VIGNY Alfred de (1797-1863) [1845, 32e f]. - Lot 239

Lot n° 239
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600 - 800 EUR
VIGNY Alfred de (1797-1863) [1845, 32e f]. - Lot 239
VIGNY Alfred de (1797-1863) [1845, 32e f]. L.A.S. "Alfred de Vigny", [20 (?) May 1842], to the poet Victor de LAPRADE; 4 pages in-8. Very beautiful letter about his failure at the Académie française, and about poetry. [Vigny suffered three successive failures at the beginning of 1842 for his first candidacies to the Academy, on February 17 (Duke Pasquier and Ballanche were elected) and on May 4 (against Henri Patin). Victor de LAPRADE (1812-1883) published in the Revue du Lyonnais a great article energetically supporting the candidacy of Vigny, who was elected only on May 8, 1845, on his seventh attempt]. "I really don't know if I should not thank the Academy for its rigors since they have earned me testimonies of sympathy such as yours, Sir, and that of these poetic spirits who know how to collect themselves to dream and to gather to agree. Among the letters I received from several countries on this occasion, I count yours as one of the most precious, because I know your poetry and your person and I love both. I already knew how the city of Lyon had opened its arms and its heart even to Chatterton and to other works of mine. [] Your regrets are the sweetest to hear, for it is in your fervent hearts that the love of Poetry and the talent of Poets remain and are preserved. Let us not hope that the number will ever be great of those who will only know how to understand Poetry and follow our thoughts under the double veil of symbol and harmony. I have seen, as I am sure you have, men of great spirit, (but only of spirit) all dazzled and as if dazed by a reading of the most beautiful poetry, not understanding a word of it, admitting it and asking for a second or third reading. Except by the Poets, the verses are always badly read and it is still one of the barriers which separate the Poet from the public, I often thought that we would need Rapsodes. The happier prose does not need the voice"... After having praised Laprade's Psyché, Vigny recommends him not to limit his natural abundance: "It is for you as for other Poets who were most famous, a necessity to let the cataracts and the cascades of numerous verses which come from the bottom of your soul spread. The most extensive subjects will be, I believe, those that will always succeed best for you and you must give yourself over to them without reserve. The Graces have heard your beautiful invocation and they have touched your forehead with their lips ". Vigny then evokes his failures at the Academy, the conduct of the academicians, and "the quantity of low ruses and small vengeances that are contained in the coteries which agitate in any election. - But since I have been thinking, I have been so accustomed to counting for nothing the present time and posterity for everything that I have paid little attention, perhaps too little, to what has happened. France does not wait to be enthusiastic about a name until it is inscribed in the Institute. My works are not worse today and when I will have been elected, I doubt that they will become much better. - I never hurry in anything, I did not want to use any of the means of intrigue which alter the loyalty of so many elections and I want to enter there only called by the serious voices of the most justly famous men; voices which did not leave me, at each turn of vote ". Finally, alluding to The House of the Shepherd of which he has just completed the first version, Vigny adds: "I have just written another Poem and I have put it in a cell of the same convent where the others are, until the day when all my monks will go out in procession"... Correspondence, t. 4, p. 637 (n° 42-87). L'Académie française au fil des lettres, p. 201-203.
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