The essay, in French, analyzes three characteristics of recent literature: the bankruptcy of pseudo-science; the bankruptcy of naturalism; and the renaissance of idealism.
Spring comes less dramatically to Provence. Essay focuses on the appearance of the narcissus: with its scent comes “the Everlasting Past, a rustle of the Wind of Death." The essay references troubadours and love songs; quotes an Old French ballad.
Epigraph from Atalanta in Calydon; in winter “the merciless north wind scourged the land, and wrung from men’s hearts a confusion of cries and threatenings, which he caught up and carried abroad”; --crisis averted by arrival of Spring the Deliverer;…
1. from Athens, circa 357 BC ; 2 from Norway, circa 145 BC, written by a woman; 3. from Jerusalem, 8th year of governance of Pontius Pilate; 4. Edinburgh, Easter 1887--all about the coming of spring
story of couple who go to live in a log cabin in the woods to observe spring; he’s an artist, like Nature: “First of its ornaments were the tiny creeping birds….”; quotes a Gaelic song about swans singing (trans in fn); Mark’s best picture is the fp…