The development of esthetic theory in France is to be credited more to the practitioners of the arts than to philosophers or critics. Poets and artists seem, in fact, to have expressed more penetrating views on the nature of artistic creation than did the builders of esthetic systems. Alfred de Vigny's is a case in point. Among the men of his generation he is perhaps the most deeply concerned with the essence and the function of art. While Lamartine, Hugo, and Musset wrote mostly by pure instinct, in Vigny poetic creation always was accompanied by a keen theoretical awareness.

Vigny, however, left no systematic treatise on art or poetry; he never attempted to develop his ideas into a logical and coherent whole. They must therefore be gleaned from his works, especially his Journal d'un Poète. His thought can thus be reconstructed, allowing us a better insight into the true nature of his romanticism.

The poet seems to have entertained two conflicting notions of poetry—poetry as the expression of philosophical ideas, and poetry as the expression of feeling. And, strangely enough, he speaks of poetry as the expression of philosophical ideas when he is writing his Poèmes antiques et modernes, where his philosophical intentions are least pronounced; while he defines poetry as the expression of feeling when he is composing his last "poème philophique," "L'Esprit pur." In fact, he wrote in 1824, in reference to the relationship between philosophy and the works of imagination, "L'imagination donne du corps aux idées et leur crée des types et des symboles vivants qui sont comme la forme palpable et la preuve d'une théorie abstraite."¹ And in the preface for the 1829 edition of his poems he indicates that in these works "une idée philosophique est mise en scène sous forme épique ou dramatique."² But in his Mémoires inédits we find, under the date of 1862, the following statement: "La poesie est faite: Pour exprimer du cœur les pleurs et les soupirs plus que les pensers du cerveau."³

However, despite this apparent contradiction, Vigny remains basically consistent in thinking that poetry is the imaginative embodiment of philosophical ideas. Poetic creation is for him the highest activity of the mind, combining reflection with feeling and imagination. Poetry, thus, is philosophical thought animated by lyrical images: "La poésie est à la fois une science et une passion."⁴ This implies no antithesis; on the contrary, the traditional antithesis between thought and feeling, reason and imagination, poetry and philosophy, originating in Plato's Republic, is here solved by bringing all these elements into a unified whole.

Some aspects of Vigny's thought can be traced to Plato, to whom he is unquestionably indebted. The absolute supremacy the poet attributes to the world of ideas over the world of concrete reality, his worship of pure intelligence, uncontaminated by material preoccupations, his conception of beauty as related to truth and goodness, and in general his vague idealism, are definitely reminiscent of Platonic philosophy. However, Vigny's views on art are substantially far removed from Plato's position, despite occasional analogies which critics have often over-emphasized. A comparison between their theories would reveal more differences than similarities. Vigny assigns to the poet a sort of messianic role: "Le poète cherche aux étoiles quelle route nous montre le doigt du Seigneur." 5 This great mission as "apôtre de la vérité"⁶ is reserved by Plato only for the philosopher, the man who rises above the world of passions and appearances to the contemplation of the intelligible world. In Plato's republic Vigny, the poet, would not have been better off than under the July Monarchy, for his conception of art surely falls within the Platonic condemnation. "La poésie," writes Vigny, "est beauté suprême des choses,"⁷ meaning that poetry is the realization of supreme beauty in the world of concrete reality. Art is a downward movement of contamination, from the purity of the essence to the impurity of its embodiments. For Plato, on the other hand, beauty is above the sphere of art; it is an intelligible essence which can only be attained by rising from the transient beauty of things, thoughts, and actions, to the sphere of pure forms.⁸ This upward process is one of purification in which the mind gradually divests itself of all material concerns in order to rise to the contemplation of beauty in itself. Art belongs to the lower stage of knowledge, to the world of sense experience and imagination, where the ideal form of beauty still escapes us.

