Verlaine's Opéra Bouffe

Abstract

Laughter, in Verlaine's early work, has a major function in the creative process, both as a means and an end in itself. In two uncompleted Opéra bouffe librettos composed in collaboration with Emmanuel Chabrier, Verlaine satirizes Napoleon Ill's regime but, through laughter, replaces the Second Empire with a clown's world. His development of a comical “tyrantclown” theme to effect this transformation parallels the sinister “clowntyrant” theme of the early poetry. Whereas, in the latter, laughter resolves itself in silence and death, in the Opéra bouffe it creates and animates a timeless life of innocence and freedom. Comparison with “tyrant-clown” passages in Hugo's Châtiments further reveals Verlaine's effort to convert the world against which he revolts into a sanctuary where a buffoon's laughter can reign absolutely.