Théophile Gautier was a great traveller, visiting places as diverse as Spain, Italy, Russia, Egypt and Algeria, and his writing based on the various places he visited are works of art. He has a knack of transporting you to the place and making you live the experience he is living. His descriptions are not only vivid, they are touching and so very romantic; they transport you into his world and make you dream. For Gautier, how the story is told is of more importance than the story itself. Reading him really inspires one to want to emulate such beauty. Wonderful!

Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier was one of several classic French writers whose works I studied at university and fell in love with. He was born in 1811 in Tarbes, southwest France, but was raised in Paris. Author Victor Hugo is credited for influencing Gautier to explore literature; until he met Hugo, Gautier was exploring painting as a medium for expression. He became a well-respected critic of the arts: literature, art, theatre, dance, and he experimented with poetry, but mainly he wrote articles for journals such as La Presse.

Just a snapshot of his poetry suffices to show Gautier’s mastery of language and his ability to create a vivid picture in your mind. The following two poems are translated from his collection of Romantic poetry Émaux et Camées (Enamels and Cameos). These, and others, are available at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29521/29521-h/29521-h.htm.

As I read the first poem, I am swept away by the beauty of the words – each word conveys delight and adoration, the rhythm and rhyme is wonderful, and the choice of words is perfection itself: lure, pure, snowy kiss, fair as lily, whitest poem, reposing, velvet, delicately, undulating, beautiful, graceful, subtlesome, silken locks, gem-bright, gilded sceptre, soft, luxurious, passion, wondrous, free… and so on, and so on. The line that lingers in my mind is ‘Impossible dream-flutterings!’; so onomatopoeic in the translation (Rêves d’impossibilités in the original).

But then comes the second poem, and Gautier shows himself to be a master at creating mood, for he smashes through the romantic, soft, lovely mood created by his first poem from the very opening line: ‘Strange contrast was the severed hand’. Now, there is vivid vocabulary that creates mental images that disturb and chill: murderer dead, morbid, loathing, cold, hair-covered, slimy skin, deathly stain, yellow, uncanny, mummified, lured them to horrors, hideous hieroglyphs, grim, scorchings from every fiery hell, corruptions seethe and boil…

The juxtaposition of the two makes for powerful and evocative writing indeed.

A STUDY OF HANDS

I
IMPERIA
A sculptor showed to me one day
A hand, a Cleopatra’s lure,
Or an Aspasia’s, cast in clay,
Of masterwork a fragment pure.
Seized in a snowy kiss, and fair
As lily in the argent rise
Of dawn, like whitest poem there
Its beauty lay before mine eyes,
Bright in its pallor lustreless,
Reposing on a velvet bed,
Its fingers, weighted with their dress
Of jewels, delicately spread.
A little parted lay the thumb,
Showing the undulating line,
Beautiful, graceful, subtlesome,
Of its proud contour Florentine.
Strange hand! I wonder if it toyed
In silken locks of Don Juan,
Or on a gem-bright caftan joyed
To stroke the beard of some soldan;
Whether, as courtesan or queen,
Within its fingers fair and slight
Was pleasure’s gilded sceptre seen,
Or sceptre of a royal might!
But sweet and firm it must have lain
Full oft its touch of power rare
Upon the curling lion-mane
Of some chimera caught in air.
Imperial, idle fantasy,
And love of soft, luxurious things,
Frenzies of passion, wondrous, free,
Impossible dream-flutterings!
Romances wild, and poesy
Of hasheech and of wine, vain speeds
Beneath Bohemia’s brilliant sky
On unrestrained and maddened steeds!
All these were in the lines of it,
Of that white book with magic scrolled,
Where ciphers stood, by Venus writ,
That Love had trembled to behold.
II
LACENAIRE
Strange contrast was the severed hand
Of Lacenaire, the murderer dead,
Soaked in a powerful essence, and
Near by upon a cushion spread.
Letting a morbid fancy win,
I touched, despite my loathing sane,
The cold, hair-covered, slimy skin,
Not yet washed clean of deathly stain.
Yellow, uncanny, mummified,
Like to a Pharaoh’s hand it lay,
And stretched its faun-shaped fingers wide,
Crisp with temptation’s awful play;
As though an itch for flesh and gold
Lured them to horrors yet to be,
Twisting them roughly as of old,
Teasing their immobility.
There every vice and passion’s whim
Had seamed the flesh abundantly
With hideous hieroglyphs and grim,
That headsmen read with fluency.
There plainly writ in furrows fell,
I saw the deeds of sin and soil,
Scorchings from every fiery hell
Wherein corruptions seethe and boil.
There was a track of Capri’s vice,
Of lupanars and gaming-scores,
Fretted with wine and blood and dice,
Like ennui of old emperors.
Supple and fierce, it had some dower
Of grace unto the searching eye,
Some brutal fascination’s power,
A gladiator’s mastery.
Cold aristocracy of crime!
No plane inured, no hammer spent
The hand whose task for every time
Had but the knife for implement.
The hand of Lacenaire! No clue
Therein to labour’s honest pride!
False poet, and assassin true,
The Manfred of the gutter died!