TRANSLATION

André SpearsAnne Rosēn

Voix Editions

“I ain’t my self.”

(Rimbaud)

AVIS AU LECTEUR

“Apparaissant ensuite la légion des Interprètes, coiffés comme des sphinx, et portant un perroquet tatoué sur la poitrine.”

—Gustave Flaubert, Salammbô.

Les quatre traductions ici réunies—parmi lesquelles une traduction homophonique d’une traduction, une traduction homophonique tout court, une fausse traduction, et la traduction d’un faux—peuvent être envisagées comme posant un commun regard sur la nature de la vérité dans l’acte de la traduction. Qu’est-ce qui rend une traduction «vraie» par rapport au texte original? Qu’est-ce cette vérité traduite par «translation»? Walter Benjamin, dans “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers” («La tâche du traducteur»), reprenant Mallarmé, propose l’idée que toute traduction s’adresse à la vérité d’un «pur langage» (reine Sprache) vers lequel gravitent, dans leur complémentarité, toutes les langues; et, en plus, que c’est la fragmentarité abyssale du langage en soi qui fait du «pur langage» la «vraie langue» (« le langage de la vérité »)—c’est-à-dire, le langage dans les «profondeurs sans fin» où toutes les langues fonctionnent comme le seul et même langage. Pour Benjamin, le «pur langage» reste cette traduction infiniment libre et parfaitement littérale à laquelle toute traduction prétend. Cela semble le cas pour Flaubert aussi—dont les « Interprètes » Carthaginois offrent une image reflétée du traducteur même. Reprenant Benjamin, à la suite de Flaubert, on peut dire que la vérité du langage pour le traducteur s’exprime à la fois sous la guise de la coiffe du Sphinx, dont le silence s’étend à travers les âges, et du tatouage du Perroquet, déjà perché pour toujours dire ce qu’il entend.

A NOTE TO THE READER

“Appearing next the legion of Interpreters, in the headdress of sphinxes, and with a parrot tattooed on their chests.”

—Gustave Flaubert, Salammbo.

The four translations assembled herein—which include a homophonic translation of a translation, a homophonic translation tout court, a fraudulent translation, and the translation of a fraud—can be described as sharing a common concern regarding the nature of truth in the act of translation. What makes a translation “true” to the original? What is this truth that translation “translates”? Walter Benjamin, in “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers” (“The Task of the Translator”), following Mallarmé, proposes the idea that what translation addresses is the truth of a “pure language” (“reine Sprache”) to which all languages, in their complementariness, gravitate; and, moreover, that what makes “pure language” the “true language” (“the language of truth”) is the abysmal fragmentariness of language itself—language, that is, in the “bottomless depths” where all languages function as one and the same. For Benjamin, “pure language” is the infinitely free and perfectly literal translation to which all translation aspires. This appears to be the case for Flaubert as well—in whose image of the Carthaginian “Interpreters” translators may recognize themselves. Following Benjamin, after Flaubert, one might say that, for the translator, language’s truth finds expression in the guise of both the headdress of the Sphinx, whose silence spans the ages, and the tattoo of the Parrot, already perched to always speak its mind.

GUETTE TRONC QUE

(“Get drunk”) *

* Cf. Baudelaire, “Enivrez-vous,” Le Spleen de Paris, XXXIII.

Ou en mousse tôle où est-ce bitte tronc que.

Et voeux rie signes air: y tise dit honni lit caisse jeune.

Sot yeux de honte file dit théorie bleue beurre donne oeuf tas hymne break qui n’y or bacinde bain digue y où tout dit gras onde, y où mousse te guette tronc que, non-stop.

Botte en watt?

Âne où aille nœud, âne pot et trie, âne verte chou, as yeux laïques.

Botte guette tronc que.

An d’if somme tas hymne— on dit steppe zoo fait palace, on dit gris ne grâce au feu dites jeu, idée dise mal l’eau ne lie naisseœuvre yeux rhume—y où écope, Diderot qu’un naisse oh! raidi or hall Mauss conne,à ce que dit ouïe ne d’, dit où est vœu, dit star, dit beurre d’, dit claque,à ce que hall date ronds ah ouais,hall date ces crimes œufs,hall date ternes œufs,hall date signe gueux œufs,hall date tôt queues œufs, à ce quoi tas hymne y tise; anti-ouïe ne d’, dit où est vœu, dit star, dit beurre d’, dit claque, oui lance heure:

“Y tise tas hymne tout guette tronc que!

