Enamels and Cameos

Théophile Gautier (1811–1872) is a brilliant French writer, poet, and critic, spiritual father of the Parnassian school, the author of the idea of the program “art for art’s sake,” a rebellious romantic, “a painter lost in literature,” as they called him. Gautier wanted life, but without real conflicts and “vulgarity,” and chose the role of a challenging “romantic barbarian” who defies the respectable bourgeois philistine. The most complete poetic work by Gautier is his collection “Emaux et Camées” (“Enamels and Cameos”), which gives him one of the most outstanding places in French poetry. For the poems of this book, the poet lovingly worked during his leisure hours for the last twenty years of his life. Each of them is truly finished, like a precious gem, and at the same time filled with sincerity. All the poems are connected with some personal memory, with something he experienced. During Gautier’s lifetime, the collection was published in six editions, growing with new lyrical miniatures: the 1852 edition contained 18 poems; the 1853 edition added two more poems. The book published in 1858 included 18 poems from the first edition and 9 new ones, but did not include 2 poems from the second edition. The 1863 edition included 38 poems, and 1866—39. The final edition of 1872, released a few months before Gautier’s death, included 47 poems. The poems of this collection are a series of brilliant lyrical miniatures, and in translation they are brought by Nikolay Gumilyov.