À l’après-midi d’une dryade
written by: Penny Rogers
I thought I’d put a word in for the dryads. Those wood nymphs have been frolicking since 1867, in a perpetual dance on a sultry afternoon. Their lithe bodies glistening in the heat, condemned to dance forever to the seductive sound of a satyr’s flute.
Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem À l’après-midi d’un faune impacted literature and the wider cultural landscape from the beginning. Along with other writers, including Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud, Mallarmé was part of the Symbolist movement; a reaction against naturalism and realism and inspired by spirituality, dreams, and imagination. The symbolists influenced culture and society from the late nineteenth century, through the twentieth century, and their philosophy still resonates in avant-garde ideas in the twenty-first century. Much like Punk in the 1970ys, the ripples of symbolism spread into music, art, dance, design, and literature, irrevocably changing the cultural landscape.
In 1876, Edouard Manet’s illustrations for the poem in turn inspired Nijinsky to choreograph and dance in the ballet, first performed in 1912. Perhaps the most widely known and most loved interpretation of the poem came from Claude Debussy. Prélude a l’après-midi d’un faune was first performed in 1894, and even Mallarmé, who was initially unhappy about his poem being interpreted by Debussy, was moved by the music.
There may be other ekphrastic interpretations of this poem, but my question is, ‘how many responses have a feminist perspective?’ Has anyone wondered about those nymphs? What are they thinking? Are the dryads there solely to represent the conflict between the real and the ideal, manifestations of Mallarmé’s dilemma of seeking an immaterial world while living in a material world? Are they allowed an opinion?
I don’t want to take my clothes
off this afternoon dance naked
under the trees’ feet bare
cool grass feels so good
But those baggy saggy eyes watching
thinks he’s hidden but we both know he’s there
my sister and me we both know
lasciviously licking those limp lips –
fellating his flute crotch caressing
careless and carefree my sister
doesn’t care teasing tempting
twerking IDNC she sings tells
me not to worry enjoy the dance
ignore the audience ridicule the grubby
horned goat let soft grass rub my thighs
feel cool breeze on my breasts free
limbs from constraints
desecrated
spoiled
I keep my clothes
intact
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