Mind how you go

I don't know how things were going for the police force in 1889, but The Illustrated Police News was just getting properly started as a proto-tabloid, after their sensationalist coverage of the Jack the Ripper murders the previous year. But on 21 December 1889, its readers were - for some reason - treated to a homily on chivalry*. Exhibit A was the legend of 'the most noble Lord Geoffrey de Rudel, Prince of Blaye'.

The paper's account of the legend has an infelicity or two: Rudel's sickness is blamed on an 'infectious disease' breaking out on board the ship; and the writer insists 'This is no troubadour's tale; it is a simple excerpt from history'. I think you'd have to call this 'unreliable testimony'.

The article then contrasts this paragon of chivalry with the 17th-century story of Thomas Inkle, a shipwrecked English trader who was rescued by a Barbadian maiden named Yarico but subsequently sold her into slavery in order to recoup his losses (The story became the basis for Inkle and Yarico, a comic opera that was a smash hit in the late 18th century). The story is probably as apocryphal as that of Rudel, but there we are.

Image right: 'By heavens! A woman', illustration from the libretto of Inkle and Yarico.

* A note at the end suggests that the text may first have appeared in the Daily Telegraph.

Princess Daisy?

Alphonse Mucha wasn't the only visual artist to go to work on the Rudel legend. The French-Russian designer and artist Romain de Tirtoff (1892–1990), better known as Erté, produced a number of limited-edition prints towards the end of his life, one of them entitled La Princesse Lointaine (right).

There seems to be no information as to whether he had the Rostand play in mind or something more generic, either for this or for an earlier print with the same title (printed in 1970).

However, an art auction site lists a couple of costume designs by Erté for a production of La Princesse Lointaine, dating from 1929 (below right: 'Costume design for Second Mariner'). This suggests that there was a revival of it that year, though it seems a bit unlikely.

The 1984 print is a throwback to Erté's Art Deco heyday, to the extent that his princess rather resembles a 1920s flapper. Incidentally, the wikipedia entry for 'Princesse lointaine' -- the 'stock figure from literature' -- makes reference to Daisy Buchanan, Jay Gatsby's inamorata, as a 20th-century example. So maybe Erté's 'Princesse' approximates how Gatsby imagined Daisy.

An ad for The Pilgrim of Lurve

In amongst a few nuggets uncovered in a trawl of online newspaper archives: several advertisements for John Graham's epic poem, Geoffrey Rudel; or, the Pilgrim of Love (see my previous entry). This one appeared in The Morning Post, Tuesday, May 10, 1836. Another ad in the same paper a month of so later features the endorsement: 'He has exhibited a mastery over the Spenserian stanza'. Which is nice.

Dugué's Rudel opus: Chapter 1

Having done a bit of digging on Ferdinand Dugué, the illustre inconnu of 19th-century French literature, I took it upon myself to translate a bit of his two-volume novel, Geoffroy Rudel (see my previous post). It's heavy on the florid sighing and, as one might expect from a dramatist, stuffed with monologues. But not without interest.

'Chapter 1: Le premier mai' in parallel French / English text is available as a PDF.

Don't mention it.

Concerning Tripoli (no, the other one...)

There are two cities called Tripoli; the Rudel legend is concerned with the less famous of the two. This Tripoli is now the largest city in northern Lebanon. I recently came across a website with plenty of information on its history and images of its architecture, including some examples from the Crusades era.

The site also has a section on Jaufré Rudel and the treatment of the legend by the Lebanese/French writer Amin Maalouf in his libretto for the opera L'Amour de Loin (mentioned in an earlier post). Included is the complete text of the libretto.

The photograph (from Wikimedia Commons, taken by 'Heretiq') shows a view of the Citadel from the Nahr Abu Ali river.

Ferdinand who??

A two-volume novel, Geoffroy Rudel, published in 1837, announced the arrival on the French literary scene of Ferdinand Dugué, who became best known as a dramatist (William Shakespeare and Le juif de Venise being his most famous plays).

Well, 'famous' is a relative term. Wikipedia has nothing about Dugué; no survey of 19th-century French literature I've come across even mentions him. And yet, judging by a rather fawning article in La Presse in 1913 (when Dugué had just turned 99!), he could be described as 'the doyen of our playwrights ... and probably of all the playwrights in the world' without, one assumes, prompting guffaws from the reader.

An advert in the same paper, back in 1838, described Geoffroy Rudel as 'a book that everyone can read and everyone can love'. It goes on:

Readers ... will find charming characters and poetry, and a tight plot leading through vivid and moving scenes to a dénouemement of great originality.

How greatly original? Geoffroy pulls through and marries the princess? Maybe I'll translate and upload a few choice passages in due course.

No mistaking the tradition Dugué writes in, though; when asked in 1913 which poets he most admired on the contemporary scene, he replied 'Jean Richepin most of all... then Edmond Rostand'.

Dugué's Geoffroy Rudel is now, inevitably, available online at the Internet Archive: Volume One and Volume Two.

The articles from La Presse (of which there are several more, and a few on La Princesse Lointaine, too) can be found at the Gallica digital library, a Bibliothèque nationale de France joint.

I am but a singer of chawwnsawwwn

Now, here's an oddity for you. The French singer Alain Barriére, during a fairly brief spell in the limelight, wrote and recorded a song in the late 1960s entitled 'Princesse Lointaine'. It was the b-side of his single, 'Tout Peut Recommencer' (1968) and also appeared on an album that year. It's pretty clearly an hommage to Rostand and Rudel, with references to taking the cross and dying of love. Here are a few of the lyrics:

Princesse lointaine
Qu'ils sont longs les jours
Si tu files ta laine
Moi je me meurs d'amour

Chevaliers mes braves
Je m'en vais en voyage
Je m'en vais par les âges
Retrouver mes amours

Continuer la guerre
Point sera la dernière
Creusez vos cimetières
Je me rends à l'amour

There are a few songs by Barriére on youtube, but 'Princesse Lointaine' isn't one of them, sadly.