These Jaundiced Loves by Tristan Corbière

First published:Les Amours jaunes, 1873 (English translation, 1995)

Type of work: Poetry

The Work:

Tristan Corbière was born in Brittany in 1845 and died there thirty years later. He knew illness throughout his life, and it prevented him from completing his formal education. In a land of seafarers, he was acutely conscious of his physical debility. Corbière’s exacerbated sensibility is a major part of his outstanding originality. In his poems, the image that he presents of himself is never flattering. Indeed, Corbière seems greatly to have exaggerated his unattractive appearance.

Most of Corbière’s poetic production is grouped in the collection titled, in the original, Les Amours jaunes—literally, “yellow loves” or “off-color loves.” This collection, first published in 1873, went almost unnoticed. The title can scarcely be fully explained, for it seems to involve a characteristic, deliberate attempt at obfuscating originality on the part of the poet. The title may seem appropriate, however, after a reading of the pieces it covers; in fact many of the poems in the collection might be considered the product of a sickly or jaundiced view of the world.

“That,” the title of the first section of These Jaundiced Loves, offers little help to those seeking a thematic unity within the group. The title is also that of the first piece in the section. The poet frames a negative answer to the questions put to him about his art by an interlocutor. The dialogue is brought to a close by the poet, who says, “Art does not know me, and I don’t know Art.” This should not be interpreted as a declaration of ignorance on the part of an unlettered provincial. Corbière seems to have been sufficiently aware of France’s nineteenth century poets to have borrowed from some—Charles Baudelaire in particular—where it suited him, and to castigate others, notably Alphonse de Lamartine and Alfred de Musset. Rather, it might be useful to evoke the idea of an opposition between literature and art on one hand and poetry and life on the other, for what Corbière’s originality causes his poetry to lose in technical value it causes it to gain in vitality, color, relief, and strength. If Corbière’s poems seem to step outside any framework of definition, so, one is tempted to add, does life.

Corbière lived for some time in Paris, and the first section of his collection contains a sonnet sequence describing the impressions made upon him by the city. The number of writers who have contributed to the evolution of the myth of the French capital as a tentacular city seizing and devouring its unfortunate victims is great. Corbière adds his name to this company.

A poem that is on occasion included with the eight Parisian sonnets in the first chapter is titled “Paris at Night.” Certain aspects of the poem recall the “Parisian Tableaux” in Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal (1857, 1861, 1868; Flowers of Evil, 1931). Like Baudelaire, Corbière evokes sinister scenes and characters and frenetic activity, while sickness and death seem to hover over the poem. “Paris at Night” and others like it remain strikingly original. In the metropolis, the Breton is reminded of home, of the sea he knows well; the comparison of the city to the sea is strange, but not forced: “It’s the sea,—a flat calm.—And the great tide/ With a far-off roar has withdrawn.” Even where the poem moves from general description to closer perspectives, Corbière’s sustained use of maritime imagery remains peculiarly appropriate: “The waves will soon come rumbling back in./ Can you hear the crabs scratching about in the dark?” “Paris at Night” illustrates some of the finer aspects of Corbière’s technique. As is the case in many others of his poems, the imagery is powerful, even shocking. There is, moreover, an element of deliberate ambiguity that leaves questions in readers’ minds. Above all, the poem becomes for readers a form of adventure on which they embark with the poet; readers are involved in the discovery of a world that unfolds before them while retaining its mystery.

Corbière’s use of irony has been much discussed. Irony generally implies the presentation of two points of view or more, the offering of landmarks, as it were, from which readers may establish proper perspective. Corbière’s approaches to irony are numerous, but they are closely related to one another. At the most basic level, the poet makes considerable use of puns and plays on words. In many places, he closely intertwines the sublime with the grossly vulgar, or the divine with the familiar. His purpose in each case seems to be to bring the lofty down to a level where it may be more easily viewed. The purposes and forms of Corbière’s irony seem to be manifold in These Jaundiced Loves. If his irony is frequently corrosive and negative or even simply facetious, it is also occasionally used with serious intent to goad readers into revising their opinions, or into thinking deeply. Often the prime target of the poet’s irony is himself. He uses it to prevent himself from falling into a fixed pose or attitude or identity. One example is his description of his situation in Paris: “Five-hundred-thousandth Prometheus/ Chained to the rock of painted cardboard.” Corbière is equally capable of using irony to deflate the posturing of others. Often, too, the irony seems to take the form of a defense reaction; the poet, in the teeth of adversity, rather than give way to a hysterical lamentation, manages to raise a smile.

“These Jaundiced Loves” is also the title of a section within the collection of poems. The unity of the section is not clear at first. The poems in it deal with love and women, although in a somewhat bizarre and indirect fashion. It would seem unlikely that these strange pieces would ever help win over a coy mistress. This group of poems is uneven, but one or two outstanding ones are to be found, and the section does help shed light on Corbière’s technique as a poet.

One of the most effective, trenchant pieces in These Jaundiced Loves is “A Young Man Dying.” Corbière has a young poet present the question, To die or not to die? Corbière reveals in the young man an alternating appetite for and aversion to life. Corbière scathingly mocks the line of consumptive Romantic poets who seemed to spend their lives setting down their protracted death throes in writing. Avoiding the obvious, as he generally does, Corbière writes: “How many of them have I read die away.” Corbière’s refusal to identify with these poets seems doubly significant when one recalls his constant ill health and his early death.