The Platonic antinomy between the imaginative activity of the poet and the intellective activity of the philosopher sets Vigny's views on art in direct opposition to Plato's esthetics. Vigny finds no reason why intellect should be denied to poets and imagination to philosophers. And in Stello he takes issue with Plato for having placed intellect above imagination.⁹

Vigny's conception of art, therefore, is more indebted to the idealistic philosophy of his own times than to Plato. It is in this philosophy that the traditional antithesis is somehow brought to an end, and reason and feeling, intellect and imagination are harmonized as constituent elements of the intrinsic unity of the subject. With Kant's Critique of Judgment, feeling and imagination acquire for the first time a positive function in the life of the mind; and the Kantian idea of art as the sensible and imaginative embodiment of rational concepts becomes a basic assumption accepted and developed further by post-Kantian idealists. For Schelling art is the true organon of philosophy; it is the realization of the infinite in the finite, the expression of the universality of things: "Beauty exists when the particular (the real) is so adequate to its concept that the latter, as infinite, enters the finite and presents itself to our contemplation in concrete form."¹⁰ Hegel conceives of art as the symbol of the universal idea; the idea is the content of art, the sensible and imaginative configuration of the idea is its form. Artistic imagination does not stop at the external appearance of reality, but seeks the internal truth and rationality of it, in order to bring it to light. In a work of art, the ideal must enlighten the real. The artist must meditate the universal truth of the idea in all its implications before he can realize it in its concrete form. Reflection and feeling are the main characteristics of the artist.¹¹

Although Vigny had no profound knowledge of idealist esthetic thought, this notion of art was so widespread among romanticists that it could not escape his attention. His direct philosophical source is perhaps Victor Cousin's Du Vrai, du Beau et du Bien which, in many ways, echoes the very esthetic principles of idealism. "La fin de l'art," writes Cousin, "est l'expression de la beauté morale à l'aide de la beauté physique. Celle-ci n'est que le symbole de celle-là."¹² And further on: "Ce qui fait l'art, c'est avant tout la réalisation de l'idée, et non pas l'imitation de telle ou telle forme particulière" (p. 177). These statements summarize Vigny's own esthetic principles. Poetry is the symbol of the idea, the visible form of an invisible world: "Concevoir et méditer une pensée philosophique; trouver dans les actions humanies celle qui en est la plus évidente preuve … voilà où doit tendre cette poésie épique et dramatique."¹³ And he states further, more explicitly: "L'idée est tout. Le nom propre n'est rien que l'exemple et la preuve de l'idée."¹⁴ But the idea lives only in its incarnations. Beauty, therefore, is not a pure essence to be intellectually contemplated in its abstractness, as in Plato's philosophy, but the beauty of things as realized by art, in which beauty lives concretely. It is not above art, but it belongs to the world of art.

In the light of these general views, Vigny's esthetics becomes clearly evident in his remarks concerning the faculties involved in the creative process. While it is common knowledge that artistic production is the work of genius, the faculties characterizing genius have been variously interpreted. For the classicists the idea of genius suggests the supremacy of reason, the obedience to established rules, the mastery of traditional techniques. With Kant, genius becomes a combination of feeling, imagination, and intellect.¹⁵ Some of the Romantic poets consider genius to be an imaginative power, violator of all established rules and creator of its own. Victor Cousin writes in Du Vrai, du Beau et du Bien that genius is nothing but "le goût en action," and he points out that "trois facultés entrent dans cette faculté complexe qui se nomme goût: l'imagination, le sentiment, la raison" (p. 173). For Vigny the faculties constitutive of genius are the same as those indicated by Cousin. He writes in his Journal d'un Poète that genius is made up of four elements (strangely enough he mentions only three): "1. La conception du sujet et la création des personnages; 2. la composition; 3. le style (rien du 4 e)" (p. 1389). All this involves reflection, imagination, and mastery of the technical means to realize the work of art. The work of genius is not the result of an entirely spontaneous and unconscious inspiration, of that divine madness described by Plato in his Ion, but a conscious process of construction. Such construction requires both inspiration and rational organization. Imagination, which enriches and expands the idea by fully unfolding its obvious and hidden meanings, is not governed by its own whim; it is guided by judgment:

