All Topics  
Comte de Lautréamont

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Comte de Lautréamont
 
 
  Topics Comte de Lautréamont Topic Home

Comte de Lautréamont ( in French) was the pen name
Pen name

A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her writings, or for any of a number of...
 of Isidore Lucien Ducasse (April 4, 1846 – November 24, 1870), an Uruguay
Uruguay

Uruguay is a country located in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to 3.46 million people, of whom 1.7 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area....
an-born French poet.

His only works, Les Chants de Maldoror
Les Chants de Maldoror

Les Chants de Maldoror is a poetic novel consisting of six cantos. It was written between 1868 and 1869 by the Comte de Lautreamont, the pseudonym of Isidore Lucien Ducasse....
 and Poésies, had a major influence on modern literature, particularly on the Surrealists
Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early-1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
 and the Situationists. Les Chants de Maldoror is often described as the first surrealist book. He died at the young age of 24.

sse was born in Montevideo
Montevideo

Montevideo is the largest city, the capital and chief port of Uruguay. Montevideo is the only city in the country with a population over 1,000,000....
, Uruguay
Uruguay

Uruguay is a country located in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to 3.46 million people, of whom 1.7 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area....
, to François Ducasse, a French consul
Consul

Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Roman Empire. The title was also used in other city states, and revived in modern states, notably French Republic before the Napoleon I of Franceic counter-revolution....
ar officer and his wife, Jacquette-Célestine Davezac.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Comte de Lautréamont'
Start a new discussion about 'Comte de Lautréamont'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Comte de Lautréamont ( in French) was the pen name
Pen name

A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her writings, or for any of a number of...
 of Isidore Lucien Ducasse (April 4, 1846 – November 24, 1870), an Uruguay
Uruguay

Uruguay is a country located in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to 3.46 million people, of whom 1.7 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area....
an-born French poet.

His only works, Les Chants de Maldoror
Les Chants de Maldoror

Les Chants de Maldoror is a poetic novel consisting of six cantos. It was written between 1868 and 1869 by the Comte de Lautreamont, the pseudonym of Isidore Lucien Ducasse....
 and Poésies, had a major influence on modern literature, particularly on the Surrealists
Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early-1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
 and the Situationists. Les Chants de Maldoror is often described as the first surrealist book. He died at the young age of 24.

Biography


Youth

Ducasse was born in Montevideo
Montevideo

Montevideo is the largest city, the capital and chief port of Uruguay. Montevideo is the only city in the country with a population over 1,000,000....
, Uruguay
Uruguay

Uruguay is a country located in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to 3.46 million people, of whom 1.7 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area....
, to François Ducasse, a French consul
Consul

Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Roman Empire. The title was also used in other city states, and revived in modern states, notably French Republic before the Napoleon I of Franceic counter-revolution....
ar officer and his wife, Jacquette-Célestine Davezac. Very little is known about Isidore's childhood, except that he was baptized on 16 November, 1847, in the cathedral of Montevideo and that his mother died shortly afterwards, probably due to an epidemic. In 1851, as a five-year-old, he experienced the end of the eight-year siege of Montevideo
Uruguayan Civil War

The Uruguayan Civil War, also known as "Guerra Grande", was a series of armed conflicts that took place between the Colorado Party at Montevideo and National Party at Cerrito in Uruguay from 1839 to 1851....
 in the Argentine
Argentina

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is a country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city....
-Uruguayan
History of Uruguay

This is about the history of Uruguay. See also the History of South America....
 war. Ducasse was brought up to speak three languages: French, Spanish and English.

In October 1859, at the age of thirteen, Isidore was sent to high school in France by his father. He was trained in French education and technology at the Imperial Lycée in Tarbes
Tarbes

Tarbes is a France town and commune in France, in the d?partement in France of Hautes-Pyr?n?es, of which it is the pr?fecture. It is part of the historical region of Gascony....
. In 1863 he enrolled in the Lycée Louis Barthou in Pau, where he attended classes in rhetoric and philosophy (under and uppergreat). He excelled at arithmetic and drawing and showed extravagance in his thinking and style. Isidore was a reader of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American poet, Short story writer, Editing and Literary criticism, and is considered part of the American Romanticism. Best known for his tales of Mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the Detective fiction genre....
, and particularly devoured Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major England Romantic poets and is widely considered to be among the finest Lyric poetry in the English language....
 and Byron
Büron

