But let's « get back to our sheeps » as we say in French, let's get back to the point ! Reading Rupert Brooke's Democracy and the Arts again, about eight years after I first read it for the purpose of the biography, and probably more carefully this time as I was to translate it, I was stroke by two facts of which I has not been quite so aware at first sight. The first fact deals with the matter of the text. Of course, it was written quite a long time ago, at the very beginning of the XXth century - or was it at the end of the XIXth century, as the First World War was still to occur and to introduce the long decades of horror it led to, until probably September 11th, 2001.

Not only do Rupert Brooke's ideas keep up-to-date, they also carry more imagination and creativity than our actual system, of which the successive little reforms are all our capacity of imagination tolerates. We still have to think a way of selecting talented artists for what they are : young writers, poets, painters, dramatists, video artits full of early promises and provide them with a dowry so that they can find the time to build the works of which our children will be proud. It could cost less than it does now, it could even prove profitable if we follow the direction shown by Brooke. A young Proust, a young Virginia Woolf, a young Shakespeare or a young Racine, a young Francis Bacon or a young Picasso would most probably have to work as civil servants, doctors, teachers, or wholesalers. Rupert Brooke's ideas remain as fresh and as inspiring as they were, and as they always have been - after all, did not great Leonardo da Vinci loose a great amount of his precious time working on earthly projects for Il Moro or Cesare Borgia, when he could have painted more, or at least finished the few paintings he most of the time left incomplete ?

The second fact which stroke me when I set myself to translating Democracy and the Arts is the pretty bad quality of the language used by Rupert Brooke. Of course, this is pure Rupert in many ways, but as Geoffrey Keynes tells us in his foreword, the penciled manuscript was intended not to be published but to serve as a basis, really as a draft, for the lecture Rupertwas to give - and actually gave - to the Apostles in his rooms in King's College, Cambridge.

Therefore was it sometimes not only difficult for me to understand the structure of some sentences indeed lacking a proper structure, but also on one or two occasions to follow the logic of Rupert Brooke's ideas. I therefore wondered if I should then better respect Brooke even in his mistakes or inconsistencies, or if I should allow myself to correct those mistakes and inconsistencies in order to produce an understandable text in French, allowing French readers to understand more accurately what Rupert had meant to say. I hesitated, weighed the pros and the cons, and I finally chose the latter solution. I hope Rupert Brooke would not have minded. But being on Skyros Island, I only had to rent a Jeep, drive to his grave in the military zone, in the shadow of a clump of olive trees, leave a bunch of wild flowers and the most beautiful shell I could find on Magazia beach and sort of ask him : « So now, was I right, comrade ? » He wouldn't answer, which did not surprise me. But the rather violent wind suddenly stopped blowing and I could feel the bite of the sun. I thought he meant : « No way ! » But then the wind turned, and the fresh breeze coming from the sea was as cool and as sweet as the one blowing in the meadows near Grantchester in the glorious Spring sunshine. If I should die...

C.S.

Arts et démocratie, par Rupert Brooke, traduit et adapté par Christian Soleil, Pub. Université, 10 euros, à paraître courant avril 2008.