La logique est la source la plus sûre et la plus pure d'où puisse jaillir et couler l'imagination. Elle maintient la marche et le langage des personnages inventés et donne à l'œuvre une solidité qui fait sentir à chaque pas la démonstration d'une pensée … L'imagination, née de la logique du jugement, fait les plus durables œuvres. Lorsque l'imagination part du fond même du laboratoire intime, où mûrissent, où se concentrent, où se retournent les délibérations de la raison, elle choisit le pur froment et le féconde. De là sortent les œuvres immortelles, (p. 1359)

A work of art based on unrestrained imagination and feeling, while being more spontaneous, would be formless; a work of art based on ideas and reason, while containing more logical truth, would be a lifeless philosophical discourse, completely unappealing to human sensibility. In either case the work would be a mutilated one, for its completeness lies in the synthesis of all vital energies, both instinctive and rational. "La poésie," remarked Vigny, "doit être la synthèse de tout" (p. 1223). But the poet, in order to reach the synthesis, must be able to master his subject-matter with his judgment; he must be able to harmonize all the conflicting elements:

La perpétuelle lutte du Poète est celle qu'il livre à son idée. Si l'idée triomphe du Poète et le passionne trop, il est sa dupe et tombe dans la mise en action de cette idée et s'y perd. Si le Poète est plus fort que l'idée, il la pétrit, la forme et la met en œuvre. Elle devient ce qu'il a voulu, un monument, (p. 1071)

Poetic creation is thus a sort of mediated process, voluntary and not unconscious. Imagination is not an irrational, effusive power opposed to judgment and reason, but a creative energy rationally guided toward a definite end. It cannot be eliminated from the life of the mind in favor of reason, and it cannot, on the other hand, govern by itself our mental activities. The traditional mistrust of imagination and the exaggerated Romantic reliance on it find in Vigny a conciliatory solution. Artistic creation is the interplay of all of our mental forces.

What best describes such a creation is the image of the circle. "Je pars toujours," writes the poet, "du fond de l'idée. Author de ce centre, je fais tourner une fable qui est la preuve de la pensée et doit s'y rattacher par tous ses rayons comme la circonférence d'une roue."¹⁶ In this sense artistic creation is the process by which, from the fixity of the idea, the artist arrives at the variety of its expressive forms, from unity to multiplicity; in short, from the center to the circumference. It is the center that generates the circumference. In every work of art, Vigny maintains, there are two points of view, one philosophical, the other poetic:

Le point de vue philosophique doit soutenir l'œuvre d'un pôle à l'autre, précisément comme l'axe d'un globe, mais le globe dans sa forme arrondie et complète, avec ses couleurs variées et brillantes, est une image de l'axe de l'art, de l'art qui doit être en vue, en tournant autour de la pensée philosophique et l'emportant dans son atmosphère."

The work of art is brought about by a pressure from the center to the surface of the globe. The artistic impulse comes from the idea which, once conceived or received by the mind, immediately sets the creative faculties in motion. As Vigny writes in Journal d'um Poète:

Lorsqu'une idée neuve, juste, poétique, est tombée de je ne sais où dans mon âme, rien ne peut l'en arracher; elle y germe comme le grain dans une terre labourée sans cesse par l'imagination. En vain je parle, j'agis, j'écris, je pense même sur d'autres choses: je la sens pousser en moi, l'épi mûrit et s'élève, et bientôt il faut que je moissonne ce froment et j'en forme, autant que je puis, un pain salutaire, (p. 1180)

Thought is the source of feeling: "La pensée éternelle est un feu dévorant"¹⁸ The human heart is a dark chamber, the Journal d'un Poète tells us: "La mémoire et la pensée l'illuminent et y font paraître les sentiments. Sans la tête, ils s'éteignent" (p. 1127). Feeling, in its turn, is the source of imagination. The stronger the feeling accompanying thought, the more powerful the imagination which develops it into the work of art. Without feeling and imagination, thought would remain in its fixity, in the cold domain of philosophy; without thought, feeling and imagination would be almost empty. "Le cœur," Vigny points out, "n'est que l'écho du chant qui résonne en haut, sous les voûtes divines de la tête" (p. 1199). Those who are not moved by an idea are unfortunately bereft of artistic imagination.