B?ron is a Municipalities of Switzerland in the district of Sursee in the Cantons of Switzerland of Lucerne in Switzerland....
, as well as Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz is generally regarded as the greatest Polish Romanticism poet. He ranks as one of Poland's Three Bards alongside Zygmunt Krasinski and Juliusz Slowacki....
, Milton
John Milton

John Milton II was an English poet, author, polemicist and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England. He is best known for his Epic poetry Paradise Lost and for his treatise condemning censorship, Areopagitica....
, Robert Southey
Robert Southey

Robert Southey was an English poet of the Romantic poetry school, one of the so-called "Lake Poets", and Poet Laureate for 30 years from 1813 to his death in 1843....
, Alfred de Musset
Alfred de Musset

Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a France dramatist, poet, and novelist.Along with his poetry, he is known for writing La Confession d'un enfant du si?cle from 1836....
, and Baudelaire. In school he was fascinated by Racine
Jean Racine

Jean Racine was a France dramatist, one of the "big three" of 17th century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition....
 and Corneille
Pierre Corneille

File:Pierre Corneille 3.jpgPierre Corneille was a French tragedy who was one of the three great seventeenth Century French dramatists, along with Moli?re and Jean Racine....
, and by the scene of the blinding in Sophocles
Sophocles

Sophocles was the second of the three classical Greece tragedy whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides....
' Oedipus the King
Oedipus the King

Oedipus the King is an Classical Athens tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed c. 429 B.C.E. It was the second of Sophocles' three Theban plays to be produced, but it comes first in the internal chronology, followed by Oedipus at Colonus and then Antigone ....
. According to his schoolmate, Paul Lespès, he showed obvious folly "by self-indulgent use of adjectives and an accumulation of terrible death images" in an essay. After graduation he lived in Tarbes, where he started a friendship with Georges Dazet, the son of his guardian, and decided to become a writer.

Years in Paris

After a short stay with his father in Montevideo, Ducasse settled in Paris at the end of 1867. He began studies at the École Polytechnique
École Polytechnique

The ?cole Polytechnique , often referred to by the nickname X, is the foremost France grande ?cole of engineering . Founded in 1794 and initially located in the Quartier Latin in central Paris, it was moved to Palaiseau in 1976....
, only to give them up one year later. Continuous allowances from his father made it possible for Ducasse to dedicate himself completely to his writing. He lived in the "Intellectual Quarter", in a hotel in the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, where he worked intensely on the first canto
Canto

The 'canto' is a principal form of division in a long poem, especially the epic poetry. The word comes from Italian language, from the Latin cantus, meaning "song," and has a corollary in the Sanskrit , or "chapter." Famous examples of epic poetry which employ the canto division are Valmiki's Ramayana , Dante Alighieri's The Divin...
 of Les Chants de Maldoror. It is possible that he started this work before his passage to Montevideo, and also continued the work during his ocean journey.

Ducasse was a frequent visitor to nearby libraries, where he read Romantic
Romanticism

Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution....
 literature, as well as scientific works and encyclopaedias. The publisher Léon Genonceaux described him as a "large, dark, young man, beardless, mercurial, neat and industrious" and reported that Ducasse wrote "only at night, sitting at his piano, declaiming wildly while striking the keys, and hammering out ever new verses to the sounds".

Anonymously and at his own expense, in late 1868 Ducasse published the first canto of Les Chants de Maldoror (Chant premier, par ***), a booklet of thirty-two pages which is considered by many a bold, taboo-breaking poem on pain and cruelty. It is considered by many of its fans a radical work full of amazing phenomena of evil
Evil

Evil, in many cultures, is a broad term used to describe intentional negative moral acts or thoughts that are cruel, unjust or selfish. Evil is usually good and evil, which describes acts that are kind, just or unselfish....
, yet at the same time a text of unparalleled beauty, greatness and elevation.

On November 10, 1868, Isidore sent a letter to writer Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo was a France poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romanticism movement in France....
, in which he included two copies of the first canto, and asked for a recommendation for further publication. A new edition of the first canto appeared at the end of January, 1869, in the anthology Parfums de l'Ame in Bordeaux. Here Ducasse used his pseudonym Comte de Lautréamont for the first time. His chosen name was based on the character of Latréaumont from a popular 1837 French gothic novel by Eugène Sue
Eugène Sue

Joseph Marie Eug?ne Sue was a France novelistHe was born in Paris, the son of a distinguished surgeon in Napoleon's army, and is said to have had the Jos?phine de Beauharnais for godmother....
, which featured a haughty and blasphemous anti-hero similar in some ways to Isidore's Maldoror. The title was probably paraphrased as l'autre Amon (the other Amon
Amon (demon)

File:Aamon.jpgIn demonology, Amon is a Duke of Hell. He is the seventh of the 72 Goetia demons and one of Astaroth's assistants for whom he governs forty infernal legions....
). Following other interpretations it stands for l'autre Amont (the other side of the river).

