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French Studies 2003 57(1):27-37; doi:10.1093/fs/57.1.27
© 2003 by Society for French Studies
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Counterpoint in Mallarmé's ‘L'Après-Midi D'un Faune’

Anne Holmes1

1 Hertford College, Oxford

‘Counterpoint in Mallarmé's L'Après-midi d'un faune’ examines the value of studying this poem from a musical perspective, that of counterpoint and therefore polyphony. It prefaces this discussion with a brief survey of Mallarme's attitude to the musical potential of the alexandrine. Counterpoint is presented first in the narrow technical sense employed by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Three passages which Mallarmé set in italics in opposition to the maintext are first examined. Secondly, the technique of the alexandrin en escalier is treated for its similar ‘mounting’ of a secondary rhythm on a primary one. Thirdly Mallarmè's use of ‘enjambement’ on a rich rhyme shows him again bringing together opposed techniques and creating a double rhythm. Finally, the articles deals with contrapuntal effects of a general kind. Taking up Bertrand Marchal's suggestion that there is a contrapuntal tension between memory and desire throughout the poem, the articles considers each drive, finding desire the motivating force to which dream is set contrapuntally. It traces how the initial contradiction betwen the two drives leads to their increasing interdependence and final amalgamation, the traditional pattern of musical counterpoint.


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