Zutiste

The Zutistes were a fringe spin-off from a splinter group of Parnassians, known as the "Nasty Fellows" or "Villains Bonshommes",[1] who formed a Parisian dining club at the close of the 1860s. Without having a formal manifesto, and taking their name from the French exclamation of baffled exasperation, Zut,[2] this informal gathering of artists known as the Zutistes gathered around the figure of the pianist Ernest Cabaner, who worked as a bartender/piano player at the hotel. Anarchic in spirit, they looked back regretfully to the atmosphere of the Paris Commune of March to May that year.[3] A significant figure in the circle was Charles Cros, while other members were later better known, like Verlaine and Rimbaud.

The most significant trace of the movement came with the re-discovery in the Thirties of the Zutique Album, with some 101 literary entries accompanied by (sometimes pornographic) drawings.[4] Shot through with black humour, and riddled with parody and pastiche of contemporary styles and attitudes,[5] the album is the best guide to the Circle's membership of some fourteen names. A central target of the Album's mockery was the recently successful Parnassian Francois Coppee, while other more established figures like José-Maria de Heredia and Leconte de Lisle were also in the line of fire.[6] This album is in the form of an in-quarto Italian, black hardback cover, about thirty sheets handwritten, the other pages remained blank.

Nostalgia for the circle persisted among its members long after its break-up, perhaps as early as the winter of 1871–1872: thus for example the young Zutiste Raoul Ponchon was one of only seven recipients of Rimbaud's A Season in Hell;[7] Charles Cros in 1883 used "zutique" to name a new poetry circle; while (perhaps coincidentally) as late as in 1897 the claim would be made that "man is by nature essentially 'zutique'".[8]

• Album called Zutique