A total of six cantos were to be published in late 1869, by Albert Lacroix
Albert Lacroix

Albert Lacroix was a 19th century French editor and printer who risked launching some seminal authors like the Goncourt brothers and Emile Zola....
 in Brussels, who had also published Eugène Sue. The book was already printed when Lacroix refused to distribute it to the booksellers as he feared prosecution for blasphemy
Blasphemy

Blasphemy is the disrespectful use of the name of one or more Deity. It may include using sacred names as stress expletives without intention to pray or speak of sacred matters; it is also sometimes defined as language expressing disapproved beliefs, or disbelief....
 or obscenity
Obscenity

Obscenity , is a term that is most often used in a law context to describe expressions that offend the prevalent sexual morality of the time....
. Ducasse considered that this was because "life in it is painted in too harsh colors" (letter to the banker Darasse from March 12, 1870).

Ducasse urgently asked Auguste Poulet Malassis, who had published Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal
Les Fleurs du mal

Les Fleurs du mal is a volume of France poetry by Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1857, it was important in the symbolism and modernism movements....
 (The Flowers of Evil) in 1857, to send copies of his book to the critics. They alone could judge "the commence of a publication which will see its end only later, and after I will have seen mine." He tried to explain his position, and even offered to change some "too strong" points in coming editions:

Poulet Malassis announced the forthcoming publication of the book the same month in his literary magazine Quarterly Review of Publications Banned in France and Printed Abroad. Otherwise few people took heed of the book. Only the Bulletin du Bibliophile et du Bibliothécaire noticed it in May, 1870; "the book will probably find a place under the bibliographic curiosities".

Death

In spring 1869, Ducasse frequently changed his address, from Rue du Faubourg Montmartre 32 to Rue Vivienne 15, then back to Rue Faubourg Montmartre, where he lodged in a hotel at number 7. While still awaiting the distribution of his book, Ducasse worked on a new text, a follow-up to his "phenomenological description of evil", in which he wanted to sing of good. The two works would form a whole, a dichotomy of good and evil. The work, however, remained a fragment.

In April and June, 1870, Ducasse published the first two installments of what was clearly meant to be the preface to the planned "chants of the good" in two small brochures, Poésies I and II. This time he published under his real name, discarding his pseudonym. He differentiated the two parts of his work with the terms philosophy
Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, and language....
 and poetry
Poetry

Poetry is a form of literature art in which language is used for its aesthetics and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning ....
, announced that the starting point of a fight against evil was the reversal of his other work:

At the same time Ducasse took texts by famous authors and cleverly inverted, corrected and openly plagiarized for Poésies:

Among the works plagiarized were Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal , was a France mathematician, physicist, and religion philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a civil servant....
's Pensées
Pensées

The Pens?es represented a defense of the Christian religion by Blaise Pascal, the renowned 17th century philosophy and mathematician. Pascal's religious conversion led him into a life of asceticism, and the Pens?es was in many ways his life's work."Pascal's Wager" is found here....
 and La Rochefoucauld
François de La Rochefoucauld

Fran?ois de La Rochefoucauld may be:* Fran?ois de La Rochefoucauld , French author* Fran?ois de La Rochefoucauld , French cardinal of the Catholic Church...
's Maximes, as well as the work of Jean de La Bruyère
Jean de La Bruyère

Jean de La Bruy?re , was a France essayist and moralist....
, Marquis de Vauvenargues, Dante
DANTE

DANTE is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various National Research and Education Networks in Europe and surrounding regions....
, Kant
KANT

KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in Global field function fields, and in local fields....
 and La Fontaine. It even included an improvement of his own Les Chants de Maldoror. The brochures of aphoristic prose did not have a price; each customer could decide which sum they wanted to pay for it.

On 19 July 1870, Napoleon III declared war on Prussia, and after his capture, Paris was besieged
Siege of Paris

The Siege of Paris, lasting from September 19, 1870 – January 28, 1871, brought about French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and led to the establishment of the German Empire....
 on September 17, a situation with which Ducasse was already familiar, from his early childhood in Montevideo. The living conditions worsened rapidly during the siege, and according to the owner of the hotel he lodged at, Ducasse became sick with a "bad fever".

