La guirlande térésienne: A nineteenth

Article
La guirlande térésienne:
A nineteenth-century
‘‘Teresian bard’’ sings
the praises of Teresa of
Avila
Christianity & Literature
2015, Vol. 65(1) 27–50
! The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0148333115601365
cal.sagepub.com
Daniel J. Hanna
Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, Illinois
Abstract
This study presents and analyses a newly discovered French manuscript by the nineteenthcentury Jesuit Marcel Bouix, a translator, scholar and devotee of Teresa of Avila. In the work,
a remarkable series of 19 poems entitled La guirlande térésienne, Bouix praises Teresa and
other important Carmelite figures, and displays an intimate familiarity with Teresian spirituality and history. It is a unique document whose equivalent has not been seen elsewhere,
and in it Marcel Bouix, already the most productive Teresian scholar in France of his time or of
any previous age, sought to make his the definitive French voice of Teresa of Avila.
Keywords
Carmelite poetry, Marcel Bouix, Teresa of Avila
Introduction
In his book When Jesuits Were Giants, Cornelius Buckley writes of a ‘‘Teresian
movement’’ that began in France in the nineteenth century, and credits the French
Jesuit priest, author, translator and editor Marcel Bouix (1806–1889) with having
helped propel this movement centered on the spirituality of the Carmelite reformer
Teresa of Avila (Buckley and Ruellan 114). That Bouix strove to heighten the
Teresian presence in nineteenth-century France is undeniable: he translated and
published all of Teresa’s major prose works and a number of minor ones, as well as
an extensive collection of her letters; he translated and produced editions of the
lives and writings of a number of secondary Teresian figures including Pedro de
Corresponding author:
Daniel J. Hanna, Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, IL 60045, USA.
Email: [email protected]
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Christianity & Literature 65(1)
Alcantara (who guided Teresa in her reforms), Balthasar Alvarez (Teresa’s confessor), and Ana de San Bartolomé (a Spanish Carmelite and close associate and
friend to Teresa); he also published in 1882 Le XIXe sie`cle et sainte Te´re`se
(The 19th Century and Saint Teresa), in which he traced the literary ‘‘monuments’’
(translations, biographies, and other writings) that had been raised in Teresa’s
honor in France, Spain, Italy, and England in the course of the century.1
That Cornelius Buckley would cite Marcel Bouix as instrumental in promoting
Teresa of Avila in nineteenth-century France is thus justifiable, at least in a literary
sense: no other writer appears to have done as much in this time to bring Teresa’s
writings and those of other figures in the Teresian sphere to the French reading
public. This study will show, however, that while Bouix’s published works on
Teresa are considerable and themselves worthy of examination, the ‘‘public’’ part
of his Teresian output is only one piece of his complete Teresian oeuvre, which
contains a more private but intensely impassioned tribute to the saint of Avila.
First, Bouix’s extensive Teresian publications will be surveyed, and it will be shown
what was at stake for him as he prepared a new translation of Teresa’s works.
Second, this study will present and analyze for the first time a newly discovered
manuscript document that reveals the full extent of Bouix’s personal devotion to
the reformer of Carmel: a remarkable series of 19 poems in Teresa’s honor, the
Guirlande te´re´sienne, or ‘‘Teresian Garland,’’ in which Bouix built a personal poetic
monument to Teresa, and displayed how deeply he had immersed himself in the
Teresian world. Perhaps more than any other poet of his time or since, Bouix
absorbed and made novel use of Teresian themes to an extraordinary degree in
this poetic tribute, as a self-described ‘‘Teresian Bard’’ whose lyre resonated fully to
Teresa’s own song. In conclusion, Bouix’s ambitions as a translator and a poet in
the Teresian sphere will be considered.
Marcel Bouix, the ‘‘Interpreter of Saint Teresa’’
In 1848, Marcel Bouix published his first volume of Teresa’s collected works, the
Exclamations de l’âme à son Dieu (Exclamations of the Soul to God). This text was
republished in second, third, and fourth editions within the year, and was followed by
a three-volume set of Teresa’s major prose works: in 1852 the Vie de sainte Te´re`se e´crite
par elle-meˆme (The Life of Saint Teresa Written by Her) appeared, followed in 1854 by
the Livre des fondations (Book of Foundations) and in 1855 Le Chemin de la perfection
(The Way of Perfection) was published. This three-part set of translations was republished under the name Œuvres de sainte Te´re`se several times in the years that followed,
reaching a thirteenth edition by the year 1884. Bouix’s translation of Teresa’s letters was
published in 1861, and in 1880 he translated and published Teresa’s writings on the Song
of Songs, the Fragment sur le cantique des cantiques. In 1882, near the end of his career, he
composed and published the aforementioned Le XIXe sie`cle et sainte Te´re`se in which,
looking back at the better part of the nineteenth century and nearly 35 years of literary
engagement with Teresa of Avila, he outlined the important works by and about Teresa
that had been translated and produced in France and abroad in those years.
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In the years between his translations of Teresa’s writings, Bouix worked on texts
related to figures from the Teresian sphere: in 1862, he published his translation of
the works of Pedro de Alcantara, the Spanish Franciscan friar who had guided
Teresa in her reform of the Carmelite Order; in 1868, his translation of Francisco
de Ribera’s La vida de Madre Teresa de Jesús (The Life of Mother Teresa of Jesus)
appeared, followed in 1869 by his translation of the Autobiografı´a of Ana de San
Bartolomé, the Spanish Carmelite who had been a close companion to Teresa and
who traveled to France and Flanders to found convents2 there in the early seventeenth century;3 in 1873 Bouix published a translation of Luis de la Puente’s Vida
del Padre Baltasar Álvarez (Life of Father Balthazar Alvarez), on the Jesuit who
served as Teresa’s spiritual director when she was a young nun in Avila; in 1876,
Bouix published his translation of the life of Isabel de los Angeles, one of the group
of Spanish Carmelites that traveled from Spain to France with Ana de San
Bartolomé to found convents on the Teresian model.
Such was Bouix’s engagement in the literature of the Teresian world that he
came to see himself as something of a representative of Teresa in his time: in
the conclusion to his biographical notice on Elisabeth de Brugelles, a nineteenthcentury nun of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers (a figure unrelated to Teresa of
Avila), he wrote,
Please accept my work and honor it with a maternal regard. To grant you the place in
posterity that you deserve, it would have taken the pen of a Saint Jerome, a Saint
Augustine or a Saint Ambrose. Genius and saintliness would have given us a complete
work. The interpreter of Saint Teresa has only been able to place at your service a
sincere desire to glorify you. (Bouix, ‘‘Héroı̈ne’’ 319, italics mine)4
Even while placing himself below Saint Jerome, the patron saint of translators,
Bouix seems nonetheless to be proud of his self-granted status as the ‘‘interpreter of
Saint Teresa.’’ It will be shown that Bouix in fact saw himself as not just an interpreter, but also as an interpreter with a special mission, that of ‘‘avenging’’
Teresa against abuses at the hands of an earlier translator.
The ‘‘purity of the text’’
A Papal Brief issued in the name of Pope Leo XIII included in the 1884 edition of
Bouix’s Œuvres de sainte Te´re`se reads, ‘‘It was supremely desirable that your
compatriots would finally possess in their language the writings of the great
Teresa, virgin of Carmel, in all of the purity of the text and the elegance of
style’’ (Thérèse, Œuvres, 1884 xiii).5 While the language of the brief celebrates
Bouix’s translation of Teresa’s works as something new and long-awaited, this is
not because they had never been translated before. In fact, Teresa’s principal prose
works had been translated into French three times before, all in the seventeenth
century. Jean de Brétigny Quintanadueñas (1556–1634) was the first to translate
Teresa into French, his first volume of translations appearing in 1601; the
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Carmelite friar Cyprien de la Nativité de la Vierge (1605–1680) followed with his
own translations, published in 1643 and 1644; lastly, Robert Arnaud d’Andilly
(1589–1674), the well-known solitaire of Port-Royal and respected translator and
poet, published his translation in 1670. To the extent that Bouix’s translation was
new, then, it was not because it was the first. In the excerpt above from Leo XIII’s
brief, it is in fact the phrase ‘‘all of the purity of the text’’ that describes what, in
Bouix’s view, made his translation of Teresa’s work both new and valuable.
In order to ensure this purity, Bouix had taken extraordinary steps: after consulting with a group of Jesuit ‘‘Bollandist’’ expert scholars in Brussels, it was
decided that Bouix should travel to Spain to consult Teresa’s own manuscripts.6
This he did, consulting the manuscripts of her Libro de la vida (the Book of Her
Life, corresponding to Bouix’s Vie de sainte Te´re`se), Libro de la las fundaciones
(Book of Foundations), Camino de perfección (Way of Perfection), and Visita de
descalzas (Method for the Visitation of Convents) in the Royal Library of the
Escorial Monastery in Madrid, and studying an alternate copy of the Camino de
perfección in Valladolid as well as the Castillo interior (Interior Castle) in Seville.
