De Corbière à Tristan: "Les amours jaunes," une quête de l'identité (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: De Corbière à Tristan: “Les Amours jaunes,” une quête de l’identité Heather Williams Rannou, Pascal . De Corbière à Tristan: “Les Amours jaunes,” une quête de l’identité. Paris: Champion, 2006. Pp. 560. ISBN 2745314823. Pascal Rannou's contention that Corbière's work must be understood as the result of cultural hybridity was already familiar to specialists from shorter pieces such as his contribution to Visages de Tristan Corbière, ed. Pascal Rannou (Morlaix: Skol Vreizh, 1995), but it seemed more a hypothesis than a definitive argument. Here, in contrast, we have the detailed, tightly structured and full argument in the form of an updated and revised version of his doctoral thesis of 1998 (initially published by Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, at Lille, 1999), and it has earned him the Prix Henri Régnier for 2007. "Cerner la 'bretonnité' éventuelle de notre auteur" (14) may seem a somewhat modest aim. Indeed to many it will seem a marginal, or even irrelevant one, as Corbière criticism tends to see the investigation of Breton culture as unnecessary for appreciating Corbière's originality, and views discussion of his Bretonness as sufficiently unimportant to be left in the ghetto of "Corbière criticism from and for Brittany." However, Rannou shows this attitude to be caught in the trap set by Verlaine over a century ago in Les Poètes maudits, when he claimed to prefer the Breton Corbière to the Parisian. Rannou exposes critics from Brittany, France and beyond as anti-Breton, or shows how they have misunderstood the (Francophone bourgeois) cultural milieu into which Corbière was born, overstated his knowledge of the Breton language and culture, or even been too pro-Breton. Having set the record straight, with a thorough état present, Rannou's contribution in this study is to demonstrate that [End Page 173] Corbière's encounter with Breton culture plays a key part in the multifaceted search for identity and voice that can be traced in Les Amours jaunes. Taking "la problématique identitaire" as its main issue and organizing principle, this book is highly ambitious both in the boldness of its vision and the thoroughness of its investigation. Rannou posits a tripartite movement, from what he calls "Corbière" (the author), to "Tristan," the "voix singulière et multiple" (134), that is the creation and projection of the author. The first stage in the progression from one to the other is a fragmentation of voice that is discernable in the interplay of various "responsables de la parole" (74), which he analyses in a selection of poems. The second is the rejection and denial of the culture of origin, that is the Francophone bourgeoisie of Morlaix (for this Rannou's analysis inventories clothes, food, education, the canon, Romantic poetry, religion, the conception of woman, versification, language in the sense of "bon usage"). This rejection leads to a "désarroi identitaire profond," and a sense of "aliénation" or exile, which Rannou then explores with the help of theorists Kristeva and Sélim Abou. The third stage is a desire for certainty, and the affirmation of an identity, which is where Bretonness comes in, as it offers an alternative culture, just as Bohemian Parisian culture posed an alternative. Breton culture is only one way in which "Tristan" the projection searches for an identity, in a culture "dont son origine familiale aurait dû lui interdire l'accès" (391), but discussion of this particular way is also the crux of the book: "la partie où nous pensons avoir le plus d'informations originales à donner" (391) states Rannou. His assessment of Corbière's likely exposure to Breton culture proves enlightening. An authoritative review of the Bretonisms in his language was long overdue, and sets us straight on calques, syntax, lexical exoticism, supposed "mistakes" and so forth. This provides a definitive correction of Verlaine's 'Breton bretonnant' to "bretonnant approximatif" (405), with Rannou concluding that Corbière had a "connaissance profonde," but not a "connaissance érudite" of Breton culture. More importantly Rannou has finally demolished the dichotomy between Paris and Brittany that was taken for granted by generations of critics, and was also attributable...