Poète, illustrateur, dramaturge, peintre, dessinateur, anglais, romancier, Mervyn Peake (1911-1968), héritier direct d’un Dickens sans espoir et d’une Charlotte Brontë que le fou-rire aurait saisie, croqueur de personnages comme il n’y en a pas, conteur nourri de Shakespeare et de Lewis Carroll, homme sous influence de cauchemars historiques (Londres sous le Blitz, le camp de Bergen Belsen à sa libération) et personnels (une maladie de Parkinson précoce), Mervyn Peake, la puissance et la grâce, est un grand parmi les grands aux États Unis et en Angleterre et un auteur inconnu en France, malgré les lauriers que de fins passionnés s’accordent à lui décerner au mépris du plus grand nombre et l’admiration d’André Dhôtel qui préfaça, dans les années soixante-dix, pour les éditions Stock, son grand roman initiatique en trois volets, très poétiquement traduit par Patrick Reumaux : 'Titus d’Enfer', 'Gormenghast', 'Titus errant', disponibles aujourd’hui chez Phébus. Gormenghast, la citadelle aux mille rituels, aux figures désopilantes et pathétiques, au comte mélancolique, à l’héritier indocile, Titus, héros inquiet.

     'Titus Groan, Malpertuis, Das Schlos: Le Château comme espace sacré'.
Cahiers du Gerf, No 22, pp.49–68, Winter 2001-2002.

     "La bille et l'encrier" : écriture et auto-illustration chez Mervyn Peake Centre Culturel International de Cerisy-La-Salle 2003
http://www.u-bourgogne.fr/ITL/Aymes.html

     Grande Anthologie de la Fantasy, Omnibus
http://www.omnibus.tm.fr/FR/Email/Email.html

http://www.zazieweb.fr/
http://www.cafardcosmique.com/index.html
www.revue-solaris.com (Esther ROCHON, Québec)
Le Visage Vert : http://www.gallimard.fr/collections/losfeld.htm
www.salle101.org

Of pygmies, palms and pirates,
Of islands and lagoons,
Of blood-bespotted frigates,
Of crags and octoroons,
Of whales and broken bottles,
Of quicksands cold and grey,
Of ullages and dottles,
I have no more to say.

Of barley, corn and furrows,
Of farms and turf that heaves
Above such ghostly burrows
As twitch on summer eves
Of fallow-land and pasture,
Of skies both pink and grey,
I made my statement last year
And have no more to say.

The vastest things are those we may not learn.
We are not taught to die, nor to be born,
Nor how to burn
With love.
How pitiful is our enforced return
To those small things we are the masters of.

Out of the chaos of my doubt
And the chaos of my art
I turn to you inevitably
As the needle to the pole
Turns . . . as the cold brain to the soul
Turns in its uncertainty;

So I turn and long for you;
So I long for you, and turn
To the love that through my chaos
Burns a truth,
And lights my path.

If seeing her an hour before her last
Weak cough into all blackness I could yet
Be held by chalk-white walls, and by the great
Ash coloured bed,
And the pillows hardly creased
By the tapping of her little cough-jerked head–
If such can be a painter’s ecstasy,
(Her limbs like pipes, her head a china skull)
Then where is mercy?

Dead, the Dutch Icarus who plundered France
And left her fields the richer for our eyes.
Where writhes the cypress under burning skies,
Or where proud cornfields broke at his advance,
Now burns a beauty fiercer than the dance
Of primal blood that stamps at throat and thighs.
Pirate of sunlight! and the laden prize
Of coloured earth and fruit in summer trance
Where is your fever now? and your desire?
Withered beneath a sunflower’s mockery,
A suicide you sleep with all forgotten.
And yet your voice has more than words for me
And shall cry on when I am dead and rotten
From quenchless canvases of twisted fire.