Thought, feeling, imagination constitute the chain through which the work of art is realized. But it must be stressed that these elements are not externally related; their relationship is internal; they are within each other. Thought is the center and feeling and imagination are its concentric expansion. No idea is ever received by the mind of the artist passively, without a feeling of some sort; and feeling contains within itself the impulse to fancy, to invent the objects of its desire or to remove, in its fancying, the causes of its suffering.

This conception of poetic creation as a process of expansion from the center to the sphere gives such a process a regulated movement, a sort of direction or orientation. The images are linked to the idea and they revolve around it in ever wider circles with no danger of arbitrary dispersion in all directions. These views on the creative process led Vigny to the following lapidary definition: "La poésie, c'est l'enthousiasme cristallisé" (p. 1078)—a definition which suggests a state of exaltation of the idea in its outward movement to acquire a concrete and indestructible form in the work of art. Through poetry, which is the purest form of art, the idea emerges from the obscure regions of the mind and reveals itself in all its luminosity. "La poésie," writes Vigny, "est une volupté, mais une volupté couvrant la pensée et la rendant lumineuse par l'éclat de son cristal conservateur qui lui permettra de vivre et d'éclairer sans fin" (pp. 1139-40). Poetry, thus, performs a philosophical function—the preservation of thought:

Poésie, il se rit de tes graves symboles,
O toi des vrais penseurs impérissable amour!
Comment se garderaient les profondes pensées,

Sans rassembler leurs feux dans ton diamant pur
Qui conserve si bien leurs splendeurs condensées?
("La Maison du Berger," vv 195-199)

Pierre Moreau has remarked that symbolism follows two opposite movements: one from the idea to the images expressing it, the other from the images to the idea suggested by them. And he has pointed out that Vigny "a suivi ces deux démarches"—the first in his last works, the second in his earlier works.¹⁹ Georges Poulet in his Les Métamorphoses du Cercle²⁰ emphasizes in Vigny the two opposite movements as two modes of the reciprocal relationship between the center and the circumference. But Poulet's description of this two-way relationship is not altogether convincing, especially when applied to Vigny's artistic creation. Poulet seems to use two conflicting theories in his analysis of the poet's mental processes—the idealistic and the sensationalistic. Idealism is characterized by the movement from the center to the periphery, from the ego to the external world, the latter being an expansion of the former; sensationalism, on the contrary, moves from the periphery to the center, from the external world to the ego which develops through its relation with the outer reality. Idealism is a centrifugal movement, while sensationalism is a centripetal one. Vigny's creative process definitely follows the idealistic principle; it is a unidirectional movement from the center to the circumference. Referring to his "manière de composer," Vigny in fact reiterates in Journal d'un Poète what he had said on various other occasions: "L'idée une fois reçue m'émeut jusqu'au cœur, et je la prends en adoration … puis je travaille pour elle, je lui choisis une époque pour sa demeure, pour son vêtement une nation" (p. 1355). The idea may come unexpectedly from an unknown source; it may come from an historical impression, a remembrance, an observation, a sensation. But the creative process begins when the idea enters the sphere of consciousness. The genetic principle of the circle is the center, for every circle implies the center. The great poets, according to Vigny, constructed their works by a process similar to that of Michelangelo:

Ils posaient d'abord leur idée-mère, leur pensée souveraine, et la scellaient comme un roi pose la première pierre d'un temple; de ses larges fondations s'élevaient les charpentes fortes et élégantes avec leurs courbures célestes, leurs larges entrées et leurs passages dérobés, leurs vastes ailes et leurs flèches légères, et tout était ensuite recouvert d'une robe d'or ou de plomb, de marbre ou de pierre, sculptée et égayée d'arabesques, de figurines, de chapiteux, ou simple, grave, sombre, pesante et sans parure. Qu'importe! La forme extérieure n'est rien qu'un vêtement convenable qui se ploie, se courbe ou s'élève au gré de l'idée fondamentale; et toute la construction de l'édifice avec l'habileté de ses lignes ne fait que servir de parure à cette idée, consacrer sa durée et demeurer son plus parfait symbole.²¹

