of rebuilding the f o r t i f i c a t i o n s . A commission is appointed To confer with a Vo I scian commission About perpetual peace: the f l e t c h e r s and j a v e l i n - and smiths /makers i Have appointed a jo in t committee to protest against j the reduction of orders. This catalogue of committees and their functions is remi n iscent of several s e c tio n s of Anabasi s : the "foundation of the City" (Canto IV), "the conventions of people with people" (Canto VI), and the enumerated actions of men in Canto X. However, the passage is equally reminiscent of some of Walt Whitman's catalogues in Leaves of Grass. In f a c t , the catalogue of guards and militiamen which opens j the poem has been c a l le d , and probably r i g h t l y , a parody of Whitman's "Pioneers! 0 Pioneers!"^® I would suggest, ^For instance, the l i s t of weapons and supplies in "Triumphal March" is purloined almost verbatim from General Erich F. W. Ludendorff, The Comi na of W ar_ (London, 1931), p. 67: Grover -Smith. T. S. E l i o t rsHFoeTry and Plays, pp. 162, 3 20 . “ “ 7°S. Musgrove, T. S. E lio t and Wa 11 Whi tman. p. 27. Musgrove t r i e s to demonstrate that Whitman's "habit of 261 ithen, that in " D i f f i c u l t i e s of a Statesman" begins the sub sumption of t h is one small element of Perse's influence within the larger pattern of E l i o t ' s increasing experimenta- i I ition with new rhythms and with new combinations of rhythms, j I ! I I And it may well be that in t h i s Perse's influence was an j i important stimulus. ; I I , j This experimentation is p a rticu la rly extensive in j E l i o t ' s work on The Rock, but it continues in the choruses Murder i n the Cathedra I and in his Iast major pub Iished poem, Four Quartets. In general, the rhythms of the ten choruses in The Rock are heavily indebted to the para I IeI - ism of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer and to the j a l l i t e r a t i o n and caesura of a l l i t e r a t i v e v e r s e . 7* Several of these choruses and some of the subsequent poems contain d i s t i n c t i v e s e r i e s and catalogues which well i l l u s t r a t e cataloguing" exercised a powerful influence on E lio t in the l a t t e r ' s use of r e p e t i t i o n and p a ra llelism . That there are si mi I a r i t i e s between ce r ta in s e r i e s in E liot and the cata- j logues in Leaves of Grass, which E lio t surely had read in St. Louis and probably at Harvard, is obviously correct. However, i f Whitman's catalogues were to have had an im pact on E l i o t ' s poetry, i t is strange that i t should f i r s t come, as Musgrove says, in "Journey of the Magi," just a f t e r he had translated Perse's Anabase. From " D i f f i c u l t ie s of a Statesman" on, both poets may be sources for E l i o t ' s use of the homologous s e r i e s or catalogue. ^ ' s e e , for instance. Grover Smith, T. S. EIi o t ' s Poetry and P la y s , pp. 174-175. 2 6 2 E l i o t ' s achievement in his experimentation. The most im p ressive of th es e, the "death-bringers" chorus in the s e c ond act of Murder in the Cathedral, is reminiscent equally o f Perse and Whitman.? 2 0Ut one of the l a s t , a catalogue |of the dead in apposition to the line that opens the third j (section of East Coker. may be indebted c h i e f l y to Perse; for the homologous s e r i e s in Anabase is c h a r a c t e r is t ic a I Iy an enumeration in apposition. 0 dark dark dark. They a l l go into the dark, The vacant i n t e r s t e l l a r spaces, the vacant into the / v a c a n t , The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of l e t t e r s , The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the / r u I e r s , Distinguished c i v i l servants, chairman of many /commi t t e e s , Industrial lords and petty con tractors, all go into / t h e dark, And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of / D i rec tors, And cold the sense and lost the motive of action . And we a I I go with them, into the s i l e n t funeral. . . . It is as i f the "shining edge of the day" in Anabasi s . Canto X, has become, for E l i o t , "the darkness of God." The second poem of Cor i oI an. " D i f f i c u l t i e s of a S ta te s man," a lso introduces another aspect of E l i o t ' s ?2 The sy n ta c tic a l structure of t h i s chorus is reminis cent of the s e r i e s of p arallel c la u s e s in Anabasi s . Canto X, The imagery a ls o reminds one v i v i d l y of Perse. However, the repeated predication of t h i s chorus resembles several catalogues in Leaves of Grass, notably "Salut au Monde!" (experimentation with rhythm, the long verse which typo- ’ graphically extends more than a line in length and which ap proximates prose. In t h i s poem, which is considerably more prose-1 ike in i t s rhythm than E l i o t ' s previous poetry, thir-i | iteen of i t s f i f t y - t h r e e lines extend beyond the normal width of the page. The rhythm of these line s is sim ilar to i the long p r o s e -li k e verses of Anabase in th e ir typography and in th e ir p a r a lle lism , r e p e t i t i o n , and euphony of sound patterns. Furthermore, nearly every one of these long jverses occurs in a passage which I have already shown to bear the stamp of P e r se 's in flu en ce , eith er in i t s imagery or in i t s use of the homologous s e r i e s . It is e s p e c i a l l y js ig n ific a n t that three of these long verses occur in the i jfour-line passage of concrete imagery describing the " s t i l l point" which is hidden from Coriolan. 0 hidden under the . . . Hidden under the. . .Where the dove's foot rested and locked for a moment, A s t i I I moment, repose of noon, set under the upper branches of noon's widest tree Under the breast feather s tir r e d by the small wind J a f t e r noon. , . , In the plays which follow Cori oIan, however, again P er se 's influence is subsumed within the larger pattern of E l i o t ' s experimentations in rhythm. And again i t may well have stimulated the experimentation. In The Rock, where one fin d s that six of i t s ten choruses include one or more stanzas o f long verses from two to f i v e line s in length, the typography and rhythm of the long verses, although simi lar i to that in Anabase. is probably drawn mainly from the Bible! S I and the Book of Common Prayer. The opening stanza of Chorus II i I lu s t r a t e s t h i s e s p e c i a l l y w e l I . In Murder i n i the Cathedral the long verse i s used in the choruses, and " a lso in some of the character monologues, with even more f l e x i b i l i t y , ease, and eloquence, j Most of E l i o t ' s experimentation with the long verse is | devoted to these two completed plays or pageants. He de cided on t h i s experimentation probably because he wished to | avoid the e f f o r t of trying to r e v i t a l i z e the blank verse of | Elizabethan and Jacobean drama as well as a r e p e t i t i o n of h is f a i l u r e in Sweeney Agon i s t e s wi th a rhythm adapted from l the m u sic-h all. And he discovered, perhaps stimulated by I ! h is tr a n s la tio n of Perse, that the long verse rhythms of I j the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer were quite s u ita b le for the basic tone and theme of the choruses in The Rock. It should be noted, f i n a l l y , that the long verse rhythms helped E li o t resolve in these two plays the problem of sim p lifyin g his syntax and vocabulary so that the audience ! could understand the choruses quickly and e a s i l y . This r e s o lu t i o n , in E l i o t ' s words, ". . . made a d iffe r e n c e to the writing of the Four Quartets. . . . i t led to a greater s i m p l i f i c a t i o n of language and to speaking in a way 73 which is more like conversing with your reader." In Four | 73Qonald Hall, "T. S. E l i o t , " The Paris Review Qu artets, the transformation in E l i o t ' s poetry from a rhythrrj determined by t r a d iti o n a l meters to one guided by patterns of syntax and s t r e s s reached i t s conclusion and final j i [achievement. I | i | The previous pages reveal that Saint-John P er se 's in- j fluence on the imagery and rhythm of T. S. E l i o t ' s poetry p ers is ted throughout his later works and was f e l t most strongly from 1927 to 1935, from "Journey of the Magi" to Murder in the Cathedral. P erse's influence was c l e a r ly I lim ited — but i t had some importance in the success of i n d i vidual poems and in the development of E l i o t ' s over-all i technique. A general assessment of Perse's influ en ce, how ever, suggests that one explore a l i t t l e further these two d i r e c t i o n s . For the influence of the Anabasi s tr a n s la tio n seems to lead to a number of pertinent observations about E l i o t ' s work. The f i r s t of these involves a cer tain kind of imagery and the homologous s e r i e s . "In Eli o t ' s poetry up to Sweeney Agoni s t e s we rare Iy ifind conventionally beautiful subject matter."7^ Intervi ews. Second S eries (New York: Viking, 1965), pp. 10 4 - 105. For a very b r ie f look at E l i o t ' s use o f Biblical rhythms and contemporary idiom, see Leonard Unger, "La forgue, Conrad, and E l i o t , " T. S. E l i o t : Moments and Pat t e r n s . p. 118. 7^Kristian Smidt, Poetry and Be I i ef in the Work of T. S. El i o t . new ed. (London, 19 6 1), p. 153". The only ex ceptions are the girl with flowers in "La F i g l i a che Piange1 ' 2 6 6 j l ! !In the poems a fte r "Journey of the Magi," however, a number j of changes can be discerned in the kind and tone of imagery which E lio t u s e s .^-1 One of the most noticeable is his in creasing use of natural and sensuous imagery.76 Plants, animals, natural elements, and topographical features in- | habit t h i s later poetry with increasing frequency. It is ' ! ! |i n t e r e s t i n g that t h i s kind of imagery seems less a d i s - i jcovery than a recherche du temps perdu, for it is often that of h is youthful days in New England and St. Louis. A l ■good part of t h i s change can be explained by E l i o t ' s return I |to the United States for h is mother's funeral in 1928 and then for h i s lecture tour in 1933.77 C ertainly, too, "the 'and in The Waste Land, and the thrush, boat, wind, and water images a lso of 'The Waste Land. ^ S e e , e s p e c i a l l y , the wind and sea or river images: Genesius Jones, Approach to the Purpose, pp. 200-212. Helen Gardner was one of the f i r s t to observe t h i s change in imagery: The Art of T. S. EIi o t . p. 100. ; g # Savage argues ju st the opp osite, with much i l - lo g ic , in C "The Orthodoxy of T. S. Eliot" ] , T, S. EIi o t : A Selected C r it iq u e , ed. Leonard Unger (New York: Russell and Russel 1^ 1966 C 194-8 J ) , p. 141. ^ ^ E lio t's "Preface" to Edgar Ansel Mowrer's This Amer- i can WorId (London, 1928), pp. x i i i - x i v , a I ready TncTudes an i n t e r e s t i n g summary of some natural images which later appear in his poetry. This con trad icts Perse's b e l i e f , as reported by Kathleen Raine, that E l i o t ' s vocabulary is drawn from a reading of the OED: "St.-John P erse's Bi rd s . " I Southern Revi ew. I l l (Winter, 1967), p. 257. 267 i advantage of a coherent t r a d i t i o n a l system of dogma and m o r a l s , "7® which he found in Dante and which he had made i . more and more his own a f t e r c o n firm a ti o n in the Anglican I : |Church in 1927, allowed E l i o t to accept and r e j o i c e in the ; imagery of a n a tu ra l world which before he had t r e a t e d | o fte n with d i sapprobat ion. In The Rock he couId fi naI Iy j say: "You must not deny the body." And the d iv e rs e and j i i I s t a r t l i n g imagery of Anabase. which had f a s c i n a t e d few j | | r e a d e r s more than i t s English t r a n s l a t o r , may a l s o have !helped in i t s immediacy and c o n c r e te n e s s to s t i m u l a t e the i |recovery of t h a t youthful w o r l d , 79 | * In terms of P e r s e ' s r e l a t i o n to E l i o t , however, the j I , jmost im portant point here is a p a t t e r n t h a t develops in l E l i o t ' s use of t h i s imagery. In a few of the l a t e r poems, j as in "New Hampshire," the n a tu ra l imagery is used simply j for i t s v i s io n of innocence or beauty. In many, i t is em- j ployed in a symbolic sense, u s u a l l y for i t s C h r i s t i a n j 7®T. S. E l i o t , " D a n t e , " S e I e c t e d E s s a y s , new e d . (New i York: H a r c o u r t , B r a c e , 1950), p. 219. j I 1 7 9 £ i i o t had b ee n from t h e b e g i n n i n g p e c u l i a r l y r e s p o n s i v e t o t h e im agery o f o t h e r p o e t s . The im ager y o f B a u d e l a i r e , f o r i n s t a n c e , i m p r e s s e d him w i t h i t s a b i l i t y toj evoke t h e modern u r b a n e n v i r o n m e n t ; t h a t o f L a f o r g u e , w i t h j i t s o b j e c t i f i c a t i o n o f f e e l i n g . The imagery o f D a n t e a f - j f e c t e d him d e e p l y w i t h i t s u n u s u a l l u c i d i t y . What Eliot j seemed t o r e s p o n d t o in P e r s e ' s im agery was i t s immediacy j and c o n c r e t e n e s s . ! j I j ' ' ..... .. '' 268 I | a l l u s i o n or connotation.