Ewa Małgorzata Wierzbowska

A roman à clef, where the presence of fictional and nonfictional elements is obvious, is a powerful framework for literary portraits of the author’s contemporaries. The degree of deformation, be it glamorizing or devaluing, depends on several factors, among which the pleasure of playing hide and seek is not the least. Each reference, even a demeaning one, brings out of the shadow of the past both prominent and background characters, as well as important events, all from the author’s point of view. Through this display, an image of a very complex environment emerges, where the worst rubs shoulders with the best, and where the constraints of daily life or loyalty to ideals impose difficult choices with very serious consequences. The author observes the sociological phenomena that affect her environment and, while making sharp criticisms, seeks to find a remedy for the wound that destroys Art and the Artist.

Undoubtedly, Marie Krysinska occupies a prominent position in the history of French poetry. She is the first to demand evaluation of female writers by their works and not by their sex. She negates the widespread notion of women’s exclusively imitative abilities by introducing her own poetical aesthetics and fighting for its recognition in very unfavorable environment. Male hysteria at the end of the 19th century manifested itself in the increased aggression against female writers. The fight for free verse was ruthless, conducted according to the rule that the ends justify the means. The language of the criticism is a testament to the lack of skills required for a substantive discussion when a woman is on the other side of the barricade.

Music is a keystone in the entire work of Marie Krysinska, who was first and foremost a musician. Guided by the rule of universal harmony, the perfect realisations of which are musical compositions, she applies it in her poems as well as in her narrative texts. Krysinska's novel, La Force du désir [The Force of Desire], was read in its time primarily as a roman à clef. Behind the literary characters are real people: poets, writers, actresses, singers, journalists, composers. One of the portraits is particularly touching, that of de Vivray whose real-life prototype was Charles-Erhardt de Sivry. A musician, conductor, poet and music theorist, de Sivry charmed listeners with his compositions. In the diegesis, all his professional activities are mentioned, more or less revealed. Thanks to Charles de Vivray's three concerts, the novelistic space transforms into a musical space.

La nature morte, juxtaposition antithétique, a perdu, il y a longtemps déjà, sa force d’expression...

In Krysinska’s novel, La Force du Désir, which I consider a roman à clef, rich referentiality is a guarantee of authenticity. Spatial and cultural references build a world familiar to the reader who can easily decipher the prototypes of the presented characters. Moreover, Krysinska’s novel contains the philosophy of the mask, both explicitly and implicitly, within the characters’ behavior. This, however, does not exhaust the issue of the mask, because a roman à clef, on the generic level, is a mask of an esoteric novel.

M.C. La Rocca, « Sur l’image qui manque à nos jours, Pascal Quignard et l’imaginaire de l’absence », [dans :] Quêtes littéraires, 2015, no 5, p. 201-211

Marie Krysinska, Poèmes choisis suivis d’Études critiques, Publication de l’Université de Saint-Étienne

Sensitive to all the nuances, attentive observer, Marie Krysinska thinks deeply about the human condition. One of its components is wandering − in every sense of the word. The wandering, physical and psychological, is a natural state of man. Wandering in imagination, in memory, expatriation, evaluation mistakes… The absoluteness of wandering can put the sign of equality between wandering and imagination. Imaginative ability determines the existence of the human being. I wander, you wander, they wander − in the poetry of Krysinska man is combined with all sorts of wandering. To wander means here to look, to try to answer the cardinal questions of human existence.

The dispute over vers libre did not lose any of its ferocity after 1900. One would expect that with the passage of time, bringing in more and more evidence for women's intellectual capabilities, their innovations would be appreciated. And yet, it did not come to be. Men jealously guarded the domain which belonged to them for centuries, and where women were, proportionally, rare visitors. Krysinska proudly withstood criticism and never gave up on public presentation of her works. She was the only woman who took active part in turbulent debates of her time, publishing theoretical works and responses to scathing criticisms. During her lifetime, Krysinska found both readers and recognition, but after her death she was condemned to the same fate that met most female writers – oblivion.

P. Imbert (dir.), Les transferts culturels : problèmes et problématiques. Série : Le Canada et Les Amériques, Quebec, uOttawa, 2016, 216 p.

Marie Krysinska and her husband Georges Bellenger made two voyages to the United States. Being an attentive observer, Krysinska is interested in the architecture of the New World, theaters, museums, stores, landscapes, mores, everyday life. After the return to France, she publishes her memories in the form of the articles and short stories. The favored theme is the American woman and her way of being, but also the life of the minorities and the functioning of the multiracial social organism. The author admires the social solidarity, all the more impressive, for without an equivalent in France. The old Europe seems to be dozing in its traditions and prejudices, but the writer is not dazzled by this openness of the spirit and the heart, which have also a negative aspect. Krysinska’s “American” writings play the same role as Voltaire’s Letters on the English – a vaccine that opens the mind and allows to cast away the prejudices.

In her two novels, La Force du désir and Folle de son corps, Krysinska tackled stereotypes concerning the portrayal of sexuality. The writer rejects the image of the woman that places her in the frame of feminine romanticism, of the "eternal femininity". She creates women, heterosexual and bisexual, all conscious of their sexuality; men whose inclinations are strictly homosexual, children discovering their bodies and their emerging desires. And since her observation concerns both women and men, I dare to say that Krysinska goes far beyond what was accepted by the nineteenth century doxa and what was presented by the other authors. It is tempting to say that Krysinska announced the end of the phallocratic society, since clitoris is equal to phallus, both of which are never literally mentioned. The conclusions derived from the analysis of Krysinska's two novels betray the more revoluyionary than evolutionary character, the latter resulting from the omnipresence of sex equal to its omni‐absence.