Lautréamont died at the age of 24 on November 24, 1870, at 8:00 am in his hotel. On his death certificate "no further information" was given. Since many were afraid of epidemics while Paris was besieged, Ducasse was buried the next day after a service in Notre Dame de Lorette in a provisional grave at the Cemetière du Nord
Montmartre Cemetery

Montmartre Cemetery is a List of famous cemeteries located at 37 Avenue Samson, in the 18?me arrondissement, Paris of Paris, France.Cemeteries had been banned from Paris since the shutting down of the Cimeti?re des Innocents in 1786, as they presented health hazards....
. In January 1871, his body was put to rest in another grave elsewhere.

In his Poésies Lautréamont announced: "I will leave no memoirs", and as such, the life of the creator of the "Les Chants de Maldoror" remains for the most part unknown.

Les Chants de Maldoror

Les Chants de Maldoror is based around a character called Maldoror, a figure of unrelenting evil who has forsaken God
God

God is a deity in theism and deism religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
 and mankind
Mankind

Mankind may refer to:* The human speciesMankind may also refer to the male members of the human species, whereas womankind commonly refers to the female members....
. The book combines a violent narrative with vivid and often surrealistic imagery.

The critic Alex De Jonge writes, "Lautreamont forces his readers to stop taking their world for granted. He shatters the complacent acceptance of the reality proposed by their cultural traditions and make them see that reality for what it is: an unreal nightmare all the more hair-raising because the sleeper believes he is awake." (De Jonge, p. 1)

There is a wealth of Lautréamont criticism, interpretation and analysis in French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
  (including an esteemed biography by Jean-Jacques Lefrère), but little in English.

Lautréamont's writing is full of bizarre scenes, vivid imagery and drastic shifts in tone and style. There are heavy measures of black humor; De Jonge argues that Maldoror reads like "a sustained sick joke." (De Jonge, p. 55)

Surrealism

In 1917, French writer Philippe Soupault
Philippe Soupault

Philippe Soupault was a French writer and poet, novelist, critic, and political activist. He took an active role in the Dadaist movement and later founded the Surrealist movement with Andr? Breton....
 discovered a copy of "Les Chants de Maldoror" in the mathematics section of a small Parisian bookshop, near the military hospital to which he had been admitted. In his memoirs Soupault wrote:

Due to this find, Lautréamont was discovered by the Surrealist group
Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early-1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
. Soon they called him their prophet. As one of the poètes maudits
Poète maudit

A po?te maudit is a poet living a life outside or against society. Abuse of drugs and alcohol, insanity, crime, violence, and in general any societal sin, often resulting in an early death are typical elements of the biography of a po?te maudit....
 (accursed poets), he was elevated to the Surrealist Panthéon
Panthéon, Paris

The Panth?on is a building in the Latin Quarter in Paris, France. It was originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve, but after many changes now combines liturgical functions with its role as a List of cemeteries....
 beside Baudelaire and Rimbaud, and acknowledged as a direct precursor to surrealism
Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early-1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
. André Gide
André Gide

Andr? Paul Guillaume Gide was a France author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the Symbolism movement, to the advent of Anti-imperialism between the two World Wars....
 regarded him as the most significant figure, meriting Aragon, Breton and Soupault, "to have recognized and announced the literary and ultra-literary importance of the amazing Lautréamont". Gide regarded Lautréamont - even more than Rimbaud - as the "gate-master of tomorrow's literature".

Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon

Louis Aragon in French) , French poet and novelist, a long-time political supporter of the French Communist Party and a member of the Acad?mie Goncourt....
 and André Breton
André Breton

Andr? Breton was a French writer, poet, and surrealist theorist, and is best known as the main founder of surrealism. His writings include the Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as pure psychic automatism....
 discovered the only copies of the "Poésies" in the National Library of France
Bibliothèque nationale de France

The Biblioth?que nationale de France is the National library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France....
 and published the text in April and May 1919 in two sequential editions of their magazine Literature. In 1925 a special edition of the Surrealist magazine Le Disque Vert was dedicated to Lautréamont, under the title "Le cas Lautréamont" (The Lautréamont case). It was the 1927 publication by Soupault and Breton that assured Lautréamont a permanent place in French literature
French literature

French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak other traditional languages of France....
 and the status of patron saint in the Surrealist movement. Numerous Surrealist writers subsequently paid homage to Lautréamont. In 1940 André Breton incorporated him into his "Anthology of Black Humour".

