Selected Poems of Mallarme, Bilingual edition - Softcover

Mallarme, Stephane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520234782 ISBN 13: 9780520234789

Publisher: University of California Press, 2002

Synopsis

The leading poet of French symbolism, Stephane Mallarme has exercised an enormous influence both on French and on English and American avant-garde writers. In this volume C. F. MacIntyre has translated forty-three of his poems, including the "Ouverture" and "Scene" from Herodiade, which was to have been a drama in verse, and the well-known L'Apres-midi d'un faune, for which Debussy composed his orchestral prelude. The French text faces the English translations, which are both true to the original and poetic. Indeed, as MacIntyre suggests, Debussy is probably "one of the best guides into the mysterious realm of Mallarme." The poet was more concerned with the music of words, their sounds and vague associations, than with their conventional meanings; one of the elements in his credo was that suggestion and evocation are of greater significance than statement. His syntax is fractious, his meaning frequently enigmatic; but the reader will find MacIntyre's notes helpful in savoring the translations and the original French verses.

About this title

Review:

"The gaping empty space on the shelf has now been filled, handsomely, almost miraculously, by Henry Weinfield's magnificent version of Mallarme's Collected Poems."--Arthur Goldhammer, "Washington Post Book World

About the Author:

C. F. MacIntyre (d. 1967) began his translations from Mallarme in 1939. Meanwhile he published translations from three other important French poets: Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Tristan Corbiere. He is well known for his Faust and his translations of Rainer Maria Rilke. His volumes of original poems include The Black Bull, Cafes and Cathedrals, and Poems.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0520234782
• ISBN 13: 9780520234789
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 188