® ^ But i t s most im portant use I I : comes as an e xpression of f u t i l i t y and death, i . e . , in j " V i r g i n i a , " or of the te m p ta t io n s of an i l l u s o r y world. I This o ccurs, i n t e r e s t i n g l y enough, in c o n ju n c tio n some times with the device of the s e r i e s or c a t a lo g u e . And i t : ! j I seems to grow into a p a t t e r n of some s i g n i f i c a n c e in Eliot's! j work. i I The p a t t e r n is f i r s t d i s c e r n i b l e in "Journey of the ; | I I Magi," where the s e r i e s of natu ra l imagery in the f i r s t i two s ta n z a s express r e s p e c t i v e l y the i r r i t a t i n g h a rd s h ip j j ! of the journey and the s tra n g e ambiguity of t h e i r e x p e r i - ; ! i j ence in th e temperate v a l l e y . In "Marina," the opening | s t a n z a ' s s e r i e s of rocky s e a c o a s t images, which a t f i r s t I j i j ev oke a s e n s e o f l o s s and f e a r , a r e t r a n s f o r m e d in t h e end' by P e r i c l e s ' r e c o g n i t i o n and r e d i s c o v e r y o f h i s d a u g h t e r . I The tu rn in g point in t h i s p a t t e r n i s heralded in Ash- I ! Wednesday. where the n a tu ra l imagery of p a r t VI (and, also, p a r t I I I ) becomes a te m p ta tio n of i l l u s i o n which is u l t i - j mately r e j e c t e d . In "Cape Ann," the l a s t of the "Land- ; scapes" poems, the c a t a lo g u e of n a t i v e American b ir d s em bodies the same idea. The f i r s t te n lin e s of the poem i ” Q/\ G e n e s i u s J o n e s d e v o t e s c o n s i d e r a b l e e n e r g y t o f e r r e t i n g o u t t h e s e a l l u s i o n s o r c o n n o t a t i o n s , o f t e n o f d u b i o u s v a l u e , in Ap pro ach t o t h e P u r p o s e , pp. 121- 12 3, 135. E l i o t u s e s t h e s y m b o I i c s e n s e o f t h i s im ager y most c l e a r l y in Ash-Wednesday and in c e r t a i n p a r t s o f Four Q u a r t e t s . j 269 ; suggest an a p p r e c i a t i v e o b s e r v a ti o n of n a tu ra l l i f e . How- j ! ' ever, the next two li n e s begin a change of tone as the land! | is resigned to i t s true in h erito r, the scavenger s e a - g u l l . | i | With blunt irony the l a s t line negates a l l t h a t l i f e as i l lusion. What was once a r i c h p ro fu s io n of imagery becomes mere Iy "pa I a v e r . " ! The c u lm ination of t h i s p a t t e r n comes in the famous j | chorus of "the d e a t h - b r i n g e r s " in the second act of Murder j i n the Cathedra I . ^ 1 j i Chorus: I have smelt them, the d e a t h - b r i n g e r s , senses , are quickened ! By s u b t l e foreb o d in g s ; I have heard I F l u t i n g in the n ig h t tim e , f l u t i n g and owls, have seer| i at noon j Scaly wings s l a n t i n g over, huge and r i d i c u l o u s . I have tasted j | The savour of putrid f l e s h in the spoon. I have feltj ! 7ne heaving of earth at n i g h t f a l l , r e s t l e s s , absurd, j j I have heard | Laughter in the noises of b e a s ts t h a t make s tr a n g e n o is e s : j a c k a l , j a c k a s s , jackdaw; the s c u r r y in g noise of mouse and je rb o a ; the laugh of th e loon, the lu n a tic b ird . I have seen j Grey necks t w i s t i n g , r a t t a i l s tw ining, in the thick l i g h t of dawn. I have eaten Smooth c r e a t u r e s s t i l l li v i n g , with th e s tro n g s a l t t a s t e of liv in g t h i n g s under sea; I have t a s t e d The living l o b s t e r , the c rab , the o y s t e r , the whelk and the prawn; and they live and spawn in my bowels, and my bowels d i s s o l v e in the l i g h t of j dawn. I have smelt | Death in the ro s e , death in the hollyhock, sweet pea, 8 *See Louis Martz's e x c e lle n t a n a ly s is of i i s chorus in "The Wheel and the Point: Aspects of Imagery and Theme in EIi o t ' s Later Poetry, " T. S. E l i o t : A SeIected Cri - ti gue. pp. 457-8. 1 I | h y a c i n th , primrose and cowslip. I have seen I Trunk and horn, tusk and hoof, in odd p laces; I have lain on the f l o o r of the sea and breathed with ! the b re a th in g of the sea-anemone, swallowed with | the i n g u r g i t a t i o n of the sponge. I have la in in \ \ the so il and c r i t i c i s e d the worm. In the a i r { | F l i r t e d with the passage of the k i t e , I have plunged I with the k i t e and cowered with the wren. I have ■ , / f e 11 | The horn of the b e e t l e , the s c a l e of the v ip e r, the j mobi le hard i n s e n s i t i v e skin of the e l e p h a n t , the i evasive fla n k of the f i s h . I have smelt C orru p tio n in the d is h , incense in the l a t r i n e , the sewer in the in cense, the smell of sweet soap in the woodpath, a h e l l i s h sweet scent in the wood- / p a t h , while the ground heaved. I have seen Rings of l i g h t c o i l i n g downwards, leading To the h o rro r of the ape. Have I not known, not known What was comi ng to be? This long enumeration of liv in g t h i n g s evokes for the cho rus women of Canterbury the doom which is enveloping both them and Thomas, t h e i r archbishop. The v iv id n e s s and re p e t i t i o n of t h i s imagery c r e a t e a powerful sense of s t a r k fear and r e v u l s i o n , but in i t s hypnotic e f f e c t one re c o g n iz e s an u n d e rly in g f a s c i n a t i o n fo r all t h i s d i s o r d e r and " e v i l " with which the chorus becomes c l o s e l y i d e n t i f i e d . Only a f t e r jThomas' death has washed them c le a n do they begin to u n d er stand and p r a i s e God's presence in h is c r e a t i o n of liv in g th i ngs. The t r a n s f o r m a t i o n of t h i s n a tu ra l imagery, which had been vaguely suggested in "Journey of the Magi," which had been e f f e c t e d in "Marina" p s y c h o l o g i c a l l y , and which had been denied a l t o g e t h e r in Ash-Wednesday and "Cape Ann," in Murder in the Cathedral is achieved a t l a s t on the b a s i s of | 2711 I | j c h r i s t i a n dogma and ex p e rie n c e . And the f i n a l r e s o l u t i o n j icomes in Four Q u a r t e t s . As E l i o t worked out t h i s gradual a f f i r m a t i o n in th e poetry and plays of the I9 3 0' s , the homo- i Hogous s e r i e s or c a ta lo g u e became an im portant device in ex- ! ! jpressing and coping with t h i s kind of imagery. Of course, j he could never accept th e a t t i t u d e and tone of c e l e b r a t i o n ! so n a tu ra l to P erse, who in Anabase could p r a i s e " t o u t e s ! i s o r t e s d'hommes dans le urs voies et fag o n s ." But on h is own way to a f f i r m a t i o n , he c r e a te d a most powerful denu n ciatio n of l i f e in th e " d e a t h - b r i n g e r s " chorus of Murder i n the Cathedra I . A fin al observation on E l i o t ' s work r e s u l t s from another look at