Nijinsky and Diaghilev, 1911 - the site has selected quotes from the diary.
The final two lines of the sixth stanza of "September 1", "not universal love/but to be loved alone" are a direct quote from The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky.
Nijinsky (1889 - 1950) was a famous Russian ballet dancer and member of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. He danced for them from 1909 until 1912, when he began choreographing (such ballets as the possibly-riot-inducing The Rite of Spring, and retired from dance completley in 1919, after the onset of schizophrenia. The diary was written that same year, in the six and a half weeks between January and March. Joan Acocella, editor of a modern translation of Nijinsky's diary, discusses it in detail, and notes the signnificant changes - to both content and organization - made by Nijinsky's wife Romola de Pulszky (m. 1913), a Hungarian countess who published the diary in 1936. Among the significant changes made was a significant reduction and alternation of the relationship between Nijinsky and Diaghilev, who had been in a relationship since before Nijisnky began his career with the Ballets Russes. Acocella says that it was an "open secret" that attached scandal to Nijiinsky's name even before he became schizophrenia - Auden would have known, in 1939 when he quoted from the diary, that they had been together.
Nijinsky (1889 - 1950) was a famous Russian ballet dancer and member of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. He danced for them from 1909 until 1912, when he began choreographing (such ballets as the possibly-riot-inducing The Rite of Spring, and retired from dance completley in 1919, after the onset of schizophrenia. The diary was written that same year, in the six and a half weeks between January and March. Joan Acocella, editor of a modern translation of Nijinsky's diary, discusses it in detail, and notes the signnificant changes - to both content and organization - made by Nijinsky's wife Romola de Pulszky (m. 1913), a Hungarian countess who published the diary in 1936. Among the significant changes made was a significant reduction and alternation of the relationship between Nijinsky and Diaghilev, who had been in a relationship since before Nijisnky began his career with the Ballets Russes. Acocella says that it was an "open secret" that attached scandal to Nijiinsky's name even before he became schizophrenia - Auden would have known, in 1939 when he quoted from the diary, that they had been together.
One of the pages from Nijinsky's diary - he writes, at one point in the book, "I would like my writing to be photographed rather than printed, because printing does away with handwriting. Handwriting is a lovey thing; it is alive and full of character."
The line Auden quotes comes early in the diary (page 27), where it is part of a section where Nijinsky talks about the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I. He says:
"I want Wilson [Woodrow Wilson, one of the Big Four at the conference] to succeed in his undertakings, because they are near the truth. I feel the near death of Wilson. I was afraid of Clemenceau, too, because Clemenceau is a good man. His policy is stupid and therefore his life hangs on a hair. Men feel his mistakes. He is not aware of this and therefore his life is in danger. I love Clemenceau, because he is a child. I know children who do awful things, without wanting to. Lloyd George does not know that he will be found out, and therefor holds his head very high. I want to lower his head. I like him, but i must write the truth. I know that if he reads these notes, he will understand me. I know that Clemenceau is honest; he is the policy of France. He is a hard-working man, but he was mistaken when he sent France to her death. He is a man who seeks goodness, a child with a tremendous brain. Some politicians are hypocrites like Diaghilev, who does not want universal love, but to be loved alone. I want universal love."” (27).
This is the 1936 quote - the original Russian version of the line Auden quotes is : "Дягилев не хочет любви ко всем. Дягилев хочет любви к самому себе. Я хочу любви ко всем" (35), which translates more literally to: "Diaghilev does not want love for all. Diaghilev wants self-love [love to himself]. I want to love everyone."
In Epic Negation: The Dialectical Poetics of Late Modernism, C.D. Blanton explores this quote in relation to Auden's other poetry and "September 1" in particular, noting the political context. He says that "Nijinsky's rant turns on a moment of seeming free association, letting the authoritarian structure of an erotic relationship assume a metaphorical relation with politics" and says that this is a "version of [Auden's] most familiar and chiastic thesis, sounded repeatedly through the 1930s: public crisis replicates the effects of the private trauma, while intimate experience registers the larger dislocations of political history." (212).
This is, according to Mendelson in Early Auden, what the poet's voice is able to expose in "September 1" - these public and private traumas. He says that when the speaker asks "Who can release them now/who can reach the deaf/who can speak for the dumb?" that "These are questions that assosiate the power of speech with the power of redemption, and are in effect the same questions Auden asked himself six years earlier, , when he answered that a redemptive poet could release mankind. Now, again, his next line replies "All I have is a voice".... What the poet's voice can achieve is revelation. To expose a hidden truth, it can "undo the folded lie" (325), which the speaker does, in exposing the "romantic lie in the brain/of the sensual man-in-the-street" and "the lie of Authority".
