Mallarme ́: the shadowy side of lucidity
Sartre’s study of Mallarme ́,^13 considered one of his masterpieces, is one
of the large number of torsos scattered across the landscape of his
published work.^14 In his last interview with Beauvoir, he claims that
“around two hundred pages” of the Mallarme ́study were lost – perhaps
in the explosion and confusion that followed the second bombing of his
residence by the OAS during the Algerian revolution.^15 She confirmed
this: “Oh yes! There were very detailed explanations of all of Mallarme ́’s
poems.”^16 Sartre presumably drew on that unpublished research
when he answered Michel Sicard’s question about his fascination with
Mallarme ́’s later works, such asUn Coup de de ́s(A Throw of the Dice),
which involved spectacular typographical arrangements: “Yes, I was
amazed by that. But though I like “Un coup de de ́s,” it is still Mallarme ́’s
“classical” poetry that especially pleases me; that is, the alexandrine
or octosyllabic verses joined in sonnets or otherwise. There is where
Mallarme ́presents his essential self.”^17 In other words, Sartre’s assess-
ments are made from a careful reading of the works under consideration,
though he seems as coolly disposed to spatialized poetry as he is to some
forms of contemporary music, despite his quite positive view of abstract
painting and the plastic arts.^18
(^13) Arlette Elkaı ̈m-Sartre, who edited this volume, used this passage from the text as the subtitle
of the French edition:La Lucidite ́et sa face d’ombre(The Shadowy Side of Lucidity).
(^14) For a brief discussion of his uncompleted works, see Michel Sicard (ed.), “Sartre,”Obliques
nos. 18 – 19 ( 1979 ): 13 b.
(^15) Organisation de l’arme ́e secre`te (OAS): the group using armed struggle to resist the Algerian
revolution. They called for Sartre’s execution as a traitor and on two occasions detonated a
bomb at the entrance to his apartment. After the second explosion, Sartre never returned to
his residence; he left it to others to salvage whatever materials he had left behind.
(^16) Ce ́r 234. She speaks of his having written “several hundred pages [on Mallarme ́] that he
afterwards lost” (Force of Circumstance, 162 n.; F 179 n.).
(^17) Sicard, “Sartre,” 9 b. Later in the interview, Sartre admits that it was only later on that he
18 discovered “the spatial order proper to Mallarme ́on which he has never written” (^20 b).
See Bauer, chapters 5 , 6 , and appendix “Music and Musicians.” On Sartre’s early love affair
with jazz, especially with its improvisations, see Michel Contat’s entry “Jazz” inDictionnaire
Sartre, ed. Franc ̧ois Noudlemann and Gilles Philippe (Paris: Honore ́Champion, 2004 ), 260 ,
and Michel Sicard,Dictionnaire Sartre, s.v. “Musique,” 339. Gifted with a fine baritone
voice, the young Sartre even dreamt of being a jazz singer (Hayman,Writing Against, 42 ).
The most helpful collection of interviews with Sartre and essays by others on his relation to
the fine arts appears inSartre et les Arts, a special issue ofObliquesnos. 24 – 25 ( 1981 );
hereafterObliques-Arts. See also Franc ̧ois Noudelmann,The Philosopher’s Touch: Sartre,
Nietzsche and Barthes at the Piano, trans. Brian J. Reilly (New York: Columbia University
Mallarme ́: the shadowy side of lucidity 387