I was grateful for the Whitman reference, not having read that particular
bit of Specimen Days before: it's delightful & fantastic in every sense.
After Baudelaire, Mallarmé was t h e great Poe-fancier & interpreter, as
evidenced by his definitive poem, "Le tombeau d'Edgar Poe", which gave the
English language a great phrase via a celebrated poet's rendering of "donner
un sens plus pur aux mots de la tribu", and I would say in several of his
prose poems as well, in particular "Le démon de l'analogie", a very
mysterious & suggestive piece, too long for me to translate while writing
this mail, but worth looking up, for example via the link given below. (This
site does offer translation, but by automatic translator, so you know what
to expect ~ it offers "the penult" as an English word etc...)
It even has M. anticipating e-mail ~ "the phrase returned, virtual", and
it's full of wacky parodic humour; my guess is that it's about the hidden
springs of poetry, the Lute of Orpheus being a fairly obvious allusion at
the end.
As far as the question of prose/verse is concerned, I think the word "verse"
gives us a hint, meaning "turning" (as in "reverse" etc). Robert Duncan has
several passages on this, I think, though the only one I can locate now is
the nutshelly "Verse turns to verse, reinstates itself. Prose goes straight
on to the end of its paragraph." (from the "Notes on notation" at the
beginning of _Ground Work: Before the War_. Duncan himself became a
Mallarméist in this & the following volume, his last, writing both prose &
verse inspired by the French master, so there's a little tradition there,
ranging from Poe through Baudelaire & Mallarmé to Duncan.)
I've been hanging around reading the mail but saying anything so far ~ I was
on the list back in 1999-2000, during a year in France, till in June a
thunderstorm put paid to any further internet connection on that PC.
I was very interested by the word "downsdie" used by you, John (Haynes), but
after consulting a dictionary or two was forced regretfully to conclude that
you meant to write "downside". By the way, to follow up the "ethnic" thread,
what nationality are you? I ask because I used to know a poet of the same
name at Southampton University a few eons ago.
cheers, Martin
http://mallarme.nemoclub.net/oeuvres/demon.htm
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