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Updated: June 22, 2025
Like his protagonist Arthur Rimbaud surely the most extraordinary poetic apparition of the nineteenth century Jules Laforgue accomplished his destiny during the period when most poets are moulding their wings preparatory to flight. He flew in youth, flew moonward, for his patron goddess was Selene, he her faithful worshipper, a true lunalogue.
Hale did the same years ago for American readers in a sympathetic article, The Fantastical Jules Laforgue. He also translated with astonishing fidelity to the letter and spirit of the author, his incomparable Lohengrin, Fils de Parsifal. I regret having it no longer in my possession so that I might quote from its delicious prose.
But here are "Les Moralites Legendaires" by Jules Laforgue, and "Les Illuminations" by Rambaud. Paul has not read these books; they were sent to him, I suppose, for review, and put away on the bookcase, all uncut; their authors do not visit here. And this sets me thinking that one knows very little of any generation except one's own. True that I know a little more of the symbolists than Paul.
Galsworthy has almost miraculously succeeded in extracting the last emotional content out of a situation in which a single false touch of sentiment would have wrecked his story. This collection of six fantasies in prose and one play has no special principle of unity except its attempt to apply the art of Laforgue to much less adequate material.
Laforgue was essentially a namer with Gallic glee he would have enjoyed renaming the animals as they left the Noachian ark; yes, and nicknaming the humans, for he is a terrible disrespecter of persons and rank and of the seats of the mighty.
This, apparently mad sequence of words and dissociation of ideas, has been deciphered by M. Kahn, and need not daunt any one who has patience and ingenuity. I confess I prefer Laforgue, who at his most cryptic is never so wildly tantalising as Rimbaud. Moralités légendaires contains six sections.
Indeed in one of his books he refers to Huysmans as his friend. It is further apparent that he is acquainted with the works of Barbey d'Aurevilly, Josephin Péladan, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Catulle Mendès, and Jules Laforgue, especially the Laforgue of the "Moralités Legendaires." But Saltus surpasses Poe in almost every respect save as a poet.
Quite appropriately his dying word was le mot de Cambronne. It was the last victory of an organ over an organism. And he was a gay old pagan who never called a sin a sin when it was a pleasure. "Jules Laforgue: Quelle joie!" All victories are alike; defeat alone displays an individual profile. And the case of Jules Laforgue wears this special aspect.
In this passage Casanova says, for instance: 'Elle venoit presque tous les jours lui faire une belle visite. This is altered into: 'Cependant chaque jour Therese venait lui faire une visite. Casanova says that some one 'avoit, comme de raison, forme le projet d'allier Dieu avec le diable. This is made to read: 'Qui, comme de raison, avait saintement forme le projet d'allier les interets du ciel aux oeuvres de ce monde. Casanova tells us that Therese would not commit a mortal sin 'pour devenir reine du monde; pour une couronne, corrects the indefatigable Laforgue.
The prose of Jules Laforgue recalls to me his description of the orchestra in Salomé, the fourth of the Moralités légendaires. Sur un mode allègre et fataliste, un orchestre aux instruments d'ivoire improvisait une petite overture unanime. That his syllables are of ivory I feel, and improvised, but his themes are pluralistic, the immedicable and colossal ennui of life the chiefest.
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