Completing this Teresian literary pilgrimage, Bouix traveled to Teresa’s tomb in
Alba de Tormes (near Salamanca) to view her relics and pray for support. In his
preface to the edition endorsed by Leo XIII, he wrote,
we have seen open before us the doors of the most privileged monastery of Carmel,
that of Alba [de Tormes], where Teresa ended her career, and where her virginal body
is found, as well her two most honored relics, her arm and her heart. We knelt before
the tomb of this great saint, and we prayed to her to bless our work. Her heart and her
arm were exposed to our veneration: we asked of this heart light and anointing, and of
this arm invincible in the works of God, the support we needed. (Thérèse, Œuvres,
1884 xxv)7
At the end of these travels and study, Bouix could claim that in preparation for his
translation of Teresa’s works in their purest form, he had ‘‘followed her step by
step from her cradle to her grave’’ (Thérèse, Œuvres, 1884 xxiv).8 Having entered
into the closest possible physical and textual proximity to Teresa, he had been well
prepared not only to be her interpreter, but perhaps also to avenge her as well.
The ‘‘venom of Jansenism’’
In the same preface to his 1884 Oeuvres cited above, Bouix wrote that his translations
had been very well received, and that ‘‘elite Christians, the clergy, religious orders, the
Carmelites in particular, welcomed with an inexpressible joy a work that presented to
them the writings of this great saint in their doctrinal purity’’ (Thérèse, Œuvres, 1884
xxvi).9 One of the principal reasons for Bouix’s preoccupation with purity was that the
translation of Teresa’s works that had been the standard for nearly two centuries,
Robert Arnaud d’Andilly’s 1670 edition (also mentioned above), was, to Bouix, an
unacceptable falsification of the Teresian text and its doctrine.
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Bouix’s first criticism of Arnaud d’Andilly was that unlike him, Arnaud
d’Andilly had not only failed to consult Teresa’s manuscripts, but also had not
even used an edition published in Spain as his source text. Instead, Arnaud
d’Andilly had worked from an edition published in Antwerp, an edition that had
later been disavowed by the Carmelite Order because it had missing, abridged, and
‘‘mutilated’’ passages. In Bouix’s view, then, Arnaud d’Andilly had ‘‘presented to
the public nothing but a truncated, and even falsified, text’’ (Thérèse, Œuvres T.1,
1852 x).10 Worse still for Bouix was Arnaud d’Andilly’s misrepresentation of
Teresa’s doctrine: ‘‘He [Arnaud d’Andilly] goes even farther; in one of those artifices with which the sectarian reveals himself, he mutilates this already truncated
edition when the spirit of his sect demands it’’ (Thérèse, Œuvres T.1, 1852 x).11
The ‘‘sect’’ to which Bouix refers and to which Arnaud d’Andilly belonged was
that of the Jansenists, whose view of spiritual life had, for Bouix, tarnished Teresa’s
writings in Arnaud d’Andilly’s hands: when he wrote of the approbation his own
translations had received, Bouix asserted, ‘‘The Catholics of France read [Teresa’s
works] for the first time. The enthusiasm with which they welcomed them was
proportionate to the horror they felt for that execrable sect that, in the translation
of Arnaud d’Andilly, had dared to soil them with the venom of Jansenism’’
(Thérèse, Œuvres, 1884 xxvi).12 The ‘‘Jansenist venom’’ that in Bouix’s view
flowed throughout Arnaud d’Andilly’s treatment of Teresa’s writings was at its
most potent when it ‘‘infected’’ passages that referred to the grace offered by God
to all men. In his preface to the 1852 edition of La vie de sainte Te´re`se, Bouix gave
an example of one of Arnaud d’Andilly’s transgressions, taking issue with his
translation of a passage in chapter 11 of Teresa’s Book of Her Life. Bouix wrote,
in chapter eleven the Saint says: ‘‘if the soul perseveres, God, who denies his grace to no
one, will gain courage little by little in a way that brings him great good.’’ The translator [Arnaud d’Andilly] leaves out the words who denies his grace to no one; he knows
all too well that they are the condemnation of the dreadful doctrine of his sect.
(Thérèse, Œuvres T.1, 1852 x)13
For Bouix, Arnaud d’Andilly’s omission of the phrase ‘‘who denies his grace to no
one’’ smacked of the doctrine of predestination, by which God was believed to have
chosen only certain souls for salvation, and to which the Jansenists subscribed.14 The
Jesuits, on the other hand, vigorously opposed the idea of predestination and, like
Teresa, posited that all were capable of receiving God’s grace. That this conflict would
be played out in the context of a preface to a nineteenth-century translation was in
fact a reactivation, for Marcel Bouix at least, of the original struggle between
Jansenists and Jesuits in the seventeenth century, when Arnaud d’Andilly published
his version of Teresa’s writings and when the two groups clashed over the doctrine of
predestination and other issues. Jansenism had receded considerably by the nineteenth century, but for Bouix, the fact that the most widely read and republished
edition of Teresa’s works in French in his time was a relic nearly two centuries old
produced by a member of a ‘‘sect’’ intolerable to his own beliefs was unacceptable.
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In his preface to the 1867 Oeuvres, Bouix wrote, ‘‘no one having risen up to avenge
the Saint, we tried to create a work agreeable to God, in devoting ourselves to this
long task of a complete and faithful translation’’ (Thérese, Œuvres, 1867 xiii).15 And
though his opponent had long since died, his translation lived on, and Bouix pulled no
punches in his fight against both, writing that Teresa’s works, ‘‘it is sad to say, have
only been represented in France for two centuries by the translation of one of the most
dangerous enemies of the Church, one of the most obstinate athletes of Jansenism,
Robert Arnaud d’Andilly’’ (Thérèse, Œuvres, 1867 vii),16 and ‘‘In the work of Arnaud
d’Andilly, the ices of age joining with the ices of doctrine, his text no more resembles
that of Saint Teresa than a cadaver resembles a living man’’ (Thérèse, Œuvres, 1867
ix).17 Out of date, drained of life, and false in doctrine in Bouix’s view, Arnaud
d’Andilly’s ‘‘mutilation’’ of Teresa’s writings could not stand. In his preface to the
1867 Œuvres, Bouix wrote that upon publication of his own translations, ‘‘The goal
we had set for ourselves had been met. The long insult of Jansenism had ceased’’
(Thérèse, Œuvres, 1867 xiv–xv).18
Bouix’s concern for purity in his translations of Teresa was thus both a general
and a specific one: wishing to be as close to the texts in Teresa’s own hand as
possible, he went to the Spanish sources in Madrid, Valladolid, and Seville and
endeavored to follow them closely; wishing to rid the French rendition of
Teresa’s works of the impurities of old age and doctrinal contamination, he
counteracted Robert Arnaud d’Andilly’s redactions and celebrated this victory
in the pages of his prefaces. In all of this, Bouix was in effect establishing his as
the new Teresian voice of the nineteenth century, and when he wrote in the
preface to his first edition of Teresa’s works (the Exclamations) that ‘‘it must
be admitted, the reformer of Carmel has not had a serious interpreter in our
language’’ (Thérèse, Exclamations, 1848 vii–viii),19 it was clear that he himself
meant to be that interpreter, the one who would render Teresa’s works ‘‘in all the
purity of the text.’’
That Marcel Bouix was a major figure in the promotion of Teresian literature
and spirituality in nineteenth-century France, as her ‘‘interpreter’’ and even her
‘‘avenger,’’ is clear. It will now be shown that his Teresian production also included
an apparently more private but ambitiously elaborate and impassioned component,
the Guirlande te´re´sienne.
La guirlande térésienne
The manuscript of the Guirlande te´re´sienne is currently housed in the archives of the
Carmelite convent of Champhol, France, just outside the city of Chartres. Founded
in 1979, the convent of Champhol received Carmelite nuns—and archives—from
the convents of Chartres and Tours when those two convents closed in 1984 and
1995, respectively. This suggests the possibility that the manuscript of the Guirlande
may have come from either Chartres (founded 1608) or Tours (founded 1620) at
the time of the consolidation. That the author of the Guirlande had a connection to
the convent of Tours is likely, based on the dedication of one of its poems to the
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Carmelites of that convent, as will be shown below. Thus, while it is impossible to
be certain of the origin of the manuscript (archivists at Champhol were also unsure
of this), one might nevertheless speculate that the Carmelites of Tours kept in their
archives a manuscript containing a poem written in their honor, and that the
Guirlande comes from that convent.