What seems, in Les Métamorphoses du Cercle, particularly objectionable in Poulet's interpretation of the relation between the center and the circumference is the statement that in Vigny "les termes relatés restent distincts l'un de l'autre et soient destinés à ne pas se confondre" (p. 236). This alleged distinction would perhaps imply that the two terms exist independently. If this is the case, their relation will be purely external and accidental, as between things. But the circle of mental life does not consist in the association of two independent elements by an extrinsic relationship. It is an intrinsic unity in which the center and the circumference are so closely interrelated that one would be meaningless without the other. Neither could exist without the other. The center is the entire circle in its abstract form; the circumference is the entire circle in its reality. The center is an abstract point realizing itself in the circumference, which is immanent in it. The creative process is not the result of an external activity, but the outcome of an inner virtuality. It is a growth from within and not from without.

Feeling and thought are not two independent entities entertaining an external relation, but they are one living reality. Feeling (and I mean here not a blind emotion, outside the sphere of consciousness, but an emotion conscious of its object) is the feeling of thought; they are therefore one within the other. Poetry is a synthesis. Philosophy when separated from the poetic language is a lifeless intellectual exercise. The truth of philosophy becomes alive in the work of poetry.

Vigny's esthetic views place him in a unique position in relation to romanticism. In many respects he seems to be much closer to symbolism than to romanticism. The importance he attaches to the musical quality of poetic creation offers an additional link between him and the symbolist poets. He describes poetry in Journal d'un Poète as the feeling and rhythm of thought, as "un élixir des idées" (p. 1192). He believes that: "Les vers sont enfants de la Lyre, / Il faut les chanter, non les lire." And he transcribes these lines by Le Brun le Pindarique with the following remarks:

Tout est dans ce mot. Oui, il faut chanter … La Musique et la Poésie sont deux émotions semblables qui nous saississent le cœur par l'oreille. La peinture, émotion qui vient des yeux, est plus calme et plus durable par conséquent, l'autre est plus vive et plus courte. Le tort de l'imprimerie envers la Poésie a été de transporter son émotion de l'oreille aux yeux; elle l'a perdue.²²

Poetry must be read aloud, for it completes itself in the act of reading, when meaning and harmony are fused in a whole. It could not be understood if separated from "l'harmonie dont elle est inséparable." Once in print, poetry loses much of its suggestive power, for, Journal d'un Poète informs us, "la poésie est issue de pensée et d'harmonie" (p. 1083). How could one feel the poetic emotion which must be transmitted "par l'organe de la voix humaine émue elle-même" (p. 1083)? In order to give the feeling of poetry it is necessary that the poet himself read his poems "comme les rapsodes de l'antiquité ou les trouvères du moyen âge" (p. 1083). Furthermore, Vigny conceives of poetry as made of short pieces (which reminds us of Poe's theory): "La poésie comme la musique fatigue par la durée; comme l'émotion s'émousse par la durée"; therefore, "elle ne doit vivre que d'ellipse."²³

These remarks foreshadow a conception of poetry which suggests rather than expresses, which leaves to the reader the pleasure of discovering, through the suggestion of music, what lies beyond the ellipses and the allusions of the poet: "Laisser à deviner," Vigny points out, "est le comble du génie."²⁴

It appears sufficiently clear at this point that Vigny's conception of art is neither classic nor romantic in a narrow sense; it is the synthesis of both, for there is no art which is either intellectual reflection or spontaneous effusion of feeling. Art is rationality and sensibility in their intrinsic unity. By stressing the imaginative and emotional aspects of art, Vigny's romanticism did not set itself as the antithesis of classicism, but it added to classicism a new dimension. Vigny went beyond both classicism and romanticism, integrating the old with the new, classical reason with romantic sensibility. And it seems appropriate to say that'il annonce le classicisme de Baudelaire, Mallarmé et Valéry."³⁵