The title of an object by American artist Man Ray
Man Ray

Man Ray, born Emmanuel Radnitzky , was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealism movements, although his ties to each were informal....
, called L'énigme d'Isidore Ducasse (The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse) created in 1920, contains a reference to a famous line in the 6th canto. Lautréamont describes a young boy as "beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting-table of a sewing-machine and an umbrella!". Similarly, Breton often used this line as an example of Surrealist dislocation.

"Maldoror" inspired many artists: Fray De Geetere, Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dal? i Dom?nech, 1st Marquis of P?bol was a Spain Catalonia surrealist painter born in Figueres.Dal? was a skilled Technical drawing, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealism work....
, Man Ray
Man Ray

Man Ray, born Emmanuel Radnitzky , was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealism movements, although his ties to each were informal....
, Jacques Houplain, Jindrich Štyrský
Jindrich Štyrský

Jindrich ?tyrsk? was a Czech people Surrealist Painting, poet, editing, photographer, and graphic artist.His outstanding and varied oeuvre included numerous book covers and illustrations....
 and René Magritte
René Magritte

Ren? Fran?ois Ghislain Magritte was a List of Belgians surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images....
 and Georg Baselitz
Georg Baselitz

Georg Baselitz is a Germany Painting who studied in the former East Germany, before moving to what was then the country of West Germany. Baselitz's style is interpreted by the Northern American as Neo-expressionism, but from a European perspective, it is more seen as Postmodern art....
. Individual works have been produced by Max Ernst
Max Ernst

Max Ernst was a German Painting, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst is considered to be one of the primary pioneers of Dada movement and Surrealism....
, Victor Brauner
Victor Brauner

Victor Brauner was a Romanian Jewish painter, the brother of Harry Brauner . [Please note: in some sources this artist's first name is spelled Viktor.]...
, Óscar Domínguez
Óscar Domínguez

Oscar M. Dom?nguez was a Spain surrealism painter.Born in San Crist?bal de La Laguna on the island of Tenerife, Dom?nguez spent his youth with his grandmother in Tacoronte and devoted himself to painting at a young age after suffering a serious illness which affected his growth and caused a progressive deformation of his facial bone frame...
, Espinoza
Espinoza

Espinoza or Espinosa may refer to:*Espinosa, Minas Gerais, a city in Minas Gerais, Brazil*Espinoza , people with the surname Espinoza or Espinosa...
, André Masson
André Masson

Andr?-Aim?-Ren? Masson was a France artist.Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Th?rain, near Senlis in Picardy, but was brought up in Belgium. He studied art in Brussels and Paris....
, Joan Miró
Joan Miró

Joan Mir? i Ferr? was a Spain Catalonia painting, sculpture and Ceramics born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride....
, Roberto Matta
Roberto Matta

Roberto Antonio Sebasti?n Matta Echaurren , usually known as Matta, was one of Chile's and France's and America's best-known Paintings and a seminal figure in 20th century art....
, Wolfgang Paalen
Wolfgang Paalen

Wolfgang Paalen was an Austrian-Mexican Painting and theorist....
, Kurt Seligmann
Kurt Seligmann

Kurt Seligmann was a Swiss-American Surrealist painter and engraver. He was known for his unique and fantastic imagery of medieval troubadors and knights engaged in macabre rituals....
 and Yves Tanguy
Yves Tanguy

Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy , known as Yves Tanguy was a surrealist painter....
. The artist Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Modigliani

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian artist of Jewish heritage, practising both painting and sculpture, who pursued his career for the most part in France....
 always carried a copy of the book with him and used to walk around Montparnasse
Montparnasse

Montparnasse is an area of Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche of the river Seine, centred on the intersection of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes....
 quoting from Maldoror.

In direct reference to Lautréamont's "chance meeting on a dissection table" Max Ernst
Max Ernst

Max Ernst was a German Painting, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst is considered to be one of the primary pioneers of Dada movement and Surrealism....
 defined the structure of the surrealist painting: "Accouplement de deux réalités en apparence inaccouplables sur un plan qui en apparence ne leur convient pas."

Félix Vallotton
Félix Vallotton

F?lix Edouard Vallotton was a Switzerland painter and printmaking associated with Les Nabis. He was an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut....
 and Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dal? i Dom?nech, 1st Marquis of P?bol was a Spain Catalonia surrealist painter born in Figueres.Dal? was a skilled Technical drawing, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealism work....
 made "imaginary" portraits of Lautréamont, since no photo was available.

