Selected Writings (Dario, Ruben) (65 page)

Corbeau (Maître):
Maître Corbeau is “Mister Crow,” a character in Jean de la Fontaine’s famous French animal fables, who is often outwitted by the fox (Le Renard). Thus, when Darío’s character, the crow, swears on Maître Corbeau that “that’s the truth,” there is some irony: the self-important crow can be deluded by those more subtle than he.

Coronado, Carolina:
(Spain; 1823-1911) A poet and, to a less successful degree, novelist whose first volume of poetry, published in 1843, won her considerable acclaim. Best known for her love poems, which took love to almost mystical heights.

Cromwell, Oliver:
(England; 1599-1658) Puritan leader and Lord Protector of the Realm from 1653 to 1658, after his defeat of the Royalists and the beheading of Charles I. He refused to be crowned king but ruled with near-absolute power. He allowed some religious toleration in England and Ireland.

Cuátemoc:
(1500?-1525) “Descending eagle,” more often spelled Cuauhtemoc. Chosen from the monastery school of Calmecac, where he studied military tactics and religion, to become emperor of the Aztecs after Moctezuma and Cuitlahuac were killed in the war against the Spanish invaders, Cuauhtemoc fought valiantly in defense of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, until he was captured by Cortés and hanged on February 28, 1525.

Cuzco:
The ancient Incan capital. Known to the Incas as Qosqo or Cusco, “navel of the earth,” it was founded around 1100 A.D., making it the oldest continuously inhabited city in the western hemisphere. According to Peter Frost, it was a “Holy City, a place of pilgrimage with as much importance to the Quechuas as Mecca has to the Muslims.”

Cybele:
“Great Mother of the Gods,” wife of Saturn, also known as Rhea to the Greeks and Ops to the Romans. She is often represented in a chariot drawn by lions, and as such, depicted in a great fountain at an important intersection, is a familiar landmark to visitors and inhabitants of downtown Madrid.

Cythera:
Southernmost of the Ionian Islands, near which Venus, the goddess of love, arose full-grown from the sea, Cythera served as inspiration for the theme of love in many French poems, ballets, operas, and paintings. “What is that black, sad island?” Baudelaire wrote. “We are told / it’s Cythera, famed in songs of old, / trite El Dorado of worn-out roues.” (“A Voyage to Cythera,” trans. Frederick Morgan.)

D’Annunzio, Gabriele:
(1836-1938) Italian poet, novelist, and playwright whose works are characterized by fin de siècle decadence, sensuality, pleasure, and what D’Annunzio called “perfect passion,” with sybaritic characters who reject the bourgeois ethic. He is famed for his love affair with the actress Eleonora Duse and, late in life, for his support of the Fascist Party.

Dante Alighieri:
(1265-1321) Florentine soldier, poet, and diplomat, author of
The Divine Comedy.
In 1302 he was sentenced (in absentia) to death by burning at the stake, and spent the last twenty years of his life in exile.

Darclee, Hariclea:
(Braila, Romania; 1860-1939; d. Bucharest). Darclee was a very famous opera singer (soprano) of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. She studied in paris with J.-B. Faure and made her debut in 1888 at the Opéra in
Faust
. In 1890 she sang at La Scala in
Le Cid
and was immediately engaged by all the leading Italian theatres. Between 1893 and 1910 she appeared in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Lisbon, Barcelona, Madrid, and Buenos Aires, returning also several times to La Scala. She was especially revered for having created the role of Tosca in Puccini’s opera of the same name. The
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
tells us that among “her exceptional qualities were power, beauty of tone, evenness, agility and excellent technique. She was extremely handsome, with a stage presence as elegant as her vocal line. A certain coldness of temperament, however, diminished her conviction in the
verismo
repertory.”

Daudet, Alphonse:
(France; 1840-1897) Novelist of the Naturalist school, noted for keen observation, sympathetic portrayal of character, and vivid presentation of incident. His novels deal with life in Provence and the various social classes of Paris.

de Laval, Gilles:
(
See
GILLES DE LAVAL.)

De Lisle, Léconte:
(
See
LECONTE DE LISLE.)

de Sade, Marquis:
(
See
SADE, DONATIEN ALPHONSE FRANÇOIS, COMTE DE.)

De Vogüé, Émile-Melchior (Viscount):
(France; 1848-1910) French critic, novelist, and historian who wrote many volumes on a wide variety of subjects, and among other accomplishments is credited with introducing the Russian novel to France in the late nineteenth century. De Vogüé served in the army during the Franco-Prussian War, and when the war ended he entered the diplomatic service, although his heart seems always to have been more in literature than affairs of war or state.

