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''Gaspard de la Nuit — Fantaisies à la manière de Rembrandt et de Callot'' ((英語:Gaspard of the Night — Fantasies in the Manner of Rembrandt and Callot)) is a compilation of prose poems by Italian-born French poet Aloysius Bertrand. Considered one of the first examples of modern prose poetry, it was published in 1842, one year after Bertrand's death from tuberculosis, from a manuscript dated 1836,〔See Bertrand Guégan (Ed.), ''Gaspard de la Nuit, Fantaisies à la manière de Rembrandt et de Callot par Aloysius Bertrand. Edition publiée d'après le manuscrit de l'auteur.'' With a biographical introduction by Sainte-Beuve. (Payot, Paris 1925), p. 1. The MS title page includes an imprimatur for Eugéne Renduel, Libraire-Editeur, Rue des Grands-Augustins, 22 and the date 1836.〕 by his friend David d'Angers. The text includes a short address to Victor Hugo and another to Charles Nodier, and a Memoir of Bertrand written by Sainte-Beuve was included in the original 1842 edition. The poems themselves are expressed with a strong romanticist verve, and explore fantasies of medieval Europe. ==Theme and Structure== The author tells an introductory story of how he sat in a garden in Dijon, and fell into conversation with a dishevelled old man who sat near him leafing through a book.〔B. Guégan, ''Gaspard de la Nuit'' (1925), pp. 3-24.〕 The stranger recognizes him to be a poet, and speaks of how he has spent his life searching for the meaning of Art ('L'art est la science du poète'), and for the elements or principles of Art. The first principle, what was ''sentiment'' in Art, was revealed to him by the discovery of some little book inscribed Gott - Liebe ('Dieu et Amour', God and Love): to have loved and to have prayed. Then he became preoccupied by what constituted ''idea'' in Art, and, having studied nature and the works of man through thirty years, at the cost of his youth, he wondered if the second principle, that of idea, might be Satan. But after a night of storm and colic in the church of Notre-Dame of Dijon, in which clarity shone through the shadows ('Une clarté piqua les ténèbres'), he concluded that the devil did not exist, that Art existed in the bosom of God, and that we are merely the copyists of the Creator. Then the old stranger thrusts into the poet's hand the book, his own manuscript, telling all the attempts of his lips to find the instrument which gives the pure and expressive note - every trial upon the canvas before the subtle dawn-glow of the 'clair-obscur' or clarity in shadow appeared there - the novel experiments of harmony and colour, the only products of his nocturnal deliberations. The old man goes off to write his Will, saying he will come back to collect his book tomorrow. The manuscript is, naturally, ''Gaspard de la Nuit. Fantaisies à la manière de Rembrandt et de Callot''. The next day the poet returns to restore the book to its owner, who does not come: he asks after M. Gaspard de la Nuit, to which the answer is that he is probably in Hell unless he is out on his travels - for he is, of course, the devil. 'May he roast there!' says the poet. 'I shall publish his book.' A short preface attributed to Gaspard himself〔B. Guégan, ''Gaspard de la Nuit'' (1925), pp. 25-6.〕 explains that the artists Paul Rembrandt and Jacques Callot represent two eternally reverse or antithetic faces of Art: one the philosopher absorbed in meditation and prayer upon the spirits of beauty, science, wisdom and love, seeking to penetrate the symbols of nature, and the other the showy figure who parades about the street, rows in the taverns, caresses bohemian girls, always swears by his rapier, and whose main preoccupation is waxing his moustache. But in considering Art under this double personification he has included studies upon other artists among his poetic meditations, which he has not presented as a formal literary theory because M. Séraphin has not explained to him the mechanism of his Chinese shadow-plays, and Punchinello conceals from curious viewers the thread which makes his arm move. The ''Fantaisies'' of Gaspard de la Nuit, each of a few short paragraphs or extended strophes (and every one of them prefaced by a short literary quotation), are then arranged in six short books entitled 'Ecole Flamande' (Flemish School) (9 pieces), 'Le Vieux Paris' (Old Paris) (10), 'La Nuit et ses Prestiges' (The Night and its Marvels) (11), 'Les Chroniques' (The Chronicles) (8), 'Espagne et Italie' (Spain and Italy) (8), and 'Silves' (6). There is also a group of 13 separate pieces not in the finished collection but found among the author's manuscripts, which include 'Le Gibet', the received version of 'Scarbo', and a piece addressed to the sculptor M. David.〔B. Guégan, ''Gaspard de la Nuit'' (1925), pp. 189-222.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gaspard de la Nuit (book)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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