Pour une lecture sexuelle des “Sept épées” d’Apollinaire

This contribution proposes a new interpretation of Les sept épées, the third lyrical intermezzo of Apollinaire’s romance La Chanson du Mal-aimé. In spite of a quite impressive number of interpretations, several problems of this text have remained unsolved. My basic assumption is that the complete understanding of the poem requires a sexual reading of its seven stanzas. The swords appear to be symbolic representations of Apollinaire’s physical desires. The young lover of the English governess Annie Playden felt deeply frustrated by her refusal of his proposals. The painful experience inspired an almost allegorical poem, in which the devotional representation of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows was transformed into a succession of phallic images. My analysis tries to show that the seven swords evoke the masturbatory fantasies of the unfortunate lover. The physical character of his passion may explain why the poem contains so many enigmas. Contrary to the pornographer, the poet could not openly expose his obsessions, but was compelled to conceal them by using different hermetic tropes and figures of style such as anagram, word-play, portmanteau words, periphrasis, allusion, and symbol. Apollinaire’s vast knowledge of both erotic and esoteric literature enabled him to employ such obscure formulations that his poem continues to puzzle the uninitiated reader

Art · Historical and Literary Analyses · Historical and Literary Studies