Sot yeux art note dit martyr de se lève oeuf tas hymne,guette tronc que; guette tronc que, non-stop!

Âne où aille nœud, âne pot et trie, âne verte chou, as yeux laïques.”

« One must always be drunk. Everything is there: it is the only question. So you don’t feel the terrible burden of time breaking your back and bending you to the ground, you must get drunk, non-stop. But on what? On wine, on poetry, on virtue, as you like. But get drunk. And if some time, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the dismal loneliness of your room, you wake up, the drunkenness already or almost gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, ask all that runs away, all that screams, all that turns, all that sings, all that talks, ask what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, will answer: ‘It is time to get drunk! So you are not the martyred slave of time, get drunk; get drunk, non-stop! On wine, on poetry, on virtue, as you like.’ »

Il faut être toujours ivre. Tout est là; c’est l’unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l’horrible fardeau du Temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve. Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise. Mais enivrez-vous. Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d’un palais, sur l’herbe verte d’un fossé, dans la solitude morne de votre chambre, vous vous réveillez, l’ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue, demandez au vent, à la vague, à l’étoile, à l’oiseau, à l’horloge, à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est; et le vent, la vague, l’étoile, l’oiseau, l’horloge, vous répondront: « Il est l’heure de s’enivrer! Pour n’être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps, enivrez-vous; enivrez-vous sans cesse! De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise. »

MALDOROR MAKES LOVE TO A SHARK:

ā tranz-lā′shəәn frum thəә french fôr thəә french *

* Cf. Lautréamont, Les Chants de Maldoror, II, xiii.

So true fun praise aunts lewd nudge err ale laugh email direct can,so vapor Louie.

Ill surrogate air untrue laze yeah pond don kill cue me knew it;a shack on say tuna dead trove way taunt dirt pharaoh sit hay down lay regard dell low oat.

Ill tour non roe on a john, noose a paired pad have view,ace add tease up heart sue ah:

“Gem a sweet trump pay just kiss he; unveil a hunk key a plume mesh on.”

A lore, don’t come in a chord, on tread ouzo, eel glees air lawn furlough oat a vacuum add me rat sown mew to ale,laugh email direct can ache hard-on load essay gnash war,Maldoror bat on loaned affix say bra; a rattan lure’s soup flu, dance in vain eras yawn pro phoned, shock an daisy rut did cunt to play, poor lap prim you’ve wha, sown port rave fief on.

A rev aye at tram met daddy’s taunts, son fair oaken afore, eel tome bear brusque among loan control oat, come does aim on, a some brass air havoc dig neat day a reconnaissance, dawns soon ate rant awe seat tundra cuss sell dun fray err oud dune sir.

Lady’s ear shorn knell sue Eve ere dead pray set daemon strut scion dammit yea.

Duke wheeze nerve firs Sue cull air eight trot to mum ah lap owe fist cuss do moan stir, comb dude song sue; aye, lay bra allay gnash war on trellis say oat tour due core dull lobe jay aim may kills on tour ray havoc a moor, tan deed color gorge ail her poet train nerve fez aye be-in toe pluck coon mass glow oak owes exalt us yawn dug gooey ma; oh milieu delight temp pet key continue way dust say veer; Allah lure her daze éclair; a yon poor lee deem men nay laugh hag ache you muss, on port tape parent coo wrong summa ran come dancing bear sow, air rue lawn, sir roe ma’am, fairly pro-fund err in canoe dull abeam, ill sir ray you near dawn’s sumac couple among loan, chesty he’d duh!…

On fan, java nay dot true fey calc on chimera sum blah!…

Daze or may, jinn net day blue sole done love fee!…

Elevate laymen’s id ache cum wow!...

Jetty on fast dead men premier am Ur!

