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| THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT 26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965 |
Ils sont vu les Pays-Bas, ils rentrent à Terre-Haute;
Mais une nuit d'été, les voici à Ravenne,
A l'aise entre deux draps, chez deux centaines de punaises,
La sueur aestivale, et une forte odeur de chienne.
Ils restent sur les dos écartent les genoux
De quatre jambes molles tout gonflées de morsures.
On relève le drap pour mieux égratigner.
Moins d'une lieue d'ici est Saint Apollinaire
En Classe, basilique connue les amateurs
De chapitaux d'acanthe que tournoie le vent.
Ils vont prendre le train de huit heures
Prolonger leurs misères de Padoue à Milan
Où se trouve la Cène, et un restaurant pas cher.
Lui pense aux pourboires, et rédige son bilan.
Ils auront vu la Suisse et traversé la France.
Et Saint Apollinaire, raide et ascétique,
Vielle usine désaffectée de Dieu, tient encore
Dans les pierres écroulantes la forme précise de Byzance.
They viewed the Low Countries, they returned to Terre-Haute;
But one summer night, there they were in Ravenna,
Taking their ease between two sheets, home to two hundred fleas,
Summer perspiration, and a strong aroma of dog.
They remained on their backs knees parted
Their four damp legs all swollen with bites.
They lifted the sheet to scratch them better.
Less than a mile from here is Saint Apollinaire
A basilica after the classic style known to lovers
Of acanthus-leaved capitals that twirl in the wind.
They took the eight o'clock train
Prolonging their miseries from Padua to Milan
Where they found the Last Supper, and a cheap restaurant.
He thought of gratuities, and adjusted his accounts.
They would go view Switzerland and cross France.
And Saint Apollinaire, stiff and ascetic,
Disused old factory of God, held still
The precise form of Byzantium in crumbling stone.
Why did one of the greatest poets in the English language choose to publish four of his earliest poems in French? The accepted answer is the one that Eliot himself appeared to provide in his 1940 essay about the work of his contemporary WB Yeats –– 'The kind of poetry that I needed to teach me the use of my own voice did not exist in English at all; it was only to be found in French.' French poetry, particularly the work of Symbolist poets Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine and Jules Laforgue, was a key component of both the British and North American intellectual landscapes in the early years of the twentieth century, the time when young Tom Eliot from St Louis was attending Harvard University and writing his own earliest poems. Fluency in French was considered a mandatory accomplishment for members of the upper class, a skill possessed by almost all the privileged young of Eliot's generation, male and female alike. That he would choose to compose poetry in this fashionably acquired language was a necessary phase in his poetic development, a harmless affectation which immediately identified him as a member of the social and cultural elite.
But I have always wondered if there wasn't another reason why Eliot chose to publish some of his poems in French, particularly as regards Lune de Miel. A honeymoon is supposed to be a joyous occasion for a young, newly married couple –– their chance to finally be alone and discover (at least in the more rarified and repressed world of the pre-World War One Western hemisphere) the delights of sexual intimacy far removed from prying parental eyes. But Eliot's first marriage to English governess and fledgling writer Vivienne Haigh-Wood was, as is now common knowledge, anything but satisfying. Vivienne described their honeymoon as 'a ghastly failure' and it was not long afterward that she allegedly began a brief affair with philosopher Bertrand Russell, a friend and early supporter of Eliot's whom the budding poet had met when Russell had come to Harvard in 1911 to deliver a series of lectures there. It was Russell the Eliots stayed with after returning from their honeymoon, sharing his London flat for several weeks while seeking lodgings of their own.
But this affair, if it occurred, was hardly the only contributing factor in terms of destroying Eliot's chances of enjoying any sort of lasting conjugal happiness with his new bride. Vivienne was a chronically unhealthy woman, suffering from –– among other things –– fatigue, insomnia, headaches and a heavy menstrual flow, none of which could have made their sex life any easier and probably made it an uncomfortable if not harrowing experience for both of them. Vivienne spent extended periods of time in mental institutions and was confined to one permanently by her brother in 1938 after she was found wandering the streets of London in a dishevelled and disoriented state. By that time Eliot was no longer part of her life, having separated from her five years previously. (He only saw her once more when she attended one of his book signings in 1935 dressed in the uniform of a member of the British Union of Fascists. Nor did he ever visit her after she was institutionalized.) After her death he wrote that he had persuaded himself that he 'was in love with Vivienne because I wanted to burn my boats and commit myself to staying in England. To her, the marriage brought no happiness. To me, it brought the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land.'
Knowing this allows us to read Lune de Miel in a very different way to the way it must have been read in 1920 by Eliot's small but steadily growing audience. I believe the newlyweds the poem describes are himself and Vivienne, the sense of physical and emotional ennui he shows them experiencing his attempt to exorcise what were relatively recent and still painful memories of their own disastrous honeymoon. Of course, I have no way of proving this. But what's written between the lines of Lune de Miel is slyly revealing of Eliot's probable reasons for deciding to publish the poem, if publish it he must, in French rather than in his native English. Writing in a foreign language is a convenient way to distance yourself from what is or may at least appear to be regrettable and embarrassing. And concealment was always an appealing quality to Eliot, who observed in his 1919 essay Tradition and the Individual Talent that 'Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.' If he intended that statement to be taken literally –– and there is no logical reason to presume that he did not –– then the purpose and underlying meaning of this sad but subtly expessive poem both become much clearer.
Use the link below to visit THE TS ELIOT SOCIETY (UK), an organisation which promotes the study and appreciation of the poet's work and arranges the TS ELIOT FESTIVAL held each year in the Cambridgeshire town of Little Gidding:
You can also visit tseliot.com, a website that continues the mission begun by VALERIE ELIOT, the poet's second wife, to 'bring her husband's life and work to as wide an audience as possible' prior to her own death in 2012.
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| VIVIENNE HAIGH-WOOD ELIOT and TS ELIOT c 1915 |
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Last updated 9 February 2023
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