Volume 46, Number 9 · May 20, 1999
Mallarmé the Magnificent
By Charles Rosen
Oeuvres complètes, Vol. 1
by Stéphane Mallarmé, edited by Bertrand Marchal
Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade/Gallimard, 1,529 pp., ff390
On Thursday, February 27, 1890, in the salon of Berthe Morisot in Paris, Stéphane Mallarmé gave a lecture on his recently deceased friend, the poet Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. 'A man accustomed to dream comes here to speak of another, who is dead,' he began. In the first row sat Edgar Degas, an admirer of Mallarmé (whose masterly photograph of Mallarmé and Renoir was one of the most beautiful exhibits at the Musée d'Orsay in last year's commemoration of the centenary of Mallarmé's death). After a few minutes Degas left precipitously, holding his head in his hands, and crying, 'I do not understand, I do not understand.'
Review, 6035 words
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