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THE DESCRIPTIVE MODE: FLAUBERT, VERGA, HUYSMANS, D’ANNUNZIO

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH AND ITALIAN AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN FRENCH AND ITALIAN

Amy Lilah Elghoroury December 2010

© 2011 by Amy Lilah Elghoroury. All Rights Reserved. Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/

This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/yy507wq8379

ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Johannes Gumbrecht, Primary Adviser

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Franco Moretti, Co-Adviser

I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Laura Wittman

Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies. Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education

This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in University Archives.

iii Abstract

Looking at novels by Flaubert, Verga, Huysmans, and D’Annunzio, this project charts the increasing role of subjectivity in novelistic descriptions from mid- to late- nineteenth century and . This extended analysis of literary techniques that express subjectivity reveals that description was increasingly seen as a field of experimentation in which the parameters of an individual’s access to the observable world could be adjusted to the concerns of a particular novel.

Earlier approaches to description in the nineteenth century had used the proliferation of individual details as a way of ensuring fidelity to the observable world.

An unobtrusive describing voice was considered a mark of the objectivity of a description. Adaptations of this concept to new types of projects – projects in which the distinctive perspective of figures within the world of the novel are key to the novel’s plot

– produced different results, however, in the second half of the century: the issue became not only whether or not one could describe sufficiently and in as objective a way as possible, but how a description could adapt to accommodate observational subjectivity while maintaining the referential basis of the descriptive mode. In some cases the use of techniques that imply the presence of a filtering subjectivity leads to what seems like a greater impersonality, as the observing descriptor is redistributed and reabsorbed into the reality of the novel’s characters. In contrast, in others the overabundance of subjectivity techniques and the influence they have on sentence and paragraph structure overwhelms the composition and the novel moves into relativism and even idiolect. This dissertation traces a progression from the former tendency to the latter over the course of the second half of the nineteenth century in France and Italy, thus showing a continuity between

iv ‘realist’ tropes of observation integrated in description and the ‘decadent’ style that

appropriated those tropes in the interest of individual expression.

This project stems from the premise that description is not simply a type of text,

easily isolated from other types; rather, passages, sentences, and phrases considered

descriptive are operating in a mode that prioritizes the durative qualities of objects in the

world of the novel. Descriptions require a pause in novelistic time, and detecting

descriptive pause is the first task in analyzing how the descriptive text functions both

internally and in relation to the narrative whole. Using durative verb tenses as markers of

descriptive pause, descriptive passages were isolated and examined for formal features

that were either repeated throughout the novel or received special emphasis. Some

features appear to be necessary to all approaches to description – the creation of lists, for

example, is a practice common to all four novels – while others are particular to descriptions of specific kinds of objects or novelistic contexts. The advantage of this approach is that it looks at trends in descriptive practice as groups of stylistic choices that enjoyed certain degrees of preference over time, sometimes emerging with greater emphasis or frequency at certain kinds of moments in a novel (moments of observation, moments of introspection, moments of adjustment in a character’s expectations, etc.) and, on a larger scale, at certain times and places in nineteenth century literary history.

The configuration of authors and novels presented here is therefore based on stylistic tendencies that overlapped across historical and national divisions and not on periodizations that would isolate these works by other criteria. The use of descriptive technique to infuse a novelistic world with the subjective observational standpoint of an integrated observer is shown to have increased in frequency and importance from the

v 1860s to the turn of the century, but this should not imply causal links between the successive moments in literary history represented by these novels. Each novel adapts the possibilities of descriptive language to its immediate aesthetic goals. This dissertation explains descriptive prose from microscopic observations of phrases, sentences, and paragraphs in an effort to decode, from individual choices, the workings of descriptions in themselves and only after that as part of larger narrative wholes.

The first chapter looks at descriptions in Flaubert’s Salammbô as examples of integration of an observing entity with the world the novel describes through perspectivist techniques. With the imperfect tense as support for vast descriptive panoramas,

Flaubert’s prose disperses the points of view from which descriptions of ancient and its environs emanate. The result is an encyclopedic project that maintains a high level of documentary detail while accounting for the experience of an observer who shares a perspectival context with the novel’s characters but is simultaneously not identified with any single figure in the novel.

The second chapter detects the specific traits of Verga’s use of a choral voice in

Mastro-don Gesualdo. By combining the phrase structure of dialect speech with the vocabulary of literary Italian Verga’s project achieves an unusual synthesis of describing voice and described world. The brevity, directness, and expressivity of Verga’s descriptions collapses the pretense of impersonal objectivity; in particular, Verga’s use of idiomatic expressions and emotive punctuation in descriptions infuses his describing voice with the shared emotional, social and linguistic contexts of Gesualdo’s Sicilian village.

vi The third chapter looks at Huysmans’s À rebours as an example of a manipulation of descriptive techniques in the service of the perceptions of a single protagonist. In rejecting the social and turning Zola’s precision toward an individual mind Huysmans uses description as a support for interpretive essays on topics that align with the tastes of his protagonist. Huysmans’s descriptive sentences show a tendency toward superfluous transformations of syntax and excessive elaboration of the qualities of perceived objects at the expense of phrasal unity and narrative context.

In the fourth chapter I turn to D’Annunzio’s Il fuoco, a novel in which descriptive prose becomes poetic prose. D’Annunzio’s poet-describer projects his vision of a symbolically-charged Venice onto descriptions of the city in a way that integrates the poet’s feeling of power over his own environment with the descriptive form. In its use of extended and complex metaphors, emphatic repetition, and sonorous word patterns

D’Annunzio’s descriptive style is a distinct movement away from universal observation of phenomena toward a solipsistic, individualized use of description that ignores the epistemological questions that form the basis of literary practices focused on observable reality.

While Flaubert and Verga provide evidence of descriptive technique being used to afford greater objectivity through omnipresence of the describing mind, Huysmans and

D’Annunzio prove to be less concerned with the relationship of the individual to the world the novel describes. The result is a refocusing of the interests of descriptive novels from the totality of the lived experience shared by inhabitants of a given world to the interests and perspective of a powerful and alienated individual figure.

vii

For my parents

With special thanks to Sepp, Franco, and Laura

And with thanks to all my advisers, official and unofficial, past and present!...

viii Table of Contents

Abstract: iv

Introduction: 1

Chapter one: Flaubert 11

Chapter two: Verga 58

Chapter three: Huysmans 108

Chapter four: D’Annunzio 153

Bibliography: 207

ix Introduction

Thinking back on the history of the novel in the nineteenth century, we find it

impossible not to think of long and detailed descriptions: those passages in which human

environments are described in intimate detail as if the entire structure of a novelistic

world rested on the placement of a single object in a scene. In certain novels the

descriptive mode is so overpowering that the novel’s plot seems to fade into the

background, reversing the typical roles of narration and description in a foreground and background configuration. These are the descriptive novels of the nineteenth century, and they include not only those novels in which description is quantitatively dominant, but also those in which description has a disproportionate influence on the relationship of a reader to the world the novel creates. The nineteenth century saw a shift in the use of descriptive style from a way of affording seemingly unfiltered access to an objectively observed reality to a form through which a particular point of view could shape a reader’s vision of what is described. My argument addresses the nature of this shift and the function of description in the second half of the nineteenth century, answering the question of how descriptive prose establishes the parameters of individual access to the described world in novels that prefer description as primary modality of that access. An analysis of such novels starting from inside descriptions themselves – from the level of syntax, lexicon, and punctuation outward to descriptive passages – presents description as not just the background to narrative’s foreground, but as a stylistically-modulated way of understanding a novelistic world, a distinct mode of prose usage that determines the amount and kind of subjective filtration that will inform the statements of a describing voice.

1 The novels I have chosen to group together here share little in the way of plot, and

I do not mean to imply that their authors shared some motivation for the tendency toward individual perspectivism in their descriptive styles. Nonetheless the notion of description as having a certain relationship to our reading of the rest of the novel, of description as an informational screen that filters our access to the world of that novel is central to the function of descriptive prose in each.

The descriptive passages I chose for analysis here were selected either because they contain formal features of description that were noticeably repeated throughout a novel, or because they receive some kind of special emphasis in the text as a whole (I have noted these cases). Using durative verb tenses as indicators of descriptive pause, I isolated he entirety of descriptive material from each novel. I annotated the entirety of descriptive passages in the novel as a group and marked the elements of the descriptions that were repeated or received said special emphasis in the text. I was then able to use frequency of verb tenses, similarities in sentence structure, repeated punctuation marks or words, and other criteria to create groups of descriptive sentences with shared characteristics. Those that appeared most frequently or with the most emphasis became the material of my analysis. The advantage of this approach is that it looks at trends in descriptive practice as groups of stylistic choices that enjoyed certain degrees of preference over time, sometimes emerging with greater emphasis or frequency at certain kinds of moments in a novel (moments of observation, moments of introspection, moments of adjustment in a character’s expectations, etc.) and, on a more expansive scale, at certain times and places in nineteenth century literary history.

2

Reading for descriptions

Narration and description, foreground and background. Description is to a novel’s plot as is the landscape of a painting to the figures whose represented actions are pushed to the front of the perspectival system; this is Weinrich’s formulation, and it accounts for most uses of the descriptive in the history of the novel. The spatial metaphor rests on an assumed prioritization of narrative elements over the descriptive that is quite natural: narrative, with its focus on the sequential presentation of events whose organization structures the order of our reading, usually functions to motivate interest in continued reading. We absorb one narrated event and anticipate the next. In this system description, an inherently decelerating textual mode, interrupts the flow of successive points of interest in a plot-driven timeline. It is a structure that decelerates the time of the novel to a near standstill in the interest of explanation and contextualization.

This is the basic function of description in an otherwise narrative whole. Until recently it was taken for granted that this system of levels translated into a hierarchy of modes that implied that what is narrated should, as foreground material, also be prioritized in reading. I would like to suggest that in certain contexts this is inadequate; one can, and actually needs to, sometimes, read for descriptions. A case in point is the period to be examined here, a time during which we find novels packed, if not overwhelmed with descriptions. While these novels do have plots, it would be off the mark to assume that descriptions always function in the service of a plot in the light of the simple observation that plot is not the dominant element in certain nineteenth century novels, the descriptive novels. Indeed some novels seem to work in precisely the opposite way; a minimal plot

3 is present as a framing structure that accommodates long and detailed descriptions that function autonomously and sometimes have little connection with narrated events.

This is certainly true of the first novel I have chosen to investigate here;

Flaubert’s Salammbô begins with an entire chapter devoted to long and immensely detailed description of the appearances and behaviors of the diverse group of mercenary soldiers feasting outside Carthage without a clear indication of the significance of this information to the plot of the novel. And as it turns out, this information really is unnecessary to the progression of historical events that the novel relates; the multiplicity of types in the mercenary army does not, in this novel, have any causal ties to the outcome of any of the military events that determine the plot, of which most readers already know the outcome. This first chapter of Salammbô, however, is by far the most memorable section of the book. It was in researching the archeological details that inform the descriptions that Flaubert spent the most time in preparation for writing the novel. In the light of these observations and others I have concluded that, clearly, descriptions were not, in the context of late-nineteenth century expectations, mere supplements to dominant narrative elements. The fact that novels like Salammbô exist suggests that reading for descriptions was in fact a historical reality, and given the complexity, number, and length of descriptive passages as they appear in texts from this period, an aesthetic necessity in the period between 1862 and 1900 and probably before that.

Although Salammbô is one example of a novel in which description is quantitatively dominant, this project does not look only to novels in which descriptions take up more textual space than narrative elements. Rather it is that kind of novel in

4 which description is the focus of compositional energy, in which the work of configuring and actualizing a novelistic universe is done in the manipulation of descriptive form. In such novels description is the dominant element in a complex system of textual modalities that influence a reader’s access to a fictional world and determine the parameters of that access.

Descriptive perspectivism as an adaptive move

Descriptions in novels took seriously the subjectivity of the describing observer in the nineteenth century, more so around and after the century’s halfway point. Attention to description was already present, and heavily so, in Scott’s novels and in Balzac of course; for them, descriptive detail was a way of foregrounding the material of the description over the subjective filter of the voice of the author. Detailed descriptions in novels written in an attitude of realism in the early nineteenth century position groups of objects and facts in descriptive compositions as if their organization were both necessary and unchangeable. Descriptions after 1848 use the same basic structure and placement of descriptive passages, but without the certainty of alignment with a single, extradiagetic and mostly invisible describing figure. This development aligns with the emergence of the free indirect style as a major feature in some novels, and with similar effects; what is achieved, or at least attempted, is some kind of accommodation of individual observational experience of in the stylistic features of the descriptions themselves.

Whose experience? Usually the answer to this is not any single character or identifiable observer, but a mixed voice that shares something with the characters but has access to

5 more information than any single character possibly could. The urge to describe in detail

with an appearance of objectivity as it manifests in novels of the early century might have

been a compensatory action against an underlying anxiety regarding the compatibility of

systematic modes of recording knowledge with the everyday reality of individual

perspectivism, an attempt to use precision as a defense against epistemological

uncertainty. The presence of this urge to describe in detail in the early century provided a

context in which mutations of style to reflect individual subjectivity could be

experimented with later on. The issue became not only whether or not one could describe

sufficiently and in as objective a way as possible, but how a description could adapt to

accommodate observational subjectivity while maintaining the referential basis of the

descriptive mode. In some cases the use of techniques that imply the presence of a

filtering subjectivity leads to what seems like a greater impersonality – the observing

descriptor is redistributed and reabsorbed into the reality of the novel’s characters, while

in others the overabundance of subjectivity techniques and the influence they have on

sentence and paragraph structure overwhelms the composition and the novel moves into

relativism and even idiolect. I would suggest that Salammbô and Mastro-don Gesualdo tend more toward the former, while À rebours and Il fuoco tend more toward the latter.

The use of description in novelistic practice: four case studies

Descriptive prose has been used to present non-narrative elements of literature for

centuries; what was attractive about the sequence of novels I selected here is the intensity

of focus that seems to have been put on descriptive style during this period in these two

6 national literatures. Purposeful manipulation of observational structures seems to have

begun with Flaubert; one thinks immediately of the free indirect style. This, and other

perspectival techniques made Flaubert’s work the logical starting place. Neither Madame

Bovary nor L’éducation sentimentale used description as vigorously as Salammbô, and

Salammbô features the added complication of historical distance from the described

world; Flaubert’s game of omnipresence in the world of his characters took extra

imagination in a representation of a foreign, antique, and relatively unknown subject.

And the techniques are all there – the free indirect style in passages that connect

intimately with the mind of the Carthaginian princess, perspectival shifts akin to

movement-based descriptions of Madame Arnoux in L’éducation sentimentale, great and

serious encyclopedic descriptive treatises on arcane subjects written with the same rigor

as those of Bouvard et Pécuchet. My first chapter looks at Salammbô as a hybrid

historical-realist novel and examines the way in which Flaubert adapted the detail-

oriented style of description used by a previous generation of to a more

perspectivist approach to the novel. For example, Flaubert’s relative overuse of the

imperfect in descriptive and passages that combine description and narration neutralizes

narrative time and enables the creation of vast descriptive panoramas so detailed that they

preclude the possibility of creating an effet de réel. Further, Flaubert uses tropes of observation to introduce descriptions in a way that makes the presence of an observing subjectivity impossible to extract from the described material. The result is a novel so committed to representing the total, lived reality of its subject that its plot is deemphasized while the figure of observer is dispersed over varying levels of integration with the world of ancient Carthage.

7 My second chapter treats descriptive voicing techniques in Giovanni Verga’s

Mastro-don Gesualdo. Giacomo Devoto and Leo Spitzer suggested that Verga used a

“choral” voice in his prose, a voice that represents the shared mentality of the rural communities of Southern Italy that are the focus of his novels. In the chapter I try to detect exactly which formal elements create the sense of a choral voice in Verga’s descriptions. In Mastro-don Gesualdo as in I Malavoglia Verga attempts to fuse the linguistic reality of his subject with the indirect non-narrative communications conventionally rendered in a distanced, literary voice. In character descriptions the omission of certain information and a distinct informality of address shocks the reader into intimate closeness with the world of the Sicilian village. A general unconventional use of idiomatic expressions familiar to oral communication throughout descriptive passages further deformalizes descriptions and mixes the linguistic tendencies of the describing voice with those of the novel’s characters. The impression of an involved observing subjectivity is further created by Verga’s use of unusually expressive punctuation in descriptions, an importation of graphical markers typically associated with direct discourse. Verga uses these formal innovations as a way of incorporating the received ideas of an entire village in the descriptive style. As a move further into perspectivist description Verga’s achievement can be seen as a transformation of

Flaubert’s intellectual experiment to a national context in which the choice to identify linguistically with regional dialect speakers was as much a political statement as it was an aesthetic challenge.

J.-K. Huysmans’s À rebours, of these four the novel probably most readily associated with excessive descriptive stylization, is the subject of my third chapter. In

8 moving back to France with À rebours I take on the mutation of detailed descriptive style

as it manifests in the thematic realm of decadence. In chapters whose relationship to the

novel’s plot is barely maintained in minimal narrative passages À rebours uses the

temporal scaffolding of the novel form as a support for essayistic descriptions of objects

collected by the novel’s protagonist. Particular rhetorical turns make it possible for the

non-narrative to completely overwhelm the action of the novel: Huysmans’s use of

ornamental elements whose presence is unnecessary to the grammatical functioning of

his sentences, including repetition, manipulation of word order, and an imbalanced use of

verb forms that imply completed action in the past saturate his prose with modifying

language that redirects attention from the described objects to their attributes in the

narrative present.

D’Annunzio, at the end of this sequence, pushes the descriptive outside its

conventional rhetorical boundaries by discarding the notion of an externally positioned observer and using description as a ground for unhindered individually filtered projections on the world and poetic expressions quite removed from the possibility of universal observation. Il fuoco is a novel in which descriptions take on expressive functions that had hitherto not been activated in descriptive practice, including prominent use of metaphors and other forms of comparison between the matter of his descriptions and their idiosyncratic and systematic repetition of phrase elements with musical and emphatic effects. D’Annunzio also chooses to employ modal shifts in descriptive phrases, an innovation that posits an alternate symbolic reality attached hypothetically to the primary level of observable present of the novel. The result is a

novel in which description begins to look like poetry. The degree to which

9 D’Annunzio’s descriptions express the projections of an individual subjectivity is a far cry from the distanced and self-effacing style of descriptive prose that had dominated novelistic practice less than a century before.

The ghost who haunts this configuration is Zola, who did of course sometimes use a stylized descriptive form and poetic language to magnify the allegorical message of his images – think of the emblematic description that introduces the death scene of , an exaggerated historical irony – but doesn’t seem to have actively pursued the perspectival experimentation I have found in each of the authors’ work I present here.

Whether or not the use of descriptive technique in these novels follows some kind of progression is unquestionable; certainly, practices changed over time. I do not mean to suggest, however, that Verghian voicing is a mere transmutation of something that happened first in France, or that all of this would have been impossible without Flaubert; there are too many variables, and too many individual innovations, to imagine anything like it. Each novel adapts the possibilities of descriptive language to its immediate aesthetic goals. I have attempted to address these in each chapter. Because of the immense complication of descriptive techniques, some of which overlapped while others were completely idiosyncratic, I had to approach each novel from the most microscopic observations, looking outward from individual phrases, sentences, and paragraphs. I have tried to explain these examples of descriptive prose from inside in an effort to decode, from individual choices, the workings of descriptions in themselves and only after that as part of larger narrative wholes.

10

CHAPTER ONE

Descriptive composition and observational positioning: Flaubert’s Salammbô

11 Descriptive composition and observational positioning: Flaubert’s Salammbô

This thesis claims that certain novels written in Europe in the second half of the

nineteenth century used descriptive prose as a field of experimentation in which the

parameters of ‘objective’ representations could be tested and modified. During this

period writers of descriptions in novels had concerns beyond those of detail-oriented

‘realist’ literature of the early century and looked critically at the conditions under which

realistic representations could be made in the context of individual perspectivism. The

goal of this project is to examine actual systems of descriptive practice and to identify the

textual features of perspectivist description as I have briefly introduced it here.

This chapter will focus on a moment in which a shift occurred in novelistic

practice away from descriptions based on the assumption of objective and universally

available observation. Novels written in an attitude of realism toward their subjects in

the first half of the nineteenth century used precision and quantity of details in

descriptions as a way of creating an illusion of objectivity to be carried through the entire

reading experience.1 Such an approach creates descriptions replete with proper nouns and exacting modifying clauses that overwhelm phrase segments that could be associated with an observing entity. For the authors commonly associated with the realist paradigm in France, detailed descriptions added to the sense documentarian objectivity and authorial detachment. With Flaubert, however, we see the emergence of a new ambition to not only describe in detail but also to somehow use descriptions to accommodate the way in which an integrated observer would see the subject from within. The medium of this expression that accounts for the thoughts of someone within the existential context of the described world had to be literary style; for as part of the style these expressions

1 See Moretti, The Novel 386-88.

12 could be melded with the structure of the text on the phrase level and would not call

attention to themselves in the composition. This is the source of moral ambiguity in

Madame Bovary, as identified by the prosecutor Pinard: the thoughts of his protagonist

are so well enmeshed with the narrating and describing voice that it was impossible to tell

if that voice condemned Emma for those thoughts. Salammbô was Flaubert’s second

attempt, this time in a context that could leave no question as to the moral opinion of its

author: on 11 February, 1857, Flaubert wrote to Fréderic Baudry: “Quoi écrire qui soit

moins inoffensif que [Bovary]? On s'est révolté d'une peinture impartiale. Que faire?

Biaiser, blaguer? Non! Non! Mille fois non!” (Correspondance 681).2 Flaubert saw the

Carthaginian project, a research-based historical account of a geographically and historically distanced subject, as a foil to accusations of moral ambivalence following the publication of Bovary. Archeological detail was to serve as a shield of implied objectivity that would protect its author’s opinion from being detected to an even greater extent than had been achieved with descriptions in Bovary, for with Salammbô there could be no doubt whatsoever that the thoughts and observations of his characters shared absolutely nothing with the views of its author.

Salammbô is as a result a rigorously descriptive novel, even overwhelmingly so, and as such an excellent ground for analysis of Flaubert’s descriptive style as a mutation of objectivity-oriented descriptive practice in nineteenth century novel history.

Descriptions appear with greater frequency, complexity, and relative influence over other

2 See also the letter Madamoiselle Leroyer de Chantepie, 18 March 1857: “Mais je suis bien empêché pour le moment, car je m'occupe, avant de m'en retourner à la campagne, d'un travail archéologique sur une des époques les plus inconnues de l'antiquité, travail qui est la préparation d'un autre. Je vais écrire un roman dont l'action se passera trois siècles avant Jésus-Christ, car j'éprouve le besoin de sortir du monde moderne, où ma plume s'est trop trempée et qui d'ailleurs me fatigue autant à reproduire qu'il me dégoûte à voir.” Flaubert, Gustave, and Jean Bruneau. Correspondance. II, juillet 1851-décembre 1858. Paris: Gallimard, 1980, 691.

13 elements in Salammbô than in any other of Flaubert’s novels and most novels of the same

genre written before it. Salammbô also stands at a peculiar point in nineteenth century

literary history after which descriptions would be irrevocably charged with compositional

attention; it seems that, though novels were certainly very descriptive before Salammbô,

never before had descriptions received such dedicated attention as the main focus of

compositional energy in a novel. This novel marks a turning point after which attention

and complexity in descriptions would continue to increase until the turn of the century.

This feature of Salammbô has been the main source of its criticism since the time

of its publication. The novel is too descriptive; in reading time alone we detect some

imbalance between descriptive passages and expectations for narrative movement.3

Critiques of Salammbô have consistently noted the way in which, both quantitatively and in terms of complexity, the descriptive overwhelms the novel: Sainte-Beuve devoted an entire section of his already impressive three-article treatment of Salammbô in the

Nouveaux Lundis to descriptions and to style.4 Sainte-Beuve’s generally negative review of Flaubert’s use of descriptions can be summarized by three main points: 1. The descriptions are too complete; more is described that could possibly be perceived by an individual (“Je ne m’accoutumerai jamais à ce procédé pittoresque qui consiste à décrire

à satiété, et avec une saillie partout égale, ce qu’on ne voit pas, ce qu’on ne peut raisonnablement remarquer,” (88)); 2. Flaubert prefers to describe only the worst qualities of the fictional world, to exaggeration (89); 3. The style is too closely managed,

3 This aspect of the novel, paired with its exotic subject, has led Flaubert criticism to separate this novel, along with La tentation de Sainte Antoine, from the rest of his work in a biographical binary. Porter, Laurence M. Critical essays on . Boston: G.K. Hall, 1986, 3. In addition, Lukács, on motivation for Salammbô: “It was precisely because of his deep hatred for modern society that he sought, passionately and paradoxically, a world which would in no way resemble it, which would have no connection with it, direct or indirect.” Lukács, György. The historical novel. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983, 185. 4 Part three of the third article on Salammbô is titled “Des descriptions et du style,” (88-93).

14 rendering it homogeneous and forced (91). Most interestingly, the critic also protests the

historical and cultural distance between the subject matter and the world of its readership;

as traversal of this distance is further impeded by the superfluity and impossible precision

of details in the descriptions, we can have no communication with the inner lives of the

characters, no “sympathie.” All of these statements add up to Sainte-Beuve’s general

claim that the work is essentially “invraisembable:” a striking assessment insofar as this it

further underlines the disjunction between notions of reality (which, Sainte-Beuve notes,

is in abundance in Salammbô), and the “truth” to which the author would have been

preferred to pursue.

In the same vein, in The Historical Novel Lukács sees Salammbô as a final signal

of the decline of the genre: “historical figures are separated from the real driving forces

of their epoch, and their deeds, thus rendered incomprehensible, acquire a decorative

magnificence by virtue of their very incomprehensibility,” (179). Lukács finds this

“decorative” element to be Salammbô’s main weakness, at least in terms of the historical

trajectory of his critique: “In describing the individual objects of an historical milieu

Flaubert is much more exact and plastic than any other before him. But these

objects have nothing to do with the inner life of the characters…the effect of this lack of

connection is to degrade the archaeological exactness of the outer world: it becomes a

world of historically exact costumes and decorations, no more than a pictorial frame

within which a purely modern story is unfolded.”5 Lukács’ criticism does not, like so

many criticisms of the work since, get out of the persistent mimesis question central to

5 For Lukács, a great historical novel in the pre-1848 mode relies on a fusing of individual psychology with a sense of historical particularity. Because Salammbô’s descriptions are “unconnected” with the inner lives of the Carthaginian characters Flaubert’s novel fails the Lukácian test for the truly historically specific. Lukács, György. The Historical Novel. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983, 194.

15 many assessments of texts written in a realist paradigm.6 Like Sainte-Beuve before him,

Lukács establishes criteria for a kind of mimetic art – the historical novel in this case –

and then shows that this novel does not meet the requirements. This reading does not

address the non-mimetic operations at play in the Flaubertian descriptive field, nor does it

consider the particular goals of the novelist in taking on a historical subject so incredibly

remote as to be removed from all contemporary cultural reference. Flaubert did not fail

to write a historical novel; he didn’t try to write within the parameters of the historical

such as it had been done up to that point. Unlike most historical novels, Salammbô is not

plot-driven; characterization of historical figures is deprioritized; there is, and it seems

quite purposefully, no possible direct allegorical reading of the novel that would relate it

to contemporary politico-historical events.7 Indeed it is the inverse: Salammbô’s

historical plot is subordinate to the descriptions – not only because descriptions make up

the bulk of the text, but also because the immobility of the historical plot lends itself to

this secondary role – and in turn the motivating force of the novel is located in described

elements (the banquet, the city of Carthage, Salammbô’s costume, the temple at the city

center) instead of in the plot. Description is, in fact, where the action is in Salammbô.

This distinction – that Salammbô was not indeed written to conform to the

generic expectations of the historical novel, but rather uses the narrative structure of its

subject as support for a rich descriptive experience – frees an assessment of this novel

from expectations built on genre parameters. As a descriptive-dominant novel, then,

6 In this I agree with Eugenio Donato. “Flaubert and the Question of History: The Orient,” in The Script of Decadence: essays on the fictions of Flaubert and the poetics of . New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 35-55. 7 Nonetheless this is the thesis of a recent volume: Dürr, Volker. Flaubert's Salammbô: the ancient Orient as a political allegory of nineteenth-century France. Currents in comparative Romance languages and literatures, vol. 107. New York: P. Lang, 2001.

16 Salammbô is a turning point in nineteenth century literary history after which narrative

need not be considered the main focal point of both composition and reading.

The status of descriptions in descriptive novels

Description had increasingly become, around the time of Flaubert’s project, a focus of compositional and reading attention in novels that approached their subjects with an affinity for realism and an illusion of objectivity. What is different after the century’s midpoint is the approach to this illusion descriptive authors took in conceptualizing descriptive objectivity. Instead of relying only on the effacement of a describing observer in an overabundance of details in order to make the text appear unfiltered,

Flaubert chose to use details – of a greater quantity, and of a different sort – to open up the described worlds of his novels to a reader’s perception as if from inside. The idea that inclusion of details as they would have been seen by an observer within the described scene would lead one to a greater illusion of objectivity – objectivity through total description, seeing everything from everywhere – is a mid- to late- century mutation of the earlier realist impulse to describe. We may see Flaubert therefore as sharing somewhat in the goals and assumptions of detail-oriented realistic writing of the early nineteenth century. But the extension of the describing observer into perspectives other than that of an extra-diegetic, epistemologically differentiated describing entity is a development that distinguishes Flaubert’s ‘late’ brand of realistic descriptive practice from that of his predecessors.

17 The descriptive can be seen in this instance as a quite adaptive mode, the form of

which could be adjusted to particular aesthetic goals in particular contexts. The notion of

description itself is in practice relatively flexible in adapting to the conventions and

attitudes of the intellectual and historical milieu with which it communicates at a given

moment in its history, perhaps even more so than narration: while the basic signifiers of

narrative progression are relatively stable (connotation of change through use of

grammatical and syntactical signals of change, i.e. verbs, as a bare minimum),8 the qualities and signs of the descriptive are relatively changeable. The flexibility of the descriptive is evinced by the fact that, although the evaluative claims of critical commentaries have sometimes raised and sometimes lowered the descriptive in relative merit to narrative prose, criticism rarely sees a difficulty in categorically differentiating description from narration until at least the nineteenth century.9 Nonetheless, as Phillippe

Hamon notes in a study of the descriptive as a prose genre, individual readers, despite

being able to recognize a description in sharp contrast the story it interrupts, find it

difficult to define the descriptive in terms of its functional characteristics.10 It is clear that descriptive communications in actual function do not conform to strictly morphological criteria; if we restricted description to a definition determined only in that way, we would reduce the descriptive to merely nouns, adjectives, and deictic pronouns or demonstrative adjectives, as only these grammatical units (when disassociated from

8 According to Claude Bremond’s minimal conditions under which a message can be called narrative: “Que par ce message, un sujet quel-conque (animé ou inanimé, il n’importe) soit placé dans un temps t, puis t + n et qu’il soit dit ce qu’il advient à l’instant t + n des prédicats qui le caractérisaient à l’instant t.” Logique du récit. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1973, 100. 9 For a history of critical variations on the notion of the descriptive, see Phillippe Hamon and Patricia Baudoin, “Rhetorical Status of the Descriptive,” Yale French Studies 61, (1981): 1-26. 10 Phillippe Hamon, “Qu’est-ce qu’une description?” Poétique, 12, (1972): 465-85. In this essay Hamon suggests that the minimal characteristics of a communication that can be termed descriptive are: that the textual unit in question be continuous or discontinuous, relatively autonomous in its expansion, more often than not referential, and interchangeable with a noun or deictic pronoun such as this, him, it, etc. (1-3).

18 their syntactic value) really achieve “pure” description in the ontological sense. Rather

description should be seen as a mode of communication in the process of which a certain

genre of experience is generated.11 But if the term “descriptive” is not used to designate

a kind of text but rather a mode or style of textual experience, which operations should be

seen as the recurring structural motifs of the descriptive mode? Unlike narration, which

in its inherent diachronicity is congruent to the temporal structure of lived experience,

description requires an extra semanticizing step; or as Gumbrecht puts it: “narration

makes experience accessible in the context of its polythetic constitution, whereas

description makes possible a monothetic comprehension of experience as results of

processes of experiential formation.”12 Description is therefore always already an interpretive act. This leads naturally to the idea that insofar as reading a description presupposes this nonconformity to ‘real’ experience through the temporal discontinuity that the descriptive mode requires, no description is actually mimetic; i.e. there can be no true realistic description, since description is not a ‘natural’ or ‘real’ mode of relation to the observable world. The difficulty of description is therefore to somehow generate, firstly, temporal conditions in which successively evoked objects can be interpreted to coexist in the same fictional time-space, and secondly, to configure this lapse in the mimetic process of literary communication in such a way that it has a reflective relationship to the rest of the narrated world.

11 In this I echo Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s postulation: “The complicated circumstances of the varying quality of sense structure resulting from the reception of narrative or descriptive texts can be more concisely grasped when we no longer conceive of narration, description, and argumentation as metahistorical types of discourse but as experiential styles provided by the life world.” Gumbrecht, “The Role of Narration in Narrative Genres.” In Making Sense in Life and Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992, 46. 12 Ibid.

19 It is perhaps this very difficulty – inherent to description and enhanced by the

discreet problems of realistic representation – that attracted writers of the ‘late’ realistic

phase of the European novel to the descriptive genre. In the descriptive, Flaubert and his

generation saw a prime location for testing the parameters of a realist approach to which

they had developed a kind of aesthetically-manifested disdain.13 The inefficacy of an unexamined and merely thematic approach to writing in a realist mode, paired with disenchantment with an ethically-charged culture of social responsibility rubbed out by the fizzling (at least in France) of reformist imperatives of the 1848 revolutions and subsequent ascendency of the Second Empire prompted a modification both of literary culture and form. This “aesthetic revolution,” writes , is inseparable from the invention of a new lifestyle and social personality – of which Flaubert, artist and scholar, detached and disdainful of the very bourgeois social conditions from which he hailed and which made his lifestyle possible – was the ultimate example.14 Typified by moral impassivity and distance from the dominant culture as well as the prose genres that culture produced, the “aesthetic aristocratism” of the late nineteenth century (a cultural strain that persists from late realism to decadence, symbolism, and on to ) could be seen as, in effect, a mutation of the artistic culture and methodology of the earlier, idealistic social realist period. In this way ‘late’ realism was the enactment of

13 See for example Flaubert’s 1856 letter to Léon Laurent-Pichat in which he responds to his correspondent’s criticism of the “vulgar realism” of : “Croyez-vous donc que cette ignoble réalité, dont la reproduction vous dégoûte, ne me fasse tout autant qu'à vous sauter le coeur? Si vous me connaissiez davantage, vous sauriez que j'ai la vie ordinaire en exécration. Je m'en suis toujours personnellement écarté autant que j'ai pu. Mais esthétiquement, j'ai voulu, cette fois, et rien que cette fois, la pratiquer à fond. Aussi, ai-je pris la chose d'une manière héroïque, j'entends minutieuse, en acceptant tout, en disant tout, en peignant tout, expression ambitieuse.” October 2, 1856. Flaubert, Gustave, and Jean Bruneau. Correspondance. II, juillet 1851-décembre 1858. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 284. Paris: Gallimard, 1980, 635. 14 Bourdieu, Pierre. The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Trans. Susan Emanuel. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1996, 107-112.

20 aesthetic experiment – not totally dissimilar to the “experimental” framework conjured

by Zola in the naturalist re-assertion of the legitimacy of the realist project with

naturalism – and description was the prose genre par excellence in which this experiment

could be taken to its limits.15 It is striking that a taste for disinterestedness in art should be aligned, at least partially, with the themes and techniques of a realism that concerned itself largely with social reality; although realist thematics would experience a sudden collapse in the naturalist school with the singlehanded invention of “decadence” (in the novelistic form at least) by Joris Karl Huysmans in the publication of À rebours, until

1884 the social and largely contemporary world (with the glaring exception of

Salammbô) would be the principle material with which both realist schools would engage.

In the light of these observations, Flaubert’s 1862 novel Salammbô is a particularly interesting point of access to the problem of the descriptive in the latter part of the nineteenth century as it represents the efforts of a novelist to write out, in an attitude of realism, the material and experiential universe of a people completely separate from his contemporary situation – the only realist novel up to that point to have been written about an reality that could not be observed.16 Salammbô, in treating the world

15 At least in the novel. Baudelaire shared in the artistic culture of the late nineteenth century that I am referring to here, but whereas in the novel the extreme formalism that absorbed the energy of the realist impulse was not (yet) completely detached from the moral imperatives of early realist thematicization of the everyday world (or at least didn’t yet find it quite necessary), in poetry the two moves – of condensation of formal precision and of detachment from mundane references – coincided in Baudelaire’s vertical compaction of form and symbol in the concept of “correspondances.” It should also be noted that by 1878 (two years before his death) Flaubert was equally disdainful of the “experimental” process touted by Zola: in a letter to Maupassant, he writes: “Ne me parlez pas du réalisme, du naturalisme ou de l'expérimental! J'en suis gorgé. Quelles vides inepties!” Flaubert, Gustave. Correspondance. V, Janvier 1876-mai 1880. Bibliothèque de la pléiade, v. 539. Paris: Gallimard, 2007, 727. 16 Of course Flaubert’s trips to North Africa and both in his youth (1840) and during the composition of Salammbô (1858) were, in effect, research opportunities for his work. The observations of contemporary quotidian details of peasant life of the region would be synthesized with archeological and historical details (taken from Polybius’s Histories) from the period of the Punic wars in Flaubert’s writing

21 and worldview of ancient Carthage, attempted to do what had only previously been done

about situations to which contemporary readers could directly relate: to evoke the

thoughts, people the locale, and in doing so, evoke the motivations of a situation and

group of people in their historical, social, and material milieu. To go even further – and

as testament to the suggestion that formal experimentation was at the same time the

impetus and goal of Flaubert’s conception of his “historical realist” novel – we find in

Salammbô the configuration of a narrated and described universe that is not only

completely dissimilar to the familiar milieu of the bourgeois social drama but that also

represents an experience that no longer existed and may not even be accessible to

contemporary language codes, social imagination, or cultural reference. Finally, to push

the experiment to the limits, Flaubert denies us access even to the consciousnesses of the

novel’s protagonists (Salammbô is famously “empty” as a fictional persona17) and opts instead to evoke the Carthaginian world through the perspective of an observing subjectivity that is an outsider to Carthage (the observer position of a mercenary soldier, and that unfixed). These choices, along with the particular stylistic manipulations of point-of-view and descriptive organization presented here, make Salammbô the ultimate experiment descriptive style and structure, and not just the fanciful and exotic foray into

process. Flaubert noted the difficulty in one of many letters to Ernest Feydeau on the subject of the seeming impossibility of this combinatory synthesis of observation and “archeological” detail: “C'est une œuvre hérissée de difficultés. Donner aux gens un langage dans lequel ils n'ont pas pensé! On ne sait rien de Carthage. (mes conjectures sont je crois sensées, et j’en suis même sûr d' après deux ou trois choses que j'ai vues). N'importe, il faudra que ça réponde à une certaine idée vague que l’on s'en fait. Il faut que je trouve le milieu entre la boursouflure et le réel.” Flaubert, Gustave, and Jean Bruneau. 1980. Correspondance. II, juillet 1851-décembre 1858. Paris: Gallimard, 1980, 279. 17 “For there exists no “contact” in Salammbô,” writes Victor Brombert. “…the enigmatic nature of the characters seems only to underscore our basic indifference to the ruthless struggle between Carthage and its Mercenaries, as well as our almost total lack of knowledge of the society Flaubert set out to resuscitate.” Brombert’s judgment echoes decades of disappointment on behalf of Salammbô’s critics claiming that a certain kind of communication between a fictional interiority and the reader is summarily lacking in Salammbô. Brombert, Victor H. The novels of Flaubert; a study of themes and techniques. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996, 93.

22 Flaubert’s own orientalist fascinations that literary history and criticism has been apt to

label it.

Tropes of observation

As evidence of the degree of description’s dominance over this novel, I begin

with the very first chapter, the majority of which is devoted in its entirety to a complex

description of the feast of the mercenary soldiers outside Carthage. In it we find the

language, customs, cuisine, attire, and comportment of this ethnically diverse group

explicated in microscopic detail. Flaubert mixes the detachment implied by the scholarly

precision of his description with a situational framework that integrates his details with

the perceptual ordering of a roving observer. The diegetic status of this observer is

mixed; its perspective is not completely integrated with the world of ancient Carthage,

but certain features (directionality of observation, limitations to knowledge, implied

cultural biases) place local limitations on the content of descriptions that would not be

shared by an external, omniscient describing voice in the conventional descriptive style.

This curious mix first appears in the novel’s initial sentence:

C'était à Mégara, faubourg de Carthage, dans les jardins d'Hamilcar.18

The sentence begins with a demonstrative adjective, ce, a feature that appears frequently in Flaubert’s more succinct (and usually totalizing) phrases. Appearing as it does at the

18 This and all subsequent citations of Salammbô refer to the following edition: Flaubert, Gustave. Salammbô. Préface de Henri Thomas; introduction et notes de Pierre Moreau. Paris: Gallimard, 1974. This citation, p. 43.

23 very beginning of the novel, can only refer to “the feast” itself, indicated in the chapter

heading just above.

LE FESTIN

C'était à Mégara, faubourg de Carthage, dans les jardins d'Hamilcar.

The sentence shows the dual personality of the Flaubertian observer; on the one hand, as

a textual deixis ce precludes any rhetorical link with the described world, but on the

other, the succinctness of phrasing here implies previous familiarity with the subject.19

By combining a distancing technique with information presented in a more familiar mode this sentence initiates an unusual relationship between describer and described that will oscillate between registers (of integration, of implied objectivity) in various descriptive contexts throughout the novel. The demonstrative adjective reminds us that description inherently requires an extra semanticizing level that removes us from the observed world, engaging a hermeneutics of observation before the descriptive act has even been initiated.

To continue:

Les soldats qu'il avait commandés en Sicile se donnaient un grand festin pour

célébrer le jour anniversaire de la bataille d'Éryx, et comme le maître était absent

et qu'ils se trouvaient nombreux, ils mangeaient et ils buvaient en pleine liberté.

19 Leo Spitzer explains this interpretation of the demonstrative adjective in “Racine’s Classical .” In the case of the introductory sentence of Salammbô the demonstrative prompts a distancing and subsequent traversal of levels, from diegetic to extradiegetic. In Essays on Seventeenth-Century . Translated and edited by David Bellos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, 1-113.

