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Red Autumn in Valvins

Barnes's chapter 'Red Autumn in Valvins' is a good illustration of her method. It is a detailed, at times ingenious, explication of the poem and all of its Mallarmean ramifications. The commentary brings in much of the discursive and explanatory matter that it was symbolism's aim to eliminate. The poem itself is quite explicit in many ways, perhaps one of the most 'public' in the series--a tribute or homage, following the example of Mallarme's own Tombeaux. But for me an essential point is missing in the discussion. 'Red Autumn in Valvins' is far from being one of Brennan's best poems--useful as it can be as a critic's platform. If one wants to find Mallarme's influence at its richest and most telling in Brennan's poetry, I think one has to look at poems like 'Sweet silence after bells, 'Under a sky of uncreated mud', and 'What gems chill glitter yon, thrice dipt', to name only three of the finest. Here the Mallarmean influence is clearly perceptible, but Brennan has turned it into something uniquely his own.