A Toad Moment - Ennui

A couple of years ago I started writing a Toad’s Words Excursion with words from Cole Porter lyrics. My motivation was partially that I had just seen Midnight in Paris multiple times. But the full truth is that I have been fascinated by the word ennui and had been researching it (I have 44 pages of research notes). 

I started looking into ennui shortly after I had to spend eight hours flat of my back in the hospital recovering from a test. During that time I responded to an email from a friend who asked how I was doing and my response was “fighting vainly that old ennui” which, of course, is a line from Cole Porter’s I Get a Kick Out of You. Also, several years ago when our local high school performed Porter’s musical Anything Goes, I acted as a volunteer dramaturge and did a fair amount of research on Mr. Porter and his glorious words. I am in awe of anybody who can write lyrics that have the natural rhythm to them, like “At words poetic, I’m so pathetic…” Those words speak directly to me.

But my attempt at a complete Toad’s Words of Cole Porter got stalled by other events in my life, or perhaps, just ennui.

Never-the-less, I did finish writing Ennui so I present it as a Toad Moment.

Ennui, noun

Pronounced  - on we (ahn wee)

Boredom is the simple definition. However, ‘ennui’ is more than simple boredom. ‘Ennui’ is apathy, mental dissatisfaction or weariness because of lack of interest in one’s life due to existing employment or surroundings or brought about by societal or personal stagnation.

Cole Porter used ennui in the opening stanza of his song, ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’:

My story is much too sad to be told.

But practically ev'rything leaves me totally cold.

The only exception I know is the case

When I'm out on a quiet spree

Fighting vainly the old ennui

And I suddenly turn and see

Your fabulous face.

But Porter was not the only lyricist / poet to use ennui. Alan Jay Lerner had Mordred sing it in ‘The Seven Deadly Virtues’  from Camelot:

"Those seven deadly virtues were made for other chaps,

Who love a life of failure and ennui…"

Those always upbeat poets Sylvia Plath and Lou Reed wrote poems titled Ennui. Langston Hughes wrote this:

Ennui

It's such a

Bore

Being always

Poor.

And, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde has the character Lord Wotton say to Dorian Gray:

"The only horrible thing in the world is ennui, Dorian. That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness."

And it is said that Buddha said:

 “Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice, more drunkards than thirst, and perhaps as many suicides as despair.”

Ennui comes from the French word ennui which means boredom.

Baulelaire in his preface of Les Fleurs du mal, says:

“C'est l'Ennui! —l'œil chargé d'un pleur involontaire, Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka.”

Or as we would say in English:

 “It's Ennui! — his eye brimming with spontaneous tear, He dreams of the gallows in the haze of his hookah”.

Now that we have made the connection between the French word ennui and the English word boredom, I guess I should mention that, according to the OED, the first recorded use of the word boredom was by Charles Dickens in 1852 in Bleak House. To me, that seems pretty recently but maybe before Charles Dickens started writing nobody was ever bored.

Ok, that is probably much more than you wanted to know about a single word but it fascinates me. Ian Fleming (yes, the author of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) liked the subject of boredom and lassitude of mind and used it a lot. He never used ennui but he did talk about its resulting accidie in at least five of his Bond novels – but that word and discussion will be covered in another Excursus – if acedia doesn't get me first.