Se trouvent en présence le nageur et la femelle de requin, sauvée par lui. Ils se regardèrent entre les yeux pendant quelques minutes; et chacun s'étonna de trouver tant de férocité dans les regards de l'autre. Ils tournent en rond en nageant, ne se perdent pas de vue, et se disent à part soi: "Je me suis trompé jusqu'ici; en voilà un qui est plus méchant." Alors, d'un commun accord, entre deux eaux, ils glissèrent l'un vers l'autre, avec une admiration mutuelle, la femelle de requin écartant l'eau de ses nageoires, Maldoror battant l'onde avec ses bras; et retinrent leur souffle, dans une vénération profonde, chacun désireux de contempler, pour la première fois, son portrait vivant. Arrivés à trois mètres de distance, sans faire aucun effort, ils tombèrent brusquement l'un contre l'autre, comme deux aimants, et s'embrassèrent avec dignité et reconnaissance, dans une étreinte aussi tendre que celle d'un frère ou d'une soeur. Les désires charnels suivirent de près cette démonstration d'amitié. Deux cuisses nerveuses se collèrent étroitement à la peau visqueuse du monstre, comme deux sangsues; et, les bras et les nageoires entrelacés autour du corps de l'objet aimé qu'ils entouraient avec amour, tandis que leurs gorges et leurs poitrines ne faisaient bientôt plus qu'une masse glauque aux exhalaisons de goëmon; au milieu de la tempête qui continuait de sévir; à la lueur des éclairs; ayant pour lit d'hyménée la vague écumeuse, emportés par un courant sous-marin comme dans un berceau, et roulant, sur eux-mêmes, vers les profondeurs inconnues de l'abîme, ils se réunirent dans un accouplement long, chaste et hideux!... Enfin, je venais de trouver quelqu'un qui me ressemblât!... Désormais, je n'étais plus seul dans la vie!... Elle avait les mêmes idées que moi!... J'étais en face de mon premier amour!

NO CRAPSHOOT’LL

(after Mallarmé)

EVER BEAT THE ODDS

Life is a Crapshoot.

THE SPIRITUAL HUNT *

(Le faux-Rimbaud)

* Arthur Rimbaud: La Chasse Spirituelle (Paris: Mercure de France, 1949)

VAUDEVILLE

I cried once over vain attachments. I do not believe in family, in duty, in rewards guaranteed by esteem. Rancid soup, stale candies and angelic perfume of distressed armoires. Reject the moods, the broken toys—prevailing airs—and let us not forget these precocious maledictions. Nor the complacent attitudes and fine careers, the prudent glory. Enough of heroism and honor’s retributions. Hide your wisdom and your sciences, your treasures—your hateful sores. I have chewed too much on your contempt, your pretexts, your patience without object. Yet, I savored the pleasant delicacies—not so long ago, full of rigor and principles, I could have kept company with grown-ups. I can laugh no more at these sumptuous leftovers. I keep my distance from the memory of childhood communions, ingenious fairylands. Vacations. The country parish smelled of detergent, and I honored the man who hid the conspiracies of his indifference behind the marvelous frescoes. Dear illness! I pace avenues gorged with empty people. Pleasures haughty and mild. The odor of our downtown angels makes the local farmers faint. Our fleets will still be sailing for distant isles, new grounds of honor for tomorrow. The phlegmatic emperors will spit on sleeping crowds. The pirates, the cutthroats will be immortalized. Of whom shall we dream? The canteens pour their streams of gung-ho heroes onto sanitized fields blighted by boredom. The women eye the invalids with gratitude. Magic of wretched colors, trumpets at noon that plaster white boils on the palms and the mouths of unclean, organized slaughters. Generations of church girls will continue smearing their candor. Hideously docile nature, rich and comfortable city, accessible arts, miserable off-key pianos. Madmen of the hours. Epileptic, you will experience popular dangers, your arms thick with blood, legs spread, lewd, your mouth to the ground: in the evenings of freedom too human. Through the exercise of daily gestures, the waving of weapons and flags, onward to the crumbling of glory’s apotheoses, you may feel tired, come the fatal dawn of countries as authentic as mothers.

