Guillaume APOLLINAIRE discusses his poetry and the Cubists.

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880.1918)

Autograph letter signed to Laurent Tailhade.  

Three pages ½ in-8° on Italian government hospital letterhead.

[Paris]. November 4, 1916. Autograph envelope.

“Besides which, although murdered like all the poets, I am alive and well like them all and I love life. »

Convalescing from his trepanation suffered in May 1916, Apollinaire thanked Tailhade for his letter of congratulations relating to the publication of his collection of stories, The Assassinated Poet .

Apollinaire gives him in passing his intimate vision of Poetry and the Arts, successively evoking his collections Alcools and Hérésiarque et Cie , his Cubist friends, his view of the ancients and the moderns , and his joy at being a murdered, living poet.

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“My dear master, What you were kind enough to write to me about my book goes straight to my heart. There cannot be a vote today that is more precious than yours. And in our era of erudition without culture you remind me of a Saint Calonne [reference to Alphonse de Calonne] guarding within an almost universal barbarity the heritage of Good Letters.

My aesthetic would be, if you like, to build on the solid basis of what has until now constituted taste, a daring monument for which there is no shortage of new materials. “On new thoughts let us make ancient verses” [reference to the famous verse of André Chénier ] This is what being modern is all about. But striving to be worthy of what the ancients did is, I believe, what Shakespeare achieved.

the most beautiful pages of Aretin sent to you tomorrow by Mercury . I will stop by Stock to send you L'Hérésiarque et Cie (my best prose book, I think); I'm afraid it will run out and won't be withdrawn during the war.

Alcools is out of stock and Mercure will not reissue them during the war. Likewise for my writings on the new painting, Figuière affirms that it is exhausted. Besides, I would have liked to only write poetry. It sometimes seems that rich people are very happy if it is true that they are free [sic] to do only what they please. Besides which, although murdered like all the poets, I am alive and well like them all and I love life.

My relations with the Cubists were above all relations of friendship. I am of course talking about those who have talent, but the public mostly knows those who don't have any. I have endeavored to highlight the genius of the former and to express with some clarity ideas which they themselves sometimes only understood very imperfectly. By acting in this way I unknowingly interfered with many combinations in which even colleagues had a share. People were angry with me and often made to feel it with violence.

I am currently writing a novel which will be wonderful if I manage to see it through to the end. It's because I love my job while experiencing infinite pain in getting started. But nothing is sadder than the life of poets and more joyful at the same time and it is with the most faithful admiration that I beg you, my dear Master, to allow me to embrace you filially. Guillaume Apollinaire. »