Spatial Structure in Saint-Simonian Poetics
97
structure. A case in point is his lengthy prose poem “La Ville nouvelle
ou le Paris des Saint-Simoniens”, wherein rural idyllic images intrude
into modern urban features, as shown in the following citation:
Le bras droit de la bien-aimée de ma ville est tourné vers les coupoles et les dômes
industriels, et sa main repose sur une sphère au sommet de cristal, à la surface
enluminée du vert tendre des jeunes gazons, du jaune argenté des blés mûrs, et de
toutes les nuances vives que les belles campagnes épanouissent sous les premiers
baisers du matin.
12
Here, the collision of pastoral imagery with “dômes industriels” gives
rise to a re-organization of experience, and a sensual pleasure conveyed in the “nuances vives” and the “premiers baisers du matin”.
Such richly contrastive images are already inscribed in the topography
of this imagined Paris that the gaze is never permitted to settle on and
internalize what is glimpsed; Duveyrier seems to suggest that any
meditative intervention would disturb the sensual pleasure of vision.
Massive urban development does not give rise to the sort of melancholy and nostalgia later evoked by Baudelaire. Instead, such rapid
change affords surprising visual contrasts and stimulates new configurations of sensation, whose pleasureable effects on the speaker nourish
his empathy with the changing environment. To this end, the collision
of “dômes industriels” itself a clash suggestive of Renaissance architecture and nineteenth-century industry with pastoral imagery
creates an atmosphere of sensual surprise, giving rise to the linguistic
fertility that is indicated by the “nuances vives”.
Those readers who may have expected an impersonal Benthamite plan for reform of the city or a technical article of the calibre
of many of the pieces published in Le Globe were to be surprised by
the tenor of Duveyrier’s piece. In the text, the angular and geometric
figures which readers might have anticipated are displaced by organic
and rounded motifs, including winding streets, curves and wheels:
“Les places circulaires n'y sont pas plantées de quinconces régulièrement serrés et étouffés; des bouquets d’arbres s’élèvent çà et là
comme les touffes d'herbes dans la campagne.”
13 The buildings of the
new city “s’élèvent en formes arrondies et bossueuses” while the architectural descriptions for the neighbourhood in question make fre___________________________
12 Charles Duveyrier, “La Ville nouvelle ou le Paris des Saint-Simoniens”, in Barrault,
Émile and others, Le Livre nouveau, pp. 222-36, (p. 233).
13 Duveyrier, “La Ville nouvelle”, p. 231.
97
structure. A case in point is his lengthy prose poem “La Ville nouvelle
ou le Paris des Saint-Simoniens”, wherein rural idyllic images intrude
into modern urban features, as shown in the following citation:
Le bras droit de la bien-aimée de ma ville est tourné vers les coupoles et les dômes
industriels, et sa main repose sur une sphère au sommet de cristal, à la surface
enluminée du vert tendre des jeunes gazons, du jaune argenté des blés mûrs, et de
toutes les nuances vives que les belles campagnes épanouissent sous les premiers
baisers du matin.
12
Here, the collision of pastoral imagery with “dômes industriels” gives
rise to a re-organization of experience, and a sensual pleasure conveyed in the “nuances vives” and the “premiers baisers du matin”.
Such richly contrastive images are already inscribed in the topography
of this imagined Paris that the gaze is never permitted to settle on and
internalize what is glimpsed; Duveyrier seems to suggest that any
meditative intervention would disturb the sensual pleasure of vision.
Massive urban development does not give rise to the sort of melancholy and nostalgia later evoked by Baudelaire. Instead, such rapid
change affords surprising visual contrasts and stimulates new configurations of sensation, whose pleasureable effects on the speaker nourish
his empathy with the changing environment. To this end, the collision
of “dômes industriels” itself a clash suggestive of Renaissance architecture and nineteenth-century industry with pastoral imagery
creates an atmosphere of sensual surprise, giving rise to the linguistic
fertility that is indicated by the “nuances vives”.
Those readers who may have expected an impersonal Benthamite plan for reform of the city or a technical article of the calibre
of many of the pieces published in Le Globe were to be surprised by
the tenor of Duveyrier’s piece. In the text, the angular and geometric
figures which readers might have anticipated are displaced by organic
and rounded motifs, including winding streets, curves and wheels:
“Les places circulaires n'y sont pas plantées de quinconces régulièrement serrés et étouffés; des bouquets d’arbres s’élèvent çà et là
comme les touffes d'herbes dans la campagne.”
13 The buildings of the
new city “s’élèvent en formes arrondies et bossueuses” while the architectural descriptions for the neighbourhood in question make fre___________________________
12 Charles Duveyrier, “La Ville nouvelle ou le Paris des Saint-Simoniens”, in Barrault,
Émile and others, Le Livre nouveau, pp. 222-36, (p. 233).
13 Duveyrier, “La Ville nouvelle”, p. 231.