Degeneration / by Max Nordau.

  • Nordau, Max Simon, 1849-1923.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Degeneration / by Max Nordau. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    fact that he ' cannot yet reah'ze the unprecedented work of art which he wishes to create,' two reasons for that matter recipro- cally precluding each other. He is approaching the eveninor of his life, and beyond a few brochures, such as Les Dic.ux de la Gr^ce and L aprh-midi d'un Faiine, together with some verses and literary and theatrical criticisms, scattered in periodicals the lot barely sufficing for a volume, he has pubHshed nothinc^ but some translations from the English and a few school-books (M. Mallarme is a teacher of English in a Parisian lycee), and j/et there are some who admire him as a great poet, as the one exclusive poet, and they overwhelm the ' blockheads' and the • fools' who laugh at him with all the expressions of scorn that the force of imagination in a diseased mind can display. Is not this one of the wonders of our day? Lessing makes Conti, in Emilia Galotti, say that ' Raphael would have been the greatest genius in painting, even if he had unfortunately been born with- out hands.' In M. Mallarme we have a man who is revered as- a great poet, although ' he has unfortunately been born without hands,' although he produces nothing, although he does not pursue the art he professes. During the period when in London a great number of bubble-company swindles were being pro- moted, when all the world went mad for the possession of the least scrap of Stock Exchange paper, it happened that a few sharp individuals advertised in the newspapers, inviting people to subscribe for shares in a company of which the object was kept a secret. There really were men who brought their money to these lively promoters, and the historian of the City crisis regards this fact as inconceivable. Inconceivable as it is, Paris sees it repeated. Some persons demand unbounded admiration for a poet whose works are his own secret, and will probably remain such, and others trustingly and humbly bring their admiration as required. The sorcerers of the Senegal negroes offer their congregation baskets and calabashes for veneration, in which they assert that a mighty fetich is enclosed. As a matter of fact they contain nothing ; but the negroes regard the empty vessels with holy dread, and show them and their possessors divine honours. Exactly thus is empty Mallarme the fetich of the Symbolists, who, it must be admitted, are intellectually far below the Senegal negroes. This position of a calabash worshipped on bended knees he has attained by oral discourse. Every week he gathers round him embryonic poets and authors, and develops his art theories before them. He speaks just as Morice and Kahn write. He strings together obscure and wondrous words, at which his disciples become as stupid ' as if a mill-wheel were going round in their heads,' so that they leave him as if intoxicated, and with the impression that incomprehensible, superhuman dis- closures have been made to them. If there is anything com-