‘Turn over a fresh page, my friend
And turn it over fast
For no one knows how soon may end
The foolscap of your past.
Tourne la page, mon vieux
Et tourne la vite
Personne ne sait quand va finir
L’album de ton passé

‘Come let me hold you by the raw
Black elbow of your coat,
Your courage mounts : O leave the shore
While this is yet a boat
Viens, laisse-moi te tenir par le rugueux
Coude noir de ton manteau,
Ton courage monte : O quitte le rivage
Pendant qu’il y a encore un bateau

‘I am your boat ! I am your crew
Your rudder or your mast —
Your friend, I am your limpest too
And your elastoplast.’
Je suis ton bateau ! Je suis ton équipage
Ton ou ton
Ton ami, Je suis aussi tes crampons
Et ton élastoplast.

'It worries me to know', she cried
Her voice both sharp and high :
Her dress was yellow as the hide
Of lions in july
'It worries me to know…', she cried,
And then she rolled her eyes aside.

'Ça m'inquiète' pleurait-elle
Sa voix à la fois pointue et perchée
Sa robe aussi jaune que la crinière
Des lions en juillet
'Ça m'inquiète…' pleurait-elle,
Et puis elle roula les yeux sur le côté.

Her friend (a dowdy-looking man)
Began to tap his shoe.
His collar was of astrakan,
His hair and beard were too.
'What IS it worries you to know ?'
He said in accents lush and low

Son ami (un homme mal habillé)
Se mit à tapoter sa chaussure
Son col était en astrakan
Ses cheveux et sa barbe aussi.
'QUEST-CE qui t'inquiète ?'
Dit-il d'une voix basse de poivrot

But she had rolled her eyes aside
As though she were note able
To quell an inward rise of tide
And feared to slip her cable —
He turned to wherer her eyes weree bent
Upon a golden ornament.

Mais elle avait roulé des yeux sur le côté
Comme si elle était incapable
De réprimer une montée intérieure de la marée
Et qu'elle avait peur de glisser son câble
Il se tourna où ses yeux étaient portés
Sur un bibelot doré.

Talk not fancy, friend, to me,
Though you are old and wise.
My trouble is with what I see,
That's where the mischief lies.
'It worries me to know…' and then
'It worries me…' she said again.

Ne me raconte pas de bêtises,
Bien que tu sois vieux et sage.
Ce qui me tracasse, c'est ce que je vois,
C'est-à-dire le nid des méchancetés.
'Ça m'inquière…' et puis
'Ça m'inquiète…' dit-elle encore.

Perhaps you could amplify
Your statement, child, I could
Draw from my wealth of wisdom I
Have never understood,
And juggling to and fro wtih it
Could give some that would fit'.

All flowers that die ; all hopes that fade ;
All birds that cease to cry ;
All bed that vanish once they're made
To leave us high and dry —
All these and many more float past
Accross the roofs of Gormenghast.

Toutes les fleurs qui meurent ; tous les espoirs qui s'évanouissent ;
Tous lkes oiseaux qui cessent de crier ;
Tous les lits qui s'effacent une fois qu'ils sont faits
Pour nous laisser hauts et secs —
Tout ça et bien d'autres choses du passé flotte
À travers les toits de Gormenghast.

'It worries me to know', she cried
Her voice both sharp and high :
Her dress was yellow as the hide
Of lions in july
'It worries me to know…', she cried,
And then she rolled her eyes aside.

Her friend (a dowdy-looking man)
Began to tap his shoe.
His collar was of astrakan,
His hair and beard were too.
'What IS it worries you to know ?'
He said in accents lush and low

But she had rolled her eyes aside
As though she were note able
To quell an inward rise of tide
And feared to slip her cable —
He turned to wherer her eyes weree bent
Upon a golden ornament.

Talk not fancy, friend, to me,
Though you are old and wise.
My trouble is with what I see,
That's where the mischief lies.
'It worries me to know…' and then
'It worries me…' she said again.

Perhaps you could amplify
Your statement, child, I could
Draw from my wealth of wisdom I
Have never understood,
And juggling to and fro wtih it
Could give some that would fit'.

All flowers that die ; all hopes that fade ;
All birds that cease to cry ;
All bed that vanish once they're made
To leave us high and dry —
All these and many more float past
Accross the roofs of Gormenghast.