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Apollinaire et L'Homme SansVisage, Création et éVolutionD'un Motif ModerneMarielle Rainbow-Vigourta

a Syracuse UniversityPublished online: 04 Sep 2013.

To cite this article: Marielle Rainbow-Vigourt (1986) Apollinaire et L'Homme SansVisage, Création et éVolution D'un Motif Moderne, Symposium: A Quarterly Journal inModern Literatures, 40:3, 237-238, DOI: 10.1080/00397709.1986.10733602

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00397709.1986.10733602

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REVIEWS 237

WILLARD HaHN. Apollinaire et l'homme sans visage, creation etevolution d'un motif moderne. Rome: Bulzone, 1984, 157 pp.

HOHN presents us with a lively, well-documented study of the influenceand significance of the hero of Guillaume Apollinaire's 1914 poem, "LeMusicien de Saint-Merry." His introduction identifies his goal as deter­mination of the fundamental symbolism of the motif of the faceless man,which he claims to have been adopted by writers and painters as a symbolof life in the twentieth century. Bohn sets out to achieve his goal byanalyzing the time period 1913-1915.

One of the merits of Bohn's book is that, with liveliness and clarity, itdemonstrates the intense cross-fertilization existing in the nineteen-tensamong a variety of artistic forms. Focusing on a relatively short timespan enables the author to analyze in detail the complex interaction andmutual influence of Apollinaire, Giorgio de Chirico, his brother AlbertoSavinio, Francis Picabia, and Marius de Zaya-that is, of poetry, paint­ing, music, and drama-while stressing the originality and unique contri­bution of each. The principal works introduced into evidence all datefrom the year 1914: Apollinaire's poem (written before February 15), hisunpublished pantomime, A que//e heure un train partira-t-il pour Paris?(written in July), and Savinio's musical composition based on threedramatic poems, Les Chants de la mi-mort (written between May 15 andMay 24).

First, Bohn presents us with the protagonists visually, in a series ofportraits and pictures of or by them, and also with the pictures cited inthe course of his text. He even provides a reproduction of a horse can­nula, so that we know what Apollinaire recommended that the actor inhis pantomime wear in place of a mouth. (Incidentally, the titles of Il­lustrations 11 and 12 identify, respectively, Illustrations 12 and 11).

As his chapter titles indicate, Bohn conducts his investigation step bystep, examining the different works in detail. He makes a practice of be­ginning with a very complete textual analysis before bringing out thework's significance from the viewpoint of the literary historian. Thus thehistorical importance of such unknown pieces as Apollinaire's unpub­lished pantomime is particularly well demonstrated. Shown to be "uneadaptation heureuse" of "Le Musicien de Saint-Merry" (p. 65), the pan­tomime appears to have been inspired also by Savinio's Les Chants dela mi-mort, inspired in turn by Apollinaire's poem. Bohn offers a veryconvincing argument in favor of this filiation, showing how the threemen, Savinio, Apollinaire, and de Chirico (who collaborated on the pan­tomime and coauthored Les Chats de la mi-mort), used the same motif,that of the faceless man, while investing it with their own personal sym-

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238 FALL 1986SYMPOSIUM

bolism. Meanwhile de Chirico's iconography (Ariadne, Napoleon III,factory chimney, targeted silhouette of a man, disembodied hand,bananas) is also traced in A quelle heure un train partira-t-i1pour Paris?

Willard Bohn arrives at a clear exposition of very complex relation­ships, without simplifying the multiple levels of meaning in each work,convincingly arguing for one interpretation over another. After consider­ing the ramifications of influence in each work, he attempts to place inperspective the attraction of the figure of the faceless man, indicatinghow it changed from an optimistic image of a new era of modern tech­nology into a pessimistic symbol of anonymity and of mutilated man, thetroubled times of war being suggested as mainly responsible for this shiftin perspective. Bohn succeeds in persuading us that "la plupart des man­nequins sans visage, sinon tous, dans la litterature et l'art moderne, sontles descendants du musicien de Saint-Merry."

Syracuse University MARIELLE RAINBOW-VIGOURT

HELEN H. REED. The Reader in the Picaresque Novel. London:Tamesis, 1985, 120 pp.

PICARESQUE NOVELS written in the first person are usually addressed to adesignated reader. In the case of Lazari//o de Tormes, Lazaro appears tohave accommodated his story to the kind of person he knows his reci­pient to be. The modern reader, sitting in the place of the absent VuestraMerced ("Your Honor," the addressee) is tantalized by this unidentifiedpresence and sifts clues from Lazaro's discourse as to relation of writerand reader, their respective motives, their subterfuges. We strain to catchan echo of the voice of that designated reader, in his role as prime moverwithout whom Lazaro would not have come into his double existence asthe teller and the told. Aleman's Guzman de A/farache and Quevedo's ElBusc6n differ from Lazari//o; El Busc6n's Vuestra Merced has beendrained of presence and function, and Guzman addresses us. But whodoes Guzman think we are? And what kind of reader-response does eachwork seek to elicit from us? These, in the briefest of terms, are thegrounds for Reed's inquiry into the role of the reader, the constructionof implied (the author prefers "hypothetical") readers in each case.Although critics have referred to the manipulation of the reader in this orthat novel, this is the first study that has been devoted wholly to the phe­nomenon, and it deserves our attention.

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