The Celestial Shipwreck: Émile Nelligan

Trans­lated from French

“Nel­li­gan is leg­endary. The Québé­cois peo­ple are them­selves, in a sense, a dream—imag­ined though re­al, un­cer­tain yet per­sis­tent, and ul­ti­mate­ly—who knows?—per­haps saved, per­haps lost. There is a com­mu­nion be­tween these two leg­ends.”

Vadebon­coeur, Pierre. “Émile Nel­li­gan (1879-1941), poète” (“Émile Nel­li­gan (1879-1941), Po­et­”), in En quelques traits (In a Few Strokes), Mon­tre­al: Fides, 1978.

Need one be re­minded that French-Cana­dian let­ters are scarcely two cen­turies old; that they have only just emerged from in­fan­cy? Still poor in lit­er­ary glo­ries, they pos­sess one, how­ev­er, that ex­em­pli­fies their own youth. This glory is Émile Nel­li­gan¹Re­jected forms:
Émil Nel­lighan.
Émile Ko­var.: an ado­les­cent of sev­en­teen, al­most a child. But through a tragic re­ver­sal of the nat­u­ral or­der, at this im­pul­sive age which, ac­cord­ing to Bossuet, “seems formed only for joy and plea­sures” and which “spreads its sails in all di­rec­tions to­ward hope,” Nel­li­gan no longer hopes for any­thing; he is adrift:

“My soul is black: where do I dwell? Where do I go?
All of its hopes lie frozen through:
I am that new Nor­way of snow
From which the fair skies with­drew.”

Nel­li­gan, Émile. Poésies com­plètes (Com­plete Po­ems), pref­ace by Claude Beau­soleil and Louis Dantin, Mon­tre­al: Ty­po, “Typo Poésie” col­lec­tion, 1998.

And it is not only in these vers­es, un­der the blow of some pass­ing dis­ap­point­ment, that he ex­pe­ri­ences this dis­en­chant­ment. It is through­out his Poésies com­plètes (Com­plete Po­ems), no­ble rever­ies of a cursed an­gel, who re­mained a stranger to the com­pro­mises that life im­pos­es.

The Cursed Angel

In a fa­mous pho­tograph, this slen­der school­boy with a pale face and di­sheveled hair fas­ci­nates with his large, liq­uid, in­fi­nite eye­s—eyes that changed, that un­der­stood, that dreamed. He went about with ink-s­tained fin­gers, his frock coat in dis­ar­ray, and amid all this, a proud air. “He’s an odd fel­low,” some said; “a bit of a poser,” oth­ers found. But his pride was only a fa­cade, poorly con­ceal­ing an ex­as­per­ated sen­si­bil­i­ty, now over­flow­ing with en­thu­si­asm, now dark­ened by a fierce and threat­en­ing melan­choly:

“This is the reign of bit­ter laugh­ter and of rage,
To know one­self a poet scorned and set apart,
To know one­self pos­sessed of an un­com­pre­hended heart
Grasped only by the moon and storms upon night’s stage!”

Nel­li­gan, Émile. Poésies com­plètes (Com­plete Po­ems), pref­ace by Claude Beau­soleil and Louis Dantin, Mon­tre­al: Ty­po, “Typo Poésie” col­lec­tion, 1998.

The am­bi­ent in­com­pre­hen­sion and the vig­ils spent scrib­bling fever­ish verses where “al­ready, among daz­zling strokes, mad­ness showed its hideous claw”²The re­mark on the “hideous claw” is from Louis Dantin in his “Émile Nel­li­gan et son Œu­vre” (“Émile Nel­li­gan and His Work”), pub­lished in seven in­stall­ments in the news­pa­per Les Dé­bats (1902) and soon be­com­ing that myth­i­cal pref­ace (1903) which re­vealed not only one of the finest po­ets of French Canada (Nel­li­gan), but also one of its finest aes­thetes (Dantin). even­tu­ally un­der­mined his health be­fore its time. He died twice: first, an in­tel­lec­tual death, or mad­ness, at nine­teen; then, a bod­ily death at fifty-sev­en.

