Les Chants de Maldoror

The Songs of Maldoror

Author	Comte de Lautreamont (Isidore Lucien Ducasse)
Original title	Les Chants de Maldoror
Language	French
Genre	Poetic novel
Publication place	France

Les Chants de Maldoror (The Songs of Maldoror) is a poetic novel (or a long prose poem) consisting of six cantos. It was written between 1868 and 1869 by the Comte de Lautreamont, the pseudonym of Isidore Lucien Ducasse. Many of the surrealists (Salvador Dalí, André Breton, Antonin Artaud, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Max Ernst, etc.) in the early 1900s cited the novel as a major inspiration to their own works and Les Chants de Maldoror, and its protagonist Maldoror, have continued to fascinate people since its publication.

Theme and composition

It is impossible to summarize the work because it does not have specific plot in the traditional sense, and the narrative style is non-linear and often surrealistic. The work revolves around the misanthropic character of Maldoror, a figure of absolute evil who is opposed to God and humanity, and has renounced all ties to conventional morality and decency. The iconoclastic imagery and tone is typically violent and macabre, and ostensibly nihilistic. Much of the imagery was borrowed from the popular gothic literature of the period, in particular Lord Byron's Manfred, Charles Robert Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer and Goethe's Faust. Of these figures, the latter two are particularly significant in their portrayal of a negative and Satanic anti-hero who is in hostile opposition to God. The last eight stanzas of the final canto are in a way a small novel dealing with the seduction and murder of a youth. It has been shown that parts of the work have been appropriated from a work of natural history first published in 1861.

Influence

Les Chants de Maldoror is considered to have been a major influence upon French Symbolism, Dada, and Surrealism. Several editions of the book have included lithographs by the French symbolist painter Odilon Redon. Surrealist painter Salvador Dalí also illustrated one edition of the book. The Italian painter Amadeo Modigliani used to carry a copy around in Montparnasse and quote from it. The outsider artist Unica Zürn was also influenced by it in writing her The Man of Jasmine.

Allusions/references from other works

The English music group Current 93 has several songs referencing Maldoror, the earliest being their debut track "Maldoror Est Mort" on the Mi-Mort cassette.

Maldoror was used as the name for Merzbow's 1999 noise collaboration with Mike Patton.

Skinny Puppy's lead singer niveK oGre is stated to have based his early lyrical stylings on Maldoror.

Avant-garde cellist Erik Friedlander released an improvisational album entitled "Maldoror" in 2003 based around his impressions of the novel.

Portuguese alternative-rock band Mão Morta, together with some portuguese collaborators, conceived a show mixing music, theatre, video and declamation, based on the novel. It premiered in Braga on the 11th of May 2007.

British rock band Bauhaus references Maldoror in the song "The Three Shadows" from their 1982 LP entitled The Sky's Gone Out with the lyrics: "i hold the fresh pink baby with a smile. i slice off those rosy cheeks because i feel so thirsty."

Original French text

• French wikisource text of Les Chants de Maldoror
• Les Chants de Maldoror in the gutenberg library

English translations

• Lykiard, Alexis (translator). Maldoror and the Complete Works. (1994) ISBN 1-878972-12-X
• Wernham, Guy (translator). Maldoror. (1943) ISBN 0-8112-0082-5
• Knight, Paul (translator). Maldoror and Poems. (1988) ISBN 0-14-044342-8
• Rodker, John (translator). The Lay of Maldoror. (1924)