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Abstract
The night sky, a recurrent image in Banville's complete poetic oeuvre, is rarely a metaphor for death or blindness, featuring much more frequently as a source of light. While his numerous sketches of Paris show us life on the boulevards and in the theatres, cafés and restaurants beneath the artificial light of the streetlamps, the poet alone wtaches the stars. Indeed, the stars form the centre of a vast interpretative network comprising Greco-Latin mythology, the Judaeo-Christian religions, Platonic philosophy, Hesiod's Theogony, paganism and Dante's Divine Comedy. They feature as a divine gaze, and their song of universal harmony inspires the poet with his belief in eternal life. The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, the central myth in Banville's poetics, provides a synthesis of love, beauty, the night, the stars and poetry's song which illuminates human existence and points beyond it to the luminous ideal towards which Poetry aspires.
The night sky, a recurrent image in Banville's complete poetic oeuvre, is rarely a metaphor for death or blindness, featuring much more frequently as a source of light. While his numerous sketches of Paris show us life on the boulevards and in the theatres, cafés and restaurants beneath the artificial light of the streetlamps, the poet alone wtaches the stars. Indeed, the stars form the centre of a vast interpretative network comprising Greco-Latin mythology, the Judaeo-Christian religions, Platonic philosophy, Hesiod's Theogony, paganism and Dante's Divine Comedy. They feature as a divine gaze, and their song of universal harmony inspires the poet with his belief in eternal life. The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, the central myth in Banville's poetics, provides a synthesis of love, beauty, the night, the stars and poetry's song which illuminates human existence and points beyond it to the luminous ideal towards which Poetry aspires.
Le ciel nocturne, image récurrente dans toute l'œuvre poétique de Banville, est rarement métaphore de la mort ou de cécité, et figure bien plus souvent comme une source de lumière. Si les nombreux croquis de la vie parisienne nous montrent la vie des boulevards, des salles de spectacles, des cafés et des restaurants sous la lumière artificielle des réverbères, le poète est pourtant le seul à regarder les astres. En effet, les étoiles participent à tout un réseau interprétatif comprenant la mythologie gréco-latine, les religions judéo-chrétiennes, la philosophie platonicienne, la Théogonie d'Hésiode, le paganisme ou encore la Divine Comédie de Dante. Elles figurent ainsi comm e des regards divins et leur chant d'harmonie universelle incite le poète à croire en la vie éternelle. Le mythe d'Orphée et d'Eurydice, mythe central de toute la poétique banvillienne, fournit la synthèse de l'amour, de la beauté, de la nuit, des étoiles et du chant poétique qui éclaire l'existence humaine et donne le sentiment d'un monde idéal, un au-delà lumineux auquel aspire la Poésie.