the 1927 t y p e s c r ip t of the Anabasi s trans la tion. For that tr a n s la t io n o f f e r s an i n t e r e s t i n g per s p ectiv e on the contrasting achievement of two poems by E lio t which have already evidenced Perse's i n f lu e n c e s . As I said before, Perse's notes on the 1927 ty p e s c r ip t focused E l i o t ' s a t t e n t i o n on the sustained ambiguity of the anabasis i theme. But they a lso drew h i s a t t e n t i o n to th e ambiguity demanded in t h e c o n c r e te n e s s or a b s t r a c t n e s s of ind iv id u al words and p h ra s e s . For i n s t a n c e , on th e phrase ending Canto I, "d' immorteIIes c a r e n e s , " Perse wrote: Maintenir malgr£ t o u t le mot " immortaI" Je ne puis me rendre compte de la p o rta e de ce mot en a n g l a i s , mais je ne s a u r a i s r i e n sugg£rer d ' e q u i v a I e n t . J ' a i bien voulu I'employer dans son j sens a b s t r a i t et t r a n s p o s e , pour une s u g g e s tio n 2 7 2 purement immaterieI Ie. (Comme il e s t d i t d'une oeuvre de I ' e s p r i t . ) I l y a done li une ambiguity s p i r i t u e l l e a conserver dans la s t y l i s a t i o n a n a l a i s e .82 On a phrase in Canto X, "le parfum de g£nie aux c a s s u r e s f r a t c h e s de la p i e r r e , " he noted: (par an a lo g ie et a s s o c i a t i o n d ' i d £ e s — odeur de phosphore, odeur c £ r € b r a l e , odeur de foudre du g£nie: I'o d e u r f u l g u r a n t e e t s u b t i l e , I'odeur chimique e t s p i r i t u e l l e de la c e r e b r a t i o n ) . (c f. odeur du s i l e x ) 8 3 By accommodating him self to P e r s e ' s concern, E l i o t may have sharpened h is own ideas of o rg a n iz in g a p o e tic passage on the p r i n c i p l e of a s u s ta in e d ambiguity e i t h e r in a b s t r a c t or co n c re te d i c t i o n or in a j u x t a p o s i t i o n of the two. There i s no doubt, at l e a s t , t h a t he made f r e q u e n t use of 1 t h i s technique. And i t is p r e c i s e l y an a n a l y s i s of s u s t a i n e d ambiguity based on a j u x t a p o s i t i o n o f a b s t r a c t and c o n c re te d i c t i o n t h a t r e v e a l s c l e a r l y the unequal a c h i e v e ment of the two poems, "Marina" and " D i f f i c u l t i e s of a S t a t e s m a n . " In "Marina" the fundamental s i t u a t i o n i s the same as the r e c o g n i t i o n scene between P e r i c l e s and his daughter Marina in S h a k e s p e a re 's play Per i c l e s . V, i — muted at 8^T. S, E l i o t , C Xerox copy of t y p e s c r i p t of Anabasis t r a n s l a t i o n ] (Oxford: Bodleian L ibrary, MS. Don. 0. 23/2), p. 5. 8 3 Ibid.. p. 27. 2 7 3 i f i r s t by o v ertone s from the r e c o g n i t i o n scene of horror in i i S eneca 's Hercules F u r e n s . ^ E l i o t focuses on how P e r i c l e s h im s e lf, as the n a r r a t o r , "moves from a l i t e r a l to a sym b o lic u n d erstanding of h is own s i t u a t i o n , " of the r e c o g n i - i t i o n of h is d a u g h t e r . 88 The crux of P e r i c l e s ' r e c o g n i t i o n iand und ers tan d in g comes in the s u s ta in e d ambiguity of the !sixth stanza, in what Hugh Kenner c a l l s rather la c o n ica lly | |a "curious passage in t e r m i n g Ii n g the d e c r e p itu d e of h is C P e r i c l e s U ship. . . with h is r e a I i z a t i o n t h a t the dream- jchi Id C Marina 3 was of h i s making. . . ,"86 i | Bowsprit cracked with ice and p a i n t cracked with h e a t , I I made t h i s , I have f o r g o t t e n I And remember. The rig g i n g weak and the canvas r o t t e n 8^"I intend a c r i s s c r o s s between P e r i c l e s fin d i n g a l i v e , and Hercules f i n d i n g dead— the two extremes of the r e c o g n i t i o n s c e n e — but I thought t h a t i f I la b e lle d the q u o t a t i o n i t might lead r e a d e rs a s t r a y r a t h e r than d i r e c t them. It i s only an a c c id e n t t h a t I know Seneca b e t t e r than I know E u r i p i d e s . " C P o s t s c r i p t of a l e t t e r from Mr. T. S. E l i o t to S ir Michael S a d le r, dated 9 May, 1930, en c l o s i n g th e a t ta c h e d m anuscripts and typescripts of "Marina" 1 (Oxford: Bodleian L ibrary, MS. Don. C. 2 3 /1 ), p. 7. j , Barnes, "T. S. E l i o t ' s 'Marina' " Uni versi ty of Kansas Ci ty Re v i ew. XXIX, 4 (Summer, 1963), p. 297. FT R. Leavis is much hampered in h is reading of t h i s poem because he t r i e s to i n t e r p r e t i t in the l i g h t of Four Quar t e t s : "T. S. E l i o t ' s Later P o e t r y , " T. S. E l i o t : - A Co I - Iecti on of Cr i t i caI E s s a y s , ed. Hugh Kenner (Englewoo3 CTTTFsT ~Frenti c e - H a l I , l$o 2 ), pp. 112-114. 88Hugh Kenner, The Invisi bIe P o e t : T. S. E l io t (New York: Obolensky, 1959), pp. 272-3. i 21k \ 1 Between one June and another September. I Made t h i s unknowing, h a lf conscious, unknown, my own. The garboard strake leaks, the seams need caulking. ! This form, t h i s face, t h is l i f e Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me Resign my l i f e for th is l i f e , my speech for that j / unspoken, - ! The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships. j "The s ectio n opens with a radical s h i f t (supported by ! an onomatopoeic s h i f t to harsher d i c t i o n )"87 from the dream of Marina's childhood in the previous stanza to P e r ic l e s ' 1 sudden perception of the decayed condition of his ship. That s h i f t is followed by a gradual awakening in P e r ic l e s which is governed by the ambiguity of the pronoun thi s and by a ju x ta p o s itio n of concrete and abstract d i c t i o n . At f i r s t , th is seems to refer to P e r ic l e s ' ship (and symbolic a l l y to h im self in old age). The reference is strengthened by the vivid concrete imagery of the s h ip 's d e te r i o r a tio n . In the s ix th line o f the stanza, however, because of a ser ie s of a b s tr a c tio n s , t h i s can refer equally to his daughter Marina. For the s e r i e s conveys simultaneously his accept- ! ance of what both he and his ship have become and h is rec ogn ition , at l a s t , of Marina's presence. By gradually as s o c ia tin g ship and s e l f and daughter, P e r ic l e s s e i z e s the moment of h is present r e a l i t y . In the eighth line, t h i s i s used with a s e r i e s of abstract nouns that refer c le a r ly 87W . J. Barnes, "T. S. E l i o t ' s 'Marina, '" p. 302. 