Decadents, Decadence:
The
Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory
tells us that the term “Decadence,” in the context to which Darío belongs, is used for “the late 19th century symbolist movement in France, especially French poetry. The movement emphasized the autonomy of art, the need for sensationalism and melodrama, egocentricity, the bizarre, the artificial, art for art’s sake, and the superior ‘outsider’ position of the artist vis-à-vis society, particularly middle-class or bourgeois society. Much ‘decadent’ poetry was preoccupied with personal experience, self-analysis, perversity, elaborate and exotic sensations.” Figures allied with this movement were VILLIERS DE L’ISLE-ADAM, RIMBAUD, VERLAINE, and Laforgue. “Disenchantment, world-weariness, and ennui pervaded their work.” A DECADENT, then, is a follower of this literary movement.

Des Esseintes (
see also
HUYSMANS
):
The
Penguin Dictionary of
Literary Terms
notes that “Huysmans’ novel
A rebours
(1884) was what Arthur Symons described as the ‘breviary’ of the Decadent movement. Des Esseintes, the hero, exemplifies the decadent figure who is consumed by
maladie fin de siècle.
He devotes his energy and intelligence to the replacement of the natural with the unnatural and artificial. His quest was for new and more bizarre sensations.”

Deschamps, Léon:
French critic of art and literature at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In 1889, Deschamps founded the literary review
La Plume.

Desmond, Maurice, Earl of:
(Ireland; ?-1355) Second son of Thomas, Maurice rose to earlhood on the early death of his older brother; his birthdate is unclear, though he married in 1312, so undoubtedly it was sometime in the last decade of the thirteenth century. Called “Maurice the Great,” Desmond was active in the war against Bruce in Scotland. The mention by Darío has to do with the following event: “In consequence of his having been insultingly termed ‘rhymer’ by Baron Arnold le Poer, at a public assembly, this Maurice embarked in a fierce intestine strife, the nobles of Ireland banding themselves on the opposite sides. Such ravages were committed that the towns were obliged to provide garrisons for their own protection, and royal writs were issued from England ordering the Le Poers and Geraldines [the family of Maurice] to desist from levying forces for the purpose of attacking each other, but to little purpose” (Alfred Webb,
A Compendium of Irish Biography,
Dublin: M. H. Gill & Sons, 1878, p. 137).

Díaz Mirón, Salvador:
(Mexico; 1853-1928) Son of the governor of Veracruz, Díaz Mirón at first seemed to follow in the footsteps of his father, but then turned to letters. A journalist for many years, at one point he was deported to New York by the government, but he returned to follow his profession. He began to write poetry young, and continued to do so throughout his life. His early poetry, especially, followed the tenets of Romanticism, with such poems as an “Ode to Victor Hugo.”

Díaz, Leopoldo:
(Argentina; 1862-1947) Though originally a writer of fine sonnets, Díaz changed his style completely with the arrival of Darío in Buenos Aires;
Bajorrelieves
(“Bas-Reliefs,” 1895) shows this influence. His translations, collected in
Traducciones,
introduced Edgar Allan POE, LECONTE DE LISLE, and D’ANNUNZIO to Latin America. Though he continued to write sonnets, they now bore the imprint of HEREDIA and other PARNASSIANS.

Díaz, Porfirio:
(
See
PORFIRIO DÍAZ.)

Dierx, Léon:
(France; 1838-1912) Born, like LÉCONTE DE LISLE, on the island of Réunion, Dierx spent a happy childhood in the large family (ten children) of a merchant trader. He produced his first verses at age fifteen, and by twenty had published a volume of poetry,
Aspirations.
After traveling through North Africa and parts of Europe to assuage his heart broken by a failed love, Dierx returned to France and began his life as a poet and young boulevardier. He frequented the gatherings at the house of Léconte de Lisle, and his poetry shows some influence by him. Later he became, in fact, one of the most distinguished of the PARNASSIANS. These early verses were delicate and profoundly melancholy, and they were very popular, but when his mercantile family was ruined in 1867 he was forced to go to work for the French railroad, where he was a writer for their commercial office. He continued to publish poetry, gaining more and more renown, and at the death of MALLARMÉ he was crowned “Prince of Poets.” The image he has left is of a hermetic, misogynist poet.