The document consists of 19 poems on 116 pages, preceded by a title page that
reads La guirlande te´re´sienne, ou Fleurs à la Séraphique Te´re`se de Je´sus (The
Teresian Garland, or Flowers to the Seraphic Teresa of Jesus) and a table of contents giving a name or description for each poem and the page on which it can be
found, all in a single bound volume. A number of the poems are dated, the first
poem bearing the date 1843 and the final two poems bearing the date 1849.
Between these initial and final poems, others bear the dates 1845 (poems two
and three) and 1848 (poem 15).20
The name guirlande—‘‘a decorative ornament, composed of diverse elements’’21—seems an apt one for a series of poems with different themes but a
nonetheless unifying purpose. But this literary garland differs somewhat from
some others of its genre in that it appears to have a single, or at least principal,
author. The most famous of French literary garlands is La guirlande de Julie
(1641), a collection of poems composed in honor of Julie d’Angennes, the daughter of the Marquise de Rambouillet, who hosted the seventeenth century’s most
prominent salon. Julie’s guirlande is a series of poems by a variety of authors who
frequented her mother’s salon, among them Pierre Corneille,22 Georges de
Scudéry, Jean Chapelain, and even the aforementioned Robert Arnaud
d’Andilly, predecessor to Marcel Bouix in translating Teresa of Avila and
target of Bouix’s anti-Jansenist criticism. But for reasons that will be explained
below, the Guirlande te´re´sienne appears to be less like the collaborative Guirlande
de Julie and more like the work of a single or principal author. Further, it will be
argued that, while his name appears nowhere in the manuscript of the Guirlande,
this author of this extensive and ambitious poetic project was none other than
Marcel Bouix.
Bouix and the Guirlande
The first poem in the series is entitled ‘‘Petite fleur à la Séraphique Térèse de
Jésus, le jour de sa fête 1843’’ (‘‘Little Flower to the Seraphic Teresa of Jesus, [on]
the day of her feast 1843’’), and is preceded by a short epigraph in Spanish and in
French, taken from Teresa of Avila’s most famous poem, ‘‘Muero porque no
muero’’:
Que muero porque no muero!
Je me meurs de ne point mourir!
- cantique de Ste Térèse23
Teresa’s famous poem duly cited, the author begins:
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Ô ma bénite et Séraphique Mère,
Lorsque je veux célébrer vos grandeurs,
La langue humaine est rebelle, étrangère,
Elle n’a plus ni termes, ni couleurs!
O my blessed and Seraphic Mother,
When I wish to celebrate your greatness
Human language is rebellious, foreign,
It has no longer terms, nor colors!
C’est donc en vain, ô ma célèste Mère,
Que je voudrais vous louer dans mes chants:
D’un séraphin du divin sanctuaire
Il me faudrait les sublimes accents!
It is thus in vain, o my celestial Mother,
That I would like to praise you in my song:
Of a seraphim of the divine sanctuary
I would need the sublime accents!
Ô ma bénite et Séraphique Mère,
Je vais briser ma lyre sans retour;
Pour que mes chants un jour puissent
vous plaire
Il faut au Ciel brûler du saint amour!
O my blessed and Seraphic Mother,
I am going to break my lyre forever;
So that my songs one day may please
you
I must burn with the holy love of Heaven!
(Guirlande, 1–2)
Already there is some suggestion that one author is preparing to compose multiple poems: in the second line of stanza two above, Que je voudrais vous louer dans
mes chants (That I would like to praise you in my songs), the single pronoun and the
plural possessive (je-mes chants/I-my songs) may signal that this poem is the first of
many from the same pen. But what is merely suggested here is more strongly
corroborated by the poems that follow.
The second and third poems, respectively entitled ‘‘Cantique pour la rénovation
des vœux’’ (Canticle for the Renewal of Vows) and ‘‘Nouvelle fleur—Térésita de
Jésus’’ (New Flower—Little Teresa of Jesus), clearly belong to the Guirlande, as
their inclusion in the manuscript and the title ‘‘Nouvelle fleur’’ of poem three
indicates.24 But these two compositions have also been found elsewhere: in the
archives of the Carmelite convent of Créteil (outside Paris), both the ‘‘Cantique
pour la rénovation des vœux’’ (poem two), and the ‘‘Nouvelle fleur’’ (poem three)
appear in a volume of poetry compiled by nineteenth-century French Carmelites
from the Parisian convent of the Avenue de Saxe, and in this collection both
poems are attributed to Marcel Bouix.25 As such, Bouix’s authorship of the
second and third poems in the Guirlande can be reasonably assumed. This fact,
it will be shown, helps to link nearly all of the other poems in the series to Bouix as
well.
The third poem, the ‘‘Nouvelle fleur’’ now attributed to Bouix, begins in a way
that suggests a connection to the first and second poems:
Ô séraphique et tendre Mère,
Je t’apporte encore une fleur;
Tu l’accepteras, je l’espère,
Et tu me béniras de cœur!
O seraphic and tender Mother,
I bring you yet another flower;
You will, I hope, accept it,
And you will bless me from the heart!
(Guirlande 11)
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As in the first poem, a single author offers multiple flowers: Je t’apporte encore
une fleur (I bring you yet another flower, line 2 above) and suggests that this new one
is to be added to the previous ones. Given this, it may be speculated that poem
three (attributed to Bouix in the Créteil collection) and poem one (unattributed)
share a common author.
Traces of Bouix’s work can also be found elsewhere in the Guirlande: poem
13, entitled ‘‘Traduction de la glose de la Séraphique Mère’’ (Translation of
the glose of the Seraphic Mother), is nearly identical to a French version of
Teresa’s poem ‘‘Muero porque no muero’’ that Bouix published with his Vie
de sainte Te´re`se, Livre des fondations, letters and writings on the Lord’s
Prayer.26 In the translation that appears in the Guirlande manuscript, a dedication is given: ‘‘Traduction dédiée aux Carmélites du Monastère de
l’Incarnation de Paris et à tout le Carmel de France et de Belgique’’
(Translation dedicated to the Carmelites of the Monastery of the Incarnation
of Paris and to all of French and Belgian Carmel). The refrain of Teresa’s
poem then follows, in Spanish and French:
Vivo sin vivir en mı́
Y tanta [sic] alta vida espero
Que muero porque no muero.
Je vis sans vivre en moi
Et j’attends dans le ciel une si haute vie
Que je me meurs de ne point mourir.
The poem then begins:
Dans cette union souveraine,
Je ne vis qu’en mon doux Sauveur;
Je l’aime et mon amour l’enchaı̂ne;
Mon captif rend libre mon cœur!
Quoi! Lui prisonnier de mon âme!
C’est trop! je ne puis le souffrir!
De trop d’amour mon cœur s’enflamme!
Je me meurs de ne point mourir!
In this supreme union,
I live only in my sweet Savior
I love him and my love enchains him;
My captive sets my heart free!
What! He, a prisoner of my soul!
It is too much! I cannot suffer this!
With too much love my heart is aflame!
I die because I do not die!
(Guirlande 75)
Despite some differences between the version of the poem given in the Guirlande
and the version Bouix published in Teresa’s works, the correspondence between the
two is sufficient to suggest strongly that both translations have the same source.
An even stronger correspondence is found in poem ten, a translation of Teresa’s
short poem ‘‘Hermosura de Dios’’ that is identical word-for-word to one Bouix
published in his 1882 edition of Teresa’s letters (Thérèse, Lettres Tome II, 163–64).
Teresa sent this poem to her brother Lorenzo as part of a letter she wrote to him on
January 2, 1577. Translated as part of this letter in Bouix’s 1882 edition, the poem
is similarly contextualized in the Guirlande manuscript: a sort of paraphrase of
Teresa’s comment to Lorenzo on the poem is given, followed by an acknowledgement in parentheses of the source:
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Christianity & Literature 65(1)
‘‘Je pense que ces couplets vous attendriront, et vous pénétreront des sentiments du
plus tendre amour envers Dieu’’ (Ste Thér. à son frère) (Guirlande 69)
‘‘I think that these couplets will touch you, and will penetrate you with feelings of
most tender love toward God’’ (St. Ter. to her brother)
Following this, the three stanzas of ‘‘Hermosura de Dios’’ are given in French,
exactly as they appear in the 1882 Lettres translated by Bouix (Guirlande 69).
In this case, the correspondence is absolute, and suggests Bouix as the source for
both iterations of the poem.
Marcel Bouix can thus be identified already as a likely source for four of the
19 poems in the Guirlande, based upon attributions to him in the Créteil collection
and the presence of his translations of ‘‘Muero porque no muero’’ and ‘‘Hermosura
de Dios.’’ It will now be shown that of the remaining poems, all but four can also
be linked to Bouix thanks to stylistic and thematic traits that bind the strands of the
garland together.
