Other Literary Forms
Guillaume Apollinaire’s major importance as a writer lies in his poetry and his art criticism. He was part of a new age of experimentation in free verse and was closely involved both creatively and socially with the major figures in the Parisian avant-garde from 1905 to 1918. His literary career began in earnest in 1903 with a poem dedicated to a lost love and continued through the publication in 1910 of L’Hérésiarque et Cie. (The Heresiarch and Co., 1965), a collection of twenty-three fantastical and haunting stories that have often been compared to the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. In 1911, he brought forth his first collection of poems, Le Bestiaire (Bestiary, 1978), and, in 1913, a perceptive book about cubism. In 1916, he published a novel, Le Poète assassiné (The Poet Assassinated, 1923), and the following year, he gave a lecture that anticipated the development of Surrealism.
Achievements
Guillaume Apollinaire, who is considered one of France’s most revolutionary and original poets as well as “the impresario of the avant-garde,” never won a major award during his lifetime. He almost had enough votes to win the Prix Goncourt for The Heresiarch and Co. in 1910 and was proposed for the Legion of Honor in 1918 but was not made a member. From 1908 to 1909, Apollinaire gained a reputation as a leader in literary circles and as an art critic. Critics recognized the novelty of Apollinaire’s inspiration and his originality of form; a few of them proclaimed him to be the “master of us all.”
Apollinaire wrote many theoretical articles defining the most important trends in the visual arts while establishing his own place within the various art forms. Always ready for new experiences, he added another medium to his writings by recording three of his poems. His experimentation with new poetic forms continued from 1913 to 1916 with the creation of “lyrical ideograms,” poem-drawings that were published in 1918 as Calligrammes (English translation, 1980).
All Apollinaire’s experiments and achievements in poetry and criticism are reflected in the creation of his three major dramas. Although his involvement with the theater lasted only two years, what he achieved in that time indicates the extent of his creative imagination and the importance that he placed on experimentation, the exploring of new approaches, and the willingness to depart from antiquated formulas.
Discussion Topics
Was Guillaume Apollinaire’s complicated early family life an advantage or disadvantage to him as a writer?
Did Apollinaire have to have many love affairs to generate the love poems he wrote?
What did Apollinaire mean by “surreal”?
Consider whether Apollinaire’s elimination of punctuation from the poems in Alcools is beneficial or an unnecessary distraction to the reader.
What features of Apollinaire’s poetry might be most likely to bring about a revitalization of his reputation?
Bibliography
Adéma, Marcel. Apollinaire. Translated by Denise Folliot. New York: Grove Press, 1955. This is the prime source of biographical material, the bible of scholars researching the poet and his epoch.
Bates, Scott. Guillaume Apollinaire. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1989. This book offers detailed erudite analyses of Apollinaire’s major works and informed judgments on his place in French literature and in the development of art criticism. It emphasizes the importance to the entire world of Apollinaire’s vision of a cultural millennium propelled by science and democracy and implemented by poetry. Included are a chronology, a twenty-six-page glossary of references, notes, and selected bibliographies of both primary and secondary sources.
Bohn, Willard. The Aesthetics of Visual Poetry: 1914-1928. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Chapter 3, “Apollinaire’s Plastic Imagination,” reveals the lyric innovations that Apollinaire brought to visual poetry with Calligrammes: new forms, new content,...
(This entire section contains 664 words.)
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multiple figures in a unified composition, a dual sign system used to express a simultaneity, and a difficulty of reading that mirrors the act of creation. Chapter 4, “Toward a Calligrammar,” offers a sophisticated structural and statistical analysis of the calligrammes to demonstrate metonymy as the principal force binding the visual tropes, whereas metaphor and metonymy occur evenly in the verbal arena.
Bohn, Willard. Apollinaire and the Faceless Man: The Creation and Evolution of a Modern Motif. Rutherford, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1991. Traces the history of Apollinaire’s faceless man motif as a symbol of the human condition, from its roots in the poem “Le Musicien de Saint-Mercy” to its dissemination to the arts community through the unproduced pantomime “A quelle heure un train partira-t-il pour Paris?”
Bohn, Willard. Apollinaire and the International Avant-Garde. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997. Chronicles the early artistic and critical reception of Apollinaire in Europe, North America, and Latin America. Especially interesting is the discussion of Argentina, exported through the Ultraism of Jorge Luis Borges, and Apollinaire’s place in the revolutionary circles of Mexico.
Cornelius, Nathalie Goodisman. A Semiotic Analysis of Guillaume Apollinaire’s Mythology in “Alcools.” New York: Peter Lang, 1995. Examines Apollinaire’s use of linguistic and mythological fragmentation and reordering to mold his material into an entirely new system of signs that both encompasses and surpasses the old. Chapters give close semiotic readings of four poems: “Claire de lune,” “Le Brasier,” “Nuit rhëane,” and “Vendémaine.”
Couffignal, Robert. Apollinaire. Translated by Eda Mezer Levitine. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1975. This is a searching analysis of some of Apollinaire’s best-known works, including “Zone,” strictly from the Roman Catholic point of view. It traces his attitude toward religion from his childhood to his death. The book contains a chronology, translations of ten texts, both poems and prose, with the author’s comments, a bibliographical note, and an index.
Matthews, Timothy. Reading Apollinaire: Theories of Poetic Language. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987. Uses a variety of historical, biographical, and stylistic approaches to offer an accessible point of entry into often difficult texts. Matthews’s detailed discussion of Alcools focuses heavily on “L Adieu” and “Automne malade,” which allows for a reading that may be transferred to the rest of the book. His chapter “Poetry, Painting, and Theory” offers a solid historical background that leads directly into his examination of Calligrammes.
Shattuck, Roger. The Banquet Years. Rev. ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1968. In the two long chapters devoted to Apollinaire, “The Impresario of the Avant-garde” and “Painter-Poet,” the author gives a year-by-year and at times even a month-by-month account of his life, loves, friends, employment, writings, and speeches. The tone is judicial, the critical judgments fair and balanced. Includes a bibliography and an index.
Steegmuller, Francis. Apollinaire: Poet Among the Painters. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1963. This is an exhaustive, extremely well-documented, unbiased, and highly readable biography. Contains a preface, translations, numerous photographs and illustrations, two appendices, notes, and an index.
Waggoner, Mark W., ed. Guillaume Apollinaire: A Critical Bibliography. Encinitas, Calif.: French Research Publications, 1994. A bibliography of critical works on Apollinaire. Contains indexes.