Laughter and Sobs

There is no doubt that Nel­li­gan suf­fered cru­elly from this in­com­pre­hen­sion. He who dreamed only of Paris claimed that his verses would one day fly there, only to re­turn as a beau­ti­ful book. Such an am­bi­tion, youth­ful and vi­brant, of­fered easy prey to ma­li­cious crit­i­cism. The most vir­u­lent at­tack came from Le Monde il­lus­tré, from the pen of some ob­scure jour­nal­ist pass­ing through Mon­tre­al, De Marchy or De Marchi, whose first name his­tory has for­got­ten. With facile irony and petty nar­row-mind­ed­ness, this cen­sor mocked the ado­les­cen­t’s orig­i­nal­i­ty, go­ing so far as to sug­gest, in a tone of com­mis­er­a­tion, that he write “a lit­tle the­sis in sim­ple prose” to prove his mer­it, adding per­fid­i­ous­ly: “for we en­cour­age young writ­ers.”

Stung, Nel­li­gan was not slow to re­spond at a mem­o­rable ses­sion of the École lit­téraire de Mon­tréal on May 26, 1899. That evening, fac­ing his de­trac­tors, those “men with mo­rose brows / Who dis­dained [his] life and re­jected [his] hand,” the young man rose. Mane flow­ing in the wind, his gaze aflame, he launched in one breath his sting­ing re­ply, “La ro­mance du vin” (“The Ro­mance of Wine”), which sent the room into delir­i­um. It was at once his tri­umph and his farewell:

“The bells have sung; the fra­grant evening sighs…
And while the wine in joy­ous tor­rents flows,
I am so gay, so gay, be­neath the ring­ing skies,
Oh! so gay, that I fear I shall break into woes!”

Nel­li­gan, Émile. Poésies com­plètes (Com­plete Po­ems), pref­ace by Claude Beau­soleil and Louis Dantin, Mon­tre­al: Ty­po, “Typo Poésie” col­lec­tion, 1998.

“Le vaisseau d’or” (“The Ship of Gold”)

Prod­uct of an im­prob­a­ble alche­my, Nel­li­gan shows him­self close to Poe through the macabre, to Here­dia through his chis­eled verse, to Ner­val through his dream­like nos­tal­gias, but also to Ro­den­bach through the mists and to Chopin through a mu­sic of the soul. He cul­ti­vates with pride “his neu­roses,” con­fid­ing: “I shall die mad… like Baude­laire.” Un­der the as­sault of some ob­ses­sive dream, some dom­i­nat­ing idea, he rushes to­ward the ab­so­lute with “all the ef­fort, all the blood of the soul,” which leads Louis Dantin to say: “Ad­mit­ting that the man and the work are but a sketch, one must af­firm that it is the sketch of a ge­nius.”

This sketch of ge­nius pos­sesses the fright­en­ing lu­cidi­ties of “what the An­cients called in Latin ’vates,’ the di­vin­er, the seer, the prophet, the poet in­spired by the gods”³Claude La Char­ité.. Roger Fournier evokes the “ter­ri­ble mo­ment” when the artist sees his end be­fore liv­ing it. This pre­mo­ni­tion is em­bod­ied in “Le vais­seau d’or” (“The Ship of Gold”), his most em­blem­atic son­net. Nel­li­gan paints the splen­dor of a tri­umphant ves­sel, “carved from solid gold,” sail­ing on un­known seas. But this glo­ri­ous tableau is there only to be de­stroyed. In a tragic fall, the ship strikes the reef and sinks, leav­ing only rich wreck­age. The reader then un­der­stands, with dread, that it is the poet him­self, proph­esy­ing his own ship­wreck:

“What has be­come of my heart, a de­serted ship?
Alas! it has sunk into the abyss of dream…”

Nel­li­gan, Émile. Poésies com­plètes (Com­plete Po­ems), pref­ace by Claude Beau­soleil and Louis Dantin, Mon­tre­al: Ty­po, “Typo Poésie” col­lec­tion, 1998.

Further Reading

On Poésies complètes (Complete Poems)

Quotations

“Ah! how the snow has snowed so deep!
My win­dow is a gar­den of frost.
Ah! how the snow has snowed so deep!
What is the spasm of life to one so lost
In all the en­nui I reap, I reap!…”

Nel­li­gan, Émile. Poésies com­plètes (Com­plete Po­ems), pref­ace by Claude Beau­soleil and Louis Dantin, Mon­tre­al: Ty­po, “Typo Poésie” col­lec­tion, 1998.

