Tropes of literary war : Athlete

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The emergence of the figure of theathlete to designate the writer is certainly linked to the new regime of freedom of expression experienced from 1820 onwards, which favors the activity of the press, and gives rise to increased competition between its representatives. If the writer is compared to an athlete, it's because he or she takes part in a struggle that, far from being merely metaphorical, also involves the body. In Victor Hugo's Odes et Ballades (1827), "Le chant de l'arène", "Le chant du cirque" and "Le chant du tournoi" follow one another; in Les Contemplations (1856), he rhymes poet not only with prophet, but also with athlete. The rhyme is found in Alfred de Vigny, Théodore de Banville and Alphonse de Lamartine, who celebrates Lamennais as a poet martyr, an athlete of Christianity, thus rediscovering the religious meaning of the term.

To be a writer and carve out a place for yourself in a competitive literary field, you have to be tough, robust in body, and this robustness has to be transmitted to your style. Three writers in particular seem to unite these two qualities, physical and stylistic: Alexandre Dumas, the "athlete of the feuilleton" whom the Goncourts described as "a kind of giant" who maintained a rigorously healthy lifestyle; Gautier; and above all Balzac, whom Sainte-Beuve - along with Rodin - recognized as having the body of an athlete, and who knew better than most how generously and regularly one must produce in order to survive. His character Lucien de Rubempré, aspiring to a literary career, is less fortunate, endowed only with a puny body that seems the sign of a writer "without heart or talent". The term is much less applied to Hugo, whom only Jules Janin distinguishes in this sense, as the sole survivor of the harsh Romantic battle. Baudelaire, for his part, knows how to express the distance between his body and that of Pierre Dupont, poet of the proletariat, described as a veritable Hercules. However, he sacrifices commonplace in his praise of Edgar Allan Poe, a blend of femininity and robustness, orgy and rigor.

Martinville, Lucien's rare supporter in Illusions perdues (1837), embodies the writer-athlete, but also ensures the transition from the register of sport to that of combat sport. He is the quintessential polemical writer, the insulting athlete, the only one capable of dealing blows from all sides at once and accompanying Lucien in his political about-turn. The artist-athlete is for the most part modeled on the fencer, the master of arms. All^{mid-nineteenth-century}writers were familiar with Augustin Grisier, master-at-arms of Louis-Philippe's sons and of the École polytechnique, then, under the Second Empire, of the Conservatoire national d'art dramatique. Gautier, Sue and Dumas, who prefaced his famous book Les Armes et le Duel (1847), frequented his arms room. In his book and in his arms room, Grisier keeps alive the memory of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George, known as the "Black Knight". Born in Guadeloupe to a landowner and a slave, the Chevalier de Saint-George received a noble education on the continent, where literature and sports, the arts and arms were in equal proportion; he wielded the foil and bow with equal agility. What Grisier and Bologna have in common is their rejection of the duel, in the name of a rigorously aesthetic conception of combat. The figure of these masters-at-arms is essential, in that it ensures the reversibility of the combatant and the writer: if the latter wields the pen like a sword, the master-at-arms must, by his order, wield the sword like a pen. He is a perfect aesthete, and always a potential writer.

There's a downgraded, mercenary version of the master-at-arms, an enforcer of journalistic dirty work and blackmailer. It's the bravo that every major newspaper must have at its service, and who earns his reputation by summarily executing the reputations of others. Jules Janin, who writes left and right, is an example, as is the Martinville who accompanies Lucien de Rubempré, for whom Janin-Janus served as a model; in an essential passage of Balzac's novel, Lucien learns the word blackmail.

Speaker(s)

Antoine Compagnon

Professor at the Collège de France

Events

Tropes of literary war : Athlete

Speaker(s)

Antoine Compagnon

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