Sonnets: Edgar Degas, Claudius Popelin, and the poetry of generic constraints

摘要

In 1889, Degas embarked on a brief literary venture by writing a number of sonnets. This episode has been interpreted as an offshoot of his contacts with St??phane Mallarm??. Degas dedicated one of these poems to Jos??-Maria de Heredia, thereby seeming to acknowledge another literary criterion: Parnassian poetry. This literary context is arguably excessively narrow. This article aims to broaden the debate about Degasa?? engagement with sonnet form in order to re-evaluate his achievements as a poet. In doing this, it also examines the sonnets of a neglected artist writer: Claudius Popelin (1825-1892). In 1888, Popelin published Un Livre de sonnets, a collection of 230 sonnets preceded by an extended homage to sonnet form, itself written as poetry. Although there is an intriguing coincidence of timing between this publication and the composition of Degasa?? sonnets, this article will be concerned above all with the choice by both artists of the sonnet as a form, generically among the most conventional and difficult in contemporary literature. In the dichotomy that forever confronts visual artists who write literature, between generic transgression in the name of the visual and a stricter literary conformism, they leaned emphatically towards the richness of a conventional form. Degasa?? skills as a sonneteer, admirably identified by Paul Val??ry in his Degas, danse, dessin (1938), allowed him to add a verbal dimension to topics we find in his visual works: dance, theatre, the racetrack, modernity.View full textDownload full textKeywordsEdgar Degas, Claudius Popelin, St??phane Mallarm??, sonnetsRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; var addthis_config = {"data_track_addressbar":true,"ui_click":true}; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02666286.2012.740189