11o Marina alo n e , for P e r i c l e s has turned away from a past ! conveyed by images of d e t e r i o r a t i o n to a f u t u r e expressed in a b s t r a c t i o n s of p o s s i b i l i t y . Whereas the ship needs ex t e n s i v e r e p a i r , Marina r e p r e s e n t s a new l i f e , a new ship in! jthe form of hope. The s hip, which has been i d e n t i f i e d with P e r i c l e s ' own l i f e is now abandoned, re s ig n e d , j o y f u l l y for th e l i f e of h i s dau g h ter. As a poem about r e g e n e r a t i o n , "Marina" is alone among E l i o t ' s poems in t h a t i t has no ex p l i c i t r e l i g i o u s o v ertone s; th e "grace" of Marina i s the new l i f e of a nother g e n e r a tio n to which the o ld e r yields.®® The complexity of t h i s s i x t h sta n z a of "Marina" is un- i usual for so s h o r t a poem. And i t is highly s u c c e s s f u l . The success of t h i s s u s t a i n e d ambiguity through j u x t a p o s i t i o n seems to have led E l i o t to experiment with i t f u r t h e r on a la rg e r s c a l e in his next two poems, the two s e c t i o n s of the u n fin ish e d Cor i oI a n . Again, he re tu rn e d to Shake s peare for a fundamental s i t u a t i o n , but t h i s time th e r e s u l t proved le ss s a t i s f a c t o r y . | "Triumphal March," the f i r s t s e c t i o n of Cori oI a n . in i t s s t r u c t u r e looks back to the e a r l i e r poems, like "Sweeney among the N ig h tin g a le s " and The Waste Land. It ju x t a p o s e s and i n t e r p e n e t r a t e s two r e a l i t i e s ; in the e a r l ie r poems t h i s involved the sordid or t r i v i a l p r e s e n t and QQ °°I d is a g r e e with Genesius Jones who sees the e x p e r i ence in "Marina" as highly r e l i g i o u s : Approach to the |P u rp o s e , p. 159. 2 7 6 I the mythical or meaningful p a s t ; in "Triumphal March," the | 1 | unreal t r i v i a l i t y or v u l g a r i t y of the c i t y crowd and the hidden r e a l i t y re p re s e n t e d in th e f i g u r e of C o rio lan . In " D i f f i c u l t i e s of a S tates m an ," however, E l i o t re tu rn e d to i | the te ch n iq u e of j u x t a p o s i t i o n through a b s t r a c t and con- j i i c r e t e d i c t i o n , once in a passage in the middle of the poem | and once again a t the end. i j A committee has been appointed to nominate a com- ! /mission of engineers I To c o n s id e r the Water Supply. A commission is appointed For Public Works, c h i e f l y th e q u e s ti o n of r e b u i l d i n g th e f o r t i f i c a t i o n s . A commission is appointed To c o n fe r with a Volscian commission About p erpetual peace: the f l e t c h e r s and j a v e l i n - /m akers and smi th s Have appointed a j o i n t committee to p r o t e s t a g a i n s t the r e d u c t i o n of o r d e r s . Meanwhile th e guards shake d ic e on the marches And the fro g s (0 Mantuan) croak in the marshes. F i r e f l i e s f l a r e a g a i n s t the f a i n t s heet l i g h t n i n g . • • • • I f th e m a c ta t io n s , immolations, o b l a t i o n s , im- j / p e t r a t i o n s , Are now observed May we not be 0 hidden Hidden in the s t i l l n e s s of noon, in th e s i l e n t / c r o a k i n g ni g h t . Come with the sweep of the l i t t l e b a t ’s wing, with the small f l a r e of the f i r e f l y or lig h tn in g bug, ’Rising and f a l l i n g , crowned with d u s t , ’ th e small / c r e a t u r e s , The small c r e a t u r e s c h i r p t h i n l y through th e d u s t , through th e n ig h t . 0 mother i What shaII I cry? We demand a committee, a r e p r e s e n t a t i v e committee, a committee of i n v e s t i g a t i o n RESIGN RESIGN RESIGN ! In contrast to "Marina," here the ambiguity l i e s main ly in the concrete imagery. The three lines of concrete images at the end of the f i r s t passage present a b rie f vivid landscape which complements, yet con trasts with, the shapeless bureaucratic government of the c i t y . Yet they a ls o foreshadow the C r u c i f i x i o n and signal the approach of a storm and rain which suggest (as in The Waste Land and j Ash-Wednesday) both d es tru ctio n and deIiverance.89 The concrete imagery of the second passage repeats the same ju x ta p o s i ti o n and ambiguity as that in the f i r s t . The end ing a b s tr a ctio n s reveal Coriolan's f a i l u r e to find meaning "in the s t i l l n e s s of noon, in the s i l e n t croaking night," jand, thus, to give meaning to the c i t y government. The jambiguous p o s s i b i l i t y suggested in the imagery remains un- I ! f u I f i I I ed. I r o n ic a l ly , here CorioIan i s in the same p o s itio n as 'was the crowd in "Triumphal March": seeking the hidden r e a l i t y , the repose of the world, he takes refuge from the b a n a l i t i e s of government in his mother.9® However, ®9[}onald F. T hea ll, " T r a d it io n a l S a t i r e in E l i o t ' s ' C o r i o l a n , ' " p. 202. 90jwo essays are quite good on the design of Cor i oI a n : Donald F. Theall, "Traditional S atire in E l i o t ' s 'Coriolan^" 2 7 8 " D i f f i c u l t i e s of a Statesman," and, to a le sser exten t, "Triumphal March" do not quite succeed as half-dramatic | poems; and E lio t must have r e a liz e d t h i s for he never com pleted the sequence as intended.9* For one, the symbolic isense of the imagery in " D i f f i c u l t i e s of a Statesman" is r e l a t i v e l y obscure, and i t gains only a general c l a r i t y through r e p e t i t i o n and a s s o c i a t i o n . Also, in comparison to "Marina," " D i f f i c u l t i e s of a Statesman" shows neither a ^dramatic development nor a clear progression of thought. The s ix th stanza of "Marina" conveys a complex but progres s iv e inner drama which climaxes the poem. The passages c ite d in " D i f f i c u l t i e s of a Statesman," however, have l i t t l e Accent. XI, 4 (Autumn, 1951), pp. 194-206; Louis Martz, "The Wheel and the Point: Aspects of Imagery and Theme in Eliot's Later Poetry," T. S. E l i o t : A SeIected Cri ti que. pp. 444- 462. Also, see F. 0. Matthiessen. The Achieveme'nt of T. S. EIi o t . 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford, 1947), pp. 13 8 - \V2. IT i s in triguing to wonder i f (in his choice of narrator, s i t u a tio n , and theme) E lio t had in mind, even remotely, the statesman, Alexis Leger. 9* The best source of information on E l i o t ' s d e c isio n to abandon CorioIan is Grover Smith, T. S. E l i o t ' s Poetry and P l a y s , pi 159. F. R. Leavis, by some quirk of t a s t e , c a l l s these poems ". . . great poetry, and they come as near to great s a t i r i c poetry as t h i s age is lik e ly to s ee.": "T. S. EIi o t ' s Later P o e t r y , " T. S. El i o t : A Co I Iecti on of Cri t i - cal Essays, p. 114. DonalcT F. theaI I als o declares that ". . . the CorioI an poems stand in the t r a d i t i o n of More, Sw ift, Rabelais, and other s a t i r i c a l treatments of man's government. The twin poems are c l o s e s t , however, as is most of E l i o t ' s later poetry, to the works of Joyce. . . .": "Traditional S atire in E l i o t ' s 'C oriolan ,'" p. 205. 