A portion of the work is recited toward the end of Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard is a French and Swiss filmmaker and one of the founding members of the Nouvelle Vague, or "French New Wave".Godard was born to French people-Swiss parents in Paris....
's Week End
Week End

Le weekend is a black comedy film written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard and starring Mireille Darc and Jean Yanne, both of whom were mainstream French TV stars....
 (1967).

Guy Debord
Guy Debord

Guy Ernest Debord was a French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker, Hypergraphics and founding member of the groups Lettrist International and Situationist International ....
 developed a section from Poésies II as thesis 207 in Society of the Spectacle. The thesis covers plagiarism as a necessity and how it is implied by progress. It explains that plagiarism embraces an author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea.

In recent years, invoking an obscure clause in the French civil code
Napoleonic code

The Napoleonic Code, or Code Napol?on is the France civil code, established under Napoleon I of France in 1804. It was drafted rapidly by a commission of four eminent jurists and entered into force on March 21, 1804....
, modern performance artist Shishaldin
Shishaldin

Shishaldin is a New York based artist best known for her provocative endurance and performance pieces.External links...
 petitioned the French government for permission to posthumously marry the author.

Bibliography


Works by Lautréamont

  • Les Chants de Maldoror - Chant premier, par ***, Imprimerie Balitout, Questroy et Cie, Paris, August 1868 (1st canto, published anonymously)
  • Les Chants de Maldoror - Chant premier, par Comte de Lautréamont, in: "Parfums de l'Ame" (Anthology, edited by Evariste Carrance), Bordeaux 1869 (1st canto, published under the pseudonym Comte de Lautréamont)
  • Les Chants de Maldoror, A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven et Cie, Brussels 1869 (first complete edition, not delivered to the booksellers)
  • Poésies I, Librairie Gabrie, Balitout, Questroy et Cie, Paris 1870
  • Poésies II, Librairie Gabrie, Balitout, Questroy et Cie, Paris 1870
  • Les Chants de Maldoror, Typ. De E. Wittmann, Paris and Brussels 1874 (1869's complete edition, with new cover)
  • Les Chants de Maldoror, preface by Léon Genonceaux, with a letter by Lautréamont, Ed. Léon Genonceaux, 1890 (new edition)
  • Les Chants de Maldoror. with 65 illustrations by Frans De Geetere, Ed. Henri Blanchetièr, Paris 1927
  • Les Chants de Maldoror. with 42 illustrations by Salvador Dalí
    Salvador Dalí

    Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dal? i Dom?nech, 1st Marquis of P?bol was a Spain Catalonia surrealist painter born in Figueres.Dal? was a skilled Technical drawing, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealism work....
    ; Albert Skira Editeur, Paris 1934
  • Œuvres Complètes. with a preface by André Breton
    André Breton

    Andr? Breton was a French writer, poet, and surrealist theorist, and is best known as the main founder of surrealism. His writings include the Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as pure psychic automatism....
     und illustrations by Victor Brauner
    Victor Brauner

    Victor Brauner was a Romanian Jewish painter, the brother of Harry Brauner . [Please note: in some sources this artist's first name is spelled Viktor.]...
    , Óscar Domínguez
    Óscar Domínguez

    Oscar M. Dom?nguez was a Spain surrealism painter.Born in San Crist?bal de La Laguna on the island of Tenerife, Dom?nguez spent his youth with his grandmother in Tacoronte and devoted himself to painting at a young age after suffering a serious illness which affected his growth and caused a progressive deformation of his facial bone frame...
    , Max Ernst
    Max Ernst

    Max Ernst was a German Painting, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst is considered to be one of the primary pioneers of Dada movement and Surrealism....
    , Espinoza
    Espinoza

    Espinoza or Espinosa may refer to:*Espinosa, Minas Gerais, a city in Minas Gerais, Brazil*Espinoza , people with the surname Espinoza or Espinosa...
    , René Magritte
    René Magritte

    Ren? Fran?ois Ghislain Magritte was a List of Belgians surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images....
    , André Masson
    André Masson

    Andr?-Aim?-Ren? Masson was a France artist.Masson was born in Balagny-sur-Th?rain, near Senlis in Picardy, but was brought up in Belgium. He studied art in Brussels and Paris....
    , Joan Miró
    Joan Miró