Such statements in Journal d'un Poète as "l'art est la vérité choisie" (p. 901), "chaque homme n'est que l'image d'une idée de l'esprit général" (p. 890), bring him very close to the classical tradition. Against the tendency of romanticism to identify art with life, Vigny asserts that "l'art n'est pas la vie même," but "le miroir de la vie, plus beau qu'elle-même" (p. 1274). Art does not copy life as it is, but aims at the realization of the ideal form of it: "Si le premier mérite de l'art n'était que la peinture de la vérité, le panorama serait supérieur à la Descente de la croix" (p. 901). His own example as a poet shows his resistance to the exaggerations of romanticism, such as the excessive effusion of the ego, and the unpolished directness of expression. "Gardons-nous bien," warns Vigny, "de porter trop loin ce caprice moderne qu'on pourrait nommer la recherche de la personnalité"²⁶ Sainte-Beuve justly remarked that the poet "ne donne jamais dans ses vers ses larmes à l'état de larmes; il les métamorphose."²⁷ He never displays his suffering directly, as would Lamartine or Musset. He transposes it into a fictional character or into a pagan or Christian myth. By this sort of "dédoublement" he can place himself outside his own inner world and contemplate it objectively; he can thus master and control it. Journal d'un Poète Vigny writes:

Jamais mon esprit n'est plus libre que quand l'œuvre que je fais n'a nul rapport avec ma situation présente. Et j'ai toujours eu un tel effroi du présent et du réel dans ma vie que je n'ai jamais représenté par l'art une émotion douloureuse ou ravissante dans le temps même que je l'éprouvais, cherchant à fuir dans le ciel de la poésie cette terre dont les ronces m'ont à chaque pas déchiré les pieds trop délicats peut-être et trop faciles à faire saigner, (p. 903)

Life with its outbursts of passion, with its agonizing suffering, is thus transposed into art, into a serene image of life, better than life itself. Art is for Vigny a reflective act, not an immediate effusion of feeling. It is not only inspiration, but also technical effort to translate the ideal into a form of reality. He claims for himself as an artist two dominant qualities: "La conception et la composition" (p. 1063). And conception and composition are in Vigny always separated by a long period of inner labor which requires the concomitant energies of all the creative faculties. While conception may take place in a moment of enthusiasm, composition is always hard and laborious. Vigny never improvised, and he had little regard for poetic improvisation and facileness: "L'improvisation ne doit pas prétendre à la durée de la gloire. Elle ne peint pas, elle brosse, elle ne dessine pas, elle ébauche. La méditation seule bâtit pierre sur pierre et sur un plan médité" (p. 1223). When we compare the haughty negligence of Lamartine with the constant preoccupation of Vigny for artistic perfection, we can clearly see the real position of the latter in relation to romanticism: "Lamartine," Vigny says, "est un poète d'enivrement sans bornes, sans forme" (p. 894). But inebriation alone cannot create durable works; the poet needs the power of organization and a complete mastery of all of the technical means of expression. Vigny's unfaltering concern with the hard task of composition in order to achieve artistic perfection singles him out among the poets of his generation. He seems to have carried out almost perfectly Chénier's suggestion: "Sur des pensers nouveaux faisons des vers antiques."²⁸

Between the estheticism of the "art for art's sake" theory and the utilitarian tendencies of romanticism, between a complete detachment from the concrete problems of life and a full commitment to the solution of these problems, Vigny's conception of art occupies a position which can reconcile and harmonize these opposite exigencies. The poet can neither divorce himself completely from practical life nor involve himself entirely in it. Poetry has a special and definite function—the preservation of the ideal which is the guiding light for mankind. "Toute œuvre d'art," he writes, "est un apologue"²⁹. The apologue is nothing but the illustration of a truth for a high moral purpose. The poet must attend to the exercise of the mind, the noblest of all activities. He can best serve his high moral purpose, Journal d'un Poète teaches, by working within his own domain, and preventing the world of practical reality from interfering with his activity:

La vocation du génie étant d'ouvrir sans cesse à l'esprit humain des voies nouvelles, par une chaîne d'idées dont les anneaux ne soient jamais interrompus et conduisent à une lumineuse conséquence sans soulever les passions et sans descendre au matériel des affaires, je pense que l'homme fort doit se concentrer tout entier dans la méditation solitaire et non se disperser dans les improvisations d'une tribune. Il doit viser au parfait, et l'improvisation est toujours imparfaite, (p. 905)

Vigny feels that "l'application des idées aux choses n'est qu'une perte de temps pour le créateur de pensées" (p. 975), for the creator can work more efficiently within his own sphere.