In the opening stanzas of poem one (already cited above,) the author declares
that he will ‘‘break his lyre’’ in singing Teresa’s praises:
Ô ma bénite et Séraphique Mère,
Je vais briser ma lyre sans retour;
Etc.
O my blessed and Seraphic Mother,
I am going to break my lyre forever;
Etc.
(Guirlande 2)
While not attributed to Bouix by name, this first poem in the series has already
been linked to the ‘‘Nouvelle fleur’’ (poem three) in which the author ‘‘adds a
flower’’ to those already offered, and refers to mes chants (my songs), indicating
one author and a series of poems. But poems one and three are also connected by
references to the poet and his lyre, seen just above in poem one and also at the end
of the first stanza of poem three:
Térèse, daigne me sourire,
Inspire-moi du haut du ciel,
Et soudain je vais sur ma lyre
Chanter un ange du Carmel!
Teresa, deign to smile upon me,
Inspire me from Heaven above,
And suddenly I will, on my lyre,
Sing praises of an angel of Carmel!
(Guirlande 11)
The presence of the poet and the lyre in poems one and three in turn link them to
other poems in the series, including poem five, ‘‘La transverbération du cœur de la
Séraphique Térèse de Jésus’’ (‘‘The Transverberation [piercing] of the Heart of the
Seraphic Mother Teresa of Jesus), in which the lyre is evoked twice:
Hanna
Térèse que ton cœur m’inspire,
Daignez, ô ma Mère me bénir!
C’est le dernier chant de ma lyre:
Après ce chant, je veux mourir!
—
Ô vous, ses filles fortunées,
Sa joie et sa couronne au ciel!
C’est à vous toutes que ma lyre
Dédie et consacre ce chant . . .
37
Teresa, your heart inspires me,
Deign to bless me, o my Mother!
This is my lyre’s last song:
After this song, I want to die!
(Guirlande 20)
—
O you, her fortunate daughters,
Her joy and her crown in heaven!
It is to all of you that my lyre
Dedicates and consecrates this song . . .
(Guirlande 28)
In poem nine, in honor of Ana de San Bartolomé, the author declares his intention to sing Ana’s praises on his lyre:
Candide fleur de l’Ibérie,
Nouvelle fleur du Carmel
De Térèse toujours chérie
Perle de l’Epoux immortel,
Je veux te chanter sur ma lyre,
Anna de Saint Barthélemy;
Térèse daigne me sourire,
Je chante ton ange chéri!
Innocent flower of Iberia,
New flower of Carmel
To Teresa always dear
Pearl of the immortal Spouse,
I wish to sing to you on my lyre,
Anna of Saint Bartholomew;
Teresa, deign to smile upon me,
I sing to your cherished angel!
(Guirlande 59)
Finally, poem 15, ‘‘Le Séraphique Saint Jean de la Croix, cantique dédié aux
Carmélites de Liège’’ (‘‘The Seraphic Saint John of the Cross, Canticle Dedicated
to the Carmelites of Liège), opens with a direct appeal for Teresa’s help in the
poetic mission, asking that she give life to the lyre:
Ô ma Séraphique Térèse
Anime ma lyre en ce jour!
Qu’à ma voix l’univers se taise
Et m’écoute ravi d’amour!
O my Seraphic Teresa
Give life to my lyre on this day!
To my voice may the universe be silent
And listen to me ravished with love!
(Guirlande 85)
A certain agency and identity emerge from these passages evoking the poet and
the lyre, and combine to give a similar tone to a number of the poems, beginning
with poem three, which is (as mentioned above) attributed to Bouix in the Créteil
manuscripts.
The thematic linking of one poem to another continues: a story about Teresa’s
childhood has it that she was captivated by the idea that both Heaven and Hell
were eternal, and that she and her brother Rodrigo would play together repeating
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Christianity & Literature 65(1)
the words ¡Para siempre, siempre, siempre! (Forever! Forever! Forever!). That
Marcel Bouix knew this story is evident from a footnote to his 1884 edition of
Teresa’s Œuvres: ‘‘On entend Térèse et Rodrigue parlant du ciel et s’encourageant
au martyre. Ce cri . . . s’échappait de leurs cœurs embrasés: Quoi! pour toujours!
toujours! toujours!’’ (‘‘Teresa and Rodrigo could be heard speaking of Heaven and
encouraging one another to become martyrs. This cry . . . escaped from their
enflamed hearts: What! Forever! Forever! Forever!’’) (Thérèse, Œuvres 1884, 9).
In poem two of the Guirlande, the ‘‘Rénovation des vœux’’ (‘‘Renewal of Vows’’)
that is attributed to Bouix in the Créteil collection, toujours, toujours serves as a
sort of refrain: in each of the poem’s nine stanzas, the ‘‘Teresian’’ phrase recurs, at
the beginning of the first and third lines:
Toujours, toujours quand reparait
l’aurore
Du jour si beau m’unit à Jésus,
Toujours, toujours tendre Époux que
j’adore,
Je viens goûter le bonheur des élus!
Always, always when reappears the
dawn,
Of the beautiful day that unites me with
Jesus,
Always, always tender Spouse whom I
adore,
I come to savor the joy of the chosen ones!
(Guirlande 5)
In this poem, the repetition of toujours, toujours is perhaps as much about the
theme of renewing sacred vows as it is a celebration of Teresa, but in poem six,
‘‘Cantique à Marie pour son cher Carmel’’ (Canticle to Marie for her dear Carmel),
the author asks that Teresa help make this ‘‘flower’’ agreeable to the Virgin, and
again employs the Teresian cry toujours, toujours, placing it in exactly the same
strophic position as in poem two:
Toujours, toujours ce beau nom de
Marie
D’un saint transport fera battre mon
cœur:
Toujours, toujours, Vierge auguste et
chérie,
D’un nom si beau je défendrai
l’honneur.
Always, always this beautiful name
Mary
In a holy transport makes my heart to
beat:
Always, always, august and dear
Virgin,
Of such a beautiful name I defend
the honor.
(Guirlande 43)
As in other passages of the Guirlande, it appears that Bouix’s immersion in both the
grand themes and the smaller details of the life, works and spirituality of Teresa of
Avila had a profound influence on his poetic lexicon.
Aspects of the Guirlande that are not specifically Teresian may also help to link
the poems together and in so doing suggest Bouix’s authorship: poem two, attributed to Bouix in the Créteil collection, bears an epigraph taken from the
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39
Confessions of Saint Augustine: O amor, que sempre ardes et nunquam extingueris,
charitas, Deus meus, accende-me (O love that burns and art never extinguished, O
charity, my God, set me aflame) (Augustine Book X, ch. xxix). Before two other
poems in the Guirlande, poem five on the ‘‘transverberation’’ and poem eight, in
honor of the Italian Carmelite mystic and saint Maddalena de Pazzi (1566–1607),
the same epigraph from Augustine appears (Guirlande 25/51). Here the author of
the poems chooses a theme that is not drawn from Teresian texts but serves nonetheless to unite the poems in the series and to once again suggest Bouix’s involvement in their composition.
In other passages of the Guirlande, it is a stylistic trait that creates a ‘‘bouixian’’
affinity between poems: in poem three (the ‘‘Nouvelle fleur’’), Bouix addressed
Teresa directly with a verbal formula that is repeated in other poems:
Ô séraphique et tendre Mère
Je t’apporte encore une fleur
Etc.
O seraphic and tender Mother
I bring you yet another flower
Etc.
(Guirlande 11)
The same line Ô se´raphique et tendre Me`re appears in stanza 28 of poem five (the
‘‘transverberation’’):
Ô séraphique et tendre Mère
Victime de l’amour divin,
Etc.
O seraphic and tender Mother
Victim of divine love,
Etc.
(Guirlande 37)
A similar formula, combined with the poet and the lyre, appears in the first
stanza of poem 15 (on ‘‘The Seraphic Saint John of the Cross’’), seen above:
Ô ma séraphique Térèse,
Anime ma lyre en ce jour!
O my seraphic Teresa,
Give life to my lyre on this day!
(Guirlande 85)
In two cases above, the Augustinian epigraph and the formula Ô se´raphique et
tendre Me`re serve to unite groups of three poems in which one poem is attributed to
Bouix in the Créteil collection, and the other two bear his stamp, so to speak,
further strengthening the case for his authorship of the series.
Similarly, dedications to the Carmelites of different convents, like the one that
accompanies Bouix’s translation of ‘‘Muero porque no muero’’ (poem 13), lend
unity to the Guirlande. As has been seen, the dedication to the translation of ‘‘Muero
porque no muero’’ reads: ‘‘Traduction dédiée aux Carmélites du Monastère de
l’Incarnation de Paris et à tout le Carmel de France et de Belgique’’ (Translation
dedicated to the Carmelites of the Monastery of the Incarnation of Paris and to all
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Christianity & Literature 65(1)
of French and Belgian Carmel). As has also been seem, poem 15 bears a similar dedication: ‘‘Le Séraphique Saint Jean de la Croix, cantique dédié aux Carmélites de Liège’’
(‘‘The Seraphic Saint John of the Cross, canticle dedicated to the Carmelites of Liège).
