THE POET ASSASSINATED
BY
GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE
AND NOTES BY
MATTHEW JOSEPHSON
NEW YORK
THE BROOM PUBLISHING CO.
1923
CONTENTS
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE
I. RENOWN
II. PROCREATION
III. GESTATION
IV. NOBILITY
V. PAPACY
VI. GAMBRINUS
VII. CONFINEMENT
VIII. MAMMON
IX. PEDAGOGY
X. POETRY
XI. DRAMATURGY
XII. LOVE
XIII. MODES
XIV. ENCOUNTERS
XV. VOYAGE
XVI. PERSECUTION
XVII. ASSASSINATION
XVIII. APOTHEOSIS
NOTES
André Rouveyre (May 1916)
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE
There are men who cannot bring themselves to conform with the rest ofhuman society, who cannot conceive of a secure and honorable career evenat the hands of a tolerant age. They flee, they are eternally escapingfrom the fold by some particularly outrageous or suicidal action.Rimbaud having mastered the art of poetry in his twenties, desertedliterature to lead caravans through the African desert. Apollinaire atalmost as early an age had also mastered the traditional forms of hisart, but with Rimbaud's example before him could not become "anexplorer, a trapper, a robber, a hunter, a miner."
Possessed of great energy, curiosity, and disrespect, he was from thestart thrown upon the side of those who flout authority, court disorderand embrace the glitter and profusion of an intensely mundane existence.
To regard the spectacle of modern life and to sense the cleavage withthe past and with the art or humanities of the previous day, is to be"modern". For many the word is hateful; and yet Apollinaire set outdeliberately to be modern: to revalue the contributions of the past interms of the phenomenal changes which the twentieth century and theGreat War had brought in.
The barbarous new age he courted, adopting much of its method, thecharacter of its institutions and its cruel philosophy. Perhaps he hasinterpreted his age best in his own personality, that is to say hislife, a large and daring conception in itself.
"Vain to be astonished at his continual feast-making," says his friendthe painter, Rouveyre, "at the rash exploits he undertook, at the crownof thorns he inflicted upon himself... He was a prodigious creator andall of his literary and soci