24 Les capitaines, portant des cothurnes de bronze, s'étaient placés dans le chemin du

milieu, sous un voile de pourpre à franges d'or, qui s'étendait depuis le mur des

écuries jusqu'à la première terrasse du palais; le commun des soldats était répandu

sous les arbres, où l'on distinguait quantité de bâtiments à toit plat, pressoirs,

celliers, magasins, boulangeries et arsenaux, avec une cour pour les éléphants, des

fosses pour les bêtes féroces, une prison pour les esclaves. (43)

The description uses some of the major descriptive ordering techniques that are typical for Flaubert, in this novel and others. The first phrase uses the plus-que-parfait to establish a causal background to the presentation of the feast: “Les soldats qu'il avait commandés en Sicile se donnaient un grand festin pour célébrer le jour anniversaire de la bataille d'Éryx, et comme le maître était absent et qu'ils se trouvaient nombreux, ils mangeaient et ils buvaient en pleine liberté.” After that, the sentence beginning with

“Les capitaines, portant des cothurnes de bronze…” uses phrases introduced by verbs in the imperfect as a brace for modifying clauses that accumulate details specific to each group (les capitaines: voile de pourpre à franges d’or, etc.) and aligns each with certain features of the camp according to an inscribed hierarchy in which captains inhabit a space beyond the stables and common soldiers are mixed with animals and slaves. The sentence structure evoking a topographical arrangement suggests omniscience and intellectual detachment; the fact of the division between officers and soldiers is presented as if the information were necessary for a total understanding of the scene from a certain distance. On the other hand, two features of this brief introduction to the mercenary army suggest some peripheral involvement on behalf of the describing entity: first, the verb

25 s’étendre, implying the view of the tents stretches out from some visual standpoint within

the scene, and second, the observer trope “où l’on distinguait” in the fourth phrase, a way

of positing a neutral observer within the described scene.

This kind of observer trope appears frequently in Salammbô and deserves special attention.20 In lieu of the passive “il y avait,” a phrase that would merely render present a described object without acknowledging the implied presence of an internal observer, here “l’on distinguait” posits an observing subjectivity, although impersonal, that is present in the descriptive past of the feast and looks on from a diegetically-inscribed epistemological position.21 In fact Flaubert almost never initiates a description without attributing an act of observation to the observing on, a pronoun signaling an entity that simultaneously inhabits the fictional sphere without acting on it – a non-figure who nonetheless has the perceptive powers of subjectivity. This observing on deserves some special attention here: Flaubert uses it in pairings with verbs that indicate perception. In the first chapter alone, these observer tropes appear frequently and use a variety of modes of perception to introduce described material: “On voyait entre les arbres courir les esclaves” (43), “On entendait, à côté du lourd patois dorien, retentir les syllabes celtiques bruissantes comme des chars de batailles” (45), “…et l’on voyait au milieu du jardin, comme sur un champ de bataille quand on brûle les morts, de grand feux clairs ou rôtissaient des bœufs” (45), “On entendait à la fois le claquement des mâchoires, le bruit

20 I have observed the same tendency toward overt use of such tropes of observation in other works by Flaubert as well. For instance, “on voyait” or “l’on voyait” both appear more frequently in Madame Bovary (seventeen occurrences) than in either Salammbô (nine), L'éducation sentimentale (thirteen), or Bouvard et Pécuchet (nine), though Éducation is the longest. Other modes of sensory input appear in similar phrases with similar frequency, with the exception of Bovary, which seems to privilege hearing: “on entendait” appears in descriptions twenty-two times in Bovary, nineteen times in Salammbô, fifteen times in L'éducation sentimentale, and only six times in Bouvard et Pécuchet. There is a general decrease in use of “il y avait” in descriptions over the course of Flaubert’s career. However, the phrase appears with about the same relative frequency in the first Éducation as in the 1869 version. 21 Flaubert prefers this to conventional presentifying tropes such as “il y avait,” and its variants.

26 des paroles, les chansons, des coupes…” (47); in descriptions of Giscon: “À travers les déchirures de sa tunique on apercevait ses épaules rayées par de longues balafres” (49),

“On n’apercevait que sa barbe blanche, les rayonnements de sa coiffure…” (51); in a description of Narr’Havas, looking at Salammbô: “…l’étoffe, bâillant sur ses épaules, enveloppait d’ombre son visage, et l’on n’apercevait que les flammes de ses deux yeux fixées” (59), in a punctual moment, Mâtho, running: “on le vit courir entre les proues des galères, puis réapparaitre le long des trois escaliers…” (61), “On entendait dans le bois de

Tanit le tambourin des courtisanes sacrées…” (63), “On apercevait dans les greniers ouverts des sacs de froment répandus…” (66). Another phase Flaubert employs often in similar contexts, “on aurait dit que…” gestures to the interpretation of the subjective observer: “On aurait dit quelque rosse idole ébauchée dans un bloc de pierre…” (85),

“Au delà on aurait dit un nuage où étincelaient des étoiles; des figures apparaissaient dans les profondeurs de ses plis…” (83), “Sous les évolutions rapides, des portions de terrain encore dans l'ombre semblaient se déplacer d'un seul morceau; ailleurs, on aurait dit des torrents qui s'entre- croisaient, et, entre eux, des masses épineuses restaient immobiles.

Mâtho distinguait les capitaines, les soldats, les hérauts…” (note here a shift from “on” to

Mâtho, 50), “On aurait dit que les murs chargés de monde s'écroulaient sous les hurlements d'épouvante et de volupté mystique…” (113). In all of these instances

Flaubert’s descriptor uses specific lexical choices in the interests of establishing, however temporarily, the stylistic flexibility that would enable a configuration of experiential perspectives to be simultaneously engaged in functionally similar but structurally differentiated descriptive acts in a single piece of prose. The frame of observation being thereby installed, the description can now proceed to arrange the objects of observation in

27 their detail and heterogeneity of form into the larger syntactic components of the total

descriptive passage.

Word choice in phrases indicating observation is a second aspect of Salammbô’s

descriptions that opens up the descriptive frame to a mixed observer position. In

particular, Salammbô features descriptions in which the directionality of the observation

is inscribed in the selection of verbs connected with described objects. In these phrases

sensory information is a key indicator of the experiential coordinates of the describing

entity. A paragraph-length description that initiates the novel’s third chapter, also titled

“Salammbô,” features information associated with a variety of sensory stimuli in a

composition that relates impressions made by the described objects on an unmentioned

observer. This long description features a number of elements that function to integrate

describer with described world, and is exemplary of many shorter descriptive passages

dispersed throughout the novel.22

La lune se levait au ras des flots, et, sur la ville encore couverte de ténèbres, des

points lumineux, des blancheurs brillaient: le timon d’un char dans une cour,

quelque haillon de toile suspendu, l’angle d’un mur, un collier d’or à la poitrine

d’un dieu. Les boules de verre sur les toits des temples rayonnaient, çà et là,

comme de gros diamants. Mais de vagues ruines, des tas de terre noire, des

jardins faisaient des masses plus sombres dans l’obscurité, et, au bas de Malqua,

des filets de pécheurs s’étendaient d’une maison à l’autre, comme de gigantesques

22 I would like to note that Salammbô is rather imbalanced with regard to the distribution of its descriptions; the majority of the novel’s long, complex descriptive passages appear in the first half of the novel. This imbalance is represented here by the large number of passages taken from Salammbô’s first five chapters. While descriptive passages appear at intervals throughout, the most exemplary and compositionally dense passages appear at the beginning of the novel.

28 chauves-souris déployant leurs ailes. On n’entendait plus le grincement des roues

hydrauliques qui apportaient l’eau au dernier étage des palais; et au milieu des

terrasses les chameaux reposaient tranquillement, couchées sur le ventre, à la

manière des autruches. Les portiers dormaient dans les rues contre le seuil des

maisons; l’ombre des colosses s’allongeait sur les places désertes; au loin

quelquefois la fumée d’un sacrifice brulant encore s’échappait par les tuiles de

bronze, et la brise lourde apportait avec des parfums d’aromates les senteurs de la

marine et l’exhalaison des murailles chauffées par le soleil. Autour de Carthage

les ondes immobiles resplendissaient, car la lune étalait sa lueur tout à la fois sur

le golfe environné de montagnes et sur le lac de Tunis, où des phénicoptères

parmi les bancs de sable formaient de longues lignes roses, tandis qu’au-delà,

sous les catacombes, la grande lagune salée miroitait comme un morceau

d’argent. La voûte du ciel bleu s’enfonçait à l’horizon, d’un côté dans le

poudroiement des plaines, de l’autre dans les brumes de la mer, et sur le sommet

de l’Acropole les cyprès pyramidaux bordant le temple d’Eschmoûn se

balançaient, et faisaient un murmure, comme des flots réguliers qui battaient

lentement le long du môle, au bas des remparts. (98)

In this description the verbs associated with aspects of the city do not describe how these aspects are, but rather how they would seem relative to a situated and perceptually active individual: “brillaient” (les points lumineux, des blancheurs), “rayonnait” (les boules de verre), and “faisait des masses plus sombres” (de vagues ruines), in the first sentence, and

“s’allongeait” (l’ombre des colosses) in the second; “resplendissaient,” (les ondes

29 immobiles), “formaient de longues lignes roses,” (les bancs de sable), and “miroitait,” (la grande lagune salée) in the third all emphasize the impression of light made by the objects in the description.23 Using these verbs activates the visual elements of the city as they would have been seen from outside the city walls (i.e. by a visitor or mercenary soldier).24 The collection of lexicographical choices in this representation of Carthage maintains the exoticism and unfamiliarity of the city – its light is mysteriously animated as if by an unknown inner source, much like the temple at its center – while indicating in their impressionistic quality the subjectivity of the describer. This is further emphasized by the amalgamation of sense impressions presented in the description – sight, smell,

(“des parfums…”) and sound (“les cyprès…faisait un murmure”). Certain rhetorical choices suggest the description is based on subjective reactions to these sensory phenomena: the use of “çà et là,” for instance, in the first sentence, or the adjective

“vagues” paired with “ruines” in the second, “quelquefois,” indicating repetition and duration, but imprecise; everywhere, Flaubert’s use of indefinite articles with described objects adds a note of inexactness to an otherwise detail-filled description. Finally, the phrase “on n’entendait plus le grincement des roues hydrauliques” fits the ‘observing on’

23 Light and light-effects are important aspects of descriptions in Salammbô, especially in descriptions of either the city, the sacred veil, or the woman. Salammbô seldom ever is in a scene (we never encounter a pithy “C’était Salammbô,” fully revealed) but rather appears, and the light that issues out from around her is often represented using similar techniques as found in this description of Carthage: see, for example, the intermittent description of the princess as Mâtho encounters her in her chamber with the veil, which uses a swaying lamp to successively reveal and ensconce in shadow the sleeping Salammbô, whose luminous body seems to intermix materially with the atmosphere that surrounds her on pages 148-150. 24 The association between the describing subjectivity viewing Carthage in this way and the figure of the mercenary soldier is even clearer in a description of the city written from the point of view of Mâtho: “En face de lui, dans les oliviers, les palmiers, les myrtes et les platanes, s’étalaient deux larges étangs qui rejoignaient un autre lac dont on n’apercevait pas les contours. Derrière une montagne surgissaient d’autres montagnes et au milieu du lac immense, se dressait une île toute noire et de forme pyramidale. Sur la gauche à l’extrémité du golfe, des tas de sable semblaient de grandes vagues blondes arrêtées, tandis que la mer, plate comme un dallage de lapis-lazuli, montait insensiblement jusqu’au bord du ciel,” (169-170); again here the choice of verbs and rotates the directionality of the description toward the observing outsider.

30 model mentioned above. This description, with its mix of precise detail and certain word choices indicating subjectivity is an apt example of the mixed status of Flaubert’s descriptor in Salammbô.

Movement-descriptions

The changeable status of Flaubert’s observing agent is also evident in

Salammbô’s movement-based descriptions, descriptions in which the amount and kind of information available to the descriptor changes in tandem with a changing temporal- spatial situation – in most cases, as the descriptor moves toward or around the described object. The aim of these descriptions is to mimic in prose the observational process of a situated, but unidentified (or at least not aligned with a single postulated observer), observing agent.

Though the main text I will be dealing with here is Salammbô, a brief look at another description in Flaubert’s work will support my claim that this was in fact a primary concern for Flaubert throughout his career. Even one of the most famously synthetic descriptions of Flaubert’s oeuvre, the initial observational encounter of Frédéric

Moreau and Madame Arnoux in L’éducation sentimentale of 1869, demonstrates a discursive complexity that the notion of a Flaubert responding only to a crisis of representation does not adequately explain:

Ce fut comme une apparition: elle était assise, au milieu du banc,

toute seule; ou du moins il ne distingua personne, dans l'éblouissement

31 que lui envoyèrent ses yeux. En même temps qu'il passait, elle leva la

tête; il fléchit involontairement les épaules; et, quand il se fut mis plus

loin, du même côté, il la regarda. Elle avait un large chapeau de paille,

avec des rubans roses qui palpitaient au vent, derrière elle. Ses bandeaux

noirs, contournant la pointe de ses grands sourcils, descendaient très bas et

semblaient presser amoureusement l'ovale de sa figure. Sa robe de

mousseline claire, tachetée de petits pois, se répandait à plis nombreux.

Elle était en train de broder quelque chose; et son nez droit, son menton,

toute sa personne se découpait sur le fond de l'air bleu.

Comme elle gardait la même attitude, il fit plusieurs tours de droite

et de gauche pour dissimuler sa manœuvre; puis il se planta tout près de

son ombrelle, posée contre le banc, et il affectait d'observer une chaloupe

sur la rivière. Jamais il n'avait vu cette splendeur de sa peau brune, la

séduction de sa taille, ni cette finesse des doigts que la lumière traversait.

Il considérait son panier à ouvrage avec ébahissement, comme une chose

extraordinaire. Quels étaient son nom, sa demeure, sa vie, son passé? Il

souhaitait connaître les meubles de sa chambre, toutes les robes qu'elle

avait portées, les gens qu'elle fréquentait; et le désir de la possession

physique même disparaissait sous une envie plus profonde, dans une

curiosité douloureuse qui n'avait pas de limites. (22-3)

Right away we see notice the abundance of sensory information here, and as has been noted, Flaubert emphasizes the visual impression made on the observer – here,

32 Frederic – with a heavily visual lexicon (“apparition,” “distingua,” “regarda,” even “se

découpait,”).25 But the descriptive passage does not limit itself to the visual. A spatial element is also present; Frédéric sees Madame Arnoux in a visual context made possible by a literary geometry that comes out in the diachronic presentation of a continuum of observational presence through time; the effect is distinctly cinematic. But the workings of space-time, while rarely as complex as in this example, have always caused difficulties for the descriptive author; Flaubert’s modulation of observational temporo-spatiality is hardly unprecedented in the history of the novel. A description may have the marks of a dominant universal variable (like space or time), but no description is only spatial or only visual – this is simply the rule of observation in a relativistic universe. The observational foci of the description, therefore, are not merely “moments,” or “positions,” (temporal and spatial metaphors, respectively), but effects of the inscribed relationships between these variables and an observing and/or describing subjectivity, a descriptor. The perspective we get of this scene is the product of a cooperation of discursive elements

(syntax, ordering), and interpretive acts (observer, descriptor, and finally reader) and can only be called experiential. In Flaubert’s descriptions, the discursive elements have been enhanced to the point that they take on some of the hermeneutic responsibilities of the implied subjectivities that should be involved.

25 As notes in a recent study of the “visual” in nineteenth century realism: “The woman on the bench is presented as though in a full-length portrait. Devouring her being from head to toe, Frédéric’s gaze moves from her straw hat down to the lining of her dress. The description of her external appearance is exclusively visual and meticulously detailed…Flaubert’ aestheticized representation of the unknown woman quickly turns into an independent entity. It is an island floating around in the narrative that surrounds it, self-contained and self-sufficient. What unfolds before the reader is not so much a description of a woman as rather an image – an autonomous image that has been carefully inserted into the diegesis.” In The prose of the world: Flaubert and the art of making things visible. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet, 2006, 26.

33 The degree to which certain stylistic and lexical choices emphatically undermine

the fiction of objective, unifocal description is increased by an inscribed flexibility of

describing subjectivity. The description is told from the “point of view” of an impossible

observer who is both factually omniscient (descriptions have more information than any

single character could) and stylistically subjective (they are written with the tonal

inflection of an invested subjectivity). The passage begins with the announcement: “Ce fut comme une apparition.” If this passage had been about the observed objects

(Madame Arnoux and her many qualities), it would read “elle fut comme une apparition,” but the demonstrative adjective “ce” refers to something else: the paragraphs to follow, the descriptive experience itself.26 The person who says “ce,” therefore, cannot be inside the diegesis, but rather shares some experience both with the descriptor and the reader.

However, the clause “ou du moins il ne distingua personne, dans l'éblouissement que lui envoyèrent ses yeux,” temporarily fixes the descriptive-experiential subjectivity in the person of Frédéric, whose imagination is poetically obfuscated by the perceived splendor of this appearance. Again, with “Elle était en train de broder quelque chose,” the

“quelque chose” implies an observer who either can’t see or doesn’t care what Madame

Arnoux is embroidering. This example demonstrates that Flaubert’s descriptions can be read without having to settle on an observing subject position. Indeed much effort is

26 Indeed the entire passage persistently employs the demonstrative in such a way as to remind the reader of the very situatedness of the current observation: “Jamais il n'avait vu cette splendeur de sa peau brune, la séduction de sa taille, ni cette finesse des doigts que la lumière traversait. Il considérait son panier à ouvrage avec ébahissement, comme une chose extraordinaire.” One will recall Flaubert’s use of the demonstrative adjective to elevate, and to thereby lend a level of reflexivity that often implies irony, in Madame Bovary: “C'était un de ces sentiments purs qui n'embarrassent pas l'exercice de la vie, que l'on cultive parce qu'ils sont rares, et dont la perte affligerait plus que la possession n'est réjouissante,” (Madame Bovary 123). Genette notes a similar usage of the demonstrative in his study of Stendhal in Figures II: “Le cas du démonstratif (“Cette malheureuse”) dont Stendhal fait un usage très marqué, est un peu plus subtil, car s’il s’agit essentiellement (abstraction faite de la valeur stylistique d’emphase, peut-être italianisante) d’un renvoi anaphorique du récit à lui-même (la malheureuse dont il a déjà été question), ce renvoi passe nécessairement par l’instance de discours et donc par le relais du narrateur, et par conséquent du lecteur, qui s’en trouve imperceptiblement pris à témoin” (190).

34 made on the part of the descriptor to destabilize any features of an observation that would match, conclusively, the entirety of a description with a single observing subjectivity.27

The complexity of Flaubert’s perspectivism is not just sensorial; in its stylistic manifestation it becomes attitudinal, it assigns values, it is experiential. It strives not only to relate a set of objects to a set of attributes, but also to model an organic process of observation.

Though the metaphorical notion of perspective in literature originated in the visual arts, in the literary field perspective has become one of the most elaborated concepts of literary technique available to the critic of nineteenth century literature.

Terminology varies, but almost all versions of the idea of perspective stem from a metaphorical usage of physiologically determined modalities (with the exception of

Todorovian “aspect”): “point of view,” “voice,” “vision,” “focalization.” Of central importance to these definitions is the concept of a position (as if on a coordinate plane) – aligned with variables of space, of time, of knowledge, experience, interest, of some combination of all of these -- from which a narration (or description) can be made.28

27 Timothy Unwin offers a concise description of this technique: “From the earliest, Flaubert shows both characters and narrators engaging in abrupt changes of perspective. The process has both a philosophical and an aesthetic basis. Since every feeling, every philosophical position, every intellectual or emotional vantage point can be replaced by another one in the infinite kaleidoscope of life, Flaubert comes swiftly to the conclusion that there is no ultimate, value-free, objective standpoint from which to view reality. This being so, the novelist must be everywhere and nowhere, both inside and outside his characters’ ‘minds’ and, indeed, both inside and outside his own novelistic stance. Variation and point of view will therefore become a key feature throughout his work, and essential means of showing up the relativity of different perceptions and standpoints.” “Flaubert’s early works.” In The Cambridge Companion to Flaubert. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 43-44. 28 Genette’s 1972 Figures III offers the following bibliography as preparation for his notion of focalizations: Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren: “focus of narration” (Understanding Fiction, New York, 1943, p. 589); F.K. Stanzel: “narrative situation” (Narrative Situations in the Novel, trans. J. P. Pusack, Bloomington, Ind., 1971); N. Friedman: “point of view,” with an eight-term matrix of perpsectival possibilities (“Point of View in Fiction: The Development of a Critical Concept,” (PMLA, Vol. 70, No. 5 (Dec., 1955), 1160-1184); Wayne C. Booth, “Distance and Point of View,” Essays in Criticism, 11 (1961), 60-79; Bertil Romberg, Studies in the Narrative Technique of the First Person Novel. Trans. Michael Taylor and Harold H. Borland. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1962; Jean Pouillon, Temps et roman. Paris: Gallimard, 1946; Todorov, “Les Catégories du récit littéraire,” Communications 8, 1966. For a more

35 Gérard Genette offers a convincing definition of this notion of perspective in the literary arts, as well as a useful bipartition between “who speaks” and “who sees” that allows us to look at the statements of a narrating/describing subject in isolation from the other personae in play in reading experience (author, character). He uses the term

“focalization” in Figures III to refer to the aspect from which events, objects, and characters are “viewed” in novelistic discourse.29 The notion of focalization as a medium through which narrative is evoked prepares the way for what I will call here “experiential perspectivism” – a mode of writing in which not only the attitudinal (in the sense of

“directional”) perspective (that is, the position vis-à-vis a narrated world from which information is conveyed), but also the mode of synthesizing this information with an internalized matrix of assumptions and inscribed epistemology. In Salammbô the proliferation of historical and anthropological detail is so expansive that the author is compelled to bend the very structure of the prose to accommodate it while maintaining

contemporary bibliography, Alan Rabatel’s 1997 volume Une Histoire du point de vue is a complete survey of approaches to the notion of point of view in criticism, narratology, and linguistics Rabatel, Alain. Une Histoire du point de vue. Recherches Textuelles No. 2. Paris: Diffuseur, Libr. Klincksieck,1997. 29 Genette calls “perspective,” in the introduction to his typology of possible focalizations, “ce second mode de régulation de l’information qui procède du choix (ou non) d’un “point de vue restrictif…” (203). He later notes: “la plupart des travaux théoriques sur ce sujet (qui sont essentiellement des classification) souffrent à mon sens d’une fâcheuse confusion entre ce que j’appelle ici mode et voix, c’est-à-dire entre la question quel est le personnage dont le point de vue oriente la perspective narrative? et cette question toute autre: qui est le narrateur? – ou, pour parler plus vite, entre la question qui voit ? et la question qui parle?” (ibid.) In Genette’s system a narration can be nonfocalized (omniscient narration), internally focalized (perspective corresponds with a figure in the novelistic world, like a character), or externally focalized (perspective corresponds to a figure outside the novelistic world, for instance a narrator who does not have access to the thoughts and feelings of characters); if it is focalized at all, then that focalization can be fixed (everything narrated through one character), variable (switches between characters, as in Madame Bovary) or multiple (the same event can be narrated from the point of view of several characters, La nouvelle Héloïse). Or a narrative can switch between focalizations: “La formule de focalisation ne porte donc pas toujours sur une œuvre entière, mais plutôt sur un segment narratif déterminé, qui peut être fort bref.” Alternating between types of focalization in sequential narrative segments varies the amount and kind of information available to a reader as determined by the individual capacities of characters through whom the narration is focalized. Alternation, however, is structurally dissimilar to the extreme condensation of experiential perspectives achieved by Flaubert’s fiction; in effect, the specificity of syntactical mediation of perspectival positioning in Flaubert’s descriptive style such as I am presenting it here undoes the parsing work of Genette’s formulation, especially in movement-descriptions.

36 grammaticality. These lengthy and complex passages of descriptive prose allow for maximum perspectival compaction of the kind I have identified here in L’éducation sentimentale.

An example of movement-based descriptive focalization appears in Salammbô’s second chapter, in which the mercenary soldiers move away from Carthage through the farmland and desert around the city. The following passage describes a scene in which a group of mercenaries comes upon a trio of crucified lions among the dunes.

Ils marchaient dans une sorte de grand couloir bordé par deux chaînes de

monticules rougeâtres, quand une odeur nauséabonde vint les frapper aux narines,

et ils crurent voir au haut d'un caroubier quelque chose d'extraordinaire: une tête

de lion se dressait au-dessus des feuilles. Ils y coururent. C'était un lion, attaché

à une croix par les quatre membres comme un criminel. Son mufle énorme lui

retombait sur la poitrine, et ses deux pattes antérieures, disparaissant à demi sous

l'abondance de sa crinière, étaient largement écartées comme les deux ailes d'un

oiseau. Ses côtes, une à une, saillissaient sous sa peau tendue; ses jambes de

derrière, clouées l'une contre l'autre, remontaient un peu; et du sang noir, coulant

parmi ses poils, avait amassé des stalactites au bas de sa queue qui pendait toute

droite le long de la croix. Les soldats se divertirent autour; ils l'appelaient consul

et citoyen de et lui jetèrent des cailloux dans les yeux, pour faire envoler les

moucherons. (75)

37 Delay and revelation order the progression of this descriptive passage. As the observing subject moves toward the vision, more and more specific information about the scene is described: what is at first simply a foul odor subsequently becomes a vision, first of a head, then of an entire crucified body. Once the illusion (that the lions were actually crucified humans, implied by the common shape) has been removed by proximity and the figure identified (“C’était un lion,”) a more detailed description becomes feasible. When the entire body of the lion is accounted for, the descriptor shifts focus (and location: “cent pas plus loin,”) to the “background,” to the other lions whose corpses greet the mercenary soldiers.

In this type of description the descriptive point-of-view is multiplied by successive stages of description, each representing an observer position in time and in space. The referent gains or loses precision of detail depending on the spatial orientation

– chronologically determined – of the implied observing subject. Meir Sternberg calls this type of operation “pseudo description” – a descriptive passage in which “the sequence of spatial representation turns into a sequence of spatial cues and anchors for a developing action” – as opposed to “pure description” (spatial sequence does not match up with a chronological sequence).30 As a pseudo-descriptive passage, then, the

30 Sternberg’s definitions correspond to a coordinate-system model of descriptive / narrative temporality: “…just as the proverbial line of action presupposes and converts or spreads out into a network of spatial contiguities, so are serialized configurations of existents and states amenable to alignment along the world’s temporal axis. Actional and descriptive discourse, therefore, form a polar rather than ungradable contrast; and the position of a given textual piece on that continuum can be determine not in formal but in functional terms lone, involving all the contextual operations of reading,” Sternberg, Meir, “Ordering the Unordered: Time, Space, and Descriptive Coherence.” Yale French Studies, No. 61, Towards a Theory of Description (1981): 76. Sternberg does not make a distinction between narrative time and reading time in this instance. The notion of the “pseudo descriptive” is not unlike Blanchard’s “topical description:” “a. one that utilizes modes of narrative in such a way as a) to blur distinctions between these modes or submodes, and b) to posit the primacy of the relation between modes over their relation to the whole narrative complex.” The modes represent combinations of elements (indication of an interference by the speaking subject and representation of time included in all the statements as a group. The modes are “narrative proper / exposition / argumentation / evaluation (Bains, 1967) or report / comment / description /

38 description of the lions uses narrative techniques (successive moments of observation,

narrated sequentially) but generates a descriptive experience (a passage that evokes a

described environment and the objects in it: the hill outside the city and the lions there).

It should be noted that in this case the functions of the observing subject (who sees) and

descriptor (who speaks) overlap: there is no functional distinction between the observing

subject – ostensibly one of the mercenary soldiers or the combined observational

awareness of the whole group – and the descriptor, or describing agent. The convergence

of these two elements generates a situation in which there is almost no mediation between

the observing/describing experience and the reading experience.31 A more distanced describing subject would already know that the smell emanated from a crucified body and that the body was not that of a man, but of a lion, but Flaubert’s technique erases this knowledge gap. As a result of this overlap – effectively a convergence of experiential perspectives (diegetic observer and descriptor) – we as readers are left with a sense of an unmediated observation of the described world, fully integrated and less research- oriented than other detailed descriptions in Salammbô. By mixing the time-based existential signature of an integrated perspective with the syntactic frame of an external observation this description operates as if it had been written in the free indirect style, its functional narrative equivalent. And so it does happen in the remainder of the passage:

speech (Bonheim, 1975) with their subclasses (ornamented report/straight comment…). Blanchard, J.M. “The Eye of the Beholder: On the Semiotic Status of Paranarratives.” Semiotica 22 (1978): 257. 31 Sternberg introduces the idea of a “mediating mind” in the descriptive – what I am calling the “descriptor position”: “…the rhetorical transaction between author and reader is mediated (refracted, fictionalized) through the quasi-mimetic figure of the observer interposed between them. Hence the differences in status and intelligibility between mediated and unmediated description, even where the former combines its perspective with an essentially functional reference point (say, hierarchy or surprise-tactics) to anchor the descriptive order in some observer’s view (say, ranking or ignorance) of reality. It all goes back to the fact that such mediation entails the described object’s leading a double life: within the mediated world and within the mediating mind.” Sternberg, Meir, “Ordering the Unordered: Time, Space, and Descriptive Coherence.” Yale French Studies, No. 61 (1981): 85.

39

Cent pas plus loin ils en virent deux autres, puis tout à coup, parut une

longue file de croix supportant des lions. Les uns étaient morts depuis si

longtemps qu'il ne restait plus contre le bois que les débris de leurs squelettes;

d'autres à moitié rongés tordaient la gueule en faisant une horrible grimace; il y en

avait d'énormes, l'arbre de la croix pliait sous eux et ils se balançaient au vent,

tandis que sur leur tête des bandes de corbeaux tournoyaient dans l'air, sans

jamais s'arrêter.

Ainsi se vengeaient les paysans carthaginois quand ils avaient pris quelque

bête féroce; ils espéraient par cet exemple terrifier les autres. Les barbares,

cessant de rire, tombèrent dans un long étonnement. "Quel est ce peuple, "

pensaient-ils, "qui s'amuse à crucifier des lions!" (75-6)

The passage uses narrative fragments as deictic punctuation (“tout d’un coup,” use of the passé simple “parut,” in lieu of the more durative “il y avaient,”) that mark the progression to a more complete vision of the scene. The synthesizing remark “Ainsi se vengeaient…” is the culmination of the observer-descriptor-reader perspectival convergence that has been building up to this point: it represents the thinking of someone

(again, be it diegetic observer, descriptor, or reader) at the experiential coordinates to which the description has lead. By allowing more detailed descriptive information to accumulate in successive narrative statements and combining that information with contextually embedded remarks on the described material the composition here creates a

40 total imagined reality that increases its objectivity by maximizing its observational omnipresence.

The impact of this movement-type of description on an interpretation of

Flaubertian descriptive style is crucial in explaining Flaubert’s modification of the detail- oriented realistic descriptive process used by his predecessors. As readers we move toward or around the described object in tandem with the observing subject. The fusion of observing subject with descriptor through the mixture of orders of information creates a describing situation in which an interpretation of the descriptive field is inscribed in the descriptive language.32

Flaubert’s eternal imparfait

I turn now to the imperfect tense and Flaubert’s peculiar employment of the capacities of that tense both in terms of temporality and of descriptive macro-effects including a peculiar layering effect of both verb type and tense. The imperfect becomes a mechanism for descriptive layering not only of objects in a given perceptive field, but also of actions in the form of unexpected verb conjugations. Flaubert’s emphatic overuse of the imperfect has a role in descriptive macro-structure that assists a perspectivist

32 Erich Auerbach observed as much about the descriptions in Madame Bovary: “The interpretation of the situation is contained in its description…but what the world would really be, the world of the “intelligent,” Flaubert never tells us; in his book the world consists of pure stupidity, which completely misses true reality, so that the latter should properly not be discoverable in it at all; and yet it is there, it is in the writer’s language, which unmasks the stupidity by pure statement; language, then, has criteria for stupidity and thus also has a part in that reality of the “intelligent” which otherwise never appears in the book.” For Auerbach Flaubert’s opinion of the described situation (Emma and Charles sharing a quotidian meal) is inscribed in the descriptive language itself and is not discernible from that language (as it would be if, to use Genette’s terminology, there were a split between “who speaks” and “who sees”). See also Hayden White, “The Problem of Style in Realistic Representation: Marx and Flaubert:” “Realism in the novel strove for a manner of representation in which the interpretation of the phenomena dealt within the discourse would be indistinguishable from its description.” The Concept of Style. Berel Lang, ed. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987, 280.

41 reading experience through the demobilization of described objects/actions and their

layering in descriptive passages.

Among other conventional uses of the imperfect (to indicate duration in the past,

repeated quality of events, as the second part of a conditional construction), the imparfait

de rupture most closely matches the use of the tense we find in Flaubert’s work.

Grévisse’s Le bon usage turns to Brunetière for a definition: “On dit aussi imparfait

pittoresque, de rupture, de clôture – sa valeur a été décrite par Brunetière dans une

heureuse formule: ‘C’est un procédé de peintre…L’imparfait, ici, sert à prolonger la

durée de l'action exprimée par le verbe, et l’immobilise en quelque sorte sous les yeux du

lecteur,’” (1092). Brunetière’s pairing of a notion of the picturesque with the concepts of

rupture and enclosure point to the dissociative function of the imperfect: perhaps partially

explaining why we feel we can, in reading, readily isolate descriptive passages from

narrative and other kinds of prose.33 The pairing is also striking insofar as it reveals the paradox at the core of the imperfect: it is at the same time the tense of temporal continuity and the tense of breakage of narrative flow. Engaging the imparfait de rupture, of cutting off from narrative, is precisely what allows the tense to be used as an element of descriptive structure rather than as an element of narrativity, even when it is used to render actions. Once the cut is made, the descriptive can “paint” the described world – of objects, activities, and even certain events – without the threat of diachronic narrative progression.

33 Grammarians continue to employ this pairing in explanations of the “imparfait de rupture:” Labeau and Larrivées’ Nouveaux développements de l’imparfait notes in a survey of terminological usage the terms “pittoresque” and “de rupture” are basically synonymous (with some exceptions); they also pair them with a third term, “narratif.” Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005, 83-84.

42 The question of the functional possibility of what I am suggesting here is

obviously a question of syntax. Text linguistics offers a systematization of discursive

units that is appropriate for analysis of the descriptive first, because it does not see the

phrase as the terminal unit of syntactical analysis (i.e. phrase to phrase relations can be

understood using techniques analogous to those used in phrase analysis) and second,

because text analysis looks at grammar and syntax insofar as they are used in the

production of texts (instead of looking for an extra-textual grammatical paradigm with

rules that govern the use of that grammar in texts). From the perspective of textual

linguistics Flaubert’s unconventional use of the imperfect can be seen not as an

aberration from the norm for descriptive phrases understood according to an extra-textual

grammatical paradigm, but rather as a syntactical choice that generates a different

possibility for interpretation at the level of the descriptive passage. It is with the

directionality of a text linguistics approach to syntax analysis that I hope to isolate the

stylistic functions of the imperfect in Salammbô over and against a grammatical

description.

Going back to the first chapter of Salammbô, then, we immediately see the

dominance of the imperfect tense. In the first chapter there are 209 instances of the

imperfect conjugation in third person singular (il/elle) and 189 of the third person plural

conjugation (ils/elles).34 For the entirety of the first five pages of the descriptive chapter on the feast, all verbs are conjugated in the imperfect; it is not until a punctual event with discernible phase contours that we see the passé simple: “D'abord on leur servit des oiseaux à la sauce verte…” (46). On the same page, following another two paragraphs

34 This does not include occurrences in direct discourse. Because Salammbô’s descriptor/narrator is in a third person position, numbers for the first and second person conjugations in the imperfect are relatively low. Any that appear are part of direct discourse.

43 completely in the imperfect, another punctual event: “La nuit tombait. On retira le velarium étalé sur l'avenue des cyprès et l'on apporta des flambeaux.” Oscillating between the tenses, even at this slow rhythm (which continues throughout the novel) contours the durational sweep of the descriptive chapter.

Harold Weinrich calls this contouring activity mise en relief, and the name sustains the pictorial metaphorization that so often accompanies descriptions of this kind.

Weinrich writes: “La mise en relief est la seule et unique fonction de l’opposition entre imparfait et passé simple dans le monde raconté.” He continues: “…l’imparfait et passé simple étant en français des temps narratifs, leur fonction dans les récits…n’est autre que de donner du relief au récit en l’articulant par une alternance récurrente entre premier plan et arrière-plan. L’imparfait est dans le récit le temps de l’arrière-plan, le passé simple le temps du premier plan,” (Le temps, 117). Divorced from narrative flow in this way, the imperfect-dominant descriptive passage gains internal structural autonomy.

Repeated use of the imperfect in phrase groups is then a stabilization factor for complex taxonomic descriptive passages; that which is rendered in the imperfect, the background, is formed of cohesive layers of descriptive information.

Using the imperfect in narrative contexts that would conventionally demand a punctual verb form has two effects: first, it de-activates the progressive temporality of the imperfect verb to some extent and enables its use as a functional modifying element in the description, and second, with regard to Weinrich’s distinction, it equalizes descriptive background and narrative foreground, thereby enhancing the relative status of descriptive phrases. The most striking examples of this effect in Salammbô can be seen in battle scenes rendered mostly in the imperfect tense. This usage of the imperfect draws out the

44 actions of the battle scenes and merges background and foreground, description and narration, into one expansive, detailed aesthetic whole, flattening out the implied perspectival system. Thus, in the following passage, from the battle of Macar:

Par-dessus la voix des capitaines, la sonnerie des clairons et le grincement des

lyres, les boules de plomb et les amandes d’argile passant dans l’air, sifflaient,

faisaient sauter les glaives des mains, la cervelle des crânes. Les blessés,

s’abritant d’un bras sous leur bouclier, tendaient leur épée en appuyant le

pommeau contre le sol, et d’autres, dans des mares de sang, se retournaient pour

mordre les talons. La multitude était si compacte, la poussière si épaisse, le

tumulte si fort, qu’il était impossible de rien distinguer; les lâches qui offrirent de

se rendre ne furent même entendus. (252-3)

The structure of this passage collects elements from the battle scene – images and sounds

– and, using the imperfect as a temporal placeholder, presents them as simultaneous, recurring, and omnipresent. This passage also uses short lists (“sifflaient, faisaient sauter…” and “si compacte…si épaisse…si fort”) of clauses with similar structures to accumulate additional descriptive information. Use of the imperfect here has the effect of slowing down the action of the battle and allowing a composite vision of multiple elements of the described scene in complex sentences. As a result the battle of the Macar seems to continue indefinitely, despite interruption by infrequent actions narrated in the passé simple (“les lâches qui offrirent…”).

45 Flaubert’s usage of the imperfect neutralizes its narrative potential and instead

insists on the immobility of the objects with which it is paired, a technique as well

adapted to distant, painterly scenes as it had been to expressing the boredom of country

life in Madame Bovary.35 Verbs and adverbs can then be layered, like adjectives or

nouns, as part of a multi-level descriptive image or experience; actions, instead of

catalyzing narrative events, serve as additional information in the descriptive matrix built

around a topic, scene, or locale. It is a certain “descriptive amplification,”36 a way of

building up the substance of the described world, adding layer upon layer of descriptive

information in a vertical index of detail.

Details and lists

“Pour qu’un livre sue la vérité, il faut être bourré de son sujet jusque par-dessus

des oreilles. Alors la couleur vient tout naturellement, comme un résultat fatal et comme

une floraison de l’idée même,” wrote Flaubert à propos of Salammbô, then called

Carthage (Correspondance 215). Precise details have special status in Salammbô; they

are the conceptual center of Flaubert’s descriptive enterprise. One has the sense,

however, that at a certain point descriptive detail becomes excessive, and details lose

their power to confirm objectivity – this was the crux of Sainte-Beuve’s criticism. In the

face of a novel as ‘overflowing’ with details as Salammbô, one is tempted to ask, as did

35 This is the conclusion of Auerbach’s analysis of a description in Madame Bovary. Mimesis. Introduction by Edward Said. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003, 482-491. 36 Roger Huss makes two suggestions that will be useful here: first, that Flaubert’s repeated use of the imperfect allows for a kind of descriptive amplificatio, and second, that events rendered in what we are calling here a descriptive mode (his term is aspect), invites the kind of contemplation usually reserved for background objects like landscapes and faces. “Some Anomalous Uses of the Imperfect and the Status of Action in Flaubert.” 141. French Studies vol. XXXI No. 2 (1977): 39-148.

46 : “Is everything in narrative significant, and if not, if insignificant

stretches subsist in the narrative syntagm, what is ultimately, so to speak, the significance

of this insignificance?” (“Reality Effect” 229).37

Barthes’s answer is that insignificant elements do carry significance in a text that

strives for a realistic effect. The profusion of insignificant details in canonical realism is

part of an effort to give a greater sense of the real, to lend an effet de réel to the novelistic

universe. It is the very superfluity of these details that gives them the veneer of the real.

And the detail, of course, is metonymically related to the description. Description for

Barthes is the referential structure that cooperates with literary form to create stable

cognitive categories in which we organize the objects we encounter in reading.

Superfluous details announce their reality status: “it is the category of ‘the real’ (and not

its contingent contents) which is then signified; in other words, the very absence of the

signified, to the advantage of the referent alone, becomes the very signifier of realism”

(234).

Details, of course, do not work alone; there are those referential structures

(descriptions) that align the detail with stable cognitive categories (indices of descriptive

order). Focusing on the status of the detail again turns analysis toward represented objects

and away from the way in which description builds collections of objects into readable

realities. In order for details to take their places in the universe of a novel and gain the

status of superfluity or of necessity that could put the seal of authenticity on the whole

project, organization is necessary: this is the role of descriptive ordering, the internal

organization of descriptive taxonomies that aligns the individual detail with one or

37 Barthes, Roland. “The Reality Effect.” 1986. The Rustle of Language, trans. Richard Howard. (New York: Hill and Wang) in Hale, Dorothy J. 2006. The novel: an anthology of criticism and theory, 1900- 2000. Malden, Mass: Blackwell Pub. 229-234.

47 another of our categories, including that of the “real.” Isolating the individual detail

deprives the descriptive unit of the relationship that relates it to a world-structure, as well

as the epistemology that structure implies.

The way in which details are organized and presented in a descriptive text models

processes of categorization and synthesizing information. When we read a complex

description, we are in effect being trained in a protocol for inducing general features of

described worlds from configurations of individual details.38 This protocol relies on two assumptions: 1. that grouping details together somehow adds interpretive value

(amplificatio) and 2. that a synthetic interpretive move will lead a reader to general concepts about the context from which the details were extracted. The detail-description relation, analogous to the description-novelistic world relation, is thus in a way a microcosmic hermeneutic circle. Hamon’s definition of the detail in this context is useful: “the detail requests a “translation” as to its meaning, its function in the work; it calls upon and interrogates the reader whom it transforms into an interpreter; it is simultaneously asyndeton and anaphora,” (“Rhetorical Status of the Descriptive,” 11).

Hamon depicts the activity of the reader of a description as structurally congruent to that of a Spitzerian literary critic: “The stylistician…does not move from detail to detail, but rather from the particular to the general, and from the general to the particular; which, finally is perhaps little different than the theoretical rationalization of what constitutes on the one hand the very movement of any descriptive “énoncé” that must maintain the

38 Further, as Hamon notes, list-like descriptions serve as structural models for their own reading process: “…par la durée de l’insistance textuelle qui focalise, met en relief, distingue, “bloque”, “arrête,” il déclenche chez le lecteur, outré divers effets de sidération que peut provoquer l’ostentation du savoir-faire stylistique et de la compétence lexicale e l’auteur, outre certains jugements esthétiques, diverses stratégies herméneutiques.” Hamon, Philippe. Introduction à l'analyse du descriptif. Langue, linguistique, communication. Paris: Hachette, 1981, 81-2.

48 temporality of the words endowed with partial semantic contents and functions (the

“parts” of the described “whole”), and on the other hand a rationalization of what constitutes the specific “paranoia” of every realistic “énoncé,” its hermeneutic obsession of interpreting the signs, the symptoms, the indices of the world,” (ibid).

