Stéphane Mallarmé
French poet and critic, 1842-1898
Stéphane Mallarmé was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism. Some consider Mallarmé one of the French poets most difficult to translate into English. The difficulty is due in part to the complex, multilayered nature of much of his work, but also to the important role that the sound of the words, rather than their meaning, plays in his poetry. When recited in French, his poems allow alternative meanings which are not evident on reading the work on the page.
Source: Wikipedia
French poet (1842-1898). Autograph letter signed „S. M.“. Avignon. 8vo (204 x 127 mm). 4 pp. Papier de deuil.
$ 10,152 / 9.500 €
(61576)
Belle lettre à un ami poète Armand Renaud (1836-1895). Les recherches que Mallarmé mène alors sur la linguistique en vue d’une thèse sur le langage l’ont empêché d’étudier Les Nuits persanes de son ami : "Pendant ces deux mois voués au début irrésolu d’études assez sérieuses, la poësie n’était plus mon appétition constante, mais plutôt composait le fond de mon atmosphère intellectuelle où j’aimais, aux heures de répit, à plonger les yeux pour me revoir. Cet office délicieux, votre volume l’a rempli presque chaque soir." Mallarmé est avant tout frappé par la "complète différence d’avec les recueils romantiques ou de ces dernières années qui ont puisé leurs motifs parmi l’Orient". Ami de la première heure, Armand Renaud (1836-1895), poète disciple d’Émile Deschamps, était par ailleurs fonctionnaire à l’Hôtel de Ville et, à ce titre, aida Mallarmé dans certaines démarches officielles, notamment pour sa nomination en Avignon ou pour obtenir un congé provisoire avec indemnité annuelle en janvier 1870. Provenance : Drouot, 16 avril 1998, n° 165. Références : B.
Marchal, "La Correspondance de Stéphane Mallarmé. Compléments et Suppléments, VIII", in Revue d'Histoire littéraire de la France 1999, n° 5, p. 1065-1066..
Franz. Schriftsteller (1842-1898). Orginialphotographie (tirage argentique). ohne Ort. 146 : 118 mm.
$ 1,282 / 1.200 €
(81774)
Schöner Abzug, abgeschnitten im Vergleich zu dem bekannten Portrait von 1895, wo das Buch und der Tisch zu ist. Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898) trägt auf seinen Schultern das Tuch, das ihm Méry Laurent geschenkt hatte. Er sitzt an einem Tisch, einen Stift in der Hand, ein altes Buch, ist am linken Rand zu erkennen. : Abgedruckt in Literary Magazine, Stéphane Mallarmé, Nr. 368, September 1998, p. 24. Stéphane Mallarmé in Valvins, Stéphane Mallarmé Museum, 1995, p. 33. Mallarme, Musée d’Orsay, 1998, Kat.-Nr. 290 (anderer Druck), mit Abb. 90.
French poet and critic (1842-1898). Autograph letter signed. Paris, 87 rue de Rome. 8vo. 6 pp. Slightly age toned.
$ 6,946 / 6.500 €
(93087)
To the French writer Léon Hennique 1851-1935). A glowing praise of Léon Hennique's first novel, "La Dévouée: héros modernes" (Charpentier, 1878). He has read his beautiful novel twice. "Not that I ever doubted the talent that leaps from your pages! I knew you were a man capable of much. It's the assuredness of your style that has somewhat surprised me. Setting aside the concept itself, this is the novel of a writer who has written twelve; and the mastery in this beginning confounds me. From the walk to Moulineaux, where the air, the real, breathable air circulates so palpably, to all the other pieces in the volume, there is ease and refinement, intensity with a light touch, in short, everything that makes an outstanding artist (...)." He expresses some reservations about the character of Geoffrin, but "Michelle, whom I don't see as a modern hero because she acts unconsciously and entirely passively (for heroism, I believe, is more about confronting evil and sending a wicked father to the avenging scaffold!), is nonetheless adorable.
All the other characters step out of the book, walk, and re-enter life once it's closed, so ordinary and true they are. Except for the tricolor wooden leg, which is not characteristically typical of the contemporary poet, your letter from Father Hugo, which pains me, there is not a single trait to erase. Your work stands with its perfection of external vision and undeniable life (...)." He would have a thousand more things to say but is about to leave for the countryside. However, "everything you have depicted is so clear and remains so vivid in the mind that I do not fear forgetting anything this winter when we meet again at Zola's (...).".
poète français (1842-1898). Lettre autographe signée ("Votre Stéphane Mallarmé"). [Paris. Une page petit in-4. Suscription.