PAGAN VACATIONS

On this day, rejected, dazed, dead to the hope of destinies, positions, advantages, glimpsed rot from the abyss—it was yesterday no doubt—I aimed for the object of those decisions sprung from the mystification of debaucheries. I will forget anathema’s savor, the simple insult—for once—the ferociousness, the grotesque frenzies, the cruel gestures, also the vain blasphemies of childhood. With these very eyes I see the deserts cracked like crusts, crushed under the sky. A forest of silk and amber, but more distant. I hear (why again this betrayal of silence that I enter like a prince...) unavowable melodies. Must I suffer still more, and drag myself there? I will have to stop drinking, yet what exquisite rewards beyond the limits of this impoverished flesh! I will escape the rude day, the familial traps, the torch of forced and dishonest vigils, the accepted digests, the peaceful sounds behind the locked door, the extenuated city. I want to mumble the abandonment of our efficient systems, our cultures, the riches of our memories. To learn henceforth the forgetting of consensual fictions, I speak of easy and mortal hours, of friendship, of practical acknowledgments. I venerate indifferent animals, splendid and errant like the ancient gods under merciless skies. To abolish self, to be lost, to feel the skin go dry under the avid and envious gaze of puerile curiosities, and—shamelessly—to sink into the deepest dreams. Time: dementia of the Other! Filled with logician wisdom, I will no longer shout at you. You will ignore these forbidden revelations, the rhythms of this barbarian orchestra, my patience, my obstinacy, my stern royalty, my strength. The floods swallow the superior peoples, and only a single manic couple of well-meaning idiots can see, on shields covered in crimson, the steamy messengers of their calling. Old labor strikes fade in the wind: fraternal prairies rumbling with the joys of insects. Without hesitation I see cliffs of quartz, guardians of black and russet valleys, with no river. I will murder the ordinary dream with cunning, science, bastard loves and humiliating kindnesses. And there are always the dancers, the ridiculous beautiful artists. To give up everything for a twilight murder at the heart of a park in Babylon. I will bend the bars of a Western sky and follow the traces of mocked prophets and magi in the anxiety of our submerged kinships. But without filiation to obsolete creeds, to the fate of absurd and damaged virtues—free. The fright of fulfillment precedes me. I will rid myself of elementary moves. Cross arms on the infinite. Nothing simpler! The higher barbarians had foreseen it all: wipe out wisdom and move on. Soon, no more absence. Hearts will no longer be tortured. No more cares. A power fed on silence, motionless. No more ancient will, no more momentum delayed. The implacable field. The body vacant and still, like a sanctuary. Look to the inner shadow. Sleep on the magic carpet,

and, with a head full of terrifying truths—lighter than a good child’s dream—mysterious illusions, I will self-efface with delight. On a vessel decked in gold, with neither currents nor storm, I will approach the hallowed port from which the sun moves onto our commercial continents, our docks, our fruitful tides, our way stations, our dismal beaches. I must walk on taut ropes toward the first wisdom and the wonderful world. But with a choked heart, a head full of muddy water, pitiable hunter: haunting the sickly banks where dorados linger. And beyond that, I still have to want the secular myths. My regrets, my split presence, my cold reason, alas! And all the insights and the planning, the affectionate detours, respectable work, nothing will count for me. I will exit, drunk, from the circle of actions that glow in the light of stripped arabesques. I will remember the sharp smell of pious women. I will dream horse. I will worship the sacred goat, the clawed cats miaowing with envy. I will stay by the lamppost of towns without hope, I will walk to bedazzlement, feet on fire, I will cross the hallways of an empty temple bursting with incredible life, and I will die destroying golden tubercles and white birds. Goodbye catechism, decrepit loves! I have sawed off my right hand.