Given the importance of the detail, then, and the great number of details with which Flaubert filled descriptions, it is not surprising that his descriptions often tend to resemble lists. The descriptive passages under discussion here, however, fail to conform to a true list structure, which would be indexical and synchronic; that is, in the novel, the list has to conform to basic prose syntax and does not, at least in the nineteenth century, appear in an unadulterated indexical form. That being said, the list-like description does mimic indexical organization both as a rhetorical move (accumulatio – to enable formation of complex matrices of metonymic details) and as a signifying move (the presence of a list in and of itself means something, outside of its contents). What I am suggesting here is slightly different from what Phillippe Hamon describes as “effet de liste” in his introduction to the descriptive: as Hamon calls it, effet de liste is the sense that a description resembles a list; what I am looking at is, in effect, the impression that this list-effect makes on the reader – the effect of an effet de liste, a secondary list effect.

The effect, or put otherwise, the significance of the list (like the significance of the insignificant detail), is gestural – it indicates that the grouping it represents is necessary

(none of the items overlaps with another – all of the items must be present and must be separate, autonomous); that the list is total (inclusive of all the observable details in a given category available to the descriptor); and finally that the list by its very nature differentiates a group of details from all other possible groups of details – the list is

49 distinct. I would go further and say that the secondary effet de liste is the sense that the

list is somehow systemic, i.e. the formation of a list-structure necessarily draws a

distinction between that which is included in the list and other possible list elements.

List-like descriptions can still be thought of as systematic in the abstract despite the appearance of instabilities in actual descriptions that seem to use them as cataloging tools. The list-structure has a signifying effect irrespective of whether or not the taxonomy is actually cohesive; that is, a description can imply a categorical structure without actually having one. We see, for example, the massively descriptive fourth chapter of Salammbô, “Sous les murs de Carthage,” – again, a section that does nothing to move the plot, but does major work in populating the fictional world of ancient

Carthage – an apparent taxonomic list structure. The passage, in its subdivisions and often-symmetrical modifying clauses, appears to categorize female types attached to the mercenary camp; however, the catalog breaks down at when pressed for a stable underlying structure. Thus, starting with the “long view” of the mercenary camp:

Le camp ressemblait à une ville, tant il était rempli de monde et

d'agitation. Les deux foules distinctes se mêlaient sans se confondre, l'une

habillée de toile ou de laine avec des bonnets de feutre pareils à des

pommes de pin, l'autre vêtue de fer et portant des casques. (116-7)

Two groups are distinguished by dress: wearers of felt (Carthaginians) and wearers of armor (mercenary soldiers). Going on:

50 Au milieu des valets et des vendeurs ambulants circulaient des femmes

de toutes nations…

Stopping briefly here: this introductory phrase issues in the central objects of the descriptive passage to follow: the women of the mercenary camp, “les femmes de toutes nations” who move between the two unmixed groups of the first phrase. What follows will be a descriptive configuration of information concerning these women.

…brunes comme des dattes mûres, verdâtres comme des olives, jaunes

comme des oranges, vendues par des matelots, choisies dans les bouges,

volées à des caravanes, prises dans le sac des villes, que l'on fatiguait

d'amour tant qu'elles étaient jeunes, qu'on accablait de coups lorsqu'elles

étaient vieilles, et qui mouraient dans les déroutes au bord des chemins,

parmi les bagages, avec les bêtes de somme abandonnées. (117)

To begin, the descriptor divides the women of the camp by skin tone, associating each group with a north African food item: “brunes,” “verdâtres,” and “jaunes,” correspond to

“dattes mûres,” “olives,” and “oranges.” Secondly, and in the same phrase, they are re- divided in terms of the way they became associated with the camp: “vendues par des matelots, choisies dans les bouges, volées à des caravanes, prises dans le sac des villes.”

This last phrase is an instance in which the boundary between descriptive and narrative is blurred; the past participles (“vendues,” “choisies,” “volées,” “prises”) are short summaries of events in the past, but are used to serve a describing function. Finally a

51 third division into three groups distributes the fates of the women. The last part of the description, however, reveals structural incongruities:

Les épouses des nomades balançaient sur leurs talons des robes en poil de

dromadaire, carrées, et de couleur fauve; des musiciennes de la

Cyrénaïque, enveloppées de gazes violettes et les sourcils peints,

chantaient accroupies sur des nattes; de vieilles négresses aux mamelles

pendantes ramassaient, pour faire du feu, des fientes d'animal que l'on

desséchait au soleil; les syracusaines avaient des plaques d'or dans la

chevelure, les femmes des lusitaniens des colliers de coquillages, les

gauloises des peaux de loup sur leur poitrine blanche; et des enfants

robustes, couverts de vermine, nus, incirconcis, donnaient aux passants

des coups dans le ventre avec leur tête, ou venaient par derrière, comme

de jeunes tigres, les mordre aux mains. (117)

If we were to follow this taxonomy directly with an eye to transformational equivalency, we would assume that the following outline would match the prose:

1. épouses des nomades 2. musiciennes de la Cyrénaïque 3. vieilles négresses ------1. syracusaines 2. lusitaniens 3. gauloises ------1. enfants

52 However, the actual description does not treat all of these subtypes equally, nor with the same criteria for description: the first tier is described in terms of both their appearance and their activities, while the second tier group is described only in terms of identifying elements of their costumes, and the third tier, the children, constitutes and entirely separate descriptive entity with much more detail attached. None of these categories or tiers matches the original divisions of the earlier part of the description, except that they all fit into the general category “les femmes de toutes nations.” What is striking here is that a matrix of information has been given to surround the women of the mercenary camp with an aura of detail, and this aura is designed to look like it has an internal structure and gives the impression of being saturated with information (effet de liste).

These apparent features suggest that the order and configuration of this information somehow relates a set of relationships and distinctions between the units of information, even if that is not actually the case. A reader experiences a secondary list effect in an encounter with what is essentially a false taxonomy.

The varieties of descriptive list often follow the same organizational patterns as do the conventional relational tropes that express association of two or more semantic units (metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, etc.).39 This is especially visible in the passage that follows:

39 Philippe Hamon identifies at least three in Introduction à l’analyse du descriptif: “La focalisation de l’énoncé et de l’attention du lecteur sur les opérations et les procédures dérivationnelles (plus que transformationnelles) du texte permet donc de rassembler, sous la jotion de system descriptif, aussi bien la constitution de séries lexicales à dominante synecdochique…ou à dominante synonymique, comme la constitution de séries syntaxiques, ou de séries phonétiques, ou graphiques, etc.” Introduction à l'analyse du descriptif. Paris: Hachette, 1981, 81.

53 Il y avait là des hommes de toutes les nations, des Ligures, des

Lusitaniens, des Baléares, des Nègres et des fugitifs de Rome. On

entendait, à côté du lourd patois dorien, retentir les syllabes celtiques

bruissantes comme des chars de bataille, et les terminaisons ioniennes se

heurtaient aux consonnes du désert, âpres comme des cris de chacal. Le

Grec se reconnaissait à sa taille mince, l'Égyptien à ses épaules

remontées, le Cantabre à ses larges mollets. Des Cariens balançaient

orgueilleusement les plumes de leur casque, des archers de Cappadoce

s'étaient peint de larges fleurs sur le corps, et quelques Lydiens portant

des robes de femme dînaient en pantoufles et avec des boucles d'oreilles.

D'autres, qui s'étaient par pompe barbouillés de vermillon, ressemblaient

à des statues de corail. (44-5)

The passage uses three criteria for categorization by which it organizes the mercenaries:

1. sound ("patois dorien,” “syllabes celtiques,” “terminaisons ioniennes,” “consonnes du

désert,”; 2. physiology (“taille,” “épaules,” “mollets,”); and 3. decoration (“plumes,”

“fleurs,” “robes de femme, etc.”). These are syntactically paired with the categories

Doric – Celtic – Ionian, Greek – Egyptian – Cantabrian, and Carian – Cappadocian –

Lydian. The result is a micro-taxonomy of ethnicities of the ancient Mediterranean,

presented in their diversity in the interest of an effet de liste serves as accumulative amplificatio of the comprehensive incipit “Il y avait là des hommes de toutes les nations.”

The organization is synedochic, as will be the case in the majority of descriptions that

54 treat groups of heterogeneous objects/people. In this case the taxonomy is consistent, but has a strong internal variation of subcategories.

These are the very descriptions with which Flaubert’s critics found the most fault; the diversity of objects was seen as a futile display of exotic excess. Indeed one of the main preoccupations of the historical-fictional conception of Carthage in Salammbô is the heterogeneity of objects – human and nonhuman – present there, all contributing, actively, to the constitution of this fictional universe. The diversity of the group here and elsewhere actually becomes a variable in the taxonomic system: here the “autres,” daubed in vermilion, evade the categorization by recognizable ethno-cultural traits that ordered the preceding descriptive configuration. But we should not consider the imprecision of the final element a sign of stylistic lassitude on the part of the descriptor; like the effet du réel, here the undetailed observation lends an air of randomness to the description that is otherwise so categorical, organized, and clinical toward its objects. Whereas description in a mimetic realist paradigm uses the seemingly random detail to increase the believability of a given observation, here the unspecific, placed carefully in an ordering structure that maintains the synecdochical taxonomy but dismisses the specificity of detail we have come to expect in the Flaubertian description thus far, lends to the description an effect of seeming subjectivity that de-generalizes the descriptive voice and re-immerses the passage in the experiential framework of a non-omniscient observer.

The vague, unsynthesized observation, in addition to the unevenly taxonomic observation-structure observed above, plays a crucial part in the experiential perspectivist project. These examples suggest that while the appearance of internal structure is important to the descriptive insofar as it contributes to a sense of saturation and

55 systematicity, aberrations from strict taxonomic or categorical form serve an equally important function in the total effect of Flaubert’s descriptive style.

Salammbô may somewhat of a generic misfit, but it does have a place in a view of mutations in descriptive style in description-dominant novels in the second half of the nineteenth century. As an example of a perspectivist revision of detail-oriented realist descriptive practice that actively tests the epistemological conditions for realistic representations in prose, Salammbô shows us the initial stirrings of an impulse to reflection on the nature of descriptive experience that would become increasingly central to novels in the late nineteenth century. I have suggested here that Salammbô was for

Flaubert an experiment in total description; the text uses perspectival shifts and modifications of conventional descriptive form to accommodate an integrated, dense view of the world of ancient Carthage.

Flaubert chose the plot and milieu of Salammbô for the contrast to everyday bourgeois life he had worked with in Madame Bovary and for the chance to work in a predominantly descriptive mode in a low-risk (in terms of plot – the narrative determination of the Punic wars being irreversible) writing environment. Salammbô is also exemplary of Flaubert’s major concerns with regard to descriptive distance – so many of the same or similar perspectival shifts appear in his other novels (here I cited an example from L’éducation sentimentale, but Bovary is certainly replete with them); however the Carthaginian tale is atypical insofar as its descriptions go to extra lengths to make descriptions complex, multifaceted, dense, and all-inclusive in addition to using pluri/experiential perspectivist techniques. And yet all of these precisely controlled

56 aspects of Flaubert’s writing seem to serve the goal of that famous impassivité – the erasure of authorial voice.

After Flaubert there appears to be a strand of literary thinking about descriptions that, in its concern for descriptive form and attention to the complex potential that certain writing practices held for reflection on, and enactment of, particular ways of encountering the observable world, had manifestations in the history of the novel both within France and beyond its borders. Flaubert’s techniques for immersing a describing subject in the formal elements of description may be seen as parallel to stylistic choices of Giovanni

Verga and the verista circle during the unification and nation-building years in the last quarter of the Italian nineteenth century. Verga internalized the Flaubertian directive for impassivité through Zola’s writings on naturalism; we see in the two completed novels of the Vinti cycle the difficulties and elucidations made possible by translation in a true sense – to write realistically, importing the tools of French developments in the field, but organically about Italian subjects and with a uniquely Italian (and uniquely literary) approach to the world through language and through syntax in particular.

57

CHAPTER TWO

Verga and verismo: descriptive voice

58 Verga and verismo: descriptive voice

There are certain cases in which descriptions can play a central role in creating the

parameters of the world in which the novel operates without dominating the text. For this

to happen the descriptive mode need not be quantitatively excessive, but rather must exist

in a state of extreme density, as a set of guidelines in condensed form. Each description

codes the parameters of the world it describes, and if written with precision may attain a

very fluid relationship with its subject matter. This is true of certain descriptions in the

novels of Giovanni Verga, whose work I will treat here. The verista of the 1870s and

80s, whose penchant for distilling the experiential essence of his characters – rural

villagers and the periphery of the Sicilian bourgeoisie – in the very fabric of his written

language has earned a place near Flaubertian status as an important figure in the history

of the European realist novel and its subsequent mutations. We see Verga in an Italian

literary historical context that overlaps with the “late” phase of realism in France,

working toward an ideal of truthfulness whose end was impersonality through extreme

closeness and integration of descriptor with described world, achieving, contradictorily,

an approach to individual or group subjectivity in prose that came to ring true in some

early-twentieth century approaches to the novel. As for the history of description:

perspectivism, high internal complexity, expressive as opposed to didactic descriptive

approaches, long and detailed descriptions “for description’s sake,” – these are all

features of the trend in novelistic practice that I am tracing here – the trend toward a

dominance of description in narrative genres of the late nineteenth century. This is

equally true of the Italian novel as the French, though on a bit of a staggered time offset of one generation. In the Italian context, realism as a detectable literary trend as it had

59 been communicated from other national literatures hit a particularly strong note in the

light of contemporary cultural debates following the then-recent creation of a unified

state of Italy. For writers of Verga’s generation the concept of Flaubert’s “canone

dell’impersonalità”40 in combination with the notion that quotidian subjects, and therefore local and regional subjects, deserved the attention of literature was a political as well as an aesthetic concern. Verga’s situation led to a compromise between regionalism and a national standard that operates on a syntactic as well as a thematic level, and in description as well as narration. This is a matter of descriptive voice. In this chapter I will analyze the function of descriptive voicing in descriptions in Verga’s novelistic practice, specifically in Mastro-don Gesualdo, his last completed novel, published in

1889.

Mastro-don Gesualdo, the second novel in Verga’s unfinished Rougon-Macquart- style Ciclo dei vinti, represents the last of Verga’s many literary efforts based the concept of an unbiased, transparent and direct representation of observable reality. Until that point Verga’s career had been varied; florid and sentimental early novels produced after the move from his native Sicily to , where he associated with the Scapligliatura group, met with minor success; it was his novelle siciliane, with their harsh landscapes and matter-of-fact narrational style that launched his career as a self-conscious verista.

Verga’s “conversion” occurred around 1874 with the short story “Nedda,” his first of

many short stories concerning the everyday of the Sicilian peasant that together make up

40 Flaubert’s impassibilité translates well into the goals of Italian verismo, though Verga does not seem to share the goal of god-like omniscience to which Flaubert aspired. According to Giulio Ferroni, “questo canone, che ha uno dei suoi grandi modelli in Flaubert, consiste nel far vivere e parlare direttamente i personaggi, rappresentando la loro realtà mentale e sociale senza che l’autore proietti su di loro le proprie idée e i propri sentimenti.” Ferroni, Storia della letteratura italiana: dall’Ottocento al Novecento. Milano: Einaudi, 1991, 408.

60 Vita dei campi (1880) and Novelle rusticane (1882). These stories are the site of his

development of the deep pessimism and notion of fatal necessity that is the motivating

force of the majority of his plots, including the better-known I Malavoglia of 1881.

Mastro-don Gesualdo was the next step in Verga’s project to synthesize the conventional

literary practice of the realist novel with a non-bourgeois linguistic atmosphere,

generating, in a way, an idiolect particular to each of the two completed novels by

combining the syntax and certain grammatical patterns of Sicilian dialect speech with the

lexicographical traits of literary, typically Tuscan, Italian. It has even been suggested that

this aspect of the linguistic project of Mastro-don Gesualdo, which, because it moved

more toward the bourgeois in both language and narrative structure represented a partial

shift from the folkloric quality of his novelle and the Malavoglia, proved too difficult for

the aging writer and that this failure led to his retreat from literary production.41

However is precisely this aspect of Mastro-don Gesualdo’s formal complexity, along with the increased presence of descriptions over his previous works (perhaps attributable to the effort to make Gesualdo resemble a more conventional novel in the generational drama format than I Malavoglia) that makes it a rich site for analysis of descriptive style in the context of post-Risorgimento regional activism.

The novel recounts the story of an ambitious landowning peasant who successfully manages to enter the decaying Sicilian aristocracy, thus accounting for the

41 In fact Verga’s retreat from the literary world has at least partly to do with legal troubles stemming from the illegal use of his story “Cavalleria rusticana” as a basis for the then explosively popular of the same name. Verga spent the years 1890 to 1919 in constant litigation over this and other copyright matters. But as Verga biographer Alfred Alexander explains, it cannot be only the legal activity that kept him from writing; in fact, he did produce a number of short stories, plays, and adaptations of his work for the theater. But with all that trouble and discouraging critical and commercial reactions to the first two novels, the Ciclo dei vinti, writes Alexander, was “doomed” by 1893. Alexander, Alfred. Giovanni Verga. : Grant & Cutler, 1972, 196-198.

61 second tier in his planned Vinti cycle.42 Gesualdo Motta, who is referred to mockingly by the title Mastro-don (mastro was a title used for workmen and among the peasantry, and don was used to address landed middle and upper class groups), inhabits a social and linguistic realm that belongs at the same time to the folkloric culture of the Malavoglia and the unfamiliar and self-conscious sphere of the new bourgeois in Italy; as such

Mastro-don Gesualdo is not unlike Madame Bovary in taking alienation as its central theme.43 The internal contradiction of belonging at the same time to two social groups, but not being accepted in either resonates with the dualistic language and style of the novel. This aspect of Mastro-don Gesualdo is the key to an understanding of Verga through his descriptive style, which tries to reflect the duality and indecision of its

42 Verga first mentioned this ambitious plan to his friend Salvatore Paola Verdura in 1878. The Ciclo would begin with a story of the gente del mare, Sicilian fishermen, then move to Gesualdo, the story of a workman who struggles to become part of the bourgeoisie, followed by La Duchessa della Gargantàs (later called La Duchessa di Leyra, one chapter completed), a story of the Palermo aristocracy, L’onorevole Scipione (“onerevole” being an address to deputati or members of parliament) to take place in Rome, and finally L’uomo di lusso, centered on wealthy industrialists of Florence and Milan. See Alexander, Alfred. Giovanni Verga. London: Grant & Cutler, 1972, 83. Wrote Verga, “Ho in mente un lavoro, che mi sembra bello e grande, una specie di fantasmagoria della lotta per la vita, che si estende dal cenciaiuolo al ministro e all’artista, e assume tutte le forme, dalla ambizione all’avidità del guadagno, e si presta a mille rappresentazioni del gran grottesco umano; lotta provvidenziale che guida l’umanità, per mezzo e attraverso tutti gli appetiti alti e bassi, alla conquista della verità. Insomma cogliere il lato drammatico, o ridicolo, o comico di tutte le fisionomie sociali, ognuna colla sua caratteristica, negli sforzi che fanno per andare avanti in mezzo a quest’onda immensa che è spinta dai bisogni più volgari o dall’avidità della scienza ad andare Avanti, incessantemente, pena la caduta e la vita, pei deboli e i maldestri.” Verga elaborates his plan, again invoking physiognomy as a categorizing force: “Ciascun romanzo avrà una fisionomia speciale, resa con mezzi adatti. Il realismo, io, l’intendo così, come la schietta ed evidente manifestazione dell’osservazione coscienziosa; la sincerità dell’arte, in una parola, potrà prendere un lato della fisionomia della vita italiana moderna, a partire dalle classi infime, dove la lotta è limitata al pane quotidiano, come nel Padron ‘Ntoni, e a finire nelle varie aspirazioni, nelle ideali avidità de L’uomo di lusso…passando per le avidità basse, alla vanità del Mastro don Gesualdo, rappresentante della vita di provincia, all’ambizione di un deputato.” The “onda” to which Verga refers here is the wave of history that sweeps up all of humanity; he had originally thought to title the cycle “Marea” to reflect this notion. Here it appears that Verga took very seriously the notion that literature could reflect objectively on the world it observes, and that the universality of his project contributed to that objectivity in some sense. From a letter to Salvatore Paola Verdura, 21 April,1878. In Verga, Giovanni. Lettere sparse. Ed. Fincchiaro Chimirri, Giovanna. Roma: Bulzoni, 1980, 79-80. 43 Writes Nicola Merola in a note to the most recent Garzanti edition: “Nella contaminazione dei titoli (dove “mastro” sta a significare l’umile attività manuale esercitata e “don “ indica invece la posizione preminente) c’è il destino del personaggio e l’idea centrale del romanzo: una specie di impossibilità di movimento e del divenire sociale dimostrata attraverso l’isolamento e la fissazione della fase di passaggio.” Verga, Giovanni. Mastro-don Gesualdo. Milano: Garzanti Editore, 2000, 6.

62 protagonist in its selection of a describing voice that is at once idiosyncratic and

universalized.

The project of Mastro-don Gesualdo

Verga criticism has honed in on issues surrounding narrating/describing

perspective and the functional deployment of a “mixed” or “compound” voice in Verga’s

texts, and I agree that this is the major issue when it comes to the tone of Verga’s

descriptions. The question of “who speaks” in Verga’s prose is one of central importance

in Verga studies; specifically, a focused discussion of the free indirect style in Verga’s

work has focused on the narrating voice of I Malavoglia.44 The narrating voice of the earlier novel is a “choral” one, to use a phrase coined first by Giacomo Devoto and then reformulated by Leo Spitzer in his essay “L’originalità della narrazione nei Malavoglia,” a voice that seems to emanate from the thoughts and beliefs of the entire village of Aci

Trezza.45 In reaction to Devoto’s hypothesis that Verga uses stylistic means to distribute the narrated content across multiple “piani del racconto” in an impressionistic manner slightly more accepting of the intermixing of direct and indirect discourse (i.e. apt to utilize the free indirect style, or for Spitzer, “erlebte Rede”) than a writer like Manzoni,

44 Here I refer to the numerous discussions of Verga’s stylistic innovations in verismo criticism in the post war period that emphasized Verga’s use of the free indirect style, started by Luigi Russo in the book Giovanni Verga (originally published earlier in the century, with revisions pertinent to this discussion in the 5th edition; Bari: Laterza, 1955), and continued by Vittorio Lugli, Giacomo Devoto, Nicola Vita, Leo Spitzer, Io Franges, then in the 1960s and 70s by Hans Sorensen, Giulio Herczeg, Francesco Nicolosi, Giovanni Checchetti, Antonio Lanci, and Olga Ragusa. For this information I have relied on Gregory Lucente’s essay “Critical Treatments of Verga and Verismo: Movements and Trends (1950-1980). MLN, Vol. 98, No. 1, Italian Issue (Jan., 1983), 129-138. 45 Devoto, Giacomo. “Giovanni Verga e i piani del racconto.” In Nuovi studi di linguistica. Firenze: Le Monnier, 1962, 202-214. Spitzer, Leo. “L’originalità della narrazione nei Malavoglia,” in Studi italiani. A cura di Camillo Scarpati. Milano: Vita e pensiero, 1976, 293-316.

63 but less so than Proust and other writers of the early twentieth century, Spitzer elaborates

on the integrated or filtered (with the consciousness of the villagers) nature of the

narrating persona in I Malavoglia:46 “Il, narratore, che per questo non cessa di essere un

narratore autentico, ha scelto di raccontare gli avvenimenti come si riflettono nei cervelli

e nei cuori dei suoi personaggi.” He continues: “L’originalità della tecnica del Verga dei

Malavoglia consiste…non nell’uso dell’erlebte Rede coltivato dai romanzieri classici

italiani come da tutti i grandi romanzieri francesi dell’Ottocento, ma nella filtrazione

sistematica della sua narrazione di un romanzo intero, dal primo fino all’ultimo capitolo,

attraverso un coro di parlanti popolari semi-reale (in cui il parlato potrebbe essere realtà

oggettiva ma non si sa davvero se lo è), che si aggiunge alla narrazione a mezzo di

discorsi e gesti,” (Spitzer 305-6). Verga’s systematic approach leads the reader to

interpret a “pseudo-obbiettività” that is deeply contextual to the narrated world, enabling

its speaker to make statements that seem to emanate from the collective consciousness of

the Sicilian peasants it portrays. Looking forward toward the stream of consciousness

techniques of Joyce and Hemingway, Spitzer sees this stylistic achievement, perhaps

even more than Flaubert’s calculated omniscience, as the mark of Verga’s extreme

.

The Devoto/Spitzer discussion leads directly to two questions for this dissertation:

1. To what extent do these claims regarding Verga’s narrative technique translate to a

discussion of descriptive style? And 2. What does Verga’s style indicate about the

46 Though the essay does not treat Mastro-don Gesualdo directly, Spitzer implies that he disagrees with Devoto’s assertion that Verga used these narrative techniques “soltanto nei Malavoglia, non nel Mastro- don Gesualdo,” when he includes this statement in his introduction to the argument against Devoto’s conclusions. Neither critic discusses Verga’s earlier work in these two essays, but Giovanni Cecchetti and others detect Verga’s integrated voicing at the earliest in the short stories of Vita dei campi of 1880. See Cecchetti’s introduction to The She-Wolf and Other Stories. Trans. and Intro. by Giovanni Cecchetti. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1962, xiii-xv.

64 context of the specific literary historical moment we are dealing with here, that is, the

transition from “late realism” of the 1860s and 70s to the “modernist” style to which

Spitzer refers? I have chosen Mastro-don Gesualdo as the focus of this discussion

precisely because of this novel’s resonance with this issue of difficulty in transition,

because this is the most descriptive of all Verga’s novels, and more importantly and not

by accident, descriptions in Mastro-don Gesualdo are the stylistic center of the novel’s

self-constitution, very unlike the Malavoglia and his short stories where description is

minimized if not eliminated completely. I assert that in a move even more unusual than

only employing the free indirect style in his narration, Verga chose to eschew the

rhetorical tradition of descriptive detachment and instead wrote his descriptions in a way

that fuses a fundamentally oral linguistic consciousness with an idiosyncratic and

specifically literary style to produce a novelistic idiolect whose existence is restricted

solely to this novel as a result of its deep integration with the particular socio-linguistic

atmosphere it represents.

This is not to say that Verga simply wrote in a spoken style in an attempt to

mimic a regional dialect. Verga’s descriptive peculiarity, the unusual intermixing of a

literary language with certain regionalisms does more than simply represent Sicilian

dialect speech.47 What is striking about the combination is the effect is produces – the fact that in reading a language that is by all standards completely artificial we achieve an intense closeness with the world of Verga’s novel. Paradoxically, by writing in a very

47 Gregory Lucente suggested this thesis with regard to descriptions: “In terms of representational technique, Verga’s selection of the objects of representation brought with it a particularly difficult linguistic problem, since the everyday language of the Sicilian populace is a regional dialect quite different from Italian. To solve this problem…Verga transposed the locutions, rhythms, and syntax peculiar to Sicilian dialect into standard Italian in descriptive passages as well as dialogue.” In “The historical imperative: Giovanni Verga and Italian Realism in the light of recent critical trends.” Neohelicon, Vol. 15, No. 2 (September, 1988), 149-174, 151.

65 particular, almost idiolectal combined language Verga generates the means for an

extreme, integrative realism, an extension of Flaubert’s experiential perspectivism into

the realm of individual linguistic and cultural experience.

Verga certainly dealt with the same rhetorical and structural difficulties in

maintaining descriptive pause in written language that were discussed in terms of

Flaubert’s work, but in the context of post-unification debates around the issue of region

versus nation-state, Verga’s stylistic choices were considerably more charged. He wrote

in a situation in which there persisted a sense of discontinuity between the image of a

newly united Italy and the archaic and politically alienated culture of Sicily. Despite his

and his comrade Luigi Capuana’s having been of precisely the right age to subscribe to

the optimism of the Risorgimento, we find in Verga an acute pessimism about the

possibility of change in Sicilian society. Verga had lived in Milan and Florence; he was

aware of the rhetoric of unification and the impetus to social change that had been

circulating since the mid-century, but saw Sicily as an impossible project in this regard,

and generally assumed a conservative position.48 This notion of the immutability of the

Sicilian experience, culture, and mindset is the basis of Verga’s objectivity toward his

subject: pessimism prevents the writer from injecting his fiction with didactic rhetoric,

moralizations, and ideal types in the manner of a Manzoni or a Balzac. So, despite

having taken the less conservative route in putting a regional stamp on his fiction in the

context of the purismo debate, Verga’s stylistic choice is primarily an expression of his

reluctance to attribute to his homeland the stylistic markings of the bourgeois culture to

which it was intended. This paradox is all the more striking in the light of his

48 Giacomo Devoto discusses the restrictiveness of the written world in Verga’s work and its connection to his use of language in Linguaggio d’Italia. Milan: Rizzoli Editore, 1974, 320.

66 Manzonianism, which allowed both he and Capuana to reach an Italian reading public far away from their native Sicily. The complication is unnecessary, however: one should simply understand that Verga’s notion of his task was to write the truth about the world he observed without obscuring it with political rhetoric or instilling his own hopes and prerogatives into the written structures he used. The challenge was to write in a way that would leave the ‘accento di verità’ on his renderings of rural Sicilian life without resorting to transcription that for other dialect writers served more as a statement of regional identity. Verga’s particular brand of realism rather serves his quest for an objectivity that sees the world as it appears from inside the cultural consciousness of rural

Sicily.49 This will become clear in an explication of the formal means by which this consciousness is conveyed.

Candidness of descriptive address

In the following passage, taken from the first chapter of Mastro-don Gesualdo, the town is in disarray. The chapter opens onto a scene of confusion as the villagers work to put out a fire at the home of the Trao family, the last of a line of fallen aristocracy.

49 As Gian Luigi Beccaria puts it: “Il dialettismo, che in un de Marchi poniamo, o in un Fogazzaro, era patina d’ambiente o “gergo” casalingo, battuta, impressione locale, che aveva dunque o scopo documentario o scopo stilistico, in Verga diventa espressione, non rappresentazione.” Beccaria adds, à propos of description in I Malavoglia: “Nei Malavoglia la distanza tra parti descrittive e rappresentative, cioè il piano del discorso e il piano della storia (per usare la terminologia di Benveniste), viene livellato verso il basso; soluzione questa che i neorealisti a venire non riusciranno sempre ad ottenere perché capiterà spesso di incontrarvi maggiore tipicità dialettale-regionale nella lingua dei dialoghi rispetto a quella dei settori diegetici: mimesi e diegesi divaricheranno nelle soluzioni linguistiche.” Beccaria, Gian Luigi, Del Popolo, Concetto, and Claudio Marazzini. L’italiano letterario: profilo storico. Torino: UTET Libreria, 1989, 155.

67 Era un correre a precipizio nel palazzo smantellato; donne che portavano acqua;

ragazzi che si rincorrevano schiamazzando in mezzo a quella confusione, come

fosse una festa; curiosi che girondolavano a bocca aperta, strappando i brandelli

di stoffa che pendevano ancora dalle pareti, toccando gli intagli degli stipiti,

vociando per udir l’eco degli stanzoni vuoti, levando il naso in aria ad osservare le

dorature degli stucchi, e i ritratti di famiglia : tutti quei Trao affumicati che

sembravano sgranare gli occhi al vedere tanta marmaglia in casa loro. Un va e

viene che faceva ballare il pavimento. (10)50

The accelerated cadence of these phrases, affected by the shortness of the clauses cut short by semicolons and a systematic repetition of syntactical markers that act like a kind of shorthand (repeated use of che in the first part of the sentence, as in “donne che portavano acqua;” the semicolons) for actual phrasal unity. The short phrases behave like quick, erratic glances around the scene that each offer a condensed image of the community in action, with the exception of the male leaders who will appear later in greater detail. The formulation subject+che+imperfect, repeated three times in the beginning of the description, adds an abrupt or hurried quality to the description by way of its succinctness in evoking background movement. The elaboration of the clause

“curiosi che,” which accumulates attributive clauses linked syntactically by a repetition of gerunds, building on the initial acceleration of the description’s cadence with the repeated sounds and rhythms of the ‘-ando’ endings of the verbs. In the second to last sentence, the demonstrative adjective “quei” in the phrase “tutti quei Trao” implies a

50 This and all subsequent citations of Mastro-don Gesualdo are taken from Verga, Giovanni. Mastro-don Gesualdo. Introduzione e note di Nicola Merola. Milano: Garzanti Editore, 2000.

68 familiarity with the family and its status that precedes the introduction of the individual

Trao family members in the story, thus suggesting a certain intimacy with the community

and prior knowledge. Finally the last phrase, “un va e viene che faceva ballare il

pavimento” not only in its colloquial use of a colorful metaphor but also in its abrupt

cesura – thus creating a sentence fragment – evokes orality over the grammatical

formality of descriptive rhetoric conventional in nineteenth century novels.

The concision of this description points to a certain directness or familiarity, and thereby a collapsing of discursive levels inscribed in the kind, amount, and manner of enumeration of the objects of observation. In similar list-like descriptions encountered in

Flaubert’s work the syntactical structures of the list phrases were designed to accommodate descriptive completeness and do the organizational work of categorizing information with the goal of generating an exhaustive description; here, in a crucial introductory segment of the novel’s first chapter the goal seems not to be a total summary of the scene but rather a descriptive assay that gestures to the emotional atmosphere

(frenzied) of the described world by way of its very incompleteness. The same nonobservance of the goal of descriptive completeness shows up in the first glimpse of

Mastro-don Gesualdo himself, who is referred to simply as “il vicino Motta” a few pages after the passage above:

Dal cortile non si vedeva ancora il fuoco. Soltanto, di tratto in tratto, come spirava

il maestrale, passavano al di sopra delle grande ondate di fumo, che si sperdevano

dietro il muro a secco del giardinetto, fra i rami dei mandorli in fiore. Sotto la

tettoia cadente erano accatastate delle fascine; e in fondo, ritta contro la casa del

69 vicino Motta, dell’altra legna grossa: assi d’impalcati, correntoni fradici, una trave

di palmento che non si era mai potuta vendere. (7)

The technique of referring only superficially to a protagonist at the first appearance has precedents in other nineteenth century novels; as Genette points out, Balzac uses the same technique in La peau de chagrin, L’envers de l’histoire contemporaine, and Le

Cousin Pons, as did Flaubert in L’éducation sentimentale, wherein the protagonist is referred to merely as “un jeune homme de dix-huit ans à longs cheveux…” and Zola in

Germinal, where Étienne is referred to simply as “un homme” before he is formally introduced through description.51 In these it is a matter of shifting focalization, a tool for generating interest in the protagonist as if from outside the parameters of the ensuing narrative; it also serves to accommodate social typing, which is not a factor in Verga’s work to the same extent as in that of Balzac or Flaubert. Here Gesualdo, who is referred to not only as “il vicino” but with his family name included the technique of peripheral reference becomes a gesture of (false) familiarity on the part of the descriptor; it assumes prior knowledge that the Trao mansion neighbors the Motta household. Furthermore the familiarity of address implied by this offhand reference is essential to the description’s setup of relationships to be activated later – this is obvious since the name of the neighbor would be superfluous in this context except in the case of Gesualdo Motta, whose relationship with the Traos will be one of the major factors in the plot. In this way a choice of both the kind of information given (Gesualdo’s family name) and the way in which it appears in the text (as part of a descriptive landscape rendered familiar through

51 For the Flaubert reference: Flaubert, Gustave. L’éducation sentimentale. Paris: Gallimard, 2005, 19. Genette, Gérard. Figures III. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1972, 208-209.

70 its candidness of address to its reader) positions the describing voice in a close relationship to the life of the town, as if it came from a member of the community. The same is true of the final phrase of the description, “una trave di palmento che non si era mai potuta vendere;” here the kind of information, the fact that the Traos had never been able to sell the mill-post, while seeming superfluous, actually functions as a signal of the knowledge and perspective of the describing voice.

I return to the first citation for further evidence of the candidness of Gesualdo’s descriptor, to the final phrase “un va e viene che faceva ballare il pavimento.” This is notable as the first instance of a trend toward expressive language and use of idiomatic expressions in Verga’s descriptions. Don Gesualdo uses certain singular idiomatic expressions himself throughout the novel (“Santo e santissimo!” being the most frequent), but such interjections by the describing agent should be relatively unexpected in a novel that aspires to authorial non-interference. I would like to suggest that, as a matter of voice, it is not Verga who speaks when we encounter such phrases, but rather the descriptor who is enmeshed with the consciousness of the town, a surrogate omniscient observer who is not aligned with any single member of the community but whose reactive expressivity implies emotional involvement with the activities of the village. The emotional involvement of the descriptor appears even more clearly when other expressive markers appear, such as exclamation points:

Giocalone diceva piuttosto di abbattere la tettoia; don Luca il sagrestano assicurò

che pel momento non c’era pericolo: una torre di Babele! (8)

71 Here the comment “una torre di Babele!” the first instance of in Mastro-don Gesualdo, is

an expressive summary of the description before it that seems to emanate from no single

speaker in particular, as if it were an observation simply of the atmosphere surrounding

these figures as they converse. The description’s use of an exclamation point imparts an

emotional intonation to the phrase and reflects back on the description before it through

an apparently subjective filter.52 Similarly, in a description of Diodata, Gesualdo’s

faithful servant, whose hands reflect a life of hard work:

Così raggomitolata sembrava proprio una ragazzetta, al busto esile e svelto, alla

nuca che mostrava la pelle bianca dove il sole non aveva bruciato. Le mani,

annerite, erano piccole e scarne: delle povere mani pel suo duro mestiere! (78)

Here the exclamation point is simply emphatic, but again any such expressive

punctuation must be associated with an emotive voice. In a similar tone, a direct address

to the reader uses a proverb and an idiomatic expression at the end of a long description

of a scene of debauchery involving don Ninì and the scandalous actress:

52 The exclamation point is conventionally associated with an emotional outburst of one kind or another on behalf of a speaker. As Battaglia notes in his Grammatica italiana: “Il punto esclamativo (!) indica un’intonazione della voce; e denota ammirazione, sorpresa, disappunto; serve per le invocazioni; si suole accompagnare alle interiezioni. E perciò il punto esclamativo si può trovare a sigillo d’un periodo, d’una frase, d’un pensiero; ma anche può chiudere una sola parola: un grido, un’esclamazione, una bestemmia, un’esortazione, un’ingiuria…Il punto esclamativo (detto anche ammirativo) s’incontra di più nella pagina che riflette la concitazione del linguaggio parlato; oppure quando si vuol tradurre con efficacia diretta lo stupore o il dolore o la violenza del sentimento; ma, tuttavia, è bene non abusarne: perché, a lungo andare, dà al discorso un accento oratorio ed enfatico.” Battaglia, Salvatore and Pernicone, Vincenzo. La grammatica italiana di S. Battaglia e V. Pernicone. 2nd ed. Torino: Leoscher Editore, 1963, 69.

72 Dice bene il proverbio che la donna è causa di tutti i mali! Commediante poi!

(209)

An idiomatic expression followed by an exclamation point also appears at the scene of a

collapsed bridge, and notably, in a sentence fragment, the idiomatic expression emanates

from a describing voice that mimics those of the villagers.

Pezzi di travi su cui erano ancora appiccicate le immagini dei santi che dovevano

proteggere il ponte, buon’anima sua! (92)

Again, “buon’anima” appears in another description, this time in reference to Bianca,

though the description is of Gesualdo on his deathbed:

C’era di nuovo sul cassettone un arsenale di rimedi, come negli ultimi giorni di

Bianca, buon’anima. (350)

“Buon’anima” is an expression used frequently by characters in direct discourse: “Mi

rammento, da piccolo il marchese Limòli che recitava Adelaide e Comingio colla

Margarone, buon’anima…” (Don Luca, 25), “Tutti i vizi di suo padre, buon’anima!” (La

baronessa Rubiera, 26), ” “Vostro marito, buon’anima!” (Mastro Ciolla, 212), etc.53

53 Giovanni Cecchetti noted as much in his brief introduction to an English edition of the short stories: “The speech of the chorus can be heard almost everywhere. In some cases Verga makes it evident my introducing such popular phrases as “God save us!” “God forbid!” and similar utterances. But it is usually discoverable through the language, syntax, and the references to local customs and beliefs.” Verga, Giovanni. The She-Wolf and Other Stories. Trans. and Introd. by Giovanni Cecchetti. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1962, xv.

73 Verga’s descriptor shares a linguistic reality with these characters in which such colloquialisms are commonplace. It should be noted that these expressions are not limited to descriptive passages and direct discourse; in fact they appear even more frequently in narrative phrases throughout the novel (“Grazie a Dio si tornava a respirare,” (183); “Il canonico era addirittura fuori della grazia di Dio,” (340) are only two examples).

Furthermore, the fact of the missing main verb in “Pezzi di travi…” indicates a less formal, more expressive approach to description than encountered in the work of

Flaubert and others of his generation for whom grammaticality was an important factor in the crafting of descriptive phrases; the sentence fragments, while dramatic, also invoke speech in their non-grammaticality. This is evident in several other fragments that appear particularly in descriptions of an active, possibly alarming scene, as in the first passage

(“Un va e viene che faceva ballare il pavimento,” (10)). For instance, in a quick glimpse of Speranza, Gesualdo’s sister, between spoken lines:

Speranza, dall’uscio, col lattante al petto, che si strappava i cappelli e urlava quasi

l’accoppassero. (148)

At a scandalous theater performance:

Un terremoto giù in platea. Tutti in piedi, vociando e strepitando. (194)

74 Finally in a longer passage that combines description with narration in the free indirect style appears the following fragment:

Un vero gastigo di Dio. Un affare sbagliato, sebbene il galantuomo avesse la

prudenza di non lagnarsene neppure col canonico Lupi che glielo aveva proposto.

(229)

The phrase echoes exclamations in lines of direct discourse spoken by members of the community: “Anche coi tuoi fratelli, Bianca…quel che non ho fatto per indurli…don

Diego specialmente ch’è così ostinato!...Una disgrazia…un gastigo di Dio!” (Donna

Mariannina,155); “Come ci avessi il gastigo di Dio sulle spalle!...” (Speranza, 304)).

Clearly these commentative additions represent a direct repetition of an aspect of the villagers’ speech patterns. As such they diverge stylistically from the detachment vis-à- vis described objects in the realist novel as we have encountered it thus far, and edge instead toward the free indirect style, which is not usually associated with prose that is only descriptive. This issue will be especially relevant in descriptions, or pseudo- descriptions, of Gesualdo himself, where long passages written in the free indirect style substitute for a description based on observation of his appearance. First, however, I would like to point out some of the distinct structural patterns of Verga’s descriptions of other figures in the novel, for they too hold information that is useful to an understanding of description’s relationship to the world it describes.