2 7 9 i iinternal order and do not c o n t r i b u t e to any real p ro g re s s io n in the poem. The l a t t e r passage, in f a c t , makes a r a t h e r weak c o n c lu s io n . I b e l i e v e , t h i s e x p l a in s the f a i l u r e of the poem and E l i o t ' s d e c i s i o n to abandon i t as well as does Grover S m ith 's o b s e r v a ti o n t h a t th e " c o n t r a s t i n g p a r a l l e l between C o rio la n and C y r i l , the one a statesman and hero, the other a nobody. . . . tended to d i s s o l v e in " D i f f i - 92 c u l t i e s of a S tatesm an . n;7 In the end, E l i o t ' s f i n a l words in h i s 194-9 l e t t e r to I Jean Paulhan sum up perhaps best the influence of S aint- j jJohn Perse on h i s own p o e try : ! I l y a bien d ' a u t r e s choses que je d i r a i s sur I'o e u v re de S ain t-Jo h n P erse, si j e pouvais m e ttre en ordre e t developper des id£es; p ress£ par le temps, j e borne aux mots s u i v a n t s mon hommage au pofete: "Vous m'avez a p p r i s quelque c h o s e . "93 Although r e s t r i c t e d c h i e f l y to the imagery and rhythm of E l i o t ' s p o e t ry , and even lim ited w ith i n th ose r e s t r i c t i o n s , j P e r s e ' s i n f l u e n c e through the Anabasi s t r a n s l a t i o n was f a r from i n s i g n i f i c a n t . Not only was Anabasi s the source of I c o n s t a n t borrowings, i t a l s o seems to have s tim u la t e d some of E l i o t ' s e x p erim en tatio n and to have c o n t r i b u t e d to h is 92Grover 8mith, T. S. E l i o t ' s Poetry and P l a y s , p. 159. S. E l i o t , "Un f e u i l l e u n iq u e ," Hommage i n t e r n a - ti ona I Sai nt-John Perse des ' Cahi e r s de EnTi'ade1 C?t£- automne, 1951 ), p. 8 . i own growing mastery of poetic te c h n iq u e s . Perse, t h e r e f o r e , seems to be the most important French in flu e n c e on | E l i o t ' s l a t e r p o e try , j u s t as Baudelaire, Corbifcre, and e s p e c i a l l y Laforgue were on h is e a rly volumes of poems. In the fin a l a n a l y s i s , perhaps the best consequence of P e r s e ' s in fl u e n c e is t h a t i t te a c h e s one something about T. S. E l i o t . CHAPTER VI CONCLUSION Our age has developed an a p p e t i t e for t r a n s l a t i o n which leaves even the voracious E lizab e th an s f a r behind. T r a n s l a t i o n has become a s u b s t i t u t e f o r f i r s t - h a n d knowledge of the c l a s s i c s , and in the case of modern languages an e s s e n t i a l p a rt of our e c l e c t i c and p o ly g lo t c u l t u r e , which f l o u r ishes and spreads as the w o r l d 's d i s t a n c e s and boundari es shri n k . ' Whether a cause, e f f e c t , or p a r a l l e l phenomenon, t h i s " a p p e t i t e for t r a n s l a t i o n ” has become a r e g u l a r f e a t u r e of t h a t new s o c i e t y , the "global v i l l a g e , " we are all b egin ning to i n h a b i t . But t r a n s l a t i o n s are not of i n t e r e s t only for what they reveal about re a d e rs , whether general or s c h o l a r l y . They also t e l l us something about our w r i t e r s . For most Anglo-American w r i t e r s of the tw e n t i e t h ce n tu ry , a t one time or a nother, have t r a n s l a t e d or adapted th e work of a w r i t e r or w r i t e r s they admired in another language. This has cre a te d a complex and f a r f l u n g network of i n f l u ence p a t t e r n s t h a t is important to the und ers tan d in g of t h i s c e n t u r y ' s l i t e r a t u r e . The most i n t e r e s t i n g moment in Anonymous, "Problems of P o etic T r a n s l a t i o n in Modern Greek," Times L i te r a r y SuppIement. 3533 (2 Apri I 1970), p. I . 2 8 1 j t h i s phenomenon, however, comes "in the encounter, sometimes I jthe c l a s h , of two independent c r e a t i v e f o r c e s . " ^ Such an encounter te a c h e s one a good deal about both men. I be lieve t h i s d e f i n e s q u i t e a p t ly the r e l a t i o n s h i p between |T. S. E l i o t and S a in t-Jo h n Perse. j ! The encounter between two such d i s s i m i l a r w r i t e r s as E l i o t and Perse is f a s c i n a t i n g in i t s seeming i n e x p l i c a b i l i t y , and t h a t f a s c i n a t i o n becomes even more f o rc e fu l once I i t has been explained in d e t a i l . According to Perse, he and E l i o t , although on f r i e n d l y term s, never e s t a b l i s h e d a c l o s e f r i e n d s h i p ; and E l i o t ' s own words seem to support t h i s . D if f e r e n c e s of temperament and b e l i e f s e p a ra te d them from th e beginning, and did not d is a p p e a r throughout t h e i r long r e l a t i o n s h i p . The two poets did not f a i l , however, to admire and r e s p e c t one a n o t h e r ' s work. Apparently, they were brought in to proxim ity by a s i n g l e person, M arguerite Caetani (Princess Bassiano), who became in the process an important link between two of the most noteworthy l i t e r a r y j o u r n a l s of th e I9 2 0 's : The C r i t e r i o n and Commerce. As p u b li s h e r of Commerce. she persuaded Perse (who was one of i t s c o n s u l t i n g e d i t o r s ) in 1924 to t r a n s l a t e a new s h o r t poem by E l i o t , the in c re a s i n g l y famous poet who was her main c o n t a c t with the c u r r e n t E nglish l i t e r a r y scene. 2 Ibid. ! r 283] i I i \ | Probably in g r a t i t u d e , she then introduced E l i o t to th e twoi volumes of P e r s e ' s poetry in 1925, and he promptly decided ; to tr a n s la t e the longest poem in them, Anabase. into I |E n glish. F in a lly , Marguerite Caetani arranged for E liot a I ;meeting with Perse in 1926 so that he could ask the French j poet about s p e c i f i c matters of t r a n s l a t i o n . Thereafter, for the f i r s t and then the third e d iti o n s of E l i o t ' s | Anabasi s tr a n s la t io n , E lio t and Perse worked together very ' c I o s e I y . i Perse's "adaptation" of E l i o t ' s "pofeme in e d it," which appeared in Commerce. I l l (winter, 1924), i s the f i r s t of three tr a n s la t io n s of that poem into French, Unfortunately,, in terms of f i d e l i t y to the origin al t e x t , which is b rief but decep tive ly simple, t h i s f i r s t tr a n s la tio n is the le ast s u c c e s s f u l . In his defense, however, it must be said that Perse had l i t t l e time to work on the t r a n s la tio n and almost no information on E lio t with which to orient him s e l f . Consequently, he transformed the poem to better re f l e c t his own a t t i t u d e s , without s a c r i f i c i n g a consistency of tone. As an independent t e x t , then, Perse's "adapta tion" i s not without merit. However, in the end, the quality of t h i s "adaptation" is less s i g n i f i c a n t than was i t s impact on French w riters and even on Perse himself. Although Perse's "adaptation" received l i t t l e public n o tic e , it was only the second t r a n s la tio n of an E l i o t poem j . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ ’ 2 8 4 linto French. This means t h a t Perse (and Commerce) was one | i ■of the f i r s t to introduce the AngIo-American poet to the French read in g p u b li c . It is q u i t e p o s s i b l e , to o , t h a t t h i s t r a n s l a t i o n had some in flu e n c e on subsequent d e c i s i o n s by j lother w r i t e r s to t r a n s l a t e "The Love Song of J. A lfred j Prufrock" and The Waste Land during the following y ear. In any c as e, P e r s e ' s " a d a p ta tio n " played a small but s i g n i f i cant p a r t in e s t a b l i s h i n g E l i o t ' s r e p u t a t i o n in France, and iCommerce extended t h a t r e p u t a t i o n by p u b lis h in g more of h is new po etry than any o th e r French l i t e r a r y j o u r n a l . The h i s t o r y of T. S. E l i o t ' s in flu en ce on French l i t e r a t u r e has y e t to be w r i t t e n , but a t l e a s t i t is c l e a r t h a t h is in f l u e n c e has acted upon S a in t-J o h n Perse. This is s u r p r i s i n g , because Perse seems to owe less to purely l i t e r a r y in f l u e n c e s , whether French or f o r e i g n , than do most major p o e t s . E l i o t ' s in fl u e n c e takes two unmistakable forms. In the f i r s t canto of Vents (1946), Perse r e t u r n s to h is " a d a p t a t i o n " o f E l i o t ' s poem for a c r u c i a l image, " le s hommes f a i t s de pai l i e , " This image, which i s c e n t r a l to E l i o t ' s poem, i s the f i r s t f i g u r e in Vents to evoke P e r s e ' s own personal c r i s i s and to r e p r e s e n t the c a t a s t r o p h e of Europe in the tw e n t i e t h ce n tu ry . P e r s e ' s te m p ta t io n to n i h i l i s m and nothingness is f i r s t expressed, then, in an image E l i o t h im s e lf had used to convey h is own personal c r i s i s in the 1920' s; and both poets a s s o c i a t e t h e i r c r i s i s I 2 8 5 i with the general c r i s i s of Europe. However, E l i o t ' s influ-; ! i I ; ence on Perse was not without i t s negative e f f e c t s . His 1 experience with E l i o t ' s problems in t r a n s la tin g Anabase and j h is knowledge e s p e c i a l l y of E l i o t ' s later poetry seems to j j j have confirmed his r e j e c t io n of what he imagined were the main c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s of "Anglo-Saxon" poetry. This r e j e c tio n was c o n s is te n t with P er se 's own poetic and actual p r a c tic e , but i t does seem to have kept him from a fuI I understanding of English and American poetry. This is un- I I fortunate for a poet who, like many an English, and e s - I j p e c i a l l y an American poet, emphasizes the ex perien tial b asis of his poetry and is a master of concrete specificity. E li o t published the f i r s t canto of his Anabasi s t r a n s l a t i o n in his own Monthly C r i t e r i o n . VII, ii (Febru ary, 1928), but the f i r s t complete e d it i o n did not appear until two years later. As the only published t r a n s la tio n of Anabase in English, t h i s tr a n s la t io n i s of considerable importance.^ F irst of all, E l i o t ' s d e c isio n to t r a n s la t e ; P er se 's long and d i f f i c u l t poem rev e a ls something about his own poetic in the 1920's. Apparently, he was highly 3"I know of two unpublished versions: my own and that by Edouard Roditi of which he w rites in Adam. 300 (London, 1965), pp. 186-191. There are probably others. Roger L i t t l e , "T. S. E li o t and Saint-John Perse," The ArIington Quarter ly . II, 2 (Autumn, 1969), p. 6 . This a r t i c l e ap- peared too late for me to use in the body of t h i s d i s s e r t a t io n . Irecep tiv e to Anabase for t h r e e reasons: I) the vivid i m- i mediacy of i t s imagery, 2) i t s e l l i p t i c a l method of organ i z a ti o n , and 3) i t s juxtaposition or "interpenetration" of i 'the past and the present in a mythic structure. The two I I la tter concerns are quite similar to structural and thematic I innovations which E lio t had made in some of his own poems ! i jand which he had come to a r t i c u l a t e as "the mythical method" jof w r i t i n g poetry. I The complete tr a n s la t io n i t s e l f e x i s t s in at least one junpublished version (a 1927 f i r s t - d r a f t t y p e s c r ip t housed in the Bodleian Library), two British ed itio n s (1930 and 1959), and two American e d iti o n s (1938 and 194-9)— each one d i f f e r e n t from the others. The purpose of the tr a n s la t io n I !was not to recreate the French te x t as an English work but, i in E l i o t ' s words, "only to a s s i s t the English-speaking reader who wishes to approach the French t e x t . " However, E lio t devoted a great deal of energy to the tra n s la tio n ; and Perse h im self, when E lio t did not r e s i s t h is suggestions, 'Contributed much to i t s su ccess. The d rastic improvement of the 1930 B ritish e d itio n over the 1927 ty p es crip t, in f a c t , is due c h i e f l y to Perse's c l o s e c o llab oration with his English tr a n s la to r in the form of page-by-page emenda tion s and suggestions for changes. The 194-9 American e d i tio n is a ls o greatly indebted to Perse's c o lla b o r a tio n , and the 1959 British ed itio n is e n t ir e ly a printing of his own I 2 8 7 i [revision s of the English t e x t . Consequently, Perse should ! i | get nearly as much credit as E lio t for the achievement of j 1 I the Anabasi s tr a n s la tio n . ! Of the f i v e known versions of the Anabasi s tran slation , j the 1959 British ed ition is unquestionably the best. The ! ! ! 