Preface: Francis Jammes’s “Fourteen Prayers,” Part 1

Abstract

PrefaceFrancis Jammes’s “Fourteen Prayers,” Part 1 Raymond N. MacKenzie, Editor Key Words Reverend Dr. Ian Ker, St. John Henry Newman Francis Jammes (1868–1938), French Catholic poet and novelist, is not as widely read in the English-speaking world as he deserves to be, though some new translations have been published lately, as has a volume collecting some modern appreciations of Jammes.1 I’m going to add to the list with translations of a set of poems he titled “Fourteen Prayers.” In this issue, I’ll present the first seven, and the remainder in our next issue. I’ll include the French originals on facing pages. Jammes (pronounced zhahm) was born in the very small town of Tournay, located in the Haut-Pyrenées region of southwestern France; it is about a half hour’s drive from Lourdes. He spent most of his life in the region, moving west to the town of Orthez when he was twenty; and he is buried not far from there, in Hasparren. But though he loved this corner of the world, he did get out and experience life more broadly. The family moved to Bordeaux for a time when he was a teenager, and from there he went on to Paris and a series of literary friendships, notably with Paul Claudel; on a trip to North Africa, he met André Gide, who became a close friend and confidant for a while. In Paris he lived with his mother—and as we’ll see, the bond with his [End Page 5] mother was of great importance to him. He worked as a clerk during the day, read every night with his mother, and began to write and publish poetry. His early poems struck his readers as offering something fresh, a healthy antidote to the prevailing modes of poetry toward the end of the century, the kind of style literary historians today call Symbolism. In Symbolism, the emphasis is on evocation rather than description, on impression and nuance rather than direct statement; Symbolism’s most famous poets for readers today are Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé, both of whom can seem decidedly obscure. The young man from Basque country, however, was writing decidedly clear, direct, accessible yet rich and powerful poems that struck a chord with many readers, especially Gide. Born and raised a Catholic, Jammes’s faith shifted in his twenties to a more generalized spirituality, but the poems, especially from 1897 on, were more often than not concerned with God, looking forward to what would soon (in 1904, with the help of Paul Claudel) be a return to the Church. But to return: 1897 saw the publication of his first great collection, De l’Angélus de l’aube à l’angélus du soir (from the morning to the evening Angelus). It opens with a prose epigraph announcing his view of the poet as a servant of God. The epigraph begins, “My God, you have called me from among men. Here I am.” The collection had a powerful impact on young poets both in France and in Italy who were seeking an alternative to the increasingly obscure and difficult style that the Symbolist poets were adopting.2 There was even talk of a new school of “naturisme,” a renewal of a poetry in closer contact with real life than the rarefied work of the Symbolists. Jammes wrote a serio-comic manifesto for his own personal, one-man school of poetics, which he called Jammisme. The manifesto mixes his actual beliefs with self-deprecating humor. Article I is an excellent example of both: I think that Truth is the praise of God; that we must celebrate it in our poems for them to be pure; that there exists but one school. . . .3 [End Page 6] That school consists of imitating nature, whether “nature” means a bird, a flower, or a pretty girl “with charming legs and graceful breasts.” The last phrase, which may seem a little offensive to some today, is intended as mildly comical, as if warding off the accusation of pomposity. The whole manifesto ends on a similar comic note: But since all is vanity, and even...