This attitude created the myth of a Vigny withdrawn to an ivory tower, to the regions of the "esprit pur" to avoid contamination with practical reality. But even when he writes that silence is for him "la poésie même" (p. 941), or when he speaks of "la pensée pure, l'exercice intérieur des idées et leur jeu entre elles" (p. 1337) as being the most satisfying activity, he is in no way estranging himself from the world of reality. Ideas are for him more important than facts. But he fully realizes that, without the facts, the ideas have no validity. Ideas cannot remain pure, with no relation to facts, for they would be silent and ineffectual. Vigny's "esprit pur" is in no way pure. It speaks through the work of art, through "l'écrit universel" which reveals and preserves the ideas. The exercise of the "esprit pur" is not a withdrawal to the ivory tower for the futile pleasure of a philosophical reflection for its own sake. From the tower, center of the poet's meditation, Vigny looks at the world not with indifference, but with a deep moral concern: the tower is a lighthouse. "La neutralité du penseur solitaire," he writes, "est une neutralité armée qui s'éveille au besoin."³⁰

Notes

¹Journal d'un Poète, œuvres complètes (cited hereafter as OC) (Paris: Gallimard [Bibliothèque de la Pléiade]), II, 1948, p. 880.

²Poèmes antiques et modernes. Ed. Edmond Estève (Paris: Hachette, 1914), p. 5.

³ Paris: Gallimard, 1959, p. 363.

⁴Journal d'un Poète, OC, II, p. 1272.

⁵Stello, OC, II, p. 677.

⁶Ibid., p. 803.

⁷Journal d'un Poète, OC, II, p. 1288.

⁸Symposium. The Dialogues of Plato, tr. by B. Jowett (New York: Random House, 17th éd., 1937), I, p. 335

⁹OC. I, Chap. XXXVII, pp. 787-93.

¹⁰Philosophier der Kunst, Sämtliche Werke, V (Stuttgart, 1856), p. 382.

¹¹Philosophy of Fine Art, tr. by Osmaston (London: Bell, 1920). See Introduction and Part I, passim.

¹²Du Vrai, du Beau et du Bien (Paris: Didier, 1883), p. 176.

¹³Journal d'un Poète, OC, II, p. 891.

¹⁴ "La Vérité dans l'Art" (preface to Cinq-Mars), OC, II, p. 250.

¹⁵Critique of Judgment, tr. by G. H. Bernard (New York: Hafner, 1966), p. 160

¹⁶ Letter to Edmon Biré, Sept. 4, 1847.

¹⁷Journal d'un Poète, OC, II, p. 1082.

¹⁸Journal d'un Poète. Notes et commentaires par Léon Séché (Paris: Mignot, n.d.), p. 228.

¹⁹Les Destinées d'Alfred de Vigny (Paris: Malfère, 1936), p. 149.

²⁰ Paris: Plon, 1961, chap. IX, pp. 231-42.

²¹ "De la Propriété littéraire," OC, I, p. 916.

²²Journal d'um Poète, éd. Léon Séché, p. 153.

²³lbid.

²⁴Mémoires inédits (Paris: Gallimard, 1958), p. 383.

²⁵ Marc Eigeldinger, Alfred de Vigny (Paris: Seghers, 1965), p. 36.

²⁶OC, I, p. 912.

²⁷Portraits contemporains (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, n.d), II, p. 63.

²⁸L'Invention, v. 184.

²⁹Mémoires inédits, p. 379.

³⁰Stello, OC, I, p. 802.