1927 ty p e s c r ip t, despite E l i o t ' s original intention to p u b - 1 lish i t , is truly l i t t l e more than a f i r s t draft and was i jheavily revise d. The f i r s t British e d itio n conveys well the in t e n s it y of the narrator's voice and the immediacy of imagery, and i t recreates the p a r a lle lis m e s s e n tia l to the poem's arc h ite c tu r e . However, i t is not without weaknesses: the d i c t i o n i s overly la tin a te and sometimes B i b l i c a l , the rhythm is perhaps unavoidably prosaic, and the continuity 1 of the poem i s disrupted by variation s in tone and occasion al inaccuracies of imagery and d i c t i o n . The f i r s t American ed itio n generally increases the accuracy of d ic ti o n in the English t e x t , but several new confusions in imagery disrupt i t s c on tin u ity even more. The second American e d itio n , 'however, is considerably improved. Many instances of imagery and d i c t i o n have been revised and corrected, and E lio t weakens the te x t further only in Canto I by adding another Biblical phrasing. The second British e d itio n con tains more r e v i s i o n s than any of the others, and most are considerably more accurate. The imagery is clea r e r , and the changes in d ic ti o n restore in large part the voice of the narrator and the over-all tone of the French t e x t . Un- ! [fortunately, the greater p recision in vocabulary cre ates a imore prosaic rhythm in the tr a n s la t io n , and the Biblical phrasing and a l l u s i o n are allowed to remain. Yet, although I ' P e r s e i n t r o d u c e s some new c o n f u s i o n or d i s r u p t i o n i n t o t h e 1 I i i > itext, the 1959 British e d iti o n is the most readable and ac curate of a l l . One may disagree over the merit of E l i o t ' s Anabasi s t r a n s la t io n in comparison with the English t r a n s l a t i o n s of Perse's other works. Denis D e v lin 's Exi Ie and Other Poems. for example, c e r ta in ly seems to me more accurate and no les^ poetic than E l i o t ' s tr a n s la t io n . However, Anabasi s is by far the most s i g n i f i c a n t tr a n s la t io n in terms of impact on English-speaking readers. For Perse's Anglo-American repu ta t io n as a poet owes a large debt to the Anabasi s t r a n s l a tion and to E l i o t ' s origin al "Preface" to the poem. From 1930 to 1944, Perse was known in the English-speaking world almost s o le l y through the two e d iti o n s of Anabasi s . And |f o r more than ten years, his "Preface" provided the only introduction in English to P erse's poetry. The poem was widely read by the younger English and American poets of the I930's and, consequently, influenced some of th e ir work. E l i o t ' s t r a n s l a t i o n , then, played an unusually crucial role in cre a tin g , extending, and sustaining Persy's reputation in the English-speaking world. 2 8 9 i i Because of the Anabasis t r a n s la t io n , Perse's poem i ! exerted a d e f i n i t e influence on several poets writing in English, not the least of which was E lio t him self. This is I l | hardly surprising, for E lio t tended to borrow e x te n s iv e ly | from other poets; b esid es, he f e l t some s i m i l a r i t y between I his own technique and that of Anabase. P er se 's influence p ersisted through most of E l i o t ' s poems and several of the j plays written a fte r the Anabasi s t r a n s la tio n was begun in 1926. These include "Journey of the Magi," Ash-Wednesday. "Marina," Cor i oI an. "Choruses from The Rock" Murder i n the I Cathedra I . and even Li t t I e Gi ddi ng. In these works, his influence assumes a number of forms. One is simply the d i r e c t borrowing of individual words, phrases, and isolated I images from the Anabasi s tr a n s la t io n . This borrowing has special s i g n i f i c a n c e in the imagery of "Journey of the Magi," Ash-Wednesday. and C oriolan . Another i s the use of the homologous s e r i e s and the long verse of more than one line in length, both in the context of E l i o t ' s increasing experimentation with ample rhythmic patterns in the 1930's. The homologous s e r i e s also becomes a unique device for ex pressing and c o n tr o ll in g the natural imagery which gradu a l l y grows more frequent in E l i o t ' s poetry a fte r The Ho I Iow Men. The la s t comes in E l i o t ' s use of e l l i p t i c a l imagery p atterns, notably in "Journey of the Magi," where a sug gested conceptual design is subordinated to the immediacy I 290 j I of the imagery, and in "Marina" and " D i f f i c u l t i e s of a Statesman" where ju x ta p o s itio n s of concrete and abstract d ic ti o n sustain a key ambiguity with unequal s uccess. | Although r e s t r i c t e d to the imagery and rhythm of i E l i o t ' s poetry, P erse's influence through the Anabasi s (tran slation was far from i n s i g n i f i c a n t — as nearly all pre- ! ivious c r i t i c s have suggested. Indeed, E l i o t ' s borrowings l jwere anything but s e r v i l e ; he fashioned them to h is own s t y l e and t a s t e , and to the internal demands of individual poems. Furthermore, Anabasi s seems to have stimulated E l i o t ' s experimentation and to have contributed to the growing mastery of his own s t y l e . For these reasons, though Dante may be the most s i g n i f i c a n t over-all influence on E l i o t ' s work, and the in fluence of Jules Laforgue may dominate h is early poems, on E l i o t ' s later poetry the most important French lite r a r y influence is surely that of Saint-John Perse. The r e l a t i o n s h i p between T. S. E li o t and Saint-John Perse, one-sided and tenuous as i t often seems, neverthe le ss turned out to be an unusual a s s e t for both the poets concerned— and for us. BIBLIOGRAPHY Aiken, Conrad. "Whole Meaning or Doodle. Rai ns by S a i n t - John P e r s e , " New Repub l i e . CXII, 15 (Apr i I 16 , 1945), 512. A ldington, Richard. Ezra Pound and T. S. E l i o t : a_ Lecture. New York: Peacocks t^ress, 1954. Anonymous. "Problems of p o e t ic t r a n s l a t i o n in modern Greek." Times L i t e r a r y Supplement, 3553 (2 A p r i l , 1970), 349-350. Aubry, G .-Jean. VaIery Larbaud, sa Vi e et son Oeuvre. Monaco, 194-9. Barnes, W. J. "T. S. 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Creator Abel, Richard Owen (author)

Core Title The Relationship Between The Poetry Of T. S. Eliot And Saint-John Perse

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Comparative Literature

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag literature, American,literature, English,Literature, Modern,literature, romance,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Knodel, Arthur J. (committee chair), Casson, Allan Perham (committee member), Malone, David H. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-453411

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Legacy Identifier 7112368.pdf

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Rights Abel, Richard Owen

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