75 Introductory portraits

We encounter in Mastro-don Gesualdo a number of character portraits that deserve attention. To the careful reader of descriptions it would be difficult to ignore the stylistic uniqueness of Verga’s portrait descriptions in the context of a history of descriptive style. The portrait-description had been since the seventeenth century an independent literary sub-genre with its own rhetoric and structure that appears to have maintained a certain level of stability in prose characterization before the nineteenth century.54 Phillippe Hamon explains in the volume Le personnel du roman that in the nineteenth century the portrait genre shifted to a more documentarian style, an innovation inherited from journalistic writing and from criticism of the arts. Both of these genres typically relied on the introductory portrait as a rudimentary framework. We see this in

Zola’s character descriptions, which follow a distinctly journalistic presentation that includes, sequentially, name, portrait, and biography. These character descriptions appear almost always at the beginning of the text; they are the introductions that not only give information about the person described but also indicate in what light, by what attitude that person’s existence on the fictional stage is to be interpreted.55

54 For an explanation of the placement and constitution of conventional introductory portraits of characters in the nineteenth century novel, see See Hamon, Phillipe. Le personnel du roman. Genève: Librarie Droz S.A., 1983, 50-51: “L’appellation d’un personnage est constituée d’un ensemble, d’étendue variable, de marques: nom propre, prénoms, surnoms, pseudonymes, périphrases descriptives diverses, titres, portraits, leitmotive, pronoms personnels, etc. Le personnage, “l’effet personnage,” dans le texte, n’est, d’abord, que la prise en considération, par le lecteur, du jeu textuel de ces marques, de leur importance qualitative et quantitative, de leur mode de distribution, de la concordance et discordance relative qui existe, dans un même texte, entre marques stables (le nom, le prénom) et marques instables à transformations possibles (qualifications, actions). L’ensemble de ces marques, que nous appellerons “l’étiquette” du personnage, constitue et construit le personnage.” In the quoted passage above, Hamon is referring to La Bruyère’s “Caractères” and other moralist portraits of the seventeenth century. 55 Writes Hamon, in a discussion of the Rougon-Macquart novels: “La distribution (localisation textuelle) et la distribution topographique (localisation référentielle) de telles scènes de présentation de portraits est prévisible. Elle tendront, notamment, à se placer aux lieux stratégiques du texte, à occuper l’appareil démarcatif-configuratif du texte…bien sur au début du roman, place naturelle et traditionnelle du

76 It is not surprising then that portrait-descriptions populate the beginning chapters

of Mastro-don Gesualdo: all but two of the novel’s characters appear either in portrait or

in a one-phrase description before the end of the second chapter, as is appropriate for

what is really a novel of social drama. The important exception is Gesualdo himself, who

never receives a portrait, but rather emerges in the unusual pseudo-descriptive passages

mentioned in the previous section. In terms of the portraits that we do find in the novel,

Verga chose to forego the usual format of the introductory portrait-description that would

give its reader a full physical, psychic, and historical view of the characters. Gesualdo’s

pages feature instead a dispersion of appearances, each accompanied by a brief

description that gives a glimpse of physical characteristics that are often particular only to

the scene at hand. The first glimpse of such a portrait of any character is don Diego, one

of the Trao brothers who, at the novel’s opening, has just discovered his sister Bianca’s

affair with don Ninì and witnessed the partial destruction of his home by fire. We see him

as if in a quick glace; a fire is, after all, an emergency, and hardly a time for long

descriptive pauses:

S’affacciò don Diego, invecchiato di dieci anni in un minuto, allibito, stralunato,

con una visione spaventosa in fondo alle pupille grigi, con un sudore freddo sulla

fronte, la voce strozzata da un dolore immenso. (13)

Beside the abruptness of this description as it appears in the middle of a scene of quick movement, crowded conversations, and alarming circumstances, the description has a

générique, où l’horizon d’attente du lecteur est le plus flou, là où il n’a pas encore fait connaissance avec les personnages,” Le personnel du roman. Genève: Librarie Droz S.A., 1983, 156-7.

77 number of features that distinguish Verga’s character portraits from those of his predecessors. Don Diego’s description, which is a minimal portrait at best, begins as he turns to face the town lawyer, Neri (another peripheral figure in the novel) who has just run up to him asking what has happened. The fact that don Diego is described at a moment of transition in which his appearance is not like it was previous to this moment – he has aged ten years, but we don’t know what he looked like before or how old he is – is startling; it does not provide a full view, does not follow the portrait formula, and does nothing to establish or stabilize the matrix of social relationships active in the text in relation to this character or give the history of the character up to this point. These details will actually never emerge over the course of the novel. Despite their brevity and apparent informality, Verga’s portrait-descriptions do follow a formula; the structure of this description will be repeated in numerous character portraits throughout the novel.

These descriptions contain numerous (at least two, mostly three), sequential, relatively short phrases that begin with past participles (invecchiato – allibito – stralunato), accompanied by longer, more detailed elaborations divided into subordinate clauses introduced by the preposition con. Alternation between descriptive clauses initiated by past participles or by the preposition generates clusters of word types that resemble each other in sound (the –ato ending) or in type (usually body parts, sometimes clothing). This structure allows the description to give a concise flash of a portrait, caricature-like, entirely visual, free of useless words; there are no auxiliary verbs or helper phrases. In fact, the verb essere almost never appears in Verga’s descriptions, which is in marked contrast with some mid-century authors’ techniques of positioning a character in a scene.

As a contrasting example one might think of the sequence of introductory portraits in

78 Balzac’s Le Père Goriot, each of which solidifies the known attributes of a character in

the described world, and with at least one être or similar verb (ressemble, etc.) in

bringing characters forth: “Monsieur Poiret était….” (33), “Il était un de ces gens…” (37)

or, in Salammbô, the prominence of verbs connoting observation. It is striking that Verga

would resist social typing on this level while relying on the notion so heavily in the

overall conceptualization of his Ciclo. Nonetheless the immediate effect of this stylistic choice is that persons like don Diego appear in descriptions already “activated” – not neutral, as is Gesualdo’s case – with their attributes attached to them directly with little interference from descriptive rhetoric. The directness of these descriptions, both in their relationship to the plot and in their composition adds to the sense of total immersion in the world of the town.

We see precisely the same structure in the second chapter, wherein Gesualdo meets the wealthy Trao family on the evening of a festival; the chapter is more theatrical in its setup of the festival scene and thus resembles a bit more the traditional portrait line- up style of introductory descriptions than does the novel’s first chapter, but still the portraits are strikingly brief and homogenous. First we see the village sexton, Lupi (no coincidence), a finagler who will play an important role in the major social exchanges of the novel (marriages, buying and selling of land, etc.), in a description that, again, employs a certain candidness of address on the part of the descriptor; the “quello…che” edges on the free indirect style, as the demonstrative adjective refers to knowledge of the character that is privy only to actors within the social world of the village:

79 Ma in quel momento entrava il canonico Lupi, sorridente, con quella bella faccia

amabile che metteva tutti d’accordo, e dietro a lui il sensale col moggio in mano.

(21)

Not dissimilar from the original formula, the description of don Ninì, which also begins

with an interjection:

Ma in quella entrava don Ninì Rubiera, un giovanotto alto e massiccio che quasi

non passava dall’uscio, bianco e rosso in viso, coi capelli ricanti, e degli occhi un

po’ addormentati che facevano girare il capo alle ragazze. (46)

Ninì appears in context, framed by a doorway; two partially rhyming adjectives follow;

then the longer phrase starting with con attaches physical attributes to the name. Both

descriptions appear not as formally necessary elements, but rather as interruptions,

signaled by the descriptor’s “Ma…” at the beginning of each; this is a distinctly non-

literary tactic for beginning a sentence, especially a description; this adds a note of orality

to the tone of the passages. A final feature of this descriptive formula: in each passage a

character enters the Trao mansion, and thus the scene of the party, with the verb entrare

conjugated in the imperfect despite this being a discreet event; like Flaubert, Verga tends

to stretch conventional use of the imperfect, giving the impression that a number of actions, overlapping in time, are going on all at once. This confused or rushed temporal signature brings the descriptor even closer to the described world, this time in terms of an

80 experience of situated time. Finally, we see Gesualdo, and as befits the theme of the novel, our first glimpse is of a Gesualdo who is out of his element:

Mastro-don Gesualdo fece così il suo ingresso fra i pezzi rossi del paese, raso di

fresco, vestito di panno fine, con un cappello nuovo fiammante fra le mani

mangiate di calcina. (37)

The brand-new hat grasped by hands damaged by daily work in the fields: this is the condensed narrative of Mastro-don Gesualdo in one symbolic descriptive pairing. Again, two past participles followed by a phrase beginning with con: this is an extremely economical way of presenting the outward appearance of an individual, as befits Verga’s technique of total immersion in the mental world of his characters: extraneous rhetorical machinations are unnecessary and inappropriate to the local mentality. Again, an interruption:

Entrava in quel punto il notaro Neri, piccolo, calvo, rotondo, una vera trottole, col

ventre petulante, la risata chiassosa, la parlantina che scappava stridendo a guisa

di una carrucola. (40)

These descriptions work almost like caricatures – the most obvious or singular characteristics of an individual are exaggerated and other information is kept to a minimum – this is precisely the opposite of a summary description in the style of the

French realists; instead of dispersing descriptive information across a wide rhetorical net,

Verga condenses it into brief, concentrated segments. In the reluctance to engage

81 descriptive rhetoric Verga has in these brief portraits led the reader toward a sometimes jarringly close relationship with the citizens of the village, as there is no choice but to see things and people through the collective filter of the assumptions, judgments, and beliefs of the embedded descriptor.

Expressive punctuation in descriptions

“There is no element in which language resembles music more than in punctuation marks,” writes Theodor Adorno (300). He continues: “Exclamation points are like silent cymbal clashes, question marks like musical upbeats, colons dominant seventh chords; and only a person who can perceive the different weights of strong and weak phrasings in musical form can really feel the distinction between the comma and the semicolon” (301). Adorno’s comment on punctuation underlines the rhythmic function of non-alphabetical graphical markers, and strikingly, he equates them not with analogous markings in musical notation but rather to techniques of emphasis in symphonic performance. In this formula, punctuation is an expressive function of written language, not a mere representation of its spoken variation. The power to modulate the tone of a written phrase lies in these ‘accessory’ marks whose ostensible function is to increase the clarity of a written communication and function as ‘instructions,’ as one grammarian writes, “che lo scrivente fornisce al lettore perché egli possa compiere una serie di ben determinate operazioni mentali il risultato delle quali sia la comprensione da parte del lettore del brano o della frase che ha letto.”56 Punctuation marks both modulate

56 Parisi, D. and Conte, R. “Per un’analisi dei segni di punteggiatura, con particolare riferimento alla virgola,” In Per un’educazione linguistica razionale, ed. By D. Parisi. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1979, 10. On

82 the tone of a phrase and provide guidelines for how a phrase is to be interpreted. All of the introductory descriptions I mentioned above use punctuation in a relatively conservative way. One may note that commas appear in abundance, but this is not outside the range of expectations for such phrases; one remembers that Flaubert often found such punctuation necessary in long descriptions.57

The exceptions to this statement are descriptions of Mastro-don Gesualdo and his daughter, Isabella, who is born around the novel’s halfway point and whose thoughts are equally visible as those of her father. The passage below is the major descriptive segment devoted solely to the protagonist, which deals with all the elements of a portrait description in a form is not entirely descriptive. Nonetheless it functions as the main presentation of Gesualdo and his background in the book, as such it is one of very few explanatory passages. The passage begins as Gesualdo slips into a reverie while sitting at home in the evening.

Si sentiva allargare il cuore. Gli venivano tanti ricordi piacevoli. Ne aveva

portate delle pietre sulle spalle, prima di fabbricare quel magazzino! E ne aveva

passati dei giorni senza pane, prima di possedere tuta quella roba!

Ragazzetto…gli sembrava di tornarci ancora, quando portava il gesso dalla

the term “accessory:” “La lingua scritta, oltre che di segni alfabetici, si giova dell’aiuto di parecchi segni accessori, destinati alcuni ad indicare la giusta pronuncia delle parole isolate, gli altri ad indicare quelle pause necessarie alla lettura perché riesca espressiva.” Devoto, Giacomo and Massaro, Domenico. Grammatica italiana. Firenze: Nuova Italia, 1952, 23. 57 Nonetheless the comma is significant on its own, and underwent numerous changes (most notably a shift away from using commas before conjunctions) in conventional usage over the course of the nineteenth century; see Antonelli, Giuseppe, and Garavelli, Bice. Storia della punteggiatura in Europa. Roma: GLF Editori Laterza, 2008, 187-194. In these descriptions the comma is used to separate items on a list, which is an appropriate and rather constant convention described by many grammarians, as is its use to separate clauses in a sentence. In this case it is a syntactic function of the punctuation, not an expressive one, but the abbreviated length of the clauses separated by commas in the character portraits, sometimes as short as one word, do contribute to the hurried and clipped rhythm of the descriptions.

83 fornace di suo padre, a Donferrante! Quante volte l’aveva fatta quella strada di

Licodia, dietro gli asinelli che cascavano per via e morivano alle volte sotto il carico! Quanto piangere e chiamar santi e cristiani in aiuto! Mastro Nunzio allora suonava il de profundis sulla schiena del figliuolo, con la funicella stessa della soma…Erano dieci or dodici tarì che gli cascavano di tasca ogni asino morto al poveruomo! – Carico di famiglia! Santo che gli faceva mangiare i gomiti sin d’allora; Speranza che cominciava a voler marito; la mamma con le febbri, tredici mesi dell’anno!... – Più colpi di funicella che pane! – Poi quando il Mascalise, suo zio, lo condusse seco manovale, a cercar fortuna…Il padre non voleva, perché aveva la sua superbia ance lui, come uno che era stato sempre padrone, alla fornace, e gli cuoceva di vedere il sangue suo al comando altrui. – Ci vollero sette anni prima che gli perdonasse, e fu quando finalmente Gesualdo arrivò a pigliare il primo appalto per conto suo…la fabbrica del Molinazzo…Circa duecento salme di gesso cha andarono via dalla fornace al presso che volle mastro Nunzio…e la dote di Speranza anche, perché la ragazza non poteva più stare a casa… -- E le dispute allorché cominciò a speculare sulla campagna!... – Mastro Nunzio non voleva saperne…Diceva che non era il mestiere in cui erano nati. “Fa l’arte che sai!” – Ma poi, quando il figliuolo lo condusse a veder le terre che aveva comprato, lì proprio, alla Canziria, non finiva di misurarle in lungo e in largo, povero vecchio, a gran passi, come avesse nelle game la canna dell’agrimensore…E ordinava “bisogna far questo e quest’altro” per usare del suo diritto, e non confessare che suo figlio potesse aver la testa più fine della sua. –

La madre non ci arrivò a provare quella consolazione, poveretta. Morì

84 raccomandando a tutti Santo, che era stato sempre il suo prediletto, e Speranza

carica di famiglia com’era stata lei… -- un figliuolo ogni anno… -- Tutti sulle

spalle di Gesualdo, giacché lui guadagnava per tutti. Ne aveva guadagnati dei

denari! Ne aveva fatta della roba! Ne aveva passate delle giornate dure e delle

notti senza chiuder occhio! Vent’anni che non andava a letto una sola volta senza

prima guardare il cielo per vedere come si mettesse. – Quante avemarie, e di

quelle proprio che devono andar lassù, per la pioggia e pel bel tempo! -- Tanta

carne al fuoco! Tanti pensieri, tante inquietudini, tante fatiche! … (80-81)

The first noticeable feature of this passage, known as the “idillio della canziria,” is the mixture of exposition and commentary, lines of information based on memory followed by exclamations and laments: Verga adopts Gesualdo’s voice in the exclamations, the colloquialisms, and most of all in the expressive presentation while at the same time serving as descriptor of a biographical portrait that accounts for Gesualdo’s personal history and establishes the Motta family dynamic. “Gli venivano tanti ricordi piacevoli.

Ne aveva portate delle pietre sulle spalle, prima di fabbricare quel magazzino!” The first part of this line refers to pleasant memories, which are in fact absent from the rest of the passage and quickly make way for bitterness in a language that adapts the descriptive function to the spoken language of Gesualdo (or rather, of a literary rendering of what someone like Gesualdo might think). “Ragazzetto…”: this is the beginning of

Gesualdo’s telling himself his own biography, but it is disjointed, beginning with the single word which should be part of a phrase that has been interrupted and has been replaced by the ellipsis: this syntactic interruption of what might have been a pleasant

85 memory is due to an upsurge in bitterness on Gesualdo’s part against those who have failed to appreciate his lifetime of work. One can sense the character’s frustration in the repeated interruptions, as if the collection of wrongs against him were too overpowering for any one to receive a full explanation before the next bitter remembrance erupts.

“Quante volte l’aveva fatta quella strada di Licodia, dietro gli asinelli che cascavano per via e morivano alle volte sotto il carico! Quanto piangere e chiamar santi e cristiani in aiuto!” These phrases, written in the free indirect style, imitate statements don Gesualdo would make if he were to address Nunzio, his father, in a conversation that could never happen in the actual relationship between the two men; the demonstrative adjective signals direct speech from Gesualdo’s experience (only he or someone like him knows about the street in Licodia, as it has not been presented to the reader until this point), but the verb conjugation in the third person maintains the syntax, and thereby the narratorial distance of an indirect statement. The unguarded aggravation of these exclamations is almost embarrassing in its familiarity and closeness to the character’s thoughts. The punctuation too is borrowed from direct discourse, the exclamation point that would be inappropriate in text attributed only to a narrator/descriptor. “Santo che gli faceva mangiare i gomiti sin d’allora; Speranza che cominciava a voler marito; la mamma con le febbri, tredici mesi dell’anno!...” Here we are reminded of the portrait descriptions above, with the similar structure of a name followed by a list of attributes for each member of the family, crowded into one sentence and separated by semicolons; this is the only mention of Gesualdo’s mother in the entire book, and it is almost as an aside in relation to the rest of the presentation of Gesualdo’s person here. Exclamations echoing the above “quanto…quanto” phrasing repeat throughout the passage: “Quante avemarie,”

86 “Tanta carne,” “Tanti pensieri, tante inquietudini, tante fatiche!”: the drama of these phrases is magnified, and almost made banal, by their recurrence, simulating Gesualdo’s famous cry, “Santo e santissimo!” that appears whenever he is upset, even over trivialities.

To the familiarity and closeness to the inner impatience and aggravation of the character we must add the punctuation: ellipses, exclamation points, and double bars segment the flurry of phrases here, and this is where the major difference between this psychological pseudo-portrait and the other simple descriptive portraits is most obvious.

The others did not veer from conventional punctuation usage for descriptions: they were introductory sketches, rough, without much patience for rhetorical flourishes; there Verga appears more in the attitude of a Stendhal, who was notorious for writing in hurry. This is typical of simple descriptions, which are relatively straightforward in their relationship to the material they address. This “presentation” of Mastro-don Gesualdo, if we can call it that (it is not a description, but functions as a psychological portrait, and it’s the closest we’ll get to a description of the man), is a radical departure from the relative simplicity of conventional descriptive punctuation. To the three signs:

The simple exclamation point is easy to understand in this passage, as it is all

Gesualdo’s thoughts, and it should be noted that rarely does any statement by Gesualdo, direct or indirect, appear in the text without exclamation points; Gesualdo is constantly in a state of aggravation, and of activity, until he is forced into immobility by a slow death.

Again it is a remnant of orality to use the exclamation point, as even graphically the exclamation basically signals intonation and pause; the vertical line indicating a change

87 in tone, the punto underneath indicating that a pause is necessary.58 In the nineteenth

century the exclamation point gained special status and grew in relative frequency to

other graphical markers indicating pause, especially in poetry, letters, and epistolary

novels (the intimate letter aspired to be more or less direct transcription of ones thoughts

and feelings, so the convention went) over the course of the century.59 It is therefore not surprising to find a high frequency of exclamation points in Mastro-don Gesualdo in lines of direct speech, but in a description it is very unusual to encounter such expressivity. Expressive language must come from an emotive source, from a speaker whose presence is known and whose language operates in a deictic fashion, gesturing to himself; it calls us back from our distanced position as observers and directs, strongly, our gaze toward the speaker. Not just in these extended reveries that reveal themselves as descriptions only briefly, but also in some straightforwardly descriptive passages in

Gesualdo we encounter such expressive punctuation: “Le mani, annerite, erano piccole e scarne: delle povere mani pel suo duro mestiere!” (noted above, 78); “Sul terrazzo del

Collegio una mano ignota aveva spento finanche il lampione dinanzi alla statua dell’Immacolata: una cosa da fare accoponar la pelle quella sera!” (168); or in a complete interjection of the popular voice, at the end of a long description: “Proprio! Era risoluto

58 See Frescaroli, Antonio. La punteggiatura corretta, la punteggiatura efficace. Milan: Giovanni De Vecchi Editore, 1968, 132. In investigating Italian punctuation usage and specifically historical usages, I consulted the following: Fornaciari, Raffaello. Grammatica italiana dell’uso moderno. Firenze: Sanzoni, 1891; Rohlfs, Gerhard, Grammatica storica della lingua italiana e dei suoi dialetti. Torino: G. Einaudi, 1966; De Mauro, Tullio. Storia linguistica dell’Italia unita. Roma: Laterza, 1991; Catach, Nina. La ponctuation (Histoire et système). Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1994; Baricco, Alessandro. Punteggiatura. Torino: Scuola Holden, 2001; Garavelli, Bice. Prontuario di punteggiatura. Roma: Laterza, 2003; Antonelli, Giuseppe, and Garavelli, Bice. Storia della punteggiatura in Europa. Roma: GLF Editori Laterza, 2008. 59 “Negli epistolari ottocenteschi le esclamative ricorrono copiose, specie nelle zone a più alta densità emotive, in cui si alternano con interrogative retoriche o dialogiche, sospensioni, frequenti allocuzioni al destinatario.” In Italian the punto esclamativo had been known as only as punto d’ammirazione until about 1838. Antonelli, Giuseppe, and Garavelli, Bice. Storia della punteggiatura in Europa. Roma: Laterza, 2008, 198.

88 di fare uno sterminio” (339). All of these cases can be seen as moments when the

popular voice, and the perspective that informs it, is given a chance to emerge fully from

the impersonality of third-person description through expressive punctuation.

In the second and third quarters of the Gesualdo passage we observe an increasing

frequency of the combination of exclamation point and ellipsis, with the exclamation

coming first (!...).60 The puntini di sospensione are usually used to indicate “sospensione, reticenza, allusività.”61 This is precisely the opposite effect of the exclamation point’s

emphatic character. Combined they make a contradictory pair that models the fits and

starts of Gesualdo’s thoughts as they occur to him, in a manner similar to the effect

famously achieved by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, who favored ellipses and exclamation

points in combination and thus transposed a nineteenth century trope of direct speech to

use in narration and description: in Entretiens avec le Professeur Y, Céline describes his

style as a set of railroad tracks along which his thoughts are a train de métro, and the

ellipses are crucial to the running of the train: “Pour poser mes rails émotifs!...simple

comme bonjour!...sur le ballast?...vous comprenez?...il tiennent pas tout seuls mes

rails!...il me faut des traverses!” (106). Céline’s metro, filled to bursting, lunging forward

on its track held together with points, strikes one as a good metaphor for a style

dominated by such punctuation; in Mastro-don Gesualdo, the accelerated, hiccupping

60 This appears frequently in direct discourse in Italian prose of the time, but almost never appears in descriptions or other kinds of prose not connected with dialogue between characters. Furthermore, Verga, and Capuana as well, use it with unusual frequency for novels of the time: for comparison, Mathilde Serao only used “!...” three times in Del vero (1874), once in Fior di passione (1888), four times in Le Amante (1894) and only once in L’infedele (1894), and “…!” not at all; Fogazzaro uses “!...” only six times and “!...” twice in Piccolo mondo antico (1901); but Capuana uses “!...” three hundred and eight times in Giacinta (1879). Astoundingly, “!...” appears seven hundred and eleven times in Mastro-don Gesualdo. 61 Serriani’s indication for use of the puntini continues: “…sono tradizionalmente usati per riprodurre i cosidetti “cambi di progetto” del parlato, che si accentuano in chi sia preda di emozione o turbamento.” This aspect of the puntini could also be ascribed to the Gesualdo passage, since they separate divergent lines of thought. Serriani, Luca. Grammatica italiana: Italiano comune e lingua letteraria. Torino: Utet Libreria, 1989, 63.

89 rhythm of this passage gives us access to the ambitious, often frantic mentality of the

protagonist, desperate to acquire and protect “la roba,” in a manner much more intimate

than the economical character portrait style used for the rest of the village.

Il gerundio

The familiar oral tone of Verga’s descriptions should not be considered an effect

produced by pure mimeticism. There existed no single, identifiable spoken language or

dialect to which Verga can be said to have referred for direct imitation; the effect is

created through his semi-Manzonian effort to combine certain syntactical characteristics

of Sicilian dialect speech with a standard Italian presentation. However, while certain

aspects of Verga’s approach to language in Mastro-don Gesualdo draw from local and

national debates specific to Italy, others can be connected directly to influences in the

French canon. Subsequent to the attitudinal shift that inspired the descriptive

obsessiveness of Flaubert and led to Zola’s urge for exactitude, the notion of a “modern”

literature that would and could reflect an unrecognized actuality about contemporary or

near contemporary everyday life translated directly to Italian literary debates in the 1870s

and 80s. Tullio Pagano’s book Experimental Fictions detects deep similarities between

Zola’s naturalism and the idea of verismo that informed Verga’s and, more explicitly, his

comrade Luigi Capuana’s careers in the 1870s.62 On a more technical level, the practice

62 Pagano relates that the French publication La République des Lettres began publishing weekly installments of Zola’s L’Assommoir in 1876, and that within a year Capuana had written and published an article in the Corriere della sera praising Zola’s narrative technique. Pagano’s book centers its discussion of the Zola-Verga relationship on ideology, symbolism, and an approach to allegory that Pagano finds similar in the two authors’ works while tracing the French and Italian realist movements in their socio- historical context. Pagano, Tullio. Experimental Fictions. Cranbury: Associated University Presses, 1999, 9.

90 of writing long, compositionally complex descriptions as it developed in the atmosphere of French literary debates during the Second Empire, and the stylistic feats it required, was understood to necessitate unusual linguistic maneuvers – including those, like the overuse of the imperfect tense in Flaubert’s prose or the predilection for verb movement particular to Huysmans, discussed in other chapters of this dissertation. As a generalization we could say that there was a taste, itself motivated by the theoretical goals of a realist practice for writing novels, for the durative mode in verb forms of all kinds. This makes perfect sense in view of the (often) atemporal nature of predominantly descriptive passages. For Verga, the imperfective verb form of choice was the gerund.

One of the novel’s introductory descriptions, already discussed once in this chapter, surprises us with successive gerunds, implying simultaneous action in a sentence format

(che + imperfect, gerund x 3 (or more), generalizing statement and/or idiomatic expression) that is the basic descriptive structure of Mastro-don Gesualdo:

Era un correre a precipizio nel palazzo smantellato; donne che portavano acqua;

ragazzi che si rincorrevano schiamazzando in mezzo a quella confusione, come

fosse una festa; curiosi che girandolavano a bocca aperta, strappando i brandelli

di stoffa che pendevano ancora dalle pareti, toccando gli intagli degli stipiti,

vociando per udir l’eco degli stanzoni vuoti, levando il naso in aria ad osservare le

dorature degli stucchi, e i ritratti di famiglia: tutti quei Trao affumicati che

sembravano sgranare gli occhi al vedere tanta marmaglia in casa loro. (my italics,

10)

91 We see that the gerunds schiamazzando, strappando, vociando, and levando each appear

at the beginning of a subordinate clause linked to another clause containing the main verb

of each section of the long sentence, in this case, si ricorrevano and girandolavano, verbs in the imperfect that refer respectively to the subjects donne and curiosi. Each addition of a gerund phrase adds detail to the description without breaking the syntactic structure of the larger phrase, thereby allowing an extended and comprehensive view of the described scene. These additional verbs are not superfluous details, however; they each carry independent meaning. Particularly with the curiosi segment we see gerunds adding descriptive value to the primary verb, though they are not interchangeable with it.

Analysis of the gerund form and of Verga’s particular usage offers two possible

explanations for this habit, no doubt acting in combination with each other to varying

degrees. The first lies in the inherent properties of the gerund as an imperfective mode.

The second rationale is more closely related to the particular goals and inspirations of

Verga’s brand of verismo, that is, in his attempt to transparently render observable reality

in a style that echoed the timbre of experience of his characters. In this particular case he

was clearly influenced by readings of novels by Émile Zola.

Like so many close looks at the grammatical characteristics of descriptions, this

analysis of Verga’s gerunds leads easily to thoughts of the temporality of the descriptive

generally as a modality for expressing continuous states of being. Standard grammars of

modern Italian agree that the gerund is verb form that expresses duration and continuous

action, much like the imperfect tense, though all insist it is a form that invites numerous

and complex usages that render its function difficult to define; this is mostly due to

functional shifts in Italian linguistic history that resulted in a combination of certain uses

92 of the present participle with those of the gerund.63 Nevertheless, it is agreed that the action a gerund depicts is ongoing, whether in the present or in the past. Because it is a durative verb form, the gerund is generally used to give background information; it is a mode of the arrière-plan, to use Weinrich’s terminology (117). From Latin’s gerundium

(from gerere, to carry on), the modern Italian gerund is a verbal mode that is most closely analogous to the English progressive or continuous tense (be +-ing);64 the gerund can also be used with an auxiliary verb to form a progressive periphrasis (stare + ger.), which has in the last century experienced a notable preference over other forms of the gerund, and has increased in relative frequency of usage since Verga’s time (Hasler 167-8). For the present discussion what interests us most in the historical grammars is the agreement that the gerund in as inherently imperfective, unconjugated verb form that does not put a temporal limit of completion on the action it describes; what is expressed in the gerund is in the process of happening.

63 Devoto’s Grammatica tells us the gerund is a non finite verb mode “che è intermedio fra il participio e l’infinitivo: è un participio di carattere esclusivamente verbale, è un infinito declinato e messo in un caso obliquo.” Devoto, Giacomo. Grammatica italiana. Firenze: Nuova Italia, 1952, 320. Whereas, in the place of a definition of the gerund, Serriani’s Grammatica tells us: “Il gerundio è un modo verbale di funzioni larghissime e non sempre definibili con precisione.” Many explanations of the gerund follow this pattern of avoiding a straightforward definition and then enumerating particular cases of possible usage formats, such as the gerundio assoluto, gerundio coordinativo, or gerundio ipotetico. Verga uses gerunds in as conventional a way as possible, eschewing these particularities. Serriani, Luca. Grammatica Italiana. Italiano commune e lingua letteraria. Torino: Utet Libreria, 1989, 484-6. For the historical relationship between the gerund and past participle see Antonini, Anna. “Il problema del gerundio.” Studi di grammatica italiana. Firenze: Accademia della Crusca, 1975. Other grammars upon which I base the above generalizations are the following: Fornaciari, Raffaello. Grammatica italiana dell’uso moderno. 3rd ed. Firenze: Sansoni, 1891; Devoto, Giacomo. Introduzione alla grammatica. Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1941; Battaglia, Salvatore and Pernicone, Vincenzo. La grammatica italiana di S. Battaglia e V. Pernicone. 2nd ed. Torino: Leoscher Editore, 1963; Rohlfs, Gerhard. Grammatica storica della lingua italiana e dei suoi dialetti. Torino: Einaudi, 1966; Dardano, Maurizio and Trifone, Pietro. La lingua italiana. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1985; Maiden, Martin and Robustelli, Cecilia. A Reference Grammar of Modern Italian. London: Arnold, 2000; and Proudfoot, Anna and Francesco Cardo. Modern Italian Grammar: A practical guide. New York: Routledge, 2005. 64 In Latin the gerund is used as a verbal adjective that expresses that the action of the verb “is to be done” or “should be done” (i.e. agenda). Antonini, Anna. “Il problema del gerundio.” Studi di grammatica italiana. Firenze: Accademia della Crusca, 1975, 101.

93 This makes sense for composing descriptions: gerunds express continuity of action, so they give a sense of continuity to descriptions that use verbs to report ongoing actions as part of a complex scene. Like the imperfect tense in Flaubert’s work, the gerund stretches out the action of the verb in such a way that its duration is as seen as lasting until the appearance of the next finite verb; like the imperfect, using multiple gerunds implies simultaneity, which is what makes a detailed descriptive pause even possible. Verga’s style shows a taste for repetition in the service of a list-like descriptive whole pieced together out of subordinate clauses that feature gerunds at the beginning of each segment:

Don Gesualdo sempre in moto, con un fascio di taglie in mano, segnando il

frumento insaccato, facendo una croce per cigni barile di vino, contando le trege

che giungevano, sgridando Diodata, disputando col sensale, vociando agli uomini

da lontano, sudando, senza voce, colla faccia accesa, la camicia aperta, un

fazzoletto di cotone legato al collo, un cappellaccio di paglia in testa. (my italics,

113)

This sentence is an especially exciting case of multiple gerunds because it frankly ignores the grammatical rules that govern the use of this form: except in the case a gerundio assoluto, in a gerund-containing clause the subject of the gerund must always be the same as that of the main verb in the clause. But here, there is no main verb in the sentence –

Gesualdo is simply posited on the scene by way of his continuous actions expressed as gerunds. Of course it is not a fully descriptive passage, rather a series of narrative

94 statements that together give a descriptive affect – we get a more or less static picture of

Gesualdo expressed as a list of his activities. But the question is: why string these images

into one phrase using gerunds instead of simply writing a series of shorter phrases

wherein each verb would be conjugated in the imperfect, which would mean the same

thing? Putting the verbs in the imperfect would relegate them strictly to the past.

Presenting them as gerunds adds a frenetic quality to the description, a sense that

everything really is going on at once, which is heightened by the possibility of temporal

limitlessness propagated by the gerunds. It is as if Mastro-don Gesualdo were really

simultaneously humming around doing all these activities at once in an attitude of frenzy

instead of in a series of sequential actions. With finite verb forms come finite actions;

here, everything is ongoing. Since the simultaneity-effect is just that, an effect and not a feature of what a writer in Verga’s position would consider observable reality, the grammar of the sentence leaves us no choice but to assume an interpretive position vis-à- vis don Gesualdo; we can only see him as he appears to an integrated observer, as a being motivated to and capable of doing many things at once, not “objectively” as one might expect from a verista. The technique was familiar to Flaubert, who used a gerund clustering technique in Salammbô as a good way to lengthen and increase the level of detail in a description framed by imperfects, to crowd it with detail (note that this is a true gerund, which means in French a prepositional gerund using en, though in previous centuries other prepositions were possible):

Elles se tenaient rangées sur le long du rempart, en frappant des tambourins, en

pinçant des lyres, en secouant des crotales, et les rayons du soleil, qui se couchait

95 par derrière, dans les montagnes de la Numidie, passaient entre les cordes des

harpes où s’allongeaient leurs bras nus.65

More striking, however, is the fact that Verga actually directly imitated a stylistic particularity of another French author in his gerund technique. His three-gerund clusters mimic similar clusters of participles in Zola’s descriptions; it appears that Verga picked up the habit directly from Zola (who used just the participle instead of the prepositional gerund, see below) of whom he was a great admirer and imitator, and in whose novels lengthy, internally complex descriptive sentences were common. It is especially noteworthy that Zola opts for groups for three or more participles in particularly charged descriptive moments, i.e. moments of emphasis, precisely in the same manner as Verga:

In La fortune des Rougon (1871):

Ce monde vit sans honte, en plein air, devant tous, faisant bouillir leur marmite,

mangeant des choses sans nom, étalant leur nippes trouées, dormant, se battant,

s’embrassant, puant la saleté et la misère. (8)

In L’Assommoir (1877):

Devant les comptoirs, des groupes s'offraient des tournées, s'oubliaient là, debout,

emplissant les salles, crachant, toussant, s'éclaircissant la gorge à coups de petits

verres. (378)

65 This citation: Flaubert, Gustave. Salammbô. Ed. R. Dumesnil. Paris: les Belles Lettres, 1944, 30.

96 Cependant, à côté, les essoreuses fonctionnaient; des paquets de linge, dans des

cylindres de fonte, rendaient leur eau sous un tour de roue de la machine,

haletante, fumante, secouant plus rudement le lavoir de la besogne continue de

ses bras d'acier. (402)

In Nana (1880):

C’était donc là ce Bordenave, ce montreur des femmes qui les traitait en garde-

chiourme, ce cerveau toujours fumant de quelque réclame, criant, crachant, se

tapent sur les cuisses, cynique et ayant un esprit de gendarme! (1097)

In Germinal (1885):

Maintenant, l’école était fermée, toute la marmaille traînait, c’était un

grouillement de petits êtres piaulant, se roulant, se battant; tandis que les pères,

qui n’étaient pas à l’estaminet, restaient par groupes de trois ou quatre, accroupis

sur leurs talons comme au fond de la mine, fumant des pipes avec des paroles

rares, à l‘abri d’un mur. (1234)

In Zola’s descriptions the participle is used to convey actions that are simultaneous with the action of the main verb, and are thus functionally analogous to a verb form. Without the preposition en, these cannot be gerunds. Nonetheless, Grévisse notes that, with regard to the gerund in French, “il n’est pas rare que l’on trouve dans la langue littéraire des participes présents devant lesquels en serait tout à fait possible,”

97 adding, “faut-il les appeler des gérondifs sans en?” (1152). This three-participle/gerund configuration shows up in almost exactly the same way in Mastro-don Gesualdo:

Agostino, il soprastante, annaspando, bofonchiando, affacciandosi all’uscio per

guardare il cielo ancora nuvolo coll’occhio orbo, trovò infine la risposta…(66)

In a description of Diodata, the only person who truly loves Gesualdo, in which the primary verb is removed from proximity to the subject by a string of gerunds:

Un viso su cui erano passati gli stenti, la fame, le percosse, le carezze brutali;

limandolo, solcandolo, rodendolo; lasciandovi l’arsura del solleone, le rughe

precoci dei giorni senza pane, il lividore delle notti stanche – gli occhi soli ancora

giovani, in fondo a quelle occhiaie livide. (78)

Here we have three gerunds with object pronouns attached. Similarly in this upcoming example, the last gerund in the first series has an extra syllable at the end, this time because it is a reflexive verb – this is rather common in Verga’s gerund clusters, as it breaks up the repetition of four-syllable words, catching us before we might habitually stumble into another clipped phrase ending in “-ando:”

[…] la Signora Capitana poi in gala, quasi fosse la sua festa, adesso che ci erano

tanti militari, colla borsa ricamata al braccio, il cappellino carico di piume,

scutrettolando, ridendo, cinguettando, rimorchiandosi dietro don Bastiano

98 Stangafame, il tenente, tutti i colleghi di suo marito, il quale se ne stava a

guardare da vero babbeo, colla canna d’India dietro la schiena, metre i suoi

colleghi passeggiavano con sua moglie, spaccandosi come compassi, ridendo a

voce alta, guardando fieramente le donne che osavano mostrarsi alle finestre,

facendo risuonare da per tutto il rumore delle sciabole e del tintinnìo degli

speroni, quasi ci avessero le campanelle alle calcagna. (183)

All of these passages use repeated gerunds for emphasis through accumulation, both accumulation of information and accumulation of similar sounds in each part of the sentence.

Verga’s interest in Zola’s style is well documented, and has been commented upon since the beginning of the last century; most recently the connection was explored by Tullio Pagano in his recent book, Experimental Fictions, already mentioned.66

Pagano retells the inception of verismo solely in terms of Zola’s experimental method, a method that would integrate a scientistic approach to novel writing with a documentarian, mimetic style vis-à-vis the language and cultural particularities of rural Sicily. According to Pagano, it was the publication of L’Assommoir that inspired the invention of Italian

66 “Since the novelistic tradition was more solidly established in France, it was natural for Verga and other Italian authors to look to French literature as a model;” writes Pagano. An 1885 citation from Capuana affirms this generalization: “Prima di metterci a scrivere guardammo attorno, avanti, addietro a noi. Che vedemmo? Vedemmo il romanzo moderno già grande, già colossale in Francia, col Balzac, e neppure in germe in Italia. Sotto il piedistallo che Balzac si è innalzato da sé, aere perennius, vedemmo una schiera di scrittori di prim’ordine che ha lavorato a ripulire, a migliorare, a perfezionare la forma lasciata a mezzo dal maestro: il Flaubert, i De Goncourt, lo Zola, il Daudet, e dicemmo risolutamente: bisogna addentellarsi con costoro! Ci mettemmo subito all’opera.” From an 1852 essay cited in Pagano, Tullio. Experimental Fictions: From Emile Zola's Naturalism to Giovanni Verga's Verism. London: Associated U Presses, 1999, 61. See also Galletti, Alfredo. Novecento. 3a. ed. Riveduta e coretta. Milano: F. Vallardi, 1951, 120: “Dallo Zola, e non dai Flaubert e dai De Goncourt o dai romanzieri realisti inglesi, deriva teoreticamente il nostro verismo letterario;” also Karl Vossler in Letteratura Italiana Contemporanea (Napoli: R. Ricciardi, 1916, 81) who describes verismo as “imitazioni più che altro dei francesi ed in ispecie di Zola.” Both qtd. in Vittorini, D. “Il verismo italiano.” Italica, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Dec., 1945), 161.

99 verismo. In this he extends Luperini’s argument in the book Simbolo e costruzione allegorica in Verga: Luperini insists that it L’Assommoir that “i due scrittori siciliani

[Verga and Capuana] assumono come fondamentale punto di riferimento della loro poetica,” (105-6). In the case of the excessive gerund, especially used in groups of three or four as we see here, unconcealed mimicry of the French author’s affinity for the participle, and for accumulative emphasis and emphatic description generally, is probably the best explanation for Verga’s stylistic choice.

Of further interest in this case is the relative infrequency of gerund phrases in

Italian literature of the time. For while the gerund, as noted above, enjoyed a marked increase in usage over time in the French canon, in Italian it has fallen out of usage, first in favor of the progressive periphrasis (stare + ger.), and then in favor of clauses that use che + imperfetto.67 It is nonetheless the case that Manzoni favored the gerund in

‘circumstantial’ or ‘coordinative’ constructions, in a manner similar to a past participle.68

These are structurally dissimilar from Verga’s gerunds since they posit a relationship

67 Such was the conclusion of Samuel Garner, who, in a series of articles published between 1887 and 1889, reported counting five hundred twenty two examples of the prepositional gerund (using en), nearly one instance per page. Writes Garner: “This is probably a greater number of times than the prepositional gerund can be found in the whole of French literature from the ninth to the fourteenth century.” Garner reports: “Chanson de Roland, three; Voyage de Charlemagne, five; Flore et Blanceflor, ten; Les Joie de Nostre Dame, two; Vie de Seint Auban, five; La vie de Saint Alexi, zero; Roman de Rou, five; Roman d’Aquin, two; Berte aus grans piés, nine; Hist. de S. Louis, twelve; Hist. de l’empereur Henri, eight; Conquest de Constantinople, zero; Translation of Guillaume de Tyr, six; Aiol et Mirabel, ten; Guiot de Provins, zero.” Garner, Samuel. “The Gerundial Construction in the Romanic Languages. VII (conclusion). Modern Language Notes, Vol. 4, No. 5 (May, 1889), 129-137. This quote, 133. On the other hand, though not as well documented, Weinrich notes in Tempus the decrease in usage of the gerund in Italian literature, postulating that the gerund was more attuned to the temporal character of the short story than to that of the novel and that this accounts for the decrease. Weinrich, Harald. Le temps. Trans. Michèle Lacoste. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1964, 158-163. See also Napoli, Donna Jo, and Irene Vogel. "The Conjugations of Italian." Italica 67.4 (1990): 479-502: “…the present participle and the gerund forms do not occur freely in today’s speech. Instead, they are archaic forms given in verb lists for the sake of completeness” (488). 68 As in the phrase: “Gli scherani del gentiluomo, vedutolo sul terreno, si diedero alla fuga malconci: quelli di Ludovico, pur tartassati e sfregiati, non v’essendo più cui dare, e non volendo trovarsi impacciati nella gente che già accorreva, se la batterono dall’altra parte: e Ludovico si trovò solo con quei due funesti compagni ai piedi, in mezzo ad una folla.” Manzoni, Alessandro. I promessi sposi (1827). Milano: Mondadori, 2002, 76.