The same is true of poems 17 (also dedicated to the Carmelites of Liège) and 19
(dedicated to the Carmelites of Tours) (Guirlande 105/115). At the very least, these
dedications suggest an author from outside the convent, a friend but not a member of
the community; taken with the other indications given thus far, the dedications also
point to Bouix’s hand in the creation of the poems.
Finally, what links the poems in the Guirlande most convincingly to Marcel Bouix,
apart from the poems clearly attributed to him in other sources, is poem 17, ‘‘Un fil
des alpargates de la Séraphique Térèse de Jésus’’ (A Cord From the Alpargatas of the
Seraphic Teresa of Jesus). In the first stanza the poet asks for a piece of cord from
Teresa’s alpargatas (sandals) to be worn as a diadem upon his head:
De cette alpargate, ô ma Reine,
Que tes pieds ont sanctifié,
Ote un fil, ô ma Souveraine,
Pour mon front trop glorifié!
Of your sandal, o my Queen,
That your feet have sanctified,
Take a strand, o my Sovereign,
For my head so glorified!
(Guirlande 105)
Further along in the poem, it becomes clear that this blessing is for a special
purpose: the poet asks that the seraphim who has pierced Teresa’s heart in the
famous ‘‘transverberation’’ episode using an arrow tipped with fire use that same
fire to bathe his pen in preparation for a specific literary task:
Guide, guide ma main fidèle,
Séraphin qui blesses son cœur;
Fais-moi de sa langue immortelle
Rendre la Séraphique ardeur.
Trempe à la céleste fournaise
Ton dard, ma plume et mon burin;
Viens, viens, et tous deux de Térèse
Traduisons le livre Divin!
Guide, guide my faithful hand,
Seraphim who wounds her heart;
Of her immortal language make me
Render the Seraphic ardor.
Plunge into the celestial furnace
Your arrow, my pen and my chisel;
Come, come, and together
Let us translate the Divine book!
Grand Dieu, tu bénis notre ouvrage:
Térèse, une seconde fois,
Nous fait entendre son langage
Et les plus purs sons de sa voix.
Ô séraphique mélodie . . .!
Ô Térèse, ton livre d’or
De la France et de l’Ibérie
Devient à jamais le trésor!
Great God, you bless our work:
Teresa, a second time,
Lets us hear her language
And the most pure sounds of her voice.
O seraphic melody . . .!
O Teresa, your golden book
Of France and Iberia
Becomes forever the treasure!
(Guirlande 107)
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41
This poem, dated 1848, asks for blessing and guidance in translating Teresa’s
‘‘golden book’’ in the same year that Marcel Bouix’s first volume of Teresa’s collected works appeared in print (the 1848 Exclamations). There is scarcely any need
for Bouix’s name to be attached to this poem; the poet’s identity is made clearer in
the two stanzas cited above than in any other place in the manuscript, and as clear
as if Bouix had signed his name himself.
Only four of the poems that make up the Guirlande te´re´sienne, poems 11, 12, 14,
and 16, are not interconnected by the ‘‘garland’’ of direct attributions, references,
stylistic traits and themes outlined above that suggest the authorship of Marcel
Bouix. This by no means rules out his hand in composing these remaining poems:
the fact that Bouix did not leave an obvious stamp on them does not mean they are
not his. On the contrary, the simple fact that they are part of the Guirlande, most of
which bears important traces of Bouix’s involvement, strongly suggests they may
be his as well.
Marcel Bouix, the ‘‘Teresian Bard,’’ inspired
The poet of the Guirlande is perhaps at his most inspired—and seeking inspiration—in poem five, on the ‘‘transverberation,’’ or piercing of Teresa’s heart.
As in poem 17 in which the translation of Teresa’s ‘‘golden book’’ is mentioned,
in poem five the poet asks in the ‘‘transverberation’’ to have his lyre and his voice
inspired by the Teresian arrow:
Viens du haut du céleste empire
Et de ton glaive, ô séraphin,
Viens toucher mon cœur et ma lyre,
Viens m’inspirer un chant divin!
Come down from the celestial empire
And with your dagger, o seraphim,
Come touch my heart and my lyre,
Come inspire in me a divine song!
(Guirlande 25–26)
In a novel use of the image, Teresa’s arrow becomes a symbol not just of spiritual inspiration, but one of literary inspiration as well. This alone puts the quintessential Teresian motif to a use rarely (if ever) seen before, but the poet of the
Guirlande takes the transverberation even further:
Ou si tu veux, ô tendre Mère,
Exauçant le vœu de mon cœur,
Après mon chant, sur cette terre,
Me faire mourir de bonheur,
Au fond de ta blessure aimante
Cache ton chantre térésien;
Que ce soit de là que je chante
Et mon chant sera tout divin!
Or if you wish, o tender Mother,
Granting the wish of my heart,
After my song, on this earth,
To make me die of joy,
Deep in your loving wound
Hide your Teresian bard;
Let it be from there that I sing
And my song will be all divine!
(Guirlande 26–27)
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Here the poet, transformed in a moment of ecstasy into the ‘‘Teresian Bard,’’27
asks to be hidden in Teresa’s wound in the same way that a reciter of the Anima
Christi prayer asks for shelter in the wounds of Christ. Having been granted his
wish to die of joy, he will henceforth sing from within the sheltering wound opened
by the flaming arrow. In another novel treatment of Teresian imagery, the poet
here takes literary inspiration not only from the instrument that caused the wound,
but also from the wound itself, which becomes, like those of Christ, a place of
refuge. Here again, it may be that Marcel Bouix the most careful reader of Teresa
of Avila lends to Marcel Bouix the poet of the Guirlande his vast arsenal of
Teresian knowledge. In chapter nine of The Book of Her Life, Teresa writes of a
day when she saw a statue of Christ made to show the wounds he had suffered at
crucifixion:
[the statue] represented the much wounded Christ and was very devotional so that
beholding it I was utterly distressed in seeing him that way . . . I felt so keenly aware of
how poorly I thanked Him for those wounds that, in seems to me, my heart broke . . . I
threw myself at His feet with the greatest outpouring of tears.
This episode, distressing to Teresa at first, turned out to be a blessing and a catalyst
for her spiritual betterment: ‘‘But in this latter instance with this statue . . . it seems
to me I profited more . . . I then said that I would not rise from there until He
granted me what I was begging Him for . . . [and] from that time on I went on
improving’’ (Teresa Works, 49). Perhaps aware of the distress and later consolation
that Teresa experienced seeing Christ’s wounds, it may be that from a deep well of
Teresian lore, Bouix drew inspiration and was moved to use the Teresian thematic
lexicon in new ways.
As did Bouix the translator and editor, Bouix the poet of the Guirlande celebrated not just Teresa, but also other stars in the Teresian firmament. In the next
stanza of the ‘‘transverberation,’’ the bard calls upon John of the Cross, the
Carmelite poet par excellence, to lend him his lyre in order to praise Teresa:
Et toi, séraphin d’Ibérie,
De Térèse fils glorieux
Dont la divine mélodie
Enlève une âme dans les cieux,
Toi qui chantas la tendre Mère
Dans la vive flamme d’amour,
Ô toi que j’aime comme un frère,
Prête-moi ta lyre en ce jour!
And you, seraphim of Iberia,
Glorious son of Teresa
Whose divine melody
Carries a soul to heaven,
You who sang the tender Mother
In the living flame of love,
O you whom I love like a brother,
Lend me your lyre on this day!
(Guirlande 27)
Interestingly, the poet here cites one of John’s most famous poems by name,
the ‘‘Living Flame of Love’’ (‘‘Llama de amor viva’’), and suggests that John
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himself was inspired by Teresa in the composition of his well-known poem (lines
5–6 above) (Guirlande 89–90).28 To the knowledge of this writer, no such inspiration existed for the ‘‘Living Flame of Love,’’ but as poets in the same Teresian
sphere, both the author of the Guirlande and John of the Cross could have drawn
inspiration from the same ‘‘Mother,’’ and indeed ‘‘played’’ the same lyre she had
blessed.
The poet’s call for inspiration is next broadened to appeal to Teresa’s companion Ana de San Bartolomé:
Et toi la moitié de son âme
Sa fille et son ange chéri;
Toi qui vis ce glaive de flamme:
Anna de Saint Barthélemy!
Pour celle qui te fut si chère
Donne-moi l’amour de son cœur
Chante avec moi ta tendre Mère
Chantons, chantons ce dard vainqueur.