Doucet:
The House of Doucet was the oldest of the French
couture
houses. By the 1870s, the creations of Mme. Doucet had achieved royal patronage, and the same ladies who were shopping down the street, at the House of WORTH, were shopping at Doucet’s shop at 21, rue de la Paix. The famed designer Jacques Doucet is Mme. Doucet’s son.

Drumont, Edouard-Adolphe:
(France; 1844-1917) French anti-Semite, called in a recent publication “the pope of antisemitism,” who in 1886 published
La France Juive
(Jews in France). He established a radical anti-Semitic newspaper,
La Libre Parole,
which spread his vicious ideas. He gained lasting fame as one of the most strident accusers of Dreyfuss in the “Dreyfuss Affair.”

Durtal:
A character in novels by HUYSMANS generally taken to be Huysmans’ alter-ego.

Eheu!:
A Latin word that Horace used to begin one of his odes:
Eheu! fugaces labuntur anni.
(Alas!, our fleeting years pass away.)

Elciis:
In Victor Hugo’s poetic epic
La Légende des siècles
(Legend of the Centuries; 1859), Book XX contains the scene in which the old bald seneschal Elciis speaks for four days to King Oton and his twelve feudal under-kings, some from France, some from Italy and Germany. Oton was “emperor of Germany and king of Arles,” and thus extraordinarily powerful and feared, but Elciis was summoned (the reason is not entirely clear) and he “spoke truth to power,” comparing the current times to the better times of the past, and discoursing on war and the Church, the King and the people, natural and human disasters, and God.

Electra:
In Greek mythology, Agamemnon’s revengeful daughter.

Empusa:
Vile, vampirelike creatures in Greek mythology, usually members of the wicked hordes in attendance on Hecate, the mysterious goddess of magic. They were described as demons who could assume from time to time the guise of flesh and blood. The most famous account of their activities was recorded by Philostratus in his
Life of Apollonius of Tyana,
which told of the handsome youth Menippus, who was enticed by an empusa disguised as a Phoenician woman. Confronted by Apollonius, the empusa revealed itself and admitted to fattening up Menippus so that she might devour him. The empusas were also mentioned by ARISTOPHANES.

Engelhart, Josef:
(Austria; 1864-1941) Painter and sculptor, Engelhart studied at the Academies in Vienna and Munich, spent many years in Paris, traveled extensively in Spain and Italy (from whose paintings there, Darío no doubt takes Engelhart as one who “understands” Spain). He was a founding member of the SECESSION in Vienna; he painted scenes and characters from everyday life in Vienna, and from 1903 also worked as a sculptor there.

Esteban, Bartolomé:
(
See
MURILLO.)

Euphorion:
(275-220 B.C.) Lemprière tells us that Euphorion was “a Greek poet of Chalcis in Euboea, in the age of Antiochus the Great. His poems were full of difficult allusions, but Tiberius took him for his model for correct writing, and was so fond of him that he hung his pictures in all the public libraries. Cicero calls him
Obscurum.
”

Europa:
A Phoenician princess, loved by Zeus. Disguised as a tame white bull, Zeus carried her off across the Mediterranean Sea to Crete, where she bore him several children and married the king. Another version of the myth suggests that Europa was willingly abducted by the King of Crete, who blamed his audacity on Zeus.

Flamel, Nicholas:
(France; 1330-1418) Nicholas (or Nicolas) Flamel was a French alchemist. His house in Paris, built in 1407, still stands, at 51 rue de Montmorency, where it has been made into a restaurant. Flamel is supposed to have been the most accomplished of the European alchemists. It is claimed that he succeeded at the two magical goals of alchemy: He made the Philosopher’s Stone that turns lead into gold, and he and his wife Perenelle achieved immortality. Flamel is supposed to have received a mysterious book from a stranger, full of cabalistic words in Greek and Hebrew. He made the understanding of this text his life’s work, traveling to universities in Andalucia to consult with Jewish and Muslim authorities. In Spain, he met a mysterious master who taught him the art of understanding his manuscript. After his return from Spain, Flamel was able to become rich: one source says that “the knowledge that he gained during his travels made him a master of the alchemical art.” He became a philanthropist, endowing hospitals and churches. He caused arcane alchemical signs to be written on a tombstone, which is preserved at the Musée de Cluny in Paris. His tomb is empty; some say it was sacked by people in search of his alchemical secrets. On the other hand, if he in fact achieved the secret of immortality, his empty tomb may have another explanation. Nicholas Flamel’s story is alluded to in the first Harry Potter book,
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
(or
Sorcerer’s Stone
).