Les Chants de Maldoror

Isidore Ducasse, better known in the literary world under the pseudonym Comte de Lautreamont, published in 1869 a strange book in six parts entitled, Les Chants de Maldoror. He became known as the forefather of surrealism after Philippe Soupault and André Breton had his work republished, impassioned by the work.

The surrealists, in general, embraced him. Magritte and Dali both produced illustrated text. Besides his cover for the work, I have included one of Magritte's illustrations that is reminiscent of a scene in the second song in which the narrator explains he was deaf until one day looking up at the sky, and then looking even higher, he saw a throne made of human excrement and gold on which sat a proud body, covered in a dirty hospital shroud, called The Creator, who held in his hand the trunk of a body which he brought to his eyes, then nose, then mouth. At which point you can well imagine that he did devour the flesh. His feet dipped in a boiling sea of blood from which humans bobbed up for air before sinking immediately. One body digested, he would plunge his hand around the neck of another and eating the head first, then the legs and arms, occasionally cry out: "I created you; thus do I have the right to do with you what I want. You have done nothing to me, I do not suggest to the contrary. I make you suffer, and that for my pleasure". In response to this sight, the young deaf boy lets out a piercing scream, the first sound he ever hears.

The book is known for its depiction of cruelty and evil. There are some scenes that are truly horrendous, à la Sade but without the fixation on sex, with the ability to be cruel across the terrain of the mind and flesh. These moments are so well described, some characters seem so easy to envision, that it is not terribly surprising that artists would want to sketch out their own images for these bizarre 'songs'.

Dali's imagination easily transferred. In 1933, Albert Skira who had already published Ovid's Metamorphoses illustrated by Picasso and some poems of Mallarmé illustrated by Matisse, requested that Dali provide engravings for this text that was so important to the surrealists. Dali had been recommended by Picasso, who was then producing the cover for the first issue of the surrealist journal Minotaure, being published by Skira. Though Dali was involved in the journal from its first issue, he would only produce a cover for the eighth issue, which was financed by the Englishman Edward James whose patronage supported the Dalis in 1936. Magritte, also occasionally supported by James, would produce 77 illustrations for a 1948 edition of the text published in Belgium.

Though Les Chants are boringly dark (as anyone who has read Sade will understand), they have moments for anyone of interest. The surrealists were particularly taken with it because the author was such a mystery, little known of him and dying suddenly, buried quickly and then moved to another location. Though Ducasse published this text anonymously and at his own cost, he began writing a second book, of which we only have the first two sections Poems I and Poems II, which was to:

replace melancoly with courage, doubt with certainty, desperation with hope, complaints with responsibility, skepticism with faith, sophistry with cold calm, and pride with modesty.