EDENS

Last prayer to the archangels who rot in my feverish forests. I totter on the sixty life cycles. Finally, I will establish my hiding places, my pursuits, my pathways—ordinary images forged in the unease of waking. I entrust you with my false absences, a collection of savage words in flames. I have muttered famously through the picturesque spells of meaning. Sordid and complicated kid, bent over the stupid meadow I shook the pistils, inhaled green and humid vapors, plunged my nervous arms in the sludge of an awful warmness, with pink fat worms. I learned about the whistles of monsters, the heroic couplets, the laughter of the mud by the lakes of darkness, the bloom of the castles in anguish, where chaste and gentle princes sleep. I counted precious stones and aerial streams, raised statues of quicksand to the coves of tropical seas, haunted fairgrounds where the ballerinas knife one another. I experimented with the hunger pangs of poor children. My head echoing like a giant seashell, abandoned to the tomorrows of orgiastic fasts, my spirit heavier than a cathedral. I questioned the wisdom of ancient marbles, ripped open obscene pomegranates, as ruby-red rivers ran down my lips. Acrid, smoking body. Desire, despair, belated affliction, wet kiss of exotic venoms, leprosy, desperate embraces. Burning chalice, opera melodies, gladiators garlanded for the people’s pleasure, sirens and witches, hypocritical couples, priests sipping strange brew to the tom-toms’ beat, rustic seats for the salons. Glary bubbles burst before my eyes, multicolored darts pin me on a calvary of confections. The older Sisters with their annoying concerns comfort the pathetic children, and the sweet Jesuses mend the well-worn joys. Acceptable paradise, Cythera, one hand to rescue me, then, alone, calm, in the hayfields, I will hear the primal cries beyond the trees, the healing winds of hope. I will reach the sublime degree of a shameless perfection. To stop hiding from the world my blunders and pretensions, and those unknown caresses. I manage the most infamous of chores. Cascades of bile, whirlwind of red and black snow, gusts of bad breath, carnival, enigmatic turtles, cancers and hydras in verdigris makeup, giant dogs, castrated roosters, lacework; in the glorious sky, strips of flesh organize ascensions, grotesque monkeys steal my clothes, arrows, streams of jewels, formless flowers, bleeding sap, shattered crystal, dusty pastels of clouded visions. The kangaroos jump on the public squares and the freighters weave rosaries of slippery ropes across an ocean of embers. Marine butterflies, Jamaica wood, lemon trees, pepper plants from lazy tropics, aromatic seaweeds, pustules, blisters of honey, angry mammoths, serpents in heat devouring the sailors, cannibal flowers with velvet harpoons, delights, tortures... Ahh, spare me! Please—I will not start again. None of this is serious really.

INFIRMITIES

I will no longer joke about the fevers and nightmares that made my body tremble and wracked my nerves. I know what I owe them. The needs, the fears, the doubts had to be rejected. In full splendor I would have stolen nature and my race and my obscure parents. I am species only—nothing more—linked to my domesticated innards and my fatal, forsaken soul. I belong here. Life is simple and fruitful, outside of thinking, and this thirst. Will I cope? The scientists, the farmhands corner me on a dizzy and bitter field of action. The leaves grow, the usual foods renew themselves, and the water, and the fire. I have lost the ordinary traces. I should not have. No beast henceforth will overpower me. I return subdued to the welcome of an austere and comfortable home. I have scorned the mendacities of love, the altruistic hunger, the yearnings for brotherly presence. I have glimpsed voluptuous quietudes, my baggy eyes sunk in purplish patterns, an orphan of the equinoxes and unavoidable tides, lunations and natural laws. Inane songs make rounds in my head. Schoolyard refrains, mechanical prayers useful for the hygiene of our adolescent bodies. Escaped from the confines of the absurd and from manifest ignorance, in the calm of embraced mysteries, needs, obligations, ludicrous acts of generosity, sterile struggles will forever be lost to me. What will you do with this practical legacy, you abandoned and obstinate idiots, drunk on quarrels as childish and secular as your races? Fat smoke spreads the stench of one-way crossings, impurities obstruct the mouths of gaping rivers; swollen stomach, excrements, bitter liquid, sticky remains of monstrous cities. Little girls with their dumb and startled look make me blush for shame. A curse on those penchants of diabolic fertility! Nature, queen of hordes, you have subdued us. I spent whole nights chasing after beatific visions—paths of the moon, monotonous eclipses, fastidious circles—with meager results. You who subscribe to relative moves and effort rewarded, you will forget me. Grey corpses, how to save you yet?