100 between segments, whereas Verga’s gerunds do not serve a separate grammatical

purpose.

Finally to the question of gerunds in dialect speech. The “dialectism” of Verga’s

writing is the token of his fidelity to observed reality and to verismo as a concept, in the

form of a combination of certain aspects of Sicilian dialect speech with a purposely

limited standard Italian lexicon. Verga’s most memorable efforts in prose style combine

the semantic shell of literary Italian with the syntax of the regional dialect of his

characters. The case of the gerund achieves this in two ways. Firstly, and most directly, it

may have been more common to substitute the gerund for phrases using the structure

“che + imperfetto” in Sicilian dialect speech of the time, though evidence is limited. We

note in contemporary written accounts of popular oral fiction of the region: the “Rivista

di fiabe e novelle popolari siciliane,” part of an 1872 Rivista di filologia romanza, notes

the regional usage in reference to the phrase “Poi si facia dari, lu Drau, a l’autri soru, li

quail nun si la mangiannu nuddu, infinu a sei, e fecennu la manu sempri di diversi

maneri,”: write the authors of the Rivista: “il gerundio, come qui mangiannu e facennu,

spesso nel linguaggio familiare tiene luogo dell’imperfetto indicativo” (47).69 Despite this brief evidence to confirm the dialect connection, it is not at all certain that gerunds were noticeably prevalent in spoken Sicilian of the time, as few records of regional speech are available with which to compare Verga’s usage. In addition, since Verga’s written language is, due to its aspirations to literariness and concern for dialect rhythm and style, wholly artificial in terms of its relationship to actual oral and written language

69 A more recent account of Sicilian syntax claims: “In southern Italy the gerund has a wider range, to the extent that in some dialects it may be employed as a temporal or concessive clause with a subject other than that of the matrix clause.” Cordin, Patrizia. “Tense, mood, and aspect in the verb.” In The Dialects of Italy. Maiden, Martin and Mair Parry, ed. New York: Routledge, 1997, 92.

101 of his time, it is impossible to make a direct comparison of relative frequency of any

single stylistic trait.

Whether or not it was actually a recognizable trait of a regional dialect speech

specific to Verga’s personal experience, it is true that the repeated sounds of gerund

clusters impart a rhythmic character to the descriptive phrases, and rhythm is a quality of

oral communication first and foremost. Even if there is no direct connection between

Verga’s gerunds and an historical usage, the emphatic and rhythmic patterning of

descriptions that use this technique points to the descriptive language’s spoken origins.70

Note the following:

Il cugino stava appoggiato alla ringhiera, fingendo di osservare attentamente

l’uomo che andava spegnendo la luminaria, nella pizza deserta, e il giovane del

paratore, il quale correva su e giù per l’impalcato della musica, come un gattone

nero, schiodando, martellando, buttando giù i festoni e le ghirlande di carta. (58)

Capitò in quel momento il ragazzetto del sagrestano che veniva a fare

un’imbasciata di gran premura, balbettando, imbrogliandosi, tornando sempre a

ripetere la stessa cosa, rosso della suggezione. (175)

70 “Protracted orally based thought, even when not in formal verse, tends to be highly rhythmic, for rhythm aids recall, even physiologically.” Ong, Walter. Orality and Literacy. New York: Routledge, 2002, 34-5. Ong refers this generalization to the following scholarship: Jousse, Michel. Le style oral rhythmique et mnémotechnique chez les Verbo-moteurs. Paris; G. Beauchesne, 1925, and Le Parlant, la parole, et le souffle, preface by Maurice Houis, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, L’Anthropologie du geste, Paris: Gallimard, 1979.

102 I nipoti scorazzando per la casa e pei poderi, spadroneggiando, cacciando le mani

da per tutto. La sorella, colle chiavi alla cintola, frugando, rovistando, mandando

il marito di qua e di là, pei rimedi, e a coglier erbe medicinali. (346)

Again in this last passage we find an agrammatical use of the gerund: no primary verb.

This agramaticality can be attributed to the desire for an informal tone that is itself a gesture to orality over literariness. Aside from that, we note that with the gerund clusters comes a certain reading experience that is peculiar in the context of the typically writerly genre of descriptive prose: I am referring to the rhythm created by repeated sounds of the gerund endings in -ando. In reading such phrasing we cannot avoid the emphatic patterning and distant physicality of spoken language, in defiance of the fact that such descriptions by Verga’s time of writing were written to be read silently. In such a context it becomes impossible not to remember the rhetorical origins of strong description and the ekphrastic tradition. And it is certainly true that these gerund clusters are not for the most part totally meaningless, though there are occasional instances of superfluity in other parts of the novel, the presence of which raises some questions about the representation function of the verbs (“vociando e strepitando,” (194), “gemendo e lamentandosi,” (225)). Nonetheless when Verga groups gerunds together in a way that generates such a pattern his text recalls the rhythmic quality of spoken language. In their rhythmic character these repeated references to sound echo an experience of patterned emphasis that is singular to oral communication.

103

We have seen that Verga’s prose in Mastro-don Gesualdo works hard to synthesize two contrasting linguistic forces – on the one hand, a popular voice whose language is similar to what his characters would have spoken, encoded in syntax and punctuation, and on the other, a readable novelistic one – in descriptions, no matter how spartan or sparsely distributed they may be. Verga’s descriptive style can therefore be said to be extremely efficient insofar as it achieves the synthesis with great compositional concision and textual economy by removing the traditional framing of descriptions in a rhetoric of observation and detached analysis. I have suggested that the undertones of spoken language already pointed out in Verga’s narrative prose appear also in very particular aspects of his descriptive prose. It is very acceptable to see the success of

Verga’s effort as a sign of his deep attachment to the goals of realism such as he understood them. But how did he understand these goals? A passage from the introduction to “L’amante di Gramigna” makes it explicit:

Quando nel romanzo l’affinità e la coesione di ogni sua parte sarà cosa completa,

che il processo della creazione rimarrà un mistero, come lo svolgersi delle

passioni umane, e l’armonia delle sue forme sarà così perfetta, la sincerità della

sua realtà così evidente, il suo modo e la sua ragione di essere così necessarie, che

la mano dell’artista rimarrà assolutamente invisibile, allora avrà l’impronta

dell’avvenimento reale, l’opera d’arte sembrerà essersi fatta da sé, aver maturato

ed esser sòrta spontanea, come un fatto naturale, senza servare alcun punto di

104 contatto col suo autore, alcuna macchia del peccato d’origine. (Tutte le novelle

203)

The goal is a literature that seems to exist “as if of itself,” the harmony of its parts

achieving such close correspondences that the connections between them become

invisible and even necessary, the sincerity of its expression rendering its form completely

transparent.71 This version of things suggests that Verga’s realism wants to go beyond

seriousness and attention to detail toward a total compaction of human experience in its

immediacy in textual form, and that the ideal writing Verga imagined could only be

truthful insofar as it was locally subjectivized; this has certainly been the case of Mastro-

don Gesualdo according to my analysis. But this literature Verga describes then starts to

sound suspiciously like literary impressionism, and perhaps that is precisely what

emerges in Verga’s most successful descriptions as Devoto had originally suggested;

observe the following:

Uno struggimento, un’amarezza sconfinata venivano dall’ampia distesa nera

dell’Alia, dirimpetto, al di là delle case dei Barresi, dalle vigne e gli oliveti di

Giolio, che si indovinavano confusamente, oltre la via del Rosario ancora

formicolante di lui, dal lungo altipiano del Casalgilardo, rotto dall’alta cantonata

del Collegio, dal ciclo profondo, ricamato di stelle – una più lucente, lassù, che

71 Verga used the same words to describe the technique of the Macchiaioli group of painters, whose work is hard to relegate to just the category of impressionism or that of realism, in the 1852 Vocabolario universale della lingua italiana, cited by Norma Broude in The Macchiaioli: Italian Painters of the Nineteenth Century, New Haven: Yale UP, 1987, 4. For more on the Macchiaoli/Verga connection, see Boime, Albert. The Art of the Macchia and the Risorgimento: Representing culture and nationalism in nineteenth century Italy. University of Chicago Press, 1993, 72-74.

105 sembrava guardasse, fredda, triste, solitaria. Il rumore della festa desolato cadeva

di tanto in tanto, un silenzio che stringeva il cuore. Bianca era ritta contro il

muro, immobile; le mani e il viso smorti di lei sembravano vacillare al chiarore

incerto che saliva dal banco del venditore di torrone. Il cugino stava appoggiato

alla ringhiera, fingendo di osservare attentamente l’uomo che andava spegnendo

la luminaria, nella pizza deserta, e il giovane del paratore, il quale correva su e giù

per l’impalcato della musica, come un gattone nero, schiodando, martellando,

buttando giù i festoni e le ghirlande di carta. I razzi che scappavano ancora di

tratto in tratto, lontano, dietro la massa nera del Palazzo di Città, i colpi di

martello del paratore, le grida più rare, stanche e avvinazzate, sembravano

spegnersi lontano, nella vasta campagna solitaria. Insieme all’acre odore di

polvere che dileguava, andava sorgendo un dolce odor di garofani; passava della

gente cantando; udivasi un baccano di chiacchiere e di risate nella sala, vicino a

loro, nello schianto di quell’ultimo addio senza parole. (58-9)

The bitter sadness that emanates from the atmosphere itself, the combined evocation of this feeling through synesthetic correspondence of sight, sound, and smell, the synecdochical correlation between individual elements with the whole of the described world enacted through a common moodiness attributed to all – these elements together create a ‘total’ description in which the describing voice is fully immersed in its surroundings. Furthermore, these elements posit themselves in the description; that is, their appearance is not rhetorically marked as descriptive but they exist, again, as if of themselves, as seen in the active verbs attributed to sights, sounds and smells. Of course,

106 the marks of integrated linguistic consciousness of the town are here: prior knowledge

implied by use of place names, imperfects that suggest a subjective temporal experience,

idiomatic expressions and popular metaphors, and gerunds. But what this last description

shows most distinctly is Verga’s position at the extreme endpoint of the realist concept, at

a point at which a compulsion to truthfulness leads decisively away from universality and

omniscience as a standard for objective rendition of observations in descriptive prose and further toward individual perception. The increased flexibility afforded by Verga’s stylistic choices loosens the tight bond between description and epistemological certainty that had heretofore dominated the nineteenth century’s approach to description. This, as will be seen, is a movement that only grows more apparent as the century closes and new modalities of description open themselves to the representation of human experience in prose.

107

CHAPTER THREE

Description in the service of an individual mind: À rebours

108 Description in the service of an individual mind: J.-K. Huysmans’s À rebours

A large thematic gap lies between J.-K. Huysmans’s À rebours and Verga’s

Mastro-don Gesualdo. Verga’s novel concerns rural life in Sicily, whereas À rebours, published five years earlier in 1884, is about the private story of an individual aristocrat.

Furthermore, whereas Verga uses description as a mediating tool between the mental and linguistic world of his protagonist and his reading public in the service of a ‘realistic’ portrayal his subject, Huysmans’s use of description is much more exclusive. In À rebours, heavily ornamented descriptions of exotic objects remove the describing voice from any but the most detached relationship with everyday language, a reflection of the novel’s themes of isolation, the precedence of individual taste, and disgust with social life. These differences are all the more striking in light of the fact that both authors were influenced by Zola and his ‘naturalist’ approach to literature; but whereas Verga tried to adapt Zolaiste principles to the Italian national context, Huysmans wrote À rebours as a deliberate rebuttal of his mentor’s ideas. Despite this antagonism Huysmans’s work shares with Zola and with Verga an interest in expanding the function of descriptions in narrative texts, an interest that shows especially in its privileging of individual details in descriptions of observable objects. This chapter will expand analyses of descriptions in À rebours in an effort to detect the parameters of continuity between the stylized form of the decadent novel and conventional descriptive practice in nineteenth century novels.

Huysmans’s aberrations from the local norm of novelistic practice are the stylistic signature of his approach to descriptions, most visibly in his modification of syntax and unusual approach to represented time.

109 Now considered the first “decadent” novel to be written in France, À rebours is in

comparative terms one of the more descriptive novels of the nineteenth century, and

Huysmans has been consistently admired for his skill in crafting descriptions that are

both intensely realistic and conspicuously writerly.72 À rebours was read and admired by a young cultural elite that would go on to develop the intellectual preconditions for the development of modernist ;73 its pages were studied not only for their popularizing references to figures in contemporary art and literature (significantly, the painter Gustave Moreau and the poets and Stephane Mallarmé) but also for their entirely unconventional approach to novelistic form.

As the chronicle of the suburban retreat of Jean Floressas des Esseintes, an isolationist aesthete and collector, À rebours consists of an introductory “notice” and sixteen chapters, each loosely devoted to a single genre of collector’s items of various sorts, including not only objects but also other texts, pieces of music, perfumes, and disciplines of erudite study; Silver Latin literature, precious gems, medieval Catholic theology, musical and architectural styles, and contemporary French painting and poetry are all paid a degree of descriptive attention analogous to that Flaubert paid to, say, styles of dress, gustatory preferences, or topographical cityscapes in Salammbô. Strikingly, the

72 Arthur Symons attested to Huysmans’s mastery of the descriptive early on: “…so astonishing a mastery of description that he could describe the inside of a cow hanging in a butcher’s shop as beautifully as if it were a casket of jewels…perhaps no one has ever described with such minuteness of line and colour as Huysmans, and his very defect, a certain lack of restraint, a certain heaviness of rhythm, which prevents his sentences from ever pleasing the ear like the sentences of Gautier, of Baudelaire, of Flaubert, gives him an advantage in conveying to the eye what he has seen with the eye.” It is striking that even during Huysmans’s lifetime his descriptions were compared to visual art, specifically painting – Symons’s use of the terms “line” and “colour” here assume the connection, which is now commonplace in Huysmans criticism (some even point to the fact that Huysmans came from a family of painters as a possible influence on the visuality and painterlyness of his style (Kahn, for example). Symons, Arthur. The Symbolist Movement in Literature. New York: AMS Press, 1980 (1899), 149. 73 These include most importantly Stephane Mallarmé and Paul Valéry, both of whom maintained correspondence and social relationships with Huysmans, as well as Guillaume Apollinaire, whose early concept of “surnaturalisme,” later to become “surréalisme,” was influenced by Huysmans’s own “naturalisme spiritualiste” (explained indirectly by characters in Huysmans’s novel Là-bas).

110 generic identity of the objects described here sets them apart from the world of human interaction; as collector’s items, the objects described in À rebours maintain an ontological distance from the paradigms of use and relative value that direct the associations between people and things in novels written in a realist mode. The compositional understructure of Huysmans’s descriptions, on the other hand, reveal deep congruencies between the realist/naturalist and symbolist strains in French literary culture of the 1880s and 1890s: his syntactically dense compositional method combines virtuoso encyclopedism with decorative flourishes and ornamental redundancies, and his naturalistic referential precision communicates through, and despite, a cumulatively embellished syntactic microstructure. The dualism generated by this intersection is so strong that, despite the compendium-like macrostructure of the novel, À rebours is consistently compared to prose poetry.74 This association has at least partly to do with the topical connection between the “breviary of the decadence,” and the culture it promotes.75 Huysmans’s approach to descriptions results from a conjoining of desires to write in a language that is both “scientific” in the naturalist sense as well as “spiritual” in

74 The idea that À rebours bears some resemblance to a long poem in prose was first suggested by Valéry, who called the novel “une suite de très beaux poèmes en prose,” and this idea has held fast, not least due to Des Esseintes’ praise of the form in À rebours and of Baudelaire in particular (Lettres à quelques-uns 14). Recent examples of this idea include Ruth Plaut Weinrib’s point that we should not perhaps apply the usual interpretive strategies for book-length prose to this work’s overall structure since Huysmans “did not explicitly call À rebours a novel,” ("Structural Techniques in À rebours." The French Review 49.2 (1975): 222-33, 222); Annette Kahn compares À rebours to a prose poem in which “there is no linear temporal development in the traditional sense that there is a necessary sequence of events or that meaning depends on temporal relationships; the novel has an internal structure which depends on the repetition of the same theme in different guises, and change in time and space is brought about by dreams, periods of memory, and descriptions of objects, in this case art,” (Kahn, Annette. J.-K. Huysmans: novelist, poet, and art critic. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1987, 53). 75 Arthur coined the phrase in “J.-K. Huysmans,” an article published in the March 1892 edition of the Fortnightly Review. À rebours came to be used as a model for degeneration in literature, most famously by Bourget’s definition of decadence as a degeneration of the relationship of part to whole in a work of literature: “Un style de décadence est celui où l’unité du livre se décompose pour laisser la place à l’indépendance de la page, `la page se décompose pour laisser la place à l’indépendance de la phrase, et la phrase pour laisse la place à l’indépendance du mot.” Bourget, Paul. Essais de psychologie contemporaine. Paris: Plon, Nourrit, 1899, 15-16.

111 a symbolist sense.76 The complementary nature of these two impulses as they manifest themselves in the text of À rebours creates a novel that is at once evocative and exact, a bridge text between the notion of detail espoused by the mid-century novelists and a more abstract modification of this synecdoche that developed in the literature of the early twentieth century, starting with Apollinaire and certainly well represented in Proust.77

The temporality of the novel is the primary victim of the collision of the detailed and the mystical in À rebours. Huysmans’s effort to use extremely precise descriptive language is relatively destructive in terms of narrative progression. And yet, though many have correctly noted the lack of narrativity – even claiming that À rebours is not a novel at all78 – there can be no disagreement that the text does tell the story of des Esseintes, the last in a decayed line of inbred aristocrats who withdraws to a private home in the suburbs of Paris (Fontenay) due to his disgust with Parisian society. Upon his arrival at

Fontenay, des Esseintes establishes a particular lifestyle, decorates his home according to his tastes, and spends his time reading, admiring his collections of luxury items,

76 Huysmans eventually suggested literature should turn away from what he thought of as the materialism of Zola’s naturalism toward a “spiritualist naturalism” that would address both the observable would and what we would now consider largely psychological aspects of individual (rather than collective, or generalized) experience: “le roman, si cela se pouvait, devrait se diviser de lui-même en deux parts, néanmoins soudées ou plutôt confondues, comme elles le sont dans la vie, celle de l'âme, celle du corps, et s'occuper de leurs réactifs, de leurs conflits, de leur entente. Il faudrait, en un mot, suivre la grande voie si profondément creusée par Zola, mais il serait nécessaire aussi de tracer en l'air un chemin parallèle, une autre route, d'atteindre les en deçà et les après, de faire, en un mot, un naturalisme spiritualiste; ce serait autrement fier, autrement complet, autrement fort!” Huysmans, J. -K, and Pierre Cogny. Là-Bas. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1991, 36. 77 In this I echo David Weir, who writes in Decadence and the Making of Modernism: “The language of À rebours, through syntactic inventiveness and a highly textured interference of varied vocabularies and different levels of diction, continues and develops the Flaubertian emphasis on style as an end in itself; and the structure of the novel, with narrative development subordinate in the extreme, anticipates the atemporal, spatial constructions of the modern period. These aspects of the novel are ultimately more important of the transition toward literary modernity than the decadent sensibility that serves as the subject of À rebours” (97). 78 Max Nordau complained in 1893: “À rebours can scarcely be called a novel, and Huysmans, in fact, does not call it so. It does not reveal a history, it has no action, but presents itself as a sort of portrayal or biography of a man who habits, sympathies and antipathies, and ideas on all possible subjects, specially on art and literature, are related to us in great detail.” Nordau, Max. Degeneration. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1895, 302.

112 dreaming, and remembering events previous to his retreat. He continues this hermetic

existence until, due to his excessive sensitivity to tiny variables in his physical and

mental life, he succumbs to illness and is forced to choose between a return to Paris and

certain death. Certainly, the plot elements are minimal – travel to Fontenay, arrivals of

various objects at the house, doctor’s visits, and the ultimate decision to return to Paris

are the only events that can be said to induce change, and these events occur in only four

of sixteen chapters. Because the bulk of the text is devoted to the observation and

consideration of the objects in des Esseintes’s collection – all described in arbitrary

sequence according to des Esseintes’s whimsy or the fact that they have just arrived at his

house – the novel’s perfunctory plot decelerates to a standstill as the frequency and length

of descriptions is increased to untenable levels. This innovation, which might seem

merely necessary for the amount of information Huysmans injects into his novel, is in

fact an outgrowth of the obsession with detail inherited from the likes of Flaubert; the

“decadence” of this novel, its immoderation, goes beyond the merely thematic, as

overdevelopment, extraneousness, superfluous elaboration and excessive stylization are

central to its very form, especially in the descriptive passages examined here.

I suggested in my discussion of Flaubert’s Salammbô that the last third of the nineteenth century in France – and probably in Europe generally – was a period of epistemological transition during which previously stable assumptions about the availability of the observable world to adequate description in literary language were questioned.79 A resultant self-reflexive approach to literary technique and increasing

79 By this I mean the epistemological transition characterized by a crisis of representation, as described by in Les mots et les choses: at the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth, “…la représentation a perdu le pouvoir de fonder, à partir d’elle-même, dans son déploiement propre et par le jeu qui la redouble sur soi, les liens qui peuvent unir ses divers éléments. Nulle

113 complexity of descriptions in realist novels testify to this insecurity. Descriptive

techniques were vehicles for the transition; Flaubert’s style in Salammbô is a very good

fossilization of this problem as it pertained to technical possibilities of descriptive prose

in French at that time. When he died in 1880 Flaubert was still extending that descriptive

project in the novel Bouvard et Pécuchet, in which the bourgeois protagonists

successively interest themselves in a variety of fields of knowledge and activities, usually

with no success. The novel was a satirical compendium of specialized, ultimately useless

knowledge, a collection of things and ideas divorced from their application, its plot

receding behind a bulk of descriptive and expository writing – not unlike À rebours,

despite a distinct difference in tone. Chronologically, however, there was an impasse

between late Flaubert’s cynical descriptive tome and Huysmans, in the form of Émile

Zola’s “naturalist” project, which energized the effort to fashion a novelistic style that

would support the assumption that a realistic representation was possible in prose

literature. The concept of the experimental novel, based on science and political

progressivism, was appropriated with some success as a way of bolstering the novel’s

methodology against epistemological skepticism by establishing certain conceptual

parameters that would undergird its viability. It is striking that the publication of Zola’s most successful clarification of these parameters in Le Roman experimental coincided

historically with the breakup of the Médan group, made up of his closest followers; as

one of them, Huysmans went on to explicitly reject a naturalistic methodology first in

action (writing À rebours) and then in explicit argumentation in Là-bas, the second novel

composition, nulle décomposition, nulle analyse en identités et en différences ne peut plus justifier le lien des représentations entre elles; l’ordre, le tableau dans lequel il se spatialise, les voisinages qu’il définit, les successions qu’il autorise comme autant de parcours possibles entre les points de sa surface ne sont plus en pouvoir de lier entre elles les représentations ou entre eux les éléments de chacune” (251-2).

114 of his decadent phase, in which characters openly debate the inadequacies of a Zolaiste

approach. Huysmans’s rejection was part of a larger reaction, now associated primarily

with the symbolist movement (but which manifested itself at the time in a plurality of

small related movements), against naturalism, in which a new spiritualist aesthetic that

valued mysticism and artistry was set against the old materialism and positivistic

scientism of naturalist literature.80 This conflict came into special relief in the field of the novel, where the new spiritualism seemed to fill a gap felt by many in Huysmans’s generation between the social and material world depicted by novels and individual experience, which seemed to resonate more immediately with poetry.

Though À rebours is now the most famous of his novels, and though his Catholic novels were more commercially successful, we should not neglect the irrevocable impact of his years with Zola in an assessment of Huysmans’s stylistic choices across his career.

Huysmans’s first publication was a book of prose poetry, Le drageoir aux épices (1874), heavily influenced by Baudelaire; in it we see the nascent preoccupation with ornamentation, sonority, and rhythm that shows up again in À rebours and the Catholic novels. Huysmans rejected poetry under Zola’s influence, and produced a number of short novels early on; these focused on the world of the Parisian street, prostitution, and the banalities of social life, but he was ultimately frustrated with what he perceived as the impersonality and imbalance (toward a materialistic view of individual motivation) of a naturalistic approach to the novel and even the impossibility of achieving a realistic precision equal to that of Flaubert’s L’éducation sentimentale: “On était alors en plein naturalisme; mais cette école, qui devait rendre l’inoubliable service de situer des personnages réels dans des milieux exacts, était condamnée à se rabâcher, en piétinant sur

80 See Bourdieu, The Rules of Art, 117-121.

115 place,” he wrote, twenty years later.81 Huysmans thus turned toward “higher things,” to the life of the mind and intellectual concerns, beginning around 1880 (writing began on À rebours in 1881; the novel was published in 1884). À rebours, he claimed, was a way of conjoining his urge to focus on the intellectual life of a single protagonist (though Des

Esseintes was based on a few real models, notably Stephane Mallarmé, Edmond de

Goncourt, and Robert, Comte de Montesquiou-Fezensac, also a model for Proust’s

Charlus82) with a literary frame that provided opportunities for extended discussion of sophisticated topics, rather than the purposefully quotidian and generalized (and therefore ostensibly objectivized) information communicated in the secondary descriptions by earlier novelists working in a realist paradigm (for example, printing in Les Illusions perdues or coal mining in Germinal). What is most striking about this choice – to Zola’s dismay – is how intensely successful it was at the time, especially with the younger generation.83 The moribund anti-hero and his panoply of idiosyncratic tastes had the immediate effect of legitimizing a certain rebelliousness against the apparently failed

(judging from the relatively recent debacle of the ) activism of the earlier generation and its belief in the predictable behavior of reliable social types; there was even a brief-lived journal, Le Décadent, that repeatedly claimed the “triomphe du

Décadisme” in the aftermath of À rebours. But, as David Weir puts it in his book

81 From the preface to the 1903 edition of À rebours. Paris: Garnier Flammarion, 1978, 45. The early works testify to a certain malleability on Huysmans’s part: beside Le drageoir à épices (1874), Marthe (1876) follows the single-character title standard used by Zola and the Goncourts, as does Les Soeurs Vatard (1879); these were followed by Sac au dos (in Les Soirées de Médan, 1880), Croquis parisiens (1880), En Ménage (1881), sceptique (1881, in collaboration with Léon Hennique), A Vau-l’Eau (1882), and a collection of his art criticism, L’Art moderne (1884). 82 Baldick, Robert. The Life of J.-K. Huysmans. Sawtry: Dedalus, 2006, 122-3. 83 Huysmans, J.-K.; Zola, Émile. Lettres inédites à Émile Zola. Genève: Droz, 1953. 106-107. Zola tells Huysmans he is confused by the lack of development in the novel (“Peut-être est-ce mon tempérament de constructeur qui regimbe, mais il me déplait que des Esseintes soit aussi fou au commencement qu’à la fin…[et qu’] il n’y ait pas une progression quelconque,” (106)). He adds that the novel is not didactic enough for his tastes.

116 Decadence and the Making of Modernism, the language, style, and structure necessary

for the decadent project are what should be taken seriously in an assessment of this

novel’s place in literary history: “These aspects…are ultimately more important to the

transition toward literary modernity than the decadent sensibility that serves as the

subject of À rebours. The transformation of the form of the novel that developed, in part,

out of the idea of decadence, means more to the evolution of modernism than does

decadence itself, as an isolated literary phenomenon of the nineteenth century. The

rhetoric of decadence is of little importance to early modernists, but the style of

decadence, the style that developed because of decadence, is something to be reckoned

with,” (97).

Much has been written about Huysmans’s style, especially of À rebours and the

novels of his decadent phase, with criticism focusing on the particularities of l’écriture

artiste that are seen to signify decline, especially excessive ornamentation; effort in this

area has focused on delineating decadence specifically in terms of these stylistic

markers.84 Because of the focus on decadence, both as a literary historical category and

especially as a set of readily observable themes, we have not yet seen a critique of À

rebours solely through the lens of description and descriptive technique, despite the fact

that the novel is made up of mostly descriptive text and a tendency to associate excessive

descriptions with decadence and decline in literature.85 Several critical works on

Huysmans’s style in relatively recent years suggest a revised understanding of the so-

84 Marcel Cressot’s work, along with that Stephan Ullman, is again especially symptomatic of this effort, but nineteenth century criticism also singled out ornamentation in early theorizations of decadence: especially Paul Bourget’s articles on Baudelaire in the Nouvelle Revue, reprinted in 1883 in Essais de psychologie contemporaine, and Arthur Symons’s The Symbolist Movement in Literature of 1899. 85 “Description becomes the dominant mode in composition in a period in which, for social reasons, the sense of what is primary in epic construction has been lost. Description is the writer’s substitute for the epic significance that has been lost,” Lukács, Georg. “Narrate or Describe?” in Writer & Critic, and Other Essays. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1971, 124.

117 called decadent period in European literature and arts, seeing the 1880s and 90s as a gestational period for the avant-garde and modernist movements of the early twentieth century rather than as an endpoint for the supposed cultural decline of the nineteenth.86

Nonetheless the notion persists that the ornamental, typically decadent formal features function in isolation from the precise naturalistic tone of Huysmans’s prose; I suggest that these two factors coexist in a mutually supportive fashion in the descriptions. A study of description in À rebours provides special insight into the ways in which

Huysmans enlisted both the essayistic and the ornamental in one and the same literary mode.

Commentative descriptions

In the 1903 preface to À rebours, Huysmans writes that, among the aspects of his writing of À rebours that were incomprehensible to Zola at the time, was first and

86 These include especially David Weir’s Decadence and the Making of Modernism, in which the transitional nature of À rebours is pointed out in the historical push toward the modernist novels of the 1920s and 1930s, and decadence is explained as a gestational phase in the invention of the modernist novel “Decadence is transition,” Weir states: “the various nineteenth century movements that proliferate in the period between romanticism and modernism (naturalism, symbolism, Parnassianism, Pre-Raphaelistism, aestheticism, décadisme, and others) can best be understood if they are all seen as grounded in some concept of decadence or decadentism. Decadence, in other words, provides a conceptual focus that helps to unify the cultural transition from romanticism to modernism,” (Weir, David. Decadence and the Making of Modernism. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995. Huysmans, xvi. Pages 82-97 treat À rebours specifically.) Other critics who maintain this view of decadence include Jean Pierrot, The Decadent Imagination, 1880-1900, trans Derek Coltman (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1981): “Decadence constitutes the common denominator of all the literary trends that emerged during the last two decades of the nineteenth century” (7); George Ross Ridge, The Hero in French Decadent Literature (: University of Georgia Press, 1961), where decadence is termed the “common metaphysical concern” of symbolism, naturalism, and realism (2)(cited in Weir xvi-xvii). Christopher Lloyd’s J.-K. Huysmans and the Fin de siècle Novel organizes a critique of decadence and l’écriture artiste (the name for the ornamental style used by Huysmans and the Goncourts mainly), around a set of mostly thematic categories. The collection Huysmans: une esthétique de la décadence features a few essays on style and specifically description: Jean Foyard’s “Le système de la description de l’oeuvre d’art dans l’Art moderne” looks specifically at descriptive techniques Huysmans used in ekphrastic descriptions, or descriptions of works of art (Foyard, Jean. “Le système de la description de l’oeuvre d’art dans L’Art moderne,” in Guyaux, André. Huysmans: une esthétique de la decadence. Genève: Slatkin, 1987, 136-143.)

118 foremost “ce besoin de briser les limites du roman, d’y faire entrer l’art la science,

l’histoire, de ne plus se servir, en un mot, de cette forme que comme d’un cadre pour y

insérer de plus sérieux travaux,” (55).87 The fact that Huysmans considered the novel’s

narrative construction to be no more than a mere “frame” in which “more serious”

discussions could be set in relief against a narrative backdrop attests to his self-awareness

in, firstly, producing a novel made up mostly of descriptions of ideas about things, and,

secondly, subordinating narrative flow and plot generally to these descriptive and

essayistic, commentative passages. As Christopher Lloyd puts it, “When Huysmans talks

of breaking the limits of the novel, it is not the mimetic illusion of time and space which

he has in mind, but rather a shift in emphasis from narrative to discursive elements. His

‘plus sérieux travaux’ are parenthetical essays which invade all the novels from À

rebours onward,” (J.-K. Huysmans and the Fin de Siècle Novel 146). Many of

Huysmans’s “parenthetical essays,” or secondary descriptions – since the descriptions are

mimetic replicates, or descriptions of representations – are part of a greater tradition, one

of exposition, a commentative genre of prose. The term has many uses, and two interest

us here: firstly, an exposition is an expository article or treatise, such as a commentary;

secondly, an action (as in an occasion) or mode (as in a way) of expounding, explaining,

or interpreting. As commentary, Huysmans’s expository descriptions are academic in

tone, bearing a strong formal resemblance to short essays or pieces of criticism – not

dissimilar from his influential salons published in L’Art moderne and Certains, as well as

his work on medieval art and architecture.88 In this section I will analyze certain

87 All parenthetical page citations refer to À rebours. Paris: Garnier Flammarion, 1978. This citation, 55. 88 For a detailed description of Huysmans’s work on medieval art and architecture, see Emery, Elizabeth. “J.-K.Huysmans, Medievalist,” Modern Language Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Autumn, 2000), 119-131. On

119 commentative descriptions and their stylistic attributes in an effort to decode the

academic tone they generate. In doing so I hope to establish the technical basis of the

commentative aspect of Huysmans’s style that cooperates with the ornamental to create

the intellectual hybridity that made À rebours a transitional novel between the novelistic

codes of the nineteenth century and those of the early twentieth.

In À rebours, Huysmans makes use of commentative form to describe the objects

of des Esseintes’s esoteric interests, one of which is the stylistically experimental and

violent literature of the Silver Age. The description of Petronius’s Satyricon is central to

the third chapter, which covers the library at Fontenay, where Des Esseintes’s literary

choices are named and described in secondary descriptions that treat plots, styles, and

lives of the authors; writers from Virgil to St. Augustine get the same descriptive

treatment (although not always with the same glowing opinions). Beginning with a

subtly narrative frame for the opinion (“L’auteur qu’il aimait vraiment et qui lui faisait reléguer pour jamais hors de ses lectures les retentissantes adresses de Lucain, c’était

Pétrone.”(86)), the voices of narrator and character collapse in a full critique of the

Satyricon: “Celui-là était un observateur perspicace, un délicat analyste, un merveilleux peintre; tranquillement, sans parti pris, sans haine, il décrivait la vie journalière de Rome, racontait dans les alertes petits chapitres du Satyricon, les mœurs de son époque” (86).

This introductory sentence follows a pattern of redundancy typical of Huysmans: for every statement (“Celui-là était un observateur perspicace,”) there is a repetition in other terms, an elaboration (even reversing the adjective-noun order, for emphasis in this case):

Huysmans’s output as an art critic, see Kahn, Annette. J.-K. Huysmans: novelist, poet, and art critic. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1987.

120 (“un délicat analyste, un merveilleux peintre”).89 The object (what Phillipe Hamon calls the “dénomination” of the description) is clearly the Satyricon as a whole, including plot, narration, style, and tone, while the “expansion” of the description is made up of the group of words accumulated around the object.90 But in order to describe an entire work of literature a descriptor must first package it into a describable unit; the packaging is achieved through plot summary, exemplification, analogy, and generalization. To facilitate this, the description strings together a set of images extracted from Petronius’s text, organized by a metaphorical use of the spatial adverbs “ici” and “là”: “Ici, c’est l’inspecteur des garnis qui vient demander le nom des voyageurs récemment entrés; là, ce sont des lupanars où des gens rodent autour de femmes nues, debout entre les écriteaux, tandis que par les portes mal fermées des chambres, l’on entrevoit les ébats des couples; là, encore, au travers des villas d’un luxe insolent…”(86). Further integrating the description of Satyricon into the narration/description web of À rebours, Huysmans now almost completely revokes signs of distance between the opinion of the protagonist and that of the descriptor, offering the description at the surface level of the novelistic discourse (without framing):

Ce roman réaliste, cette tranche découpée dans le vif de la vie romaine, sans

préoccupation, quoi qu’on en puisse dire, de réforme et de satire, sans besoin de

fin apprêtée et de morale; cette histoire, sans intrigue, sans action, mettant en

scène les aventures de gibiers de Sodome; analysant avec une placide finesse les

89 Huysmans’s use of redundancy in the descriptions will be discussed further in the second section of this chapter as part of my analysis of the ornamental aspects of the style of À rebours. 90 “Un système descriptif est un jeu d’équivalences hierarchisées: équivalence entre une dénomination (un mot) et une expansion (un stock de mot juxtaposés en liste, ou coordonnées et subordonnés en un texte).” Hamon, Phillipe. Introduction 140.

121 joies et les douleurs de ces amours et de ces couples; dépeignant, en une langue

splendidement orfévrie, sans que l’auteur se montre une seule fois, sans qu'il se

livre à aucun commentaire, sans qu’il approuve ou maudisse les actes et les

pensées de ses personnages, les vices d’une civilisation décrépite, d’un empire

qui se fêle poignait des Esseintes et il entrevoyait dans le raffinement du style,

dans l’acuité de l’observation, dans la fermeté de la méthode, de singuliers

rapprochements, de curieuses analogies, avec les quelques romans français qu’il

supportait. (86)

In this passage critique and description are ineluctably entangled: by referring to the

Satyricon as “ce roman réaliste,” “cette tranche…” and “cette histoire,” the description

simultaneously performs both an identifying gesture and a critical assessment (des

Esseintes believes Petronius’s work to be an effective example of );

contributing to this tone of critique, “quoi qu’on en puisse dire” is a further crumpling of

the conventional descriptor-protagonist gap.91 The triple use of the demonstrative

adjective, known in the rhetorical tradition as a parallelism, is a rhetorical connector that

allows further descriptive expansion by re-activating the descriptive object without

repeating its proper name, thus allowing descriptive (and metaphorical) substitutions.

Throughout, examples given in relative detail solidify the impression of the work as a

whole; thus in describing the “langage” of Satyricon, the descriptor also alludes to the

content (“les vices d’une civilisation décrépite, d’un empire qui se fêle,”). Notably,

Huysmans uses an extreme separation of subject and verb (a stylistic trait now strongly

91 It should be noted that while a “gap” of implied objectivity is a convention of realistic literature from the mid-century, there are instances of similar convergence of the descriptor and observing protagonist, for example in Stendhal’s Le rouge et le noir.

122 identified with this author and “decadent” style after him92) to provide the syntactic

possibility of a fully integrated description: “Ce roman réaliste” and “poignait” appear at

the two ends of a passage which is rendered temporally inert by certain verb choices,

such as use of gerundives and the present subjunctive in relation to Petronius’s described

achievements. In the type and arrangement of descriptive material here, the passage is

not unlike a bit of literary criticism, and as such resembles descriptive treatments of

Baudelaire, Flaubert, Zola, Ernest Hello, Mallarmé, and Barbey d’Aurevilly in Chapter

XIV, the novel’s last great descriptive chapter.

Ekphrasis and novel form

Moreau avait ses qualités…il a cherché la poésie; mais, comme plus d’un de ce temps-là, il l’a cherchée dans l’accessoire. Il lui a manqué, d’ailleurs, d’être profondément peintre. Il me souvient de la grande déception que j’ai eu quand, très échauffé par les folles et furieuses descriptions d’Huysmans dans À rebours, je vis enfin quelques œuvres de Moreau. Je ne pus me tenir de dire à Huysmans que “c’était gris et terne comme un trottoir.” (Paul Valéry, on Huysmans’s ekphrastic descriptions of Gustave Moreau’s paintings, Degas, danse, dessin 49).

Among the descriptions of aesthetic objects in À rebours, some of the most prominent

are undoubtedly the detailed, ornamental, and complex descriptions of paintings by

Gustave Moreau to which Valéry refers. These verbal representations of visual

92 Huysmans’s syntactical separation of subject and verb is one of the most readily observable elements of his style. François Livi, choosing to call the effect of this syntactic disruption instability rather than fragmentation remarks as follows: “In effect, Huysmans’s sentences, like his thoughts, are always out of balance: the adverbial phrase constitutes an excellent means of accentuating that insecurity. But these forms of modification are hardly superficial. Above all, Huysmans attacks the structure of the sentence by altering as often as possible the subject-verb-complement order.” J.-K. Huysmans. "À rebours" et l'esprit decadent. Bruxelles: La Renaissance du livre, 1972.

123 representations belong to the modern category of ekphrasis.93 Ekphrasis refers to a literary description or commentary on a work of sculpture, pottery, or in this case, painting, and was more often associated more often with poetry than the novel before the mid-nineteenth century.94 Ekphrasis suffers the same difficulties as description in general

(indeed some have gone so far as to say that all descriptions are ekphrastic insofar as they always present a re-presentation of an observed image, self-consciously aesthetic or otherwise); for, as Edmund Burke put it in his Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of

Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful in 1757, descriptive words do not necessarily produce an image, but rather an act of informed interpretation of these words forms an idea of an image in our minds.95 Ekphrasis further poses the dilemma of the interrelation of spatio-temporality in the plastic and verbal arts; the former, static and synchronic or simultaneous (a painting presents itself fully to a viewer all at once (though we may

“read” a picture from left to right or from the middle outwards)) relates asymmetrically to

93 I refer here to the historical drift of the term’s referent from a “vivid description” to a description of a work of visual art; the modern usage, as Ruth Webb points out in “Ekphrasis ancient and modern: the invention of a genre” (in Word & Image, Vol. 15, No. 1, January-March 199, 7-18:10), was coined by Leo Spitzer in his 1955 essay "The "Ode on a Grecian Urn," Or Content Vs. Metagrammar." (Comparative Literature 7.3 (1955): 203-25). Further reading: Hagstrum, Jean H. The Sister Arts: the tradition of literary pictorialism and English poetry from Dryden to Gray. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958; Krieger, Murray. “Ekphrasis and the Still Movement of Poetry; or Laokoon Revisited.” The Poet as Critic. Ed. Frederick P.W. McDowell. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967: 3-26. Rpt. In Ekphrasis: the illusion of the natural sign. Baltimore: Press, 1991; Mitchell, W.J.T. “The Pictorial Turn,” in Picture Theory. Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994. 11-35; Yacobi, Tamar. “Pictorial Models and Narrative Ekphrasis.” Poetics Today 16 (1995) 599-649; Lund, Hans. Text as Picture: studies in the literary transformation of pictures. Trans. Kacke Götrick. Lewiston: E. Mellen Press, 1992. 94 Earlier instances of ekphrastic prose certainly exist; one thinks of Rousseau’s art criticism and its descriptions of salon paintings for instance – but the novel was not a major form for descriptions of visual art until the mid-nineteenth century. A significant example of ekphrastic description in a novel before À rebours is Dostoevsky’s description of Hans Holbein’s Dead Christ in The Idiot of 1868. Several significant works in the history of ekphrasis criticism in the twentieth century center on poetic representations of visual art, with special momentum in the field of 19th century British romanticism’s common references to urns and pottery (Spitzer, Krieger especially). 95 Part Five, Sections IV, V, and VI argue this point: “In short, it is not only of those ideas which are commonly called abstract, and of which no image at all can be formed, but even of particular real beings, that we converse without having any idea of them excited in the imagination…indeed so little does poetry depend for its effect on the power of raising sensible images, that I am convinced it would lose a very considerable part of its energy, if this were the necessary result of all description” (155).

