Guillaume APOLLINAIRE. Autograph letter signed "Guillaume Ap - Lot 19

Guillaume APOLLINAIRE. Autograph letter signed "Guillaume Apollinaire", Paris October 29, 1918, to a "cher confrère" [Georges-Armand MASSON]; 2 pages in-4 (27 x 21 cm) on the letterhead of the journal Le Siècle. Important unpublished letter, a few days before his death, on his work and Calligrammes, after Masson's review in Le Carnet critique. Apollinaire considers the article on Calligrammes "very unfair" and full of inaccuracies. For instance, he was not familiar with Valery Larbaud's Barnabooth, from whom he had not "borrowed the bougeotte", which he had manifested long before and "with much more force than in Calligrammes! L'Enchanteur pourrissant dates from 1898-1899. It appeared in Le Festin d'Esope in 1903. [In it, a chapter takes place at the same time in a large number of widely separated places in the universe. The short stories that make up L'Hérésiarque, in which there is even more hustle and bustle than in L'Enchanteur, had also appeared in Barnabooth's time, since most of them were published in the Revue Blanche. Mind you, I make no claim that Mr. Larbaud borrowed this bougeotte from me. Le Juif errant had it before both of us and Ulysse before him. On the other hand, where do you see me letting go of cubism? In other words, for having defended it, I was deprived of the forum where I could talk about it. But where do you find that I've varied and defended painters other than Matisse, Picasso, Braque and Derain, who are the ones I've always defended and among whom Picasso and Braque are the whole of Cubism? You'd be amazed to see the contrasts in their paintings from one year to the next. I hope that, in your mania for immobility, you won't reproach me for the variations in their paintings. [Apollinaire has crossed out the last lines of the letter and his signature; the letter was probably not sent in this form; the rest may be found on the attached draft. Attached is the autograph draft (2 pages in-4 on gray paper, 24.5 x 19.3 cm), heavily crossed out and corrected, showing variants with the clean-up, and a long development begun in the margin and continued on the verso: "In short, I ask you neither to understand nor to taste. But since you agree to fulfill the priesthood of criticism, I demand that you guide me, without which you will not be fulfilling the task you have taken on. [ ] You are in favor of imitation, and finding that I imitate, you must praise me, committing me however to vote for authors whose list you will give me, the old ones for example. On the other hand, you are in favor of originality, and must praise me as well, because if in your opinion I don't invent, I lead all innovation to the point of absurdity. [ ] My books bear no responsibility; I deny it. They are what they are, proposing no model, or if the misfortunes of the times mean that the freedom to write is henceforth at the mercy of an opinion, even yours, my dear colleague, you might as well stop writing! One of the very last writings by Apollinaire, who died on November 9. After this unpublished letter of October 29, we only know of a bill to Pierre Reverdy dated October 31.