Le Tombeau d’Edgar Poe: Mallarmé

Poe in this sonnet is used as the archetype of the "poète maudit", misunderstood and condemned by society. The manner is rather stiffly stylized, suggesting a frieze or as Mallarmé has it "un bas-relief" to adorn the tomb. The poet does not really become himself until death, when his work is whole and cannot be added to or altered; when, in other words, the work becomes absolute, and is seen as a naked sword before which society cowers for having misunderstood its significance during the poet’s life. The social function of the poet is seen as providing the purest meaning to the words we share

Donner un sens plus pur aux mots de la tribu,

but his contemporaries have mistakenly attacked his personal character, which is not relevant to his absolute function as poet. Mallarmé cries out against the hostility of heaven and earth, or perhaps the imaginary and earthly, and hopes that the tomb of Poe at last may mark the limit of future slander against the poet.

---Bert Laub