Downloads

Audio Recordings

• Lec­ture de Poésies com­plètes par Yvon Jean. (Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by Yvon Jean) (Yvon Jean).
• Lec­ture par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes par An­drée-Ann Granger. (Par­tial Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by An­drée-Ann Granger) (Lib­riVox).
• Lec­ture par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes par Ange-Marie Mu­cel. (Par­tial Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by Ange-Marie Mucel) (Y­ouTube).
• Lec­ture par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes par Ash­ley Can­d­land. (Par­tial Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by Ash­ley Can­d­land) (Lib­riVox).
• Lec­ture par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes par Bo­rys de Pozenailles. (Par­tial Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by Bo­rys de Pozenailles) (Y­ouTube).
• Lec­ture par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes par Camille Pan­chaud-Le­feb­vre. (Par­tial Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by Camille Pan­chaud-Le­feb­vre) (Y­ouTube).
• Lec­ture par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes par Car­olyne Can­nel­la. (Par­tial Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by Car­olyne Can­nel­la) (Y­ouTube).
• Lec­ture par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes par Daniel Paquin. (Par­tial Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by Daniel Paquin) (Y­ouTube).
• Lec­ture par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes par Di­ane Boudreau. (Par­tial Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by Di­ane Boudreau) (Lit­téra­ture au­dio).
• Lec­ture par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes par Gilles-Claude Théri­ault. (Par­tial Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by Gilles-Claude Théri­ault) (Y­ouTube).
• Lec­ture par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes par Li­onel Mazari. (Par­tial Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by Li­onel Mazari) (L’Im­pos­si­ble séjour).
• Lec­ture par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes par Michael Man­sour. (Par­tial Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by Michael Man­sour) (La Minute de poésie).
• Lec­ture par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes par ~An­gelot. (Par­tial Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by ~An­gelot) (Lit­téra­ture au­dio).
• Lec­ture par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes par ~czan­dra. (Par­tial Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by ~czan­dra) (Lib­riVox).
• Lec­ture par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes par ~DanielD­eron­da. (Par­tial Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by ~DanielD­eron­da) (Lib­riVox).
• Lec­ture par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes par ~Mayah. (Par­tial Read­ing of Com­plete Po­ems by ~Mayah) (Lib­riVox).
• Luc La­cour­cière à pro­pos de Poésies com­plètes. (Luc La­cour­cière on Com­plete Po­ems) (Ra­dio-Canada).

Printed Works

• Édi­tion de Poésies com­plètes (1903). (Edi­tion of Com­plete Po­ems (1903)) (Bib­lio­thèque et Ar­chives na­tionales du Québec (BAn­Q)).
• Édi­tion de Poésies com­plètes (1903), copie. (Edi­tion of Com­plete Po­ems (1903), copy) (Google Book­s).
• Édi­tion de Poésies com­plètes (1903), copie 2. (Edi­tion of Com­plete Po­ems (1903), copy 2) (Cana­dian Li­braries).
• Édi­tion de Poésies com­plètes (1997). (Edi­tion of Com­plete Po­ems (1997)) (Bib­lio­thèque et Ar­chives na­tionales du Québec (BAn­Q)).
• Édi­tion de Poésies com­plètes (éd. élec­tron­ique). (Edi­tion of Com­plete Po­ems (elec­tronic ed.)) (Wik­isource).
• Édi­tion par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes (1900). (Par­tial Edi­tion of Com­plete Po­ems (1900)) (Google Book­s).
• Édi­tion par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes (1900), copie. (Par­tial Edi­tion of Com­plete Po­ems (1900), copy) (Cana­dian Li­braries).
• Édi­tion par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes (1900), copie 2. (Par­tial Edi­tion of Com­plete Po­ems (1900), copy 2) (Bib­lio­thèque et Ar­chives na­tionales du Québec (BAn­Q)).
• Édi­tion par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes (1900), copie 3. (Par­tial Edi­tion of Com­plete Po­ems (1900), copy 3) (Cana­dian Li­braries).
• Édi­tion par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes (1900), copie 4. (Par­tial Edi­tion of Com­plete Po­ems (1900), copy 4) (Cana­dian Li­braries).
• Édi­tion par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes (1900), copie 5. (Par­tial Edi­tion of Com­plete Po­ems (1900), copy 5) (Google Book­s).
• Édi­tion par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes (1900 bis). (Par­tial Edi­tion of Com­plete Po­ems (1900 bis)) (Cana­dian Li­braries).
• Édi­tion par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes (1900 bis), copie. (Par­tial Edi­tion of Com­plete Po­ems (1900 bis), copy) (Google Book­s).
• Édi­tion par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes (1900 bis), copie 2. (Par­tial Edi­tion of Com­plete Po­ems (1900 bis), copy 2) (Cana­dian Li­braries).
• Édi­tion par­tielle de Poésies com­plètes (1983). (Par­tial Edi­tion of Com­plete Po­ems (1983)) (Bib­lio­thèque et Ar­chives na­tionales du Québec (BAn­Q)).