    Joan Mir? i Ferr? was a Spain Catalonia painting, sculpture and Ceramics born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride....
    , Roberto Matta
    Roberto Matta

    Roberto Antonio Sebasti?n Matta Echaurren , usually known as Matta, was one of Chile's and France's and America's best-known Paintings and a seminal figure in 20th century art....
    , Wolfgang Paalen
    Wolfgang Paalen

    Wolfgang Paalen was an Austrian-Mexican Painting and theorist....
    , Man Ray
    Man Ray

    Man Ray, born Emmanuel Radnitzky , was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealism movements, although his ties to each were informal....
    , Kurt Seligmann
    Kurt Seligmann

    Kurt Seligmann was a Swiss-American Surrealist painter and engraver. He was known for his unique and fantastic imagery of medieval troubadors and knights engaged in macabre rituals....
     and Yves Tanguy
    Yves Tanguy

    Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy , known as Yves Tanguy was a surrealist painter....
    , G.L.M. (Guy Levis Mano), Paris 1938
  • Maldoror, with 27 illustrations by Jacques Houplain, Societe de Francs-Bibliophiles, Paris 1947
  • Les Chants de Maldoror. with 77 illustrations by René Magritte
    René Magritte

    Ren? Fran?ois Ghislain Magritte was a List of Belgians surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images....
    ; Editions De "La Boetie", Brussels 1948
  • Œuvres complètes. Fac-similés des éditions originales. La Table Ronde, Paris 1970 (facsimiles of the original editions)
  • Œuvres complètes, based on the edition of 1938, with all historical prefaces by Léon Genonceaux (Édition Genouceaux, Paris 1890), Rémy de Gourmont
    Remy de Gourmont

    Remy de Gourmont was a French language Symbolism poet, novelist, and influential literary criticism. He was widely read in his era, and an important influence on Blaise Cendrars....
     (Édition de la Sirène, Paris 1921), Edmond Jaloux
    Edmond Jaloux

    Edmond Jaloux was a French novelist, essayist, and critic. His works tended to be set in Paris or his native Provence. He was interested in German Romanticism and English writers....
     (Edition Librairie José Corti, Paris, April 1938), Philippe Soupault
    Philippe Soupault

    Philippe Soupault was a French writer and poet, novelist, critic, and political activist. He took an active role in the Dadaist movement and later founded the Surrealist movement with Andr? Breton....
     (Edition Charlot, Paris, 1946) Julien Gracq
    Julien Gracq

    Julien Gracq , born Louis Poirier in St.-Florent-le-Vieil, in the French "d?partement" of Maine-et-Loire, was a French writer. He wrote novels, critiques, a play, and poetry....
     (La Jeune Parque, Paris 1947), Roger Caillois
    Roger Caillois

    Roger Caillois was a French intellectual whose idiosyncratic work brought together literary criticism, sociology, and philosophy by focusing on subjects as diverse as Gemstones, play and the sacred....
     (Edition Librairie José Corti 1947), Maurice Blanchot
    Maurice Blanchot

    Maurice Blanchot was a France writer, philosopher, and literary theory....
     (Édition du Club Français du Livre, Paris 1949), Edition Librairie José Corti, Paris 1984


Translations


  • Maldoror. Translated by Guy Wernham ; New Directions Publishing Corporation ; 1943 ; 0-8112-0082-5
  • Lautreamont's Maldoror ; Translated by Lykiard (Alexis) ; London ; Allison & Busby ; 1983 ; VI, 218 p.
  • Maldoror (and the Complete works of the Comte de Lautréamont); Exact Change; Cambridge, MA ; 1994 ; Translation into English by Alexis Lykiard with updated notes and bibliography by Lykiard, as well ; ISBN 1-878972-12-X
  • Maldoror (Les Chants de Maldoror) ; Thomas Y. Crowell Company ; New York ; 1970 ; English translation by Alexis Lykiard
  • Maldoror ; Allison and Busby ; London ; 1983 ; Translation by Alexis Lykiard ; ISBN 0-85031-084-9
  • Maldoror ; Penguin Books ; "Penguin Classics" series ; Great Britain ; 1977 ; Fourth English translation (after Rodker, Wernham and Lykiard, respectively) by Paul Knight. Also contains "Poesies" and several "lettres". Extensive introduction by translator
  • Maldoror and Poems ; Penguin Books ; New York ; 1988 ; Translated by Paul Knight ; Introduction by Paul Knight. Cover illustration is a color reproduction of Antoine Wiertz' "Buried Alive" (detail) ; 288 p. ; 0-14-044342-8


Secondary literature


There is a wealth of Lautréamont criticism, interpretation and analysis in French, including an esteemed biography by Jean-Jacques Lefrère, but little in English.