And you, who are half of her soul
Her daughter and her cherished angel;
You who saw that dagger of fire:
Anne of Saint Bartholomew!
For she who was to you so dear
Give me the love of her heart
Sing with me your tender Mother
Let us sing, sing the vanquishing arrow.
(Guirlande 27)
Here Ana de San Bartolomé, who herself wrote a number of poems similar in
content and style to those of Teresa, is enjoined to sing with the author, as one who
witnessed the flaming arrow (line 3). Finally, the poet appeals to all of Teresa’s
daughters to both join him and inspire him:
Et vous de splendeurs couronnées,
Vous, son diadème immortel;
Ô vous, ses filles fortunées,
Sa joie et sa couronne au ciel!
C’est à vous toutes que ma lyre
Dédie et consacre ce chant:
Enflammez-moi d’un saint délire,
De vos cœurs donnez-moi l’accent.
And you who are crowned with splendor,
You, her immortal diadem;
O you, her fortunate daughters,
Her joy and her crown in heaven!
It is to all of you that my lyre
Dedicates and consecrates this song:
Enflame me with a holy frenzy,
Give me the accent of your hearts.
(Guirlande 28)
As such, nearly the entire Teresian universe and its figures great and small are
summoned to inspire and accompany the Teresian Bard, who himself seeks a place
in that universe, raising a vast and ambitious poetic monument to Teresa that is
perhaps more private, but no less inspired than the public one Marcel Bouix had
made in his translations, editions and original works in print.
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Conclusions: the translator and the Bard
In his extensive Teresian oeuvre, made more extensive still with the discovery of the
Guirlande te´re´sienne, Marcel Bouix established himself as the most productive
Teresian scholar in France of his time or of any previous age. As such, the
survey of his published works given in this study should serve as a useful reference
for those interested in the impact of Teresa’s writings and spirituality outside of her
native Spain. As for the Guirlande te´re´sienne, this newly presented text reveals
another dimension of the Jesuit’s devotion to the Carmelite reformer: in his apparently unparalleled poetic monument to Teresa, Bouix summoned a vast array of
Teresian images, themes, and figures,29 and in his petition to adopt the Teresian
arrow as his own literary instrument and in his plea to be hidden in and sing forth
from the wound that arrow created, he used the most powerful of Teresian images
in a way not seen before or since.30 Given this, the Guirlande te´re´sienne stands alone
as a poetic tribute to Teresa and as a singular manifestation of a writer’s desire to
be anointed not just the ‘‘interpreter of Saint Teresa,’’ but also her ‘‘bard,’’ the
chantre te´re´sien.
These conclusions being posited, some further consideration of the two roles
that Marcel Bouix established for himself is perhaps useful. As Teresa’s translator,
Bouix aggressively took to task his predecessor Robert Arnaud d’Andilly, alleging
the mutilation of Teresa’s texts and the falsification of her doctrine, the latter
offense being, Bouix asserted, the fruit of the flawed ideology of a ‘‘sect’’ bent
on denying God’s grace to all but a few. As such, Bouix clearly sought to supplant
Arnaud d’Andilly as the principal French translator of Teresa of Avila while also
setting the record straight in terms of both the integrity and the integrality of her
writings. Bouix thus viewed himself as an interpreter who was also an avenger,
correcting literary and doctrinal injuries done to Teresa.
It may also be that Bouix imagined a similar role for himself as a poet. When
Robert Arnaud d’Andilly published his 1670 translation of Teresa’s collected
works, he omitted her poem ‘‘Muero porque no muero,’’ which had already
been included in two published translations of her collected works in French31
and was already by that time famous as something of a Teresian ‘‘anthem.’’32
Marcel Bouix appears not to have overtly criticized Arnaud d’Andilly for his suppression of Teresa’s poem in the same way that he attacked him for the changes he
made in Teresa’s writings on the availability of God’s grace, but he surely knew
that Arnaud d’Andilly had deliberately omitted the poem, and it may be that he
sought to avenge this as well, albeit in subtler fashion: in his 1852 Vie de Sainte
Te´re`se, his 1854 Livre des fondations, his 1864 Explication du Pater et e´le´vations à
Dieu, his 1882 Lettres de Sainte Te´re`se, and as this study shows, in his Guirlande
te´re´sienne, Bouix translated and included Teresa’s poem, insisting upon its place
among Teresa’s other writings where Arnaud d’Andilly had left it out. In this way,
Bouix’s ambitions as a poet appear to have converged with his designs as a translator, as he rectified the omissions of his predecessor by translating and repeatedly
featuring Teresa’s famous verses.
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Finally, it may be that the Guirlande te´re´sienne is reflective of Marcel Bouix’s poetic
ambitions in another sense. As has been mentioned, Robert Arnaud d’Andilly was a
contributor to the Guirlande de Julie, the 17th-century collection of poems that celebrated Julie d’Angennes, the daughter of the Marquise de Rambouillet. While
Arnaud d’Andilly apparently had no role in the conception or compilation of the
Guirlande de Julie, and his contribution to the collection was limited to just one poem
of the 62 total poems in the series, his name and his considerable status as a poet were
nonetheless attached to the collection, and Marcel Bouix was undoubtedly aware of
this.33 As such, Bouix’s decision to compose his own Guirlande takes on a potentially
heightened significance, as he perhaps sought to compete with Arnaud d’Andilly as a
poet just as he sought to surpass him as a translator. Conceiving and composing a
Guirlande te´re´sienne knowing that Arnaud d’Andilly had participated in an earlier
collection with a similar name, and incorporating in his guirlande the poem Arnaud
d’Andilly had neglected, Teresa’s famous ‘‘Muero porque no muero,’’ Marcel Bouix
revealed that his ambition as the Teresian Bard was as great as his ambition as the
interpreter of Saint Teresa, and that as both translator and poet, he sought to make
his the definitive French voice of Teresa of Avila.
Notes
1. Variants of Teresa’s name in French included, in Bouix’s time and before, Terese, Te´re`se,
and The´re`se. In this article I have in each case reproduced the spelling as it is given in each
text or manuscript.
2. In keeping with a tradition in English-language scholarship, I use the term ‘‘convent’’ to
refer to the houses of women religious. In French and in Spanish, the terms couvent/
convento and monaste`re/monasterio can all refer to either masculine or feminine communities, depending on the nature of the establishment in question. The feminine branch of
the Carmelite Order is a ‘‘contemplative’’ one, meaning that Carmelite nuns are cloistered
and take prayer and meditation as their primary duties. As such, the Discalced Carmelites
studied here are considered moniales, or ‘‘contemplative women religious’’ (Dictonnaire
Larousse) and themselves use the term monaste`re rather than couvent to describe their
houses. The use of the term ‘‘convent’’ to describe a community of women religious
in this study is therefore reflective of a usage particular to English-language scholarship
and does not correspond to the French and Spanish couvent/convento and monaste`re/
monasterio in all cases.
3. It may in fact be that Bouix’s translation and publication of Ana de San Bartolomé’s
Autobiografı´a marked the first time the text had appeared in print. Searches to date have
found no prior publication of the work in Spanish.
4. ‘‘Daignez agréer mon œuvre et l’honorer d’un regard maternel. Pour vous léguer à la
postérité selon votre mérite, il eût fallu la plume d’un saint Jérôme, d’un saint Augustin
ou d’un saint Ambroise. Le génie uni à la sainteté nous eût laissé une œuvre complète.
L’interprète de saint Thérèse n’a pu mettre à votre service qu’un désir sincère de vous
glorifier.’’
5. ‘‘Il était souverainement désirable que vos compatriotes possédassent enfin en leur langue
les écrits de la grande Térèse, vierge du Carmel, dans la pureté du texte et l’élégance du
style.’’
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6. Beginning in the 17th century the Bollandists, a group of Belgian Jesuits, began publishing their Acta Sanctorum on the lives of the saints, of which one volume was dedicated to Teresa of Avila (see Hecke and Vandermoere 1845, pp. 109–790). Marcel Bouix
sought their expertise on Teresa in preparation for his translations, and on their advice
traveled to Spain to consult Teresa’s manuscripts.
7. ‘‘[N]ous avons vu s’ouvrir devant nous les portes du plus privilégié des monastères du
Carmel, celui d’Albe, où saint Térèse termina sa carrière, et où se trouve son corps
virginal, ainsi que les deux plus insignes reliques qui en aient été séparés, le bras et le
cœur. Nous nous sommes agenouillé devant le tombeau de cette grande sainte, et nous
l’avons priée de bénir notre travail. Son cœur et son bras ont été exposés à notre
vénération: nous avons demandé à ce cœur séraphique lumière et onction, et à ce bras
invincible dans les œuvres de Dieu, l’appui dont nous avions besoin.’’
8. ‘‘[N]ous l’avons. . . suivie pas à pas depuis son berceau jusqu’à sa tombe.’’