$ 17,098 / 16.000 €
(45208/BN31482)
À "mon cher Hérold": "[...] Dites si ce n'est pas bien exigeant de vous demander de reprendre demain soir Mardi le chemin de la rue de Rome, parce que je voudrais prendre votre avis sur un rien tout en causant [...]". - En 1888, le tout jeune poète (Hérold est né en 1865) fait parvenir spontanément au Maître son premier recueil de poésie "L'Exil de Harini" que Dalou venait de publier. L'accueil de Mallarmé lui fut d'emblée favorable et Hérold allait devenir un des plus fervents affidés des célèbres Mardis de la rue de Rome, où se croisèrent entre 1880 et 1898, Verlaine, Gide, Louÿs, Régnier, Whistler, etc.
autant de visiteurs illustres ou poètes inconnus qui participèrent à la légende mallarméenne des Mardis, ces réunions hebdomadaires où le Maître improvisait, debout, fumant la pipe, face à des disciples dévots de la génération post-symboliste. - A.-J. Ferdinand Hérold est le petit fils du compositeur Ferdinand Hérold (l'auteur du Pré-aux-Clercs). Entré à l'École des Chartes en 1885, il en sort trois ans plus tard pour se consacrer entièrement à la littérature qu'il servit au cours de sa vie avec beaucoup d'intelligence et de sensibilité poétique. Il s'immisce parmi les auteurs symbolistes, fréquente assidument les Mardis de Mallarmé, et noue une vive amitié avec son coreligionnaire le poète Pierre Louÿs dont il se séparera au moment de l'Affaire Dreyfus. Très lié au cercle des Heredia (les sœurs Heredia), Régnier, Gautier (par Judith Gautier, la fille de Théophile), Louÿs et Valéry, ami des musiciens Fauré et Ravel, il fut un contributeur avisé au Mercure de France d'Alfred Vallette. Poète, mais aussi auteur dramatique, traducteur d'Eschyle et d'Euripide, plusieurs de ses pièces furent représentées sur la scène du théâtre d'avant-garde de Lugné-Poë (L'Anneau de Çacuntala en 1895, ainsi que La Cloche engloutie, tirée du conte de G. Hauptmann, deux ans plus tard)..
poète français (1842-1898). Autograph letter signed. Vulaines, par Avon (Seine et Marne). 08.10.1893. 3 pp. petit in-8.
$ 13,358 / 12.500 €
(59650/BN43369)
To French composer and critic Paul Dukas, thanking for an article on William Beckford: "Je vous remercie tard, j'ai voyagé, de la belle page par vous écrite au sujet de Beckford [William], comme elle m'eût servi, précieusement, avant de préfacer son livre ! Cela reste un honneur, pour ma réédition, d'avoir motivé cette étude perspicace et haute, je la conserve comme un des titres du Vathek à la faveur française. Permettez aussi que je me montre flatté des paroles bienveillantes qui s'adressent particulièrement au bibliophile [...]".
French poet and critic (1842-1898). 3 autograph letters signed. Avignon, [Paris], and n. p. 8vo and 12mo. Altogether 9 pp. on 5 ff.
$ 10,152 / 9.500 €
(82609/BN53791)
The most important letter in this collection, to his close friend Armand Renaud, was written on 5 Dec. 1869 towards the end of a creative blockage that had begun earlier that same year. Suffering from an old illness and studying for a humanities degree, Mallarmé wished to take a year's leave from his post as a teacher in Avignon. He informs Renaud about his request to the Ministry of Education and his financial worries: "I find myself with hardly enough to get by". Therefore, he asks Armand to inform M.
Lebourgeois of his request, who should in turn use his influence at the Ministry to obtain a higher allowance for Mallarmé. He also hints at the abandonment of his first literary project since 1866, the philosophical poem "Igitur", because of his studies: "I worked on what I told you but a serious occupation, which must be that of my forced leisure (the humanities degree in view of the doctorate), will give my thoughts a different direction. To tell the truth, a year of Latin and Greek suddenly appearing is a fortunate and interesting perspective". The Ministry granted Mallarmés leave, and during the year 1870 he worked on a linguistic thesis and a Latin thesis on divinity, neither of which he completed. - Mallarmé did not return to Avignon but stayed in Paris where he tried to launch the magazine "Art décoratif" in 1872. In the undated second letter, addressed to a M. Prunère, he announces that the painter Claudius Popelin (1825-92) would contribute a frontispiece to the project, admitting that he did not dare ask for other illustrations: "I saw M. Popelin who was charming and eager to do me the favour. I thus have the promise for a frontispiece [...] Very happy and very proud of my success, I did not dare mention the little ornament that I would like to see at the head of the first page, a kind of title serving as a transition for the reader who browses between the beautiful frontispiece of the cover and the text columns of the first page where it would be placed at the head [...] Do I dare ask you to procure that, just chatting?". The project ultimately fell through, and the recipient of the letter has not been identified. In 1874 Mallarmé launched the avant-garde fashion magazine "La Dernière Mode" and published a few issues as its sole editor. - The last letter in the collection is written to the sculptor and painter Albert Bartholomé (1848-1928) on behalf of the painter Jacques-Émile Blanche (1861-1942), a former student of Mallarmé. Blanche was hoping that the École des Beaux-Arts would buy one of his paintings following the 1892 exhibition of the Société nationale des beaux-arts at the Palais du Champ de Mars. The painting can be identified with his famous portrait of Marcel Proust, today in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay: "I gathered some information and I communicate it to you so as not to exasperate the terrible man we love. It is necessary that M. Blanche immediately addresses the director of the Beaux-Arts with a request to 'include the no. of his painting in the acquisitions made at the Champ-de-Mars'. This formality is indispensable and it will be followed by a recommendation, which, I believe, will have its effect [...]" (10 May, postmarked 1892). - The letter to Armand Renaud on mourning stationery; the letter to Prunère with deep tears in the folds and some browning but no text loss..