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PARIS, July 12 (AFP) - A retired English academic is the toast of French critics for publishing what many consider the definitive collection of the correspondence of France's 19th century bad boy poet, Paul Verlaine.
For the past two decades, Michael Pakenham, a French Studies lecturer and noted Verlaine expert, has trawled libraries, auctions and Internet sites in his hunt to track down letters to and from Verlaine (1844-1896).
The result is "Paul Verlaine: Correspondance generale (1857-1885)" the first volume of an absorbing collection of some 600 letters, which tracks in minute detail Verlaine's tempestuous life and loves, including his violent affair with the teenage poet Arthur Rimbaud.
The collection plunges the reader into Verlaine's daily life, his passions and dislikes, his attempts to wheedle his way into people's favours, his often debauched lifestyle as well as angry outbursts and humorous observations of human foibles.
A prodigious letter-writer, the tone varies from the formal to the pornographic complete with sketches, and at times Verlaine admits to being too drunk on absinthe, to think coherently.
"He obviously wasn't writing for publication as so many people did in the 20th century. It's quite spontaneous and there's a lot of slang," Pakenham, 76, told AFP.
He acknowledges however that thanks to his 20-year research he has become "a bit blase" about some of the more scandalous language in Verlaine's letters.
"There is a capacity to shock, but there is also his desire to master slang and different languages. He was interested in Spanish, patois, all sorts of language."
Much of the fruiter language is reserved for Rimbaud, with whom he started a stormy relationship in 1871 running off with the 16-year-old budding poet to London and Brussels just two months after Verlaine's son Georges was born.
The correspondence charts some of their many rows and reconciliations, as Verlaine alternately swore his devotion to Rimbaud and then sought to be reunited with his long-suffering wife, Mathilde.
Verlaine's affair with Rimbaud ended violently during a heated argument in Brussels, when Verlaine shot his lover in the wrist, a crime for which he was sentenced to two years in prison.
One of the gems of Pakenham's book is a letter which Verlaine wrote from prison to his mentor, the author Victor Hugo, relating the events at first hand, and pleading with him to intercede with Mathilde.
Pakenham believes it was lucky his collection took so long to put together as the letter to Hugo only resurfaced at auction a few years ago.
"I knew there was a letter, but no one had any idea of its contents," he said.
"And in a sale last year, there were three letters sent to his mother-in-law in 1876 which I find quite moving. I know he's very good at trying to get round people, but there's a note of sincerity there and a poem about when he first saw his son.
"We simply didn't know those letters had existed, we thought his wife had destroyed everything," Pakenham added.
Pakenham has painstakingly annotated, deciphered and sought to date every item, many of which are just partial letters, scraps of poems, or odd drawings by Verlaine or his correspondents.
At times Verlaine's grammatical mistakes are touchingly endearing, while his descriptions of London where the poet complains there are only six public toilets, the beer is warm and the underground stinks are amusingly detailed.
Critics have seized on the collection, which will be followed by two more volumes over the next three years tracing the death of Verlaine's mother and his descent into poverty and illness.
"This is more than a correspondence," wrote one critic in the French review Livres Hebdo. "Michael Pakenham has succeeded in showing us almost day by day, from the 1860s onwards, the earthly passage of Paul Verlaine."
The critic for the daily Liberation praised Pakenham's "fine mosaic work of collecting and editing this correspondence which was so full of holes and elipses."
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