9. ‘‘[L]’élite des chrétiens, le clergé, les ordres religieux, les carmélites en particulier, saluèrent avec un indicible bonheur un travail qui leur présentait les écrits de cette grande
sainte dans leur pureté doctrinale.’’
10. ‘‘[Arnauld d’Andilly] n’a présenté au public qu’un texte tronqué, et même falsifié.’’
11. ‘‘Il va plus loin; par un de ces artifices où le sectaire se décèle, il mutile cette édition
tronquée elle-même, quand l’esprit de sa secte le demande.’’
12. ‘‘Les catholiques de France les lisaient pour la première fois. L’enthousiasme avec lequel
il les accueillirent fut proportionné à l’horreur qu’ils avaient pour cette exécrable secte
qui, par la traduction d’Arnauld d’Andilly, avait osé les souiller du venin du
jansénisme.’’
13. ‘‘Au chap. XI la Sainte dit: ‘Si cette âme persévère, Dieu, qui ne refuse sa grâce à
personne, augmentera peu à peu son courage de manière à lui faire obtenir un si
grand bien.’ Le traducteur passe ces paroles qui ne refuse sa grâce à personne; il sait
trop bien qu’elles sont la condamnation des doctrines désespérantes de sa secte.’’
14. It should be remarked that Teresa’s original Spanish text reads no se niega Dios a nadie
(God denies Himself to no one), and as such Bouix’s own translation is itself not completely literal. Bouix’s rendition adds the word ‘‘grace,’’ placing an emphasis on the
central term in the debate in which Jansenists and Jesuits were opposed. In Arnaud
d’Andilly’s translation, neither the term ‘‘grace’’ nor the phrase ‘‘God denies Himself to
no one’’ appears: ‘‘C’est une assez grande miséricorde qu’il fait à une âme, lorsqu’il lui
donne le courage de se résoudre à travailler de tout son pouvoir pour acquérir un tel
bien, puisque si elle perse´ve`re, il la rendra, avec le temps, capable de l’obtenir’’ (Œuvres de
Sainte The´re`se, 155, italics mine); here the access to God appears somewhat more difficult to attain than in Teresa’s original, as the persevering soul will be made ‘‘with time,
capable of obtaining it.’’ As such, Bouix’s criticism that Arnaud d’Andilly ‘‘omits’’ the
phrase ‘‘who denies his grace to no one’’ is not completely accurate, as Teresa does not
speak specifically of grace being denied, but rather of God being denied; at the same
time, Bouix is right in the sense that Arnaud d’Andilly ‘‘softens’’ Teresa’s statement that
God denies Himself to no soul by saying that with time, the soul can become capable of
receiving Him, rather than the much more direct ‘‘God denies himself to no one.’’ Each
translator, it would seem, rendered Teresa’s message in a way that suited his doctrinal
bent.
15. ‘‘Nul ne s’étant levé pour venger la Sainte, nous crûmes faire une œuvre agréable à Dieu,
en nous dévouant à ce long travail d’une traduction complète et fidèle.’’
Hanna
47
16. ‘‘[I]l est triste de le dire, n’ont été représentés en France pendant deux siècle que par la
traduction d’un des plus dangereux ennemis de l’Eglise, d’un des athlètes les plus obstinés
du jansénisme, de Robert Arnauld d’Andilly.’’ It should be said that, Bouix’s opposition to
his treatment of Teresian doctrine notwithstanding, Robert Arnaud d’Andilly was in fact
considered to have been one of the more moderate adherents to Jansen’s ideas.
17. ‘‘Dans le travail d’Arnauld d’Andilly les glaces de l’âge se joignant aux glaces de la
doctrine, son texte ne ressemble pas plus à celui de sainte Térèse qu’un cadavre à un
homme vivant.’’ Bouix Œuvres, 1867, ix.
18. ‘‘Le but que nous nous étions proposé était obtenu. La longue insulte du jansénisme cessait.’’
19. ‘‘[I]l faut l’avouer, la réformatrice du Carmel n’a pas eu d’interprète sérieux dans notre
langue.’’
20. I had the immense good fortune to come across this text while working in the archives of
the convent of Champhol. The Carmelites of this house were both generous with regard
to access to their manuscripts and warmly welcoming to a researcher from outside their
community.
21. ‘‘Ornement de décoration, composé d’éléments divers,’’ Trésor de la langue française
informatisée, http://atilf.atilf.fr.
22. A number of poems in the Guirlande de Julie are marked with the initials ‘‘M. C.,’’
believed to stand for ‘‘Monsieur (Pierre) Corneille.’’
23. Translated literally, ‘‘I die because I do not die,’’ this refrain is perhaps the best-known
and most often-cited excerpt from Teresa’s writings. For his part, Marcel Bouix seems to
have been quite taken with the poem: he referred to it as a ‘‘masterpiece,’’ and included
it in his editions of Teresa’s Vie, Fondations, Oeuvres, and along with a publication of
Teresa’s writings on the Lord’s Prayer (see Works cited). His translation of the poem
was also published in musical form, in a song setting with music by the composer
Gustave Collignon (see Works cited). In the 17th century, Teresa’s famous poem had
already been translated to French multiple times, and even disputed to some extent by
its French translators. See Daniel Hanna, ‘‘Translating Teresa: Muero porque no muero
in 17th-century France,’’ in 1611: A Journal of Translation History (University of
Barcelona, (http://www.traduccionliteraria.org/1611/art/hanna.htm).
24. ‘‘Teresita de Jésus’’ (1566–1610), or Teresa de Cepeda, was the niece of Teresa of Avila,
and is mentioned in many of Teresa’s letters.
25. I also had the good fortune to consult this volume, the Recueil de poe´sies, faites au
Carmel par la plupart des Religieuses du Monaste`re de l’Avenue de Saxe 26 (Archives of
the convent of Créteil, France. Volume dates: 1845–1896, 396 pp.), while working in
French Carmelite archives. As in Champhol, the sisters of Créteil were generous with
their documents and welcoming to me personally.
26. See note 23. There are 13 stanzas in the French version of ‘‘Muero porque no muero’’
found in Bouix’s publications and in the version found in the Guirlande te´re´sienne.
Comparing the published version and the Guirlande version, nine of the 13 stanzas
are identical, and four contain some differences in wording. The fact that these versions
of ‘‘Muero porque no muero’’ contain 13 stanzas (the version currently attributed to
Teresa contains only eight) can be explained by the fact that for many years, the versions
of this poem by Teresa and a similar poem by John of the Cross were treated as one, and
published as a sort of ‘‘hybrid’’ that combined verses from each.
27. The French term chantre can be translated as ‘‘cantor,’’ and also as ‘‘eulogist’’ or
‘‘apologist’’ (Larousse). I believe, however, that the English term ‘‘bard’’ better describes
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the role that Bouix establishes for himself in these poems, given their references to the
lyre with which the poet would accompany himself. As a further defense of this translation, it is worth noting that Shakespeare, ‘‘the Bard of Avon,’’ is often referred to in
French as ‘‘le chantre d’Avon.’’
28. Apparently as interested in sanjuaniste poetry as he was interested in Teresa’s verse, the
poet of the Guirlande includes a full translation of John of the Cross’s ‘‘Living Flame of
Love’’ as part of poem 15, ‘‘Le Séraphique Saint Jean de la Croix.’’
29. The 1678 La Vie de la seraphique mere sainte Terese de Iesus, fondatrice des carmes
de´chaussez & des carmelites de´chausse´es, en figures, & en vers francois & latins, a collection of 55 poems in French and Latin recounting important episodes from Teresa’s life
exceeds Bouix’s Guirlande te´résienne in terms of number of poems, but Bouix’s collection
is at once more personal thanks to the ‘‘voice’’ of the Teresian Bard, and wider in scope,
as it includes a broader array of elements of the Teresian sphere, in particular the
references to other figures in Spanish Carmel.
30. The Teresian arrow has been cast as a literary device in the work of at least one other poet,
the Englishman Richard Crashaw (1613–1649), who composed three poems in Teresa’s
honor, ‘‘A Hymn to Saint Teresa,’’ ‘‘An Apology for the Forgoing Poem,’’ and ‘‘The
Flaming Heart.’’ In the latter composition Crashaw equated the arrow to Teresa’s writings,
and suggested that it was not the seraphim, but the Saint herself who drew the bow:
Give her the Dart for it is she
(Fair youth) shootes both thy shaft and Thee
Say, all ye wise and well-peirc’t hearts
That live and dy amidst her darts,
What is’t your tastfull spirits doe prove
In that rare life of Her, and love?
Say and bear wittnes. Sends she not
A Seraphim at every shott?
What magazins of immortall Armes there shine!
Heavn’s great artillery in each love-spun line.