The conclusion Auden brings to the lines quoted by Nijisnky is the famous "we must love one another or die". Mendelson says that Auden shows love as a biological need, and that "to be loved alone" is a hunger that all people share. Blanton sees this line as connected to Nijinsky's words in a more political way. He ways that it is a political decision - between "Wilson's idealism or Lloyd George's realism". (Acocella notes that Nijinsky, who was a Tolstoyan and frequently references Tolstoy's work in the diary, would have agreed with Wilson's pacifism). He says that "September 1" rejects the punitive policy of Versailles, and that in both "September 1" and "Epithalamion", a poem written several months later, attempts to reconcile policy with love. Blanton says that it is that rejected punitive policy that is shown to drive Nijinsky mad in the poem.
Here the ambiguity of Auden's work returns. An article in Slate magazine after 9/11 suggests that "Auden seems to doubt whether universal love" can exist in the world where "each woman and each man/ Craves what it cannot have,/ Not universal love/ But to be loved alone." It is possible that the "modern policy" that Auden suggests in "Epithalamion" - "hostile kingdoms of the truth/...reconciled by love" - can exist in the same world where each person has what Mendelson calls "the isolating wish" not for what Nijinsky wanted - to love everyone - but to have that love for themselves alone?
And does Auden believe in this hunger for love at all? Mendelson points out that in a poem written in 1936, Auden most desired "the gift of 'your voluntary love'", and that years later, he would say in "First Things First" that "thousands have lived without love, not one without water". Auden changed views throughout his life, and his later changes to the poem show these changes - "we must love one another and die" gets rid of the political choice, and the removal of the whole stanza removes the hunger entirely. Stephen Burt quotes, in his article, Mendelson as saying "Auden later recoiled from this view of love as involuntary mutual need rather than voluntary forgiveness" (539), and says himself that "we can...see in Auden's suppression of "September 1, 1939" an avulsion from the role the poem...takes on: a role in which the poet speaks to, of, and for a community, more or less telling that community how it feels and why; how it should feel; or what it can do (540).
Of Nijisky's thoughts on the power of writing, Joan Acocella, editor of a new translation of Nijinsky’s diary, says:
“As Nijinsky describes the situation in his diary, the entire world is being laid waste by materialism and opportunism. Scientists are claiming that human beings are descended from apes. Industrialists are despoiling the planet. The stock exchange, the manufacturers, the shops are robbing the poor. This is what he has understood from God. Indeed, he is now God, and he is going to convert the world back to feeling. His primary means will be the diary. Once it is published, he will have it distributed for free. He is hoping to have it reproduced in facsimile rather than printed, because he feels that the manuscript is alive and will transmit feeling directly, off the page, to readers.”
In the diary itself (the 1936 edition, to which Auden would have had access - a sample avaliable here), he says:
“I am not to be their judge, but God, will I tell them the truth. By saying the truth I destroy the evil which they have done.” (16)
“I speak strongly on purpose in order to be better understood, and not in order to hurt people. People will be offended because they will think and not feel.” (17).
This is, perhaps, reminiscent of Auden’s statement in “September 1” – that the speaker’s voice may “undo the folded lie,/The romantic lie in the brain” both of “the sensual man-in-the-street” and of “Authority”.
It is, perhaps, also reminiscent of the point of Rochester’s work – to rattle people with speaking strongly, as he did in attacking Charles II with satiric poetry. Tom Jones, in an article in Lord Rochester in the Restoration World, says that “Rochester uses obscenity to achieve a poetic questioning and unsettling”, much the same thing that Nijinsky seems to talk about.
There is another notable comparison – both Rochester and Nijisnky were able to get away with things that people not in their position would have been able to get away with. Rochester, had he not been so close to the king, could have been arrested for his behavior. And Nijinsky openly shared hotel rooms with Diaghilev – scandal was attached to his name, but people still came to see him dance, and were fascinated with him in something of the same way that people were fascinated with Rochester.
"I want Wilson [Woodrow Wilson, one of the Big Four at the conference] to succeed in his undertakings, because they are near the truth. I feel the near death of Wilson. I was afraid of Clemenceau, too, because Clemenceau is a good man. His policy is stupid and therefore his life hangs on a hair. Men feel his mistakes. He is not aware of this and therefore his life is in danger. I love Clemenceau, because he is a child. I know children who do awful things, without wanting to. Lloyd George does not know that he will be found out, and therefor holds his head very high. I want to lower his head. I like him, but i must write the truth. I know that if he reads these notes, he will understand me. I know that Clemenceau is honest; he is the policy of France. He is a hard-working man, but he was mistaken when he sent France to her death. He is a man who seeks goodness, a child with a tremendous brain. Some politicians are hypocrites like Diaghilev, who does not want universal love, but to be loved alone. I want universal love."” (27).
This is the 1936 quote - the original Russian version of the line Auden quotes is : "Дягилев не хочет любви ко всем. Дягилев хочет любви к самому себе. Я хочу любви ко всем" (35), which translates more literally to: "Diaghilev does not want love for all. Diaghilev wants self-love [love to himself]. I want to love everyone."