  • Le Cas Lautréamont, special edition of "Le Disque Vert", with an introduction by André Gide
    André Gide

    Andr? Paul Guillaume Gide was a France author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the Symbolism movement, to the advent of Anti-imperialism between the two World Wars....
    , and texts by Philippe Soupault
    Philippe Soupault

    Philippe Soupault was a French writer and poet, novelist, critic, and political activist. He took an active role in the Dadaist movement and later founded the Surrealist movement with Andr? Breton....
    , René Crevel
    René Crevel

    Ren? Crevel was a France writer involved with the Surrealism Art movement....
    , Giuseppe Ungaretti
    Giuseppe Ungaretti

    Giuseppe Ungaretti was an Italy Modernism poet, journalist, essayist, critic and academic. A leading representative of the Experimental literature trend known as ermetismo, he was one of the most prominent contributors to 20th century Italian literature....
    , Herbert Read
    Herbert Read

    Attention Urban75! Herbert Read is Firky.Sir Herbert Edward Read, Distinguished Service Order, Military Cross was an English anarchism poet, and critic of literature and art....
    , Albert Thibaudet
    Albert Thibaudet

    Albert Thibaudet was a France essayist and literary criticism. A former student of Henri Bergson, he was a professor of Jean Rousset. He taught at the University of Geneva, and was succeeded in his post by Marcel Raymond....
    , André Breton
    André Breton

    Andr? Breton was a French writer, poet, and surrealist theorist, and is best known as the main founder of surrealism. His writings include the Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as pure psychic automatism....
    , Marcel Arland
    Marcel Arland

    Marcel Arland , was a France novelist, literary critic, and journalist....
    , Maurice Maeterlinck
    Maurice Maeterlinck

    Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard, Count Maeterlinck was a Belgian playwright, poet and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911 in literature....
    , Paul Valéry
    Paul Valéry

    Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Val?ry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath....
    , Paul Éluard
    Paul Éluard

    Paul ?luard was the pen name of Eug?ne ?mile Paul Grindel , a France poet who was one of the founders of the surrealism movement....
    , Henri Michaux
    Henri Michaux

    Henri Michaux was a highly idiosyncratic Belgium poet, writer and Painting who wrote in the French language. Michaux is best known for his esoteric books written in a highly accessible style, and his body of work includes poetry, Travel literature, and art criticism....
    , Jean Cocteau
    Jean Cocteau

    Jean Maurice Eug?ne Cl?ment Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager, playwright and filmmaker. Along with other Surrealists of his generation Cocteau grappled with the "algebra" of verbal codes old and new, mise en sc?ne language and technologies of modernism to create a paradox: a classical avant-garde....
    , Léon Bloy
    Léon Bloy

    L?on Bloy was a France novelist, essayist, pamphleteer and poetry. His works reflect a deepening devotion to the Roman Catholic Church and most generally a tremendous craving for the Absolute....
    , Remy de Gourmont
    Remy de Gourmont

    Remy de Gourmont was a French language Symbolism poet, novelist, and influential literary criticism. He was widely read in his era, and an important influence on Blaise Cendrars....
    , André Malraux
    André Malraux

    Andr? Malraux was a France author, adventurer and statesman, and a dominant figure in French politics and culture....
     a.o., and a portrait by Odilon-Jean Périer; René van den Berg, Paris/Brussels 1925
  • The Lay of Maldoror ; The Casanova Society ; London ; 1924 ; First English translation is by John Rodker ; Illustrated with 3 plates by Odilon Redon
  • Jeremy Reed: Isidore: A Novel about the Comte de Lautreamont, Peter Owen Limited 1991 (fictional biography)
  • Alex de Jonge. Nightmare Culture: Lautréamont and Les Chants de Maldoror, Secker and Warburg, 1973: Creation Books 2007 1840681268
  • Maurice Blanchot: Lautreamont and Sade. Meridian, Stanford University Press
  • Peter W. Nesselroth: "Lautréamont's Imagery: a stylistic approach" Geneva:Droz, 1969


External links

http://www.cavi.univ-paris3.fr/phalese/Maldororhtml/documents/Biographie.htm http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/french/sable/recherche/catalogues/lautreamont/index.htm
  • by Sonja Elen Kisa with visual art by François Aubéron