Bouzingo
Encyclopedia
The Bouzingo were a group of eccentric poets, novelists, and artists in France during the 1830s that practiced an extreme form of romanticism
whose influence helped determine the course of culture in the 20th century including such movements as Bohemianism
, Parnassianism, Symbolism
, Decadence
, Aestheticism
, Dadaism, Surrealism
, the Lost Generation
the Beat Generation
, Hippies, Punk rock
, etc.
. They believed the Bourgeois would be offended by the idea of poets and artists acting like barbarians and primitives. This was the aim of the Bouzingo and for a time they spawned major controversies. The actual truth is now nearly impossible to find out. These artists were not well documented with any kind of journalistic objectivity during their prime. The legends of the Bouzingo are captured most notably by Gautier
in “Les Jeunes-France” (1833) but also to a lesser extent in Henry Murger's "La Vie de Bohème
" (1849).
André Breton
mentioned the influence of Nerval in the first Surrealist Manifesto. He also included Petrus Borel
and Xavier Forneret
in his influential "Anthology of Black Humor".
André Breton wrote, "To be even fairer, we could probably have taken over the word SUPERNATURALISM employed by Gérard de Nerval in his dedication to the Filles de feu... It appears, in fact, that Nerval possessed to a tee the spirit with which we claim a kinship..." - The Surrealist Manifesto, 1924
Italo Calvino
included Petrus Borel
and Gérard de Nerval
in his anthology of "Fantastic Tales". La Main de gloire by Gérard de Nerval was a story intended to be published in the "Contes du Bouzingo".
Marcel Proust
, Joseph Cornell
, René Daumal
, and T. S. Eliot
have all cited Gérard de Nerval as a major influence. Eliot's The Waste Land
borrowed one of its most enigmatic lines from Nerval's "El Desdichado".
Oscar Wilde
, Joris-Karl Huysmans
, and Lautréamont have all mentioned the works of Gautier as influential. His thoughts on the philosophy of "Art for Art's Sake" have continued to be the source of debate.
Gautier with Nerval and Baudelaire began the infamous Club des Hashischins
dedicated to exploring experiences with drugs.
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
whose influence helped determine the course of culture in the 20th century including such movements as Bohemianism
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
, Parnassianism, Symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
, Decadence
Decadence
Decadence can refer to a personal trait, or to the state of a society . Used to describe a person's lifestyle. Concise Oxford Dictionary: "a luxurious self-indulgence"...
, Aestheticism
Aestheticism
Aestheticism was a 19th century European art movement that emphasized aesthetic values more than socio-political themes for literature, fine art, the decorative arts, and interior design...
, Dadaism, Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, the Lost Generation
Lost Generation
The "Lost Generation" is a term used to refer to the generation, actually a cohort, that came of age during World War I. The term was popularized by Ernest Hemingway who used it as one of two contrasting epigraphs for his novel, The Sun Also Rises. In that volume Hemingway credits the phrase to...
the Beat Generation
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
, Hippies, Punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, etc.
Legacy
The stories the Bouzingo wrote about themselves were full of intentional exaggerations. The stories were meant to frighten the bourgeoisieBourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
. They believed the Bourgeois would be offended by the idea of poets and artists acting like barbarians and primitives. This was the aim of the Bouzingo and for a time they spawned major controversies. The actual truth is now nearly impossible to find out. These artists were not well documented with any kind of journalistic objectivity during their prime. The legends of the Bouzingo are captured most notably by Gautier
Gautier
-People:*Saint Gautier , French saint*Gautier le Leu, thirteenth-century French poet*Gautier furniture, French furniture manufacturer*Émile Théodore Léon Gautier , French paleographer...
in “Les Jeunes-France” (1833) but also to a lesser extent in Henry Murger's "La Vie de Bohème
La Vie de Bohème
La Vie de Bohème is a work by Henry Murger, published in 1851. Although it is commonly called a novel, it doesn't follow a standard novel form. Rather, it is a collection of loosely related stories, all set in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1840s, romanticizing bohemian life in a playful way...
" (1849).
Truth or myth?
These are a few of the most famous exaggerations invented by the Bouzingo:- They hosted parties where clothes were banned and wine was drunk from human skulls.
- They played instruments that they did not know how to play on street corners.
- Nerval was said to have walked a pet lobster on a leash because “it does not bark and knows the secrets of the sea”.
Miscellaneous
Members of the Bouzingo became highly influential in the Avant-Garde Movements of the Late 19th Century and on into the 20th Century.André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
mentioned the influence of Nerval in the first Surrealist Manifesto. He also included Petrus Borel
Petrus Borel
Petrus Borel was a French writer of the Romantic movement.Born Joseph-Pierre Borel dHauterive at Lyon, the 12 of 14 children of an ironmonger, he studied architecture in Paris but abandoned it for literature...
and Xavier Forneret
Xavier Forneret
Xavier Forneret was a French writer; poet, playwright and journalist.- Life :Born in Beaune in a rich bourgeois family by the name Antoine Charles Ferdinand, he was one of the few members of the Romantic movement who never experienced poverty and could afford to publish his books himself...
in his influential "Anthology of Black Humor".