In Epic Negation: The Dialectical Poetics of Late Modernism, C.D. Blanton explores this quote in relation to Auden's other poetry and "September 1" in particular, noting the political context. He says that "Nijinsky's rant turns on a moment of seeming free association, letting the authoritarian structure of an erotic relationship assume a metaphorical relation with politics" and says that this is a "version of [Auden's] most familiar and chiastic thesis, sounded repeatedly through the 1930s: public crisis replicates the effects of the private trauma, while intimate experience registers the larger dislocations of political history." (212).
This is, according to Mendelson in Early Auden, what the poet's voice is able to expose in "September 1" - these public and private traumas. He says that when the speaker asks "Who can release them now/who can reach the deaf/who can speak for the dumb?" that "These are questions that assosiate the power of speech with the power of redemption, and are in effect the same questions Auden asked himself six years earlier, , when he answered that a redemptive poet could release mankind. Now, again, his next line replies "All I have is a voice".... What the poet's voice can achieve is revelation. To expose a hidden truth, it can "undo the folded lie" (325), which the speaker does, in exposing the "romantic lie in the brain/of the sensual man-in-the-street" and "the lie of Authority".
The conclusion Auden brings to the lines quoted by Nijisnky is the famous "we must love one another or die". Mendelson says that Auden shows love as a biological need, and that "to be loved alone" is a hunger that all people share. Blanton sees this line as connected to Nijinsky's words in a more political way. He ways that it is a political decision - between "Wilson's idealism or Lloyd George's realism". (Acocella notes that Nijinsky, who was a Tolstoyan and frequently references Tolstoy's work in the diary, would have agreed with Wilson's pacifism). He says that "September 1" rejects the punitive policy of Versailles, and that in both "September 1" and "Epithalamion", a poem written several months later, attempts to reconcile policy with love. Blanton says that it is that rejected punitive policy that is shown to drive Nijinsky mad in the poem.
Here the ambiguity of Auden's work returns. An article in Slate magazine after 9/11 suggests that "Auden seems to doubt whether universal love" can exist in the world where "each woman and each man/ Craves what it cannot have,/ Not universal love/ But to be loved alone." It is possible that the "modern policy" that Auden suggests in "Epithalamion" - "hostile kingdoms of the truth/...reconciled by love" - can exist in the same world where each person has what Mendelson calls "the isolating wish" not for what Nijinsky wanted - to love everyone - but to have that love for themselves alone?
And does Auden believe in this hunger for love at all? Mendelson points out that in a poem written in 1936, Auden most desired "the gift of 'your voluntary love'", and that years later, he would say in "First Things First" that "thousands have lived without love, not one without water". Auden changed views throughout his life, and his later changes to the poem show these changes - "we must love one another and die" gets rid of the political choice, and the removal of the whole stanza removes the hunger entirely. Stephen Burt quotes, in his article, Mendelson as saying "Auden later recoiled from this view of love as involuntary mutual need rather than voluntary forgiveness" (539), and says himself that "we can...see in Auden's suppression of "September 1, 1939" an avulsion from the role the poem...takes on: a role in which the poet speaks to, of, and for a community, more or less telling that community how it feels and why; how it should feel; or what it can do (540).
Of Nijisky's thoughts on the power of writing, Joan Acocella, editor of a new translation of Nijinsky’s diary, says:
“As Nijinsky describes the situation in his diary, the entire world is being laid waste by materialism and opportunism. Scientists are claiming that human beings are descended from apes. Industrialists are despoiling the planet. The stock exchange, the manufacturers, the shops are robbing the poor. This is what he has understood from God. Indeed, he is now God, and he is going to convert the world back to feeling. His primary means will be the diary. Once it is published, he will have it distributed for free. He is hoping to have it reproduced in facsimile rather than printed, because he feels that the manuscript is alive and will transmit feeling directly, off the page, to readers.”
In the diary itself (the 1936 edition, to which Auden would have had access - a sample avaliable here), he says:
“I am not to be their judge, but God, will I tell them the truth. By saying the truth I destroy the evil which they have done.” (16)
“I speak strongly on purpose in order to be better understood, and not in order to hurt people. People will be offended because they will think and not feel.” (17).
This is, perhaps, reminiscent of Auden’s statement in “September 1” – that the speaker’s voice may “undo the folded lie,/The romantic lie in the brain” both of “the sensual man-in-the-street” and of “Authority”.
It is, perhaps, also reminiscent of the point of Rochester’s work – to rattle people with speaking strongly, as he did in attacking Charles II with satiric poetry. Tom Jones, in an article in Lord Rochester in the Restoration World, says that “Rochester uses obscenity to achieve a poetic questioning and unsettling”, much the same thing that Nijinsky seems to talk about.
There is another notable comparison – both Rochester and Nijisnky were able to get away with things that people not in their position would have been able to get away with. Rochester, had he not been so close to the king, could have been arrested for his behavior. And Nijinsky openly shared hotel rooms with Diaghilev – scandal was attached to his name, but people still came to see him dance, and were fascinated with him in something of the same way that people were fascinated with Rochester.
