What Is Art?

by graf Leo Tolstoy

(“Pan,” 1895, No. 1.)

This poem is not exceptional in its incomprehensibility. I have read several poems by Mallarmé, and they also had no meaning whatever. I give a sample of his prose in Appendix I. There is a whole volume of this prose, called “Divagations.” It is impossible to understand any of it. And that is evidently what the author intended.

And here is a song by Maeterlinck, another celebrated author of to-day:—

Quand il est sorti,

(J’entendis la porte)

Quand il est sorti

Elle avait souri ...

Mais quand il entra

(J’entendis la lampe)

Mais quand il entra