124 the latter, which is always diachronic and “active,” or, as Lessing put it, the painting is

constituted by “figures and colors in space,” whereas the text is constituted by “articulate

sounds in time,” (Laocoön 149).96 Although painting, as spatial and synchronic, could be

thought of as a primarily descriptive art (in terms of its baseline temporality), the

ineluctable difference between the visual and the linguistic complicates the formal issue

of the internal coherence of an ekphrastic description. This is because, as previously

noted, description already relates relatively synthetically to the innate narrativity of

written language: descriptions or descriptive pauses must produce the impression of

simultaneity and spatial uniformity within the grammatical constraints of written, and

read, prose.97 When a passage describes a painting or other work of visual art, a

secondary, reciprocal level of representational patterning (including, for instance,

integration of narrative signifiers in a history painting) must integrate with the internal

temporal codes of verbal description itself. Further, an ekphrastic description must

situate itself in the surrounding text while maintaining this coherence. The ekphrastic

tradition relies on figural “framing” as a marker for the distinction between primary and

secondary description (a character looking, a phrase establishing the relative location of

the object), though the semiotic status of these markers can only established contextually

96 Nonetheless, as Murray Krieger notes in his distinguished essay on the topic, “There is a sense in which literature, as a time-art, does have special time-space powers. Through pattern, through context, it has the unique power to celebrate time’s movement as well as to arrest it, to arrest it in the very act of celebrating it. Its involvement with progression, with empirical movement, always accompanies its archetypal principle of repetition, of eternal return. The poem can uniquely order spatial stasis within its temporal dynamics because through its echoes and its texture it can produce – together with the illusion of progressive movement – the illusion of an organized simultaneity.” In Ekphrasis: the illusion of the natural sign. Emblems by Joan Krieger. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992, 285. 97 Meir Sternberg’s rendering of the temporal function of textual patterning in his essay “Ordering the Unordered: Time, Space, and Descriptive Coherence” explains the spatio-temporal complications activated at the junction of visual and literary art in description: “Of the two sides of descriptive coherence, as the variable product of relations between coexistent entities ranged along a continuum of discourse, the emphasis has so far fallen more on the spatial object than on the temporal medium. What needs to be stressed, therefore, is that each organizing principle that serves to integrate the description as a simultaneous whole may also serve to direct and justify its sequential unfolding” (65).

125 (Mitchell 159).98 In À rebours, as I will discuss here, these contextual markers are comparatively, and perhaps purposefully weak, as des Esseintes’s observations tend to bleed over into the narration generally.

The temporal problem posed by ekphrastic description is therefore a double one: the problem of how to adequately describe a non-narrative representational genre compounds with that of description’s relationship to language as it operates through time.

Huysmans’s first description of Gustave Moreau’s painting of ’s dance is a particularly illustrative example. The description opens as des Esseintes is considering his favorite painters, and settles on Gustave Moreau (“Entre tous, un artiste existait dont le talent le ravissait en de longs transports, Gustave Moreau”); the description’s inception is marked by both a paragraph break, gestural phrase, and punctuation as framing techniques (“Il avait acquis ses deux chefs-d'oeuvre et, pendant des nuits, il rêvait devant l'un deux, le tableau de la Salomé, ainsi conçu:…”). Huysmans describes two of

Moreau’s paintings in succession, the first, La danse, is described as portraying Salome at an instant when she is dancing, while the second, L’apparition, depicts a moment after the decapitation of the Baptist. Of this first painting, the description begins with a survey of visual elements, beginning with the palace architecture, rendered in the imperfect tense with a marked use of past participles typical of Huysmans’s style: “Un trône se dressait, pareil au maître-autel d'une cathédrale, sous d'innombrables voûtes jaillissaient des

98 Mitchell recognizes the dilemma of descriptive coherence and ekphrastic markers: “No special textual features can be assigned to ekphrasis, any more than we can, in grammatical or stylistic terms, distinguish descriptions of paintings, statues, or other visual representations from descriptions of any other kind of object. Even “description” itself, the most general form of ekphrasis, has, as Gerard Genette has demonstrated, only a kind of phantom existence at the level of the signifier: “the differences which separate description and narration are differences of content, which strictly speaking, have no semiological existence.” (Genette Figures of Literary Discourse 136, quoted in Mitchell 159). Francoise Meltzer suggests that Huysmans “dilates the concept of depiction” in the description of Salome (below) due to his minimal use of framing in the transition from primary to secondary levels of description (Salome and the Dance of Writing 23).

126 colonnes trapues ainsi que des piliers romans, émaillées de briques polychrômes, serties de mosaïques, incrustées de lapis et de sardoines, dans un palais semblable à une basilique d'une architecture tout à la fois musulmane et byzantine” (104). Herod is described in similar fashion, as static as the architecture: “le Tétrarque Hérode était assis, coiffé d’une tiare, les jambes approchées …” (105). However when the description proceeds to Salome herself, verbs shift to the present tense:

Dans l'odeur perverse des parfums, dans l'atmosphère surchauffée de cette église,

Salomé, le bras gauche étendu, en un geste de commandement, le bras droit

replié, tenant à la hauteur du visage, un grand lotus, s'avance lentement sur les

pointes, aux accords d'une guitare dont une femme accroupie pince les cordes. La

face recueillie, solennelle, presque auguste elle commence la lubrique danse qui

doit réveiller les sens assoupis du vieil Hérode; ses seins ondulent et, au

frottement de ses colliers qui tourbillonnent, leurs bouts se dressent; sur la

moiteur de sa peau les diamants, attachés, scintillent; ses bracelets, ses ceintures,

ses bagues, crachent des étincelles; sur sa robe triomphale, couturée de perles,

ramagée d'argent, lamée d'or, la cuirasse des orfèvreries dont chaque maille est

une pierre, entre en combustion, croise des serpenteaux de feu, grouille sur la

chair mate, sur la peau rose thé, ainsi que des insectes splendides aux élytres

éblouissants, marbrés de carmin, ponctués de jaune aurore, diaprés de bleu d'acier,

tigrés de vert paon.” (ibid.)

127 The description is notable in its total lack of language usually attributed to painting, such as mention of the contour or colors of the forms depicted. Instead of employing the terminology of painting, Huysmans narrativizes the image through description, transforming the painted image into an ongoing action, though it is a relatively “slow” narrative progression with few active narrative markers. With Salome’s animation in the dance the description shifts from the imperfect to the present tense, distinguishing background (architecture, observers; static, imperfect) from foreground (dancer; active, present) and thereby activating the static information of the painting. The background- foreground gap is highlighted by the extreme extension of the subordinate sections of the descriptive phrases framed by minimal narrative markers as mentioned above: in

“Salomé…s’avance,” and “elle commence,” with subject and verb distanced in the first phrase, the relatively innocuous verbs the only active narrative statements of each respective sentence. These basic sentence components are clearly of lesser importance than the remainder of the description, a complex composition of adjectival clauses that makes use of multiple strategies of delay: for example in “La face recueillie, solennelle, presque auguste elle commence,” the subject-verb pair are jointly transposed to the end of the phrase. Similarly “les diamants, attachés, scintillent,” and “ses bracelets, ses ceintures, ses bagues, crachent des étincelles,” verbs are suspended until the end of the adjectival clause, though with different kinds descriptive fillers in each case. Indeed the entire description is characterized by temporal delay, enacted through manipulation of syntax. The case is similar in the description of L’Apparition, in which the ekphrastic language limits the depicted scene to a certain moment in an imagined (at least insofar as this particular scene does not refer directly to the biblical text) narrative:99 this scene is

99 Françoise Meltzer emphasizes this description’s complex relationship to both the written biblical story

128 temporally isolated by a single verb transformation, from anteriorizing to activating,

mobilizing language:

Le meurtre était accompli; maintenant le bourreau se tenait impassible, les mains

sur le pommeau de sa longue épée, tachée de sang…Le chef décapité du saint

s’était élevée du plat prose sur les dalles et il regardait, livide, la bouche

décolorée, ouverte, le cou cramoisi, dégouttant de larmes…d’un geste

d’épouvante, Salomé repousse la terrifiante vision qui la cloue, immobile, sur les

pointes; ses yeux se dilatent, sa main étreint convulsivement sa gorge. (108)

There follows a paragraph-length description of the dancer’s body, parallel to that of the

description of the first painting. Then:

Sous les traits ardents échappés de la tête du Précurseur, toutes les facettes des

joailleries s’embrasent; les pierres s’animent, dessinent le corps de la femme en

traits incandescents; la piquent au cou, aux jambes, aux bras, de points de feu,

vermeils comme des charbons, violets comme des jets de gaz, bleus comme des

flammes d’alcool, blancs comme des rayons d’astre. L’horrible tête flamboie,

saignant toujours, mettant des caillots de pourpre sombre, aux pointes de la barbe

et des cheveux. Visible pour la Salomé seule, elle n’étreint pas de son morne

and Flaubert’s Salammbô, which ostensibly served as a literary model for Moreau’s painting: “Huysmans, in describing the Moreau paintings, attempts to translate a pictorial art into prose; but the paintings he is describing were inspired by writing. It is this symbiotic relationship between writing and painting that Salome provides – both in her biblical origins and in the countless depictions her story has generated – and Huysmans’s prose rendition thus from the outset demonstrates the extent to which “writing” may be seen, like painting, as a form of augmented iconization,” (Salome and the Dance of Writing 19). Huysmans even quotes a French translation of the biblical text between the two painting descriptions (À rebours 106).

129 regard, l’Hérodias qui rêve à ses haines enfin abouties, le tétrarque, qui, penché

un peu en avant, les mains sur les genoux, halète encore, affolé par cette nudité de

femme imprégnée de senteurs fauves, roulée dans les baumes, fumée dans les

encens et dans les myrrhes. (108)

Again the description is framed by a rhetorical marker that subtly narrates the shift in des Esseintes attention from the first painting to the second: “Quoi qu’il en fut, une irrésistible fascination se dégageait de cette toile, mais l’aquarelle intitulée

L’Apparition était peut-être plus inquiétante encore,” in keeping with the superficial plot of the novel, the transition is contemplative rather than gestural (107). Unlike the first painting, however, the description of L’Apparition employs terms particular to painting, emphasizing the visuality of the original representation. Word order and verb choice create the more stagnant tone of this description; the description prefers verbs that describe states of being, not actions, and the repeated use of the present participle reinforces the sense of an extended moment. Delaying the appearance of verbs or grouping them together at the middle of the sentences draws attention toward the periphery of the phrase where the details can be found: adjectival clauses and list-like comparisons (vermeils...violets…bleus…blancs; imprégnée…roulée…fumée). The emphasis lies therefore in the descriptive details in their precision and quantity rather than the total image, in single components observed at distinct instances rather than a narrative sequence characterized by flow and continuity. In its transformation from visual image to descriptive passage the painting acquires the hierarchical organizational pattern, in addition to the temporal separation characteristic of written language.

130 Worth equal notice is the commentative passage that follows each description.

Like the passages on the Satyricon discussed above, the commentary on Moreau’s

Salome pictures is critical in tone and exhaustive in its factual detail. Huysmans details the Gospel story on which the painting is based, noting that “…ni saint Mathieu, ni saint

Marc, ni saint Luc, ni les autres évangélistes ne s’étendaient sur les charmes délirants, sur les actives dépravations de la danseuse;” the interpretive material further elaborates and adds to the descriptive in a manner similar to the commentary on Satyricon (106). These passages turn from the painting to the painter, from other images on this theme produced by other artists to a lineage of Moreau’s style. Finally the opinion, unveiled in the commentative passage, assesses and synthesizes Moreau’s work into the À rebours aesthetic:

La vérité était que Gustave Moreau ne dérivait de personne. Sans ascendant

véritable, sans descendants possibles, il demeurait, dans l'art contemporain,

unique. Remontant aux sources ethnographiques, aux origines des mythologies

dont il comparait et démêlait les sanglantes énigmes; réunissant, fondant en une

seule les légendes issues de l'extrême orient et métamorphosées par les croyances

des autres peuples, il justifiait ainsi ses fusions architectoniques, ses amalgames

luxueux et inattendus d'étoffes, ses hiératiques et sinistres allégories aiguisées par

les inquiètes perspicuités d'un nervosisme tout moderne. (109)

Like later descriptions of paintings by Jan Luyken, Odilon Redon, Francisco

Goya, and El Greco, Huysmans’s treatment of Moreau’s two pictures in À rebours

131 performs both an integrative synthesis of the represented images into the novel’s overall

anatomy and a critical interpretation of the paintings at a level of detailed observation not

unlike that paid to the world of objects described by texts written in a realist mode. The

notion of description as interpretation is here doubled; descriptions are self-consciously

interpretive, and that interpretation is itself explicated, commented upon, and made part

of the novel’s larger hermeneutic process. In creating ekphrastic descriptions that are

intensely precise (and thus extremely slow) as well as commentative and critical,

Huysmans pulls from the late realist repertoire while engaging the novel in a genre of

intellectual discourse the role of which, in this context, is played out at a relatively high

level of compositional experimentation.

Ornamentation in descriptive prose

Despite the high degree of precision and academic tone of many descriptions in À

rebours, some of these same descriptions feature ornamental flourishes that create

informational redundancies. These ornamental flourishes appear everywhere in À

rebours, but with particular frequency in descriptions of sense impressions in a particular

moment, a phenomenon that has lead some critics to associate Huysmans’s ornamental

style with the impressioniste trend in painting in the 1870s.100 But the precision of

Huysmans’s language goes against this association, for despite its overabundance descriptive language for Huysmans is always exact and written in an academic, if ornamented, style. Huysmans’s descriptions in À rebours seem to overflow with descriptive information. The sense one gets of excess, or of superfluity, stems from

100 See Brunetière, Psychologie 88.

132 Huysmans’s use of unusually long, detailed, and abundantly modified describing phrases within similarly long and unbroken descriptive passages. By nineteenth century expectations for descriptive language, the modifications of Huysmans’s descriptive presentation are excessive both in number and in complexity. These excessive, or ornamental elements are unnecessary for description to serve its usual purpose of contextualizing and legitimizing plot. However, because in À rebours plot is subservient to description, descriptive modifications are in turn no longer restrained by a rule of correspondence to narrative elements; even for the sake of an effet de réel. Perhaps this reversal is what led commentators like Nordau to claim À rebours was “not a novel:” this text reverses some conventions, discards others, and deliberately divorces the utility of descriptive elements from creation of meaning on a broader, novel-wide scale.

At its most basic level, the concept of ornament is usually associated with that of expression outside the primary field; it is “an accessory or adjunct, primarily functional, but often also fancy or decorative; something used to adorn, beautify, or embellish, or that naturally does this; a decoration,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Ornamentation is an accessory to a primary form (be it musical, architectural, literary, etc.), and can thus be seen as unnecessary; this is the basis for condemnations of ornamentation as morally repugnant, including Adolf Loos’s 1908 essay “Ornament and

Crime,” during the height of Art Nouveau. Contemporary sources indicate the notion that ornament by definition goes beyond what is necessary, in this case for communication, was conventional in Huysmans’s time. In his 1883 text Théorie de l’ornement, Jules

Burgoin defines ornament as follows:

133 Non seulement l’ornement est une création, une invention par-dessus la forme

nécessaire et utile, et un développement luxuriant par delà la forme esthétique,

mais c’est encore une œuvre géniale et privativement humaine, au delà de la

création et sans lien nécessaire avec les êtres de la nature. (4)

In the light of this concept of ornament, the question in Huysmans’s descriptions therefore becomes how to delineate the necessary from the superfluous in descriptive language, and more precisely, in descriptive form.

A look at Huysmans’s descriptions reveals some difficulty in differentiating between necessary and useless in the matter of descriptive material; each descriptive phrase, even in the longest and most serpentine passages, does add something new to the meaning of the description, even if only by virtue of accumulation as an emphatic strategy. This is visible in a passage describing the decoration of the dining room at

Fontenay; while everything that follows “cette sale à manger ressemblait à la cabine d’un navire” is an elaboration of that basic fact, the phrases that follow do lend a foreseeable level of additional detail to that statement, in the context of nineteenth century descriptive conventions:

Cette salle à manger ressemblait à la cabine d’un navire avec son plafond voûté,

muni de poutres en demi-cercle, ses cloisons et son plancher, en bois de pitchpin,

sa petite croisée ouverte dans la boiserie, de même qu’un hublot dans un sabord.

(77)

134 The above description does not go beyond the usual level of detail in a description, for instance, in one of Zola’s novels. In the matter of descriptive form, however, Huysmans’s compositional style does tend to diverge what would have been expected at the time; the passage above is a relatively concise descriptive sentence for À rebours. In most cases, Huysmans will tend toward longer, more complex sentences: instead of a single phrase attributing qualities to described objects, he uses three or four, or creates complex diversions that, while still associated tangentially to the object, diverge in type or tone from the language used to describe up to that point. This complexity, added to his tendency toward creating lists, produces descriptive sentences that are longer, less unified in concept, more disparate in clausal structure, and slower in reading time than descriptive sentences in other novels of the same period. In addition,

Huysmans often groups describing phrases into one sentence that could otherwise be independent sentences themselves, adding to the length and perceived instability of the whole sentence. So, for instance, in a description of cosmetics, Chapitre X:

Ici, une boîte en porcelaine, de la famille verte, contenait le schnouda, cette

merveilleuse crème blanche qui, une fois étendue sur les joues, passe, sous

l’influence de l’air, au rose tendre, puis à un incarnat si réel qu’il procure

l’illusion vraiment exacte d’une peau colorée de sang; là, des laques, incrustés de

burgau, renfermaient de l’or Japonais et du vert d’Athènes, couleur d’aile de

cantharide, des ors et des verts qui se transmuent en une pourpre profonde des

qu’on les mouille; près des pots pleins de pâte d’aveline, de serkis du harem,

d’émulsines au lys de kachemyr, de lotions d’au de fraise et de sureau pour le

135 teint, et près des petites bouteilles remplies de solutions d’encre de Chine et d’eau

de rose à l’usage des yeux, des instruments en ivoire, en nacre, en acier, en argent,

s’étalaient éparpillés avec des brosses en luzerne pour les gencives : des pinces,

des ciseaux, des strigiles, des estompes, des crêpons et des houppes, des gratte-

dos, des mouches et des limes. (159)

As in Flaubert’s directionally structured long descriptions, here “ici” and “là” provide some rhetorical support for the description, which otherwise lacks compositional focus. In another, hypothetical writer’s work, one would expect to see sentence breaks contouring the description; instead, Huysmans connects additional modifications separated by commas (“le schnouda, cette merveilleuse crème blanche qui…passe…au rose tendre, etc.” interrupted by “une fois étendue sur les joues,” and “sous l’influence de l’air,” which could, for ease of reading, be transposed to other areas of the sentence) and adds lists where one might expect a full stop preceding a change of focus (from cosmetics to instruments, for example). Again, although this level of detail is not entirely unusual in a description of this period, Huysmans’s grouping of so much detail, and so unevenly

(some elements receive more emphasis than others), into a single sentence is unconventional and could be seen as excessive. By going beyond the normal limits of sentence length and complexity Huysmans’s description destabilizes the relationships between detail, description, and narrative whole, dispersing his reader’s attention across a wider textual expanse, at risk of losing it completely. We see the same pattern again and again in À rebours: irregular descriptive focus, long sentences that could be divided into

136 shorter ones but are instead filled up with phrases separated by commas, and lists of

proper nouns.

Critical scholarship on this issue in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw Huysmans’s idiosyncratic style as symptomatic of cultural decline, generating

literary historical and psychological explanations for the emergence of the decorative

écriture artiste (a name assigned to their own writing by the ) in the

last years of the nineteenth century from the chronological correspondence of these forms

with certain anxieties about an increasingly visible philosophical pessimism and popular

absorption of late romantic bohemian culture.101 From this standpoint, decadence in form

is used as a metaphor for the concept of decadence based on a certain narrative theory of

history.102 Paul Bourget’s formulation of decadence draws a direct analogy between a decadent style that emphasizes ornamental detail and socio-cultural decline, projecting a critique that would become common in modernist anti-ornamentalism at the turn of the century and beyond. Bourget draws an analogy between social life and the life of a biological organism, citing the “law” that “pour que l'organisme total fonctionne avec

énergie, il est nécessaire que les organismes moindres fonctionnent…avec une énergie subordonnée, et, pour que ces organismes moindres fonctionnent eux-mêmes avec

énergie, il est nécessaire que leurs cellules composantes fonctionnent avec énergie, mais avec une énergie subordonnée” (Psychologie 19). A second analogy, this time to literature, completes the formula:

101 On the concept of decadence as cultural decline, see Swart, Koenraad D. The Sense of Decadence in Nineteenth-Century France; Bourdieu, Pierre, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, trans. Susan Emanuel, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996; Roger Shattuck, The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885 to World War I, rev. ed. New York; Vintage, 1968; and Jerrold Seigel, Bohemian Paris: Culture, Politics, and the Boundaries of Bourgeois Life, 1830-1930. New York: Viking Penguin, 1986. 102 See Morley, Neville. “Decadence as a Theory of History.” New Literary History Volume 35, Number 4, Autumn 2004, 573-585.

137

Si l'énergie des cellules devient indépendante, les organismes qui composent

l'organisme total cessent pareillement de subordonner leur énergie à l'énergie

totale, et l'anarchie qui s'établit constitue la décadence de l'ensemble. L'organisme

social n'échappe pas à cette loi. Il entre en décadence aussitôt que la vie

individuelle s'est exagérée sous l'influence du bien-être acquis et de l'hérédité.

Une même loi gouverne le développement et la décadence de cet autre organisme

qui est le langage. Un style de décadence est celui où l'unité du livre se

décompose pour laisser la place à l'indépendance de la page, où la page se

décompose pour laisser la place à l'indépendance de la phrase, et la phrase pour

laisser la place à l'indépendance du mot. (19)

Bourget’s biological-social-literary model simplifies the jump from a thematic discussion – it must be admitted that des Esseintes’s isolation in À rebours and his prominence as the only significant character must represent an instance of the individual being elevated over the collective – to a discussion of style. This vertical analogizing has since lead Huysmans criticism both to intermix thematic and formal concerns in critiques of decadence and to conflate, accurately in one sense, the concepts of decadence, impressionism, ornamentalism, and symbolism in assessments of the fin de siècle zeitgeist. Observations of syntactic breakdown extend this notion of a set of stylistic tendencies signaling personal degeneracy, for instance: François Livi sees Huysmans’s style as quite simply a bitter attack on sentence structure, a symptom of the imbalance of his thoughts (J.-K. Huysmans et l’esprit décadent 98).

138 Of particular interest in the discussion of descriptive style are conclusions regarding the effects of Huysmans’s syntactic choices, including Cressot’s reading of the typical subject-verb separation and frequent inversion as producing impressionistic effects with analogues to painterly impressionism because of a parallel causality introduced by these two styles. Using Charles Bally’s definition of impressionism,

Marcel Cressot’s La Phrase et le vocabulaire de J.-K. Huysmans is a grammatical guidebook to this interpretation: “Le phénomène est saisi dans une impression immédiate comme un fait simple: les causes comme les suites n’intéressent pas, c’est le mode d’aperception phénoméniste ou impressionniste. Il s’oppose à la perception logique qui considère le phénomène dans un rapport de cause à effet” (Impressionisme quoted in

Cressot 14). Cressot argues that the stylistic innovations that appear as ornamentation (in the sense of deviation) in Huysmans and the Goncourts underline an endeavor to portray sensation in its immediacy by foregrounding effects (impressions) over causes (objects of sensation). While the observation is sound, its totality may be misleading; as Christopher

Lloyd puts it, “[impressionism] is supposed to capture sensations in their immediate, concrete freshness, but its linguistic devices tend to be based on abstract nouns which are bizarrely animated and verbal constructions which suggest frozen duration” (32). Lloyd suggests that Huysmans’s use of ornamental language is not a threat to the causal logic of mimetic art, but is rather an outgrowth of his interest in broadening the scope of the novel as a discursive form while practicing certain compositional techniques developed under the influence of the concept of naturalism.

In the context of a history of descriptive style in the nineteenth century, the stylistic traits attributed to impressionism and a “decadent” style, in both word choice and

139 especially word order – abundance of impersonal constructions, deliberate de-emphasis

of verbs, animation of objects (phrases like “cette maison s’est rapidement construite,”

instead of “cette maison a été construite rapidement,”), characterization of verbs

(nominalization), repetition of articles and words serving article-like functions (such as

demonstrative or possessive adjectives), in addition to apparent negligence of the

relationship between cause and effect as manifested in subject-verb-complement motility

– emerge from the same fundamental displacement of focus from the development of a

fictional world to its state of being, from narration to description (Cressot 14-15, 26). As such, and somewhat contradictorily, the “decadent” mannerisms of Huysmans’s writing emerge from the same energy as did the technical style discussed in the rest of this chapter. Unlike Flaubert however, whose style was self-effacing in its effort to integrate compounded observational modes in a seamless and orderly compositional strategy,

Huysmans openly complicates representibility, calling attention to the problem by disrupting sentence flow with subordinate structures, relying more on symbolic language, and altering conventional word order for ornamental effect. Rather than judge one or another of these attributes of Huysmans’s descriptive style as totally dominant, I suggest we see them as co-inhabiting a set of written structures in an atmosphere of balance and tension in À rebours.

Word order

To expand on the discussion of the idiosyncrasies of Huysmans’s use of syntax above, I would like to focus more closely on word order and movement within

140 descriptive phrases in À rebours’ descriptions. Separation of subject and verb, disruption

of subject-verb-complement order, and delayed appearance of subject and verb in a

phrase all occur frequently in Huysmans’s descriptive sentences. These features are the

results of Huysmans’s tendency to extend the descriptive sentence. The structuring

elements of these sentences move in relative position and become separated because his

descriptions contain so many details and modifications of those details, and because

Huysmans chose to extend individual descriptive sentences rather than create multiple,

shorter descriptive sentences. Huysmans’s descriptive elaborations, and the precision of

those elaborations, necessitate unusual sentence structure. It is a case in which an

unusually high degree of structuration – and his structures are always grammatical, even

if long – has an effect of apparent fragmentation and diminishment of that structure

relative to other elements.

The fragmentation effect of his dispersal of the sentence structure caused by

subject-verb separation has been criticized as a manifestation of Huysmans’s apparent

decadence, since the technique favors a multiplication of referents inside a single sentence and places emphasis on the individual phrase elements rather on the phrase in its totality, thus disabling a sense of unity more in keeping with classical ideals for composition, as per Bourget’s observation.103 These unusual constructions are not mere

“attacks” on sentence structure, intended to inflict a “breakdown;” in descriptions they serve, rather, to make compositional space available to the abundance of details necessary to a technically detailed representation in the manner of Flaubert, even if that representation is of an experience of objects normally connected with aestheticism (in the

103 Though the subject-verb-complement sequence is highly conventionalized in modern French, its use only really became prevalent in the classical period (Ullman, Style in the French Novel 148).

141 manner of des Esseintes). A passage from the tenth chapter of À rebours will illustrate this point. In this chapter a sequence of observations of his perfume collection leads des

Esseintes into a reverie on the possible combinations of these perfumes and finally to a commentative discussion of the symbolic art of perfumery similar in composition to the commentary on Satyricon. Here it is the predominantly descriptive account of des

Esseintes’s contemplation that is of interest:

Enfin, quand il eut assez savouré ce spectacle, il dispersa précipitamment les

parfums exotiques, épuisa ses vaporisateurs, accéléra ses esprits concentrés,

lâcha bride à tous ses baumes, et dans la touffeur exaspérée de la pièce, éclata

une nature démente et sublimée, forçant ses haleines, chargeant d’alcoolats en

délire une artificielle brise, une nature pas vraie et charmante, toute paradoxale,

réunissant les piments des tropiques, les souffles poivrées du santal de la Chine

et de l’hediosmia de la Jamaïque, aux odeurs françaises du jasmin, de

l’aubépine et de la verveine, poussant, en dépit des saisons et des climats, des

arbres d’essences diverses, des fleurs aux couleurs et aux fragrances les plus

opposées, créant par la fonte et le heurt de tous ces tons, un parfum général,

innommé, imprévu, étrange, dans lequel reparaissait, comme un obstiné refrain,

la phrase décorative du commencement, l’odeur du grand pré, éventé par les

lilas et les tilleuls. (158)

This long sentence, which straddles narration and description, uses a few of the ornamental tics related to verb use that appear regularly in À rebours. Beginning with a

142 diminutive narrated introduction (“quand il eut assez savouré…il dispersa”), a series of

verbs in the passé simple are loaded to the beginning of the phrase in an increasingly

detailed set-up of the description of the perfumes (dispersa, épuisa, accéléra, lâcha,

éclata); in what follows only present participles are used. In a manner similar to

Flaubert’s usage of the gerundive (only lacking an en), these verbs become part of the

descriptive canvas as present participles denoting progressive action, clustered in a way

that renders them mere components of a collection of descriptive details in the second

part of the sentence (Grevisse, Le bon usage 1149). The junction between these two

sentence fragments evokes the idea of nature created by the mixture of perfumes by a

reversal of subject and verb positions (éclata…une nature) compounded with an extended

subject-verb drift (il…éclata). The “nature” conjured by the perfumes becomes the

primary object of description, making compounded appearances in a series of adjectives

and a decorative negation (“pas vraie” instead of “fausse”). A second separation occurs,

this time between the present participle “réunissant” and “une nature,” with a structural

echo in the delays between reunited objects (in this case, scents: exotic and local). The

cumulative effect of the digressions introduced by “créant…” and “poussant…” and the

syntactical inversion of sentence elements evoke a grand amalgamation, the sum total of

known perfumes as generated by the combination des Esseintes created in that instant.

This complex layering of descriptive referents acts as a catalyst for the associative

transition from description to reverie and adds to the symbolic current of the passage by

accentuating the internal correspondences and contradictions between the described scents and their effects. In an opposing way, but with similar effects, in the following composition Huysmans delays the appearance of the main verb of the descriptive

143 sentence, adding on information with modifying clauses both before and after the central phrase, “les ecclésiastiques employaient…une langue immuable.” This description follows a passage describing the style of Barbey d’Aurevilly, which follows roughly the same pattern.

Mêlé aux profanes, élevé au milieu de l’école romantique, au courant des

œuvres nouvelles, habituée au commerce des publications modernes, Barbey était

forcément en possession d’un dialecte qui avait supporté de nombreuses et

profondes modifications, qui s’était renouvelé, depuis le grand siècle.

Confinés au contraire sur leur territoire, écroués dans d’identiques et

d’anciennes lectures, ignorant le mouvement littéraire des siècles et bien décidés,

au besoin, à se crever les yeux pour ne pas le voir, les ecclésiastiques employaient

nécessairement une langue immuable, comme cette langue du XVIIIe siècle que

les descendants des Français établis au parlent et écrivent couramment

encore, sans qu’aucune sélection de tournures ou de mots ait pu se produire dans

leur idiome isolée de l’ancienne métropole et enveloppée, de tous les côtés, par la

langue anglaise. (193)

In order to accommodate the quantity of detail and explanation Huysmans chooses to associate with each central descriptive statement regarding these writers, he expands the sentence with added phrases, separated by commas. The accumulation of such phrases causes the delay in the appearance of the main clause. The same tendency to accumulate

144 descriptive material in one area of the sentence, isolating structuring elements, appears in

sentences where these elements precede the extensive modifications or lists; in this case,

a colon is used to stabilize the description, thus rendering additional verbs unnecessary.

For instance:

Il assimilait volontiers le magasin d’un horticulteur à un microcosme où était

représentées toutes les catégories de la société: les fleurs pauvres et canailles, les

fleurs de bouge, qui ne sont dans leur vrai milieu que lorsqu’elles reposent sur des

rebords des mansards, les racines tassées dans des boites au lait et de vieilles

terrines, la giroflée, par exemple; les fleurs prétentieuses, convenues, bêtes, dont

la place est seulement dans les cache-pots de porcelaine peints par des jeunes

filles, telles que la rose…(132)

The description continues to name and describe additional flowers. This pattern of introducing a descriptive passage with a short narrative phrase appears most frequently in passages that showcase lists of items using precise nouns, a fact that may lead readers to the sense of having lost the central thread of the sentence. Despite this Huysmans never technically loses track of his style – the impression of fragmentation results from the detail, and therefore the length, of the description. Observation of Huysmans’s unexpected word order reveals, therefore, that his descriptions do adhere to the technical rules of sentence structure, but do tend to test the tolerance of syntax in terms of the length, complexity, and placement of descriptive phrases.

145

Substitutions and reversals

Adjectives and adjectival clauses are unarguably central to most descriptive language, but their relative placement and internal components are by no means stable in

Huysmanian descriptions. Reversal of relative position and function of adjectives and adjectival clauses seems to be a favorite technique for Huysmans. In particular, the use of a past participle or a noun as a functional adjective can have a reductive effect in descriptions (in the case of nouns used as adjectives) or a subtle effect of anteriorization

(in the case of past participles used as adjectives). Cressot notes that this second usage, which developed into an affectation in Huysmans’s case, was left over from classical

Latin and appeared in nineteenth century written French as “partie du bagage des

étudiants latinistes,” (La phrase et le vocabulaire de J.-K. Huysmans 56). In a description the effect of this preference for the past participle is immediately apparent as it imbalances the connection between noun and its attribute toward the past instead of the present of narration.

A second feature that appears in connection with functional adjectives is, of course, the adjectival (relative) clause, which often serves as a digression to a descriptive body, tacking on new objects of elaboration as well as new attributive categories, including effects or impressions introduced by relative pronouns:

Les lambris une fois parés, il fit peindre les baguettes et les hautes plinthes en un

indigo foncé, en un indigo laqué, semblable à celui que les carrossiers emploient

146 pour les panneaux des voitures, et le plafond, un peu arrondi, également tendu de

maroquin, ouvrit tel qu'un immense oeil-de-boeuf, enchâssé dans sa peau

d'orange, un cercle de firmament en soie bleu de roi, au milieu duquel montaient,

à tire-d'ailes, des séraphins d'argent, naguère brodés par la confrérie des tisserands

de Cologne, pour une ancienne chape. (74)

The adjectival excursions are evenly distributed throughout his rhythmic and detailed physical description. This is not the case in this description of ecclesiastical language:

Confinés au contraire su leur territoire, écroués dans d’identiques et d’anciennes

lectures, ignorant le mouvement littéraire des siècles et bien décidés, au besoin, à

se crever les yeux pour ne pas le voir, les ecclésiastiques employaient

nécessairement une langue immuable, comme cette langue de dix-huitième siècle

que les descendants des français établis au Canada parlent et écrivent couramment

encore, sans qu’aucune sélection de tournures ou de mots ait pu se produire dans

leur idiome isolé de l’ancienne métropole et enveloppé, de tous les cotés, par la

langue anglaise. (193)

This passage combines present and past participles (confinés, écroués, ignorant, décidés) and delays the appearance of subject and verb in the sentence (in a similar manner to the

Salome description); the adjectival clause “cette langage…que” introduces a descriptive

147 digression that leads the entire description to an end utterly distanced from its beginning.

It is difficult to assess whether these forms lead to referential disjunction (as they split

described objects into associative digression) or to the intended conjoining of objects

through comparison. At the very least both principles are in action, though it may be the

disjunctive effect of the additional relative clauses so isolates the compared objects as to

disassociate them completely in the reading process.

Rhythm and sentence structure

A final effect of Huysmans’s ornamental use of adjectival clauses and inversion

within phrases is probably best seen in a description, oddly enough, of a landscape:

La saison allait en se détraquant; toute se confondaient, cette année-là; après les

rafales et les brumes, des ciels chauffés à blanc, tels que des plaques de tôle,

sortirent de l’horizon. En deux jours, sans aucune transition, au froid humide des

brouillards, au ruissellement des pluies, succéda une chaleur torride, une

atmosphère d’une lourdeur atroce. Attisé comme par de furieux ringards, le soleil

s'ouvrit, en gueule de four, dardant une lumière presque blanche qui brûlait la vue;

une poussière de flammes s'éleva des routes calcinées, grillant les arbres secs,

rissolant les gazons jaunis; la réverbération des murs peints au lait de chaux, les

148 foyers allumés sur le zinc des toits et sur les vitres des fenêtres, aveugla; une

température de fonderie en chauffe pesa sur le logis de des Esseintes. (194)

Immediately we are struck by the fact that Huysmans cannot describe natural phenomena

except in metaphorical relation to artificial objects. But more importantly, the

accumulation of modifying subordinate clauses imparts a certain rhythm to the

description. Repetition of certain syllabic densities, echoing the alexendrine, evokes the

familiar rhythmic patterns of poetry: in the first phrase, for example, the first two clauses

divided by semicolons are almost symmetrical in terms of meter. In this description, as

in so many of Huysmans’s descriptions, parallel structures, uninterrupted by conjunctions

in some cases (au froid humide des brouillards, au ruissellement des pluies; grillant les

arbres secs…rissolants les gazon jaunis), introduce patterns of sonority from the simple

fact of repeated grammatical elements, such as verb endings (the sound introduced by the

proximity of “allait” and “confondaient,” for instance). At work here is a play of the

expectations generated from these structural redundancies and the surprise elicited by the

unconventionality of individual comparisons and metaphors.104 Again it is the

temporality of the description that is at stake in these microscopic variations; establishing

syntactic patterns in the novelistic description here, like metric patterns in poetry,

generates expectations for future repeated sounds, in a protensive projection of imagined

words. In the manner of Gombrich’s “forward matching,” repetition and redundancy in

the description train readers to look for resonances and assonances (surprises) in the sonic

104 See Gumbrecht, H.U. “Rhythm and Meaning.” In Materialities of Communication. Ed. H.U. Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, trans. William Whobrey. Stanford UP: Stanford, 1994, 170-182. The notion of interaction between expectation and surprise is also central to E.H. Gombrich’s explanation of the function of ornament in the visual arts. See The Sense of Order. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979, 10-16.

149 field of the read description. Adding to the feeling that this description is doing more

than just background work for another chapter in des Esseintes’s miserable descent into

neurosis is the imbalance of the description toward, again, the attributes of the described

vision instead of the vision itself; what is in focus is the individualized metaphorical

vision (of the sun that opens itself like the mouth of a furnace) as it pertains to the

associative sensitivities of des Esseintes, not a historical or materialistic one (as in say the

metaphor of the gaping mouth in the description of the mine opening in Germinal). In

this sense the description is a return of Huysmans’s earlier days of his Baudelairean prose

poetry in Le drageoir aux épices; the prose sentence, dismembered and re-worked as a

series of overlapping poetic (in the Jakobsonian sense) constructions, becomes an

extended study of correspondences particular to an individual mind, much, as so many

commentators have pointed out in regard to the overall tone of the novel, in the sense of a

poem in prose.105

It is in this interaction that the descriptions in À rebours remind us of the

“spiritualist naturalism” Huysmans espoused in his later career: not only do descriptions play at sensorial effects within the fabric of the composition, but these effects take on increasing symbolic weight as they inscribe subjective “impressions” of observations.

This allows Huysmans to take seriously the scholarship necessary to his naturalistic project while gesturing to a hidden realm of meaning he had found lacking in his materialistic early phase. This is not precisely what Huysmans meant in his suggestion that the novel should turn to higher things than the everyday – he would probably insist, in his later days, that he was referring more precisely to religious matters – but it is the effect of his movement in that direction. Precisely because of the expansion of the

105 See Marchal, Bertrand. Lire le symbolisme. Paris: Dunod, 1998, 115-116.

150 sentence and its parts created by elaboration stemming from an attitude of realism (one

that values details as signifying larger realities), these descriptions have room for

resonances and symbolic language. As such the descriptions temporarily resolve the

conflict of observation and response, of a representation and its interpretation. In this

sense ‘spiritualist naturalism’ as enacted in the lyricism of these descriptions starts to

sound like the expression referred to in the rhetoric of symbolist movement. As Durtal

explains the concept in Là-bas:

Il faudrait, se disait-il, garder la véracité du document, la précision du détail, la

langue étoffée et nerveuse du réalisme, mais il faudrait aussi se faire puisatier

d’âme et ne pas vouloir expliquer le mystère par les maladies des sens; le roman,

si cela se pouvait, devrait se diviser de lui-même en deux parts, néanmoins

soudées ou plutôt confondues, comme elles le sont dans la vie, celle de l’âme,

celle du corps, et s’occuper de leurs réactifs, de leurs conflits, de leur entente. (36)

Moréas’s of 1886 :

Ainsi, dans cet art, les tableaux de la nature, les actions des humains, tous les

phénomènes concrets ne sauraient se manifester eux-mêmes; ce sont là des

apparences sensibles destinées à représenter leurs affinités ésotériques avec des

Idées primordiales.

151 The divided referent of the symbolist order, the gap between the Ideal and the momentary sensation of correspondence between fleeting apprehensions makes a preliminary appearance in Huysmans’s paradoxical aesthetic of extreme descriptive precision and its transcendent meaning. So, contradictorily, the same compulsion toward detail inherited from the social and political concerns of the mid-nineteenth century provide a means of expression for a detached, formalistic, much more abstract and mystical approach to descriptive representation in prose. From this perspective, Huysmans’s descriptions and descriptive style play a mutative role in literary culture of the fin de siècle and participate formally, not just referentially, to the gestation of early twentieth century avant-gardism.

It was art, after all, that instigated Huysmans’s conversion – visual art and the experience of writing about it turned Huysmans irrevocably from the material to the divine. As

Arthur Symons eloquently put it, “curious to observe how often an artist perfects a particular means of expression long before he has any notion of what to do with it…Huysmans began by acquiring so astonishing a mastery of description that he could describe the inside of a cow hanging in a butcher’s shop as beautifully as if it were a casket of pearls…Now all that acquired power suddenly finds its use; for the idea has been found, and the idea, which alone can give value and coherence to all these observations, is like the sun which flashes into unity” (147). It is an apt description of an ambitious endeavor, to describe both the material and its effects, the inner life as it found itself resonant with the observable world, an endeavor that for Huysmans led to the outer limits of physical experience itself and into mysticism, restraint, and ultimately self- erasure.

