More on laughter and smiling In his travesty of Vergil, Germain Nouveau imitates Aristophanes but evokes Rimbaud

In Nouveau’s “Çà, ma muse, chantons,” a travesty of Vergil, verse 61 is strikingly deviant. By substituting grasses (‘fat’) for Grâces, Nouveau produced a calque of Aristophanes’ ‘nursling of the Graces’, pointing thus both to the stock expression ‘nursling of the Muses’ and to the promiscuity allegedly licensed by Fourier’s doctrine. In addition, his ‘nursling’ should be identified with Rimbaud.