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Les Caves Du Vatican and Bergson's Le Rire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

John Keith Atkinson
John Keith Atkinson*
Affiliation:
University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
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Abstract

An analysis of Les Caves in terms of Le Rire reveals the nature of Gidian comedy, at the same time establishing an affinity between Bergson and Gide. Bergson's thesis is that comedy springs from the conflict between mechanical and living, body and soul, inanimate and animate. Even wordplay and farce find a place in this context. The presentation of comedy requires detachment on the part of the author, an effect which Gide successfully achieves in this novel. Comedy criticises hypocrisy, whether it be social or individual. Gide criticises forms of hypocrisy arising from inadequate awareness of immediate exigencies. Amédée, central to the theme of comic conflict, is central to the action and structure of Les Caves. Anthime reveals the aspirations of the soul in comic conflict with the limitations of the body. Protos manipulates social groups and individuals mechanically but cannot escape the consequences of the game he has initiated. Lafcadio, desiring spontaneity, in conflict with the logical Julius, lives out an inconsequential dream. For both authors the contradictions of the world of dreams reveal parallels with the world of comedy.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 84 , Issue 2 , March 1969, pp. 328 - 335
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1969

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References

1 Paris: Hachette, 1954, pp. 402–405.

2 André Gide, Journal, 1889–1939, Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 1951); Journal, 1939–1949. Souvenirs, Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 1954). Referred to henceforward as J i and J ii respectively. For a bibliography of lois correspondence see that given by Catherine H. Savage, André Gide: l'évolution de sa pensée religieuse (Paris: Nizet, 1962), p. 282, and by Jean-Jacques Thierry, Gide (Paris: Gallimard, 1962), pp. 276–279. See also Correspondance: André Gide—André Rouveyre: 1909–1951 (Paris: Mercure de France, 1967), and André Gide et Roger Martin du Gard. Correspondance 1913–1951, 2 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1968).

3 Gide's first reference to reading Bergson (L'Evolution créatrice) appears in his 1908 Journal (J i, pp. 268–269). Wallace Fowlie's claim (André Gide: His Life and Art, New York, Macmillan, 1965, p. 16) that Gide studied Bergson's Essai sur les données immédiates . . . during his “année de philosophie” seems unfounded. Did Gide really read Bergson at this early stage? Jean Delay, in his La Jeunesse d'André Gide (Paris: Gallimard, 1956), i, 410, thought not; but Delay himself is mistaken on two points of fact: (1) Gide's recognition of himself as “bergsonien sans le savoir” (J ii, p. 709, 20 Sept. 1925) occurs in Voyage au Congo, not in Retour du Tchad. (2) As stated above, Gide's first acquaintance with Bergson's works and ideas was at least as early as 1908.

4 J i, pp. 39, 46, 88, 101, 102, 104, 107. 5 J i, p. 437 (12 July 1914).

6 J i, p. 297 (24 April 1910).

7 “Notice” for Les Caves in Romans, récits et soties, œuvres lyriques, Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 1958), p. 1570.

8 See Pierre de Boisdeffre, Métamorphose de la littérature: de Barrés à Malraux (Paris: Alsatia, 1953), p. 123; Germaine Brée, Gide (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1963), p. 177; G. W. Ireland, Gide (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1963), p. 46; Lafille, pp. 82–83, 142; Claude Martin, André Gide par lui-même (Paris: Ed. du Seuil, 1963), pp. 125–127; Jacques Nathan, Histoire de la littérature franęaise contemporaine (n.p.: Fernand Nathan, 1954), p. 46; Stephen Ullmann, The Image in the Modem French Novel (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1960), p. 43.

9 For typical statements supporting this analysis, see Henri Bergson, Œuvres (Paris: P. U. F., 1959), “Le Rire,” pp. 395–396. All future quotations from Le Rire are taken from this edition. Page references will be given in the text.

10 All quotations from Les Caves are taken from the Pléiade edition (n. 7). Page references will be given in the text.

11 J I, p. 377 (7 May 1912).

12 See Lafflle, p. 142.

13 Quoted by Yvonne Davet, “Notice” for Les Caves, Romans, p. 1576.

14 J I, pp. 287, 359. See also “Lettres à Christian Beck,” Mercure de France, cccvi (1949), 621. 15 J I, p. 205 (3 April).

16 See Bergson, p. 393, for his explanation of the idea of “grands distraits.”

17 For Gide's identification of himself with Proteus, see his letter of 16 Oct. 1909 to Christian Beck in Mercure de France, cccvi (1949), 629, where he writes: “Je suis Protée. Garder son style propre à travers ces déroutantes transmutations, voilà le hic.”

18 In this conception of life as a social masquerade, which offers opportunity for criticism of counterfeit living, Les Caves offers some interesting parallels in themes and techniques with Les Faux-Monnayeurs. Cf. the respective functions of Protos and Strouvilhou.

19 Cf. the experience of Gide and Iehl with fleas in Spain in 1910. J I, p. 316.

20 Is it too farfetched to consider the slang meaning of un cave “prejudiced and scrupulous person,” “bourgeois,” in relation to the theme of the whole novel?

21 With Claudel's permission, Gide had used Violane's rejoinder to Pierre de Craon in L'Annonce faite à Marie (Act I, Scene i) as an epigraph to Book iii of Les Caves. “Mais de quel Roi parlez-vous et de quel Pape? Car il y en a deux et l'on ne sait qui est le bon.” At Claudel's request, Gide later removed the epigraph, and Claudel himself removed the sequence in which Violane makes this retort from the later edition of his play.

22 Correspondance: Claudel—Gide: 1899–1926 (Paris: Gallimard, 1949), letter 169.

22 Fowlie, p. 73.