Perhaps the most significant of the poems in this section is a long work titled “The Contumacious Poet.” It is a description of a poet’s taking up residence in an old ruined building, once a convent, in Brittany. The poem involves a characteristic mingling of tones humorous and nostalgic. The poet, for example, after fervently praying that his absent loved one might come to him, and even vividly imagining her to be there, hears a knock at the door of his tumbledown dwelling. He is of course disappointed when he goes to answer: “Show yourself with a dagger in your heart! . . ./ —There’s a knock . . . oh! it’s someone. . . . Alas! Yes, it’s a rat.”

The one section of These Jaundiced Loves in which Corbière is truly consistent in form, theme, and mood is titled “Armorica.” The name refers to Brittany. It is obvious that the poet’s sensibility is permeated with the atmosphere and folklore of his native province, and he communicates his feeling for it beautifully. In this section there is little of the frenetic pursuit of originality at all costs that detracts from several pieces in other sections. The first poem of “Armorica” could easily stand as one of the better short Surrealist poems of a later period. It is an irregular sonnet titled “Evil Landscape.” It succeeds in communicating an intense impression not only of gloom but also of a spectral world from which humanity seems excluded, or in which a person would be an intruder. The starkness of the landscape, captured in Corbière’s harsh alliteration, and the whole uncanny atmosphere would surely strike a receptive chord in the heart of any Celt.

“Seamen” is probably the most vitally alive, if not the most consistent, of the sections in These Jaundiced Loves. As the title suggests, it deals with the sea, seamen, and seaports, viewed realistically and sometimes ribaldly, from close up. The finest of these wild, undisciplined pieces is probably “Bitor the Hunchback,” the tale of a deformed ship’s watchman who, on his annual spree ashore, heads for a brothel, eager to know love and with money to burn. The pace of the poem is such that the reader seems to be following hard on Bitor’s heels. With Bitor, the reader sees the interior of the brothel displayed: its selection of women who are paid according to their “tonnage,” the sailors of many different nationalities, for each of whom Corbière does a remarkable thumbnail sketch:

Tall Yankees, blind-drunk as always,Sitting in pairs, shooting at the wallTheir stream of tobacco-juice aiming at a target,Always hitting the mark.

From a joyously bawdy atmosphere, however, the mood changes to become frightening. The reader experiences the impression of mounting apprehension as all the people in the brothel turn their attention to Bitor. He is stripped naked and tossed up and down in a blanket. He is finally badly bruised. Later, Bitor’s body turns up in the harbor, but the reader is left with no explanation of his death. It might be that Bitor, having known the full pleasures of the flesh, had nothing more to live for:

What was left by the crabs now served as materialFor the jests of the public; and the street-urchins,Playing alongside the black water beneath the  sunny skyBeat on his hump as you would on a drum . . .A burst drum . . .—That poor body had known love.

Paul Verlaine was one of the first writers in France to comment enthusiastically on the originality of Tristan Corbière. Since Verlaine, other talents have pointed to the unique qualities of the Breton poet. Nonetheless, Corbière’s work has attracted relatively little attention. It is perhaps worth noting that the poet’s best critics have themselves been original, creative writers. This is understandable given the fact that Corbière’s work does not fit neatly into any real literary tradition. It may be argued, however, that Corbière belongs to an excellent tradition—one that he started. Many poets have followed him.

Bibliography

Burch, Francis F. “The Iconography of Tristan Corbière.” In International Perspectives in Comparative Literature: Essays in Honor of Charles Dedeyan, edited by Virginia M. Shaddy. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1991. Compares the image that Corbière presents in his pictorial self-portraits with the image that he presents in the self-portrait that is These Jaundiced Loves.

Corbière, Tristan. Selections from “Les Amours jaunes.” Translated with an introduction and notes by C. F. MacIntyre. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954. Includes a sketch of the poet’s life along with short appraisals by his contemporaries and by later critics. The notes provide valuable, detailed information about each of the poems included.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Centenary Corbière: Poems and Prose of Tristan Corbière. Translated and with an introduction by Val Warner. Chester Springs, Pa.: Dufour, 1975. Collection includes a translator’s introduction that offers a complete, concise appraisal of These Jaundiced Loves and its effect on later writers.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. These Jaundiced Loves: A Translation of Tristan Corbière’s “Les Amours jaunes.” Translated by Christopher Pilling. Calstock, England: Peterloo Poets, 1995. An excellent resource for students of Corbière’s work. Both English translations and the original French are provided.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Wry-Blue Loves = “Les Amours jaunes,” and Other Poems. Translated and introduced by Peter Dale. London: Anvil Press Poetry, 2005. Collection includes Les Amours jaunes in its entirety, plus some of Corbière’s previously uncollected poems.

Lunn-Rockliffe, Katherine. Tristan Corbière and the Poetics of Irony. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Analysis of These Jaundiced Loves focuses on Corbière’s innovative use of language and irony and demonstrates how the poet contributed to the changes in French poetry that were taking place in the 1870’s.

Mitchell, Robert L. Corbière, Mallarmé, Valéry: Preservations and Commentary. Saratoga, Calif.: Anma Libri, 1981. Discusses These Jaundiced Loves in terms of the difficulty that it presents to translators. Includes extremely close analyses of ten of Corbière’s poems.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Tristan Corbière. Boston: Twayne, 1979. Places These Jaundiced Loves in the contexts of Corbière’s life and the poetic movements of his time. Includes extremely detailed analyses of the poems.