VERLAINE, Paul (1844-1896)
Printed poem with autograph corrections, titled « À Horatio »
Newspaper clipping Le Hanneton from 8th August 1867. 63 x 80 mm mounted on larger sheet 193 x 152 mm.
“Ami, le temps n’est plus des guitares, des plumes…”
Fact sheet
VERLAINE, Paul (1844-1896)
Printed poem with autograph corrections, titled « À Horatio »
Newspaper clipping Le Hanneton from 8th August 1867. 63 x 80 mm mounted on larger sheet 193 x 152 mm.
Some brown stains
Rare proof corrected by Verlaine for a poem from his collection Jadis et Naguère
Poem first published on August 8, 1867 in the periodical Le Hanneton, directed by poet Eugene Vermersch, and then, with variant here absent, in La Nouvelle rive gauche on January 5, 1883.
It was finally published in his poem colletions in 1884 in collection Jadis et Naguère.
4 autograph corrections not transposed into the final printed version:
at verse 4, in “Et de cette gaîté banale,” Paul Verlaine corrected “ordinary” into “trop bête”;
verse 8, in “Cher diseur de jurons,” he corrected “diseur” as “cracheur,”
and at about 19, in “sur mon honneur,” he corrected “mon” to “notre.”
The last correction is spelling: at verse 3, Verlaine has s whistled “des pipes aux chapeaux” and inscribed “des pipes-aux-chapeaux”.
Having the pipe in the hat marked the carelessness and lack of wealth of the sailors, the marginalized.
Provenance: Mathilde Mauté’s papers, wife of Paul Verlaine.
The marriage, celebrated in 1870, was not a happy one, and after many arguments Verlaine had finally deserted the matrimonial home. It was then in vain that he asked several times to retrieve some of the papers he had left there, including this poem with autograph corrections. These papers were later acquired by André Vial, who devoted a book to it, Verlaine and his family (Paris, Nizet, 1975): this document is mentioned and described on pages 151-153.