The Arcades Project - Operi

Sainte-Beuve's characterization of his own poetry: (.(.1 have endeavored . .. to be
original in my fashion, which is humble and bourgeois, . .. calling by their name
the things of private life, hut preferring the thatched cottage to the boudoir." Vie,
poesies et pensees de Joseph Delorme (Paris, 1863), vol. 1, p. 170 ("Pensees," no.
19). [J5!,3]
With Sainte·Beuve, a standard of sensibility: "Ever siuce our poets, . .. iustead of
sayiug 'a romantic grove; a 'melancholy lake; . .. started sayiug 'a green grove'
and 'a blue lake; alarm has been spreading among the disciples of Madame de
Sta;;1 and the Genevan school; and already complaints can be heard about the
iuvasion of a new materialism . ... Above all, there is a dread of monotony, and it
seems far too easy and far too simple to say that the leaves are green and the
waves blue. On this poiut, perhaps, the adversaries of the picturesque deceive
themselves. The leaves, iu fact, are not always green; the waves not always blue.
Or rather, we find iu nature ... neither green, nor blue, nor red, properly speakiug;
the natural colors of things are colors without names . ... The picturesque is
not a box of paints that can be emptied." pp. 166-167 ("Pensees;' no. 16). [J5!,4]
(.(,The alexandrine . .. resembles somewhat a pair of tongs, gleaming and golden, if
straight and rigid; it is not for rummaging about in nooks and cl·annies.-Our
modern verse is to a degree partitioned and articulated in the manner of insects,
but, like them, it has wings." Vie, poesws et pensees de Joseph Delorme (Paris,
1863), vol. 1, p. 161 ("Pensees," no. 9). [J5!a,!]
The sixth of Joseph Delorme's pensees assembles a number of examples and
prefigurations of the modern alexandrine, from Hotrou, Chenier, Lamartine,
Hugo, and Vigny. It notes that they are all informed by I.(.the full, the large, the
copious." Typical is this verse by Rotrou: "I myself have seen them-[the Christians]
looking so serene--- I Driving their hymns to the skies in bulls of bronze"
(p. 154). [J5Ia,2]
I.(.The poetry of Andre Chenier . . is, as it were, the landscape for which Lamartine
has done the sky." Delorme, vol. 1, pp. 159-160 CPensees," no. 8).
[J5Ia,3]
In the preface of February 1829, Sainte-Beuve provides the poetry of Joseph
Delorme with a more or less exact social index. He lays weight on the fact that
Delorme comes from a good family, and even more on his poverty and the
humiliations to which it has exposed him. [J5!a,4]
What I propose is to show how Baudelaire lies embedded iu the niueteenth
century. The impriut he has left behind there must stand out clear and iutact, like
that of a stone which, having lain iu the ground for decades, is one day rolled
from its place. U5Ia,5]