Bibliography

• Ab der Halden, Charles. “Émile Nel­li­gan,” in Nou­velles études de lit­téra­ture cana­di­en­ne-française (New Stud­ies in French-Cana­dian Lit­er­a­ture), Paris: F. R. de Rude­val, 1907. (Google Book­s).
• Fournier, Roger. “Des mo­ments émou­vants sur la tombe d’Émile Nel­li­gan” (“­Mov­ing Mo­ments at the Tomb of Émile Nel­li­gan”), in Émile Nel­li­gan: dossier de presse 1918-1980 (Émile Nel­li­gan: Press Dossier 1918-1980), Sher­brooke: Bib­lio­thèque du Sémi­naire de Sher­brooke, 1981.
• Grisé, Yolan­de, Ro­bidoux, Ré­jean and Wyczyn­ski, Paul (ed­s.). Émile Nel­li­gan (1879-1941): cin­quante ans après sa mort (Émile Nel­li­gan (1879-1941): Fifty Years Af­ter His Death). Pro­ceed­ings of the col­lo­quium or­ga­nized by the Cen­tre de recherche en civil­i­sa­tion cana­di­en­ne-française de l’U­ni­ver­sité d’Ot­tawa, Mon­tre­al: Fides, 1993.
• Hay­ward, An­nette. La Cor­re­spon­dance en­tre Louis Dantin et Ger­main Beaulieu: une grande ami­tié lit­téraire (1909-1941) (The Cor­re­spon­dence Be­tween Louis Dantin and Ger­main Beaulieu: A Great Lit­er­ary Friend­ship (1909-1941)), Que­bec: Presses de l’U­ni­ver­sité Laval, 2023.
• La Char­ité, Claude. “Émile Nel­li­gan et le mythe du génie pré­co­ce, mort fou” (“Émile Nel­li­gan and the Myth of the Pre­co­cious Ge­nius Who Died Mad”), in L’In­ven­tion de la lit­téra­ture québé­coise au 19^e siè­cle (The In­ven­tion of Québé­cois Lit­er­a­ture in the 19th Cen­tury), Que­bec: Septen­tri­on, 2021.
• Paul-Crouzet, Jeanne. Poésie au Canada: de nou­veaux clas­siques français (Po­etry in Canada: New French Clas­sics), Paris: Di­dier, 1946.
• Ro­bidoux, Ré­jean. Con­nais­sance de Nel­li­gan (Un­der­stand­ing Nel­li­gan), Mon­tre­al: Fides, 1973.
• Sam­son, Jean-Noël and Char­land, Roland-Marie (ed­s.). Émile Nel­li­gan, Mon­tre­al: Fides, 1968.
• Vadebon­coeur, Pierre. “Émile Nel­li­gan (1879-1941), poète” (“Émile Nel­li­gan (1879-1941), Po­et­”), in En quelques traits (In a Few Strokes), Mon­tre­al: Fides, 1978.
• Wyczyn­ski, Paul. Émile Nel­li­gan: bi­ogra­phie (Émile Nel­li­gan: A Bi­og­ra­phy), Que­bec: Bib­lio­thèque québé­coise, 1999.