André Breton wrote, "To be even fairer, we could probably have taken over the word SUPERNATURALISM employed by Gérard de Nerval in his dedication to the Filles de feu... It appears, in fact, that Nerval possessed to a tee the spirit with which we claim a kinship..." - The Surrealist Manifesto, 1924
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy , the Cosmicomics collection of short stories , and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler .Lionised in Britain and the United States,...
included Petrus Borel
Petrus Borel
Petrus Borel was a French writer of the Romantic movement.Born Joseph-Pierre Borel dHauterive at Lyon, the 12 of 14 children of an ironmonger, he studied architecture in Paris but abandoned it for literature...
and Gérard de Nerval
Gérard de Nerval
Gérard de Nerval was the nom-de-plume of the French poet, essayist and translator Gérard Labrunie, one of the most essentially Romantic French poets.- Biography :...
in his anthology of "Fantastic Tales". La Main de gloire by Gérard de Nerval was a story intended to be published in the "Contes du Bouzingo".
Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
, Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell was an American artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage...
, René Daumal
René Daumal
René Daumal was a French spiritual para-surrealist writer and poet. He was born in Boulzicourt, Ardennes, France....
, and T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
have all cited Gérard de Nerval as a major influence. Eliot's The Waste Land
The Waste Land
The Waste Land[A] is a 434-line[B] modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922. It has been called "one of the most important poems of the 20th century." Despite the poem's obscurity—its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its...
borrowed one of its most enigmatic lines from Nerval's "El Desdichado".
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, Joris-Karl Huysmans
Joris-Karl Huysmans
Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans was a French novelist who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans . He is most famous for the novel À rebours...
, and Lautréamont have all mentioned the works of Gautier as influential. His thoughts on the philosophy of "Art for Art's Sake" have continued to be the source of debate.
Gautier with Nerval and Baudelaire began the infamous Club des Hashischins
Club des Hashischins
The Club des Hashischins , was a Parisian group dedicated to the exploration of drug-induced experiences, notably with hashish....
dedicated to exploring experiences with drugs.
Members of the Bouzingo
- Gérard de NervalGérard de NervalGérard de Nerval was the nom-de-plume of the French poet, essayist and translator Gérard Labrunie, one of the most essentially Romantic French poets.- Biography :...
- Petrus BorelPetrus BorelPetrus Borel was a French writer of the Romantic movement.Born Joseph-Pierre Borel dHauterive at Lyon, the 12 of 14 children of an ironmonger, he studied architecture in Paris but abandoned it for literature...
"the Lycanthrope" - Théophile GautierThéophile GautierPierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic....
- Augustus McKeat
- Philothée O'NeddyPhilothée O'NeddyPhilothée O'Neddy , real name Théophile Dondey de Santeny, was a French poet. He was an associate of the Romantic movement, and one of the original 'Bohemians'. He is known for his 1833 collection Feu et flammes. He also wrote fiction, such as Histoire d' un anneau enchanté .-External links:*...
- Xavier ForneretXavier ForneretXavier Forneret was a French writer; poet, playwright and journalist.- Life :Born in Beaune in a rich bourgeois family by the name Antoine Charles Ferdinand, he was one of the few members of the Romantic movement who never experienced poverty and could afford to publish his books himself...
- Aloysius BertrandAloysius BertrandLouis-Jacques-Napoléon “Aloysius” Bertrand was a French poet instrumental in the introduction of the prose poem into French literature and is credited with inspiring later Symbolist poets...
External links
- Club des Haschischins by Gautier (1846)
- Mount Holyoke College's Bohemianism and Counterculture
- The Spirit of Bohemia, Bohemia Books
- Bouzingo Means Noise: Freaks, Weirdos, Visionaries, and Outsiders by Todd Brooks
Further reading
- Dumont, Francis, 1958. Nerval et les Bousingots (La Table ronde)
- Dumont, Francis, 1949 Les Petits Romantiques Francais (Les Cahiers Du Sud)
- Seigel, Jerrold, 1986. Bohemian Paris: Culture , Politics, and the Boundaries of Bourgeois Life, 1830-1930. (Elizabeth Sifton Books)
- Starkie, Enid, 1954. Petrus Borel: The Lycanthrope, His Life and Times. (Faber and Faber Ltd.)
- André Breton, 1997. Anthology of Black Humor. (City Lights Publishers) ISBN 0-87286-321-2
- Italo Calvino, 1998. Fantastic Tales. (Vintage) ISBN 0-679-75544-6
- Mélanges tirés d'une petite bibliothèque romantique: bibliographie anecdotique et pittoresque...by Charles Asselineau, Théodore Faullain de Banville, Charles Baudelaire, 1866.
- On Bohemia by César GrañaCésar GrañaCésar Graña was an American sociologist and anthropologist of Peruvian origin.Graña was born in Peru, a descendant of immigrants from Andalusia, and studied at the University of San Marcos in Lima...
, Marigay Grana, 1990 - Chapter: Bouzingos and Jeunes-France pp. 365–369 - Lettre inédite de Philothée O'Neddy [pseud.] auteur de: Feu et flamme, sur le groupe littérai...by Théophile Dondey, 1875