...
Show More
mallarmé’s unfinished notes to a longer work that would be a testimony to the loss of his child, anatole. mallarmé found that not even art could stand testimony to the work of infinite mourning in the absence of his lost child, he wanted to give life back to his lost son through the power of the word, through giving him life in the form of poetry, in the form of art. mallarmé found it impossible to give testament to the fragmented life anatole had, taken away so shortly by sickness, a death that mallarmé blamed himself for. yet, these fragments succeed in giving back the trace of life to his lost child, anatole is the ghost that haunts these pages, these fragments. although the work is “unfinished” so to say, the fragmentary form lends itself beautifully to the fragmented life that anatole had lived, it lends itself to the pained meditation on loss, mourning, death, and absence that mallarmé is capturing. mallarmé conjures the ghost of his child on these pages, to live on forever.