(Crashaw, Quarles, and Gilfillan 169–70)
Unlike Crashaw, Marcel Bouix sought to appropriate the Teresian arrow as his own
literary tool, and went even further to ask to inhabit the wound that it caused as a sort
of space for poetic creation.
31. In 1601, Jean de Brétigny published his translation of Teresa’s collected works, and in
1644 the Carmelite friar Cyprien de la Nativité de la Vierge published a new translation.
32. In his 1657 panegyric to Teresa of Avila, given at the request of Queen Maria Theresa of
France, the bishop Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet exhorted his congregation: ‘‘Chrétiens, si
vous voulez voir jusqu’où la sainte espérance a élevé l’âme de Thérèse, méditez ce sacré
cantique que l’amour divin lui a mis dans la bouche: ‘Je vis, dit-elle, sans vivre en moi; et
j’espère une vie si haute, que je meurs de mourir pas’’’ (Bossuet, 394). ‘‘Christians, if you
wish to see how far saintly hope has elevated the soul of Teresa, meditate upon this
sacred cantique that divine love placed in her mouth: ‘I live, she says, without living in
myself; and I hope to have so high a life, that I die because I do not die.’’’ The citation of
‘‘Muero porque no muero’’ from the pulpit by no lesser a figure than Bossuet is some
indication of the extent to which the Teresian slogan had ‘‘stuck’’ to its author in 17th-
Hanna
49
century France. In ‘‘Translating Teresa: Muero porque no muero in 17th-century
France,’’ I deal with the question of Arnaud d’Andilly’s omission of Teresa’s poem,
and suggest some possible explanations for his choice. See Hanna.
33. In Le chant de la grâce: Port-Royal el la poe´sie d’Arnauld d’Andilly à Racine, Tony
Gheeraert traces the poetic career of Robert Arnaud d’Andilly, from the vigorous
poetic activity of his youth to his decline in interest in poetry as an older man. In his
thirties and forties, Arnaud d’Andilly published a number of well-regarded collections of
poems, and by 1641, the year the Guirlande de Julie was compiled, his reputation as a
poet was well established.
Works cited
Print sources
Anne de Saint-Barthélemi. Autobiographie de la ve´ne´rable me`re Anne de Saint-Barthe´lemi.
Trans. Marcel Bouix. Paris: Lecoffre, 1869. Print.
Augustine, F. J. Sheed and Michael P. Foley. Confessions. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006. Print.
Buckley, Cornelius M. and Louis-Marie Ruellan. When Jesuits Were Giants: Louis-Marie
Ruellan, S.J., 1846–1885 and His Contemporaries. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press,
1999. Print.
Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne. Oeuvres comple`tes de Bossuet, Sermons, Volume V. Paris: Louis
Vivès, 1863. Print.
Bouix, Marcel. Le XIXe siècle et Sainte Térèse, Par Le P. Marcel Bouix. Paris: V. Lecoffre,
1882. Print.
Bouix, Marcel. Une Héroı̈ne de la charité au XIXe siècle, Élisabeth de Brugelles. Paris:
Impr. de Gauthier-Villars, 1875. Print.
Brunand, Claudine, Nicolas Harbet, and Martial de Saint Paulin. La Vie de la seraphique
mere sainte Terese de Iesus, fondatrice des carmes de´chaussez & des carmelites de´chausse´es,: en figures, & en vers françois & latins. avec un abbrege´ de l’histoire, une reflexion
morale, & une resolution chre´tienne sur châque figure. Lyon: Antoine Iullieron, 1670.
Collignon, Gustave. Glose de Sainte Térèse. Paroles du R.P. Marcel Bouix de la Compagnie
de Jésus. Paris: Lecoffre, 1886. Print.
Crashaw, Richard, Francis Quarles and George Gilfillan. The Poetical Works of Richard
Crashaw and Quarles’ Emblems. Edinburgh: J. Nichol, 1857. Print.
Dalmau, Josep, Joan B. Vilar, Sebastià Matevat, Gabriel Graells, and Esteve Lliberós. Relacion
de las solemnidad con que se han celebrado en la civdad de Barcelona las fiestas a la beatificacion de la Madre S. Teresa De Jesus. Barcelona: Sebastian Matevad, 1615. Print.
Francisco de Ribera. Vie de sainte Te´re`se, par le P. François Ribera. Trans. Marcel Bouix.
Paris: Lecoffre fils, 1868. Print.
Françoise de Sainte-Thérèse, Françoise Nicolas de Tralage, and Marcel Bouix. Vie de la
vénérable mère Isabelle des Anges, l’une des six carmélites espagnoles fondatrices de
l’Institut de Sainte Thérèse en France. Limoges: Barbou frères, 1876. Print.
Gheeraert, Tony. Le chant de la grâce: Port-Royal el la poe´sie d’Arnauld d’Andilly à Racine.
Paris: H. Champion, 2003.
Luis de la Puente. Vie du père Balthasar Alvarez, de la Compagnie de Jésus, par le Vble P.
Louis Du Pont. Trans. Marcel Bouix. Paris: R.-Ruffet, 1873. Print.
Manrique de Luxan, F. Relacion de las fiestas de la ciudad de Salamanca, en la beatificación
de la Sancta Madre Teresa De Jesus. Salamanca: D. Cussio, 1615. Print.
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Christianity & Literature 65(1)
Pierre d’Alcantara. Oeuvres spirituelles de saint Pierre d’Alcantara, précédées du portrait
historique du saint par sainte Térèse. Trans. Marcel Bouix. Paris: Périsse frères et R.
Ruffet, 1862. Print.
Surin, Jean-Joseph. Traité inédit de l’amour de Dieu. Précédé de la vie de l’auteur. Paris:
Impr. Saint-Paul, 1879. Print.
Teresa of Avila. The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila: Volume 1. Ed. Kieran
Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez Washington. Washington, D.C.: Institute of
Carmelite Studies, 1987. Print.
Thérèse d’Avila. Fragment du livre de sainte Te´re`se sur le Cantique des cantiques. Trans.
Marcel Bouix. Paris-Lyon: V. Lecoffre, 1880. Print.
Thérèse d’Avila. Lettres de sainte Térèse traduites suivant l’ordre chronologique, édition
enrichie de lettres inédites, de notes et de biographies par le P. Marcel Bouix. 3 vols.
Trans. Marcel Bouix. Paris: J. Lecoffre, 1861. Print.
Thérèse d’Avila. Œuvres de Sainte Térèse de Jésus. Exclamations de l’âme à son Dieu.
Traduction Nouvelle. Trans. Marcel Bouix. Paris: A. Le Clère, 1848. Print.
Thérèse d’Avila. Œuvres de Sainte Térèse traduites d’après les manuscrits originaux. Tome I,
‘‘Vie de Sainte Térèse écrite par elle-même’’. Trans. Marcel Bouix. Paris: Julien, Lanier et
Cie, 1852. Print.
Thérèse d’Avila. Œuvres de Sainte Térèse traduites d’après les manuscrits originaux. Tome
II, ‘‘Le livre des fondations, le livre des exclamations, glose ou cantique de sainte Térèse’’.
Trans. Marcel Bouix. Paris: Julien, Lanier et Cie, 1854. Print.
Thérèse d’Avila. Œuvres de Sainte Térèse traduites d’après les manuscrits originaux. Tome
III, ‘‘Le Chemin de la perfection, Avis de la Sainte à ses religieuses’’. Trans. Marcel
Bouix. Paris: Julien, Lanier, et Cie, 1855. Print.
Thérèse d’Avila. Œuvres de Sainte Térèse, traduites d’après les manuscrits originaux par le
P. Marcel Bouix. Trans. Marcel Bouix. Paris, Lyon: Lecoffre fils, 1867. Print.
Thérèse d’Avila. Œuvres de Sainte Térèse, traduites d’après les manuscrits originaux par le
P. Marcel Bouix. 3 vols. Trans. Marcel Bouix. Paris: V. Lecoffre, 1884–1885. Print.
Thérèse d’Avila. Explication du ‘‘Pater’’ et elevations à Dieu, Glose, ou Cantique par sainte
Térèse. Trans. Marcel Bouix. Poitiers: H. Oudin, 1864. Print.
Manuscript sources
La Guirlande te´re´sienne. Archives of the Carmelite convent of Champhol, France. Volume
dates: 1843–1849, 114pp.
Recueil de poésies, faites au Carmel par la plupart des Religieuses du Monastère de l’Avenue
de Saxe 26. Archives of the convent of Créteil, France. Volume dates: 1845–1896, 396 pp.
Author biography
Daniel Hanna is Assistant Professor of French and Spanish at Lake Forest College
in Lake Forest, Illinois. His research on the poetry of the Carmelites of France and
Belgium has appeared in the Bulletin for Spanish Studies, 1611: A Journal of
Translation History, Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and
Women in French Studies.