The Voice of the Unconscious: Laforgue and the Poet as Lawgiver

Abstract

This article discusses Laforgue's thinking about the nature and purpose of poetry against the backdrop of the age-old figure of the poet as lawgiver. Although Laforgue rejected the ‘vers philo.’ of Le Sanglot de la Terre, and with it apparently the Hugolian model of the poet as vates, this model continued to inform his poetic theory and practice as he developed a new aesthetic in the light of Hartmann's Philosophy of the Unconscious. The first part of the article briefly traces the emergence and development of the poet's new role as the ‘voice of the Unconscious’ from Le Sanglot de la Terre through to Derniers vers, while the second part examines the ways in which four of the protagonists in the Moralités légendaires — Hamlet, Salomé, the Monstre-Dragon, and Pan — constitute different manifestations of the poetlawgiver and represent successive stages in Laforgue's conception of the poet's function.