Théophile Gautier
Racconti

“To the impeccable poet, the perfect magician of French letters, the beloved and much venerated master and friend Théophile Gautier. With the feelings of the deepest humility I dedicate these unhealthy flowers” Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil

I must admit that the worm of poetry began to gnaw at the fibers of my internal tree already in adolescence.

Ah! How can I forget the first sensations (olfactory and otherwise) in the decaying field known as The Flowers of Evil!

I was, more or less, fifteen years old and the encounter with Baudelaire (between a game of Subbuteo and another of foosball) deeply shook me: I thought about the unbridgeable distance that separates spleen from the ideal at an age where, perhaps, I would have done better to enjoy more those existential spells that would never return.

I remember the dedication at the beginning of the book (the one you can see fully transcribed at the top of this page): Théophile Gautier.

Who was this?

At the time, the internet did not exist (or, if it did, it was in its infancy) and, not knowing anyone who could satisfy my curiosity, I took courage and asked my literature teacher about the good Théophile.

Besides praising my early interest in Baudelaire, my teacher, after a smile of thinly veiled superiority, deigned to issue the following judgment: Baudelaire was one of the greatest poets of all time, but, like every great artist, he was subject to incredible whims. Gautier was considered a secondary figure in the vast panorama of French literature.

I was, as said, fifteen years old and had much else to think about, many things to experience, too much to discover, so, for many years, I left unexplored Théophile in a corner of my being, until…

… Well, quoting Woody Allen's “Annie Hall”, “I have always had trouble with established authority”: about ten years later I saw on a newsstand, attached to a newspaper, these “Tales” by Gautier. I didn’t think twice: he deserved a chance to defend himself from my teacher's pitiless accusation.

Théophile Gautier was probably (along with Victor Hugo) the greatest proponent of Romanticism in early 19th-century France: novelist (“Captain Fracassa” being his most popular work), poet, failed painter, art and literary critic. His writing ventured into the most diverse fields of Letters and, unlike the "priestly" and social breath of Hugo's writings, his proposals have always had one constant pivot: Beauty.

A rich, abundant, lush style. Periods as tense as violin strings and as sophisticated as the workings of a clock, details dissected down to the last refraction of light, down to the last fold of an evening dress. Words cascading like gemstones, fountains of light dazzling with their formal and syntactical perfection.

These “Tales” collect 16 (of variable length) and are placed in chronological order; spanning twenty-five years of career, they allow the reader to follow over time the increasingly precise chiseling of a master of literary craftsmanship.

At least two-thirds of the collection is composed of “fantastic” tales: tapestries detaching from walls, vampire women, Faustian reminiscences, reincarnations, psychic and infernal curses.

In all, the spring of “descent” is triggered by a woman, and Gautier’s woman always presents the same to herself, no matter the story: ivory skin, sinuous Greek goddess-like lines, blond hair, a trembling soul… In short, perfection akin to an ancient sculpture combined with the delicacy and foresight of Shakespearean Ophelia.

Another constant is the importance of dreams, symbol (but perhaps it is more correct to say “mirror”) of the most consuming passions and the most hidden fears.

It is very interesting to note how, in these two recurring elements, Gautier's workshop is continuously perfected over the years, resorting to increasingly exasperated qualifiable refinements and ever more dazzling linguistic feats.

Returning however to the “fantastic” tales, we should not expect that choked sensation of the occult that characterizes the pages of Poe or those mystical-pagan suggestions of Gérard de Nerval's stories (a contemporary of Gautier and a great, though inexplicably forgotten, author): in good Théophile even the most abstract mists or the darkest mysteries are always shown with the sharpest outlines, under the most dazzling light. There is nothing left unsaid or left “to be completed” by the reader’s imagination.

Then there are tales we’ll call “archaeological” (set in Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, and Ancient Rome): here, in my opinion, is Gautier at his best and his pen can indulge in a profusion of details around ruins of dead cities, opulent wedding processions, labyrinthine princely palaces. Here his love for Beauty finds fitting food for its appetite, and it is here that he manages to fully satisfy his evocative flair and his lush and poetic language (it is perhaps not useless to add that his most important collection of lyrics, “Enamels and Cameos” of 1852, would become a true ante litteram manifesto of the future Parnassian movement).

In this interest in ancient beauties, we can perhaps find some points of contact with Flaubert, but, while the latter adapts the style to the type of story narrated (as we can see in his famous “Three Tales”), Gautier, on the contrary, stylistically dominates the tales which bend to his strict aesthetic rules.

Finally, in the aforesaid collection, there are a couple of “toxic” tales concerning the use and effects of opium and haschisch (regarding which, in an ideal timeline, we can say that De Quincey initiated, Gautier explored, Baudelaire perfected, and Michaux completed).

After his death, Gautier suffered the attack of numerous detractors among whom it is impossible not to mention Joris-Karl Huysmans who, in the novel “Against the Grain”, asserted, about Théophile, that “the impression of objects had settled on his very sensitive eye, but had remained there, it had not penetrated beyond […] Like a magic mirror, he had always limited himself to reflecting appearances with impersonal clarity”.

However, it seems to me a criticism that does not take into account Gautier's intentions and history (or perhaps Huysmans simply sacrificed him on the altar of Decadence): he was born as a painter and always maintained an excessive love for plastic forms (considering we are talking about early 19th-century painting) and, by his own admission “my greatest pleasure has been to verbally transpose statues, monuments, bas reliefs, at the frequent risk of forcing the language and turning the dictionary into a palette”.

It is possible that the key to understanding Gautier lies in the story “The Golden Fleece” (perhaps not coincidentally composed in the middle of his life and therefore placed in the middle of this collection) in which the protagonist falls in love with a Rubens painting of Mary Magdalene and tries to “harmonize” his fiancée according to what he sees in the painting, only to grow depressed due to the poor results obtained.

For Gautier (as a good Romantic), reality was always something trivial and unacceptable that he always tried to reshape or improve through the virtuosity of his pen, and probably Baudelaire was right when he argued that Gautier lived Beauty as “an irredeemable mania in those who have lost the sense of the real”.

Baudelaire and Gautier: perhaps the two extremes (one murky and dark, the other dazzling and crystalline), the two masters, the two sides of the same coin of literary artifice driven to the most maniacal results.

The session adjourned, I would say Théophile has defended himself admirably and acquitted himself beyond a reasonable doubt from my former teacher's accusations. Who knows if, at the time of my question, she had actually read something of Gautier or simply did not want any hassle from a fifteen-year-old brat?

In doubt, I issue my final verdict:

DOWN WITH SCHOOL!!!