152

CHAPTER FOUR

Gabriele D’Annunzio’s Il fuoco: poetic prose

153 Gabriele D’Annunzio’s Il fuoco: poetic prose

Writing to his friend Francesco Paolo Michetti in a letter that prefaces Trionfo

della morte (1894), Gabriele D’Annunzio described the goals of his prose style as

follows:

Avevamo più volte insieme ragionato d’un ideal libro di prosa moderno che –

essendo vario di suoni e di ritmi come un poema, riunendo nel suo stile le più

diverse virtù della parola scritta – armonizzasse tutte le varietà del conoscimento e

tutte le varietà del mistero; alternasse le precisioni della scienza alle seduzioni del

sogno; sembrasse non imitare ma continuare la Natura; libero dai vincoli della

favola, portasse alfine in sé con tutti i mezzi dell’arte letteraria la particolar vita –

sensuale sentimentale intellettuale – di un essere umano collocato nel centro della

vita universo.106

Two features of this passage are significant for a reading of D’Annunzio’s descriptive

style: first, its motivation, that of a novel that looks out at the universe from the vantage

point of an individual being at its center, and second, pertaining more to the specific traits

of the language itself, the idea of a novel that commingles poetry and prose. D’Annunzio

may have achieved this, at least partially, in his prose descriptions. However in the actual

descriptive text we notice a contradiction: on the one hand, in keeping with the

aspirations outlined above, there is a fluid expressivity attuned to an individual mind, but

on the other a high visibility of pronounced literary techniques seems to interrupt the

106 D'Annunzio, Gabriele, et al. Prose di romanzi. 1a ed. I Meridiani ed. Milano: A. Mondadori, 1988-1989, 639.

154 connection between the observed world and its description in prose. The second of these appears to contradict the notion of a direct transcription of world to text; instead of trying to obscure the artificiality of literary technique, D’Annunzio amplifies it. But we will see that D’Annunzio’s intense trust in literary technique as a transformative medium through which mundane reality gains levels upon levels of symbolic value prevented him from seeing his densely packed rhetoric as an impairment to the ability of his prose to

‘continue,’ rather than imitate, the natural world. Important for this dissertation is the similarity between D’Annunzio’s announced goals and Verga’s a generation before: to provide the reader with access to the world of the novel without obstruction (in the preface to Giovanni Episcopo, a first-person novel, D’Annunzio had written in 1891:

“Tutto il metodo sta in questa formula schietta: -- Bisogna studiare gli uomini e le cose

DIRETTAMENTE, senza transposizione alcuna” (1028)). I will use the 1900 novel Il fuoco as a template for an analysis of D’Annunzio’s descriptive style in an effort to assess the degree to which his use of descriptive techniques intensifies or disrupts the project of creating an unobstructed account of observed reality in literary form. In doing so I hope to unpack his descriptions and place them, if they fit, into the trajectory of the transmutation of descriptive style after Flaubert that I have been delimiting here.

I choose Il fuoco because I see the particular form of this novel as an instantiation of the shift in the history of the novel away from universality of represented experience and toward a sense of the relativity of individual observations that I have described so far.

Il fuoco is a novel that both describes a transition and enacts one: in the years 1890 to

1900 D’Annunzio’s prose work moved simultaneously in that more relativistic direction while using a grandiloquent style whose loyalty to traditional rhetorical forms is

155 distinctly conservative in attitude. It is a fluke of literary history too that Il fuoco should

appear in 1900, at the division of two centuries, and also mark an ideological turning

point in its author’s career after which political interests became almost inseparable from

aesthetic goals.

In terms of the novel’s plot, this is the first of D’Annunzio’s novels that features a

heroic narrative in which the protagonist achieves some degree of personal success (from

Il piacere D’Annunzio’s protagonists fail to achieve their projects and end in

disappointment and sometimes death).107 Stelio Effrena, “l’imaginifico,” an adapted

Nietzschean “superpoet” reaches the end of the novel having gained creative power through the events of the plot. This change in D’Annunzio’s plot preference stems from a symmetrical change in his philosophical and political thought: his notion of the poet- hero whose political power arises from his aesthetic power, though discussed by

Cantelmo in Le vergini delle rocce, did not play itself out fully in a narrative until Il fuoco, as if the former novel had been a testing ground for what would be enacted in the latter. Achieving this heroic status gives D’Annunzio’s protagonist (and as they are so frequently psychologically enmeshed in the describing voice, the descriptor) an authority over the world he observes that goes beyond what had previously been the norm in prose descriptions earlier in the nineteenth century. The stylistic features of descriptions in Il fuoco follow this trend toward an increased autonomy of the poet-hero-descriptor over his environment as it is represented in prose fiction in ways that are garishly visible to the

107 I attribute this conclusion to Charles Klopp, who writes the following: “This embrace of activism by a hero [in Il fuoco], who for the first time in a novel by D’Annunzio is both successful and popularly acclaimed, is also a new way to deal with that old bugaboo, reality. Through his forceful utilization of “la parola dominatrice,” the Superman is able to sublimate the existential anguish that had bedeviled D’Annunzio’s previous heroes in a political activism in which ethical and metaphysical problems can be set to one side.” In Gabriele D’Annunzio. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1988, 60-1.

156 analyst of descriptive style. Descriptions in Il fuoco are written in what I am going to call

a poetic style – poetic for the simple reason that this style relies heavily on techniques

conventionally associated more closely with poetry. It should be noted specifically in

the case of Il fuoco that these techniques are in particular those shared between poetry

and classical oratory for eliciting an emotional response in a reader or listener. This

chapter will identify and systematize the stylistic features borrowed from poetry and

oratory in descriptions in Il fuoco with the object of explicating the lyricism of his prose

often commented upon by D’Annunzio critics and literary historians. I also hope to show

why I see D’Annunzio’s lyrical descriptions as expressions of a mutation that started with

Flaubert’s observational ubiquity and ends with a total de-universalization of observer

position in nineteenth century descriptive prose.

“Poetic” prose

It is with good reason that comparisons to poetry usually appear in literary

historical accounts of D’Annunzio’s prose at the turn of the century. His prose style is

replete with uses of language that borrow directly from techniques that are conventionally

more familiar to poetry than to the novel. These are precisely those techniques Paolo

Valesio points out as markers of prose poetry: proliferation of metaphors, prolonged

effects of repetitio, clausal symmetries; we might add measured distribution of stresses

and an aestheticizing approach to observed reality (though this is, as I will show, a

singular feature of the prose style that is most visible in descriptions).108 D’Annunzio’s

108 Valesio offers this list of features in a description of the poemetto in prose, symmetrical to his formulation of “poetic prosings,” or prose-in-poetry: “prose-in-poetry is born as poetry, which willingly

157 prose uses all of these in abundance in Il fuoco. But I do not mean to suggest we import the generic codes of prose poetry directly into a critique of the descriptions that use poetic techniques. The descriptions are not prose poems, but poeticized descriptions.

They are like prose poems insofar as they share an affinity for certain methods of arrangement of linguistic segments that tend to appear with less relative frequency in conventional usage in nineteenth century prose than in verse, but the motivations and parameters of the two forms are inherently different.109

Il fuoco is the first in a planned trilogy of Romanzi del melagrano, the second (La vittoria dell’uomo) and third (Trionfo della vita) of which were not completed. Together the three would have narrated the rise and success of the character Stelio Effrena (note the early interest in mechanical combustion engines that shows up later in Forse che si forse che no: Effrena, without brakes (freni)), an aesthete whose powers of intellectual penetration enable him to see the world as a composite of observed reality, quotations of aristocratic culture, and personal lyrical associations. This power of internal aestheticization that projects outward onto the world with which he interacts girds Stelio for exuberant creative endeavors that will, in turn, give him the power of political

splinters; it compromises itself entirely with the wide spirals of prose; it is not ashamed of the prosaic aspects that characterize poetry’s (equally noble) sister, philosophy,” (177). He insists there is an even exchange of prosaic aspects with poetic ones between D’Annunzio’s prose and his poetry, especially after Maia and Alcyone. The fact that D’Annunzio did not actively pursue prose poetry is a major factor that separates his work from that of the French symbolists. Valesio, Paolo. Gabriele D’Annunzio: The Dark Flame. Trans. Marilyn Migiel. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992. 109 By this I mean very simply that while a prose poem is formally autonomous and self-contained, a description in a novel is part of a larger complex of various modes the alternation of which constitutes a larger whole. As for a generalization that would further connect the poeticity of the two it is difficult to posit any but the most conservative parameters of a transhistorical notion that is common to both prose poems and descriptions that use poetic language, except maybe that suggested by Étienne Souriau in La Correspondance des arts and taken up by Tzvetan Todorov in “Poetry without verse,” that of an ascendency of the presentative, versus representative, function of poetic language (The Prose Poem in France, 60-78). Souriau’s formulation is certainly attractive in the light of D’Annunzio’s statements regarding his desires to create a prose that would mirror music in its melodic qualities. See Souriau, 115- 120.

158 manipulation over an audience incapable of comprehending these aesthetic techniques but nonetheless receptive to their control (in this novel, the imagined project is a sublime theater production, an artistic child of his and the actress’s coupling) (Klopp 60). The plot of Il fuoco is minimal, like that of À rebours, with a simple before-and-after event structure centered around a sexual encounter between the poet and a fictional representation of Eleonora Duse, referred to in the novel either as Foscarina or Perdita.

The first part (L’Epifania del fuoco) relates two events: first, an impassioned speech given at the Palazzo Ducale with the full text included, and second, a meeting in a garden and subsequent sexual encounter between Effrena and Foscarina. In the second section

(L’impero del silenzio), we see the effects of Effrena’s having satisfied his accumulated lust for the actress: she now appears aged to him, no longer fertile, lost in mental anguish at the awareness of her purposelessness as represented later by a scene of confusion in a labyrinth. In the background, Effrena has a visual encounter with Richard Wagner and participates in his funeral at the novel’s close. The simplicity of this plot – increase of desire, consummation, decrease of desire – is a far cry from the complexity of interpersonal drama of some of his earlier novels. Instead Il fuoco’s attention is taken up with the mental activity of its two main characters, with special, if biased, attention on the woman; despite this fact the accounts of Foscarina’s thoughts and feelings do not have the same relationship to the descriptive material of the novel as do those of the poet. In many of the descriptions of Il fuoco it is Effrena’s vision that is privileged the extent that it overruns the describing voice, and this has consequences for both the kind of material that gets described and the style in which descriptions are written. Many descriptive passages are framed in such a way that readers are made to see things as Effrena does:

159 things appear to his “vision,” his “desire,” etc.110 And it is very clear that the figure of the poet-hero represented in Il fuoco by Stelio Effrena is a fictional surrogate for

D’Annunzio himself – aside from the entire plot being based on a very public love affair, we know that the text of the speech in Venice that opens the novel is an almost word-for- word reproduction of a speech D’Annunzio had given in Venice in 1897 – it is not an overgeneralization to connect Effrena’s language and descriptions of his imaginings to the novel’s author to some degree.

D’Annunzio’s descriptions then express a serious shift in the very notion of description in the novel. In it we see a movement away from the possibility of universal observation of phenomena laid out in descriptions toward a solipsistic, individualized descriptive mode that ignores the epistemological questions at the heart of literary practices focused on observable reality. Descriptions in D’Annunzio’s novels are strongly filtered by an observing personality that does not try to hide itself (as in

Flaubert’s use of the style indirect libre) but, on the contrary, insists that the reader connect the intensity and beauty of the description directly to the aesthetic power of the poet-hero. As expansions of the vision of someone who has special aestheticizing powers over what he sees, hears, and experiences, the descriptions no longer have a great deal of responsibility to observable reality.111 The result is that these descriptions, which are really accounts of associations and comparisons in the mind of the poet, are vague in

110 As in the following sentence: “L'imagine della Foscarina balenò al suo desiderio, avvelenata dall'arte, carica di sapere voluttuoso, col gusto della maturità e della corruzione nella bocca eloquente, con l'aridezza della vana febbre nelle mani che avevano spremuto il succo dei frutti ingannevoli, con i vestigi di cento maschere sul viso che aveva simulato il furore delle passioni mortali,” (33). Another example, from the small reserve of D’Annunzio’s short descriptions: “Tutto il canale era chiaro da una banda. Una vela fulva passava senza romore. Il mare, i flutti allegri, le risa dei gabbiani, il vento del largo si rappresentarono al desiderio” (121).

111 See Klopp, 60-62.

160 nature, ephemeral, and imprecise. A high frequency of comparative tropes deemphasizes their relationship to the plot and any information a reader might need to better understand the world in which it plays out and turns the attention instead to misty visions of figures from mythology, history, literature, and opera commingled in an ecstatic style that uses syntax as a staging ground for these atemporal aesthetic correspondences. On the other hand the vagueness of the described material combines with a declamatory and emphatic style that borrows a number of techniques from the conventions of classical oration.

Repetitions and strategic word order changes are rhetorical tools that are as present in descriptions of Venice in which the characters move as they are in Effrena’s speech glorifying the allegorical figure of Venice. This flip flop between a noncommittal lyricism on the one hand and emphatic rhetoric on the other is evidence of a peculiar tension at this point in D’Annunzio’s career between aesthetic goals and novelistic form.

The descriptions act as meeting places between these two highly personal forces the comingling of which enacts a decrease in attention to the signs of epistemological certainty that a more conservative descriptive style would have required.

Apart from the discontinuity between the emphatic aspects of D’Annunzio’s descriptive style and the fuzzy matter it describes, the role of formal rhetoric must be accounted for. There is something innately conservative about decadent literature in this respect; authors who wrote in the florid, ornamental style associated with the late century often use techniques taken directly from classical antiquity in crafting their prose, especially their descriptions, but do so in a way that is so deliberate and exaggerated that it calls attention to the rhetorical work as rhetorical work. It is a reflection of an anxiety on the part of these writers that the markers of intellectual sophistication were decreasing

161 in social importance; it follows that reenergizing these techniques of formal writing would preserve a small part of the elitism to which they aspired and that they associated with detachment and intellectual superiority. Using a classical style and emphasizing that classicism was a compensatory move in a time of social instability and anxiety about the role of figures like D’Annunzio in contemporary society. For D’Annunzio this anxiety coupled with his classical training and political aspirations motivated active employment of classical rhetoric in his descriptive compositions.

The mix appears most visibly in three forms: in prominent use of comparative tropes, in systematic repetitions of phrase elements, and in strategic word order changes.

A side effect of some of these stylistic choices is a certain musicality or rhythmic quality that pervades the whole of D’Annunzio’s language in Il fuoco. The analysis here will pay attention to these features in an effort to make a more precise assessment of the status and direction of descriptive style at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth.

Comparisons

From the first pages of Il fuoco figurative language, in particular simile and metaphor, dominates the descriptive sections. As such D’Annunzio’s descriptions differ fundamentally from the others presented in this dissertation – instead of focusing mainly on the observable world such as it appears to a postulated describing observer, the descriptions tend more toward a list of associations, sometimes highly personal and opaque in meaning, that, for D’Annunzio’s descriptor, correspond to objects or sensations

162 in the observable world of the novel. It is especially common in descriptions that

D’Annunzio mentions an observed phenomenon in brief terms only to describe in

exaggeratedly greater detail the ideas and images with which Effrena (and the descriptor)

associates it. As a result, the weight of D’Annunzio’s descriptions is frequently placed

on objects outside the world of possible observations projected by the novel and by the

beginning parts of the comparisons. This is particular to D’Annunzio in 1900 and does

not appear in the other decadent text treated in this dissertation, Huysmans’s À rebours;

in that novel, associations and reveries stand syntactically separate from descriptive

passages that feature observed objects. But for D’Annunzio’s descriptor, the symbolic

value of the observed world is as if not more important than the observed world itself.

We see this in three factors: the high frequency of similes, metaphors, and other forms of comparison in the descriptions, the importance of phrases using this figural language to individual descriptions, and the relative length and complexity of phrases devoted to the compared phenomena. To attest to the frequency, we should preliminarily note the number of occurrences of the word come: forty out of about one hundred twenty descriptive passages feature come as a leading conjunction.112 These comparative

112 I would like to call attention to an observation that pertains to D’Annunzio’s use of the word come at the beginning of sequential phrases (for example in the sentences “V’era in lei qualche cosa di compìto, come nell’albero che ha dato tutto il suo frutto, come nel campo che è stato mietuto, come nella corrente che è giunta al mare,” (288) or “Gli appartenne come una cosa che si tiene nel pugno, come un anello in un dito, come un guanto, come una veste, come una parola che può esser detta o taciuta, un vino che può esser bevuto o versato a terra,” (244). Baudelaire also seems to prefer this structure: In “Le Vampire:” Comme le forçât à la chaîne, Comme au jeu le joueur têtu, Comme à la bouteille l'ivrogne, Comme aux vermines la charogne — Maudite, maudite sois-tu! (131) In “Sed non satiata:” …Comme ces longs serpents que les jongleurs sacrés Au bout de leurs bâtons agitent en cadence. Comme le sable morne et l’azur des déserts,

163 descriptions are of a high internal density – more than one comparative structure will appear in a single description, and these in relation to one another – with the effect that the thick web of material to which a described scene is being compared at its various foci takes over the attention of a reader and shifts the justificatory value of extreme detail away from the observable world (an anti-reality effect?). This effect activates the original described objects on a second plane; a physical body, a decaying building, or an instant of a quotidian sound are points of stimulation from which a much richer experience opens up in the context of a literary description. In Il fuoco as in Il piacere the vast majority of these comparative descriptions depart from observations of a city, but these descriptions focus mainly on the skeletal structure of these cities – buildings, roads

Insensibles tous deux à l’humaine souffrance, Comme les longs réseaux de la houle des mers, Elle se développe avec indifférence. (62) In fact of all the poems in Les fleurs du mal that contain comme very few use it only once (Scott 1986, 61- 86). We then see in D’Annunzio’s work after Il Fuoco this form appears very frequently. For instance in “Laud vitae” from Maia: O Vita, o Vita, dono terribile del dio, come una spada fedele, come una ruggente face, come la gorgóna, come la centàurea veste…(170) Or in “Il Fanciullo,” from Alcyone …come il mare e le foci, come nell'ala chiare e negre penne, come il fior del leandro e le tue tempie, come il pampino e l'uva, come la fonte e l'urna, come la gronda e il nido della rondine, come l'argilla e il pollice, come ne' fiari tuoi la cera e il miele, come Il Fuoco e la stipula stridente, come il sentier e l'orma, come la luce ovunque tocca l'ombra…(124-5)

Despite this I would not limit an explication of D’Annunzio’s use of come in prose or poetry to the apparent influence of the French poet, since, as discussed in this section, the word has multiple functions that are not limited to those we find in Baudelaire’s usage. It is enough to point out that a. the form appears in Baudelaire and specifically in Baudelaire’s verse poetry (not the prose poems), and b. that for D’Annunzio it is intimately connected with poetic form.

164 and waterways, gardens, etc. – and mostly overlook the people who live in them.113 As it would not be appropriate to cite the entire list of comparative descriptions in which the second element of the comparison receives greater textual attention than the original object, I will restrict the discussion to a limited number of exemplary descriptive sentences and paragraphs. The first descriptive passage of the novel is about the eyes of the actress as she looks at Effrena before his speech. This sentence is a special case in which a selection of information presented as descriptive appears in a certain instant to the observing consciousness, requiring the passato remoto.

Uno sguardo le adunò negli occhi esperti tutta la bellezza diffusa per l’ultimo

crepuscolo di settembre divinamente, così che in quell’animato cielo bruno le

ghirlande di luce che creava il remo nell’acqua da presso cinsero gli angeli ardui

che splendevano da lungi su i campanili di San Marco e di San Giorgio Maggiore.

(4) 114

As the very first substantial piece of text in Il fuoco that is not a direct quotation from a character, the description is slightly abrupt: some information is not explained (“occhi esperti,” a phrase whose meaning becomes clear only later in more detailed descriptions of the actress), but other features of the passage help to situate the speaker of the lines

113 Exceptions to this statement present themselves: the crowd in Il fuoco, Zorzi the boatman, the beggar woman in Il piacere; I would protest that these figures (and the crowd is a single figure) emerge from the world of these novels to function, like the architecture and the natural world, only as stimuli to the individual poet-descriptor’s meditations, and not as players in a social schema that generates the life of the city, as in, for instance, Balzac’s Paris. This has partly to do with D’Annunzio’s concentration on the historical importance of these cities in his ideology; the current occupants appear not to fulfill the potential offered by the historical architecture and natural beauty of Italy (but a future generation will, implies the ideology of these novels) and are therefore not very interesting to the descriptor. 114 This and all subsequent citations of Il fuoco taken from: D’Annunzio, Gabriele. Il fuoco. A cura di Niva Lorenzini. Milano: A. Mondadori, 1996.

165 that preceded it (the actress) in time and space (the proper names and the reference to the time of year). The rest of the sentence is taken up with the connection between the appearance of the actress’s eyes, the reflection of light in water as it fluctuates with the movement of an oar, and the sculptures of angels that top the two churches. The eyes themselves – their color, the expression on the face around them – are points of momentary interest from which more inclusive associations can grow, in this case the association between the natural life of the city’s environment and its historical architecture, and between the heraldic angels from a glorious past and the charged impulse, the allegorical Fire, which lives in that natural environment and will respond to the linguistic skills of the orator as this part of the novel progresses.

In this single descriptive passage we immediately observe the grandiosity of

D’Annunzio’s descriptive project and the motivation for some aspects of the prose style.

The syntax of the sentences enmeshes the references to each associative element with the described qualities of the others; the manipulation of word order here mixes references to eyes, water, and angels in a mass of modifying clauses. The fact that the clauses are not separated by commas – when doing so would make the sentence clearer – contributes to the sense of mixing of the observable world of things with the associations they evoke in the very particular view of the descriptor, who is so closely related to Effrena himself. In the next comparative description commas are present, but the mixing of various elements of comparative structures remains. The description is of a vista, seen from a moving boat, of Venetian architecture.

166 Imperturbata, su l’agitazione inferiore, nella nuova pausa, continuava l’armonia

molteplice delle architetture sacre e profane su cui correvano come una melodia

agile le modulazioni ioniche della Biblioteca, alzavasi come un grido mistico il

vertice della torre nuda. (5)

This short description introduces a few major features of D’Annunzio’s comparisons:

first, that the second part of the comparison often replaces descriptive material that could

pertain to the physical attributes of the described object, and second, that either variable

of the comparison can be, and is often, itself made up of figurative language, as in the

phrase “armonia molteplice delle architetture” compared to “una melodia agile,” and the

verb correre paired with “melodia,” and finally, running through the whole sentence, the

comparison of “l’armonia” with “un grido mistico.” A second instance:

L'aura della notte era umida e tiepida così che le palpebre delicate la sentivano su

i cigli quasi come una bocca volubile che si accosti per lambire. (109)

In this selection again a few features stand out: first, the phrase “l’aura della notte,” is a

known poetic pairing,115 then the feeling caused by the “breath” of the night is compared

in a simile to an “inconstant” mouth. The comparison calls forward imagery of the city

and its environment personified as a woman, a theme that continues throughout the entire

115 It is a phrase that appears in the Reverand John Smith’s Ossianic poem “Finan e Lorma,” which had been translated into Italian in 1813 and gained a wide reception there. Macpherson, James and John Smith. Nuovi canti di Ossian. Trans Michele Leoni. Firenze: Alauzet, 1813, 186. The original Smith text reads “Their steps are from Alva of roes; on the wind of night flows their streamy hair.” Smith, John. Galic antiquities: consisting of a history of the Druids, particularly those of Caledonia; a dissertation on the authenticity of the poems of Ossian and a collection of ancient poems, translated from the Galic by John Smith. Edinburgh: printed by Macfarquhar and Elliot for T. Cadell, London, and C. Elliot, Edinburgh, 1780, 204.

167 novel that is firmly established in a description of the allegorical figure of the city as it appears in Tintoretto’s painting at the end of Effrena’s speech. A final example to establish the pattern here:

Gli ululi rochi a poco a poco diminuendo si facevano dolci come note di flauti

nell'aria molle, parevano indugiarsi come quelle foglie trascolorate che

abbandonavano il ramo a una a una senza gemere. (134)

The first thing we notice about this descriptive sentence (and again, like many descriptive sentences, it falls in the shadowy area between narrative and description) is the atypical word order of the phrase “gli ululi rochi a poco a poco diminuendo si facevano dolci,” a switch that does not change the phrase’s meaning but lends a literary tone to the description; it is a double comparison, firstly of the siren whistle to the soft notes of a flute, and secondly to falling leaves that linger as they softly fall from a branch. It is worth noting that D’Annunzio chose to introduce the second comparison with the verb parere, an extremely common choice in both descriptive passages and passages devoted to the observations and feelings of the novel’s two main characters. The double comparison therefore suggests equivalence between the flute notes and the leaves, an association between music and the natural world that is again a very present theme in Il fuoco, especially in the discussion of Wagner, a figure with whom Effrena clearly desires a positive association. The entire phrase is connected with the motif of the naturalness and purity of music, but it is at the same time a reminder that what is of primary concern is how these phenomena appear to the observer’s interpretation, how they seem to him.

168 To analyze the descriptions is then to analyze the comparisons. In doing so we find that these comparisons are set up to exaggerate the presence of layers upon layers of vertically associated images in a great symbolic mass; this is not an archeology of Venice

(think of Flaubert’s Carthage), but a symbology calibrated to a particularly intimate set of values. To continue, I cite a passage from the first chapter, in which Effrena and his companions are traveling to the site of the speech he will give on the apotheosis of

Venice. The descriptive material is couched in a frame of observation: the members of

Effrena’s party look out, in a punctual moment of observation rendered in the passato remoto, onto the parade of boats containing the cream of Venetian society on their way to the event.

Guardarono allora passare nel sogno vespertino, su l'acqua delicatamente verde e

argentea come le foglie novelle del salice fluviale, la barca ricolma dei frutti

emblematici che davano imagine di cose ricche e riposte, quasi scrigni di cuoio

vermiglio recanti in sommo la corona d'un re donatore, chiusi taluni e altri

semiaperti su le interne gemme agglomerate. (13)

The passage comes after a command by the actress, who introduces the fruit theme that will later apply to her in the scene of passion that follows the speech: “Guardate – esclamò, per rompere il fascino, additando una lenta barca onusta che veniva incontro – guardate le vostre melagrane.” In this selection the balance of textual weight is skewed toward the figurative, with suggestions and allusions that lend more atmosphere than information (in Flaubert’s archeological sense) to the description. The focal point is the

169 association between what the characters see – a barge in which richly ornamented women

are seated – and what this vision inspires in the mind of D’Annunzio’s descriptor, who

here obviously shares a metaphorical vocabulary with both Foscarina and Effrena (le

melagrane – frutti). The passage begins with a reference to the twilight event as “il sogno

vespertino,” an allusion that lends vagueness and unreality to the description; the color of

the water (silvery – like “biancastro,” which appears frequently in this novel, “argentea”

doesn’t commit to a single color; similarly, “delicatamente” in its proximity to “verde”

seems to modify the color instead of the verb “passare”) is then compared to that of the

leaves of a willow tree – more specifically the willow tree. This choice of the more

specific article insists on the allegorical, emblematic status of these phenomena, which is

then pointed out explicitly in the phrase “frutti emblematici;” but it is unclear if the

implication is that the fruits are emblematic of the leather caskets (in which case

“emblematici” is simply gesturing to the analogy itself), or if it is a compounded

reference to the people inside the leather caskets (who would then be the flesh/juice of

the pomegranate arils, and as they are women the metaphor fits well in this novel). In the

same phrase, another reference to ideas inspired in the observers (Effrena and his party,

descriptor, and reader) in the construction “davano imagine,” deferring the observation to a second order (it’s related in terms of the image it produces, not posited directly in the description); “quasi” has the same function here. Finally, we notice the phrase “recanti in

sommo la corona d’un re donatore,” as it appears again in a description using the fruit

theme later in the novel: “I frutti magnifici pendevano sul suo capo, recanti in sommo la

corona d’un re donatore,” referring to the actress as she stands in the garden during the

passion scene following the speech. The descriptor points out the repetition in the

170 following sentence: “Il mito del melagrano riviveva nella notte come al passaggio della barca ricolma su l’acqua vespertina” (115). This doubling shadows the difference between Effrena, whose maturation in the act of his oration leads to psychic expansion, and his lover, who is repeatedly compared to overripe fruit weighed down by age and use

(both in sexual terms and in terms of her having been ‘possessed’ by her myriad characters) and fallen to the ground. Comparisons here make up the entire content of the description, with a great deal of internal complexity that ensures the focal point only rarely bounces outward toward the world of actual things.

In addition to the predominance of similes, we note frequent use of other structures of comparison in the descriptions in Il fuoco. This points to something greater than just the presence of poetic tropes; comparison as a structure is present even in descriptions that do not use tropes as overtly as the descriptions I have presented so far.

This we see in frequent appearance of the verb parere in descriptions; its frequency points to an increased interest in reactions to an observed scene over and above the visual, sonic, and other features of the scene itself. Numerous examples attest to this, of which I will cite only a few:116

116 Other instances: “Pareva che un respiro veemente fosse venuto d'improvviso a dilatare i petti angusti e che una sovrabbondanza di vita sensuale gonfiasse le arterie degli uomini” (73); “Gli alberi sopravanzando la cinta claustrale parevano fumigare perle cime quasi nude; e le passere, più numerose delle foglie malate su i rami, cigolavano cigolavano senza pause” (132); “Le acque erano agitate da un tremito gagliardo, e pareva che l'agitazione si comunicasse alle fondamenta della città e che i palazzi le cupole i campanili ondeggiassero galleggiando a guisa di navigli” (153); “Incitate dal gran vento le falangi delle nuvole combattevano negli spazii sopraffacendosi; le cupole, le torri ondeggiando al fondo parevano anch'esse diformarsi; e le ombre della città e le ombre del cielo egualmente vaste e mobili su le acque irte si confondevano e si mutavano, quasi fossero prodotte da cose egualmente prossime a dissolversi” (156); “Con le sue lunghe pergole, con i suoi cipressi, con i suoi alberi di frutti, con le sue siepi di spigo, con i suoi oleandri, con i suoi garofani, con i suoi rosai, porpora e croco, meravigliosamente dolce e stanco nei colori della sua dissoluzione, l'orto pareva perduto nell'estrema laguna, in un'isola obliata dagli uomini, a Mazzorbo, a Torcello, a San Francesco del Deserto. Il sole lo abbracciava e lo penetrava in ogni parte, così che le ombre per la loro tenuità non vi parevano” (205); “Talune avevano l'aspetto della ruina umana, con le loro aperture vacue che somigliavano alle orbite cieche, alle bocche senza denti. Altre al primo vederle parevano sul punto di ridursi in frantumi e in polvere come le capellature delle defunte quando si

171

Ancor durava l'ora vesperale che in uno de' suoi libri egli aveva chiamata l'ora di

Tiziano perché tutte le cose parevano risplendere ultimamente di una lor propria

luce ricca, come le nude creature di quell'artefice, e quasi illuminare il cielo anzi

che riceverne lume. (7)

The selection features a combination of a construction using parere and a simile using come; of course the parere phrase is couched in a reference to a the contents of a book written by Effrena himself, and the come structure (“come le nude creature di quell’artifice”) is then encased in the parere phrase. The word “quasi” here and elsewhere adds an additional filter to the descriptive assertion of the presence of an observable world.117 It is also striking that unlike Huysmans, D’Annunzio does not

scoperchiano le tombe, come le vecchie vesti róse dai tarli quando si aprono gli armarii da lungo tempo chiusi” (216); “La grande ombra pareva onnipresente nella villa del doge Alvise” (219); “Perdutamente allora egli amò i segni delicati che si partivano dall'angolo degli occhi verso quelle tempie inumidite, e le piccole vene oscure che rendevano le palpebre simili alle violette, e l'ondulazione delle gote, e il mento estenuato, e tutto quello che pareva tócco dal male d'autunno, tutta l'ombra su l'appassionato viso” (224); “Dal centro dell'intrico s'alzava una torre, e in cima della torre la statua d'un guerriero pareva stesse alle vedette,” (227). Beccaria notes a similar instance in La Leda senza cigno: “il polline pareva fumigare dai rami scossi e dorare di sé la nuvola dilacerata che mi lasciò scorgere d’un tratto il più angelico tra i visi dell’aria per mezzo a due lembi simili a due bende di lino spolverate da quell’oro silvano…” in which the “simile a” structure offers an additional instance of comparison. Comparisons using “simile” and its derivative words are also frequent in Il fuoco. Beccaria, Gian Luigi. L’autonomia del significante: figure del ritmo e della sintassi, Dante, Pascoli, D’Annunzio. Torino: Einaudi, 1975, 288. 117 Quasi turns up surprisingly frequently in D’Annunzio’s descriptive prose, but very rarely does he use it in combinations with come: “E quella musica silenziosa delle linee immobili era così possente che creava il fantasma quasi visibile di una vita più bella e più ricca sovrapponendolo allo spettacolo della moltitudine inquieta” (6); “La voce dell'oratore, chiara e penetrante e quasi gelida sul principio, pareva essersi di sùbito accesa alle faville invisibili che doveva suscitar dal cervello lo sforzo dell' improvvisazione regolato con acutissima vigilanza dall'orecchio difficile” (40); “Sorridevano con un vago languore, quasi estenuate da una sensazione troppo forte, emergendo con le spalle nude dalle loro corolle di gemme” (48); “Ella quasi gli parve un'imagine interiore, generata a un tratto in quella parte della sua anima ove il fantasma della sensazione subitanea ch'egli aveva ricevuta entrando nell' ombra prodotta dal fianco della nave munita era rimasto come un punto isolato e indistinto” (57); “L'attrice, la cantatrice, la danzatrice, le tre donne dionisiache, gli apparivano come gli strumenti perfetti e quasi divini delle sue finzioni” (103); “I fiori erano violetti, d' una estrema delicatezza, quasi impalpabili” (120); “Gli alberi sopravanzando la cinta claustrale parevano fumigare perle cime quasi nude; e le passere, più numerose delle foglie malate su i rami, cigolavano cigolavano senza pause” (132); “Foscarina era là, con Donovan ch' ella reggeva pel collare,

172 bother to explain his references to artistic works and other learned subjects in Il fuoco, a

marker of his acquired aestheticism. This attitude comes out in his use of the

demonstrative adjective in reference to Titian’s work (“quell’artifice”) that does not

expand into an explanation or expository essay (as in a phrase like “quell’artifice

che…”). Knowledge of the aspect of the work with which the description wants to

compare the experience of a certain moment of an evening in an individual’s life is

assumed. Similarly in the sentence

Il tedio del giardino secolare pareva lacerarsi come le tele dei ragni quando una

mano violenta apre una finestra chiusa da tempo. (197)

there is a double comparison, first in the use of parere to indicate a subjective vision (but

whose vision?), and second in the come structure. This doubling insists on a personal,

rather than universalizable interpretation of the observed world.

Parere also appears in descriptive phrases that use a modal shift, i.e. in a periodo

ipotetico:

Pareva che nella sera magica si rinnovellassero il fiato e il riflesso del remoto

Oriente, quali nelle vele concave e su i fianchi ricurvi portava un tempo la galèa

carica di belle prede. (24)

ridivenuta pallida, quasi attenuata, come se già incominciasse a penetrarla il gelo vespertino” (199); “Gli occhi avevano due visiere di cristallo che brillavano al sole, quasi fisse, in quel viso febrile” (223).

173 Again, this description is placed in the text concerning the evening before the speech.

A similar description appears in the section devoted to the speech itself, à propos of the

crowd, in the voice of D’Annunzio’s descriptor:

Pareva che un respiro veemente fosse venuto d'improvviso a dilatare i petti

angusti e che una sovrabbondanza di vita sensuale gonfiasse le arterie degli

uomini. (73)

One wonders why, in the context of Effrena’s confidence in his political performance,

D’Annunzio would not simply use the indicative form, which would show greater

assurance of the reaction to the speech; but this description is as much about the world of

the poet as it is about the object of the description. Again, in the following passage what

seems to be moving through the atmosphere is a breath-like vibration, a wave that passes

through solid objects as if through a liquid (apt in a description of Venice):

Il corruccio del mare si propagava su la laguna. Le acque erano agitate da un

tremito gagliardo, e pareva che l'agitazione si comunicasse alle fondamenta della

città e che i palazzi le cupole i campanili ondeggiassero galleggiando a guisa di

navigli. (153)118

Finally:

118 I have not altered the punctuation of this sentence in any way; it appears thus, without commas (between “i palazzi,” “le cupole,” and “i campanili” as one might expect) in the first edition. D’Annunzio, Gabriele. Il fuoco. Milano: Fratelli Treves, 1900, 264.

174 Pareva che passasse a quando a quando nel cielo di febbraio il soffio della

stagione precoce. (289)

In these descriptive phrases D’Annunzio’s choice to use parere as framing verb

necessitates the introduction of the imperfect subjunctive, a modal shift.119 The effect of

this shift is the following: it displaces the attention of the description to elements that

could be, but are in fact not present, and thus it lends a sense of unreality to the

description and emphasizes an individual’s relationship to the described scene through

associative structures. Using the periodo ipotetico is an unusual move for nineteenth

century prose descriptions in the wake of realism – it adds a layer of possible experiences

analogous to the described ones. Such layering would not have been appropriate in an

archeological or encyclopedic project of the earlier century in which the syntax and

organizational structure of descriptive passages was designed to assure a reader of a

descriptor’s knowledge and control of the described world. This usage grows out of the

same impulse toward experiential perspectivism as did Flaubert’s experiments with

shifting focalization, though D’Annunzio’s technique erases any pretense of effacing the

observing mind, and in a way is slightly less dexterous than the Flaubertian variation.

Modality thus comes into the discussion. This is a sharp turn from the emphasis

on observability and universality of knowledge that was an undercurrent of description in

mid-century novels of France and Italy. One important exception is Stendhal, who in Le

Rouge et le Noir frequently uses the conditional120 to indicate observational distance and

119 See Serriani 564-70. 120 As part of a paragraph explaining the deal between M. de Renal and old Sorel, filtered through the cultured discernment of the postulated ‘Parisian observer’ who appears at intervals in descriptions; two examples: “Une telle innovation vaudrait à l'imprudent bâtisseur une éternelle réputation de mauvaise tête,

175 judgment instead of a strong narrational presence as did Balzac and Manzoni, both after

Walter Scott. It is fair nonetheless to say that mode is not an issue in novels written in an

attitude of certainty vis-à-vis the observable world. Because D’Annunzio’s descriptions

are not limited to the observable world or even the world of possible observations (“it appeared to the poet (“l’imaginifico," his vision, his “desiderio,” etc.) that,” instead of

“one would have seen,” “it could have been perceived as,” etc.), it is natural that the subjunctive (as it is related to expressions of desire, this should not be surprising) and to a lesser degree the conditional should be present. Indeed using the subjunctive in descriptions seems to impose a will (that the scene should be as the poet imagines it, instead of as it really is) on the observed world through the filter of this modified descriptive language. While it is true that descriptions in many of his novels use grammatical forms that open up the descriptive phrase to unobservable possibilities (in terms of what’s described), there is also the possibility of other genres of text (essay, oration). In terms of the essay there is a certain similarity here to Huysmans’s expository and essayistic descriptions, for example of literary works or of the history of philosophy;

D’Annunzio, however, only uses the technique a few times, most clearly in the description of the greyhounds in Il fuoco, a description that while complex is relatively formulaic for him.121 As for essayism, D’Annunzio dabbles in the expected genres

et il serait à jamais perdu auprès des gens sages et modérés qui distribuent la considération en Franche- Comté. Dans le fait, ces gens sages y exercent le plus ennuyeux despotisme; c'est à cause de ce vilain mot que le séjour des petites villes est insupportable pour qui a vécu dans cette grande république qu'on appelle Paris” (6); “Elle avait un certain air de simplicité, et de la jeunesse dans la démarche; aux yeux d'un parisien, cette grâce naïve, pleine d'innocence et de vivacité, serait même allée jusqu'à rappeler des idées de douce volupté” (13). Stendhal. Le Rouge et le Noir. Ed. H. Martineau. Paris: Garnier, 1963, 6. 121 I say this because the dog description follows a pattern that we have already seen in Flaubert, Verga, and Huysmans, and the pattern is certainly present in the work of other authors of this period; it is a form that pulls D’Annunzio back into the nineteenth century in its systematic approach to the information it conveys. The greyhound description is probably most similar to Verga’s portrait descriptions despite the fact that they move in the extreme opposite direction from Verga’s brevity and concision. The dogs are introduced

176 (luxury goods, music) but does not go quite as far as, say, the essay that departs from the

Guermantes matinée; all his essayistic sidetracks on the arts lead back to the novel’s political impulse. But the fact that they are nonetheless present shows that writers like

D’Annunzio were aware of the flexibility afforded by the open temporality of non- narrative prose.

We already interrogated at length D’Annunzio’s use of comparisons, especially those featuring the comparative come and the verb parere (as parere che, parere di, and parere + verb), in his descriptions, mostly in indicative formations used to attribute qualities to an object signified by a noun or noun phrase. An adjunct form to this usage is the phrase come se, which in Italian grammar demands the subjunctive mode. In sentences that use come se the comparative function of come is of course intact, but additional force of unreality is added to the comparative structure. This is important as it further complicates the relationship between D’Annunzio’s emphatic style and the method of comparison that dominates the descriptions, thereby elucidating the contradictoriness of the attitude toward the represented world taken by the descriptor.

by name, then the origin is given, then physical characteristics. This is typical of the journalistic portrait structure Pavel explains in Le Personnel du roman à propos of the development of Zola’s portrait style. Observe: “V'era il levriere di Scozia, nativo delle alte montagne, col pelo rude e spesso, più duro e più folto verso le gote e il muso, grigio come il ferro nuovo; v'era il levriere d'Irlanda distruttore di lupi, rossastro, robusto, il cui occhio bruno girando mostrava il bianco; v'era quello di Tartaria, brizzolato di giallo e di nero, originario delle immense steppe asiatiche, ove di notte custodiva la tenda contro le iene e i leopardi; v'era quello di Persia, biondo ed esiguo, dalle orecchie coperte di lunghi peli serici, dalla coda fioccuta, pallido su i fianchi e giù per le gambe, più grazioso delle antilopi che aveva ucciso; v'era il galgo spagnuolo, migrato coi Mori, quello magnifico che il nano pomposo regge a guinzaglio nella tela di Diego Velasquez, istrutto a raggiungere e ad abbattere nelle nude pianure della Mancia o nelle macchie della Murcia e di Alieante fitte di stipa; v'era lo sloughi arabo, l'illustre predatore del deserto, fosco la lingua e il palato, con tutti i tendini visibili, con tutta l'ossatura rivelata a traverso la pelle fina, nobilissimo animo fatto di orgoglio, di coraggio e di eleganza, abituato a dormire su' bei tappeti e a bere il latte puro in un vaso mondo. E, raccolti insieme come una muta, essi fremevano intorno a colui che sapeva risvegliare nel loro sangue intorpidito gli istinti primitivi dell'inseguimento e dell'uccisione” (189). Though it is a well- conceived description its form is not particular to D’Annunzio nor to the poetic aspect of his prose style.

177 Because the subjunctive is an irrealis mode its use in descriptions imbalances the

description from the observable to the unobservable hypothetical world.122 This is a move that signals at once denial and desire, projection into an alternate reality, one in which figural language connects a lived experience with an aestheticized, postulated sphere of correspondences. It is an addition to the vague, lyrical side of D’Annunzio’s prose that moves him toward a novel of increased introspection but stands in friction with the emphatic tone of many of the other stylistic features.

Repetitions

Repetition, we know, is the act of saying or doing the same thing more than once.

If a description were only useful to a novel for conveying information to bolster its narrative portions, repetition would be superfluous; a technique designed to charge language with emotion has no place in purely informative text. The fact of the non- functionality, the non-necessity of repeated elements in a description that is ostensibly meant to convey a useful message is a bit of a problem if we restrict the purpose of description to the communication of information intended merely to fill in background information about the known world of the text. Repetitions, in descriptions and in general, represent therefore a principle of excess. The question is, then: what is the function of repetition in a descriptive composition?

122 According to Serriani: “Il congiuntivo esprime un certo grado di allontanamento dalla realtà o dalla costatazione obiettiva di qualcosa, contrassegnando un’azione o un processo in quanto desiderato, temuto, voluto, supposto.” In Grammatica Italiana. Italiano commune e lingua letteraria. Torino: Utet Libreria, 1989, 382-3.