MARSHLANDS Return to the sky, friend of old. After the furies in league against the powers, fatal disappointments pour into the land of origin. Banished from prudent capitals oblivious to the truths. I swallow their words and their dust, ravings of charlatans. But the monuments, testimony to their magisterial incomprehension, will crumble. Time with its ridiculous trappings retakes its course. There will be nothing but praxis. The curves collapse, the numbers, tamed long ago, disintegrate. Except for the visionary guarantee of a brown maternal earth, warm as a bird. And an uncertain community, perhaps; vestige of primal spells, stuff of ballads. Science, chemistry, frenzy, pulverized meteors will fall in gold powder, yielding ultimate revelations. Under what new skies will black boats drift? Figs splatter on beaches of ash and infectious clouds sack the gardens of Eden. To take up once more the tools and the struggle on duty’s trail. Sunday bests on the boulevard of boredom. I was mauled by the crowd in the orchestra of cruel yelps. I watched for the world to pass out; breathless, my eyes swollen and itching, I controlled the rhythm of final forces. I missed the impeccable burst of the fire, and everything was intact: comic kingships, popular bewilderment. Cults, trees, rocks, rejected hearts, must I still bear your strange presence—your pride, your disdain? I forgot weapons, schemes, charms in this hunt for sweet magic. I return blind to the funereal clearings of fallen trees, my hands frozen and dead, with no trophies to show, no glittering prey. I will get my fill of disgust—and what to do, back again to the routine debasements, the disciplines, the necessities of the abysmal epoch at my hardened feet? I saw myself shivering, squatting at the crossroads of ancient worries, scarlet crown on my head, scepter in hand, accessories requiring messiahs. Should one stand up, run, get busy? That was the old style. Ineffable bodies, in the sheer momentum of wandering I have won your surprises, your passions, your radiant impieties, your evil absolutes, your crushing ineptitudes, like waves over the last man. Event framed in an evening lifted from absence. It was just a friendly childhood scheme, innocent havoc. After ecstatic fears, I can see the white sheets, the glittering crest of some fever, the adorable wounds, the mortuary teas of stammering old ladies, the mercy of yesterday’s victims. Henceforth, no regrets, no madness. Death sanctified—their way. It was not mine. There are still other shores.

Translator’s note: La Chasse Spirituelle was the supposed title of a “long-lost masterpiece” by Rimbaud; it was appropriated by forgers and used as the title of a forgery erroneously published by Mercure de France in May, 1949. The case of La Chasse Spirituelle shook the French literary world, and was the instigation for André Breton’s pamphlet Flagrant Délit. The forgery was the work of two actors, Akakia-Viala (pseudonym of Marie-Antoinette Allevy) and Nicolas Bataille, who wrote it in response to the harsh reviews of their dramatization of Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell a few months earlier. They subsequently managed to have a copy of the manuscript forwarded on behalf of the fictional owner of the “original” (a purported admirer of the actors’ work) to the chief reviewer of the newspaper Combat, who in turn passed it on to the editorial staff at Mercure de France. Two days after the publication of La Chasse Spirituelle, following the publication of excerpts in Combat, the forgers revealed themselves to the newspaper Le Figaro, which ran an article about the hoax. (Interestingly, the forgers had something of a difficult time proving the reality of their own forgery.) For a full account of “the most extensive and remarkable scandale littéraire in the history of Rimbaud studies and of French letters,” see Bruce Morrissette’s study, The Great Rimbaud Forgery: The affair of La Chasse Spirituelle (Saint Louis: Washington University Studies, 1956).

Note du traducteur: La Chasse Spirituelle est le titre supposé d’un « chef-d’oeuvre perdu » de Rimbaud ; il est approprié par des faussaires et devient le titre d’une supercherie fautivement édité par Mercure de France en mai, 1949. Le cas de La Chasse Spirituelle secoue le milieu littéraire francais, et incite André Breton à écrire le pamphlet Flagrant Délit. Le faux-Rimbaud est l’oeuvre de deux comédiens, Akakia-Viala (pseudonyme de Marie-Antoinette Allevy) et Nicolas Bataille, qui le rédigent en réponse à de mauvaises revues de leur dramatisation quelques mois auparavant du poème de Rimbaud Une Saison en Enfer. Ils arrivent par la suite à faire passer une copie du manuscrit de la part du propriétaire fictif de «l’original» (un soi-disant admirateur du travail des deux comédiens) au critique principal du journal Combat, qui lui-même le transmet aux éditeurs de Mercure de France. Deux jours après la parution de La Chasse Spirituelle, dont des extraits sont déjà présentés dans Combat, les fausseurs se révèlent au journal Le Figaro, qui fait paraître un article sur l’affaire. (Il est intéressant de noter que les fausseurs ont eu quelque mal à faire croire à la réalité de leur coup.) Pour un compte-rendu complet du scandale littéraire le plus outré et remarquable dans l’histoire des études Rimbaldiennes et des lettres françaises, voir l’étude de Bruce Morrisette, The Great Rimbaud Forgery: The affair of La Chasse Spirituelle (Saint Louis: Washington University Studies, 1956); traduit en français par Jean Barré sous le titre La Bataille Rimbaud : L'affaire de La Chasse Spirituelle (1959).

L’auteur remercie les éditeurs de First Intensity et The Refined Savage Poetry Review, dans lesquels certaines de ces « translations » ont paru pour la première fois.