178 It is first of all an element of classical rhetoric, an element that belongs to a genre

of tropes associated with oral communication, specifically oratory theorized by

Demetrius in On Style, where the “forceful figures,” (anaphora, anadiplosis,

conduplicatio, diacope, diaphora, epanalepsis, epistrophe, epizeuxis, mesodiplosis)

contribute to the elevation, impressiveness, vividness, and clarity of the composition, and

later in Roman rhetoric, where, in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, repetition is equated

aggressiveness (with a metaphor to repeated stabs at a human body), and later by

Quintilian, who emphasizes repetitions use in emphasizing a single point (Vickers 91, 92-

3). Theorizations of repetition as a rhetorical device associated with emphasis and

intensity remained strong through the Middle Ages and renaissance, though not without

recognition of the possibility of irony through repetition since Quintilian (Vickers 97). It

is worth noting that throughout, but especially after Christianity, figures of repetition are

increasingly associated with the emotions, rather than the ideas, they provoke (Vickers

96-97).

As such, repetition typically characterizes poetic language, whether it is on the

level of sound, word choice, syntax, or meaning. Patterns of repetition also occur in non-

poetic language, but generally in a less concentrated form.123 Internal to individual descriptions repetitions of various types (of vowel sounds, consonant sounds, word length/number of syllables, and words) emphasize rhythmic patterns in a way unfamiliar to prose descriptions in the realist paradigm, calling attention to the properties of the words and combinations of words that feature them. The deliberate compositional attention required by D’Annunzio’s complex use of repetitions distances his descriptive

123 See Jakobson, Roman, Krystyna Pomorska, and Stephen Rudy. “Linguistics and Poetics,” in Language in Literature. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1987, 62-94.

179 style from conventional spoken Italian and marks it not only as a literary use of language

but also as a symbolically charged one (Jakobson 72). His having used repetition this

way in descriptions indicates, again, an increased attention to the power of the descriptive

over the rest of our reading of a fictive world, and more particularly in this case upgrades

description’s status among prose modes by mixing it with techniques associated with

poetry.

I begin with a description that follows immediately after the end of the speech, a

description in which the descriptor/Effrena seems to see the Fire just evoked in his

Epifania animating everything in the environment: the description begins with an evocation of a vision (the epifania of course) made vague by the ecstatic senselessness of the elation brought on by the communion of crowd, speaker, and city/environment that follows the speech:

Attoniti gli occhi non più distinguevano i confini e le qualità degli elementi ma

erano illusi da una visione mobile e smisurata ove tutte le forme vivevano d’una

vita lucida e fluida, sospese in un etere vibrante; così che le snelle prore ricurve su

l’acqua e le miriadi di colombe d’oro pel cielo sembravano gareggiar di

leggerezza nel volo consimile e attingere le sommità degli edifizii immateriali.

(76-7)

Right away we notice the hallmarks of D’Annunzio’s poetic style: word order changes evoking the emphasis patterns of ancient rhetoric (“attoniti gli occhi,”), elaborations (“i confini e le qualità,” “mobile e smisurata,” “gargiar…attingere”), comparisons between

180 the observed world and the effects it has on its observer with increased focus on the

effects, long phrases, syllabic clumping. Then:

Era veramente un tempio edificato dai genii alacri del Fuoco quello che nel

crepuscolo era parso un argenteo palagio nettunio construtto a similitudine delle

tortili forme marine. Era veramente, ingigantita, una di quelle dimore labirintee

fondata sul ferro degli alari, alle cui cento porte appaiono i presagi bifronti e

fanno gesti ambigui alla vergine che spia; era, ingigantita, una di quelle fragili

reggie vermiglie alle cui mille finestre s’affacciano per un istante le principesse

salamandre e ridono voluttuosamente al poeta che medita. (76)

This as the poet and his company are moving away from the Palazzo Ducale, looking

back.124 The first phrase of this baroque description begins with the assertion “Era

veramente un tempio,” a phrase that conveys to us that the Palazzo is for this description

not just a stone building, but is really (or seems to be) its symbolic equivalent(s). The

first comparison to a paradoxical watery temple built by spirits of fire evokes an idea of

otherworldly fantasy; then, “veramente,” the image of an ancient household guarded by

the Janus head, simple and earthly; then a fiery palace from whose windows mythical

124 The Palazzo appears in many descriptions as a shrouded vision, both watery and airy, similar to the above description: “Dietro di lei, il Palazzo dei Dogi attraversato da larghi chiarori e da confusi strepiti dava imagine d'uno di quei risvegli favolosi che di repente trasfigurano nelle foreste le reggie inaccessibili ove qualche chioma regale cresceva sola nei secoli nutrita dal silenzio come un salice eterno su un fiume letèo” (74), “Il palazzo al primo sguardo aveva un’apparenza aerea, come di una nuvola effigiata che posasse su l’acqua” (120), “Egli rivide il palazzo patrizio quale eragli apparso nella prima alba d'ottobre, con le aquile con i corsieri con le anfore con le rose, chiuso e muto come un alto sepolcro” (301). Again, in the last sentence, there is a curious absence of commas between items on a list, this time enumerated in phrases using “con.” Both this sentence instance and the other noted previously appear this way in the novel’s first edition. D’Annunzio, Gabriele. Il fuoco. Milano: Fratelli Treves, 1900, 520.

181 princesses gaze, like salamanders, impervious to fire (Passerini 49).125 The segmentation of three metaphors is due to the pause imposed by periods, interruptions that are unnecessary (the three could be listed in sequence but in a single sentence), and this results in the cumulative repetition “era veramente,” “era veramente, ingigantita,” and

“era ingigantita.” Repetition of “ingigantita” emphasizes that the hugeness of the building is the first and most powerful impression. This accumulation of like phrases is a vehicle for the elaboration in the three metaphors; it is also a rhetorical device that gives emphasis to the assertion of the vision’s reality (“veramente”); it is a rhythmic imposition on the rest of the phrase that calls attention to the symbolic unity of the three barely dissimilar images. A second repetition, of the phrase “una di quelle,” in the second and third sentences includes the reader in the symbolic vision – one of those palaces, the kind one imagines, etc. But the describing voice has already told us these are “edifizii immateriali,” both in appearance and in association with these mythical and imaginary visions. The expression “era veramente ingigantita” carries weight, but this weight is affective rather than meaning-carrying: its superfluity allows its other function, as a structure that repeats sound patterns from the rest of the sentence. This is a simple example; several instances of conspicuous repetition appear throughout the text in multi- paragraph descriptions. In another passage we see D’Annunzio’s purposeful use of repetition for effects that have little to do with the matter of the description, a half-

description of Foscarina in a longer paragraph of similar sentences all in the imperfect

tense describing the mental state of the woman. One wonders if these should be

considered descriptive if they do not arise exclusively from an initial act of observation

125 The reference refers to the archaic belief that salamanders could live unharmed within a flame. Passerini, G.L. Conte. Il vocabolario della poesia dannunziana. Firenze: G.C. Sansoni, 1912, 46.

182 (some of the statements concerning the actresses desires, thoughts, etc.). Nonetheless the repetition is quite apparent:

Ella tremava nell'ombra con le spalle nude, con le braccia nude; e voleva ancora

negarsi e voleva esser posseduta; e voleva morire e voleva essere scossa da quelle

mani maschie. Ella tremava; le tremavano i denti in bocca. (110)

Multiple elements repeat themselves in the passage: the subject pronoun “ella,” at the beginning of clauses, which is already grammatically unnecessary combined with the verb tremare in the imperfect; the preposition “con,” the adjective “nude,” the phrase “e voleva,” and the semicolon. One is tempted to see these as a rendering of the anxious, obsessive, self-doubting mental energy of the object, and they do pair with that aspect of the description’s message; but what is more striking here is the resonance these repetitions have on the sonic plane. “Ella tremava” repeats, ritornello-like, and as such has more than one effect: first it orders the description as the repetition reminds the reader of the theme, but secondly it disrupts the forward flow of language and shatters the assumption of chronological progress that underlies the narrative mode. That, in addition to the fact that this deliberate repetition reminds readers of the formal qualities of the prose, especially those borrowed from metrical rules of poetry and compositional recommendations of oratory. Thus there is a certain performative aspect to this description that does not contribute to the semantic value of its object. Repeated words, and to a greater extent, repeated phrases are a keystone of D’Annunzio’s poetic prose style which uses again imports a musical/poetic compositionality that had heretofore been

183 less visible in descriptive style. The following is a metaphorical description of the flesh

of the actress that appears in a much longer description that details the scene after their

night together, wherein it is stated in the line before is trembling “come trema su la ghiaia

l’acqua corrente:”

Indefinite cose passavano passavano in quel tremolio d'acqua, innumerevoli,

continue, sorgendo dal fondo, scendendo di lontano; passavano passavano,

sempre più folte, più oscure, più impure, fiume di torbida vita. (138)

First of all we cannot ignore how easy it would be to exchange this sentence with any

sentence describing the water in Venice, or even the whole city; D’Annunzio uses many

of the same metaphors to describe the woman and the city, both of which are connected

with mysteriousness, age and decay, the contradiction of materiality and the ephemerality

of appearances, nature and artifice, etc. In the first part of the phrase the initial repetition

“passavano passavano” is an agrammaticism, as reduplication (repetition of a word or

word stem) in Italian is limited to use with adjectives, adverbs, and adverbial expressions,

and not verbs.126 This structure then repeats at the beginning the second part of the sentence. A second parallel, if not a true copy, can be found in the symmetry between the clausal structures on either side of the semicolon: two adjectives in succession

126 In linguistic terms, this is somewhat unusual, especially since the two words are not separated clausally; this is not really anadiplosis. Lepschy and Lepschy (103 qtd. in Wierzbicka 265) state that reduplication of adjectives, adverbs, and adverbial clauses in Italian can have two basic purposes: intensification (equivalent of English very) or identification of an authentic quality (as in Poggi Salani’s example caffè-caffè to imply ‘real’ coffee and not an imitation); Wierzbicka asserts that reduplication creates intensification also in adverbial clauses that do not refer to a particular quality. Wierzbicka, Anna. “Italian Reduplication: its meaning and cultural significance” in Cross-cultural pragmatics: the semantics of human interaction. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1991, 255-85; Poggi Salani, M.T. “Il tipo caffè-caffè,” Lingua nostra 32, 1971, 67-74.

184 (“innumerevoli,” “continue”), two gerunds in succession (“sorgendo,” then “scendendo”),

then three phrases using “più.” Within each of these we find repetition on the sub-lexical level as well, in alliterations (sorgendo – scendendo/oscure – impure – fiume) that

contribute to the melodic quality of the description. Such a high frequency of repeated

elements in an individual descriptive passage charges the description with points of

emphasis, but with points of emphasis that do not always pair with the focal point of the

description; it cannot be as it is in conventional usage where the purpose of repetition is

intensification of the meaning of the repeated word, as the repeated words here are not

really objects of emphasis. A verb, passare, is repeated; technically its meaning cannot

be intensified (to really pass by?), so the emphasis is almost semantically void. These

repetitions, like Beccaria’s autonomous metrical signifiers, have a functionality that is

wholly related to their structured patterning. The emphasis patterns that borrow from

oratory and poetic language show up in D’Annunzio’s prose as side effects of writing in a

register whose focus is not only the conveyance of descriptive information in the

traditional sense. These patterns are echoes of non-prose writing being permitted to

infiltrate prose for their aesthetic effects, effects that do not contribute to a

systematization of observer perspectives or epistemology in descriptions. It is a marked

departure from the way in which descriptions were dominated by semanticity in an earlier

part of the nineteenth century.

D’Annunzio is especially fond of anaphora in list-like descriptions. In these it is

striking that the repeated word is precisely that which carries the least meaning in the

repeated phrase – a preposition or conjunction – that reappears systematically over the

185 course of the description. The following is a description of a sound. The poet and

Foscarina are in a boat that is moving away from the source of the noise:

Da quell'isola della Follia, da quell'ospizio desolato e chiaro, dalle finestre

sbarrate della tremenda carcere veniva il coro allegro e lugubre, tremolava,

esitava nell'immensità estatica, diventava quasi infantile, s'affievoliva, stava per

cadere; poi risaliva, si afforzava, strideva, si faceva quasi lacerante; poi

s'interrompeva come se tutte le corde vocali si spezzassero insieme, si risaliva

come un grido di strazio, come un richiamo di naufraghi perduti che vedano

passare all'orizzonte una nave, come un clamore di moribondi; si estingueva,

finiva, non risorgeva più. (210)

A few features repeat here: “da” in the first part of the passage, verbs in the imperfect in a second list, (tremolava – esitava – diventava –s’affievoliva – stava) then “come” in the last part (come se – come un grido – come un richiamo – come un clamore). The prepositions are grammatically unnecessary in both cases. In a compositional manner similar to that of Flaubert’s list descriptions in Salammbô, here the description accumulates material as the sentence progresses, much of which is at least partially redundant or is an elaboration of what came immediately before it (“tremolava,” “esitava nell’immensità estatica;” “strideva,” “si faceva quasi lacerante”). Again this is a passage that relates to the mental state of the actress, who reacts with ‘obscure emotion’ to the sound of the madwomen of San Clemente. Passages related to her are often rendered in this way, where D’Annunzio’s already very long phrases extend, become more

186 redundant, almost obsessive; unlike Effrena, whose thoughts and speech follow compositional patterns familiar to formal writing or oratory, these passages associated with the actress easily lose their thread, taper off, or get lost, as it were, as she does in the labyrinth. Whether or not this is an effort to reflect certain notions about the female mind as D’Annunzio saw it, it is nonetheless striking that the main difference between these two in formal terms is the emphatic pattern of the descriptions with which they are associated, though as I am pointing out here they both use repetition as an emphatic, intensifying device, it is with a different tempo; one is measured and deliberate, the other hurried. This correspondence seems to be one case in which the effects of the style, specifically the rhythm of the phrases, matches at least partially with the meaning of the description.

I would like to look at one more relatively long description in which repetition of words, phonemes, and a rhythmic pattern feature prominently. “Passavano passavano,” repeated, is present here as well; I will discuss this repetition further below, and would like to point out that, on another register, the doubled verb has additional phonetic, rhythmic, and grammatical functions. In this passage Stelio has retrieved Foscarina from a labyrinth in which she had gotten lost and the two are returning from the labyrinth episode in a carriage, Effrena looking out the window, Foscarina mute, shuddering

(trembling again) and wrapped in a blanket on the floor of the carriage. The facility with which the actress falls into an uncontrollable shudder reinforces the theme of the fluidity and transparency of the woman’s relationship to her own body; Foscarina’s physical reactions are pure expressions, unmediated, as is related in an earlier section of the novel devoted to a discussion of her acting skills. The description is preceded by a rendering of

187 the woman: “Il suo amico le prendeva le dita e le teneva entro le sue per riscaldarle, ma inutilmente: erano inerti, sembravano esanimi. E le statue passavano passavano.”

Il fiume fluiva cupo tra i suoi argini, sotto il cielo di viola e d'argento ove saliva il

plenilunio. Una barca nera discendeva la corrente, tirata per una corda da due

cavalli grigi che camminavano su l'erba della ripa con sorde péste, condotti da un

uomo che andavasene zufolando in pace; e un fumaiuolo fumicava sul ponte come

la torricella del camino sul tetto d'un tugurio, e gialleggiava una lucerna nella

stiva, e si spandeva all'aria l'odore del pasto serale. E di qua, di là, nella campagna

irrigua, le statue passavano passavano.

The description continues in a second paragraph:

Era come una landa stigia, come una visione dell'Ade: un paese di ombre, di

vapori e di acque. Tutte le cose vaporavano e vanivano come spiriti. La luna

incantava e attirava la pianura com'ella incanta e attira il mare: beveva

dall'orizzonte la grande umidità terrestre, con una gola insaziabile e silenziosa.

Ovunque brillavano pozze solinghe; si vedevano piccoli canali argentei

riscintillare in una lontananza indefinita tra file di salci reclinati. La terra pareva

perdere a ora a ora la sua saldezza e liquefarsi; il cielo poteva mirarvi la sua

malinconia riflessa da innumerevoli specchi quieti. E di qua, di là, per la scolorata

riviera, come i Mani d'una gente scomparsa le statue passavano passavano. (235)

188 Repetitions of a few types occur here: repetitions on the word level and those on the level of the phoneme. In the first paragraph we observe two alliterative phrases whose components are in close proximity, first “fiume fluiva” and then “fumaiuolo fumicava.”

In the second we find “vaporavano e vanivano.” Individual words are repeated: the conjunction “e” at the beginning of clauses in the first passage and the preposition “di” in the second. The phrase “E di qua, di là…le statue passavano passavano,” repeated, acts like a refrain to the whole passage. It should also be noted that comparisons are prominent: “come la torricella del camino sul tetto d'un tugurio,” and “come una visione dell'Ade,” “come spiriti,” and “la terra pareva…” These repetitions are patterns within a larger sentence, but do not seem to correspond to the matter being described; I would suggest these patterns contribute to a particular lyrical tone that is being built up through the novel using these poetic techniques. Repeating simple elements in long descriptive phrases is an anti-reality effect; by making his form so invasive D’Annunzio injects his descriptions with a sense of aestheticized otherworldliness, of a meditative, lyrical, or dreamlike state as opposed to an observant, analytical one that compulsively includes all details for the sake of universalizable observation. But I would like to return to that most apparent repetition, “passavano passavano,” that we have seen on multiple occasions already in descriptions here. The describing voice’s paratactic repetition of the verb passare in the imperfect tense is a grammatical particularity that does few interesting things to the prose. If the phrase were “passavano e passavano” or “continuavano a passare” or even “passavano, passavano” which is closer to the more obscure “passavano passavano,” the meaning of the repetition would be slightly clearer: it might impart an emphasis on the durative aspect of the verb in this form, thereby indicating a subjective

189 prolongation of the experience being described. That is indeed partially the result with

“passavano passavano.” D’Annunzio does not seem to repeat verbs in this manner

habitually in all his prose, just in Il fuoco: “Gli alberi sopravanzando la cinta claustrale

parevano fumigare perle cime quasi nude; e le passere, più numerose delle foglie malate

su i rami, cigolavano cigolavano senza pause” (132); “Le ruote scorrevano scorrevano,

nella strada bianca, lungo gli argini della Brenta” (216), and “Infaticabile il coro aereo

saliva saliva, senza cedute, senza pause, empiendo di sé tutti gli spazii, pari all’immenso

deserto, pari all’infinita luce” (304-5).127 I have located, however, one instance of a repeated verb, again in the imperfect, in Il piacere. The following is a narrative passage relating an interaction between Andrea Sperelli and Delfina:

Delfina ora parlava, parlava, abbondantemente, ripentendo senza fine le stesse

cose, infatuata della cerva, mescolando le più strane fantasie, inventando lunghe

storie monotone, confondendo una favola con l’altra, componendo intrichi ne’

quali si smarriva ella stessa. Parlava, parlava, con una specie d’incoscienza, quasi

che l’aria del mattino l’avesse inebriata […] Parlava allo stesso modo che un

uccello gorgheggia…” (213)

In this case “parlava, parlava” is integrated with the syntactic pattern of the remainder of the passage, where we find elaborations and intensifications of meaning communicated

127 I make this statement based on my own observations of Il piacere, L’innocente, Il tronfo della morte, and Il fuoco. One other similar repetition occurs in Il fuoco, but not of a verb; in this case the intensification function is very clear: “Mai mai mai quell’uomo dimenticherà il passo che la Lussuria mosse verso di lui, il modo ch’ella ebbe nell’appressarsi, la rapida onda muta che gli si rovesciò sul petto, che l’avviluppò, che l’aspirò, che gli diede per alcuni attimi la paura e la gioia di partire una violenza divina…” (136). It is notable that Effrena also speaks this way: “Mai mai ella saprà da me la mia piaga; mai, pur se ella m’interroghi” (209).

190 by separating related phrases in succession in such a way that the phrase accumulates a

quantity of redundant information. This usage is considerably less opaque than

“passavano passavano,” which seems to function mainly to create poetic effects in the

repeated refrain.

In the last “passavano passavano” passage, the function of repetition is both

aspectual intensification and creation a rhythmic pattern that appeals to the irrational

sense of continuity born of listening to such rhythms. This function underlines the

natural affinity between the observer and the world he observes through the shared

experience of a certain unity in time, a form. A river flows, the moon rises, horses, a

man, a lantern all emit color and light effects that seem to reach out to the observer, as

does the smell of the environment that in its indistinctness blends with the colors in a

moment that combines the impressions of the senses.

Emphatic or intensifying repetition for D’Annunzio thus serves a dual purpose – both a grammatical one that entails a suggestion of increased emphasis on the meaning of the repeated word, which in the case of verbs can pump up the aspectual quality of the verb use, and the formation of rhythmic symmetries that structure descriptive passages around a single sound pattern. The effect on a non-semantic level is that as readers we are struck by the sonic quality of the repeated elements of the language.

Prose rhythm

Whereas poetry uses metric prescriptions to indicate rhythm, prose lacks such formal constraints; this fact makes rhythmic patterns we intuitively detect in prose

191 writing less contained, and thus harder understand systematically. Nonetheless there are

conventions and expectations: we speak of “measured” prose, of the symmetry of

phrases, of the musicality and tempo of a group of phrases presented in succession.

D’Annunzio criticism says precisely this about his prose style: it is musical, has a

discernible tempo, and produces melodies. Giacomo Devoto explained what he called

the musicality of D’Annunzio’s prose in terms of the melodic quality of words produced

by D’Annunzio’s syntactic arrangements. For Devoto, the musicality of D’Annunzio’s

prose is not a mere side effect of his effort to write in a well-wrought style (prosa d’arte),

but is rather the main motivation of the style: the melodic quality (which he also refers to

as rhythm) of the arrangement of words is a frame (“cornice”) that suppresses or absorbs

the image it encases instead of remaining distinct from it.128 In other words, creating stylistic features that are superfluous to the meaning of the words – ornamentation – is the source of D’Annunzio’s style; the style is not there to accommodate the message, but the other way around. If that is so, we could pair D’Annunzio with Huysmans in terms of the dominance of style over narrative, although Huysmans’s style is hardly melodic (its attention to the internal complexity of individual phrases and an esoteric vocabulary renders the prose awkward and arrhythmic). Devoto continues: “Quando il prevalere della cornice melodica è tale che la contemplazione del quadro-racconto viene svalutata assorbita e immobilizzata in una fissità contemplativa, si ha l’aspetto visivo di quello stato particolare ed estremo che è l’estasi” (Studi di stilistica 129). The essay goes on to examine this sensation of ecstasy in paralysis brought on by stylistic ornament

(rhythm/melody) and how this phenomenon grows and changes in D’Annunzio’s literary

128 I refer to Devoto’s essay “La musicalità dannunziana” in Studi di stilistica. Firenze: Le Monnier, 1950, 29-136. In Devoto’s analogy, the melody/rhythm/style of the writing is the frame (cornice) to the story, which he likens to a painting (quadro).

192 output over the course of his career. Similarly, Beccaria’s essay “Figure ritmico- sintattiche della prosa dannunziana” describes and explains the effects of the rhythms produced by D’Annunzio’s prose syntax – an imbalance toward the figurative, imaginary, personal over the observable – but turns away from an analysis of phonetic rhythm; his project concerns what he calls “l’altro ritmo,” the mental rhythm of the prose, the arrangement of images and the effects of these arrangements on a reader.129 Without denying the effects that both Devoto and Beccaria relate, I wonder if it is a bit too bold to subordinate the descriptive message to the ornamentation in these novels. Rhythmic patterns are an effect of certain arrangements, not a set of rules; an ungrammatical sentence with a strong rhythm has no place in a functioning description in this phase of the history of the European novel. Besides, if D’Annunzio had wanted merely to create stylistic arabesques, he would have chosen to create music, which he clearly believes is a purer form (though, contradictorily, Effrena is celebrated as a creator of images – l’imaginifico – not of sounds).130 But the possibility exists to generate these effects

129 The statement of Beccaria’s project in his 1964 volume Ritmo e melodia nella prosa italiana is different, however, from the 1975 book l’Autonomia del significante. In Ritmo he writes: “Il lettore inoltre avverte nel testo, al di là delle cadenze e dei movimenti, anche un altro tipo di ritmo, e che non è neppure acustico, accentuativo, o basato su raggruppamenti e ritorni di unità sintagmatiche: quando nel corpo d’un passo letterario l’autore riprende, rivive determinate imagini o situazioni affettive, parole o cadenze ricorrenti, produce allora effetti di rispondenza ritmica tanto importanti come le riprese prodotte dalla rima e dall’accento fisso in poesia, dalla cadenza di un ‘cursus’, ecc. in prosa,” whereas in the second volume he goes further and claims that formal devices in poetry are semantically autonomous: “Il significante ed i suoi rapporti effondono una semanticità sconosciuta al testo non ‘costruito’; e adiacenze formali e costruzioni vanno a beneficio di un senso accresciuto, potenziato, di un senso irrazionale attuato dall’apparato formale (razionale a part objecti) immanente al testo poetico.” We can analyze D’Annunzio’s use of formal devices of poetry in prose because they function in a similar manner. However, the unit of rhythm seems to be the entire clause in the D’Annunzio chapter, not the individual features of formal devices (i.e. consonants in alliterations). Beccaria, Gian Luigi. Ritmo e melodia nella prosa italiana: studi e ricerche sulla prosa d’arte. Firenze: L.S. Olschki, 1964, 4-5; L’Autonomia del significante: figure del ritmo e della sintassi, Dante, Pascoli, D’Annunzio. Torino: Einaudi, 1975, 57. 130 A clue to decoding the hierarchy of the senses implied by the language of Il fuoco comes in a discussion between the actress and the poet. He remarks: “A Venezia, come non si può sentire se non per modi musicali così non si può pensare se non per imagini. Esse vengono a noi da ogni parte innumerevoli e diverse, più reali e più vive delle persone che ci urtano col gomito nella calle angusta” (9). A contemporary

193 when the minimal conditions of communication have already been met. It will therefore

be my project in the following pages to point out adjustments within the parameters of

the prose sentence that D’Annunzio seems to use for rhythmic effects; in this I hope to

address the question as to how this prose creates the musical effects that have already

been noticed by Devoto and Beccaria. In this I do not include the tonal aspect of the

words, more appropriate to a discussion of melody, but instead the ways in which

descriptions in Il fuoco show rhythmic patterns on the phrase scale. Identifying these

features may add to an explanation of the mysterious and ecstatic experience they evoke and thereby help to assess the place these critical reactions have in a discussion of decadence (in addition to the thematic resonance – ecstasy, being overwhelmed, etc.).

As melody has inherently to do with the succession of sounds, a sense of musicality in writing must arise from the arrangement of words in succession. Rhythm cannot exist without time, and is thus antithetical to pure atemporal description; in language, rhythm creates a form where the sequential ordering of sounds wants to dissolve it (Gumbrecht 173). Rhythmic patterns thus attain their qualities of rendering memorable what has already passed (in speaking or reading). This set of ideas would be useful for an orator like Effrena (or D’Annunzio) in his compositional style; but of course he was already aware of them, and even discusses openly the emotional, communicative, back and forth movement of messages in recounting Effrena’s thoughts during and after the speech. The interaction with the crowd is visceral, almost erotic, and one reads very

critic put it this way: “L’imagine, nello spirito di Stelio, non s’aggiunge al pensiero per arrichirlo, ma nasce in forma di pensiero o lo sostituisce quasi sempre;” images, as he calls them, are the product of Stelio’s interaction with the world of the senses through thought. In the novel these images take the form of descriptions written from a third person position, but as already noted the comparative and observational tropes associated with Effrena are so strong that they produce subjectivity effects that bring them closer to first person descriptions. From a commentary by Angelo Conti in Illustrazione Italiana, 25 March 1900. Ctd. in D’Annunzio, Gabriele. Il fuoco. A cura di Niva Lorenzini. Milano: A. Mondadori, 1996, 331.

194 clearly in Il fuoco that Effrena is aware of the emotional power of rhythmic speech and uses it successfully. But this discussion concerns descriptions, and I would not have brought up the speech (which itself at moments exhibits a descriptive-essayistic hybridity but few autonomous descriptive phrases or sentences) and its rhetorical attributes, including use of rhythmic structures, were the rhythmic patterns there not also active in descriptive passages. But there is not a clear directionality to D’Annunzio’s use of prose rhythm; on the one hand, some rhythmic patterns appear to determine stylistic choices in these descriptions, including word order, word choice, and sentence structure, but others are mere side effects of the linear organization prose description demands of

D’Annunzio’s associative chains.

I begin with word order. It is true that in some cases alteration of the word order in a phrase may change the meaning of the phrase; two phrases using the same words may mean different things depending on the order of the words. In Italian, intonation changes frequently play the role that word order changes do in English or French – the same sentence with an upward intonation or a downward intonation can function alternately as a question or as a statement. In the formation of phrases in the indicative mode in Italian, then, certain word movements are superfluous to the meaning, and may indicate a change in emphasis or an emotional import rather than a semantic change.

Such is the case with reversal of the conventional relative positions of adjectival and the nouns they modify. Because the meaning of the sentence stays the same, the movement and its effects are ‘extras’ that add to the necessary meaning at the core of the phrase, but are not indispensible. This should not imply that they are useless. Word position changes create rhythmic patterns that have emotional effects on those who read them,

195 much like repeated words in accumulatio. This action takes two forms in D’Annunzio’s prose: reversal of the noun and adjective positions, and reversal of the noun and verb positions in the sentence. To illustrate this I begin with a passage from Il fuoco:

Pallido nell'albàsia pomeridiana l'estuario portava leggermente le sue isole come

il cielo porta le sue nuvole più miti. Le lunghe bande sottili del Lido e della

Terraferma avevano la vanità di quei tritumi nericci che galleggiano a zone su le

onde abbonacciate. Torcello, Burano, Mazzorbo, San Francesco del Deserto da

lungi non apparivano in aspetto di approdi ma di paesi sommersi le cui cime

soverchiassero il pelo dell'acqua come le coffe dei vascelli andati a picco. Deboli

erano le testimonianze degli uomini in quella solitudine piana, come le lettere

corrose dal tempo nelle antichissime lapidi. (291)

To understand the extent of stylistic variation in this passage we must first delimit that which is necessary to the communication of the message of individual sentences.

“Pallido…l’estuario” and “deboli…le testimonianze” at the beginnings of the first and last sentences is an unnecessary change for the communication of the message of the sentence; “l’estuario, pallido nell’albàsia pomeridiana, portava leggermente le sue isole…” would suffice. The same is true for the last sentence: “Le testimonianze degli uomini in quella solitudine piana erano deboli, come le lettere corrose…” would be a sufficient, albeit more plodding and linear, statement within the parameters of Italian grammar. But because within these parameters there is room for movement and grammaticality can be sustained even when word order changes, there is the possibility of

196 increased expressivity in the arrangement of words. In the case of “pallido” (pÀllido)

and “deboli” (dÉboli), using these words first puts a heavy stress on the antepenultimate

syllable of the words, generating the pattern

pAllido nell'albÀsia pomeridiAna l'estuArio portAva

whereas the alternative formula we would read instead

l’estuArio, pAllido nell’albÀsia pomeridiAna portAva

D’Annunzio’s composition distributes the stresses more evenly through the phrase than

does my more linear version of the phrase. In the second example:

dEboli Erano le testimoniAnze degli uOmini in quella solitUdine piAna

le testimoniAnze degli uOmini in quella solitUdine piAna Erano dEboli

In my version the stresses are closer together, which causes clashes such as that between

the trisyllabic words “erano” and “deboli.” In both cases the choice of word to begin the

phrase is one in which the stress is on the antepenultimate syllable: in the third person

plural conjugation of essere, an exception to the convention of stress at the penultimate in

trisyllabic words, and in “deboli.” 131 This is not a coincidental echo of a syllabic density in one part of the description with the other; D’Annunzio routinely changes word order in this way so as to put a word in which the stress is on the antepenultimate syllable at the beginning of the phrase. The deboli type is especially prevalent. Several instances present themselves:

131 Verb conjugations in the third person plural receive stress on the pre-antepenultimate syllable, unlike most other polysyllabic words: “It is a general rule of Italian intonation that all thematic constructions consisting of a lexeme or a lexeme + formative…must carry stress on one of the two final syllables of the construction. If there is no underlying stress on one of the last two syllables of this construction then the stress on the root is shifted to the right…the same is not true of verbal thematic constructions which can combine with bisyllabic grammatical morphemes or with two stressless morphemes. Contrary to nouns and adjectives then, verbs can carry pre-antepenultimate stress when they combine with morphemes of the third person plural.” Hirst, Daniel and Albert Di Cristo. Intonation systems: a survey of twenty languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 221.

197

Incredibile era la forza delle sue mani, l’energia nociva che si sviluppava in tutte

le sue membra. (150)

Formidabile era la voce del turbine in quella immobilità di secoli impietrati, sola

dominatrice su la solitudine… (163)

Immobili erano le vette, sole forme salienti nella giacitura supina delle terre e

delle acque che s’agguagliavano alla linea dell’orizzonte. (311)

And in the novel’s second-to-last paragraph:

Nobilissimi erano quei lauri latini, recisi nella selva del colle dove in tempi remoti

scendevano le aquile a portare i presagi, dove in tempi recenti e pur favolosi tanto

fiume di sangue versarono per la bellezza d’Italia i legionarii del Liberatore.

(324)

D’Annunzio almost always uses this construction with polysyllabic words that initiate the sentence (except in one case: “sparso era nell’aria quasi un fantasma di antichi fasti…”

(24)). It is striking that this construction does not appear at all in the earlier novels; one is led to postulate that this rhythmic structure has its basis in some convention of oratory.

By moving these words in which the stress is transposed to the left D’Annunzio creates a phrase that acquires an even distribution of stresses, generating a recognizable pattern in

198 the intervals between stresses. To a similar effect, there appear a few instances of the third person plural conjugation of a verb initiating a phrase.

Scintillavano gli astri, ondeggiavano gli alberi dietro il capo di Perdita, si

profondava un giardino. (91, 108) 132

Fumigavano in pace i camini delle umili case intorno al campiello, verso la cupola

verde. (185)

So far I have focused the discussion of rhythm with arrangement of words within a phrase, and that is where I will stop with such analysis, since the much more prominent factor in D’Annunzio’s prose rhythm is greater than the phrase level and lives equally in larger divisions: the sentence and the passage. I have found that in Il fuoco D’Annunzio shows a tendency to group words together in a way that either slows or accelerates the rhythm of a descriptive sentence. By grouping words that share a syllable count together in noun phrases D’Annunzio creates patterns that are stable enough to produce a rhythmic effect even in prose meant to be read silently. Thus we find the following in list of remembered images of Foscarina, a series of noun phrases that share a certain syllabic organization:

Il bacino voluttuoso come un seno che si offre, l'estuario perduto nell'ombra e

nella morte, la Città accesa dalla febbre crepuscolare, l'acqua scorrente nella

elessidra invisibile, il bronzo vibrante nel ciclo, la soffocante brama, le labbra

132 This exact sentence appears twice in the novel’s first part.

199 serrate, le palpebre basse, le aride mani, tutta la piena ritornò nel ricordo della

promessa muta. (109)

The noun phrases here follow a pattern of decreasing length over the course of the sentence. The relative syllabic value of the noun phrases also varies (accelerates, then halts) over the course of the description, an undulation that draws attention to the rhythmic properties of the clusters. So, “il bacino voluttuoso come un seno che si offre,”

“l’estuario perduto nell’ombra e nella morte,” and “l’acqua scorrente nella ellessidra invisibile,” all long phrases, are followed by shorter ones, “il bronzo vibrante nel ciclo,”

“la soffocante brama,” “le labbra serrate,” “le aride mani.” The tempo picks up again with the longer “tutta la piena ritornò…” which summarizes what came before it in a move fairly typical for D’Annunzio in the creation of lists (Beccaria 301-304). The movement is not perfectly smooth; in the middle section of the sentence he alternates between noun phrases that feature the modifier following the noun and those that feature the modifier preceding the noun (“la soffocante brama,” and “le aride mani”). This technique of alternating between noun phrases beginning with modifiers and those beginning with nouns must be deliberate, as it appears this way in several of

D’Annunzio’s descriptions, and although his text is very often emphatic “aride” for instance is not connected with any other signs of relative importance in the sentence and is an unexpected choice to receive such emphasis. Similarly in last part of the

“formidabile era” passage cited above, the noun phrases at the beginning of the sentence are alike (though not identical) in syllabic value; this description also follows the x, y, z…tutto pattern:

200

Le moltitudini incenerite, i fasti dispersi, le grandezze cadute, gli innumerevoli

giorni di nascita e di morte, le cose del tempo senza forma e senza nome

commemorava ella col suo canto senza lira, con la sua lamentazione senza

speranza. Tutta la malinconia del mondo passava nel vento su l'anima protesa.

(164)

Again:

Il bacino, la Salute, la Riva degli Schiavoni, tutta la pietra e tutta l'acqua erano un

miracolo d'oro e di opale. (204-5)

In the first selection we notice again a general elongation of the noun phrases as the sentence progresses. Again, too, an alternation between noun phrases with the modifier preceding the noun and those in which the modifier follows the noun appears. The same observation holds for the second selection the phrases increase in length, and in both we see the x, y, z…tutto structure. To these features we must add repetitions: “senza,”

“col/con” in the first instance and “tutta” in the second. We can tell these are deliberate repetitions because they are grammatically unnecessary (“col suo canto senza lira e la sua lamentazione senza speranza” would be acceptable, for instance). The repetitions have the same effect as the syllabic clusters: they produce sonic forms by enacting a relationship between repeated elements through time. D’Annunzio’s late-century descriptions can afford these inefficiencies because its motivation is no longer dominated

201 by the expression of necessary, universally observable information. We see in

D’Annunzio’s sometimes-redundant modifications – repetitions, choice of long words and deliberate creation of long phrases, lists of three when one item would do – two movements: first, a shift in the focus of descriptions from the universally observable matter of Flaubert’s research-oriented descriptions to an animation of the described world by the mental associations (with melancholy, etc.) of an individual character, and second increased attention paid to the effects of the language itself and less to epistemological relationship between describer and described enacted through a direct referentiality.

Whereas the other novels examined here all showed concern for the accuracy of the representation (even, or perhaps especially Huysmans, with his scholastic aspirations), for D’Annunzio the possibility of a shared experience of observation is not an issue – the lone subjectivity of the poet is the only (and for him, best) filter for information about the events and scenes of the novel. Back to the rhythm, however, which uses superfluous elements to create a patterned entity that is, if we agree with Beccaria, autonomous and unrelated to the semantic values of the word that constitute it.

There are certain patterns in this prose that cannot and should not be attributed to a deliberate delimitation of metric parameters. Certain rhythmic effects are just that: effects of other phenomena. In this case it is the long sentence for which D’Annunzio’s prose is well known. Other descriptions encountered thus far have certainly been long and complex. I would argue even that many long descriptive sentences in Salammbô or À rebours are significantly more complex on the syntactic level than D’Annunzio’s long sentences despite the more or less equal length and frequency of appearance of such sentences in all of these works. In all of the descriptions encountered thus far that

202 contained long sentences enumeration has been a frequent source of the sentence length, as noted in the discussion of lists in my comments on the two French authors. In

Salammbô and À rebours, however, the syntax of list-descriptions served to organize the material in a way that reflected a certain attitude about the associations between things in the physical world and in the world of knowledge. In the dannunzian description this is not the case, except in those few descriptions that fit the encyclopedic mold (the greyhounds, luxury items in the boudoir, the Dürer etching), which are far less prominent in D’Annunzio’s prose than are the associative or impressionistic descriptions built around comparative tropes. This is increasingly true after Il fuoco, and corresponds to the argument that D’Annunzio’s prose after Il fuoco increasingly emphasizes its lyrical element over any narrative one. Lists no longer express organizational or epistemological structures, but instead provide a space for parallelism between ideas

(images) that are related through the comparative tropes. Extending the comparisons across many objects/thoughts/visions necessitates possibly infinite stretching of the descriptive sentence, with the proper punctuation of course (commas and semicolons).

These long lists of thus overlapping elements afford flexibility to the length and metrical breakup of the sentence, which seems to lead us to hear more clearly the interval of pauses. I will give a moderate and relatively simple example here, though some of these long sentences extend to many pages in length.

Egli si chinava su le belle acque; ed ella anche, dall'altra banda. I nastri, le piume,

il velluto, le altre materie tenui che componevano con un'arte sobria e sottile il

cappello della Foscarina; gli occhi di lei e l'ombra glauca che li cerchiava; il

sorriso stesso ond'ella faceva incantevole la grazia del suo sfiorire; il mazzo di

203 giunchiglie che stava infisso a prua nel luogo del fanaletto; le immaginazioni

peregrine dell'animatore; i nomi sognati delle isole scomparse; il cilestro che or sì

or no si discopriva fra il vapor niveo; il gridìo fioco che or sì or no giungeva da

uno stormo d'uccelli invisibili; tutte le più delicate cose erano vinte dai giochi di

quelle parvenze fuggitive, dai colori di quelle chiome salmastre che vivevano

nella vicenda delle maree volgendosi come sotto a una carezza alterna. (292)

The presence of multiple pauses between long descriptive clauses is everywhere in

D’Annunzio’s prose, and these two paragraphs cannot represent the full spectrum of use.

Because this is not writing that conforms to metrical prescriptions it is not reasonable to search for patterns of a similar consistency and tightness of parameters in the descriptive passages. What I would like to emphasize instead is the fact that the style of

D’Annunzio’s long phrases, themselves the product of a complex (if linear) syntax, produce rhythmical side effects that are strong enough to distract one from the matter of the descriptions. In a kind of writing in which style is such a dominant interest, and in which the actual matter of the descriptions is subordinated compositionally (the observed phenomena often take up less textual space than the ideas they evoke in the observer), it is easy to become distracted by side effects like rhythmic patterns that move a reader’s attention away from the described world and toward a more complicated experience based on an expanded definition of the interests of descriptions in the novel. In the passage above, the descriptor’s attention moves so easily from the world of observed things (i nastri, le piume, il velluto) to the imagination of the observing figure

(l'animatore) that the objects themselves fade from attention and remain only insofar as

204 they function to spur the associative activity that follows; this activity is complex, and involves great quantities of material with qualifying language attached to it, and thus demands a list; the result is a list-structure that uses pauses (semicolons here, but often commas) to separate autonomous semantic clusters and in doing so demands rhythmically dispersed pauses in reading, interruptions that mark the tempo of the sentence. It is a particular quality of D’Annunzio’s prose that these clauses often share a similar syntactic structure (article + noun + adjectival clause) whose repetition causes occasional metric symmetries. It is therefore true that this prose has a certain musicality insofar as it has certain features that, in the flux of reading through time, generate some regularities that act like rhythms on the physical awareness of the reader. These peripheral rhythms are not stable across descriptions or even within single descriptive sentences (and since they are long we can forgive them for sometimes switching from one pattern to another) and do not appear to restrain the composition; on the contrary, they are the results of a certain compositional style, not the cause of it. And while the meaning of the connections made between objects in the semantic field of the description may open up in ways that are in fact arbitrary to anyone outside the mind of the poet, the rhythms, when they appear, resonate with stability even when this stability is perfectly contrary to the message of the description. It is a stability that exists by virtue of style that is autonomous from the semantic realm and thus has its own expressive powers that have their home in the experience of sound through time.

*

205

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